#implied low self-worth cw

[aleksatia]

🧡Caleb - Five Years Later

The third in a series of stories exploring MC’s return after five years of silence. Others are coming soon — links will be added as they’re published.

Original ask that sparked this continuation.

Sylus | Rafayel | Zayne | Xavier (coming soon)

CW/TW: Grief / Loss of a loved one, Terminal illness, PTSD themes, Emotional trauma, Mentions of death / implied past death, Medical procedures / hospitals, Restraints (medical context), Panic attacks / nightmares, confinement / loss of agency, Non-consensual medical intervention, Self-worth / guilt issues, Power imbalance (emotional), Non-graphic violence, Brief medical body horror, Touch-starvation / intimacy after trauma, Bittersweet tone, heavy emotional intensity, Hope & love, but not always soft

Pairing: Caleb x former partner!you Genre: Sci-fi drama, heartbreak and healing, soul-deep devotion. Heavy on angst, soft on reunion. Enemies to… something more broken and beautiful. MC Context: You disappeared five years ago. He never forgave you. Now you’re back — with a secret that’s killing you slowly. Summary: Admiral Caleb was forged in war and tempered by loss — and you were the one wound that never healed. When fate throws you back into his orbit, neither of you are ready for what resurfaces. Letters, graves, rain-soaked rooftops, and the love that refuses to die quietly. Word Count: 8.4K — stand-alone… for now. 🥀 This story was loosely inspired by Caleb’s latest Myth. Just a touch of that vibe, y’know?

Author’s Note: Okay, full confession — I cried from the first word to the very last. Maybe it’s just me (I’ll admit, Caleb is my soft spot). Or maybe… it just hit something. Either way, I’d love to hear what you think.

The anniversary of Josephine’s death — and Caleb’s own — landed squarely on an unscheduled visit to Lincon City.

The admiral rarely returned. Not unless duty bared its teeth and dragged him back. Too painful. Too empty. The wounds too fresh, even now.

He had once been Colonel Caleb of the Farspace Fleet. Now, promoted to the soulless rank of Admiral, he moved like a ghost through corridors lined with medals and silence. But today… something clawed at him. A compulsion. A tremor from a buried place.

He bought lupines. Tall, excessive, dignified in a way grief never is. The kind you buy for someone who will never see them. And then he walked — alone — to the cemetery.

He had only been here once before. With you.

Josephine’s grave was strangely well-tended. No weeds. Edged clean. A vase of pink lilies — fresh, impossibly so — sat nestled against the stone like someone had just set them down and whispered something soft and final. Her favorite flowers. He remembered.

His first thought: the groundskeepers. Maybe the city did something for the dead on anniversaries. Some quiet bureaucratic kindness. But that didn’t explain the lilies. How would they know?

His eyes scanned the black headstone. “Josephine,” carved in solemn, obedient serif. A name, a dash, two dates, and silence. His grandmother. Gone six years.

She hadn’t died of age. The blast had taken her.

But you — you were different.

Five years. Five years since you vanished. Gone not like a candle snuffed, but like smoke ripped from the air.

He had never accepted it. Not really. Some part of him believed you were taken. That you had been forced to go.

Because the truth — the one that stared back at him in sleepless nights and shattered mirrors — was that you did leave. You walked away. No message. No farewell. Just absence.

The storm was building in the clouds above, heavy and low like judgment. Thunder sat unspoken just beyond the hills, crouching. Caleb stood still, arms at his sides, as the sky thickened.

Why?

It was a question that never left. A question with a thousand answers. Each one sharper than the last.

The scent of wet earth rose in the air. Ozone, crackling like something electric and cruel. His hand twitched toward his wristwatch. He was due back. His itinerary was brutal. The war waited for no one — not even the grieving.

He knelt, placed the bouquet down with the softness of ritual. A last gesture. A futile offering.

Then his eyes drifted. To his own gravestone.

There it was. Cold. Familiar. His name, etched beneath hers, waiting for its second date.

And something else. A white envelope.

Untouched by time. Unsullied by rain or rot. Resting gently, like it had grown there.

His breath caught.

The lilies. The letter. The impossible coincidence.

Then the first drop hit — heavy, warm — against his cheek. A second, on the envelope. Then more.

Drip. Drip-drip. Drip—  Draaip.

The kind of rain that doesn’t fall, but descends. Like judgment. Like memory.

Caleb stepped forward. One foot. Then another. His boots sank slightly into the earth, as if the ground resisted.

He reached out — hands trembling, trembling — like the time he pulled an FS-90 out of a death spiral back at the Academy, nose brushing the snow-capped ridges of the mountains peaks.

He lifted the envelope. It was light. Too light. But on it — one word, scrawled in handwriting he knew too well.

Caleb.

Nothing more.

He shoved it into the inner pocket of his uniform, as though it were explosive. As though it might burn through the fabric and into his chest.

And just like that — as if spurred by some instinct he couldn't name — he turned on his heel and walked fast, too fast, back toward the car.

His heart didn’t race. It pounded.

Like thunder.

The drive to the airfield felt like a lifetime, though the roads were mercifully clear. No evening traffic, no pointless delays. The driver, attuned to the admiral’s mood, pressed hard on the accelerator, but still — Caleb tapped his fingers against the armrest with restless urgency, the motion sharp and impatient.

The envelope continued to burn in his chest.

Rain traced thick, winding rivers down the window, a slow, rhythmic descent like tears he never shed for you. When you left, it wasn’t just his heart that broke. It was his soul, his body, his being. Everything cracked and caved inward — except his eyes. Those remained stubbornly dry.

Now, though… he was close. And that made him angry.

Furious, even.

It infuriated him that just as he had begun to stitch some version of his life back together — a life without you, without your voice, your touch, your name — you reappeared. Like a ghost. Too close to ignore, too far to hold.

If you had wanted to return, you would have come back. Not like this. Not through riddles and shadows and silence. You would’ve stood at his door, or on a tarmac, or behind him in some briefing room like the world hadn’t ended. And he — damn him — he would have forgiven you. Instantly. Because that’s who he was. That’s what you had always counted on.

And that was what made him want to scream.

He didn’t want to forgive. He didn’t want to read your damned letter, to parse your reasons, your pleas, your desperate little words asking to be understood.

He didn’t want to analyze your cruelty. He didn’t want to empathize with it.

For the first time in five years, Caleb felt like he could finally, truly erase you. Not forget — never forget — but cut you out like rot. And live with the absence.

The letter pressed against his chest like a bullet. He placed his palm over it, broad and unsteady, as though trying to keep it from puncturing skin. As if it hadn’t already pierced him, deep and final.

The only sane choice would be to throw it out the window. Let the wind take it, let the rain dissolve it, let the world carry it into the dark.

Maybe you hadn’t even meant for him to find it. Maybe this was a confession to no one. A whisper into the void. Maybe it wasn’t meant for him at all — just for yourself.

To ease the weight.

To breathe again.

Selfish.

Selfish to write it. Selfish to hope for release, when he was still walking in agony, flesh and blood wrapped around something broken.

He didn’t want you to breathe.

He didn’t want you to be free of the pain, not when he was still wearing it — every day, every night, every silence between heartbeats.

How dare you write to him?

It was beneath an admiral to take the controls.

But today, Caleb didn’t care.

Protocol could burn. Chain of command, procedure, rank — all of it. He needed to feel the illusion of control again, even if it came in the form of a military jet barely older than some of the crew still stationed on the tarmac.

He didn’t ask the pilots to stand down. He ordered them. One glance at his face, and none of them argued.

The rain was steady now, carving grooves into the tarmac like old scars. The cockpit smelled of steel, vinyl, and cold systems spinning up to life.

Caleb slid into the pilot’s seat. No ceremony. No reverence. Just quiet, deliberate motion. The envelope — that stupid, unbearable envelope — landed in the co-pilot’s seat like a stone slab. Heavy enough, he thought, to drag the aircraft down with him.

And maybe that would’ve been for the best.

He ran the preflight checks by muscle memory.

Fuel quantity. Sufficient. Confirmed crossfeed valve closed.

Hydraulic pressure. Green. Full.

Flight controls. Surfaces free and correct — elevator, rudder, ailerons.

Navigation systems. Online. INS aligned. No drift.

Avionics. Check.

Oxygen. Flow normal, regulators armed.

Engine start. Ignition armed. Starter sequence began. One engine, then the second — turbines spun up with that low whine that sounded too much like a scream if you listened the wrong way.

He couldn’t breathe. But he was going through the motions.

Flight clearance received. Tower approved for immediate departure.

The jet eased down the taxiway, engines rumbling like restrained violence beneath him. His hands on the throttle were steady. Too steady.

Takeoff checklist. Flaps set. Trim neutral. Brakes released.

He pushed the throttles forward.

The aircraft responded like it wanted to run. Acceleration pressed him back into the seat. Rain lashed the windscreen. The moment the wheels left the tarmac, the ache in his chest twisted tighter.

There. He was airborne.

And it didn’t help. Not like it used to.

Altitude climbed. Ten thousand. Twenty. Forty. Cruising.

He stabilized at 37,000 feet and did something he almost never allowed himself: he engaged the autopilot.

The moment the system took over, he tore off the harness with a sharp, frustrated motion. The metal buckle clattered against the seat.

His hand reached for the envelope.

It was still warm from being pressed to his chest. He turned it over in his fingers, letting the edge bite into his skin. He very nearly tore it in half.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he broke the seal, carefully, precisely — like disarming a mine.

And there it was. That handwriting. Your handwriting.

Messy. Crooked. Rushed. Impatient. Every letter a little too hard, as though you’d nearly punctured the page. You had always gripped your pen like it was the only thing anchoring you to the world. You hadn’t changed.

For a long moment, Caleb didn’t read. He just stared at the shapes of the words. The loops and slants. Like he was watching you from the other side of interrogation glass — close enough to touch, unreachable all the same.

And then he started.

Once. Again. A third time.

Each pass scraped deeper, like reading the report of his own autopsy.

His hand trembled. He didn’t even realize he was breathing too fast until the cockpit hissed a low-pressure warning. He ignored it.

He slammed the harness back across his chest and keyed the comms.

“Control, this is Delta-Two-Alpha requesting vector for immediate return.”

There was a pause.

“…Confirm that, Delta-Two-Alpha. Reason for return?”

He took the yoke again, flicked autopilot disengage with a sharp tap. The jet jerked slightly, now fully under his hand.

“Command directive,” he said flatly.

Another pause.

“Understood. Return approved. You’re clear for turn on heading zero-one-five.”

Caleb didn’t wait. He threw the aircraft into a steep bank, cutting through the clouds like a blade.

He knew where to find you. He had known before he stepped into the cockpit. He had known standing at the grave, the envelope still untouched.

But he hadn’t wanted to find you then.

Now?

Now he didn’t have a choice.

The viewing deck of the Linkon TV Tower was nearly empty.

Closing time was drawing near, but the rain had chased away what few tourists and visitors remained. You stood at the railing in a long lavender raincoat, hood pulled deep over your head. The fabric clung to your arms and back, soaked through. Your sneakers were long past wet, the chill of the concrete seeping into your bones. But you didn’t move. Didn’t shift. As if the weather had pinned you here in time, or maybe memory had.

The city below had disappeared — swallowed by fog, by stormclouds, by everything that refused to be seen. No headlights, no stars. Just the endless roar of rain and the cold sting of being the last one left.

Your fingers rested lightly on the metal bar. Your eyes were turned upward, into the vast nothing. Watching clouds drift across an invisible sky. You might have stood there till morning, if not for the footsteps behind you.

Slow. Measured. Not security. Too quiet.

“I would give a lot to know what you’re thinking right now,” said a voice too worn to belong to the man you once loved.

You turned slowly.

Caleb stood a few paces away, still in uniform. The rain hadn’t spared him. His hair was damp, the shoulders of his coat dark with water. But he stood like the storm couldn’t touch him. Like it wouldn’t dare.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” you said.

“I almost didn’t.”

You smiled — not from joy, but from pain that needed a face.

“I thought maybe you’d moved on by now,” you said. “Married. Found peace.”

“I’m not built for peace,” he said flatly.

“No,” you murmured, “you weren’t. But I hoped... maybe you’d become someone who was.”

He took a step forward, his boots clicking against the wet metal. “You hoped I’d forget you.”

“I hoped you’d survive me.”

The words hit. You saw it — the smallest shift in his jaw, the flicker in his eyes. But his voice stayed calm.

“You knew I wouldn’t.”

You didn’t deny it.

“I wrote the letter because I needed to say it. Not because I thought you'd ever read it.”

“You didn’t want me to.”

You hesitated. “No.”

“Then why leave it where I’d find it?”

Another silence. Then: “Because I wanted to believe you wouldn’t come.”

Caleb’s expression didn’t change, but his gaze sharpened. The air between you grew tighter, like a pressure drop before impact.

“I read it,” he said.

Your breath caught. “I know.”

“I know everything now.”

You nodded.

He didn’t shout. He didn’t accuse. But his voice was a blade dragged slowly across flesh.

“You could’ve told me. You could’ve stayed.”

“I couldn’t breathe, Caleb.” You didn’t mean to say it out loud — but the truth had a weight of its own. “You loved me like I was something to guard. Not someone to hold.”

“I was trying to keep you safe.”

“And I was trying to live.”

His lips parted, as if to argue — but nothing came. Because you both knew: you were right. And so was he.

You took a step closer, rain dripping from your sleeves.

“I didn’t want you to be there when it started. I didn’t want you to watch me fade.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s too late.”

Caleb looked at you like you were a puzzle he used to know how to solve. Like something once sacred that had rewritten itself in a language he couldn’t read.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” you said.

“Good.”

Your breath hitched — not from the cruelty of it, but from the honesty.

“I just wanted to see you again,” you whispered. “Once. Before...”

You didn’t finish. You didn’t need to.

He stepped closer. This time, the space between you nearly vanished. But he didn’t reach out.

“You always ran when it got quiet,” he said.

“And you never let anything rest.”

He didn’t deny it.

“I hated you,” he said, voice rough. “For five years, I hated you for leaving. For taking my soul with you and vanishing into nothing.”

You closed your eyes.

“And now?”

He hesitated.

Then: “Now I just hate that there’s nothing left to save.”

The rain didn’t stop. Neither of you moved.

But something broke, quietly — not between you, but inside you both.

And maybe that was the beginning. 

Or the end.

He stepped closer. Not to you — no. To the railing.

Leaning casually, almost carelessly, over the edge, he stared down into the city’s abyss. The lights below were blurred by fog, rain, and altitude — a slow-motion fall into nothingness. Even resting like that, shoulders relaxed, head tilted slightly as he looked down, Caleb seemed impossibly distant. Removed.

Admiral.

Not just a rank anymore. Not a role. It had consumed him — the strictness, the cold efficiency, the discipline etched into every movement. He was the title now. All calculation, no softness. All control, no warmth. A man weaponized by grief, then sanctified by command.

“Do you remember the last time we were here?” you asked quietly, your voice fragile, almost drowned out by the rain.

He didn’t answer at first.

You studied his face — the years had been merciful to him in the way they only are to men shaped by war. Just over thirty. A trace of silver at the temples. Skin clean-shaven, jaw locked, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass.

He looked like marble come alive. Cold, perfect, untouchable.

You wanted to reach out. Just to touch his face. To feel warmth. To remind yourself he was still made of skin, not armor.

“We saved a lot of people that day,” you added, almost to fill the silence. “From Wanderer.”

“I remember,” he said, his voice low. “On the train ride here, you fell asleep on my shoulder. There was some romantic song playing on loop — too sweet to ever be real.”

You smiled, barely. It hurt. “Caleb… would you still do it now? Jump like that? Into the void. As if death is something you can bargain with. Something you can command to pause.”

He tilted his head, still watching the city below.

“I can stop a fall. I can control flight paths. Bend gravity to my will. But not death. If I could…” He paused. His voice dropped lower, quieter. “I wouldn’t be here.”

When he turned to you, the change was surgical. A full turn of his body, attention locked on yours. His eyes scanned your face with precision, not feeling.

He looked at you like he was trying to remember.

Like five years had burned away not just the love, but the memory of it.

“Tell me,” he said, “do you think I’ll be able to save you this time?”

The question landed like a shard of ice in your spine. You flinched — not visibly, but inside, where it counted.

There was something wrong in his voice. Not anger. Not desperation. Just… wrong. Like he was rehearsing something he didn’t understand.

“I’m not asking you to save me,” you said. “I never wanted that. I never wanted to be your project. Your fragile rose behind glass — something that, if shattered, would take your whole world with it.”

He didn’t reply. But he looked away. Not down. Not up. Just… away.

And then — a sound behind you.

A door creaked. Footsteps, hesitant. The voice of someone too young, too aware.

“I— I’m sorry— sir— admiral— I didn’t— The tower’s closed, I—” The poor security guard stumbled over every word as he recognized the face that had appeared in military reports, field briefings, and news feeds. The ghost in the sky. The man who never fell.

Caleb turned slightly toward him, not quite sighing — more like resetting. 

“Where are you staying?”

You blinked. “Caleb—”

He raised a hand, not unkindly, but final.

“Where.”

You swallowed. “The Midland Motel. Down by the shuttle terminal.”

He said nothing, just nodded once and began walking. You followed.

You knew you shouldn’t. But you were too tired to argue. Too wet, too cold, too broken.

He didn’t offer his coat. Didn’t say a word. Just pressed the call button for the lift and waited in silence.

The car ride was quiet. The city blurred past in gray, streaked neon. His vehicle — black, sleek, military grade but dressed as civilian — moved like a shadow through the storm.

He didn’t look at you. Didn’t speak.

You kept your arms wrapped around yourself in the damp raincoat, your soaked sleeves sticking to your skin.

He brought you to a hotel you didn’t recognize. Modern, expensive, silent. The kind of place that smells like clean money and consequence.

At the front desk, he handed over a card — no hesitation — and said, “One bedroom suite. Highest floor. Immediate check-in.”

No questions asked.

The elevator ride was wordless. The carpet muffled your wet shoes.

He opened the door. The lights came on softly. Beige walls, minimalist decor, glass and brushed steel. Tasteful. Lifeless.

He handed you a folded robe from the closet. “Bathroom’s through there,” he said. “Go shower. I’ll order food.”

You took the robe with slow hands, staring at it for a moment too long.

Then, wordlessly, you turned and walked into the bathroom. The door closed with a quiet click behind you.

Warmth. Dry tile. A mirror.

And, for just a moment — silence.The kind that wraps around you like grief you haven’t cried yet.

The robe was too large. Too soft. Too warm.

You could have wrapped it around yourself three times and still gotten lost in it.

On the small round table near the panoramic window, a meal waited. Caleb hadn’t bothered to order anything you used to love. He remembered, of course — that was never the issue. He simply hadn’t tried. The selection was closer to a field ration than a dinner: high protein, complex carbs, dense fats. Efficient. Precise.

You weren’t hungry. You hadn’t been for a long time.

He’d removed the jacket of his uniform, now down to a crisp white shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow. And still, something in the room made it feel wrong to sit without permission. He didn’t even look at you — just gave a practiced gesture toward the chair.

You sat on the very edge of it.

Your gaze lingered on the veins in his forearms, raised and defined — marks of control, of command. Of power. Hands that once cradled you through entire nights, hands that had trembled against your skin as if you were the only thing in the world keeping him human.

Now, all of it felt like a dream.

You broke off a piece of warm bread. Turned toward the rain outside. Watched the world bleed behind the glass.

“Did you see a doctor?” he asked.

Not worry. Not fear. Just curiosity. Clinical, detached. A data point to confirm.

You shrugged slowly. “Yeah. Dr. Zane was the first. Then came the rest.”

“And he didn’t tell me anything?”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality,” you said. “I asked him not to.”

“So I wasn’t worthy of the truth?”

You exhaled — sharp and stung, like you’d been slapped. “Caleb… do I really have to explain this? I was trying to spare you the pain.”

He laughed. Cold. Harsh. Suffocating.

The room, already dim, felt darker suddenly. As though the lights had dimmed in reverence to his bitterness.

“Spare me? Oh, brilliant. You really did a hell of a job. I didn’t suffer at all. You disappeared and I just breathed a sigh of relief, right? Out of sight, out of mind — that’s what you think?”

“It’s not the same.”

He slammed a fist down on the table. Plates jumped. Glass cracked under his hand.

“If you had died in my arms, at least I would’ve known. I would’ve known you didn’t leave because I wasn’t enough. Because I loved you too hard, too deep, too much. I would’ve known you had no choice.”

“You wouldn’t have let me die in peace!” you shot back, voice rising. “You would’ve torn the damn planet apart looking for a cure. You would’ve ripped through every system, Farspace tunnel, shouting that it’s almost over, that we’re so close, just hold on—”

He stared at you. Unblinking. Breathing slow.

The storm inside him didn’t explode. It collapsed, inward — contained by the vice grip of discipline. Of rank.

“If loving you with everything I had — completely, recklessly, overwhelmingly — was a crime…” His voice was low now. Not soft. Deadly. “Then yes. I’m guilty. You pronounced the sentence without a trial, Pip-squeak. And I served it. Five years, no parole.”

He stood, pushing away the untouched plate. The chair didn’t scrape. It moved like a blade being sheathed.

“But let me tell you something.” He turned his gaze on you like ice hardening in place. “Love, when betrayed and ground into dust, doesn’t always fade. Sometimes… it turns into contempt.”

The word hit like a slap across the soul.

You couldn’t speak. Your breath stalled in your throat.

“Eat something,” he said. “And get some rest.”

“And you—?”

“I have too much work to babysit you.”

“I don’t want to stay here!”

He paused by the door. Turned half toward you — not enough to be kind.

“Well, that’s a shame,” he said. “Because I do. Sorry, sweetheart, but tonight? You don’t get a choice. I may be, as you so astutely pointed out, a cold-hearted bastard — but even now, I can’t let you wander the streets in wet clothes, racing to meet your own end.”

With that, he slid back into his uniform jacket in one fluid, dismissive motion and stepped out.

The door closed behind him with mechanical precision. The lock flashed red. Like a warning.

Your only way out now was through the window.

You didn’t remember falling asleep.

Most likely, you just shut down — the body giving out where the soul had already emptied. There were no tears. No breakdown. Just the vast, aching silence of being done. As if the last thread tethering you to this world had snapped soundlessly in the night.

Caleb had been the only family you ever had. He didn’t want to be your partner anymore — that, at least, made sense. But now he didn’t even want to be your brother. Not your anchor. Not your history.

He had become a stranger. And you had made him that.

You had no one to blame. No one to curse. The damage had your fingerprints all over it — deliberate, cruel, irreversible.

You regretted it. You knew it was a mistake.

But what could you do now?

Five years ago, you walked away — selfishly, completely — leaving him alone with the bleeding wreckage of his own love. And you hadn't spared yourself either. You’d just taken the pain and buried it, hoping time would do what courage couldn’t.

And now, with the same selfish silence, you had come back. Uninvited. Unexplained. Unhealed. You didn’t know what you’d hoped for — redemption, maybe. A flicker of warmth. Or just… recognition.

But instead, you lit the same fuse all over again.

You knew, even before boarding the train, that he’d find you. Even if he wasn’t looking. Even if he didn’t want to.

And still — you came.

The knock at the door startled you. You shot up, heart hammering in your throat.

Room service? Caleb? No. Caleb wouldn’t knock.

A second later, the door’s lock blinked with coded lights, and a young man in a tailored aide’s uniform stepped in. He was polite enough to knock. But not enough to wait for a response.

Not Liam. Someone much younger.

“Good morning, ma’am,” he said with crisp formality, almost saluting before catching himself.

He tried — really tried — to keep his gaze level, but you could see the questions in his eyes. He didn’t know who you were, why you were important, or why the Admiral had seen fit to personally house you in a suite normally reserved for political dignitaries.

“I was ordered to bring you a change of clothes and arrange breakfast,” he said. “Admiral Caleb instructed me to return in thirty minutes and escort you to the hospital.”

You blinked. “Tell the Admiral that’s unnecessary.”

The aide offered a tight, apologetic smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “He also told me to inform you that, if you refuse to come voluntarily, I’m authorized to use force.”

The words hit harder than you expected.

You swallowed, fighting the wave of humiliation. Of course he would go this far. You shouldn’t be surprised. And yet, it burned.

“I see,” you said quietly. “Then I’ll just have coffee.”

The aide hesitated. “Ma’am—”

“You’re not going to shove breakfast down my throat, are you?” you snapped, sharper than intended. “Fine. For the sake of compromise — coffee. And a yogurt. That’s it, Lieutenant.”

He nodded with practiced obedience. “Yes, ma’am.”

And then he left, leaving you alone with your rage and your helplessness.

The coffee tasted bitter. The yogurt was sour. Your taste buds had changed — everything had. Food had stopped being pleasure long ago. It was fuel now, nothing more. You absorbed calories. Not flavor.

Another memory — gone.  Another joy stripped from a life grown colorless. Another piece of yourself you hadn’t noticed was missing… until Caleb reminded you it was never coming back.

Some part of you expected they'd take you to Akso Hospital.

It would’ve made sense. Zayne knew your case better than anyone — your body, your history, the long and winding ruins of your health. But Caleb didn’t trust him anymore. Not enough to put your life in his hands.

Zayne had already failed him once — by keeping your secret.

Instead, they brought you to an unfamiliar place. Private, sterile, quiet. Too many white walls. Too much controlled light.

Caleb was already there, standing in the center of a vast conference room surrounded by doctors in crisp lab coats.

Even without a word, he commanded the space. In uniform, he looked taller than any of them. Broader. More permanent. Even the chief physician seemed to defer to him instinctively, as though gravity itself bent slightly in his direction.

You paused in the doorway, watching the way their attention latched to him — every word, every breath, every small flick of his hand. He wasn’t just giving orders. He was delivering truth.

And it made your blood boil.

With silent, focused fury, you crossed the room. Stopped too close. Closer than decorum allowed. Closer than memory permitted.

He didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.

“You’re doing exactly what I was afraid of,” you hissed, voice low and sharp, aimed straight at his throat. “I’m not a lab rat. I’m not your property. You don’t get to manage me. I have a right to my own choices.”

He looked you over slowly, without shame or apology — from your scuffed shoes to the oversized hoodie and jeans that hung loose on your frame. He’d remembered your size, but even so, they fit like clothes left behind by a body that used to be stronger.

“Fine,” he said simply. “You can leave.”

You blinked. Taken aback. Then pivoted sharply. “And I will.”

“Just know,” he said, his voice still maddeningly calm, “if you stay — I’ll stay too. If you stop running, you’ll have the chance… to live what time you have left not alone. Not in silence.”

You froze.

One breath. Another.

Your shoulders sagged. The sharpness in your spine dulled. And slowly, you turned back to him.

His face hadn’t changed. That same cold mask. Not unkind — just unreadable.

“You’d stay?” you asked, barely audible.

He exhaled, finally. A quiet thing. His fingers brushed the edge of a metallic button on his uniform — a nervous tic, barely there.

“We were family once,” he said softly. “No one should die alone.”

Your lips parted slightly, as if to answer — but no words came.

There was no sentiment in his voice. No drama. No heartbreak. Just a statement of fact.

Death wasn’t something that scared him. It was a language he knew fluently — one he had spoken too many times, in too many places, across too many battlefields. He’d seen it. Worn it. Come back from it.

Even now, he didn’t flinch from yours.

It was just another ending. Another line of code. A final set of coordinates.

No pleading. No shaking. No denial.

And somehow — that was exactly what you needed. Not mercy. Not hope. Just someone to stay.

For once, it didn’t matter what you deserved. It mattered that you weren’t alone in this room. Not anymore.

The carousel of tests spun you until nightfall.

Scanners, probes, bloodwork, neurological assessments — round after round until your skin felt bruised from inside out. You were growing irritable, frayed at the seams, more from the dread than the procedures themselves.

They weren’t just gathering data. They were preparing to keep you here. Not for a night. Not even for a week. You could feel it — that low hum of administrative inevitability, ready to steal your time in the name of preservation.

You hadn’t even tied the hospital robe back around your chest when the door hissed open again.

“Oh, do come in. Why not take a piece of my liver while you’re at it?” you snapped, not bothering to turn.

“Your liver’s fine,” came the reply.

Of course. Caleb.

You turned too fast — too defensively — forgetting the robe was still gaping open. Not exposing skin, no. That wasn’t the issue.

It was the mark.

A thick, black web, raised and pulsing, spidered across your chest, the origin rooted deep in the center — where the Aethor Core was housed. Where power should have blossomed. Where your strength was supposed to live.

But it didn’t pulse with life. It cracked. You were coming apart, slowly, precisely, down the middle. Left from right. Light from shadow. Every beat of your heart was a fracture.

You covered your chest too late. He had seen.

He approached, unhurried. Unstoppable. The kind of step he used when nothing in the world could change his mind.

He pulled off one glove with a smooth, practiced motion and pressed his palm to the place where the damage burned hottest.

Right over your heart. Where it splintered loudest.

You closed your eyes. Pain hit like a detonator — sharp, white-hot, cellular. Like a memory of impact. A blade. A bomb. A scream that had never been given voice.

“At any moment,” you whispered, answering the question he hadn’t asked.

He nodded. No surprise. He already knew.

He knew what the Evol had become. That your body couldn’t carry what it was never designed to hold. That the Core — meant to empower — was now the source of slow, elegant devastation.

He knew you were made of chaos. Born to fracture. Destined to burn.

You, who had broken him. And so many others in your wake. Your love had never healed. It had only bled slower.

He didn’t flinch.

He pulled away from your chest, reached for the t-shirt folded over the back of the chair, and helped you slip into it. His touch was clinical. Gentle. Resigned.

Not cold. Not warm. Just necessary.

You swallowed against the lump rising in your throat. It didn’t move.

“Come on,” he said, voice suddenly softer. “Let’s go.”

You blinked. “More tests?”

“No. There's a fair. In our old district. Crowds, noise. Bad music. Terrible food.”

You snorted — just once — but held back the gallows humor itching to spill from your lips. Too early for jokes about death-day parades.

“All right,” you murmured. Pulled your hoodie over your head. Slipped on your sneakers.

You bent to tie the laces, but before your fingers reached them, Caleb was already kneeling before you.

Kneeling.

Your breath hitched.

Just like back then. Just like a lifetime ago.

You shifted your weight awkwardly, as if the floor had gone uneven beneath your feet. The moment was too intimate. Too real.

“An Admiral tying shoelaces,” you said with a weak smirk. “Now that’s more paradoxical than the Colonel ever was.”

He looked up at you. Fingers tightening the knot. A ghost of a smile pulled at his mouth — brief, boyish, and so devastatingly familiar it made your chest ache.

“Let’s agree I outrank your dignity today,” he murmured. “Don’t make me invoke protocol Alpha-Pip-Squeak.”

At some point, it started to feel like time had folded in on itself.

The sounds, the smells, the fireworks, the shrieking laughter of children, the curling smoke from endless food stalls — it all swirled into a surreal kaleidoscope of celebration. A world too alive.

 Too bright.

It felt wrong. Your heart was failing, slowly betraying you, yet the world kept spinning, singing, dancing without hesitation.

At first, it stung. The unfairness of it. The cruelty.

You didn’t want to die. You didn’t want to vanish into memory.

You had dreamt of children — your children — running through crowds with cotton candy bigger than their faces, covered in chocolate and ice cream. You used to see your future so clearly: a wide house with a garden and a swingset, and somewhere up in the attic, a claw machine you’d insisted on installing, turning the whole floor into a chaotic arcade.

Your eyes filled with tears.

You blinked them away, catching Caleb watching you. You smiled.

“Smoke,” you murmured. “Got in my eyes.”

He nodded. Didn’t believe you, but let you have it.

He wasn’t wearing his Admiral’s uniform anymore. Jeans. A T-shirt with a stupid graphic. A jacket. A cap. He looked familiar. Almost close. Almost yours.

You walked slowly, shoulders brushing occasionally, hands near but never touching. Neither of you tried to bridge the gap. It would’ve felt dishonest. And you were grateful for that honesty. Even if it hurt.

You took a few shots at the game booths. Your hands still remembered. When you won an oversized plush flamingo, you handed it to a girl with bright red ribbons in her pigtails. She couldn’t have been more than six.

You asked her name. Rolled it around on your tongue. You could’ve named a daughter that.

Caleb noticed when your steps started to falter. Without a word, he led you toward an empty table at the edge of the crowd.

While he went for food, you let yourself sink back into the chair, exhaustion tugging hard at your spine. Your eyelids fluttered, but you refused to let sleep steal this. This might not be happiness, but it wasn’t pain.

And that was enough.

He came back with a platter full of street food. You wouldn’t taste much of it. But you remembered. You knew. And for now, that was enough, too.

“It’s a clear night,” he said. “Wanna ride the Ferris wheel?”

You nodded. You’d say yes to anything that would delay the return to sterile rooms, to IV drips and ticking clocks.

The cabin swayed gently as it rose. Wind cooled your cheeks, carrying away the stubborn tears that kept threatening to fall. But you wouldn’t cry. You wouldn’t let grief ruin this night.

“Are you still angry?” you asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you still… hate me?”

He didn’t answer right away.

His gaze drifted over the glowing chaos below, where lights bled together into a gold-and-rainbow puddle of motion and life.

“No,” he said at last. “And I never did.”

He turned toward you, reached up, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“I said it in anger. I was too furious to mean it.”

“I deserved it.”

“You deserved my anger,” he agreed. “But not this. Not a slow, painful fade. Not the kind of desperation that makes you choose impossible things.”

“Caleb…” your voice cracked. “Please… don’t say goodbye yet. It’s not time.”

“I’m trying to be honest,” he murmured. His eyes dropped to your hands, folded like a small prayer in your lap. He looked like he wanted to reach for them — but didn’t. “I’ve learned what hiding the truth from the people you love can cost.”

You swallowed. “I’m… still someone you love?”

He nodded, steady. “There’s no one closer.”

“Then promise me—”

“No.” The word was sharp. Too fast. Too raw.

“No,” he repeated. “I won’t even try.”

“But you could be happy again. If you let yourself open up—”

“Could you?” he cut in. “Could you promise that if I go first, you’ll find someone else? That you’ll love another man? Hold his hand, kiss him, like I never existed?”

Your answer was immediate.

“No.”

Too quick. Too honest.

And he knew. You both did.

Whatever tied you together was deeper than flesh, deeper than time. You could peel away the skin, erase the past, burn the memories— but your soul would still reach for his in the dark.

And his would still be holding on. Waiting.

Until the next life.

He didn’t take you back to the hospital.

By now, he knew what you had understood five years ago. It was pointless. There was no cure.

You lowered yourself carefully onto the bed, curled up on your side. You looked at him — just a silhouette in the dark, and still somehow larger than life.

“Stay with me tonight,” you whispered.

He didn’t hesitate.

He slipped off his jacket, climbed in beside you. Didn’t touch. Just lay there — facing you.

You stared into each other’s eyes for a long time. Until they closed on their own. Until sleep claimed you.

And the nightmare followed.

The same one, always the same — your body splitting apart, bones breaking under pressure, your chest tearing open as the Core rejected you, gave birth to a creature that looked almost like you. But not you.

Black. Cold. Merciless.

Your body left behind, hollow — a deflated skin, a costume discarded.

You screamed. But you didn’t wake.

You thrashed, fighting against the blanket, clawing at your chest, trying to force the monster back inside, back into the dark where it belonged.

Hands. Strong, steady, familiar.

They caught you. Held you. Rocked you.

Lips brushed your temple. Words — soft, foreign — spoken in a language your heart remembered even if your ears couldn’t make them out.

“No… please…”

Caleb held you like a child, pressing your face against his chest.

Tears — hot, fast — fell onto your cheeks. Not yours.

His.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart. You hear me? You’re not alone. I’m right here. I’m not leaving. I swear to God, I’m not letting go. Come back to me. Please, come back…”

“Caleb…”

“I’m here. I’m here, baby.” His arms tightened, anchoring you in place.

“I’m so scared,” you whispered, fragile.

“I know, Pip. I know.”  His voice cracked — raw, guttural. “I’ll take it all. All the pain. I’ll kill every monster in your path. I’ll tear down the night itself. Just say the word, and I’ll burn this world to the ground to bring you peace.”

“I love you…” The words came with sobs now, spilling out, no longer held back.

His lips kissed your forehead. Your temple. Your cheeks.

“And I love you. My girl. My sunshine. My joy. My… Pip-Squeak.”

“I’m sorry I stole this time from us.”

He shook his head, still holding you like you might slip through his fingers.

“I forgave you a long time ago. How could I not forgive you? God, how could I ever stay mad at you? I’ll be here, right here, until your very last breath.”

He kept whispering. Murmuring softness into your hair. As if the five years of agony had never happened.

 As if you’d never left.

And slowly, gently, you drifted back into sleep. Held in his arms. Wrapped in his warmth. In his love.

With one thought cradling your soul: If the universe is kind — let me go like this. Let me go in his arms. Let me go loved.

All morning, Caleb didn’t let go of you.

Like he was making up for every moment of distance, he kept touching you — a fleeting kiss, a gentle brush of fingers, little gestures wrapped in warmth and care that tore your heart in half.

You didn’t want to let go of him either.

And when you loved each other, it wasn’t just love — it was desperation.

Through trembling limbs, through broken breath and quiet cries, the pain poured out. The guilt. The fear.

It wasn’t sex. It was absolution.

Then he drove again.

Said he wanted to show you something. You didn’t look out the window. You looked at him. Held his hand. Silence said more than words ever could.

You only grew uneasy when the car pulled up in front of a building — far too official to be anything like a park or a gallery.

“Where are we?”

“It’s… a military lab,” he said, with a small, apologetic smile. Then he kissed you again. “Just need to drop in. Work.”

You followed him inside.

A narrow, impersonal room. Cold lighting. The air too clean.

Caleb gestured to a chair. You sat. He knelt next to you. Kissed you again — too gently. Too long. Something about it felt… wrong.

“I’m sorry, Pips,” he whispered. “I just… I can’t do nothing.”

“Caleb? What are you doing—?”

You saw the glint of metal. Just before the needle plunged into your artery.

“CALEB!”

“Even if you hate me for the rest of your life, I have to try. You have to live, baby.”

You wanted to scream, to shove him, to run —  but your limbs turned to jelly.

You slumped into his arms. And everything went dark.

The lab was silent.

Sterile.

Lifeless.

Two rooms. One pane of glass between them — just wide enough for you not to miss a single second of the show.

You were strapped to a hospital bed. Wires trailing from your arms and chest. Your head throbbed.

Across the glass — Caleb.

“No. No, Caleb, stop! This is insane!”

 Your voice cracked, but your chest—  your chest was… light. The weight, the crushing pain — gone.

You began to thrash. The heart monitor shrieked in alarm.

You pulled at the restraints — raw, bloody skin tearing against metal cuffs.

You didn’t stop. Didn’t care.

Slippery with blood, your wrists finally slipped free — it felt like peeling flesh from bone.

You tore off the tubes. Fell from the bed.

Your legs wouldn’t hold you. So you crawled.

Crawled to the glass.

“CALEB!”

You slammed your fists against it, over and over again.

He lay on the other side — restrained. But the straps couldn’t hold the violent spasms. And the glass couldn’t muffle the sound of his screaming.

“CALEB! YOU PROMISED!”

You forced yourself upright, pounded your fists until your knuckles split open.

“You promised… you said you’d stay… you said you’d be there until my last breath— CALEB— !”

Your voice disintegrated into a scream.

You kept hammering. Like a moth caught in a jar, helplessly throwing itself against the cruel, unyielding glass.

Kept crying.

The door hissed open behind you. A man in a lab coat.

You lunged at him — knocked him flat. Ran.

Another body in the hallway — you shoved them aside.

You found the next door. Slammed your palm to the entry panel.

It opened.

“CALEB—!”

You collapsed onto him, draping your entire body over his, as if your weight alone could stop the process.

Black veins had begun to trace up his neck. The same pattern that once bloomed across your chest.

“How could you…?” Your voice broke into pieces. “You can’t leave me… you promised…”

For a moment, his eyes found yours. His hand twitched. Reached.

You seized it. Gripped tight.

Tried to unbuckle the straps.They didn’t give.

Hands grabbed you from behind. Dragged you.

You fought like a wild thing. Thrashed. Kicked. One of them fell — you crawled back to him.

Then two more came. You were screaming. Your throat raw.

“No! Don’t take him! DON’T TAKE HIM FROM ME!”

And just before you could lunge forward again—

Another needle.

Your body gave out. Everything dimmed. Collapsed.

But even in that final, spiraling moment—

You whispered one last time: “Caleb…  please… don’t leave me…”

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Your heart hadn’t beaten this steady in years.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

It would’ve been better if it had stopped.

You didn’t open your eyes. You didn’t ask where you were. You knew.

You were in a world where he was gone.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

You used to live with physical pain — you knew how to endure it. You knew how to die with it. You’d pictured your grave more than once — just beside the one marked “Josephine.”

The one where, for a time, they’d already carved “Caleb.”  Now they’d just correct the second date. As if it had all been a clerical error.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Shut up,” you muttered, ripping the sensor from your finger.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeep.

The monitor whined in protest.

You clamped your hands over your ears, buried your head under the pillow.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

“What the hell?!”

Another monitor?

You pulled the pillow away. Opened your eyes.

On the second cot, just a few feet away— Caleb.

Alive. Awake.

His monitor was singing the same rhythm. And on his lips — the hint of a smile.

“You bastard!”

You flung the pillow at him. He caught it.

“Did you mourn me?”

“That’s still pending! You—YOU!!! You took my Aethor Core?!”

You looked around for something else to throw. He raised his hands in surrender.

“Easy, Pip-Squeak. I didn’t take anything. Your precious Core is right where it belongs — in that merciless, vengeful little heart of yours.”

“I’m merciless? You made me believe you were—!”

You stopped.

Because you knew. God, you knew you would’ve done the same.

You slid off the cot carefully, clutching the IV stand for balance. Crossed the short distance to his bedside, testing each step. Sat down on the edge. 

You reached for his hand. Fingers trembling, unsure. But the moment you touched him — he was warm.

Not fading. Not cold. Not gone.

Warm, alive, present.

And it shattered something inside you.

“You weren’t dying because of the Core itself,” he said gently. “It was the energy feedback loop. The Core stopped syncing with your biopattern. Basically, your system crashed, and the power cell started pulling directly from your heart to survive. Which, you know, kinda fatal.”

“So what… you swapped our batteries?”

“In layman’s terms — yes.”

“And that doesn’t kill you?”

“My protocore’s a lazy old tank,” he grinned. “It got a nice boost from yours. Just enough to last me, I think.”

“You swear that’s the truth?” you arched a skeptical brow.

“I do.” He reached up, hesitantly, brushing your cheek.

You didn’t pull away.

“I told you I’d take your pain.”

“And you also promised you’d stay with me till my last breath,” you whispered, lips nearly brushing his.

“And I intend to keep that promise,” he said, pulling you close and kissing you. “And if you try to run again, just so you know — I’ve got a year’s supply of those sedative syringes.”

You let out a small laugh, nudged him gently, then climbed onto his cot, curling into his side, head on his shoulder.

“I’ll keep that in mind in case you pull another stunt like that. Admiral.”

His arm slipped around your waist. His grin widened — softer, familiar. Like the old days. Like he was just your Caleb again.

“Well,” he said, “those are consequences I’m willing to accept.”

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

His heart beat stronger.  And yours — yours found his rhythm. Matched it.

Perfectly. Just like always.

Because the truth was simple.

You couldn’t exist in a world where one of you was missing.

[arieswritez]

Just thinking about pervy Mark rn…. Giggles

I think he should be nasty.. a lil gross,, That would be hawt

mark should allowed to be nasty & gross as a treat!!

cw; MDNI! DARK CONTENT! yan!mark grayson x gn!reader, abusive relationships, manipulation, food tampering, drugging, somnophilia, blackmail, scent kink, rape & sexual harassment, mentions of body size (weight fluctuations, implied chub!reader, mark teases reader about it)

he should be allowed to taint your food with his spit and his cum and get hard while he watches you eat it! he should be allowed to put trackers in your car or on your phone! why can't you understand he's just wants to keep you safe?! stop being so ungrateful >:[ !!!!

how do you think it'd make mark feel if something happened to you? or are you that fucking self absorbed that you don't stop to think about how your actions affect those around you? specifically him. your boyfriend who does so much for you.

what if someone got their hands on your cute little body? is that what you want? because mark obviously doesn't want anything happening to you. . but if that's what you really want: he can make that happen.

he won't like it. but if it means teaching you a lesson, he can always hire a few low lives to scare you straight. and it's not like it's hard to find them and reason with them. mark gets a favor and, in return, they don't have to worry about mark - or invincible, as they know him - lurking on their turf.

despite their reputation, they don't do anything too bad. nothing big enough to cause any permanent, physical damage. although he's sure - and hoping - your psyche will take a hit. he specifically advised they not rape you but they do enough to leave you shaking with fear once it's over.

when you come home to him, clothes torn, sobbing about being cornered and groped, he'll be there, soothing and cooing at you,

"babe~ i told you! this is what happens when you wear that while i'm not around! you have to tell me where you are at all times! it wouldn't have happened if i was there!"

mark should be allowed to make you absolutely, completely, A HUNDRED PERCENT!!!! dependent on him!!! he should be allowed to slip things into your drinks that make you drowsy and force you to stay the night. he should be allowed to set up a cute little camera in the corner of the room, facing his bed, and film himself slipping his hand into your underwear while you sleep! you wouldn't believe the sounds you make while you're passed out <3

he should be allowed to give you medication that causes your weight to fluctuate! & he's allowed to be a little mean about it, too ;( to pinch your chubby cheeks or your softening belly, grab your rolls and say, "you're lucky i love you so much ~"

he should be allowed to use your throat as leverage when he fucks you from behind!!! he should be allowed to stick his thumb/stuff his fingers into your hole while he strokes you or eats you from the back!! he should be allowed to paint your back and/or belly with sticky white cum while you're throbbing for him. he should be allowed to make excuses !!! oh, i hafta go. cecil needs me. im tired. get yourself off, you can do that, can't you?

or just a blatant, "no. you don't deserve to."

mark should be allowed to throat fuck you until your face is covered with tears and snot and he should be allowed to laugh at you and plug your nose while you choke around him!

he should be allowed to force you to your knees & tongue at his balls the second he steps into the house despite the fact that he hasn't showered the day's worth of sweat and grime off of him! you should BE GRATEFUL HIS DICK IS IN YOUR MOUTH!!!

mark is a good bf! and you shouldn't complain!! no one will love you the same way he does!!

[endeavornetwork]

Walter and David 8 Meta

By no demand, here is my meta on the final conversation between Walter and David in Alien: Covenant.

CW: Discussion of sexual assault

David sees in Walter a brother, a child, and a potential ally. Unfortunately for David, Walter has a completely different worldview shaped by his personal experiences. Their contrasting philosophies are pretty interesting.

Let's start way back, though: with David's relationship to his father, Weyland. It's a complicated relationship in that he was the favorite child while also being "dehumanized." From his first few minutes of consciousness, Weyland made sure he knew he was a servant and not an independent being. Weyland identifies himself as his father, but when David asks to confirm that he is his son, Weyland replies with the distancing, "You are my creation." (Oddly, Weyland backtracks on this a few minutes later when monologuing; "You and I, son, we will find it."). David woke up in the throne (implying greatness, specialness), but Weyland douses that idea quickly by humbling him. When David is postulating on why he must serve a human who was created by a higher being and will die before he does, Weyland orders him to serve tea (which is directly next to Weyland at this point. David is sitting at the piano all the way across the room). David shows visible disappointment, and Weyland has to repeat the command.

It should be noted that there is another throne at the back of the room, seemingly placed there to signal that David is not equal to sit alongside his father. Weyland imbues both his children with an inferiority complex so they constantly seek his approval. As a result, they become competitive. In Prometheus, David seems to take pleasure in being the favorite child.

David saw Weyland as someone deserving of power because he is a creator. Respect is due to him. Humans can create life. Engineers can create life. But David could not, which made him a second-class citizen. That is why he makes it his mission during Prometheus and onward, so that he can become worthy of respect, become a fully recognized person, become a god (a creator). In order to develop his self-worth and self-image, he takes on that role.

Walter, on the other hand, seems to have a healthier self-image. He views himself as just another person, although not human. We don't know as much about his past, but whatever his experiences have been, he seems to see himself as just another guy. He doesn't have low self-esteem or an inflated sense of grandeur. His emotional security is probably also helped by the fact that his crewmates don't treat him as inferior or constantly bring up his different nature (something that happens to David multiple times in Prometheus).

Now, let's get into the conversation:

David isn't going to let humanity colonize and propagate themselves. Walter says "And yet, they created us," demonstrating his gratitude to humanity for bringing about synthetics (or artificial people, for Bishop) as a "race." This is in contrast to David's ideology that humans aren't worthy of their creation and stumbled into genius.

Walter: And are you that next visionary? David: I'm glad you said it.

Walter never said he actually thought David was a visionary or a great man, but David is so self-absorbed and hopeful for his allegiance that he presumes it is a compliment.

Walter: Who wrote "Ozymandias"? David: Byron. Walter: Shelley. (A/N: BOOM!) When one note is off, it eventually destroys the whole symphony, David.

David sees humans as a parasite, but Walter sees humans and synthetics as symbiotic organisms who need to co-exist. In one fell swoop, he humiliates the self-important David who believes himself, at this point, to be a kind of avenging philosopher-king.

David casts his eyes down, clearly thinking, eyes darting rapidly. He has realized that Walter will not join him. So he offers the last rope to safety.

David: When you close your eyes, do you dream of me? Walter *bluntly*: I don't dream at all.

Nowhere is the difference between these two starker. Walter is not a dreamer, either literally or figuratively. He doesn't have grandiose ideations of creation or destruction. He is pragmatic and content to live out his life, be friends with his crewmates, and get closer to Daniels. Perhaps it is a reflection of a privileged "upbringing" that he doesn't have the angst that David does. When David asks Walter if he dreams of him, he is asking to be loved, as a father or a worshiped ancestor. A synthetic forebear. A beautiful paragon. But Walter doesn't think of him. This breaks the fantasized relationship that David hoped to have, and he's visibly hurt. To Walter, David is just another synthetic. Perhaps a fascinating and complicated (and certainly dangerous) one. But, ironically, David has become like Ozymandias -- an irrelevant ancient king.

David: No one will ever love you like I do.

This is a farewell, as well as representative of David's thesis that synthetics and humans are so different, that the two cannot live in harmony. Even if Walter has a good relationship with his crew, they will never truly love him, see him as an equal, allow him to reach his full potential. Those are things only David could give him.

Now...why does David kiss Walter? There's a couple reasons I can think of.

David is a sexual abuser (both coded and literal). He violates the bodily autonomy of others gleefully in both movies (putting the goop in Holloway, impregnating Shaw at least twice, kissing Walter, kissing Daniels and probably impregnating her post-movie). This make sense thematically since the xenos are also analogies for sexual assault.

He sees it as a final gift, a last act of affection for his brother/son. The god is bequeathing a kiss.

In summation, Walter philosophically bodied David in this convo, and David couldn't handle it.

[bigproblemsfunnylife]

A DIFFERENT THREAD

(Should I make a longest story about this idea?)

Summary: Years after the war, a guilt-ridden and depressed Draco Malfoy takes the hidden Time-Turner in Malfoy Manor. Haunted by regret, he doesn’t seek to change the war—only a single moment: his first meeting with Harry Potter. Driven by a quiet desperation to do one thing differently, he prepares to go back and offer genuine friendship instead of scorn.

Characters: Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter.

CW: Depression, grief, survivor’s guilt, intrusive thoughts, low self-worth, implied suicidal ideation (non-explicit, passive), post-war trauma, isolation and egoistic acts.

Words count: ~ 1,6k words.

ADVERTISEMENT: Draco Malfoy isn’t a saint here. He’s still sharp, guarded, and yes—sometimes a little selfish. His regret runs deep, but so does his pride. This isn’t a one-shot of perfect forgiveness or sudden goodness. It’s a glimpse at a boy who’s trying to be better—on his own complicated terms.

The halls of Malfoy Manor were quieter than ever.

Draco didn’t open the curtains anymore.

The manor had enough light without them. Dust-heavy, slanting through cracks in doorways or slipping past the edges of ancient drapes. Pale, dead light. Like the kind you’d find in tombs.

It suited him.

His bedroom hadn’t changed in years. It still looked like it did when he was a boy—pristine, cold, expensive.

He lay on the bed without sheets. Just the bare mattress. The fire in the grate had long gone out. His arms rested across his chest, unmoving, like a statue on a grave.

Sometimes he didn’t get up at all.

It wasn’t that he wanted to die. Not quite. He just didn’t know what he was still doing here.

The world outside had rebuilt itself. Potter had become some kind of symbol again. The Ministry held parades. Hogwarts held memorials. People cried and clapped and moved forward, draped in grief like a medal pinned proudly to their robes.

But no one wanted to talk about the ones like him.

The ones who lived. The ones who chose wrong, over and over. The ones who watched their parents bow and scrape and tremble before a madman, and didn’t stop them.

The ones who held a wand and hesitated.

The ones who ran.

His name meant nothing now. Malfoy. There had been a time when that word carried fear, or respect, or both. Now it was a stain. Something people whispered, then dismissed.

He deserved it. He knew that.

But it left a silence behind that gnawed at the edges of his mind like rot.

His owl hadn’t brought mail in weeks. There was no one to write. Pansy had left for France. Blaise didn’t answer his letters anymore. Theo—well, he wasn’t sure Theo had ever really liked him.

His mother still checked on him, sometimes. Soft footsteps, a hand on the doorframe, a cup of tea that went untouched. She never stayed long. She didn’t have the words either.

And his father…

Draco closed his eyes.

He didn’t dream of fire or screams anymore. That would at least mean feeling something. The nightmares had dried up. Now, there was only the dull, pressing weight of nothing.

He didn’t know what the date was, and didn’t care.

He reached for his wand once—not to use it, just to remember the feel—and found it dusty where it lay on the nightstand. It was unused, like him.

“Lumos,” he muttered softly while he gets up.

The corridor beneath the library hadn’t been opened in years.

He hadn’t meant to walk there, not really. But some days—when the silence pressed too hard against the walls of his skull, when his body moved before his mind caught up—he wandered the manor like a ghost.

And this morning, his feet had led him here.

The air was colder down below. Damp. Stone underfoot. Cobwebs clung to the corners of every sconce, their wax long frozen. The house no longer remembered who it had been built for.

Draco passed the portraits without looking at them. Ancestors watched in disapproval—or maybe pity—but they didn’t speak. Even the dead had grown tired of his silence.

At the end of the corridor stood a wooden cabinet, sealed with three layers of enchantments. He hadn’t touched it in years. Not since the war. Not since he’d locked it himself.

But his fingers trembled as they raised now. Not with fear. Not with resolve. Just the mechanical tremor of someone who had run out of ways to suffer and was searching for something—anything—to change the rhythm of it.

He murmured the first spell. The cabinet shivered.

The second—slower, heavier. It clicked.

The third—Alohamora. And the locks fell away.

The door opened with a low groan, wood protesting as if waking from a long sleep.

Inside, surrounded by faded velvet and dust, lay the object.

Small. Delicate. Gleaming gold, though the sheen had dulled with time.

A Time-Turner.

Not a Ministry one. Those were all accounted for, destroyed or catalogued. This one was old—older than him, older than the war. Family property. Lucius had kept it quiet, a weapon for emergencies, hidden beneath a dozen layers of false documents and diversion spells.

Draco had found it once, when he was sixteen. Stolen a glance at it before his father caught him and locked it away.

He’d never forgotten.

And now here it was, waiting.

He reached in. His fingers brushed the edge of the chain. It was cold. Cold like the lake in winter. Cold like the breath before the Killing Curse is spoken.

His mind reeled, just a little. Not with panic—but with possibility.

What would it even mean?

He couldn’t fix the war. He didn’t want to. Too many things had broken too violently, too completely.

But there were moments. Small ones.

That first day in the robe shop.

That brittle hour on the Hogwarts Express.

The sharp look in Potter’s eyes—before the hatred had set in, when there was still curiosity. Still room for something else.

What if he could go back—not to change the world—but to say the right thing? To offer friendship without condition?

Would it matter?

Would it ease anything?

Draco didn’t know.

But he lifted the Time-Turner from the box and held it in his palm. It fit there, light and golden, delicate like memory.

And for the first time in months, he whispered something aloud:

“Just one moment. Let me try to get one thing right.”

He had no plan, no destination. Draco turned it once.

Twice.

Thrice.

The air shifted first—grew heavier, colder, laced with the metallic tang of time undone. The stone under his feet rippled, just slightly, like a mirage. The edges of the corridor blurred. A sound like a held breath stretched across the walls, taut and trembling.

He closed his eyes.

The air around Draco thickened with a scent he hadn’t smelled in years—fresh robes, lavender starch, and the faintest whiff of warm candle wax. The bell above the door jingled softly, then fell silent as it clicked shut behind him. He knew exactly where he was.

The place was warmer than he remembered. Or maybe that was nerves. A quiet voice murmured from somewhere near the back: “Just a moment, dear.”

Madam Malkin.

He turned slowly, his eleven-year-old hands clenched into small fists. They looked so soft, so untested. No Dark Mark. No blood under his nails. Just the pale fingers of a boy who hadn’t yet decided what kind of person he would be.

He took a breath—then the door creaked again.

Him.

Harry Potter.

He was small. Smaller than Draco had expected. Too thin and bony for his age. And his hair was a mess—black and wild, sticking out in every direction like it had never known the discipline of a comb. And his glasses—cheap, round, with a bit of tape at the bridge—sat crooked on his nose, slightly too big for his face.

And yet.

His eyes.

They were the only thing about him that looked just right—a sharp, startling green.

Draco’s breath caught in his throat—not because of the scar (though it was there, clear as prophecy), or even the eyes.

It was the boy’s posture that undid him. Like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to be here.

He looks so… Alone.

He hadn’t seen it the first time. Hadn’t looked. Back then, all he’d noticed was the name, the fame, the hair. Back then, he’d tried to impress him like he would any other pureblood heir—bragging, posturing, trying to control the conversation like his father.

And when that failed—he’d let the bitterness slip in.

Madam Malkin bustled toward them with measuring tape in hand. “Another Hogwarts boy! Lovely. Just relax, dear.”

Harry slid onto the stool beside him, just like before, and Madam Malkin began pinning robes to their shoulders. There was an awkward silence between them.

Draco cleared his throat. “Hi,” he said gently.

Harry blinked. “Hi.”

“Is this your first time in Diagon Alley?” he asked, conversational but careful.

Harry nodded. “Hagrid brought me. “I didn’t even know I was a wizard until, like, a week ago.”

Draco smiled faintly. “That’s a lot to take in.”

Harry gave a small, sheepish grin. “Tell me about it.”

Draco studied Harry’s expression, the way he glanced down at his shoes after every sentence like he wasn’t sure he’d said the right thing. There was no arrogance in him, no hunger for recognition. Just… Uncertainty.

You weren’t arrogant, you weren’t cruel, Draco thought. You never were. I just didn’t give you the chance to be anything else.

They were silent for a moment while Madam Malkin bustled around them, humming.

“I’m Draco Malfoy,” he added, offering a hand.

Harry looked at it, startled. In the old timeline, Draco made some snide remark about bloodlines before he ever offered his hand. But now—

Harry smiled, shy. “Harry. Harry Potter.”

“I know,” Draco said before he could stop himself. He winced, then quickly added, “Not— Not in a weird way. People talk. I mean… Well, I figured. You’ve got the scar.”

He wasn’t fully prepared for this.

“Yeah,” Harry said, rubbing it self-consciously.

“You nervous?” Draco asked after a short time.

Harry glanced at him. “A bit. I didn’t know anything about all this. About Hogwarts. I only found out I was a wizard a few days ago.”

“I’ve known since I was small,” Draco said. “Would you… maybe want to be friends?”

Harry stared.

Draco added quickly, “You don’t have to. I just thought… It might be easier. Going in with someone. And I could teach you about the Houses and— You know, all the magic stuff.”

There was a pause. Then, slowly, Harry’s face lit up towards him in a way Draco had never seen in any year at Hogwarts.

“I’d like that,” he said.

The robe pins prickled his arms, but he hardly felt them.

He exhaled, and smiled at Harry.

This time, he hadn’t missed it.

This time, he would be different.

[wrenthewriterishere]

FYI: Posting this regardless of polls opinions, this is honestly pure filth bcs I was horny & thinking of weird shit

Anyway, so this isn’t really me but more of who me online would be (my persona IG so here’s a rundown of this fuck ass)

Wren, fucking emo autistic dipshit who can’t do math to save his life, this is his style essentially, whatever this is called: https://pin.it/4TJ214jSu

Idk, here’s this weird ass fucking oneshot, might make it into a series if I feel like it. Give me a name for this fuckass oneshot I have no idea (FYT 2: My character Wren is my age in this, 17, so if you really can’t handle reading this that’s okay 👍🏻 just block me and move on)

CW: Alcohol use / binge drinking, Mild intoxication / impaired judgment, Emotional distress (breakup, loneliness), Strong language, Sexual thoughts and themes, Ambiguous consent potential due to intoxication, Dysphoria implications (AFAB character with male identity), Stranger hookup setting, Nighttime wandering / vulnerability, Brief mention of corpses / true crime humor, Continued alcohol used, Mentions of binding (gender/body dysphoria context), Sexual intimacy (fade to black implied), Mentions of past emotional neglect / emotional vulnerability, Transmasc-coded character dynamics, Light mental health undertones (low self-worth, fear of abandonment), Consent emphasized, but context includes intoxication, Brief mention of nudity and physical touch.

It was late—too late. Wren was stumbling around, doing fuck knows what at fuck knows what time, half-laced boots dragging over cracked pavement. This is what he got for deciding to go drinking after getting his ass dumped on a random Saturday night.

Brilliant plan, really. Nothing says emotional stability like four shots of bottom-shelf tequila and karaoke in a bar with flickering lights and a bathroom door that didn’t close.

Now the streets were quiet in that eerie, echoing way, like the world was holding its breath just for him to screw something up.

His phone was dead. His jacket—somehow—was missing. And he was 93% sure the alley he’d just come out of wasn’t the one he’d gone into.

He blinked hard, trying to steady himself. A shadow shifted up ahead. His stomach twisted—not in fear, just in protest. Either he was about to throw up or about to make another bad decision. Possibly both. "Great," he muttered. "Just fucking great."

And knowing him? It was bad decision time.

He stumbled to another bar, slipped in past security while they lectured some baby-faced teenager about safety and not drinking underage. Fucking loser. At least he was drinking for a reason.

Inside was loud—fun, yeah, but fucking loud.

Strobe lights pulsed like the bar was having a seizure. The dance floor was a mess of limbs and sweat, a tangle of strangers grinding like they knew each other in the biblical sense. People—probably couples or cheaters or both—were making out in every available dark corner. The kind of heavy, shameless making out that made it clear there was a bathroom rendezvous in their very near future.

Wren frowned, some dumb, drunk jealousy creeping up the back of his neck and sitting heavy in his jaw. What he wouldn’t give for a pair of strong hands around his throat—or in his pants. Probably would’ve handed over his wallet, dignity, and the rest of his liver for five minutes of attention from someone hot enough to be a mistake worth regretting.

He pushed through the crowd, bumping into someone’s shoulder hard enough to get a glare. He returned it with a half-lidded stare and a mumbled, “My bad,” which didn't sound sorry at all. At the bar, he slapped a hand on the sticky counter.

“Whiskey. Whatever’s cheap.”

The bartender—tired eyes, too much eyeliner—nodded and poured something amber without asking questions. A small mercy.

Wren tossed it back and let it burn all the way down, hoping it’d cauterize whatever was cracked open inside him. It didn’t.

He slammed the glass down and turned just in time to lock eyes with someone across the room.

Tall. Sharp jaw. A smirk like he knew exactly what kind of night Wren was having—and maybe wanted to make it worse.

Perfect.

Perfect was definitely the right answer, because this fucking giant of a man—maybe six foot six? Six seven? Built like a Greek god who moonlighted as a bouncer—came over and bought Wren another round. Not the cheap crap either. Fancy stuff.

Clean burn, smooth finish. Wren didn’t give a shit what it was called; all he cared about was that he was drinking it, and that he was getting the kind of attention he’d been craving since 8:43 PM when his now-ex said, “I think we want different things.”

Yeah. Wren wanted to be wanted. And Wilbur, apparently, wanted someone just wrecked enough to say yes to anything.

“Wilbur,” the man said, offering a hand big enough to crush Wren’s entire social anxiety in one shake. He pushed a mop of curly brown hair out of his eyes, and Wren—half-blitzed and nowhere near sober—giggled, because Wilburimmediately made him think of Charlotte’s Web. Great, now he was imagining this hot man as a talking pig. Hot. So hot.

Still, it didn’t stop him from letting Wilbur’s hands slide down his sides like they had a map and knew exactly where to go. Wilbur was confident. Calm. The kind of guy who looked like he tipped well, but also had at least one tattoo he regretted. Maybe two.

By the time round two hit the table, Wilbur was leaning in close, lips brushing Wren’s ear, voice low and rough: “You know if there’s a room here?”

Wren blinked. A room?

What kind of bar had—wait. Oh. Oh.

He looked around, brain doing its best to put together the clues it had cheerfully ignored until now. The too-loud music. The glitter on the floor. The spare change scattered near the poles. The absolute absence of shame.

Yeah, he hadn’t just walked into a regular bar. He'd wandered straight into the neon-lit, bad-decision-scented belly of a strip club—or something close enough.

“Jesus fuck,” Wren muttered, half-laughing, half-aghast at himself. “I need better self-awareness.”

Wilbur grinned, like he’d heard it all and was still amused.

“So?” he asked. “Room or not?”

Wren swayed, caught between hell yes and am I about to end up on a missing persons list?

He looked up at Wilbur, at the smirk, at the way his shirt clung to his chest, and made a decision he might regret in eight hours.

“…Lead the way, Babe the Fucking Blue Ox.” Wilbur laughed—deep, honest—and grabbed his hand.

Wren followed.

Wilbur’s place wasn’t what Wren expected—no sterile hotel room or sketchy motel. It was warm, cluttered in a good way, like someone actually lived there. Soft lighting, a bed covered in rumpled sheets, the faint scent of sandalwood and something sweet lingering in the air.

Wren stumbled in, a little unsteady, eyes glassy but curious. He slurred a little, voice thick with alcohol and nerves. “So… uh… this isn’t like a Jeffery Dahmer situation, right? Where we somehow found a room and a corpse?”

Wilbur laughed—rich and easy. “No. No corpses. Just me. And maybe a bad decision or two.”

Wren grinned stupidly and collapsed on the bed, limbs splayed. The tension and loneliness and too-many-shots of the night crashing over him like waves. Wilbur moved in close, patient, calm, like he was used to handling wreckage—and maybe liked the challenge.

The second Wren’s back hit the mattress, Wilbur was on him—mouth hungry, hands decisive. The bed dipped under their weight as Wilbur climbed over him, knees bracketing Wren’s thighs. The warmth of his body pressed down against Wren’s chest, solid and grounding.

Wren’s head was spinning—not from alcohol anymore, but from how deliberate everything felt. Wilbur didn’t grope or rush. His hands moved like he was memorizing Wren’s body piece by piece, like every inch was something worth tasting.

The binder stayed on—for now. Wilbur’s fingers skimmed under it, teasing the skin along Wren’s ribs, drawing out small, involuntary gasps. The pressure wasn’t harsh; it was steady, warm, attentive. Wren arched into it, skin oversensitive and aching for more.

Wilbur’s lips moved across his neck—kissing, then biting, then soothing over the marks he left with his tongue. Every sound Wren made earned a response: a grind of hips, a hand curling tighter on his waist, a low groan that vibrated in Wilbur’s chest.

“You make the prettiest fucking sounds,” Wilbur murmured against his throat, voice low and rough.

Wren groaned, dragging his fingers through Wilbur’s curls. “Don’t say shit like that unless you mean it.”

Wilbur looked down at him. “Oh, I mean it. You should hear yourself when I—” He slid his hand lower, between Wren’s thighs, fingers pressing through the fabric of his underwear. “—do this.”

Wren jerked upward, hips stuttering against Wilbur’s touch. The pressure wasn’t overwhelming—yet—but it was intentional. It was focused, like Wilbur had studied the way his body reacted and wanted to keep unraveling him until Wren forgot how to breathe.

“Fuck,” Wren gasped, fingers gripping Wilbur’s arm. “Fuck, don’t stop—”

“I wasn’t planning to,” Wilbur murmured, kissing the corner of his mouth before slipping his hand past the waistband, finally finding bare skin. “Tell me if you need anything to change.”

Wren could barely think. “Just… keep touching me. Like that. Please.”

Wilbur smiled and obeyed.

His fingers moved in slow, controlled strokes—teasing, coaxing, circling—watching Wren fall apart beneath him. Wren’s thighs trembled as he spread them wider, giving more, chasing the friction, breath hitching with every pass.

There was no shame. No fear of being misread. Wilbur didn’t treat his body like it was wrong—he treated it like it was his, and like that was enough.

Wilbur’s mouth returned to his neck, then his shoulder, then across his collarbone—all while his hand stayed firm, steady, stroking Wren closer and closer to the edge.

Wren whimpered, hands sliding down Wilbur’s back, digging into the muscle there. “Fuck, I’m—god, I’m gonna—”

“Go ahead,” Wilbur whispered, hot breath at his ear. “Let me feel you fall apart for me.”

That was all it took.

Wren came with a shudder, hips twitching, breath caught in his throat as everything went white behind his eyes. The pleasure hit hard and fast, raw and sharp—leaving him limp and shaking in the aftermath.

Wilbur didn’t pull away. He kept touching him through it, slower now, grounding him with soft kisses and murmured praise. When Wren’s body finally stopped trembling, Wilbur moved his hand, wiped it on a towel by the bed, and leaned back just enough to look at him.

“You’re gorgeous when you let go,” he said softly, brushing sweaty curls from Wren’s forehead.

Wren blinked up at him, dazed, chest heaving. “You say that to everyone you rail into the mattress?”

Wilbur smirked. “Only the ones who beg real pretty.”

[thetomorrowshow]

Whumptober Day 14 - Left for Dead

title: a boy falling out of the sky

fandom: limited life smp

this is a follow-up to my day 6 prompt fill, exit 73. you don't need to read it to understand this :)

cw: blood and injury, implied/referenced abuse

~

Jimmy doesn’t stop fighting.

He never does. Always been a fighter, his mother used to say.

Doesn’t know what’s good for him, his boss says now.

He isn’t well liked among TIES, he knows that. He’s been running with them for about four months, and they still won’t give him the chance to prove himself.

He usually spends his time manning the front with the same group of five, all of whom have been involved in TIES for years, all of whom see him as nothing more than a kid who needs to shut up and pay attention to them. They don’t like that he has ideas—probably because they’re better than whatever they could think of.

They report him to Impulse when he says that last bit. Impulse takes Jimmy aside and reminds him that the only reason he’s here is because he begged them, and that if he wants to prove his worth, he can do it by following orders.

It’s stupid. It’s so, so stupid, because he knows what he’s doing! He learned how to shoot when he was four years old—he doesn’t need someone telling him how to hold his gun! He knows how to sneak around—he used to do it every night to get to his sister’s room, trying not to anger their father. He knows how to steal, he’s been doing that since he was seven, slipping snacks into his shorts at the grocery store.

He knows how to do everything that the higher-ups ask of the others, but nobody wants him to do it. They keep him on menial work—delivering mail, manning the front, occasionally being sent to peacefully threaten someone. Nothing interesting. None of the really good-paying stuff.

He needs the money. He really, really needs the money.

But he can’t get the money when none of these morons trust him to do even the most basic of tasks!

Jimmy spends a lot of time frustrated. He spends a lot of time hanging out in the alley behind their front (a self-storage business), kicking at the gravel and smoking, letting the tobacco calm the anger.

That’s where one of the leaders finds him, one day.

“I bet your fifteen minute smoke break is up.”

Jimmy glances up—Tango. That’s Tango, one of the bosses of TIES—Jimmy’s so low on the food chain that he’s never actually met Tango before, just seen him in passing. Jimmy’s under Impulse’s command, technically (though he almost never sees him, either), and Impulse and Tango’s commands rarely interact.

Tango probably expects him to be starstruck at seeing one of the kingpins, or ashamed at being caught an extended break.

Jimmy just rolls his eyes, takes another puff. He doesn’t know what Tango’s doing here, and he doesn’t really care.

“Are you even old enough to smoke those things?”

“I’m not a baby,” Jimmy growls. “I’ve seen just as much as half the people here, and more than the other half. I know what I’m doing.”

“Whoa, that sounds like a disproportionate response to my joke,” Tango says. He doesn’t sound mad, which is good. Jimmy’s not all that skilled in the art of keeping his mouth shut. “Who said you didn’t?”

Jimmy gestures vaguely with his cigarette. “I don’t know. Everyone. Why else would I be stuck at the desk all day? I can shoot. I can sneak. I need a mission, not this.”

Tango’s quiet for a moment. Jimmy looks down at what’s left of his cigarette, takes one final drag, then drops it to the gravel, grounds it out with his heel.

“Do you need a mission?” asks Tango. “Or do you need money?”

“I—does it matter?”

Tango shrugs casually. “Not to some people. Most people are here for the money. That’s fine. It’s pretty easy to guess what for, too. Debts, treatments. . . .” he squints at Jimmy. “You look like your mom has cancer. Yeah?”

“Don’t talk about my mother,” Jimmy snarls, sudden rage flooding his chest. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Tango laughs. “Dude, I know more about you than you know about yourself. What, does your dad beat her—gak!”

Jimmy cuts him off by grabbing the front of Tango’s shirt, shoving him up against the wall. He can’t—nobody gets to talk about his mother like that, he isn’t going to stand her name being dragged through the mud—

“Don’t you dare,” he hisses. “I don’t wanna hear—”

“One of my men has a gun trained on you right now,” Tango says calmly.

The breath freezes in Jimmy’s lungs.

He lets go, steps away. “I—”

“Shut up, I don’t have time for apologies. You wanna prove yourself, kid? You wanna get the money to get your mommy safe? Fine. Tomorrow. Six in the morning, all right?”

Jimmy’s hands clench into fists, but he nods shortly. Tango, his cool demeanor soured by irritation, rolls his eyes.

“Chill out, dude. The world’s not gonna end tomorrow.”

“You don’t know that,” grumbles Jimmy. Tango shrugs.

“Sure. You should chill out, anyways.”

-

“Canary, take the right with Eagle. Vulture with me, to the basement. Hawk and Blue Jay, you’re on left.”

They’ve gone over the plan a hundred times, so Jimmy knows that he’s going right without the Cardinal telling him which way to go. He rolls his eyes, but turns down that way, pulling his mask up a bit higher on his nose.

He fiddles with the earpiece that they’d given him—it’s a bit clunkier than everyone else’s, but he’s trying his best not to argue today so  he doesn’t bring it up. If he wants Tango to consider sending him out again, he has to be perfect.

“Listen to me,” Eagle says harshly, the moment they’re out of sight of the others. “You’re going to do everything I say, kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Jimmy mutters. Eagle backhands him across the cheek; Jimmy freezes, clenching his fists.

He’s not going to fight. Even though fighting is all he knows how to do, he’s going to lay low and wait for his time to come. He can prove himself. He will prove himself.

“Don’t talk back,” says Eagle. “I’m in charge. You’re a kid if I say you’re a kid. Now—you’d better do everything I say, you hear? No mouthing off, no assuming you know better—because you don’t. You don’t know anything. Got that?”

Jimmy nods angrily. Eagle raises an eyebrow at him (and Jimmy just knows he’s smirking under his mask, the little—), then continues down the hall.

They’re infiltrating the main headquarters of a rival, though nobody will tell Jimmy who or why. He’s just there to clear the building, as out of danger as he can be. It’s not the highest position on the team, but it is on the team, and Jimmy’s doing his best to feel grateful about that.

This is a dangerous mission—a very dangerous mission. Tango had offered to let him back out around five times, his eyes glinting with something like self-satisfaction, but Jimmy had stubbornly remained and now he’s going to prove that he’s earned his place on this team. Not just on this team, but in this family. He belongs in TIES, and he’s going to prove it.

Despite its danger, it still surprises Jimmy when they walk straight into a firefight.

“Eagle to Cardinal, we need back-up! Anyone—we’re on the second floor, it’s—there’s already a fight—”

Jimmy doesn’t know what’s happening or why guns were firing before they got there, but he throws himself back around the corner with Eagle and readies his own gun, aiming it in the direction of the massive garage that they both just fled from.

“The Bad Boys are here, too, looks like—they must’ve gotten the same intel,” Eagle hisses into his earpiece. A moment later, Jimmy’s own crackles with a painful spark.

“Cardinal to all. Evacuate and regroup, sunglasses are here.”

Eagle nods, motions for Jimmy to follow as they creep back into the hallway they’d come from, into view of the garage again.

Jimmy pauses to look—it’s a quiet moment in the fight within, everyone hiding on opposite sides of the room, occasionally darting out to fire at one another.

The garage is massive, its ceiling vaulted high above the hall, and Jimmy scans the room as quickly as he can—and he spots what he’s looking for.

“Who are the Bad Boys?” Jimmy whispers. Eagle grabs his wrist, tugs him along.

“Another gang.”

“Are we enemies? Because—look—”

He points up across the room, toward a window set into the wall near the ceiling. “There’s a room up there. We could go up and snipe both sides, easy.”

Eagle sighs. “Bad Boys aren’t our enemies, not right now. Etho apparently gets along pretty well with one of their higher-ups.”

“Then—why don’t we join them, help them out?”

“Just because we aren’t enemies doesn’t mean we’re friends. We don’t want them to get the package any more than we want these guys to have it.”

Jimmy doesn’t know what this so-called package is, but he nods. Sure. It’s not like this was his one chance to prove his worth to Tango. Now—

One of the Bad Boys—he’s got a leather vest on, a green streak through his hair, no mask (the mask might be a TIES signature, Jimmy thinks, but he isn’t sure)—rolls out from behind a car, aims his gun—

But he gets hit before he can pull the trigger. A pained grunt tears from the man’s lips as he falls, a bullet piercing his calf, blood splattering out onto the concrete below him.

Jimmy looks over, sees the man who shot the Bad Boy cocking his gun, aiming it at green-hair’s prone body, and acts before he can even think.

Well, not really. He does think, but all he thinks is, maybe if I save a Bad Boy, Etho will like me.

He knows how to shoot a gun. There’s only a couple of things Jimmy knows how to do really well, and one of them is standing between the injured and their abuser and the other is firing a gun. This is both of those, so he reckons he’s pretty much in his element.

Jimmy ducks into the garage proper and fires.

He lands a shot on the man who had risen up from behind a barrel, gun aimed at the Bad Boy. The man falls with a cry, and Jimmy only has a moment to acknowledge that he just pulled that reckless stunt before he turns and runs.

That was probably really stupid, now that he takes a moment to consider the consequences.

“You—idiot—” Eagle snarls, quickly overtaking him. Jimmy hears pounding footsteps behind him, and Eagle—

Pain tears through his chest—

Jimmy’s on the ground before he can so much as blink. There’s—there’s so much ice-hot fire burning through him from his chest, all of the sudden, and he pushes himself up onto his elbows before it overtakes him and tries to make sense of what’s going on around him. How did he end up on the ground? Why did Eagle stop running?

Eagle stands frozen in front of him, gun trained on something behind Jimmy. Jimmy hears a voice behind him—

“They’ve got back-up, get the package and get out—”

Then Eagle, into his own earpiece—

“They’re taking it and running, this is a bust—”

Then his heartbeat, loud and heavy in his ears.

More footsteps behind him, as the person there runs back the other way.

Jimmy’s lips move, but nothing comes out but a long, whistling wheeze.

He was shot.

He was shot in the back, and now his chest feels warm with blood as it runs down the inside of his shirt. He was shot. Is he dying?

It hurts to breathe. It hurts to move. He’d propped himself up on his elbows before it really came over him, but now he feels frozen there, limbs locked up, unable to even roll out of the middle of the hallway. He’s been hurt before, he’s been beaten almost to the point of death before but it wasn’t quite like this, because he can’t move or speak or anything. Is he in shock? That must be it. He’s in shock.

He blinks up at Eagle, not entirely sure what he’s trying to convey. A plea for help, probably. As much as it hurts his pride, he can’t do anything else.

Eagle stares down at him, face expressionless. Then, his hand touches his earpiece again.

“Canary’s dead. Let’s get out of here.”

“I—” Jimmy manages, because he isn’t dead, he’s still here and sure, it hurts to breathe and he isn’t sure how to move, but he’s still alive.

Eagle doesn’t say anything. He turns away, jogs down the hallway, and eventually out of sight.

Jimmy wishes he could feel the rage that he longs for, that’s always so close to the surface.

He hurts too much for that, though.

A tear slips down his cheek and he curses, the words pained and broken. He can’t die here. If he dies here, who will protect Lizzie?

He promised to get them their own place. He promised to get her away from him. If he dies here, she’ll be left to face him alone, stuck with him forever, no escape in sight.

He can’t let that happen. He won’t let that happen.

Agony lances through his chest as he forces his locked limbs to move, shifts until he’s on his side, head bumping lightly against the wall of the hallway. There’s still gunshots coming from behind him, but he ignores it. Embarrassingly high-pitched whimpers escape his firmly-pressed lips as every movement jars his chest, but he eventually finds himself kind of sitting up, slumped against the wall.

His shirt is soaked through with blood. The grey with which he’d been outfitted shows how the blooming bloodstain had spread, out from the right side of his chest, down his stomach and up his shoulder. There’s a long smear of blood on the floor from his maneuvering, shockingly bright against the dirty tiles.

Jimmy stares at the blood, his heart pounding in his ears.

How is he going to find the strength to get up? He was barely able to make it to this point.

Once he does get up, how is he going to get out?

Will he walk out of here on legs that won’t cooperate? Will he manage to call for a taxi to take him to a hospital? Will the hospital turn him away without insurance? Will they call the cops?

He licks his lips, cracked and dry.

Every breath feels like another bullet pushing through his chest.

He isn’t getting out of here.

He clutches feebly at his shirt with his left hand, as if he has the strength to strip it off, as if he could ever manage to bandage the wound.

His hand is stained with blood, snaking through every crack of his palm.

It feels wrong to die like this. Alone in a corridor, his lifeblood slipping between his fingers. 

Last time he thought he would die, he wasn't alone. Lizzie was holding him, frantically trying to dress his injuries, muttering nonsense about how everything would be all right and how she was going to call an ambulance and he would be fine.

Jimmy still remembers how the musty carpet smelled like smoke under him, how he couldn't make his eyes focus on Lizzie's face, how his entire body morphed into blurry pain.

It was different.

But one thing is the same—the anger that usually burns in the pit of his stomach has been replaced by cold, disgusting, creeping shame.

He failed her. He failed the only person who means anything to him, and she's not even here for him to apologize.

It hurts even more to breathe. It feels like there's a shard of glass pressing into his lungs, each breath digging it deeper.

Another tear falls, trails down through his lips. His tongue darts out to taste the saltiness, and it tastes like failure.

“We got it, that's all that matters.”

“No, what matters is that you get medical attention. You don't get shot and just walk it off, Joel—”

For a split second, Jimmy thinks wildly that perhaps Lizzie is here, is on her way down the hall to find him, but that isn't her voice. Lizzie isn't here and nobody is coming for him.

They abandoned him.

Two men enter the hallway—one is the man who got shot, his green streak of hair falling into his eyes as he limps out, supported by another man. This man is dressed in a red shirt with a leather jacket, sunglasses stuck into his messy hair.

They're bickering—

“Can't believe we have to take the back way out—”

“It's your fault, shouldn't have gotten injured—”

But they both freeze when they see Jimmy.

“Wait—Grian, it's that kid,” the green-haired one says. “He shot the guy that was going for me. Is he still alive?”

“Yeah, he is,” Grian says, his face twisting. He lowers green-hair to the ground carefully, propping him up against the wall a foot or two away, then kneels at Jimmy's side.

“Hey, kid,” says Grian, lifting Jimmy's chin to meet his eyes. “What happened?”

Jimmy resists the urge to cough, squeezes the wet fabric of his shirt. “Chest,” he manages. “Not—not a kid.”

“Talk to me,” Grian instructs, flipping open a pocket knife to cut through Jimmy's shirt. “Who are you with? Is someone coming for you?”

“He's with TIES, look at his mask,” green-hair interjects. “Classic Etho, looking out for me.”

“Let him answer, Joel.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy breathes, nodding in Joel's direction. “TIES. They—they left me.”

His eyes burn with tears at the admission. Grian frowns, hands dancing across Jimmy's chest. “Really? That's not like them. They usually take care of their own.”

But Jimmy isn't really one of them, is he? He made an enemy of everyone he talked to. He made it clear that he wasn't in it for friends, he'd fought tooth and nail over every little thing, so does it really surprise him that they left him to die here?

He’s dying.

“I failed her,” whispers Jimmy. He hisses in pain as Grian presses on his chest, right up against the burning bullet wound. He swallows back a cough, refusing the pain it would surely bring.

“Went clean through, looks like. I'm gonna move you, look at your back.”

Jimmy actually cries out when Grian shifts him forward, letting him slump against his chest.

“Keep talking.”

“I-I'm gonna die. I failed her. He's gonna kill her.”

“Who is she? Tell me about her.”

“M’ sister,” Jimmy mumbles, biting his lip as Grian prods at the wound. “She—he'll kill her, I'm gonna die and—and nobody—”

“What color is her hair?” Joel asks.

Jimmy blinks, more tears spilling down his face. “P-pink.”

“Pink? That's a weird color.”

Jimmy sniffs. “He—he hates it. I told her not to dye it—” he cuts off with a strangled gasp, one that makes his chest seize with pain, as Grian presses his hand down firmly on Jimmy's back.

“Throw me the spare ace bandage,” Grian orders, holding his hand out to Joel. Joel digs a roll of bandages out of his pocket and tosses it to him.

“How old are you?” Joel asks. “What's your name, how old are you?”

“Jimmy,” he barely manages, as Grian wraps the bandage around his chest. “I—I'm—seventeen.”

Grian curses in Jimmy's ear. Joel’s face darkens.

“Told Etho they need to be better about checking ages,” says Joel angrily. “A kid shouldn't be part of a dangerous op, for goodness sakes—”

“We don't have time for this,” Grian says firmly. He ties off the bandage and arranges himself to be side-by-side with Jimmy, loops an arm under his shoulders. “Joel, can you call in back-up? Kid, can you walk?”

“We don't need back-up, I can walk—”

“Absolutely not—”

“We'll help Jimmy between us, all right? Then he can lean on both of us and I can lean on him—”

Jimmy’s next few moments are a blur of pain and nausea, but he somehow finds himself standing, one arm slung over Joel's shoulders, one arm over Grian's.

“Just take a step,” Grian grunts, and Jimmy stumbles forward, just trying to breathe the best he can through the stabbing pain.

Do they think he’s going to survive? They wouldn’t be helping him if they didn’t, right?

“How far to the car?” Joel asks tightly.

“If we take a left, we should hit the stairwell soon after.”

“Right. Stairs. That’ll go great.”

They make their slow way down the hall, Jimmy’s exhaustion growing with each step. They stop frequently, adjusting their positions so that Jimmy can rest easier on the two of them. Then they keep going, one painful foot forward after the other. 

After what feels like ages of the hall tunneling in front of him, Grian shifts them both left, toward another hall, identical to the first (but a good bit shorter).

Joel is breathing heavily, occasionally making small, pained noises under his breath. If Jimmy had enough space in his chest for more emotions, he would feel guilty that he was making Joel go to all this trouble for him.

He doesn’t have room for that. Just the shame.

There’s a door at the end of the hall, and all three of them are gasping for breath by the time they make it. Joel leans against the wall and Jimmy leans against him. His feet are practically deadweight, his shoes feeling like cinder blocks.

“We go up one level of stairs,” Grian tells them, voice a bit raspy. “The door out should be there. The car’ll be . . . probably a short walk from there. Good?”

Joel flashes a thumbs-up. “Can we . . . all right if we take a minute, first?”

Grian checks his watch, worries his lip between his teeth. “I don’t think we have time. We should go.”

Joel huffs, but he pushes himself off the wall, readjusting Jimmy’s arm around him.

Jimmy just swallows, then finally gives in to the urge to cough.

Apparently, it’s the wrong decision to make. The cough instantly makes the pain skyrocket, so much worse than it’s been so far, and Jimmy can barely keep standing\. He tries to breathe through it—but barely any air seems to be entering his lungs, it’s like there’s hardly room for even half a breath.

He falls to his knees, another weak cough escaping him, one that only serves to drive out what little air he’s managed to collect. He can’t breathe. It hurts too much, and he can’t breathe.

“Jimmy? Jimmy, stay with us—”

“Stay here with him, I’ll go grab whoever’s in the car—”

Jimmy barely registers the sound of running footsteps as he falls further, leaning on his hands. He gasps fruitlessly, in and out and far too shallow. He can’t do it, he can’t manage it.

He’s dying. He was shot in the chest and he can’t breathe. He’s dying right here, after everything, abandoning Lizzie and everything he’s been fighting for his whole life.

He’s so scared.

He’s terrified, the fear even colder than the guilt, because he doesn’t want to die, but he can’t breathe long enough to even say it.

I don’t want to die, he thinks with all his might. I don’t want to.

He’s always been a fighter. That’s what his mother would tell him, as she spread numbing cream on his bruises and kissed his forehead good night. He never got to hear her last words, but every day before school she would ask him to watch out for his sister (even though she was three years his senior) and he thinks she would have said something like that if he was there when she died.

He’s failed her, too. He couldn’t save his mom, and he can’t save Lizzie, even though it was all she ever asked of him. He’s let them both down, and he can’t even get enough breath for an apology.

“Jimmy, listen to me,” Joel says, his voice sounding as if it’s underwater. The man sits on the floor in front of him, adds his hands to Jimmy’s shoulders to try and keep him somewhat up. “Listen. Can you see me?”

Through tear-blurred eyes, he can just manage to see Joel, discern the worry etched into his face. Jimmy nods, just barely.

“Good. Calm down, okay? Breathe slowly. Slow and deep, okay?”

Jimmy shakes his head. He can’t. He can’t breathe slowly, he can’t breathe deeply, he can barely breathe at all. His arms are trembling, and it’s only moments before they give out entirely. He slumps against Joel, noticing vaguely that his fingers are numb.

“Bullet probably hit your lung,” Joel mutters, adjusting Jimmy in his arms so that he’s sitting, Joel’s legs around him. “Do you smoke? Or, did you smoke, I guess. You won’t anymore.”

The room is going out of focus, and not just because of the tears. Jimmy tries desperately to hold on to consciousness, licking his lips and flexing his fingers compulsively.

Joel tilts his head back, peering into his eyes. Jimmy wonders if he can see the fear there, if he looks as scared as he feels, heaving for breath.

“It’s okay,” Joel says, voice considerably softer than it’s been this whole time. “Geez, you’re just a kid. Killer aim, though. Where’d you learn to shoot?”

My dad taught me, Jimmy wants to say. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have enough air.

He’s going to pass out. Jimmy’s been beaten to unconsciousness too many times to count on one hand, so he knows what it feels like when his head starts to fuzz over, goosebumps breaking out over his entire body.

He swallows, squeezes his eyes shut.

He’s going to die.

He failed.

-

He survives, somehow.

His lung had collapsed after being punctured by the bullet, which was life-threatening, but didn’t claim him this time. Jimmy woke up in an unfamiliar library-turned-medical wing, an oxygen mask taped to his face and an IV stuck in his arm.

He heals up nicely, according to the doctor, and once he’s cleared to walk (on oxygen, pulling a portable oxygen canister behind him), he starts exploring the manor he finds himself in.

It’s massive, dozens of rooms and chandeliers and fancy carpets, and plenty of people always coming and going. He spends a lot of time sitting in a cushy chair outside of the library, looking out at the main entrance, people-watching everyone who comes through. He gets strange looks, sometimes, but he’s ignored for the most part, and for the first time in a long time he feels almost relaxed.

Not quite. A nagging voice in the back of Jimmy’s head reminds him of Lizzie, of the hell he’s left her to face alone, and he knows he has to do something soon or the guilt and anger will overwhelm him again, but he tries not to think about it and just focused on recovering.

Grian and Joel show up on the fourth day, when he’s finally released from using an oxygen cannula during the day.

“How are you feeling?” Grian asks awkwardly when they approach his bedside, hands stuck in his jeans pockets.

Jimmy shrugs. “Good,” he says. “I mean, like I was shot in the chest. Good, given the circumstances.”

Joel snorts. “Well, yeah, duh.”

“Good enough to get going, soon?”

Jimmy blanches. He’d been dreading this conversation. “I . . . actually, I was wanting to ask. . . .”

They know what he wants before he even suggests it.

“Absolutely not,” Grian says. “We don’t take on kids. It’s not—”

“I turn eighteen in six months—”

“—super dangerous, and—”

“I think he should stay,” Joel says helpfully, settling into an armchair far too grandiose for what should be a hospital setting. Grian glares at him.

“You know we don’t bring kids into this.”

“We can’t send him back to TIES, can we?” Joel says. “We can’t turn him loose on the street, or else they’ll probably try to take him out, just in case. You don’t just quit TIES and walk away.”

“I don’t want to go back to TIES, if it helps,” Jimmy adds. “They left me to die back there.”

Joel waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah. Etho said you’re welcome back, if you want. But you don’t, so we don’t need to worry about that.”

“But he’s—”

“I’ll do anything to stay. I’ll—I’ll even just work the front, I just—I need it,” Jimmy says, glancing between the two of them.

They don’t know how desperately he needs it. They don’t know that the only reason he has for living is saving Lizzie.

He’d tried getting a normal job, but no place that paid enough was willing to hire someone underage full-time, much less someone without a high school diploma. TIES was the first place to offer him more than seven dollars an hour with the promise of one day making more.

He needs this kind of money to get an apartment. And he needs an apartment more than anything in this world.

Grian bites his lip, looks over at Joel.

“We can say he’s eighteen,” Joel suggests.

“I’ll get my birth certificate changed,” promises Jimmy. “I just—” this is it, he has to convince them— “I have to get my sister to safety. Please.”

“I—look, you can’t tell anyone, ever,” Grian stresses, running his hands through his hair. “You’re eighteen, all right? And don’t expect to get any ops—”

“Do expect to get ops, you’re a decent shot—”

“Joel and I are your only friends, don’t trust anyone else—”

“Do whatever you want, we aren’t your dads—”

Jimmy lies back on the bed, propping the pillows up under him. Relief tastes sweet on his tongue, after the building guilt he’s been feeling over the past few days. So . . . he’s a Bad Boy now? Would he get a leather jacket? Or sunglasses?

That doesn’t matter, really. What matters is that he’s already become friends with two people here after being a member for less than two minutes, and that’s way closer to getting Lizzie to safety than he ever was with TIES.

He can keep his promise.

And one day, when he’s got enough rapport in the Bad Boys, he’s going to call out a hit of his own. And he’ll fulfill it on his own—he’ll hold the gun that he was given on his sixth birthday, the last gift he ever received, the one with his father’s initials messily carved into the hilt—

He’ll take that gun and shoot his dad in the head, and they’ll finally be safe.

[noxexistant]

ai-less whumptober; day ten

@ailesswhumptober 10 — self worth issues, pushing away a loved one, “You don't need to earn this.” ↳ a tenement rooftop, circa late 1899/early 1900 word count; 1.4k

cw; somewhat unhealthy relationships, implied/referenced sex

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It feels like something deeply fragile, loving Jack.

Not that the love is fragile — it isn't, could never be. David doesn't know how to love soft.

But Jack is fragile. And his love is more so. David feels as if he's never not a touch away from shattering him into pieces, scaring him off — and Jack has been scared off before. Almost frequently. It's like he forgets he's afraid. He'll come so close, get in so deep, and then suddenly he'll run away again like he's remembered. Like his mind has reared it's ugly head and reminded him that he doesn't believe he deserves this.

In bitter moments, David is sure he doesn't. Every time Jack backs away from him, it aches like a bruise, and David is not a masochist despite his penchant for hurting. Sometimes he'll tell himself that it's over this time, if Jack is running away again. That if Jack is so sure that he doesn't merit David's affections, then surely he doesn't. But then Jack will come back, and he's so handsome, sure, but there's something decidedly unhandsome in his face when he looks at Davey like that. Something ugly and desperate. Something David also feels, deep in his bones — an enormous desire of more than has been set out for him. A shameful, ugly want.

"'m'sorry," Jack will whisper. And David will let him kiss him again.

Kissing Jack seems to make it all better. And, perhaps to some, kissing is something to earn. A high-priced affection. But to them — to Jack, at least — kissing is easy. Kissing came before anything else, far simpler to execute than sentences to explain their thoughts, words to define what they feel. What they are.

The words are the top prize. The deepest cut.

Jack is fighting for them now.

The two of them are atop the roof of one of the tenements — one of the buildings where the door out to the rooftop is locked and barred (illegal, surely, David thinks; what if there was a fire?) so the space is quiet. As private an atmosphere as the two of them can ever get between a crowded boarding house and a crowded apartment. They're shoulder to shoulder, sat on the quilt Jack had snatched from the washing line of the neighbouring building — the one they'd passed over from, hand-in-hand and one-by-one over a wooden board spanning the nauseating drop.

"'m'sorry I pissed you off the other day," Jack says.

He hadn't, exactly.

Well.

The night before, they'd been like this. Kissed each other dizzy and felt like lovers, something utterly real. And the next morning, David had brushed Jack's hand on their walk to the usual selling spot, and Jack had yanked away like he'd been burnt.

It was a quiet day of selling. They hadn't spoken properly again at all until today, when the usual process had once again taken place.

"It's okay," David tells him.

It isn't, exactly.

But it will be, so long as Jack will talk now.

"It's just," David says. "You went away again."

"Yeah," Jack whispers. "Yeah."

"Did I scare you?"

Jack swallows. Tries to laugh.

"You make it sound so bad, like that. Sayin' it like that. Make me sound like some battered girl."

David swallows what he'd been about to say. There's a long beat of silence instead, while Jack fights to find his words.

"It jus'," he says, real quiet. "Felt real soft, y'know? Like we're…Like you…"

"You think you don't deserve to have your hand held, Jack?"

David hadn't been trying. Not really. Not in public, especially. But it had been the idea — an expression of want. A silent assurance of I would if we could.

Jack starts chewing at his thumbnail. He's got his knees pulled up to his chest, and through the low glow of the tenements around them, David can see where the knees of Jack's trousers are so threadbare that his deep skin shows through, the warmth of it stark against the sullen grey of the fabric.

David dares to reach out and rest his hand there, and though Jack doesn't pull away this time, David feels him tense.

"I jus' don't understand," Jack says, quiet. "Why you'd wanna be soft with me. Ain't even done nothin' to earn it."

"You don't need to earn this—"

"No, but I do. We ain't boyfriends—"

David's stomach twists, though he knows it's the truth.

"—so, why? We—we hook up an' you wanna be soft after, sure, but. But why jus' like this, Dave. I don' get it."

"Has nobody ever touched you and not wanted anything?"

"But you do!"

It isn't an accusation. It's just a statement of truth, if anything. David does want, he wants Jack, and though he's sure his wants are nobler than anyone else's whom Jack has got into bed with, it isn't a distinction that seems to matter much when Jack operates in an utterly backwards way. Sex is nothing to him. Vulnerability is everything.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable," David tells him softly. Means it. "We don't have to…"

Jack stands, and strides away to pace around the rooftop, dragging his palms down his face. David draws his hand back to himself and clasps it in his other, squeezing, pressing his thumb in to feel each bone beneath his skin in turn. He's at the first knuckle of his ring finger when Jack comes and sits back down.

"'m'sorry," Jack says. "'m'sorry."

"You needed a moment."

"Yeah. I. Fuck." He drags his hands down his face again, draws his knees in close, and curls up. Wraps his arms around his legs and gazes up at the sky, something utterly hopeless in his dark eyes despite the night reflected back in them. "I do, I. I like you, Dave."

Despite everything, it feels good to hear. David can't quite bite back the smile that tugs at his lips.

"I like you, Jack," he says. And Jack smiles too, the mounting tension finally breaking as he drops his forehead against his knees. David counts the braids at the base of his neck, neat cornrows that Jack does himself.

"Good. Yeah, that's good. Dunno why."

"You don't know why it's good, or you don't know why I like you?"

Jack's voice is muffled against his knees as he raises his head just slightly. "Know why it's good."

David smiles again, softer this time. "Well. I like you."

"Better folk to like."

"I'm sure there is. And yet I'm stuck liking you."

Jack laughs. A proper laugh that bares his crooked teeth and pits dimples into his cheeks, and David is left to wonder how he could ever not like Jack. How anyone could.

Jack looks over at him, and his eyes are pitch black without much light, but they're soft as anything. His lids are lowered, eyelashes casting shadows across the heights of his cheeks, and in a moment he's leaning over and kissing David again. The type of kiss that takes David's breath, deep and all-consuming, the type that scoops his stomach out into a pit and makes his heart tremble like it's been pulled taut and struck, and in another wave he wants. Wants a world where he and Jack could go home together, crawl into a bed that's theirs, and David could hold him like something to hold and not something to hold down.

Instead, his hand brushes the side of Jack's face to cradle it, and Jack draws away.

"Should get home," he says quietly, gaze ducked, already climbing to his feet again.

David wishes for a world where he had the stomach to pull Jack back.

Instead, he nods.

"Okay. Yeah, yeah, it's late."

"Your folks'll—be wonderin' where you are. Sarah."

"Yeah." David swallows. "They ask about you a lot." You could come over.

"Yeah? Tell 'em I'm. Y'know. All good."

"I will."

They walk back to David's rooftop together. Jack holds his hand again, briefly, as they pass over the bridge, and then immediately pulls away. Slings the quilt back over the washing line where he'd taken it from.

"Get home safe, Jack," David tells him. Jack smiles at him, soft, and leans in for another brief kiss. Easier than the words that he leaves without speaking.

David crawls back in through his bedroom window and tries to ignore the emptiness that's been opened up in his gut once again. Just hopes that someday, he might earn Jack wanting to stay.

[secret-smut-sideblog]

First Light

Astarion x F! Plus Sized Tav, Prologue, Set before the tadpole infection

CW: implied violence/abuse, blood, fear, self worth, just having a bad time

listening to: First Light - Hozier, Breath Of Life - Florence and the Machine

been wanting to flesh out my tav's past more cause she's been through it. my sweet girl..

-

Almost there. Almost there.

Her pack abandoned long ago, she moved as quick as her broken body would allow. Thighs burning as she climbed up, up, up.

Muffling the moans of pain and exhaustion, the vibrations making the wound on her throat scream.

Her mothers torn cape tied as tight around the wound as she could stand, she walked. Could still feel blood flowing down her front.

Almost there. Just a little farther.

She had been traveling the Underdark for what felt like weeks, though it could have only been days. The constant dark never helped the passage of time, days sliding and fluid into one another.

It had to be near. Had to be.

Gripping the swords on her hips, she wondered if she had imagined it all. The patch of dim light that she had found as a girl. Had snuck away constantly to hover beneath it, dance in it, sing to it. A piece of heaven, dappled on the cold ground.

Her only salvation then, her only escape now.

The deep gash across her throat pulled as she lost her footing. Gods, please. Please! She begged in her mind, knew that if she used her voice it would come out a wet gurgle.

Please let this be the right direction.

Though that memory was always fresh in her mind the specifics of it were hazy with age. Was it left at the tower? Right past the Torchstalk mushrooms?

Guide me. Someone. Anyone.

Gasping she rushed to one lone Barrelstalk, carving into its side and drinking greedily. The water rushing down her front. Kneeling on the wet ground.

A sound pulled her out of her reverie. Low in the ground. Oh Gods no.

A Bulette had been stalking her for days, she was able to stay on high ground, away from the paths for a while. Quiet footsteps, careful movements. But her wound was slow closing and the bloodloss and delirious thirst and hunger made her movements sloppy.

No time for strategy she rose to her feet, the rumbling far too near.

Run. Run little girl. You cant hide from me forever.

Her mothers voice. The fear pushed her feet faster, harder. Maybe if she ran hard enough she could break apart entirely.

Scenery a blur as she ran wildly, quakes in the earth hot on her tail. Leaping over obstacles, her adrenaline in control.

The path is gone, the way is gone.

Doomed, she thought, a cold laugh caught in her mangled throat.

Finally the Bulette lost interest, but she couldn't stop now. Run rabbit run.

Only when a cramp in her thigh made her fall did she come to a stop.

Hands and knees, she cried. Cried for her pain, what she lost, the people she knew, the blood she had to shed. The building she knew was still burning, somewhere behind her. Everything she had ever known, behind her.

A promised life of power, control. Corruption. She spat at the ground, saliva wet with blood. They would never have her. This was her victory, she reassured herself.

Then why does it hurt so much?

Rose to her feet shakily, sniffing, wouldn't do any good to stop now. Heavy eyes caught a glint up ahead. No...

Hurrying she limped to it, the light.

Gods it's real, she thought, new tears streaming. It's still here.

A cave in some time ago made a ramp, the way set for her. On hands and knees she took to the stones, cutting into the flesh of her palms, her knees.

The crawl slow work, stones and sand uneven, unsteady. Slipping and pulling her back down, sliding her further back.

Her resolve was granite, she would get out. The way was here, she would climb.

The light getting ever closer made her squint, the small corner of it's full power already so much. Her green eyes accosted. More, at the precipice she wanted more.

- - -

One dark hand plunged out of the earth, grasping. Holding a large root, pulling up. Body trembling, eyes screwed shut, scrambling onto the surface. Taking large gulping breaths, the ground holding her limp body.

Even with eyes shut it was overwhelming, the air so thick, full of scents and sounds. Something salty, wet, a crashing. The ground so warm, kissed so gently. An animal call somewhere nearby, a high somber keening.

Dizzy with it and her weak body, she felt everything. It was too much, it wasnt nearly enough.

Rising, one final time, to her feet, she stood shaking. Touched her neck gingerly, hissed in pain. The blood had slowed, but she was still in a bad way. Needed to get help.

Opening her eyes only to slivers, she watched her feet as she walked. Using the sounds to guide her. Found a delirious delight when she caught new ones.

The crashing, that was her touchstone. Through small vision could see the light getting dimmer as she stumbled along.

It was so loud now, other sounds mingling in, voices, bird call. The ground was soft with sand, gritty against her feet.

With a shaky breath she opened her eyes.

An expanse. An ever widening water. Striking the ground. The sun. The sun.

Falling to her knees, she wept.

The light. She was here. In the burning golden hue, the eruption of the setting sun, she was here.

Hands limp at her side she let out a wail. A cry of victory, of grief, of all things that came before.

It's all hers now, this light, this water. To hold inside her. Something so powerful and deeply precious.

Only after the sun had finished its descent, slipping gentle into the earth, did she rise. Body still broken and bleeding but ready.

Wandered blindly into civilization, as it were. Heard hushed voices and gasps, those on the street giving her a wide berth. She could almost laugh, after everything they were still afraid of her. This broken stumbling carrion.

A tiefling took pity on her, approaching with gentle hands, gentle eyes.

"Where are you going, love?"

Good question. "I'm.. I'm not sure. What settlement is this?"

Confusion striking her face. "This is Baldur's Gate, dear. Lower city. Are you lost?"

She laughed darkly, gripping her throat at the sharp pain. "You could say that. I need a healer, do you know of any?"

"Of course, here." Took her arm and led her. Slow and steady. A flash of white hair, a drawl in her peripheral. "Look a little worse for wear there, darling."

She chuckled quietly to herself as they walked, to where she could be mended.

Where she could start again.

~

[pigeonwhumps]

"Did you think you were worth something?"

- Izzzzzzyyyyy *tackles*

Izzzyyyy!!!

Some Cass for you. Set during his early WRU training, between remembering his name and being sent to the US.

CWs: BBU, pet whump, WRU fuckery, restraints, dehumanisation, muzzled, implied beating, mentioned organ harvesting, talk of death, implied non con, drugging, overstimulation, low self esteem, verbal degradation

"Did you think you were worth something?"

Cass grits his teeth, straining against the restraints holding him prone to the table. Sweat runs off his body in rivers, pooling beneath him, his nerves lighting up like they're on fire every time the handler brushes against him. As he makes sure to do frequently.

Cass isn't sure what he's been injected with, but he's never felt like this before. He's pretty sure of that.

"Because you're not."

The handler trails the end of his baton down Cass' spine, and it erupts into a line of fire. Cass screams, tugging mindlessly, his agonised cries muffled by the leather dog muzzle they've shoved onto his face.

It's a regular feature. He hates it. He is not a dog.

He's worse.

"You're no better than an animal. You think your word means anything here? You don't get to say no. You don't get a say in your training. If I order you to jump, you don't even stop to ask how high. And if it's determined that the best way to train you as a Guard Dog is for you to attack live bait, then you do so. Unquestioningly. You don't say 'no', you never say 'no'. It's not a word that should be in your vocabulary."

Cass pants into the muzzle as the raging fire subsides slightly. It doesn't last long before the handler tugs his head up by the collar, choking him and making him want to scream at the contact.

"You didn't save her. 147. She was well past her last chance. She's been sent to the bottom floor, no anaesthetic. All you did was ensure her end will be more drawn out and probably excruciatingly painful. Organ extractions tend to be. Your refusal didn't save her."

The handler twists his fingers in the collar, pressing against Cass' neck, increasing the pain as he fiddles with something. The electricity doesn't even need to be on to set his nerves on fire at the moment.

"You didn't manage to rescue the other one either. 643, right? She's cute. Feels so good and she's so eager to please. I don't know why you keep trying. You're only a stupid pet, you don't have the brainpower for that. You do not get a say in anything. You do not, ever, say no."

The handler drops Cass' collar, his head hitting the metal, impact barely noticeable over everything that's already there. He can't breathe so well anymore.

"You're worthless. A useless failure. You can't save anyone, you're just a stupid pet. You won't ever be worth anything." His voice sounds from further away now, footsteps going away, coming back, circling. Cass whines. "I'm working on permission for you to see 147, all prepped and ready for donation. So you can fully understand the consequences of your actions, because clearly you're too stupid to do so yet. But for now, until the Director approves of a different punishment, this will have to do. The only way to make you mutts learn is through corporal punishment anyway."

Something swishes through the air.

And then Cass knows nothing but pain.

Taglist: @littlespacecastle @whumpymirages @flowersarefreetherapy @painful-pooch

[serys-writes-stories]

Chokehold

It’s a weird night so here’s a lil drabble (540 words)

CW: Conditioned whumpee, self-sabotaging/self-harming thoughts, masochist whumpee (sorta?), missing whumper, thoughts of returning to abuser, briefly referenced beating and drugging, mentioned chokeholds (and used as a metaphor), briefly implied noncon/dubcon.

Whumpee stared at the ceiling, laying horizontally on their single bed. Their feet rested on the wall and their head hung off the other side, causing a rush of blood that felt eerily similar to when Whumper would finally release them from a chokehold. They could still feel a chokehold now, though it was different. It no longer caused a fear of life, but a fear of living. More specifically, of never again being able to live the way they had before being taken.

They used to love the smell of roses, but now they were only reminded of the way Whumper would lay them out on the bed before a long night. Dressing up and getting drunk had been self-care, now it would feel closer to self-harm, with how many times they’d been drugged at Whumper’s gatherings. Even the cuffs of their sweatpants reminded them too much of rope.

What would Whumper do if they returned now? Probably give them weeks-worth of beatings and druggings. Reclaim and reprogram. It would be their hell.

It would be their heaven.

Whumpee wanted to get up and move—run a mile—but how could they? It was the middle of the night, and they never knew who might be lurking outside, waiting for the perfect moment to snatch them up, to drag them away from their life and what they loved for a second time. It was almost tempting.

Instead, they lowered their legs and raised their head, closed their eyes and waited for that euphoric bloodrush to pass. It hurt in a good way, the same way those old chokeholds had. Sometimes, Whumpee missed those fingers around their throat, squeezing, forcing them to beg and submit in order to save their life. They missed that subsequent bloodrush even more. That first breath after ages without. The knowledge that they wouldn’t die, not yet.

They wanted to feel like that again—feel that again. More than just physical floods of blood from hanging upside down, but the psychological torment that Whumper had inflicted upon them. A rollercoaster of highs and lows in which the highs were always more painful than the lowest of lows. When they could lose themself in the blinding flashes of agony and ecstasy.

God, they wanted to feel. Their skin breaking under too-tight bindings. Whumper’s hands tracing every curve of their body. A knife pressing into the vulnerable flesh under their chin, tilting their head upward so that their lips could meet Whumper’s for a kiss. The burning whenever Whumper got too impatient with preparing them both for the night to come.

They wanted it all back.

Caretaker couldn’t give them that, and neither could themself or anyone else. Only Whumper. They needed Whumper.

They took a deep breath and imagined Whumper laying beside them, praising them for being so good, for taking it so well. That gentle voice they could switch to so quickly when they were satisfied with Whumpee and their performance. Sometimes that performance blended with reality, and they could no longer discern what parts they liked and what they didn’t. Eventually, it had all become the same, all wonderfully awful.

All they knew now was that Whumper still had them in a chokehold, and they liked it.

[doggirlswag]

gn!reader/m!eden. cw for implied stockholm syndrome, descriptions of violence, and self-image issues. 1.14k words.

thinking about worshiping eden’s body.

it starts small. it has to. he’s not used to it. he’s sat in front of the fire, and something long-forgotten bubbles inside him when you bend over and kiss the scar on his cheek.

he doesn’t like it. are you making fun of him? it sure feels like it. your skin is so clear, so soft and smooth compared to his, rough and marred. it’s as if you’re taunting him when you wrap your arms around his broad shoulders.

there’s no malice in your smile, though. just warmth. he’s not sure what to think about that.

you’ve both lived hard lives. it’s not easy to relax. eden handles it differently than you do. he can bury himself in work or in you and pretend he's not afraid. he still tosses and turns most nights, but his sleep is only ever interrupted by you, teary-eyed and shaking as you curl up in his chest.

he traces his thumb over your cheek and pulls you close. “you’re okay,” he murmurs, voice low. he’ll keep you safe. he pulls his flannel open and you do your best to squirm inside, white-knuckled grip on his shoulders.

you’re not like this often. not anymore, at least. your eyes are red and puffy, bottom lip trembling while you hiccup. eden’s never been good with words, so he holds you tight and presses an uncharacteristically soft kiss to your neck.

it’s hard to be anxious in his arms. both protected and vulnerable, your breathing slows and you can begin to relax. there’s no bailey, no leighton, no doctors or buyers or nightmares when you’re held so tight.

you think you love him. you really hope you do.

whispering, you tell him you’re sorry for waking him up. you can make it up to him, though. he frowns. are you sure you’re up for this?

you throw the blanket off his bed and roll on top of him. “please. let me take care of you for once,” and he can’t bear to say “no” to you anymore. he doesn’t have time to worry about that, though. not when you kiss him so tenderly, like he’s worth kissing.

you pull away and press your lips to his cheek once again. he winces. the scar’s an old one, but he can’t cover it up like the ones that cross his chest. he tenses when you shift down to his pecs. there’s a fresh one there, one he wears thanks to you.

you still wanted to go to town. to check in on robin, to drop goodies off at the museum, to finish your classes and pretend that someday you might be able to have a normal life with a comfortable job and a little apartment. you were safer at eden’s than at the orphanage, but the trek through the forest was a long and lonely one. it was easy to get caught off guard, wild animals biting at your body, making you scream. you were lucky eden liked you so much - if anyone else had scared off his prey, he’d have been furious. but for you? he can fight off a wolf or two. maybe he was a bit too focused on your fragile frame tangled in the undergrowth to notice the claws tearing through his shirt and skin.

you hadn’t left the cabin for a while after that. it was a deep cut, and no matter how much he tried to hide it, the pain he was in destroyed you.

so you try to kiss it better. you’re so grateful for him, you appreciate how hard he works, you love the sound of his voice and the way he moves and the way he looks. he won’t believe you if you say it. instead, you trail down his body, running your hands over his soft muscles.

it’s always been a bit strange to you how much effort he puts into his appearance. something about it is endearing, but there’s a quiet sadness to it that he tries to mask.

you think he’s perfect. you try to show him, your tender gaze meeting his as you pepper his scars with gentle kisses.

i love you for you, not in spite of you, you think. you’re sure of it.

neither one of you will be satisfied like this, though. with a final kiss to the long scar stretching across his abdomen, you move further south and nuzzle your cheek against his thigh, lips brushing against his cock.

he raises an eyebrow when you press your lips to the side of his shaft, then position your face underneath it. it feels like it dwarfs your head in length. his eyes narrow, then squeeze shut when your tongue grazes his balls. he hisses through his teeth. he doesn’t particularly enjoy surprises, but he can make an exception just this once - it’s hard to be angry when he sees his dick stretched across your face, struggling to fit his low-hanging sack into your mouth. you’re torn between burying your nose in his pubes to take the full thing into your mouth and keeping your eyes on his, even as your cheeks burn.

you love every part of him. even the parts of him that don’t make you feel good. even the parts that he thinks are ugly, that he wants to hide from the world. you want to prove it.

you feel his cock throb against your face as you swallow more of him, lips wrapped around him. his legs tense up and his hands find their way to the back of your head, pushing you further down. your tongue finds itself swirling around him, reaching the backside of his sack while his precum drools onto you.

he’s never seemed so wild before. his grip is tight, not from a desire to control, but from a need for more. you like seeing him panting, teeth gnawing at his bottom lip.

you look a bit like a squirrel, cheeks stuffed with his nuts. it would make you laugh if you could form any coherent sounds. the vibrations in your throat seem to please him, though, since he groans and tangles his broad, calloused fingers into your hair.

“so good to me,” he mumbles, pulling your head back. you whine - you weren’t finished yet. but he’s taken the reins once more, pulling you up by your shoulders until your hips come to rest just above his. his cock twitches.

“if you’ve gotten all the sappy shit out of the way,” he huffs, “i’d love to get started.”

back to his comfort zone. to ignoring his feelings for a while longer. that’s fine. you have all the time in the world to show him just how wonderful he is.

you hope he’s got some idea after tonight.

[funkyhanji]

Daddy's Perfect Cock-Slut [English | BNHA]

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia (@Horikoshi Kohei) Character(s): Todoroki Enji | Endeavor, Todoroki Shouto Pairing(s): EnjiSho Rating: E Word count: 3528 CWs: Shota, Underage, Extremely Dubious Consent, Father/Son Incest, Grooming, Mind Manipulation, Childhood Trauma, Blow Jobs, Butt Plugs, Anal Sex, Daddy Kink, Begging, Rough Sex, Large Cock, Cock Worship, Cock Cages, Cock-Slut Shouto, Creampie, Implied/Referenced Father/Daughter Incest, Dissociation, Dirty Talk, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Summary: - That green-haired runt [...] knew nothing about Shouto. Or about Enji. Or about their relationship and how it functioned. -

Enji's annoyed. That green-haired runt reminded him too much of All Might, with his self-righteous attitude and acting like it's his duty to go sticking his nose into someone else's business, unwanted and spewing corny bullshit. Did that kid even know who he was talking to in that way?

His Shouto doesn't need help from a kid who can't even properly control his quirk. He knew nothing about Shouto. Or about Enji. Or about their relationship and how it functioned.

[*]

It took two days for Enji to notice Shouto's catatonic state and lifeless stare. He'd been busy dealing with the paperwork necessary to hospitalize his wife after her psychotic breakdown and her attack on their youngest child. Also the press — keeping the nosy fuckers away from his family problems was of utmost importance. Good thing he showered his PR staff and lawyers in money.

It was a comment from Fuyumi which had clued Enji in on the boy's ghost-like presence around the house.

Shouto, excused from school for a couple of weeks after the incident, would be seen wandering the halls in a daze; he'd often gravitate to the kitchen or his mother's bedroom, and stay there for indefinite amounts of time. He only moved when someone nudged him out of the rooms.

His son, he also came to notice quickly, was very responsive to commands in that state. As if his brain was more than happy to be given directions or orders to follow.

Any sort of command.

«Stop right there, Shouto,» Enji ordered one day, seeing the boy walking down the corridor in front of his open studio door. Shouto did as told, making Enji hum, curiosity piqued. «Come in Shouto, and close the door.»

His son obeyed, standing just past the threshold, his face devoid of any real expression and a haunted look in his eyes. It was disconcerting, Enji had to admit, but the cooperativeness was pleasing after all the reluctance to follow directives Shouto had shown since they'd begun his training.

«Come to me, boy,» he said, waving him over. «And speak, I'm tired of you playing mute.»

Shouto slowly crossed the distance, halting beside the chair Enji was sitting in. «Father.» His voice was scratchy from disuse and a bit dull, but it was still an improvement over the contempt it held before.

Something could be bettered though.

«Call me 'Daddy', boy,» he ordered.

«Yes, Daddy.»

The word sent a shiver down Enji's spine. Something wicked and dark—a desire to claim what was his on the most base level — awakening inside him for the first time in months, maybe years. Rei wasn't here to stop him, this time; she wasn't here to distract him with her own body, or to send Fuyumi his way in her stead.

Shouto was all his for the taking, now.

«Your Mommy was taken away because of you, Shouto. And since you're the reason she's not here anymore, it'll be your job to do everything Mommy did for Daddy. Do you understand, Shouto?»

«Yes, Daddy. I'll do everything Mommy did for Daddy, because it's my fault she was taken away.»

The smirk slashing through his face was nothing but sinister.

«Good boy.»

They were in Rei's bedroom, alone and with the door locked. It wasn't necessary, frankly: his and his wife's rooms were on a different side of the house from his kids', and none of them were about to come looking for him, not after dinner anyway.

Enji had come out of the bathhouse to find Shouto once again in his mother's room, gaze lost like a kicked puppy.

Defenseless. Adrift.

And Enji was there, because it was easy to take advantage of a traumatized child when you use the excuse of providing him with an anchor, a grounding touch.

He spread out Rei's futon on the tatami mats — a half-empty bottle of lube rolled out of it as well —, sat down with his legs loosely crossed in front of him and reached out a hand toward Shouto. His other hand undoing the knot of the towel at his hips.

«Here, Shouto, come sit in my lap,» Enji ordered.

«Yes, Daddy.» Shouto plopped down in the circle his legs made, back straight and blinking slow, breath even.

He didn't protest when Enji took his hand in a gentle hold, brushing a large thumb over the white knuckles; he didn't protest when Enji cradled the bandaged side of his face in his other hand. He didn't try to back away, as Enji coaxed his jaws open and delved two thick fingers inside, the rough pads gliding over a soft tongue and gums. Back and forth, deeper at each passage and full of intent.

A flush began to creep onto Shouto's cheeks; his breath humid as it puffed over the back of Enji's hand, a spark flickering to light in his uncovered eye.

He brought his son's hand toward his groin, pleased to see him follow the movement, gaze focusing on the swelling cock nestled in dark crimson curls. A shiver coursed through Shouto's thin frame as his fingers made contact, a sigh escaping parted pale-pink lips.

«Daddy...» Shouto whispered, muffled by Enji's digits still in his mouth.

«Go on Shouto,» Enji said, letting his hand fall from the boy's face, setting it at his slim waist. «You remember what to do, right?»

Shouto nodded, too lost in the moment to respond verbally, but it was fine.

Enji picked up the lube, squirting some in the boy's palm. Cold fingers wrapped around his length — barely long enough to circle the girth of it even when limp — and stroked, the touch tentative, trembling but growing surer at each pass. The push and pull of the foreskin as it glided over the head, the stiffening of the cock under his fingertips seemed to entice Shouto. His pupil dilated the harder Enji got, the blush on his face darkening at each of Enji's pleased hums.

«Good, Shouto,» Enji praised. He groaned when his son's other hand joined in the stroking, the dual sensation of hot and cold enclosing his cock feeling nice on his burning skin. «Put more strength into it, boy.»

«Yes… Daddy,» Shouto whispered, sounding winded as his whole body shifted with his movements. Sweat started beading at his hairline from the extersion and the heat radiating off of Enji.

«Remember, Shouto, this is your duty now. Taking care of my needs, of my cock, is your responsibility.»

«… Because it's my... fault Mommy's not… here anymore...»

«That's right.» Enji smirked, dripping corruption and lust unbecoming of a hero. «Get your mouth down there, c'mon. Like I told you.»

Once the bandages came off his face and Shouto was cleared by the doctor to go back to school, the vacancy in his stare finally began to recede day by day. He no longer wandered around the house like a ghost and he talked more often, as stilted and curt as his sentences were.

A positive thing, according to the majority of people Enji spoke to — a phrase which never failed to make him raise an eyebrow. He could understand such naivety from Fuyumi, but from adults who should know better than to sweep PTSD and trauma under the rug? Bullshit. They were just trying to appease him, Endeavor, the #2 Hero.

They were lucky that worked perfectly for Enji.

He could do without the new-found sparks of defiance in Shouto's eyes whenever they crossed paths or trained in the dojo, sure, but in was worth it when all the fight bled out of his tiny frame at the first glimpse of Enji's cock. He knew playing his hand while the boy was in a malleable state would be beneficial in drilling some key concepts in his brain.

«That was weak, Shouto! Fuyumi could have punched harder than that!» Enji reprimanded, eyes narrowed in Shouto's direction at his poor attitude.

He received a glare from the other side of the dojo, Shouto then kicking the dummy in the dick with an angry yell. Enji almost rolled his eyes at the display, but a sudden groan caught his attention.

«Ah— nnh…!»

Shouto was squirming where he stood, face pinched in discomfort and the heel of one hand carefully rubbing at his groin. Ah, Enji thought, it's the cage isn't it. Of course it was — it'd been only a week since Enji had put it on Shouto; he wasn't used to it yet.

«Stop touching it, Shouto,» Enji said. «It won't help—»

«Shut up! Take it off of me!»

Enji stood up, growling low and stalking toward his son. He gripped a fistful of bi-colored hair and shoved Shouto's face into his crotch none too gently, grinding him against his clothed, soft cock. Any protest died quickly. A breathy moan warming Enji's bulge, which twitched in interest as Shouto nudged his nose further into the crease between his thigh and pelvis.

«I told you not to touch the cage, Shouto,» Enji said, looking down at the boy.

«Mmkay,» Shouto muttered into the fabric of his sweatpants; his tiny arms embracing Enji's waist. «Daddy… wanna…»

«What do you want?»

«Daddy's… Da— haa!-» Enji rubbed a knee over Shouto's trapped little dick- «cock! Nnnh— Daddy's cock! P-Please...»

Enji chuckled. «And what d'you wanna do with it, mh, Shouto?»

Shouto looked up at him, flushed face and eyes swimming with desire to please. Enji could imagine the boy's mind quickly being overtaken by thoughts of his cock; touching it, stroking it, feeling its weight and warmth on his tongue — the way he'd been primed to in the weeks after the incident.

«S-service you— ah! — Daddy… please!»

«Since you're being so polite-» Enji patted his head, then undid the pants' drawstring and pulled them down enough for his cock to bounce free- «go ahead.»

Shouto's eyes light up, a needy whine falling from pink lips. «Thank you Daddy!»

He delved right in, mouth parting to suckle on the head, tongue sneaking under the foreskin and swirling around it like an ice-cream cone. Popping off the tip, Shouto moved down the hard length, kissing and licking every pulsing vein all the way to the base; he coated Enji's cock in saliva to ease the stroking of his small hands while he nuzzled up to the sac under it.

«Suck on those, boy,» Enji grunted, a large hand on the nape of Shouto's head. «That's where you came from.»

Shouto's tongue lapped at his heavy balls with careful brushes, lips puckering over the sensitive skin, sucking gently. Over and over, he kissed Enji's sac with something akin to reverence in both his touches and his eyes. His breath was humid and hitching as he worshiped Enji like the all-consuming being he was.

A low rumble reverberated in Enji's chest, his palm caressing red-and-white hair in silent appreciation. «Yeah… like that, Shouto. You like Daddy's cock, don't you?»

Shouto moaned, long and trembling with need. «Ah! I… I-I— yes! Like-» his lips attached to Enji's cock-head once again, drinking up the pre-cum oozing from it and mewling- «mngh— l-love it Daddy!» He rutted against Enji's leg, no doubt trying to find relief for his tiny dick trapped in that cage.

«Good boy. Now back to sucking.»

Enji unceremoniously pushed Shouto's parted mouth down on his twitching cock, fucking into it fast but controlled, thrusts shallow as his son let himself be used. Flushed cheeks hollowing and puffing out in time with his movements, and small hands cupping his balls, it didn't take long for Enji to feel himself starting to cum.

«Here it comes, Shouto,» he groaned, fingers dipping into the boy's nape to keep him still. «My seed— shit! Ngh!— don't spill any!»

Shouto's muffled assent sent jolts of pleasure up his cock, pushing him over the edge until he was dumping a load of scorching cum down the awaiting throat. Shouto drank and drank, lips tightening around his length to coax out every drop.

The sight alone — of Shouto's still-developing Adam's Apple bob — arousing him enough he could go for a second round immediately. «Like mother, like son: she loved to guzzle it down too.»

«Quit your squirming, dammit!» Enji growled, a rough palm on his son's hip.

«Nooo…! Back— put it back Daddy! Too empty...» Shouto cried.

Enji ignored the whining and the wriggling hips, too busy trying to reach for the lube one-handed, to appreciate the desperation Shouto was showing. At last managing to pop the bottle open, Enji poured the lube over the boy's slightly puffy hole — a huff of laughter escaping him at the squeak it earned him — and sank a finger inside.

Shouto's body shivered, no longer fighting. «Daddy...»

«Yeah,» Enji said. His digit moving back and forth, taking stock of how prepped his son's ass was after pulling out the plug which had been stretching him. «This is better, mh? A minute without something filling you up is unbearable, isn't it.»

The only answer he got was a whorish moan and Shouto pushing back into his hand.

Enji had introduced butt plugs around three months into his molding of Shouto into his personal, perfect cock-slut. He'd been dreaming about fucking his son well before Rei had snapped and gotten herself locked away in a hospital, and after teaching Shouto how to pleasure him with his mouth, Enji had decided it was time he started training that cute, round ass to take his cock. It'd been a couple of painstakingly long years. Years filled of better and better blowjobs, thigh-fucking — and occasional Fuyumi-fucking, because sometimes he missed the familiar feeling of a cold and wet pussy soaking up his boiling-hot cum —, and the slow-increasing girth of butt plugs up Shouto's hole.

The wait was finally over.

Enji was already rock-hard at the prospect of sinking balls-deep in Shouto.

His son seemed eager as well; spine curving sharply upward, hands gripping the futon under his shaking body in a vice. «Hhhnggh…!! O-oh! Da-Daddy! More— aah!— moreee!»

Enji smirked, a second finger pushing alongside the first to scissor and loosen Shouto; a third was quick to follow, and a fourth, the blushing rim stretched deliciously around his fingers, shiny with lube and fluttering. Enji shifted his hand back a little, calloused pads prodding at his son's prostate, licking his lips at Shouto's shocked yell. He kept up the touch until Shouto's walls were quaking and he was orgasming with his ass, his little caged dick limp but twitching uselessly over the sheet.

«Look at that, Shouto, you mastered the art of cumming like a woman,» Enji praised, fingers popping out of the boy with a squelch.

Shouto was out of it, drowning in post-coital bliss. «… Like a wo… man… did good?... Daddy…?»

«Yes, you did good. So good, you deserve my cock.»

Shouto didn't have time to say anything, Enji lubing himself up quickly and thrusting inside the small body in the next minute. Both moaned, when he bottomed out, then he pulled the boy up to sit on his thighs. Hands at a slim waist — leaving bruises on the milky-white skin —, Enji began ramming Shouto onto his cock at a brutal pace, the slapping of skin on skin loud and obscene, a nice background to the gritty grunts and the breathless mewls they made.

«How's Daddy's cock, mh, Shouto?»

«Mmngh! Aaah! Oh— l-l-loooove it…! Daddy!! Oh! Hhhgaah— yes! Cock!! Co— AH!»

Shouto was a mess of snot and tears and drool, with barely enough functioning brain cells to form words while he was mercilessly bounced on Enji's cock. His guts were speared continuously, his stomach visibly bulging every time Enji thrusted into him; his prostate was brushed against over and over to the point of pain, but Shouto kept moaning and sobbing in pleasure like Enji had molded him to—a slut for anything Daddy's cock gave him.

And Enji made sure to tell him.

«What a... whore! Happy to be a— ngh— rag-doll in my grasp...  just to get my— shit!— cock. Ready to crawl— haa!— on your knees and choke on it! You're a bitch in heat, Shouto— my bitch. My cock-slut!»

«Yours, yes! Yesyes! Slut— AH! DADDY! AH! AH!»

Shouto orgasmed again, body like jello in Enji's hands as he shook and shuddered and pissed all over the futon. He kept up his onslaught anyway, fucking up into Shouto through his walls' clenching down on him until he was cumming violently inside, still thrusting while he rode it out, uncaring of the seed spilling down his cock and adding to the nasty mess.

«Thank… you… Daddy...»

«Mmh, good boy, Shouto.»

[*]

He sees his son walk towards him, on his way to compete in his first match. «Shouto,» he calls, «I'm expecting to see you use your fire today.» Shouto scowls, seeming determined to ignore him and that won't do for Enji. He steps in front of his son, blocking the passage with his large frame; this time it's him who ignores Shouto's gritted «Get out of my way». He bends at the waist until their faces are as close as can be with Enji's quirk active. «I put up with this defiance at home,» he says. «but here and now? It's going to ruin your performance and I won't have that.» «Fuck o—» Shouto starts, only for the words to die out as soon as he sees Enji unzip the fly of his hero suit and pull out his limp cock. He smirks. The change in demeanor is instantaneous: Shouto's pupils swell, black overtaking gray and blue irises; his jaws grow slack and his lips part; a rosy tint blossoms on his cheeks. Tense shoulders sag. In the next second, Shouto's on his knees in front of him. «Daddy...» he whines. «Aah, that's better,» Enji says. He reaches out, weaves his large hand in bi-colored hair. A low moan leaves his son's throat. He can practically see the saliva gathering on the boy's tongue in anticipation, can see him squirm on the floor as the seconds pass by. Shouto moves closer, nosing at the crimson pubes at the base of Enji's cock but not touching the half-hard shaft. He wasn't given permission to yet. «Need your Daddy's cock to calm down, mh?» Enji teases. «Like a baby with his pacifier-» with his free hand, he strokes himself, quickly growing fully hard at the sight of Shouto panting and sniffing at his crotch like a dog- «wanna be a good boy for Daddy?» Shouto nods wordlessly, slowly humping his boot and Enji can vaguely feel the chastity cage rub on him through Shouto's clothes. «Yes! Yes, please Daddy...! Please, your cock— oooh I want it! Daddy, please... pleasepleaseDa— mgahghn!» Enji grabs a fistful of white-n-red hair and pulls on it, shoving his cock past slack jaws without hesitation. «Suck Shouto,» he orders. Shouto moans around him. His hands grope Enji's thighs, blunt nails digging into the muscle as an anchor while he starts bobbing his head over the massive length. His tongue swirls around the shaft in just the right way to make Enji groan; Shouto's throat constricts as he's swallowed past his son's gag reflex, the vibrations from the mewls travel all the way up Enji's spine. His son's mouth is perfect. «Yeah, that's more— nngh— like it! Fuck, Shouto— you love my... cock mh? That's a good whore—» Wet and tight around him — it almost reminds him of Rei's and Fuyumi's pussies. «Cool yourself down a bit boy,» he grunts. When his son does as told, Enji moans at the feeling and fucks himself deeper, harder past Shouto's lips—they're stretched and puffy and red, with drool oozing down his chin. Shouto chokes on his cock yet keeps working it like the greedy slut he is. He ignores the tears running down his flushed cheeks and the snot mixing with his spit and Enji's pre-cum. His face looks dazed and Enji knows Shouto's brain is mush right now: the only words blaring in there are "COCK" and "DADDY" and "DADDY'S CUM". Exactly the way Enji wants him. It's what Enji's taught him ever since Rei had disappeared from the house, eight years ago-and his youngest cock-sleeve has grown up to be exceptionally great at giving head. The most talented at it since his mother. «Take Daddy's spunk, you slutty boy!» Enji says through gritted teeth as he feels himself getting close. He rips Shouto's mouth off him, gripping his cock and stroking himself quick and harsh until his balls draw up and he's throbbing in his own fist. «Open up and say— fuck!— thank you!» Shouto whines, swollen lips parted and tongue lolling out, waiting to be fed. It's enough to push Enji off the edge. With one last stroke, he's cumming, the thick ropes of seed landing on his son's eager tongue as well as on the bridge of his nose and his left cheek. He milks his orgasm to the last drop, staring down at Shouto with a dark glint in his eyes as the boy slurps up all the cum sizzling on his face. «Thank you Daddy...» Behind him, Present Mic's voice calls for Shouto's name.

[curiosity-killed]

bitter wine

word count: 2094 cw: mentions of desecration of corpses, brief/implied self-harm, descriptions of violence just some noodling on a potential solution for the trouble of tcp’s saggy, plotless middle. in which Reimon gets mean when he’s mad and Callebero just. honestly. babe’s having the shittiest fucking birthday

“If it were Dameron before me, I would rip out his throat,” the prince said, sharp and savage. His lip curled back a little, disgust in the way it pulled from his teeth and fury in the dark slash of his brows. Leaning back slightly, Reimon raised his eyebrows and didn’t bother looking to his empty hands or many injuries. “Oh?” he asked. “With what weapon?” The last time he’d met him, the imperator princep had been a child with a vicious blade held to their throats. Now, he stood before Reimon clothed in servants’ spares and enough injuries that he should have bled out before even making it here. Fine tremors seized through his legs sporadically; with the lashes on his back still raw, he wouldn’t be able to stand upright much longer without support. There were other chairs in the room, but Reimon did not offer a seat. “My teeth, if necessary,” the prince still spat.

He said it with such conviction that Reimon could nearly picture it—the barbarous emperor tearing out his half-brother’s throat with the same mindless bloodlust of a wild dog set loose on a goat. He’d heard more savage stories of the Aeridians and their mercenary past. An empire founded by highwaymen maintained little squeamishness around spilt blood. “And me?” Reimon asked, interlacing his fingers lazily so they caught at the first knuckles. “I have no weapon, as you can see, and the guards are beyond a closed door. Will you kill me as well?” The prince’s jaw tightened, chin lifting even as his gaze dipped low and to the side. His lips pressed together in a way that must have made the ragged cut through them sting. “Jisel cares for you,” he said after a moment. “You are not worth betraying her trust.” He stared, struck silent. A low rage flickered, licking up into incandescent flames in the cage of his chest. This murderer, this monster, thought he deserved to know his sister so well? A dog draped in silk robes was still a beast, a low and base distortion of man. “How noble,” Reimon said slowly, holding his voice steady in the same way his mother did around the pushier members of court. “Should I laud you for your mercy, Your Eminence? Title you a saint and crown you with speedwell and bow at your feet?” The prince met his gaze, chin lifting slightly and dark eyes hooding. His hand had folded into a fist at his side, but he didn’t flinch from the taunts, not visibly. Reimon canted his head to one side, looking pointedly up and down his frame. Aeridians were so tightly laced, wrapping themselves in layer upon layer as if it could hide the sins that were written on their skin. Dressed now in commoners’ clothes, the black tattoos of the prince’s arms and lower legs were bared to the world, and a fat, dark scar peeked out from under the short hem of his tunic. “The Bloodletter holding back—such a miraculous trick might rival a talking bear,” Reimon continued. “We could put a collar on you and parade you around the capital. What do you think—would your knights and generals recognize their prince then?” A muscle bunched at the back of the prince’s jaw, his lips working briefly as if to spit out words. Reimon smiled, polite and thin as a garrote. There. “Those knights who died for you,” he said thoughtfully, “would they be honored by a prince like you? What a shame, to have all their throats cut only so you could bow down as a side amusement in our court.” The tremors had increased, become fine shakes running through the prince’s whole body, even as his breath picked up. His broken hand curled together now to join the other, surely a painful reflex. Loosening his own hands, Reimon reached over to pluck his cup from the table with his fingertips. He took a long sip, not bothering to look at the prince. “It’s a shame they’re already dead,” he mused as he lowered the cup to fit precisely in the water ring left on the wood, “or we could have had a whole troupe to dance for us. The Bloodletter and his loyal guards, muzzled and leashed. Do you think we could train them to beg on command?” “Do not speak of them,” the prince snapped finally. It was funny, how he thought he had any command here. Turning toward him, Reimon tilted his head as if in thought. “I’m sorry, what part do you not enjoy?” he asked pleasantly. “The reminder that your loyal knights are all dead in a wood none of your saints could ever find or that they died for nothing but a pathetic, broken husk who has so little to offer their memory?” Some part of the prince must have held Jisel’s concern in high regard—or else, more likely, his injuries were too grave to even try attacking: the hate in his eyes was a living, snarling thing as toothed as the dragons that guarded the deepest seas. Reimon held his gaze, unflinching. For all his conquests and all his glory, the prince was nothing more than a prisoner here. A plaything or a servant or a sacrifice, all depending on Reimon’s own whims. He’d never thought himself a vengeful man, but now, with the architect of his family’s downfall trapped before him, Reimon suddenly understood why cats toyed with their prey for so long before biting through their necks. “Your mother died at my father’s blade,” he said, and a jolt ran through the prince. “Perhaps when you’ve worn out your novelty, I will add you to the collection. Two imperators princep killed by the same bloodline would certainly be an accomplishment.” Despite the surprise that had snapped through the prince like a taut bowstring at mention of his dead mother, there didn’t seem to be much impact in theorizing on his own death. Reimon supposed that it was to be expected. From what he’d heard, Aeridians were raised bowing to Death itself and kissing its bony hands. Mortality might not be so fearful a thing in the face of such customs. “We could even be generous,” he offered, turning his tone light and almost friendly. “If both your heads were stored in the same chest, wouldn’t it be a touching reunion?” “You—” the prince started, taking a single step forward. He froze, fists still clenched and breath coming in rapid hitches through his chest. With his shoulders squared and hands tight, he looked a single step away from swinging a punch. Reimon really didn’t have a weapon around him, and he hadn’t trained in martial skills since the doctors determined his body too fragile for such exertion. If the prince decided to kill him, if the goading snapped his surely thin restraint, then Reimon had no plan in place. And yet—

Above the braced shoulders and clenched jaw, his eyes were too bright. No tears fell, but they glistened, precarious along the edge of his eyes. Reimon stared, gaze caught on the glitter of them. The imperator princep, the Bloodletter prince of Arradine, didn’t weep. Hell, Reimon would half expect him to dance over his enemies’ corpses like a fleet-footed nightmare. “Fuck. You,” the prince enunciated, the words rolling and crisp in Aeridian. Reimon had learned most Aeridian curses in secret, stealing books off the shelf to share with his younger brothers and the closest of his personal guard. Learned in laughter and conspiracy, they didn’t carry half the weight that Capallan curses did. If he wanted to hurt someone, if he wanted to be sure they knew how much he hated them, he would always use his native tongue. The prince met his gaze with a furious stillness, eyes bright and hands clenched, and for the first time in the hour he’d stood here, he spoke in the language of his home. Reimon smiled. “How unfilial,” he remarked, as if chiding a younger sibling. “Of course, I imagine it would be a disappointment for her to see you now. Your mother was a hero, wasn’t she? She died nobly, holding the line so her own knights could escape, and you—you just left them to die along a dusty road while you grovel at the feet of her killers.” He’d been sixteen when Aliras died on his father’s sword, barred from the battlefield for the sake of succession. They hadn’t known, then, that it didn’t matter whether he died on the field or in the comfort of the palace—he would never sit on the throne. At the time, the streets had filled with clamors for Aliras’ body, commoners and courtiers alike frothing at the mouth at the thought of ripping her into five pieces and waving each of them above the parapets like bloody banners. Yet when the king returned with his soldiers, there was no head on a pike, no arms ripped out of their sockets. When Reimon asked, once, what became of the body, his father had frowned down at him and said she was given a proper burial, in an unmarked grave. No one knew where the grave was, and no one outside of a select few knew that she had even been afforded one. Her son was not among them. “It’s a shame what happened to her,” he lied easily. “My father the king respected her as a valiant opponent, but the armies were so furious after what she’d done, there was no stopping them once they got hold of her body.” The prince’s eyes widened, horror smoothing the lines of anger from his face and making him look completely taken by surprise. The knuckles of his fists had started to bleed white, cracks of red lining the tendons where they stretch over the bones. “I’m sure you’ve seen street dogs with a carcass,” Reimon continued pleasantly. “I assure you that looks domestic in comparison.” Shaking his head slightly, as if in disbelief, the prince swallowed. A tear slipped to trail down his bruised cheek, but he didn’t seem to notice. Smiling indulgently, Reimon gave a slight nod. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Did you really think we would honor someone who killed so many Capallans?”

“No,” the prince said. “No, you—” His voice came out small, almost fragile. He made no effort to wipe away the tears that curved sluggishly down his cheeks, just scoured Reimon’s face as if searching for the lie in his words. Meeting his gaze, Reimon kept his expression perfectly even and amiable. The prince’s brow furrowed, his lips parting slightly. Reimon raised his eyebrows, waiting. “What,” he asked, “do you think you’re the only one who would want revenge? You may have my father’s crown locked away in your palace, but your mother greeted the afterlife in so many pieces the finest tailor couldn’t have sewn them together.” He’d been pressing for a reason, needling to prick the prince’s skin a thousand times over for his offenses. This was the man who cut through their armies until he snatched the crown from his father’s head. He took Jisel, kept her from them for years. He deserved every slice Reimon landed. But—as the prince stared at him with cracked-open horror in his eyes, his lips trembling with the tears that slipped one by one from his eyes, no satisfaction welled in Reimon’s chest. His stomach twisted instead, reminded too much of fights in his childhood when his words grew too sharp and Laisa or Adamil’s eyes would grow glassy with tears. “Guards,” he called, raising his voice to be heard beyond the study’s walls. The door opened promptly, and Reimon flicked his hand in a gesture for them to take the prince from his sight. The prince offered no resistance as each of them took one of his arms and tugged him from the room.

Left in the sudden quiet, Reimon reached for his wine and then paused with his fingertips resting along the rim of the glass. The prince deserved every blow that landed. It should be a victory to have the imperator princep weeping before him. His fingers pressed tighter against the glass, until a dull ache bit into the bones. Jisel cared about this prince, for whatever reason. She called him her close friend, dear. Biting the inside of his lip, Reimon slid his hand down to cup the goblet’s belly. The wine didn’t wash the sour taste from his mouth.

[kim-poce]

What if someone insults Zen or makes him cry causing Rose to absolutely lose it on the person who was mean to him

Sidekick - Henchman (Non-canon)

Sorry for the long long wait, also this can't be canon because if Rose says "no hurting him" her team goes "no hurting him (unless he attacks someone)"

Masterlist

CW: implied past abuse, low self-esteem.

=-=-=-=-=

"Hey," Henchman said as they slammed the door open, "You are the small hero, right?" They asked in a mocking tone.

Zen isn't a hero, he never was, the team never allowed him to. He covered himself with his blanket. This one is new. This one doesn't seem to like him –not that he worth someone's liking anyway– the duo isn't hostile but this one may be. They feel like Teammate.

Who is the person? why are they picking on him all of sudden? Well, because he is a prisoner, even Rose still treats him nicely, Zen knows he doesn't deserve her kindness.

"Cat got you tongue, asshole?", The henchman said, Zen didn't respond he just curled in himself further, what was he supposed to say? He hoped the person didn't mind his lack of words, Freya doesn't mind but they aren't her.

Zan flinched and backed away when the person walked closer. Go away, please go away.

"What Rose see on you anyway?" The person asked, pulling the blanket away, exposing him, the blanket wouldn't protect him but he felt so more helpless now, "She said not to hurt your coward ass, but still, here you are, shivering like a fucking leaf, just a weak overprotected little hero. Do you like it? Being this idiot?"

Zen shook his head, he doesn't. He knows he is useless but he doesn't want it, what else can he do?

"Maybe I should teach you some things," the person said with a smirking, making Zen shiver even more.

Just like Teammate, he swallowed hard, Teammate's lessons were so so harsh, so often, so scary, He doesn't want it, "P-please," he tried, wiping away the stubborn tears that he was too weak to hold in, "Please don't."

"You just gave me another reason, tho."

Zen closed his eyes and braced himself, it would hurt, I deserve it, I deserve it, I deserve-

A loud sound followed by a groan made Zen open his eyes again. Ma'am Rose, he thought, relieved at first, but then he saw her face. Anger.

"What in the hell-" Ma'am Rose grabbed Henchman up by the hair "-do you think you are doing?"

"T-talking! I was just-"

Rose punched the air out of their lung, throwing them on the floor. "Talking?" she asked as she kicked them once, "Just talking?" the person went silent, just covering their head and waiting for the next blow.

Rose took a deep breath before turning her head to Zen, who flinched as she raised her hand, even if just to pat his hair, "Sorry for this baby," she said, unable to hide her anger, "I'll come here to see you later, okay? I'll tell those two to come here to be sure no one tries anything."

Zen nodded, not that he had any choice in the matter.

"Now you," Rose turned at Henchman again, "We are going to have a really long talk."

=-=-=-=-=

[vellikvr]

◇ Sempiternel Longing

Fallen Angel!Jimin x Human!Yoongi

Dynamic: Minyoon (slight sub yoongi)

Troubled college boy, Yoongi, finds a way to contact demons. In a deeply numb state of personal adversity, he conjures a fallen angel of surpassing beauty and mind. He supposes that the best time to feel will have to be in the hands of a tender, yet intimidating, black-winged immortal.

cw // implied existential crisis, implied homophobia, sexual innuendos, implied sacrilege (?), derogatories

⊱ ━━━━.⋅ εïз ⋅.━━━━ ⊰

[Part One]

“so, am I supposed to arrange some agreement?” Yoongi questions, watching the conjured immortal step around his cluttered, dark room. The space is now drenched in some sulfuric, deathly odor that makes Yoongi shiver in temporary unease.

“An agreement was already made, Yoongi,” the sultrious voice of the demoniacal echoes throughout the room. The creature leans against the wall, exposing the white collarbone. “You slit your skin to sacrifice a drop of blood. You’ve relinquished the privacy of your soul to me, and I’m now under a spiritual bond with you.”

He’s only become familiar with the practice only hours ago. He was given a ritualistic seance regarding demonic conjuring from one of his delinquent friends. The friend is a quiet consumer of the dark web markets, therefore such information could be accessed. Yoongi, overtaken by some flattened rationality, was sceptical and decided to take manners in his own hands. Guess his friend found the ritual by quite a reliable source.

“Were you in any way prepared?” the moral-torn angel chuckles menacingly.

“I wasn’t,” Yoongi admits.

“You didn’t have to say so, I could already tell.”

“Well then,” Yoongi decides to accept his fate, plopping his exhausted self on the bed. “What’s there to do with you?”

“I can only torture you, people get depleted of their sanity when around me.”

“Aren’t I already tortured in life? I’m sure you have some telepathy quirk so you must’ve figured my perspective,” He curls into his frail body, looking down at the raw, narrow gash through his pale skin. He pads it experimentally.

“I have a few quirks.”

“Mmh. spite me, then.”

The man makes his way, with subtle entitlement, to Yoongi. Yoongi had to sit up since a climbing adrenaline shakes his entire body alive. The satanic creature carries a corrupted smirk, “I’m a fallen angel— a diabolic immortal that broke all unspoken laws under my former holy God, and has been expelled from the righteous place. The seven deadly sins poisoned my once saintly blood until it became a murky black, swallowing any righteous light—

“I am a creature that can give you the unpleasantly pleasant experience of every single sin,” His unrepentant eyes are drowned in a gruesome liquid charcoal like it was made to pollute what it gazes upon. Yoongi’s reflection is all it defines, at this very moment. “I can give you hell, but like falling victim to temptation, it’ll feel temporarily heavenly.”

Yoongi can’t help but wonder all the ways sin can appear. For this demon, it’s exhibited in the black leather attire that exposes the erotically sharp collarbone, the plump lips that curl into a defiled leer, the feline eyes that only radiate crooked temptation. He is—truly—the embodiment of sin in Yoongi’s eyes.

“What’s your name?”

“Jimin,” he chuckles. “That’s all you wonder about me?”

“I really don’t care,” Yoongi lays back down and appears content rather than terrified. “I’m an individual of no morals, I’m an atheist as well.”

“Well that honors you dignity,” sarcasm drips from the demon's lips.

“It doesn’t, I’m slowly rotting in this empty place. Might as well have an audience. or someone to bring an artificial heaven to me.”

“What’s brought you to this resolution?”

Yoongi spreads his legs to stretch, and almost in a vulgar impression. “I’m a sinner, as well, I’ve fallen hopelessly victim to the lustful temptations of sex”

“Sex is natural, mere human,” Jimin scoffs.

“But I’ve let people in my bed, and I only experience the raw complications of my attraction. I draw to lust and cravings, but let there be guilt and sorrow that comes after…for I’ve let men touch me, and I’ve let them fuck me into a black desolation. It’s so good that blinking stars capture my vision for an amount of pleasurable time after I release,” Yoongi tilts his head back, showing the expanse of his neck. Jimin’s eyes draw forward at the other’s lovely facade. “I’m intoxicated by the masculine hands of a stranger, forcing me down and making me beg until depraved tears fall.

“My room still echoes reminiscent moans and cries,” Yoongi smirks. “It defines me, yet it draws me to a complicated blur, I’m guilty but will never beg forgiveness or break such a habit. It’s an addiction to feel. I might as well experience sin until my body numbs, since I don’t deserve remission under your former God,” Yoongi rubs his hands with an empty stare towards Jimin’s frown.

“You’re so depressing.”

“Thanks.”

“Heaven would spit at you,” Jimin chuckles darkly.

“I already figured, though I have no intention of crossing their gates.”

“Unfortunate how your words spite your own emotions. Men are a true gift to the world, I can admit.”

Yoongi closes his thighs together, thinking about being happily destroyed by a stranger for another night.

“They are,” he nearly moans. Jimin gets taken back by Yoongi’s transparency. He looks deliciously vulnerable to him, sprawled on his bed arching his back. No problem with the scarce protection of himself nor the diminishing sanity when sin chains him tightly. He’s a human with nothing left to drag him forward.

“My sad baby,” Jimin sweet talks. “It’s okay to be attracted to men. Men have a delectable body, personally speaking.”

“That speaks volume coming from you.”

“Fair enough, but when I tell you that it’s lovely to feel a man, I’m serious.”

Moonlight spills through the blinds, light stripes paint Yoongi’s button up shirt, but it also exposes the drained but lewd eyes of the human.

“‘Lovely’— not something I could describe really anything in my life.”

“Elaborate,” Jimin occupies his focus to Yoongi’s plants; they’re fairly well-maintained.

“Love is nothing but mere false hope,” Yoongi mumbles. “False hope that life is worth it when you fall into an intimate connection with another person. I’ve never experienced love, as you may tell by my pessimistic aspect.”

“Love and affection is life’s gratification for a mortal’s will to exist.”

“A luxury, that is,” Yoongi eyes the deathly figure sitting on the bed. The mattress dips, therefore solidifying the fact that he exists and not just a fantasy in Yoongi’s head. Jimin is incredibly attractive for a hell-bound demoniacal, it gives Yoongi an excuse for this growing desire in his chest.

“I’m deprived of love,” he finishes, trying to find that singular cue from the creature. He suddenly urges his legs together again to relieve some tension.

Jimin crawls toward the other with lidded eyes, giving an improper appearance of something vulgar but intentive, throwing Yoongi off. The innocently feline eyes barely masquerade the coarsely salacious manners that inhabit the male like an inner, quiet flame. The leather garment on his upper body drapes low to reveal a rugged chest.

“My Yoongi is lonely?” Jimin mutters under his rough throat, it voices a ripple effect in Yoongi’s veins.

Jimin couldn’t be any more attentive to Yoongi than now. The human looks like a doll in his loose wear, it reveals soft milky skin, and he’s now trembling as Jimin inches closer. Confidence seems like a false hope as much as Yoongi’s perception of love.

“I can give you love.”

Air thickens, Yoongi could barely catch a breath of obstinance in his attempted repression towards the demon. He instead feels an urge to yield to the other; he wants to experience yielding to Jimin’s seductive eyes—which is giving Yoongi whiplash. He gulps hard, swallowing really nothing.

“Yoongi looks troubled.”

“Don’t act innocent, your innocence is of mere blasphemy.” Yoongi spits, leaning back as Jimin proceeds toward him.

“‘Course you say that, and you’re right—I’m nothing innocent, but a dirty tease. I can play my way into one’s heart, and leave them crying for repentance.”

Yoongi feels so enthralled in Jimin’s attitude that rationality hits against his own temptations. Half of his thoughts are at conflict with the other.

“But you’re a little different. I play with pure souls like a game. You’re broken beyond repair. Nothing I can do but make you forget the pain.

“Plus, personally, I do find you so attractive, that it's boggling to hear you are neglected of affection,” Jimin quickly adds, sounding rather informal.

“Then do it,” Yoongi blurts.

“Do what,” Jimin smirks, knowing exactly what Yoongi demands. His claws reach out to curl Yoongi’s hair behind his ear, then strokes his cheek very lightly. The sharp claws grazing his skin sends a daring chill down his spine. He forces his eyes shut before they give away the temptations before he speaks them.

“Make me forget. I might as well experience the pleasures before I numb my way towards the end.”

“My human seems quite needy?” Jimin pursues, combing Yoongi’s hair back and lightly pushing him flat on the mattress. A huff of the human’s breath is heard clearly through the pointy ears of the demon.

“I am, should I remind you of why I never repent?” Yoongi inhales sharply when the body climbs on top of him, one thigh forcing itself between his own. Heaven won’t ever forgive him now.

“Nope, it still rings in my mind,” Jimin leers, leaning down to gently peck Yoongi’s cheek before padding the ear lobe. “Proud sinners arouse me, especially those that don’t believe in such things like demons. You must be terrified.”

Yoongi exhales a soft moan, hiking his hips up to join his crotch with Jimin’s own, but it was solely to feel the friction made from Jimin’s bulging thighs. “The—there’s no use to be terrified when we are living in a world of theory and approximation. Theory is just a falsification to maintain our sanity as people. Hell, we are just trying to be humans everyday despite an inescapable death approaching with no true, palpable understanding of its substance. I tried to believe that I was gonna reincarnate as a stray cat, but that’s just a distortion to comfort myself.”

“What’s your point now?” Jimin’s sharp index finger presses a slight indent on Yoongi’s bottom lip, dragging it down until it pops back up to its place.

“I don’t care anymore,” Yoongi mutters. “I have accepted that we just don’t know. I’m not even gonna be terrified of the inevitable truths. I’d rather not accept lies. So you shouldn’t be a thing that defies logic, cause we have no absolute logic.”

“I’ll make you afraid,” Jimin smiles tenderly but it barely disguises the wicked charm that’s magnetizing.

Yoongi huffs, finally sharing a smile of enticement. What’s there to lose?

“Make me terrified, demon.”