#like. things don’t normally attack him. no matter how dangerous a creature is he’s usually just left the fuck alone

[opalesense]

How would the genshin Bois, zhongli, childe, diluc and kaeya react to a fem traveller stuck in a wall after a harsh battle, they'll help her get out right?...right?

a sight to behold

zhongli, childe, diluc, kaeya & f!reader (NSFW-ish)

1.9k words • ~13 min. read

warnings: just a lot of teasing & dirty thoughts

notes: i was practically rubbing my hands together with evil intentions when i saw this request but i’ll spare the graphic details for another time, otherwise this will be extremely long!! also i wrote them separately here BUT i wouldn’t be opposed if someone requested them to be grouped together instead... anyway, i hope you enjoy this!! >:)

THE WIDELY FEARED PRIMO GEOVISHAP was certainly a sight to behold from above. You quickly understood why so many people often avoided interacting with this beast – it was intimidating even while it slept soundly, its loud snores echoing throughout the cavern despite being so far down. As you stood on the platform above its sleeping form, you studied its details, noticing the element it possessed and strategizing your combat plan quickly, thankful that you could manipulate an element that targetted its weakness. Once you made up your mind, you let out a huff as you took a leap of faith down, letting your glider save you at the last second before you could actually make contact with the ground.

 Your companion followed behind swiftly, the two of you moving gently around the walls of the cavern, careful not to wake the beast from its slumber. In a low whisper, you began to describe your strategy to your partner, but alas, the beast suddenly awoke and interrupted your planning with a ear splitting roar.

 Without a second thought, the two of you dashed to the creature, loosely following the details of the plan you had based on what you were able to say before you got interrupted. The battle was fine at first, but you soon realized how out of sync the two of you became as the fight progressed. Your elemental reactions were getting poorly timed, and it was difficult to keep an eye on each other’s movements with the beast constantly thrashing about and blocking communication.

 In normal circumstances, the two of you excelled in combat together without needing any other support. Maybe it was bad luck, or maybe you bit off more than you could chew this time, but you noticed you were getting knocked around easier than usual. Things were obviously not going your way and you had to think of a solution fast.

 But before you knew it, your distraction with your own thoughts got the best of you. One single swipe of the geovishap’s tail sent you flying across the cavern towards the opposite wall then tumbling on the ragged, rocky edges of floor, certainly leaving cuts and bruises for later. To make matters worse, one more aggressive roar from the beast shook the walls of cavern enough to send chunks of rock tumbling down towards your injured body. Unable to form coherent thoughts, you knew you didn’t have the strength to escape the avalanche. Instead, all you could do was lay there, helpless and bracing for impact, praying to the Archons that you can be saved.

zhongli

 Zhongli made quick work of the beast, using his shield to deliver an extremely effective counter attack and finishing it once and for all. The creature wailed in pain in its dying moments before disintegrating into dust. He expected to see your face on the other side but alas, you were nowhere to be seen.

 “[Y/N]?” his face tensed as he tried to think of where you could have disappeared to. As his eyes darted around the cavern, he immediately noticed a tiny speck of color amongst the rocks on the wall that resembled your clothing. He quickly sprinted towards you, lifting some of the boulders off of you effortlessly using his geo manipulation.

 He began to subconsciously slow down once he saw the way you were displayed in front of him. Your legs were propped up slightly from the rocks underneath you that caved in from the impact. The way your hips curved up caused your skirt to fold back onto you, leaving you completely exposed under his gaze.

 Ungodly thoughts began to race across Zhongli’s mind. He couldn’t help but slowly undress you in his mind, thinking about all the things he could do to you in this moment of vulnerability.

You poor thing... If only we were not in such a potential dire circumstance of life or death, what would stop me from keeping these rocks on top of you, grabbing those hips, and pressing myself against you? It would be the perfect opportunity to keep you still while I have my way with you... Perhaps I should check to see if you’re okay first, and maybe I can trap you with these rocks myself instead. Certainly I could even lift you in a better position for a better fit...

“Stay with me, [Y/N],” Zhongli snapped out of his fantasy and continued to lift the boulders off of you, wondering if he should really go through with his urges. “You will be okay...”

childe

 Childe had noticed you fly across the cavern in the corner of his eye, and watching you land on the floor at such a fierce impact only fueled him to keep fighting. In a fit of a rage and frustration, he summoned his dual blades and quickly turned the tides of the battle towards his favor. He didn’t even need to watch the beast die to know it was dead within seconds, and after his final blow he quickly dashed towards where you landed only to find out you had been crushed by more rocks.

 He let out another yell of frustration, grabbing the boulders one by one and pushing them off of you. “[Y/N]? Can you hear me?”

 “I’m fine, just get these off of me!” you managed to call out from underneath the pile. Relieved that you were alive and well, he managed to push most of the boulders off but hesitated once he got a good look at the way you were laid out in front of him.

 With your legs dangling off the edge of the pile, your ass was comedically exposed towards him, the rest of your upper half still trapped within the remains of the avalanche. Funnily enough, the hem of your skirt had even got trapped above your hips that you were completely exposed, causing Childe to grin evilly.

 “Well, well, well,” he slowly walked over to you and placed a gloved hand on your bare cheek, still slightly out of breath from the heavy lifting. He gave a gentle squeeze, eliciting a gasp from you. “Is this my reward for helping you? If so, I’ll gladly take it now...”

 “Did you forget that I’m stuck? What if I’m badly injured?!”

 “In that case, I’m sure I can make all the pain go away and replace it with pleasure instead,” he gave one final squeeze and chuckled before walking away to grab another boulder. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding... But once you’re out, don’t expect all this help to come for free, you know.”

diluc

 Diluc watched you tumble across the floor with panicked eyes, immediately worrying about your safety but not letting that distract him from the task at hand. In the heat of the moment under the influence of rage and anxiety, he summoned his pyro manipulation to set his claymore ablaze and deliver multiple final blows to the creature, smashing its figure into bits. The beast cried in its final moments and when he was sure it was dead, he dropped his sword as he sprinted towards you.

 Pure panic settled in once he saw you had been crushed underneath the pile of rocks. He pushed himself to run faster, feeling tears form in the corners of his eyes but ignoring it. He didn’t want to lose you – not this easily.

 “[Y/N]!” he called out once he reached the site, “Can you hear me?”

 “I’m here, Diluc. I’m fine,” you reassured him. He deeply sighed in relief as he began to push the boulders off of you. Thank Barbatos you were alive and well! He shook the thought of you being fatally injured away from the forefront of his mind to focus on getting you out of this mess, using his strength to his advantage. But after a few rocks were pushed off of you, his eyes widened at the sight of you, a sight he will never forget.

 While your legs and upper body were still trapped underneath the pile, the first thing Diluc revealed was your ass, exposed by your skirt that was coincidentally trapped above your hips. Your thighs were pinned together, rubbing gently as you squirmed in the rubbish, trying to wiggle your way out. Or at least, he wanted to believe you were wiggling for the sole purpose of getting out, and not to tease him.

 With a nervous gulp, he averted his eyes away from you and resumed his work on the boulders. His mind couldn’t help but drift away into sinful corners, though. He envisioned the way he could firmly grab your thighs, pull down your underwear and...

 “Don’t scare me like that again,” he took a more lighthearted tone to cover up his urges, “I thought you were surely dead.”

kaeya

 After briefly witnessing you get thrown across the cavern, Kaeya managed to finally stab the beast in such a precise weakness point, making it wail in pain until it slowly withered away in its dying moments. He took no time at all to rush over to you, sprinting faster once he saw that you had been crushed by an avalanche.

 “[Y/N], talk to me,” he subtly asked for reassurance that you were still alive as he began to analyze the situation and pinpoint exactly where you were in all this rubbish.

 “I’m okay,” you weakly muttered with a grin, glad that he had come to your rescue, “Just a little bruised, that’s all.”

 Following the trail of your voice, he put his mind to work. He started to strategically push certain rocks so that others would naturally fall off of you without him needing to lift too much. After awhile, he began to spot one of your arms, then your other arm, and with each rock tumbling down he soon revealed the full picture.

 Or at least, a fraction of the full picture.

 He was relieved to see that you had wrapped your arms around your head for protection before the crash, avoiding what would have been an extremely dangerous injury. With your entire body from the chest down still trapped, you felt the need to stretch out your arms in the newly freed space and take a deep breath, glad to finally have some fresh air. “Good morning,” you joked on your bed of rocks.

 Even though he certainly felt some relief, he couldn’t fight the urge to tease you as he cooed over the sight of you so helpless underneath him. With an evil smirk, he pulled out one of the rocks that was supporting your neck, leaving your head hanging off the edge and eliciting a gasp from you. Before you could protest, he propped himself up against the wall with one arm, his body hovering over you and his crotch just inches away from your face.

 “Look at that pretty mouth of yours... You tempt me even in the most dire situations, sweetheart,” he let his free hand run slender fingers across your scalp, slowly massaging you. “Now that I think about it, I do deserve a prize for saving you, don’t I?”

 “Quit running your mouth and just help me get out of here,” you scolded him jokingly. He laughed and shook his head dismissively as he walked away to get back to work, fighting that strong urge to use your throat in such a vulnerable state.

 “If you say so, sweetheart. Maybe some other time.”

#zhongli #childe #ajax #tartaglia #diluc #kaeya #zhongli x reader #childe x reader #ajax x reader #tartaglia x reader #diluc x reader #kaeya x reader #genshin impact #genshin impact smut #genshin impact x reader #mine #bang

[ratmonky]

Death Drive

Word Count: 5.5K

Warnings: non-con, mild blood, choking, biting, fight/violence, burns, tentacle

AO3 Link

A gift to my lovely friend who also drew this gorgeous piece for this fic,  @bacterialheaven​  <3 (Your art fascinates me so much ahh T^T)

Although most of the devil hunters have the life instinct, I think Hirofumi doesn't care much about survival while doing his work, making him the perfect example of an individual with a death drive. Just like Kishibe (:

The depths of the ocean had many things hidden at the bottom where sunlight never reached. Fish still yet to be discovered, monsters and devils.

Swimming in the ocean was something you could never do since the thought of never knowing what might be hiding underneath the dark waters was horrifying.

However, the terrifying creatures of the ocean could never get you as long as you stayed on the land.  

Right?

~~~

Hitchhiking wasn’t as dangerous as you had anticipated. When you told your close friends that you would be making your way out of the city by hitchhiking, they warned you about the dangers of getting in the car with someone who might want to hurt you. No matter how much you tried to explain to them how you had to lay low and stay away from any public transportations to not get caught, they didn’t listen.

However you hadn’t listened to them either, that was why you were sitting on your luggage near the roadside. You were only a couple of towns away from the city but you still had a long way to travel.

It had taken you more than a dozen rides to get to here from where you had started. Normally it would take two hours by car to travel here but it took you eight hours to get where you were now.

It was getting late, your last ride had promised to drop you off next to a place you could stay the night but the man was too creepy to look at and you felt uneasy to be stuck in the truck with him.

Naturally, you had insisted that he dropped you off on the first roadside diner.

You regretted it now. It was the middle of the night, you didn’t have any place to stay and the roadside diner you had been planning to eat was out of your budget.

Either you had to get a ride now to save money to travel to a cheaper roadside diner or go out of your budget and stay the night here feasting on food… The latter option was the worst. Saving money was more important.

You knew how to attract a ride anyway. Smile in a friendly way, hold up your ‘going to the countryside!’ sign, and hope for the best. You wouldn’t wait any longer than between ten to fifteen minutes before hitching a ride but it was almost impossible to get a ride at night.

There was no way that someone would drive you to the next town or somewhere you could sleep. Everyone was on the edge because of the devil attacks that had started happening more frequently.

No. Don’t think about devils. Not now. Not ever.

With a long sigh, you redirected the light from your flashlight onto the map. You could wait until the morning or start walking on the side of the road until you came across a gas station; however, it all felt like a waste of time and effort. This side of the city didn’t have anything but trees on the roadsides. It could be dangerous to walk close to the forest at night too, you had heard the devils who lived in nature would come out at night.

The sound of your stomach grumbling brought you out of your frantic thoughts.

You were starving, the last thing you ate was a granola bar in the morning. It had been quite a while since you had last eaten but if you went over your budget, you might not be able to make it to your destination.

“Where are you headed?”

Startled, you turned your head to the man who was talking to you. He looked around your age, he had black hair and a rather creepy smile tugging at his lips.

“Um, the countryside.”

“Oh, you’re all alone?” he asked.

You nodded to confirm. Then internally yelled at yourself for telling him that you were alone. He could be someone dangerous.

“I’m headed to the countryside too, want me to give you a ride?” He gestured towards a black car parked in front of the diner.

You would have taken his offer if it weren’t for the sinister smile on his face.

“Thank you but I wouldn’t want to be a burden.” You averted your gaze from him and shone the light back on the map.

“It’s dangerous to be out this late at night.” He put his hands in his pockets, shrugging slightly. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing I didn’t take you to safety.” He gestured towards the parked car behind him once again. “I'll give you a ride, free of charge.”

He had cornered you, there was no reason for you to refuse his offer. You were still conflicted though, you would have turned him down if it wasn’t this late in the night. He didn’t look like the type of person to take no for an answer either. You couldn’t say no to his generous offer but you kept hesitating. If you were to find the perfect excuse maybe he would leave. However, you didn’t have any excuses.

Ugh!

Why were you even hesitating? You needed a ride and here was this guy, offering to take you away from the doomed city. You hit the jackpot!

“A-are you sure?”

“Come on, I was about to leave.”

“Ah, I can’t thank you enough.” Gathering the stuff you had with you and putting away the flashlight, you forced yourself to smile at him. “You saved me from waiting who knows how long for another ride.”

He didn’t say anything as he led the way towards his car. Opening the baggage, he let you put your luggage in the back and closed it. As you were walking around the car to open the door and sit on the back seat, the guy spoke before he hopped on the driver seat himself.

“I have stuff in the back, sit on the front.”

You stared inside through the window to see two large black bags on the backseats. Reluctantly, you reached to open the front door and climbed inside the car.

“So, where are you exactly headed?” He asked as he put on his seatbelt.

His question brought you out of your frantic thoughts. “Somewhere remote.”

“Hmm, so no specific destination? Don’t you have a family member who’s waiting for you? Where are you going to stay?”

You didn’t have anywhere to stay. At least not yet. Your plan was to find a motel and stay somewhere remote until people forgot about you.

Most importantly, it didn’t feel like he was asking these questions to start a conversation. You changed your mind, wanting to get out of the car.

You turned your head to tell him that but his unsettling stare left you speechless.

He asked a more particular question. “Do you have a specific address you want me to drop you off to?”

“I-in front of the first cheap motel we come across would be perfect.” You clutched on your small shoulder bag. You felt nervous when people stared at you for too long.

He hummed in acknowledgment as the car rolled forward.

“You seem to have a lot of luggage. Moving somewhere?” he spoke again, taking a turn and getting on the highway.

Your head jerked up, looking at him. “Um, uh.” You were hesitant to lie. “I’m just backpacking around the country.”

“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to bike instead of hitchhiking?” He wasn’t even facing you but you could tell he was smirking at your utter stupidity. “Or rather do it with a group?”

Although your throat felt dry, you didn’t dare to swallow. “Probably but I wanted to have a little adventure for myself, alone.”

“Don’t backpackers usually have a backpack and not a luggage?”

“I just have too many things I need with me.” Ahh, you were so bad at lying. Stop fidgeting with your fingers and looking around like that. He will notice. Just… change the subject. “A-anyway, I don’t think we introduced ourselves. I’m (name), what’s your name?”

“Hirofumi.” He grabbed the gear shift, changing it to a higher level and speeding up. You sank deeper into your seat and started to panic. Only then you realized you hadn’t put on your own seatbelt. While you were hurriedly trying to put it on, Hirofumi pressed on the cigarette lighter button. You hoped he wasn’t going to smoke inside the car but failed to notice how there weren't any cigarette tar stains on the interior of the car.

He took a sharp turn, you grunted but managed to put your seatbelt on. As you sat back in your seat, the first thing you noticed was that he was driving down towards a road leading towards the forest.

“Um, I think you took a wrong turn,” you said, bringing it up to his attention.

“It’s a shortcut.” He kept his eyes on the road that was only being illuminated by the headlights, everything else was dark, you had no idea what kind of shortcut he was taking.

There was this feeling of being in the middle of the ocean. You could feel something sinister was lingering in the deep dark water underneath you. Something was about to emerge and grab you by your ankle, pull you down, and drown you.

You knew how to swim.

However, could you swim if whatever thing was pulling you down turned out to be a lot stronger and scarier than anything you had ever faced?

Could you struggle when you were this weak?

Could you fight when you had nothing to fight with?

Without your weapons.

Without your badge.

Without your devil.

“You know, hitchhiking was a great idea,” he said, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel as he continued smiling. “It was a smart option but for someone as dumb as you, there was a way to ruin it. You went and told all of your dumb friends about your plan.”

You stared at him for some sort of explanation but you didn’t need any. Yet you still asked him, whimpering, “W-what are you talking about?” Your bottom lip had started trembling.

He knew.

“For a devil hunter, your sense of danger is too low.”

A tremendous wave of panic washed over you when he sped up.

“Who are you?” Did you even need to ask? He was one of those private hunters. Makima had most likely sent him after you.

Despite being a devil hunter from the city, you were now weak. You had resigned from your work without notice and broke the deal with your devil. Although it had been an impending decision rather than a sudden one, you had left your work abruptly.

After watching so many people die and losing who you had thought would be your friends for a long time, the bitter truth of being a devil hunter had resurfaced.

Devil hunters were destined to die on the job, sooner or later.

The money you earned from being a devil hunter could let you live in comfort materialistically until the day you died but having to suffer from nightmares every single time you put your head on the pillow or closed your eyes could never be comforting. It wasn’t worth it.

You didn’t want to lose more people or see any more grotesque devils murdering civilians but once you started working under Makima’s orders, leaving wasn’t that easy.

That’s why you were on the run.

Even though you had sworn to protect the people of your country, you were running away from the job that gave you a purpose to your insignificant life like a coward.

How childish.

The cigarette lighter popped off with a soft click sound, bringing you out of your hectic thoughts.

He was taking you back… He was going to hand you over to Makima. You were going to work until you died.

“You should’ve gone up north, going south was predictable. Well, at least if you hadn’t told your friends about the hitchhiking part, maybe you’d go under everyone’s radar. However you’re a chatty one, aren’t you? Some ‘friendship comes before work’ type of person, huh? That would explain a lot-”

Hirofumi’s words didn’t reach you anymore. The color drained from your face and your ears started ringing. Your whole body started to shake, and tears started streaming down your cheeks. “Please,” you sobbed, your voice came out shaky, pathetic. “Please don’t do this. I did nothing. I’m just tired of all of the deaths and I can’t handle it any-”

“You can’t talk your way out of this,” Hirofumi said as he took another sharp turn, driving deeper into the forest.

You found yourself stuttering, ”Y-you don’t understand.” You looked at Hirofumi with tears in your eyes. “I’ll be killed.”

“What are you so unhappy with?” Hirofumi spoke again but he wasn’t even facing you. “It’s not like you were living contentedly up until now, were you? In that case, it makes no difference where you live or what you do for a living. Or if you’re killed or not.”

Your face found a new shade of pale. He wouldn’t understand. He was one of those crazy devil hunters who had shut their humanity off.

“You only had to kill demons for a bit and you got rice every day. It might as well be heaven but I guess you weren’t a real hunter.” His smile grew wider as he was watching the trees creep towards him slowly before zooming past the window. “You can die in peace now.”

You got quiet but your tears didn’t stop.

With a vicious smile on his lips, Hirofumi turned away to face you. “You know, a pro devil hunter wouldn’t cry.”

Everything was spinning, it made you believe that your head felt fuzzy. It didn’t even occur to you that he was driving at a normal speed now. Almost immediately you tried to think of an escape plan. Could you manage to run away if you were taken to the headquarters? There was no way you could and that was why you had to fight with everything you had to refuse to go with him. You looked out of the window, the forest could be a great way to lose him. The trees and the darkness could cover you, giving you the advantage to sneak away without having to face this guy in a battle. What was your next move going to be?

You didn’t know but you had to get away.

You stared at the door lock, it was locked but you could lift it even without him noticing. The speed was still accelerating but if you managed to jump out of the car you would have a head start by running. The car wouldn’t stop until his shock wore off and that would give you the great advantage of looking for a place to hide.

There weren’t many people or devils out in the forest at this time of the night. Hopefully. It would be easy for you to run without being seen by another person who could tell him where you went.

What if a devil attacked-

Getting overwhelmed, you took a sharp breath and exhaled loudly. You had to calm down. You didn’t have much time to think over the plan, you just had to do it. If you waited for too long you were going to lose this chance of getting away.

Hesitantly, you glanced at Hirofumi. To your luck, he was only focused on driving.

Cone on. Come on. Come on.

Your heart was pounding, a single cold sweat droplet trickled down from the burning skin of your temple to your cheek as you carefully and suddenly unlocked the door. But you forgot about the most important thing. Your seatbelt. Your biggest mistake was forgetting to unbuckle your seatbelt. As you had twisted your body to jump out of the car, you had found yourself stuck, slammed back into your seat from the force of the seatbelt itself.

Hirofumi stared at you as if it wasn’t a big deal that you opened the door of the moving vehicle or how you were trying to escape. He lifted his right hand up while he crossed his middle and index fingers, “Octopus.”

Your blood ran cold as a giant tentacle emerged outside of the car from a dark cloud and slammed the door closed. You were frozen in your seat as if your muscles had dried up and turned to stone.

What was that?

No, you didn’t want to know.

The car decelerated until it slowly rolled to a stop.

You didn’t dare to look at Hirofumi but you knew he was smiling at you. You knew he had that sinister smile plastered on his face, glowering at you with his big dark eyes.

“Ink.”

He turned off the engine, the headlights flickered off and it became pitch black. Darker than black. It all swallowed you whole. It was as if light didn't exist, the only thing you could see was the dangerous glint in his eyes.

Hirofumi calmly plucked off the burning hot cigarette lighter and held his hand out towards you but you couldn't see. “Ms. Makima told me to bring you to the headquarters,” he said, pausing momentarily as you were trembling in fear, unable to move a muscle. “Dead or alive. I get paid either way.”

You gulped audibly. This was it, wasn’t it? The end.

There was another long pause before he sighed and pressed the cigarette lighter on your thigh. “Look me in the eye when I’m talking to you.”

The sharp pain made your eyes widen and your mouth popped open in pain. You could run away, you just had to unbuckle the seatbelt and bolt out of the car.

However, as soon as your hand went to the buckle to pop the latch plate out, he firmly pressed the metal lighter on the back of your hand.

Yowling in agony, you refused to retrieve your hand and instead unbuckled your seatbelt. Without giving him another chance to attack, you opened the door.

As soon as you fell on the mud, you took a couple of wobbly steps before finally gaining your strength and used the ground as a springboard to start running without looking back. Things weren't as dark now, you could see well but you still were confused about things. Without actually having a clear idea of your whereabouts you kept running deeper into the forest but you couldn’t run in a straight line, you had to confuse him with which way you were running. Abruptly, you stopped to look around to see where you could run. The sudden movements made you lose your balance, stumble and fall down. You scraped your knees. Without checking your injuries, you got up to make a sudden bolt to your right.

Your own heavy footsteps were echoing each time your foot made contact with the wet mud. Or... no. Those weren't echoes of your own footsteps they were more like- They belonged to someone else-

“You’re running too slow.” A scoff.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw him running next to you. He wasn’t out of breath like you were but he lifted his hand towards you, pointing his forefinger at your face before crossing his middle finger over the other digit.

He was going to call out his devil again.

With a sob, you made a move to change your direction but it was too late.

“Octopus.”

Black smoke appeared behind him. From the dark mist, a tentacle emerged, abruptly grabbing you by the waist, you flailed violently as soon as your body crashed onto the tentacle. It lifted you up, punching the air out of your lungs from the force of its grip around your body. You started hitting the tentacle’s slimy skin, crying and yelling at the same time. “Let me go, let go!”

Hirofumi pressed his hand on the tentacle and walked towards you while dragging his hand on it. “You’re more fun than I thought.”

As he was getting closer, you struggled within the tentacle’s hold by kicking helplessly at the air. “Get away from me!”

He stopped in front of you and looked up at you with that same disturbing smile before tapping on the tentacle twice. “I took a liking to you.” The tentacle lowered you down until Hirofumi tapped on it again to stop. “You’re quite interesting.”

The tentacle tightened its grip around you and forced your arms to be pressed against your chest. You were getting crushed, you kept trying to inhale but no air was going inside your lungs.

“However it still would be less of a hassle for me to take your corpse to Ms. Makima. You’re just too annoying.”

Fear came rushing back, the bitter reality of how insignificant your life was a harsh truth to accept. Hirofumi could kill you without batting an eye, he would be fine with taking your life because at the end of the day he was going to get paid for doing his job.

You opened your mouth to beg for his mercy but nothing would come out. Your face was turning blue from lack of air instead.

Hirofumi said something you couldn’t hear. Instantly the tentacle’s hold loosened around you. With the pressure gone,  you greedily inhaled air, filling up your lungs and coughing.

“I’ll make it quick,” he said, this time frowning instead of smiling. “What a shame though, I thought we’d be able to work together in the future.”

“W-wait!” you coughed, trying to catch your breath to talk to him. “No, no, no! Please, I’ll do anything. Please,  I won’t try to run again, I’ll sit patiently and- and-”

He was very quiet, almost silent, but resolute. The blood in your face drained away when you heard his cold and terrifying tone asking you a question with three simple words, “You’ll do anything?”

Your eyes widened as you tried to process the meaning behind his words, you could feel your blood being pumped through your veins but something was wrong, there was a heavy feeling of something crawling under your skin.

“I’ll do anything.”

That sinister smile returned to his face.

The tentacle lowered you, now, your feet could touch the solid ground.

“I want you to prove me wrong,” he said, stretching his arms above his head.

“Huh?” The tentacle unwrapped around you but remained at the back while you stared at the guy in front of you in confusion. “Prove what?”

He positioned himself in a fighting pose. “Prove that you’re a devil hunter worth keeping alive. Let’s duke it out.”

He had to be kidding. You were nothing without a weapon or your devil. It was unfair to you and-

Hirofumi landed a sudden kick on your stomach, doubling in pain, you took a couple of wobbly steps back.

When you glanced up at him, you saw him jumping in his place as if he was only warming up. He was taunting you, don’t fall for it.

Yet you knew he wasn’t kidding about you proving him that you were a good hunter. He had made it clear. So you had no choice but to take him down if you wanted to live.

You aimed a kick towards him but he caught you mid-air by your ankle. Whimpering, you tried pulling your leg back to no avail. The panic of the situation started to settle in as he got closer to you. “That’s cute, you didn’t even put any strength behind your kick.” He tucked your leg around his waist, closing the distance between the two of you. His face had gotten awfully close, his hot breath ghosted over your face. For the first time tonight, you looked at his eyes directly, his pupils were dilated to the point of being completely black. You could see your own terrified expression being reflected back to you in them. To put it simply, you were at his mercy once again, balanced only on a single leg with no way of escaping his hold.

“You lose,” he grinned. “You really aren’t cut out to be a devil hunter.”

“Please,” you began but he interrupted you, his other hand pressing on the small of your back and sliding down your curves to squeeze a generous amount of the supple flesh of your ass. Your breath hitched, the uneasy feeling of being powerless against a higher rank like him made your stomach churn in fear.

“Let’s have some fun before you die.” You could hear the smile in his voice.

With that, the tentacle returned, abruptly going under your shirt, pulling it up and over your head. You didn’t even get the time to react as Hirofumi let your leg down to shove you forward against the tentacle. Gasping, you planted your hands against the tentacle in a pathetic attempt to push yourself up but it was now impossible with his weight pressing you down. His hands were holding your hips in a death grip and rubbing your clothed ass onto his own clothed crotch. You were moving away from his hips helplessly, unaware of the tentacle pushing your bra up to let your tits bounce free. Only when the cool air hit your bare chest, you became aware of what the tentacle was doing. Your nipples perked up and the slimy skin caressing your skin made you flinch, the feeling of one of its suckers on your nipple was enough to make you shriek in disgust.

Hirofumi chuckled, his hands on your hips slid up, feeling your curves before dragging you against his clothed cock. He couldn’t help but grab your hair to pull it as he grinded against your ass with a little too much force. You could feel him growing bigger, he had to be a twisted creep to get off to this.

“Stop… no more…” Begging, you turned your head to look at him. With the way he was pressing you down, you couldn’t meet his gaze, instead found your cheek being pressed flat against the tentacle. Ignoring your pleads, Hirofumi pulled himself back to yank your pants down hurriedly as the tentacle latched one of the suckers on your nipple, toying with the sensitive nub. You started to breathe hard as the realization of how vulnerable you actually were hit you hard. All you could do was to pathetically attempt to get away from Hirofumi to be assaulted by the tentacle instead.

Then the loud sound of his belt buckling made you jolt, the tears and begging for him to stop came right after. You would do anything for him to stop. However your cries were ineffective, they didn’t stop him from pulling down your panties and drinking up the sight of your naked lower half. They only seemed to spur him on even more.

“Stop…” you whimpered and struggled. Tears started streaming down your face as a choked sob left your lips. He smiled against the skin on your shoulder in response while lining himself on your entrance. Twisting your arm behind your back to keep you still, he put his entire weight behind his hips to surge them forward and buried the entire length of his cock in your cunt.

Wincing, you gasped. Hirofumi took it as a signal to move. You were awfully wet, each time he pulled back himself to slam his hips forward, the squelching sounds of your pussy filled the silence of the forest. If that wasn't gross enough, your cheek was being grazed against the slimy skin of the tentacle, its fishy stench started to overwhelm you, making you gag.

“Ahh, you like this don’t you?” He tentatively pulled his hips back to abruptly slam them into your pussy.

“No…” You bit back a moan, closing your eyes and begging for all of it to stop internally.

“You’re getting off to this, you’re sopping wet.” Hirofumi mounted you completely, you could feel his entire weight settle on your back. “Be a good girl for me, will you? Be honest, it’s just the two of us here.”

You grumbled in response.

“Makima isn’t listening.” He nosed some hair out of his way to whisper in your ear. “Only I will hear your confessions. You can tell me anything, trust me.”

“Go to hell,” you hissed. If he was going to kill you, so be it! You weren’t going to give him the pleasure of humiliating you. All you had left was your pride and you were planning to keep it until the very end.

He slammed his hips forward, hitting your sweet spot on the first try. His firm thrust was all it took for you to silently scream, with the air in your lungs completely gone from the impact, you were clenching around his cock. You opened your mouth to take in some air but the tentacle wrapped around your neck, squeezing tightly around you to prevent you from breathing. The tip of the tentacle forced its way into your mouth and swirled around your tongue before diving deeper down into your throat. Hirofumi placed his hand on the tentacle, tapping twice for it to loosen around your neck. The tentacle left your mouth with a disgusting pop sound. Then he replaced the tentacle with his own hand, shoving his fingers into your mouth and grabbing you from the inside of your cheek.

Now, when he thrust forward and picked up his pace, you couldn’t bite back your moans. To your utter horror, it worked. Every thrust of his hips left you moaning, gasping for air. His merciless, rough thrusts remarkably sped up, especially in comparison to before. He was humping you like a rabid dog now and he responded to your surprised moan with a long, pleased hum.

Your drool started to spill out from your mouth and down to your chin since you didn’t have the luxury to swallow the saliva with three long digits prying your mouth open. You moaned audibly and threw your head back when his cock stroked a specific spot along your insides, Hirofumi took this opportunity to bite into your nape hard enough to draw blood, on a second note, you started to think he could be an actually rabid dog.

A scream left your lips, more out of pleasure than pain.

Hirofumi’s teeth sank deeper into your flesh as he felt your gummy walls pulsate around his cock, clenching and begging to be filled with his seed. He gave a muffled chuckle against your flesh, chewing on the raw skin. Although you weren’t honest in the slightest, your body was.

The tentacle’s tip went between your legs and the sucker latched onto your clit, catching you by surprise and making your entire body shake in pleasure.

How cute.

With a delighted smile, Hirofumi stopped biting your nape. He licked your blood off of your skin all the while he was fucking you frenziedly, thrusting in and out your pussy with sloppily wet sounds that started to make your knees unbuckle. Swallowing down your pride, you gave in to the pleasure so you could move your hips and arch your back to meet his frantic thrusts. At the same time, the tentacle toyed with the sensitive nub. It all made your legs trembled under you as your moans got louder than before.

Hirofumi's pace suddenly slackened when his cock throbbed upon your walls clamping on him. Taking his hand from your mouth, he placed it on your shoulder to grab you. He pulled his hips back and abruptly slammed forward, punching the air out of your lungs one last time as you felt the slight twitch of his balls on your skin before a pleasing warmth filled your belly.

The tentacle moved in tight circles around your clit and you clenched around Hirofumi’s cock for the last time, milking more of his seed using your pulsating walls inside of your cunt. Even after the tentacle left you alone, Hirofumi continued fucking his cum into your pussy, gross squelching sounds from his seed gushing out from your abused hole had become a white noise to you at this point. By the time he pulled out of you and let you go, your legs gave up from under you. Before you could crash on the dirty mud, the tentacle caught you, holding you up in a gentle grip.

Hirofumi was tucking himself into his pants while you watched him in exhaustion. He noticed your stare and gave you the same unsettling smile. “I think you’d be a great devil hunter if you were partnered up with me. Makima would agree if I said so. Won’t you agree too?”

You couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore but you managed to blink slowly in response, mouthing a ‘yes’ in defeat.

Hirofumi’s eerie smile grew wider, his eyes squinted from his cheeks puffing up. “I look forward to working with you in the future.”

The depths of the ocean had many things hidden at the bottom where sunlight never reached. Fish still yet to be discovered, monsters and devils.

Swimming in the ocean was something you could never do since the thought of never knowing what might be hiding underneath the dark waters was horrifying.

However, the terrifying creatures of the ocean could never get you as long as you stayed on the land.  

Right?

~~~

Hitchhiking wasn’t as dangerous as you had anticipated. When you told your close friends that you would be making your way out of the city by hitchhiking, they warned you about the dangers of getting in the car with someone who might want to hurt you. No matter how much you tried to explain to them how you had to lay low and stay away from any public transportations to not get caught, they didn’t listen.

However you hadn’t listened to them either, that was why you were sitting on your luggage near the roadside. You were only a couple of towns away from the city but you still had a long way to travel.

It had taken you more than a dozen rides to get to here from where you had started. Normally it would take two hours by car to travel here but it took you eight hours to get where you were now.

It was getting late, your last ride had promised to drop you off next to a place you could stay the night but the man was too creepy to look at and you felt uneasy to be stuck in the truck with him.

Naturally, you had insisted that he dropped you off on the first roadside diner.

You regretted it now. It was the middle of the night, you didn’t have any place to stay and the roadside diner you had been planning to eat was out of your budget.

Either you had to get a ride now to save money to travel to a cheaper roadside diner or go out of your budget and stay the night here feasting on food… The latter option was the worst. Saving money was more important.

You knew how to attract a ride anyway. Smile in a friendly way, hold up your ‘going to the countryside!’ sign, and hope for the best. You wouldn’t wait any longer than between ten to fifteen minutes before hitching a ride but it was almost impossible to get a ride at night.

There was no way that someone would drive you to the next town or somewhere you could sleep. Everyone was on the edge because of the devil attacks that had started happening more frequently.

No. Don’t think about devils. Not now. Not ever.

With a long sigh, you redirected the light from your flashlight onto the map. You could wait until the morning or start walking on the side of the road until you came across a gas station; however, it all felt like a waste of time and effort. This side of the city didn’t have anything but trees on the roadsides. It could be dangerous to walk close to the forest at night too, you had heard the devils who lived in nature would come out at night.

The sound of your stomach grumbling brought you out of your frantic thoughts.

You were starving, the last thing you ate was a granola bar in the morning. It had been quite a while since you had last eaten but if you went over your budget, you might not be able to make it to your destination.

“Where are you headed?”

Startled, you turned your head to the man who was talking to you. He looked around your age, he had black hair and a rather creepy smile tugging at his lips.

“Um, the countryside.”

“Oh, you’re all alone?” he asked.

You nodded to confirm. Then internally yelled at yourself for telling him that you were alone. He could be someone dangerous.

“I’m headed to the countryside too, want me to give you a ride?” He gestured towards a black car parked in front of the diner.

You would have taken his offer if it weren’t for the sinister smile on his face.

“Thank you but I wouldn’t want to be a burden.” You averted your gaze from him and shone the light back on the map.

“It’s dangerous to be out this late at night.” He put his hands in his pockets, shrugging slightly. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing I didn’t take you to safety.” He gestured towards the parked car behind him once again. “I'll give you a ride, free of charge.”

He had cornered you, there was no reason for you to refuse his offer. You were still conflicted though, you would have turned him down if it wasn’t this late in the night. He didn’t look like the type of person to take no for an answer either. You couldn’t say no to his generous offer but you kept hesitating. If you were to find the perfect excuse maybe he would leave. However, you didn’t have any excuses.

Ugh!

Why were you even hesitating? You needed a ride and here was this guy, offering to take you away from the doomed city. You hit the jackpot!

“A-are you sure?”

“Come on, I was about to leave.”

“Ah, I can’t thank you enough.” Gathering the stuff you had with you and putting away the flashlight, you forced yourself to smile at him. “You saved me from waiting who knows how long for another ride.”

He didn’t say anything as he led the way towards his car. Opening the baggage, he let you put your luggage in the back and closed it. As you were walking around the car to open the door and sit on the back seat, the guy spoke before he hopped on the driver seat himself.

“I have stuff in the back, sit on the front.”

You stared inside through the window to see two large black bags on the backseats. Reluctantly, you reached to open the front door and climbed inside the car.

“So, where are you exactly headed?” He asked as he put on his seatbelt.

His question brought you out of your frantic thoughts. “Somewhere remote.”

“Hmm, so no specific destination? Don’t you have a family member who’s waiting for you? Where are you going to stay?”

You didn’t have anywhere to stay. At least not yet. Your plan was to find a motel and stay somewhere remote until people forgot about you.

Most importantly, it didn’t feel like he was asking these questions to start a conversation. You changed your mind, wanting to get out of the car.

You turned your head to tell him that but his unsettling stare left you speechless.

He asked a more particular question. “Do you have a specific address you want me to drop you off to?”

“I-in front of the first cheap motel we come across would be perfect.” You clutched on your small shoulder bag. You felt nervous when people stared at you for too long.

He hummed in acknowledgment as the car rolled forward.

“You seem to have a lot of luggage. Moving somewhere?” he spoke again, taking a turn and getting on the highway.

Your head jerked up, looking at him. “Um, uh.” You were hesitant to lie. “I’m just backpacking around the country.”

“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to bike instead of hitchhiking?” He wasn’t even facing you but you could tell he was smirking at your utter stupidity. “Or rather do it with a group?”

Although your throat felt dry, you didn’t dare to swallow. “Probably but I wanted to have a little adventure for myself, alone.”

“Don’t backpackers usually have a backpack and not a luggage?”

“I just have too many things I need with me.” Ahh, you were so bad at lying. Stop fidgeting with your fingers and looking around like that. He will notice. Just… change the subject. “A-anyway, I don’t think we introduced ourselves. I’m (name), what’s your name?”

“Hirofumi.” He grabbed the gear shift, changing it to a higher level and speeding up. You sank deeper into your seat and started to panic. Only then you realized you hadn’t put on your own seatbelt. While you were hurriedly trying to put it on, Hirofumi pressed on the cigarette lighter button. You hoped he wasn’t going to smoke inside the car but failed to notice how there weren't any cigarette tar stains on the interior of the car.

He took a sharp turn, you grunted but managed to put your seatbelt on. As you sat back in your seat, the first thing you noticed was that he was driving down towards a road leading towards the forest.

“Um, I think you took a wrong turn,” you said, bringing it up to his attention.

“It’s a shortcut.” He kept his eyes on the road that was only being illuminated by the headlights, everything else was dark, you had no idea what kind of shortcut he was taking.

There was this feeling of being in the middle of the ocean. You could feel something sinister was lingering in the deep dark water underneath you. Something was about to emerge and grab you by your ankle, pull you down, and drown you.

You knew how to swim.

However, could you swim if whatever thing was pulling you down turned out to be a lot stronger and scarier than anything you had ever faced?

Could you struggle when you were this weak?

Could you fight when you had nothing to fight with?

Without your weapons.

Without your badge.

Without your devil.

“You know, hitchhiking was a great idea,” he said, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel as he continued smiling. “It was a smart option but for someone as dumb as you, there was a way to ruin it. You went and told all of your dumb friends about your plan.”

You stared at him for some sort of explanation but you didn’t need any. Yet you still asked him, whimpering, “W-what are you talking about?” Your bottom lip had started trembling.

He knew.

“For a devil hunter, your sense of danger is too low.”

A tremendous wave of panic washed over you when he sped up.

“Who are you?” Did you even need to ask? He was one of those private hunters. Makima had most likely sent him after you.

Despite being a devil hunter from the city, you were now weak. You had resigned from your work without notice and broke the deal with your devil. Although it had been an impending decision rather than a sudden one, you had left your work abruptly.

After watching so many people die and losing who you had thought would be your friends for a long time, the bitter truth of being a devil hunter had resurfaced.

Devil hunters were destined to die on the job, sooner or later.

The money you earned from being a devil hunter could let you live in comfort materialistically until the day you died but having to suffer from nightmares every single time you put your head on the pillow or closed your eyes could never be comforting. It wasn’t worth it.

You didn’t want to lose more people or see any more grotesque devils murdering civilians but once you started working under Makima’s orders, leaving wasn’t that easy.

That’s why you were on the run.

Even though you had sworn to protect the people of your country, you were running away from the job that gave you a purpose to your insignificant life like a coward.

How childish.

The cigarette lighter popped off with a soft click sound, bringing you out of your hectic thoughts.

He was taking you back… He was going to hand you over to Makima. You were going to work until you died.

“You should’ve gone up north, going south was predictable. Well, at least if you hadn’t told your friends about the hitchhiking part, maybe you’d go under everyone’s radar. However you’re a chatty one, aren’t you? Some ‘friendship comes before work’ type of person, huh? That would explain a lot-”

Hirofumi’s words didn’t reach you anymore. The color drained from your face and your ears started ringing. Your whole body started to shake, and tears started streaming down your cheeks. “Please,” you sobbed, your voice came out shaky, pathetic. “Please don’t do this. I did nothing. I’m just tired of all of the deaths and I can’t handle it any-”

“You can’t talk your way out of this,” Hirofumi said as he took another sharp turn, driving deeper into the forest.

You found yourself stuttering, ”Y-you don’t understand.” You looked at Hirofumi with tears in your eyes. “I’ll be killed.”

“What are you so unhappy with?” Hirofumi spoke again but he wasn’t even facing you. “It’s not like you were living contentedly up until now, were you? In that case, it makes no difference where you live or what you do for a living. Or if you’re killed or not.”

Your face found a new shade of pale. He wouldn’t understand. He was one of those crazy devil hunters who had shut their humanity off.

“You only had to kill demons for a bit and you got rice every day. It might as well be heaven but I guess you weren’t a real hunter.” His smile grew wider as he was watching the trees creep towards him slowly before zooming past the window. “You can die in peace now.”

You got quiet but your tears didn’t stop.

With a vicious smile on his lips, Hirofumi turned away to face you. “You know, a pro devil hunter wouldn’t cry.”

Everything was spinning, it made you believe that your head felt fuzzy. It didn’t even occur to you that he was driving at a normal speed now. Almost immediately you tried to think of an escape plan. Could you manage to run away if you were taken to the headquarters? There was no way you could and that was why you had to fight with everything you had to refuse to go with him. You looked out of the window, the forest could be a great way to lose him. The trees and the darkness could cover you, giving you the advantage to sneak away without having to face this guy in a battle. What was your next move going to be?

You didn’t know but you had to get away.

You stared at the door lock, it was locked but you could lift it even without him noticing. The speed was still accelerating but if you managed to jump out of the car you would have a head start by running. The car wouldn’t stop until his shock wore off and that would give you the great advantage of looking for a place to hide.

There weren’t many people or devils out in the forest at this time of the night. Hopefully. It would be easy for you to run without being seen by another person who could tell him where you went.

What if a devil attacked-

Getting overwhelmed, you took a sharp breath and exhaled loudly. You had to calm down. You didn’t have much time to think over the plan, you just had to do it. If you waited for too long you were going to lose this chance of getting away.

Hesitantly, you glanced at Hirofumi. To your luck, he was only focused on driving.

Cone on. Come on. Come on.

Your heart was pounding, a single cold sweat droplet trickled down from the burning skin of your temple to your cheek as you carefully and suddenly unlocked the door. But you forgot about the most important thing. Your seatbelt. Your biggest mistake was forgetting to unbuckle your seatbelt. As you had twisted your body to jump out of the car, you had found yourself stuck, slammed back into your seat from the force of the seatbelt itself.

Hirofumi stared at you as if it wasn’t a big deal that you opened the door of the moving vehicle or how you were trying to escape. He lifted his right hand up while he crossed his middle and index fingers, “Octopus.”

Your blood ran cold as a giant tentacle emerged outside of the car from a dark cloud and slammed the door closed. You were frozen in your seat as if your muscles had dried up and turned to stone.

What was that?

No, you didn’t want to know.

The car decelerated until it slowly rolled to a stop.

You didn’t dare to look at Hirofumi but you knew he was smiling at you. You knew he had that sinister smile plastered on his face, glowering at you with his big dark eyes.

“Ink.”

He turned off the engine, the headlights flickered off and it became pitch black. Darker than black. It all swallowed you whole. It was as if light didn't exist, the only thing you could see was the dangerous glint in his eyes.

Hirofumi calmly plucked off the burning hot cigarette lighter and held his hand out towards you but you couldn't see. “Ms. Makima told me to bring you to the headquarters,” he said, pausing momentarily as you were trembling in fear, unable to move a muscle. “Dead or alive. I get paid either way.”

You gulped audibly. This was it, wasn’t it? The end.

There was another long pause before he sighed and pressed the cigarette lighter on your thigh. “Look me in the eye when I’m talking to you.”

The sharp pain made your eyes widen and your mouth popped open in pain. You could run away, you just had to unbuckle the seatbelt and bolt out of the car.

However, as soon as your hand went to the buckle to pop the latch plate out, he firmly pressed the metal lighter on the back of your hand.

Yowling in agony, you refused to retrieve your hand and instead unbuckled your seatbelt. Without giving him another chance to attack, you opened the door.

As soon as you fell on the mud, you took a couple of wobbly steps before finally gaining your strength and used the ground as a springboard to start running without looking back. Things weren't as dark now, you could see well but you still were confused about things. Without actually having a clear idea of your whereabouts you kept running deeper into the forest but you couldn’t run in a straight line, you had to confuse him with which way you were running. Abruptly, you stopped to look around to see where you could run. The sudden movements made you lose your balance, stumble and fall down. You scraped your knees. Without checking your injuries, you got up to make a sudden bolt to your right.

Your own heavy footsteps were echoing each time your foot made contact with the wet mud. Or... no. Those weren't echoes of your own footsteps they were more like- They belonged to someone else-

“You’re running too slow.” A scoff.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw him running next to you. He wasn’t out of breath like you were but he lifted his hand towards you, pointing his forefinger at your face before crossing his middle finger over the other digit.

He was going to call out his devil again.

With a sob, you made a move to change your direction but it was too late.

“Octopus.”

Black smoke appeared behind him. From the dark mist, a tentacle emerged, abruptly grabbing you by the waist, you flailed violently as soon as your body crashed onto the tentacle. It lifted you up, punching the air out of your lungs from the force of its grip around your body. You started hitting the tentacle’s slimy skin, crying and yelling at the same time. “Let me go, let go!”

Hirofumi pressed his hand on the tentacle and walked towards you while dragging his hand on it. “You’re more fun than I thought.”

As he was getting closer, you struggled within the tentacle’s hold by kicking helplessly at the air. “Get away from me!”

He stopped in front of you and looked up at you with that same disturbing smile before tapping on the tentacle twice. “I took a liking to you.” The tentacle lowered you down until Hirofumi tapped on it again to stop. “You’re quite interesting.”

The tentacle tightened its grip around you and forced your arms to be pressed against your chest. You were getting crushed, you kept trying to inhale but no air was going inside your lungs.

“However it still would be less of a hassle for me to take your corpse to Ms. Makima. You’re just too annoying.”

Fear came rushing back, the bitter reality of how insignificant your life was a harsh truth to accept. Hirofumi could kill you without batting an eye, he would be fine with taking your life because at the end of the day he was going to get paid for doing his job.

You opened your mouth to beg for his mercy but nothing would come out. Your face was turning blue from lack of air instead.

Hirofumi said something you couldn’t hear. Instantly the tentacle’s hold loosened around you. With the pressure gone,  you greedily inhaled air, filling up your lungs and coughing.

“I’ll make it quick,” he said, this time frowning instead of smiling. “What a shame though, I thought we’d be able to work together in the future.”

“W-wait!” you coughed, trying to catch your breath to talk to him. “No, no, no! Please, I’ll do anything. Please,  I won’t try to run again, I’ll sit patiently and- and-”

He was very quiet, almost silent, but resolute. The blood in your face drained away when you heard his cold and terrifying tone asking you a question with three simple words, “You’ll do anything?”

Your eyes widened as you tried to process the meaning behind his words, you could feel your blood being pumped through your veins but something was wrong, there was a heavy feeling of something crawling under your skin.

“I’ll do anything.”

That sinister smile returned to his face.

The tentacle lowered you, now, your feet could touch the solid ground.

“I want you to prove me wrong,” he said, stretching his arms above his head.

“Huh?” The tentacle unwrapped around you but remained at the back while you stared at the guy in front of you in confusion. “Prove what?”

He positioned himself in a fighting pose. “Prove that you’re a devil hunter worth keeping alive. Let’s duke it out.”

He had to be kidding. You were nothing without a weapon or your devil. It was unfair to you and-

Hirofumi landed a sudden kick on your stomach, doubling in pain, you took a couple of wobbly steps back.

When you glanced up at him, you saw him jumping in his place as if he was only warming up. He was taunting you, don’t fall for it.

Yet you knew he wasn’t kidding about you proving him that you were a good hunter. He had made it clear. So you had no choice but to take him down if you wanted to live.

You aimed a kick towards him but he caught you mid-air by your ankle. Whimpering, you tried pulling your leg back to no avail. The panic of the situation started to settle in as he got closer to you. “That’s cute, you didn’t even put any strength behind your kick.” He tucked your leg around his waist, closing the distance between the two of you. His face had gotten awfully close, his hot breath ghosted over your face. For the first time tonight, you looked at his eyes directly, his pupils were dilated to the point of being completely black. You could see your own terrified expression being reflected back to you in them. To put it simply, you were at his mercy once again, balanced only on a single leg with no way of escaping his hold.

“You lose,” he grinned. “You really aren’t cut out to be a devil hunter.”

“Please,” you began but he interrupted you, his other hand pressing on the small of your back and sliding down your curves to squeeze a generous amount of the supple flesh of your ass. Your breath hitched, the uneasy feeling of being powerless against a higher rank like him made your stomach churn in fear.

“Let’s have some fun before you die.” You could hear the smile in his voice.

With that, the tentacle returned, abruptly going under your shirt, pulling it up and over your head. You didn’t even get the time to react as Hirofumi let your leg down to shove you forward against the tentacle. Gasping, you planted your hands against the tentacle in a pathetic attempt to push yourself up but it was now impossible with his weight pressing you down. His hands were holding your hips in a death grip and rubbing your clothed ass onto his own clothed crotch. You were moving away from his hips helplessly, unaware of the tentacle pushing your bra up to let your tits bounce free. Only when the cool air hit your bare chest, you became aware of what the tentacle was doing. Your nipples perked up and the slimy skin caressing your skin made you flinch, the feeling of one of its suckers on your nipple was enough to make you shriek in disgust.

Hirofumi chuckled, his hands on your hips slid up, feeling your curves before dragging you against his clothed cock. He couldn’t help but grab your hair to pull it as he grinded against your ass with a little too much force. You could feel him growing bigger, he had to be a twisted creep to get off to this.

“Stop… no more…” Begging, you turned your head to look at him. With the way he was pressing you down, you couldn’t meet his gaze, instead found your cheek being pressed flat against the tentacle. Ignoring your pleads, Hirofumi pulled himself back to yank your pants down hurriedly as the tentacle latched one of the suckers on your nipple, toying with the sensitive nub. You started to breathe hard as the realization of how vulnerable you actually were hit you hard. All you could do was to pathetically attempt to get away from Hirofumi to be assaulted by the tentacle instead.

Then the loud sound of his belt buckling made you jolt, the tears and begging for him to stop came right after. You would do anything for him to stop. However your cries were ineffective, they didn’t stop him from pulling down your panties and drinking up the sight of your naked lower half. They only seemed to spur him on even more.

“Stop…” you whimpered and struggled. Tears started streaming down your face as a choked sob left your lips. He smiled against the skin on your shoulder in response while lining himself on your entrance. Twisting your arm behind your back to keep you still, he put his entire weight behind his hips to surge them forward and buried the entire length of his cock in your cunt.

Wincing, you gasped. Hirofumi took it as a signal to move. You were awfully wet, each time he pulled back himself to slam his hips forward, the squelching sounds of your pussy filled the silence of the forest. If that wasn't gross enough, your cheek was being grazed against the slimy skin of the tentacle, its fishy stench started to overwhelm you, making you gag.

“Ahh, you like this don’t you?” He tentatively pulled his hips back to abruptly slam them into your pussy.

“No…” You bit back a moan, closing your eyes and begging for all of it to stop internally.

“You’re getting off to this, you’re sopping wet.” Hirofumi mounted you completely, you could feel his entire weight settle on your back. “Be a good girl for me, will you? Be honest, it’s just the two of us here.”

You grumbled in response.

“Makima isn’t listening.” He nosed some hair out of his way to whisper in your ear. “Only I will hear your confessions. You can tell me anything, trust me.”

“Go to hell,” you hissed. If he was going to kill you, so be it! You weren’t going to give him the pleasure of humiliating you. All you had left was your pride and you were planning to keep it until the very end.

He slammed his hips forward, hitting your sweet spot on the first try. His firm thrust was all it took for you to silently scream, with the air in your lungs completely gone from the impact, you were clenching around his cock. You opened your mouth to take in some air but the tentacle wrapped around your neck, squeezing tightly around you to prevent you from breathing. The tip of the tentacle forced its way into your mouth and swirled around your tongue before diving deeper down into your throat. Hirofumi placed his hand on the tentacle, tapping twice for it to loosen around your neck. The tentacle left your mouth with a disgusting pop sound. Then he replaced the tentacle with his own hand, shoving his fingers into your mouth and grabbing you from the inside of your cheek.

Now, when he thrust forward and picked up his pace, you couldn’t bite back your moans. To your utter horror, it worked. Every thrust of his hips left you moaning, gasping for air. His merciless, rough thrusts remarkably sped up, especially in comparison to before. He was humping you like a rabid dog now and he responded to your surprised moan with a long, pleased hum.

Your drool started to spill out from your mouth and down to your chin since you didn’t have the luxury to swallow the saliva with three long digits prying your mouth open. You moaned audibly and threw your head back when his cock stroked a specific spot along your insides, Hirofumi took this opportunity to bite into your nape hard enough to draw blood, on a second note, you started to think he could be an actually rabid dog.

A scream left your lips, more out of pleasure than pain.

Hirofumi’s teeth sank deeper into your flesh as he felt your gummy walls pulsate around his cock, clenching and begging to be filled with his seed. He gave a muffled chuckle against your flesh, chewing on the raw skin. Although you weren’t honest in the slightest, your body was.

The tentacle’s tip went between your legs and the sucker latched onto your clit, catching you by surprise and making your entire body shake in pleasure.

How cute.

With a delighted smile, Hirofumi stopped biting your nape. He licked your blood off of your skin all the while he was fucking you frenziedly, thrusting in and out your pussy with sloppily wet sounds that started to make your knees unbuckle. Swallowing down your pride, you gave in to the pleasure so you could move your hips and arch your back to meet his frantic thrusts. At the same time, the tentacle toyed with the sensitive nub. It all made your legs trembled under you as your moans got louder than before.

Hirofumi's pace suddenly slackened when his cock throbbed upon your walls clamping on him. Taking his hand from your mouth, he placed it on your shoulder to grab you. He pulled his hips back and abruptly slammed forward, punching the air out of your lungs one last time as you felt the slight twitch of his balls on your skin before a pleasing warmth filled your belly.

The tentacle moved in tight circles around your clit and you clenched around Hirofumi’s cock for the last time, milking more of his seed using your pulsating walls inside of your cunt. Even after the tentacle left you alone, Hirofumi continued fucking his cum into your pussy, gross squelching sounds from his seed gushing out from your abused hole had become a white noise to you at this point. By the time he pulled out of you and let you go, your legs gave up from under you. Before you could crash on the dirty mud, the tentacle caught you, holding you up in a gentle grip.

Hirofumi was tucking himself into his pants while you watched him in exhaustion. He noticed your stare and gave you the same unsettling smile. “I think you’d be a great devil hunter if you were partnered up with me. Makima would agree if I said so. Won’t you agree too?”

You couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore but you managed to blink slowly in response, mouthing a ‘yes’ in defeat.

Hirofumi’s eerie smile grew wider, his eyes squinted from his cheeks puffing up. “I look forward to working with you in the future.”

#hirofumi yoshida x reader #yoshida hirofumi x reader #this took me longer than i had planned cuz i was busy with work #anywayyy please leave a comment #i wanna see you guys comment on each sentence like they do on wattpad lmao #creepy hirofumi is theee best i love him so much #cannot wait for him beign thrown outta window getting animated #lol ahhh hirofumi is so segsy #the artwork is supposed to be for at the end when he makes this offer to the reader lmaoo #ahh i'm crying so gorgeous

[arminty7]

𝘚𝘸𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘞𝘪𝘯𝘦

Mermaid!Jungkook x Reader [Part 3]

Trapped in this life of expensive wine and judgemental eyes Y/N met an unusual lady who offered her a job at an aquarium a few towns away. Despite being hesitant and uncertain for the future she decided to take the offer as it was her only way out, not knowing that many dangers might come her way.

Jungkook swam his way through the small tunnel in wonder. He didn’t realise what he was ‘walking’ into as he took the entire night to explore a tunnel. He thought it might lead to you, how naive. It is only when he heard the piercing sound of drilling from the small tunnel entrance did he know what was happening, he was trapped. With that, his instincts took over.

Chapter: #3 Swimming in Wine

Words: 4843

Warnings: Mild Swearing // Fluff // Eventual Smut? Idk maybe depends // Jungkook obsessive // Evil Namjoon (im sorry guys) // It might be a little messed up.

AN - It's been a while. I know. 

© arminty7 2020 - All rights reserved.

This work shall not be copied, reproduced, translated and/or modified in any way without my permission. In a case where this might happen, legal action will be taken as it would be a criminal act under the law and breaching these terms. Upon reading my work you are acknowledging that this work is mine and that you know the consequences if this work is copied, reproduced, translated and/or modified in any way without my permission.

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It was early in the morning when the sun started to creep its way into the room. You were sitting on your bed and surprisingly enough, you were already awake. You never used to be such an early bird, but throughout these past few nights, you would wake up drenched in sweat. No matter how hard you tried you couldn't stop thinking about the incident on the cliff. Upon sleeping, you could almost feel the arms of the creature wrapped around you, like its haunting touch has placed a permanent mark on you. When thinking about it more deeply, it felt human to you. The arms of a human, but its touch too deeply pressed on your skin: the coldness you felt, reached down to your bones. It was like death was clinging onto you, with you as its life source.  

 "Hey Y/N? You up?" You heard a whisper and you saw Julie poking her head through the door as she opened it slightly. You look over at her with a relaxed expression and a soft smile.  

"Yeah, I'm already up. Did you want to go and get a coffee near the waterfront before dropping me off to work?" You stand up from your bed and start fixing the blankets and pillows. 

 "Yeah that sounds like a good idea, let me go get my bag and we can leave soon." She spoke as she left the room, closing the door but not all the way. 

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Looking out onto the ocean, it felt calm today. Although the tranquillity that you felt while looking out onto the shore exhibited a chaotic kind of peace. The calm before the storm. You could feel it, the anger of the waves crashing down and the freeing nature of the water wanting to come out. But it held restraint, it couldn't do anything even if it tried. Something was missing but you didn't know what. All you knew was that the feeling you had felt when looking out towards the ocean, changed somehow. The calm waters seemed too good to be true.

 You sat there at the coffee shop across from the beach near where you work. The smell of sea-salt and fish mixed with coffee seemed like a horrible combination, but the locals were used to it. You found comfort in the idea that you might get used to it too. The coffee that you held in your hands was hot against the cool air. You sipped your coffee while waiting for Julie to come back with her usual morning cravings of insatiable sweet pastries. 

 “So, tell me. Have you made any work friends? Any of them cute?” Julie sat down across from you, taking you away from your thoughts. You looked over at her and chuckled, rolling your eyes.

“I have made some friends, not many but hopefully that will change in time” You smiled slightly looking out at the ocean again, feeling yourself get distracted but not with anything in particular. "Well it’s your first day today so make sure to stay on your toes, but don't overwork yourself," Julie spoke while her mouth is full of sweet dough-like pastries, more focused on the icing coating the top of her lips, not realising that you have been spacing out this entire time. 

Thankfully you're good at multi-tasking and you chuckle at her comment, "It’s funny, people keep forgetting that I have worked at an aquarium before you know? It's not that much of a big deal." You sip your coffee but immediately placed it back down on the table, it was too sweet.

You look at your watch, realising its time to go. Plus, you would rather be at work than trying to have a normal conversation with her, you know she's trying but she's not your caretaker or mother, she doesn't need to try so hard.

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As you walk through the entrance of the Aquarium you could immediately feel the difference in atmosphere from the other day. The busy environment that you knew so well back home at the aquarium suddenly felt familiar. The buzzing sounds of life engulfed the reception as many families and residents were chatting away while waiting in line. Kids nagging at their parents and young couples looking at each other lovingly while waiting in line.  There were not many people though as it was early, and it wasn't officially open for another 30 minutes. 

You walked past them towards the reception and saw Seokjin who looked busy talking to the people in line. He glanced over at you and he made an expression as if he remembered something.

"Ah Y/N, Jimin told me to tell you to wait for him at the food court at the bar. You'll be working with him today. Taehyung is meant to be here, but he called in sick". You nodded, silently chuckling to yourself as Taehyung probably just called in sick because he was "too busy" or had some "emergency". While in reality, he's probably watching a new season of a drama he recently got addicted to. 

You head your way to the food court after you say goodbye to Seokjin. It seemed quiet in the food court but simultaneously busy as workers prepared for the day. You could see some workers running around in their little cafes or tourist shops as you walk towards the main bar. You could hear your heels hit the glassy floor, echoing as it bounced off the wall of the gigantic room. 

The bar had no one in it. You suppose it didn't open till later in the day. It was weird to you, you have never seen an Aquarium that had a bar before. Mind you, you never really travelled anywhere so you wouldn't know if it's a common thing to have at Aquariums. 

You sat on the stool, looking at the giant tank circling the entire food court, acting as a wall around the large room. You tried to look through it to see how far it went but all you could see was the light blue ocean that seemed almost endless. Some small school fish could also be seen swimming in the tank. It felt as though you were in the middle of the ocean. All alone. 

In contrast to the light blue colour that is seen throughout the rest of the room, the small tank that was built into the wall behind the bar looked darker and overgrown. It was a very small square tank that resembled a small window. You could barely see through it, a thick layer of algae covering the glass, it looked so dark in there. Maybe it was connected to another section of the aquarium, perhaps it even descended underground?

You shivered and looked around the food court, were you being watched? You could feel the sudden nervousness tingling throughout your body.

It was a weird feeling that came upon you, an icy cold feeling of loneliness like the air had suddenly shifted. The voices of the other workers in the food court were drifting away and you were slowly slipping away from reality. An alluring voice crept into your ear, singing an enchanting but hypnotising harmony. Somehow you could sense that it wasn't one of the workers for the voice sounded too angelic, too sweet to even be real. Your bones were chilled as you sensed the familiar feeling of cold strong arms enveloping around your waistline and chest as if you were reliving the moment by the cliff. You could physically feel it, its touch… his touch. Closing your eyes, you could feel the cold sharp wind from that moment above the water as it brushed against your cheeks. The creature’s hot breath giving you some type of warmth in the moment, yet it felt unknown to you. Mortality was clutching you in its hands, but you felt so safe. Like it was saving you despite drowning you at the same time. 

You shook your head, awaking from the trance that you were in. Glancing back over at the tank behind the bar and you saw a dark figure in the water. It stayed there looking through the algae ridden glass. You could only see a face, black and blue scales on its cheekbones and jaw. It looked human, but at the same time, you knew it wasn't. Its alluring golden eyes, shining in the water, staring into your own. Its eyes were soulless. 

By the time you blinked, it was gone.

You stood up, wanting to go closer to the small tank behind the bar. Making your way behind the bar, you were stopped by a strong hand pulling your shoulder back. "What are you doing here?" You turned to see a man who held your shoulder with a firm grip, his eyes staring straight into yours.

Oh, if looks could kill.

"I uhh.." Your mind went blank as you stepped back a bit, away from the man. He looked annoyed while you struggled to let the words out. By this time, you forgot what just happened moments ago.

"Answer my question" He spoke quietly but sternly, letting go of your shoulder but moving a step closer to make sure you can't run away. 

"I was waiting for-" 

"Yoongi-Hyung, what are you doing?? Leave the poor girl alone, you'll give her a heart attack" You sighed in relief as you saw Jimin walk up to the bar. 

'You know this girl?" He spoke in a serious tone, you remembered what Taehyung said earlier about the Bartender, I guess this is him.

Jimin nodded, leaning on the bar. "Her name is Y/N, she's the new recruit Hoseok was telling us about" Jimin looks over at you with a charming smile while you take the opportunity to escape the bar and onto Jimin's side. 

Yoongi looked at you and then back at Jimin, "well get outta here will you, the aquarium opens up soon”.  

You nodded and Jimin just smirks before looking over at you "Come on Y/N, we have a busy day ahead of us" He stands up, grabbing your hand, giving you his signature smile before leading you out of the food court and down the hall.

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Third Person POV

"I can't believe we are opening up the aquarium a day after we caught it, what if it escapes?!" Hoseok looked down at the ground continuously tapping his foot on the ground as he leaned on the bookshelf in the office. Namjoon sat there in the chair in front of him. 

"Don't worry, it can't escape" Namjoon reassured him and then continued. 

"We have reason to believe it got stuck in an old tunnel filled with water that was built throughout the aquarium. We constructed the tunnel ages ago for the public and we were going to add glass windows to it, so you can look through the tunnel. However, the construction wasn't going as planned and we halted the idea." 

"So, it's just swimming in a small tunnel throughout the aquarium walls with no way out? Like a maze? In pitch-black darkness?" Hoseok widened his eyes, he never heard of such a thing. 

"You have nothing to worry about, the tunnel that he swam through to get in the aquarium was connected to the ocean, but we blocked it off as soon as we found out he swam in it. He's stuck in there." 

"Are you certain? Have you swum through the tunnel yourself? How do you know there's no other way he can reach the other aquariums for the public to see?" Hoseok said, his voice raised. He walked up to the front of the desk, his hands crossed, Namjoon could sense his doubt radiating off of him. 

"Before this place was opened to the public, I got some divers to check it out, it has no pockets or windows. It's pitch black down there" he tried to reassure Hoseok again. Namjoon looked up at Hoseok and he nodded, uncrossing his arms. 

"Let's hope he doesn't go too crazy down there, we'll have to get him out soon." He continued, "Oh, by the way, Jackson called. He said yes to the deal." Hoseok 

"Good. We will prepare the creature for transport soon".  

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It was a busy day. 

You sat off to the side as Jimin stood in his wetsuit on the platform of the dolphin's tank. He had a big smile stretched across his face as he instructed the dolphins while the crowd watched from the bleachers. With every flick of his hand, the dolphins would jump up in the air and the echoes of cheering would fill the small arena. You had a bucket of fish with you and you watched as each dolphin would come up to you after doing a trick. You sat on the side of the tank, you were visible to the public eye, but they weren't paying attention to you. It was sad really, you knew what went on in aquariums. How ironic that you want to be free yourself when working at an establishment that rejects freedom. You looked at the next dolphin that swam your way, it seemed weaker than the others. You went closer to the tank and sat on the edge. It slowly swam up to you, it was at that very moment that you saw a gash stretched out on its back. It wasn't bleeding, and you could easily see that it’s been there for a while.

You looked up at Jimin in worry although he didn't take notice. He held the microphone as he catered to the audience. You looked back at the dolphin and reached a fish from the bucket. Perhaps it was self-inflicted somehow. You heard that stuff can happen in aquariums. You watched the dolphin gently swim away, back down into the water, following the strict routine that was given to them before the show. 

After the show ended, you still couldn't get that dolphin out of your head. Its empty expression in its eyes is still burned in your mind. All the hope and optimism you once associated with dolphins was now gone. 

You stood there in the tiny tin room out the back of the aquarium near the dolphin tank, cleaning buckets of fish that were now empty. Jimin left you and went to go help another co-worker and gave you the task of cleaning out buckets that radiated the smell of decaying fish. You remember the innocent smile he gave you when he asked you for this little favour. It was your job, you couldn't say no - and he knew that. 

"Thanks, Y/N! I owe you" Jimin yelled out, waving his hand as he ran off. 

It was around 4 pm when you finished cleaning. Your body felt tired from the long day and you and Jimin were headed to the bar.

As you stepped into the food court the feeling you had before suddenly crept through your body. You shivered, and a sudden feeling of dread came upon you. It was weird, you didn't even think about the incident after it happened. Like you suddenly forgot about it. But now, as you slowly walk up towards the bar, you felt a chill encompassed around your bones. 

Jimin sat down on the stool on the bar and placed a hand under his chin. He looked up at Yoongi with a smirk, "So, how's business?". Yoongi took a glance up at the both of you and looked back down again, wiping the bar down. 

"It was pretty slow today. It was weird, I expected more people to come" Yoongi said quietly. You sat down next to Jimin and crossed your arms over the bar, letting your head rest gently on your arms. 

"Hey, I just cleaned that" Yoongi looked over at you but after the day you had, you couldn't care less. You replied with a monotone "sorry" but stayed in your current position. He could tell that you were tired and surprisingly enough, he didn't push it. 

"So, you remember that key I gave to you right? The one I found?" Jimin straightened up at Yoongi's words and looked over at you for a split second. 

"Yeah I remember, what about it?" Yoongi sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well I need it back" Jimin looked confused, "but I thought you found it, that it had no meaning to you. That's why you gave it to me in the first place"

Yoongi sighed, "To be honest it was actually Hoseok's. I was curious to know what it's for, so I gave it to you. I didn't realise you wouldn't tell me after you found out. Still, after all these years, you haven't told me! To think, I was the one who gave you the key in the first place". Yoongi grabbed a glass from under the bar and shoved some ice in it before filling it up with apple juice. He passed it to you as if to tell you that he still remembers that you're here.

Jimin rolled his eyes, "Yeah, you gave me the key because you were too lazy to figure it out on your own". 

"The point is, I need it. Where is it?" Yoongi looked somewhat anxious as he wiped down the bar for the third time. 

Jimin shrugs, reaching his arm over to take your drink from the table that you haven't touched.

It’s too sweet. He sipped it casually and looked over at you before landing his eyes towards Yoongi again. "I don't know, I threw it away, I found no use for it". 

Yoongi crossed his arms frowned, "that's bullshit, you are lying, and you know it, you've always been a bad liar". Yoongi then looks at you, your arms still crossed as you lay your head there, if they didn't know any better, they would have assumed you were asleep. Except you laid there, silently listening. 

Jimin then also frowns, "look I don't know what to tell you, it's been years since you gave me that thing. The truth is, I lost it." Jimin looks up at Yoongi but Yoongi scoffs. 

"So, you threw it away or lost it? Come on Jimin, just give it to me, I know you have it". Yoongi looked right through Jimin's eyes, you looked over at both of them, you could tell there was tension in the air. 

Jimin was silent and Yoongi sighed grabbing the drink that you obviously weren’t going to finish and pouring it into the sink before placing the glass in the dishwasher under the bar. 

Yoongi spoke quietly but you could tell that his words held a lot of weight, "Promise me". 

Jimin looked up, "I don't get why you are so obsessed with this key, I don't even have it!" 

"Promise me that you don't have it" Yoongi looked at him, his facial expression was the look of hurt more than anything. You could tell that there was more to this than what Yoongi was letting on. You sat there next to them, waiting for Jimin to spill the beans about giving the key to you.

Jimin was hesitant for a second before strongly responding, "I promise I don't have it." Yoongi stood there silent before nodding, mumbling a soft "sorry" under his lips before going back to cleaning the bar, even though he already finished. 

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"I can't believe you lied for me," You spoke as you walked around the dolphin tank outside, Jimin walking beside you.

"I didn't lie. I don't have it. You do." Jimin smiled at you brightly, although you could tell that something was bothering him. You both kept walking before Jimin looked at his watch, "I'm sorry I got to go, feel free to stay here as long as you want, Namjoon doesn't mind us staying after hours. Although you do realise our shift ended an hour ago, right?" Jimin smiled brightly as he looked down at you, his eyes shining in the moonlight. 

You chuckled, "Yes I knew, I just like your company. Thanks for being there for me. I haven't known you long, but you made me feel comfortable on my first day" You smiled, it seemed like you and Jimin were going to become really good friends. 

"I'll always be here Y/N... Anyways I'll see you at work tomorrow yeah? Have a nice night" Jimin waved goodbye and walked away. 

You sighed, reaching for the key from your pocket. 

"Might as well check it out while I still can?" You thought. 

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It was late, really late and you found yourself questioning Jimin's earlier statement about being allowed here after hours. You wandered through the halls of the aquarium, following the directions Jimin and Taehyung showed you last time, careful not to make any loud noises to gain any attention. 

The halls were cold, and you could hear were the sounds of your heels tapping against the hard floor. While walking, you felt your chest become heavy, looking around you started to hear weird sounds coming from the walls. You shrugged it off however, you've been in aquariums long enough to know that it could be anything and that it's never completely quiet. 

Finally reaching your destination you head down the metal steps. You've never been to this part of the building apart from when Jimin and Taehyung took you, you suppose it's for private personnel only. Continuing down the steps you reach the door to the moonpool, the sounds of water can be heard dripping and sloshing from behind. Inserting the keys and turning the metal handle you slowly walked inside. It was darker than the last time you saw it. What was surprising was the glow worms on the roof of the moonpool illuminating the moonpool and stone walls that surrounded it. You didn't see them during the day. They were beautiful.

Walking along the gravel towards the moonpool, you took off shoes your socks and placed your backpack next to the moonpool. You sat on the edge, dipping your legs in as you rolled up your pants, so they don't get wet. You closed your eyes, feeling the water reach up to your kneecaps. The water was lukewarm, and the smell of sea salt radiating off of it. 

What a long day. 

If you were being honest, all of this was too much for you. You never thought you would say this, but you miss home. You miss Marina's cooking and weirdly enough, you miss your mother. She hasn't called, even texted since you left. You felt like you thought this would be different, the people here are nice but every so often you get reminded about the flaws of this world, the treatment of animals, – the dolphin – the uneasiness you felt about Julie and her intentions. Even Jimin and Yoongi, you didn’t want to cause a fight between them because of some stupid key.

The water had suddenly started to turn cold, starting from your feet you feel a rush of icy water spread to your knees, eliminating any prior warmth you felt. The dripping stopped, the sloshing of the water halted. You opened your eyes curiously to see a figure from the other side of the moonpool staring right at you. You looked right in its eyes. Time stopped, and you could barely see anything else but the wide golden piercing gaze of the creature. You sat there frozen in place. You don't know how long you stayed like this for, but it took a while to realise what was happening. It didn't say a word, but you could tell by its knowing facial expression that it somehow knows who you are. Looking down in the now murky water you could see an outline of a human’s body, his muscles and broad shoulders prominent underneath the dark blue scales that stretched over its torso. You continued to examine the long outline of a tale - a big tale at that - with the front looking slimy however you could guess that the back of the tale was sharp enough to cut through any piece of flesh that it would encounter. One aspect of the creature that seemed almost beautiful were some parts of his scales that were brighter than others, acting as a highlighter around his cheekbones and arms. 

You didn't want to make any sudden movements, frightened that the creature would drag you under. Eat you. Kill you. You decided that it was now or never and spoke quietly under your breath, looking back up at its eyes that never left yours. "Hi, my name is Y/N". Your breath was shaky, and your lips were dry. 

"It probably can't even understand you," You thought to yourself. 

The creature stopped staring into your eyes and lowered its focus to your legs that were swaying in the water. You shivered, the cold air getting to you. Goosebumps appeared on your legs and arms and you could have sworn you sore the remnant of a smirk that appeared on its lips. 

You suddenly had an idea. 

Carefully, you looked up at the creature, "I'm just going to grab something out from my backpack, okay?" Slowly you stretched your arm out towards your backpack while maintaining eye contact with the creature. The creature stayed still, however you knocked something metal in your bag and it made a loud noise that echoed throughout the moonpool. The creature’s facial expression turned darker and it went full force towards you, grabbing your calves as it didn't let you go. It was close to your face, its golden eyes peering into yours as you could feel its grip and claws on your legs tighten, its body between your thighs leaning in on you. You breathed in slowly, feeling almost petrified, but somehow you knew the creature didn't mean any harm. It looked over at your hand that was inside your backpack. You waited a few seconds before slowly, lifting your hand out of the bag, to reveal a container of prawns that was meant to be your lunch today. 

The creature's grip loosened from your calves as it watched you open the container, taking a prawn before slowly reaching over to the creature's lips. One of its hands let go of your calf as it held your hand, guiding it towards its lips before it opened its mouth biting the prawns head off. You looked at the creature, a little startled. Its teeth were sharper than a normal human, like razors. In fact, you looked closely at the details of the creature's face, noticing the similarities to that of a human. Everything was the same except for the scales on the sides of his face, neck and on his cheekbones. The outline of his eyes was darker though, making his golden eyes brighter than usual. It had brown locks of hair, wet but you could see it was starting to dry. He resembled a male in his 20s.

He finished the prawn quickly and looked back at the container, wanting more. You spoke softly, "have more if you would like". 

He looked down at your hand and then back up at you as if it was asking you to feed him again. His grip on one of your calves was softer and you could feel his thumb running circles over your calf. You grabbed another prawn, reaching over to his lips as he was careful not to cut your fingers with his teeth as he ate the prawn. 

You sat there, feeding him the rest as he grew more comfortable around you. His hand reached out of the water towards the gravel next to your thigh as he spelled out the words "Jungkook" on the gravel. 

"Jungkook?" You questioned, "is that your name?". Jungkook looked up at you before placing his hand on your thigh. 

"Yes", he answered. Your eyes widen in shock, you didn't think he could understand you. You frowned and asked him curiously, "could you understand me this whole time?". 

He smirked slightly, "I'm not the best at this human language but yes, yes I could" He looked up at you, his eyes shining. You frowned, feeling a little messed around with since he could have at least answered you the many times you spoke to him. But then again you understood, he doesn't know you, and you don't know him. 

His grip on your calf and thigh tightened as he started to pull you in the water. You freaked, holding on to the edge of the moonpool. "Wait, wait, wait! I can't get these clothes wet and I uhh, have to get going soon..." Jungkook frowned but stopped pulling. He let go of you. 

"Promise me you'll come back?" He looked at you with a sad expression, lowering himself in the water. 

You looked down at him as you took your legs out of the water and grabbed your bag with your shoes and socks.

"I promise"

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AN: I know I haven’t updated, but I do really wanna update more. I feel like this chapter was a good one, give me some feedback? :)

tags:  @mjlock​

#bts #jungkook x reader #jungkook #mermaid jungkook #siren jungkook #bts x reader #bts scenarios #masterlist #park jimin #kim taehyung #kim seokjin #jeon jungkook #kim namjoon #min yoongi #Jung HoSeok #mermaids #sirens

[showrunnerihardlyknowher]

26 for the prompts? perhaps w the cat n mouse lads :3 (also look danny i did it i sent a prompt are u proud)

I...actually don't remember what the prompt was for this one, but I'm 87% sure it was "I'm not that scary, am I?"

So fine since y'all keep asking for 'em, here's more of the cat and mouse bois. Shoutout to @gabbydafurry and an anon for finally giving them names.

--

“C’mon.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“I said no.”

“I’ll make pollo asado for dinner, we can eat it together while we watch!”

Aaron sighed and rubbed his hands against his forehead, trying to ease the dull throb that had yet to wane over the past two days. His headache certainly wasn’t being helped by the constant badgering of his...roommate, for a lack of better words (as well as being a title so eagerly self bestowed by the cat in question) but much like many of their other interactions, his resolve was starting to wear thin. Usually, he was able to hold his ground for at least a week until he was bribed into giving the other some type of social interaction with the promise of his favorite foods. Today, however, the poor mouse just wanted a moment’s peace free from knocking on the walls or calling through the cracks until he answered, and if that meant watching some stupid movie then fine.

Plus, Lucas did know how to make some incredible Mexican food.

“...fine,” Aaron conceded after a pause, the pressure behind his eyes giving him a sharp pang before fading to its usual ache, almost like his own body was projecting how horrible of an idea this was.

As soon as the mouse slipped out from behind the curio, he came face to face with the massive grin of the cat mere inches away from the opening. Seeing the grin only split wider when he was fully in view of the other normally would have instinctively sent a shiver up his spine, it was kind of difficult to be intimidated seeing how Lucas had strangely contorted his body to lay on the floor between the curio and the bookcase. Most cats seemed to be fairly flexible, so it probably wasn’t too uncomfortable for him to be so bent and curled up, but he definitely lost some of that hunter’s prowess with his back twisted sideways and one leg leaning against the shelving.

In a flash, Lucas had managed to untangle his strange positioning to instead be crouched on his knees, now looming over Aaron in a way he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to. He flinched back when his hand started to reach out towards him, fully intending to scoop him up to dizzying heights without a second thought, but the appendage stopped just short of touching him at all. Instead, he dropped his hand palm side up and waited, smiling all the while. At least he was getting better at remembering Aaron’s explicit request to not be grabbed without permission, though he did always apologize with a sheepish look and some little treat whenever he forgot.

Once Aaron climbed onto the awaiting hand that radiated a delightfully intense warmth into his already aching muscles, Lucas was already jumping up a chattering a mile a minute about how much the mouse was going to love the movie he picked out, how dinner would be ready soon, how he wasn’t expecting him to actually agree to watch a scary movie with him since he never seemed like the type who would be into that sort of thing but--

“It’s a scary movie?” Aaron interrupted, the noise finally registering beyond the headache. Truthfully, he tuned a lot of what the other said out for almost every conversation, not that it ever seemed to make a difference. Yeah, sorry, I’m a bit of a chatterbox, he admitted once, but it’s less weird talking to someone who doesn’t respond than to talk to yourself, right?

Debatable.

Lucas tilted his head and snorted. “Uh, yeah? That was one of the first things I told you about. You know that one actress who’s in almost every one of those Christmas movies we watch, who’s always the jealous best friend?” Aaron has no idea who he was referring to given that he never absorbed anything from those stupid romance movies he was boarderline forced to watch, but nodded anyways, “Right, this is supposed to be her big break out role, or something. It’s the first thing she’s doing as a lead actress, and you know, good for her! I’m glad she’s getting out of that typecast she’s been in forever. Horror probably wouldn’t be my first choice for her, but I guess since she has those singing vocals it could carry over to being a scream queen. Kind of like when--”

And Aaron was out of the conversation again.

Lucas continued to drone on about the actress’s entire film career, or at least that’s what the mouse was assuming he was doing when he occasionally zoned back in to pick up a stray word here and there. The headache he had been staving off to the best of his ability was starting to come back with twice as much force as it often did in the later days. He probably could have just asked the other for some aspirin, maybe even some cold medicine as that was no doubt what this bout of illness was turning into, but asking the cat for anything was always out of the question. Of course, Lucas tried to sway him numerous times into thinking it most certainly was not and that he could always ask for whatever he needed, never to his avail. Aaron was indeed willing to prolong his suffering if it meant not having to stomach the dreadful embarrassment that would come to being indebted to the feline, no matter how insignificant.

Unfortunately, he was only setting himself up for failure in thinking this “agreement” would be providing him any sort of relief. His headache was treading dangerously close into becoming a full fledged migraine and the flashes of light and screams from the television would not be doing him any favors. His only saving grace was that, after he had been settled on the couch and Lucas scampered off to get the dinner he promised, the cat turned off every other light possible to, as he put it, really get them in the spooky mood!

The smell of the food was delicious and nauseating. His stomach both wanted and revolted at the idea of anything filling it, which would only serve to worsen his headache no doubt. Damn it all, he wanted to throttle both himself and this illness, the first for agreeing to watch this stupid movie when he was already feeling under the weather, the second for preventing him from getting his half of the deal. These movie-dinner dates deals were the only reason Aaron continued to stick around, even if he thought the torment of being forced to watch awful romcoms in exchange for a hot, homemade meal was a little unfair. No, that wasn’t entirely true, Lucas was a freaking culinary genius as far as the mouse was aware. It was a wonder why he wasn’t majoring in a cooking field.

“I’m not hungry right now,” Aaron lied when Lucas had asked why he wasn’t eating. “I’ll try some later.”

The cat looked at him strangely before shrugging. “Alright, just let me know. If you don’t like it, I can always make you something else.” There he goes again, offering things he knows the other can’t accept. At least he could let it slide this time as he had no appetite to think of any other dish.

Lucas finished his own meal in silence, completely fixed on the television as the opening scene carried on, introducing the canine main character that Aaron did, in fact, vaguely recognize. This was fine, he figured, the dark apartment coupled with a painfully slow movie, a warm body moving to curl up behind him as it so often did during these deals, he could probably get a few moments of real rest in before the credits rolled. As much as he loathed to admit it, the cat was actually rather...comfortable to be forcefully cuddled by. He wasn’t like other movie goers that needed to make a comment on every character’s decision, steady breathing and the occasional purr helping the mouse slowly relax.

That relaxation was cut short as soon as the romcom actress tore her tiny avian neighbor to shreds by the end of the first act.

Aaron had hardly been paying attention to the storyline up until this point, something to do with the girl being bitten and experiencing insatiable hunger lately. The sudden carnage of the otherwise trusting little prey creature made both of them flinch in surprise, though Lucas was quick to laugh it off. From then on the mouse’s unwavering attention was glued to the screen, but not by his choice. A chill ran through him each time she claimed another unsuspecting victim, always a prey animal, and ripped them apart with her teeth and nails like a starving animal. The way the tiny’s incredibly realistic viscera was slurped into her bloody mouth made him queasy, all too easily imagining himself in their shoes.

Eventually, her hunger became too strong and she began attacking fellow predator species as well. Ripping into throats and soft bellies was far messier than snacking on a tiny creature in three bites, making her feast all the more gory. While the violence still unsettled him, it was a touch more bearable now that he couldn’t picture his own body being mangled between the teeth of a predator he thought he could trust. Speaking of…

The mouse gulped and risked a glance behind him at the other who had hardly moved, save for a few jolts and snickers whenever a particularly good jump scare managed to startle him. It didn’t go unnoticed that every time Aaron had physically reacted to a sudden screech or attack, the cat would curl just a little bit tighter around him, hiding a laugh behind a rumbling purr. He wanted to believe this was meant to be an act of comfort and not something equally as nefarious as the canine plotting her next kill. Regardless, Lucas was equally transfixed on the movie, except he seemed to be enjoying every minute of the horror aspect. His tail would flick in interest during the high tension scenes, even more so when a chase sequence was underway. It made sense, considering that was his favorite game to make Aaron play.

Whatever the case may be, the mouse couldn’t help but be unnerved tenfold that the other had the audacity to enjoy a fictional movie he was interested in seeing. The last thing the mouse wanted was for Lucas to get any more ideas when it came to chasing him around the apartment, much less awaken any sort of primitive instinct to maim his prize after it had been captured. To this day, it remains a deep seated fear in the back of his mind that every time the cat cupped his hands over him, his teeth would be quick to follow. Natural instincts were hard to shake for a reason when it came to prey animals such as himself, he could only hope the same wasn’t true for predators.

His imagination was running rampant, enough so that he completely missed how the movie ended. Something about a cure, something about being put down, whatever. The only thing on his mind was the morbidly hilarious thought that if Lucas were to go feral like the canine, would he eat him raw or would he cook him up in another fantastic dish?

Aaron jumped when Lucas moved to sit up behind him, only now registering the credits scrolling across the screen. He stretched a bit, the quickly fading warmth that had been surrounding the mouse making him realize just how tight the other must have been snuggled around him. How did he not notice?

“Wow,” Lucas said, pursing his lips. “That...was one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life.”

That wasn’t the reaction Aaron had been expecting him to have, but it was certainly better than to hear him go on about how it was a brilliant masterpiece. He got up to flick the lights back on, still laughing as he recounted each poorly written scene and cheesy effects. “I mean, oh my god, right? The mail man saved everyone? Seriously? I actually feel bad for making you watch that, you totally have dibs on the next movie night.”

He turned around to look at the mouse who was still huddled tight on the couch, wide eyes glued to the screen even if it was just names moving along with ominous background music. Lucas gave him another quizzical look, smirking.

“C’mon, even you have to admit those tinies had zero survival instincts. Like, who goes up to a rabid dog and asks for directions? I get suspending my disbelief and all, but they could have made it just a pinch realistic. This is so going to tank her acting career…” The cat shook his head and moved closer to the couch so that he stood right in front of the television, finally drawing the other’s attention to himself. “Hey, you hungry now?”

Oh, absolutely fucking not. An hour and a half of being tensed up gave no relief to his aching muscles and now that the lights were back on, so was his pounding headache. His stomach rolled, the nausea a mix of dizziness and disgust from the special effects. He didn’t even want to think about food, he didn’t want to be out in the open anymore, and he most certainly did not want to spend another minute in the cat’s company right now.

“S-sure…” Aaron finally squeaked out. He just needed Lucas out of the room, distracted somewhere so he could make a break for it. In some instances, he would have just darted off whether the cat saw him or not, but that always resulted in a game of chase that had a 50/50 success rate, the other loving it anyways. All he wanted was some peace and quiet to rest up and heal and not think about how easy it would be for the other to bite off his head whenever he felt like it.

Lucas stood there for a minute, studying him, and just when Aaron genuinely feared he was going to pounce, he flashed an innocent smile. “Cool, just give me a couple minutes to get it heated up.” And with that, he disappeared into the kitchen.

Aaron decided to be bold and waste a few precious seconds of his head start to collect himself. Deep down, he knew he was being ridiculous. Lucas had been nothing but kind to him. Aloof, but still kind all the same. But as a prey animal that spent the better part of his life living in walls and stealing to survive, trust was a risk he simply couldn’t take. There was hardly any benefit to keeping up this con if the end goal was simply to eat him. For all he knew, though, Lucas was nothing more than a merciless sociopath that was willing to milk every ounce of fear he could before chowing down. A sociopath obsessed with romantic comedies and wore an apron when he cooked and had begged Aaron for two months straight to tell him when his birthday was so that he could make him a miniature cake.

...okay, so maybe Lucas wasn’t a sociopath, but that didn’t mean he was trustworthy. Evolution gave him sharpened fangs and agile reflexes for a reason and the mouse was not about to find out what it was like to be on the receiving end of those one day.

With his head as clear as it was going to be for the time being, sans the dull throb behind his eyes, the mouse finally pushed himself up to make his way over to the couch arm. Slowly, as to not overwork his stiff joints, he climbed his way down to the floor and skittered under the couch for a little extra protection. Strangely, he noticed that he didn’t hear any noises coming from the kitchen just up ahead and when he stopped by the doorway, he couldn’t see anyone either. Losing track of the massive cat should not be possible, especially considering this was a one bedroom apartment and there was literally nowhere else for the feline to go without coming back through the entryway. Aaron should have taken it as a blessing, but of course he couldn’t leave well enough alone.

He proceeded to be daring and come out from under the couch completely to peek into the kitchen, confirming it was empty. Again, that shouldn’t even be possible for Lucas to slip out without having to directly pass the living room to go somewhere else. Unless he had, which would mean Aaron missed him somehow. He had been in quite a deep thought process on the couch...but he could have sworn he was only collecting himself for a minute!

The answer became glaringly obvious when the mouse took a few hesitant steps back and turned to retreat under the safety of the couch, only to come face to face with Lucas. He damn near jumped out of his skin, slamming his back against the wall in an effort to gain another inch of distance between himself and the face taking up his entire view. Really, this was nothing too out of the ordinary for the cat, he loved to sneak up and pounce whenever the opportunity presented itself and Aaron wasn’t too obviously close to heart failure. What made his heart stutter, however, was the fact that Lucas didn’t look like...well, Lucas. There was no smile, no warm eyes, no words being talked a mile a minute about nothing.

No, there was just a frowning cat with his ears pinned back and pupils slit, stalking closer with a terrifying rumble in his throat.

Instinct overtook him as soon as he saw the other’s lip twitch, trying to dart under the couch for safety and having his path immediately blocked by a hand being slammed down, claw out. Aaron couldn’t even yelp, the bile in his throat threatening to turn into vomit if he idled around too long. So, he didn’t. Instead, he turned on his heel and scampered in the opposite direction with the cat hot on his trail. He very nearly dodged a swipe, Lucas hissing that his blow didn’t land while Aaron only tried to speed up his sprinting. They circled maybe half of the living room, the mouse weaving under furniture while the cat knocked into them in an effort to jarr his prey into taking a misstep.

It worked, unfortunately, when Aaron took a sharp turn at the bookshelf and caused Lucas to clip it with his shoulder. The small bump did nothing to deter the cat on his hunt, but the two books that came tumbling down were enough to make the smaller skid and trip to avoid being squashed under the novels. He ended up twisting his ankle awkwardly, stumbling flat on his face while the momentum of his running made him roll twice until he landed on his back. Despite being winded and the additional pain in his leg, he knew there was no time to waste, trying to pull himself. It was too late, though. The cat was already on top of him, hand coming down to pin him under his palm while only his head poked free from between his fingers.

That cold, terrifying face came nearer, eyes tunnel visioned on its prize. Oh God, Aaron would give anything to have the other Lucas back right now. He’d watch a thousand sappy movies, do a date night for every meal, actually move into his bedroom like the cat had suggested he do a dozen times. He wanted...fuck, he wanted his friend back. What he thought was his friend, anyways. Not this killer, not this predator who was baring his teeth and was now mere inches away from biting off his face and--

The growling above him broke off into a snort shortly before turning into a full blown laugh. Aaron wasn’t sure when he had closed his eyes in preparation for his certain death, but when he dared to open them and blinked away the budding tears, he saw that smile he had been wishing for again. Kind and warm, just like eyes, and it was like Lucas had never even taken the form of a starving hunter in his life. Like he hadn’t been moments away from devouring his beloved roommate.

“Oh, come on,” he howled with laughter, “You can’t be serious! That movie actually scared you? I mean, I thought you looked a little freaked out by it, but wow!”

The movie...so this...this wasn’t real. Lucas was just pretending, just playing a prank on him. He thought that the movie had simply wound him up and made him jumpier than usual, no different than watching a zombie flick and popping out from behind a bush at your friend later on.

Except it was different. It was different in the fact that zombies aren't real, but predators are. Predators didn’t need an excuse to go feral and maim and consume their tiny cohabitants, they simply could by the laws of nature. And yes, it may be illegal and have several laws in place to protect prey species, but if no body was ever left behind, who could say if foul play was involved? That was the whole plot point in the otherwise dull movie they sat through together, the reason why the woman was able to avoid suspicion of her sickness by feeding on tinies that could only be reported missing at most.

Lucas’s laughter had tapered off, still clearly enjoying himself. “Alright, note to self, no more horror movies.” Finally, he released Aaron from under his hand to sit back on his haunches. “Man, I really didn’t think you would scare that easily, especially from a B-movie like that. Anyways, are you actually ready to eat now? I put your stuff in the oven so it would reheat better, but it should be done by now….Ronnie?”

Aaron hadn’t moved an inch since he was originally pinned, not even after the hand had been lifted off of him. He just stared up blankly at the cat, trembling and wide eyed, unable to do anything as the rapid succession of events sunk in. The cat’s humor died down a little, smile hesitating.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist, you know?” He shrugged a little sheepishly. “You didn’t even notice when I came back so I thought...I don’t know, it was funnier in my head. I almost broke character and started laughing before you ran!” With still no verbal response, Lucas reached out a hand. “Aaron? You good? Come on, I’m not that scary, am I?”

The reaction he got probably wasn’t what he was hoping for with Aaron suddenly scrambling to push himself away from the outstretched hand that might trap and tear apart his limbs. He gave a sharp squeak, managing to find his footing only to come crashing down as soon as he took the first step, his ankle noticeably swollen by this point. His cry of pain was muffled into a desperate grunt, trying so hard to drag himself away as a last ditch effort to avoid the same fate as the bird and the squirrel and the mole in the movie.

Lucas gasped. “Oh, Ronnie, your leg!” Both hands were reaching for the mouse now, aiming to cup around him and scoop him up before they surely put him out of his misery. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I didn’t...oh my God, I hurt you.”

Yes and no. In truth, Aaron had been the one to hurt himself by making his body move in ways it physically shouldn’t. But that didn’t change the fact that Lucas had shown his true colors. Perhaps in hindsight, that wasn’t a fair assessment, as he really did think he was playing a harmless little joke on a skittish friend. The pain came from knowing that the cat could turn feral, though, no matter how genuine he was being. There was still clearly an instinct within him, one that knew how to hunt and bare his teeth and hiss, one that knew deep down where they both ranked on the food chain. It hurt in knowing everything he thought about his friend, everything that kept him from really letting down his walls like the other so desperately wanted, was right. Cats and mice were not friends.

“Get away from me!” Aaron shrieked when the hands came too close. Though they withdrew quickly, he didn’t bother to watch if they would move again as he forced himself up to stumble back to his nook behind the bookshelf.

“Aaron, wait!” It was a fruitless request and Lucas knew it as he didn’t even try to stop the mouse from disappearing behind the furniture back into the walls. It would only make matters so much worse. “Aaron, please, you’re hurt, just...at least let me help you. Please. I...I’m so sorry! It was an accident, I promise!”

The cat shuffled closer, leaning down in hopes that the other could at least hear his pleas better, could hear how sincere he was trying to be. “I would never hurt you, Aaron. You’re one of my best friends. Look, it was a stupid prank and I’m an asshole and I’ll never do it again, just please come out. Just let me know if you’re alright?”

It didn’t matter how hard or for how long he tried, Aaron was long gone within the walls.

#g/t #fearplay #g/t writing #my writing #gianttiny #macro/micro #gt #giant/tiny #g/t angst #g/t community #hurt no comfort #remembers that anon i got a few days ago asking if i would ever write things with less angst #hopes this answers the question #also #these ocs? #they spark zero joy #so i will not be writing them again #meaning yes yall only get this sad ending oh well (: #absolutely not beta read nor edited sorry #ask #alarstar

[pennylanefics]

Soft Alphabet v. 2 - Isaac Lahey

a/n: i’ve had this done for so long but have been lazy to transfer it over 🤣

A - Attention (how much attention they give you/when they do/what they do)

if you’re alone, you’re his main focus. he just loves you so much that when you spend time together, he wants to spend time with you. sure, he can come over and do homework and sit in silence together, but he can do that at home, or scott’s. he won’t ask for much, watching a film would be just fine as long as he can just have you in his arms. if you are dealing with supernatural stuff, though, he tends to focus more on that, if it’s not at home. if you’re doing research together for the pack at your place or scott’s, he can’t help but kiss you every few minutes just to let you know that he’s thinking of you and is happy to be with you.

B - Baby (do they want a family/how are they as a father)

isaac definitely wants a family in the future. he didn’t want to end up like his dad, and he wanted to make sure his life was better than the way it was before he met you. he only ever wanted two kids, and that’s what happened. you gave birth to a boy, and then a girl. he is such an amazing father, and with his werewolf abilities, is able to take their pain when they get hurt or aren’t feeling well. he wonders if they’re going to be wolves as well, and is more than prepared to teach them everything they need to know.

C - Certain (when did they realize they wanted to be with you)

when he realizes you are his anchor. he struggled to find his anchor for the longest time, but as soon as you came around, he noticed he was able to calm down easier and control himself quicker than before. he just figured it was something in the back of his mind, he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. until one day, when he flipped out on derek, did he realize. derek shouted at him to focus on you: what you smell like, what your touch feels like, the feeling he gets when you’re with him. it instantly turns him back to human and derek just smiles. that night, he asked you to be his girlfriend.

D - Doubt (what happens when you or him doubt your relationship/being together)

you both doubt it at different times. after a couple months of dating, isaac was dealing with being a werewolf, school, a relationship, and just his mental health. he is beyond tired of juggling everything and asked for you to take a small break. since he was important to you and you cared for him, you agreed to it. later on, when you get back together after a few weeks, he starts focusing more on the pack and supernatural world, resulting in you feeling neglected. he was of course upset with this and it resulted in a long night of talking your problems out so you wouldn’t break up again.

E - Emergency (how do they react to you being hurt/in danger, vice versa)

he panics terribly. if something happens to you or involves you, he is not okay. one time, while fighting ethan and aiden, you got caught in between him and aiden, which resulted in you getting clawed and thrown against the wall. scott took over handling aiden so isaac could get you. he takes you to the hospital and as you are taken in for surgery, he doesn’t stop pacing. he’s biting his nails, tugging at his hair, refusing to sit down. when you’re out and awake, he is in your room within seconds, crying into your hands and whispering how much he loves you and how he was so scared you were gone. he also takes your pain away too much for his own good.

F - Family (introducing each other to your families)

you were quick to introduce isaac to your family. he was more than happy to meet them and allow them to see that he’s not like what the town says. he got along with your parents very well, and your little sister had taken a liking to him, specifically. after dinner, your mother invited him to stay for the family movie night. he of course was glad to, and during the film, your sister fell asleep against his left side, you cuddled up to his right. in that moment, he feels at home for the first time in a long time, and he can’t wait to spend more time with them.

G - Grief (comforting one another in rough times)

being in a supernatural hotspot, you were bound to see death and sadness within the pack. when allison was killed, you and isaac took it the hardest next to scott. you and allison had been friends since she moved to beacon hills high. you two had a couple classes together and grew very close. when she started dating scott, she ended up introducing you to isaac. so it was her to thank that you were with the one you love. that night, the three of you talked and stayed up all night in scott’s living room, talking about memories, what you loved about her, what you’ll miss. isaac held you in his arms the entire time, his head resting on yours. his grip tightened every time you sobbed out, wanting to take your pain away more than anything.

H - Hold (holding each other/holding others/holding pets)

with how much trauma isaac has endured, holding him in your arms to calm him down from nightmares or just general flashbacks was normal. and it’s not something you minded one bit, but it did break your heart. you could feel every shake of his body, every cry, every whimper, the tears pooling on your skin or shirt. it was a horrible sight to witness, but you stayed strong for him and rubbed his back, underneath his shirt. your touch against his skin was calming, and his fingers were always attached to you while holding him, no matter what.

I - Insomnia (what you/they do when either of you can’t sleep)

when he can’t sleep, he tries to keep it from you. he doesn’t like waking you up, bothering you, as he puts it, to talk with him and ease his mind, so he tries some ways to calm down that you told him to do so. he tries reading, that doesn’t help. he tries writing his thoughts down, but that just makes things worse. he attempts to watch tv or listen to music, but still, nothing. finally, after going through everything, he wakes you up, apologizing and cuddling you close to him. he feels awful, but you let him know that it’s okay to wake you up if he’s having trouble sleeping and just needs someone to talk to.

J - Jewelry (gifts they give you, fancy or not)

he gets you certain gifts for anniversaries. like for your sixth month, he got you a big bouquet of flowers and took you out for a nice dinner. on your year anniversary, he got you a beautiful necklace. one on occasion he got you a simple ring, not for anything more than to show his love for you. he usually doesn’t know what kind of gifts to get you, so he doesn’t get you anything at all.

K - Kryptonite (their weaknesses)

isaac’s weakness is definitely your touch. it’s also his anchor. so when he’s raging on a full moon and close to losing control, you are always there to grab his face and make him look at you, instantly calming him. it’s something you do when he’s also close to wolfing out anytime. one touch to his cheek and his eyes are back to normal and his fangs are retracting back into his gums. it’s also a way to get him in the mood. if you’re feeling worked up, all you have to do is cup his chin to give him a kiss, maybe run your finger across his cheek, and he is putty in your hands.

L - Lingerie (their reactions to seeing you in fancy lingerie)

isaac is stunned silent. he didn’t know how to react, so he just stood there, staring, heavily breathing. as you stepped forward, he gulps nervously and you tenderly place his hands on your waist. he feels the lace against your skin, the color of the lingerie complimenting your skin tone perfectly. he couldn’t stop staring every second, and when you tried kissing him, he pulled away to finally compliment you, awkwardly giggling and pulling you back in for a sweet kiss.

M - Marriage (what a wedding is like with them/what married life is like)

i feel like getting married to isaac would just make him ten times softer. like dating is great, but marriage is a forever commitment, technically speaking. that means he has to ‘up’ his game to keep you, as he sees it. he’s much more loving and cuddly, so happy that you two made it to this point. every night before bed, he pulls you close to him and just gives you kisses all over your face and neck. after you two settle, he expresses how happy he is that you’re married and promises to make you happy for the rest of your life. the sincerity and love in his voice makes you cry every single time.

N - Nervous (were they nervous for any first times in your relationship: first meeting, first kiss, first time)

everything, basically. he’s nervous to kiss you, nervous to have sex, nervous to spend the night with you for the first time. he’s never felt this way about someone so he didn’t know what was right or wrong when it came to some things. he had to ask scott and derek, though the latter wasn’t much help, about how to go about these things. what should he do if he wants to kiss you? what should be the proper way to ask you to spend the night with him? all of these things, he was supposed to have learned from his dad, but he was happy that scott was willing to help.

O - Overreact (how often do you/they overreact and how bad does it get)

you sometimes overreact to him dealing with the supernatural world. obviously, you don’t know everything and oftentimes, you do your own research. so when you go to isaac and tell him he needs to be careful or to not mess with a certain creature, he tells you it’s fine. you’ll go on a big rant about how you hate that he is so careless with this stuff and he doesn’t really care about his own safety or even yours, but he is quick to silence you with a kiss. he assures you he knows what he’s doing, as scott and derek are pretty well trained with the supernatural and wouldn’t approach or attack something that they don’t have the power for.

P - Past (how does their/your past affect your relationship)

isaac’s past definitely makes some things hard in the beginning of your relationship. he has trust issues, problems with being in closed spaces, being spoken to in a different tone than usual, things you wouldn’t think are a problem. but when he flips out because you dragged him into a closet to steal a few minutes of a makeout session, you feel horrible. later that night, he cries in your arms and tells you everything about his past, things with his dad, how he was treated, and it made you be more careful with your words and actions around him.

Q - Quarrel (fighting with each other)

fighting with isaac is never a good time. he picks at the littlest of things in the beginning of your relationship, which is also when he’s still trying to come to terms with the fact that he’s a wolf. things like you not being able to hang out because of homework, hanging out with scott instead of him, making comments about the supernatural world. usually, they don’t last that long because you tell him he’s being ridiculous, when he is. when fights get more serious later on, though, you can spend days not talking to one another.

R - Romance (how your relationship has progressed over time)

at first, your relationship progresses slowly. he’s never been in a real relationship so everything is new to him. he’s scared of making the wrong move or saying the wrong thing, so he’s wary of taking things too far right off the bat. but when you get more and more comfortable with one another, things take off, and you fall in love very quickly. isaac is a great boyfriend, so it was easy to progress your relationship when the time came and feel at ease with each other.

S - Sorry (what happens after fights)

you let him calm down after fights. he’s usually close to wolfing out most times, so when you see his eyes begin to glow, you walk away, telling him to anchor himself and come back when he’s ready to talk things out as a human. it doesn’t take long before he’s trudging to wherever you are in the house/apartment and crying uncontrollably in your arms, whimpering that he’s sorry and he doesn’t want to lose you over a stupid fight. sometimes fights can last days. well, the silent treatment from both of you. but either you, him, or someone in the pack forces you to reconcile and resolve things.

T - Tender (how sweet they can be in different moments)

isaac has never had a loving family, so when you showed him what love is, he wanted to reciprocate. he is tender all the damn time. cuddling? he’s rubbing your back or shoulder soothingly, pressing kisses to your forehead and whispering how much he cares for you. the only time he’s not really affectionate is in public. he loves you and all, but he’s not one for much pda. holding hands, yeah, kissing, not really. unless he’s jealous and trying to prove a point.

U - Upset (what you do that upsets them/vice versa and how they react to it)

when you talk shit about certain pack members. you understand that they are practically his family, but some of them, in the beginning, didn’t treat him so well, including derek. sure, you didn’t know everything that went on behind the scenes, but you knew general things. at times, derek was taking advantage of isaac and his trauma, which is what you spoke out about. this led to a small fight with isaac defending his pack.

V - Violence (what you do when they turn to violence)

isaac can’t help but turn to violence, due to his werewolf nature. sometimes, you’re okay with it, knowing that he has to fight against other supernatural creatures and use his werewolf abilities. but when it comes to just randomly getting into fights because he was jealous or angry at one of the pack members just because, you anchor him to get him to stop. you don’t like seeing or hearing that he fought with someone. you know he’s used to using violence as a response to anger, but you don’t like seeing him so angry.

W - Wait (how long they wait to make a move or do something)

after allison introduced the two of you, he didn’t make a move for a while. you became friends first, and he got advice from scott, derek, boyd, and even stiles on how to make a move. he wanted to make it right, he wanted to make sure it was a memorable experience for both of you and an important moment. when he finally asks you out on a date, or to be his girlfriend, he explains why he waited so long. you admit that he could have asked you to be his girlfriend in a janitor’s closet and you would’ve been happy.

X - X-Rated (are they dirty in inappropriate times)

he usually prefers to keep dirty things for the bedroom. as mentioned, he’s not one for pda, so if you’re at a pack meeting, or at school, or even shopping, he doesn’t like whispering dirty things in your ear or being inappropriate. you’ve done it a couple times, but he voiced his opinion on it, so you stopped right away. he also is slightly embarrassed about the idea of sex, not having much experience, so it wasn’t something he wanted everyone to know.

Y - Year (what you do to celebrate one-year celebrations)

he takes you to paris, which is the main reason you end up moving there together after allison’s death. he surprised you with tickets the night before, and you spent the early hours of the morning packing excitedly and talking about what you wanted to do there. he got you two a very special, nice hotel room, equipped with a hot tub in the bathroom and everything. it was a very romantic week and it was nice to just take time away from the supernatural and focus on each other.

Z - Zzz (what it’s like to sleep with them, just sleep)

isaac is a cuddler. like he has to hold you in his arms otherwise he can’t sleep. you don’t mind one bit. you love cuddling close to him, nuzzling your face in his neck or sweater. there are times where he sleeps shirtless and you love it because you get to be really close to him, his warm skin keeping you cozy and comfortable. before he nods off, whether you’re awake or not, he always has to press a kiss to your forehead or cheek, whichever is easiest for him to reach; most times it’s your forehead. it’s such a sweet and intimate gesture that he started early on and continued to do for the rest of your relationship.

#isaac lahey #isaac lahey imagines #isaac lahey imagine #isaac lahey x reader #daniel sharman #teen wolf #teen wolf imagines #imagines #fanfiction #fanfic

[waithyuck]

TRICKY

pairing: elf! na jaemin x reader (f) **halloweenie special**

genre: smut, supernatural au

word count: 3k

warnings: {OKAY IM PUTTING A WARNING FOR VERY MILD *DUB-CON* BC TECHNICALLY THE READER IS TRICKED , BUT IN THE END OBVIOUSLY CONSENTS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED}, sexual content (fingering, dry humping), explicit language, use of several pet names, possessive behavior and vocabulary, reader just wants to find her damn cat but gets a whole lot more than that, bad attempts at explaining folklore, I’m sorry for any inaccuracies 😬 **ALSO UNEDITED**

a/n: **repost bc tumblr sucks** this is definitely more of my own spin on what I think an elf would be like, so sorry to those of you who are into the lore and stuff 🥺

< previous | next >

~10/14/2020~

~~~~

your grandmother was always a very smart woman, and you knew that very well. so when she told you not to do something, you made sure to NEVER do it.

you lived with her on the very outskirts of your town; your own backyard made up of a very dense forest with enough trees in it to block out almost all sunlight. your bedroom window faced the forest, and every night you were forced to stare at it as you sat at your desk, contemplating what went on in there.

your grandmother repeatedly told you to never go in there, no matter what, ever since you were a child. she would talk about all kinds of crazy things, like witches and faeries, and even elves.

the first time she told you about the dark forest, you were only six years old.

“you can’t go in there, y/n.” she said seriously, crouching before you as you stood in the kitchen with her. “no matter how much it may call you, you can never enter it.”

you didn’t understand, so of course, in typical child fashion, you questioned her.

“well why not?” you shot back, crossing your arms and pouting. she stood back up after looking at you for a second, going back to mixing brownie batter in a large bowl.

“the fae are dangerous creatures. the forest is littered with them, my dear.” she stopped for a moment, gazing out the kitchen window and into the thick gathering of trees and plant life. “the elves will claim you once you enter, and you may never be able to escape again.”

after that, she didn’t say much else to you about it.

at first, you thought she was just trying to scare you into not wandering off, but after a while you began to believe her.

there would be strange noises in the night; like whispers calling out to you from the direction of your window. it creeped you out but you tried to convince yourself it was just your imagination playing tricks on you.

your life continued on like that for years, and eventually it didn’t phase you at all. you were used to the nightly whispers now, and even your cat didn’t seem to mind them, if she could hear them at all.

you never told your grandmother about them, however. she was getting old and you didn’t want to be the reason she had a heart attack, as awful as that sounded.

for being as old as she was, she still got around pretty good, and there were days when she left you along for a good few hours to go out on walks with her other old lady friends.

it was really cute.

today was just like any other day like that; your grandmother left around eleven in the morning to go out, leaving you some breakfast on the counter for when you inevitably stumbled out of your room at one o’clock in the afternoon.

everything seemed normal. you ate in silence and scrolled through your phone at the kitchen table, but then noticed something was right.

looking around you, you noticed your cat was nowhere in sight. she would usually be up on the table sitting and staring at you or rubbing against your leg for no reason, but currently she was nowhere to be found.

at first you just assumed she was sleeping somewhere else, but after eating you searched the house and couldn’t find her anywhere. walking back into the kitchen you happened to glance outside and your heart jumped in your chest.

then you started to panic.

looking out into the backyard you saw her stark white fur disappear into the thick brush of the forest, and you almost screamed out loud at the sight.

“fuck,” you exclaimed, your heart racing and your mind thinking of all the ways to try to get her back. you were always advised to not go into the forest...but you couldn’t let your poor cat who you loved very dearly to get mauled out there by some bigger animal.

you had to go after her.

you mustered you all the courage you had inside you, not bothering to change out of your ratty shorts and t-shirt before shoving your feet in your sneakers. you let out a shaky breath as you walked into your backyard, staring down the darkness of the forest with determination.

as you apprehensively made your way to the very entrance of the brush, you spotted a large crooked stick, and didn’t hesitate to grab it to use as a weapon if necessary.

you didn’t want to be completely defenseless against any supernatural creatures you came across. you had a gut feeling that running into one would be inevitable, and the fear rang like a siren in the back of your mind like a sonata.

the ‘do not enter’ and ‘keep out: danger’ signs did nothing to ease your pounding heart and screaming nerves, but you pressed on regardless. you had to do this, for your stupid cat.

with one large step, you passed the boundary of the trees, the wind picking up as soon as you did. a chill ran down your spine but you kept your legs moving, careful not to break your ankles on any protruding roots. it was incredibly dark, even though the sun was high in the sky, but the leaves of the towering trees cut out almost all light.

you stumbled around aimlessly for what felt like hours, but in reality it had only probably been about 45 minutes before you stopped and took a breather. checking your phone for the time, you felt a pang in your chest when you realized that it was off, and wouldn’t turn back on no matter how hard you tried.

“fuck,” you muttered, fear creeping up on your soul once again. you really didn’t want to be in this forest longer than necessary, and you really seriously contemplated just leaving your cat behind, as horrible as that was.

your eyes gazed around, taking in the trees surrounding you. nothing seemed too out of the ordinary...all though you really though you saw a few small dashes of light fly around you through your periphery. you prayed that they weren’t pixies or fairies of whatever else your grandmother told you about.

you didn’t trust anything, no matter how beautiful or non-threatening they seemed to be on the outside.

“hello there.” a voice spoke out suddenly, causing you to jump and spin around, dropping your makeshift weapon in the process.

your eyes met the sight of a young man who looked to be around your age, with a slightly unsettling smile upon his face. he was almost too handsome; the beauty that emanated from him in waves was incredibly addicting, and you felt the pull of him immediately. it was hard to tear your eyes away, and that scared you.

you had no idea where he had come from, nor did you know how he managed to so quietly sneak up behind you like he did. you definitely would have heard him coming, considering the amount of twigs and leaves littering the ground at your feet.

your heart raced at the possibility of who, or what, he was, your mind trying to go through everything your sweet old grandmother ever told you. some inner part of you already knew what you were dealing with.

“don’t hurt yourself, darling,” the man spoke again, referencing to your mind working in overtime. he took a step forward toward you, and in turn you took a large stumbling step back. he watched you move, chuckling. “I’m jaemin, care to tell me your name?”

“n-no,” you managed to say, your hands clutched at your chest as you tried to calm your racing heart. you swore you saw his eyes flicker a bright aquamarine for a moment before returning back to brown as his smile faltered slightly. It came back a split second later.

“you’re a smart girl,” he purred, most likely realizing that you knew he wasn’t human, inching closer once more. you felt frozen, unable to step back like you truly wanted to, and you willed yourself not to panic. “you know what I am, I presume?”

your lips shook as you opened your mouth to speak, your tongue running over your chapped lips and he watched every single movement, causing your body to shiver.

“I have a-an idea,” you softly whispered, not breaking eye contact as he stopped in front of you. he didn’t say a word, only smiling at you as you stayed frozen in your spot. one word screamed in your mind: elf. you didn’t even have to look at his pointed ears to deduct that. the vibe he gave off was abundantly clear, even if you had never encountered another being of his kind before.

it didn’t feel like he was compelling you; it was more or less your reaction to the immense shock and fear you felt, coming in contact with a creature your grandmother always warned you about.

and it’s all because of your dumb cat.

“l-look dude, I’m just trying to find my cat.” you stated strongly now, holding your ground as best you could as he looked at you intensely, that slightly unsettling smile never leaving his face.

“once it entered the forest it became mine.” he simply retorted, leaning against the tree trunk beside him. “anything that passes the trees here belongs to me…” he paused for a moment, his eyes now glowing a full bright aquamarine, startling you as he seared his gaze through your very soul. “so I guess that means you’re mine as well. how lucky.”

the elf spoke softly, but there was an edge to his tone that made you shiver, paired with his choice of words.

“I-I’m not..” you stuttered, your fists clenched by your sides. was he the ruler of the forest? some sort of elf king?

“you’re not?” he asked, chuckling to himself as he pushed his body from the tree, slowly slithering toward you on his bare feet. “did you not hear what I said? everything in this forest is mine. that includes living creatures,” you had no willpower to move away as he crowded your space, his glowing eyes paralyzing you as his body drew closer and closer. “I wonder what I should do with my new possession.” he smirked to himself, reaching a pale hand out to gently cup your chin, laughing lowly as you instinctively flinched. “you are without a doubt the prettiest thing I’ve seen enter my domain in years, princess. I’ve been waiting for you.”

his last sentence threw you off, but for a moment your brain couldn’t remember the whispers you heard all those years, and it didn’t click. you couldn’t deny that this elf man was attractive; and you couldn’t deny the fact that his voice had your legs weakening with every word he spoke. you cursed yourself mentally for being affected by him, because deep down you were aware of the danger of encountering elves.

thinking back to your cat, you wondered why she would have left the house in the first place. she was lazy and never wanted to really move...unless something was calling her…

your heart seemed to stop beating and your blood ran cold.

“you tr-tricked me…” you said in realization, your eyes widening. “you tricked me into coming in here, using m-my cat!” your voice was panicked and you found it hard to breathe. then, your brain finally figured it out. “you’re the one that’s been whispering to me all these years, aren’t y-you?”

he smiled at you with dark aquamarine eyes, and now you weren’t sure how you were going to get yourself out of this mess.

you weren’t entirely sure you wanted to get out of this mess.

wait, what?, your eyes widened at your own thoughts, where did that come from??

suddenly and without warning, your entire body was grasped in his hold. his hands dominantly gripped your waist and flipped you around so that your front was smacked up against a tree, the sharp bark scratching your cheek as your face was scraped against it.

“you’re my kitty now.” his voice whispered directly into your ear, his breath causing your body to visibly shiver in his hold.

you didn’t mean to whine, you really didn’t, but when he his teeth found your ear and nibbled gently on the skin, you couldn’t hold it in. your legs trembled beneath you as your knees weakened, the feeling of his warm body pressed tightly against your back leaving you wanting more and more.

he pressed deceivingly sweet kisses along your neck, your hands clutching the bark of the tree in response, your nails scratching along the surface. you jolted when you felt his right hand move down your front and nestle between your legs, putting pressure right against your covered center.

“hmm, you want it, don’t you?” he mumbled quietly, his chest rumbling against your back. “your thoughts are so loud, I know you can’t resist me.”

your thighs clenched in anticipation as he ran his long fingers delicately along your core through your shorts, and you let out a breathy whimper in response.

he tsk’d at you, giving your pussy a light slap through the thin fabric before completely drawing it away. “I wanna hear you say yes, kitty.”

his voice was demanding as he spoke, and you couldn’t disobey.

with your eyes glazing over, you gripped the tree trunk tightly and mewled out, “yes!”

you could practically hear him smirk, his chuckling causing you to grow even more wet as he finally slipped his hand down your front and into your shorts. when his long finger reached your bare and sensitive nub, you could help but arch your back, causing your ass to press tightly against his rapidly hardening cock. he groaned right in your ear, his hips bucking and grinding against your behind in time with his strokes against your clit.

“you’re already so wet, darling,” he moaned out, dipping his finger down to circle your entrance. “I could just...slide right in.” with those words, he slipped his index finger into you in one clean movement, his long finger reaching deep inside your pussy.

you cried out when the tip of his finger brushed a sweet spot inside you, and you heard him groan in response, a deep chuckle following.

“good girl,” he muttered, casually slipping his middle finger inside you beside his pointer. the stretch had you throwing you head back, giving him access to your pretty neck. “be as loud as you want, baby. it’s just me, you, and the forest now.”

his hips grinding against your from behind never ceased, and he thrusted his fingers to the same rhythm as his hips. he was literally fingerfucking you; before you knew it he was adding a third finger.

to help with the burn of the stretch, he reached his free hand down and used two fingers to pinch and roll your clit, making you squeeze your eyes shut and clench your teeth at the sudden immense pleasure you were feeling.

it was embarrassing, but you were already so close to reaching your high. you really wanted this feeling to last forever, so you tried to hold it as long as you could.

the noises escaping from you only grew louder the harder he went; the powerful strokes from his hips driving you into the bark of the tree and his fingers plowing deep inside you had you practically screaming.

his lips found your neck and he left wet kisses there, his grains and growls only enhancing your feelings of ecstasy. he sounded like sin, and even though he was an elven boy that you had just stumbled across, you knew you didn’t want him to leave your life. you never wanted to live in a world where you couldn’t hear his moans, and that thought almost terrified you. the effect he was having on you was extremely intense, and you weren’t sure if it was normal, but at this point you were far too gone to care.

“are you gonna cum, kitty?” he strained out, breaking you out of your thought as his hips stuttered against your ass, his fingers still powerfully fucking into you. you could only nod desperately, your throat sore from the guttural sounds you were releasing.

he let out a breathy laugh, causing your walls to flutter around his digits. “then cum. I wanna feel you fucking drench my fingers.”

his words were all it took for you to let go. you screamed as you came, your nails scratching against the tree as your cheek scraped sharply on the bark, most likely drawing blood. your pussy clamped so hard around his fingers that he could barely move them in and out of you, so he drew circles over your clit to help you ride out your orgasm.

his hips pressed tightly against you, and you could feel through your own pants the wet spot on the front of his, indicating that he had cum as well.

after a powerful minute of cumming, you felt your eyes droop in exhaustion almost immediately. jaemin withdrew his fingers from you, wiping your essence on his pants before grouping your waist to keep you from collapsing. you definitely would have fallen if it weren’t for his hold on you.

he gently lowered you to the ground, turning your body so your back was able to rest against the trunk. he wiped at the scratches on your cheek with his thumb, but even though it stung you didn’t have the energy to flinch.

“go to sleep, precious.” he said softly, still stroking your face lovingly. his gentle nature should have set off all of the alarms in your mind and body, but you didn’t have enough energy to care.

in the back of your mind you realized that you probably would never see your cat or your grandmother again, and that you would most likely be trapped in this forest with jaemin for the rest of your days on earth. you didn't want to think about it now, so you took his advice and allowed your eyes to close, dreaming of jaemin and nothing else.

maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

#jaemin smut #nct-writers #neowritingsnet #neothestars #na jaemin smut #nct smut #nct dream smut #na jaemin #jaemin #nct #nct dream #halloweenie special #nct scenarios #nct dream scenarios #na jaemin scenarios #jaemin scenarios #jaemin drabbles #na jaemin drabbles #nct drabbles #nct dream drabbles #nct 2020

[paterson-blue]

Shadow of the Sea: Chapter 1

Summary: Kylo is used to being alone. It's how he's survived this long, in the cold ocean depths. He can take care of himself. Other creatures--other merfolk--are dangerous; he has the scars to prove it. Humans, however, are the worst of all. But one day, Kylo finds he has no other choice but to turn to one for help. The human he meets is nothing like he expects, and all he knows is he wants more. Is he willing to pay the price?

Word Count: 4,394

Warnings: fem!AFAB!reader, plot set up, kylo ren needs a hug confirmed, non-graphic descriptions of violence & bodily harm, brief mentions of blood & wounds, very vague medical descriptions lol, minor character death (happens off screen), oh but there's also one that happens on screen but it's brief, big time ocean nostalgia from your dear author— let me know if I need to add anything else!

A/N: Thank you @paper-n-ashes for beta reading! Icon behavior tbh.

Prefer AO3? I gotcha!

Kylo prided himself on his independence—his ferocity, his ability to fight his way out of every corner. His body was scarred and battle-hardened, but that didn’t matter. It was proof he was a survivor, and it’s not like he had anyone around him to care about his appearance. Most creatures he saw took one look at his massive form and ran.

He was intimidating, all muscle, his fins torn from previous fights. While his skin was pale, his scales were an onyx color; it made blending into the ocean depths easier. He couldn’t understand why merfolk’s standard of beauty was a brightly colored tail; didn’t it make camouflaging more difficult?

He guessed most merfolk didn’t care about that. They lived in large groups, colorful and cheerful and busy amongst other plant and animal life. Not many delved into the cold, murky areas Kylo had made his home. But he’d been there as long as he could remember, and there was no sense in changing things. He wouldn’t be welcome in the warmer waters anyway. They didn’t want him, and he didn’t want them.

So he kept away, and no one dared bother him. Those that did quickly learned not to. He had killed many creatures, and while it was all in defense, his reputation still preceded him. After all, he’d once fought one of the most dangerous predators the ocean knew, and he’d won.

He’d killed a human, after they’d captured him in their net. He’d overpowered them easily, yanked them from their boat into the water; he hadn’t even flinched when their little fishing knife plunged into his side. He’d watched with a furious gaze as the air left their lungs, their pathetic struggling eventually ceasing. Then he’d calmly cut himself loose from the netting. The knife wound had scarred over, but it was just one more to add to his collection.

Yes, Kylo prided himself on his abilities. He had no fear, no weakness; he never ran from a fight.

He was running now.

He’d been foolish. He should have realized why his normal hunting grounds had been so devoid of fish for the past few days—he should have seen the signs, should have been more careful. But hunger makes you desperate; makes you stupid. He hadn’t been paying attention, too focused on the singular fish he’d found.

It seemed to happen all at once. A sudden blow to his head that left him reeling, pain shooting through his skull as he whips himself around in attempts to find his attacker. A searing burn in his side the exact moment he feels a sharp pinch at the back of his neck. His head starts to spin with confusion, the scent of his own blood in the water.

He spots a figure out of the corner of his eye, and his heart leaps into his throat. It was a human, and they had some sort of weapon pointed right at him.

Kylo doesn’t think—he just bolts. They don’t seem to follow him at first, and he doesn’t understand why until he starts to feel the first symptoms of whatever they’ve injected him with. It makes him dizzy, makes his vision start to blur as a sickening metallic taste fills his mouth.

No, he thinks. I won’t let them do this.

He pulls strength from deep within and pushes himself to swim faster, farther. He hears a muffled shout from behind, and oh, they’re pursuing him now.

He swims frantically, skirting around rocks and through kelp forests, desperately trying to lose them even though he thinks he might hear the dull thrum of a boat motor over the thudding of blood in his ears. Kriff, he was so tired. It would be so easy to let the human magic overtake him, to sink to the ocean floor.

Was this death? A dreamless sleep that crept over your senses until you had no choice but to succumb to it? Kylo doesn’t want to die, not like this. Not where they can get to him, at least.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, doesn’t even know where he is until he catches a quick glimpse of a familiar rock formation. His mind is in shambles, drugged and panicked, lacking oxygen as his gills burn with the strain of his labored breathing.

A cove. Not too far from here. Too shallow for a boat, too rocky for humans. A cave to shelter in. Go, swim, fast, now, now, go.

The voice in his head doesn’t feel like his own—it’s frantic, urgent, thoughtless. Usually he was so composed, controlled. The threat of death had turned him into nothing more than an animal; he’s never felt so small.

He ducks and weaves as he swims towards the hidden cove, trying to convince himself he’s doing it on purpose and not just fading in and out of consciousness. If he can just stay awake a little longer, if he can just make it to that kriffing cave, he can die with dignity. Alone and cold, drugged and bleeding, but away from the humans trying to hurt him.

Kylo nearly loses his speed when he breeches the shallow waters of the cove, his mind wanting to shut down now that he’s made it. He forces himself to keep going despite his nausea and lightheadedness. His lungs are screaming, muscles aching; he scrapes his tail against the rocky outcroppings as he searches frantically for the mouth of the underwater cave.

It’s here, it’s here. I know it’s here, I’ve seen it, I mapped it. Where is it?!

His hands snag against an opening, just barely big enough for him to squeeze through, and he darts into it. It’s a tight fit, and for a brief second Kylo is terrified he’ll get stuck and pass out from whatever the humans hit him with—he’ll die, trapped, never to be found.

But then, quick as a flash, he’s through to the other side. The small tunnel opens up into a larger cavern, protected from the elements and decorated with several pools of varying depths. He’d explored it once, curious, thinking it would be a nice place to hide. It was a little too close to humanity for his comfort, but then again he’d never seen this area very populated. He’d figured he’d keep it in the back of his mind for later.

Turns out later was now.

Kylo pulls himself to the edge of the main and deepest pool, looking around urgently through spotty vision. There was a pool in the corner, half hidden by rocks—it looked shallow, but just deep enough to be submerged. Exhaling fast, he hauls himself up and out of the water, coughing and choking as his body tries to adjust from using his gills to his mouth and nose to breathe. It was never an easy transition, and he hated doing it, but right now it was what he needed.

He growls to himself as he pulls his heavy body along the rough stone cave floor, his normally nimble tail a dead weight. If he wasn’t about to faint, he thinks he’d be a bit more graceful. By the time he rolls unceremoniously into the shallow pool, his palms are all scraped up and bleeding. He doesn’t care; barely feels the sting. He’s not really feeling much of anything at this point, head spinning out of control.

Laying like this on his back, head propped up against the ledge of the pool, Kylo gazes up at the jagged rock ceiling. His lungs crackle as he heaves in breaths, heart still pounding loudly. It’s hard to hear anything else, and he wonders again if his attackers are closing in on him. Does it even matter? His dying mind questions. He doesn’t have an opportunity to think of a retort before his body finally breaks, and he succumbs to the drug induced sleep.

—————————————————————

You wake to the familiar sounds of distant crashing waves, whistling wind, and calls of seagulls. After years on the island, the noise was a comfort.

You’d grown up here, in this same cottage by the sea--been raised fishing, hunting for mussels, searching through tide pools. You and your siblings would bike into town to sell your wares at the local market before heading down to the pier to watch the boats come and go. It was a simple life, sometimes a little isolated, but it was good nonetheless. You loved the island and the ocean, and held great respect for them both. If you honor them, they will honor you--at least, that’s what your mother always said.

Your siblings grew up and moved to the mainland, but still you stayed. Got yourself a little apartment in town above the local grocery, worked at the marina as a clerk, and visited your parents on the weekends. When your mother passed, your father followed just weeks later—a broken heart, everyone said. Suddenly, your beloved little slice of heaven—of home—belonged to you.

So you moved back into the cottage you grew up in, a place haunted by the ghosts of memories and the sounds of the sea. If you’re being honest with yourself, you wouldn’t trade it for the world, no matter how many times you pretend to entertain your siblings’ urging to rent the place out. Think of all the money you’d make. It’s the perfect vacation spot.

Maybe so, but you don’t care. You don’t want strangers in your home—not those tourists who come to fawn over the village, who eat up the landscape with cameras without really seeing it, who gawk at the fishermen, who laugh at the prices at the market. They would probably call your cottage quaint and cute. You could picture them tittering over your family photos on the mantle, over the door frame where heights had been marked over the years.

Tourists, who both long for and pity an isolated life on the ocean. Oh, they have it so easy here, away from the stress of the city. Oh, could you imagine living this way, barely scraping by?

No, you didn’t want them in your home, a place so sacred. You didn’t care what money you were missing out on—you got by fine with your pay from the marina, and picking up shifts at the local cafe. You loved your cottage—savored every creaky floorboard, every leaky windowsill. The drip of the bathroom faucet, the howl of the sea wind through the chimney—these were the sounds of familiarity, of safety. No one would appreciate them like you did.

Twisting around in bed, you turn your gaze towards the open window that was letting in a fresh, salty breeze. It was early, the light still dim and grey, the air a little chilly. It makes you want to curl back up under your covers, catch a couple more hours of shut-eye. It was your day off, after all; you could afford to sleep in.

Except.

You sigh, scrubbing your hands over your face as you remember what your yesterday brain had planned. You’d told yourself you’d get up in order to gather mussels at low tide. There were plenty of tide pools around, especially in the caved area of the cove. It was your family’s little secret—the hidden grotto was all but invisible from the outside. The only reason you even knew about it was because your brother had been too adventurous for his own good as a child, always getting into places he shouldn’t.

Mussels, clams, seaweed, probably fish in the deeper tide pools—maybe some sea urchin you could sell at the market. Your stomach growls.

Well, that’s that.

Groaning, you haul yourself up and out of bed, wincing at the cold hardwood on your bare feet. You bounce on your toes, shivering, goosebumps appearing on your skin as you pad over to close the window. Despite growing up here, you were always surprised at the temperature. You stubbornly let in the breeze at night, all bundled up under your covers, pretending when you woke it would be nice and warm.

But nope, not here; even in the dead of summer the mornings were chilly. Sometimes you dreamed that you lived on one of those big, luxurious, heated beaches—hot sun and white sand as far as the eye could see, no craggy cliffs or rocky shores. Eh. You probably wouldn’t like it much anyway, too used to your own environment.

Glancing at the clock, you quickly throw on some warm clothes, half-assing your regular morning routine before grabbing your tide-pool hunting essentials: a flashlight, knee-high waders, a large bucket, and your trusty fishing knife. You take a deep breath at the front door, bracing yourself for the chill. Just think of the feast you’ll have later. And you can reward yourself with a hot bath and long nap.

It’s not too long a distance from the cottage to the rocky shoreline, and while the low tide has revealed the tempting sand leading towards the rolling waves, you head towards the jagged outcropping to the left. Years of following the same path means it doesn’t take you long at all to find the hidden entrance and carefully make your way into the cavern.

In the middle of a sunny day, light shone in through various cracks in the ceiling, glinting off the water and creating flickering reflections against the stone walls. Sometimes you came here just to think, or to take a dip in the largest pool. The water was always warmer here, protected from the full power of the currents by the rock face.

Now, however, it was dark—only the dimmest bit of grey morning light trickled in. You flick on the flashlight, humming softly to yourself. The melody echoes off the stone walls, and you set your bucket down at the closest tide pool, readying yourself to hunker down and get to work. The beam of the light scans the various pools as you turn to get your knife from its holder, and something catches your eye. It’s not much, and honestly if you weren’t so familiar with the cave you probably wouldn’t have noticed the dark shape in the far corner pool.

At first, you do a double take, eyes sweeping over the little red-tinged puddles on the floor. Blood. You grip your knife, mind racing with possibilities. Was there someone in here with you? Surely not. No one ever came out here. Swallowing hard, you take a couple steps towards the corner, torch in one hand and knife in the other. As you get closer, your gaze tracks the diluted blood trail into the pool, and at first all you notice is the black scales and fins of a fish. The grip on your knife loosens just a little, the fear of a possible threat fading.

It's a big animal, you can tell that even as you make your way over, and you wonder idly how it got in. You knew, logically, that the cave connected to the ocean somehow, but you can't imagine the tide being so high for a fish as large as this one to find its way into the back corner. You’re focused on this conundrum as you round the ledge that’s been shielding the animal from your full view--so much so that it takes you more than a couple moments for your mind to compute just what it's seeing.

The tail is thick and muscular, decorated in obsidian scales that lead to delicate looking fins at the bottom. There were smaller, fan looking fins on the sides of the tail--they were all ripped up, as if they had been torn in previous fights. Your brain clocks all of this in seconds but doesn’t dwell, because it’s focused on the top half of the animal--creature--merman.

Merman. A fucking merman.

The ebony scales at the waist fade seamlessly into pale skin and lean muscle, revealing a long, firm torso. If you weren’t so aware of the tail, you might--might--think he could pass for human. Well, except for the webbed fingers and razor-sharp nails adorning each of his hands. He’s half submerged in the water of the pool, dark hair covering part of his face so you can’t see it.

You stand there, frozen, staring, not quite knowing what to do. You weren’t… scared; weren’t even very surprised aside from the initial shock of seeing him. You’d grown up hearing stories, traditions, tales—it was more than folklore here on the island. Some of the elders believed in merfolk more than ghosts, more than aliens, more than god.

Mr. Mackenzie told tales of mermaids luring in his shipmates as prey, drowning them. You always thought they were just stories designed to scare children away from dangerous tides—and maybe they were. But other accounts, you weren’t so sure of.

It was the wonder on Ms. Fraser’s face when she recounted the long-ago memory of swimming along sandbars with a girl who could breathe underwater. It was the quiet reverence of Mr. McDougall’s voice when he whispered about removing an old fish hook from a merman’s tail. It was the tears in Mrs. Buchanan’s eyes when she insisted merfolk rescued her husband from a fishing boat wreck.

You believed them. You always had, even if you’d done it silently, bashfully. You knew those who still made offerings to the ocean and to the beings that dwelled within the depths. Your island community believed in things not seen, but passed down through generations of storytelling. It was your history, kept alive despite first hand encounters becoming few and far between.

Except, here it was—your own little slice of history, right in front of you. If you took a couple more steps, you could reach out and touch it.

Is he breathing?

The little voice in your head brings you back down to your body, and a sudden fear overtakes you. You can’t let him die—if he was even still alive to begin with. You glance nervously at the pinkish trail of blood leading to the pool; the sight makes you reach some sort of resolve.

Hyper-aware of the claws on his hands, you kneel down beside him, hesitating only briefly before you settle your hand on his large bicep. He doesn’t stir, and your stomach twists unpleasantly. Your hand slides down to his wrist, and while you can admit you aren’t an expert on merfolk anatomy, surely you’ll be able to feel a pulse from the spidery blue veins under his pale skin.

Relief washes over you in a wave when you do, indeed, find a pulse—slow, but strong. Okay, not dead then. Still, he doesn’t move, so you take it upon yourself to move his damp hair out of his face, curling it behind his prominent ears.

He’s handsome.

You feel yourself flush, immediately chastising yourself for the thought. This was—best case scenario—a complete stranger who was wounded and in possible danger. Worst case scenario… you didn’t want to think about. Needless to say, it was no time to be thinking about his level of attractiveness.

You force yourself back into action, cupping his head as you hold your hand under his nose. His breathing is steady, and you gently lay his head back where it rested on the rock ledge. Your fingertips brush against something, and you frown as you realize he has a lump on the back of his skull—as if he’s been hit. You can only hope it hasn’t done too serious damage; it wasn’t like you could really take him to the hospital.

Your attention moves down his body, and you make yourself bypass the gills in his neck in order to properly gauge his wounds. Minor cuts and scrapes littered his skin; from the number of scars decorating his form, you figure these aren’t a big deal, no matter how nasty they look. Not compared to the gash on his side, at least.

You wince when you see it, the delicate flesh torn open and ragged. The cut makes you think it’s from some man-made weapon, and you shake your head in disbelief. Who would want to harm a merman? Around here, it would be blasphemous to do such a thing.

Blood no longer seeps from the wound; you hope that’s a good sign—and that the salt water has somewhat cleaned the area. You think it may have needed stitches, but you’re no doctor with the ability to do such a procedure. If you're being honest with yourself, it’s probably far too late for stitches anyway. The wound would be another nasty scar, likely similar to the one marring his face, but the area isn’t red with infection. That’s a good sign, right?

You sigh, feeling helpless. You want to do something for the creature. There’s only one thing you can really think of. Chewing on your bottom lip, you study his face again. He still seems unresponsive, and you can only hope he stays that way a little longer.

The short trek back up to your home feels the longest it’s ever been, and your legs and lungs are burning by the time you rush through the front door, having run the entire way. You heave in breaths as you pack some supplies into a bag. It wasn’t much, but you should be able to use the waterproof gauze and antibiotic ointment to dress the nasty-looking scrapes on his hands and chest.

You hesitate for a moment before going into your bathroom and grabbing the waterproof pillow you had in the tub. Maybe it was silly, but you hated thinking about him lying on the hard ground for fuck knows how long. You almost grab some food for him—maybe the fish currently thawing in your fridge—but you decide not to. You weren’t sure what he ate, and there was no telling when he’d wake up anyway.

Your breathing has just settled back to normal by the time you’re jogging back to the cave, careful not to slip on any of the wet grass and rocks. The sun starts to peak out of the morning clouds, letting pale beams of light warm the grey morning. The cavern is illuminated slightly better when you enter; you find you can lay the flashlight at a distance and see just fine.

The merman is still asleep, and you feel a little relieved. You aren’t exactly sure what will happen when he wakes up—for all you know, you’ll return later in the day to find him gone. As it is, you plop down next to the pool he was in and get to work patching him up the best you can.

Taking the towel you brought with you, you dab at his scrapes, trying to dry them a little before applying the ointment and then carefully using the gauze to cover the wounds. His palms are so torn up that you wrap them completely, your brows knitted the entire time. It must hurt, but still, he doesn’t stir.

Finally, you’re left with the gash in his side. You debate with yourself as to whether you should cover it or not—if you even can. The front of his torso was out of the water with the way he was laying, but that could change at any second, and any real pressure on his body would cause him to sink into the pool.

Your urge to help him wins out in the end, and you decide you’ll try to bandage it to protect it from any further irritation, despite knowing water would seep in regardless. You lean forward, extra careful not to lose your balance as you pat at his pale skin with the towel once more. It’s an awkward angle and slow work, you trying your best to be gentle with him.

You add as much ointment as you dare to the bandaging, not wanting to put too much onto an open wound, before fixing the gauze to his torso with some waterproof medical tape. There. Sure, it wasn’t going to work a miracle but at this point you weren’t sure what else to do.

He’ll be okay, you tell yourself. He’ll be okay.

You take a moment to watch the rise and fall of his chest, reassured by the movement. Your gaze again drifts to his tail in fascination—you hope that, maybe, you’ll come back later and he’ll be awake. Maybe he’ll be friendly, maybe the two of you can talk. It’s illogical, you know. This wasn’t some fairytale, this was real life. You honestly just hoped he didn’t try to rip you to shreds on sight.

It’s with this thought in mind that you shift away from him, telling yourself you can’t sit and watch him all day. You have several other pools to collect mussels from, breakfast to cook, chores to do. You’ve done enough, and you have to trust that his body will do the rest—you refuse to entertain the idea that he might not make it.

Sighing, you pull yourself further away, but then remember the pillow you’d brought along. You grab it quickly before shuffling back towards him. He’s got a large lump of seaweed shoved haphazardly under his head in what you assume was a desperate attempt to soften the rock face underneath.

His damp hair is surprisingly soft when you gently lift his head to clear the ground of debris. You can’t help but run your fingers through it gently, brushing it behind his ears, almost trying to soothe his subconscious. You settle the small foam pillow in place, and slowly let his head and neck rest against it. You hope it makes some sort of difference, though you know it might be a childish thought.

Your task finished, you force yourself away from him once more, even though you suddenly ache to continue touching him. Picking up your things, you continue on your mission of prying mussels from each tidepool. You move slower and quieter than you normally would, shooting the merman furtive glances every few seconds.

By the time you’re finished with the last pool, you can’t find an excuse to linger any longer. He was as safe as he was going to be. The only thing left to do now was wait. You spare your new charge one last lingering look, then grab your things and head back to the house.

______________________________________________________________

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#kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x fem!reader #kylo ren x afab!reader #kylo ren #kylo ren fic #merman!kylo #merman au #multi chapter #tori writes #feedback always welcome & appreciated!

[amintyworld]

I'm Like You - Origins SMP Oneshot

A/N: So... Origins SMP may be over but that won't stop me from posting this-! :D

Origins SMP please come back

Anyway here's some hurt/comfort more on the fluffy side. - Minty

TW: Blood/gore, mention of death, kidnapping, mention of chopping one's wings off, mention of selling body parts, almost drowning, cursing. (Let me know if I need to add anything else!)

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

Phil remembered the day they found him - he was tangled in some seaweed and reeds, floating along in the water, leaving a trail of crimson red in his wake. The teenager's right wing was a shamble of blood and feathers, bruises and cuts littering his skin that ignited Phil's anger - he had half a mind to find that damn village and set it ablaze. But, his mind made sure the boy was the priority. Phil untangled him, thankful that the ocean hadn't let him float out to sea, and pulled him on land, quickly searching for a pulse and practically sighing in relief when he'd found one. Phil wondered how long the kid had been out here - he felt ice-cold to the touch, skin ghostly pale.

He remembered, holding the teenager close in his arms as he took off in the air, wondering why. Why would someone hurt a kid, a child, for something they couldn't control? Why would someone have so much hate in their hearts to land deadly hits on a defenseless person? Why then, after everything they did to him, did they leave him in the river to die? Phil never really got an answer that night as he returned toward Ghostbur's mansion on the mountain. He guessed that maybe the world just didn’t have an answer, or rather, they just didn’t have an answer he wanted to hear.

Phil’s roommate, a good-natured phantom called Ghostbur, practically rushed the kid upstairs to a bed, grabbing supplies before Phil even had a chance to explain what happened. “Ghostbur, you really shouldn’t-!” Phil huffed as he launched himself to the second level, grabbing his friend by the arm, feeling his friend’s body shake with adrenaline, emotion. “Wil, he’s got a broken wing - wings are very sensitive and extremely delicate, we need to be careful.” His hand reached up to steady his phantom friend. “Can you grab a couple of potions, bandages, as well as a needle and thread for me? I’ll work on cleaning him up.”

The phantom took a deep breath, silently phasing through the floor beneath his feet to grab the items Phil requested. He understood Ghostbur’s worry - damaged wings for winged creatures could quickly turn detrimental, it was a natural part of who they were, how they felt, and sensed danger around them. Without it, they’d feel incomplete, empty, but most importantly - they’d be in their most vulnerable state.

Phil’s fingers were soft and light as he cleaned out the wounded wing, picking out and straightening feathers that were stuck, misshapen, or out of place. Gently, using lukewarm water, he washed the dirt, rocks, and dried blood from the wound, careful to move slowly so as to not cause alarm to the kid. Ghostbur floated up next to him, placing the things he asked for on the bedside table, crossing his arms, and looking over to the teenager. “Is he gonna be okay, Phil?”

“I…” Phil sighed. “I dunno. The wound’s deep, half his flying feathers are gone… thank gods whoever left him had a shit aim, it looks like they were trying to take the wing off at the source.”

“Can you fix it?”

“...I can try.”

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

Tommy’s head pounded, his body wrapped in a comforting warmth that practically screamed at him to sink into. His muscles ached for rest, but Tommy knew he needed to get moving. His head ached so much it made his brain go fuzzy as he struggled to remember what happened yesterday. He and Tubbo were moving to go collect some honey… Did he fall asleep again?

Tommy would admit it wouldn’t be the first time he found a good sunlight patch to catch a nap and the shulker hybrid had to carry him back to their base on the mountain. How long had he slept? Why was he still tired?

His ears perked up as he heard shuffling around him. His instincts began to flare, sending signals up his spine. Wait… the hunters… the hunters took him… Tubbo’s in danger-

He felt someone touch his wing, gently moving it toward themselves. His wing… they tried to take his wings, they wanted to sell them for money-! Tommy’s eyes snapped open. He wasn’t home. He didn’t know where he was and a stranger was touching his wing.

dangerdangerdanger-

Ignoring his body’s protests to rest, he leaped up, surprising the attacker as he tackled him toward the wall quickly to restrain him, pinning his neck with his arm. A crash sounded behind him but Tommy didn’t care. He was getting out of here and saving Tubbo no matter what. His eyes bore into the ill-intended stranger, ready for a fight. “Where am I?!”

The stranger’s eyes flicked up toward Tommy’s, at first matching his intense gaze before quickly softening, silent as he became acutely aware of the razor-sharp talons digging into his leg. “You’re in my house.” He did his best to keep his voice calm. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Where’s Tubbo?”

“Who-”

Tommy slammed the man back against the wall. “Don’t act dumb you fucker, where’s the shulk?!”

“I don’t know, okay?! Just-!”

Tommy’s eyes flicked over toward the window - an escape! He needed to get out of here, clearly Tubbo got taken somewhere else if the stranger didn’t know him. He needed to get free and… and come up with some kind of plan...yeah! Adrenaline pumping like mad from the close encounter, the stranger noticed his gaze as realization hit him.

“Wait… hold on, you really shouldn’t-!”

Tommy felt the wind flow underneath his wings, perched on the window ledge. They were achingly sore - who knows how long he’d been trapped here? Moving to crack a tense spot in his back, Tommy felt a sense of relief. He smiled, knowing that his wings wouldn’t be sore for much longer. They just needed to stretch.

Phil rushed forward, an inch too late as Tommy leaped from the building.

The teenager stretched his wings out to catch himself on the breeze, confident for the span of at least a minute. He closed his eyes like he usually did to better focus. Why couldn’t he feel his wings picking him up? Why wasn’t his body doing what he needed to - it was as simple as taking a step! Just stretch and glide on the breeze.

Stretch, and…

For the first time since the avian learned to fly, Tommy found himself crashing down onto the grass. Shame welled up in his stomach, paired with confusion. Hearing the door bang open behind him added to it all a twinge of fear. He stumbled, trying in vain to gather his bearings. Ignoring the sting of scratches from the crash, he ran into the forest.

“Wait! Mate, just wait for a second!”

The wind picked up through the trees, tangling through hair and setting practically every nerve on Tommy’s wings aflame. There was danger. He needed to fly. He needed to fly away, but… but he couldn’t. He was trapped and alone with hunters chasing him down to finish the job they started. He couldn’t stop running. He couldn’t, because if he did he could say goodbye to flying ever again. He’d never grow his wings back, and he’d look like a useless disgusting human.

He’d be normal.

Flying was the only hybrid skill, the only uniqueness about him. Tommy would rather die than ever have that stripped away from him. Chopping away bone, muscle, and feather - all in the interest of earning a few gold coins! Well, fuck them. His body barely running on energy as it was, his legs gave out on him as he fell to the ground again.

No. Please.

He heard footsteps, flipping around to see the blonde man. Pure fear gripped him for the first time in his life. He scooted backwards as the man tried to approach. Another pathetic attempt at escaping - why was he even trying anymore? His back hit a tree trunk, his wings shrinking back, as scared as he was. Yet, the blonde man moved closer.

“Stay back! Stay back, or…” Tommy struggled, quickly moving to grab a rock, holding it up in some sort of threat. As if a rock could take down a hybrid hunter. “...or I will mess you up, bro!”

The blonde man stopped walking forward. “Look, I know you’re confused and scared, I would be too. But I promise, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Liar! I won’t let you take them!”

The man’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Take them…? I…” He looked down at the teenager in sympathy. “I don’t want your wings, I swear!”

“Bullshit!” Tommy yelled. “I know your game, stop acting so innocent! You can’t lure me in, you can’t make me trust a single word you say, hunter!”

“I’m not... I’m not a hunter, okay?” Phil said, stepping closer and making Tommy tense. He sat down four feet away from the teen, taking a deep breath before shouldering off his green robe, leaving the white tank. Immediately, a pair of translucent, metallic wings unfurled from his back, so large Tommy almost felt intimidated. Tommy wanted to say something, but words died on his throat. Phil shrugged his shoulders after stretching his wings out looking up toward the avian. He awkwardly smiled. “...well mate, I’m like you.”

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

General Taglist (Tell me if you want to be added/removed!):

@bones-sprouts

@benzel

@foolishcaptains

#osmp #osmp!wilbur #wilbur soot #osmp!tubbo #osmp!tommy #tubbo #tommyinnit #tommyinnit and tubbo #osmp!phil #philza #dadza philza #my writing #hurt/comfort #osmp drabble #osmp fic

[sergeantsporks]

Another Shot at Life

Rating: General Audiences, Gen

TW: Child abuse, emotional manipulation

Ao3

Hunter accidentally makes his way into the human realm and can't get back home. But he's discovering that might not be such a bad thing.

Ch 6/7: Fall into Your Nightmare

Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5

Hunter watched the portal close, tears rolling down his face. Belos pulled him away.

“Hunter, I thought you were better than that. Really, your lack of loyalty is painful.” He coughed. “Agh—”

Hunter bit back a whine of pain as Belos’ grip tightened even further, and his arm started to go numb and tingly.

Belos steered him back through the hallways to his room. “You are going to stay in there. I will have meals brought up. Do not leave this room.” Belos tugged Hunter’s gloves away. “Oh, and I’ll be taking these, in case you had any ideas about trying to get back to the human realm.

He slammed the door shut and locked it. Hunter’s legs wobbled, and he staggered to his bed, sitting down.

She would have fought for me.

But this had been the right choice, right? Even if Camila and Vee would have fought for him, they wouldn’t have won. How could they?

Red fluttered out of his pocket, chirping sadly. Hunter cupped the palisman in his hands. “We’ll be fine. I still have you, and—this isn’t so bad. If he won’t let me out of my room, then there’s no chance that he’ll send me after Luz, right? Right. Really, this is probably the best outcome I could have hoped for when I ran away. A couple of bruises and not-so-solitary confinement? I’m getting off easy.” He swiped tears out of his eyes. “Yeah. This is—it’s fine. We’ll be okay. And Camila and Vee are safe, and that’s what really matters.”

The door creaked open, and multi-colored eyes glared hatefully at him. Hunter jumped up. “What do you want?”

Kikimora pushed the door shut behind her. Her eyes flashed dangerously, and the coven patch on Hunter’s arm started to burn, glowing red and black. A wave of pain hammered up his nerves, and his vision went blurry.

“Belos might have forgiven your attack on me,” Kikimora hissed, taking a step closer, “but I have not.”

The patch throbbed, and Hunter clutched his arm to his chest, looking around wildly for his staff—but of course, Belos had taken his coven staff away. Red fluttered to him, shifting into a staff, and he swung it towards Kikimora.

She lazily drew a circle in the air, and his staff flew from his hand. Another wave of pain swept up from his arm, and his legs gave out, tears pricking at his eyes.

“Hngh—Kiki—”

“What are you going to do?” she taunted, looming over him. “Fight back? I doubt Emperor Belos will let you get away with it twice. Tell on me? I’ll claim I caught you attempting an escape. Naturally, I had to stop you. Guess who he’ll believe? I’m in the emperor’s good graces. Not you.”

His coven patch faded to its usual color, and Kikimora turned her back on him, striding back to the door. “Just remember your place, Golden Guard.”

The door clicked shut behind her, and Hunter curled into a ball, waiting for the pain in his arm to subside. Red fluttered down next to him, chirping anxiously.

He managed a smile. “I’m okay—that doesn’t hurt nearly as much as she thinks it does.” Hunter sat up, rubbing the patch. “I promise you, we’re going to be okay.”

Xxx

Hunter jumped to his feet as he heard a familiar cough echoing down the hallway. He grabbed Red as Belos burst in. His uncle’s chest was heaving frantically, and cursed goop dripped from his face.

“Give me—the palisman,” he rasped.

Hunter’s heart stuttered in his chest, and he clutched Red close to his chest, backing away. “You said I could keep it if I came back,” he accused.

“That was before your disobedience caused me another attack,” Belos snarled, holding a hand out, “Give it to me!”

Hunter shook his head. “N-no.”

Belos lunged towards him with a growl, making a grab for Red with a hand that was half liquid. Hunter turned his back to his uncle, shielding the bird. Belos’ grasping hand slammed into his back, and all of the air rushed out of Hunter’s lungs with a whoosh. He staggered forward to the window, launching his palisman out. “Get—out of—here—” he wheezed.

Belos ripped him back from the window with a roar, reaching out the window for Red, but the palisman fluttered out of reach, diving down away from the window.

Belos gasped as more and more of his body shifted into a goopy mess. Hunter scooted backwards, but the room wasn’t big enough, and Belos’ curse lashed out. Hunter rolled to the side to avoid one flailing tendril, but another one caught him, throwing him back into the bed. His head hit the frame with a crack, and everything went a little fuzzy. He didn’t know how long he was lying there, but when he came to, Belos was back to normal, breathing heavily.

Hunter pulled himself into a sitting position, his head spinning. He tucked his head between his knees, willing the sharp pain to go away.

“You should have… given me… the palisman…” Belos gasped, “Hunter… you know… better… than to set off… the curse…”

Hunter closed his eyes, sick to his stomach. “Camila s-said… you shouldn’t blame me…” he whimpered, rubbing the back of his head.

“What was that?”

Hunter hugged himself, his shoulders shaking. “N-nothing.”

“Hunter, Hunter, Hunter. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to be the bad guy. I hate to be the villain. And if you’d just listen the first time, things like this wouldn’t happen.

Belos put a hand on his head. Hunter was sure it was supposed to be comforting, but the touch sent another spike of pain hammering through his skull. He whimpered, and Belos shook his head, walking out.

“I do wish you wouldn’t make me be the bad guy, Hunter.”

Red fluttered through the window when Belos was gone, tweeting in concern and landing on Hunter’s hand. Hunter retched as his head swam, tears running down his face.

“I—I want to go b-back,” he sniffed, scrubbing at his eyes, “I want—I want—”

Red gently pecked his hand, and flew to the window, chirping.

Hunter looked up. “R-run away again? B-belos would just find me.”

Red tweeted that Belos couldn’t possibly search the whole isles, and there were plenty of places to hide. And people who would help him.

Hunter staggered to his feet, stumbling to the window. “How?” he croaked.

Red shifted into its staff form, flapping its wings. The staff floated, and Hunter hesitantly climbed on, clutching onto the staff for dear life as his palisman took off, shooting out the window.

To their credit, they made it all the way to the wall before Kikimora swooped next to them on a massive hand demon.

“Return to your room, or I will be forced to take action against you, Golden Guard.”

“Where does she keep getting those?” Hunter muttered. He nudged them down into a dive, aiming for an arch that was just a little bit blurry—how hard had he hit his head?

Almost immediately, the patch on his arm burned, sending a shockwave of pain up his arm. Hunter fell off of the staff, tumbling to the ground. Red stopped, fluttering back to him as Kikimora strode across the ground towards him. With a wave of her hand, ropes appeared, snaking around Hunter’s arms and dragging him back towards the keep.

Kikimora ‘tsked.’ “The emperor will have to hear of this. A good thing I was here to stop you—if you’d gotten out of my range of sight, I wouldn’t be able to activate your patch.”

“What—a shame.”

Red dove down and pecked at Kikimora’s head, shrieking and undoing her hair tie so that her hair fell into her eyes. Hunter bolted as his coven patch returned to normal, his palisman fluttering after him.

HUNTER!

Hunter froze as Belos’ voice echoed around him. Red chirped for him to come on, hurry, but Hunter couldn’t move.

Belos was angry.

Really angry.

Hunter hadn’t known the difference until now. Before, it had always been a cold, calculating anger. He could pin it now more as… Displeasure, maybe?

But this was angry.

At him.

Before it had just been disappointment. Now? Now he was driving Belos up the wall. Belos was actually going to lose it at him.

His mind screamed at him to run, go, go, go, but his legs wouldn’t move as Belos strode towards him, huge and rageful. One hand reached out and snatched Red out of the air, and finally, Hunter could move, fueled by blind panic.

“G-give it back!”

“No. You can’t be trusted with it. Running away, Hunter? After I gave you another chance? This creature of wild magic is a bad influence on you. I will be taking your pet away until you prove you can be responsible.”

Hunter grabbed for Red as the little bird struggled against Belos’ grip. “No!”

Belos grabbed his shoulder to stop him, adding a new layer of bruises. “Stop this at once,” he hissed, “You are behaving like a child. I raised you better than this!”

He squeezed Red tight, and at the cardinal’s chirp of pain, Hunter stopped struggling.

“You will return to your room,” Belos hissed, “You will stay there. If I catch you trying to run away again…” he squeezed Red just a little harder. “…just don’t run away, Hunter.”

Hunter nodded. “Yes, sir,” he murmured in a hoarse whisper, trudging back through the palace while the coven scouts and guards whispered. He struggled to latch the door, his head spinning, and after the third miss, he gave up, kicking the door, then hopping up and down on one foot in pain with a yell.

Hunter flopped back on his bed, tears pricking at his eyes.

“I want to go home.” The whisper escaped his lips, and panic built up in his chest. He wasn’t ever going to get out of here. Belos would keep him locked up forever, and he would never see Vee or Camila again, and he was trapped, and he couldn’t get out, and no one here cared about him, and he would die here, alone, and no one cared, and he was trapped.

Hunter unbuckled his chest plate, throwing it across the room with a certain kind of savage pleasure as it clanged against the floor. It had used to feel protective, like a shell shielding him from the world. Now it just felt restrictive, like a cage. The cloak followed, the coven symbol on the pin gleaming mockingly at him.

Hunter scrambled down halfway under his bed, pulling out the clothes Camila had given him, and he changed into them, pulling the over-sized hoodie over his head with a sigh of relief. He pulled the hood up and retracted his arms into the sleeves, curling his knees to his chest and chewing on the ends of the hoodie strings.

The fabric smelled like the Noceda house.

Hunter buried his face in his arms, his stomach nauseous.

I want to go home.

Hunter drifted off into a half-dazed dream, voices from coven guards floating in and out.

The Golden Guard is just a kid.

Whoof. He doesn’t look too good.

You think he’s sick?

What is he wearing?

Hunter blearily opened his eyes. Ugh—his head was still throbbing, little pulses of pain emanating from the back of his head where he’d hit the bedframe. Hunter shuffled to his first aid kit, pulling out a pain patch and slapping it on the back of his neck. The pain in his head subsided, but the disoriented, displaced feeling stayed.

“Golden Guard.”

Hunter flinched at Belos’ voice, turning around to see his uncle looking down at him, and casting an irritated glance at the messy heap that was his uniform. Hunter drooped. “Sir…”

“What. Are you wearing.”

Hunter tugged at the ends of his hoodie sleeves. “I just thought—that if I was staying up here anyway,” he said in a small voice, “and if I wasn’t going to leave, that it didn’t really… matter what I wore?”

Belos’ lip curled. “Put your uniform back on. Then you will join me. There is something I want you to see.”

Belos swept out, and Hunter sat down on his bed with a whump, still dazed and groggy. He stared bleakly at his uniform, then started to change with a sigh. Was there any point in resisting? He couldn’t run away, he couldn’t get back to the human realm. Maybe… maybe if he just stopped acting up, things could go back to the way they’d been. Belos would stop being angry for running away eventually, if he just behaved himself. If he proved that he could still be loyal, if he could prove that he was still useful… maybe he would be able to leave the keep again. He could work on getting his palisman back. He just had to get back into Belos’ good graces.

Hunter folded the human clothes up neatly, burying his face in the hoodie for a minute, then pushing the pile back under the bed. He poked his head out into the hallway, where Belos was waiting.

“Come along, Hunter.”

Hunter trudged next to his uncle, zoning out as they passed through hallways until they came to the dungeon. Hunter blinked, swallowing hard. Well, he hadn’t thought life could get much worse, but apparently, Belos didn’t care about appearances anymore.

But Belos led him to the very back, to a solitary cell.

“I thought you’d like a reminder of your time in the human realm,” Belos purred.

Hunter peered in the cell, and his heart stopped in his chest.

Vee.

Chained to the wall, bruises showing on her face.

He shook himself, forcing himself to think through it. No, that was Luz, not Vee. Which wasn’t ideal either, but he knew Luz could handle herself. “What—what is she doing here?”

“She’s attempting to build a portal. I want to know how close she is.” Belos put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him towards the cell. “And you are going to find out for me. After all, you’re some sort of human expert now, hm? You spent time inside of her home, you know her family.” Belos held out his coven staff. “Prove to me that you are still loyal. Prove that you can leave the people in the human realm behind. Find out about her portal by any means possible. Perhaps if I see you can be trusted, I’ll even return your palisman to you.”

That clicked in Hunter’s numb mind. Prove his loyalty—even if he wasn’t sure about it himself, doing this could get that loyalty back, right? Prove he was useful, prove that Belos could still use him, and then he could get back to some semblance of normal. He couldn’t get back to the human realm—he might as well stop moping about it and make the best of his situation.

But that was Camila’s daughter!

That was Luz, the first person to be nice to him!

It didn’t help that she and Vee were identical.

Prove that you can be trusted.

Xxx

Luz lifted her head as the cell door creaked open. “Back for more?” she quipped shakily.

Hunter shuffled in, closing the door behind him. “Uh. Hey.”

“Oh, are we playing good cop, bad cop? Warden Wrath was the bad cop, now you’re the good cop? Fun.”

Hunter looked down at the ground, his knuckles white on his coven staff. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said softly, “Please just tell me about your portal.”

“Ehehehe, no.” Luz twirled a finger in the air. “Props to you for asking nicely, though, that is a nice change.” She glanced at Hunter. “Hey—you okay?” his face was pale, way too pale, and his eyes didn’t seem… quite focused. Then she spotted the healing patch on his neck. “Whoa, what happened to you?”

“I’m supposed to be asking the questions.”

“What, I can’t express concern for my jailer?”

His hands shook. “You’re in a much worse position, here. You’re not looking great, either.”

“Well, yeah. I’m the prisoner. Hunter. Seriously. Are you okay?”

Hunter glanced at the door. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

Right, that was a big fat lie.

“I—I met your mother.”

Luz felt a steely cold settle over her soul. “If you’ve hurt her I will—”

“No! I…” Hunter ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t do this. Luz. Please. It is really, really, really important to me that you tell me about your portal.”

There was a certain kind of desperation in his voice that made Luz pause. “…Hunter?” she asked quietly, “What happened?”

He glanced back at the door again. “I—I went to the human realm,” he said in a low voice, “I met Camila and Vee.”

Luz’s eyes widened. “And? Are they okay?”

“They’re fine.” He hesitated, then took a deep breath. “I stayed with them for a while, but Belos came to take me back, and everything since then has just been… he has my palisman, Luz.” Hunter’s chest heaved frantically, and he ran a hand through his hair. “He has my palisman, and I keep making him really mad, and Kikimora-!”

“Hey—Hunter—whoa—deep breaths.”

He looked like he might just be sick on the floor of her cell, but he inhaled deeply.

Man. She couldn’t just leave him like that—and she definitely didn’t want Lil Rascal to get hurt. “Okay. Look. Hunter. You can tell Belos that I’m nowhere close to finishing that portal, and I’m nearly out of titan’s blood, anyway.”

He squinted at her. “Is that the truth?”

Actually, she still had a good amount of titan’s blood left, but Belos didn’t need to know that. “Unfortunately, yes. Hunter, look—I hope you get your palisman back. I really do. But also… I’ve broken out of here before. I’ll do it again. Just… don’t try to stop me when I do, okay? I don’t want to hurt you, I think you’re dealing with enough right now. But I will fight to escape. I can promise you that.”

He rubbed his arms. “I tried to run away,” he admitted in a whisper, “It… didn’t go well. Best of luck, but… don’t get your hopes up. If Belos wants you to stay here, you won’t be going anywhere.”

Xxx

Hunter blankly watched Red hop around his room. He should have felt happy he’d gotten his palisman back. Or at the very least, he should have felt relieved.

But he just felt tired. He’d won this time. He’d gotten Red back safe and sound, he hadn’t even had to hurt Luz to get the little bird.

But it wasn’t over, he knew that. This was just a respite until Belos confiscated his palisman again, or Kikimora decided she wanted to hurt him again, or Belos decided he wanted something else.

And it was just going to keep on going.

Best behavior. Prove he was trustworthy, banish the lingering feelings from his time in the human realm. He could do this—he’d always had to claw his way to the top, he could do it again.

He heard yelling and explosions outside, and he went to the window. A small figure in a blue cape was running for the walls, knocking out coven guards right and left. Luz.

Hunter leaned on the windowsill with a small smile, watching her progress. She made it all the way to the walls, and slapped down a glyph, a pillar of ice rocketing her towards the top.

Only for an attack from Kikimora to knock her off. He winced as she hit the ground, and coven guards grabbed her arms, dragging her back inside. The smile faded from his face, and he closed the window.

Red warbled sadly, and Hunter sighed.

“Yeah. I hoped she’d make it, too.”

He waited about an hour, then rifled through his first aid kit, pulling out a few pain patches. He slowly pushed the door open, checking both ways for anyone coming down the hallway, then crept out, palisman on his shoulder. He snuck through the hallways and down to the dungeon, unlocking Luz’s cell door with a creak, and slipping inside, checking one more time for guards.

She lifted her head when he came in, wincing. “Oh. Heyyyyyy. Are we… doing another interrogation?”

“Shh.” Hunter pulled up her sleeve, putting a few pain patches on her arm, then rolling the sleeve back down. “Those should make it hurt less,” he whispered, “They’re more effective if you put ‘em on the back of your neck, but Belos or one of the guards would see it there.” He shuffled back, rubbing his arm. “Sorry I can’t do more, but I… I’d get in really big trouble.”

She managed a faint grin. “Awwwww thankssss, Hunter. You’re not… such a bad guy.”

Hunter glanced out the little window in the cell door. Still no one out there. Of course, Belos could be watching at any moment, but he was pretty certain that he would have heard an angry voice telling him to get out if he was. “Do you think… isn’t Amity Blight going to come for you?”

Luz shook her head. “I… was on a solitary training retreat… to the Knee… my friends won’t expect me back for a while.” She blinked at him. “Thanks for… for helping me.”

“’s not a lot.” Hunter turned to go. “I’ll leave you alone, now. In case you want to try escaping again.”

“No, wait!”

He paused at the door, looking back at her.

“Stay and talk to me? How’s my mom?”

Hunter sat down on the floor, crisscross with his hands on his ankles. “She misses you. She wants you to come home. But she and Vee are… they’re happy, I think.”

“Yeah?”

“Your mom, she… she took me in. Even after she found out I was your enemy. She was nice to me. I… I was happy there.”

“Why’d you come back?”

Hunter shook his head. “Didn’t have a choice. Belos came for me, and if I hadn’t come… he just would have hurt your mom and taken me back anyway. He can go to the human realm whenever he wants, he has the door, and he has enough blood in the key to go back as many times as he needs to drag me back.”

Luz was quiet for a moment. “What if… he didn’t have the key?”

“Wh-What?”

“If we got the key away from him—”

Hunter stood up so fast it made his head spin. “I can’t steal the key! Are you insane?!”

“Insanely clever! Ah, come on, I’ve tricked him before.”

Hunter shook his head. “I want to escape. Not get myself killed. Or worse.” He went to the door. “The sooner you come to terms with the truth, be better off you’ll be. We’re both stuck here—or at least, you are until your friends realize you’re missing. If you keep trying to escape, you’ll just keep getting hurt. Belos doesn’t let prisoners go.”

Hunter left the cell, closing and locking the door behind him. He turned around, and yelped. “E-emperor Belos!”

His uncle shook his head. “Hunter, what are you doing down here?”

“Getting… the human… to trust me?” he tried.

Belos held a hand out. “Palisman.”

Hunter grabbed Red, holding him close. “I swear I wasn’t going to help her escape, I promise!”

“Palisman, Hunter. I don’t want to keep taking your pet, but if you keep proving you can’t be trusted, then I have no choice.”

Hunter backed up, pressing his back to the cell door and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Hey, goop man!” Luz called from inside of the cell, “Leave him alone! I’m the problem!”

Belos glanced in the cell. “Quiet.”

“No! You leave Hunter alone, he didn’t do anything!”

Xxx

Luz waited, holding her breath. She was not going to be the reason Hunter or his palisman got hurt—he’d just been trying to help her.

Belos’ eye stared into her cell. “Are you really so eager to rush your own petrification, human?”

“Oh, please, is that supposed to be scary? You’ve already failed to kill me several times.”

Belos straightened. “If you two enjoy each other’s company so much, why don’t you have a little sleepover together?” he said in a voice steely with rage. Luz heard a yelp from Hunter, and then the sound of a door locking. “No—wait—Uncle, I promise I won’t come down again, don’t—”

“Goodnight, Hunter.”

The dungeon door closed behind Belos, plunging them into darkness.

Luz could hear ragged breathing from the cell next to hers. Oh, boy. Not again. “Hey—Hunter, buddy. Deep breath. Deep breath, buddy. You’re okay. I’m right over here. It’s just a dark cell, it’ll be okay. Deep breath.” She heard Lil Rascal’s chirp. “Hey, wait, you still have your palisman? Just break out!”

“Why, so Belos can catch me and lock me up somewhere else?” Hunter snarled miserably.

“Oh. Yeah. At least here you’ve got company, eh?”

She heard a deep sigh.

Xxx

“Hey. I’m sorry I got you in trouble.”

Hunter leaned against the wall. “I haven’t been out of trouble since I got back here.”

Luz chuckled. “That doesn’t sound like you, golden boy.”

“Thanks for… for standing up for me. If he’d taken Red away again I—” Red snuggled against him, and Hunter scratched the palisman’s head. “Luz? Why did you—why did you run away from home?”

Luz was quiet for a moment. “I… I wasn’t trying to run away. Not really. I always planned on going back, I just… everything happened so FAST, and then I’d destroyed the portal—or I thought I did, anyway. I just… I never fit in. Guess it sounds like a pretty silly reason to run away to you, huh?

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just—I mean—I love my mom a lot. And I know she tries her hardest. And I did feel bad about leaving her behind—it was just that the rest of my world… I didn’t fit in, and I wanted something more. But Belos is horrible to you. I’d understand if you wanted to run away.”

Hunter curled his knees up to his chest. “It wasn’t always like this. It used to be—well, better. He wasn’t ever as caring or kind as Camila, but he… he wasn’t this bad. But then I ran away to the human realm, and I just… He’s really upset, you know? Like I’m sure your mom is, too. It’ll settle down eventually, I guess, he can’t be mad forever. It would probably help if I stopped getting into trouble.”

Luz was quiet for a moment. “But what if it shouldn’t settle down?”

“What?”

“Hunter, you don’t have to take this! Fight back!”

Hunter shook his head, nauseous at the thought. “It’s not… You can do that, Luz, you live in a world where a—a plucky attitude can get you out of a bad situation, and good wins, and the power of friendship or whatever can do anything. That’s not how it is for me, Luz. If I keep standing up, I’m just going to keep getting knocked down. It doesn’t matter what the issue is, the fight doesn’t end until I’ve lost. I can’t win, Luz.”

“So you’re just going to give up?”

“Yeah, okay? I’m giving up. It’s not just about me anymore—I have to watch out for Red, too. If I keep fighting back, Belos will hurt me, he’ll hurt Red—it’s just not worth it.”

“But—”

“I’m done talking about it, Luz.”

“Fine.”

There was a small explosion from the cell next to him, and Luz burst out into the open with a small grin. “What if you didn’t have to be here?”

Hunter’s heart started to thud in his chest. “Wh-what?”

Luz drew a glyph on the floor, and vines erupted from the ground, ripping his cell door off of its hinges. “I’m breaking you out, Mr. Tragic, let’s go!”

“I—I can’t, he’ll catch us!”

Luz shrugged. “Oh, well.” She drew another glyph, and a block of ice rose up, encasing him.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“Kidnapping you!” Luz slapped a fire glyph on the back of the ice block, and Hunter shot forward towards the door, Luz clinging to the back.

“Stop it! You’re going to get us both in trouble!”

“Belos’ fault, really, for leaving you down there with me.”

They shot up the stairs, and Red fluttered after them, turning into its staff form. Luz grinned. “Good idea!”

She used a plant glyph to tie Hunter’s ice block to the staff and sat on it. “Let’s go!”

“Traitor,” Hunter grumbled to his palisman, but hope fought his panic. Luz had nearly made it last time—and with his palisman, she had a way to get over the wall.

They zoomed through the hallways, Luz immobilizing coven guards along the way. Hunter’s heart pounded, leaping up to his mouth. They were going to make it—this time, they were really going to—

A blast of magical energy barely missed Luz, and she dove to the side, glaring down at Kikimora, who was standing next to Belos, her finger smoking. “Hey!” Luz yelled angrily, “I’ve got Hunter—you really going to risk me dropping him?”

For a moment, just a moment, Hunter thought he saw Belos hesitate. But then he nodded to Kikimora, and another energy blast slammed into Luz, knocking her out of the sky and severing the vines securing Hunter to the staff.

Wind whipped past his face as he fell, but he barely even noticed, his mind numb.

Belos would let him die rather than escape.

Red dove down with a shriek, slamming into the ice block so hard it broke. Hunter grabbed the staff, hanging on for dear life as he scrambled to get into a sitting position. Then he angled the staff down. “GO!”

They dove down towards Luz as she fell, wind whistling in his ears. They shot past her, and Hunter pulled up. Luz slammed into him, and they plummeted again, Red straining to hold them both up. They skidded into the courtyard, tumbling to a stop, and Hunter flopped on the ground with a groan, Luz unconscious on the ground.

Belos glided over, peering down at him as coven guards hauled Luz away again. “Excellent work, Hunter.”

“I almost died!” The words burst out of his mouth before he could stop them. “You were going to let me die!”

“I knew you could handle it,” Belos said dismissively. His eyes glinted. “Besides, I won’t negotiate with rebels, and she should learn that.” He started to walk back towards the keep. “Clean yourself up, you look a mess.”

Red tweeted anxiously, hopping up to him.

Hunter hauled himself into a sitting position with a wince, picking up the bird. “’m okay.”

Red chirped again, glancing in the direction the guards had taken Luz.

“I know—I want her to get out, too, but I just… I don’t think she can make it out of these walls, the perimeter is just too secure.”

Hunter watched after Belos, the gears in his mind quietly clicking.

But what if there were a way for her to escape without ever leaving the walls?

Xxx

Luz was half asleep when she heard it. A thump and a yelp from the guard that Belos had permanently posted, then the click of a key in a lock. She somehow just knew from the sound that it was Hunter, even before he poked his head in.

“Okay, we’re getting out of here.” He unlocked her from the wall, and she fell, her legs wobbly. “Whoa!” He caught her, lowering her gently to the floor and pulling out a couple of the pain patches he’d used before, pasting them to the back of her neck. “I’m going to get you home.”

“Home?”

Hunter held an arm out, and his palisman fluttered through the door and landed on his arm, the portal key in its mouth. He took the key. “You’re taking the portal out of here, back to Camila. Oh—and I’m coming with you.”

Luz blinked as the aching in her muscles and the throbbing in her head subsided. “How’d you get that? And what about Belos, aren’t you worried he’ll see us?”

“Well, to answer both of your questions…” Hunter winced. “Let’s just say that I set up some traps specifically designed to set off his curse, and Red lured him in.” His face paled, like what he’d done had just now caught up to him. “Ohhhhhhhhhh, he’s going to be so mad.”

“Well, we’ll just have get out of here before his curse recedes,” Luz said confidently. She hauled herself up. “Lead the way!”

They crept through the hallways, Hunter jumping at every sound.

And then Luz heard it.

A drip, drip, drip, and ragged breathing.

Hunter went white as a sheet, and he turned to face the noise, jabbing one finger behind him. “Down the hallway, giant doors, can’t miss it. I’ll misdirect him and meet you there.”

“Hunter are you—”

“Go!”

Xxx

Hunter took a deep breath and tucked Red and the key into his pocket as Belos shambled towards him, the ooze of the curse dripping on the floor.

“U-uncle Belos, you shouldn’t be out like this, let me help you get somewhere—”

“The human,” Belos rasped, “She’s escaped. I can feel it. And your palisman is helping her.”

“Then she’s—she’s probably outside, again, making another go at the walls, we should—”

“No. She’s… trying to return home. She has the key.”

Hunter ran around the emperor, standing in front of him. “But she doesn’t want to go home! She likes it here, besides, why would she be so stupid as to head deeper into the keep, that doesn’t make any sense, it makes way more sense for her to have stolen the key for the blood in it and she’s probably going to keep trying to make her portal, I mean—”

“Step aside, Hunter.”

Hunter backpedaled, keeping himself between Belos and the throne room door. “Really, we should go to the walls and look for her, she tends to make a mess of the guards, and—”

Belos’ curse lashed out, throwing him against the wall. Hunter collapsed in a dazed heap, blinking stars out of his eyes. “I said to step aside,” Belos growled. He put one hand on Hunter’s head. “Just stay down, Hunter. I can still pretend you had nothing to do with this. You don’t have to implicate yourself with her.”

He strode towards the door, leaving Hunter crumpled on the ground. He slowly pulled out the key, clutching it tightly.

She’s… trapped.

Xxx

Luz hopped from one foot to another. “C’mon, Hunter, where are you?”

The door creaked open, and she brightened. “Hunter?”

“I’m afraid Hunter will not be joining us,” Belos’ voice oozed.

A chill ran down Luz’s spine. “What did you do to him?” she demanded.

“You and your family turned him against me,” Belos hissed, “I’m sure it will distress him, but you must be eliminated.”

Luz backed up, reaching for her glyphs. “I’m not so easy to take down!”

Belos tilted his head. “Maybe not. But there’s someone else who posed an even greater influence on him—perhaps you will escape.” The emperor leaned in. “But I know exactly where to find your mother and the basilisk.”

There was a thump, and a singular boot thudded to the ground, bouncing off of the back of Belos’ head. He turned around. “What—”

In a flash of gold, Hunter appeared just above Belos, his palisman in its staff form and cackling with red electricity. Hunter swung the staff, catching Belos right in the mask. Belos fell, and Hunter landed, breathing heavily. “Don’t—you—touch—them—” he snarled.

Luz crowed, half-tackling him in a hug. “You did it!”

“Huh?”

“You stood up to him, Hunter, you fought back!”

He glanced down at Belos, face pale. “… I did. Oh, titan. I am so dead.”

“Then let’s get out of here!”

Hunter clicked the key, and the portal hummed, opening up. Luz raced back into the human realm, turning back. “Come on!”

Hunter was busy tugging on his shoe, hopping on one foot. “Hang on—”

He took a step forward, then stopped, his eyes widening and darting down.

Luz glanced at his feet.

They were covered in Belos’ cursed mud, holding him in place. The emperor groaned

Luz started forward. “Hang on, I’m coming, Hunter!”

He held his hand out. “No! If you set foot back here, he’ll get you, too!”

“I’m not just going to leave you!”

Hunter held up his staff. “Take care of Red.”

Luz felt tears press at the corners of her eyes. “Hunter—”

Hunter tossed the staff through the air, and Luz caught it, catching the palisman as it transformed. “Are you sure?”

Hunter squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face away. “Belos will kill it if it stays. And I… I don’t want it to see this.”

Red shrieked shrilly, snapping and clawing at Luz’s hands, struggling to get back to its witch.

“Hunter, just hang on,” Luz begged, “I can help you get out—we’re escaping together!”

Hunter shook his head. “Belos can’t have the portal. We can’t risk it.” His voice cracked, and he pulled out the key again. He clicked it, throwing it through the portal as it closed. “Say hi to Vee and Camila for me.”

The key clanked to the ground in front of Luz.

And the portal was gone.

Xxx

Hunter watched once again as the portal closed, trapped on the wrong side.

Emperor Belos rose up behind him with a growl, his face melting and reforming and melting and reforming. The cursed mud on Hunter’s feet crept up further, oozing and cold, but also burning at the same time, like acid wherever it touched him.

“You,” Belos growled, “are a horrible, disobedient child.”

Hunter squeezed his eyes shut, his hands clenching into fists. “Then get rid of me,” he challenged.

The mud crept all the way up to his neck.

“No, I don’t think so. I have a much better way to keep you in line.”

Cursed mud covered Hunter’s mouth and nose, and his back arched instinctively. He held his breath as long as he could, but his lungs forced him to open his mouth, and the curse crept in, filling his lungs. Hunter choked and screamed, and then he was falling into an inky black sea. He clawed for the surface.

Willful child, a voice whispered, Just submit. Give in. Won’t that be easier than fighting?

No matter how hard he swam, Hunter couldn’t—reach—the top—

You cannot win this fight. Just give in, and it will all be over.

Despair swept over Hunter, and he let himself sink.

Maybe… it is… easier…

He didn’t know long he was there, sinking into the darkness.

Time was irrelevant.

At least nothing hurt him here. It was just… endless nothingness.

At least it was until a shaft of light pierced through the darkness, and a voice called his name.

Ch 7

#this one is so long asdfghjkl #toh #the owl house #toh fanfiction #my writing #luz noceda #toh hunter #emperor belos #tw: child abuse #tw: emotional manipulation #the golden guard #kikimora

[quirkwizard]

Power Outage

So remember when I talk about the Class 1-A kids getting their Quirks for the first time? Well, I decided to do something similar, but a bit different: completely reversing the Quirks of the various students. And for some extra fun, I’ll be even talking about some changes in personalities as a result and throw in Shinso as well. But before I begin, a quick word: please don’t ask me to do more of these. I’m just doing this for fun and to make jokes, so don’t request more characters for me to cover or ask me to expand upon the ideas I’m presenting here.

Aoyama: An Emitter type that sucks in any energy and light through his naval area, but too much makes him sick. Now whenever his has those little sparkles around him, they are immediately sucked into his stomach. Appropriately enough, he now sucks the fun out of everything he’s involved with.

Mina: An Emitter type Quirk that lets her heal up whoever she touches, making it far less dangerous in practice and far less versatile in application. At least she doesn’t have the bright pink skin. It’s now bright baby blue. A lot more quiet then before, she’s mostly the quiet clumsy type.

Tsuyu: A Mutant type that turns her into a bear. So instead of the highly mobile and versatile frog with a weakness to the cold, this makes her tougher and stronger, but does leave her with an extreme weakness to heat. Now instead of the sisterly frog, she is now the aggressive mother bear. Iida: A Mutant type that gives the user an airplane-like turbine on their back that is fueled by soda. Now all of his clean pressed suits are ruined from the plane part sticking out of his back. Not that it bothers him at all, being a flightily burn out that is very much go with the flow. Ochako: An Emitter type Quirk that increases the gravity of anything she hits with her feet. Instead of the usual glow of her fingers, its now comes with the bass boosted sound effect. She’s now super assertive, outside a few moments, to the point no one can talk to her no matter how much she wants to talk to them

Ojiro: A Mutant type that just gives him a fish tail. It’s just kind of there, mostly doing the same thing as before. He can swim slightly better at least. Even when reversed, Ojiro can’t catch a break. At least with his Quirk. Now that he traded out his gi for a swimsuit, he now gets far more attention then before. Denki: An Emitter that allows him to absorb electricity to get smarter. Now he can finally be in the top percentage of class test scores. It might have taken bending reality and his Quirk, but its the results that matter. He’s basically the new Iida, always charged up about something. Kirishima: A Transformation type that softens his body, making him all rubbery and stretchy. It does turn him into a horrific pile of flesh, but I think it balances out. But that doesn’t bother Kirishima as much, ultimately being quite cold, but confident in what he does and how he acts.

Koda: An Emitter that creates a signal on a target that compels other animals to attack them. He now uses the animals like Pokemon, throwing them out at his opponents. But if anything, he is far nicer to animals as he knows just what they are capable of when they are angry. Sato: An Emitter that works whenever he eats fish, increasing his overall intelligence, but weakening his stamina. Maybe in this theoretical what if, he would be a fish monger instead of a baker. Though going by the whole reversal situation, he would actual be the most interesting man in the world. Shoji: A Mutant type Quirk that gives him large, beautify butterfly wings that hypnotically remove the senses of other people. Wouldn’t really work with his whole ninja vibe that he would normally have going on, but it works great for his new self, who is a materialistic, social butterfly. Jiro: A Mutant type Quirk that turns her eyes into camera lens, able to enhance and record images she sees. It may not seem great, but the other options was replacing her ears with gramaphones. Instead of being a rock snob, she is now a film snob, trying to pry into everyone else’s business. Sero: A Mutant type Quirk that gives the user two jets on their elbows that shoot out flames. Not as good in utility, but way better in offensive measures. And instead of getting crusty, his elbows now set on fire. May or may not have resulted in his pyromaniac tendencies. Tokoyami: An Emitter that makes creature of light from his back, growing stronger in light and in the day time. So not only does on have to deal with the monstrous light creature, but also the fact that it blinds them. Tokoyami is now the most preppy person in the entire class. Shoto: An Emitter that lets him make fire from his left side and ice from his right side. Now part of his face is covered in an all blue ice burn, resulting when his father dropped a vanilla scoop on his son’s eye. His cold hatred is now replaced with a tangible burning wrath thanks to that day. Hagakure: An Emitter that is constantly emitting a bright light off of her body, making it extremely hard to hide, even with several layers of clothes. Now she finally get her wish of being the center of attention. Whether she wants it or not, as she has tried to hide away from the spotlight. Katsuki: An Emitter that can fire out ice spikes from the water in his body via his hands, but it suffers in the heat since he will start to sweat out a lot of water. I imagine his hair would now be an icey blue to match his Quirk. Has a lot more of that broody and calm, though still annoyingly arrogant demeanor.  Izuku: An Emitter type that allows Izuku to take Quirks, but only when people give them up willingly. He also asks politely for them. That’s not part of the Quirk, that’s just who Izuku is. At least old Izuku, this one not demands other people’s Quirks, resulting in no one giving him any. Mineta: A Mutant type that gives him yellow orbs on his hands, capable of firing them out like super bouncy balls. They do stick to the user if they happen to hit them, making it look like they are being eaten by a horde of tennis balls. A lot more bouncy and energetic, he doesn’t have much focus on any one thing.

Momo: An Emitter type that absorbs whatever non-living stuff she comes in contact with, breaking it down into nothing. Using it does make her heavier, making it harder to move and breath when taking too much in. Replaces Mina as the dumbest girl in the class, though more of the “action girl” variety that doesn’t think much through.

Shinso: An Emitter type that allows him to perceive things through other people’s senses, controlling their senses but not their bodies. In spite of his attempts to be a hero, he monologues to no end and has the most evil laugh in the whole school. If anything, this only endears him further to his classmates. It must be that super trustworthy face he has.

#My Hero Academia #Quirks #Midoriya Izuku #Deku #Katsuki Bakugou #Shoto Todoroki #Ochako Uraraka #Uraravity #Iida Tenya #Eijiro Kirishima #Red Riot #Fumikage Tokoyami #Tsuyu Asui #Froppy #Momo Yaoyorozu #Mina Ashido #Pinky #Denki Kaminari #Sero Hanta #Jiro Kyoka #Shinsou Hitoshi

[theultimateultimateweapon]

Kirby: Meta Knight and the Knight of Hades (Chapter 4)

Meta Knight woke up in a strange place.

(Huh…? Where am I…?)

Flowers were blooming all over. However, all the flowers were faded and scentless. It was as dim as before dawn. The sky was gray without sun or clouds.

(Am I… on earth…?)

Meta Knight remembered.

He visited the planet Magnus to regain his treasured sword, the Galaxia. Then, the moment he swung his sword up against his enemy, Beryl…

His feet collapsed and he fell into a deep hole. He realized that it was a pitfall and tried to fly, but his limbs suddenly became numb and he couldn’t move.

As his consciousness left, he couldn’t remember what happened after.

(Then, is this the bottom of the hole…? No, it seems different…)

As he thought, a voice called out to him.

“Hello? New brother?”

“...What?” Meta Knight looked around.

He saw no figure, just a light blue butterfly perching on a flower.

“Who...?”

“It’s me, silly. You’re not going crazy, I’m on the flower.”

The butterfly fluttered its wings.

Meta Knight was stunned. “The butterfly, are you the one talking?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Meta Knight tried to bring his face closer to him.

The butterfly spoke with a kind voice. “My name is Papi. Brother, what’s your name?”

“...Meta Knight.”

“That’s difficult to say. Are you okay with Meta?”

“...That is fine. Tell me, what is this place?”

“Didn’t you notice? This is Hades, the underworld.”

“Ha...des…?”

“The world after death.”

Meta Knight was shocked by Papi’s words. “After death…!? Did I die?”

“You are dying, to be precise. Meta, you’re wandering between life and death. You have to get used to this world if you’re going to die properly.”

“This isn’t funny!” Meta Knight shouted. “I want to go back. Return me to the original world!”

“It’s not so easy. Once you’re here, it’s difficult to go back.”

“...But…!”

“Well, take your time. After a while, Meta, you’ll become familiar with this world and you won’t want to go back to the original world.”

“...Don’t be silly!” Meta Knight turned his back on Papi and started walking.

Papi fluttered and followed. “Where are you going?”

“To find a way back.”

“Eh? You won’t find one. You should just get used to Hades.”

“You’re too noisy!”

Meta Knight was confused. No way could he be wandering between life and death…

Papi seemed to have a friendly personality but he was constantly talking.

“Meta, your body took a heavy blow in the original world, so now your body is dying.”

“...”

“But you haven’t died yet, so your soul is still calling for your body. Over time, your body will die and you can’t go home.”

Papi’s voice was carefree, but Meta Knight was horrified.

“How much time do I have?”

“Eh?”

“How long until I won’t be able to go home? How much time is left?”

“Um… usually three days.”

“Three days…?”

“Yeah, but in the land of Hades there is no day or night because the sun doesn’t rise.”

“Then, how do you measure the length of the day?”

“That there…” Papi fluttered and stopped at a tree growing on the side of the road.

A gray bud was attached to the tip of a thin branch.

“This is a common flower found everywhere in the underworld. They all bloom together in the day and deflate in the night.”

At that time, the gray buds began to open slowly.

Papi said, “Wow, it just bloomed. That means it’s dawn in the underworld.”

“Then, I have three flower blooms left…”

Meta Knight started walking fast.

There was too little time left. If he couldn’t find a clue within three days, then it was over like he said.

“You have three days for the body to recover in the original world. Even if it’s less than three days, if you die, you’re stuck here.”

“...”

Is Meta Knight’s body still lying at the bottom of the deep hole?

He prayed that his subordinates and Kirby would help him.

Papi spoke with carefree cheer, “If you have any questions, ask me anything. When it comes to Hades, I’m much older than you, Meta. For example, in the underworld, you have to be careful for…”

Then.

Suddenly, a big shadow struck from the sky.

“Waaa!?” Papi screamed. “G-ghost bat! You have to be careful with those! Run away, Meta!”

Meta Knight quickly drew his sword. 

A big, bat-like monster attacked.

Meta Knight jumped high and slashed the monster.

The monster screeched and ran away.

“Wow… woow… wooow…!” Papi rested on Meta Knight’s head and fluttered.

Meta Knight took a closer look at the sword he had in his hand.

It was similar to the sword he had when he fell into the hole, but with a gray blade and no shine. Perhaps it was a sword of Hades, which had no substance.

It would be enough to fight with in the underworld.

Meta Knight held his sword and asked. “There are creatures that live here?”

“No, they’re not living things. They’re residents of the underworld so they’re not alive.”

“...Well, then what was that thing?”

“I’ve just been calling it a ghost bat. I don’t know the real name, but it’s a ferocious monster. No matter where you are, one will attack you.”

Papi finally settled down and began to flutter again.

“Well, the inhabitants of Hades won’t die no matter how badly injured, because they’re already dead.”

“...Really.”

“But if you get seriously injured, you may never be able to fly again. If you see a scary monster like that ghost bat, you just have to hurry and run away…”

Papi flew around Meta Knight.

“Meta Knight is strong! I’m super impressed you beat the ghost bat!”

“...”

“It’s rude to call you Meta, isn’t it? I’ll have to address you with more respect. Hmm… how about big brother Meta?”

“...Stop it. Just Meta Knight is fine.”

“Okay, Meta Knight can be my boss, then!”

Meta Knight thought.

In order to escape from the land of the dead, he would need to know where to go. He would need a guide.

Papi was a strange butterfly, but he didn’t look like a bad guy and might be a suitable guide for him.

“If you want to work for me, then help me get back to the original world, Papi.”

“Hmm, I don’t want you to go back. I want you to stay here in Hades forever.”

“I want to go back. No, I have to go back.”

“...I guess I can’t help it. If that’s what Meta Knight wants, I’ll cooperate.”

“Thank you.”

Meta Knight once again walked down the faded flower path.

He just kept on walking and walking.

In the land of Hades, the sun does not rise, so it never gets brighter or darker. It was just as dim as before.

Gray flowers that signal the passage of time were blooming all over. Meta Knight hurried ahead, careful about the appearance of the flowers.

How long had he been walking? Suddenly, the flowers were slowly deflating.

Meta Knight stopped involuntarily and took a deep sigh.

Papi spoke, “The first day is over! Thank you for letting me help, Meta Knight. I couldn’t find any clues.”

Meta Knight did not answer and started walking again.

“Eh, are you still walking? It’s already night time. Don’t you want to rest?”

“I can’t afford it. And… there’s something strange.”

“What?”

“I’ve been walking all day, but I don’t feel weak.”

It was a funny feeling. He didn’t feel hungry or thirsty, or tired. He didn’t feel drowsy.

“That’s not unusual.” Papi laughed. “This is the underworld. Meta Knight, you and I are just souls. Because we don’t have bodies, we don’t feel any of that anymore.”

Papi’s voice was bright, but Meta Knight’s heart was quiet.

“It’s very convenient, isn’t it? It’s such a mess to eat and drink. Hades is a good place. Don’t tell me you still want to go home…”

Meta Knight didn’t say anything and finally sped up.

“Oh, Meta Knight. Are you sure you don’t want to rest? Even if you’re not tired, you should rest at night.”

“I can’t take a rest.”

“But the night trip is dangerous…” Papi was worried.

A mysterious thing passed by in front of Meta Knight.

It was another butterfly.

A butterfly, slightly larger than Papi, slowly fluttering its wings.

What caught his eye was the shade. Even the light blue color, like Papi’s which was pale, was rare to see in Hades.

Meta Knight couldn’t look away.

The bright red butterfly disappeared as if a flame.

“What was that…?” Meta Knight’s voice murmured.

However, he got no reply from his noisy, chatty guide.

“Papi?” Meta Knight looked around.

Papi was hidden behind a gray flower bud. He appeared quietly in response to the call from Meta Knight. “Did you say something?”

“There’s a red butterfly. Oh, it’s gone.”

“Oh, good…”

Papi fluttered down and perched on Meta Knight’s head.

“What’s wrong? You seem strange.”

“Uh, yeah… I was just a bit frightened, he…”

“What, that red butterfly? What’s scary about it, it was just flying.”

“That’s right…” Papi moved his wings anxiously. “But, that butterfly has a creepy legend.”

“Legend? What?”

“I’ll explain. Let’s take a break.”

Meta Knight didn’t feel like taking a break, but he was worried about Papi’s story.

Reluctantly sitting at the base of the tree, Papi began to speak in a frightened manner.

“That red butterfly is said to react to the voice of a final agony.”

“A final agony?”

“Yeah. That’s the voice someone makes when they die. It’s not normal. Only someone who is incredibly strong reacts to the screams you make when you die.”

“That’s… such an eerie legend.”

“Right?”

Papi flew around in front of Meta Knight’s face.

“He hides somewhere during the day and starts wandering around at night, so night trips are dangerous.”

“It doesn’t seem that dangerous. How does an eerie legend attack you?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve never been attacked. He seems to be able to change his appearance.”

“Change appearance?”

“Suppose a very strong warrior loses a battle and releases an agonizing scream, that butterfly is called by the scream and flies to it. They become possessed and become a knight of butterflies.”

“Knight of butterflies?” Meta Knight smiled.

But Papi kept a serious tone. “It’s not a lie. It’s a famous legend in the butterfly world!”

“The butterfly world…”

“In the world of butterflies, everyone knows of a knight born from the red butterfly and a strong warrior called Morpho Knight. That’s how strong it is!”

“Incredibly… strong…?” Meta Knight was moved.

When he heard of the knight of butterflies he first smiled, but wasn’t anymore.

Red butterflies have an ominous power. When that power attaches to a strong warrior, an unimaginably terrifying knight may be born.

“If they’re truly such a strong knight… I definitely want to fight them.”

Finally, his true goal was found.

Papi was so surprised he turned over. “EEHHH!? Are you serious!? Meta Knight, you really want to fight such a strong opponent!? You’re weird!”

“...You think so?”

“It’s strange, that’s all. Usually I’m careful not to come across dangerous opponents. That’s why the butterfly world taught me not to travel in the middle of the night. Wait… Meta Knight!”

Meta Knight stood up and started walking.

Papi fluttered in a hurry.

“Let’s rest for now! Besides that red butterfly, there are many monsters that roam at night! There will be more and more terrifying things than ghost bats!”

“Wonderful! Let’s find them!”

“Why are you so excited!? Meta Knight!”

“If you’re scared, you don’t have to come. we can split up here.”

“No, no! I’m your subordinate now! Wait, wait~!”

Papi moved his wings together and chased Meta Knight.

(Chapter 3 - Table of Contents - Chapter 5)

#kirby novels #kirby of the stars #kirby light novel #translation #kirby light novel translation #meta knight #papi #morpho knight #Kirby: Meta Knight and the Knight of Hades #Hi Meta Knight! Welcome to the Good Place #I did some research to figure out if papi was masculine or feminine because like i said im new to this and i believe he's masculine... #Papi lacked most feminine speech patterns and had a few masculine/neutral speech patterns #but i hear its more and more common for feminine speakers to use neutral and maybe masculine speech patterns #so again just be patient with me if there are any issues

[masterhandss]

HameFura Manga V6 Bonus SS (translated)

It says “Magical Girl Flag Breakers” and “Our Enemies: The Ruin Four”

Volume 6 Bonus SS - “Magical★Girl Flag Breakers”

Hello! So I snagged a raw copy of Manga Volume 6 on the internet because I was really excited for the bonus story ever since I got raws of Volume 5. For those who don’t know, typically a copy of the manga comes with an extra chapter with Katarina having a dream about different scenarios (V1 was Fortune Lover, V2 is a Highschool AU, V3 is a Fantasy RPG AU, V4 is a Genderbend AU and V5 is a Kindergarten AU), and alongside the chapter of the volume is a image preview of the next story in the next volume.

I couldn't wait to read this one-shot so with the power of google translate, I’ve decided to translate it myself! Please read this one, it’s a very fun one-shot, so much so that I want more of this story XDD (also because it took me half a day to translate this from pictures qwq)

Please do remember to read this one-shot once an official English Release of Manga Volume 6 comes out, and please forgive me for any mistake I made while translating this story to English.

--------

It was a sunny morning that day. I, Katarina Claes, an ordinary high school student, overslept that day and was late for school. While I was dashing to school with a fresh cucumber in my mouth from our fridge instead of my breakfast, was suddenly struck with something hard on the head. I was surprised! I rubbed my head and looked around, but I saw nothing.

I was about to start running again because I assumed that I just imagined, until I heard a voice. "Ouch, I'm sorry I bumped into you", the voice said as I looked up to follow it. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH~~~~" I screamed instinctively as I looked at what looks like a small little doll.

There was a small boy with wings. The boy covered his ears and frowned at my loud outcry. "Oh, I'm sorry" I apologized, also instinctively, but this is turning out to be a really weird situation. What even is this small little boy? It's a really well-made toy or something like that. "I'm not a toy", eh did I say that out loud?

I was surprised to hear a reply, so I asked "Are you a dwarf then?"

"No, I'm a spirit" he said with a matter-of-fact tone. 'Oh, so he's a spirit~' is what I would have said........ 

"Wait, what do you mean a spirit?" I wasn't convinced at all. What do you mean it's a spirit? The little spirit boy begins to explain to me, who was still surprised and flustered, while pointing with his tiny finger.

Well, it turned out to be quite the serious discussion. While a story about an evil organization, the most worrisome part to me was, "So, if the 'planet' dies, what will happen?" I could predict what his answer would be, but it still scared me to hear what the answer was. "If the planet dies, all living creatures here will die" The little spirit replied with an expected answer. When he said that all living creatures will die, does that mean everyone?!

"We will fight and defeat the evil organization with the power we receive from the planet," the spirit declared so bravely. He may look cute like a doll, but he was very cool. I instinctively made a guts pose, "In behalf of everyone, I thank you. Good luck on your fight". "Thank you, but the one who will be fighting is not me--. The spirit boy was interrupted by a loud explosion nearby, where I heard a loud scream saying "Ah! It's a monster!".

When I ran over there to check it out, for some reason, there was something big rampaging in a park just further away. Wait, what? There was a giant bear that appeared out of nowhere?! Around these parts, there could be monkeys showing up, but not bears.

Next to me, the spirit boy was visibly upset. "Oh no, They've already started to appear. I haven't even formed a contract with anyone yet" the spirit boy whispered. What does he mean by a contract? No, its not the time for such questions when something serious is happening in front of us.

"Um, Spirit boy, lets run away, the situation over there looks dangerous". I called out to him, but the spirit boy didn't answer with his eyes growing bigger. "And you, can you help me with my work?" He said as if there wasn't anything happening in front of us. What does he mean help with his work? What is he saying in such a dangerous time like this.

"The Evil Organization".

"?!"

"What happening right now, it's involving the things I've told you about. I need your help, please". "Wait, even if you say it so suddenly like this...." I'm already really late for school, and at this point getting in would be really difficult. I'm in deep trouble. "Please, I can only ask you." I was being stared with such a desperate face and moist eyes, making it really hard to refuse. Aside from that, the noise in the park is getting louder, and I feel like it's really dangerous to stay here.

For now, its best to run away for the time being and listen to him when we get to somewhere safer. I thought and said, "I understand. I'll help you, so lets run away from here first." My words did not even finish until the end. Before I finished, the spirit boy grinned and said, "Okay, then lets form the contract."

The moment I saw his grinning smile, I knew something was weird, but before I could say anything, the spirit boy pulled something that looked like a stick with a flag and asked, "What is your name?" "Katarina Claes". For some reason, my mouth started to move on my own and said my name. Eh, what's going on?

"Then, Katarina Claes, I will appoint you as a magical girl who will help protect this planet". When I shook the flag that the spirit boy had, my body was wrapped in light, and my school uniform changed into a cute and frilly costume. 

"What's this?!" "It's a magical girl costume. Now you have the power to do more than what a hundred normal persons can do".

"Wearing this frilly outfit can make me do that?!" "Yes, that costume has that kind of power. With this, you can defeat the enemy as a magical girl". "Wait, what's a magical girl? and by enemy you mean--" "Ah, it's already here"

As soon as the spirit boy interrupted my words with his own, a giant pink bear doll came out from the entrance of the park.

"What's that?" "That's our enemy. Now, let's defeat it with the power of a magical girl." "Even if you tell me to defeat it--?!"

What should I do? The bear started to launch itself towards us while I was trying to figure out what to do. While it is a stuffed toy bear, it was very big so it's power was quite impressive.

It’ll be bad if I get hit, so I jumped really high unexpectedly in order to avoid it. Wow, the bear looked really surprised by my movements, which are a hundred times faster and stronger than a normal person, and it made the bear look like fool as he gave his all into that attack. What a terrifying bear. That bear tried to attack with a punch again. The bear is very quick for its size. Thanks to this outfit, I can easily avoid his punches, but this can’t keep going on like this.

“Hey spirit, how I can I defeat this bear?”. While trying to avoid the bear’s attacks, I asked the spirit who was watching me jump above. “Oh, that’s right. Point the bracelet at the bear and say ‘Flag Break’. If you do that, you can defeat it”. He seems to have forgotten to tell me this earlier.

I wondered if that was enough, but I did as I was told, pointing my bracelet at the bear and shouted “Flag Break”, and a ray of light appeared from the bracelet. When the light hits and wraps the bear in its entirety, it disappeared after the light.

I coughed while staring at the spot where the bear disappeared, and the spirit who was now next to me said, “Thank you, Katarina. Thank you for your continued support. My name is Raphael”, he said as I held his outreached hand. 

This how I, Katarina Claes, became a magical girl who fights against evil organizations.

And, through this event, I learned that I should not accept unclear requests so easily. I became a magical girl by being convinced in a shocked state by Raphael, and in the months since I became a magical girl, my number of friends seemed to have increased. After several months, I realized that there are more magical girls in my school, such as Maria who was part of the student council and the school’s cooking club, Mary from the gardening club, and Sophia from the literature club. Strangely, all of them are smart and beautiful students. Not only that, they were all scouted by a female spirit named Anne as magical girls. I was only scouted in the heat of the moment, but everyone else are so good at their job, and eventually we all began to get along as friends. Until then, I usually go to school late because I always get lost, but now we all go to school together every day.

“Yes, I tried to turn the flowers in the gardening club as a bookmark, Katarina. If you’d like, please use it”. “Wow. it’s so cute, thank you. Mary has good taste” “Katarina, I’ve brought a book I want to recommend” “You did? I’m looking forward to it. Thank you, Sophia” “Katarina, I brought some sweets I made in the cooking club, please eat some if you’d like” “Oh! Thank you Maria. I love your sweets so much because they are just so delicious”

Just like that, we continue to have fun chatting to each other, when suddenly there was a figure ahead of us. “Hello, Katarina and co.”

A beautiful young man with blonde hair and blue eyes appeared before me. “Wow, you’re here again Geordo” I frowned, but Geordo returned it with a smile. “Today, I will defeat you and make you mine”, that’s when he suddenly changed into a black cloak with a mask; the uniform of the evil organization.

Yes, this handsome young man is named Geordo, he might look like a prince, but he is actually one of the Four Kings of Ruin, part of the enemy organization that we, magical girls, need to defeat. I met Geordo after I had become a magical girl, during my third battle. It was Geordo who summoned enemies like the giant stuffed toy bear and released it onto the city. Since then, I had fought him multiple times as enemies, where he continuously says things like “You’ve piqued my interest. Would you become mine?” whenever he approaches me. Is this a new form of attack? When I reply to him with an attack, he would reply with “One day, I will beat you and make you mine”. 

I don’t know if this is a new kind of attack, but Geordo would typically show up every three days, and now that its the third day, it probably means I need to transform into a magical girl again.

“I hate you” “Yeah, please stop disturbing our good time” “Please pack it up”

Mary, Sophia and Maria all said, as they transformed into magical girls too. “You girls are interrupting the moment between me and Katarina. You girls are in my way” Geordo said, as he raised his hand to the sky. Then, a black circle appeared, with people falling out from it.

“Ouch! Geordo, do you know how many time you’ve been calling out to us recently? I was gonna take a nap”, that was Geordo’s twin brother who scratched his head, the snobby Alan who is also part of the Four Kings. “That’s right, I was on a date with a girl” said Keith, the playboy from the Four Kings of Ruin, who frowned and brushed his bangs. The last one was expressionless, but was looking at the pasta who had fallen onto the ground with a sad face. He is Nicol, the final member of the four who has a magical and mysterious charm to him.

“Everyone, don’t be so lazy. Let’s work together and defeat the magical girls once and for all” Geordo said to them, and they all turned to me in a daze. There’s something he didn’t know about his allies when he called them out.

“Yo, it’s been a long time, Katarina. You’re still playing magical girl?” Alan said. Perhaps he was embarrassed that he had just declared that he would take a nap, because his face was flushed red. I met him during one of my battles.

“Katarina Claes, you’re always so free. It’s so lonely to think that you don’t have anyone to date yet,” Keith said. Perhaps he was shy or was embarrassed by the girl he was just on a date with, because his face was also quite red. I also met him during one of my battles so I’m acquainted with him.

Maybe he was called from a place where he was eating his pasta, and now it had fallen to the ground and splattered, because Nicol had a very sad expression. ”................” “Would you like some of these sweets so compensate for your food?” I offered to him. He gave me such a happy and devilish smile, saying “thank you” as he reached out for one of the sweets. I staggered a bit at the sight. I also met Nicol during one of my battles.

“What are you guys talking about so happily with my Katarina? I called you guys here to deal with the other three magical girls who are trying to get in between us” Geordo said. “What are you taking about? You’re the ones who are in the way of our good time,” Mary lifted her eyebrows and snapped at Geordo, who simply replied to her accusation with a dark smile. “That’s my line. You high school girls who just talk about crap without any meaning”.

“That’s rude, it’s not meaningless” Sophia said angrily. Well this is the kind of thing that Geordo definitely won’t understand. He doesn’t seem to have a prejudice against high school girls... wait a minute, shouldn’t we be fighting? Geordo, Mary and Sophia are quarrelling, Alan and Keith are summoned but have flushed cheeks and are looking away, Maria is sharing handmade sweets to Nicol who lost his pasta.

Recently, every time we confront the Four Kings of Ruin, we more frequently fight like this, without throwing any hands. I even started to wonder if I was still a magical girl, so I tried to look around for our two spirits, before I was interrupted by Maria who offered sweets to me. It was so good that I lost all my will for battle.

“Lady Katarina, Lady Katarina, please get up. It’s time for you to go to school”

What happened to the battle? “Battle? Katarina, you’re sleeping. We need to get you ready for school”, Anne said, bringing out my clothes. “Oh I had  a very strange dream. I was transformed into a magical girl. Not only that, the enemies were Geordo and the others. What a strange dream”.

“What’s a magical girl?” Anne gave me a suspicious look while the adjusting my clock. “Ah, um, a magical girl fights against an evil organization--”

“Katarina, I’m grateful for your explanations but we don’t time for that right now, so I’ll ask about it later after we finish your preparations”. Ann told me, and when I looked at the clock, I knew that it was almost time for class and that I was about to be late. I hurriedly cooperated with Anne and started preparing myself for school. My usual day begins as from that point.

--------

That’s it! It’s a very cute one-shot, and I hope after I post this, maybe it inspires people to write stories based on this au qwq. Volume 7′s oneshot is “Detective?! Katarina’s Office” (Tantei?! Katarina Jimusho) so if thats interesting then i’ll translate that too.

Some unnecessary notes from me if you’re interested in reading:

Since Katarina is the hero and Miri is the leader of the evil organization, I guess if this really was a story then the plot twist is that Katarina is her daughter. I can imagine maybe this story takes place in her old world with her old family (mom, dad, grandma, two brothers) but the difference here is that Katarina is adopted or something like that.

It’s interesting that Raphael is Katarina’s fairy partner instead of Ann. It works since both Kat and Raph use Dark Magic in canon lol haha also because it shows how competent Ann is haha

It’s also cool to see the playboy version of Keith liking Katarina.

Sophia and Nicol don’t seem to be related at all in this version of the story, which I’m cool with. They could also have a Hawkmoth-Chat Noir situation where they aren’t aware of each other’s secret identities (though I doubt it myself since they all transformed in front of the boys, but hey i’m just throwing it out there).

Omg rip Nicol’s pasta. Press f to pay respects

#my next life as a villainess #hamefura #bakarina #destruction flag otome #hamehura #otome game no hametsu flag shika nai akuyaku reijou ni tensei shiteshimatta #my next life as a villainess! all routes lead to doom #katarina claes #maria campbell #raphael wolt #sirius dieke #ann shelley #geordo stuart #gerald stuart #alan stuart #keith claes #nicol ascart #sophia ascart #mary hunt #hamefura au #hamefura volume 6 #mh talks

[tehrevving]

Stop and Stall What’s Safe

When a stray bullet ricochets, Dante doesn't know how to save you. With a last ditch effort, he remembers how the bruises on your skin used to heal after sex, and just prays that it works.

Dante x Reader (Reader is neutral but can get pregnant), Gunshot wounds, Angst, Masturbation.

I had a little bit to drink, and was in mood. So this is like, angst but with a crack premise.

I don't know what to say about this apart from that Reader gets shot, Dante doesn't know what to do and ejaculates on the wound to try and heal it. That's it, That's the premise. Enjoy lol.

Dante’s heart is still racing, even though it’s been hours. You’ve been asleep on his chest for a while now and even though you’re breathing and warm and alive, his head just won’t stop spinning. It had been his fault. He’d almost lost you because he was too fucking stupid to think about the consequences of his own actions. He was terrified, lost in his own thoughts with no idea how to go about not making the same mistake again.

He’d never liked involving you in his line of work, even though of course sometimes he didn’t have a choice. It’s not like he could always keep his lives separate. Dangerous creatures often decided to try and invade his home that he shared with you, though luckily they never seemed to attack while he was away. They would always wait for him to appear before they made their move, he was never sure why, but he was thankful for it. 

In general though, in a fight, you knew what to do. You would hang back, away from the battle, arming yourself with one of the numerous weapons that were stored underneath his desk, or under your desk, or behind some of the artwork. So when a bunch of low tier fucking assholes decided to disturb the peace today, it had all gone according to plan. To start with anyway. 

He’d been fighting them, dispatching the weak ones easily. They were never a match for him anyway, but especially not when he was showing off for his mate. It had been easy, he hadn’t been concerned, or worried at all, until a Chaos had sauntered its way into the office. 

Dante knew that they were fast, far faster than you as a plain old human would be able to handle. So he’d focused his attention on it, trusting you to dispatch any of the small fry if they managed to get close. He’d tried the usual strategy, shoot to stun, and then tear it limb from limb once those sharp spikes were no longer a factor. 

He’d never had to consider the enclosed space before though, while fighting something so fast, so high powered. He’d aimed properly, got it in his sights right in between the eyes. He’d waited until he’d thought the timing had been perfect, but even though he liked to think so, Dante wasn’t perfect. 

He hadn’t been able to anticipate the way that the creature had moved, the way that it had shifted slightly and thrown his marksmanship off. That the piece of shit would shift slightly, throw off his aim, that the thing would start rolling, moving its spines so fast that no bullet would have a hope of reaching it. He never expected the angle at which his bullet would ricochet off it’s shining carapace at full speed. Dante never fucking anticpated that any devil hell bent on destroying him would be smart enough to deflect his weapons straight into your god damn body. 

He’d watched it happen in slow motion, the bullet deflect and start to turn in your direction. He’d seen your eyes widen, but he’d not been fast enough to do anything. Dante had watched as you crumpled to the floor as his stray bullet hit you, he’d watched it part your flesh, and embed itself deep within your abdomen. 

Fuck, he’d been overtaken by an all consuming rage, he’d never felt anything like it before. It was like he wasn’t himself anymore, like his subconscious was moving without permission from his physical body. The entire world around him slowed down as he lost control. He wouldn’t have been able to recall exactly what he had done if you’d asked him, but every single damn devil in the building had been destroyed by his hand within an instant. 

The Chaos was the last to go down, the ultimate subject of his rage. He moved faster than it could react to, his claws ripping it to absolute shreds. It didn’t even get a chance to shriek before it hit the ground, dead, and his entire focus shifted to you.

Dante was by your side seconds after you’d taken his deflected bullet, surrounded by the shrieks of dying devils around him. He grabbed your body before you hit the ground, lying you down carefully onto your back. You had looked up at him, with shock and horror and fear in your eyes, before immediately pressing your hand to the blood pouring from your abdomen. He’d expected to see disgust, or hatred, because he was the one that did this to you, but instead, you’d just been terrified. 

He hadn’t known what to do, he’d just panicked, his entire mind wiped blank. You’d started speaking, throwing him out of the haze that had threatened to overwhelm all of his senses. “Bandage,” you’d said to him, snapping him out of his stupor. “Dante. Pressure on the wound.”

So he had torn the shirt he was wearing to pieces, the fabric didn’t matter in the slightest. He’d ripped the material from his front, wrapping it around his hand. He didn’t know how much pressure to use, how much pressure humans needed, so when he pressed the fabric against your slick abdomen, it didn’t seem to do anymore. 

“Harder,” you’d barked at him, and so he pressed down with the sort of pressure that might have bruised you on a normal day. He didn’t know what to do, he could feel your blood pouring out from the wound, even through the layer of fabric bound around his palm. 

You were surprisingly calm, or maybe you were just in shock. He didn’t know how being in shock felt, or what this much pain might actually feel like. He could be cut in half and recover from it a trace of a scar of course, do he had no frame of reference. “Is it bad?” you had asked him, and he hadn’t known how to reply. 

“Did it hit any organs? I can’t feel anything,” you’d asked him, and in the moment he had ignored the way that a small amount of blood had bubbled up from your throat to your lips while you’d spoken, but now that it’s all over, he can’t help but imagine the whole fucking thing in vivid detail.

He’d tried to think. He knows when his own organs are compromised, it’s a slightly different feeling, but as he’d looked down at you, he’d realised he doesn’t know how to map his own experiences to your body. You’re so much smaller than he is, and you have more organs in your abdomen than he does, don’t you? “I don’t know,” is what he finally manages to say, because he doesn’t know how else to respond. 

“Call an ambulance,” is what you’d said next, but as he’d looked around the shop, and at the carnage his own enraged demon had caused, he knew there was no way anyone would be able to get to you. 

“I can’t. Fuck. I can carry you. I can fly,” he’d said, panicked, desperate. He’d tried to move you, but you had screamed in pain, a sound that he’d never heard before, a sound that tore him in half all the way down to his soul. He’d immediately put you back down, but even then, your screaming hadn’t stopped. 

His entire hand had been wet, your blood welling up around his crappy shirt. He was going to lose you, because he didn’t fucking know human first aid, because he hadn’t fucking thought about his actions and shot a firearm in an enclosed space, against something that could easily deflect bullets at insane speeds. “What do I do?” he’d asked you desperately, but you hadn’t replied. You’d been in shock, and Dante doesn’t think he’ll ever forget how pale your face was. He’d started crying and he hadn’t even noticed. He hadn’t known what to do. 

“I don’t know how to stop the bleeding.” He’d been distraught. He knows the basics, but not how to save you. The pitiful fabric of his shirt had been dyed completely red, and he knows it’s not absorbing your blood anymore, there’s just too much of it. 

He’d pulled his hand away, just to get a look at your wound. It had been bad. The blood wasn’t stopping, and he could see your insides, his bullets are much more powerful than a normal calibre, even a ricochet. He’d willed himself to think as he’d felt your breathing start to slow, and felt your life starting to drift away. Fuck. He wasn’t going to let that happen. 

His brain for some reason, had decided to fixate on when you’re first gotten together. When he hadn’t been able to control himself, and he’d left bruises on your skin. He’d noticed the bruises, felt guilty about them, but then suddenly they’d started disappearing once the two of you had decided to become exclusive, and stopped using condoms, and started pulling out and spilling himself on your belly instead. He remembered the bruises returning though, once you’d confirmed that birth control would still work on his half devil spunk, and he stopped pulling out. 

It had been stupid, and a fucking long shot. But he hadn’t known what else to do, and your lips had been turning blue right in front of his eyes. He hadn’t know how the fuck he’d planned to manage it, but as he’d pressed down on your abdomen with slick fingers, he’d started struggling to undo his fly with the other. 

It had felt wrong, so fucking wrong, as he’d pulled out his cock. He hadn’t been hard, but there had been no other options. He’d started stroking himself, and of course nothing had happened, arousal had been the last damn thing that his panicked mind was expecting. 

He couldn’t keep looking at you, watching the life drain from your face. He’d shut his eyes, imagined you teasing and encouraging him. He’d imagined the way you would bite your lip and look up at him through your lashes while egging him on.  

It had started to work eventually, but he was so worried it wasn’t fast enough. His dick had started to rise and for the first time in his life, as a virile and overeager half devil, he’d wondered if he could ejaculate at half mast.

He’d pulled out all the fucking stops, because he hadn’t known what else to do. He’d pressed down on your wound with one hand, trying to block out the feeling of your heartbeat starting to slow while he stroked himself.

He’d twisted his hand on the tip of his dick, stroking loosely and then putting pressure on the base, before moving back up. Of course he knows how to get off, but it’s completely different under pressure. 

It had been a struggle, but the longer that he had kept his eyes closed and pretended, the easier that it had gotten. It had become easier to convince his penis that this wasn’t a life or death situation, that he was just casually jerking off and not using it as a last ditch attempt to save your life. 

He’d gotten there eventually, though all of his progress had almost been ruined when he had to lift his sticky palm from your flesh. The wet sound had broken his heart. He hated the way that he could hear your laboured breathing start to bubble up from your lungs when he released the pressure. 

He’d just hoped that this would fucking work. 

Dante had taken his dick in hand, lined himself up, and with a terribly reluctant moan, shot his seed all over your wound. He’d tried his best to hold back tears as he watched the white settle over the red staining your skin, watching with bated breath, wishing for anything to happen. 

He’d been able to see it right in front of his damn eyes, that his cum was slowly disappearing, sinking into your wound and reducing the amount of red. He’d watched as the bleeding had gradually stopped, and as your skin began to knit itself back together. 

He’d waited with baited breath, watching as every trace of what had just happened disappeared from your skin, within moments there wasn’t even a scar on your abdomen. The only evidence remaining being your blood staining your skin, and his hands and the floor, and the tears streaming down his face. 

He’d pulled you to his chest, begging for you to wake up, wiping his eyes on your hair. The office had been a disgrace, was still a disgrace. There was blood everywhere, sticky stains from where he’d ripped the damn devils apart, and of course your own life essence, staining the floorboards by his desk. 

Eventually you had stirred though, eyes disorientated and unfocused. You had been in no state to do anything for yourself, but he didn’t care. He’d carried you against his chest, washed the blood off of your now healed skin, and off his own and then gotten you into bed. 

You’d been exhausted and incoherent, immediately curling up against his chest and falling asleep, but his mind couldn’t stop racing. He’d been so fucking close to losing you and he hadn’t even known what to do to give you a fighting chance. 

His last ditch effort had been disgusting, even though it had worked, and he’s horrified with himself. Repulsed by the fact that he’d even considered it, but horrified by the fact that he’d actually been able to get off to you dying. It makes him reconsider everything. 

Dante knows that he won’t sleep at all tonight, but that’s okay. He had to watch over you, and make sure that you don’t stop breathing, that nothing else happens to you. He cries again, his face pressed to the pillow to try and muffle the sounds so that he doesn’t wake you. He vows that he’s going to be better, that he’s going to learn how to save your goddamn life next time, no matter what it takes, and that he’s not going to let anything like this happen again.

#dante x reader #dante #dmc #dmcv #rev writes #my writing

[phantoms-lair]

Mystery March 15: Family

Halfway there W00T

Also this is a continuation of my MSA Holiday Spirits Gift for @worldbeyondtheworld

Arthur jumped at the sudden ring of the phone. He sent it a suspicious look. It was almost midnight, who would be calling? It was too late for even a spam call.

Tentatively,, he answered it. "Hello?"

"Arthur?" A familiar voice asked. It was that friend of Vivi's cousin. Velma or something. "What are you doing up?"

"Why did you call if you thought I wouldn't be up?" Arthur countered.

"I thought Lewis would be up, since he doesn't need to sleep. It doesn't matter though. How fast can you, or at least Vivi, get to Moonscar Island?"

Arthur shifted and grabbed a pencil and paper while he used his shoulder to hold the phone to his ear. "Depends. Where is it?"

"A bayou in Louisiana, near New Orleans." Arthur looked unimpressed.

"You do realize we're in Texas, right? And Lewis is the only one who can fast travel via medium."

"I know, but we're seriously out of our depth here. We were told it was a ghost, we were ready for ghosts. We were not ready for centuries old Voodoo cat people who sustain their immortality by draining the life from their victims, and the zombiefied remains of the previous victims."

Arthur fumbled and almost dropped the phone. "Are you safe now? Is anyone missing?" He stood up and started running towards the bedroom Lewis and Vivi were sleeping in.

"We're all together and all fine, I think. Shaggy and Scooby got slightly life drained, but he seems to be fine now. The cat creatures are dead, but Fred-"

Arthur cursed, Vivi would NOT take it well if her cousin was hurt. "Okay Velma, I just need you to keep it together a little while longer-''

~

"What the Hell?" Detective Bo Neville cried as a giant fox with a young woman and young man riding on it appeared with a fiery skull ghost by its side.

"I thought you were in Texas?" Daphne asked, getting up.

"Magic cheating." Arthur answered. "It's expensive, and I don't mean monetarily. But yeah, this seemed worth it."

"What going on with Fred?" Vivi jumped off Mystery and ran over to the group, only to have her own question answered the moment she saw him. "Okay, I see the problem." she said, extremely relieved.

"As I believe Vivi can handle this, the rest of us should make sure there were no unexpected surprises where the rituals took place. Could you guide us to the site? And not you two,” he nodded at Shaggy and Scooby. “Until you've had a thorough examination, I want you to rest." Mystery asked.

Shell-shocked, Detective Neville led them away.

"So," Vivi said, sitting on the ground, "Tell me what happened?"

~

They were trapped. Unable to move, despite nothing physically restraining them. The wax dolls did their work. As Lena said, they'd have lots of practice.

"Are we supposed to feel sorry for you?" Daphne snapped after they told their tale. "What the pirates did to you was horrible, and I can understand wanting revenge on them. But then you became worse than the pirates, not only killing innocent people and taking their possessions, but trapping their souls too!"

Lena hissed and slammed Daphne against the wall. Fred struggled against his invisible bonds when suddenly he felt a shift.

He was no longer tied in a cave, but on the ground in a gently snowing forest. He got up, no longer restrained, and saw someone sitting on a rock. Vivi? No, that wasn't who this was. "Mushi-obaasan?" he asked.

"Hello again Fred." Her voice wasn't what he was expecting, so different than Vivi's. "Can we talk for a bit?"

"But my friends-" Fred looked around, trying to find a way back to them.

"Time passes differently here. Don't worry, not matter how long we talk, no time will pass for them. Tell me, what did Vivi tell me of the clan your family married into?"

"Vivi said the Yukino Clan were protectors. That they protected people from evil." Fred recalled. "And that you were known for your swordsmanship and winter powers."

"Not bad, but perhaps overly simplified." Mushi smiled. "The worlds of man and magic tend to cross. Sometimes it's peaceful, and other times not. And not always were the yōkai - the magical ones - the aggressors. I and my clan acted as protectors. We protected human from yōkai and yōkai from humans. Though the gift of ice was originally a part of our bloodline, it faded through the generations. Now it only occurs when I deem one worthy. But as the two worlds separated, the need for the Yukino clan to answer the call to its traditional role comes rarely."

"Kinda wish we had someone like that with us now," Fred admitted.

"Funny, you should mention that." Mushi laughed. "Fred, you're family by marriage, and by the love of the family. But would you like to formally join the Yukino clan - ?"

"But I don't know anything about yōkai, except a bit about ghosts. Or how to fight." And he was probably about to die, but Lewis showed that didn't necessarily lower one's combat potential.

"But even not knowing how, would you? For those that need help?" She reached her hand out.

~

Fred's eyes suddenly lost focus as Lena attacked Daphne. Then his arm slowly rose, unaffected by the wax's spell.

"No! How is he doing that?" Simone grabbed his arm and tried to shove it back down. Then his hand suddenly clasped shut and Simone screamed as her claws became frozen in ice.

Fred's eyes sharpened as awareness returned to him. He was back in the cave, but didn't feel restrained by the doll anymore. He stood and could feel the ice thrumming inside him, begging to be let out. He held on to it, though. He was still too close to Daphne and Velma to risk it being let loose. The frost climbed along his arms and fists, but didn't bother him.

He aimed a sloppy punch at Lena, which grazed her shoulder, leaving shards of ice in its wake.

"What are you?" Lena hissed.

"A Yukino." Fred said with a grin. He pushed the ice out from his hands along the floor, freezing Lena and Simone’s feet to the floor. Once sure they couldn't move, he pulled the hair and cloth out of the dolls of Daphne, Velma, and Bo.

"Grandma Mushi?" Daphne asked lightly.

"Grandma Mushi'' Fred confirmed, before Shaggy and Scooby's screams rent through the cave.

They all ran towards the sound, but Fred pulled ahead. He got to the mouth of the cave and felt his heart stop as he saw Shaggy and Scooby in Jacques’ claws. His vision narrowed until he only saw his friends, their bodies shriveling like the zombies that had been chasing them.

The Ice surged through him and he made a jump he certainly wouldn’t have been capable of before. He grabbed Jacques’ head in both his hands and shoved all the ice he could.

The giant cat monster fell over and his frozen head smashed to pieces on the stone floor.

“Like, Ice timing, Fred,” Shaggy said weakly, even as he began to return to normal. “I was beginning to feel like a raisin.”

“Are you guys okay?” Fred asked, trying his best to ignore the very dead body he had just killed.

“Retting rere,” Scooby answered.

“Boys!” Daphne ran forwards and flung her arms around them. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“You okay Fred?” Velma asked, glancing between the frost falling from his fingertips and Jacques’ corpse.

“I have no idea,” Fred answered honestly.

As he said this the zombie surged in. Shaggy and Scooby shrieked and Fred took a defensive posture. But he didn’t feel the same pressure and urgency from the ice he had before.

And the zombies seemed content to ignore them, save for one confederate soldier that helped Shaggy up and another who patted Scooby’s head as they passed.

“Like, what was up with that?” Shaggy asked in wonder.

“The zombies aren’t the bad guys.” Velma explained. “They were the victims, those Simone, Lena, and Jacques killed over the centuries.”

“Zoinks,” Shaggy said, more quietly than usual.

“What do we do now?” Daphne asked quietly.

“I think we don’t do anything.” Fred answered. “I think this is the zombies finding peace.”

As if in response twin screams came from the chamber and Jacques body slowly dissolved into aether. The zombies still lingering in the passage collapsed, their spirits joining a parade of souls floating upward.

The soldier who helped Shaggy up stopped to salute them “Thank you kindly,” he said, before floating upwards.

“What just happened?” Bo asked.

“A lot.” Daphne said simply, and Fred leaned against the cave wall to catch his breath.

The wall froze.

“You have no idea how to turn the ice off, do you?” Velma observed.

The floor under his feet froze.

Velma sighed. “Let’s call your cousin.”

~

“And that’s it.” Fred finished from the center of the ring of ice that surrounded him.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Vivi hugged him, being unaffected by the cold he was projecting. “Now the first thing-” She was cut off by a sudden explosion as violet-tinged fire poured out of the mouth of the nearby cave. “Sounds like the boys are almost done. Now the first thing we need to do is get you a weapon.”

“I think I am a weapon.” Fred waved his icy hand back and forth.

“And that’s your problem.” Vivi explained, “Mushi had her sword and I had my bat. We channeled the ice through them and that made it easier. Putting down or sheathing a weapon is a great way to mentally end a dangerous situation. But you used your hands, and you can’t really put those down. And the fact that you’re still in enemy territory and very freaked out isn’t helping. As far as the ice is concerned, you’re still in battle.”

“But the cat monsters are gone-”

“Oh you have a lot to learn.” Vivi bemoaned. “They’re gone. This is still enemy territory. And this place is steeped in two hundred years of sacrificial magic. That doesn’t vanish in an instant. The boys are making sure no one can access it easily, but it’s going to be a long while before Moonscar Island isn’t steeped in the kind of power the Yukino clan is dedicated to stopping.”

“Evil Cat God Altar is toast,” Arthur announced cheerfully, Detective Neville behind him with a hundred yard stare. “Lewis is checking to see if anything else in the house needs a good cleansing fire and Mystery is negotiating non-hostilities with the cats.”

“The cats?”

“Yeah, turns out they’ve absorbed enough of the magic those three were using to not be normal cats anymore. The general argument Mystery is using is their colony attacked yours first and you retaliated. And that there will be no further retaliation if they don’t start anything.” Arthur explained.

“Can we go now?” Detective Neville asked in a small voice.

“Lewis can melt anything Fred accidentally freezes, so we should be good as soon as he gets back.”

“I’m going to be stuck in Texas again, aren’t I?” Fred asked dryly.

“Yup, you need training. Combat and study.” Vivi said cheerfully. She helped him up and gave him a bone-crushing hug. “And this may be weird to say, since we’re cousins, but welcome to the family, Fred.”

#Ghost Writing #MSA #Mystery Skulls Animated #Scooby Doo #MysteryMarch2021 #scooby doo

[sleepingrenjun]

unravel | ML

A Spooky Collaboration ϟ Myself and @lucaswithnoshirt​ have taken the term ‘trick or treat’ to a new level with this Halloween special collaboration, with each of us writing about Vampire!Mark Lee and incorporating our own trick or treat twist. Who wrote the trick and who wrote the treat? Well, read on to find out… 

Find @lucaswithnoshirt​ ‘s story here! 

Genre ϟ Vampire x vampire hunter AU. Kinda horror, kinda not. Lots of angst, the usual :)

Length ϟ 11.7k 

Pairing ϟ Mark Lee x reader

Warnings ϟ character death (y’all are used to this by now), violence, blood, murder(??), vampires (is this even a necessary warning…?) making out (it gets a lil suggestive but not rly), swearing and a whole lotta angst!

Playlist ϟ unravel playlist

Summary ϟ You want him dead, so why can’t you kill him?

You’ve been watching him for a few days now. Memorising and mapping his movements one lengthy night after another. You’ve never seen his face in great detail; you don’t dare get close enough to allow for that. Not yet. He’s young, that much you’re certain of. If you had to guess you’d say he was in his early twenties – or rather his mortal body was. His immortal being could well have been several hundred years old, although certain habits of his you’d noticed while observing him made him seem somewhat immature, like he was still trying to figure out how to live with his new needs. It’s a shame really, for his mortal life to have been taken from him when he had so much future ahead of him. You’ve no idea how long it’s been since he was turned. He’s only been feeding in this area for a couple of days and before that he’d been lurking near a darkened park on the far side of the city. You didn’t know where he’d been prior to that. 

The sky was an inky blue up above you, the bright light of the moon and all of its stars the only thing illuminating the street that lay before you. He was leaning with his back against a lamppost, looking perfectly composed as he brought a hand up to wipe away some of the blood that was coating the skin around his lips and dripping down his chin. He was a messy eater, you noted. His slightly scruffy jet-black hair draped down his forehead and almost entirely covered his eyes, which you could just make out were glowing a devilish shade of red. You held your breath from your higher-up position, swiftly ducking your head when you saw him sweeping his gut-wrenching gaze over the area you were watching him from. He hadn’t spotted you, fortunately. This is one of the things that led you to believe he hadn’t been turned too long ago – if he’d been an older vampire, more experienced, he would’ve spotted and ended you in less than a second. 

Ordinarily, you’d have made your move fairly early on, the fresher ones were always the easiest after-all, but for some reason you couldn’t quite bring yourself to drive your wooden stake through his chest just yet. He was intriguing, dangerously so. You’d do it soon though; before you got too attached to the routine you’d made for yourself. 

You watched him closely as he took one last pointed look over his shoulder before disappearing within the blink of an eye.

Vampires repulsed you. Your brother had lost his mortal life to the fangs of a blood-thirsty woman when he was just 19. She’d been clever and unsuspicious, luring him in with temptation and deception before drinking the life out of him one gulp at a time. You were young and naïve when it happened; nothing more than a terrified 15-year-old trying her best to keep her breathing to a minimum so as to not notify the creature of her presence. You wanted to shout, to scream at your brother to fight back, but it was too late. 

Ever since then, you vowed to be the glorious end of every vampire you set your fury-filled eyes on; and this young man was the next on your list. 

-

The next night brings nothing much different to the previous. Hours upon hours of standing around and waiting for him to strike, your eyes growing heavy after his second kill of the evening. The unlucky soul had been a sleezy looking man who had to have been nearing 40; his greasy hair and sagging trousers enough to enlighten you on just the kind of person he most likely was, and some twisted part of you thought he almost deserved it when his neck was snapped painfully as the vampire drunk the colour from his skin. Almost. Perhaps that’s the one thing that was keeping you from approaching him, wooden stake in one hand and extermination in the other. His choice of victims was not what you usually observed from a young-looking vampire. 

After another 20 minutes or so, you pinched some skin between your fingertips to try and wake yourself up from the threatening slumber lurking within you, rendering it useless when you stifled a yawn anyway. You flicked your eyes briefly to your wrist, noting that it was now well past 2am.

Casting one last calculating look over to the young vampire who was completely unaware of your presence, you decided to call it a night and head home. You placed your feet one in front of the other as quietly as you could so as to not draw attention to yourself, the action almost second nature to you now, until you were a safe enough distance away that you felt you could tread normally. The air was crisp, prompting you to lift the hood of your fleecy jacket over your head in an attempt to keep warm while simultaneously picking up your pace. It was late October, still technically Autumn but definitely noticeably colder than you wished it was. Leaves had fallen to the ground in a colourful array of oranges, reds and yellows and it made the world look so beautiful that it was dangerously easy to forget about the monsters lurking in the dark. 

You rounded a sharp corner, your eyes dragging along the near-bare looking trees lining the pavement alongside a row of ornate looking town houses. This was a nice part of town, the pristine condition of the properties indicating it was clearly home to some of the wealthier folk. You thought you might like to live somewhere like this someday, a nice big house with no need to worry about noisy neighbours or unpleasant landlords. But as your building came into sight, you were reminded of your tiny one-bed apartment and the constant shouting that you could hear from the people across the hall. 

You were snapped out of your thoughts by the sound of what you thought were footsteps coming up behind you at an inhuman speed, instantly whipping your head around and grabbing the hilt of the weapon hidden on the inside of your jacket. Nothing. You felt a shiver go down your spine, the situation immediately making you feel uneasy. You’d dealt with vampire attacks before and always managed to come out on top, and usually relatively unscathed. You silently told yourself to get yourself in check before turning your head back around, letting out the breath you were holding in when you didn’t see anything suspicious. This was one of the biggest draw backs of your vampire hunting, the constant paranoia, fear, the never-ending feeling that you were being watched or followed; but at least it had managed to keep you alive so far. 

You started walking forwards again, barely making it two steps before a hand wrapped itself around your mouth and another grabbed you by the throat, dragging you away from the light of the main road. 

You struggled to breathe as the unfamiliar hand tightened its grip on your neck, your own hands quickly raising and digging your nails into their ice-cold skin in an attempt to pry the pain away. You felt yourself go rigid when a low voice spoke in your ear, “stop struggling.”

You allowed yourself a small smile, this was perfect. If you could get this man to believe you were weak, feeble even, then he’d be unsuspecting of you. With any luck, he’d let his guard down just enough, giving you the perfect opportunity to strike. 

You let out a whimper, furrowing your quivering eyebrows and forming tears in your eyes. “Please don’t do this.” You hated how small you sounded, but it’s what you needed the man to hear in order for your plan to work. 

The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end as you stilled automatically, your lip quivering ever so slightly under the stranger’s palm. You carefully dropped your hands to your sides, feeling for the blade that was secured tightly in your jacket, hidden from the outside world. 

Despite having control of yourself, you were still aware of the distinct feeling of fear brewing up under your burning skin. No matter how many times you’d managed to slaughter yourself out of situations like this, there would always be a small chance that you would fail, and that thought made you sick. 

“You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you?” The stranger turned you around so that you were facing him, a sick smile on his face as he gazed down at you, fangs visible and eyes darkening to a beautiful shade of red. 

“Bet you’ll taste real sweet.” He dug his fingertips into the sides of your neck slightly before allowing his tongue to swipe over his lips. Had you not been moments away from your bitter end, you would’ve taken more time to admire his unnatural beauty. His cheekbones were sculpted, his silver scruffy hair framing his intricately carved face with a tender delicacy that you did not think someone of his kind deserved. His brows furrowed as he focused on a particular spot on the side of your neck, right by where his thumb was most likely bruising your tender skin.   

“Please, don’t. Please stop, oh god,” you choked out. 

He started lowering himself towards you, and you grabbed your weapon, ready to plunge the blade into anywhere you could reach from your disadvantaged position. 

Suddenly, a voice called out harshly, cutting through the cool air and causing your attacker to faulter for a short moment, thus giving you the perfect opportunity to throw all your energy into shoving him off you, quickly pushing your knife into the spot just beneath his ribcage, drawing it back almost as quickly as it slides in; you couldn’t risk losing your best blade. He cried out in surprise, eyes growing darker and angrier than they had been before. 

“Get away from her,” the new voice snarled. You could see him getting closer from your peripheral vision, but you didn’t dare take your eyes off the rage-filled creature a few mere feet in front of you, clutching at his side with one bloody hand. 

“Fuck off, this one’s mine,” he growled, locking eyes with you. 

“Like hell I am,” you said through gritted teeth, positioning yourself with your knife in a defensive hold, knees bent and ready to spring forward as and when you needed to. 

Your grip on the handle of your knife was turning your knuckles a ghastly shade of white and you could feel bruises beginning to form on your throbbing neck, but you were too focused on trying to get out of this alive to care. The figure in front of you took a threatening step forward, hand no longer clutching his side. He wore a menacing smile on his face even still, despite having been stabbed and interrupted by a stranger who you still didn’t dare turn towards. 

“I thought I told you to get the hell away from her,” the second man called out once more, this time sounding remarkably calm. Unnervingly so. 

“And I thought I told you she was mine?” The vampire before you allowed himself to snap his neck towards the other in anger, his eyes immediately widening in amusement at what he saw, lips curving upwards as he let out a snicker.

“Oh please, give up kid.” He spoke patronisingly. This piqued your curiosity and you risked a glance to the side to see what he was laughing at. You caught a glimpse of a mop of dark hair that seemed to melt into the sky, his stance seeming somewhat familiar to you, but you didn’t have the time to figure out where you knew it from. 

You were pulled back into reality when you felt a pair of hands seize you again harshly, pushing you up against the wall. You felt the faint outline of some sharp fangs touching the surface of the skin, piercing it briefly before he was ripped away from you. Before he could draw even a drop of blood. You allowed yourself a half-second to focus your thoughts. The two were circling eachother like wolves a few feet from you, hunched over. You noticed two sets of red, gleaming eyes. Two vampires, ready to fight to the death just to have a tase of your crimson blood. 

“Move.” You said to the one who had pulled your attacker off you. You’d deal with him later. He looked at you through angry, hooded eyes. He didn’t seem like he planned on listening to a thing you said, so you opted for pushing past him instead. 

It all happened so quickly, although time felt like it slowed as you jumped into the air, reaching for the stake strapped securely against the skin under your shirt with your free hand. A tangle of limbs and hands, stumbling and scratching and pain before your opponent crumpled to the floor with a gaping, bloody hole through his chest. You pulled back, weapon in your trembling hand. Your vision was tunnelled and your hearing somewhat cloudy and ringing as a result of the adrenaline coursing through your entire being at one hundred miles per hour. You were panting as you watched his lifeless body turn a pale grey before he disintegrated, leaving an ashy pile of death where his body had been. 

You touched your fingertips to your cheek, pulling them back to see blood dripping down to your knuckles. You’d have to deal with your scratched-up form when you eventually got back home. You turned back around to see the other vampire still standing there wearing an entirely unreadable expression. You immediately moved yourself to be in a defensive position, fully expecting him to fill his eyes with the fire in his soul and dive straight for you. When he didn’t move or even speak for a few seconds, you stepped closer to him, knife in one hand and stake in the other. Your hair was falling into your eyes and you could feel blood running from your cheek to your lips to your chin. You wiped at the back of your face with the back of your sleeve. You imagined yourself, you probably looked absolutely feral with your hair out of place, tears in your clothes and blood from yourself and one other smearing along the surface of your bruised skin and your ruined jacket. 

“Woah, woah.” He backed up when you stepped closer threateningly, panicked eyes piercing right through you. 

His back hit the brick wall of the alley you’d been dragged into, and he had the audacity to look frightened for a mere millisecond before he corrected himself and went back to holding an unreadable expression. You drove your hand forwards, letting out a noise of frustration when he caught your wrist with little to no effort in one of his larger hands. You did the same with the other hand since you were holding a weapon in each, but it was to no avail, he caught that one too.

“Why are you trying to kill me? I’m trying to help you!” He sounded genuinely surprised and slightly confused.

“We both know that’s a lie.” Your eyes locked onto his challengingly, you could hardly believe this guy. 

“Seriously! I would never-.” He let out a groan of pain, not having noticed you drawing your blade back before driving it into his arm. He shifted away from you.

“Fuck, what is wrong with you?” He tossed the knife from his wound onto the floor a few feet away, clutching his arm with the opposite hand and hissing as he drew it back to reveal his palm, now sticky with blood. 

“What’s wrong with me!? You’re the one who drinks human blood to stay alive!” You seethed, eyes wide and alert as you stared at him. 

“I’m not drinking yours.”

“That’s because I’m not letting you.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you. Stop looking at me like that.” He sounded exasperated and you almost laughed. You’d never met a vampire quite like this before. Usually they were straight to the point; upfront about their intentions to kill you after they’d finished consuming every last drop of your sweet, sweet blood. But not this one, no, he seemed so dead set on earning your trust and getting you to drop your guard just for long enough. 

You allowed yourself a moment to take him in, since he didn’t seem to be in any particular rush, you figured you might as well take your time too. His unkempt raven hair was slightly parted in the middle, falling over his eyebrows and kissing the tops of his cheekbones. His doe-shaped eyes had calmed down, now a deep, warm brown rather than the intense red they had been earlier. His skin was pale, lifeless, you supposed. Literally. His form seemed strong but not built in the way that some were, if you didn’t know any better you could have easily mistaken him for a university student. 

He took a cautious step towards you and you felt your cheeks warm a little at the thought of him noticing your staring. You stood your ground, not wanting him to think you were weak or giving up your fight. 

“If you take one step closer, I’ll kill you,” you said as coldly as you could muster. 

“I believe you, but please don’t.” He was still clutching at his injured arm with a hand. He was currently at a disadvantage, if you could just use this to your advantage, if you could somehow get close enough to just-

He disappeared before your eyes and you whipped your head around just in time to witness him snatching the stake from your grip. He shifted again so that he was slightly further back from you, holding your stake behind his back and tilting his head to the side mockingly. 

“You know, for someone who supposedly knows what they’re doing, you seem remarkably off-balance.” He dared a smirk, now and inspecting the wooden weapon in his hands. 

“You-”

“These things are deadly, you know. I really thought you might kill me a moment ago,” he chuckled. 

“It would be my pleasure.” You didn’t see the humour in this the way that he seemed to. You were no longer scared, however, mostly frustrated. 

You took a small step towards him, determined to retrieve your stolen weapon, but acutely aware that you were now completely un-armed. This wasn’t a situation you’d ever been in before so you were unsure of how you should proceed. You couldn’t read his next move whatsoever, his expression told you nothing useful other than that he was clearly enjoying this. 

He looked right at you, his expression suddenly serious, his harsh gaze sending chills down your spine, “go home, y/n.”

You widened your eyes. How did he know your name? You don’t recall saying it aloud even once and the deceased vampire certainly hadn’t known it. 

“How’d you know my name?” You voiced with a slight tremor, it was subtle but definitely noticeable, and you cursed yourself for allowing yourself to feel scared. 

He was walking away from you now, his ebony clad body becoming harder and harder to decipher as he disappeared into darkness. He didn’t answer your question, but he did leave your knife on the floor where he had tossed it earlier. You hurriedly grabbed the weapon, checking your surroundings once more to see if he had come back (he hadn’t), before running home and locking your apartment door as soon as you slammed it closed. 

You slept with a blade under your pillow that night. 

-

You didn’t leave your house for the next two days, no trips to get food, no visits from friends, no nightly vampire-watch. Nothing. Partially because you didn’t want to risk anybody asking any questions about the bruises on your neck and the cuts on your skin, but you couldn’t deny the genuine fear that was keeping you at home. You weren’t really sure why you were so affected by the events that happened a couple of nights prior. You’d like to consider yourself a fairly experienced and extremely competent hunter. You’d never left a vampire you came into contact with alive. Alive, if that’s even what you could call them. And now one of them knew your name, what did that mean? Did he know where you lived? Had he been watching you like you were his prey? 

An unexpected knock at your door snapped you out of the thoughts spinning around in your head. It wasn’t late, but it was dark out. You furrowed your brows as you wondered who could be dropping by at this time. You had a few close friends; Yuta, Jungwoo and Taeyong being the ones most likely to pay you a visit, although they usually made a point of shooting you a warning text first, just in case you weren’t around. Yuta hunted vampires like you did, that’s how you met him. He had a pretty face and a fiery personality to match your own. The two of you clicked instantly, bonding over anything and everything you could think to talk about. He soon introduced you to Jungwoo, a soft boy with long legs and a heart of gold, and Taeyong, a striking guy with sharp features and an adorable laugh. The two latter boys assisted Yuta occasionally when he was dealing with a particularly tough vampire, but you preferred to strike alone, so you always rejected their offers to help. You couldn’t think why any of them would turn up at your door now, though.

You padded over to the door, feet clad in fluffy socks and glasses perched on your nose. You opened the door but were met with the sight of a brown paper bag with your name written on it in black marker. You looked both left and right in confusion, settling your gaze back on the brown bag at your feet when you didn’t see anyone at either end of the hallway. 

You picked it up cautiously against your better judgement and scurried back inside quickly. The rational part of your brain was screaming at you to leave the bag outside and not lay a finger on it, but the curious part was itching to take a look, so that’s what you did. You sat down on the wooden floorboards in your living room, legs crossed and scissors in hand. You cut along the seal of the clear tape that was keeping the bag closed and hesitantly tipped its contents out in front of you. Your body stilled for a long moment, your breathing suddenly shallow and your throat dry. Your stake lay before you, still bloody, but yours, nevertheless. You shivered. The mysterious vampire who you were still tearing your hair out over had taken it with him if you remembered correctly. You were sure that your eyes hadn’t been deceiving you and that your memory wasn’t tricking you. Before you could control your own body, you found yourself at the closest window, looking out on the off chance that you would be able to see whoever had delivered the brown paper bag. You knew the chances were slim to none, but you looked anyway. It had to have been him. He somehow knew your name, so it should’ve been obvious that he knew where you lived.

You didn’t know what to make of it. Any of it. You were truly afraid, so why were you so curious about the raven-haired boy who let you live?

-

You managed to coax yourself outside after another day or so of hiding at your apartment. You felt pathetic, hiding away, you didn’t feel like yourself. It didn’t sit well with you, knowing that you’d let something so simple force you to feel emotions you didn’t want to feel. You usually felt a sort of thrill, a buzz of adrenaline. Not fear, never fear. And never interest. Vampires had always repulsed you, disgusted you. Everything that they stood for was wrong and you were here to make things right. You should’ve just killed him when you first had the chance, but you let him get under your skin, where he remained even still, apparently. 

You’d somehow ended up asking to meet Yuta at your usual spot; an old bench that looked out over the river. You were sat with your legs crossed underneath you on the bench, your head tipped back as you enjoyed the way the cold breeze coming off the water skimmed over the skin of your throat and made you feel a little more alive. It was early evening, but the sun was still up, its golden rays shining through the trees on the bank on the opposite side of the river. 

You used to come here to sit and wallow in your own thoughts after your brother died. You found yourself spending a lot of time on your own back then. Your parents were too busy trying to pick up their own pieces to look at you and the mess you had become. You suppose not a lot has changed since then; you don’t speak to them much since they’re still constantly wrapped up in themselves, and you still enjoy your own company for the most part, even if it was unintentionally forced upon you.

It became ‘your spot’ with Yuta on a late summers night not long after you’d started tracking vampires down. You were sat on the same bench with a bleeding shoulder where you’d been pierced deeply by your target’s fingernails. He’d sat with you and helped clean you up, all the while asking you how it had happened before telling you that he hunted vampires too. You’d stuck by eachother ever since.

You were brought out of your thoughts when a familiar hand ruffled your hair out of place and you moved your head to the side to see Yuta sitting down next to you; his body relaxed against the wood as he looked over at you with a small smile. His hair was a brilliant white that fell in wisps over his eyes and against his bronzed skin, a light pink spread across his nose and cheeks from the chill in the air.  

“It’s been a while since we met here, something on your mind?” 

Yuta had a way of always being able to tell when something was bothering you, and he always made a point of asking you about it but never pushing you to talk about it if you didn’t want to. He was a good friend in that regard, probably the best you’d ever had. 

“Have you ever been knocked completely off-kilter by an encounter with a vampire?” You asked, not really sure what asking him would achieve but hoping for something to reassure you that your feelings over the past few days could be justified. You looked out across the water as you asked him, your mind half in the conversation and half clouded by something else. 

The way you asked it had Yuta furrowing his brows as he thought about what to say to you. 

“I mean sure, it’s a pretty scary thing, especially when you’re just starting out.” He breathed out, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands as he followed your gaze to where the soon-to-be-setting sun was reflecting on the water. 

“I’m not just starting out, though,” you said absent minded-ly.

Yuta remained quiet for a moment, like he was unsure how he should proceed. His hands were fumbling with the sleeve-cuffs of his too-large hoodie but keeping them in place to hold his head up. It was a habit of his that you’d noticed he did when he was thinking or concentrating on something; it made him look soft and warm, despite the harsh interior you knew he possessed when needed.

“Y/n, you know it’s okay to be scared, right? That’s what makes you human-” he paused for a second, flitting his eyes towards you as he turned his head ever so slightly, “that’s the difference between them and us.”

You let out a quiet sigh. You did know that, of course you did. But feeling scared made you feel weak, and that’s the one thing you never wanted to feel again. 

You dropped your head to your hands, trying to squeeze the unpleasant feeling out of your skull. 

“I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much.” Your voice sounded muffled to your own ears as you spoke into the fabric of your jumper that was pressing its warmth onto your face. 

Before Yuta arrived, you were in two-minds about telling him about exactly what had happened the other day, but now that he was a breath away, you couldn’t quite bring yourself to do it. A small part of you worried that perhaps he would be disappointed or even angry with you for letting the vampire get away relatively unscathed, just like you were disappointed and angry with yourself.  

“You’ll get through this, just have faith in yourself,” he offered you a comforting pat on the shoulder.

Have faith in yourself. Have faith in your abilities. That’s what you needed to do.

-

The opportunity for you to prove your competency to yourself arose not even two days later. It was sometime after 10pm and you were on your way to the spot you’d spent most nights lurking before the incident. You rounded a corner, bringing the wall you took shelter behind into view. You made your footsteps lighter on instinct, bending your knees slightly to allow you to do so. 

A crunching from behind you sent a familiar thrill running through you to the very tips of your fingers, gripping your wooden weapon with your dominant hand you allowed yourself a split-second to snap your head around to see what had made the sound. You turned your head back when you caught glimpse of a shady figure disappearing at the sight of you turning around. You felt the temperature drop around you as a flurry of dark colours and pale flesh took shape in the form of a sharp-fanged woman with red hair. She snarled at the sight of the weapon in your hand.

“How cute of you to try and defend yourself,” she called as she took a step in your direction.

You laughed, “I must say, nobody in your position has ever called me cute before.”

“Do not mock me, mortal.”

You pouted at her, agitating her some more. You couldn’t help yourself; the female vampires were always the easiest to rile up. And what’s the point of all this if you can’t have a little fun, right?

She lunged at you at great speed, but you were more agile and therefor ever so slightly quicker. You dodged under her arm and turned around. You were circling eachother. 

“Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be,” she hissed, glowing eyes filled to the brim with a burning hatred. 

You smirked at her agitation. “I could same the same to you, bloodsucker.”

“You’ll regret messing with me.” Her voice was low and biting, though you were barely even paying attention to what she was saying at this point. 

Her fangs glistened as she ran her tongue over them, most likely in an attempt to try and frighten you. But you were now fully immersed in the headspace you were so used to. You found yourself feeling completely at ease and the memory of the vampire who had spared you and sent you into a downward spiral slipped easily to the back of your mind. 

She darted forwards once more, but she was sloppy, and her body language gave away her movements before she’d even made them. You drove your stake through her chest. She made an unpleasant choking sound as she gasped for air, bloody eyes widening and razor-sharp fingernails grazing your skin before she was reduced to nothing more than a pile of dust. 

You crouched down to pick up the weapon that now lay neatly on the ground before you, a sticky scarlet dripping from its tip as you raised it. You wiped it clean with an old cloth from your inside pocket, standing up tall once more as you did so. You slipped both the cloth and the stake back into your jacket once you were satisfied. 

A slow clapping from a small distance in front of you drew your attention away from the now-clean, deadly piece of wood. A dark figure stood a few feet from you, leaning casually against the wall you usually stand by. 

Despite the midnight-blue that painted the sky, the figure was instantly recognisable; it was the same man that claimed he was trying to help you a few nights ago. The same man who did help you, you supposed. You felt uneasy once more. Something about his very presence seemed to command your attention even when you wished it wouldn’t. 

You had been weak last time. You had let him get under your skin and he hadn’t even tried particularly hard. Tonight would be different, you told yourself. Tonight, you would be strong. 

Still on somewhat of a high from your recent kill, you stalked over to him, pulling your favourite knife out of your jacket and keeping a hand close to the stake you had just sheathed. 

“You know, I’m pretty impressed, that was-” he started, eyes trained on yours. 

You held the knife to his neck. Its sharp blade pressed tightly against his skin, enough to hurt but not enough to break the surface. 

“Shut the hell up. Give me one reason not to kill you right here, right now.” You locked your eyes on him challengingly. 

You could feel his shallow breaths on your cheek, and only then did you realise how close you were. Your body was pressed almost entirely on his, but you didn’t dare back down. You needed to stay in control. 

“Why do you want to kill me in the first place?” He breathed out, speaking shallowly so as to not further irritate the knife against his windpipe. 

“Your very existence is reason enough,” you spat against him, eyes holding whirlpools of anger and pain. 

He was quiet for a long moment, as if he was considering what you’d said. His eyes darted between yours and you swore you could see hurt in them for a second, but it was gone in a flash as they glazed over once more. They were impossibly dark when they weren’t painted crimson, you noted. So dark that you felt like it would be easy to fall into them if the circumstances had been different. 

“I really don’t want to hurt you.” He spoke eventually. 

You hadn’t paid close attention to what his hands were doing when you strode up to him, but a slight movement at your side grabbed your attention and you swiftly glanced down. He was bringing both his hands up, but not to hurt you or lay a hand on you. He was raising them in some sort of surrender. 

You furrowed your brows in question as you brought your eyes back to his. He placed his hands against the wall on either side of his head, vulnerable palms open and facing you. 

“What are you-” 

“I told you I’m not trying to start a fight,” he cut in. His words seemed genuine, and his eyes were filled with truth. Your temples felt dizzy with confusion. 

“Why should I believe you?” 

“I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, but I swear it’s the truth.” 

Your knife had drawn the tiniest bead of blood as he spoke and you found yourself feeling bad for having cut him, even if only a little. You pulled the blade an inch, waiting to see if he would move. He didn’t. He stayed right where he was, hands up and gaze trained on yours. If he’d wanted to kill you or hurt you in any way, he would have by now. He’d had plenty of opportunities. And yet here you were, completely unharmed and just a breath away from a man who held the same sickly desire as the very ones you loathed. 

You moved your weapon from his neck, still holding it tightly in one hand just in case it was needed. You took a small step backwards to put some space between the two of you. 

“I don’t understand.” You spoke quietly, your eyes flitting between his and your breath shallow. 

“I noticed you watching me,” he said softly, as if afraid to speak too loudly in fear of shattering the momentary truce between you. 

You parted your lips to speak, but he silenced you by explaining further.

“You stood right here, night after night, yet you never so much as took a step closer. Are you afraid of me?” His voice was low and slightly raspy. 

You didn’t make a noise of complaint when he lowered his aching arms from their position on either side of his head. 

It made sense now. He had seemed familiar the night he’d tried to help you, but you were unable to figure out where you’d seen him since you’d never been that close to him before. Seeing him here, under the familiar, dull streetlamps illuminating the darkness that the clouded, late-night sky brought, you wondered why you hadn’t noticed before. 

You pondered for a moment. Were you afraid? 

You were intrigued. Something had held you back all those nights that you should’ve killed him, something. But what? Fear? No. You weren’t scared of him. You were close enough that you could see wisps of his breath as his heat reacted with the cool autumn air, close enough that you could reach over and touch your hand to his skin, close enough that you should be scared; but somehow, you weren’t. 

You were more scared of yourself than you were of him. You were more terrified of how easily you’d let him get to you, how easily he could get under your skin again if he so desired. 

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me, y/n,” he told you in a whisper.

Your eyes were blown wide and frantic. You felt so small all of a sudden as he looked down at you. You took a step back.

“I’m not.”

He let out a breath, his dark eyes matching yours. He hesitated before lifting his hand up to graze your cheekbone slowly, moving his fingers to tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear, but you flinched away before he could do so. 

“Seems you are a tad scared, little one,” he chuckled softly. He gestured between the two of you, “this position seems to be becoming a bit of a regular thing, perhaps you-”

“Stop it.” You snapped, hating the feeling of vulnerability that he seemed to put you under. Your cheeks felt hot, much to your horror. 

“Stop what?” He frowned.

“Stop getting in my head.” You paused for a split-second to gauge his reaction. “Stop whatever it is you think you’re doing.” 

The boy had the nerve to look taken aback. 

“I’m not doing anything.” He spoke back to you, “but you feel it too, right?”

“What?”

“That’s why you haven’t really tried to hurt me, isn’t it? You know you could if you really wanted to. You’re strong enough.” His gaze was soft now, eyes trained on yours, but he still made sure to keep the distance you’d put between you.  

“I don’t know why I-” The words fell silent from your mouth as he ran his tongue along his bottom lip. “I don’t- I’m not-” you stuttered out, mortified by your sudden inability to string a sentence together. 

He took a hesitant step closer, leaving nowhere near enough space between your bodies, but still not touching you. His breath tickled your cheek and you found yourself unable to tear your eyes away from his. 

“It’s okay, y/n,” he whispered. 

“I don’t even know your name,” you choked out, and you cursed yourself internally for not being in control of your own voice.

“It’s Mark.”

You repeated his name quietly, a strange feeling brewing up inside of you. His dark locks were falling into his eyes and grazing the tops of his sharp cheekbones. He was attractive, painfully so, and you were having a hard time reminding yourself that he wasn’t human. 

You ripped your gaze off him, kicking half-heartedly at the loose gravel underfoot as you pondered. 

“Was it you who left the paper bag outside my door the other day?” You asked, although you already knew the answer, because who else could it have been? 

He nodded, speaking out a quick “yeah” when he realised that you weren’t looking at him. 

“How did you know where I lived? And how do you know my name?” 

“I told you, I know you’ve been watching me,” he said, cocking his head to the side as though it were obvious, eyes following you as you looked back up at him. 

“That doesn’t explain anything, Mark,” you spoke, putting a slight emphasis on his name as if that would make a difference to his answer. 

“Well who’s to say I haven’t been making my own observations, y/n?” He frowned slightly, his deep voice mocking you lazily. 

“So you’ve been stalking me?” You felt your normally steady hands shaking ever so slightly at the thought of him watching you when you thought you were alone. 

“I was intrigued by you.” 

You didn’t know how to respond to that. You could tell him it was creepy, you could tell him that you didn’t want to see him again and you could turn around and go back home and put this all to the back of your mind – but you would be lying through your clenched teeth. You wanted to slap yourself for feeling the same way he did. Every rational part of you was screaming that he was just trying to lure you in and entice you before drinking you dry, but one tiny part of you seemed to be shouting louder and telling you to believe him and trust him when he said he had no malicious intent. 

And the startling truth of it all was that you were intrigued by him too. 

“Cat got your tongue, little one?” He allowed himself a smirk upon seeing the heat rush to your already slightly rosy cheeks. 

You scoffed and began backing away from him, muttering “I’ll see you around, Mark,” before turning on your heel and beginning the walk back to your apartment building. 

-

You only managed to sleep for a couple of hours that night before a rapid series of knocks on your front door woke you. You sat up slowly, letting the bed covers fall away from your body gently as you rubbed your eyes awake with one hand. You slipped out of bed and tip-toed across the cold floorboards, fumbling your way silently out of your unlit room and towards the front door. Your door was chained so that it would only open a few inches when opened without unchaining it, and given the late hour, you decided it would be sensible to keep it that way. The panicked knocking started again just as you opened the door, barely giving you time to unlock the door before it was being pushed towards you, stopping as the chain reached its limit. You froze as you took in the figure through the cracked open door. 

“Y/n.”

“What are you doing here?” You spoke with your slightly raspy, sleep-ridden voice as you stared wide-eyed at the boy you instantly recognised as Mark. 

“Are you okay?” He sounded alert and slightly out of breath, the rise and fall of his chest noticeable under the black of his button-up shirt. 

“Do you know what time it is, Mark?” A quick glance back at your clock told you that it was just past 3am. Your heartbeat had doubled in speed since seeing him on the other side of your door and you weren’t sure if it was from fear or some sick sort of excitement. 

“Can you let me in?” 

You tightened your grip on the side of the door, your fingers surely turning white from the pressure of your pressing on them. You pursed your lips as you looked at him in contemplation. 

“Please, y/n. I’ll explain I promise, but this is serious.” And because of the sheer desperation in his voice, you nodded and slid the chain to the side and ushered him in, checking the corridor for any more unwanted visitors before closing and locking the door behind him. 

He was standing in the middle of the room when you turned to face him, looking somewhat uncomfortable and unsure of what to do with himself now. You stood and looked at eachother and for a moment it felt like time stopped, like you were caught in an alluring trance for what definitely seemed longer than the five seconds that it really was. 

You prised your gaze away from his and brushed past him to flick a lamp on, illuminating the dark space immediately and casting a warm glow onto his smooth, pale skin. You told him he could sit as you gestured to the sofa and asked him if he wanted anything to drink before remembering what he was, causing you to stutter out a quick “never mind.”

You sat at the opposite end of the sofa to keep as much space between you as possible, crossing your legs and leaning your back against the arm of the sofa so you could face him. He sat with his elbows resting on his knees, resting his left cheek on his hands as he looked over at you. You were suddenly very aware of your sleeping attire and all the skin the lightweight t-shirt and shorts wasn’t covering; you felt heat rise to your cheeks, something that seemed to happen far more around Mark than you wanted it to. You still felt weary of him and from the look in his eyes, he understood your hesitancy, however much he wished you wouldn’t feel that way.  

“I’m sorry for barging in,” he offered. 

“Nobody else has been here, right? Giving you trouble?” He continued when you remained silent after his apology. “You’re really okay?”

“No, nobody’s been here. I’m fine, rather tired though.” You quipped, hoping he’d take the hint that you’d been asleep and were irked at having been woken from your slumber. 

“What’s this all about? Do you go knocking on strangers’ doors at this time often? A hobby of yours, perhaps?” You raised an eyebrow in his direction. 

“There are people after you.” 

You frowned at his grave tone. “People? Who?” 

“Vampires. Friends of the one you slayed earlier who are angry and ready to kill.” 

“I-” 

“You can’t let anybody you don’t trust in here. Not a soul, do you understand?” He interrupted as he turned his body slightly to face you, no longer resting his head in his hand. He looked alert and incredibly serious, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d say he looked entirely exhausted. 

“And I’m supposed to trust you?” You would’ve laughed had he not looked so incredibly tense. 

“Yes.”

You hummed in acknowledgement, turning your head away from him and staring at a slightly dusty patch of floor. The two of you lapsed into silence, and you weren’t sure if you found it comfortable or not. You could feel his eyes on you, watching you intently and trying to read the subtleties in your body language. 

Your eyes widened and you inhaled sharply at the sudden but gentle movement of some loose hair being tucked behind your ear. You slowly moved until your eyes locked on Mark, who was now sat just inches away and looking at you with such tenderness in his gaze that you felt like you might break. 

“I don’t know what it is about you, but I can’t seem to get enough.” His words were whispered and said with care. “I know it doesn’t make any sense because we don’t really know eachother, but it’s like there’s this constant pull and I can’t stop it.” Both hands were now cupping your jaw delicately, and you couldn’t resist moving one of your own to rest on his as he touched his forehead to yours. “I can’t help but want to keep you safe.”

You felt hot all over and lacking any control over your own body, because this was so, so wrong, but what he was saying somehow made some sort of sense to you. Because you felt it too, no matter how much you hated it, no matter how much you wished you could hate him. 

Your eyes fluttered closed at his proximity as he glanced down to your lips, before lifting your chin and bringing his lips to yours for a split second. He had half expected you to slap him or push him away at the very least, but when you did neither he pushed forward once more and kissed you again. 

His kisses were slow and his touch soft as his thumbs gently stroked along your cheeks. He parted his lips on yours, bringing your top lip between his own and swiping his tongue across subtly, encouraging you to let him in. You couldn’t resist him. He felt so cold as his skin pressed up against you, yet so painfully right that you couldn’t will yourself to stop him as he licked into your mouth with a rich sort of passion. He tasted like the best kind of sin and he looked so devilishly handsome that you couldn’t even begin to think about how you’d got yourself into such a situation. 

He moved his hands down to grip at your waist, tracing along the subtle curves of your body as he did so and eliciting a barely-there whine from you. He pulled you closer still, leaning his back against the upright of the sofa and dragging you onto his lap in an effort to make you both more comfortable. You had one arm wrapped around the back of his neck while the other held the cup of his jaw as he continued to place long, messily drawn-out kisses onto your newly swollen lips. Your thighs were parted on top of him and you could feel him slowly guiding your hips down onto the bump that was beginning to form beneath you. He let out a small groan from the back of his throat at the sudden friction he was feeling, and you swallowed it with another open-mouthed kiss before pulling back slightly and looking at him through your heavily lidded eyes. You were both out of breath and staring at eachother with heated gazes, entirely unsure of what had just happened, what was currently happening, and yet neither of you moving to pull back further. You traced the outline of his plump lips with your thumb, pushing the skin up slightly and furrowing your brows when you saw the pointed tip of one of his fangs. 

“I don’t understand how this- I-,” you stopped yourself, not even sure if what you were about to say made any sort of sense. 

“How it feels so right?” You nodded, moving your gaze to the side. You could barely even look at him, you felt so ashamed of yourself for letting him draw you in. 

“Me neither. I’m sorry, I wish things were different,” his voice was quiet. He tipped his head forward so that it was resting just above your chest, wrapping his arms around you tightly and engulfing you in an affectionate hug. You hummed in response, whispering a soft me too before burying your face in his neck and holding him against you firmly. 

He stayed with you that night, kissing you some more before carrying you back to your bedroom and pulling you against him once you were in the comfort of your own bed. You fell asleep with his arms wrapped around you and your head pressed against his cold, silent chest. 

-

Mark was gone by the time you woke the next morning, leaving barely a trace save for the messily written note he’d left on the kitchen counter. 

Stay put today, I’ll visit you tonight – M

You spent your day doing all the things you’d neglected over the past few weeks; you picked up the novel that had been sat, unread, on your bedside table for far too long, and you listened to some old records while doing work around the house. It went by rather quickly really as you busied yourself with one thing after another. 

True to his word, Mark showed up at your house sometime after 10pm. You opened the door and your face immediately dropped at how gaunt his face seemed compared to just last night, not to mention the small, slightly bloody scratches that you could see littering one side of his neck alongside a freshly formed bruise. 

“Wha- What happened?” You stuttered out, concern evident in your voice. 

“It doesn’t matter. Can I come in?” You let him in, leading him to your room this time rather than the living room. 

You sat him on the middle of your bed and placed yourself between his legs so you could inspect his injuries. You held his face with both your hands and tilted him so you could see properly, it wasn’t anything serious but that didn’t stop you from wondering why he wasn’t healing. 

“Will you tell me what happened?” He shook his head dismissively, looking to the side and avoiding your eyes.

“It was just a couple of guys, I managed to get away.” He didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, it was something he was used to dealing with by now. 

“Slayers? Were they after you?” You asked as you stroked your thumb along his cheek softly, tenderly.

He let out a small chuckle, taking both of your hands in his and lowering them from his face until they were resting between you. He lay back on your bed until his head hit the pillow, groaning at the comfort of it. 

“You were trying to kill me too until last night, miss y/n, I trust you haven’t forgotten?” He was smiling and he let his eyes flutter shut as he placed his arms behind his head. He looked so handsome lying there, so normal, so human. 

You allowed yourself a small smile, though it soon fell to a frown once more when you looked at his face. 

“Why do you look so-” you paused, unsure of what word to use. “-sick? I suppose pale isn’t the right term since, well, you know. You look unwell, though.” You felt a little awkward as you sat on the bed staring down at Marks resting figure, should you lie with him? Stay where you were? 

“It’s nothing to worry about.” Was all he offered you, his eyes remaining closed. 

You opted for lying down next to him, hoping that at least offering some kind of physical comfort might make him feel better. Your heart sank slightly when he made no effort to pull you closer. You mentally scolded yourself for caring so much; as he’d reminded you, you’d wanted him dead until not long ago. How could you have become so attached so quickly? 

-

The two of you went through a similar routine for the next few days; you stayed in unless you needed to get food, and he would knock on your door at some time in the night, the time differing slightly each night. He would come in looking tired and a little worse each day, almost always immediately moving to your room to take comfort in the warmth of your bed. You would crawl in beside him, some nights staying on different sides of the bed, and some he would cradle you in his arms and you’d fall asleep like that. He was always gone when you woke up. 

You didn’t do a lot of talking, or rather Mark didn’t seem to want to do a lot of talking. You wondered several times if you’d said something to upset him in some way, but you figured if that was the case, he wouldn’t bother coming to yours night after night as he did. Perhaps he was just a more physical being, finding more warmth in actions than in words. But then why did it seem like he was keeping some kind of distance between you? 

By the fifth night, you’d grown tired of the routine you’d fallen into. You turned in his hold so that you were facing him, letting your eyes drag over his peaceful looking face as he lay with his eyes closed. You whispered his name, touching him gently on his shoulder until he opened his eyes. Now that he was looking at you expectantly, you weren’t really sure what you should say. Your eyes flitted between his as you tried to think of something, anything to break the tension. 

You hesitated for a moment, before leaning into him, closing your eyes and placing your lips on his. It started off slow, and you could tell he was a little taken aback by your sudden urge to kiss him, but he was quick to open his mouth and slip his tongue past your lips, groaning into you when he felt you reciprocate. 

“Shit y/n,” he said breathily.

This is the most you’d had from him since the first night he’d kissed you, and you couldn’t help but feel warm inside at the feeling of his hands on you, his lips on you. He nudged you onto your back, hovering his body over you with one hand by your head and the other rubbing comforting circles on the bare flesh of your stomach where your shirt had ridden up. You kissed until you were both panting heavily, until your lips were bruised, and his hair was roughed-up from your fingers running through it. 

He pulled back, tugging at your bottom lip as he did so, barely even pausing for breath before he was trailing sloppy kisses from your jaw to your neck. You let out a quiet moan at the intimate feeling, curling your legs around his own as he lay between them. You found yourself craving more from him, you were becoming addicted no matter how much you wished you weren’t. It was something you couldn’t seem to control, and you were used to always being in control of your emotions. But Mark was different. He was so hard to resist, so tempting. 

You were brought out of your thoughts by a sharp nip to your neck, followed by a peck to the same spot, and then another nip, harsher than the first. You felt your stomach sink as dread burned its way up your throat. 

“Mark.” You warned, placing your hands on his chest and trying to push him away from your neck. 

“Mark, stop!” He lifted his head suddenly, eyes glowing before he disappeared in a flash and reappeared at the other side of your room. 

“What the fuck was that?” You growled, collecting yourself and standing to the side of the bed in a defensive stance. 

“I’m so sorry.” His eyes had returned to a normal colour, but they were blown wide and he had the nerve to look as shocked as you felt. 

“Fuck, this was a bad idea.” He looked right at you before turning his head in shame. “I should’ve known this would happen.” He was speaking under his breath, but you could still make most of it out. 

You looked down at your hands, which were shaking ever so slightly. He could’ve bitten you. This is why you didn’t ever let your guard down. You should never have been so foolish to truly believe he wasn’t like the others.  

When you looked back to where Mark was, you were met by the sight of him with his head in his hands and his elbows braced against his knees as he sat against the wall. 

“I thought you didn’t want to hurt me?” You snapped, immediately reverting back to the cold demeanour you were so used to, the one that you never should’ve dropped for him. 

“I don’t want to hurt you, y/n.” He raised his voice in frustration, though you didn’t know if he was frustrated with you, or with himself. 

“Then why did you-”

“I thought I could control it,” he was tugging on the ends of his hair, a nervous habit perhaps. “The urges, I mean.”

“Urges?” You questioned.

“You have no idea how hard it is trying to suppress them when I’m around you, y/n. I can hear the blood as it flows through your veins, I can practically feel your heart every time it beats. And God, your scent is utterly divine.” He stood up abruptly to make his way over to you, stopping when he saw your reaction. 

You had backed yourself to the nearest wall, and you had no way of actually defending yourself. If he wanted to, he could overpower you right now. But something about the cautious steps he took told you that he wouldn’t. He didn’t want you to lash out at him, he didn’t want to truly lose you when he’d only just found you. 

You looked closely at his expression. He looked pained, and still scarily gaunt. “What’s wrong with you?” You whispered. 

He remained silent, just staring at you with an unreadable emotion in his deep eyes. 

Your eyes shot up to his when you came to a sudden realisation. “Have you not been feeding? Is that what this is?” 

He froze for a second and took a shallow step back, and then another. He looked nauseous, like he might be sick any minute. You’d hit the nail on the head, it would seem. 

“Answer me, Mark.” Your voice was stern as you made your way towards him, you didn’t want him to back away from this and take the easy way out. 

“Don’t come any closer, please.” He pleaded, his pupils dilated and his eyes hungry. You ignored him and cradled his face in your hands anyway, watching intently as his eyes returned to a devilish shade of crimson. 

“You either fight it or you let me help you.” You instructed him. As much as you wished you could just rid your hands of him like he was any other vampire, you were much too invested now. You cared about him, and you wanted to help him. That had to count for something. 

“You’re torturing me here,” his hands gripped at your wrists and he closed his eyes tightly as a combination of both agony and bliss soared through him. “Y/n, please, this is killing me.” He sounded strained, and you really felt bad for him, but he had to pull through this.

He pressed his forehead against yours and his unblinking, scarlet eyes were filled with a lust you’d not seen from him before, his breathing heavy and uneven. You stood like that for Lord knows how long, staring at eachother. You were feeling too many emotions at once, and you could tell that he was experiencing the same from the subtleties in his body language.  

“I can’t do this.” He shifted away from you once more at an inhuman speed.

You stood for a moment longer before making up your mind and walking to the kitchen, finding a small, sharp knife and carrying it back through to where Mark was. Never in your mortal life did you think you’d find yourself in such a position, and truthfully you were slightly repulsed by what you were about to do, but for the sake of the raven haired boy you’d come to care for so quickly, you’d do it. He looked at the knife in your hand and began backing away, his expression turning to one of confusion when, instead of lunging at him, you brought the knife to your own palm and made a small cut in the centre, letting the blood begin to pool there. 

“No. Stop it.” His tone was firm, but your mind was already made up. 

“It’s yours. Take it.”

“Y/n, I’m serious. Don’t.” He inhaled the metallic scent from across the room, eyes rolling back slightly as the heavenly stench hit him. Nevertheless, his tone remained the same.  

“As am I.” You stood before him, holding your open palm towards him. 

He gulped, and you noticed that his hands were trembling. He looked at you one last time to make sure you weren’t going to try and kill him with the knife you were still holding in your opposite hand, before bringing your blood to his lips. He lapped up each and every drop like he’d never been given something so delightful before, and you had to look away. No matter how much adoration you seemed to hold for the boy, you still hated what he was. He groaned in contentment, squeezing your hand to encourage more blood from the slice you’d made for him. 

You pulled away from him when you thought he’d had enough, and you were beginning to feel ever so slightly lightheaded. He wiped your blood from his lips with the back of his hand. You looked into his eyes, expecting him to say something or perhaps thank you at the very least, but the sight you were met with was not a pretty one. His eyes were reverting back to their normal colour, but he looked furious. 

“You should not have let me do that. Do you have any idea what the fuck you just did?” He raised his voice as he spoke, looking at you like a bull who’d just seen red. 

“It helped didn’t it? You feel better now, don’t you?” You asked. 

“I could’ve killed you, y/n.” You flinched as he loomed over you. “I need to leave.” 

“Wait! Mark, no. We need to talk this out.” You reasoned. Why was he reacting like this after you’d helped him liked that? You’d done the right thing, hadn’t you? You’d stopped him from falling even more ill. 

“Not now. I can’t be near you right now.” He was hurrying through your house to get back to the front door, and you couldn’t deny the hurt that panged painfully in your chest as he spoke. 

“Mark just-”

“I said I need to fucking leave!” He yelled before opening the door and storming out. You stopped momentarily at his outburst, genuinely shocked at his reaction. You had to go after him. If you left this unresolved right now then you might never see him again, and you weren’t sure how you’d cope if it came to that. You followed him out the door, not bothering to lock it behind you, and slipped into a fast jog as you made your way down the stairs of your building to try and catch up with him.

You turned one corner and then another until you saw Yuta standing a few feet from Mark, who had his back to you. 

“Yuta! Don’t hurt him! He’s not like the others.” You shouted over to him swiftly, slightly out of breath from running after Mark. 

He didn’t turn at the sound of your voice. In fact, neither of them moved at all. Yuta was staring at you wide-eyed over Marks shoulder, his empty hands trembling at his sides. 

“Yuta? Mark?” You called, continuing on towards them.

“What’s going-” you stopped yourself short when you got to them, feeling your stomach drop and your knees grow weak. Because stood before you was Mark, clutching at his chest. Or rather, clutching at the bloody stake which was embedded there. 

“No no no no no,” your bottom lip wobbled almost immediately as you took in the sight. “What have you done?” You whispered to no one in particular, though both the boys seemed to hear you. 

Marks legs crumpled and you gripped his arms to try and lower him to the ground more gracefully, falling to the floor with him. You pushed the hair off his forehead and cupped his cheek with one hand, your other immediately moving to apply pressure to the wound without taking the stake out for fear of that making matters worse. 

“Y/n,” he choked out, a little blood falling from his lips as he spoke. 

“I’m here. I’m here, baby” You cooed, tears stinging your eyes as they threatened to fall. He couldn’t leave you like this, not after everything that had happened. “Yuta, do something!” You pleaded, too scared to let your eyes leave the beautiful boy who was bleeding out on the floor. 

“It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay.” You promised him, though it wasn’t really Mark you were trying to reassure. 

“Y/n, thank you,” he sounded pained as he spoke, coughing up a little more blood as you offered him comfort through whispered words and soft touches. “And I’m sorry.” 

Your tears mixed with his as they fell uncontrollably from your eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” you hushed him softly, “I’m the one who should be saying that.” You voiced through your salty tears. 

It didn’t take long after that. It all happened too quickly, really. Mark, the vampire who had managed to prise his way into your icy heart, the boy who had made you feel more in the past week than you’d felt in years; ripped from your grasp at the hands of one of your best friends. 

Within mere seconds he was reduced to nothing more than a shadow of dust once he took his last breath, and your chest hurt in a way you hadn’t experienced since you were a girl, since your brother died. 

“I’m sorry I never got to tell you how much I like you.” You whispered.

#neowritingsnet #unravel #mark lee #vampire!mark lee #vampire! mark #vampire au #halloween au #mark lee angst #mark angst #mark lee x reader #mark x reader #nct #nct 127 #nct dream #nct u #nct angst #mark lee fic #mark fic

[yolkyeomie]

Lost Zephyrs | Bang Chan

summary — you’ve got the worst luck in the history of the world, but it seems as though a miracle has finally been bestowed upon you

word count — 2.4k words

pairing — chan x gender neutral!reader

genre — genshin impact au, fluff, reader is not the smartest person in the world

disclaimer — !! Small mentions of death/injuries !! I’ve been obsessed with genshin impact for the entire week and it stopped me writing. so I decided do make an au out of it to get me out of the slump, please enjoy !! (I explain most of the genshin content for readers who aren’t players :D !!)

tags — @fluffyskzclub

You knew you had the worst luck of them all. You've been constantly reminded of the fact that things didn't go your way no matter how hard you tried, so you think you would have learned your lesson by now right?

Somehow, you were wrong. Excruciatingly wrong in fact. It didn't matter who you told you— your friends, strangers, anyone —you always seem to think that maybe one day something would go your way. If it never did then you'd simply force the world to bend to your knees and allow you to proceed on with life like any other normal person. Most of the time that didn't happen and today was one of those days.

You should have known that traveling across the nations of Teyvat would be a dangerous journey, alone at that. So many monsters, so many evil people, would be out to cause trouble to anyone whose fate crossed their path. But you thought you were fine! After easily skipping across the land of Mondstadt without any help from strangers, slinking past monsters, and quietly napping any interesting treasures along the way, you had gotten too cocky.

Eventually, along your travels you had gotten your map of the world completely blown away in the middle of terrible weather after entering the nation of Liyue, finding yourself somewhere near Wuwang Hill. Then just when you had saved yourself from monsters near the bridge to Wangshu Inn, your sword completely snapped in half. The blade getting cut clean off after a Cryo slime froze it and broke it.

You were lucky enough that you had been able to rush into Wangshu Inn but now you were stuck without a weapon and a map of the landscape ahead of you.

Any sane person would stop their journey to stock back up on everything they've lost, but you didn't want to. You were a rather restless person and desperately wanted to reach the capitol, Liyue Harbor, as quickly as you could so you set off anyways, severely underestimated the distance between Wangshu Inn and the capitol.

That's how you ended up where you are, desperately running in the storming weather as fast as your legs would take you away from the hilichurl camp you had accidentally stumbled upon. It was never easy seeing those masked, primitive creatures armed with clubs and bows and ready for the attack but usually you were unphased. You were a traveler! You saw them all the time in Mondstadt and they are a common monster found throughout Teyvet.

But right now you were an unarmed, feeble traveler with no map and no strength to fight them off. They'd pounce on you the moment you stopped running.

"Why won't they give up!" You yell over the pounding rain, nearly tumbling over your own two feet with a strike of lightning hit the ground somewhere not too far off. You didn't even bother trying to check and see where the lightning was with the thunder roaring across the land and the hilichurl's arrows being aimlessly shot at you. It would be a death sentence trying to take a moment to look at your surroundings at this point.

You would have tried to use your elemental powers to fight back but you couldn't. You spent all that time trying to perfect the element of Ameno back in Mondstadt since it was known as the city of freedom and for its god of the winds, Barbatos, but you had used up all your energy trying to fight to save your life after you lost your sword. Truly, you were in the worst situation and it didn't feel like your luck was going to get any better from here.

Once you finally had a moment to rest, even for a second, you might be able to muster up the strength and energy to send a blast of wind toward the hilichurls. One little gust of your Anemo would send them flying and you'd finally be safe.

Rest, rest. You needed rest, but where? Where could you possibly find rest out away from the rain and hilichurls in this long stretch of land?

"You know what," you told yourself, still struggling to hear yourself as another lightning bolt strikes the ground and thunder rumbles through the air. "I should just try, if I ran fast enough they'll be long behind me and it'll give me enough time to regain my strength and blast them away."

You had to psych yourself up for it, not confident in your strength and not confident in your odds against the world, but you had to try. If the world decided you had enough karma now, maybe you'd be okay by the end of it.

Though it seemed like it wasn't enough, as you were quickly approaching an awfully large cliff that cut off your path to safety. You could climb but in this condition? In this weather? You'd probably fall straight to your doom.

With nowhere else to run, you forced yourself to pick up the page before turning on your heel and facing your opponents. Your eyes grew wide and a scream threatened to fly out your mouth at the sight of the hilichurls running towards you, their clubs swinging wildly through the air and their bows pointing straight at your chest. You were lucky that not a singular mitachurl was following you though, you would have been dead long ago.

"Here goes nothing," you mumble as you hold out your hand, desperately summoning the wind around you to be focused into the palm of your hand. Just when your body felt like it was going to collapse, a blast of wind exploded from your hands and slammed straight into the hilichurls that followed you. The rain was sucked up into your wind vertex and splattered against the already drenched hilichurls, sending them flying through the air defenseless.

You wanted to cheer for your small victory, but there was no chance to do it when the hilichurls that hadn't been blown away were still standing. "Oh, come on!" You yelped, falling to your knees from the strain you had placed on your body, unable to fight against the crossbows that were pointed at you. You shielded yourself as best as you could to save yourself from the oncoming attacks, opting that you'd rather go out seeing nothing and hearing everything instead of the opposite.

Yet inside of hearing the screeching arrows being shot and stung into your flesh, instead of hearing the hilichurls growl and cackle at their victory over another frail traveler, you hear something different. Their yelps of pain echoed through the air as the rain began to let up, their bows crashing to the ground and their cackles going panicked at their sudden change of plans.

Curious over the turn of events, you peered around your arms to catch a glimpse of the fairytale-like scene before you. A boy stood in the middle of the hilichurls with a victorious dimpled smile, soaking wet in the now light rain and swinging a large red and black greatsword like it was the lightest object in the world. His movements were messy and slow but his sword dealt enough damage to frighten the hilichurls into a tactical retreat.

The boy tried to get in an extra hit by taunting the monsters for their cowardice before he slammed his greatsword into the ground, rocks flying away from the heavy sword's collision. After a moment to himself, laughing at whatever words that had come out of his mouth, he turned to you. His brown eyes flashed from fiery excitement to immediate worry at your condition, quickly giving you a one over before rushing to your side.

"Are you okay?" He asked in a soft voice, falling to his knees and grabbing your hands. Around his wrist jingled a bracelet of some sort, charmed with different and unique trinkets. Though the most notable one being the large, glowing yellow crystal hanging in the center of the trinkets, a swirling symbol of earth inside of the crystal. You knew exactly what that symbol was, the symbol of Geo, the earth element famously found throughout Liyue. "I couldn't help but barge in, it seemed like you needed help."

"I am," you quickly tell him, awkwardly snatching your hands away from him after realizing he was checking to see if you suffered any wounds. "I mean, I'm fine. I definitely needed help though, thank you for saving me."

"No problem," he nodded, his smile stretching across his face and his dimples growing even deeper. "I saw you from over there after you sent that gust of wind toward the hilichurls. Had you not done that, I wouldn't even have noticed you through that thick downpour." The boy told you, pointing across the way towards the cliffs not too far from you.

He must have climbed down from there to reach you, but that would have been a rather tedious process. Maybe he jumped instead?

"Ah, you saw that?" You quietly asked, embarrassed to be caught weak and defenseless by what seemed to be a fellow traveler. When he innocently nodded his head, you let your head fall to your hands. "Gosh... that's so embarrassing... that means you saw me running away from those hilichurl and everything didn't you?"

The boy shrugged, "as I said, I didn't see you until the gust of wind." He explained.

"Did I just out myself on running away?" You cringed, mentally slamming your head with one of the hilichurl clubs. You were just letting anything fall out of your mouth now, huh? And to a total stranger at that! "This is even more embarrassing! I'm sorry, forget I ever said that, erase that from your memory."

He laughed at your words, slicking back his drenched purple hair as the rain finally stopped. "Don't worry! It's like that sometimes, even I've run away from a hilichurl or two once in my life. Especially those samachurls, creepy little things they are, especially with the fact that they can control elements."

"You too?" You gasped, jumping up to attention at your shared fears. "I hate those devils! Hydro samachurls that heal the other hilichurls, they make everything else so... so difficult."

"So you have fought hilichurls before," he teased, tapping the glowing light teal crystal that dangled down your neck in a pendant. Like the boy, you too had a symbol that displayed the element you had been gifted, giving away the fact that you could control Anemo as if the gust of wind from your hands wasn't enough of a dead giveaway. "With the way your knees buckled from sending one meek blast at them, I would have thought this was your first time seeing them."

"It is not!" You defended, jumping up to your feet and feeling energy course through your body once more. All you needed was one quick rest and you were back to your normal self. "I'm a full blown traveler! I had just been running from those hilichurls for a while now, I didn't have enough strength to create a whole tornado or something to save myself."

"What full blown traveler walks across Liyue without a weapon in tow?" The boy pointed out, gesturing toward your empty scabbards hanging around your waist. "Liyue, while very beautiful, is a very dangerous place to go on your own, especially without a weapon or two to project yourself."

You bit your lip, fidgeting with the pendant around your neck as you tried to sugarcoat your situation. "Well... I did have a sword when I first came here from Mondstadt but things... happened... and by the time I reached Wangshu Inn I had no sword."

"Wangshu Inn?" He gasped, "but that's so far away from here, how'd you even make it this far?"

"Barbatos was on my side, I guess," you shrugged, not knowing the answer to his question. It's a literal miracle that you hadn't died. "I was going to try and make my way as close to Liyue Harbor as possible since that was my original destination but I lost my map before I even got into the nation so... I'm kinda... all over the place right now."

"You sure are, you're nowhere near Liyue Harbor right now. In fact, I'd say you're closer to Wangshu Inn than the city." The boy explained, completely catching you off guard. Not even close to your destination? You spent all this time running and fighting through the terrain of Liyue and ended up almost exactly where you started."

"What? But I thought I had been following a clear path before the hilichurls attacked. So if I'm not near Liyue...," you began, twisting and turning in every direction as you tried to make sense of your location. "Then where am I?"

"If you climbed up the cliffs? You'd be standing in Jueyun Kurst, and mere mortals can't just walk into Jueyun Kurst." The boy explained, pointing to a path you could have taken had you not been chased by monsters. "It's going to take a while for you to even reach Guili Plains now, this place only gets more secluded the deeper you head into the mountains."

Had you survived the attack from the hilichurls, you would have gotten lost within Jueyun Kurst. Your luck was absolutely horrendous at the moment, the mere fact that the Geo boy had come and saved you was a miracle.

"If you want, I can take you to Liyue?" He offered, both of you catching each other's eyes almost immediately. After a moment of pure silence, he let out a nervous laugh and anxiously ran his hands through his hair. "I mean, I have friends who live in Liyue! They can help you get a new sword and a map... and I'm also sorta heading towards Liyue Harbor in a sense? So I think it'll just benefit the both of us! Yeah..."

You couldn't help but giggle at his actions, taking note of the evident flushing of his cheek that even the boy didn't seem to notice. "I'd like that very much. I feel a lot safer running around Liyue with a partner instead of on my own. Thank you...?"

"Chan," he informed you, his smile shining as he finally properly introduced himself. "I'm Bang Chan, but usually I just get called Chan... it doesn't matter which one you use though. I'm fine with anything."

"Chan," you repeated, making sure his name and face were permanently engraved in your mind. "I'm Y/N. Thank you, Chan, for being my guide around Liyue. Now shall we get going? It was raining a few minutes ago and we're soaking wet, don't want to catch a cold while we're on the road, do we?"

#stayhavennet #skzwritersclub #fluffyskzclub #kpop imagines #kpop #kpop scenarios #kpop au #kpop fluff #stray kids #stray kids imagines #skz #skz fluff #skz imagines #skz chan #skz x reader #bang chan x reader #bang chan imagines #bang chan #stray kids chan #stray kids x reader #genshin!au