#and once again i forgot vlad's chest hair

[vladdyissues]

Day 24: Whirlpool

[kpopfanfictrash]

Raise the Barre (Halloween: Jimin’s POV)

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: Jimin / Reader

Rating: 18+ (Eventual Smut)

Genre: Enemies to Lovers / Dance Academy!AU

Warnings: Underage drinking, sexual tension, Y/N’s skirt is short

Word Count: 4,107

Summary: You and Park Jimin have been rivals for as long as you’ve known one another; ever since he tripped you in the front row of your first dance convention. When you graduate from high school and enter Russet Ballet Academy, you tell yourself you’re leaving all past quarrels behind. The main problem with this though, is that your past seems determined not to leave you alone.

Worse still, the obstacles you face while out in the real world might prove more challenging than anything your enemy has to offer.  

You were a terrible flip cup player.

This was all Jimin could think while he watched you from across the room, one shoulder leaned against the white, stucco wall. You sat casually on the couch, laughing at something Brian had said – a dead giveaway of inebriation, if Jimin had ever seen one. Humor wasn’t among Brian’s commonly listed attributes.

An unfamiliar tightness spread through his chest while Jimin watched until finally, he forced himself to look away.

There was nothing he needed to worry about with Brian, of course. Brian was hooking up with someone from Redfield and besides, if Jimin needed to worry about anyone, it’d be your boyfriend.

Finn, as you’d said on the drive home from the club.

Just remembering that night made Jimin’s head hurt. It’d been two weeks at this point, but he still could remember it as though it were yesterday. He remembered the tightness in your voice when he’d answered the phone, the panic Jimin had felt driving through the streets of the city, and the immediate relief he’d gotten upon arriving and seeing you in one piece.

And then you’d said the word to him – boyfriend.

Jimin remembered being stunned for a few, eternity-stretching seconds.

He still wasn’t sure how he’d missed such a vital piece of information. For a month prior, his crush on you had been steadily building, which meant Jimin had been oddly attentive to what you were doing. He’d never once seen you duck out of class for a phone call. No one had ever picked you up from the studio, nor had he seen you out on dates around campus.

A few guys had even expressed interest in dating you at the start of the year, but you hadn’t seemed interested, so talk of your relationship status had gradually petered out.

Exhaling gently, Jimin pushed himself from the wall and entered the kitchen. Filling his drink up again, he glanced up when Sabrina walked into the room. Tightly, Jimin smiled.

He and Sabrina had hooked up at the beginning of the semester, which had led to one of the most awkward run-ins of Jimin’s existence. Sabrina had been leaving his room when you decided to arrive, and Jimin had spent the entire encounter wearing his boxers. Which was great. At the time, he’d merely shrugged it off as uncomfortable, but now the memory continued to grate on his conscience.

Sabrina had texted him a few weeks ago, inviting him over but Jimin had declined. He’d told her they were better off as friends, at which point she’d simply decided to ghost him. Jimin hadn’t really cared at the time – it was around then he’d started having feelings for you.

Feelings which turned out to be pointless since you already had a boyfriend.

Gaze lowering, Jimin saw what Sabrina was wearing and couldn’t help it – he laughed. “A ballerina?” he asked, unable to stop himself. “Really?”

Sabrina scowled and poured herself a drink. “A short-notice invitation means you get a short-notice costume. Okay?”

Jimin’s brow furrowed. “Short notice?”

“Yeah.” She paused. “I, uh… wasn’t going to come until yesterday.”

Jimin wisely chose not to comment, shrugging in response as they left the kitchen. In the corner of his eye, he thought he saw you looking at him, but when he glanced up, Jimin saw you stand from the couch. Noelle was calling you over, waving you into another game of flip cup.

Sighing, Jimin set down his newly filled cup. It wasn’t as though you needed a white knight, or anything but someone at this party had to stay sober. It wouldn’t be you if you kept pounding drinks the way you were and so, Jimin relinquished his own.

Frowning in concentration, you set your cup down on the table and attempted to flip. When you succeeded, you cheered and spun around in a circle, causing the end of your skirt to flare up.

Jimin swallowed, hard.

Of all the nights, you’d chosen to dress that way tonight. Truthfully, you wore less clothes to your ballet classes – only a leotard and tights – but Jimin was a professional, and there was nothing sexy about Mr. Vlad shouting corrections at him while sweat dripped into places Jimin thought best not to mention.

Now though, you were wearing the shortest dress Jimin had ever seen and it was making him slowly lose his mind. The flimsy material barely covered the tops of your thighs, which made Jimin want to lift you onto the counter, press his hands into the available skin, push your dress higher and –

Exhaling roughly, Jimin shoved a hand through his hair. He needed to get ahold of himself. It’d been too long since he’d last spoken and now, Sabrina was watching him curiously. Before Jimin could look away, her gaze followed to you.

“Interesting.” Sabrina arched a brow. “Doesn’t she have a boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” Jimin muttered.

For a moment, he considered drinking the cup he’d just set down.

Sabrina gave a small laugh but, oddly enough, there was no bite to it. “So, that’s why you said you didn’t want to hook up.”

Jimin gave a small shrug, his right shoulder rising and falling. “That, and other reasons.”

Sabrina nodded. She took a long sip of her drink before she walked off, coming to a stop beside Jasmine across the room.

Jimin was left alone with his thoughts, until Hoseok waved him over to play the next game. Jimin joined, playing with water and by the time Ubers were called for the club, he felt decidedly more sober than an hour prior.

This was in stark contrast to you, who’d apparently decided to leave your coat in Paulo’s apartment. Jimin noticed this as soon as he stepped outside, spotting you shivering as he approached the curb.

“Y/N?” he asked, coming to a stop. “Hey, where’s your coat?”

“Inside,” you said, teeth chattering. “I’m fine, though. I’m fine!”

Eying you suspiciously, Jimin scanned the sidewalk. “Where’s Paulo?” he said. “I’ll grab him, we can get your coat before we go –”

You huffed, an impatient sound as you grabbed his sleeve and dragged him towards the car. “The Uber’s already here, though,” you argued. “I’ll be fine from here to the club!”

If it hadn’t been further to Paulo’s apartment than to the car, Jimin would have protested, but as it was, he simply sighed and followed suit. You pulled open the door to the SUV, clambering inside to sit in the last row. Glancing over his shoulder, Jimin realized Hoseok and Noelle were waiting, which meant he’d need to join you in the back.

Squeezing into the small space beside you, Jimin tried his best to stay separate, but to no avail. The backseat was tiny, and his left knee pressed to yours, fingers fumbling at your side when he buckled his seatbelt.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, squishing further away.

“Jimin.” You arched a brow. “Are we going to go through this again? Your hands have been in way more inappropriate places than that this semester.”

That said, you grabbed hold of the middle seat and hoisted yourself upwards.

Jimin’s mind seemed to short-circuit.

Forget about your teasing tone – now your delectable, barely-clothed ass hovered before his face. As Jimin had previously noted, your dress was very short. The skirt barely covered your panties and from where he was sitting, Jimin could tell they were light blue in color, edged with lace.

Fingers digging into his palms, Jimin forced himself to look away. It’d be a long time before he forgot that particular visual. The car pulled from the curb, making his stomach lurch while he fought to stay in control.

You had a boyfriend, Jimin reminded himself as he stared out the window. You were off-limits, so he needed to stop thinking about you in that way. This could only end badly if it continued, but he still couldn’t keep his disloyal heart from racing.

Plopping down in your seat, you turned sideways to face him. “Um,” you said, seemingly oblivious to Jimin’s inner anguish. “So, what happened to your teeth?”

Jimin forced himself to look sideways. “Casualty of flip cup,” he said with as much nonchalance as he could muster. “One of them fell out during the game and I couldn’t find where it rolled.”

You frowned, seriously considering his predicament and Jimin’s heart did a flip. The most adorable dimple had appeared in your brow and he fervently wished he could smooth it away.

“Well, that’s okay,” you said slowly. “You can just be one of those vampires who blend in with normal humans. You know, the kind whose fangs only come out when they want to bite someone.”

Do you like that? The thought entered Jimin’s mind before he could stop it, but he luckily managed not to say it out loud.

With a wan smile, he arched his brow. “That’s true. Lucky for you, I’m not hungry.”

Well. He kind of managed not to say it out loud.

“Lucky for me? Lucky for you. My blood is about half-alcohol right now. If you drank my blood, you’d be a very silly vampire.”

The idea of this made you laugh, tipping your head back and flashing a white row of teeth. Jimin couldn’t help but smile, a confusing mix of endearment and alarm swirling through him. He wondered how much you’d had to drink before you left Paulo’s.

He hadn’t been watching you the entire night, after all.

Only most of it.

“A silly vampire, huh?” he mused. “Damn, Y/N – when was the last time you went out? Your tolerance is shit.”

“I know,” you sighed. “I haven’t drunk much this semester. Too much dance, too little time. I think the last time I went out was –”

Jimin winced when Noelle pulled open the door, a blast of cold air hitting him in the face.

“We’re here!” she squealed, launching herself outside.

Jimin blinked, attempting to pull himself together. You’d stopped talking mid-sentence, sitting up straighter and Jimin felt a vague twinge of annoyance at the car ride ending so soon. Then, he noticed you shivering.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked gently. “I can give you, uh…”

“Your shirt?” you said wryly, clambering over the seat. “Then you’d be shirtless, Park. Let’s think this through.”

Stifling his laugh, Jimin ducked his head as he followed. You were right, after all. He didn’t have anything to give you, even if he wished he did.

“Come on!” you yelled, starting to run towards the club.

Jimin purposefully hung back, waiting for Hoseok before he made his entrance. He needed a few moments alone, needed some distance between you. It was embarrassing how quickly you managed to tear down his walls.

Jimin had always been drawn to you, but this was something else entirely. Over the past several weeks, you’d let your guard down and Jimin had realized exactly what he’d missed out on. He’d seen how funny you were, how determined, how smart and how fierce you could be. And now that he’d seen it all, Jimin found himself wanting more.

He couldn’t have more though since you were already taken. You already had a boyfriend, which meant Jimin needed to back off.

Bitterness tinged his thoughts as he entered the club, although his eyes quickly widened when he saw the décor. This place was nice. Noelle had seriously undersold her brother’s connections. He and Hoseok weren’t even asked to show their fake IDs at the door; they were simply waved in.

When he and Hoseok reached their reserved table, Jimin entered the tail end of a conversation. Jasmine wanted to dance, which Irene and Paulo readily agreed to.

“What about you, Y/N?” asked Irene, turning your way. “You in?”

It seemed as though you were about to say yes when Jimin saw you glance at the floor. Something in your expression wavered and after a moment, you slowly exhaled.

“That’s okay,” you said, turning back. “I think I’m going to stay here for a while. I’ll join you later!”

Irene frowned, but finally nodded and left with the rest. Hoseok followed suit, punching Jimin in the arm and yelling something about shots. Jimin told him he’d be down in a second, even though he knew this was a lie.

You sat down alone in the booth, staring at the dance floor and looking vaguely miserable. Something unfamiliar unfurled in Jimin’s chest – protectiveness, or something like it. Before he could talk himself out of it, Jimin lowered himself beside you.

“You didn’t want to dance?” he asked.

Surprised, you glanced sideways and realized Jimin had stayed.

Looking away, Jimin began to undo his cuffs. His heartbeat hammered his ribcage, and he was deathly afraid you’d hear and know his intentions were far from honorable. There was nothing remotely close to friendship on Jimin’s mind tonight. He was kidding himself if he said there was.

“No,” you said with a sigh, crossing your legs. Jimin’s jaw tensed, remembering the flash of blue panties from earlier. “I just don’t really feel like it.”

“Is this the whole hating clubs thing again?”

“Kind of.” You shrugged. “I don’t know. Club dancing isn’t like normal dancing, you know?”

Bewildered, Jimin finally looked up and met your gaze. He didn’t understand why you felt this way but could only assume your boyfriend had something to do with it. Club dancing was fun when you were with the right people.

“It is when you’re at a club full of dancers,” he said, pointing towards the floor.

Following his hand, you saw Jasmine dancing onstage like a crazed, Disney vision. A smile crossed your lips and you nodded before you turned back.

“Okay,” you admitted. “That does look like fun. The last time I was at a club was with Finn.”

Jimin blinked, attempting to piece together what one statement had to do with the other. “Sorry,” he said. “What?”

Before he could move though, you leaned forward and now Jimin could smell your perfume, your shampoo, and the faintest hint of musk beneath that.

“In the cab,” you said, completely unaware of what you were doing to him. “You asked me when I last went out. It was that night… um…” Trailing off, your gaze flicked to his. “The night you came and picked me up.”

Jimin seemed to stop breathing.

What he needed to do was leave, he decided. Get up and leave, maybe go down to the dance floor. He could dance with someone else, go home with someone else – bury himself inside someone else and try and forget about you.

The moment this thought crossed his mind, the utter wrongness of it tore through his chest. He wanted you. Not someone else.

Abruptly, Jimin made his decision and stood, holding out a hand.

You stared at this in confusion. “What are you doing?”

Feeling slightly foolish, Jimin retracted the gesture. “Taking you down to the dance floor,” he insisted. “Come on, Y/N! You don’t have to give out dry lap dances, or whatever.”

The expression of betrayal you adopted was enough to make Jimin smile.

“Hey!” you blurted. “You said you’d forget all about that.”

“Seriously.” He grinned. “We can just do the sprinkler, or something. It’ll be fun!”

He waited for you to respond, unsure why he was trying so hard.

He shouldn’t be working this hard to see you smile, but all Jimin could think was how sad you’d looked a few minutes ago. It was worth it to make you happy, even if you didn’t leave with Jimin tonight. Even if someone else got to benefit from your presence.

Finally, you nodded. “The sprinkler?” you said as you stood. “Was that really the first move you thought of?”

“Nah,” Jimin said, turning around. “My go-to move is the criss-cross, but I figured this was more your speed.”

You laughed, but Jimin barely heard it as you walked down the stairs. His head was already spinning, unsure what he was doing, but the moment the Russet group came into view, Noelle saw you and cheered.

“Y/N!” she called as you entered the crowd.

Jimin let you leave, knowing it was for the best. Hoseok challenged him to a dance-off, and Jimin began to lose track of time after that. It wasn’t long before people started splitting off in search of drinks or entertainment.

At some point, Jimin glanced up and realized it was only you left. You were the one egging him on, not Hoseok but somehow, Jimin found it wasn’t weird. His dance moves became sillier and more ridiculous, which was unusual. He wasn’t normally like this, but something about you lowered his inhibitions.

As he spun around in a circle, Jimin felt his hand connect with something hard and a drink went flying.

In horror, Jimin turned and saw he’d soaked the six foot tall behemoth behind him. Wiping blue drink from his eyes, the guy looked angrily down and locked gazes with Jimin.

“Shit,” you breathed, grabbing hold of his arm. “Run!”

Jimin protested, but you had a tight grip and eventually, he gave in and followed.

“No, wait – let me apologize!” Jimin said, trying to turn back. “I can pay for his drink! I can –”

You were cracking up, out of breath when you finally spun around.

Jimin came to a halt. You’d traveled deeper into the crowd, bodies pressing against him from every side. Jimin realized he couldn’t move, but neither did he want to. You were standing so close to him. So close, he could count each individual eyelash and feel the trembling heat from your body.

The dull thump of bass filled the air and, rather than move, you slowly blinked. A second ago you’d been laughing, but no more. Gaze oddly intense, you studied his features and Jimin desperately wished to know what you were thinking.

Before he could ask, someone bumped into you from behind and sent you flying. Jimin caught you without thinking, pulling you closer and when you glanced up at him in surprise, his mind became a perfect blank. For a moment he couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but hold you against him.

Somehow, his thigh had become wedged between yours and the soft warmth of your body embedded itself in his mind. Jimin nearly combusted at your touch – nearly bent and crushed your lips to his – but before he could do anything at all, you shifted.

The movement was subtle, barely even there, but it shredded what remained of Jimin’s self-control. Grip tightening on your arms, he allowed blatant desire to bleed into his gaze.

It could have been his imagination, but he swore he heard a soft gasp from your lips. Gaze hardening, your fingers curled in his shirt as you moved your hips again; this time on purpose.

Jimin broke, grip tightening further to drag you up his thigh. He saw your eyelashes flutter, a lone vein pulsing in your jaw as you tipped your head back. The song in the background was darker, more seductive when Jimin lowered his head. Hands sliding up the panes of your back, he pulled you closer and brushed his lips to your ear.

“Y/N,” he murmured, his voice embarrassingly soft.

Suddenly, you froze.

In a panic, your eyes flew open.

When they met his, some of the haze seemed to clear from Jimin’s brain. He realized with horror exactly what he was doing. Holding you like this, touching you like this in the middle of a dance floor surrounded by all your friends from Russet. Anyone could have seen, and you – well, you had a boyfriend. You weren’t Jimin’s to dance with.

Something cracked in your gaze as you realized this, dropping your arms.

“I have to go,” you blurted before you whirled around.

Jimin stared after, his feet frozen solid, stuck to the floor. He was dimly aware he should follow but had no idea what to say. He’d messed up. It had been a giant mistake to think he could be close to you tonight and not give into temptation.

But then, again – he hadn’t been the only one who’d given in.

Jerking himself from his trance, Jimin forced his feet to move as he entered the crowd. It hadn’t been his imagination the way you’d looked at him tonight. The way you’d danced with him, the noises you’d made. He needed to find you. He needed to ask you what it all meant, but by the time he reached the edge of the dance floor, you were already gone.

Desperately, Jimin searched but you were nowhere to be found. Gut sinking, he began to retrace his steps and nearly ran into the blue drink guy from earlier. Hastily, he retreated and made his way across the room.

Jimin was beginning to understand your aversion to clubs. Everyone in here was loud, drunk and he couldn’t stop thinking about what might happen to you while you were separated. Jimin desperately hoped you’d learned your lesson from last time and hadn’t exited the building.

“Noelle!” he called as he broke through the crowd.

Glancing down from the stage, Noelle seemed surprised when she saw Jimin approach. He supposed he looked like a mess and, reaching hastily upwards, attempted to smooth down his hair.

“What?” she yelled back, leaning over the edge of the platform.

Jimin craned his neck upwards. “Have you seen Y/N?”

“What? Y/N?”

“Have you seen her?” he called.

“No?” Noelle’s gaze narrowed. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Jimin’s stomach churned. If you hadn’t come here, he needed to keep looking. “I – nothing.” Shaking his head, he took a step backwards. “I just… yeah. Nothing.”

Turning around, he plunged into the crowd and wondered what the hell he was doing. If Jimin wanted to be more obvious, he could just hang a sign around his neck saying he had a gigantic crush on you.

Coming to a stop at the edge of the dance floor, Jimin dug around in his pocket to pull out his phone. He was about to dial your number when he saw a flash of movement in the corner of his eyes. Glancing over, he saw you as you exited a dark hall labeled restrooms. Lowering his phone, Jimin began to walk towards you, only to pause when you pulled out your phone.

You were dialing.

Coming to a stop beside coat check, you began calling someone and although Jimin stood still and waited, his phone refused to ring. Glancing down, Jimin confirmed this and a frown tugged at his lips.

Suddenly, his stomach plummeted.

You were calling Finn. Of course, you were – you’d called your boyfriend to come pick you up, which was the perfect, cyclical ending to this perfect, cyclical night. Closing his eyes, Jimin tried to slow his breathing before he opened them again.

He saw you speaking to someone and the knot in his chest gradually loosened. At least your boyfriend had managed to pick up his phone this time. At least you were safe and wouldn’t be alone. Slipping his phone back in his pocket, Jimin turned around and made straight for the bar.

Dark, viscous emotions warred in his chest and before he could stop himself, Jimin found himself ordering a whiskey. Tapping his fingers against the bar, he waited for his drink and stared at the dance floor.

After a while, he couldn’t help it – he looked. He couldn’t stop himself from checking what you were doing. When it came to you, all sense of self-preservation seemed to fly out the window.

It was surprising then, when Jimin saw Noelle burst from the crowd. She hurried to where you were standing and Jimin realized with shock you’d called her, not Finn.

Before he could react to this, a glass of whiskey was pressed into his waiting hand. Feeling somewhat dazed, Jimin lifted this to his lips.

Merciless hope bloomed within and Jimin tried his best to squash it. Hope only seemed to bring more disappointment when it came to you. The truth of the matter was you weren’t his to want.

With a low sigh, Jimin lowered his drink and turned from the bar.

Tomorrow, he decided. Tomorrow he’d call and ask you to forget everything about tonight. As much as it pained him – as much as he wanted to invite you over right now, to imprint your body against his on the sheets – Jimin also didn’t want to have you like this.

He wanted you to be entirely his, and that couldn’t happen tonight.

Tomorrow, though.

Author’s Note: Thank you for reading! 😊 

RAISE THE BARRE MASTERLIST 

© kpopfanfictrash, 2021. Do not copy or repost without permission.

[yanderepuck]

See this???

I want my choker to be connected to Charles’s choker.  Our faces are only an inch apart.  We also have our hands cuffed to each other.  One cuff is on me, the other is on him.  That’s how both of our hands are.  

I’m only in my bra.  Charles’s shirt is unbuttoned.  His coat isn’t on.

The best part is that Vlad did this to us

He linked us together and sat back and watched us.

Charles is Vlad’s slut and I’m Charles’s slut. 🥵

I'm not into voyeurism but please Daddy Vlad

Being pinned on the floor.  His hot breath hit you face, not being able to move away.  His hands holding down yours, fingers interlocked.   Chest heaving.  Hips bucking up against the red heads leg that is pressed against you.  

Everything happened so quickly you don’t even know how it happened.  But your hands are cuffed to Charles, and the chokers you two are wearing are connect so closely that your faces are only an inch from each other.

You’re only in your underwear.  You’re hair undone and a mess on the floor.  You can see the man’s bare chest.  His shirt is unbuttoned and his pants are loose around his hips.

Your lips were then connected.  Teeth pulling at your lips.  Drops of blood being drawn.  Your hips bucked again and one of your legs went around his hips to pull him closer.  You wanted him.  You didn’t even care that you were being watched.

Yes.  You’re being watched.  Across the room was Vlad sitting on a cushioned chair, sitting at an angle with his legs propped up  on the arm.  He’s the one who put you in this situation.  Vlad had a thing for the both of you on the floor.  So instead of doing any of the work he was just going to watch.

Charles’s lips are on your neck, kissing and nibbling around your choker.  The metal from the hooks keeping you together clinked together.  You moaned feeling his fangs dragging across your sensitive skin.  He tried to go down to you breasts but the chain was too short and couldn’t go farther down than your neck.

Charles couldn’t handle it anymore.  He needed you.  He couldn’t get his pants the rest of the way down.  For a moment he forgot your hands were cuffed together and moved your hand and his hand down to hips.  As Charles was getting out of his pants you moved your hand to his crotch grabbing his length.  As he let out a moan you rubbed him and began kissing his jaw line.

As good as if felt he moved both your hands above your head.  You let out a whine and buck your hips up.  You’re so needy for his touch.  You tried to move your hands to be able to touch him but he was much stronger than you.  Then very quickly he entered you.  He pushed all the way in rather than taking his time to let you get adjusted.

Tiling your head back you let out a yelp from how quickly you were stretched.  His fingers interlocked with yours once again as he rutted into you.  The leg you have around his hips brings him closer.  You don’t want him to pull out of you now that he’s finally in.

Charles started speaking sweetly to you in French.  Now that he was in you he wasn’t moving.  He stayed where he was and whispers in your ear.  You start to squirm and groan.

You’ve basically forgotten that Vlad was watching the two of you.  You start to beg for him to move.  Because you ask so nicely, Charles finally started to move his hips.  Your nails dug into his hands.  His lips met your neck just below your choker.  

He was just kissing you at first then Vlad told him to bite you.  Charles hesitated for a moment but then sank his fangs into your neck.  You felt a rush flow your body.  Your back arched, pushing your body into his.  Anything Vlad told Charles to do, he did.

After some time, Vlad got up and walked over to the two of you.  He was telling Charles that he better not be close to finishing.  You all know Charles has quite a bit of stamina, but Vlad didn’t want him to yet.  Vlad’s hand grabbed Charles’ balls, giving them a bit of a squeeze.

Charles stopped moving his hips from the sensation and moaned.  You let out a groan when he stopped.  Vlad never told him to stop, and squeezed a little too hard where it would hurt and told him to keep going.

It’s odd to see Charles melt into someone’s touch like this.  He’s fairly dominate with you, but the moment Vlad touches him he becomes submissive as you.  Charles licked the few drops of blood that were on your neck and kept his hips going.  Vlad was causing his legs to shake and having a hard time controlling his body.

Your other leg went to wrap around Charles but Vlad pushed your leg off.  Then suddenly Charles let out a load moan and rested his head in the crook of your neck.  Once again he stopped moving his hips, which caused you to let out a groan and tried to move your hips for some friction.  You’ve been going at it for a good amount of time but yet you still want more.

Vlad had began to peg Charles with his finger.  The sudden touch made him frozen.  He just wanted to lay on you while Vlad pounded into him.  You wouldn’t mind that sight.  Vlad tells Charles not to stop as he starts to pull his finger back out.

Charles bites into your neck once again.  Your nails dig into his hands and be begins moving his hips again.  His legs are still shaking a little bit as Vlad slid his finger back him and watched him squirm.  Charles’s bite took you over the edge.  He’s already taken so much of your blood and you are overfilled with lust.

[perishman]

The Prodigal Son

Hey so this is for @nastyburger and their Dannyverse AU.  Just so you know, it’s an AU that may not make sense without checking them out

Danny B. Fenton snorted, ashen grey smoke erupting from his nose as Dani landed behind him. For the first time in years, he was at Fenton Works for christmas, home of now world famous ghost hunters Maddie and Jack Fenton, as well as their elder child, Jazzy. It was once his home too. He knocked on the door. He didn’t know why, since he was expected. He supposed he just hoped it was Jazzy who opened the door. He was afraid to phase in. His parents might not buy that they “just didn’t hear him come in” when he was the most anticipated part of the holiday. 

After a few seconds of silent waiting, Dani turned to her brother, silently asking if he really wanted to go through with this. And B wasn’t entirely sure he was. But, he’d promised Jazzy he would make an effort. The Fentons were old by now; it was why the elder child had returned home. The door creaked open, violet eyes glancing out before it was thrown open to reveal Madeline Fenton, hunched over with hair more grey than red, her hands rough and boney. Danny’s smile was still half formed when she latched onto him with a hug. Maybe it was his Core that had always caused him so much trouble, but she was cold to the touch. Most humans were. Silently, Maddie waved him and Danielle in. As soon as they crossed the threshold, Danny felt the house take aim at them, reacting to their shared ecto-signature. Danny had once removed its ability to sense him and Dani, but Jack had yelled at him when he’d realized. Danny had pointed out that it could’ve been Jazzy, but the Fenton patriarch had rebuffed that by pointing out Jazzy followed instructions. 

Soon, Jack approached from the tree, a somewhat strained smile on his face as he said, “‘Ello Daneil. It’s good to see you. Same t’ ya Elle.”

Danny nodded, “Hi Ja- Dad. and uh, yeah. Glad to see you both as well. Merry christmas.”

“If yer more comfortable callin’ me Jack, call me Sparrow for all I care. Haven’t been yer father in years,” Jack said gruffly. Danny noticed it sounded more irate than sad. More bitter than apologetic. 

The halfa siblings each raised an eyebrow and held up some bags (Elle had food, B the gifts), to which a younger, less bitter voice rang out from behind, “Food on the counter, presents are hidden in the guestroom.”

Danny hugged Jazzy much tighter than his mother had done to him. He’d been meaning to call her for ages, bur grading and hunting had been eating up his time. Despite not being back here in ages, he didn’t need to ask where the guestroom was, given that there was only one option. When he got up there, he snorted. The bright blue walls still had the fades that came from his posters; it was the same desk, so on and so forth. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. 

“They didn’t touch it for years, ya know. They were hoping you’d,” Jazzy said with a pause, “come home.”

The redhead ran his hand through his hair and laughed horsley, “Considering how I left? Why don’t I quite believe it was a bilateral decision?”

Jazzy pursed her lips, not having a response to that. There had been a lot of yelling that night. Ancients, it had been Christmas Even then too. For the longest time, the most that Jazzy, Sam or Tucker had heard was that Danny Phantom was more and more active than had been normal. That his fire had been tinted blue. It had been a terse few weeks, and everyone was frightened out of their minds trying to figure out where Fenton was staying. When they found out Vlad had taken him and promised to hide him… It had been a difficult time. Loathe as the Phantom was to admit it, Plasmius had supported his human half in a way no one else could, and Danny was in his debt. 

Looking around the room some, Danny said, “I need to think about some stuff. You mind?”

Silently, Jazzy nodded and left the room, closing the door behind her. Danny looked around some more, and eventually found something he hadn’t seen in years. A picture of him with Sam and Tucker at eighteen, with the imprint of Dani in a nearly invisible red spot that almost no one else would see. If Danny had to hazard a guess, he was 19 here, and it was one of the last times he was happy at home. He sighed as he pocketed the picture and walked out. There was nothing more for him in that room, bar whatever present Jazzy had gotten him, he supposed. 

“Look who decided to join ‘is family afta all,'' snorted the old man from the living room. Danni glared at Jack, who snorted. 

Spitefully, Danny glared at his father and blew a smoke ring with his ghost sense. He knew it was childish, but Jack had been nothing but rude the entire time. To his surprise, it was his mother who glared at him with… a contempt usually reserved for Phantom... . Jack, for his part, almost seemed apologetic, before the mask was back on and he scowled. Both Jazzy and Danni rolled their eyes at their brother. 

Sensing the tension bubbling beneath the surface that threatened to lash out, Jazzy turned to Danielle, and asked, “So. Elle? What’ve you been doing lately? Last I saw on instagram you were in, Madrid, right?”

Danni nodded, “Yep. Met a cute girl or two, which was nice. But Spain isn’t for me; not a fan of their food compared to Italian. Actually I spent the last few weeks of my europe trip in Milan. But I guess I forgot to post it…” she shrugged. 

“Ooh, Milan. You have got to tell me all about it,” Jazzy said with a smile before she glanced at the falling snow. 

Danny tried to listen, really. But Danni had already told him about her time in Milan (and the girls she met there in some form.) He felt himself zoning out, before his father jostled his shoulder and led him down to the lab. Danny wasn’t sure what he expected, but the lab was still the best kept part of the house bar hi- bar the guest room. His father had to take an automatic chair to carry him down. The radioactive green of the portal still illuminated the basement, but there was now a glass container that Danny could tell was lined with ectoplasm to prevent phasing. Smart. The eldest fenton offered a beer, which the son silently turned down. But soon Jack had sat the two of them down, like when Danny was a kid. Then, Jack had called them their ‘boys talks,’ but now it was clear what this was. Two broken men, trying to fix themselves by fixing the other. 

“Now, you were always a bit oblivious on your best day. Which this most certainly isn’t. Suppose that’s my fault a bit. But, in case you hadn’t noticed. Your mother hasn’t said a word all day. Why do you think that is?”

Danny knew immediately, “Throat cancer. Jazzy told me a few weeks ago, when I was in Canada with Vlad… I tried calling, but…” 

Jack snorted, whether he believed his son or not being unclear, “Right. Ya know, when you were a tyke, I wanted you t’ meet Vladdie,” a snort, “more than anything in the world. But now? I wish I’d never met ‘im myself. Would’ve saved my family. Would’ve saved him, come to think. Regardless. I want you to tell ‘er. Before she goes. So she knows who you really are.”

The room went cold, as Danny knew exactly what Jack meant, and he tried to force the hurt down in a level tone, before asking, “You knew? For how long?”

“Knew you had powers immediately. Saw you fall through your floor, but you were too comatose from the accident to remember. Didn’t know you were Phantom for a while, but when Vlad won his first term- unanimous votes my ass- I realized somethings about him. Things were cemented when I saw you beat him into transforming back to human. If somethin like that could happen from Vlad’s accident…” he gestured to Danny.

Danny stood, eyes burning with tears and ectoplasm as he snarled, “You knew. You had to know I wasn’t some druggie. And you still let mom send me to rehab? You still wasted weeks of my life. You tore me from my friends. You still sided with Mom in almost every fight. How dare you ask for me to give her my secret now? You don’t care. You just want your guilt off your chest and think I can do that.”

“I’m the reason it was rehab and not the dissection table. Maddie was on to you, you know. By timing alone, and the devices going off. But I lied to my own wife, your mother, for months. I regret what I had to do, but not what I did. I saved my son.”

That gave Danny pause. He wanted to believe it. But years of being alienated from his family made him wary. Part of him screamed that if Jack was being honest with him, he wouldn’t have let Danny risk life and limb with minimal intervention. He wouldn't have shot at him. But the boy that wanted to be a family again ached at the possibility opening up. At being his parents’ son again. 

“Fine. I’ll do it. But after this? I don’t want to hear from you again, You’ll see me at the service, but after that, I’m gone.”

As he walked up the stairs, Jack sighed. Tears streamed down from the old man’s face. It was better Danny was angry at him, than the dying woman who’d nearly convinced him to experiment on his own son when they’d realized what happened. Jack didn’t see the incidents with Danny’s powers, it had been Maddie. And Jack had sent his son to rehab while he tried to talk his wife from the edge. He’d saved Danny, and all it cost him?

 His son. 

[noctilucid]

DannyMay Day 8: Gravity

Sometimes, Ellie almost forgot she was half ghost.  The destabilization had forced her to remain human for so much of her life that most days, she didn't think of herself as half-dead.  More like… chronically ill with occasionally useful symptoms.  As she sat on the bus stop bench, kicking her dangling feet, she scoped out the surrounding houses.  Most of the occupants were out for the day at work.  Her mind lingered on the thought of a dozen unattended cupboards, and an equal number of bathrooms with hot water and bottles of shampoo.  She played with a stringy lock of hair as she fantasized about it.  Then she let go and glanced down at her fingertips, faintly shining with the oils they'd picked up.  She frowned.  She knew her ratty beanie, which never left her head, was probably worse.  She'd considered soaking it in a gas station bathroom sink a few times over the last week, but had ultimately decided that the sink looked grosser than she did each time.  I bet these people keep their bathrooms spotless.  She dropped her chin into her palm and let her eyes sink halfway closed.  I know I would if I had a bathroom.  …Ok, I probably wouldn't.  But I'd keep it clean for like, a good month at least.  

She sighed and looked up the road for the bus again.  I'd definitely clean up after myself if they let me use their bathroom once.  And their kitchen.  She stared through the darkened bay window of the house across the street from her, the imagined pantry cabinets and upstairs bathroom becoming steadily more real to her, expanding into a floor plan.  I bet they have some Ritz crackers in there too.  She blinked back the dream and was left staring at the front door, painted a dark red.  

I've swiped most of my food since leaving Vlad.  I guess phasing into someone's house to swipe their food isn't really much different.  She pushed herself off the bench and drifted across the street— on her solid, human feet, but her head was in a fog.  She climbed the front stairs to the porch, feeling each step up in her calves and her chest like a 10 pound weight.  She paused at the top, one hand gripping the porch rail with white knuckles as she caught her breath.  That's not good.  She hoped it was a problem calories could fix.  Taking a last steadying breath, she pushed herself through the front door and stood in the hallway behind it, next to a pile of muddy shoes, and let her eyes adjust to the dim light.  

After a moment's pause, she shifted to her ghost form for the faint glow of her aura, and for the way she knew it would soften her footsteps.  She followed the hallway she was in to a beige living room, and from there found the kitchen looking out over the home's backyard.  With a weak hand, she grabbed a doorknob and popped a cabinet open.  Dishes.  She left it open and pulled on the next one, and the one after that, until she struck gold.  Gold brand pretzel sticks, that is.  Better than real gold— you can't eat metal!  She snatched up the unopened bag and tore it open with a loud crinkle and stuffed the end of three sticks in her mouth.  She crossed the tile floor to the refrigerator and popped that open too, finding a jar of creamy peanut butter at eye level.  She struggled to chew up her mouthful of pretzels while she uncapped the jar, then took two pretzel sticks and plunged them into the peanut butter like a dip.  The pretzels snapped, leaving their ends behind.  Ellie considered it for a moment before fishing them out with her fingers and popping them in her mouth.  God I've missed peanut butter.  

As she tried to lick her fingers clean, she heard something creak in the house.  She froze for a second before dismissing it.  Houses creak.  It's a thing.  Then a click, click, clicking followed, coming closer.  Ellie pulled the pretzel bag and peanut butter jar to her chest, wondering if she should run for it.  Then a very large dog rounded the corner and growled at her.  

Ellie backed up into a cabinet.  "Uh.  Sit?"  

They stood facing one another for a long minute, the growl becoming more insistent while Ellie sweated bullets.  Her brain just wouldn't think; it was running in circles like a hamster on a wheel.  Finally she took another step back, and the dog started barking and bounded over towards her.  

"AAAAAH!" Ellie dropped the pretzels and vaulted up onto the counter with a little help from her ghost powers, only to feel her limbs go soft like heated butter while a weight like a pallet of bricks was dropped on her head.  She squirmed to the back of the counter as the dog went up on its hind legs, paws scrabbling on the countertop.  Ellie strained to pull herself back into shape, looking frantically at the kitchen window mounted above the sink.  

"Come on Ellie!" she hissed, gritting her teeth and fighting gravity to fly the two and a half feet she needed before phasing through.  She dropped to the patio on the other side with an audible splat.  The dog was still barking inside, but it was muffled.  As Ellie collected herself, she realized that it was pointless to have flown at all— if her stupid brain hadn't stopped working in a crisis, she could have just phased through the wall behind her.  

Ellie leaned back against the house's siding and ate peanut butter with her hands.  At least she had gotten something to eat.  The dog stopped barking after several minutes— probably distracted by the full bag of pretzels she'd left behind.  Finally, Ellie righted herself and trudged back to the bus stop to keep waiting for the connection that would take her to the Greyhound station so she could get back to Amity Park.  Danny would know what to do about this.  

And he'd definitely let her use the Fenton's shower.  

[hitsuackerman]

Why Did It Have to be Him? pt. 1 (Aizawa x Reader)

a/n: okay ya’ll this is purely self indulgent because i have been simping so hard for this man lately. anddd the fact that my guilty pleasure for Aizawa is student-teacher scenarios huhuhu (splashes holy water on self) that being said... i hope ya’ll like this :)

Warnings: Student-Teacher relationship, Age-gap, Cursing

Link to Part 2

Masterlist for other fics :) here

Today was like any other day.

You woke up and did everything that needed to be done. With how routine it had become, things were quite a blur. One moment you were changing in your house and the next you were now face to face with your fellow class 1-A people.

With the minutes dragging by, you could feel your heart beat faster. Fingers growing numb at the sensation of seeing him again. Heat building up between your thighs at the mere thought of his presence.

Despite the volume of the class rep's voice telling you all to sit down, your ears were more focused on the classroom doors. Any moment now, he would enter and the silent and devouring longing would happen once again. Your teeth instantly chewed on your inner cheek when the doors slid open.

"Okay, class." He began. "Change into your PE uniforms. We will work on your quirks today."

One by one, your classmates left the room. His eyes followed their movements one by one. Landing on you, he could feel his heart clench and his mind working overdrive. Both your eyes met yet no one dared to break the contact.

"Hurry up and catch up with the others." He instructed. "Tell them to be ready in 20 minutes."

"Yes, Aizawa-sensei."

He knew that look too well. The way your eyes would linger on his face and slowly make their way down. He could see how your pupils were dilated with the small distance between the two of you. How many weeks had this been going on? Placing a hand on your back, barely touching the fabric of your uniform, he led you out of the room and went to the teacher’s lounge.

‘Damn this.’ You cursed yourself. What started off as admiration came spiraling down after the Summer Camp incident. How did it end up like this?

Yes, you knew who he was. The moment he entered the classroom on the first day of class, the bandages and the dead look on his face was all too familiar. How could you not recognize one of your favorite heroes? Sure there was Vlad and All Might, but there was just something about your homeroom teacher that made you want to tug on the line of student and teacher.

This was just a crush, right? The way you can’t stop staring at him, how you’d want to run your fingers through his messy hair, or even just trace his jaw line with the tip of your finger. Just when you thought it would all stop, that’s when things went out of control.

You were currently aiding Recovery Girl in cleaning up the medical cabinets. She had just finished healing a rather nasty bruise on your thigh due to your clumsiness. Yes, there was still a patch of black and purple, but you opted not to have it bandaged since there wasn’t a need for it. As a thank you, you offered to help her finish the easier tasks.

When you were about to leave the school, you bumped into a skinny blonde figure.

“Young (L/N).” All Might called out to you. “I need your help. I cannot seem to find Midnight or Present Mic anywhere.”

Willing to help the number one hero, you followed him towards a lounge with Principal Nezu and Vlad all dressed up. However, all them seemed to be focused on the curled up yellow sleeping bag nested on the floor.

“We truly apologize for this inconvenience but we need your help.” Principle Nezu began. His small furry paws pointing towards your homeroom teacher. “Is there any way you can persuade him to leave his cocoon and change into something more formal? You may use your quirk if needed.”

“I’m not sure if he’ll listen, but I’ll try.”

Slowly walking towards the yellow caterpillar, you went on your knees and poked his back. Your fingertip felt just how soft the material was. No wonder he could sleep anywhere in this thing. Poking a little harder, there was still no response.

“Sensei…” You warned him. “If you won’t get up, I’ll have no option but to use my quirk on you.”

“You do realize you shouldn’t have told me that?” He turned around and faced you. His hair even messier than before. Eyes red from sleepless nights and the stubble thickening. “That wasn’t a smart thing to do.”

“But it did get your attention.” You replied. Tucking in a strand of hair behind your ear. A small smile on your face for winning his attention.

“They stooped that low to call a student…” Aizawa said as he finally unzipped himself from his yellow sanctuary. Relieved sighs could be heard around the room. Standing up, he took the suit and went to the comfort room to change.

Sitting down and basking in the awkwardness of the situation, your eyes darted to the screen. Reporters were now waiting for the two homeroom teachers to appear for an interview. Gritting your teeth, your mind wandered to Kirishima and the others who were now trying to rescue Bakugo.

Returning back to the room, Aizawa was now suited up and immediately your mind went boom. His hero costume did a fine job in hiding all those muscles. Absentmindedly swallowing your saliva, your eyes savored the view of a clean Eraserhead. Your theory had been proven right, his binding gear really covered his broad shoulders.

“Do me a favor and hold this.” He asked. Handing over his gear.

Not expecting it to be a little heavy, your eyes widened and your thoughts ticked. Every single minute, he had to carry this around. No wonder he’s got a good back. Feeling the sofa dip, you glanced at your homeroom teacher.

‘My god. His side profile. Holy shit he looks so handsome.’

Bringing up his hands, he began to rub his face. A small grunt escaping his mouth. Rummaging his pocket, he took out his eye drops and finally gave himself the relief he needed.

“It’s not good to stare, (L/N).” He commented as he returned the eye drops in his pocket.

‘Shit. I stared for too long. Crapcrapcrapcrap.’ Your cheeks burned from embarrassment. Thankfully, the other people in the room were too busy staring at the monitor. Say something, you told yourself.

“I, uh, I was just thinking that maybe you should lose the stubble.” (Y/N). HOW IDIOTIC COULD YOU BE? “I-I-I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that it would make an impression to the reporters that the school is really taking things seriously…”

Aizawa just stared at you. He knew you were chewing your inner cheeks. The way you held on to his binding gear tightened. But the slight tint of pink on your cheeks made him wonder. You were still feeling things after all this time? Maybe he might take your suggestion. Of course for the media, not for his student.

Excusing himself, you heard the doors open and close once more. Mentally, you slapped yourself. You could smell it now, detention and maybe a bit of scolding. Your shoulders fell and you began to fidget with the cloth.

“Okay, everyone, remember what we talked about.” Principal Nezu began. His small feet tapping on the ground. This was the first time you saw him all serious. Facing you, his eyes scanned the room and back at your sitting body. “Where’s Aizawa?”

“He probably forgot something.” You replied.

“Tell him to immediately go into the press room once he arrives.” Upon receiving your confirmation, both he and Vlad exited the room. When they opened the doors, you heard the cameras flashing and the murmurs of all the reporters.

“Are you alright?” You asked All Might. The look on his face seemed rather disturbed. His phone trembling in his fist.

“If you’ll excuse me, young (L/N). I have to attend to this urgent matter.” The tone of his voice laced with anger and concern. And just like that, you were left alone in the lounge. The sound of the monitor bouncing on the walls to cover up the silence.

You jumped a bit when the doors opened once more. Strands of Aizawa’s binding gear fell to the floor. Quickly picking and putting them back into place, your eyes landed to your homeroom teacher once more. For a moment, your breath hitched.

Even though his hair was messy, you saw that he was now clean shaven.

‘Holy mother of gods. That is a sin, right there.’ Not wanting to linger on him, you focused on the screen and tried to cancel the steps of his footsteps going towards you.

“Is this okay?” His voice was tired and dead. Yet there was a tiny bit of curiosity in them.

“Y-yeah…” Stare at anything but his face. Save your pride and respect the line. You repeat to yourself. “They, uh, Principal Nezu said you should head over to the interview room when you arrive. And now that you're here, you should go to them.”

“Thank you.” That’s all he said. 

Straightening his tie, you couldn’t help but look at him. When he finished, he looked at you. Almost as if he were asking if it was straight enough. Giving him a thumbs up, you furrowed your brows when he took something out from his other pocket.

‘Does he have two eye drops or something?’ You wondered.

Taking a hair tie out, he fingered through his hair and tied it in a half up half down.

‘OH MY GOD. HOW CAN HE HIDE SUCH A FACE?! HOLY SHIT.’ If anything, you were sure your jaw had dropped and it was all to clear that you were thirsting for your teacher right there. Being hypnotized by his kept look, you failed to realize that he had inched his way closer and closer till he was only a step away from you.

“(L/N).” His voice was low and husky. Authoritative but restrained. “You know I do not tolerate any of this.”

You snapped yourself back to reality. Bowing your head with embarrassment, you took a step back to give him space.

“I apologize, sensei. I didn’t mean to.” The beating of your heart echoed to your ears. You were sure he could hear them at that distance. “It won’t happen again.”

With that, he left you alone and proceeded to join the interview.

Letting go of the breath you had been holding, you clenched your chest and flopped to the sofa. Breathing in and out, you tried to calm yourself and the situation that had just unfolded. Biting your lower lip, you held onto the fabric and let a few tears slip from your eyes. Expelled. You were sure of it.

With the interview over and the gut wrenching fight of All Might versus All For One, you decided to drop everything and go home. There were just too many happenings for a single day. The comfort of your own bed and a tub of ice cream was all you wanted at this point.

“Excuse me, but I really should get going.” You informed the group.

“Take a taxi.” Principal Nezu offered. “You may drop by my office tomorrow for a reimbursement.”

“It’s okay, Principal Nezu. My house is only a 20 minute walk from here.” You bowed and bid farewell.

“(L/N).”

‘Crap. Is he going to expel me now? Why can’t this wait till tomorrow and not in front of everyone… fuckfuckfuck.’

“You are my responsibility. I’ll walk you home.” Aizawa said. Not even waiting for a response, he said his goodbyes and left the room with you.

The walk towards your home was nothing but awkward silence. His coat hung on his arm while his binding gear rested on his shoulders once again. Footsteps and the occasional honking of the horn were all you could here. The minutes dragged by slowly and you wanted to make a run for it to save yourself.

Finally, you spotted your apartment. That felt like the longest 20 minute walk you’ve ever had.

“This is my stop. Thank you for taking me home.” You bowed.

“How did you get that bruise?” He asked. His eyes resting on your thigh. The look on your face told him you had forgotten it was there in the first place.

“I fell down the stairs.” You responded. Scratching your cheek.

Crouching down, he inspected the bruise.

‘What the hell are you doing, Shota? Do not touch her skin.’ He internally yelled at himself. There was really nothing to it, he reminded himself. All he needed to do was to poke the bruise and give you the necessary treatment for it.

Shivers crawled down your spine when you felt his calloused finger touch the purple patch of skin. The moment he poked it, you felt your stomach tingling and heat building up. When they said there was a thin line between pain and pleasure, they weren’t kidding on that one. Feeling him poke it once, your breath hitched and a small, barely audible, moan escaped your mouth.

‘Oh god. Oh god. He did not hear that. He definitely did not hear that.’

But he did.

‘Stop this right now, Shota. She’s a goddamn student.’ The small moan you made was enough to make him curious. The rationality of this situation was screaming negativity. However, your skin was just so soft to the touch. And that moan? He wondered what other sounds could he make you do. ‘Fuck. No. This is Wrong.’

Standing back up, he cleared his throat and placed his hand in his pocket. He felt his heat rising and definitely did not want you to see that. Thank goodness it was dark.

“Sorry about that.” His eyes still fixed on you. “Recovery Girl did a good job on healing it. Just give it some ice therapy and it’ll be gone in a few days tops.”

“I will. Thank you for the tip.” You took your keys from your bag and gave him a shy smile. The touch of his skin on yours still lingering on your senses. “I better get inside now.”

“I shall take my leave then.”

With that being said, you unlocked the door and went inside. Not wanting to look back knowing just how delicate the line was. Once the hatch clicked, you slid down to the floor and tried to gather your thoughts. Times like these you were glad you lived alone.

“Why did it have to be him? Why did he have to touch my thigh? Why did you have to moan? Fuckfuckfuck” Burying your face in your palm, you scolded yourself why you let your emotions get out of control.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Aizawa had let his hair down. The chilly wind brushing his face. His unwanted friend had now settled down. His focus was on his hand. Specifically his finger. It was only for a few seconds but all he wanted was to maybe have one more opportunity to touch your skin. Clenching his fist, he placed it back into his pocket.

“What the hell did you just do, Shota?”

[sylph-feather]

delta echo alpha delta

Summary: 

He is here, for some reason, in this place and with these people he vaguely recognizes. He wants help. Please, please, please. 

(All they see is a haunting and a monster.)

Prompt by @ectopal

“Jack and Maddie, at the end of their rope,  beg Vlad to come to Amity to help stop the ghost that's haunting their family. Vlad realizes that it isn't a ghost that's terrorizing them, but their son, who recently became a half ghost and is having just about the worst time in the world dealing with it. Bonus points if in his human form Danny is extremely unsettling. ”

Notes:  (yes the title is from lemon demon’s lifetime achievement award). this... i spent. way longer setting it up so sorry about minimal vlad but. uhh im really proud of this. i went. i went a little nuts, admittedly. with imagery. i hope its not incomprehensible? 

Wordcount: 2825

Being dead… is new.

The Phantom isn’t sure just how it is new, it contemplates as it stares at two children who scream and scrabble at a smoking portal. Blank in their terror, they ignore him.

His eyes flicker towards a mirror on the other side of the room, and it only shows the two of them.

The phantom ignores them— who is he to interrupt? Dead men tell no tales. He gets the distinct feeling that everything is wrong, and a piece of that puzzle is the pair’s odd familiarity— but hey, he just died, he’s really not feeling up to much of anything.

Green eyes stare in the mirror, but that’s all he is— two green wisps, apparently ignored in the panic of two teens.

He supposes he should feel weirder having, presumably, died. No, he innately knows he died.

But mostly he just feels… confusion. Displacement.

And cold, not unpleasantly so, just a buried, almost peaceful chill.

In between blinks— perhaps he is tired, so tired, dead tired (he laughs to himself), the two teens flicker away, basement restored, before he can even think about questioning them. Why are you so familiar? Why am I here? It pokes sharply at his heart.

For the phantom knows he is dead, but he never considered that means alive once, too tired and dead-brained (hah) to question implication.

The ghost of Danny Fenton closes its wispy eyes, not strong enough to maintain form, let alone to pervade that shock scrabble at memories that may lead him to living again.

xXx

Three days pass. The ghost, in moments of waking, had decided Phantom. There is something so familiar about that name, the way it rolls off his (hypothetical) tongue.

In between blinks, he sees the Family in the basement, that place of awakening.

They speak of someone missing, lost. They gesture to the green, swirling abyss, upset as they work on something that looks like a rocket. Rocket. Stars pervade his mind as he lazily blinks, and he falls back asleep to dreams of space before he can even think again of questioning the Family, of asking can I help?

He knows what it is to be lost, but he is too tired and unfocussed.

xXx

The one with the firey, long hair notices him first. He has taken to floating about the abode. Nothing physical keeps him here, but there is some tug in his heart that makes him want to stay.

He likes the red haired one. She reads a lot. Talks about bad coping to the Parents, though he’s not sure what those words mean (he’s unsure also why he gets the feeling of vague annoyance, oddly familiar, and the stinging in his chest becomes so painful when he thinks like that, like a scorpion’s deadly barbed stinger).

One day, one higher energy day, a week after the awakening, Phantom lazily swishes after her, into her room. Sometimes he blinks and he hears the swishes of pages and a drip of water, and he has enough energy now to be curious.

The doors, the walls, the floor— they’re all nothing. Or maybe, rather, he’s nothing, he observes as he notes the girl crying on her psych book.

He frowns, distantly. She’ll ruin the pages like that. Maybe there’s something more he should be concerned about, but he is so young and lost, and so tired.

He runs a finger along a page, rolling away a tear, in an effort to dry it. The pages flutter in a wind, and the girl startles, glancing at the closed window.

For just a moment, Phantom sees not two piercing green wisps, but something blue and glinting, and a fragment of a foggy body in his place. He glances down— there is no second person here.

He’s distracted by the fact the girl is crying again, harder, scrubbing her eyes.

Distressed, he thumbs at her face, and a cool, wintery wind blows over her hair.

He’s too tired to do much more, and his chill becomes like a blanket to him.

xXx

It’s small, but maybe Phantom can help the family. His waking moments get more frequent and longer, and he starts to fidget with objects; the daughter cries, and he rustles her hair. The mother sleeps on her research of the great swirling door, and he drapes a foggy arm over her. The father squints into darkness at his foggy form as he goes down for a midnight snack— then blinks and rubs his eyes. He flickers the computers off when they should be sleeping, touches at their shoulders in comfort, because he wants to help them and he wants to be with them so bad. The flailing stinger pierces again and again.

“We’ll find him,” the Parents insists, and the Phantom tries to support them as best he can. The Daughter has given up, but he tries to help her, too.

Bluntly, the Phantom notes perhaps he is not exactly selfless— one of the few concrete truths he knows of himself (the other being an enjoyment of word play; he’s twisted dead and ghost every which way). There is some innate desire within him to be with them; seen, known, interacted with.

At the moment, he’s not more than a blustering wind and a foggy reflection.

He sinks to the floor, ghostly sigh escaping his ever invisible lungs. He’s wondered if ghosts are supposed to breathe as he does, but it’s not like anyone’s around to ask. His crackled voice is never heard by the Family, responded to by nothing but icy silence.

He brushes a hand against the cold lab table from his floating position. His hands feel solid to him, but again, do not reach the Family.

The Phantom takes a look around at the toxic green beakers and sleek white tech. He is slipping away again, not that he wants to— but not that he has a choice.

In what feel like his last moments for the day (week? Month? Time is undefinable) he grasps at a beaker, curious.

Green oozes onto the floor as it blows over. Frantically, the Phantom tries to correct his mistake— but touching it… touching it feels good. A jolt of electricity and energy. The tiredness… is gone.

Something flickers beneath him, and the Phantom jumps into the air. White feet follow black legs. Him.

The mirror that showed green wisps and two teens now show a white haired boy, with two green eyes. Something seems… underneath that reflection, though. Approaching the mirror, Phantom tilts his head, and the picture glints into something blue eyes and black haired for a fraction of a second, as though it is iridescent.

And then he blinks out altogether again.

xXx

Phantom’s first appearance is in the night. The girl has put away her book she was crying over while reading in the kitchen, and the Parents are upstairs; they eat, softly, quiet. It’s like walking in snow. The cold is not tranquil, the flakes not soft, they are just sharp things that land quietly in flesh.

The Phantom decides to break it with an icy crunch.

From the shadows, from the floors, he claws at that energy.

The Family stare in shock at the white haired, green eyed form that flickers in the shadows.

Their ears ring as his form, like static snowflakes, glints into something familiar, as they sit frozen.

xXx

He sleeps again, after that stunt— but the Phantom wakes, hopeful. The Family is searching for the lost person— perhaps they will also be sympathetic to his cause. Maybe they don’t even need to find the lost one, Phantom considers; this feels so much like home, maybe… maybe. No, no, you can both get help, he scolds in gentle reminder to himself, reminding those thoughts are the scoprion’s poison. It’s not malevolent— it just, in some way, he just knows he’ll slot in like a missing puzzle piece. He doesn’t know how he knows, and thoughts like that make the urge of please see me, the love, the need, grow so strong.

His voice reaches them in a static scream; he gives that approach up quickly when the Parents shoot into the nothing. He doesn’t want to scare, he wants to be helped, and to help. He’s finally a little less braindead (his chuckle is tinny static) and can contemplate a little more emotionally complicated situations— in other words, he can tell continuing to screech is perhaps not the best idea, and perhaps more subtlety that is available to him with his increased thoughts is required.

The TV channels, the word magnets, the radio. Static and the message lost lost lost please help lost lost forgot forgot see me see see see seeseeseeseesee me.

The Phantom feels his message is going well until the Family destroys those things in a green fire.

I need your help, though, he grimaces. Perhaps they just aren’t getting it. The dead cannot speak, are not supposed to; he knows this when he writes messages, something grating in his mind that keeps him from communicating all but his basic thoughts and wants.

Determined still, he starts flickering into existence again, clawing out of shadows. Lights flicker at his arrival.

It’s hard to do much like that, though; his brain dies (more?) and it’s all his concentration of see me see me.

The Family shoots at him, and more sleek machinery invades the household— defenses.

It doesn’t hurt him.

But… if he gets frustrated, slams at the fixtures a little harder than needed, rakes the words into place to try to say something, who can blame him? The Phantom, for some reason he cannot explain, feels the Family is his family. The Phantom wants to be seen. The universe tries to keep the dead in line, restrain the dead from disrupting that natural order of their old life and their afterlife. It’s a lot of factors, the Phantom dismisses, very much like a sassy teenager, and slams a door a little harder to get someone to notice.

The real problem is that they notice, then react in all the wrong ways. But the Phantom cannot swallow that, that his efforts are squandered, because then where would he be?

xXx

By the time the Fentons are valiant enough to get Vlad to get the “gang” back together, the creature is a constant. The ghost scrapes its filthy claws over the lights, resides in mirrors, screams over anything electronic— and their tech puts no stop to it. It’s like it has a foot in each world, caught between the ghost zone’s intangibility that would let it not be hurt but make it challenging to interact and the human realm’s solidity that would allow it to be wounded.

It is too powerful.

xXx

The Phantom can feel that the irritated old man is powerful. Something about his eyes glints red, in that same iridescent way that something inside Phantom’s green eyes glint blue like a glacier, if you just tilt your head and squint just right.

The Parents, who the Phantom has grown wary of— and yet he’s still here— why? It feels so much like home. He wants it to be home, because it’s always felt his place. Maybe that missing person doesn’t need to be found— maybe he can—no, no, remember!— the Parents, they are ranting about ghosts loudly. The man is impassive, and the Phantom plays with tilting his head just right to get the man’s skin to flood blue.

“I think it’s Danny,” Daughter says softly. That name stings him, but Phantom doesn’t think Daughter means to hurt him. She, Phantom still likes. She looks at him when he shows, looks at him like someone is concerned, even if she cries harder than ever nowadays (maybe Phantom is just awake to see it more, but he notes the constant redness of eyes and face is new, so maybe not). She doesn’t destroy his messages, just stares. Not helpful in the least, he notes sarcastically, plucking at the invisible yet black (—how can it be both? How can he be two things that are so opposite and parallel?) jumpsuit of his (how can it exist when he never can exist, so many hows).

“That isn’t Danny,” the Parents cement, and Phantom frowns. The name stings again, the scorpion sitting perched upon a rib and taking personal offence to that person. Who is Danny?

xXx

Watching the old man is tiring and boring. Phantom doesn’t have enough energy to reach him, to say help me (because the old man has the glint and that has to mean something) so he decides to change that.

When he sleeps, he dreams of so many glinting things. Flickering figures of the Family and the Teens that visit sometimes. But they are just ghosts of memories.

xXx

It is in the night when he wakes up, green eyes staring at the silver pool moon, pleased as he ever is staring at those stars.

A breath passes his lips, and his nonexistent form shudders. Someone—!

“You must change back,” the ghost he saw in glints of the old man says. Belatedly, he introduces— “I am Plasmius, and I am… like you.”

“You see me,” Phantom murmurs, breath foggy. No, that isn’t right. The ghost is squinting in general directions, as though Phantom is a glimmer in his eye. Phantom is a glimmer in his own eye in the mirror, so he understands.

“You are... foggy,” the blue ghost amends, confirming Phantom’s thoughts. “Something about you is wrong.”

“Thanks,” Phantom says sarcastically (a new ability, a new joke that he loves), “tell me something I don’t know.”

“What happened to you?” the ghost asks.

“I woke up,” Phantom says bluntly. “I’m here now. They won’t help me.”

“Their son— they ignored their son?”

“They have a Son?” Phantom’s eyes flutter— “is he the lost one?”

xXx

The ghost went back to flickering inside the old man, because the Mother charged in.

“Oh,” she sighed, “it’s just you.”

“Yes,” he says, and he glimmers and shows fangs and horns, “just me.”

Phantom does not like the way he is looking at the Mother, but he’s not that good at judging subtleties in people still, so he lets that feeling pass.

xXx

The next… Phantom isn’t sure if it’s the day, he fell asleep, but his naps are less and less, so he feels safe in calling it the next day… the next day, the ghost flickers out of the old man to float with him again.

“How do you do that?” Phantom wonders. Is it the key to not being seen, to guise oneself as one of them, as not dead?

“You should be able to do it, too,” the ghost mutters, “I see it in you.”

“The blue eyes and the black hair,” Phantom breathes. Like a bird feather that shows green at an angle, so too does his other, and this ghost is the same.

“But you are unstable,” Plasmius informs in a frown. “You never settled into one world, so you are stuck unable to traverse between them.”

Phantom blinks, confused, and Plasmius heaves a sigh of thin patience.

“You flicker a lot more than I do,” he informs bluntly, in a tone that suggests perhaps Phantom is an idiot. “And,” he tacks on, more contemplatively, “you seem to not remember anything, as though you’ve separated yourself from that essential connection.”

“Connection,” Phantom echoes, and he yearns for that connection. His entire soul keens for it, to fill that hole.

“Yes Danny,” Plasmius grunts, and that scorpion strikes again, “a connection.”

“I’m Phantom,” he defends, tapping at his ribs like he can knock the stinging creature off, away from his vulnerable chest.

“You’re both,” Plasmius says.

“Danny is the other?” Phantom asks.

“The blue eyes and the black hair? Yes. He is your glint, and he is the lost one, and he is just you.”

“Oh,” Phantom breathes, and the scorpion is writhing and striking his heart and itself and his ribs and— and—

He passes out, green eyes going out like a light.

—But the flickers, the flickers finger around him, crawling over his form like electricity for a moment, and his form is a patchwork of two, and his mind is a flood of memory.

xXx

“I defeated the ghost, last night, and he gave me your son,” Plasmius’ old-man voice rings.

And Phantom is Danny and Danny is Phantom— and as usual he sleeps. Memories came in dreams, an eruption after so long of being dammed, brought forth at simple acceptance. Despite the dreaming, or rather because of it, he is achingly tired, with zero energy.

This time, his family (the Family, the same) surrounds him in warmth, in that thread of connection, and inside, in more normal and soft dreams, he feels something become filled.

The scorpion crawls away into the soft, soft snow.

[boldly-ho]

Another Life - Chapter 20

Fandom: What We Do in the Shadows 

Pairing: Vladislav x Reader

Series Rating: E

Word Count: 2172

Chapter summary: I hate chapter summaries. It’s chapter 20. If you’re here, you’ve made up your mind to follow the story no matter what the summary says, anyway.

A/N: I’m so, so sorry for the delay. I had a family emergency in Iowa after the derecho. (It’s all ok now, though, thankfully). Then, of course, when I got back to the land of electricity, I spilled water on my keyboard and had to order another. So here it is, two weeks late, but fully intact. Enjoy! As always, this is cross-posted to AO3.

Your glove filled with dishwater as you submerged it in the full sink, hunting for a fork you’d dropped. You grimaced to yourself as you pulled the full, wet glove off of your hand and dumped the soapy, rust-colored water back into the sink. You’d heard Deacon say it before, and he was right: This was bullshit. You made a mental note to propose to your flatmates that everyone wash their own dishes immediately after use, and replace it on the chore wheel with something, anything, else.

These bloody dishes shouldn’t have to be your responsibility. Wasn’t this a biohazard?

“How did it go tonight?”

Deacon’s sneaking into the kitchen used to startle you. Now, you were used to it, always half-expecting to find a vampire behind you when you turned around.

Reaching into the bloody water with your bare hands, you pulled the plug, letting it all drain away. You wiped your hands on a dishcloth you assumed must have been white at some point as you answered, “It was fine.”

You had gone out earlier this evening. It was only a grocery run, but it still felt fairly momentous. It had been the first time you’d been out after dark since the night you’d almost been killed. Eaten. As none of your flatmates had accompanied you, you wore your silver cross pendant outside of your shirt, keeping any potential vampires at a distance.

It had actually been Viago’s suggestion to wear it visibly unless you were with them. You weren’t entirely comfortable with displaying the necklace, but you weren’t entirely comfortable being eaten, either, so you did what you had to do. It had made you feel secure enough to venture out, though you could practically hear your heart pound with anxiety the entire trip. But now, safe at home, having done it once, you felt confident it wouldn’t be so scary next time you went out at night.

Baby steps.

“Did you wear your necklace out?”

You nodded in response. “Any fun plans tonight?” You didn’t overly care. What his plans were. You would be going to bed in an hour or so anyway. Mostly, you just wanted to change the subject. You knew Deacon meant well by asking after you. But it felt odd, his checking up on you. Deacon was hardly a comforting person. Your friendship with him wasn’t tender. You cared about him, of course, but your friendship was built on laughter, goofing off, and general immaturity. His caring tone was enough to drive you mad.

He shrugged. “I don’t know about fun. Vlad and I are supposed to go out and get some victims. We should go soon, though, since I’m meeting Jackie in a few hours.”

You still hadn’t seen Vladislav tonight. Glancing at the time, you remarked, “It’s getting really late. Is he still sleeping?””

Deacon shrugged again. “Maybe. He sleeps in sometimes. But if he doesn’t wake up soon, I’m going to leave without him.”

“Go wake him up, then.”

“No way. You’ve woken up Petyr, right?”

You nodded.

“Vlad’s worse than that.”

You thought back to the time you woke up Petyr and decided there was no way that was true. You shrugged off his hyperbolic explanation and offered, “I’ll go wake him up.”

Deacon snorted and rolled his eyes. “Good luck with that.”

As you went upstairs to Vladislav’s room, you smiled to yourself. That had felt better. Normal. That was how you and Deacon were supposed to interact with one another.

You knocked gently on the bedroom door. You were trying to wake him, not scare him half to death… again. “Vladislav?” you called softly. There was no response. You knocked again, calling slightly louder, “Vladislav?”

You pushed the door open, expecting to find him sleeping away in his black coffin. Instead, the room itself was unrecognizable. Granted, you’d only been in there once, on that night you were sneaking around, but you were fairly certain the room had been different. For example, you remember there being objects in there. A coffin springs to mind.

Now, there was nothing but red silk and velvet as far as the eye could see. And the eye could see quite far. You’d only been in here once, but you knew the room hadn’t been this big. The whole house was barely this big. And up in the far corner across from the door, you saw Vladislav laying on the ceiling, three of the most gorgeous women you’d ever seen– succubi – writhing on and pawing at him, among other things. Though the sight was jarring enough, it was nothing compared to the sound. A mixture of masculine and feminine moaning, sighing, and heaving breathing assaulted your ears.

Your eyes widened as you registered what exactly they were seeing. “Oh my g-“ You stopped yourself from saying the g-word before you caused your flatmate- and possibly the succubi?- to have a negative reaction. “Sorry!”

You pulled the door shut quickly again, feeling your face reddening. How did this keep happening? At least the last time it happened, you’d walked in before anything had started. And it was only the one succubus. Not so, this time.

The door swung open again, revealing Vladislav is his trademark, post-fuck red robe. You kept your eyes glued to his face, and to his immensely tousled hair, in order not to see anything more that you shouldn’t. Though, it was unnecessary, as you could see in your peripheral vision that the succubi were gone and the room was back to normal.

“Sorry!” you said again, though it came out more like a squeak, your heart still hammering in your chest.

“What?” he asked, ignoring your apology. He seemed as nonplussed as always, not at all acting as if he’d just been interrupted mid-orgy.

“How did you…” you trailed off, now fully looking past him into his apparently size-changing bedroom.

“How did I what?”

You met his serious gaze and dropped your question entirely. “Deacon wanted to make sure you were awake. For finding victims together.”

“Right. I forgot. Tell him to give me twenty minutes.” With that, he returned to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him and leaving you alone again in the hall. You heard the moaning resume, now loud enough to be heard through the door.

You returned to the kitchen, picking up haste until you were practically speed walking through it. Your face was heated and you were flustered, naturally. That’s not a great way to great Deacon, though. You entered through one door, saying quickly to your flatmate as you passed, “He’s busy. Twenty minutes,” and exited out the other door, never looking up from the floor as you did so.

You sprinted back up the stairs to your own room, passing a concerned looking Viago on the way, as Deacon’s uproarious laughter echoed in your ears.

At least someone found it funny.

~

“Ooh, where are you going all dressed up like that? Got a hot date?” Dawn teased.

You rolled your eyes. You couldn’t remember the last time you had a hot date. Literally.

“Not unless you’re talking about yourself. We were supposed to hang out tonight, remember? Hit up some bars? It was your idea.”

She threw you a bewildered look. “Yeah, but I didn’t think we should anymore. Especially not you.”

You returned the look. “Am I missing something? Again?” You’d meant the last word as a joke, but it ended up feeling like a knife twisting in your gut. Still too soon to joke, you surmised.

“Girls are going missing in Wellington; girls who look like you. Mostly from clubs and bars. They think it’s a serial killer. How have you not heard about this?”

“What!”

Dawn tapped away at her phone before turning it towards you, pulled up to a news article about the topic at hand. You snatched the phone from her grip.

“When did this happen?”

“News broke two days ago. I can’t believe you haven’t heard. But people have been disappearing for two weeks now.”

“I wonder why two weeks…” you said quietly, more thanking aloud than speaking to Dawn. You actually turned to her and added, louder, “Glad we haven’t been out in the past two weeks.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

You scrolled through the article. Five women missing in two weeks. Three last seen in clubs, one last seen walking in Wellington central, and one that was reported missing after not showing up for work. Horrifyingly, each of them looked like you. Same skin color, same hair color, same eye color, similar height, similar build...

And you were about to go out clubbing for the night. Goosebumps formed on your arms and legs. This surely constituted a good reason to keep up with current events if ever there was one.

You wondered, momentarily, if this had anything to do with you, or, at the very least, the you from your forgotten year. Probably not. How could it? These disappearances had only been happening for two weeks. You’d begun to remember things much longer ago than that. It was just a horrible coincidence.

You’d just have to be careful going out from now on.

Still, you thought back to the missing person poster that had nearly bowled you over when you’d seen it. She hadn’t looked like you, but it did seem odd that you may already have a connection to a missing person…

~

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Viago hissed under his breath, though his voice still floated up from the lounge.

You stood at the the top of the stairs, around the corner in the hall, and just out of sight. You had been on your way downstairs, but Viago’s hushed voice had startled you. Thinking he must have been talking to you, you opened your mouth to answer him before shutting it once more when someone else downstairs replied.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Vladislav was unaffected, monotone, and seemingly uninterested. Still, you got the impression that he knew exactly what Viago was talking about.

“Are you trying to be a jerk? With our heightened hearing, I could hear trying to wake you from all the way downstairs. You just let her walk in on you like that, and don’t say otherwise. Were you just being an exhibitionist or were you actively trying to upset her? What the hell is the matter with you?”

You. They were talking about you. You weren’t sure whether that weakened your right to eavesdrop or strengthened it. You stayed put.

Vladislav dropped any pretense of ignorance and answered coolly, “Humans become infatuated with vampires all the time.”

You felt your heart sink. It wasn’t disappointment. It was embarrassment. You really didn’t think you’d categorize sometimes-attraction to your flatmate as infatuation, but you felt slighted and humiliated that it was so openly discussed and disregarded when you weren’t present.

Viago scoffed. “Really?”

“What would you call Katherine?”

“Hey, now! Don’t be a dick.”

You weren’t sure if Deacon had been present the entire time or if he had just walked in. Either way, his defense of Viago told you that bringing up this Katherine person, whoever she was, was hitting below the belt.

“So you are just trying to be a jerk,” Viago sighed. “I don’t know why. Even if humans do fall for vampires all the time, it’s not as though vampires often fall for humans.”

Silence from the lounge.

Eventually, Deacon snorted, breaking the silence. “I think you guys just need to fuck.”

Viago sighed.

Vladislav remained silent.

“I don’t know whether that little stunt tonight was meant to piss her off or turn her on, but either way it was incredibly stupid, even for you.”

“Hey!” Vladislav protested.

“You’re different with her. You were so kind to her after you rescued her from that other vampire. I never saw you treat the Beast that way, not once.”

The Beast?

Vladislav scoffed. “The Beast would have never welcomed such treatment from me anyway.”

“Maybe. But I never saw you offer it.”

“Y/N is my friend. She was traumatized. You’re reading too much into things, looking for subtext where there isn’t any. This is real life, Viago, not one of those big, ugly books you always have your nose buried in. So what if she walked in on me having sex? You’ve all walked in on me having sex before! I have sex a lot! You’re making something out of nothing.”

“Either way,” Viago said, “We all have to live together here, Y/N included; so you can’t go around purposely antagonizing people, no matter what the reasons are.”

“The reasons are that he’s horny! I say you go upstairs, walk into her bedroom, and tell her you’re there to fuck. Her legs will open before your sentence is finished.”

You heard a soft, hollow thump, as though someone had hit Deacon upside the head. You recognized the noise from all the times you had hit Deacon upside the head. You smiled softly.

[darksunrising]

Sola Gratia (13/?)

Masterlist

Rating / Warnings : No particular warning.

Fandom : Bram Stoker’s Dracula, BBC’s Dracula, various Dracula and vampire lore.

Part 13/? (3475 words)

Author’s notes : Final episode of Act II ! I’m taking a little break to work on the plotline and real life stuff, but trust that I’ll stay active, and will be back soon with more chapters !

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

The Dark Knight came up to me, and Leah gave me a knowing look. The fiend. I stood up, nervously glancing around me, and handed him my handkerchief. He took hold of it, and carried it to his helmet as to kiss it. The crowd cheered loudly. They must have thought it was part of the entertainment. I still felt the heat rise to my cheeks. Gods, maybe it actually was a calculated plot, damn Leah and her scheming. If I trusted the look of the 'Royals', over on the opposite bleachers, not everyone knew... He tied the scarf around the grip of his lance, and I could swear I saw two lights gleam into the darkness of the helmet. I sat back down as he left, feeling dozens of looks on me as I tried to maintain some composure. Act the part. Be a noble lady. Think... Catherine de' Medici. There.

Vlad had his horse come into place with ease, as I barely saw him touch the reins. His adversary, ironically, was wearing red, mounted on a white horse, and looked massive compared to the slender, elegant silhouette of the dark rider at the other end of the jousting lists. I couldn't help but feel worried. He supposedly didn't risk anything, but the lances were wooden, for hell's sake. That's just taunting the Devil. Or God, maybe, in his case. Taking a deep breath, I waited anxiously for the sound of the horn.

The riders spurred their horses. They passed each other, once, twice, and a third time. The Red Knight made a move, and I saw his lance miss Vlad by inches. Not miss, exactly, as I saw him lean slightly to the side. I could picture his smug smile. That poor guy had no idea what was coming. Turning back in a cloud of sand, glimmering in the air, they galloped to meet again. This time, Vlad ran his spear into the Red Knight's pauldron, nearly having him fall off his horse. He caught on at the last moment, and I could swear I heard Vlad laugh.

They waited a second at the end of the lists, the Red Knight making his shoulder roll, brushing off his coach as he apparently came to make sure he was alright. He sent his his horse full speed at the sound of the horn, his best efforts insufficient to avoid him the lance that crashed into his shield, throwing him back into the dust, almost into the stands, which had a few people stand back.

Without a second look for his adversary, Vlad untied the handkerchief from his lance, and raised his arm in the air in celebration, under the loud cheers of the crowd. He jumped down from the horse, giving the steaming beast an affectionate pat on the shoulder. He walked straight towards me, and took off his helmet. The dark waves of his hair cascaded onto his shoulders, prompting a few audible gasps. I could feel my heart close to beating out of my chest. He was a conqueror, a cocky smile on his lips, the sun playing on his hair and the gold on his armor. He discarded his gauntlets and gloves, leaving them behind in the dust, eyes locked on mine. I stood up, almost knocking over my chair, playing into the role I had been given. He dropped his helmet at my feet with a loud clang of metal, and knelt down. He held up the handkerchief, and I laid my hand on his, allowing him to rise. He gently placed the shawl on my shoulders, lingering along my neck, enough that I could feel my veins pulsing against the tip of his fingers. His eyes hadn't left mine since he took off his helmet, and even under the midday heat, I felt goosebumps spread all over my body. He trailed along my arms, and took hold of both my hands, which he kissed, still not breaking his gaze. My chest heaving, I understood a little bit better why ladies tended to faint more often in corset-wearing time periods.

He then stepped back, leaving the jousting area after a last look, a wink, and a hand gesture at a young groom, who rushed to pick up his discarded pieces of armor after him. A bit overwhelmed, I sat back down, as the presenter closed the event over the cheering of the crowd.

“He wanted it to be a surprise”, Leah told me, eyes glimmering.

“Well, it certainly worked.”

She laughed, and dragged me along to the contender's tents. I caught a glimpse of the Red Knight, armor off. His shoulder had a massive purple bruise, and I couldn't help but wince. I sympathetically smiled at him, and he responded with a little wave. A bit further along, in a white and blue tent, the groom was helping Vlad undo the last pieces of armor, and carefully packing them up in a suitcase similar to the ones that had been Leah and I's dresses. He noticed us and flashed us a smile.

“That was great, Vlad !”, Leah exclaimed, coming up to give him a congratulatory slap on the shoulder. “Damn, you didn't even break a sweat, did you ?”

“It takes a lot for that to happen”, he smugly replied, taking off his gambeson.

His shirt was open, and I found myself staring at his chest.

“Is everything alright, Eris, darling ? You seem a bit... hot”, he mocked, slipping on his vest.

“I'm fine”, I replied, looking away from both of them, as Leah seemed to revel in the whole situation.

He buttoned himself up, and I couldn't help but sneak a few peeks.

“Where did you learn to joust anyway, Vlad ?”, Leah asked, understandably curious.

“Well, I enjoy horseback riding, and the Middle Ages, what can I say ?”, he replied as the groom clasped on his livery collar.

The kid looked up to him in awe, which had me a bit suspicious. I narrowed my eyes at Vlad, and stepped closer to him, putting myself so that Leah couldn't see my gestures. I pointed at the boy with a nod, discreetly tapping on my neck. He took an almost wounded expression for a second.

“Eris, I care about my diet, I don't run around taking drinks from stable boys”, he whispered, falsely offended.

I hummed, not entirely convinced, and he draped himself in his cape.

“Aren't you guys hungry ?”, Leah asked, putting down the bracer she was trying on. “I'm starving, and I heard there's a huge buffet in the castle hall !”

“I have to say, I worked up my apetite”, Vlad replied, looking down on me.

I loudly sighed, and took his arm, following Leah outside.

~ ~ ~

The rest of the day was tiring, at least for me, as Vlad obviously didn't ever feel fatigued, and Leah was endlessly fueled by what could only be rainbows and kitten unicorns. Night started falling the sky taking vivid colors as we made our way to the town square, lit by candles and a large bonfire. A band was playing dancing music, and the air was filled with indistinct chattering and laughter. Leah holding onto my arm, Vlad taken in one of his heist stories, my heart felt so full, I was physically unable to stop smiling.

“Oh, I see something that needs my attention”, Leah suddenly exclaimed. “See you later, you two.”

She let go of my arm, freed a few strands of hair to frame her face, and cheerfully strolled to the bar. Her confidence astounded me.

“I like her”, Vlad told me with a little laugh.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Tell me, did you ever get to practice your dancing ?”, he asked, innocently.

“Oh, no.” I tried to get away. “I'm not dancing ! You got me once, but not twice !”

“Oh, I think I am.”

He caught my hand, and brought us close to the fire, indifferent to my protestation. Once arrived, he had me spin around, and brought me back against his chest. Feeling his breath against my neck, I forgot how to speak a second.

“Follow my lead, I promise I will be less... Boorish than last time.”

I groaned, and relaxed in his arms. I had to focus every fiber of my being not to trip on the pavement with my shoes, but Vlad actually supported me so much I felt half my weight was lifted off. I never liked dancing, to be honest. I had a terrible sense of rhythm, and it reminded me awfully of some family gatherings I'd rather forget.

With Vlad, it felt... Different. Not great, mind you, it still was a bit aggravating, but I started to understand why people like it so much. Vlad picked me up like I weighed nothing, and spun me around. I couldn't help but laugh, and he joined me. His eyes were gleaming with the light of the flames. The music faded out to a slower tune. Vlad slowly put me down, keeping a hand on my waist, the other looking for mine. I intertwined my fingers with his, letting him pull me close, trying to breathe away the erratic beating of my heart.

“I can hear that, you know”, he teased.

I pouted at him. “Then close your ears, it's embarrassing.”

“I would rather say endearing.”

I looked up at him. He wanted to look smug, but most of his expression was tender, calm. I could have looked into his eyes for hours, the deep blue, washed over with the bright gold of the fire. Every step, he kept me close, only letting me go to spin me around, slowly, only enough to make the skirt flare. It might have looked beautiful to watch, if we hadn't been the only two people there, dancing around the candles.

“I want you to feel safe, with me.”

His voice was gentle, his gaze, even more so.

“I do”, I told him, moving my hand from his shoulder to cup his face.

He closed his eyes a second, leaning into my palm. I brushed my thumb across his cheekbone. Cold, soft.

“I have come to... care a great deal about you”, he continued.

“I can see that happening, me being a giant, walking Bloody Mary”, I retorted.

“Do you always resort to humor when someone tries to be serious with you ?”

He was smiling.

“I just- I don't know how to respond to that-”

“Then don't.”

He let go of my hand, leaving it placed on his chest, and slid his into my hair.

“You're going to mess up the-”

“I don't care.”

Freeing his arms, he lifted me up. I was so close I couldn't focus on the details of his face. The tip of his nose brushing against mine, his breath, short, trembling. He was waiting, expectantly. Whispered my name. My feet hovering above ground, my heart beating so hard in my chest it was almost painful, I closed my eyes, and- got a phone call.

“It's Leah's ringtone”, I said.

She never called if it wasn't urgent. Vlad put me down, and I glanced around. She was nowhere to be seen, which would explain why she felt the need to call at that exact moment. When I reached my phone through the layers of fabric, it already stopped ringing.

“It's not like her”, I started, starting to get nervous.

“Eris, do not panic”, Vlad told me, his voice somewhat calming my nerves. “She was with someone, wasn't she ?”

I did get a glimpse at her, while we were still dancing. She was at the bar, chatting up a woman in men's period costume.

“Yeah, but not well. She had very long, silver-ish hair, I think. Fair skin.”

If it was possible, Vlad paled, and gripped my shoulders.

“Call her again, now.”

His tone beckoned urgency, and I obeyed immediately. She picked up fast, but her voice didn't greet me.

“She looks so pretty, don't you think ? Better run fast, before it flows out. Garden overlooks, ten minutes.”

The hanging up tone knocked the wind out of my chest, and I almost fell to my knees. Vlad enquired about the call. I didn't even reply, and ran to the bar, asking for a map of the city, almost hysterical. Someone handed me a folded over leaflet. I thanked him, and quickly tried to find my way around the maze of streets. Right, left, left, up stairs, big door, left, and straight across. I tucked the map in the lacing of my dress, and started running, Vlad following without question. I cursed when I almost fell, and slipped off the cursed shoes, running barefoot into the streets. Thankfully, most of the tourists were gone, and no one crossed my way.

“Tell me where to go, I can get there faster”, Vlad told me.

“Garden overlook”, I hissed.

He nodded, and next thing I knew, he vanished. I kept on running, cursing at the corset making my breath short. I don't think I ever climbed stairs that fast in my entire life, and hurried through the huge door, carved into the high walls surrounding the gardens. As I tried to work the handle, to find it locked. Fuck !

Considering the height of the wall, I looked around for another way in. Luckily for me, it wasn't higher than a dozen feet, and I was a decent climber. Hiking up my skirts, I  placed a foot on a ledge, and caught on to a space made by a missing brick. As I was almost halfway up, the door creaked on its hinges, and Vlad appeared in the frame.

“What in the name of all things Unholy do you think you are doing ?”, he cursed.

“Finding a solution !”

He urged me to jump down, and I did, leaving him to catch me. Not losing any time, we rushed into the gardens. Left, straight across. I finally found two silhouettes, standing next to the wall, on the overlook. I tried to cry out Leah's name, came out empty. As I arrived, she turned to face me, a look of utter incomprehension on her features. She was fine. Fine ! Panting, I tried to catch my breath. She let go of the other woman's hand, and rushed towards me, putting her hands to the sides of my face.

“Eris, what happened ? What's wrong ?”

What's wrong ? Leah, you- Oh. I can't speak. I tried breathing in, wheezing, and  started feeling lightheaded. Vlad's arms wrapped around me, and I noticed I was falling. Going limp, I looked over at Leah. Her lips were moving, yet I couldn't hear her words. I felt a cool hand slip under my bodice, a ripping sound, and air rushed to my lungs. I took a moment to take my breath back, and glanced around. Vlad was holding me, but his look was directed elsewhere. Sitting on the parapet, the woman stared right back. The more I regained consciousness, the more I could make out her features. She was athletic, tall, and had incredibly long, silver hair, gleaming under the moonlight. Her eyes were an icy blue, and her pupils were two tiny specs of light at the center of the iris. A glance, and she terrified me. As I took some of my strength back, I slipped my hand into my skirts, and pulled out my gun. Leah had an exclamation of surprise, and I directed the barrel directly at the woman.

“Oh, Eris”, she laughed. “You must be much more naïve than I thought, to think this would do you any good.”

She hopped off, and started walking toward us.

“And you, too cocky”, I replied, pulling the hammer back, finger on the trigger.

“Carmilla, stop.”

Vlad's voice was much darker than I had ever heard it. I had never heard him angry, and I never really wanted to. The woman, obeyed, standing at a respectable distance from us. I didn't lower my weapon, still leaning against Vlad for support. For once, Leah seemed completely speechless.

“What do you want ?”, he asked, seemingly calm, holding an arm around me.

“What do I want, Drac ?”, she purred, taking a step forward. “Well, for starters, some introductions. If I didn't know you better, I'd almost think you didn't want me meeting your latest pets.”

“Don't”, he snapped at her.

“Fine, your friends, if that's what you call your snacks, these days”, she sighed, shrugging.

“Carmilla, I am giving you one, and only one warning. Leave.”

I felt his hand clench.

“Leave ? I'm not here because I enjoy your company, especially when you're in one of your phases, Drac.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her face taking a deadly serious expression. “I'm here because the Council sends me, because they know I'm the only one who has the slightest chance of making you come to your fucking senses.”

“What I do in my free time is no concern of the Council, which I preside, might I remind you ?”

He spoke through his teeth, seething with anger. His arm coiled tighter around me, almost hurting me.

“That you presided, past tense”, she jabbed. “Since that stupid fucking incident, more than a century ago, you haven't gone to any meeting, any reunion, not even responded to any damn fucking letter ! I had to do your job, while you what ? Sulked and brooded in your castle, and flirted around with mortals ?”

“Do not push me, Carmilla.”

She ran her hands through her hair, grasping at it, and started pacing.

“No, I think I will push you !”, she shouted. “You left us alone, for your own selfish fucking reasons, and the moment you finally decide to get out of your what, ongoing midlife crisis ? You start wreaking havoc, and putting MINA back on our asses, when we spent decades putting them off track !”

“'Wreaking havoc' ? You call going to Renaissance faires 'wreaking havoc' ?”, he snapped with a dry laugh.

“I call butchering mortals by the dozen wreaking havoc !”

She was seething with anger, but her face betrayed a complete, and utter disbelief. She thought it was him too. Vlad seemed to have regained some composure, his grip on me softening as evidence.

“Does everyone here think I am some sort of rabid animal ?”, he asked.

He was met with silence.

“I don't, but again, I don't understand what the fuck is going on”, Leah intervened.

“Well, that's one out of three”, Vlad sneered.

“Are you denying it, Drac ?”

“Contrary to popular belief, I am neither an idiot, nor some kind of un-tamed blood-thirsty beast”, he snapped. “I haven't killed anyone in some time, actually, if that's of any interest to you.”

Carmilla seemed to consider Vlad's response. My hand was shaking from holding the gun so long. She threw her hands up.

“Fine. Let's say I believe you.” She stepped forward, glowering at me when I raised the gun again. “I've seen the pictures, I've been to half the scenes. No mortal was behind those murders.”

She suddenly looked worried, and Vlad softly had me lower the gun. A glance at him made me realize he had the same look, which was not reassuring.

“In truth, I wanted to believe it was you”, she admitted. “I didn't want to think about the alternative.”

“It is impossible, though”, Vlad flatly stated. “We made sure of it.”

“Alright, are you ever going to tell us what the fuck is going on ?”, Leah snapped, fists on her hips.

Carmilla turned towards her, lowly hissing.

“What is going on”, Vlad interrupted. “Is that the Elder is back.”

“The Elder ?”, I asked, not sure I really wanted a response.

“He created most of us”, Vlad explained. “I have no idea how old he is, could be millenia. He started going mad, wanting more power, and planned a human genocide.”

“He turned Vlad to be his most powerful weapon”, Carmilla continued. “The legendary Impaler, infused with the strength and unending life of immortals. As for me, I was made by one of the Elder's first creations. As I was apparently the only one figuring out that a world without humans let very little dinner opportunities, I knocked some sense into this one, and we murdered the Elder.”

“Not very well, it seems”, Vlad somberly commented. He held me a bit tighter against him.

“Well, at least, the reason why he came back now is obvious”, Carmilla stated, looking straight at me. “He found the perfect way to torture you.”

She took a pause, and looked up at him, a hint of disappointment behind her cold eyes.

“He finally found someone you love.”

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Taglist : @carydorse @angelicdestieldemon @bloodhon3yx @thewondernanazombie @battocar @moony691 @mjlock @thebeautyofdisorder @festering-queen @paracosmfantasy @lost-girl-inc

[danurso]

Dimensional friends AU

*RWBY, JNR, oscar, qrow and maria are walking down argus streets*

Ruby: so, how are we supposed to get to atlas now?

Maria: i don’t know, with that old devilish hag blocking the way i think it's going to be pretty hard.

Jaune: i...think i have a plan.

Ruby: really? What is it?

Jaune: i talked with a old friend of mine and he’ll take us there, but it's going to take some time for him to arrive so we should get our weapons checked before this.

Weiss: is this old friend trustworthy?

Jaune: yeah, totally.

Yang: who could guess we would be saved by one of vomit boy’s old friends, i didn’t even knew you have friends before us.

Jaune: ha...ha...very funny, but just like you, i have my past.

Ruby: but you never actually told us right? I mean, you know what happened with me and yang in the past and we all know what the rest got through, but you never actually told about your past.

Jaune: well, my past is not a big deal, so i never had much of a reason to tell you.

Yang: i imagine, you probably spend the days reading comics and watching anime right?

Jaune: *sheepishly* yeah, pretty much.

Blake: so, where can we get our guns checked.

Jaune: i know someone, lets go.

*in the shady part of the town*

Ruby: *nervously* jaune...where are we going?

Jaune: we need to check our weapons right? I know someone who can help us with that. *gets inside a building passing a pair of tall bulky mans and getting into a large store full of weapon parts*

Ruby: *with stars in her eyes* thats a modified muzzle for a vulcan mk.3!? Ohh and this is a stock for a ballistic 1190!? I thought you could only find these in the black market!!

Weiss: *staring at some components* these parts could really be useful, but how can someone sell these pieces legally in such a place.

???: *in a russian accent* that is because they are not legal.

Weiss: *turns to see a really tall and bulky man that seemed more like a wall, he was bald with a long black beard, a scar over his blind left eye and with a robotic left arm* err...g-good afternoon...?

???: what kids are doing in my shop?

Qrow: *sweating profusely* w-wait, i know you, you’re vlad, skullbreaker vlad or colossus vlad, leader of the biggest black market of remnant.

Vlad: *with a shivering scowl* you little man know too much, i hope you not with police, are you?

Qrow: m-me? N-n-no im not.

Vlad: *staring at the group* what about you? You do not look good for business, specially the schnee girl, me have my mens to take you out or me will crack your heads myself *cracking his metal fingers with a deadly look*

RWBY, NR, Qrow, oscar, maria: *sweating profusely*

Jaune: you’re not doing this with your best friend are you?

Vlad: *stares at jaune for a moment* ...jaune?

Jaune: in flesh and bone.

Vlad: *stares for a bit longer before laughing and pulling him into a crushing hug* GHAHAHAHA!! IT HAS BEEN A WHILE!! HOW ARE YOU DOING LITTLE FRIEND!?

Jaune: *breathless* i’ll tell you after you stop crushing my spine.

Vlad: sorry little friend *lets him go* me forgot how fragile you are.

Jaune: yeah, im so fragile that i saved your ass back in budapest.

Vlad: that was after me save you in hong kong.

Jaune: but you forgot that hong kong was after malasia, where i saved you not only once but twice.

Vlad: hahahahaha!! Me will give you victory this time little friend, so, what can this old man do for you?

Jaune: me and my friends need some new weapon parts for our next travel, think you can help us out?

Vlad: sure! Any friend of jaune is my friend too, take anything you want, it is on me this time, a little thanks for your help last time.

Jaune: *sheepishly* i said you don’t need to thank me for that.

Vlad: me insist, thanks to you i can lay back in peace with wife and daughter by the end of day, so it is only natural for me to pay back for favor.

Jaune: right, thanks vlad.

Vlad: *with a huge smile* no problems little friend.

*later on*

Weiss: jaune…

Jaune: yes?

Weiss: what was that?

Jaune: vlad is a old friend i met, we hung out sometimes to do some stuff and he owes me a few favors, nothing much.

Blake: nothing much? Your friend is the leader of the number one black market of remnant, not only that but on our way back you talked with several other dangerous criminals like it was something normal.

Jaune: well...i just got some things on my past that led me to meet them, nothing much.

Ruby: *hugging crescent rose* at least now we got some awesome parts for our weapons.

Weiss: still we-

*BRUMMM*

Ruby: what's going on!?

Oscar: look! *stares at a giant robot leaving the mountain and going directly towards a giant godzilla-like grimm followed by a horde of other grimms*

Yang: thats not good.

Ruby: let's go! We need to help them!

*on the edge of the city*

Qrow: *slices a grimm in half* shit, they’re already invading the city.

Ruby: *staring at the fallen robot and the still up giant grimm* and the big one destroyed the robot, what do we do!?

Yang: we can’t fight that thing, but we can’t evacuate the city in time, anyone have a plan?

Jaune: i do! Give me a second. *takes off his glove slashing his hand drawing some blood from it and reciting what seemed like a chant in a weird language*

Ruby: jaune what are you do-

*ground starts to shake and the skies start to glow brighter before a pillar of black fire comes from the ground and a pillar of white light comes from heaver, both side by side*

Weiss: W-WHAT IS GOING ON!? *the white pillar disappear to reveal a woman with light fair skin, wavy golden hair, cyan blue eyes, clad in white robes and with a pair of white feathery wings*

Yang: w-what the… *staring at the man from the black pillar with pale white skin, red slitted eyes surrounded by black scleras, two black horns, a pair of bat like wings and clad in black robes*

???: you called?

Jaune: schiffer, steph, i know its too sudden but i need your help, these grimms are invading the city and several peoples are getting injured because of it.

Schiffer: *grins looking at the grimms around* sure, it will he fun. *raises his hand summoning a pitch black sword and raising it opening several portals from the ground which released a horde of demonic creatures that attacked the grimms*

Steph: *nods with a gentle smile* i’ll help the injurieds. *raises her hand summoning a white staff and raising it to summon portals from the skies that released human looking creatures with white feathery wings that started to help and heal the civilians.* i will help as well *flies off to the city*

Schiffer: and i’ll join the action *grins flying off towards the grimm and punching the grimm with enough strength to make it fly back several meters*

Jaune: *sighs in relief* i think we’re safe now.

RWBY, NR, Qrow, oscar, maria: *with jaws on the ground* w-what the hell is going on?

*a few minutes later*

Jaune: *sheepishly* sorry to call both of you here so suddenly, i would have warned if i could.

Steph: its okay, we don’t mind.

Schiffer: yeah, and it was kinda fun as well, not too challenging but fun nonetheless.

Jaune: of course it wasn't fun, you sliced that thing in half five seconds after the first punch, what did you expected?

Weiss: CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE!?

Jaune: oh right, sorry guys, these are my friends.

Schiffer: *with a small grin* i’m schiffer, the demon prince, nice to meet you jaune’s friends.

Steph: *with a soft smile* and i am steph, the angel princess, it's nice to meet all of you.

Blake: wait wait wait...demon prince and angel princess?

Jaune: yeah, they’re the firstborns of the kings of their respective races, they used to be in war since the beginning of times but things changed recently.

Schiffer: yeah *grips steph’s hand* thanks to jaune i realized that having steph in my life was way more important than the war we were fighting.

Steph: *with a bright smile and a light blush* agreed, i don’t think i can live without schiffer in my life anymore, all that thanks to jaune.

Schiffer: its thanks to him we’re married today, and that our races can now coexist in peace.

Nora: so that means fearless leader stopped a war from the beginning of times by making you two fall in love for eachother?

Steph: basically.

Weiss: wha-bu-an-w-that doesn’t even make sense!

Schiffer: maybe, but you humans are still too young to comprehend the elder races *turns back to jaune* so, is that everything?

Jaune: yeah, thanks for the help, sorry again for disturbing you two.

Steph: don’t worry about that, after everything you did for us this is nothing.

Schiffer: call us if you ever need out help again. *hugs steph’s waist* now if you excuse us, me and my honey have some business to take care off. *grins*

Steph: *blushing slightly* d-darling, you’re too naughty.

Schiffer: ohh, i know i am. *looks back at the group* later everyone. *disappear in a gray pillar of light*

Qrow: ....what the hell just happened?

Ruby: jaune...you have a lot of explaining to do.

Jaune: *staring at his scroll* sure, but we should talk about this later, my friend arrived, we can already go to atlas.

Blake: and where is he? *gets then covered by a shadow and looks up to see a massive ship flying above the city*

Jaune: *deadpaning* a valiant super heavy cruiser? Really?

???: general said it needed to be this one.

RWBY, NR, Qrow, oscar, maria: *turns around to see a tall man clad in green armor and helmet, holding a hi-tech rifle and with the number ‘117’ on the left side of his chest.*

Jaune: really chief? We’re only going to atlas, a small ship would be enough.

Master chief: general insisted that i should bring the cruiser.

Jaune: why? It's just a short travel, there’s no need for that.

Master chief: still, you know how the general is, he has you in high regards since you’re the one who settled the balance and peace between all the races of the universe, it's only natural that he would be carefull with you.

Jaune: *sigh* whatever, as long as we get to atlas i think it's okay, it's good to see you again at least chief.

Master chief: i could say the same thing, now let's go, the ship will leave in twenty minutes.

Jaune: okay, i'm right after you *starts to walk but stops and looks back at the group who is frozen with jaws on the ground* what is it?

Ruby: are these peoples space warriors?

Jaune: more like space soldiers, but basically yes.

Weiss: how do you know them?

Blake: and what does he means with you establishing the peace between all races in the universe?

Jaune: *shrugs* some things just happen and you can’t avoid it.

Yang: *stomping towards him and gripping his shoulders tightly with a deadly look* vomit boy, you’re telling us everything about your past on our way to atlas, okay?

Jaune: *sweating profusely* o-okay…

Yang: *deadly serious* is there any other friend we should know about?

Jaune: i-i don’t think s-

???: *teleports behind jaune* wha-? This isn’t king kai’s planet.

???: i told you you were doing something wrong kakarot.

???: oh, hey jaune, it's been a while.

Jaune: *nervously* h-hey goku, vegeta, could you come back later please, im a bit busy now.

Goku: *stares at a fuming yang emanating a fire aura* t-this ki is just like chichi’s *nervously* we’re leaving, see’ya jaune, good luck. *teleports away*

Jaune: *nervous chuckle* i'm probably going to have to explain that too right?

Yang: you just read my mind.

(Confuse? If so then my job here is done)

[a-deadly-serenade]

The Shield and the Sword: Chapter 4: Light After Dark [Alucard/Reader]

You’re a witch that is skilled in herbology, one that has been persecuted by the church for practically your entire life. In spite of this, moving throughout different towns has allowed you to pick up some chatter about a woman in a village called Lupu. She is supposed to be a wonder when it comes to medicine, and this immediately perks up your interest. So after plucking up some courage, you’ve made it to her door… hoping that she takes you as her apprentice.

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16724856?view_full_work=true

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True to her word, as soon as things were cleaned up in the kitchen, Lisa was leading you up to the library that had all of the medical textbooks. You went up several winding staircases and through at least a dozen hallways, and you realized, to your dismay, that you were going to have to have Lisa lead you here for quite awhile before you felt brave enough to walk here on your own.

When the both of you finally made it to an arched doorway, she pushed it open and all of the candles simultaneously came alight.

You noticed that this library was a lot smaller than the one you had been in last night, but that did not mean it was any less magnificent. The ceiling was a large glass dome that stretched up high above your heads. Small circular windows lined the north and south panes, each filled with beautiful, intricate, stained glass designs of stars and planets.

Twisted shelves covered every flat surface, filled and piled high with thick books, ancient books, books whose titles even you could not decipher. There were multiple desks that stood in front of the massive towers of books, made of rich, dark oak that shimmered almost black in the sunlight.

Parchments had been slapped on any free surface, all of them filled from top to bottom with diagrams of the human body, certain organs, or even classifications of plants and minerals. One of the most cluttered desks had piles upon piles of parchment, all of them scribbled with extensive notes. There was a large stack of quills, coated in ink, some of them looking as though the top half had snapped off. Beakers lined one corner, obviously having been scrubbed clean, as the water droplets that clung to the glass glistened like morning dew.

“I see that you’ve found my work station,” Lisa admits sheepishly. “It’s not the most organized, but its my space and where I have found to be the most productive for me.

“I was not judging you, Lisa,” you teased. “My mother certainly did not get her tidiness from my grandmother, let me tell you.”

Lisa chuckled, and walked you over to a nearby desk that had been placed nearly adjacent to hers. “This is where you will be seated whenever you need to come here and do some independent study, but when you must sit next to me, there will be a chair but beside my desk. You can also use that if you ever had any questions!”

You gave an elated smile, and ran your fingers across the smooth surface. “So,” you said. “What is the first lesson on the agenda?”

The two of you spent the rest of the morning, as well as most of the afternoon, in the library. Lisa had took the time to go over the very basics of human anatomy as a refresher, as you only had a very vague concept of the body. She wanted you to familiarize yourself with each part, and she made it much easier to remember by breaking up the body into what she called, “systems”.

There were 12 of these systems that ran throughout the human body. There was one to help you breathe, (respiratory!) one that dealt with your nerves (nervous!), and even one that contained solely your blood vessels (circulatory!). It was quite extraordinary.

She stressed that it was important for you to know all of this so that you could adequately pinpoint where the problem was and then be able to do the necessary tests to make a diagnosis.

Even when you countered that you could easily heal simple coughs or fevers with your magic, she wanted you to understand where they came from, and not just rely on your skills to be a good physician.

Luckily, when she started to touch on the treatment options available, you were much more familiar with these terms, as they were all plants! If there was one thing you knew you were capable of, it was making a good potion or tonic.

Even Lisa was impressed by your mastery of herbology, and you went so far as to offer her some tips after she gave you several samples of a brew she had been in the process of perfecting. It had been for the treatment of a respiratory infection, and after seeing the astonishing amount of ingredients Lisa had at her disposal, you offered that she add more starburrs and aloe, picking up that her potion lacked the clearing effects of getting rid of mucus, and the soothing effect patients needed for their chest tightness.

You believed that it had been an incredibly eventful day, your arms filled with an array of books and several rolls of parchment as you sat back down in front of your desk. You had chosen texts that were all about liver, not really knowing all that much about it, except, like your grandmother had stressed so many times, it takes care of all the alcohol.

Not like you had ever been too big of a fan of drinking to begin with.

You dipped your quill into some ink, and started to take some notes, your eyes widening when you read that it was capable of regenerating itself.

You had no idea how long you spent in the library, your yellow sleeves getting dotted with stray ink, with some ending up on your nose after pushing your hair out of your eyes. You had moved on from the liver, having conquered other important organs such as the big and small intestine, the appendix, and the kidneys.

Your intense focus was suddenly broken by a tapping on your shoulder, which caused you to nearly leap out of your skin.

“Whoa!” Lisa exclaimed, her hands up in surrender. “It’s only me!”

You froze, pink dusting your cheeks in embarrassment. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” you blurted out. “I just… get really caught up in my work…” She gave you a pat on the shoulder. “It’s alright, I know what that’s like. I just wanted to see if you would like to join us for dinner?”

At the mention of food, your stomach let out a loud growl that caused you to flush while Lisa laughed.

“I guess that answers that,” she said, and while you thought you were heading to the kitchen, she instead lead you to an amazing dining hall.

A beautiful, long table was the main center of attention, its legs being dark claws that clung greedily to the plush red carpet underneath. The top was a glistening marble that glowed under the candles that hung above in an extravagant chandelier, topped by a soft red runner. Silver candelabras hung from the walls, large Renaissance paintings of food, feasts, and parties adding just the right amount of color and pop to the black and gold wallpaper.

Once again, a decadent feast adorned the tabletop and your mouth watered at the sight. There was a large rotisserie chicken topped with an array of herbs and surrounded by vegetables like potato, zucchini, onion, carrot, and squash. There were fancy cheeses, golden loaves of bread, expensive wine, and a pot of steaming homemade soup.

Lisa had made herself comfortable beside Vlad, who was sitting across his son.

Adrian already had his plate filled with his pickings, and he gave you a smile from across the room as he took a sip from his goblet, presumably of some of the red wine.

“So, Hippocrates decides to join us.” Vlad teased, biting down on the piece of chicken at the end of his fork.

Adrian burst out laughing, having to grab his napkin to cover his mouth as he entered a coughing fit.

You huffed, annoyed that Adrian found this so funny, arms folded across your chest as you sat down beside him. “I don’t see what’s so amusing,” you repeated, “He just compared me to the father of medicine. I would say that’s quite the compliment.” you stated matter-of-factly, cutting yourself a piece of chicken and pouring yourself some soup.

“She’s well-versed in the history as well,” Vlad said, a smile on his face. “Impressive.”

You grinned, shooting Adrian another glare as he continued to chuckle. The dinner was delicious, and it surprised you how quickly you had grown comfortable around Lisa’s family. It had only been a day, but you could not have felt more at home.

As you helped Adrian collect the dirty dishes, Lisa poured a coffee for herself and her husband, who gave her a kiss on the cheek as she leaned down to fill his cup.

Your eyes glazed over in happiness, filled with a small bundle of peace after witnessing such pure affection. As you turned on your heel to head in the direction of the kitchen, Vlad calling out for you stopped you in your tracks.

“Oh, little one, I almost forgot: meet me in my study before you head back to the library. There is something that I would like to discuss.”

Your voice trembled slightly as you replied, “O...oh, alright.” your arms shaking a bit as dread starting to poison that previous sensation of contentment.  You snuck a glance at Lisa before you exited the room, and although you felt some relief for how calm and normal she looked, the thought of being alone in a small room with one of the most powerful vampires still made you incredibly nervous.

Even though the dishes were being taken care of in an efficient manner, you almost wished that it had taken longer so that you could stall this conversation. You tried to assure yourself that it was not over anything bad, you knew that Lisa would never willingly let you be placed in a dangerous situation. Perhaps… perhaps he just wanted to discuss something?

You nibbled on your thumbnail as you followed after Lisa, who had come over to fetch you and direct you to Vlad’s study.

It’s fine… you think to yourself. You just need to relax. I’m sure it’s nothing.

Lisa stopped in front of a doorway, and you could hear the distinct sound of a fire cracking. She gave you the indication to step inside and you took head of her invitation.

The room was smaller than others you had been in, with a large pointed chair in the middle of an ornate red carpet with intricate golden details. A portrait of Lisa holding a bouquet of white lilies hung on the wall in a beautiful frame, a large bookshelf sitting beside it, neatly filled with hundreds of books. A marble fireplace held the fire that occasionally popped and hissed as embers danced along the iron gate blocking them from singeing the rug.

Above the fireplace was another portrait, this one hung in a more oval frame, and you realized it was of Lisa, Vlad, and Adrian when he was only a baby. Your lips curled into a smile at seeing Adrian, so small and adorable, with tuffs of golden hair on his round head, held in the arms of a beaming Lisa. Vlad looked rather dashing in his suit, and he glowed with a sense of pride, one of his hands resting gently upon his son’s small shoulders.

“I’m glad that you could join me,” Vlad’s voice suddenly called out to you.

You jumped from surprise and whirled around to find him standing beside a tall mirror. You could have sworn that he had not been here a moment earlier…

He unclasped his cloak from around his neck and draped it across the top of the chair before you. His boots tapped softly against the rug, the tall vampire pouring himself a cup of tea once he situated himself.

He took a sip, a content sigh falling from his lips. “Sit,” he stated, and gestured to the small chair in front of him, a small table standing in between the both of you with an additional tea cup and a large tea kettle.

You nervously took your seat, and you fidgeted a bit, fingers twirling around a stray thread from your shirt.

Vlad poured you some tea as well, and you accepted the drink with a quiet thank you.

After several moments of silence of the both of you sipping your tea, the fire crackling behind you, he finally made to speak.

“I wanted to preface this by saying that I am in no way upset with you, if you were worried about that.”

You let out a breath you did not know you had been holding, tension releasing itself from your shoulders as he said this. “Was it that obvious?” you laughed, and he gave you a smile.

“The fact that you even came to join me let’s me know that you trust not only me, but my wife as well. I know how… well, scary, I can seem,” he chuckled. “Even if you are a witch, you are not a fool.”

You gave a sigh of relief, before you let out a quiet laugh at his statement. “I appreciate it.”

Vlad’s smile broke a little, and you saw his eyes cloud over a bit, from what, you could not tell. “You won’t appreciate what I am about to ask you. I ask you to forgive me but…” he was silent, before he leaned forward. “I need you to tell me what happened to your coven.”

Had you not been so comfortably seated in your chair, you might have just collapsed at what Vlad just asked you to do. The world seemed to crumble around you, lip trembling as you swallowed back tears. Instinctively, you shoved your hands into your pockets and pulled out a charm bag, dumping out its contents to grab a necklace that had been created around a piece of amber infused with black obsidian and flecks of rose quartz.

It had been the last birthday gift that you received from your mother, a powerful amulet of protection. You carefully put it around your neck, and allowed the stone to rest near the dip between your breasts, pressing it against your hammering heart.

You were grateful that Vlad had remained quiet during all of this, worried that you would not have been able to handle someone immediately berating you with questions.

“Take your time,” he said softly.

You gave him a nod, and after a couple deep breaths, you opened your eyes. “Thank you… for letting me collect myself. I… needed a minute…” you whispered, voice a little hoarse.

“Not at all,” his tone was calm, soothing. “If ever you need to stop, let me know. I want you to take as long as needed, you’re in no rush.”

“Thank you…” after taking one last calming breath, you started to retell your story, the story of how you lost your entire family.

“It had been at night,” you recall. “My grandmother had mumbled something about a bad feeling, as though she could sense the anger in the atmosphere. It was a dark night… pitch black, and the ocean….she churned, she was so… so violent. I had never seen the ocean look like that before. My mother simply said that a storm was coming, it was nothing more. But, I believed my grandmother.”

You took a sip of tea, lips pursed, before you continued. “She and a couple other witches, older wise women that had been in my grandmother’s original coven, were all saying the same thing, that there was an omen on the horizon, and although quite a few other witches were keen to believe them, we just thought they were saying all this because the ocean was in a fit and we could not feel the moon’s presence on us. If only… if only we had listened.

I had been asleep, before being woken up by screams… so many screams. My mother was frantically running around, I could hear her. She was yelling something at my grandmother, and then she was in my room, pulling me up and ushering me out the front door. I was so confused… I had no idea what was going on. Outside was pure chaos. There were fires as far as my eye could see, the flames licking at my face and the trees in the nearby forest. I could pick up on witches crying out spells, and we’d occasionally see the glow of protective runes being activated.

My mother had her wand in her hand… an ancient thing, made of elm… her hand was clasped tightly around mine, and as we ran, we found other families that had been calling out for any familiar faces. We eventually ended up as a group of maybe six or seven children, and five adult witches. We were nearly at the edge of the forest, where we could hide and be protected, before… before we ran into them…”

You stomach churned with disgust and your eyes welled up with tears as your pictured the men that had blocked your path to freedom. “It was a group of priests in red robes… they had these smiles on their faces…the cruelest expression that you could possibly imagine, as though they were starving cats that had happened upon a pack of terrified rats.

We tried to fight them off, but they were just too many of them… it’s as if they were hydras. Absolute beasts... and I remember…. I remember the things they did to my sisters… the horrible, filthy things they did… the tools that they had…”

Your whole body was trembling with rage, angry tears trailing down your cheeks as your gripped the edge of your seat for dear life. “My mother….” your voice faltered. “My mother…! She… she sacrificed herself! To save me!” you exclaimed, more tears leaking from your eyes.

“She and I had been one of the few who had not been captured, and… and she told me to run, to find the secret paths of the forest nymphs. We had been in good standing with them for centuries, as my coven protected both the sea and the woods that bordered our small community. So… I… I ran, I ran into those woods like she said, but…”

You gritted your teeth, voice coming out in a sob. “She didn’t follow me… a barrier materialized right before my eyes, shimmering like gold. It had been a barrier of protection… the last act of selflessness that my mother performed before being captured. I… I wanted to go back, to try and save her, but…. I ran. I ran… and ran until I could not breathe and collapsed under a tree… dirty, tired, and… so…. helplessly... alone.”

Your vision blurred as tears cascaded down your face, a strangled gasp leaving your throat as your began to cry. “They took everything from me…everything.” you heaved, a disdainful look in your eyes as you sat back in your chair. “Pray tell, what kind of God would let his servants kill innocent women and children?”

Vlad’s dark red eyes shone dangerously in the firelight, hands clasped together as he formed a steeple with his fingers. “I have discovered throughout my hundreds of years on this planet, that mankind is nothing more than a miserable little pile of secrets. Scared little things that would rather destroy and chalk up phenomena they do not understand to the metaphysical.”

He leaned forward and placed a strong grip on your shoulder. “I am terribly sorry for all of the loss that you have suffered at the hands of ignorant, scared little men. Your mother was a brave woman, a strong woman. I’m sure you are very proud of her and the rest of your coven.”

You nodded your head. “Yes… I often find myself filled with such rage that I can barely think… but I lived with the nymphs for some time, and they helped me channel these feelings of resentment into something constructive. It was through their teachings that I became so well-versed in the knowledge of herbology.”

“You are very wise not letting this hate consume you. Too many times have I seen good, honorable men fall under the spell of this deadly obsession,” Vlad said, as he released your shoulder and poured more tea into your cup.

Thanking him, you take a large gulp, only now just realizing how dry your throat had become. “If it would not be too presumptuous of me to ask,” you began. “Do… would it be alright if I headed to the library? I need to clear my head.” you confessed, a strained smile on your visage.

Vlad nodded, his large hand going to ruffle the hair on the top of your head. “You did very well, little one. My only wish is that you do not stay up all night working, for I know how easy it is to lose track of time when immersed in your studies.”

“I will make sure to head to bed at a… reasonable hour,” you said, thanking Vlad for his kindness once more, before you headed back to the library.

Your mind was so abuzz with thought that it was difficult for you to concentrate. It was almost as if you were in a thick fog, uncertain of where to go. As you sat down in front of your desk, you were thankful that Lisa kept a stash of scented candles around to dull the smell of stale old books.

With the flick of your finger you had lit the wick of a candle that had reminded you of fresh rain, pulling out books on the brain and known diseases, topics you knew would be complicated enough to keep you stimulated and wash away the unwanted memories.

The moon hung high in the sky, her bright white rays resting upon your shoulders as you scribbled down notes on a spare bit of parchment. You could sense her as she moved across the sky, an obvious indication of how long you had already been at work.

As she continued her slow trek across the night, you could feel your eyelids grow heavy, but you tried pushing through the exhaustion.

Just let me finish this last sentence…!

Your body won over this battle against your brain, your eyes slipping shut and head resting against your arms as sleep fell upon you.

Something… something was tugging on your hair.

Was it morning already? Had you really slept the entire night at your desk? Well, that’s embarrassing--

“Excuse me?”

That didn’t sound like Lisa.

You groaned, body cracking and muscles aching as you rose from your sleeping position. You rubbed your eyes with the back of your hand, before you went to massage your sore neck. To your surprise, there was no one around you. So, who had said that--?

“Excuse me!”

You felt another tug, and you whirled around to find… a fairy.

“A fairy?” you exclaimed.

“How rude!” she snapped, hands on her hips. “The name is Aria, thank you very much!”

She could not have been any bigger than a children’s doll, and one could have almost mistaken her for one, with her porcelain white skin and big blue eyes. She had long blond hair that shone like strands of gold in the low candlelight, and she sported a blue dress with a slit down the middle fluttered that around her legs, which were covered by tiny white boots. Sprinkles of fairy dust trailed from out of her wings, beautiful little things that looked almost like a dragonflies.

“Aria, huh?” you said. “What brings you here? I would think that someone such as yourself would rather be outside in the woods than in some dark castle?”

“I live here!” she shouted.

“Really?” you drawled, surprised at her answer.

“Do not speak to me as though I am a child, witch.” she hissed. “My master wanted to come in here to study, and what do I find? You, asleep at a desk!”

“Master?” you repeated.

“She means me.”

Adrian makes himself known from a nearby corner in the room, lounging lazily against an empty desk.

Aria flew over to where he stood, and then pointed at you. “I was making sure that you would have a nice, quiet place to practice, and I find her in here!” she shouted.

“Guess I can venture a guess and say that she’s not a fan of me?” you ask, getting up out of your seat and stretching out your sore muscles.

“She means well,” Adrian said, and walked over to join you where you stood, a tome tucked under his right arm.

Aria plopped herself onto his shoulder, her tiny hands grasping at his long locks of hair, humming quietly as she busied herself by braiding several strands.

“She certainly has an attitude,” you snap, and give her a smirk as she sticks her tongue out at you. “What’s this I hear about you coming in here to “practice”? You do know that this is the library dedicated to medical science?”

“Of course. I came up here to practice my healing magic.” Adrian responded, and opened the book he had with him. It was a magical tome, one that was written specifically about healing spells.

Your eyes widened at the sight and you made to grab it to look through it yourself, but Adrian quickly snatched it away before you could do so.

“Don’t be childish,” you grumbled. “I just want to flip through it. I will give it right back. If anyone knows a thing about healing spells, it’s me.”

“You’re not the only one who knows magic in this castle.” he challenged.

“Oh really?” you snapped back. “Well, if you’re so confident, why don’t you show me some of this magic?”

You noticed that his eyes widened slightly at the test, but he gave you a confident stare as he put down his book and ordered Aria to take a seat on your shoulder-- much to her dismay.

“So, what have you got for us?” you questioned.

“I’ve recently mastered the skill of transmutation.”

A whistle rang out from your lips. “Now that is some impressive magic. Only witches vying for the title of supreme have been able to pull that off.”

Adrian smirked. “Well then, all the more impressive that I can do this.” he said, and closed his eyes.

For a moment, he stood there, completely still, before he flitted out of view, as though you were trying to focus your vision. In a second, he reappeared on the opposite side of the room, a triumphant grin on his face as Aria started cheering and doing loops in the air.

“See?” he cried, clearly proud of himself. “What did I tell you?”

He disappeared again, only to reappear in front of you. “Seems as though I am magically gifted as well.” He vanished before you could say anything, but you knew that this cockiness would do nothing but bite him in the ass.

Karma came much quicker than you expected, for the third time he tried to transmutate, he ran straight into one of the bookshelves, causing a pile to tumble on top of him as he collapsed onto the ground.

Try as hard as you might, but you could not suppress the laughter that bounded out of you after seeing this. Your voice rang throughout the library, arms clutching at your sides as you absolutely lost it.

You could hear Aria yelling how rude you were before she raced off to try and help Adrian, but you couldn’t care less. A tear managed to slide down your cheek, and you wiped it off, finding it ironic that you were crying out of happiness, when a mere few hours ago, it had been tears of utter sadness.

Aria was trying her best to get the books off of him, but they were much too heavy for her. She nearly dropped one onto his foot, before you caught it within your grasp.

“Let me help you with that,” you said, offering Adrian your hand.

He looked up at you and accepted your assistance, his chilled skin causing goosebumps to run across your arm.

You hoisted him back up on his feet, a slight flush on your cheeks when you realized how close the both of you were. You immediately relinquished your grip and took several steps back, laughing nervously.

“Transmutation, huh? I mean, even I can’t do that! So, that was pretty impressive! Well, before… you know…” you trailed off awkwardly, shying under his intense gaze.

He suddenly burst into a fit of laughter, the sound causing your heart to skip a beat and butterflies to flutter in your stomach. It was strange, seeing this stoic, composed man act so… so human.

“I’m glad that you appreciated the show,” he said, running his fingers through his hair to settle himself down. “Even if it ended in utter disaster.”

“That’s alright,” you replied. “It took me quite a while to master my pyrokinesis. Whenever I would practice, I usually ended up setting something on fire. Oh, there was this one time, I accidentally lit my mother’s ceremonial robes on fire,” you cringed at the memory, but gave a smile small as Adrian laughed. “It just takes practice.”

“Practice…” he hummed. “As much as Aria can try and argue against this, my original intentions for coming up here were to ask if you could help me in the practice of magic.”

“What?!” Aria shrieked. “Master Alucard, surely there is no need for you to--” she was silenced by Adrian putting a finger against her mouth, the fairy glaring at him before she stomped her foot and landed on his head in a huff.

“Surely you must have gotten some practice at your mother’s clinic,” you said, as you recalled Vlad and Lisa’s conversation on Adrian once working there.

He grimaced at the mention. “Yes… well, I did want to earn some experience helping her there, but after a particularly nasty incident, mother thought it best if I remain at home in pursuit of my studies.”

“Would you mind telling me what happened?”

“It’s not an embarrassing memory,” he said. “It’s merely that… well, I had been helping mother for two weeks or so, and things had been going fine. It was not until this woman walked in, that things started to take a sour turn.”

Your eyebrows raise in piqued interest. “Woman?”

“She came in with an infected leg, a nasty thing, one look at it would tell you as much. I asked her what had happened, and she told me that she had received a cut while working one day, and instead of cleaning and wrapping the wound… she had tried cutting out the small infected tissue, which of course, only made it worse.”

“What?” you gasp, completely boggled.

“Exactly!” Adrian exclaimed. “I was completely dumbfounded after she told me this, and I asked her why she would do such a thing. She said that’s what her neighbors had told her to do, and that she had merely come to me for some sort of tonic to dull the pain until it healed.”

“At that point, it would have made the most sense to cut it off.” you commented.

“I was thinking the same thing, but she just kept insisting that it was not serious and it was going to go away on its own--!” he let out a frustrated growl as he told the story. “One thing led to another and, well, we got into a rather heated argument. I was this close to losing it before mother stepped in and took care of the situation.”

You looked up at Adrian, a small smirk on your face. “When you say “heated argument”, does that mean you said something to her? I don’t think Lisa would essentially kick you out for debating with a belligerent patient.”

Adrian went quiet, his gaze darting away from you as he cheeks flushed a very faint pink. “I… may or may not have called her an “insolent fool”, one who’s lucky she’s alive believing that kind of codswallop.”

You nodded, as giggles threatened to erupt from your mouth. “That’ll do it.”

Adrian looked back down at you, and that was game over, the two of you bursting into a fit of raucous laughter.

“Oh, please don’t tell me that those are the kinds of people I’ll be dealing with,” you said, as the both of you began the walk to your bedrooms.

“Thankfully those are the outliers. Most of the villagers that come in are very nice,” he said. “They were very grateful that my mother was there, for every other person they had come across claiming to be a physician was nothing more than a crazy old woman who promised that drinking a brew of leaves and acorns would cure their rhumatismes.”

“Lisa is such a wonderful and smart woman… I’m so grateful that she’s accepted me into your home.” you said, and gave him a bright smile. “I’ve only been here a day, but I feel so at home here… as though I’ve finally found my place.”

He returned your smile, and stopped as you find yourselves in front of your bedroom door. “You never answered my question.”

Your eyes flitted up to look at him, and they twinkled with mischief as you rocked back and forth on the soles of your feet. “You really want to learn more about magic?”

He nodded. “My father is a powerful sorcerer, and I think your teaching, combined with his advice, will be able to help me perform at my full potential.”

“Alright,” you replied, without missing a beat. “I will help you, but! You better make sure to dial that arrogance down a couple levels when we’re together. If you’re not willing to listen, you will learn nothing.”

“Understood,” he said and took a hold of your hand, lifting it to his lips so he could place a kiss along your knuckles. “Rest well, then. I will see you in the morning.”

Your heart hammered in your chest, hand hanging limply at your side as he disappeared down the dark hallway with Aria trailing silently behind him. You felt light on your feet as you danced over to your bed, feeling excited at the prospect of teaching the son of darkness all of your magical secrets.

Yeah, you thought. I’m definitely home.

author’s note: hehehehe SURPRISE!!! >:3 i got TWO chapters written today!! i hit such a good stride, that i thought: why not write two chapters? so that's what i did!! you get some more backstory in this one, and some cute moments with adrian. afterall, this IS an adrian/reader fic. oh! and shoutout to my friend morgan!! she's the one who came up with aria's name, who's based off of the fairy familiar in symphony of the night!! give her a follow @princessmorgan. she's super talented!! i hope you enjoyed this chapter lovelies!! i promise the next update won't come in 4 months ;w;

see you later!!

[going-dead]

To (Not) Kill a Ghost

Two ghosts raced across the sky of Amity Park, weaving in and out of buildings . Danny Phantom threw an attack but the offending ghost dodged out of the way. The ghost blindly threw an attack back not wanting to slow down by looking back. If someone who lived in Amity Park were to look up it wouldn’t be an unusual sight. Phantom chasing ghosts was an almost daily occurrence and the citizens were used to it. This particular ghost on the other hand was a monthly occurrence at most, there were many theories about the relation of the two ghosts, few said she wasn’t related to Phantom at all, some said she is his sister, or his cousin, his daughter. All they knew was the two ghosts were close and from their similar looks and outfits probably died together. Or at least that was the theory.

The young ghost stopped mid air and threw a snowball that hit Phantom directly in his face. Dani laughed clutching her stomach and kicking her feet in the air. Danny wiped the snow off his face revealing a face of joking anger. “Young lady you are so grounded.” he shook a finger at her.

“You’re not my real dad!” She joked sticking her tongue out.

Danny scoffed, “You have an almost 100% DNA match to me, I’m more of a father to you than most fathers are to their kids.” Danny trailed off, “buuuuuut if that’s how you want to be.” He gave a wicked grin and formed a giant ball of snow in his hands the size of his head and readied to throw it. Dani yelped and ducked out of the way barely missing it. She shot off again Danny chasing behind her laughing.

Dani tried to visit Danny once a month depending on where she was traveling. Even when they couldn’t see each other in person they would video chat or text each other for a whole day to simulate being there with each other for a day. After Dani was stabilized she stayed at Danny’s for a few days just so he could make sure the ecto-dejecto wasn’t just a temporary fix. She stayed in his room, invisible whenever his family came in. Well there was an incident with Jazz but she already knew about the whole halfa thing so a clone of her brother wasn’t too far fetched for her. Jazz was the first to ask about the logistics of the relationship between the original and the clone. They definitely were closer than cousins, but it didn’t feel like his relationship with Jazz. It was obviously platonic that wasn’t even a question. Eventually Jazz offered the father-daughter comparison, which they hesitantly agreed to. Dani didn’t call him dad but he was fine with it. It would be hard to explain to anyone who overheard and Dani called Vlad her dad before she found out the truth so she was uncomfortable using it, but they were glad to have a name for their bond.

After a while they headed to Fentonworks landing in Danny’s room. They both transformed and walked downstairs where Jazz was making dinner in the kitchen. “I was wondering when you two were getting back, so I figured i’d just start dinner.” Jazz looked up from the stove, “we’re having pancakes for dinner.” She placed a pancake on an already tall stack.

“Do they have chocolate chips in them?” Dani asked running up beside Jazz.

“Yes they do, but don’t get any ideas Danny. It’s only because Dani is here and she doesn’t get family meals often.” Jazz waved her spatula toward Danny.

Danny shrugged and opened the fridge rummaging around until he pulled out a can of whipped cream. “Oh no, whatever shall I do?” He deadpanned spraying the whipped cream into his mouth. Then walked over to Dani to do the same.

Jazz wrinkled her nose, “You guys are already getting chocolate chip pancakes you don’t need more sugar with it. It’s bad for your bodies you’re still growing.” Rolling her eyes when they both did it again. “You two can at least set the table, I did cook all the food after all.”

“Aye aye captain Jazz.” Danny saluted phasing through the cupboard doors grabbing the plates then placing them on the table. He lifted Dani up so she could reach the cups. Just like Danny when he was her -biological- age, she hadn’t hit her growth spurt yet. Though he didn’t really grow tall, just became less short.

“So Dani how long are you staying?” Jazz asked putting pancakes on everyone's plates. The two raven haired children drowned their pancakes in syrup then scarfed them down, adding whipped cream of course.

“Probably until tomorrow? Danny said your parents are out late today teaching a ghost safety class, but doesn’t know if they’ll be here tomorrow.” She replied in between bites.

“Yep, that’s why we’re spending as much time together today. And since it’s Friday I don’t need to go to bed early. Danny nodded.

Halfway through dinner both Danny and Dani shuddered and puffs of frost escaped their mouths. “Oh come on! I know I let everyone know you were coming, even Skulker agreed to leave me alone today who the hell is it?” Danny stood up angrily.

The ghosts and Danny came to an agreement a few months back that they were not to come through the portal when Dani was over, unless it was an emergency. They might not all like Danny but they seemed to respect family. The threats from Clockwork and Pandora probably helped as well.

“Just go before your food gets warm.” Jazz waved to two heros off.

“Dani stay here and finish dinner, I can handle whoever it is.” Danny transformed and flew off to find the offending ghost.

“Pssh yeah right, I never get to fight. I’m not giving up the chance to.” Dani flew after the older ghost.

Jazz shook her head and headed to the living room to see if the news had caught wind of the ghost yet. She hoped whoever it was just forgot Dani was over. Danny always seemed happy when she was over.

The two half ghosts flew above Amity Park scrying the streets and sky for the unknown ghost. A scream tore through the air. Danny imeadintly dove towards the source of the scream. He landed in the middle of a playground that was located in the center of the town. There was another scream right next to Danny’s ear. Danny flinched back then turned to his right. He saw a woman holding a small child that was probably around five. Danny quickly glanced them over looking for any big injuries, but both seemed fine.

The woman was just staring at Danny frozen in fear. “How...What?” The woman took a step back. Dani landed behind her, once the woman saw her she gave another yelp.

“You’re new around here aren’t you?” Danny raised a brow. “Dani can you take her somewhere safe. Mo- The Fentons are holding a ghost class at the school. They can explain the whole ghost town thing.” Danny was about to turn and leave but paused. “Can you toss me the thermos?” He opened his hands in a catching position.

“I don’t have it? We were eating and I never get to fight when i’m here why would I have it?”

“Crap, grab it on your way back then. I’m sure I’ll be able to hold off the ghost until you do.”

Dani grabbed the women's free hand who flinched away. “Don’t worry I don’t bite,” Dani smiled “I’m Dani by the way what’s your name?” She asked walking the women and her kid out of the park.

Now time to figure out who interrupted dinner, a pancake dinner nonetheless. Danny mused and floated above the tree line and almost immediately spotted the ghost. It was a hulking figure wearing armor and wielding slightly curved sword. “Hey dipwad who are you? You look like the accidental lovechild of the Fright Knight and Skulker.” Danny paused, “Ew, that’s an image I which I could burn out of my head. Forever.”

The unknown ghost turned towards Danny his eyes a blazing red he snarled showing sharpened teeth. “I am Eviscerate!”

“Oh boy what a creative name I could never possibly guess what you like to do. I bet you thought long and hard about it. But let me try to guess anyway, you want to tear my organs out? Display them in your personal collection perhaps?”

“Eviscerate does not collect for when I remove the organs they are too mangled to preserve. And I will take your organs and everyone else's as well.”

“Join the line bud, you’re behind my parents, Skulker, and the government. But if you go nicely back into the Ghost Zone I might be able to bump you up the list. Though still behind my parents, I think they actually have the legal rights to my organs when I die until I turn eighteen, how does that work in my situation?” Danny paused counting the names on his fingers, “Oh there’s also Valerie, but we have an on and off truce right now.” Geeze he really shouldn’t have this many people ready to dissect him at the drop of a hat.  

He was pulled out of his musings when a sword was swung at his chest. He barely dodged it and returned the attack with an ectoblast. It hit it’s mark but it didn’t even seem to stun his opponent. Dani better get back soon. He threw up a shield to intercept the next attack. Why couldn’t it have been the Box Ghost? Or even Skulker at least he knew what he was dealing with when it came to him. Danny let off another round of ectoblasts which managed to dent the armor and he could see a few drops of ectoplasm leaking out of the armor. God what did it take to actually hurt this guy? He couldn’t risk his ghostly wail there were too many buildings around and it didn’t exactly have a small area of effect.

“I got the thermos!” A young voice called out.

Danny turned towards Dani to make a grab for the thermos. That was a mistake, he left himself open for an attack and took his eyes off of his opponent. Eviscerate saw the opportunity and took it lunging at him stabbing him through the abdomen with his sword, lodging it in his gut. Danny could hear the faint yelling of his name through the ringing in his ears and saw the blue flash of the Fenton Thermos. Then he was falling and it all went black.

He woke up human and in searing pain, Dani struggling to carry him through the doors of his home. He managed to pry his eyes open and saw himself being carried into the living room. Jazz was rushing around to clear space on the floor clutching the spool of Fenton Fishing Wire. The TV was still on recapping the fight that just occurred.

“Wha-What happened?” he croaked out trying to lift his head once he was laid down.

“Don’t talk, and stay still.” Jazz snapped out, threading the fishing wire through a needle. “You got stabbed, Dani trapped the ghost in the thermos and carried you here. You lost a lot of blood.”

“I can feel that, I’m tired.” His eyes drooped threatening to close.

“Nevermind what I said about not talking Dani keep him talking! Don’t fall asleep.” Jazz barked out. She cut open his shirt wincing as she had to cut his binder as well. It was his favorite, but that didn’t really matter when he was bleeding out.

“Come on you can’t give up,” Dani cried. “Here would I go? Who would I talk to about my travels? You can’t leave me!” Dani too was now human.

“I won’t leave you” he coughed out, “I’d never do that.”

The wound in Danny’s abdomen was clotting with a strange mixture of blood and ectoplasm. Jazz had cleaned the wound as much as possible and was starting the stitches her her hands shaking. Danny’s veins were slightly glowing green with ectoplasm his human and ghost halves doing their damnedest to keep themselves (mostly) alive.

Dani took up pacing back and forth while Jazz worked to stay out of her way. Stress and worry causing her powers to act up making her body flicker in and out of visibility. Rambling on and on trying to keep Danny awake. Jazz was about halfway across the wound when the tense air and senseless rambling was interrupted.

“Jazzy-pants, Danny-boy!” Jack Fenton’s voice called out as he turned the kitchen light on. Giving the living room a dim light. Danny, now stable enough to move around a bit, lifted his head and shared a look with Jazz and Dani, who’s eyes were now reflecting in the dim light, and he could only assume his were doing the same. All three kids came to the conclusion there was no way to move Danny mid stitch without making the wound worse, and no way to reasonably excuse the current situation.

Danny rest his head back on the ground all three waiting on bated breath. “What the-?” Maddie Fenton started turning the living room light on. She was met with the sight of a strangely familiar looking young girl. But that was quickly pushed into the back of her mind when she saw Jazz, holding a needle and- was that the Fenton Fishing Wire? Crouched over a blood and ectoplasm covered Danny, with a huge gash in his stomach. The fact the ectoplasm seemed to be coming from Danny only made her concern grow.

“Heya Mom,” Danny groaned, “not exactly how I imagen-” he hissed in pain as he drew a deep breath, “how I imagined you finding out”

Jack was now standing beside Maddie. “Find out what sweetie?” She asked apprehensively.

The strange girl placed herself in front of of Jazz and Danny almost looking like she was ready to fight the two scientists. “We can explain when Danny is not bleeding out!” Jazz snapped. “Just… just go sit in the kitchen or go upstairs for now, okay?”

“But…” Jack protested.

“GO!” Jazz yelled. Her parents hesitated but complied glancing back before exiting the room.

Once the wound was closed up Danny’s healing factor kicked into full gear. He was still in loads of pain but he was able to be moved to the couch with a blanket draped over him and his head propped up with a pillow. “You can bring them in now.”

“Are you sure Danny? You don’t have to do this.”

“It had to happen eventually Jazz.”

She sighed and walked towards the kitchen. Dani took a seat at Danny’s feet her hands in the pocket of her hoodie. Danny’s eyes were darting towards the kitchen and then over to Dani. “If this goes wrong just leave, don’t worry about me okay Dani? Just stop by Sam’s or Tucker’s tell them what happened then get as far away from here as you can.”

“What? No! You almost died, I’d take you with me or I won’t leave.”

“ Yes, you will Danielle.” He said as stern as he could.

“No. I. Won’t. Dad.”  

Jazz cleared her throat standing a few steps away with Jack and Maddie looking confused. Danny slowly sat up, keeping the blanket over his chest, so he could face his parents.

“I suppose I should start from the beginning huh?” Danny started. “You remember when I told you the ghost portal gave me a small shock when it turned on? Well that may have been a small understatement.” He paused trying to think of the best way to explain it. “Well it’d be easier to just show you.” Jazz started to protest but Danny rose a hand. “It’s fine, I heal faster like that anyway.”

“Honey what are you-” Maddie was cut off as two rings of light ran up and down  her sons body replacing jeans and bare torso with a black and white hazmat suit, ice blue eyes with a toxic growing green, and the black hair she ran her hands through when he was younger and scared replaced with an ethereal ghastly white. In the place of her son was Danny Phantom. Jack looked frozen and Maddie brought her hand to her mouth. “The ghost portal killed you? We killed you? You’ve been a ghost this whole time?”

“Well...not exactly. I’m half ghost, the ghosts call me a halfa. Half a human, half a ghost. I still need to breathe and I still have a heartbeat, I just have a few… extra things as well.” Jack looked grief stricken, “We tried to kill you. I tried to kill you. I talked about how I would tear you apart right in front of you at the dinner table! You call yourself Danny Phantom for fucks sake, Phantom, Fenton. How could we be so blind.”

“Hey there are kids present dad!” Jazz pointed at Dani.

“Wait you’ve been fighting ghosts this whole time, no wonder you don’t get any homework done. You...fight...ghosts. Young man! You were stabbed what are you doing in our living room and not at a hospital? Jazz isn’t a doctor!” Maddie ran to Danny’s side, the sudden movement made Dani look like she was ready to throw punches any moment.

“Well hospitals don’t really know how to treat half ghosts.” Danny gave a small chuckle. “Plus the Fenton Fishing Wire works a lot better than normal stitches, it stays together in both forms so…”

“Well those stitches are very sloppy. Come on Jack help me bring him down to the lab.”

At that statement Dani practically shoved Maddie back and placed herself between her and Danny. “I won’t let you take him!” She snarled her eyes flashing green.

“What do you think I’m going to- no wait who even are you?” Maddie asked. “And why did you call my son ‘dad’?”

“Oh she’s my clone. We figured it was the most fitting relationship title.” Danny shrugged a shoulder.

Maddie looked like she wanted to ask more but saved the questions for later.  “Anyway if we don’t redo those stitches. It’ll get infected, or at best just leave a really bad scar. And the lab has better supplies than a D.I.Y. first AID kit. Come on Jack help me move him gently.”

“You’re going to have to turn human again sweetie. I need to see how bad the wound is internally.” Maddie said once Danny was set on the lab table. He complied groaning as his organs were once more needed. Maddie cut the stitches open unthreading the wire used. “I’m going to have to tug at the skin a bit okay? I need to see if anything vital was punctured.” She slowly pried open the gash wincing at her sons gasps of pain. She glanced over at Jack, “Grab the suture needles and the fishing wire.” As she looked at the exposed intestine she noticed that it was already mostly healed despite being stabbed only a short time ago. The intestine seemed to be faintly green, probably because of the ectoplasm that seemed be be mixed with his blood. She wondered the ratio of blood and ectoplasm and if it was different in both forms. But right now it was her job to fix up her son. Everything else could wait until later.

[ladylynse]

"My BOIS just won!" -quoted from a random guy at the gym I just overheard about the Patriots vs Jags game. ~Nym

You said Secret Quartet or American Dragon, Nym, and I went with Secret Quartet with an extra helping of (read: more characters from) AD:JL. Enjoy!

Victory: [FF | AO3] It’s more than just a game, in the end, but the only way to come out ahead is to rely on people who are practically strangers.

“My BOIS just won!” Trixie exclaimed, punching the air. Sheturned to Jazz, grinning and holding out a hand. “Pay up, Smarty Pants.”

Jazz huffed, crossing her arms. She hadn’t needed to squintinto the sunlight to see what Jake and Randy had pulled. “They were cheating.You cannot tell me that wasn’t cheating.”

“My homeboy can’t be cheating if there ain’t no rulesagainst it,” Trixie countered. “Back me up here, Haley.”

Jake’s little sister bit her lip. “Technically—”

“Technically?” Jazz interrupted. “Technically, she’s right? Is thatwhat you’re going to say? Really?” She rolled her eyes. “I shouldn’t haveagreed to let you be the referee.”

“She’s got better eyes than the rest of us,” Spud pointedout. “Wasn’t that what you said earlier?”

“And anyway, that totally wasn’t planned, so it wasn’tcheating.” Howard crumpled up the empty bag of chips and shoved it into hispocket. “Planning ain’t Randy’s style. So just go ahead and admit that we won.Randy and Jake totally wonked Team Halloween’s cheese.”

Jazz sighed, knowing she was outnumbered here. She was Danny’sonly representative in their little audience, and Adrien had come alone unlessyou counted Plagg. “They aren’t Team Halloween,” she muttered.

“Um, hello? Ghost? Black cat?” Trixie was smirking. “Theysure are. You shoulda known they couldn’t stand up against a dragon and aninja.”

Jazz was about to try to retaliate again when thecontestants of their little contest showed up. Adrien’s hair was singed and theleft shoulder of Danny’s suit had been burned away, and Randy was missing hisscarf, but no one looked too worse for the wear. “Everyone okay?” she asked,just to be sure.

“That was cheating,” Danny complained as he shot a pointedlook at Randy. Which meant everyone wasfine or someone would have said something immediately.

Jazz relaxed, and she noticed the others do so as well. Thepurpose of this little test had never been to beat anyone up, just to test outtheir abilities on a makeshift magical obstacle course as they raced around theisland. They’d paired into twos to force them to be mindful of a partner—no onewon until both teammates had crossed the finished line—and to give them backupwhen they came across something more atypical for them. It had been a way ofkeeping everyone on their toes. They might not always get a chance to fighttogether, and being able to fight well in different units was important.

It had devolved into a full-out two-on-two.

Taking bets had been Fu’s idea, even though the magicalguardian hadn’t been around to witness the match.

Jazz should have known better than to agree. Really, sheshould have. But Danny had been all over it, confident in his abilities, and she’dwatched Adrien fight as Chat Noir earlier and knew that he could hold his own,no matter what the course threw at them.

But it wasn’t the course that had gotten them in the end.

Randy pulled off his mask, his ninja suit disappearing asquickly as Jake had dragoned down. “Not our fault you forgot we both had firepowers.”

Adrien snorted and pulled some camembert out of his bag tofeed Plagg. “I didn’t know you could do that and control the earth at the same time.”

Randy grinned. “I’ve gotten better at that. The Sandjas havesaved my butt more than once.”

“No lie there.”

“Hey!” Randyreached out to punch Howard in the arm. “I have saved you countless times.”

“And I have saved youand your sorry little secret just as many.”

“Not really.”

“You believe what you need to believe, Cunningham.”

“Regardless,” interjected Jazz, “the terms of the agreementwere just to finish the course first, notattack the opposing team.”

“But not attacking the other team wasn’t explicitly stated,”Trixie cut in, “so Jake and Randy are in the clear. Haley said so, and she’sref. Besides, with some of these guys, you need to play a bit dirty to getahead.”

“Gee, thanks,” Danny muttered. “You remember that when I icethese guys next time around.”

“They do have a point,” agreed Adrien mildly. “I don’t mindconceding this round.” The others looked surprised, and then he grinned andadded, “Just means we’ll spook them next time because they don’t know whatother tricks this cat still has in the bag.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Jake asked. “I mean, you have amagic cat thing, and that’s, like, it, yo. That ain’t gonna beat all the differentkinds of magic I can do.”

“I find that insulting.” Plagg swallowed his cheese andzipped up to Jake’s eye level. “For one, I’m a kwami, which you should know ifyou claim to be a guardian of the magical world. For another, you haven’t evenseen him use Cataclysm yet, and dragon eyes or not, we could take you in thedark.”

“Yeah, but seeing in the dark—”

“Plagg’s older than anyone else here.” Adrien seemed to knowwhat the kwami was getting at, even if no one else did. “Fu might have beenaround a while, but Plagg’s still got millennia on him. Do you really want todiscount him that easily?”

“We’re fighting you,not Plagg,” countered Randy. “And, anyway, the Nomicon’s got a whole lot ofinformation—”

“And I could always just go ask someone in the Ghost Zone ifI need to know anything, especially since Cujo doesn’t mind taking messages forme.”

“Well, Gramps—”

Jazz rolled her eyes and left the boys to their fighting.Trixie and Spud seemed too interested in it to move, but Haley joined her onthe sandy beach a few metres away from them. “You still don’t think this is agood idea?” she asked quietly.

Jazz bit her lip. “I think this still smells like a setup,”she confessed. “I mean, everyone getting a mysterious message at the same time?When it still explains nothing? I expect that from Clockwork, and maybe Randythinks it’s par for the course from the Nomicon, but shouldn’t Jake questionthe Dragon Council about something like this, when he hasn’t had anyinteraction with anyone before? Or Adrien, no matter what ‘secret mission’ heapparently received from his Guardian? He’s got a partner back in Paris, forcrying out loud.”

“He also said this isn’t the first time one of them has beenpulled for a secret mission,” Haley reminded her. “And the Dragon Council will rarelyshow all their cards if they can help it. That’s one of the reasons CouncillorChang could do as much as she did.” Seeing Jazz’s questioning look, Haleyadded, “Long story. Let’s just say I learned not to envy Jake too much forbeing the American Dragon.”

Jazz drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. “Sothis doesn’t feel off to you? At all? We’re just a bunch of kids. If theyreally expect us to fight, shouldn’t they at least tell us what we’re going upagainst?”

“Maybe they think it’s safer if we don’t know all thedetails.”

Jazz snorted. “Ignorance in battle is hardly a good thing.More likely, they don’t know the details themselves. Whoever’s really behind this,I mean. Because I highly doubt Clockwork, the Nomicon, the Dragon Council, andthe Guardian all suddenly realized how very real this threat apparently is anddecided to throw us all into this together.” She sighed. “We should be inschool. Instead, my parents think Danny and I are off getting a greateducational experience courtesy of Vlad Masters, and there’s no telling howlong that lie will hold.”

“Mom’s covering for us,” Haley said. “Dad won’t suspectanything. And Adrien said that his father might not even notice if we deal withthis quickly enough.”

Jazz raised her eyebrows and looked at Haley. “He thinks hisfather won’t notice that he left the country? Left the continent?”

Haley shrugged. “Something about a busy schedule and themrarely seeing each other, and he fixed something with the people he usuallydoes see on a regular basis. And his family’s rich.”

“Still.”

“He framed it as some fashion thing. Has to do a shoot whenwe get back to the NYC.” Haley blew out a breath. “You guys should feelhonoured, really. Randy being the Ninja, I could see him maybe wrangling an invitationto Draco Island, but the rest of you? You’ll be lucky if they don’t try toerase your memories after this.”

Jazz didn’t want to think about that possibility, especiallywhen Haley talked about it so blithely. “You don’t think this is dangerous, allof us leaving? Adrien left Ladybug in Paris, we’re covered in Amity Park, andapparently there is no shortage of dragons in New York City, but who does Randyhave in Norrisville?”

“A robot.” At Jazz’s incredulous look, Haley added, “Whichis why Sun—my dragon master—will be running out there from time to time tocheck on things until we get back.”

“Until they get back, you mean.” Jazz had no illusions abouthow long she’d be allowed to tag along. “Once this starts, whatever it is….They’ll be on their own.”

“They won’t be on their own. They’ll have each other. They’llwin.”

“Teamwork doesn’t exactly ensure victory. We don’t even know….”Jazz hated to bring this up to someone so young, but it had been preying on hermind since yesterday, when all this had started. It felt like it had beenmonths ago now. “We don’t even know if they’ll all get through this.”

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? So they can train andlearn each other’s skills? They won’t ever win if they don’t know themselves.”

“They won’t win if they don’t know who they’re really fighting!”

“They will.”

“How can you be so confident?”

Haley lay down so that she was staring up at the cloudlesssky above them. “Because that’s how this works. Someone sent that message tothe others or something happened that made them realize what was coming, evenif they don’t know the details yet. That’s why everyone’s here. Our informationmight come slowly, but even if we’re piecing it together from differentsources, it’ll come. And Jake’s getting better about waiting before diving intoa fight. They won’t be going into this blind. They’ll know their enemy as wellas they know themselves by the time this is through.”

“‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory willnot stand in doubt,’” quoted Jazz. “‘If you know Heaven and know Earth, you maymake your victory complete.’”

She looked over to see Haley smiling. “That’s right. Ifigure your brother has Heaven covered, with the ghost thing, and what he doesn’t,Jake’ll be able to figure out to make sure they have clear skies. And Randy andAdrien will know the lay of the land or be able to shape it to fit their needs.They’re going to be unstoppable.” Haley sat up, glanced behind her, and added, “Assumingthey ever stop arguing.”

Jazz laughed, finally feeling hopeful again, and climbed toher feet with Haley to go rejoin the others.

(see more fics)

[theranskahovs]

A Proposition *Part 2*

Request: Babe!!! I just read that fic where the reader is trying to kill vlad by pretending to be a stripper and its. so. GOOD!!! Can you please write a part 2?? where reader is eventually Piotr’s gf or something.. 🌹  Also adding: ‘•Vladimir would most likely scare you into submission honestly. He doesn’t care if you’re bratty or not, he’s going to punish you either way.’ well that’s fucking hot😳 could you maybe write a one shot about this pretty pretty please?  Warnings: intense smut, of course. swearing.  Word Count: a fucking novella 4k A/N: it doesn’t end as reader being Piotr’s gf, so sorry if that bothers anyone. but I did make it so you can easily tell reader prefers Piotr over Vladimir, so maybe if there’s ever more to this it can easily lead to that. 

Part One 

It’d been over a month since you’d seen them both. It was a relief, you’d let yourself hope they forgot about your deal. And yet, you still waited anxiously for Piotr and Vladimir to come back. 

That’s not to say you could’ve forgotten about them, though, no. Exactly a week after your encounter with the Russians at the club, you received the $10,000 you were promised. When you were told they’d been keeping tabs on you, you expected them to get your phone number, maybe shoot you a text of Howdy! We’ve got your thousands of dollars for not killing our boss and then fucking him! Get it when you have time! But no, you got no text, email, fax, carrier pigeon. When you came home exactly 7 days later after the incident, you found a bag of money on your kitchen island. 

When you saw the money, you felt a chill go down your spine. You thoroughly inspected your apartment after, knowing the kind of people you were dealing with. Hell, you even stayed at your friend’s for the next few days, that’s how shaken up you were. 

And yet, you still wanted to see them again. You told yourself it was because of the money Vladimir promised you’d make from each of your encounters, and you let yourself believe that. But truly, you would’ve wanted to be with them again, even if there was no money involved. Whether it had anything to do with the way Vladimir was finally an equal match for you in terms of attitude and boldness, or the way Piotr fucked you so well, you couldn’t tell.

By now, it’d been over a month since you’d seen them, but you knew they were always watching. At first, it wasn’t as obvious as a pile of money on your counter. But you knew they were there, at first by intuition, then by glimpses on the street and around your apartment. To an untrained eye, it would’ve gone unnoticed, but you knew the men that seemed to be watching you as you turned your back had too many strange tattoos and telltale accents. 

You were grateful they were watching out for you. They knew your original employer had to be angry enough to kill you since you didn’t keep your promise to finish Vladimir off a handful of Fridays ago. You definitely finished him in another way, you think to yourself with a huff of laughter. 

Today was the first day you’d mostly pushed it out of your mind, instead spending your day doing errands and buying groceries (with the money you made. You almost felt proud at having earned it so easily, doing something you’d normally do for free. It felt empowering, to say the least). 

So when you finished your errands, lugging your bags of groceries and purse into your apartment, all that was on your mind was a hot shower and Netflix. Those plans vanished when you stepped in the threshold, knowing something wasn’t right.

Hesitantly, you grab the knife you keep in the potted plant by your door, gripping the familiar handle in your palm. Cautiously, you enter your living room. You’re greeted by Piotr smoking a cigarette on your couch and Vladimir sampling the alcohol in your cupboards. 

“Glad you could finally make it,” Piotr greets with a chuckle, watching intently as you try to appear calm. 

You set your knife on the kitchen island, next to the glass of whatever Vladimir is drinking. Vladimir pulls you into his side with one arm, pressing himself close to you. “Hello, princess.” 

You don’t say anything, just take his glass out of his hand and down the remaining few sips; you knew you’d need it to last the night. He chuckles, taking the glass back from you when you’re done and putting it down. “Not happy to see us?” He asks, hand stroking your side. 

You are, you’re so incredibly happy to see them, but you’re determined not to show it. He accepts your silence and leans down to kiss you. You pull away, placing a hand on his chest. “Wait, how much?”

“What?” He asks, confused.

“How much,” you repeat. “How much are you paying me?”

He understands what you mean instantly, and laughs. He leans back against the island, still stroking your side. “How much do you want?”

“Depends on how high you’re willing to go,” you say with a smile, knowing you’ve got to get the most money out of him.

“We will not get anywhere like this,” he tells you.

“Alright. Then I want $2000,” you tell him. 

Piotr whistles and Vladimir raises his eyebrows at you. “Bit much, no?” 

“It was $10,000 last time. I’d say you’re getting a hell of a discount.”

“You were trying to kill me last time,” he points out.

“I can try again if you like. Since it seems to be a kink of yours?” You smirk at him, knowing he’s going to give you what you’re asking for.

He scoffs, “$2000 it is, then.”

“Yay!” You exclaim happily as he leans down to kiss you quickly before you can pull back again, holding you tight to him as the taste of liquor mingles between your lips. 

He starts walking you backward, to where your bedroom is (you assume he already knows your apartment’s floorplan, which is slightly unsettling, but you try to forget that and think instead about getting your 2000 dollars). He decides it’s too clumsy walking with you, so he picks you up as if you’re a sack of feathers and continues walking. 

He breaks your kiss to nod his head towards your room, for Piotr to follow. “Grab her knife, we will be needing it.” 

“What-” You begin to protest, but he presses his lips against yours, a trace of a sinister smile on his face. 

Your hands reach for his spiked up hair, tugging roughly and reveling in the hiss Vladimir emits. He pulls your hair just as roughly, growling at you, “No. We are in charge.”

You tilt your head at him, a challenging smile on your lips. “Is that the character I’m being paid to play for the night? Someone submissive?” 

Vladimir readjusts you in his arms as he kicks open your bedroom door. Piotr speaks up from behind him, “Soon you won’t be playing part, kitten.”

Vladimir drops you at the edge of your bed, and you bounce slightly on the mattress. You lean up on your elbows, waiting for what’s about to come, too timid to ask. 

You’re suddenly all too aware of the sweatpants and tie-dye t-shirt you have on from your day of running errands. You wished they would’ve come on a better day when your hair in its messy bun wasn’t so tangled, and your half-hearted attempt at makeup wasn’t so obvious. 

Vladimir makes eye contact with Piotr, nodding at him. Piotr grins, striding to the edge of the bed, like a predator ready to pounce on prey. Your heart jumps in anticipation as he holds up your knife, watching it glint in the faint lamplight. 

Once he’s sure your gaze is on the knife, he flips it in the air and catches it, spinning it gracefully around his fingers. He leans over you, kissing you too delicately, and it puts you on guard. A second later you feel a tug on your shirt, and hear the rip of the cotton as your knife meets the material. 

Your stomach is exposed to the air, and both men seem to drink in the new expanse of skin that’s been revealed to them. Vladimir chuckles at your plain bra, “You should buy lingerie with the money.” 

You scoff at him, defensive, “I was doing errands! It’s not like you warned me you were coming.”

Piotr hovers over you, knife pressed flat against your chest. “I hope you are not arguing.” He lowers his voice conspiratorially, “He hates that.”

You grit your teeth, tempted to fight back. You just shake your head, wanting him to continue on with whatever plan has him so excited. “Good,” he confirms, pulling the ripped shirt off your frame. When he’s done he tosses it at Vladimir’s head with a laugh, leaning down to give you a kiss. 

He kisses you deeply, hands cupping your face. The knife is in one of his hands, and it’s tilted away from you, but it’s still so close to your features that you want to shrink away from it. You’re almost worried he’ll forget it’s there, but he wouldn’t, would he?

His thumb strokes your jawline and your legs come off the bed, wrapping around his torso where he’s hovering over you. He smirks into the kiss as you pull him closer to you.

“Alright,” Vladimir huffs out, and Piotr lifts himself off of you to look at Vladimir. He doesn’t look happy; he’s scowling, and if you were correct, jealous? Piotr holds his hands up in mock surrender, rolling off to your side to lie next to you. 

Vladimir kneels at the end of your bed, eyeing you, deciding what he wants to do with you first. He slips your sweats off your legs, almost like you’re a ragdoll. “Hand me that,” he grunts at Piotr.

When he gets the knife in his possession he brings it to your chest with such carelessness you’re terrified he’s going to stab you, but he just lifts the middle of your bra up in the front between the cups and cuts right through it. He helps you slide it off your shoulders and tosses it to the side somewhere.

“He has not figured out how to get them off with his hands yet,” Piotr whispers to you, and you giggle. Your laugh trails off when you see the angry glare that Vladimir is directing at Piotr. 

Vladimir’s hands go straight to your chest, where they knead and grope roughly at your exposed breasts. When he leans down to kiss you his stubble scrapes at your skin, and he bites your lip. You didn’t expect or want him to be gentle, but it’s a stark contrast between the two men (if you could even call Piotr “gentle”). 

He starts to kiss a path down your neck, biting and nipping at all the skin he can. He kisses all the way down to the seam of your underwear. You know what he’s going to do, and he smiles up at you, wanting you to challenge him. 

But you ignore him, staying silent as Piotr leans over to kiss you again, rolling your nipple between his fingers. As he’s doing this, Vladimir cuts your underwear off. 

You’re completely exposed to them now, and it makes you want to shy away from their burning gazes. You’re holding your breath, waiting for someone to do something to take this further. 

It unsurprisingly turns out to be Vladimir, who picks a scarf off your floor with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He ties it around you, and for good measure finds some similar garments to tie your hands to the headboard with. 

“Makes it more fun, does it not?” Piotr asks, slipping his shirt over his head, and completely pulling the scarf over your eyes. 

“Let’s play a game,” Vladimir suggests. “You have to guess which one of us is touching you. If you win, you get rewarded. If not, you get punished.”

You know you can’t do anything but nod, so that’s what you do. You feel them shuffling around on the bed, trying to confuse you. Your senses are in overdrive, trying to make up for your loss of sight by listening to any signs that will tell them apart.

The first thing you feel is the cold metal of your knife, it goes from your neck to your breast, swirling around your nipple. From there it trails down your side, leaving goosebumps in its path. Then it scratches you, leaving you to jerk away in uncertain fear as it continues down your body, stopping between your legs. You know there’s got to be your wetness on it, and it has you smirking at the thought that one of the boys is probably licking it off, tasting you.

There are a couple seconds of nothing, giving you time to think about who it was. Piotr is more skilled with the knife- it felt like a steady hand. And Vladimir wouldn’t have simply scratched me, he would’ve wanted to see blood. 

“It was Piotr,” you say surely. 

“Good job, kitten,” Piotr says, pecking you on the lips. 

There’s more shuffling, and you know they’re just doing it for show. There are fingers moving from your stomach up to your neck, and from there a hand is pressed against the base of your neck. He’s pushing up slightly so it’s hard to breathe, and when you’re seized with fear you instantly know it’s Vladimir. Of course, he wants nothing less than a reaction out of you, and a terrified one at that.

“That’s Vladimir,” you say, taking in a large breath of air, and simultaneously missing the imposing weight of his hand on your throat.

The man in question simply grunts in response, giving your breast a squeeze as it falls silent again. Other than a wailing siren down on the street below, the only sound in the room is your anticipative breaths and the rustle of your comforter.

The next touch you feel is a hand going up the side of your leg, and someone is pressing open-mouthed kisses up the inside of your thigh, stopping when they’re at the apex of your legs.

“Piotr,” you groan, knowing he would’ve wanted to tease you. You also didn’t feel Vladimir’s stubble on your thighs (you won’t admit that you really want to, either). 

“Yeah,” he confirms, letting it fall silent for Vladimir to announce the verdict. 

“Good girl,” he starts off. “You did perfectly, but we find it more entertaining to punish you anyway.” You can’t see his face, but you know there’s a proud smirk on it; he always feels the need to be in control, and right now he knows he is.

“Vladimir-” You start to protest, hands pulling at the surprisingly tight knot Piotr tied between your scarf and the headboard. You feel his hand reach back up to your neck, tightening once, quickly, and it’s gone before you know it. 

You feel shuffling on the bed, knowing Vladimir gave Piotr a silent command. Someone is between your legs, spreading them further apart. Judging by the lack of harshness, you assume it’s the latter. 

Like before, he presses wet kisses up your thigh, laying a heavy hand on your hip and massaging it. His mouth meets where you want it most, tongue tentatively raking through your wet folds and swirling around your clit- it feels divine. 

You sigh, trying to tangle your fingers in his hair, but remember the bound predicament your wrists are in. His tongue circles your entrance, and then there are two fingers inside of you. You press your hips closer to him and are met with resistance.

“Don’t move too much,” Vladimir warns, and you feel the knife pressed against your lower chest.

Piotr’s arm drapes across your hips, holding you down as you try your hardest not to squirm too much. You don’t know if he’s simply trying to hold you down for his own benefit or to keep you away from Vladimir’s knife, but either way, it’s helpful. 

Piotr’s fingers push all the way in, his knuckles awkwardly bumping you. You’re about to make a smartass comment about how it doesn’t even feel that good, and then he’s curling his fingers in addition to sucking on your clit and oh, it definitely does.

“Are you going to cum for me, baby?” Piotr asks. His gruff voice has you wanting to bring is face back to where it was before. 

You’re met with pain in two separate areas as your wrists tug uselessly against the scarves, leaving you groaning in frustration. Piotr laughs softly at your desperation, returning his mouth to your folds. Your back arches as he repeatedly curls his fingers and his free hand tries to push your hips back down on the bed. 

He’s a second too late because the next thing you feel is the knife slicing into you just below your breast. It’s too deep to feel pleasurable for you, but you know Vladimir’s getting hard at the way you jerk away from the knife in surprised pain and fear.

Piotr clucks his tongue at you as if to say, You were warned, and I tried to stop you. You suck in a sharp breath as Vladimir wipes the drops of blood gathering along the cut, knowing he’s most likely just smearing it on your skin and it isn’t helping at all.

“Don’t you ever listen?” Vladimir growls at you, and you flinch as his hand curls around your throat. 

Your face burns in anger at not being able to argue with him. You simply shake your head, unable to speak. “Piotr, move,” Vladimir huffs impatiently. 

“She’s about to cum, Vlad,” Piotr insists, fingers not stilling inside you. His other hand squeezes your thigh, and he feels it shake as he continues his ministrations. 

“I don’t care,” Vladimir states firmly. “She’s being punished, remember?”

Piotr doesn’t say anything further, and you’re met with a feeling of aching emptiness where his fingers were seconds before. You feel the weight leave the bed as Piotr moves to make room for Vladimir and Vladimir stands up to take his pants off. 

You hear the clink of his belt as he undoes it and kicks his pants aside. The bed dips as he hovers above you. He teases you by running his tip along your entrance and against your clit, leaving you to whisper a choked-off, “Please.”

“That’s not good enough,” he says, and you’re fed up with his superior attitude. 

“Vladimir, I need you inside me. Please,” you repeat.

There are a few seconds of silence and you wait in agony, thighs pressed together in an attempt to put pressure back on your clit. “Open,” he commands, tapping at your thighs.

You obediently open your legs, and he instantly pushes into you roughly, not giving you a second to adjust. You gasp in shock at the abrupt sensation. It’s slightly painful as he instantly starts thrusting, not caring if you’re stretched out enough. As long as it feels good to him, right? You think angrily. 

His hand comes to your waist, gripping roughly at your skin as he sets a hard and fast pace. Your mouth falls open slightly as he hits the spot deep inside you with every thrust. 

You moan unashamedly and hear it bounce off the walls. Vladimir’s groans are brewing deep in his chest. Vladimir’s hand returns to your throat, long fingers digging into your skin as your head tilts back in pleasure. 

The next time you moan, the pressure on your throat makes it sound more like a choked off whimper. You hear Piotr’s deep groan a few feet away, and you know he’s started jerking off as he watches Vladimir fuck you ruthlessly. 

You can feel Vladimir’s thrusts start to get sloppy as he continues his rough treatment of you after a while. His hand tightens around your throat so much that sucking in a breath has become a challenge. As soon as you see white spots bloom behind your closed eyes, he removes his hand.

He pulls out of you, and the emptiness is enough for you to start begging again. A second later he cums on your stomach and breasts, the warmth just sitting there as Vladimir gets off you, moving off the bed. 

The bed dips again as Piotr takes his place between your legs. “Hi, kitten,” he greets quietly in your ear. His hand runs up your side as he enters you, his pace only slightly gentler than Vladimir’s. Your legs instinctually wrap around his waist, dragging him closer to you so he presses in deeper. His other hand cups your jaw, and you flinch, expecting him to tighten his hand around your sensitive neck. 

He shushes you, instead bringing his fingers to tangle in your hair. He tugs, bringing your mouth to his. His lips coax yours open, and his tongue dips into your mouth.

He breaks away to suck a mark just below your jaw, and you let out a sigh at the feeling of his lips on your pulse point. His thumb reaches down between your bodies and circles around your clit, matching the quick pace he’s set. 

His tongue drags over the mark he’s sucked onto your pulse point and his nose nudges against the shell of your ear. “You going to cum for me this time, baby?” He asks with a teasing lilt in his voice. 

You finally speak up for the first time in almost a half hour. “Mmm, if you keep fucking me like this,” you reply. 

He laughs low in your ear, “I plan on it.” He kisses you deeply, hand heavy on your hip, and you arch into his touch.

His thumb continues his motions on your sensitive clit, and you let out a long moan of his name, only causing him to increase his efforts to get you to orgasm.

There’s a coiling sense of tingling anticipation burning deep in your stomach, and each thrust of Piotr’s hips and circle of his thumb brings it closer and closer. “C’mon,” Piotr encourages, feeling you tighten around him. “Good girl,” he praises in a grunt.

You let out a final moan, head tilting back as it feels like you’re in a freefall of pleasure, little surges of heat shooting through you. You take a couple minutes just to calm your thoughts and try to get your breath back. 

When you’re finally able to focus on the present again, it’s because Piotr is coming inside you, warmth filling you. He stays above you for a minute, both of your breaths coming fast and shallow. 

He pulls out, and before he goes to clean up he pulls the scarf from your eyes, grinning at your blissed-out smile. He comes back a second later with his boxers back on and a warm washcloth from your bathroom. 

He unties your wrists, and you rub at the red marks you brought upon yourself. He wipes the blood off from the cut Vladimir gave you, furrowing his brows when he realizes how deep it is. You smile at him, you’ve had worse.

He wipes your stomach and chest off, and then between your legs. Your face flushes as you realize how intimate it is that’s he’s cleaning you up.  

“Hurry up,” Vladimir tells Piotr.

“Hang on,” Piotr tells him. 

“Piotr,” Vladimir snaps.

Piotr turns to him, yelling something in Russian. “You were too rough with her, give her a minute.” 

Vladimir scoffs and leaves the room since he’s already fully dressed. You assume he’s going to help himself to more alcohol while he waits for Piotr. 

“I’m fine,” you assure Piotr softly. He nods, but it looks like he doesn’t believe you as he wipes more blood off the cut, and eyes the bruises on your throat that you suspect are already forming. 

He stands up, putting his clothes back on. You sit up, and he tosses your shirt and underwear to you, and you slip them on. It’s suddenly too silent and you don’t know what to say, or if you should say anything at all.

You choose instead to look out your window, and you notice it’s already gotten dark. Lights are still on in every single building you can see. 

“Here,” you’re a bit surprised to hear Piotr speak again, and it startles you. You turn your gaze away from the skyline outside. He’s holding out your sweats, a hand resting on your thigh. 

You take them from him with a small smile. “Goodbye,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to your lips before you can react, surprising you further.

He’s already out of your bedroom by the time you murmur, “Goodbye.”

[snaurus]

UPDATE: Prescription (1/2)

Pairings: None Ratings: T  Categories: Angst/Friendship/Humor Warnings: Blood, Illness, Violence

Maybe getting sick was just the thing Noctis needed.

I’m doing something a little different this time around. Since this story turned into an absolute beast and spanned over twenty pages, I split it in half to make it a tad easier for @glyphenthusiast to edit. That said, I want to archive it when it’s completed, so until then I’ll be posting the parts here on my writing blog and posting the finished version on my AO3 account later! Lucky for my Tumblr followers, right?

Also, sick!Noct anon from awhile ago, if you’re still following this blog here’s that story I was foreshadowing for you! Although, this fic turned into an excuse to write my chocobo!headcanons for the bros and to explore certain aspects of Noctis’ character that weren’t really touched on in the game. Still, I hope this will appease the whump lovers in each of us. :’)

"Do you see anything?" Noctis shouted. He'd cupped both hands around his mouth so Prompto could hear him better. His friend was balanced on top of Ignis' shoulders, who in turn stood on Gladiolus' shoulders. The three of them had formed a human ladder to reach a potential opening in the cave ceiling, after Noctis failed to warp onto the too soft roof.

"I can't tell; there's no sunlight!" Prompto yelled back.

"We've been here for going on thirty-seven hours. No doubt it's merely nighttime," Ignis said. He gripped Prompto by his calves when the other man almost overbalanced them by standing on his tippy-toes to better access the ceiling. "Keep checking!"

"Wait. I feel a breeze! And it smells like…pine trees? I think I've found us an exit!" There were the sounds of shuffling, and then clods of mud toppled down as Prompto presumably dug a bigger hole.

Gladiolus sputtered as some of the dirt ended up on his face. "Hey! Next time warn a guy."

"Oh, right. Look out below," Prompto said, seconds after he knocked another large portion of the roof loose. Gladiolus stumbled as he tried to avoid the clutter raining down on him, which caused Ignis to grunt and attempt to offset the movement. "Gladio, could you not?"

"Could you not mess around up there?" he snapped in return. "What are you even doing?"

"Almost…got it…ahah!" Prompto must have grabbed onto something because his feet left Ignis' shoulders completely. His boots wriggled and then disappeared into the ceiling. More debris fell before a tree root poked out of the opening.

Ignis motioned Noctis to climb up, but Gladiolus shook his head. "Specs, you next. Scope out the other side and then I'll boost him up after you."

For once there wasn't an argument; the prospect of the unknown had Ignis convinced. He waved his hands around until he caught the root on the third pass and pulled himself through. They waited until the advisor's faint affirmative carried down to them.

Gladiolus clasped both hands together and bent at the knees. "Alley-oop, Noct. Just like we've practiced."

Noctis planted his foot in the center of the other man's palms and rested a hand on his broad shoulder. With all his strength, Gladiolus tossed him upwards, with Noctis also pushing off to gain a little more air. He latched onto the lead with one hand, dangling precariously. He was able to take hold with his other hand at the last minute. It was difficult to shimmy the rest of the way, but just when Noctis thought he was losing his grip again he crawled inside the muddy tunnel. Two sets of hands took him by the wrists and tugged him the rest of the way out.

With their combined efforts, they ripped the root off the tree and lowered it far enough for Gladiolus to grab on his own. At one point Noctis worried Gladiolus may become stuck, but after several heave-hos and a threat from the man himself, he popped free.

"Do you guys know what this means? We're finally liberated!" Prompto cheered, once the group was all gathered together. He dramatically fell to his knees. "I never thought we'd escape that soggy dungeon! Just look at these bushes, and flowers, and…nature! I could kiss it and the sky for being so dry— Ack!"

Just as Prompto was about to finish singing praises, a raindrop decided to fall into his eye. He brought a hand up a little too hard to blot his face and smacked himself in the nose by mistake.

"Tch. Yeah, real 'dry'," Gladiolus deadpanned. He tugged the sullied neckline of his tank top up to wipe off his face, although it was pointless with the incoming storm. Nevermind he smeared the dirt worse, rather than removed any.

"Betrayer," Prompto seethed. He shook a fist at the clouds and it poured harder on him. "Aw, man."

Noctis laughed at his friend's antics. Maybe he did so too hard since the tail end of his chuckle turned into coughing. No one else seemed to take notice except Ignis, whose head inclined in Noctis' direction. He asked, "Noct, are you all right?"

"M'fine," he said quickly. Noctis walked over to Prompto and grabbed him by the angry-fist to pull him to his feet. "Come on, let's return to camp."

"Where even is camp? After those creeps—"

"Goblins," Ignis corrected.

"After those assholes caused that rockslide and blocked us in I've been turned around." Sensing Ignis’ confusion, Prompto pointed to a yellow mystery patch on his cheek and said, "Look it, I swear one of'em spit on me, okay? So I'm not calling them by their proper name for as long as I hold a grudge, which is forever. From now on they are anything except Goblins to me."

"You just said their name," Gladiolus indicated.

"No, I said their names are 'anything except Goblins'—"

Noctis sighed and said, "This is stupid" and reached inside his pants pocket for the chocobo whistle. They'd been stuck searching that ancestral tomb lead (which they could now confirm was false) for less than the five allotted days they'd rented birds from Wiz. Their rides should be roving somewhere waiting for them.

After one use of the whistle, a white blur dropped from a stony ridge and landed heavily at Noctis' back. His chocobo kicked up twigs and leaves as she flapped her wings. She squawked impatiently, so Noctis gave her a big hug and several deep neck rubs in apology.

"Sorry for keeping you, Bon Bon," he said. He'd tested a lot of other nicknames, but she'd refused to respond to anything else but the candy he'd offered her on the sly the first time they met. And ever since he greeted her with the gesture, the bird seemed to expect a hug every time, like it was her just reward. The one instance Noctis forgot, she pecked him on top of his head and taken a couple hairs as payment.

Ignis' chocobo arrived right after, only second to Noctis' own ride in speed. The pastel blue fowl was exceptionally limber and would make a large profit in racing competitions, if Ignis were ever so inclined as to participate regularly. For now, he tended to limit his sessions to scouting ahead during excursions and not much else.

Last were Prompto's and Gladiolus' chocobos. Both were temperamental beasts, which might be why they were a suited mated pair. Gladiolus' more so than Prompto's, although the bodyguard had a ritual to settle matters.

He took the bird by the reins now and looked him dead in one eye, asking, "We gonna have a problem this time or what?" Gladiolus waited for the chocobo to blink, once, and then nodded. He gave the crown of feathers a quick ruffle. "Attaboy."

As they mounted their rides, Prompto cooed and pet his bird's front. "You coming along, girl? You coming along? Yeah, I can tell—" He stumbled as her wings flapped in his face. "Sorry, sorry! I forgot how sensitive you are on the chest, sorry. You're still beautiful and precious and I love you. Hey Gladio, do you think the chicks will look like Silky? If they do, I hope they're just as bright a yellow as she is."

Gladiolus hummed. "Maybe. Nothing wrong with another red Drumstick, though."

Prompto made a face as he settled onto the saddle and ushered his chocobo along, keeping pace with Bon Bon’s idle gait. "Well if they do, then they're definitely not sharing his namesake! Why couldn't you stick with something like…Vlad the Impaler or William the Conqueror?"

"Where do you come up with this stuff? William? Nobody has a name like that."

"I'm an expert, okay? I put effort and consideration into them. See, I've already got Silky's and Drumstick's baby names picked out. A girl should be Meryl and a boy should be Irons; they're foolproof and the same ones I'm gonna use when I have kids," he boasted.

"You're naming your offspring after chocobos?" Gladiolus asked incredulously.

"What? No! My future children are inspiring the present— It doesn't matter," Prompto said, sulking. "If you're so smart, then what have you decided for yours? Come on, out with it! I bet a stud like you has the next generation of Amicitia's all figured out."

Gladiolus snorted. "Not me. I'll be awhile yet, although the way my sister tells it she's got that all covered. Iris is convinced she won't stop until she has a starter set."

Noctis and Ignis hadn't been involved with the exchange, but they joined Prompto in giving him peculiar looks. They knew the other man's disposition on having children until the future of Lucis was settled, but this tidbit was new. Gladiolus shrugged. "My mother's side of the family is predisposed to having one after the other. My uncle had a boy and a girl, too."

"Huh. What about you, Noct?" The prince tensed at Prompto's question, trying not to appear alarmed at the change of focus in the conversation. He stayed quiet, as if he hadn't heard the inquiry, but his friend was persistent. The gunner sidled his chocobo closer and elbowed Noctis in the arm. "Noooct? You still plan to marry Lady Lunafreya, right? I'm sure you must be set to have tons of heirs."

"Perish the thought," Ignis jested in his place. "It is said the child reflects the parent, magnified. I'm not certain the world is ready for all that increased mischief."

"Whatever," he mumbled, torn on the matter. Noctis was relieved not to talk about his future, especially in terms of matrimony and the responsibilities therein, but he could have done without the teasing. "Sometimes kids are the opposite. Maybe yours will be way more rebellious than you, ya know."

"All the more reason for me to adopt," Ignis said matter-of-factly. It was his turn to earn a couple surprised stares. The scrutiny must have gotten to him because Ignis turned in his saddle to catch their ogling. "Surely it does not seem so farfetched? The war has made no shortages of orphans. It would be a privilege to take in one or more such children and provide them a stable upbringing."

In a softened tone, Prompto is surprisingly the first to say, "That'd be really super awesome of you to do."

"Someday, yes, I suppose it would be 'really super awesome'," Ignis said. Despite the straight-laced way he repeated Prompto’s words, the edges of his smile were apparent.

Talk thankfully shifted to more idle subjects, allowing Noctis to fade into the background. The longer they traveled the wetter and colder he became, which lessened his willingness to want to participate in conversation. Soon he was soaked through, his uniform giving up the ghost after almost two days of abuse. Noctis' shaking would have loosened his grasp of the reins were it not for the fact his fingers had frozen in place.

It was also fortunate that Gladiolus was an expert trekker. During the downpour, it became impossible to see the lingering smoke trails from the campfire, but the guardsman's sense of direction was impeccable no matter the conditions. Eventually the telltale glow of the Oracle's wards shined through a thicket of trees.

The rain gave way to drizzle as they ascended the outcropping where the group made their campsite, then tapered off completely. Everything was still soaked. They'd left the chairs out, never intending to be gone this long. The weather report hadn't predicted a storm when they headed toward the supposed royal crypt.

While Noctis dismounted, a wave of dizziness struck him and he leaned into his chocobo for support. He'd assumed the exertion from the trip through the dungeon was temporary, but it'd been wishful thinking. Noctis startled as a gloved hand took the reins from his slackening grip.

The prince pushed away from Bon Bon to see Ignis standing there. His own blue chocobo hovered behind him, its reins in Ignis' other hand. Noctis stared his advisor in the eye, keeping his expression as neutral as possible.

"Go get changed, if you'd like. I can take care of Bon Bon in your stead," Ignis offered.

Gladiolus had no qualms stripping right there, and while he had the right idea, Noctis was less of an exhibitionist. He accepted Ignis' proposal, but opted to duck inside the tent to retrieve a new set of clothes. Noctis found the least offensive smelling towel shoved into a corner and used that to rub off the sweat and grime. He still felt grungy afterwards, however, it was too chilly to risk washing off in a nearby lake. He'd have to settle for the haphazard wipe down until they were ready to resume their journey and find a motel or caravan with a shower.

Noctis searched his duffel bag and wore whatever he found first. There was no reason for being fashionable. A pair of jeans, long-sleeve shirt, and pillow vest were thrown over a fresh set of undergarments. He'd worn the different attire earlier in the week, but they were an improvement compared to the alternative.

"You almost done?" Prompto asked. His shadow shown through the material of the tent.

Noctis rumbled his assent and crawled out to give his friend a turn. In the time he'd been inside, Ignis had dressed down. He'd stripped his jacket to reveal his arms in a gray undershirt. He was hard at work stewing something in a cast iron pot over the portable grill. Noctis left him to it.

By the campfire, Gladiolus had settled in while just wearing his boxers. He was talking into his cell phone. Now that they were outside with a reliable signal and at the safety of camp, it sounded like he was updating his sibling on their return status. Noctis joined him by the warm fire, sidestepping Drumstick and Silky. They had cuddled together behind Gladiolus' folding chair, the red chocobo preening the crest feathers on top of his mate's head.

Someone had draped a towel over his seat, similarly to Gladiolus', so he flopped into his own chair. He slumped to access the device in the deep recesses of his pants pocket. He'd transferred all his personal effects after he'd switched clothes. There were no messages, so while Noctis waited for dinner he played some games on his phone.

Noctis didn't realize how drowsy he was until a couple insistent prods from Bon Bon's beak roused him. He turned and she was just there, when a moment ago he could have sworn she was wandering the region below. She tended to scour their resting places, like a protective mother guarding her nest, but she was more demanding of his attention today.

He gave his chocobo some extra loving strokes to her neck in hopes of appeasing her. She lowered her giant head, it taking up most of his torso, and gave Noctis a mouthful of feathers with her forced closeness.

"What is with you?" he asked, more bemused than anything else. His throat felt prickly, but he laughed at Bon Bon's behavior.

"Chocobos have an innate ability to sense certain changes in their masters. They're akin to some pets, in that respect," Ignis said. He'd come up behind him, carrying plastic mugs with thick handles. One he passed to Gladiolus. The other he held with both hands, cupping the container until Noctis could accept the meal.

Noctis clenched his jaw tight, not wanting to give his advisor an opening to comment further on his condition. Ignis was just worrying worse than usual. There was nothing going on.

A handful of gysahl greens materialized in Noctis' fingers, summoned from the armiger. He tossed them off the side of the campsite to distract Bon Bon. She chirped loudly, her tail quivering, and chased after the treat.

Ignis took the opportunity to hand him his food – some kind of warm, broth-y soup. Mixed in were a few chunks of carrots and celery. He set the mug in his lap and ate without a word, concentrating on picking around the vegetables. The vitamins were in the liquid, anyway, so no need to eat the mushy, nasty parts. It soothed his throat going down.

Bon Bon returned. Her feathers were puffed up, giving Noctis the impression she may be a tad peeved at his trickery. She hunkered down and leaned heavily against his chair; her much larger body threatened to topple him over. She kweh-ed incessantly. In apology, Noctis fed her his extra carrots and stroked her with an absent free hand.

"D'aw! Isn't that adorable?" Prompto said with sugary sweetness. After exiting the tent, he'd decided to shoot some pictures of Silky. He was documenting her progress when he noticed the prince with Bon Bon. Noctis flipped him off before Prompto could take a photo, ruining the shot he tried to take. "Hey! That's not very cute."

"I'm going to bed," Noctis announced. He was already full, despite the small amount he'd managed to eat. The remainder of his meal went to his chocobo.

He returned to the tent, ignoring everyone's stares. He shut the flap in their faces. With no one there as a witness, Noctis let the exhaustion take over. He collapsed on his front, toeing off his shoes, and wasn't awake long enough to do much else. The next morning came and went. Noctis knew this because he noticed when Prompto clambered awake, and his friend was always the last to get up after Gladiolus and Ignis. He turned over and lazed in his sleeping bag. Eventually, a coughing fit demanded his attention more. After hacking into a fist for five minutes, there was no way Noctis was comfortable enough to return to sleep.

He reluctantly went outside and hissed as the sun blinded him. Noctis hadn't expected the sun to be so high in the sky; it was much later in the day then even he was usually permitted to sleep in. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, then decided better of it. There was a beat up old hat stuffed in his luggage that Navyth had gifted him after his first successful catch at Neeglyss Pond, and Noctis hunted for it now. Setting the headgear in place, he attempted to leave the tent again.

It was stifling and humid outside, when yesterday it was freezing. The effort to remove his extra layers of clothes was more than Noctis was willing to expel. He left them as-is.

Gladiolus was the sole person in sight, along with three of the four chocobos. Drumstick and Silky were still nestled together behind his chair. As soon as Noctis made a reappearance, Bon Bon waddled back from the edge of the woods.

He mumbled a "good morning" and crumpled into a chair. The walk from the tent to the campfire couldn't have been more than a couple steps, but Noctis felt like he'd run a marathon. His body ached everywhere.

"Good afternoon," Gladiolus stated. He was honing a sword and didn't look up from the task. At least he’d opted to wear some pants today.

Noctis scowled and closed his eyes. "Where's Prompto and Iggy?"

"Ignis wanted to scavenge for some herbs, since you're sick and all. Prompto went with to expedite the gathering process," he informed him. The offhand way he said it grated on Noctis' last nerve, but that explained why Gladiolus was here. Even if it was for a stupid reason.

"I'm not sick," Noctis grouched. His throat betrayed him then, his voice cracking on the last word. It stung to talk. A cooler was by his feet and he reached inside for a bottle of water. Noctis was just parched from oversleeping or he hadn't hydrated himself enough during the previous trip. Whatever. He was fine.

Just then, the rest of their group happened to return. They'd doubled up on Ignis' chocobo, his advisor behind the reins. He slowed their ride to a stop. Noctis rounded on him before Ignis even stepped foot on the ground. "Did you tell them I was sick?"

Ignis came up short, maybe at the sharp tone or at the accusation. Prompto leaned around him and answered, instead. "Huh, you're sick? I mean, I kind of figured, since you were boiling hot all night. And you're sort of pale…"

"No. I'm not," he snapped.

Gladiolus said, "Get off'em. I determined that you're unwell on my own."

"I said I'm not sick!"

That's when Noctis passed out. The sounds of Bon Bon squawking in distress followed him into darkness. There was a faint beeping sound. It was enough that Noctis couldn't ignore the disturbance. His eyelids clenched tighter together against the intrusion. He rolled over and hid under the covers more to try and block out the electronic noises.

The sounds cutoff, to be replaced with the rustling of bed sheets. "Noct? Psst, Noct!"

He buried deeper into the blankets, but the person was adamant.

"Hey, you awake?"

"No," Noctis mumbled.

"Dude!" It had to be Prompto making that racket. Nobody else was this excitable. Noctis frowned and refused to budge. He hoped his friend would take the hint and leave him alone, but a hand on his shoulder gave his body a couple shakes. He asked, "How're you feeling?"

"Tired," he stressed, wanting to spur him into silence.

"You passed out! How can you still be tired?"

That didn't seem right. Noctis remembered… Well. Musing on it, he didn't recollect much of anything. Had he already woken up? He vaguely recalled that he might have met up with Gladiolus, but afterwards was such a hazy blur.

"I don't…" Noctis tried to sit up, but his arms shook too much as he pushed himself upright. Prompto hurried to steady him, both palms flat on his back. If it were anyone else Noctis would have brushed off the contact, the area being sensitive, but the sensation of comfort broke through his revere.

In a somber tone, Prompto said, "Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Take it easy."

"What happened?" He dropped to an elbow and watched Prompto over his shoulder, the blanket covering the lower portion of his face.

"I'm not really sure? This morning Ignis randomly wanted to go plant picking, and when we got back you weren't talking sense. Then you collapsed."

Some of what Prompto recited came back to him in stages. Noctis ducked his head in shame as he recalled the way he lashed out at Gladiolus and the allegations he flung at Ignis. To Prompto, who'd sparingly been exposed to Noctis at his lowest, the severe lapse in his mood would appear confusing.

"You had us all kinds of worried," Prompto said, almost hushed. It garnered Noctis' attention, regardless. He adjusted his shoulders in nervous habit, and his friend removed his hands like he was burned. Noctis couldn't have felt guiltier.

"This just happens sometimes. It's no big deal."

"Um, this never happened when we were in school! I'd remember if you passed out in the middle of math class. The only time you were gone was when your dad summoned you to the Citadel for those top secret—" Prompto's expression went blank. The gunner was so expressive, animated even when idle, so he knew Prompto was serious when he went still in contemplation.

"You weren't in council meetings all those times you had to skip school, were you?" he asked directly.

The words wouldn't form; all he could do was nod in confirmation. His friend moved beside him, and in a panic Noctis scrambled to halt Prompto from leaving. His worrying was unfounded. Prompto was reaching out to him again. Noctis met him halfway, his fingertips catching on the other man's bracelets. He was relieved Prompto wasn't angry enough to flounce off, but Noctis wanted to make sure he didn't.

"Ever since—" the Marilith attack, but he couldn't put a name to his childhood misery, even after the creature's demise at his hands. The monster haunted his nightmares for years and would continue to haunt him for the near future. "—my accident as a kid, the doctors said my immune system was weakened."

Saying 'weakened' made his stomach churn worse. Admitting that to anyone, most of all Prompto, hurt worse than the illness wracking his body. He owed it to his friend, though. Noctis had kept this hidden from him long enough.

"Back then, I'd get sick all the time. It was like I had no natural defenses left in me. We tried everything: gut therapy, boosters, remedies. Shit like that."

"When you were in Tenebrea?" Prompto asked. He whispered, as if afraid Noctis would stop if he interrupted.

"Luna's mom… Her magic was all that helped," Noctis confirmed. At least, until the queen couldn't anymore. Her treatments ended with the invasion of Niflheim. That was another painful reminder, one which he wasn't equipped to delve into, even with Prompto.

"As I got older I didn't get sick as often, but when I did… It was better if the public didn't know." Better if his best and only friend outside the palace didn't know how pathetic he was, but what Noctis actually confessed was, "That's what my dad and his staff concluded, anyway. It'd be risky if anyone found out how easy a target I was during those times."

"I'm sorry," he said, surprising the prince. Prompto shifted on his knees, but kept his hand firmly in place, under Noctis'. "That totally sucks. It must have been miserable and lonely for you. I know you said it was dangerous to tell me, but I am sorry that I didn’t do more for you."

"No, I should have told you," Noctis said in his own apologetic way.

"Nah, no biggie. I'll just have to make up for all the lost opportunities!" Prompto pulled away, but only enough to lie against the prince's side. He stayed on top of the layers of blankets and sleeping bags, but shared Noctis' pillow. Noctis should have protested – he was feverish and resembled a swamp. Nevermind Prompto could catch his illness, too, by such close proximity.

Instead, Noctis transferred onto his opposite side and watched as Prompto resumed playing games on his phone. It'd been what was generating the strange noises earlier. He watched for awhile, offering idle commentary in the forms of suggestions or jibes. He felt fatigued from his prior confession, however, and without his noticing he dozed off.

[flightyrock]

Ectober Day 2: Fangs

Summary: Vlad begins his morning routine, only for familiar dark thoughts to interrupt him as usual.

Warnings:  Minor injury, minor blood, unhealthy emotional state, depression, isolationism, loneliness, mild body horror (like so mild I question mentioning it)

Word Count: ~1400

Notes are at the end!  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Vlad felt consciousness return with a groan, reluctant to start the day, just knowing by some accursed instinct that it was far too late to retreat back into the peaceful darkness. He rolled over, prying his eyes open, only to wince at the digital green display that read 5:25, a full five minutes before the device would force him to awareness with its familiar and brutal assault on his eardrums.

Curses.

There was nothing worse than waking up before an alarm.  It always felt as if some mysterious force was getting one over on him in the most passive aggressive manner possible.  The idea was laughable, of course, but he couldn’t deny that he was always bitter about being cheated out of the precious minutes of sleep.  But he was awake now, so he might as well make the best of it.

He rolled to the edge of his firm mattress, throwing his legs over the side with more force than necessary. He indulged in a minute of luxurious stretching, wincing mentally of the cracks and pops that seemed to grow in number by the day, before finally slipping into his house shoes and lumbering into the spacious master bathroom.

Cool marble caressed his palms as he gripped the edge of the double vanity, a piece he had chosen in a rare display of optimism.  Fat lot of good that did him.

It’s too early to start this again.

So he didn’t, making a conscious effort to shove the torrent of bitter thoughts to a far corner of his mind to peruse later, choosing instead to run a hand through thick, painfully straight locks that lightly brushed his shoulder blades, admiring the snow-white color in his spotless silver mirror.

Or tried to, thwarted by the thick mats that had developed as retribution for falling asleep before allowing it to dry after his shower the night before.

He sighed, long-sufferingly, and resigned himself to the tedious task of untangling the mess, tucking the strands behind his right ear to begin.  Only to feel a small thrill rush through his lower stomach as his hand brushed a firm, pointy segment of cartilage.

He smiled, taking a moment to feel the tips of his ears with both hands, enjoying the strange, giddy feeling that still went through him twenty years after the accident that produced the distinctive shapes.  Not that he would ever admit it to anyone, but he treasured his snow white hair and unnaturally pointy ears that carried over into his human form when he was alone and at ease.  It reminded him of a fantasy he’d had as a child, where he dreamed he was a forest elf, going on grand adventures in alternate, medieval universes.

He chuckled indulgently, smiling to himself as he recalled a much simpler time in his life, inadvertently exposing a slightly more unsettling change to his human self that filled him with base horror when he first discovered it.

Elongated to a degree that even Jack Fenton would find suspicious, Vlad’s canines now tapered to severe points, honed to a dangerously sharp degree.  He inserted the tip of his right index finger to lightly tug at his bottom lip, exposing his equally deadly under bite.

Fangs.

Once upon a time, he’d see something similar in movies and chuckle to himself at the absurdity of the hallmark feature of a cheesy horror monster that sucked the blood from unsuspecting victims, usually attractive young ladies or idiotic teenagers.

But these weren’t the cheap plastic mockeries that children shoved in their faces and drooled around on Halloween.  

Oh no.  These were the mark of a predator, a sharp-eyed creature of the night engineered to subdue prey with elegant efficiency.

He used to stare at himself in the mirror with horror at that one detail that prevented him from forgetting for even a moment that he was no longer human.  It took him ages to break the habit of gnawing his lips when anxious.  The first time he tried that with his new teeth still made him shudder in revulsion. He still occasionally tasted the coppery tang of blood when he’d forget for a moment and revert to old comforts.

Forget that he was no longer human.  But he wasn’t fully ghost either, as they were quick to establish and kindly reminded him with every interaction, the infantile slur of halfa on their slimy lips.  He didn’t belong in the ghost zone.  He didn’t belong on earth.  He really didn’t belong anywhere.

The isolation hit him hard, as it did every morning at his unnecessary double vanity and every night when he was able to hold off the insomnia long enough to settle into his too-large bed.  All alone.  

After the accident, it wasn’t his newfound abilities themselves that wore his sanity thin.  It was the lack of human contact in his months of quarantine.  His body ached in a very physical way for warmth and weight only a human body could provide.  He longed to feel Jack’s heavy hand resting on his shoulder, or Maddie’s slender arms wrapped around his chest in a hug.  Never conscious of such interactions before, he now regretting his ignorant dismissal of casual human contact, wondering how many opportunities he had missed.  How many times he took the simple gift of companionship for granted.

By the time he was stable enough to rejoin the world, he was devastated to realize it had moved on without him.  His two best friends had eloped without his knowledge, and moved out of state, like he meant nothing to them.  He hadn’t seen any of his other friends in over a year, and was alarmed to find he no longer knew how to make new ones.  More than his newfound abilities to hide in plain sight and walk through walls, this feeling of nonexistence made him feel like nothing but an insignificant ghost of his former self, forgotten by a cruel world after his untimely demise.

Somewhere along the way, he had lost that essential instinct that allowed him to form meaningful connections with other people.  Maybe he never had it in the first place.  Maybe he was made to be forgotten, to fade away.  Maybe he was meant to be alone.

But that was fine.  He could work with this.  He would work with this, embrace this power like the phenom he was.  The universe had given him a great gift, and he would make sure nobody ever forgot his name again.  Vlad Masters, the name of a man who would be the greatest there ever was, would be burned irrevocably into the fabric of both worlds.  So what if he couldn’t relate to people.  That was to be expected because they were beneath him. They didn’t deserve his affection. He was fundamentally better than those swine in human clothing that pretended to care about anyone other than themselves because he had to power to make it to the top.  He would make his fate his own, and anyone that got in his way would learn the truth of his superiority for themselves in the most painful way possible.

Vlad was jolted out of this mental spiral by a sharp pain in his lower lip and the tang of copper.  Shocked, he brought a finger to his lips and idly stared at the crimson streak.  Old habits, old comforts.  His fangs used to disturb him, keep him on edge.  Now they served as a reminder of his convictions.

He faced the mirror head-on, staring deeply into his blue eyes while bracing himself with a firm grip on the counter’s edge as he forced his supernatural features into compliance. A human mask stared back, features again rounded to conform to the delicate sensibilities of the masses.  It was time to shove his sentimentality to the side once more.  He could afford no weakness in this endless pursuit of his goals.  And he had to continue this pursuit without fail, as his goals were all that he had left, the only distraction that prevented him from examining himself too closely, from acknowledging the true volume of darkness that was slowly suffocating him.

For he knew that left to its own devices, the darkness would break him.

If it hadn’t already.

A/N:  Vlad is my favorite character to write.  This is just one of my many ideas about his motivations for behaving as he does.  I am a firm believer that Vlad is not “evil,” and it was truly a shame that the writers for the show chose to dumb him down to that degree.  It was demeaning and missed the opportunity to teach kids that growth and redemption is possible for anyone, and that maybe you shouldn’t yell at that jerk who mouthed off to you at the grocery store, because you have no idea what series of events led to them acting that way.  Most people don’t act like jerks because it brings them joy.  Keyword: most. 

That being said, Vlad absolutely has problems, and is absolutely not excused for his actions.  Having a crappy life is not an excuse to hurt others.  His coping mechanisms are in no way healthy.  But they are necessary until he can find a healthier way to cope, and are even rational with all the garbage he’s been put through in his life.  The ugly truth is that most people would react like Vlad did in this situation.  Even Danny couldn’t cope when his support system was taken away.

Just some food for thought.  Please feel free to leave a comment; I’m still pretty new to creative writing and value any feedback.  Thanks for reading!