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originalwinnercheesecake · 3 years

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Parabatai bond Essay... Why they may all be destined to end

Parabatai: defined by Cassandra Clare as a rare intense where a pare of warriors connect/bond in childhood and then decide to knit their souls together so that they can always stay together and always carry a piece of the other inside them. Defined by the fandom as “ a type of (supposedly) platonic marriage”. Cassandra Clare also wants to claim it as a type of bond that is unique to the shadow world, but honestly I can name several pair of Parabatai all across different media’s. Just looking at early 2000′s children's anime and Disney esqu movies we have Ash/Pikachu, Yugi Muto/the Pharaoh, Hiccup/Toothless, Woody/Buzz, etc...

... If you share my taste in these media’s you probably noticed that of the 4 other series “Parabatai” I listed 3 out of 4 (Ash and Pikachu are still partners right?) have to split off from the other due to changes of destiny/life. This is also the case for man,y many parabatai in The Shadowhunter Chronicles. Sounding off pairs that are important enough for me to care about underneath

Jonathan Shadowhunter/David the Silent: Let’s began at the beginning. Jonathan Shadowhunter was the first ever Shadowhunter. His favorite person in the world was his companion David, who wasn’t as much of a fighter as Jonathan but was very smart and very good at keeping Jonathan grounded when necessary. After being traumatized by a greater demon when fighting alone one da, David gave up fighting (and speaking), and became the first ever silent brother. The story said this broke their bond and broke Jonathan down to tears. I am sure David still loved him though. David could have chosen to go back to being a mundane but instead chose to undergo the rituals to turn himself into a silent brother. David was never that into fighting/war. Everything he did he did out of love for Johnathan. When David was no longer able to be there for Jonathan as a solider, he found a new way as a Silent Brother.

Robert Lightwood/ Michael Wayland: Parabatai and joined at the hip as teenagers. When Michael confessed to having romantic feelings towards Robert confusion as to his own feelings and fears surrounded by change drove Robert to reject Michael in a cruel and harsh way. Their bond is officially severed after the uprising when Michael die,s and Robert is exiled. Decades later Robert still regards hurting Michael as the biggest mistake in his life, the persist moment when he lost faith in himself. It is only after he confesses to his oldest child what he did and how it still haunts him all these years, only after he is finally able to acknowledge within himself the importance of the memories he has of Michael, that Robert is able to finally turn his life around for the better.

Valentine Morgenstern/ Lucian Greymark: Parabatai while studying at the academy, and for a few years afterwards. When Luke started to doubt Valentine’s plans, Valentine took him to be ambushed by a pack of feral werewolves hoping Luke would be killed instead Luke was turned. After this Valentine and Luke became bitter enemy's. These two men who once had so much love for the other, now swore to destroy any plan the other had and would fight with the intent to kill upon seeing he other. Despite all this bad blood, both still loved the memories of who the other used to be, and it is implied that a lot of their hatred for who the other is now is born from grief over they Parabatai they lost.

William Herondale/James Carstairs: CC’s closest Parabatai pair. Both Will and Jem had their whole lives shattered by demons when they were just children, and afterwards questioned at times if it was still really had much of a reason to carry on. Then they met each other and decided that they had to carry on because they loved the other to much to leave them alone. These two are in a way echo’s of Jonathan and David, and like David Jem joins the brotherhood when it is no longer possible for him to stay with Will and Tessa as a shadowhunter. They lose the bonds, but keep their love for each other. Will calls silent city on a daily basis with some excuse for needing Brother Zachariah, and Jem faithfully answers every call.

Julian Backthorn/Emma Carstairs: Fall in love, turn into Giant “true Shadowhunters”. Their bond is severed when their runes are burned off by heavenly fire coursing though their veins. By this time though their relationship had already changed from a platonic one to a romantic one.

James Herondale/ Matthew Fairchild: The two that unquestionably love each other, but do not always love the others choices. As Parabatai they try to reach out to the other and help them. But both boys deal with so much and have trouble recognizing/excepting help when it when offered. Matthew is more aware of James issues than James is of Mathews, All though by the end of Chain of Iron even Matthew is at lose to understand James. James for his part only just starts to realize how sick Matthew may be. There are a lot of theories floating around that Matthew may being to sick to function as/ protect himself as a shadowhunter. With so much to recover from will their Parabatai bond last, or are they destined to seperate?

Cordelia Carstairs/ Lucie Herondale: The will they-won’t they pair. They have planed o one day become Parabatai since they were little girls, but have never gotten around to it. They are both nearly adults now and the story already seems to be puling them in opposite direction, so a lot of people now doubt that they will even make it to the ceremony.

Jace Herondale/ Alexander Lightwood: CC’ first pair of Parabatai, and so far the only pair to keep their bond for the whole series. Like seriously even when Jace died, he came back with the bond intact and Alec reporting that he only felt a little off for a few minutes. CC’s newest reasoning behind that is that there is apparently a delay time between one parabatai dying and the bond severing, and Jace came back before his and Alec’s had time to do more than fray at the edges. So that means that our boys stayed tethered together even when Jace was on his way to the afterlife. WOW (keep this reason CC, it actually kinda works). Jace and Alec’s bond has lasted the longest, but we still have 4 more books where something bad can happen to one of them, and they are now fighting in 2 wars at once.

Clary Fairchild/ SImon Lovelace: became Parabatai in between series, after both failing as a couple, and Simon going through multiple species changes. They are still parabatai in the most recent book but, like with Jace and Alec, we still have 4 future books that could change in. Clary, Jace, and Simon are CC’s three original main characters. She claims that the plan is to wrap up the Shadowhunter Chronicles for good in The Wicked Powers. What is the likelihood that she will leave all three of her original mains alive. I mean Clary already had a vision where “a version of herself” died, and Simon was originally supposed to die in COHF, but CC’s friends begged her to let him live.

While CC claims that Parabatai are rare in her universe, what seems to actually be rare is Parabatai staying bonded throughout the pairs lives. Why is that? Well lets remember that one of the rules for Parabatai is that they must meet and be bonded during childhood, Once they become adults they are no longer eligible. A fact of growing up is that lives and people change: We make friends, we love our friends,are there for them while we can be, and yet sometimes as we grow friends part ways. People die, they move away, or just grow apart. Memories of old friends and places we all used to hang out become beloved memories of being younger. During a time in our lives when we felt more innocent and care free. A time that sadly never lasts. In conclusion to why parabatai bonds tend to break parabatai could represent the close bonds of childhood, the friends who helped you grow into an adult, and some one who you are able to treasure your memories of as an adult, even if, due to circumstance, you no longer see that person as much or at all. Value your parabatai because you don’t know how long you will actually have them

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ashdoesfandomarchieved · 3 years

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I hear you like prompts? Well I am well known for. The List. *unrolls scroll* sick fic, jealousy, fighting suitors, hostage situation, hypothermia, use of safe word, spa day, ruddiger v Hugo

AO3

It’s midday by the time Hugo finally deems his companions worthy of his company.

They’ve been staying at a small estate in Galcrest, with some friends of Nuru’s family who were kind enough to put them up for the weekend.

The last few trials have been grueling--if Varian’s being completely honest--what with the cave of mirrors and the hall of memories haunting Nuru’s nights and Yong’s smiles and Varian’s everything. So a break in what their gang was affectionately nicknaming “the air kingdom” seemed in order.

The first few days go by fine--Nuru drags Hugo out to the marketplace, talking shop about swords and armory to her heart's content, while Varian and Yong scour the countryside and set off fireworks in the clear skies.

It’s exactly what their group needs to get back on track--a little rest and a lot of free time to relax and get to know one another better.

Then Hugo shows up for breakfast one morning and all of Varians’ optimism flies out the window.

“Whoa, are you sick?” Yong says, popping his head out of the pantry. “You look terrible.”

Hugo sends him an irritated glance. “No,” he says and then immediately sneezes. “I’m not sick,” he says, peevishly when they all continue staring at him in silence. His voice sounds like he’s been gargling rocks.

Nuru places a hand on his flushed forehead that he immediately swats off. “You’re burning up,” she says with a frown. “Did you leave your window open last night?”

“More likely that he got it from town,” Varian mutters. He seems to remember a kindly merchant lamenting about his daughter coming down with a spring cold. Dammit Hugo.

“I’m going to heat up some soup,” Yong says decisively, already making a bee-line for the cupboards.

“I don’t need soup.” Hugo literally cannot sound any more like a sulky pre-teen right now. “What I need is for you all to stop ganging up on me.”

“What you need is a doctor,” Nuru mutters.

Hugo turns his scowl on her.

“How about this,” Varian says, once again playing diplomat between his two best friends, “Hugo eats the soup, and Nuru doesn’t make him see a doctor.

Hugo and Nuru continue to eye each other for a moment before Hugo mutters out an annoyed “fine.”

Varian has a feeling that today is going to be an exercise in not dumping his best friends.

____

About three hours into the “Hugo is pretending that he’s not sick” fiasco, Nuru has decided she’s had enough.

“I’m taking Yong to town,” she says, wrapping a scarf around the younger boy. “If the idiot won’t see a doctor, than I’m at least going to get him some medicine.”

Varian, who was the person who had to deal with Hugo throwing up in the bathroom half the afternoon, privately agrees.

“Is there anything I should do?” he asks, not exactly sure what to do with sick people. His dad never got sick and Rapunzel had about a million physicians taking care of her whenever she contracted some illness or another.

“Try and keep him in bed. I also left some tea leaves in the kitchen, if he feels up to drinking anything.” Nuru adds, halfway out the door. “I know you want to kill him most of the time, but it would be most inconvenient to hide his body.”

Varian rolls his eyes. “I’ll do my best,” he says, dryly.

He doesn’t actually plan to antagonize Hugo--let alone kill him. Despite the fact that the blond still manages to annoy him on a daily basis, he’s also kinda friends with the guy now.

They’ve fallen into an easy companionship with mutual banter and annoyed antics that usually have their friends up in arms, but it works for them.

Besides, the guy just looked far too pathetic, dry heaving in the sink this morning, to give him a hard time.

A few minutes after Nuru and Yong leave, Varian makes his way to the room Hugo is staying in. At first glance, the place appears empty--bed unmade, small sitting area absent of life--but after a quick scan of the large room, Varian finds him.

Hugo sits on the window seat. His legs are drawn up under him and his head rests against the wall. The breeze filtering through the open window brushes his hair back from his forehead and makes the open collar of his white, unbuttoned shirt, fluttering slightly.

Something about the sight of him--flushed, exhausted, unguarded--twists something in Varian’s stomach.

“Hey,” he says, voice cracking too loudly in the quiet.

Hugo doesn’t turn his head, but his shoulder inch up slightly. “Hey,” he says back, eyes glued to something outside the window.

Varians’ eyes narrow in on the gooseflesh raised on the skin of his neck. With a sigh, he snatches a blanket off the bed and goes to Hugo, draping it over his shoulders.

Hugo turns his head at that, blinking up at him owlishly through round glasses. “Oh,” he says, like he’s just noticing Varian’s here. Which is concerning. “Thanks.”

Varian shrugs a shoulder, throwing himself on the other side of the window seat. It’s a large enough space--or maybe Varian’s just short--for the two of them to sit without touching. Not that Varian’s thinking of touching him.

An uneasy silence--on Varian’s part, at least--falls over them as Hugo continues to stare blankly out the window. His usually brilliant green eyes are glazed over, enhancing the flush that’s spread from his face, down his to his neck.

He sniffs a couple of times, nose wrinkling.

“Nuru wants you to drink some tea, I think,” Varian says, tapping his fingers against his knee nervously. “I can go get some for you if you wa-”

“It’s fine.” Hugo’s voice carries no intonation. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Varian says, in a very measured voice. The last thing he wants to do is upset the guy right now.

Hugo’s eyes shut. His lips press together tightly, but not out of anger. He looks like he’s just barely holding it together, and Varian doesn’t understand why.

Or, maybe he does. Varian used to be very open and free with his emotions, but over the past few years--since everything in Corona with his dad, the amber, Cass--Varian has gotten used to putting up shields around his heart. Vulnerability was a very scary thing, especially with those you cared about.

Hugo didn’t seem to be the type of person who liked to show weakness.

A particularly chilling breeze brushes through the window. It’s enough that even Varian is shivering at it’s touch.

He reaches out slowly and gently pulls the blanket around Hugo tighter. Hugo’s eyes open at that, watching Varian with an unreadable emotion.

“I think you should lie down,” Varian says.

Hugo shakes his head. “Can’t.”

“Hugo-”

“The bed’s too soft,” Hugo exhales, sounding embarrassed.

Something in Varian’s stomach twists painfully. The year after prison hadn’t been easy, but most of it was just getting used to being able to walk around without having the entirety of Corona’s military breathing down your neck. The other half was getting used to how soft his threadbare bed in Olde Corona felt.

Varian gets it. He doesn’t know Hugo’s story yet, but he gets it.

“Lie down here then,” he coaxes, one hand coming up to cup his neck. It’s warm--too warm. The worry simmering in Varian’s gut flares.

“What, on you?” Hugo snorts, sounding--if for a moment--a bit like himself.

Varian feels his own face flush about as badly as Hugo’s face is right now. “Would it make you feel more comfortable?” he asks, voice pitching up high.

Hugo’s stares at him hazily, the fever most likely getting in the way of his higher processing powers. “Yeah,” he says, looking not quite all there. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

And then he flops face first into Varian’s lap.

Varian lets out a surprised laugh, one hand going to his hair. “Okay then,” he says, trying to calm the rapid beating of his heart.

“Mmphf.”

Varian snorts, coaxing Hugo into rolling over so that he can at least breathe. “Why do I put up with you?” he mutters, more amused than exasperated for once.

Hugo blinks a couple of times at him. “It’s weird,” he says at last. “You’re weird. I’ve never had someone who’s wanted to put up with me before.”

Varian’s hopes Hugo can’t tell his heart just shattered into about a million pieces. “Well, you do now,” he says, easing Hugo’s glasses off his face and delicately placing them on the nearby end table. “You have three people, in fact, who are willing to put up with your dumb ass.”

The blond squints up at him. “But you were first. That’s-” he gestures gracelessly with one hand, “-that’s important.”

Varian smooths his hair back from his forehead, mentally taking note of the amount of heat coming off his flushed skin. “Yeah?”

“Mmm.” Hugo’s eyes close. “You keep doing that. Surprising me.”

“Well someone has to knock your ego down a few notches.”

A ghost of a grin. His eyes open again, almost as if he’s worried Varian has left in the few seconds he stopped looking.

“Hugo, go to sleep,” Varian chides. He runs his fingers through Hugo’s hair again, hoping it will draw him into sleep. “I can continue to surprise you tomorrow.”

“You’re surprising me now,” Hugo mumbles, but he’s becoming more and more pliant with each pet of Varian’s fingers through his hair. “Don’t go anywhere, ‘kay?”

Varian swallows. “I’ll be right here when you wake up,” he promises. “Now go to sleep.”

Hugo’s eyes finally drop shut, breath evening out. Varian leans back against the wall, one hand in the blond’s hair. The weight of the other boy is both grounding and sends strange flutterings to Varian’s stomach that he doesn’t understand.

Hugo lets out a small snore in his sleep. It’s adorable. Hugo’s adorable, Varian realizes, much to his horror.

Another breezes brushes in through the window, setting the white, transparent curtains afloat in the air. Hugo shivers slightly, curling up closer around Varian.

His face is pressed somewhere between his thigh and stomach, one arm wrapped loosely around his torso. Varian runs his fingers through Hugo’s soft hair again and comes to two realizations simultaneously.

Varian has feelings for Hugo. Positive feelings. Fluffy, mushy, fluttering feelings that reside somewhere between his aching heart and the butterflies in his stomach and Varian wants to cry or throw up or maybe kiss the dumb blond until those feelings settle themselves.

Hugo might--a very, very tentative might, because Varian isn’t great at reading other people at the best of times--just might have feelings for Varian. Maybe.

That’s important, he had said, eyes glazed, pupils dilated, lips parted. You keep doing that. Surprising me.

Varian shuts his eyes. Yeah, he’s totally and utterly fucked.

#varigo #hugo vat7k #varian #nuru vat7k #yong vat7k #my fic #my fanfic #tts #vat7k #writing prompts

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dai-ou-sama · 3 years

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Wrote a thing for AlbetherWeek2021!! Has themes of Day 1 and 3 (warmth and dreams), but it’s mostly just Albedo detailing how (and how much) he loves Aether.

—Please they‘re the epitome of a comfort ship I MEAN, WHICH OTHER SHIP HAS A STRING OF REPRESENTATIVE EMOJIS LIKE THIS: ☀️💫✨

Read on AO3 or down below!

Albedo woke to the sight of Aether curled against his chest, what, he decided, must have been his favourite sight in the world.

He was breathing in soft, gentle puffs, his shoulders rising and falling feather-like, nearly imperceptible. The sun had just barely risen. Its rays filtered through the curtains and set the room aglow with a soft golden light.

A draft of wind rustled past the curtains, parted them, stirred the dust in the air and illuminated them so they resembled snowflakes falling from the sky of their ceiling. Stray petals, all in different shades of yellow, drifted from the bundle of flowers hanging by their window onto their bed. They landed around Aether’s sleeping figure. Albedo laughed quietly to himself. It looked like a scene straight out of a fairytale.

For a while, he simply watched. Being in a sleep-tinged daze did not keep him from marveling at the sight of Aether; at his presence. It didn’t matter that this was a scene he woke to everyday. It hadn’t yet failed to steal his breath away and fill his heart with so much pure, unadulterated joy, that he thought it might burst.

Albedo watched him breathe; counted the seconds between each inhale and exhale. He mapped out the freckled constellations dusted over his cheeks and nose. Memorised them. He started combing through his hair, gingerly smoothing out the long locks with his fingers so Aether wouldn’t stir. He wondered at the way mornings casted Aether’s hair in light. Transformed them into strands of liquid gold solidified.

When all the knots in his hair were untangled, and all the stars across his face were found, he settled back into watching Aether breathe once more. It was a simple routine he repeated daily; one he fell more and more in love with with each passing day.

He reveled in the way warmth bloomed where their skin met skin. The way he could feel the soft thumps of Aether’s heart against his own even through the layers of fabric that lay between them. Thump, thump, thump. A steady, constant beat of life, heart to heart, that made him feel, more than anything, alive and corporeal and human.

There had been a time when Albedo had believed that he was an outsider living in a realm that he didn’t belong to. He was a hoax, an imposter, playing at human life in a masquerade.

He had doubted the very basis of his existence. Had questioned if his death would have amounted to anything more than an insignificant end to an artificial life. Like a porcelain doll falling to the ground, shattering out of existence.

From the faded memories of his youth, the written words of his old master had haunted him: Show me the true meaning of life and this world. Her final task to him before she had vanished into thin air.

Albedo hadn’t had an answer then. All he’d known were the laws of alchemy, the art of creation. Earth was the cumulative memory of time and being; soil was the origin of alchemy, the basis of all life; and chalk was the substance from which primal life was molded. There, written in words of fact. Simple, scientific. This he had understood. But what true meaning could have possibly been referring to had been lost on him.

No, he hadn’t had an answer. Not even then, when he would have given everything to see his master once more. When he’d been standing in the suddenly-too-empty halls of his old home, and wondering what the gnawing sense of absence inside him was. When he’d sat at the dining table that used to feed two people and eaten a dinner he hadn’t realised had long turned cold.

His master’s disappearance severed the only tether he’d had to the human world. The concept of meaning given to life and earthly existence became entirely foreign to him. He had found it laughably ironic that his talents lay in fabricating life.

Suddenly, it had felt like he was living in the margins of life. He was barred behind an invisible line, separated from everyone else around him. The depth of loss that had affected him had surprised him. He wondered if his master had somehow carved a part of him out and taken it with her when she’d left. Or perhaps, that that had been an entirely false hypothesis, and it was simply that he’d always been hollow. An empty shell, a facade of life — now simply made aware of it.

The more time passed, the more Albedo had been inclined to believe in the latter.

At least, meeting Alice and Klee in Mondstadt had helped quieten the clamouring in his head. Living with them was chaotic. It was a flurry of action and noise and laughter and warmth – so completely different from the efficient, systematic way he had lived with his master. Yet, somehow, their presence had still managed to feel familiar.

Their presence kept his anxiety at bay. Or at least, it kept his mind off of it. Klee’s hopeless antics and explosions staved him off from falling too far into a pit of wondering, wondering, wondering what having no answer suggested. No answer. No particular purpose or hope harboured in his being. What did that make of him?

It was a question that clung to him like a shadow that matched his every step and turn. Black matter, uncontrollable, that widened and stretched and grew at the back of his mind, eating away at more and more of him until it threatened to swallow him whole.

Life became a blur of passing interests before he had even realised it. A process of finding new creations and lifeforms that piqued his interest, before getting bored and moving on to find another. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

And then came word of the Honorary Knight. The rumoured traveler who didn’t seem to have come from Mondstadt — or anywhere in Teyvat for that matter. Who had been bestowed his title from the Knights of Favonius because of his contributions to the crisis with Stormterror. Whose name continued to be whispered around town because he, despite his grand title, continued to help with the average Mondstadtian’s most mundane of worries.

‘Aether’, they called him.

Aether. Albedo knew that word, he’d seen it in his alchemical texts before. The fifth element of alchemy; the purest form of air that the gods breathed. The personification of the upper sky, and the primordial god of light.

The boy who wore strange clothes and did kind things.

Albedo had been intrigued. Questions began wandering through his mind before he’d even become fully aware of them.

Where did this stranger come from? How did he control the elements? Why was he helping all those people? Wasn’t he tired? What did he look like? Was his hair as golden as the rumours said they were? Were his smiles truly as sweet as honey? Who was this mysterious person he was looking for?

...Is he like me?

And, somehow, just as his curiosity had reached its peak, they’d ended up meeting in his camp in Dragonspine. The traveler himself had come to find him.

Even now, Albedo still wasn’t sure if it had been this fact that had made his stomach flip in a peculiar way he hadn’t ever experienced before, or if it had simply been the sight of him.

The rumours had been true. Of his hair. His sunshine smiles.

More than that. How had the rumours managed to neglect how long his eyelashes were? Or how his skin resembled warmed marble? His lips to the soft curve of a waning moon?

And before Albedo had even had the chance to try and stop himself, he’d already thrown out a wild request for Aether to assist him with his experiments regarding the peculiar seed from another world. It had been made up on the spot and haphazardly hidden behind the excuse of ‘research’. Albedo still hardly believed that Aether had agreed.

In retrospect, Albedo often reflected on that moment. The same conclusion was always reached: he must have simply lost his mind in that moment. He was just glad that Aether never noticed a thing.

They spent the following weeks together, conducting experiments that confirmed Aether’s origins from a world beyond this one; that tested which laws of the Teyvat applied to him and which didn’t. Albedo’s initial questions about Aether were answered one by one. He easily formed more at a speed that far outpaced his answers. Questioning was, after all, in his nature as a scientist.

Questions like: What does he like to eat? Does he get cold easily? What would make him laugh? If I brought him flowers, would he smile? Is he as happy as I am when we are together?

Utterly scientific.

It had been weeks into their friendship by the time Albedo had noticed just how comfortable he felt around Aether. He was surprised by how often smiles broke onto his face, how at peace he felt. The worries that seemed to have plagued his mind permanently had been dimmed down, momentarily muted, and in their place was the thought of Aether.

They had found out early on that Aether was immune to poison and corruption. Evil did not affect his soul. He had the ability to purify corrupted objects with his touch. Albedo often wondered if that magic applied to him too.

But then, of course, that was impossible. Because, as much as Albedo wanted to believe in magic, he knew that problems did not go away by themselves, unaddressed. Problems demanded responsive action. This was so in experiments, and just as much in himself.

And so, one night in Dragonspine, when the snowstorm had been especially harsh, and the biting cold of winter seemed to seep deeper into him than usual, he’d confessed to Aether, in a fleeting whisper, all the thoughts and fears that clamoured in his head.

About the fact that he wasn’t, and wouldn’t ever be, truly human; that there was nobody else in this world quite like him; that it created an inexplicably jarring sense of isolation that he didn’t think anyone would ever understand. He confessed that he could not see purpose in his own existence.

He knew everything about the creation of life, but nothing about life itself.

His words had been uttered so quietly they had nearly been lost to the howling winds outside their tent. One could have pretended they were simply sounds of the storm imagined into words. The dwindling fire light between them could have been the only thing that heard him at all.

It was the first time Albedo had ever tried to vocalise the thoughts he rarely even let himself think. To speak into existence his emotions was to concretise them, and that had always been something he had instinctively turned away from.

That night, Albedo witnessed Aether’s smile drop from his face completely. For the first time since their meeting, he watched all familiar forms of joy and ease fade away from his expression and he immediately regretted ever saying a word because he could hardly bear with the fact that he was the reason why Aether looked like that.

A suffocating silence had settled over them like a blanket of snow. A sound too loud might have begun an avalanche. And then, like a shotgun, Aether had asked, “Do you love me?” His eyes had not left Albedo’s; his words had been steady. Albedo had failed to notice these things.

His breath escaped him in a heavy rush. Love? The question stumped him. The same way his master’s question had. What was the real meaning of life and this world? And suddenly, the same feelings of loss and confusion began welling up inside him again, amplified tenfold. A black hole ripped open beneath his feet, dragging him in, threatening to drown him.

His own silence crushed him. He fumbled for an answer, choked on his words. Looked away.

“...I don’t know,” he’d said. He had found himself incapable of explaining that he did not understand what being in love meant either.

Silence. It had been short, no longer than a few seconds, but Albedo had never experienced silence quite as loud. The world had begun caving in. He had been crumbling at his feet.

But Aether had not faltered. He’d gotten up and walked over to Albedo. He’d taken his face into his hands. His palms had been so, so warm against Albedo’s cheeks. So solid. “Then answer this instead: does your heart race when you see me?”

It was strange. Aether’s voice had been so quiet, so calm, yet it had managed to drown out the storms from the outside. He became an anchor. The world around them seemed to fall away. Suddenly, they were at the centre of the universe.

Albedo swallowed. Then nodded.

“Do you feel warm when I touch you?” Another nod.

“Do you fall asleep with thoughts of me? Wake from dreams about me?” And yet another nod.

“Good. Then you’re just like me,” Aether said. “Because when I see you, my heart races. When I’m by your side, I’m warm. I’m always thinking about you, and when I can think no longer, you visit me in my dreams.”

Aether’s voice had become fiercer and fiercer with every word he had spoken. There had been no joy reflected in his eyes in that moment, but there had been fire. A blazing flame that chased away – burned away – the shadows clinging onto Albedo.

“If you don’t know if you love me, that’s fine. You just need to know that I love you.” And then Aether had taken his hands and placed them over their hearts. One hand against each of their own. Albedo had felt two beats, identical, pound beneath his palms. “There, you see. Your heart is beating just the same as mine. Doesn’t that make you human enough?”

That was the night Albedo had found his answer to his master’s question. What was the true meaning of life and this world?

He hypothesised that the universal answer might have been love. The ability to love; the gift of being loved. But his personal truth could have only been one person.

That night had been years ago now. It nearly seemed like memories from another lifetime. Now, Albedo laughed when he thought about that night, because his present worries were so vastly different.

His present, most-pressing concern involved the fact that they had a list of a dozen-some chores that they needed to complete by the end of today, and Aether was still deeply asleep. And that was beside the fact that Albedo still had not figured out what flowers they were going to be using to decorate their home in preparation for this year's Windblume.

He’d decided that they would definitely be yellow flowers months ago, but he hadn’t settled on which ones he liked best. Marigolds, daffodils, dahlias, freesias, buttercups, primroses – each of them were a sentiment of his affection. Each unique in the type of love he felt for Aether.

There were so many things he needed to do…

Albedo watched Aether’s nose twitch. He felt him shift against his chest, then nuzzle closer to his neck.

…Later, Albedo decided.

Later, he would wake Aether up with a gentle flick against his nose so he could watch the way it scrunched in annoyance. Later, he would nag at him to get up so that they could go about finishing the chores they had listed out the day before. Later, he would indulge him with kisses all across his face when he began to complain.

Later, later, later. There were so many moments of the future waiting for them. An eternity’s worth, Albedo was sure. After all, they were beings that transcended time. Kreideprinz, the prince of chalk, birthed from soil, and the Honorary Knight, the boy made of sunlight and stars. It wouldn’t hurt to lay in bed for another hour longer.

#albether #albedo x aether #albedo #aether #I LOVE THEM SO MUCH YOUR HONOUR #my writing ew

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adrian-the-lonely-writer · 3 years

Text

Haunting Memories: A John Constantine Story

John Constantine finds himself some where strange at the hands of the devil. Yet again. This time however, instead of charging through hell and demons, the Hellblazer has to travel through his own past to understand what they want from him. Story and plot by me, featuring DC comic's John Constantine. (I guess I just wanted to try my hand at writing the character. Hopefully updates will come at a daily to weekly basis)

Chapter 1: Arrival

“What do you mean John, you don’t like it?” With a wave of his hand, the devil gestured to the carnival glittering down below them. Children's cries welled up the grassy hills, trapped by the trees that surrounded the fairgrounds, and accented by the soft whir of the machines. Music blared, audible even to their hill top. A faint breeze was blowing but it was drowned out by the excitement. A central tent glowed faintly with the lit up rides rivaling the stars above. “And after all the trouble I went to, to make it especially for you.”

“I don’t want to play these games-” John closed his eyes, taking a long drag. A dream. Some bizarre fucked up dream. That’s all this was. When his eyes opened once more, the devil was gone. The cacophony below continued the same as before. “Bloody hell…” Taking one more peek behind him, and finding the same wall of forest at the base of the hill, he made his choice.

“Not bloody. Not yet. That’s your job, isn’t it?” Was the last thing John heard, as he descended down the hill.

The carnival was simple. A large central tent. The north side was a food court, the south side was where all the games were set up. East and west held all sorts of rides. Small scale roller coasters, spinning gravity rides, rides that took you upside down, any sort of thing you could want. The hill was on the south end, and from it you could see the thick forest surrounding everything. So dense it seemed to eat any light that reached its borders.

John made quick work sliding down the hill, never losing his footing. He’s been in worse spots, he supposed. The crowds were mostly children and their families. Teenagers in smaller clusters around the park. Besides the fact the woods seemed to surround them, nothing appeared obviously out of place.

“Made especially for me huh?” John took another drag as he stepped into the light.

It was daylight all of a sudden. John Constantine was 13 years old, and had run away to the carnival from school after a particularly lucrative (and not exactly fair) poker-match with his mates.

John stepped back in a rare moment of panic and once more, it was night. He was the crumpled 30, maybe 40 year old (truthfully he had lost count) he remembered himself to be. Still the carnival continued in front of him, unbothered by the change.

“The FUCK is going on?!” His shout would go unanswered, both by the families at the event, and by the devil who brought him here. Some quieter curses leaked through his lips as he sat on the grassy mount outside of the light of the carnival. Going in was not the number one option in his mind.

His eyes lingered back over to the trees. They were densely packed close together. Some sort of evergreen he thought. Still, even the limited empty space was filled by a thick darkness. Not a lack of light, but a true darkness. A darkness that one only truly knows when they walk a path similar to his own.

Constantine found himself approaching the tree line. More out of avoidance to whatever magic lay within the chaos of the carnival than out of any actual hope this would be the way out. Slipping his hand behind the tree line, slipped it from his sight as well. Total darkness lay within the trees. Even the light from his lighter couldn’t penetrate the darkness contained here.

With a sigh of resignation, he slipped back into the carnival.

It was September 3rd. A Friday. The carnival was set up in the outskirts of town, ready for weekend business. Like any 13 year old, John wanted to go, although his family was standing in the way.

During school, at lunch, John had gathered a few “mates” of his own for a quick game of cards. Truly they were marks more than anything else. John had learned he didn’t need friends. He needed people he could control and manipulate. These kids were rich, and full of money for the upcoming festivities. John won them over with his charm more than anything. Charm and stealing his fathers cigarettes as gifts. Didn’t take long until he was gambling with them regularly. Tanking a few bets here and there when he could afford it to gain their trust, knowing when the time came down to it, he would not lose.

One ill-fated poker game later and John was slipping out of the boys bathroom, money loaded into his school-pack.

John remembered all of this, clearly as if his entire life passed within a blink. An innocent gesture to adjust to the lights of the rides and tent.

‘No’ John thought to himself, the boy's face slipping into a frown. Despite how he appeared now, despite the carnival who’s grounds he was entering, he knew it wasn’t back then. Too many things happened. Too many leaving their permanent marks. Maybe the ones on his body were gone, but not on his soul. He could feel those wounds wherever or whenever. Even now.

“Alright John.” He clapped his hands together, producing a smoke from his adolescent pants. “Let’s get to the bottom of this.”

Before him lay the rows of games. The ring toss, duck grab, balloon darts, and the balls and their bottles. Not to mention the various shooting ranges with their cork guns. Or water games. A smile flickered over John’s lips as he remembered his original run through here. Even at 13 he still had quite a bit of occult knowledge, certainly enough to ruin a few carnival games. Bit of psychokinesis timed with the throw of a baseball netted him his favorite prize. It was a large stuffed animal. A dog. Funny, he remembered always wanting a dog.

“Step right up! Throw a ball, win an animal.” The carnie’s shout pulled John out of the memory. The carnie stood at the very same bottle game John remembered. Yet there was one detail obviously different. The stuffed dogs were gone.

“Win an animal?” John snarked, walking up to the booth, his old teenaged smirk returning.. “What animal? I don’t see any prize.”

The carnie winked, pulling back in the curtain and revealing the large cage. Inside a large black canine stared directly at John. Eyes of ruby that bore into his soul as the smell of sulfur assaulted him. A look John would recognize anywhere.

“The hell?!” John tried to run backward, but stumbled falling onto his ass. Cursing again, he scrambled up and saw the cage again. This time locked inside was a German Shepherd curled up on his little bed.

“Scared of dogs, kid? Then this probably ain’t the game for you.” The carnie’s arms were crossed. Several parents looked at John, holding their younger kids close.

‘Great’ John thought to himself again. Not only did he not know what was going on, he was making a bit of a spectacle of himself.

“More scared of the horrid set up of your game.” John found himself saying as he dusted himself off. “You really expect to make money with a set up that easy?”

“Oh ho ho.” The carnie replied. “You seem pretty confident.”

John found himself placing the fee on the counter and picking up the baseball. Throwing it with the same tricks as before. The bottles tumbled to the grass below.

“They warned me about you…” The carnie winked a little. “Well, good job young man, I suppose this guy is now yours.”

John didn’t see the man open the cage, but the dog was on him in an instant.

#john constantine #john #constantine #hellblazer #hell #fanfic #fanfiction #story #horror #mystery #carnival #chapter 1 #chapter one

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romiithebirdie · 4 years

Text

From the Furthest Tether: Part One

"Oh, Izuku," his mother, Inko tsked, rolling up his shirt sleeve and checking over the scuffs and blisters along his arm. She honestly wished her son and the friends he chose to surround himself with would play more gently with one another. Knowing that children often played rough, Inko honestly had to admit that Izuku returning home each day with small burns and bruises was beginning to become more and more concerning.

She began chewing her lip in anxiousness when she heard the slap of leather shoes coming up from behind her and the front door of their home closing shut. A hand brushed through her own green locks and she let out a small giggle like a teenager when her husband pecked her on the cheek, returning from another long day at work.

Hisashi's light hazel eyes widened slightly at the marks on his four-year old's arms and he scowled, "Are those children still causing you grief, Izuku?"

Izuku's little friendship group consisted of three children in question, two quieter kids who went along with whatever their ringleader, Katsuki Bakugou implemented them in.

Bakugou, in Hisashi's own words was a temperamental little nuisance who took after his hot-tempered mother, Mitsuki far too much. The child had an air of superiority that was incredibly unnatural for a boy that age and his unpunished behaviour often set Hisashi's teeth on edge.

Especially when it involved abusing his gentle-natured son who only wished to befriend the little brat in question. Something that he found himself despairing over on a daily basis.

"That woman needs to reign that little demon in before he seriously hurts somebody," Hisashi growled, setting down his briefcase and muttering under his breath as he removed his blazer from his shoulders.

"You know how children can be, dear," Inko moved from crouching to kneeling on the carpet while glancing up at her husband.

Hisashi fought the urge to roll his eyes at his wife's attempts to reason with him. It was a common excuse that most people used to make light of a situation, something that many adults would often say when it came to dealing with Bakugou's behaviour.

"I blame that mother and soft-hearted father of his," he grumbled, folding his blazer over one of the chairs in their dining room. Inko watched from over her shoulder and she smiled warmly, trying to offer the man she loved a tiny bit of comfort.

"I'll call Mitsuki and talk with her about it, Hisashi. I'm sure we can work something out."

Hisashi let out a huff in response, leaving to fetch something from his study further down the hallway while running a hand through his white curls. Inko let out a soft sigh, shaking her head fondly yet tiredly, understanding completely how her husband felt about the issue with Izuku's supposed friends.

While she was proud that her baby was kind-hearted, she often had to admit she found herself growing concerned over the fact Izuku would make excuses for the children who treated him dreadfully. Inko was more lenient with situations like this but her husband was a different story...

Although she loved him, sometimes the odd spark of life in Hisashi's eyes triggered an emotion that she would try to blot out of her mind. It was something that she would find herself wondering about every now and again.

Her son snapped her out of her own thoughts when she felt a small tug on the sleeve of her crocheted cardigan.

"It's okay, Mummy," Izuku sniffled from the wooden stool Inko had fetched him. He offered her a watery smile and then uttered words that the woman was thankful that her husband hadn't been in the room to hear; "A hero sometimes has to deal with injuries worse than these! So I will too, so it can make me stronger!"

.-.-.-.

Stronger, huh?

The light bulb above his head needed changing.

Izuku watched from his bed as the dull light flickered like a burnt-out candle above him with a foggy mind, still fuzzy from recently waking from emergency surgery.

There was a howl of utter anguish coming from outside of Izuku's ward and further down the hallway. It almost sounded like Present Mic's voice, but the boy couldn't be completely sure. Something else was yelled out, about "her" being dead.

He had no idea who had died, nor did he want to know at this current moment in time. Closing his eyes tight, Izuku shuddered upon hearing the absolute broken wail that followed, echoing all the way up to his room and further along the other side of the corridor.

Everything had gone so wrong in the Jaku Raid. It was supposed to be simple for him and his class; evacuate civilians and leave the fighting to the Pro Heroes.

At first, everything had started smoothly. Izuku had gone with his classmates and followed orders like a model student, only a little concerned when the static buzzing of Endeavor called out to several heroes for back-up.

It's probably nothing, he had told himself, escorting an elderly couple along a footpath to where their family were waiting.

But then the decay began, killing heroes and civilians alike while tearing down multiple buildings and natural resources. Izuku and his friends had been forced to leap into action, immediately following one of Endeavor's sidekicks, Burnin, who was moving towards one of many areas of complete carnage.

Soon after, a voice spoke through his mind that would haunt him for years to come:

"It's down there."

One for All screamed out in response, like a telepathic wave telling him to move. To do something.

And he had complied.

He had lied to his closest friends and darted off into danger with the intent to lure Tomura Shigaraki's awakened form towards him and away from everybody in the vicinity. His childhood friend and fellow classmate, Katsuki Bakugou, had tailed him while wearing his trademark smirk. Together they had jumped straight into the lion's den and Shigaraki took the bait completely, immediately aiming for Izuku until his impending rescue courtesy of Gran Torino.

Shortly after narrowly avoiding death, Izuku had been spared from a painful demise by none other than Bakugou, who had pushed him away from the elongated, sharpened tendrils of one of Shigaraki's many Quirks.

Everything had become a blur from then, Izuku remembers the rush of fury emitting from his every being and he charged Shigaraki with only one intent in mind; to hurt the other male for almost killing his childhood friend.

The world had become a blur for Izuku soon after and he had appeared back in the dreamscape, brushing along the ghostly walls of the void of One for All and its' previous wielders. But this time, Shigaraki was also there, crouched low while All for One seemed to be growing out of his spine like an uprooted evergreen, coiling his arms around the younger male's body like thick vines ensnaring him.

He remembered how much All for One's words stung upon hearing the villain rasp them out at his younger brother who opposed him alongside Nana Shimura, the seventh holder of One for All who also happened to be Shigaraki's paternal grandmother.

"Your power has been wasted on someone who couldn't protect his own teach or friend, yet they were able to defend him! To think you conferred this power to somebody so worthless was a complete mistake!"

Although the vestiges had stood their ground against the century-old madman, the words clung to Izuku and ate away at his already crumbling self-worth. He had been utterly helpless, both in their realm and his world.

The rest of the fight was nothing but a blur, smudges of memories here and there as he fought consciousness upon his return to the physical world. Izuku recalls that he had tried to reach Shigaraki with Black Whip one last time because he had the sudden desire to rescue the manic villain from his inner demons, literally and figuratively speaking. To reach out towards somebody who had threatened his life on multiple occasions, taken Kacchan captive back at the Training Camp and then spent their most recent battle targeting the green-haired teen with the intent to snatch him away and tear his Quirk away from his body.

And then after that, I'd be murdered in the most gruesome way Shigaraki could think of, his mind inputted as an extra punch in the figurative gut.

Izuku had attempted to stand his ground once more, using a Froppy-inspired move with Black Whip streaming out of his mouth, but had been blasted back where he then remained consumed by the darkness until he awoke in a hospital bed attached to an IV drip and completely alone.

With everything that had transpired, he had barely done anything. The villains escaped and there were talks of a lot of heroes passing away in battle that Izuku had only heard through his bouts of drifting in and out of consciousness. He wandered if Gran Torino had survived the violent attack Shigaraki had dealt him. The elder had essentially been gutted in front of them all, yet Izuku had no clue where he had been taken. Izuku prayed he was alive, All Might had already lost a number of his closest friends, he didn't deserve the devastation of losing the man who cared for him after Nana's death.

I need some air, he told himself, struggling to his feet while gripping the IV with one shaking hand as he forced himself to move forward. He shakily began unscrewing the drip from his cannula, pushing the IV pole aside as he shuffled out of the ward.

He made it all the way through the empty halls and up the elevator until he reached the doors to the hospital rooftop, though he was still unsure of what the purpose of going up to the roof was about…

#bnha manga spoilers #izuku midoriya #all for one #tomura shigaraki #ao3 bnha #hisashi midoriya #inko midoriya #dadmight #bnha fanfiction #my hero academia #my hero academia fanfiction #dad for one #my writing

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sword-dad-fukuzawa · 3 years

Text

black glass in the desert, an au about teyvat after the fall

Summary: In the wasteland of what had been Teyvat, Diluc picks through the wreckage. Part of a post-apocalyptic Genshin AU that I may or may not finish, and the product of my obsession with the Mare Jivari. Diluc-centric.

Rating: G/T

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, death

Ships: None explicitly, though you could read into this what you like. Jeanluc and Kaeluc are both kind of implied.

Diluc has always been the sort of person who hates anything that inconveniences him, mild as it often is, and the dangerous hot sun is no different. He can feel it lancing hot pain over the unprotected skin of his neck and he knows, with the burden of prior experience, that he’s going to be scorched bright red in the morning. But he keeps walking. At the rate he’s going, he won’t reach the Mare Jivari before sundown. And with the endless desert stretching as far as the eye could see, that just might kill him.

But he survived the Night of the Burning Citadel and he survived the earthquakes that followed. He adamantly refuses to die in the middle of an empty desert, not when he’s so close he can taste it.

It’s the ash on the wind, Diluc thinks, a little deliriously. It’s a familiar taste in his mouth.

There’s also sand in his mouth, sharp and gritty. There’s sand in his collar, sand in his boots, sand worked so far into his hair that he’ll spend weeks washing it out if he survives this. Even having chopped most of it off just before venturing into Sumeru’s desert sea hadn’t stopped it from collecting particles. He’s not used to it being so short, either. Every so often, Diluc catches himself rubbing at the back of his head, expecting a ponytail where there isn’t one.

He stumbles and nearly falls to his knees in the dunes, but he stops at the last moment. The sudden movement makes him woozy.

Diluc doesn’t remember the last time he’s gotten a proper night’s rest. It can’t have been since the fall of Mondstadt, or even before, not when he’d had his hands full dealing with all the minor crises leading up to it. Those days remain a wash of black ash in his memories, the sort that Abyss Mages became once whatever kept them from dying ran out.

Lots of ash. Diluc’s sick of ash.

He walks until the sun stops bothering him, though he only realizes that it’s stopped being a problem because it’s setting. And that, more than the evening breeze, sends a thrill of fear through him. He could face a hilichurl band or an Abyss Mage any day, but the small outpost of Sumerian refugees—scholars, mainly, who had rode out the earthquakes by holing up in the Academia and fled the subsequent fires—had warned him against the plunging temperatures of desert nights. Even his Pyro Vision might not be able to save him, they’d said, and eyed the gemstone dangling at his waist with barely repressed curiosity.

Diluc hadn’t had the heart to tell them that he couldn’t conjure flames if he tried, and that he mostly wore his Vision out of habit and because it reminded him of home. He’d tried once after the earthquakes, still standing in the smoking ruins of Mondstadt, and he hadn’t been able to conjure up so much as a spark. It hangs from his hip like a dead weight and sometimes he smacks into it while he runs.

He grits his teeth and keeps walking, slogging over the sand like one of those Ruin Guards that always haunted Brightcrown Canyon. Though Brightcrown Canyon is markedly less of a canyon, now, and more a shallow divot in the earth. He assumes the Ruin Guard meandering through it on a patrol route nobody understood, least of all him, had been buried by landslides.

The breeze blows past him, still warm from the heat of the day. Diluc is from Mondstadt, born and bred—even with the Anemo Archon gone and any Anemo Visions long since gone dead, it carries a familiar pang of comfort.

He’s never been all that religious. Not like Jean—and he thinks of her with some regret—or his father had been. Too many terrible things happen on a daily basis for him to accept that there was really some benevolent god watching over him. And that belief was only solidified when he met that god, because it’s hard to worship a bard wearing bright green and standing a good two or three heads shorter than him. Especially one that drank his weight in alcohol at least once a week.

Nevertheless, the wind against Diluc’s cheek feels like a promise. An encouragement.

And so he keeps walking.

He thinks that there might be some truth in the old clan sayings about the wind when he sees what must be the border of the Mare Jivari, illuminated in broad strokes by moonlight. Since he’d made up his mind to travel there, he’d heard it called many things.

The silent sea of ash. The edge of the world. A windless land.

He knows it by the way the breeze abruptly stops, as if controlled by some unseen hand, as soon as he steps over the last few sand dunes. In front of him is what looks like a flat plane of grey and black dust—the ashes of the lava that had, once upon a time, made up the bulk of the Mare Jivari. Now, only ash and charcoal stretches before him, seeming to go all the way until the horizon. Inexplicably, the air is warm—much warmer than the air before the border, which had begun to cool as the moon climbed higher in the sky.

And there, standing ankle-deep in the ashes, stands a tall, familiar figure.

“Fucking finally,” Diluc spits, hauling himself fully outright.

The figure turns at his outburst. He’s missing his elaborate cloak and he’s put his hair into a bun, but it is still, unmistakably, Kaeya. He still wears his old clothes and his Cryo vision dangles over his left hip, and his eyepatch is the same gold-trimmed black it’s always been.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says, and Archons, he even sounds the same. It doesn’t look like a single day has passed since the last time Diluc had seen him—perched atop the statue of Barbatos, silhouetted against the burning cathedral—and yet it’s been over a year. The time spent wandering is engraved in Diluc’s bones, but some days, he wonders if this aching feeling is what the Traveler had felt in those halcyon days before. Before Celestia fell from the sky and broke the world into pieces.

“Cut the shit,” Diluc snaps. “You know what I’m here for.”

Kaeya has the gall to look vaguely amused, his visible eye crinkling into a mockery of a smile. “What, to kill me? You’re welcome to try, Master Diluc.”

The old title grates on his ears, insincere in a way that he’s long since learned to tolerate but not to enjoy.

“I’m not you,” he says through gritted teeth, because as much as he desperately wants to see Kaeya bleed for what he knows he’s done—because cathedrals don’t set fire to themselves, and he had gone missing for weeks before the night Mondstadt burned to the ground—there are things he wants more. He’s travelled this far, and for so long, that to lose sight of what he wants in a fit of passion is unthinkable to him.

“You wound me,” says Kaeya. He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, as casually as if he were standing across the counter the Angel’s Share. Diluc feels the pull of home more viscerally than ever before, looking at Kaeya. If he fixes his eyes on his face and not on the Mare Jivari, he can almost imagine he’s behind the counter, wiping down glasses and putting bottles in the correct order. He can hear the ever-present music on the breeze and the low chatter of bar patrons, smell the scent of cecelias on the wind—

Diluc cuts off the thought. He can’t afford to think of Mondstadt now.

“Answers,” he says, the words low in his throat. “Answers, Kaeya, you owe me that much.”

The wind doesn’t blow here. He’s utterly alone, now—and if he’s being honest with himself, he’s been alone since Mondstadt burned, and maybe even before that. He’s spent this last year searching for answers. Looking, desperately, for a clear description of what had happened the night of the earthquakes. Wandering around and talking to the survivors had told him three things that he could hold as fact.

First, that the earthquakes had happened simultaneously. Each one had been centered on a region with a major quake for each city. Mondstadt, just barely recovering from the fires in the previous day, hadn’t stood a chance. As it was, most of the larger population centers had been decimated. Liyue’s ports had crumbled and the rest of the buildings flooded or destroyed after a massive tsunami. Snezhnaya’s Zapolyarny Palace had apparently tumbled down around the Harbingers’ ears. Similar stories could be heard all across what was left of the seven nations, though there hadn’t been a single word from Inazuma. As far as Diluc knew, the islands may as well have been drowned by the sea.

Second, that none of the survivors from Mondstadt had seen Kaeya that night. He’d been the only one to see him standing atop Barbatos’s open hands, and when he’d looked again, he was gone.

Third, that something had happened to Celestia, and so everything that drew upon a connection to it ceased working as soon as the aftershocks had ended. Visions turned blank and dull, like masterless Visions, and nothing could bring them back to life. Most damningly, not a single person could see Celestia hovering in the sky anymore—though no one had seen it fall, either. But the Abyss seemed to have gone quiet, too—as if the hilichurls, Abyss Mages, Abyss Heralds, and other monsters had all quietly vanished from the face of Teyvat. Even the pulsing blue leyline trees and flowers were gone.

Diluc looks at Kaeya and he sees Mondstadt burning, but he doesn’t pull out his sword. Not yet. “Explain,” he says roughly.

Kaeya considers him with a blank expression, inscrutable to the last. Finally, he sighs. “Wouldn’t you prefer not to know?” he asks, patronizing. “You might not like what you hear.”

Diluc has never, in his entire life, wanted to kill someone as much as he wants to kill Kaeya in that moment.

“Jean is dead!” he roars, feeling something inside him, something held tight for so long, snaps. “She died of injuries sustained hauling civilians out of the cathedral, the cathedral you burned down! I had to watch as her little sister tried to heal third-degree burns and couldn’t, because they’d gone down right to the bone, and I had to carry her body back to Lisa. You owe me! This is the least of your debt!”

Kaeya takes a step back, his face contorting into surprise. Good, Diluc thinks viciously. He doesn’t know how Kaeya has the audacity to look surprised at the destruction he’d clearly wrought with his own two hands, but he hopes the knowledge that he’d killed Jean—Jean, the best of them, the one who had deserved to live—hurts. He hopes it rips open a wound and he’ll get to watch Kaeya bleed.

Diluc takes a step forward, pressing his advantage. “And worst of all,” he hisses, seeing Kaeya’s jaw tense, “is that I had to leave. I had to leave, Kaeya, had to leave the last survivors of Mondstadt’s collapse behind because there was one person in this place who could possibly answer for everything we’d lost. The last Knights remaining are Klee and Albedo, did you know? Did you even care that they survived? I left Mondstadt with two knights and a librarian, one of whom is a child.”

“Had to leave?” Kaeya shoots back, as if regaining his footing somehow. “Or did you run away, like you always do?”

“Lisa told me to go!” Diluc shouts. He finally gives into the urge to pull his sword out, the familiar heft of it in his hand both a comfort and an assurance.

Kaeya's hand comes to rest on the hilt of his own sword, still hanging at his hip. But he smiles, sharp and slow. "I'm getting deja vu," he says. "Isn't this familiar?"

Diluc bites down on the instinctive, frustrated snarl. "If I have to beat the answers out of you, I will," he promises.

"Bring it," Kaeya snaps, unsheathing his blade in one smooth motion.

And then Diluc is lunging forward.

#i'm still on hiatus but #i just thought i'd start with uh #cleaning out my wip folder #because they're making me feel guilty #this one has been languishing #honestly lmk if you want more of this and i'll see what i can do #black glass in the desert snippets #diluc ragnvindr #kaeya alberich #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #i dunno why i like writing diluc centric fics #yes this is post-canon #yes i have more hcs about the apocalypse

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brittledame · 4 years

Text

Pairing: Shirabu Kenjirou/Reader

Warnings: Explicit, hate-sex, swearing, name calling, light bondage, edging, overstimulation, semi-public sex

Word Count: 6.6K

Summary: Contrary to what you both believed, the tryst in the study room only served to intensify the tense air between you two. Not wanting to acknowledge how he’s been on your mind since, you shut him out completely. Unknowing to you, Shirabu is plagued with the same thoughts. Tension boils over once again as you find yourself left alone with him in the gym.

Series: Part 2 of 3 (Part 1 & Part 3)

To say that the last few weeks since handing in the assignment have been tense was an understatement. Ever since the incident in the study room, your head has been in utter disarray.

There were many things on the burning pile of your mind that added to your mounting vexation. The first one being that you gave into him, and no matter how pleasurable that was, it was a major blow to your pride. Since that library session, Shirabu acted as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. Hell, if you weren’t for the bruises painted on your hips, you might’ve convinced yourself it was a very vivid sex dream about your rival.

Unlike Shirabu’s heated anger, yours was more of the frosty kind. Cold shoulders punctuated with icy looks. The two of you were opposites in every sense of the term and yet he haunted you like an embarrassing childhood memory that refuses to let you sleep.

You let your hand slip out from where it was supporting your cheek and let your head ‘thunk’ against the table. Concerned, Natsuki pauses from her bento and gives you an assessing look.

“Alright, you’ve been acting weird for a while now. Are you alright?” Natsuki narrow her eyes at you, a silent warning that you wouldn't get away with lying.

Asides from her expression, you could hear concern ring loud and clear in her voice. Natsuki was a dear friend but she was also as stubborn as a bull if she wanted something, just like you. Now that you think of it, maybe that was why you two got along so well.

Knowing that you weren’t going to be able to evade the question, you give her a plausible excuse.

“University entrance exams are getting closer and I feel like I’m hitting a wall when I try to study.”

It was partially true. Albeit the reason you were hitting a wall was mostly because you can’t go more than an hour sitting there without your thoughts drifting to Shirabu’s hands on your hips, thrusting inside of you with vitriolic comments on the tip of his tongue. But Natsuki didn’t need to know all of that.

Accepting the lame excuse, Natsuki nods her head in empathy.

“I feel you there,” she frowns, “with my council duties on top of everything, I feel like I’m doing work but getting nowhere with it. They have me running around every afternoon trying to get forms signed. By the time I’m done I don’t want to study.”

You quietly hum at her tribulations. Annoyed at your uncharacteristic brooding demeanour recently, Natsuki sharply prods your cheek with her chopstick. You bat her hand away and turn to weakly glare up at her.

In your periphery, a flash of copper-toned hair catches your attention. Peering at the boy that’s been distracting you from the corner of your eyes, you could see him sitting like a statue among the lively chatter of his table. For some reason, the mere sight of his blank face and stupidly straight fringe elicited anger inside of you.

If it wasn’t clear before, that reaction to his existence was enough to rule out the possibility of you falling for him. This fills you with relief. You had suspected the possibility when you caught yourself thinking about him on a daily basis, but the thought terrified you.

“Hey, are you even listening to me?” Natsuki pouts at you, hand poised to jab you in the cheek with her chopstick again.

“Yes.”

“Is that a yes to delivering the form or for listening?”

“Both,” you absent-mindedly answer, eyeing off your unfinished bento, knowing you weren't in the mood to finish it.

“Thanks for doing this favour for me.” Natsuki sounded genuinely glad as she riffles through her binder she refuses to leave in her desk.

With a small ‘aha’, she pulls out a sheath of paper and holds it out to you. Sitting up from your slouched position, you gingerly take the paperwork. You wonder what you might’ve signed yourself up for when you see how much writing is crammed onto the first page.

“What is this?” You ask.

“I knew you weren’t listening.” Natsuki says, a knowing glint in her eyes. “I told you that I need to get the volleyball’s club captain to submit their plan for the new people filling the team roles and other admin stuff like that.”

At the casual mention of the volleyball’s captain, dread gripped your heart.

“The volleyball captain?” You parrot back weakly.

“Yeah,” she gives you an odd look, “you know, Shirabu. The guy who you claim to hate. Surely you knew he was captain.”

Oh, you knew all too well that he was the damn captain. Being the overachieving bastard that he was, as if acing high school and aiming for medical school was enough, the dick had to add in being captain to a national-placing sports team as well.

Petulantly looking away to not meet Natsuki’s unimpressed look, your eyes incidentally met golden ones. The eye contact probably lasted all of a millisecond, but it was the most you two shared over the past few weeks. With you avoiding looking at Shirabu at every possible opportunity and Shirabu himself making no attempt to address the elephant in the room, you both let the elephant waste away and dye under the lack of attention.

Breaking the eye contact, you turn your attention back to the brunette in front of you. “Why am I doing this for you?”

“Because you’re a good friend?” She bats her eyelashes at you.

You give her a flat look, not believing her for a second.

“Come on,” she whines, “you know those volleyball guys scare me. They’re way too tall.”

“They shouldn’t. They’re a bunch a meat-heads.” You don’t mention the fact that their captain is below the national height average, which you find quite hilarious for a sport that’s all about height and strength.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Whatever, I’ve got the papers now, so it’s already settled. Don’t say that I’m not a good friend.”

Natsuki gives you a wide smile that makes you pause.

“Maybe while you’re at it, you can sort out whatever happened between the two of you since working on that science project.”

Your skin breaks out in goose bumps at the innocent words paired with a meaningful undertone.

It was then that you swore to never underestimate the power of Natsuki’s perception.

Not wanting to interrupt practice and bring unnecessary attention to yourself, you decided it was best to wait until practice finished. Remembering the time practice should be ending from your previous sessions with Shirabu, you holed yourself up in the dorms during the meantime, trying your hardest to work through some practice exam questions to no avail. Your traitorous thoughts kept drifting to the copper-haired setter roughly handling you.

Phantom touches ghosted along the same places Shirabu had graced upon not that long ago. Unthinkingly, your thighs press together as the memory of him ruthlessly fucking into you plays in your mind for the umpteenth time this week alone.

Frustrated with your horny mind, you slap your cheeks. The sting drives away the faint tendrils of arousal and brings back clarity. God, now was not the time to be getting all hot and bothered over something he probably hasn’t thought twice about. You valued yourself more than to ruminate over something so basal.

Looking at the time, it signals that you should head off if you want to get the forms signed tonight as per Natsuki's explicit orders. Snatching the forms off the corner of your desk, you set off to the gym with a stone sitting heavy in your stomach.

Thankfully, it was warm enough to not wear a jacket. The heat teases the stress from your tense shoulders. The walk was calming, the scent of blooming sakura and freshly cut grass further soothing your frayed nerves.

You weren’t nervous per say, more anxious at finding out how your body may react to being in such close proximity to him again. Since that night, purposeful or not, you both struggled to find an appropriate time to meet up and decided that it was best to do it all online since the majority of it was completed.

The sounds of shoes squeaking over varnished wood along with the low murmur of male voices met your ears as you slide your shoes into a cubby and slipped on indoor shoes. You’ve only been in gym one three times before and that was for the opening ceremonies. The sight of high beam ceilings and sleek modern interior still astounded you.

The boys running around had mops in hand, whilst others climbed to dismantle nets, but most of them were missing. Looking around for a head of copper-hair, you hoped that Shirabu hadn’t left early like most captains would. However, your mission was interrupted as your sight was filled with black hair and glittering dark eyes peering at you.

“Hi, can I help you?”

“Yes. Is Shirabu still here?” You answer, taking note of how tall the boy is. His face doesn’t seem familiar and you’d definitely remember meeting someone with a bowl-cut. He must be in a year below you, you reason.

“Ah,” the boy’s eyes flit over to the right, “he’s over there.”

Following his line of sight, you found Shirabu standing with his arms crossed next to an open door talking to a ginger-haired guy that you’ve definitely seen in your class before.

“Thanks.” You nod to the younger who smiles to you and continues whatever chose he was assigned.

Walking over to the pair, you catch his eye without even trying. Shirabu’s expression changes minutely, a subtle twitch of the mouth that has you contemplating homicide. You were over-reacting, surely. Still, you hoped that maybe he could fake being pleasant for as long as it takes to fill the forms out.

“Sorry to interrupt –“

“No, you’re not.” Shirabu interrupts. Well there goes the fantasy of him being pleasant for one minute. Even his tall friend gives him a look for cutting you off.

“You’re right. I’m not,” You concede. Placing a hand on your hip, you hold the papers out to him.

Shirabu blankly stares at you instead of taking them, which added to your mounting annoyance. Fine. If he wanted to play the petty game, so would you.

“These are forms for the retiring captain of the volleyball club to fill out. Unfortunately it turned out to be you.” You say with a plastic smile. “The team must be really sad to see their esteemed captain leave, huh?”

Shirabu’s jaw clenched at your poorly concealed insults, not even bothering to dress them up like you preferred to do. Expecting him to rise to the bait, you waited for the onslaught of offense he’ll spew in response.

“I’m busy right now. You can wait until I’m done.”

He brushes you off, turning and walking away from you. His friend gives you an apologetic look, knowing how shitty his friend’s personality is.

Your eye twitches with restrained violence as you watched him saunter away. With clenched hands you wait by the storage room’s doorway. You dismiss the few pitying glances from the few people walking past you to put the cleaning equipment away.

You busy yourself with your phone as Shirabu continues to waste your precious time that you could be using to catch up on some much needed studying that he was unknowingly depriving you of recently.

Kenjirou had not expected you to turn up tonight, catching him by surprise. When he noticed you, an inexplicable feeling rushed over him. He tried to keep his face neutral as you drew closer but the moment you opened your mouth he couldn’t help himself.

That temporary high of riling you up and then giving you the cold shoulder was incredible. After the weeks of your frigid treatment and the plain disregard for his existence you subjected him to, it was the least he could repay you with. The worst part of it all was that he couldn’t even ask about your sudden change of attitude, as you would try your hardest to avoid being in a room alone with him.

All he did know was that he weirdly missed the fiery attitude you possessed. It frustrated him to no end that as soon as the assignment was completed, you had done your hardest to ghost him. As much as one could when you shared the same classroom for near seven hours of the day.

Your suddenly frigid attitude didn’t stop you staring, though. Kenjirou had caught you a few times looking in his direction with an indescribable expression. From your distant expression, he couldn’t tell if you either wanted to stab him or re-enact that last study session.

Regardless, the entire affair has him on edge. He thought that fucking you would vent all those conflicting emotions and give him peace. Instead he feels more restless now than ever.

And to his dismay, this did not go unnoticed by Taichi.

“Is there a reason why you’re being more of a prick to her than usual?”

Kenjirou ignored the question in favour for checking out the gym. The first and second years were generally tasked to do clean-up and they did so with vigour, feeling privileged to work in an old war-horse team with a vendetta.

“Man, I never took you to be the ‘boy pulls girl's pigtails because he likes her’ stereotype when getting a girl's attention.” Taichi muses.

Shirabu scowls at Taichi. “Shut up. She annoys the hell out of me and that’s all.”

Taichi grabs him by the arm, eyebrow piqued. “She didn’t even speak two words and you were at her throat.”

“She doesn’t need to say anything to piss me off.”

“Funny that she’s willing to be civil and yet you aren’t.”

Kenjirou chooses not to comment on that.

The pissed off expression on his face has the younger members avoiding him like the plague, choosing to leave for their dorms over loitering in the locker room.

“Are you going to help me lock up or not?”

“Only if you stop looking murderous.”

Taichi’s knee buckles as Kenjirou delivers a swift kick to the back of it.

“Go away, I can do it on my own.”

“Fine,” Taichi says, looking relieved at the early dismissal. Kenjirou didn't doubt for a moment that Taichi planned for it. “Don’t murder the cute girl. I won’t be your alibi.”

“You’re a terrible friend.” Kenjirou hisses under his breath.

Taichi laughs and leaves Kenjirou to his own devices. Remembering that you were waiting on him, he’s surprised to find that you were still there. Leaning against the wall tapping at your phone looking bored, you didn’t notice his eyes on you. You were still wearing the school uniform, with the exception of your tie and first few buttons undone.

There was a casual air about you that he didn’t get to see every day. His eyes linger on your skirt, fingers twitching with the memory of how the fabric felt under them. Without his permission, an image of your panties tucked away in the back of his bedside table flashes to the forefront of his mind.

Unlike the previous times the thought popped into mind, Kenjirou chooses not to fight it away as he turns away from you and goes through the motions of checking the locker room and hallways before locking up.

The lacy scrap of fabric was a memento of sorts, a trophy of him putting you in your place the same way he envisioned in his more… illicit fantasies. Although, they may be cursed. As absurd as the idea is, Kenjirou has no other explanation for the phenomenon that’s been occurring since his ownership of them. He can barely stand looking at the harmless piece of furniture containing them without feeling heat spark up inside of him.

At first, he ruled it to anger or frustration, a common emotion he experiences in your vicinity. It only took a week after the tryst, left alone in his dorm room for the weekend did he indulge the demon in his mind. It wasn’t until he was coming down from his high, your soft panties wrapped around his hand covered in drying cum, did the weight of his actions sink in.

It didn’t stop there, though. No, that’d be too easy for him, and if Kenjirou had learnt anything since you breezed into his life, life was all about being difficult.

He had woken up a few times to ruined sheets from dreams of your sweet moans and pliable body under his hands, all too willing to obey his every demand. It's laughable that he thinks you would ever be like that, but that’s why he supposes their called wet dreams – they’re unrealistic fantasies. The logical part of him chimes in the significance of Kenjirou liking you to the extent of your appearing in those fantasies, but Kenjirou did his best to smother that voice until it died.

The keys in his hand rattle as he shoves them into his pocket. Without even realising it, he managed to complete lock-up. The only soul besides his in the gym belonged to the only person that could piss him off with just a look.

Walking down the hallway, towards where you were waiting, Kenjirou decisively concluded the knot in his stomach was not anticipation, it was from the annoyance at knowing he was forced to be with you in the few precious hours he has to himself.

Your mindless scrolling stops as you check the time, pissed that he’s held you back for this long. You wished you could leave but you promised to give the completed forms to Natsuki in the morning and you didn’t trust Shirabu for as far as you could throw him.

Whilst you didn’t expect him to greet you with open arms and a charming smile, you were fed up with his belligerent attitude. While he’s always been like that, it’s really been grating on your nerves recently. You’ve become acutely aware of Shirabu’s every move. The sight of him alone, at ease talking among peers made you experience something you’ve never felt before.

The closest description to the feeling is butterflies fluttering around your stomach, but the idiom was simultaneously nauseating and horrifying to you.

From dwelling on it for weeks now, you knew that your sudden interest towards him stemmed from lusting over him, as adamant you were to admit. Unfortunately, you enjoyed him taking you from behind without any regard for you. It infuriated you that you got off on his nasty personality.

“Give me the papers.”

The unexpected appearance of Shirabu’s voice startles you, very nearly causing you to drop your phone.

You click your tongue at him and give him an admonishing look for his rudeness. Grabbing the papers tucked under your arm, you hand it over to him.

“Here.”

Without a word of thanks, he takes them and starts reading over them, not wanting to dignify your cold tone. Biting your tongue, you fish out a pen in your pocket. You were sorely tempted to toss it at his head, but you were above acting so childish, unlike Shirabu.

Moving close to him, you stay out of his personal space as you point to sections of the paper with the pen and start reciting everything Natsuki told you. You were nothing but meticulous and as much as you despised her for setting you up, you never half-assed anything.

At the end of your spiel, Kenjirou snatches your pen from your grasp and start filling out the form against the wall. At your indignant shout, he simply rolls his eyes.

It was obvious that Shirabu wanted to be anywhere else but here with you, evident by his silence. Weirdly enough, the thought hurt, like little pinpricks piercing your chest.

Surprisingly, Shirabu is the one to break the silence that fell over the gym.

“Why does the council need to know how many students I think are going to join next year? How could I possibly guess that?”

You roll your eyes at his griping. “Just fill out the damn form.”

Uncaring of the dilemma threatening his fastidious nature, you grinned as his jaw clenches. He’s put you through psychological torture for a month now, this was only a taste of the frustration you felt.

You felt a little vindicated when he huffs out loud at another unnecessarily specific question.

Fuck what Natsuki said, this was exposure therapy at its finest. If you could do this without admiring his body in some way then that’d be a victory. And you despised losing, so you were intent on winning this as well.

Easier said than done.

Your eyes lingered on his lips as his tongue darts out to wet them. They further stray down the column of his throat and settle on the hand scribbling down information. His hands were surprisingly slender for a guy, but no less deadly. You’ve heard about his pin-point accurate tosses and serves. You knew firsthand the mistake of underestimating his strength.

“What?” He snaps, noticing you intently staring at his hands.

“Nothing,” You sniff, trying to look disdainful to cover your embarrassment at your wondering attention.

‘For fuck’s sake, pull yourself together woman!’ You inwardly admonish yourself.

For Kenjirou, this was the last straw. He tried carrying on as normal after the incident, he tried not biting back for the sake of decency, and yet your attitude flips on him out of nowhere. He’s tired of all of this shit.

Letting the papers fall to the ground, he grabs your wrist in an iron-hard grip and bangs open the door of the storage room beside you. Fed up with your attitude, Kenjirou knew that confronting you about it could blow up in his face but he couldn’t stand his last few weeks of high school spent with your bitchy demeanour.

“Hey! What the fuck?” You protest, pulling against the tight grasp he has on your wrists as he kicks the door closed pulls your further into the dark room.

Not listening to your complaints, he pulls you behind the high stack of mats and shoves you against the shelving unit. The shelves uncomfortably dig into your back as he cages you in, arms placed beside your head, breaths intermingling.

“This has got to stop.” He growls.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” You raise your eyebrows at him, outwardly acting unaffected. Internally, your heartbeat thundered in your ears, deafening you with the excitement you felt.

“Oh, so now you want to act normal?” He snorts.

“Fuck off.”

For the past three years you’ve taken enough of his shit. You thought denying the issue attention would starve him and he’d get bored. How wrong you were. Instead you managed to piss him off even more, evident by the way the air vibrated with the tension between your bodies.

“I bet you can’t get me out of your head,” Shirabu says lowly, possessive grip on your hips tightening minutely. “Maybe that’s why you refuse to meet my eyes.”

“Don’t sound all high and mighty. I bet you get off with my underwear that you stole, asshole.” You bite back, defiantly meeting his gaze head-on to prove him wrong.

Unexpectedly, Kenjirou flushes. If you didn’t know how big of a prick he was, you’d almost think it was cute. Now though? It was all you needed to know that was exactly what he’s been using your stolen panties for.

“Oho, hit the nail on the head now, did I?” You tease, drawing your faces close enough to see the faint freckles that were hidden by the redness.

“Shut the fuck up.” He says warningly, a hard expression on his face.

“Or what? You’ll gag me again? Oh no.” You challenge, lips pursed in faux concern.

“No,” he drawls, brushing his thumb across your lower lip. “I want to hear you beg for me this time.”

His thumb presses down hard, preventing you from responding coherently . You glare at him from under your eyelashes, not liking the smug look on his face at all.

His titillating tone had your horny hindbrain rearing to go. Meanwhile, your forebrain was too stubborn to give in just because he was wanted it, despite you wanting it as well.

Shirabu’s eyes dart from your eyes to your mouth, watching your tongue flick at his thumb. He replaces it with his index and middle finger, pressing down on your tongue and admiring the way your tongue melded around them. It was the best way he could stop your witticisms for one fucking second.

“You’re so much cuter when you’re not talking.” He sighs, feigning a wistful tone.

You scowled at him, hating the fact that he was enjoying himself and that you were weirdly enjoying it as well. His other hand migrates southward, slipping up underneath your skirt. The brush of his fingertips leave a tingling sensation on your skin as it makes its way up your inner thigh.

Your knees lock up as he brushes along the edge of your panties. Unable to take his intense focus on your face, you shove shove his fingers out of your mouth and pull him down into a kiss. Much like the first one you two shared, there was much more teeth and tongue involved for it be labelled such, but you had no other word for it.

As his tongue slips in, Kenjirou forcibly rubs against the wet spot he found. He pressed against it, testing how far the fabric would stretch. You keened into his mouth at the rough feeling of the fabric stroking against your folds.

Breaking the kiss, he leans his forehead against yours. His fingers move the panties to the side and you finally get the skin-on-skin contact you’ve been craving. Stroking your bare folds and smearing the wetness around, Shirabu manages to touch you everywhere but the place you wanted him most.

“If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought you never done this before.” You tease, hoping to urge him on but unknowingly sealing your fate for another rough night.

Shirabu’s ministrations stop and he levels you with a serious expression – a dangerous glint in his honeyed irises.

“I’m going to make you beg for me.”

Committed to his promise, he buries two fingers into you without concern. You yelp at the burn of the sudden stretch and lack of lubrication. As if you didn’t think you were insane as it was, you could feel yourself get wetter at the lick of pain. Kenjirou smirk as he watches your face screw up as he pumps and twists his fingers inside of you, feeling you become wetter around his digits.

Skillful fingers make a mess of you. Unable to support yourself on weak legs, Shirabu and the shelving unit bare your weight as you pant and give breathy sighs whenever he makes a particular set of motions that has heat rushing throughout your body and your hole gush.

It wasn’t long before you could feel that heat accumulating low in your gut. Throwing your head back and letting out a lengthy moan, needlessly warning Shirabu that you were close.

‘Just a little more,’ you thought desperately, ‘just a little more and I'll be there.’

Kenjirou knew he was a sadist at-heart, told many times by Taichi and his seniors for pushing the younger years during practice. He never had the chance to explore it with a partner before and while he never imagined you to be the one, he found himself enjoying your sinful expressions and sounds.

With a cruel smile, he watches your reaction as he pulls his fingers out of you. You Eyes fly open, hips pausing in their mindless rolling and a complaint rises to your lips.

“You fucker.”

He laughs at your reaction. it was exactly what he expected from your impatient bitchy self.

Instead of resuming the bickering from before, you force yourself to calm down. Closing your eyes and turning your thoughts inwards, you practice breathing techniques counsellors taught you for exam stress. The back of your mind registers his fingers skirting around the edge of your hole with enough pressure to cause your leg to twitch.

Envisioning the smug look on his face did not help you calm down. it caused your blood to boil all the more. Begrudgingly opening your eyes, your eyebrows furrow when you see his contemplative look.

Kenjirou wondered how long it would take for you to give in to him. From the way your chest was heaving, looking at him through lidded eyes, he concluded that it would be miracle if you could last more than two rounds of this game.

Determined to prove his theory, he ripped your skirt down with your panties in one smooth motion and slipped his fingers back into your greedy hole. It took a much shorter amount of time for you to get close this time, thighs tensing around his hand.

Trying to spread your legs wider, you’re stopped by the elastic waist of your panties. Annoyed, you step out of them and kick the skirt and panties away. Now freed, your legs spread wider to give Shirabu’s miracle hand more room to work with, which he gladly abused.

“Fuck.” You moan

“I’ve barely started and you’re already a mess,” He notes, eyeing your glistening eyes and the bared column of your throat.

“Screw you.” You hiss, thighs tensing as he works you back towards the high he ripped from you.

Kenjirou darts forward to deliver a harsh nip to your bottom lip in punishment. Not expecting it, you moaned at the bite of pain, tightening around his long fingers.

Believing you learnt you lesson, his lips move southward. Trailing down the column of you throat, his mind summons thoughts of your neck being littered with his mark. His hand increases the pace, brutally pumping in and out as the mental image makes his dick harden impossibly more.

The sting of his scalp as you tug at his hair pulls him away from the thought and in turn gives him another idea.

You smother the whine threatening to come out as he remove his fingers from your soaking hole, once again depriving you of that high.

Mildly confused, you watched as he loosens his tie and slips it over his head. It hits you a moment too late what he was planning. The fabric rasp against your overlapped wrists and tightens as he slide the knot down.

“I didn’t know you were into that, Shirabu. Mummy and daddy must be so proud of their little boy using their knot tying skills for bondage.” You comment, to which he rolls his eyes and forces your arms upwards to loop the other end of the tie around a pole.

He tests your new restraints by tugging at the knot. Satisfied with his handiwork, he turns his attention back to you.

“I was serious about you begging,” he starts conversationally, like you weren’t tied up and half naked. “I’m not going to fuck you until you do.”

“I’d like to see you try and get me begging, pretty boy.” You taunt him full-well knowing that you were starting to become a little desperate. Once clear mind was now clouded with a need that he’s been denying you over and over again.

Kenjirou knew this as well. Your legs were trembling minutely, your pupils dilated, and face flushed a cute pink. He could tell you were close to breaking. He was mildly surprised that you survived this far in, but your resilience – more like stubbornness, he muses – only served to make him all the more determined to break you.

Unlike before, it starts off slow. Calloused fingers massaging your faintly pulsing walls as you roll your hips against his palm. Just when he lulls you into a sense of security, the pace is amped straight back to maximum and fans his fingers out.

Kenjirou scissors his fingers as he pulls out and twists his wrist as he draws out. This had your eyes rolling into the back of your head, loud moan reverberating off of the walls.

It takes only a few pumps and a twist to have the heat grow and spark inside of you as he brings you closer to an orgasm than the previous times.

Kenjirou can feel the tell-tale fluttering of your walls, thighs clenching around his hand, as if trying to force him deeper. Easing up, he lazily pumps his digits in and out, watching as your expression twists into a pained one as he rips yet another orgasm from you.

“Fuck me already.” You moan, fed up with the ups and downs. You both loved and hated Shirabu having all the power right now. You’re sure this was something you’ll contemplate once this is all said and done.

“You know what I want.” He massages your walls and brushes against a sensitive spot.

A moan cuts off your words, walls clenching down on long fingers that weren’t enough to scratch the itch deep inside of you.

“Say it.”

Kenjirou buries his fingers inside of you, this time deeper than before, reaching spots that your own failed to reach. You very nearly screamed at the sensation. Shirabu was pushing you to your wits end without any effort.

“Please! Just fuck me already!”

The tears gathering at the corners of your eyes spill as he hastily pulls his fingers out of your sopping core. The sound of a zipper followed by fabric dropping to the floor fill your ears as Kenjirou hastily preps himself.

Smearing the juices from your dripping hole onto his length with slick fingers, Kenjirou catches your eyes as he strokes himself and smirks at your curious look.

A blush sears onto your cheeks at his look. Last time you didn’t get to take a look at his member, even though you became intimately aware of its slight upwards curve, you had to admit to yourself that his length was impressive. You’d rather cut out your own tongue than tell him that, so you make sure your face devoid of those thoughts.

Kenjirou doesn't waste a moment as he grabs your thigh and wraps it around his back as he lines himself up. The breath in your chest stalls as his tip prods at your entrance.

“Good girl,” He breathes as he finally enters you inch by excruciating inch.

Head dropping back, your arms strain against their restraints as his dick perfectly fills every crevice inside of you. The slight sting of the stretch brings more tears to your eyes, but it was soon overshadowed by the liquid pleasure that coursed through your veins as he starts rocking up into your warmth.

The shelves rattle as each thrust jostles you back. You were unaware of the pain caused by them digging into your back as each stroke already had you becoming closer and closer to your peak. The friction alone from his hurried pace had your toes curling and mind wiped of coherent thought.

Having you tied up and at the mercy of his whims had blood rushing from his head to his dick. It was an incredible feeling to tame your fiery spirit, creating a high that he could see himself chasing for the rest of his life.

“Look at you, taking my cock like the good cock-slut you are.” He pants into your ear.

You moan loudly, not giving a single fuck for any unfortunate soul that might still be in the gym, as your evasive orgasm finally comes into arms.

Your walls tighten around Kenjirou's length hard enough for him to hiss. Kenjirou knew you were close, moans reaching a new pitch. As a reward for you being compliant with him, Kenjirou lends you a helping hand. With a few strokes of your sensitive bundle of nerves he tips you over the edge.

Sparks coalesce inside of you and dance along your skin as you orgasm, creaming over Shirabu’s cock. Your vision turns black, but the feeling of Shirabu fucking you through your orgasm intensifies as he works through your tight warmth, seeking out his own peak.

“Kenjirou.”

Hips jerking out of motion, Kenjirou nearly chokes on his tongue as his orgasm sudden crashes down on him at your call of his name. Burying himself as deep as possible, cum sprays inside of you with considerable force as he unloads inside of your hole.

“You sound so good begging and moaning for me,” He pants. “It’s the only time where you’re not being a bitch.”

“Like you can talk Mr. When-I-Talk-Over-Someone-I’m-Automatically-The-Winner. You’re no better-”

Abruptly pulling out, Kenjirou replaces his cock with his fingers, pushing his cum back inside of your leaking hole. A weak groan rattles your chest as his fingers brush against sensitive hole, holding their position.

“As you were you saying?” He says smoothly, knowing he’s robbing you of speech as he applies more pressure to your hole.

“You fucker.” You grit out, tugging at your restraints as you automatically move to try and move his hands away, the full feeling of his hot cum inside you becoming overwhelming.

“A reward for being a good girl.” He breathes into your ear, causing a shiver to consume your form.

Reaching up with his free hand, Shirabu single-handedly undoes the knots of his tie and frees your wrists. You’d be impressed by this if it weren’t for his two fingers rubbing incessantly against you the entire time, making your vision fritz at the edges.

Arms falling to your sides, the blood rushes back into them and the feeling of static pairing wonderfully with the way Shirabu’s digits moved against your abused hole.

Pain flares up in your wrists when you grab his hand to stop his unrelenting movements. Working through the pain, you move his hand away. As Shirabu pulls away from you, he avidly watches as his cum drains from you. You swallow thickly at the sensation of warm globs trailing down your thigh.

Disgusted at the feeling of it drying, you glance around and spot a roll of paper towel sitting on the shelf beside your head.

You busied yourself by cleaning up the mess Shirabu made of you as the devil himself also wiped himself off.

Leaning down to pull up his shorts, Kenjirou notes the red fabric sticking out from your skirt piled on the floor. Surreptitiously checking that you weren’t paying attention, he tucks the fabric into his pocket with a sly grin, claiming his rightful trophy to his second conquest.

Glancing over to Shirabu as you pick up your skirt, you find him tucking himself back into his shorts with a carefully blank look on his face. You eye him suspiciously, unknowing of what he was going to do or say next.

“Here’s the key, lock up when your done and give it back tomorrow.”

You scramble to catch the key he tosses at you, dropping your skirt in the process. He doesn’t wait to hear your complaints, giving you one last long look and waltzes on out like he didn’t have you tied up and fucked senseless not even five minutes ago.

Incredulously, you watched his back disappear around the corner. Shaking your head, you go to pick up you skirt again. Noticing the absence of red fabric inside of the purple plaid, you looked around the floor, hoping that maybe you kicked them under the shelves.

After one quick look around, the fate of another pair of your favourite panties hits you like a brick to the head.

“Motherfucker!” You scream after him.

The deep laughter in the distance filters through your ears and fanned the hatred simmering inside as well as the blush doing its best to turn you into a strawberry impersonation.

Leaning against the shelving unit, chest heaving and sweat drying along your skin, you swore to fix the part of you that craved Shirabu's touch.

Notes: Too bad I can’t write degrading stuff without looking too far into it because goddamn does Shirabu suite it. Hope you enjoyed this indulgent fic!!

#shirabu kenjirou x reader #shirabu kenjiro x reader #shirabu kenjirou #reader-insert #haikyuu reader insert #haikyu!! x reader #head filled with nothing but shirabu recently #shiratorizawa #haikyu!!

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yangsrose · 4 years

Text

Blurbs of my WIPS

The order of these are not the order of them being released, but rather in a random order

if you would like to be added to the tag list for any of these please send an ask or reply to this post!!

WIP #1: Xiaojun Fic (heavily based off of the book "Son" by Lois Lowry)

Water. That’s all you felt around you. Water sloshing up and taking over every little part of you, leaving little to no air for you to breathe. You slowly felt your body get submerged by the harsh waves, and before you knew it, you were sucked into the black abyss. You closed your eyes to stop the harsh stings of the salt water, feeling a peaceful spirit come over you as you sunk deeper and deeper into the water.

The next thing you felt was a burning sensation in your lungs. Wanting to get rid of the water that was forcing its way up, you coughed out the cold, bitter liquid that was congesting your lungs. A pair of sweet, warm lips met yours, serving as a contrast to the sea water, and you felt air being forcefully pushed into your airways. You opened your eyes and blurrily saw a man towering over you, his small yet muscular frame hovering over you in worry. You closed your eyes once again, feeling tired from the effort put into taking out the water in your lungs and once again sunk into the familiar black abyss.

WIP #2: Ten FBI AU (based off of this time stamp)

Ten’s job was fairly easy. Or so he liked to believe that. I mean, all he did was just sit in front of a computer and monitor people as they surfed the internet on a daily basis, and make sure that they didn’t do anything suspicious or out of the ordinary. Since he was one of the newer recruits, he was scheduled to look over the more innocent people such as the ones who never searched up anything bad or out of the ordinary. His daily searches consisted of “how to bake a cake” or "how to make a necklace". Innocent stuff as these topics whizzed by his computer screen daily, leading for an easy job on his end. That however, changed when he got assigned to you.

Your searches weren’t… bad or anything, they were just more on the questionable side. In the beginning, your searches were always definitions to words, or just memes that you didn’t remember to save but really needed to send to a friend since you thought it was appropriate. For example, once you searched up “chicken with a knife meme”. Since your search included the word “knife”, Ten was alerted of it, but he dismissed it, not taking the search seriously since he too had that same meme saved as a contact picture for one of his friends.

It wasn’t until your searches became a bit more... progressive for a lack of better terms that Ten began to grow worried. Your searches started pretty innocently, such as “How to erase fingerprints from a surface” and he just suspected that you accidentally got fingerprints on a laptop screen and just wanted to erase them. But after a while, you began searching up things like “acids to get rid of blood stains” and “blunt surfaces that can cause a head trauma.” That caused him to become concerned. He began to monitor your searches more closely, and it wasn’t until recently one day when you searched something extremely concerning that he realised that you were someone that required to be monitored at all times.

Ten called for his boss, showing him the most recent search on your end. “Non-lethal stab wounds'' popped up on the bright screen, and Ten looked back at his boss to see a mirror expression of wide eyes looking back at him.

“I think we have to send you undercover.” Ten’s boss said. He simply nodded and got up from his seat, walking over to his apartment to get everything ready for his mission.

WIP #3: YangYang Zombie Apocalypse AU

"Wait wait wait don't shoot I'm a human I promise!" the young boy held up his hands and walked out from behind the wall the he was using as his hiding place. You refused to lower your weapon down, not wanting to let your guard down out of a fear of being tricked into your own death. You made eye contact with him and felt your hands shake, fearing that the worst might come to you.

As he walked closer, you realised that he was in fact who he claimed to be, the light tan colour of his skin glowing under the moonlight. You felt the gun drop from your hands and your body seemed to work on its own, causing you to run up to him and do the unthinkable.

You kissed him right on his lips.

WIP #4: Kun Astronaut AU

Being one of the only female biomedical engineers in NASA led to some pretty beneficial aspects of your workspace. For example, you were never asked to stay longer than an hour before sunset, out of a fear that you wouldn't be able to reach home safely. The only downside was the fact that you were the smallest one on the team, which put you in some... well, for a lack of better terms, unfortunate circumstances.

If anyone asked you how you ended up face to face in a underwater lab with your workplace crush, you would not be able to tell them why you were in this situation, but what you could tell them was that even after working strenuously underwater for the past 48 hours, Qian Kun still had the softest skin known to mankind.

WIP#5: YangYang Racer AU

why did this take so long to find an except that actually made sense😭

“You'll love YangYang trust me. He’s a first year just like you, and he’s single” Hendery said, wiggling his eyebrows at you.

“Why does that matter.” you scoffed, rolling your eyes at the older boy’s antics.

“Just saying.” Hendery said, shrugging his shoulders. You sighed and shook your head, being hit with the smell of freshly roasted coffee as soon as you entered the cafe. Hendery looked around and spotted his roommate, whose back was currently faced towards the both of you. Hendery walked up to him and tapped his shoulder, causing the male to turn around. As you made eye contact with him, you felt your breath hitched up in your throat.

The boy in front of you was absolutely ethereal.

His dark brown hair swept over his forehead, parting a little in the middle. HIs wide eyes scanned over the both of you, scrunching up as his gummy smile overtook his face, standing up to greet you. He was absolutely adorable, resembling a small puppy or sheep with his fluffy hair flopping over his eyes. Hendery noticed your state and smiled before muttering a soft “whipped” under his breath before introducing him to you.

“This is my roommate YangYang. He’s studying automotive engineering as well but secretly he wants to be a formula one racer- OW why are you hitting me? That’s the truth, right?”

“No one’s supposed to know that!” the younger male gritted through his teeth, sending Hendery a fiery glare.

“Sorry about him, Hendery has trouble keeping his mouth shut.” YangYang said, glaring at Hendery in the process.

“I’m y/n.” You muttered, feeling shy all of a sudden. YangYang beamed and stuck his hand out to you to shake, which you took gratefully. You felt your hands get clammy at the thought of holding hands with him, and you felt as if you were stuck in some sort of a trance as you shook his hand.

“Okay love birds you both can hold each others hands at the table let’s get going come on now.” Hendery walked towards the table while turning back to smirk at the both of you. You and YangYang let go of each other's hands and followed Hendery to the table, feeling your faces grow warm at his comment. You gritted your teeth and walked over to the table, silently vowing to never let him use your notes the next time he asked for them.

WIP #6: YangYang Haunted House AU

"YangYang I swear if you try to scare me one more time I will leave you here all alone and I don't care if you're the only way that I can get out of here."

"Uhh y/n? That wasn't me. I'm over here." YangYang said, appearing from the small passageway that was in front of you.

"Wait. If you didn't tap my shoulder, then who did?" you asked, feeling the hair on the back of your neck raise. You turned around and found yourself face to face with a bloodied man holding a pickaxe who was currently swinging it uncomfortably close to you. You felt a scream rise up on your throat and you screamed while grabbing YangYang's arm, using all the strength in your body to pull him along with you. YangYang soon began running faster than you, and he started pulling you after him through the numerous twists and turns.

"Next time you ask me to go anywhere with you I'm saying no" you said, venom seeping through your voice along with deep gasps for air.

"Agreed" YangYang said, regretting every action that led up to his decision.

WIP #6: YangYang Gamer AU

"So you're saying you've never played a single game in your life."

"Do coolmath games count? Because if so I am a beast at fire boy and water girl." you said, your eyes lighting up at the fond memories of playing that game. YangYang sighed and rubbed his temples, feeling stressed at the fact that there was a lot more than he expected to have to teach you.

"Okay how about this. You, me, tomorrow after school in my dorms to learn how to play games because there is no way that I am letting my best friend go their entire life without knowing how to play anything other than coolmath games."

WIP #7: Sungchan Spider-Man AU

"You're Spider-Man. The one who was just on the news." you said, feeling your heart rate accelerate.

"No? What are you talking about? I think you had too much caffeine and too little sleep let's get you to bed now." Sungchan said, maneuvering you over to the door.

"Sungchan, I just saw you crawling on the ceiling and you just shot a web out of your wrist. I even pinched myself so I know for a fact that this was not a hallucination." you said, your speech accelerating with every word. Sungchan sighed and tried to look for a way to cover up his odd behaviour, but in the end opted against it when he realised he was still wearing his suit.

"Please tell no one." he pleaded, turning around to face you with the biggest puppy eyes.

"So it is true" you whispered, your eyes growing wide at the revelation. The last thing you remember was seeing Sungchan's panicked eyes as he lunged forward to catch you before darkness enveloped you.

WIP #8: Johnny Secret Agent AU

"What do you mean run?" you asked, turning to face your partner.

"I may or may not have accidentally set off a bomb timer somewhere around here and if we do not book it out of here in the next two minutes we are going to be like the toast that you had this morning."

"Hey! Just because I like my toast slightly burned does not mean that you can make fun of it."

"You call that slightly burnt? The whole bread was a different colour and the house smelled like smoke." you scoffed and rolled your eyes before turning away from Johnny, wondering why the both of you were still here.

"What's taking Mark so long?"

"Listen here Mark if I die I will haunt you in my sleep please find a way to get us out of here." Johnny said, speaking into the in ear that was directly connected to your "man in the chair" back at the headquarters. You heard frantic typing as Mark tried to find a way out of the room, but as every second passed, it was apparent to you that you and Johnny were one second closer to your great demise. Thinking quickly, you grabbed Johnny's hand and ran out of the room, hearing Mark's voice as he directed you throughout the area, leading you two to safety only a few mere seconds before the bomb went off.

WIP #9: WayV Social Media AU

You think your roommate is going to take you out sometime soon, but you don't know whether it's with a knife or on a date.

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