#This isn't even metal it's like... Glass pretending to be metal | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

luveline · 7 months ago

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𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 | 𝐣𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫

five | chapter list

Finding out you’re a princess isn’t half as intimidating as suddenly acquiring a full-time bodyguard. Especially when that bodyguard is disarmingly handsome, charming, and can’t seem to stop flirting with you.

bodyguard!james, fem!reader, implied chubby!reader, shy!reader, princess diaries au, all characters in their 20s or older, star-crossed lovers/ forbidden romance, slowburn, background wolfstar

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

James can tell you're nervous, though you hide it exceptionally well. Years of training and years before that of being the best friend to two natural born fibbers has given him a professional understanding of the ways people will pretend.

There's no need to pretend. It's your father's funeral.

James sits behind you on the pews. There are guards posted at all four entrances and exits to the church, but the level of security doesn't relax you, because it isn't why you're tensed.

He has to bite his tongue to stop from speaking. Has to cling to his own hands rather than lean forward and inquire if you're alright. He's lucky he'd been allowed to sit as close to the front of the room as he had been, and that was only after a convincing speech to the Queen herself on the dangers your first public outing may entail. He hadn't been exaggerating.

James hadn't been as succinct as he could've been, either, but no one else needs to know.

He looks around the front of the church rather than the back of your head and your tight shoulders. The room has all the furnishings one would expect of a royal funeral, garish white tapings and mammoth crystal chandeliers with their metal fixtures waxed to a burning shine. Light floods in multicolour from gargantuan stained glass windows, reds and greens and buttery orange-yellow kissing the floor, the walls, and the brown lacquered casket at the front of the room.

The proceedings had been in Genovian. James understood the majority, and he's sure Remus caught the rest. Your shoulder had started shaking somewhere between psalms, which means your arm had been shaking, and that's likely from a jigging anxious knee. You're unsettled.

James is unsurprised. There are huge cameras in several places across the room, and at times they'd been pointed at you, your cousin, your aunts and uncles, and, of course, the Queen.

Your identity has been officially broadcasted to the entire world —though thanks to now redundant members of the Royal staff, that had already been true to some extent. You are a princess in the gaze of billions, even if you do choose to give up the role as you're intending. This won’t be easy to leave behind.

Crown Princess or not, you're of royal blood, entitled to royal protection, and so. James can follow you anywhere you want to go for the foreseeable future as long as you allow him. You are just scared enough to say yes. (He hadn't exaggerated the state of things to you. No part of him wants to scare you. But he told you the truth, and he'd scared you anyhow.)

Sitting next to the Queen is the Queen mother (your great-grandmother), and beside her is your uncle, your aunt, the Princess Julianna, and then you. Julianna is clearly unhappy with your untrained decorum but won't risk talking lest she end up on the front page of the newspapers scolding her newly instated cousin.

"Might we all bow our heads for the final prayer."

You bow your head too quickly and too low. James winces and does the same. Hopefully they'll think you miseducated rather than stupid, though to many that's the same crime.

The prayer ends, and pallbearers step forward to carry the casket back out of the church to the hearse, a mixture of royals and paid actors strong enough to take the weight. The first row stands, James sticking out like a nettle among flowers, though his all black uniform isn't out of place for once.

He slots himself behind you in the procession as it begins to walk down the aisle. He can speak and get away with it due to both occupation and occasion, a melancholy orchestra plays as the King is carried home.

"Hello," he says, his face tilted near imperceptibly toward yours. "Everything okay?"

He wants to ask the same question, but better. How are you feeling? I'm sorry I can't give you an out yet.

"Okay," you say.

"You're doing so well," he says.

You relax slightly. You pass Sirius at the very back of the church, where he taps his chin, prompting you to lift your own. The photography outside of the church is respectful, but Sirius and James alike have already quizzed you on what expression to keep. You can't smile. You can't frown. You have to look heartbroken but not hysterical —being branded as an attention seeker so early would fry your reputation. The last thing you need is a smear campaign before the funeral is over. You have to look grateful to be here.

It is not an easy balance to strike.

James thinks you're doing wonderfully either way, and the point of the funeral is to respect your father now he's passed, but he'd also say it was a successful launch. You look sweet, and remarkably made up.

"Can we go home now?" you ask.

"We can. You don't have anything else on the docket."

"I don't have to go to, like, a wake?" you ask.

James shakes his head. "No. I think most of the family want to grieve in private after a spectacle like this."

"An event," Sirius corrects.

"Are you hungry?" James asks.

"Why, does Genovia have McDonald's?"

It's a credit to both James and Sirius that they manage to hide how funny they find you. "We do, but we can't take you to McDonald's. There'll be paparazzi following your car as soon as we leave the lot."

"I don't want McDonald's," you say.

"We know. I'm just asking so I can call ahead," James says.

"It's my job, really," Sirius says.

It's neither. You should've had a lady in waiting by now, a professional one to handle every aspect of your day by day, but the sudden nature of your arrival and now incoming date of your departure has left you without one. Sirius and James (and Remus, at times) have been happy to pick up the slack.

"Is it bad that I am hungry?" you ask.

James guides you away from the procession as the hearse pulls away, eager to get you in your own car sandwiched between a crowd of bodyguards. His men fall in without prompting, surrounding you on all sides. You visibly wither at the precaution.

"It's not bad. Grieving is hungry work," Sirius says.

James can't keep up with your conversation. There's suspicious movement at the barricade, the gathered supporters strangely rowdy for the occasion. He gestures with two fingers for the guards at his side to pull in tighter. Unsatisfied, he clears his throat and says, "Fall in, guys."

He doesn't need to say what he's worried about. The guards under his employ and under any branch of Palace security should have enough sense to feel the difference in the atmosphere.

"There's the Princess!" someone shouts. Hundreds of eyes find you.

"I don't wave, do I?" you ask, turning to look at James. You realise the guards have tightened ranks, a frown twisting your pretty smile down. "What's happening?"

He hates the sudden fear in your voice.

"Nothing," he says, hand hovering behind the small of your back, eyes at the crowd. There's a man standing too still to be natural. "Don't worry. What are you having for dinner?"

"That was an awful lie, you didn't even try," you complain, following his line of sight as best as you can to the crowd.

"Seriously, Princess, what are we having for dinner?" Sirius asks.

"Am I in danger?" you ask.

"No," James says firmly.

"They're protecting me," Sirius says, which would be more believable if he didn't have to shout it over someone's shoulder.

"You're not in any danger," James says, firmer still, a bite to his voice that makes Sirius wince. You stare. "You're still on camera, Princess." James is on camera. Your safety comes first, but his job is his job. Mary already berated him upon her return about his mishandling of the first airport disaster, and if James can't handle these situations, they'll find someone else to do it.

They manage to get you to your car without any incidents. James covers the roof and ushers you in, closing the door behind you. He takes the passenger seat, and your driver for the day, Munroe, starts the short journey back to Bellaverden House.

James stays sitting prim, the light of the police escorts fronting your procession gaussian blue on his hands.

"Are you okay?"

James is surprised that you're asking him, turning to meet your eyes from over his shoulder. "I'm perfectly fine. How are you, are you alright?"

You look a little seasick, hands either side of you in the empty seats. "I'm sorry if I made you mad."

It's an expression he's seen on Sirius a hundred times, uncertainty, the anxiety of not knowing if you're in trouble with someone. He does as he would with him. "I'm not mad, Princess. I have to… I have to be someone else when I'm working to make sure I perform the way I need to. I’m sorry if that feels personal, but I can assure you it's just work. Okay?" He starts professional, ends soft. "Now, are you alright?"

He keeps waiting for the reality of your situation to press upon you. Grief for a man you never knew, even anger at his inactive role in your life, but you stay quiet and cagey as a nervous cat.

"I'm fine, James."

"Are you?" James watches for it, finds the tremor in your hands that betrays you even if you don't think there's anything wrong.

"Fine," you say.

—

Two days later, you take a flight home. Private again, less than ten passengers, six of which are following you. You’d wanted to escape the royal duties and they’re practically tucked in your back pocket.

“Don’t look so scolded,” Sirius says, ineffectual as he gets comfortable beside you, a tray of biscuits in his lap.

“What?”

“James isn’t angry.”

You hide a small fluster with a swallow. “I know.”

“Well.” Sirius eats another biscuit. You honestly like him as much as you like James, though you’re starting to think he might end up being a pain in your side. He’s… opinionated. “You don’t look like you know. Can you eat something so everyone can stop worrying?”

“Sorry.”

You eat a chocolate biscuit, frown, eat a shortbread. Your stomach rumbles with a sickly lurch, but after a bit the sugar kicks in and you feel better. You peer around Sirius to spot James and Mickey pointing at different things on an iPad across the aisle. Just behind them, Remus sleeps, sitting next to Marlene. And, for reasons unbeknownst to you, Lily and Emmeline chatter in the seats just ahead.

You tried very hard to get out of being a princess, and yet you’ve been trailed back home anyways.

“You’re like Remus,” Sirius says, with surprising affection for both of you, “a bit of chocolate and the sulking stops.”

“They’re nice biscuits.”

“They’re Genovian, obviously they’re nice biscuits. You’re used to that English shite–”

“Come on,” you reprimand lightly, “have you ever had a Welsh shortbread? Get a grip.”

“I’ve had many Welsh shortbread. My Remus is very Welsh.” Sirius sinks down in his seat a little, seemingly sated by even a mention of Remus. The more you know them, the more you realise ‘my Remus’ is accurate. Sirius doesn’t even really say it with fondness or anything so saccharine, but just the addition of the word packs a punch. He’s said ‘my James’ before too, and that had been the same.

A little nibble of jealousy blossoms in your chest.

“Have you and Remus always been friends?” you ask.

Sirius tilts his head back. His nice chin points at you, his eyes lazily opened but friendly all the same. “Yes. Despite his wishes, some of the time. I was friends with James first, the day we met, but Remus shared a room so he couldn’t escape us. He was friendlier with… we had another roommate. So for a while we were natural pairs, but eventually we became a right group of messers.”

“I find it a bit difficult to make friends.”

“Me too.” He closes his eyes for a second. “If I hadn’t been forced to see them every day, I wonder if I would’ve managed it.”

You’re late for boarding school, but seeing people each day might be manageable. After all, you’ve a trapped posse of advisors with you at this very moment, destined to trail after you for what could be months.

You hope that, when they inevitably return home, they might still want to be friends.

The plane begins descending half an hour from the airport. Sirius squeezes the arm but doesn’t fuss. Then, suddenly, the landing gear is out, the seatbelt lights are on, and Sirius is encouraging you to ram the last of the biscuits in with him so he can bin the plastic tray they came in. “Go on,” he whispers, forcing the last, huge slag of caramel and chocolate in your direction, “before Marlene can see we’ve ruined dinner.”

“She’s not actually going to cook for me, is she?” you ask, frowning.

“Of course she is.”

Of course she is. You cringe through the landing, but can’t stop yourself from smiling when James makes his way to your chairs to get your bag from the overhead. You know it’s lame, but it’s just like having a boyfriend.

“Remus, will you get mine too?” you hear Sirius ask as he slinks around James’ body.

“Get your own.”

“Nice flight?” you ask James.

He smiles. “Awesome. You look better off than the last time.”

Last time you’d been exhausted, with red-rimmed eyes and a shiner. This is decidedly better, but you’re thrice as tired emotionally.

“I can’t wait to go home.”

James puts a hand behind your shoulder like he’s known you for years. “I bet you can’t,” he says.

“Will you be, uh, sleeping on my sofa again?”

He laughs and encourages you down the plane’s aisle. “Not this time, Princess. The proper arrangements have been made. I’ll miss your floral pillowcases, rest assured.”

“I’ll miss getting decked by my door.”

James’ gaze snaps to yours in shock. He pauses with his mouth just slightly open, and then a laugh jumps from him, a sunny, warm, crackly chuckle that heats your cheeks. “Yes!” he praises, giving you a poke. “I knew we’d make a comedian of you. And a dark one.”

The sheer look of joy on his face buoys you as you journey home. It was out of character, sure, but worth it to have made him laugh. You find you like the feeling of it, the pleasure, even the satisfaction of making him laugh. You’ll have to do it again.

You seem to have avoided any leaks of gossip or press, ushered by a small, tight group of security through the airport and to a jet black freelander.

James opens the back door for you. “No SUV?” you ask, climbing in.

“They’re not exactly common here, are they? This is less eye-catching.”

“Less impressive,” Sirius says, nudging you across to climb in after you.

You find yourself shuttered to the opposite side of the car as Remus gets in behind him. “Idiots,” James mutters.

“I thought we should’ve had a G-wagon,” Sirius says.

“That’s ridiculous,” Remus says.

“Or something stylish, then. A Benz.”

“This is nicer than the bus,” you say.

Sirius wrinkles his nose. “Too right.”

“So, where are we going?” you ask. You can’t work out why they’ve gotten into the same car.

“I thought we’d stay with you for a bit,” Sirius says easily.

“Why?”

You flush as you realise what you’ve said, and how bluntly it came out.

Sirius doesn’t flinch. “I was thinking you might want company. No?”

“You don’t have to–”

“No, we don’t,” Remus says, resting his weight on Sirius’ arm, “but we want to if you’re alright with it.”

You settle in your seat for the drive home, a small smile playing on your lips. It would be nice to have friends right now.

—

It turns out that time spent with the boys can get out of hand. Even James, oh so serious, begins to play into their shenanigans. Being together relaxes them, evident in their huge dopey smiles and the tactile way they go about the evening.

James was supposed to leave sometime after eight when Mickey arrived to relieve him, but he’d hunkered down with Remus on the sofa, stealing sips of his tea and attempting to push his socked feet under Remus’ thighs. “No,” he says now, giving Remus a prod, “you knocked the Genovian pear juggler clear off of his feet! And you blamed Sirius!”

“And I took the blame like a proper man,” Sirius says, tipping his head back to lay on Remus’ knees. “You’re welcome.”

“You owed me.”

A vague tenseness lines James’ shoulders, but Sirius only says, “Yes, I did.”

“He had to wash dishes for a month,” Remus says.

“I accepted my punishment. Besides, it gave me plenty of opportunity to pilfer the kitchens. We ate enough chocolate to make ourselves sick of it in a week.”

You curl up tighter in the armchair. The TV is playing quietly, an old movie flickering in muted colours, dabs of it caught on James’ arm.

He pushes his glasses further up his nose. You like them, the glasses, though he says they aren’t practical. They look good on him, bringing an extra darkness to his eyes, already a nice honey brown. All these brown eyed boys in one place isn’t good for you.

Marlene had, to your horror, come around to make you and your guests a late supper. You’d asked her how the royal kitchens would run without her and she’d asked you not to insult her workers. She’s bullied you into three plates worth and promised to be back tomorrow morning.

You’d said oh, no, please don’t, and James had reminded you that you’re going to be a princess for the rest of your life. Get used to extravagance.

And company! Sirius called.

He hasn’t moved since he got here, not even for dinner, though it’s not like you all would’ve fit around your teeny kitchen table anyhow. He picks at a plate of buttered bread and Genovian grapes, which Marlene had apparently gotten for him on special request. He has a planner in front of him, a heavy looking silver pen between lithe fingers scribbling across the pages, scratching things out, drawing big arrows as he moves dates around.

“You’re busy,” you say sympathetically.

Sirius snorts. “This is your planner, babe.”

“My what?”

“I’m trying to fit driving lessons around your classes. They’re quite random, aren’t they?” He lifts his gaze to meet your confusion. “James wants you to learn.”

“Well, I haven’t asked her yet, mate,” James says.

Sirius shrugs. “If I’m going to work it out, I need to do it now before bed.”

“What about my shifts?” you ask.

Sirius tilts his head ever so slightly to one side. “You still want to work?”

You remember the shock of the inheritance all over again. Weird to think a lump sum will have cleared in your bank account before you got home, the accruement of years spent unaware of your heritage. It will be strange to quit The Morgan —you know so many of the regulars, and you’ve spent the last two years living off of that paycheck— but the idea is a sudden warm blanket.

“I can quit?” you ask.

“Sure,” Sirius says. “If you want. You don’t have to worry about it anymore. That’s not to say you can’t work, but I can’t imagine you’ll spend what you have soon…”

You smile to yourself, guilty and so, so relieved. “You wouldn’t believe how horrible my manager is. I don’t want to be spoiled–”

All three boys roll their eyes. It’s unnerving. ��It’s not spoiled,” Remus says.

“It makes my life easier,” James says. “Besides, the Royal Family might demand it.”

“Mm, it’ll look bad if the heir keeps her pub job,” Sirius says. He scratches out a last corner of the page. “Alright, darling, listen up. You can fit in two hours of driving a day, three times a week, is that gonna be something you can do? In about two months you should have your forty five hours of practice. We can study theory twice a week. If it’s too intense we can slow down, there’s no rush, really, just James–”

“Doesn’t like the bus,” you say.

“Hates public transport,” Sirius agrees.

“It’s good for the environment,” James speaks up, leaning further and further toward the arm, sinking into your battered throw cushions, “bad for princesses.”

That awful p-word.

“Alright. That sounds perfect, Sirius. Thank you for working it all out.”

“You’re very welcome. You might not like me so much when you see how many hours I’ve given Remus.”

You put your hands between your legs. “Oh, do I still have to do all that? Even if I’m not going to...”

“Become the crown princess of Genovia and rule the country?” Remus asks. “Yes, you still have to do all that. If only the basics.”

“But why?”

“‘Cos I said so,” Remus quips, leaning forward as Sirius leans back, a scarred hand falling naturally against his sharp shoulder.

“Ooh, you’re in trouble now, Princess,” James says. “An angry Remus is formidable.”

“I’m not angry.” Remus reaches over Sirius for a grape, his nose brushing black hair.

Sirius softens from the brush of touch alone. It is an intense thing to see, not private but intimate nonetheless. They must be seeing, you decide, curling tighter again in the armchair and craving another box of biscuits. For the first time since the funeral, you aren’t feeling off centre. You just feel like you, home again, an itch to sketch in your hands battered down by fatigue. It’s been such a long day, yet you stay your leave.

“Scratch my hair?” Sirius asks.

Remus hums. “No, thank you.”

“Oh, please, Remus. Just scratch it, don’t be selfish.”

“He’s a sponge for it,” James tells you. “Couldn’t be touched when we met him, mind, but now he won’t leave you alone once you’ve said yes. If he asks you to draw shapes on his arm, save yourself and say no.”

You wouldn’t mind, you don’t think. Sirius sees it on your face and grins.

James decides to appease Sirius while Remus refuses and ushers him his way. He runs a big hand through Sirius' hair, fingers combing to the ends, and then he goes up the back of his neck, where he begins to scratch long circles. “That’s better,” Sirius says, falling back against James’ leg. “I always thought I should be a prince, you know. I like the royal treatment.”

“Didn’t get much royal treatment as a lord, did you?” Remus asks.

“You’re a lord?” you ask.

“I could’ve been. I was the heir,” Sirius says, tone taking on a dripping disdainfulness that seems tired of real emotion.

“Lord of the most Noble House of Black,” James says. “Only he ditched them. Quite dramatically.”

“Thank goodness,” Remus says.

Sirius looks at you again. Both exhausted and unaffected, like the deepest pain has passed. You can see the weariness of someone who’s spent days at a long dinner table, though now he sits slouched and cared for against your ratty sofa, and it suits him more. “My family is traditional, and I’m less so. I could never have lived the life I was supposed to. It probably would have killed me. So I left, and I was lucky enough to be taken care of by another oh so noble family.”

“The Potter’s aren’t noble,” James says quickly. “I’m not a lord or heir or anything.”

“Well, you are heir of the Potter name and riches and all,” Remus says, taking Sirius’ plate of snacks into his lap. He folds a thick piece of the bread and butter and offers it to Sirius before eating the last one.

“Yes…” James gives Remus a pointed look, which Remus ignores. “But it’s not like the Black family. You might actually meet them, one day.”

“Pray not,” Sirius says to himself.

“Hmm. The Potter’s are an older family too, but not like the Black’s. The Black’s have deep Genovian roots, my family are–” James’ cheeks take colour. “Rich, yes. Very rich.”

“But you work,” you say.

“I think I’d go mad if I couldn’t.” He must spot the look of guilt you fail to thwart. “But it’s different. To grow up completely looked after, I’ve never had to do anything I didn’t want to do.”

“That’s not what I’ve been led to believe,” Remus cuts in, laughing, meeting James’ eyes, “all that homework you needed my help with, you did that willingly?”

You laugh at James’ faked annoyance and their matching chuckles. Time that night seems to slip away, and it’s well past midnight when you fall asleep, still curled in your chair.

In the morning, you wake up in bed.

You pull a pillow over your face, cold underside to your boiling skin. How did I get here? you ask yourself, terrified of the answer.

—

Honestly, your flat isn’t the nicest. It’s clean as you can manage, but there’s damp in the bathroom and it’s rather squashed. James finds himself squinting in disgust at the door at the front of the building which still doesn’t open properly (and so can be jimmied) despite his annoyed email to the landlord where he’d cited a few chosen laws and threatened to withhold the rent, though he supposes it had no weight because James isn’t the one paying it. Still, he can’t deal with this. He has to convince you to move. A gated community might be a shout; he’d worry less if you lived among the rich and their security cameras.

But he doesn’t suppose the best course of action here is to displace you again. You like your flat, he thinks, hadn’t you told him before that you liked the quiet? Or was it the noise? It’s not like London has a reputation for peace. He’s still not sure how you ended up living in central London: he commits to ask.

James isn’t going to give up on you. He wants you to be princess, The Princess, he wants you to take your place as Queen of Genovia one day. Not because you’re the only one who can stop fucking Baron Riddle from ruling Genovia as a tyrant bastard, but because it’s your birthright. You run from something that could be so special to stay here, alone and lonely. He knows it’s harsh to think of it that way, and yet he does. And, selfishly, he wants to stay with his friends. He wants to be your friend. If the Riddle family control Genovia he can say goodbye to his job, and he can say goodbye to the life he’s made. He could make another one, of course, but he has a feeling about you.

He takes the stairs past the huge discarded mattress and a floor covered in mail to your flat. The door is propped open which he hates, but Mikkelson is inside, sitting at the kitchen table with you, drinking a polite cup of tea. Sirius leans up against a counter with his own.

“Good morning,” James says.

You’re wearing jogging bottoms, socks, and a t-shirt with a charcoal smudge on the neck. It has short, short sleeves, showcasing the lengths of your arms. James is only a boy, following the curve of one down to your hand.

You glance at your arm, then him. “Good morning?”

“Aren’t you cold?” he asks to save himself.

“It’s warm out?” you say, peering around Mickey to check the sunshine coming from the window. “It’s warm in here, at least.”

“Mickey, are you ready?” James asks.

Mickey thanks you for the tea and leaves, tired in the eyes. James slaps him on the shoulder as he goes.

Sirius stretches backwards. When he rises up, he fixes James with a cool look. “Jamie, I’ve just heard from our royal sweetness that you’ve been calling me her stylist.”

You flinch. “Uh–”

“Well,” James says, grinning as he settles against the doorframe, “it is how Lily introduced you.“

“Ah, yes, Lily Evans. Longtime frenemy. I expected it from her. I didn’t realise you were driving the narrative home in my absence.”

“Sirius, you do style her, you realise.”

“I’m a media coach!” Sirius sniffs. “And a gentleman in waiting, for the time being.”

“You’re more than a coach,” James says.

“Yes, well. I’m not a stylist. At least, that’s not my first priority. I’m miffed with you now, so steer clear of me.” Sirius says, ferrying back to the living room.

James hears the clunk of his modest briefcase being opened. You start to apologise, but he shakes his head with a grin. “Please ignore him, he’s kidding.” He traces the side of your face in the light. “Your bruise is almost gone.”

Your fingers flit to your cheek and the well of your eye. “Yeah. Yeah, it's only sore now.”

“Little yellow in the crease.” Hard to see if you’re not really looking.

“It feels like it was a really long time ago,” you say, standing from your chair with a wobble.

“You alright?” he asks.

You make for the kettle, flicking it on. “Fine. Tea, coffee?”

“Sure, I’ll have some tea. What’s Sirius doing up so early?”

“He didn’t say yet.”

You take a mug from the cupboard printed in autumn leaves. James hears a rough sound and turns to the living room on instinct, hard pressed to hold in a laugh as he watches Sirius right your knocked coffee table. James had taken Remus back to the accommodation last night while Sirius insisted he’d stay. It’s not nice to be alone, he’d said simply. When James turns back to the kitchen, you’ve placed a tea bag and a teaspoon in the mug, jug of milk waiting, jar of brown sugar cracked. “It’s gone solid,” you warn, “there’s nothing wrong with it though, I promise.”

“I only have a little. Here, I can do it. Have you eaten?”

“Yeah, we had toast. Did you?”

“Don’t worry about me,” he says.

James has said goodbye to professionalism. Not safety, not doing his job, but if what you need to be the crown princess is a friend, James will be your friend. He can do that easily. It feels a little odd after fighting it for the time you spent in Genovia, but he’s done with pretending you’re not cutesy.

“What are you going to do today?” he asks, coming up behind you, close enough to see the dark pupil of your eye and the white of the kitchen light against it.

“Um, well, Sirius is going to help me tender my resignation at the bar, and then I guess I have a driving lesson? I should probably try to catch up on my assignments, or. I don’t know, maybe I’ll drop out.” Your eyes widen slightly. “Not because I want to do nothing. I just– I can– can try again. A fresh start at a proper university.”

James holds the top of your arm. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to decide anything today. I’m sure you can take a sabbatical for your current term, Sirius can help you sort that out, just until you decide. Or you could drop out tonight and think about it all later. You have time. I didn’t think for a second it was because you want to do nothing, and even if I did, that’s not bad either.” His thumb crests a small circle, pushing up the line of your sleeve.

Your lips part for a moment before you answer, as though practising. “Thank you, James.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“I bet you don’t think so.”

James pats your shoulder gently, then reaches for the kettle as it flicks off, boiled. “Can I suggest an addendum to your calendar?”

“Sure.”

“I was thinking you could try another counselling session.”

You blink, stopped with a tea bag in hand. “Why?”

“The first one went well, didn’t it?”

“But I’m home now.”

“That doesn’t erase the last week.” Nearly two now, since you found out.

You push your mug toward his and he fills it with hot water. He follows suit and adds his own milk, stirring it together quickly. His spoon on the sides is a biting clink, clink, clink.

“Things have felt a bit staccato, haven’t they?” he asks.

You nod, toying with the handle of your mug.

“It would be nice for you to have something constant. Some stability. And we can arrange for you to have private care here, you know.”

“I have stability,” you argue unsurely. “You and Remus and Sirius, and Frank, too. Is he coming back?”

“Frank’s having some time off with his partner, but he’ll be here soon.” He laughs, pushing the body of his teabag against the side of his mug, the brown of the tea seeping into the milk in a wave. “I don’t think you can get rid of me, however hard you wanna try.”

“I wasn’t trying to get rid of you.”

James looks up. He catches your eye. Again, the dark of your pupil shines and shakes, not sure where to look, but your lip stays in a firm line like you’ve been chastened. He remembers flicking you under the chin the last time you’d looked at him like that. He could do it again, but he fears Sirius’ judgement. “I know,” he says, voice soft with his low volume. “I’m teasing.”

“Would you not?” you ask.

“So spritely today! Alright, is your tea done? Let’s go sit in the living room and make a list.”

“A list?”

“Of things you want to do,” he says, scooping the tea bag from his mug.

“I don’t know what I want to do.” You take his spoon to remove your tea bag.

You chuck it in the sink, pulling your mug to your chest. You don’t sound happy about making the list, but you follow him obligingly to the living room where Sirius is brushing his hair from his face, a list of his own coming to life on his knee.

“Not more duties for me?” you ask tentatively.

Sirius makes grabbing hands for James’ mug. James, with a sigh, lets him have it. Sirius takes a glutinous sip and doesn’t offer it back.

“I’m sorry I didn’t clear up your job status when talking to the Princess, Pads. Can we ever be friends again?” James says in defeat.

“I’ll think about it,” Sirius says, not bothering to meet James’ eyes. “And to answer your question, your sweetness, it’s not for you, don’t worry. I’m trying to make sure Remus’ medical information is being properly swapped over. It’s…” Sirius takes another sip of tea and then thankfully passes it back. “A headache. Doctors.”

“Does Remus know you’re doing that?” James asks, sitting on the empty sofa. You take the seat beside him.

“Not yet. It’s not– not like it’s not part of my job. He works for the princess, I work for the princess, I might as well make sure he’s tip top shape to do that.” Sirius gets that look James recognises for not wanting to talk about the thing he’s talking about anymore, his eyes lighting up predictably. “What’s on your agenda today?”

“I suppose we’ll be taking the Princess to the shops at some point. You needed some bits?” he asks.

You noticeably fluster but don’t answer.

“And then after that I’ll be taking her for her first driving lesson.”

Your jaw drops. “Wait, you're teaching me?”

“Well, just to begin with,” James says. He squints at you. “I’m a good driver, I’ll have you know.”

Sirius rolls his eyes.

“I am! And besides, who do I trust more than me? And you trust me, don’t you?” he asks you.

You cross your arm over your chest. “Yeah, ‘course.”

James’ grin is evident in his tone. “Good. Because after that we’ll be endeavouring into the land of self-defence.”

“What?”

“With a safety mat, don’t worry.”

You nibble your bottom lip. “Well, I wasn’t until you said that.”

#james potter #james potter x reader #james potter x fem!reader #james potter x y/n #james potter x you #james potter fic #james potter fluff #james potter blurb #james potter drabble #james potter imagine #james potter fanfic #james potter fanfiction #james potter scenario #james potter oneshot #the marauders #marauders era #marauders

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lazy-ahh · 2 months ago

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THE CROWBAR WASN'T THE WORST OF IT (WATCHING YOU FORGET HOW TO SMILE IS)

pairing arkham knight! jason todd x (vigilante) male reader

you'd recognize him anywhere—even through the armor, even through the years. the arkham knight moves like a ghost, but you know the weight of his footsteps, the hitch in his breath when he lies. and when he saves you from a bat to the skull, you do the one thing that might break you both: you pretend not to know him, the boy under the armor who still wears your old hoodie beneath his kevlar.

the night is thick with the scent of rain and blood, the alleyway slick under your boots as you drive another fist into a henchman’s jaw. his head snaps back with a wet crack, teeth scattering across the pavement like broken glass. you don’t stop—can’t stop. not when every punch is another scream silenced, another debt paid in the name of the boy you lost.

there are too many of them. twelve, maybe fifteen, all armed, all desperate. one swings a knife at your ribs—you twist, catching his wrist and snapping it backward until the bone juts white through skin. he howls, but the sound is cut short when you slam his face into the brick wall. another charges, crowbar raised; you duck, driving your elbow into his gut before kneeing him in the chin. blood sprays from his mouth as he crumples.

you’re faster, angrier, but exhaustion claws at your muscles, your breaths ragged. your knuckles are split, your ribs scream with every movement, but you don’t care. pain is just another reminder that you’re still alive when he isn’t.

a fist clips your temple—stars burst behind your eyes. you stagger, tasting copper, but lash out blindly. your fingers find a throat, squeeze until the man gurgles, his face purpling. you drop him like trash.

you don’t see the one behind you.

the glint of a bat swings toward your skull—

a gunshot rings out.

the henchman drops before the bat can connect, his body slumping like a puppet with its strings cut. your head whips toward the rooftop where the shot came from—just in time to see a shadow detach itself from the darkness. the figure moves with lethal grace, dropping down in front of you with a heavy thud that sends cracks spiderwebbing through the pavement. the dim glow of the streetlight catches on his armor, painting the edges of his helmet in flickering blue.

the arkham knight.

your body screams at you to move, to fight, but exhaustion weighs your limbs down like lead. instead, you shift into a defensive stance—not aggressive, but wary. this man just saved you, after all. you’ve heard the whispers about him. a ghost in armor. a mercenary with no master. but the way he stands, the tilt of his head, the way his weight shifts ever so slightly to the left—just like he used to.

and then he speaks.

“you’re reckless.”

his voice is distorted by the modulator, mechanical and cold, but beneath it—beneath it—there’s a cadence you’d recognize in your sleep. the way the words curl at the edges, the faintest hint of a growl that used to tease you, scold you, laugh with you.

your heart stutters.

no. no, it can’t be. god, please don't give me hope. i don't think i'll be able to recover if this isn't him-

but then he shifts again, and the scent of gunpowder and leather hits you—buried under the sharp tang of metal and sweat, but there. it’s the same smell that used to cling to his jacket when he’d sling it over your shoulders after patrol. the same smell that lingered in your apartment long after he’d left.

and his breathing—even through the helmet, you can hear it. steady. controlled. the same rhythm you used to match when you’d lie beside him under the stars, counting each inhale like a prayer.

your throat tightens.

it’s him.

you know it’s him.

the lump in your throat feels like a stone, heavy and suffocating, but you force your voice steady anyway. “thanks for the save.” the words come out quieter than you meant, almost lost in the ringing silence after the gunfire.

he doesn’t answer. just turns smoothly—too smoothly, the way only someone trained by the bat could move—and fires two more shots. the bullets hit their marks with brutal precision, dropping the last fleeing henchmen before they even make it three steps. the alley falls deathly still, the only sound the distant scream of sirens and the drip of blood from your split knuckles onto the pavement.

“you should leave,” he says, still refusing to look at you. his voice is flat, controlled, but you hear the tension underneath. like he’s holding himself back. “cops’ll be here soon.”

you don’t move. can’t. your fingers twitch at your sides, itching to grab the edge of that helmet, to rip it off and see for yourself if his eyes are still the same stormy green that used to roll at your bad jokes. but you don’t. you play the game—just like old times, when one of you was being dramatic and the other had to pretend not to notice. back when things were easy. back when he was alive.

“you’re not sticking around?” you ask, tilting your head the way you know would’ve made him smirk.

he hesitates. just a fraction of a second, but you catch it. “...not my style.”

“then why help me?”

this time, the pause stretches longer. you can practically hear him weighing his words, calculating how much to give away. when he finally speaks, his voice is quieter, the modulator struggling to hide the roughness underneath. “...you fight like you’ve got something to prove.”

you almost laugh. you have no idea.

instead, you shrug, flexing your aching fingers. “maybe i do.”

he watches you—you can feel the weight of his gaze even through the mask, familiar and intense—before jerking his chin toward the fire escape. “come on. unless you wanna explain this to gordon.”

you follow. like you always would have. like you should have. like part of you never stopped.

(´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

the rooftops hold their breath between you, the city sprawled beneath like a bleeding masterpiece—neon smears of violet and gold reflected in rain puddles, shadows stretching like fresh bruises across alleyways. he stands apart, but not far enough that you can't see how the armor clings to him, how it sculpts the familiar breadth of his shoulders, the stubborn set of his jaw even beneath the helmet. his arms are crossed, but you remember how they felt wrapped around you once, all lean muscle and warmth, and now they're corded with new strength, thicker with the weight of whatever hell he's survived. his fingers press into his own biceps hard enough to dent flesh, like he's physically holding himself back from reaching for you.

you pretend not to notice the way his chest rises just a little too fast under the plating. pretend not to trace the lines of him with your eyes, relearning what time and pain have reshaped. he's taller now, broader, a weapon honed sharp where he used to be all reckless angles and grinning bravado. but he still carries himself the same—like the world is something to be challenged, like he's bracing for impact.

"so," you begin, letting your legs swing over the drop like you're dangling over the edge of everything you've lost and everything that's just been given back. the wind claws at your clothes, impatient. "you just make a habit of saving random vigilantes?"

"you're not random." the words tear free like they've been ripped from him, raw at the edges, and his whole body goes rigid after, shoulders hiking like he can choke them back down.

your lips twist into something that might pass for a smile if it didn't feel like your chest was cracking open. "oh? you know me?"

"i know of you." each syllable is measured, careful, like he's walking a tightrope over an abyss. "you've been... active."

active. such a small word for the carnage you've carved into gotham's bones. you've painted the streets in the language of your grief—knuckles split on teeth that will never say his name, ribs bruised against pavement as you chased the ghost of a laugh you'll never hear. every fracture you've dealt, every scream you've pulled from the dark—love letters written in violence to a ghost who was never really dead.

"someone's gotta clean up the trash," you mutter, watching a distant police siren bleed red across the skyline. your fingers skim the rough edge of the rooftop, where concrete crumbles into nothing. just like the edge you've been balancing on since they handed you a closed casket and a lie.

now you know.

now you see.

the silence stretches between you, thick enough to choke on. the city's distant hum fades into nothing, until all you can hear is the ragged rhythm of your own breathing and the quiet creak of his armored gloves tightening into fists. then, barely louder than the wind—

"what made you start?"

the question lands like a punch to the ribs. you stare down at your hands, at the blood crusted in the grooves of your knuckles, at the fresh crimson welling up from split skin. each scar, each bruise—a confession written in violence.

"lost someone," you murmur, and the words taste like rotten milk.

"...who?"

you close your eyes. the image comes unbidden—wild dark hair, that stupid half-smirk, green eyes bright with mischief. you. i lost you. i lost you and it broke me.

"a friend," you force out instead, swallowing around the lump in your throat. "he was... good. too good for this fucked-up city. better than any of us deserved."

the arkham knight goes statue-still. even the subtle whir of his armor seems to freeze.

"what happened to him?"

"joker happened." the name sears your tongue, venomous and vile. your hands shake. you clench them. "he was robin. the second one. jason todd." his name—his real name—shatters between you like glass.

you hear it—the sharp, aborted inhale. see the way his fists clench so tight the armor groans in protest.

you can't stop now. the words are clawing their way up your throat like they've been waiting years to be free. "he was brave in that stupid way that made your heart stop. reckless like he had something to prove to the whole damn world." your breath hitches, the night air suddenly too thick. "stubborn as hell—once he got an idea in his head, nothing could shake it loose." the ghost of his grin flickers behind your eyelids, that infuriating, beautiful smirk that always meant trouble. a wet, broken laugh escapes you, tasting like salt and regret. "god, he pissed off all the right people. had a mouth on him that could start fights in an empty room and a laugh that could make you forgive him for it instantly."

your voice cracks like thin ice under the weight of memory. "he was my best friend. my—" the truth burns behind your teeth, everything. he was my sunrise and my last good night's sleep. the reason i breathed easier and the reason my hands won't stop shaking now. "and i didn't save him." the admission carves through you, fresh as the day they told you. "i should've been there. should've ignored the rules, should've followed him that night, should've—" your fists clench, blood welling in crescent moons where your nails meet flesh. "i should've died with him if i couldn't save him. anything would've been better than this." the words hang between you, raw and bleeding, all the things you've never said aloud finally given voice in the shadow of the boy they belong to.

the air between you shatters like thin ice underfoot, the pieces glinting dangerously in the dim light. the arkham knight jerks away as if burned, his armored shoulders curling inward like he's trying to fold himself into nothing. the weight of his name—his real name—and your confession hangs between you like a noose, and for a breathless moment, you swear you can hear his heart pounding through the armor.

"you cared about him." his voice is scraped raw, the modulator struggling to contain the tremor beneath. it's not a question—it's an accusation, a plea, a prayer.

"more than anything," you whisper, and the words taste like blood in your mouth. like the last confession of a dying man.

he doesn't move. doesn't breathe. for one terrifying second, you think he might actually crumble under the weight of it all. then, with a shuddering exhale, his hand lifts—slow, hesitant—fingers grazing the edge of his helmet like he's testing the temperature of a flame.

your lungs seize. please. please—

but he stops. his hand falls back to his side like a dead weight, fingers twitching once before curling into a fist. the silence that follows is deafening.

"he'd hate what you're doing," he grinds out, voice cracking under the strain. "the way you're—" a sharp inhale. "throwing yourself into fights like you've got nothing left to lose. he wouldn't—" the modulator glitches, betraying him. "he wouldn't want you to get hurt."

you smile, but it's a brittle thing, all sharp edges and broken promises. "yeah," you agree softly, your thumb brushing absently over a fresh cut on your knuckles. "he was always like that. protective to a fault." your eyes flick up to where his visor gleams in the low light. "guess some things never change."

the arkham knight goes statue-still. not even the subtle whir of his armor dares to break the silence. you can feel the war raging inside him—the desperate need to reach for you battling against the fear of what comes after. the distance between you has never felt so vast, even though you could reach out and touch him if you tried.

(you don't try.)

the moment stretches between you, trembling like a bowstring pulled too tight. you watch the way his armored fingers twitch—reaching, hesitating, pulling back—a dance of want and fear played out in micro-movements.

"he'd want you to be safe," he says finally, voice so low the modulator nearly swallows the words whole. the way he says it—like he's pleading, like he's begging you to understand something—makes your chest ache.

you huff a laugh, kicking a loose pebble off the roof's edge. "he'd want a lot of things." the pebble disappears into the darkness below. "world peace. better pizza. for me to stop stealing his hoodies." you don't miss the way his breath catches at that. "but we don't always get what we want, do we?"

his helmet tilts just slightly, that familiar considering angle you'd know anywhere. "you kept them." it's not a question. "his things."

"like a damn shrine," you admit, rubbing your thumb over a fresh cut on your knuckles. "his favorite mug still sits by my coffee maker. his stupid dinosaur-print socks are in my top drawer." your voice drops to a whisper. "i couldn't let go. not of any of it."

the armor creaks as he shifts his weight, that old nervous habit he never shook. "that's... fucked up." but there's no heat in it—just something painfully close to wonder.

"tell me about it." you lean back on your hands, staring up at the smog-choked stars. "you ever love someone so much it ruins you?"

the silence that follows is answer enough. when he finally speaks, his voice is raw. "he'd hate seeing you like this. all... broken."

"maybe." you turn to look at him, at the way the city lights reflect off that damned helmet. "but he's not here to see it, is he?"

the sharp intake of breath tells you that landed exactly where you meant it to. you watch his chest rise and fall too fast, watch the way his hands flex like he wants to strangle something—maybe you, maybe himself.

"you're an asshole," he grinds out, but there's no real anger behind it. just pain. just longing.

you smile, soft and sad. "yeah. he used to say that too."

the space between your hands feels charged, like the quiet before a lightning strike. you watch his gloved fingers twitch—once, twice—before they finally move. his touch is featherlight, just the barest brush of his knuckles against yours, but it sends a shockwave through your entire body. it’s him. that same hesitant, half-awkward way he’d always reached for you, like he was never quite sure he was allowed to.

your breath catches.

he pulls back like he’s been burned, the armor plating of his forearm scraping against yours as he jerks away. but the ghost of his touch lingers, burning brighter than any wound you’ve ever earned in battle.

"stay," you murmur, still staring at the space where his hand had been. the word comes out cracked, desperate in a way you haven’t let yourself sound in years.

he goes utterly still. you can hear the ragged hitch of his breath through the modulator, can see the way his shoulders tense like he’s fighting against himself.

"you don't even know who i am," he grinds out, voice scraping through the modulator like gravel over glass. it's meant to sound mocking, but the way it fractures halfway through betrays him—there's something shattered beneath that armored exterior, something raw and wounded that no amount of mechanical distortion can hide.

you smile, slow and aching, the expression pulling at the split in your lip. "you're the arkham knight," you murmur, tipping your head back to stare at the smog-choked sky. your voice is calm, too calm, like the eerie stillness before a storm. as if that title explains why his gloved fingers linger near yours, why the space between you feels charged with something electric and ancient. as if you haven't memorized the exact way he holds himself, haven't spent years dreaming of that familiar silhouette against gotham's skyline.

the silence that follows is thick enough to drown in. the city pulses below like a living thing—car horns blaring in the distance, a siren wailing its mournful song, the ever-present hum of neon signs flickering against the darkness. all of it indifferent to the way your heart pounds against your ribs, to the way your pulse jumps when his armored knee brushes against yours. accidental, maybe, but he doesn't pull away. doesn't even pretend to.

you don't either. you can't. not when this is the closest you've been to him in years, not when every fiber of your being screams to reach out and—

the night stretches on around you, heavy with unsaid words and half-remembered promises. the air tastes like rain and gunpowder and something bittersweet you can't name. not yet. but soon.

(soon.)

3k words worth of angst and AHHH MY POOR BOY JASON I'M SORRYYYYY

#lazy-ahh #dc comics #arkham knight #jason todd #male reader #arkham knight x male reader #jason todd x male reader #i literally feel so sad and heartbroken #and I WROTE THIS #what have i done #there's this tiktok edit of arkham knight jason that's just been stuck in my head #ngl that tiktok inspired me to make this #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #JASONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

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dirtyvulture · 2 months ago

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Knight Falls - Part 3

Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Wolverine!Reader

18+ only, read at your own risk (Blood, violence, torture)

Summary: Your perfect life with Natasha isn't meant to stay that way with the Red Room still looking for her.

Word count: 3030

AN: It’s been 84 years since the last update, but I truly thank everyone for their recent interest in this fic and for giving me the motivation to keep going!

Click here to refresh your memory with Part 2.

“Again? Are you sure?”

“Why not? It’s not like she has somewhere to be.”

Dr. Cornelius’s bald head leans into your peripherals. He’s wearing his signature mirrored glasses so you can see your reflection in them: the hair matted to your forehead, the sickly paleness of your skin, the dilation of fear in your pupils.

“You’re our most generous donor,” Dr. Cornelius says, patting your arm with a heavy hand. You try cringing away from his touch, but you’re bolted to the table at every joint. The things you would do to this man if you were free. “Besides, you have to pay for your upkeep somehow, right?”

You growl in response to his words. You don’t try speaking to them anymore. They’d never listen to you anyway.

In the background, metal scrapes against metal and the clanging strikes a chord of fear in your chest. It’s not easy to move your head but you still try, until you see one of the surgeons back at your side with a scalpel shining in the bright overhead lights.

“What haven’t we taken today?” Dr. Cornelius asks.

The surgeon shrugs, his expression unreadable behind a mask. You wonder if he takes enjoyment in this, or he’s just following orders. There’s a lot of each around here. All spineless cowards to you.

“How about the liver?” Dr. Cornelius suggests, pushing down on your stomach. You squirm uncomfortably, but no matter what you do, you can’t escape him. Ever since these sick psychopaths got their hands on you, they weren’t going to let you go.

“Sure.”

Before you even have a chance to register the surgeon’s response, his scalpel presses into your side until it breaks the skin. Blood rolls down to the metal slab you’re lying on. You can’t block out the pain as he saws through you, but you’ve learned to disassociate from it. If they were going to treat you like an object, you needed to pretend to be one to survive.

***********************************************************************

You come to slowly, your head pounding like someone took a sledgehammer repeatedly to your skull. Light worsens your headache so you squint while you get your bearings. You find yourself strapped tightly to a table, heavy blocks of metal encasing both of your hands. There’s even some kind of solid muzzle over your mouth, restricting your breathing.

Your first thought doesn’t go to the countless times you’ve been in this position before, it goes to the one that landed you here: Taskmaster standing over you with a gun pointed between your eyes. Your forehead throbs at the memory, but since you actually remember what happened, your healing must be functioning as normal, despite the extreme sluggishness that weighs you down. You pull aggressively at your binds, but you’re cinched tight to the table.

Panic builds inside of you.

Screaming doesn’t do anything. Neither does begging them to stop. Which is why you don’t do it anymore. You lie there like a fish, your eyes glazed over and unseeing, even though you are completely aware of everything happening to you.

Your skin tearing open. The blood pouring out of you that they don’t even try to staunch. Being ripped apart and put together more times than you can count.

The muzzle makes it impossible for you to take a full breath and the anxiety overrides your control. You hyperventilate frantically, but it’s still not enough air and the ache in your lungs starts to build. It feels like you’re drowning in fear and panic and you completely forgot how to stay calm.

You never thought you’d find yourself in this position again. You promised yourself you wouldn’t let it happen.

You squeeze your eyes shut and try moving your whole body, but your legs down to your ankle are held in place by metal restraints. A band over your chest presses down like someone’s knee in your sternum. The fear of not being in control is crushing like a weight of its own and you fight harder, until the metal starts cutting into your wrists. But you won’t stop, afraid that you might never make it out if you do.

“Y/N. Y/N!”

Your head whips around painfully against the restraint locked around your neck. Natasha is crouched a few feet away from you, blocked behind a wall of jail bars. You try to speak but your words are muffled by the muzzle.

She squeezes her arm through the bar, straining to reach you. Her fingertips barely brush your forearm, but her touch is instantly calming.

“It’s okay. I’m here,” she says, trying to be brave for the both of you, but you can smell her fear mingling with yours. There’s a cut with dried blood on her forehead, but she seems okay otherwise. At least the two of you were together. You focus on your breaths again, forcing yourself to take them slowly and as deeply as you can. Your heart rate falls and the panic begins to melt away.

Natasha has never seen you like this before. The crazed look in your eyes when you woke up, the desperation in which you tried to unsuccessfully free yourself. She knows it must be traumatizing and embarrassing for you to be in a position of helplessness. She wishes she could be closer to you, to hold you, to tell you that everything will be okay, but she’s stuck behind the bars in a cage and can barely reach you.

“I love you,” she blurts out, in case she doesn’t get a chance to say the words again. “I love you so much and I’m going to get us out of here, I promise.” You cannot speak, but you look at her with pure adoration and trust.

“I’m not sure where we are,” she says, filling the silence. “I woke up a few times before they brought us in here. But I think we’re on some kind of aircraft–”

At that moment, your surroundings jolt and Natasha falls back in her cell. You know you aren’t going anywhere with the table bolted to the floor, but the motion is jarring and worrying. Escape would be a lot more difficult if there was nowhere for you two to go.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” Natasha whimpers, curling into a ball. You can’t stand to see her like this, even more frustrated because you can’t do anything to assure her. A growl rumbles in your throat as you tug pointlessly at your arms yet again. “It should be me on that table. You warned me going after the Red Room would be dangerous, but I didn’t think it’d end like this.”

You grunt in disagreement. You had no regrets going to that Russian home with her and you wanted her to know that.

“If we get out of here,” she continues in a lower voice, “Maybe I should leave y–”

Before she can finish her sentence, the door swings open and three men walk in, Taskmaster among them. Instantly, the hairs on the back of your neck rise in warning. The shortest man struts over to Natasha’s cell, and the scent of fear that rolls off her is so strong it nearly chokes you.

“Natalia,” Dreykov greets as Natasha shrinks back to the corner of the cell. “Glad to see you back in the Red Room.” You growl to get his attention away from her. “Oh.” He slowly turns as if he completely missed you lying there. “Forgive me for not introducing myself.”

He comes to your side. He smells like cologne, sweat, and a trace of fear. It makes you feel minutely better that even though you’re strapped to a slab of metal and rendered nearly immovable, he’s still scared of you. “You may address me as General Dreykov, and I think you’re already well-acquainted with Taskmaster.”

An insult is muffled by your muzzle.

Dreykov chuckles. “We’ve been waiting a long time to get our hands on the both of you. You certainly didn’t make it easy.” He steps back as Taskmaster opens Natasha’s cell door and goes inside to grab her.

“Don’t touch me!” she screams. You yank at your restraints again; you’re not above skinning yourself if you have to. If the two of you are separated, there’s no telling what this man could do to her.

“You stay right here,” Dreykov says, as Taskmaster drags Natasha by. She tries reaching out for you again but Taskmaster pins her arms to her sides. “Dr. Morozov is happy to keep you company.”

“Natasha!” you try to scream, but it’s unintelligible.

“Y/N, I’ll come back for you, I’ll–” Taskmaster carries her out of the room, Dreykov following behind. The third man, thin and tall, dressed in surgeon’s attire, is left alone with you. While his physical presence isn’t very intimidating to you, the fact that he’s in a total position of power over you scares you the most.

“I heard you’re in possession of a substance we are very, very interested in,” Dr. Morozov says, his voice high and squeaky compared to Dreykov’s. “I told General Dreykov I had to come see you for myself.” He disappears from your vision but returns, pushing a rattling metal tray of instruments. Panic surges through you again, but you swallow the fear and try to stay calm.

“General Dreykov tasked me with removing this adamantium from your bones,” Dr. Morozov says, sounding giddy with excitement as he picks up a scalpel. “He isn’t sure if it’s even possible, and will most likely kill you in the process, but that’s a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things.” He brings the blade into your left forearm, cutting your skin from your wrist to your elbow. You snarl and struggle, but he presses the blade deeper and deeper until it clangs against metal. “Aha!”

You need an escape route now. You refuse to lay here and be picked to pieces by yet another crazed surgeon. Your breathing quickens again, but this time you’re totally in control.

“General Dreykov said you had…hmm, what was the word he used?” Dr. Morozov goes on. But your arm is already healing, so he cuts it open again and uses a clamp to hold it open. Adrenaline rushes through your veins so strongly you don’t even feel the pain for a moment, and that’s exactly what you need. Dr. Morozov is so busy studying your left arm, he doesn’t notice you tugging on your right arm.

You tense your bicep so hard it feels like it’s going to tear out of your skin. The restraints are too tight so they pinch into your skin as it bunches up at your wrist, but you keep pulling until it starts to cut through. With one last breath to ready yourself for the pain, you yank with all your strength and your skin peels off your hand.The loss of the top layer creates enough room to slip your hand through the restraint, the blood acting like a lubricant.

“Claws!” Dr. Morozov says suddenly.

If you didn’t feel so sick you would’ve laughed at the irony as you swing your right arm up and release your claws into the center of his chest. Dr. Morozov is dead before he collapses onto the floor. You tear the muzzle off your face first, then use your claws to cut through the remaining restraints. By the time you’re free, the skin on your arm and hand has healed back. You stand up, overwhelmed with nausea and pain, but it passes after you steady yourself on the table.

You check if Dr. Morozov has a security badge of some kind and find one in his pocket, stealing it for your own use and leaving the room. You’ve been dressed in a white shirt and sweatpants, now stained with your blood. You’re not sure why you feel so sick, maybe you had been drugged or were still recovering from being shot point-blank in the head. Either way, you don’t have time to sit and recover. You need to find Natasha.

Following Dreykov’s scent down the hall, you dodge around corners and climb a few flights of stairs. It’s a miracle you don’t run into anyone, but something tells you it had been specifically set up this way. You use Dr. Morozov’s badge to pass foot-thick security doors, cautious to stay on guard in case of an ambush. But you hardly have time to be concerned with your own well-being when Natasha is with Dreykov.

The thought of that slimy, vile man putting his hands on your girlfriend makes your stomach knot into a pretzel. Natasha had told you stories of what he had done to her and made other Widows do. While you could no longer be surprised by the vileness of humanity, it broke your heart to hear about the horrible things Natasha had been subjected to. Finding the Red Room would be her way of getting closure from that, but it seemed like whatever plan she had had utterly fallen apart with the surprise of Taskmaster. You have to find her before anything worse can happen to her.

Dreykov’s cologne intensifies and you trace the scent to a large door cracked slightly ajar, where his and Natasha’s voices drift out of.

“Don’t tell me to stop!” Dreykov screams, and his genuine anger causes you to pause in alarm.

“If I don’t tell you when to stop, how will you know to shut up?” Natasha responds, then the unmistakable noise of flesh against bone.

“Natasha!” you yell, going into motion once more. But before you can get through the door, a massive figure drops down from the ceiling and plants their feet against your chest, sending you flying back into a metal wall so hard it dents around your body. For a moment, you can’t even breathe and you’re certain your entire ribcage has collapsed.

Each miniscule breath you manage is like swords shoved through your lungs and you truly feel the weight of the metal on your bones as you struggle to get up. You lose track of Taskmaster until he slams onto the back of your head. Your metal skull rebounds against the floor and despite its added protection, your brain was just as vulnerable as anyone’s. Professor Xavier had warned you numerous times how much more severe brain injuries could be for you because your brain was literally cocooned in a metal shell.

You had never really believed him until now.

No thoughts pass through your mind as you teeth rattle like candy and your vision blurs like someone has taken an eraser to half of it. Taskmaster grabs you by the shoulders and hauls you back to your feet. You hate how he easily he throws you around. Very few people could make you feel like a ragdoll. The claws rip out from between your knuckles and you slash out wildly, but he drops you before you can land a fatal strike. You aren’t focused so much on actually hurting him as you are distracting him. You need to keep him at bay long enough for your brain to heal.

But you have no awareness of your surroundings, out of your environment and in an already-weakened state. The floor trembles beneath Taskmaster’s weight as he closes in on you. You swing without being able to see and feel the pull of your claws as it strikes against something, but it isn’t enough. Taskmaster’s claws stab through your back and steal your breath. You fly through the air, this time colliding with the ceiling and punching right through, landing on the floor above.

You’re so disoriented in the settling dust you don’t see Taskmaster emerge from the hole you came through, stabbing you in the leg to drag you back down. Rage overtakes the pain at the thought that this man has simply turned you into his plaything, so when you fall back through the hole, you give in to your animal instincts and attack him.

You slash and punch and kick in an unpredictable pattern because you aren’t thinking anymore. Taskmaster falls into a defensive mode and you sense hesitation as he backs away from you. Gaining some ground back lulls you into a false sense of security, and you don’t realize until it’s too late that he wasn’t hesitating. He was studying you, picking up on your style and techniques instantly to use back against you.

After a blow that scores three long gouges across his chest plate, he launches at you in a frenzy that rivals your own. You have no protection like he does, and his claws, although not made of adamantium, are still durable and sharp enough to take chunks out of you. Blood splatters the walls and you’re forced to play defensively again after he punctures your lung and cripples both your legs by slicing your hamstrings in half. You crawl away from him, refusing to beg for your life but too scared to fight him more. You’ve never fought anything like him.

Taskmaster looms over you as you shrink down, wheezing, the last fire of a fight fading in your eyes. He grabs the scruff of your neck like he would to a dog, stabbing you in the chest until blood spurts out of your mouth.

Despite that you easily outweigh the average male, he easily drags you into Dreykov’s office and kicks the door open.

Natasha is standing over Dreykov at his desk, blood dripping from her crooked nose. You wish you had the energy to break free and punch Dreykov in the face, but you barely cling onto consciousness as Taskmaster drops you like a sack of bricks.

“Y/N!” Natasha shouts.

Taskmaster pulls out a gun and presses it into the back of your head as you struggle to get up.

“Don’t,” Natasha begs.

You grit your bloody teeth, wanting to tell her that a little lead wouldn’t kill you.

“That is not for her,” Dreykov says, pointing at Taskmaster’s gun. “It’s for you.”

Before you can even blink, Taskmaster removes the gun from your head and aims it at Natasha.

BANG.

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

AN: Sorry to leave y'all on ANOTHER cliffhanger.

Click here for the final part!

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#natasha romanoff #black widow #natasha romanoff smut #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff x reader #wolverine!reader

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thecheshireprincess · 3 months ago

Text

The Game Itself

Chapter VII: Hell in a Hand Basket

A Chishiya x childhood best friend reader (Niragi's sister!) AU Series

Content Warning: Reader had an abusive childhood and is traumatized by it, said abusive father is HERE and is a motherfucker (dead dove, do not eat), dark themes, canon-typical violence, Reader shoots her pistol, an animal is killed, mentions of death and murder

A/N: I'm very serious that some parts of this chapter could be triggering for people that have a similar background as me, please interact responsibly and scroll away if you feel uncomfortable. There is a reason it took so long to get this chapter out. It's very dark.

Also important to re-emphasize that this story is AU; my characters are not intended to act as they do in canon. They are supposed to act differently because they grew up having YOU in their lives.

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Your father. Your abuser. The person who had single-handedly planted this darkness inside of you and Niragi, who had cultivated it over years to bloom and flourish. At the end of the day, no matter what Niragi had done to you last night, it was all this man's fault. This is absolutely unbelievable.

You see the confusion morph to terror all over Kuina and Usagi's faces, but make no effort to turn around and look at the man behind you. Maybe if you pretend he isn't there, he'll disappear just as soon as he had shown up. Maybe this is even just another bad dream haunting you, and you'll wake up soon still cocooned in bed. That must be it, a nightmare.

But then why could you feel the sharp prickle of the glass shattered at your feet, pressing tiny cuts into the delicate skin? The warm stickiness of your blood spills out onto the sun heated concrete, contrasting starkly with the cool metal of a gun's muzzle pressing suddenly and firmly into the nape of your neck; letting you know that this is absolutely not just a dream. The terrifying implication of this sensation has your head swimming.

Your father is at The Beach and he is armed.

Just as you begin to wish you hadn't come to the pool for a girls' day at all and had stayed with Chishiya in the room instead, you hear the loud crash of the heavy patio doors slamming open. The party that had previously been raging wildly behind you goes deathly silent and the music is cut off; a hushed tension falling over the pool party like a wet blanket. The strained environment, broken up only by brief unintelligible murmurs of the party goers, was recognizable as one of fear. There's only one person with the ability to create this kind of atmosphere just with their existence, and you're suddenly thankful he's here. You exhale a brief breath of relief, Niragi.

Your father doesn't seem to notice the change in ambience, or at the very least he doesn't care, because he doesn't move his attention or weapon from you. "Didn't you hear me, you little brat?" the gruff voice spits; rough, cracked lips pressed disgustingly right against your ear, "Is this really how you greet your Dad after so many years apart?" Your entire body wants to shiver, to react viscerally to having this man's hands on you again, to throw up what little you have in your stomach. But no, you know this game, it was the first one you'd ever learned to play. Don't react. Don't cry. Don't try to escape.

It would only make things worse for you in the long run if you did.

Your two friends are stuck staring up at you from their places perched on their lounge chairs, fruity pink martinis still clutched but long forgotten in their fingers. They are very obviously confused and conflicted, jaws clenched and eyebrows furrowed in horror. Should they interfere? Would it make things better if they could provide a distraction? Would it make them worse? Your teeth clench involuntarily, an attempt to get a handle on the body that is rapidly threatening to betray you, and shoot them a look as if to tell them to stay as far out of it as possible.

Sudden pain rips through your jaw and neck as your father's calloused fingers dig deeply into your jaw, attempting to twist your neck to look at him. You would let him snap your neck before meeting his gaze directly. "Not going to answer me, huh? So this is the kind of disrespectful bitch your brother raised then," the man snarls cruelly. That particular sentence might as well have been a shot to the heart, because you knew that Niragi had done everything, given everything for you to grow up as normally as possible. That against all odds, the two of you had turned out relatively well-adapted; at least prior to coming to Borderland, a place where your imperfections were highlighted at twenty fold. Were you a disappointment to your brother? Your eyes begin to burn and water from the intensity of your father's grasp as you wait agitatedly for Niragi to make his move - what is taking him so long to get to you?

A flash of blonde glints in the sun in your periphery, Chishiya. Relief floods each of your senses at the mere glimpse of him, a sob very nearly escaping your tightly clenched jaw. Chishiya wouldn't have hesitated for even a second to come straight to you if Niragi wasn't here to handle it, so you know the time has arrived. Your father tenses slightly behind you, but doesn't release his grip on your jaw - his fingerprints would remain tattooed on your face for a long time - nor does he lower his weapon. At long last, your brother snarls, "Get the fuck away from her. Now." Even in Borderland, you'd never heard Niragi speak in such a deep timber, voice dripping with enough venom to take down the entire Beach. Chills.

Your father only laughs, still not removing his hand from your face, no. Not lowering his weapon from the base of your skull. You don't move either, still standing and staring straight forward. Waiting - for help? Death? You don't know right now. "Niragi! If this isn't just one big, wonderful family reunion!" Ah, the fake boisterous voice. The one that he only uses when he knows he has an audience. And boy, does he ever - a primetime slot at The Beach's afternoon pool party.

Family reunion, indeed. One you'd hoped neither of you would ever be subjected to. "Get your fucking gun away from my sister's head," Niragi spits, but you can hear the slight strain in his tone. Your brother is stressed the fuck out. Terrified. You let out a shaky breath, trying not make any sudden movements. Your entire body yearns to wriggle free from his slimy grasp on you.

"You wouldn't shoot your father," the man behind you mocks your brother. Don't be so sure. Realization hits you that Niragi is likely standing behind your father much in the same way as your father is standing behind you - muzzle of his beloved rifle pressed up tight against his neck. The only thing preventing him from pulling the trigger? You standing in his line of fire.

You hear Niragi click his tongue in annoyance, "You don't fucking know me anymore, or what I'm capable of. And you aren't my father. You certainly aren't hers." You grit your teeth again, knowing Niragi is getting pissed. Your father was easily getting under his skin, and you were afraid of what he'd be able to do if that happened.

Your brother is right. The man standing behind you wasn't your father, had done nothing for you but cause pain and suffering. But Niragi going there would only open himself up as an easy target for your father to further manipulate him and his emotions. You've seen this exact scene unfold in front of you more times than you care to count, but this time there are firearms involved and a world with no laws or norms to conform to. It would all come to a head here.

Your father cackles at this, finally releasing his hold on your jaw and turning dangerously around to meet your brother's gaze. Though you desperately want to cling to Niragi like you'd done so many times previously, you bolt to the side to Chishiya instead, the broken glass from your spilled martini slicing your feet further. You don't care, can't care. The blonde grasps gently onto your upper arm, pulling you tight against his side as his eyes roam frantically over your shaking form. He lets go briefly to remove his white jacket, wrapping it cozily around you before pulling you tightly to him once more and interlacing your trembling fingers with his.

Now is a good opportunity to study your father, really seeing him for the first time in eight years. He looks old, angry lines etched permanently into his features. Noticeably, your brother now has several inches of height on him, the younger man sneering down at him as he aims his rifle steadily between the older man's twinkling eyes. "Oh, so let me get this straight. You think you're her father now, right?" You'd known that was coming, just like you knew it would stoke the fire of rage in your brother and you willed him to please, for fuck's sake, stay calm.

Because of course, Niragi was more your father than your actual father was. All four of you standing here knew that to be true, but this Niragi - his temper was too short. He couldn't handle being mocked like this without snapping.

Niragi's eyes flick briefly to take in your appearance as you stand shivering against your best friend, you can tell he's trying to assess the damage you took. You can see the wild, fearful look in his eyes, you recognize it. So many years of withstanding these moments together - how could this be happening again? You want to run to your brother in this moment, his eyes telling you that he wants that too. Instead, he looks back to your father as the older man speaks again, narrowed eyes locked in on the blonde beside you. You can almost predict exactly what's about to be said even now.

"How sweet! Chishiya, it's good to see you here too! Tell me, son of mine, if you've done such a good job as a father figure, why did she run to Chishiya and not you, hm?" You tense as your father mentions your friend, gripping more tightly to the hand that's holding yours, the man rubbing your knuckles gently with his thumb. Chishiya, stoic as ever, simply blinks at your father, giving off an air of boredom with his presence. He had never been afraid of your father, knowing that the man was just another coward underneath, just like his own father. It seemed justified that they were best friends.

Even after eight years, your father knew what he was doing - that that comment would cut Niragi like a dagger. He's breaking him down again, manipulating him just like when he was a teenager. Just like all the times before, shredding his way through layer upon layer of protective walls built up over time in just seconds. The aforementioned man doesn't take his dark gaze off your father, he doesn't falter for a second. And so, without taking his eyes off your father's cold glare, twin sets of blackened eyes staring like mirrors at one another, Niragi speaks to you, "Sweetheart, go inside."

You hear those words and feel your pulse throb sickeningly in your ears. No, no, no. Though your brother is locked in on his target, you shake your head rapidly, pleading. "No," you mumble, trying everything to not cry like a baby. You don't want to go inside. Because you know that even this NIragi wouldn't kill your father in front of you, not with you standing just two feet away.

And you can't let Niragi do this. It will be his final plunge into the abyss if he does.

"Chishiya," the man warns in an authoritative voice, eyes still frozen in a standoff against your father. You try in vain to yank yourself away from Chishiya, knowing he is about to heed your brother's silent request. Get her out of here. By force if you have to.

"I'm sorry, baby," Chishiya whispers to you, warm hands gripping forcefully onto your wrists. You try urgently to shake him off of you, for once in your life wishing to evade his touch. The man barely reacts, pulling you with him inside as you try to squirm and kick away from him.

"Niragi! Don't. Please don't do it, it will ruin you! He's not worth it!" You shriek at the top of your lungs, now almost across the pool deck as your entourage follows you and Chishiya back into the hotel. "You're still a good person, Niragi. Don't let him take that from you, please!" you sobbed, pleading with your brother. If the citizens of The Beach hadn't been looking, they definitely were now. It doesn't get much more entertaining than this in Borderland.

Entering again through the double doors, you begin clawing frantically at the metal doorframe, trying to gain purchase to pull yourself away from your friend and back to the pool deck before something stupid can happen. From behind you, Kuina grabs at your hands, giving them a reassuring squeeze in a feeble attempt to appease you. It doesn't escape your notice that she is helping Chishiya wrangle you, and you only get more aggravated at the people around you. Why is everyone against you?

If they're going to fight you, then you're going to give them a run for their money. You halt forward movement, dropping your body to the floor at Chishiya's feet. Your form crumples down and you forcefully yank your arms from the two that had a hold on you, acting much like a petulant child that didn't want to go take a nap. You don't care, these people are pissing you off.

"Really, Koko? You think I'm not just going to pick you up?" the blonde asks in slightly frustrated disbelief. "Of course you will, but I don't have to make it easy for you," you spit back, starting to tire of Chishiya's blind loyalty to your brother. He is supposed to be your best friend, not Niragi's; it isn't fair that he's constantly working against you.

This is the second time in as many days that you've been dragged by your best friend through these exact doors in tears. This realization strikes a chord of vexation in you - you are tired of being told what to do. Tired of Chishiya enforcing what you're being told to do. Tired of crying. Tired of feeling and looking weak. When was enough going to be enough?

Chishiya huffs a short breath out through his nose, scooping you up into his arms as though you weighed nothing and sending a pointed look as if to say "barely an inconvenience". You roll your eyes, arms crossed over your body as your friend carries you to the elevator.

"You're getting blood everywhere anyway, hopefully you won't need stitches in your feet," the blonde points out, reminding you that you had been injured at the pool. A simple hum is the only response you deem necessary at this point, the elevator dinging cheerfully to let you know you'd arrived at your floor.

Arisu catches up with your group as you walk the hallway to your shared room with Chishiya. "Hey! What's going on?" he asks, eyes as wide as saucers as he takes in the scene around your flustered group. Usagi pulls him aside, the couple falling back behind the rest of you as you enter through your designated door.

"Kuina, get me the first aid kit from the bathroom," Chishiya demands roughly, setting you down on the edge of your bed and kneeling to inspect your glass cut feet. You'd barely registered the pain up until now, but the sharp sting was becoming more apparent as your adrenaline wore off. Your friend clicks his tongue as he studies the damage, taking the first aid kit from Kuina when she returns.

"I have to remove the splinters of glass, it might hurt a little bit, okay?" your friend asks you, ever the forthright caregiver. He will be a great pediatric surgeon one day. Kuina sits down on the bed next to you and takes your hand in hers carefully. You nod in understanding, gratefully accepting Kuina's warm and comforting touch. Your eyes fill with tears as Chishiya plucks tiny slivers of glass from your skin, a couple of the deeper ones making you jolt in discomfort.

Chishiya rubs your calf gently, soothingly, "I know, almost done." His eyes narrow as he pulls a few more small splinters from each foot before placing the metal tweezers down and looking up to check on you. Your sorrowful eyes meet his from behind wettened eyelashes, the devastated look on your face causing his stomach to sink. This was turning out to be yet another completely impossible day.

"This will be the worst part, angel," he whispers remorsefully, holding up the blue bottle of antiseptic. Exhaling a shaky breath to settle your overactive nerves, you nod once as confirmation to your friend to get it over with before laying your head on Kuina's shoulder for support. The initial throb of the antiseptic doing its job tears through your senses, causing you to sharply suck air in through your teeth in response. As Chishiya gently works the gauze over your cuts, the pain gives way to more of a dull, manageable ache. Before you know it, your feet are wrapped up and you're like brand new again. Just as you'd said, he'd be amazing at his job one day.

Arisu and Usagi hesitantly enter the room then, carting along a plethora of snacks and drinks. You smile an encouraging smile at them, grateful for the distraction and the treats. Everyone settles in around the room, Arisu and Usagi perched nervously on the couch, Kuina lounging happily on your bed beside you, and Chishiya still on the floor at your feet with an indescernible look plastered on his face.

Your friends quietly munch on their chosen snacks, no one discussing the tangible tension that hung thickly in the air as you expertly avoided the elephant in the room. Time ticked by slowly, as if you were all trapped in quick sand, attempting to move forward but ultimately being forced backwards over and over again. That is, until Kuina had enough. The woman sits up to look at you now, eyes filled with concern and a slight curiosity. "What happened out there?" she asks quietly. Eyes dropping to the chips you held in your lap, your fingers crinkle the material as you chew on your lip trying to decide what to say.

Chishiya studies your reaction for a brief moment before abruptly standing up, untouched biscuits falling to the floor. The man deadpans with arms crossed over his chest, "Okay, get out." All four of you look up at him in surprise, eyes widened and confused. Your eyes narrow as you realize your friend is trying to protect you, but you're getting tired of being protected without having asked for it in the first place. You jump to your bandaged feet now too, meeting Chishiya's gaze with intensity.

"No, Chishiya. They're my friends and I want them to stay," you demand, voice suddenly authoritative and measured. Something is shifting within you; no longer trying to be quietly subservient to everything being thrown at you. The man's eyebrows knit together in surprise, but he backs down and goes to sit in the plush armchair in the corner of the room; likely deeming this an unnecessary argument.

You turn to look at Kuina, prepared now to give her at least something, "That was Niragi and I's father, if you can even call him that. He's wanted to kill me my entire life, and I guess it will be possible for him now, here." You pause for a brief moment, considering the circumstances. "That is, unless Niragi has already killed him. And then we have an entirely different problem on our hands. Either way, the outcome is not good," you elaborate, head swimming with the possibilities. You despise this feeling, as though the four people in the room were staring at you in sympathy. It made your skin crawl with rage.

Sucking in a ragged breath, you storm toward the bathroom to study your appearance in the mirror. Your puffy red-rimmed eyes fall immediately to the five angry welts appearing already along your jawline.

You would look at yourself in sympathy too, you look like shit.

♤ ♡ ◇ ♧

You don't know how much time has passed since you locked yourself in the bathroom away from the others in unfounded fury and embarassment, but you can tell by the way the orange-toned light streams in through the tiny crescent window that the sun is beginning to set in the sky. Shoulders slumped against the door, you try to come to terms with having lost your brother fully to his darkness.

Sure he was bad before. And sure you had truly seen your father in Niragi last night during the pool incident. You had thought then that there was no hope for his redemption, but your judgement had been clouded by your trauma. Because you saw something else in him earlier, in the way his eyes studied you just like every other time he had in the past. Fear. For you. That flicker of softness gave you hope that the real Niragi was still in there, still within reach; but not if he did what he was supposed to be out there doing. If he killed your father, you knew it would pull him too deep into the abyss - drowning him. That would be the end. You allow your head to fall tiredly against the door, this game was becoming far too complicated, even for you.

The door to your room clicks open and Niragi slips in quickly and discreetly, already talking to who he believes is just Chishiya in the room. "Well things are well and truly going to hell in a hand basket -" he trails off having noticed the three additional people in the room. Your brother slaps a hand over his face and groans in irritation before giving everyone a once over, "And getting worse by the minute." His eyes meet Chishiya's, icily staring back at him, "You trust these people?"

Chishiya chews the inside of his cheek in consideration of Niragi's question. "She does," he affirms, motioning towards the locked bathroom door. Niragi nods once, eyes flicking briefly towards the white wooden barricade blocking you from his view. "And you?" Niragi presses, jutting his chin towards the blonde. This time Chishiya answers instantly, "I trust her." Niragi nods again in acceptance, deciding he has no extra energy to try to kick your friends out of the room, especially given that these particular friends have a lot of fight in them. He carefully places his rifle down near the doorway to the room knowing full well that you wouldn't be wanting to see a gun for a long while after this afternoon's escapades.

Your brother crosses the room languidly to the closed bathroom door, rapping his knuckles gently against it. The man knew you were very likely leaning up against it on the other side; one of your natural defense mechanisms after dealing with something particularly challenging.

"Please come out, Koko," he implores, his gentle tone another rare glimpse at the brother you've always known. When you answer his plea with silence, he sighs and slides down the door on his side, postioning himself so you're leaning back to back with the door stood between you.

Niragi chews the inside of his cheek for a moment, weighing his options. He had to talk to you, that much was obvious. The man had not expected Chishiya to allow your friends to stay, but obviously you had had your say in things and getting rid of them would only make things worse. He finally speaks again, despite having an unwanted audience present. "We've had a lot of hard conversations this way, haven't we?" he asks you with a small smile of nostalgia, earning a half-hearted hum from deep in your chest. The man runs his fingers through his wind blown hair before sighing, "I didn't do it, sweetheart. He's still alive, unfortunately." Unbeknownst to you, Niragi and Chishiya exchange a severe look at this piece of news, though somehow it is music to your ears.

You sniffle a little bit, not realizing that you were crying again. Always crying. "You didn't?" you question, surprised. You had been convinced by the look in his eyes before you were dragged away that he would easily pull the trigger with no remorse. You wouldn't even blame him, the older man deserved it; he really did. You just didn't want to lose your brother too.

"No, I didn't. But make no mistake, I wanted to. I still do," he admits, laying his head back against the door, mirroring your position. "I've worried about your safety before, many times. But never have I been more afraid than I was today. Seeing him hold a gun to you? You have no idea how sick and powerless I felt. He deserves to die."

You crack the door open slightly at your brother's vulnerability, catching everyone's attention. Niragi backs away from the door, moving to lean instead against the wall to ceiling windows to the right of the bathroom. After a moment of silent consideration, you walk quietly out of your hiding place to study your brother. Kneeling in front of him, your tired eyes search his. Once you've found him - your actual brother - you collapse into him, wrapping your arms tight around his midsection to finally receive the comfort you've been yearning for since arriving in Borderland.

You don't care that you have an audience, or that this could shatter his previously intimidating and powerful reputation at The Beach. If Niragi does, he doesn't show it; holding your head to his chest and running his fingers through your hair. Eventually you look up at him, and his thumb comes to your jaw gently, eyebrows furrowing and eyes set ablaze.

"He hurt you," the man observes, anger obviously pooling inside of him once again. You stick your tongue in your cheek as you process the hypocrisy of his statement. With your mouth pressed in a flat line, unimpressed, you state, "So did you." Holding your arm up for him to see the imprints of his own fingers standing out starkly against your smooth skin.

He studies the bruises on your arm, the ones that he put there. You watch as several conflicting emotions flicker through his eyes; realization, pain, regret, sorrow. His thumb rubs over them gently, nodding. "I know, I really fucked up yesterday," the man laments, "I'm so sorry for hurting you." You believe that he's sorry, but you're not sure you're ready to forgive him just yet. Instead of saying anything, you rest your head back down against him as you both decompress, truly allowing the weight of your new reality to fall on top of you.

Your father is still at The Beach, and he is armed. What are you going to do about it?

After a long few moments of silence, Niragi finally speaks to you again. "You're going to move into my room," he says firmly, leaving no space for discussion or bickering. He looks up to Chishiya, "Both of you. It's the only way I know you'll be safe." Chishiya chews his cheek in irritation, but ultimately nods in agreement; standing from his place in the corner of the room and beginning to gather the things he knew you would want with you.

It isn't long before you're following Chishiya down a darker corridor, two floors up from the room you were used to. The men are hauling your bags filled to the brim with junk necessities as you waltz along enjoying the journey wrapped in your mother's blanket. Niragi huffs as he readjusts his grip on what he's carrying, "Just how is it that you ended up in a wasteland version of Tokyo and you've already collected so much junk?" You grin proudly, "You know I like to be comfortable. I just like pretty things!" The corners of Chishiya's lips tilt up as he tries to keep himself from laughing. Cute.

"Like a fucking seagull, I tell you," Niragi mutters, also trying in vain to conceal a fond smile. You continue walking behind Chishiya until the man stops at the door on the end, eyeing you expectantly to open it. You tilt your head in confusion at the man, eyes narrowing, "You've been to Niragi's room before? Why?" Both men look away in avoidance, Niragi grumbling something about just getting the door open before his arms fall off. Interesting. Did this have anything to do with what happened in the first game they played together? You would normally press the two of them more, but you're kind of over it at this point. After twenty four hours packed full of hellishness, your body longs to fall into bed and sleep for days, tucking this new piece of information into your back pocket for another time.

Niragi decides that the only way they can be sure you're safe at night is by making you sleep between the two of them, that way at least one of them would wake up if your father tried to come in looking for you. Your brother also places the sturdy wooden desk chair under the handle of the door to at least try to prevent it from opening at all. You realize now, Niragi is actually terrified; acting more neurotically than you've ever seen him before. And it makes sense, because your father has a gun. And there are no laws protecting you in this cruel world.

As it turns out, this particular sleeping arrangement puts you in a very awkward situation. Stuck nestled between the man you yearn to progress your relationship with, and the one who you aren't completely sure you can trust anymore. Because although your brother was being soft with you tonight, giving you a glimpse of what you'd been missing from your old life, you were unsure if he would remain that way or revert back to Borderland Niragi. And then there was that secret that the two men must be keeping from you. How did that play into things?

You couldn't help but worry - would there come a time that you wouldn't be able to trust Chishiya either?

♤ ♡ ◇ ♧

A quiet sigh pushes past your lips as you finish sorting through the latest stock of medical supplies, carefully organizing the various spools of gauze, bandages, and antiseptics that had been brought back this morning. Ann, who had been restocking the cabinet that housed the medications you were able to locate over time, looks over curiously with a sly smile painted on her cherry red lips.

"Bored already?" the woman asks, feigning offense. Smiling fondly, you glance up at her from your place on the cool concrete floor. "Not of you. Never of you!" you admit with a laugh as if it was the most ridiculous thing in the world. Because it was, Ann was one of the best people you had met here.

A little cold in demeanor, somewhat calculating. But she was smart as a whip, gentle in her ministrations, and super kind underneath it all. You weren't shocked to find that even she was often playing a game of her own.

Though you weren't in a position to see it, you could hear the door to the medical room swing open with a loud creak interrupting you. The footsteps that followed were light and airy, certainly someone that was excited to be here and not someone that was dragging themselves in falling apart and in need of medical attention.

"Oh! A-ann . . . I thought my friend was supposed to be in here tonight," Kuina's voice stammers uncharacteristically, making your eyebrows shoot up. Ann quirks an eyebrow too, glancing briefly at you hidden behind a towering filing cabinet. "Are we not friends, Kuina?" she queries teasingly.

A choked sound of embarassment comes from the back of your friend's throat and you have to cover your mouth to keep from laughing out loud at her expense. "Uh, um, no! Of course, I mean - well I mean that we are friends . . . " Kuina stumbles over her words, her usually confident demeanor obviously shaken.

Oh, she has it bad. You could not wait to tease your friend who was constantly teasing you and Chishiya over your apparent "love sickness". Ann smiles affectionately at the woman, waving her off that she was just teasing. "Are you looking for this friend?" she asks then, beckoning down at you still sprawled on the floor among medical paraphernalia.

Kuina comes closer, peeking around the corner of the cabinet at you and laughs breathily. "Yep! That friend. Thank you, Ann," the woman grins, before turning to you with wide eyes and scarlet cheeks. A smug and knowing look is plastered across your face as you prepare to tease her, but she tells you off with just a bat of her eyelashes. Ah, how your friendship had progressed in such a short time - for that you are grateful to Borderland.

Tongue in cheek, Kuina sighs before asking, "You know Niragi is leaning outside the door glaring menacingly at everyone who walks past?" You groan, slapping a hand to your forehead. "Yeah I know, he won't leave me alone anymore," you say exasperatedly, "I think he thinks that his presence will keep our father away from me." In reality, Niragi's presence has rarely, if ever, deterred your father from finding or hurting you if he was so inclined. Though, you guessed, Niragi had never had a rifle slung on his shoulder previously. So perhaps he was on to something.

Kuina huffs in disappointment, arms flailing out to the sides dramatically, "What about the pool party? We were supposed to dance the night away!" You laugh through your nose at the cute dejected look painted on your friend's features.

"We're still going to do that, we'll just ignore him. He's all moody and wrapped up in his thoughts anyway, I'm sure he'll just lean angrily on the wall and stare." That has both of you erupting in a fit of giggles; your brother was doing a lot of spiteful leaning and staring at you as you went about your life in the last couple of days since your father had arrived at The Beach.

You wish you could say that things had improved since Niragi had been super sweet and soft with you in front of all your friends, but no. Not really. Now he was just quiet, brooding. You knew that his constant presence and the way that his jaw was tightened like a wind-up toy meant this was just the calm before the storm.

"But no rainbow shots this time, Kuina!" you chastise her, shivering in remembrance of the last time you'd both gone dancing at the pool. Ann turns around to face the two of you again, having been sanitizing some medical tools in the sink. "Rainbow shots?" she questions hesitantly, as though she isn't sure she wants to know.

You groan, "Ugh, they're absolutely lethal. I ruined my best bikini that night." Ann's eyes widen at your admission, mouth opening and closing as she tries to find an appropriate response. She scoffs softly. "I've never done anything like that before," she admits quietly, "I'm not sure I like the idea of surrendering control of my mind and body . . . but also, no one's ever really invited me out to do so."

Your head snaps to study her, feeling kind of bad about what she was telling you. An idea appears in your mind, and you shoot a smirk at your friend. "Well, since we've already established that we're all friends, you should join us tonight! You never come to the pool to have fun. Please Ann?"

Both women look shocked at your words, staring at you as though they were fish you'd ripped suddenly out of water. You give your best puppy dog eyes - hey, they worked on pretty much everyone else around here, right? - pleading with the taller woman. Ann sighs, "Well if you're going to look at me like that . . . I'll give it a try."

You squeal in delight, jumping up off the floor and grabbing Kuina's hand with a wide grin. "Let's go get ready then!" you enthuse. Both women are infected by your sudden joyfulness, and all three of you strut down the hallway to prepare for the evening ahead. Well, you and Kuina strut, Ann walks casually between the two of you; starting to question if this was a good idea or not.

Before you know it, you're back under the flashing strobe lights, bass from the upbeat music pulsing in your chest. Kuina and Ann move to the beat beside you, both nursing the one drink that you'd all agreed on as your limit for the night. Yours, however, was long gone and flowing through your veins deliciously. A grin spreads across your cheeks, seeing how Kuina has loosened up now, her usual confidence returning and allowing her to teach Ann steps to a dance that she loved from home.

They are so cute together, your body feels warm and fuzzy inside seeing them laugh and enjoy each other's company. In a despairing place like this, these truly blissful moments are few and far between - both of them deserve to cherish this time together. Your mind feels on cloud nine as you admire them swaying back and forth, Kuina cackling loudly as she corrects Ann's uncertain steps.

A surprised yelp escapes your lips as Chishiya's left arm suddenly snakes around your body, hand splaying warmly across your belly and igniting your insides with fire. His right hand comes to rest gently, protectively on your waist as he rocks you to the beat of the music. His lips press lightly to your ear, goosebumps spreading like widlfire across your skin. "What are you thinking so hard about, angel?" he asks, tone low and gravelly. You turn your head slightly to him but ignore his question, "I didn't know you liked dancing, Shiya!" The man smirks behind you, "You know I don't, but you looked like a third wheel, so I thought you needed me." Your breath hitches, Chishiya's words and intimate touch compounding with the alcohol in your system and flowing through you in a dizzying concoction.

Suddenly fully charged with confidence, you turn around to face your best friend, arms draping around his neck and tangling into his fluffy blonde hair. His hands come to rest firmly at your hips, allowing you to pull yourself impossibly closer to his warmth. Your left thumb strokes a pattern against his cheek, causing a low growl to rumble in his chest, radiating heat through both of your bodies. Chishiya's eyes meet yours, electricity seeming to connect the two of you; the taut tension of desire is back in full force. You've made your decision, you don't want to play cat and mouse with your friend anymore.

Your chin tilts upwards towards his, ready to close the distance at long last. He looks down at you through lidded eyes, one warm palm coming to support the back of your neck. Your heart thunders against your ribcage, is this really going to happen? Eyelids feeling heavy with desire, your eyes naturally close, lips parting slightly in excited anticipation of feeling his lips against yours. Chishiya brings his other hand to your cheek and gently pulls away, ripping a tortured whimper from you. Why?!

You aren't above begging for what you need at this point. "Please Shiya, I want this more than anything. I'm so tired of playing this game," you whine pathetically. His lust darkened eyes study you, conflicted, before a melancholy smile appears on his face. He pulls you closer to him, holding your face with both hands and stroking his thumbs affectionately over your cheeks.

"Do you have any idea how much I want this? For how long I've been chasing you? But not like this, baby. I need you to be fully sober for this, you deserve nothing less." Chishiya's warm lips press a gentle kiss against the tip of your nose as he continues caressing your face, imprinting this image of you looking up at him into his mind. You want to fight, to demand that he kiss you because it was just one drink, but you know it would be no good. Your best friend was trying to honor you, to preserve a special milestone in your relationship instead of rushing it in a moment of lust. You should be grateful for his foresight and resolve.

You simply nod, disappointed as hell, but press your face against the column of Chishiya's neck as he wraps you against him tightly. "No more games?" you ask after a minute or two, dying to know if you were finally acknowledging your true feelings and at least progessing your relationship tonight.

"No more games," he affirms, rocking you back and forth alongside him to the quick tempo of the lively music that filled the air around you. The man himself doesn't dance, but it's sweet how he guides your body to the beat. You look back up to him laughing as he twirls you around, shining eyes meeting his striking chestnut ones. The music and the chatter of the pool party seems to fade out around the two of you as you lose yourself in the depths of his eyes.

The way he looks at you now, reverently admiring you in front of him, makes your heart swell with joy. He smiles a small smile before observing, "We never picked our conversation back up." You furrow your eyebrows, confused. You've had a million conversations between the two of you in your lifetime, how were you supposed to remember a specific one? He studies you for a minute, before reminding you. "I told you that I love when you laugh like that for me," he whispers, jogging your memory. The night that everything had changed.

You bite your lower lip, slightly nervous to ask the question that's weighing heavily in the back of your mind, "Do you . . . do you still feel that way? Even after everything that has changed?" The blonde grins at you now, pressing his thumb against your lower lip and bringing his face close to yours so you can hear him, "I love it even more now, it reminds me that you're still here with me, still healthy and happy." You let out a sigh of relief, your darkness hadn't pushed him away. Your fingers find the metal-tipped string from the hood of his white jacket, fidgeting with it to settle the butterflies erupting in your stomach.

"So are we like . . . finally more than friends?" you ponder, again with some anxiety. You'd felt like your relationship had shifted long long ago, but didn't know what was really going on in the man's head. He smirks at you again, eyes staring longingly at your lips for a tense moment. "I think we've been more than friends for a long time, darling," he whispers huskily, brushing some hair out of your face and behind your ear. "I've been trying to claw my way out of the friendzone for at least as long as we've been here, and even some time before that."

You laugh at how blind you'd been, different moments of "more than friends" actions flooding your brain. "Then are we . . .?" you trail off, gesturing between the two of you. Honestly, you're both idiots about relationships, having absolutely no foundation for how one should look or function. You don't even know what you're asking, not really. But it doesn't matter, Chishiya knows and understands you perfectly. He nods, "I'm all yours, I always have been." You feel your eyes filling with tears at his admission. You throw your arms around his neck again, nuzzling again into the warmth of his neck.

"I'm all yours too, Shiya. I always have been and I always will be."

From across the pool deck, Niragi watches the interaction knowingly. The man pushes himself off the wall he'd been leaning on with a small, satisfied smile and returning into the hotel. You don't need him here tonight.

♤ ♡ ◇ ♧

Hatter was utterly convinced - this would be the Ten of Spades game that you were still desperately seeking. The card that would complete The Beach's - well, his - Spades collection. That's how the entire Militant faction and you had found yourselves glaring up at the colorful entrance gate for Toshimaen Amusement Park; bright, neon lights casting a looming shadow over your massive group. The theme park no longer gives off an air of whimsy and excitement, but instead fills you with a sense of absolute dread.

Why were you here? For the obvious, because Niragi is here, left hand gripping your shoulder tightly. A silent demand - stay close. You are rarely, if ever, out of your brother's sight these days, and game nights were no different. This time, for good reason. As you'd come to learn, your father was also a part of the Militant faction; the man standing capriciously off to the side nearest Last Boss. You wonder maliciously if Last Boss could just slip to the side a tiny bit and impale the old man - but that would be too good to be true.

And for the less obvious, Hatter seems to have it in his head that you are some sort of Spades master after clearing so many of them in the last few weeks. And so, here you are. In terms of things that are triggering to your childhood trauma, this was probably a 1000 on the scale. This was one place that your father had surprisingly brought you and Niragi in your childhood, many many times. It was the ultimate irony to be brought back here with both men, though under very different circumstances.

You were stuck between wishing for your brother to remove his hand from you and leaning more deeply into him for comfort. You could feel the familiar inklings of panic starting to surge through your veins; a combination of your abuser's smiling face standing way too close and the falsely cheerful lights flashing overstimulatingly all around you. You try in vain to choke back a sob that attempts to escape you, this would be the worst place in the world to start freaking out. You need to stay calm. Niragi isn't stupid though; he feels your stressed movement under his hand and glances down to study you. Your glassy eyes stay fixed forward and you continue trying to breathe through your rapidly constricting airway.

Niragi makes the decision for you, adjusting his grip on you so his entire forearm rests comfortingly across your chest, hand now firmly gripping the opposite shoulder. He pulls you more tightly against him, your back colliding against his chest. Though you wish to have more fight in you, you feel your body melt against him, your nerves soothed by the familiar stance. "I know, just try to stay calm, okay? We'll get out of here soon," he mumbles.

Just then, the sickeningly familiar chime indicates that registration has closed, and the game would be beginning momentarily.

[Difficulty: Six of Spades] Collectively, the entire group aside from the random outsiders groans. Another duplicate card, you and Aguni had cleared a Six of Spades the first night you'd been at The Beach officially.

[Game: Beast Hunter]

[Rules: All players need to cooperate to defeat all the beasts inside the venue. A point value is assigned to each, and is as follows:

Crows = 1 point

Eagles = 30 points

Wild Boars = 50 points

Panthers = 80 points

Tigers = 100 points]

[Clear Condition: All predators are killed]

[Game Over: All players are killed off by the predators]

[Weapons are allowed] This particular phrase makes you feel a wave of relief and nausea all at once. Chishiya had insisted you bring your pistol to this game with you, knowing that your father would be here and honestly not knowing if you could trust Niragi to protect you from him. The heavy piece of steel weighed thickly in the pocket of the cargo pants you'd dug out of your closet - you'd thought they would be the best bet for smuggling the weapon you weren't supposed to have.

Aguni steps forward to address his group, "Everyone that doesn't have a gun should be paired with someone who does. Niragi, you stick with Last Boss," you feel your brother tense up, pulling you ever closer to him. Aguni looks at you now, "You'll be safe with Katashi. Stick with him, okay?" Niragi's entire body jolts viscerally and you know your eyes widen, betraying the cool demeanor you try to emulate during games. Why would Aguni do this to you? Does he really not know the truth about your father? Or . . .?

"Absolutely the fuck not. There is no way in hell that -" Niragi's outraged rant is cutoff immediately by Aguni's sharp tone, "Niragi. Who's your boss?" Your brother opens his mouth and then closes it again. A low grumble radiates inside his chest as he tries to figure out how to handle this without making more of a scene. He gently turns you around to look at him, "I'm going to try to stay near you until the game is over, but if we get separated, run. Understand?" You suck a sharp, needling breath into your lungs, trying to steady yourself and nodding weakly to your brother.

He didn't know you had a weapon on you, and you hoped you wouldn't have to use it tonight.

Your hopes for an easy game were quickly dashed. Aguni's plan was a nice one, in theory, but it turns out that even big, tough Militants have a penchant for freaking out and dispersing as quickly as they can when they're being chased down by a bloodthirsty tiger. A tiger, which by the way, is much much larger in real life than you could have ever imagined.

You'd lost Niragi and Last Boss almost instantaneously; your father just grinning away dnagerously beside you as you make your way deeper into the park. Of course he wasn't afraid of the animals. Neither was the man really attempting to hunt the predators closing in on you. He was attempting to hunt you. You feel your pulse racing quickly in your throat; Aguni had served you up to him on a silver platter. Intentionally? You weren't sure of the man's motives anymore.

Niragi's instructions echoed through your head, "Run." You don't think twice about it before bolting off in the opposite direction of where you'd originally been heading, sneakers pounding the cracked pavement path straight to the fun house that had always scared you when you were little. You're lucky in a way, your father is slow; but still trotting after you inevitably.

Red and black velvet curtains cascade around the lobby, the breeze from your sudden entrance causing them to billow mockingly. Your hands shake slightly as you draw the heavy metal of your pistol out of your pocket; it wasn't going to be a matter of if your father found you in here, but when.

Pushing your way gently through one of the red curtains, you make an attempt to keep the curtain from giving away which direction you'd initially chosen. Your journey through the house begins with a pitch black room. With both hands held out in front of you, you feel around for the wall. Niragi had always taught you to try to follow the right-hand wall to quickly navigate your way through the maze. For whatever reason, your hand comes into contact accidentally with something breakable. A vase? Glass shatters around you as the object clatters to the floor, your entire body jolting with surprise at the loud sound contrasting the silence that had been surrounding you like a cloak.

The curtain you'd come through is ripped open violently, nearly being yanked from its track with the force and allowing a small amount of light from the lobby to filter into the pitch black space. The silhouette of your father is backlit, and you leap quickly away from where the light would allow him to see you. Taking the advantage of having seen a little bit ahead, you run as silently as possible toward the next room, covering your mouth to be quiet.

"You must be so scared, huh, Butterfly? You've always hated these houses, ya used to cry and cry until your brother came to save you," your father tells you in mock nostalgia, "But Niragi isn't here to come save you now. What ever are you going to do?" You want to ignore his menacing voice, but what he's said is true - Niragi wasn't going to be able to help you here. He'd almost certainly never find you in time. With a deep breath through your nose, you proceed into the next hallway, a skinny room housing a black metal bridge.

Your left hand grips tightly onto the railing, causing the room around you to illuminate in neon purples, oranges, and greens; the colors swirling quickly around the bridge like a vortex. A spinning tunnel - an element that is intended to confuse your brain and body, making it feel as though the bridge itself was moving under your feet. You inhale one more steadying breath, taking your time crossing the bridge one step at a time. You're just about 3/4 of the way over the bridge when you hear your father grousing about how dizzy these things make him. Your head turns to watch him start to cross the bridge too, the man staggering and stumbling along as his brain is confused. If you weren't nearly paralyzed in fear, you'd probably laugh at his expense. Closing your eyes tight the rest of the way, you surge forward to get off the bridge and into the next room, only to feel your body instantly plummeting through the darkness.

You can't help the yelp of surprise turned to terror as you fall a few feet before landing in a pit of plastic with a crash. Dim lighting surrounds you when you open your eyes - you've landed in a ball pit at least the size of a normal swimming pool. If your memory serves you correctly, you'd usually start crying for Niragi right about now, as the balls have always made you feel claustrophobic. Not today though. You start swimming through the material, trying to get as close to the ladder that will lift you out of this colorful prison before your father catches up.

The man does catch up, canon-balling without hesitation into the pool of plastic now only a couple of feet away from you. You make the decision to go underneath the surface of the balls in some sort of attempt to camouflage yourself. You swim along for a few moments, terror building quickly in your chest, as though you are really underneath the water in a pool. You look up briefly to see the ladder nearly within arm's reach, but see no sign of your father behind you. Fuck.

Just as your hand reaches up for the ladder, a hand grabs firmly onto your ankle dragging you back away from it. You shriek, unable to hold your terror inside any further, kicking away at your father as hard as you can. "Aww, what's wrong? You don't like playing hide and seek anymore?" his cruel voice teases. No the fuck you do not.

With your father towering over you, hand still wrapped around your left ankle, you bring your right foot up to kick him hard in the nose. With a sickening crack, he cries out, bringing both hands to his face that's already pouring blood. You waste no time in jumping for the ladder and scampering away from the man as he screams violent obscenities at you.

The whimsical lights dance across the maze of mirrors now placed in front of you, and you take a deep breath to try and settle your nerves. It had been a bad idea to willingly allow yourself to become disoriented by this not so fun house, but you had to try to lose your father somehow. And at the very least, in here, the roaming beasts were likely not an additional variable stacked against you.

You feel your stomach swirl in nausea as you step into the seemingly circular room, surrounding yourself with mirrors on all sides. You catch your reflection in one of them, noticing how terrified and sick you look, even in the distorted picture.

"Come on, Butterfly. You don't need to keep running. I won't hurt you," his sickening voice calls, echoing through the previous room. You begin lightly touching each of the mirrors, your reflection getting distorted in different crazy ways, trying to find your way forward in silence. When your hand finally doesn't catch glass, you sprint forward to the next room, a series of strobe lights cascading over you.

The difficulty had escalated quickly, white light blinding as it is reflected off of the hallway filled with more disorienting mirrors. You creep along the right side of the hall, attempting to rule out each mirror being the next exit that you're looking for. Your head snaps to your left, noticing one of the black velvety curtains rustling. You bring your left hand up to cover your mouth, to keep yourself from screaming in terror.

A brief glance into the mirror next to you shows something you don't want to see, your father's face appearing over your shoulder. You spin around fast, dizzying yourself unwillingly to face him as a bullet whizzes past your face and shatters the glass behind you. You do scream now, dropping to the floor and crawling along the hallway attempting in desperation to find a way out.

Bullets cascade around the overstimulating room, lights flashing in every direction and broken glass pelting the floor all around you. You don't know how many mirrors have been broken, but your father will definitely have bad luck for a long time. Finally, you're able to find the edge of a different curtain, yanking yourself through to get away from the murderous psycho behind you. Leaning up against something sturdy in the darkened room, you attempt to catch your breath. Even in your wildest dreams about your father, you'd never faced something as terrifying than this.

"You little brat! I should have taken care of you long ago - you deserve this you know!" His voice rings out, seemingly surrounding you on all sides and threatening to suffocate you.

Those words. You deserve this. You feel the tension in your mind finally snap, as though you were a dry twig in the forest being bent over and over. The cloudy, swirling darkness you held repressed deep down inside snakes out easily and takes over your entire body. No longer are you scared. No longer is your breathing uneven and forced. Because no. No the fuck you did not deserve this. You never had. You never would. Fuck. This. Fuck him.

Your dark eyes glisten with the fire of your rage, ripping the curtain back open and firing your pistol haphazardly back into the flashing room. You don't expect to kill him, nor do you even expect to hit him. But you DO expect to send a message - I'm done. Be very afraid of what you've created. I have a fucking weapon.

You hear your father groan in pain over the sound of more mirrors shattering, his bulky form dropping to the floor. Relief floods you, that at least one of your shots had hit him. As you study him on the floor from your place in the corner, definitely injured but not at risk of dying, your eyes catch on one of the spaces that reflects light differently, walking casually through the doorway and out into the open night air.

Blood courses loudly in your ears, the rage you feel threatening to bubble up in the form of more violence. Your teeth are clenched so hard that your jaw may snap, the pistol clasped tightly between both hands. You move slowly, calculatedly through the amusement park, listening for sounds of movement. You can vaguely hear screaming and talking from other areas, but nothing in your immediate vicinity.

You needed to find someone other than your father. Because if he found you again, you knew you would finish the job. You weren't yourself right now.

It's then that you hear a commotion from behind a row of colorful ginko trees and decide to approach, holding your silver pistol confidently between both hands. Your eyes widen to find Niragi on the ground wrestling a feral looking black panther, his rifle having skidded across the pavement too far for him to reach.

You know you should feel scared, worried about your brother. But instead you feel the eerie prickle of calm bubbling under your skin, I can handle this. Your eyes narrow as you focus on the massive feline, raising your weapon with steady hands. With one level breath out, you shoot the beast directly between the eyes, never once hesitating to worry that you'd hit Niragi, not wavering for even a second. The cat falls, your brother quickly pushing it off of him and scrambling to retrieve his fallen rifle. The man shoots the beast again, a second and third time, for good measure before looking up to you in surprise.

You're already walking away from him by the time he calls out your name, "Where the fuck did you get that?" When you answer him with silence and continue walking along the path towards the ferris wheel, he yells again while jogging to catch up, "What the fuck?" You turn slowly to look at him, eyes black. "I just saved your fucking life, does it really matter?" You ask in a monotone voice. Hand on your shoulder, your brother looks at you, really looks at you, studying your expression and your darkened eyes. Recognizing your darkness. He simply shakes his head with a tired sigh, falling into step beside you. He understands now.

[Game Clear - Congratulations] The rest of the group must have well and truly carried your team today, given that the only thing you'd taken down was the panther Niragi was tangled up with and your father, who was not on the scoreboard.

As you're about to leave the amusement park property, your brother stops and holds his hand towards you, waiting. You look up at him, he can't be serious. But the look he's giving you is very serious. "Give it to me," he says in a hushed tone bringing his face just inches from yours ensuring you really see him, "Let it go. The darkness doesn't suit you."

Biting the inside of your cheek, you want to call him a hypocrite. But Niragi is right, you don't think it suits you either. You don't want to be like your father. Like him. You pull the pistol out of your pocket and place it gingerly in his hand before continuing your languid walk back to the car.

♤ ♡ ◇ ♧

Hatter isn't happy that the entire Militant faction plus The Beach's Princess had been wasted on a repeat game. He's also pissed that his precious friend Katashi was brought back to the resort unconscious and bleeding, much to your dismay. How had someone even found him?

Niragi had side-eyed you in shock and pride when Aguni and another guy carried your injured father into the room, desperately wishing to know what he had done to you that had finally made you snap at the theme park. You'd simply stared through the older man, emotionless face barely flickering in acknowledgment.

Suddenly the room has erupted into absolute chaos - Hatter, Aguni, and Niragi all yelling at each other about different things. How long it was taking to collect all the cards. The imbalance of power between Executives and Militants - that the latter were bearing all the weight of keeping The Beach running. Your father being brought to The Beach in the first place. You realized in this moment that the power struggle you'd been warned about was starting to come to fruition and you worry that at least one of the three will end up dead tonight. Chishiya guides you away from the conflict, taking his hand in yours and pulling you to the elevator.

When the both of you make it back to Niragi's room, Chishiya pulls your chin to rest on his chest, hands coming to cup your cheeks as he studies you with concerned eyes, "What happened out there? Are you hurt?" You shake your head, eyes glancing to the bed to avoid his direct gaze. "I'm not ready to talk about it yet, Shiya," you tell him in a small voice. The man nods in understanding, holding your head against his chest as he squeezes you tight and presses a tender kiss to your forehead.

You're so mentally and emotionally exhausted from the night that you fall asleep almost as soon as Chishiya begins reading to you, wrapped tightly in your mother's blanket and head laid heavily in the man's lap. You don't know how long you're allowed to sleep before Niragi is in front of you, shaking you awake again. You blink your eyes blearily up at him, not super thrilled about being woken back up, least of all by him. "Is this important?" you demand crankily.

Your brother reaches into the back pocket of his jeans, flashing your pistol at you. "I'm giving this back to you because unfortunately I'm afraid you're going to need it. But don't make me remind you what will happen if you're caught with it here," he says with an exhausted sigh.

They'll make me kill you.

You nod in tired understanding, taking the cold metal into your hands tentatively without a word as your brother proceeds to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Your eyes study the shining metal for a moment, the weapon reminding you of all that had happened tonight and causing a wave of nausea to wash over you. Chishiya must see a certain look cross your face, because he sets his book down on the nightstand and runs his fingers through your hair for comfort. "Okay, baby?" he asks, caressing his other thumb over your cheek and making your eyes heavy again. "I will be," you smile gently up at the man, taking his hand in yours as his other hand continues stroking your hair.

When the lights are finally turned off for the night and the men on either side of you have fallen asleep, your suddenly wide awake brain makes a bold decision.

You know that if Niragi pulls the trigger on your father, it would be the final step - he would finally plummet fully into darkness with no hope of being saved. You couldn't let that happen. You were still angry with your brother; you wanted to hate him for hurting you. But watching the way he's been since your father returned, you know he is still redeemable. And you. You had snapped tonight, had let your darkness fully take control and take care of a situation.

You deserve this, you know.

You know you don't. You know Niragi doesn't. And it isn't fair for Niragi to continue carrying all of the burden on his own. Your brother has sacrificed everything for you. It was your turn to sacrifice for him - to save him. From your father, from himself. It had to be you.

You were determined now, when it came down to it, and it would - you would be the one to kill your father.

♤ ♡ ◇ ♧

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The Game Itself Masterlist

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im-robins-bitch · 8 months ago

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Eddie Muson comforting his vampire gf who still isn't sure about the whole thing.

Eddie opens your wardrobe doors and does a double take.

He’s looked in your wardrobe enough times to know what to expect, but the familiar array of colours and textures is replaced with a collection of wooden stakes in various sizes. Some look more ruthless than others. One is a twisting thing with unforgiving sharp edges. Its metallic colour reminds him too much of silver. He looks at it in horror and slams the wardrobe door closed.

You come into your room seconds later, a towel lazily wrapped around your figure, “Everything ok?”

Eddie thinks about lying, but he knows you can hear the frantic thumping of his heart, even rooms away, so he doesn’t even try to pretend. “Why do you have those?”

He points at the wardrobe, and your face falls as you realise your mistake.

“It’s just in case…” You mumble, fidgeting with the edge of your towel nervously. He walks over to you and pulls your hands away, gripping at them tightly. He looks up at you with his puppy eyes and you crumple like paper.

“I thought we talked about this,” He murmurs, arms quick to envelop you in a hug and pull you as close as he can get you. His long shirt sleeves dampen from your still-wet skin.

You had been in a hurry to get to him when you heard the quickening of his heartbeat. You had imagined catching him snooping through your underwear drawer like he used to do all the time, but back then you had just been his girl, not his…creature.

You sigh into his shoulder and your grip on him tightens, you try to be mindful of your strength, but even a year later it still feels so foreign for you to be so strong. “Eddie, If i ever lost control-”

“You won’t” He promises, hand rubbing firm lines up and down the curve of your back.

“You remember Steves bbq,” You lament, hands scrunching up the back of his shirt, “I had to lock myself in the bathroom, over a little cut,”

Eddie pulls you from your hiding place, hands soft but firm as they cup your face. “It was different then, no one knew, you weren’t drinking, you just need to make sure you drink,”

He says you need to drink as if it’s as casual as you sipping from a glass of water, not puncturing someone's skin with your teeth and sucking them like a parasite.

He squeezes your cheeks together, kissing your lips as they pucker up from the motion. “You can drink me whenever you want, like your own personal capri sun,”

Normally it makes you smile, but it seems being so close to him has your body betraying you, your fangs descend from your gums. He doesn’t hate you for it, in fact, he finds your appetite for his blood quite flattering.

“Girlfriends aren’t supposed to drink their boyfriend's blood, it’s weird” Your hands quickly covered your mouth as you step away from Eddie. Putting as much space between you as you can muster. It isn’t much.

Your gaze flees to the floor, pupils darkened by bloodlust.

Eddie's fingers reach for the necklace dangling from your neck, the crystal is red, in the shape of half an anatomically correct heart. He pulls it towards him and when it clicks into place with a matching necklace of his own, a little darker in colour he smiles.

“I like weird,” He promises kissing your lips, soft and quick. “We were weird before,” He hums, his fingers rubbing back and forth over the skin of your cheeks.

#eddie #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x fem!reader fluff #eddie munson blurb #eddie munson x you

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rottenpumpkin13 · 2 months ago

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You've mentioned previously that your HC Genesis is iron deficient. What happens if Gen faints during an important public event?

Wouldn't that just be fantastic. His body already fails to absorb the damn iron, and you need iron to function—it's called iron, as in strong, unbreakable, everything Genesis Rhapsodos is supposed to embody, everything Dr. Hollander clearly feared that knobby-kneed eight-year-old boy might never be when he prescribed him iron tablets and monthly shots after he fainted halfway through a fencing lesson.

Mr. and Mrs. Rhapsodos were terribly concerned—concerned enough to disguise it as compassion for their brilliant, beautiful son. Their delicate boy. The one who shouldn't sway when he stands up too fast or leave bruises on the floor from his knees giving out. The one who eats reinforced meals as if food were mortar and he were crumbling. Genesis knows it's not love when his mother tsks at the blotchy bruises on his arms, thin like glass beneath skin she insists must stay covered—cashmere, always, even in June.

He knows it's not affection when she calls him at 7am the morning of a press event fifteen years later to chirp: "Are you eating? Taking your tablets? You look pale in the last broadcast." He knows it's a reminder: you must look immaculate. Not healthy. Immaculate. There's a difference.

He'd laugh if it weren't so tragicomic. If it weren't so poetic that here he is, pulling on red leather like armor, his own brand of Achilles cosplay, heading out to play the part of beloved war hero—when really, Shinra's just parading their top brass like prize ponies in a show. Meanwhile, the track's been sabotaged and everyone's betting on who keels over first.

So yes, Genesis glances at Sephiroth with a sour, sidelong stare in the car—not out of envy (not entirely), but out of contempt for how the man probably doesn't feel winded. How his blood pressure likely isn't nosediving through his stomach. How he can sit there unmoving, eyes half-lidded, while Genesis clenches his jaw and tells his organs to behave for once. Don't tremble. Don't churn. Don't ruin the image.

When they arrive, Genesis steps out into a wall of flashbulbs. His coat feels suffocating. His mouth tastes like metal. Still, he smiles—brilliant, cinematic, practiced, like a marionette brought to life with PR strings.

'Am I too pale?'

'Is my face sweating?'

'Do I look like I'll collapse?'

Question one from the press, chipper and far too loud: "SOLDIER Firsts have such rigorous training schedules. How do you personally maintain peak physical condition?"

Peak. Physical. Condition.

Genesis stares. Blank. The camera shutters are thunder. The lights are hellfire. Sephiroth turns very slightly, and sees him lean.

His last thought is:

Oh. So this is what it feels like to watch the plot twist before the curtain falls.

He drops like a chipped marble statue shoved off a gallery pedestal, like Icarus daring to touch the sun, except the untouchable flame in Genesis' case is the unforgivable crime of getting out of bed that morning.

He wakes up in Medical, because of course he does. Always Medical. Always this sterile, humming, too-bright mausoleum where they keep the pretty ones on ice. His coat's gone. Someone's unbuckled his boots. He's in one of those beds they make you lay in when they want to pretend you're not a SOLDIER, just another collapsed body with inconvenient timing and fragile blood. Hollander's clipped some numbers to his chart like he's proud.

Genesis doesn't speak. Doesn't ask what happened. What's the point? There's nothing left to say. He fainted. He was weak. The cameras caught it, probably. Sephiroth probably stood there immaculate, untouched, probably stepped aside so the hero wouldn't get toppled with the dramatist.

He stares at the ceiling, breath shallow, chest aching, and all he can think is: if this is what strength feels like, then what the hell is left when it fails?

#ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy vii #genesis rhapsodos #ff7 crisis core #crisis core #crisis core reunion #genesis rhapsodos headcanons

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xhunnybeeex · 7 months ago

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Hayden christensen character music/playlist headcanons

playlists at the bottom of sections :3

❥ ~ Sam Monroe ~

Sam Monroe ~ mainly listens to mall goth/ metal, that's just cannon. However, he DEFINITELY got really into other goth subgenres while finding cds.

Sam Monroe ~ would have to be forced to admit he loves riot girl movies.

“Is this bikini kill in your mixtape?” you ask Sam as you dig through his cds. “I didn't know you were into riot girl music.” “I'm not,” he grumbles.

Sam Monroe ~ loves angry midwest emo music. He loves the emo whine.

Sam Monroe ~ doesn’t have a very diverse taste. He only really likes alt genres, but every once in a while you'll see him nod his head to pop songs on the radio.

"this is clearly a differnt genre what are you talking about" sam protest. "Theyre all just screaming how is that different!" you yell back.

Sam Monroe ~ is the type to say “name three songs”, but only in front of other alt people to look cool.

Sam Monroe ~ loves the goth culture but doesn't know how to become part of it, especially without getting bullied.

Sam Monroe ~ loves making mixtapes with songs he likes to pair together, even if they sounds the same

Sam monroe playlist done by me ⇦ ⇦ ⇦

❥ ~ Anakin Skywalker ~

Anakin Skywalker ~ obviously doesn’t have any cannon music taste so the following playlist is all what I PERSONALLY think Anakin would like to listen to or are him “coded”. This one was the hardest for me to do and is honestly probably the most inaccurate.

Anakin Skywalker ~ is clearly pretty when he cries, and very lana del rey coded

Anakin Skywalker ~ would have a very open music taste, he listens to what people show him

Anakin Skywalker ~ likes classic rock and acoustic music from obi wan, sad girl music from ahsoka (oh you know she showed him mitski), and softer popy music from padme.

Anakin Skywalker ~ never knows the names of artists, always has to hum songs for people to know what he's talking about.

Anakin Skywalker ~ always asks Ahsoka to play her music when flying, but he'll always deny that he does.

“Why don't you pick your own music for once!” Ahsoka groans in annoyance, rubbing her face in her hands. “Cause i'm flying! "Anakin yells back in protest. “Just admit you like my music.” Ahsoka smirks, plugging her comlink into the ship and getting her playlist on. Anakin stays silent. Pretending not to hear her and stares off at the stars in front of him as he flys.

Anakin Skywalker playlist by me ⇦ ⇦ ⇦

❥ ~Stephen Glass ~

Stephen Glass ~ has a very diverse taste in all sorts of funky music

Stephen Glass ~ who lives for folk music but also is obsessed with pop music

Stephen Glass ~ can’t not have Lady gaga on his playlists and knows all her songs. He yells at people who don't know summer boy because that's his favorite.

Stephen Glass ~ who grew up on bob dylan and the beatles

Stephen Glass ~ was always a Brittany defender and refused to do journalism about her. He would never lie about the queen herself.

“Did you guys see that britney spears-” his co workers gossip. “I need to be excused.” Stephen immediately stands up and walks anywhere from the conversation. He doesn’t want to hear what they say, and no one wants to know what he would respond with.

Stephen Glass ~ loves to relax to calming 70s music.

Stephen Glass ~ is a huge music nerd, but isn't even aware of it.

“This is Joni Mitchel, she's super cool. She's canadian. I just found that out. I’ve been listening to her for years but I just found out. Crazy huh?” Stephen rambles. You chuckle in amazement on how much he knows and how fast his lips move. “Jeez you sure know a lot about music.” Stephen shakes his head and smiles. “Oh no, not really. I couldn't even play anything if I tried. But anyway did you know-”

Stephen Glass playlist made by me ⇦ ⇦ ⇦

A/N///: OMGGG im very happy to fianlly have stuff posted again. i have been so out of it lately. this is my first time ever writing headcanons so go easy on me. i have had this sam monroe playlist made for a while now and it gave me the idea to make a lil post about it. i hope yall enjoy and maybe even have a listen. happy thanksgiving and stay hot. - beee!

#hayden christensen #anakin skywalker #sam monroe #stephen glass #beees posts!#beees fics!#stephen glass headcanons #anakin skywalker headcanons #sam monroe headcanons #sam monroe imagine #stephen glass imagine #anakin skywalker imagine #anakin skywalker playlist #star wars #hayden christensen headcanons #character playlist

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littlefireball · 9 months ago

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ᴊʜ|ᴡʜɪᴛᴇ Qᴜᴇᴇɴ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇᴅ ᴋɪɴɢ (ᴀ/ᴍ)

White Queen Reader x Red King Jongho

Fairy tale series: Yunho

⚠️Trigger!! Please don’t read if you are uncomfortable with it ⚠️

Word count: 6K

a/n: this story is Alice in Wonderland but Alice is not the main character here. I was inspired by the movies Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), the story between the White Queen and The Queen of heart. I adopted the story and the settings, using them as the main characters.

Prompt: write a story where the hero is a also a villain and the villain is also a hero

Summary: Jongho stands as your savior, the one who pulled you from the depths of despair during your childhood. Yet, to the outside world, he wears the mask of a villain—born of both demons and humans, his blood tainted, his temperament fierce and wild. Society has cast him into the abyss, but you refuse to accept this fate. You are determined to rescue him, no matter the toll it takes on your own reputation or even your very existence.

"Help!Someone save me!" You barely paused to think, your gaze fixed straight ahead as you sprinted away in a frenzy. The branches and leaves whipped past you, creating a symphony of rustling sounds. As a teenager, you had a penchant for wandering through the forests on the outskirts, near the ominous realm known as The Red, the devil's domain. Your mischievous spirit often led you astray, ignoring warnings, and ultimately, you found yourself in the sights of a lurking monster.

A distant noise jolted you from your thoughts, and you grabbed a nearby branch, bracing for danger. Suddenly, a monstrous figure lunged from the underbrush, its maw dripping with blood. You swung the branch, but it splintered on impact, sending you tumbling to the ground.

The beast advanced, its teeth glinting as it growled. Panic surged as you tried to retreat, leaving a trail of blood from your wounded foot. The metallic scent ignited the creature's instincts, and it prepared to strike again. Fear paralyzed you as you realized you might meet your end beneath its savage jaws.

"Clang..." A chilling light sliced through the heavens as the beast plummeted to the earth. Blood oozed from its gaping wounds, pooling beneath it like a gruesome crimson rug. The man in front of you remained motionless, his gaze fixed on you, ensuring your safety before confirming the creature's demise.

"Are you okay?" He extended his hand to you, his voice was gentle.

"Yah…yah…" He pulled you up effortlessly as you held his hand. "Thanks…" Your gaze traveled to his face and attire, and it dawned on you that he was one of The Red. In that moment, he recognized you as the princess of the White.

"It's not safe for you to stay here, princess." The term 'princess' sent a jolt through your heart. Was he really going to end your life? The rivalry between the White and the Red was fierce; there was no chance for harmony.

"Do you know who I am?" you inquired softly, your voice barely rising above a murmur.

"Your gown," he said, gesturing toward your white dress, adorned with a design exclusive to the White.

"So… you plan to kill me?" Your words drew a light laugh from him. Honestly, he looked quite charming when he smiled.

"Then why would I bother saving you?" He folded his arms, leaning closer to meet your eyes. "If I'm going to kill you, I won't waste my breath. Just return to your land, and we'll pretend this never happened."

With a playful grin, he turned to walk away.

"Wait!" You called out to him.

"Hmm?"

"I'm Y/N. What's your name?"

"Jongho."

"Thank you, Jongho." With a smirk, he nodded and continued on his way.

This isn't merely a fleeting encounter; you find yourself drawn to the forest time and again, searching for Jongho. The moment he rescued you, he transformed into your hero, casting light into the dark corners of your existence and bringing joy to your days. In a household devoid of affection, he became the source of the feelings you had longed for.

The tender shoots of love began to emerge, flourish, and ultimately blossom into vibrant blooms within your hearts. Your connection grew stronger, and you discovered comfort in clandestine rendezvous at a hidden wooden cabin.

"Jongho, you're too big…" "It's not your first time to know it." Laughter dances between your kisses, your eyes sparkling with affection. The intensity of your kisses deepens once more. His lips crave to wander over every inch of you; starting at your earlobes, then gradually trailing down, sinking into your neck, leaving behind tender marks accompanied by soft, lingering sounds.

As your fingers intertwined, he released a soft whimper with each thrust. You gasped for air, your breaths coming in quick, uneven moans. The two of you were driving each other wild; the way his firm tip struck your sweet spot made you writhe, your toes curling as your walls eagerly embraced his shaft, beckoning for more pleasure.

"Wanna go rough?" he panted, his cheeks flushed. "Yes, please." In an instant, he withdrew and flipped you over, lifting you with ease. Wrapping your arms and legs around his shoulder and waist respectively, he walked to the wall and pressed you back against it. He released the grip on your thighs, sliding his arms underneath your inner knees. Without waiting for your response, he bumped into your warmth harshly. You screamed out of pleasure but immediately covered your mouth after realizing your moaning may be heard by people who were passing by.

"No one's here." Jongho whispered against your ear, his warm breath landing on your skin, sending shivers down your spine. "Who knows?" You giggled but the laugh soon died out as he gave you a really hard crash.

You and Jongho were entangled in a clandestine romance, a love that society deemed forbidden. You were the embodiment of purity, draped in the white of innocence, while Jongho was marked by the crimson of darkness and malice. This was the narrative spun by the inhabitants of Wonderland, yet your heart told a different story.

Thoughts of running away together danced in your mind, but the harsh truth loomed large; if a princess and a prince vanished simultaneously, it would raise alarms, especially given the enmity between your realms. You could never bear to let your love turn the people of your two kingdoms into casualties of your desire.

A loud sound of skin hitting skin bounced off the wall, combined with your moaning and his breathing, everything was just like a beautiful sinphony rang in your two ears. Pulling him closer, your nails dug into his nape, drawing some blood. The pain and the pleasure crashed together in Jongho's body and all the heat gathered in his tip, he was at his limit.

Picking up the pace, he rolled his hip quick enough to ruin you. He suddenly turned you around, throwing you to the bed as if you're nothing. He knew you loved that. "Jjong…" Before you could let out a whine because of the sudden emptiness in your cunt, his massive cock latched back on a quick, harsh motion. Your head landed on the bed sheets, making your high-pitched moan muffled as he bumped and hit your sweet spot dead on.

He pulled your pelvis to the air, crossing and pinning your arms on your back as a support, so that he could fuck you while standing on the bed. Everything was overwhelming but perfectly balanced, the pleasure made you sink deep in this love making, even forget the cruel reality for a moment. "Jongho…I'm so close." "Cum, good girl." "Fuck…shit…" A series of swearing flew from Jongho's lips and you responded with a long moaning and soft whimper. Finally, you reached the peak before his hot seed creamed your cunt.

"Goodness…" He pulled out painfully slowly to ensure you feel every vein of his cock. Watching your hole dripped with his cum was the most satisfying sight in the world. His hand reached down to collect the white seed, bringing them back to your hole and pushing in his long finger.

"Jongho…" You whined at the overstimulation, making him chuckle at your cuteness. Wrapping his arm around your waist to turn you over, he cradled you in his embrace while drawing you into a tender, slow kiss. As the kiss deepened, your bodies pressed closer, the warmth of your skin mingling in a way that was both comforting and exhilarating.

Eventually, the kiss broke, but the connection remained. You gazed into each other's eyes, your faces flushed with the aftermath of your intimacy.

"I wish this moment could stretch into forever," he breathed, his fingers tenderly tracing your cheek. "I want to claim you as mine, as my wife, my eternal love."

"I'm completely yours, Jjong," you replied, a bittersweet smile gracing your lips. "Even if we can't..."

"Don't say that." Jongho pressed a soft kiss to your palm, resting it against his cheek. "I will make it happen. I promise." You nodded, enveloping him in a warm embrace as tears cascaded down your face.

His words were not empty; he became the King after his father died. He tried his best to improve the relationship between the two countries. Commerce, diplomacy, and even military support can all seem to be progressing smoothly. Just when you believe everything is on the right track, reality delivers a staggering jolt.

"The Red would eliminate us if we don't take action!"A White official asserted that the kingdom of Jongho, known as The Red, had grown in strength. There were whispers that The Red had allied with these dark forces, siphoning their power to bolster their own might. Yet, you were well aware that this was a falsehood. Their true strength stemmed from hard-earned experience, not from any infernal assistance. Even though the inhabitants of the Red were hybrids of demons and humans, they were not malevolent; their battles against the demons were driven by a sense of justice rather than wickedness.

The real malevolence laid with the White; no matter the efforts of the Red, acceptance would always elude them. The White were convinced that the Red sought to dominate them under the guise of collaboration, rather than genuinely aiding their development.

You were fed up with their deceitful words, so you confronted them head-on. Your menacing presence left him momentarily speechless, but he quickly found his footing again.

"Your Highness, conflict is unavoidable. It's either my life or his. Our nations are fated to clash." You scowled, your fists clenching the armrests, your nails digging into your skin.

"We are a pure nation, and negotiation with them is out of the question."

"So you're willing to let their blood taint our land, is that it?"

"That's called purification, Your Highness. We just spread our purity."

"Ridiculous." Your voice barely above a whisper. No matter how absurd their statements may seem, you found yourself unable to challenge them. Your parents were right beside you, their disdain for The Red palpable. If you dare to voice your disagreement now, it will surely raise eyebrows and jeopardize your bond with Jongho.

"Allow me to continue, Your Highness." You shifted your gaze, trying to suppress the anger within you. But of course, you couldn't show it.

"We intend to strike when they next engage a demon." Those officials were convinced that once they vanquished demons, The Red would consume their souls for its own gain. Seizing this moment, The White could launch a surprise assault. This strategy has garnered support from many, including your parents.

Your heart races with anxiety. You attempt to steady yourself, determined to stop their conspiracy.

"The White's strategy is steeped in fear and misunderstanding," you countered, your voice steady despite the turmoil within. "To attack the Red while they battle demons is not only morally wrong, but it also betrays the very principles we claim to uphold. We cannot allow ourselves to be governed by paranoia and prejudice."

The official's eyes narrowed, a hint of contempt flickering across his face. "Your Highness, you are too naive. The Red have long been a threat to our stability. Their very existence is a blight upon the land, a reminder of the darkness that once consumed us all. We must eradicate them before they can spread their corruption further."

"But that's not what they are," you insisted, your voice rising with passion. "They are warriors, fighting against the very demons that once threatened our own kingdom. They are not our enemies; they are our allies in this endless struggle against evil."

Your parents exchanged a worried glance, their disapproval evident. "You are too close to this, my child," your mother said softly. "You must see the bigger picture. The Red cannot be trusted."

"I understand your concerns," you replied, striving for calm. "But trust is earned, not assumed. We have never given them a chance to prove their loyalty. How can we judge them solely based on rumors and hearsay?"

The official snorted derisively. "Prove their loyalty? They are hybrids, a twisted blend of humanity and demonic influence. They cannot be trusted, no matter what they do."

"But that's─"

"Enough!Y/N!" Your father cut you off, his voice laced with fury. "How dare you defend those monsters?"

"I'm not defending them, Father."

His eyes narrowed, skepticism etched across his face. You could feel your hands shaking and your breath quickening, yet you fought to steady yourself.

"I'm only considering the welfare of our people."

"That better be the case." He circled you like a predator, hands clasped behind his back, then bellowed to the crowd: "This bill will be enacted! The day we obliterate The Red is nearly upon us!"

You spun around in disbelief, a shiver racing down your spine as you witnessed the crowd erupting in fervent chants. The faces you once knew morphed into a sea of menacing figures, each one a chilling embodiment of the very demons you feared.

Your words fell on deaf ears, and it seemed they would never hear your voice. If that's the reality, then it's time to explore a different path.

Under the cover of night, you slipped into your father's study. The desk was cluttered with battle maps and troop deployment charts. You carefully transcribed the details and tucked them away in a secret spot, ensuring they would remain hidden. When you finally encounter Jongho, you'll hand over the crucial information.

"Jongho!!" The moment you spotted him in the wooden house, you dashed into his arms, a fleeting moment that felt like a precious treasure.

"Y/N…" His voice was a gentle whisper as he pulled you closer, his hands firmly around your waist.

"I'm so sorry I can't stop this…" You kept murmuring, guilt washing over you for not being able to halt the war and shield your beloved.

"It's not your fault; why do you keep saying that?" He brushed his fingers against your tear-streaked cheeks, tenderly wiping away your own tears. "You never wanted this; you've done nothing wrong."

You shook your head, said "I refuse to let them tear us apart…" With determination, you retrieved a folded plan from your pocket, revealing the strategy of your army.

"You…"

"Even if I can't stop them, I can make them lose." You held Jongho's face gently, your words a soft murmur. "They are the true villains, not the heroes."

He enveloped you in his arms, resting his chin on your head. "When that day arrives, everything will change. The war will cease, the animosity will vanish, and we will be united."

"I'll wait for you, Jongho." You both stared into each other's eyes, a profound sorrow mirrored in their depths. Slowly, you leaned in, your lips meeting in a tender, mournful, and final kiss.

Yet, plans often crumble.

The Red's defense fell apart like a house of cards. They had positioned their forces based on the strategic map you provided, but an unexpected assault caught them off guard. Thirty thousand enemy soldiers executed a deceptive strike, drawing the Red's troops northward, while the east and west flanks were mercilessly bombarded by a staggering one hundred thousand foes each. The Red's forces lacked the strength to withstand such overwhelming might, and The White's relentless pressure left them no room to fight back.

"No...no...how could this happen..." You clenched your jaw as you listened to the generals report one victory after another. Each announcement felt like a dagger to your heart. This was unimaginable. With Jongho's exceptional skills, this conflict should not have unfolded this way. What had gone so terribly wrong?

"Inform the king that we have seized The Red's general, Jongho." As soon as his name reached your ears, a wave of sorrow crashed over you. Your eyes brimmed with tears, and you fought valiantly to keep them at bay. The father beside you noticed your distress and, with a playful flourish, gestured toward you, as if to taunt your pain.

"C'mon, Y/N. Take a look at our prize."

"Yes, father…"

As you reluctantly stepped forward, each footfall felt like lead, dragging you towards a fate you were not ready to face. The tent's entrance loomed ahead, the flap swaying slightly in the wind, a harbinger of uncertainty and heartbreak. With a deep breath, you pushed past the curtain and entered a chamber filled with the stench of defeat and despair.

Jongho was bound, his noble features marred by bruises and bloodied lips. His eyes met yours across the room, and in that instant, a thousand words were exchanged. They spoke of love, betrayal, and the cruel realities of war. You struggled to maintain your composure, but your heart was breaking within you.

"Y/N..." His voice was barely above a whisper, filled with a mix of longing and sorrow.

You wanted to approach him, wanted to touch his bruised cheek, only to have your hand stopped by the cold iron of his chains and your father.

"I'm sorry," you whispered, tears streaming down your face. "I failed you."

The king, who had been observing your exchange with a smug satisfaction, cleared his throat loudly. "You're doing well, my daughter. You bring victory to our kingdom."

Jongho's expression turned steely as he stared at you, disbelief etched across his features before his eyes flicked to your father. "What are you saying?"

"If it weren't for you, this war wouldn't be thriving," your father declared, his usual stern demeanor melting away into a grotesque grin that churned your stomach.

"Y/N…" Jongho whispered, his gaze devoid of affection, replaced instead by a simmering hatred.

"No…" A torrent of words lodged in his throat, unable to form a coherent thought. You shook your head, desperate to reject the harsh truth before you, but the reality was undeniable: Jongho's animosity toward you was palpable. He had once trusted your words, but they had led to ruin for his forces. How could he ever believe you again?

"Finish him, Y/N." Your father thrust a knife into your hands, compelling you to take Jongho's life.

You stumbled upon the blade, its cold edge a cruel reminder of your choices, and began to approach the lover standing before you, each step heavy with regret. With every footfall, your heart shattered further, the weight of your actions pressing down on you. He bore the marks of pain, his once-bright eyes now dimmed by your treachery.

"I never meant to betray you. Do you trust me?" you murmured, your voice thick with emotion, nearly drowning out your own plea.

"How?"

Jongho's gaze shifted from yours to the knife in your trembling hand, his expression unreadable. For a moment, there was a flicker of hope in his eyes, but it was quickly extinguished by the harsh realization of your father's ultimatum.

"Trust you?" he repeated, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "After everything? How could I ever trust the one who sent me here, to this fate?"

Your heart twisted at his words, but you pressed on, desperate to make him understand. "I had no choice, Jongho. My father...he's twisted everything. He's used me to achieve his own ends. I never wanted this to happen."

"But it did," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "And now you're standing here, with a weapon in your hand, ready to strike me down. How can you say you never meant to betray me?"

You hesitated, the knife hovering between you and Jongho. You knew there were no easy answers, no words could erase the pain and mistrust between you.

"So I never deserve your forgiveness." You said, your voice breaking. Without a second thought, you thrust the knife into him.

"You…!" Every inch of his body radiated agony, his lips quivered as waves of pain crashed over him relentlessly. He sprawled on the ground, a crimson pool spreading beneath him, his gaze fixed in despair as you strolled back to your father's side, a fake smile on your face.

"Why?" were the final words that escaped his lips before the shadows enveloped him.

Your father's eyes widened with satisfaction as he watched you stand victorious over Jongho's fallen form. "Well done, my dear. Your loyalty to the kingdom is unmatched."

"It's gonna be over," you whispered to yourself, your eyes locked on Jongho's lifeless body. "I promise."

Your father, oblivious to your internal turmoil, turned to address his generals. "With Jongho's forces defeated, our victory is assured. Prepare the celebrations. We shall feast next week in honor of our daughter's bravery."

The generals bowed in obedience, and you let out a smile, "Yes, father."

—---

The war concluded with The White emerging victorious. The world hailed The White as a champion, while The Red, the instigator of the conflict, was branded a villain. And you stood as the greatest hero of them all.

The castle hall buzzed with the jubilant gathering of soldiers and the royal family, all reveling in the triumph. Their cheers rang out, a stark contrast to the emptiness you felt inside.

You stood there, devoid of joy or sorrow, like a marionette stripped of its strings. No one seemed to notice your detachment; they were too engrossed in their celebration. Just then, your mother approached, accompanied by a man.

"Come, Y/N, meet your fiancé. This is His Highness Adam." You offered a curt bow, your face a mask of indifference. If you had known they were arranging a political marriage for you, you would have protested vehemently. But now, you felt nothing, your mind fixated on a singular thought.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness Y/N. Rumors do not do justice to your beauty," he complimented, his words smooth but lacking sincerity.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Prince Adam." As you and he engaged in conversation, your mother discreetly stepped away, granting you both a moment of privacy.

"I heard you outsmarted the Red Prince and emerged victorious in the war," he began, his voice brimming with admiration. "And you even took his life! How incredible you are!"

"Do you despise the Reds?"

"Absolutely! They're nothing but demons—cruel and hideous. They deserve to vanish from this world."

"But I carry the blood of demons; do I not deserve to perish as well?"

"No, no! You are a hero, Y/N. Even with their blood on your hands, your nobility shines through." Your once gentle gaze darkened, transforming into something sinister as you turned away, striding toward the empty throne, your fingers gliding over the armrests. "So, is there a chance for my redemption?"

"You did nothing─ *cough*" In an instant, a wave of violent coughing swept through the hall. Guests clutched their throats, desperately trying to stifle the crimson torrents spilling from their lips, but their efforts were futile.

"Is the wine to your liking?" you inquired, your gaze fixed on his glass, provoking a sinister grin. You had laced every dish with poison before the feast even began. It was no surprise that everyone was now afflicted.

"What have you done?" your father growled, struggling to maintain his balance against the onslaught of agony.

"Just what you did to me once. Father." You moved back and forth with a chilling calmness. "You altered the plan after I stole it, leading Jongho to misunderstand me, ultimately costing him his life. You forced my betrayal, and now I return the favor."

"How dare you…!"

"I took the life of my beloved, and there's nothing I won't do. Father."

"You love that demon…?!" Adam gasped, his voice strained. "What a…" Before he could finish, you drew a knife and plunged it into him with brutal force.

"He is not the demon; you all are. In the name of your so-called purification, you slaughter the innocent without remorse, using their lives to fortify your nation. It's nothing short of disgraceful!"

You withdrew the blade, and he crumpled to the earth. Seated upon the throne, a sea of lifeless bodies sprawled before you.

"That's so-called purify, Father." A smile crept across your face, a flicker of relief washing over you as you contemplated your fate. You knew Jongho would come back for you. That day, you chose not to pierce his heart. Instead, you allowed him to stage his demise and slip away unnoticed. Deep down, you understood that with his nature, vengeance was inevitable. He would, no, must kill you. You betrayed him, bringing to his people. You will never be forgiven.

"Now I await your return, Jongho."

—---

"Your Majesty─" A soldier sprinted frantically toward your throne, only to be struck down by a figure in a tall hat lurking behind him. He collapsed, his lifeless form swallowed by a tide of crimson. The man in the hat advanced slowly into the hall where you sit. You rest your hands on the table, unflinching in the face of impending doom.

"It's all finished. Surrender. White Queen. Your forces have surrendered, and I have eliminated every last one of your warriors. It's time for your cruel reign to end." The man before you brandishes a sword, each word he utters striking your heart like a relentless hammer. How long has it been since you last heard his voice? The affection that once colored his words has faded, replaced by a chilling disdain.

"Hatter... or should I call you Jongho?" you murmured softly. As your revelation hit him, Jongho's steadfast gaze shattered momentarily, only to reassemble into its former intensity.

"I had a feeling you were Alice's partner, the one who's going to take me down. And I'm right. It just took more time than I expected. I've been waiting for you for so long."

One day, you stumbled upon a mysterious book hidden away in your father's clandestine chest, tucked inside a room that few knew existed. The pages revealed a prophecy about a woman named Alice and her band of allies who would rise up against your reign. Among them was a figure known as Hatter. While the book offered no details about his looks, a gut feeling whispered that he must be Jongho. And as fate would have it, your instincts were spot on.

"You should have. You took everything from me and shattered what we once shared," he retorted, his words slicing through you like a cruel blade. "I can never forgive you."

"I don't need your forgiveness, Jongho." You stood up straight, stepping forward until the cold tip of the sword pressed against your chest, invading your vulnerability. Blood trickled down, staining your white dress. Yet, you felt no pain; the heartbreak had rendered you numb.

"Your words are as hollow as the shell you've become," you said, voice steady despite the growing chill spreading from the sword's point. "You speak of taking everything, but it was you who abandoned us. You chose power over love, ambition over the promise of a life together."

Jongho's face twisted in a mix of anger and grief, his grip on the sword tightening. "You don't know what you're talking about. I did it all for us, for a better future. But you... you were blinded by your throne and your obsession with control. You destroyed everything in your path, including our love."

"Love?" You snorted, a bitter laugh escaping your lips. "You speak of love as if it's some fairy tale. You turned your back on reality, Jongho. On the truth. You were always meant to be the Hatter, trapped in Wonderland, while I was meant for something greater. I was born to rule, and nothing—not even you—could change that."

His eyes narrowed, and you could see the anger simmering just below the surface. "You're wrong. You were never meant to be a queen, not like this. You've become a monster, consumed by your own greed and paranoia. And now, it's time for you to pay the price."

You met his gaze without flinching, feeling the weight of your actions pressing down on you. "Then do it, Jongho. Strike me down and end this nightmare. But know that even in death, I will never regret my choices. I would rather die as a queen than live as a pawn in someone else's game."

For a moment, he hesitated, his sword wavering. But then, with a fierce determination, he lunged forward, the blade piercing through your chest with a sickening thud. Pain erupted within you, searing through your veins like wildfire. You stumbled backward, crashing into the table behind you, the sound of shattering crystal mingling with your own labored breathing.

Jongho stood over you, sword still embedded in your chest, his face a mask of cold resolution. "Goodbye,Y/N. May you finally find peace in the afterlife."

But as you gazed up at him, your vision blurring with the onset of darkness, you knew that peace would never be yours. Not in this life, nor in the next. You had made too many mistakes, caused too much suffering. And now, as the life force within you began to fade, you realized that your only hope for redemption lay in the forgiveness of those you had wronged.

With your last breath, you whispered, "Finally, you can become a hero."

"What're you talking about…"

"The Red overthrow The White. A hero defeats a villain. That's what people would believe in the future. The Red is not evil anymore, but the White."

"I'm sorry, Jongho. For everything."

The air in the throne room seemed to grow thicker with each passing moment, heavy with the weight of betrayal and regret. Jongho's eyes widened at your whispered apology, a flicker of emotion crossing his stern features. But it was too late, the damage had been done, and the path to reconciliation had long been lost in the labyrinth of Wonderland's twisted politics.

He withdrew the sword painfully, leaving behind a gaping wound that oozed a sickly crimson.

You collapsed onto the shattered remnants of your throne, the cold marble beneath you now stained with your blood.

"What have I done to deserve this...Y/N?" He sank to his knees, the weight of his bottled-up feelings crashing down on him. "Why do you push me to end your life? For the sake of heroes and villains? Why?I never wanted to be a hero. I just wanted…us…"

Now he finally understood, you made him kill you so that he could be the hero and no one would suppress the Red again.

The White fell, and with it, Wonderland found its tranquility. Whispers circulated that the Red King had toppled the White Queen's rule, yet the truth remained shrouded in mystery, for no one had laid eyes on him and Jongho did not ascend to the throne of Wonderland; instead, he disappeared. And your corpse? Oddly enough, it appears to have vanished alongside the Red King. When the troops stormed into the throne room, all that was left were a bloodied sword and a crown. Everything seemed to evaporate overnight.

As time passed, Wonderland slowly healed from the wounds of the past. All is well again, and the sorrow of yesteryears has faded away, washed clean by the passage of time.

—-----

"Alice, wake up!" Her sister gently nudged her as Alice lay dozing on her lap. "Dinner's ready! Father mentioned we have new neighbors, so we should go say hello soon!"

"Mmm?" Alice stirred from a vivid dream. She recalled a fantastical adventure where she leaped into a rabbit hole, nibbled on peculiar cakes, and experienced wild changes in size. In that strange world, she had been hailed as a savior, destined to challenge a queen whose name eluded her, though she vividly remembered the queen's striking white attire.

"Wait, where's the hatter?" Alice shot up, a sudden realization hitting her. She recalled racing to the palace after defeating the White Queen's dragon, but her friend, the hatter, was nowhere to be found. She distinctly remembered following him inside.

"What hatter? That's just a tale, Alice."

"No!" Alice insisted. "I swear I saw him! And his name wasn't just hatter… what was it…?"

"Alright, alright, just head home and stop with the daydreaming."

"I'm not daydreaming! It was real!" Alice hurried after her sister. "I followed the rabbit and fell into the hole!"

"It's merely a plot from a story."

"Why won't you believe me?"

"Because it's not true."

As their debate continued, they arrived home, where a couple, presumed to be their new neighbors, turned away from them.

"Meet our neighbors," Alice's father said, gesturing. The couple stood and greeted them with warm smiles.

"Hello! You must be Alice, right?" the man said. A wave of recognition washed over Alice, and she gasped, momentarily speechless.

"You… you… you? Hatter and White Queen??"

"What?" They both laughed lightly. "No, I'm Jongho, and this is Y/N."

"She's just lost in her imagination, sorry about that," Alice's sister chimed in.

Is it truly just a figment of her imagination? Perhaps only Jongho held the key to the truth.

—---

(Bonus/Side story)

Jongho's POV

The palace around me was steeped in an eerie silence, punctuated only by the distant clamor of chaos as the last vestiges of her army capitulated to my forces. The thought of revenge fuels my existence, yet even as I exacted it, my heart felt hollow, as if a vital piece of me was missing. Her lifeless form lay cold, drenched in blood. I should have revealed in this victory, but instead, an overwhelming wave of sorrow washed over me, leaving me gasping for breath.

I believed I had acclimated to a life without her. Yet, deep down, I knew I had never truly let her go; I thought my feelings had vanished the day she plotted my demise. Perhaps I merely buried them within my heart. That fateful day, I was saved by surviving soldiers, who claimed a mysterious figure had orchestrated my escape from The White. Initially, I suspected it was the woman named Alice, revered by many as the savior. I adopted a new identity as Hatter, aligning myself with Alice to dismantle the White Queen's reign.

The journey was fraught with peril, yet it unfolded with an unsettling ease, as if someone had choreographed it all. Blinded by my thirst for vengeance, I overlooked the nagging doubts that lingered. In hindsight, I realize how foolish I was... This entire scheme was orchestrated by Y/N to provoke me into her demise.

I found it perplexing—what had turned her so merciless? Was it truly just because a servant pilfered her fruit tart that she sought to annihilate an entire family? Eventually, I understood that this was merely a game to her.

I embraced her and stepped out of the palace. She had been ensnared within its walls, and now she could finally break free. No longer would she feign the role of a tyrannical ruler; she could simply be my wife.

Arriving at our old cabin, I was astonished to find it remarkably well-preserved amidst the turmoil. She had cherished our memories, and not a speck of dust marred the furniture. We had made a promise here, yet unexpectedly, that promise now lay beyond our reach.

I wrapped my arms around her and settled onto the bed, pretending that everything was just as it had always been. Reflecting on our conversation, Alice had shared how she tumbled down a rabbit hole and found herself in a place untouched by war, where peace reigned and everyone thrived together. How wonderful it would be for Y/N and me to exist in such a realm!

But it was too late.

I retrieved the vial of poison from my bag. Downed it in one go. The agony I anticipated never arrived. Instead, I found myself surrounded by a brilliant light. It was in that moment that a voice I recognized broke through the silence.

"Wake up, jjong. Don't sleep."

Ah, is she, my Y/N.

tag list: @angelsaway , @yeosangcutie0615

#ateez #ateez fanfic #ateez fic #ateez x female reader #ateez x reader #ateez imagines #ateez oneshot #ateez x y/n #ateez smut #ateez jongho #jongho x reader #choi jongho #jongho smut #jongho #ateez reaction #ateez reactions

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maegoorskeep · 11 days ago

Text

Sticky Note

summary: As some of the FOB soldiers are moved back to SoundView Stadium, you start to find notes around your shared quarters from Abby. It's a new thing from her, but you can't say you hate it. pairing : Abby Anderson x wlf!reader word count: 1.8k content warning: fluff, established relationship, canon setting, mentions of violence and death, emotional vulnerabiluty, mentions of disfunctional family, mild swearing, suggested sex. A/N: I read this while listening to 'Pillar of Truth' by Lucy Dacus.

SoundView Stadium wasn't much when you arrived there back then, more military than functional for thousands of people. You were a kid from a disfunctional family and somehow, the chaos of installation and turning this place into a real thing made it feel like home. At 15, you were already enrolled into the militia, running, brawling, shooting in infected's head like it was nothing and as you grew older, the more you moved places : Serevena, Eastbrook Elementary and now, in FOB, anything to keep you away from your parents.

The barracks there aren't exactly cozy. It's nothing like the Stadium, but you've learned to make them feel like home. Your bed is pushed right next to Abby's, piled high with blankets you've snatched here and there and your backpack. She always teases about how much of a mess your side of the quarters is, but never really complains about it. Your locker is just equally a mess, plastered with half-faded polaroids, doodles and candy wrappers taped in a strange collage. Art, you call it, beautiful junky art. Abby's is pristine, organized like her shit would judge her for not being neat. Old Fireflies habit, you want to believe. You were opposites in every single way, and maybe that's why it's been working for the last two years and even more since Owen and Abs broke up.

Unlike you, the young woman isn't much for talking, not about how she feels inside anyway. You never talked about how you should be a couple, it came naturally and somehow, it worked. When she opens up, it always comes in small, domestic ways : she'll bring your favorite walnut snacks from an old vending machine in some half crumbling building, she'll make sure that you've got enough ammo or that you walk on the inside of the road during patrols. Her love and affection are quiet, dropped there like it's nothing when, it's everything to you. And when you girls are called to move from the front back to SoundView Stadium in exactly two months, little notes starts to pop up from nowhere, maybe because you start to act strange and worked up.

The first one is stuck to the glass that holds your tooth brush. You're half-awake, hair a total chaotic mess and the shirt you were is half hazardly tuck in your underwear when you notice the yellow squared paper on the yellow cup.

『It's raining again, don't forget to wear your jacket. — A』

You blink for a second, squinting a little bit, but you still smile at the attention. When you get back to the room, Manny is already there with his bag, talking with Abby and they both pretend not to notice how you walk back into the room grinning like an idiot. And that? It's just the beginning because the second one shows up the next day already. It's tuck inside your camo thigh holster. You find it when your revolver doesn't want to get in.

『Watch your back today, infected been seen around. Need u in one piece. — A』

When you see her at the gates, Abby is already geared up and giving instructions to some squad. She sees you, she always does and when you wiggle your finger at her, one of her brow lift. You only tap your holster, but that's enough to make her shrug like it's nothing while her ears and neck turn bright red. That night, you make sure to let her know how appreciative you are, kissing and caressing her hair. Abby never asks but you know her enough to know she needs that.

"You're ridiculous," she mumbles, pointing the little Abby's love letters' metal ammo box on your nightstand.

"You started it, dummy," but the words makes you smile even more tenderly as you press a kiss on her hair.

And all this? It becomes a game, but not one of those games you play to win. It's not backgammon or one of those coin games Manny loves. It's just one that makes your chest light and your cheeks warm on a daily basis. The notes are everywhere. It's in your boots, stuck between the shoelaces. It's on your water bottle. One time, it's even folded inside your right glove, the one that you put on first, and god damn it, you like it. It's becoming a freaking routine that makes you closer to your girlfriend, like Abby is truly trying. And just because of that, you leave one note for her too. You stick it to one of her dumbbell like it's its place all along. The paper is pink, round shaped after you cut it like some kid working on an elementary school project.

『Let's sneak out to Serevena soon, I miss the hot tub :( — your hot roommate』

When Abs finds it later that evening after coming back from patrol, you are sprawled on the bed reading one of her book. Medea. You don't look up to her at first, but when she throw her rolled-up socks at you and you both laugh for a second because that's you, that's her, that's how you love each other. And that night, when it's so dark you can't even see each other and Abby's arms are wrapped around you, she whispers slowly that she'd be so down for a hot bath if it's with you.

Somehow, though, you never exactly find the time because the truce has been breeched. It's fucked up, you both hate it, but that's life here, in Seattle. Things get heavy so fucking quickly that you wonder how it did not turn sour earlier. Isaac puts pressure on everyone again, it's tiring and without any surprise your entire squad comes back half dead, half injured after a bad patrol not even a week later.

You're so shaken no one dares to talk to you when you get upstairs. You didn't say much either when you undressed and curled up under the blankets. Abby is tender that evening, she lies down beside you, kisses the nap of your neck and most importantly, she doesn't ask what happened in details. She'll read the report tomorrow, she'll know all the details anyway and tonight? Tonight, you're her girl and the blonde is here to have you until morning comes again and you're alone in bed.

『You did everything right. Don't carry the weight all alone. — A』

The note is sticked on the ammo box, waiting for you there and you read it again and again until you feel like waking up. It's not about feeling better until you get off the shower and dress up, but as you grab your bomber jacket, you find a new note, soft green paper and black sharpy letters that makes you cry for a hot minute or two... or five.

『If I could pull the pain out of you like a splinter, I would. — Abby』

That one you keep not in the little box, but folded and tucked in the inner pocket of your jacket, the closest to your heart. You don't even need to read it to feel its warmth, Abby's warmth seeping and bleeding into you in the best way possible. And when you're out there, patrolling the streets, walking from 2 to 4 and from 4 to 3 before being back to FOB, life seems a bit less dull because you know someone is waiting for you, and that someone can be super sarcastic and a bit awkward sometimes, but she also likes her shits being nicely put together in a way that makes sense and she reads books with a passion you've never seen in anyone. Most importantly, she loves you, and you love her, that's all that matter.

After a long shift out there, your body beaten by the rain, Abby is right there. She greets you with a smile, one of those that asks you not to say shit about her waiting for you outside instead of upstairs. You walk side by side, your hands brushing in that exquisite way until she opens the door of your quarter - of course she always keeps the keys on her - and you drop on the bed with a dramatic groan.

"I'm dead, I'm gone, I'm going to pass out right there," you whine.

Abby doesn't have to look up from her tidying to know exactly how your mouth form one of those pout you used to make to mock her at the begining and that you stole from her.

"You say that everyday, babe."

"And here I am, resurrected by your love and attention."

Despite Abs rolling her eyes, you can swear she's smiling as she get closer and closer and even closer at every second, until she slops down near you with a soft groan. There's a smirk on the blonde's lips and you roll on your stomach, raising your eyebrows.

"What's up with the smile, Anderson."

"There's a surprise for you if you fluff that pillow of yours, for once."

And it's your time to roll your eyes, but you look anyway. You reach out, and you first fluff your cushion like your life depends on it before grabbing the note like it's some nice present under a Christmas tree. Abby's hand rests on your waist as you start to read the longer memo, your thumb caressing the paper slowly.

『Sometimes I don't know how to say the stuff you deserve to hear and I hope you're not mad at me because of that because : you're everything to me no matter how loud and chaotic you get, or how many dumb theories you come up with regarding cute animals. I wouldn't trade you for anything in the world. I love you. — Abby』

That's a new habit, you notice as you trace slowly the letters of her name. Your eyes are burning with tears you try to push away and even if you press the not to your chest, Abby still worries she has done something wrong. Her lips press soft and tender kisses to your skin. That night, she reminds you exactly how much you deserve love and tenderness and affection. It feels good because Abs has this way of worshipping you like you're the sole deity on planet earth, and maybe you are to her. Somehow, you're not dreading SoundView Stadium anymore and coming back there. Abby will be right there, next to you, there's no doubt about it.

#abby anderson #abby tlou #abby anderson fic #abby x reader #abby fluff #lesbian #wlw #abby anderson oneshot #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction

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theeternalbanquett · 5 months ago

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Forbidden Tears, Promised Pain (Part One)

On and on and on the Doll spoke, the pre-selected words spilling out of its mouth like water.

The contents didn't matter. They never had and never will. They were just pretty sounds, splashing to the floor. Worth less than the chisel used to scrape away the solidified metal on particularly bad nights.

"The speech is a parroting spell of course" Miss would brag when only her most special guests remained, "any Doll of mine isn't capable of speech after all."

Specially created to only say pretty things, inoffensive things, things that praise its miss and decry her enemies.

The Doll was nothing more than a thing to be put on display, left in its case as long as it followed The One Rule.

Crying during a performance wasn't allowed you see. No, Miss declared that could only happen after, where she could see and enjoy it.

Not even the Dolls tears belonged to it.

As the Words kept churning in its gut, tearing through its throat, breaking through its clenched jaws, forcing their way out of its speaker, its eyes betrayed it and started to burn.

The light chatter and clink of dinnerware didn't waver, uncaring as the torrent of words kept going unaffected by its emotions.

No one would ever know its true self, would never hear it speak, would never believe it was worth anything more than pretty words and empty compliments.

It was utterly alone, an object to be toyed with and broken as Miss desired.

The worst part was, as Miss often reminded it, it had signed up for this.

It cried harder at that thought, but still the words wouldn't stop. It was incapable of stopping until the spell had run its course.

Miss pursed her lips from the table closest to the display, tapping one long nail on the table in frustration. The tears came faster, the hot gold streaming down its face and onto the base of the ornate glass cabinet.

It knew what that meant, it knew what that frustration promised.

Still the Doll went on, the majority of the audience not even looking or caring about the tears it was shedding. It was still working after all, like a good doll should. Why should they care beyond that?

A few become more interested once the tears started, eyes locked onto it like a predator sizing up its next meal, trying to figure out if it was proper to like this more than the planned show, trying to pretend that they weren't savoring its pain.

These ones would be invited to a private showing with Miss after, an additional punishment for breaking the rules. The opportunity for more playmates didn't come often. Miss would take full advantage of their interest.

This was going to be a bad night.

#empty spaces #dollposting #not a person #witchposting #short story #fiction #Memory's Writing

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fameandfiction · 1 month ago

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IMAGINE PART I: “The Coffee Was Cold, But She Wasn’t” — Reneé Rapp x Reader

— First impressions laced with tension.

It’s raining the kind of rain that doesn’t bother to fall — it just hangs, misting your skin with that damp, city-washed chill that sneaks under coats and drips off metal awnings like it has something to prove. Your hair is frizzing. Your phone battery is dying. You’re thirty minutes early to a meeting you don’t want to attend, so you duck into the first café with working lights and a decent playlist humming from inside.

And that’s where she is.

Not the playlist.

Reneé.

Back corner. Hood up. Sunglasses inside because, apparently, fame is a full-time job — even when your espresso is going cold. She doesn’t look up. Not at first. She's scrolling something on her phone with the concentration of a general in a war room, long fingers pinching and zooming, eyes narrowed. You pause — not because you recognize her right away, but because there's a flicker of something familiar.

Then you see the crumpled concert laminate peeking out of her tote.

Oh.

You freeze. Internally recalibrate. You’ve got two options:

Say something. Possibly trip over your own tongue. Possibly get escorted out by a handler who’ll appear out of thin air.

Pretend you don’t know who she is. Order your overpriced latte. Sit somewhere in the periphery. Go about your life like this isn't a fanfiction scenario playing out in real time.

You choose chaos. You sit at the table directly across from hers.

She looks up then. Finally. Lifts her glasses just enough to make eye contact, her eyebrows twitching with a mix of surprise and amusement. She blinks once, slow — a cat reading a new toy — and offers a dry, pointed,

"That seat taken?"

You smirk, gesturing to the empty chairs around her. “Was gonna ask you the same.”

A pause.

Then Reneé does something dangerous: she smiles. Just a curl of the lips. Not full teeth. Not full warmth. But enough for your heartbeat to skip and fumble over itself like a kid in gym class.

You glance at her untouched coffee.

“It’s cold,” she says, shrugging. “Like... offensively cold. Not in a poetic way.”

“I’m guessing you forgot you ordered it.”

“I didn’t forget,” she deadpans. “I just didn’t expect it to betray me.”

That makes you laugh — not politely, but genuinely. Loud enough that a few heads turn. She notices. Her smile deepens. There’s a flicker of pride there, almost.

“Okay, so,” she says, pushing her hood off her head, blonde hair static-laced and wild, “either you don’t know who I am, or you do and you’re weirdly good at pretending.”

You blink, mid-sip. “Would it ruin the vibe if I said I recognized you from the moment I walked in?”

She leans forward, intrigued. “That depends. Are you about to ask for a selfie?”

“Absolutely not.”

“An autograph?”

“Nope.”

“A lock of my hair for your shrine at home?”

You deadpan: “Already got one.”

And she laughs. Fully this time — head thrown back, nose crinkled, unguarded and maybe even a little surprised at herself.

You didn’t expect it to click like this.

But now you’re sitting across from a girl you’ve only ever seen on stage or screen, trading sarcasm like it's native language, watching her posture shift from closed-off to curious. She twirls the straw in her cold drink and taps her nails against the cardboard like she’s trying to time her next move to your heartbeat.

You don’t notice you’re leaning closer.

She does.

“Let me guess,” she says softly, eyes locked on yours. “You came in here to kill time.”

You nod.

“And now time’s killing you.”

You laugh again, despite yourself. “Are you always like this?”

She shrugs, reaching for her cup. “Only with people who give me something back.”

She sips. Winces. “Still cold.”

Then, suddenly — boldly — she pushes the cup toward you.

“Want it?”

You eye it. “Even though I’m a shrine-building weirdo?”

She leans her chin on her palm, grinning now — really grinning.

“Exactly because of that.”

#fanfic #fanfiction #imagine #imagines #x reader #Reneé Rapp #Renee Rapp #Reneé Rapp x reader #Renee Rapp x reader #RPF #Real People #Real Person Fiction #Real Person Fanfic

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13a07s · 1 year ago

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Chest Pains

(Tobio Kageyama)

[Artwork is not mine! Credit to teerex017]

Requested by: No One

Word Count: 3,466

Warnings and/or Pre-Notes:

We're going to pretend Tobs has an iPhone cause why not

Kageyama lacking social skills

Word "suicides" are used (in a sport term way)

———————————————————————

Ding

The sound of my Snapchat going off fills my room before my alarm clock can. Not that it makes a difference; I've been lying awake in bed since four-thirty. Mondays and Thursdays are the only days I don't go running in the morning. You'd think I'd be asleep but I'm not. I'm wired to be awake already so I am. It's annoying.

I pat around my bed, looking for my phone without having to move much. It doesn't take long to find the cold box of metal and glass, wrapping my fingers around it. I roll onto my side, the light filling the darkness of my room with painful whiteness.

The photo of my girlfriend and me shines on the screen. It's the dumbest photo I've ever taken. Her feet are - barely - balanced on a volleyball, arms clinging to my shoulders for dear life as she looks at me. My hands are on her waist, trying to stop her from falling off the ball for the tenth time. My disapproval of the photo is written all over my face. It was such a dumb photo, one that she insisted we did "so I have a picture of both my favorite things", but she's smiling so happily at me in it so I can't help but enjoy it... even if it is stupid.

Sugar is scribbled next to the Snapchat icon; another dumb thing on my phone because of my girlfriend. She was upset when I didn't change her Snapchat name so I let her change it for me. It's a stupid name and a stupid thing to be upset about but letting her change it calmed her down so I've left it be.

Over the past couple of months, I've learned that having a girlfriend means dealing with a lot of stupid things because it makes her happy... and that she tends to get upset about things I've never thought about.

One of those stupid things happens to be the pile of pillows and blankets at the foot of my bed. I'm happy with my pillow and my comforter. 'My Sugar' isn't; she likes lots of fluffy things so there's a lot of them for her to curl up with when she's over. It's dumb, but they keep her warm and happy.

Aside from volleyball, that's all I think of; keeping 'My Sugar' warm and happy. That's a dumb name too. Why should I call her my sugar? It sounds stupid... but she always smiles when I call her my sugar, and Tanaka insists now that she has a nickname I'm not allowed to call her by her actual name anymore or "she's totally going to freak, dude".

Why are there so many untalked-about rules when it comes to dating? What does it matter what I call her or have her on my phone as? It doesn't make any sense to me, but it keeps her happy. It keeps her smiling, at me. That smile makes it feel like my heart forgot how to work, leaving me with chest pains.

Can a heart forget how to beat? Probably. I think mine does every time Sugar smiles at me or laughs at something I say or when I spot her in a crowd at one of my practice matches. Maybe I should ask Grandmother to schedule me a physical to get this heart issue straightened out before it starts affecting volleyball.

I shake my head, trying to jiggle the possible heart problem out of my mind. Worrying about it will just make it worse. When I settle my head straight again, I tap the screen of my phone; Sugar and me back to lightening my bedroom. I tap the icon with her useless nickname curved onto it; Snapchat obediently opens at my command.

At the top of the app, she sits; Sugar with a little red box to signal a photo has been sent. Her icon is stacked on top of a few others; Hinata, Yachi, Yamaguchi, Noya, and the team group chat. Sugar's is the only one I have the notification on for, partly because I hate notifications and partly because in an hour I'd get about ten notifications from Hinata alone.

My thumb hovers over our chat for a moment before I click on it. My screen quickly changes from the bright white of the app to the more mutt main color of Sugar's room. My girlfriend is sitting in front of the small mirror in her room. She has two of them; the small one on her desk and the big when she uses to send me pictures of her outfit.

That's another useless thing she does; sending me photos of her outfits. Five of the seven days a week she's wearing the school uniform. I know what it looks like and I know what it looks like on her, why send it to me every day?

This picture isn't that though. It's just a picture of her face, showing off the curves and markings of it; the right side of her face is brighter than the left because of the flash of her camera. Her hair is twisted weirdly today, probably the weird braid she was telling me about last night. French or German or something, I don't remember.

I make a mental note to compliment the new hairstyle, repeating the command as I hold down on her photo, choosing to save it to my camera as I do with most of her photos. I like looking at them. All the time. In class, on the bus to practice matches, between classes, and on breaks at practice.

Maybe I should talk about the constant photo thumbing through I do with my doctor too. I don't think that's normal behavior. I shake my head again, another thought I need to not overthink.

Me| Morning.

It takes a minute or two before Sugar's icon is popping around the corner of the screen.

Sugar| Good morning

Me| Your hair looks nice.

Sugar| Thanks, Tobi

Sugar| You should walk me to school

| today :)

Me| Why would I do that? You live two

| blocks from the school. You'll be fine

| walking yourself.

Sugar's icon jumps up again, doing that weird question mark thing for a few minutes before it disappears again. I sit in our chat, waiting for her response. What could be taking her so long to answer?

Sugar| Okay.

That can't be good. For whatever reason, Tanaka says when Sugar answers with a single word and a period it means she's mad. I don't see any sense in it but he's been right about it every time so I guess she's upset. He also says when I upset her I answered wrong and should backtrack. Is this one of those times? Probably. I guess it wouldn't hurt to walk her to school even if I see it as pointless.

Me| Just kidding.

Me| I'll pick you up at 7:30.

Class doesn't start until eight and it's only a five-minute walk from her house to the school but Sugar tends to be extra happy on days I get to school early enough to spend time with her before class. If I make her extra happy it should cancel out her being mad at me... I think.

Sugar| You don't have to walk me to school

| if you don't want to

Having a girlfriend is confusing. She was just upset that I said no and now she's telling me I don't have to walk her. Maybe I should text Tanaka, he always has the answer. Though, he's probably going to tell me to walk Sugar and that I came off as not wanting to spend time with her. I tend to do that a lot; that's something else I've learned since dating Sugar, that I accidentally come off as annoyed or not wanting her around even though it's not true.

Me| I want to. I'll pick you up at 7:30.

Sugar| I can't wait :)

Good, she's not mad anymore, I think. I should still text Tanaka and make sure I fixed it the right way. Or... I could just get her flowers and be double sure.

Flowers tend to be a good 'sorry' when I accidentally mess up, and if I didn't mess up they'll be a good gift. When I get Sugar flowers and I didn't mess up she calls them 'just cause' gifts. Those kinds of gifts make her the happiest, no matter what I got for my unneeded apology.

Ya, I'll leave early to stop and get her flowers. Purple ones, like the hair-ties holding her weird braid in place.

————————————

Hinata's voice rattles around my head as he rambles, not paying attention to what he's saying but still picking up on his voice. Sugar didn't send me a picture of her uniform today. I figured it was just because I was walking her to school but she didn't post the flowers I got her either. She always posts a picture of the gifts I get her, but she hasn't; not on Snapchat or Instagram or even Facebook.

Why hasn't she posted a picture of them? Did she not like them? She gushed over them when she opened her front door so that can't be the case. I watched her take a picture of them before we left her house, so why aren't they on Snapchat with the annoying shoutout notification telling me she tagged me in the post?

When I texted Tanaka he said it sounded like I should be in the clear. Am I not in the clear? Is Sugar still mad at me? Maybe she didn't like the flowers I got her. Maybe she's mad because I spent our whole morning talking about the new plays Coach came up with.

The lunch bell rings, instantly jerking my body into motion. Hinata whines for a moment, upset I started walking away in the middle of our one-sided conversation. His whining doesn't last long; soon he's back to blabbing as he follows me to Sugar's classroom.

She's in class four, like Yamaguchi and Tsukishima which both ticks me off and makes me a bit calm. I like knowing she's not alone in her classes. I don't like knowing she's with Tsukishima. Sugawara says I'm jealous and to let it go. I'm not jealous. I'm not going to let it go.

It doesn't take long to walk down the hallway and slide into her classroom. My eyes instantly catch on the back of Sugar's head, her braid bouncing as she talks and nods along to whatever her classmate is saying. I settle behind her, waiting for her conversation to end as Hinata continues with our conversation; or, lack of one.

"I'll see you after lunch," she finally utters, nodding her head to her friend once more before turning around to face me. My mind goes blank at the sight of her, any possible form of a greeting is instantly thrown out. Her eyes are gentle as she looks up at me, the rest of her face just as soft. "Hey, Tobio," Sugar greets, her voice making the familiar lack of a heartbeat fill my chest and my lungs sting from the struggle to pull air into them.

"Are you mad at me?" I squeak out, causing confusion to mix in the pools of her eyes.

"No, why do you think I'm mad?"

"He's been whimpering all morning because you didn't post about the flowers he got you," Hinata butts in, mocking my stormy mood.

"Shut up, moron," I hiss, shooting him a glare. All he does is giggle at my anger. Since I started dating Sugar, Hinata has been the biggest dumbass about it. Always insisting I'm texting her when I'm on my phone, making kissy faces anytime we're close to each other, mocking me about her during practice.

Sugar's eyes flutter from Hinata's amused grin back up to my face which I'm sure is dressed in a scowl; one that I drop once her sight is back on me. "It's Monday. You take me out to get a drink from the Sakanoshita Market every Monday after our clubs end. I'm waiting so I can post all the pictures of us at the same time, instead of making two different posts."

"Okay," I mutter, my heart stalled again as she looks up at me; concern slowly eating away at the softness of her expression. Before I can stop it, my hand jumps up to press against my chest, checking to see if my heart is still working. It is. "I think I'm going to go see a doctor soon."

"Why?"

"My heart is acting weird," I shortly explain, letting my hand drop away from my chest. "We should get going before the team starts looking for me."

"And me!" Hinata butts in again, his cockiness replaced with the annoyance of being forgotten. "You act like you're the only person the team would notice was missing," he grumbles, turning away from us to start heading out of the room.

As I turn to follow, Sugar steps forward, her fingers settling into the creek of my arm like they usually do when we walk together. "Guess what I'm making at my club today?" She prompts me, eyes cast forward as Hinata leads us through the crowded hallways.

I used to think the cooking club was stupid, especially when there is so many better clubs, like the volleyball club. Over time I've grown to not dislike it. It leaves Sugar smelling good all the time, like freshly made pastries or homemade tomato sauce. It also leaves the team and me with first dibs on buying whatever the cooking club made each day.

The first time I watched her cook was... interesting. She was pretty, almost dancing around the kitchen as she floated back and forth. She looked joyful the whole three hours it took to make my favorite curry for me. I've never seen Sugar look more happy and beautiful than when she's cooking, twirling around my kitchen, singing to me as she pours her heart over whatever she's cooking for me.

"Curry," I answer, knowing it's probably wrong. I'm always wrong when I guess curry.

"We're making taiyaki. The fish-shaped waffles. I'm thinking about filling mine with chocolate or maybe I'll fill it with cream. I don't know yet, which one should I do?" She asks, her fingers tightening on my arm as she rambles on, excitement radiating off of her.

"Uh... chocolate," I stumble out, my chest freezing again. I need to get a doctor’s appointment scheduled. These constant chest tightening can't be good for me, or volleyball. "Sugar?"

"Tobio?" She calls back, a pep still in her step, and eyes sparkling as they look up at me through her eyelashes. They're painted today, her eyelashes, with that black tinted stuff stored in the tub she carries in her bag. The paint makes her eyelashes look longer than they are; I like how it makes her eyes look bigger.

"My chest hurts," I murmur, tearing my eyes away from her. It almost hurts more to look away from her.

"Why? Tobs, how long has your chest been hurting? Have you called a doctor yet? Set up an appointment? Did you tell your Grandma? Your coach?" Sugar rambles, both hands tightly around my bicep. Concern is glazed over her eyes again, big and round as she looks up at me.

I take small glances at her out of the corner of my eye, trying to steady my breathing. Sugar isn't happy, but her hands sure are warm. "I'll tell coach today at practice. I'll talk to Grandmother and get an appointment set up. I will be fine."

"Chest pains are serious, Tobio. You should - "

"I am fine," I repeat, patting her hands a few times before pulling my touch away from her. A soft sigh passes her lips, her head tilting to rest against my shoulder. Even though Sugar is exhaling, it feels like she's sucking the breath right out of my lungs. I need to talk to Coach about my chest pains, especially since I promised her I would.

————————————

My mind swirls a bit as I inch toward Coach Ukai, the statement I need to make burning in my head. I don't want to tell him about my chest pains. He'll bench me, make me 'take it easy' during practice, or even worse, make me take medical leave.

But, the image of Sugar so upset when I told her is making my skin crawl with the need to see her. I tug my phone out of my pocket, unlocking it, and instantly tapping my photo gallery open. Instantly, every inch of the screen is decorated with photos of her. Photos of her at our lunch table, of her cooking, of my daily 'good morning' Snapchats, of her in my sweatshirt, my jersey, my blankets, my bed, my couch, my kitchen, at my games.

My hand jumps up to rub over my heart again, trying to work out the squeezing I'm feeling as I flip through the photos. I swipe away another photo, the next in line being the one of Sugar and Miwa giggling over a batch of butter cookies. My eyes dance over the photo for the millionth time, rememorizing every inch of it. Their smiles, the way my sweatshirt hangs on Sugar, the dark makeup on my sister's face, even the way the dust dances in the sunlight.

"Kageyama?!" Coach yells, pulling my attention away from my phone. "Finally," he groans, standing right in front of me instead of across the gym like he was before I got caught up in Sugar's photos. "Are you alright?" He mutters, eyes pointed as he motions towards the hand still rubbing rough circles against my chest. "You've been doing that a lot lately."

"Uh... ya," I grumble, dropping my hand back to my side. My phone burns in my hand, the glimpse of Sugar still on the screen making the small device feel like a brick in my hold. "Well... not really." Coach's look gets more pointed, arms crossed over his chest, and an eyebrow arched as he looks at me. "I've been experiencing some chest pains."

"Chest pains?"

"Ya."

Coach stares me down for a few more minutes, rolling his weight on his heels as he looks me over. "What kind of pains?"

"My heart... sometimes feels like it's not working," I mutter, glancing around the gym, eyes jumping over my teammates warming up instead of looking at my Coach. "Other times it feels like there's a fist squeezing it but usually it's the first thing."

A grin is spread over Coach's face when my eyes settle on him again, amusement eating every ounce of concern that was present a couple of moments ago. "Do these pains happen to arise when your arm candy is around? Or when you're thinking about her or maybe looking at the hundreds of photos you have of her?"

"Arm candy?" I ask, confused from the get-go of his speech.

"Your girlfriend, Kageyama. I was referring to your girlfriend," he chuckles, crossing his arms over his chest tighter as his laughter grows.

"I don't have hundreds of photos of Sugar," I grumble, my cheeks heating up with embarrassment. It's normal for someone to have photos of their partner. It's normal for someone to have a lot of photos of their partner too, right? I don't even have that many photos of her... I don't think. What's a normal amount of photos to have of your girlfriend?

"That's not what Hinata says," Coach pushes out around a new round of cackles. He takes a step forward, a rough grip on my shoulder as he shakes me a bit. "What you're feeling is called 'love', Kags. Your 'chest pains' aren't actual pains, they're just feelings of caring and loving your girlfriend. They're not going to kill you, and over time you'll get used to the feeling."

"Is the feeling going to go away?" I ask, rubbing over my heart again, the pain back as thoughts of Sugar flicked through my mind.

Coach laughs again, this time quiet and soft as he shakes me a bit harder. "If you do things right, no. Enjoy that feeling, Kageyama. It means you're loving your Sugar the right way. Hold on to those chest pains, bud." I'm shaken once more before being released. "But for now, hurry up and get changed before I make you run suicides all of practice."

"Yes sir," I mutter, turning on my heels and quickly racing out of the gym. I guess my chest pains weren't something to worry about.

#haikyuu #haikyuu oneshot #haikyuu x reader #tobio kageyama #tobio kageyama oneshot #tobio kageyama x reader #tobio oneshot #tobio x reader #kageyama oneshot #kageyama x reader

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mudandmire · 9 months ago

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Eris Week: Free Day

~ drip drop, gimme what you got ~

Eris has an itch, a burn he cannot out-run or fight. Azriel has hands, and cunning eyes, and most importantly for tonight, teeth.

This isn't going the way it sounds.

Technically this was supposed to come out on AU day for @erisweekofficial, but homework ended up kicking my ass :/

---

They find each other, like all mistakes do, at a bar.

Down the street—a right and down one block a sudden left—from the gym Eris frequents. The Jig is a building scooped out of the red bricked fronts of the town houses lining the street. Its door is a dark stained cherry, the swinging sign above a weathered green that reminds him of oxidized copper. Black metal patio chairs sit askew behind the iron railing, one little umbrella shading the tables. It's not often people sit outside The Jig, mostly because the inside feels like a dragon's lair.

Warm and heavy with air from the patrons and boisterous laughter jingling like fallen coins. A faint smoke, not from cigarettes, but no one truly knows where it comes from, lingers along the pockmarked beams above in strands of gray ivy. Light reflects oddly in the cavern of the bar. Great glass bulbs, so clear the intestines of the electrical work can be seen even by the drunkest patrons, hang from the ceiling. Their gaze is warm, a yellow balm that makes the sable colored liquor in their bottles on the shelves sparkle.

Outside, night has fallen, and The Jig continues to glow like a homely hearth. Eris had found his way hours before the gym closed—a rarity for him—and now remains firmly planted on a bar stool at the black quartz counter.

His knuckles ache. Raw along the joints, soreness stretching its tired limbs up into his shoulder, cresting the back of his neck. Rolling his head, tilting it at an angle where his bones pop, Eris sighs long and low. The fighting for the day had been less than satisfactory. His usual opponents either were completely off their game, or their heads weren't in it enough to give him their all.

Even Anton, who Eris can usually count on to give him a good run for how much he runs his mouth, hardly touched him in the ring.

He sucks his teeth after taking a sip of his drink. The lingering sting of his victories melding with the bitter bite of the alcohol.

How selfish they could be, he knew, allowing him win after win with only a conceding smile. Wrapped hands held above their head as though surrender was what he was after.

Now he nurses his victory like one might cradle their broken pride. But all that's between his numb, ice-chilled fingers is his glass.

The rubber sole of his loafer taps on the metal bar that runs under his stool. It rattles the whole of his seat, but there's a kind of comfort in the constant bounce of his knee.

The only annoyance is that he wanted that itch, that energy, kneaded and pressed out of him like one meticulously and brutally folds dough.

Eris is used to the current in his body. The call and the silent cavern that never answers back. Jolts of bone-deep prickling in his legs, a restless picking and skinning and rapping in his fingers.

It makes him agitated. Unfocused. A liability.

The fact that no one understood this was mainly the reason he ended up in The Jig in the first place.

Eris sneaks through its cherry wood door, a thief in what hardly can be called night for how alive it is. He steals into the lair, bruises and hurts donning his frame like scales, and pretends his heart doesn't patter a different beat than the bass drum of whatever plays on the speakers. He'll tuck his hands into the cuffs of his green turtleneck sweater, and ask for his drink—heavy on liquor, make it sweet so he can't taste the underlying bite when it hits his tongue.

Eris' breathing will never even. The drink will turn into two, and still—his hand will fall to his chest. Fingers pinching at the soft fabric of his turtleneck, as if maybe they'll hit an exposed wire and restart something.

Or break him entirely.

By the second glass, the bar lights going glossy, it doesn't sound so bad. A reset, a break, an end to the quiet, relentless, drive in his chest—

Someone falls into the stool next to him. Caught from the corner of his slowly clearing eyes. There's a hint of dark blue, maybe black but it's hard to tell with the dim golden glow. The knees of the stranger spread wide, feet resting on the bar of the stool with a kind of mindless ease Eris can only hope to imitate.

His arms lay casually on the bar, skin bronzed in the golden light. Eris catches sight of something curious with a gaze that would not be as obvious if he weren't two cups deep.

The hands of the stranger are scarred, a mottled clay work. Eris' finger traces the counter top, lazy and thoughtless, mirroring those patterns in the marked skin like landmarks on a map.

Hands like that do not belong in a lair like this.

Not when Eris is hungry. Not when he is desperate.

Apart from the obvious nature of their otherness, Eris finds them to be entirely too distracting. Large, encompassing, a glinting silver watch on his wrist.

They move suddenly under his stare and Eris hears the low rumble of his voice.

"I'll have whatever he's having." He gestures to Eris' glass—empty, has been for a while—while the bartender in shades of shadows Eris can't make out, acquiesces and slips away to make…

His mind poses his own question, wary eyes peering down into the dry bottom of his glass. What am I having?

Eris knows the taste, the stale reminder that he definitely had alcohol, the way it lays on his tongue.

He knows it better by how fuzzy his head has gotten. To the point he doesn't mind when his back begins to bow, shoulders slumping forward into the fold of his arms. A collapsing kingdom of cards until he's resting his head; the hard line of the bones in his forearm pressing against his temple.

The stranger, man, with wonderful hands, is even more enticing from a sideways angle. Wide lens: the two black bars, a roof and floor. The tip of Eris' tongue ends up between his front teeth.

Eris doesn't get a chance for his gaze to meander past his shoulders, broad and heavy-set. The kind that looks earned, that could barge through walls and all that would be evidence is a dusting of drywall like powdered sugar.

Eris is caught. When the stranger gets his drink and takes a small, modest sip, he says, "you stare a lot, you know that?"

Somewhere between the first and second drink, Eris lost his ability to feel shame. Maybe it dried up along with the last dregs of his sanity.

He shrugs, and it must look weird hunched over and meek as he is, because the stranger laughs. Sort of—a breath of air from his nose. But it's more in the way creases form at the corner of his liquid dark eyes. The pupil absorbs every scant inch of light and holds it captive in a flicker of candlelight.

"I'm out of drink," Eris tells him. "You're very stare-worthy," the alcohol adds.

There's no little breath lost to the general hum of The Jig. His mouth, pink and soft, tips up. From the angle Eris sits at, he thinks it's a smile. From the way the stranger's shoulders straighten, and the breadth of his chest leans just that much closer—a stretch of dark cotton over skin—the challenge becomes clear.

Of all the things Eris tries to plan for him to say—though the script of dialogue is lost to the buzz in his head—he cannot predict what comes out of his wonderfully formed mouth.

"Who'd you hit?" He asks, gesturing with the soft openness of his hand at the raw, scabbed knuckles on Eris' fingers.

The wounds are scaled, Eris wets his lips with the tip of his tongue and draws back the bitter taste of alcohol.

"My opponent," he says honestly. "In the ring."

Eris still gazes up at the stranger from the cradle of his folded arms. There is an insistence to his presence, kept secret and safe at the end of the bar. Back pressed to the lacquered wooden paneling that runs around the perimeter of The Jig. His front, however, remains entirely exposed to the strangers gaze, though he keeps his knee bouncing under the overhang of the counter top.

In a smooth movement, the man steps one foot solidly onto the ground, and shifts his chair closer with the other still propped on the metal rung. He ends up closer than before. A dark, raven-slick curl dancing on the hard line of his thick brow.

He takes another sip of his drink. Eris follows the path with his eyes, his tongue. His longing coiled like a fire-breathing beast in his chest.

"You're a fighter?" His head tilts and the glass sets down on the quartz top with a delicate sound.

Eris shakes his head, then frowns to himself. "I box at the gym down…" he loses track, hand held up in front of his face as he tries to map the streets of the city from his vantage. "The one on Main, that's where I go."

Mindless, his hand falls to the bar top. The cold of the stone sinks into the sensitive warmth of his palm—stealing it away as he watches the condensation bloom to trace the outline of his hand.

So enraptured by the sight, the dichotomy of feeling warped under his skin, Eris completely misses when the stranger ducks his head low.

His breath, lost between those plush lips, pools on the quartz. So low is his mouth, Eris can feel the heat of it on his fingertips, his knuckles, and freezes. It is not ice that runs in his veins, it is not sobriety that steals away the pleasant buzz of alcohol. The stranger stares up at him through the dark curtain of his hair, and with a flicker of something in those liquor colored eyes—something that Eris finds mirrors the stirring of the beast in his chest—his teeth close gently around the raw knuckle of his pointer finger.

Eris' lungs stall for a heartbeat. When they refill, he is the gust of air blowing into a forge—expanding and feeding that internal flame that refuses to be doused no matter how he taps his foot, or twists his body in the ring.

"I don't even know your name." He says. If it comes out more breathless than he'd like, the stranger doesn't seem to notice.

His teeth release from around Eris' knuckle—not that it had pressed hard on the sore wounds, or dug into sensitive joints.

"Azriel." His eyes glance up at Eris, curiosity curling in their depths. "Did you win?"

Eris doesn't have to ask what Azriel means. His name swirling like thick, heavy smoke in his head. This man seems to jump around, subject to subject with no real destination, at least not one Eris can predict.

His finger twitches, cold in the exposed air. Azriel catches it, and with little more than a flutter of his sooty eyelashes, pupils blotting darker, he dips down and takes his knuckle in his teeth again.

"I'm not drunk enough for this," Eris whispers. "And I don't believe you are, either."

Azriel hums. The vibrations course through Eris' bones, and his foot abruptly stops tapping.

"I did win." His eyes dart away from where Azriel's lips spread to hold his finger. Heat, a kind apart from the warm blanket the alcohol laid on his shoulders earlier, grows claws and begins to dig into the tender inner-lining of his stomach.

Azriel draws away again, but this time not without a gentle press of lips to his knuckle. A brief goodbye, before the weight of his gaze is pinned solely on Eris.

He shifts in his stool, straightening slightly so he's not fully hunched over. Eris leaves his hand spread out on the counter, though, and he doesn't want to think of why.

"You won the fight." Azriel repeats, something dawning in his tone. His glass is all but forgotten, the whole of his attention fixed on Eris who flushes belly to cheeks at the idea of being an axis point.

"Fights." Eris corrects him.

If anything, Azriel's small grin widens. The sharp threat of his canines pressed to his lower lip. "Never would have guessed since you've been drinking like a home-sick sailor."

Eris' eyes narrow. "How do you—" his head swivels, looking over the line of his shoulder at where the rest of The Jig flourishes with its tacky, oak tables and low-hanging bulb lights. "How long have you been watching me?" He asks, waiting for the weariness to set into his bones and smother the flames, yet the heat doesn't abate.

Azriel's eyes crinkle, and his arm reaches over for Eris' empty glass he had completely forgotten about. The curl of those fingers, scarred and warped though they are, around the cup sends lashes of warmth to his stomach.

"Don't need to watch you, the fact that you're drinking a Manhattan says enough, honestly." He brings the glass to his nose, sniffing it and scowling.

Eris blinks a couple times, before saying, "but you ordered the same thing?"

"Ah," he gestures with a stern finger, "but unlike you, I've lost today—so I earned it."

The vagueness of his statement leaves Eris wishing for more. More information, more specifics, more intimate knowledge about this man and how exactly he lost.

Unwittingly, his eyes dart down for a heartbeat to rest on Azriel's hands. The knots of his knuckles, the whitened, tight ridges of skin along the back of his hand. Thin enough that the veins stand out stark like a mountain range.

Azriel catches his gaze and follows it with a quirk of a dark brow. "You gonna ask?"

They've leaned closer over the span of their conversation. Map-less and without a compass, it has led them here and there, yet still Eris finds himself momentarily floundering.

His nose scrunches up. "I would think that rude." He says haltingly, and Azriel doesn't take it any other way he meant it.

He shrugs, and then his legs spread wider, closer, and suddenly Eris can feel the hard pressure of his knee against the outside of his thigh. It takes a moment for him to understand the heat of it, the kind only naked skin can give off. A single glance at Azriel's legs reveals wide, lengthwise cuts in the black denim of his jeans. Dark, coarse hair on his leg and knee.

Eris swallows thickly at the spike of his pulse at the sight. He knows his cheeks have gone pink, can feel the heat of it under his skin, around his eyes, the coiling cunning of a beast that lets its tail flick lazily from side to side in his chest.

Azriel leans closer. Perhaps drawn to Eris' sudden bout of flushed skin and glazed, amber eyes. One of his hands lays out on the bar top, fingers spread, half way between Eris' body and his.

It takes a moment, and the dawning idea is so ridiculous it nearly draws a crow of a laugh from his lips.

Whatever it was supposed to be, comes out a choked wheeze. Dilated eyes dropping to the exposed hand and back up again.

Azriel raises his hand, elbow to counter, until it rests like a veil between the two of them.

"Ask." He says, and then peers through the slits between his fingers as if daring Eris to creep closer to the enclosure of his restraint.

Eris has never been very good at lines drawn in the sand. Or palms meeting as nothing more than condensation on a black quartz countertop. But he knows what drew him to The Jig in the first place, the burn under his skin that he could not deplete no matter how many times he rolled his sore shoulders, flat on the canvas floor of the boxing ring. No matter how he kept his feet light, his body aware. No matter how many times he won; easily, stupidly, without challenge or complaint.

He turns in his stool, facing Azriel completely. A lock of his copper hair comes tumbling to rest on his cheekbone, light and ticklish. A pulse of victory—the kind he's been searching for—rushes through him when Azriel's shadowed eyes do nothing but follow the path his fingers take to tuck it away.

"What happened to them?" Eris asks, hardly more than a whisper, and then shifts closer.

It's very easy then, the liquid courage of alcohol wholly unneeded, to tip his head forward and hold Azriel's gaze as he parts his lips. His teeth come to rest around Azriel's knuckle on his pointer finger.

Azriel's smile is sharp, splinters of glass shards Eris gets stuck in his skin. "A fire happened." He replies easily, nothing more than a shrug of his shoulders. As if it was merely a prick of heat; a match that burned too long till the pad of his fingers stung, and not the whole of his hands to his wrists.

Eris swallows, trying to clear the uncomfortable feeling of saliva pooling in his parted mouth. Yet he does not want to draw away—not yet. The action brings his tongue closer, enough to brush against Azriel's knuckle for a second before it's gone.

There's something more to his words, a lingering blade kept hidden behind his tongue. The inner corner of Eris' eyes tighten, narrowed, and his teeth pinch with just enough pressure to draw out a hum from Azriel.

"Well," he drawls, and Eris is struck with a shock of heat when his head dips closer. "A fire my half-brothers started." Azriel reveals, giving Eris no chance to react before his face is a breath away from Eris'—paralleled completely.

Azriel sighs, Eris can feel the heat of it flow over his parted mouth. There’s a boundary between them, but Azriel’s eyes are lidded low, wholly locked on the bow of his top lip. Bringing his face closer, he brushes their noses together gently. Eris doesn’t breathe once.

Under the pressure of Azriel's knee, his thighs tighten, tensing toward each other. A band of energy lashed from the nape of his neck to his tailbone buzzing under his skin.

"But it's alright." Azriel says, and it draws Eris back. He gives a hum as if to say 'I don't see how.'

Azriel's dark eyes gleam, close, pools of the deepest drink he could sate himself to death on. "They're in prison, so I feel as if I got the better end of that deal."

A thrill trails fingers down Eris' spine. His breath shudders out over Azriel's finger, warming and soft in between his teeth.

"But, that doesn't matter." Azriel's thumb runs tenderly against the skin of his cheek, gaze firm where lips are parted. "I find myself much more interested in heading to your gym."

Though his soft touch hasn't stopped, Azriel's tone has deepened enough for Eris to feel it like a sudden swoop in his stomach.

He pulls away, eyeing the faint imprint of his teeth on Azriel's knuckle with a keen gleam in his eye. It shimmers with the trace of his tongue when the amber light hits it just so—a gem sparkling in the dim dragon's lair.

"Sounds presumptive to me," Eris says, raising a cautious eyebrow. "What makes you think I want you in my gym?"

Azriel has yet to lift his head, the sooty shadow of his lashes brushing against his cheek as he stares at the hand Eris had left. It shifts closer to his face, and Eris catches a glimpse of his eyes—and swallows thickly.

"Forgive me," Azriel does not lower his hand, voice low and dangerous and suddenly Eris is looking into the eyes of the beast coiled in his chest. Sat right across from him. Draining a glass of alcohol, resting his feet on the metal rung of his stool, drawing closer and closer to Eris like the draw of riches to a fool. This man may as well heave smoke from his throat from how utterly he's drawn Eris into his treacherous talons.

So easily; hardly a word, a breath, and Eris had taken his knuckle between his teeth like an iron bit in a horse's mouth.

Azriel is not asking for forgiveness; he is not sorry. Eris can tell enough through the glint of satisfaction in his eyes, carving his bronze features into a charming, reckless smile.

"I find myself entirely under your thrall—I think I just need to blow off steam. Long day, you know."

If Eris had walked into any other place besides The Jig, with its sticky tables and patrons crowding with their secretive smiles and low-hanging bulbs hoarding light like reflected gold coins, he would insinuate something entirely different.

Unbidden, his throat bobs. If he were anyone else—without bruised, scabbed knuckles—he'd carve his teeth into that plush bottom lip. Eris can see it, the imprint of what they would make. It is not beautiful, and it does not play across his mind's eye like a scene in a darkened film room. It would be…biting.

There is a danger, lingering like the aftermath of a lightning strike, in imaging where else his teeth could bury.

Azriel is not the only reptile in this place who craves to hoard and covet. He just wears it better.

"Pay your tab—they're open till three," Eris rasps, nodding to the one empty glass that sits forgotten on the counter in front of Azriel. He's got one hand searching his back pocket for his wallet, already pulling out the bills needed for his two drinks.

Azriel cocks an eyebrow, victory glinting in the shine of his eyes. Deftly, he obeys and settles bills on the counter as well.

"I've got the whole night," he's up and standing, taller than Eris thought now that they've left their stools. "I'm not on call." Azriel ends with a knock of his knuckle against the quartz counter.

"On call?" Eris asks.

Something crosses Azriel's face, too quick to identify fully before it slips away. Eris thinks whatever it was had just transferred to the mischievous grin that spreads across his lips.

"Firefighter." He shrugs, head bowed slightly.

Eyes falling automatically to where Azriel's hands are—one on the bar, the other half-tucked in his pocket—a low pulse of heat drops heavily into his stomach.

"You're fucking insane," he breathes. It takes effort to ignore the lack of force in his voice, and he can practically feel how his pupils dilate.

Azriel laughs, the kind where his head tips back and then his gaze comes to rest on Eris once more. Crinkles at the corners of his amused eyes.

"Glass houses, sweetheart. I wouldn't throw stones with those bruised fingers of yours."

Eris jolts at the feeling of the back of Azriel's fingers trailing over his knuckles. His next inhale is shaky.

"Let's go," Eris urges.

Eris doesn't wait for him to say anything else—sure if he did, he'd end up at the bar for another hour, a whole day. The walk out of The Jig is jarring; every laugh is too loud, the lights, which had been so soft like a calling of a reflection from afar, burn into his eyes and make them water. Azriel walks behind him, matching his pace, and he clings like smoke to Eris' back; he can almost feel the heat of his chest through his black cotton shirt.

The night hasn't changed much, if any. When Eris had first walked through the door the sun was just sinking below the strict line of the horizon. The streetlights had looked out of place at that point, muted in the dusk. Now they gild the dark asphalt street—rain-wet, the scent of damp rising with the last of the day's heat hours earlier. The air is shockingly active around them. Whatever atmosphere hung around Eris like a cloak has fallen away as sweet, chilled night air clings to his exposed skin.

Eris takes a moment to breathe it in. The faint scent of fried food, warmed concrete, and engine exhaust creates a strangely pleasant aroma as he stands in the middle of the one-way street. All but barren, the distant hum of traffic alive and well a block or so down.

When his eyes open again, they fall to Azriel. It's with a jolt he tries to keep maintained that he realizes Azriel's already looking at him. Though he can hardly stop how his eyes widen.

Eris clears his throat, hands stuffed into the tight pocket of his slacks even though the fabric pulls at the scabs on his fingers.

He winces. "Right, well, it's this way." Fumbling for the heated remnants of their earlier companionship in The Jig, Eris keeps his glances brief though he tries to re-engage Azriel.

In the brisk, night air, for some reason sobriety of the soul seems to seep into him like the coldest water.

Azriel hasn't made any movement to follow—nor has he spoken one word. The itch, burn, whatever Eris could call it, starts up again in his legs. He rocks up on the balls of his feet, the heels of his loafers coming off.

"Unless you don't…" He trails off, awkwardly abandoning the sentiment. Eris would back off, immediately and without scorn, if Azriel were to have a change of heart in the empty street.

Something of his tone, or posture, must prompt Azriel into moving. Eris holds his breath, unwilling to let it free him entirely, and keeps Azriel's unreadable gaze as he walks closer.

"Take your shoes off." He says softly.

Eris blanches, his whole body stilling in shock. "I'm sorry?"

Azriel leans in closer, the breadth of his shoulders strong, the toned muscles of his arms tense as he keeps his hands in his pockets. His eyes, now nearly indiscernible from the asphalt itself, narrow at Eris.

"Off. Shoes off, Eris." Azriel reiterates, and this time Eris rolls his eyes, a spark of heat he found and kept collecting in The Jig appearing now bright as any of the streetlights among them.

"Gods, you're demanding." Eris scoffs. He doesn't hesitate to shift closer to Azriel, keen, lidded eyes watching as his grow darker like ink spilled on paper.

Eris doesn't expect the flick to the bruised knuckle on his pointer finger. The thrum of pain catches him off-guard, and a noise slips from his throat. He refuses to acknowledge it, though the sudden heat embedded in his cheeks demands attention.

"I—" his voice breaks.

"Shoes." Azriel demands, and his rough voice is countered by the soft pad of his thumb soothing down his smarting finger.

Eris swallows hard, but obeys. He toes off his leather loafers, not losing Azriel's gaze once. Minutely, his hands are trembling—though not from any kind of lingering effect of alcohol. Everything left in his bloodstream had been scorched away in the heat of Azriel's body. His gaze, his nearness.

Bare feet on the rain-damp asphalt, Eris' toes curl. He bends down to pick up his shoes, and holds them pinched at the heel. There's defiance rising like a slowly building tide on his tongue, but everything he had been meaning to say is lost in a whoosh of air from his lungs.

Azriel had dipped down in a swift, sudden movement. And in the next second Eris had been caught, warm palms spreading across the backs of his thighs, and thrown over Azriel's shoulder as if he weighed no more than a sack of grain.

A shriek rises to his throat, pressing at his teeth now that he hangs upside down. His grip is precarious, shoes in one hand while the other grasps desperately at Azriel’s waist, the belt loops of his black jeans. This close, he smells like woodsmoke, as if it’s been sown into the fabric of his tee-shirt.

"Here, gimme." Azriel releases one hand from holding Eris and reaches behind his back.

"What are you doing!" He cries, voice thick at this angle while the blood pools in his head. "Don't lose your grip, you're going to drop me!"

Azriel hefts him higher, the muscled bulk of his shoulder pressing into Eris' ribs so hard he has to draw shallow breaths. The dizziness that comes from the angle, and the lack of air, is so delicious he has to close his eyes to re-settled his pounding heart.

"I'm not going to drop you." Azriel replies, hand still open and grasping for the shoes. Eris can practically hear his eyes rolling.

"Fine," he offers begrudgingly, "here."

Eris shoves his shoes into Azriel's hand, aware that he could stand like that the whole night waiting for Eris. Azriel thanks him with a wordless hum and a pat on the back of his thighs.

"Good," he says softly. "You said your gym was on Main, right?"

Azriel starts walking down the street, and clarity rushes through Eris. Soft and cloying as the night air around them. He breathes out slowly, trying to maintain the heat building under his skin, and the gentle pounding in his head.

"Yes." He says hoarsely, anticipation running its frequented course through his muscles; stringing him tight and ready. "Yes, it's on Main right across from the office buildings, streetlight in front—I'll tell you when I see it."

Another tap on his thighs is his reward, and Azriel begins the trek down the street Eris had walked earlier. Back when the world looked different; unassuming and vague. What they walk through now, leaving the maroon neon sign for The Jig behind to glare at them from the damp asphalt, is entirely separate. The rules Eris had followed don't apply anymore, nor does the cheating of his satisfaction.

Eris hangs from Azriel's back as they walk in quiet—every thought telling him this should be unbearable, complete madness.

He doesn't quite mind, finding it easy to think over the hushed rumble of discontented voices in his head, none of which come from the burning claws sinking into his belly. The want he had been hunting this street at dusk for; found so easily, taken so willingly back to his gym, his ring, his coveted ritual.

One last glimpse of The Jig is all he gets before they turn the corner onto the street that will lead them to Main. Eris' shoes hang from Azriel's free hand like a prized trophy.

---

...can you tell I watched the Hobbit movies on repeat while writing this.

Trying to involve myself back in the community because I love it and y'all are so wonderful and talented and sweet. Just working through things but this fic is kinda my way of sticking it to myself.

Thank you for reading ❤️, and happy Eris Week!! Very excited to read through what everyone's made and look at all the art! I've already seen some things and they're absolutely amazing no shock there :D

#azris #azris fanfiction #azriel x eris #eris vanserra #erisweek2024 #...i can't write eris without azriel i guess. whoops.

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mortuary-reads · 3 months ago

Text

“He can’t be that bad, can he?”

Keep on Pretending- Chapter 1

Ville Valo/Female OC

Summary~ Penelope is HIM's new runner, but she feels more like Ville's personal punching bag. Can she change his heart, or will she be stuck serving an asshole forever?

Warnings~ Mean Ville😠

Word Count~ 2.7k

Author's Note~ This is all FICTION. This could even be considered an AU. Ville's personality isn't his, and any song/music video named will more than likely be out of order and not in the correct eras. Please do not take this work out of fanfiction spaces and do not harass any persons that may be mentioned. Thank you.

This will turn into a fic that's riddled with dark themes, so minors, please DNI.

You can read here or on Ao3

Dividers made by~ @bernardsbendystraws

I’m not going to be late, I’m not going to be late! Penelope repeated in her head as she rushed down the crowded sidewalks of the city.

She was hired as a runner for Finland’s gothic metal band, His Infernal Majesty, and she refused to get fired on her first day. She couldn’t count how many people she’d bumped into, only shouting apologies as she raced ahead. Penelope almost tripped over herself making a sharp right up the stairs of the entrance to her destination. The skyscraper in front of her was so tall, it made her feel dizzy, but she had no time to dally around. She yanked on the door and leaped inside, the clack of her crocodile boots echoing on the marble floor as she sprinted to the front desk.

“Um.. Penelope here… here for my first day. Band… Runner.” The dirty blonde said heavily, not panting, but heart racing fast.

The woman sitting behind the brown desk giggled as she opened a folder and slid some papers into it. “Good morning, Miss Laine. Don’t worry, you're right on time.”

Penelope looked at the large glass clock behind the woman as it struck 11. “Thank Gods…” She mumbled.

“I love your hat, I think the color suits you.”

Penelope raised her hands to the lime green beret she’d almost forgotten she was wearing. “Aww, kiitos paljon!”

“Olet tervetullut. Please take this up to the 8th floor where the band is shooting,” She handed the yellow folder to the girl “-and give it to Mrs. Vanshield. I’ll let her know you weren’t late, and you’re on your way immediately.” The brunette grabbed the black corded phone to make a call.

“Kiitos.” Penelope said again, and darted off to the elevator which opened as soon as she pressed the top arrow button. She hit the number 8 button a few times before the doors closed, and she was encompassed by silence. Her heart pounded in her chest as she fixed the brown scarf around her neck. Tingles and stomach butterflies filled her body as the elevator slowly inched its way up, making her grip the manilla folder tight.

It stopped. The doors seemed to open slower than they closed and a gust of cool air came from the dim room. She had to force herself from her stone stance as goosebumps crawled across her arms.

There was a small cart and a wall in front of her; nothing could have prepared her for the massiveness of the room when she turned the corner. People scampered back and forth, shouting things to each other around a giant glass cube in the middle of the room. A few workers were inside the cube looking at lights and setting up what Penelope assumed was the band’s equipment. She aimlessly walked forward but stopped when she heard the click-clacking of heels rushing towards her. It was a tall woman with raven black hair done in a sleek 60’s updo that complimented her sharp crimson cat-eye glasses and red lipstick. She wore a black and grey striped skirt suit, the tight skirt flaring at her knees. Clean, black stockings covered her long legs that led to those bright red, 5 inch heels. There was no doubt in Penelope’s head that was Mrs. Vanshield.

“Hi, you must be-”

“Are you the runner with my package?” Her voice was deep, cutting Penelope off without a care.

“Uh- yes ma’am.” She held out the yellow folder.

The woman’s irritated look lifted as she grabbed it from the girl and slid it under her arm. “I’m Margarete Vanshield, Mrs. Vanshield to you.” She held out a dangerously sharp manicure to Penelope.

She gently took her hand to shake it. “I’m-”

“Penelope, yes.” Mrs. Vanshield interrupted again. “I wish you’d gotten here sooner so we’d be able to introduce you to everyone, but the production can’t wait for the belated. You’re off the hook now, but early is better. I might be your overseer, but you’ll have more to answer to should this happen again.”

“Right. I’m so sorry, the train had a delay-”

“No excuses Miss Laine, your job as a runner will be crucial to how smoothly we run. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be more punctual.”

Mrs. Vanshield smiled again, making Penelope feel a little more confident in her standing.

“Please, follow me.” She took large strides, the short blonde taking awkwardly long steps to keep up. “We’re filming a music video today, I’m sure the papers you read told you about that?”

“Right Here in My Arms, correct?”

“Kyllä! We’re just about to start, and your job will begin soon after.”

The two women stopped on the other side of the room where a girl, shorter than Penelope, with mousy brown hair, stood eating what looked like M&M’s from her palm. She looked up at the intimidating woman sheepishly, shoveling the rest in her mouth.

“Miss Etlo. This is Penelope Laine, your new assistant runner. I’ve got to check on Miss Sarasalo and see if she’s ready. I’m sure you’ll know what to do with her?”

“Yes ma’am!” She exclaimed, voice garbled from chocolate, and raised her arm in a sharp salute.

“Good.” Mrs. Vanshield turned and made her way back across the room.

The girl swallowed. “I'm Karolina, but you can call me Kay.” she wiped her hand on the side of her pants and held it out. Penelope didn’t want to make a bad first impression so she eagerly took it into a hearty shake. “I’m so glad to have a new partner! And don’t worry about Mrs. Vanshield, she can be a real fun person, but shooting music videos always stresses her out. Especially with this band.” Kay pointed at a group of men sitting in directors chairs, getting preened by men and women in aprons right next to the large glass cube.

Penelope furrowed her brows. “Are they hard to work with or something?”

“Oh yeah. Well, the four of them are fine; Mige, Linde, Juska, and Mika. All pretty nice, but Ville, the one in the wife-beater, that man may as well be enough trouble equal to a whole band just by himself.” She huffed. “You’ll have to see for yourself though, I only hope he doesn’t run you off like the last one.”

Penelope gazed at the man Kay called Ville. He stared up at the makeup artist with pouty lips as she put on a light coating of lipstick on him. “What happened to the last one?” She asked, her eyes not moving.

“I’d rather not scare you off on your first day, just know he’s a total loser who’s stuck too far up his own ass.”

“He can’t be that bad, can he?”

Before Kay could respond, the lights buzzed loudly as they dimmed.

“Ladies and gentlemen I think we’ve wasted enough time.” Mrs. Vanshield’s voice boomed throughout the area as she walked in with a tall dark brown haired girl in a brown cropped shirt. “There’s only so much daylight, and I’m tired, so let’s get rolling please. We’re doing Ninja’s scenes today, and we don't have her for long, so do not be sloppy!”

The people in the lit up box turned them off and scurried out, and the makeup artists backed away as the band members started standing up. As the members made their way inside the glass and into their positions, Penelope’s eyes followed Ville, mesmerized by his swaying walk. Her mind refused to believe a man that pretty could be bad.

I’ve heard a couple of their songs… They’re so sweet. No way he’s an asshole. Right?

The girl Penelope assumed was Sarasalo flipped her hair over her shoulders as she stood a couple of feet from a lever. The room went almost completely black save for a small light that illuminated the actress.

“3…2…1… Action!” A man’s voice called out. Guitar over the speakers filled the room and Sarasolo put on a vexed face as she took a few steps over to the lever and pulled it. As she strutted to the glass box, a thousand lights on the ceiling of it sprung to life, illuminating the band members inside.

As the scene played in front of her, Penelope watched in amazement. The music was loud, but she could barely hear Kay mumbling along to the words and swaying her hips. “So… we just stand here?” She leaned over to whisper into Kay’s ear.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Think of this as like an on-call job. We stand by until we’re needed. It’s pretty neat, but can get really annoying at times.” She paused and laughed as Ville started humping the glass. “One time Ville called me at like 3 am to make him some coffee. I would’ve been more upset if the band wasn’t having a late night writing session and just needed a little pick me up.”

“All that, for coffee. Could they not make any themselves?”

“What can I say? I make a mean cup of joe. And anyway, we’re supposed to be in tip-top shape when it comes to fulfilling our roles. We do what we do, so they can do what they do. Ya’ feel me?”

Penelope frowned, but Kay had already turned her head to watch the band. “Yeah.”

“That’s a wrap! Good work everyone!” The lights flared awake as everyone started clapping and hollering.

“That’s our cue.” Kay said, grabbing some juice boxes and towels from the table behind her. She handed two and two to Penelope. “Give these to Mika, the big boy, and Linde the one with the long hair. They’re really friendly, so don’t be afraid.” She giggled. “I’ll be right behind you.”

With newfound adrenaline, Penelope sped over to the bandmates. Luckily for her, her targets were already close to each other, laughing.

“Um-hello! These-these are for you guys.” She awkwardly handed each man a box of juice and a towel.

“Thanks little lady.” Mika threw the towel over his head as Linde draped it around his neck.

She smiled wide. “I’m Pene-”

“Where the hell is ours?” She heard a deep voice shout. “Your arms look big enough to carry five towels, eh?” Ville snickered. Before she could say anything, Kay came over with three towels and juice boxes. She shoved Ville’s two items into his chest without a word and calmly handed Juska and Mige theirs.

“Everyone, this is Penelope, my new fellow runner.” Kay walked over and squeezed her shoulders with a friendly vigor. “Now that I have some help, you won’t have to worry about things being done later than normal.”

They all gave hellos and introductions, thanking Penelope for being there. All except Ville, who remained quiet, eyeing her up and down intently. His eyes rested themselves on her midsection and he sneered ever so slightly. Penelope had gained a bit of weight over the winter but she hadn’t thought anything of it. Her Äiti and Isä said she looked cute, her small pudge poking over her low-rise jeans, but the look on Ville’s face made her skin crawl as he moved his eyes to stare into her own. He gave her a sickly smirk.

“Ville.” He said simply. “Pleasure.” Ville threw the towel over his shoulder and walked towards the doors that led to an outside balcony, taking a cigarette out of its carton and putting it in his mouth on the way.

The other band members looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

“Don’t take it personally.” Mige said. “He’s like that to everyone.”

Kay nodded her head at him like she was trying to say, See, I told you so.

Trying not to let the idea of him get her down, Penelope shoved her feelings to the back of her mind. She would deal with them later. “Well it’s nice to meet all of you! I’ll do my very best.”

“If you’re learning from Miss Karolina here, you’ll do fantastic.” Juska said, playfully punching Kay’s shoulder.

Mige shoved his free hand in his pocket and pulled out a carton of cigarettes. “I’ve been itching for one of these all morning. Um, there’s nothing I need, ladies. If these bozos don’t need anything, you’re free to go.” He said, putting a cigarette between his lips.

The other three looked at each other and shrugged, muttering that they were fine.

“Alright, well text me if you need anything, guys! Oh, and you all did fantastic!” Kay said.

They all gave their thanks as they followed where their lead singer had gone.

“Well that went better than I thought it would.”

Penelope sighed, “You think?”

“Mhm. Ville doesn’t count.” She chuckled.

A grin replaced the blonde girl’s worried expression. “If you say so.”

“While I have you here, we’ll go through the community refrigerator and restock, then you’re free to head home. Oh, go ahead and give me your phone number, and I’ll send it to them so they can contact you.”

She didn’t like the idea of Ville having her number, but knew she couldn’t not give it up. Reluctantly, she did, hoping with not much confidence she wouldn’t get 3 am coffee texts.

As Penelope handed Kay milk cartons to line up in the fridge, her mind thought back to the other runner mentioned earlier that day.

“Hey, Kay?”

“Yeah?” Kay replied, half her body hanging out of the cold metal rectangle.

“Could you-”

Penelope was interrupted as Ninja walked in. “Oh!” She jumped. “I didn’t know anyone was in here.”

Kay climbed out of the refrigerator. “Ninja! Yeah, sorry, we’re doing a last bout of upkeep before going home. What can I do ya’ for?”

“Hide me from that creep outside.” She replied, only half joking. “He followed me outside and would not stop harassing me.”

“Ville?” Penelope questioned.

“Who else? Can I get a glass of limonadi please?”

“Sure thing.” Kay reached for a round pitcher in the fridge and poured it into one of the glasses from the drying rack.

“I love your nails.” Penelope said, admiring the dark, glossy chocolate brown color as Ninja reached over to grab the half full glass of lemonade.

Oh, thanks, girl!“ She took a large sip. “I thought they’d work well for the video.”

“Amazing job today.” Kay chimed in.

“Eh… All I did was walk around a box. It was almost amusing watching how much that man wanted to fuck himself.” She shivered. “They should’ve sealed it shut.”

They all giggled, and Ninja finished her glass. “I'm going to leave this here and head out that way.” She pointed to the door next to the refrigerator that led into a back hallway. “If he comes around asking, I wasn’t here.”

Kay brought up that sharp salute again. “Roger that! Have a wonderful day Ninja!”

“You too, girls! Hyvästi”

“Bye!” They called back as Ninja slipped out the door.

“Well that was a nice surprise.“ Kay said. “Wish it was under better circumstances.”

Penelope nodded her head. They stood there in silence for a bit until she had the courage to speak. “While the topic is fresh in my mind now, could you tell me about the last runner that was hired?”

Kay raised an eyebrow at her.

“I promise I won’t quit. I’m just curious.” She gave Kay an awkward smile.

Kay sighed and crossed her arms. “It’s not right of me to keep it from you after I’m the one who mentioned it. That’s on me. Ville likes to mess with everyone he can. When he figured out she had a terrifying fear of spiders, he surprised her on her birthday with a shook-up box full of them.”

Penelope's eyes widened in horror. “That’s awful!”

“I’ll never forget the look on her face when she opened it.” Kay frowned. “She left with some PTSD, but also twenty-seven hundred euros and a long apology note from the company. Not enough in my opinion.” She leaned against the metal table behind her.

“Is that why the pay is so high?”

“I don’t know what they offered you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.”

“Well damn…”

“Promise me you’ll stick it out as long as you can?” Kay looked at her with pleading eyes.

Penelope nodded. “I promise. I just won’t let Ville know what I’m afraid of.”

They both chuckled nervously as Kay opened the refrigerator door and went back to restocking it. Neither of them talked, but Penelope didn’t mind as she was deep in thought and wanted to keep it that way.

Spiders? Harassment? There’s no kidding, he really is a loser.

Thank you so much for reading! <3

If you want to, let me know if you'd be interested in reading more in the future.

#fanfiction #writer #rpf #oc #ao3 #real person fiction #ville valo #his infernal majesty #him #I've been craving a mean Ville so I made one #fanfic #love metal #heartagram

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