#this whole thing is just leaving me with a greater feeling of despair than anything else | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cinnamonest · 3 years

Text

Lupophobia

Yandere "Escape Attempt" prompt - Razor

-------------------- Words: 8,944 Warnings:-fem reader, attempted noncon beastiality (none actually happens), yandere/captivity, noncon, biting, breeding, brief gendered themes/tones involving animal mating. Heavily inspired by my degrees of lewdity "deviant"/beastiality playthrough. I applied things I learned in college linguistics for this. Truly putting my education to a good purpose. --------------------- The fortunate thing about animals, and their adjacents, was that they were very easy to deceive, and no matter what, they would fall for the same trick, time and time again. "You see it girl? You want it?" You grimaced at the slimy texture on your fingers, wiggling the fatty slab in your grip and swallowing the sickness that came from looking at it. Out of, you supposed, ingrained social habits, you gave an awkward smile as you wiggled the meat. In contrast, the wolf had the opposite reaction, her ears immediately perked up, and she leaped into a playful position, front half low to the ground as her tail stuck up, and a low whine escaped her throat, eyes fixated on the meat. Yes, unlike with people, who had a greater capacity for pattern recognition and learning, who followed the fool me once, fool me twice mantra, you could count on animals to be easily deceived over and over without having to change the way you deceived them. This was far from the first time you had pulled this exact move, nor was it difficult to do -- you merely waited for a spare moment to rip out a chunk of the meat and hid it away for a little while while the rest of the pack was not looking, too absorbed in their own gorging to even cast a glance in your direction. "You want it...?" You repeated, wiggling the slab again in front of the wolf's eyes. Drool spilled out of the side of her mouth between her sharp, glistening teeth, and she let out another whine.

This was not the first time this trick had worked. This was not the first time you'd managed to steal and hide a hunk of meat away while the animals gorged themselves on the remains of whatever poor creature fell victim to them. Hell, this wasn't even the first time that this specific trick had worked on this specific individual wolf. You'd come to recognize each of them with time, even assigned them little names in your head by identifiers. She was a mother, one of the wolves that remained behind at the little den while the others went out for hunting, leaving only the nursing females, the smallest pups, and, well, yourself. Albeit in a weakened state in nursing, they were still easily capable of overpowering you, and, through means you honestly did not understand, they somehow knew they were supposed to prevent you from leaving. Even when you stood up, one or more of them would immediately pick their heads up, ears falling flat and even letting out the softest of warning growls.

She whined in front of you, eyes fixated on the slab. You wiggled it again. It was an easy deceit to pull off. "You want it... then go... get it!"

You hurled the hunk of red flesh as far as your arms could manage, and, exactly per plan, the she-wolf immediately bolted in the direction of the throw. And likewise, you turned on your heel and began the now-routine dash in the opposite direction -- the direction of human civilization. That had been the easy part.

It was the rest of the way that would be difficult. This time of day was the only opportunity you had to pull this whole thing off, but the sun was quickly setting, and unlike the wolves, you were not exactly gifted with night vision. You likened the route to an obstacle course, a puzzle -- repeated actions that became muscle memory. The first few times, you'd merely stumbled around in the woods for a few minutes. With each successive attempt, you retained more knowledge of the path, could clear a longer distance in increasingly shorter times, memorized landmarks, remembered little helpful actions and hindrances, and with each successive attempt, you found yourself making it closer and closer to the end of the woods than the time before. There wasn't much else to go by, so you used trees that stood out to you. The huge tree with the hollowed out hole in the center was the first landmark -- go right. The tree that had an oddly-angled branch came next. So on and so on. You measured success by how many of said landmarks you could pass in time, striving to make each a longer and longer venture every time. Just when despair had been finally getting the better of you, the last attempt had had you finding a footpath used by the Springvale hunters, and that meant you were close. If you could just find that again -- there. To say flat ground was a welcome feeling to your bare feet was an understatement. The slimy dirt texture of the forest floor and prickly leaves and pine needles was not a pleasant sensation. Nonetheless, there was no time to savor it or anything, soon, soon, you'd walk on paved streets, and floors, and, and... You stopped for a mere moment, panting, desperately taking in deep breaths to soothe the exhaustion burning in your chest. You darted your head from side to side. There was no sign of anything coming your way. No footsteps or growls in the distance behind you. You felt your heart pounding in your chest, as much from physical exertion as it was from a blooming, disbelieving excitement. I might actually make it. Your legs felt weak at the prospect, and you steadied your stumbling against a tree. You were certain you'd never made it this far before. It was difficult to process, almost surreal. After so, so, so many times, over the course of months and months, you were so used to being stopped by this point that your brain half-expected it at any moment. You'd really reached a point at which the escape attempts were almost done with a knowing futility, you no longer really had much hope when setting out, merely running on principle and the faint chance that was now so real. You could be stopped any moment. And yet, after a few more breaths, nothing happened. You shook your head to clear the dizziness, taking a deep breath and squinting forward in the twilight. You nearly felt your heart stop when you processed a shape in the distance -- a building. Springvale. It was distant and downhill, but visible. Right there within your reach, and all you had to do was go to it, so you steadied your breath and took off as fast as-- The world suddenly spun around you as something snatched at your ankle. Your shriek echoed off the trees, reverberating until it grew silent. A clanging of metallic sounds accompanied it, rattling hollowed objects triggered into motion. Everything began to settle, the sudden flooding of stimuli to your eyes and the feeling of sudden movement both slowing to a gentle sway. You were unbreathing, unblinking, heart pounding as your vision spun and, in a panicked haze, you desperately darted your eyes and head each way, struggling to process your senses. Your head felt suddenly tight and tense, your upper half heavy, and a burning pain wrapped around your ankle. Everything was... upside down. You looked down -- no, up -- at your feet. One was bent at the knee, falling in the direction of gravity towards your head, the other was extended perfectly straight, tense and unable to move. A cord was snagged around your ankle, a perfect tightened knot that wrapped around the flesh. You looked up -- no, again, down -- at the ground. Nausea lurched in your stomach as you did, seeing the forest floor a good drop below. You took a moment to process. You followed the trail of the rope from where it tugged painfully at your ankle, followed it to the branch it looped over, and down the trunk to the base of the tree, where it was securely tied around a knotted root. The metallic sound had come from what appeared to be collected garbage, metal scraps, a glass bottle or two, and some metal tools and cans all tied up in a net and secured to the spot where the rope met the branch, an alert that the trap had been set off. Your mouth hung open, you blinked over and over, before finally, bitter anger burst in your chest. "Ghhhhh!" You let out a frustrated, furious cry, thrashing wildly and pulling at your scalp. You kicked and struggled, but only succeeded in making yourself swing, making the nausea and dizziness worse. A trap. Of course. The furthest you've ever gotten, and you were stopped by a fucking hunting trap. Damn those Springvale hunters for coming this far out into the woods. It could be worse, you tried to console yourself. It could have been a bear trap, which would have more or less destroyed your leg, possibly taken it clean off. But nonetheless, misery and frustration bubbled up in your chest as you swung back and forth, slowing down to stillness. You'd never made it this close to town before. You could see the road as well, albeit just barely, a few hundred yards in the distance. You could make out where the dirt path became gravel in the distance, upside-down in the last light of the quickly-setting sun, and, as tears filled your eyes, you reached a hand out to it, miserably grasping your hand shut before letting your arm fall. It was so, so close! Now you were trapped, stuck here in this miserable, humiliating predicament, and you'd have to wait to be saved, and inevitably dragged back the way you'd come. You thrashed again, trying and failing to curl your body up and reach your foot. Your fingers just barely grazed the knot of the rope, but even if you could reach it, it was designed for your body weight to hold the knot in place to begin with. You let out a shaky sigh and a small sob, tears dripping directly out of your eyes and falling downward with gravity. You wiped your eyes, and a thought made a bit of nervous, daring hope light up in your chest. You were close to Springvale, right? Maybe you could be heard. This trap was set by the Springvale hunters themselves, right? You'd seen these types before, a snare that, when tripped, released on one side and whipped around the center of the force that tripped the rope, forming a perfect, tight knot around the ankle of the prey before hauling it upwards by use of weight. You took a deep breath and cupped your hands around your mouth. "Help!" You called out, straining out the vowel as long as you could, before inhaling a ragged breath and repeating the action. As the echoes quieted, you waited, but nothing happened. You wriggled and writhed, but only succeeded in making the net of metal rattle. You supposed it helped the hunters hear animals struggling, and led them to the source. But the hunters wouldn't be back out until tomorrow, you couldn't afford to wait for them to come rescue you on their own. You waited a moment, trying again and again to yell. The Springvale hunters, a traveler on the road, hell, you'd accept help from treasure hoarders if they hung out in this part of the wilderness. Anyone, anyone human. Well, except one, preferably, but still. Any other human being. You couldn't even remember the last human interaction you'd had. At least, a fully human interaction, without any licks or whines or growls or other canid behaviors you'd become far too accustomed to. But nobody came. You waited. Tried again. And again. And again. No response. Your head was beginning to pound and throb. You'd black out if you stayed like this much longer, and you were pretty certain it could even kill you. But nothing was responding to your cries for help. You wracked your brain in panic for a solution. An idea popped into your head. You'd seen Razor do it before, and the wolves responded to him even though he produced the sound with a human voice, so maybe you too could... It was embarrassing, but worth a try. You didn't exactly have many options. You jerked your bodyweight in the other direction, making yourself turn to face the woods in the direction you'd come from instead of Springvale. You reached your quickly-numbing arms up and cupped your hands around your mouth, forming your lips into an "o" shape, and, well, swallowed your pride. You didn't have any better ideas. "Awooooo--" You tried to mimic the howls you'd heard so many times as accurately as you could manage, but it came out a bit strained and comical. You waited a moment, and, receiving no response, whimpered in your desperation and tried a second time. Your voice echoed throughout the trees. You weren't certain exactly how it worked, you were pretty certain they had different tones they used, some for aggression, some as a cry of distress, but you weren't capable of telling them apart. You could only hope for the best. It wasn't really as if they could help you, but at the very least, they would probably go find Razor for you. They'd done so before, after another humiliating failure when you'd fallen into a hole in the earth during a past attempt. You'd learned they were far more intelligent than you once thought, and they understood things like that, at least. But gods, did this make you feel dumb. Your face heated with embarrassment with each attempt. You inhaled to try a third time, but as you did, a shrill howl pierced the air from a distance. A response. Your heartrate picked up as a little spark of relief and hope -- albeit dread that lurked in the back of your head -- made you shudder. You howled again, and received a second response. It carried on for a few minutes that way, sounding back and forth, and it sounded like the other was getting closer. Finally, you heard steps, and anticipation swelled in your chest. You were pretty sure that the response howls had been that of an actual wolf -- even you, in your time in these woods, had learned to tell the difference between Razor's vocalizations and that of the wolves. There were simply some aspects of the canid sounds that human vocal chords could only mimic, but not recreate to a perfect likeness, and thus his vocalizations were a bit distinct. Still, you could be wrong, or, even better, perhaps the footsteps coming close to you weren't an animal at all, but perhaps a different figure, maybe a hunter...? No, that was definitely a four-legged gait. That, too, was something you had learned to tell apart, a two-legged gait versus a four-legged one. It kind of came in handy when you were trying to to hide or run and needed to gauge exactly what was hunting you down. You craned your neck to the best of your ability in the direction of the sound. A creature emerged from the trees. You took a sharp breath. ...It was merely a very large, brownish-greyish wolf. It gazed up at you with big black eyes and ears perked up in alertness. You squinted. You'd never seen this wolf before. You were fairly certain of this much; during your time in the woods, you'd learned to distinguish between them pretty well. You learned the little differences -- this one was bigger, this one had a scratch on its ear, this one had a scar on its hip, this one was more brown and this one was more grey, and so on it went. This one was different from all the wolves you'd become familiar with. The wolf sat down, tilting its head at you, tongue lolling out as it panted. It was huge, muscular looking. "Help," you whimpered. As aware as you were that it obviously did not understand, you couldn't think of anything else to do. You flailed a bit in your desperation, and pointed towards the spot where the rope was tied to the tree. "Help me... Come on, please..." The wolf actually followed the line of your pointing, eyes settling on the base of the trap. And, miraculously, moved towards it. Your heart pounded. Did it actually understand? Would it help? It walked over and bit at the rope, shaking its head rapidly in the same way you'd witnessed the wolves kill small prey, or how dogs played with toys. It was helping! You shuddered again, hope burning in your chest, and a tear of relief dripping from your eyes upside-down to the ground below. And if this wolf wasn't from the pack, it wouldn't take you back, right? How, you weren't certain, but the other wolves seemed to understand the... arrangement going on. Many of your escape attempts had been thwarted not by your captor himself, but by the pack -- surrounding you in a circle, barking and growling and snapping at you until you were forced to turn back, even tackling you as you ran, biting your clothes and arms to drag you back. But this wolf would let you go, right? .... Wait a second. Cold dread suddenly made your stomach lurch. This wolf had no reason to help you, and no reason to drag you back. It had every reason to see you as easy prey. Any relief or hope you'd felt was immediately replaced with a chilling rush of panic. Yes, you would be easy prey, right there for the taking. You thrashed about, trying again to reach up and loosen the knot on your foot, but failing. Fuck. You were trapped between two unpleasant options. There was a chance the wolf was just helping, but in the end, it was an animal, not a person, with instincts of goodwill or benevolence. It would follow its instincts. Once you hit the ground, you'd have to run. That was the only solution. But... it also occurred to you only then that you were hanging a good fifteen feet or so in the air. Upside down. What if the fall knocked you out? Hell, what if it broke your legs? What if it broke your spine? If it were Razor himself, he'd lower you down slowly, but the wolf lacked the sense or ability to do so. You'd just drop. Fuck, fuck, fuck. There was a thick coating of leaves on the ground, which would hopefully help, and this part of the forest had soft, clay-like ground rather than hard rock, but nonetheless, it was a long drop. Dammit! Your body wracked with a sob of frustration, anger, and panic. Why did all of this have to happen to you? You'd asked yourself that that plenty of times. You didn't do anything to deserve-- There was a snapping sound. You shrieked as gravity immediately sent you crashing down, world spinning around you, and you collided with the earth with crash that took the breath from your lungs; the sound flooded your ears, echoed as your head went numb. You landed directly on your back, eyes looking up at the trees and the sky beyond then as the world spun around you and your vision darkened. Pain ran through your body on impact, a rough, blunt sort of pain that ached through your flesh and meat and bones. You groaned in pain, teeth clenched as it flooded your senses, trembling as it slowly began to ebb away after the initial blow. The wolf's face popping into your vision sent you jolting back to awareness. It was startling, it's cold wet nose pressing against your own, and after a moment, it lapped its tongue against your face. Panic seized your entire body, and you were frozen, unable to move, not even breathing, eyes wide in terror. And then it licked you again, letting out a soft, tender whine. It was being friendly. You let out a shuddering sigh as relief washed over you again, and you thanked whatever god was looking out for you for granting you your life. "Th-thank you," you murmured, reaching a trembling hand up to pat the wolf's head, wincing at the soreness in your arm. It whined again, bumping its head against yours. Wolves were far, far larger than you were certain most people realized. Back home, you'd always thought that the howls you heard at night from within the safety of Mondstadt's walls were from creatures no bigger than the large hunting dogs you'd seen in Springvale. In reality, that was not the case. Even the smallest of the wolves were massive in comparison to those dogs, their heads easily twice the size of your own. You'd been utterly terrified of them in the beginning, bursting into frightened tears whenever one made its way over to sniff you in their curiosity, or dump an offering of a small creature's carcass at your feet in a show of friendliness (an unsettling experience, no matter how many time you were told it's good, 'cause they like (y/n)), or lick your face in an attempt to show affection. You'd grown used to it with time. But this wolf was even larger than the majority you'd seen, easily thrice your size in every capacity. Likely a loner separated from its pack. You were aware there were sometimes conflicts between the larger, stronger pack males that ultimately ended in the loser leaving the pack and heading off on its own, although it seemed nearly incomprehensible that a wolf of this size would lose to anything. Had it chosen the route of violence, you wouldn't have stood a chance. You laid there for a moment, head spinning as you took deep, shaky breaths, trying to calm yourself down and regain your sense of control over your body. You curled your fingers and toes, flexed the muscles in your arms and legs. You were a bit scraped up and your entire body still ached from the impact, but miraculously, nothing seemed broken. You closed your eyes, feeling the cool evening breeze and the wet tongue that was repeatedly lapping at your face. Finally, after a moment, with a groan at the ache in your body, you pushed yourself upward with your elbows, flipping over to your hands and knees, pulling your leg forward to stand-- The breath was knocked out of you yet again as a massive weight crashed down onto your body. You clawed at the ground, gasping to regain oxygen, body going tense. "Wh-what-" The creature let his bodyweight fall down on your frame, and you grunted as your upper half slammed into the ground. It rendered you entirely immobile, this wolf was both massive and heavy, you could barely breathe under the sheer mass of its body. You struggled to push yourself back up onto your elbows. "H-hey, what are you--" With a whine, it rutted its hips forward. Oh, fuck. "N-no!" You tried to rear up, pushing your upper half upward on your elbows as hard as you could, to no avail. Its weight was crushing. "B-bad! Bad dog! Stop!" You clawed at the dirt, gasping as it thrust again. "Get off!" It only let out the same high, throaty whine, thrusting its hips several times in quick succession, humping your ass with desperation. You could feel its blunt-ended cock digging into the flesh, making your blood run cold. When it rutted forward, the motion hiked your ragged little dress up, bunching up the fabric and exposing your cunt. You whimpered with fear, desperately trying to drag yourself forward. "Stop, stop, get off!" You thrashed again, achieving nothing by the action. The worst part, the dread that was quickly overtaking your thoughts, was that you knew it was futile. You'd learned a long time ago that your resistance would mean nothing, not by the brutal laws of the world outside of the fragile sense of safety human society provided. It was expected. It happened among the wolves themselves all the time -- the mates were not something that were chosen in the same way humans did. Too many times you'd witnessed the ritual -- the males would fight, snarling and growling and lunging at each other until one would give up and run scurrying away, tail tucked between its legs. Growing up with all the knowledge you'd learned from books and what humans generally observed of the animals, you'd always assumed that from that point, the she-wolves would then gladly and willingly copulate with the victor, but, you'd quickly learned, that was not the case. It had shocked you the first few times, your eyes widening and your mouth dropping open as you witnessed the poor females get tackled, mounted, their whimpers as teeth sank into their shoulders and kept them in place. It was brutal, and yet, you'd come to understand and accept it was simply the way things were. Perhaps the part that had shocked you the most was how accepted it was -- the other wolves would simply look on, adjusted to what was normal among them, and the brutalized female would, from that point on, act as a normal mate to what more or less was originally her assailant -- licking and grooming each other, sleeping next to one another, spending time with each other, all as if such a thing made sense. Given the acceptant, compliant state you sometimes found yourself slipping into, you supposed you weren't too different in that way. Because they're strong, you'd been told. Beating the other male and forcibly mating the female herself signified strength. They were supposed to try to run and fight, and the male was supposed to forcibly overpower them, a display of strength, of suitableness as a partner. That was why fighting back didn't matter -- it was supposed to be that way, in the minds of the animals, and thus they were content with that setup. The present moment was anything but content. Another rut of the wolf's hips brought you snapping out of your brief thought, back to the moment at hand. The forest was quiet aside from your own struggling, the last rays of light were fading from the sky, the moon hanging high in place of their light. You let out a shrill, squeaking cry, thrashing with renewed effort, but, predictably, not even budging. "Get off! Get off me! Stop it, bad dog!" No matter how you tried, you couldn't move your body in the slightest, perfectly pinned still. "Fuck..." It let out another whine, not even seeming to notice your struggles, grasping at your shoulder with its teeth, and you feared that if it bit down, it might shatter your shoulder. It rutted forward, and this time you froze, entire body going tense as the blunt head of its cock pressed firmly against your exposed slit. You finally managed to claw at the leaf-covered ground enough to pull yourself forward, if but just an inch -- and the wolf, snarling, thrust its own body forward to push you back into the same position. One of its front paws reached forward and clawed onto your shoulder, and you squealed as it pulled you back, forming a tiny cut in the flesh of your jugular. Your began to nearly hyperventilate, trembling, breaths shallow and quick. "S-stop..." Your plea was defeatedly quiet, realizing that further protest would only hurt you. Tears gathered in your eyes. Your back was bent at an angle under the sheer weight of the furry mass that kept you pinned, and it felt like your very lungs were crushed, breathing quickly becoming difficult. You began to feel your body tingling with numbness. It was so heavy and difficult to breathe you weren't certain you'd even survive if it fucked you. Panic seized your brain, overriding any coherent thought. There was a snarling, growling sort of noise that cut through the surrounding stillness. It wasn't coming from the creature mounted on your body. It didn't sound canid. It was human. Much like the howls, you had learned, with time, how to distinguish between the real and the imitation, those sounds that, no matter how long of a lifetime of practice one had, could simply not match the vocals of another species. The wolf stopped its motions, turning its head, and likewise immediately transitioned its entire demeanor, tensing up and returning the sound, a low snarl, baring its teeth as its snout wrinkled up. It dismounted your body and lowered itself to the ground, hips and shoulders raised as its core sank low, a preparatory stance ready to lunge. You fell forward, face crashing into the leaves, before scrambling upwards and falling back on your ass, propped up with your hands behind you and your knees bent as you froze, unable to move a muscle, eyes open wide and gasping for breath as air burned in your lungs. You could see red-orange eyes glaring in the moonlight from a short distance, and for once, the face of the wolf-boy made a wave of relief come crashing down, rather than panic at being found. He made another low sound in his throat, a snarling growl. His shoulders hunched up in a similar motion to the wolf, baring his teeth, glare locked on the transgressor. He didn't have a weapon on him, so his hands clenched into fists at his side. You'd witnessed this plenty of times in the past by now, but never before with him as one of the participants. The other male wolves within the pack hadn't exactly taken an interest in you, rather, simultaneously accepted you as one of their own, while seeming to recognize you as something of an "other," as they did him. Among them, though, these conflicts were regularly occurring, a constantly shifting hierarchal dynamic that was weighted in blood and pure brute strength. Your heartrate picked up anew. Strong as Razor may be, this thing was massive. And he didn't have his claymore, you remembered he'd left it near the den earlier, before going on his daily routine to check the various animal traps. This wolf could kill him. And given that it wasn't a pack member, it wouldn't hesitate to do so. The wolf took a few heavy steps forward, growling all the while, and the wolf-boy reciprocated the action, a deep low growl in his throat as he stomped forward, fingers curling into a claw-like shape, not exhibiting so much as the slightest hesitation to show aggression against the massive creature. You tried to stand on your shaking legs, but fell on your ass again. "W-wait, no, r-run," you stammered, words spewing out of your mouth before you could process them, "he'll hurt you--" Your vision went white, bright light exploded all around, a crashing, booming sort of sound cutting off your words. There was a heat to it that you could feel on your skin, but it blinded your vision, leaving you blinking as, in a mere moment, the electric energy faded to a purplish glow that sparked with a buzz in the palm of his hand. The wolf leaped back in terrified shock, immediately flattening its ears, turning and tucking its tail between its legs, scrambling with fear into the darkness of the trees. And just like that, the threat was gone. You were left slack-jawed, mouth hanging open, trembling and panting as you watched it disappear, footsteps growing quieter and quieter until they could no longer be heard. Instead, the leaves to your side crunched in a two-legged pattern as the figure drew closer, and then dropped down to his knees to get on a face-to-face level. You turned your head and your eyes met. His eyes were wide and pupils blown even wider, mouth slightly open, looking you over. His eyes had always had a softness to them, full of light. After a moment, he reached up, slowly, and wiped the tears from your eyes, a soft, unthinking gesture, and leaned forward. He nuzzled his face against yours, and, after a moment, licked a few quick, short laps up the side of your face. It was nothing you weren't very well used to, and you merely sat numbly as he did so. His eyes trailed downward, widening as they met the gash that had been created on your neck by the massive wolf's claws, and he leaned forward again, lapping at your skin. You inhaled a sharp breath at the sting of his tongue on the wound, but you knew it actually was helpful in terms of clotting, so you didn't resist. You sat like that for a moment, silent, still, letting him clean up the wound, saliva naturally helping the healing process. It was bizarrely intimate in its own way, but it certainly wasn't the first time he'd helped in that way with a wound. It stopped stinging after a moment, blood clotting under the wet warmth. He pulled his head back, looking over you again as if to ascertain your unharmed state, eyes wide and expression flat, looking directly at your face - your weary face, trembling lip, expression still uneasy from the remaining shock. "You... Okay?" There was a softness to his face, a wide-eyed look of innocent concern. You did your best to nod. Any hope you'd had left had been crushed at some point in the adrenaline of the encounter, and thus, all chances of escaping gone, defeat and weariness washed over your body, and you slumped forward in exhaustion. Of course, he was unaware of and most likely did not even consider why you suddenly fell against him, he tended to take any action you made at face value and accepted it as simply what it was, and likewise, every action he made was easily interpreted the same way. It was, you sometimes consoled yourself, a rather welcome simplicity in contrast to the hidden and subtle meanings that humans often portrayed through their actions, and you never had to worry about an innocent action being misinterpreted maliciously, nor did you worry that your emotions were too transparent in your actions. Instead, he merely seemed pleased by the gesture, eagerly wrapping his arms around your frame and pulling your closer, rubbing his head up and down so the sides of your faces nuzzled together, squeezing you tightly. "I heard you," he said, a cheerful sort of pride in his voice. "Came to help." You swallowed. "Th-thank you..." As much as his sudden appearance crushed any chance you had of reaching Springvale, you couldn't help but feel a genuine relief, even gratitude, for saving you from what would have undoubted been a highly painful and traumatizing experience, if you'd survived the lack of oxygen. Not that you weren't already getting your fair share of traumatizing experiences out here, but, well, none quite like what your experience would have been had he not shown up. After a still, silent moment of embrace, he released you, shifted and stood up, but then suddenly tensed, and his eyes widened with what seemed like surprise, or perhaps realization, mouth opening slightly. His eyes were cast downward, settled on the cord that was still tightly tied around your ankle, and reached down to loosen the knot, slipping it off and tossing the remaining cord to the side. You made a small sound as if to start speaking, but cut off and fell silent, shutting your mouth. And then, as he came back up, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and processing, mouth slightly open as he looked a bit to one side, then the other, to you, and up to the tree from which you'd hung. The wheels were turning. Finally, after a moment, it seemed to click, his eyes went wide with realization for a split second before he turned his head back towards you and narrowed his eyes in a glare. His "angry" face had always been a bit difficult to take seriously, he had maintained a baby face despite his age, big eyes and soft features making it look like more of a pout than anything, but in time you'd learned the rightful amount of fear to have at seeing it. Your heart sank in your chest. "You ran away again." His voice was a bitter, grumpy mumble. You'd feared that when you noticed the surprising lack of anger up until a few moments ago. That it hadn't yet clicked with him, until now, exactly why you were out here, how you got out here, in the first place. He might have thought the larger wolf had dragged you out here, or, perhaps more likely, it had not crossed his mind at all in the intensity of the previous moments, too focused on conflict and comfort. "I..." You trailed off, trembling. There was a moment of silence. You couldn't exactly argue against it. It was true that he was rather gullible, and would often believe rather ridiculous excuses or explanations that anyone else would never buy, but there were limits to that, and at the present moment, you couldn't think of any excuse that even he would believe. Even if the wolf had come in to drag you away, the she-wolf set to guard you would have made a noise to alert the others, and he knew that. There was a moment of silence, and, not receiving any objection to his claim, he exhaled a frustrated huff through his nostrils. "I'm mad." As nice as it was that you didn't have to worry about being misinterpreted, another pro to your situation was that your captor was easily the most transparent person you'd ever met, bluntly honest, so much so it sometimes worked against him. You were pretty sure he couldn't be indirect or subtle with his words if he tried. Passive-aggressiveness or anything of the sort was foreign. "I'm sorry," you murmured, hoping to ease his anger, but you knew by now those words didn't really hold any meaning to him. He opened his mouth, that same pout on his face, and took a breath as if to speak, but no words came out. He closed his mouth, looking at the ground for a moment, opened again, repeated the process, and again, before roughly shaking his head, head hanging and expression falling to something like irritation and disappointment. With other people, you'd feel more intimidated by silence, silence meant someone was angry and trying to get under your skin. And while he made no attempt to hide being angry, you knew the silence wasn't an intentional passive-aggressive act, but rather, just lacking the proper words. It was a process you went through frequently, and to some degree, you felt bad for him. Having feelings, having complex thoughts, but lacking the knowledge or ability to articulate them, being unable to adequately express what you thought and felt, limited to such simple terms as sad and mad, words that could only convey incredibly simple feelings... you could only imagine how frustrating that would be. He knew that those words weren't enough, but didn't have any other ones to use. You understood why, then, he grunted in frustration, kicking at the ground, sending a few leaves scattering. But you also knew that if he could not express himself with words, actions would have to suffice. You knew better than to expect any different. This routine, despite its variances in the specifics of how the events went down, went like clockwork from this point onward, the moment of defeat. They say humans are, after all, creatures of habit. You nonetheless let out a little surprised sound at the suddenness with which you were lifted by the armpits, quickly moved a few steps to the side and unceremoniously pushed forward, facing one of the many boulders that dotted the forest floor. Instinctively, releasing an exhale of defeat and acceptance, braced yourself against it, hands pressed into the rock. You were technically standing, but leaning far forward, bodyweight resting mostly onto the rock you were bending over on. His front pressed against you, hand pushing your back down into an arch, latching arms around your waist. There was no hesitation, no preparation, merely pulling the fabric of your dress up with one swift motion, and the waist of his pants down in another, all in a matter of a single moment, and rutting against you, once, twice, cock slipping against your folds, and on the third thrust, it actually slid in, pushing about halfway in with harsh force with no warning. You gasped at the sting, clawing at the rock as your face twisted with the slight pain, but his hand gripped hard on your shoulder. "Stay... Still." It was honestly impressive, you sometimes thought, to manage to get a cock inside you so easily with hip angling alone. He'd never thought to use his hands to do so, you guessed due to merely mimicking what he observed, as all humans did. Nonetheless, you let out a mewl at the feeling of friction against your walls as it dragged, pulling out a bit before slamming back in. Then again, faster. And again, faster still. And finally, setting into a rhythm, quick and harsh, your body lurching forward at the force. Defeat and despond had fully set in, and you made no movement to fight back, instead attempting to ease the discomfort by pushing back with the thrusts. And then, after a moment, it stopped. It often did -- again, a set pattern, a routine. Increasingly often these days, he changed his mind at this point, initially going with the instinctive, natural option, but it would take a moment to remember that there was an alternative. You shuddered at the sliding feeling and emptiness as he pulled back out, but even though you braced yourself, the air was knocked out of you as you were flipped over, back hitting the rock -- and this time aching as the bruising flesh from the earlier fall was hit again -- now leaning your weight onto the rock on your back, facing forward. The roughness with which you were tossed about and maneuvered was, you knew, not intentional, nor out of malice, but it always left you disoriented as your vision spun a bit. And it was only a single second before you were filled again, gasping a deep breath and reaching your hands out to claw at his back as you felt yourself stretched apart all in one motion, and your legs fell into the routine position of hooking over his arms. He liked it this way. The human way, he called it, with you on your back in some form rather than on your hands and knees, facing him rather than turning away, which had been the only way you'd done it -- you supposed the only way he had been familiar with -- for a good while. You'd introduced the position once when your arms and legs were exhausted from strain, and, perhaps to your relief, it became the most common way that the routine went down. You supposed that, deep down, no matter the way in which a person was raised, there were certain innate needs and instincts that could not be overridden, woven into the very biology of a person. For humans, intimacy, the feeling of affection, and you supposed that that itch was met for him more adequately this way. And he liked to mimic normal behaviors in that regard. You recalled a time ago, back before you were brought out here for good, the wide-eyed fascination with which he'd watch passing couples of people on the road and streets, would make an attempt to imitate the same actions, albeit lacking in the same gentleness, technique, or appropriate timing. Reaching out to grab and hold your hand (with a crushing grip) as you walked, awkwardly pressing your mouths together (so firmly that your teeth clacked and your jaw hurt). That, at least, had gotten better. Now, it was somewhat gentle, he leaned down and pressed his mouth to yours. Gentle, but still very awkward, lacking in the rhythmic motions with which you'd expect, more like holding still but pressing firmly against you, but lapping a quick lick to your lips. You could taste blood on his lips and tongue, a permanent coppery taste that never went away. That didn't last long. It was hard to maintain the mouth contact when he started rutting into you, causing your body to rock in jerking motions up and down on the surface, and his face buried itself into your shoulder, panting shallow breaths that were warm against your flesh. And again, like clockwork, you knew how the issue of your body rocking back and forth, disrupting the rhythm, would be solved, and you inhaled as you braced yourself, first for the tightening grip of arms around your waist, and then-- You gasped a sharp breath despite your mental preparation as teeth sunk into your jugular, opposite the one with the injury, further locking your bodies together. He growled, a low throaty sound. Teeth gnawed at your shoulder before releasing and sinking down in a different spot, digging into the flesh just short of the force it would take to break it. You cursed whichever god thought it would be funny to give him abnormally sharp canines. Even with your weight leaning against the rock, a good portion of it was still being supported by his arms, which, with any normal human being, you would hope would cause enough strain to perhaps slow down the actual thrusting, but you knew better by now. Nor did you expect any kind of buildup or anything, no, you gritted your teeth at the immediate fast pace that dragged against your insides, raw and with little fluid to lessen the friction. The quickness and suddenness always left you sore, your internal parts not having enough time or stimulation to expand or prepare, so each thrust that slammed into the top of your insides sparked a shock of pain and pleasure sensation so strong your entire body jolted with the feeling. The bruising soreness of the recent abuse to the same spot -- how many times earlier today, three, four? -- heightened the sensitivity. And, as with the rest of the routine, you didn't expect words. You couldn't blame him -- talking was hard enough when he was focused, you imagined it was much harder when preoccupied with sensation, and with less blood in the brain. It also made sense that he didn't seem to process anything you said either -- any slow down or wait fell on deaf ears, or rather, non-comprehending ears. Eventually you, too, fell into the same state- "I-- hah, ah, w-wait, mnn-" -- unable to form words, unable to take in anything around you, pure sensation clouding your brain of any and all thoughts. You heard your own little cries ring out and echo through the empty forest, and soft, pleasured whines in your ear, hot breath from panting that grew faster and faster as the thrusts became more erratic and harder, slamming in and out, the wet, slapping sound ringing out with your own voice. It pushed against all the right spots, stretching you incomprehensibly full, overloading your brain with the feeling, and the harder your nails sank into his back, the harder his teeth bit down into your neck. The sparks of pain from the feeling felt small, distant, erased by the overwhelming good feeling created by adrenaline and pleasure, and the thought of how badly it would hurt later was the furthest thing from your mind in the moment. And because you knew words meant nothing in the heat of these moments, you had learned that announcing or warning for orgasm didn't matter. Neither of you needed words -- as with many things, you could communicate it without them just fine. He could still sense it, the way you clenched and your hands grasped at his hair and raked down his spine, and in response, the thrusting somehow grew harder and faster still. A perfect and clearly understood communication as clear as any verbal exchange. The squealing you made, the way your body spasmed and your back arched, was better than anything you could have said, really. You weren't... actually fully certain he understood the action as anything other than communication, like a message indicating "cum now." You assumed that was what it meant to him, since, as always, you felt the movement stop, panting as he pushed into your one more time, holding your hips as close as possible as you felt a twitching inside. It was always perfectly coordinated like that. The peak was always too short, always that same burst of feeling that you wished could last just a moment longer, leaving you panting. Heavy breaths in and out, shuddering, sweaty flesh clinging to each other. You could feel the arms that held your legs up shaking with aftershock, forehead falling to rest against the spot between the mounds of your chest. Then, after a moment, a nuzzle, slowly rubbing a cheek against your collarbones. As soon as that stopped, his head popped up again, looking up at your face with those same wide amber eyes, soft and somehow, despite everything, they always seemed so innocent and bright. A curious, but fairly neutral, content sort of wide-eyed gaze. Anger resolved. Sometimes you were grateful it was that easy. "Ok. You're... good, now." You understood without needing it explained. "Good" indicated something along the lines of fixed or resolved, the phrase "you're good" indicating, in this context, resolution. You assumed it had originated from listening to others in some context or another. You swallowed, and nodded. There was no point in fighting now. A sort of numbing aftershock had set in, and your head was spinning so much that even if you ran, you might fall over on your own without the inevitable tackling. It was a struggle for another day... the same conclusion this always, always resulted in, a conclusion you reached more and more quickly each time, but you tried to put the concern that thought sparked away, merely standing on trembling legs. "...Stupid hunting trap," you muttered, giving the remains of cord a kick into the leaves. He tilted his head and made a soft hm? of confusion. "Th-the trap," your voice was raspy. "They laid out traps for - for catching animals, the hunters, you know." He blinked for a moment as he processed your words, then shook his head, but smiled, beaming with pride. "Mm-nn, I made it. Put lots of them around here." You squinted, head jerking up to scan the treeline - sure enough, now that you looked closer, you could see several treetops dotted with similar nets full of scraps set to make a sound when triggered and struggled against. In fact, the more you gazed around, you realized there were easily dozens and dozens of similar traps, some of different styles and shapes, all perfectly lining the edge of the woods before the road. "...You won't catch things like that," you muttered. "It's too close to the end of the woods." Another slightly confused stare. He shook his head. "Traps are... for you." You could always count on him for two things. Undying loyalty, and obtuse honesty. You blinked at him, expression flat in blunt surprise, then, with a crooked smile, you let out a single huff of bitter, tired laughter. You were numbed to the point that you were, at the very least, able to recognize the humor of it all. Another way of coping, perhaps. It only occurred to you then, as your thoughts cleared, how relief had washed over you when the lone wolf had run out into the night, but your mind had not been focused on your own violation. You remembered your words. Run, he'll hurt you. Your only concern in that moment had been his safety. The thought set off some sort of alarm bell in your head, but the utter exhaustion made it difficult to place much concern in anything.

Your legs were trembling in aftershock, numb and heavy, but it wasn't as if that mattered. Even as you briefly put a hand to the stone beside you to lean your weight onto in an effort to stand, you knew you wouldn't be walking anyway, that wasn't part of the routine. And sure enough, as you got about halfway upward, arms wrapped around your waist instead, and you were roughly maneuvered, tossed like a ragdoll, knocking the breath out of you as you were tossed over his shoulder. "Okay, we're going home, now." He started taking a few heavy steps forward, not even struggling in the slightest to carry your full bodyweight, instead walking as if you were light as air. You didn't protest. You slumped over defeatedly, merely casting your gaze all around, trying desperately to memorize the locations of at least a few of the traps in the dark, but knowing full well in the back of your mind you'd never get past them all. No matter how you may outsmart them, you could never win. It occurred to you that, in a way, you were the one falling for the same trick over and over, continuously placing a ridiculous hope in escape and falling for your own foolishness time and time again. Perhaps that made you a bit more like the animals than you liked to admit.

#yandere genshin impact #yandere x reader

566 notes · View notes

samwinchesterism · 3 years

Text

i know it’s just bad writing, but i’m still so obsessed with making sense of the the difference in sam’s attitude about how people have treated him in 4x21 compared to how he remembers it in 13x03. like thinking about sam’s hurt indignation when ruby says “i had no idea dean would do that to you,” about the forced detox and him saying “yeah, you and me both” in that way, and then around nine years later he says to dean about that whole arc “you saved me,” and he says to jack, “my family helped me through that.” like, just younger sam still having it in him to feel something, anything negative about being treated poorly and unfairly versus older sam looking back on being hurt and mistreated and thinking, i was being helped, i was being saved... it makes me so !!!!!!!!

i mean, think about the sheer volume of guilt and blame that was shoved down sam’s throat in the year that followed the events of 4x21 over season five that would have altered his perception of himself and what happened to him, such that at the end of the season he’s thinking that he’s the least of anybody that he knows, even as he gears up to sacrifice everything - his life, his body, his eternal soul - to save them all. like, the way he internalized all of that shame and that blame and it became self-loathing and over time it just built up inside him -- because it’s not like he stops being blamed for this, dean brought it up again in 8.23 and it got brought up in s9 too and not once did he get absolution from any character about it -- and so of course he looks back and thinks, i was a monster and i didn’t deserve to be treated any better than how i was treated, he looks back and he thinks, they helped me, they saved me, even when they trapped me in a cell and said they didn’t care if i lived or died.

but then when you also take into account seasons 8 and 9 - in season 8, sam thinks his brother is dead and tries to move on healthily and build his own life and he just gets dragged through the mud for it by dean and by others, he’s made to feel so bad for it that by the end of the season he feels like he’s better off dead because he let his brother down so many times - and just for trying to deal with grief and trauma in the only way he felt he could? and yet he feels so bad for it he said he never forgave himself even three years later and still apologizes. and then in season 9, sam’s last great stand against being mistreated by dean, not one single person validates his anger at dean either, including dean himself who acts like it’s unfair? later in season 9 and then in season 10, dean spits sam’s words (that he wouldn’t “save” dean in the same way) back at sam and sam is basically made to believe (see his convo with charlie in 10.18) that his anger at dean was unwarranted, that dean did the right thing, that by extension any negative response to mistreatment is unfair.

so after all that blame, all that guilt, just clearly being internalized and coming out in sudden bursts of desperation and despair like 8.23 - and more importantly, after season 9, being made to feel like he really has no right to object to being mistreated (and that’s been a recurring theme anyway, with sam getting shit for wanting to leave an abusive childhood behind, the way that sam so gamely takes punches from dean and says you satisfied instead of getting angry at being hurt, sam’s almost pathological ability to forgive those who wronged him, sam supporting lucifer’s injured body with his own to save him in service of a greater good in season 11, sam not being angry at god for being a deadbeat despite keeping faith for so long), being made to think that he was in the wrong for being angry about something as awful as having your body violated like that without your consent.....

then you have season 13 sam, who just has all of this inside him that’s built up and calcified over the years, and the blows to his self-worth and his autonomy have just kept coming and coming and coming and coming and that young man in season 4 who was shocked and hurt that his brother would do something like that is just gone, the young man who would be upset that someone would lie to him and hurt him like that is dead. and he’s replaced by someone whose experiences have forced him into this place of kindness and forgiveness that stems from the most awful self-loathing and self-blame and lack of self-worth, that sense of forgiveness that, uncovered, is really just an open invitation to hurt him because he no longer has the ability to think he deserves to be treated well or kindly or honestly or in a way that’s respectful to his autonomy. and so i can’t believe dean would do that to me becomes dean helped me, dean saved me and it just shatters me whenever i think about it

#sam winchester #sam winchester meta #dean critical #supernatural #spn meta #dean winchester #this isn't like a dean hate post it's more about sam and like. i can't talk about s9 sam without being dean critical lol #this doesn't make sense im sorry but i just think about this so much i need to externalize it or i wont sleep #season 13 #season 4

677 notes · View notes

juminsmysticmc · 3 years

Note

Mc is a spy and her whole identity and marriage with Jumin is fake, Mc has to leave Jumin bcs her organisation told her so?! (ig the mission is over) so she scenes her death and ,a few years later, they meet in another country and Mc explains everything (this is kinda boring and a really long request u can’t skip it if u don’t feel comfortable!)<33

Love between the Spy and CEO

Hello! This was actually very nice to write ( even through I am a bit unsure how it turned out ) - Guys please make sure to give me feedback, please, only like that my writing can improve, don’t forget to like and reblog!

Jumin with a spy Mc who fakes her death after the mission is done and meets him again years later in another country ,,I don’t get you!“ you hissed at your co-worker and friend as she told you that your mission was done. They left you for five years to check on the group called the RFA.

At first it was a mission where you had to keep an eye on the RFA as a spy in an international company. People began to think that the RFA was involved in illegal things. However, the more you began to talk to them, the more it seemed that they were more than normal. Everyone had their normal lives as well as daily problems.

Nothing that gave you evil vibes. And the more you stayed with them, the more you grew to love and like them. The happiness was even greater when you managed to stay with them for more than a year, always telling your co-workers that the RFA still didn’t trust you, even though this was one of your biggest lies. The RFA trusted you with their lives. They all told you things no one else knew, especially a person, who to you, was more than just a man.

,,I think that if I can develop a deeper relationship, they will share more with me. I also think that Jumin Han is doing things we should go after,’’ you lied. But a white lie was okay, right? No one got hurt by your selfish wish of staying with Jumin longer, right?

,,Mc, you faked your marriage for five years now and still didn’t manage to find out anything. Come back immediately,’’ your friend told you, almost making you cry.

There were times when you actually forgot that you were a spy. Sometimes it slipped your mind that you actually had a mission. However, the more beautiful the memory, the more hurtful the truth became. ,,I understand. Give me two weeks to clear my traces... ’’ you whispered and tried your best to hide your fear.

Leaving Jumin, leaving the RFA… nothing scared you more than this thought. Suddenly, you couldn’t hold in your despair as the phone was slowly placed on the table and your legs gave up. Your back slowly slipped down the wall as you sat down on the cold floor. Sobs, hiccups, and warm tears. Everything left your body as memories played in your head. The engagement, your wedding, the honeymoon. Yours and Jumin’s first Christmas, your first New Year’s together… Thousands of memories went through your mind and you went through them one at a time, not forgetting a single moment between you and Jumin. Not even the moments that weren’t all that beautiful. The first time the both of you argued or when he made you cry for the first time. You remembered the day you almost gave him a heart attack, you remembered the one day when you got sick and collapsed in the shower, you remembered the day when you became drunk and he had to carry you away, everything, and now you were going to have to leave it behind… ,,Elly, I’m so sorry,’’ you groaned, wiping your tears away as you patted the cat. You were sure that the goodbye would be hurtful at first, especially because you had to figure out a way to not make Jumin notice anything, but you knew that you would somehow manage.

You already left so many people, so a few people more wouldn’t harm you, right? You began to scheme your own death so that Jumin wouldn’t feel betrayed and for a short moment, this was a good idea. However, it was only for a short moment.

You asked for two weeks, three days later, the plan was almost as good as done, a single call destroyed everything you had in mind.

,,I need to change plans,’’ you sobbed, the phone strongly pressed against your heart. It wasn’t that you didn’t find out anything about the RFA, you just didn’t pass on anything. It was the opposite. You found out more than you could have imagined. The blond haired boy was right when he said that he believed that his cousin was alive. The red haired boy was right when he sometimes seemed to not trust Jihyun 100% and Jumin wasn’t alarmed for nothing when sometimes, deep at night, he confessed that something about his best friend felt fishy. That night you were surprised that your husband had a clue while you, the spy, didn’t know anything.

Without anyone knowing, you managed to get one more red haired boy in a safe space. As if it was fate, the red haired boy was none other than your friend’s twin brother and the so-called ,,Mint eye’’ was destroyed by you. You made sure that no one, not even Jihyun, knew that you were the one who kidnapped Rika and made sure that she was imprisoned and received medical help. You made sure that Saeran’s file, which was the name of the twin brother you saved, was top secret so that the hacker couldn’t access it and you made sure that Mint eye and all their victims were never seen or heard by anyone. And years later, these actions would perhaps help you with your plan.

,,Agent 707, or should I say Choi Saeyoung? I need your help. In exchange, I will help you to get your brother back,’’ you said and you knew that this was a long story you would tell the only friend you could trust with that topic.

,,Jumin,’’ you asked him, his head nuzzled against your bare chest, you in his embrace as you slowly stroked his warm back. ,,Mhm, my love?’’ he asked you, smiling at the warm feeling you were giving him. ,,I have a wish,’’ you said and closed your eyes, his feet playing with yours, making you chuckle. ,,This and more, tell me my love, what do you wish for? Jewelry? Do you want to go somewhere? Or do you need your own building?’’ Jumin asked you and before he could give you even more crazy ideas, you cut him off and told him your wish. ,,I want us to meet in Paris in three years from today,’’ you said and could feel how he looked up, the spot he left was cold as he looked up at you, half amused and half puzzled. ,,This is no problem. This is something I can easily give you, but why, my love?’’ he asked you, trying to figure out why you wanted to meet in Paris. ,,It’s a lovely city. I figured out that we should go there… I really want to meet you there… who knows. Perhaps we won’t be alone there,’’ you laughed and deeply hoped that he got the message because just a few days later, you apparently died in a car accident, leaving a heartbroken Jumin behind.

It was an awful accident. Even worse was that your body was never found in that inferno of fire. ,,This one time, this one time I… I gave her another driver and he killed her! He took her away from me, Assistant Kang. My… my wife is gone…’’ Jumin cried. His working room was a mess as Jaehee stood with red teary eyes in front of him. Everything except the picture of you, was broken on the floor. His heart shattered as his second half seemed to miss.

,,Just… don’t forget your promises you gave her and everything will be alright,’’ Saeyoung said. He too seemed devastated and tired, however, no one knew that their red haired friend had an even bigger burden to carry. Days went by. One by one, turning into weeks, months, and years. Fall, winter, spring, and summer. The season’s changed but one thing stayed the same, the love Jumin Han felt for you as well as the promise he gave you when three years later he went to Paris.

Jumin Han did everything he thought you would enjoy, from eating the specialties from the country to traveling. He did everything and lastly, Jumin planned to see the Eiffel Tower, a short peak from below before he would return home.

But Jumin didn’t know that that day he would miss his flight and instead go home with a person, perhaps even two people more. Not until his eyes met your eyes, the sparkling eyes he missed so much. ,,Mc… is this a dream…?’’ he asked you, and as soon as he heard you laughing, he knew that this wasn’t a dream at all.

,,Jumin, I would like you to let you meet your son,’’ you said as you approached him, slowly making the two year old boy step in front of you, a gesture which made Jumin not only feel devastated, but also… happy.

,,I can’t believe you,’’ he sobbed, you on his lap while the little black haired boy was between you and him, sleeping on his chest. You too were trembling and crying. ,,So, you were hiding in France all along?’’ he asked you, his voice still trembling as he tried to understand what you just told him. ,,Jumin… I’m so sorry that I lied to you… I should have told you that I was a spy… trust me,’’ you hiccupped ,,I… I thought about it more than once,’’ you nodded ,,I really did, but I was scared… what if it would have put you in trouble…?’’ you asked him. ,,And when they told me that I had to go back, I was really about to leave you… I really planned on leaving you, Jumin… but I became selfish. I began to regret all the decisions I made and when I found out about the pregnancy, the dream of living with you together as a family grew bigger and bigger and before I could even tell you, I did this all to fake my death,’’ you groaned. ,,I asked Luciel for help and… there are a few things you should know… but know for now that I faked this all so that I could be free… I am no longer Mc, the spy, but Mc Han, the wife of Jumin Han…’’ you gulped.

You didn’t only fake your death to make Jumin think you were dead, but disappeared three days before the promised day you would go, making the agency think that you really died. ,,Mc… what will we do about the media… there… there is so much more we have to plan… I… I am so happy that you are alive, but I want to bring you back, I want to live with you, I want to hold you in my arms… I want to feel at home with you and-’’ ,,Jumin… you can go back. I can survive with this. I know that you are okay and you know that I’m alive, but if I go back with you, our son will be in danger and you will too… If that’s the way I can protect you, I will do my best…’’

But Jumin knew more than anyone else how dangerous his real life was. Not only for him, but for you too, and now that he knew that you also didn’t have an easy task. Jumin wanted to give his best to make it possible that he could live with you. ,,I can give up my daily life too, like you did for me, so that we could live together…’’ he decided, holding your hand and in that very moment, he promised that he would never, ever let go of that one hand…

ᗰᗩᔕTEᖇᒪIᔕT

17.11.2021// 23:25 MEST

#Jumin #jumin han #jumin x reader #mystic messenger jumin #jumin x mc #zen hyun ryu #Yoosung Kim #jaehee kang #saeyoung choi #luciel choi #saeran choi #jihyun kim #Headcanon #Mm headcanons #mystic messenger headcanon #fanfiction #mm fanfic #mm fanfiction #fanfic

69 notes · View notes

bbq-hawks-wings · 3 years

Text

Chapter 316: BBQ is capable of critiquing BNHA and… Oh boy.

Let's start this off properly, Horikoshi's typical quality of writing has been diminishing in recent chapters, but this week it was so different that it didn't even feel like Horikoshi was the one who wrote it.

To be clear, I'm not blaming Horikoshi for the issues I'm about to bring up. The man is criminally overworked, usually doesn't even get the final say in what makes it in the final drafts, and even in his other rough patches he's still produced decent chapters that hold up amongst the grand scheme of things. This feels like something else is going on behind the scenes, and while I have my suspicions on who/what might be the culprit behind it, I choose not to share it at this time because if I name names some people might go off on a crusade, and that's not what I want.

I just want to be clear that I'm not blindly firing off shots in the dark, but despite my frustrations I want to wait to see if this gets resolved down the line, and while I do I can complain about the specific reasons this chapter left such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Buckle up, buttercups, because we got a lot of points to cover.

Where's the Gun?

Not a literal gun, but I mean Chekhov's Gun. It has always been a staple of Horikoshi's writing and the reason so many of his long-standing plot lines have paid off so well.

Chekhov's Gun is a writing principal that if you see a gun on the table in the first act of a play, it will be used in the murder that happens in act 2. Basically, the author should include details that are relevant to the story and not betray the audience by leading them in one direction and at the last minute pull the rug out from underneath them to go in another direction.

Horikoshi has done this to phenomenal success in the past. Just as one example, he dropped hints about Nomu being human experiments early in the series but held off explicitly stating it for a while. He hinted at the loss of Shirakumo in the main narrative and that he was important to Aizawa and Mic as well as approved it for Vigilantes so when it was revealed that Kurogiri was Shirakumo's body, not only did it narratively make sense but it also pulled in Eraserhead and Present Mic's emotional stakes into the battle with the Doctor, and then when Ujiko reveals he was after Aizawa's quirk the whole time it made the payoff for Mic punching him in the face all that much better and brings the weight of his crimes and the impact they have on the victims full circle.

That's 3 different guns paying off in the long run: the Nomu, Shirakumo, and both Mic and Eraserheads' personal arcs past the loss of their childhood friend and that they could finally finish processing their grief and avenge him in full righteous fury instead of chalking it all up to cruel chance.

He has left details, some particularly innocuously, in plot lines like the Touya Todoroki reveal, Hawks' backstory, Shigaraki's blood connection to Nana Shimura, even with Mr. Compress's backstory, and more. When re-read, these details become more obvious and usually leaves us with a greater sense of satisfaction in the plot knowing that twists and turns were not only planned, but built up to and hinted at for us to find so the payoff is that much better and it feels purposeful instead of just shock factor.

None of that happened this chapter.

Lady Nagant has zero business being in this plotline. She was never hinted about before this arc, and her existence does nothing to tell us about the plot moving forward or the world that they're trying to change. Nothing her existence provides actually has any bearing on the universe or tells us anything we don't already know. But that's not how she was presented.

In the beginning we're given a glimpse of her helping Overhaul escape from Tartarus. The focus on her was odd enough to begin with as a new character, and the fact that she didn't look like she fit the profile of someone who belonged in Tartarus was like a flashing neon sign saying, "Pay attention! This new character is important!!!" She then shows up later with Overhaul in hand to attack Deku out of the blue. We get her talking about how she thought Overhaul might be useful and her disillusions with Hero Society. We catch her mannerisms with eery similarity to Hawks only to find out immediately after she was a senior colleague in the HPSC. Never once to my knowledge has Hawks referred to any of his senior colleagues as a "senpai" - not even his fellow heroes - and when he catches her in midair, he uses the words, "Don't die on me, senpai!" as if she's near and dear to his heart.

The entire character arc is set up for her to have known about Hawks and grapple with her desire to help people and her fear of re-creating what she hated, and this also set up Hawks to be the successor who succeeded where she failed and helped bring her to a place where she could be a hero without guilt again. What actually happened?

They're strangers.

They have never actually met before, and while he seems to know a lot about her, she doesn't even seem to have any idea of who he was - at least as far as being another hero under the thumb of the HPSC. So ALLLL that setup, all that gesturing, and all of the potential themes that would be right at home in an arc like this goes completely out the window.

Her story doesn't tell us anything new. The HPSC bad. We knew that. They're not above throwing innocents under the bus to achieve that goal. We knew that. They preyed upon young hopefuls with powerful quirks with the intent to maintain the status quo. We knew that even if the fact that Hawks isn't the only one now makes more questions than answers. We know that these young heroes can never say no under threat of steep, life-shattering consequences. We knew that already.

So what does Lady Nagant even bring to the table?! The entire "you're just a puppet doing what you've been told" angle is a little tired and out of place in this point and time with actual anarchy in the streets (not to mention hypocritical considering she was a blind puppet following orders and offers zero actual solutions that supposedly fall in line with her heroic nature), and it could have been left to any number of other villain characters who could have executed on the theme better - you know, like Shigaraki who's justification this entire time has been, "hero society doesn't make people safe, it just makes them feel safe" from the moment of his inception.

So from that angle she's unnecessary.

Her presence messes with the continuity of the series as well. If Hawks is supposed to explicitly replace her, that would mean that he wasn't just a fluke find on the commission's part and grabbed to mold into their own special superweapon; and that also would mean that her killing of the former president was before he was discovered which should put her at least in her forties. If this isn't the case, and he was meant to simply replace her in a "special agent" case, that still begs the question of how many more gifted children the commission preyed upon and are still out there.

And maybe the worst kicker for me is that something stinks. The way the art in this chapter is presented, if you completely blanked out the speech bubbles, is the same setup I had before - Hawks reaches out to his former mentor and pulls her from the brink of despair with a moving message about why he never gave up hope in being a hero who could actually make a difference.

Again, this is not what we got. He claims he knows her, and it's implied to have been a deep, personal character witness; but at best he only knows about her from secondhand sources. Even his reasoning as to how he never lost hope doesn't vibe with his character.

We have gotten so many cool one-liners for Hawks, but there has always been a consistent tone and imagery with them.

"Those who can fly, should."

"I don't belong in a cage."

"I'm free of my shackles."

"Can I be a shining light, just like him?"

What we got was, "I'm an optimist to a fault" which was the wording the official release went with and was by far the best iteration I have seen, but even this falls short of being truly in character for him and answering her question properly.

@mikeana made an edit of the titular panels for us Hawks stans this week with dialogue we and a few other friends felt was more fitting not only with the imagery of the chapter itself but internally consistent with the specific expressions Hawks uses in his heartfelt, personal dialogue. I just tweaked it a little bit more to fit what I was going for in our original conversation.

Which brings me to another concern.

2. What's the point?

There was no use for Nagant in the series as she's been presented so far. But more than that, Hawks has no business in this fight to begin with. He literally did nothing to earn this emotional moment, and this should have been Deku's moment.

We were teased in an interview with Horikoshi that Hawks was going to get a special moment as an important end-game character as a "shining light" of hope for others to follow as well as promises for Ochako to have another moment in the spotlight to make a difference.

If this was Hawks' shining light moment, it wasn't necessary, and it does nothing to move the plot forward or develop characters in any true or believable way. It just happened because plot. This should have been Deku's victory through and through, and even he is the reason BOTH Hawks and Nagant made it out alive instead of painting the street below them.

Deku's victory was stolen from him, too. It sours the other promises made to us about other characters moving forward, as well, if this really was Hawks' "Shining Light" moment.

By the way, did you forget about Overhaul? Me too!!! What was the point of getting our hopes up about reintroducing this beloved character with the implications this was a major arc setup to have him scream about pops and then get detained with no clues about what's going to happen to him besides, "Say you're sorry to Eri, and you get to see pops"?!

All this posturing and clumsy narrative flailing only actually succeeded in getting Deku in front of AFO again for plot when we already know Mr. Potato Head could summon, show himself to, or find Deku at any time he wanted. But instead we get this time skip with a bunch of heroes completely mended walking into a big, spooky mansion for AFO to evil monologue at Deku for… *counts*

FOUR PAGES!!!

Only to then give him the "I want YOU!" point over a pre-recorded message and the final nail in the coffin to me that something is off.

3. Ex-pu-LOOOO-SHUN!

It's become almost a game among friends to count how many explosions have happened since the end of the war arc - and specifically fake-out explosions. In the end of 311 we get All Might's car attacked via explosion and Deku cornered by Nagant only for All Might to be fine in the next chapter. In 315 Lady Nagant herself explodes in a blaze of glory to once again not be dead.

Gee! I wOnDeR if aLl the heroes were AcTuAlLy cornered and KiLlEd in that explosion in the mansion!

None of us do. They're fine. We're going to see it first thing next week. The shock has worn off, and it's repetitive and annoying at this point. There is no cliffhanger despite how the framing might try to tell you otherwise.

It's BAD WRITING.

The writing has been moving far too quickly and clumsily with no explanation in sight, and even character interactions are being cut short to the point of them being meaningless and empty.

This doesn't even feel like Horikoshi's bad writing. It feels like someone else is trying to call the shots and rushing him through these final bits of the series, and he's run out of things he's previously set up for months and months to reappear so someone is trying to get Dabi-reveal levels of attention with arcs and storylines that don't have the build-up to result in a satisfactory payoff.

4. At least it can get better... I hope.

Maybe those who share my suspicions or know what particular suspicions I have are with me in believing that this is a temporary disappointment and we haven't seen the last of the writing that's captivated me for years. I don't blame Horikoshi for these glaring faults that all came to a head in this chapter.

It CAN get better later, and I think it WILL- we just probably are going to have to wait for it. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the Hawks panels we got, maybe edit the last few chapters to be more in line with something more like the BNHA I know in a "fix it fic" fashion so I don't groan in anticipation of how long it might take us to get there.

See you all next week, hopefully on a much brighter note.

#she speaks #chapter review #bnha 316 #bnha chapter 316 #bnha manga spoilers

134 notes · View notes

alreadyblondenow · 4 years

Text

Paint the lot red | Qian Kun

Qian Kun x Reader

▸ FLUFF, ANGST, Smut, Vampire au ▸ Part of the Stephen King’s collab, hosted by @starryqian & @takitaro ▸ Inspired by Stephen King’s, Salem’s Lot

Summary: Kun is a vampire, buying humans in exchange for immortality. He wanted to buy you and your house, but love changes everything. Convincing each other to be something you’re not. Kun wants to turn you into a vampire, but you want him to embrace being a human. Will Kun leave his family for you? Or you will accept the immortality he offers?

Word count: 6.8k

Warnings: mentions of car crash, family loss, Vanilla sex, depression from family loss, bloodsucking, virginity loss, unprotected sex, swearing, major character death, blood, mentions of alcohol, depression

A/N: Salem’s Lot is a handful but great book. I can’t follow the entire plot of Stephen King’s work, so heres my version of it. This is also inspired by Vampires VS. The Bronx... HAHAHA so, here. And sorry if the ending is SLIGHTLY close to my Jaehyun’s Body, but I plotted this first so 🤷🏼‍♀️

Tag list: @jimjamjaemin @inseonqt @thefouranemoi @jaehyunoos @sunshinedhyuck @neospirited @shanghai-lu @loeygotospacenow @mal-nakamoto23 @svteencarat @commentgirl @yukine-smx (I hope I did not missed anyone)

NEWS FLASH: The family of the famous writer Y/N, died in a car crash on their way to the airport for a family trip to Hawaii. All four passengers are dead on arrival including the driver. The funeral will be closed and private, as per the writer Y/N’s request.

The sky has your favorite shade of orange when you arrived at the house. Home, you thought. Always the same big house that you grew up to. It’s been almost ten years since you step foot in this house and seeing it again for the first time made you regret every Christmas that you purposely missed just so you can avoid spending time with your family. And besides feeling that you’re home, you feel regret suffocating you. What was I thinking, you murmured. This house used to be filled with laughter and happiness. Nights where you and your family will watch TV together in the living room with all the lights closed, countless meals together and talking about random stuff while eating, drinking coffee with your mother, playing board games with your brother. But now, the house is filled with dust and despair.

The house feels cold and dirty but either way, it’s what you need. You would rather feel the emptiness of this big house and miss your family than be alone in your apartment. Maybe being home can make you write something worth reading for again, maybe being home will help you be alive again. Losing your whole family is a different kind of pain. The word ‘alone’ does not cover what you’re feeling right now.

It has been nine months since the accident but the sad news is still fresh in your heart that sometimes when you remember it, you just turned into stone and start crying out of nowhere. Thankfully, the town was understanding enough about what you’re going through in life. They were all careful not to make you remember your family’s death, and made sure to take care of you in ways that they can.

“I see some stores are closing? What happened to Miguel’s Ice Cream shop?” you asked Sophie, the owner of the small grocery store in town. You’ve known her since you were just a little girl, and your mother and father helped her grow her business.

“Well, since your father’s death there's this vampire family who’s been buying the whole town. One by one, Qian Properties. Offering money and immortality as payments” she says. The worry in her tone is quite evident as if she knew that vampires will soon knock on her store and offer her the same thing. Money and immortality.

After your family’s passing, the world has gone mad like they took every good thing from this world with them on their graves. Crazy how in nine months the things that are used to be fiction like vampires, are now the new normal. Everything happened so fast. Their kind grew and grew and now their population covers over almost 1/4 of the world. Vampires school, condominiums for vampires, hotel ran by vampires, humans being vampires. It’s crazy. But even though the world has gone mad, it doesn’t bother you because the pain that you’re dealing with right now is taking too much of your sanity.

As months slowly pass by, even though you hate writing right now, you still try and find your way back to loving what you used to do for a living. Writing was everything to you. There’s no greater feeling than sharing something you’ve created to the world, show it entirely, and watch the people love every bit of that thick thing we called a book. You lost your spark with writing when the accident happened and it changed your life. Everything you published became the talk of the world, people hating it and blaming what happened to your family. It was your darkest time. Losing your family and watching your career end.

You type, delete over and over again, and tried writing your feelings away until you see the sun setting again. A good reminder to call it a day. Then someone rang your doorbell. You quickly grabbed your robe and make your way downstairs, you see a man’s figure on the other side of the gate, wearing a nice suit, black trousers, and nice leather shoes.

“Good evening. I hope I did not interrupt you, I’m Qian Kun” he offered his hand for you to shake it which you accepted with a straight face. Qian. The family name of the vampires who are buying properties in this town and you’re not stupid to not know what he came here for. You wanted to shoo him away and tell him that you’re not interested in anything that he will offer. You have a lot of money and you don’t need immortality.

You crossed your arms and waited for him to talk more. “May I come in? I’m looking forward to this meeting for quite some time now” he says. You turned around and did not say anything but left the gate wide open. “Please” he added and he sounded desperate.

“Mr. Qian, I left the door open. What are you waiting for?”

“I- I suppose you don’t know that vampires cannot come in unless you invite them in” you didn’t of course.

“I’m sorry. I did not know. Please come in”

When you two settled in the living room, he started the conversation by introducing himself. You notice that he’s well mannered, polite, and careful with his words. He doesn’t sound fake like the monsters who pretend to care for you in the writing industry. Kun was straightforward without offending you, intimidating but not enough to make you feel small. He stated his intentions very clearly, “As a firstborn, I want my family to have a nice home. And this house is perfect. You will not be homeless, of course. We will find you a new house, cash, and immortality” he says.

You couldn’t agree more with what Kun told you. But the reason that he’s here to buy your house is something you can’t let him do. Even if he’s polite, nice, and handsome if you’re being honest. You can’t let him take away your home.

“It’s good that you love your family so much and you’re taking care of them. Something that I regret not doing” you take a sip from your coffee before you continue saying something that will bring you to tears, “are you aware that I lost my family, about a year ago?” you were calm when you said it, but it still hurt like hell. Admitting that they’re gone.

Kun was speechless. He felt like he ruined your peace and your time to mourn your family but most of all, it felt like he’s disrespecting you. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know” is all he can say.

“I have way too much money and I don’t want immortality. Thank you for your offer, but this is all I’ve got”

“I cherish my family too. I have a family and we don't have a home, you don’t have a family but you have a home. Be part of us, we can be your family”

You got offended, but still, there’s not enough reason to burst out and be hysterical. You gave him a small smile and shook your head, “Good luck finding a home Mr. Qian. I admire you taking care of your family”

The night ended coldly, both disappointed with personal reasons. Although he felt sorry about his visit, he still got his eyes on the prize. Kun will stand his ground and will try over and over again until you say yes to his offer. You, on the other hand, don’t know why you have a soft spot for the vampire even though he already offended you. Maybe it’s because you were moved for his honest reasons that you can’t let out your anger towards him even if you force yourself. He was just trying and finding his family a stable home, no need to get mad, you said to yourself.

As days go by, the vampire did not give up as expected. He continued his visit and greet you with the sweetest smile. He tried pursuing you, giving you flowers, bringing you books to read, chocolates, fruits, anything that crosses his mind that will try to change your decision. He was desperate for his family’s sake and it was obvious.

Sophie said that Qian properties chose this place because it’s far from the city. There’s a lot of trees and the neighborhood is peaceful. “That’s why he’s desperate. Your father made this town great. Don’t let that Qian family eat up of what your father built” she says sternly.

You walked alone to your house with a bag of take out, thinking of other ways to make your meal even more delicious. Since you’re alone in life, you don’t have someone to cook you a decent meal. When you were living alone in the city, you have your manager cook you good food. But now that you’re completely alone, you just have to make the best out of this take out.

“Hi” of course the vampire waited for you to come home. You smiled and let out a small laugh because both of his hands are carrying grocery bags.

“What are you doing? I have food and enough stocks for a whole family, and I live alone” It was a joke. You giggle and opened the gate, this time you did not forget to invite him in.

“That’s not why I’m here. I’m here as a friend a new vampire friend- Let me cook for you please, I need a friend”

Hearing him say those words made you think that Kun is a blessing in disguise. Finally, decent food. You don’t want to admit but having Kun’s company tonight made you feel happy. Not genuinely happy of course, but it’s nice to have someone to talk to. Surprisingly, he’s talkative but not annoying. The words that came out from his mouth made sense to the point that you’re learning new things from him. He was right, he’s here as a friend and not as a buyer of your house.

“Why do you want my house so bad?” you asked. Stirring the spaghetti sauce that he made.

“Hmm. I thought I’m here as a friend?” he smiles and refuses to answer your question. He looked handsome up close, but his unbelievably white skin is scary. It reminded you that he’s a vampire.

“Well okay, if you don’t want to answer that question. I didn’t know vampires eat. I thought you only drink blood from humans” you quickly changed the subject so he can feel comfortable.

“I love food and I love cooking. It’s my guilty pleasure. It doesn’t make me full, but if what I made taste good then I’m satisfied” he answered your question with a big smile. Proud and happy to talk about how he loves cooking.

For someone who doesn’t have a soul, Kun is a vampire full of life. You listen to him talk about the things he sees on TV and watches his eyes show you and tell you how he’s curious about the world. He’s well aware that there's so much you can do in a lifetime, he wanted to learn many things and go around the world. He’s almost more human than you are. “Well if you have all these dreams of yours why don’t you embrace life instead of living in the shadows for your family?” you hope he answers your question this time.

“My family is more important than my dreams and my wants in life. The things that I long for will forever be in this world, but my family can die anytime-“ he realized what he just said, “I’m- I’m sorry. I got carried away. Please- Uh, how’s the food?” he tried changing the subject but it was too late.

He’s right. Everything he said is right and you’re realizing it just now, “I wish I met you before my family died. Unlike you, I chose my dreams and turned my back against my family. And now I’m regretting it. Don’t worry, you didn’t offend me and the food is great. Really great” your tone was slowly turning sad and gloomy. The vampire was quick to be concerned but he can’t do anything to help you heal. So, he changed the mood and joked about offering you immortality and you argued with him and tried convincing him to embrace being human. It was a friendly debate that made him blush and your heart flutter.

Kun hates lying, even to himself. As he listens and watches you speak very closely while you drink your wine, he's slowly liking you and he's not afraid of what he's feeling right now. He loves how you talk about the things you've experienced already like he's listening to a book about wonders. You must be a great writer. The whole time you were talking about your first book to him, he was really impressed by your talent but he can't listen to you further. Instead, he just admired you closely.

Then he kissed you.

He noticed how your lips were plump and red because of the red wine and the kiss was something he can’t control because he wanted to do it. “I’m not sorry about the kiss, I wanted to do it” at least he was honest about what he feels. "Please continue your story" and so you did, but this time you were smiling from ear to ear.

Good things come to an end. You felt that you went out on a date with Kun when the night ended. You felt nothing but happiness, butterflies in your stomach, cheeks hurt because of too much smiling. He flashed those handsome dimples of his and waved goodbye to you. Neither of you wanted to end the night so early but he had to go home to his family.

The next day, while you were trying so hard to put what you feel into writing, you look over the window and hope to see Kun’s figure outside your huge gate. But no, he’s not there. Until the sun is finally setting again and the sky turned into your favorite shade of orange, you were disappointed but only for a short span of time.

The same thing happened for a week. You waited for the vampire to show up outside your gate, but he never did. Maybe he finally gave up.

One fine beautiful evening, you were reading the books Kun gave you while you enjoy a cup of warm tea then your doorbell rang three times that it almost sounded so desperate for attention. Finally, the figure that you’ve been meaning to see showed up. You welcome him in like an old friend and he greets you with an exhausted smile. He looked tired and dull you noticed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t show up for days” you haven’t seen each other for a week and the first words you heard from him are apologies. “I was busy running the family business” he clears his throat and sat comfortably on the couch.

“Which is?” you asked.

“Buying humans so my family name will forever live,” he said oh so cooly. Surprising you with honestly again that never bothered you. In fact, he continues to surprise you. “And looking for a new town to buy” he added. You noticed during your long walks that people in this town continue embracing immortality in exchange for their establishments and loyalty for Qian properties. It sounds complicated, their business, but really it’s not hard to understand. It’s like a normal business that buys and sells properties and a big company that needed a lot of staff. But for Qian properties, lives are involved.

“What happens to the people you turn to vampires?”

“Besides being rich, they will have a long life, my family owns them and as long as they live, they will work for my family. But I can assure you that their lives are safe. We don’t harm them, rather we help them adjust to this new life they swore to- How are you?”

His sudden concern for you caught you off guard that you smiled and became shy in front of him. He’s not here as a businessman again, he’s here as your friend, Kun. Whom you kissed and waited for his presence every day.

“I waited for you every day” he smiled at your honesty. But then, his smile slowly fades away. He holds his chest and pretends that he’s okay to not make you worry. “I’m not stupid you’re hungry. When was the last time you drank blood?” you brought him to your kitchen to give him a plate of raw steak. But he told you steak does not cover it. You were trying so hard to help him ease his hunger. Then you realized, you have blood.

“Try not to kill me? Or turn me?” you exposed your collar bones to him and standup in between his legs. He was sitting on the kitchen counter like a bored teenager with a bottle of water in his hand. He let out a cute laugh and fixed your robe.

“No. I can’t do that to you. I’m not here to ask for blood. I’m just tired and pressured because of my family. I just needed to see you” he smiled so sweetly again, making you fall in love with his gaze. Even though he’s tired and weak to the core he can still make your heart flutter.

“I’m not going to take no for an answer. If you don’t drink my blood, you can never see me again” it was a dangerous bargain but you had to try. You came closer to him, felt his cold skin, smelled his cologne, and hope that he smells your blood. It was a struggle for him and he enjoys your sweet torture. Until he finally gave in.

“Just one swig,” he says.

“That’s all I want to happen. Please, you look dead” you insist.

He took his time untying your robe, remove it from you and watch it hit the tiled kitchen floor. He kissed your neck like the gentleman that he is making you weak and let out soft moans. His lips are cold and it sends a shiver straight to your spine. Then he bit you. Drank your blood like he’s just kissing your neck. It felt like you’re high on drugs, everything kept spinning and the moment he stopped. You feel weak and he was quick to catch you with his strong arms. Kun kissed the part where he had bit you a few seconds ago and kissed you all the way from your collar bone, neck, chin, and finally your lips.

Everything turned slow. Like a moment being kept for safekeeping and no one dares to move too fast. Scared to ruin such a beautiful moment.

You took him to your room and there you two continued that beautiful moment. He watched you remove your clothes in between his legs as he comfortably sits on the edge of your queen-sized bed. Once you discarded all your clothes and exposed your bare body to him, his hands roam freely around your body. It’s his first time, he whispered. “I’ll try not to disappoint you” he promised.

While you help him remove his clothes, Kun learned to kiss your body. He was shy but you told him he doesn’t have to. He learned to kiss your chest, the valley between your boobs and your stomach. “Why are you avoiding my boobs?” you asked with a slight giggle, waiting for his lips to brush your perked nipple and make you shiver. He looked at you directly in the eye as he starts sucking your left nipple, then he turned to your right boob, and in a matter of minutes, he finally learned how to use his tongue. You gasped and breathed in deeply as you were just standing in between his legs, naked, shivering, and moaning at the things he’s been doing to you.

“You’re going to make me cum undone” you informed him. He stopped and leaned back, admiring your swollen nipples as if he’s proud of his work.

“Is that a bad thing?” he asked oh so innocently.

“No” you pushed him slowly to the mattress, “But I’d rather cum in other different ways,” you said. This time it’s your turn to kiss his cold body and let him experience the pleasure he’s been giving you. His low groans were music to your ears when you licked his nipples while you unbutton his pants and remove it swiftly leaving him only with his boxers briefs.

Given that this is his first time, you decided to stay on top tonight and take charge. You kissed his abs, feel it with your hands, and took time kissing his lower abdomen, making the vampire impatient and push his underwear down so your lips can finally make contact with his cock. You gave him his first blow job, sucking his dick slowly and pumping it over and over again until it’s really hard and thick. “I promise to give you a proper blowjob someday” you crawled on top of him until your wet folds are coating his cock with your pussy juices.

“I can get addicted to you, you know that?” he says and smiled before you reach for his lips to distract him as you line his cock to your entrance and slowly sink down on him. His reaction was something you will never forget, the sound that he made once he’s fully inside you. You intertwined your fingers with him before you roll your hips deliciously.

“Ready?”

“Yeah- Oh, ahh” he part his lips and did not get shy anymore as he continues to let out his moans and feel your warm walls around him. He pulled your body closer to him, wanting to never leave those beautiful lips of yours. You made his arms rest on your hips, as you bounce up and down on his cock with utmost care. There’s no need to go wild and crazy for tonight. Everything is perfect.

“I’m close” he admitted. But you didn’t stop moving your hips.

“Can you make me pregnant?” you cage his head with your arms, your face is close to him so you can nip his lower lip and kiss him every second.

“I can’t” he answers your question. There was a slight disappointment of course. But this is not the right time to think about having kids.

“What are you waiting for? Let go and cum inside me”

Kun did what you said and had the time of his life, enjoying his first orgasm from having sex. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t cum tonight, Kun’s cock felt great and that alone satisfies you. He didn’t let you go for some time, you stayed on top of him as he continues to kiss and talk to you while he still enjoys your warmth.

Soon, you lay beside him and covered you with your clean thick sheets. You talked some more, about things that are intimate and are for the two of you only. You never felt so happy being in the arms of a… vampire. You felt alive again but you don’t say it out loud, you just wanted to bask at this moment with Kun and feel the happiness flood your heart.

“How are you feeling?” you asked. Maybe he needed more blood?

“I’m feeling just fine. Thank you. And I’m not talking about the sex and your blood. Thank you for letting me in your life” he was holding your hand while drawing small circles using his cold thumb.

That night, you two slept really late and talked more about life and the things you wanted. You learned that the two of you are very different from each other but you’re ready to love him deeply and he’s ready to take great risk for you too. And you think the beauty of loving someone so different from you is a different kind of great love.

Kun’s cold figure still hugs you tightly when you wake up the next day. The morning light hits his skin perfectly that he shines effortlessly. “fuck” you muttered and quickly tried getting out from his cold embrace to close the curtains. But he tugs you even closer to his body making you panic even more, “are you hurt?”

“No” he kissed you good morning and sweetly requests, “can we stay a little bit longer like this? I still don’t want to face the day”

You raked his hair away from his face and gave him his morning kisses, “we can stay like this forever” you said.

“Does that mean you’re accepting immortality?-“

“That’s not what I meant”

“Oh”

Even so, being human and vampire in a relationship did not stop you two from loving each other without bounds. Every day has been nothing but happiness with Kun even though you both have your own disappointments with yourselves. You’re disappointed with writing, he’s disappointed with his family’s business. Every bit of the relationship was not easy but you two chose to be happy together every day and face each day together.

He starts calling your house his home because you are his home and you don’t mind him calling you that. It makes you happy. Every day, when the sky turns to your favorite shade of orange, Kun will ring your doorbell and you will welcome him home with kisses and warm hugs.

Soon, you two became confident about telling each other everything about your family. And for the first time, talking about them didn’t make you sad, but rather happy because you can share that part of your life with Kun who listens to every word you say attentively. He told you that his mom was the one who told him to give you books to read, give you flowers and treat you with respect. His stories about his family make you want to meet them someday. It will not be easy but, “We will get here eventually”

Speaking of eventually, he finally learned how to fuck after a few nights of making love with Kun. He finally became confident in bed, making you moan his name over and over again. Memorizing every inch of the places you loved being touched the most. Oh, he’s a fast learner and a great one if you’re being honest to the point that night after night you grip the sheets so hard because he was fucking you good.

Perfect. Everything is perfect.

“Good morning” you greet him with loving kisses as always before you make your coffee. He’s still shirtless and just wearing his pajamas while he makes breakfast. You hugged him from behind and enjoy his cold skin on a beautiful warm morning. “Can we stay like this forever?” you asked, hugging him tightly.

“Is that a yes for immortality?” he’s serious when it comes to ‘immortality’ but it never annoyed you because it’s his love language. You understand him.

“I want to be with my family, Kun” you bit his shoulder playfully and placed soft kisses after. He loves it when you do that.

“And I don’t want to watch you die,” he asked for a kiss on lips, which you gave happily.

“Why are we having this conversation?” you roll your eyes.

“You’re right. I love you, I’m sorry”

See. Push and pull. And it’s a decision that one day you’re going to face and not even ‘i love yous’, ‘i’m sorry’, hugs or kisses will solve that problem for you. Someday he will not joke about it. And you’re scared because the question is, family or Kun?

During the day, you kept thinking about the conversation you had with Kun before breakfast. It made you think hard and ran through every loophole. You imagined life without Kun, you imagined him watch you die in a hospital bed, and you imagine not being with your family ever again. Every decision broke your heart.

When Kun finally came home, you try shrugging the thought of making a decision one day and admire your boyfriend as he is about to prepare you dinner.

Having a very handsome vampire in your kitchen cooking you good food is definitely one for the books. It’s like watching a live cooking show and you’re the only audience who can taste what he’s cooking. The way he walks around and smiles at you from time to time is making you feel things you shouldn’t be feeling. Heck, even watching him sprinkle salt and pepper, chop the peppers, and squeeze some lemon is making your heart jump.

Such a waste.

All these talents for singing, great skills at the kitchen, handsome face… And yet he chose to live in darkness. You have nothing against the vampire, he didn’t choose to be born as a bloodsucker, but he did choose to serve his family. His number one mistake, honestly speaking.

“If you’re not a vampire, what would you want to be?” you asked him bluntly, sipping on your wine while you watch him cook. “I hope you know that you’re talented and that if you embrace being a human you can be many things. For starters, you can be a cook at a famous restaurant or a pilot”

“Are we seriously having this conversation?” he chuckles, turns off the stove and faced you, leaning on the kitchen counter, looking handsome as ever, “Do me a favor and imagine yourself being 200 years old still looking young and beautiful. Or being happily married for hundreds of years. With me” he left a kiss on your forehead and goes back to plating the food.

The words ‘happily married’ doesn’t sound so bad.

“So you’re telling me that if we stayed like this, vampire and human, and I’m finally old and wrinkly, you won’t love me anymore?” you tease him, not letting him know that the idea of being married affects you.

“Why can’t we have a normal dinner without being on each other’s throats? Come on let’s eat. Grab the wine please,” he offered his cold hand to help you come down from the stool and go together to the dining area.

Before eating he did notice you were spacing out, he puts down his spoon and fork and reached for your hand. “Look at me,” he says, “Vampire or not I’m going to marry you and we’ll live happily together”

“You promise?”

“I promise. Now, come on eat. Tell me if it’s delicious, I just learned this from the cooking show I’ve been watching”

The constant push and pull continued. Your relationship has always been a never-ending convincing each other to be something you’re not. But ever since you let Kun in your life happiness is present in your life again and you’re worried that maybe someday that happiness will be taken away from you again. Kun is literally the reason why you smile first thing in the morning and sleep peacefully at night.

After having dinner and you two are ready for bed, you can’t stop thinking about the conversation you had this morning. The decision you’ve been thinking about has been running in your mind the whole day but there's another thought that’s been bugging you all along and you’ve been wanting to ask Kun.

“Can you really not die?”

He must be tired. He closed his eyes and kept you close. You wait for his answer but it seems like he doesn’t want to keep the conversation. Then he looks at you, “I can. I just have to be careful. I can die like how humans die except for dying at old age” he explains and you don’t want to pry further. “I'm scared of dying, you know. There’s so much I want to do in my life even before I met you. But since then I became even more scared to death. This world holds everything important to me, my family, and you. I can’t die” he answered your question honestly of course.

The next day, Kun woke up before you because he’s been planning to do something lately but can’t execute his plans correctly. He was about to do it last night but you asked him a heavy question so he didn’t have a choice but to set aside his intentions first.

He carefully opened the bedside drawer and reached for the tiny object inside. Since he doesn’t know anything about romance, he doesn’t know how to propose beautifully to you. So he went for something he’s confident with. Honesty. He grabs your hand and slips the ring on your finger, carefully but his movements still woke you up.

Any girl would freak out seeing her boyfriend propose to her the moment she opens her eyes in the morning. The diamond is quite big and it made you gasp. Not that you cared about the rock but the fact that Kun just proposed to you the moment you wake up is just enough reason to panic.

But he made a ’Shh’ sign that made you follow him and kept yourself quiet. You feel your heart thumping and beating so fast at this moment that you want to burst out of happiness already but Kun is calm in front of you. Just calm.

“Listen” all you hear are birds chirping and comfortable silence, “peaceful right?” you nod your head, “Let’s never break that peace in our relationship. I don't know how to make things easier for us but let's start with, no more push and pull. Last night I promised you that vampire or not, I’m gonna marry you and this is me keeping that promise. I would rather watch you die at old age, wrinkly and weak than lose you” He kissed your hand, and the panic that you’ve been savoring is long forgotten. Instead of screaming your lungs out because of too much happiness, you kissed each other and engraved that beautiful moment in your hearts.

And because you and Kun have been living together for quite some time now, you’ve become the talk of the town. Everyone thought that Kun is keeping you hostage and is only using you to get the house and to get the whole town. Even though he has been really successful in buying lives lately and earning the people’s loyalty in this town, the ones who strongly refused Kun’s offer is now making a plot behind his back.

A plot where they plan to kill him and save you. They’re just waiting for the perfect timing to strike the vampire.

“He’s just using you to get the house. Of course, he had to marry you so he can have legal rights to your house. Trust me, that vampire will leave you” Sophie hated Kun so much that when you told her that you’re engaged she didn’t take it lightly. The old woman shoos you out of her store and told you to be smarter. It’s sad how she can’t see that you’re really happy with Kun.

When you got home from grocery shopping, you wait for Kun to arrive before you leave him for one night to meet your manager back to the city. It pains you to be away from Kun. It’s like there's this magnet that’s keeping you near him and stopping you from leaving the house but finally, you finished a good book. All thanks to Kun. Your manager wanted to meet you so you can work on the details and finally, go back to the world and show everyone how you’ve been.

“The city is great. You sure you don’t want to come? There's a lot of vampires in the city-“

“And my fiance is a famous writer. Who’s about to have her come back to the industry that she loves. I don’t want to give you a problem before you can even go back out there. People will not take it lightly if they see you with me” he kissed you and hope that you will not argue with him further.

“But we just got engaged. I don’t want to be away from you” you pout like a little girl.

“Well then come home soon” he smiles sweetly to you and finally made you stop your whining.

Leaving home never felt so wrong. But you realized, he’s right. You just have to come home soon.

When you were back in the city and in the familiar office of your manager, you can’t help but feel out of place. Is this really what you want? Because if your manager agrees to publish this new work of yours, that means you have to leave home again. You have to leave Kun and live in the city. Something you think you can’t handle. It's like making the same mistakes again.

“I love it! You’re back- amazing work. I have to meet this vampire that you’re talking about. The one who inspired you to write this beautiful masterpiece. Ugh! Welcome back!” he exclaims excitedly. But his approval did not make you excited or anything. You’re happy of course, but you’ve been thinking about coming home and telling Kun the good news.

“Are we done here?”

“Uh- yes, bu-“

“Great. Call me if you need anything. I have to go home now. Thank you” you shake his hand and bid him goodbye. You were quick to get out of there and head home already. The plan was to stay the night in your old apartment, but you can’t. You really can’t. It’s almost 3 in the morning and Kun must be sleeping already because he hasn’t answered your calls. You drove excitedly while playing with the ring on your finger, thinking about how to spend the following days with Kun as an engaged couple.

When you finally arrived in town, people in their sleep wears welcomes you in the street. But their faces looked worried and concerned. What’s happening, you murmured. Since a lot of people are blocking the street you decided to get out of the car and check what’s happening.

“Y/n… the house….” someone shouted.

“My house?” you ran as fast as you can to see what they’re talking about. Hoping that everything is fine and that Kun is safe and not inside the house.

Then you see it.

It was your favorite shade of orange. Eating your house, ruining your home. You watched the house burn and you never thought that watching it will make you hate something you used to love ever since you were just a kid. You wanted the bright colors to fade. Your hands are shaking as you call for help. Screaming at the top of your lungs as people try to stop you from running towards your house.

“Kun!” you screamed and asked for him but no one is answering you.

Sophie tried to make you listen to her while you push everyone away. “I’m sorry. We had to do this. The town was slowly dying and turning into a vampire town. Y/n! He will leave you in the end or worst, he will change you” she was apologizing but you didn’t want to listen to her anymore. You slapped the old woman and tried to kick her with all your might but the people are quick to stop you.

The fire spread so fast that Kun didn’t have time to save himself. He tried calling for help but the lines were already cut. It’s obvious the fire was planned. He was trying so hard to escape death, coughing and covering his mouth, crying while he bangs through the door that seems to be locked from the outside. I don’t want to die. He repeats over and over again, thinking about his family, his brothers, and of course you.

But he couldn’t go out. He banged through the door until his last breath and strength but it did nothing. Soon the fire ate him and all he can do is scream through the pain, cry, and accept death.

The next thing you know, you’re at the hospital. You see your manager sleeping on the couch. Tears started falling but you don’t know why. On top of that, your heart feels heavy. It’s a familiar feeling, you thought. Like when the news that your family died reached you.

Then you see your ring. And suddenly you understand why you started crying out of nowhere and why that familiar feeling of losing someone is back.

Kun is dead.

And once again you’re back to rock bottom but this time you don’t have a home or a place to help you heal.

406 notes · View notes

some-dr-writings · 3 years

Text

Sonia, Hajime, and Nagito x Chronically sick S/O

Sonia Nevermind:

· Though your disease could be manageable, it was hard to keep going at times, but the thought of an entire country was working towards finding a cure was of great comfort.

· It happened gradually and suddenly at the same time. For a while you had noticed your heart began to race easily and how your breath was short, but you simply assumed you were getting sick, and when you became nauseous and started coughing you thought being sick was basically confirmed. But when it didn’t go away after a few days, your girlfriend insisted that you see a doctor just in case. Neither of you expected you’d have a heart disease. The moment Sonia received the news she had the entirety of Novoselic working to find a way to completely cure you. Nothing less than a cure would satisfy the princess, you were her partner and future ruler of Novoselic, you needed to be safe and healthy. She could not imagine anyone but you by her side.

· At first you were doing okay, just having to take treatments and visit the hospital regularly, but seemingly over night everything came crashing down. Many parts of your body weren’t getting enough blood and just failed. You would have died if it weren’t for Sonia shelling out all the money she could, making sure you had the best of everything, from doctors all the way down too your bed sheets. You were stuck in the hospital, unable to go anywhere. All you could do really was watch T.V. or read books.

· Sonia came to visit you every day, no matter what. She’d even sleep over whenever she could. She’d do whatever she could to make you happy. She needed you to be happy. A healthy mind helps to keep a healthy body. Even so, Sonia didn’t fake anything, she couldn’t keep that up for five years. Five years was the longest you could expect to survive. And so, those five years became Sonia’s deadline. Any time not dedicated to spending with you, she spent studying with Mikan to find some why to save you. She WILL save you; it was not a wish or an if, in her mind it was certain it was just a matter of time, and no matter what, she was not going to fail in this endeavor.

Hajime Hinata:

· You and Hajime had been best friends since you were children. Even back then you were very sickly, visiting the hospital often, even at times having to stay over night for weeks on end. Hajime visited you a lot when you stayed overnight. You didn’t have many friends other than him, everyone else were kids who were staying at the hospital left eventually never to return which hurt but also brought you some comfort. The hospital became a playground for the pair of you. Often you’d get into trouble for sneaking into places you weren’t supposed to or Hajime taking you outside when you were just frustrated at being forced to stay in bed all day. You’d play imaginary games where you were royalty being held hostage by an army of ghosts and Hajime was the hero trying to save you. He failed every time, but he kept trying!

· As you grew up though you took to finding things to do in your room like playing video games. You rarely if ever got to go to school so Hajime became your tutor of sorts, teaching you everything he had learned in school that day, even going as far as too recreating tests for you to take as well. It was also a form of studying so this helped him as well.

· Hajime, he was never particularly impassioned about anything, he liked stuff, but nothing ever just clicked with him and was something he loved. The closest thing he had to that was the idea of going to Hope’s Peak, but that wasn’t exactly a hobby or career path. He did wonder though… It’s said anyone who goes there is set for life. Maybe, if he went there, he could study to be a doctor. He tried studying and taking classes but everything just seemed to go over his head and he had failed every class, but maybe if he managed to get there and to study, maybe he could become a good doctor. Even if he couldn’t cure you, he could still find ways to make your life easier, make it so that you could go outside sometimes and just enjoy life. Even make it so that you could go out for a walk in the sunlight on your own was enough for him. He just wanted to make your life even a little better. He wanted you to be able to do things others could without a second thought. You would probably enjoy the simple, little things in life even he could not imagine. As guilty as he felt about it, and with your encouragement, he left for Hope’s Peak and promised to come back one day as a great doctor who could truly help you!

Nagito Komaeda:

· Nagito’s luck could truly be a double-edged sword. Usually it only directly affected him, but on rarer occasion it would rub off on others so to speak, usually in the form of collateral damage… but it seemed to be different for loved ones who were around him a lot. You had been a little sickly all your life, nothing extreme, you just had a weak immune system and got sick more easily than your peers or couldn’t last as long exercising.

· Then the double-edged sword stuck you, much to Nagito’s horror. It was one thing for him to be struck with it, he had gotten used to it, even though each slash and stab chipped away at his sanity, but you… you who had done literally nothing but love him and acted as the only stability in his whole damned life… You hadn’t been feeling as well as of late, and you just got worse, and worse, and worse till you finally keeled over and was sent to the emergency room. Nagito didn’t get to see you or learn anything of your condition for a week. The longest, most agonizing week of his life. When he finally got to see you he learned you were diagnosed with several chronic diseases and you’d be bed ridden for the rest of your life. But the news that broke Nagito, shattering his world, and sent him plummeting into the depths of despair, was learning that by improbable miracles and accidents you became rich, one of the richest people in the world in fact. That was when Nagito knew without a doubt, this was all his fault.

· He couldn’t stop laughing. That sword was plunged so deep into you, he couldn’t stop laughing, it hurt too much to do anything else! B-but it was going to be okay! Because HOPE exists! HOPE can trump any DESPAIR! The worse the DESPAIR the greater the HOPE! So everything was going to be okay! You were going to be okay! This was fine! Everything was fine! Even if you were only diagnosed to live for less than a year everything was okay! Because HOPE WOULD WIN OUT AND YOU’D SURVIVE, YOU’D BE OKAY! YOU’D GET BETTER AND LOSE ALL THE MONEY IN EXCHANGE SO IT DIDN’T MATTER! NOTHING WAS GOING TO CHANGE, YOU WEREN’T GOING TO CHANGE, YOU WEREN’T GOING TO BE RIPPED AWAY FROM HIM TOO! YOU WERE GOING TO BREAK UP WITH HIM AND LIVE YOU LIFE TILL OLD AGE BECAUSE YOU WERE GOING TO LIVE! YOU HAVE! DON’T GO, DON’T DIE PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME!

· …

· Nagito wasn’t ever quite the same after hearing the news.

146 notes · View notes

unsettlingconclusions · 3 years

Text

Piano Sonata n08

Pairing: Hana Lee x MC (Riley) Summary: Riley was no expert in classical music but she easily sensed the tempo was increasing erratically, notes were missing and some of them sounded just downright wrong. It was unlike Hana to play carelessly, disregarding rhythm and accuracy. It could only mean one thing, Hana was furious. Set during TRH3. Genre: Hurt/comfort. Angst? Rating: T Word Count: 1600+ Notes: In honor of the CG of Hana crying </3 This was sitting around my filled with spider’s webs AO3 profile. Written while listening to Mussorgsky's "A Night on Bald Mountain" if anyone is interested in feeling the pure rage. Fic title refers to Beethoven's Piano Sonata no 8, the 1st movement. The last piece mentioned is Hungarian Rhapsody no 02, by Liszt. Riley stands at the threshold of the music room. The heavy sounds of agitated music pierce the air, filling it with something... intense. Yes, intense would be an appropriate way to describe it. The stiffness in her stance, the way Hana's body moved, her tense expression... all of it screamed rage.

Although Riley was no expert in classical music, she easily sensed the tempo was increasing erratically, notes were missing and some of them sounded just downright wrong. It was unlike Hana to play carelessly, disregarding rhythm and accuracy. It could only mean one thing, Hana was furious.

She had to be. A few hours ago, Barthelemy had just walked out the door of their home carrying away their daughter and there was nothing they could do to stop it. It enraged Riley as well, made her blood boil with fury, her skin burn a thousand degrees. She wanted badly to just bolt and take her family with her, go wherever. But she knew this cluster would follow her anywhere. They needed to take Barthelemy down for good.

So she and Hana devised a plan alongside their friends to do so through Godfrey and everyone would leave for Auvernal in the morning. After that was settled, the heaviness of the day they just had started to take its toll and make way for exhaustion. Once Riley and Hana helped their friends settle in for the night, Hana excused herself claiming she was too agitated to go to sleep yet. She might not have said it with words but Riley was perceptive enough to notice Hana meant she needed a moment to herself.

That was something she could understand. Hana had an overall sweet and kind disposition, but that was not to say those were the only emotions she was familiar with. However, her upbringing did not allow her to properly know how to express anything else and she had a tendency to either shut down or deal with it all by herself, often involving quiet, solitary brooding, and an over rationalizing attitude.

Out of respect for her, Riley gave her space. And a few minutes soon turned hours, prompting Riley to go looking out after her wife; she was not about to let the woman she loved dive into misery land. She took a wild guess Hana would either be by the lake or the piano room, and soon enough the sound of a haunting melody pierced through her ears.

Usually, when Riley would find Hana playing, she'd inconspicuously move closer and quietly sit nearby, enjoying the feeling of being let in into something so intimately Hana's. But tonight she was not seeing beauty or contemplation, she wasn't feeling closer to Hana... She was seeing madness, and one that imposed high mountains surrounding her wife.

The hell they had to face ahead of them was brutal, vicious and cruel. This was no time for madness. Madness wouldn't solve the issue, if anything it would make them reckless, and that would mean playing the part Barthelemy expected them to play. No, there could be absolutely no madness!

"Hana", Riley calls out to her once, then twice, to no avail. "Hana!" She calls again, more forcefully this time, but her pleas were still met with no response. "Hana, snap out of it!" Riley nearly screams this time, smashing her own hands against the piano keys, her body trembling with indignation.

"WHAT?" Hana halts abruptly, shooting an angry glare at Riley. “What do you want, Riley? What could you possibly want that I could possibly do right now?” She goes back to playing a little less erratically this time, her eyes focusing on the piano keys, and Riley could feel her still reeling of anger. “I couldn’t protect our daughter, what’s left for me to do?”

“We get her back, Hana. I need you to work with me on this. Fight with me.” Riley replies, awkwardly leaning over the piano trying to block Hana away from the keys.

It’s Hana’s turn to smash her hands against the piano keys now, pushing the bench forcefully back while abruptly getting up. “I’m enraged, Riley, I want his head served to me with his blood. I want to tear it off myself!” She paces back and forth across the length of the piano room, every inch of her body trembling, her hands picking nervously at the sides of her head. “I want to feast on his flesh and throw him to lions!”

Riley steps up, blocking Hana’s path as she grabs both Hana’s wrists with her own hands, trying to calm her wife down at the same time as trying to tame her own anger. “What do you think I want?” She barks, narrowing her eyes and forcing Hana to look at her. “Do you think I’m not pissed off myself? I’m furious, Hana.”

Hana struggles to get out of Riley’s grasp, but Riley wouldn’t budge. “Let go of me, Riley.” Hana says as she continues struggling. “Please.”

“No.”

“Just let me go!”

“No! I won’t leave you, Hana.”

The anger in Hana’s eyes starts to slowly subside as it gives way to frustration and exasperation. After a few more failed attempts at releasing herself, Hana’s whole demeanor changes and what Riley sees instead is even worse. It’s... despondency. Riley lets go of Hana’s wrists and engulfs her in a crushing hug.

“I love you, Hana. We will get her back, ok? I promise you, I promise you we’ll get her back.” Riley says over and over again, instilling hope or whatever she could in her wife. Hana responds by holding onto Riley for dear life, her body shaking as she starts sobbing. The force with which Hana’s fingers is digging into her skin is verging on painful, but Riley endures it. It can’t be more painful than the ache Hana was feeling inside, then what she herself was feeling inside.

“I can’t imagine not raising her, not seeing her every day, not being there for all her milestones, to sooth her when she cries.” Hana rubs one of her hands in her eyes, fighting back her tears and not entirely releasing her hold on her wife. “What are we gonna do without her, Riley? How are we supposed to do this?”

“It’s not going to happen, Hana. We will get her back.”

“She must be so afraid, Riley, so scared. Just thinking about it is driving me insane.”

Riley couldn’t go there. The thought was unbearable. It was bad enough that someone took away their child, but adding in that he was a traitor and a murderer was too much to handle. She couldn’t allow herself to despair thinking of how scared Aurora was. No, she had to fight, and she needed Hana to fight as well. She grabs both Hana’s arms and search for her wife’s eyes. “Hey, look at me.” Hana doesn’t move. “Baby, look at me. Look at me, Hana,” Riley insists.

Hana raises her chin so as to stare into Riley’s eyes, her own moist with all the crying. Riley moves her hands to both Hana’s cheeks, brushing her thumbs just below Hana’s eyes, wiping away the tears and the pain. She holds Hana’s head in place, trying to convey everything she felt with her gaze.

“Do you remember Olivia’s training?” Hana nods affirmatively. “We use our anger in our favor. We let our love for her drive us.” Riley brushes a stray of hair out of Hana’s face and brings their foreheads together. “We are forged in fire! The higher the flames, the greater our strength. We’ll come out of it stronger. We will make Barthelemy regret the day he decided to mess with our family and we will make him pay! For Aurora and for Queen Eleanor, we will bring him to justice!” Riley said, pouring her heart out with every single word that comes out of her mouth.

Several minutes pass in which they stand in silence, taking comfort in each other’s embrace and drinking in each other’s presence. Eventually Hana sighs deeply, shaking her head as if coming out of a haze. “I’m sorry I got a little lost there. It just felt so overwhelming for a moment.”

“It’s ok, love. You’re allowed to be upset. Just let me in and I promise I’ll always be here for you if you need me dragging you back.” Riley said calmly, keeping to herself the relief she felt in seeing a resemblance of the Hana she knew. She can’t say she ever saw Hana so angry before.

“I love you and I love our daughter. I’m ready to fight for our family with you.” Hana tries a shy smile that ends up looking more a grimace than anything else, but at least the sentiment was there.

“There she is, there’s the woman I married.”

Riley reaches out for Hana again, planting a kiss on Hana’s forehead. She then rests her chin on top of Hana’s head while encircling her on a loose hug.

“You know, when all of this is over, I will have someone make me a life-sized piñata with Barthelemy’s face and we’ll have so much fun trashing it to pieces.” Riley offers, her voice the most relaxed it has been for the past minutes. “I’ll make an event out of it, a holiday even! The trashing scumbags festival. What do you think?”

Hana manages a real if weak smile this time. “It has a nice ring to it, although we can work on that name.”

“I’m thinking hiring an orchestra, go on full pomp and circumstance mode. And I know just the piece the orchestra could play, you know that one from the cat concert on Tom and Jerry.”

Hana makes a face, completely lost as to what Riley was talking about.

“You know, the one tada tadadada dada dada...” Riley goes on making weird noises, mimicking the melody of Hungarian Rhapsody n 2 by Liszt. She knows how Hana enjoys when she goes classical.

And true to form, Hana’s smile goes a bit truer now. “I can agree to that.”

“That would make it very solemn, it’ll be the event of the year.” Riley finishes the thought, grinning slightly.

“Thank you, darling. For making me feel better."

Riley places a quick but meaningful kiss on Hana's lips and grabs her hand, leading them towards the door.

“Come on, let’s get some sleep. We’re gonna need our strength tomorrow.”

#the royal romance #hana lee x mc #mc x hana lee #hana lee #I'm back to my angst self I guess #hooray #hana x mc

50 notes · View notes

jean-does-not-have-a-horseface · 4 years

Text

Last kiss

This is uhm, I took three days to even brainstorm this as a whole and it was supposed to involve a lot of other things but I decided to leave it here and see if you guys wanted to see more of this

Summary: Zeke confesses to you and all youre forced to have to bid your lover goodbye in hopes of sacrificing yourself for greater good.

Pairing: Levi/Reader, Zeke Yeager/Reader

Maybe you should have died back then, while reclaiming Shiganshina, with all of your other comrades before Zeke ever had a chance to lay his eyes on you. Maybe you should have been shot by Kenny or get eaten by a Titan on a casual expedition, anything would've been more preferable than having to listen to Zeke confessing to you.

"You understand this is something you can't tell to your subordinates right?"

This was pure, painful, agonizing torture. Sitting there with your back turned to him, hidden in the darkness of an alley. You didn't know how to respond and frankly you didn't even want to. It felt like daggers piercing through your thin sensitive skin, through your camel colored leather jacket.

"I don't know what you expect from me Zeke." You speak, just above your breath, back still turned to him and your eyes shut closed as you refused to spare a look on his form or even on his shadow.

In all honesty you don't feel like he expects something from you moretheless. Perhaps he enjoys having you cornered like a rat right then and there and perhaps this is his way of trying to get to Levi's head, to strip him of anything he has left and make him a weak opponent.

Then again if he wanted to get in his head he wouldn't be here, talking to you for all that matters. He's be attacking him.

"Come on! Why do you even associate yourself with that midget of man. I could-"

"Stop!"

"I could take you see the world and maybe-"

"Stop, really" You halt his speech once again, silently, as if you're trying not to wake him up from that idiotic dream world of his in which he thinks you can ever even have a shared future. This time you turn to look at him, wide eyes painted with agony, with hot flowing streaks of tears with watered eyes and clear stained cheeks. "You really think I can forgive a man who massacred my friends? You think you have any right to intervene between me and Levi?"

As he begs you to reconsider your beliefs, to have a chance of heart, you avert your gaze to the stone ground of the alleyway. You can't bear to spend your gaze on him not even if it's driven by rage. Not anymore. Yet you decide not to speak of your personal hatred towards him. You only mutter him a tiny 'I'll think about it' as you begin to stomp away.

It's not like Hange would ever advice you to engage so close with an enemy who slaughtered your comrades to no end that eventful day.

You're surprised when you find out she thinks otherwise to the point you regret ever speaking of it. Withholding important information on the enemy is treason, an act you are not about to commit for you've fought very hard for the people inside the walls to be alive an free. So why is Hange depriving you from living that way.

Steel grey eyes blink into yours with mutted rage as you speak of Zeke's words concerning their mighty owner. Not only was that blond bearded piece of shit the cause of all his comrades death he now had the audacity to claim you his most prized possession. Levi just despises the way Zeke thinks that everything belongs to him, how he's taken everything from him and now is launching on for more.

Levi, although he never speaks of it outloud, can see the look of horror and disgust plastered on your face as Hange encourages you to take a positive action against Zeke's proposal. And even the sound of it manages to pain him in ways he had never thought were possible.

"What if he kills her, Hange. What if this is all a plan and that's why he didn't want her telling us about it."

Hange answers in inaudible muffles, unsure of what to say or believe. He watches as you try to object, to shriek your way out of this horrible mess you're about to be put in and all because you love him. And Hange knows even if she refuses to bring it up at the moment, as if it means nothing to anyone.

"Dedicate your fucking heart, this is your oath!" His breath is cut short as he utters the words, looking directly in your eyes, flooding your insides with guilt and horror for what's to come next.

"No" it's a simple, rebellious reply, that you've only just decided to adopt when addressing him "I'm not doing anything if it means I'm going to lose you."

Levi bites his lower lip and squints his eyes shut; how can he ever even fathom having to endure seeing you in Zeke's arms and why should this be done for the sake of humanity. You weren't an object to be used against Zeke, he could scream of it at the top of his lungs if the circumstance even so slightly needed it.

"All I'm saying is, approach him."

"He won't believe me."

Hange explains that this weakness he's shown may be the end of him for all you've known, but Levi and you refuse to listen as you fix your pained eyes on each other with despair. It occurs to you that this may be the last time, hopefully in a while, that you ever get to encounter him like this and the thought proceeds to munch on your brain like maggots on a rotting corpse. You're lost in the moment, in his eyes, in Hange's earth shattering statements.

Nothing's fair in war and love you know yet it's difficult to even bat an eye in positive response to this plan as your heart is pressuring to know why you have to be the one to take a stand in taking out the enemy from within. But there's no such answer to your question. Humane emotions are unpredictable, unstable and unusual and in any other circumstance, it wouldn't be bad for Zeke to have fallen for anyone. Given your context though, not only was it bad, it was suffocating. You refused to have anything taken from Levi every again, yet here you are, stepping into the corpses of those words as his despairate eyes are pleading with you in silence.

_____

The plan is simple.

"Zeke?" Tears run down your eyes as your soft voice grazes his eardrums in the lowest of pained tones. He takes a look at your form, particularly in that muddy nightgown that adorns it and then your shoveled hair and that deadbeat expression in your watered orbs.

You reach out to him in the middle of the night, crying, wheezing, supposedly after a fight with Levi, anything to get his sympathy. Seeing his biased behavior over you this will be easy as blinking your eyes.

"P-please take me to see the world!" You utter and watch as Zeke's eyes widen with hard hidden happiness. He can only imagine what has went wrong that has made you decide to come to him but he never asks, nor does he ever ask about Levi, a fact that assures you his motives aren't what you had suspected.

And it tears your heart in a million little pieces in a way no titan ever could; the way he lifts a hand up to caress your cheek, they way his eyes glimmer with love, his ever so respectful movements towards you as if not to force you into anything. Those thoughts, those brain eating maggots are rapidly moving to your chest, to your stomach, everywhere in your body in hopes to leave you hollow, to assist you in that situation.

You don't have to give in to anything he wants. You can work your way around him and establish what you want but be prepared for anything. This is our only chance to be exposed to such a tremendous weakness. Our future is in your hands just as much as it's on our army. Don't let us down.

As that giant, disgusting, furry hand lifts you up from your feet your mind travels to your lover's chaste last kiss on your dry lips. The pleasurable happiness kisses like this would give you has now scattered away in greater sacrifice of this very moment. In the blink of an eye your life can be taken away from your mortal, expansible hands, fading into complete frightening darkness but what happens when all you're left with is a hollowed body who gets to experience pain and misery and no other option than to have to endure. Your heart is burning the insides of your chest, crawling up your skin with sharp claws that rip through flesh, but nothing ever happens. It never bursts, it never slows down it's beating either. You're only trapped, once again like a death sentenced rat, between Zeke's hand and your horrifying emotions.

It'll be over in no time, I promise you it's for the greater good.

Hey! I hope you enjoyed this 💕 if you want to see more leave a request in my askbox. Thank you for reading I love you all💞

#aot #snk #levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #snk x reader #aot x reader #levi #shingeki no kyojin #levi ackerman #attack on titan #zeke yeager x reader #zeke yeager #zeke aot #levi attack on titan #levi ackerman imagine #levi aot #angst

262 notes · View notes

jamiemackenziefraser · 3 years

Text

All That Was Fair

Chapter 16: Say Could That Lass Be I?

Summary: “Here lies the heart of James Fraser. He learned how to feel, to love, only to lose her before they even had a chance.”

Read on AO3

Read chapter 16 on tumblr below the cut

Previous, master list, next

A/n: The final chapter of arc I. Buckle up, my loves 🖤

Chapter 16: Say Could That Lass Be I?

***

Heartbreak. Jamie had always thought that expression figurative— that people simply referred to the loss of love and the emotional suffering that goes with it. But as he led Claire toward the distant hill with her wee hand clutched in his, ready to send the love of his life away, the pain in his chest was as real and physical as if his heart had truly been cleaved in two. His chest clenched in agony, and the only thing keeping him moving forward was sheer, monumental will.

Claire was oblivious. That morning, he had wrapped her up in a tartan blanket to keep her warm and simply herded her out to the car without more than a few words. She’d asked him where they were going, and he’d nearly broken down crying that moment. All he’d managed was a hoarse, “for a walk,” while his windpipe felt like it was being crushed.

As he helped her out of the car, she took his hand— hers so wee and fitting perfectly into his— and smiled brightly up at him.

God, he wanted to kiss her.

His selfish, breaking heart wanted so badly to have that one memory to treasure for the rest of his life without Claire. He longed to draw her to him, press his mouth to hers, feel her soft lips on him, and then he would never ask for another thing from God. He spent nearly half the walk trying to talk himself out of it.

He couldn’t do that to her. She was going home, never to see him again, and it wouldn't be fair.

He turned back to her then, and she gave him the brightest smile that illuminated the dark chasm growing inside him. She was his sun, and looking at her— simply enjoying being with him and unaware of their parting in a few minutes— he felt dizzy. Being in the presence of such light only made the agony of losing her that much greater.

The lump in his throat was so thick and stifling that he could barely breathe. It was all he could do to hold himself together and keep going.

But he had to be strong, for her sake. He had to let her know it was okay to go.

“Jamie, now will you—”

She had begun to ask him for the tenth time what was going on when she suddenly stopped dead. He glanced back at her to see her eyes wide and fixed on the distance, all the blood drained from her face.

Claire had caught sight of the hill.

The heartbroken expression and the shake of her head as she looked at Jamie ruined him.

“Listen, mo nighean donn, I—”

“Why are we here?” she asked in a dangerously low, even voice.

He was regretting his plan instantly. Her expression wasn’t quite that of the devastation of betrayal, but it was something like broken trust, because she looked at him with a tiny glimmer of pleading in her eyes— begging him to tell her it wasn’t true. That look was eating him alive.

“Sassenach, listen to me...” he started again, desperate.

He tried to tug her onward in the direction of the hill, but she stayed planted firm.

“I’ve found a way to bring ye home safely,” he finally blurted out.

The reason he was able to drag her forward in that moment wasn’t because she was more willing than she had been a moment ago. Sheer surprise made her go unresistant and allowed Jamie to pull her back into motion. It seemed her feet were moving on their own accord, operating on instinct in response to him.

“What?” she choked out.

“Aye.”

With a terrible rending in his chest, he explained everything to her. Geillis’ book. Travel between realms. The gemstones offering protection.

She was silent the entire time, eyes wide as if that would allow her to see something intangible, trying desperately to wrap her head around everything he’d just laid on her. He didn’t even give her time to react; the words simply spewed from him in a heartbroken rush as he managed to drag her up the hill.

They stood then in the shadows of the towering stones. To Jamie, the stones felt like grave markers— looming ominous and solemn.

Here lies the heart of James Fraser. He learned how to feel, to love, only to lose her before they even had a chance.

Claire’s face was white as a sheet. For once, her expression was unreadable to him. Perhaps it was because she was hiding it, or perhaps Jamie was simply blinded by the force of his own emotions and the all-encompassing longing for her to stay, but he couldn't tell what was going on in her brain. His only thought was that he knew she was terrified of the stones, and that only hurt him further.

“Here is my father’s ring. It’ll ensure ye safe passage,” he found himself saying.

He grabbed her hand and shoved the ring on her finger without ceremony. She studied it for a long moment, looking blank, and then turned her face back up to Jamie. It looked like she was about to speak, but he wasn’t sure he could bear to hear what she had to say.

“There’s nothing for you on this side,” Jamie choked out, “nothing. Save a world ye dinna ken and people who arena yer own. Ye deserve tae go home.”

He wasn’t sure if he was trying to help convince her or himself.

While he was speaking, he had dropped her hand and was slowly moving backward. He had to harden himself if he’d ever be able to leave her. He had to turn off his feelings and let his breaking heart turn to ash before he did something selfish like fall to his knees and beg her to stay.

The rushing in his ears was deafening.

“There’s no use waiting,” he said in a low voice, “I hafta leave ye now.”

He put more distance between them— Claire standing frozen in the spot where he’d put her as he stepped backward, her perfect lips parted just slightly. Every inch between them felt like another nail in his coffin, only a thousand times more agonizing because his heart was still beating.

The voice that came from his closed throat was unrecognizable even to himself as he mustered a raspy, “goodbye, Sorcha.”

He wanted to add a “I’ll never forget ye so long as I live,” or something— anything— that could possibly convey even a fraction of how much she meant to him, but his throat had closed so much that he couldn’t force it out.

Claire just stood there, looking up at him with glassy eyes. Silent and swaying slightly.

Before the tears could rush from his eyes, or worse, before she could say some goodbye that broke his resolve, he turned sharply and threw himself down the hill. If she called goodbye after him, it didn’t reach his ears. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t look back. He didn’t think he could go on, but his feet propelled him forward, away from the love of his life.

She’s going home— he told himself as the first tears began to fall— back to her people. She’ll be happy.

But he was suffocating on the lump in his throat and the world was feeling so terribly unfair; He couldn’t seem to get himself to believe his own arguments, caught up as he was in his grief.

His whole body was shaking, to the point where his fingers went numb. He didn’t know grief could do that. He wished it could numb his heart and his mind. But his traitorous brain was slogging on, and it took everything inside him to repeat the mantra of “she’s going home.” She probably was home at this very moment, back with her people.

Toward the bottom of the hill, his steps slowed from their frantic pace to a resigned shamble, heavy with the weight of what he’d done.

Now that she was gone, there was no need to rush into a life of emptiness. He might as well take his time.

When he reached the spot where the ground was flattening out, his feet stopped altogether. His legs felt like jell-o, and he wanted to fall to his knees and weep. He probably would have collapsed too, if not for the brittle feeling in his body that made him go stock still. Everything seemed almost distant as the tears gathering in his eyes overflowed to trickle down his cheeks.

How could he possibly face a life without her?

He found himself frozen under the weight of that terrible desolation. Jamie wasn’t sure he was strong enough to face it.

Heartbreak. He knew now with visceral clarity how accurate that was.

Then, in an instant— a second so fast Jamie was certain his mind had conjured it— something pulled him back from the yawning chasm of despair opening at his feet.

A sound from behind him that made every muscle in his body freeze.

A shout of his name.

It couldn’t be.

He turned slowly, disbelievingly, and saw an image that would be burned into his mind forever. A figure— a familiar figure that couldn’t possibly be anyone but his beloved— was barrelling down the hill. Claire’s hair was billowing around her ethereally, giving her the most perfect aspect. The sun behind her illuminated her silhouette, as if nature itself was caressing her unreal perfection. As she ran, the tartan blanket around her shoulders came loose, and the moment was picturesque as it swirled up into the air behind her, forgotten. She simply ran faster, racing down the hill toward him. Rooted to the spot, a tear still tracking down his face, Jamie could only watch her in astonished disbelief.

Suddenly, she was mere feet from him.

“James Fraser, you fool.”

And then she was flying into his arms. He barely had time to embrace her back before her mouth smashed against his and they were kissing.

The world stopped. Truly, the planet must have frozen on its axis, and every person on it must have been halted in their tracks. Because she was kissing him— and he, her— with a fervor he’d never before experienced.

As she kissed all the words from his mouth, the breath from his lungs, and the grief from his heart, a joy previously unimaginable rushed from his center to the very tips of his fingers.

The kiss was everything he’d imagined and more. Her lips were so soft, so perfect, molded to fit his. Like coming home, there was an incredible feeling of rightness. It was a mix of scorching and tender, somehow perfectly his Sorcha.

His lungs constricted until he thought air would be obsolete in the reality of her. The electricity crackled, consuming them both in a cloud, leaving him dazed and stunned but somehow so amazingly alive. His nerve endings felt like they were on fire. He was aware of every part of his body, and every part of hers against his, but nothing so acutely as his lips caressing hers.

Now that he was kissing her, he found he couldn’t stop. It must have been minutes, hours. He held her body flush to his, and he was shaking so hard with the strength of his emotions that his hand trembled where it cupped the back of her head. For her part, she had both arms wrapped around his neck and was holding as tightly as she could as he devoured her mouth. He was delirious with joy.

Finally, when his lungs would surely burst, he parted from her lips just enough to gasp in air.

“You said there was nothing on this side for me,” Claire panted breathlessly, lips barely brushing his as she spoke, “but there’s you. There’s you, you bloody fool. I love you.”

The world was dropping out from under Jamie’s feet but at the same time he was more anchored than he ever had been— he was falling, but Claire was catching him. Giving him everything he’d ever dreamed of but had been too scared to risk. Here it all was at his feet— in his arms. How his life had changed in the matter of seconds.

“I love you, mo nighean donn,” he told her, just as out of breath, “I’ve loved you all this time.” The words felt like a rush exploding from him, the truth of his heart suddenly bared for all to see.

He brushed her wild hair behind her ear as a joyful tear escaped his eye. His fingers caressed her face for the first time without shame. Her lips were slightly puffy with the force of their feverish kisses, and her pupils were blown wide as she gazed at him with adoration. Indulging the desires he’d stamped down for days, he cradled her face with both hands and stroked his thumbs along her jaw as he spoke.

“So ye’re stayin’ then?” he asked, a little shyly, barely able to contain the hope bursting from his chest. He could scarcely believe this wasn’t a dream, and he would have questioned his sanity if not for her very real body in his arms.

“I’m staying,” she breathed reverently.

And then they were kissing again. He held her tightly, clutching her wee body with greedy joy, and kissed her with utter abandon.

Lips desperate for connection and mouths fused, two hearts reached for each other to become whole.

***

a/n: Ahhh there it is! Arc I... mutual pining no more!!

Okay, I've been waiting to say this for like forever, but Jamie Fraser is often an unreliable narrator and a sweet, sweet dumbo!! He doesn't communicate with her well and often just assumes what is going on inside her head. Angst could have been avoided with some communication bbs!! So if you've been wanting to yell at Jamie at least a little during the course of the story, Claire's "James Fraser, you fool" is for you!! I have a lot more I would like to say about arc I, but in the interest of not making this note longer than it already is, I'm posting an arc I commentary on my tumblr. I'd love if you'd check it out!

The story is far from over!! Arc II is coming along! I have like 12k written on it already, woohoo! Updates may be more like every Saturday ish but I’ll probably throw in a few weekdays to spice things up.

#!!!#I’m actually really nervous (and excited) about this one #I’ve been dying to post it #but also like scared because I hope you guys like it #oh and commentary will be posted later today!#all that was fair #outlander fanfiction #update #claire x jamie #claire/jamie #outlander fanfic

69 notes · View notes

darkpoisonouslove · 3 years

Text

Prey on the Heart

Summary: Valtor is on the hunt when his hound makes an unexpected discovery - Griffin is on the premises and defenseless against his rage over her betrayal. Valtor has to decide what catch he’s after - her head or their love. AU.

CW: Blood, dog bites, injury neglect, non-graphic violence and sex

This has been an outlined idea for almost 11 months. It was supposed to be an entry for Whumptober last year but I managed to turn it back into romance instead of torture somehow. I never got around to writing it unti today the universe conspired to bring it into existence and I am so happy to have finally finished it!

Love Again by Dua Lipa is giving me feels for this AU so give it a listen if you want.

The tufts of yellowed grass barely rustled under his feet as he followed the hound south. A little further and they'd leave the borders of the Coven's estate for the uninhabitable wasteland his mothers hadn't bothered to purchase even at the low cost of Obsidian land.

The rainless summer had left the otherwise infertile ground dry and cracked, no prints marring it's hardened surface. The hound was relying purely on her animal instincts and despite the boost from his magic, his senses couldn't catch up. He was barely keeping up with Violet herself glancing around for a trace on the foliage of what she'd sniffed.

He caught a strangled scream without the need to strain his ears. It was loud and clear despite the attempt to muffle it. He'd thought it was an animal the hound had shot after but that scream... It was a human voice. A familiar voice.

He followed the sound, steps hurried and heavy on the ground to chase away any game in the vicinity but he'd have his prize regardless. Unless he was dreaming or under one of mother Lysslis' illusion spells.

He called the dog back to lead him to where she'd left her victim. He'd seen Violet do her thing under Lysslis' training. Whenever she got her teeth into something, it wasn't getting away before she let go. And it wasn't getting away after that either.

Violet's teeth had a wet red tint to them, muzzle damp with blood and saliva as her nostrils expanded voraciously with every breath from the heavy copper smell. She circled him frantically and dashed forward only to run back to him in an attempt to prompt him to catch up with her speed. At least she was happy with her find.

An unusual circle of trees formed a perfectly lined up clearing in the forest. Stepping inside it left him face to face with a lone tree in the middle that was keeled over and charred. It must have been stricken by a lightning but its sturdy, forked roots had grounded it deep in the soil to make it the only thing standing in the clearing.

Leaning on the other side of it, partially concealed by its thick trunk, was none other than Griffin. Her hands trembled as she tightened the knot on the bandage she'd wrapped around her bleeding calf. She hissed when the dirty rag she'd torn from the hemline of her tattered and muddied dress constricted the tender wound Violet had left in her wake. And to think Griffin had been the one who'd gifted him the hound when she'd still been a pup that had fit in the palm of his hand. Valtor had even named her after Griffin, the striking shade of her hair coloring everything from his sketches to the very dreams his subconscious concocted. If she hadn't left so soon after presenting him with the puppy, Violet may have remembered her scent. Not that that would have given her a chance against Lysslis' conditioning of all hunting dogs, including Valtor's personal hound.

Griffin's eyes pinned the hound where it was pacing from one side to another behind Valtor's legs with her tail wagging and her labored breaths filling the silence of his own lungs. The sight of him had Griffin's whole body tensing as her hands hit the tree bark behind her back and she scrambled to her feet.

Her movements were lagging from the pain and panic dripping from her hunched form. Her hair fell down her back matted with red where she'd brushed it back with bloodied hands. Large chunks of unrefined obsidian crystals were strapped to her wrists with clumsy threads of silver into bracelets that ran up her arms under her sleeves.

She'd made those herself–in a hurry–her magic pulling the crystals and metal straight from the core of the planet. They would have impeded any other witch considering his own mothers' magic was notably subdued by the large deposits of obsidian under the planet's surface but not her. Crystals were one of her areas of expertise–and the reason why she'd walked into his life–yet even her knowledge had failed her along with her luck. She'd made it to the very edge of the territory controlled and owned by the Coven under the protection of the black crystals she'd adorned herself with to ward off dark magic but still not far enough.

It had been fear cutting off her magic to prevent her from fashioning herself a bandage the way she'd crafted her protection charms. Her golden eyes were wide like pits of inextinguishable fire and her chest wasn't moving to push the ample cleavage her dress left exposed into the forefront of his mind. She'd had an easier time drawing breath with the weight of his head nestled over her ribcage, over her heart beating steadily with the promise of her presence.

Valtor's step forward echoed like a gunshot in her body. Her back pressed into the tree, muscles pulled taut with compressed energy readying her to pounce.

"Run." His first word to her. He could have lost a bet that it would be a vile curse in a lost language only she could understand. "I dare you." She'd turned her back and left unprompted. If she still abode by that logic, then she'd have to stay.

Griffin swallowed. "You're going to hunt me down like an animal?" Her teeth gritted as she strained against her eyes slipping from his form.

His fingers clenched to white around the cold metal of his shotgun. Her jaw would have been dust in his grip where he wanted it to tip her head back and pin her gaze with his. She'd forced him to endure far greater pain being the one left behind. She hadn't earned the right to writhe and scream in agony.

"Violet here is an animal," he extended his hand and the hound pressed her head into his open palm. She always obeyed his calls, never running off where she wouldn't hear him and come back. "She is loyal and dependable which is more than I can say about you." He may have named the dog after Griffin but he'd raised Violet to never follow in her footsteps.

"So I am less than an animal to you, too?" Her gaze darted to the dog and back – to the piece of herself she hadn't stolen from him.

Valtor frowned, hand stilling between Violet's ears to make her rub it in his fingers insistently. He ignored her.

"What do you mean to me too?" Once again Griffin took precedence. Over his hunt, over his dog, over his own heart. Only his stomach sank from the prediction of what he'd hear from her mouth.

"You think I came here on a picnic with only the dress on my back?" Griffin stood steady on her feet, her tenacious nature breathing life into a smirk he had to bite back.

He hadn't given thought to the circumstances of their meeting. Her aching form in front of his eyes was everything. One blink and she'd melt away, swept up into another one of the portals the locations of which she was best at estimating. Indeed her presence on top of her disheveled state posed multiple questions he hadn't paid mind to. He was making it too easy for her to deceive him again.

"Your mothers chased me down and electrocuted me to the point of nearly frying my organs," her arms crossed over her belly to raise alarms in his head. If anything gave him the strength to best mother Tharma, it would be the rage over touching what was his. Griffin was a central part of that even if revenge was all that was left between them. That and the truth she spoke. "They kept me locked up for weeks in a tiny shoe box where I couldn't even stand up straight and only let me out last night. Right as darkness fell for me to read on the star-filled sky that it was the first day of hunting season."

There was disdain in her voice instead of the fear everyone else held for the way his mothers took beauty and strength and twisted it into despair. They had taken her love of astronomy and turned it into the herald of her death sentence. Just like they'd repopulated the area around their estate with hunting game only to have their fill of murdering unsuspecting animals.

Griffin's eyes burned so fiercely he half expected the tree behind her to catch fire. "They let me out to be your prey." And she'd dashed for the quickest route out of there. She hadn't come back for him.

"You betrayed me."

Violet sat down on her hind legs, body taut like a string and tail beating harshly into the dust. She would leap at the smallest shift in him.

Griffin was like a rock in front of him. His fire wouldn't touch her and his bullets would bounce back at him. "They are enslaving people and I didn't know I was helping them."

He hadn't told her. All he could have given her had been the illusion of a choice. She never would've picked him if he'd let his mothers force her to lay the world at their feet. It had been the only chance the two of them had had to be together.

"I had to put an end to it."

"You betrayed me!" Valtor raised the shotgun, his hands shaking too violently to aim it more precisely than just in Griffin's general direction as he stalked closer. Violet was growling on his left to keep his flank safe. "I gave you my everything. You were all I had and you left!"

All the riches flowing into Obsidian under his mothers' direction and Griffin's accurate calculations of opening portals to other planets were resources for the Coven's needs, not for his personal use. He wasn't even allowed in certain rooms of the mansion. The magic in his very veins had been embedded there by his mothers' efforts and lessons. Griffin had been the one building a little home with him in the room they'd come to share, she'd been the one putting a heartbeat in his palms only to leave him clutching empty sheets with a cold blade sticking out of his chest.

"Bursting your heart into atoms is exactly what you deserve." He stalked closer, the cool barrel of his shotgun and Violet's razor-sharp teeth were his only defense. The obsidian on Griffin's wrists weakened his magic and the shine of her eyes had obliterated his resolve to chase her down even from his memories.

Griffin's eyes hardened, hands balling into fists. "If you're going to shoot me, do it!" she grabbed the shotgun and pressed it into her bare skin.

The force threw him off balance and he stumbled forward, pushing the stiff metal into her sternum while her breath invaded his mouth with their faces inches apart. "Do not. Tempt me," he growled, his fingers twitching from her audacity to wrap around her throat and force more breath from her.

"Do it!" Griffin was still gripping the shotgun close to her heaving chest unafraid of the fire that could burst from the contact. "I knew this–seeing you again–would be the end of me. But if taking the shot is what will take your pain away, then I'm ready to go. As long as it will let you live." Her eyes lost focus and her head lulled, a small smile tugging at her lips and his heartstrings as her gaze dropped to Violet.

The dog was pacing behind him to no reason or direction. Her nose was lowered into the dirt in defeat.

Valtor forced Griffin's head back with the barrel of his shotgun until their eyes were locked together. "Do you think I'm that dumb? That I'll believe you after all your lies?" He had to watch out for the hands. One wrong move and they'd be in his chest again. Or his would be in her hair under the clink of his forgotten shotgun to draw a moan out of her that would melt him in a puddle at her feet.

"It doesn't matter what you believe, what either one of us believes." Vulnerability was sealed in her eyes like they were amber preserving history. Bullets wouldn't work on them. Shattering them would only spill the truth of his own wrongdoings. "It will not change the fact that I love you." A gasp came – from him or from her. "You can cut me open and reach inside me to feel it if you need to. It will still be there once my heart has stopped. Not even the planet can absorb it."

His hands shook as the shotgun trailed back between her breasts. The dry ground would soak up her blood instead of water and the forest would claim her body but the energy pouring from her wouldn't disappear in the well in the planet's core. Obsidian absorbed negativity from all over the universe to cleanse it and Griffin had thought it fair to trade protection for resources borrowed from other planets when it had little to no of its own. But she was offering her life to him for nothing in return. She was offering the purity of her love and that wasn't something the planet could protect from or swallow.

Valtor licked his lips. His mouth watered in her proximity for her to plant her deception into it. Yet his tongue hardly moved with his words in the breeze her breath was on his taste buds. "You're playing mind games. This is nothing more than manipulation." She could be an inch from his face and hop into a portal to the other end of the universe in the blink of an eye. And he hadn't been able to follow despite the pull in his heart.

"Nothing's stopping you from pulling the trigger. Or taking your hunting knife and carving out my heart." The blade weighed on his chest from its secret pocket as her voice reverberated through him. "Go ahead! Eat it like I always knew you would. And once its in your system, so will be my love." Her hand slid down the barrel of the shotgun, her fingers bathing his in their heat. "It will be a part of you, flowing through your veins and making you mine forever. Death by your hand does not scare me. I'll never die inside you."

The metal burned in his hand. Or that was the love for her that had never gone out. Not even at the look of the vast blackness of the sky where she could have disappeared forever. "You know I won't-"

"I know you want to." Griffin's hand slipped on top of his, colder than the blade of his knife over his heart. "But you won't. You pull that trigger and you lose me forever. You're not going to cause yourself that pain. Not even after I ran away." Her skin was like stone grinding against his to chip away his resistance. She knew him to his selfish core. Having her love forever inside him where he wouldn't be able to touch it wouldn't be enough even if she wouldn't be able to leave again.

"How could you bring my heart back after you fled with it?" It was right there clasped between her teeth. A kiss would free it and tugging at it with all his might would rip it to shreds. It was a miracle Griffin hadn't chewed it to bits when Violet's teeth had sunk into her flesh.

"Because we belong to each other. With each other." Her heart trembled in her pulse point for him to see. "No portal between worlds can change that. Not the one that took me away and not the one that brought me back."

How could he kill her when simply hating her would pull her out of his arms? Taking a step back would make him crumble under his self-loathing. He couldn't be the one to take her away from himself. Not when she was right there like a vision. One only she could make come true.

"Would you have ever come back if my mothers hadn't dragged you here?"

"Does it matter?" her voice was like a gunshot in his ears, like the weapon in his hand had gone off pressed into his own chest rather than hers.

The metal clanked as it hit the ground where he threw it and a shot echoed through the forest on accident that had Violet barking frantically. It could have been Griffin's magic wringing the bullet from his shotgun to drop him dead – he didn't care. His fingers had the freedom to tangle in her purple tresses again and a moan greeted him on her lips when he pulled her to his mouth.

No. It didn't matter. It didn't matter what could have happened when she was in his arms, chest pressing into his with her ragged breaths. She returned his kisses, teeth sliding over his lips to mark her territory like her life depended on it although she could pick up his shotgun and leave a hole in his chest. All she had to do to get away with murder was part with several hairs and blink back the tears from having them torn away in his death grip. Yet, all she was grasping at were the lapels of his coat to hold him in the reach of her kisses. She was still giving him everything she had with the threat to her life gone. It was all the proof he could want.

Her legs wrapped around his waist as he hoisted her against the tree. The bandage on her calf was wet with blood under his fingers but she was pulling him closer like she'd lost her mind to love and couldn't understand it was impossible to push herself into him more. Her magic would be no use for healing in her state and his would be no use at all.

Her skin was still soft despite the odd chilliness that had fallen over it and broke under his teeth on her collar bone to let him have her blood. Her wet flesh welcomed him as he entered her once he'd pulled all the fabric of her dress and underwear out of his way. His fingers dipped under her neckline to find her breast but brushed over dried mud instead. The rough surface of confusion threw him back into a questioning stare aimed at her.

"My chest was pierced by the Obsidian belladonna your mothers pushed me on." Obsidian threads from the land ran through the plant to claim each part of it and give it a crown of crystal-edged petals. The black crust was like a blade that cut through the flesh to release the poison of the belladonna directly into the bloodstream. Only Griffin's magic had saved her life from the toxins rushing from the roots to the petals of the plant. "The blood from the wound would draw the dog to me for sure in case my deep frozen state interfered with my scent." She didn't have to tell him it had been mother Belladonna's idea and magic to do all of that to her.

Valtor ran his hands over every inch of her in his reach. Her skin had remained cold after a full night of running. He had refrained form startling her with his magic but the heat of it passed from him into her to leave her body all his to claim with Belladonna's frost retreating from it. Griffin was burning now, hot moans dropping from her mouth with every thrust as she reached a hand under her dress to stroke them both further into the heights of pleasure. His open-mouthed kisses to her neck let him feel every breath and his tongue leaving a warm, wet trail over the column of her throat had her gasping. He'd cover her all in himself to erase the horror they'd been subjected to.

"We have to get you out of here." His mothers would finish the hunt themselves if he came back to the mansion without a trophy for their walls.

"Get the dog out of here." Griffin's voice wavered as she moved her palm under his shirt to brace herself on his abs. She let out a shuddering sigh, eyelids falling over the suns of his world. "We don't need public. She already saw enough." Griffin licked her lips, head falling back to thud against the tree trunk lightly with every push of his hips into her. Her back would be bruised with reminders of the movements they'd shared like they were one.

Valtor's whistle had Violet's attention and he sent her to keep the perimeter clear. His mothers wouldn't dirty their hands right away and she could hold her own against any other Coven member to buy him and Griffin time to talk.

He'd spend eternity watching Griffin's face scrunched up in concentration as she grabbed at her pleasure, hips matching his motions, but they had no more than a couple hours. "We need a plan."

Griffin knit her eyebrows at his interruption. "I had one right before they dragged me out of my life. I found a small island of pure amethyst orbiting an uninhabited planet." Energy currents turned all kinds of crystal structures into mini heavenly bodies. Someone with her talents had no trouble finding all the curiosities of space. "I was going to go there. Live on the planet and meditate on the island to clear my thoughts and overcome my grief." Amethyst was good for that. Just the shade of her hair cleansed his mind from agony to leave him clutching harder at the purple strands to keep them from slipping through his fingers.

"I wasn't dead." Abandoned but not dead. Not yet. He'd retreated into the dreams of a sky set ablaze in violet by a rising sun. They'd become his poison and his cure until she'd come back to put his heart back together.

Griffin's eyes snapped open, tears gleaming all over their gold. "I was dead to you."

"Not dead. Never dead." His fingers slid over the top of her breast to the wound she'd closed with mud to make her the one shivering. Her cold, lifeless body stuffed in his mind would force him apart at the seams.

"I was hoping there I would come up with a strategy for future action," Griffin continued to distract him. She rolled her hips into him and gave him a moan to ensure her success.

"Good." He leaned in to pant against her ear. "You continue according to plan then." His mothers would never look for her there. The only resource they'd ever pursued was human lives. His job had been to keep her distracted so she'd do the groundwork unknowingly.

"What about you?" He could hear her frowning over the pain of her nails digging into his abs.

He grabbed her wrist and pressed it harder into him so she'd be branded over his body. "I can't come. They'd put everything into finding us. It'd be more dangerous."

Griffin pushed her body flush against him, all of her weight falling on his muscles with her back barely brushing the tree. Her teeth were gliding over his neck but she pierced him with her voice instead. "You can't go back without my corpse."

He kissed her forcefully, tongue stuffing her mouth to trap the words there. They'd suffocate with no oxygen and Griffin yielded to him for a moment, pulling him closer until they were out of breath.

They fell back on the tree and a whimper was forced from her lips. Their mouths were just an inch away, breath mingling between them in perfect harmony. He had to be the one to speak first and keep the magic alive.

"You left once because there were people who needed help." Because he'd lied to her that that wasn't the case to keep her to himself. Her heart was bigger than his and he'd tried to cut it down in fear of the difference between them.

"Valtor-"

"I'm not losing you again." Because her heart was so big, he had a home. And she could give the same to others, too. "Once you have a plan, we end this once and for all and you'll never leave my side again." He had to let go of her hand to slip his fingers between her legs and drive her wild with his love for her.

Griffin was the one grabbing his wrist now. "I don't want to leave you with them again." Her fingers clasped his in a firm grip despite the trembling of her body. "They'll pay you back for not bringing their plan for us to fruition."

"They can't. Without you they need someone else to open portals for them." He'd picked up enough from the time they'd spent together to do that job without giving her perfect results. No one else could fill that role for his mothers' plan and the punishment for letting Griffin escape hadn't been nearly severe enough thanks to his usefulness. "You already gave me a weapon against them." He stroked his fingers over her arousal. It was only his place to be the source of her shaking. She deserved all the pleasure she could stand.

"I've made you a weapon for them," Griffin arched into his touch to escape the guilt she was trying to pile on herself.

Valtor thrust into her with all the vigor she'd given him to make her eyes roll in the back of her head and her thighs quiver around him. "They won't get to use me long but you're the only one who can find out how to stop them. You have to be protected." If his mothers wanted her dead instead of brainwashed and turning Obsidian into their empire of slavery, then she was dangerous enough to bring them down. "I'll come for you. Now come for me."

"Valtor."

It was not a scream of passion. It was an uttered love confession that made him weak in the knees. Supporting her was the only thing keeping him upright through his weakness. She was still bleeding – not just from her calf, but from her chest, too. If having his heart hadn't mended the wound he'd left on hers with his lies, he had to give her more. He had to send her away to heal so that the world could become a home for them again.

#winx club #winx griffin #winx valtor #griffin x valtor #covenshipping #fanfiction #my fanfiction #my writing #au #prey on the heart

14 notes · View notes

whitherliliesbloom · 3 years

Text

lights, camera, duty commenced!

[ ffxivwrite2021 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ prompt #14 - commend ]

[ illya, g’raha & emet ] ★ [ 2,263 words ] ★ [ actors au ] passing mention of some friend’s ocs and illyanaud

commend: praise formally or officially

behind the scenes of the critically acclaimed long running tv show, final fantasy fourteen, g’raha tia is (almost) inconsolable after he reads the final act’s script

The not-so everlasting light shining down feels radiant and warm, but not scorching. In the distance, one can hear the push and pull of the tides from the nearby lake, as well as the rustling of the purple hued leaves that hung and swayed ever so gently upon the trees. A light baby blue canvas with dusty cotton candy clouds crowns lakeland, painting the perfect, serene vista for an uneventful day of shooting.

Though, Illya has to remind herself, as she looks up at the peaceful sky, and sighs in contentment that she was in the completely wrong headspace. Even though the sky above was bright and undoubtedly beautiful on this fine afternoon, she knows that all it takes is for a little bit of compuer-generated television effects magic to turn the tranquil landscape into a scene of naught but utter devastation and war.

Think termination. Think termination. You’re in the middle of a large-scale battle between Elidibus and the people of Norvrandt. The tone’s supposed to be somber and tense. You’re the warrior of darkness. You got this!

“Oh.... How could this be...?”

Her train of thought is rudely interrupted by the sorrowful moping of her co-actor, and she has to resist the urge to chide him for dragging his early morning sulking all the way into the afternoon.

“G’raha, please...” the lalafellin sighs, though cannot help but to let a sliver of sympathy slip into her tone. “The next scene’s starting soon.”

“I know, I know... But...” the man heaves a heavy sigh, hanging his head low and letting his arms drop onto his lap so dramatically she’d almost thought that his flesh really was made of crystal and wasn’t just a product of the hard work of extremely talented make-up artists. “I can’t help it. I can’t believe that my poor crystal exarch is-”

Illya can say she at least empathizes - though perhaps not to the same extent. She’s been casted into roles of characters who would meet an unfortunate demise later, but to be fair, they weren’t often major characters within the narrative of the show or film she was playing a role in.

The crystal exarch on the other hand, has played a key role as one of the many recurring supporting casts in the show. He’d lingered in the background as early as the first season, and was, to G’raha’s jubilation, finally given a main role in the fourth season they were filming.

Only to be killed off in the final act - succumbing to the crystallization of his entire body, from head to toe, in the throne room of the crystal tower after the warrior of darkness’ battle with the ascian Elidibus. His death scene was to be an emotionally poignant one... and Illya herself has spent the last few days getting into the headspace of the protagonist - who would understandably be utterly devastated by the loss of a dear friend.

It didn’t help that the crystal exarch was a considerably popular character within the international community of fans - and his significant increase in screen time was due in part to fan demands... though that perhaps made his long foreshadowed death even more of a cruel irony.

And there was nobody in the world who was a bigger fan of the crystal exarch than the actor who played him himself. It wasn’t narcissistic either, in their line of work, it’s easy to get attached to the roles they play... even more so when they’ve hovered within the headspace of their character for as long as 6 years - she would know, Liliya Liya is as big a part of her as the crystal exarch is for G’raha now.

Thus, though she felt the urgent need to get G’raha back up on his feet in preparation for the remaining scenes on their schedule to film... she could not bring herself to so callously talk down his very real and personal attachment of a character he was meant to portray well anyways.

“Oh come now... you should’ve seen this coming.” with a swagger in his step and lazy grin plastered over his expression, Emet Selch strolls over to the pair.... far too comfortable within his own role that he was speaking with Hades’ signature slur in his speech even while out of character. The man has always noted just how similar he was to the god of the underworld, and Illya wouldn’t be surprised if he’d claimed to not even be acting in his scenes at all.

“I...” G’raha pouts, looking up at Emet as his ears flatten atop his head. “I guess I was in denial of it. I thought they would maybe subvert expectations... but-”

“But that wouldn’t be a very compelling story to tell, now would it?” The older man shrugs, and Illya regrets to think that she’s inclined to agree.

“I guess not..”

The robed miqo’te man sighs, and she notes with an amused raise of an eyebrow as his tail that had once been tucked tightly to his side was now swiveling from side to side and puffed up in annoyance.

“Still! They could at least let him go out with more of a bang! Maybe... after he has a solo action scene... or give him a kiss scene to make things more dramatic!”

“Is defeating the big bad and saving the heroine not dramatic enough for you, already?” Emet’s voice is in part mocking as it is exasperated, his arms thrown up to his shoulders in a shrug. “Also I hope you didn’t mean a kiss scene with Liliya.”

“W-what-?? I-” Illya’s mouth hangs agape.

“No! I wasn’t thinking anyone in particular, honest. Besides, she’s already caught in that love triangle subplot with the twins, isn’t she?”

At the mention of the topic, the lalafellin woman’s smile fades.

“D-don’t remind me of that. I’m really not looking forward to acting those scenes out.”

She’s already read the script for the fourth season in it’s entirety... and though she has incredible respect for the masterful writing and the wonderful character dynamics that has only gotten better with each passing season... she has never been... entirely comfortable with the romantic aspects of the scenes involving the elven twins. Scenes of the pair vying for her attention, scenes where she held hands and even got unsettingly close to kissing them...

Though, she will admit... her own uncertainty over her competence in filming those scenes are a result of her own, very personal emotions... something of which Emet Selch seemed to be more than aware of.

“Is it not because you harbor actual feelings for one of them? Would having scenes of you being close to him not be a blessing for you, then?”

The miffed glare Illya’s shoots up at Emet rivals moments of shadow possession Liliya experiences throughout the show, and he can only shrug with a cocky grin as her star-spangled swirl with indignation. Anger aside, heat is spreading across her cheeks in the form of a burning red hue that reaches the tips of her short, pointed ears.

Please stop.

Her expression spells out. She’s as annoyed as she her frightened about something.

Oh dear.

“Relax. Workplace romance here is nothing new.” His words only serve to worsen the already infuriated gleam in her blazing, shimmering eyes. “Mint certainly isn’t shy when it comes to showing she’s in a relationship with Estinien. Nor your friend Laurelis for that matter. She’s still keeping in touch with Haurchefant, no?”

Illya doesn’t say anything, but her silence and the paling of her complexion speaks louder than any words she can spill from her lips.

It’s precisely because he doesn’t know. So please, please shut your mouth.

He still cannot understand why on earth she would stay so adamant about keeping her feelings a secret anyway. For all he knows, the entire cast of actors... and the whole final fantasy crew for that matter, was fully aware of their pining - and Illya’s feelings towards her close co-worker and friend wasn’t unrequited either.

Just like in the show, the pair are completely oblivious to their attraction to one another... something he’ll just have to fix with his bare hands then...

But the matter is neither here nor there, and there was something of greater urgency to rectify now.

Emet Selch turns his gaze back down to G’raha, who has gone uncharacteristically quiet... and sensing his seriousness, Illya too diverts her attention back to the sulking redhead.

“You know... you’re a very talented actor. It’s so very rare to find someone who can capture the emotions and nuances of a character as well as you do.” Emet is the faster of them to speak, and Illya can barely believe the words she’s hearing leave his lips.

Compliments and praise, genuine ones at that, coming from one of the cast’s eldest, most experienced actor who is not only known to be critical when it comes to the art of acting - but is a certified acting coach himself? The monumental honor is not lost to G’raha, as his ears perk up and he whips his head up with widened ruby eyes to look at Emet.

“Death is difficult to portray - dare I say, almost impossible. After all, how can we, who have never experienced death... truly capture the sorrow and despair in it?”

Emet Selch pauses, drawing in a breath before he lifts his hand up to gesture at the pair before him.

“Which is why this is your biggest opportunity to showcase your talents, to move the audience with not just the story, but your very acting! The only thing we can do, as men and women of this field, is to act as vehicles and carry the emotions of the story into the hearts of the fans.”

The man finally sighs, shoulders falling and arms flopping lazily to his side, the sentimentality of the words he just spoke tasting bitter on his tongue.

“Besides, even in death there is a beauty. The crystal exarch lived his life fulfilled and having realized his wish at the end. I expect you to remember that when you eventually see him off.”

There’s a silence that hangs and festers in the air for a moment, before the fur on G’raha’s tail stands and his chest puffs up in a show of renewed determination.

“Y-you’re right, Emet! The crystal exarch dedicated his life to finding a way to save others... There is no better way to end his legacy than to see the world he’s protected for so long finally saved!”

Standing onto his feet, the miqo’te clenches his hands into fists and nods before casting a glance down at Illya.

“Illya! I will act my heart out to the best I can! I’ll act so hard that I’ll make you cry on set for sure!”

The corners of her lip tugs upwards into a wide smile, glowing as the afternoon sun basks down and reflects upon her snowy white hair and the blossoms of her amethyst eyes. Even with the black of the garments she wore and the eastern patterned ribbon that held the braid around her head in place, she was luminous and blinding in her radiant presence... not unlike the heroine of their story.

“Of course! And I’m sure the rest of the crystal exarch fan club will too when they watch that episode.”

“Illya, G’raha!” A pink haired lalafellin calls out to them from a distance away, her olive green eyes wide and excited as she waves her hands high above her head. A raven haired man stands just behind her, his dark blue eyes narrowed as he reviews the script in his hands intently. “We’re starting soon! Get over here!”

“Coming! Just give us a second!” G’raha waves back with a grin before turning back to look at Emet Selch with an apologetic, yet grateful bow, his relaxed tail swaying gently from side to side behind his back.

“Thank you, Emet. I won’t soon forget your encouragements. I’ll do my best and make sure to not let everyone down.”

“Yes, yes. Spare me the nauseating mush. I was just making sure you didn’t drag your co-actor down with your sulking.”

The elder man now glances at the starry eyed girl with amusement flashing through his expression, and Illya can already feel her earlier lighthearted elation fade as quickly as it came.

“By the way... I’m sure if you asked Yoshida properly.. he’d be willing to consider writing in a kiss scene with Liliya and-”

“If I were the warrior of darkness, I’d take my crescent moon cane and stab you with the end of it......”

------

Meanwhile, a little distance away from the trio, Kaye lets out a low hum as he reads and re-reads the words upon the small stacks of paper he held, expression doubtful and confused.

“You sure this is the script to Endwalker?”

“Yeah, I am! Alphinaud gave this copy and said that he got from miss Ishikawa directly! Apparently he’s playing another major role in the next season, which is why he got the script early as a heads up.”

“But... it says here that the crystal exarch gets reincarnated? Assuming that’s not gonna be changed... that means G’raha’s gonna be...”

Kaye’s head lifts and turns, eyes wide and brows furrowing in bemusement only to see an impish smile glimmer upon Lily’s face.

“Should we tell him?”

“Hm...? Nah... He’s gonna film the exarch’s death scene soon, right? I’m sure he’ll appreciate the little surprise later, anyways.”

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2021 #ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #g'raha tia #emet selch #illya skawi #g'raha #kiwisffxivwrite2021 #fanfic #mine #I've only had this au for a day and I've already written a fill for it lmao #*pumps fist*

16 notes · View notes

phoenix-downer · 3 years

Text

The Princess of Light Chapter 4: Heart of the World

~2290 words. Angst, Romance, Fluff, Fairy Tales. For SoKai Week 2021, Day 4.

Summary: Princess Kairi is cursed to be without love when she is a baby. She grows up cold and without a heart to help her understand other people’s feelings, no matter how hard her parents try to help her. One day, however, she meets a mysterious prince from a faraway world, and he just might hold the key to breaking her curse.

Prince Sora met with Princess Kairi the next night, and the next, and the next. She thought it was because he liked the light pool too, and he’d also said something about his ship needing repairing. Though all of that played a role, she was blind to the real reason he wanted to see her. This continued for over a month with Kairi none the wiser as to his true intentions, for a girl without a heart cannot understand things the rest of us take for granted.

One pleasant evening in early autumn, the moon shone down on the two of them and the light from the pool shone all around them. Sora thought Kairi looked like an angel as she floated on her back, and she caught him staring at her.

“What is it?” she asked, searching his face. She thought he had a rather pleasant face, all things considered. “I keep catching you staring at me.”

“Don’t you know why?” he replied.

She tilted her head. “Could you explain, please?”

Sora figured her curse would make any direct confession on his end fall flat. It is also entirely too easy to overdo a romantic confession, resulting in one’s beloved running for the hills, so Sora decided a different approach might be best. Though the thought of Princess Kairi taking off running and creating a miles-long trail of ice behind her after hearing an overplayed, overwrought declaration of passion made him chuckle.

“You’re laughing?” she asked, her face one whole puzzle of perplexion.

“Not at you, at my own silly brain,” he reassured her. “Sometimes I get these really vivid images in my mind, and they make me laugh.”

Kairi gently drifted in the light. “Like stories?” she asked. Not much caught her interest, but stories did. Sora had told her many stories about Destiny Islands, and she always listened quietly and asked him questions afterwards.

“You could call them that, yeah,” he replied. “But I’m getting sidetracked. You asked me why I keep staring at you.” He took a deep breath. “Princess, have you ever… had feelings for someone?”

“Feelings?” She frowned and touched the hole in her chest. “Without a heart, I’m not really sure.”

“Then let me tell you how it feels.” Sora smiled and rested a hand over his heart. “Like you can’t wait to see that person. Your whole day improves when they’re there. Your heart speeds up when they approach. You feel like you can do anything if you have them by your side. And you would do anything to be with them.” He sighed happily and studied Kairi’s face. “Have you ever felt anything like that at all, Princess?”

“No,” Kairi said after a moment. None of those things sounded like the strange fluttering she sometimes got in her stomach. And none of the rest of it was anything she’d ever experienced.

“Oh,” Sora said, his head drooping. He sank deeper into the light pool. “I’m… sorry to hear that.”

She floated downwards to catch up to him till at last they were both at the bottom of the pool. “Why?” she asked. From here little trickles of light bubbled up from between the rocks, for the pool was some distance above the Heart of the World.

Sora stared at Kairi, at her face surrounded by light, and despaired over her being so in the dark about what he was trying to tell her.

“Love is the most powerful magic there is,” he finally said, at a loss as to how else to explain it, for it impacted the entire way he experienced the world. “It’s like a light in a dark room that illuminates everything else for me.”

She reached for where her heart should be, but instead the usual empty hole greeted her. Sora’s heart went out to her. She was trying so hard to understand what he meant, but she just couldn’t grasp it. The whole thing reminded him of trying in vain to hold sand in his hand and watching it slip through his fingers.

“I’d like to experience it someday for myself,” she said at last, and he thought he detected a hint of wistfulness in her voice.

“I hope you will,” he replied, his voice breaking on the final word.

She studied him for a few moments, then said, “Can we fall in again?”

He smiled sadly. This at least was familiar territory. He offered his hand, and she took it.

“Of course, Princess,” he told her. They fell in several times together, and hearing her laughter, seeing her smile… poor Prince Sora became even more smitten with her. He resolved to help her however he could. It was clear her parents had tried everything they could here on Radiant Garden. But maybe his parents on Destiny Islands could offer their assistance. Maybe there would be some clue or hint as to how to help Princess Kairi. The repairs on his ship had been completed, so he could go back and ask.

When it was time to go home, Sora bowed and said goodbye. Kairi tilted her head, as normally he simply told her goodnight. She looked radiant in the moonlight, with the wind playing with her hair and rippling through the grass beneath her feet, and his heart fluttered in his chest.

“Princess, I’m going home to see if I can find something that might help you,” he said.

“Oh, okay,” she replied, her voice sounding as if he’d told her he was having a sandwich for lunch tomorrow. He tried not to feel a little stung over her lack of sadness at their parting, but it hurt nonetheless. Still, it drove his resolve to find a way to help her.

“I don’t know when I’ll return,” he said, “but I’ll come back to you, I promise.” His hand curled into an upright fist, a gesture on Destiny Islands that meant you were determined to follow through on your promises.

Kairi hesitated for a moment, then said, “Okay. Goodnight.” He wondered if she’d understood him at all. What if, in his absence, she thought he’d left her for good and forgot all about him? The truth was that she didn’t have much experience with saying goodbye. The people in her sheltered existence were just always there, and she supposed they always would be.

As she and Sora parted ways, they didn’t notice the strange black bird perched in a nearby tree. Despite what the stories say, spooky black birds can hide in the shadows perfectly well, thank you very much. And this one did its job splendidly and returned to its mistress in her creepy castle and reported what it had seen.

“Diablo, thank you,” Maleficent said, petting its head as it perched on her shoulder. “This is very grave news indeed. You say this foreign prince was flirting with my pathetic excuse for a niece? That he’s searching for a way to help her?” Maleficent shuddered. “That’s not good. That’s not good at all. Suppose she starts to regain her heart. We can’t have that, now can we?”

Cursing Kairi further would be too obvious. No, Maleficent needed to do something more wicked and depraved than what she’d already done. That’s another problem with being evil. You soon acclimate to lesser evils and need greater and greater ones to give you the same twisted rush of delight.

“You say the princess is always playing in that light pool?” Maleficent said. “And now with that prince too? Well, we’ll have to do something about that, now won’t we?”

She cloaked herself in darkness and used it to travel quickly to the Heart of the World, which was in a cavern deep underground. Now, the Heart of the World is not a heart like you or I have; it is physical, but it is in the shape of a heart that children like to draw on scraps of paper, not the shape of an actual physical heart. At the time of our story, it was not as magnificent as it had been in olden days, but it was still big and red and bright. A single stream of golden light flowed out of it, and from there winded and curved through a series of tunnels and caverns up, up, up to the light pool guarded by the royal family. The whole thing was very beautiful, but to someone like Maleficent, who was twisted by the darkness, it was horrifying.

Reaching into her cloak, she pulled out a tainted dagger. Tainted objects like this one leave no mark on their victims, who die slowly and in great agony. It was how she had killed her own father, the former king, without getting caught.

With a cruel glint in her eye, she drew the dagger, strode to her next victim, and plunged her weapon into the Heart of the World. The poor Heart shuddered at the wound, for it is very much a living thing. Maleficent smiled wickedly and yanked the dagger out of the Heart, doing even further damage to it, then tucked it back into her cloak. While she could have used a single curse or spell to completely obliterate the Heart, that would not have satisfied her desire for revenge and petty evil in the slightest.

No, she wanted the Heart to slowly die and the light pool to slowly dry up. Her smile got bigger as she thought about what would happen next, and that smile turned into a cackle and then into a roaring laugh.

~~~

When Princess Kairi went to the light pool the next evening, she had two surprises. The first was that Prince Sora was not there to greet her like he usually was. She frowned, but the light pool was too enticing to leave alone for long, so she sat next to it and began removing her shoes and socks.

Now, Kairi had been visiting this pool every evening since her thirteenth birthday. She knew it better than anything else in the worlds. So when she was about to step in, she noticed there was slightly less light in it than there should be. She shrieked and raced the short way to the castle barefoot, leaving a trail of frozen grass behind her.

“Aqua! Mom! Dad!” she cried as soon as she arrived, panting for breath.

“Kairi?” Aqua called from a window a few floors above. She spotted the trail of frozen grass behind Kairi that was continuing to spread and yelped. “My lady, your feet!”

Kairi gasped as she realized what she’d done. Aqua was already to the rescue; she grabbed another pair of enchanted shoes and socks for Kairi and tossed them down. Kairi hurriedly put them on, and by the time she was done, Aqua had joined her and sent for Kairi’s parents.

“What’s wrong?” Aqua asked, for she could tell Kairi was very distressed.

“The light pool is drying up!” Kairi cried, her eyes wild. “It’s drying up! What am I gonna do?”

Aqua’s heart thudded in her chest, for if Kairi was right about this, then…

“Are you sure?” she asked, searching Kairi’s face.

Kairi nodded and fidgeted with a strand of her hair. “There’s less light than there was before. Aqua, what’s gonna happen to me? If it dries up, will I freeze?”

Aqua didn’t know what to say. They needed to investigate the issue further. But if the light pool dried up, then Kairi would very likely freeze to death. Right now it kept her warm and kept the curse in check, but if it was gone… The light enchanting her clothes would stop working too, and—

Before Aqua could say anything else, however, Kairi’s parents and a few guards arrived. After a brief explanation, Aqua went with her father and the guards to investigate the light pool, leaving Kairi with her mother to await the verdict.

This was any mother’s worst nightmare come true: her daughter in imminent danger. Especially because the queen partly blamed herself for the curse. If only she’d taken her husband's concerns about Maleficent seriously instead of insisting he try to reconcile with her, their daughter might not be in this situation. So while she did her best to soothe Kairi and reassure her, she was very scared herself. Especially when Kairi’s breath caught and she clutched her chest.

“Mom, I think the hole’s getting bigger,” she said. All of the queen’s careful composure fled at Kairi’s words, and tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. What if the hole consumed Kairi? What if it devoured her daughter till there was nothing left?

This was all her fault. If only she’d protected her daughter better.

Kairi frowned and touched the queen’s face. “Water’s leaking out of your eyes again.”

That just made the queen cry harder. Her poor daughter couldn’t even cry for herself and her fate. All she could do was purse her lips and tilt her head to the side as the queen shed the tears her daughter could not.

When Aqua, the king, and the guards returned, they confirmed that the light pool did appear to have a little less light in it. The next day, the difference was definitely noticeable. By the third day, the light pool had lost a good foot of depth, and Kairi felt ill. The hole in her chest kept getting bigger, and the enchantments for her clothes had weakened, leaving her colder than usual.

If the light pool drained completely, everyone feared the worst. While the royal family initially tried to keep what was happening under wraps, word soon spread, and the king and queen knew they would have to take action.

It was time to consult outside help.

#sokai #sokaiweek #sokaiweek2021 #sora #kairi #kingdom hearts #kh fanfiction #phoenix writes #phoenix-downer #angst #romance #fairy tale #fairy tales #the light princess #inspired by the light princess #the princess of light #chapter four #long post

12 notes · View notes