#(I drew the adult Spike and wanted to set it up)

[farfromstrange]

Interview With The Vampire | Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader

-> Main Masterlist

Pairing: Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader (she/her)

Summary: You are the first journalist to interview Hell’s Kitchen’s resident vampire vigilante after he requested you personally to tell his story. He’s offering you a way out of your miserable job—to make your voice be heard. You’re desperate and curious, so you decide to take the risk. Most people only know him as Daredevil, but you are about to learn who’s really behind the mask. How hard can it possibly be? As it turns out, interviewing a vampire is a lot more complex than you expected it to be, and Matthew Michael Murdock has set his mind on ruining you for any other man to come.

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), alternative universe, blood play, marking, scent kink, slight Dom!Matt, unprotected p in v, oral f!receiving, biting, vampirism, angst, religious imagery & symbolism, Catholic guilt, mentions of violence, allusions to suicidal thoughts, lots of plot, age gap

Word Count: 12.2k (this is a beast)

Other Characters: Vampire!Elektra (mentioned), Ben Urich (mentioned)

A/n: I finally got this one edited. This is a beast, y’all! I drew inspiration from Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, but particularly the 2022 AMC series (I fell in love with it then and there), but it’s not based on it, so I just played around with the idea and this came out. It’s a lot, but it wasn’t enough for a full-blown series, so you’re getting a big ass One Shot instead. I used my usual Smut tag list, but since this is slightly Dead Dove Do Not Eat, heed the warnings and proceed with care! Don't read it if you don't want to. Anyway, I hope you like it!

Read Me On AO3!

The sun has long set over the Big Apple. Artificial neon, cars, and ceiling lights burning in the highrises along the riverfront cancel out the darkness that has befallen the country’s east. Noise melts into a flood that rolls over people’s senses, but most in New York City have grown numb to the city that never sleeps. 

Sirens follow cacophonies of screams. Teenagers get into clubs with their fake IDs, adults get drunk in bars or go to work the night shift at their underpaid jobs, and the other half cry themselves to sleep, knowing they will have to get up in the morning and go through the same hell all over again. 

Life has become a miserable existence, and it leaves human beings wondering, ‘How much longer do we have to endure this before we all finally drop dead?’

The system fails them. The law fails to protect them. All they can do is lie down and wait to die. And they will die sooner or later. That’s inevitable. 

In Hell’s Kitchen, in a penthouse with a view of the Hudson through colored windows that gloss over during the day and show the city throughout the night, resides someone who most of the city only knows by an alias—Daredevil. 

If anyone crosses him, he will suck them dry. It’s not a metaphor, I’m afraid; his reputation precedes him. Criminals fear the red eyes that come with fists and a sharp set of teeth that will surely run them into the ground. The rest of the city feels a little safer with him, but so far, no one has dared to question his nature. 

Fear is known to work as a paralytic. And this man living in the penthouse by the Hudson is the personification of what one might consider fear-inducing. Without the fear of others, he would not be thriving. 

An apex predator like him lives for the thrill of the kill. When the adrenaline spikes, it makes the prey start running and the blood taste so much sweeter. It is to a creature of his kind what a good glass of century-old red wine would be to a human being; he savors every last drop of it.

Two years out of your Master’s degree at Columbia University, you have become one of those hard-working adults who fall into bed later than they should, and you lie awake at night, wondering how much longer you have to exist before you can live.

You interned at the Bulletin; you ran the true crime and mystery column for over a year before the newspaper shut down. A billionaire from downtown Manhattan bought it to start his own magazine, and you were the only employee he didn’t fire. Instead of relying on your top-tier education and experience though, he has banned you to the lifestyle and beauty column. He’s a beast if you have ever seen one. 

On a Monday in June then, after the sun has risen and is now falling again, you find an envelope on your desk. You glide your fingers over the fancy paper. The letters are written in handwriting that resembles the old letters from the 18th century you had the pleasure of using as research material for your Bachelor’s thesis.

Your heart skips a beat. Could it be…

It is no secret that vampires exist.

Over two decades ago, scientists published papers on the existence of blood-sucking creatures after years of valuable research, and now governments around the world have set out to burn the inhuman species out before they can cause any more damage. Vampirism though is older than humanity itself and unless law enforcement has evidence of homicide, vampires have the right to exist amongst humans. 

They are excellent at hiding their true nature, that much is true. The lore that has been passed down since the beginning of time is only partly true. They know how to adapt and rise from the ashes like elegant phoenixes. The misconceptions surrounding their existence stem from fiction, horror, and fear, but they persist. 

And a rule has been established in society ever since the truth was revealed: don’t talk about vampires! 

Don’t talk about them unless it’s in a fictional context. Don’t put your research out there. Don’t fraternize with them. Don’t risk becoming prey. Don’t be fascinated by them, and God forbid, don’t you dare write articles about them for the public records. If you want to know about vampires, you have to dig, and you have to do so quietly or society will deem you crazy and a freak. 

The worst thing to be is not a flying android or a super soldier with a shield; the worst thing you can be, in this day and age, is a vampire. 

You were a curious child who turned into an even more curious adult. At times even a bitter one because she couldn’t get the answers she yearned for and had to do it herself. So, of course, the We Don’t Talk About Vampires rule came across as rather absurd, learning about it back when you were merely a teen. 

You started researching, and you found out more than you thought you would—more than you thought you could. You wanted to cover the issue in the Bulletin back when you still worked there, but since humans were raised to fear the very mention of vampires in the real world, no longer romanticizing the concept but rather running from it, the truth shall remain hidden. Again, that seemed absurd, but you had to accept it to get ahead. 

You kept researching to the point you convinced yourself you could be one of them if you tried. You felt like you understood them, but nothing could ever fully answer all of your questions to the point it felt truthful. Honest. Real. 

Growing up, everyone told you dead things aren’t supposed to walk. They aren’t supposed to breathe and exist among the living. They are cruel, and vampires are killers that leave trails of bodies the government is hiding from us. Greediness exceeds common sense. The human mind tends to get sick and twisted, and those who don’t fit in hardly ever stand a chance.

Hell’s Kitchen is particularly quiet on the issue. Rumor has it that the vigilante chasing criminals at night and leaving the worst of them dry at the shore of the Hudson while, at the same time, surrendering those he deems worthy of rehabilitation to the authorities, is one of those vampires. 

They call him Daredevil; the savior of innocents and the downfall of the vile. Only a handful of people know who he is. The truth is caught in a spider web of lies, unable to come out unless someone were to tell his story for the world to hear. 

That Monday in June when you open the mysterious envelope on your desk, everything changes. 

He addressed you personally. Your name resembles a masterpiece, the letters swirling at the edges. 

You don’t know me, but I know you.

It’s strange to read your name out of the mouth of a stranger.

I must admit, Miss, I’m a big fan of your writing. And I’m not talking about the lifestyle and beauty column Mr. Doherty of the ‘Silver Lining’ has confined you to.

No, I am a big fan of the work you used to do for the New York Bulletin. I remember your name headlining many articles on crime here in Hell’s Kitchen—a column my late friend Ben Urich used to call his home.  

It’s a shame that the paper was shut down. I tried to prevent it, but the disappearance of half of humanity and Wilson Fisk’s irreparable damage to the city’s foundation tied my hands. 

The token female journalist reporting on unsolicited beauty advice and lifestyle choices no one is going to follow in the days of social media and fake marketing. It must be frustrating, right? Not having a story to tell. Not getting recognized for your impeccable talent. The Bulletin gave you a platform, but Mr. Doherty and his goons took that away from you.

What I’m asking myself is, are you satisfied? You were probably imagining a different future for yourself. A woman of your caliber must want to be more than a mere object used to make a bottomless magazine look better on the market. 

Excuse my overstepping. I read one of your essays on the magical and the mythic—lore versus reality—the other day, and it inspired me. My life has been taking quite a few turns lately, so I required some new… let’s call it insight. 

You don’t know me, but I am one of those creatures you are fascinated by. I’m the kind of creature people have been telling you not to write about because the weak minds of the public would not receive it well. The Catholics, the church, the fragile and fearful human beings that can’t imagine anything in fiction being real and want to remain the superior species—trust me, I know what it feels like to be backed into a corner. To be abandoned. To be underestimated. Not quite like you, I admit, but I have a few years of experience in and with this world to show for myself. 

I imagine you’re tired of your position. I imagine you’re dissatisfied with human idiocy. You crave answers to your questions. Questions you have been asking yourself ever since college failed to answer them. My kind is being censored—partly for good reason—but that doesn’t sit right with you, does it? To live life in a monotone line with no clear way out of this boring rhythm you have had to fall into? 

I can offer you a different path. A story. Answers to your questions. And the unfiltered truth of a 242-year-old man. 

You are going to find a card with my address attached to this letter. I can assure you, sweetheart, we both want the same thing. I will wash your hands if you wash mine. Think about it, and come find me when you have made your decision. Preferably after the sun has set. 

Yours sincerely,

M.

The paper crumbles in your hands, but only at the corners. Your eyes are glued to the lost drops of ink, the blue blood of an old fountain pen caving under too much pressure. 

He chose his words carefully. Every paragraph circles around your head. You breathe in, and it suddenly feels as though the whiff of the unknown is an inhalable drug, twisting your brain inside out. 

The pull threatens to submerge you in a stormy ocean. You’re flailing your arms around helplessly, but there is nothing for you to hold onto. All buoys have drifted into oblivion, leaving a sea of utter emptiness behind, and in the midst of it, there you are, drowning.

In a moment of clarity, you fold the letter back down on the desk. It lands with a thud, and you look around frantically, checking if anyone is watching you. They aren’t. 

M. That’s all he’s giving you. And the fact he is over two hundred years old proves the rumors to be true. He’s standing by it, but only to you. He wants to reveal himself to you, show you his true face for a story, but he’s a vampire. 

You’re alone. You can wash his hands, but is just showing up enough for him? You don’t even know him. 

You’re in trouble. This time though, you didn’t even do anything. You did your job, and he caught an interest in you. How does that work? 

Your heart skips another beat. It should not, but it does. The danger is exciting. It shouldn't be exciting. You hate what your body is doing, but how can you make it stop? You can’t. You can’t do anything but take it.

This stranger has got you in a chokehold, but in his hands, you might as well surrender to your certain demise. You don’t consider vampires inherently evil, but there is a reason people warn you not to walk alone at night in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s dangerous, no matter his nature, and he is not supposed to lure you in the way he does.

But you’re a curious kitten, and he is offering you the holy grail of answers to questions you have been grappling with for years. He hit the nail right on the head. And it doesn’t even scare you how well he knows you. 

This is a gold mine. Realistically speaking, telling a vampire’s story could make or break your career as a journalist. If you do it for the magazine, you’re done before you can even bring your words to print, but if you do it individually and you do it well, people will certainly eat it up. The question is just, are you going to play your entire life safe, conforming to your boss’s view of you until you get the freedom you crave, or are you going to take the risk and fly? 

The answer is as clear as day, but it takes you a moment to process. It’s as though someone is in your head, steering you in the direction of whoever this M is. Daredevil. This vampire who wants you to interview him, and for what? That’s still an open question you don’t have the answer to. But you do know what to do.

You scramble for your laptop, your notepad, and the letter in the envelope. The clock strikes four. You have another two hours on the clock, but you can’t be bothered to stay. 

Upon hearing the sound of your shoes hurriedly scraping against the linoleum floors, one of your colleagues turns in her chair. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“I, uh, have somewhere to be,” you tell her as you brush past her.

“What, now?”

“Yeah. I forgot I had an appointment.”

“What about Mr. Doherty?”

You stop on your way out, looking back over your shoulder. “If everything works out,” you say, glancing through the window to his office at the other end of the hall, “He’ll have my letter of resignation by the end of the week.”

She gasps softly. “You’re quitting?” her voice is barely above a whisper.

Almost sinisterly, you chuckle. “That’s the plan, yeah.”

“But—”

“Tell your daughter Happy Birthday from me. I gotta go.”

Your steps echo for minutes still, but you are long gone with the wind.

Silver linings are considered an advantage that comes from an unpleasant situation. The name has proven to be entirely unfit for the magazine that replaced a big piece of Hell’s Kitchen’s history. The Bulletin had cultural value as much as it was laden with decades of the city’s stories told to the average person. 

Wilson Fisk was the dynamite that sent New York alight. The Bulletin’s destruction was mere collateral damage in the fight to get the city back on track. You have had so many reasons to leave presented to you, yet you never took them. If you had, maybe you wouldn’t be here, making bad decisions on what started as just another Monday in June. 

The fact is though, you didn’t leave, and you are here now. Facts are what matter. They count. Your hypothetical past, present, and future have no place in this reality because you can’t travel back or forward in time. Vampires may exist, and the Avengers time-traveled to save the world, but things aren’t quite as easy once you look at the bigger picture. You are not a superhero, you’re just a journalist chasing the kind of story that will finally make her voice be heard. 

You know that Ben Urich, at least, would be proud of you.

His address weighs heavy on the small card you pulled out of the envelope earlier that evening. You passed it on to the cab driver, and he began to navigate the dark streets of Hell’s Kitchen. The luxury condominiums in this part of the city can be counted on one hand. You know exactly when you’re there. 

The sun has once again set over New York City. You’re wide awake, not quite sure though if you’re ready to face what you are walking blindly into. Even your driver refuses to take you past a certain point, and that is how you know that you’re not dreaming. This is real, and it’s supposed to be terrifying. 

How come you’re not scared then?

You slip twenty dollars to the cab driver, then climb out of the backseat. The salty air from the Hudson River a few blocks down wafts around your sensitive nose. In the distance, you can hear waves crashing into the docks as the wind picks up in speed. The boats must be moving wildly by now, swaying from side to side and possibly even making the fish in the depths of the water seasick. You would be if you were them. 

With every step, you grow closer to your target. On second thought, maybe you should have brought more than just a pathetic bottle of pepper spray and your precious laptop. You could have brought your grandfather’s cassette recorder, at least that would leave a mark if you hit someone over the head with it. 

Do vampires get concussions? That is another question you can add to the seemingly endless list in your mind. It’s a confusing place as of late, and the weird sense that someone is playing with the controls won’t leave you alone. Either you are overthinking, or you are worse off than you originally thought. 

The apartment complex the card directs you to stretches high above you. You look up, seeing not a single light on. That’s odd, you think, but then again, you are meeting with the city’s most notorious man. If he is who everyone says he is, and if the rumors are even true, that is. 

As you are about to approach the entrance, your fingertips start to burn. A gasp escapes past your lips. Staring down, the cubical piece of paper goes up in flames. You are mere feet from the door, nowhere near close to an open source of fire, and the card starts to burn like a wildfire. 

You pull back, your heart hammering against your ribcage. The ashes fall to the ground, but before they can hit the asphalt, they vanish.

“What the–” before you can finish, the doors before you swing open toward the inside. The lights turn on. Someone even has called the elevator for you. 

Another step forward, and a voice stops you. “Fourth floor, down the hallway, first door to your right,” the voice says through the speaker. Only then do you notice the lack of a doorbell. 

Everything in you is screaming for you to run, but you are rooted in the spot. He dragged you here with a mere letter, and you were more than ready to jump. Desperation was the only thing that drove you here. Your brain seems incapable of rational thought.

What if that is what he wanted all along? To get you complicit by playing on what you so desperately need, which is a story and a way out of this boring everyday life that is threatening to slowly kill you.

He’s like a siren, luring you into his deadly trap, but even knowing all of this, you still can’t find it in yourself to run. 

The second you enter the building, the door shuts behind you, and your only way out is officially locked. You made the decision; you have dug your own grave, possibly quite literally, and now you have to lie in it. It’s better to die chasing a good story than dying at a desk in an office that doesn’t respect you.

You are a disgrace, you can hear your father’s voice in the back of your mind. He always warned you not to be too reckless or your bad decisions will eventually catch up with you. He always taught you not to trust strangers, and to stay the hell away from those who disgrace God, but you have never cared much about being a good girl. 

Your thoughts are as morbid as your obsession with the walking undead. It is time you embrace what people are already saying about you.

The elevator ride feels like an eternity. It goes up and up and up until it finally stops on the fourth floor. The walls smell like nothing but a faint hint of bleach. It’s clean, parquette not carpet, and the walls are kept in a shade resembling a mixture between crimson and maroon, and it is blending into a sort of marble.

The metal doors slide open. Again, you hesitate. A sweet whisper echoes in your ear, dragging you toward the edge. You breach the border between the elevator and the hallway that waits behind it. The voice is distant, and it doesn’t sound human—it reminds you of a siren’s song, calling for you. He is calling for you, and a fog settles over your mind. You’re not in control anymore, he is. 

You imagine him to be an old man, possibly middle-aged. Vampires stop aging when they’re turned. Their mind doesn’t. You’ve read the research plenty. They are wise beings, more intelligent than human beings could ever fathom. That makes them dangerous. 

Their venom rivals the intoxicating feeling of heroin, you’ve heard, and it heightens your senses to the point all you can feel is the one who bit you. Research suggests it’s a million times stronger than an orgasm, for both the vampire and the human being. 

Part of you has always wanted to try it. Part of you wants to know what it feels like to be sucked dry. You want to know what it feels like to be carried into a new dimension by someone who knows how to play the human body like a fucking piano, eliciting the sweetest melody through your very essence and the symphony of your moans.  

This M—Daredevil—is inherently dangerous. He’s as mysterious as they come; a man in a mask lurking in the dark corners of Hell’s Kitchen every night, turning the fight for justice into his hunting ground. 

It’s as though he curled his fingers, and you followed. 

You walk the dark hallway down to the door on the right. Paintings litter the walls. Masterpieces, blotches of white, red, and color. You recognize the red marble as a decorative theme on the wallpaper. Tracing your fingers over it, the rough drywall scratches at your skin. 

You reach out a shaky hand toward the golden knob. Before you can turn it though, the door already flings open. It must be witchcraft. 

Red appears to be his favorite color. At least judging from the hallway, that is true. When you step into the room with a pounding heart and blood pooling in your cheeks though, the inside of the room is a lot more… human. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the gloominess surrounding you on your way there.

A leather couch and armchairs stand in the middle, facing toward the window front. Colored windows, as you have gathered from the rumors. They are see-through now though, showing the city skyline and the moon up high. The chandelier on the ceiling is the only piece of furniture you would consider old. Browns meet hues of blue and dark green, a forest at midnight, and you suck in a sharp breath. The apartment is beautiful. 

You look to your left and see a bookshelf stretching the length of the wall. You can’t help but run your hand over the backs. You would have expected original editions from the 18th or 19th century, but when your fingers trace over the bindings, you are met with the bulging of Braille underneath the elegant golden writing of the titles. None of them seem to have collected dust. It surprises you to only find a mere handful of classics that haven’t been transcribed in Braille and a realization you did not expect starts to crawl its way forward.

“I stole that one from a library in Paris.”

Your racing heart stops beating. The book you’ve been holding falls to the ground, its worn-out leather cracking further around the spine. The thud is deafening. You gasp, turning around. Your shoulders fly up as the tension ripples through every last muscle in your bone. Your bones ache just from how stiff you’re standing, but you can’t move.

The man before you moves as quietly as a mouse. You didn’t hear him coming. The moonlight reflects off his dark brown hair, making it appear almost ginger. He’s wearing a simple suit without a tie, and the white of his shirt is as pristine and clean as the cut of his beard. You can see chest hair poking out from underneath the two open buttons, as dark as the locks on his head. His jawline is irresistibly sharp, leading up to a pair of plump lips he is wrapping around the brim of a crystal glass filled with rum.

Your heart remains frozen. Not a single drop of blood pumps through your veins, yet your cheeks burn brighter than a bonfire on a pitch-black night. 

But his flawless appearance is not what catches your attention the most. Looking up into his eyes, wanting to know whether they are as red as those set into the devil’s mask, you find nothing but your terrified reflection staring back at you. It’s as blurry as the picture of your face in a still ocean’s water, your wide eyes staring back at yourself. 

The red glasses are all you can see. Round with a black rim. Silver would have looked better on him, or maybe even gold. The black reminds you of an endless pit, a sinister embrace of vampire stereotypes, but you can’t look away from the maroon that won’t allow you even a glimpse into his eyes. They are shielding him from the world, and his eyes from curious, stupid humans like you.

He nods toward the ground. “You gonna pick that up?” he asks. His voice reminds you of rumbling gravel. 

He looks like a man. He talks like a man. If you didn’t know better, you would say he is human. There seems to be blood in his cheeks and air in his lungs. 

You have to pull yourself together. Clearing your throat, you bend down and pick the book back up.

“Thank you,” he utters your name. “It’s been a while since I’ve received visitors that don’t work for me.”

You put the book back on the shelf. Your lips are sewn shut; you can’t find the words. Every time you open your mouth like a fish on dry land, you close it again, and it is embarrassing to be standing in front of him with your guard down. 

“Welcome to my home,” he says. You wish you could see his eyes to know if he’s mocking you. “Do you want a drink, or do you need another minute to process?”

He is mocking you. His tone is gentle, as is his voice, but he smirks like a smug motherfucker, and your anger boils to a tipping point. The candle is about to burn out. 

“I–” you stammer. Internally, you curse yourself for being such a fool. 

“Another minute it is then.”

You don’t need a minute though. “You’re blind,” you blurt out. 

The beautiful—deadly—stranger nods. “Yeah.“

“How?”

“Accident when I was a kid.”

“But you’re…” you leave the missing part of that sentence hanging in the air like a noose. 

“Say it,” he murmurs. You want to say it sounds like a growl, but you’re not sure. He isn’t asserting dominance or trying to force you into submission by scaring you away, but he is toying with you regardless. 

You take a deep breath. The word, the truth, numbers your tongue and your lips with its weight. “A vampire,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, matching his. 

His smirk broadens. He pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek for a moment, then releases it as it darts out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m a blind vampire, yes,” he answers. “We’re rare, but we do exist.”

Blind vampires. In all of your years of fascination, that has never crossed your mind. You used to believe that they had healing abilities that far exceeded your own. You were wrong. He lost his eyesight before he got turned into a vampire. He lived as a blind human being and didn’t regain his most crucial sense when he died. 

He came back to life, but he died. It is surreal to stand across from him. He’s not just letters on a piece of paper, he is very much real. And he’s blind. 

“Oh, my God,” you curse.

That elicits a soft chuckle from him. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he says. 

“I was considering not to.” 

He sees right through you with those empty glasses. “That’s a lie.”

“How would you know?” you counter. 

“I can hear your heartbeat. The blood pumping in your veins…” His head tilts ever so slightly in your direction. You take a step back. It’s an instinct. “Your pulse picks up when you lie, or when you’re nervous, or both,” he states. “When you first saw me, your heart skipped a beat. It did again when you lied to me.”

Your eyes trail down to his thick thighs perfectly fitted in his tailored trousers. His thick digits pat the rhythm with his fingers on the fabric. Thud-thudthudthud-thud. You place a hand on your chest. He wasn’t wrong; your heart is racing. 

His smirk turns into a smile, but only briefly again. It’s a glimpse of humanity he doesn’t want you to see. “I like that sound,” he says. “Has anyone ever told you that you smell good? Sweet, sour, and a little salty. Natural. You don’t use a lot of artificial perfume, but you like cherry chapstick.”

You swallow, taking a whiff of your arm. Besides your deodorant masking the scent of your nervous sweat, you smell nothing. How good must his nose be? His hearing? His sense of taste? 

“Right now, sweat is dripping down your back, and your muscles are tense enough to strain against your bones every time you breathe. Your heart just skipped a beat again. You find it weird,” he muses. “I can’t turn it off, but I get it must be strange for you.” 

“You–” The blood has collected in your head, pushing the temperature in the room to an all-time high. “Get out of my body!” you snap. 

He laughs. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.”

“And I never thought you would ask for an audience with me, but here we are.”

“Here you are.” 

You want nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face. He looks so smug, standing there with his drink, wearing a suit too fancy for his own home. He’s fully in his element. It’s scary how alluring he is, too. You don’t want to think that way, but as soon as your eyes gaze upon him again, your chest contracts, and you forget how to breathe. 

He’s a wolf, and you’re a lonely little sheep that doesn’t know any better. That lonely little sheep just wants to be a part of something bigger, even if that means surrendering herself to the big bad wolf. He wants a taste of her, and the sheep would give him that in a heartbeat if he just asked. 

You blink. There is a voice in your head, and it isn’t your own. Far from it. You don’t want to be associated with this stranger. She thinks she knows you. She thinks she knows what you want—the sheep in the eyes of her natural enemy. This voice is the most irrational you could be, and you need to stop letting her win.

And yet you—not just the voice of the lonely sheep you appear to be—would follow this man anywhere, even to hell if he asked you to. 

Your eyes drill knives into his skull, but they are also full of curiosity. Can he hear your thoughts? Your heart beats in your throat. You can taste it on your tongue. If you bit your lip, you would bleed, and he would probably fall into a frenzy. Still, your teeth dig into your bottom lip. What if he can hear your thoughts—hear how fucking needy you are? You’re pathetic. What he must think of you, standing across from him, smaller than human life itself. 

You want to read him, but he is far from an open book. He’s not Braille you can run your fingers over, and even if he was, you don’t know how to read it. He’s an enigma. His face is set in stone; an iron mask you can’t penetrate. 

His chest heaves with another chuckle. He sets the crystal glass down on the coffee table, taking a step forward. “No, I can’t read your mind,” he says. 

You flinch. “What?”

“Your breathing pattern. The way you look at me. I can sense that you’re thinking about something.” He adjusts his glasses. “It’s just… Most humans ask me if I can read their minds, you know. I can’t. Some vampires can, but my senses are the only heightened ability I have.” This time, when he chuckles, a hint of bitterness dances in his voice. 

“At least you’re not in my head then,” you say. 

“No.”

“Good.”

A pregnant pause follows. You clutch your bag to your chest, your fingers digging into the frame of your hidden laptop. 

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asks, pointing to his empty glass.

You wave him off. That’s the last thing on your mind. “No, thank you.”

Sometimes at night, you fantasize about diving into the abyss of darkness. It looks and sounds a terrifying lot like him. You want to know him. You need to know him. When it comes to him and this—whatever this is—the lines between want and need are blurring into an unidentifiable mess. It’s an ocean of emotions with no land in sight. A total eclipse of the heart, if you will. You’re losing your mind.

“What you can do–” You straighten your shoulder, hoping it will add height to your beaten confidence. “You can tell me your name. Sir,” you say. 

He nods. “I suppose it would only be fair, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Matthew. My name’s Matthew.” The softness of his features as his lips move to the rhythm of his words takes you back anew. His eyebrows raise slightly, and you catch a glimpse of a pair of beautiful, unfocused hazel eyes that steal your breath away. 

Matthew. It is a name that easily rolls off the tongue. It suits him.

You repeat his name aloud. “That’s an odd name for a 200-something-year-old man,” you point out. 

Matthew scoffs. “My parents were both Catholic.”

“I suppose you’re not?”

You hit a sore spot. His head dips, fingers running over his nails and tongue tracing his teeth. “Not anymore,” he says.

God died for him a long time ago, and all churches burned down.

Your grip on your bag loosens. “Then why Daredevil?” you ask. 

His lips part. “I, uh, have the Bulletin to thank for that one. After centuries of existing in this world, and being despised for no matter what I do, I’ve decided to embrace it. I am Daredevil, not even God can stop that now.”

Matt grabs his glass, turning away from you. He doesn’t use a cane to navigate from the couch to the mini bar on the other end of the room. You carefully follow his movements. One of his hands remains at his side, snapping his fingers as he navigates the familiar terrain of his home. 

He uncaps a half-empty bottle of Whiskey to pour himself another glass. 

“You know, Matthew,” you prompt, daring to step forward an inch, “as big as your reputation is in this part of the city, Silver Lining is not the kind of magazine that would cover your story.”

“You still came,” he says. 

“I could lose my job if anyone knew I came here.”

“And yet you’re here and not where you should be.” He turns his head over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t risk losing your job if it wasn’t important to you, would you?”

You stammer, “I–” He’s got you. You’re a fish with a hook in her mouth. 

“If Silver Lining Magazine won’t cover my story, why are you here?” Matt turns back to you, leaning back against the shiny Mahagoni of his minibar. It offers a beautiful contrast to his strong physique and the slight paleness of his skin. “Could it be because you’re fascinated by the mythic?” he asks, teasing. “By werewolves and witches and vampires?”

It’s your turn to scoff. “I won’t confirm or deny. My boss wouldn’t let me write a vampire vigilante exposé even if I begged him to.”

“And that’s why Mr. Doherty doesn’t deserve you.” Your body visibly recoils when he pushes forward, moving just an inch toward you. “Your curiosity is a virtue,” he purrs. The moonlight sets your reflection in his glasses alight. 

“Is that why you lured me here?” you ask him. “Because my curiosity is a virtue and you consider yourself better than the people in my life?”

“I didn’t lure you here, and I think you know that. That’s not what this is.” The distance between you starts to shrink, backing you into a corner. “I believe you came here because the thought of interviewing a vampire and sharing your findings with the world on your account excites you,” he says. “You want to be heard. You want to be taken seriously as a journalist, and you want to make people happy.”

The only way for you to come out of this with your pride and dignity still intact is to put up walls before the already existent labyrinth of walls keeping your heart guarded and your soul safe. “Again,” you ask, “why me?”

“Why not you? As I stated in my letter, I’m a fan of your work.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, about that. How did you write that if you’re blind?”

“I didn’t, my secretary did.”

“Of course.” Of course, he has a secretary. “I… I just don’t get it,” you say. “You’ve been hiding for so long–” 

Matt cuts you off with an urgency you didn’t expect, “Things have changed. Circumstances…” he trails off. 

“Wouldn’t it be a suicide mission?” 

His answer is silence. You let out an exasperated sigh. “If you want me to interview you, you have to be honest with me.”

“I’m not on the record yet.”

“Right. Maybe you can answer this though—off the record, of course—how can you be certain I didn’t call the cops or the FBI before I came here?”

His eyes crinkle. “I’m not stupid, sweetheart,” he says. 

He’s amused. You’re amusing him. 

“Don’t call me that,” you growl. 

He’s spreading you open, holding up a mirror for you to look into. It’s your miserable self in all its glory, and he knows you better than you know yourself. 

You ignore the sharp pain in your left ribcage as you pull the arrow out of your heart. “Unless someone holds up a sign that they are pro-vampirism, how would you even know I’d listen to you and not just refer you to the Journal of Psychiatry?” 

“Are you telling me you don’t believe in vampires?” Matt quips.

“That’s not… Answer my question!”

The sound of your heartbeat must sound almost like the rapid firing of a machine gun, that’s how fast your pulse is racing. Your veins threaten to burst with the excess blood. It’s a heat like no other. You’re a witch at the stake, and Matt is holding the torch to your gasoline-doused body. 

He clears his throat. Your face falls at the words that tumble out of his parted lips, and the rapid firing turns into a deafening silence and a monotone line on a heart monitor. 

“After what I’ve learned from reading Dr. Rice’s research on the phenomena of vampirism, I can confidently say this species is no different than an animal like the great white shark or the Homo sapiens sapiens—our kind,” he recites. “Vampires are a medium of fiction and propaganda to induce fear, but they are also a widely misunderstood species that is being silenced rather than heard. Our species, the human species, likes to consider themselves superior, even when we’re in a position of being someone’s natural food source. Dr. Rice’s research is based on a comprehensible set of facts, and isn’t that what we have been relying on ever since the beginning? Our psychology makes it possible for us to change the narrative in our favor, and more often than not, we ignore the very facts deemed by humans as an intellectual importance to spread the message of an entirely different agenda. Dr. Rice’s research only proves that egotism and humans themselves will be humankind's certain downfall.”

“My investigative journalism essay,” you breathe out. 

“Published by Columbia University.” 

Your heart restarts with a rush of adrenaline. “How… how do you know all of this?”

“I may be blind,” Matt says, “but I know how to read between the lines.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

The alcohol in his drink seems to have little effect on him. “I know you have questions, and I’m willing to answer them if you promise to publish a detailed report somewhere other than Silver Lining Magazine.”

You look down at your bag, then back at him. “Ben Urich could have told your story in a way that would’ve made people listen,” you murmur. “I don’t have an impressive career like him.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, “but you could have easily written ‘Attack on NYC’. Ben was a good man, an even better journalist, but he could not have written your college essay. And he could never have been you.” 

Your name rolls off his tongue—not a pretentious nickname that makes you want to vomit but your name, and it flicks a switch within you. 

You glance around the spacious living, pulling your laptop out of its confines, and you bridge the distance between you, finally. You notice he smells of sandalwood cologne and scentless soap. “Okay,” you cave. “Where do you want me to set up?”

Session 1.

The spacebar clicks underneath the tip of your index finger. The white of your screen fills with a series of red sequences as the microphone takes in every little sound around you. Except for the two of you and the fading footsteps of one of Matthew’s assistants though, the world has fallen silent in the dead of the night. He’s sitting across from you, legs crossed, head tilted; your life is about to change.

“So, Mister Murdock,” you begin, “tell me. How long have you been dead?” 

His mouth opens in a wide grin. “242 years,” he answers. 

“And what happened the year you died?”

“Well, it was 1782. I was a good few years out of law school. I was a good lawyer, but I wasn’t successful. That year, I met a beautiful woman at a banquet. I wasn’t rich—trust me, I was beyond penniless—but she had been adopted into a wealthy family, and that made her one of the richest women in the room. Everyone wanted her, but when I sensed her across the hall, she only had eyes for me. And she was the first woman to not see me just because I was blind.” He chuckles sadly. “I thought she was the woman of my dreams, the love of my life, but a few weeks later, after letting her into my life, I realized that she didn’t look at me that night because she was interested. She was hunting me. El— Miss Elektra Natchios…”

The year 1782 becomes apparent before your inner eye. As he tells you about the night he met her, you can see the dark-haired beauty making her way across the ballroom. Red lips and a gown to die for. Her dark eyes were full of mischief, but the passion in them could have knocked a grown man off of his feet. And that is just what she did to poor Matthew. 

“I was going to marry her,” he tells you.

He went to church regularly. His knees were bloody from praying, his senses already heightened before he died. God’s soldier, that is how he puts it. He was told that the accident that left him blind happened for a reason, and he had to fight a war that went beyond the country’s fight for independence. 

That summer, Elektra drained him. He didn’t know what she was. She fooled him. He was obsessed with her. Her dark eyes he couldn’t see lured her in, and it was the venom in her blood that became his downfall after she dug her teeth into him.

Matt tried to beg his priest for forgiveness, but he didn’t even make it past the marble stairs before the doors locked. He knelt in a pool of blood—both his and that of the first human he ever sucked dry to survive as a newborn vampire—offering an eternal sacrifice to Catholicism, but God abandoned him on his doorstep. 

The church walls would have been set on fire if he had touched them from the inside. 

You look up from your notepad to find him now standing at the window. He’s not looking out, of course, but he seems so deep in thought, the memories that aren’t your own but his start to dissipate, and you’re brought back to the here and now.

Matt poured his heart out to you. You expected answers, but not this kind, and certainly not of this magnitude. You see him in an entirely different light. He’s vulnerable, fragile, and human. He has endured trauma that killed him, but he couldn’t die because the woman he loved made him immortal. It’s a bigger curse than growing up with the belief that an accident made you God’s soldier. 

He lost everything. For centuries, he has had to live with that. It’s killing you, feeling his pain, the pure agony that radiates off him. 

Your voice is quiet when you ask him, “What was it like?” You don’t have to say it out loud for him to know what you are referencing.

Matt chuckles, the sound a mere breath in the atmosphere. “Like she took my soul from my body, setting fire to my belief system and already heightened senses,” he says. 

You swallow. “That sounds… overstimulating.”

“It was. Is. My heart stopped, but when that happened, something else awoke inside me. The hunger… the hunger was the worst part. It’s insatiable. One hour passes, and you feel like you’ve been starving for weeks.”

“Like you’ve been possessed by a demon?”

“Like I am the demon.”

“But you’re not.” You should stop the recording. You’re not on track; you’re incorporating your feelings into Matt’s story, but you can’t help it. The words tumble out of your mouth without a second thought, a train that cannot be stopped. 

He raises his eyebrows, you can see it in his reflection in the windows. “Are you religious?” he asks.

You shake your head. “This isn’t about me.”

“Are you?”

The veins on the back of his hands bulge as he balls them to fists at his sides. Your throat is a desert, and your heartbeat resembles a storm that burns right through it, sending the sand flying in all directions of the horizon.

You adjust in your seat, crossing one leg over the other. He takes a whiff. He’s smelling you, and that doesn’t help the speed of your pulse to calm down. 

Tapping your pen on your notepad, you watch the red sequences fill the white space of the recording program. It moves with the sound of your voice when you finally dare to answer. “It’s a complicated question because there is a difference between believing in God and believing in the church,” you say.

“Do you believe in God then?” Matt asks. It’s as though he’s trying not to seethe at the mere mention of someone he used to worship. You make a note of that.

“There is so much bad in this world. So much cruelty. I can’t…” You take a deep breath. “I don’t know how to believe in a God that would let the things humans do to each other happen. If God existed—if he was as merciful as Christians like to claim, he wouldn’t let this happen. And I’m so sick and tired of people using their faith, and their beliefs in God and the church as justification to be disrespectful. I don’t understand it. How can anyone? Why is someone who has to drink blood to stay alive—someone who didn’t even choose this life—worth less and the devil’s breed when humans do worse things to each other? Why would God allow us to start wars that kill innocent people? Children? It’s just not fair that we treat ourselves and others as though we are already in hell, and we’re just supposed to accept that God doesn’t care—” You stop yourself, the tears burning behind your eyes. 

Matt turns back around. You can’t look away. “When I was still human,” he murmurs, “I used to believe everything that happened to me was God’s will. The accident, God’s will. Me going blind, God’s will. I went to confession, prayed until my knees were bloody and bruised. I tried convincing myself that every scream I heard from down the block, every person who lost their life or their innocence was my responsibility. God made me this way for a reason, right?” The scoff is as bitter as the liquor in his glass. “I fell apart, you know. I was a kid, so I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what was happening to me,” he tells you. 

You hold your breath. The glasses slip from his eyes as he takes them off with shaky fingers. You are met with the most beautiful pair of hazel eyes. Emotions dance a heated tango in a tornado. If you look closer, the green specks bring life to his eyes. It’s human nature in the purest sense of the word. 

Your reflection stands in his irises, his unmoving pupils, and the tears glisten in his eyes. They’re as red as blood, watered-down crimson essence. You want to reach out and stroke his cheek, but that would be crossing a very big line that you can’t bring yourself up to touch. 

“I studied law because I thought it would change something,” he continues. You listen. It’s the only thing you can do—listen. “It wasn’t enough. Nothing I ever did felt like it was enough. I lost my father. Jack. I didn’t know my mother until it was too late. Maggie. I had no one. No money, no prospects, just me and those voices in my head, telling me I was supposed to be God’s soldier.”

“You’re not,” you cut in. 

He shakes his head. “I prayed; I crawled up the stairs of the church, and I spent hours repenting for my sins. I bled myself dry for Him. I sacrificed myself. I sacrificed my youth, my heart, and my soul, and I got nothing back. I begged for help until my voice was sore, but nothing… God, nothing was ever good enough. Until Elektra came around,” he says. 

“She changed everything for you. It makes sense. She turned you into a vampire, but she also loved you.”

“She did love me, in her own twisted way.”

“It’s what you deserved,” you say.

He isn’t yours, but the pang you feel in your chest is treacherous. Your heart cracks like a porcelain vase, jealousy creeping in like a parasite of toxic waste.

In response, Matt only chuckles bitterly. “She made me believe again, then took my soul and crushed it in her hand.” The correction makes your shoulders slump. “Instead of feeling like my world ended though, I felt at peace when she sucked the blood out of my veins and fed me her venom,” he says. “It’s sick, I know. I was aware I died that night, that she turned me into a devil who could only survive if he drank the blood of others. The Catholic in me struggled to accept it, but I had no choice but to embrace what she made me.”

“And where is she now?” you ask.

“Gone.” The light in his eyes has fully disappeared now. “I stayed with her for a while until she died in my arms. She showed me what love is, and she showed me heartbreak. She made me hungry for blood, awakening the devil I’ve been trying to tame. She taught me how to feed, how to hunt, and how to chase. But she also cursed me,” he says. “I only exist for myself now. I only bleed for myself. No God, no church, and no more religion. I’m not Jesus, I’m Judas, and I retired the cross the day I was crucified.”

You have run out of questions to ask. Too overwhelming is the sight of his walls crumbling down, this stranger you now know better than any living being seems to. You no longer see money in this, or a story to chase, you only see Matthew, and the halo above his head he still believes is a pair of horns. The world broke him. His faith in God broke him. It crushed him, and he lost everything. How broken he must be. 

“Not such a pretty story when I say it out loud, huh?” He scoffs.

The spacebar clicks again. The recording comes to a sudden halt. One hour and fifty-eight minutes, the first session of your interview with the vampire. You need to put a halt to it now because what you are about to say or do as you reach your hand out to brush his cold, dead skin is not something that should be found on a record. And you won’t ever tell.

Matt pulls away when your warm fingertips brush his. You’re standing across from him now, so close he can smell, hear, and feel all of you at once.

Your touch is the holy water that burns his skin, but the fire sustains him and shoots straight to his core the same way the blood rushes to yours.

“It’s not a pretty story, no,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, “but it did tell me what I already knew.”

“And what’s that?” he asks.

“That you’re not evil. You’re not the Devil. You’re misunderstood. You’ve been beaten; you’ve been abandoned, hurt, and broken. That doesn’t make you a monster. Trying to make this city a better place does not make you a monster.”

“If you only knew the things I’ve done…”

“I know the rumors suggest that you were the one who fought Wilson Fisk and got this city back where it needed to be. You’ve saved countless women from the worst of fates. You are the reason the innocent people of Hell’s Kitchen feel safe. By picking up that mask, you became a hero, not a villain, and that is the story I want to tell.”

In lightspeed, he has moved you from the window to the other end of the room. Your back hits the wall. 

Matt towers over you in all of his intimidating glory. His eyes spark red, but you hold his unfocused gaze. He has such beautiful eyes. This pull between you is far from human; it’s unhealthy, and it is exactly where he wanted to get you. You’re trapped, pinned underneath him like a deer caught in headlights. 

Exhaling, your breath strokes his cheeks. He closes his eyes, savoring the taste of you. Every particle in the air, he inhales. His tongue darts out to lick his lips. Oh, what you wouldn’t do to suck that tongue into your mouth. 

Your pheromones play his head like a puppeteer pulling the strings of his marionette. He growls. “Do you have any idea how dangerous I am?” 

The moonlight catches his sparkling white teeth. This time though, you come face to face with the sharp edges of his previously concealed fangs. Your jaw drops open. He’s ethereal. 

“I could snap your neck—” Matt places his hand on your neck, “I could make that heart stop beating, take the air from your lungs. I could eat you…” He traces the vein in your throat from your jaw to your collarbone. “I could bite you and suck your blood until you’re empty. I could kill you, sweetheart. My kind is your natural enemy. You shouldn’t be here.”

You shudder. His nose brushes the sensitive skin below your ear. He’s so close you can smell him. On inhale, and his scent consumes your senses. He is all you can feel now. You reach out to hold onto his arms, his muscles tensing under your teeth. He’s big and strong, and those hands have a mind of their own as they begin to wander but never where you need him most. 

You shouldn’t be here, yet you came. He asked you to him, and you complied. Is this your fate now? Chasing after your big bad wolf like the helpless sheep that you are?

Your walls clench around an agonizing emptiness, your swollen clit brushing against your soaked underwear. Whatever he is doing to you, it’s the cruelest form of torture. 

A strangled noise breaks out of the back of his throat, rumbling in his chest. “You have no idea how badly I want to taste you,” he breathes. 

“Do it,” you beg. “Taste me.”

He utters your name again. “Stop.”

“Please.”

Your tone shatters him. When he kisses you, finally, fireworks explode in the universe around you. All the stars seem to finally align. Your heart opens, and it sucks him right into you. Your soul yearns for him. He’s so close yet so far away. 

The moon stands between you, but you cross even that ocean as you push against him, forcing your tongue into his mouth. He takes like heaven and hell; he’s the apple Eve bit into and cursed her for all eternity. But he’s also the snake, the one who compelled you to take this journey of bad decisions and jump right off the cliff’s edge. You melt into him like a broken candle. 

He pulls away. Those fangs are alluring, as sharp as a knife’s tip. You want to know what it would feel like gracing your skin, digging into your as he thrusts his cock into your tight cunt. The thought alone sends your mind into a spiral.

Your lips are swollen, but he has yet to draw blood. Matt looks as though he wouldn’t dare, his eyes darting around in a darkened conflict he feels might cost him more than your dignity. You are begging for it, as is your body, but he’s holding himself back. He’s the one who tied himself to an invisible pillar, keeping his hands locked behind his back. But that is not the Matt you want. 

You lean your head to the side, exposing the length of his neck. All control has slipped from your fingers. It’s in his hands now—you are. He cups your head gently. A mere few inches lie between your fountain and his lips.

You press a kiss to his calloused palm—a desperate and needy kiss, tracing your tongue over the lines that tell his life’s story in a way no interview can retell—and it is then he is forever done for. He’s doomed, and you are the second woman to pull him under the pits of hell. 

Saliva drips from his fangs. You hold your breath. He hisses, a weak admission of surrender; the words die miserably on your tongue when his lips close around your pulse point with all his might, and his teeth drive home. 

You moan aloud. Your fingers tangle in his hair, forcing him deeper as he sucks the dark red essence out of your vein. The sensation is more than you bargained for. It’s a drug that wrecks your system. The synapses in your brain backfire with all their might, and what follows the initial explosion of pleasure shooting white hot through your being is complete and utter silence as this God of a man feeds on you. 

The invisible string between you glows a bright crimson. It slings around you, tying you together like the roots of a tree. It’s an eternal sacrifice. You are giving your all to him, the very core of your existence that is now flowing into his mouth. You swear you can hear his thoughts mingle with yours. Yes, more, please. You taste so good. Your knees buckle, but you remain standing strong. He makes sure you don’t fall. Don’t slip away from me. I need you. 

A tear rolls down your cheek. You could sob. It feels so good—too good to be true. In that moment, you become one. There is no telling where one begins and the other ends. The coil in your stomach tightens, and the only pain you feel is the pleasure threatening to overwhelm you. He’s taking everything as you give him everything, but it is not enough. It has never been enough. 

When your body struggles to catch up with the lack of blood, he pulls away. His fangs drag out of your neck agonizingly slowly. You whimper at the sudden loss.

Matt catches you as you stumble into his arms. “You okay?” He cradles your face, brushing the hair out of your face. Your blood stains his lips. Blinking up at him, the force of your metaphysical connection slaps you awake. 

You cease to exist in all solar systems but his. 

He pokes the tip of his index finger with the sharp edge of one tooth, sliding it over the two holes that are pulsating with the work of your heartbeat.

“I shouldn’t have—” he begins. 

“No,” you say. “You did exactly what you should have.”

“I couldn’t stop.”

“But you did.” You wipe the blood from his mouth. “And I felt you. I only felt you.”

The living room passes by you. Before you know it, your back lands on something much softer than a concrete wall. He’s not a monster, that one, but he surely is an animal. 

You taste your blood on Matt’s luscious lips as he devours your tongue. It tastes of copper and a little bitter, but that is what makes him moan. That sound is the last thing you could ever grow tired of. 

His palm rests on your chest. Your heart pounds against his palm. “You’re so alive,” he says.

You cradle his face in your hands. “And you’re more human than you think.”

If he wanted to pull your heart out and hold it, you would let him in a heartbeat. 

He leans you back. He strips you bare. He kisses down your body like you are a fucking masterpiece for him to explore. That is how he sees you. 

Your head falls back. The kisses wander from your hips to the inside of your thighs. Every kiss brings his breath closer to your center. Matt pulls them apart. He opens you up to him. Your scent clouds his senses, and he groans, but he doesn’t touch. 

His fangs graze your skin. “Mine,” he growls. 

You gasp. He bites into the sensitive flesh. Hard, passionately. Your legs wrap around his head, trapping him there. He sucks, and he sucks, and he drinks, and the wetness pools out of your cunt in an obscene amount. This is foreplay to him. It drives you toward the edge leading to an abyss you are afraid you might never be able to crawl back out of. There is no bottom, it is just a pit, and he’s pushing you closer and closer, and—

Your back arches, but he pulls away before the coil can snap into a million butterflies. He pries your legs away from his head, spreading them further on the mattress, as far apart as they will go. 

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner have been served on a silver platter. He breathes in. The scent of your soaked pussy sticks to the hairs in his nose. It isn’t enough. He breathes in again, your arousal sweeter than fiction. You’re everything and more. He wants to taste that part of you more than anything, suck up the slick that is soaking the sheets—and you didn’t even think that was possible—but he waits because he needs to savor it. He doesn’t want it to be over too soon. neither for him nor for you. 

The blood is still dripping from his tongue and his fangs, and the raw inside of your thigh. He runs his finger through it. The sting runs from the wound to your folds, then back down. Still, he doesn’t touch. He plays with the blood, sucking on his fingers until they’re clean, and then he dives back in for a taste. He doesn’t bite, he kisses and sucks, but he doesn’t push it further. He doesn’t hurt you. 

You’re his saving grace; he has to worship you. Pain only has a place in pleasure. 

“Matthew,” you moan. 

He chuckles, kissing where his fangs left deep indentations. “No one will ever touch you again,” he purrs. “I’ll make sure of that.” 

You try to protest, but the words die on your tongue when he leans in, capturing your clit with his hungry mouth. The wound on your thigh closes. The blood from his lips mixes with your juices, and you cry out at the intensity of it all. 

He eats you with the ferocity of a man starved for weeks. He eats your pussy like he ate your blood, savoring every drop but still feasting for the taste to spread out in his mouth like wildfire. Sour, sweet, and copper. He sucks your sensitive clit into his mouth. His tongue drags through your folds, up and down, and then the tip slides inside, tasting your walls. He grows bolder as your moans accelerate. 

Matt cradles your thighs. He forces your hips back down to the mattress, stronger than the average human man. You have to endure his beard scratching and burning, and the pace he has set.

The orgasm creeps up on you. Before you know it, he has plunged his tongue into you, and your body convulses around him. You scream into a pillow as you come. 

You are each other’s forbidden fruit. No prayer in the world could keep you apart. 

Faintly, you can hear him say, “Good girl.” Your legs quiver. He pulls away, then comes right back like a boomerang. 

He’s warm now. He was cold before, but when he kisses you this time, he’s warm. He’s hot. You run your hands over his bare chest, the scars that lie under the dark strands of hair. You tug at it, and he moans. You can tell he is a little insecure, but by pressing your lips to one of the cuts on his shoulder, he relaxes. 

What he must have endured, what he must have lived through before he died and was resurrected in the same breath, just without a beating heart—you don’t want to think about it or you will break, but you can still feel him through the crimson tie that holds you together, and you know that he has suffered enough for more than two lifetimes. You wish you could take it all away from him. You wish you could have saved him before it was too late, loved him more than the woman who turned him, but turning back time is an impossibility. You are both acutely aware of that. 

“Hey.” Matt tilts your head toward him. “Where did you just go?” he asks. 

“Thinking about you,” you murmur. 

“Me?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be your salvation.”

You. His salvation. He kisses you, softly this time. He pours gratitude into his lips and bleeds them out in poetry as they slide into your mouth, and you swallow every last drop. 

If someone had told you a week ago where you would see yourself on that particular Monday, you would have laughed at them. And if someone had told you a week ago that you would be making love to the devil, you would have called them crazy. But it’s happening. 

He thrusts into you without a warning. His thick cock fills you like nothing and no one ever has before. Your cunt has been molded to fit him, you’re sure. You take him in, and you moan at the stretch. It’s a pain so delicious you could fall apart right then and there just from the feel of him inside you. 

Every thrust drags the tip of his cock along your sweet spot. Every added sensation drives you closer to your death. 

Your body tingles. He explores your face with his lips rather than his fingers, moving to your neck again. You cling to him, oh-so-desperate for him. He likes you like that, and you like him like that. 

“You’re fucking with my head,” he tells you. “Offering your pussy to a vampire. Letting me drink your blood. Begging me to fuck you. You’re in my head, baby. Can’t get you out of my system. Fuck.”

You are his downfall, his salvation, but he is all of those things to you as well—all of those things and more. If he could read your mind, you would tell him that. Words can’t do justice to how you feel. Not right now, maybe not ever. 

“Bite me again,” you beg.

His thrusts falter. He searches your body for any sign of regret. His fangs come out, and he buries them deep in your jugular vein. The floodgates open wide. Your walls clench around his cock, your clit pulsates, and the wave crashes into you. 

You come as he devours your neck and your blood. You transcend into another dimension, far away from everything and everyone but never him. Never Matthew.

The sensation of you wraps around him like a weighted blanket. His balls tighten, your blood unfolding its taste on his tongue. You are all over him, inside of him, everywhere at once. He falls head-first, dragging you down with him. 

He comes with a shout that is only muffled through his teeth buried in your flesh, his cum spurting into you and filling your cunt to the brim. Your eyes roll back. You’re flying and falling all at once. 

Oh, how good it feels to be consumed by him. To be fucked and sucked dry. You would have never expected this to come out of your week, let alone your life, but now that it has happened, you are floating on cloud nine. 

Dizziness threatens to take over, but before you can pass out, he forces himself away, allowing your heart to catch up with the lack of blood in your system. He collapses on top of you. His cock softens, but he stays inside. You need him there. You want him there. And that is the only place he wants to rest tonight. 

He heals the wounds on your neck. “You have a mark,” Matt rasps, tracing your skin with his finger. 

You choke out, “Yours.”

“Yes, you are.” He kisses you there. Once, twice, even a third time. “Mine,” he says.

You’re his. He’s yours. It doesn’t get any better than this. 

The minutes tick away on the obnoxious clock on the wall. Matt pulls out eventually, wrapping you up in a blanket. He coaxes you to drink, but you’re barely lucid. Only when he begins to stroke your hair you start coming back to yourself. You thought you might regret it, but as you look at him, his almost guilty eyes staring back at you, all you can do is reach out for him. 

“Session two tomorrow?” you ask.

He chuckles and retorts, “Have I not scared you away?” There is some truth to it though.

He’s covered in your blood. It sticks to his lips, his hands, and his chest. It’s sickeningly intimate, in a way.

You shake your head in response. “You could not possibly.”

He listens to your heartbeat. You’re as honest as they come. 

“Okay,” Matt says. “Session two tomorrow then.”

That night, you fell in love with the Devil, but he also fell in love with you, his angel in the form of a reckless journalist, and the only blood he ever wants to taste again until the end of his miserable, cursed days. 

Matt Murdock (Smut) Tag List: @shouldbestudying41 @theradioactivespidergwen @cheshirecat484 @1988-fiend @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @mcugeekposts @itwasthereaminuteago @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @etanordoesbullsh1t @thychuvaluswife @harleycao @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @sya-skies @amberritonicole @ravenclaw617 @pigeonmama @bohemianrhapsody86 @a-girl-has-n0-name @winkev1 @callsign-ember @chittaphonstar @buckyyyismahhlife

[demonslayedher]

I lost a bet to myself and paid the price by making another demon sibling AU. Was originally just going to be headcanons and doodles, but I wound up writing the parts I felt like. The names of Tengen's siblings are entirely made up. This will come in two parts due to length.

Clicking each bone in his spine, Yogen stood to his full height, taller than Tengen remembered. It wasn't uncommon to go long periods of time without seeing his siblings when they were on their own missions, but Yogen shouldn't had changed that much. "I'll spare you. It wouldn't do for the Uzui clan not to have a head. Now you're the strongest one."

"...Yogen..."

"I wouldn't had been able to take you on, if not for the fact that you'd never have done it if you knew. You should thank me, Aniki. You know what I've spared you? Father was going to make us all have a fight to the death. You'd have done at least half of this."

"What have you done!?"

"I ate them," he laughed, something Tengen had never heard Yogen do in his adult voice. He had the most infectious laugh when they were children, and this rang with the same pleasure, however dissonant. "I was stunned too, at first. When I came to, I had eaten two of them, they were still warm in my mouth, their cells already nourishing mine. But you know what? I decided to eat the others. I was going to kill them anyway, what difference does it make that I should eat them?"

Tengen's face pearled back into a snarl, his eyes flaring.

"One, two, three... Eizen got away before I could bite him, though. That whelp would had done nothing for me. The one I really wanted to eat was the strongest," he said, his glowing white eyes shifting down to their father's fresh corpse. "And now, even he's nothing to me."

Tengen could stand no more of this. "Yogen!!" he screamed and gripped one of the swords at his back, and charged at Yogen all in one motion. A hard sickle burst out of the flesh of Yogen's arm and caught it, but when Tengen pulled his other sword down through Yogen's shoulder and chest, the sound of ripping sinews what different than it should had been. A look over to the injury revealed that the shoulder was repairing itself before Tengen's eyes. When had he learned any technique like that?

The momentary lapse in focus caught him, Yogen swiped up against Tengen's forearm. It felt too varied to had been spiked knuckles--those were his fingertips, he had grown claws. Tengen drew a sword up to lop off Yogen's forearm, and then his brother let out a shrill scream as his features lit up and revealed how contorted they had become. Yogen didn't look human anymore with how his veins bulged and burned. Burned? From what? Tengen took a look over his shoulder to the sun rising and casting light through the wide open door, and when he looked back, Yogen was gone.

---

Tengen watched the flames consume the house and the bodies of his slain family. He had combed it for any trace of Yogen, but his brother left none. Hope though he did that the flames may consume Yogen too, he knew in his gut that he was still out there.

Behind him, Suma sneezed in a gust of smoke that wafted into her face. Hinatsuru handed her a handkerchief, as she and Makio were already covering their faces in case of poison. Tengen didn't bother, he was resistent to most ninja poisons, and the scratches down his forearm were already less swollen. "You three should go back to your homes."

"No!" insisted Suma.

"We're already members of the Uzui clan," said Hinatsuru.

"Your revenge is ours," added Makio.

Hinatsuru made the most important point, they were already seen as his property. He could hear whispers and feel them all being watched; the other ninja clans knew what had befallen the most powerful family, and the Uzui name was now shunned. Even if Tengen wanted to stay, he had no place in the village, and neither did anything that belonged to him. The only thing left for him now was to track his brother down and drag him to hell.

Someone else was approaching, and Tengen reached for one sword. Uneven footsteps. One didn't have the splat of a foot, it was the thunk of wood--a cane, or two canes? A leisurely, but determined pace. Self-assuredness, even for entering ninja territory. A robust heartbeat. Who was coming?

"Well, is that what you all look like? I feel like I've wandered into one of those storybooks," said an old man. He had one missing leg, a full head of hair and moustache to rival it, a grin, and a telltale scar lining the underside of his left eye. "I had always left your kind alone, but I couldn't when I felt the presence of a demon over here."

"Who are you?" Tengen asked, stetching one arm before his wives while the other hand stayed at his weapon.

"You didn't chop its head off, did you, ninja boy? It's long gone by now, you know. It'll hide from daylight. Be even more trouble to find if it's one of your folk."

"How do you know about us?" Makio shot back.

"How do you children not know about demons? Aye," the old man huffed to himself as he set down a stool he carried. He planted his rump on it, then folded his arms. "The name's Kuwajima Jigoro, former Roaring Pillar of the Demon Slayer Corp. I figured this would be out of your expertise, so I've come to help."

Tengen felt in his gut he could trust that. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head, his wives all doing likewise behind him. Jigoro seemed to enjoy that, but insisted they do not. Instead of bowing, he'd appreciate the ladies rubbing his shoulders to display their gratitude, he said.

While Hinatsuru and Makio set about at each arm, Suma kneeled at his remaining foot with a gasp. "Aren't old people not supposed to be this beefy?"

"Can it, Suma!" chided Makio.

Hinatsuru said nothing, but could feel something was different in this man, not only in his physique. Whatever he had to say was going to change their lives more than the previous night already had. They all listened carefully as Jigoro orated about the existence of demons, how they eat humans, how they are near impossible to kill, but also the methods of those who hunt them, with specialized blades and an organization to support them. As he began describing Breath, however, Tengen stopped him. "I already know all that, that's ninjutsu basics. That's not giving me anything I don’t already have."

"Oh? I figured as much. Always made me curious about you pups. So you you've got the basics of Breath technique, huh?"

"It's beyond basic," he shot him an annoyed frown.

"I'll be the judge of that. See that tree over there? That's probably about the strength of the usual demon neck. Go hog wild on it." As much as showing off was against the ninja code, Tengen wasn't in the mood to argue and made short work of that tree, the only sound being the pop of it seperating into two halves. Jigoro gave him a clap, then stood with his cane. "Good accuracy. Spot on. Now you pick one out for me. Take some mercy, though, I'm only working at half-strength." He balanced on his foot and his peg, plopping the end of his cane in his palm to show off that he meant to use it in place of a sword. Tengen hated when other people tried to be show-offs, so he pointed to a tree a few rings thicker than the one he had cut.

The old man eyed it, then slid his good foot through the dirt, and as he leaned forward, clouds of steam rose from his lips. "Breath of Thunder, Fifth Form. Heat Lightning."

The sound hit Tengen so hard that he covered his ears, and the old man was gone--on the other side of the tree, which was not only cleanly chopped, but split itself in half vertically as it fell. A rarity, Tengen's jaw dropped. Jigoro looked back with a fierce grin, knowing he'd have left them all impressed.

Rather than one knee, Tengen planted his palms and face to the ground. "Please teach me this technique, Master."

"When did I ever say I wanted a student like you? You already said you know Breath technique, don't you?"

"You won't teach him?" Suma sat straight up, little tears in the corners of her eyes.

"I only want students with talents I can mold. You're already set your ways and would just try to make Thunder Breathing into what you want. You can't fill a full tea cup, as they say."

Tengen wanted to insist he's do anything to take his revenge, but the old man was right. As he was, he wouldn't be able to unlearn everything he always knew, it was as much a part of him as every experience and memory, like every scar, such as the ones running down his left arm.

"The true nature of Thunder Breathing would escape you, you'd get too caught up in how powerful it looks. You're too flashy!"

His cheeks flushed. "Say that again."

"You're too... flashy? I don't think a ninja should find that a compliment."

"You can't tell him all that and then not train him!" insisted Makio. "Please! There's got to be something you can do! Tengen-sama works really hard!"

"Tengen-sama works harder than anyone!"

"Please, Master. Tengen-sama can think flexibly, please give him a chance."

"I won't! I can already tell he's not the sort of student I'm looking for!" he barked back, and Suma burst out into sobs, while Hinatsuru hid delicate tears and Makio's face turned dark red. Jigoro flinched at the sight of the upset girls, then looked back to Tengen. "I--I didn't come out here to leave you high and dry, you know. I already told you about the Corp, didn't I? That's where you really need to go. I can't teach you Thunder Breathing, but if you really think you can pick up something new, there's an old scroll I've got of an off-shoot Breath. Someone like you might be able to pull it off. What do you say, ninja boy? How about I give that to you and you teach yourself Sound Breathing?"

---

From there, Tengen took much the same course as in canon. When he became a Pillar and had his meeting with Oyakata-sama, he was upfront about his reasons for entering the Corp. Oyakata-sama appreciated his frankness and assured him that the entire Corp would support him if they found any information on Yogen, but Oyakata-sama was also keen on the undercurrent of Tengen's heart; that he was relieved to leave the murderous ways of ninja, and that he wanted to live an upright life. This finally gave words to something Tengen always felt, but thought he had no right to wish for. He and his wives were moved and they swore loyalty to Oyakata-sama.

However, as time went on, there were no clues whatsoever about Yogen. Around the time they all got antsy, Makio finally couldn't stand it anymore and suggested they may never find him. "Think about it," she said. "This Corp is full of strong swordsmen. Someone might had already chopped off his head long before we got here."

While that should had come as a relief, Tengen couldn't help but find the idea frustrating. That revenge was his to take. He could think of only one person stronger than him who might had done it, so he described Yogen to Himejima one day and asked if he remembered seeing a demon like that. Himejima plainly replied that he was blind.

As they began to accept that they may never have closure, Hinatsuru proposed that they be satisfied bagging an Upper Moon. That should be enough for them to earn their peace, she said, and as much as it grinded away at Tengen's heart, he agreed.

In the course of performing Tengen's Pillar duties, they closed in on what was likely an Upper Moon in Yoshiwara. Hinatsuru, Makio, and Suma slipped in, but when he lost contact, Tengen went looking for some female Corp members to sneak in and see what was up. That's when he reencountered the boy whose head he meant to spill at the last Pillar meeting, as well as his two annoying buddies. Inosuke would had been satisfyingly flamboyant, if not for the fact that he was gross. The other whelp was named Zenitsu.

"You write that 'Zen' with the kanji for virtue?"

"Yeah. What's it to you?"

"Nothing," Tengen replied, never saying anything of it ever again. It didn't take long for him to notice that Zenitsu had ears on par with his own.

The boys managed to get in, and soon the plan went awry. Tengen's first encounter with an Upper Moon broke out, and that went awry in the most horrifically flamboyant of ways. Tengen found himself unconscious, needing to stop his heart to keep the demon poison from spreading, as it was many times more potent than any ninja or demon poison he encountered before. There was fire in the wreckage nearby, he'd be consumed if he doesn't move soon. In the odd space where consciousness was returning to him, his hearing reached into a deeper plain, where he could hear the most carnal thoughts pounding though the bodies of those around him.

Tanjiro was panicking.

No scent! No scent! Upper Moon Five--where did--but--no scent! No scent!!

Tengen could hear Upper Moon Six, in both bodies, but he couldn't hear any other demon. It gave off no sound. He struggled to look in Tanjiro's direction, and was stunned by the sight of a demon partway sticking out of the shadow Tanjiro has cast, guarding Upper Moon Six with a kunai stuck in his arm.

"Sakage!" growled Upper Moon Six. That is not the demon's name. "I don't need you here! Were you intruding on my thoughts?"

"I didn't need to. I heard the cacophony from ages away. You wouldn't had seen wisteria coming anyway."

Upper Moon Six looked to the kunai, while Tanjiro panicked that the poison had no effect on the newly arrived demon.

"Quit with all the fuss. I'd appreciate it if you hurry up and silence that Pillar over there," he turned his glance to Tengen. His eyes had writing in them, but that was Yogen. "I can't be bothered."

Yogen disappeared into the shadow as suddenly as he appeared, and Tanjiro fell forward with a stumble. He'd be a sitting duck like that, Tengen had to go save him, he pushed himself off the ground to--but--but his arm was missing--the scars were torn off-----

---

Yogen had been quick to learn some of the ins and outs of being a demon, but not all the finer details. He gathered from the surrounding demons' fear of the drum demon that the "Twelve Moons" were the most fearsome demons, closest to their progenitor, but didn't those other demons notice that the drum demon couldn't stomach humans as he ate them? That demon was weak, and Yogen wouldn't stand for it. He cut off his head.

It did not kill the demon, who screamed at him with the characters "Lower Six" in one of his eyes, but he shut up quick when Kibutsuji Muzan arrived. Despite warning Yogen that this was not how fights between demons were done and he should kill Yogen for acting without permission, Muzan smilingly decided to allow it, and instructed him to absorb the former Lower Moon Six and assume his role. Muzan did not care for how Yogen's name referenced sunlight, though. He renamed him Sakage on a whim.

Sakage went on to learn very quickly how to please Muzan, and how to climb the ranks. While not immune, he could resist wisteria poison, which Muzan was more than pleased to borrow from him and see how he could try to adopt it into his own cells. Sakage could move between connected shadows, and in spying on the Corp, he picked up on the hand signs the swordsmen used and quickly deciphered them, and openly reported so to the demons that outranked him. With hearing far more advanced that his brother's ever was, he listened to the information shared between crows, piecing apart their language to the best of his understanding.

Lower Moons Three and Two later, he used his spying abilities to identify his next target: Upper Moon Five.

Gyokko was startled by the challenge, and under Muzan's gaze, he could not refuse. Sakage made short work of him, and the other Moons all felt a chill. Akaza's chill was excitement.

Akaza wasted no time in chatting up the new Upper Moon, for Sakage likewise had a stated hatred for weaklings. While Sakage did find it a bit of a bother, especially since he knew he was a long way from ever being able to pose a real challenge to Akaza, he learned that the quickest way to stop Akaza from pestering him was to spar. Akaza loved to chit-chat even while sparring, though, and this became a useful way for Sakage to catch up on a hundred years of gossip about the other Upper Moons.

While it did feel they had somewhat of a friendship, one day they got on the topic of poison. "I hate people who use poison," said Akaza, between punches. "It's as cowardly and low as you can get."

Sakage, who could create a myriad of weapons from his cells as needed and always laced them in poison, was not offended, but disagreed. "I see no problem in being effective."

This gave Akaza pause, and an uncomfortable drop in his stomach. He excused himself, and bothered Sakage not so often after that.

Muzan was typically pleased with Sakage, which made Hantengu tremble that the ambitious demon had it out for him next. When Muzan was in a foul mood after Upper Moon Six's defeat, Sakage was likewise in a bad mood for the annoyance he encountered out there, someone who should had stayed hidden away instead of bearing free his inherently show-offy personality by joining the Demon Slayer Corp, especially since he was sure to have his ears set to the ground now for any new sign of him. He was certain Tengen witnessed him. But, for as much of an insult as it was to the Upper Moons that Gyutaro let him live, Tengen wouldn't be much of a threat anymore.

Still, Sakage knew to keep his cool. He had news to report, and he was certain of his deciphering. When he declared where the swordsmith village was located, Muzan had no doubts, and sent Hantengu alone. "Now why couldn't you find that, after all this time?" Muzan smirked to Nakime. She, not being of any rank, could merely apologize. Sakage took no pleasure or pride in looking better than a peer whom he knew he was stronger than. Muzan's mood could never be sustained for long, though, and he very soon frowned back to him. "You've brought no word of the blue spider lily."

"My apologies."

"Aren't ninja supposed to have knowledge of these things? Weren't you of a high ranking clan? Go back and order them to search."

And, at that moment, a dangerous thought escaped Sakage's inner filter, it leaked though to his mind at the same moment it leaked to Muzan's: But I can't show my face back there.

The way Muzan's face bent with disgust drove more terror into Sakage than when he was still a human and first encountered the demon lord. He felt certain of a swift death, but Muzan let him be. Sakage was still too useful. But, Sakage knew he'd have to crawl back to Muzan's graces by providing something of more use to him. He had to unveil a secret of more value.

--

Tengen, who remained active despite missing an eye and a hand, was present at an emergency Pillar meeting. Tokito and Kanroji were bandaged up, and they recounted how the swordsmith village was attacked by Upper Moon Four. With two Pillars and a few other reliable Corp members all working together they defeated him well before daybreak, but not before discovering an ancient ability known only as "the mark."

As he was now, Tengen knew he'd never attain this. What bothered him more was how the demons found the village, so hidden that he'd have to put his mind to it to have figured out where it was. He could had resorted to old tricks to figure it out, whether that be silently tracking the smiths after their deliveries or flirting with the Kakushi, but what recourse would a demon have had?

'I heard the cacophony----'

A demon may have had ears that rivaled his own, or were better!

Feeling sure of which demon it may had been, he set to thinking of what he would do next. If the demon moved in shadow, listening for the Corps' secrets, what would be a bigger target than the swordsmith village?

Oyakata-sama!

"Uzui-san, are you alright?" asked Himejima. "You seem quiet today."

"You look pale," added Kanroji.

"I'm jealous I won't get one of those flashy marks," he lief without flaw. "We all know I can't take any demons on like I used to. Maybe I don’t belong here."

"Uzui, what sort of talk is that?" Iguro looked to him with his flamboyant dichromatic eyes wide, and brows knit tight over them. "This isn't like you."

"I've got a different sort of mission to go on, I'll see myself out. You all stay here and keep each other company discussing this."

"Then I'll excuse myself here as well--"

"Not you, you've got no excuse," Uzui forced Tomioka back to a seated position by pressing on his head.

In conducting his own investigation, Tengen set his crow to work investigating from the sky. What the crow learned, tracing a few leaks and scolding the birds involved, was that their mid-air communications may had been what spoiled the secret location. This confirmed Tengen's suspicion about Yogen's hearing. He had a feeling about some other spoiled secrets too, and in following up with Corp members involved in previous mishaps, he concluded that the secret hand signals had been divulged.

--

(Read the conclusion reblog here.)

[pockyxx]

“ christmas day ”

iwaizumi x fem! reader

genre: domestic fluff. (dad! iwa, uncle issei + uncle takahiro, mentions of uncle toru)

the sun poured into your bedroom, comfy blankets draped over you and your husband’s intertwined bodies. it was christmas morning and you knew that you children would come storming in any moment.

as expected, tiny foot steps pattered along the hardwood floors. you smiled to yourself pretending to still be asleep while you felt the weight of the bed shift just the tiniest bit.

“mommy wake up it’s christmas!” your youngest, misa shook you lightly as you acted as if you just woke up.

“what really it is?” you shook your husband, “hajime did you know it was christmas?!” your daughter giggled as hajime woke up himself.

he rubbed his tired eyes before getting a look at his two girls. he gave an equally shocked expression, causing more light hearted giggles to erupt from misa.

“does hiroki know?” he asked, groggy morning voice sounding in the quiet room. this caused a laugh to come from the hallway. peeking head through the door frame, hiroki your oldest child tried to over his mouth with his hands.

hiroki looked more like iwaizumi than you, in face the spitting image of him when he was young. he was two years older than misa who was 4.

“i tried to tell misa not to wake you but she didn’t listen.” he inched closer to the bed. hajime laughed, gesturing him to come to the bed along with misa.

as both your kids sat in between both of you, hajime jumped up, tickiling their bellies and roaring like godzilla.

from the squeals and giggles from your children, you couldn’t help but close your eyes and enjoy the sound of their voices.

you pulled misa closer to you, “hey bug did santa come?” her eyes widened with a child like glee before she grabbed her brothers arm, dragging him out while exclaiming ‘we need to see if he ate our cookies!’

hajime looked over at you with a wide smile, pressing a long passionate kiss onto your lips. as he pulled back he’d transferred his smile onto you.

“let’s go, the kids are waiting.” you both got up, the morning routine had been put aside for the day. hajime looked just excited as your kids, scrambling to get his cellphone ready for pictures.

both of you walked down the hall walking in on misa and hiroki gasping at the missing cookies and half drunk mug of milk.

misa ran up to hajime, pulling on the brim of his sweater, “daddy, daddy santa ate our cookies!” she gave a toothy smile.

“and he drank our milk!” hiroki added, running over to you. you beamed down at the two children who eagerly rushed to their presents under the tree.

“alright bug.” hajime looked at misa, then to hiroki, “bubs, which gifts do you guys want to open first?” he let the kids scan over the gifts, both picking out ones with similar wrapping.

“good choice,” you sat down at the couch, “those are both from uncle toru, he sent them from argentina.” it was clear by her expression misa was thinking, ‘where’s argentina?’

nonetheless both of your precious children began unwrapping and tearing at the boxes. misa shot up at her gift, holding it up in praise.

“look what uncle toru got me!” she waved up a small white puppy stuffed animal with a small purple colour and a brown spot in the shape of a heart.

she hugged it with all her might while hiroki pulled out his own gift, his eyes wide in marvel.

“uncle toru got me a dinosaur kit!” both kids were equally energetic and it was only the first present. hajime smiled as he video tapped, asking “alright what do we say to uncle toru?”

both chimed in with thank yous as hajime stopped recording and sent the video to his friend.

the morning was filled with opening presents and slowly sipping coffee as the children had already started playing with their toys and trinkets.

hajime sat next to you in the living room as misa played pretend with her new puppy and hiroki was trying to set the new volleyball given to him that year. your husband nudged you a little, slipping his hand in yours and bringing it up for a kiss.

“merry christmas darling.” he winked at you as you laughed, looking at the time, getting up to put the christmas turkey into the over. in the kitchen you could hear the hushed voices of your kids along with their father.

you walked back into the room to see what they were up to and all of them straightened their backs, hiroki and misa holding something behind their backs.

“go on give mommy her gift.” hajime placed his hand on hiroki’s back and he stepped forward, pulling out a box.

“oh, i made a card too mommy!” the card in question was mostly just a picture that misa drew herself of your small family. of course there was hajime, standing tall with exaggerated spiked hair, with you right next to him, a small heart connecting both of you. then misa had drawn both herself and her brother holding ice cream cones, why? who knew but it was adorable.

“thank you so much babies! should i open the gift now?” both kids nodded vigorously as you shot a cheeky look to hajime. you sat down on the couch, hiroki wiggling in on your left and misa to your right.

“hm, i wonder what it could be...” you played along, slowly unraveling the ribbon keeping the box together. gasping when you saw it, you looked up at your family. “this is so pretty.”

“the kids helped me pick it out.” hajime rubbed the back of his neck as you picked up the small bracelet, “will you help me put it on?”

misa quickly ran over to your aid and snapped on the bracelet. you pecked her cheek and pulled hiroki in as well and planted a kiss on his cheek, to which he crinkled his nouse. “you too.” you smiled up at your husband who leaned down and kissed you.

both you children gagged slightly in a joking manner while you and hajime laughed at their expressions. you looked at the time.

“now you two need to go clean your room and get dressed— uncle issei and uncle takahiro are coming over for dinner.”

—

“alright, room check bug!” hajime called out before entering his daughters room. he held his fingers to his chin like he was deep in thought.

“hmm... nice work bug.” he swooped down rubbed her head causing her to jump.

“daddy your gonna ruin my hair!” she pouted, hajime took her up into his arms and laughed,

“you really are you mother’s daughter. let’s go see if your brother did just a good of a job.” he walked with misa in his grasp as he pushed open hiroki’s door.

the boy sat in front of his mirror, trying to properly button up his dress shirt. hajime placed misa down, telling her to go help you set the table.

“dad can you help me?” he frowned, flapping his arms down after failing to fix his shirt. hajime chuckeled, kneeling down.

“‘course bubs.” he smiled, carefully realigning the buttons so hiroki’s shirt would be even. hajime put his hands on his son’s shoulders, smiling profusely before giving him the same pat on the head that he gave his daughter.

the doorbell rang and hiroki’s head shot up, “uncle issei and uncle hiro are here!” he rushed out of his room and to the door.

hajime wasn’t too far behind as he met you and the children at the door. you fixed a clip in misa’s hair before opening the door.

mattsun and makki stood at the door, carrying gifts for the children and wine for the adults.

“for you two.” mattsun bent down and passed the two same size boxes as makki leaned forward, a nice bottle of wine, “and for the mr and mrs.” he handed you the bottle as the two stepped in and stood off both their coats and winter boots.

“how are the two of you?” mattsun asked, hands on his hips, watching the children shake the gifts trying to figure out what was inside.

“we’re doing good, come come, dinners already ready.” you guestured bringing everyone to the dinning table where the meal was spread out like you said.

“hope the drive up wasn’t too bad.” hajime mentioned, sitting down across from his high school friends. they shook their head.

misa ran to mattsun’s side, hiroki not too far behind, “can we open the gifts now?!” they were too hyper. mattsun looked at you two for approval and you nodded.

“go ‘head.” he smiled as the adults resumed their chit chat. hajime shook his head slightly as he saw his kids rip more wrapping paper from the corner of his eyes.

“you guys really didn’t have to, it’s bad enough oikawa spoils them all the way overseas.” they all laugh at the comment.

“mommy look we got remote control cars!” misa showed you, holding a red racer while hiroki held a blue one.

“don’t forget to say thank you.” hajime reminded them as they scurried to their uncles, bowing in thanks. it was almost like hajime could read their minds as he continued, “you two can race them after dinner.”

both pouted but listened to their dad nonetheless and silently the food was passed around. a quick ‘thank you for the food’ and everyone had dug in. it was a saying that the food was tasty is no one talked over the meal.

in this case, it was true. a few snickering comments and ‘hiroki use your napkin’ later everyone was stuffed.

“y/n the food was was..” hanamaki mimicked a chefs kiss before falling back in the chair. issei agreed, pouring himself another glass of wine.

you shook your head, thanking them for them for the compliment while misa tugged on hajime’s sleeve.

“daddy, can me ‘n hiroki race our cars now?” he nodded, “of course bug, just make sure not to break anything.” and like that they rushed off to give the toys a whirl.

mattsun and makki talked about how their jobs where going or in makki’s case, how the job search was going. bringing up how much the kids had grown since the last time they saw them, despite it not being that long. you laughed as they retold embarrassing stories from highschool. overall, the night was fun.

by 10:30 both misa and hiroki had gotten a bit bored of racing, finding their way back to the dinner table.

misa sat in hajime’s lap, tiredly flipping through pages of ‘volleyball monthly’ but mostly to just observe the picutres since she’d only just started learning to read.

“hey isn’t that uncle toru?” she asked, pointing to a picture, everyone laughed and nodded as hajime explained how he was playing for argentina and how they’d made it past the qualifiers for the olympics.

misa woke up slightly, “daddy will you teach me to play volleyball too?” it was in that moment that you could swear you saw tears in hajime’s eyes as he nodded in agreement.

his friends all smiled, seeing how truly soft iwaizumi had become. they’d always known him as a rough-around-the-edges sorta guy, who was a strict vice captain. now, he was just a strict coach but he was also a family man. they mentally applauded his duality.

the conversation slowly began to die down, hiroki had started to read a book he got, dismissing himself for bed while misa had managed to fall asleep on hajime’s lap.

“do you want me to take her up?” you offered but your husband shook his head, carefully getting up and carrying misa to her room.

“iwaizumi is a good dad.” matsukawa stated, leaning forward in his chair with a smile. you agreed, telling them all about it.

“i’m not surprised he’s managed to get them both into volleyball.” takahiro laughed as well.

“yup, hiroki just started volleyball lessons and misa’s still a bit too young but i’m sure hajime will keep that promise and teach her when she’s old enough.” you placed one hand over your other, feeling the wedding ring you adorned. “he really is a great father, just something else.”

while up in misa’s room, hajime has placed the 4 year old under the covers, placing her head gently on her pillow. he smiled, cautiously taking out her hair pins, scared they were going to hurt her if she turned over.

she had subconsciously grabbed ahold of the stuffed animal oikawa had gotten her and he smiled. hajime placed a kiss on her forehead, “‘night bug.” he whispered, too quiet to wake her as he turned on her nightlight and left the room.

his next stop was hiroki’s room, and not surprisingly he was already in his pajamas, under the covers. with his book in hand, he smiled when he saw his dad.

hajime sat on his bed, peeing at the book. “how’s the reading coming bubs?” he asked while hiroki yawned slightly.”

“it’s good dad, they’re about to go on a quest to stop the demon king.” he laid his head down on the pillow. hajime laughed, “i’m glad you’re enjoying it but it’s bed time now.”

hiroki nodded, placing his book mark where he left off, sliding it onto his nightstand. hajime couldn’t stop smiling.

“goodnight bubs, sleep tight.” he chuckeled, placing a kiss onto hiroki’s forehead, the boy’s eyes fluttering shut.

“goodnight dad, say goodnight to mommy too.” he turned on his side.

“will do.” he nodded, turning off the lights and making his way back to the dinning table.

once issei and takahiro had taken their leave, wishing them all the best you and your husband could finally unwind.

hajime’s kissed your shoulder playfully, smiling into you skin as you changed into pyjamas. you turned around, hugging him with all the energy that was left in you.

“your so good to us.” he said into you ear and you laughed.

“speak for yourself, haji.” you kissed him again, “you’re an exceptional dad.” he blushed at the comment, tugging you to bed and under the cover.

you found yourself in your usual spot, head on hajime’s chest with his large arms stayed snaked around you.

kissed were thrown back and forth, small conversation about how you two would need to burn off all the food that you ate today.

hajime lookedbdown and thought you were sleeping, pressing a kiss to your temple, you let out a small confession. “i don’t know what i’d do without you.”

you peaked your eyes open and his cheeks reddened realizing that you heard him.

“i don’t know either but i’m glad we have each other.” you laughed, pressing your ear to his heart beat.

“yeah, y/n, i love you so much.” he kissed you before slowly closing his eyes.

“i love you too.” and like that you two fell asleep together after celebrating another christmas with your beautiful children.

[atinyarmyzen]

𝒸𝒶𝓃’𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓈𝑒𝑒 𝓂𝑒?

𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭!𝐲𝐮𝐭𝐚 𝐱 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: brief mention of injury, some swearing

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: period setting, angst, fluff, you are the only child of a noble family who is an aspiring writer (much to your mother’s distaste), and one day to run into an old friend. 

𝐚/𝐧: this took way too long to write so sorry if you’ve been waiting a while, this idea popped into my head and I started writing it like a month ago on and off. I hope you enjoy this v fluffy dramatic ghost au!

You don’t know him, but he knows you. Yuta had been a lingering spirit in this house for over a century, and he has grown quite fond of you over the years. He used to be your “friend” when you were little, but you had long since forgotten him. It broke his heart, but he still loved watching you while you wandered around the huge manor, he loved your singing and watching you read by the window. He had grown content with the arrangement, him admiring you and you never noticing, until one day- you do.

Your family had lived in the house for a couple generations, though the huge manor has been there for hundreds of years before you. Your mother and father were nobles who owned a sizable chateau in the countryside. You were expected to be a debutant and were to be married off to some other noble. It felt more like being sold in your eyes, and you wanted no part of it. Rather than going to parties and balls you preferred to read your books and run around barefoot in the huge meadows. It was lonely considering you were the only child, but you didn’t mind. You preferred the people in your books, and would often visit places all around the world through the stories you read.

Yuta had been the spirit of the house for as long as he could remember. He could barely recall his mortal life, and his life as a spirit felt like eternity even though he had only been dead 100 years. He knew you since you were quite small, and you knew him. You were the only person that had ever actually seen him, and your sweet friendly soul made him feel like wasn’t alone - trapped on the other side of existence. You would often run down the long hallways together, laughing and giggling the whole way. To your parents, it just looked like you running around alone, and they often just passed it off as you being having a wild imagination.

Those were the best days of Yuta’s existence, but it was not to last. As you grew older, your “imagination” began to fade away. One day, Yuta found you where you normally were, in the library by your favorite window. He smiled as he snuck up on you, prepared to playfully spook you like he always would. Except when he jumped out in front of you, you didn’t move a muscle. You kept your eyes trained on the book as if you heard nothing.

“Y/N?” he questioned. Nothing.

He kneeled down in front of you, his big doe eyes looking up into your face as your eyes continued darting across the page. “Y/N?, what’s wrong?” he asked again, thinking you were just giving him the cold shoulder. “Have I done something wrong?” he pleaded, his brows knitted in concern. Yuta reached out his hand and cupped your face, he noticed the sun rays seeping through his ghostly form as he touched your soft cheek. Instead of meeting his eyes, you simply shivered and pulled the window shut as if there was a draft. Yuta drew his hand back, can’t you see him?

He heard your mother call you from the other room, your head immediately perked up in response. “Coming mother!” you announced as you closed your book and got up to leave. Yuta watched in horror as you walked right through him out of the room, his eyes pricked with tears as he watched his best friend leave. His heart shattered, he had never loved anyone so much and it seemed like you had all but forgotten him.

Years past and you grew into a young adult. You attended school, went to parties - or rather forced to go by your parents, and talked to what seemed like hundreds of bumbling idiots who just wanted to marry you for you family fortune. The only solace you found was in your library where you could escape to far off places in books, or running around with your small dog in the fields. Yuta had no choice but to watch you grow, and soon his fondness for the small child he knew grew into love for the beautiful angel that graced the halls of the estate. He had become content with his situation- as long as he got to admire you from afar, it did not matter if you could not see him.

Until one day.

You had become absolutely fed up with your parents incessant need to marry you off. Dinner, like always, turned into a debate over your free will.

“I’d rather chew glass than marry that fool.” you spat as you pushed the food around your plate.

“Y/n, stop being so ridiculous. Don’t pretend you never expected this time to come.” Your mother retorts.

“I’m sorry darling, but we have already discussed the arrangement with his family,  you can’t pull out now.” Your father added.

“I wish his dad pulled out but here we are.” You quipped under your breath.

Your father choked on his food and tried his best to stifle his laugh at your little joke. Your mother was less than pleased and scowled at you from across the table.

She shot daggers at your father. “I blame you for her mouth.”

“Would it really be that horrible if I didn’t marry? My literature instructor says I have a talent in writing and that I should consider publishing my stories. I could be so much more than somebody’s prize.” You said with an almost pleading tone.

“I won’t have my daughter becoming some kind of spinster lady. Can’t you see what’s best for your family?” Your mother said, sounding deflated. Your father kept his gaze down.

“I think “what’s best for me” are the words you’re looking for.” you seethed before you loudly pushed your chair back and sped out of the room.

You were too upset to even think about where you were going so your instincts took you right to the library where you sat on your seat by the tall glass window in a huff. All of it, the anger, frustration, sadness began to come to a boiling point. It felt like an elephant was sitting on your chest. Tears pricked your eyes and despite your best efforts they began to fall.

Yuta had heard the whole exchange at dinner, and watched from the corner of the room as your body heaved in sobs. It felt like someone was shoving a spike through his heart- he knew you. He knew you better than anyone, they way you prefer animals to people, your favorite books that you read through so many times the pages have worn, the way your eyes light up when you find inspiration for your stories. He knew what your dreams were- and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

He felt helpless, he decided he would do his best to comfort you even if you couldn’t see him, maybe you could feel him. Just as he started towards you he knocked over a stack of books. He cringes at the sudden noise which instantly made you jump and whirl around.

“Hello?” you said, startled.

Yuta dashed behind a bookshelf, although he mentally kicked himself for it because you couldn’t see him anyway. You got up and cautiously stepped forward.

“Mother?” you called. There was no way the wind knocked that huge pile over.

You felt the hair on your arms and neck stand up. You realized that you were supposedly alone, but the sickly chilling feeling in your gut said otherwise. Despite your every nerve screaming at you to get the hell out of the room you moved closer to the corner where the noise came from. You were stopped dead in your tracks when you heard a faint shuffling behind the tall book shelf. You gulped and peeked into the shadows.

You didn’t know what you were expecting, but you thought it was going to be something that would haunt you forever. Instead, you found nothing but what looked like a young man sitting on the floor with his hands covering his eyes. He looked just as scared as you were. He hadn’t noticed you yet, and you studied his appearance a little closer. His form was shifty, as if he was not solid, he looked though he was dressed from a hundred years ago. He had long, sliver tresses that reached down the nape of his neck and brushed his forehead. He had delicate features and full, pink lips. You smiled at the boy, there was something so sincere and endearing about him.

You decided to clear your throat to announce yourself, “Ahem”.

The boy gasped and ripped his hands away from his face. He looked up at you with huge, sparkly dark eyes and you were sure you could see your reflection in. Something about his eyes struck you- they were oddly familiar. You stared at each other for a while before he snapped out of his trance and quickly stood up. You were taken aback at how you were suddenly looking up at him, he looked to be about your age.

“You can see me?” He finally spoke.

“Of course I can.” You replied as if you see him everyday.

“Do you remember me?” Yuta said quietly.

“Remember you? I’ve only just met you.” You stared at him quizzically

Yuta’s heart sank, he thought maybe after seeing him for the first time in years you would recognize him. Still, he was thrilled you could see him at all.

“Are you afraid?” the boy asked.

“Should I be?” you retorted.

He chuckled. “No, not of me at least.” He grinned.

This was the second time he made your heart do flips in the span of 30 seconds. His smile was enchanting. It made you feel safe, warm, and again- he seemed oh so familiar. You felt like you could trust him with your life, and you had no idea why.

You couldn’t help but smile back at him. “Good. I’m y/n.” You said, reaching out your hand.

Yuta stared at your hand for a minute before he took it in his and lifted it to his lips. You were taken aback, expecting a handshake. He pressed a kiss to the back on your hand while keeping eye contact with you. You gasped slightly, his hands felt cool, but his lips were warm. His gaze was so intense compared to moments ago, and it sent shivers up your spine.

“I know. I’ve known you since you were quite small.” He smiled as he straightened up again. “I’m Yuta, I’m the spirit that lives in this house.”

“Well Yuta, it’s nice to finally know you. How can I see you?” You asked

“Very few humans can at your age, usually it’s just children.” Yuta explained.

“I see.” You reached out to touch his face. “May I?”

Yuta nodded. You gently touched his cheek, it felt like a thick, cool air. He lifted his hand to cover yours. You noticed you could see your hand through his shifty one. “Can you feel anything?” You asked curiously.

“Barely, I can only feel warmth, but no sensation like I did when I was alive.” He said flatly.

“Wow.” You said, astonished that you were actually speaking to a fully materialized spirit.

Yuta chuckled at your child-like wonder. “You know you don’t have to go through with it.” He said after a short silence.

“What?” You say, puzzled. “You heard that?”

Yuta smiled shyly. “Yeah, most of it.” He said fidgeting with his hands. He then looked up at you with wide eyes. “Not that I eavesdrop or watch you all the time- I just- well- “ He began to panic. You laughed and reached up to “touch” his shoulder comfortingly.

“Don’t worry- I don’t think you’re a pervert.” You said, giggling.

Yuta sighed. “Oh, good. I didn’t realize that sounded rather creepy.” He laughed nervously.

You laugh again. “I’m glad there’s someone I can get along with around here. I would tell you to make yourself at home but you were here long before me.” You turned to pick up some of the fallen books and start putting them back in their respective places.

Yuta leaned his shoulder against the shelf with his arms crossed, smiling fondly at you as you move around the room, going on about the different books you’ve been reading. I felt like no time had passed, like everything was right in the world again.

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵ • ︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵ 

From that day forward, Yuta became your confidant. Being as you were the only one that could see him, you figured there was no harm in telling him all of your secrets, fears, and dreams. On top of that, there was something about Yuta that felt incredibly safe. Even if he were alive, he would still be your closest friend.

If you spent a lot of time alone before, it was like you were a hermit now. You really left the library, and sometimes it even sounded like you were talking to yourself. Your mother pressed her ear to the large wooden door, curious as to who you were talking to.

“That girl, she worries me.” She said, knowing for a fact you were alone in there.

Despite the growing concern of your parents, you were the happiest you had been in a long time. Yuta was always with you, he made you belly laugh until your ribs hurt, always wanted you to read him your stories, and he told you stories from when he was alive.

“I am 125 years old you know.” he said after he finished telling you about his childhood.

“You don’t look a day over 25.” You said sarcastically.

“Oh stop, you make my blush.” He said exaggerating his gestures.

“If you could even blush.” You quipped

He feigned a shocked gasp. “How rude Miss Y/n. I thought you were a lady.” Yuta fired back with a smirk.

You snickered. “If being a lady means I have no sense of humor, then I’m no lady.”

Yuta chuckled at you, your unapologetic attitude was one of the things he adored about you. His gaze lingered for a bit as you concentrated on the book in your hands.

“You know you don’t have to go through with it.” He said suddenly changing the subject.

You looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “Sorry?”

“You don’t have to marry that pompous ass if you don’t want to.” He clarified.

You scoffed. “Yuta, you of all people should know the world doesn’t work like that.” Your eyes went back to your book.

“I wish we would have lived at the same time.” Yuta’s voice suddenly became softer.

You looked up to meet Yuta’s eyes- they could be so intense sometimes. Words were suddenly lost on you, your lips parted but nothing escaped. You were suddenly aware of the proximity of his face to yours. He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, then tracing your jaw with his finger until he reached your chin. You felt goosebumps erupt on your arms, the cool air suddenly making you shiver.

Yuta noticed and pulled his hand away. “Sorry.” he breathed. “I forget how cold I am.” He said sadly, his eyes downcast.

You gently brought you hands up to his face, causing him to meet your eyes. He looked surprised.

“Me too.” you said quietly. “Maybe in another life, I wouldn’t mind being stuck with you for a husband.” You smiled.

Yuta’s face lit up with a huge grin that reached his eyes. He laughed breathily.

“I suppose this would be a good time to tell you I have loved you since you were small.” He brought a hand up to hold yours against his face. “But I’ve been in love with you since you’ve grown up into the beautiful person you are now.”

There was a moment of pause as you stared in the galaxies that seemed to be swirling in his eyes. All you could hear was your breathing growing shallower and your blood rushing in your ears. He was perfect.

Now or never.

You leaned in slowly, as if being magnetically pulled. Your lips hovered over his; he stayed still. Both of your eyes were half-mast as you stared at each other’s lips.

He pulled away.

You deflated. Yuta kept his gaze down. “I can’t.” He said in a thin voice. “And why not?” you retorted. He met your eyes with his glassy ones. “If I am going to kiss you- of which I want nothing more- I want to be able to feel you, and you me. You deserve that.”

“I don’t care Yuta. You have already given me what I know I will never have in this life.” You breathed, feeling tears begin to prick your eyes. “I love you.”

Yuta blanched at your words. He had gone too far, let his own selfish desires to be with you again get in the way. If you really wanted to be with him, what was the cost? He could never give you what you wanted from him. “You deserve someone who can give you a real life, a human one.”

You stood up abruptly with your back to him. The tears that had been gathering in your eyes spilled over, suddenly it was hard to breathe. Why was he doing this? You spun around to face him. “Then why?” you said with a shaky voice. “Why did do all of this? If you knew all along that you loved me why would you wait until the moment I realized that I loved you too to break my heart?!” Your voice began to rise as you spoke.

Yuta looked at you with a helpless look on his face. “I’m sorry.” was all he could choke out before his head fell into his hands and he began to sob. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at his any longer before rushing out of the room.

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵ • ︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵ 

You hadn’t seen Yuta in weeks. You barely spoke, your appetite was all but gone, and you cried nearly every night. You had forgotten how lonely it all was before him. You had become completely apathetic to your situation, allowing the your betrothal to become official. The wedding was in a week, and you were dragged to countless meetings with your dress designer, dance lessons, and wedding plans that your mother was far more excited about than you were. You spent any other time you had locked away in your room writing. At least in the world of your own creation, the heroine was able to have the life you wanted. She could have a career, travel the world, walk along the streets of big cities, and still have the love of a lifetime without having to sacrifice a single thing.

One day, you sat at your writing desk by the tall window, watching your tears fall to the paper below in soft patters. You looked up into the mirror, you didn’t even recognize yourself anymore. You were frail and your skin had taken on a dull sallowness. You could feel yourself slipping, the constant despair causing your to fray at the seams. You closed you eyes for a moment before opening them to see a head of silvery hair standing behind you. His eyes were just as doe-like as ever- they looked at you with such sadness. With a sharp gasp you turned only to find nobody behind you. You looked back to the mirror to see only yourself reflected back at you. There was no way of knowing if you imagined it or if he was really there. It all became too much, and with a pained scream you shattered the mirror in front of you with your fists.

Where is he?

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵ • ︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵ 

Despite the fussing of everyone around you and your mother’s scolding, your lacerated hands hardly concerned you. You sat in your nightgown still, in your usually chair by the window in the library. You fiddled with your bandages on your hands before one of the house attendants had come in.

“Miss Y/n?” he spoke softly.

You quickly snapped out of your trance, “Yes?”.

“A letter for you, miss.” He said as he handed you a small envelope with a seal.

You offered him a small smile, “Thank you.”

Your literature professor had told you to send off one of your stories to a publishing company in New York City. You eyed the wax seal on the envelope, and broke it.

𝒟𝑒𝒶𝓇 𝑀𝒾𝓈𝓈 𝒴/𝓃,

𝒲𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓀 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓈𝑒𝓃𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓊𝓈 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓂𝒶𝓃𝓊𝓈𝒸𝓇𝒾𝓅𝓉, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝓉𝒶𝓀𝑒𝓃 𝑔𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓉 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝒾𝓃 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓀. 𝐼𝓉 𝓌𝑜𝓊𝓁𝒹 𝒷𝑒 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒽𝑜𝓃𝑜𝓇 𝓉𝑜 𝒾𝓃𝓋𝒾𝓉𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓉𝑜 𝒩𝑒𝓌 𝒴𝑜𝓇𝓀 𝓉𝑜 𝒹𝒾𝓈𝒸𝓊𝓈𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓂𝒶𝓉𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝒻 𝓅𝓊𝒷𝓁𝒾𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓃𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁. 𝐼𝒻 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑔, 𝓅𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓈𝑒 𝑔𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝓊𝓈 𝒶 𝓇𝑒𝓅𝓁𝓎 𝑒𝓍𝓅𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓈𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓉. 𝐻𝑜𝓅𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇 𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓈𝑜𝑜𝓃.

𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓂 𝓇𝑒𝑔𝒶𝓇𝒹𝓈,

𝐸𝓁𝒾𝓏𝒶𝒷𝑒𝓉𝒽 𝒮𝓉𝑒𝒾𝓃, 𝐸𝒹𝒾𝓉𝑜𝓇 𝒾𝓃 𝒞𝒽𝒾𝑒𝒻

Holy shit. You thought, quickly folding up the letter and going to your room to hide it in your desk drawer. This was surreal, never did you think you could actually get published- by one of the largest publishers in the country no less. Your wedding was in a week, what could you possibly do about it now? You slightly cursed yourself for being so resigned about your engagement. Until you remembered Yuta’s words:

“You don’t have to do it you know, I think you know that too. You could leave it all behind and be perfectly fine on your own.”

You turned to your bed to pull out a large suitcase, throwing it open before shoving every possession you could fit inside. Your life wasn’t here, especially now that Yuta had gone. You thought of your family- their disappointment. Your mother’s you could deal with, but when your mind crossed your father there was a slight tinge of guilt. You paused your movements for a moment. He understood you, and he always stood up for you when your mother would get particularly overbearing. Still, you knew he wouldn’t stop the engagement. You snapped out of your trance and continued to pack until were interrupted by a knock at your door.

You jumped at the sudden noise, suddenly aware you could be discovered. “Yes?” you called.

“Supper is ready Miss” someone said from the other side of the door. “Be right there!” you shouted.

Shit. You thought. You quickly shut your suitcase- which took a fair amount if effort due to how utterly stuffed it was. Shoving it under the bed, you fixed your slightly disheveled hair and left your room to meet your parents who were already sitting at the dining table.

“You look flushed, dear.” Your mother commented upon looking at your face. “Is everything alright?” She asked while sipping her wine.

“Yes, mother. It’s just rather chilly today.” You lied. You father just looked at you with a raised eyebrow before going back to pouring his own wine.

You were on edge the whole time, your leg constantly bouncing while mindlessly pushing food around your plate. You could barely stomach the idea of food due to house nervous you were. You were making your escape tonight, you thought. All you have to do is wait till dark. As soon as supper was over you quickly excused yourself and shoved your chair back before leaving the room without another word.

“She has barely said a word for weeks.” Your mother said lowly. “What on earth has gotten into her.”

“She wasn’t meant for this life.” You father mumbled. “She’s far too smart and stubborn.” You mother continued to watch the door where you had walked out. Her eyes narrowed before she finished her wine. “I blame you.” She said bitterly.

You rushed to the library to gather the few books you new you couldn’t live without. You dashed around the room, stacking them in your arms before you came to your usual spot by the window. You looked at the scattered books and your scrapped pieces of your writing. Your eyes stopped on a small drawing you had sketched while you and Yuta were spending one your usual days lazing around the library. He was facing you, his gaze turned out the window in front of him. Though you’re no artist and you could never do his angelic features justice, you could still very clearly remember the scene. You stuffed it in your pocket before heading back to your room to get the rest of your things together. For the first time in your life you had never felt so sure of something. Although you might never see Yuta again, he could never leave your memory- no amount of distance nor the passage of time could change that.

You bittersweetly smiled to yourself as you made your way down the hall to your room. You struggled to open the door with all the books in your arms and barely noticed someone sitting on the chair at your desk.

Your mother.

She was holding the letter.

All of the breath left your lungs, there was an icy feeling in the pit of your stomach. All of the hope you had deflated in a matter of seconds.

“After all I’ve done.” Your mother started, still staring at the letter. “You still are adamant on destroying our family.”

There was silence for a several moments. You had tolerated her snide remarks and constant distaste for everything that made you happy. You played along with her ideas for your entire life, and for what?

“No, mother.” you said in a low voice. “You are adamant on destroying me.”

Your mother quickly stood up and rushed over to you. “How could you be so selfish?!” She seethed, her face just inches from yours. “Do you honestly expect that you could survive in this world all on your own? Don’t you know that isn’t possible for us?!” She said in a mix of anger and tears.

“Just because you gave up on your dreams doesn’t mean you can get in the way of mine.” You said in a flat, low voice.

Your mother shook with rage and tears before she pushed past you and stopped with her hand on your door handle. “I will not have my family be a laughing stock just because you have silly delusions. You will stay in this room until the wedding if that’s what it takes.” She spat before slamming the door.

“NO!”  You heard the faint sound of a lock from the outside. You slammed on the wooden door with your fists in rage until it eventually turned into tears of frustration. You eventually slumped against the door, exhausted.

Hours passed and shadows stretched across your room as the sun sank into the earth. The only light coming from the small lamp in your room. Everything was numb, all your fight had left you. You leaned back against the cool wood of your door, still sat the same spot you slumped in. You let out a sigh before felt yourself falling backward. You yelped as the door opened behind you and you fell  out into the hallway.

“What the hell-“ you began before you looked up.

Yuta.

You stared for a few seconds in disbelief thinking it was just another one of your hallucinations. Yuta’s brows were knitted as he stared down at you.

“Well? Don’t just lie there, you don’t have much time.” He said. You looked at him quizzically before it dawned on you: he was helping you escape. Yuta seemed to notice your moment of clarity and offered his signature smile. You got yourself off the floor and looked him in the eyes. Tears pricked your eyes as you smiled at him. Without really thinking you threw your arms around him, and you were surprised to feel warmth rather than the coolness of his shifty figure. It didn’t quite feel like a typical hug, but more like being enveloped in warmth.

“I missed you.” Was all you could say. You both stayed there for a few moments before you felt his warmth pull away from you.

“I never left.” He said with a warm grin. “Now hurry up, lady. I don’t pick locks for just anybody.” He winked.

You grinned widely before running off to grab all of your things. It was probably just before dawn by the looks of it, Yuta lead you to a small doorway that you had never seen before. “This was how I sneaked out.” He told you. You huffed in amusement before grabbing a hold of the handle, it was old and probably hadn’t been opened in years. You had to use all of your strength to slide it open, it was slowly beginning to inch open before you heard a voice.

“Y/n.”

You jumped and fell backward before looking up to see your father with an unreadable expression on his face. Your heart was leaping out of your chest, you looked around and saw Yuta standing next to you with a panicked expression on his face. If you weren’t screwed before, you definitely were now. \

“Where do you think you’re going?” He said in a grave voice before walking over to you. He helped you off the floor, and you kept your eyes glued to them.

“Without this?” He continued. Your eyes snapped up to see him holding an envelope. You met this eyes with your brows knit together, utterly confused.

You took it from him and opened it. Inside it was a train ticket and some cash. Your mouth fell open before you looked back up at your father who was smiling fondly. He took your face in his hands and gingerly kissed your forehead before meeting your eyes with his glassy ones.

“Go.” He said with a wide, proud smile.

You kissed his cheek before telling him you loved him and that you would write when you got to New York before you scurried out the door. You came out the other side to see the garden just outside your favorite window by the library. You took a deep inhale of the crisp morning air and saw the sky begin to tinge with orange as the sun began to rise. You opened your eyes to see the window open and Yuta staring at you with a fond look on his face. Despite your joy, your heart deflated when you made the realization.

Yuta would probably never see him again. You ran over to him placing both your hands on the window sill as he leaned down on his elbows. “Come with me.” You said through the tears painting your cheeks. Yuta gave you a sad chuckle before he reached his hand out to your face. You leaned into the warmth and closed your eyes. “I can’t.” You voice broke. “Not without you.” You opened your eyes to meet his and scanned his features for a moment, desperately trying to engrain his beautiful face in your memory. The sunlight shone faintly through his slightly transparent figure, giving him an ethereal glow.

He was the first to break the silence. “Don’t worry, love. I’ll see you again soon.” You were confused. “How?” you asked.

He chuckled again. “I’ve waited a hundred years to meet you, what’s another few decades?” You smiled at his jest. Yuta brought his hands to your face, they felt almost real this time. “Go, I want you to live. Be the heroine in your stories. Go on adventures. Break hearts. Feel heartbreak. Laugh till you can’t breathe. Feel it all, the greatest joy and the deepest pain. Write your stories. Then, after you’re old and grey and it’s time for you to leave this world, you can tell me all about it.” You let out a shaky laugh between your sobs, never had you felt more pain and love at the same time. Yuta leaned down and pressed his lips to yours. This time, you swore you could feel the plushness of his lips and his fingertips grazing your jaw and neck. You felt his pull away and opened your eyes to meet his. They never failed to put you in a trance.

“I love you.” You said in a voice just above a whisper. You saw his pupils dilate as he heard your words.

“If you only knew how much I loved you.” He said with the most beautiful smile that lit up his eyes like stars.

“Now beat it, you have a train to catch.” He joked. You chuckled. You abruptly turned to leave to save yourself from further torture. You ran across the meadow to your horse. You strapped down your things and hoisted yourself up before taking one last look at the window. Yuta was still there, he gave you a small wave. “See you soon.” You whispered before spurring your horse forward into a brisk run.

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵ • ︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵ 

Snow fell softy outside your window, the city took on a unique charm during the winter. The lights glittered and the people bustled down below, never stopping for a heartbeat. You looked around your home that you had called your own for decades. There was a piece of you here that would never leave, given you had written some of the most bestselling novels in history within these walls. All of the fame had made for an extraordinary life, but even in the moments of utter chaos time would slow to a crawl when he would cross your mind.

Over the years you wondered if it was all your imagination and if you ever actually would see him again. You reached to the side of your bed and picked up a small compact you kept with you all the time. You opened it to find the drawing of Yuta you had made all those years ago, it was your only way to remember his face as the years went by. Then you looked over to the mirror in the other side and saw your face. You were no longer the youth you once were, you looked over the way time had wore over your face. You smiled, it was proof you had kept your promise to Yuta, or leaving it all behind would have been for nothing.

You closed the locket and held it to your chest as you felt yourself drifting off to sleep. It felt strange like, you were being enveloped in warmth, the noises around you starting to blur and echo, as if you were under water. You heard a voice whisper right before everything turned black.

You woke with a gasp. It felt as though you had slipped into a deep ocean and couldn’t stop yourself until all of the sudden you were brought back to the surface. The room your were in was flooded with sunlight and you squinted as your eyes adjusted. What soon came into focus was the library from your family home. Everything was the same, except it felt different. Lighter, dreamier, as if time didn’t really move here. Looking down at your hands, they were no longer veiny and wrinkled from time, but youthful again. You turned your head to the window, a boy sat there. A boy with silver hair. As if he knew you had spotted him, he turned his head to meet your eyes. He smiled as if he was expecting you.

Yuta.

He stood up as you ran to him and nearly knocked him over as you embraced. He  was real, you could feel his solid form as you buried your face in the hair that dusted his neck. He smelled exactly how you imagined and he was so, so warm. You felt the vibrations of his low laugh as you clung to him desperately. He pulled back to look at your face before he kissed you, gently brushing his thumb along your neck where his hold was. You were finally home.

You pulled away from each other before letting out a giggle. “I have so much to tell you.” You said. He smiled. Not a thing about him had changed.

“And I can’t wait to hear all of it.”  

[tiny-smallest]

day one - pride

Rating: G Characters: Henry and Bendy Warnings: none Description: Henry reflects on the definition of labels and belonging in certain spaces.

Also on AO3!

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WHO'S READY FOR THE INK DEMONTH 2021 I SURE ONCE AGAIN TOTALLY WAS YEP DEFINITELY NO LAST MINUTE ANYTHING HERE LET'S GO

Doing writing prompts again because this year has been A Lifetime and I just don't possess the ability to draw this time so let's go let's get stupid get weird enjoy the misadventures of a specific au of of Bendy and the Ink Machine where the toons are their own people in a world they still don't entirely understand and the people who love them who try to help them navigate it.

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Henry was used to a surprising amount of things to interrupt his day first thing in the morning. Easily numbered in the hundreds. His children were toons; there was no end to the amount of crazy nonsense that they could get into when he was asleep, and that was disregarding the fact that Bendy usually slept until noon.

Sure, he was the Troublemaker In Chief. That did not mean the other two were paragons of holiness, no matter how much Alice tried glowing her halo at him while she and her brother gave him the saddest, biggest, shiniest puppy eyes. And that didn't even take into account how much trouble they could find, no mischief intended.

He'd seen smoldering breakfasts, pancakes on the ceiling, saran wrap around the kitchen archway, demonic rubber chicken noises from a saxophone that had a part replaced with the noisemaker from the novelty prank toy...

(He still didn't regret letting Boris chase Bendy for that one without intervening.)

With all that, being immediately accosted by three toons hanging off his legs the second he came down the stairs and all trying to talk to him at the same time did not magically get any easier to withstand.

"Whatever it is, it's a no until I get my coffee," he drawled as he attempted to walk with them hanging off him, the three of them dragged along with him. It was with quite some difficulty that he got to the kitchen counter.

"But Henry!" Bendy whined, "we only got a few hours to get ready if ya say yes! We need every second!"

"For what?" he yawned, pouring a cup from the machine.

"You don't know what day it is?" Alice was surprised enough to actually let go, and she dusted herself off like the lady she was before standing up.

Instantly something cold grabbed Henry's heart and squeezed. "Uh- no I...?"

Had he forgotten someone's birthday? No, it was summertime; Bendy was a winter 'birth' and Boris and Alice were spring and fall. An anniversary of some kind? Quick think what are you forgetting you useless-

"How!?" Bendy gaped at him from down below. "It's been all over the news fer weeks!"

Well okay now he was just thoroughly confused. "I um-"

"The parade, Henry!" Boris's tail was thumping gently against the floor; he was not trying one tiny ounce to hide his eagerness. "The parade that's today!"

"Parade-?" It took just one more nanosecond of thought before it clicked.

"Oh you mean the-!" And they wanted to go to it.

Well, he shouldn't be surprised. This would be the first parade they'd get to see, wouldn't it? And it was nice weather out. And it would be bursting with color, which the toons were darn near obsessed with.

He took a contemplative sip. They weren't human; god even knew if they had any sort of sexuality at all. Could they even feel that stuff? The urge to- do anything like that? Wouldn't that technically make them asexual? That was the word, right?

Well, human or not, that would solidly mean they belonged there. Queer was queer, regardless of species, right? Hell, even if they'd just started asking themselves those questions, or wanted to support the fans of theirs who fell under that giant umbrella, they were valid for being there.

"Sure, I can take you."

Both boys cheered, lifting their arms to do so and releasing his legs. He quickly took a step away from them, but their joy had them leaping to their feet anyway and he watched as they bounced around the kitchen, slowly draining his coffee and trying to curb his smile when he was actively drinking.

It was a hard task.

Their excited chatter melted pleasantly into the background as he took the time to drink and try to shake his brain awake the rest of the way awake like shaking out an old blanket to coax out the wrinkles. Their enthusiasm always made for the perfect background noise.

"What colors do you want?"

"I dunno! There's so many! I don' even know what label I fit in-"

"I saw you checkin' out that guy the other day don't think I didn't!" The wink and nudge from Bendy sent Boris blushing so hard the poor wolf's face turned nearly as black as his fur.

"I was hopin' you hadn't-"

They were all quick to consume breakfast, and Henry retreated upstairs after telling the toons to come get him when they wanted to leave.

He settled comfortably in the limitless, timeless space of art before reality came knocking with Bendy's distinctive tapping at the door, pulling Henry from the space inbetween something and nothing as he set his pen aside. "Come in, kiddo."

When Bendy stepped in with what was unmistakably a rainbow flag on his cheek and extra face paint he knew he was in for a time.

"Oh uh- what's that for-"

"For you!" Bendy said with a giant grin. "Who'd ya think?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Ah well- I uh-"

Bendy didn't slow down. "Anyway the others are about ready to go but they sent me up here to get your flag on while they finish up- now why they trusted me with the paint I got about as much an idea as you but hey I'm not gonna complain-"

"Aw that's- that's sweet kiddo but I sorta figured I'd just be-" How to say this. "Dropping you off...?"

Immediate confusion. "What? Why?"

"Uh well- I mean-" He fiddled with the pen- when had that ended up back in his hands? "You guys- you have a space there, you know? I'm not sure if I-"

There was now a puckered frown on the little devil's face. "Not sure if you what?"

"Well I mean- I don't exactly- belong, now do I?"

The frown multiplied its intensity by about five. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Aw jeez. He really did not want to discuss this with his kid, as much of an adult as Bendy was. For many reasons. "Uh well- you know-" He gestured, as if hoping that would somehow pluck the answer from the air and implant it in Bendy's brain without having to give voice to it, setting the pen down in the process so he’d stop playing with it. "I'm not exactly- I mean-"

"You like guys." Bendy's voice was so sure that Henry knew making any sort of denial was futile. And also kind of stupid. Why would he deny that to his own son? No of course he wouldn't.

"Well I mean- I married a woman, didn't I?" he finally blurted out.

Unimpressed blinking as he drew closer to stand beside the desk. "Yeah they got a word for that. Several actually. Most popular ones are bi and pan, so which colors is it gonna be?"

"No no I mean-" God he was probably blushing. His face definitely felt way too hot. "I uh- I mean I- I like guys, yes-" great brain thanks a ton totally needed that heart rate spiking why are you acting like that's scary this is our kid- "but I- I married a woman- I like women- more often?"

The blinking was now confused.

"Uh-" How to phrase this. "If- if we split it into a pie chart- it's probably like... thirty-seventy in favor of women?" He ran his fingers through his hair and down the back of his neck again. "I'm- not that I'm any great catch but like, if I was in any way qualified to be in the dating pool again, I'd be way more likely to end up with a lady."

The unimpressed look was back. "And?"

It was Henry's look to be surprised. "And- and that means that, you know- I'm not really-"

"You like guys."

"I- yeah?"

"And you're a guy."

"Kind of a given at this point."

"So you're a guy, and you like guys, and just also happen to like girls too. We got names for that." He gave Henry's shirt an appraising look. "Gotta say the bi colors would complement your clothes best. If you want pan colors I'm gonna have to ask you to change. As your official fashion consultant."

Henry snorted. "My what?"

"Listen Dad I love you but I ain't about to let you walk into that parade wearing like, a pineapple hawaiian shirt or nothin'."

Henry banged a fist lightly on the table and pointed at him. "Liar! You wore the exact same thing just the other day!"

"Yeah but that was to the beach, not a parade."

"Literally when have you ever cared about not being a fashion disaster."

"This time, when Alice'll actually kill me otherwise."

"... Okay you got me there."

Bendy grinned. "So, bi colors or pan colors! Or somethin' else? I think there's other ones too."

He opened his mouth, closed it again and then opened it. What the hell. "... Bi colors, I guess."

"Yesssssss I was hopin' you'd say that." He hopped over onto the table like he'd suddenly become a bunny.

"Oh you were, huh?"

"Listen, the pan folks got pretty colors, but I'm always a sucker for a sunset," he said as he pulled out the pallet he needed. Henry sighed and shook his head, the smile ruining his effort to look exasperated.

"Well. Sunset me then, I guess."

"You got it boss!" Bendy said in maybe the worst mafia minion accent known to mankind.

It was barely five minutes of Bendy painting lines carefully on his cheek before he whipped out a mirror.

"Tah-dah!"

Henry blinked at himself in the mirror. He tilted his head, something shifting inside his heart that he had no name for, no way to voice.

The once proud look on Bendy's face was swiftly dropping. "... I didn't mess it up, did I...?"

"No- no, no." Henry tilted his head. "I uh..."

Bendy's worried browlines screamed anxiety to him.

"... I guess I just look good in a sunset," he said quietly, seeing the little corner of his reflection's mouth turn up as if in some sort of hazy dream.

Better than I thought.

[boxboysandotherwhump]

The new boy in town.

Tags:  @salamancialilypad  @whumpfigure @albino-whumpee @comfy-whumpee  @ashintheairlikesnow   @haro-whumps   @moose-teeth @vickytokio​ @yet-another-heathen​ @orchidscript

Chapter 2

CW: body-shaming/ insults, discrimination/ dehumanization of mutants, an insect gets hurt, a nearly fistfight ensues

Heat thrummed through Gideon’s bones and throbbed in unison with his building headache. His patience had shriveled up like dried fruit under the torrid summer sun while this horrible lavender scent clung to his hair,  his skin, his clothes, making him dizzy.

It became stronger on the village outskirts, Gideon realized as he hurried after Director Sahin. The man ascended the crooked stone staircase effortlessly, his moss-green robe billowing behind him. His artfully decorated spear swayed with every step he took, not brushing a single leave. The only thing rustling through the underbrush was the wind and the creatures living there.

A twig caught in Gideon’s black curls, while the Director rambled on about the virtues of disciplinary work. How it encouraged the growth of one’s character, or some shit. The twig broke off with a quiet snap, painfully pulling at his scalp. Gideon’s mood dropped even lower. It was going to be a nightmare to fiddle all those shitty branches and leaves out of his hair later on.

He was seconds away from losing his barely-held composure. 

The only thing keeping him from bursting at the seams was the promise he’d whispered into his brother's grave, a last farewell bedded beside a corpse. 

Gideon had come to this godforsaken village to learn how to fight and survive in the forest, not to become some obedient little soldier boy! But in order to do that, he had to get cleared for training again and out of suspension.

If he had to play the director’s errand boy for a day to achieve that, so be it. He had endured worse.  

“Haaah, here we are.” Director Sahin inhaled deeply, arms falling wide. “Finally. My dear friend’s farm. Tell me, young Gideon, is it not simply beautiful?”

Gideon shrugged. “‘S’ okay.”

Granted, the house did look cozy, resting encircled by giant roots with its warm brick walls, but those gigantic snails everywhere sent a shudder down his spine. If he had to touch those slimy monsters he-

The farm’s sliding doors opened before he could utter a protest, and a fine-boned, middle aged woman emerged, followed by a huge man with a greying beard.  A boy, probably his own age but significantly shorter, held the door open for them.

The older woman’s lips curled into a crooked smile as she caught sight of Director Sahin, whose whole face had lit up. Dark eyes shining. 

“Moira. My darling. Please do not tell me you are about to leave? Not when I looked forward to seeing your beautiful face again.”

Gideon suppressed a gag. Moira crossed her arms, smile growing sharper. Her eyes held a warm twinkle as she spoke. “Eric; charming as ever.”

The man behind her stepped closer and huffed:  “M happy ‘ter see ya too, Eric.”

“Oh Ansgar you flatter me. But I must confess, I am not here solely for tea and a chat-“

The Director rattled on and Gideon’s focus wandered to the girl that had stepped out the door behind a blonde woman. A fancy grey blouse hung off her thin shoulders, nearly covering the  lace trim of blue silk short. A stark contrast to the more practical attire favored by most villagers. But that wasn’t what caught Gideon’s attention, no, he had seen all sorts of fancy getups up in Berlin -in the city's upper ring that is- what drew his eyes to her, was her face.

Its left side was oddly deformed, her pale skin uneven like a creased silk sheet, drawing her left eye down and her full lips up. She mouthed something to the boy, smiling, earning a smile from him in turn.

“Ah yes may I introduce: Gideon, my newest student.”

Having lost most of the adults’ conversation Gideon tuned back in just in time, to give them a curt nod.

“I will send him to collect the salve after the feast, then,” Director Sahin announced, please as can be. 

“Wonderful.” Moira clapped her hands. All back to business brusqueness.  “Sahar will appreciate not having to deliver it for once. Right?”

The other boy snapped to attention, green eyes wide and fingers twitching like the hands of a pianist. A grateful smile rose to his face and he nodded.

Oh great, so Gideon had to take the trip up here twice. 

They descended the stairs, lined up one after another on the narrow path. Sahar right in front of him, following the strange girl. He had avoided Gideon’s eyes as he squeezed past him, careful not to touch, probably scared off by his uniform. The school’s emblem, embroidered on his stainless white shirt, proudly declared him a scout in training. Deadly. Fearless. The little farm boy definitely did better not to mess with an insect slayer like him.

The girl came to an abrupt halt, frozen in the woodland’s shadows before it gave way to the dusty hill road. Gideon nearly collided with Sahar, when he heard it.

A primal, bone chilling hiss tore through the hot afternoon air, rattling through his very core. 

Every hair on his body stood, muscles tensing, on edge just like his fraying nerves. 

He knew that sound. 

Even though he’d heard it only once before. On the crusade from last-stand-berlin to the village, where he had seen the beast it belonged to lurk on the riverside, watching them.

He would never forget a spider’s hiss. 

And there one stood, right in front of him, its eight thorny legs towering high above its ugly head. The spider’s giant yaws worked, rubbed against each other in agitation. Its razor sharp fangs glistened in the sun.

A man sat atop its massive, hairy body, scar-faced and clad in a straw cape that was fastened to a beetle’s shell armoring his left shoulder. Shimmering in iridescent hues of blue and green. The man did not smile as he glanced down at them. A silent challenge was edged in the hard lines of his rugged face.

Tense static filled the air, an almost tangible thing that bit at Gideons fingers. It wormed its way into his bones, crawled over his scalp.  

He almost, almost, flinched when Director Sahin shouldered past him, spear drawn and followed by the other man. Both planted themselves right in front of him and the others.

The intruder’s scar stretched with the rise of his eyebrows, eyes slitting in a lazy half-grin.

 “Hey, there. Hold your horses. Before someone does something he regrets later.”

“That a threat?” Ansgar grunted.

Moira ducked past him, face twisted in a furious scowl as she spit. “Oh, something other than entering our village on a damn wolf-spider you mean?!”

The corded muscle in her boney arm flexed as she shook her fist at the man, unveiling a wrath behind her primly dressed form that no one would have wanted to fall victim to.

He, however, just leaned closer, smile stretching into a shark-tooth grin. “Gutsy, are we? I like that.”

Director Sahim stepped up beside her, spear held in a steady grip. “How could you make it past our InD-Units with this monstrosity?! God show you mercy if you did something to-”

“What do you think I am?!” the intruder drawled, hands raised in mock offense. “A monster?! Only reason I got past your insect defenses was this baby here.”

Gideon had to stand on his tiptoes to catch a glance of the small round device that sat embedded into the spider’s head, partly hidden by the man’s straw cape. A little red light blinked in a steady rhythm above three buttons, which the man was careful not to touch as he rapped his knuckles against it. 

“Renders her absolutely obedient. All natural instinct turned off. See?”

He unsheathed a knife from a holster strapped around his leg and its steel blade shimmered in the sun before he rammed it in one of the spider’s eyes, plopping it out with a nauseating plitch. The spider endured its master’s violation in utter stillness, only its yaws twitched, creating this awful hiss in their never ceasing movement.

 “She’s docile as a lamb.”

“And how exactly is that supposed to work?” the girl inquired, meeting the man’s stare with a calculated cold composure. She ignored the incredulous look the blonde woman gave her, as she mouthed: “Charlotte, what are you doing?”

The intruder's mouth twitched.

“Man, what do I know, Missy?! I’m a mutant hunter not a scientist.” He leaned closer, eyes narrowed, fixed on the girl's deformed face. Venom spiked his words, dripped from his tongue like acid. “My expertise lies in chasing down freaks.”

The condescendingly cruel way in which he spoke, wielding words like a weapon meant to pierce and twist where it hurt most, reminded Gideon oddly of his father. Anger welled up in his chest, buzzed down his legs and made them move. He planted himself right between the girl and the intruder.

How dare he compare someone to mutant scum?!

“Tsk. Mutant hunter?! You’ve ever even seen one? Or are you just talk? Threatening girls?!”

“Gideon.”, Director Sahim hissed, squeezing Gideon’s shoulder in warning as he tried to pull him back. 

The man gave them a wry smile. “No no. Let’s hear him out. Have you ever seen one boy?”

“Yes.” Gideon spat, unable to reign his emotions back in. “They’re hideous monstrosities.  And I’m going to find and kill every single one of them.”

The man burst into violent laughter, shoulders shaking and head thrown back, nearly losing his balance under the force of it.

“You do have guts, I give you that. But also lots to learn. Do you really think a girl can’t be a mutant? Monster’s come in all shapes and sizes, boy.” His eyes wandered back to Charlotte.  “Just ugly, that’s the whole lot of them.`` 

The blonde woman gasped, searching for words to shoot back, but falling silent as she noticed Charlotte’s expression. 

Red blotches burned on her face, rage twisting it into a vicious scowl. The afternoon sun set her copper curls on fire. Ready to spew fury and flames, she opened her mouth but Sahar was faster, his small voice piping up.

“Char- Charlotte is… is no- no mutant and and and she’s neither ugly nor weak. And and and people who talk about, talk about killing others for no- no, no reason are… They’re the- the real monsters.”  

His fingers fiddled with his shorts, tapping and twisting in the dark, worn linen as he stumbled over his words. His big green eyes jumped from the rocky street to the spider’s fangs, lingered on the intruder’s face before landing on Gideon. They narrowed as he all but spat the last words in Gideon’s face.  

“The hell you just said?!” Gideon’s nostrils flared. How dare this little runt run his mouth about things he didn’t know shit about!

Crossing his arms, Sahar forced himself to hold his ground against Gideon’s furious, wide eyed stare.  “You you, you heard me.”

Gideon heart hammered in his throat, pumping liquefied fire through his veins. His hands twitched.

“I give you one chance to take. That. Back.”

The boy’s trembling fingers dug into his forearms, knuckles whitening as he lifted his chin.

 “Never.”

A roar tore from Gideon’s throat as he leapt forward. Rage burned through him like a wildfire, ready to ignite everything his fist would come in contact with.

Beating the selfritousnes out of that stupid stammering farmboy was the only thing that mattered now. Everything else blurred to background noise. Even the stranger on his shitty spider. 

In that frozen second between charge and impact, Sahar’s  feet moved. His body tilted to the side. Dodged Gideon’s blow. Effortlessly. He bounced back. Landed on the first stone step and uncrossed his arms. Ready to defend himself. His fingers had stopped twitching.

That little runt had nerves! 

Gideon broke into a sprint.

“You sure are good at dodging!” He swung his arm back. “Try to handle this!”

Muscles flexing Gideon readied for impact, only for his arm to be janked back. A  large hand had wrapped around his wrist. Stopped him mid punch.  Craning his neck, Gideon stared up into Ansgar’s stern face.

Fuck he’s fast?! 

“Looks like ya still got lots t’ learn about respect ‘n self-discipline, young man.”

Director Sahin sighed, eyes still locked on the intruder, who watched the spectacle with a lazy kind of interest.

Ansgar released Gideon’s hand and turned to Sahar. His grey eyes glistened like ice shards. “Same goes for you. Ya disappointed me, Sahar.”

Sahar blinked up at the man, eyes round and full of disbelief.

“Wh-what- what, what do you, do do do do- what do you  mean?”

“I haven’t trained ya to run off ‘n start mindless fights. I tried to teach ya discipline ‘n how to survive these woods.” Ansgar’s voice did not waver and every word made Sahar shrink into himself. His fingers tapped a hectic distorted rhythm over his leg

The intruder snickered, “someone’s a stuck up,” earning Moira’s venomous glare. 

“But- but I didn’t- he he he he he was, he was the one who-“

“Enough,” Ansgar thundered. “Don’t argue with me. If ya want a beatin’ so bad I’ll give ya one later. And now back t’ the farm. Ya grounded for the week. No fest. No nothin’!”

Sahar crumbled under the man’s anger, head ducked between his shoulders as the first teardrop fell. It trickled down his trembling jaw, painting a glistening path on his warm skin.

Voice reduced to a shaky exhale Sahar nodded,  “yes, sir.”, and stormed up the stairs.

He had just vanished between the thick bushes, when the intruder broke out into a new laughing fit.

[istoleyourboat]

Monster!Nene and Jealous Research A

In which a grown up Monster!Nene has a talk with Researcher A

“Ahhhh, isn’t he sooo handsome,” Nene swooned.

Amane rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time that day. For God’s sake, was she obsessed. So what if Teru was the handsomest monster to come from the lab? As good-looking as he was, Amane didn’t miss the dirty and watchful eyes of his auburn companion. With how close Akane kept his spiked bat, it looked like he was ready to bludgeon Teru at the drop of a hat.

But that all seemed lost on Yashiro, whose eyes kept gleaming with admiration the longer she stared at Teru’s picture.

The beleaguered researcher huffed and crossed his arms, sitting back in disbelief. He’d grown used to her besotted antics a while ago, but it was always that blond monster that pushed his buttons the most. If he had known young adult Yashiro was going to be so lovesick, he would’ve stolen her away from Tsukasa more when she was still a child.

“Just why do you like him so much, Yashiro?” he asked. “Is it really just ‘cause you find him pretty?”

It was honestly something he wanted to know. Out of all the people, humans and monsters alike, why’d she have to like that scary prick?

Turning his head towards Yashiro, he expected her to breathe a little fire. She always did when she got too excited.

Instead, he was met with the sight of her on her knees, hair flowing down her back as she doodled onto a piece of paper Amane had given her earlier.

“Well… He’s a monster like me…” she whispered, fingers fiddling with the hem of her skirt. “If there’s anyone who can find me beautiful, it’d be him.”

Amane’s not sure why that line stung so much. Yashiro was fine- more than fine! She could breathe fire! She could punch holes into walls! And she had the most adorable set of daikon legs… People would have to be blind to not see just how strong and extraordinary she was.

He approached her calmly, crouching next to her as he stole her pencil and drew a little cartoon of her.

“Well you know, Yashiro…” he whispered in her ear. Crossing out her little chibi doodle of Teru, he added a little daikon and a heart. “I think you’re fine the way you are.”

When he backed away to look at her, she was as red as the flames she wrought and she looked just as ready to combust.

“Yashiro?-“

Flames spewed out of her, burning the paper and his other research notes to a crisp.

Thus marked the second time Yashiro burned down the facility.

[n1ght5h4d3-24]

Timeless (VIII)

A/N: Timeless is inspired by @just-dreaming-marvel 's Out Of Time series.

Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated 💕

Warning: Angst

(Previously On...) 

Over the next few months, Olivia lived her life the best way she could in the moment. She joined the SSR and was put in with Colonel Phillips and Peggy Carter. Agent Carter had been the one to teach her everything she needed to know, and soon Olivia had been passing her tests, coming in the top percentile as if being a part of the SSR was something she was born for. She grew close with Howard, who stepped up to take on the role of being a big brother while her actual brother and other "brother" were gone. He looked out for her when Peggy couldn't. Steve and Bucky's team of men became known as the Howling Commandos. They all left a few days after the trio had said their goodbyes. Olivia's only communication with her boys came in letters.

Liv,

Don't worry too much. I am watching out for your punk of a brother. He's starting to make risky choices, thinking he's indestructible now that he's Captain America and leads his own team. But, I'm doing everything that I can to make sure he doesn't do anything really stupid, so that he'll make it back to you in one piece. And I'm doing good, I promise you that. I hope you're doing well and have managed to find a semblance of happiness. If it's in the form of a boy though, I will be having words with him. Remember, for every moment after until the end of the line.

The better big brother,

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

Sis,

Buck probably mentioned in his letter to you about how he's continuing to take care of me and stopping me from doing anything stupid like before I took the serum. But, I am also doing all the same for him. I promise, that him and I will make it back to you in one piece although we may be a little scathed. By the way, how is Agent Carter doing? I haven't heard from her in a bit and wipe that smile off your face. I hope you're looking after yourself, I really miss you. Love you and remember, until the sun doesn't rise in the east I'll be there.

Your Actual Big Brother,

Captain Steven Grant Rogers

Whenever Colonel Phillips had been sent video footage of Captain Rogers and the Howling Commandos, the Colonel's team watched. Olivia used the viewing of the footage as a way to keep an eye on her boys, eyes scanning over the images to make sure they were in one piece and suffered no bad injuries. In one video footage, it had shown Steve taking a glance at a compass that he had on him, with a picture of Peggy inside. She poked fun at the agent to hide how she actually felt.

The younger Rogers had been completing some paperwork that had been stacked up when Colonel Phillips received word about Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes' death, by falling off a train. It had been a couple of days and no one could find the body in the snow. The Colonel broke the news to Agent Carter and Stark first before informing them that he'd like them around as he broke the news to the young girl.

"Agent Rogers? The Colonel is requesting you in his office," a fellow agent informs the girl when they approached her.

Olivia looked up from the file in front of her and nods her head. She closes the manila folder and gets up from her seat before making her way to the Colonel's office. On her trek, she noticed other agents were looking at her, giving her sympathetic looks. She didn't understand why she was receiving such sad looks but as she drew closer to the door to the Colonel's office, her anxiety spiked. When entering, her attention was quickly drawn to Peggy's form which was sitting in a chair across from the Colonel's desk and then she noticed that Howard was also in the room.

"Agent Rogers. Shut the door, please." Colonel Phillips tells her after greeting her.

Olivia did as she was told, "I don't understand...have I done something wrong?" she wonders.

"No. No, you haven't. But please, take a seat. I would prefer to tell you this while you were seated." Phillips says.

The dirty blonde slowly took a seat in the empty chair beside Peggy, who she noticed held sadness in her eyes. She then turned her attention to Howard, who too held sadness in his eyes. The young girl could feel her heart begin to race as she braced herself for the news she was about to receive.

"Your brother, Captain Rogers, and the Howling Commandos had been tasked with stopping a train that was taking Dr. Zola, HYDRA's top scientist, to one of their bases." the Colonel began. "Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes ziplined onto the train to attack from within. While on the train, they were attacked. A hole had been blown in the train which resulted in Sergeant Barnes to fall to his death from the train."

Olivia sat motionless in her chair, her swirling thoughts having come to a stop as the information she was given, washed over her. Howard, who had been watching the young girl from where he stood, saw the moment she broke through her eyes.

"His body has not been found...I am so sorry for your loss." Colonel Phillips ended.

The three adults watched the young girl, who was still frozen in her seat but had put her head down....waiting. Olivia looked up at Colonel Phillips through her brow line causing the man to be taken aback by the look she was giving him.

"You're lying. You don't know that he's dead." she says.

"Olivia..." Peggy began.

"He doesn't! He just said that Bucky's body hasn't been found. Bucky could still be alive!" Olivia tells her.

"Olivia, I'm so sorry but, he's dead." Peggy tells her.

The young girl stands up suddenly and pulls out the handgun she had in the waistband of her jeans. She turned the safety off and aimed it in the Colonel's direction.

"Stop lying to me. You've just given up on him, like before. You go out there, and you find him." she tells him.

Peggy shot up from her seat, holding her hand out towards the girl.

"Hey, hey...easy, Liv. Easy. Listen, I am so sorry for your loss but, this...he wouldn't want you to do this. The Colonel hasn't given up on him, we've received reports from the men in the field that there was no sign of Bucky's body in the snow." she informs the girl.

Olivia's outstretched arm was beginning to shake and Peggy slowly grabbed the gun from her. She turned the safety back on, on the gun before setting it down on the Colonel's desk. The young girl broke down in that moment, falling to the floor, not being able to stand on her shaky legs. She sobbed on the floor.

"I'll leave you be," Colonel Phillips says before he walks out of his office.

Howard crossed the room, kneeling in front of the young girl, embracing her.

"Shh...it's going to be okay Olivia. You're going to get through this. You're a strong girl." he tells her, rubbing her back in a comforting manner.

The engineer held the girl, allowing her tears to soak his shirt until they ran dry. He felt her body go slack in his embrace and he picked her up bridal style.

"There should be a room, down the hall with a cot you can lay her on." Peggy tells him.

Howard gave her a nod before carefully carrying Olivia out of the Colonel's office and ventured down the hallway, bringing the girl to another room to allow her to get some rest.

"He...he c-can't be dead. He...he c-can't be, H-Howard. He just...can't be." she mutters tiredly.

"Shh, you just rest." He tells her, setting her down on the cot, after entering the other room.

Olivia rolled to lay on her right side, to be facing the door and the current man in the room.

"Howard...will you stay with me until I fall asleep?" She asks him in a small voice.

"Of course, Liv." He tells her.

The inventor moved to sit at the end of the cot once the young girl moved her legs to provide him with space. He remained by her side until she had fallen asleep. When he was sure that she was out, Howard got up and left the room. He and Peggy decided that they weren't going to leave the girl alone after the heartbreaking news she had received, knowing that she would most likely refuse to get up. A couple of days later, the Howling Commandos showed up to the base without their Captain. They checked in on the young Rogers' wellbeing before Peggy questioned them about Steve's whereabouts. Gabe Jones informs her that he had gone to the bar.

Peggy had gone to find Howard to inform him that she was going to go speak to Steve and he promised to keep an eye on Olivia, who hasn't left the room he had brought her too.

When Peggy arrived at the bar, she was quick to notice that it was in shambles. She walked inside, following the sound of the radio giving a report about a blackout. When her gaze landed on Steve, she could hear him sniff before he reached across the table to grab a bottle to pour himself a drink.

"Dr. Erskine said that the serum wouldn't just affect my muscles, it would affect my cells." Steve started when he realized Peggy was there. "Create a protective system of regeneration and healing. Which means umm...I can't get drunk. Did you know that?" he wonders.

"Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person." Peggy tells him, picking up a chair to sit across from Steve. "He thought it could be one of the side effects."

She observes the heartbroken expression on Steve's face, noticing the tears welling in her eyes.

"It wasn't your fault." she tells him.

"Did you read the report?" Steve inquires.

"Yes," she answers.

He scoffs, "Then you know that's not true."

He hesitates before wondering, "Did Liv read it?"

"No, she hasn't." was Peggy's response.

"She should. She deserves to know the truth." Steve says.

"You did everything you could. Olivia won't blame you for what happened." Peggy tells him.

She continues to observe Steve, "Did you believe in your friend? Did you respect him?" she inquires.

Steve looks at her, as if he couldn't believe she'd be questioning him about his best friend.

"Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you were worth it." She tells him, trying to soothe his conscious.

Steve sits there for a moment, "I'm going after Schmidt. I'm not going to stop until all of HYDRA is dead or captured." he says with conviction in his tone.

"You won't be alone." Peggy assures him.

A shroud of silence fell between the two of them momentarily, until Steve broke it once more.

"How is she? How's Liv?"

"She hasn't taken it very well. Howard and I have been trying our best but, she need her big brother." Peggy tells him.

Steve gives her a nod and the two of them get up from the table and leave the bar.

(Next Time On...)

[nocturne-inuyasha-ff]

Chapter Twenty Four: Vindication

Author's Notes: Thank you for your patience! Apologies for the long hiatus. Who knows what I was doing, but thank you to those who have taken the time to read and leave words of inspiration. Muchos Gracias!

Nocturne - Chapter Twenty Four: Vindication

Rated - M (for suggestive adult themes, references to violence, and coarse language)

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

Sango had worry eating away at her. Yesterday was very troubling, and she knew that danger was on the horizon. She had no idea when Miroku would return, and it was unsettling to have her family split when they were all utterly unprepared for what was to come.

So much time had passed since the first altercation years ago that Sango had grown complacent. The entire village had.

It was a thankful thing that her brother had brought the clan of taijiya to the village, bolstering a new age of demon hunters. If any group of people stood a chance against an army of demon spawn, it was the taijiya clan, her clan.

She was proud of the progress they'd made in a few short years. Granted, the new clan was not as skilled or experienced as the village of her birth, but they made up for what they lacked in enthusiasm and numbers.

Sango's original taijiya clan had been small and exclusive. Their numbers had waned over the years due to their work's reclusive nature, and, ultimately, the village - consisting of elders and children - was eliminated while they were unprotected.

She took in a deep breath and released it slowly, reflecting on the travesty and praying there was not a repeat. No, Sango thought. Her brother, Kohaku, had done his best to ensure there was not.

No longer was the profession of demon-slaying an exclusive venture. While her husband, Miroku, traveled, he spread the prospering village's news and its peculiar inhabitants. People would flock from all over, searching for people who had experienced loss or pain at the hands of troublesome yokai. These people had come by choice and learned to protect all they held dear from a mightier force.

Sango prayed that the enthusiasm held by her new people was enough to combat the oncoming horde.

It had been a couple of days since Kagome had come to visit, and she remained faithful to her word, staying at hand until the birth of Rin and Kohaku's first child. As Miroku was still away with the twins, Kagome and her daughter Setsuna stayed with Sango and her two boys.

Although Kagome had initially come to put distance between herself and Sesshomaru, the daiyokai had followed her after the village was attacked. He was right in doing so since it was likely due to his presence that they weren't accosted anymore. That in its self was A testament to his solitary strength.

Lord Sesshomaru had not left either, remaining close if danger were to rear its ugly head. As much as Sango did not want to admit it, the daiyokai lord was rather unsettling. His cold manner and piercing gaze was enough to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

Sango wasn't sure what Kagome saw in his unyielding character, but maybe it was the way he looked at her. His eyes passed over everyone like they were not worthy of his time or recognition, but when they settled on Kagome, there was something profound. The daiyokai would be remiss in knowing that his covert and subtle mannerisms had been discovered and by a human no less.

Sango cleared her head, tidying up her home and readying a quick breakfast for her children. She felt rushed to finish these mundane chores and get out for some strategic planning, but they couldn't live in constant fear. That would defeat the purpose of living, yet it could not be helped at the moment.

The entire village was on standby, but most village elders did not believe an attack would come since the spies had been flushed out. However, Sango vehemently disagreed. Her brother, Kohaku, also felt accordingly. It was better to prepare for an attack, especially when the enemy had shown their hand.

A tapping from outside could be heard, breaking Sango from her inner musings. She wondered who could be at the door. Anyone else would just walk in.

Sango looked around the room, chewing her bottom lip. The boys were still asleep in the other room since it was still relatively early in the morning, but they should be up very soon. Kagome and her daughter, Setsuna, had left at first light to make some morning rounds, so it could not be them. She quickly picked up a small kitchen dagger and tucked it up her sleeve, just in case.

She walked to the door and pulled the sudare up to greet the guest at the door. Sango's eyes bulged, and her mouth dropped open. She allowed the knife to fall from her sleeve and brandished it expertly before her. There was no time for words when an enemy was upon your doorstep, and Sango was not about to allow a treacherous snake to roam free.

"Wait! Please," the woman on Sango's doorstep pleaded.

Sango ignored the plea and threw the knife at the woman, knowing it would likely be dodged but giving her time to retrieve her bone boomerang. She cursed herself under her breath for not grabbing it on the way to the door. Before she could get half a step, her arm was snapped up in a vice-like grip and forcefully twisted around.

Sango was compelled to look at the woman straight in her golden eyes. "I said….wait. I don't want to hurt you," the woman said in a calm, urgent tone.

o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o

Kagome had taken Setsuna with her to check on Rin. The stress from the unknown was causing early contractions in the young woman, and Kagome had ordered Rin to strict bed rest. Rin would never admit that she was feeling under the weather. She was the type to always downplay everything, even at the expense of her health. Fortunately, Kagome had learned a thing or two about pregnancy and baby birthing from Kaede before her untimely passing.

Kagome walked from Rin's home with a sigh. Setsuna had elected to remain behind to keep Rin company while Kohaku was out and about. The young man could not stay with his pregnant wife and command the taijiya at the same time. Kohaku was reluctant to leave Rin's side but was appeased to know that she would be under Kagome's care.

Her hands felt sweaty with apprehension, and she wiped them on her skirts. Kagome reassured herself, adjusting the bowstring strapped over her shoulder. She'd procured a new bow shortly after ruining the last one and now carried it with her everywhere.

It wasn't as if she'd truly need it. She was not wholly defenseless despite being human. Her spiritual powers granted her unique offensive and defensive skills; however, they were mostly unhoned.

Kagome was able to channel her powers into an arrow, something she'd mastered early on. Still, she'd never trained on other skills, mainly relying on instinct and her body's self-defense mechanisms. She found comfort in knowing the weapon was there, though, with so many allies around, and she would have little need for it.

She closed her eyes as she walked and drew upon her seldom-used power. She allowed her senses to broaden and pick up the aura of those near. Kagome could feel people around her, in houses and hurrying to and fro. Each person's aura held a unique sensation that evoked a feeling, and she "saw" the colors spiking and swirling about.

There was comfort in using her power this way, but it took great effort and concentration. She scolded herself for not honing her skills more, especially now that they would become useful when a time presented itself. Well, there was no need to wallow in despair for what was in the past now.

A warm, vibrant yellow aura approached, and Kagome knew precisely who it was, and her eyes opened slowly. Any villager out and about gave him a wide berth, hurrying to be out of his path.

Sesshomaru kept his eyes on his quarry while he strolled almost casually forward. From the set of his eyes, Kagome could tell his entrance was anything but casual.

Once he reached her, he looked over her head. "Setsuna?" He questioned.

"With Rin," Kagome responded. She saw his jaw clench, causing his cheek to twitch. "What's wrong?"

His silence was telling, but it was his first question that piqued Kagome's apprehension. Sesshomaru would not have asked where their daughter if he was not worried. Something was going on that he did not want the girl to be a part of.

Sesshomaru pushed a loose strand of hair behind his ear and closed his eyes briefly. "A guest is waiting at the taijiya's residence."

Kagome sped off without another word, knowing that Sesshomaru was close behind. She couldn't imagine who the guest would be but silently hoped it was a friend. It had been years since anyone had heard from Shippo, his training had taken him out of touch with his family and friends, but Kagome knew it was for a good reason.

It could have been him, though, why his appearance would unsettle Sesshomaru was unknown. Perhaps her young friend was now formidable and came home. That would be a shock, for sure, and Kagome did miss him. She shook the thoughts from her head and made her way to Sango's home, where she could hear voices carrying from inside.

"Please, they are coming!" a woman's desperate voice called.

Kagome's heart dropped when she entered the house, laying eyes on an all-too-familiar face. One that haunted her dreams unbidden.

"Tsering," Kagome hissed derisively, the name like acid on her tongue.

The woman turned at the sound of her name, her visage just as pleading as her trembling voice. Despite her disheveled, sallow appearance, she was still resplendent in her silks and long, silver hair.

Kagome swallowed and did her best to keep her back straight, but not rigid, entering and moving to stand beside Sango who's arms were crossed beneath her chest.

"You have to listen; it won't be long," Tsering cried.

"This we know," Sesshomaru's voice spoke clearly into the room, his baritone resounding throughout.

Tears began to run freely down the woman's cheeks. It was quite an unusual sight to witness a yokai cry. Kagome doubted they were capable, but here one was elegantly sobbing before them.

"You don't understand," Tsering lamented pitifully. "They are here….they have been here. It is a miracle they have not attacked now!"

As if on queue, Inuyasha dashed into the house, his nose in the air and Tessaiga at the ready. "I fucking knew I smelled something pathetic wafting from this house."

Tsering's tears shored up upon Inuyasha's arrival, and she gave him a deadpan look, though her yellow eyes wavered. "I implore you all to listen to reason."

"Fuck, it's a trick. Kill that bitch!" Inuyasha demanded and leveled Tessaiga with one hand towards the woman's exposed throat.

Her eyes grew large, the whites exposed in fear. "No! I beg of you. I am a victim of my brother's madness. I-I can help. Please allow me to assist." Tsering's fists were curled into tiny balls, the skin drawn taut over her knuckles.

Sesshomaru sneered at the woman. "You cannot help."

Tsering threw herself down at Sesshomaru's feet and grappled at his clothes, but he stepped quickly out of reach. "I can!" She assured. "I know my brother! He would not kill me; he is afraid to do so!" She shuffled on her knees towards Sesshomaru, her hands now clasped before her. "Please…"

She looked worn and defeated.

"What of the DaiOzuko?" Sesshomaru asked suspiciously. "They would never permit such a heinous act to occur." He seemed to know more of the yokai clan than he had ever let on, which perturbed Kagome to consider.

"They do not know that my brother has such capricious tastes," Tsering advised. She looked around the room, pausing to look at each person for effect.

Kagome held little pity for this woman. Why would she throw herself at their feet now? Wouldn't it be safer to ride this out on the same side as her brother? This all seemed too easy.

She looked down her nose, crossing her arms. "You knew, and you did nothing to stop it. Why do you care now?"

Tsering dithered, ashamed to speak, but did so nonetheless. "I was foolish and naive. I am no longer those things. My eyes are opened to my treachery, and I throw myself at your feet for forgiveness."

"Keh," Inuyasha interjected. "It's not us you should be throwing yourself at." He still held Tessaiga in a threatening fashion, ready to slice the woman in two should she make a wrong move. Sesshomaru held up a warning hand to his brother, which Inuyasha sneered at openly.

Tsering dawdled for a moment, struggling to understand whom Inuyasha was referencing. She looked Inuyasha up and down and lit up when it hit her. "Keyuri! My most valued attendant! I had never allowed her to suffer under my hands!"

Sango had heard enough, finally adding to the conversation. "The woman cannot speak, yet you dare to assert you had no hand in this?"

"I confess that I treated her as a servant, but no more. She was treated well in my care, if not a little coldly." Tsering postulated desperately. She rose and picked at her many-layered robes.

Inuyasha scoffed. "She trembles at the sight of you, bitch!" He was not convinced and gripped his sword with white knuckles.

Tsering nodded, closing her eyes and furrowing her brow. "As Keyuri should, for I bear the likeness to the one who created her and maimed her." She was referring to her brother, Fan, they all knew.

Inuyasha growled, planting the tip of Tessaiga in the ground. "Her name is Shizuka, and she is your own flesh and blood, but you sent her on a suicide mission years ago. Now you are here begging for mercy." He sneered, a lip pulling up to expose fangs. "You won't fucking find it here." He took a step forward; his left hand clawed menacingly before him. His voice dropped in into a threatening low pitch. "Fuck off before I change my mind and end you."

Tsering kneeled in disbelief, looking about at the people surrounding her for any kind of support...albeit in vain. "Y-you cannot send me out there alone and unprotected. My brother may not kill me, but those...those things may."

Sesshomaru adopted a similar sneer, though his was far less feral, yet far more threatening. "Have some respect for yourself, woman. You are daiyokai. What fear should you have of hanyo scum." He didn't phrase it as a question, letting the words roll out like the insult it was.

The yokai woman stood with trembling knees, her brow knitting together again in fear. "Please! You don't understand! They...they are all very powerful. Fan does not create usual offspring."

Sango scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Oh, spare us your moaning."

The woman's countenance was pallid and her eyes wide with fear. As much as it pained her to admit, Kagome felt there was weight to Tsering's words that could not go unheeded. "Wait. Hear her out."

She took a brief moment to compile herself. Tsering sucked in a ragged breath in an attempt to keep any hysterics from creeping into her words. "He has a sick mind. He only dreams of creating the perfect specimen." She paused to moisten her lips, searching for the words. "He searches out rumors of women who possess powers or are descendants of those with such powers to..to copulate with."

Sango and Kagome made disgusted faces in unison. Inuyasha looked incredulous while Sesshomaru held his typical expression of stoicism. The man didn't even raise a brow. What Tsering had told them was perturbing, but none denied her words, knowing they held the truth. Kagome recalled what she had seen at Fan's palace...the heavily expectant mortal woman pacing a room lined with hungry-looking yokai. She shivered at the thought of whatever became of that woman and dreamed about her unexpected fate often.

Sesshomaru's voice broke her from the unpleasant memory. "How did you know the truth of which you speak if you have only just learned of their existence." He had to have known, suspected at least, the inner workings of Fan's retinue. Perhaps his question was designed to delve into Tsering's complicity.

Tsering dithered, wringing her hands. "I overheard and pieced it together before I fled."

He remained unconvinced and waved her explanation away. "You claim otherwise, but you are still a fool. You only heard what you were allowed to hear. Just as you were allowed to arrive so easily." Sesshomaru had heard enough, turning to cut a brief look to Kagome. The look was an unspoken bidding, and Kagome nodded her understanding.

Tsering took an affronted step back. She hadn't expected to be dismissed so easily. This was probably a first for her, at least the first in several lifetimes.

Sesshomaru strode outside with his eyes forward and ignoring the mewling woman. Tsering ducked out of his way, and Kagome followed, eyeing the yokai woman studiously as she passed. Tsering's eyes were wide and pleading, much as her story had been, but it wasn't enough to draw pity from anyone here.

Once outside, Kagome continued after Sesshomaru for a few yards before he stopped, holding a hand up to gesture she stop as well. His head turned slightly, his hand still raised, and Kagome felt her breath catch. His keen senses had picked up some sound. She looked around, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. She steadied her breathing; she needed to be calm to focus and search for an unknown aura. It was tiny at first; her eyes snapped open with realization. "I feel it," she exclaimed aloud.

"Where?" Sesshomaru questioned.

Her eyes scanned through the houses, trying to see beyond with no success. "Not far. The outskirts of the village...Close to the Goshinboku tree. I-I think I can feel it moving in waves."

He took a step, ready to move, but was stopped by the scream of a woman from the village's opposite side. Kagome swiveled towards the sound. Another scream erupted from the north and then the south until sounds of discord came from every direction.

"We're too late," Kagome lamented quietly. Despite having years to prepare, it still did not feel like enough time. Decades did not seem long enough for mortals to combat yokai; even the hanyo they would face may significantly exceed the abilities of highly trained taijiya.

Sesshomaru moved beside her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "The taijiya has trained his people well." It was the only reassurance he would afford, and Kagome knew it was one of the highest praises a human could receive. "Is it still emanating from the same area?" he asked, referring to the aura she felt.

"Yes, traces of it." Her miko skills were relatively unhoned, and while she was powerful in ability, raw power paled in comparison to honed skills.

"They have us surrounded!" Inuyasha bellowed as he ran towards them with Tetsusaiga in hand. His eyes momentarily fell upon Sesshomaru's hand on her shoulder, but his gaze quickly tore away, almost embarrassed to see the display.

A slight feathering of his jaw was the only amount of tension that Sesshomaru displayed. His golden gaze remained stoic despite the precariousness of the situation. "Rally the taijiya. The head of this snake must be cut off swiftly." He swept away as soon as the words left his mouth, up and away towards the Goshinboku tree.

Inuyasha gripped Testsusaiga tightly, his knuckles white against the strain. "Shizuka," he whispered faintly and tore into a sprint in the same direction as his brother. The house he once shared with Kagome lay near the old tree that dwelled in the vicinity. Shizuka was likely at the house, unprotected, and Inuyasha feared for her safety. He disappeared quickly, leaving Kagome alone to rush the news to Kohaku.

Without a second thought, Kagome ran. The village had grown quite exponentially in the past few years. New houses needed to be erected to accommodate the growing number of people that had moved to swell the taijiya ranks. She ran to the outskirt post where Kohaku was giving out orders to the ranks of slayers. Screams could be heard everywhere, indicating that the attack was coming from all sides, likely to disorient and confuse.

Kagome could feel a hitch in her chest by the time she'd reached a post of slayers gathered in unison, prepared for battle. They all had weapons at the ready and eyed her with apprehension. Most were young and untried, with only a few older battle-worn slayers amongst the ranks. Hopefully, it would be enough.

She glanced around desperately to find Kohaku. He had to know that the enemy was upon them, but it was still her duty to report and see how she could help. Afterward, she had to find and ensure that Setsuna was still safe with Rin. The thought of her daughter out with the commotion going on made her breath catch. With an exhalation of breath, she cleared her mind to focus on the task at hand.

Kagome pushed through the ranks of nervous taijiya until she finally spotted Kohaku. He had his weapon in hand and a hardened look set upon his face. His words were curt and succinct because there was no time to mollify the unseasoned ranks.

"Look for the weak spot!" He barked. "There is always one to be had. They already know yours!". He turned quickly to address another set of young players when he spotted her. His face became worried, and she trotted over. "Lady Kagome?"

Without hesitation, Kagome advised what she'd seen. "I can feel his presence near the southern border of the village. There may be others as well."

Kohaku nodded his understanding. "He's sending out scouts to distract us on all sides. I will send contingent parties to each of the village borders."

"Where shall I go," she cut in.

He grimaced and looked around. "Honestly, your power can be best utilized guarding the women and children."

Kagome figured as much and was thankful to be assigned where Setsuna may also be. However, Kohaku had likely forgotten that his wife was now in active labor and could not be moved. "And Rin?" She asked quietly.

"Setsuna is with her?" He asked through a clenched jaw.

She nodded an affirmative, and Kohaku narrowed his eyes in thought. "We must hope that they go unnoticed," he advised after a few seconds of thought. "Setsuna, I know, despite her age, is capable of handling a threat."

"I hope so, too," Kagome said aloud. Her tone betrayed the assurance she had intended to belay. There would be no time now to go and check on Setsuna. Kagome would need to rely on the girl's training and heritage and push her mother's worry down for the time being.

Kohaku finished rallying this group of slayers, pointing them in various directions. He'd quickly appointed three of his more experienced taijiya to accompany Kagome. Two young men and one woman, all dressed in varying armors that had been pieced together from slain demons, gathered in front of her with their weapons. Despite the relative experience the three young slayers shared, they all looked equally nervous.

A roar bellowed in the sky above them, and one of the men jerked in response, his jaw slack as he peered up in the sky. Twin lines of flame followed the large body of a nekomata as it descended with a rider wielding a mighty boomerang. It seemed Sango had quickly changed and beckoned Kirara to hitch a ride. Sango dropped off the sizeable imposing nekomata before the cat landed and looked around at the three slayers who stared in awe.

"Sango!" Kohaku called.

Sango nodded and thrust her weapon into the ground with minimal effort. "Brother. Everything is in place." She looked over to Kagome with pleading eyes that asked an unspoken question.

"Hachiro, Etsu, and Shig will go with Lady Kagome. Their skills are honed." Kohaku vaulted onto Kirara's back, looking down on them all.

Sango nodded and looked them up and down quickly, quietly reassuring herself. These three were all that could be spared from the assault of countless hanyo whose powers likely far exceeded any of the taijiya. The plan now was to funnel the vulnerable villagers, elders, women, and children to a heavily defended area inside the village - homes that had recently been fortified - and had a select team guard them. The heavy truth was that the vulnerable citizens were sitting ducks if an enemy decided to go after them. There were only four, including herself, to protect dozens of people; they would be spread thin. With any luck, Sesshomaru would be able to dispose of Fan Tsenpo and his bastard army with the help of Inuyasha and Kohaku's taijiya.

Sango plucked up her weapon like it was but a twig and jumped behind her brother. "Please take care of them," she said resolutely, forcing the words out. Her children were being guarded with the other vulnerable, too young to fight. Her words reverberated through Kagome. She gave a short nod, and Kirara jumped up into the air carrying the siblings off towards the Goshinboku tree.

Kagome looked at taijiya, who remained with her, biting the inside of her cheek to fight a grimace. "Let's move quickly."

The trio fanned out and made separate paths towards the village's inner perimeter, where the citizens were waiting the battle out. Able-bodied villagers from all over were frantically rushing around. Though many were not trained for slaying, they would not let their village be tormented without putting up a fight. Pitchforks and other rudimentary farming tools were brought to arms and carried to fill in the ranks of the taijiya. Kagome could feel their auras, mixed with fear and determination, passing by as they hurried to their posts. The entire village had been prepped for this day, and they'd had six years to do so, yet even a detailed plan can crumble apart in the throes of a real battle at their feet.

Kagome hurried along a path that took her to the outskirts of the village. It wasn't a direct route to where the elderly, women, and children would bunker down; she couldn't convince herself to go straight there without checking on Setsuna and Rin. She prayed that Rin wouldn't have the baby just yet. Now was not the best time, and to do it without any help or guidance was nearly a death sentence for a woman and infant in these times. Setsuna was with her, but the girl was wholly unprepared and ignorant of these things.

The house could be viewed in the distance, nestled within the village itself several dwellings in. It was more diminutive and unassuming, hopefully, commonplace enough to prevent any yokai or hanyou from being drawn to the place. Kagome slowed down, trying to catch her breath. No smoke or screams were coming from the direction she was headed, which was a relief, but the sounds of battle could be heard in the distance. She whipped her head around, seeing empty pathways in front of her except for the odd person dashing by to make for cover. Looking over her shoulder, she saw nothing but felt a bizarre prickling sensation on the back of her neck.

The clearing before the forest looked serene. Kagome reached out to feel if there were any hanyo lurking out of sight. She could feel nothing but cold. 'Perhaps they had been held off on the other side of the village?' she wondered. It was entirely possible with what the bastards were up against. Sesshomaru would show no mercy.

She continued until the clattering of metal and grunts of exasperation became clear from behind her. A taijiya woman rolled into view with a small blade that she brought up to her face just in time to block the strike of a pair of sickle blades. The wielder of the sickle blades was a short-haired hanyo with black streaks up the sides. It was difficult to discern their gender from where she stood, but it was clear that the taijiya was struggling. The woman was sent back several feet upon the impact to her blade, obviously not her primary weapon, and rolled again to avoid the twin sickles that struck the ground with deadly force.

Kagome turned and ran towards the embattled pair, pulling her bow from her shoulder and notching an arrow without breaking stride. The young taijiya moved to stand, only able to place one foot under herself before her heel was swept up and out by a sweeping kick from the hanyo. She was thrown onto her back with a loud thud, knocking the air from her lungs and causing a strangled gasp. The hanyo casually knocked the blade from her hands and placed a foot on her chest to hold her in place.

The hanyo smirked, raising one sickle up to make a killing blow. Kagome began to channel spirit energy into the arrow. What once came effortlessly now felt a struggle. The holy power kept slipping from her grasp every time she managed to grab hold of a thread. The hanyo's sickle began to lower when Kagome realized she had no time, losing the arrow devoid of divine energy to knock the sickle from its grasp.

He looked up with golden eyes; surprise and annoyance flickered across his face. "Bitch!" he called out with a male tenor. "You'll die next!"

Kagome had already pulled another arrow and attempted to channel the energy again. "Like hell, I will!" She shouted defiantly and with internal frustration that she was unable to focus the power into the arrow.

The hanyo's brow rose in recognition. He practically ignored the slayer beneath him, who vainly struggled against the foot that kept her pinned down. "You! Miko-bitch."

The arrow Kagome aimed at his face was quickly deflected by the remaining sickle-blade he wielded. He grunted in annoyance as if he had swatted away a fly. "I doubt I will get in much trouble for roughing you up." He sneered with arrogance built into him from countless years of unmatched aggression. How long had Fan Tsenpo kept his bastards cooped up? This one seemed mad with unspent energy that was disastrous for most he would encounter.

"You'd die," Kagome replied. Her tone was resolute and firm. Either by her hand or another's, this hanyou would die if he so much as touched her. She reached for another arrow behind her back but stopped when the hanyou feinted with his sickle blade towards the taijiya beneath him. The woman - young girl, Kagome realized - had dirty tear tracks down her cheeks, but she did not cry out. The hanyo glanced down at his prey and back up at her in a manner that suggested a dilemma. She also realized the dilemma was hers; he could kill the girl first, and her hesitation made that fact known. His threat was clear, and he would kill the girl if Kagome fired her arrow.

She did not have to think long before a loud, keeling cry pierced through the sky. It was unlike anything ever heard before. The sound carried like a shockwave reverberating with anguish and rage—quite a cacophony of sounds that caught everyone off guard, drawing their gazes away. Something awful had happened, she knew, but her attention snapped back to the brute who had also been momentarily distracted.

The spirit energy finally seemed corporeal enough to grab, and she channeled that energy into the arrow even after it began its flight. Twin tails of white light trailed off the arrow as it spiraled towards its target. Even if the hanyo was able to deflect the shot, he would still be consumed. He tried to deflect the shot, but his attempt was in vain. The arrow struck him in the chest with a grotesque thud, the force of the blow throwing him back and off the taijiya.

Kagome sprinted forward and leaned over the woman, whose eyes were wide with shock. She trembled beneath Kagome's gentle hands. "It's alright" - she cut her neck to ensure the yokai wouldn't get back up. Interestingly, his body sizzled - trails of smoke rose as if he'd been roasted over an open flame, and while his face was no longer visible, his silver hair was now inky black. Kagome shook her head in disbelief. That was something she would have to wrap her mind around later.

"He's dead. You did well holding him off." The young woman trembled and blinked below her, still working through the shock once her battle adrenaline had subsided.

"Let's get you up." Kagome went to move her right hand but found it would not respond. The young girl's eyes which had been wide before, now bulged, and Kagome noticed dark liquid blooming beneath a jagged silver ornament adorning the girl's neck. Realization dawned, much too late. The girl, whose name Kagome did not know, gurgled, bloody foam peeking from her mouth as she made a vain attempt at speech.

The jagged silver ornament, really a jagged, serrated blade, twisted in the girl's throat and was pulled out. An agonizing pain ripped through Kagome's shoulder when the sword that had pierced it from behind was removed. The blade had been sharpened to perfection, sliding like butter through her skin, muscle, and tendons to the point where she hadn't even noticed.

Once the blade had been twisted and yanked through, Kagome screamed and fell backward. Her attempt to catch herself was met with a low insidious chuckle. "What's wrong, little miko?"

Kagome felt the blood drain from her face; probably to seep from her now open wound. She clutched at the hole near her chest and inhaled a sob from the pain. Hot, sticky blood poured over her fingers and continued down her arm. Over her head, a familiar figure stepped and leaned down with a smug smirk on a scarred face. "F-Fah," she sputtered.

"Are those tears for me?" His foot pushed her back and then toed her wound, causing her to gasp in pain. "Aghh!" She cried out.

With a flamboyant roll of his eyes, the daiyokai Fan Tsenpo kneeled to regard her. "Your tears," he reached down a hand and wiped the wet track from her cheek, "intrigue me so."

[snowdice]

Illusions of Grandeur… Or Perhaps Just Illusions (Part 2) [A part of the Illusory Records Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Remus & Janus

Characters: Remus, Janus

Summary: Remus is training to be an undercover super-agent, but training is boring. So, being Remus, he… finds some “fun” (read trouble) with the city’s resident vigilante Deceit.

Janus is confused as to why this toddler dressed as a traffic cone won’t leave him alone.

This story is set in the Labeled Universe and takes place about 4 years after Sometimes Labels Fail, but runs pretty adjacent to Virgil, Logan, and Patton’s story.

Notes: Superhero AU, mind manipulation

AO3 Part 1

Stupid superheroes, Deceit thought to himself as he strode down an alley towards his secret base. Since when had superheroes gotten effective. Back in his day, superheroes were blundering idiots who were only good for punching things and creating property damage. When had all of these young brats decided to come out here and be good at things like subtlety and undercover investigation? When had they started caring about actual fundamental problems in the system instead of just showing up when some supervillain tried to make a death ray? That was Deceit’s job. They were stepping on the toes of vigilantes everywhere. Just because one of them lived cloaked in shadows and mystery did not give their little preschooler team-up the right to perform covert ops.

Janus had been doing surveillance on the Riddlon family for months now trying to figure out just what they were doing, and those two heroes had the audacity to show up at the exact right moment, clearly already well-aware that it would be the exact right moment, and tore down their entire smuggling operation a moment before Janus had planned to. How dare they?

He blamed the bloody bird.

Setting a good example and being a mentor to the younger generation. Who did he think he was? Deceit grumbled to himself and started putting his gloves on as he walked. He wouldn’t need to use his powers any time soon and, while he didn’t strictly need them as he was going back to base, it felt weird to be without them.

He paused at the end of the alleyway to use his powers to scan for any missed onlookers before opening the secret entrance to his base. He paused, eyes narrowed and turned his head to look behind him when he felt a presence.

“Halt villain!” a grandeurs voice said when he saw him looking. He put on a show at looking heroic, but it was a hard sell considering his costume.

Deceit wearily turned around. “You’ve got to me kidding me,” he almost groaned. Speaking of young superhero brats. It was Traffic Cone. Ever since the man, no child, had first seen him that day with Brigs, he’d been trying to track Deceit down. One would think that after seeing what Deceit had done to Mr. Penguins that the boy would get the message not to mess with the vigilante who’d been working in the city for probably decades before he was even born. Yet, the kid must have a chip on his shoulder or something, because he’d been persistent in following him around ever since. Deceit had managed to avoid him up until now, but he’d been tired and apparently had a lapse in vigilance.

“Fight me!” Traffic Cone insisted, shucking off his hero stance and tone to replace it with a slightly maniacal grin. Stupid idiot hero with delusions of grandeur. Did he really think he’d even get close to winning against Deceit?

“Look, kid,” Deceit ground out. “I don’t feel like kicking your ass today.”

“Well I do! And I finally caught up with you, so you’re not getting away from me without a fight!”

Deceit arched an eyebrow. “You do?” he clarified with a smirk. “You do feel like you want me to kick your ass today?”

Instead of getting all stuttery or angry and arguing that, no he’d meant he felt like kicking Deceit’s ass, he just stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry.

Deceit gave him an irritated look, feeling his already steaming agitation boil over. “Fine,” he snapped.

“Really?!” he looked almost excited, like a puppy wagging its tail. “So, ho- where did you go?”

Deceit rolled his eyes and took a step towards him, feet light even if they didn’t have to be since the illusion that Deceit was no longer in the alley that he’d just placed in the kid’s mind would supersede his natural senses. Traffic Cone’s eyes bopped around the space in confusion.

“Oh, I see,” Traffic Cone said after a brief moment of confusion, causing Deceit to pause a few feet away from him. “This is part of it. You’re still here, you just are making me think you’re not.”

Deceit hummed. Astute. Most people were panicking by now, but Traffic Cone was calm and accurately able to piece together what had happened.

“Alright then,” the man said cheerfully. He put his hands up in a typical boxing stance. “Let’s go!”

Deceit just shook his head, unwillingly amused with him and side stepped him. He positioned himself so the kid wouldn’t be able to lash out and hit him with his super-strength in the split second between when he’d feel Deceit’s touch and when the illusion would take hold. Then, Janus stripped off one of his gloves. He didn’t need to touch someone to activate his powers anymore. He was long past that. Yet, physical contact still gave Deceit more precise control over what he did to someone, and he didn’t want to accidently shove the dumb toddler into a nightmare if he resisted too hard.

Gentle, he reminded himself as he reached out. He’s an annoyance not an enemy. His fingers descended on his forearm, and the boy went still.

“Oh,” he said, blinking fast as though trying to remove something from his eye. Deceit made the alleyway around them fold and spiral away from his perceptions. “T-that’s weird.” There was a spike of fear, but it was more instinctual than anything real and was easy to bat away. It was surprising, actually, the lack of real fear. Most of the newbie cops and baby supers that came after him were doing so because they considered him a threat. So, most panicked when they felt themselves slipping under his power. Yet, Traffic Cone was steady under it. Deceit didn’t even sense any embarrassment about being taken out so fast. “It’s like a tilt-a-whirl,” he breathed.

Deceit arched an eyebrow. They were usually too trapped in their own minds at this point in the process to speak. That was strange, but what was even stranger was how the boy’s mind held steady in the transitional phase of fuzzy white and black that rippled like TV static across all of his senses. Usually one’s mind would start filling in the gaps automatically, grappling for some sort of calm in the storm, and Deceit would just push it away from anything dangerous. Yet, Traffic Cone seemed to be oddly be content to rest in the nothing. Deceit didn’t know what to make of it.

Despite his curiosity, Deceit still shoved at him gently until he teetered off the edge into what Deceit thought was the memory of three different locations. Most of the space Deceit saw was a childhood bedroom with cheery aquatic animals on the walls and a colorful rug, but what tipped him off to the fact that it wasn’t just one location was the out of place full sized bed with the dark green comforter and the matching nightstand with a murder mystery novel on it’s top. It was an adult bedroom, likely his current one, familiar and comfortable but not sentimental. The last location bled through only in the structure of the walls and a fireplace. It seemed to be based off a cabin in the woods if the view of the sun setting over a lake outside the large window on one wall was anything to go by. It was probably a place he’d visited a few times and had a good time at.

Even though it was a mixture of locations, the memory seemed strong. Nothing was fuzzy around the edges and the inclusions from each place were logical in its construction. It was tidy and calm. The fireplace gave off waves of warmth and it smelled vaguely of cedar. He imagined the blankets on the bed were soft to the touch and all was quiet except for the crackle of the fire. Deceit was impressed. He’d expected a mess of a mind from how he’d seen the boy act, but this was decidedly not.

After a pause, Deceit drew away, leaving him inside that illusion. “Let’s get you back to Brigs.” His eyes flickered to Janus to Janus’s surprise. He shouldn’t be taking in any external stimulus yet with the attack so recent and Deceit still so near.

“Okay,” he agreed, voice distant. If Janus didn’t know any better, he’d say that the kid must have some sort of mental power. The problem with that conclusion was that he’d already read up on him when he’d started following Deceit around, and his power was reportedly super-strength. He shook the idea of the boy having a mental power away. Surely, he would have met at least some resistance if that were true, and Deceit had met less than normal.

“Come on, Traffic Cone,” Janus said, physically and mentally nudging him back towards the street. Deceit threw up a small field around them to keep passersby from seeing them and then checked the hacked security cameras on his phone. As expected, Brigs was sitting in his car in one of his usual spots. It wasn’t too far, and they could walk there easily.

It was a few minutes of walking later that the boy looked up slowly. “I told you I didn’t choose the costume,” he grumbled.

Deceit blinked at him but didn’t comment on his unusual lucidness.

Upon Deceit allowing the man to see him and Traffic Cone, Brigs laid his head briefly on his steering wheel. If Deceit cracked a smile, there was no one around to see it.

Brigs exited his car and looked Traffic Cone over with a sigh. “I told him not to.”

“You always do.”

“This was fun,” Traffic Cone said with an out-of-it giggle. “We should do it again some time.”

“Is he always like that?” Deceit asked tiredly.

Brigs looked over at the man with annoyance and maybe an iota of affection. “Unfortunately.”

[george-mackay-macfine]

Dear Diary Prt. 15

Word Count: 1,750 (Roughly) 

(I promise the word count is going to pick up again once we get through some of the shorter enteries, and into long ones again, at the moment we’re all just in Graces brain.)

December 25th, 2011

Dear Diary,

Happy Christmas!!

I don’t have time to go over the events of the morning right now, (Aunt Mildred sat me down and went over the first time she gave a blow job), Mum’s called me downstairs, apparently, I have a gift from Harry that came in the post.

I’ll write more soon!

Love Y/N,

--

December 27th, 2011

Dear Diary,

Sorry I didn’t write again the other day, after reminding myself about Aunt Mildreds blow job story I went downstairs and stole a bottle of vodka and spent the rest of the day drinking for God with my oldest cousin Jesse.

I did remember to drunkenly open Harry’s gift, it was a thick diary, with a handwritten note on the front page. It says;

Dear Y/N,

I didn’t know what to get you for Christmas but knew I had to get you something.

I always see you scribbling down in that old tattered diary of yours, so I thought I’d buy you a new one. Maybe when you write you’ll think of me.

Love Harry,

Isn’t that the sweetest! Harry Styles has to be the most thoughtful guy I have ever met.

Love, Y/N.

--

December 29th, 2011

Dear Diary,

I’m finally home. After an excruciating six days, (It was five an a half, but six makes me sound like a better daughter) with my family driving me mental about my medical degree, my love life, and how much wine I was drinking at dinner I’m finally home in my own bed.

Harry and Dean aren’t home until tomorrow, so I’ve got the flat to myself for the whole night. I’ve already messaged Tom and he’s on his way over with some food, and you guessed in more wine.

It’s good to be home Diary,

Love Y/N.

--

December 30th, 2011

Dear Diary,

It has become so extremely utterly apparent to me that I am utterly useless when it comes to sex and the opposite gender… Even more so than I already thought I was.

Let me tell you about last night, and how my utterly useless self realised I know nothing.

So Tom came over, and when I saw him standing at my front door with wine, take away and flowers, I swear my heart did a thousand backflips and well, diary I began to feel guilty about that kiss with George, so I did what any rational woman would do, and I practically jumped him at the door.

“I’ve missed you, Darlin’,” Tom whispered against my lips as I pulled him into the apartment, moving us back towards the settee. “Six days, too long,”

“Mhhm,” I agreed, lips still flush against his. Something took over in the back of my brain and I needed more of him as we fell onto the settee. “You’re jacket,” I began to pull it down his arms, “Take it off,”

“Y/N,” He pulled away, his full hands moving to my shoulders holding me still, “Slow down, we have all night for that,” He pulled me into his chest, “I’m beginning to think you only called me over for a booty call,”

“No,” I stuttered. “I missed you, that’s all…”

“Alright,” He conceded pulling away from me and standing, “If my girlfriend wants me to take my jacket off, then my jackets coming off.” He began to pull the fabric down his arms, stopping midway when he took in my shocked face, “Unless my girlfriend isn’t in this room?”

“You want me to be your girlfriend?” His jacket was halfway down his arms when he nodded his head.

“Yeah, I do,”

“Your girlfriend wants you to take your jacket off,” I whispered, watching as a smile broke out onto his face, the jacket falling to the floor.

“Whatever the girlfriend wants, she shall have,” He fell back onto the settee with me, a mess of limbs. “Well girlfriend,” He stroked my cheek softly, “You’re still coming to the party tomorrow aren’t you?” Tom’s New Year’s party.

“Yes, the boys and Charlotte are still right to come as well aren’t they?”

“Of course,”

“Then I will most certainly be there,” He smiled kissing me softly on the lips, “We should eat,” I whispered through another kiss, “Or we could do other things,”

“I’ve never seen your bedroom,” His hand drew over my knee in circles soothing my rapidly beating heart,

“You want to see my bedroom?” He nodded his head, “Okay,” I stumbled standing from the settee and crossing. The short distance to my small room. “It’s not very tidy, I was studying last night,” He walked inside, fingers running over nicknacks, picking up the diary Harry gave me. “Harry gave it to me for Christmas,” I missed Harry, and Dean being here without their constant football talk didn’t feel right. He smiled at it before setting it back down on the desk.

“It’s all very Y/N,”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I’m not too sure anything about you could be bad,” He laughed laying on the bed. “Beds not too comfortable, squeaks as well,”

“Loud bed,” as George had aptly put weeks before. “Not so great when you have a bad sleep,”

“Oh really?” He raised his eyebrow,

“Wakes everyone up,” He reached his arm out towards me beckoning me to join him on the bed. I padded over and sat beside him on the hard mattress. He reached out and pulled me down beside him, laying us close together. “Hi,”

“Hi,” He breathed our noses brushing softly as he moved.

“Hi,” I whispered back. He smiled, fingers resting softly under my chin as he brought our lips together, letting them brush together softly. The kiss became rougher as Tom pulled me closer, his hands running down my arm, stopping at my waist. My heart rate spiked as Tom’s lips left mine and moved across my cheek leaving a trail of kisses from my lips to my neck, the skin of my neck being pulled deviously between his teeth. “Ugh,” A strangled moan escaped my lips as I pulled at his short hair. “Tom,” My breath was whispery, nearly unrecognisable as Tom bit into the skin again. “Fuck,”

“You okay?” He pulled his head back up, meeting mine,

“Yeah,” I pulled his lips back to mine, unable to stop the hunger I’d found for him, for the feeling of his lips on mine. He pulled me over so we spun on the small bed, I was on top of him looking down at him as my hands worked on their own to pull his shirt off. He leaned up, pulling the shirt off his body and tossing it on the ground beside my bed. His skin was toned, and nicely tanned. My fingers traced down the expanse of exposed skin as his right hand went to my hip, squeezing the skin before moving back up, fingertips tracing underneath the thin fabric off my shirt. He looked me in the eyes as he moved it upward, exposing a small part of me to him.

I felt underneath me him hardening, God, it felt a lot bigger than Julians had when we made out, and I didn’t know what to do with his, how am I supposed to know what to do with Toms… His hips slowly, subconsciously rutted up against mine hitting me in my most intimate areas.

“Y/N,” He groaned as my hips accidentally moved down against him. “Do you have anything?”

“No,” I sat upright, the cold water of his words rushing over me. “I don’t have anything,” I swung my leg off him and sat down beside him, hand resting on his bicep. I looked down to the bulge in his pants. “I’m sorry,”

“Sorry?”

“Yeah,” I moved my head so I motioned to his crouch. “About that,”

“Hey,” He sat up, putting his hands under my chin, “Don’t be sorry about anything Y/N,” He kissed me softly. “It’s fine,” He whispered. “How about we go have tea before it gets cold?”

“Yeah, Please,” He stood up and helped me up, holding my hand the entire way to the living room where the forgotten bag of food sat. “What’d you get?” I asked as I sat on the settee watching him riffle through the bags,

“Italian,” He smirked sending me a cocky wink.

And that was it Diary, Tom asked me to be his girlfriend, we made out for the first time… I mean really made out, the kind of made out where you’re sitting there, and you feel everything… everything!!! and I am now constantly worrying about how his Penis…. more so the size of it… (Which felt quite big as we already know) and how it is going to fit anywhere near (or in) me.

When Sarah told me about losing her virginity to Freddie Ashmore in tenth I assumed she was making up how painful it was, you know, the stretching, but now having felt how big Tom is, I don’t think she was lying.

Not that I’m planning on losing my virginity to Tom ANY time soon… I don’t even know if it’ll be him I lose it too, maybe he’ll end up breaking my heart and I’ll die alone an old spinster virgin lady.

I hope not,

Love Y/N,

--

December 31st, 2011

Dear Diary,

I’ve been Tom’s girlfriend for nearly twenty-four hours now, and it’s kind of weird… The relationship already feels more mature then the one Julian and I were in, I think it’s because we’re in Uni, and we’re practically adults… at least he is, I’d rather be an adult in training - the juice in the bottle can be wine - Last night he went home after Midnight, giving me a final kiss and a promise of seeing me tomorrow, as we enter the New Year - together.

Speaking of New Year, How crazy is it that we’re nearly in 2012… Since finishing school the year has flown by, the first year of Uni is halfway finished, and I can’t believe it.

I really lucked out meeting the people I met this year and having them to spend my first year of Uni with.

I’ll give you an update of how the party went tomorrow Diary, hopefully, the hangover isn’t too bad.

Wish me luck,

And Happy New Year Diary,

Love Y/N,

[moonlightreal]

Fate episode 6

When last we left Elemental Academy, I was seeing doomful parallels to every Bad Ending arc in Higurashi.  And sadly, I like the three adults and my genre-savvy tells me they won’t all make it through this last episode.

How much of a downer will the ending be?  Who will end up screwing everything up? (my money’s on Bloom.)  Who’s for the chop?  (my guess is Silva and one out of Dane, Riven or Beatrix.)  Will we finally learn the red truth of what happened at Aster Dell?  Will we ever get the skinny on what the heck Burned Ones are?  Will the show finally give me the lowdown on changelings that I’ve been whining about since episode one?  Will we get the full story on Bloom’s destiny? (My money’s on no to at least three of the four.)  

And I suppose we’ll finally answer the question we started with: Good, bad or irredeemable?  

One last time, let’s dive in!

We pick up right where we left off, Bloom having a mental chat with Rosalind!  Rosalind says, ‘Do you have any idea how special you are?”

...waitwaitwait, is there gonna be a prophecy?  There’s always a prophecy!  A prophecy that the Chosen one would be born in Aster Dell and that’s the real reason Rosalind nuked the place.  Only she didn’t know which of the babies it was, she guessed Beatrix and she guessed wrong.

Am I right?  Sorry, I barely let the episode start, let’s get back.

Rosalind encourages Bloom to bust her out.  Bloom flames her eyes up.

Aaaaand we cut back to the girls in the corridor.  Terra wonders what they could be talking about and Stella teases that she once heard Terra talk about dirt for two hours.  I’m liking friendly Stella, but she faceturned faster than Tinx at the end of WoW!  

Terra’s also worried Beatrix may recover from being frozen and come after them.  Sensible, Terra!  But no, Beatrix will be gone when you get back, off getting the mysterious “him.”  I know how these shows work!

Ahahahaha! I’m right!  Beatrix is gone!  I swear I type these things while I watch, all guesses are genuine!

And then Dowling, Harvey and Aisha bust in.  Yeah girls, you might’ve not done this during a Burned One attack!  Harvey says “Not another word!” which nobody listening is why y’all gonna get the bad ending, and the girls follow him.  Stella resurrects her inner witch to tell Aisha, ‘Hope the brownie points you get from this will keep you company when you’ve got no friends.”  simmer down Stell, she was trying to protect people’s lives…  Aisha goes with the girls leaving Dowling to go after Bloom alone.

Rosalind is coaching Bloom on how to burn through the barrier.  Bloom’s grinning, because magic feels hot and dangerous and you just want more.  Then the barrier goes down and Bloom has a moment of worry about what she’s done before she… has a very caring moment, she grabs Rosalind assuming the older fairy will need water and food after being trapped for so long.  That is really sweet, Bloom.  But Rosalind says, ‘No.  I need magic.”

And here comes Dowling!  I assumed Rosalind would steal Dowling’s magic, but when the headmistress gets there everybody’s gone.

Opening!

Bloom and Rosalind come out a door in the graveyard out in the forest. Secret passage!  Dowling doesn’t know about it.  Dowling doesn’t know about lots of things, according to Rosalind.  Bloom really should be having second thoughts here.  Rosalind has an evil face!

Harvey reads the girls the riot act.  He’s wearing his army coat, the same kind Rosalind wears, from their soldier days.  He’s horrified about all the girls have done.  He turns to go.

And Terra jumps up, “You lied again!  About Rosalind, about everything, and you’re angry with ME?  You can’t punish me for not knowing something you didn’t tell me!”

Yes! Get ‘em Terra!  

Stella and Musa tennis-match look from daughter to father.

Harvey just says, “I suggest you all cool down!” and leaves without facing his daughter’s very sensible argument.  And he magics the doors locked.

Terra: ‘I’ve caught him in a logic trap and he’s used his magic to ground us.’

Stella: “That means you won.”

Then aisha heads for her room to “deescalate the situation by removing myself from it” and Stella calls her a rat of a teacher’s pet and Musa asks for a brief pause so she can get her headphones.  She flees into her room as Stella and Aisha get into it.

There’s Sam!  Hiding in Musa and Terra’s room!

Stella says everyone over five knows not to snitch, even terra knows not to snitch, and Terra gives her a look.  Aisha brings the logic: burned Ones, outside!  Bloom, kinda single minded!  Rosalind, an extra problem we don’t need right now!

Dowling checks the stone circle.  Nobody there.

When she leaves, Rosalind and Bloom appear.  So Rosalind is mind/light at least.  Rosalind puts her hands over the center stone and absorbs magic.

Bloom asks what happened at Aster Dell.  Rosalind makes a very evil face. ‘Everything Farah told you is true.  I lied to them.  I told then Aster Dell was evacuated.  It wasn’t.”

Bloom starts to wonder if maybe she released a baddie.

But rosalind has more to say.  ‘One of the fundamental tenets of the Otherworld is that only fairies can do magic.  The settlers of Aster Dell were the exception.  They were humans who drew on sacrifice and death.  Blood witches.”

Gee it’d have been nice to hear that fundamental tenet sometime before the last episode! 9_9  

So Rosalind saw an opportunity to wipe out the totally unforeshadowed witches along with the Burned Ones.  And Bloom was a fairy baby kidnapped by the witches.  Her fairy parents are still unknown. Bloom’s freaking out, but Rosalind just says, ‘You weren’t safe in the Otherworld, the power inside you was too great.  that’s why the witches wanted you, to use your power.”  and the Burned Ones can sense Bloom’s power and want to get rid of it before it’s used on them.

Yikes! Bloom realizes her presence is putting everybody in danger!

Rosalind: ‘Sucks to be special sometimes, doesn’t it.”  But now they can go after the Burned Ones!  And Rosalind has another trick to teach Bloom…

Hmm, so these Burned Ones were just… around?  And gathering because they sensed Bloom’s magic?  I assumed someone summoned them back after not being seen for 16 years.  

We go to the fighters at the barrier.  Remember how last episode Bloom drugged Sky and left him passed out at the stone circle?  Well Aisha found out somehow and told the teachers so Silva is giving Sky the “why did I find this out from Aisha?’ and Sky hits back with, “Why’d I have to find out about Aster dell from Bloom?”  But they’re in the middle of a siege situation here so Silva logically suggests they talk about that later.  

Another few specialists including Riven and a girl named Kat who knows Stella are watching Noura’s last video.  Kat thinks she knows where it was shot.  Silva says, “Let’s go.”  Just him and five students. Riven says, ‘Without fairies?  that’s fucking stupid, there’s six of them!”  and Sky shuts him down; order’s an order.  That’s the most twit-ish thing Sky has done this whole show.

They hear Burned Ones growling… but it’s coming from the direction of the school!  Yikes!  Everyone rushes back!

At Alfea, the lights, that were never bright anyway so we’d remember this is a dark show, flicker out! Terra says the electricity runs on magic and there are energy wells… Sam says he’ll go check it out. He Kitty Prydes it through the door, unbothered my the sealing spell.  So if he can phase, can Terra learn it too?

Spooky empty corridors!  Flickering lights!  Sam all alone!  Y’know Sam probably can’t do that trick Kitty does where an enemy launches at her and goes right through, because he can only phase through earth-y and plant-y stuff.

Yikes! It’s a jump scare!  Burned One right in Sam’s face!  It claws him and he goes down yelling in pain!

But he manages to get back into the girls’ suite to tell them there’s a Burned One loose in the school!

Back with Bloom and Rosalind, Rosalind’s encouraging Bloom to channel lots of magic.  “More!  Let the fire consume you!  Control limits you!”  bloom says she’s scared and Rosalind encourages her to embrace that feeling, to enjoy it!  “And with the right people around you...”

Bloom unflames.  “You mean with you.”  Bloom’s realized it!  “You want me to listen to you and trust you and let you guide me?  I just met you.’  and that’s not all!  Bloom realizes Rosalind left her on earth a danger to everyone around her, to hide her from Dowling. “Without any guidance.”

Rosalind: ‘The guidance you needed was love.  Farah couldn’t give that to you.  Vanessa and Michael could.”  Ugh, so their names are canon. And Rosalind knew about their baby and “gave them a second chance. And I gave you a hiding place from the monsters that wanted you dead.”  And rosalind says she’ll always look out for Bloom, and when this is over they’ll find Bloom’s birth parents.

I dunno Bloom, maybe ask a whole lot more about how she knew about an Earth couple whose baby had a heart defect?

It had occurred to me that Beatrix might be the other half of the changeling swap, if there’s healing magic that can fix things like that.  

But no time for that, Burned Ones are in the school and the girls are stuck in their room!  Bloom has to go help.  She asks Rosalind if she’s charged up enough to help help.  Rosalind says she can’t, “But you don’t need it.  BS, Rosalind, you could totally help. But Bloom runs off leaving the lady with the evil face all alone.

In the suite, Sam is getting worse, they can’t get out, and cel phones are giving up.

Bloom races toward the school.  She hears noises from every side… but there’s Sky!  At least bloom seems relieved he’s ok after she spiked his drink.  He doesn’t seem nearly as upset as he should be over that, but I guess we gotta save the school first!

Inside dark halls there’s Riven and Kat with flashlights.  They hear noises, but it’s just some students led by a male fire fairy with a handful of flames.  Kat goes with them to the “courtyard” which I’ve been calling the cafeteria, I guess it’s outside?  The big set with the arches and walkway overlooking it.

So Riven’s all alone to get the rest of the students from this area! He goes into the greenhouse… and there’s Dane!  And Beatrix lying asleep on a table.  Dane brought Beatrix here but she’s still paralyzed from the spell and Dane doesn’t know how to help her.

Riven just says it sucks for her and she’s not worth it.  Which true we’d be better off without her but also yikes, heartless much Riven?

Dane: “She cares about you and I know you care about her.  Don’t act like you don’t.”

Riven shrugs and turns to go and Dane grabs him.  Riven says fine, he’ll help.  Dunno why they don’t just carry Beatrix to where the students are gathering, that’d be safer for everyone.

Sky and Bloom are having the “you drugged me.” conversation.  And the “I trusted you, I told you things.’ and “you trusted me but you’d still have stopped me.’ and “you were gonna release a murderer and a crazy ex-headmistress.” and Bloom starts realizing everyone had reasons for what they did and Sky wraps it up, ‘just because they’re doing what they thought was right doesn’t mean that it is.”  

Back with the girls, Sam’s getting worse and something is banging on the door!  it’s Sky!  Did he just kick his way through an enspelled door?  Badass.

Sky and Stella look at each other and say hey.

Then we all head for the courtyard and comparative safety!

Dowling is magically sealing the beautiful arched doors with trees in them, she tells the boy fire fairy to get his compatriots to weld them shut, and everyone to start making barricades.  Silva’s handing out armor to fairies who want it.  Harvey has a whole chemistry lab set up with a lunch lady helping him.  Badass Marco is still getting treatment for his injury when the girls bring Sam in for help.  Sam’s in a bad way.  Harvey asks why they didn’t bring him immediately and Terra reminds him they were locked in their room.  Harvey flinches.

Dowling stands on the stage where we saw Luna before, as behind her fire fairies weld the doors.  She tells them the situation: Burned Ones in, power out.  But she got word to Queen Luna and the army’s on the way!  Everyone looks at Stella when she says that.  They’re safe in the courtyard… but if the Burned Ones get through before the army comes, they’ll have to fight.  Dowling does her best to be inspiring, “Let’s show them what it means to be Alfeans!”  But I just feel… the lack of history.  And I know, we have history. Feels like we don’t.  

Sky and Stella have a moment.  Bloom told him Stella ran away from home. Stella: “Home’s on its way here, so that’s fun.”  Sky offers to help her hide but Stella says she’d love to take him up on it but… ‘Breaking up was the right thing to do, we never should’ve gotten back together.  We are codependant at best, toxic at worst. This time I have to deal with it myself.”  yay Stella!  Grow into a better person!  Sky says she sounds just like Bloom and Stella jokes that that’s what he’s into these days.

Meanwhile Bloom is following Dowling trying to convince her not to be mad. ‘Rosalind isn’t the monster you think she is.”

Bloom, you just met her you said it yourself!

“She had a reason to lie.  The settlers of Aster Dell weren’t innocent. They were blood witches.  And my birth parents weren’t even there.”

Dowling just sighs and says “She certainly has a way of winning people over doesn’t she.”  Dangit, I wanted her to just kill the retcon and say, “there’s no such thing as blood witches, Bloom.”

Bloom goes with, ‘is your ego so fragile you can’t even consider for a minute you might be wrong about her?”  Dowling says Rosalind is just manipulating, Bloom says you’re doing that too, and Dowling sensibly points out Dowling could be here defending herself and also defending the school.

Bloom flinches from that logic but says Rosalind is still too weak.  

Dowling says the stone circle is the conduit to the magic of the land.  It supplies everything… like the electricity.  And the barrier.

Yup. Nice job breaking it, hero!  Bloom singlehandedly brings about the bad ending!

Bloom says the Burned Ones are after her, and Dowling had figured that out. Bloom says she knows how to fight them now, but Dowling points out, ‘you’re he reason we’re in this mess, you’ve done enough. Help the other fire fairies weld the doors if you want to.’

And she strides off, pausing to suggest to Aisha that the other water fairies could use her leadership.

Aisha had been coming to talk to bloom I think, but she changes her mind.

In the greenhouse Dane and Riven are making a medicine to revive Beatrix.  Turns out Riven is good at potions because he used to hang out with Terra.  ‘Look, I’ll deny saying this but she’s not the worst.”  

Ok, that makes Riven’s nasty remark to Terra in the first episode way worse.

Riven: “I might’ve led you astray this year...’

Dane: “you didn’t.  Beatrix is special.”

Riven: ‘You are gay, right?  I’m not blind?  I know when someone wants my dick.”

Dane: “I think you’re hot.  She is too, in a different way.”

There’s nothing like a cute threesome!  ...and this is nothing like a cute threesome.  But now the problematic element sits up and says, ‘You made the right choice.  Rosalind will be impressed.  When this is all over, you’re going to want to be on our side.”

Burned Ones growl!  Rosalind pulls magic from the stone circle!

And Sam is in a bad way.  There was a splinter of Burned One claw near his heart.  Dang, I should’ve put him on the list of people for the chop!  Musa tries to use her mind magic to take some of his pain, but it’s too much for her.

Harvey starts falling apart, stuttering that he can’t get the splinter out.  Terra encourages her father, and Harvey manages to pull the claw splinter out.  sam’s alive, but until the Burned One that tagged him is dead it’s only a matter of time!

The fire fairy boy says he heard they have the rest of the night and a whole day before the army comes. Too long for Sam, and if the Burned Ones get through the doors too long for all of them.  Bloom, who’d been watching in horror the results of her bad choices, sets her lips and strides out.

Bustle of students putting up barricades.  Sky is working with Badass Marco, then he turns and there’s Bloom with an apology.  “I should’ve been honest with you like you were honest with me and I’m sorry.” And she reassures him that the kiss was honest, and gives him another one for emphasis!

Sky: “If I still say I don’t believe you, can we do it again?”

Well Sky is the most sane and stable person here, he’ll be good for Bloom!  And immediately her catches Bloom’s glance and says, ‘whatever you’re thinking of doing… I’m here.”

And Aisha knows Bloom’s gonna try something, because Bloom always tries something and this time she thinks it’s her fault.  Stella tries the, ‘If only her friend hadn’t turned on her..” and Aisha feels bad and she’s sorry.  And here’s Bloom, come to get them! It’s the last episode, we all get to go fight!  

Sky’s not with them, he’s with Silva and Silva has a final confession to make.  Because he thinks they’re all gonna die tonight, he wants to tell Sky the truth about what happened at Aster Dell.  Because that was where Sky’s father died.  But Sky thought he died in battle…

Flashback! On the plains.  Silva is yelling that there were still people, the town wasn’t evacuated.  He wants to run and tell Rosalind.  This must be while the magic users are up on the cliff ready to call down lightning.  Silva says his friends think they’re only killing Burned Ones, but Andreas says Rosalind knows the truth.  And he’s going with what Rosalind said.  

Silva says ‘I know Rosalind gave you a sense of purpose, I know you’re indebted to her.” backstory there, but surely Andreas wouldn’t be on side for nuking hundreds of people?!  Silva says, orders or morals?  And Andreas… yep, he’s Team Rosalind.  he’s not gonna let Silva warn the others.

He does not say, “They’re evil blood witches, we’ll show you the evidence and then come back.” which is really the only correct thing to say here.

Punches are thrown!  The two warriors scuffle.  Then Andreas goes for his sword.  Silva draws his own.  And a few swings in, he runs Andreas through.  And races to the top of the bluff to stop his friends being accessories to a massacre.

Oof! What a thing for Sky to learn!  And before that, Silva says, Andreas really was a great hero.  Just… flawed.  As we all are.  That’s not much good and sky snaps, ‘What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”  But he’ll have to work it out later because now the Burned Ones are breaking in!

Dowling and the specialists move to the front, Dowling saying, ‘Keep your emotions in check.  Runaway fear leads to runaway magic.”

In the clinic Harvey and Terra battle to keep Sam alive.  Terra goes to get help and finds Musa zoned out with headphones.  Terra begs for help and Musa says she can’t bear to feel somebody she cares about die, not again.  This Musa’s mother dies last year, and Musa was with her and felt everything.  Oof!  The two girls hang onto each other and cry for a moment then Terra says, ‘It’s ok.  I’m not gonna let him die.”  And, understanding, leaves Musa to her music. But headphones can’t shut out the sound of the Burned Ones banging on the walls!

In the courtyard terra walks right up past everybody and starts dismanteling the barricade!  ‘We’re hiding when we should be fighting.”  Silva tells her they’re gonna be fighting soon enough and indeed, here comes a Burned One through the roof!  The boy fire fairy blasts it and Kat is ready to skewer the thing when it… passes them?

It’s looking for Bloom!  Who was last seen sneaking out a trapdoor with Stella and Aisha!  The banging stops, and Dowling figures out Bloom has left to draw the enemy away!

The girls emerge from the secret passage in the graveyard.

Harvey calls Terra over as she is clearly headed out to fight, but he says she needs to stay with her brother, to help him hold on until the Burned One is destroyed.  Then Musa appears and takes Sam’s hand. She’ll help him as long as she can.

Outside Stella points out that her mom is on the way with a real live army, but Bloom says there’s no time for that.  Rosalind taught her how to stop the Burned Ones but she has to do big magic and she’s not sure how that’ll work.  She needs help.  Aisha will be there with her water magic in case the forest catches fire, and Stella can hide them.

Bloom: “Rosalind wants me to believe that she’s the person I need to get through this.  But she’s not.

Aisha pulls the water from the pond into a cyclone around Bloom.  Bloon lights up her eyes and lifts off the ground and… transforms. Transforms-ish.  Flames spiral around her arms and legs, and around her body.  Bloom’s clothes don’t change but fiery veined wings open behind her, first very large then dwindling as Bloom lands back on the ground.

The designers definitely could’ve watched PGSM to get this, if they then decided to tone things way down.  And why not change her clothes?  I’m sure they could’ve managed something.  As a live action transformation sequence it’s… ok.  They were trying for something cool and they had some good ideas how to get there, the fie spirals were good, but they needed to really run with it and they didn’t.  So it’s just ok.

And how the night did Rosalind know the long lost secret of how to transform?  

Burned Ones advance and Bloom blasts them with fire one after another.  When the last one is down, her wings go out.  And where the Burned Ones fell are… specialists?  People, anyway.

Dowling arrives and Bloom collapses in her arms, then Aisha and Stella rush over to help.  “We did it.’

Inside Sam suddenly feels much better!  Terra hugs Musa.  The lights come back on.  

In the greenhouse too, where Beatrix and the boys are ready to bring the bad ending!  I still smell a bad ending, because we just had a good ending but there’s twenty minutes more to go!  The boys say they should rejoin their classmates but Beatrix says they should wait to meet Rosalind and her dad, who have a plan.  ‘The two of you can be part of it.  This doesn’t have to end.”

Dane asks if it was her dad who sent her to Alfea and B says he’s technically not her dad… and here’s Rosalind coming in the greenhouse doors.  She and Beatrix recognize each other though they can’t have met.  B says the boys are her friends and Rosalind reads their minds.  I wanna say the boys are wondering what they’ve gotten into but… no, they don’t seem to be seeing anythuing wrong with this at all.

The girls are putting Bloom to bed, talking about the good ending they think they have.  Sam will be fine, Terra’s great at doctoring and she’s sad she missed seeing Bloom’s wings.  Tinkerbell is mentioned and I can just hear my friend cringing as they say Bloom’s wings were cooler than Tinkerbell’s.  Bloom’s parents call and Aisha talks to them, covering for Bloom.  She calls it her ‘one allocated lie of the week” which is weird.  Bloom’s awake and fine, she could talk to her folks.  Aisha says they’ve been having killer exams and the girls giggle.

Nobody says, ‘ohmigod the secret of wings was lost ages ago, what exactly did you do? help us all learn it!” which seems like a very obvious thing for everybody to be saying.

Also being all happy and going to bed while Rosalind and Beatrix are unaccounted for is a weird choice!

Silva and some specialists are scouting for her.  No luck.  They find Dowling with the bodies of the ex-Burned Ones.

Dowling: “Bloom transformed, Saul.  She spent one night with Rosalind and unlocked ancient fairy magic, magic we thought was lost.  She told Bloom the settlers of Aster dell weren’t civilians, they were blood witches.”

And Silva seems to believe it.  Which of course means he killed his friend for no good reason.  If it’s true.  But if it’s true why didn’t Rosalind and Andreas tell the others, present evidence of the blood witches’ crimes, and make a plan to deal with things aboveboard?  So why does Silva believe it now hearing from Dowling who heard from Bloom who heard from Rosalind well after the fact? But he does believe it and this is his awful moment of guilt.

Sky too is grappling with what he’s just learned, pacing on the lawn outside the school as the night ends.

Bloom finds him as the sun rises and I gotta say, I was not expecting the night to end!  Everyone heard Bloom “went full fairy last night.” Bloom says it was the first time she truly felt like herself.  She says, “I belong here.”  but she realizes Sky is in the same clothes as last night and asks if he’s ok.  He says he’s fine, which he isn’t.

Then Dowling comes looking for Bloom.  The two fairies go into the headmistress’ office.  Bloom’s feeling ok after her big magic, and suddenly she apologizes for all the awful things she’s said to Dowling.  “You found me when I was lost, brought me to a safe place, gave me guaidance.  Surrounded me with amazing people.  And I’ve been...’

Dowling says, ‘It’s forgiven.”  And Bloom hesitantly asks for a hug, or maybe offers one.  Dowling looks like she’s never heard of hugs before, then she stands up and she and Bloom hug.  Dowling totally gets teary-eyed.

Dowling: “When I became headmistress I made a decision.  To become a figurehead.  To project strength.  It’s what students your age need.  Admitting mistakes invites uncertainty...but not admittng them means people you care about have to ask you if you hug.”

Awwww, that was sweet!  Dowling says she should have been more honest and Bloom says she maybe needed time.

...are we maybe NOT having a bad ending?  I mean if Stella confronts her mum that would take up the time and we could end on a good note! Nobody’s dead yet!  But all that bad-ending buildup...

‘Cause suddenly we’re back on Earth and Bloom is going to tell them the truth!  Which, what good will that do them?  And do you even know the truth?  People told you lots of things.  And the rest of the girls are here to hang out over the weekend!  They head upstairs so Bloom can drop the “changeling” bomb in peace.

Music plays, Bloom speaks and her mother cries and looks at a baby book, ultrasounds and a newborn hospital bracelet.  They believe it too, the whole mad story of fairies and magic.  Of course Bloom summoning double handfuls of fire probably does a lot to convince them.

Sweet family montage, Bloom hugging her parents, the girls at the kitchen table, eating pizza.

Back at Alfea, Silva asks Sky where Riven is.  Sky just says he and Dane are probably off getting stoned.  When is this?  Did y’all not do a full headcount after the battle?  Sky is of course not happy with his mentor.  Silva just says, ‘one day I hope you’ll see everything I did was for your benefit Sky.”  Which, if Silva’s parenting produced Sky the paragon of decency and Andreas’ parenting produced Beatrix the occasionally charming also slutty obsessed murderer, good point there!

Here come some doomful black SUVs!  They pull around and out hop a bunch of soldiers who surround the two confused guys.

Queen Luna gets out and… arrests Silva for the attempted murder of Andreas of Eraklyon!

Yow! Poor Silva looks most confused.  But there he is, Andreas gets out of an SUV still wearing his specialist vest thingy.  Sky looks at his resurrected father in shock!

Dowling is looking over some graves.  Rosalind suddenly turns up!  Turns out the Burned Ones are a sort of zombie, they were human once so when Bloom turned them human again and dead Dowling buried them.  I hope she tried to find their next of kin and stuff too.  Rosalind knew about them.

Dowling: “Are there more out there?”

Rosalind: “Shit ton.”

Rosalind must’ve already met Riven, his speech patterns are rubbing off on her!

And then Rosalind delivers the prophecy.  There always is one.  Or in this case, “There’s a legend.  It’s a thousand years old. That’s how old the Burned Ones are, by the way.  They were soldiers from an ancient war.  The legend is about the magic used against them.  It created them.  it’s powerful.  It’s primal.  The Dragon Flame.”

Whaaaaaat? Really?  Come on.

And that’s what Bloom’s got and that’s why she could transform. Rosalind let the Burned Ones into the school to see if Bloom could do it.  Dowling’s upset about the danger to, y’know, everybody.

Rosalind: “there’s a war on the horizon.  The Burned Ones are nothing compared to what’s coming.”

And Rosalind says she’s taking over the school, pretty much.  We go back to the front yard where Silva’s getting hauled away in handcuffs and Queen Luna is giving the ordersy and there’s Beatrix watching and inside someone’s taking down Dowling’s portrait and putting up Rosalind’s.

Soldiers march into the greenhouse and Harvey and Sam smile weakly, smart enough not to try anything against six big dudes.

We learn that Andreas has been in hiding all these years because “I needed someone to raise Beatrix.”  Uh, wow Andreas is one obedient guy!  He also looks a little nutty.  I dunno, the very regal beard… it’s too much somehow.  Next to him Beatrix smiles at Riven and Dane who are I guess her loyal retainers now.

And then, infodump over… Rosalind straight up MURDERIZES Dowling!  Well first she suggests Dowling might want to run away and take some time off, but Dowling is having none of that so Rosalind kills her!  And then angry rock music plays as Dowling’s body sinks into the ground and flowers come up over her, making one more grave.

The girls return from their weekend on earth wearing the awful clothes from the trailer and discover… not the three adults they were expecting!

Well that was… something.  You got the bad ending all right!

So lemme scroll up and see how good my guesses were…

Nobody but Dowling died, so my death guesses were wrong.  And if she’s an earth fairy she might be able to heal herself under the ground or something, I mean weirder things happen in this kind of show.  Bloom did indeed doom the school by releasing Rosalind.  

We learned what I guess is the truth of Aster Dell, but... unforeshadowed blood witches?  Reeeeeally!?  That’s what you’re going with?  And we found out Burned Ones are ancient zombies created by the unforeshadowed Dragon Flame which Bloom has for some reason. You’re supposed to foreshadow the important stuff for the night’s sake!  That’s how things have weight in your story, that’s how you make the world feel real like the parts of it are connected to the other parts of it!  The lack of worldbuilding has been bugging me more and more, can you tell?

Anyway we get a season two.  I’m pleased because I’ve enjoyed plenty of aspects of Fate, but on the other hand… Fate has turned the already weird Winx fandom into a pit of radioactive rage-bees, and I won’t be sad to put that behind us!

So what about the big question?  Good, bad or irredeemable?

I expected to judge how Fate lines up as a Winx Club show, but it… just doesn’t.  At all.  None of the characters are the same, none of the worldbuilding is the same.  It’s apples to oranges.

But as just a show… I think I’d have to go with “bad.”  The way the world feels so flimsy, all the really obvious bits of Otherworldbuilding that just aren’t there until the end, or aren’t there at all.  All the Earth popular culture references.  Beatrix being stuck in a slut stereotype role.  All the drugs.  All the everyone’s lying to everyone about everything, it got really tiresome.  Those things knock the show out of the “good” category.

But there was a lot to like.  I have to say, all the actors did a really good job.  Given the semi-mess they had to work with, they gave it all they had!  Stella was so awful but put across that she’s terrible because she’s terrified.  Sky was a truly good person. Beatrix and Riven are objectively terrible people but both had moments of being so charming it was hard to hate them.  And Dowling, Silva and Harvey managed to hold up this flimsy worldbuilding and almost make it work.  The magic was flimsy but pretty and the castle and the forest are absolutely stunning.

So it’s not good, but there’s something there.  So it’s not irredeemable, though there’s a lot we have to wallpaper over with it.  I’m’a go with “Bad.  The show has charms but is in general bad.”  

At least that’s what I think after a five-hour marathon of the last episode!  We’ll see what occurs to me in days to come!

[raelly-writing]

Prompt 8: Clamour - FFXIVWrite 2020

Post 5.3 so beware of the spoilers! Speedwriting in the middle of the night seem like a poor time for Urianger dialogue but eeeeh, whims of the muse?

Clamour: a loud and persistent noise.

---

An unreasonably cold rainstorm had swept in over Mor Dhona and seemingly decided to just stay there for the day.

In short, it was a miserable experience to travel through it. The longing call of dry clothes and something warm to eat and drink made Thancred hurry his steps as he made his way from the stables to the Rising Stones.

Gods, he felt cold. Water dripped off his coat when he finally slunk in through the doors and into the comperative warmth inside. Not that it was easy to feel with the soaked through fabric hanging off his shoulders. Instantly, the familiar clamour and din of the Scions in the middle of dinnertime met him - by the sound of it, Hoary and Ocher was in the middle of retelling some story, their loud voices carrying just over the noise of everyone as they bickered over some detail or another the way siblings seemed to often do.

“Well, look what the coeurl dragged in.” Alisaie gave him a critical once-over as he approached the table where she, Alphinaud, Y’shtola, G’raha and Urianger were seated. “You look terrible.”

“Hello to you too,” Thancred drawled and eyed the barely touched stew in front of each of them. “I see I return just in time for dinner as well.”

“Did it all go well?” Alphinaud set down his mug to look up at him with that adult intensity that looked a fair bit out of place on his still young features.

Nodding, Thancred procured an envelope from his satchel from the contact he had met up with. “Everything is in there.”

Eagerly, he accepted the envelope, his dinner seemingly forgotten as he tore it open and retrieved the documents within.

Casting a glance around to the others, Thancred crossed his arms. “I take it Viana is still in Ishgard?”

“It would appear so,” Y’shtola replied before sipping on her drink.

“Busy as always,” Alisaie added with a shrug. “Probably won’t rest until she’s seen the place rebuilt brick by brick, and by then there’ll be something else to occupy her time.”

The nervous flick of one red ear caught his attention. Evidently sensing Thancred’s gaze on him, G’raha looked up with his brow furrowed and concern evident in his red eyes. “No, I met her a mere hour ago,” he replied.

Instantly, Alisaie sat up straight, brows drawn together in a frown as she fixed G’raha with a stare. “What? Where is she then?”

Suddenly the center of everyone’s attention, even Alphinaud’s, G’raha’s gaze flickered about for a moment, before looking back to Thancred. “She said she wanted to finish some reports before dinner,” he explained slowly. “I assumed she was merely caught up in it and would be down at any moment.”

“You should have said something sooner!” Alisaie exclaimed. “Gods, she's just as bad as you were at taking a break!”

Ignoring the sudden flurry of back-and-forth rebukes and retorts between Alisaie and G’raha, Thancred instinctively cast a concerned glance towards the door leading to the rest of the Rising Stones. A small ball of worry settled in his chest. Usually, Viana was quite punctual about eating with everyone else when she was able to make it back to the Rising Stones.

“Perhaps someone ought to check on her?” Y’shtola’s calm and even voice cut through the other two’s bickering and Alphinaud’s attempts to mediate.

“With the weather this foul, perhaps she hath fallen ill,” Urianger added.

A hush fell over the entire table as they all exchanged looks.

G’raha’s ears lay flat against his head, tail twitching anxiously. “She… did look a bit pale and unfocused.”

Alisaie made a frustrated sound and threw her hands up in the air. “She once fainted straight into Thancred’s arms due to a fever, after insisting that all was fine.” With a sour glance in G’raha’s direction, she crossed her arms and looked for all the world like she was barely holding herself back from bolting from her seat, her lips pressed together in a thin line. “Don’t take her estimates of her own health at face value.”

Thancred could only recall the incident all too well. The prickle of worry in his chest grew as the cold from the rain suddenly was far from his mind. Uncrossing his arms, he began making his way towards the door. “I’ll check on her,” he called back over his shoulder.

--

“Viana?”

A gentle hand on her shoulder shook her from the dark oblivion of a restless sleep. Blinking slowly, her vision swam for a moment before coming into focus. Concerned hazel eyes peered back at her from beneath thick, messy silver bangs.

“Thancred?” she rasped out. Gods, how long had she been asleep? Squinting, she tried to make out the time on the chronometer, but the light filtering in from the window sent another sharp stab of pain through her head.

Groaning, Viana quickly screwed her eyes shut and turned her face back in towards her pillow as her head throbbed as if someone was trying to hammer a spike into her forehead.

“Are you ill? Should I fetch Krile?” Thancred asked while stroking her arm, his voice soft and quiet. Bless him. The touch of his hand was cold, and sent a small shiver through her body.

“Just a headache,” she murmured. “I’ll be fine, I promise.”

She felt him grasp her hand in his, the leather of his gloves just as chilly as his fingertips, then the press of his lips against her knuckles. “The others were worried when you didn’t show up for dinner.”

Guilt tugged at her heart. “Tell them I’m sorry for making them worry,” she replied quietly. She wanted to look at him, but didn’t dare to open her eyes lest the throbbing pain in her head would just intensify. Blindly, she reached out and carefully felt for him. Wet coat fabric met her fingertips and she followed it up until she felt his damp skin, tracing the cord of his neck until she could caress his cheek. “You’re wet, love.”

“It’s still pouring down rain outside,” he replied gently, a small trace of mirth colouring his words. Through her muddled thoughts, she recognised the steady drum of the rain against her window then. Ah, right, it had been raining all day so far.

“Do you want me to leave you in peace?”

She wanted to say no, to ask him to stay, but the feeling of his wet hair brushing against her hand, and the chill of his skin made her bite the words back. Surely he was tired from his mission, and cold after riding through this weather. She’d felt frozen to the bone just from running from the aetheryte plaza after teleporting back. “You don’t have to stay,” she quietly responded.

His hand covered hers and she felt him turn his head to press a kiss to her palm. “Not what I was asking, darling.”

Swallowing, she nodded. “Then stay, please.”

The rustle of leather and cloth when he stood up felt sharper in her ears than usual. “Give me a moment then,” Thancred spoke before she felt him brush a gentle kiss to her cheek.

Viana nodded, and curled up beneath the warm covers as she silently listened as he removed his gear.

“Ah, I see this is where my shirt has disappeared off to.”

Despite the pain, Viana managed a small, sheepish smile. “Sorry. It smelled like you,” she mumbled drowsily. “Then it stopped to. Found another. Wearing it now.”

Thancred made a quiet, muffled sound that sounded very much like a rumble of approval. “It’s quite alright, my dear.”

The damp, chilly air nipped at her skin when he lifted up the covers so he could slip beneath them. Viana tried to just shuffle back, but Thancred wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer as he settled on his back. “This okay?” he whispered.

“Mhm,” she responded. Not caring that his skin was cool to the touch, she eagerly fit herself against the length of his body, tucking her face in against his neck despite the damp tips of his hair that were cold against her temple. The scent of rain clinging to him mixed with the familiar, somewhat muted notes of his cologne, leather and the residue from his gunblade cartridges.

Thancred brushed his fingers through the short hairs at the back of her head. “I forgot one thing, Viana... “

Making a quiet noise to show that she was listening, she tilted her head up towards him, but all she caught was the quiet chime of a linkpearl activating.

“Urianger?” Thancred quietly spoke into it while rubbing her back with his other hand. Realising his intent, Viana relaxed again, drifting in a half-aware state. It was only just that she could overhear the sound of Urianger responding.

“Hast ill befallen her? Does thou require mine aid?”

“No, I don’t think so, she seems to just have a severe headache that she wants to sleep off.”

“Ah. I shall convey thy words to the others once and alert mistress Krile to the situation.”

“Thank you. I’ll stay here with Viana, but could you ask F’lhammin to prepare something to eat in a couple of hours? I wager she knows something that fits the situation.”

“Of course, as thou wish. We will check on thy once the set time hast passed.”

There was another small chime as the call was disconnected, and Thancred wrapped his other arm around her once more. The warmth beneath the blankets and covers were slowly seeping into his body, chasing away the cold of the rain. It was so warm and comfortable, quiet save for the drone of the rain against the window.

“I love our friends,” Viana mumbled against the curve of Thancred’s neck. “All of them. But they can get so loud.”

His chest reverberated with a low laugh. “They can get quite lively, yes.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. “Did you get the headache in Ishgard?”

“Mrr… Sea of Clouds. Heatwave. So many people around, the constant clamouring and hammering in the Firmament.” Another spike of pain drew a miserable noise from her throat. “Behold; the mighty ‘Warrior of Light’, laid low by a headache,” she groused.

“You are only mortal,” he replied gently. Another kiss was pressed to her hair while his hands still rubbed her back and arm. “Try to go back to sleep, Viana.”

“Mmmkay,” she mumbled, already half-way there, content in his embrace.

[nightofthemeteor]

Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter 

(Also here on AO3)

The resounding CLASH of steel against steel reverberated through Madara’s bones. He grimaced, holding his ground against Hashirama’s deadly two-handed strike, but his opponent was too strong; he was forced to duck to the side to gain some space, twisting to get his blade up, panting in the smoky air.

It wasn’t so long ago that this deadly dance with Hashirama had been almost enjoyable – and not so long before that, sparring with him had been something to look forward to – and even now, Madara could appreciate this as something that at least was clean and uncomplicated. He tried to kill Hashirama; Hashirama tried to kill him. They were both made for this, both knew the steps of the dance by heart, anticipating each other in a way that was almost intimate. But now, Madara’s clan was on the brink of collapse, exhausted from fighting and looking to him for protection – and the need to protect his clan made him desperate. He knew it was evident in the way he was fighting, hard and ugly, still clawing his way through the battle with his chakra down nearly to nothing. His only comfort was that Hashirama, too, had abandoned his chakra-eating Mokuton and was reduced to meeting him strike for strike with kunai and sword.

The next exchange of blows brought them close together, close enough that Madara could see the flames of his clanmates’ jutsu reflected in Hashirama’s clear brown eyes – eyes that slid smoothly away from Madara’s. Hashirama was used to fighting against the Sharingan; he knew better than to look directly into the eyes of an Uchiha while in combat. But something was different in this battle. Maybe it was Madara’s exhaustion that made him turn away too slowly, letting the blade of Hashirama’s sword graze the outside of his wrist; maybe it was his gasp of pain that made Hashirama glance back up at his face; maybe Hashirama, too, had made the mistake of thinking of a time when their friendship had been the brightest part of their lives, forgetting himself enough to look, just for an instant, right into Madara’s eyes.

That instant was all Madara needed.

As their world spun and twisted in the red-and-black whorls of the Sharingan, Hashirama called to him, “I still have enough chakra to break a genjutsu!”

“Then I’ll make it a genjutsu you won’t want to leave,” Madara replied.

By the time he had finished speaking, he had faded completely from Hashirama’s consciousness, now existing only as an unseen observer within the genjutsu world. From the formless red vortex of the Sharingan, trees appeared, sprouting up around Hashirama almost like his Mokuton; but unlike the Mokuton, these trees were stately and neat, grown for nature and not for battle. As if reflecting the season of the real world, the genjutsu trees bore the tiny, delicate leaves of early spring. A clear blue sky melted into place above them, while below, the ground fell away abruptly – and Madara recognized this place. This was the clifftop where Hashirama had once spoken to him of a village.

Madara should have left to allow the genjutsu to play out, feeding off of the desires of Hashirama’s heart as it was designed to do, and returned to the battlefield while his adversary languished in his trap. Instead he lingered, just for a moment, curious in spite of himself…and watched as a shadowy figure began to form next to Hashirama on the clifftop. Who was it that Hashirama wanted beside him in this dream world, here in this place where Hashirama himself had once spun a dream? Madara knew the answer even before he watched his own features take shape on the clifftop.

It would have made sense to see the boy he had once been – his secret friendship with Hashirama was still one of his most cherished memories, loathe though he was to admit it, and he knew Hashirama had treasured that time as well. But in this dream world, both he and Hashirama looked like the adults they were now, standing side by side and smiling as though they weren’t bitter adversaries. The cool spring breeze stirred their hair; Hashirama reached out and caught a leaf as it blew past, held it out to his companion with a laugh. Genjutsu-Madara held the leaf up to his face, squinting through a hole in the green surface, and looked down at – yes, laid out below the cliff was the bare outline of a village, incomplete and fragile but unmistakably there. This was Hashirama’s one-time dream in its completion: Uchiha and Senju joined together in a shared village, protected by the two of them, standing sentinel on this clifftop where they could see clearly into the distance.

No, Madara realized – this wasn’t the completion of Hashirama’s dream; this was just the beginning. The two of them had never really talked about more that this, back when they had the opportunity. But if Hashirama had held onto that same dream for so long…could there be more? Against his better judgement, Madara sped up the passage of time within the genjutsu world, until the leaves on the trees looked green and full and the sun beat down mercilessly above them. Now the village below had grown, with a few more solid-looking buildings and the beginnings of a wall stretching out from the cliff. The face of the cliff had changed, as well – now face was a much more literal description. The massive carving was clearly still unfinished, its features blocky and undefined, and the top of the cliff was littered with tools and ropes.

“I think it looks pretty accurate already,” Hashirama said. “In fact, I think the sculptors might be done with it.”

“Very funny,” deadpanned genjutsu-Madara, and with a shock Madara realized: that was supposed to be his face down there. His counterpart continued, “I still have no idea how you convinced me this would be a good idea.”

“Carving your face on the mountain, or becoming leader of the village?”

“Both!”

Hashirama laughed, joyful and uninhibited, the way Madara hadn’t heard him laugh in close to a decade. “It’s all thanks to my incredible powers of persuasion, I guess,” he replied, and Madara felt numb. Hashirama wanted him to lead this imaginary village?! How did he think the Senju clan could possibly trust their worst enemy to protect them? How could Hashirama trust him?

Even within a dream world, Madara couldn’t imagine how this plan would lead to anything other than disaster. But Hashirama must have some idea of how it could work…and so, once again, Madara pushed the dream forwards into the future, making the leaves on the clifftop turn orange and brown and the ground underneath show signs of frost. The face on the cliff below was farther along now, crudely but unmistakably him, complete with a spiky mane of hair that must have been hell on the imaginary sculptors. The village hadn’t changed much from the last vision, but the wall now stretched farther through the forest, a hopeful distance away from the existing buildings.

“Madara!” Hashirama called, excitement in his voice.

There, sure enough, was Madara’s genjutsu counterpart, heading up a path in the trees along the cliff – not, Madara noted, directly up the face of the cliff the way they’d climbed it as children. That made sense: he probably wanted to avoid his own face. Those spikes looked dangerous.

Hashirama was running to meet him, arms outstretched as if to embrace him, but pulled back at the last minute, instead wrapping his arms around himself awkwardly. “Welcome back!” he said instead. That’s odd, thought Madara, but couldn’t exactly pinpoint what was off about the interaction.

“I thought I’d find you up here,” said genjutsu-Madara, smiling but still reserved – this version of himself wasn’t completely inaccurate, Madara had to admit.

“How did the talks go?” asked Hashirama.

“You’ll be pleased, I think. The Nara clan wants to join.”

“That’s fantastic!” Hashirama exclaimed, and Madara mentally corrected himself: genjutsu-Madara wasn’t accurate at all. He should be a terrible negotiator.

“How was the village while I was gone?” asked the imitation Madara.

Hashirama’s eyes shone as he answered, “We’ve been making a lot of progress with the school. I think we’ll be able to start the first students by the winter!”

“Excellent. I already have some ideas for the first few teams.”

Now this – Madara knew he was being foolish, playing around with his own genjutsu like this – but this was something he needed to see. For one final time he drew the world through time until the leaves were gone from the trees, replaced by a thin blanket of glittering snow under a sky that was blue and cold as metal. He looked around for Hashirama, expecting him to be trailing a set of young shinobi like ducklings, and instead to his disappointment found – Hashirama, alone. Had genjutsu-Madara finally abandoned his friend, as the real Madara had done so many years ago? Could reality not be kept at bay even in this world of Hashirama’s own making?

“What are you doing up here, Hashirama?” It seemed that genjutsu-Madara hadn’t cleared out after all; here he was now, appearing out of the forest like a specter. “I thought you hated the cold.”

Hashirama didn’t turn to look at him, instead looking out at the village below, now draped in snow and trailing thin lines of smoke into the sky. “I’m afraid, Madara,” he said, suddenly sounding as fragile as the tiny new village. “I couldn’t stay still down there. What if things don’t turn out the way we planned?”

Genjutsu-Madara walked over to stand at the edge of the cliff as well, and blew a tiny fireball into his hands to warm them – and then held his hands out to Hashirama, who, very cautiously, positioned his own hands so they were hovering just over genjutsu-Madara’s, soaking up the warmth. “We’ll figure it out,” said genjutsu-Madara, looking into Hashirama’s eyes; Hashirama looked back, trustingly. “Together. Isn’t that what you told me?” And he slowly raised his hands so that his palms were brushing against Hashirama’s. The sight made Madara feel inexplicably uneasy.

“Yes,” murmured Hashirama, curling his fingers against genjutsu-Madara’s. “Together.” And he leaned forward, his action mirrored by genjutsu-Madara, their hands still joined between them…and then Hashirama was kissing the illusion, gently and carefully, with his eyes closed.

The sight shocked Madara so badly that he suddenly found himself existing, standing beside Hashirama and his genjutsu-self on that cold clifftop – and just as he considered obliterating his illusory self, completely irrationally, Hashirama opened his eyes and stared right at Madara with eyes that no longer contained a shred of warmth.

“This is the real you,” said Hashirama, “Isn’t it.”

Before Madara could react, a burst of chakra erupted from Hashirama and clawed the world to shreds with hands like branches; as the genjutsu fell away, Madara felt himself thrown back by the force of Hashirama’s chakra and hit the ground hard.

He scrambled to get up, certain that he needed to defend himself from the attack that was surely coming – but when he looked for his opponent, he found Hashirama on his knees in front of him, tears streaming down his ash-stained face.

Now was the moment to attack, to end this battle decisively; instead Madara said, hoarsely, “Even now? You still hold onto that dream, even now?”

“Of course,” Hashirama replied, his voice sounding wooden. His eyes were looking somewhere in the vicinity of Madara’s chest; he wouldn’t make the mistake of looking at his eyes again. “I’ll never give up on it. Madara, I want you to know that.”

“It’s impossible!”

“You’ve seen it,” Hashirama pressed. “We could make it a reality.”

For a moment, Madara really considered it – and in that moment, he wondered what dreams he would spin in the grip of his own genjutsu. He wanted it, he had to admit that; wanted it so badly he could almost taste it. But the taste of blood in his mouth was stronger.

“It’s impossible, Hashirama,” he repeated, and finally managed to drag himself to his feet, blood dripping sluggishly from the wound on his wrist. “You’ve killed too many of my people for there to ever be peace between us.”

“Then this won’t end until one of us is dead!”

“It won’t end today,” said Madara, and disappeared in a burst of smoke.

[lady-hammerlock]

Of Masks and Concealer (Watch Dogs - Marcus x Wrench)

Summary: Marcus has a perfectly normal male name on his face, hidden beneath a liberal coat of concealer. Is it Wrench's name? He hopes it's Wrench's name. A Wrencus soulmate AU with a liberal dose of angst and fluff. 

AN: What is this? Another Watch Dogs fic from me? In truth I discovered this in my writing folder a little while back. I had completely forgotten that I had written it, but it was mostly finished, so I figured it should go out into the world. I hope you all enjoy. :)

As usual, the full story is under the cut. The only real warnings for this one are for mild violence/injuries and Wrench having really big self-esteem issues.

A MASK AND CONCEALER

Marcus Holloway had a rather unique soulbrand. The name itself wasn’t all that strange; just a perfectly ordinary male name. Any confusion that might have caused in him disappeared when he started to hit puberty, and realised that he found plenty of men just as attractive as women.

No, it was the position of the soulbrand that was weird. Plenty of people had them on their arms or legs, and he had heard of soulbrands being on people’s backs a few times. He even had a cousin whose soulbrand was on the sole of her foot. Marcus’s soulbrand however was right below his eye on his right cheek.

As a kid it hadn’t really mattered. For the first couple of years of school he had gone around with it uncovered. The writing was small enough that half the kids couldn’t even read the name of Marcus’s soulmate without getting real close to him.

Marcus soon realised that most other people kept their soulbrands covered up however; both the kids at school and the adults he knew, or at least the adults that hadn’t already met their soulmates and settled down with them. The kids at school hadn’t started to pick on Marcus for his weird soulbrand, but he definitely didn’t want them to start.

Covering up most soulbrands was easy enough. If clothing didn’t naturally cover it up then surely a pair of gloves or a scarf or whatever would do the job.

Marcus’s required a little more creativity. For a while there he went to school with a brightly coloured Band-Aid under his eye, which drew more attention that the soulbrand itself had done. When he grew a little older his Mom started to cover it with concealer. As Marcus grew older he learned how to apply the concealer himself. He’d still wear some sort of Band-Aid when going swimming or whenever the concealer was likely to rub off, but on most days he carried a little container of concealer around in his bag.

By the time he joined Dedsec he was a fucking pro at applying the stuff, which was good, because if there was ever a reason to conceal your soulmate’s identity from everyone and everything then going up against groups like the ones Dedsec regularly picked fights with was it. There was little doubt in Marcus’s mind that groups like !nvite or Blume could find some devious way to use the name of a person’s soulmate against them.

As for the soulmate himself, Marcus didn’t really give the guy much thought. Growing up there had been plenty of guys and girls in his class that had obsessed over finding their other halves. Marcus had met a couple of people who he had even thought for a moment might be the one, either based on name or the sight of a similar patch of concealer or adhesive medical strip on their face, and sure, he had been disappointed when it turned out that they weren’t the one (or in one case, really fucking relieved that they weren’t) but mostly Marcus figured that whoever his soulmate was, he would meet him when the time was right.

--

Wrench was, without a doubt, one of the coolest, most interesting people Marcus had ever met. They flirted and bonded and got excited over the same dumb shit, and bit by tiny bit, Marcus realised that he was falling in love. 

He knew that it was stupid, but he couldn’t stop himself from hoping. After all, Wrench’s face was covered, so there was a tiny chance that somewhere beneath all of those spikes and leather the name ‘Marcus’ was branded on Wrench’s cheek, the twin to Marcus’s own soulbrand.

Marcus always ended up scoffing at himself whenever he caught himself daydreaming about such things though. Sure, Wrench might be awesome and perfect and the exact sort of person that Marcus would want to have as his soulmate, but that didn’t mean shit.

For the first time in his life he actually gave a shit about the identity of his soulmate, and it was mostly because he desperately, hopelessly wished that it was Wrench.

--

Everything seemed to be going pretty well at the moment, both for Dedsec and for Marcus. Swelter Skelter had brought them all back together and they were beating Prime_Eight into the ground. Marcus was on his way back to headquarters after taking down their most recent Prime_Eight target, on a motorbike that he had ‘liberated’ from its former Prime_Eight owner.

Everything seemed to be looking up. The sun was fucking shining, the radio was playing a rock song he really liked and Wrench, as Wrench was inclined to do while Marcus was on longer trips, had rung him up to talk.

“So Marcus,” Wrench said, and Marcus could just hear the cheeky grin in his voice. “FMK with Jabba the Hut, Emperor Palpatine when he’s old and pale and wrinkly, or Chewbacca.”

Marcus tried to stifle the laughter that bubbled up in his throat, which resulted in it coming out as a gross sort of giggle snort. The two of them had been playing ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’ for a few minutes, and while the people and characters they were playing with had started out attractive enough, they had slowly devolved until they were at this stage.

“You just wanna hear me say I’d fuck or marry Chewbacca,” Marcus replied, taking over a slow moving family van in front of him as he did.

“Aw, come on M,” Wrench whined. “He’d be a really considerate lover. Just think about it; those big strong arms holding you tight, and all that soft fur…”

Marcus chuckled. Stupid conversation like this did absolutely nothing to lessen his crush on Wrench. If anything, it was stupid geeky shit like this that had made him fall in love with Wrench so quickly.

“I thought you didn’t like animals,” Marcus shot back.

Wrench let out an exaggerated gasp of shock.

“Are you calling Chewbacca an animal?” Wrench asked. “Marcus, that’s dangerous talk man. Calling a perfectly civilised and, you absolutely have to concede, attractive gentleman like Chewbacca an animal… What are we going to do with you?”

Marcus chuckled again.

“Just please don’t rip my arms off,” he laughed, before actually giving the question some thought. “Well, straight up let’s kill Jabba.”

“Diego Luna would be heartbroken Marcus,” Wrench interrupted.

Marcus chuckled, and was just about to continue when suddenly a valve in the road in front of him exploded in a burst of scalding hot steam and a shower of asphalt. The car in front of Marcus was thrown to the side of the road. Marcus turned the motorbike as quickly as he could, and just managed to steer around the explosion in time.

He steadied himself, and then looked behind him. It was only then that he spotted the pair of Prime_Eight jerks that were following just behind him in a beat up old sports car.

“Oh shit,” Marcus cursed, kicking the stolen motorbike back into gear and hoping that he could outrun the Prime_Eight members.

“Marcus!” came Wrench’s voice from the other end of the line, immediately worried. “Hey Marcus. Buddy! You okay?”

“Shit!” Marcus said, turning a corner and just making it. “I’ve got a couple of Prime_Eight bastards on my tail. Probably ain’t too happy that I blew up their place.”

“You need help?” Wrench asked.

“Nah, I got this,” Marcus said. He had dealt with plenty of worse situations before. All that he needed was to mess up the idiots behind him and then…

He motored through the next set of traffic lights, hacking into them as he did, hoping to cause a little bit of trouble for the Prime_Eight members. He heard the tell-tale screech of tires and honking of horns behind him, and glanced back to find that his trick had worked just as well as he had hoped. The Prime_Eight van had slammed into another car. There was no way that they were going to be able to chase after him now.

He hadn’t been watching where he was going though, and when he turned his attention back to the road in front of him it was too late to avoid slamming into the side of the car that had pulled out in front of him.

He hit the side of the car and went flying, skidding several metres along the road.

“Marcus?” Wrench screamed over their phone call. “Marcus!”

The breath had been completely knocked out of him. He just lay there for a while, gasping and trying to get air back into his lungs. His arms and legs hurt. He didn’t think that he had broken anything, but his knees and arms stung where the road had torn through his clothing and some of the skin beneath.

“Shit,” he cursed when he had recovered enough to push himself up on his hands and knees.

The owner of the car he had run into had taken off, and everyone else seemed too concerned about the three car pile-up at the intersection to worry about one lone and mostly uninjured motorbike rider. Marcus could faintly hear the muffled and garbled sound of Wrench on the other side of their phone call and reached out to find his phone lying on the floor nearby.

As he picked it up he could hear the other man’s voice, frantically muttering, more to himself now than to Marcus.

“Don’t worry M,” Wrench said. “You’re not too far from headquarters. I’m going to get you. Everything’s going to okay. I’m coming to get you and you’re going to be okay and I’m going to make those stupid fucking Prime_Eight assholes pay for daring to lay a finger on you. You’re going to be all right Marcus. You have to be.”

“Wrench,” Marcus called out, his voice a little quieter and scratchier than he had anticipated.

“Marcus!” Wrench cried out.

“I’m okay man,” Marcus said. “Well, I am a little torn up, but I’ll be fine.”

“No way man,” Wrench replied. “I’ve got your location and I’m almost there now. I’ll see you in a bit, okay M?”

“All right,” Marcus replied.

He glanced back at the chaos he had caused at the intersection and began, despite the protesting of his legs, to walk away from the scene. The last thing he wanted was to still be around when people started asking questions about the crash.

--

Within minutes Wrench had arrived at the scene and the two of them had found a back alley in which they could tend to Marcus’s injuries in peace.

The scrapes on Marcus’s arms and legs weren’t nearly as bad as they felt; nothing worse than a few scratches really, but Wrench worried as though there might still be a chance of Marcus bleeding out, immediately fetching water and insisting on cleaning off the dirt and gravel himself.

“It’s really nothing,” Marcus insisted, tearing off part of his own long-sleeved shirt so that Wrench could use the fabric to help clean off the wounds and soak up the excess blood. “I mean, it stings a bit, but I’ll be fine Wrench.”

Rather than rolling his eyes Wrench pretty much rolled his whole head.

“Just let me fucking take care of you all right?” he snapped.

“Yes Mom,” Marcus replied. He joked, but inside his heart felt as though it was glowing. Seeing how much Wrench cared about him made him think just for a moment that perhaps his crush on Wrench wasn’t completely hopeless after all.

Perhaps it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t soulmates. Perhaps, if they loved one another then that would be enough. God, he wished that they were soulmates. He wished it with all of his heart. He had never loved anyone like he loved Wrench. The other man’s touch was so gentle as he dabbed the wet cloth on Marcus’s arm; far gentler than a man who covered himself in spikes and took great delight in burning things to the ground had any right to be.

“Hey Marcus,” Wrench said, breaking Marcus’s reverie by reaching out to touch the hacker’s face with his thumb. “You got a little er…”

The other man’s mask changed from question marks to wide, round flashing eyes as his thumb brushed against the spot right beneath Marcus’s right eye; the spot where the name of Marcus’s soulmate sat, usually hidden away from the world.

“Oh shit,” Marcus cursed as Wrench withdrew his thumb. “I guess the make-up rubbed off during the crash.”

Marcus rubbed at his own cheek to discover that the makeup had smeared all down his face.

“Damn it,” Marcus cursed, already reaching into his bag to fetch the container of concealer that was tucked away in there along with everything else.

Marcus was a little annoyed, not entirely because Wrench had seen the name of Marcus’s soulmate. He trusted Wrench, knew that the other guy wouldn’t blab to anyone else and definitely wouldn’t have a problem with the fact that Marcus’s soulmate was a guy.

No, he was annoyed because this would, one way or another, put an end to his dream of Wrench actually being his soulmate. While neither of them said anything Marcus could always pretend that there was some chance of his dream coming true, but now that the name of Marcus’s soulmate was right there, out in the open, Wrench would undoubtedly, in one way or another, confirm that the name on Marcus’s cheek wasn’t his, and then Marcus would be forced to face the horrible, empty realisation that no matter who his soulmate was, there was no way that they could possibly measure up to Wrench.

Damn it. Everything about this sucked. Suddenly the scratches on his arms and legs felt worse, and all he wanted to do was get back to headquarters and have a stiff drink or two.

Marcus was therefore understandably surprised when Wrench let out a garbled sound that could only be described as a squeal and stepped back from Marcus and the newly revealed name on his cheek as though stung.

“That’s… er…” the masked man muttered before finally seeming to recover from his initial shock. “Am I looking at your soulbrand Marcus?”

“What else would it be?” Marcus asked.

“Yeah,” Wrench said. “Of course M. Cool.”

His mask and words were trying to convince Marcus that everything was cool, but his voice and body language was giving him away. Something was up. Perhaps Wrench just wasn’t comfortable with knowing the name of Marcus’s soulmate. It was a pretty private thing.

Or maybe Wrench is jealous, that part of Marcus that was growing increasingly difficult to ignore began to suggest. Or maybe, just maybe, he recognised his own name?

Marcus ignored those thoughts, knowing that it was infinitely more likely that the sight of Marcus’s soulbrand had just made Wrench uncomfortable, and turned his back to Wrench as he started to apply a liberal coat of concealer onto his cheek.

He waited for Wrench to say something; anything. Maybe, if he was extremely lucky then Wrench would make his dreams come true and claim Marcus as his soulmate. If not, and this seemed infinitely more likely, he could at least allow Marcus to stop hoping. Either way, he wished that Wrench would say something.

Instead the other man was still and silent, giving away absolutely nothing except a vague impression of discomfort.

Marcus sighed, twisted the lid back on the concealer and shoved it into his bag, before turning back to Wrench.

“Hey man,” he said, causing Wrench’s eyes to light up in a pair of exclamation marks, probably more of a reaction than those two simple words warranted. “Did I cover the whole thing? I mean, I’m pretty good at covering it up by now, but I don’t exactly have a mirror on me.”

“Huh?” Wrench said, as though Marcus had pulled him out of a daydream. “Yeah, er… Yeah, that’s it. You’ve covered the whole thing. Looks fine to me.”

Wrench’s eyes smiled, but it didn’t reach his voice.

-- 

Wrench was strangely quiet for a few days following that. He seemed awkward when he interacted with Marcus as well. Marcus wondered whether he should just confront the other man and ask Wrench what was bothering him.

Meanwhile, Marcus’s own mind seemed intent on annoying him. When his thoughts weren’t depressing ones about how this probably meant it was impossible for Wrench to be his soulmate they were annoying in their hopefulness. He had thought that he had put such stupidity aside after the crash, but apparently not.

What if Wrench was upset because he had seen another man’s name on Marcus’s face and was jealous? What if he had seen his own name on Marcus’s face and just didn’t know how to tell Marcus that they were soulmates?

Yeah right. If he had recognised his own name then it was more likely that he didn’t want Marcus as a soulmate at all and was still trying to work out how to tell Marcus that.

Whatever was going on it was annoying. Marcus just wanted his friend back.

So he was grateful when, after a week or so of weirdness, they got back to normal. They continued to laugh and touch and flirt as though nothing had happened.

Marcus continued to pine and to wonder, but at least he had Wrench at his side once more.

--

The FBI had Wrench. The fucking FBI had Wrench and Marcus had no idea what they were planning to do to him. No matter how much he cursed and screamed the panic wouldn’t subside.

Even when he was sitting there, watching the FBI interview Wrench through his phone camera he couldn’t think of anything except how to get Wrench out of there, and what he was going to do to the assholes that had taken him.

It was the first time that Marcus had seen the other man’s face, and he couldn’t help but notice how sad his eyes looked. It didn’t matter what he looked like though. He was Wrench, the man Marcus was in love with, and right at that moment the FBI were interrogating him and trying to turn him against Marcus and Dedsec and Marcus wanted to reach through the camera and fucking strangle them.

“Hey, what’s that beneath his eye?”

Sitara was the one to ask it. Marcus had noticed the dark smudge of course, just like he had noticed the red patch above his left eye.

“Have they been hurting him?” Josh asked.

But that wasn’t a bruise. Now that Marcus was looking at it he had a feeling he knew exactly what it was.

His stomach had been turning itself in knots already. There was almost no room in him for the shock of Wrench potentially being his soulmate after all.

“I think it’s a soulbrand,” he told the other two. “Don’t try to make it out, all right? We’ve invaded his privacy enough as it is by getting a look at his face.”

And then fucking Dusan had walked into the room, all sunshine and smiles and promises.

“What’s this?” he asked Wrench, kneeling in front of him and actually putting his hand on Wrench’s shoulder.

Wrench shrugged the other man’s touch off immediately.

“I should have known,” Dusan said as he straightened himself to his full height once more. “That explains a lot, right?”

Wrench was silent, his face turned away from Dusan. He refused to look at the other man no matter how much Dusan got in his face, or at the cameras stationed around the room.

“Does Marcus know?” Dusan asked Wrench.

“Do you know what?” Sitara asked. Marcus didn’t answer. He was too absorbed in what was happening in the interrogation room.

“He doesn’t, does he?” Dusan asked, leaning in so that Wrench was forced to look at him again. “You haven’t told him because you know it won’t matter to him. He doesn’t give a shit about you.”

Marcus wanted to reach through the cameras, tear Dusan away from Wrench and promise his fellow hacker that the other man wouldn’t go anywhere near him ever again. He was powerless to do anything though except sit there and watch.

“You know I’m right,” Dusan said to Wrench.

And then the man told Wrench that he was free to go; that he should run off and tell the rest of Dedsec, minus Marcus of course, that any of them could accept Dusan’s deal and turn on the rest of them at any time that they wished.

Surprisingly he seemed to actually let Wrench go as well, but not without first taking his mask.

Marcus wasn’t worried about any of his friends turning on them, not even for a moment. All he was worried about was Wrench, and getting the other man’s mask back and making sure that he was okay. There was barely any room left for him to worry about the soulbrand they had all seen on Wrench’s cheek.

--

It had taken a little bit of tech, a few explosions and a lot of luck, but Marcus had gotten Wrench’s mask back. It was only when he was on his way to return the mask that he started to think of the soulbrand they had all spotted on Wrench’s cheek.

It was probably Marcus’s name. Marcus realised that now. As he walked up the stairs to the meeting place he had organised with Wrench, mask clasped between his hands, he felt his heart pounding harder and faster in his chest.

Marcus knew that he was, once and for all, about to find out whether Wrench was his soulmate. There would be no maybe this time, no stupid hopes or stupider excuses.

By the time he spotted Wrench and moved to sit beside him Marcus was a nervous wreck. He thought he was doing a pretty good job of keeping it together though, all things considered.

“Hey,” Marcus gently greeted his friend, holding the mask out for Wrench to take back.

Wrench turned his head just a little, so that Marcus could see at least some of his face. Marcus took in the scruffy blonde hair, long nose and blue eyes as pale as ice, but what caught his eye more than anything else was the black letters that sat on Wrench’s right cheek, now right there where he could read them.

‘Marcus’

Wrench was staring at him, looking as though he was only two seconds away from bursting into tears. Marcus was so used to the mask, to Wrench’s usual energy and ridiculous humour. Seeing him so withdrawn and broken was breaking Marcus’s heart. He needed to say something to the other man, but Marcus had absolutely no idea what it was that he should say.

“We’re soulmates,” he ended up saying without ever planning for the words to leave his lips. “Huh.”

Wrench’s eyes were darting around the roof nervously, first looking at Marcus and then the plants around them or the pool a few metres away. He was clearly restless.

“I mean we are, right?” Marcus asked. “That name on my cheek; that’s your real… well, the name you were born with, right?”

Wrench nodded slowly a couple of times, not meeting Marcus’s eyes as he did, his eyes instead fixed on the mask that he clutched tightly in his own hands.

“Holy shit,” Marcus said, and then, as his own thoughts caught up with him. “Holy shit. I know your real name. Not that I’m gonna tell anybody. Holy shit no. I would never tell anybody if you don’t want me to. Holy shit Wrench. You’re… We’re…”

Wrench just sighed loudly, put his mask back on and then got to his feet.

“Maybe we should go somewhere a little more private?” Wrench suggested. “This conversation… I dunno. It could get messy.”

Marcus didn’t like the sound of that. Messy was not good. Messy made it sound as though at least one of them wasn’t going to be happy with how things turned out.

“Okay,” he said though, getting to his feet and then offering Wrench his hand. “That’s probably a good idea, yeah.”

–

They ended up back at Wrench’s garage. The drive back had been far tenser than Marcus had imagined it was going to be. Wrench was not just uncharacteristically quiet; he had failed to say anything at all since they had both gotten into Marcus’s car, and had remained silent until they were both safely back in the garage.

“So…” Marcus began, feeling more than a little awkward. Should he start with the FBI thing or the soulmates thing? In the end he settled on the most important thing; Wrench himself. “How you doing in there Wrench?”

“Better, now that I’ve got my mask back,” Wrench replied. “Thanks for that M.”

“No problem man,” Marcus replied, glancing over and sending a smile towards the other man. “What are friends for, right?”

Except they weren’t just friends now. They were soulmates, and that came with a whole new host of complications, right? Wrench’s eyes were sending a smiley emoji at him now though, so that was a good start.

“So er…” Marcus began, feeling rather awkward again. “We’re soulmates huh?”

--

Wrench had wondered if Marcus Holloway was his Marcus for about two whole seconds. The name was right, but as soon as he met the man he discovered there was no soulbrand under Marcus’s right eye to match his own. There was no point in wondering. He knew that. Marcus wasn’t his.

He couldn’t completely stop himself from hoping though. He liked Marcus. He really did. And even if Marcus didn’t have Wrench’s real name on his cheek that didn’t completely rule out the possibility, right? After all, Marcus could have had the soulbrand removed because of the whole hacking thing, or perhaps he was hiding it somehow. It was possible, right?

But no. Of course it wasn’t possible. The more Wrench came to know about Marcus Holloway, the more he understood that there was no way in hell that Marcus could be Wrench’s Marcus. 

It all came down to one simple, undeniable truth; Marcus Holloway was far too fucking good for Wrench. He was not only completely fucking gorgeous, he was a really cool guy; intelligent and a brilliant hacker with a sense of humour and taste in everything that worked so well with Wrench’s own. He was just so fucking amazing that he made Wrench wish that he was better person. Perhaps then, if it wasn’t for the fucking mask and his real fucking face and his everything, he might actually be worthy of Marcus’s friendship, but he would never be worthy of Marcus’s heart. He knew that, and after a few too many vodka and Red Bulls and an hour or so of sending a few smaller electrical appliances to an early grave with the help of a sledgehammer, he even came to peace with the knowledge.

He still wanted to make Marcus proud, and he vowed to do everything he could to earn the other man’s trust and friendship, but he gave up all hope of it ever leading to anything romantic.

And then there had been that stupid fucking mission with the stupid fucking motorbike crash and Wrench had been worried that Marcus was seriously hurt and he wasn’t but then he had seen the name he had been born with on Marcus’s cheek and it felt as though the entire fucking world stopped.

Marcus was amazing. Marcus was the best person that Wrench knew. He did not deserve to be saddled with a train wreck like Wrench; Wrench, who wouldn’t even tell Marcus his real name or remove his mask so that Marcus could see his own name resting on Wrench’s cheek. He hadn’t been inclined to reveal his face to Marcus before learning the truth. He had even more of a reason to cover it up now.

He knew that Marcus was both kind and polite enough that he wouldn’t deliberately be a jerk about the whole soulmate thing. No, when he discovered that fate had been shitty enough to give him a fuck-up like Wrench for a soulmate he would smile and act like he wasn’t horribly fucking disappointed, but how could he be anything but horribly fucking disappointed. Wrench didn’t want to see that; didn’t want to see Marcus’s disappointment disguised as joy; didn’t want to be the one to let Marcus know that the universe had fucked up so badly.

And then there was the stupid fucking mission with the stupid fucking FBI. Wrench had practically been forced to reveal the truth to Marcus. Wrench didn’t know what he had been expecting from Marcus; disappointment probably. He wasn’t so far in denial that he wouldn’t admit that he had been hoping for more. In those beautiful moments during which he and Marcus just clicked and Marcus made Wrench so happy that he managed to forget how much he hated himself, he began to imagine what it might be like if Marcus did accept him. He fantasized about Marcus immediately grabbing Wrench and kissing him senseless, even though Wrench knew that the odds of that actually happening were small enough as to be non-existent. Marcus just standing there and staring at Wrench and the name on his cheek in shock? That seemed par for the course; much more understandable than any fantasies of kissing or confessions of love that Wrench had allowed himself to get lost in.

Which lead them to now; Marcus standing in front of him and saying that they were soulmates, as though it was just that simple.

“You knew that we were soulmates, right?” Marcus asked. “I mean, after that accident you had to know.”

Wrench nodded slowly. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Marcus’s face. The other man was upset, and had every right to be.

“I suspected that we were,” Wrench replied. “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me man?” Marcus asked.

Wrench took a deep breath, grabbed a couple of beers and tossed one to Marcus. 

Then, very slowly and with nowhere near the amount of coherency he would have preferred, he began to tell Marcus about everything, about how he hadn’t known for sure, about how, despite knowing how stupid it was, he couldn’t stop himself from hoping, about how he hid the truth away because he didn’t want to disappoint Marcus, and Marcus stood there and listened to it all without saying a single word.

–

Marcus stared at Wrench as the other man came to the end of his tale. It had felt as though his heart had broken just that little bit more with every word that Wrench said. 

Honestly, he had been expecting Wrench to tell him that he didn’t like dudes, or that he loved Marcus, but not like that, or any one of another dozen or so reasons that ultimately lead back to the fact that Wrench had stayed quiet about being Marcus’s soulmate because he didn’t want to be with Marcus romantically.

He had not expected Wrench to be so shy, so utterly convinced about his own lack of worth. Marcus didn’t know what had happened to Wrench to make him so sure that he was unworthy of love, but Marcus swore then that he would find some way to change Wrench’s mind; to convince him that he was not only worthy, but that Marcus loved him with his whole heart, and would have even if they weren’t soulmates.

“I’m not disappointed man,” he said when it was clear that Wrench was finished.

“What?” Wrench asked, his mask quickly changing to question marks. 

“I’m not disappointed with having you as a soulmate,” Marcus explained, slowly and as clearly as he could, so there was absolutely no chance that Wrench might misunderstand him. “Hell, I’m really happy Wrench.”

The two of them were leaning against one of Wrench’s work benches, their now empty cans of beer resting just behind them. Wrench had been looking right at Marcus, but at that he turned his head and scoffed loudly.

“Not you’re not,” he said. “You wouldn’t have just stood there and stared at me as though the universe had just told you the worst possible joke in existence if you were actually happy Marcus.”

“Fuck you,” Marcus replied playfully. “Yes I am. Damn it Wrench, I was caught off guard the other night. You never said anything about maybe being my soulmate, not even after the crash, so, you know, I was surprised. It was a good surprise though; a damn good one.”

“Come on man,” Wrench muttered, a hint of what might have been self-deprecating laughter or might have been actual tears choking up his voice. “You don’t have to pretend that you’re happy for my sake. God fucking knows I wouldn’t be happy with me as a soulmate.”

“Yeah, well good thing I’m not you then,” Marcus immediately replied.

Wrench froze, even the eye-displays in his mask displaying nothing but their default crosses.

Marcus sighed, rubbed at the back of his head and wondered what it would take to actually convince Wrench that he was one of the most awesome people Marcus had ever met.

“Look Wrench,” Marcus began, hoping that he wouldn’t fuck this whole thing up before it had even really begun. “I like you man. I mean, really, really fucking like you. Hell, I think I might be in love with you.”

Wrench scoffed again in response to that.

“Hey, it’s true,” Marcus continued. “Before I found out that you were my soulmate I kind of well… I hoped that you were. After all, I couldn’t see your face, so I didn’t know for sure that you weren’t so… yeah…”

“Don’t fuck with me Marcus,” Wrench said, sighing and sounding just so fucking tired. “That’s just low, you know?”

“I ain’t fucking with you Wrench,” Marcus insisted. “I think I… No, I know that I am in love with you. I love you Wrench.”

Wrench scoffed again. This time the sound came out so broken and distorted that Marcus got the distinct impression that Wrench actually was crying behind the mask.

“Wrench?” Marcus asked, immediately moving to stand right in front of the other man. He reached out, placing one hand on either side of Wrench’s face and tilting the other man’s head up, forcing Wrench to look at his face.

“I’m not lying,” Marcus insisted. “I swear Wrench, I’ve never wanted anyone to be my soulmate more than I wanted you to be that guy, so finding out that you are? That’s like a fucking dream come true man. You hear me? I’m so damned glad you’re my soulmate.”

Another choked sound emerged from behind the mask and Marcus knew for sure that the other man was crying.

“Hey,” Marcus murmured, his fingers stroking what skin they could reach around the leather and metal of Wrench’s mask. “You okay in there?”

Wrench threw himself at Marcus then, his hands clinging to the front of Marcus’s shirt, his masked face burying into the crook of Marcus’s neck. The spikes on Wrench’s mask made it more than a little uncomfortable, but if it was what Wrench needed then Marcus would be damned before he shoved his soulmate off.

“How?” Wrench sobbed into Marcus’s neck. “How could you possibly be happy with a fuck-up like me?”

Marcus couldn’t help but chuckle at that. He wrapped his arms around Wrench’s back and held him tightly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he said, meaning it. “You’ve got the same shitty taste in movies as me, you’re one of the coolest, most unique people I’ve ever met, you’re smart, funny, just the right level of crazy and drop-dead gorgeous.”

That last comment earned him a burst of laughter from Wrench.

“How can you think that?” he asked Marcus. “You only saw me for a couple of seconds in shitty lighting Marcus.”

“Well, a couple of seconds was all I needed,” Marcus immediately fired back. “I know a good-looking guy when I see one Wrench.”

That earned him another burst of laughter.

“I think you need new glasses M,” Wrench said.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Marcus said with a shrug, to which Wrench immediately went still. “Ain’t no way that a man as hot as the one I saw would feel the need to cover his face, right?”

That was enough to have Wrench pulling back from the hug and playfully punching Marcus right in the shoulder.

“Hey, will you fucking stop already?” he pleaded. He was still for a moment, but when he turned to face Marcus again his LED eyes were smiling, which was definite progress.

“Look Marcus,” Wrench said, his voice still quiet and broken even if the crying had stopped. “I know I’m never going to be good enough for you. It’s… it’s okay really. I’ve come to terms with that already. I just… I want you to be honest with me, and… shit, this is so fucking cliché, isn’t it? We’re a regular fucking after-school special here, huh? I hope that… that you’ll still let me hang out with you and stuff.”

Marcus rolled his eyes at the other man.

“Did you not just hear me say I love you two minutes ago?” Marcus asked.

Wrench stared at him, frozen and silent once more.

“I love you,” Marcus repeated. “I’m not just saying it to make you happy or whatever you think is going on here. I love you Wrench. If you don’t want to be a couple then that’s cool. I’ll stop saying I love you and the two of us can just go back to being the best damn friends ever, no problem at all, but I ain’t backing down just because you think you don’t deserve me or whatever this bullshit is.”

Wrench still didn’t move. Marcus wished that he knew what was going on behind the other man’s mask. Was he freaking out? Was he happy or feeling shy or what? Without the LED emojis on the other man’s face and with Wrench as still as he was it was impossible to tell. 

“Hey,” Marcus said, his voice soft. The last thing he wanted to do was scare Wrench away again, but with what he was about to ask it was possible that he might. “Can I see your face again?”

The eyes of Wrench’s mask displayed two bright exclamation marks that flashed on and off. The other man’s hands formed into tightly clenched fists at his sides.

Marcus wondered whether he had pushed too far.

Then Wrench reached up to push back his own hood and start to pull off his mask. Marcus could tell that his soulmate’s hands were shaking.

“Hey Wrench, if you don’t want to…” Marcus began, reaching out to Wrench, although he had no idea what it was he actually intended to do.

“No,” Wrench said as he started to pull his mask off. “I should… I need to do this… You… you deserve to see…”

His voice had changed part way through removing the mask, immediately becoming quieter and less sure of itself as soon as it had lost the mask’s distortion.

Wrench clenched his mask in both of his hands and looked at Marcus, his pale blue eyes meeting with Marcus’s own. Marcus felt himself choking up at the sight of the other man’s face. He looked so scared, as though he was just waiting for Marcus to come to his senses and reject him.

He didn’t know why Wrench was so convinced that he was ugly. The angry red birthmark over one of his eyes might have had something to do with it. Clearly there was some sort of complex there, one that Marcus silently promised he would do everything he could to help Wrench overcome.

“Hey there gorgeous,” Marcus said, smiling over at the other man.

He reached out and cupped the side of Wrench’s face with one hand. That actually earned him a smile from Wrench, and before long the blonde man was pressing his face into Marcus’s touch and letting out a pleased sigh.

Marcus reached out with his other hand as well, his fingertips delicately tracing over Wrench’s nose and eyelids and mouth, and then finally his name, where it rested on Wrench’s right cheek, right below his eye.

“Marcus,” Wrench whispered. His voice sounded so different without the mask; so deep and smooth and shy. It was probably going to take some getting used to, but Marcus already knew that he loved it. 

“Hey,” Marcus murmured, already hovering so close to Wrench that he could feel the other man’s breath on his lips. “Can I kiss you?”

Wrench’s eyes went wide, and then he was blushing and looking away from Marcus as though just that suggestion had been enough to embarrass him.

“Yeah,” Wrench said, so quietly that Marcus almost missed it. “Okay.”

Marcus continued to cup Wrench’s face in his hands, leaned forward, and pressed his lips against Wrench’s own in a soft, gentle kiss that nevertheless had Wrench moaning and pressing against Marcus, his hands tangling in the fabric of Marcus’s shirt and pulling him closer.

They parted before the kiss could grow any deeper, both of them panting and Marcus more turned on by a simple kiss than he could ever remember being before. Wrench’s lips had been so soft and warm and perfect.

He leaned in again for another kiss which Wrench returned even more eagerly than the first, his arms moving to wrap around Marcus’s shoulder and waist and hold him close.

Before long Marcus had Wrench pinned against the workbench, the other man’s arms and eventually legs pulling him closer and refusing to let go. Their kisses grew a little deeper, a little longer, until they were full on making out like a pair of desperate and horny teens.

When they next pulled back it was only by a couple of inches. Marcus stared at the blue, heavily-lidded eyes of his soulmate and was almost blown away by the bliss and love and trust he saw in them.

“I love you,” he whispered to Wrench, because he needed to say it again otherwise he felt as though all the love bubbling up inside him would cause him to explode.

“I love you too,” Wrench whispered back. “God Marcus, I love you so much.”

Marcus couldn’t think of any way to respond to that except to kiss Wrench senseless.

--

A few days later saw Wrench feeling the happiest that he could ever remember being. Being Marcus’s soulmate turned out to be a dream come true.

They had planned to take things slow, but they had both grown so horny during their second make-out session that grinding against one another had turned into Marcus pressing their cocks together and getting them both off. They stole kisses whenever they could, and beneath Wrench’s hoodie there was a rather large red mark that Marcus had left on his neck. They had yet to spend a whole night together, but Wrench knew that it would only be a matter of time.

Their relationship as lovers had proven to be just as easy as the formation of their friendship had been. They fit together so seamlessly, like two pieces coming together to form some sort of glorious whole.

It was so beautiful and perfect and far more than Wrench had ever expected he would have. He was head over heels in love with his soulmate, and found himself wanting to be around Marcus even more than he had when they had just been friends.

So when Marcus told Wrench that something had been bothering him, Wrench was more than a little confused, especially when Marcus refused to fully explain what he was talking about and instead dragged a still very confused Wrench to a nearby tattoo parlour.

“Marcus,” Wrench began, looking at the front of the tattoo parlour with more than a little suspicion. “What the fuck are we doing here?”

“I’m getting my soulbrand tattooed over,” Marcus said, as though it was the simplest thing in the world.

For a moment Wrench felt like his heart had stopped; like his entire world had been turned upside-down by Marcus uttering just those few words.

Why? It didn’t make any sense. Marcus kept saying that he loved Wrench, and Wrench had thought that everything was going so well. Why the hell would Marcus want to do something like that?

Luckily the absolute terror that arose at the thought that he might lose Marcus’s love was banished when Marcus continued to speak.

“I’m gonna get ‘Wrench’ tattooed in its place,” Marcus said. “I mean, that’s your name now, right? And the original brand was way small anyway. The new one is gonna be much bigger.”

Suddenly Wrench was incredibly fucking glad that he was wearing his mask. Mostly because it only took a moment for Marcus’s words to really sink in before Wrench started crying.

“Damn it Marcus,” Wrench said, his voice breaking despite everything he was doing to try and hide it. “That’s so fucking stupid.”

“I don’t think so,” Marcus said. “Thought I was being pretty smart actually. This way I don’t have to keep putting fucking concealer over the thing. I can be open about being head over heels in love with you without worrying about giving away your identity. I’m yours Wrench.”

Wrench couldn’t take it. The other man was being too damned perfect. The idea was so stupid and so wonderful and so Marcus that Wrench didn’t know what to say or do. He just knew that he loved Marcus and that even if he spent the rest of his life trying he would never deserve someone as wonderful as Marcus Holloway.

Wrench threw himself at his soulmate and clung to the other man, nuzzling into his shoulder and trying to bury himself in the feeling and smell of the other man. It was a stupid thing to do considering he still had his mask on, and it was only when he pulled back that he realised he had torn a couple of holes in the woolen vest that his soulmate was wearing.

Marcus didn’t seem to mind though. He just smiled at Wrench. Wrench smiled back, both with his mouth and the mask. 

“Unless…” Marcus began, his smile faltering, and Wrench almost panicked when he realised that his soulmate was perhaps not quite as happy as Wrench had originally thought. “If you don’t want to let everyone know we’re together then that’s cool too. Ah hell. I probably should have cleared this with you before dragging you over. I just got so excited thinking about it man…”

“No, no, no,” Wrench said, squeezing Marcus in a tight hug. “This is brilliant Marcus. This is amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”

Already he was thinking whether or not he should get Marcus’s name tattooed somewhere on his body that was more visible than his face. Now that he was starting to get used to the idea that Marcus did actually love him back he wanted to shout their love from the rooftops, he wanted to tell all of Dedsec… No, fuck that; he wanted to tell all of San Francisco that he had the best fucking soulmate in the entire world.

“Stay here and hold my hand while I get it done?” Marcus asked.

“Yeah,” Wrench said, immediately grabbing Marcus’s hand and holding it tightly.

He fluttered his eyelashes, knowing that would make his mask display two less than three style love hearts at Marcus. He had a feeling he would be doing that a lot over the next few weeks… or months… hell, hopefully years. They were soulmates after all. Assuming Marcus didn’t realise what a horrible mistake he had made in accepting Wrench and ran for the hills then they would be together for the rest of their lives. That was how it worked, right?

It should have scared Wrench. It didn’t.

In fact, spending the rest of his life with Marcus sounded like absolute bliss to him.

“Totally gonna hold your hand,” Wrench continued. “This is your first tattoo, right? Don’t know if you know this M, but getting one on your face? Ooh, buddy. That’s gonna sting like a bitch. I’m here for you though babe.”

And I always will be, he added silently.

[treenahasthaal]

Hey!! I just discovered you & your blog and you are so amazing 💝💝 your writing is so good!! I was wondering if you could write something about Anakin doting on adult/teen Luke (maybe after they just met??) Idk I just really love your writing and I love the fluff so 💞💞

My apologies for taking so long to respond. I have been inundated with Asks and between work and family commitments getting time to respond has been difficult (hence the reason fic updates are slow, too).

Thank you so much for your very kind words about my fic and I’m thrilled to have been discovered. I hope I never disappoint you. 

I admit that I am not very good at fluff, I tend to bend more towards angst, but I will do what I can!  :) 

ooOOoo

Putting his arm around the boy’s shoulder Vader led him up the ramp of the waiting shuttle craft. His son appeared dazed, and he could feel tremors shiver through the slim body. 

Shock. Emotional shock.

The boy had just found his guardian’s charred bodies, had been trying to bury them by himself, and had just been told that Darth Vader was his father. Stuck out here on Tatooine did the child even know who Darth Vader was?

Another series of trembles and the boy’s...

Luke, Vader told himself, his name is Luke.

... teeth chattered. 

“Sit down,” he told the youth and he helped lower him onto the acceleration chair in the cabin. 

Luke sat, hunched over, head down, tears still running unbidden from swollen eyes dripping into his lap and Vader didn’t know if it was from grief or from the Tatooine sands that had gotten into them. It was encrusted all over; on his face, his hands, clothes and in his hair. 

 Reaching up to an overhead storage bin, Vader retrieved a med kit. Opening it he withdraw a thin emergency blanket and draped it around Luke’s shoulders. The boy grasped at it, drew it tight around himself as though the material could give him the comfort he so badly needed. 

Unsure what to do, it had been so long since he had cared for someone, so long since he had someone to care for, Vader stood in silence just looking down at his weeping child. He laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder and felt the boy stiffen. 

“I am sorry,” he intoned, the words coming out strange, strangled. It had been a long time since he had apologised to anyone. 

Luke’s head snapped up, blue, bloodshot eyes staring at the eye pieces of his father’s mask. 

Blue eyes, like his. A cleft in the chin, like him. Suns bleached blond hair, and Vader knew that it would darken as his had done once off the Force forsaken planet. 

This boy was his son! 

Vader wanted to reach out and touch that face, wanted to wipe away the sand and the tears, wanted to brush the hateful grains from his clothes. He wanted to brush aside the unruly hair to really see the boy’s features, instead he reached into the Force...

...squalling emotions, gusting anger and fear, a love that burned into terrible pain at his aunt and uncle’s deaths, a curiosity at this black giant of a man who claimed to be his father....

....but that was impossible because his father had been killed by Darth Vader... 

“I did not kill your father,” the Dark Lord told him, repeating, “I am your father.”

Another shiver, but the boy set his jaw, his eyes narrowing, and Vader felt...

... strength, a resolve and.... 

.... her! His son felt like her! 

Fury spiked in those eyes; they darkened. “My father was called Anakin Skywalker,” his voice was dry, hoarse from crying, from lack of water.  

“Yes,” Vader confirmed, “I...” He stopped. He was about to say that he was Anakin Skywalker, but that wasn’t true; he had shucked off that name in Palpatine’s office in the senate building, left the remnants of that man behind on the hot ash banks of Mustafar. 

And yet... 

“My Lord Vader!” 

The call from the hatchway drew Vader’s attention and he had to dampen down his sudden rage at the interruption. “What is it?”

The lead stormtrooper took an involuntary step backward. “We have completed the burial, my Lord.” 

Vader glanced back down at Luke, seeing the boy swallow, seeing him fight a new wave of grief. 

“Call your men,” Vader instructed. “We are returning to the ship.” 

The men trooped on board, stowed their weapons and settled on the seats around Luke, some glancing at him in curiosity.

He was loathed to leave the boy, but he had piloted the craft down and had not brought a co-pilot, so he simply nodded to Luke knowing that there were many conversations still to be had.

As he settled into the pilot’s chair and ran through the pre-flight engine start Vader felt, rather than heard, the movement behind him. He turned to find his son standing in the doorway, still wrapped in the blanket, with a water bulb in his hand. The sand, sweat and tears had been wiped from his face. 

There was a moment of silence as father and son regarded one another, then Luke held up the half empty bulb and said; “Your medic... he, uh, he thought...”

“I am glad he did,” Vader rumbled, surprised and pleased at the initiative showed by the trooper. 

“Uh,” Luke tore his eyes away from Vader’s mask and stared out of the view screen, at the sandy plains and the only home he had ever known. “I... can I sit with you,” he looked briefly at the empty co-pilot chair, shrugged awkwardly, “I... I’m a pilot, but.. I’ve never...”

Behind the mask, Vader began to smile. Perhaps it had not been the trooper who had taken the initiative; his son had courage to approach him. “You may join me,” he invited, and the brief half smile that grazed Luke’s lips lifted his heart.

Vader waited until Luke was settled and strapped in, before engaging the lifters and thrusters. The craft rose from the sands.

It was time to bring Luke home. 

ooOOoo

I hope this was okay. It reads a little rough.... 

This is a small follow on scene from my Don’t Look, Don’t See one-shots.