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herstarburststories · 4 years

Text

you and me and the devil makes three.

Pairings: Dean Winchester x reader, Demon!Dean Winchester x reader, past Lisa x Dean

Summary: Dean is a demon, he will take whatever he wants.

A/N: This got darker than I expected. I wanna make it clear I don't condone or engage with Dean's acts on this. This is my submission for @jawritter 's Make Me Cry Challenge. Congrats, honey! Hope you like it. Dividers by talesmanic and gif credit here

Prompt: I guess I should have been more like her.

Warnings: non consensual kissing, language, UNHEALTHY BEHAVIOR, non con (kissing and touching but no sex), dirty talk

Dean Winchester was a dreamer.

In the rawest way of the word, the meaning in the dust-collecting dictionaries and not the idealistic form. His eyelids shut close and, just like magic, Dean’s head was as haunted as the home he swore he’d never come back to in Kansas. The ghosts of the past, not ever so very friendly, coming to greet him at least three times per week. Sometimes they were happy films he could never starre in real life, his mom singing or a picnic with a lover saying that they needed to hurry up to get their kid at the baseball. The nightmares were sleepy visions of flesh and blood, mostly about his time underneath, Sam hurting, or his father spilling out his worst fears at his face.

Maybe it was how the eldest Winchester’s brain compensated for the lack of bedtime tales and docile affairs growing up. The own way that his brittle soul discovered and molded not to let him collapse, or to always keep him on red alert.

Good and bad deals are mostly a matter of which side you are betting your money on, really.

Because yeah, Dean did wake up feeling like he had shut his forest eyes briefly for twenty minutes instead of hours when he dreamed, but he also had never spent so long trapped in a better place. The green eyed hunter didn’t know which one was worse: the good dreams or the horrific ones. After all, he had went through all the atrocity and made it out alive, but the engulfed craving for light-hearted scenarios was suffocating. The hunter could never have it all. Trust him, he tried. Then, which is more agonizing: to have everything you ever wanted for a couple hours and have every scrap of it taken from you, or to undergo the calamity that accompanied your breaking point?

Dean didn’t know, he didn’t even know what to tell Sam when he wondered what his brother had dreamt about to wake up sweating and screaming, all the light and stupid apple pie desires and the sharp brutality crawling out of the back of his mind. He made a joke, Megan Fox really liked knives, man. He kept it in, shoved down a good amount of alcohol, and mocked the worry of doing the lawn. Ready for another day.

But now he was a demon, and apparently whatever he was made of - sulfur, cruelty, and black eyes under garden ones - wasn't worthy quiet reliefs in the middle of the night, or even frightening figments of memory. He became his worst dreams and all the dreams slipped beyond his reaches because of that. Demons, those unholy creatures, didn’t get the human peculiarities. You know what? Fine by him.

Who needed dreams when you don't need sleep, anyway? Even better: who needed dreams when you don't care about what you gotta do to put your greedy hands on the prize you had been eyeing for years?

Dean Winchester was finally free. Free for the first time since he was a four years little boy who watched his mother burning with a terrorized expression, ironically mimicking the one Mary wore on the ceiling. His dad’s shouting for him to grab Sammy and run, take your little brother and run, echoing through years and years. There was never time for Dean, for his grief or his questions or whatever the child frozen in time under his rib cage could come up with. They said, stupid psychologists with their fancy degrees and malicious bartenders with a unfriendly grun under the counter who learned a little too much, everybody said that when someone was so traumatized as a kid, that person would tend to get frozen at that age. Therefore, how tremendously alleviating was to kill any reminiscing emotion of the whiny child he used to be.

The kind of freedom that no traveler longed for; when one’s ruined and damaged enough not to care, and just take and take and take like hunger itself. Dean was an evil thing now, what else could he do but act on the figments of the worst intentions?

And feel so fucking good when doing that.

‘’Where do you think he's going?’’ Your eyes raked over the street, darting between the asphalt under Baby’s wheels and Sam’s weary features.

‘’I don't know.’’ He sighed, attempting to organize his thoughts. Even as a demon, his brother wouldn’t just run miles and miles away by himself for no apparent reason. There had to be something you and Sam were missing out, some unseen clue or a hidden meaning. ‘’What the localizator says?’’

At least you had managed to put a tracker in his boots during your last encounter. Whatever Dean was thinking of starting there, you and Sam wouldn’t let him.

‘’Still Cicero, Indiana.’’ You sighed. Sammy furrowed his eyebrows, a long forgotten memory rising. ‘’What?’’

‘’We had a case there once years ago.’’ He explained, opting not to elaborate. Your and Dean’s relationship was troubled enough with his new self. Sam didn’t want to blow it up completely. His brother would need you once he came back to himself. The look on your face, though, reported how you weren’t buying his cheap excuses. The long haired hunter sighed. ‘’Did Dean ever tell you about that?’’

‘’No.’’

He stepped on the accelerator.

To find the woman was excruciatingly easy. The freckled demon couldn't believe he opened his computer many times and gave up before today. He glanced through the glass window and there she was, standing in all her glory with a body that seemed to forget how to grow old. Her tan skin still glowing, as appetizing as ever. Brown eyes shining so bright, tiny hands that always seemed to know where he wanted to be touched. She was laughing like there was no tomorrow, holding a glass of wine with one hand and her cellphone with the other, while her dark hair was falling so perfectly over her shoulder, like waves against the rocks in the sea.

Dean can’t wait to smell her again, to taste her, to prove her. His fingers were tingling, begging to touch what was his as he hopped off the car, walking towards the porch. He had been gone for a long time, but now he was back.

He will destroy that quintessential, sequin woman so good.

The Winchester buckled in front of the white door, graced with the sound of the female giggle. Thin walls, he thought, those will be useful to make sure the neighbors know who’s back home. Her steps on the wood floor growing closer and closer as he heard a goodbye, probably aimed at whoever she was on the phone with. It was almost like the caramel skinned woman knew that whoever was on her doorstep wasn’t gonna be a hustled visitor. Or so the demon’s arranged mind said.

‘’Hey, Lis.’’ Dean’s voice lacked any cherishment as she opened the door, who would know that the absence of a soul wouldn't be gelid, just dry? As for her, Lisa’s face was drained of love. For all she was aware of, he was a stranger who knew her name. The male let out a chuckle empty of joy. She really didn’t remember, huh? ‘’Whoa. Cass really fucked up your head, huh? At least he did one thing right.’’

‘’Excuse me?’’ The man with dirty blonde hair and perfect teeth smelled like alcohol. She wasn’t having any of this tonight. ‘’Listen, I don’t know who you are and--’’

‘’Don’t worry.’’ He tranquilized her, although the lopsided grin on his lips held anything but good intentions. ‘’I’ll make you remember. I have a spell. You won’t believe how much you missed me.’’

The mocking laugh that left her lips utterly aggravated him. ‘’I don’t know you. Please leave or I’ll call the police.’’

Dean didn’t need a crowd for that part, a bratty woman in need of a firm hand should get a particular lesson.

‘’You always liked a little cat and mouse.’’

Speaking of, the demon pushed the door wide open without any effort. Lisa jumped at the sudden move, every instinct inside her deciding that man was a threat and not some harmless wasted guy. Her body was quickly erect, thinking about ways to run and get help, but Dean swiftly pushed her to him and kicked the door closed-- her small figure collided to his chest.

Human savagery was cut in urban ways, molded to civilize the animalistic instincts. Imagine meat. A dead animal on a silver plate, and we couldn’t wait to chew every inch of it. We couldn’t wait to eat it, put that dead thing inside us and hope it’ll be enough to control the predatory hungry. Humans will always be animals, but so will be their rests that constructed the demons.

Dean may not be a hunter anymore, but he’s still a predator who can't wait to taste his prey. He could small it, the fear in Lisa’s sweat making his mouth water. How much she tried to fight against him and scream other names when his was the only one he wanted her to need tonight. The resistance of a poor human barely made the monster shiver.

He closed his hands around her arms, throwing her against the wall like someone tossed an old toy away. There was no space for delicaly. In that moment, Dean Winchester was a tiger, a lion, the big bad wolf attacking the omega. Lis winced, her back hurting as her fibers. She couldn’t believe this was happening, that man was about to do something so terrible and disgusting to her in her own house, the place she was supposed to feel warm and safe. Why did he seem to know her? Why did he say she was gonna remember? Was he crazy, hallucinating, or drugged? Why was he so satisfied with how frightened her tiny body looked? How could she use all that information to somehow push him away?

‘’Let me go!’’ She demanded, her legs kicking the demon with ferocity. ‘’What’s wrong with you? LET ME GO NOW!’’

The brunette’s skilled body moved itself desperately, and the act of resistance only brought a hysterical laugh out of Dean. The wrong kind of goosebumps washed her skin, she had to run away for her life. This man was mad.

‘’FIRE! FIRE!’’ Lisa started to scream. Well-aware that people were most likely to come around and help a woman screaming if she said fire. ‘’THERE’S A FIRE. SOMEONE HELP ME!’’

One of his hands went to her neck, wrapping his fingers around it to shut her up. That was rubbing him off the wrong way. Lisa Braeden used to beg for his touch, how dared her not to want him anymore? Now that he was better, stronger, and thicker.

The brown eyed girl went quiet, probably scared by his brutal behavior. Dean smiled, a blood stained grin that carried mischief and pervertment. He licked the tears savoring the salty horror coming from her. Just like the day he was a vampire who almost gave in to drinking every drop of her luptuos blood. She may not remember but he did and he couldn't wait to get inside her, those tight walls squeezing his hard cock.

‘’You’re gonna do as I say, Lis. And I won't hurt you… Much.’’ He risped, crooked nose stroking her wet cheek. She whined. ‘’Don’t worry, honey. You loved it. Bet you’ll scream so much once I fuck you good.’’

‘’Please, don’t do it.’’ She begged as he coaxed his body against his. That man was stronger than her, she had no other choice but to plead to his human side. If only she knew.

‘’Begging already?’’ Dean lifted his head, smirking at her. Lisa just wanted to cry and close her eyes until everything was done. How could someone do that? ‘’I told you, don’t worry. I’m gonna make a lil’ spell that will give your memories back and you’ll remember everything. And then we’re gonna have so much fun, Lis.’’

His last murmur was finished with a kiss. A harsh, ruthless kiss. Actually, she wasn’t even sure if she could call it a kiss; teeth against each other, his vicious mouth pressed to her weakened lips, his tongue invading her like a robber and showing an unrequited dominance.

‘’Dean!’’ Your voice resonated stridently, louder than the door Sam had stormed open. You couldn’t believe what your eyes witnessed. ‘’Stop it!’’

Dean groaned, as if you and Sam were stepping on his territory. He simply turned his head to you two, not pulling away from Lisa. You couldn’t see her face, your boyfriend’s large shoulder and tall body covering her up. His eyes were still green, which set the scene in an even more atrocious light.

Your thoughts were racing. How could he come to her, crave her so badly that he drove away miles and miles as a demon? He was supposed not to feel a thing. You prepared yourself for a cold man, not an obsessive one. Apparently, a heart hidden under the black smoke. Choose if it's a gift or Pandora's box. Sam told you their history. Of course he would want that and not you. Dean never left Lisa because he fell out of love for her, he was ripped out from her life. You were so pissed at yourself; how could you picture playing the woman in his veins? How stupid were you? He may be a demon guided by wants and not emotions, but what was love but an amount of outrageous desires laced up with some pretty words and flavored with dependency?

‘’Y/N and Sammy--’’

Love was the wrong word here. Anyway. Go head and unwrap it.

‘’Please help me!’’ Lisa’s voice came to life once more through her quiet cry. Dean hardened the hold around her throat, making her cough a little.

Suddenly, your body is frozen. That, whatever that is, whatever he’s doing to Lisa. It wasn’t love. She didn’t want it. When his frame moved to face you and Sam, you caught a glimpse of her face. She was petrified, her delicate features contorted in wrath and fear and beg for help.

‘’Quiet.’’ Dean howled, glancing at her rapidly before his eyes fell on you and Sam again. ‘’You two are such killjoys. I told you to let me go.’’

You couldn’t believe what you were witnessing. You wanted to puke your guts out.

‘’And what? Kill your ex? Or do something even worse to her?’’ You elicited with disgust.

‘’She’ll come around eventually. Just playing hard to get. You know how frisky women are.’’ The corner of his lips curved into a barbaric grim, one of his hands touching Lisa’s cheek. The victim winced at the touch. ‘’Besides, I’m not just gonna take her. I’ll make her remember and she’ll want me.’’ He shrugged, unbothered by the horrified looks of everyone in the room. ‘’Are you really worried about Lis, Y/N? Or are you just jealous that I didn’t go for you?’’

‘’Enough, Dean.’’ Sam groaned, holding the gun up. It felt oily. ‘’Let her go. And come with us.’’

The demon tossed the brunette away with a simple sleight of hand, pulling his sleeves up with a marred beam. His eyes switched from starry green to black, showing his true facette. It was a peculiar relief. It wasn’t Dean. It wasn’t Dean. It wasn’t Dean.

Yet, Dean’s gruff voice said in a twisted playful tone:

‘’Come get me, Sammy.’’

Dean Winchester was cured. For most people, to heal is to let go or to learn with things. In the doctor’s case, healing is leaving a bruise to cover up a wound. Everyone believed the war started and ended, and that was it. But when something so ravaging is gone, you gotta deal with the trauma.

He was a trauma. Cured from a sickness, drowning in sorrow and waves of woe. All the worst things Dean ever did, he knew now, weren’t to himself or to the monster he so proudly killed. His unspoken acts were against the people he cared about.

The hunter never thought his hands, his bruised and tough hands could ever hurt Lis. The woman who was his lifeline when Sam died, who allowed him to be a father and live in his dreamland of suburban life. All she ever did was to love him, and what did she get for it?

He was disgusted with himself. What almost did to her was enough to hunt him and make him sure he was going back to hell, very deserving this time. Threating to do that to a woman, and enjoy it… Dean couldn’t bear driving into memories. He was selfishly glad he didn’t remember about that, only Sam’s explanation was enough: he went to Lisa, he kissed her without her consent, and Sam and you stopped him going any further. Would his unscrupulous, demon self go ahead? He was too scared to wonder, even though his brother said that he apparently had a spell to make Lis remember and wasn’t planning on just taking her. A forced kiss was disgusting enough. He just wished Sam had put a bullet in his black eyes right there.

You walked in the bathroom that you once shared with the eldest Winchester

She was everything he ever wanted, all the suburban dreams and acceptance of hunter reality without being in it. Lisa loved him completely and you could only love him sideways-- you never wanted to be a mom, or to have a family or live in a suburb. Those were valid goals, just not yours. You thought you and Dean were on the same page about it, but this other side, not only the pervert demon but the domestic man, hadn’t been shown to you until a couple days ago. Sam had cured his brother, his dirty nature washed away with holy water, but you couldn’t help the bruises that came from the dog days. Lisa had her memory erased by Cass again, you didn’t have the same unfair luxury.

‘’Dean.’’ You said, making him look up at you. Bags under his eyes and wrinkles more evident than ever. ‘’We need to talk.’’

He sighed and wiped his face. ‘’Y/N, I don’t want to talk right now.’’

‘’You never do.’’ You scoffed, gaining an incredulous glance from him. ‘’I know that what happened was disgusting and sick and the worst thing you could ever do, but we need to talk.’’

He took a deep breath. ‘’What do you wanna talk about?’’

‘’You went to her.’’ You stated as a lawyer in front of a jury. Dean furrowed.

‘’What?’’

‘’Lisa. You went to her.’’ When the arrow hit someone so damaged, it was like an animal with his teeth there that wouldn't let go. Yeah, his human soul wasn't the same brittle glass as before but it lingered in his demon self in the shape of delusion, and it was distorted by whatever he was made of, violence and darkness, and turned into something disgusting. ‘’You love her.’’

‘’Love?’’ The word burned his tongue, Dean didn’t think he had the right to ever use it again. ‘’I was a demon, Y/N. I didn’t love or feel anything. What I did--’’

‘’You didn’t do anything.’’ You interrupted, loyal as a soldier.

‘’I forced a kiss on her and wanted to bring her memories back to have sex with her. That’s disgusting and I did half of that.’’ He pointed out aggitadly, plump lips moving fast and voice deeper. ‘’It wasn’t love. Leaving her years back was love.’’

You didn’t miss how Dean didn’t even dare to say her name. ‘’So you don’t think about her? Not even once?’’

He scoffed humourless. ‘’Are you kidding me?’’

‘’I guess I should have been more like her.’’ You hugged yourself, glancing at the wall. You didn’t want to cry in front of him. Not again, not for another woman. That wasn’t even your cicatrix to ache.

‘’Y/N, what the fuck are you talking about?’’ The fully green eyed man raised to his feet, glancing at you with disbelief. He couldn’t face how messed up it was. ‘’I can’t believe you are jealous of what happened. I thought I was the broken one here.’’

‘’I’m not her.’’ You two shared it, the glance that only two women who were hurt by the same man could. You both understood that when he got inside you, it was like the syringe in an eutanasia. Once you were happy because you loved him, now you were scared and not so sure this was what you wanted. ‘’I’m not her and you knew it. When you became just instincts and selfish and did whatever you wanted, you didn’t come to me. You came to her.’’

‘’I hurt her.’’

The next words fly out of your mouth, as weak and totaled as you felt: ‘’Why didn’t you hurt me?’’

‘’This is the most unhealthy shit we ever went through.’’ Dean’s right. You have her expression mesmerized on your brain. Dean was the man on top of her, teaching her how to hate. How to fear. You can’t trust yourself. ‘’I can’t believe you.’’

‘’Neither can I.’’ You were so sick. How ravaged and annihilated one had to be to wish to be a demon's object of obsession? To get jealous that another woman almost died in the arms of a beast that cried his blood out once he came back to being a man and saw what he had done? ‘’I hate it. I hate feeling like this. I was there and I saw how scared of you she was, how all she wanted was to push you away and run because she was so disgusted--’’

‘’Stop.’’ He groaned, but it came out more like a whine than anything. ‘’It wasn’t me. I would never hurt Lis. I would never force her to do anything! I--’’

You gave him a sad smile. ‘’You love her.’’

‘’I love you.’’ Dean approached you, fumbling in despair to fix yet another thing his hands destroyed. If Rome was built in ruins, he was a kingdom. You pulled away before his tough hands landed on you.

‘’But you love her too.’’ The hunter stopped on his spot, unable to answer. ‘’I ruined myself for you, Dean. I can’t-- I won’t do that again. You are right. This is unhealthy. The fact that you’ve been pining for her for so long, pushing down those feelings to the point they are twisted into something so cruel and disgusting. You need help.’’ What kind of ugly you have to have inside you for a monster to love you? And, even worse, what kind of sickness you have trapped, written in your blood to want it to be spilled out in his name? ‘’You really are venom. If this is how you love, it’s scary as fuck.’’ When you loved a broken man, you were never sure if his shattered pieces would glisten or cut your hand once the light came in. Here’s your answer. His parts crawled inside you through pulled up scars, scraping your insides to make into ruins, but you never liked Rome much. You had to be better than that. ‘’Goodbye, Dean.’’

He couldn’t bring himself to go after your steps.

Once again, it’s the kind of freedom no traveler wants. When you lost it all and didn't have any person or place to cling to, when you had to leave because you were becoming the girl you swore you’d never leave, when you walked away willingly without a map.

Still, it was all you had. You’d make a good use of it. You’d be okay. No more ugly emotions or sentiments that made you unrecognizable. No more knives that cut both ways, or situations so complicated you weren’t sure where your morals could rely on.

You’d be okay, healthy, and happy.

You’d be okay.

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aslitheryprinx · 3 years

Note

These are from song titles, but I think these are poggers (I hope, at least)

* And there was life inside "it"

* Can it really be called "Cinderella" ?

* Love inside an empty box

* World is full of wonders (Or "Full of wonders!!!!")

* Near

* Angel's clover

Don't worry anon, they are most definitely poggers! (Both of my current ao3 published works have names based on song lyrics, so that really fits my vibe haha.)

There are so many good prompts here! I couldn't help but write like.... A lot lmao.

CW: dehumanization, themes of child abuse, themes of death. Be safe!

____

And there was life inside "it"

They called it RNB-00. It was the first in a generation of experimental life production using DNA from one of the most volatile creatures in the worlds: endermen. There were no endermen hybrids. The children could not survive, and the birth was volatile, tearing the parents and anyone near them apart with the violent magic.

They would perform the experiment anyways.

An unfinished human embryo, carefully extracted from someone who would be written in the paperwork as a volunteer. An enderpearl, freshly taken from a creature they didn't consider "human" enough to need even dubious content. DNA, taken directly from the brain of the enderman.

They spliced together the three ingredients, cheering when the chimera of enderman and embryo inside its tubes showed signs of life.

But some things are not meant to be done.

Nature is not meant to be tampered with.

The experiment turned south quickly. The specimen convulsed in its tube, growing at a rapid rate. Vibrant purple magic lashed out, dancing through the lab with a vengeance. There were the cries of a newborn mixed with the shrieks of an enderman- then, an explosion.

RNB-00 fell to the ground, the magic pulsing from it too bright to be looked at by the naked eye. A second explosion rocked the lab, this time all-encompassing and final. The building turned to ash and dust and settled around a new crater.

There would never be a RNB-01.

A shape rose from the center of the crater. It was a child from one angle, maybe two or three, with pure white hair, scarred cheeks, and a red eye.

From the other angle, it was a monster. Something not quite enderman or human. Jet black hair, and velvety black fur covered the left half of it. It's eye glowed an unnatural green, not the color of humans or endermen.

It toddled slowly away from the epicenter of the explosion, no memory of what had happened. As it walked, it noticed a mark, a brand, on it's right arm: RNB-00. The child stared, and blinked at the word.

And he named himself Ranboo.

Can it really be called "Cinderella"?

When Tubbo was young, he saw Cinderella, once. Even with how young he was, the story resonated with him. He wished all his stepfather did was give him chores, but he knew exactly how it felt to be unloved, unwanted, forced to stay on the sidelines. He just hoped his fairy godmother would come soon.

When he was a little older, he looked back on the story of Cinderella with nothing but bitterness. He was old enough now that he knew fairy tales didn't happen. There was no "fairy godmother" coming to save him; there never had been, there never would be. All he had was himself and his shitty situation. He wanted to forget the story that had given him such a bittersweet lie, but it was burned into his memory.

As he reached his teens, the anger turned into weariness. It wasn't Cinderella's fault his stepfather was a piece of shit. It wasn't the character's fault that she had help to break free while he didn't. And how miserable he was wasn't Tubbo's fault either, no matter how much his stepfather screamed it.

When he was 16, feeling ancient yet younger than he had ever been, he stopped comparing himself to Cinderella. Cinderella hadn't stood over her stepparent's body with a bat. Cinderella hadn't called the police on herself, showing them what she'd done and then the reason why, covering his skin beneath his clothes. Cinderella had been freed, but she hadn't paid such a heavy price for that freedom.

Tubbo had. Tubbo was far from a Cinderella story.

Love inside an empty box

Tommy's love was dangerous. He learned that at a very young age. Love for him wasn't just a feeling, it was a physical thing, at least to his eyes. He could feel every last drop of care, of love gathering around him like a storm. And just like a storm, when the feeling touched down, it was deadly. People, animals, anything that was touched by the love he couldn't stop feeling crumbled under the weight of something that shouldn't exist.

Tommy couldn't stop himself from caring. But he could stop himself from hurting. Hurting others, at least. Tommy commissioned a solution from a witch with a terrible reputation for cruelty, but a renowned skill with magical crafting. It cost him everything he owned, and some of who he was, but he walked away with an empty box made to hold what he couldn't afford to keep.

For years after that, every time he felt love building up in his chest- his care for friends, the people he considered family, even for strangers- he tore it off of himself and flung it into the box. Over time, the box grew full, bursting at the seams with his love. He learned to discard all but the most precious feelings, keeping those in his overstuffed box that weighed nothing and locking them inside.

But no lock lasts forever. Nothing lasts an eternity.

Tommy was alone with nothing but his thoughts, his box, and the ghost of a brother who was only really that in the privacy of his mind. He let his eyes shut, the box held loosely in one hand. The ghost, not knowing the consequences, touched the box.

And the seams of magic holding it together shattered and the love Tommy had stored away broke free, as powerful and terrible as a hurricane.

If it had been Wilbur, the man would've died as surely as he had when a blade was thrust through his heart. But this was Ghostbur, and you cannot kill what is already dead.

Still, such power has consequences. All the love in the box, far too powerful to be contained for long, spilled over, pouring over and around the ghost and the boy.

Yes, such power has consequences. The boy with too much love and his brother that never was would face those consequences together.

(world is) full of wonders

Wilbur is a simple musician. He travels alone, playing an ode to all of the world around him. He sings to the trees, the sky, the river, the sun, anything he pleases.

Though he knows it's silly, he can't help but imagine they sing back. He tries to match the harmony he hears in his mind, tries to play along with the symphony of nature. He can never keep up, but likes to imagine the world is fond of his efforts.

But even musicians can stumble into trouble. Too caught up in the ballad he played to the tune of the wind, he didn't hear the rattle of bones, the drawing of a bow. He heard only the twang as an arrow released before it pierced through his skull and everything went black.

But Wilbur wasn't gone. He didn't cease to exist, like he always assumed. He felt the cool caress of the void, the gentle brush of the universe against his mind and he gasped. Clearer than he'd ever heard it, he heard the song of the world, in perfect harmony and tune. This time, it sang along to him, to the pulsing of his soul.

Wilbur had no body, but if he did he would weep. He had no lungs, no mouth, no voice, but his soul took up the melody he longed to sing anyways. He sang with the universe until the song became more and more impossible to replicate and he could only listen in awe.

He woke up painlessly, laying on a gentle green field. His guitar was by his side, and his sweater was cleaner than it had ever been. He knew instinctually that he was not in the world he'd came from. This was a new world, a universe untouched, a new song to add his voice to.

Near

It hit him, one day, as he absently peeled a potato over the sink. That he didn't remember if he'd ever touched another person.

Techno had froze for a moment. It was quite the revelation to have out of nowhere. He dismissed it a moment later, memories of how he and Phil would bump shoulders as they walked and talked fresh in his mind.

But all too soon his thoughts turned back to the uncomfortable topic. Sure he'd touched Phil before, but that was through layers of armor and clothing. Had he ever had skin to skin contact with another person? Anything, as simple as a handshake? Hell, even something during battle would count.

He came up empty, and it was driving him crazy.

He didn't need to touch people. He didn't. Having someone he cared about liked close to him was good enough. He didn't need physical contact to reassure him. He never had, not even as a child.

Though that may have had something to do with the chorus of voices he'd had in his head that had kept him on the brink of insanity for most of his childhood. His voices were always there, always with him, so what need did he have for another person's company?

Except he did like company, Phil's especially. And he had it, plenty of it, more than he could ever possibly need. So why did he suddenly feel so off balance?

He asked Phil about it next time he saw his friend. He kept it casual. It wasn't a big deal, he didn't need to worry Phil by letting how much this had bothered him show.

"Hey, Phil, have we ever touched?" He asked. Phil gave him a weird look, then bumped his shoulder.

"Like that?" He asked, unimpressed. "Mate, maybe you should check your own memory before you call me old man again."

"Nah," Techno dismissed, "I meant like... skin to skin. Like a handshake or something."

This actually gave Phil pause. He thought for a moment, then laughed.

"I guess we haven't. Weird. Why?"

"I... Don't think I've ever touched anyone like that," Techno said. He tried to keep his voice steady, but his heart was pounding as he poured out his weakness in front of Phil.

The other man was silent for a long time. Techno could practically hear the shouts of ever??? running through his mind.

Suddenly Phil turned towards him, pulling off a glove.

"Handshake?" He offered with a smile, something sad beyond the amusement in his eyes. Techno rolled his eyes, but he hesitated taking his glove off. Slowly reaching out, as if Phil's hand was a snake that might strike at any sudden movements, he placed his hand in Phil's.

The sensation was like a fire roaring to life on his hand. It didn't hurt, not like a real fire, but it somehow burned. He froze, his brain having trouble processing the bizarre feeling. It was overwhelming, and the best thing he'd ever felt, and yet it was almost a relief when Phil gently pulled his hand away.

"We'll take it slow, alright mate?" He said, nudging Techno with an elbow. The piglin's brain began to work again and he snorted, pulling the glove on again and falling back into step.

"Of course. We can't overwork your old man brain," Techno said dryly, earning him a sharper nudge. He grinned, the amusement softening to fondness as Phil walked just a little closer, letting their arms stay pressed together as they went.

It was strange how you didn't notice you were missing something until you had it. Bare contact was a little too overwhelming right now. So he was right. For now, this was enough. Having his best friend near him was all he needed.

Angel's Clover

There is a special plant that only grows in the land of celestials. An ethereal clover that sprouts from the weary souls that come to rest on the soils of heaven. The souls and the clover flourish in time with one another, tended to by the celestials that walk the lands. It is only a rumor, in the eyes of mortals, but one who walks among them knows it to be true. He is the Angel of Death, and his presence can never touch the sacred halls of the celestial lands, lest they wither and die.

But souls do not always complete the journey, to find their final rest above. Some souls are too broken, too hurt to reach the peace of the celestial lands. It is the duty of the Angel of Death to guide the souls, and it is his duty to heal them so that they may be guided.

In the land of the mortals, there is one place where the clover grows. It is in the humble garden of a plain looking man, who wears a large hat to block his eyes from the sun, and keeps his unearthly wings folded beneath his cloak.

In his garden, the Angel of Death nurtures the precious remnants of life.

#dsmp #dsmp au #prinx fake title game #ranboo #tommy #techno #tubbo #wilbur #phil #aslitheryanswers

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goldafterglow · 4 years

Text

hold me in the meadows

Summary: You are Ezra’s dreamcatcher and he is your burrow.

Request: “The sleepy prompts!! Lovely! Can you do “I have had nightmares every night for the past three weeks and now they’re gone because of you, how did you do that?” with (can you guess??) EZRA” - the love of my life, @opheliaelysia

Pairing: Ezra (Prospect) x Reader

Word Count: 4.6k+

Tags: angst?, fluff, more metaphors that don’t mean anything, weird touching lol idk what the fuck this fic is, this is also not beta read so send the flood send the flu

Author’s Note: If you left a like or comment or reblog on Dissolve Me I’m telling you with as little shame as is humanly possible that I definitely reread it at least 3 times. Feedback means the word to me! also this was supposed to be a 500 word drabble and now it’s over 4.5k words if that tells you anything about me. I apologize in advance I think I’ve really outdone myself w/ my bullshit this time

Gif Credit: @pascvl; Also shout out to @pascalplease sorry I spammed you for nothing dsfgdsg

Ezra is staring at you.

He’d met you on one of those toxic moons, one of those deceitfully picturesque mirages where the dust glitters like lily petals but the air would kill you before you could think to appreciate it. You were a floater; a nomad with no place to call home, but you figured you liked it that way. Homes were permanent. They set lives and futures in cobblestone and trapped spirits in gated properties, keeping just about anything and everything tethered under the farce of security. Homes make paraffin casings around dragonfly wings and turn footprints to concrete. So you never had one, and you never wanted one. Ezra had found you amusing. You had found him to be better company than just yourself. So with great reluctance, you established a partnership. Not one forged in steel or bronze but something still fleeting, its true meaning always escaping your lips like a forgotten thought. It’s too much work to try and think about it anyway.

You had let him invite you to reside in his tent. It took coaxing, required copious amounts of golden honey spilling from Ezra’s tongue to get you to tenaciously stick to him, but you were no match for his silver tongue. He did everything he could to assure that this wasn’t a habitat, but merely a shelter - a thing that could be taken down and built back up somewhere else, anywhere you wanted. So you had obliged. He let you take the cot closest to the zipper door; you liked being closer to the exit, just a rotation away from being back on your feet. He tries to let you truly feel like if you wanted to escape, wanted to elope with liberty and run away from the loose bonds of the canopy, you could.

Three weeks of sleeping adjacent to him and you still don’t want to.

Ezra is used to temporary relationships. He has done his fair share of companion hopping, although he wasn’t really making an effort to do so. It scares him a little - why can’t he make anyone stay, make anything last? Partners passed him by, either to traverse on their lonesome or to stay with that greedy man in the eternal sky. Teams disbanded around him like glass castles shattering in his wake. Ezra, whether he liked it or not, was accustomed to transience.

He is not, however, accustomed to fearing that sharp brevity. Ezra is constantly on his toes around you, frequently wondering if he’s pushing you away or pulling you closer. You aren’t skittish, don’t constantly question everything he says or get offended by the sound of his voice, but he’s still scared of losing you. Every time he looks into your eyes he sees wonder, a certain fascination with life that he tries so hard to match because he wants to find things as beautiful as you do. As beautiful as you are. He wants to mis-quote your favorite novels that you force him to read so that you’ll scold him so affectionately and tell him that perhaps he had garnered a little brain damage from his previous escapades. He wants to trip over tree roots that have herniated through the soil so you can laugh at him, maybe lay there on the grass with him for a little bit. Just a little bit.

In your own mind, you are guarded. You try your very best not to get too personal, too deep, too much. Because you don’t like it when people can see your flushed, bloody insides. You just know that the moment you open your chest, someone will steal your heart right out of your rib cage and like the pass of a hummingbird, all of your secrets will be free to float in the breeze like the ashes of your lost quintessence; it’ll all be gone and then you’ll really be empty. So how could you ever know what you mean to Ezra?

He knows what a truly locked up person looks like. He’s spent hundreds of cycles with people that don’t make a noise. He’s sat in bustling pods of people and felt like the only man in the room, like solitary confinement for his mind. No, you are not some warning-covered steel box, padlocked and duct-taped and glued shut so that even if he’s sitting right next to you, he’ll have nothing more than his own voice bounce to off of your walls and fly right back to him. You’re a music box, a gold-trimmed heart-shaped sound bottle, and he learns that if he winds you up the right way, you’ll sing so pretty for him.

He has spent so long talking, nonsensically making those arbitrary noises burst out of his throat until they lose all meaning, but finally, for the first time in so fucking long, Ezra gets to listen.

He listens to you tell him you think his hair is stupid and that sometimes he smells bad. He listens to you lament about barren dig-sites and wasted time, about how it’s so fucking hot in your suit. He listens to you fantasize about touching the trees, burying your face in your flowers and squeezing the moss in your hands. About drowning in the river so that your body is filled with the water and then rolling in the sand so that it all sticks to you and you have to dive back in to clean off. About feeling something.

Sometimes, Ezra just wants to hear something other than his own voice. And you’re the cold towel to his inflamed skin, refreshing and addictive. You’re much braver than you think, so much stronger than you give yourself credit for, because for once, Ezra can talk into the forest and know that there’s someone to listen besides the leaves. He doesn’t feel alone.

Every night, when the moon has turned its back on the narcissistic Sun and opened its arms to the thousands of other stars, each just a prick of light but understanding of their place in the tapestry of the darkness, the two of you retire to that tent. You both redress into comfortable clothes, backs turned on each other under the guise of respect, and climb into your respective cots. Ezra would turn off that shitty lantern that illuminated the enclosure, and your shadows would dissipate into the darkness.

Except Ezra’s shadows don’t disappear; they hide. They blend into the black and mold into one man-engulfing untamable beast to possess Ezra’s throat. And they manifest again in his mind. They poison that movie that plays once you slip consciousness, instills fear into his bone marrow until he doesn’t feel safe in his own body, his own thoughts.

These slumber illusions haunt Ezra. His right arm waves at him in his sleep, the souls to which he was the conduit bridging life and death haunt his diaphragm with toothy grins to mock him, screeching into his cavities. They remind him that he was never really alone because he has the suffocating embrace of those spirits that are sewn so tight to his eyelids. Every night he somehow manages to pull himself from the darkness only for his own demons to pull him back by the throat. He is always oscillating between consciousness and unconsciousness, being tossed around like a helpless rag with no hope of liberation. Nothing scares him more than his own thoughts.

And you know. You know all of it. How could you not? You were born a tumbleweed, wandering across desolation, so of course you’re a light sleeper. And you can hear Ezra’s choked cries, his tossing and turning as he drains himself of any sense of safety. But this man is a stranger to you. He is just a person you reside with, talk to all the time, nudge gently and tease and smile with. He is just the person that you wake up wanting to see, whose attention you always crave. A stranger.

So every night you turn your body to face the zipper of the tent and pretend that you can’t hear him cry. Pretend that you don’t sometimes cry with him. A pretty lavender lie that smells sweet, tastes sweeter.

You, in your cowardice, let him destroy himself. Watch as the bags under his eyes get bigger and greyer and the strings holding his shoulders up lose their tension.

Ezra, in his flawed cratered embodiment, is only human. And he had gone so long without holding anyone, without being held. He knows what he wants, knows who he wants. But he also knows how jittery you are, how fluttery your heart is, and he doesn’t want to approach it too fast lest he startle you and you fly off into the stars. But he can’t keep doing this, can’t live with himself when he knows he’s not the one in control but those horned, slimy creatures that claw at his maxilla with their venomous grins.

The lights are out in the tent per usual, so Ezra can’t really see you. His careful eyes can trace the outline of the curves of your body - or is it that his delusional eyes are envisioning some arbitrary glow around you, convincing him that what he’s seeing is real? Reality is a concept with which he is no longer familiar.

You, laying in your cot, decide that you just can’t take it anymore. You can’t stand to let this intruder of your life break you down the way he is without even trying. How dare he look into you, how dare he listen to you without passing judgement, how fucking dare he make you feel like a flower in bloom?

Ezra hears your breaths - they’re uneven. You haven’t gone to sleep. What are you waiting for?

“Ezra?” you practically squeak into the void. His ears perk up immediately; your cotton candy voice is enticing to him, flossing its way through his veins.

“What are you doing up, birdie?” Ezra asks softly, the air of his lungs floating on top of his words. He doesn’t mean to keep you awake, but he isn’t mad that you are. It’s stimulating his nerves enough to keep himself awake, and that’s something he probably won’t ever be able to repay you for.

“I-um….” Shit. You hadn’t expected to get this far. What would you say to him? How could you tell him that you wanted to help cleanse him, that you wanted to grovel in lime-coated thumb tacks with him and absorb his pain into your tissue paper skin? “I can’t sleep.”

Not a lie. Ezra knows you mean it. He just doesn’t know why.

“Well that won’t suffice,” he decides, outstretching his left arm blindly off the edge of his cot until his fingers brush against what he’s looking for: that goddamn lantern. With a little more fumbling, a weak but good enough orange glow is emitted on the floor between the two of you. You both catch each other’s pitiful gaze. You want to take care of each other, want to shield each other from the red sprites that nip angrily at each other’s hearts. Ezra holds his left arm out to you, tentatively. He’s never been more unsure in his life. He watches you glance at his arm, and then quickly to the side. You’re trying to decide if you’ll let him add another tether to you. If you’ll let him become something sewed so tight to your bleeding skin that to leave would rip you apart.

You slowly get up and walk over to his cot.

Ezra lets out a soft breath and his lips turn to a soft smile. He’s soft.

“C’mere, dandelion” he mumbles to you, and he hasn’t missed his right arm so much as in this moment. He wants to hold you properly, wants to keep you as close to him as possible. You’re hesitant, and he can tell. You’ve never been this close to him before, and you want to savor it. When your head finally touches his shoulder, it’s like a catalyst ignites underneath the two of you. You mold into each other the way the gods intended, like lake water seeping into the smallest of crevices of an empty river bed. Like the opposing poles of two magnets, like a key penetrating a lock. Like you were made for each other. Your arms immediately wrap around him, his neck now a fixture of your body, and his arm leads you to lay down on the cot. Without words, without that candid discourse that Ezra was so fond of, his face is buried into the warmth of your chest and he feels like you’ve cast an ethereal shield around him.

Ezra doesn’t need to hold you tight because you’re holding him tighter, like you’re trying to cling to something invisible and foreign before it can even think to leave you. Before it realizes that it doesn’t want you. Don’t leave. He can feel you breathe him in, face smashed against his wild hair, and he can’t blame you because he’s breathing you in too.

“Sweetheart-” he breathes, fanning against your skin in a way that sends a deep shiver down your spine and shakes your shoulders.

“Shh.” And for once in his cursed life, he’s speechless. There’s so much, too much that he wants to say to you, but his mind is shouting all of it at him at once and he doesn’t even know where to start. So he shuts the fuck up. He feels you. He feels your heat melt him until he can barely control his own muscles because they’ve gone limp, unable to perform a single contraction because his fibers are relaxed, are at peace.

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep.

When Ezra wakes, you’re still sweet and motionless around him. The lamp was still on, still shining pathetically on the ground. He doesn’t feel the need to look around or squeeze his lids closed in an attempt to wring the bad rest out of him.

Rest?

He thinks fucking hard. When had he woken up last night? When had his banshees infiltrated his thoughts and cried into the void of his packed mind? All he can recall are caramel dreams, whipped cream clouds and berry trampolines for him to jump high into the cotton candy sky. He thinks he might like it that way. Maybe every night can be like that, every morning can feel this transcendent.

He hears you moan quietly as you stir not long after him, breaths shuddering on their way out of your nose as you slowly come to your senses.

“Good morning, birdie,” Ezra finally says. He doesn’t know what to say to you, what he can say to you, without making you flip a switch and realize that it’s all a mistake, that he is a mistake. His eardrums smile as your sleepy whining settles.

“Morning, Ezra,” you whisper, throat not ready to talk yet. It’s okay; you’d rather hear him talk to you anyway.

“Did you…were you able to achieve some sort of comfort?” Ezra asks. For a second you’re confused until you remember what you’d told him last night, and you realize that you’re holding him the same way you were when you’d gone to sleep. He hadn’t woken up.

“Yeah, Ezra,” you finally say after letting yourself simmer in the silence for a second. “Thank you.”

He smiles wide against your skin, the blunt tip of his excitement the battering ram that beats against his racing heart. He’s given you something worthy of your gratefulness, and the feeling of being worthy light his chest with blue flames.

“It’s not my intention to blow you away, dandelion,” Ezra says, his nerves manifesting into his characteristic breathy laughs, “but I can’t deny how direly I want to just touch you.” You feel the air get knocked out of you as your diaphragm begins to spasm; what is he asking? You’ve thought about it before; god, of course you’ve thought about it before. To lay back as you let him study you, memorize you and then let you do the same. Analyze the sculpted marble of his body to remind yourself why you love it so much.

“Please.”

It’s barely a whisper, a secret told to the wind, but Ezra hears you. Ezra always hears you.

So Ezra’s fingers begin to wander along your skin. He wants to map out the scars on your body, wants to learn the shape of you so intimately that he could remodel you if he wanted to. He wants to know your body the way he knows when you’re disappointed or frustrated or amazed or confused. He wants to just know.

You feel the calloused pads of Ezra’s fingers put a little pressure onto that dip of your thoracic vertebrae, draw circles above your hip right under the fabric of your sweatshirt, caress your shoulder. He’s slowly exposing your skin to the humid chill of the dank enclosure, carefully making your top cover less and less of you, but you’ve never felt warmer.

As Ezra’s mind begins to really warm up and the cogs begin to grease themselves, his words begin to flow out the way you’re used to. The way you’ve learned to love.

“Sweetheart, I have had nightmares every night for the past three weeks and now they’re gone,” he blurts. Fuck. His hand stutters against the small of your back. He’s done it now, he’s really gone and blown it, because now you know he’s fucking broken and you’re smart enough to know when to avoid damaged goods. You have to know that if you were to take your hands and try and feel him you’d just get bumps and ridges and cracks. But Ezra is selfish, can’t help himself or his thoughts, so he keeps rambling. “It is not my intention to come off as presumptuous, but I just know it’s because of you. How did you do that, birdie? You never told me you were sent to me as a dreamcatcher.”

You can’t help but smile into his scalp a little at his words. You didn’t mind taking all of his bad dreams and refracting them far away into the space between the stars for him. A light, breathy laugh rolls off your tongue like a huff, because fuck, if you were going to be embroidered to something it might as well be him.

Your breath hitches again as the back of his hand runs flat along your stomach. It travels back around and up to the nape of your neck, tracing your shoulders and then over to your clavicles, paying close attention to the dips. You can’t help but wonder if this means as much to him as it does to you; it means everything to you.

“You’re right. I’ve been holding out on you all this time,” you say, and he can hear you smile through the roses of your words. He slowly and with purpose lifts his head from your embrace so that he can look up at you, maybe even catch a glimpse of that pretty grin of yours and burn it onto his lenses.

“I’m not confident that you’ll ever know how fortuitous I was the day I met you.” Ezra’s voice is low as he speaks, his drawl stretching and fraying the ends of his words, and you soak in every last syllable. You soak in the meaning of his words. He feels lucky to have you.

You look down at him, bringing a hand to run through his hair. That stupid blonde streak snatches your attention for a moment and you thumb at the strands. You want to tease him about it, mock him a little, but you don’t. The moon marine in your arms holds so much unbridled beauty, and it’s all yours to look at.

Ezra is all yours to look at.

Ezra’s hand travels up to your face, cupping your cheek while his thumb toys with the corner of your mouth in a way that makes you bite your lip through a smile. Throwing all caution to the wind, you turn your head and press a shy kiss to the heel of his palm. Ezra’s skin burns where you’ve sanctified him. His hand begins to crave your touch in other ways, he is craving something more from you, but he knows he does far too much taking. He’s already taken so much from you, has already stolen so many moments from you out of sheer gluttony, but it’s not always his fault because you’re so giving. He knows you were a little hollow from the start, knows you were a little frayed in the first place, but still you share your thoughts and companionship with him because whether you know it or not, you’re a little taken by this space mutineer. If you fled this little thing you’ve built with him, you’d be leaving the prettiest parts of yourself behind for him to keep taking care of the way a mother makes her son’s bed after he leaves for college because what if you want to come back?

But you haven’t left, haven’t abandoned him and in turn, yourself. You’re right here, letting him bask in your reverent lavender radiation, and as he looks at how you’re giving off your own intrinsic glow because the shitty orange light on the ground isn’t enough, he knows he hasn’t earned it. He doesn’t think this is a very fair transaction at all, but he’s too selfish to stop you from paying a little extra. You’ll let him keep the change.

Ezra wordlessly lifts his head, nosing at your wrist so that you’ll bring it lower and let him kiss the delicate skin there. He looks up at you with wide, eager eyes of adoration. His feelings for you are beginning to bubble underneath the surface of his silk-lined thoughts and he is willing them to stay at that low simmer because he doesn’t want to think about anything except how fucking gorgeous you look in the lamplight.

“I’m growing rather fond of the way you feel against me,” Ezra finally says. Everything is so foreign now, so new, so he tries to do the one thing you both know, the one routine you can both dance without needing to think about it: talking.

“I like it too Ezra,” you giggle. Not a long, flittery one, but a pass of air with a note under it. You’re a little nervous too.

“I reckon I could get accustomed to this,” he whispers. Your lip betrays you, curling itself to reveal your reply before you even say it. Your teeth capture your lower lip for the act of treason, but it’s too late. “But I’d just hate it if I made you feel like you’re bearing my baggage.”

“Ezra, you don’t have crippling baggage,” you insist. What is this man talking about? You were the one with issues. You were the one that had to be convinced to stay with him, you were the one that insisted on the right cot, you were the real coward here. You were broken. “Everyone has their demons. There is so much more inside of you. You’re so full.”

Ezra’s eyes go a little wide at your words. You didn’t think he was half a man? Some incomplete mosaic that would never find his missing pieces?

“You flatter me,” he chuckles; no, he giggles.

“Well…I just figured there’s no way a broken man could handle his broken partner the way you deal with me.” His expression melts into something more than pity and less than ignorance - confusion. The tap in Ezra’s tongue pops loose and his words begin to cascade from his lips like some majestic phenomenon, like holy water spraying the filth off of your brow.

“I need you to look at me, firefly.” His voice is more stern now, his words more articulate as he shifts up the bed slightly so that he’s eye level with you. He’s still on his side, his left hand is still gripping the flesh at your hip. “I don’t think you’ll ever truly comprehend how much you’ve done for me these past cycles, but this life is quiet and toilsome. You’re capable of recognizing beauty in things I wouldn’t have even taken note of in the first place, and I hang onto your every utterance whether you’re aware or not. It’s easy for me to sit here and tell you how bad I always want you because you fill my thoughts, pretty dandelion. And if someone came here and regurgitated your exact words to me, it still wouldn’t hold a candle to the way you sing when you wonder out loud. I don’t need to ‘deal’ with you, sweet rose. I want you.”

Your lip quivers a little; you know Ezra likes talking to you, he’s told you before. But you couldn’t help but assume Ezra just likes talking, period. That he liked having you around about as much as he’d enjoy the company of any other talker. To think that someone wants you, your passions and afterthoughts and pondering notions, meant more than anything you could articulate.

“Ezra-” you start, but you cut yourself off. You want to let his words turn into condensation on your skin, to form little rain clouds above your head so that they pour back down on you in delicate drops. You want to let him linger, to sit and hang above you like the sky hangs above the ocean.

You look straight at him, deep into his inquiring brown eyes as you both begin to breathe the same air, scents mingling between you like the heat between two stars. His nose is right up against yours and you can feel his lashes caress your cheekbone. He’s so close, but you want him closer, need him to move his hand or blink his eyes or do something, because you can’t take the nothingness anymore when you’ve got everything pressed right up against your face.

Ezra decides he wants one last thing from you.

“My rose, I don’t want to ask too much of you, but I suppose if that were true I wouldn’t have invited you to stay with me anyway. In the tent, of course. Not the cot.” Fuck, what was he saying? He lets out a soft laugh as he tries to reorganize his thoughts, a blushing mess under your gaze because he’s so used to knowing exactly how to get what he wants, but he’s really pushing your boundaries and bending your fence posts now. You’re turning him into a man who fumbles, a man who doesn’t always have to know what he’s about to say, and he doesn’t mind being a little less talk around you and a lot more touch.

Suddenly, he’s reminded of what he wanted to ask you.

“Sweet creature, could I kiss you?”

You don’t miss a beat in this soft ballad you’re playing with him, letting out a gentle “yeah, Ezra.”

You don’t like homes, don’t like to be told that you’re forever nailed to walls and wood. But maybe, as Ezra’s scruffy chin leans up to slot his lips against yours, you could build a tent in him. Maybe this leaky soul was your permanent, your unyielding, your perpetual.

As Ezra tilts his head towards you with a soft moan so he can kiss you the way you deserve, speak to you through the blinding sensation of his mouth telling you how he wants you, needs you, loves you, without using a single word, he is confident that his hollow cavities are beginning to be filled by your amber essence. He can tell you’re letting yourself finally take root in him, clearing out the wretched foliage so that you can curl up in the meadow of his soul and rest your bones within him.

Yeah.

You’re home.

people who asked to be tagged: @bobafvtt @catfishingmorales@keeper0fthestars @1zashreena1 @blancatobarxoxo @honeyedspace @cryptkeepersoul

people who definitely didn’t ask to be tagged oops: @glowingpena @bestintheparsec @ezrasarm @murdermewithbooks

not me tagging strangers for clout-

Please feel free to tell me if you want to be added/removed to my tags, I promise I’m not scary💕

#ezra x reader #ezra (prospect)#ezra prospect x reader #angst #sleepy prompts #pedro pascal #fluff #this was for what?#this was supposed to be so short #so quick #i spent the whole entire day writing this #does it make sense?#of course not #does it ever?#same answer #not gonna ask anymore of these requests #clearly I don't know how to control myself sksdfjgf

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jasmine-jules · 4 years

Text

How You Say My Name

This is for @startrekkingaroundasgard birthday writing challenge! I can’t believe I actually wrote something, it’s been so long since I have and I forgot how good it feels. This is a scene exploration/rewrite of one of the final scenes in The Timeless Children. Hope you enjoy!

13th Doctor x Yazmin Khan

1606 words

Prompt: I feel like the world is coming to an end

~~~~~~~~~~

“Any explosives left?” The Doctor asks Ko Sharmus. She has an idea, but…

“One. Emergencies only,” he pulls the bomb from his belt. Holding it like it would go off any second, which, in the condition it’s in, it could.

“Timer?”

“Hand detonation only.”

And there it is. Every time. Why can’t she just have one easy win, one without the deadly strings attached,

“Yeah. Course.” A tired smile falls on her lips, attempting to embrace the same old choice, “I’ll take it.” She pulls it from his hands, meeting the dreading look in Ko-Sharmus’ eyes.

“So, come on. Doc, what’re you thinking?” Graham asks, not quite wanting to accept the plan the Doctor’s slowly been forming. She refuses to look up from the bomb for a second, her racing brain attempting to figure out another way. Any other way. Not one that leaves her friends. Her fam, behind and alone. Again. Her mind can’t help but remember all the other times she’s had to make this choice. Rose. Donna. Amy. Clara. And now them.

“One option left.” She finally gives in, and looks up. The air feels empty between them, he knows what the Doc plans to do. But he doesn’t want to quite let it be a reality. The Doctor lifts the shrunken cyberman up. She feels the weight of her companions eyes on her, Yaz and Ryan share devastated looks before she continues.

“I have to use the death particle on Gallifrey.” Those words make her plan real, the finality of what she’s choosing to do sinks in, “On my home.” The Doctor’s gaze finally lands on Yaz, her big, beautiful brown eyes wide and scared, “On The Master and his new breed of cybermen.”

“You sure you wanna do that?” Ryan asks, imploring her to give an answer anything but yes, that The Doctor will figure out another way.

“I’m sure I don’t want to do that,” The Doctor admits, this new regeneration a lot more willing to confess her fears. Her emotions are closer to the surface than they were before, ready to spill over at a moment's notice, “but there’s no alternative. If the Master and the cybermen get off this planet, his home that he burned to the ground. Then what do you think he’s willing to do to a place that he didn’t grow up in? A place that we didn’t share a childhood together? They’ll be unstoppable.” The Doctor allows herself to look at everyone in the room, her family, the last humans from this time, in this corner of the universe that haven’t already been killed,

“I started this, with Shelley and the Cybrium, now I have to finish it. Alone.” The Doctor finishes, her eyes locking with Yaz’s once again. Her final word brings her back to when she declared in the basement of the mansion in Geneva that, in the end, she’s always alone. At the top of the universe, making the worst kind of decisions. It started when she had to make the choice to burn Gallifrey during the Time War. It’s only fitting that she’s going to die alone, too, making those some of the same choices. Her final word also startles Yaz out of her shock at the Doctor’s plan,

“What?”

But the Doctor continues as if Yaz hadn’t spoken, “The TARDIS will take you back to Earth. All of you. You can settle in the 21st century.”

“You’re not serious.” Ravio blurts out. She’s not sure how she feels about the Doctor deciding her fate for her. On one hand, they’ll all be safe, the threat of the cybermen gone. But on the other… This time is their home, their dead families are here, and the 21st century, no matter how safe, will bring them back.

“Deadly.”

“What about you?” Ryan interjects, “You detonate that thing, you’ll die too. Even with all your power to escape death, no one can escape that. You’ll be gone. Forever.”

“That’s the way it has to be.” She knows that all three of her friends are staring at her, their eyes pleading with her to not do this. But she can’t help but focus on Yaz. Yaz, who’s been all but silent, her inability to speak over the wave of emotions sweeping away any thought clear enough to put into words.

“And I would do that in a heartbeat for this universe. For you. My fam.” The Doctor finds herself scanning the room again, but somehow, always returning to Yaz. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t look away from the woman she’s become so close with. The woman she’s… The Doctor doesn’t let herself finish that thought, every time she’s had one similar, it’s only ended in pain. She abruptly turns away and makes her way to the TARDIS exit, the longer she stays in here with them, the harder it’ll be to leave.

“We’re not letting you go.” Yaz races forward, “You’re not doing this!” She pulls the Doctor’s arm back, grabbing her hand, using every ounce of her soul to plead with the Doctor, her new universe, to stop. To not leave her.

“Get off me, Yaz!” The Doctor tries to stop her voice from breaking, but it does so anyways, slipping through the facade she tries so hard to keep up for her friends. She turns to face Yaz, letting herself search every shade of brown that Yaz’s eyes seems to hold. She sees her eyes fill with tears, and she can’t stop her own from doing the same. In the past, it was always them who left her, whether by choice or by the will of the universe, but this time it was the Doctor’s choice. And somehow that made it a thousand times more painful. She strives to communicate that with Yaz, that it’s not easy. It’s not easy to leave behind the person you care about so much, but it’s better than letting you both die.

“Yaz. Please.” The Doctor continues, she begs Yaz to make this a little bit easier. And for a moment, Yaz lets her, nodding ever so slightly, as if saying, Fine. I’ll let you go. But I’ll hate you for it.

The room is silent, and Yaz fights every muscle in her body to not grab the Doctor, to stop her from leaving any way possible, even if it means confessing to something she’s tried so hard to push past.

“Yaz.” Ryan starts. Graham jumps, not expecting Ryan to speak, “Come on.”

Even though she half agreed to the Doctor leaving just a few seconds ago, she can’t get herself to step back. Words force their way past her lips, if the Doctor’s going to sacrifice herself for them, for her, how can she stay silent,

“No. You can’t leave us. Leave me. How you say my name… That tells me more than a thousand words. I can’t ignore that, and neither should you. And if I’m right, then how are you okay with leaving us alone. Without you. You’ve become my life, and there were times I wondered how long I could go on, but now I’m realizing, I don’t know how to go on without you.” The air is heavy, her words filling the space between the two of them. The Doctor’s eyes still try to say more than her words could. The words that normally talk their way out of problems, nowhere to be found. For some reason, she can’t.

“Live great lives.” The Doctor turns as if Yaz hadn’t just poured her heart out. The finality of the words she just spoke press down heavily on her shoulders. She’s said something similar before, to Rose, to someone who she had never quite admitted her feelings for. Letting her go for the sake of the universe. And now, she’s doing it again.

“No!” Yaz screams. She tries to grab the Doctor again, to pull her in and never let her go, but before she can, Ryan’s arms trap her. She struggles to get free, to stop the Doctor from being able to step through the doors of the TARDIS.

“I’m sorry,” The Doctor says, before shutting the doors behind her. She falls against the TARDIS, her legs not able to hold her up. She can hear Yaz’s sobs echo through the cracks of the door. She forces her feet to move, away from Yaz and towards the Master. She moves numbly through the halls of her home, and hears the TARDIS’s comforting noise fade into nothingness as it takes her fam back to theirs.

In the TARDIS, Yaz goes limp in Ryan’s arms, hardly registering Ko Sharmus’ movements as he slips through the doors just before it leaves Gallifrey, not quite realizing what it could mean for the Doctor. All she knows is that The Doctor left her. She left her without saying anything but “Live great lives.” Those words feel empty, how is she supposed to live a great life without the Doctor? All the good they did together, all the lives they saved, all their adventures, and it’s over.

“I know it feels like the world is ending right now, Yaz, but the Doctor gave us the chance to go on. To live our lives and take all we learned and all our memories with us, she’ll never truly be gone, Yaz.” Ryan murmurs gently, not letting Yaz fall.

The TARDIS shakes as it lands, and Yaz pushes herself to support her own weight and walk out the doors, only not to Gallifrey or some strange, new planet,

“We’re home. She got us home.”

#nicolas23rdwc #doctor who #thirteeth doctor #thirteen x yaz #yazmin khan #ryan sinclair #graham o'brien #the timeless children #my writing

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aveaugvstus · 4 years

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❛ You made a mistake. Everybody makes them. Even me. I’ve made many. It’s only fair that you made one. ❜

it’s strange how the passage of time warps and bends around the shape of the people in your life, the silhouettes they carve from the liminal space of your soul — it’s like that thing about stars and how when you’re looking up at the night sky, you’re actually looking at stars that could be already be dead a hundred years ago, their fading requiem only just now reaching earth’s stratosphere, a thousand light years away.

this is what it feels like to see vladimir standing in the door frame of his childhood bedroom looking like the ghost of fuck-ups past. ( he has no lock now, which is mildly insulting and excruciatingly patronising; he’s an addict, not bloody suicidal, but to his family the distinction might as well be non-existent. ) he looks different, and also like nothing has changed at all in a way that august can’t quite pinpoint. it’s as if he’s lost his ability to translate him; the myriad tiny, insignificant nuances and habits he used to obsessively decrypt with his very own rosetta stone, a whole stele for the vladimir yamatov script, forgotten like a dead language. or maybe he no longer cares to. he doesn’t know if that should make him feel nostalgic, or furious, or bittersweet. feeling particularly strongly about anything these days is a herculean task in and of itself. which, he supposes, was the original sin that instigated everything to begin with.

he thinks he can remember asking vladimir to come home.

he thinks he can almost remember begging, knees in the dirt and gravel scraping his flesh raw, over voicemail like a needy fling who had accidentally gone and done the thing you and every other idiot knows you’re not supposed to do, and fallen.

he thinks he might have begged for absolution.

but that could have also been the sixth line of blow cut with ketamine and procaine and only god and the devil knows what else ( he’d been desperate, it was three a.m. in camden ) and he’s composed text messages nay, goddamn fucking letters, ad nauseam, ad infinitum, like he’s on the receiving end of some dear john bullshit, and he’s never been sure which of them actually made it to the send button. he’s smashed, or lost, or misplaced, half a dozen phones, for all the futile effort to replace them. collateral damage in the dawning realisation that vladimir wasn’t replying because he was mercilessly leaving him on read, but because he wasn’t receiving them at all, and judging by his infrequent instagram updates, was doing absolutely fine / fuck him, happy / having the time of his fucking life on his primitive anti-tech detox.

for a moment, he entertains the fleeting, whimsical distraction that this could be yet another delusion. after all, he’s conjured vladimir enough times that this wouldn’t be unusual. ( why, sometimes i’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. ) he has imagined vladimir heartsick, wretchedly beside himself with guilt. he has painted him alabastrine, cold and immovable, patron saint raphael of the lost and the meek indifferent to august’s self-inflicted torment. he has envisioned him lit with madness, seized in catastrophic rage, gripping him by the jaw and rattling his bones till he might see reason. there were other imaginings, too, steeped in the unspeakable, tauntings of an uninhibited mind free to conceptualise the reality of its most ludicrous desire. in the worst dream, the most terrible, most fantastical one, vladimir comes home because of him. for him. it plays out like the final scene of a cult romantic comedy, or the odyssey, maybe, much-enduring odysseus returning home to penelope at last. two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk, their hands meeting as light spills in a flood, the sky pouring out the sun. and he would take his other-soul’s face in his hands and kiss him and say the words this lifetime’s vladimir would never say.

there is, of course, a singular difference in this one. this vladimir. the vladimir he filled his dreams with never looked at him like this. with this curious amalgamation of horror and — most tellingly so; am i not what you expected, vladimir? how did you imagine you would find me? beatific? flourishing? — disgust.

august knows what he looks like. five shades too pale and ashen, like the vivacity has been drained right out of him. a layer of grease shines in his hair, the fade he alway maintains with meticulous care and precision grown out into his natural, unruly curls. he’s not quite skeletal, his frame was always too lean and muscular for that, but he seems perilously thin for his height. it shows in his face, he knows even though he’s been avoiding mirrors and isn’t allowed one anyway, because a) addicts use those to cut their coke, and b) suicidal ones might be inclined to break them, he knows because of the way his mum looks at him when she comes into his room to bring him his meals three times a day like a convict. it hurts him a little, more than the physical pain of looking at vladimir, of hearing his voice, that he sees him like this. he had not been informed in advance that vladimir would come calling. if he had, he would’ve — he doesn’t know what he would’ve done ( attempted an escape, maybe; broken his twelve-day sobriety, maybe ) but he might’ve. cleaned up a little. tried to look less like a shell of himself. augustus has always been vain, has always been a gilded, preening thing who took great pride in being pretty and well-loved for it. it pains him. not to be even that anymore. he is rusted. tarnished.

if he had known, maybe he would have told vladimir not to come.

now that he is here, he is split in two, cleaved in half by the urge to tell him to go and the more pressing compulsion to make him stay to never go never leave again never go anywhere that is out of his sight out of his life out of him.

his ambivalence makes him poor company and a poorer conversationalist. not that this is entirely his fault — what are they supposed to do? chat about the weather and trade perfunctory banter just to fill the air? he’d rather do a line right here in front of vladimir.

your hair is longer, august had said. the only thing other than what are you doing here, which had come out of his mouth, part-shock and part-petulance, when his mother had opened the door and presented vladimir like some screwed-up surprise gift for reaching a whopping week and a half of not being a fucking disappointment to everyone around him. so, now he can disappoint the person that matters most fundamentally, tortuously, to him in the world, too. how delightful.

vladimir’s hair being longer is the only thing he can think to say that doesn’t make him want to give in to the pulverising sensation in his head, in his bones, in his chest, screaming for a deus ex machina reprieve. if this is what they have come to — the two of them, who had spent their entire lives talking about nothing and everything till they could anticipate exactly what the other’s response would be — augustus is glad he didn’t come home sooner. he looks handsome, which feels like another slight against august’s pride. rugged and sun-soaked like a male model cum travel influencer, but one that actually does something meaningful with his life. time, and sunlight, and the kind of hard labour that builds muscle definition and character, has certainly been kinder to him than it has been to august. he doesn’t say you look good because that would sound like he has any remotely positive feelings towards this interaction, and, indeed, the cause of vladimir’s looking like a golden, newly-anointed demi-god. it seems they have traded places. or maybe vladimir is exactly who he was always supposed to be. and august is, too.

august supposes it’s the silence, and the reality that vladimir cannot abide it either, that prompts him to say what he does.

what happened?

he doesn’t say anything for a long moment, he drifts in the absence of an answer because he is allowed to, because he is technically, partially an invalid now, and people who are sick are allowed to be not altogether there.

( sick. malaised. he likes this word for it. he likes that there is a scientific explanation for what he is. a brain disease. a diagnosable mental illness. see, vladimir, he almost wants to say, a little deranged part of him finally gleeful at not having a pedestal to stand on anymore, you aren’t special. i’m fucked up now, too. )

well, vladimir. it’s a very long story that i don’t care to repeat as i’ve recounted the tales to you so many times through missives you were never inclined to respond to. there was angel, and bennie, there was emmy, and good old molly. ah, and charlie, my favourite of the lot. ours was a whirldwind love affair. but it turns out i loved him more than he loved me. seems like i have a nasty little habit of doing that. it’s one i haven’t learned to kick yet.

god — august...

it’s the look of wrenching disgust, again. the thing that twists and snakes across vladimir’s face and awakes something snarling and animal shackled to august’s throat, something that slams into him chest-first and doesn’t stop until it’s gone right through him, left him raw, all bloodied edge and teeth.

what happened? what happened? what’s the point of asking now when it’s all been said and done. how long am i supposed to carry this black mark? until everyone around me deigns to let me bury it? i’m not a fucking child.

it’s not an explanation, which is what vladimir is after. he would know, however, if he had bothered to answer august any of those times. he would know, he would have known, if he hadn’t left august in their bed that morning at the warwickshire summer palace and run from everything they’d ever touched. they’d had the world world in their hands in that bed, in that room, in that place of stolen summer outside of time, outside of life itself. they could have had — everything. everything august had to give. and he gave it, and vladimir looked him in the eye and decided it was not for him.

you made a mistake. everybody makes them. even me. i’ve made many. it’s only fair that you made one.

he feels each word grate right through him, each syllable catching on his skin like little knives, the thin strand keeping him tethered to the present grinding down into dust and bone. he doesn’t blame vladimir for what happened to him. he blames him for leaving. but it’s a mistake that vladimir won’t — can’t acknowledge because to do that, he would have to admit to the thing he doesn’t want to say, or can’t say, and august can’t make him say it. that’s what made him do it, the first night at that grimy, filthy club in the berlin underground. that’s what made him want to trade his soul for just a night of rapture so euphoric he wouldn’t have to remember how fucking miserable it was to be unloved by the one person you thought you were meant for. but then, it’s never just one night is it? it couldn’t have been. you don’t get over something like that with one goddamn night.

( if august were honest, and his heart not surrendered, he would say it was this, too: that vladimir could walk away from them, has always been able to walk away, and think nothing of it. him. that vladimir had found purpose and higher meaning in something other than themselves and the stupid, foolish, boyish dreams they used to talk about like they might someday happen. that august had disappointed him somehow by, what, not being enough? not living up to the unearned greatness that vladimir saw in him and was supposedly the only person in the world who could? that vladimir would forge a path for himself in life that diverged from august and not feel his soul rending itself in half to be half a world away from him, and survive it. — it was enough to ruin him then, it still ruins him now. )

“if you’ve come all this way just to lecture to me, you can sod the fuck off back to phuket or hanoi or fucking antarctica if that’s what you want. maybe there’s some disease-riddled penguins out there that you can save to sate your saviour complex. saint francis of assisi. a non-shitty mother teresa. malala.”

he’s exhausted before the first word leaves his mouth, strung out just with the effort of starting, but he can’t stop them now any more than he can stop the hunger and thirst clawing at his head howling for a drop of blood, a pound of flesh, any part of him that it can cannibalise in retribution for starving. it’s easier to be cruel than to be wounded, better to be the conqueror than the fallen — but right now it just feels like he is going through his twelfth or two hundredth day of withdrawal and the boy he loves has come back but not the way august wanted and not the way he wants to be wanted. it hurts just to look at him, it hurts to have him looking back. every part of his body aches with dependence, codependence. they’re the definition of it. see what happens to me when you are not in my life?

alexander lay on hephaestion’s bed for three days. but you are not him. you are just a spoiled, arrogant, silver-spooned nothing who will never amount to greatness, glory, or anything at all. it is no wonder he would not have you.

his rage breaks, like sea foam crashing against cliffs; it rends and shatters down the fault line mapped throughout his body, the one that winds from his throat to his sternum, down to his thighs and feet, and aches forever mostly at his heel. helpless to the unbidden trembling of his hands as he curls them around the sheets of his bed, unmoored. he looks small and disarmed, more lost than he’s ever been with vladimir by his side. it doesn’t mean the same thing anymore, does it? not if he cannot make vladimir stay. whatever they had between them — is it damaged, now. they could rebuild it, but the foundations would still bear the memory of where the cracks lie. he would still remember this look on vladimir’s face.

he has looked at him a thousand times, and there has always been an echo reverberating between them. the wavelength of an elegy he knows the words to like they are writ upon heartbeat, upon headstone. there have been other faces, but vladimir’s eyes have always been the same. fathomless as distant stars in an entire universe light years away and yet close enough to touch if he dared to. if it is fate, or circumstance, or a reiteration of the immortality that stands between them and their freedom, then he already knows how this ends. vladimir knows it, too. it doesn’t make him want it any less. it doesn’t make him suffer for it any less. this ache he has spent an eternity chasing after, this feeling of being so incandescently alive that even death cannot keep them apart, this is what vladimir ran from. augustus cannot blame him. if he was not the one who always outlived him, he’d do the same.

“is this why you came back? because you think you can save me, too?”

#SING O MUSE AND THROUGH ME TELL THE STORY. / ASK.#HE IS HALF OF MY SOUL AS THE POETS SAY. / VLADIMIR.#T. / MODERNITY.#addiction tw #drug abuse tw #suicide mention tw #this is going to make you think twice about ever casually sending me memes #hehe

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misstinfoilhat · 5 years

Text

Whumptober 2019 #18: Asphyxiation- Bungou Stray Dogs

I have to stop this here- the story will continue in the next upload, but I haven't decided which prompt it's going to be yet! This will be several parts long, as many of the remaining prompts fits this story! I might get back to this to fix the cursive writing- I just can’t be bothered right now- sorry. I don’t know why it doesn’t do that automatically when I have it in the saved documents, no matter where I copy it from. But, for the time being, just... add cursive where you feel it fits in. Arraaait. --------- The red light of the black camera indicated that it once again was rolling.

Another jolt of shooting pain seared through Dazai's body. Between clenched teeth, he stifled a muffed cry of agony while twitching viciously in his seat. His head shot up, slamming into the back of the chair he was tied to, while his body shook violently out of his control.

The zap cane was removed from his stomach, and Dazai heaved for a breath of air with a mixture of saliva and blood spilling out between his lips. He had bit his tongue again, tearing open the bearly closed wounds he had suffered from the day before (and the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before that).

“Let's try this again today,” the large man said in a dangerously calm tone. He looked to be in his mid to late fifties and was towering over Dazai's half-conscious form, wide and tall. The two other men in the room were armed with the electric prods and would shock him each time the larger man nodded his head towards them or gave them a hand gesture that indicated that he was getting sick of Dazai's lack of cooperation. The two younger men took a couple of steps back, making room for the big man to lean in close to Dazai's ear.

With heavily accented Japanese, the man asked again; the same question he asked Dazai endlessly, every single day for as long as he'd been there.

“Are you ready to confess?”

At first, Dazai kept quiet, just like he did every day; forcing his lips tightly shut and refusing to meet the ice-cold stare of the man he assumed was the leader of this group of imbeciles. He turned his head demonstratively to the side, not even wanting to breathe the same air as him.

A hoarse smoker's laugh trembled through the elderly man, making his shoulders shake. Suddenly a large, firm hand had a tight grip around his jaw, forcing Dazai's head in the man's direction.

“I said; are you ready to confess?”

Dazai's only answer was to chuckle in amusement, before gathering a mouthful of blood, spitting it into the man's face.

The broad-shouldered man sneered, backing up and turning away, wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

“I'll give you one more chance,” the man growled in a dangerous tone. “Look into the camera, and admit to your crime. This will make this whole ordeal a lot less painful for you. You were the one who killed Niko! You killed my beautiful baby-girl! Admit it!”

It was getting difficult for Dazai to keep his head steady on his shoulders, and his vision had doubled. The small window of sight he still had left in his right eye was completely gone at this point- hopefully, because of his eye being bruised shut and not because of any additional damage to his optic nerve.

Thick fingers grabbed a hold of his hair, yanking his head back forcefully, locking him in an uncomfortable position. It might have hurt if Dazai hadn't been dragged after Chuuya in more or less the exact same way for two years staight while still in the Port Mafia. But, being held directly into the path of this guy's foul breath was enough to make it seem tempting to break.

Then again, if against all odds, he would survive this screwed up situation, and the damage was already done... he didn't have anything left to lose and he might as well have some fun along the way.

Dazai gave the man a broad grin, teeth shining mockingly with red lines of crimson running between them.

“Fine, fine...” he wheezed, a bit more pathetic than he had anticipated. “I give up, it was me... I did it..."

Dazai took a deep, shuddering breath, before he continued ceremoniously, "...I, and I alone... let the dogs out.”

Apparently, his captors didn't have a sense of humor, because the zap cane was quickly pushed against his neck. The buzzing sound of electricity was only heard for a short second before it drowned into a wave of blackness and his own strangled scream.

-----------

When Dazai woke back up, he was back in his cell; his small, cramped, cold purgatory. He had no idea how long he had been locked up in this place. There was no light, no set schedule for food or using the facilities. It seemed like it varied depending on which people were on guard- which also seemed rather random. That left him with little to work with in terms of keeping track of time.

The stone flooring was cold, and his bare back was pressed up against the door. His legs hardly fit in the tiny cell when stretched out, but that wasn't why he was pressed to the door.

No, that was because of the chain around his neck.

The thick iron was locked tightly around his throat, tight enough to hurt his vocal cords and add horribly painful friction to the black burns caused by the zap cane. It made his breaths go in and out in rapid, hungry hicks, and each time someone opened the door, he would be dragged along with it, cutting off his air supply and efficiently subduing and choking him.

But the pain wasn't even the worst part anymore. He wanted it gone- wanted it to stop wanted to die more than he had his entire life and would end himself (he didn't even care about a pain-free suicide anymore- didn't care about it being convenient just wanted it done) as soon as he could... But they wouldn't let him.

At some point, he had tried. He had leaned forward, effectively cutting off his air supply for long enough to make him faint, while making sure he wouldn't fall unconscious in a way that made it loosen the chain enough to clear his airways. But it hadn't worked.

It was all because it was that damn camera. The only light in the cell, the only true constant that had been there (except for the pain- the pain didn't go anywhere- because that came with the light the small red orb looking tauntingly and laughing-) since he had been brought to this place.

The fuckers revived him when he had managed to strangle himself with the chain, and on many other occasions too. So now... now he knew.

He knew that they wouldn't let him die. They wouldn't let him get out of the one crime that he did not commit. He was guilty of many horrendous things, but he would never admit to killing such a sweet innocent girl. In which case, he would rather die.

Still, he was sure if he somehow was able to hang himself, overdose, cut his wrists, shoot himself in the head while jumping off a cliff and set himself on fire at the same time, they would still find some way to bring him back to life.

It sounded surreal even to him, but he had finally, actually, given up on death.

A venomous voice in the back of his mind told him that he didn't deserve the release of death anyway. That after all he had done, he had this coming. Even if the tiny bit of sanity left in his mind tried to convince him that nobody (not even him) should even fantasize about doing something like this to another human being... That nobody (not even him) deserved what was going on here...

That maybe... just maybe... he wasn't the worst human to ever leave a print on the face of the earth after all.

Because whoever killed poor little Niko, definitely deserved that title.

...and he also questioned if maybe the lack of oxygen was clearing his mind more than muddling it, and tried to imagine what Kunikida, or Chuuya for that matter, would say if they could hear him now.

“Was a couple of weeks of torture all it took to get that into that shrimp-sized brain of yours? I wish I had known so I could have done it myself.”

...that seemed pretty accurate, he decided.

The silence inside his solitary was disrupted by a hoarse, broken chuckle. The sound of his broken voice sent chills down his spine.

His eyelids felt heavy now. He couldn't remember the last time he slept- unless being unconscious counted as sleep.

Dazai shifted, trying to rest on his side, but a sharp pain shot through his hip. It made him startle and he rolled back to his half-seated position against the door, leaning his head to the harsh, wooden surface. There was a burning behind his eyes. Not tears, more of a desperate call from his body to fall into slumber, to relax and maybe... give in.

No.

If he did- they would frame him for the murder of Niko, but without his confession, they would never be able to. There was no evidence to point to simply because he did not do it.

But he wanted to give up on all of this... Kinda. Not really, but... he was considering it. At least, his body was.

Just the thought made him slam his head into the door behind him, punishing himself for those ridiculous thoughts- because those kinds of thoughts were unacceptable. He hadn't endured years of Mori's vicious training to withstand torture to lose out to fatigue.

All of this made him feel like a child. Nothing more than the poor helpless kid he had once been, that the Port Mafia had beat, burned and whipped out of him.

...still, the feeling lingered, and he realized slowly, painfully, why it did.

This experience woke up a demon that had hibernated in the pit of his soul for fifteen years. A ferocious beast he had fought and defeated and thought he had buried along with his humanity long ago.

For the first time since he could remember, he was truly scared.

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

“He can't be in Yokohama.”

“Are you sure there's not anything we've missed? There isn't anywhere we haven't looked?”

The Armed Detective Agency was hurdled around a large, squared table, scattered with notes and documents. In the middle, there was a map with excessive amounts of large, black crosses drawn all over, eliminating each searched location throughout the city.

“We've scavenged every little creak and corner, from the border to Tokyo to the port. Our colleagues in Kobe, Sapporo, and Tokyo have done an extensive search too, without any luck.”

Kunikida crossed his arms with a grave expression. Atsushi was still eying the map, hoping to discover something they might have missed.

“I hate to say it, but I suspect that he actually is still in Yokohama,” Ranpo muttered gravely, not even bothering to pretend to be using his ability. There was no use. Their colleague had vanished without a trace and they had no idea how or why.

"If this had been a group from out of the city, they would have had some sort of motive, and they would have let us know what it was," he added.

There had been no ransom demands, no one that had taken responsibility, and most importantly of all, no body.

They had gone as far as to hire divers to search the bottom of every little creek in Yokohama, even if they knew that this wasn't another suicide attempt that had finally been successful.

The evidence was clear; their coworker, friend, and ally was kidnapped. If he had tried and succeeded at killing himself, he would have let somebody know. He always did, so they wouldn't have to go out on a wild goose chase looking for him.

Strangely enough, Dazai was considerate like that.

Dazai had his flaws, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that if he was ever to disappear, they would come looking for him. They were also fairly sure that he knew they cared enough about him to know that they wouldn't rest until they found him, and that was why he always gave them some sort of notice when he would try to off himself, so they wouldn't waste their time.

This time, however, there was nothing. No hint of where he had gone except a busted door, a few droplets of blood and 6 months of absolutely no trace of him.

The ADA had put everything else aside to find their missing colleague. They had even developed close cooperation with the Port Mafia. Their eerily creepy leader, Ougai Mori had laughed when they had reached out to them, but Dazai's former partner, Chuuya, as well as several other members of the Port Mafia, had become quite invested in the search when they had learned about his disappearance.

At this point, there wasn't really any profiled ability-based organization in Japan that hadn't partaken in the search for Dazai in one way or another.

In spite of all of his shortcomings, Dazai turned out to be widely respected in the community of ability users. Some because of his work in the mafia, some for his work in the agency, and some plainly because of the reassurance that he could cancel their ability if it got out of hand.

It was fair to say that most of Japan were invested in finding Dazai at this point.

Still, no one had gathered any information that had lead them any closer to finding him.

“I hate to say this, but our resources are running out, and we're still not any closer to finding him,” Yosano started, always the voice of reasoning.

The dark-haired doctor ignored the venomous stares she harvested from several of her younger coworkers and continued.

“From a medical standpoint, I would say that he's dead.”

“Don't say that!” Atsushi retorted immediately, fists grasped tightly at chest level, with arched eyebrows. He turned around to face the young doctor, who he had eventually surpassed in height.

The thought of his friend and mentor being dead already haunted his dreams every night. Their continued search was the only thing that made him hopeful that Dazai was still alive- if they began to entertain the idea that his nightmares were real, Dazai would be dead eventually no matter what they did from this point forward.

“We can't give up on him.”

“I'm not saying that- Knowing Dazai, he's way too stubborn to be killed or die in any way that seems inconvenient to him. I'm just trying to be realistic... We're not going to be able to solve this if we run out of money. We might have to start taking on cases again.”

“Taking on other cases would mean that we have less time to search for Dazai,” Kenji stated sadly yet accurately.

“I know, but nobody is paying us to find Dazai at this point, and there's a large stack of forms on Haruno-san's desk of actual paid missions that will eventually lead us to have more resources to find him.”

An argument broke lose between the agency members just as Fukuzawa entered the room.

“Yosano's right,” he said solemnly, effectively breaking up the fight before it could escalate to a loud shouting match. Eight pairs of eyes turned towards the entry as Fukuzawa stepped inside.

“I've been reluctant to tell you, but if we don't take on other cases soon, there won't be enough funds to sustain the agency at all.”

Two hands slammed into the work table and Kunikida stood abruptly.

“Are we just supposed to give up on him?” he retorted agitatedly, earning shocked stares across the room.

Fukuzawa's steel eyes looked at him, unaffected by the uncharacteristically rough tone. The blonde lowered his gaze, held his breath for a few seconds to calm down.

“With all due respect, director... Dazai-san has been missing for over six months now. He might be in great danger, and I don't know how any of us could live with ourselves if something were to happen to him, because we stopped searching.”

Fukuzawa's tall stature came closer, and a large, strong hand reached out, grabbing and putting reassuring pressure on Kunikida's shoulder.

“I know, Kunikida-kun. I don't want to stop the search any more than any of you do. But if we don't take on a couple of missions now, we will lose all the resources we have at hand here at the agency... because there won't be one.”

Kunikida cleared his throat, and looked back up and nodded affirmatively. “I-I understand, president. I'm sorry for speaking out of line, it... it's been trying times.”

“I know,” Fukuzawa assured him calmly. “I'm not saying to stop looking, but I do want some of you to take the time and do some of the missions. You can decide amongst yourselves who does what, and if there is anything that I can do, don't hesitate to ask.”

The tall man left the room, leaving the agents to digest this new information.

Kunikida quickly snapped out of it. “Kenji and Tanizaki, go and look over the missions on Haruno-san's desk. Don't pick anything that will take away too much man-power, please. Dazai still needs to be our priority. When you've found one, come back and do a short debriefing, and we'll decide who's going. I would rather have Ranpo free to continue the search, though...”

The two young detectives nodded in unison and darted off towards Haruno's desk.

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Darkness. Consuming everything. From as far as my eye can see- to the core of my soul, it eats away, leaving room for the uneasy, strangled fear that creeps up every time I forget to pay attention.

Fear doesn't need doors or windows.

Dazai tried to keep in mind that fear was only an emotion and reminded himself how illogical all feelings were. Some people were scared of heights, while other people bungy jumped.

The hight wasn't any more dangerous for the person who sought it than to the person who feared it. The only difference was their perception of it.

Just like he had no more reason to fear his captors than they had fear him.

Because he was Osamu Dazai, previously the youngest executive of the Port Mafia in history, purely because of his brilliance and heartlessness.

Still, one thought kept picking at his brain. Because even if that was so, someone was out to hurt and destroy him, which actually was a much more actively danger than what the space between a person and the ground was.

He wanted to tell himself that this was the kind of thinking that separated him from his persona as a mafioso. Those years ago, he believed more than anything that he himself was the only real threat to him.

He wasn't durable in a fistfight, wasn't bulletproof and was truthfully inadequate at taking care of himself. Still, what he was, kept being and had always been, was unbreakable.

Maybe not physically (not at all, really) , but emotionally, he was. No one had ever been able to throw him for a loop, make him unsure or scare the daylight out of him.

Not since he was a child, anyway.

...so why was it now, that he couldn't stop shaking?

In the distance, he could hear footsteps, and he held the breath he so preciously treasured, hoping they would pass him by. Keys were rattling, and the lock mechanism on the door behind him clicked.

He quickly exhaled before greedily gulping in another breath, ready for what was to come.

The door was yanked open, the chain around his neck tightening around his throat, effectively cutting off his air supply and crushing at his windpipe and almost strangling him. He was dragged back, his cuffed arms clawing at the chain around his neck while he struggled to breathe.

The zapping cane poked at his side, and he let go of the tight collar to protect himself, curling up and kicking with his legs while being zapped again and again until he lingered at the edge of unconsciousness.

Without a word from his guards, the two men picked him up between them and carried him between them, once again heading for hours upon hours of torturous interrogation. I have to stop this here- the story will continue in the next upload, but I haven't decided which prompt it's going to be yet! This will be several parts long, as many of the remaining prompts fits this story!

#whump community #whump #whump fic #whumptober 18 #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #osamu dazai #whumptober 2019

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keeroo92 · 5 years

Text

Nico In Trouble

Hi everyone! Here is my submission for @whumptober2019 for day 5 with the prompt “Gunpoint” featuring everyone’s favorite mechanic, Nico. This one starts a little slow, but I think it came out well. Enjoy!

Word count - 2,489

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Nico would never forget the first time she held a gun. It was a Heckler and Koch HK45, not one of her grandmother’s custom builds but a basic and bland model. Nothing fancy, just what her uncle kept in his nightstand for protection.

A beautiful piece.

She hadn’t been looking for it. Before that day, she never imagined he owned a firearm. All she needed was a battery to replace the dead one in the tv remote. She’d checked every drawer in the kitchen, every nook and cranny of the living room and office. This was her last hope, or she’d have to change the channel manually.

Gross.

Yet the sight of the polished metal derailed her plans. It called to her, begging for her touch. Something about the weapon resonated with her very soul and she lacked the will power to ignore it. The battery could keep for a while.

Trembling fingertips slid over the device, feeling its weight and structure. It sent chills up her spine and she couldn’t help the soft smile from crossing her lips as she lifted it, angling the barrel to catch the dim light from above. It glinted and flashed, as if it were celebrating her presence.

She was eight years old.

Guns weren’t unfamiliar to her, not with her family. Papa Rock loved telling stories about Granny Nell and her smithing days, speaking with reverence and pride of her accomplishments. It made Nico jealous sometimes; she wanted Papa to talk about her that way, too. Not to say he didn’t already, not even close.

But it always rang with the tone of an adult talking to a child. Over-exaggerated, encouraging and supportive but not truly impressed. Not false, just… something.

Her hands shifted on the grip. It wasn’t too heavy, but she struggled to maintain a solid grasp even with the finger grooves. Someday, it would fit in her palms with ease.

She couldn’t wait.

That was four years ago.

Uncle Terry’s shouts of alarm when he found her with his loaded gun still made her roll her eyes. Punishment was harsh; she knew better than to play with guns, what was she thinking? Blah, blah, blah. Whatever, as long as she got to touch it again.

But Papa Rock was ruthless. Not once since that day had he allowed her to handle a weapon. It was killing her, especially when he tried to placate her misery with a damned air rifle.

Ridiculous.

He encouraged her other interests, but nothing could quench her thirst to tinker with whatever pistol was available. She begged and pleaded and promised, yet his resolve never wavered. Not until she was ready, he said. A few more years, he swore. How was he supposed to know when she was ready, anyway? Why did he get to make that call?

I’ve been ready for years!

Nico growled and spat out her toothpaste. She wasn’t doing herself any favors by dwelling on it; better to think about something else. As much as it sucked, it was out of her hands. Papa Rock wasn’t one to change his mind, especially not when she whined about it. Either he’d let her near a gun or she’d turn eighteen and no longer need permission.

She rinsed away the dregs and grinned at the mirror, checking for any glaring scuzz on her teeth in between her braces. Another thing she couldn’t wait to grow out of…

Satisfied, she headed to bed.

Well, it was more of a sofa, but that wasn’t the point.

“G’night, Uncle Terry!” she called as she passed his closed bedroom door. A grunted response was all she received, but that was normal.

Whenever Papa Rock left town for work, she stayed with him. He kept his bedroom locked now, probably on Papa’s orders otherwise she would’ve been in his nightstand faster than a knife fight in a phone booth. Besides that, he pretty much gave her free reign.

She moved the disemboweled toaster she’d been working on earlier to the floor and slid between the sheets with a yawn. It was black as pitch outside and insects chirped through the open window, the still-humid air only just starting to be bearable. A typical summer evening, all things considered.

Then the front door exploded.

Nico jumped, her eyes shooting wide as a figure strode through the void. She couldn’t see much in the dark, but the unmistakable clack of a shotgun being loaded echoed in the heavy air.

“TERRY!”

What in the hell is going on?

The figure stepped forward and Nico held her breath. Whoever it was seemed to know their way around the small home, easily avoiding the furniture as they approached her uncle’s bedroom. Terror flooded her mind as she watched the intruder level the gun.

“GIT YOUR SORRY ASS OUT HERE!”

The snarling sounded female. Who was this, and why did she wanna shoot her uncle? It made no sense; he’d never mentioned a pissed off lady. What the hell did he do?

His door cracked open to reveal the barrel of that same Heckler and Koch from so long ago. She recognized it easily as the slide drew back, bringing a round into the chamber. The regular grumble of his voice was replaced with resigned exhaustion as he spoke.

“What the hell d’you want, Tara?”

Now was her chance, while the woman was distracted. She swallowed her fear and forced her body to move, trying to minimize the noise she made but the sheets still betrayed her as she moved to the floor. She cursed internally and prayed, but it was too late. The woman turned.

“Who’s there!? Show yourself!”

A pair of barrels leveled at roughly her position. Her heart beat faster than a hummingbird’s wings, her palms as slick as a greased hog. What should she do? Stay hidden and hope nothing hit her? Reveal herself and risk this stranger’s wrath? Either way, it was a risk.

I might die tonight.

The column of her throat twitched at the realization. If only she had a gun of her own! She’d cut the stranger’s tail for sure! Damn Papa Rock, damn him and his stupid rules!

“Ya got till the count of three! One…”

Her lungs refused to inflate and her legs stubbornly locked tight. Was there anything in between her and the shotgun? Could she duck behind the couch in time? She’d never been the fastest, but maybe just this once…

“Two…”

A click. She was running out of time. Her head spun and her vision swam as she slowly inhaled.

“Thr-“

Her hands flew into the air, palms open and submissive. They trembled as she licked her lips. “Okay, okay! I’m comin’ out!”

The stranger hummed and lowered the shotgun, but not by much. Drops of sweat slid from Nico’s brow and under her arms. She closed her eyes and ordered her body to rise, bracing for the worst.

“Who the fuck are you? Hit the damned light, will ya?”

A moment later, she cringed as rays of illumination flooded the room. Her eyes flew to the floor to avoid the worst of it.

“I’m N- Nicoletta Goldstein, Terry’s niece.”

A sharp clatter. Nico’s eyes stole a peek at the woman to see the shotgun raised once more, pointed right at her face. The hands gripping the weapon were solid, not a shake to be seen as if to contrast her own trembling.

A warm puddle leaked from between her legs to stain her pajamas.

I’m gonna die! Oh my god, I’m actually gonna die!

Enraged eyes locked with her terrified gaze. Her vision blurred, the first tear spilling free as she choked on a sob.

“P- please! I’m just a kid!” she begged. The admission of her youth sent daggers into Nico’s belly.

Why doesn’t Terry stop her!? Aren’t grown ups supposed to do that kind of thing?

“Well, Nicoletta Goldstein, you better hope your pig of an uncle’s got some damn good explanations!”

A thin hand left the shotgun to push hair from the woman’s eyes. Her features weren’t unpleasant, even with rage twisting them. What could she possibly want to kill Uncle Terry for?

“Leave her outta this! Our shit’s between you and me, she’s got nothing to do with it!” his voice cried.

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do, shit brain! All I wanna hear from you is a damned apology!”

Blood pounded in Nico’s ears. She couldn’t hear the cicada’s anymore, only the sound of wind. Her chest heaved as she choked on dread, a metallic tang rising in her throat. What she wouldn’t give to have more time.

There’s still so much I haven’t done!

It wasn’t fair! She hadn’t done anything wrong, why did she have to pay the price for her uncle? If there was any justice in the world, their positions would be switched. She’d have the gun and he’d be out here soaked in his own piss and drowning in terror. By all rights, he deserved it!

“Here’s my apology, you skanky bitch.”

A sound like thunder split the air as Terry pulled the trigger. With a flash and a smell of gunpowder, his shot struck home in the woman’s shoulder. She grunted and angled her shotgun at the bedroom door, squeezing the trigger and staggering back from the recoil. Pellets blasted into the wood, ripping holes in some places on their path of death.

Shit, shit, shit! What the fuck! I gotta move!

Nico didn’t hesitate, ducking low and darting behind the massive bookcase against the wall. It was a deep one, enough so that she was mostly shielded if she pressed into the wall hard enough. Hopefully, it would be enough.

Another thunderous crack; the .45. Terry was still alive, still fighting.

She closed her eyes and let the tears flow as the shotgun fired, flinching at the impact of pellets on wood. If this went on much longer, she’d learn what it sounded like when they struck flesh.

A string of violent expletives came from the woman as she ducked behind the couch to reload. Nico had mere seconds to make her move and she growled, sending every ounce of pent up rage and frustration to her legs, but they refused to move. Her body was in open rebellion. It wouldn’t let her leave the safety of her nook, no matter how much she wanted to.

Damnit, come on! You coward, Nico!

It was too late. The woman stood tall and aimed once again at what remained of Terry’s bedroom door, cackling as she fired. A massive section of wood splintered away and she advanced, preparing her next shot to spray through the gap.

“DIE, YOU BASTA-“

The .45 fired. Gurgles replaced words and a heavy thud marked the woman falling to her knees, mere inches from the door. Her muddy eyes met Nico’s and blood leaked from the fresh hole in her neck, a steady river too powerful to overcome. She shifted her shotgun and aimed, determined to get what she came for.

Just die, won’t ya?! Haven’t you done enough!?

Her hand squeezed and another round of pellets sprayed forth to decorate the door. Several went straight through and lodged into whatever waited beyond.

The shotgun clattered to the floor, followed shortly by the woman. Her head landed sideways, and Nico watched in stupefied horror as the light in her eyes flickered out. The rage seeped away as her features went slack, a soft exhalation stirring the still pooling blood beneath her.

It’s over.

Nico’s knees struck the hardwood as she collapsed. She couldn’t look away from the woman’s face as she broke down, staring at death as her body recovered from the cocktail of terror and shifted to exhausted relief. Never had she been more thankful to breathe, to be able to sob and shake with sweet, sweet life.

“Nico…”

Shit, I forgot about Terry!

She scrambled to her feet and peered through the gap made from the shotgun blasts. All that met her gaze was the bedspread, dotted with splinters and torn to shreds.

“Is she… is she dead?”

She hiccupped and glanced back to check, just in case. “Yeah, I- I think so.”

A pained grunt and the door opened. There stood Terry, covered in small cuts and scraps of wood, a scarlet stain growing on his calf, but alive.

“You all right, string bean?”

She choked on a laugh. No, she was not all right. Some lady just died in front of her after pointing a gun at her face and shooting the shit out of her uncle’s house.

But she wasn’t injured, so instead she nodded.

A warm hand pulled her into a hug. “You did good.”

This time she couldn’t hold back her manic snort. “I didn’t do anything, I just stood there and hid!”

“Yeah, I know. You didn’t get yourself killed, so… you did good.”

She wiped away hysterical tears and sniffled. Her mind already whirled with questions, but she was too tired to ask a single one. It’d keep.

She helped Terry to the couch just as the first flashing lights lit the room in red and blue. He grimaced as a voice outside demanded he open the door and surrender, an apology in his familiar eyes as he hollered back the basics of what happened.

“Hands on the windowsill! Both of you!”

Are you kidding me? I just wanna sleep! Can’t it keep?

Apparently not. The questions didn’t stop for what felt like years. Nico stopped paying attention after a while, too dazed to care anymore. She stared at the body as someone checked her for wounds. Vacant eyes were all that remained of the woman who made her piss herself in terror. Was that really all that got left behind when you died?

“Nico! Nicoletta Goldstein!”

She snapped to attention. A young man in blue held out a phone with a kind smile; no danger.

“We got a hold of your daddy, he wants to talk to ya.”

Papa Rock… I wish he was here.

“Hello?”

“Nico! Are you all right? Tell me what happened.”

She shifted her weight and pulled at the edges of a blanket someone left over her shoulders. “I’m fine. Just tired. Can I tell ya later? I’m…”

“Sure, sure… later. I’m coming back, I’ll be there in a few hours.”

A long pause. She didn’t have the energy to break the silence.

“Once you’re feeling up to it, I think it’s time. You’re ready.”

She stifled a yawn. “For what?”

“To learn to shoot. When you feel up to it, that is.”

She almost laughed. If he’d said those words a few short hours ago, she would’ve screamed with joy and excitement. Now, she felt nothing. That probably wasn’t a good thing, but she didn’t care. For now, it was enough to be alive. The rest?

It’d keep.

#my writing #fanfic #whumptober2019 #no. 5 #gunpoint #dmc nico #home invasion #violence #cursing #dmc #devil may cry

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flyswhumpcenter · 5 years

Text

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled. I don’t have any request left, so feel free to send in suggestions for this card!).

["Android Girl" in the background intensifies]

I'll most likely sink with this ship, I'm afraid. I therefore makes it my task to bring the ship another sickfic, and even if it's kind of the same as before, it's still different in its own way I think. It's kind of OOC here, this much I'll admit, but I got carried away and couldn't stop. It's been a while since I've allowed myself to go wild and far, so this was a bundle of fun and I hope someone else appreciates it!

yeah boi it's another sylvgrid sickfic what ya gonna do 'bout dat

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Tastes Like Iron

Summary: There is a turning point in Sylvain's life and vision of the world around him. A point that just so happens to take place in the middle of a college corridor.

Fandom: Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Modern AU, pre-timeskip personalities) Ship: Ingrid/Sylvain (pre-relationship)

Wordcount: 2.8K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

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It’s early in the morning when Ingrid comes up to him, emerald eyes staring right into his soul. She looks angry at him (when isn’t she? She always seems to be angry at him for a reason or the other, this won’t change soon), footsteps heavy in the echoing corridors. It’s not a sight he hasn’t seen before, frankly: they’ve been like this since they were children, only their appearance and buildings around them changing over the time.

It’s a dynamic that feels comfortable, though, so Sylvain is starting to wonder if he isn’t feeling better with this company around. This is a real paradox in itself: who likes to get scolded?

He’s on his way to class when she bumps into him directly, as she always does to convey her words to him. She takes his scarf in her hand, gets his face nearer to hers (it’s kind of awkward, but he likes it), fury raging in her stare.

“Hello, Sylvain.”

Yet, her frowned eyebrows aren’t of anger, or at least, not as much as one would have thought would they not know Ingrid personally. However, Sylvain knows better than that, knows her better than he’d let on; and guesses this isn’t just going to be about skirt-chasing tendencies he’s trying to keep in check anyway.

Blame it on the butterflies.

“Oh, hi, Ing,” he tells her as he musters the best grin he can give her right now. “What’s up?”

He keeps a coughing fit in as not to prove the point she’ll inevitably present him with.

“Well, I’d like to know what’s up with you, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t see what you’re talking about,” that fit escapes from his throat anyway. A few passers-by stare at them, but Ingrid seem not to give a single damn about that, so he focuses back on her.

“This. You absolutely know what I’m referring to, Sylvain. Quit granting me for dumb.”

Well, what can he reply to that? She’s already had him figured out, as she’s always done. This is getting tough, but he’s always liked having a challenge, hasn’t he?

“What’s ‘this’, huh? I’m afraid I don’t understand!” But he coughs again and his head feels stuffed, heavy on his shoulders, and he can only hope he’s doing a decent job at hiding how it really is on the inside.

“Stop taking me for a fool.”

He may have known her since they were children, but that doesn’t prevent Ingrid from surprising him and play him like a fiddle. It’s something she has that people who have tried dating him for his heritage doesn’t have: honesty, frankness, an insight into who he is aside from his surname. There’s no point wallowing in that misery, because he knows where he’s going to end up anyway, and spending time with his childhood friend is worth more than what his family wants him to be.

And it’s because Ingrid has known him since she was a little girl that she does the thing nobody would have in the middle of a corridor like that: put the back of her hand on his forehead, keeping his weight in balance as her frown deepens. He’s spotted for sure.

“Have you still not seen a doctor, Sylvain?! Take your health more seriously than that, you’re going to infect everybody in the school!”

The way she says his name with heavy insistence, a manner unique to her shall he add, as if she was putting a seal on it to enforce her speech, hurts in a strange, agreeable way.

“I thought you’d be the kind to scold me for not attending class.”

“Urgh, don’t try and smooth-talk me out of this! Go back home before you get someone else sick!”

He shrugs.

“If you insist then…!”

Without a forewarning, his focus having shifted from retaining the cough in to sounding convincing in his, a fit breaks out in his throat, making its way outside, as he finally stumbles out of her grasp. His body falls forward, hands almost failing to catch him before he can entirely meet the floor. It hurts deeply and seemingly doesn’t stop, until he feels something in there wanting to exit.

Kneeling in the middle of a corridor, Ingrid’s hands wrapped around his chest, he puts a hand against his mouth as the trembles racking his chest push against his palm. The thing who wants out eventually does so, spilling between his fingers, and it doesn’t feel like harmless phlegm having formed because of the infection.

When the fit lets off, Sylvain glances at the contents of his hand, only to realize how deep he’s gone.

Red slips off from his fingers, some dripping onto the floor, and he suddenly feels much sicker than before. No injury has ever made him react this way.

He glances at Ingrid, panting, to notice her expression has changed from concern to horror. Her mouth is in a sort of awe as she gulps, her hands moving on their own to put his back against the wall while her stare doesn’t let go, eyes trying to search for an answer.

“This is it,” she says with a trembling voice trying to sound steady. “Sylvain, you’re seeing someone, even if you don’t want to.”

Yeah, he wasn’t going to go against that anyway.

Sounds and images alike grow distant, even Ingrid’s voice as she speaks into her phone with vigour and a sense of urgency, even the irritating noise of his own cough. He’s drenched in sweat, his hair sticking to his skin in front of his eyes, the shift in temperatures never letting go and biting harder every time. Pulling his knees against his chest, wrapping his arms around his lap, he’s waiting for the moment where the tempest will calm down and allow him to make a run for his life.

The tempest never soothes and, instead, Ingrid’s eyes try digging into his with a sense of desperation, the phone now gone and maybe not even calling anymore.

“Sylvain, can you hear me?!” She asks with her hands on his shoulders, slightly shaking him in the commotion.

He nods while in the midst of a coughing fit, that phlegm escaping again.

“Thank goodness…” She whispers to herself, before she changes gears entirely. “How the hell were you still standing…?!” She muses as she puts her hand on his forehead again. “It’s risen too… You’re the biggest of fools, Sylvain, do you know that?!”

“Was… aware of that by now…” He tries laughing, but it only comes out as forced. “Keep telling me that…”

“Then apply them, once and for all! Where do you think that brings you?! What the hell is going on in your head?!”

Ingrid looks aside before her glare comes back, eyes shimmering, and the world disappears behind her. Her voice echoes in the distance, yet so near him, anguish painted all over the picture he can make out of her with his tired eyes.

“Why do you always scare me so much, you jerk!”

His breath is stolen away, lungs locking for a solid moment before he can exhale again. The hands on his shoulders weaken.

“I’m tired of cleaning after your mess, skirt-chasing or not! Even if I tell you crystal-clear, even if I insist on having you finally behave properly, you never take anything seriously and I always have to be behind you so I don’t end up losing you in the long run”

Her finger brushes against his face, right under his mouth, and she shows him a red stain left on her skin.

“This, Sylvain. Do you see it? Do you even know how much hassle you’d avoid for yourself if, for once, you’d take things seriously? If you just listened, we wouldn’t be there!”

“W-well… It’s only my business, right…? I don’t know why you get so worked up for me… Is it because we’re friends…? Are you in love…?”

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear that dying voice of yours!”

“Oh c’mon, that’s kinda mean…”

“Healthy people don’t cough up blood, you fool! Stop talking about it as if that was just the cold it was two weeks ago!”

“Still… My business, not yours, Ing;” His flirtatious tone is nowhere to be seen.

“It’s my business too because I don’t want to lose you!”

Her voice breaks, a part of his heart follows.

“… I don’t want to lose someone again,” she mutters as her gaze lowers. “Especially not like that.”

The rest of his heart crumbles under the weight of the feelings it stores endlessly.

He musters what strength he somehow has left, brain almost entirely numbed by a fever blurring his sight and rendering his touch inaccurate, and pulls her against his chest, asking for no cue. There is a puddle of blood in the back of his throat, but he tries smiling if not just for her, and realizes in his daze just how much he’s fucked up.

“It’s not usual for you to lose your composure so much… Ing…” He whispers, the ring of classes beginning drowning in his swimming vision.

She doesn’t reply, her heart almost against his, their beats never matching.

“I’m sorry for worrying you so much, Ing…”

His consciousness is dimming as he sees dots appearing in front of his vision, but not having to retain spitting blood on her.

“Didn’t realize until now… that it mattered to someone…”

Everything disappears before him before he knows it.

When he eventually comes to, Sylvain is surprised he’s still actually part of the living world. It’s no better than being a corpse right now, considering his entire body stopped responding efficiently. There’s no distraction when his vision is mostly a black blur, so he has the time and peace of mind to think about how, yeah, this has been a fiasco and he can only blame himself for it. Not like he’s ever blamed anything but fate, the order of things, the world’s strange whims and himself. His business, not his, after all.

It should have only affected him, but then Ingrid burst into his secrecy, and the entire order of things got taken apart.

His eyelids are heavier than shields and barely open at first, but they eventually allow the light to enter his sight. It hurts at first, worsening the pounding headache settling under his skull’s surface, until he gets over it and observes the change in scenery: this isn’t the corridor where he last spoke to Ingrid. In fact, aside from similar neon lights, it feels different: the smell isn’t the same, the air isn’t the same and, if he glances with how little his neck can move, he can conclude that the furniture isn’t the corridor’s.

Not that it wasn’t a dead giveaway all along, considering he’s lying in an actual bed and not against a wall, and that there are familiar emerald eyes looking in his direction.

“I… Ing…?” His voice sounds worse than before, it’s like he’s still half-asleep.

“Sylvain,” she replies with a calm voice, her usual stern tone, and he can’t help but smile. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah…” He continues glancing around. “What’s this place…? I don’t recognize it…” He still has the urge to cough, even though it’s less violent than before. That’s a nice change of pace.

“The hospital. Don’t worry, you won’t be here for more than a day or two.”

“…makes sense.”

The silence following this is only short-lived, as Ingrid picks the ball back up merely moments after, just enough to allow him to cough a little more.

“You’re lucky your life wasn’t directly threatened by what’s festering inside your chest. I was surprised myself how fortunate you’ve been with this.”

“I wouldn’t exactly describe being sick… as lucky, Ing…”

“At least you’re recognizing you are, now. It’s progress, I suppose.”

“How can I deny it when I’m like this?”

“You can’t, and that’s a good thing.”

She doesn’t look as angry as she did before, but he can still tell she’s got a problem with something. Most likely him.

“Wait, you’re not in class…?”

“I’d like to officially inform you that you made the professor sick with your germs. Fortunately, he was prevented from making class by the collective efforts of Mercedes and the other professors. Which brings me to the point I wanted to discuss with you…”

Here it comes.

“Can this please serve you as a wake-up call, once and for all?”

Huh, that’s less painful than he expected it to be.

“Oh…”

He’s too tired to play pretend and too conscious of her feelings to pretend like he doesn’t know what she’s referring to. It’s been years since he’s started taking less and less things seriously, to the point his own future is something he’s not worried about for a long time, and he’s just realized how harmful this has always been. He’s something more than his heritage, this he now knows for sure, but this wasn’t the way to go.

This has never been the way to go around with this, and Ingrid has always been right; but he’s been too deaf to hear her until now.

“I finally see why you’ve been so insistent; or so I think…” He’s not sure of much anymore.

“To say that I had to see you cough up blood to hear you say that…” She sighs. “At least, I can hope this means I won’t always be to be behind you, right?”

“Yeah… Sorry for worrying you all the time, Ing…”

“You better be sorry!”

The small laugh she tries to contain is the cutest thing he’s heard in ages.

“Still… Thanks for always having my back. I don’t thank you nearly enough…”

He’s still weak, this much he can tell by how low and gravely his voice sounds, but he’s grateful and doesn’t want to close his eyes if it’s for her to vanish by the time he awakens.

This, in itself, reminds him of how much Glenn’s death had an impact on Ingrid back then; and he cannot help but hate a part of himself for failing to notice that before.

After all, if he wants to win her heart over, he has to take in account her feelings, right? It’s only normal, he has to work more on that.

“I have to say,” she continues leading their conversation, “you’ve made an effort, recently. I see you flirting with anything that moves less than usual.”

He blinks. He’s surprised, but she’s right: he’s been less preoccupied with girls, recently, but he didn’t think it was actually noticeable. Blame it on the butterflies again. Right now, they’re rampaging throughout his abdomen.

“I just wish you’d be more careful to your actions and yourself, that’s it. I won’t be there to keep you in check, one day, you know.”

“I know… That’s why I didn’t want you to worry, but I guess I couldn’t prevent that…”

He coughs again, the iron aftertaste never letting go, but never coming back either.

“How bold of you to assume you could stop a friend from worrying about you.”

He wishes they were more than friends, but he’s a coward and she’s too good for him. The irony: she’s the one girl he knows doesn’t hold an interest in him only for his bloodline, and yet she’ll never be more than his childhood friend because she knows him too much to accept dating him, even as a joke.

The red he sees creeping on her cheeks has to be a feverish delirium.

“Anyway, I hope this bronchitis will make for a good lesson,” she scolds him again.

“Yeah, same,” he replies as he looks back to the ceiling. He hopes the blushing he senses on his own face is hidden by the splotches of fever he could see in the mirror this morning.

His eyelids flutter without his consent, and he sees her less and less per second, having run out of strength to keep himself awake.

“I should let you rest at last,” she eventually says as she begins getting up, which is when he notices her hand leaving his. His skin feels cold again, hair on his arm rising underneath clothes he wasn’t wearing earlier today.

“But… Will you be there, when I’ll wake up…?”

His question, his façade slipping up and shattering to the ground in its fall, makes her stop in her stead and, instead of facing the door, she turns her head in his direction.

“I’ll try my best. I can’t always be behind you, right?”

“I get it… Have a nice day, Ing…”

“Goodnight, Sylvain,” she tells him as the door opens and closes.

It feels soothing to go back to sleep.

#bad things happen bingo #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem #ingrid brandl galatea #sylvain jose gautier #sylvgrid #sickfic #blood cw #bronchitis #light angst #pre-relationship #au: modern #au: college #bthb 2 #otp: never would and never have

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morphituu · 7 years

Text

Burning

Hi hello. Here’s the deal- I’ve been seeing a plethora of these ‘imagines’ and ‘Y/N’ fics all over my dash, and honestly before i didn’t understand the appeal to them but the more i read them *snort* i wondered, ‘could i write one of these?’ because i NEVER write in first person.

and i don’t want to admit that it has anything to do with my obsession for TWD or Norman Reedus so we won’t acknowledge that.

but here it is, my first attempt at a Y/N prompt? can i call it a prompt? imagine- i’m gonna call it a prompt OKAY? Summary and smut down below. ha, puns. ha.

Basic premise- you’re a new character on the set of The Walking Dead and have only been on set for a few weeks. The crew has “adopted” you into their little family, but you’ve clicked with Norman. You two follow each other around often and spend free time together, but while on location, your boyfriend of 7 years cheats on you and shatters your peace. Distraught and despondent, Norman does his best to keep you distracted and your spirits up, and one day suggests a different method of a distraction.

Without further ado- enjoy!

You stretched your legs out before you, but the ache still remains. Even in the shade, hiding from the Atlanta sun, you feel the heat plastered to you like a wet sheet. And even as you tell yourself that severing all ties to him after he cheated is the best, the hole blown through your heart still stings. A week seemed long enough to start feeling some sort of normal in the wake of the break-up, but pushing down the emotions and hiding from most has left you feeling tense- like a kink in your back you can’t crack. And in moments like this, alone, left to your thoughts between scenes, your mind runs rampant. You wanna ask him the details, even though you know it’ll only make it worse.

You want to know exactly how it happened, because then maybe it’ll answer the why. But you don’t. You ended it and arranged for your belongings to be moved from your- his house, and force yourself to put the phone down every time you’re tempted to call him. It stings, always, and aches, constantly, but you push it down and do your work.

With a slow exhale you blink back the tears stinging your eyes and look back up when you hear Gregg yell, “Cut!”

Norman and Andy finish their scene, but now it’s time for yours and Lauren’s. There’s still time before it’s ready, so you’ll sit a little longer in the shade-

“Why you keep hiding from everyone?” You hear Norman ask, and look up again in time to see him strolling towards you with a cold water bottle in hand. You force a grin.

“Why would I wanna be out in the sun?” You ask as he sits beside you, pulling his phone out.

“That’s not what I asked.” He says, but you chose to nibble on your lip instead. He’s noticed- he always does when you’re upset. Since the day you arrived on set, you two have grown close and naturally fell into a friendship. As you can read him, he can you. It’s hard to hide it when the moment gets to you, but you do your best to shield your eyes and calm your shaking voice.

He keeps scrolling through his phone, but he’s still waiting and looks at you often from behind his shaggy hair.

It’s making you nervous. You want to keep a lid on it, but pried too much, you’re worried you’ll boil over. The words are crawling up your throat- the moisture is in your eyes.

“Hey.” He mumbles. One look, and he sees it.

“Did something bad happen?” His phone is put down, and he’s looking at you with concern in his narrow eyes.

No, please not here- not now.

“Um-,” you stutter, and he turns on his bottom to face you a little more.

“He cheated on me.” You let out, like a breath you’ve been holding for too long. Norman knows who you’re talking about right away- this has been a concern of yours before you’ve expressed to him in confidence.

“What? When?” He asked quietly.

You look down at your fumbling hands that are now holding your excerpt of the script. “About a week ago.” You say. Norman exhales hard, and you pinch your eyes shut when he places a hand on your back.

“Y/N I’m so-,” but there’s another call from Gregg, and it’s time for your scene. You wipe away the tears threatening to spill over, and you swallow the sorrow.

“I’m okay- it’s okay, I gotta go.” You rush, standing and dusting your bottom and legs before jogging over. For once, the sun beating on your back is a welcome sensation. Anything but the ache in your heart.

The day is finally over. What was once afternoons filled with what you love to do is now just… difficult. You can’t bring forth the correct emotions for the right scenes, and you can’t stop yourself from hiding every chance you get. How much longer could this go on for?

The night is still warm, but at least the sun isn’t burning your skin.

You walk without direction towards your trailer, and you can feel the shower calling to your soul. But as you look up from your phone, which to your inner dismay had no missed calls or attempted messages, you find Norman sitting at the steps, the embers of a cigarette in hand.

He grins at you, and you squeeze onto the steps beside him. Your arms and thighs are touching, and the contact feels nice.

“I’m not gonna pry, but I wanna make sure you’re some sort of okay.” He explains, pulling in a drag and blowing the smoke away from you. You shrug.

“Okay as I can be, I guess.” You mutter, kicking gravel with your dirty boots.

“I’ve been there, I know what it’s like to have to carry it. He did it, but he did it to you. Now you have to deal with the end. So if you need someone to talk to or just sit next to- I’m here.” He tells you. His gravelly voice is soft, and it makes you grin. He was the only one who knew at this point, and even if details were still foggy, it was nice knowing you had someone to lean on.

“Does anything help?” You ask, flicking the end of his cig for him when the ash piles up.

“Sometimes- distractions can help but you walk back to where you left it to deal with later. And I hate to say but it gets worse before it gets better. But don’t keep that junk bottled in. If you gotta cry, let it out. It’s like poison, you gotta bleed it out.” He tells you, his expressive hands captivating you.

“Wanna suck it out for me?” You joke, and he snorts.

“You pervert.” He says with an elbow in your side.

“I know you wanna get in my pants.” You tease. He gives you a crooked grin and a sidelong glance.

“I’ll keep your secrets if you keep mine.” He coos. You roll your eyes and push on his shoulder before standing.

“I gotta shower.” You tell him, stretching your arms above your head. He stands then, flicking his butt into the dirt. “I’m fifteen feet away if you need me.” He says, giving you a quick peck on the cheek that you respond to with a pat on his side. You two part ways, but your eyes find him before walking into your trailer. His do also.

You feel your cheeks flush, but think nothing more of it.

But when you’re done scrubbing your skin of makeup and sweat, and are sitting alone in the luxurious trailer with anything you could want… you find loneliness instead. And with that, comes the thoughts. With your head hung in your hands, you think about Norman and his offer. But you don’t want to bother him.

You flip through your phone. Your flush bank account could handle some splurging on Amazon, but nah. That’s a bandaid over a bullet wound.

Your thumbs seek out your friends name, and you text:

I need a Walker to come eat my brains x(

With the phone placed on your stomach, you sit back and turn the TV on. Bzzzzzz.

Or you need a better distraction

You shrug.

Maybe i should run a marathon at 11 at night

Bzzzzzz.

Eat 13 pizzas instead

Now you giggle.

I can’t even eat 1 alone

That’s a lie I can eat 1 easily

As you open a pizza app on your phone and start to setup an order, he replies again.

Is that an invitation because yes I like my pizza with sausage I’ll be over in 10

You snort, but add Norman’s toppings anyways.

The following morning, you step out of your trailer just as the sun is peeking over the trees. You groan, and smack your cheeks a couple times.

“Too much pizza?” Comes Norman’s voice. He’s already clad in Daryl, and dirty, holding a coffee mug and cigarette in hand.

“Too much is an understatement. I feel like I’m dying.” You mumble, grabbing the mug from his hand to drink some of it.

“And on the forest run, too.” He says with a smile. You groan again and walk away with his mug, but he just chuckles at you. On top of your blood sugar fluctuating from all the carbs in the pizza, you two had stayed up too late, laughing and watching bad movies, but also just talking. It was easy, and comfortable to open up to him, and you were thankful the entire time he’d been nearby that your mind hadn’t strayed to darker corners. But now you were paying for it, at five in the fucking morning. He was a seasoned actor- he knew how to function on little sleep.

The summer heat crawled up quickly, and to your dismay, it took far too many takes for each scene to complete the forest run that day. Even if some of the delays were from you giggling when Norman would crack a joke as he ran behind you, by the end of the day, you were exhausted.

But that’s when it was revealed there’d be a night shoot that evening. More of an emotional scene between you and Norman. That worried you. You’d purposely been keeping sadder emotions at bay.

But now you were sat there against a tree with Norman in the dark, waiting for the rest of the crew to set up. Your eyes remained closed as you went over the lines in your head, but you could already feel a tightly closed lid loosening inside- to portray such feelings but keep others quiet would be tricky.

“You look like you’re about to puke.” Norman says under his breath. You smile.

“I’ll aim for you.”

He chuckles, but still looks at you. “You alright?” He asks. Your eyes open, and you turn to look at him.

“I’m always kind of on the edge of okay and… breaking? Is that too dramatic?” You ask, pulling your knees closer to your chest.

“I mean a little bit.” He starts to say, and you elbow him. “But I get it. But- maybe you need to take a day and let yourself feel it ‘n get it out.” He offers, but you shake your head.

“I don’t wanna feel it.” You sigh. And then it’s time to shot the scene, and you shake your head, square your shoulders and clear your throat. Time to shift into character.

You’re lying face down on your bed when you hear your phone buzz, but you don’t want to face anyone. It had been a disaster. You couldn’t keep a cap on your emotions in the scene, and then couldn’t stop when it bubbled over. It was so, so embarrassing to not finish. So you walked away even after they said it was okay and they could try another night. You’re hiding now, even from Norman who followed you to your car and watched you drive away to your apartment.

Your phone kept buzzing, but you didn’t want to explain yourself to anyone. And you kept crying, silently, and sniffling. It wasn’t as powerful now, and the last of the sadness was leaking from you, but ugh. This sucked.

But three fast knocks on your front door make you jump, and you sit up and look around. Three more come.

“Y/N?”

It was Norman. You sigh and roll your eyes, but shuffle across your place nonetheless and to the door.

“Yeah?” You ask, leaning your head against the door.

“You okay?” He asks, his voice muffled by the door. You smush your face against the door.

“No.” You croak. You can hear him shift against the door.

“Snuck up on you, huh?” He asks. You nod. “Yeah.” Your voice is betraying you.

“After this is when it’ll start getting better.” He says, hoping it’ll help. Your eyes pinch tight, and your hand moves to unlock the door and open it.

There you stand, still dirty and disheveled, with your face red and twisted and your eyes swollen. “How?” You ask, a hiccup of a cry coming out.

“Oh babe.” He whines, and without another word he steps in and pulls you into a bone crushing hug. His strong arms and broad chest cradle you like you’ve needed for weeks. He doesn’t mind that you cry against his shoulder, and that you cling to him like he’s your life line.

“He worked with her. I’ve even met her before.” You tell him, stuffing another chicharrón in your mouth.

“You fuckin’ kidding me?” He asks, looking at you. You shake your head.

“Good riddance.” Norman mumbles, finishing the last of his drink.

“I wish I could just move on from it like he so easily has.” You say.

“He try calling you?” He asks.

“Not once. Not even a text.”

He exhales. “In a sense it’s better. Do you think you would’ve gotten this far with him bugging you?” He asks.

“I’d like to say I’m solid as stone and would ignore him, but I probably wouldn’t. I’m a guppy.” You say, sipping your drink. He chuckles.

“Well, at this point all you need now is some fun to make up for the bad couple a weeks.” He says, and you look at him with red eyes.

“Fun?” You repeat. He nods, adjusting his snap-back on his head.

What you didn’t know then was that Norman’s idea of fun was literally leaving you no time for yourself.

Everyday, he’d be following you around, purposely bugging you because he’d know that eventually you’d become so annoyed you’d start chasing him back, but it’d bring a smile to your face.

Some days he’d pull you from your seat after shooting, and take you out somewhere. Sometimes lunch, sometimes breakfast, even. You two were always met with fans. A small herd of your own but a mob always after him, and you started to notice people taking pictures of the two of you the more you came out in public together.

Other days were spent lounging together or the others, sometimes at bars at night when everyone was feeling lively. He carried you from the car one night when you were too drunk to walk, and he made it a point to snap a picture of the two of you as you hung upside down half off your bed. It was a hit on Instagram, and that’s when rumors started circulating.

You didn’t know how he felt about them, but he never bothered you about it, either.

But there was something, scratching at you, making you question just how in tact your emotional state was.

Every time he popped up with a handsome smile, you felt your body get hot. Your cheeks sometimes flushed and your heart would kick up a bit. When your arms would touch or he’d pose with you for a picture, pressing full against you, you started to feel something stir in your belly. Was this lust?

Shooting for this season was on break- two weeks of relaxing you looked forward to, but tomorrow was your first Con. All of you had flown in for it, and were all situated in your hotel rooms, but the jet lag was making you miserable. This whole new routine and sleeping schedule was killing you.

It was nice to just lay in the plush bed and watch mindless TV. The last month had been full, and fun no doubt, but even in spare minutes before you eventually asleep, why would your mind wander back to him? With a sigh, you tried to think of other things. You blinked a couple times, and your thighs shift as your thoughts wander to Norman.

“Y/N!”

Well speak of the devil. You crawl from your bed and to the door, opening it to find him still in the clothes he wore on the plane. How did he look so good in just a T-shirt and jeans?

“Already goin’ to bed?” He asked, and you shrug.

“The Con is tomorrow.” You say, walking away as he follows you in.

“That’s not till eleven.” He says, and you hear the door close behind him.

“Jet lag.” You sigh as you fall back onto the bed, stretching across the cool covers. “So I couldn’t get you to come have drinks with me?” He asks, giving you a cheesy smile.

“M-mm.” You mumble, pulling the pillow closer for emphasis.

He cocks his head to the side, and studies your face.

“You wandering away?” He asks. How does he always know?

“Is it bad if I am?” You ask him. He shakes his head.

“Just tread carefully.” He mumbles, giving you a small grin. You stare at him, staring at you, and you swear the electricity in the room is growing.

“Guess there’s just not enough distractions in the world to keep me completely occupied.” You said, lying on your back to better face him. He shrugs.

“Maybe we’re not using the right one.” He says. His voice lowered, deepened, and so did the light of his eyes. You cock an eyebrow as he does.

“Are you- do you mean sex?” You ask outright, and he shrugs, leaning onto one leg.

Your cheeks flush and you hope he doesn’t see it.

“With who?” You ask loudly.

“Who else?” He asks with a laugh. Your eyebrows raise, and the coil in your stomach is tightening. That, was a very tempting idea.

“Are you offering your services?” You ask him, your hand moving to the remote and turning the TV off.

“Can’t say that it hasn’t crossed my mind before.” He admits, turning the bill of his hat backwards. That makes you grin, and you hope he can’t see you shaking.

“You’ve thought about us?” You ask, pulling your knees up a little. He takes a step closer to the bed, now leaning against the edge.

“You haven’t?” He asks. You don’t acknowledge the question, but you’re sure he can see it on you that you’ve downright fantasized about it before.

You sit up on your elbows. “So how would this distraction work?” You ask, playing dumb. You just wanted to hear him say it. You feel goosebumps rise on your skin when his hand rests on your knee, and his thumb presses on your kneecap.

“Honestly, we can go slow or I can fuck you until you scream.” He says. There’s a feral spark in his eye when he says this, and all at once your body is vibrating with want. Pure, raw, want. But you can’t decide! There’s no doubt you could make it quick and have him slamming into you, but a better portion of you wanted to savor this. Savor him.

“Slow.” You say, barely a whisper.

Everything shifted- atmosphere, bodies, emotions.

His hat was the first to go, followed by his shirt, tossed aside and revealing his broad chest and sparse tattoos- oh god, you wanted so many times to touch it. And Jesusthatwafastwhathappenedtoslow?

He wasn’t shy about pushing your knees apart so he could crawl to you. Your inner thighs brushing against his sides made you flutter, and your trembling hands moved to the back of his head when he pressed his face against your neck, his toned arms moving around and under you.

In one swift pull, he had you laying flat, and in one smooth slide of his hands, he was pushing your shirt up along the skin of your sides. Shivers followed his fingers across your shoulder blades to push your shirt up and off your head. Your eyes met for a chaste moment- his cold blues were burning, desiring- hungry.

“Norman-,” you gasp, and he leans down to place open mouthed kisses across your chest, back and forth, his teeth sometimes nipping the tops of your breasts gently. The scruff on his chin tickle, but in the mot delicious of ways.

You breathe loudly, already dizzy, and your hands tangle in his long hair. You can feel his tongue against your skin, at the edge of your bra, searching. An involuntary arch in your back pushes him to yank the undergarment down, and his mouth immediately envelopes your standing nipple. He groans loudly, his hand pulling your leg up and around him.

You don’t know what to do- this is almost too much, almost too good. When his mouth is on one nipple, his hand is working the other, making you writhe and stir beneath him.

“Please please please…” you hear yourself beg, breathlessly, and he parts from your skin.

“Tell me whatcha want.” He slurs against your stomach, making his way farther down. The words don’t come out complete- it’s muddled, and more of a beg, but a rock of your hips makes it clear. You’ve never burned for this so badly.

But he sits up, his hands running down your thighs that are against his hips. He looks messy, but so sexy. His mouth is open in heavy breaths- is he as turned on by this as you are?

“Slow?” He asks, his voice cracking.

You nod, but still whisper, “Slow.”

He keeps his eyes on yours as his fingers undo your jeans and hook around your pants and panties.

And he slides them down, slowly, one leg at a time he lifts by your ankle so he can also pull off your socks. Your mostly naked before him in the dim lit room, and he’s not shy about looking over all of you. As he leans back towards you, a large hand cups your sex, making you jump.

You cling to him, and your eyes flutter as he pushes one finger between your lips.

“He was a damn fool to let you go.” He says, and as he dips down to kiss your neck, his two fingers start circling your clit, slowly, carefully, expertly.

Your head drops back and you moan so long. You grip the sheets below you, and his body pressed against yours is making you so hot, but you love it, and you need it. Your head lifts again and you move his hair away so you can kiss along his neck in return, gently biting at his skin. You hear him groan, and suddenly you’re yelping as he pushes his fingers into you. You try and keep at what you were doing, but every time he curls his fingers in and up, he hits it- that spot that makes your body react out of your control.

“Oh my god-,” you force out, taking a second to look down at his large hand working wonders.

“Tell me what you want.” He says softly, kissing your cheek as you lay back down. You force your eyes open, and look up at him, hidden by his hair. You want to see those narrow eyes that have left you captivated before, stuck in place as he lured you in.

“You.” You gasp, your arms stretching out beside you. Your stomach is tightening, the pleasure is building.

“I want you.” You say again as he kisses closer to your mouth, and then full on your lips when your mouth searches for his. This is exactly where you want him. He kisses you harshly, beautifully, his tongue shoving into your mouth and making you moan. You feel his hand leaving you, but can hear his belt unclasping and feel him pushing his jeans and boxers down his hips.

He pulls from your mouth but stays close, and you can feel him exhale against your lips when he starts to push into you. You hiss inwardly, lifting your ass up as he sinks into you until his balls touch your cheeks. He’s trembling now, and his eyes are closed with his hands planted against the bed on either side of you. You’re filled, completely, in spots you’ve never been touched before.

Then out, slowly, and back in, a little quicker.

It. Was. Torture.

But you loved it.

He kissed you sparingly, not wanting to stifle those long moans coming from you. He looked down often, watching himself disappear in you again and again, his pelvis pressing as tight to yours as possible every time.

“Noman…” You sigh, and his face follows yours when your head moves side to side. His lips find your jaw, and he kisses there sloppily.

“Tell me watcha want.” He says again, unable to keep his own eyes open.

You look straight up at him when you say, “Faster.”

You caught the crooked grin and his K-9 peeking from behind his lip before he quickens, smoothly transitioning into a new speed. It was the friction, and slam, and then the all desirable slide of him pushing back in every time. That, over and over had you seeing stars, and your hands gripping the sheets beside you desperately, trying not to float away as loud gasps and moans in his name tumbled from your lips.

But you wanted more.

“Harder.” You moan, and his hips have more of a roll to them as he comes back down, pushing you farther into the bed. He’s moaning too, leaning down onto his elbows closer to you. You liked this more- to be able to curl your arms around him, to hear him say your name against your hair.

“Fuck me!” You beg suddenly, and his body is from yours as he sits up, shoving his knees under your thighs and his hands angling your hips higher up.

And he’s pounding into you, branding you lovingly against the sheets mercilessly. You yell out, over and over, the sound of your hips smacking together filling the room.

“Oh fuck Y/N-,” you hear him force out, his head hanging back and his mouth hung open. “You feel so good.” He moans, shakily, closing his eyes. The fire in your stomach is building rapidly, smothering you, consuming everything. And with a few more fast slams into you-

You’re aching off the bed, screaming- his name, curses, things that don’t make sense. All that matters is the white, hot explosion touching every corner of your body, massaging all the aches you’ve had for so long. Just as quickly as it flew through you, it’s ebbing from your system, leaving you floating. You look at him again with half lidded eyes, and he’s also cum but all over your stomach. He’s winded, and still holding your hips, but he grins at you lazily. You can’t help but smile back before letting your head fall back against the bed.

There’s no tension left in you; no bitter feelings to follow you to sleep after he kisses you once, twice, three times and tells you he’ll see you tomorrow. But you’re stuck there, feeling the aftershocks of it, and enjoying the jelly like feeling of your limbs. With a hand raised, you flip off the light beside you, and let a calm sleep slowly rock you that night.

There was no nervousness last night afterwards, so why is it hitting you like a bus this morning? You stare at your door, worried you’ll run into Norman. Not that you regret anything- definitely not that, but you’re nervous he will. You adjust your clothing and slip your phone into your back pocket.

You try and walk out the door with confidence, but you stumble a bit as you turn to make sure it’s locked-

You don’t expect there to be a small, plain black bag hanging on the door knob, but there is. Your heart flutters a bit, and you look to your sides. Your hands try not to grab for it excitedly, but you pull out the candy cigarettes and the note attached quickly.

Thought you could use a smoke after the sex.

-N

You smile to yourself and look at the cigs- chocolate flavored. You place the bag back on the door knob but hold the candy, walking briskly towards the elevator.

You don’t see him again until the panel, and despite you coming out at different times once your names are announced, he switches name plaques so he can sit beside you. You try to hide your blush by drinking water, but he still catches it. The questions roll in, as does the laughter and jokes that naturally come from Con panels, but every so often his knee will bump yours playfully, or his arms will stretch and he’ll place his against the back of your chair. Still, you try and hide your smile.

At the booths, you two are separate. Him being Norman Reedus, he has his own. You being you, you share. But your somewhat thankful for the break- you were starting to get clumsy being around him and listening to him talk, sometimes whisper jokes to you. You sign photos and meet fans, and your heart hasn’t felt this light in weeks. Every so often you’ll steal a glance in his direction, and sometimes he’ll be looking at you, too.

When the crowds were dying down and it was time to leave, your booth was empty as were the others, but his still had some people left, as always.

You chose to wait, leaning against a backdrop behind the line before him and out of sight by most. With a grin, you open the candy and pop a chocolate cigarette in your mouth, hoping it’ll grab his attention.

It takes some time, but when he does, he grins. The hand that was adjusting his hat waves to you, and that causes the fans before him to turn and look at you. Your mind wanders backwards- to last night.

How he felt, sounded; made you feel and sound.

It was in that moment you realize you wanted him again.

You’ve been waiting a while, and going over the words in your head. You don’t wanna sound desperate, but then again you kind of are… He kept running into groups that wanted photos, or signatures, sometimes a lick on the cheek. You asked your driver to wait so you could lean against the back door that your other cast mates snuck out of, and he was now finally coming out.

“Always such a commodity.” You say as he walks by, and he turns, grinning when he sees you.

“You had a bite of it- worth it?” He asks, his eyes hidden by his Ray Bans.

You nod with a sheepish smile instead, pressing against the wall as he walks to you.

“So the whole distraction thing- it a one time deal?” You ask with a shaking voice, but he shrugs. That was bold of you- you’re not the type to be so forward, especially when it comes to sex. But how could you not want more?

“I dunno- how often you space out?” He asks, standing close to you. You swallow, but say, “Quite a bit.”

“Told you I’m here if you need anything.” He says softly, licking his lips. You feel your breathing hitch.

“Anything?” You ask, and he nods. Your head tilts up involuntarily when his lips are closer to yours, and he presses feathlight kisses on your mouth.

“So if I said I was having a particularly distracting day- maybe needed some- some…,” you try and find the words, but he’s still brushing his lips against yours, and his hands are against the wall behind you, pinning you in place.

“You’re gonna have to wait- got some stuff t’do.” He mumbled against your neck, giving you a light smooch.

You giggle, and push on his chest. “Meet you later than?” You ask. He nods, giving your hips a little wiggle and a kiss on your cheek. Then he’s walking away, and you catch him adjusting himself in his pants.

You’re hot again, and a little wobbly as you walk to your driver.

You were laying in your bed watching TV when your phone buzzed beside you. Sleep had just started to tug at your eyelids, but a message from Norman woke you right up.

Meet me at my room ;p

You poked your head out first before entering the hallway. It was almost midnight, but anyone could come strolling by, especially a fan that would love to see you sneaking around. You came to his door and knocked, but he didn’t answer. Again, and again, there was only silence from the other side. You pulled your phone out.

I’m here

He read it, but no answer. You started to panic- what if this was all a cruel joke? Would he really do that? What if-

But strong arms from behind you made you jump and yell, and you spin in his arms to catch him laughing. You tried to curse at him, but he smother you with a kiss, one so urgent that you couldn’t help but pull him closer. He pinned you against the door with his body, his hands moving over you and yours fumbling to cling to him.

“Distracted?” He asks against your mouth.

“M-mm- not enough-“ you mumble, and without looking, he clumsily pushes his card key into the door and pushes you inside, slamming the door behind you two.

It was an unspoken agreement you two had somehow come to make. It wasn’t just a distraction for you anymore, because Norman would seek you out just as often. Whether it was him sneaking you back to your room that morning, or him meeting you in the early morning at your trailer when filming resumed. He called them ‘Five AM Fucks’. Pfft.

It was a constant time to look forward to.

One time, you two had been exchanging suggestive stares all day, and seeing him as Daryl always made you more excited than usual. You casually walked away after cutting scene, and made sure his eyes were following when you walked around the back of his trailer. You waited patiently until he could find a moment to slip away, and you looked at him as he finally walked towards you, flicking his cigarette to the ground and swooping in for a kiss. That day, he held you up against the trailer as he fucked you, holding his hand over your mouth so no one would hear when he made you cum.

In the thick of the trees during lunch, he’d be hungrier for a different snack. Your chest against a tree and him rutting into you from behind was a quick fix, and you loved it when he’d lean forward to rest his forehead against your back, hissing your name in rhythm with his hips.

Late nights, when neither of you could sleep, one of you would take a drive across town and have the door unlocked so when either would arrive, you could walk in, undress, and crawl into bed. Of course food would come soon after, and always a movie before you fell asleep tangled in each other.

Rumors were starting to circulate- even when sex wasn’t the aim, you two were by each other’s side even out in public. Dinner, bars, shopping, Cons- almost everything. The two of you would read it online, but neither brought it up. This unspoken thing was too good to spoil.

You were becoming bolder in your escapades, taking any available chance to let him slip in.

You heard the call to set from inside his trailer, but you could barely lift your head as you stifled a loud moan.

“Norman- ahh, we have t’go!” You whisper, but he shakes his head, which in turn makes his mouth slide back and forth across your clit. You gasp, and laugh, but your thighs on his shoulders shift.

“C’mon we gotta gooo!” You plead, but he looks up at you, and parts to suck his fingers.

“Almost done.” He mumbles before sucking your clit again, and as your brow cocks, his fingers slide into you and rapidly rub against your spot. In no time you’re seeing stars. But he doesn’t stop his assault until you’re shaking, and convulsing, begging him to stop. When he finally does, you’re a puddle that’s unable to move with your pants around one ankle. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled down at you, completely spent.

“Apparently you know my body better than I do.” You mumble, and he laughs, and kisses your inner thigh before standing.

“You owe me.” He says before leaving, and you scoff.

It was a quiet night, after sex, when you were still naked and lying on his bed. His sheets felt so good, and you laid on your stomach, your body still ringing. Your hair was still in a loose towel, but the other towel barely covered your ass. He invited you over after shooting the final scene, and you both agreed you were too filthy to jump right into sex despite being ready to throw your clothes off. A shower together was the only logical solution. He had literally pulled out of his car and nearly brought you down with him a he tumbled inside his home.

From the steaming water to a cool bedroom with dim lights- it felt so relaxing.

You heard him walk in from the living room, and suspected he was still in a towel wrapped around his narrow hips. But you couldn’t move, or even wanted to. So you kept your eyes closed.

And you expected him to lay down beside you, but you could hear him walking around the bed and sitting beside you instead. You cracked an eye open, and listened. You tried not to jitter when his hand ran the length of your bare back, but goosebumps followed his hand. And when you felt him lean over to kiss your shoulder, then shoulder blade, moving down, you arched a little. The scruff of his goatee was a welcome sensation.

You started to move more as his fingers pushed under your towel, and his mouth moved back up to nibble on your earlobe. With a giggle and twisting to look back at him, he slid his free arm under your neck to angle your jaw towards him, and kissed you.

You moan against his mouth, and finish laying on your back so you can pull him over you.

Now his towel is gone, and he’s pressing against you everywhere. Chest, stomach, thighs- it feels euphoric. There’s absolutely no doubt in your mind as you kiss him lovingly that you’ve started to fall for him- hard. You don’t know if he has for you, but for once, you don’t worry about it. In these moments, there’s no real thinking.

With an easy push on his chest, you’re on top now, your bare chest against his and his hands running up to hold your face.

You don’t understand why he pushes you away enough to hold you there, your wet hair fanning around you two and his eyes boring into yours. He looks unreadable, but so serine.

And you don’t understand why he grins at you, or why he’s pulling you into a hug, his face buried against your chest, but you don’t mind it. You hold him back, your naked bodies sliding together and rolling until he’s above you again.

It was like your first time with him- he’s close to your face, and you can feel his breath when he aligns himself and slips in you. Now you hold his cheeks, and widen your legs, savoring the slow pumps, in and out. He draws to his tip and then dives back in, kissing you every time he does.

There’s something different about the way he touches you this time. His hands are sliding everywhere, his mouth is kissing every inch of exposed skin, and he’s taking his time in building you up. Your hands are mapping his solid back, and wide shoulders, and your lips are kissing the sun kissed portion of his chest that peaks through his shirts. His age is beautiful; everything about him is.

The times he does slam into you harder; he’ll hold a hand around your jaw and make you look up at him as if he’s studying your face, and how you gasp and groan, or how you’re barely able to keep focused on him.

You’re getting impatient though, and braver. Again and for the last time you roll, and you pin his arms down knowing full well he could break from your hold. But you start the rhythm, and set the pace.

Now he can marvel up at you, his large hands running flat up your stomach, up your ribs and holding your breasts. You moan loud, and long, and hold his hands there with your head tilted back, riding him, feeling his slick dick slide in and out, in and out.

“Say my name again.” He moans, his narrow eyes running along your body.

“Norman…” You gasp, your head still tilted back. It’s building again.

“Again.” He demands, now holding your ribs.

“Norman-,” you whine, and feel a shutter of pleasure shake you. It sends you forward onto your hands against his chest, but you keep going.

In a flash, he’s pushed you backwards until he’s between your thighs, and the tempo has increased.

Slap slap slap slap slap

The steady pace is bringing you closer, making you cling to him desperately, wanting that exploding release.

“Say my name, Y/N.” He forces out, but you scream it this time as you climax, and he’s leaning up so you can arch off the bed, and drag your nails down his back when you curl inwards. Between it all, you heard him curse and shout your name against your neck, and this time he explodes inside you. You enjoyed how he pumped languidly into you, emptying himself, and you loved that it allowed him to lay over you and kiss you. You move his long hair from his face and kiss his slim cheeks as he buries his face against you, not wanting to move from this spot.

It all felt so perfect, so complete.

With your hands running up and down his back, and his fingers hidden in your hair splayed out around your hair, you two hold each other. Content, blissfully floating in the after. You kiss his shoulder and whisper his name, and he does the same, eliciting more shivers. But this is when you start to ask yourself:

What are we doing here? What have we done to each other? Where do we go now?

SEE NOW this was supposed to just be something fun and not continuing but me being me IT NEEDS A PART TWO NOW DAMNIT. Ugh.

anyway, anyone, who has stopped to read this, i hope you enjoyed it n_n if you steal, tamper or do anything malicious with this i’ll find you and break your legs with a lead pipe. just sayin’.

and i’m going to shamelessly inert the link to my Daryl Dixon fanfiction here, because i’m much more into that and appreciate a read for that also! <3 thanks!

#norman reedus #norman reedus smut #norman reedus x reader #norman reedus one shot #two shot #haha #norman reedus imagine #the walking dead #the walking dead smut #twd smut #the walking dead imagine #fanfiction #fanfic #ao3 #daryl dixon #gringo #morphinetune #twd

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pink-ink-goblin · 6 years

Note

Dr. Iplier x Host prompt 104?

Prompt 104: “I’ve never felt stronger than when you’re with me.”

Even the doctor has his bad days…(I tried to take this and flip-flop the usual trope with these two and I failed miserably, but I do hope you still enjoy it anyway!

And thanks to @egotisticalfloof for giving this mess a proofread for me!)

Warnings: Full Blown Panic Attack

——-

The good doctor could feel it the very moment his world began to spiral out of his control.

Everything around him seemed to slow, ticking clock hands and dripping water spacing out further in their beat as if time itself was rejecting him. Reality bent and blurred and became far too bright, while things like idle chatter and footsteps faded until it sounded like they emanated from behind a wall of water.

He tried to hold it in, tried so hard to push it back down as he’d done so many times before, but this time it refused. It had been ignored long enough, collecting and filling like a cup left under the running tap for too long, and now it could take no more.

He could take no more.

The mug he’d been holding fell from his trembling hands, crashing to the floor with the sound of distant thunder, spilling cold, near black liquid everywhere. He whimpered, slapping his hands to the sides of his throbbing head while his breaths came and left so quickly it was like he was getting no air at all.

His eyes watered, his body quaked, his heart beat against his ribcage, and he could hear every noise making instrument all around him, every sound lined with fuzz and nigh impossible to understand. He wanted to run, something animal inside of him telling him to just flee without locating the danger, but he found his entire form frozen, only able to dig his fingernails into the sides of his face in abject and existential terror that he couldn’t even properly comprehend.

His knees suddenly gave out on him, painfully striking the hard tile below, sending a bolt up his spine and into his brain, but the jarring didn’t stop the noise, didn’t quell the swirling errant emotions inside of him.

Too many… There were too many noises, too many feelings. He couldn’t tell which ones were in his head or which ones were around him as they all blended together in a bland, indiscernible wave that continually beat into him, growing closer and closer in a dizzyingly claustrophobic swirl.

He ducked his head away from the shadows that surrounded him, curling inward as he started to sob into his knees. It felt like his soul was flying above him, trying to pull free and escape the unholy physical hell his body had become.

He…He felt like he was going to die…

Until suddenly, he felt something else, something that broke through the thousands of miles of unpleasant sensations and sounds. A feeling that brought some orient to his top-heavy world. The feeling of being firmly grasped on his upper arms.

Slowly, he looked up and through his tears saw a blur of brown and gold and undeniable red. That was… he was… Host. It had to be, and he was speaking to him, his mouth moving but the layer of cotton in his ears prevented him from hearing the words.

He wanted to speak, wanted to find some way to express his indescribable turmoil, but his tongue was too thick in his mouth, his brain wrapped in too much terror to find words. Another sob escaped him and he prayed it was enough to describe exactly what he was feeling to the narrator.

And thankfully, it was, if the man hadn’t already read him like a book of course.

Suddenly, his world grew warm, a firm pressure pulling him in from all sides like a comforting blanket, and he gave a shuddering breath as he allowed himself to be drawn into the sensation like a beacon in a storm.

The nauseating spinning began to slow as the touch permeated the hazy fog in his mind and pulled him back to solid ground.

The fear ebbed away as his senses filled with the familiar, soothing scent of spiced cologne and old blood.

His heart slowed down its savage beating against his ribs as he felt gentle fingers raking circles into his back.

And when he finally truly awoke, exhausted and still shivering, he realized he was wrapped tight in Host’s arms, the narrator muttering soothing words in his ear in that soft voice instead of the narrations that normally plagued him.

Pushing aside his curse, just for him.

“Host…” The doctor whispered, his voice filled only now with quivering shame for falling prey to what he considered weakness in his will. He felt so stupid. If only he could have been just a little bit stronger, this never would have happened. If only he could have held out for just a couple more hours, he wouldn’t have had to put out others to help him like this. If only…

Host suddenly shushed him gently as if he could hear his thoughts.

He probably could.

“You are not weak for this,” The narrator whispered back firmly, his breaths as warm as the voice in his ear. “This experience does not lessen you, or make you any less dependable than you already are. It just means that it’s perhaps time to sit out for a little while.”

“But I’m a doctor,” He replied wistfully, feeling the reflector on his head slide up as he buried his face in Host’s chest. “I’m the one who needs to be strong for everyone. I can’t afford to sit out. They… they all rely on me. You rely on me.”

“Reliance is not an excuse to neglect yourself,” Host reminded him, and the doctor could feel him rest his chin in his raven hair. “You can’t be strong all the time. No one can. Even you can only take so much before the weight of the world collapses on your shoulders.”

“Then what do I do?” He asked pitifully, lifting his head to look at Host’s face almost desperately, feeling the deadlock of still being stuck with the crushing weight of duty.

“Rest, you dope,” Host replied simply, a soft smile gracing his features. “Take those five minutes. Take an hour. Cry, read, sleep, or sit with me and do all three… Whatever helps you stop, so that you can dive right back in renewed again. Because it’s a harsh lesson to find strength from weakness by yourself.”

Dr. Iplier swallowed against his tight throat. Host was right. Host was always so right, even when the doctor wanted him to be so wrong. He wanted to believe he was infallible, that he could keep going forever without stopping. Help everybody, save everybody, but at what cost? He’d barely slept in days. Weeks even. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. And he’d been learning the hard way that the human body just can’t subsist on coffee.

And now here was Host, kneeling with him in the middle of a puddle of split coffee and ceramic shards for him, reassuring him when the doctor should have known better in the first place. Then again, he supposed, perhaps everyone needed a reminder every now and again that it’s okay to just stop. Even a man like him.

“How on earth did you become so wise? I thought that was my job.” The doctor sighed, finally - finally - feeling his soul begin to truly ease as logic seeped back in.

“One of us has to be the voice of reason,” Host replied with mild humor. “And how dare you make it be me.”

He chuckled a little at that. “Then I suppose for both of our sakes, I should learn how to properly rest.”

“That would be the key to being the strength you seek to be for everyone,” Host pressed gently, and Dr. Iplier looked at the bloody places where Host’s eyes should have been, before giving the man a small smile.

“I was never a strong man,” Dr Iplier admitted quietly as he pulled himself close to Host once more and buried his face in his shoulder. “Never have been, and probably never truly will be… But I’ve never felt stronger than when you’re with me.”

Host just smiled at that, cheeks tinting slightly pink at the praise as he planted a firm kiss in his good doctor’s hair.

#markiplier fanfiction #markiplier egos #dr iplier #the host #hurt/comfort #tw panic attack #tw blood #prompts #i'm still having flow issues #floofy is a saint for even looking at this xD #i'm going to keep trying to get back in the saddle #but the horse of writing is a wily beast #fucker #lmao #authors writing tag

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smartcookie727 · 7 years

Text

Together Again

Happy first day of lovefest everyone! Woo :) It has begun. Gear up for some fluff, smut, and feels. NSFW. Let’s get that out of the way. This whole week will be NSFW. I’m so psyched for everyone’s contributions. Today’s prompt is keep quiet. I wanted to do something familiar but also with a little out of the box twist, and where better to do that than Fairy Hills. I hope yall enjoy. As always, leave me a comment, reblog, tag, whatever you want to interact so I know what yall like! I’ll be back tomorrow with the next prompt ;)

Pairing: Gajevy

Prompt: Keep Quiet

Length: 3.2k

Together Again

"Shhh, Gajeel!" Levy whispered between muffled giggles, "You're going to get us caught." His fingers did not leave her side for a second as the pair snuck through the dimly lit hallway. A few laughs escaped Levy's lips before she clamped her hand over her mouth, the other batting blindly behind her, begging him to stop.

Gajeel laughed deeply and dodged another swipe. "You know how I am, Lev," he leaned in close, "your laugh is so cute I just wanna hear it again." Levy buckled against a wall and fought to stay silent as he unleashed another torrent of tickles. A quick knee to the gut finally made him stop, but Levy's nerves were on edge. They were making too much noise. Sooner or later someone would hear them.

"Now stay quiet til we get to my room. No one can know you're here."

Gajeel grumbled his acceptance, but that didn't stop him from taking advantage of a few opportunities to make her squirm. They turned the corner to the main hallway, creeping passed the bedrooms, when a flash of light from the common bathroom and hoarse voice stopped the pair in their tracks.

"Gajeel?" the voice yawned, "Is that you?" Levy's heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. She had to think fast. Turning, she saw waves of blue hair shuffling towards them. Juvia. Ok, how to deal with Juvia? Gajeel stood stock still as drowsy arms wrapped around him; his eyes pleaded with Levy for help. "Did you come to give Juvia a hug?" Her voice was heavy with sleep. "I like your hugs, but Juvia would prefer it if you were Gray." A cross between anger and embarrassment lit Gajeel's face ablaze with blush. Levy circled around as Juvia nuzzled an ever increasingly panicked Gajeel.

"Juvia," Levy cooed, "you're sleepwalking again. This is all a dream." It was the only plan she could think of at a moment's notice, but she had to run with her decisions. It might work; Juvia was clearly tired.

"Juvia doesn't think so." She spoke slowly; she'd probably forget this whole thing if Levy could just get her back to her room. "Juvia dreams of Gray, not Gajeel." She squinted up at Gajeel who had remained paralyzed during the whole conversation. "Still, Gajeel isn't back from his job, and Juvia misses him, maybe she dreamt him so she could give him a hug."

"That's right, Juvia," Levy said softly, "dream Gajeel is here to give you a hug and tell you not to worry." There was a moment of silence before Levy gave an exaggerated cough; Gajeel had not taken her hint. Understanding flashed in his eyes, and he looked down at Juvia.

Hugging her softly, Gajeel reassured her, "Real Gajeel is fine, Juvia. You're asleep, go back to bed." He stroked her hair a few times before trying to extract himself from her arms. She didn't budge.

Juvia looked up at him, gears in her mind turning. "Hhhmmm." Faster than either of them thought she could move, Juvia kicked Gajeel in the shin. Levy bore a glare into Gajeel's soul that promised a fate worse than death if he uttered a sound. Juvia smiled, satisfied with her tired experiment. "Dream Levy is right. Real Gajeel would have cursed Juvia out if she kicked him." She gave him a final squeeze. "Goodbye dream Gajeel. Juvia will see real Gajeel soon." Setting him free, she mumbled, "she misses him almost as much as Levy does. Juvia hears her at night." She sprouted a large yawn, slowly turning away. "Except for one night Levy didn't come home."

"Juvia," Levy soothed, "dream Gray is waiting for you back in your room."

Juvia's smile widened, her attention shifting to her room and dropping Gajeel like a piece of trash. "Wait for me, my love, Juvia is coming." Passing Levy, Juvia touched her shoulder. "Goodnight dream Levy, don't let dream Gajeel be too rough with you. Juvia notices the hickeys." Levy nearly fainted on the spot; her entire being went pale, and her heart raced until Juvia was gone.

Levy couldn't move a muscle, Juvia's words had sent chills through her brain. Gajeel carefully walked over and picked her up, silently carrying her the rest of the way to her room. He closed the door behind him and exhaled for a long few seconds. Levy turned on a lamp, and now that they were alone, the color returned to her face. An air of calm came over the room. Gajeel went to sit in a chair by Levy's bed, but it was not a chair at all. He sat and promptly tumbled down a chair shaped pile of books, landing on the floor with a thud and string of curses. It was great that Levy loved books, but when there were so many extra piled around that they could be mistaken for furniture, there was a problem. She needed more space. Levy whispered curses of her own, telling him to be more careful and that he knew the only chair in her room was placed neatly under her desk.

Levy crossed her arms, her voice angry but beseeching. "You can't be loud if you're gonna stay here. Guys aren't allowed. You know that."

Still slightly irritated at the pain in his tailbone, Gajeel kicked off his boots, not caring if they banged against the door. Juvia already knew he was here anyways.

Levy stared him down, eyes pleading. "Gajeel! Seriously, someone will notice the noise and come check on me and they'll find you." Her nervousness resounded in her voice. "I don't want to spend the night without you. This has to be better than sleeping in the Guild. Lily said he'd be finished clearing the rust out of your place by tomorrow.” She inhaled slowly. “Please, do this for me."

Gajeel saw the pain in her eyes; he'd felt it himself. The bitterness of neglect, the sting of turning around and not seeing her smiling face. He craved more attention from Levy than he'd ever imagined he could need. Gajeel had been parted from his light, and he knew she'd felt the same. He walked over and hugged her trembling figure, stroking her hair. "Don't worry, Shrimp, I'm not going anywhere. This is nicer than the guild. Thanks for letting me stay here," he paused, kissing the top of her head, "I don't wanna spend another night apart from you either. I just don't like being quiet if I don't have ta, and we shouldn't need to when we're alone." Her shaking ceased, and she relaxed into his chest.

Gajeel leaned down and kissed her deeply, giving her the love she'd been deprived over the week-long job that had kept them apart. Scooping Levy up in his arms, he fell onto the bed. They embraced for a long time, just kissing and nuzzling, finally able to be together again. Gajeel held her close. He ran his fingers through her hair, grasping at her very being. He'd missed her so much while he was gone. It had been overwhelming, consuming his every thought until he could get back to her. Now that he was here, it was even more overpowering; his love for Levy dwarfed every other emotion. When they were breathless from their kisses, he curled around her, protecting his treasure. Gajeel ran his hands lazily over her skin, alternating between rubbing her muscles and just enjoying the way it felt to hold her. His fingers had wandered over her breast and he instinctively rubbed her nipple; he didn't even realize what he was doing until Levy's moan reached his ear. It just felt so good to have him against her that she let it slip, and the mood of the room adjusted dramatically. The lust they had both held back spilled over. Gajeel caved first.

"I gotta hear that again." His intensity was sudden, like the rush of water pouring out of a broken dam. "So…so many nights without you. It was awful. I need to hear you do that again." Gajeel was suddenly on top of her, nosing her neck, her answer the only string holding him back.

"Yes." Levy surged to kiss him. "But be quiet, or you won't be the only one who hears it." His hands were all over her breasts, rubbing and pinching every inch of skin. A moan nearly crested the tip of Levy's lips.

"I can live with that."

Her heart skipped a beat. "What?"

Gajeel looked at her quizzically. Hadn't they addressed her worries just minutes ago? He grunted, apparently not. "Well if they hear you, then all your friends will know what a great lover you have and leave us alone."

"No," Levy squeaked, "If they hear us I'd be…embarrassed. Even though Juvia was half asleep, she'd remembered one of my hickeys from last time."

"Oh yeah, she also said you didn't come home one night?" Gajeel asked, a hint of worry in his voice. He hadn't realized he'd avoided the subject until now.

The tips of Levy's ears burned. She'd been so lonely and desperate for anything reminiscent of Gajeel, so one night she'd snuck into his place. To her attention deprived mind, it had been a way to feel close to him. Being inside his home was comforting, so comforting that she'd fallen asleep in the nest of blankets on his bed. The next morning had greeted her with a whirlwind of questions and half-baked explanations for where she'd spent the night.

"Yeah." She saw a glint of worry and eased his mind. "I went to your place. I missed you, and I kinda fell asleep. Sorry. I may have broken in actually."

Gajeel sat there gaping, impressed by her boldness. She'd missed him so much. His lips latched on hers with renewed fire. "Don't be sorry, unless you left the window open and that's why I came home to all my stuff covered in rust," he teased. "You falling asleep in my bed—it only makes me love you more."

Levy fell deeper into his eyes with each graze of their lips. She felt herself pulling off her shirt, drunk on the taste of Gajeel. He unhooked her bra, removing it swiftly, and grabbed her hands. They came to rest on his bare chest, shirt discarded to the books. Levy had a sweet spot for his chest and he knew it. She melted like butter when he held her close and they moved against each other. Skin on skin, heartbeats connected in the same space, they fit together like unlikely puzzle pieces. Gajeel would be lying if he didn't admit that the feeling of her soft breasts dragging up and down his chest turned him on, but it would put Levy in a far greater heat than his own.

Levy felt his muscles twitch as she traced his nipples with the pads of her fingers. She flicked his tips and he growled long and low. He pulled her into his lap flush against his sculpted abs. Their heads lolled to the side in a tug of war, giving and receiving kisses. Gajeel's heart raced as his need to be with her increased dramatically. He ground his hips up, hoping she would grind back down on him. His breath caught when she did, her fingers running through his thick hair and her neck arching back.

Gajeel moaned low. "You love it, Shrimp, don't ya? When I touch you."

Levy signed in return. Her skin prickled with the anticipation of what was to come. His hips rolled under her, coaxing her out of her inhibitions. "Oh, gods, yes I do."

Gajeel sucked at the point just above where her neck met her shoulder and ran his hands down her back. The rolling of his hips quickened. "Well then, Shrimp," he purred into her ear, "it's your job to be quiet, but I'm gonna make it damn hard for you." He chuckled, dipping his hands under her shorts, pawing at her soft skin. Levy quickly grabbed his cock over his pants, pulling a moan from his depths.

"See, you don't want people to hear that and come crashing in, now do you?"

"I don't want anyone to come in, sure. But I don't care if they hear us." His lips traveled up her neck, landing at the back of her jaw. He ran his tongue over the area, and Levy had to fight back a whine. He knew her body too well. "The noise keeps others away; when a dragon mates, things get loud." Gajeel was relentless to please her. Tiny sparks raised the hairs on her skin wherever he touched. "It's just something you're gonna have to get used to."

Levy nearly melted into putty in his hands. "Gajeel, I don't want either of us to get kicked out." Her words and body betrayed each other, her mind and heart torn. "And the girls will be all over me," she paused, eyes looking up to meet him, "I just want this to stay between the two of us." Gajeel stayed his hands for a moment, taking in her gaze.

It was still there, the worry in her eyes. She wasn't ready for others to be aware of how intimate they were. The guild had been supportive of them, making jokes and poking fun, but the air of judgment about him had not ceased. Of all women, he had to fall for Levy McGarden, and of all men she loved him back. Sometimes it felt like a cruel joke the world played on them, teasing them with the taste of love and the sting of regret all at once. He knew he loved her more than anything in the world, and he'd give his final breath to protect her, but that image had yet to fade from the others' minds. He'd won their trust but not their love, only hers. It would dissipate in time. He'd prove that he could make her the happiest woman in the world, but for a while longer he'd have to keep his treasure to himself.

Gajeel smiled, kissing her lips gently and rubbing soft circles against the crown of her head. "Ok. I won't be loud and I won't make ya scream," his fingers brushed her skin, starting at her breasts and making their way to the button of her shorts where he nudged the fabric open, "but I won't go easy on you." Together they worked Levy out of the material—no longer necessary. "You're still gonna have to try and keep quiet." His fingers explored her folds. She was so wet, so sensitive, and he reveled in the desire that coated him. One finger slipped inside her core, and a moan tore free of Levy's grasp; it had been too long since they'd been together. Gajeel chuckled, "Any more of those are on you." Levy nodded, her worry finally eased. "And from now on we're staying at my place."

She laughed, pinching his nose. "Well, we would be there now if you could handle a little rust." Gajeel flipped them so Levy was on her back. He hovered over her, nipping at her neck and rubbing circles around her clit as she pushed his pants to the floor with her toes. He ground his length back and forth against her folds, loving how her wetness felt against his skin. He could hear her breathy whines clearly in his ears.

"You want me to take back the part where I make you scream my name and wake up every girl on this floor?" he dared.

"No, no," Levy giggled, "but it's fun to tease you." Her tongue flicked out to touch the tip of his nose. They both dissolved into muffled laughter as he closed the distance between them.

"It's fun to tease you too." Their noses rubbed together playfully. "But I think the time for teasing is over." His hand rubbed between her legs, and he pressed a heated kiss to her neck, taking in the scent he'd longed to smell. "I missed you." Gajeel lined himself up with her core and rolled her clit once more. She pulled him toward her in a longing kiss, and he plunged into her eager depths. Levy's gasp was nearly a scream. He filled her more than she'd anticipated, more than she'd remembered. Gajeel began to thrust. "Come on, Lev. You gonna break over that? We've only just started." He rocked his hips against hers long and slow, feeling her walls relax around him. He tried to pick up his pace, but Levy stopped him. She lifted herself so she sat straight and pressed him back into the mattress. Her hands grabbed his own and placed them on her ass. Then she began to bounce.

Gajeel's face contorted in pleasure. He loved it when she rode him. All at once he could gaze at her breasts jiggling, hold her firm ass, and feel her surround his length. It was bliss to be in his position. Watching her move herself up and down his cock, pleasuring them both, was an image he’d keep forever. He felt his body buck as she slipped over him, and Gajeel tossed his head back, moaning into a pillow.

"Remember, Gajeel. You said you'd be quiet." Her voice was laced with passion, and there was a treacherous glint in her eye.

"Now that's not fair." He grabbed her hips and pumped her faster, turning them so her clit brushed his skin. Levy's head lolled back as pleasure rolled through her. Guttural groans dared to escape but she held firm.

"I guess this is going to be a challenging night for both of us," she sighed. Gajeel laughed and pulled her down into a deep kiss. Levy's walls fluttered around him at the sudden change in position.

"Yer amazing, ya know?" he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, "I love how you keep up with me and tease me and push me."

Levy smiled back at him. "I love it too. I love how easy it is to love you, and how you make me feel I can be bold—"

"You've always been bold, Lev."

She chuckled, he was right. "I have, haven't I?"

They kissed for just a moment before Gajeel rolled them over so he was on top of her again. He knew she liked it best when there was no space between their bodies. A single thrust was all it took to make her moan; the position was burned into his brain, the one that made her come over and over again.

"I think you're right," Levy panted, desperate to keep her voice under control, "I think from now on we stay at your place, no matter what." She spasmed under him as her climax drew near. "That'll make this—much easier."

"Deal." His movement slowed. "Now, remember," he placed a single finger across her lips, "ya gotta be quiet." Gajeel thrust into her hard, and her whole body curled around him in pleasure. Keeping quiet wasn't going to be easy for either one of them tonight.

#gajevy #gajevy fanfiction #gajevylovefest #Levy McGarden #Gajeel Redfox #cookie writes #together again #gajevylovefest17 #day 1: keep quiet #cookie queen of smut

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themanicmagician · 7 years

Text

Reign - Chapter 7

Summary: Papyrus seizes the crown for himself, and declares Sans his queen. A series of one-shots covering the highs and lows of their reign, and everything in between.

Chapter Summary: The Royal Guard - Part 1: After Sans returns home injured, Papyrus vows to become stronger, to protect his brother. No matter what it takes.

Papyrus sits by the front window of his father’s estate, waiting for someone to return home. Gaster has been holed up in the Lab for two weeks, and their cupboards have become bare enough to prompt Sans to dig around their father’s room for spending money and voyage out into the capital himself. Papyrus had wanted to go with him, but Sans insisted he stay here. His brother said he should keep watch in case their father returned, but Papyrus isn’t an idiot babybones. Sans is afraid. Striped shirts don’t grant the same leniency they used to. Without Gaster’s presence, leaving the house has become dangerous.

Papyrus fiddles with his cube, one of the rare gifts from his father. The colored squares are curling at the edges. He peels the plastic up before smoothing it down again, and shuffles the cube around. Solving its initial purpose was a day’s work; now, he arranges the cube colors into different patterns, or just revolves squares to keep his hands busy as he thinks.

Sans is strong. He must be. Their father is close friends with the king, and King Asgore wouldn’t permit weaklings in his court. So if their father is strong, it follows that that strength has passed down to them as well.

He has nothing to worry over.

And still, he waits at the front window, which gives him a view of the large lawn. At one point, Papyrus tries to leave the house, but turning the doorknob makes his knees knock.

The hours stretch on. The Underground grows darker, and he can’t wait a moment more. He stands, legs stiff with inactivity, and hurries over to the red rotary phone in the drawing room. The number for his father’s secretary is written on a sticky note posted on the wall above it.

Papyrus dials her number. He wraps the curled cord around his hand as the phone rings, and rings, and rings.

“Dr. Gaster’s office, how may I help you?” She sounds terse, no-nonsense.

“I, um,” Papyrus squeaks.

“How may I help you?” She asks again.

“I need to speak with f—with Dr. Gaster.”

“And who is speaking?”

“I-It’s, I’m his son?”

There’s a brief silence, and Papyrus fears she might hang up on him, thinking he’s a prank caller.

“Dr. Gaster has asked not to be disturbed for the moment, but I can take a message for you.”

Papyrus swallows. What to tell?

“Could you just tell him that Papyrus is asking him to come home? It’s about Sans.”

“I’ll relay your message.”

There’s a click and the line goes dead.

Papyrus returns the phone to his cradle, feeling sick. Has he made the correct decision? If he bothered Father for no good reason, if he made Father angry—

There’s a crackle of displaced air near the front door, a sound he’s come to associate with—

“Sans!”

Papyrus rushes to greet him. His relief warps into horror as he reaches the front door. His older brother is leaning heavily against the door for support. His face is scratched, filthy with dirt. He’s holding tightly to a brown paper bag of groceries.

“Heya, Paps.” His stupid brother is trying to sound cool, in control, but Papyrus sees how he winces with each small shift of his body, hears the reedy rasp to his voice. “I got us some eats.”

“Forget the dumb food!” Papyrus cries, moving closer to him. Where else is he hurt? “What happened?”

“Ran into a few punks on my way outta the store, is all. I’m fine.”

“You’re not!” Papyrus stamps his foot. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I called Father, he’ll be here any minute!”

Sans scowls. “We’re fine without him.”

“You were gone for over six hours! Six!! I d-didn’t know if you were, you were h-huh-hurt, or…”

Papyrus’ breath hitches as tears spill from his eye sockets.

“Aw, c’mon, don’t cry.” Sans pushes off the wall, and wipes away Papyrus’ tears with the sleeve of his sweater. “You know I hate that.”

Papyrus scrubs at his face. “S-Sorry, I…Sans!” He gasps, alarmed. Where Sans had been leaning is now a smear of red. “You’re bleeding!”

Papyrus circles around Sans to check his back, and fresh tears spring to his eyes. There’s five distinct rips in his sweater, like a large claw had swiped his brother’s back.

“Relax, Paps, it looks worse than it is. Let’s start cooking dinner, okay?”

Sans only makes it a few steps towards the kitchen when he starts to sway. When Papyrus tries to steady him, Sans pushes him away.

“Just a little dizzy for a moment, I’m fine,” Sans says.

But after another step his eye lights gutter out, and Papyrus catches him as he crumples to the floor. The bag of groceries falls from his hands, food rolling out across the carpet.

Papyrus doesn’t care about that. His brother is hurt. He slaps Sans’ face lightly, then harder, but he remains slack and unconscious.

“Sans! Sans!” He shakes his brother, screams his name. Still, he does not stir.

He doesn’t know what to do. He hasn’t been taught how to use healing magic, but he tries anyway. Magic sparks and sputters at the tips of his phalanges, but goes no further. His pants are slowly soaked with his brother’s marrow. He can’t leave the house for help; anyone with half a brain would see them as easy pickings, free EXP for the taking.

Papyrus doesn’t know how long he’s held his brother, until suddenly his father is there as well, prying Sans from his arms. Papyrus instinctively clings to Sans.

“Let me heal him.” Gaster says, but it takes several repetitions of the sentence before Papyrus comes back to himself enough to release his brother.

Papyrus watches, hawk-like, as his father turns Sans carefully onto his stomach. He presses both hands gently to his back, and a flood of healing magic lights up the room.

“Is he going to be alright?”

“He’ll survive.”

His father asks why Sans was out of the house in the first place, and Papyrus explains.

“So weak,” Gaster comments. He finishes off the wounds on Sans’ back, so he turns him over again to tend to the injuries on his face. “Weaker than I expected, at his age. Do you want to prevent this from happening again?”

Papyrus nods.

~*~

This is the second time he’s been to his father’s Lab. It’s clinical, with its white walls and sanitized smell. It gives off the sense of efficiency—there’s no idle gossip, no easy banter, just hundreds of scientists hunched over their respective tasks. Papyrus is attracted to every room and experiment he passes by, but his father’s quick, long strides hurry him along.

They get into an elevator. Gaster punches in a code, and they descend further into the Lab.

“This level is my private workplace,” Gaster says, as they step out of the elevator. “The king has given me free reign with the capital’s pool of degenerates, and that’s what we’ll be working with today.”

Gaster brings him into a room. There’s a monster inside, unconscious on a hospital bed. He’s hooked up to multiple monitors.

Gaster puts a hand on Papyrus’ shoulder. His touch feels heavy.

“Dust him.”

Papyrus looks up at Gaster, astonished. “But I can’t just—”

“Why are you arguing with me? Did you not want to get stronger?”

“Yes, but…” The monster’s just lying there.

“You’re weak right now. You’d be useless against an actual threat.” Gaster pushes him forward. “You need LOVE to protect your brother.”

Papyrus approaches the monster’s bedside. His eyes are sunken into his skull. A machine breathes for him. Papyrus touches the curve of his palm—it’s freezing. This monster is as good as dead already. And his father said he was a degenerate. No one would miss a monster like that, not even a brother.

“How do I do it?”

“Sans has taught you how to summon a bone attack, yes?”

Papyrus nods. Pulling upon his magic, he crafts a long femur bone, glowing red. It hovers above the comatose monster.

“You need to pierce the monster’s soul. A direct hit will dust him instantly. But you must strike with the intent to kill, or you will fail.” Gaster’s tone implies that failing him is not an option.

Papyrus aligns the bone attack over the monster’s chest.

With a sharp gesture of his hand the attack pierces down.

The monster’s body jolts upon impact. He lets out a low croak of breath before disintegrating into dust.

Papyrus gasps as a wall of euphoria slams into him. Gaster steadies him when he wavers.

“How do you feel?”

Sick, strong.

“Alive.”

~*~

Slumber eludes him for days after his first kill. Whenever he closes his eyes, he sees himself in that monster’s place. Trapped in the hospital bed, unable to so much as twitch a finger as the monster rips magic through his chest. When he jerks awake in a cold sweat, his own gasping breaths in his ear sound like the monster’s last rattling lungful of air.

The second monster is easier. He hesitates less before delivering the blow. His LOVE ticks upwards again, but he doesn’t feel the same dump of rapture as he did the first time—not until a fourth monster is dead by his hand.

It was whispered around the schoolyard that LOVE changed a monster; the higher it was, the less they felt, until they became a callous killing machine. Papyrus feels nothing of the sort; rather, he feels more powerful, more confident, more belligerent.

Gaster has not praised him, but Papyrus did not expect him to. He merely leads him from one room to the next, collecting the dust Papyrus creates into large glass jars.

After Papyrus has felt the surge of power three times, Gaster brings him to a target that can actually fight back.

The cat monster leaps up on her feet as Gaster and Papyrus enter her cell. Her claws primed, she charges for Papyrus’ throat—his magic instinctively rallies, and the wave of bone attacks hobbles her, ripping muscle and chipping bone from her legs. She’s still yowling, curled in a ball and clutching at her ruined limbs when Papyrus silences her forever.

Pleased with the demonstration, Gaster begins to train Papyrus, in addition to his dusting sessions. His father is a grueling teacher, his lessons tempered with experience from the war Aboveground, with the humans. Fueled with determination to not disappoint his father, and to protect his brother, Papyrus excels in each task that is put before him. Gaster even spars with him on occasion. Papyrus has never landed so much as a scratch on him. It’s not a difference of LOVE, but Gaster’s own cunning. He takes advantage of Papyrus’ weaknesses and vulnerabilities in his battle techniques. Each time he’s knocked down, Papyrus learns a little bit more on how to defend from creative, underhanded tactics. For months, everything goes smoothly.

And then Sans finds out.

Papyrus doesn’t know how he learned of his training sessions, but one day he just showed up right as Papyrus executed his target, the smell of burnt dust still thick in the air.

Ignoring Papyrus, Sans marches right up to Gaster, roiling magic burning from his left eye socket.

“What the fuck have you done to him?” He spits.

“The same I’ve been doing for you,” Gaster says, calmly. “Preparing him for the world.”

“You had no right—no right—”

“Brother, it’s okay!” Papyrus wills Sans to calm down. Gaster is not a patient monster. “Father is helping me to get stronger.”

“Stay out of this, Papyrus,” Sans says, without so much as looking at him.

Unbidden, white-hot anger flashes through him. How dare Sans be so dismissive, like he’s some kid who doesn’t know what the grownups are talking about.

“We’re not going to be your guinea pigs any longer.” Sans says. “It’s over.”

“Brother, I asked him to teach me, I want to help.”

“Papyrus is leagues stronger than you were at his age. Would you really rob him of the opportunity to prove himself? That would be the cruelest thing you could possibly do, Sans.”

“He’s not going to be your little killing machine. I don’t give a fuck how you justify it. We’re leaving.” Sans grabs Papyrus by the hand, roughly tugging him towards the door. Papyrus yanks his hand away.

Sans sighs, like Papyrus is testing his patience. “Papyrus—”

“Stop treating me like a kid! Why won’t you listen to me?”

“Because you don’t understand a goddamn thing you’re saying! Don’t argue with me.” Sans reaches for his arm again and Papyrus sees red.

“No!”

His magic lashes out with his anger, and Sans is knocked viciously to the floor.

The haze of his rage evaporates as Sans groans in pain, clutching at his mouth. Papyrus gasps at the sight of blood welling in Sans’ mouth.

Sans hisses as Gaster pulls his hand away from his mouth, inspecting the injury.

“You cracked his tooth.” The words hit Papyrus like a damnation. “That’ll have to be pulled out. Let me—”

“I don’t need your fucking help.” Sans knocks Gaster’s hand away, and retreats.

Stricken with guilt, Papyrus tries to approach him.

“Sans, I’m sorry—”

“Save it. You’re just like him.”

Papyrus flinches back as Sans disappears with a crackle of magic. He didn’t mean—he didn’t want to hurt Sans.

“Ignore him. He’s merely upset.” Gaster says, patting Papyrus’ back. He leans into his father’s touch. “I do think this is a good indicator that we should proceed with the second half of your training.”

Papyrus looks up at him. “Second half?”

“It’s time for you to enlist in the royal guard.”

~*~

Papyrus eyes his new living accommodations, trying not to let his distaste show outright. The cabin is a quarter the size of his room in his father’s house, and he shares it with three others. The room is sparsely furnished. There are two bunkbeds, wedged against either side of the room. The mattresses are thin, the pillows flat. There are four small dressers for each of them, presumably for their clothes and personal effects.

Since he’s the first one to arrive, he claims the bottom bunk on the right for himself, setting out his new training uniform to stake his territory. A small axolotl enters moments later, shy and silent. He clutches stuffed dinosaur in his claws, stroking its fur repetitively with a nervous energy.

It doesn’t take long for their two roommates to arrive. Papyrus hears them well before they burst inside. They’re a pair of loox monsters, hulking, thick-muscled, and worst of all, old friends. They stumble into the room together, elbowing and jostling playfully. They snicker down at Papyrus and the axolotl. One of them snatches the stuffed dinosaur from the axolotl’s hands, and holds it high out of his reach as he inspects it. Papyrus subtly shifts away from the sniveling axolotl.

“The hell is this?”

“This isn’t a fun little summer camp for babies,” The other sneers. “How’re you going to survive the Rabbit Farm like this?”

Rabbit farm? Papyrus hasn’t heard anything about a rabbit farm yet, but he doesn’t dare ask for further information.

The loox holding the stuffed dinosaur rips it to pieces, before throwing it on the floor of the cabin.

“Better wise up now, kid. Or you’ll end up just like your toy.” The weight of the bully’s glare settles on Papyrus. “You got somethin’ you want to say, bone boy?”

Papyrus shakes his head mutely. The monsters shove past him on either side, and claim the right set of beds for themselves. One of them, noticing Papyrus’ extra sets of clothing are already set out, knocks them off the bed and onto the floor.

“That’s my stuff,” Papyrus says, tightly. The axolotl watches him, bug-eyed.

“Well it’s in my way,” The loox sneers.

The two friends approach Papyrus. He stands firm. He can defend himself.

“Maybe your skull is a little thick. I’m Loto,” Says the loox that’s a duller shade of green. “And my friend here is Byron. As long as we live in this cabin together, you two toothpicks need to know your place.”

Growling, Papyrus summons a bone attack. Raising it like a club, he charges for Loto.

Loto catches the attack mid-throw. Papyrus tries to tug the bone out of his hand, but his grip is too strong.

A flicker of fear flashes through Papyrus as the two monsters advance.

“Looks like you need more of a demonstration.”

Papyrus is beaten down with humiliating speed. The axolotl is of no help, shivering in the corner. When the recruits are called to line up that afternoon, Papyrus is reprimanded for the tears in his new uniform, and that night, he sleeps on the lower left bunk.

~*~

Barely a month into their training, the Commander tells them to prepare for a class trip. Whispers spread through the recruits. They’ve all heard the term “Rabbit Farm” by now. Their senior classmates have mentioned it without explicitly stating what it is. The recruits with brothers and sisters in the program lord their knowledge over the rest, discussing preparations for the Rabbit Farm with knowing smiles. Papyrus can’t even tell if it’s a mental or physical exercise, so he quietly prepares best he can for any eventuality.

The day of the trip they’re awoken three hours earlier than normal, and after they all quickly get dressed, they file outside. The Commander assembles them in neat lines.

“Today is the last day you will be lined up by your father’s names. After today, your father’s name will mean nothing. Who you were before you came here will mean nothing. All that will matter is your personal performance today, and your resulting rank.” The Commander walks down the rows, appraising them. Papyrus keeps his head high, his spine stiff and straight. “Your initial rank will determine which classes you attend. Your performance in these classes will ultimately determine your final rank. Dependent upon your score, you may be stationed as lieutenant in one of our four districts. Or you might end up cleaning officers’ boots for the rest of your life. It all depends upon your actions, beginning today. Now, march!”

The recruits assemble, three abreast. They follow their Commander, marching out of the barracks. Older students hoot and holler as they leave, shouting sarcastic encouragements and making bunny ears with their fingers.

The Commander leads the group, while additional guards flank the sides of the group. Thanks to his father’s last name, Papyrus is situated near the middle of the pack.

The swift pace is unrelenting in its speed, and soon becomes brutal for some. Papyrus has not brought along a timepiece, but he figures it must take at least two hours for them to leave the capital and enter Hotland. The weariness of the recruits is compounded by the punishing heat. It’s not long before recruits are gasping for breath, sweating profusely as they struggle to keep the pace. Papyrus is one of the fortunate few, skinless; though the march is taking a slight toll on him, the heat barely touches him.

They’re midway through Hotland when a monster several rows ahead of Papyrus sways and crumples. One of the guards marching alongside the group hauls the recruit upright again, and the company continues on. Some time passes, and then the same monster wavers again, stumbling out of the group. The same guard lifts up the monster—and dusts them.

“The royal guard has no time for weaklings!” The guardsman roars, for all the recruits to hear. “If you falter here, you are not worthy of the title!”

The threat puts an extra jump in their step. No one wants to be singled out and picked off.

They pass by the Lab. While some monsters have gathered to watch the procession, Papyrus sees neither his father nor brother within the crowd. It’s not too surprising. Father has plenty to work on, and Sans…

A few hours more and they pass through the worst of the heat, entering Waterfall. The Commander shows no sign of stopping, so they continue on. Just how far is he taking them all? To the ruins of Home? Papyrus hates the uncertainty, unable to know if he’s pacing himself properly.

Waterfall is cooler, at least, but presents its own obstacle: marching through the muck. The Commander is leading them through via the most direct path, which is not always the travel-worn roads, but instead through muddy marshlands, where the footing proves both treacherous and laborious. No one wants to stumble and fall out of the company, but the mud suctions to their boots, making it difficult to keep pace.

On and on they march. Glowing flowers seem to mock them, echoing back their gasps for air. Papyrus’ father had brought him and Sans here, once. They had delighted in pointing out glimmering rocks in the ceiling, had whispered funny words to the flowers. Coming here now, the dark caverns just feel empty, isolated.

The false light that illuminates the Underground begins to dim as they finally reach Snowdin Town. The cold hits Papyrus harder than the heat, perhaps because his uniform has been soaked through with mud and swampwater. Beneath the damp fabric, his bones rattle softly.

“Company, halt!”

The sudden command jars him from his stupor. The recruits stop, air puffing visibly from their mouths. Fluffy flakes of snow have started to drift down.

They’re in the center of town. Houses are illuminated in the dim, monsters poking their heads out from windows to get a look at them. There are several long tables to Papyrus’ right. There are at least a hundred bowls on the table. He watches a rabbit monster ladle soup into another cup and set it with the rest. They each look piping hot, steam billowing from the bowls.

Papyrus’ mouth waters. Food, and warm food at that. It’ll provide a much needed kick to his magic, pull him back into peak condition.

The Commander’s voice carries over the group. “You will have a 15 minute rest period. Help yourself to the food, if you can.”

The Commander’s final words are like a gunshot at a relay. The recruits rush the tables. Papyrus tries to squeeze his way through the throng, but he doesn’t have enough mass on the other recruits to effectively shove. Bulkier monsters knock past him, and one jars him hard enough to knock him off his feet. Papyrus instinctively covers his head, as the remaining part of the herd step over him. He winces as they step on his hands, his spine. But when the crowd has diminished, and he’s returned to his feet, at least nothing is broken.

Monsters at the front grab two, three, four bowls of soup. Crying out in victory, they guzzle down the meals. Papyrus watches, along with the weaklings. Seething.

He sits. The snow seeps into his pants, unpleasantly, but his aching legs are grateful for the reprieve. While some of the other recruits squabble over leftovers, Papyrus’ gaze wanders from the demure rabbit, to the Commander, talking with the group of guards. The march alone wasn’t the test. The recruits number around 150—and yet, the sophomore class boasts a lean 75. There’s something yet planned for them.

When their 15 minutes are up, the recruits are called back into formation. Oddly, one of the rabbits joins them, their arm held in the firm grip of a guard. The Commander leads them past the edge of Snowdin, and into the woods beyond. The forest is dense; thick, dark trees tower over them. It seems to stretch on forever. The overcrowding of the capital seems ludicrous, looking at the forest’s expanse.

“Recruits, halt!” The Commander stands upon an overturned log, so they all can see him. “Today you will be taking part in an exercise we call the Rabbit Farm. How well you perform today will result in your base rank, so it will be in your best interest to perform adequately.”

The guard with his arm on the rabbit leads him up to the Commander.

“Scattered throughout the forest are hundreds of monsters like this one.” The Commander grips the rabbit by the ears; he can’t help but squeak as he’s lifted up into the air. “You have until daybreak to return with a minimum of three scalps.”

The Commander summons his magic, in the form of a ruby sword, and lops the top of the rabbit’s head off. The Commander keeps the rabbit’s ears, and top of his scalp, in his hand, while the rabbit drops to the snow, already dead.

The sight makes Papyrus’ gorge rise. He doubles over and heaves. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday, so all that comes out is stringy, sour magic. Nearby recruits snicker at his display.

“You will notice that the rabbit is not dusting.” The Commander continues. “They have been fed beforehand with an embalming agent. There are few rules once you’re inside the forest. The rabbits will fight for their lives. You might tear into each other. The only absolutes are that you must return with three scalps by dawn, and you cannot leave the perimeter of the forest.”

Two guards grab hands, channeling magic between them. A field of energy crackles to life out of them, expanding to form a magical barricade, fencing them in to the forest.

“Begin.”

Monsters scramble in every direction. Some split off into groups; distantly, Papyrus notes that his two burly roommates have grouped together, shouting their plan of attack to each other. Papyrus stands still as monsters bump and brush past him, still in shock at the sight of the greying rabbit at the Commander’s feet. His father had him kill degenerates, scum of the Underground. Monsters that deserved to die. But these rabbits—what are their crimes?

He had agreed to join the guard because he understood their purpose—or thought he did. The guards are supposed to keep order, and punish wrongdoers. This hunt, this game, flies in the face of everything he believed them to be.

Papyrus startles as a guard slaps his back, making him stumble forward.

“Better get moving, recruit. The night won’t last forever.”

“I—I don’t understand.” Papyrus says, sickened. “They don’t deserve to be hunted down like—like animals.”

The guard shrugs, uncaring. “Life ain’t fair, kid. But if you don’t bring back three scalps, it’ll be your head rolling.”

The guard beckons for him to get moving. Still stunned, Papyrus lets his legs carry him away, into the forest.

“Isn’t that the doctor’s son?” One says to the other, before they’re out of Papyrus’ earshot.

He can’t dust someone that doesn’t deserve it. But if he fails to bring the scalps the Commander requires, that’ll be the end of him. He doesn’t want to die, but still. Still. There has to be another way out of this.

Papyrus’ pace slows, until he stops entirely. He can hear the sounds of skirmishes faintly, deeper inside the forest. Sans would know what to do, if he was here.

But he’s not.

In the bushes nearby, a twig snaps. Papyrus whips around towards the source of the sound, bone attacks sparking to life above his head. He strains his sight, but he can’t spot so much as a shadow. Was it a small animal?

He hears quick footsteps from behind, and realizes he’s been had. They’re approaching too swiftly for him to react properly—he’s barely turned when a strong fist catches him in the temple. He’s struck to the ground hard, fresh snow shoving its way through his nose and eye sockets.

Papyrus coughs, his head buzzing, when a firm clawed hand presses him further into the snow. It’s not a rabbit that surprised him, but another recruit, a gargoyle monster. Stone-faced, he raises a knife, aiming for Papyrus’ neck. A flurry of bone attacks force him to back off, give Papyrus enough time to stagger upright again. He backs away. The gargoyle circles him, studying him, trying to find the best place to strike. Three pairs of furred brown ears are already tied around the gargoyle’s belt loop.

“You’ve already gotten what you need.” Papyrus says. “Why attack me?”

“Commander didn’t say there was anything wrong with thinning the herd.” The gargoyle tosses the knife in his hand.

Papyrus checks him.

ALASTOR LV 7 HP 473/500

Alastor grins. “And you’re a measly 5. But don’t worry—it’ll be quick.”

Alastor catches the knife and lunges for Papyrus again. Papyrus barely dodges, the knife whistling by his head with inches to spare. Alastor’s tail lashes out, knocking Papyrus flat on his back. Alastor stabs down, and Papyrus rolls out of the way.

Papyrus flings a bone attack his way, but Alastor catches it. He squeezes it in his fist, until it splits with a sickening crunch. It dissolves in a shimmer of magic.

Papyrus sends more, but the attacks bounce off Alastor’s unfurled wings harmlessly.

“It doesn’t matter how you try to attack me. Your LOVE is too weak.”

Drawing deep from his magic, Papyrus walls his opponent in with a cube of attacks, before enclosing them around Alastor. He might be able to shake off some of Papyrus’ attacks, but he can’t dodge them all. Though his back and wings are unharmed from the barrage, Alastor yanks out a bone that pierced his stomach. Grainy dust trickles from the puncture wound.

“You little shit,” Alastor snarls. Dropping the knife, he goes down onto all fours and rams into Papyrus, catching him in the chest. Papyrus chokes as the air is knocked out of him. Alastor yanks up his uniform shirt, exposing his chest. Alastor’s hand wraps around a rib.

“Don’t—!”

Papyrus shrieks as Alastor snaps off his rib. The gargoyle tosses it aside, and reaches for the next.

Forcing himself past the pain, Papyrus sits up. Alastor hasn’t let go, and Papyrus can feel his second rib starting to give beneath his grasp.

Papyrus reaches up for Alastor’s belt loop and snatches a pair of rabbit ears. Fearful of his prize being snatched away, Alastor reflexively releases his grip on Papyrus, and reaches out for the ears—

Papyrus punctures Alastor with a sharp bone, and drags it through his insides. Sand spills out, pouring onto Papyrus and the snow.

Alastor lets out an unearthly shriek, but the damage has been done. He collapses upon Papyrus, motionless. The gargoyle bursts into a mixture of sand and dust, spraying Papyrus.

Revolted, Papyrus sputters and coughs as he spits out Alastor’s remains. He lays there in the snow for a moment, breathing hard. His chest burns with every jagged inhale.

Gingerly, he sits upright. His ribcage protests the slightest of movements. He muffles his yelps of pain with his glove.

He scatters bone attacks around the clearing. He pulls himself upright, and starts to search. Finding a white bone somewhere in a field of white snow is no easy task, and pain blooms in his side every time he bends down to search.

He’s not sure how much time passes as he looks for his rib, but his fingers are numb and he’s sweaty with the combined exertion and pain as he lifts the bone from the snow. He brushes it off, and lifts his shirt. He had broken his tibia once, falling from a tree in the front yard. Sans held his hand while Father slotted the bones back together and applied healing magic.

Papyrus winces as he presses the disconnected bone to the remainder of his rib. No one’s taught him proper healing magic, but after Sans’ collapse in their house, he scoured their library for books on healing techniques, so he wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes. He tries to recall the lessons left in the old tomes. Healing magic is about molding raw magic with care and compassion. By default, it’s easier to heal a loved one rather than yourself, as one must trick the magic into the compassionate state for the latter. Papyrus’ eye lights dim. He’s vulnerable, out in the open like this, but if he doesn’t heal his rib immediately, there’s a likelihood it won’t reattach later.

He lets his mind go back to that day, with Sans bleeding on the floor. His phalanges heat up, and the green magic gets to work. Papyrus feels a flash of giddiness—it actually worked!—but tamps down on it, keeping the scene in his mind until his rib is firmly reattached.

He traces his fingers around the joined segment. His rib is whole again, but the area is still tender. He tugs down his shirt again, and makes his way back over to Alastor’s dust. Two bundles of rabbit ears are mixed in with the dust, and the other set is a few feet away, half buried in the snow.

Disgust wells within Papyrus at the sight of the scalps. Most would steal the rabbit scalps and be done with it. But not him. The rabbits have done no harm, and do not deserve death. There has to be another way.

Papyrus leaves the dust and rabbit scalps behind. It’s grown pitch black, so he calls his bone attacks from the clearing. He dismisses most of them—it wouldn’t do to provide a beacon for his position—keeping only three to illuminate his path over gnarled roots and deep pockets of snow.

He walks almost aimlessly, while his mind runs through a thousand potential scenarios, none of them viable. He could look for a weakness in the force field perimeter, scamper home with his tail between his legs and beg forgiveness from his father. He could convince three rabbits to return to the Commander with him. He could try to persuade the Commander to give up this aimless, wasteful exercise. Papyrus scowls. Each idea he comes up with is more futile and ridiculous than the last.

Papyrus stumbles over something in the dark. He peers down, holding the glowing bone attacks close. It appears he’s tripped over a rabbit hole. It must lead to one of their warrens, surely. He’s more than small enough to fit inside. Before he can second guess himself, he shimmies down, into the hole. He goes in head first, so he can crawl with his arms, and see where he’s going. The soil loosens as he passes by, but he’s light enough that he’s confident the tunnels won’t collapse.

The tunnels have to lead to one large space. If he can get to the center, he might find some rabbits in hiding that he can reason with. Then, maybe his half-formed plan of leading the rabbits to the Commander will bear fruit.

But there seems to be no end to the tunnels, as Papyrus continues to crawl. His breathing is shallow in the cramped, dark space. Clods of dirt have gotten into his joints, his mouth. He’ll need a thorough bath after this is over.

The air changes as he turns another corner. It smells fresh. There must be another entry hole further ahead. He can pop out and get his bearings. He continues squirming his way through the tunnel until he reaches the exit. He claws his way up, until he’s reached the surface again. He breathes deep of the crisp, clean air.

Suddenly, a tail wraps around his neck. Choking, he claws at it, trying to break free. He’s pulled out of the rabbit hole and flung on to the ground. Something crawls atop him, peering down at him with beady eyes. Then the tail around his neck loosens.

“You’re not a rabbit.” He says.

“Obviously,” Papyrus grits out. His magic illuminates the area—standing before him is the axolotl from his cabin. His uniform is stained with dirt, but he appears to have gotten through most of the Rabbit Farm unscathed.

“Don’t think we ever introduced ourselves, did we? I’m Tully.”

He extends his hand. Bemused, Papyrus shakes it.

“Papyrus.”

“Why are skeletons always named after fonts?” Tully gripes. “So weird.”

When Papyrus doesn’t respond, Tully nudges him.

“Hey, relax. We’re on the same side here.”

“You tried to choke me to death.” Papyrus states, flatly.

“I didn’t know it was you. Why were you even in a rabbit hole to begin with?”

Papyrus rubs at his sore vertebrae. “But still, you’re dusting rabbits?”

“Uh, yeah? Are you not?”

“You sound surprised.”

“I thought you were strong, you know? It took guts to stand up to Byron and Loto that first day.”

“It’s not about guts. It’s wrong to kill these monsters when they haven’t done anything wrong.”

Tully shrugs. “You know the rules. It’s kill or be killed.”

“But…”

“Come on. You’re half-frozen. I set up a camp not too far off from here. Got a nice fire and everything.”

The axolotl sings a familiar arm around his shoulders, leading him along. Tully hadn’t been nearly as friendly and open in their cabin, but perhaps he’s grateful to see a recognizable face in the darkness. Papyrus knows he is.

“It’s just through these bushes,” Tully says.

Papyrus pushes through the foliage. Sure enough, there’s a campfire.

But he doesn’t expect to see Loto and Byron present, warming by the fire with a stack of limp rabbits stacked between them. There’s a pile of bones and fur as well, and Papyrus’ stomach roils. Not only have they killed rabbits, but they have been eating them, too.

“What…?”

Tully’s tail whips him hard in the back, knocking him to the ground. Papyrus growls. He’s getting tired of being attacked from behind.

Tully comes forward, wrapping his tail around Papyrus’ neck again. He’s dragged by the neck closer to the fire.

“What’s this?” Loto asks.

“If it isn’t bone boy!” Byron exclaims, seemingly delighted.

“I found him out by the warren,” Tully says.

“Smart of you, bones.” Byron bends down, knocking two knuckles against Papyrus’ skull. He snarls, ready to lunge for him, but Tully tightens his hold in warning. “But if you were a little smarter, you would’ve gotten there hours earlier to beat us to it.”

“I-If he was real smart, he wouldn’t have enlisted in the first place.” Tully jokes, weakly. He laughs at his own joke, but quiets as the two larger recruits throw him withering looks.

“Now, bones, what are we going to do with you?”

Loto grins, displaying his razor-sharp fangs.

“Chop him up and throw him in with the hares.”

Loto’s lips smack. “I’ve heard cooking with bones brings out the flavor.”

They laugh, all three of them. Papyrus can feel something within him breaking. He’s exhausted, injured, pushed to his absolute limit. This isn’t—this isn’t what he’d wanted, he can’t die here, why won’t Sans save him—

“Aw, look!” Byron coos, lifting Papyrus’ head up by his chin. “The babybones is crying.”

Byron smacks him before letting him go. They keep laughing at him, and it’s all too much. He’s been beaten, mocked, betrayed by his fellow recruits. They’ve killed innocents. They…

Papyrus’ hands curl into fists. They’re filthy degenerates. His father taught him what to do with degenerates.

Papyrus whips his head around and bites down on Tully’s tail with all his might. His serrated teeth puncture Tully’s skin. Blood wells in his mouth, but he keeps biting, forcing his jaws shut until they crunch through bone.

Tully yowls, releasing his hold on Papyrus as he stumbles away. He clutches his tail, whimpering.

Byron and Loto watch Papyrus regain his footing. Wary, but still confident.

Something roars inside Papyrus, eager to be let out. Papyrus lets the whirlwind of feelings in his chest manifest. Before him materializes a massive animal skull, with red magic flaming from its mouth like fire.

“What the fuck—”

The skull opens its maw and a raw beam of magic bursts free, catching all three monsters in its radius.

There’s screaming, swiftly silenced, then the thud of bodies hitting the ground.

Papyrus stares in awe at the skull he’s summoned. It’s unlike anything he’s ever crafted before, unlike anything he’s ever seen. Papyrus shudders as a wave of EXP crashes upon him. He hunches in on himself, bones rattling with pleasure.

The skull rumbles lowly, and then it flakes apart, until a gust of wind carries the magic away entirely.

Papyrus approaches the three recruits. Their HP counts all read zero, but their bodies haven’t dusted. It must be because they’ve ingested some of the rabbits, and thus the embalming element inside them.

Papyrus is filthy, exhausted. His meager bed at the cabin would feel like heaven. He doesn’t have much time remaining before dawn hits. He looks over to the pile of rabbit corpses, and summons a bone attack.

~*~

Most of the recruits have already returned by the time Papyrus trudges back to the Commander’s position. A guard, catching sight of him, beckons him to present his prizes. Papyrus keeps his back straight as he makes his way to the front. The air stinks of the dead. Other recruits brought in the bare minimum, while some brought in several more sets of ears. The recruits are in various states of filth. Some emerged covered in grime and blood, while some came out virtually unscathed. Most have a distant, hollow look on their faces.

A small group of disgraced recruits have returned empty-handed. They’re kept separate from the main group by a few royal guards, but there’s been no movement to dust them—the task must be left to their parents, then.

When Papyrus reaches the Commander, he has to wait for the previous recruit to finish. She’s a small fish monster, smaller than him, even. But beneath her frizzy red hair is a wild yellow eye, and her blue body is soaked in red. She radiates savagery. Her other eyelid is glued shut with blood, but she doesn’t seem to care.

The recruit is pulling scalps from her inventory, adding to the already impressive pile. She hands over the last set to a guard.

“That makes 34, sir.”

“Impressive.” Says the Commander. “You’re undoubtedly the best of the group. Count on your rank being one, Undyne.”

She grins a toothy smile. “Thank you, sir.”

The Commander gestures to one of the guards. “Have her eye seen to.”

“Right away.”

The guard escorts Undyne away. She makes eye contact with Papyrus, briefly. He makes sure to telegraph his disdain.

The Commander steps around Undyne’s pile of scalps, and peers down at Papyrus.

“Now what do you have for me, on the heels of that excellent display?”

Papyrus pulls the three scalps from his inventory, and tosses them at the Commander’s feet. The Commander nudges what was once the top of Tully’s head with the tip of his boot.

“These are not rabbits.”

“No, sir.”

“And am I to assume there are no rabbits in your inventory, either?”

“That is correct, sir.” He’d felt nothing as he carved off the scalps of the dead recruits. But he did dig a massive grave for the rabbits Tully, Loto, and Byron had desecrated. Burying the unfortunate souls was the least he could do. “But if I may—”

“You may not.”

“You asked for scalps, sir,” Papyrus speaks quickly. “You did not qualify what species of monster you required.”

Papyrus’ soul thuds in his chest as the Commander mulls over his words. The royal guards are watching him, too, hands on the hilts of their blades.

“You pass, strictly on a technicality. Thus you will have the pleasure of being the lowest rank of your class.”

“…Thank you, sir.”

The Commander moves on to the next recruit in line.

#another two parter #i've looked at this chapter for too long idk if its any good anymore #my fic #underfell papyrus #underfell sans #underfell gaster #royalfell #king papyrus #queen sans

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killiansbutt · 7 years

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Hello, I love your writing. Can you please do #14 with the Uni prompt. Also I submitted a prompt request last week, and I don't know if you wrote it and I missed it, or if you haven't gotten to it yet. I hope that didn't sound rude or that I'm rushing you. I'm sorry if it does.

Hey, friend! Do you remember what your request was? I have a few still waiting in my inbox that I haven’t written yet… If you let me know which one, I can bump it up though and no worries, it’s not rushing me, I definitely need a kick in the pants sometimes anyway! ♥ If I did post it though, you can check here.

Extra long one for making you wait for your other request!

title: Are You Still Watchingpairing: nalurating: K+words: ~2100summary: Lucy needs a break from her overbearing father. What better way than watching Netflix over someone’s shoulder at the library? (prompt from here)

Her father has Lucy on a leash even halfway across Fiore and it’s a little unsettling to the outside eye to see that he calls her the exact second glasses are supposed to end with a demand worded as a request. He only lets her go to school, really, so he can flaunt the fact that his daughter was getting a business degree to take over for him. Something to brag about to his friends.

It was strange, really, how she went from only worthy of marrying someone and granting him a grandson to the actual heir to his business. She doesn’t quite know which one is better, really, because at least as a baby-making machine she was left to her own interests, as far as though interests didn’t interfere with matchmaking.

Now, as an adult, she’s stuck under his thumb worse than ever and it’s only the creative writing classes that keeps her going. Maybe it’s not polite to admit she’ll skip out from under his thumb and out of school the moment she can’t take them anymore, but she figures if he can bully her into attending school, she can damn well take a class she actually likes.

She’s in the library now, her phone stubbornly buzzing on the desk in front of her, and she feels a trickle of exhaustion creep over her. Her day is class, business with her father, and then falling asleep in her bed – only to wake up abruptly at the reminder of all the homework awaiting her, but she digresses. The most important part of her wandering thoughts: she’s tired.

She picks up her phone, scribbling a message to her father.

Father, I will be studying at the library for an important upcoming test and unable to attend the lunch with Mr. Everlue. Please send along my apologies and well wishes.

It’s a lie in only the smallest test. She does have an upcoming test, just not for a few more weeks and that gives her plenty of time. She feels a little bad for fibbing, but when he sends his reply back – formal, but as positive as he could get – she can’t feel anything except relief. She has a whole afternoon to herself. The first in ages, perhaps.

Except…

What do people do with their free time?

A man with shocking pink hair laughs obnoxiously, earning a jab and a shush to the gut from a friend sitting beside him. Both are sitting at the desk across from her, their backs to her, allowing her to only see pink hair and black hair. “Ouch, don’t hit me, stripper, this is my computer!” The one with pink hair says.

Stripper scoffs. “Natsu, you’re the one who is going to get us kicked out. Do you really want Erza to come over here?”

Pink haired man – Natsu – seems to acknowledge the threat as they both share a shiver, looking back at the computer. Natsu shifts a little, getting comfortable, and she can see his screen now. She doesn’t recognize what it is, but she can see a television show playing and she leans forward, hands resting on her desk, to peek at the font playing across the bottom of the screen.

She can see some of it. Just not enough, but the flashing images of the crime show they watch is entertaining even without the words. She can’t see names or dialogue, but she can read between the lines and she builds a story up herself, leaning forward in her seat to watch closely.

Minutes, hours, days later, the one named Stripper stretches and she pouts when they shut off the show. It had just gotten to a good part and she wants to know what happens to the detective and her new, supernatural consultant. “Try not to be late for class, Flame Brain.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Natsu grumbles, beginning to pack up his laptop and she gaps at his features. His messy pink hair is natural, of all the strangest things, but more than that, he’s actually handsome and Lucy rarely thinks that about anyone, certainly not the people in her social circles. She can’t tell how tall he is, but she can see his muscular arms as he puts his things away with long, graceful fingers and though he has a splattering of scars on his arms and one on his cheek, he’s got a happy grin on his face despite his words, one that makes him all the more handsome.

She’s still staring when he looks up, seeming to sense the eyes on him, and a mental yelp escapes her as she darts her gaze down to an opened notebook in front of her. It’s only when his chair scraps and his footsteps disappear that she lets out a breath, cursing herself for falling into such a deadly trap as ogling.

His eyes are definitely the best part, a lively green, and only a split second of eye-contact led her to believe that he had little to no secrets in them. Like she was looking into his soul.

She slaps her heated cheeks, willing the blush to go down, but it’s not like she’ll ever see him again. There’s no reason for her to worry so much about what he might think of her.

That’s what she thinks until the next day when she sees him again. He’s watching what she now knows is Netflix, his friend noticeably absent and his feet propped up on the chair across from him. She sends a text to her father, not even bothering to wait for his reply as she takes a seat near him; she can read the subtitles now and she conceals a smile, using her textbook as a shield. If he chances a glance, she’s just coincidentally looking in his direction, she’s definitely not borrowing his laptop screen for entertainment.

And, really, she thinks it’s a little ridiculous that she’s doing this. It would be easy to purchase Netflix and watch it herself – but there’s a certain thrill in watching it with someone else. He gasps when something happens and her mind races to imagine the music that must accompany a scene. When he snorts, she has to bite her lip to hide a smile. She nearly ruins the whole thing when something bizarre happens to the consultant’s brother and a giggle spills from her lips.

His gaze shoots to hers, but she’s already holding her phone, pretending to skim a message that makes her laugh. He can’t see that it’s blank, she knows, and he turns his gaze back to the screen in time to see an explosion, one loud enough to mask her gasp of surprise.

It continues like this for several days, though the actual events take place over several weeks. Her test is nearly upon her and she has to sacrifice some of her library time to actually study, but when she sees him at his usual spot, sans laptop, she figures that she isn’t missing anything. It’s funny, really, when she realizes that he seems to only watch this particular show in the library because it always seems to start exactly where it stops the day before. She pretends its for her, but she knows that it’s just a lucky break.

They are nearing the finale for season one and she bounces with excitement three days after her test. Campus is starting to wind down for the term and she just knows that he’ll be in the library to watch the final episode. He has to be because she’ll need another excuse if he isn’t – her father only let her escape today when she told him she was speaking with a teacher about the year.

She enters the library, making a beeline for her spot. Generally, he’s already there, doodling in a notebook while his Netflix loads, but today, his chair is suspiciously empty and she frowns, footsteps slowing to a trudge. Maybe she’s early? Lucy really doesn’t know his class schedule – she doesn’t want to either, she’s not a stalker, she’s just… pretending to have a friend, which is even more pathetic than stalker, in her opinion.

She settles into her chair to wait. It’s a Wednesday and loathe as she is to admit it, she knows enough about his classes to say that he’s always here on Wednesdays.

So where is he?

Ten minutes pass, then thirty, then an hour, and then two hours. Her time is running out and her foot bounces with impatience and worry. She wants to say it’s for missing out on the finale of her show, but it’s really worry over him. Had something happen? She hopes not and wracks her brain for some news on campus, but she rarely pays attention to events unless her father wants her to reach out to the community and he hardly does.

Perhaps he watched it already, she thinks, her worry fading to annoyance. She shouldn’t be, because he doesn’t know that he can’t watch it without her, but surely he knew. On a subconscious level at least! She’s well into her own thoughts when he finally stumbles into his chair and she’s standing up before she knows it, marching over to him.

“Did you watch the finale already?” Lucy asks sharply, hands on her hip. “What the hell, Natsu?”

Natsu blinks slowly at her, his laptop sitting on his desk, and it’s only when a sudden grin blooms on his face that her anger drops like a ball, disarmed by the genuine happiness on his face. She swallows, face flushing as her words replay in her mind.

“I mean… That is… if you’re…” Lucy stutters, pressing a hand to her cheek. He’s laughing now, the type that makes someone want to join in, but all it does is make her cheeks redder. She’s possibly resembling a tomato now. “Umm, I’m just going to go now.”

“No, wait!” He stops her, taking her wrist gently and she lets out a breath as sparks dance across her skin at the contact. She lets him tug her closer, her fists clenched to hide the trembling in her fingers as he kicks the chair next to him out. Natsu fingers trail down her wrist to her hand almost absently when she sits down, as though he isn’t aware that her heart is stuttering at the contact. “I was waiting for ya to say something, can’t believe you waited till the last episode to introduce yourself. Kinda rude, if you ask me, you’re basically acting like a leach, but it’s funny when ya try to pretend that ya weren’t watching.”

She rubs her cheek with her free hand. “You knew? Since when?”

“Third episode, it was too much of a coincidence to see you here again, looking at me that way. And also you’re book was upside down, I figured that wasn’t normal,” he admits almost sheepishly. She can’t figure out why until a pink tinge appears on his face and she realizes that third time was, quite literally, weeks ago.

No wonder the font was bigger after that or that he was sitting differently, his shoulder no longer blocking a quarter of the screen. He knew she was watching – and he made it easier.

Lucy pulls her hand free to hide her face. Secretly, she’s a little pleased that he didn’t mind, but the larger part… “I’m so embarrassed.”

Natsu laughs and she peeks out from between her fingers to study her face. Though his cheeks are still slightly pink, there’s happiness on his face. “Nah, now we have the best meeting at this school. You’re a stalker, I’m an enabler, see? Perfect.”

“That’s not a good thing!”

“Eh, let’s not worry about specifics then. Let’s watch this last episode already.”

She peeks at her watch. “Don’t you have class?”

“Nah, that’s why I was late. Volunteered to meet my teacher early so he had less people to handle today. Didn’t think the meeting would take so long, woulda been better off just going to class. At least we finally got to meet though!” He’s awfully chipper and his good mood is contagious enough that she smiles back at him. “This friendship is off balance, by the way. Ya know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

It’s not a subtle, but then she doesn’t think he’s a subtle person. His words and action thus far are proof enough of that.

“I’m Lucy. Lucy Heartfilia.” She sticks out her hand, but he slaps a pair of headphones into her fingers instead of taking it. She blinks, puzzled, but then he points to his laptop.

“Now you can hear their voices. Better late than never, eh?” His laptop is shut, but he opens it; Netflix is already open, the episode waiting for them. She scoots her chair closer, pushing the headphone in as he hits play.

Natsu watches her carefully with a heat that makes her heart flutter, but as the music of the opening theme hits her ears for the first time, Lucy finds herself smiling.

#nalu #fairy tail #fynalu #ftfanfics #ficsforvera #mine #nalu ff #Anonymous #my fic

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misssugarpinkshome · 8 years

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Oh I feel bad :(. Could you do a Sans and Male Reader short story? I hope your day gets better! You're a great writer. Maybe Sans admits to the reader that he has a crush on them? (I know it's not very creative, and if you don't want to write for it, that's okay! I just hope (whatever you're going through) that you can see the good in whatever's happening. There's always something good to latch onto in a bad situation. I love your writing, and hope your day gets better. :)

Thanks so much for the prompt. :) I’m feeling much better than I had been, and this fic really helped! It’s just a random reader and a Sans. I think Reedz was kept pretty gender neutral in this one, but I imagined a male reader.

Thanks for the compliments as well. It was a huge confidence booster. :)

Fic is under the cut!

You sighed, struggling to light the cigarette in your hands. Today had just been absolute shit. First, Sans - the skeleton, as he had told you when you’d first met - had introduced you to Toriel and Asgore. That would’ve normally gone a lot better, had you not made a complete fool of yourself because they were royalty.

You’d floundered in the kitchen when trying to help Toriel bake a pie, you had spilled tea all over yourself, and your attempt at a goat pun had fallen ridiculously flat. You just weren’t good at that stuff, especially under pressure. Toriel had given you a pity laugh and Asgore had given you a patient smile. The kid there, Frisk, was evidently the ambassador that you’d heard so much about. They had just scrunched up their nose at the pun. Sigh.

Worst of all was probably the way Sans had been watching you all night, though. He had that same smile on his face, that idiotic ‘I know something you don’t know’ smirk that, for some ungodly reason, just made your heart thump a little harder in your ribs. It had only gotten more genuine, wider, after your failures today.

God. He probably thought you were a bumbling moron.

You sighed, relieved as you finally got the cigarette lit. You didn’t smoke often, but you needed to relax after today. You watched the sky, shivering; it was hella cold out, but you would sacrifice that for the view of the stars. Something about it helped to ease the tension in your body, and that always helped you think just a bit clearer.

That would’ve been nice, if all of your thoughts weren’t stuck on Sans.

You knew you had a crush on him. Hell, you’d had a crush on him since the day you met. You had relieved that moment way too many times since then - really, an embarrassing amount of times since then. You remembered the exact look on his face, the exact shape of his eyesockets and the surprised little flicker in his eyes, right down to the moment when you’d fallen directly into him.

You had always been ridiculously clumsy in the winter. Fuck ice. But in this case, you had slipped and fallen on something much softer than icy sidewalks - surprisingly, Sans’s bones were much softer, something you could easily see yourself cuddling. And god, had you imagined it, seeing as you had no control over your dreams. But, unfortunately for Sans, when you fell into him that day, around 2 months ago, all of the art supplies you had been carefully lugging along with you to your studio had decided to fall directly into his fucking eyesocket.

You had been so embarrassed, apologizing profusely, blood rushing to your cheeks faster than to your head as you picked up the few things that didn’t go into his eye. He was absolutely frozen under you, sockets void of color. And you still remembered the exact thing he’d said, the thing that had made your heart suddenly skip just a single beat, enough to make you feel off for the rest of the day.

“eye know iris-k sounding cornea, but i think you just got lost in my eyes.”

You chuckled to yourself as you remembered that moment. It had been one of your most embarrassing ones, for sure - and that was saying a lot. But it had introduced you to… well…

He was funny. Witty, really, with how fast and clever he was with puns. He was protective and good at it too - something you had always needed, being not too strong and not too smart. He made you laugh when you needed it, which was more and more frequently nowadays. But better yet…

You made him laugh too. And it seemed like, sometimes, he needed it more than you did.

So yeah. You had a crush on a (depressed?) comic skeleton without flesh who would probably think your taste in men is weird. And, well, it probably was. You had only dated a few people before, none of those relationships going very far, and all of them more outlandish in personality than the last. Figured the next one would be a skeleton.

Next… er… Crush. Not date. Because, well…

Why would he ever want you?

You sighed, watching the stars, alone with your thoughts.

“heya, buddy.”

Not as alone as you thought.

“GAH!” You jumped, eyes widening. Sans held up his hands as a sign of good will. “Jesus, don’t DO that! Why do you move silently!?”

Sans grinned, eyes flickering with mischief. Oh no. “i’m not jesus, but feel free to worship me if you’d like.” You groaned, rolling your eyes and looking away from him, visibly pouting. He laughed, motioning next to you on the steps leading to your apartment complex. You’d been living next door to the brothers for awhile now, another fact that made your heart pound. Close proximity did shit to your hormones. “this seat taken?”

You took a breath, letting the smoke trail out your nose as you breathed out. “Be my guest.”

He sat down, glancing at the cigarette. “that stuff’ll kill you, y’know.”

“Not today, it won’t.” You slipped it out of your mouth and crushed it under your shoe anyways. No sense subjecting him to the smoke (did smoking even affect skeletons?). “What brings you out here?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. You didn’t look his way; doing that usually just made you flustered. You watched the stars in silence until he spoke. “i, uh… wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?” Again, he paused. You risked a glance his way. His cheeks were a bit flushed, tinted blue with his magic. He looked embarrassed, to say the least. At first glance, the sight was adorable to you, making you just want to hug him close and not let him go as you laughed about how silly he looked with a blush. But, well, then your brain caught up with your thoughts.

He was embarrassed.

Oh.

You sighed. “I get it,” you said, seeing him jolt out of the corner of your eye even as you looked down. “Look, I’ll stop bothering you guys, I know I made a complete ass of myself tonight-”

“what? bud-”

“-And I mean, who even tries to joke around with royalty, right? But I was just hella flustered, and when I get stressed out, word vomit happens - like, erg, right there, who uses the phrase ‘word vomit’, that’s just disgusting-”

“human.”

“- So yeah, I’ll just head back inside and you can ignore me for like the rest of life because I know I’m just an embarrassment of a friend? Alright, nice talk, see-”

His hand slapped over your mouth, causing you to stop speaking, mostly out of shock, both from the hand and his face. He looked so concerned. “okay, first off… what? the fuck?”

He dropped his hand. You stayed silent. “like… dude. i don’t give a shit about dinner? actually, believe it or not, that was one of the best times at tori’s that i’ve ever had.”

“Seriously? Sans, I accidentally put salt in the pie. A fucking cup of salt, Sans.”

“and?” Sans ran his hand over his vertebrae, a lopsided grin on his face, eyes just full of light (not that you saw any of this). “you were sodium cute.”

“Sans, stop it with the p-” Your words left you instantly as you processed what he had said.

“… fuck.”

“Sans-”

“fuckfuckfuckfuck-” You looked over in time to see him bury his head in the hood of his jacket. His cheeks, still visible, were stained a brilliant blue. “shit, i have better ones in stock and that’s the one i went with!?”

You blinked, mouth opening and closing without a sound.

He gestured wildly, hood flipping back as he did, still talking. “i was gonna take you to grillby’s, use my old me-n-u pun, or maybe start a fire in the fireplace at tori’s and say ‘you’re hot and i want s’more of you’ - and in the end i went with sodium cute?!” He covered his face with his hands.

“Sans.”

He peeked at you out of the corner of his hands. You laughed a bit at his bashful expression; it wasn’t a face you could ever have imagined on him. “Sans, you’re… You’re flirting with me?”

“er…” He cleared his throat, sitting up a bit. “well, i was tryin’ to. dunno how bad i’m doin’.”

“But… why?”

He blinked, watching you. You felt your cheeks warm up at his expression and wow okay the winter air suddenly felt much less chilly with the look in his eyes. “buddy. have you seen yourself?” He gestured to you with his hand, a helpless look on his face. “you’re goddamn gorgeous, hilarious, and so fucking kind you make my soul hurt.” Your heart lept into your throat as he said that. “i’ve been tryin’ to figure out how to ask you out since, heh, i got lost-”

“-in my eyes,” you finished, wonderment on your face. He stuttered to a stop, that blue tint pulling all your attention. He just nodded wordlessly. “I… Sans…”

“‘s… ‘s okay if you… y’know… aren’t interested in all this.”

“Sans.” You reached out and grabbed his hand. He started at the touch and looked at you. “I… Goddamn it.” You tugged him forward, shutting your eyes and going for it. You lifted his chin so he was in the right position and kissed him-

Right on his teeth.

You pulled back quickly, blushing and opening your eyes. He looked… confused? Fuck. Fuck that was the first time you had kissed him. You had just kissed a skeleton.

HE DIDN’T HAVE FUCKING LIPS.

“… Goddamn it, I can’t do anything right,” you said softly, clearing your throat. “But, uh… T-Think that tells you how I feel about you.”

Sans blinked. He slowly, slowly began to ease into a comfortable smirk. “yeah, you… really can’t kiss right, can you?”

…. Ouch.

This was a prank, wasn’t it? An awful, sick joke he had played on you. And you had fallen-

“cause, well, it takes tulips to kiss, and while you rose to the occasion, i was a lily bit too lazy, huh?”

…

This motherfucker.

Your shock turned into a wide, beaming smile. “Sans. Sans, there’s no flowers out here, it’s the middle of winter.”

“hmm… icy.” You snorted, your emotions running away with you. Fuck. Fuck, he liked you. He actually - oh god, you actually liked each other? That was a thing? That was a thing that was currently happening? He looked at you and your heart skipped more than just one beat, thumping hard in your chest. Because suddenly, he looked proud, happy, and most of all…

Passionate.

“well… maybe thistle cheer you up.” As he pulled you forward slowly, hand under your chin, you could feel the magic tingling around his skull, and suddenly you were kissing lips made of that magic that made you feel so intensely, and…

He was definitely right.

That cheered you up immensely.

You pulled away softly, a smile on your face. “Guess our love really… blossomed from that first pun?”

“heheh… you’ll make a good pupil,” Sans said, winking. “c’mon - it’s cold out. let’s go warm up, verta-bae.”

You liked the sound of that.

#I really enjoyed this!#Prompt Fic #Ask Prompt #Fic Prompt #anonymous #Anon #Asks #Reader/Sans #Ficlets #I would actually love to do more of these

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