#also I would like to be flayed alive and start over from scratch in the skin department as well

[daisywords]

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[plethora-of-imagines]

Cardinal Copia's Costume Curator

AN: This is in tribute to the wonderful beloved @how-masterful for her birthday! (Who introduced me to the band's lore which made me finally listen to the songs, and well..... I'm now very obsessed)

It's the first thing I have written an a long while... oops! But I got into a very competitive health program so I am very busy actively fighting the gods to survive being back in school.

Which means this is only loosely edited, and probably very out of character but I had fun writing it! (In the dreams of my head where I actually do have time this would have been a slow burn multi chapter, but I've never managed to do one of those soooo oneshot it is)

I hope you had the best of days beloved and enjoy your (our) blorbo story

Word Count: 4402

Ao3 Link: Here

Warning: smut/lemon, nudity, blowjob, semi public sexual contact

Description: A collection of moments between the new costumer for the tour and her Cardinal.

Knocking on the door of the dressing room she spared a quick glance back at the ghoulette who had helped guide her. A cute little thumbs up and a smile of an alarming amount of teeth greeted her. She tried to push past her general anxiousness to recognize it for the reassurance it was.

“Ah, hi, hello,” the uncertain greeting from the Cardinal as he opened the door made her turn back to face him so fast she feared she gave herself whiplash.

“Hello Cardinal,” she began in a hurry, sheepishly introducing herself. “I’m umm- your new costume curator?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” he gestured for her to enter the room. Charmingly grabbing her hand to kiss before awkwardly trying to rub off the black stain his Cardinal paints left on her bare skin. Smudging it just enough to make the single lip stain scarcely recognizable. “Sister told me you were joining our little touring family. But uh she did not say why. So good to know that you will be helping with costumes in some way then.”

“She figured you needed me after the video about the belt got back to her.”

He seemed to deflate into the uncomfortable leather chair that came with this touring spot’s dressing room.

“That uh got back to her and all the siblings then, si?”

“Yes Cardinal.”

“Good, great.”

It certainly did not sound like he found it good at all. The silence made her nervous so she rushed to fill it with an explanation that it seemed Sister Imperator had failed to give him.

“She actually seemed to think you handled Sister Maria’s mistake well? Or at least she was more upset with learning from the Siblings here that Sister Maria was more focused on indulging in sin instead of her job?”

“Sister who?”

“Sister Maria?” Did she remember her predecessor’s name incorrectly? “The previous sibling in charge of your and the ghouls’ costumes?”

Rubbing the back of his head, making a mess of his already ruffled hair he admitted something that would have had Sister Imperator flaying your predecessor alive.

“I ,uh, did not know we had someone in charge of costumes. Me and my ghoulies have been taking care of them ourselves.”

“Yourselves,” she screeched. Rushing to explain herself, “not that they seem to be in poor condition, they looked decently taken care of if not a little disorganized. But uh none of you were taught how to take care of these beyond the basics! Who has been checking for any issues with seams? Or keeping track of the spare costume pieces?”

“Eh heh,” gently scratching at his face as he spoke up. “I did use a bit of the Google when the tour started to figure out how to spot clean them after a little incident with the ghouls.”

It was endearing how proud he was of himself, even she couldn’t bring herself to be upset about the possible damage to the garments. She had already looked them over and on the surface they were fine enough. There was even more work to be done than she feared with her initial evaluation of them.

“But it will be a welcome change to have you taking good care of our uniforms, Sister.” He sheepishly looked into her eyes. “Would it also be possible to have you assist backstage with my quick changes. I’ve always made it but it has been cut rather close before...”

“I almost don’t feel bad for Sister Maria when Sister Imperator gets her hands on her. Almost,” she joked before working to reassure him that she would be dutiful in her job. It was an honor to be allowed to join the tour when not a long term or high level Sibling.  She was eager to prove her worth. “Cardinal, you should have had someone assisting you this whole time, it's part of the job! I know we encourage sin but I think Sister Maria was too indulgent with practicing sloth when it came to her job.”

“Si, if I had known who she was and that she was supposed to be doing all these things I would have had a conversation with her before something made its way back to Sister.”

Clapping, he stood up, lending her a hand to guide her up from her seat.

“Now let me introduce you to the rest of my ghouls. Sister said that you are to join us on our bus so that you can work if needed while we travel, which now I know means if we have any costume malfunctions that need your guiding hands.”

***

Nervously she straightened the hanging costumes again for the millionth time. It was almost time for the first costume change with everything that need to be done to get things in order they hadn’t had a chance to practice how she would help. Changing the Cardinal from his cassock into one of the skin tight suits that he admitted were tricky for him to get on alone with how much they clung to his skin. Eager to be helpful, fearful that she would in truth be a hindrance to him.

“You look as if you have seen a ghost, Sister. And not one of the ones on stage,” the Cardinal teased as he stepped into the makeshift changing room that she had set up with spare curtains.

Lightening her mood by gently plopping his biretta onto her head. 

“This is already much better than when I was doing this alone-”

“Because you can use me as a glorified hat stand,” she teased.

“Ah, I was going to say because I have some privacy and am not just rushing off to a dark corner to undress, but yes that too.”

Growing more comfortable, her hands worked to help free him from his clothes efficiently, undoing the buttons down to his navel so that he would be able to simply step out of the garment. Catching a glance of his bare chest while turning to properly hang up the belt he had handed off to her.

“At least they didn’t decide to mirror the whole thirty three buttons for Jesus’s life thing when they copied the idea. Can you imagine if they had decided to make that thing have six hundred and sixty six buttons? We would never get you out of it!”

“Si, and what a hindrance to the sin of lust that would be. A frustrating new form of chastity belt for the clergy.”

Mentally planning the best way to help, she grabbed the skin tight pants. If they took him the longest to get on, then that is where she should start. He could put on the shirt while she started to pull on the pants. Quickly gathering the length of each pant leg and condensing it so that he could slide into them. Moving to kneel on the floor before him. Looking up to tell him to step into them.

Instead of her eyes meeting his, they met his cock. His completely uncovered cock.

Freezing, eyes locked on the monstrosity of a cock that hung before her. The hair neatly trimmed, balls symmetrical, and cock tip a pretty shade of pink. Oh Satan. She couldn’t help but continue to stare without a thought in her head beyond, “pretty”. It was the most beautiful cock she had seen outside of porn- not that she was terribly well versed, but she had seen a fairshare in her time in the church.

Her burning face felt like it was glowing as she turned back into reality. He had been speaking to her.

“Huh?”

“I’m so sorry Sister. I should have warned you that I cannot wear anything underneath, since the lines show with those pants. You didn’t consent to this.”

Struggling to find the words as her lips stumbled around them, “it’s fine. I don’t mind, just a little surprised. Not that there is anything little about that surprise.”

Could someone come drag her into hell early? Why did her brain decide the proper response in that situation was to actually say that!

“Please step into these pants before I further embarrass myself,” begging as she refused to look at his eyes or his cock anymore.

The two of them worked together to force him into those pants. Even with her distraction at his firm thighs and well defined bulge that she did not need to use imagination to remember what was underneath, they finished well before his que. 

“Thank you Sister,” he blew a kiss her way as he pushed past the curtains again.

Still braindead from lust she waved goodbye to him like a fool. Slamming her head against the wall the moment he was out of sight.

Oh Satan, they had to do that several more times. And the worst part is she wouldn’t get any privacy on the bus later to do anything to mimic what she wanted that cock to do to her.

***

“Mountain! Where are your shoes?”

She timidly approached the tall ghoul. Their height differences further accentuated by her eyes being glued to his sock covered feet. Feet lacking the shoes that should be on them.

“If there is something wrong with them I could try to fix them?”

Glancing up into the blank mask. Nervously shifting while waiting for some sort of response.

“They’re fine,” he answered in a deep rumble of a voice, so quiet it almost couldn't be heard. At her wide eyed questioning look he elaborated, “interfere with feeling the beat.”

Oh, so that’s why he didn’t wear them. She nodded, subconsciously fiddling with her grucifix in an anxious habit she was unaware of but that the ghouls had all picked up on.

“You do wear them outside though... right?” Her panic grew with Mountain’s continued silence. “Mountain, there is broken glass everywhere outside the venues!”

The stoick ghoul tilted his head to the side like a curious cat, tail flicking in interest at her words.

“You could get hurt!”

“Cute,” his words were followed by two light pats to the tip of her head. “Don’t need to worry about me.”

Turning to wander off again while she squeaked out his name in shock.

***

“Sister, a word- privately,” the Cardinal softened his words the moment her eyes met his. Striking white eye filled with silent care. “If that’s all okie dokie with you.”

“Of course, Cardinal.”

Gentle hands corralled her from her seat at the built in dinner booth where she had been losing steadily at cards against the ghouls. Door softly clicking shut behind them, enclosing them in the small private room at the back of the bus that was seldom used.

“What can I do for you Cardinal?”

“It’s more what I can do for you, Sister.”

Her confused, “huh” had barely left her lips before he continued on. Rushing as if the words would get caught if he did not push them out all in one breath.

“You have been traveling with us for a while, si?” He left no room for a response. “But um not once have you confessed your sins?”

Remaining silent she avoided his glance. Not wanting to admit that the reason she had failed to confess were her sinful thoughts of the man she needed to confess to.

“I just wanted to know if I had done something wrong? To make you, not want to confess, to me?”

Rubbing his fingers together, looking so concerned for her, so downtrodden.

“No,” she rushed to reassure him. “You’ve done so much to make sure I am comfortable here Cardinal! I just- don't have a lot to confess to...”

“Ah, good- that I have not made you uncomfortable! Not that you have felt unable to freely sin in honor of our Lord Lucifer!”

Taking a seat on the couch shoved into the corner of the room. The Cardinal patting the cushion next to him in invitation. Carefully making her way over to his side, trying not to trip over the corner of the bed also squished into the small space. Gingerly sitting down with as much grace as she could manage in the tight space.

“Eek,” she squealed when firm hands pulled her upper body against his, arm pinning her in place. Taking the only option available to her, hiding her face against his shoulder. Soft red velour tickling her face.

“Now that you have at least an illusion of privacy. Pretend you are back in the comfort of confessional back in the abby, piccola.”

Her mind went blank of any sins she could confess to beyond her obsession while in the limited privacy of the tour bus with thinking of the Cardinal’s perfect cock and how it would feel in her aching, empty pussy. Of grinding her throbbing clit against his firm, supple thighs. Hng.

“Oh, ummm vindicate my envy of...”

Small circular motions were rubbed against her back.

“No sin is too small, too indulgent, or embarrassing to confess. Let it out, Sister.”

“My envy of the little plushies that the ghouls are getting from fans, my pride of how my work is ensuring you all look hella good on stage, and hmm... My greedy hoarding of the extra blankets that Dewdrop kicked off his bunk.” 

“Ah I will keep that last one very much a secret from our dear Dewdrop, otherwise you will find him sneaking into your bunk in revenge,” he teased. “Your sins are vindicated, and may your envy be rewarded at our next stop.”

Pulling away from him as she thanked him, pushing down the urge to confess to her attraction to him, “Thank you, Cardinal. I actually do feel better having had my sins vindicated.”

“I will give you any soft plushies I am thrown, Sister. Had I known you were wanting for one I would not have given them away at the end of the show.”

Giggling at his words as a beautiful thought entered her mind of what type of plushie she could be receiving.

“I offer to give you what you yearn for and I am laughed at, so cruel to me Sister.”

Melodramatically clutching his chest in anguish, the sweet little drama queen he pretended to be.

“I can’t wait to own my own little Plushia, Cardinal.”

“Nevermind, I would not dare give you such a cursed object, Sister!”

“They’re not cursed, they’re cute!” She insisted.

“Maybe to someone blind,” he protested with a smile as her laughter grew infectious.

***

Rushing onto the tour bus in a small panic, she looked for the Cardinal. Everything had been taken care of and put back into its proper place except for the pair of black pants that went with one of his infamous tailcoat suits. She had checked all the dressing rooms, backstage, and the racks of costumes- twice. It had been misplaced- she refused to say lost until there was no hope of finding it.

“Cardinal! I need you-”

The ghouls and Cardinal turned to look at her dramatic entrance. Freezing for a moment in intimidation from the brightly demonic eyes of all those already settled on the bus. In mere moments the Cardinal seemed to recognize her distress. Embarrassed at her surely sorry state she tried to settle her wild hair as he stood and rushed to her.

“Sister, are you okie dokie?”

His concern was sweet, but unfortunately made her spiral again.

“I can’t find it!” Not thinking in her panic to explain what she was even looking for, only able to press on with her worry. “I looked everywhere I could think of, even under the fucking couch in the dressing room which I am certain now is covered in bodily fluids that I don’t want to even think about.”

“Sister, you need to relax! Tell your Cardinal what you are looking for.”

“Your tight black pants are missing! Sister is going to kill me, summon me back from hell and then kill me again!” She cried out in anguish.

Losing this job would hurt, she loved it. The fun and excitement of touring. Getting to know her Cardinal and spending more time with him than would have been possible at the ministry.

“Oh Sister, I am so sorry. Satan and more importantly you forgive me!”

Heart dropping to the floor. They were ruined, or somehow they spontaneously combusted. Whatever he was going to tell her happened to them would ruin her life, certainly.

“I have them here,” he gestured to the built in diner style booth the rest of the band was sitting at.

“What?” Clearing her throat after the painfully croaked up whisper she let out.

“I may have um, popped a seam on them,” the Cardinal shyly admitted.

“That’s not the only thing that popped off due to those pants tonight,” someone teased.

“Oh, oh thank Satan I can fix that!”

“I am sorry I did not think to tell you I was taking them back to the bus, Sister.”

Hand pressed against her racing heart as it slowed down to a normal speed, coming down from the stratosphere.

“That’s okay Cardinal, only a minor heart attack was had,” she reassured the poor guilt stricken man. “We can go back into the other room for some privacy when you change back into it for me to fix it.”

“Ah, could it not be fixed while I am not wearing it Sister?”

“It could, but without knowing how much tension the seam should have based on where it broke it’s likely to have issues again. Best to let me see and do an invisible stitch on it.”

“Get it Cardinal,” one of the ghouls whooped.

“Now, Dewdrop no need to be crude. The nice Sister does not need harassment from you over doing her job,” wagging his finger to playfully scold the ghoul.

She really needed to learn how to tell them apart without their instruments when they were all still masked.

“So, I will um see you back there.”

Escaping from the situation by rushing back into the private area at the back of the tour bus, she busied herself with preparing supplies to fix the ripped seam. Distantly hearing something about a booty call followed by laughter from all the ghouls and even the ghoulettes who normally didn’t laugh at more vulgar teasing. It didn’t take long for the Cardinal to join you with a small fond sigh.

“I think they will be making fun of me for a while with this Sister.”

“What did you do, or rather where is this seam Cardinal?”

WIth how the ghouls were carrying on it was likely a crotch seam, but if that had been the case she was sure she would have seen videos by now of the wardrobe malfunction. Along with a dreaded voicemail from Sister Imperator. 

With a flourish to try and hide his flustered cheeks he revealed the pants from how he had folded them. Squinting at them she struggled at first to see the issue, until she finally found it. A small opening of just about two inches. Right in the center of where his ass was.

“Small mercies that the tails cover that up, si Sister?” He laughed at himself. “Too much cake Dewdrop and Swiss teased, even though they know I have not had any cake since the party at the start of the tour.”

Smiling at him as he took initiative to get himself dressed for her to get to work. Doing her best to ignore his nudity and not sneak a glance. Something she failed at many times during those quick changes.

“It’s slang, Cardinal. They were saying you have a nice round ass,” pushing herself to voice the thought and live up to her name as a Sister of Sin.

Something that she would seldom do in front of anyone due to how flustered saying such things made her.

He squeaked at her explanation, playfully giving her a scandalized look. 

“Sister you can’t say such things before you will be feeling up my ass or we will have a very different seam to start worrying about!”

The two of them broke into giggles together.

“Now turn around and let me see what you managed to do to those sinfully frustrating pants.”

***

The Cardinal wasn’t in the little corner of backstage that had been fashioned into a small dressing room of sorts. Frowning, she strained to listen for anything unusual happening on stage, peaking out of the privacy curtain again for the sixth time. Finally catching sight of a flash of pure white slowly moving towards her. Playfully pulling the curtain back and gesturing him in with a flourish that normally would make him laugh.

He didn’t give even a small giggle. Shoulders slumped as he refused to look at her. What had happened on stage?

“Cardinal?” She slowly asked for an explanation.

“I um, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a moment Sister... alone.”

Hands drifting up to start to gesture with his words before his face flushed a bright red, rapidly shoving them back down to cover his crotch. His, very well endowed and very clearly excited crotch.

“Oh!”

Now her face matched his in being as hot as hell surely was.

“Just got a bit too into it with the thrusting, you know how it is,” he tried to deflect. “Or well you probably don’t, you uh don’t really have the anatomy that would make this an issue. Oh Satan, I need to stop talking now. Um, shutting my mouth now.”

During his rambling she realized the issue with letting him “take care” of his not so little issue on his own.

“Cardinal, you can’t jerk yourself off.”

Sending you a look of disbelief, “Sister, I have enough time before I’m needed back on stage and no one comes over here other than us, si?”

“You’ll get the costumes messy with your seamen and it will dry before I can clean it. It would never come out of the fabric,” she began to explain. “Even if you did manage to not get the costumes dirty your hands would be a mess and the sound crew would kill you for getting come on the microphone.”

“Shit,” his head was thrown back as he accepted the unfortunate truth you were giving him. “I don’t know how we will get me into that next suit, Sister. It’s just as tight as this one, though at least it will give me some more modesty. I swear this white one is made to be see-through on purpose!”

Begrudgingly he moved his hands away to start removing his top, while she got up close and personal with the source of both of their frustrations. The Cardinal wasn’t wrong. She could see more than just the outline of his thick, heavy cock pressing into the well tailored pants. The light blush pink of his cock tip was just visible to her when only a few inches away from it.

Hands stumbling at first- like the first time she had to help him undress, knowing now that he wore nothing underneath. The moment she yanked his pants down enough his cock sprung from its confinement. Hitting against his stomach. Swallowing the saliva pooling at the sight of such a pretty cock. Butterflies of the best kind taking up residency in her stomach at this soft moan he was muffling with his leather gloves shoved against his mouth. The sensation of the fabric moving across his cock stimulating him further.

“I think you’re right that you will not be fitting that back into pants without some help, Cardinal... I could help,” she tentatively offered.

“Please Sister, do not torture me like this. I cannot take it.”

“I don’t plan to tease, Cardinal. Not enough time for that tonight.”

Trailing a finger tip softly down the length, watching his thighs twitch while he squeaked.

“I sound like one of my rats squeaking for attention,” he whined.

Giving a playful lick to the tip while fishing for an answer, “I need consent from those pretty painted lips before mine get to work.”

She had never been so bold. Yet the pull of lust built up over the weeks made it easy to fall into this confidant role she was playing.

“Please,” he was more breathless than he ever was at the end of the show.

Capturing his cock with her lips, sliding down until she could take no more into her mouth. Sucking in more of him with each moan and whine he ruined his voice with. Hands resting against her hair, so considerate of her comfort that he took no control of her.  Choosing instead to help keep her hair from getting in her eyes, letting her work his cock at her own pace.

The sound of the ghoul’s musical dueling creating the perfect rhythm to follow. Humming along lowly to parts to make her Cardinal let out the prettiest of sounds. Making sure to repeat the movements that got her the best reactions. They didn’t have much time. His foot moving to press the tips of his shoes against her clit, just resting with a light pressure that felt so good.

Moving her hands to take advantage of the situation to feel up his ass. So soft, just a perfect ass that she envied. She wanted to use it as a stress ball, indulging in some light squeezes as she forced his cock to tickle her throat. Swallowing down her saliva with his cock. She couldn’t afford to get saliva on the pants pooled around his ankles.

It didn’t take long to solve his “problematic” erection. A few bobs to tickle her throat while looking up at him with watery, pleading eyes made him come undone. Both whining as she attempted to swallow the burst of come flooding her mouth.

Lightly thrusting against his shoes with a small cry of need.

“Shit, so good Sister. Fuck! I need to get back onstage.”

Trying to control her pout was hard as they both rushed to finish dressing him in his next suit. Her consolation prize was him guiding her to lower her head for a soft kiss to the top of her skull.

“Later Sister I promise to live between your glorious thighs all night long like the ghouls have been teasing me for daydreaming about. Give you a little somethin’ something, yeah?”

[flyingflosser09]

Cursed / Armando Salazar x OC / Chapter 18

Chapter 17: https://at.tumblr.com/flyingflosser09/cursed-armando-salazar-x-oc-chapter-17/9kduafdpdmxt

By mid-morning, the Mary already sailed upon a pirate ship in the distance. It hoisted a red flag with the black skull and crossbones in its center, the sigil of pirates.

I expected the crew to board the vessel and interrogate each and every pirate on it, hoping to learn something of Jack Sparrow’s whereabouts. What I didn’t expect was for the Mary to lift itself from stem to keel out of the water like a horse standing on its hind legs. The carcass of the cursed vessel flays open like the angry jaws of a predator, before clamping down on the pirate ship and sinking it within seconds.

All I could do was watch in terror as the vessel and its crew disappears below the sapphire waters. I feel them drown deep within my soul. As I told Armando in the early stages of our relationship, I feel each and every soul the ocean claims. Sometimes I believe, given time to fully connect with the ocean, it might even tell me the exact number of lives it claimed.

I’ve made peace with this feeling long ago. There is nothing I can do to save those who die at sea. Life can’t exist without death. The best I can hope for is for those souls to have passed quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Even now, watching the trail of wood and flames we leave behind, I have peace within me knowing those pirates, however vile they may be, have died quick deaths.

“Are you alright, Samira?” Santos asks me once we left the wreck behind. He knows I’ve never witnessed battle like this firsthand. The worst I’ve seen were the wounds of the soldiers I treated in infirmaries.

I don’t give him a direct answer. “They were pirates,” I tell him. “They pillage and plunder, they only take and never give back. The ocean is better off without them.”

“You sound just like the Capitán,” he points out, “Only less…hateful.”

“Pirates took my parents from me, Santos. They were the reason I drowned and came back cursed. I have every right to despise them as much as the Capitán does. However, I don’t wish for them to be tortured by any means. A quick death is a good enough way for them to go and for the ocean to be purer.”

There is a moment of silence before Santos speaks again, “Do you remember much about your parents?”

A frown etches between my brows. “My mother, a little. But my father I’ve almost forgotten completely. He must have not been involved in my childhood much.”

“How old were you when…” he trails off, wondering if he should say it out loud. How old was I when they died and when I drowned?

“It’s alright, Santos,” I offer him a smile. “I was eighteen years when I met Henry…that would have made me six years of age when pirates attacked our ship.”

“You spent all those years alone?”

“What choice did I have?” I shrug, not allowing myself to revisit that time of my life. “But everything will be different now, you’ll see. Soon, all our curses will be broken, and we’ll be free to start our lives anew. I can already imagine the women in Spain fawning over you. You were a catch when you were alive, yes?”

If ghosts could blush, Santos’ face would be glowing red. He clears his throat and looks away bashfully. “I…uh…maybe…I don’t know…”

I hum in amusement and chuckle lightheartedly. “I can’t wait until you are mortal so I can tease you endlessly whenever girls are nearby. I wonder if Magda does also blush easily?”

The chat with Santos lasted another few minutes as we talked about life outside our curses. It was enjoyable while it lasted, but soon, we came upon more pirate ships – all with the same red flags. They must belong to the same fleet, I figured.

And just like the first, the others fell victim to the Silent Mary as Armando ordered for each ship to be sunk.

Feeling the ocean claim a soul is one thing. It is but a mere twitch I feel within me, something easily remedied like scratching an itch. It is, however, entirely different to watch the pirates on those ships flounder about the water, some burning, some drowning before my very eyes, and some getting torn to shreds by sharks attracted by their bleeding wounds.

This time, their screams echo in my ears and only grows louder the more ships we attack. By noon, my limbs are as heavy as my conscious. So many were killed in one morning, so many lives lost…

I try telling myself they were pirates, we’ve done the world a service by disposing of them, that if we didn’t kill them today, they would’ve killed innocent people tomorrow. Alas, nothing could ease my guilt and I retired to the great cabin for some peace.

I’m halfway up the quarter deck when Lesaro’s voice calls above the oncoming breeze, “Capitán ! A ship sails towards us.”

Another one?

My heart nearly sinks to my stomach. Should I try reasoning with Armando to spare this one this time? I doubt he would listen to me, although a part of me hopes he does. I can’t take another soul passing through the waters today. I’m exhausted beyond the ability to oversee another execution.

But when my eye catches the ship in the distance, I pause. It’s bigger than the rest we’ve sank this morning and glitters in the sun like a floating heap of gold. A red flag with black skull and crossbones waves lazily in the wind. If the previous ships were as small and made of simple wood, then this must be the ship they served. Whoever the captain is, he must be a force to reckon with. Yet I have no doubt that the Mary will sink it as easily as it did the others.

You can’t defeat what’s already dead.

As we approach the pirate ship head on, the Mary lifts off once more and flays her ribcage open, ravenous to devour another vessel. I brace myself for impact and latch onto the wooden railing of the stairs leading to the helm.

But just as the Silent Mary was about to enclose around the pirate vessel, a loud, scratchy voice calls from below, “Captain Salazar, I hear you've been looking for Jack Sparrow!”

The world comes to a standstill at those bold words. I look up at Armando at the wheel. His face contorts from cruel anticipation of sinking another ship, to intrigue. What could this pirate know of his mission?

With a click of his tongue, the dead crew of the Silent Mary boards the pirate ship like the ghosts they are, dropping from the sky and landing on the decks, unharmed. Each officer draws their weapon and aim them at the pirates.

I watch wide-eyed as a pirate attempt to shoot an officer with half a face, only for the shot to pass through him and kill the pirate on the other side. Even if the shot did find his chest, as I said before, you can’t kill what’s already dead.

Anxious to see how this unfolds, I take my place at the wheel for a better view, my trip to the great cabin forgotten.

“Hold point and await orders!” Lesaro commands the crew, this time speaking English.

As soon as he said that, Armando lands a few paces behind the pirate captain who so boldly caught his attention. Even from my position behind the wheel, I can spot the chilling fear in the captain’s tense features as the Capitán  of the Silent Mary approaches him.

Armando stares him down with so much hatred, my own skin crawls with shivers and icy chills.

At last, the pirate captain musters enough courage to speak, “My name is Captain Barbarossa. And I stand before you with cordial intent.”

Armando laughs ironically and turns to his crew among the pirates, “Do you hear that? This pirate wishes to be cordial.” To the captain he says, “So let me show you what my cordiality is. Every time I tap my sword, one of your men will die. So, I suggest you speak quickly.”

He taps his sword once and an officer buries his sword in a pirate’s chest.

“Might want to go a bit faster Captain,” Armando challenges and taps his sword again, twice.

Two more pirates die, their gurgling screams bouncing off the wooden exterior of the ship.

I leave my post at the wheel to rush across the Mary, climbing the steeped deck to get a little closer.

“Where is Jack Sparrow?!” Armando just about roars at the captain, who hardly bats a lash at the outburst. If it was me his rage was targeted at, I’d be a fainted mess on the deck. Never in all my weeks upon the Mary, have I seen Armando this enraged.

“Jack be sailing for the trident,” says the captain calmly.

I pause.

Henry did it. He found Jack Sparrow and convinced him to help locate the trident.

“No, the sea belongs to the dead,” Armando shakes his head, hair moving elegantly with the motion.

“The Trident controls the seas.”

“No! No!” I flinch at the Capitán ’s outburst as his rage leads him to pace the deck. “There is no treasure. There is no treasure! It can’t save him, he’ll die with you!”

My heart forgets to beat as I watch him raise his rapier and aim it at the captain’s throat.

“I be the only one that can lead you to him,” the captain rambles in a final attempt to save his own life. The Capitán ’s sword hovers in the air. I hold my breath, expecting him to kill the pirate at any second. When he makes no such move, the captain continues, “I declare you should have Jack’s life by sunrise tomorrow or you can take me own then. Do we have an accord?”

His negotiation lingers in the air. I’m not certain if Armando even considers accepting it. He’d rather be cursed a thousand times than to accept any sort of assistance from a pirate.

But my soul’s been weighed down by death and blood enough for one day. Drawing a steady breath, I summon a breeze and guide it towards the pirate ship. As soon as it reaches Armando and plays through his hair, he jerks his head to the side and spots me at the banisters.

I pour my emotions into the breeze, hoping he can feel the toll all this violence has taken on me.

The pirate captain hesitantly follows his gaze, trying to see what he’s looking at but can’t spot me from where he stands. However, he jolts when Armando advances toward him, sword still aimed at his neck.

“Take me to him, and you will live to tell the tale.”

The captain smiles meekly. “You have my word. I thank you on behalf of my crew.”

Capitán  Salazar chuckles dryly, “Good, you can take what’s left of them.” A series of taps from his sword results in at least ten more pirates meeting their ends by the ghost crew. “The living come aboard!”

[skinsharpenedteeth]

RNM After Dark - Friday - Down to Earth

Here's my submission for @rnmafterdark

Day 1 - Down to Earth.

It features... dom/sub behavior, discussions of kink and safewords, impact play, cock and ball torture (CBT), masochism, sadism, a little bit of humiliation, and a school bus converted into a sex dungeon...

it's 6400 words, rated E-AF for Explicit As Fuck.

Also posted on AO3 for your kudos-ing, commenting, and bookmarking pleasure!

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"What You Need and What You Want"

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Alex didn't know why he needed it. He'd thought he was past needing to be yelled at after basic and living with his father, but the drill sergeants could only yell at you about the most superficial weaknesses. He could be called soft, pretty, or a mama's boy all day and it wouldn't even tweak a nerve. But late at night in foreign cities stateside and abroad, in clubs he’d found for people like him, people who needed something more, he had found other men who got closer to making him feel the way he needed to feel. Their rough hands, their sharp words, and the way they weren’t moved by his tears unless he said a word to make them stop, had turned out to be exactly what he’d needed that was more.

Then Alex had come back home from combat and anonymity. He’d tried to move into his old life, tried to fit into the version of himself that was normal, and found out that so many things were not what they seemed. But he hadn’t been able to get what he needed in a small town. So he’d driven to Albuquerque, looking for someone to fill that part of himself that needed to wallow in punishment and pain. But Albuquerque wasn’t big enough, wasn’t dark enough, wasn’t learned enough to know the difference between dominance and cruelty. It was close enough though. Close enough for Alex to fill in the gaps with his mind of the things he was missing.

Michael had noticed his trips. Michael noticed everything. He’d noticed that Alex wasn’t coming home calm, but haunted. He'd come home with the edge taken off, but not the need taken care of. Not fully. Never fully. The itch was always there, just sometimes more manageable if he'd let someone slap him around for a bit. The trips had been to someone who would do just that. But they didn't know him. Not really. He’d been the one to point out to Alex that he really wasn’t getting what he needed. Then, after an out-of-town trip that had left Alex with one too many bruises and scratches and a significant limp, Michael had begged him to let him help instead of continuing to go to someone who wasn’t treating him right.

"Just come to me for it," Michael had said, half order and half offer. Alex had scoffed initially. He hadn't thought Michael had understood what Alex actually wanted. Michael had leveled him with a glare and continued. "I don't like the idea of you going somewhere else for this. I don't like the idea of you trusting a stranger. And it's obvious it's not enough. Next time you have to scratch the itch, just come to me."

"Sure," Alex had agreed. He'd said 'sure’ like he meant 'not a chance'. Then he'd had a week of nights filled with nightmares. Caulfield, explosions, death, dismemberment, and ghosts plagued him whenever his body lost the fight to unconsciousness. The guy he'd been seeing was too far away and busy and Alex was almost trembling with the need for someone to bleed the tension out of him. So he'd called Michael just to see. Maybe he could do it. Maybe he could be enough until Alex could find another person or another way.

He’d never expected it to work, but he’d underestimated how well Michael knew him. Michael saw the way he seemed to bend towards harsh criticisms against him or his family. He saw how he warred with letting go of those terrible pieces of himself and holding onto them as tightly as if they were his security blanket. Michael had seen inside his mind and had rooted around for the most shameful things to use against him. Once Michael had figured out what he'd been going out of town to get, he’d made Alex an offer he couldn't refuse.

Alex stepped up into the old yellow school bus apprehensively. It sat near the Airstream in the junkyard, electric cables running to it and making it glow through the cracks. Michael had blacked out the windows with paint, making it look vaguely ominous in the blue hours of dusk. He wasn't sure what he'd find inside. What he found was a work in progress.

The cavernous space had been stripped of the seats and given a new floor. Michael had installed a drop ceiling down the middle of the bus and lined it with invisible lights around the edges. It made the ceiling dark, but the rounded walls and windows glow with subdued light. The effect was modern and sophisticated, and not at all what Alex would normally expect from Michael. Michael was watching him take in the bus's interior from a dark modular sofa that had been pushed along the side of the bus. He was wearing a loose, distressed pair of jeans and his ever-present plaid-over-tank combo. Alex felt his apprehension tighten the muscles in his back, but he pushed forward until he was standing in front of Michael looking down at him. He shoved his hands into his pockets and made a show of looking around the bus.

"So, starting an escort service?" Alex asked, watching for Michael's reaction.

"Maybe. Nothing wrong with sex work. It wasn't what I had planned for this space, but maybe there's a niche market for a mobile brothel in Roswell," Michael answered, spreading his arms over the back of the sofa and leveling Alex with a look. "I assume you didn't call to insult my decorating."

Alex scoffed. He shook his head slowly and gave Michael a wry smile.

"No. I guess I didn't," Alex replied. "So are we going to do this?"

"Sure. But sit down. We need to do some quick housekeeping," Michael said, waving to the empty space next to him. Alex sat and tried not to fidget. He didn't want to talk right then. He wanted to hurt and have the demons inside him go silent and be sated. Michael watched him silently, gaze intense and laser-focused to the point that Alex stilled himself, suddenly self-conscious.

"Okay. So, first I need to know what you want out of this," Michael started. Alex rolled his eyes, but Michael just kept looking at him, even and steady.

"I want… release," Alex bit out. He could feel a flush starting to heat the skin of his neck. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.

"I'm assuming you don't mean orgasm...well, or not just orgasm. How do you want me to give that to you?" Michael asked. Alex's knee bounced and he scratched his thumbnail over the inside of his palm, letting the sting settle him enough to answer Michael's question.

"Yes, orgasm would be nice. But, what I need isn't just physical. I want to… I need you to… I need someone to make me make my physically feel as shitty as I need mentally. I need someone to strip me bare and then flay me alive. I need to hurt. I need to feel… empty at the end of it. Quiet, ya know?" Alex explained. His thumbnail scratched over and over, dragging across the same spot. Michael's hand closed gently over his wrist, startling Alex out of his thoughts. Alex looked up to catch Michael's eye and felt Michael pull his hand away and lay it on his thigh before taking the hand Alex had been scratching and holding it in his own.

"Do you need this to be verbal or just physical?" Michael asked, carefully. Alex tried not to let his shame overwhelm him. He wanted both. He needed both so badly and he hated how weak that need made him feel.

"Both," Alex replied just as quietly. Michael waited for a moment before speaking again. Alex watched the gears turn behind Michael's eyes, but he didn't see any pity in his expression… or disgust. A small part of him was surprised. He'd expected one or the other.

"So, hard limits?" Michael continued. He had started to rub his thumb sweetly over the red line Alex had made in his palm. It was at once painful and soothing.

"Nothing permanent. No choking, for obvious reasons. No broken skin. Don't call me ‘soldier.’ Don't call me ‘son.’ Don't make me…" Alex broke off, suddenly feeling ashamed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Michael paused his thumb over the scratch and pressed down firmly. A bright flare of stinging pain gave Alex the resolution to continue. "Don't make me feel good about any of it til we're done. And I don't need aftercare."

"Aftercare isn't optional, Alex. Not for you, not for me. That's a hard limit of mine," Michael replied, voice low and serious. Alex stared at him before huffing out a little laugh.

"How would you know what your limits are? Have you done this before?" Alex asked, removing his hand from Michael's. Unconsciously, he'd started to turn his body more towards Michael's. One leg was folded in front of him on the couch seat, his prosthesis still resting on the floor of the bus.

"You're not the only person who's found themselves with a need that wasn't fulfilled by what was easily obtained. You're not the gatekeeper to kink. You were gone for ten years and I had plenty of time to experiment and learn on my own. Stop acting like just because I've never been off the continent, I'm a fucking narrow-minded moron." Michael's voice was sharp at the end, making Alex flinch internally. He couldn't imagine a world where Michael had explored BDSM or kink. He'd just assumed Michael was drinking and sleeping around like a college frat boy the entire time. It stung Alex that he hadn't even imagined Michael really living a full life without him. He always just thought of Michael biding his time, waiting on him, perpetually looking over his shoulder and waiting for Alex to appear on the horizon. What a selfish, egotistical dick he was to assume Michael had nothing better to do than cool his heels dreaming of an idolized version of Alex (the version of Alex that he wished he was in reality, that he tried to be and failed to be every single day).

"Sorry," Alex said after a quiet span of minutes where he manually adjusted his mental image of Michael Guerin.

"Try again, Alex. And look me in the face while you do it." Alex raised his head and looked at Michael. He looked older and calmer than he had a moment before. He looked like he was wearing all the years of his life on his shoulders and he was used to the weight of carrying them. Alex felt younger somehow. He felt chastened.

"I'm sorry, Michael," he repeated, keeping his eyes locked on Guerin’s. Michael nodded once before continuing.

"What's your safeword?"

"Finland," Alex replied without hesitation.

"Mine's ‘orbit.’ Are you okay with using the stoplight system?" Michael asked easily. Alex nodded.

"So, do you want a trial run tonight?" Michael asked.

Alex took a deep breath and nodded again before clearing his throat, knowing he had to speak it out loud. "Yeah, sure. Let's give it a go."

"So stand up and take off your clothes. I'll be right back," Michael said as he stood up off the couch. Alex stood also and waited for Michael to disappear behind a partition that presumably hid the way to the bathroom. Slowly, Alex undressed himself, feeling nerves and anticipation start to flutter behind his bellybutton. He folded his clothes and laid them on the couch. Before he had to figure out if Michael wanted him to be kneeling or not, Michael came back into the room. He'd stripped off his plaid shirt and was just in jeans and a tank. Alex watched him walk across the room and pick up a remote from one of the window ledges. He pointed it towards the ceiling and the lights turned from a warm golden light to an almost sinister red.

"Going to murder me?" Alex tried to joke. Michael gave him a quick grin.

"Want a different color? I've got the full range. We can disco through the whole pride flag if you want," Michael joked back.

"No. Red is fine," Alex assured him. While he spoke, Michael had discarded the remote back onto the window ledge and moved to stand in front of Alex. He reached up and brushed some of Alex's hair behind his ear, watching his own action contemplatively.

"So what brought this on tonight? What are you feeling?" Michael asked, eyes seeming to float back to meet Alex's while his hand rested on the side of Alex's neck, fingers gently playing with the too long curling pieces near the nape of his neck.

"Just… stuff. Nightmares," Alex mumbled, dropping his eyes and staring at the dark patch of chest hair that showed above the scoop collar of Michael's tank. He wanted to get started. He was doubting his decision to come. Why didn't Michael just do something already?!

"What would you tell your anonymous Dom in Albuquerque or Santa Fe if they asked?" Alex's eyes darted back up to meet Michael's and he scowled. Through tight lips, he managed to spit out an answer.

"They wouldn't have asked about why I needed it, they’d just give it to me."

"Well, you gotta give me something to work with here. What feeling is causing the nightmares?" Michael asked patiently. He let the knuckles of his left hand drag down the side of Alex's bare stomach, reminding him that he was standing naked in front of Michael while he stood there fully clothed. Maybe they should've just had sex. Maybe that would've been enough.

"Guilt. I feel… guilty about a lot of things," Alex finally confessed, shame filling his cheeks with heat and color. Michael nodded, almost to himself.

"Okay. I can work with that," he replied. Then his hands slid away from Alex's body and he stepped back. He let his eyes travel down every inch of Alex's skin and back up. "I thought I told you to get naked."

Alex furrowed his brow in confusion and looked down at himself. He wasn't wearing any clothes. Michael smiled and bent down slightly to tap at Alex's prosthesis. Alex looked at him, still confused.

"Take it off. I'm going to have you kneeling on a pillow when you're finished. Arms up and behind your head," Michael instructed. Alex sat back on the couch and began to remove the prosthesis. Michael produced a square floor cushion and sat it in the middle of the bus floor, then stood in front of it and waited on Alex to finish. The floor cushion was just far enough that Alex would have to crawl to get to it from the couch. Humiliation bloomed in his stomach, and his cock twitched with interest. Michael was testing him.

Lowering himself down from the couch, Alex crawled the short distance to the floor cushion and then began to arrange himself. He sat forward on his knees, widening them for easier balance, and then slowly he lifted his arms up and interlocked his fingers behind his head. He was bared for the cool gaze Michael was giving him, and it thrilled him how very vulnerable he was in the position he’d been asked to hold. He could and would hold the position easily, but Michael could also just as easily knock him to the ground if he chose to. Alex let his eyes lift only as far as Michael's best buckle, brain beginning to quiet and settle as he did so, and then he waited.

"Very good, Alex. You look good like this," Michael complimented with a slightly mocking edge to his tone. He made a slow half-circle to stand behind Alex so that Alex could see them. "So you're feeling guilty, huh? Think you need to earn your forgiveness? Want someone to take your penance out of your flesh?" Michael asked from behind him. Alex nodded briskly, not sure if he was allowed to speak. "What do you feel guilty for? Because I can't punish you for having dreams."

"Just… everything. I'm so angry at myself for not being over shit. For failing you, for failing my dad, for failing everyone," Alex choked out, feeling like fleeing but forcing himself to stay still.

"How did you fail me?" Michael asked, voice cool and impartial. Alex appreciated the lack of emotion. It helped him keep going. He wouldn't be able to continue if he could tell he was hurting Michael with his honesty.

"I always underestimate you. You’re better, smarter, and more capable than I think you are a lot of the time," Alex admitted. Michael hummed thoughtfully.

"How many hours of sleep do you think you've gotten this week, Manes? Sixteen? Twenty?" Michael asked. Alex did the rough mental math in his head. He cleared his throat before he spoke.

"Fifteen-ish," he answered. His lower back muscles were starting to quietly let themselves be felt as they were continually used to keep him upright, the muscles in his thighs and arms warming up from holding him still. He felt Michael step up close behind him, legs on the outside of his own and cool belt buckle pressing into the bottom of his interlocked hands. Michael's hands slid through the gaps between his arms and shoulders and smoothed down his chest before scratching back up, nails dragging red lines into his tanned skin. He shifted into the sting, wishing for Michael to scratch harder.

"Color?" Michael asked quietly as his hands once again smoothed down Alex's pecs.

"Green," Alex answered through a harsh breath as Michael scratched back up, but harder. The bite of pain had Alex gasping in surprise, and he felt his cock starting to plump up from the attention.

"How about I give you ten on your ass and give five to your balls? If you take your punishment good, I'll help you cum. Does that sound fair?" Michael asked, thumbs rubbing roughly over Alex's nipples. The low thrum of arousal was starting to build under Alex’s skin from Michael’s words. The low level sting from Michael’s nails was already starting to put him in the right headspace. He closed his eyes for a moment, just enjoying the rough push and pull of Michael’s fingers on him.

“Yes,” Alex agreed out loud. Michael brought his hands back up to rest on Alex’s shoulders. He bent close to his ear before speaking again. His breath was warm where it tickled over Alex’s skin.

“Then get on your elbows and knees. I want your ass higher than your head,” Michael instructed. Alex took a deep breath in and nodded before unclasping his hands from behind his head. Gingerly, he moved until his head was resting on top of his forearms against the floor. He tucked his knees under his hips and presented himself. He was keenly aware of how exposed he was. The cool air from the A/C unit fluttered over his backside. Michael hadn’t moved as Alex had gotten into position, so he could also feel the threat of someone lording over him. He could almost feel Michael’s eyes trailing over his naked skin, taking his time, mentally caressing every curve. After what felt like an eternity, Michael moved. He knelt down next to Alex’s side. When his fingertips started to skim down Alex’s side, it made him jump.

“None of that now,” Michael said, though his tone was soothing instead of harsh, like Alex was a spooked horse he was trying to calm. His hand continued stroking gently over Alex’s side and then down his back, around the curve of his ass and down his leg. The touch almost tickled and Alex had to fight not to flinch or shy away from the sensation.

“You always think you know better than me, don’t you, Alex?” Michael asked quietly. He shifted his body, moving further down Alex’s body and behind him. He started to use both hands to tickle over Alex’s back. When he got to his ass, though, Michael paused. Carefully, he spread Alex’s cheeks to look at his hole. A light touch of Michael’s thumb trailed down the center, barely glancing over Alex’s hole, and then down over his taint until Michael could cup Alex’s balls in his hand. He massaged them gently in his palm, pulling gently at the skin of his sack. Circling his thumb and forefinger around the base of Alex’s scrotum under his cock, he used the other three fingers to cup around the fleshy sack and began squeezing gently. Discomfort and heat prickled at Alex’s skin, making him whimper softly when Michael’s hand began to tighten and loosen in a slow rhythm. It wasn’t rough, wasn’t painful, but it was uncomfortable in the way that triggered his most primal instinct to escape. Alex stayed still and breathed deeply against his forearms. The feeling was mesmerizing, so it caught Alex off guard when Michael reached down with his free hand to stroke his cock.

“Fuck!” Alex burst out, shifting restlessly knee to knee. Michael held still as he settled. The electricity of that touch crackled along Alex’s nerve endings, pins and needles under his skin.

“Color?” Michael asked, not moving.

“Green,” Alex replied, feeling suddenly out of breath. Without warning, the hand that had touched Alex’s cock came down with a crack on one of his ass cheeks. This pain too was electric, but more like a quick strike of lighting, localized and bright. Alex swore, but tried to stay still.

“One,” Michael counted. His hand rubbed over the stinging skin before he removed it. A moment later, he was using it to loosely stroke over Alex’s cock. The hand around Alex’s balls tightened, again threatening the violence that Alex wanted. He moaned, wishing for more. “I was just never good enough for you, was I? But you kept coming back. Kept slumming it with the foster kid. Did you think I didn’t notice the way you kept me secret?”

Another slap against Alex’s ass, another sting, and another gentle caress by Michael’s hand over the heated skin. The next one came faster and harder than the first. Michael learned forward over one side of Alex’s back, the roughness of his jeans irritating and wonderful over Alex’s heated skin. He leaned close enough to be able to rest his chin on Alex’s shoulder.

“Two and Three. You’re an arrogant piece of shit sometimes, Alex. You’re wrapped up in classism, just like your father was. At least you can recognize that you’re a fucking asshole for it and that you deserve for someone to take you down a peg.”

He kept his voice calm and the words stung all the more for it. Alex held his breath against their effect until he couldn’t any longer and then let it out in a long, slow breath. Michael took his hand away from the base of Alex’s balls.

“Do you think you’re better than me, Alex? Smarter? Think you need to always be the white fucking knight for everyone?” Michael asked, fingers dragging up Alex’s perineum in a firm line.

“No,” Alex said, shaking his head. A hard crack sounded and fire lit up the previously untouched ass cheek. Alex felt a throb run through his body as the heat started to radiate. His cock hung heavy between his legs. He looked down the line of his body and could see it hanging, tip wet and threatening to drip onto the floor.

“Are you lying to me, Alex?” Michael asked, nails scratching over the abused spot on Alex’s ass. His voice was quiet, threatening, teasing and starting to make Alex feel unraveled. Alex shook his head weakly. Another lick of fire, another crack, and Alex was moaning into his forearms.

“I think you’re lying to me. You think I’m stupid, Alex? Your actions speak louder than words. You think you’re the only one in the room who's aware enough to notice other people. You think we don’t have you pegged? You think you’re better than your friends, your family and me and you always have, haven’t you?” Michael asked, right before pushing up off from Alex’s back to sit back on his heels. His hands came to rest on Alex’s waist, pulling him back to center Alex’s hips back over his knees and correct his position. A hand slid up Alex’s spine and then pressed between his shoulder blades. Alex followed the unspoken direction until his chest was resting on the floor. He laid his cheek against the cool flooring and closed his eyes, letting his mind sink into Michael’s words.

“We’re halfway through your ass punishment. Your skin is getting so pretty and pink for me. And your cock is making a fucking mess on my floor. You look so fucking shameless right now. It’s a good look for you, Alex. You just needed to be reminded of how good you look when you’re being put in your place,” Michael praised from behind him.

Michael’s hands slid back from Alex’s hips to grip his ass. Alex felt himself being spread wide, Michael’s thumbs pulling at the skin next to his hole gently. The feeling of something warm and wet hitting his pucker and starting to slide over his entrance confused Alex for only a moment until he realized Michael must’ve spit on him. Hot shame and arousal flushed through him at the mental image. One of Michael’s thumbs moved in and he massaged his spit over Alex’s hole, pressing firmly but not truly trying to penetrate. Alex groaned, pushing back against the pressure of Michael’s thumb, vainly wishing he’d open him up and fuck him. He wanted to feel pinned open under Michael’s cock.

“Maybe next time. If you’re good,” Michael assured him before he took his hands away. Alex shook with need. He needed pain or pleasure or words or something. He was rewarded with a quick series of slaps, two on each ass cheek, one right after the other, heavy enough to thud through his muscle. These weren’t the stinging, surface slaps of earlier. When Michael finished, his hands massaged roughly across the skin. Alex felt a dizzying rush of blood and emotion coursing through him a moment before he felt the warm wet of Michael’s mouth and the sharper sting of his stubble as Michael nipped and kissed over the abused cheeks. His final slap on one cheek was quickly followed by a sharp bite to the other. Alex cursed and his foot flexed against the floor, toes trying to dig against the hard surface as Michael used his jaw’s grip on Alex’s skin to coax a whine from Alex’s throat. Alex didn’t need to see the floor under his cock to know it was sticky with a pool of his arousal.

“Mmm,” Michael hummed, rubbing his stubbled cheek over his bite mark, sounding well-pleased. “So warm.”

“Michael, please,” Alex managed to choke out. Michael hummed again, but Alex felt subtle movement behind him. A moment later, Michael’s hand wrapped around Alex’s cock, wet and slick and tight. His hand slid up and down Alex’s shaft and it was all he could do not to hump forward into the pressure. It felt so fucking good. Michael was still rubbing his bristled chin and upper lip over Alex’s ass, mouthing at the inflamed flesh.

“You’re doing so good. I love hearing you beg, Alex,” Michael murmured against his skin. Alex almost didn’t hear him, his attention so wrapped up in the slick sounds and tight hole Michael’s fist was making for him. He was getting close, he could tell, but he knew he hadn’t finished his punishment. Abruptly, Michael let go of Alex’s cock and sat up. Alex wailed into his arms, eyes stinging at the loss. His cock ached where it swung, newly neglected and dripping between his legs.

“You still need to take the five to your balls. Then I’ll let you cum,” Michael reminded him, tone lazy. He said this while wrapping his hand around the base of Alex’s sack again and pulling back towards him. Alex whined at the stretch, his balls had been tightening close to his body in preparation for cumming and now Michael was stretching them away. He’d stretched them far enough that Alex could imagine they looked like two pink plums in Michael’s grip, skin tight over the swollen orbs, looking fit to burst. He felt Michael’s hot breath against them a moment before the blunt pressure of his teeth resting on either side of one of his balls. Some heady mix of fear and arousal shot through Alex’s body making him tremble, his stomach tightening and hips hitching forward. “So full. I bet you haven’t cum since your last trip to Albuquerque. Maybe I should make you wait longer, see how big of a load you’ll save up for me.”

“Please, Michael, I need…,” Alex started, only to yelp in surprise at the first three-fingered smack to his testicles.

“You need,” Michael started, voice harsh and admonishing; another smack, wringing out another, higher-pitched yelp from Alex, and then Michael continued, “to let me make the decisions here. I know what you need, Alex. I’ve got you all figured out. You need to stop,” SMACK! “Underestimating,” SMACK! “Me.” SMACK!

Alex's breath was heaving from his body. He didn’t even realize he was speaking until Michael was pulling him up to sit back onto his lap, hands around his waist to help support him and Alex’s back pressed against Michael’s chest.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Alex continued to mumble thickly. Michael was shushing him softly, arms tight and comforting around him, lips delivering soft kisses to Alex’s shoulder and neck. Alex’s cheeks were hot, his eyes tight, and he knew he was crying.

“I know you are, sweetheart. I know,” Michael murmured against his skin. Alex’s breath hitched under another sob. Michael gently maneuvered him to half turn so he could wipe at the tear tracks on Alex’s cheek and kiss the corner of his mouth softly. “You did so good. I know you’re sorry cause you followed all my directions and took your punishment. So good, baby.”

Alex found himself turning more until he could cling to Michael’s neck and hug his body close. Michael stroked one of his hands up and down Alex’s spine while the other combed through his hair. The new position trapped Alex’s aching balls and still-hard cock in between their bodies. The cotton of Michael’s shirt was irritating against Alex’s sensitive skin, but Alex couldn’t bear to pull back.

“Did you want me to help you cum, Alex?” Michael asked, nose gently bumping against Alex’s, lips a hair's breadth away. Alex took a deep breath in to steady himself before nodding. He moved forward, hoping to capture Michael’s mouth in a kiss. Michael let him, opening obligingly when Alex smoothed his inquisitive tongue along Michael’s lips. Michael let Alex kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. While they kissed, Michael’s hands wandered over Alex’s naked body until his hands came down onto Alex’s ass cheeks. Alex had almost forgotten about them until the flare of fire was reignited under Michael’s grip. The pain only served to excite Alex further.

“Michael, fuck me, please,” Alex begged, lips against Michael’s cheek as he pressed his body back into Michael’s strong grip.

“Not this time,” Michael responded gently. “But I’ll help get you off. You did so well, I can let you cum.”

“Please,” Alex said again, writhing softly in Michael’s lap to get some much-needed friction against his cock.

“So impatient,” Michael griped fondly. Removing one of his hands from Alex’s ass, Alex watched as he went to a previously unseen pump bottle of lube. He pumped twice and then brought his hand between their bodies and wrapped it around Alex’s cock. The lube was slick and sticky, and Alex immediately hitched his hips to push his cock through Michael’s grip.

“Oh, it’s like that?” Michael teased, tightening his grip to slow Alex’s quickening thrusts. Alex whined, hands flexing against Michael’s shoulders. Slowly, Michael started to move his tight-fisted hand over Alex’s cock. It was too tight for Alex to get off on it, but the edge of pain kept him hard and hoping. “If you keep acting greedy like this, I’m going to strap you down and edge you until you’ve learned some patience. Would you like that, Alex? Want me to keep you hard and begging for hours? Or do you want me to just make you cum until you’re dry and begging for me to stop?”

“Both, please,” Alex gasped out after a particularly cruel twist of Michael’s wrist. Michael loosened his grip then and paused, letting Alex catch his breath.

“You insatiable creature,” Michael praised. He kissed along Alex’s jaw to his shoulder where he bit harshly into the meat of Alex’s muscle. Alex groaned and tried not to writhe against the pain, but couldn’t seem to stop his body from rocking gently against Michael’s fist.

“That’s it. You can fuck my hand now.” He continued to kiss and bite Alex’s flesh after he said it, causing small fires everywhere his teeth touched. His mouth moved down from Alex’s shoulder to his chest, causing Alex to lean back. Alex held onto Michael’s shoulders tightly, but didn’t stop thrusting into Michael’s perfect, slick grip. Michael sucked Alex’s nipple into his mouth and let his teeth scrape over the sensitive flesh as he pulled his head back. Alex moaned and cursed at the feeling, throwing his head back. The tension in Alex was building quickly. He wanted so badly to cum, wanted to feel himself released from reality into oblivion if only for a few seconds.

“Please, Michael. Just a little tighter, please,” Alex managed to pant out. Michael kissed across his exposed throat.

“Show me, sweetheart,” he insisted. Alex pulled one of his hands from Michael’s shoulder and wrapped it over Michael’s. He squeezed until the pressure was perfect and then let go, replacing his hand on Michael’s shoulder. The hand that had been harshly kneading at Alex’s ass, encouraging his rolling hips and sloppy thrusts, came around to stack itself on top of the hand gripping him. Together they created a deep channel for Alex to thrust his cock into over and over again.

“Shit, shit, shit, Michael. I need to cum. Can I? Please?” Alex whined, even as he kept pushing his body towards the edge.

“Sure, darlin'. You can cum,” Michael said agreeably. Alex let go of any restraint, pressing close and letting his thrusts get quick and out of rhythm as he felt the pressure building behind his balls. When Alex was only a few thrusts away, Michael continued, “But I’m going to make you clean up the mess you make with your mouth.”

The last bit did it for Alex. With a strangled, silent yell, his cock swelled against Michael’s hands and then erupted white, sticky streams that dripped and smeared along the insides of his fingers and palms. When Alex was able to move, Michael let go of his slowly softening cock and Alex lowered himself onto his back on the floor. The coolness of it felt good against his overheated skin. Carefully, Michael crawled over him to straddle his stomach, careful of his oversensitive cock.

“Open up,” Michael demanded, tapping two sticky fingers against Alex’s lips. Obediently, Alex opened his mouth and felt Michael plunge his salty, spunk-covered digits in. Alex moaned at the taste of himself on Michael’s skin, using his tongue to trace every inch of skin to find more of his leftover pleasure. Michael made him lick and suck all of his fingers and then palms. When he was finished, he swooped down and took Alex’s mouth with his own, plunging his tongue in for any traces left for him to taste. When the taste dissolved into nothing they parted. Michael helped Alex up onto the couch, where he held Alex against his chest and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Want some water? Dinner?” Michael asked a little while later when Alex was practically dozing off against his chest where he was sprawled. Alex hummed noncommittally and nuzzled his head against Michael’s shirt, laying a kiss against his cotton-covered chest.

“How was it? Everything you expected?” Michael asked easily. Alex nodded, eyes still closed and mind still wrapped in a blanket of satiation.

“Anything you didn’t like or would like me to do differently next time?” Michael asked next. Alex thought about it. His hand drifted down to Michael’s crotch, completely covered, but still half hard from their scene.

“I want you to use this on me next time. Mouth, ass, hands, whatever. I want you to get off too,” Alex replied, voice drowsy but firm. He opened his eyes and locked eyes with Michael. His hand stayed resting over Michael’s crotch and he could feel it twitch against his palm. Alex raised an eyebrow in question. Michael smiled, bent his head down to kiss Alex’s mouth, and brushed his hand away.

“Next time. Promise,” Michael responded easily. Alex knew it wasn’t a real rejection, so he nodded and turned his head to lay it back down against Michael’s chest, his ear pressed to where he could hear the steady thumping rhythm of Michael’s heart. He drifted and with faint surprise, realized he was really falling asleep. He wondered how long Michael would let him lay like this if he fell asleep. Would he wake up to warm sunshine tomorrow morning? Would Michael only let him nap for a while and then wake him to get dressed so he could go home to his own bed? As if hearing his thoughts, Michael ran the back of a finger along Alex’s cheek bone.

“Do you want to sleep here, the Airstream, or your house?” Michael asked softly. Alex considered it.

“Let’s go to the Airstream. I don’t wanna sleep alone tonight,” Alex said through a yawn. Michael nodded and hugged his arms around Alex’s shoulders.

“Sure. Whatever you want,” Michael concluded. Alex only hummed a vague response before he was oblivious to anything else. He didn’t have nightmares that night.

[scarlettaagni]

scenes i am endlessly thinking about presented in semi-chronological order

another Yautja kid makes fun of pup Missy’s family so she tackles him and starts swinging

Zola asks Missy if Yautja have music or dancing and her only reference was a ritual from when she was younger when the clan Ancient gave out gauntlets to the pups

Missy breaks a drawing board over another kid’s head for erasing her art

wordless and contextless cold-open where Missy watches her helmet and gear being made and assembled, picking a grappling hook gauntlet over the traditional wristblades and testing the weapons, seeing her parents off, then shooting off to earth. she just straight up goes through the however many stages of grief the entire trip

towards the end of her first fight of the hunt, she disarms the last guy and steps on the gun before he can reach it, but after a thought she steps off it and in fact kicks it to him, lets him get his shit together as she turns around to wait, lets him get a few shots in before disarming him again and tearing his head off. big confidence boost for her [flower emoji]

then she kneels down by the other bodies sharpening her blades so she can start flaying them, scene of, or some scenes of the flaying process and the hanging

Missy steals shrimp from the food table they set out and she makes it a habit of stealing raw meat and fish to eat. She can cook it if she wants but half the time she just slides the mouthpiece of her mask off and eats it right there and then because Yautja don't get salmonella or botulism

Missy watches a wake in a church and goes to observe the coffin when it’s brought in the back and scares the shit out of somebody who walks in during that

Missy watches human kids playing tag and picks up some choice phrases to use, but decides to bounce when kids start pointing at her and calling their parents to look

Missy is checking out the residence near the chicken coop she keeps returning to for food, accidentally catches Zola’s attention so as Zola sticks her head out of the window to see what’s up, a loc of her hair hangs in Missy’s face but Zola heads back inside before Missy can touch it

general scenes of Missy being unsupervised in Zola’s house and investigating stuff like how hot the stove gets and their gun storage and playing Zola’s music

Zola teaches Missy how to handle cats with her cat Buster, Missy proceeds to pet him for an entire hour

Zola’s dad gets home before Zola does while Missy is blasting music and she impersonates Zola with what few clips of her voice she can contextually use, when Zola gets there she manages to convince her dad that she just left a recording on her laptop open and is a little offended at being impersonated

Missy eats what Zola gives her by turning around and slav squatting so she doesn't see

flashback scene before that of Missy begging the leader and Ancient for this chance, revealing the two Yautja that see her off were her parents. also scene of ancient taking interest in reviewing her biomask recordings with/in place of the leader because Ancient is the Cool Grandpa who jives with her vibes

Zola shows Missy some chicken eggs about to hatch, one starts and Missy raises her fist to crush it but Zola stops her and lets her admire the newborn chick and hands her an older chick to observe

The two of them bond over their upcoming initiation into adulthood and their desire to not let their fathers down and make them proud of them

scene where Missy finds a carnival, watches the tradition of hitting targets for a toy, which is often won by somebody but given away to a loved one so while no one is paying attention she hits a target and takes a toy as a trophy and gives it to Zola next time she sees her

scene where Missy is desperate enough to literally pray to the Yautja gods for luck so she chants her name over and over above a fire and one of her trophies

Missy decapitates King and warns Zola that she stashed it in a bale of hay but no warning can prepare Zola so she just tries her best not to scream

Missy commandeers a motorcycle by nonfatally tossing the owner off it, using a mode that detects the most touched parts of the motorcycle to teach herself what parts to hold onto, then places her mask onto Zola to protect her identity but more importantly, allow her plasmacaster to shoot backwards using Zola’s gaze for targeting while Missy operates the bike

motorcycle chase scene where they’re being chased by military jeeps and helicopters, the chase filmed and broadcast on TV where in order to get the help of the public, paint Missy as a human escaped convict who has stolen experimental technology

Zola takes the mask off when the coast is clear and she complains that the inside of the mask smells like seafood

Zola’s dad freaks out cause he instantly recognizes her on TV and this is a scene i kinda don’t want to have cause I prefer him to be unaware of Missy’s existence but i really want her to confront him and say that Zola is the bravest human she’s met thus far and that her own father would be proud to have a daughter like Zola (roundabout way of saying she wants to be like Zola)

[gushes immensely] Missy goes into dangerous situations because she has to and because she can handle the damage it causes her, Zola does it when she doesn’t HAVE to and DESPITE that she can get gravely hurt. after decades of fighting other Yautja, Missy is now very aware that humans are like wet tissue paper and she has mad respect for her human gf being so ride or die when Zola can literally just go home instead of helping her

scene where walking through the woods Missy rightfully senses that she’s being followed, and switches to a mode that lets her see the disguised agents in the trees around her so for the next in-universe hour she has to play dumb while formulating a way out of the trap without making it obvious

it works for a while until she makes a run for it, at the end of which she’s tranqued down, captured, and her belongings rifled through

Missy intimidating the fuck out of the researchers watching her in containment by constantly pressing up against the one-way glass and scratching it where she thinks someone is, because if they have to watch her she won’t make it pleasant for them

Missy flipping them off in like 5 different ways

short interlude between freeing Scorpion and freeing Lurker where he and Missy mock an overheard conversation to get past guards while hiding above the hanging lights

scene in the facility where it’s revealed that technically one other Yautja is alive aside from Lurker and Scorpion, some poor vivisected soul whose nervous system had been laid out and separated from flesh from the waist down and begs for Lurker to kill him honorably

additional scene of finding the other Yautja bodies in cold storage along with many bags of preserved Yautja blood

not essential but scene of Missy just tearing a man in half by stepping on his lower half and pulling up under his arms

Missy heading home, admiring the hairtie Zola gave her and then retying it onto her hair like a band

post-hunt and blooding, Missy asks the Ancient to teach her English

epilogue that definitely won’t happen where Missy brings her closest relatives to earth to meet Zola which would be her little brother, father, mother, and her father’s other mate. Missy’s family is pindrop quiet and just sit on the long-suffering couch while Zola and Missy try desperately to inspire conversation, but luckily the brothers get along and Zola’s brother quickly teaches Missy’s brother how to play video games

i mean i do want an epilogue but if it happens Missy definitely won’t be bringing her family over but otherwise it’s cute. she uproots someone else’s garden as a present for Zola

[adalz]

a/n: I wrote this today instead of studying. There is absolutely no dialogue, just jerking off with words ahah. It’s Eren x reader. It’s also very much not Eren x Reader. But it is, on a certain astral level. Life is highkey crap. there’s a bleeding man in the train? weird. it sounded better in my head. here you go. (1.1k words)

Each of your motions responded to a tedious mechanism - your legs moving by themselves on the street of the asleep city, the habit of gestures, thoughts drained. Exhausted despite the early hour of the morning, jealous of the still sleeping sun, you waited, standing on the platform of the train station. The world was still reduced to silence by the night, the wind the only melody in your head. A ghost or two, immersed in the darkness of the poorly lit platform, and a handful of lingering smells kept you company. Clouds hid the starry sky, foreshadowing a storm, trapping the glittering brightness of the moon behind its filters of condensed water.

Tearing through the silence with a metallic screech, the first train arrived at the station, its doors opening with a thud, welcoming on board delusional souls, bringing them closer to their miserable destinations.

Head leaning against the cold window, you hardly bothered to occupy your mind with books or newspapers; lying words couldn’t engrave the absurdity of time, making it whiles away. You didn't dream, you didn't think anymore. Disgusted by life, by your peers, clinging to the ephemeral beauty of the world, counting the remaining seconds before rest.

Two more stations. Two more stops before the first steps toward the painful repetition of life. The automatic doors were closing in the distance, the momentum of the train determined to continue its winding journey into hell. But your body was suddenly alert, a muffled footstep echoing in the car behind you. Without a word or a glance, a tall figure came to sit on the opposite seat to yours, among the multitude of abandoned and empty seats. As soon as he entered your field of vision, you looked away, eyes fixed on the moving landscape beyond the glass. 

Your glance finally broke away from the moving world, slowly settling on the figure of the man in front of you. His head was down, his shoulders hunched forward. He had brought with him a familiar metallic smell, tearing through the wet earthy scents brought by the wind. You couldn't see his face, hidden by his brown hair, sliding sticky down his neck, over his cheeks, hiding the glow of his eyes. His breathing was jerky, you could tell by his shaking shoulders, by every breath he took. You could almost hear him, his heart at the edge of his lips and suddenly you felt it, beating in your chest, the pulsation of his blood in your temples. 

Perhaps it was the loneliness, the violent proximity, but it filled your senses with an almost melancholy presence, breaking the threads of tortuous normality that kept you deeply rooted in your own mind.

His pale, almost livid skin was stained with blood. The unevenly colored stains betrayed dried blood, over which flowed a stream from an open wound, hidden somewhere under his sleeves. Scratched, flayed, bloody, his fingers were dripping on the ground, forming a small puddle. As the puddle grew, you could have sworn you could see an emerald glow reflecting off it. 

You weren’t scared, far from it; it was mesmerizing to see such a scene. You could have reached out, wiped the blood off with the end of your sleeve, tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, see if he were still alive.  But a morose balance had been created and appearing heartless didn't seem so indelicate. It was so fragile, it didn't have to fall apart, a new freedom opening up to you, new choices beating behind your eyes. Time slows, momentum fades. The doors open. The balance remains intact. One more station before hell.

Behind the running blood, you noticed his left arm etched with ink. On the top of his hand, an immortal portrait, sly eyes tattooed into yours. He hadn't conceded a glance, but he must have known, so close, your new awareness emerging at the sight of his mutilated heart, the eyes drawn on his body keeping you in check. All that he was had brought you out of a sinuous torpor, and you could have sworn he knew your loneliness.

And then you caught a glimpse of his face. He suddenly turned his head to look outside, one eye dancing over the landscape as it began to move again. His face would never be whole in your mind as you etch the image of him, a face devoured by a large bandage, dancing on the chords of your memory. His eyelid was heavy, shimmering haze just as he breathed. And every breath he took sounded like a violent strain that broke through your worlds. He was so glorious, you wondered if he had ever been real, if he was a trick of your tired mind. The city had been dead for so long, and in a few seconds, he had reinvented your world. 

Before he appeared before your eyes, in all his glory, you had nothing but the silhouettes forgotten by the night and the smells of the city. Behind the windows, the thunder was rumbling. Here's my station, you wanted to say. You wanted to hum him a song, for this newborn pulsation within your heart, to whisper softly against the blood on his hands. But your lips were sealed by these new choices, a silent prayer playing in your head. If you spoke, only the storm would be your witness. Here's your station, but if he were to say a word, you would stay with him.

When you got up, you imagined him elsewhere, running away from his sins. You imagined the violence in him, the blood he beat with his bare hands, so that his face was splattered with it. At dawn, the rain would fall and wash away his secrets. Only he could carry his boldness, and someone had to carry it away, run away while he could. While others gave up, the storm would cover him. 

The doors opened and before you, the path to predictable hell. The platform was dark, but the first glimmer of the sun shone on the walls of the buildings. Spots began to form on the ground around you, on the floor. Thunder rumbled, drops ran down your cheeks. Scratched, flayed, bloody, the clouds were beating droplets on the ground.

Behind you, you heard the train start again, the metal screeching slowly on its rails. In a rush of sensations, in an indiscernible hope, you turned around. Rain started beating on the dirty windows, sliding on the shape of his silhouette. As the train slowly resumed its sinuous course through the city, you discerned his hands flat against the cold glass, emerald gaze transfixed on you. On his lips, indistinct breathing. He said something, but it was too late. If he had said a word, you would have stayed with him. The city was dead, the sky was running down your cheeks. And the train disappeared into the dawn.

[mnemememory]

flatline

It’s like clockwork – like Nott’s crossbow, like the autonomation they had hacked to pieces to long ago (how long ago?). Spinning gears and so many blades.

(or; fjord and jester and yasha, alone in a house of monsters)

Hollow stillness bleaches the air, cut with the occasional burst of hysterical screaming.

It’s late, though – Fjord assumes that it is late – and things have died down to a blessed monotone. He leans against the bars of his cage and tries to ignore the painful stoop of the ceiling, the awkward slope that his shoulders have been forced into. Fjord stretches out as best he is able and makes himself comfortable amidst blisters and bruises and blood.

His eyes track lazily across the room; there’s a glow just beyond the bend, a forge of some kind. Fjord’s chest aches with sympathetic pain as he stares into the dim light, knots of bloody tissue stretching in time with his breathing. The room is a suffocation of silence and heat.

Tearing his eyes away from the impossibly distant hallway, Fjord lets himself glance off to the side. There’s a bit of a routine to it, now; a pattern. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been here, but there are blank periods in his head that would have been panic-inducing if the inside of his skull hadn’t hurt so much.

Jester looks so small.

Pins and needles scuttle down Fjord’s skin as he tries to make out the narrow lines of her back, but it’s hard to see past their separate bars. Their cages are close enough that, if he tried, he could probably scratch at the metal. Get her attention. He’d certainly tried that at first – when they hadn’t been watching.

(When he thought they hadn’t been watching).

The longer he stares, the more he can see. Jester is curled up towards the wall, glaring mutinously out at the hallway light. Her tail lies limp on the ground, the tip bent at an awkward angle outside the bars. It occasionally twitches, and she muffles the sounds that come out of her mouth by biting down on her wrist.

The echo of her scream revibrates in Fjord’s ears. He’s going to hear that sound for the rest of his life.

Jester clutches at her knees and shivers, blue skin a mess of – of things that Fjord doesn’t want to think about. It’s worse, in a way, that they had touched her. Not Jester, he thought (thinks), over and over – How could anyone hurt –?

But they had. They had hurt her, again and again and again. They had hurt Fjord as well, but Fjord’s been expecting pain for as long as he can remember. Maybe not to this extreme, but it’s only one mental adjustment away from being frighteningly familiar. His mouth aches with the weight of his tusks as they try to grow themselves out, eagre to take advantage of the unexpected interruption to his grooming schedule.

The first time someone – he thinks it was a man – had dragged a hot length of iron down the centre of Fjord’s chest, he had been remarkable chatty. “You’re a nice one,” he had said, tapping the red-ripped end against Fjord’s collarbone in an almost amicable gesture. Fjord locks his jaw to muffle a scream. “Big and strong. Someone’ll be paying good money for you, once we’ve finished.”

Fjord hates this – he hates this, that he had been caught off guard, that they had all been caught off guard, that they’re trapped here and swearing blood and trying not to die long enough to be sold for slaughter.

Fjord wants to talk to Jester. So, so desperately, Fjord wants to talk to Jester. To say, It’s going to be okay. To say, We’re going to get out of this. To say, They’re going to come after us. They will. It’s okay.

He can’t. He can’t, because they will hear him. He can’t, because they will take the words and twist them, barb them, shove them back inside and leave them to cut. Already, with a sting of vomit curling in the back of his throat, he can just imagine how badly they could hurt the both of them – the three of them – if he broke his silence.

Jester glances over at him, and her face is. Her face is. Fjord wants to look away, but he won’t (he can’t), won’t let her see how bad it is reflected in his expression.

“It will be okay,” she says, because Jester has always been a braver person than Fjord will ever be. “We are going to get out of this. Do not worry, Fjord. Everything will be okay.”

Yasha is in a different room.

Fjord only sees her when she’s being dragged towards the forge – it’s happened a few times, now, and he’s learning to judge the time between as a kind of morbid hour-count. She’s always spitting and hissing and swearing, breaking bones and splitting lips and coming out all the worse for it. Fjord wants to tell her to stop, because if they’re going to get out of here (they’re going to get out of here), they have to be smart about this.

But it’s hard not to envy her in her unbridled fury. Fjord looks at the dim glow and flinches away, mind whirling with desperate plans. Yasha looks forward and tries to rip it apart with her teeth.

They’re dragging her forward now, bare feet digging bloody grooves into the stone floorwork, arms bound to tightly behind her back it’s a wonder they’re still attached. She’s been flayed raw, strips of skin hanging in ribbons off her arms, and Fjord can hardly recognise her shy, awkward smile in the cruel snap of her teeth. They’re going to muzzle her, soon.

Fjord feels sick.

Jester is on her feet and clutching at the bars in seconds, fingers clenched white as she stares at Yasha’s frenzied form. Yasha looks over to them for a heartbeat of a second, panic flashing in her mismatched eyes, before she’s pulled further on. After a few minutes of standing there on splintering toes, Jester lets herself collapse onto the bottom of the cage and sob angrily.

There’s no one else in the room. Hesitating, and hating himself for it, Fjord presses his palm through the bars and knocks on Jester’s cage. Once. Twice.

Jester looks up, and she tries to smile, and it’s the most awful thing that Fjord has ever seen.

It’s like clockwork – like Nott’s crossbow, like the autonomation they had hacked to pieces to long ago (how long ago?). Spinning gears and so many blades.

Yasha goes in and comes out. They come for Fjord next.

He’s waiting. And maybe he’s too tired to play it up, or maybe he’s finally lost it. (Or maybe he’s angry, as angry as Yasha, as angry as he’s ever been – because they’ve got him locked down, and he’s watching as people he cares about are being torn apart, and he’s so useless).

When they open the cages, he pushes out against the back of his cage and uses the momentum to force himself out. He slams his head up, into the underside of his captor’s jaw. She gives and shout and stumbles back, and Fjord locks his arm around one of the cage bars and uses it to leverage himself to his feet.

“Fjord!” Jester shouts, high and panicked. She jams her forearm through the bars and loses a good three layers of skin as she tries to grab the woman in a headlock. She misses, and their captor begins to yell for reinforcements. Fjord kicks her in the ribs, but his knee throbs something fierce, and he has to give up his momentary advantage to keep from collapsing prone onto the ground.

“Nice try,” the woman says, as the rest of the group swarms.

“You know,” Jester says. “I don’t think I like this very much.

Don’t get me wrong! I am very glad I left. Or, you know, had to leave. But it was a lot of fun for ages because even if you were the only person I could talk to, you’re amazing so it doesn’t really matter that no one else can see you.

“But I…

“You can’t tell anyone, but at the moment, I’m a little scared. I’m trying really hard not to be, but Fjord hasn’t woken up, and I haven’t seen Yasha, and. And. I know the others are coming. I know it. They won’t leave us here.

“But these guys are, like, super strong. Strong enough to take out both Fjord and Yasha and me, and we didn’t even get to fight back. And, to be honest, we’re probably the smartest ones here.

Well, aside from Nott. And Caleb! Maybe. But since he doesn’t really bathe much, he can’t be that smart. Smart people takes bathes! My Mama takes bathes all the time, and she’s the smartest person I know, and also the richest, so she’s probably right.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been drawing you anything interesting in my sketchbook. Is that why you haven’t been talking back? I left it behind at the campsite, but if you’re angry because I haven’t been drawing, when I get it back I’m going to draw you so many pictures. Seriously, so many.

“Just…

“Please don’t leave me alone here in the dark.”

Fjord wakes up slowly, to the blistering heartbeat of a headache.

There’s a loud noise coming from a distance away, but Fjord can’t seem to concentrate. Something cold and sticky is sealing his eyelids closed, and it takes a few minutes to muster up to muster up the energy to rub it away. He moves his arm, and –

Fjord wheezes and tries to keep as still as possible, pain ratchetting along his ribcage. He lets out a half-choked howl before collapsing boneless against the side of the cage, throat raw.

“Oh, good,” Jester says, voice coming from somewhere close to his ear. “You’re awake!”

Fjord groans, but doesn’t answer.

“I was getting a little bit worried,” Jester says. “You haven’t woken up for ages, and something really big just started happening, and the walls keep shaking, and I think we’re going to be buried alive.”

Fjord forces his eyes open through a thick layer of bloody sludge; he tries to focus on Jester’s face, but all he can see is a blue smudge that keeps bobbing around, broken tail anxiously twitching.

“Good morning,” he croaks out, and wishes he hadn’t.

“Good morning, Fjord,” Jester says. “I think we need to get out of here very soon.”

“I think we already tried that,” Fjord says.

The entire right wall of their cell explodes.

Fjord and Jester jerk their heads around in time to see a blackened, cracked forge spill out hot coals onto the ground, creating a pathway of glowing embers. In the distance, they hear: “I’M SO GLAD WE FOUND THAT LAST STICK OF DYNAMITE!”

Jester laughs. Fjord clears his throat, closes his eyes, and shouts: “What took you so long?”

[loki-fanfiction]

For Fear

Pairing: Loki x Sigyn (Logyn)

Summary: A sequel to For Pity in which Loki’s wife, the Queen of Vanaheim, has been made to forget her past. From her husband, to her friends to her rule, and has ended up stranded in New York city. 3 years after waking up with no memory, she had befriended Tony Stark and works as a writer. However, when a new, mysterious stranger comes into her life, whom is frustratingly familiar, will she remember? Or is Cass destined to be forever lost in the dark?

Warnings: Depictions of torture, amnesia, swearing

Series or oneshot: Series which i update faster on AO3

She could feel the whip continuously cracking down upon her back, the vengeful hand of the one wielding it being more brutal than usual. Her skin had been flayed and some parts were simply hanging off of her. The sharp sting rung out through her body clear as day and made her gasp again, her entire body burning with a hatred for the person inflicting this on her once more.

Again it cracked down upon her, slicing through her already scarred and ruined back, prompting more blood to trickle down from the previously closing wounds on to the ground beneath her, leaking on to her feet and eventually back to what was previously the white clean floor to stain it red.

She had stopped looking down, she had stopped looking altogether. Both at her attacker and herself, as her ruined state only upset her more. And for that, he had taken what she could look with. If she wasn’t going to use her eyes what was the point in having them working.

She had stopped screaming, her voice having gone completely raw and cracking. She couldn’t remember who she used to scream for anymore, but still she begged to whomever might be listening to please make it stop in any way. She had stopped letting herself heal over the night, and instead wanted her wounds to fester and rot until the rest of her was gone too, and yet she found she could not go, not when her body was broken, not when her mind was empty and blank, not when she had no more blood to bleed or flesh to strip. She was simply alive and it would seem she would have to remain that way.

The whip came down again, striking her with renewed fervour as the arm that wielded it swung twice as fast, cracking it down repeatedly and ruthlessly. Again and again it struck her sensitive skin and again and again it sliced through, easily guided by her torturer.

The whip cracked harshly against one of the many infected wounds, and before she could stop herself a broken sob broke through her cracked lips, echoing around the room. She didn’t need her eyes to see the cruel smile which would now grace her torturer’s lips. She knew the rules. No noise or fear prepare for a worse punishment.

Which would he go for this time? There were many options, each of which he favoured for different reasons, but only one of those options made her blood freeze in her veins. And as she heard that terrible knife scrape dangerously on the bowl, she knew exactly what she was in for today.

She heard his steps behind her, soft and almost silent, and yet every shift of his robe made hear breath catch in her throat with fear. She felt the blade press slowly against her shoulder blades, her entire body tensing even though she had yet to feel its effects running through her.

Instead of cutting in, the torturer started to run the blade down her spine and then back up, waiting simply for her to beg. But she didn’t beg. Begging to him got her nowhere. Begging to whomever was in her head did nothing either. It just made her fearful and weak.

slowly, he made the knife trace towards her right, playing with the clear ribs which were sticking out after months, possibly years of starvation. And he slid it between them.

She hissed, jerking away instantly and tensing even more, trying to escape the knife which was now lodged deep within her. Though the movement would only aggravate it more, she tried to push away and jerked, almost demanding that it should be removed.

That wasn’t what scared her. The knife she could deal with. A thousand knives she would rather deal with than what was about to happen.

And then it started. The intense burning exactly where the knife had slotted neatly between her ribs. She extreme and inescapable pain which would slowly flow through her and overtake her completely. She bit her lip painfully, tying to distract from what was to come, but all it did was make her bleed to no avail. eventually, she felt the pain grow, as if a melting beneath her skin. It was as if her entire internal was slowly collapsing and melting on itself, like an old plastic toy being burnt and bubbling. She tries to flinch away but it only made the pain worse.

Tears started streaming from her unseeing eyes, down her ruined and scarred face, before dripping onto the floor below her, as the pain slowly spread across her back, then through her stomach making her gag and wretch.

And then, she screamed.

Cass woke up with a start, sweat coating her skin as she sat up in her bed. She took in deep breaths as she looked around her room, panic still very present in her as she shook off the effects of the nightmare. Her eyes jerkily surveyed her small room, landing on the chair at her desk which looked slightly like a human form, then to the shirt hanging on her wardrobe knob, then her towel on the wall, then to the door which was tightly shut. then, she sighed and relaxed a little, the panic being slightly sated.

‘It was only a dream’ she told herself, trying to soothe her mind into a calm.

‘Yeah, a fucking realistic one’ her mind shot back snarkily.

Of course she knew that it wasn’t real, that she hadn’t been whipped to shreds by some psycho and that the hadn’t been poisoned, or burnt, or hurt as her overactive imagination enjoyed telling her that she had been. If she had been hurt, there would be scars.

She swung her legs over the side of her bed, painfully aware of how vulnerable her ankles would be to an attacker, and sprung off it. She padded towards the door and swung it open before walking out towards her kitchen.

She knew it was a dream, but fuck, she also knew she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. She walked over to her fridge before pulling out the milk, and then turned slowly to grab the cocoa powder.

A small prick of pain made her look down to her wrist, where nothing was present. And yet a small line of discomfort was clear and made her scratch the surrounding area. Damnit, why now? Why every time after a nightmare? She walked towards the freezer and brought out an ice cube, massaging the area and rubbing the cold on it, finding it dulled the pricking just enough.

Cass turned to the digital clock on her microwave and saw it flashing at 1:36. She still had about 5 hours until she had to wake up, but with the adrenaline pumping through her system, Cass was sure that she’d only get about one hours broken sleep if she was lucky.

Instead she turned back to the empty mug and set about making herself some hot chocolate, because damn she was going to need it.

By the time her alarm rang, Cass was already halfway out of the door, dressed and ready for work and carrying her 5th cup of hot chocolate in her flask, and a precarious stack of papers filling one of her two arms. She was fiddling with her phone, trying to turn the alarm off or maybe snooze it, but all she managed to do was drop it on the floor.

“Ugh.” Cass groaned and leaned down, only to have many of the documents slip onto the floor and spread around the corridor outside of her flat.

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath, dropping her binder on the floor and launching for her phone, finally turning the alarm off, before trudging around the landing and picking up paper after paper.

One after another, they eventually found their way back into her hand and back on top of her binder. As she went, she grumbled, cursing the paper, her nightmare and her inability to pick up paper without having to basically crumple it in some way.

Every damn day there was something. Yesterday it was her next door neighbour getting into a huge fight with her husband and kicking him out, making him cry outside her door for house without shutting up, the day before it was that one kid who ran past her in the stairway and made her fall down, hurting her knee, and today it was dropping her flask, her papers and just about everything else on her.

Cass collected herself and began skipping down the stairs, trying to make it down as quickly as possible. As she went she heard a couple of doors open, mostly people leaving for work just as she was. Just as she got to the bottom step she almost ran into one of her neighbours head first.

“Wow Cass, coming in like a catastrophe there huh.” The nephew of her neighbour, May, said jokingly.

“Yeah, sorry Peter, in a bit of a rush today.” She replied, skirting around him hoping not to drop anything again.

“See ya later Cass.”

“Bye Pete!” She said, picking up her pace to a jog to try and catch the 6:45 train to Broadway.

Her commute to work went off almost without a hitch, all of her papers had decided that staying in her arms was better than sliding all over the floor in the subway, and yet she still felt herself grip them tighter when she was finally off of the claustrophobic coffin she had to take to work everyday.

Cass wove through the busy streets of New York, praying to whatever deity might be listening that her scripts, piled high in her arms, didn’t fall into the street, or worse down a manhole. As she was walking she felt a shoulder nudge her just a little too aggressively, and one of her particularly large script threatening to tip. Just as she was about to drop everything in her arms against better judgment to retrieve just one script out of instinct, a hand stopped it from tipping.

“Best keep hold of that.” A British voice, prim, proper and clipped like her quipped from somewhere above her, before the hand left her with a newly adjusted script.

“Oh, ok, thank you.” Cass called into the crowd, not sure whom exactly had helped her, but was grateful none the less. She swore she felt some sort of remembrance at that voice, familiarity frustratingly far and out of reach. And yet, she couldn’t place the voice, and so instead of standing in the middle of a crowded street Cass decided that maybe getting to work was slightly important.

With that, she went back to weaving, eventually finding herself in the familiar backstreet leading to the door which only she had a key to. She slipped the key in with much effort, opened the door and slipped into the theatre which she had come to love working at.

She dropped all of the papers and her laptop rather unceremoniously upon her worn desk and took in her small work room. She had thanked the gods she didn’t have to work in the noisy theatre, and had instead taken a small supply closet to refurbish to make it somewhat an office. She clicked her fingers and sat down, bringing out her highlighter and pen, and turning to the first page of her recently printed script.

“Well, time to work.”

[picaresqve]

You mentioned someone named Carver in the first story in your writing tag but haven't mentioned him since. Mind expanding on the character?

“Carver. I talk a lot about bein’ done and puttin’ thingsbehind me. ‘Bout puttin’ down my knife and all that blood. But if I ever seethat man again, I’ll fuckin’ skin ‘em alive for what he did to me and mine,mark my words. Still, if you’re asking me to talk about Carver that means you’reasking for me to talk about a lot of stuff that I don’t wanna. To you oranyone. It’s not easy memories to dredge back up and simmer. Spend most daystryin’ to think it never happened, if I’m being honest. But if you’re realabout wanting to hear, then you’re gonna be buyin’ me a few drinks tonight andyou’re not gonna stop until I tell you to.

“We clear? Good.

“First thing’s you gotta know, I guess, is that we hadhistory. See, I knew him long before I met Hadrian and Bosco. ‘Fore it was allof us, it was just me, Rami, and Carver and we wasn’t what one’d call a ‘family’like often times your canting crews like to call themselves. Thieves, knifemen,amusers, blackguards, they got this idea of family, that you’re all bound insomethin’ thicker than blood. But not us. Not then, at least. I mean, ‘ceptRami and I on account of us actually bein’ family, but we saw no relation withCarver, neither blood nor trade, and he kindly liked it that way, too. Morelike associates or partners that had to be for survival reasons and nothingelse. Carver was uh, what you’d call an interesting fella, had interestingideas about the way things worked. The world, its people, that kind of thing.Big ideas in a small, small man. Not small enough, though. Fearless, too. He’dbeen to jail a couple times from what I understood. When he was younger. Thatwas ‘fore he got principled. Before he got them ideas. Now? He’d diebefore he’d let anyone put him in a cell. Take every poor, stupid soul with himwho had a mind to, too.

“See, that’s something you need to understand about Carver: Carverwas mean. Not like a neighbourhood bully or even a debtor, may the divines tearthem apart. No, Carver was meaner than most men I met in the trade, save one,and I won’t talk about that one. I won’t do it. But Carver was the kind of folkwho got some pleasure out of breakin’ other folks. Makin’ ‘em look small. Smallas he felt. Now, he didn’t talk about family much, save his daddy, but I got amind to think his daddy’s where he got all that meanness from. Talked about thesonova bitch like he was the devil himself. Would always say: ‘I ain’t afraidof the devil, I seen that fucker die.’ Way Carver told it that old man of hiswould start to drinkin’ most every night just as he left the tannery and wouldn’tstop until he passed out. Most of them nights he’d beat Carver’s mom pretty bad,too, almost to death. First couple times he got it in his head to try and stophis dad? Well, he didn’t do that no more. Once he was a bit too rough and endedup killing the mom, the bastard. I’d do a lot to have my hands around his father’sneck if the gods were so kind, but I guess they ain’t too kind. It’s a shame ifyou ask me. I’m not makin’ no excuses for that bastard, nor will I if I evercatch him, but you gotta wonder what Carver’d’ve been like if his circumstanceshad been different. I think that about a lot of folks in the trade.

“But so anyways, then Bosco and Hadrian come along, or wecome along to them, depending on how you tell it, and the whole dynamic shifts.We four were thick as they come. True rogues, sentimental folks’d say. Whichdidn’t bother Carver none, of course, he didn’t care if we was suckin’ eachother’s peckers, so long as he didn’t get factored into it, and that worked forall of us just fine too. Another drink. But that also meant that hewas the weak link, and the quickest to break in the trust-department. We had afew, good years all together before that happened, though, and I guess I’mkindly grateful for that. Still reckon they was some of the best years of mylife. I mean, we were still robbing and conning and drugging ourselves black,but it’s a marked improvement when you got folks you actually like doin’ itwith.

“But then, a few years back, it walked into my grave, littlehead to do somethin’ different. We got approached eventually by this company ofstarry-eyed, like, rebels? Yeah, in Ul’dah. Rebels, what a joke. Don’t know anyprofession in the whole damned desert more deadly than bein’ a dreamer. And theseguys had their heads all up in the clouds. Talking about stopping the Ul’dahnwheel and breaking the lords and the ladies. Casting off the yoke. Giving backto the people. You know, that kind of rhetoric you get with people who aretired, but not damned tired enough for their own good. I don’t right know whatI was thinking, honestly, when I said yes. I think I just wanted to dosomething that mattered. To feel like somethin’ had meanin’. Might’ve beendrunk, I don’t know, I wish I could tell you. Might set my mind at ease. There we were, though, just a band of poor fools who knew not what they weredoing and had had a pretty good run thus far and thought: well, if our luck’sthis way, why not? We got cocky. Or I got cocky, and the rest just followed.

“Except Carver. Carver told us straight from the get-go thathe didn’t like that. Oh no, he didn’t like that at all, but you know what hedid like? An opportunity. Tellin’ him was the worst mistake I made in my life.Wish I had just went my separate ways without so much as a ‘good-bye and seeyou later and hope it don’t hit you on the way’ kind of thing, because it’s notlike he was family, but I guess I wasn’t thinkin’ straight. So I tell’s him andhe tells all of us where we can go and he laughs and just leaves. Shot ofwhiskey.

“…”

“Anyways, where was I? Rebels. Opportunity, uh. Oh. Solike, he laughs and walks out and we’re kindly relieved pretty much just asthe door shuts like this whole weight disappears. It felt good. Course, we didn’tknow it then, but that’s when everything started to go bad. The higher you get,the further you fall. Gods, things I would have done differently if I knew thenwhat I know now, but life’s always had this way of sneaking those kinds ofthings up on you. Don’t seem right. Don’t seem fair. I’ll kill Carver, though,mark my words. If that stain yet draws breath. I’ll do it.

“…”

“…”

“Sorry, I was just, you know, thinking about stuff. Yeah,yeah I’m alright. Things get fuzzy at this point. We go out the next day,business as usual, haven’t had them rebels contact us yet, said it would be afew days, a think. Maybe a week. Course, we never got back to the house onaccount of some fella who owed me something waylaid us in the street,urgent-like. Said we couldn’t go back to our hole. Said Brass Blades had beenall over it, tearing it apart serious-like. Crawling through the whole lane,knocking on folks’ doors, asking about us. That kind of thing. Brass Bladesdon’t kick up such a fuss over a few sneakthieves so’s it became readily clearto all of us that we’d been fingered out. We knew we had to get out, but Boscowasn’t with us. Fella said they already got him when they busted down the door.Said they had him in iron already and down in the dungeons. It’d been a longtime since I’d felt so powerless. The facts were as they were, though: theUl’dahn dungeon wasn’t some horse-shit jailhouse on the frontier. They had himfor good. Would come out after everything blew over that they’d tortured Boscoand left him to bake in the sun on a rack a few days later. Screaming all day,I’d been told, until his heart finally gave. No one’s got business going thatway. There’s crimes against your fellow man, but then there’s crimes againstyour own soul. Breaks you as much as them. May the gods tear them apart. Send adevil on their children.

“I’m getting off track. Point being, I guess, is that weleft that day, within the hour, with heavy and broken hearts. Had a safe housein a little town on the borderlands. Stole a couple birds and ran for thehorizon, but the horizon never came. The Blades’d been waiting for us to split.We grabbed the birds all right and started ploughing down the desert, but…didn’t help much. We rode hard but they rode harder. Hadrian fell before theday was up, which I guess kindly slowed the fellas down, on account of they hadto figure out what to do with him. I guess they decided the only rational thingto do was to… to mutilate him. Like for fuck sake, how folks get so wrong? Idon’t understand it. He didn’t deserve it. This is a bloody, gods-damnedcountry. Bloods all it knows and it’s all it’ll have. It’s all it deserves andI reckon the only thing to do for it is to just drown the whole thing in all ofit and when it heaves over their heads and washes away, just start over fromscratch. There ain’t no fixin’ this country. I’ll start thanking the twelve andwhatever else there is out there that dictates things when that happens.

“…”

Rain fire on the whole goddamn city. Drag ‘em. Drag ‘em fromtheir homes, scalp them living or dead. Carve out their eyes, just likeHadrian’s. Their tongues. Let them roast in the sun like Bosco. Flay ‘em,s—what? Am I alright? No. No, I ain’t, but you keep the whiskey coming and I’llstay manageable. No, my friend, you don’t get to back out now. Another shot.

“…”

“…”

“…”

“There we go. Yeah, I’m going to finish it and you won’tlike this next part or me by the end of it but you’ve opened a door. Let mefinish.

“Anyways, they sent a couple others on ahead to catch uswhile they were doin’ their, you know, their thing with my friend. They got separated along the way and Rami and I caught the first by surprisethe next day when he come around a bend. Made quick work of him, but not beforehe told us what they’d been doing with Hadrian back there. Course, all thatmeant was I had different ideas for the second one. She’d just come around thesame bend when her chocobo crashed over a rope line we’d set up and sent herflying from her saddle. The bird ended up all mangled. Broken legs and acracked skull. She landed fine enough, but the way she was breathing youcould tell her ribs were busted up pretty bad. When I came at her she wasmostly limp, started asking me real desperate-like to let her go home, that shehad a husband and a couple little ones, so I busted out her teeth. Not in onepunch. I don’t know how many times I hit her, kind of lost track of myselfthere for a second, but by the end of it she was just sort of gasping andgurgling on and spitting up blood. Held her up so she wouldn’t choke on it.There was a lot of yowlin’ and sobbin’. Most nights I see that face in mydreams. I’ll never atone, nor do I think I deserve it. Yeah. Yeah.’ But so, Ididn’t have to do much else after that because she knew I meant business. Toldme exactly what I needed to know. Told me what I had already figured by thatpoint: Carver had sold us out.

“She never returned home to her family, though. I emptiedher guts out. When I hold a knife I can still feel the shockwaves in my hand. Badstuff, that, but by the time I was done, her gut wasn’t even much of a gut,more like mush. And, of course, Rami had seen the whole thing. She might’ve screamedfor me to stop during the teeth bit or during the stabbing, but I can’tremember, but when I saw her she looked… empty. Like she was seeing through me.Seeing the other person that I had been before this whole thing happened.

“Rest of the ride to the safehouse’d been a quiet one. Oncewe got there we rested up for a day, and while she was sleeping, I left mygoodbye there in a letter and that was that. Stepped out of the house andhaven’t seen her since. Didn’t want her to get any more involved in all thisthan she already was. Plus, figured we’d have better chances if we weren’ttogether.

“This is where the bit about Carver and I havin’ historycomes in. I knew all his little dives and hidey-holes. At the time, I could followthat man for a thousand years and never lose his scent, and I didn’t. Trackedhim to this small town out in the absolute black. Called Castor’s Promise, bythe look of what was left of the sign. Reminded me of those towns you come bynow and again that seem to spring up out of nowhere around a church, thoughthis one didn’t do no springing. There was just the church and, oh, maybe threeor four houses. Think it was four. Maybe three and a store. Store-hopeful.Anyways, it’d been deserted probably for years by then and the buildings wereall falling to pieces, even most of the church. Maybe a prophet had led ‘em outto this place to see the face of God and maybe they did. See the face of God,that is, because they’d all seemed to die quiet, like in some communalfever-dream that took the whole town. Most of them in their beds or chairs.Probably starved.

“Right, so that’s where it went down, though. He shot me, Istabbed him. Stabbed him twice. In the church. We just kind of stumbled aroundafter that, sat in the pews and just kind of stared into the nothingness for awhile. We knew this was it, I think. This was what we had earned: each other. Ithink we both figured we deserved one another and to die next to one another. Poetic,I might have said. Some days I feel a lot like Carver. Like maybe that’s why Ihated him so much, even before he’d went and done what he did. Maybe I saw someugly parts of me in him that I couldn’t be shed of, however hard I tried.Wonder sometimes what Carver’d’ve thought about that. Hm.

“I guess at some point, when I wascoming in and out of darkness, I think, I mean I reckon, I heard him leave. Wetsounds like blood. Still not sure if he yet lives, but I haven’t seen himsince. I closed my eyes that day and expected that it was the last and whendarkness took me, I was ready.

“But then I woke up.

“Where? Oh. Well, that’s a story for another time.”

[crlese]

Tickle Fight

Pairing(s): HakYona Rating: T Anime/Manga: Akatsuki No Yona Prompt: A little cheering up.  A/N: It’s not a HakYona fic without a perverted Hak. Enjoy;) Also a little bit short, so I apologize.

Hak was leaning against a tree, his eyes closed. The grass was damp underneath his thighs and the warmth of the sun spread across his cheeks. Hak positioned himself so his arm was draped across Yona’s shoulder; her petite body nestled against his. 

“It’s such a beautiful day,” Hak murmured, fluttering his eyelids against a breeze. Yona placed her palm on his chest, feeling the rhythmic beat of his heart against her hand. It soothed her, knowing that he was right next to her. Breathing. Warm. Strong. 

“You know it isn’t going to last, though,” Yona sighed. Her head was burrowed between the curve of his neck and shoulder. His skin underneath her nose had a scent; full of masculinity and a tint of pinewood. They’ve been strolling in the forest so long, their whole bodies were smothered with the smell of nature. 

“Don’t be so pessimistic,” Hak quipped; but opened his eyes and gave her a soft smile. Yona felt herself drown in his eyes. They were so beautiful - but in an unconventional way. His eyes were a swirl of sultriness, sobriety and a reflection of the harsh reality of this world. 

However, at the moment, his eyes donned none of those emotions… well, maybe the sultriness.

Yona frowned, “why are you looking at me like that?” She tried to inch away from him, but Hak kept a comical grin glued to his lips and tugged her back into his body. Her face warmed when she felt his entire body; Yona could almost feel the muscles straining against the fabric of his robe. It was totally different from their previous position. 

“You looked so sad then,” Hak suddenly whispered in her ear. His deep baritone voice made Yona shiver. “Maybe I can cheer you up?” 

Yona breathed out, the exhales were uneven. Hak took notice of it and gave her a smile. 

But it was no ordinary smile. It was a grin full of hot allure and it made Yona’s entire body heat up. It was an obvious inveigle of some kind and Yona’s not going to play into Hak’s playful hands. 

Or so she thought.

She tried to evade his seduction. “What made you think I was sad?” 

“When you said, ‘you know it isn’t going to last, though.’“

“It wasn’t me being sad, I was just being truthful.” 

Hak made a noise of disagreement. 

Yona scowled, but her eyes were light. “You know I’m right, I’m stronger than that, you know? I can’t be disheartened that easily.” 

“Well, your honesty made me sad,” Hak replied, pouting. He looked adorable. “Now I need some cheering up.”

Yona shrugged and shut her eyes. She leaned back onto the tree, a small smile playing on her lips. “Well, that seems to be a ‘you’ problem.” 

“Don’t be so cruel, princess.” 

“Don’t be so cruel, princess,” Yona mocked, pursing her lips. Then she giggled to herself, her eyes still closed. Suddenly her wrists were clasped with warm hands. Yona’s eyes snapped open in surprise. 

“H-Hak, what are you doing?!” Yona yelled, but Hak ignored her cries. He pressed her wrists against the tree and brought his face close to hers. Yona’s face warmed up and she bit her lip. She could see every detail of his face. It was like a sculpture - almost no imperfection in sight. All his facial features seemed to be painted by an artist with meticulous detail. Although they were shadowed underneath his hair, Yona already knew how handsome he was. However, what made Yona blush was his eyes. Those beautiful eyes. 

Those beautiful eyes who seemed to want to eat her. 

She rubbed her thighs together and Hak followed her movements. Something in his eyes sparked and his lips were suddenly against her ear. “Someone’s a little excited, are we?” 

Yona moaned in response. Hak’s firm hands glided up her right leg, his fingers were the right pressure. Not too rough, but not too gentle. The pathway he made up her skin burned was a fervent pace and heat; it made Yona’s eyes droop in yearning and desire. 

Then he tickled her. 

“H-Ha -,” Yona was breathing so hard she felt like her chest was constricting her air pipe. Hak’s hands were splayed across her adomen, and it danced across her bare skin. “..k! S-Stooo-p, I can’t b-breat…he.” She tried to break away from his hands, but the grip was like iron. 

All Yona could do was squirm and moan. 

“You know,” Hak started to say, between her gasping. His legs were on either side of her body. The pressure of his thighs was tight. Her hands were now pressed on the grass and she was underneath his body. “When someone’s being tickled, they’re supposed to laugh. But all you’re doing is squirming and gasping underneath me. It’s making me a bit horny, you know?” 

He leaned down, his lips brushed against hers. It was soft and teasing. She felt his warm breath on her quivering lips. “Since you didn’t need cheering up and I did; I thought hearing you laugh would maybe do the trick. So imagine my disappointment -, “ he feigned a solemn expression, “ - when all you’re doing is moaning underneath me. Rubbing against me. This isn’t cheering me up at all, princess. In fact, it’s making me a bit frustrated.” 

He was done tickling her now, but Yona wasn’t done gasping. 

Hak was doing something entirely different. His hands were gripping her shoulder and he was rubbing his crotch against hers. The entire gesture was obscene and intimate; it made Yona’s whimpers louder. She felt her lower region become damp - much to her embarrassment. 

“Look at you,” he groaned in her ear. “I wish you could look at yourself right now.” He kept rubbing and she matched his every thrust. She wanted fewer clothes. She wanted -

Yona dragged her fingers up his biceps, determination set onto her features, despite her flustered moans. 

She started to tickle him. 

Hak emitted a girlish squeal and lost all contact with her body. Yona coughed out a giggle. Hak’s eyes widened, full of fright and terror. He crawled backward and protected his chest. Yona smiled menacingly and crooked her finger. 

“Come here, Hak,” she sang. “You can’t get me that easily. Now it’s your turn.” 

Hak whined, “princess, why? I wasn’t even tickling you anymore.” 

Yona shrugged, her eyes smiling. “Actually, I think you were right. I am a little bit sad, so now you have to cheer me up. I scratch your back and you scratch mine, right? Come here, Hak.” 

Hak shook his head, vehemently. Yona giggled. 

“Hak,” Yona feigned disapproval in her voice. “Come here and be a good little boy.” 

“No, you’ll never get me alive.” 

Yona crawled towards him, but before he could escape, she pecked him on the lips. “I’m joking, I’m not sad anymore. I just wanted to do that.” 

Hak brightened and leaned in to kiss her - this time, more heatedly. But before he could do that, Yona brought her hands up and tickled him once more. Betrayal crossed over his features, but his mouth opened in laughter. 

“P-Princes…s, y-you d-demon,” Hak cried, flaying on the grass. 

All Yona did was giggle. 

[simkjrs]

know what i’ve made by the marks on my hands

my spirit academia au, drabble, 4k: people’s quirks are actually the powers of their guardian spirits that their bodies have adapted to channel. izuku is still quirkless, but he can see spirits. 

*** OFFICIALLY EVEN MORE NON-CANON AS OF 4/20/2K17, the AU where the quirk-breaking drug made by the 8 precepts of death actually permanently takes away your quirk unless you get an antidote from them

--

Izuku bends over the ward plastered to the outside of the shop, lips pressed together as he tries to untangle a spirit from its clutches. Wards aren’t so common these days — not many people are still superstitious enough to believe in what they can’t see — but occasionally, he’ll still run across a spirit that carelessly ran into their clutches. This one, a curiously indistinct lizard-like thing, hisses and squirms in his grasp as he tries to delicately unhook it from the ward’s barbed energy.

“Hold still, will you,” Izuku mutters under his breath. He winces as he cuts himself on the ward, but only pauses a moment to lick away the welling blood before returning to his self-assigned task. “This will go much faster if you just let me work.”

The spirit reluctantly stills. It pins him with its seven glowing, accusatory eyes as he carefully untangles the last of the wards from its many legs, and then — as soon as it is free — it sinks its teeth into Izuku’s hands. Izuku jumps back with a cry, and the spirit leaps away onto the sidewalk with a rattling sort of snarl.

“Abomination,” the spirit spits. “Mutant. Freak.”

It scuttles away, sticky fingers hauling it up the brick wall of the nearest building, before disappearing out of sight with a flick of its lizardly tail.

“Glad I could help,” Izuku calls after it halfheartedly with a sigh. He ignores the passing pedestrians staring at him and makes to rub at his eyes, but the sting on his hands reminds him that he’s still bleeding. He lowers his hands and stares dully at the crimson-dark drops. God, he’s so tired. He turns and starts making his dreary way back home.

He doesn’t linger on the spirit’s last parting words. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before, and it hardly bothers him anymore, either. He can’t be bothered by something that’s true, after all.

Midoriya Izuku is well aware that he should not exist.

--

Izuku is dragged awake by the bell-like ringing of his wards going off.

He rolls out of bed, grabbing his brush and amulet off the nightstand and landing in a crouch. Sleep blurs his vision; he squints at the shape at the window that’s clawing at the spinning red panes of his wards. Or -- no, it’s not sleep blurring his vision. Izuku rubs at his eyes and straightens up, then looks back at the shape at the window, but on the third plane.

The shape resolves itself then. A spirit he’s never seen before: draped in dark blue, a multitude of eyes peering out from the darkness of its hood, and shimmering bird-of-paradise feathers sprouting from its back, beating gently as it hovers in the air. It sees him looking and scratches insistently at his wards again, ignoring the firework-gold sparks that leap angrily at its cloak.

Izuku hesitates. The smart thing to do right now would be to close the curtains and go back to sleep. The spirits have made themselves abundantly clear over the years that they want very little to do with him, and anything this one wants can’t be any good. It would be better for him to his head down, and forget he ever saw this spirit here.

But then the spirit sings something soft and flute-like and sad, layered in on itself in harmonies and echoes, and Izuku feels the full force of its desperation grief fury and its mantra protect protect protect.

His hand is on the anchor glyph of his wards before he even makes the conscious decision. With a fizzle and a pop, the wards evaporate, and the spirit swoops into the room and comes to a stop before Izuku.

It’s large. Izuku shrinks back and clutches his amulet. “What do you want?” he croaks out.

The spirit whistles a flute song. Images unfold in Izuku’s head, swirling with blue and cosmos and impossible dust. Help. Connect. Help. Help.

“Connect?” The spirit sings affirmation. “With who?”

Another whistled song, and Izuku’s vision is overlaid with the picture of a young man with wispy black hair and a nervous expression. He wears a familiar uniform, one that Izuku has seen before…

The name clicks. Suneater. He’s the hero-in-training who helped stop an incident earlier today, but was shot -- and lost his ability to use his Quirk.

Connect us connect us connect can’t feel small-sun-eater can’t feel can’t touch can’t protect protect protect protect

Izuku lets out a small noise of pain at the deluge of feelings and memories that pours into his head. The stream of consciousness ceases, and the spirit floats back a few inches, almost apologetically. Connect us, it whispers again, and the thread of urgency grief fear wraps itself gently around Izuku’s heart.

“I can’t,” Izuku mumbles. “I don’t have that ability.”

You are: bridge connection world-walker flesh blood bone spirit, you are: bridge, you are: you are: you are:

“I -- yeah, I know. But I’ve never… I don’t interfere with other spirits’ connections to their humans. I don’t know how to fix this. I can’t help you.”

You: know

Izuku shakes his head and bites his lip.

you : know bridge connection thread you : are channel conduit lightning-in-flesh you : know you ARE you KNOW

“I don’t--”

The spirit lurches forward, its many eyes blazing bright as the sun. YOU KNOW

Knowledge wrenches its way into his head, like a red hot poker, like the burning cold. Izuku gasps; his nerveless fingers drop his talisman and paint, but he only registers it from afar; the world swims far beyond the great wall of shimmering pain and the images that fly through his mind. you : energy push flow push push block clear block clear channel clear burn away open door open gate open open open open open open open and a single black eye that flies open and the ancient earth itself gazes at him and sees right through him, flays him open and lays him bare and consumes him alive and it knows it knows him --

Burning cold talons sink into his core and drags him back from the deep cracks of the earth. Izuku opens his eyes with a gasp, rolls himself over on the floor, and retches. Nothing comes up. He skipped his meals all day yesterday; it would make sense. He coughs through the bitter taste of bile that rises up in his throat and lies panting on the floor.

A flute whistle carries a thread of apology into his mind. Izuku closes his eyes again and breathes.

Then he pushes himself up, wipes his mouth, and gets off the floor. “Okay. Give me a second.”

He changes quickly, picks a warm jacket and a large scarf, pockets his keys, quietly leaves out the front door. The spirit floats after him, watching anxiously the whole time, until Izuku turns to it and says, “I’m ready. Lead the way.” And then, it’s off like a shot.

Izuku runs after it, barely able to keep up. The night wind bites his cheek and claws at his scarf, knifing its way under his coat. He pulls the scarf up and shivers as his hands go numb. I should have brought gloves. The spirit hurtles around the corner and Izuku pushes himself forward into an extra burst of speed.

He’s red-faced and panting by the time the spirit comes to a stop, and he drops his hands to his knees and gasps for breath. The spirit whistles here here go go go and urgency grief fear go go go but his lungs burn and his limbs are iron. “Give me a sec,” he wheezes. “I need recovery time, you know.”

The spirit doesn’t seem to understand, or maybe it just doesn’t care. It flits around Izuku’s head anxiously as he slowly regains his breath, nudging him forward towards the apartment building it’s led him to.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Izuku says finally, once he’s recovered. “Which apartment?”

The spirit whistles and flies up towards a fourth-floor window.

Great.

“Which door do I walk to?” Izuku calls up. “I can’t fly up to the window.”

The spirit doesn’t answer. It circles near the window and peers down at Izuku anxiously, as if to ask why he hasn’t come up yet.

Izuku grimaces. Looks like he’ll have to do this the hard way. Digging his fingers into the cracks in the wall, he starts hauling himself up. He’s infinitely grateful that this apartment is made of bricks -- there are plenty of handholds he can use, even if they’re terribly small.

The spirit swoops about him quizzically, singing question after question at him. fly? fly? fly? Izuku wants to tell the spirit that he’s as chained down by gravity as any flesh-and-blood human, but he can’t afford to let his concentration slip. He ignores the spirit and focuses on the window he has to make it to.

He hauls himself onto the tiny ledge outside the window with relief. He can’t see inside; the blinds are pulled shut. But the spirit chitters excitedly by him, so it must be the right place. Izuku inspects the window; he doesn’t have a knife, he can’t lock-pick it. He’ll have to find another way in.

Izuku knocks on the window.

A minute passes. Izuku knocks on the window again, louder and more insistent this time. He’s getting a little anxious, clinging to the side of the apartment building like a limpet. He doesn’t want to fall.

Someone peers through the blinds with a single dark eye. Izuku starts and almost falls; then he tries to smile, but it probably comes out more like a grimace. The watcher inside disappears, and nothing happens for another minute. Izuku is starting to think that he came here for nothing when Suneater finally pulls open the blinds and opens the window. He stares at Izuku quizzically, but also with an anxious expression that is… well, kind of funny on someone who is supposed to be on the level of a pro hero.

“Hi, sorry for disturbing you,” Izuku begins.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Suneater says, and he raises a baseball bat that Izuku didn’t notice before. Oh no.

“I’m -- er.” He should have thought this out. It’s a bad idea to give out his identity to the hero, who knows what kind of trouble he could get into. “It’s not that important, I’m just a nobody. Um. But I heard, um, that your Quirk stopped working today.”

He isn’t sure where to go from there, so he stops talking. Suneater frowns. “What of it?” he demands in a thin, thready voice -- a brittleness that Izuku recognizes at once.

“I guess I’m… here to fix it,” Izuku says, haltingly. He bites his lip. “Can I come in…? Perching on this windowsill is bad for my anxiety.”

Suneater stares at him, then slowly nods and backs up a few steps. He still keeps a grip on the baseball bat, though. Izuku eases himself in until he’s standing on stable ground and breathes a sigh of relief.

“You said you could… fix my Quirk,” Suneater says. “What did you mean?”

Izuku glances at him, glances at the spirit that has taken to hovering right behind Suneater’s shoulder. “I can fix it,” he repeats, and shrugs. “I’m sorry I can’t really, um… explain it any better than that. But. Yeah.”

“How?” Suneater looks suspicious. “Is this some kind of trick? How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“--I guess you don’t? I don’t have any way of proving it to you until I do it. Um. But you’re training to be a pro hero, right…? I mean… I don’t think I could hurt you if I tried.”

Suneater looks at him a moment longer, and then he lowers the baseball bat slightly. His aura prickles with fear, but desire overpowers it -- a desire for safety, or maybe for his Quirk back. Izuku can’t tell. “What are you going to do?”

“Well…” Izuku digs into his coat pocket and pulls out his favorite marker pen. “I just need you to sit somewhere and maybe let me draw on you a little bit. If that’s okay.”

Suneater nods slowly. He sits down on the chair by his desk. His eyes track Izuku as he treads gingerly across the room.

“I’m going to draw on your forehead,” Izuku says, and reaches out with his hands tentatively, trying to broadcast his movements. Suneater is still. His hair is soft as Izuku brushes it out of the way, and Izuku draws a very simple eye in the middle of his forehead. He caps the marker and puts it back in his pocket, then turns back to Suneater.

“I’m going to, um…” Better just to do it than try and fumble an explanation. He puts his hands to Suneater’s temples, then leans forward and presses his forehead against the eye he drew on Suneater’s skin. Suneater’s breath puffs hot and quick on his skin. “This might feel a little weird,” Izuku warns, and closes his eyes.

In his mind’s gaze, he looks through the gateway drawn on Suneater’s skin and steps through. Suneater has a spirit of blue and dark sea that roils and twists in eddies and waves. Izuku takes a moment to admire it, but it’s not what he came here for. He searches for a moment more, and then he spots it: a channel in the back, but stoppered. Suneater’s energy swirls at the gateway but cannot push through the blockade. On the other side of the dam, the swirling cosmic energy of the spirit spins anxiously in anticipation.

Flesh and spirit divided. Of course. That’s why Izuku has to be the one to connect them again. Izuku grabs hold of his own energy -- soft and glowing white, easily malleable and prone to drifting -- and pushes it through the channel. The dam absorbs his energy, glows with the force of it -- and then dissolves, crumbling into wisps of rapidly evaporating energy. The spirit’s energy floods with joy and surges forward, flooding the channels that distribute its power to Suneater’s spirit.

Satisfied, Izuku withdraws back to himself. He closes the gateway as he goes, and then opens his eyes in the real world, pulling away from Suneater. The crudely drawn eye is dissolving and flaking off Suneater’s skin even as he watches. Suneater himself is flexing his fingers. Izuku feels the spirit’s aura flare, and then Suneater manifests claws for hands, and feathers sprout along his skin.

“It’s back,” Suneater whispers. “It’s really back.”

Izuku quirks the corner of his lips up into a smile, glancing at the spirit behind Suneater. It sings its flute-like song, and this one is a song of thanks, one that wraps Izuku up in warmth and joy and safety. “You’re welcome,” he whispers to the spirit, and it trills back at him in satisfaction.

Suneater looks up at him, eyes alight. “Thank you,” he says. “Will you tell me your name? So I can find you later?”

No way. “Are you going to arrest me?” Izuku says uneasily, shifting towards the window.

Suneater shakes his head. “There aren’t any charges I could try and press.”

In other words, there’s nothing Suneater can do to try and detain him for questioning. Relief floods Izuku’s stomach. “Okay. I’ll be going, then. Just… be careful, I don’t want to have to do this again.”

“Why did you?”

“Huh?”

“Why did you come and help me restore my Quirk?” Suneater clarifies. His mouth turns down in -- dissatisfaction? Unease?

Izuku looks at the spirit again. It’s cooing gently at Suneater, and its aura glows round with joy.

“Someone who cares a lot for you asked me to help,” he says finally. “I couldn’t say no.”

“Someone who… Who was it?”

“You wouldn’t know them,” Izuku says. “It’s fine, though. They know your thanks. I should be going now. Um… take care.”

He hops onto the windowsill and surveys a way down.

“Wait!”

Izuku glances back.

“You don’t have to climb out the window,” Suneater says, embarrassed. “The front door is fine.”

“Oh! Thanks,” Izuku says in surprise, and follows Suneater awkwardly out the room to the door.

He pauses on Suneater’s doorstep, and then he turns back. “I know you’re a hero,” he says. “And this is, well… kind of important, I guess? But if you can, please don’t tell anyone about me.”

Before Suneater can respond, Izuku slips down the hall and away from Suneater’s apartment building. Even as he goes, he knows it is too tall an order to ask.

--

It’s all over the news the next day. Unknown visits Suneater in the night, restores quirk. The media is abuzz. What are the implications of this -- that someone had gotten ahold of drugs that could disable someone’s ability to use their quirk, but that someone, out there, has the ability to reverse it?

No description of him is put out. But there are law enforcement officials beseeching him to come forward and work with them. You are in danger, we can protect you, we could use your help.

It’s a trap that Izuku will not allow himself to be caught in. He closes his eyes and hits the off button on the remote. He has homework to do.

--

The thing is, it doesn’t stop.

Izuku only ever meant to help the one guardian spirit. Suneater’s. But it’s as if the floodgates have opened: two nights later, there are two spirits knocking at his wards, and still more the next night. Izuku tries to ignore them, initially, but his resolve quickly crumples under the waves of fury and desperation and intense emotion rolling off the gathering spirits. He picks up his marker pen and house keys — a pocketknife and a couple items handy for lockpicking, too — and sets out.

It seems like it never ends. Izuku loses sleep running around at night, and never can quite seem to find the time to make up for it during the day; between schoolwork, chores, and his terrible executive dysfunction, he just can’t carve out time to rest. He goes to sleep late, wakes up with the next coterie of spirits, and crawls exhausted back into bed around five in the morning. Sometimes the spirits approach him during the day, too, but Izuku draws the line at cutting school.

He’s running ragged. He’s lost count of how many times he’s drifted off in class, only to jolt awake when someone drops their pencil or bumps his chair or says something a little too loud. His mom has started commenting on how tired he looks, and multiple times tried to cajole him to sleep. Izuku tries, but it never seems to stick. He’s exhausted.

Then one night, a very familiar spirit drifts in through his window. Izuku’s stomach drops to the floor.

“Eraserhead lost his Quirk?” he breathes.

Eraserhead’s spirit dips its head. It’s a fox spirit, and its nine waving tails gleam white under the moonlight spilling through the window. Its mouth tugs down into a frown, and its red eyes seem to glow with the force of its displeasure. It is grim, and Izuku suspects that he is a measure of last resolt.

He swallows and grabs his marker pen off his desk.

I apologize for imposing upon your generosity. Eraserhead’s guardian spirit speaks to him curtly. However, it seems I will be in need of your services.

A hero lost his Quirk. A hero. Whoever it is, stoppering up everyone’s access to their Quirks — they’re good enough to get a pro hero. Izuku knew that this… whatever it is, this going around and restoring people’s Quirks, was dangerous — but it never really hit home until now. Izuku only has his marker pen and the curse of straddling the boundary between human and spirit; if they come after him…

But a hero lost his Quirk, and Izuku is the only one who can restore it. He swallows. “Yeah. Okay. Where to?”

But Eraserhead’s guardian doesn’t answer that; it only sweeps restlessly through his room. Its aura presses heavy and displeased on him, and Izuku manages to get a taste of reluctance in it, too. The spirit doesn’t want to ask him. Probably because Izuku, by all rights, should not exist, or possibly because it doesn’t want to lower itself to asking him of all things for help. Izuku tries to brush aside the sting of hurt, but. It does hurt, that the spirits demand his aid so freely after years of reviling his existence.

“If you’re worried about giving away his secrets or locations, I can make a binding promise not to reveal that information to anyone easily enough,” is all Izuku says aloud.

The fox spirit shakes its head, irritated. No. That is not necessary. For a moment, it almost seems as if it’s about to speak, but then it raises its lips in a grimace and turns away.

Izuku waits a moment longer before he asks, “What’s wrong?”

It paces about his room some more. Its tails trail behind it and cast strange shadows on the walls. I do not like dragging you into this.

“It’s fine. I’ve been doing this for everyone else.”

Before, you had a measure of safety.

A measure of safety…?

“Do… do people know who I am?” Izuku asks, afraid of the answer.

The fox gives another irritated shake of its head. No. But before, they did not know you were coming, and they did not prepare.

Izuku stares at the spirit uncomprehending for a moment longer, before it clicks into place. “This is a trap, isn’t it.”

The spirit says nothing, which is an answer in and of itself.

Izuku bites down on the nervous laugh trying to force itself out, and he settles for running his hands through his hair instead. “Why?”

They are trying to close in on the villains who produced the cursed drug. You are one of their leads. I have searched for alternative means to reopen the connection between myself and my charge, but I have not been able to.

Izuku rubs his eyes. "You're asking me to walk into a trap."

I can help you evade, the spirit says. That's a yes, and they both know exactly what it is the spirit is asking him to do.

It is almost too much to ask, so the spirit only hovers silently and waits as Izuku struggles with himself.

"He won't get his quirk back unless I go," Izuku mumbles. "He took a big risk, doing that. Why?"

They want answers, the spirit answers simply, and my charge has chosen to risk himself as bait.

—

In the end, though, this doesn’t change anything, because Izuku’s character demands no less than that he go.

Thank you, the spirit says, dipping its head. You did not have to do this.

Izuku just shakes his head. He grips his marker pen where it lies in his pocket. “We should get going. Where to?”

You are already doing enough. There is no need for you to walk, too.

With that, the spirit scoops him up and deposits him on its back in one graceful sweep of motion. Izuku reflexively grabs onto the spirit’s fur in an effort to prevent himself from falling. The spirit coils in on itself, tension humming under Izuku’s hands, and then it bursts into motion. The world blurs away as it goes.

Izuku focuses on the cold sting of wind and the streaks of starlight moving through the sky. His grip tightens around the spirit. “Thanks. I don’t think I have energy to run across the city, anyways.”

You may thank me when you have escaped from this venture unscathed, the spirit returns tightly.

The rest of their journey passes in tense silence. Soon the spirit slows. A seemingly nondescript apartment building stands before them. Izuku slips off its back and drops lightly to the ground, surveying the street and picking out two — three — five cameras all trained on the building.

Now comes the hard part, the spirit says grimly.

Izuku nods, and then he steeples his fingers together, closes his eyes, and starts putting together a plan.

---

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