#something something carrying the dead weight of himself out of the pit with his scars and all being a symbol for all the trauma hes faced | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moonknightly · 3 years

Text

now all you see is red : santiago garcia x reader

Word Count: 3.6k+

Excerpt: “There’s you, and God, Santi would let you completely ruin him.”

Warnings: Smut (18+), choking, spanking, light bondage, dom/sub dynamic, light degradation/humiliation, rough sex, angry sex, dirty talk

Santiago is familiar with anger.

He knows it well, he’s used to the bitter taste it leaves in his mouth, the smoke he can never fully push from his lungs, the way flames lick at his fingertips as his blood boils in his veins. He’s used to the sharp bite and unrelenting sting, he knows the exact sound his fist is going to make when it meets drywall, can hear each bone crack on impact and can feel the sensation of his knuckles splitting open, can visualize the black and blue bruises that will mark his skin for weeks to come.

They might as well be permanent, he never feels like himself without those damn bruises anymore. They’ve become an integral part of him, just like the scar on the back of his neck and the weight he carries on his shoulders day in and day out.

Just like his anger.

He needs it, he doesn’t remember how to get through without it. Anger isn’t a stranger to the ex soldier, but a lover.

It’s a dance so intimate, one he’s performed thousands and thousands of times before. It keeps him grounded, reminds him that he’s real, that he’s here. He’s alive and he’s breathing, he’s not lying at the bottom of a ditch in a foreign country with a bullet in his side, rotting. He made it out, he’s earned his temper.

He’s in control. He has the power, and nothing is going to hurt him again. He won’t let it.

Except, that’s not entirely true.

There’s you, and God, Santi would let you completely ruin him.

And you have, you so have. You’ve fucking wrecked him, but he refuses to let you see it, he doesn’t even fully understand it himself. In all of the years you’ve known each other, Santi’s been able to keep that little secret to himself, and he’s not about to give it up now, he doesn’t need that shit.

What he needs is the control back in the palm of his hand after losing it for the last week. He needs to feel some sense of power after spending seven days in unfamiliar territory, feeling utterly torn apart by grief and worry.

They’d lost contact with you on your last assignment, and an entire week had gone by without so much as a word until you suddenly showed up at base, seemingly fine. Santi hadn’t been able to find even a scratch on your perfect skin, and he’d checked several times just to be sure. You’re fine.

But Santi isn’t. Fuck, he is so fucking far from fine, he feels like he’s going to be sick. His initial relief is fading fast, threatening to turn into something that he has no desire to feel, something he doesn’t know how to handle. He doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it.

He needs his control, his power. He needs familiarity.

So he latches onto the subtlest spark of anger the moment it strikes. He takes it and he fucking runs.

“What the fuck were you thinking?”

His voice is eerily calm, almost chilling and it doesn’t waiver for even a second. It’s collected while the rest of him isn’t, but it’s enough to get him through. It’ll do.

“What do you mean?”

You’re sitting at the end of the bed, unlacing your boots, desperate to get out of them and into something comfortable. Santi keeps his eyes glued to you, tracking your every movement with expert precision that he’s spent his entire life mastering.

“A week. You went a fucking week without report.”

You seem almost annoyed, and really, you are — you’d spent the last hour getting the same lecture from your boss, you don’t need it from your boyfriend too even though it’s inevitable, so you shrug in response, and Santiago feels another white hot flash.

It’s perfect. He’ll take it.

“It would’ve compromised the mission, he was onto me. I’m fine.”

You’re fine. He laughs bitterly at that.

“I’m glad you’re fine, princesa,” he hums, not thinking about how he enunciates his words as he stalks towards you, painstakingly slow, brown eyes never straying from his target.

He’s quick, his reflexes sharp, and he has your chin between his fingers before you even register his hand moving.

“But that’s not a fucking excuse. You know your safety comes before anything else and we had no way to help you.”

“But I was safe.”

“But how were we supposed to know that, huh?” He shakes your head in his grip, like it’s enough to get you to see his way. “You could’ve been dead for all we knew. Do you have any idea what-”

He stops himself. That unfamiliar emotion is bubbling in the pit of his stomach again, and he pushes it away, down, down, down where it can’t touch him, can’t hurt him.

He needs another spark.

But now, he’s struggling to find it, and it’s clear. Your eyebrows are furrowed as you watch him wrestle with himself and hesitate, and he panics when your lips part because he knows you’re getting ready to ask him if he’s okay and he doesn’t fucking want you to. He doesn’t want to answer you.

So he just growls again, his hand moving to the back of your neck where he pushes your head forward until your lips meet his in a kiss that’s anything but gentle.

It’s all teeth and desperation and frustration and just like your annoyance, it’s perfect. Santi clings to that frustration to fuel his anger again, and he’s satisfied when it works and he feels the familiar tendrils of rage wrap themselves around his body. His free hand moves to your shirt, and he uses his grip to haul you to your feet only to shove you towards the dresser. You catch yourself, knocking a few things off in the process but you don’t care. You love it when he gets like this.

“Santi-”

“No.” He’s behind you again, his fingers tangling in your hair, pulling your head back so your neck is perfectly exposed to him, breath hot against your skin. “Don’t you dare say a fuckin’ word, understand?”

You nod obediently — you’ve always taken orders as well as he gives him.

“Good girl.”

He nips at your neck once, twice, three times before he sinks his teeth in, biting down, marking you and he smirks when he feels your knees buckle just slightly. You’re struggling to hold yourself up already and he’s hardly touched you.

His hand travels around to the front of your neck and he wraps his fingers around your throat, not applying any pressure, simply just holding them there. He feels your pulse thrum under his fingertips and he counts along for a moment, smirking at just how quick your heart is beating.

“Nervous baby?”

You hesitate, and he feels you gulp, feels the way you shift just slightly under his touch.

“No.”

He tsks, sighing in your ear almost disapprovingly. He lets his grip tighten around your throat, and he revels in the sound of you trying to pull in air before he cuts you off completely.

“Maybe you should be.”

His free hand slams between your shoulder blades and you’re suddenly flat against the dresser, the force of it knocking what little air you had left in your lungs out. He gives you a second, just a second to use your safeword or to tell him to go a little easy, but you don’t.

He knows you’ll tell him if he needs to take it down a notch.

There’s nothing slow or patient about Santiago’s touch. It’s urgent, each movement made with purpose, never lingering, he doesn’t have time for that. He just wants to feel you, just wants to feel that anger and the pleasure and nothing else.

He pulls your jeans down your thighs, not bothering to get them all the way off or worry about your shirt. His eyes are immediately on your ass, and he growls when he sees that you’re wearing his favorite color — red. He loves you in red.

Not enough to save the panties for another day though. He rips them clean off your body, the stretching, tearing sound of fabric making him groan alongside your gasp.

“Open your mouth.”

You don’t hear him the first time, too absorbed in the feeling running through you. He smacks your ass, hard, the sound reverberating through the quiet room. The moan that leaves your lips might just be the most sinful sound Santi has ever heard.

“Open your fucking mouth.”

This time, you hear him, and you obey just like he knew you would, opening your mouth for him to stuff your panties into.

“Fuck I can smell you on them from here princesa.”

He loves it. He loves it so fucking much. He smacks your ass a second time, feeling it turn hot under his touch, then he does it again and again and again until he’s satisfied with the way you flinch, until you’re laying limp against the dresser with tears running down your cheeks.

“Color?”

Like he said before, your safety means more to him than anything else, and through his anger he still always checks in to make sure you’re okay to continue. He never wants it to get to a point where he actually hurts you, even though he knows what your body can take, even though he knows you’d let him, you’d even ask him to.

You can’t speak with your panties in your mouth, but one finger means green, two means yellow, and three means red. You hold up one, and he lands one final blow just to see if your answer changes. You still only hold up one.

“Good girl.”

He grabs your wrists and drags you back towards the mattress, and you immediately fall face down ass up just how you know he likes, but now he hesitates.

His knees are bothering him today, more so than usual, and he doesn’t know if he can kneel behind you long enough to fuck you how he wants to.

That only makes him angrier, feeling like he can’t perform. Feeling like he’s not good enough, like he’s failing in a field where he’s always personally felt like he’s excelled.

All he sees is red and you and it’s the exact distraction he’s been looking for, the perfect combination. His blood burns, his fingers burn, his mind is fucking screaming your name and nothing else. There’s nothing but you and the rage boiling in the pit of his stomach.

It’s intoxicating, it’s everything, it’s familiar.

“No, no no,” he laughs, shaking his head as he undoes his belt, hastily pulling it through the loops of his jeans. “On your side, hands behind your back.”

He’s on you the second you're in position, tightening his belt around your wrists so you can’t move them, can’t touch him. He chuckles darkly when your fingers wiggle around in search of something to hold onto.

“Poor baby,” he hums, voice completely condescending and he loves the way your eyes roll at the tone of his voice. He loves that you get off on this just as much as he does, he loves that you dance with his temper, that you know it almost as well.

He’s so fucking hard. He can’t wait any longer.

He doesn’t check with his fingers to make sure you’re wet enough to take him, he knows you are. He can smell you, he can see your juices glisten when he hoists your leg up to reveal your pussy to him. You’re always so wet, always so ready for him.

And he’s more than ready for you, stroking himself in the palm of his hand while he looks you over with hungry, dark eyes. His hand is nothing compared to the warmth and pleasure he knows you’ll bring him, there’s not a damn thing in this world that can make him come as hard as you.

He lays behind you, continuing to pump his length as he drags the tip of his cock through your folds, nudging at your clit and smearing his precome all around. He can feel you clench, can feel you try to pull him in as you start rocking your hips against him.

“Jesus Christ, you’re acting like a fuckin’ whore for my cock babygirl. You need it, huh? You need me?”

You immediately start trying to beg through your makeshift gag and normally, that would only earn you more teasing but just like you, he can’t take it. He needs you just as much, if not more.

His nails dig into your left hip as he pushes himself against your entrance, leaving little crescent shaped indents in your skin, his grip so tight you both know it’ll bruise but it’s more than fine, it’s so good. He stops, wanting to drag it out for just a moment longer and your begging only continues, growing louder and louder until Santiago finally gives in.

All it takes is one sharp thrust and he’s so deep inside of you, spreading you open on his cock, tearing your walls apart to make room for his length, your bodies flush against each other. His free arm is wrapped underneath your body, his hand finding your neck again as he quickly sets his pace, not giving you more than a single second to even attempt to adjust to him.

It’s hard, it’s fast, it’s dirty and your cunt is squelching around him so deliciously, the sound only pushing him further — he doesn’t know if he wants to slow down so he can listen to it properly or if he wants to go faster.

“Fuck,” he grunts into your ear, his voice gravely and rough and he thrills in the way it makes you shiver. “Fuck you’re so tight, you’re squeezing my fucking dick baby. How’re you this tight?”

You only let out a moan that’s somewhere between a sob and a scream, and that sound alone is so entirely hot in itself, it’s enough to make his toes curl. He wants to pull that noise from you again and again and again, he wants you shaking and gasping and writhing. He starts using your hips for more leverage, knowing that he can get you to cry and whine for him this way.

You squirm and jolt each time he brings you back onto his cock, every time he hits that spot you didn’t believe existed until he fucked you for the first time and he wants to explode as he watches you struggle to take it.

He knows you’ll hold up your fingers if you need him to stop, but he still pulls your panties out of your mouth just so he can hear it, just so can listen for your words. You never say them, you only scream and cry and moan about how good it feels, how he’s pounding your pussy better than anyone ever has and how you never want him to stop.

“Yeah baby?” he purrs, nipping at your earlobe, tugging on it as he thrusts harder and harder. “This my pussy princesa? Tell me.”

“It’s yours,” you sob, clenching around him over and over. “God Santi, it’s yours, I’m yours.”

“That’s fuckin’ right baby, that’s it.”

He tightens his grip around your neck, his left hand moving from your hip to your clit, fingers matching the pace of his thrusts. He’s rubbing you so hard, he’s almost surprised when you angle yourself closer, but that’s his girl. That’s his fucking girl.

Santi can tell you’re close when your sounds grow higher in pitch and when he no longer needs to drag you back into his thrusts — you’re doing all the work for him, moving on your own accord, searching for that last little push you need to get over the edge and he lets you.

He lets you control the pace, lets you take what you need and that’s when that unfamiliar, unwelcome feeling enters his stomach again. He tries to ignore it, tries to push it away, tries to tap back into the anger but once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Now he’s just frustrated, but he doesn’t let himself get distracted, not when you’re on his cock, bringing yourself closer and closer to an orgasm he doesn’t want to miss a second of.

He rolls onto his back suddenly, catching you off guard but he steadies you on top of him and uses your bound wrists to continue rocking you on his length while you get adjusted again. He brings his free hand back to your clit, just like before and it’s not long before you’re right on the brink of coming again. Santi’s right there with you, watching you roll your hips and bounce on his cock, impaling yourself on him again and again. You’re so full of him, he only wants to fill you more.

He thinks he might actually let go first, but then you’re falling apart on top of him in a matter of seconds, sobbing his name so loudly while your thighs quiver and your body trembles. That’s what finally does it for him, and he comes inside of you with a deep groan that echoes in his chest, his back arching completely off the bed in an attempt to get even closer to you. He quickly grabs your hips again so he can continue to piston himself up into you, watching your combined release leak out of your pussy and coat his cock in glistening white. He only moans, quieter this time, and fucks it back into you, his pace slowing as his cock twitches over and over and quickly becomes oversensitive.

He doesn’t forget to undo your hands before he pulls you back onto his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around you and burying his face into your neck. He’s working hard to catch his breath, and he hopes that that’s all you think he’s doing when really, he’s having to put twice as much effort into not falling apart.

His chest is heaving with emotion, his eyes are filling with tears that he refuses to let spill over. His anger is completely gone and only this remains. He doesn’t know how to control it, doesn’t know what to do with it and he hates it. He hates it so much.

And you notice, of course you fucking notice. He’s slow to launch into aftercare and it’s obvious that he’s distracted through it, something heavy weighing on his mind.

“Santi, what is it? Did I do something wrong?”

“You didn’t fucking call.”

His voice waivers and cracks and his cheeks immediately turn red, though he’s not sure if it’s from embarrassment or this feeling settling in the pit of his stomach.

“What if something happened to you? You didn’t call.”

“Santi,” you sigh, running a hand through your hair, and he’s frustrated all over again. Usually he’s so good at reading you, he knows you like the back of his hand, but again he’s unsure about the emotion. He doesn’t know if you’re exasperated or if you’re concerned. He doesn’t wait to find out.

“You have any idea what was going through my head,” he bites, wiping furiously at his eyes. “I thought you were dead.”

He doesn’t see the expression on your face, doesn’t see how his words hit you right in the chest and shatter your heart. He misses the way you swallow the lump in your throat and he doesn’t see your hands start to shake, but he feels them when they cup his cheeks. His shoulders slump at the contact, and then Santi just breaks.

“You didn’t fucking call, why didn’t you fucking call?”

He chokes on a sob, coughing to try and rid himself of it but it doesn’t work. He hides his face into his hands, shoulders shaking as he softly cries and he’s just happy that he’s able to keep himself quiet.

“Oh sweet boy, come here.”

Santi let’s you pull him into your arms, he lets you comfort him in a way he didn’t know he needed, in a way he never even imagined wanting.

And he lets himself feel all of that unwanted emotion, because he needs to get it the fuck out. He doesn’t want to hold onto it like he does with his anger, he doesn’t want it dancing in his veins. He never, ever wants to feel this way again.

Santiago is familiar with anger.

But he’s completely unfamiliar with the fear of losing you. He’s not used to the nausea or the way his hands shake with panic, the way his chest feels like it’s going to collapse in on itself. He’s not used to any of it, he doesn’t know how to handle it.

He doesn’t know what the fuck is wrong with him.

But at some point in the middle of the night, he looks up and he sees you, still holding him, still comforting him, and it suddenly hits. Suddenly, he understands.

It’s you.

This is how you’ve ruined him.

You’ve made him feel things he’s been pushing away for so long, things he’s tried so desperately to keep under lock and key where it can never hurt him.

You’ve stripped him of his control, his power. You’ve taken away his anger and you’ve replaced the throbbing bruises on his knuckles, the smoke in his lungs and the blood that paints his vision.

He doesn’t see red, he only sees you.

Santiago is familiar with you.

#santiago pope garcia #santiago garcia x reader #santiago pope garcia x reader #santiago garcia #triple frontier #triple frontier x reader #triple frontier fic

739 notes · View notes

thelittlepoetprincess · 3 years

Text

ᴘᴏɪꜱᴏɴᴏᴜꜱ ʟᴏᴠᴇ [Dabi x Reader]

Author's Note: I personally am not a fan of Lizard king here but go off. This took a long ass time to write not to mention proofread and edit. No idea if I'm making another part to this. Also, a lot of this is therapy wagon material. If you want to be tagged in these just say so.

Warnings: Fluff for a bit, Implied depression, mild spoilers, light mental manipulation, degrading, power play, oral sex(F receiving), hate sex, death mentions, arson, and physical abuse.

Summary: You chose your job over Dabi, and then severely regret it once he survives.

The numbness of grief was overwhelming, even more so when the one you were grieving was your lover. You settled onto the sofa, watching the news drone on about the recent death of Villian Dabi, confirmed now to be Touya Todoroki. You'd turn off the TV and lie on your back, not needing the extraneous details of his death. After all, you killed him.

The memory of it haunted you like ghosts dancing in your memories: the heated warmth of his palms that threatened to burn you but never did, the way he always wore worn down leather or rough worn down jackets, everything about him attracted you and only made his death hit you harder.

You were a lesser-known hero with a restoration quirk, able to numb large areas and heal minor wounds while still using it in large quantities. You'd met Dabi while out on a mission to recover a kidnapped hero, and you couldn't keep your hands off his wounds. Not like he'd let you after he felt your gentle touch ease his pain for once.

Six months, it only took six months for the bad boy to entangle himself into your life. He snuck into your old apartment all the time, made you comfortable, and he'd break down in front of you. He was a surprisingly affectionate lover, despite his many flaws. You'd feel something in your throw blanket, shaking it loose to find the leather jacket he always wore.

The navy blue leather faded slightly and burnt in specific areas where he couldn't control his flames.

You felt the fresh hot tears welling up behind your eyes as you clutched the jacket to your chest. It was much larger than you since Dabi was slightly taller, so your face nuzzled into where his neck would be. It still smelled of cigarettes and burnt flesh, the scent you grew to love so much.

You took a deep inhale, the tears starting to flow as you replayed your shared memories, unable to help the grief overwhelming you. Suddenly, you had no energy nor will to do anything except sleep, even moving was deemed too much to handle. The scent of your boyfriend lulled you to sleep, though it'd be one of the last times it'd do so.

Dabi wrapped his hands around your waist before hoisting you high in the air while the wind blew at your hair in the flowy white lace dress you wore. The undetailed field of wildflowers went on far beyond your sight as he twirled you around before falling on his back with you. You'd both be laughing in the hazy daze of love before sharing a loving kiss as the gentle grass blades tickled your skin.

You felt a leathery hand touch the skin of your cheek, the thick smell of cigarette smoke tickling your nose and making you sneeze before you gently smacked away the hand. You hear a deep, raspy chuckle before the person mysteriously pulls the coat on you like a blanket.

"Little hero, do you love me?" You'd mumble a yes subconsciously, something saddeningly familiar about whoever it was looming over your sleeping form. "Ha, cute. . ." You heard something about leaving and the door shut with a click, leaving you to sleep once again.

Your peaceful sleep is dreadfully short as your friends came in, yanking you from the grasp of sleep with their tumultuous noise.

You quickly hid the jacket, sleepily rubbing at your eyes as they opened your curtains and turned on the TV. It droned on about the agency you worked at and fire. However, you didn't have the energy nor will to care since you planned on quitting anyway.

They droned on about how you'd slept for two days straight and needed to get out, and you agreed. Maybe it would take your mind off of Dabi and the arsenic incident, also the five missed calls from your agency from two days ago. You'd shower and change, pulling your hair back out of your face for the first time for days.

The curls were dry against your fingers so you oiled your hands and massaged them into the brown mass you called hair, plucking it out to its full shape. You pulled on the black and blue dress, noticing how the dress hugged your hips a bit then flowed out to your mid-thigh. Perhaps you've gained a bit of weight these past 2 months.

Tired bags were under your eyes from sleeping for so long. After some light makeup, you left with them to the carnival.

Lights illuminated the dark navy blue sky as you got dragged about, the fun temporarily blinding you from the sadness overwhelming you. They led you into the Maze of Mirrors, their bodies contorting and bending around you confusedly while you searched for them until they disappeared. Their goofy laughter faded into an eerie silence with only your echoing footsteps left to fill the silence. You froze as you smelled a familiar scent: burnt flesh and cigarette smoke.

His chuckles were all around you as you saw the flashes of black and navy blue in the mirrors before he was suddenly standing in front of you.

He was pissed, you knew that snarky glare anywhere. It made you nervous as he closed the distance between the two of you without speaking a word until he backed you against the cold glass. He gently pressed himself against you, giving you no real way to escape him with his arms on both sides of your head. "Dabi-" "Shh, I don't wanna hear it. At least not here, too many people. They're already looking for me since I disappeared. We aren't safe, come on." He didn't ask as he hoisted you over his shoulders to carry you out the back exit.

He seemed gentle while he carried you, he wasn't rough at all. The heat you felt radiating from his palms as he held said otherwise as you worriedly fretted about him burning a hole in your clothes. Though you felt some relief knowing he wasn't dead: he was your love after all. You knew what was coming to you for feeding him arsenic wasn't going to be a gentle, loving reunion of star-crossed lovers. Dabi wasn't that kind of guy.

He made it back to your new apartment after knocking out the security guard at the gate and threw you onto the bed. He'd seemed to get angrier as he got closer to your apartment. Your hair messily fell around your face to make a curly halo around it. He was on top of you before you could attempt to sit up, his warm breath huffing down the side of your neck.

"Now what the fuck were you thinking, huh? An arsenic cupcake? You really wanna get rid of me that badly you snake." He seethed, and you felt the familiar feeling of your wrists being burnt by his flames. You cry out in pain, squirming under his grip with tears in your eyes.

"Oh you're crying, now you're crying. How do you think I felt getting sick and finding out my girlfriend poisoned me?" He'd growl out, as you stopped squirming and sucked it up. He was right, you deserved this. You tried to kill him, and all he'd done was be beside you and attempt to be somewhat of a lover to you. You looked up to him, his blue eyes lacking any gentleness or affection. It was hate, resentment, and importantly: lust.

That's when it hit you that you were a stress reliever for him. Everything that he kept pent up he always let it out on you, and for about a month now he hasn't had it. You'd reach out, gently tracing your fingers along his scars using your quirk to calm him and watch his eyes soften as he quite literally melted under your touch. He'd land on top of you, caging you underneath him with his arms, he exhaled a strained snarl before snatching your hands from his skin.

You couldn't help wincing once you felt the familiar burning sensation of Dabi's quirk in action yet again as the blue flames licked against your skin, at least it wasn't a third-degree this time.

"It was you, wasn't it? My agency, they called then it went up in flames." He didn't answer but you knew the answer by the way he buried into the side of your neck. He always did that when you accused him and he was guilty. You'd chuckle to yourself but yelp when you felt his teeth against the soft skin of your neck, suckling your skin.

You'd squirm as a familiar heat settled itself in the pit of your stomach. He huffed as he finally moved away from the purple bruise he left on your skin. His lips trailed down until he reached your exposed collarbone, chuckling before tracing his hands against your caramel skin sending chills down your spine. He'd kiss, lovingly at that, along the caramel curve of your breasts.

He'd yank you to the edge of the bed, moving between your legs with a focused look in his glimmering eyes. "Dabi, are you mad at me?" He'd chuckle before you'd feel a burn against your thighs while sinking his teeth into the soft plushness of your inner thigh. "Oh darling, I'm fucking furious." The sweet name rolled off his tongue, making you quiver when paired with his teasing licks over your soaked panties.

He paid no attention to your face, his main focus being on the slickness accumulating from your dripping hole. His hands traced up over the stretch marks gently decorating your skin so beautifully before burning off the panties, his tongue grazing the soaked slit before sliding his tongue up to your neglected clit. His mouth was warm and wet against your sensitive bud, making it grow under his expert tongue his suckling sent waves of pleasure coursing through your entire body, and core. The entire room felt hot, and it wasn't helping wherever his hands traced left heated burn trails. You'd run your fingers into hair, yanking it to where his tongue pressed against your hole. "Dabi, please I want it. . ."

"Shut it, I'm still pissed at you." He'd yank your arms away again, pressing his tongue into your hole. Your flavor flooded his tongue, making him lick and devour you hungrily. Your eyes rolled back, your hips subconsciously bucking against his tongue as it buried into your wet hole. Ecstasy, that's all you could describe the feeling at this moment. The waves of heat that swallowed you and threatened to keep you at this moment while your climax built up in that tight ball. You panted like a bitch in heat, your legs trembling as your fingers intertwined in his black hair. "Dabi, I'm. . . .I'm-!"

"Shut up, loud-ass slut. Come if you wanna come so bad!"

He'd say before continuing to devour you, his tongue digging into your spot just enough to send you tottering over the edge in waves of heat. You'd throw your head back, sending your curls flying wildly behind you as you rode out your orgasm and Dabi's face. Your legs closed around his head like a vice, keeping his tongue in your hole while he drank you greedily. He moaned into your nether lips, finally able to pull away with an exasperated breath.

His lips and chin were a mess of your nectar and saliva, but a smirk was on his face now. He'd notice his jacket hidden poorly, but laugh as he moved to take it and pull it on. He'd once again hoist you over his shoulder, humming as he slid his fingers along the walls setting them ablaze. "Dabi-?! What are you doing?! My apartment!" "I let you have too much freedom last time, but don't worry. I'll make it so that I'm the only one you can lean on. Then you'll never leave again."

He'd laugh as he carried you away, ignoring your cries and pleas while the building went up in flames along with everything you'd known up until now. His sick, twisted laughter filled your ears before you felt a hard force against your head, the inky blackness flooding your senses and knocking you out.

#bnha dabi #mha dabi #dabi lemon #Dabi #dabi smut #dabi my hero academia #bnha #dabi x reader #dabi fluff

77 notes · View notes

officerjennie · 3 years

Text

Grief

CW: MCD, alcohol abuse, mentions of wanting to commit suicide, canon typical injuries. Ship: Lambden. WC: 7.4k+

Brief Summary: Aiden dies and Lambert suffers for it.

Denial

It wasn’t until the next summer that Lambert knew what had become of him.

Spring had always been their time of the year. At the end of winter, before the snow had even properly cleared from the path, Lambert was the first to leave Kaer Morhen behind. The trek was treacherous, slick with melting ice that would freeze over during the nights, proper footing hard to find and starving creatures more than willing to test their fading strength against anything that moved in a desperate attempt to keep living. Lambert’s blade was stained with blood by the time he made it to the first town on his path - the first one that accepted witcher patrons at their inn, at the very least - and it took him a good hour to properly sharpen and clean it in the flickering candlelight of his room.

That spring, there was a pit in his stomach that grew with each step he took. Nerves, thoughts he didn’t want to think, things he didn’t want to have bogging down his already fucked life. For the first time in a long while he didn’t envy Geralt and Eskel’s affinity with animals, preferring the slow trek as he headed to the coast, towards a small fishing village that saw his face near the beginning of each and every year.

With each step, that pit grew and hardened, his hand shaking as it gripped the sword at his back. Lambert paused several different times, taking detours, taking missions he didn’t need to take and spending an extra night in a brothel despite how little interest he really had in the woman he’d chosen to spend time with - all to waste time, to keep the coast from coming into view over the hills that surrounded it.

It still came into view. He stood on the same hill he did every single spring, smelling the damned dandelions and clovers that covered it, salt carried on the wind to greet him along with the sound of gentle water on sand. With a deep breath he took it all in but it did nothing for the shake of his hands, did nothing to make it any easier to take that next step forward.

The people all knew him, or at least knew of him. Children still stared at him like he might toss them to a harpy if given a chance but he was fine with it, fine with that, kept them out of his way and out of the danger that haunted a witcher’s footsteps. But the people knew him and knew he wasn’t there to cause more trouble than necessary, for the most part leaving him be as he walked the rather quiet streets towards the noise and bustle of the early morning fish market.

Crowds weren’t his thing, but Aiden loved them. He’d asked him once why he loved this little village so damned much, Lambert himself seeing it as nothing more than the next, and had been surprised when he got an honest and rather vulnerable answer.

“Reminds me of home,” the cat witcher had said, no faux humor to tint his wistful tone, his eyes on the fisherman that shouted and tossed their catch from their carts. It had reminded Lambert of nothing but the reek of fish guts, his face turning as much as his stomach, and yet…

And yet, here he was, making his way past the bustle of the fisherman once more. Their early catch was tossed here and there, the reek of dead and still dying fish heavy on the air, his nose and tongue both regretting every step that he took down the slick streets. Some of the men knew him and nodded his way though it was no friendly greeting, just a greeting, just something to acknowledge that he was there and existed. He did not nod back.

It was the outskirts of town where he was headed, down to the little beach just passed where all of the fishermen docked their fishing boats and hung their nets for the little ones to fix up. They were already busy at work, their little fingers no doubt pruning up as they stitched any holes that might have been made in the netting, some far too short to work on the whole netting, their hands showing the speed of familiarity with the tasks. Lambert watched as he walked past, as he always did, a little mesmerized with the simplicity of the hard work that civilians took part in.

A life he would never know. He readjusted his sword on his back, its weight a constant in his life, feeling the sand move beneath him as he made his way to their little beach.

The same rock as always stood waiting for him, just outside of the reach of the high tide. He didn’t climb up on it - that was Aiden’s spot when he got their first, as he did so many of the years. The cat witcher would sit cross-legged on the rock, not caring that it was damp, his daggers still strapped to his hip save one which he would use to peel an orange as he waited. The oranges were never ripe this time of year but he always managed to have one, a mischievous glint to his eye as he fed himself the fruit on the sharp blade, his dark brown eyes sharp as they caught sight of the wolf.

“About time, little Lamb,” he’d always say, just to get a rise out of the younger man. His braids would sometimes be disheveled by the ocean breeze, the scars on his face stretching from his grin, fangs showing and almost shining in the sunlight.

Aiden always looked like he belonged here. Lambert never did. He leaned against the rock, arms crossed as he stared up at the sky, taking the time to watch the clouds roll over head as he waited for him to show up.

By late evening, Lambert knew it would not be that day. His nausea had not left him. If Aiden had been there, he would have weaseled them a place to stay with one of the fishermen’s families, always able to get his way, always able to convince anyone of anything - but Aiden was not there, and Lambert had no real liking for people.

He camped out in one of the trees nearby, not bothered with a fire despite the chill in the wind, hardly able to sleep with his hands and legs refusing to stay still.

The next day, he had to hunt for food, refusing to touch the fish that already invaded every one of his senses. It was the work of but a few minutes to find enough small game to tide him over, Lambert building a small fire just at the edge of the beach to cook it over, keeping an eye on the rock while he slowly turned a few skinned rabbits over the flames - rabbits he barely touched despite how he knew he needed the food.

By the end of the week, he had grown restless out of boredom, having to travel to the next town over to find some sort of contract to keep his hands busy. Hunting down a troll by himself wasn’t always the wisest decision but it ended up being a younger one, inexperienced, felled easily enough and filled his coin purse enough for a few pints and a warm, soft woman to keep his bed company for the night.

Spring was heavy in the region before Lambert finally gave up waiting, no hint of his kitty cat in sight, his nerves back in full force for another reason beyond their last conversation. His heart was a bit heavy as he left the fishing village and all of its occupants behind, heading down further south, wondering if he’d run into Aiden later that year or if he’d have to wait until the next spring before he saw him again.

It was a coincidence, he told himself, that brought him to where they’d parted early the fall before. Not concern that brought him there, not concern that had made him hesitate either, the journey of naught but two weeks taking him all the way until mid-summer to greet the hills that he’d seen Aiden stroll down as he walked away from him, a forced tune on his lips as he’d twirled one of his daggers between his fingers - his anger showing.

“A witcher?”

The innkeep’s good eye pinned Lambert in place where he was leaned forward on the bar, Lambert’s fingers twitching, unable to stay still. As the man cleaned one of his mugs he seemed to chew the question over in his head, grey beard sticking to the condensation on the outside of the mug, the entire place around them mostly quiet and stinking of the seedy clientele that usually inhabited it.

And Lambert would know, given Aiden and him had been there not a year before. Had stayed here off and on for over a month, getting into fights whenever it pleased them, grinning as they were kicked out of the place at last, falling in a drunken stupor of laughter over each other as they carried themselves away to make camp in the woods nearby.

But as far as he could tell, this old man’s memory was nothing. He didn’t give any hint of remembering Lambert as he put his still dirty mugs away, turning to wipe the counter with the same rag, making Lambert grow impatient for his answer.

“We’ve had a few around these parts before,” the old man said at last, jerking his head to the side as he caught sight of a fly. He swatted it with the rag and continued to clean, not looking up at Lambert as he spoke to him. “Besides you, there were a couple last year. One stuck around longer than the other.”

“How long?” Not that the information would do him much good, but it was all he had to go off of - if the old fart remembered at all.

“A few days,” the man shrugged, continuing as if his words meant nothing, “the rest of his life, turns out.”

He stopped after that. Stopped as if that was the end of the story, wiping his counters like the smudges weren’t stains soaked into the wood that no one could ever clean - but that couldn’t be. Lambert shook his head, running a hand through his short hair - that couldn’t be the end of the story.

“Better finish talking if you want to keep your head, old man.” He growled it but it wasn’t anger that had his heart picking up its pace, and no matter how much he blinked Lambert couldn’t seem to focus on anything.

“Found the body by the swamp.” The words were distant despite the man’s closeness, but there was a ringing growing in his ears that made the world seem far away. “Didn’t have much use for a witcher’s body, or what was left of it. We don’t bury what’s not our own.”

The man spat, and Lambert found himself escorted out of town by sword point. He couldn’t recall how many of them he hurt on his way out, but he’d never forget the sound of that old man’s nose breaking under his knuckles.

Anger

‘By the swamp’. It was cold and wet, the air thick with the stench of rotting things. Lambert had waded in and out of the waters, some up to his waist, most not past his shins but every bit of it clinging to him and weighing him down. He was soaked through to the bone and shivering but he’d been shivering when he got there, his hands shaking and no amount of clenching his fists able to stop it.

It wasn’t very good direction to go off of, ‘by the swamp’. He could have been searching for hours and hours (and he would have been, there would have been no stopping him from tearing every inch of the swamp apart to prove the old man wrong, this wasn’t the end) but eventually part of his mind caught up with him.

Aiden had been about to hunt something. A troll, maybe, or maybe it had been a chimera - fuck, Lambert stopped to lean against a tree and think, stepping up onto its protruding roots to get out of the cold water for a moment.

He’d been hunting something. Lambert held his face in one hand and breathed, telling the rest of his thoughts to quiet themselves so he could focus on where his friend had been going - because Aiden had told him, he was certain of it, exactly where this beast had been.

It took longer than a moment, but he remembered, and hopped off the roots to once again wade further into the swamp.

The southern border was where the beast had been hunting and picking off civilians. It wasn’t a contract that had brought Aiden there but a necessity for some potion or another; Aiden had loved dabbling in that sort of thing, crafting his own concoctions that the sight alone of made Lambert’s stomach turn.

Lambert could stomach a lot of things, but actual poison was a bit beyond his limit. And there was no doubt in his mind that some of the shit his friend had thrown together was going to kill him some day.

Would have- no. Lambert took a deep breath through his nose but it did nothing for the rolling of his stomach, his thoughts turning to nothing but a dark cloud as he waded through the afternoon into the evening.

Eventually, he found his way through the swamp. All the way through, his feet now mostly on solid ground, the area covered in the stale scent of a troll - a troll that was no longer here, as evidenced by the bones he eventually found, the corpse long since rotted away to nothing. Didn’t mean the smell was gone. It made his nose twitch but he’d smelled worse, seen a lot worse too, but he kicked some of the bones for good measure just to hear them snap.

They weren’t right by the water’s edge. A good thirty meters away, give or take; Lambert looked around but saw little evidence of a fight here, no matter that time would have eroded most of it away. Still, some destruction told the stumbling path of a dying troll and he followed it, not sure what good it would do but having to know.

It hadn’t made it far. Though its body was gone Lambert could guess, if his friend had indeed faced the troll, that it was poison that did it in. That was if…

No. This wasn’t the end. He shoved over a leaning tree that had been nearly cracked in half before, hitting it hard enough for it to finally snap and crash down into the swamp, taking down branches of surrounding trees as it went and disturbing the wildlife around him.

Maybe he was more violent than he thought. His fist clenched and unclenched, wanting nothing more than to continue on with idiotic, needless destruction - but he put the need behind him, letting his hand rest at the hilt of his sword for now, the promise keeping his nerves calm as he stepped over some weather dampened debris.

It took the rest of the evening to find him.

No body was left for him to find. The clothes were barely there, barely recognizable in their torn and shredded state. Scavengers had picked the body clean and barely left any bones, and most of what was left of him - of what had been him - had sunken into the mud and earth.

Lambert knelt next to the place where someone had died. Fingers trembled as he reached out to touch what had once been a part of his armor - a shoulder pad, thick and sturdy, meant to take hits and oh, it had taken many over the decades.

No weapons left. Lambert looked around, the swamp quiet save for the ringing that grew in volume, not even the wind registering as he noticed not a coin purse nor a sword nor even a single one of the many throwing knives that used to glint in the sun as Aiden threw them with deadly precision at his enemies. They’d glittered just like his feral grin, sharp and always hitting their mark just like his words, his dark eyes not even narrowing in his anger as he tore anyone apart who dared to think his cheerful grin or lighthearted demeanor an easy target.

Nothing was left now.

It didn’t mean it was him. Lambert swallowed and wiped at his blurring vision. A body looked like a body, like any of the rest, especially when it was so eroded and scavenged away. It could have been any fool in armor no matter that it might look like his armor: leather scraps strewn here and there, the same black buckles that strapped it onto his chest, a few pieces of the over abundance of belts that Lambert had made fun of him for over the years.

He leaned back on the balls of his feet, running a hand once again through his hair. There wasn’t even enough evidence to suggest it was a witcher, specifically. No potions nor smells left, time having taken that evidence with it, and without any of that it could have been anyone. Anyone could have died out here, slaughtered by a troll that they pissed off. It could have been anyone.

But something caught in the fading sunlight, something silver and shaped like a coin connected to a broken chain, and it was not just anyone who had faced the troll and died for it.

Lambert broke the rest of the troll’s bones, but it did nothing to clear his vision.

Bargaining

It was possible that time could have helped heal his wounds, but time had never been kind to him.

Lambert hid the medallion in one of his pockets, never letting it leave him but refusing to look at it. And over the years that’s where it stayed, weighing heavy in his hand whenever he felt the need to hold it, grip it, squeeze his hold on it until its dull edges bit into his palm and made him bleed. It didn’t matter how long had passed - years, he knew that much, but how many he could not recall. All the springs and winters bled into the next, the rest of the year meaningless, his only counter for it all being when he had to leave to meet his brothers, when he should leave to go to the coast…

The first time his feet took him to the coast, he almost broke the rock. Their rock. It broke his fist when he’d hit it and he left a sizable crack along its side, a crack that he touched with ginger fingers that had nothing to do with the pain shooting straight up his arm. Fingers that shook like his breaths and could not even hold sand, let alone grip onto the past that left him cold and alone.

Nothing he did would take it back. Bring it back.

He tried being alone. Avoiding everyone he could, not taking a single contract for over a year and a half, living off of nothing but the land and his own anger that fueled his hunts. Trolls stood no chance against him, every single one of them he sniffed out and slaughtered like the last, not caring that they were sentient beings and knew nothing of what caused his rage.

It didn’t matter. They didn’t matter. He could feel his friend’s disappointment in him growing.

Lambert tried not being alone.

“You’ll be joining us, then?” Geralt’s bard had too loud of a voice for such an early morning, his hair curly and wild in a way that made Lambert regret his choices. His chattering on and on made his knuckles grow white where it gripped the table in front of him - but this would be good for him, would be good for the emptiness that took him some nights.

And the too much that filled his days.

Geralt rode Roach, as he always did, a little ways ahead of them as they marched down the path. For his part Jaskier trounced about the place, too much energy, too loud and too carefree and always too much. It wasn’t as if Lambert had never been in his presence before - before, he had known him. Had met him and thought the bard was just another cute face, even flirted once or twice just because he liked the lack of fear that flashed across most humans’ expressions when he dared to speak to them, but he’d known long before Geralt and Jaskier had become a thing that his brother wanted him.

So Lambert had known Jaskier and his ways. Hadn’t minded his voice back then, how his laughter was quick and easy, how his words could be barbed and as sharp as throwing knives. How his hair curled just like undone braids that the air had caught and caused to go wild. Back then, he hadn’t minded.

Now he couldn’t make his thoughts stop.

Months dragged on. Summer came and started to go, and the bard made his skin itch and his hands sweat. There were whole nights he couldn’t sleep so he forced Geralt to let him keep watch instead, knowing the looks his brother gave him but ignoring them all the same. Just as he ignored the whispering when Jaskier thought he was out of earshot.

“Is he alright? He’s been so quiet.” Lambert’s jaw tightened as he sharpened his weapons at the edge of their camp, the bard’s back turned to him, Geralt nudging his shoulder in lieu of a verbal response.

“When was the last time he slept?” It had been three nights but Lambert didn’t tell the lark that, continuing on climbing up in the tree to at least avoid their eyes, letting them think whatever they’d like.

“Geralt, I’m worried about him-”

“Leave it be, Jaskier.”

On and on, for weeks on end. Pitying eyes following his movements as if he was a child and didn’t notice them, the never ending humming in the mix, that bright laugh and wide grin making him want to rip his hair out.

It was too much. And it was made all the worse when Geralt had to go track down some beast on his own, leaving Lambert there to protect his bard, not able to escape his chatter or worrying looks.

“I’ve really enjoyed you traveling with us this year.” Jaskier plopped down on the same rotting log as him, not caring that it would stain his expensive clothes, a genuine smile on his lips that made Lambert want to snarl at him. “Not that I don’t adore traveling with Geralt alone - he might be a right arse when he wants to be, difficult to talk to at times, comes back reeking of monster guts and certainly doesn’t enjoy the finer things in life, and...hmm, where was I going with this?”

“Away from here, I hope.”

“Oh, right, yes!” Jaskier snapped his fingers, ignoring Lambert’s sharp comment and leaning towards him, the glint in his eyes making him nauseous. “It’s just nice to have someone else around for a while. Especially someone who gets him in ways I can’t, you know? I adore him, I really do, but it doesn’t matter how much I tell him that if he won’t let me in. With you, well...he trusts you. Trusts you to not hate or judge him, or shrink away when he comes back all hyped up on potions. Doesn’t matter how many times I tell him I won’t, there’s always a...hesitance, in the way he approaches me.

“It’s just...nice to see him relax, and not worry about those sorts of things.”

Lambert didn’t know why he was being told all of this. Didn’t care, just wanted the bard to leave him alone. He stared at him until he stopped talking, watching the way the lark sighed wistfully, catching the longing in his gaze as he stared off in the direction Geralt had trudged away into an hour before.

What had he done to deserve this?

“I think it’s good for you, too, Lamb.”

Lambert went ridged, body tensed and fingers suddenly clawing into the log beneath them. ‘Little Lamb’, his memories purred at him, sharp teeth glistening at the end of a laugh - and he hated it, hated everything about this damn bard, his carefree nature hiding his sharp tongue and the damn tunes he never stopped humming and the knife he carried at his hip-

“Don’t fucking call me that,” he spat, and he didn’t stick around to hear anymore, his eyes wild and his heart racing with the rush of memories trying to over take him. Some part of him heard Jaskier’s surprise but he couldn’t process his words, jerking away from their log, leaving in a rush and breaking out into a sprint the moment he was out of sight.

He didn’t know how long he ran. His lungs were burning, his cheeks raw from branches clawing at him in his haste, burned by the tears he didn’t want to admit were spilling down his face. But eventually Lambert had to stop, doubling over as it all finally took over, leaving him sobbing and screaming in anger at the memories - because that’s all they would ever be now. The past, trapped in his mind, poisoning him from within.

Lambert was too far away to hear the chort that found their camp. Even if he had heard it he would not have reached Jaskier in time to protect him, the bard’s screaming reaching no one, luck being the only thing that saved him from death that night. But his injuries were great and he would never walk without a limp again - and the grave, betrayed look in Geralt’s eyes when Lambert at last returned to them told the truth they all knew:

It was his fault.

Depression

No amount of gull would drown out the truth, but Lambert tried his best despite that. Inn after inn, tavern after tavern, spending coin he didn’t own himself to make his thoughts stop and his chest from caving in on itself. Sticky fingers he’d learned from one of the many he refused to think of, swiping coin purses and hating the stir in his gut at the knowledge that the very man who taught him this would be disappointed in him for using it.

‘Thought better of you, little Lamb.’ He heard the words as he drank himself into a stupor in a dark corner of some shady inn, not even aware of what town he was in anymore; they all bled into the rest, faces meaningless and lost to him, all the continent the same without a person to meet up with and make it mean something.

He’d betrayed his own brother’s trust. Lambert laid his head on the table, not caring about the grim and spilled drink there, his own half-empty glass tipping and leaving the short hairs on his head wet with drink.

All he’d been charged with was watching the bard, and he couldn’t even do that. Left him on his own when he’d known danger was in the area, and now he’d live the rest of his life with a pain no magic they’d found could fully take away from him. After he’d swore to stay there, protect him, he’d left him-

Lambert swayed on his feet when he jolted up, the walk from his table to the bar a blur. He didn’t bother walking back, half laying on the bar when his drink arrived, downing it and not even noticing most of it spilled down his front.

Hadn’t even stuck around to face his foolish mistake. Didn’t even give Geralt the time to chew his ear off, had just. Left the both of them. Left them there and avoided the both of them like a bloody coward, only knowing the extent of his mistake a year later when he’d run into Eskel on the path.

Jaskier couldn’t make it up the mountain to winter with them, and Geralt had stayed behind with him - and Lambert had been too drunk in some tavern near the coast to realize winter had come and went.

The drinks eventually stopped coming but he wasn’t aware enough to even realize it, his coin purse as empty as the five others he’d dumped the contents of onto the slick wood of bars across the country, his woes never going quiet but the pain being dulled like his senses.

His fault. His head swam even against the cold grain of the wood his cheek was pressed against, even with his eyes shut tight. ‘Such a loyal wolf,’ his memory supplied, a hand soft on his chest, calloused fingers tracing the scars there. ‘Why’d you take that for me, hmm?’

Lambert sniffed, choking back the emotions that were supposed to be deafened and dulled by the gull that filled his stomach so full it hurt, raising his head just enough to hold it up with his hand.

“It’s who I am,” he gruffed out to no one - but it was a lie. It’s who he was, once, loyal to a fault, loyal to the point of self detriment.

Who was he now?

Acceptance

Aiden was dead.

Lambert knew this, accepted it, hated himself for it. There was nothing he could do to change that and he found himself too much of a coward to join him, though he wished to, desperately wanted to as the inn beds stayed cold at his side.

He traveled alone, save for the scattered moments where he ran into Eskel and allowed the other wolf to join him. Though the memories flooded him at times their contents became hazy. Hearing a tune that was almost familiar could still bring him to his knees but he forgot what Aiden’s voice sounded like, the exact shade of brown his eyes and hair were, what his last words to him were. And when he lost the cat medallion that he’d hidden in one of his pockets he almost didn’t have it in him to feel the grief anymore, hands shaking as he searched and searched to no avail, breaths quickening but the tears refusing to come.

Slowly, the memories left him. No longer plagued him and that was a poison of its own, forgetting. But some things never left him alone.

He’d become a liar. A thief. A betrayer. Geralt never trusted him again, not to the extent he used to, and Lambert accepted that because there was nothing else he could do - he had betrayed him and doubted himself for it, knowing it was possible he would do it again.

It was easier to avoid them all. Live life out on his own, hardly heading home for the winter, sending brief letters instead that bore no further information than him being alive and mostly unharmed. And that was how Lambert lived for a long, long time: on the path, alone, stealing coin whenever he felt the need to, lying his way through the continent and holding no one close to him.

Vesemir had long passed, gone one winter when he fought a leshen that was too quick for him. Geralt went not long after his bard, heart broken and unable to go on, leaving two wolves left and one that refused to return to the keep. Eskel took over the care of Kaer Morhen and was the only one there to read Lambert’s brief letters, but eventually he, too, was taken by time, Lambert’s letters being delivered to an empty keep that caved in from the unkept snow on the rooftop.

He knew he was alone, but sent them anyway, his only connection to who he used to be, the life he once had. And one spring even found him following that familiar path to the coast, the fishing village a ghost town of crumbling houses and the forest taking it over - but his rock, their rock, was still there, jutting out onto the beach.

As he smoothed his hand on their rock, he thought about his friend. The one he’d loved and never confessed his feelings for, the one whose laugh and smile he couldn’t remember. The one who he knew had a quicksilver tongue but for the life of him he couldn’t remember anything he’d said, who’d been irresistible and insatiable yet Lambert could not remember any specifics of their times laying together.

He remembered him like a vague notion of a feeling he’d once had, and his heart and chest ached for the absence - because he could not remember him. But what did it matter, in the end, when Aiden would never recognize who he’d become.

Mistakes

In the quiet of their shared inn room, the dust thick in the air, sunlight barely peeking through the windows at that early hour, Lambert found it...difficult to pretend anymore.

They lay naked together, the blanket just barely resting above Aiden’s hips, the bruises and teeth marks Lambert had covered him in the night before already faded and gone. Lambert was always the early riser between the two of them; Aiden could sleep the whole afternoon away if allowed, his eyes fluttering as he dreamed, dark lashes touching dark brown skin as his breaths ghosted across Lambert’s chest.

It made Lambert’s heart ache. One of the summers of his youth Vesemir had taken him aside, Lambert’s cheeks stained with hot and angry tears, his tiny fists at his side as Vesemir tried to calm him down.

“You feel so much, little pup,” the old wolf had told him, rough hand on the top of his head to keep him grounded in place.

And he was right, damn him. Lambert felt too much, and it ached, and he wished he could swallow it all down and forget and feel nothing like the humans said.

He had nowhere to keep his hands but on Aiden’s body, holding him as he waited for his friend to wake, aware of every inch of their bodies as the seconds passed like minutes.

It was sex. Nothing more. And that was fine.

Except apparently it wasn’t.

Aiden slept in too long and had to be forcefully pried away from Lambert’s body, the cat witcher whining that he was warm while Lambert griped and bitched that they had shit to do. Once that mischievous glint in Aiden’s eyes returned and he remarked that Lambert was near the top of his to-do list, Lambert unceremoniously dumped him right on the floor, leaving his friend cackling in his wake as he hurriedly got ready and stormed out of their room.

A morning like any other. Bar fight got them kicked out of the inn with the threat to never step foot in there again, Lambert’s cheek barely stinging from the pitiful punch the drunken bastard had managed to land on him - only because Aiden had purposely distracted him just for a laugh, which they both shared as they left town, hanging off each other like they were the ones too drunk to hold themselves up.

Their friendship was why Lambert refused to acknowledge anything more. Why it was enough, why he shoved any fluttering heartbeats out of his mind. He groped his friend’s rather sinful arse just to see Aiden’s teeth, his friend whipping around so fast the silver beads worked into his braids almost smacked him in the face.

Aiden was on him a moment later. It was always an equal toss up how he would react: would he tackle Lambert and attempt to wrestle him to the ground, lethe body belying his strength, determined to ‘teach Lambert a lesson’ full of teeth and one very memorable evening including a knife that ended up carving a deep scar into his shin; or would he pin him against a tree, holding him there and not letting him move, teeth accompanied by a wicked tongue that could leave Lambert whimpering as easily as those skillful fingers that loved to dance across his skin.

Lambert loved both equally, and Aiden wouldn’t have let him keep his hand if he didn’t love it too.

“Still feeling frisky, little Lamb?”

Lambert scowled over at his friend as he readjusted his clothing, not bothering to tell him to shove it at the nickname - it had never worked before, and likely it would just give Aiden ideas. But he had been caught ogling, unable to help himself even after they’d frotted against each other right there on the path where anyone and their mother could have walked up on them. He was still hot just from the thought, his soiled smalls speaking just to how frisky he’d been feeling when Aiden had pinned him.

“Can’t waste the whole day away, kitty cat.” He risked patting Aiden’s arse one more time, ducking away from the knife swipe aimed right at his head, jogging ahead with a laugh, his chest lighter then than it had been in years.

This was enough. What he had, what they had between them. Traveling together as the path stretched onward, taking turns keeping watch as rain deafened the forest around their night campsite, picking up in the morning with a tune on Aiden’s lips that was sung in a tongue Lambert knew not a word of.

“I’d like to kiss you.”

Lambert cocked his head as he straightened back up from where he’d been rolling up his bedroll, finding for once Aiden’s eyes held no humor in them at the offer. He couldn’t name what he saw in them then, but it made his heart pick up in rhythm, made his tongue thick in his throat when he said, “then kiss me.”

But Aiden didn’t. Didn’t make a single move towards him, leaning back on his heels, dark eyes staring off to the side far away from him as he frowned.

“I want it to mean something.” Aiden licked his lips, a nervous tick, something sheepish in the way he tilted his head to mirror Lambert’s own expression. “More than what it usually does. I want…”

He was hesitating, not saying what Lambert both never wanted to hear and suddenly realized he’d wanted to hear for the longest damned time. It made his hands tremor, his throat suddenly feeling tight - but it was all too much so he clamped down on the feelings trying to override everything, shaking his head and turning away from his friend, refusing to look at him.

“Isn’t it enough?” It had to be, it was, he didn’t need to think and overthink everything they said, everything they did around each other. He didn’t need to know why his tongue got tied when he made Aiden laugh - that genuine, surprised laugh that he only managed to hear on very rare occasions - why he couldn’t keep his hands still when Aiden was sitting near him, why he felt so much it felt like he could drown if he let it all go.

He didn’t need that. It terrified him, the thought of drowning in his own feelings, and the last thing he needed was to drown in them right in front of his friend.

“You,” Aiden started, and Lambert didn’t dare to look up at him, “don’t want…”

“I want what we have.” His words were a bit rushed, his movements jerky as he shoved his bedroll into his pack, not bothering to roll it up neat and tidy like he usually did. “I like what we have. Isn’t that enough?”

“Right, yeah. Of course it is.”

He did look up then, and hated himself for it. Because he would never forget the pain he saw - in the way Aiden refused to look back at him, his head ducking down, the shake of the breath he took as he turned away from him.

Lambert swore to himself then and there that he’d think on it later. Not there, not then, but later, when he could sit by himself alone and let the feelings come as slowly as he could manage so they wouldn’t overtake him.

The rest of the morning was spent mostly in silence. It stretched between them like a fresh wound, sharp and throbbing at the edges, making Lambert grind his teeth and wish his friend had said nothing at all. As unfair as it was to blame him - and he wasn’t blaming him, it wasn’t his fault Lambert was so damned skittish about his own feelings and couldn’t hold them back for the life of him - he couldn’t help but wish the morning hadn’t happened at all.

By afternoon, they’d reached the town over, Aiden heading quickly off to see if there were any contracts and Lambert for once not at all eager to follow him. He piddled about here and there, not even feeling like pissing off some bastard for an excuse to punch someone’s teeth in, ending up taking too long staring at armor sets at the local blacksmiths that he really had no interest in buying.

Without having said a word to each other, they both met at the local tavern that afternoon, arriving in the same half hour and sitting further in the corner than they usually would. Gull was drunk in mostly quiet, a few words shared here and there, and Lambert’s heart ached at the tension between them.

“Found a decent one.” Aiden eyed the bottom of his empty glass, in the end pushing it away with a sigh. “There’s a troll not twenty miles from here. Shouldn’t be too difficult with the two of us.”

And Lambert would usually go right along with him. Any other day he would be at his side, traveling the path, hunting down trolls and clearing out drowners and fighting battles with the most fearsome of leshens.

But he was feeling too much, and it was all but a centimeter from the surface, threatening to spill over and never get cleaned back up. And Lambert wasn’t ready for that.

“I think I’ll actually head down south.” He said it slow, a little quiet, clearing his throat after as if he hadn’t meant for it to be a whisper. “Want to get some warmth in me and there sure as hell ain’t any around here. Think you can handle one measly troll on your own?”

Aiden wasn’t fooled, and his hurt wasn’t veiled, but Lambert would make it up to him. His friend still sent him a sharp grin as he waved over his shoulder, leaving the tavern and Lambert behind, and Lambert drank enough gull that night for the both of them.

He needed time. Lambert dropped his head on one hand when his vision swayed - or was that his body? It was hard to tell and the old shit of an innkeep wasn’t letting him order any more gull either, leaving Lambert to drag himself up to a room he hadn’t meant to rent to begin with.

Time. Just a little bit of time to himself, to think on it, think it all over and figure out how the fuck to feel so much without- without, fuck, he didn’t even know anymore. The world was swimming around him and the bed was so alluring he didn’t even take off his armor or weapons before dropping heavy on it, laying across it the wrong way on top of the blanket while his head tried its best to stop spinning.

At least there was that for him. Time. He took a deep breath and let everything settle: his head, the way his body felt like it was swaying while still laying down, his thoughts, the bursting feeling in his chest.

All he needed was a little time, and he’d make it up to Aiden. Sit him down and tell him things and maybe even let himself feel, and they could maybe, maybe, talk about the possibilities of more. Aiden had a quick and dangerous temper but they were closer to each other than anyone else in either of their worlds, so there was...a chance, and it was one Lambert would take - later.

Time was all he needed, and he had that. They both had plenty of that ahead of them.

#lambden #lambert #aiden #the witcher #fanfiction #mywriting #the cry off challenge #lambert/aiden #aiden/lambert #lambert x aiden #aiden x lambert

33 notes · View notes

phantomrose96 · 4 years

Text

Origin of a Non-Hero

Pro Hero Deku is not that tall of a man… In a simple white t-shirt and khakis, he’s not imposing at all. His 14 year old son, though much scrawnier in frame, is only an inch or two shorter than him.

Pro Hero Deku is not a cruel man. To the contrary, he cares too much, about all things at all times, about everyone and everything he can save if only it could come within his reach. The family counselor knows this. The counselor is surprised that, of all the world’s burdens Deku carries, it would be his family that slipped through his grasp.

Pro Hero Deku’s arms are gnarled and scarred, endlessly broken and re-broken in his youth from trying too much, and caring too much, and fighting too much for the sake of others. So why do they seem so awkward, so unpracticed, so unused to being wrapped in a hug around his son? Why was this boy the last thing for Pro Hero Deku’s arms to reach?

The counselor asks. The raw hurt of the session starts anew.

(This fic is long, heed the Read More)

...

11 people shared the same rigid wooden bench as Shikinori Midoriya. From the glances he stole, all 11 of them were handcuffed. An equal number of armed guards stood at the ready, crowding a waiting area meant to accommodate no more than 10 people. Shoulders rubbed shoulders. Sweat trickled from necks and hairlines. Dampness clung to skin and scales and fur and whatever other quirk-manifested coverings the 11 handcuffed men, and 11 guards, and Shiki bore.

A puttering fan spun in the corner, sad and wheezing and ineffective against the body heat of so many. Shiki kind of resented the fan for all the nothing it was accomplishing.

He leaned his weight into the sturdy bench arm to his left, opting to crush his guts into the furniture rather than lean on the man beside him, who was more knotted muscle and snake tattoos than he was man. Shiki looked again and concluded the man may even be more snake than man. Two sharp fangs stuck out from his mouth and tented his upper lip. His unmarked skin shimmered, a rippling repeated pattern of flesh-covered scales. His tongue shot out and licked the air, forked. Slit-pupiled eyes made momentary, awkward eye-contact with Shiki, and Shiki quickly pretended to be staring elsewhere.

The man seemed familiar. Some villain from some news headline. But Shiki couldn’t place a name, so he didn’t bother thinking about it more. He stared ahead, eyes drifting out of focus, hot. Uncomfortable and hot. Damp and stick-to-his-clothes-sweaty. Just…hot. Unnecessarily so. Maybe he shouldn’t be here. Maybe it wasn’t worth it. Maybe he’d been impulsive, and foolish, and should leave before he gets in any deeper.

The door beside Shiki creaked open. A wizened man with tiny, deep-set, watery eyes motioned him in. Shiki all but jumped to his feet. He tugged at the spots of his shirt that clung sweaty to his back, and he followed. The temperature dropped at least 20 degrees once he crossed the threshold into this new room. The door clicked shut behind Shiki. He startled, and felt a ripple of disquiet shiver down his spine, but Shiki chose not to dwell on it. He was more drawn to investigating the new room, which, he quickly discovered, came with its own kind of sensory-terrible-silence.

The waiting room had been terribly silent – chatterless and buffed with the sounds of breathing, wheezing, throat-clearing, shifting, shuffling, and the tinkering tangle of chains. This time it was an ambient buzz that blanketed the new room, thick and oppressive and syncopated, like a fly trapped in a jar. Shiki traced it to the fluorescent lights overhead. Under their pallor, the watery-eyed man looked half like death. He sat, and motioned for Shiki to sit too in the wooden chair directly across. A table separated them. On Shiki’s side, there was a set of iron cuffs drilled into the table-top, the sort where, if Shiki threaded his arms forward, he could be bolt-locked in place.

Shiki did not acknowledge the cuffs, and neither did the watery-eyed man. They made eye contact, and Shiki instantly understood: this man did not care about him. This man did not care about any of the other people in that waiting room. What gave it away was unclear – maybe the stiffness in his jaw, or the piercing deadness to his horrible ice-blue eyes, or the sterile too-large lab coat crumpling the man’s figure, or maybe none of that. Maybe it was pure human intuition, an instinct honed for survival, that one feels when encountering another human so bereft of empathy that it sticks along every individual neck-hair.

“Sit,” the man said. His tone was sharp, as though he’d been forced to repeat himself. That was somewhat true. He’d already motioned for Shiki to sit. Shiki had been too distracted by the cuffs on the table to comply. He was still distracted now, but he sat this time.

“I’m Dr. Matsuyama,” the man like death continued. He pulled a loose clipboard from the shelf just beneath his side of the table, and he dragged a slightly-trembling hand from his pocket, gray and liver-spotted, trailing an uncapped pen. His eyes became more like pits in this light, but Shiki could see a blue in them that was definitely inhuman. Which wasn’t saying much, since most of the population walked around in definitely inhuman ways. It was quirk-related, no doubt, but endlessly eerie to stare at.

There came a shuffle from the shadows, a shift in the back-left corner of the room that startled Shiki. He looked, and now locked eyes with a man dressed to the nines in an ill-fitting suit. The man pulled at his own lapel, straightening it, as though reading Shiki’s mind about the ill-fitting suit detail.

“Don’t mind Dr. Himura,” Matsuyama continued. “He’s leading the study, so he is observing. I’m conducting this session.” Matsuyama set pen to paper. “What is your name?”

“Shikinori Midoriya,” Shiki answered. “I go by Shiki, among friends.”

“Is there a reason for that?” Matsuyama’s voice had a papery tremble to it, like air whistling through the slit of a barely-cracked window. Listening to it was uncomfortable. Shiki could feel it like a shortness of breath in his own throat.

“Just preference.”

Matsuyama wrote something down.

“How old are you?”

“22.”

“Your quirk?”

“Gravity nullification.” Shiki raised his hands up, palms spread toward Matsuyama. “I can negate the gravity of anything I touch with my fingers, palms, or pads of my toes. Basically any part of my body that has this ridged skin.” He wiggled his wide-spread fingers. The weird fluorescent lighting threw the ridges into stark contrast, valleys of blackness ribbing his fingers, engulfed like Matsuyama’s eyes. “The quirk works on any sized object, but the time limit is shorter for bigger objects.”

Matsuyama let the silence linger as he wrote. His writings filled several lines this time, as Shiki had little else to do than watch the trail of the pen.

“Is your quirk patrilineal, matrilineal, or both?”

“Matrilineal.”

“How does it influence or impede your daily life?”

“It doesn’t much, really. I don’t need it. I don’t really use it. It’s forgettable.”

“What are the negatives to living with your quirk?”

Shiki shrugged. “None much, really, since I don’t use it.”

“Then what brings you here?”

“I mean, just that. I don’t need it. Does it have to be deeper than that?”

Matsuyama wrote. And he wrote for longer than before. Silence draped them again, and it amplified the buzzing from the lights. It was hot again, Shiki realized with agitation. His seat placed him right below the lights, a veritable stage light, targeting him to bake. His neck prickled with sweat. Buzzing. Like a fly in the jar. Fly in a jar, fly in a jar, that flies against the walls each which way and can’t get out, because there is no out, because the jar is sealed, and being unyielding to gravity is no help when the walls close on every side.

“…here?”

“Huh?” There’d been a question. Shiki had zoned out for--

“Did anyone offer you money to come here?”

“Not beyond the 1,500 yen per day,” Shiki responded, collecting himself. “You know, that you guys offered, that 1,500 yen, to cover transport and lunch. But nothing else. No.”

“Did anyone blackmail you to come here?”

“No.”

“Are there any extenuating circumstances to explain why you’re here?”

“None.”

Matsuyama stopped writing. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of Shiki’s neck, lost somewhere between his shoulder blades. He shifted, and rolled his shoulders a little, and edged his hands away from the wrist restraints on the table.

“Do you have any thoughts of self-harm?”

“No.”

“A history of violence?”

“No.”

“Do you consider yourself to be a danger to yourself or others?”

“No.”

“Any history of drug abuse?”

“No.”

“Alcoholism?”

“No.”

“Anxiety or depression?”

Shiki faltered. “I saw a therapist for a bit, a while ago, back when I was a teenager. But it wasn’t anything, like, extreme. You know? Just, stuff.”

“And how do you define ‘stuff’?”

“It—he was a family therapist. My parents are divorced so like, you know, I was a kid – well, a teenager – but that’s still a kid. I mean we saw the therapist when I was a teenager, but my parents divorced when I was 10 before I was a teenager so – the therapist – he was just for, you know, typical stuff. Typical divorced kid stuff.”

Matsuyama wrote, and wrote more, and at length, Shiki said nothing.

“How’s your relationship with your mother?”

“Fine.”

“How does she feel about your participation in this?”

“I dunno, really. I mentioned it to her like once but like, a while ago, before I decided on whether I wanted to do it but like… I dunno. That shouldn’t matter, right? I’m an adult.”

“How’s your relationship with your father?”

“You know, fine.”

“And how does he feel about your participation in this?”

“Like I said, does it matter?” Shiki pressed. He leaned forward, because he could feel his shirt sticking again in back. Under his arms, too. He was grateful for the dark color of his clothing, since Shiki knew from a glance to frumpy Himura that the harsh lighting was unforgiving on sweat stains.

“Is he against it?”

“He doesn’t know about it. Like, he’s busy. And I’m an adult. And it’s not like it’s his quirk or anything since I inherited it from my mom, and it’s my body so I think I should be the one who gets the final say in whether I do this or not don’t you think so?”

Matsuyama left the challenge unmet. It rung through the room around them and petered out to silence. Just an echo left dancing in Shiki’s head. Matsuyama wrote. He only wrote, and Shiki’s heart beat in his own ears.

“My job is to make sure you are of sound mind… uncoerced… unhindered by any self-destructive motivations...” Matsuyama’s pen did not break pace while he spoke, like an automaton. Like a puppet. Endlessly forward, unholy eyes shuffling along line by line. “The Quirk Ethics Board is strict. Dr. Himura has spent the better part of five years at odds with them to get this study off the ground. Be grateful to him, and be patient with me.” And his horrible eyes flickered up, pinning Shiki to the spot. “I can disqualify you, if I think you’re lying to me. So please, some patience, and some cooperation.”

Shiki’s whole body flushed with a shiver, and he realized that perhaps Himura was not the man he should be suspecting of a mind reading quirk.

He leaned back in his spotlight chair, and took a few deep breaths, and wondered how heated his cheeks were. Embarrassment always spiked a blush in them, and Shiki was ashamed to have let his composure slip.

“Your father… wouldn’t you like to tell him, first? There’s no reversing this. We encourage everyone who comes through this room to inform all family, all loved-ones first.”

“No. I don’t want to tell him. Because I know it’ll make him cry. And if I lose my nerve, and back out, I’ll probably never have this opportunity again. I need this decision to be my own.”

Shiki averted his eyes, away from Matsuyama, glancing left and finding himself staring back. A mirror spanned the length of the left wall. A few feet worth of cinderblock stretched from the floor-up, and the ceiling-down, meeting at a mirror that lobbed Shiki’s own reflection back at him. Freckles and green eyes and tousled chestnut hair and cheeks heated with shame and embarrassment.

A one-way mirror. Shiki wondered if there was anyone standing on the other side of it, watching, judging.

The silence lingered, heavier, denser somehow. It took Shiki a few moments to process what had changed.

The scratch of Matsuyama’s pen had vanished. He was not writing. He was staring, instead, at Shiki. Plain to see in the mirror. Waiting for Shiki to face him again. Reluctantly, Shiki looked.

“Your father… is a busy man, you said. He must be very very busy… Shikinori Midoriya.” Matsuyama shuffled his papers into place, and set the clipboard down on the interrogation desk. “If your name, and your appearance, and the leagues and leagues of advertisements, and news headlines, and television specials I see every day paint an accurate picture of who, I suspect, your father is.”

Shiki breathed out, jaw clenched, feeling that familiar dread settle in. He heard a noise from Himura, like a tiny pip, a single note of recognition that Shiki had become well attuned to: that sound of someone putting the dots together, the look in their eyes as they roved over Shiki’s face, as though suddenly giddy to understand his freckles and green eyes and curly hair.

“Midoriya?” Himura leaned forward, pushing himself off the back wall and shuffling a bit forward. His eyes were wide and probing, mutedly eager. “Oh I see – yeah – I see it – you look just like him – but – pardon my interruption, son, but – why would you ever consider participating – here in my study – why I can’t dream of – I don’t think I could be responsible for -“

“Don’t,” Shiki shot back. He braced his back against the chair once more, letting the wave of dread pass. “Don’t… Don’t finish what you’re going to say.”

“The boy is right, Himura,” Matsuyama said, and he did not look at his colleague. “This is my interview. And you are only here to observe. You are out of line.”

“R-right,” Himura breathed, flushing red, yet still clearly riding out his confusion, his giddiness. He pulled a small kerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the sweat along his receding hairline. “My apologies, M-Mr. Midoriya.”

“Just call me Shiki…”

“Yes, Shiki, we should get back on track,” Matsuyama proceeded. He picked his clipboard up once more and flipped another page. Shiki tried counting the number of sheets that wrapped spiral-like over top. More than he had realized – 10 or maybe 12 pages thick, at this point. Matsuyama’s pen tip tapped to paper once more. “I want to be clear: you are entitled to have your own reason for following through with this. But you may not hide it from me and expect to participate. I am the deciding factor here. Do not lie.”

With that, Shiki felt the last of the vigor in his spine drain away. He slumped forward some, and avoided eye contact with Matsuyama, and Himura, and his own reflection in the mirror which he resented so strongly at this very moment.

“So tell me, boy,” Matsuyama paused to pull in a rattling breath, “why do you want us to erase your quirk?”

“It’s complicated,” Shiki muttered.

“I’m quite good at complicated,” Matsuyama countered.

“It’s… My dad… You figured it out already, right? Izuku Midoriya… He’s the #1 Hero.” The words felt plastic, leaving Shiki’s throat. Artificial. Manufactured. A thing repeated en-masse by television hosts and podcasts and commercials and fan events and—

Shiki breathed.

“He wasn’t always. …Well, duh, I guess, of course… That sounds obvious to say but I mean it as – as in that – back when I was born, Dad was the #361 Hero. At least in the one ranking suite that stretched all the way to the top 500 heroes. Most ranking organizations only did top-250 at best. And the National Rankings only do top-75. He was a still a sidekick then. So was my mom. She didn’t even appear in the top 500. And I think being pregnant with me, and me being born, and taking care of me – I think that set her back even more.”

Shiki leaned forward, elbows set to the table, eyes boring deep into the scratched and stained wood. There were deeper gouges near the sharp corners of the arm restraints.

“When I was old enough to start remembering things is around when I got my quirk, because most of my oldest memories are of my mom playing gravity games with me in our apartment. She’d make my toys float and I’d make them float too and she’d bop them, like with her head, bop them all around and I thought that was the funniest thing. I used to think everyone could cancel gravity because that was so much of my world, just me and my mom.”

Ochaco Midoriya was just barely 23, and her hair had grown long enough to wear in a bun every day. Her off-the-shoulder white shirt spelled out URAVITY in bubble letters across the front. A short release. Only 100 shirts sold, half of them to friends and family. Her son Shiki lay on the carpet, small pudgy hands grabbing at fistfuls of air above him, reaching for her, his footy-jammied feet kicking. His fingers were ridged. He’d have her quirk someday. She pulled out the stuffed frog from behind her back (FROPPY logo emblazoned on the tummy) and papped it gently forward. Into the air. Where it hung and spun, lazily adrift. Shiki let out a shriek of joy. Ochaco smiled, and cupped Shiki’s hands in hers, and kissed them.

“My dad… um… he was out most of the day, almost the whole day, on weekdays at least, when I was young. And I was proud of him for that especially when I got old enough to understand what heroes and villains were because like, that was my dad, out there every single day putting in more effort than anyone else, you know? It never even seemed that weird, to like, that I didn’t have him around. I had Mom, and Dad was a hero.”

The little leaguers were all 5 or 6 years old, adorned in fluorescent pinnies and tiny little soccer cleats. They ran the way little kids run – with too much force in every stilted step, no grace, all fierce concentration, feet slamming heavy into grass and balled fists swinging. The ball came above their knees, and they kicked by running into it full-force.

Tatsuya bodied the ball into the opposing goal, and he was met with a chorus of applause from his mother and father on the sidelines. It was the first time Shikinori Midoriya noticed – Tatsuya had a dad. He looked, and saw so many dads. And it was strange. Weren’t they heroes? Weren’t they busy?

Ochaco stood alone. She waved a big wide sweeping wave when she noticed Shiki looking. She whistled for him. The ball knocked into Shiki. He forgot to wave back.

“I remember… Most of my memories of him, from when I was little, were on weekends. But not always, I mean not all weekends. He patrolled through weekends too. But if we got a weekend off, then we’d do some activity with him. Me, Mom, all of us together. It was my favorite. But weekdays, I never saw him. He left before I woke up and came home after I was in bed. I stayed up sometimes, in secret, to listen for him at the door. But a lot of nights I fell asleep first, or some nights he never even came home. I actually, I think I started to see him more on television, from news reporters, than I did in person…”

A head-to-toe child’s onesie which was a flannel plushy mock-up of Pro Hero Deku’s uniform. Shiki wore it, bunny ears and all, sitting in his mother’s lap in front of the television. Ochaco sat with her back against the couch, on the floor. The sun had set around them. The news had trickled on to its fourth recap of Deku’s apartment arson rescue.

~”A civilian recording that is SURE to capture a nation’s heart! As Pro Hero Deku emerges from the blazing building with three tenants, mother father and child, slung across his back – look – there! Oh what a winning smile that boy’s got, hasn’t he? Saving people with a smile! It makes me nostalgic for the age of All Might, to our viewers old enough to remember the Symbol of Peace before his retirement. Maybe Deku is someone who can spark that hope back into the new generation, what do you think, folks?”~

“15 more minutes, Shikinori, then it’s time for bed,” Ochaco told Shiki, bouncing him on her leg.

“But I wanna stay up for Dad! I wanna tell him we watched him on the news!” Shiki pointed a stubby finger to the freeze-frame of his father on the television, all tousled hair and sweat, bearing the weight of three others on his back, a veritable Atlas, smiling. Smiling smiling. Shiki gave the same smile as his dad, beaming at his mom.

“You’ll see him tomorrow; you can tell him then.”

The smile dropped from Shiki’s face. He looked forward to the television again. “I’m not gonna see him tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Tuesday and I don’t ever see Dad on Tuesday.”

~”I hear we’ve got an interview with a civilian who was on-site during the disaster. We’re cutting to him now!”~

“…30 more minutes, okay then, Honey?” Ochaco said. “We’ll wait up 30 more minutes for Dad.”

Shiki’s hand twitched. His eyes were locked on the shackles, and slowly, experimentally, he rested his wrists in the cuffs. Could the table hold him down with his quirk?

“And by the time I was 7, he broke into the top-100 heroes. Within another three years, he was top-50. Newspapers called it mind-blowing to see someone like that jump the ranks so quickly. He blew past Ground Zero and Ice Razer, who you know are like, #2 and #3 now. It was crazy. Like, he got way more attention for how quickly he was jumping than for his actual rank. The papers said he was working inhuman hours. That even heroes with time quirks and clone quirks couldn’t be as everywhere as he was… I have clippings saved. Or I did. I might have gotten rid of them when Mom and Dad divorced.”

Shiki clinked his wrists against the shackles, metal wrist watch ringing hollow against the cuffs.

“Which is, that was something I found out on my 10th birthday. They didn’t mean for me to know but I was staying up past my bed time to play the new Hero Smash game they got me – the one Dad was finally in -- and I heard them arguing just a bit too loud about something, and them arguing was kinda common at that point, so I paused the game to listen and… yeah… divorce… It was, you know, a pretty tame divorce, I think. Like, I can’t really complain about it, compared to some of the stuff other kids go through. Cuz Mom and Dad still acted friendly and tried to settle things on good terms but, you know, it showed. I’d go into Mom’s room and hold her, some nights, when I heard her crying. And she’d sob and say ‘I still love him’ and I never knew what to say back, but, I’m –that’s, anyway. Anyway.”

Ochaco Midoriya, 32 years old. She kept the last name. It would be easier, in terms of legal hassle, and it would be easier on her son, who she had full custody of.

Her empty bed had been the norm for years, now. Deku had gotten into the habit of working through the nights, stealing naps on his cot at the agency. But now it was the cold reminder, the knowledge, that he wasn’t ever coming back to this bed that stole Ochaco’s breath and made it short. Made her heart squeeze. Forced noises past her lips that she tried to keep in.

“Mom?” Shiki’s eyes, wide with concern, at the side of her bed. He held his hands together, ridged fingers, ridged palms, the little fingers she used to kiss.

He reached a hand out, and patted her shoulder, tip toes, leaning over the bed. He should be crying too.

Shiki pulled his hands back, rubbing at his wrists. His cheeks were flushed, embarrassment creeping through his system as his own words echoed back at him. Those things he’d rarely told anyone. “Am I… is this too much detail? I can dial it back. It’s just, um, I feel like the context is important for you to like… know why I’m—not write me off as—”

“This is fine, continue. If you say anything unnecessary, I can simply not write it down,” Matsuyama waved his free hand dismissively. The pen in his other hand danced, still, across the page.

Shiki cleared his throat. “Anyway, I lived with Mom after that. And when I was a little older she told me more about it and basically just. ‘He loves All Might more than he loves me,’ she said. Not the person, but the… idea. Like the concept of All Might. It’s who my Dad was so driven to be since the very beginning and… My mom couldn’t take being secondary anymore… And I realized then that, I was part of that too. I didn’t need saving, so I came second. My mom put her hero career on hold to raise me but he, um, he just couldn’t do that. Who he was as a person was so, unfixably tangled up in becoming that All Might in his mind that, he couldn’t sacrifice that. Not for me. Not for my mom.

“And when they finally divorced, and he moved out and into this just… terrible tiny unfurnished apartment, which I only saw twice – two years apart – and both times it looked the same. Nothing in there. Almost like no one was really living there. A futon and a closet and a rice cooker in the corner and boxes and All Might merch on the wall.”

Shiki was 11, sitting on a packed cardboard box against the red-brick wall of his dad’s apartment. Still-packed boxes lined most of the walls, like a misshapen and dull lego construction. Red brick, brown cardboard, All Might smiling from every wall. It was an apartment unlived-in, and that aspect was nearly unfathomable to Shiki. His dad had been moved out for over four months.

“Pretty great, huh?” Deku said, gloved finger pointing to the wall of All Mights. Deku’s smile was bright, his excitement genuine. “The one on the far left was a limited release from 50 years ago. One of my super-fans tracked it down for me and mailed it. Can you believe it?”

Shiki nodded. All the posters looked the same to him.

“But um, after the divorce is when he really skyrocketed. Everything before was child’s play. I was… dizzy. I was 11, and starting middle school, and had just lost my dad only to have him be everywhere but… not my dad. Not there for me. But everywhere, on billboards, in newspapers, on television. Kids at school would hear my last name and they’d ask ‘Midoriya – Like Izuku Midoriya? Like Deku?!’ and I’d have to just say yeah while they applauded or like, even smacked me on the back sometimes like I had any choice in that, and would ask questions about him that, I couldn’t answer, cuz he wasn’t my dad anymore. His fans in my class knew things about him that I didn’t. Sometimes little things like favorite color but sometimes big things, whole things from his childhood that I never heard about. They’d ask me things about him and that’s when I realized I didn’t know my dad at all.”

Shiki glanced up, and saw Himura look away in embarrassment.

“He’d been kidnapped, as a kid, had saved Ground Zero twice, took down a murderer with Ice Razer and Ingenium, had his mentor die during a rescue mission. I had to hear these things from people I didn’t know. And I felt just, selfish, every time I learned something new. Especially the things that happened after I was born. Because how do you sit and hear someone tell you a story about the time your dad saved their grandma from a collapsed bridge and just… how can you justify feeling resentful about that? How selfish do you have to be to think, ‘he should have been spending that night at home with me and my mom, and not saving your grandma.’ I hated it. I started to hate hearing about him.”

His hands were shaking now, slightly, Shiki realized. His breathing too came in too fast and too raspy. He set his wrists back in the open restraints, and breathed out.

“And just… by the time I was 12, Dad made Top 20. And then when I was 13, he was Top 10. …And I think at that point he really, truly didn’t feel like my dad anymore. Because he was just, some God to the world. Someone people fawned over by the millions and, just, that was better, actually. Because I could really just act like he wasn’t my dad, had nothing to do with me. Maybe I was at peace with that. I could do the 20-minute phone calls once a week and be courteous with him and answer questions about school and just, move on…”

Shiki walked the same street every day to school, the same route with the same turns, the same backpack slung over one shoulder. But the scenery changed. New advertisements. New billboards. New screens projecting, dancing, twirling, screening, screaming. Deku brand hand cream. Deku brand baby clothes. Deku brand clutch purses. Headlines with stills of Pro Hero Deku printed on the front page. Upcoming: interview with Pro Hero Deku! Everywhere. Growing like mushrooms. The likeness almost like the one in Shiki’s mirror every morning. The likeness of a man quickly fading from memory, quickly replaced by advertisements and stills over flesh and blood. Shiki felt eyes on him, every day, from people who saw the resemblance. Or maybe not. Maybe he imagined it. Maybe no one was looking at him at all.

The wrist restraints were cold.

“And I started to see Mom less and less, around that time. I was old enough to take care of myself mostly so she, she took up patrolling again. Started rising the ranks quickly too… Mostly because the tabloids loved her, and circulated her name as much as they could, as the ex-wife of Deku… They said horrible things that I—still I—even thinking about them just. Vile horrible things about her and Dad, and why Dad left her, and why she left Dad, and ‘Deku fans’ piling on her calling her trash and filth and whore and, insulted her for keeping his last name until, eventually, she did change it back and… I stopped reading those but… that’s how hero work works. Whatever gets your name out there, and gets you recognized, so that your rescues get camera time and screen time and … She at least got to make her own name, once she got recognized. Her own rescue efforts spoke for themselves. Saved over 75 people from the rubble of a collapsed building and, s-she broke top-100 that same year. I wanted to be happy for her. I wanted to… but the house was so empty.”

13 year old Shiki unlocked the front door. He flicked the lights, and they blazed through the pitch blackness beyond the foyer. There was a sterile cleanliness inside, the subtle sting of lemon in the back of his throat. Between his mom’s new notoriety and his dad’s hefty child support, they could afford a personal cleaner now. Twice a week. She must have come. The apartment was spotless.

Shiki turned on the television and rooted through the cabinet and emerged with a box of cereal. He didn’t bother with a bowl. He sat on the couch instead, scrolling his phone with one hand, grabbing fistfuls of cereal with the other. The news mentioned ‘Uravity’ and Shiki turned it up. He listened to the reporters until they spiraled into her failed marriage with Pro Hero Deku, and Shiki listened no further.

He focused on his phone instead, cereal crunching. Most of the forums he followed were Uravity forums. He paused on a particular cross-posting, shared by someone irate over the click-bait bottom-feeding publications that drew readership with manufactured drama. Shiki read the headline. ~”‘She took our son!’ Pro Hero Deku sobs in a raw tell-all about the woman who broke his heart and tore apart his family to launch her own career.”~

There was a boy pictured in the article. The boy wasn’t even Shiki.

“I was 13 still, and we were moving from the apartment into a nice house, because Mom’s salary and Dad’s child support were now more than enough for a proper place. A nice place. And I did most of the house cleaning and packing myself since Mom was now so so busy… And I found, in the attic, my old box of toys, the gravity ball toys the—the ones where—me and Mom used to bop them back and forth and I… think I just… I threw them away. And the old newspaper clippings I kept about Dad. Threw them all away. Never made it to the new house. I hated them. I hated them.”

Shiki pressed his back against the attic wall, suddenly short of breath, static suddenly in his legs and rippling down his spine. He slid down, slowly, streaking the layer of dust along the wall, just like his hands had streaked away the dust on the boxes, gray lint filling the ridges on his finger tips. He stared at the layer of yellowed newsprint, the top article boasting ~”No Longer Just A Side-Kick? ‘Deku’ Makes His Agency Debut!”~

It filled him with revulsion, with a choking hurt in the ways that modern news headlines didn’t. He had forgotten the feeling associated with these old headlines. That old forgotten excitement of knowing that news outlets had come to acknowledge his dad’s existence.

Not his dad anymore. Not his. Izuku Midoriya lived in newsprint now. The media owned him, had stolen him slowly. A superhuman. A god. Not a husband. Not a father. Not Shiki’s.

“He called on the phone once a week. Just once a week, to talk about nothing. Until I was 14, that is. Once I turned 14, suddenly Dad was eager to be on the phone with me. And he’d act like he was interested in talking to me about normal stuff, but it always came back to U.A. Always U.A. Asking if I wanted to. Asking if I’d thought about it. Asking if I had any questions that he or Mom could answer about the school.”

Shiki’s voice caught.

“…Still… still makes me angry. And he just didn’t realize. I realized he had no idea. At all. Whatsoever. That what he’d done was… might have been wrong. I realized and it blew my mind. That nothing he did was ever, ever malicious. He was, is, thought he was a good person. Working so hard to save everyone. Absolute strangers. As many, as much, as endlessly eternally as he could. And he… thought I idolized that. That I looked at him and Mom and wanted to… do them proud and follow in their footsteps. And I saw him through… his own eyes I guess… and he was the world’s hero and the next All Might and the rising Symbol of Peace and he didn’t think he’d abandoned me, or Mom, he thought he’d just left us to catch up… I think he talked my mom back into heroing. Because they stayed friends, or ‘friends’, whatever you call two people who get along great so long as they ignore all the hurt between them. And… he… wanted me to enroll in U.A… THAT… was when I finally snapped at him, and we got family counseling.”

Silently, Matsuyama set his pen down, and he slid across the table a box of tissues Shiki had not noticed him take out. And Shiki took one, shocked to pad it against the stream of tears he hadn’t noticed rolling down his cheek. He stole one more glance into the mirror, ashamed of the puffy-eyed and blotchy-cheeked reflection. His dad’s freckles. His mom’s chestnut hair. He was designed piece-meal from them. No part his own. No part himself. The buzzing, overhead. Fly in the jar. Uncaring of gravity. Eternally confined to the jar’s unseeable walls.

“I saw Dad in person, for the first time in 2 years, when we went to that counselor.” Shiki let out a strained laugh. “I had literally… misremembered things about him. I had remembered him being taller but, the media just loved to prop him up at certain angles that made him taller. In street clothes, in person, he almost didn’t look like Pro Hero Deku. …And even smaller, when he cried. Because he did cry, during counseling, like honestly cried. And he apologized. I’d never – I didn’t think I would ever get an apology from him. Or like I couldn’t ask for one, didn’t deserve one, because that would be selfish. But he owned up to it… Dad cared. Dad was sorry. Dad had no idea I was this hurt. Dad thought I idolized heroes too and that he was making me proud. And I thought it would work. I thought we would finally fix this all.”

The counselor asks. The raw hurt of the session starts anew.

“I was finally able to tell him just, how invisible I felt to him. How selfish it made me feel. He listened. He cared. He stopped shilling for U.A. I went into a normal high school, one without a hero track. And the first weekend of the school year, Mom, me, and him went to an aquarium, and dinner at a fancy restaurant, and a play in the evening. I don’t like plays but, I liked that play. A lot.”

Shiki crumpled the used tissue in his hand, and then hid it beneath the table. It was wet and tainted and felt unclean in his hand, but there was no garbage can in sight, and he had nothing else he could do with it.

“And that was when Dad slipped a rank, that next month. From #7 to #8. It shouldn’t have mattered so much but, it did. He’d never fallen rank before… No actually, even worse, he’d never even stayed the same rank from one ranking release to the next. He was always climbing. For almost 20 straight years, always climbing, and this was the first time, the very first time he… Dad didn’t mention it. I didn’t mention it. But in my mind I’ve always blamed this as the like, as the turning point, toward turning back down. In reality I don’t know that for sure. Maybe our whole family was just, always destined to slip back on old habits, right from the start. It’s not like he or Mom ever went back on any promises or anything. But more like… Dad slowly stopped proposing weekend activities, and so did Mom. Until it was just me putting in that effort, and I couldn’t be the cause of him falling rank anymore. I couldn’t be the bad guy.”

Shikinori Midoriya’s blood ran cold. Red. The name, the arrow, downward-pointing, -1. Red. Red where there had only ever been green. “#8” in red, which bore no value and no merit beyond the unsightly embarrassment of being below #7.

There were sharks in the water.

Shiki knew it would be only hours until the most predatory, the most inflammatory think-piece writers pounced. Until hero forums buckled under every single anonymous layperson’s expert opinion on where, and how, and why Deku had stumbled. Was his rescue count down? Was his collateral coefficient up? Were merch sales dropping? Had his new figurine bombed? Had a hostage died? Had he yelled at a reporter? Was it the joint rescue with his money-grubbing ex-wife? His incident resolution was abnormally low two Saturdays back. Why? Where had he been? What was he thinking?

Shiki read the theories. He told himself to stop, but the scroll loaded endlessly. Some fans honed in on that weekend – the aquarium trip – fascinated by the dip in resolved incidents, circling like vultures, pecking, tearing, probing. They found an Instagram post from a fan spotting Deku in the crowd of the hammerhead exhibit, and the link got passed around like an electric current.

Had this happened a month ago, a year ago, Shiki might have just watched it unfold disaffected. Shiki’s chest ached now. He hurt for the man his mind had reconciled as his father, for the man who mimicked the guppies and pressed against the glass in the aquatic tunnel, cheeks puffed and scarred hands flapping by his ears. Shiki ached for the genuine laughter from his mother, who still loved this man and his guppy imitation. He ached for the reminder of what his family was, and what it wasn’t, and what it was punished for even trying to be.

“His agency and Mom’s started collaborating a lot. They were good together. Like really good. The two of them together, I saw a new story almost every week. Maybe I was even a little jealous but… it wasn’t something I wanted to be a part of, anyway. So I was fine with that. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t – and don’t – want to be a hero.

“I just kind of… tried to figure myself out as a person, by myself, during high school. I kept a low profile. Joined a math club. Only really talked to a few people most days. Had like, two people I sort of saw as friends. I started going by my mom’s name, Uraraka. Never told people who my parents were. And I think that was for the best, because I was still in school – I was 17 – when Dad claimed the #1 spot. …and I swear I would have had to transfer schools if my classmates knew I was Deku’s kid.”

“Front Page” did not begin to describe the explosion, the eruption, the maelstrom of obsession that gripped an entire nation’s heart and soul when Pro Hero Deku unseated the previous #1. The new report came just days after Deku performed his 10,000th recorded civilian rescue. In honor, dedicated fans had gone and compiled every drop of video coverage that ever graced Deku’s career. It was chronological, starting with grainy film 20 years’ outdated of a still-scrawny U.A. sidekick pulling a man out of rubble, and progressed like a time-lapse from there. A rescue counter sat super-imposed on the bottom-right, documenting the rescues as Deku grew taller, broader, more confident, more practiced, faster and stronger and beaming – always beaming – with a smile to instill hope in an entire nation. The whole montage was two hours in length, and it skyrocketed to the #1 trending.

A half-dozen other videos followed in its wake: a clip of Deku shaking hands with the President who pinned a simple, proper, dignified medal to the front of his costume. A shaking, trembling, sobbing hug with the skeletal and spindly public figure of Toshinori Yagi – previously known as All Might – who teared up along with Deku on stage. Chants of “Symbol”. Chants of “Peace”. Chants, louder than all others, of “Deku”.

Everywhere. Everywhere. Replaying. Tagged. Suggested. Trending. Featured. A kiss with Uravity, tender and subtle and full of passion. A handshake with Shota Aizawa, his first teacher, his long-time peer. Endless interviews with rescued victims. Tear-jerkers. A man named Kota recalling how Deku, at 15, saved him from a certain violent death. A woman named Eri detailing how Deku had taken her in his arms and rescued her from the depths of Hell.

Thousands others followed. Spine-tingling recounts from voices, with breath and warmth and life, who wouldn’t be alive without Deku. They heaped their praises on a man so endlessly driven, forward forward forward, that he could save 10,000 people, and 10,000 more, and everyone, and everything he could touch.

Shiki skipped school the whole next week. Hardly anyone noticed.

“So I got away. Far away. I figured out college all by myself, and got accepted to my top choice 1,000 kilometers away from Tokyo, and it was perfect for me, because maybe then I could figure myself out for a bit, away from everything. Mom asked me to reconsider when I finally saw her in person four days after I’d accepted. She’d been on a sting mission for two straight weeks. They saved fifty people. It earned her her spot as the #15 Hero. My dad had saved twice as many people in that time. Not that I heard it from him. I heard it on the news. I didn’t speak to him again until after I graduated.”

Shiki breathed. “College… was good. It was far away enough that I stopped being afraid of people recognizing me at a glance. I made real friends. I had real relationships. Got to know my professors. Took up tutoring and loved it. I… did things on the weekends, like with friends, went places, saw things, I was happy. Genuinely happy. All these things I never realized I was missing as a kid because I never realized I could have an identity outside of being just… Deku’s reject son. I stopped fearing that and started to be me. I traveled during school breaks. Took some pottery classes. Just… breathed.” Shiki’s hands fidgeted. “At least… until I graduated. And I realized there was a whole cliff I was standing over that I was just avoiding. I didn’t have a job lined up. I tried. For absolute certain. I lost count around the 75 application mark. Nothing. My college friends moved away. My funds were drying up. …I moved back home.”

One duffle bag, slung across his right shoulder, was all Shikinori Midoriya brought home with him. This big house from his teenage years was empty. Endless untouched rooms. Pristine duvets across the beds in all 5 bedrooms, including master. Empty dressers. Empty drawers. Not so much as fingerprints on the front doorknob. Only his mom lived here now, and Shiki fought with the blooming certainty he felt in his gut that she spent almost no time here at all.

Uravity was now the #7 hero. Her merch sales were particularly popular with girls ages 5-12. The money she raked it was enough to put her parents up permanently in a beach house in Hawaii. Money would likely never be a worry for her for as long as she lived. She likely never sold this home because it simply wasn’t worth the hassle.

Shiki set his bag down in his old room, bigger and cleaner and newer and nicer than his college apartment, and so much more a cage than it had ever been before.

Fly in a jar.

“Moving home was… a rough choice. I thought a lot, before that, about just asking Mom and Dad for money. They could definitely afford it. But I couldn’t… be that again, the reject son, some unwanted parasite, pilfering money. I just needed enough stability to get back into the job hunt and get back on my feet. I told Mom that much. I didn’t tell Dad. Didn’t even tell him I’d moved back home but, he found out from Mom. He wanted to see me. Wanted to talk to me. I’d ignored all his calls in college… I decided to bite the bullet and just, go into his office and see him. Let him lay eyes on his failure son. Get it over with. I told him about college, and about my job hunt, and just needing enough time to get back on my feet. And you know what he said?”

Matsuyama glanced up. His pen still trailed. “What did he say?”

“’I could use another accountant at the agency, even a receptionist, if you don’t want to deal with crunching numbers. Given some time and training… I could even use another side kick.’” Shiki looked up, locking eyes with Matsuyama, and blinked away the tears blurring his vision. “Math… was my best subject in school. I want… to be a math teacher. I’ve been sending out a hundred applications for teaching positions. Dad doesn’t know that. Dad… is still living in this world where everything is heroes. And of course he is! He’s lived there his whole life! He never left it! And he’s still waiting for me to join. Waiting for me to change my mind. Like time is the only factor. That world stole my parents and he… and he still thinks that, things can be fine, he can get his way. He thinks, I’ll do what my mom did, and play catch up to him. That I’ll come into my own. That I’ll join him in his hero world. Him and Mom both. That I would want anything to do with heroes. He won’t believe otherwise.”

Shiki struck an open palm against his chest. “Well he’s not getting that. He’s NOT getting this quirk! Not now! Not ever! I’m GETTING RID OF IT. I want to be part of Dr. Himura’s Quirk-Erasure study because, until I’m fully stripped of my Quirk, my Dad and my Mom won’t get it. I know – all those guys out in the waiting room? I know they’re all villains. Probably this whole study is villains, yeah?! They’re all people who’ve been offered reduced sentences if they willingly give up their quirk in this study. Maybe you have a few normal people with dangerous quirks who want to be rid of it but me. My quirk. I stand out, I know, I get it. Because gravity control is cool. And it’s harmless. So why would I want to get rid of it, permanently? This is why. Because everything I’ve spouted off, it, all that probably sounds like some villain-origin-story, yeah?? ‘My hero father never loved me so now he will pay.’ No. No heroes and no villains I’m sick of all of them. This ends here. This ends with me! No more heroes, no more villains. No more POWERS in the Midoriya blood line! This is a non-origin story. This is the origin of me! This is the start of me taking back what heroes took from me!”

Shiki’s breath caught in his throat. He felt the tears wetting his cheeks and knew he had no power to stop them this time, not with the mangled tightness in his chest, not with the hurt bubbling long-repressed to the surface. So he wiped hastily at his eyes, and he stared down at the desk below him.

“I’ve thought this through. I know what I want. I’m not being coerced. I’m of a sound mind and body. I just… want a normal, happy, powerless life. I want to be normal. And I need this final leap, to prove to my family once and for all they can’t have me. I need this control. I need this trump card. I need this final, unchangeable, irreversible option to make them get it. That they can accept me quirkless… or they can not accept me at all.” Shiki lowered himself, and set his eyes to his lap. “Please… Please, I’m begging you.”

Matsuyama let the pen clink to the table. Shiki could not get an accurate count, but at least 40 pages had been flipped over the clipboard’s spiraled top. Matsuyama unfurled these pages, and steadied their alignment, and tucked the board beneath his arm. His chair scraped back with an unholy shriek, and he stood.

“Thank you. We will let you know in due time about your candidacy in the study.”

Matsuyama motioned for the door.

“Wait…” Shiki swallowed. His mouth had gone dry. His ears were ringing slightly. “Can’t you tell me now?”

“The decisions have not been made. How can I tell you now?”

“What about just me then? Y-yes or no?”

“You will be informed in due time.”

“When? How soon?”

Matsuyama motioned again.

“Yes or no? Please. Can you let me be part of this or not?”

“The next patient is coming in, Shiki. See yourself out.”

…

Inko Midoriya’s apartment was small, and it was stayed, and it was comfortable. Her son had offered her time and time again to move her into a nicer place, but she always declined. This apartment was where she’d raised her family. These walls had memories. This was her home.

It felt almost like a memory, just now. Out of the corner of Inko’s eye, seeing the young man with curly hair and green eyes seated at her kitchen table was achingly familiar, the ghost of family dinners with her son.

10 minutes had passed since Inko pulled the rack of cookies from the oven, a warm miasma of buttery sweetness, and laid them out to cool. She grabbed one now, quick touches, experimentally, until the heat didn’t quite burn her fingers, and placed it on a plate. She did the same with a second cookie, and carried them like a server to the table where she took the seat opposite Shiki. He watched her, and accepted the cookie with a quiet ‘thank you’, and merely stared at it. He let the warmth wash across his face.

“I’m happy to have you back around Tokyo, you know,” Inko said quietly. She looked down at her own cookie, smiling slightly, and picked it up. “Happy to have someone to bake for.”

“I’m happy to see you too, Grandma. It’s been a while.” Shiki bit into his cookie. It was warm, and soft, and achingly comforting. Shiki wasn’t used to the taste of homecooked anything. It squeezed something in his ribcage, made him hurt in a gentle way. “It’s delicious,” he whispered, and raised the heel of his palm to wipe the wetness there.

“You can… you know you can stay with me, Shiki. I’d be happy. I want you to. I know it’s not as big a place as Ochaco’s home, but, Izuku’s old room is still here. There’s still… You could still…”

Shiki shook his head. “If I stay with you, it’ll be so much harder to leave. I’m still job hunting. No guarantees I’ll end up anywhere near here.”

The silence spread between them. The warmth of Shiki’s cookie wafted away, sapping off, like steam curling from a lake.

“…You don’t want to end up living around here, do you, Shiki?”

“Not if I can help it,” Shiki answered.

Inko turned in her chair, and motioned her hand toward the rest of the cookies cooling on the rack. Quirk activated, she pulled them each closer, and let them each fall onto the empty plate that sat between her and Shiki. Still gooey, they seemed to melt into each other, taking form of those beneath them. Inko nudged the plate closer to Shiki, encouraging him to take another.

He did. He bit the cookie. Warm.

“…I’m sorry, Shiki, about the study. I know you had your heart set on it.”

Shiki shrugged. “Matsuyama said there weren’t enough slots. He said he needed to prioritize better candidates. People who would really benefit from losing their quirk.”

Silence, again.

“It wouldn’t have changed things, you know. If it makes you feel any better, Shiki. You having a quirk was never the problem."

Shiki paused mid-bite. The lump in his throat made it too hard to swallow.

“How do you deal with it, Grandma? You’ve been dealing with it so much longer, right? Because I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

Inko gave him a small smile that didn’t quite touch her eyes. “You’re right, but… I don’t think I have a good answer for you, Shiki. It’s lonely here. I miss him. I’m afraid for him. But maybe I’m just, maybe I’ve just gotten used to it. It’s been like this ever since he enrolled in U.A. Since he was little. It was what made him happy. I’m his mother, and I’m supposed to set aside my own feelings for my child.” Inko nudged the cookies toward Shiki again. “But you, that burden should never have been on you. Especially not as a child. I’m sorry, Shiki, I’m so sorry.”

“So he’s… always been like this, is what you’re saying, yeah? It wasn’t—it’s not just me he doesn’t want—”

“No. Not you. Definitely not you, Shiki,” Inko insisted. “It’s who he is. Who he’s always been. …Who he’ll always be, I think. Even when he was 3 or 4 years old, so small he fit in my lap… He’s… so incredibly kind, and so incredibly driven, and it’s a combination that breaks a mother’s heart. Because it meant he was always sacrificing himself for others in danger. Doing what All Might would do. But All Might doesn’t have a family; he doesn’t have children. I wonder, sometimes, who All Might left behind, to become who he was. If that’s who we are.”

Shiki put his cookie down. His hands curled in, and he looked at them, ridged fingertips, ridged palms, obligated to use them heroically or not at all. Marks he never asked for.

“But why did he have to be All Might? Why him? Why us? Ice Razer and Creati have a daughter. They dote on her. They love her so much it’s embarrassing. I’ve met her, once, at a reunion thing that Mom and Dad had. And I was angry at her. How much she smiled. How you can just see how proud Ice Razer is, in his eyes, every time he looks at her. Ice Razer was on track to be the #1 hero, ahead of Dad, and he’s said publicly that he no longer cares about his ranking if it means being there for his family, because his dad never was. Dad didn’t… Dad never… He was putting in 120 hour weeks, at the time Ice Razer’s daughter was born, when I was sitting home waiting up for him, because old news headlines estimated that All Might put in 119 hour weeks in his prime, and Dad had to be that. Ice Razer visits his mother! When was the last time Dad came to see you, Grandma?”

Inko Midoriya responded with only a sad smile. “It’s been a while.”

“Ground Zero and Red Riot. Their adopted son, I’ve met him too. You wouldn’t think Ground Zero of all people would be any kind of good father but… he is… apparently… And that’s… fuck, you know what? That’s all I want to be. A good dad. That’s all! I want to teach math, and I want to fall in love with a girl, and marry her, and I want to be there. Just be there. For my kid. I want to spend every weekend with my family. I want to be around for every dinner. I want to help with homework. And I want no one – no villains and no heroes – to ever know my name. Is that too much, Grandma? Is it selfish of me to want that… and to want Mom and Dad to still love me too?”

Shiki’s voice cracked. He hadn’t meant for it to. He hadn’t meant for his composure to slip, or for those final words to come out. He hadn’t meant to open up that hollow ache in his chest, where that fear sat deep and rotten.

His next words were wet. “Is it too selfish of me to just want them to be proud of me?”

“Oh, oh Shiki…” Inko shoved her chair back. Hands extended, she rounded the table, and she wrapped her arms around Shiki. Kind hands, kind like Shiki was not used to. His vision blurred, and he pulled a hand up to wrap around Inko’s arm, and he leaned into her.

“I told him, Grandma…” he muttered, voice still wet. “…I told Dad that I got accepted to Matsuyama’s study. I told him I already went through with it.”

“What?”

Shiki shook his head. “I know it was wrong. I just… I hoped. I don’t know. I just wanted him, maybe, for once… I don’t know…”

“What did he say?”

Shiki shrugged, his movement muted under Inko’s hug. “I don’t know. I hung up. I just hung up.”

…

The beach air was cold, and it was briny. Wind curled off the lapping waves, spritzing All Might’s face with a spray of ocean water that was not wholly unpleasant. It reminded him of a time long-since passed.

The sound of footsteps met his ears. He did not turn, not immediately. All Might breathed in the ocean air a little longer.

“How… how have you been?” The voice – the man beside him – asked.

“Oh, you know. Same old same old. I’ve got this pesky ache in my knee that’s catching up to me. Recovery Girl recommends I start doing some swimming exercises. I’ve been considering it. It might suit these old bones.”

“Oh! I know a few gyms nearby with pool facilities. I-I can get you into them, you know, for free. I’m sure I could—”

All Might held a hand up. “What, do you think I don’t still have connections of my own, Young Midoriya?”

“S-sorry.”

All Might turned properly now, catching sight of Izuku Midoriya, a man so accomplished in the public eye looking familiarly helpless at his side. This beach held memories. Izuku was hardly recognizable from the first day All Might had brought him here for training, and in other ways, he looked exactly the same.

“You called me here to talk about Shikinori, right?” All Might continued. He stared back out at the sea, dark and getting darker. The sun has set 10 minutes prior. “You said he lost his quirk.”

Izuku remained quiet.

“He… had it taken away. He chose to do it, he said.”

“Why?”

Again, silence settled between them. All Might looked back, scanning Izuku’s face, taking in a look mangled with confusion and concern, unsettled and helpless. Not the beaming face on television. Not the endless smile to instill fear in the hearts of villains.

“…I think it was because of me,” Izuku finally answered.

Waves, lapping to shore. All Might found himself watching them again. “A quirkless life is not so bad. These past 30 years have been peaceful for me.”

Static settled in the air around them. Rolling ocean. Gentle wind.

All Might let out a small sigh. “What advice are you looking for, from me, Young Midoriya?”

“I… need to know if this is okay with you. If my plan is okay with you,” Izuku answered.

“As your concerned mentor, I’ve found I don’t like most of your plans,” All Might answered. “What is your plan?”

“Shikinori lost his quirk because of me… I wasn’t there for him. I wasn’t… I wasn’t a good father to him, I think. I was waiting for him to come to me but. I messed up. I need to go to him now. I can think of only one way I have to make it up to him.” Izuku looked up. Conflict pulled at his pained expression, and his fist curled. “Maybe, if I give him One for All, I can fix this.”

Another spritz of ocean spray hit the shore. All Might could feel the salt crystalizing on his face.

“I was right. I don’t like your plan.” All Might turned, and took a step toward Izuku, and laid a hand on his shoulder. “No. That’s my answer. No, I do not approve.”

Izuku seemed to buckle, just a little. He curled one hand in and rested it on All Might’s, still on his shoulder. The shadows of nightfall hid his eyes, but not his mouth, pained and strained at the corners. “Then what can I do to fix this?”

“Why do you think that giving Shikinori One for All would fix this in the first place? Do you really believe that his quirk is the root of the problem? Do you?”

Izuku’s hand trailed down. He shook his head, slowly. The words that came out were pained. “Ochaco and I… are back together again. We’re making this work. We’re… we’re putting the pieces of our family back together. We just need Shikinori. I just want him back with us…”

“…I told you this 20 years ago, Young Midoriya, and I’ll tell you it again. And it will hurt worse now to hear it, because you didn’t follow my advice the first time--”

“I thought I could do both.”

“—You cannot be the Symbol of Peace and have a family. There aren’t enough hours in a lifetime. …I left people behind—”

“I know.”

“—people I cared about. People who cared about me. I hurt them, and I knew I hurt them—”

“I know.”

“And that was my choice. I made that decision. Because protecting the peace of the whole world… that was more important to me than the people I hurt. I carry the burden of that decision every day. …I told you, 20 years ago, that you had to make that decision too.”

“I know, I just thought maybe, with both Ochaco and me—”

“And you did. You did make that decision. You’re the Symbol of Peace, and I’m proud of you for that, …and you’ll have to carry that same burden, too, of that decision you made.”

Izuku’s hand was curled around All Might’s sleeve now. He was smaller now than the man who first arrived at the beach, and so, so much smaller than the Symbol of Peace lauded in headlines across the nation. His shoulders trembled. Tears dripped down the curvature of his nose, lost to the briny sand below.

All Might continued. “This is one piece of advice I can give you… Stop saddling Shiki with that same burden… Don’t give him that weight to bear. Don’t trap him in the world of heroes. Let him go.”

Izuku pulled in a shuddering breath, and he steadied his shoulders.

“…I failed him, didn’t I, All Might…?”

Another lap of waves at the shore, forging eternally onward. There was an ache in All Might’s knees, a rattle to his old bones, a pain that never ceased throbbing in his side. He wondered how long ago it had been, exactly, since he first made this decision himself. How many pulls of the tide since he last saw his mother. How many moons since the earth had reclaimed her. How many breaths of wind had passed since the very last time she thought of him.

He wondered, not for the first time, if it had been selfish of him to trade her, and everyone else away for the protection of all the people he’d never known or loved.

All Might reached down, and he pulled Izuku into a hug. Come daylight, Izuku would have to smile again, on every television and every billboard and every broadcast and every rescue. For now, All Might figured, it was fine to let him cry.

“…Yes. I’m sorry. I’m to blame for this too. I pulled you down this path. But… yes. You failed him.”

All Might ran a hand over Izuku’s hair as his cries grew louder. All Might wondered if Izuku had ever held Shiki like this. He wouldn’t know. All Might wasn’t a father. All Might had no son. Whether that was selfish or selfless, he still did not know.

The wind picked up to a howl, and it swept into shore, and it drowned Izuku’s cries beneath it.

By tomorrow, Izuku would be smiling on the news.

By tomorrow, Shiki would be on a train to an interview far north in Akita.

By tomorrow, Inko would be alone again.

#boku no hero academia #bnha #my hero academia #mha #bnha fanfiction #long post #so ive been writing this fic since OCTOBER #its transcended all emotional relation to me and now simply IS #(i remember years ago the Read More function broke on mobile and i hope thats NOT the case now)#if so: my sincere apologies

765 notes · View notes

dreadfutures · 3 years

Photo

And @crackinglamb who also tagged me!

I’ve had a really awful week but I’ve been slowly chipping away at this very important conversation between Ixchel and Solas. And I’d actually appreciate thoughts on this. I’ll just listen to whatever anyone has to say. This is long though so I’m going to put it under the cut.

Question: Specifically, I'm trying to navigate this complicated cause/effect and question of autonomy and individuality in their relationship, which happens to hold the weight of the apocalypse over both their heads in different ways. It is important that they both can operate as they wish, without fearing they will misstep and drive the other away

Ixchel definitely is one of the reasons Solas ultimately confronts some of his stubbornness/willful blindness, as his friend and someone he respects--it’s the way she lives her life and the way she hopes and fights and the world she believes in that ultimately makes him see more paths available than his din’an’shiral. It's not that she loves him or he loves her.

And he's aware that because of so many complications and questions about her resurrection, that she constantly feels like it might indeed be her love--and lovability--that’s holding back the apocalypse. And their relationship will never be equal and truly healthy until she stops carrying that burden. Somehow she needs to learn to trust that he has made his decision and will continue to make decisions based off of himself, and not her.

But also at the same time, he loves her, and she loves him, and they do help each other with like, reinforcing each other's hope, and reminding each other what they're fighting for, that the fight is worth it, and when the other one is tired, being able to prop them up and help them keep going as equals. There are the shadows of her own anxieties and depression that aren't entirely based in reality, but there are also these fears that are so deeply founded in reality. idk.

The Excerpt:

Ixchel and Solas finished bathing and washed their clothes—smiling like the foolish da'lenala neither of them had ever had the luxury to be. She was full of wine and laughter, and she knew that there would only be more waiting back in the Hold.

But as they dried off in the warm evening sun and she thought about the celebration of Hakkon's rebirth, her mind strayed to the name the Spirits of the Basin had given her, and what she had done to earn it. The shock and gratitude she had felt upon hearing herself called 'God-Song' had faded some, and now the chill of anxiety returned to the pit of her stomach. She shivered despite the golden light that surrounded them, and she felt Solas's attention shift from the sky down to her again. He did not speak, but she felt the question in his eyes on her bare back. "Vhenan," she began in a low voice, "should I… The Spirits called to Mythal through me. Was it her power that they summoned with that song? Or my own? Or theirs?" His grip around her waist tightened. "Do not be afraid," he said, but of course that solidified the cold tendrils of anxiety into hard, heavy dread in her gut. "The Spirits here are older than many," Solas said haltingly, "but they are still young. They remember only echoes of…'elf songs,' they call them. The echoes by themselves have power, even if the subjects of the songs cannot hear. That is the power of a prayer, spoken where the Veil is thin." He took a deep breath, and after a moment of consideration he sat up beside her. He rested one arm across his knees and began to trace idle patterns across her cursed forearm with the other. "I do not think she heard you." She stared across at his tense jaw, though his eyes remained on the horizon. "We summoned Flemeth at Mythal's altar in the Arbor Wilds, with a song," she whispered. He tilted his head slightly. "Did you not have the Well of Sorrows in your company?" "Ah." She gave a shuddering laugh as something, not quite relief, swept through her. "That's true." Solas responded with a shallow nod, but then, for a moment, his chest seemed filled with words. She waited, but he did not speak them before sighing again. "What is it?" she asked, and bit her lip. Solas slipped his arm around her waist to shift her closer, and then he sought out the Anchor. He spread her palm open, and with deliberate slowness, he dipped the pads of his fingers into the shining tear of magic her skin. It was as though he might slip through her hand and into the Fade that way. A vicious shudder wracked her frame; the penetration itself felt strange and dull, like a cramp, and yet the magic in her hand came to life with a hot flare. She could see the spirals of his orb across her skin, as she often could if she examined her palm closely, but now she could see the green tendrils of green rift magic as they wound their way up her wrist and her forearm. To her horror, it was clear that the Anchor had embedded itself almost halfway up to her elbow. She could feel Solas draw upon it with his concentration, and yet the reaching veins of the Anchor did not retreat. The damage had been done. Her fingers had curled around his instinctively, until the bones in his hand seemed to creak in protest. "I will not let them have you," he said. The finality with which he spoke made her feel as though he were not quite answering her question. Some other conversation had played out in his mind, and he had come to this answer. She did not know exactly whether he spoke of Flemeth and Mythal, or even perhaps the all-consuming power of the Anchor. She stared down at their joined hands, eyes burning, which was likely a sign that she was too exhausted to handle these conversations. When she heard and saw the resolve in him, she should have been able to stifle the part of her that remembered how he spoke to her of the din'an'shiral he must walk alone. She should not have immediately been afraid that the calculation he had done in his head was about his loyalties. It should have been a settled matter, and yet, still, it was not. Ixchel took a deep breath and tried to swallow that part of her. "I am more concerned about what she might do with you, Solas," she said truthfully. "How did I end up with Old God's spent soul within me? How did he come to possess it, when Mythal had taken it? Was he moving to the beat of her drum—knowingly, or not?" She saw the slightest twitch of his ear and knew that she had touched on a raw topic there, too. But this was a better topic, and one that was just as important for her to know the answer to. "If I have enticed you from the path that she wanted you on… Should I not be afraid, to stand against Mythal?" He turned his head abruptly, and she met his piercing gray eyes dead-on. After a moment's consideration, he reached around her to stroke her cheek gently with the backs of his knuckles. And she knew immediately that he had heard, beneath this line of questioning, the doubt that still ate at her. There was no challenge in his gaze, but the look with which he pinned her was not soft, either. "My loyalty is to our People above all else," he said, to make her heart seize in her chest. He continued in a measured voice that was heavy with blood and wine. "In Wycome. In Halamshiral. In Serault, and Minrathous, in Skyhold, and across the Veil… If Mythal indeed remains, she would not keep me from such a duty. For all the fearsome tales of the Witch of the Wilds, I cannot believe the All-Mother, if she truly remains, would undercut that work." She gripped his hand ever tighter. "And you… You are not afraid of Mythal," he said, a bitter note coloring his words. "You are afraid of walking your path alone. You are afraid that you cannot hold the Dread Wolf at bay with the strength of your love. And you cannot. You have not." His breath was hot across her face as he drew closer—not to kiss her, of course not, but rather as though he might impress upon her the full weight of his words with the strength in his silver eyes. "You are the Champion of the People. You have sworn, and I have believed." He squeezed her hand back, to emphasize his point. "For as long as you hold true to your purpose, you are my Champion, 'ma'lath, 'ma'av'in. But as you insisted, you chose yourself first. You gave yourself a name, decided its meaning." He brushed her hair behind her ear and then settled his hand firmly at the back of her neck, fingers tangled in her hair to hold her, ground her. He gave her the smallest shake. "Let me do the same." Ixchel swallowed. "Hope is a choice," she murmured. "Yes," he replied, "it is. So is trust." He kissed her gently then, and she tried to lose herself to it. The hand at the back of her neck slipped back to her ribs, to pull her close against his chest. She could feel his heart beat steadily beneath their skin, a steady, certain rhythm. She sighed into his mouth, and he hummed in response. "Ir abelas," she whispered as she broke away. They rested their foreheads together, eyes closed. "Do not be," he said, more gently than before. He raised their joined hands between them and traced the scar that ran down her chest, over her heart. "For all your stalwart strength, Ixchel, for all that you have reforged yourself from ruin, you cannot be blamed for fearing the one who shattered you. Especially when you have given him the very tools with which to shatter you again." Ixchel lost her breath as his words impacted her physically, and she opened her eyes to see that he had, too. For a moment, they were no longer silver—but rather they burned with the blue light of a god's power. That terrible gaze was focused on something deep within her chest…something that responded, and reflected his power back at him in painful resonance. "If there is one burden you can put down," he said, voice falling to a lilting whisper, "it is that you still carry the responsibility of the death of a world in your heart. Please… You must know it was not your failure." The magic in his eyes faded, and his lashes flicked up as he caught her staring at him. There were creases of grief at the corners of his eyes. "My mistakes will always be my own." The grief in his face might have seemed incongruent with the hard and heavy weight of his words, but she could feel how they hurt him as much as they hurt her. "I have told you that you have changed everything, but it was not your love for me, nor even my love for you, that has changed my course. It is the harm I have done to the world, the harm I know I might yet do, that stays my hand. Ane mala vasreëm." Perhaps it was the tears he saw well up in her eyes, or maybe it was simply his anxious mind trying to cut off any possible way he could hurt her more than he had already, but his own face was suddenly torn with pain and apology. "In saying this, I might seem to take away from your perceived victory—" "No," she said suddenly. "Solas, I do not need to believe it a war between us." She freed her hands from his so she could brush briefly at her eyes. "Thank you. I have only ever cared for your path as a friend... I love you, but--" she could not stem the flow of her tears, and she laughed at herself. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. He obliged and held her tightly; warm, smooth skin pressed against her rough constellation of scars, and she was enveloped in his smell, his warmth, his magic. She knew that she was safe in his embrace. And she knew that he was right. Perhaps she could have thwarted the Dread Wolf's plans, had she not killed herself. But he had chosen his path, chosen to excise his heart and give it to her, and she had been right to think that to carry it—to redeem it, to return it—was a futile task. Solas had never betrayed her. He had never promised anything. Cole was right: Solas was only ever his own. It was Solas who had watched her walk her path. Solas had chosen to follow, open-eyed. And ultimately, it would be Solas who chose to stay. Life is a story written by two hands, after all.

#wip wednesday #btv wip wednesday #btv #solavellan #concrit welcome

22 notes · View notes

bad-rper · 3 years

Text

Still Out

The dense murk of the boglands only furthered the weight upon Gladeriel's being. Only by the grace of the night could it let up enough for him to properly tend to his weaponry. Sitting upon a comically undersized stool, surrounded by cogs and bolts, the kaldorei set to work by only the light of his eyes and the remaining embers in the furnace.

Bogpaddle. A lively goblin settlement nestled into the northeastern-most reaches of the hazy marsh. Though quite a trek from his entrance into the Swamp of Sorrows, its prospects were far more enticing than the slowly disassembling fortress of Marshtide. If she were to show face between the two, it would be here.

'Every ten days.'

The words repeated in his mind as he rested a cushioned elbow on stacked crates next to the grinding stone. He'd need the leverage to keep steady when sharpening a blade of such length, girth, and weight. To his side was a bucket of cold water.

'Seven Sundays ago.'

As his foot picked up pace on the pedal, the waters he drenched the wheel of stone flicked over his face. He had thought his math right, he was sure of it. Still, no sight of her. Or he'r. Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe he was. Maybe this was a fool's errand.

Regardless of the faults of desperation, his sword needed tended. No one was going to do that for him any time soon. In truth, though, it could use far more than sharpening and polishing--but he had not the casts, tools, or know-how to reforge the blade anew. Instead, he angled his strained biceps, bringing the edge of the iron to the spinning wheel. For a moment, he could see the flames of the campfire still flickering in its dull sheen.

What would have made for a scenic vista was squandered by preceding events. As Gladeriel gazed over the precipice towering in the midst of Stormsong, he could only be chilled in its isolation rather than breathe easy in its freedom. All he had in hand was that parchment.

The most expensive paper he had ever owned.

Only his feet had carried him into Dead Wash, no other thought guiding them. After his eagerness mistook his callous aunt's back as his mother's own, he found himself thrown into a barter for information and a blade that only his own mother could forge. Eilithe's persistence in locating Gladeriel proved fortunate, as between the truesilver chain he was lugging and the ring she forked over, he was able to buy both shortsword and scrap sheet.

The monochrome matron did not seem too pleased with the exchange. Apparently, that piece of jewelry she traded was more precious than Glade knew or cared to know. Reluctantly, he let her see the breadcrumbs he 'won'.

"If I see you out there, or any I can trace back to you... Won't have to worry 'bout losin' that ring anymore."

He'd made his threats abundantly clear, and she had promised not to tail him again. Still, his hairs could not lay flat in that humid hell. At least amongst the goblins, her form or the silhouette of any suspicious kaldorei would stand strong. His thumb pushed into the iron until it was of lash-splitting sharpness.

With a grunt, he pulled his tiring arm and hilt with it, furthering the maintenance down the blade. His unease was sated by a brief look about him, past the cowl shadowing his face. None that stood above six feet. As his eyes returned to his work, another image of the recent past glinted in its reflection. The white walls of Stormwind.

Though Gladeriel had now learned of two ports on the Swamp's eastern coast, no ship leaving Boralus would ferry him there. Not even promise of extra coin could see his journey through. Much to his chagrin, his closest option (to arrive in any reasonable amount of time) was returning to Stormwind City. That which he swore to abandon until his search was quelled, one way or another.

Upon docking, he would need to lay low until the earliest break of dawn. The hours where the populous humans--and those adjusted to their lives--were only beginning to stir and other nocturnal denizens were preparing for bed or otherwise unconscious. To do so, he kept near the docks of Stormwind harbor but kept his distance from the roaring sailors' hang outs. Should there be a particular draenei cyclops running tables, his mission could be prolonged. Nor was he in the right mind for such a meeting still.

Having found a large cloak to wrap over head, shoulders, and all that hung on his back, he made his way with haste through the streets. Corners cut at every turn. Keeping close to the canals and avoiding almost all districts. Blending in to the early bustling of the morning market of Trade District. Despite his size and the commotion his gear normally made, his exit was remarkably surreptitious. For all the effort expended to navigate at his swiftest, his feet paused at the gates into Elwynn.

"Your sister does."

An'Diel was right. Treefira did deserve to know. And when he returned, she would.

Even after leaving the city, all paths taken were deliberate. The main road was only used as a parallel guide. No diversions into Goldshire this time. He stuck only close enough so that most wildlife would eschew from it but far enough so that no eyes could catch him from the road and highwaymen's backs would be turned from him. That was all until he reached Deadwind, a trail he had yet to venture alone. Luckily, its ominous nature and the Swamp's odorous nature kept the paths clear until now.

For good measure, he glanced up to the main entryway into the town. The torchlights did no favors to glimpsing beyond them, but he could still determine there were no new visitors. Removing his boot from the pedal, he took a brief pause to massage the arm steadying the broadsword. Grind stones always made fast work, but taking a whetstone to it was less painful.

After throwing water against the blade to clear shavings, he flipped it to its other edge and drug a washcloth from his belt over it. The fabric cleared the water and gleamed as brightly as the silver of that ring.

"I want you to bring this back to me." "... Yeah... You'll get it back."

When Aunt An'na's request extended to the ring, that promise was almost void and null. Though, even in the pursuit of his own family, he could not give the last memento of a mother so freely. At least, not until he could trade it for something more concrete. There had to be a cosmic force that would make him pay for his irony, should he do so.

The ring itself, while beautiful to common humans, was nothing compared to the truesilver chain it once hung from. When Chiah imparted the heirloom to his safekeeping, he wondered if she even knew of the value. Though, he did understand the value of the ring itself, even if it was less in gold.

"Get your head together. Settle your soul. But... please... come back to me."

It was little over an hour later that he left her to sob on the scarred floor of her kitchen. The bright hours left in Pandaria would abate more dangerous prowlers in the depths of Krasarang Wilds as he trudged through. Finally breaking through the treeline, he found the docks he sought, throwing coin to the first ship to sail off to destinations uncertain.

This would be the very vessel to bring him to Kul Tiras.

Had he not spent the night at Chiah's home, perhaps he would never found himself in this ogre's pit of a land. In a way, he had her to thank. Or to blame.

Drawing his sigh out with a groan, he was at last able to set his sword aside without a single dull edge. As he rose from the minuscule seating, his fangs gritted together in aching pain. His arm. His legs. His neck. His back. His mind. All would be sore for some time.

At least that pain would dull his senses to actually rest. He would need it to check again the next day. And all that could proceed.

(( Mentions: @eilitheandiel, @chiah-addington, @zephiandco (in passing) Suggested reading: Eilithe’s summary of the Deadwash encounter in Calling A Favor Previous Gladescapade™ The Hostess))

#update on Gladescapades #Gladeriel Duskthorn #writing

13 notes · View notes

star-killer-md · 4 years

Text

Dream a Little Dream of Me Pt. 6

Hi, so I’m just gonna leave this here and pretend it didn’t take me for fucking ever to get this done. Also like real talk, my classes are starting up soon and I’m working multiple jobs so updates from here on out might get a little sparse. I AM BY NO MEANS GOING TO STOP WRITING IT. Just like, it’s gonna take me awhile or the chapters might be shorter, who knows (not me). Anyway, I hope you enjoy this shit show and if you have any theories about where the hell this is going or critiques or just general explicit thoughts about Kylo please hit me up! I love you all, I hope you’re staying safe and healthy <3333

AO3 Mirror

Part 5

Warnings: nsfw, mirror sex, male masturbation, unconscious reader so not dub-con but just so you know, Kylo’s POV in some parts, I threw in some size kink if you squint cause he’s a big boy, possessive Kylo, slight boot kink, I think that’s it?

Ship: Kylo Ren x Negotiator!reader

Word count: 9.4k (god I’m so sorry this really got away from me)

He was looking at you.

Really looking at you.

Hadn’t until now.

But that wasn’t completely true. Of course he’d looked at you—noticed you, heard all the dagger sharp curses you threw his way like a child put in the corner impertinent and prideful and intoxicating in a way that pain often is. So, yes of course he’d looked, but you hadn’t been important.

And that was not to say that you were important now, just that—

Just that the sea was churning behind him, crashing against the shoreline and the Force was stirring. It was a wild thing, and sung like the insects hiding in the nearby treeline. He could feel the pull of it, like a chain that swung in the small space between your bodies. Connecting your throats—growing every shorter—rubbing him raw and bloody.

It was in you, whatever it was that tethered him like a boat to the harbor.

He was inside you too

“No one will ever feel like I do.”

That’s what you’d said.

You were right, as much as he was loath to admit it, no one had ever felt the way you did clenching around him.

There was something primal that made him ravenous to pour himself into you. He was always too much too full to angryangryangry every waking second. Now, finally, it all had some place to go. Some well to fill—a space for all his extra self to belong.

For once, he found there was nothing more than the sound of the sea inside his head.

He wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that revelation.

Who were you? What were you hiding and where was it buried?

Kylo needed to know and you were there, already limp and pliant with no jumbled slur of raging thoughts to cloud his path.

He found that slipping into your mind was one of the easiest things he’d ever done, like following the current of flowing water. Drifting in as if carried by the waves.

Flashes of memories rushed past him, mostly just amalgamations of indecipherable emotion—fathoms of pent up aggression Kylo was forced to wade through in order to reach the black depths of your head. At every turn he was met with his own face staring back at him.

He saw his saber, swinging in a red arch into durasteel paneling, saw himself through your eyes. Felt your awe, felt the stirring in your chest at the sight. He pushed on.

Past shots of offices he’d never seen, a barrage of falsely smiling faces, teeth gnashing, always hungry. He was walking down an endless grey hallway lined with First Order uniforms all towering over him—you—looking down, casting judgement like arrows in his back. Frustration morphed and twisted into a thick sludge of resentment that bubbled and clung to his feet.

With every pop a voice escaped, shouting “everything, everything, everything” in a sick, distorted roar.

And then he found it, the source of the muck that caked his path. A pit, deep and black as pitch that spit up it’s roiling contents and dragged him tumbling down, down, down.

He could barely make it out at first, but as he fell the dim red glow grew bright, crackling and electric and throwing sparks. At the bottom of the well the light bloomed like a pyre, some flaming effigy of pure potential. The heat of it licked at his skin, tracing the edges of every scar like it knew them.

Maybe it did.

Something like a shockwave rolled out through the Force, and he backed away from the raging flames. Back, back, back until he was kneeling again on the shoreline, your cooling body still pressed firmly to his chest.

The feeling of your weight, not cold and dead, but with life still in your limbs was alien to him. Kylo battled internally with the instinct to throw you off him to the ground. He could leave you here, go and wait or never come back at all.

It would be easy.

He could see it now:

Your face twisted, lips pulled back and teeth bared like you weren’t half his size. Like he couldn’t snap your neck with a wave of his hand. He imagined you naked, covered in dried blood and bruises bursting onto your balcony, tits on full display and your finger in his chest, vitriol spewing from your mouth.

It was comical really, how you puffed up like an animal threatened, small but vicious.

Yet even as he considered the scene, his aching knees were unlocking and shifting you, soft cock slipping out in a gush of your combined releases. Kylo swung your legs easily over one arm and climbed back up the beach towards your room.

The sun was starting to rise over the sea, casting gilded strips along its surface when he laid your limp form on the bed. Your skin was marbled with the evidence of your coupling and shone in the light.

Kylo stood silently above you, the ocean breeze occasionally ruffling his damp hair as he brought a hesitant hand to his jaw. The skin was swollen from when you’d raised your hand to him. His fingers dug into the bruise, and the stinging ache of it made his cock twitch. Your face, twisted and snarling and so defiant, so foolish, inches from his before your palm cracked across his cheek.

He dropped a hand down, stroking his half hard length and remembering how your thighs felt crushing his ribcage between them. His hips twitched up into his hand in slow, languid thrusts, precum and your residual slick easing the slide of his palm.

You weren’t afraid to fight back.

Kylo’s teeth tore at his bottom lip as he pumped his cock in earnest now.

You weren’t afraid of him , he realized. But you should be.

Especially now with how his mind was supplying all the numerous ways he could beat you into submission—fuck you into submission. God he’d love to watch you crack, it would truly be a feat worthy of celebration to break the will of a creature such as yourself.

But he couldn’t deny—certainly not while he’s jerking himself faster thinking of how delicious your wet cunt felt around him—that he liked when you bit back.

His name rolling off your tongue was ricocheting around in his brain and he was sure it was the most erotic thing he’d ever heard in his life, that he would never get enough of it. He’d known that since the very first time he heard it, when you opened yourself up to him and came in his mouth, on his fingers.

A familiar warmth was building in his stomach as he thought of all the ways he could make you say it again. Thought of dipping into your head and erasing everything else but that. So it was the only word you knew.

That sent him, made him spill over his hand, white ropes of his cum painting your breasts. You looked good like that, he thought as he worked himself through his orgasm, breath rasping in his chest.

When he was well and truly spent, he let his overstimulated cock settle back against his thigh and dropped a hand to your chest. His palm spanned nearly the entire width of you, fingers swirling in the mess of his release and rubbing it into your abused skin until you were perfectly glazed in him. The sheen of it glinted in the light, a reminder that you’d been marked and would never know how completely he coated every inch of your body.

Even as the darkness whispered into his mind that this was potential, this was uncharted, this was the dragon that hid in the corners of ancient maps filled with unknown stars, Kylo didn’t tear his eyes away. Didn’t pull his hand from your breast where his fingers dug into the flesh and made their home.

Not until the sun had fully risen and you began to stir from the Force induced sleep he’d buried you under.

Not until the very last moment.

***

You woke to the sound of rushing water. It was dim though, out of focus like an echo nearly faded away. Your eyes were lead in your skull, struggling against opening to the soft light filtering into—

Well into where you weren’t exactly sure.

Thoughts were elusive and seemed to slip from your grasp or sit constantly out of reach. Details stood blurry behind a layer of foggy confusion. It was as if your brain had been frozen and restarted like one of the old monitors on the Bridge, leaving important documents to close improperly. You pushed incessantly against the film that seemed to separate you from full awareness until, finally, it popped and the world came flooding in.

Light, bright and all encompassing was stinging your eyes through the open balcony doors. The smell of salt and sand and sweat was everywhere. You were laying on your bed, the spot next to you cold and vacant—never occupied. Your chest and bare thighs were sticky as you peeled them apart and tried to sit up, feeling the uncomfortable squelch of something leaking from you onto the sheets.

And then you ached.

The deep kind of pain that extends past your muscles and sent nerves misfiring with every movement. There was not a single inch of you free from the pulsating burn of it. You laid out flat on the mattress, moving your head as slowly as possible to take stock of the damages. Bruises littered you, mottled you in painful stripes. With every new mark catalogued another memory drifted to the surface:

Hips, his hands surrounding your waist to lift you clear off the ground, his cock slipping ever deeper inside.

Breasts, where the Force and his fingers had cupped and palmed and rolled pleasure into your flesh.

Chest, his bitten nails that scratched large welts which stung when you breathed in.

Legs, how he’d ripped you through the churning water and pressed deep into the meat of your thighs.

Neck, you could feel the dull throb of where he’d bitten into the skin, sucked hard and marked you with a small supernova of broken capillaries.

But the sting between your legs topped the rest. He truly had split you in half, his cock massive and leaving you clenching to your very core in its absence. His cum still dripped out of you in a slow stream. If this was the recompense you bore, there was no telling what he must look like.

You recalled the sole of your foot connecting with muscle and bone, the crack of your palm on his sculpted cheeks.

The way his mouth tasted, the fullness of his lips and how warm he was pressed against you with no space in between. The desperation for him, the sweet sting of him moving inside you, sinking into you, the fullness, the absolution. The presence of him not just in your body but in your mind, in your being, the relief of it—like the first breath after years of asphyxiation.

You could feel him still, you realized, a tingle at the back of your neck. A soft, comforting thump when you closed your eyes. Like a heartbeat. Kylo Ren’s heartbeat, faint but present, evidence of mortal flesh and blood. Your head on his chest, his voice a hush under the roaring sea.

“You aren’t going to die.”

It felt like a promise, and maybe it was.

But really, how long could you expect him to keep it?

And that was just the first of many questions. So many questions.

The sound of water was not the ocean, but the shower you realized and it filled the room with a hazy steam from the crack in the door. You thought about joining him for just a second, indulged in the idea of seeing him bare. Seeing the wounds he bore, the ones he let you put there.

But there was no time for that now, unfortunate though it was.

Instead, you tumbled out of bed onto shaky knees that nearly gave way as you looked around for something to cover yourself with, grabbing the first piece of clothing available. It was Kylo’s, you noticed as you tugged the massive black shirt over your head and watched it fall well past your thighs.

It smelled like him. You tried not to think about it too much.

You sifted through the mess of clothing on the floor and finally located your bag and datapad, tripping over yourself to crawl back onto the mattress. New messages flashed on the screen, although strangely none originating from the First Order. Each one another of Gahl’s staff asking you for speech revisions to be approved by the advisory committee and the last one a reminder of the day’s worth of meetings with campaign staff.

You shuddered at the thought. It wasn’t really the meetings themselves that bothered you, that was routine, muscle memory at this point. But it was harder now, harder to sit still and spit out pretty fake chuckles to every pompous politician's horrid sense of humor, harder to slip in silent ultimatums when there was a knife positioned squarely at your back. When you could never truly tell who would be the one to twist the blade or at what point you would have outlasted your usefulness.

At what point it was your turn to become the next example of what pride does to the body.

No amount of whispered half covenants would be able to stop that, regardless of which masked, saber-wielding commander they came from.

Sighing, you tried to quell the constriction in your throat and typed away quick, formulaic responses. A few minutes passed until you heard the shower putter out and the soft sounds of the Commander dressing. He didn’t look at you when he pulled the door open and stepped into the room, shirtless this time and sporting a dark purple starburst that dipped below the waistband of his pants and circled over the ��v’ of his hips.

You tensed at the memory of your bodies twisting in the surf and glanced away as he silently dug through his discarded clothes.

“That looks like it hurts,” you said, just to break the uncomfortable quiet.

Kylo regarded you in your seat by the headboard, eyes narrowing just a bit when he straightened and crossed the room. He stood by your side, taking the hem of his shirt between his fingers for just a second.

You felt him hum in your head, not nearly as loud as it was the night before, but still there—a pleasant weight in your chest. He liked the look of you drowning in his clothes. Liked the way you disappeared into them. Liked the reminder of how you fit well in the space he left behind. Felt his hand rip away like it had been burned.

“It doesn’t,” he said and turned his back to you.

As if you could hurt him.

You felt yourself flush at his response, electing to simply watch as he plucked another top from one of the piles and tugged it over his head. You lamented silently at the loss, earning you a sharp glare from the man in question. Well, at least he was giving you some indication now that he heard you.

“Yes,” he sighed, lowering himself onto the edge of the bed. “You’re incredibly loud.”

Crossing your legs, you sat the datapad aside and leaned back against the headboard.

“Oh, well my apologies,” you rolled your eyes, “I’m not exactly familiar with how this works.”

He scoffed at your hand gesturing between the two of you, “I’m well aware.”

“Is being as aggravating as possible a personal goal of yours or something?”

Kylo’s hand shot out, grabbing your ankle and yanking you down the bed. Before you had the chance to register the stab of pain that accompanied the sudden movement, you were situated firmly on his lap, thighs spread uncomfortably on either side of his hips.

“Is being a defiant little brat one of yours?” he retorted, one hand gripping hard on your jaw.

You tensed your legs against the searing ache and dug one of your knees into the bruise on his side, “Only for you, sir.”

The hand on your jaw slipped down to wrap around your throat, clamping down on the vein there and you felt the surge of blood that rushed to his dick at the memory those words elicited. He liked them in your mouth, he couldn’t hide that anymore and it frustrated him, enraged him that you smiled at the thought. Stars, you supposed if you kept mouthing off like that Atreus would have to speed things up before Ren killed you for him.

Kylo’s fingers twitched around your neck, eyes flicking to the mark he’d left on the joining of your throat and shoulder which had slipped entirely from his shirt. He seemed to be debating with himself before dropping his head and sucking the abused skin back into his mouth.

Your fingers slipped instinctively into his hair. Whether you were trying to yank him off or push him closer, you weren’t sure but then his jagged teeth sunk into the worried flesh and you whined like something wild at the display of dominance and acknowledgment that last night had been more than just another dream.

When Kylo finished with you, he stayed soothing cool mint breaths into the sensitive skin under his lips. You wanted to ask him what it meant—the mark, the beach, the newly filled to the brim, shaking in your fingers feeling blooming into existence in the intercostal spaces of your ribs—but you knew he’d never answer that.

Luckily, the waiting game was your specialty. There was no one better than you at playing the long con. He’d crack eventually, they always did. So you hid your ace and plaid something a bit safer.

“How did I find you in the hall last night?”

The Commander huffed against you, lifting his head to nip sharply at your earlobe.

“Projecting,” he conceded.

“What does that mean?”

His hands drifted to your hips, digging in and forcing you off his lap and onto the floor. The wood dug into your knees and pressed valleys into the skin. Kylo motioned with a hand and his boots obediently floated over and settled in front of you kneeling between his legs. You frowned as he stared down at you blankly and his command dawned on you.

“Really?” you asked, unable to keep the incredulity off of your tongue.

He lifted his brows and rolled his lips together, and you found yourself understanding with terrifying clarity what that meant. If you were going to play games so would he, and Kylo’s preferred method always seemed to be humiliation in some form.

Jokes on him, you thought with a shrug. You had very little dignity left to be squashed under his boots which you ripped from the air by your head. His feet were massive, nearly the size of your thigh as you slipped one into the rough leather.

“Consciousness can be detached from the physical body,” Kylo explained.

His voice lacked any of its usual rasp or vitriol, he was simply saying the words, not forcing them out. You thought he’d make a good teacher if he wasn’t such an—

The boot in your lap ground down harshly into the especially sore spot between your thighs covered only by his thin black shirt. Your cunt ached as he pressed the toe of his boot into your clit. Gritting your teeth against the pain, you kept your mouth shut and nodded for him to continue, pulling taught all the laces from his ankle to calf. The muscles were impossibly hard under your fingers

“The Force can allow you to take advantage of that separation,” he continued, swapping feet when you’d finished the first, “so physically you remained here, and your consciousness was able to project elsewhere.”

Your hands guided his foot past the leather straps and hastened through the last few laces. When the last was tied off, you tried to knock his leg to the side, but he pressed it back between your legs, smearing you with rocky earth and grinding his heel once more on your slit.

“So everything we overheard then, that was real?” you continued, voice strained as you squirmed out of his reach. Shockingly, he let you.

Kylo shrugged examining your slick stain on the leather, “Projection involves a real place and time. Dreams are more abstract.”

You nodded, pulling the fabric tighter around your knees.

“What did he mean?” you asked quietly.

You were pushing your luck, pushing his buttons really but he should be expecting that by now. He owed you this, reparations for months of workplace abuse.

Kylo stared at you, his erection still obscenely on display from your view on the floor.

“Atreus, he said I was ‘in your head,’” you elaborated and Kylo nearly kicked your teeth in with how quickly he stood.

“That’s enough,” he grunted.

You watched on the ground as he walked out onto the balcony. The wind combed through the black waves on his head revealing whitecaps of pale, freckled profile to peek out. You decided to quit while you were ahead, letting him stew. This was the most he’d ever spoken to you in the years you’d worked as his one-woman political clean up crew. Maybe you’d celebrate when there wasn’t a hit out on you.

Stretching out, your eyes caught his mask staring at you dead and resolute from the small night stand. It was heavier than you expected, lined with deep ridges and scars just like the man who wore it.

Head wounds were almost always fatal. Just one blow to the soft flesh of the temple and that was it, end of discussion. They taught you that at the academy. Always aim for the head. You traced the cracks on its carbon black surface and tried to imagine all the people who’d aimed for the Commander’s head, aimed to land the killing blow and failed. You thought of his toothpaste sitting in the vanity in the bathroom. You thought of the bruises on his chest and the blood that had pooled under his pretty skin to cause them. You thought of Kylo Ren dying.

You put the helmet down, pulled yourself off the floor and left Ren to his thoughts.

The bathroom was still thick with steam when you started the shower running. You stripped his shirt from your back and folded it on the sink before stepping in. The hot water felt glorious as it pounded the soreness from your skin. Your fingers brushed carefully over the abstract painting of bruises, the mark on your neck particularly stark in your hazy reflection in the wall of mirrors facing the shower.

You should have expected the Commander would enjoy marking his territory.

Not that you were in any way his territory.

The idea of it certainly didn’t cause a shiver to run down your spine.

When you’d washed the silt and grime down the drain and dried yourself, you left the bathroom and dressed quietly. Your outfit was professional and understated, not drawing the eye and covering last nights events without being suspiciously modest. Kylo didn’t move or speak until you drifted out to the balcony to commune before your meetings began. You leaned against the rail next to him.

“Do you know anything about him?” you asked, gazing out at the waves as the rose and crashed and rose again.

“No,” he responded, and you were thankful you didn’t have to say the name.

It felt greasy in your mouth.

“Right,” your eyes closed against the salty wind, “well I suppose I’ll do some digging then. Know thy enemy and all that.”

He glanced at you, a full once over and nodded in dismissal. You shook your head and turned to head out, shouting back to him over your shoulder.

“Remember,” only your head remained peeking through the crack in the door, “don’t leave this room.”

The door slammed behind you with a crack. Well, he was developing a pattern to say the least, you thought as you wandered down the hall to the drawing room.

***

You did your best to conceal the limp in your step as you entered, slipping easily into the small crowd of legislative staffers and scanning the room. Gahl was nowhere to be seen and neither was his ‘advisor.’ Immediately you felt a weight lifted off your shoulders. You consistently spent among crowds of men who frequently murdered people for political gain, however, you’d miscalculated how much harder it would be to keep your cool when your life was the one on the line.

The room was bright and airy, a small table was lined with furiously dainty finger food which you perused but found no appetite for. You sighed and moved on, trying to decide which inane conversation to insert yourself into when one found you first.

“Good morning,” an increasingly familiar voice spoke from behind you.

You turned to find Lem crossing the room and leaving behind a group of idly chatting aides.

“Hello,” you plastered a smile on your face in greeting as he saddled up. “The Representative chose not to grace us with his presence I see.”

He chuckled, “You really do get right down to business don’t you?”

“That is why I’m here,” you picked a tea sandwich off the table and popped it into your mouth just for the sake of the gesture. It tasted like sand in your mouth.

“Well then, I suppose I don’t mind skipping the pleasantries if you won’t think less of me for it,” Lem conceded and turned to stand next to you, surveying the crowd.

“In fact, I might think more of you.”

You followed suit, taking in the gaggles of people as your new companion passed you a glass of something fruity and expensive.

“Well in that case,” he took a sip and tucked a piece of yellow hair behind his ear, “you’d be correct in your assumption, the old man’s been called away on important campaign related business.”

“Would I be right in assuming you know more than you’re letting on?”

Lem glanced down at you from the corner of his eye and took a sip of his drink, “I think we’re both seasoned enough players of this game to know the answer to that.”

You hummed in concession, “Can you blame me for trying?”

“No,” he admitted easily. “But considering the fact you’ve been casing me like a house for robbery I would have hoped that conclusion would have come faster.

“I don’t know what you consider ‘casing,’ but I think you might be inflating yourself a bit there Mr. Alba,” you retorted, taking a sip and jolting a bit as the sweetness hit your tongue.

“A politician's assistant with an enlarged ego? Never.”

“Aren’t you a little too self aware to be in politics?”

Beside you, Lem laughed in earnest and you frowned, looking up at him. He wasn’t nearly as large as the Commander, so your neck wasn’t forced nearly to it’s breaking point in the process.

“You’re funny,” he said by way of explanation. “I didn’t think you’d be funny.”

“I’m just as shocked as you are,” you mumbled as a group of people bypassed you out into the hall.

“Well, you’re right,” Lem shrugged his shoulders, “I didn’t initially intend on ending up in government work.”

That was interesting. You felt yourself falling back into an old rhythm. Maybe Lem was onto something—if you wanted to get to Gahl, what better place to start than with the assistant. After all, if anyone wanted to know all the dirt on Hux, you were certainly the best person to ask. Why would this be any different?

“Is that so?” you prodded, hoping he’d continue on his own.

Of course he did. These people loved to talk about themselves.

“The Representative was a family friend and I was but a directionless youth bringing shame upon our good name,” he lamented, gesturing dramatically to a false, sympathetic audience.

“Was it kindness or pity then?” you asked, smiling and nodding to one of the campaign managers when she dipped behind you for a fruit tart.

Lem huffed out a laugh again and shook his head, “Gahl wasn’t always like this, I recall him being far more benignant when I first started.”

You latched on to the remorse in his tone: a soft spot in the apple. A perfect opportunity for you to worm your way in and feast on the flesh.

“It's an occupational hazard, really,” you glanced at his profile through your lashes and caught the faintest twinkle of vulnerability in the set of his jaw, “the constant power struggle drains one dry of any remaining empathy.”

“Hm, that’s certainly part of it,” Lem continued and downed the rest of his drink. “But he hasn’t really changed all that much until this election season.”

You’d broken the skin, now it was time to dig a bit deeper.

“Gahl seems pretty cut and dry, from what I can tell,” you locked your thighs against the growing ache between them from standing too still for too long, “what would you say has changed?”

“Well in all the years I’ve spent working for him, I’ve never known the man to run a smear campaign, not like this one at least. Really you should have seen the ads we ran for him, absolutely brutal,” Lem was nearly ranting now, and it seemed you’d struck the nerve you’d been searching for. “And, I mean no offense, but he’d certainly never have interacted more with the Order than was strictly necessary, much less agree to meet with your Commander what-ever-his-name-is personally.”

God you wished Commander what-ever-his-name-is Ren was around to hear that. The look on his face alone would be better than any orgasm he could give you.

“No, no, I wouldn’t do any business with us either if I could help it,” you conceded and handed Lem a second glass.

“You’re very gracious, thank you,” he accepted the drink and sighed.

You tried your best not to sympathize, but you were weak and soft and couldn’t quite help the pang in your chest. As lukewarm as you were about Lem Alba, you could see the bags under his eyes and the sallow pallor to his skin and you knew the look he wore too well.

Damn your occasional need to not be a total piece of shit.

“Trust me, I understand your frustration,” you let out a sigh of your own.

Commanding officers were a trial.

“And not to mention, ever since he brought on that new advisor, he’s had no need for any of my input,” Lem grumbled, pinching the bridge of his round nose.

Well, never mind, maybe your horrible lack of apathy was going to come in handy.

“The slimy one?”

He turned to look down at you with an incredulous smile, “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“What does he call himself?”

“Atreus,” Lem said, rolling his eyes. “Although I’m sure that’s not his real name. He seems to get off on being dark and mysterious.”

You could think of another person who fit that description, and both of them had wanted you dead on at least one occasion you were certain.

“Hm,” you nodded in agreement, “any idea where he came from?”

“None such luck, he just came crawling out of the woodwork one day a few months ago and well, you’ve seen the result,” he shrugged and finished off his second glass, taking yours from your hand and setting them off to the side. “Now, fancy a walk on the beach? I believe it’s my turn to take a crack at hunting for information.”

For a moment, you contemplated the likelihood that you were being played, that Lem was some elaborate plant and today was the day of your demise. But holding you hostage leagues away from crowds would invariably ensure your death would be wasted. Couldn’t stick it to the Order if there was no one around to watch. And not to stroke your own dick, but you were very well versed in picking up on genuine animosity towards superiors.

“I’m not entirely sure what you could possibly want to know that I have the answers to,” you said and turned to face him, “but I would love the excuse to skip a meeting.”

The sand was warm between your toes when you stepped onto the shore. A breeze stirred and kicked up the granules which bit at your skin. Lem walked beside you in silence for a while, swinging his loafers in his hand. You looked out at the water, mind flashed with reluctant images of two bodies, bare and bruised, rolling in the surf.

“What’s it like?” your companion finally said, pulling you from your not so work appropriate thoughts.

“What’s what like?”

You turned to see Lem shaking his head and looking down at his feet.

“Working for the Order,” he clarified and you couldn’t stop the scoff before it blew past your lips.

“Do you seriously expect me to believe that’s what you really wanted to ask me?”

Lem held up a hand in surrender and swung to face you, “I promise, I’m being perfectly honest.” When you didn’t say anything, he continued, tone much softer under the crashing waves. “Are you always this mistrustful?”

You were certain that was meant to be a rhetorical question, but it triggered a bit of uncomfortable introspection. The answer was clearly yes, that was a given, a requirement. Of course you were, everyone who played the game of politics and treaties and thinly veiled threats was constantly waiting for someone to change loyalties at the flip of a switch. That was the rules, no one ever trusted anyone else father than they could shoot them. Alliances only worked when the playing parties were mutually benefitting or consistently in the other’s line of fire.

Truthfully, you hadn’t trusted a single soul since your academy days, and even that was questionable. You couldn’t trust your staff to do their jobs right, and the only conversations they ever had with you was nothing more than ass kissing lacking in both subtlety and class. The higher ups used you as a convenient garbage dump for all their internal screw ups.

Any human interaction you’d had during your time in negotiations was—stripped down to its roots—simply because someone wanted something from you.

Intentions mattered, anyone who said otherwise was only kidding themselves.

“Work is fine, pay is good,” you kept your tone short, “why do you ask?”

“Just curious, I always wondered what it would be like to work for them.”

“Well, I’d say it’s exactly what you’d expect,” you backed quickly away from the incoming tide, trying not to ruin any more clothing that you already had.

“I don’t know,” Lem shrugged and followed you farther up the beach, “I figured it would be more exciting than this.”

He gestured around vaguely at the villa and the ocean. Your balcony visible from here, you realized. Soon the two of you would walk right across the patch of sand where you and the Commander had tumbled desperately into each other. When you had—

“It isn’t,” you quickly nipped that train of thought in the bud. “Just the same sport on a bigger playing field.”

“You’re not doing a very good job of representing your product,” Lem quipped.

“Well thankfully I’m a diplomat, not a salesman.”

You were standing right by the path to your rooms now, in between the parted grass you could still see the imprints of massive feet. Kylo must have carried you back last night, cold and wet and debauched. You could almost see him, muscles in his back rippling, your weight barely registering as he walked on legs like tree trunks up the small incline. The water would be dripping off his hair, coating each pretty strand and leaching away its softness.

“Isn’t it all the same evil though,” Lem mused, pausing next to you on the beach, completely unaware of what the sand here had witnessed only a few hours ago.

“Depends on what you define as evil.”

You wondered if Kylo could see you now, if he could hear you—really hear you. Wondered if you’d ever get to know what went on inside his head. Wondered if you’d even want to. Maybe that made you evil. Or maybe you were just weak.

“I think you’d know better than me,” Lem was staring off at the water when you turned and his neat hair parted with the breeze.

“Why’s that?” you asked, facing back to stare into the window to your room, hoping to catch a glimpse of something.

Just something.

“Well homicide isn’t included in my negotiating arsenal for one thing,” he huffed, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets.

“I’ve never killed anyone.”

You didn’t know why you whispered the words, didn’t know why you said them at all, but there they were drifting out to sea like a rudderless ship.

“Why not?”

“Never had too,” you said simply, “not directly at least.”

Lem hummed thoughtfully, “But would you?”

You were still staring up at the curtain covered window.

“Is that what you think evil is?”

“That’s what I think devotion is,” Lem replied simply. “The evil is in refusing.”

A shadow passed across the glass, tall and menacing and real.

“I don’t know,” you said finally, after a moment of silence.

“Don’t know what?”

You shook your head, “I don’t know if I would kill someone, personally I mean.”

“Fair enough,” the sound of skipping shells rang out behind you as Lem spoke, “I don’t think anyone really knows until the knife is in their hand and the throat is under it.”

You aren’t going to die.

You could hear Kylo’s voice and the crashing of the sea—or maybe it was something else, something else entirely that was churning around you. Something red and crackling.

An act of devotion.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

***

You could feel his eyes on you the second you returned. It was well into the night after a day of meetings that ran too long. But one quick scan of the room and you came up empty of brooding men in flowing black robes. Despite his lack of physical presence, you swore you could feel staring, tracking the uneven movement of your legs as you took a step further from the door.

Kylo Ren was here somewhere, you could feel the weight of him, filling up all the extra space in the air.

The sullen feeling of being watched followed you, making your skin flush with gooseflesh, while you stood in the middle of the room. Something moved in the shadows of the balcony. You caught just a twitch from the corner of your vision, the heel of boot pulled back into the dark.

So that’s where he was hiding. Or maybe lurking was a more appropriate word for it.

When your eyes had adjusted to the low light of the moon, you could just barely make him out. Kylo was nothing more than a dark silhouette against the horizon, leaning back against the rail of the balcony. You couldn’t see his face, but you could easily imagine the blank, drawn expression. The regal tilt of his jaw and the sculpted profile of his prominent nose. The slight peek of his ears between dark waves of hair.

You paused for a moment, debating whether or not you cared enough to fill him in on what you’d gathered that morning. Lem had been more forthcoming with you for the rest of the day after your heart to heart and you’d been able to create a halfway decent profile of your target by the end of your last meeting. But there was palpable tension in the room that you couldn’t quite place, and it felt like one wrong step might find you backed up against the wall, feet dangling and throat crushed in an invisible grip.

Turning, you sat yourself gingerly on the edge of the bed and pulled off your shoes. When you dropped them to the ground though, you heard the rustling of paper. Scattered on the floor was the tattered remains of a padded envelope. You frowned, picking up one of the scraps to try and make out the writing.

Your name was scrawled in messy print, torn halfway through.

It was only when you noticed the small shreds of fabric littered among the mess that you realized what you were holding.

“I’ll have one of the aides send for some seaside appropriate attire, you might find you’d like to go for a swim.”

“Let me know,” he cleared his throat, “if that’s not the right fit. I can have another sent up.”

It was the package Lem had given you days ago. You’d nearly forgotten about the awful conversation with Gahl your first night on Coruscant. Some part of you was glad you’d never have to see it in one piece, the memory of his hand on your thigh still made you gag.

You grabbed a piece of the ruined material and felt the rough outline of lace under your fingertips.

From the balcony there came the sound of shuffling boots as Ren adjusted himself and turned away from you to look out over the sea.

“You really shouldn’t open mail that isn’t addressed to you, sir,” you mumbled under your breath, but got no response.

In fact, the entire room was littered with the remnants of your gift from the representative. You wondered how long he’d been sitting there sulking over it. Something in your chest swelled at the thought of him, eye twitching just before he ripped the garment to shreds. You could hear the shout that would have torn through his throat.

Really, he fucks you once and he’s already jealous? Very unprofessional.

The thought did wonders for your ego.

And wreaked havoc on your incredibly sore pussy, that clenched involuntarily against a new rush of warmth.

But however much sick pride you took in exposing the Commander’s inability to control himself, you couldn’t shake the twinge of annoyance that bubbled constantly under the surface of your mind whenever Kylo Ren was involved.

The boots, the cryptic half answers, the unclear label for whatever the hell had happened between the two of you buried in each other on the sand— that was one thing.

But this was a slippery slope and you weren’t one for simply riding along without question.

“Tell me what you want.”

That’s what he always said, be a shame if Ren couldn’t hold himself to the same standards.

Without bothering to look back at him, you stood back up from the bed, proudly displayed at the center of the room.

Slowly you lifted your arms, pulling away your top and letting it drop with a soft thump to the floor. You didn’t see him turn at the sound, but you felt it. Could sense where his eyes alighted on your bare back. They lit fiery trails wherever he paused on the blooms of broken blood vessels under your skin. You did your best not to shudder under his stare.

You worked slowly, peeling each layer off piece by piece. Made a show of it, ran your fingers along the soft skin of your arms and gave him a lovely view of your ass when you bent down to roll off your socks. You could hear the catch in his breath so faint under the sound of the wind, and wondered if he could see the wetness glinting off your thighs in the low light.

Wondered if he could smell it on you.

Never once did you turn to face him, waiting until you were completely bare to walk ever so slowly into the bathroom, leaving the door wide open behind you. Flicking on the soft lights you started the shower with a frustratingly shaky hand. Warm water rushed through the pipes and drowned out any sound from the main room.

You stepped past the two tile walls that blocked off the shower and let the stream of water tumble over you. It poured like a waterfall, cocooning you in the stream of it. You waited patiently to see what the Commander would do, if he’d take the bait.

Of course he did.

You didn’t have to wait for very long.

He took up the entire doorway when he entered, a massive wall of muscle and sinew that towered over you in a way no one ever had before.

It was thrilling.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, voice low and layered with poorly restrained need.

Kylo was still fully clothed, but the hard outline of his cock was clear against his thigh. You let the water run over your breasts, cupping them as though you were one of those ornate stone fountains.

“What does it look like?”

He rolled his lips, “All I see is a whore who has no idea what she’s getting herself into.”

He was right, you didn’t. But you wanted it anyway.

“Hmm,” you nodded. “So why don’t you show me?”

You stepped out of the water, leaving puddles behind as you crossed over to him, standing just out of arm's reach. Kylo’s fingers clenched at his sides, his neck tilted down to stare at the water running down your chest.

What happened next was not at all what you’d expected.

You’d thought he might snap the way he often did, might yell or bend you over the vanity and give you even more marks that would smart in the morning. But he did none of that.

Instead he lifted a single hand, his arm impossibly long and reaching you despite the distance. The second his fingertips landed on your skin, the world went black.

You felt like you were falling, your stomach doing flips as you tumbled through darkness. Everything was coming in flashes. Your feet—well no not yours, Kylo’s you realized—sticking in viscous black sludge that clung in sticky trails along the skin of your—his—legs.

A pit, gaping and horrible.

Something burning, something blistering and crackling and raging red. It rose above you, flowing strangely like liquid sloshing and rolling like a flash flood and you staggered back. Something was rushing by your ears, light blurring in front of your eyes like a ship just about to jump into hyperspace. All of sudden, you were hurtled back into the present gasping and pitching forward into the Commander’s solid chest.

He didn’t push you away, just stood as you breathed him in and tried to plant your feet firmly on the ground.

“What was that?”

Your voice sounded so small after the intense roaring of whatever he’d shown you. Kylo’s hand threaded into the hair at the base of your skull and yanked back until your knees buckled under the force and you hung limply from his grip.

“You would do well to listen when I say you have no idea what’s at stake here,” he hissed and you clawed at his hands.

“Maybe if you bothered to explain it to me, I’d be more inclined to agree!”

He shook you violently and you tried to kick your feet under you but the slick tiles offered no leverage. Kylo dropped a hand, fumbling with the button on his pants.

“I think you’re far too busy parading yourself around like the little slut you are.”

In one smooth motion, he freed his cock from the confines of his trousers. It was just as massive as you remember, red and leaking white beads of precum. He gave it two long strokes, holding you at eye level with his dick.

You really ought to keep your mouth shut, but despite the pain in your scalp, your cunt was clenching at the sight of rock hard and weeping for you.

“Am I a slut or are you just a possessive bastard?”

You could pinpoint the exact moment Kylo Ren snapped. The change was subtle, a short grinding of his jaw, just a flicker of his eyes before he had your head slammed down on the vanity, ass up and knees spread for him to settle between.

His hand in your hair tilted your head up so you could watch as he guided his length to your soaked lips. He coated himself in your slick, circling your entrance and nudging your stiff clit with every stroke.

“Watch and you tell me,” he grunted before ramming his cock into you.

It burned and stretched until you felt him in your throat, a choked moan rattling out of your mouth. You could do nothing but watch your reflection, tears beading at the corners of your eyes when he pulled out only to thrust back in. Kylo set a savage pace, the sound of slapping skin and his groans echoed around you.

You watched his face in the mirror, flushed bright red, one hand still on your head and the other steadying your hips as he drove into you. The drag of him was delicious, pulling pleasure out of places so deep you’d nearly forgotten they existed.

“So desperate for your Commander’s cock, aren’t you?” he growled, draping himself over your back.

His chest pinned your harder into the marble vanity, crushing your breasts against the cool surface while the hand on your hip reached around and pressed hard into your stomach just above your pussy.

“Feel that? Feel how this cunt was made for me?”

Kylo’s head dropped to your shoulder and his teeth sunk into the flesh, muffling the obscene moan that rumbled between his ribs when you tightened yourself around him. You whined, nipples straining against the cold stone and neglected clit begging for attention.

“Kylo, please,” you sobbed, forgetting the game entirely, all confidence leaking away and replaced by a hunger only he could sate.

“No,” he snarled, rearing back and yanking your head up with him. “You don’t get to beg now.”

You were absolutely ruined, skin more bruised than not and mouth hanging open in a silent cry. He met your gaze through the mirror, and you were entirely convinced it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. Kylo’s lovely brown eyes were completely black with lust, his hair a crown of sweat soaked curls and a lovely blush that spread all the way to his ears. Plush lips pulled back to show his crooked teeth that splayed out like white gemstones.

He looked every bit a dark, magnificent prince. A fallen angel or a devil or any number of cruel celestial beings—in any case the man above you could not be human.

And yet, you knew he was.

You’d been gifted with the evidence of it, painted him with purple blossoms and seen him bare with scars and freckles and your favorite mole above his gorgeous full lips. The way his breath always smelled like toothpaste.

In all your life you’d never been known to take orders well from any man, but staring at Kylo Ren as he pounded his massive cock into you—meeting you head on without restraint, a comeback always at the tip of his skilled tongue—you thought you might not mind it so much if it was him.

And then his hips stilled, and he was looping your arms around his neck and pawing at your thighs before locking his arms under them and lifting you up, back against his chest.

“Fuck, Kylo—” you yelped at the change of angle and the strength of his arms to keep you aloft.

The shower sprayed down on him, soaking his clothes as he leaned back against the tile wall and fucked you on his cock. The mirror provided a full view of your bodies joining. You watched entranced as his arms flexed, biceps bulging while your pussy swallowed his length and your tits bounced with every thrust.

“That’s the only name I ever want to hear out of your mouth.”

He turned his face into your neck, lips and teeth sucking and nipping at the skin. It was too much, too much and not enough and you were overcome once again with the feeling of something filling in all your hollow spaces. And you knew in your bones straight to the marrow that the pit filled with churning, crackling magma was bubbling up again, accepting everything Kylo poured into you.

You clung on to the feeling and shouted through it.

Kylo, you called, breath coming in ragged gasps.

You were so close from just his cock in you, but it wasn’t enough.

You weren’t sure if anything ever would be.

Kylo, you repeated it like a holy word, long forgotten and imbued with the power of ancient gods.

He buried his head deeper into the column of your throat, squeezing his eye shut as if that could block out your cries.

Kylokylokylokylokylokylo, you chanted in a never ending string until the dam finally broke and you felt his thoughts slipping into you like they’d always belonged there, like there had always been space for them.

It was all too jumbled for you to parse any meaning from it. Snippets of red hot anger revealed themselves to you in a shower of manilla paper. Voices, dark and malevolent whispered of challengers and danger and design. Your body, motionless on the bed painted in ropes of his release and the comforting weight of you in his arms, real, alive, willing and wanting.

Take me, if you didn’t know better you’d think he was the one begging, take all of me .

You nodded and nudged him with your nose until his lips were crashing against yours in a flurry of hot tongue and teeth. His arms left your thighs which remained impossibly in place, held up by invisible hands as he grasped at your chest, rolling a hard nipple under his thumb while the other found your clit and finally, finally rubbed frantic circles around the neglected nerves.

Kylo’s hips never stopped their frantic pace, his cock reaching its limit inside you, and finally he was cumming, sheathed in your heat and pumping you blessedly full while he sent you tumbling over the edge with him.

And as the waves of pleasure radiated over your skin, boiled in your bloodstream—as Kylo licked the backs of your teeth and swallowed down every cry that left you—everything faded out around the edges once again, although now for much more pleasurable reasons.

***

When you opened your eyes again, you were laying in bed. The sheets were damp, but not uncomfortably so.

And this time, you were not alone. Kylo’s hands, massive and all encompassing were splayed against your stomach and chest, one cupping your left breast gently in his palm. His body engulfed you from behind, bare skin hot against yours.

So hot, you thought something inside him must be burning.

Maybe it was.

Kylo? you wondered silently, unsure he could still hear you.

I’m here.

His hand on your chest flexed as he pulled you tighter. Something told you this was not the first time he’d held you like this, there was something too practiced about the placement of his body.

What is this?

You weren’t exactly sure what you meant by that, but he seemed to understand the question.

He was silent for a moment, I don’t know.

The lie was apparent the moment the words drifted into your head. And confirmation was echoed back to you. He knew, or at least knew some of it, just wouldn’t tell you.

That was okay, you hadn’t really expected anything else.

You’re safe with me, he whispered instead.

And that was not entirely true either, in fact you would not be here if not for him. But all of this had a certain inevitability about it that you couldn’t place. A feeling that this would have happened regardless, or a version of it with the same outcome.

You closed your eyes against the thought and nodded, letting yourself be held like you had so often dreamed of on lonely nights in your small quarters

You were safe then, safe but empty.

And really, that was so much worse.

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

Taglist lovelies;

@thewilddingleberries @kit-jpg @findyourdarkness @contesa-lui-alucard @isaxhorror @obsessionprofessional

#kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x female reader #kylo ren imagines #kylo ren fic #kylo ren smut #dr. b writes #daldom #reader insert #dr. b talks

81 notes · View notes

starlightsearches · 4 years

Text

The Runaway — Chapter 1

It was supposed to be like any other bounty. Just another job. But when Din Djarin meets a runaway trying to escape a tragic past and a bleak future, everything changes.

Masterlist

Din Djarin x f!reader (no y/n)

Series Warnings: Language, canon-typical violence, mentions of abuse.

AN: In honor of the season 2 trailer dropping today, here’s the first chapter of my new fic! Please be mindful of the warnings—this story is going to deal with some pretty heavy themes in terms of abuse and revenge. Also, the reader is described as having a scar near their collar bone, but that’s the only physical description I’ll be giving! Thanks for reading!

Din can't stop to catch his breath, not when he's finally got you in his sights again, but gods, it feels like his lungs are on fire. He had been skeptical when he first saw the puck—how had someone like you been able to evade the Guild for this long?—but now he thinks he’s finally starting to get it. He was wrong to underestimate you.

You weave through the stacks of discarded junk, turning corners, leaping over obstacles, always just out of reach, and Din's hand itches for his blaster. He wouldn't kill you, obviously, but right now he's willing to consider anything that might stop this chase. It's only Greef's voice, echoing in his head on repeat that stops him. Unharmed. Not a scratch. He had been warned that the bounty would be heavily reduced if you came back with even a minor injury. But maybe the threat of it would slow you down.

Din removes his blaster from the holster, gripping it hard in a leather-clad hand just as you turn another corner, venturing deeper into the junkyard maze. He catches the flash of your eyes just before you disappear again, and he knows that you've seen the weapon. It was only for a moment that your eyes meet his through the mask, but a moment is all it takes for him to see it. You're terrified. Terrified of him.

"I won't hurt you," he calls out, before he remembers himself, remembers that's not a promise that he can afford to make, "just stop running." Din follows you around the corner before sliding to a halt; he had thought you were following a path you knew well, but you must have taken the wrong turn because you've found a dead end. You're backed against a wall of ship parts and refuse, breathing hard, looking feral—a caged animal. Din keeps his blaster lowered, but he's cautious in his approach. He's seen that look before. It's a look that gets rookie bounty hunters killed on the first job. They're fooled into thinking that it's the size of their target that makes them a threat, but they're wrong. It's always in the eyes.

He can finally get a good look at you, now that you're trapped with nowhere to go. He hardly recognizes you from the holo on your puck—if you hadn't tried to slip from the cantina the second you caught sight of him, he could have missed you completely. It's not just age either, although the holo is clearly a few years old. That girl, with her harmless features and demure smile, wouldn't have lasted a week in this city. You, on the other hand, you look like you could run the place.

"Don't fight and I won't shoot," he inches closer, waiting to see if you'll make your move, but you balance on the knife-edge of action and surrender. "I can bring you in warm," he continues out of habit, in the same calm, commanding tone, hoping to tip the scales in favor of the latter, "or cold."

The moments pass in silence, just the sound of your breathing and the quiet scuttle of whatever creatures lurked in a dump like this. Your eyes grow wide as you contemplate your options, the emotions so clear on your face it’s almost like Din can hear your thoughts—you still want to run. Then something inside of you breaks; your resolve crumbles. "Please," you beg him, your bottom lip quivering as you drop your head in submission. The fight leaves you immediately, and its absence shrinks you, makes you fold in on yourself, looking small—defenseless. Din is struck with the uncomfortable reminder that you're not a typical bounty. You're not a bail jumper. You're not some criminal. You're just a runaway.

He holsters the blaster before he approaches and cuffs you as gently as he can, ignoring the way you tremble, the shuddering tearless sobs that break through your parted lips. It's part of the job. He can handle it.

"Please," you beg once more. He’s caught up in your eyes like a magnet, eyes so full of pain and a fear so potent that he almost considers letting you go. Almost. He banishes the idea with a deep breath and a short tug on the binders, pulling you along behind him for the trek back to the Crest. The word stays with him, though, playing through his mind in time with every step: please, please, please. It isn't until much later that he realizes exactly what you were asking for.

You don't speak once you arrive back at the ship. There's no more begging, no crying, no chatter. You've retreated deep inside yourself and all that's left is a stony exterior. Normally, he'd be grateful for the quiet. He should be grateful for the quiet. So why he feel the need to keep checking on you over his shoulder?

Din leads you to your seat in the cockpit and you take it, your empty eyes trained on the viewport as he prepares for take-off. He catches himself staring, once, twice, three times before he manages to snap out of it. You're fine. He doesn't need to worry. And he doesn't want you to catch him looking. Not that it would matter if he stared at you outright; you won't even look at him.

"I'll be taking you to Nevarro. Your father will meet us there." His words catch your attention, and now you return his gaze with force.

"Did you meet with my father-" something changes when you speak—suddenly you’re staring at him with a look that could start fires, "-when you accepted this job?" The uncomfortable feeling deep in the pit of Din's stomach only grows, a sickening shiver that worms its way under his beskar and spreads over his skin like a poison.

"No." Din distracts himself, taking his seat and checking his controls, "I was hired through the Bounty Hunter's Guild." He had hoped to escape the pressure of your eyes, but he can’t hide from the heat of it, heat like the forge in the armory. It’s permeated the air of the cockpit, heavy and inescapable.

You only hum in response, a sound that generates thousands of questions for Din that he's not sure how to ask, but you take his silence as an opportunity to ask more questions of your own. "Did they tell you why I ran away? Or why my father was so adamant that I came back in one piece?"

Din manages to shake his head in response, and seeing it, you relax the smallest amount. You speak with a voice that stays calm and clear, "My father didn't want anyone else to kill me because he wants to do it himself."

Din's blood is ice in his veins. There’s a gasp, or maybe a cry that wants to force its way out of his throat, but what comes out instead is only a question, "How do you know that?" The Razor Crest is ready for take off, but Din hesitates with his hand over the lift-off control. Seconds pass by, stretching out into an eternity as he contemplates what you just said. He wants to do it himself. It’s not possible. It couldn’t be true. Slowly, Din drops his hand, turning in his seat to face you.

You try to hide it—the relief that you feel, knowing that he'll listen, that he might believe you—but you haven’t masked it entirely, and, unfortunately for Din, the sincerity of your demeanor only chips away at more of his doubt. You shift forward in your seat, the move made a little more difficult by the bindings, but you manage. "I know because he told me so." Your voice is laden with power, your words spoken so vehemently that they carry their own weight. You want him to believe you so badly, but a part of Din, the part that craves distance—the part that needs these credits—wishes he could believe that you were lying.

He watches as your cuffed hands crawl up your torso, towards the neckline of your tunic, inching it down to expose more of your skin. A jagged scar grows from the hem of your collar, stark against the skin around it. "He gave me this-" you say, gesturing to the mark with a jut of your chin, "-the last time I saw him. Told me that when he found me he was going to finish the job. He's a cruel man. He won't be quick about it. He'll want to see me suffer."

Your eyes remain fathomless as you look back at Din, so matter-of-fact about this threat on your life, but Din can't pull his own eyes away from the scar. His voice is barely above a whisper, but it’s still loud enough that a tremble can be heard through the vocoder when he asks, "why are you telling me this?"

"Because I think you can help me." There's a slight release when he hears those words—just the barest ease of the pressure on his chest. There's a solution to this problem, a way he can be absolved of any guilt for what's happened to you, the part he unwittingly played. He'd miss out on his payday, but at least he wouldn't wake up every night in a cold sweat. At least he wouldn't be haunted by the sight of that scar. By your fire-starting gaze.

"I'll take you somewhere—wherever you want to go." Din turns back to the control panel, bringing the ship up, running through a mental list of planets where he could leave you, somewhere you could be safe. He's pulled from his focus with a slight tug, your hand on his shoulder, the touch heavy, and intense, like he can feel every one of your fingers digging into his skin through the pauldron.

"It won't work. He'll keep sending people after me. People like you. I'm tired of running." The pressure is back on Din’s chest, with a crushing, bruising force. It's not that you're hopeless. That might, somehow, make this more bearable. No, you're not hopeless. All your hope is in him.

"Then what do you want me to do?" Din already knows. He already knows, but he hopes he doesn't. He hopes you'll ask something else from him. Anything else.

"Isn't it obvious?" you ask, reading him without seeing the droplets of sweat at his temples, the way he tugs his lip between his teeth, "I want you to—how did you put it?—'bring me in cold.'"

#the mandalorian #mandalorian x reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin #din djarin fic #din djarin fanfiction #mandalorian fanfic #mandalorian fanfiction #pedro pascal #my writing #the runaway #star wars fanfic #tw abuse

60 notes · View notes

infinite-xerath · 3 years

Text

For Power. For Knowledge. For Vengeance.

My name is Vallen. I have no last name, at least, not anymore. I come from a house of minor nobles in Demacia. My family wasn’t particularly rich or powerful, but we had our pride, me more than most. I joined the Demacia military at the age of fifteen, and spent the next ten years serving faithfully. I never really made a name for myself, unlike Cithria or Captain Arrika. I was just another soldier, but even so, I served to the best of my ability.

I fought Noxians. I fought monsters. I even fought mages. The latter always left a bitter feeling in the pits of my stomach, but I convinced myself that it was the right thing to do. For king and country... What a fool I was.

Ten years. Ten years of service, of loyalty, of sacrifice. I bled for Demacia. I still have the scars to prove it. With my spear in hand I struck down countless foes for my homeland. I missed the birth of my younger brother fighting on the front lines against invaders from the north. I was ready to give up my life for Demacia... Little did I know that Demacia would simply take it from me.

It was an accident. I saw my commanding officer wounded and bleeding out as Noxian abominations stormed our defenses. My body moved without thinking. My shield was battered and damaged beyond repair, so I discarded it as dead weight. I stood before my commanding officer an arrow flew toward him and reached out my hand...

It was in that moment that I discovered my own true nature. Without so much as touching it, I snatched the arrow out of the air and sent it hurtling back toward the enemy archer. I didn’t even register what I’d done at the time, but my commanding officer made the connection for me. I’ll never forget the look of horror on his face when he realized the truth: that I was a mage.

From that moment on, my entire life began to fall apart. I pleaded that it was an accident, that I’d only been acting to save my commander, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. I was accused of being a spy for the Mage Rebellion, stripped of my position, and branded a criminal. Even my own family turned on me, calling me a traitor and a failure. I was alone, abandoned, and above all, furious.

I fled as far as I could. Why? Why had this happened? I didn’t understand how it was that I, a soldier of Demacia, could be a mage. I didn’t understand why I’d be branded a criminal, when all I had done was save a man’s life. My friends, my home, my whole life... All of it was taken from me. I fled across the sea to Shurima, trying desperately to seek a cure. This magic had to be a curse or some sort of illness. If I could heal myself, surely I could return home and be accepted.

In my search for answers, I acquired understanding. How naive I was... For three whole years I tried to suppress my magic, but my power steadily grew with time. With but a thought, I could move objects that would require no less than five times my own strength to carry. Once, when a band of thieves attacked me in the desert, I fended them off by turning their own weapons against them. It was exhilarating, realizing how powerless they were against me... How much better would the world be, I wondered, if others had such a gift?

In time, I learned of a god of magic that dwelt in the south-western desert: an ancient Magus who Ascended his mortality. I sought out this god’s followers, and in time ingratiated myself to them. I told them of my tale, and they assured me that all who sought power were welcome. It was then that I learned the god’s name: Xerath.

Another year passed before I would get to meet the god. During that time, I devoted myself to my studies, carving ancient runes into my flesh. My power grew still, and my brothers and sisters revered me for my gift. It was strange. In Demacia, what was seen as a curse became a symbol of status among the followers of Xerath. My past life, my foolish ideals, all of them were cast aside. I embraced what I was, a mage, and readied myself for the pilgrimage to Nerimazeth: something that only those with promise may partake in.

My eyes could scarcely believe what I witnessed there. Nerimazeth was a city inhabited not by people, of by creatures whose very flesh had been transformed by magic. Once, I would have called them monsters, but these were Xerath’s most devout: those who had been given the gift his power directly. It wasn’t long until I laid eyes upon the Ascended himself: a massive being of pure power, barely constrained within the remnants of an ancient sarcophagus.

Xerath looked down upon us like we were little more than insects to him. terror and awe filled me in equal measure as he spoke, the air quaking with each word. He demanded that those seeking true power step forward, those who were ready to cast aside their humanity to be something greater.

Many faltered. Cowards. They were afraid to lose themselves, but I’d already suffered that loss long ago. Everything I had once been died in Demacia. There was nothing left for me but this. I stepped forward without hesitation, going so far as to tear out chunks of the earth around me as a display of my magic. I could almost feel how unimpressed the god was at my meager display, but it was then that he remarked on my ‘unique’ potential.

Now, here I am, standing amidst monuments built in the god’s honor. His acolytes bind my arms behind me and strap golden plates around my chest. My legs are bound in chains and golden mask obscures my face from view. My heart beats in anticipation. A part of me dreads what comes next, but I push it down. It’s too late to turn back now.

Xerath gives a speech to the others, telling them that I am about to rise above my own humanity. Moments later, agony fills my body as the god pelts me with magic. I feel myself burning, twisting, contorting... A part of me begs for death as my lungs scream out, but then I remember my life before now. The betrayal. The accusations of the ignorant. Pain gives way to hatred, just as my flesh gives way to the Ascended’s magic.

I linger in the air, staring down at Xerath’s frail onlookers. I feel no pain, no regret, nothing but unbridled anger and my god’s own will. Though my hands are bound, I tear out chunks of the earth around me and fashion them into crackling spears. Cheers ring out as the others embrace the miracle that unfolded before them, but I have no care for their praise.

My name was Vallen. Now, I am a vessel for my lord’s will. My power is now his, and his is my own. I will remake this world in Lord Xerath’s image... And I will begin with my former homeland. Demacia will know the true terror and miracle of magic, and they will learn the folly of seeking to suppress it.

#drabble

1 note · View note

stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 4 years

Text

with you [chapter four]

Summary: Clementine pops the question, Louis has nightmares, Violet can’t let go of the past, Mitch doesn’t know how to handle gross feelings, Ruby’s a goddamn sweetheart, Willy doesn’t ever remember to knock, Aasim can’t dance, and James is here, too.

Nothing like a wedding to bring this family together.

Note: tbh working on this story at night is the only thing holding my sanity together while I’m taking care of my grams. But also this chapter was a huge pain in the ass to fix and I’m 0.02 seconds away from punching a hole in the wall. But it’s fine because it’s finished and I ran all the way home just to quickly post this.

Anyway, thank you for reading and your constant support. It truly means a lot to me. I hope you enjoy ch4. ❤️

Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4

Read on: AO3

---

The page remains blank.

No matter how much Violet wills the pen to move on its own, to put all thoughts both known and unconscious to paper, it remains beside the open notebook. As outrageous as it sounds, a small part of her hopes one day the pen will magically come to life and solve all of her problems with its problem-solving ink. Then everything will be okay.

Though she has a feeling the walkers will go extinct before her pen develops a sentient personality or therapeutic skills.

And she’ll be dead by then, so it wouldn’t matter anyway.

“It helps if you pick up the pen,” Aasim said, not bothering to look up from his own work. “Just saying.”

She knows even by his deadpan tone that he’s trying to joke with her, even if he’s not good at it. Laying bait for her to bite back with a sarcastic remark of her own.

“But then I’d actually have to write something down.”

“Oh no,” Aasim smirks, paying her a brief glance. “Effort.”

That cracks a small smile out of her, and for a fleeting moment, they’re smiling at each other as if that’s a normal thing. It’s hard to maintain that connection, so damn hard, so Violet hides her smile from him by turning away to look towards the gates.

The very same gates that Clementine, AJ, and Rosie pass through. Back from patrol, if she overheard correctly. Even from a distance, Violet can see the delighted grin Clementine wears, a grin only matched by AJ’s. Far brighter than Violet’s.

AJ hugs her tightly before breaking away and bolting towards Louis, James, and Tenn. Clementine remains, though, arms folded over her chest as she watches the group of boys with such fondness that it damn near makes Violet want to scream.

Shit, just…. Shit .

“Hey,” Aasim reaches over, tapping on the blank page of her journal with his own worn-out pen to grab her attention. “Lucy had her babies this morning. Seven of them. Well, eight, but one of them didn’t make it.”

Violet tears her glare away from Clementine to instead glare at Aasim.

“Who the hell is Lucy?”

“One of the pregnant rabbits, remember? Not the one that had babies last week, the other one.”

“We’re still naming them?” Violet asks. Aasim made it very clear that no names were to be used when they started up the rabbit farm by the greenhouse.

“They’re food, not pets. No names. No attachments.”

That didn’t last long.

“ I didn’t name her,” Aasim corrects. “Willy did, even though I’ve told him again and again not to. Now when it comes time for us to put Lucy down, he’s not going to talk to me for another two weeks, as if I’m the only one at fault. Remember Albert?”

“Ah, Prince Albert,” Violet nods. “He sure was delicious.”

Everyone agreed that the lovely Prince Albert was one of the handsomest rabbits they had with his snow white fur offset by brown feet and ears. They also agreed that he made one of the best rabbit stews Omar’s ever created.

Including Willy. That is until Omar offered him one of Prince Albert’s lucky feet and Willy realized just who he had consumed.

The boy didn’t speak to Aasim or Omar for a week, but Violet believes that he still carries around one of Prince Albert’s feet for good luck, despite everything.

“Yeah, anyway, did you want to come with me to check on them? Ruby’s out there now. Maybe you could stay with her and help out?”

Violet scoffs.

“Look, I’ll take your night shift, too,” Aasim adds. “That way you don’t spend all day out there and then have to do a night shift.”

“I like having the night shift.”

“Every night?”

“Sure.”

“Well,” Aasim taps his pen against the table, thinking loudly to himself. “I’m giving you the night off anyway. Ruby would appreciate your company.”

Oh, would she, now…?

It’s not that Violet minds Ruby. She’s the only girl Violet has left to talk to at this place- the only girl she’s willing to talk to, actually.

Violet would say that she enjoys evenings spent with Ruby… most of the time.

The problem with talking to or spending time with Ruby is she’s a lot. Not in the same way Louis is, but more in an overbearing mother sort of way. Always asking her how she’s feeling, asking about her day, if there’s anything she can do to help Violet out or if she wants to do this or that. She’s far too pushy sometimes, especially when it comes to shit she doesn’t understand.

“Clem’s tryin’, Vi.”

As if Ruby has all the answers to make her happy. She always makes it sound so damn easy.

“Why can’t ya just talk to each other?”

The problem is that Ruby tries to take care of everyone so that she doesn’t have to think about how to make herself happy. Why focus on your problems when you can bury your pains and wishes beneath fairy tales and other people’s problems?

At least, that’s Violet’s assumption.

Maybe Ruby is happy.

Maybe Violet just wishes she wasn’t.

Fucking hell.

Just when she thought she couldn’t be any more fucked...

“My company or yours?” Violet mumbles, finally picking up her pen, putting it to paper.

“What? My company- oh, I see.” Aasim rolls his eyes, dropping his pen in the book before shutting it. “Ha ha, very funny. I get it.”

Violet nearly rolls her eyes, too. Speaking of those who don’t bother with their own shit-

“I was thinking that it’d be good for you to go out there and help her, that’s all,” Aasim says, tucking his notebook under his arm and standing from the table. He means to walk away on that annoying note but hesitates. Then, lowering his voice to one of disquiet, he says, “I’m worried about you. So is everyone else.”

“I’m fine, Aasim.”

“...Right,” he sighs heavily. “Please go help Ruby with the rabbits. I’m only going to be there for a little bit before heading out to check the traps with Louis, and she could really use the help. Please?”

“Fine.”

Aasim lingers, shifting his weight as he gives her a chance to say something more, a chance she refuses.

“Thank you.”

With that, he’s walking away, leaving her by herself to finish a doodle of a pen with curly hair and fire for eyes with a speech bubble.

“Why are ya still here?”

---

“Is my neck supposed to feel this stiff?”

“Yes. It’s a sign of a good, unmoving model.”

“Well, good to hear that my career is off to a good start.”

Louis is still sitting there at the table, cracking jokes and trying his best not to move while James and Tenn draw. James points to various parts of Louis’ face before motioning to Tenn’s paper, something that brings a grin to Clementine’s face.

“Don’t worry, Clem,” says AJ as he hugs her. “I won’t say anything. Can I go draw now?”

“Have fun, kiddo.”

She can safely leave AJ to catch up on art lessons with James. He promised her he wouldn’t breathe a word of this to anyone- even Tenn- until she had everything all planned out.

Now that Mitch has the measurements, the ring is- hopefully- being taken care of, so all that leaves is how she plans on doing this. Several lingering thoughts follow her as she spends most of the day helping around the school, doing usual repairs to the gate and their walls.

She would’ve checked on Lucy and the other rabbits, but Aasim warned her that Violet was there with Ruby and Louis. She almost pushed him aside and went in anyway, but damn it, she knows better by this point.

Instead, she and AJ help Omar clean out the fire pit and gather fresh wood, briefly considering letting him in on her intentions. Omar’s a trustworthy friend and while she appreciates his opinion, she decides against telling anyone else until she has the ring. She’s found that battling her eagerness to be growing more difficult with every passing day.

So much so that she also considers asking about the progress on said ring when she finds Mitch and James near the library’s entrance, speaking in hushed whispers that she couldn’t make out. All talk stopped when she approached them, and began again when Mitch became snappy with her before dragging James away.

Odd, and not boding well for her, but she firmly believes that if there were any issues she should know about, Mitch would tell her.

When the sky finally turns a lovely mixture of pink and orange, AJ gives her a hug goodnight before making his way over to Tenn’s room for another sleepover.

Before retiring to her dorm for the night, Clementine pokes her head into the music room to find it empty. A slight disappointment falls over her as she hoped Louis would be up for some piano lessons, but that dissipates when she finds Louis kneeling on AJ’s desk with a roll of duct tape hanging from his mouth when she walks in, a stack of drawings placed beside him. He’s taping up one of the portraits of himself on the wall.

“Ey!” He waves at her before spitting the tape out. “Look at these!” He hops off the desk and points at the one he just hung up. “That’s the one James drew. Charming, isn’t it?”

The amount of detail in the portrait is startling, a fully shaded-in head portrait of Louis that seemingly stares right at her. Even the little details, like his freckles and the scar on his chin, are noticeable.

“It’s way weirder than I thought it’d be,” he says, “having someone stare and dissect every part of your face. Did you know I have a very angular jawline?” He tilts his head up to prove his point. “And James said I have a nice eye shape.”

“He did do you justice,” she says, still admiring the picture. “Very handsome.”

His chuckle comes out loud and anxious, not having expected her to say that.

“Hah, yeah, except,” then Louis pushes his jacket back to place his hands on his hips, “uhm, do you think my nose is big?”

“What?”

“James said I have a wider nose. He drew it bigger than it actually is, right?”

“You have a very cute nose.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Clementine giggles. “Your nose is perfectly fine, Louis.”

He eyes the portrait, still uncertain, only to then gasp as if just remembering something.

“Oh, wait though, ready for this?” He searches through the pile before plucking the one he wants out. “ This is the one Tenn drew.” He proudly holds it up.

She can’t say she’s not impressed. It’s nowhere near as proportional or advanced as James’, but Clementine can see the effort and charm within the lines. Definitely Tenn’s work.

“Wow,” Clementine smirks, nudging him. “I see it now. James is right, you do have a big nose.”

“ Hey ,” Louis reaches up and playfully pinches her nose, “big talk from little button nose over here.” Louis sticks Tenn’s portrait on the wall, next to James’. “There! We’re getting quite the art gallery.”

“One’s missing, though.” Clementine grabs Louis’ picture of Rosie off the desk and tapes it up with the others.

“Seriously?” he asks sheepishly.

“Oh yeah. We’re never taking that one down.”

“Terrific.”

Louis continues to look through the rest of the drawings. He hums to himself lightly, a tune she recognizes. He sticks more drawings on the wall; ones that AJ drew of him and Tenn, one he drew of Disco Broccoli.

He pauses when he comes across the one of AJ, Clementine, and him. The one with the beach ball. He smiles fondly at it before sticking it up there with the rest.

She sits on AJ’s bed, leaning against the frame to close her eyes and listen to his cheerful humming.

One of the few things she loves in this world is the comfort she has when he’s around.

It’s a comfort she never thought she’d find again. Before Ericson, she and AJ never had time for comfortable peace. When it was just them, there was always that lurking feeling, that bitterness, that lingered in her thoughts.

Now, they have a place they call home.

Clementine can’t imagine where they would’ve ended up had she not crashed the car. They’d still be out in the world, scavenging every little bit they could to survive. They never would’ve met the people she now considered family.

She and Louis would’ve never met, where she and AJ never met anyone at Ericson.

That’s a really shitty thing to think about.

Finding this place, their home, was the best thing that happened to them. Meeting everyone here- Louis, Violet, Mitch, Ruby, Aasim, everyone - has done so much for them. For years, she worried about her and AJ, about always being on the road in a car that constantly ran on fumes, about running across assholes who wanted to hurt them, about the dead finally getting the best of them. Nowhere to go, no direction. A neverending search.

She sneaks a glance at Louis. He has no idea.

He finishes up, shoving the duct tape in a drawer. Leaning against the desk with arms crossed over his chest, he looks at her with a tired grin, but says nothing.

She raises a brow.

“What?”

He shrugs.

It’s like the weariness of their previous night has caught up to him, like something triggered a sinking reality that weighs him down. The shadows along his face from the setting light do nothing to hide the sadness betraying his eyes.

She slowly approaches him and reaches out to grab his hand, tugging him closer to her.

“Hey,” she murmurs.

“Hey.”

“You feeling any better?”

“Of course.”

“Really?” Clementine locks their fingers together. “It’s been a long time since you’ve had one that bad.”

He keeps his stare focused on their hands. “...It wasn’t that bad.”

“Louis.”

“Clementine.”

“It was about that woman, wasn’t it?”

He says nothing, but she can see the answer clear in his eyes.

Yes, Clem, you know it was. It always is.

The first and only living person Louis ever personally killed, and it was purely accidental. It frustrates her that it still haunts him, and even more so that it’ll always haunt him. Even when he expressed the relief of “having it in him” to protect those he loves, there’s always a suffocating weight that comes with the first. If anyone knew that, it’s Clementine.

That kind of guilt, no matter how irrational, never stops.

“Dorian.”

“Hm?”

Louis closes his eyes and leans forward to press his forehead to hers.

“Her name was Dorian.”

“Lou-”

“I know.” He pulls back, forcing a smile. “I know.”

His gaze falls on her nose. He pinches it again.

“I don’t wanna talk about it right now. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” she smiles sincerely. “Just… want to make sure you’re alright.”

“You don’t have to worry about me so much, Clem. There are more important ways to spend your time.”

More important?

She supposes that’s a good way to put it.

“Y’know, I was thinking about what you said this morning,” Clementine smiles. “AJ’s having another sleepover with Tenn tonight, so we have the whole room to ourselves.”

Louis raises a brow, a slow smirk spreading across his lips.

“Wanna build a pillow fort?”

“You read my mind.”

Without any hesitation, she kisses him. It’s a quick, soft, comforting peck that catches him off guard.

Another kiss to his lips, and then another. Clementine holds onto the nape of his neck and moves to his chin, his cheek, placing soft, intimate kisses against his warm skin.

He looks at her with lidded eyes before his hands caress her cheeks, his thumb brushing just below her eye.

He kisses her, eager for every press of her mouth. He doesn’t stop kissing her, even when she tightens her grip on his jacket and pulls him back with her. The desk hits her hip and he’s quick to lift her up onto the surface, almost knocking over her venus fly trap plant.

A pleased sigh escapes her lungs as she desperately moves to his jaw, down his neck. Her hands move beneath his jacket, trailing down to the hem of his shirt before bunching the material up. His skin is warm. His breathing is quick, shallow.

“Clem! Clem!”

Louis yanks back, their lips parting quickly with a loud smack as she nearly topples over from the force of him ripping away.

The bedroom door slams open and in barges Willy.

She’s disoriented, lightheaded, blinking rapidly and frantically searching for any sign of danger. All she finds is Louis, who’s now over at AJ’s desk, humming incredibly loud, and Willy hurrying in with a triumphant smile.

“Clem, guess wha-!” The second he sees Louis, he stops and gasps. “Oh no!”

“Oh, look, darling!” Louis stops pretending to look at the pictures and glares at the young boy. “It’s Willy, the boy who doesn’t know how to knock! Nice of you to pop in unannounced this late in the evening !”

Willy’s face flushes a scarlet red as his gaze darts between the two, falling down to Louis’ shirt, which remains lifted to reveal part of his stomach.

Louis yanks the material down, fake coughing.

Willy’s face is reminiscent of a fresh tomato at this point. It seems that even he got the sense of what was happening before he ran in.

Clementine slips down from the desk and tries to casually straighten out her own jacket and adjust her hat with an unfazed face, even though she’s positive that her skin is blotchy and red, too.

“I’m sorry!” Willy blurts out, covering his eyes. “I didn’t see anything! I’ll knock next time! I swear!”

“Uh-huh,” Louis frowns. “Said that last time, didn’t you?”

Now she’s not sure who’s redder, her or Willy.

“Willy, what do you want?’ Clementine sighs. She composes herself and approaches the boy.

His eyes went to Louis before meeting hers. That’s all she needs.

“Is it Mitch?”

Willy nods.

Clementine’s heart flutters. Choosing her words carefully, she asks, “Is he done?”

Willy nods once more.

“Done with what?” Louis asks.

“Uh-”

“Watch,” Clementine interrupts. “I completely forgot that I have watch.”

“Seriously?” Louis asks, confused. “Wait, I thought Ruby had watch tonight.”

“I switched her,” she lies, moving towards Willy and adding, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Willy leaves without another word, staring down at the floor. Clementine holds back an annoyed sigh. The previous mood is completely gone and now she’s made a mess of lies that she’s gotta detangle before Louis gets suspicious.

Damn it, Willy.

Couldn’t have waited until morning.

Louis gives a thoughtful frown.

“I’m a little worried about him,” he says, “about Mitch, I mean.”

“Oh, uh, really?”

"Something weird’s going on with him,” Louis nods. “He’s been down in the basement every day for the past week and- ...Well, I went to check on him this morning before breakfast.”

Panic shoots through her stomach and into her heart.

Louis pauses, unsure if he should continue.

“And?” Clementine presses.

“...Well, when I tried going down the stairs, I think- well, it was probably nothing. I probably didn’t see what I thought I saw because I could’ve sworn I saw James down there, too-”

Clementine’s stomach drops.

“-and I don’t know what they were doing but before I could even get down the stairs, Mitch threw a shoe at me.”

“A shoe?”

Oh, goddamn it, Mitch-

“Yeah, right at my face! He about hit me in my big nose!”

Clementine rolls her eyes. “Again with the nose thing?”

“I’ve accepted its abnormally monstrous size,” he says. “Anyway, then I saw him again on my way to the greenhouse and he wouldn’t even look at me. Not that he’s one for conversation or anything, but it’s like… I don’t know. It felt weird. I don’t know what he’s doing down in the basement or what they’re doing if that really was James I saw. I’m not sure I want to know.”

“I’m sure it was nothing.”

“Probably… I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone shout ‘no!’ and ‘out!’ that many times in a ten-second time frame before hurling shoes at me. It was pretty terrifying.”

“Mitch is…” Clementine’s at a loss. While she’s thankful for Mitch’s ability to think on his feet so quickly, she wasn’t sure if she approved of the shoe method. “...Hard to understand sometimes, and he and James are friends so it’s not that weird that they’re hanging out together.”

Louis considers this, though she can tell he’s not completely convinced.

“...Do you think they’re… I mean, it’s none of my business but if there was something going on between them-”

Oh boy.

Louis then shakes his head, changing his mind.

“Y’know what? I’m sure it was nothing.”

She sighs. So much for not making Louis suspicious of anything. Then again, maybe this is her fault. She did tell James that Mitch was working on fixing the ring, and she should’ve known that would lead to him trying to help.

“He’s working on a project,” she says lamely. “He probably wants a second opinion on it from James. ”

“A bomb project? I didn’t think James was a fan of explosions.”

“Firecrackers work as a great distraction for the walkers,” says Clementine, which isn’t a total lie. Mitch brought up the suggestion to James a while ago. They spent a long time discussing the idea if she remembers correctly.

Well, better not let sweet Ruby know,” Louis says. “She’s still got a personal grudge towards Mitch’s bombs ever since that thing in the greenhouse, you know.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” she smirks. “ ‘A bomb? I will whip his ass!’ ”

Her Ruby impression gets a chuckle out of him. “Hope he knows a shoe won’t be enough to stop her. If anything, that’s just provoking the beast.”

“He’ll have to learn that for himself,” she smiles. Clementine approaches him again, fixing the collar of his jacket and apologizing, “Sorry I can't stay and help you build an amazing, comfortable pillow fort. Will you be okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, darling.” He grabs her hand and kisses her cheek. “We can always build a pillow fort another night, or, uhm, finish what we started. Maybe I’ll go tickle the ivories for a while before bed, so if I don’t see you before your finished or if I’m not awake, goodnight and stay warm.”

She gives him a long kiss goodbye before she leaves.

One the door’s shut, she takes a moment to take a deep breath.

Her face still feels warm after all the excitement. She’s still a little annoyed at the interruption, but if she’s right about what Willy was trying to imply, then she has to hurry. She can only hope that Mitch found a way to fix the ring.

The wait is starting to make her anxious.

36 notes · View notes

stiltonbasket · 4 years

Text

chancellor of the morning sun: defense (reconstruction)

In which Lan Xichen throws hands and introduces her family to the second Maiden Lan; or, part 4 of the nielan au that has completely taken over my brain.

Part 1 | Part 2: Lesson (Youth) | Part 3: First Meeting, Mingjue (Childhood) | Part 4: First Meeting, Xichen (Childhood) | AO3

Jin Guangyao spends a great deal of time trying not to get on the wrong side of his stepmother's temper.

This is not a recent development, of course; she was so enraged when Jin Guangshan legitimized him that she beat him with her spiritual flail twice in the first week, and her beatings only grew longer and more frequent after her husband’s death. Jin Guangyao hardly grudges her for it now, of course; after all, he did kill his father, by slipping trace amounts of medicine into his tea for three straight months until he died during a visit to one of his mistresses—and then it was found that the young woman was only fifteen when the affair began, and sixteen when she had a child with him, and Jin Zixuan was so horrified by the revelation that he brought the Second Mistress of Mo to the Jinlintai and gave her a separate wing of her own, so she could raise her son in peace with all the advantages that befitted the half-brother of a sect leader.

(Jiang Yanli had been so pleased that Jin-gongzi was doing right by his baby brother that the news of Jin Guangshan’s death was almost immediately followed by word of Jin Zixuan’s renewed engagement, which pacified Madam Jin for a while—but not for long, because the gossip about Jin Guangshan seducing a maiden who was little more than a child infuriated her to the point where she began beating Jin Guangyao again the moment Jin Zixuan went to Yunmeng with Maiden Jiang’s betrothal gifts.)

And as luck would have it, this particular beating occurred the day before Jin Guangyao was supposed to journey to the Cloud Recesses to visit Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue, and his weak golden core ensured that by the next morning, he was not yet well enough to go.

He sent word to Lan Xichen—or to his Da-jie, now, since he swore brotherhood with her and then with Nie Mingjue after the war—and shut himself up in his room to wait for his wounds to heal, already wondering if he could reschedule his duties for the next week in time to make a visit to Gusu then. But the wounds proved slower to heal than he thought, and the next two days’ worth of work had to be put off, too—which is why Jin Guangyao is currently lying on his stomach in bed and fretting, because Jin Zixuan is almost certain to write and ask if he wouldn’t mind covering him for a little longer so he can spend more time with Maiden Jiang. But then he won’t be able to go next week, either, and then his plans to visit Gusu will probably have to be delayed until the next month, so Da-jie can have her little one in peace and recover before any guests arrive.

“Did she know I was going to leave for Gusu this afternoon?” he sighs, trying to stretch and wincing at the searing twinge in his back. “I wouldn’t put it past her to beat me worse on purpose, if she did.”

But his thoughts are interrupted a moment later by one of the disciples, who taps on the door and announces that someone has come to visit him. “Who?” Jin Guangyao asks blearily, raising his head and promptly regretting the attempt. “Tell them to give me five minutes. I’ll come receive them in the Fragrance Hall the moment I’m dressed.”

“Ah—they won’t wait five minutes, Lianfang-zun,” the disciple squeaks. “They wouldn’t even let me announce them to her ladyship, they’re already with me in the hallw—”

And then the door flies straight off its hinges, followed by a dark black cloud and a fresh-smelling white one storming into his bedroom before the white one cries out in shock.

“A-Yao!”

Jin Guangyao scrambles upright, completely ignoring the pain in his back as he fumbles for a quilt and pulls it over his shoulders. “Da-ge, da-jie!” he gasps, as Nie Mingjue glances back at the broken door and throws a pouch full of money at the poor junior standing behind him. “What on earth are you two doing here? Da-jie shouldn’t even be getting out of bed, in her state!”

“Which is why you’ve been talking of nothing but visiting me for weeks!” Lan Xichen cries, her eyes widening in horror as she sees the crusted bloodstains on the sheets and the used bandages littering the floor. “I knew there was something wrong when we got your letter, so Mingjue-xiong and I came here as fast as I could. Pass me my healing kit, A-Jue—and for heaven’s sake get that blanket off your shoulders, A-Yao!”

She rummages in the bag Nie Mingjue hands her and pulls out a few glass jars full of clear salve, which she smooths over Jin Guangyao’s wounds (one tincture for pain, one to ward off infection, and one to prevent scarring, apparently) before taking out Liebing to begin healing the gashes with spiritual energy.

“Ah, da-jie,” Jin Guangyao protests, looking desperately at Nie Mingjue—who is looking back at him in turn, his brows drawn together in a frown as the Lan sect master tends to each bruise and cut with murder in her eyes. “Should—should you really be wasting your spiritual energy on me, just now? This isn’t the first time I’ve been beaten, and I’ll get well soon enough with just the salve.”

“It isn’t the first time?” Lan Xichen repeats, so angry now that Jin Guangyao can feel the wrath rolling off her golden core in waves. “Who would do such a thing to you, now that Jin Guangshan is dead? Jin Zixun is still weak after the Hundred Holes, he couldn’t even have lifted a weapon like this—and if it was anyone on his side of the family, just tell me who it was and I’ll—”

“Isn’t it obvious, Xichen?” Nie Mingjue says, speaking for the first time as his eyes track the pattern of the wounds scattered across Jin Guangyao’s pale back—to identify the height of the person who gave them to him, as he understands a moment later with a sinking weight in the pit of his stomach. “Look at his wounds.”

“What about them?” Lan Xichen glances back at her husband in confusion before noticing that the gashes near the top of Jin Guangyao’s shoulders were made while he was kneeling, while the ones slightly lower down were dealt by surprise while he was in a standing position, and then the realization dawns on her face so quickly that Jin Guangyao feels a split-second’s worth of sympathy for Madam Jin.

“That—Jin-furen,” she hisses, pouring spiritual energy into his wounds so quickly that they finish knitting closed within the next minute, leaving nothing but irregular patches of new pink skin to prove that they were ever there. “First it was—oh, that woman!”

“Da-jie, you musn’t,” he entreats her, turning around as she stows Liebing back into her robes and marches towards the door with every inch of her body threatening consequences—and this even though she is with child, because she still carries Shuoyue at her waist and wears the horned silver crown of her rank pinned into her hair, and walks with the demeanor and bearing of a general even two years after the Sunshot Campaign.

Suddenly, Jin Guangyao remembers that this is the woman who took Wen Xu’s head during the war after driving him from the Cloud Recesses almost single-handedly, and the woman who stood in front of Jin Guangshan on the stairs of the Jinlintai nearly a decade ago, when he ordered his illegitimate son thrown down to keep him from offending his wife, and called him every name under the sun before securing the young Meng Yao a place in her intended’s household.

“Mingjue-xiong is rough-mannered with his men, but he is kind, and places their welfare far above his own,” she told him, holding his small, fine hands in her sword-calloused ones while they waited for Nie-zongzhu to find his way to her guest quarters. “You will be well-looked after as one of his disciples, I promise.”

“But he can’t—he cannot keep an eye on everyone, not every minute,” Meng Yao had whimpered, fighting the impulse to bury his face in Lan-guniang’s soft lap and cry because no one had been so gentle with him since his mother’s untimely passing. “I will never forget this, Maiden Lan, but please—my mother promised that my father would welcome me if I presented the pearl brooch he gave her, but the guards said—they said many women came with their babies, with just such a pearl brooch, and…”

“I am Nie-zongzhu’s betrothed,” Lan Xichen said peacefully, before patting his head so very carefully that he gave up and let his cheek rest against her knee. “He has made it clear that as the future lady of his household and his sect, his disciples are to honor my every command as they would honor his. If they mistreat you, you have only to tell me, and they will never do so again. And I will visit as often as I can, and expect letters telling me how you are faring when I cannot.”

“Why would you—I don’t understand, you…”

He meant to ask why a wealthy young mistress would go so far out of her way to protect a nameless nobody who had earned the disdain of a sect leader, and even promise him a place in a cultivation sect because she was so certain of her betrothed’s affections for her—but Lan Xichen seemed to read the question in his face, back then, and laid a finger across her lips before he could voice it.

“I am a woman, Meng-gongzi,” she said, suddenly sounding both very old and very tired as a couple of early lines appeared in her forehead. “I have had to fight for every inch of ground I wanted since I was old enough to walk. First I fought to remain with my uncle and brother, and then for the right to sit in on council meetings as my father’s first heir, and then to have the courtesy name my father wanted for me. I fought to have my wedding delayed until I was twenty-five, because the elders wanted me married away from Gusu Lan as soon as I came of age, and then I fought for my inheritance, the sect leader’s seat, and won it only this past winter.

“The cruelty of one’s birth forever weighing down one’s fate is not unknown to me, though my fate has never been cruel to me, only inconvenient,” the young girl sighed. “Being born a woman is not the same thing as being born a courtesan’s child, but I do not wish I was a man, and nor do you wish you were born to any mother but yours—is that not so?”

“It is,” Meng Yao whispered back. “I loved my A-Niang more than anything.”

What was it that Da-jie told him, after that?

“Then you understand that your circumstances are not your fault, or hers? Your father is a vile worm, Meng Yao, and none of his family have much claim to virtue, either. You will be much happier in Qinghe Nie, and if you find it does not suit you, ask Mingjue-xiong to send you east to Gusu Lan, and I will look after you myself.”

“What are you thinking about?” Mingjue asks him now, as Jin Guangyao finally clambers off the bed and pulls on some decent robes. “You’ve been awfully quiet, Guangyao.”

“Nothing,” he murmurs, smiling slightly. “I was remembering the day I first met you and Xichen-jie, that’s all.”

“And what a day that was,” his friend grumbles, crossing his arms before reaching out and handing Jin Guangyao his black velvet hat. “I was just thinking that the only good thing about being made a sect leader at eighteen was not having to sit with Jin Zixuan and Jin Zixun, and the next thing I knew, all the Jin disciples were running into the banquet hall to tell me that they had to stop my intended from tearing Jin Guangshan to pieces over some village boy.”

“You shouldn’t have brought her here, you know,” Jin Guangyao says abruptly. “Madam Jin—she can be cruel, and journeying all the way from Gusu by sword, in da-jie’s condition—”

Nie Mingjue snorts. “As a faithful disciple of the Gusu Lan clan, it is my duty to acquiesce to my sect leader’s wishes,” he intones, mirth dancing in his eyes as Jin Guangyao huffs and turns away. “And as a husband, it is my honor to accompany my wife on all her ventures, no matter what they might be. There has been bad blood between A-Huan and Jin-furen since she and I were children, and whatever passes between them today, A-Huan will emerge the victor.”

“Bad blood? With Xichen-jie?”

“Oh, I never told you that story, did I? Well, the first time Zixuan laid eyes on Xichen—and he was only a foolish little boy, so it never meant anything at all—he decided that he wanted to marry her instead of Maiden Jiang. Madam Jin was angered by that, of course, what with Jin Guangshan being the pig he was, and she scolded Zixuan for it, but then she decided that Xichen was at fault and that her precious son would not have said such a thing unless Xichen had invited it.”

“When—how old was she when it happ—”

“Ten,” Nie Mingjue drones. “Jin-furen heard a mindless remark from a boy not yet nine years old, and then decided that Xichen, a child of only ten, was in the same class as your father’s women—that is, she decided that Zixuan might fall prey to her wiles and leave Maiden Jiang in Jin-furen’s own place, someday. And she never treated A-Huan well after that until she was forced to, when A-Huan became Lan-zongzhu eight years later.”

He frowns. “But then there was that business of Mo-guniang, so who knows how many young girls there were before...well, before. Such crimes are punishable by death in Qinghe.”

It is at that juncture that Lan Xichen reappears, sweeping into the room with one hand tucked behind her back and her head held high before dismissing the poor junior disciple who must have been forced to witness her encounter with Madam Jin. Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao both spring to their feet at the sight of her, Nie Mingjue to help his wife to a chair and Jin Guangyao to take Shuoyue; but she waves them both off and elects to remain standing instead, cooling her face with a borrowed fan from Nie Huaisang’s collection before laying a hand on Jin Guangyao’s cheek.

“She will never mistreat you again,” Xichen sighs. “I have ensured it, A-Yao. Forgive me for taking so long to notice that you were being so ill-used here.”

“Da-jie, you shouldn’t have! What if she treats you even worse than she did when we were young, now?”

“What could she possibly do to me? I am the master of one great sect, and the mistress of another,” she says dryly. “At least until A-Jue officially gives up his position to Huaisang, but that’s beside the point. I didn’t lead a third of the Sunshot Campaign to balk at the prospect of defending a friend, so let us say no more about it.”

“But what did you do?”

“Jin-furen loves Zixuan above all things,” Xichen shrugs. “I spoke to her about her conduct, and then I told her that I would give her son and future daughter-in-law a full account of your suffering at her hands if she dared lay a finger on you again. She went as white as milk so I said that last, so she knew my threats were not idle ones. Especially now that Zixuan dotes on little Mo Yu so much, and wants to make certain that any other half-siblings of his are at least well provided for.”

Jin Guangyao gapes at her. “Da-jie!”

“Get over it,” Nie Mingjue advises him. “Xichen decided she was going to protect you when she was sixteen, so that’s what she’s going to do. Thank her, and then come back to the Cloud Recesses with us—we want you to be there when the little one arrives, so Jin Zixuan can stop handing off his duties to you and put his courtship with Jiang-guniang on hold for a month or two.”

“You want me with you when the baby comes?” Jin Guangyao repeats, his throat feeling suspiciously thick at the prospect. “But I’m not—I mean, I helped with a handful of births when I still lived in the brothel, but I have no great skill in—”

“I want you there as my sworn brother, and my friend,” Lan Xichen says gently. “And neither of you are allowed into the birthing chamber, anyway. You’ll make me too nervous to concentrate, with how much you both worry.”

“But, A-Huan…”

“You’ll thank me for it later, my A-Jue. Just wait.”

* * *

Three weeks later, Jin Guangyao discovers first-hand that waiting outside a healer’s ward with Nie Mingjue, Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian is very, very different from helping carry water and sponging women’s faces back in the Chrysanthemum House when he was a child, because the mother behind those bolted doors is his dearest friend, and the father sweating like a salted da bai cai by his side is his own sworn brother.

(Jin Guangyao refuses to think of what he did with the Song of Turmoil, and what nearly happened before he came to his senses and stopped playing it for Nie Mingjue, and who had nearly been killed during that last horrible qi deviation, leaping into the fray in attempt to protect a terrified Nie Huaisang.)

“Why won’t she let us in?” Nie Mingjue says now, shaking Jin Guangyao out of his dark musings as he stares at the door with wild eyes. “If anything goes wrong—I can’t be here, when she’s in there!”

But the only man Lan Xichen permitted into her room was, unsurprisingly, Lan Qiren, who managed to gather himself well enough to hold her hand through the pains even when she let out a string of curses that shocked every Lan in the vicinity past the point of speech.

“Where did Xichen-jie learn all those words?” Wei Wuxian murmurs, supporting his husband by his elbow as Lan Wangji sways dangerously towards the floor. He looks even more terrified than Nie Mingjue, for some reason, and every noise from Xichen’s room drains a little more color out of his face. “They’re very good.”

“My disciples never knew when to shut up when A-Huan was around,” Nie Mingjue groans. “I ought to have had them beaten for it, but I can’t blame them if their foul tongues are of some help to her now. “

But then, before anyone can try to distract Mingjue or Lan Wangji, or even convince them to sit down and stop pacing—a loud, strong cry rings out from behind the door, followed by a cacophony of shouted instructions from the attending healers and a sob from Lan Qiren.

All four men freeze in their tracks, and Lan Wangji looks as if he might be sick. “A-Jie—” he says hoarsely, starting towards the next room on unsteady, stumbling feet. “Jie!”

And a moment later, Maiden Jiang lets herself out into the hallway, and bows once in Nie Mingjue’s direction before smiling so widely that he plunges straight down onto the floor and stays there.

“A-Huan,” he begs. “Tell me, is she—”

“You have a daughter, Chifeng-zun, and mother and child are well,” she assures him, her own lips trembling slightly as Nie Mingjue bows his head and bursts into tears. “She kept herself safe the whole way through with her own healing cultivation, if you will believe it! The physicians are tending her now, and you and Wangji can come in to see them both as soon as Lan-zongzhu has had a sponge-bath and something to eat. But there is still much to be done in the first half-hour or so, so she has requested that you have something to drink and break your fast before entering.”

With that, she goes back into the healing ward and shuts the door behind her, and Jin Guangyao and Lan Wangji find themselves weeping, as well; though Lan Wangji weeps silently, pressing his face into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and letting the tears wet his gown while his husband rocks him back and forth.

“I’m a father,” Nie Mingjue says, dazed. “A-Yao, I have a daughter!”

“So you do,” Jin Guangyao laughs wetly, as a disciple comes in with some food on a tray before fleeing as quickly as he can. “Who do you think she will look like?”

The answer—when the doors finally open, to reveal a room that had been thoroughly cleaned, a sobbing uncle, and a beaming Lan Xichen—proves to be that little Lan Jueying, who refuses to be parted from Xichen even for a moment without shrieking at the top of her lungs (unless she is being held by her father, of course, who bawls like a baby himself when Xichen first adjusts his arms around the child’s tiny pink body) looks exactly like her mother, and is just as beautiful.

Jin Guangyao adores her from the moment he first sees her, and as for Lan Wangji…

“A-Jie,” he sobs, cradling the grumpy, wriggling bundle to his chest as his sister strokes his hair with such a loving look in her eyes that Lan Qiren starts crying again. “A-Jie, she’s perfect.”

#nielan #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #lan xichen #nie mingjue #my fic #chancellor of the morning sun #nielan arranged marriage au

29 notes · View notes

louvel-roche · 4 years

Note

24. — agony

Stillness. Silence. Louvel found himself with his own thoughts, free of the endless din of the Flock. How long would this last? Would he be able to keep this freedom? The birds had not come calling, but he assumed it was only a matter of time. For now those voices were gone, and he intended to keep it that way.

There was one voice that was missing that shouldn’t be though. One that had been missing for a while now, and it was the one he wanted to hear. The Abyss was quiet. Even before the ink the darkness had been there, murmuring in the back of his head, whispering into his ears. Now it was silent. Even with Vulture removed, the Abyss had not risen to take its rightful place again.

Why? Louvel couldn’t help but ask himself. He could still feel it. That weight was still there upon his shoulders. That unsettling itch behind his eyes. That rattle in his ribcage. He knew it was still there, deep seeded. One was never free from the Abyss; there was no unseeing it once you had decided to look in. Yet still it remained silent.

For days.

Sennights.

Moons.

Solitude. Isolation. Silence. Louvel paced through his home, hands tracing rough familiar walls. He could finally settle back into this dwelling again, free from prying eyes and ears. And yet that silence had grown suffocating. What could be done? What might bring back that all too familiar murmuring in the back of his head?

It was only after a line of Serendipity that he’d lay himself down to rest, knowing full well he wouldn’t be dreaming. Any other time he wouldn’t have bothered; rest rarely came easy, but for once there was a goal beyond a failed attempt to sleep. How long had it been, since he settled into that meditative state? When was the last time he had willingly walked through the Abyss?

Familiarity washed over him in waves, rolling like water over his skin and drowning his senses in free falling oblivion. Bottomless. Empty. Darkness unending surrounded him. With every inhale the air grew heavy, smothering, drawing everything to a stop; and every exhale ushered in that falling sensation once more.

Silence wrapped around him, coiling up to his throat and flooding his ears. Something about it made his skin crawl. Something in the dead air around him brought a sense of unease. All he could hear was the pulse in his chest, and with it a slow growing ring. There had always been sound here, voices whispering in the distance. Even if he couldn’t understand them, they were still there. Now they were gone. He had nothing to chase in the dark.

How long would this last? Was this how things would be forever? It made no sense. Perhaps he was being impatient. So he’d wait, feet firmly planted, eyes cast out to the endless void around him. His ears poised to hear something other than his own heartbeat.

“Was it worth it?”

That gentle baritone pressed up against Louvel with all the discomfort of having someone in his space without directly touching him. Unwanted hands hovering over skin. Hearing his own voice here was unfamiliar and more unnerving than he had expected.

“Do you miss the lie you were living?” The dark spoke again when no response came for the first inquiry.

“No.” Louvel ushered the word off his lips with barely a second thought. “I don’t.”

“You should have known better than to trust a parasite to help us.”

“I had thought -”

“No, Little Wolf, you didn’t think. Therein lies the problem. After all I have done for you, you repay me by allowing that thing to use me. To use us.”

“It was a means to an end that was worth it at the time.”

“Was it? Was it truly worth being a pawn for their amusement? Was it worth making enemies of those around you? Was it worth the danger you’ve put the Moon in?”

No answer came. How could he answer any of that? He didn’t know, and he knew well enough that wouldn’t be a satisfactory answer.

“I am done sitting by watching you make a mess of everything. I want out of this cage you’ve put me in. Fix this.”

“What cage?” The notion that this thing was restrained seemed so alien to him. Had it not always been here, free to speak? Free to act?

“You have snuffed out everything I needed to help you. To help us. You’ve taken away everything I could have used to do the things you were too weak to. I have only ever wanted to help, and you have trapped me here, and left me starving. Fix this.”

“I don’t-” No. He knew exactly what the voice meant. He knew it in the impact of his pulse and in the twisting, writhing unease in the core of his being. In that smothering, all encompassing numbness that he had known for so long. He knew what should have fed the darkness, and what it was he lacked.

“Fix this.”

“I will.”

“Fix this.”

“I’m trying.”

“Fix this!”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Fix this!”

“I need more time!”

“Fix this!”

“What if I can’t?!” Louvel shouted into the endless abyss around him, the words echoing into the empty expanse, drawing acute attention to every terrified note. Every syllable sounded so authentic yet none of that fear truly seeped into him. It was a possibility he never wanted to acknowledge, a potential reality he never wanted to live in. It was a question he had avoided for so long. “What if I can’t..?” It tasted bitter on his tongue the second time, sinking in deep as if simply saying it made it real, made it a genuine factor he had to face.

Silence once more wrapped around him, bringing a cold crawl of goosebumps up his limbs. Still all he could see was darkness, yet he could feel the air around him shifting. Louvel could feel something moving endlessly just out of sight. Always at the fringes, always just at the edge of his peripheral.

It hit with the startling impact of a hammer strike, yet it was something so small. So harmless. A drop onto his shoulder that made him flinch. One, then two. The third coaxed the pooled liquid to roll free on down his chest where a hand lifted to meet it. The deep crimson coating his fingers was a strangely welcomed contrast to the overabundance of shadows he was encased in. More droplets rained down onto him, and for a moment, he could swear he felt something breathing down his neck.

Don’t.

Don’t move.

Don’t look.

Don’t breathe.

Against every instinctual alarm bell ringing in the back of his mind, Louvel shifted upon his feet, twisting to peer up at a snarling lupine visage. The beast stared down at him, with eyes mirroring the blue and yellow of his own, baring blood soaked teeth still endlessly dripping. There was something wrong with those fangs. Something terribly off about the set and shape of each one. It was all wrong, and much too familiar.

Pulling lips back further from those teeth, The Wolf’s snarl grew, and it did not stop. The skin and shadowy wisps of fur peeled back in sinewy layers until there was naught left but scales, horns, and those still dripping teeth.

Louvel knew them; each and every one of those sharp, jagged fangs still soaked with blood. His blood. He didn’t have to look up any further to see it. He didn’t have to face it directly to know. That dragon stared down at him with one eye, and unspeakable malice. It exhaled another downpour of blood and with it came the slow bloom of pain.

A hand lifted to feel at one of the sources of that growing torment, and where Louvel expected to find scar tissue, instead his fingers sank into his flesh until they hit his breastbone. The following cough that cracked out of his lungs was nothing short of involuntary, painting his lips and teeth with a spray of blood to match the unending fountain of crimson that looming head bared in its snarl.

Like reliving each and every sensation from that moment in slow motion, he could feel the growing pressure around his ribs. He could feel the burrowing of teeth into skin, and he could feel the crack of bone after bone, the grinding scrape of those misplaced jagged pieces bringing a nauseating itch to the pit of his ears. He couldn’t fathom how it was he managed to stay on his feet or why he wasn’t screaming. Surely, there had to be a way to make it stop.

“Fix this.” The darkness breathed, ushering in the oppressive, painfully nostalgic cold of Coerthas to add more discomfort to this reliving memory.

“I don’t know if I can.” Honest, mournful words. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt something so real, and somehow, it hurt more than the punctures those teeth had left in him and it sank deeper than the cold laced around his limbs.

T̷̺͎̖͉͓̱̪̗͕̳̖̥͙͈̓́̍͂̈̑̇́̿̈́̌̕͝͝h̴̲̣̙̼͉̘͈͚͕̥͓͓̪̅̀̅̔̇̍̂̇̚͝e̸̡̛͕̠̘͓̩̮͚̩̬̾̈͌ņ̶̨̛̥̝͓͉͔̘͕̪̣̼̲̮̝̗̫̾̃̃͊̋̍̒̃͂̓̿͌̌͝͠͝�� ̸̢̣̫̥̹̳͉̞̘̤̳͛̔́̌͑s̵̢̢͖̹̤̺͍͉͎̞͉͇̖͍̖̲͔̲̬̈́̏̓̏͊̔́̒̽̍̒̀̈́̋̃̃͛̚͝ͅŭ̶̡͚̣̼̫̬͖̤̻̺̈͛́͑ͅf̵̙̮̙̟̠̲̯̀̒͘f̴̢̡̟͖̳͚͈͍̝͕́͆̔̌̎͑̒͜͠ë̶̡̨̟͎̖͚̩̫̫̬̰̈́͜͜ŗ̴̛̘͖̦͉̟̱͕̼̪̘̗̩̱̩͖̲̈́͗͌͐͊̊̔̓͒̃̿͛̚͜͝

Everything shook with the sudden roaring cacophony of a hundred incoherent voices. Booming, muted, distorted, hitched, crackling, trembling. Friends, lovers, enemies, family. They screamed. They all screamed.

Louvel barely had time to clamp his hands over his ears. Barely had the focus to notice those jaws before him open. The solid ground below his feet gave way to an empty void, and those teeth came for him as he fell into oblivion. They came for him, and they stopped his fall.

With a jolt he was awake again.

Louvel tried to gasp, tried to fill tight lungs only to find himself choking on the very air they already carried. Panic held tight to his chest like a vice. Like dragon teeth. He could feel them. He could still feel each one buried in his flesh and bones.

Hands grasped at skin; nails tore at scar tissue. Those fangs were still there. Everything in him hurt. Make it stop. He had to make it stop. Frantic, wild; it was a feverish fit as he struggled to breath and fought to rid himself of this torment. If only he could claw those phantom teeth out of his flesh.

Finally a full fresh rush of air filled his lungs.

Finally he was able to breathe.

Finally his lungs were freed just enough from the weight of panic.

Finally.

He could howl in agony.

( So this is like, months over due, but at least it’s done now. Ty for the ask! )

#Louvel Roche #the wolf #murmurs of the abyss #then suffer #it gets worse before it gets better

8 notes · View notes

soulwillower · 4 years

Text

separate seas • bill denbrough

(bill denbrough x plus size!reader)

requested: Hi! Can I request another fic? I was thinking a Bill Denbrough x plus size reader were the reader was Bill’s next door neighbour who survived a Pennywise attack. When the Losers reunite Mike suggests to meet up with the reader because she wants to kill Pennywise the most. She now stutters (much like Bill did) and is very reclusive. It's not a full idea but I think you could write something great! Thanks!

warnings: swearing, fluff, poorly written, unedited

i was going to make it angsty but i just couldn't write it for some reason, im sorry <3 i dont know how i feel about this, i’ve been trying to write for a while and have been discouraged /feeling bleh abt my writing but i truly hope u guys enjoy this!

[takes place during the events of chapter 2]

2.2k words

♡

bill was floored at the emotions that coursed through him at mike’s words. of course, he was already floored by the sheer amount of information and memories that had taken to his mind like a brick wall to the face - poorly - so why did this brick wall hit so much harder than the other? mike’s words ring in bill’s ears like a church bell.

y/n, we have to go see y/n.

the air of the jade orient becomes increasingly stale and bill has to wipe his face with his forearm. he remembers suddenly a book he’d written nearing ten years prior to this moment, titled the plague of dawn. it makes him frown in confusion. why did he think of that?

the book wasn’t anything special, in fact it was one of his lowest-grossing novels, despite it being one of his own personal favorites. there was a protagonist who was investigating the death of a young boy, and a mysterious love interest - a woman who was bright but with a troubled past and, from what bill remembers writing, a curvy figure and stunning eyes.

odd to remember that in such a time, but he supposes everything has been odd tonight. but bottom line, it was nothing special. in fact, the novel had been very cheesy, but it had stuck with him in this moment for some unknown reason.

y/n.... bill remembers cloudy memories of a girl with bright eyes and laughter. he sees his house, next to it, a blue one; georgie, with a bright smile, running up to a girl who came out of the garage of the blue house to the left. she hugs him and his arms squeeze around her middle, his face half buried in her soft stomach. he remembers thinking she is beautiful.

looking around, he sees that the others are slowly remembering her too, but he thinks briefly that they certainly have different memories.

“not that i don’t miss her, but… why y/n?” bev asks. the pieces were falling into place, it seemed, all at the same time in their own heads. “wait. didn’t she go to the hospital for-“ eddie starts rushed, but richie snaps a few times as he speaks up.

“oh, fuck. wait- It. It got her, right? and she survived?” richie says, fingers pressing on his head as he squints. he looks just as pained as bill feels when memories of her - and of It - fill his senses.

your eyes. your laugh. your hair. your skin. your silhouette. the bedsheets bill would sometimes catch a glimpse of when he looked out his own window. much like the ones he wrote for the plague of dawn’s - oh.

bill can’t help but drop his head into his palms in realization - had he written a character based off of a repressed memory of a childhood crush? christ.

“…she was bill’s neighbor.” ben adds, looking puzzled. everyone turns to look at bill, and he swallows. “y-uh, y-yeah. i r-remember.” and he does. "sh-she was attacked right at the beginning of the s-summer." it's silent. "she wants It dead more than anyone. we need her help." mike says, standing up.

and then twenty minutes later, bill finds himself on an unfamiliar porch step with five of his childhood friends, staring at an unopened door. why is he so fucking anxious to see her? will she remember him? will she care?

mike has to knock three times before the door opens, revealing a woman that makes bill's breath falter.

“h-holy shit.” the woman mutters, eyes flickering between everyone on her porch step. those eyes. bill would recognize them anywhere. she looks different than he remembers, but more than likely she’s matured just as much as him in the last twenty some years. she looks really good.

"y/n." mike says, giving her a tight-lipped smile. bill watches her, her face even and unrevealing. she doesn't try to hug anybody. there’s a long, staggering scar that pokes through the collar of her shirt, and yes, now bill knows for sure that this is his old neighbor, y/n.

she seems to have the same eyes, the same face. he wonders briefly if she remembers him the way he remembers her.

“what’s g-going on?” she says, looking suspicious of the group in front of her, eyes flitting over everybody with little to no emotion. it feels like a cool breeze blows down the spine of everyone present.

bill takes in her figure and swallows, shocked to be seeing her so suddenly. she catches his eyes and recognition flickers in the depths of her face, a small quirk of her lips betraying her menacing stare.

“caroling group.” richie deadpans, bringing everyone back down to the present as his hands are in his pockets and he’s rocking on his heels. bill barely spares a glance behind him to richie as he stares at y/n. does she have a stutter too? she didn’t always have it. the look on her face is mysterious and pained.

"we need your help." mike says, giving her a look. as bill watches her reaction, he can’t help but feel like the seven of them were all swimming in separate seas at the same time, being masked by a false sense of belonging. was this going to work? could they really do it?

y/n seems to understand grimly, like she feels whatever this is too, as she takes in the faces of people she hadn't seen in years. but then she turns away, walking back into her house. bill blinks.

at first he thinks she's abandoning them, but then she waves her hand expectantly. she does actually invite them in, leaving bill to watch in curiosity as she leads them to a back room in her house, seemingly unwillingly. she seems determined, but not very excited. he doesn't blame her.

they all sit awkwardly as mike and y/n talk about the summer of '89.

"our wh-whole town was full of nightm-mares. not just It." y/n shrugs, the cloud of mystery and self-isolation wrapping her up and pulling her farther and farther out of bill's reach.

"b-bowers." bill says, noticing how y/n's eyes dart to ben's quickly. she and ben went through very similar situations with bowers and the memory of their fucked up childhood makes bill's head spin.

"th-that doesn't matter r-right now." y/n says dismissively, waving her hand. bill stares at the table as he remembers the the character he wrote in the plague of dawn - the love interest had been tormented relentlessly, particularly for her weight.

god, how awful is that? bill didn't even mean to, but he had essentially broadcasted y/n's life into a novel.

“y-you punched him, once.” bill blurts, a laugh escaping his lips. y/n looks at him and for the first time, she looks like her old self, smiling and happy.

“y-yeah, i suppose i d-did, bill. he d-d-deserved it.” she says, smug look quickly retreating back to the wall of blank emotion. something stirs him on, “you got that r-right. it was inc-credible, that was th-the best thing i’d e-ever seen. i was o-obsessed with y-you.”

its silent and bill realizes what he just said. “well this is awkward.” richie says with a grin, nudging both ben and eddie’s sides. they just give him a look. y/n’s smirking at the table and bev is grinning at bill with a knowing look.

"-we're going to kill It." mike says, voice wavering only slightly, breaking the tension. and just like that, the moment is over. bill shivers but he nods, looking over richie, to eddie, to bev, then ben, mike, and finally y/n.

"yeah, well. f-fighting I-It wasn't too easy, i'm sure you kn-know." y/n says shortly, her fingers ghosting over the scar on her chest. bill's stomach flutters with something between fear and admiration. he remembers - she doesn't have to say it. they're all remembering.

she had been outside in the ravine down the street by herself when pennywise had found her. bill remembers sirens, he remembers the blood as she stumbled across the street towards their houses. he remembers watching her get carried to the hospital and then riding silver down to the clubhouse to tell the others. he doesn't remember much else from that summer, just a whole lot of pain and fear. but he remembers not hearing her voice much, or seeing her nearly at all those days. he had missed her, but he'd never said anything.

the bubbly girl was not quite there anymore.

she speaks up and immediately pull bill's attention from his thoughts. "but this time, we're a-all going to b-be together. It is g-going to die."

after the conversation and getting y/n to agree (which wasn't very hard, she was very determined), bill was left with a bitter taste in his mouth and a pit in his stomach. it was weird being back in derry, and catching y/n's eye, he could tell she thought it was weird for them to be back too.

bill was exhausted and thought he might be sick, head swirling around with images of the jade of the orient, of stan, of pennywise, and georgie. he feels empty, and so he can’t help himself from asking y/n to come back and grab a drink at the townhouse.

he needs a distraction, or something. something.

she had shaken her head, but instead taken him by the elbow and told him she had a full bottle of scotch in her cabinet. he was shocked to receive an invitation to stay longer at the reclusive y/n’s house, considering how withdrawn she’d been (understandably) this whole time, but he eagerly told the others he would see them back at the townhouse. he ignores richie when he makes lewd gestures through the window as they all leave.

when they’re in her house alone, she places what is indeed a full bottle of unopened, aged scotch on her table unceremoniously as her hair shines in the lamplight and her clothes cling to her shape.

he tries not to linger his eyes on her body but can’t help to admire her curves and how soft her skin looks as she places a glass in front of him, pouring out three fingers, no rocks.

he doesn’t flinch, completely intending on finishing this glass and then some if he’s going to do this whole fucking thing.

"it’s from the t-trauma." she says and he blinks at her, confused. she smirks lightly, as if mocking herself. "the stutter." she elaborates, and he nods slowly. he understands that.

"m-mine came back wh-when i did." he explains. it’s quiet again and he watches as she pours her own glass. he’s slightly thrown off as he watches her move the bottle over to set it on top of a stack of paperback novels. he skims the stack, his eyes catching bold lettering: THE PLAGUE OF DAWN.

he almost laughs, but his stomach coils tightly with something akin to embarrassment.

his body carries him to pick the book up, plopping back down after it's clutched in his hands. “d-did you read this?” he asks, looking at her with a raised brow.

she grins, not looking a single bit ashamed. “y-yeah, i did.”

well, fuck.

“the m-main character, it’s…” he starts, unsure how to say it. but she never left, she never forgot anything - did she notice?

she nods slowly, face flushing. “i’ve talked with mike long en-enough to know you didn’t remember me wh-when you w-wrote it. i just… i can’t help but n-notice…”

“it’s you, y/n. i d-didn’t- i don’t think i really kn-knew it then. wh-when i wrote it, i kn-knew i was writing about my ch-childhood, i just- i didn’t realize…i’m s-sorry.”

“i know.” she says simply and there it is again, the mysterious shroud that prevents bill from knowing y/n y/l/n fully. its awkward for a moment, and then : “did you at least l-like it?”

she cracks a grin as she sips on her scotch. she’s beautiful and it makes bill blush almost like he’s 13 again and completely unsure how to flirt with this woman.

“well, i don’t know. y-you killed me off, b-bill. wh-who kills off the l-love interest before they get any c-closure?” she says, lifting a brow. bill can’t help the sheepish grin nor the blush from creeping onto his face.

"its f-fucked!" she adds. he can't help but huff a laugh, feeling eerily similar to how he used to feel when he was young. and he was okay with that.

“n-no it isn’t- i just, i- people l-loved it, okay.” he defends half-heartedly, knowing it to be untrue. she laughs openly at this, watching him as he thumbs through the pages of his own words, looking embarrassed.

“it’s so c-cute that you think that, b-bill.” she says coyly. he looks up from the book then, a grin of his own on his face as his cheeks dust pink. she’s pulling his leg.

"you- er, i just c-can't believe th-this all happened." he mutters, scratching his head. she lifts a brow and it flusters him again so he tries to add on. "and i wish th-that i hadn't forgotten it. y-you, particularly." his words come out awkwardly and he feels like a dumbass.

“p-poetic, denbrough.” she grins, hands grabbing his shoulders gently. he grins at her, raising his hands to her shoulder and another to her waist, squeezing the soft skin. he shrugs, "what can i s-say, i-"

and then before he can add anything more, she closes the gap, leaning to press her lips against his. it's soft at first, as if being gentle after the black hole of trauma they are soon to reopen.

it’s bold and shocking and surprising.

but bill moves his lips against hers and they both come to life, kissing fiercely as the world stops around them. there's pain in the kiss, there's devastation, there's fear. but there’s also light, there's love. he feels it all as she kisses him.

when they pull apart, bill looks at her with wide eyes. "that was- unexpected." he says as she stares up at him. he can't tear his eyes away from her and she shrugs, staring back in shock,"i-i’m sorry." she says quickly, hands still holding her face. she stares up at him, "d-did i fuck it up, th-though?"

she looks like she already knows the answer but wants to hear him say it for himself.

he shakes his head, "d-don’t think so, y-y/n." he pulls her in for another kiss and she sighs into his mouth, holding him tightly.

there’s still a looming sense of dread over their heads, staring down at them with its ugly impending danger. but he has her in his arms and he can’t believe it.

and maybe, it'll be okay. maybe these separate seas aren’t too different.

#bill denbrough x reader #losers x reader

27 notes · View notes