#anyway im returning to the fog now

[sandinabottle]

Nightmare and Dream human designs because; yeah. B) felt like it. it was supposed to be just a sketch at first so I could get my ideas down but oh well ig

yellow

[imperfectcourt]

The meds are hitting right today and I might actually be able to clean and then I might actually be able to work on a painting I started last winter 😳

[m1lflov3rrr]

Hi hiiiiii! Firstly, lemme just say I absolutely ADORE your fics on wattpad and im SO thrilled you're also here on tumblr now??!?!? An absolute treat, this is <3

Anyways as for requests— can I request Larissa and/or Marilyn dealing with Y/N who's got a really bad sleeping schedule thanks to having the WORST case of insomnia? (fluff most appreciated, but IF you want somth more spicy to deal it, I wouldn't say no to it hehe 💕 :3c)

Thank you sm <3

Thank you for the request and so sorry it took literally MONTHS!!! But here it is now!! And thank you for your kind words, means so much to me <3 I really hope you enjoy this, I made a few changes to it. I don’t have that much experience with insomnia, but with sleep deprivation so I wrote about that, I hope it is okay!

No Rest for the Wicked

Pairing: Larissa Weems x fem!reader

Warnings: sleep deprivation, health issues, fainting, worrying, fluff

Word count: 2.5k

Summary: Larissa tries to help you when she notices how little you’re sleeping…

You sighed deeply as you raised your gaze from your laptop and looked out the window. A heavy fog had descended on the school grounds, reaching as far as the tired eye could see. 

The fog was persistent, it was thick. 

You felt like your thoughts were similarly clouded. You smiled at the irony. 

Returning your gaze back to your work, you looked at the time, it was way past 4 am already. Larissa would wake up soon. 

For the past few weeks it had been like this. You were staying up late, only getting a few hours of sleep a night. And sometimes, like tonight, no sleep at all. 

You felt that you didn’t have enough time. The work load you had felt like the weight of the world rested on your shoulders. You had stacks of ungraded papers, lesson plans to finalize, and a curriculum to update. 

You were exhausted. 

You tried your best to hide it, you didn’t want Larissa to get worried. Because her concern would’ve broken your heart. 

Every day went like this: You ’got up’ at 6, prepared for your lessons of the day and started at 8, taught for 8 hours straight, got back to your shared quarters and spent the rest of the night with Larissa. And after she had fallen asleep, you’d finish your work and prepare for the next day. 

You didn’t have the heart to tell your wife how much workload you’d had recently and how overwhelming it was for you. You had had difficulties in the past finding time to spend together, and after months of you both trying to work it out, it was, indeed, working. 

But lately, it had become too much. With the work, of course. You knew that Larissa would get concerned and start panicking and rushing things to make it better. You didn’t want that. She had her own job to do, which definitely had a workload twice as big as yours was. You felt pathetic. Your wife does three times the work you do in a day and you’re still stressed? Yes, pathetic. 

You finished your lesson plans for the day, just to save yourself some time later. 

It was 5:13 am when you were done. You rubbed your temples to ease your already growing headache as you got up from the desk, swayed there for a bit before making your way to the bathroom. 

You winced at your reflection in the mirror. Your dark and puffy undereyes were still there, if not even more bad and noticeable. This was the first time in your 25 years of living that you had had eye bags. You knew it was bad. 

You hopped in the shower to keep yourself up and maybe gather some energy to get through the day. At first the cold water did wake you up a bit more. Then, when you turned it a little bit warmer, you realized how bad of an idea it was. The warm water relaxed all those tense muscles in your body and you closed your eyes to enjoy the feeling. 

And your eyes stayed closed for a bit too long. If you weren’t so tired, you would have laughed at yourself. The image of you half asleep, standing in your shower. What in the actual fuck, really? 

But something made you jump and push your body’s cries for help and sleep to the back of your mind. 

”Darling?” You heard Larissa’s hoarse morning voice call out to you from the door. 

”Mhm?” You hummed as you turned the water back to cold to not almost fall asleep again. 

”Nothing, just wondering how you’re up so early every morning this week, usually it’s a task itself to get you up,” She chuckled at her own words. 

You smiled to yourself and turned the faucet off, stepping out of the shower so you could see her. 

You noticed how she was checking you out, biting her lip as her eyes roamed across your body. You smirked at her as you took your towel and dried yourself, about to wrap it around your bare body. 

She quickly snapped out of her trance and stepped forward, taking the towel in her hands and unwrapping it, causing it to drop on the floor. 

”I don’t think we’ll be needing that.” She said in a low tone as she pulled you flush against her body by your waist, attacking your neck with her mouth. 

You hummed in delight and closed your eyes in satisfaction at the sudden move, wrapping your hands around her neck. 

You let out little gasps, you couldn’t even let out a simple moan because of your sleep-deprived state. 

And it felt so good, feeling your wife’s lips on your neck, still keeping your eyes shut, leaning into her, maybe leaning too much, starting to drift off, losing your balance… 

Your eyes snapped open when your heard Larissa’s sudden, loud gasp, as she had her arms tightly wrapped around your torso to keep you from falling to the hard floor. 

”Darling, what on earth just happened here?!” She asked in shock as you stood up. 

You took a moment to process what she just said, just because you couldn’t think as fast as usual. 

”What? M’sorry, just got a little.. distracted there, I think..” You responded hazily, trying to focus your eyes to look into hers. 

She ducked her head a bit, trying to get a closer look of you and inspecting your condition. ”Are you alright? You had me worried there, are you sure you want to go to work today? You can take the day off, okay?” 

Your eyes widened in panic, ”No, no, Rissa I am absolutely fine, and I will not be taking the day off. You shouldn’t be concerned, I am okay.” You said hurriedly and walked away, leaving your wife standing in the bathroom, extremely confused and concerned. 

-

”Okay, I think it’s time we all head for lunch, see you guys tomorrow!” You announced the class with a smile, packing your things and leaving for the dining hall. As you entered the hall, you seached for your wife with your eyes, as you always ate lunch together. She wasn’t there. 

You yelped loudly when you felt someone grab your shoulder from behind, causing some people nearby to look at your weirdly. You turned around, ”God, you scared me, Rissa,” You breathed out. 

She just responded with a laugh, sliding her arm to the small of your back and guiding you to walk together to get the food. 

As you sat down, you began eating in silence. You opened a can of energy drink, something that you’d been drinking a lot these days. You didn’t usually even drink those that often, but you needed something to keep you up and awake. 

Larissa sent you a scolding look, a frown tugging at her lips. ”Y/N, what’s this?” 

You widened your eyes, you didn’t want her to find out like this. Or any other way. ”Oh, that’s just an energy drink. Thought it might give me a little boost.” 

She narrowed her eyes slightly, ”A boost? Y/N, darling, this isn’t healthy. Are you not sleeping enough?” 

You smiled, but it was forced. ”Rissa, I’m fine. It’s just been a busy week.” 

She sighed, looking at you with worry-filled eyes. ”Y/N, I can see something is going on, don’t shut me out. Whatever it is, I’m here to help you. We’re a team, remember?” 

Your gaze softened, you were really lucky to have her. But you didn’t want her to know. You didn’t want her you worry about you, because when Larissa got worried, it was all she could think about. She couldn’t work, rest, do anything. She’d have to get to the bottom of it. 

You pursed your lips and took her hand in yours, ”I know, and I appreciate that. But I’ve got this, Rissa. Trust me.” 

-

It had been a few days since that, and your condition and fatigue were only growing worse. Your work load seemed to have doubled since that day. You were trying (and struggling) to stay awake with the constant consumption of caffeine. 

The fog was growing thicker and thicker. You barely could see where you were walking. 

Larissa had had enough. She had been watching your extremely concerning situation unfold in the past few days into something much more worrying. She couldn’t bear seeing you suffer like this for a moment longer. This had to end now. 

You were sitting in your classroom, head buried in your hands as you tried to take a deep breath so that the pounding headache you had recently gotten would go away. You’d taken more aspirin than you probably should have, but it didn’t do anything. You were feeling miserable, physically, and that way, emotionally, too. 

Your eyes began to feel heavier and heavier, and you almost didn’t hear the sharp knock on your classroom door. You flinched harshly at that, squeaking a quiet, ”It’s open.” 

You heard the door opening and the familiar clacking of heels filled the room. 

”Darling?” 

Her voice was soft, almost a little wary. 

You raised your gaze to meet hers, ”Yes?” 

Her eyes were filled with concern, barely hidden. ”I’m worried about you. I can see that something’s going on, and if you’d just please, please let me in, I could help you. Okay?” 

You pursed your lips. You knew this was coming. ”Larissa there is absolutely no reason for you to worry. I am fine, okay?” Your voice was a mixture of frustration and exhaustion. 

”No, you’re not.” She snarled, her tone of voice contrasting the one she had just moments prior. ”You’ve been running on fumes for days! Darling, this… this can’t go on any longer.” Her voice broke as her eyes held a silent plea. 

Your jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the floor. ”I can handle it.” Your voice was barely above a whisper, and it was becoming harder and harder to keep convincing yourself that. 

”Y/N you almost collapsed earlier! This can’t go on.” She stepped closer, reaching her hand out to touch your shoulder. 

You shrugged off her touch, ”It was nothing. Just a moment of dizziness.” 

Larissa scoffed, her patience was wearing thin. ”And what happens when it’s not just a moment? What happens when you can’t get back up?” 

Something in that comment did it. Your eyes flashed with fury as your tone of voice turned into one laced with venom.  ”You just don’t get it, Larissa! I can fucking handle myself!” 

Her brows furrowed and you could’ve sworn you almost saw her flinch a little. ”Look, I am not trying to belittle you. I just want and need you to take care of yourself.” 

Your head tilted as your eyes held nothing but defiance in them. You felt your breathing pick up, uncontrollably, and how that pounding headache seemed to double, you started feeling a little lightheaded. But you chose to do what you’d been doing for god knows how long now. You ignored it. 

”I don’t, I don’t need you constantly watching over me.” You said, out of breath. 

Your wife’s expression dropped as she realized your condition and what could be happening next. She approached you cautiously, attempting to try and calm you down. ”Y/N, darling, this is not about control. It’s about caring for you.” She told calmly, cupping your face with her soft palm. 

You shook your head, ”You suffocate me, Larissa! I can’t breathe with you hovering over me all the time!” 

Larissa’s heart sank at that. She never meant for it to come to this. She only wanted the best for you, to protect you. 

”Y/N, please, I…” 

Your breathing laboured and before she could finish, your legs gave way and you collapsed on the cold, hard floor. 

”Y/N!” Larissa’s voice came out as a terrified cry as she rushed forward to try and catch you, but she was too late. 

Tears welled up in her eyes as she knelt beside you, shaking you gently and trying to wake you up. ”Y/N, can you hear me?! Please, say something..” 

Your eyes fluttered open, but you couldn’t focus on anything. Your breathing was still laboured and the words you tried to speak came out as a strained whisper. 

”Y/N, I’m taking you to the infirmary.” She breathed out as she scooped you up in her arms and rushed out the classroom. 

-

Since then, you and Larissa made an agreement. Well, you didn’t have much say in it, since Larissa demanded it. 

Larissa began monitoring your schedule, making sure you were following the new schedule she had made for you. And there was no room for negotiaton, absolutely no exceptions. 

Larissa also began cooking more, preparing the meals with care and love, making sure each one was balanced with important nutrients to get your energy levels for the better. 

Bedtime was the most strictly monitored. As evening approached, Larissa would guide you through a calming routine. She’d prepare a warm bath with your favourite scents, she’d slip in as well and wash your hair for you, massaging your head to calm you down. Then, she’d dress you into comfortable pyjamas and lead you to bed, prepare you a nice cup of tea and dim the lights. 

And she’d lull you to sleep with soothing caresses and words of affirmation, telling you how much she loved you, again and again, kissing your whole body as she did so. 

And it worked perfectly. You were feeling both, physically and mentally better. The dark circles under your eyes were slowly fading away, your energy starting to gain back. You also growed to appreciate your wife a thousand times more.

One evening, you were sitting in your shared bedroom, by your desk. Your laptop was open and you were determined to finish grading some papers for your students. Then, Larissa entered the room, the stern look on her face telling everything. ”Darling, it’s time for dinner.” 

You sighed, closing the laptop as you didn’t want to argue about it. And you were starving too. 

You ate in silence with her, you occasionally stealing glances at her. The way she fussed about your portion sizes, making sure you got the right nutrients for your health - you heart warmed as it was all an expression of love. 

Once you were finished, she led you to bed, undressing you and helping you with your pyjamas. I could’ve done that myself, you thought. 

”Now, off to bed. You need your rest, dearest.” 

You smiled as she laid down next to you, caressing your hair and kissing you softly. And you kissed her back, again and again.  Soon, you fell into a peaceful slumber, under Larissa’s loving gaze. She laid a final kiss on your forehead, ”I love you, my darling.” She whispered before drifting off as well. 

And if you looked outside, you’d have noticed that the fog had finally cleared. 

[vintagexherry]

Treasure for Three Days [5]

Pirate!Miguel x Princess!Reader

//Jealosy implied, Mentioned alcohol consumption, suggestive themes but nothing too serious

A/N: Today's chapter is short due to me being busy irl rn but we're getting closer to the end.

Previously

He doesn't even remember how he got into this position, he always leaves once his done emptying his pent up feelings to any woman he could find.

He sighs to himself.

What is he gonna do with you?

Day two [Stars shining, It's night time]

---

You hate yourself.

Guilt and shame runs through you.

"Aww, come on now, hermosa, wasn't even that bad." Miguel mockingly stated. As he watches you stare out the window while he layed down the bed, his face is resting on a closed fist.

And he's not helping.

You can't believe yourself, you just touched a pirate. Intimately even.

You hated the way your head was fogged up with lust. Can anyone really blame you? No man has even touched you like that.

Not like how he gripped your waist to kiss you.

Not like how he tasted you.

All of those were supposed to be saved for your future spouse.

While you're busy staring out the window, contemplating your life. Miguel was busy contemplating his.

He hid his nervous true self in a persona of confidence, and his not sure how long he can hold that out for. He curses his tipsy self for doing that, he curses himself for even enjoying that.

He almost forgot why you're even here. Right the necklace, treasure, and endless riches for him and the crew. Treasure... Yeah, that's what he wants.

He started to think maybe he could drink to clear his head, but he is sure as hell, the alcohol would do more than clear his head.

Whatever.

The second day is almost up, and by tomorrow afternoon, he can finally put you back in your little palace. At your little kingdom, with your little civilians. And he can get that rumoured precious necklace that's worth a thousand treasure chest.

He just has to wait.

"Do you have spare needle and thread?" His thoughts were cleared out by your voice.

Right, he forgot bout that.

"You shy?" He smirked while you covered your exposed cleavage with your arms.

"N-no, I'm trying to be modest. Unlike you."

He laughed at that sentence.

"Modest, huh? Whatever you did hours ago was far from modest bebita."

You turned your face away from him to hide the rising heat to your face.

"Well? Do you have or not?" You retorted.

"I thought princesses like you were taught etiquette and manners?" He smirked once more. He liked how you tried to hide your attitude but severely failing.

"I don't think, I own my etiquette and manners to a pirate."

"So... You don't want a needle and thread? Fine by me, At least I have something to look at instead of the ocean." He held himself back from laughing when your head snapped at his direction with a glare.

"If you can't spare me a single needle and thread, you might as well lend me your shirt."

His smirk dropped, the image of you in his belongings shouldn't affect you that much.

"No."

"No?"

"No.."

"So you'll provide me a needle and thread then?"

"....No"

"Oh, for Pete's sake!"

His smirk returned once again.

"Im sure you'll survive with a few tears in your dress. You're gonna go back to your papa's arms tomorrow anyway."

You paused, he is right, just a few more hours, and then you'll go back to your kingdom, safe and sound. That is if he keeps his promise.

"I take it that you still remember your promise? That you'll leave the kingdom in peace once you received your treasure?"

"Don't worry, you're pretty little head about it." You watch as he stood up from his bed and approached you. Somehow, you didn't paced back.

"I'm a man of my word," he said as he garnered your expression into his head, and after a second, he left, heading up to the deck. Leaving you standing there by the window.

---

[Hours passed, Eyes are asleep. Day two has come to a complete]

---

It was now morning, the birds can be heard again squaking, but you mostly hear Miguel letting out commands to the crew, just a few more hours and by afternoon you could be with your father again.

"Tighten the sails, wind is picking up."

"Get your asses up or no rum for everyone for a month!"

"With fair winds and following seas, we'll be getting our treasure, so I suggest you move."

You watch as by the helm as Miguel steers the wheel, and the crew listens to his every word.

Just a few more hours and you can finally be back to your home.

Back to your father, your people, your princess duties, and if things seem bright enough, maybe the annual ball can be held again to find you a suitable husband.

You think back the past two days, you think back to the stories of Miguel, his adventures, his discoveries. And you can't help but want to hear more. Is it even possible to ask him? Maybe it could be your last parting gift.

Minutes passed by, and the ship seemed stable enough to sail on it own for a while. Miguel signals the crew for a break.

"At this point, you might as well be a scholar for how much you think by yourself." Miguel mocked as he approached you at the edge of the deck.

You rolled your eyes at his comment.

Just a few more hours, and you'l be off this man's back.

"What? Not saying anything this time? That's new." He scoffed as he leaned his elbows at the edge of the ship while he glanced at you.

Miguel looked at you more and more.

"Heyyy, Earth to princesa?"

You held yourself back from popping a vein.

"What is it now Miguel?"

"Why the mute mouth huh?"

"Just...Excited"

"Excited, huh?" He raises his eyebrow at you then glanced back into the distance.

He should be excited too, shouldn't he? He should be jumping with joy, cheering he got the treasure, drinking with joy, and even singing sea shanties.

He should be excited, too.

So why isn't he?

He sighed through his nose and brushed it off, thinking maybe he needs a drink.

"Can you...." Your voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"...Tell me a story?" You sheepishly said as you avoided his gaze.

"Story huh? About what?"

"Anything really... Something to occupy me while we continue our destination."

Miguel blinked a few times, thinking of things he could say.

"Wanna hear how we escaped that cannibal island?"

You turned your head to him, and he smirked as your eyes shined with curiosity.

He can't lie.

He might miss this.

"Well, how do I start." He pretended to rub his chin in thought, watching you at the corner of his eye, as you eargerly wait for his story.

He chuckled.

Cute.

"For starters, you better have a strong stomach for this one."

You nodded eagerly, pushing him to continue.

"Onced we arrived at deck, my crew and I wanted to explore this 'new' island for while."

"Uh huh..."

"We got this thick forest, full of fruits and whatnot, but the next thing we knew is that -"

"Trapped!"

Miguel suddenly paused at the intrusion. He realized one of his crew continued his words for him....Uninvited.

He glared at the idiot but continued nonetheless. While you looked at him with astonishment

"Yes... We got trapped, one by one, each of us disappeared into the thick leaves an-"

"One of those traps were darts that can make you sleep!"

"And holes that are hidden using leaves!"

....

Idiots.

Didn't you ask him to tell the story?

He glanced at you, and he noticed you weren't even looking at him anymore, but to his crew who were all nothing but excited to tell you how their asses got captured one by one.

He couldn't even get a word out since every time he did, it got cut off by another person. He swears he can feel a vein waiting to pop.

Meanwhile, Miles and Hobie watch the scenario from the distance.

"..."

"..."

"A pack of gold coins, and I bet bruv in luv."

"Your joking" Miles faced him with disbelief om his face.

"Am not"

"You are"

"Am not"

"Yo-"

"Look at da way that git gets mad! And how he voluntarily tuld her a story." Hobie pointed out.

"Well... Princess did request him."

Hobie glanced at him with a smirk.

"And you think da big bad cap'n would do request dat easily? Princess or not."

Miles went quiet with that. What Hobie said was true. Knowing Miguel, he would probably just throw that person out even when they request a glass of water. Plus, Miguel seemed to do it willingly.

But still...

It's Miguel.

"I don't know Hobie... It's Miguel we're talking about."

Hobie smirk widened.

"That's exactly why, bruv."

●○●○

@yougavemeyourheartyouknow @autismsupermusicalassassin @lionhearted-soldier @hearts-4-lanadelray@sukioyakio@chshiresins @ginger23 @amelialysm

[arcielee]

Farewell Wanderlust

Warnings: As always, MDNI, 18+ SA mentioned in passing/implied, abuse implied, death mentioned in passing, sexual inexperience, prostitution, oral (f receiving), p in v.  Pairing: Osferth x OFC Word Count: 5075 Summary: Torn from her home country, Keavy finds herself trying to survive across the Irish sea. She happens across Uhtred and his motley crew, and finds herself befriending a monk who is determined to become a warrior.  Author’s Note: Still very much a hybrid of the show and the books, with me adding flare as needed to fit the narrative. We have 2 more chapters to go! Anyway, enjoy.  💜     Thank you @annikin-im-panicin​ for being my beta reader and my muse! 💜  Please let me know if you would like to be added to the taglist! Dividers are by @saradika​ Taglist (Tumblr kindred spirits): @aaaaaamond​ @watercolorskyy​ @schniiipsel​ @sylas-the-grim​ @aemondx​ @fan-goddess​ @babygirlyofthevale​ @httpsdoll​ @theromanticegoist​ @tssf-imagines​ @triscy @assortedseaglass​ @whoknows333​ @shesjustanothergeek​ @heavenly1927​ @greenowlfactif​ @larlarle @babyblue711​ @fangirlninja67​ @tinykryptonitewerewolf​ @lauftivy​ @vintageypanwitch​ @heimtathurs​ (Bold means it would not allow me to tag you!)

Chapter 5

Keavy did her best to keep busy, as her mind now seemed plagued to relive that failed intimate moment with Osferth before he had left for Beamfleot. 

She thought of the warmth that bloomed from him that evening in the barracks, and how it prickled beneath her palms while her hands skimmed across his scalp. Her eyes appreciated the sharp angles of his face, admiring his defined jawline, his pointed profile of his nose to the natural curl of his pink lips. She noticed how his eyes were clenched, his knuckles white with the hold on his lap, and she allowed her fingers to skirt his jaw, cupping his face; only then did he open his eyes to look at her.  

Keavy remembered the plume of crimson that washed over his cheeks as he lifted his hand to cover her own, and he turned his face to press the mouth she was just admiring against her palm, his lips soft. It was cold with his release and her arms fell boneless to her sides, watching as he stood up and pressing closer towards her. 

She struggled to breath as his large palms moved to rest on her hips, and she was certain she was vibrating with the way her heart fluttered within, but Osferth did not seem to notice. Instead, he just asked her, “May I kiss you?” 

It had to be her curse, her misfortune, that the damn Irishman chose that moment to barge through the door without thought, wearing a knowing smirk that played underneath his beard when he saw how they recoiled from one another. After Finan left them, she watched Osferth grab for his scabbard and she felt desperate for his touch, to kiss him, the tingle of his lips on her palm thrumming with the thought to capture his mouth with her own. 

Somewhat emboldened, she had reached for him but only managed to catch his sleeve. She balked under his brilliant blue eyes and could only manage to say, “Return to me, Osferth.” 

And she could feel the blood rush to her face from the small smile he hinted, from how careful he was to take her hand and the touch of his soft lips to her knuckles, with a gentleness that caused her heart to bruise against her chest bone. 

I will, Keavy. I promise. 

It was the echo of his words that fed a passion that fermented within her; she wished she would have kissed him and that intrusive thought repeated itself, filling the quiet. So Keavy was determined to stay busy, attentive to Gisela, to the children, to any task needed to be done as she waited for Osferth and the others to return.  

“Regret is a useless, poisonous emotion,” Gisela had warned her but with her honeyed tone. 

Keavy found there was only so much that could be done in a day before the quiet would come, accompanying the orange and purple hues of dusk, bringing along an unease that settled over like a heavy fog. 

That evening, after the children were already abed, Keavy seated with Hild and Gisela at the table for a shared supper with a second round of the bitter ale; it was to help the time pass, but mostly she swirled the last bit at the bottom without taking a sip.

Gisela was mending a tunic, her focus on her stitching. “They will come back.” She did not look up from her hands but her voice was soothing, like she was stating a fact. “Uhtred always comes back,” and only then did she peer up at Keavy, wearing her sly smile. “Besides, did not Osferth promise he would return?” 

Keavy burned with the direct question, her focus on the wood grain table as she ignored the soft laughter that fluttered between them. It was then that the door of the great hall creaked open, and the head of Edwin bobbed in excitedly. “Lady, they returned!” 

The return of the Lord of Coccham reawakened the village with a roar of celebration. Bundles of sticks were brought and bonfires lit, creating pillars of warmth that spread throughout the growing night’s cool air. The doors to the hall were propped open, with the music of a lute, a vielle, and shawm reverberating throughout. The table was filled with cold cuts, cheeses, fruits, and mugs were passed around, the same bitter ale served for all in attendance; it was easy to be swept away, but Keavy pushed through with a determination to her steps. 

She spotted Uhtred seated with Gisela pulled onto his lap; she glowed with laughter, with her felicity that her husband was back, and he seemed happy, mostly, but sorrow was pendent amongst the warriors returned. Keavy noted missing faces, Rypere and Clapa, unmistakingly gone, and soon there were toasts to confirm, cheers for those who were lost and now in Valhalla.

Keavy fell back against a wall, allowing her eyes to sweep over the faces in search of one in particular. It was Finan who brought her attention, with his loud bellow to cheer the champion of Beamfleot, and that is when she saw him. 

Osferth cut through the crowd, a beacon with his broad smile that lined his cheeks with his dimples, the bloom of red blotches that peeked through his pale complexion. His eyes met with hers and she saw the crinkle that framed the corners before he broke away, weaving through the crowd and reaching for her hand. 

Keavy took it, as she understood she always would for as long as it was offered. She followed as he pushed through, pulling her out front and away from the noise; the festivities seemed muted within the hall, though the music still spilled through the open doors and dissipated into the night. 

They walked towards one of the bonfires and he stopped to face her, a golden hue of color from the flames that washed over him, giving him an almost kingly glow. 

And Keavy felt the same desire bloom in her lower abdomen, the flutter of her heart with the realization that he was now close enough to touch, to reach for him, to press onto her tiptoes and press her lips against his own. 

“You came back,” she said instead, burning from her intrusive thoughts. She could not stop her smile, so bold that she felt the ache of her scar with the gesture.  

“I told you I would,” his tone was solemn, but she saw how his lips curled upwards with his words. Osferth exhaled and then reached to pull something from his waist, a large blade with a handle of leather bindings about the width of a wrist. 

Her stomach lurched with recognition and her eyes met with his, wide and searching. “He is dead?” her voice was almost too quiet to be heard. 

But he always seemed to be listening. “I killed Sigefriend, “ he confirmed as he placed it in her outstretched hands. “This is for you.” 

The steel was cool against her palm and the blood sticky around the base, but she recognized it all the same, even without the detailed scabbard Sigefrid had worn over it. Its weight was an anchor, rooting her to the spot as she processed his words.

That Osferth had killed Sigefrid, how he brought her the blade of the man who once tormented her, and with it so much more. 

It was another moment that passed before the men called out for Osferth, their blotto cryouts echoing into the night and beckoning him to come back. Keavy watched Osferth and how he brightened with the newfound comradery that battle always seemed to bring. 

He looked back at her, almost pained to stay. She knew this was the acceptance he craved, his place knitted amongst Uhtred and his men; as much as she wished to reach for him, to press against his chest and capture his mouth, she instead softened her smile. “Go,” she encouraged. “Enjoy your night, champion of Beamfleot.” 

There was a flush of color to his features, or perhaps it was the warm tones of the fire they stood by. Osferth bowed his head and left her poised, her hands sticky with the blood stained leather she gripped before she finally returned to her room. 

Only when she was behind the closed door did she allow her tears to freely flow, an overwhelming relief to know Osferth was safe, that Sigefrid was dead, but an ache that still seemed to haunt her. 

She looked down at the dagger that was no longer attached to that Dane, as he was no longer alive in this world. Keavy had sought Osferth for a kiss and instead, whether intentional or not, he had given her control of her life, of her destiny once again.

With this gift, Osferth showed that blood of a warrior that was interwoven with the royal ichor in his veins and Keavy thought to the last night with her maim, her last words spoken–you are far too pretty to survive across the sea, and it seemed that curse followed across the Irish sea with her.

She knew, in time, that Osferth would find a beautiful woman better suited for the status he was creating. Nonetheless, she swore her devotion to him, in whatever capacity that he would have her; Keavy knew she would be content to be a part of it, all the same. 

 + + + +

Love is a powerful thing, the priest Pyrlig once said. 

For Keavy, the emotion was cradled next to the vengeance rekindled by the gift of the blade Osferth brought her. She awoke early the next day and found Hild, determined to prepare as a warrior; the nun said nothing, but accompanied her to the blacksmith where she requested the steel to be forged into a seax. 

They returned to find the chainmail that Hild gifted her and she smiled when she saw Keavy with it on. “You are a bit taller than me. It suits you better,” and Gisela agreed. 

Stiorra watched them, her eyes wide with the sight before she announced that when she was grown, that she would also become a warrior. Gisela picked her up with a kiss to her cheek. “You have time to train until then, little one.”

And so with her secondhand armor, her seax and dagger, Keavy would accompany Uhtred and his men when they traveled the shores of the Temes, clearing out Danes and slavers. She was quick with her smaller blades and always welcomed any tidbits offered from Finan or Sihtric; she also enjoyed the intimacies she would share with Osferth, from how he rode alongside with her, to how they would stay up late around the fire. 

When they were called to action, to fight, she found a sense of satisfaction with the bloodshed, with how it would soak into the earth while one miserable soul was chosen to return with a heeded warning. 

Uhtred towered over, the tip of Serpent-Breath pressing into the throat of the chosen survivor. “You will go back to your rats’ nest and tell anyone who cares to listen,'' his tone would warn, “beyond Lunden the River Temes belongs to King Alfred and it is guarded by Uhtred of Bebbanburg.” 

For the longer campaigns, Keavy would remain in Coccham. Time seemed stagnant, the only hint of its passing was the change in the weather, from the summer rains to the large autumn leaves that blanketed the ground, and always a crisp chill that perpetually hung in the night’s air. 

Life would always bloom with their return, whether for a day, a month, or longer, and Keavy cherished the time she was allowed with Osferth. He would return unannounced, a welcomed shadow as he watched over her care of the children. 

He would step in to help with their studies, as Oswald developed a passion for the written word and Osferth hummed his pride. “A scholar at heart,” he said, tapping him on his nose and the boy blushed, giggling. 

“What will Uhtred say,” Keavy was smiling as she braided back Stiorra’s hair–the girl no longer had the taste of patience for flowers to be woven, adamant that a warrior would not have the time. “What will he think when he finds out that his only son wishes to learn and his only daughter has a growing bloodlust?” 

“I will remind him that knowledge is a weapon as well,” and there was a dust of pink across his cheeks with his returned smile, “and that I will do my diligence so his children are formidably armed.” 

Keavy admired how the years matured Osferth, how his face had leaned and his sharp features hardened, but that same kindness complemented the cerulean blue of his eyes still. He was lean, but his shoulders broadened and were toned from his years of wielding a sword; he’d grown apt behind the blade in a way that Uhtred boasted. 

Always unchanging was the comfort she felt within his proximity, and how she remained ever-present whenever he was in Coccham. She was elated with their return in time for the blōt month celebration; cattle were slaughtered and there was ale by the tun so no tankard was ever empty, while the instruments were freshly strung and ballads twanged into the night, accompanied with heorisms regaled both bold and loud. 

Keavy found her way to his side, as she always had, and he seemed anxious to pull her away, off into the night, by a fire as if they were back on the shores of the Temes. The glow of the flames caused shadows to dance across his features, his same severity with his furrowed brow. 

Her own quirked with his demeanor. “What’s the matter, Osferth?”

“What am I to you?” His voice was soft with his question.

It was unexpected and she felt her cheeks burned, watching him carefully before she realized the quiet beneath the stars and the roared celebration that spilled from the great hall. “What am I to you, Keavy?” he repeated, his arms folding behind and resting on his lower back. 

It was a moment before she could find the words. “You are everything to me, Osferth,” she began, truthfully, as her tongue unstuck from the roof of her mouth. She willed herself to close the space between them, but found she was rooted to the earth. “You awoke a warrior within me that I was not sure even existed, and allowed me to take control of my life, my destiny,” her eyes finally looked to him and his lips drew into a thin line, “I owe you everything and even then it cannot compare to what you have given me.” 

Osferth looked away, unaware of how her hand fell to the hilt of her seax when she finished. He was quiet and she then stepped forward, pressing to the balls of her feet and pressing her lips to his cheek. He turned to look as she pulled back, the ghost of a kiss across his lips. 

Keavy paused a moment, her hand still resting on his chest and her tongue wet her lips to taste him, before she pulled away. She meant to return to the barracks, but instead her feet pulled her outside the gates and towards the docks.

Only then could she finally breathe, and her exaggerated exhale caught the attention of a familiar shadowed embrace: Uhtred standing behind Gisela, his arms wrapped around her growing belly. Even though it was early in the pregnancy, Gisela told her she was confident it was another boy. 

She faltered, deciding to leave and allow them their privacy when she heard Uhtred call to her. “Keavy!” And she shyly made her way forward, grateful how the night hid the warmth she felt in her cheeks. 

“You are hiding from someone,” Gisela smiled with her words.

“I am,” she admitted.

Gisela looked to her husband and they both turned to face her, allowing the light of the stars and the moon to highlight them. “And who might be bothering you?” 

“No one, lady,” Keavy was quick to correct, then paused before she added, “I feel I am the one who is bothering him.”

Her smirk remained. “Well, then, who is it you are bothering?” 

“Osferth, lady.”

And there was a look that was shared between husband and wife, something Keavy was both aware and unaware with their silent exchange. Gisela pressed a kiss to the underside of Uhtred’s jaw and she smiled as she whispered in his ear. 

“Keavy,” Uhtred exhaled. “You could not bother him, as the man is hopelessly smitten with you.” 

The warmth in her cheeks now burned. “Lord?”

“Osferth,” he clarified and Keavy looked to see how Gisela smiled at her, the mixture of her excitement and her smugness. “He is besotted with you, Keavy, and has been for years. You should go to him, as I fear he will never make the first move.”  

His words echoed in her head and she looked again to Gisela. “I told you, fate has brought you here for a reason,” she reminded Keavy. “But you must allow yourself a chance.” 

And with those words, she rushed back.  

 + + + +

For Osferth, it began with the constant jesting from Finan and Sihtric, how they teased him about what they said was only an infatuation, but he knew otherwise. He agreed with the priest, that love was a powerful thing but it was also maddening. 

In truth, he was unsure how to approach the subject, to recreate that moment spoiled, and instead swore a silent devotion with its partnered torment. Osferth could not help but adore Keavy, with the wit she carried and her smile that remained with him when he was away from Coccham. Though he did not care for the risk, he respected her natural tenacity with her smaller blades, and a warmth curled in his chest when she showed him the seax crafted. 

“I carry it with me, always,” she had told him. 

When she joined them, he made sure to keep at her side. When he paced his horse with her own, he would remember how well she had fit in front of him, his cheeks burning with their conversations; Keavy would give updates of Oswald, how the boy asked for him, how Stiorra been given a wooden sword and sulked because she wished for steel. 

At night when they camped and the men curled around the fire for whatever warmth they could get, it was Keavy and Osferth who were the last to fall asleep with their soft murmuring that fluttered between them. With the autumn months, there was a beginning frost that covered the ground and with it a threat of snowfall that hovered heavy, chilling in the air. But for Osferth, it was excuse enough. 

“If it is too cold…” and he balked for his words, watching the smile that curled on her face.  

“May I move closer to you, Osferth?” she finished for him and he nodded mutely as she moved her mat and furs, cuddling close to him in a way that almost felt sinful. She nestled against his chest, an enveloped warmth, and his heart beat until his bones rattled, but soon her soft breathing lulled him to sleep. 

When morning came, he woke with a shadow that spread over and saw how Sihtric watched, his bicolor gaze steady and his brow lifted. Osferth appreciated the Dane’s discretion, a silence as they broke down the camp and returned to Coccham; not a word was spoken until they were back on the road again. 

“Osferth,” Finan sounded pained. “Fuck her already, I’m begging ya,” and Osferth reddened from the bold words, “or fuck someone. To get over one woman, you can get underneath another, but this pining is insufferable.” 

“Traitor,” Osferth breathed and Sihtric only grinned.

They eventually stopped in a city on the skirts of the kingdoms, a place where Finan and Sihtric pooled their silver and bought a woman for Osferth. She was lovely, with vivid blue eyes that peered from under dark lashes, bold against the auburn shade of her hair that was glossy and held a floral scent. Her smile was framed with full lips, her hand slipping into his own and beckoning him to follow her to her bed. 

In the privacy of her quarters, she was incredulous with his request. “You only wish… to learn?”

“Yes, lady,” and he pursed his lips, his drawn expression decorated with the bloom of red blotches. 

“And that is all, truly?”

Osferth only nodded.

“Oh, my,”  and her realization glowed, warming her painted features. “You are in love?” 

He could not answer her but his silence was confirmation enough; with the silver already paid, she disrobed and pulled him towards the mattress with her pitied gaze. She was kind, patient with him, with her soft guidance of his hands to explore the anatomy of a woman with his fingertips. He had enough intuition to follow in tandem to her soft pants and gasps, a glow of pride watching the bloom of her climax flutter over and the clench around his digits that confirmed her release. 

She was flushed and laid against the pillows, her heart thrumming underneath the sweat sheen glow of her bare skin. “May I see what you have to offer?” her curiosity had the best of her when she finally regained her breath. 

Osferth obediently disrobed and she felt her thighs clench at the sight of him. “My lord,” she breathed, a lusty haze over her half-lidded eyes. “Are you certain that you do not want to lay with me?” 

He did not, but thanked her for the services rendered. The following day, as they made their way back to Coccham, did Osferth relive those intimate moments, his mind flitting over the instructions of the whore while also shamefully wondering what sweet sounds Keavy capable of, and how he wished to find out. 

“It is hopeless, lord,” the bawdy tone of the Irishman brought him back to the present moment, atop his horse with the crisp air licking his face. Osferth peered towards the men and their smiles exchanged. Uhtred did not look back, but he saw how the corners of his eyes crinkled as well. “We thought the whore would clean his mind of her, but here he is…” 

“Helplessly besotted?” Uhtred offered and only then did his head turn, a kind glimmer in the blue of his eyes. “Osferth, what do you intend to do about this? Allow this pining to accompany you across Northumbria?” 

He still was not sure.

“A woman has telltale signs–”

“He is oblivious of them, lord!” Finan cut in. 

Uhtred continued over the low chortle from the rest of the men. “There will be a moment presented and you will only need to respond to it.” 

Coccham was already thrumming with celebration for the blood month when they returned. Osferth cleaned and changed, weaving throughout the crowds and its combination of music playing and laughter, the rich spices of cooked meat and spilled ale heavy in the air. 

Osferth was determined to find her and Keavy followed him, without question, without hesitation, and they came to the outskirts of the festivities, distant enough to allow some privacy. The golden amber of the fire made her glow, a warmth to her features, accentuating the gold ring that complemented her green eyes and her smile exaggerating the dimple from the scarring on her cheekbone.

She has suffered so much, it reminded him. Uncertainty settled over him and came out in the question. “What am I to you?”

And her answer was lyrical, painting him in a light he did not feel was earned. He felt morose, as though there was a debt owed, so lost in that thought that he only caught the end of the kiss; he tried to catch her arm, to bring her close. 

Instead, he allowed her to walk away. 

Osferth remained rooted to the spot, his eyes looking over the flames that licked the logs and he heard the bawdy tone, once again, of the Irishman. “Don’t let my pet name rot your brain, baby monk,” and he looked to see his mug raised towards him. “You are still a man.” 

His words sparked and Osferth left with a renewed vitality to his steps as he made his way towards the barracks, his knuckles rapping with urgency against her door. Moments ticked away before he realized its vacancy, and felt the returned uncertainty that smothered his fire to find her. Instead, he slipped into his room, lighting a candle and sinking into the mattress, his head heavy in his hands. 

There was a soft tap on his closed door and he did not look up, just a muffled call out. “Come in,” knowing already it would be Sihtric, or Finan perhaps, coming to tease him still. 

But it was a quiet entrance, accompanied with the familiar scent of rosemary and thyme, with the hint of rose petals. He looked up to see Keavy close the door behind her, leaning against flushed with the pink hues that spilled from her cheeks to her chest, that rose and fell with her silent breaths. 

Osferth was quick to push himself to stand, a step towards her. “Keavy, earlier, what I meant to ask you–” 

His question was stilled on his tongue as she moved to press her lips against his, the welcomed warmth as she melded against his chest. It was chaste and when she shifted, his arms moved to wrap around the small of her waist, pulling her flush against him. With his soft moan, her tongue was hesitant to taste but he reciprocated, meeting with the languid pace she set. 

Her touch was shy and his fingers flitted over, taking their turns to remove layers until they were both bare. He noted her trepidation, the solemn expression that robbed him of her sweet smile that he always carried with him. Osferth cupped her face and she leaned into his touch, his thumb careful to trail the scar along her jawbone. 

“I would never hurt you,” he whispered with a kiss, a promise. “I will only go as far as you allow.” 

His heart pulled with the curl of her lips, the glimmer of gold halo from the candle lit reflecting in her eyes. “I know,” and Keavy kissed him again.

Osferth combed his fingers through her soft curls, the smell of roses now lingering with his touch, and he pulled her closer, walking her towards the bed. She moved to lay back against the mattress and his pupils swallowed the blue of his eyes at the sight of her, with how the rose coloring flushed her in the most enticing way. 

Keavy pushed back up to her elbows and his gaze watched the natural slope of her breasts, the soft folds of her curves. “Osferth,” her words were both bashful and bold. “Come here.” 

And he obliged, kneeling between her like before an altar, his lips touching the inside of her knee with a trail of open-mouthed kisses towards her center, hot against the silk of her thighs and each carefully placed to savor, to bask in a scent that was so intimately her own. 

The sweet sounds that spilled from her kiss-swollen lips caused his cock to twitch. “Osferth,” she breathed, her back arching with his touch, taking handfuls of his dirty blonde locks, pulling him closer. 

His palms molded into the inside of her thighs, a gentle squeeze so she was aware as he moved towards her center, his fingers flitting through her dark curls over her silken folds. His tongue was tentative, gentle to begin, and listening for the unmistakable gasp that left her lips, fueled from the passion that was curling at the base of her spine and pinning her to the bed. Oferth hummed against her cunt and her thighs tightened around his face, but he pressed forward with the curl of one finger, and then another, pushing within her velvet walls until she melted with his touch. 

“Osferth,” tears brimmed her eyes, her words, and her hands grasped at the bedsheets. “Please, don’t stop.” 

He hummed again and its vibration, in tandem with the ministrations of his fingers, his mouth, tipped her over the edge. Her ecstasy spilled, flushing throughout her body, a ripple of gooseflesh and her nipples peaked with her pleasure as he continued throughout its entirety, and before he pulled his fingers from her, he placed a gentle kiss to the bloom above her entrance. 

As he cleaned his fingers, she reached to pull him towards her, capturing his mouth with a hungry rapture, enjoying her taste on his lips. His kisses and caresses renewed, with an unadulterated adoration for every inch of her skin bared. 

“Osferth,” she begged between pants, “I need you.” 

Osferth burned with her words and was careful to shift his weight, a genial glide as he sheathed inside her cunt. He paused, burying his face into her neck so she was unable to see his pained expression from how she clenched, steadying his breath as she feathered kisses along his jaw, to the soft divot underneath. 

This is how it is meant to be, was the sweet thought that waltzed across her mind as he turned to capture her mouth. Keavy hummed against his lips, “Osferth, please,” she repeated and only then did he begin to rock against her hips. 

The slow motion of his hips rekindled a prurient pleasure that coiled within her, her nails biting against his pale skin and leaving crescent marks on his shoulders. Osferth panted between his fevered kisses against the curve of her neck and she mewled pitifully with the crash of her second release, with a clenching desperation for his own peak and he groaned, with a low rumble from the back of his throat as he followed after. 

She settled against his chest, curled in the bedsheets and their bare limbs entangled, with nothing but the soft exchange of their breaths. In the quiet, there was a burning curiosity and she dared to ask him. “How long have you felt this, Osferth?” 

And she felt his rumbled hum vibrate throughout his chest before he answered. “Always,” and then he placed a gentle kiss on her hairline.  

previous | Chapter 6 | masterlist  

[notagenteklabtech]

"Death of a Lab Tech" or "Labbie's first day as a virus could have gone better"

OOC: I wanted to try writing out what the attack on the lab looked like from not-yet-Labbie's perspective. It turned out... confusing. Also tumblr ate the formatting, so I'll try to fix that... Anyway! IC gore and whatnot below the cut!

August 31: Someone in the collection team complained about a bad smell, and now Blackw our escort is making us return to the lab early.

September 2: The older labtech who's been wearing his biohazard suit since last Sample Day is now refusing to take his mask off.

September 4: Cross and Alex are fighting a Hydra nearby. I think can hear it screaming through the walls.

September 4: I can hear inside you. Are you warm inside? You sound warm.

September 4: I saw you.

The lab tech reads the messages they've exchanged with others.

They don't remember sending all of them.

Some are not directed at anyone. There are no responses to them. No notes from others reacting to them. Just red text.

Behind them, one of the other lab techs groans. Someone coughs wetly. Breath hisses through air filter masks.

Their own mask is uncomfortably hot, and their skin itches where it digs into their face.

Their whole body feels like it's on fire. Feverish. Melting in their sealed, blue rubber biohazard jumpsuit.

They're infected. All of them are.

They knew dying like this was a possiblity (an inevitably), but…

No. No no no nonononono

They aren't infected. They can't be. They were careful. They wore gloves, even when others ignored Dr. Mercer's orders.

It wasn't enough exposure. I was wearing gloves

Their gloves are sticky.

…They're tired. Denial won't change what is happening.

They ignore how they shouldn't be able to type on their phone with gloves on.

What a pathetic last message from a dying nobody.

Sept 5: …My ID number is 84-112-T.

I gratuated from the University of Toronto, Canada. I have published two papers on the potential uses of retroviral therapy.

I moved to the US and worked for Gentek for six years, three of which were under Dr. Alexander Mercer as a lab tech on Project Blacklight.

I am infected, and probably dying.

…I can't remember anything else about myself. How sad is that?

They try. For the awful man they used to respect. For the people they don't remember or care about. For science, that killed them.

The screen of their phone lights up - a response from Dr. Mercer - the light shining through the blood smeared across glowing it pink-orange:

"Labbie, do this for me if you do nothing else for anyone for the rest of your short life. Can you keep posting every thought, feeling, craving, impulse, and body sensation that you have, in as meticulous of detail as you possibly can, for as long as you retain consciousness? For science. For me. For you loved ones. For humanity. Etc.

Another flash of light - a message from Cross - pink-red-orange. They can't tell what it says.

Another flash. A message from Alex - pink-red-red-red- incomprehensible.

Another message from Dr. Mercer, something that cuts through the fog of their overheating brain: "Permission obtained."

Something behind them shuffles forward, rubber feet dragging. Something else growls.

Their fingers type without thought.

The lab is under Fort Washington. There is a Blackwatch encampment in Bennet Park, disguising the entrance.

They - plural they, not quite singular - can hear the soldiers outside the lab becoming restless.

The backs of their eyes itch. They can feel the virus eating through their brain.

Dr. Alexander Mercer is invited to the party.

I'm not dead yet. I'm not. I'm not I'm not I'm not-

A message from Alex: "when you hear screaming and gunshots that means im here dont bite me or i will bite you back"

We will not bite you. See you soon. :)

The others are getting restless. Angry. Hungry.

They understand, but…

But Alex is nice. Cross is good. Dr. Mercer is -

A reply from Dr. Mercer: "Dr. Alexander Mercer is busy and has plans."

Their fingers type without their input: The party will come to Dr. Mercer. :)

They feel it when Alex and Cross arrive. An overwhelming feeling of family.

Cross? Cross Cross Cross Cross! Brother? Uncle? hi. see you soon.

There is a Hunter outside the lab. It is not one of them. It is an outsider.Redlight. An enemy. They release the Bloodtox to weaken it.

They are immune to Bloodtox. Their skin is rubber, impermeable, filtered, contained.

Alex is not immune to Bloodtox.

They - singular they - are horrified.

Sorry for not warning you. forgot. our suits do not let the bloodtox in.

A message from Dr. Mercer: "This is so lame. In my universe, the virus just kills you. Y'know, like it's supposed to."

They-we-us-I- The lab tech does not understand why they are not dead, either. Their memories are foggy. Confused.

It doesn't feel friendly now. The others - lab techs, scientists, researchers, fellow victims, infected monsters - are going to attack their family.

We handled the virus with bare hands, sometimes.

…no. Not we. Dr. Dr. Something. She handled the virus when you were in meetings. It responded well to touch. It didn't try to eat us-me. It was friendly. Curious.

They can feel it like another voice in their own head. "Kill them. Kill the runt, the bastard, the child."

There is a shift, a knotted string in their chest going slack, and suddenly the lab tech is armed. Thin, silvery swords take the place of their forearms, melting into the blue of their elbows in a writhing mess of red and black biomass.

They aren't just infected; they are infected with Blacklight.

Are the Blackwatch dead? I can't hear them. No. No, it's too loud in here. I. We.

One of the Redlight infected researchers runs at them, and the lab tech cuts them open from hip to shoulder. It falls dead at their rubber booted feet, guts unspooling on the floor. They knew this thing, this no-longer-human mess of blood and gore, once.

They no longer remember them. They no longer remember themself.

Something inside them says "Consume."

Another scientist runs at them, fingers curled like claws, screaming. The lab tech bisects them - sword arms stabbed into their belly and ripped outwards in a spray of red - and then turns to the other two dozen pairs of eyes staring blankly at them.

The virus lab tech is so hungry.

The hateful voice screams orders in the back of their head. The infected - the Walkers - scream in response.

The lab tech rushes the group before they can be mobbed. They have two swords for arms, they have thicker skin, they want to survive long enough to meet their family.

Consuming the resulting corpses is… different. Unpleasant, despite how right it feels. But with every body pulled by hungry tendrils into their body, their mind clears a little more.

There are zero Walkers in Materials storage. They were too loud.

The rest is a blur. There are still things to be done - no time to meet their new-familiar family.

They ignore how easy it is to type with their tendrils, how their arms are stuck as swords, how they can taste the blood of their former co-workers through their boots, how Alex screams until he's been through the decontamination showers and cleaned of Bloodtox, how Cross watches them susiciously despite the cautious tendril of maybe family? that reaches out through the hivemind to them, how Dr. Mercer is blowing up their phone with his bitching.

It's enough, for now, that the lab tech is leaving the lab they expected to be their grave.

[veeranger]

Vee’s Steam Summer Sale 2023 Recommendations

as always these are just personal opinions etc etc please look up some real reviews before buying a game if you aren’t sure and remember that steam will give you a full refund if you have less than 2 hours played in under 2 weeks.

im going to try to recc stuff i havent shilled every 6 months for the last 5 years but the VNs are going to be the same as always honestly

Fighting Games

Guilty Gear -Strive- Ultimate Edition 2022 ($55.99)

yes im specifically saying buy ultimate edition because it has all the dlc as of this writing. buy the base version if you want but i hate playing fighting games with incomplete rosters.

anyway this is my favorite fighting game, bar none. this is the game that after years of screwing around on a bunch of other games finally got me to really want to get better and actually play against other people. there’s a super active playerbase and at least another year of support from arcsys on the way. the best time to start playing strive was a year ago but the second best time is right now.

Idol Showdown (Free)

yes im shilling a free game here. idol showdown is a good fighting game and the result of like three years of hard work from a small team. try it out and give them some love

Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel ($4.99)

this is not a good game but it is a funny game. saber is in it.

Narrative Games

AI: The Somnium Files - $7.99

one of the finest mystery games you can play imo. maybe uchikoshi’s best work. a perfect blend of mystery, character, and style. every character and conversation is compelling in its own way and every little thing builds up to the huge moments which makes them all feel totally earned. as always uchikoshi is a genius in the way he blends his signature branching timeline style with the themes and core concepts of the game. the twists and turns this game goes down are so crazy that weeks later you’ll still be realizing how all the little things you thought were just quirks were actually foreshadowing. cannot recc this enough tbh.

Zero Escape: The Nonary Games - $11.99

another uchikoshi joint, also extremely good. ive only finished 999, the first game in this collection, but i can recc it just based on the strength of that alone. whereas somnium is a murder mystery, 999 is a visual novel about being trapped in a murder game interspliced with escape room segments. whatever you think you know you dont, 999 will take you down so many twists and turns you’ll be fucking dizzy when you’re done with it. big recc.

VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action - $10.04

i could probably talk about this game for as long as the others, even though its way way less complex. va-11 hall-a doesnt have a huge sweeping story with insane twists and massive reveals, but what it does have is an extremely personal narrative about loss, healing, and just living your life the best way you can in a horrible dystopian world. the cast of characters feel utterly real and you learn about the world they inhabit through interactions with them, rather than being infodumped by exposition. everyone has their own story and everyone is just trying to get by, including you. one of the best small scale personal narrative games ive ever played.

Night In The Woods - $9.99

another vn i would consider “small scale” but equally as impactful. nitw is a story about a disillusioned and struggling college drop out returning to her economically declining home town. nobody is secure, nobody is happy, everyone is suffering through their daily lives. you follow mae as she struggled to readjust to her childhood home and the people she left behind. until something happens that changes her priorities radically. all ill say. despite how i just made it sound, nitw is not all depressing. theres lighthearted moments and wacky days to cut through the bleak fog, as well as genuinely heartfelt moments that feel very earned. nitw is a game i think that everyone struggling through their 20s should play.

Grim Fandango Remastered ($3.79)

i know this is an old school adventure game and you might yell at me for sort of grouping it in with the VNs but i dont care. its a classic, its a beautiful game, everyone should play it. its old, it controls like shit, the puzzles are obtuse, but the experience is wonderful and memorable. its cheap as hell just go for it.

Action

Assault Spy ($4.99)

this goofy ass game is fun as hell. its a very dmc style character action with upgrades and moves to buy, and it actually has a pretty goddamn good mechanical system in place. the gameplay loop rules. only warning is this is not well optimized so watch your computer doesnt explode.

Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered ($40.19)

i shouldn’t even have to shill. a must play for any spider-man fan. one the best spider-man stories ever hands down. such an incredible experience seriously. i cant even say enough here, if you haven’t played this yet you should do it asap.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales ($33.49)

everything i just said for the first game goes here too. a MUST play for miles morales fans. the combat is even better than the first too. you won’t regret playing this trust me.

Marvel’s Avengers - The Definitive Edition ($5.99)

no i’m not joking. ok well i kind of am but this game is getting delisted in september. it is an unforgivably mid piece of shit but if you have an interest in game preservation or playing something so bad they’re killing it forever, well here it is. they made all the microtransactions free btw.

Others

Tinykin ($13.75)

its like pikmin but its legally distinct! i like this game a lot, it has a very cute art style and its got easy to enjoy gameplay. i find it very relaxing. there’s a demo.

System Shock 2 ($2.49)

i will never stop shilling this game. fucking play it. its a cornerstone of video games. one of the most influential pieces ever put to pixel. you owe it to yourself to experience this if you feel any interest in it. maybe read a guide though its unforgiving if you screw around with your build.

Dead Space [2023] ($41.99)

exceptionally good. i dont have to shill the old shitty pc port of the original anymore. an A+ remake, i think it improves on the original in every conceivable way.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night ($11.99)

such a goddamn good metroidvania. its almost like the platonic ideal of a castlevania game. a true spiritual successor to SOTN. this isnt your dime a dozen soulslike vania, this is a true vania game in the best original style made by basically one of the core founders of the genre.

STAR WARS™ Knights of the Old Republic™ II - The Sith Lords™ ($3.49)

its a fuckin classic rpg. one of the best of the era. get it on pc so you can get that extended content mod they promised to import to the console version and then cancelled.

Save Room - Organization Puzzle ($2.09)

this is just a cute puzzle game. i like it.

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

a while ago you answered and ask of mine with something that really resonated with me, abt your real self feeling like it was trapped in a glass cage. anyway im taking your ask box name literally. I used to live in a world full of magic and wonder, I think we all do when were young, and then alot of awful stuff happened, it took alot, a new traumatic tragedy every month. and now the magic is gone and it feels like it was never there and wont ever be there again. (1/2)

thankyou for returning to my askbox im glad what i said helped befofre, sorry it took a while to respond i been ~in a haze--- my glass case got fogged up so to speak🩶gosh i been thinking lately i need to do mushrooms for the first time ina few years. the past month was such a trauma overload its thrown a wrench in all my plans & the world feels completely different to me now, i can barely even be online anymore it all feels so hostile to my sense of whimsy.

basically the only thing thats been getting me thru this past 5 weeks is just, going outside. not necessarily walking just sitting, breathing in the fresh air, and looking closely at the trees. when i sit outside without any distraction its impossible for me to deny that the magic is alive, objectively it is always there it extends far beyond me or any personal problem i have, it is going to outlive me. it comforts me so much to inhale the outdoors its the coping mechanism i've returned to again & again since childhood. i love feeliing like im so small im just nothing. yea i feel like shrooms cld b really nice rn..

grief is hell but its necessary because it taught me how to enjoy whats good.... the cycle will always keep spinning & the warm feelings will always return. from being an old person who been thru it so many times i trust that now. have u ever met a greedy rich person before? they have everything handed to them so they've never learned what it means to appreciate life. they're never satisfied because they don't know true despair or loss. this is not all rich ppl some still have perspective but its a thing w some, we all kno its a thing. for me it really has served my soul to go through so much pain & lose all control. Now i see every peaceful silent "boring" moment as true bliss. i dont rly need anything anymore , imo that is how death transforms & elevates

ofc it dont happen over night and u really do have to let yourself cry it out. let yourself wallow , feel pity for yourself like you would feel pity for a child who came crying into your arms. comfort yourself, get it all out dont try to hide from it. slowly the tides will turn. things will begin to stand out to you, little beauties you never noticed before. the simple things..they mean so much more once u have experienced true terror. i pray very much for your heart to heal anon ❤️‍🩹 the whimsy will return to u i can tell by the way u want it for yourself & others. U can be a guide to them thru your actions. ilu im here for u just dont give up 🌷 pmd9

[icannotgetoverbirds]

it takes a village

tbh this could be put to music, if someone wants to then maybe I'll sing it, but apparently im not half-bad at writing songs so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Wildfire

the dragon beast burned our shit i grabbed on and didn't let go you and me, we fought against it until it was no more

and oh we were so tired exhausted, wiped out, just done and i think about how im wired wasn't this supposed to be fun?

so tell me, my dear love why oh why is it happening again raining from the maw above and what did we do then?

I said, well maybe, it's time for a burn Maybe there's a better way, maybe we need to learn You said 'you're on your own, kid, and this is your fault, so" hum idk

Chorus:

Get it together, man Get outta this house Pull your head from the sand Practice what you espouse

Maybe you need some help Ain't that what family is for Too bad they won't scruff this whelp Cause they're just too damn poor

End chorus

So you worked and worked and worked and I rested i guess way too much "Dontcha know god's labor's never shirked? You should be doing as such"

Beholden to no god except each other Beholden to the safety of my mother What do you do when home's not home What do you do when you're alone?

Chorus:

Get it together, man Get outta this house Pull your head from the sand See what you espouse

Maybe you need some help Ain't that what family is for Too bad they won't carry this whelp Cause they're just too damn poor

End chorus

So home was a house again Never to return, I hope I went through some real shit then God, what a tired trope

Traffic's no place to play, you know Better than that sad place, though I saw the mountains, close enough To walk up to them, sure it'd be tough

bridge:

It'd be worth it It's all been worth it This world wants me dead the people want me alive it's just like i said i can't work a nine to five (right now i hate being right)

new chorus:

I got something going, man I'm outta house My head's a bit fogged and well, at least there's no louse

I'm getting some good help Aint that what family is for The world's gotta carry this old whelp Now that he's damn poor

end chorus and song(?)

anyways maybe i could add more to the end of it but it already feels pretty long. could also do some editing in general but here y'all go lmao

[m0e-ru]

I meant to send this yesterday buy Forgot but it's 3/20 for me now (yay :3) I actually had something else to say but got up writing this ask and that thought left sooo please any new thought for your au :3? Please say as much as you want, I would like to hear it the stage is yours!

hey ahhh I love okyakusan I love enablers . im going to be the most annoying person on this soapbox. also literally rewriting this because I lost the note this was in like I said not writing it in Tumblr post would be a better idea OH WELL ! I was just spouting nonsense there anyway what was I talking about. ohh right my Adachi rightt right….

The thing with Adachi and how he’s kept me up at nights is how much there is to do with him. In this case with gsaslau, he’s not just “empty,” he’s “emptied”

While I write like there’s a million subplots going on simultaneously in this au (which is. right) the thing about Adachi being the central character somewhat is because of his bond with Mim and what that means for everyone’s Gas Station Attendant Social Link

If we did consider myth, then yeah, we have Izanagi and Izanami; Souji and Marie, Adachi and well. Yeah.

There is significance to each other’s life by the motif of this myth alone. Not even being specific if they’re family, friends, lovers, or adversaries, because it could be that secret third thing (‘you have more than three options’ yeah I know that)

Mim and Adachi’s relationship is so special in a way that it’s like that Tumblr post it’s like. It’s like this

God’s goal of their social experiment was there to truly determine what humans wanted. Sure, they were born out of the desire to veil the truth and accept more palatable blissful lies, but they went out of their way to confirm that and see if humans had the strength to see past it all and live their lives in truth as they’d always been.

Choosing three human individuals with the qualities at the end of the spectrum and the in-between: to be full of Hope, or full of Despair, or to be nothing but a swirling black hole of Emptiness.

That Izanami tried to push the limits of these qualities as well. How far can Hope be hopeful before falling to despair. Can that of Despair actually stand on his own to feet and be hope for everyone else. Can Emptiness… not be empty.

Izanami saw a literal blank slate enter Inaba. Not anybody who’s lived in Inaba their entire life (Namatame), not anybody who’s returned to Inaba to live their life (Souji). God peeked inside a man’s hollow heart and decided to fill it. Besides taking the most convenient human occupation for that moment, the attendant may as well have come out of that mold and was there to be everything Adachi needed. Trimming out any excess, filling up bubbled spots, polishing everything here and there as time went by. Having to be there for the other pawns they want to keep a close eye on and changing and adapting like a clay doll, remolded and and reshaped to their will, but otherwise staying the same to the mold it first came out from.

Until the imperfections couldn’t be hidden. The fog was seeping, the maggots were crawling, the rot was wafting, the scars were showing. But there should be more to an attendant than working at the gas station, right? Let him have wishes to take care of his home. Never figure out where he goes when it’s not raining. Don’t ask for his name but rather know him by all the things he talks about that is everything but anything about him.

God just made a puppet just enough for the humans they needed to get close to. And what if the self-sabotaging man says he doesn’t like idiots, maybe that’s exactly what he needs. What if he needs someone so much that isn’t like him that he can just be himself. What if he needs something to take care of because he can’t take care of himself. Give him something he’s good at doing and he’ll do it. Give him someone who won’t care what he’s doing and just enjoy him for the person he is. Then take it all away just to see how empty he can get.

What’s worse than being having nothing the whole time—actually having something and now you lose it? What’s the point of learning to love having never loved before then all if it’s taken from you? Why be filled to the brim from a half empty glass only to be tipped over and have your heart spill all over the floor? Was it just better to be empty the whole time, or be emptied from being so full?

Mim literally had a Teddie moment and said “wow I’ll make something so loved and appreciated just so I can stay close to the things I need to monitor” then fucking realized “hey I like it this way actually maybe bonds are a good thing.” Then they remember they have a fucking JOB to do and they’re like “ohh just kidding im a fucking monster they won’t love the real me anyway (god)” and do a Marie and take everyone’s memories of them— the attendant. Because they don’t just want to make a separate sentient being of the identity they just accepted was their own self. If there was going to be an attendant, it would be them. But since they can’t be there, then there’s also no attendant to keep these memories and hearts occupied.

They ran away hoping to cut off all their bonds so people won’t regret associating with a monster, leaving a bunch of people with botched memories and holes in their lives. And they did a really bad job at cleaning up, that there are people who are still chasing after them because these people care. And they don’t WANT these people to pursue the truth because they’ll be so disappointed. Mim ends up trying to erase themself entirely so there’s nothing to chase. The world would be so free and pristine and clear of their influence because they’re gone DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU

Mim saw Adachi and said “how can I stay close to this fucking miserable man who I need to use to stimulate this city and get the results I need” then subsequently poured themself into a mold of the emptiness in his heart and out came the attendant. Look at this guy who’s so stupid, who’s an actual idiot, a prettyboy who knows nothing about the outside world, who has a skull so thick and a humor so odd. Literally everything Adachi isn’t—but that was the point. Bitch just interpreted the emptiness inside him and filled him and now they’re fucking worsties besties it’s ridiculous. This is what watching chair car adventure 100000000000 times does to a motherfucker

Mim’s stupid foggy attendant body starts literally melting in the summer heat. Anxious that people would call them out, but being sympathized with and being told they’re just not good in the heat, like other humans. Getting callouses so rough and actually bleeding from a cut on their finger when they thought fog would just seep out. Putting their hand in in their mouth and actually tasting the oil and wax they’ve been working with the whole time. Getting so hot or laughing so hard they actually get flushed until the tips of their ears. Wondering if the maggots crawling in their body made their way out, when the beetles they found in Namatame’s truck made their way into their sleeves and scuttle away. That maybe they didn’t smell like burnt rot, but rather car exhaust and gasoline and tomato juice they spilled on their pants. That maybe when they pull back their sleeves or look under their shirt it could be skin with lungs breathing and a heart beating rather than decaying flesh hanging off of bone.

Adachi learning how to open his heart to things and let things inside, while a puppeteer stops puppeteering and their smiles actually hurt their face because they can’t stop. Both becoming more human again in their own ways, the other quite literal. Both running away and sabotaging themselves for the sake of the people and the home they learned to love, neglecting to love themselves. I’ve made them both so alike it’s sickening even to me but it’s so fun I have dolls that are beaten up so much I drive their faces into the ground because that’s how I play with dolls and have fun SORRYY

And this is how they are best friends. Which is an essay that is just as badly structured but still expresses what I want to say probably. I lied actually. There’s more than one, but still.

THE two skits in visualive that matter so much to me https://m0e-ru.tumblr.com/post/690320733390471168/stopping-myself-here-but-i-hope-its-a-well-known

ESSAY 1 https://m0e-ru.tumblr.com/post/664354915309764608/you-dont-understand-how-much-chair-car-adventure

ESSAY 2 ✌️ft. more adachi I think https://m0e-ru.tumblr.com/post/667202694005587968/please-by-all-means-make-a-post-about-adachi-and

tohru “fuck this guy in particular” adachi https://m0e-ru.tumblr.com/post/691316103200276480/yknow-if-you-were-mentally-ill-and-watched-the

adachi touchy as hell compilation https://m0e-ru.tumblr.com/post/694208373929967616/adachi-touchy-as-hell-compilation

[lemony-snickers]

hi lemony. Hoping u could take my request.

Are you in a mood for angst? it doesn't matter what the plot is. im just really looking for some angsty fics of Kakashi x fem reader.

hello, my dear.  thank you for stopping by & i hope you are doing well!  now, you sent this right after 🏳️‍🌈 anon sent this song to my inbox.  i know now they didn’t intend for this to be a request, but at the time, i thought they did.

i hope neither of you mind that i’ve combined these two into one little ditty with a gender-neutral MC.  <3

here is a link to the song in case anyone would like to listen to it.

Title:  Cursed  (AO3 Link Here) Summary:  Kakashi Hatake knows he is cursed even if not everyone can see it. Word Count:  3,344 (that includes the lyrics and i’m too lazy to see what it is without them as;ldfjd forgive me) Warnings:  gn!MC, mentions of suicide, references to depression and death, some suggestive language .

There's a fire in my brain and I'm burning up Oh my, oh my Keep running for the sink but the well is dry Oh my, oh my

Kakashi changes after his team falls apart.  His posture is too straight—his jaw too tight.  Even with the mask on, it’s obvious he’s always grinding his teeth.

Though he tries his best to let the cruel and cutting words roll off him—Friend-Killer, Cold-Blooded, Murderer—they settle over his skin like a painful exoskeleton of preconceived notions.  It is a comfort in some ways because he knows no one will ever bother to look beyond it.

Someone does, though, even if he doesn’t notice right away.

They don’t see him crying in the night, don’t watch him rush to the kitchen sink to scrub the persistent, imagined blood from his fingers, but they know Kakashi suffers in the wake of Rin’s death.  They visit her grave, make small offerings.  They hope seeing the evidence of someone else mourning will remind Kakashi he is not alone.

He sees the flowers over Rin’s name and feels alone anyway.

Every word I say is kindling But the smoke clears when you're around Won't you stay with me, my darling When my walls start burning down, down, down?

Kakashi is too good at what he does—too precise and neat and dedicated to his craft.  It might be a more admirable trait if his trade were not plied in violence.  He buries himself in it, dives elbow-deep into the viscera of his enemies just so he doesn’t have to remember what is waiting for him at home.

Or rather, what isn’t.

Slowly, he realizes there is a comrade who sticks a little closer, that they linger after all the reports have been filed, sit next to him in the locker room.  Their efforts pay off when his gaze begins to slide over to them increasingly often.

It’s a silent sort of companionship; the distant warmth of another shoulder or the soft clearing of a throat across the room.

Still, it anchors Kakashi a little on the worst of days.  He lashes out at them sometimes, cutting words flung like kunai across a hallway when they stand a little close.

But they only smile in response and hope the fog in his brain lifts a little at the edges.

This house says my name like an elegy Oh my, oh my Echoing where my ghosts all used to be Oh my, oh my

Kakashi knows he can’t stay here.  He sleeps in the barracks more often than his own bed already, which leaves plenty of fodder for gossip.  But there are ghosts in the Hatake Estate and he is tired of trying to outrun them.  No matter where he sleeps, they creep in between the crevices, the cracks in the wood.

Always find him.

So he shutters his childhood home, as if he is winterizing a vacation house.  He has no plans to return to it, no reason to ever go back.

He finds a bare-bones apartment, a single room with space enough for a large bed.  He needs it so the dogs will have a place to sleep when he summons them in the night, when the terror seizes his chest and he wakes clutching at a pounding heart, afraid he is about to die.

He knows he won’t, though; dying would be far too great a mercy for a man like Kakashi.

And he’s always received plenty of attention.  Men and women offering to keep his bed warm by his side, to provide some much-needed relief on extended missions.

He turns most of them down.  But the one he doesn’t is a mistake because this person knows him too well, knows when he is hiding.  They’ve been standing too close for years and they keep looking at him.

Now they draw maps across his body with their teeth like they are marking him.

Like he is theirs even if they know he will never allow them such a claim.

It is a dangerous thing, Kakashi knows, to think you belong to another person.

Other people die.  They break.

But they promise him they won’t—that they are strong enough to withstand whatever agony he might thrust upon them.  It doesn’t stop him from trying, though.  His words are cruel, his actions sometimes more so.  But every time he returns from a mission, they crawl into bed beside him and allow him to take his fill without complaint.

They hold him afterward, kiss his temple, even though they know come morning, he will shove them away.

Kakashi doesn’t dream so much when he’s with them.  It’s almost as if they know a secret for keeping the ghosts at bay.

There's still cobwebs in the corners And the backyard's full of bones Won't you stay with me, my darling When this house don't feel like home? When this house don't feel like home?

Despite his best efforts, the apartment never feels like home.  In desperation, Kakashi returns to the Hatake Clan’s farmhouse searching for that feeling of belonging somewhere he has missed for so long.

The floors are dusty, the closest ruled by spiders, each room achingly empty.

He stands in the place where he found his father’s body, curls his toes against the tatami mats, so fresh and new compared to those around them.  He knows if he lifts them up, there will be a dark stain in the wood beneath that he could never quite scrub out.

And he wonders if one day his fate might be the same.  If he remains so untethered to his life, will he return here to find peace and purpose in a blade?

After he leaves the house, he takes an unfamiliar path through Konoha.

It is the first time he visits another person’s bed.  Though their body is second nature to him, now, the surroundings are strange.  It’s exhilarating and beautiful—like a vacation from his existence, even if it is only a single evening.

They are surprised when he climbs through the window.  This person who has followed him for so long, waited patiently for him, given of themselves to him without receiving anything in kind—they jump when he steps onto their floor.

But in an instant, their shock fades to elation and then concern.

“Is everything okay?”

It isn’t, but he nods.  “Fine,” he says, closing the distance slowly; like a predator.  His gaze is intense, both pupils tracing the lines of their face as he approaches.

“How did you know where I live?”

He wants to laugh.  Admit he’s known for years where to find them at any given moment; they are like a beacon—a landmark he cannot escape even when he wants to.

Kakashi isn’t sure he wants to anymore.

He never answers their question, knows that doing so would reveal too much of his own feelings.  Instead, he squeezes the last centimeters of air from between their bodies and claims the feeling of belonging he has so desperately been searching for without remorse.

They are more than happy to oblige.

Oh ashes, ashes, dust to dust The devil's after both of us Oh, lay my curses out to rest Make a mercy out of me

Kakashi should have known his penance would come in the form of flesh.  The children assigned to him—the delicate lives balanced on his palms—reflect so acutely back at him.

Obito, Itachi, Minato-sensei, even Rin.

The ghosts are back, he realizes.  He never should have expected to outrun them forever.

He throws himself forcibly into the role of teacher.  He’s not very good at first, but he thinks he finds his footing eventually.

And after a long, cold while, there is warmth in his bed again—that same familiar person drawing maps.  He tells them in a post-coital haze one night that he is cursed.  That the eyes of Sasuke and Naruto, Sakura’s misplaced optimism, are his penitence for failing those who came before.

“That isn’t true,” they whisper, “you don’t owe anyone your contrition, not even the dead.”

He shrugs them off, then, even as they try to drag him back under the haze, under the blankets.  But he showers instead, tells them gruffly they should be gone before he’s done.

They have never denied Kakashi anything he’s asked of them, and this time is no different.

When Kakashi walks back into the bedroom to find it empty—their clothes gone from the floor, shoes no longer by the door—he is disappointed.

As their scent fades in the cool night air, drifting lazily out his open window, Kakashi realizes he should have asked them to stay.  Knows they would have if he had.

Maybe he is not cursed after all, he thinks, maybe he is the curse.

This tired old machine is a-rumbling Oh my, oh my Singing songs to the secrets behind my eye Oh my, oh my

He pushes them away.  How could he not?

Kakashi has failed in every role he’s ever taken—student, commander, son, friend, sensei.  How could he risk also falling short of lover?

It’s unfair, and so he stops playing coy with his distance.  Instead of feigning disinterest, he shoves it at them.  They arrive at his door and he slams it closed so quickly it hits their nose.  He avoids their gaze when he sees their black eyes the next day, but they still wave at him.  Still smile in his direction.

Subtle, heartfelt promises that everything is okay.

Kakashi does not understand why.

He wants to apologize, to hold their face between his hands and tell them it was an accident.  Yes, he meant to close the door, but he was too distracted to realize they’d taken a step forward.

It’s just another example of his curses; everyone who gets close to him is lying unawares in the path of a tsunami.  His disastrous lack will drown them one day.

They don’t mind treading water while they wait for him to be ready.

Kakashi watches Naruto disappear off with Jiraiya, pushes Sakura to train with Tsunade, and allows Gai to lose himself in his students.  All while he himself retreats from the bonds he’s forged.  He is cruel to his comrades so they will no longer invite him out for drinks after a mission.  He keeps his window closed so no one will appear in it uninvited, asking if they can climb into bed next to him as they have countless times before.

And they recognize the distance for what it is—the grieving of a broken man—but they do not push.  They watch him carefully from a distance, as they once did, content to keep a watchful eye out for any changes; to return to his side the moment he requires it.

Kakashi summons his ninken when he sleeps and they crowd around him, lie over his chest.  It’s suffocating, but familiar.  A comfort against the ceaseless darkness of his dreams.

The sharingan remembers everything it has ever seen, and it replays his failures in cruel clarity.  Even those events for which he did not yet possess the eye seem to rewind themselves behind his lids as he sleeps, a blistering montage of the worst moments of his life.

There are someone else’s flowers on Rin’s grave.  He sweeps them off and crushes the blooms underfoot.

Still, they bring more flowers and lay them over the stone.  Say a prayer for the living as well as the dead.

All my aching bones are trembling And I may yet fall apart Won't you stay with me, my darling When the war starts in my heart? When the war starts in my heart?

Kakashi is prepared to die in the war.  Part of him, he thinks, might welcome such a thing.  The hope that he will not have to endure any more losses, that perhaps he can sacrifice himself to save the students he has failed so miserably, pushes him forward.  Soothes his anxiety.

And so does the familiar whisper of a voice against his ear one evening as they prepare their battle plans.

The invitation he offers in return which is accepted.

They have waited so long for him to be ready and even if it’s only a brief moment, they leap at the opportunity.

Their body is warm and familiar, their teeth just as demanding and sharp as they have ever been.  And Kakashi gives himself over to them, seeks his pleasure only distantly.  What he really needs, tonight of all nights, is someone to hold him afterward; guard him against the approaching dawn.

He doesn’t say this, of course.  Instead, his hands are rough and his voice level when he says, “Just this once.  Just in case this is the end.”

“Of course,” they say, “this can’t happen again.”

He groans, pushing forward, forcing them down onto the mattress beneath him.  They welcome his weight with a chorus of sighs, pulling him close.

Kakashi knows they are right—they both are.  There are so many reasons this is a mistake.  He does not need another person relying on him, cannot stand the idea of letting yet another precious person down.  But their voice makes him shiver, and the way their hands smooth over his body so lovingly stirs something primal in him; some need to be cared for.  To love.

They try to carve their affection into his skin—like the bruises and lines left by their nails might be enough to make Kakashi finally accept that he is worthy of them.  They tell him how good it feels to be with him again and every word is a sacred truth.

Kakashi smothers the instinct to be soft and buries himself in lies as well as their body, takes what he can while giving so little it is a miracle they can take from him at all.

They find plenty to take for themselves, even if Kakashi does not realize it.  He is more open here than anywhere else, more readable.  Every word he’s never uttered with his mouth is said with his body, read clearly in his eyes.  But they know he is not ready for the things he can’t say, so they keep those secrets closely guarded, even from their originator.

And after, they kiss his temple and run their fingers through his hair.  He tells them he is a curse and they laugh, the sound vibrating against Kakashi’s ear from somewhere deep in their chest.

“If that’s true, Kakashi, then I’m happy to be cursed.”

They shouldn’t be, but he’s glad.

Oh ashes, ashes, dust to dust The devil's after both of us Oh, lay my curses out to rest Make a mercy out of me

Kakashi reels in the weeks and months following the war.  The revelation of Obito, the return of Sasuke, the near-death of Gai.

It’s all too much.  He buries himself in rebuilding alliances, strengthening them.  He does not want to be made Hokage, but he knows the other options are limited and some of them are offensive.  Regardless, duty dictates he accept the position and so he does.

Besides, he thinks, it will give him purpose.  And it is clear he cannot live without something like that.  He knows without being a commander and a sensei over the preceding years, he likely would have returned to the room where his father died long ago to join him.

There is a familiar presence as he prepares for his inauguration.  Almost imperceptible to anyone but him.

Always close, but never intruding.  Ever supportive and available, but hardly seen or heard unless specifically requested.

The entire process of taking office is horrific—the false smiles and lavish dinners.  It’s everything Kakashi has never wanted.

Once he’s officially Hokage, he buries himself in paperwork to avoid meeting dignitaries as often as possible.  He works himself ragged just trying to keep his head above water.  He can’t stop thinking it should be Obito, not him, wearing the robes.

He receives a visitor one evening, someone who knows that arriving unannounced on the wrong night will invite derision.  But they do it anyway because it’s obvious how exhausted he is, how much he has denied himself the rest he needs.

The same person who watched Kakashi grind his teeth after Rin died watches him do the same beneath the heavy brim of the Rokudaime’s hat and they know they must intervene on his behalf.

“Hokage-sama?”

Their voice is like honey dripping into tea—smooth and sweet.  When he looks up from the budget reports he’s been glaring at for half the day, Kakashi finds a familiar figure standing before his desk with takeout in hand.

“Did I request a meeting?” he asks, genuinely baffled and assuming he did but forgot about it.

They only let the apparent rebuff glance off one shoulder before they recover fully.  “No, Sir, but I thought maybe you could use some company.”

It starts like that—begins again, really.  They share late-night meals and swap conversation.

Slowly, Kakashi starts expecting their visits without feeling guilty for doing so.

And they, in turn, start looking forward to them without feeling selfish.

One night, they go home together.  And then every night after, they do the same.

Kakashi watches his students forge their paths, find happiness in their families and fulfillment in their careers.  He watches Sasuke make as many amends as he is able, and hopes that will be enough.

Gai recovers as well as he can and even a crippled leg cannot stop him from seeing only the best in the world around him; even the loss of Neji does not dull his enthusiasm for long.  Because he has always known there are always other students to support, other friends in need of his boundless love.

Kakashi thinks for the first time maybe home does not have to be a place without ghosts.  Maybe with enough help, he can learn to live amongst them.

Oh ashes, ashes, dust to dust Tell me I am good enough Oh, lay my curses out to rest Make a mercy out of…

Us.

It’s a strange word, still; heavy and awkward on Kakashi’s tongue when he says it.  But slowly growing more familiar as he uses it in his daily life.

“I’ll pick up groceries for us on the way home.”

“Gai invited us to dinner.”

“Naruto has asked us to watch Himawari.”

Every time he says something mundane about the life they have managed to build together, his partner beams.  They know it has been a difficult road; that life handed Kakashi a harsh path to follow.

That he has done so and chosen them to remain at his side as he continues to brush the cobwebs of his past away from his periphery, is a feat worthy of every accolade.  Never something to be taken for granted.

The house Kakashi grew up in slowly fills with new memories.  And though the ghosts never truly leave, they quiet themselves a little.  Perhaps that is because Gai’s voice is loud enough to drown them out, or maybe because there seems to always be a shoulder next to Kakashi’s radiating warmth instead of a deathly chill.

Either way, the house changes and he is glad he’s given it another chance.

As they lie next to Kakashi, they turn to look at him in the deepening dark.

“Do you still feel like you’re cursed?” they ask.

Kakashi isn’t sure how to answer.  Doesn’t know for certain whether the curse of him could ever really be lifted.

But they are here, beside him, so even if it’s still there, it feels a little lighter.

He kisses their temple the way they do for him when he wakes from a nightmare.  He never answers aloud, but they understand what he wants them to.  And they are happy to spend the rest of their days proving to Kakashi Hatake that he is not a cursed man.

[heliianth]

omg return of the king (HTTYD FIC!!!!!!!) 🌟🌟

ya!!! i cant promise anything man i dont even know if ill add anything but like . im thinking abt it yanno? anyway. uh. the wip (its long be warned). becuz i luh u <3 <3

When escaping the circle of midnight sun, usually waiting for the melt was the most tedious part. The sky hung grey with slow day, clouds of snow-fog blanketing his ship with frost. Though winter was slowly releasing her grip, this far north still felt her fingers, long and bloodless. Under his boots cracked a thin layer of ice.

They made this journey annually, at the peak of Cockoo’s Month. Their ship pioneered past razored ice sheets and an ever-fluctuating landscape of bergs as they were swept south by cold ocean currents. Lantern light reflected against their dark surfaces, waning like so many little moons, a great blanket of manmade stars. This crew was used to plodding around during the forever morning, the sun a constant overhang and daytime an insidious cloak. Lesser men’s heads might ache with pervading sunlight and their cheeks grow feverish with sickness. If the sleep deprivation didn’t rot the mind, it was the calls of unreachable Seashockers and Northern Scauldrons as they fought in pods underneath the ice. And if it wasn’t them, it was the already captured dragons, whose rest cycles were so disrupted that attempted sleep was always accompanied by a cacophony of bellowing. 

By design, their single ship, Skinfaxi, was meant to withstand it all; both the fragile mind and their conditions. A tall, bulky seamaiden with a metal hull and winches anchored to the deck by foot-long nails, she held them over while they trudged around the outskirts of dragon territory. Her three floors, each connected by worn stairs, were dark and humid enough to soften sores in frostbitten nostrils, and her cargo bay was stuffed with mead and exotic seasonings which flavored even the driest jerky. Every vulnerable part was plated with expensive dragonproof metal and while they rarely encountered dragonroot arrows in markets, they used stockpiles wisely. Skinfaxi hadn’t been so much as grazed by a dragon in at least a decade. 

Dragon hunting was a southern trade, down near the floor of the archipelago, where nests teemed with fuckers of all kinds to net and cage. Hunting brigades never travelled into the midnight sun circle—populations tended to die further north than that and the rough waters were too much for the convoys usually employed by contractors. Dragon territory only started up here if you went way past what sane people would consider safe, but Briger had earned him and his men a small fortune offering to net here. When you arrived at that sweet spot, where the sea gave way into an actual continent instead of miles of walkable ice and seal holes, the breeds grew big and the yield became bountiful. 

Despite their competency, Briger and Skinfaxi were used to being looked over. His crew, mostly consisting of family and family’s friends, were from poor fishing villages beset by raids, whose ancestors were no-names and whose yellow, crooked teeth hid behind yellow-frosted beards. They bet on Gris games and bit their nails bloody and smelled like sweat and dirt. At least a few men had replaced limbs, thick, untranslatable accents, and bastards running around somewhere at home. They were not esteemed and shaven like southmen, but they got the job done well enough. 

Briger held pride in his work, his ship, his men. They were a reliable service and got reliable results. Sometimes contractors would specify something outrageous just to be difficult, but their cages housed everything from Snow Wraiths to Stormcutters and all came back in nice enough condition to be marketable. Their reputation was contained but good, and Briger was seeing wealth the likes of which Daddy never could’ve imagined hadn’t he been drunk off his ass before he kicked it. Now, he could even afford to be stingy with who he dealt with. Who would’ve thought? 

Still, Briger knew when to haggle and when to be hired. 

Right before Briger planned to make his annual trek, a bear-furred man with a large, tattooed underbite docked in the Northern Markets. His was a recognizable presence and his convoy was ill with riches; the frequents tittered about his arrival in a way that piqued Briger’s interest. Apparently, the bear man’s hunting business was renowned down south. Briger might’ve invited him to a drink had he not thundered towards him first with a small army in tow. 

Sporting a healthy sense of self-preservation, Briger accepted the rate he was offered like a flogged woman without an ounce of backchat. And when the nutjob uttered his request, face red with sweat and his fingers black with the gnawing linger of ice, Briger knew that he’d done something to make the gods mad. 

He fully expected him and his crew to drown in the northern ice sheets looking for a crazy man’s myth. 

======

The melt took almost a month; dangerously close to moonrise. In northern dragon territory, that was not good, to put it lightly. To be caught out on the snow the minute the midnight sun went down was a death sentence, and Briger’s crew narrowly missed it the minute a wide channel cleared in the ice. By the time the frost on the wood melted, the ship was so noisy with dragon crying that Briger had forgotten the sound of his own thoughts. They quieted right up by the time night came—real night, that would end in at an appropriate time instead of overstaying six months. 

The Northern Markets were a constant landmark; a misty silhouette on the horizon. Briger couldn’t help but observe what they were bringing into port, more self-conscious than he’d been in his life. Their emblazoned sails were hoisted high, oars lined in piles against the deck railing. The dragon cages had been pulled to the side, blanketed in soaked extra sail cloth, to keep their accursed eyes from staring and their fire down. 

The weather these past few days had been abysmal; the air down here wasn’t what could be described as wet, but it was right tropical compared to the ice sheets, and that meant sleet storms pulled through every few days. It had given him a few bloody noses, which he’d rubbed raw enough to hurt in every inhale. But Briger couldn’t mind it. His fingers could already feel the coin. 

“These requirements are gods-damned ‘bleedin us,” Svend groused from beside him. His breath wheezed the tiniest bit, and he pulled down his hood to separate his greasy hair from his forehead. “We’re gonna lose more than we’re getting, boss.”

“Nah.” Briger’s fidgety, itchy hands were worn from cloth-pulling and rope-rubbing, and a few of his callouses bled from pinching. He looked down at Svend’s, the exposed of which was decorated with an angry bite mark. “Little shit got you good, didn’t ‘e?” 

Svend displayed it with a deep scowl. “The sagefruit ain’t work, if that’s what you’re asking.”

A wave rocked the boat, blew salty spray on board and into their mouths. Briger wiped his, stroked his spittled beard and tucked it under his elbows. “On the savage or the dragon?” 

“The fuck you think?” Svend rubbed it with his other gloved hand, making a face that looked like he’d eaten something expired. His crooked pinky stuck out sideways with a pink flush and his teeth were still spotted with tack and his nose flared with indignance. 

“Well, put ‘somethin on it if it’s making you so sour,” Briger told him. 

“We got other problems too, man,” Svend raved with a peculiar petulance. He was usually a casual man, with a habit of gambling and a hobby for pissing self-important knobheads off and getting his face smeared for it. He was an adrenaline seeker and usually lived for scraps. Not with their new catch, apparently. “Thing ‘won drink, ‘won eat. Smart enough to figure it all out after the dragon passed out. Like a mangy dog with twice the fight in ‘et.” 

“The thing’ll starve if it don’t eat,” Briger gestured with a hand, like he was showing off an array of plated food options in front of him. “Et’ll get taken care of in shipping. Eret’s got a contractor, ‘member?” 

“Bo tried knocking ‘em out to treat the tag and came back with his tail between his legs. ‘Yer guy’s gonna get a fucking finger taken off.” Again, Svend showed him the bite. He’d been gotten deep, and it looked like there’d been a struggle. They’d likely thrashed each other and both of them probably regretted that. “I mean it, this was a bad call. We’re mucking around in bad shit.”

Skinfaxi’s sharp bow parted the fog. The Market loomed despite their distance. Already he could taste it—“We’re gonna draw a crowd,” he hummed absentmindedly.

“‘Brig,” Svend insisted, laying his gloved hand on his shoulder. Briger shrugged him off, callous. “C’mon. I know ‘yer smelling gold, but this is my whole life.”

“What, you got a wife and daughter?”

“Don’t say that shit,” Svend sneered. The bite mark he was once nursing like a mother was suddenly unimportant enough for his hands to curl into fists. “You’re just scared of Eret and you’re scared of ‘givin this to ‘em.”

If Briger were more arrogant than he was, he might’ve taken him up on the aggression and knocked another one of Svend’s teeth loose. As it happened, they parted before either of them could get pissy enough to escalate further. They’d have a nice long drink of cheap market wine and this would be forgotten by the morning, Briger thought, then they’d get back to normal once they offhauled. He would never see Eret or his southern business again. 

Briger spent his time at Skinfaxi’s bow, leaning over the whorling ocean with a creased brow, as they approached that island speck. The tip and sway of the water was that of a cradle, his men’s hollering as they made landfall a lullaby. But as the island grew bigger, the colors vivid, idea erupting into true destination, the Market became so much more daunting. If before it loomed, now it threatened. What small vessels usually circled for precious space were absent, and the entire place exuded the same haunt as the ice wastes they’d just escaped. Something was amiss, and not a moment sooner Briger spotted why. 

A dozen or so warships awaited them, much too oversized for the Market’s harbor, which was merchant-crafted and merchant-minded. Each was massive, with armor that reflected what meager sunlight aimed true and gleaming ballistas which faced like spines outwards. Their masts waved high in the air and their sigil was one Briger had never seen before, painted bright red. 

His face paled and he threw himself into preparing to dock, throwing down the anchor furthest away from the sea tanks. Skinfaxi rocked into a halt. Her sails folded, her rigging slack. The captive dragons lowed and screeched, recognizing the place’s smell. 

Briger watched his men dive below deck. He stayed above and searched, skittish for their man. 

Eret met them punctually. He was with his same bearskin and his combed hair that looked far too princely for such a brutish face shape. He was stained with shadow; the man wasn’t big, but he filled his space well enough, and yet he was dwarfed when compared to…

Briger froze. 

When compared to his companion. 

If Eret drew eyes, this man was so immense that he dragged everything around him into a vortex. His hair hung in dreads across his expansive shoulders and his two exposed arms displayed flesh thick with muscle and as wide as tree trunks. He was a brick of a man, armed to the teeth, and Briger recognized him on impact. 

Oh gods, how he wished they’d been stuck in the moonrise back up north. He’d thought he’d won back his life by the skin of his teeth, but dying out there would’ve been quicker and kinder. Even though Briger was not a particularly religious man, he found himself praying as he forced his arms to lower the ramp. The greeting sound of it against the harbor was an explosion that threatened to take off his head. Then, feeling choked, he stumbled down it like a drunkard. 

Usually dragon hauls attracted the attention of the whole market. Northern breeds were exotic and dangerous, and sometimes buyers would take days to arrive, leaving the beasts on display next to the ships where onlookers could gaggle at them and make hunters preen. Auctions were held and often fighting rings swept by to advertise or invest. To say the Northern Market oozed with dragon addicts would be an understatement. But to have it so silent was unheard of. 

He couldn’t tell if the arrival of their cargo or the presence of Eret’s previously anonymous contractor was what shut the seabirds and gossips up. Even the dragons up top were utterly noiseless. 

The top of their cargo became visible, then the whole thing, metallic teal warps standing out against so much wooden brown and neutral steel. The cage’s wheels squealed, rusty from melted frost, and it bumped along the ramp and clattered when it went horizontal. Bo and Ulf pushed it with their backs and shoulders, unwilling to stick their fingers in there for even a moment. 

Though the reek of sagefruit still clung to every inch of it, the Night Fury inside was very much awake. Its wings were spread for balance, making the thing look like it filled out the whole oversized box. Its ears turned, radars picking up nothing, its teeth bared at everything. Half of its delicate tail fin had been torn by the grapple; the combination of sharp metal meant for traction and the thing’s sheer velocity a recipe that led to damage. It was a nasty wound, with leftover gore, though they cauterized and fixed up what they could to make sure it didn’t die on them. And despite the fact that its hurting tail was lashing and making a racket of the bars, its attention remained single-minded, tongue flicking between those razors like it was imagining the taste of flesh. 

And between its legs, spine arched against its belly, was the thing’s little devil-boy. He wore a new bruise on his jaw which was framed by strands of greasy hair that hid a different head wound in piles of shorn clumps. His rapid, terrified breaths clouded in the air, seeped from behind his curled lip, bloody gums exposed. All in all they were an aggressive, unhappy, sorry sight. 

Briger was intimately aware of the drop of sweat carving a path down the nape of his neck. 

With an embarrassing flourish of showmanship, he presented their catch, goosebumps sending burns down his spine where the two demons pressed their hating stares into him. 

Drago Bludvist appraised the merchandise indifferently and sniffed. “You tagged them.”

pretend this is a new chapter woooo yippeee yay ^-^

Hvergelmir gurgled spring water from the depths of the south. From it spilled the eleven rivers Elivagar into the vast nothingness and their venom congealed into slush, hardened by void’s touch. Rimed with sour venomous dribble, layers of ice and hoarfrost created a frozen, biting realm in the Ginnungagap: a great and desolate Niflheim.

Lurgy Island was shaped like a pillbug, low to sea level, and sloped. The east side tapered off into a pebbled beach littered with debris and the west side ended in a dropoff from which an inconsiderate man might fall to death from, body brutalized by the invisible rocks underneath the whitewater. It was guarded by natural barriers made of wind-sharpened stones that threatened to gore passing ships, and small whirlpools formed in the sea shelf that marked the abrupt edge of Lurgy’s shallow coast. It was far enough south that Skadi kept her snow for the winter months, but high enough north to be considered part of the Barbaric Archipelago. 

Lurgy, the hamlet for which the island was named, consisted of just over a hundred living in only a handful of timber longhouses. When a Lurgy man married, his wife’s family would move into his place, so you could be forgiven for thinking the amount of houses entirely inadequate for even such a small number of people. 

Despite their awkward economic position and geographical hazards, the people of Lurgy found the island was inundated with rain-watered soil rich enough to grow crops. They made their living exchanging barley, rye, and oats with the northmen whose islands were rankled by ice and forests. They managed a port twice the size of the village with imported wood and had a proud and longstanding, tight-knit community that valued hard work and occasionally indulged in humble luxury.

It was just over Lurgy’s hundredth winter when Randi Tovesdottir, who’d grown up in the quiet village her whole life, decided staying any longer was utterly unbearable. 

Winters past marrying age, Randi’s disposition drove away the few men her age that might’ve been willing. Any suitors her family tried to cajole into her were already brothers, or knew far too many embarrassing stories for her ego to withstand. Randi was a seamstress’ daughter with a lumberjack’s build who knew her way around an axe and a needle. She handled both with grace yet enjoyed neither, with a plaintive sort of restlessness that beguiled a trapped thing.

To put it simply, she thought she was uncontainable. Her voice was loud and brash, she towered over her childhood friends, and the skills her father introduced her to were sharpened until she believed herself invincible. By age eight she’d explored the whole island with an obsessiveness that only predators hunting down a kill could replicate. Around the age of her first bleed, she began to find the smell of their hearth intolerable, the chatter of her parents incessant, the generous spaces between longhouses confining. Every gentle prod about growing up was a deeply troublesome reminder of something undefinable to everyone but Randi herself. She was claustrophobic in the extreme. For a girl in Lurgy, these things boiled over into tense, sleepless nights after a collage of colorful arguments about her place in life. Truly Lurgy occupied a special place in her heart, the way only homes could, but she had a habit of running eastward and gazing out at the horizon. Her mother, Tove, called her dreams unfathomably big, but Randi believed the world was wide enough to fit all of them. So she kept casting her fishing lines towards the sun. 

And one day she caught something.

Randi was only looking for her daily aloneness she so craved on the eastern cliffs when she spotted a pair of longboats approaching them. She recognized the crest, and her eyes reflected the morning light, and she ran barefooted into Lurgy with a big grin on her face. The ships from Berk were here!

Berk was Lurgy’s biggest trade partner. And unlike many of the other islands in the Archipelago, including Lurgy themselves, they were startlingly isolated.

Randi had seen dragons before, she knew people who’d killed more than they could count on both hands. She’d taken a few herself. Lurgy was no stranger to the Dragon War. But with the Berkian longboats always came the scales and the teeth and the claws. Their village was overrun with dragons of all shapes and colors—so many they had nothing to do with their remains. It scared off any traveling merchant types, blocked trade routes, and recently there had been a rumor of a nautically-spread Berkian disease that attracted dragons to the smell of your piss. 

It was a surety that Lurgy might’ve never taken up business with them had their Chief—if you could call an ornery old man with wispy smatterings of patched blond beard and no family name who governed through age rather than any real lineage Lurgy’s Chief--not had such good relations with Berk’s own Chief. “Battle-brothers,” Aleinn called them, “forged in fiery dragon’s blood and good old tribes meeting mead.” 

The arrangement was for the betterment of both villages. Berk was so infested with dragonfire that any crops they might have tried to grow would burn up if snow didn’t smother every winter. They had enough land to grow yaks, sheep, and chickens, who ate from grass pastures and grass seed, so they were wealthy enough to buy Lurgy’s stock. In return, Lurgy bought dragon scales and teeth in droves, which were as good as coins in the North. Nadder scales were like silver, Nightmare scales like gold. To islands down south, it was an untranslatable worth and every tribe would be considered dirtily poor. Up here flourished an economy built on savage heroism. Randi couldn’t help but marvel at Berk’s collections every time they pulled in.

She cut knuckles and sliced calluses digging through the beach for seaglass, which she would painstakingly shape into ornaments worth Berk’s scales. She got herself a neat trade working with tool and thread to create things she was proud enough to sell, but too connected with to let go. Every time she gave up one in an exchange and watched the ships sail out to sea days later, it felt like Berk was taking little bits of her with them. 

This was especially true when she met Knat, the son of the Berkian representative that led their trade ships to Lurgy. 

When he caught her eye, Knat was not so remarkable. Every Berkian subsisted off of a protein-heavy diet which wore down their teeth and made them heavy-bodied. He was a thick, dark-haired, and short boy with a few balls of fuzz on his chin and a dense forest on his upper lip. Unbeknownst to Randi, who saw the best of his demeanor, Knat had a juvenile fascination with competition. His youth was spent one-upping his peers, jeering at stragglers, quarreling with his brother, and idolizing his father. At Randi’s age, he hadn’t shed any of these traits, only buried them underneath a generous coat of rightful humbling. By Berk standards Knat was ordinary in the extreme. His only particularly noteworthy claim to superiority at this time in his life was the fact that he was the second in line to the Hofferson clan. 

But Knat’s jaw was sharp, and his nose was strong, and his eyes were kind whenever he spoke to strangers. He had a voice that carried so far one might think it was stolen by birds, and a countenance that belied expertise handling weapons taller than grown men. These were the only things Randi, who had no idea of his familial status nor how Berk’s clans even worked, needed to fall madly in love. Without speaking to him once, she began to think of him as a representation of escape; the Berkians, with their untamed hair, masses of pelted cloaks, scars, and dragon scales were the definition of wilderness and adventure. Whatever Lurgy was, Berk was more so. And Knat was the pinnacle of it all. 

She became so preoccupied with the rugged ferality of Berk and Knat that her mother began to take notice. When she indicated she knew of Randi’s new fixation, her daughter became paralyzed. So long had she associated her hometown and those native to it with entrapment that she feared she’d be forced into an unhappy marriage and tied down forever. But Tove took the harrowing first step for her and told Knat as he was in the middle of selling boar hooves to her husband, with only the bluntness a crone could manage, “My daughter is obsessed with you.” 

At first, Knat was wary of her advances. Any other boy his age might’ve jumped at the opportunity to get involved with a young, reasonably pretty and certainly skilled girl so interested in him, but Knat was painfully conscious of his father’s acceptance and his brother’s opinion. He was entirely occupied with appearance and his place back home, and though he began to notice Randi’s shy, sneaky stares whenever he happened over at Lurgy, he never did anything about her brewing determination to be seen. Then, two winters later, Knat gave into the preening, tingling part of his mind that told him to take a chance on something wonderful.

He worked for a month learning womanish crafts to make her a bag out of Zippleback bladder and reindeer hide she could use to put her seaglass in so she wouldn’t scrape up her hands. Despite Finn inciting vicious mockery over the image of his mountainous Viking older brother hunched over to make a poor man’s attempt at embroidery, he felt not a smidge of shame. The end result was similarly misshapen, crude, and plain, but it glowed with time and care. Then, Knat got on his knees and begged to be on the next expedition out to Lurgy. 

Their romance was young and swift. Knat indulged wholly in Randi’s ideas by spinning tales of victory in Berk’s Kill Ring and imagery of grand coniferous forests backdropped by glaciers which made mountains lopsided with weight. What she imagined of Berk’s arching landscapes and fields of sea stacks only worsened the pain in her chest. Her staring out onto the horizon became pointed northward, with a chin rested mournfully on her hand and a heaved sigh. Tove described her as a wife waiting for a husband to return from war, and she supposed that with Berk’s dragon problem, one part was true.

The other part became true soon after. Randi’s father, a gruff man with staunch worldviews that often got him into trouble with her mother, had a weak spot for his daughter and found no fault in Knat, who had truthfully approached him last quarter to ask the same thing. That spring, Berk pulled into Lurgy’s docks with a dowry. It wasn’t a surprise; Randi helped work on the small pen for the livestock that she’d be worth—Knat had wanted to pay more, but Lurgy didn’t have that kind of space, and the Hofferson clan didn’t want to spend that kind of wealth on a girl from a little farming village. Nonetheless, all parties were satisfied. 

The first night, the newly betrothed found themselves overwhelmed with their proximity. The cabins were cramped, the bed singular. Actually leaving home wasn’t nearly as weightless as Randi had believed. Instead her stomach rolled and her bones went numb watching Lurgy disappear. Seeking adventure, she pushed Knat down on the bed and they filled the room with sweat. Knat pulled her close, body a furnace and hands quivering. He told her they needed to get married quickly after arrival, just to be safe, because there were no contraceptive herbs on the boat. Randi cried so hard her head pounded, suddenly ill with indecision. 

On the eve of the second day on the boat, Randi caught her first glimpse of Berk. She expected to be invigorated, energized, but she couldn’t move as they swayed towards the arching, spired landscape. The growing dusk didn’t light up the sky in wonderful colors, the newborn stars didn’t shine. There was a thick miasma of storm clouds hanging onto the peak of the giant mountain which stuck out of the water like a monumental shard of ancient stone. Quilts of trees protruded from nearly every slope like hairs, and the village itself sat on a wide shelf overlooking the water, directly bathed in the struggling sunset. It stood out so harshly against the empty, ruthless ocean. It was a grand and daunting sight. After a life devoid of humbling, how could she not stare? 

Twelve days north of hopeless and only a few degrees south of freezing-to-death, floating towards her new home directly along the meridian of misery, something quenched her. Like the freezing air had erased all of her wanderlust with a gentle scrape. Under the descending night, eyes locked with her new home, Randi was now perfectly content standing still. 

======

“How are you doing?” Astrid balanced the supper tray on the nightstand and perched on the edge of the bed. Her body sank.  

Móðir reached a hewn hand toward Astrid, her face grim. “This is humiliating,” she said, and sent herself into a flurry of hoarse, grated coughing. 

“It’s not,” Astrid reached for the mug on the tray and placed it, delicate, into Móðir’s fragile fingers. She strangled it and looked at Astrid with some disbelieving derision. “I’m serious,” Astrid insisted. 

Móðir ignored her attempts to help her sit up so she could drink. The straw-stuffed pillow crunched underneath her weight, fabric crinkling. She eyed the warm milk, something contemplative coming over her, before speaking. “So there’s been luck with the yaks?” 

Knowing what she was attempting, Astrid made a motion that conveyed she’d whack the mug’s bottom and spill it if Móðir didn’t hurry up. “Just drink.” 

Móðir sighed and leaned back, tipping the mug upward. Sweat beaded down the hollow of her neck, her forehead and cheeks and nose grew rosier. The wet sheen to her hairline made her skin metal underneath the candlelight. Despite her exertion, like every convulsion of her throat threatened to strangle her, Móðir refused Astrid’s assistance. 

“I’ve also brought cheese and bread.” Astrid distracted herself by pulling the supper tray onto her lap, which pushed her into the cushioned bed even more. She’d refused to let Móðir lay on the wooden slabs they normally used for sleep, and created a huge mattress out of her own blankets and grass. 

The unfamiliar terrain made her feel ten times as heavy, especially when she looked back at Móðir and saw the way milk ran down her chin in undignified rivulets, then sprayed when she hacked into her elbow. Móðir tried to clean it away with her hands mittoned by the quilt, but Astrid recognized the shake in them.

“This is humiliating,” she repeated. 

“You’re sick,” Astrid told her. Then she held up an ugly chunk of cheese. “What sort of daughter would I be if I let you starve?”

“Oh, everyone’s getting thin nowadays,” Móðir dismissed her with a croak. Even so, she took Astrid’s offer and let the cheese melt on her tongue, bitten nails lingering on her chin as if to manually chew. Her next words were coated with spit: “The next Giving is coming up.” 

At the mention of the Givings, Astrid’s face soured. She manhandled the slices of bread and tore them into bite-sized balls with far too much force. Her jaw, clenched, refused to form words. 

Móðir inspected her. “Astrid.”

“I know,” is all she could provide. Then, to make up for it, she produced a torn slice, which her mother frowned at. “I don’t know what I’m going to put out.” 

“Well,” Móðir rolled the bread into a compact ball, thumb knuckle going white. She braced her temples with two fingers, concentrating. “What did you put out last time?” 

“An axe,” Astrid mumbled, not wanting to look her mother in the eyes, “...my axe.” 

She’d polished it for hours, until she could see her own reflection. The steel wasn’t pure, but Gobber never half-assed workmanship, and it was the best axe she had. It swung like an extension of her own arm, weighted beautiful and dangerous in her palm, the ashwood handle weathered. She won dragon training with it--she’d knocked a tooth out of the huge purple Nightmare with its blunt and killed the thing by driving the head into its neck. 

She fidgeted. Maybe the Dragon Master could smell the blood on her. Maybe that’s why he left it to collect dust outside for three days. 

All of the Hofferson clan’s Givings since she’d killed it at fifteen went unnoticed, and people in the village began to look at her sideways. Truthfully, it enraged her, and she had no desire to leave things out any longer. When the Givings started she thought it ridiculous, and now she believed it even more so, now that she could not conquer it. Rooted into her core was a deep and cantankerous sort of rebellion she’d never experienced before. What was one Giving without an offering if the Dragon Master never accepted anyway? 

“Astrid…” Móðir admonished again. The feeling of skinny, wide-jointed fingers twisted Astrid’s irate expression into exhaustion. Móðir was one such superstitious proponent; a believer in absolute destiny and holy belonging ever since she set foot on Berk. Her mouth opened and closed, partially searching for something to say and partially gasping in air like a fish. 

Astrid ripped another clump of bread from the crust. “I think the Givings are stupid.” She watched Móðir’s shifting face carefully. When she got nothing, she barreled onward. “They don’t work,” her hands clenched, “and not just for us! Not just because of me, Mamma!” She accused, “Did you know a month ago Gothi’s hut got stolen from? Even though her granddaughter’s offering worked the night before?” 

“Astrid,” she echoed, trying to sound stern with her brittle voice.  

“No!” She leapt up. The tray clattered all over the ground, bread and cheese spraying like blood from a wound. “It’s only been here three winters but everyone kowtowed immediately! What, because the merchants fear it? We’ve been dealing with dragons for centuries and now--” she grasped her tunic, sewn and modified to fit a muscular woman’s figure, cinched with the standard masculine belt for its shape. Now it hung off of her in drapes. To emphasize her point, she gestured with both of her arms to Móðir’s condition, barreling on despite her mother’s wince. “We’re thralls in our own village, Mamma! And--!” 

“I’ll make you a new one,” she interrupted. “And your father will help you pick out an offering.”

“There’s no more thread!” She waved her arms around, voice pitching. “This is insane! What happened to Vikings, Mamma?” 

Móðir’s throat bobbed when she swallowed. The mug she held on her lap, still trapping a film of milk, was easier to stare at than her face. 

Astrid turned away, rising indignation strangled by a sudden awareness of her blowsy. She was pierced by something barbed which made her feel like a child. All of that work to restore the Hofferson name after Uncle Finn, and it was useless. She’d sweated, and sacrificed, and whittled her skill into a knife’s point until there was no option left but success. Now someone else would have to work to restore the Hofferson name after her, all because some demon on the back of a Night Fury knew where to hit them the hardest. 

The last one to approach Berk had been shot down almost fifty winters ago by the Chief’s grandfather. Felled by the last dragonroot arrow from an indulgent investment, it had careened into the sea and they retrieved nothing of it. Freed of devilspawn, that summer’s was the best harvest they’d had seen, and their defenses flourished without explosions big enough to bring them down. The last five decades had been some of the most prosperous in Berk’s history, despite the uptick in raids. At least, that’s what the adults said. 

Astrid first heard the whistle when she was fourteen. She’d been on fire patrol. Fear had struck her stupid and she narrowly avoided being crushed by the southern catapult that had exploded into a fiery shower of shrapnel. For days afterwards she’d pick out splinters or discover burns she didn’t remember getting. 

After that, things started going missing. Their hunting traps broke, taken apart and dumped somewhere else, often down cliffs or into lakes, and would keep breaking even if they set new ones. Gobber’s shop, which had once been a go-to for trading items due to how much scrap it’d accumulated over his decades working there, would be ravaged. Tools and leftovers and once even a whole anvil were gone by sunrise. Their bolas were stripped of rope, their fishing boats robbed of nets. 

Astrid won dragon training in trousers so raggedy she could’ve been mistaken for an Outcast. 

One night, devoid of raids, the village woke up to resounding booms coming from the direction of the sea. Standing outside, they realized it came from the Kill Ring. Investigation yielded a chilling scene—all of their captured dragons released, the doors methodically deconstructed and then blasted into useless lumps of metal. In the soot remaining were boot soles and a single, small handprint, walking side by side with unfamiliar dragon paws.

Berk broke into hysteria. 

thats all i got :) thumbsup

[krikeymate]

dredge au again (u already know who it is): my beloved, its been entirely too long since ive written you last (my last ask was literally like four hours ago)

*grabs ur hand* no WE have made the baileys so fucked up:

Ethan begins talking about strange whispers, ‘the sea,’ he says, ‘can you hear it? listen’ Richie thinks its a load of shit, but after a restless night on the open sea, he begins to hear it.

It tells him to turn back, to leave the Chosen and her sister alone, to leave them be, and it will spare him. The sea has become generous, for now, he’s been blessed by the Collector, after all, but recently the Collector is falling out of favor with the sea.

It likes it’s new Chosen, likes the sister, as well. Likes that they respect what is theirs, and what is the sea’s. They seem to have a strange sense of intuition, the sister, especially, is quick to throw a trinket back into the sea, like she can tell what the sea wants to keep. The only thing the sea would like to know, is where Sidney Prescott is, but she, too, is gaining favor with the sea.

It is Sidney Prescott who warns them away, stuttering out what she is allowed to about the Collector. It is Sidney Prescott who warns them to be safe, to never be too cocky, to never let any type of greed consume them. It is Sidney Prescott who says, ‘give back to the sea. you cannot take something without exchanging something in return. If the price is too steep, it’s best to throw it back.’ And the sisters listen. So, the sea begrudgingly begins to favor her once more, despite the fact that she’s still hiding from it.

But anyway, Richie begins writing the mutterings down, ‘eat the tainted fish’ it tells him one night, and he obeys. The sea likes having new playthings, and the chase between the baileys and the carpenters is somewhat amusing. But this is Sam’s sea. It belongs to her, and it’s protection is granted to the sister as well. The sea likes them both, the sea does Not like this man, as he struts around deck, as he barks orders to a crew that knows much more than him.

he isn’t superstitious, like sailors are supposed to be. He gorges himself on the tainted fish, the whispers are stronger, now, he has a connection to the sea. The sea tries to will him away, but is unable to. The beast lurks beneath the surface, the Collector has blessed his boat, the worst that the sea can do is try its best to capsize the damn boat. But the crew is skilled, they make it to port before any major damage could be done.

Richie is found, more often than not, with the black ooze of the fish dripping down his chin. ‘this has become bigger than them, we need more, I need more. If I’m to take them back, I need power.’ because no one takes what is his. He begins pursuing old wrecks, dredging up what he can, a strange ruin here, another there, and he stamps them into his skin, hoping that it will make him stronger, ‘let the void consume me, i give myself to it.’

The sea tries to warn Sam, tries to warn her little sister, ‘there is danger on its way, hide in the mangrove. you will be safe there.’

god. im literally just sending you a fic atp. ill stop i promise but holy mother of god. do we need to write this??? but then that would mean revealing myself to you,, many options to weigh

The image of Richie consuming the mutant fish, black ooze dripping from his mouth, slowly succumbing to madness, is incredible.

This idea that we've turned the sea and the monster into not so much a monster, but a god and a guardian. It asks only for respect, for those in its waters to follow its rules, to take not more than what is offered, to give back in exchange. (Sidney sought to take knowledge, to take and take and take, so the sea takes back from her - her friends, her crew, her youth, until they are even. Once she begins to give back, knowledge given freely, it begins to forgive).

The sea speaks to Sam in her sleep, her dreams are a void, dark and glittering, an endless fog. Whispers invade her mind from all angles, from the inside out. She was born with the void in her soul, she belongs on the sea.

Also, I love that you mention the mangrove because I was intending for Richie to crash and wash ashore in the Twisted Strand!! To have him meet Mickey, the crashed pilot who killed all his peers. (He says they were the enemy, consumed by madness, but there's a sharp grin on his face as he says the words). They team up to destroy the Mind Suckers.

Sam feels the Grove cry out, in pain, and they head out to investigate. I'm envisioning a chase across the Strand, waterlogged trees moving and growing behind the girls as they run to slow down their persuers, to protect them.

~

The Final Act of the story is Richie sailing to the Stellar Basin, throwing Tara overboard into the pit, reciting the Words of Sacrifice, giving up that which he covets most for a Great Gift from Below. Sam, screaming, from the deck of her own boat which was hard at chase, as a tentacle slips from the water to wrap around Tara's body, pulling her under.

But Richie forgot the most important piece of advice he was given: you do not take from the sea. And Sam is the sea, remember. And Tara is hers.

Richie is confused as the tentacle reappears, wrapping around Sam's boat, depositing the girl in her arms, soaking wet, shaking from fear and the cold. He's distracted, watching Sam pull Tara's head into her chest, and wrapping her arms around her, clinging to her tightly. Too distracted to notice the tentacles sliding over the sides of his vessel, to the one slithering up his leg. Until the moment it pulls his leg out from under him, dragging him from the boat and into the depths.

[twoheaddeddog]

Mental health is so bad rn im questioning if it's ever been good. I was excited to graduate school and start the rest of my life but now I'm scared what will happen without that structure. I do need a break but I'm gonna get so sick of my parents if I spend all my time at home. I've lost all my passions and feelings so going to class is just a chore i force myself to do but without anything external forcing me to go outside and keep a regular sleep schedule especially in winter I'm scared I'll be on a downward spiral. But I know I need a break too if I just get a job straight away I'll get even more burnt out. I don't know what to do. I guess I've got to give myself some tasks to do, pick some new goal to work towards. If i don't care then any goal is as good as any other. Anxiety corrupts everything I do, everything becomes terrifying, it's like a fog around everything I can't escape. God I don't know. I actually want meds at this point, before I was too scared of being dependent on anything but now I don't feel like I have a choice, like I am actually unable of controlling my anxiety or being happy on my own. It's a waking nightmare to be completely honest and I can't think my way out of it because the thing that does the thinking is generating the nightmare. Grrrrrrrrrrrrargh. I do have to believe it's going to get better I know life moves like a wave and if I just keep going eventually something will change. But god I feel so defeated

Yeah idk I thought somehow that my anxiety would disappear like that it was a childhood phase I would grow out of once I did enough Cool Shit and i thought i had grown out of it but i was really just suppressing my feelings & covering it up with alcohol at social events lmao. All my life really I dreamed of a magical solution or some dramatic shift that would save me and make me happy and lovable and worthy. But ive moved across the continent twice and changed my gender and if those arent dramatic enough changes then nothing is. My last hope was moving out of my parents i thought. I dont knowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I dont know. That getting to be on my own would fix me. But now I know it wont I tried having jobs and that was my lowest point. SO i dont think living on my own would be that much different. I want to do it anyway but I have no hope itll fix me. I'm facing the scary prospect that I'm gonna be the same person forever like I can't run away from how my brain works. Horrible actually. Yarghghghghghghghhghghghghgh

I want desperately to be someone else, someone whos attractive and confident and unbothered and doesnt have all these rigid neuroses. But i just feel like its impossible I keep being defeated when I try to become them. It's like I always return to this place of loneliness and alienation and numbness. I fucking hate it here but i'm its bitch it has a hold on me. What the hell do i do???? God

[tteokdoroki]

saccahrine sundays | k.bakugou

♡ pairing: katsuki bakugou x fem!reader.

♡ word count: 5.3K

♡ rating: mature, 18+, mdni.

♡ genre: pro hero!au, married!au, fluff + smut.

♡ summary: katsuki can never find enough time to get some sleep. between being a full time pro hero, a father and a husband— hours of rest are hard to come by. unless it’s one of those sweet, sweet saccharine sundays.

♡ warning(s): please read ! heavy smut, pwp ( characters aged up to late twenties ), somnophilia, unprotected sex ( wrap it before you tap it, kids ), fingering ( female recieving ), tummy bulges, mating press, pregnancy!kink, daddy!kink, breeding!kink, light!exhibitionism, cumplay + needy bakugou has a praise!kink... <3

♡ author’s note(s): brrr hey guys! it feels like forever since i last posted a full fic, january was bleh so im happy to get this out !! special thanks to @greenchild for feeding me this idea and thank to all of you for your love, support and 2.8K. i love you all, enjoy <3

♡ masterlist | requests

katsuki bakugou couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a full nights sleep. between being a pro hero and family life, the full eight to nine hours of pure rest wasn’t easy to come by— now he wasn’t complaining, he was far too grateful for the life he lead to whinge and whine about the finer details. bakugou was right on track to becoming the number two, he had a beautiful wife who loved him and supported him no matter how reckless he might have been and two little brats that he adored more than anything. he was miles ahead of his high school classmates, never letting up or resting so like he said, there was no room to complain.

but even as the faintest wisps of light slip through drawn curtains and a vermillion gaze settled on the old all might digital alarm clock ( reading 9:01 AM ), katsuki bakugou can’t help but feel grateful for the sleep he just had. no interruptions from wailing toddlers or infants who need changing, no late night call ins for patrols— none of that, just an arm around his wife’s waist and the soft sound of her breathing to coax him out of his sleepy state.

bakugou remembers now, a distant yet far from faint memory of where he and his wife spent two days of their honeymoon under slumber’s spell, having ravished each other the very night they arrived in paris for their honeymoon ( all mina’s idea, she had told katsuki it was the perfect destination for newly weds in love— and whilst the several districts his alien friend recommended did appease you, the blonde had promised to take you on a more luxurious getaway when he was hire up in the hero rankings ). of course that very honeymoon lead you to fall pregnant with your first little miracle— taiga bakugou, the very spitting image of her father except or the slight tilt to her nose and the sparkle in her eye that only her mother possessed.

raising her had proven to be both an enjoyable and exhausting experience for katsuki, with a matching explosive personality to rival even her daddy’s— there were many restless nights the pro hero spent butting heads with his daughter while his sweet spouse was away on missions and getting used to the field again. even during the pregnancy, full nights of rest were little to none— the cravings taiga gave you were almost unbearable for the blonde, not to mention the 2AM labour his little girl put you through...and yet he would repeat the last four years of lack of sleep all over again if it meant reliving every single moment with you. raising tatsumo was much better; however.

so as the weight of well deserved slumber lifts from katsuki’s shoulder’s he’s forced to deal with the memories of your sweet cries from the night (or rather, nights) he made you his wife. he stirs under cotton sheets, a familiar hardness pressing against his inner thigh as he recalls the way you tightened around him— “honey baby,” the desperate whisper tastes foreign, bitter across his tastebuds as he licks his lips. katsuki was usually much more composed when it came to sex, he could hold out for hours while you pleaded and begged of him to give you more. but this morning was different, very much so.

skilfully, the ash blonde slips a hand between your sheets, finger tips calloused with years of training and battle, dancing up your bare thighs from where you wear only his shirt and a pair of panties. the fingers trail up to your underwear, pressing them against your cunt as bakugou watches your face for any reaction— you twitch once before falling back into a deep slumber, letting your husband know that he can continue. he peels like orange silk away from your core and down your legs, half resisting the urge to sniff your undergarment like the dirty man he is but he decides that he can longer wait, already turned on by the feeling of your bare pussy against his hand.

the pro knows exactly how to turn you on, dragging is nails down your thighs just an inch from your wetness and his mind fogs with lust at the thought of the sounds you’d make for him if you were awake...not yet, he says to himself. his next move is to fuck your mouth, two of his digits sliding past parted lips from where you snore— gathering the drool that pools on the surface of your tongue. back and forth; move bakugou’s fingers until he’s satisfied with how wet you’ve made them with your spit. returning those very same fingers to your cunt, he parts your folds— already slightly sticky and hot with the nectar he’s used to savouring. if this were any other time, bakugou would be eating you out like a man starved of his last three meals but the rising sun tells him that his moments to fuck you are very few.

so now, he slides those lubed up fingers right into your tight little hole, shuddering under the sheets at how you automatically clamp around him— even while you sleep. katsuki’s vermillion eyes seek out your face in the warm light of the dusk, watching as your expression contorts into that familiar look of pleasure— lips blossoming into a cherry pout, brows furrowed as if you’re focusing on the way your husband makes you feel.

“fuck, honey baby, so good ‘n pliant for me even when yur fuckin’ sleepin’,” katsuki slurs against saliva that slips along his tongue, he’s hungry to fuck you, make you moan and scissors his fingers deep inside your obedient cunt in away that makes your slumbering body jump. pressing a thumb to your neglected clit, bakugou twists his fingers in search for your g-spot, pumping them into you with vigour. “gonna make you cum angel, baby, please cum while you’re like this s’you can take my cock.”

if there’s one thing pro hero dynamite knows, it’s that your body is a slave to him, no matter what state it’s in. your thighs part instinctively; giving your husband room to curl his fingers and press down hard on your pleasure spot— gummy walls sucking him in deeper. he makes you cum while you sleep, juices staining  your supple skin, honeyed from the warm light outside.

“atta girl, cummin’ for your husband like that even when you’re sleeping— so fuckin’ naughty...” katsuki grunts, locks of sun kissed hair beginning to plaster itself against his forehead. his body shakes with the desire to be inside of you, his internal temperature rising with every second that he’s not sheathed within your walls. pulling his fingers away from your twitching mound, bakugou slides them, cum soaked and all, into his mouth to taste your very sweetness. “would eatcha out like a starved man, honeybee, but we don’t gotta lot of time left baby...”

with that, bakugou shuffles his sweats down enough for his cock to spring free, tip bright red and leaking against his toned, scarred abdomen. with practised ease, he hooks your right leg over his waist and positions your dripping cunny right over the head of his length. it takes everything katsuki has not to plunge deep inside of you, to abuse your tempting cunt until it’s formed into the shape of his cock but for once he wants to take you slowly, enjoy his time with your limp body at his disposal.

pressing his girth against your slick entrance, your husband sighs, coating himself with the remainders of your delightful release. the mess you made just for him, makes it easier for him to guide his cock between your velveteen folds that take him so well. his free hand comes up to brush over your cheek and even in the depths of your rest you manage to nuzzle into katsuki’s palm and make his coo— what a precious little doll you are, so good for him and always so obedient no matter what state you’re in. fuck, it drives him so insane that he can’t even think straight.

“...suki....”

fucking hell. the way you sigh out for him so mawkishly whilst you dream makes him twitch, not even half the way inside you.  “c’mon honey baby, don’t go moanin’ my name like that when i haven’t even had a c-chance to make you mine yet—“ the blonde shudders, eyes screwing shut as he finally bottoms out inside of you. katsuki let’s out a choked moan, from deep within his chest while you welcome him into your lethally syrupy cunt. “ohh, fuck, that’s the stuff, good girl...”

bakugou’s thrusts start slow yet, forcing your limp body to jolt up the bed and your tits to bounce in tune with the rhythm of his hips— your little hole sucks him in so greedily, so selfishly, clamping down on him as if to prevent him from leaving your body as a whole. pro hero dynamite is shaken to his core, how can his precious baby take him so darlingly while she’s asleep, refusing to let go of him and keep his cock tucked away inside of you.

shit, shit, shit.

he wants to defile you, asleep or not, ruin how pure and angelic your body appears even after years of being together. it’s your fault he’s like this anyway, you deserve to have your pussy destroyed no matter the circumstances— ruby framed eyes threaten to roll back into his skull while bakugou picks up the swirl of his hips between your sticky thighs, you flutter and squeeze around the girth that’s stretched you out so many times before and yet you still remain a tight hole designed for your husband and your husband alone.

lips map their way up the column of your neck, committing every dip and scar and blemish to memory even though katsuki knows where each of them are. the amber colour of the morning sun highlights each of your marks, your husband giving you as many lovebites to match each one. “nn, suki...more..” you whimper, so quiet he almost misses it underneath the sound of wet skin slapping against wet skin. could you feel how he deflowered you in your sleep? ruining such a good girl while you resting? he wants so bad to corrupt you from the inside.

static stretches across katsuki’s brain, crackling as his neurones fire and dopamine fizzes in his veins. cum. cum. breed her. it’s too soon but the blonde can’t help it, pent up and high on the morning sunrise— addicted to the taste of your skin licked with light perspiration. it’s been ages since he’s had you like this, can you blame him for not hanging on so long? bakugou lifts your thigh higher on his waist, using it as leverage to plough into the deepest parts of you, his precious wife, desperate to cream inside you before wake up.

“mm, know you’re close lovebug, won’t you cum for me suki?”

katsuki’s gaze hones in on you, vision blurred and hazy with lust from his impending orgasm. your own eyes are heavy with sleep but the soft smile on your face is filled with a familiar adoration and saccharine love that the blonde can never get tired of. he knows that you know your voice alone is another to send him speeding off of the cliff of release— your hole squeezing around him, beautiful hips that once brought his children into the world gracefully moving up and down to coax his girthy cock to its final release.

“honey baby,” katsuki whines like a broken man when you cup his face, hot puffs of air warming up the space between you.  his hips don’t let up though, driven by the way you move against him beneath the sheets, he’s so close he can almost taste it. “c-couldn’t wait for you to wake up, needed you so fuckin’ bad...”

your mouth hangs open in a quiet groan, getting lost in the claps of sweaty bodies against one another and katsuki latches onto your lower lips to swallow your noise— breathing it in and letting it spread through his body like oxygen. “oh, lovebug, y-you don’t...” you pause, eyes rolling to the back of your head as the angry tip of your husband’s cock grazes against your gummy spot, sending your walls into a flurry of flutters that make katsuki twitch. “ ...you don’t ever have to wait with me, d-don’t hold back, kay?”

you’re a breathless mess, a sight to behold and he can’t take not having you filled with his seed any longer. the lazy push and pull of your bodies smacking wetly against each other become erratic thrusts, heat pooling in the abdomen of the pro hero boiling him alive in feelings of desire for you and you alone.

bakugou quivers from his lips to his toes when he cums, filling your slippery walls with a creamy white and lining your insides with the claim of your man. your man. your husband. “fuck, fucking hell,  h-honey, gimme that pussy...gimmie that fuckin’ pussy,” his groans linger in the crisp early morning air, dancing with the static while he orgasms within you, endless bouts of white stuffing you to the brim. you kiss in an attempt to calm him, squeezing around his thick cock to ride out his high. you taste of orange liquor  and manuka honey, addicting while he sucks lavishly on your tongue and spares you the air you need to breathe. ‘cause at the end of the day call you need is him.

“did you cum, precious one?” ever the gentleman, katsuki has to ask but even you can see in his blood red ruby eyes ( no matter how tired they may seem ) that he’s gearing up for a second round, shallow thrusts pushing his own release  deeper into your fertile womb. there’s about thirty minutes until the kids wake up, but your lover can make you see stars in fifteen.

you shake your head once as bakugou rolls you onto your back— strong arms caging you into the prison if his love. large hands dance tenderly up the back of your thighs and you meet his eyes with such a saccharine smile his heart bursts at the sight of you. “you’re insatiable, lovebug,” the tingling notes of your moan caresses bakugou’s cheek as he manoeuvres your legs to fold you into a mating press, shifting his weight above you. “did you really need me that much, daddy bear?”

“think y’already know the answer to that, honeybee,” katsuki drawls, tripping over his words filled, oh so generously with blazing desire. he still remains sheathed inside you, a darling whine dripping from his cherry lined lips— the ones sore from kissing you— as he gives an experimental thrust into the tight heat of your core. you accept him willingly, opening up for him like a blossoming flower which makes katsuki’s hot breath stutter from the overstimulation. neither of you can look away, sharing the intimate moment of his length sinking into you— katsuki groans as you suck him in inch by inch before leaning over and attaching his lips to yours, licking at the seam of them in order to coax them open. his wife is a tease however; denying him the pleasure of sucking on her tongue...for now at least.

but it’s all worth it, for katsuki wants to burn the erotic sight of you beneath him into his mind forever. your skin shines like it was kissed by the setting moon, eyes hooded and holding a lust that only burns brightly for him while your chest heaves in anticipation of your husband claiming you for the second time that morning. “m-move suki, please—c-can’t...” the tail end of your pleas fall away with the fading night sky.

the man doesn’t need to be told twice.

save for a few shallow thrusts to get going, katsuki soon finds himself pistoning into you at an unruly, god speed pace. the blonde revels in the way one hand of yours twirls strands of his hair between your fingers whilst the other digs crescent moons into his blemished honey skin. helpless huffs and candied cries tickle bakugou’s ears while he presses your body flush against his and pins you down with his hips.

their movements don’t ever waver, cock catching on every ridge your damp pussy has to offer him, each thrust calculated amplify your pleasure that rolls in heatwaves throughout your body. katsuki’s mind grows blank, thick with the mirage you’ve cast over him from the way you push back against him, taking more of his inches into you.

“ngh, lovebug,” you say, high off of euphoria while katsuki’s leaking cock bears down harshly on your g-spot and you smile up at him deliriously— looking like the eighth wonder of the world. you grab the hand your husband uses to keep your thighs up and bring it down to your tummy for him to feel what you feel. “can feel your cock inside me, love, so big...makin’ my tummy bulge like a good daddy bear...”

something snaps within katsuki at the sound of your breathless praise; a feral blaze setting alight deep inside his chest— spreading throughout his body as his cock drives deeper and deeper inside your spongy, wet cunt— just about breaching the gates of your cervix. breed her. fuck her. make her swollen with your cum. bakugou can’t even think straight; intoxicated by the way you move against him, the way you look so full of him and his thick length.

he wants you to look full all of the time. so katsuki does with the only way he knows how. dropping his head to your neck, sharp attack your neck with blossoms of bruises forming under your skin in the name of love— you whine, a gorgeous symphony of his name against his ear while you tangle your fingers in the baby hairs at the nape of his neck. “y’can’t jus...jus say stuff like that to me, honey...” bakugou croons against your skin, screwing his eyes shut while his hips pick up the pace and plunging his length right into your womb. the sounds of your arousal wetly spill into the sex scented air— fuelling katsuki to thrust into you faster. “not if you...n-not if you don’t want me to fuck another one of those shitty brats into you.”

as stuttered as his words are, bakugou means every single one of them. a primal desire activates in the back of his mind, overriding every single of senses. just the thought of lining your womb with his pungent seed, making you pregnant once again and seeing you round and full with katsuki’s child is enough to drive him off of the rails. And the pro hero knows that you feel the same, he can tell by the way your heat clamps down on his cock and strangles him, as if to milk him of every ounce of his cum.

“yes, want you to make me pregnant suki, make me a mommy again, please—!”  you simper out loud, desperate tears springing to your eyes while the bed groans beneath you. visions of you round and swollen with a baby drives him to thrust into you harder, faster so that more and more of his precum spills into you. “know you want it, want it too...your cum, deep inside me—ohmygod suki—yes!”

bakugou slaps a hand over your mouth, watching as your sweet doe eyes brim with tears at the languid roll of his hips against yours. “careful honeybee, don’t want the kids to...fuckin’ hell... h-hear—“ he stutters, eyes rolling, limbs shaking violently. his other hand drops between your conjoined bodies, drawing vicious circles into your swollen clit to draw you closer and closer to the edge. star dust is littered behind your eyes, the bright white signifying the race to your high that only katsuki can give to you. “or do you want to be heard, you want everyone to hear how full you’re gonna become when i get you pregnant again. how you’ll whine and beg me to suck on your tits when you start makin’ that sweet milk for our baby. is that what you fuckin’ want, yn?”

you can’t help the way your pussy flutters around his cock that brutally grazes your g-spot— the dirty words your husband speaks like music to your ears. a symphony with his moans and the sounds of his balls slapping against your bare ass.  “oooh, shit baby, you must do with the way your lil cunny clamps down on me—just like that...”

“oh god, lovebug please...cum...cum! need it daddy bear—can’t take it anymore,” you babble against katsuki’s hand, brain turning to mush at the unbearable pleasure. the knot in your tummy becomes tighter, close to snapping as the white light of pleasure clouds your view.

patterns drawn diligently against your clit speed up; turning to quick figure of eights to tease your orgasm. “‘course you fuckin’ do honey baby, my little breeding bitch. my sweet little wife who can’t wait to be a mommy again. take this cock, you dirty whore. take it and I’ll give you my fuckin’ baby.” bakugou slurs, losing all control as the pace of his hips begins to falter. you can feel his dick twitching inside of you, tip pulsing with the need to paint your insides.

your gazes lock within the frenzy, while your back arches and hips lift to take your husband deeper inside you. dynamite is feral like you’ve never seen before; an animal reduced purely back to instinct. unfocused red eyes become teary like your own with hot pleasure while they lock onto you but you know that behind lust; loved the adoration and love your husband holds for you. thats all you need to reach the edge and tumble into your orgasm,

it takes but a few more thrusts and a pinch to your clit before you’re cumming— release squirting out and splattering against bakugou’s toned abdomen.

the blonde never lets up while you cum undone on his iron hot rod, letting him pump into you with unrelenting feverishness. katsuki is desperate, needing an extra push even with you strangling his cock with your insides. “s-say you’ll make your daddy a daddy baby, say you’ll give me another fucking kid. fuck, fuck yeah...please honey baby—“ bakugou damn near sobs, trembling violently above you as his breath hitches with ever hiccup.

smiling gently, you pull his head to your neck, cradling your husband while his pace slows to circular grinds. “i’ll make you a daddy again, you can cum for me now lovebug...”

“shit, shit, oh god— cummin’...” thats all bakugou needs to hear before bottoming out inside of your abused hole—  screaming against your bitten flesh and forcing his cock into your fertile womb as he sprays with his thick, sticky seed. white coats every ridge and crevice of your pussy while impatient thrusts slow to sensual grinds. you feel the tears of neediness soak the supple skin of your neck, rocking your hips against katsuki to milk his cock for all it’s worth— even if slow waves of his cum seep down your folds and to the sheets below.

“g’morning, katsuki,” you sigh blissfully, fingers combing through your lover’s sweaty mop of sun kissed locks. the pair of you lie still, limbs still intertwined as you catch your breath under the orange hues of the light outside.

your husband shifts his head to look at you, eyelids heavy over blood red eyes with a satisfied look on his face. he’ll never get over having you all to himself first thing in the morning— katsuki bakugou will always consider that a luxury and as he looks to you, a great smile soon takes his features. “yeah...good fucking morning to you too, angel face,” bakugou doesn’t dare pull out of you, intent on keeping his word. “love you yn, you’re always so good to me...”

katsuk’s lips mould into a pout as you continue your earlier ministrations of brushing back sweat slicked hair away from his face before pressing a chase kiss to his lip and making his cock twitch from over sensitivity, inside of you. he was always a sucker for the romantic moments after a passionate round of sex, he was a domestic, love struck son of a bitch what could he say? “suki...lovebug, you know you can pull out if it’s too much,” you remind him, the sound of your voice pulling his attention back to you. as he stares; katsuki maps out every detail of your face, the way your eyes glitter in the mellow light that peeks from between closed curtains or the slight dip across your cheek in the form of a scar from where you’d been injured on the field— he spends time committing it all to memory as if it’s the last time he’ll get to witness such beauty. “you’re staring, bug.”

“nuh uh, not pulling out.” huffing, bakugou leans up for another kiss, which you happily provide him with as he curls up onto your chest like a kitten seeking warmth. “keepin’ you plugged full s’you can get preggers like i fuckin’ promised.”

“you were serious?” you question him first, earning yourself another grouchy huff before your eyes roll and a comfortable silence sweeps across your bedroom, periodically interrupted by the morning birds waking up and chirping. “always a man of your word, huh bug? don’t worry, we’ll make you a daddy bear soon, but i’ve got to clean up before the kids wake up.”

“don’ you fuckin’ move— leave the dumbass kids, they’ll be fine on their own.”

“not with taiga’s quirk coming through, now move, you’re heavy.”

with that, you manage to shove bakugou off of you and he only hisses lightly as his softened cock hits the cold air, already missing your heat. the banter between you both as husband and wife is always light and you always win; he wants to bite back but anything he says will be soft on his sharp tongue. damn you and you being the love of his life. bakugou watches as you fix his shirt over your frame and head to your en-suite bathroom to make yourself more presentable to your kids— mumbling something about how many times katsuki came inside of you.

sure there was a lot of it, but he’d only cum inside you twice and he was trying to give you a baby. again.

the shower turns on and he can hear the sound of water running but it doesn’t cover your sweet voice as you call for him. he could never miss that. “katsuki bakugou, you horny bastard, i love you, my daddy bear!” you sing for him; making the blonde smile.

“i love you more, honey baby,” he chuckles back, tucking himself back into sweats before settling back into the ruined sheets.

bakugou was so luckily to have you and you’re beautiful children— he wouldn’t trade any moment of his life for the world except for maybe more time with you. he swore, he’d spend forever loving you if he could.

“daddy?” sweet thoughts are cut off by the groggy voice of bakugou’s eldest daughter, taiga, who stands in the doorway of his bedroom rubbing her cherry red eyes.

the blonde grins, rising from his place in bed and crossing the room in three short strides. he quickly crouches down in front of his little girl and ruffle her unruly mop of matching blonde hair. “g’morning brat, what’s up?”

taiga clutches her shoto plushy tightly, the one uncle todoroki had gotten her for her first birthday ( the one that bakugou hated because it was his daughter’s favourite— kirishima hated it too because he had always thought he was the favourite uncle ), and pouts down at her father, scowling sleepily. bakugou knows if you could see the two of them now, you’d be saying she was the spitting image of him. “tatsumo woke up n wouldn’t stop whinin’, fink he’s hungry, daddy!” the little girl grumbles, clearly still reeling in the after effects of her sleep that got cut short.

“how about we go get him and make some pancakes then?” katsuki suggests softly, hauling his daughter onto his bare shoulders and being mindful not to drop her stupid fuckin’— i mean her plushy to the ground. “y’gonna help me mix up enough batter for ya ma n’ brother, you got that brat?”

taiga squeals as at the new found height, wrapping a singular chubby arm around bakugou’s head for support, making his heart burst at the tiny hand that grips his chin. fuck, he loved his life. “only if we can add choco chwips, daddy!”

“oi, don’t you push your fuckin’ luck with me brat, ya mommy might let you get away with eatin’ shit like that but not me—“ bakugou makes an attempt to scold his daughter while they make way towards his son’s room, but he already knows he’s going to give into her. he can’t say no to taiga.

“i’ll tell mommy you cursed at me!”

“why you little sh—“

“careful, katsuki, if you keep cursing her out i might have to put you on punishment later,” taiga bursts in to wriggly giggles on bakugou’s shoulders, making it harder to keep her in place as you brush past him to grab tatsumo from the nursery.

“daddy’s gonna get in trouble!”

the teasing tone to your voice lingers in the air while you fetch your son, who seems groggy and pouty when he comes into katsuki’s view— wrapped up in your arms while you wear a cleaner shirt of his. there’s that glint in your eye, similar to the one your children posses when they’re doing something mischievous. and  that alone tells the ash blonde he’ll be getting punished in ways that could lead to another little one rushing through your house.

bakugou can roll with that.

but for now; he reaches up and pinches taiga’s nose— telling her to stop running her mouth and sending you into giggles while you carry your children downstairs for breakfast. katsuki bakugou couldnt remember the last time he’d gotten a full nights sleep, but what he did know is that he’d always remember the very saccharine mornings he’d get to spend with you and your beautiful children after.

bonus:

“taiga, did you put chocolate chips in the batter even though i told you no?”

bakugou had turned his back for but a mere second to grab some milk for tatsumo; who played happily with smooshed bits of banana in his high chair— and suddenly, the batter was littered with the offending, tiny pieces of candy.

“no, it was mommy!”

“yn...”

you quickly throw your hands up in the air as defence, dropping the packet of sinful treats to the counter. “what? i’m having cravings, bakugou!”

“you’re not even pregnant, yn!” the man himself raises his spatula at you accusingly with a scowl, biting down on his tongue to prevent himself from cursing again.

you smile up at your husband, knowing he can’t stay mad at you for long. “but i will be, katsuki, it’s the thought that counts.” your eyes flicker up as you wipe the melted chocolate on your finger tips off with your tongue before moving to settle your daughter down for breakfast. bakugou splutters, cheeks flaming with a reddish rose at the thought of your soon to be baby and all the activity that comes with making one which makes you laugh. “oh and lovebug? your pancakes are burning.”

with a jump, katsuki turns to flick off the flame and save his batch of pancakes while you tend to your kids— leaving him to contemplate over your chocolate chip breakfast, how lucky he was to have you.

“i crave chocolate, can i get a pregnant?” taiga squeals shortly after.

“not a chance in hell, brat.”

♡ taglist:

@ozzy-bozzy @bakugous-mamas @meg-mystic @runningon-5percentsleep @cyans-bliss @husband-to-tomura-shigaraki @paintedr0ses1 @69meggg69 @sapphoscolonoscopy @toshidou @saucey-kneecapzz42020 @candybabey @alrunemara​ @greenchild​

[swqns]

“ I swear it to you, I will never forget how you loved me. “

synopsis ;;

                    You think back on a distant memory of Kazuha finding you wounded at the Wangshuu Inn. He hadn’t been there to protect you from such an injury, but you two still looked back on it fondly. Now, you reminisce alone, praying to any god out there that Kazuha doesn’t have to see your downfall.

-- kazuha x gn reader

-- cw ;; blood , death , injury.

-- note ;; enjoy <3 do let me know which part of this hurt the worst in my inbox, im curious

Being a traveler, you’ve had your fair share of injuries. some worse than others. some … you weren’t quite sure how you healed from them.

Some injuries were sourced from carelessness, ignorance, or pride. you did take more care to not get injured after falling in love with kazuha, though. he means the world to you, you can’t imagine leaving him alone in it. you knew he had his worries about you, and as much as he wishes he could follow you into battle .. sometimes you just traveled where he could not follow. he was a wanted man, after all. but you always returned home. always on time, or earlier. you were never late so .. why were you late?

Kazuha paced back and forth, nibbling at his fingernails in his worry. you were supposed to be home from this commission hours ago .. where had you gone?

His pacing is interrupted by a deckhand knocking on the door of your shared quarters, the place you two had been calling home for a while.

“Kazuha, you have a letter. it’s important.“

He doesn’t say anything other than a quiet thanks as he unfolds the delicate paper, reading the words scribbled down. you can almost see the moment his spine stiffens and his blood feels like ice in his veins. kazuha is out of that door and jumping off the boat in a second, using his anemo vision to aid him in his sprint towards a certain inn.

He’ll be damned if he cares about getting caught. you have docked in liyue anyway, the chances were slim. all he cared about was reaching you in time.

The letter had been delivered to inform your fellow crew of your condition. you’d taken a hit from the blunt side of a mitachurl’s axe. it broke several bones on impact, but your arm had shielded most of the damage away from your ribs. you’d be extremely lucky if your arm healed back completely, though.

You’d been ushered to one of the upper floors of the Wangshu Inn by several adventurers who had found you on their way home, laying unconscious. your arm was broken, making even the seasoned adventurers wince at the sight of it. verr goldet had convinced the green-haired Adeptus living at the inn to deliver the letter, your condition was critical and your companions and loved ones needed to be notified of your whereabouts. after running the errand, however, he went back to his anti-social tendencies and disappeared against the mortal eye. he had no reason to be physically present with you .. but maybe he could watch over nearby and make sure you were breathing. just for verr goldet’s closure.

You can hear kazuha’s voice pierce the thick fog of your unconsciousness.

“Where are they ?! [ name ], i- i got a letter they were here and hurt, where are they ?!“ he calls, voice hoarse and you can almost hear the way his heart shatters in it. you don’t have the strength to open your eyes, but you can hear his light footsteps approaching the cot you’re resting on as the door opens.

Kazuha falls to his knees beside you, grabbing your unwrapped hand with his and holding it close to him, mumbling incoherent prayers to some god that you’re okay. you peek at him through your eyelashes, moving your hand to pet his hair.

“Kazu, you worry too much,” you speak.

A held breath leaves his body, and you can see his shoulders relax. unshed tears shine against his eyes, a shaky laugh leaving him.

“You worried me sick. what happened ? are you hurt ?”

You laugh. a weak sound leaving your beaten body, your hand once resting on kazuha’s hair moving to your shattered arm. “ … yeah.”

Kazuha’s eyebrows furrow and he stands to get a better view of your other arm. With how heavily it was bandaged, and the makeshift splint peeking through the layers of fabric and gauze, it wasn’t hard to figure out just how bad the injuries were. You had other bandages and bandaids scattered around your body, a few small ones on your face. kazu wordlessly presses soft kisses to each of the wounds on your upper body, scooping you into his arms. he’s mindful of your injury, keeping any and all pressure off of your arm.

..

Oh, how you wished you were in his arms again. the blue sky above you seemed to dull as you laugh. laugh at the gods for cursing you this way. left to bleed out on an expedition in jueyun karst. your previous break had left you with permanent injury in your arm, and though you could move it just fine, the range in which you could was not as good as it used to be. meaning, your entire side was exposed to enemy attack.

You knew how kazuha beat himself up that time. when you first broke your arm, he didn’t leave you alone until you had completely healed. apologies spewed from his mouth for the first few days. he was sorry he wasn’t there to protect you. how long it took him to get to you. sorry for not being the one to find you.

Knowing that, you almost hoped he didn’t find you. it would shatter him more than you just not returning home. it was such a warm place. you and kazuha shared many memories there. you grew closer there.

You let your eyes close, the blood loss making your eyelids feel like lead and your limbs feel like ice. maybe it wasn’t your delirious state that made the sky seem dull, as soft raindrops patter against your face, making your spilled blood travel with the water. does death feel warm, you wonder? as warm as kazuha’s hands around you? what you’d give to feel his arms around you one last time.

You’re too far gone to realize a warmth does embrace you until you’re physically shaken into consciousness. your eyes flutter and reveal a certain ronin dressed in red clothing. tears stream freely down his cheeks, his words nothing more than gibberish to you. you smile to yourself, cursing the gods once more to give the love of your life the pain of watching you die.

The downpour grows heavier, drenching both you and kazuha as it washes away every feeling from your body. with the little strength you have left, you lift a shaky hand and hold kazuha’s face. a smear of your blood is left from where you rub your thumb on his cheek, trying to reassure him with what you have.

“Kazuha, I love you. don’t you ever forget that” you murmur, and one of his own hands goes to cover the one holding his face.

“Don't talk like that. I’m going to save you, I won’t let you die here,” he speaks, but deep down you both know there’s no saving you. the edges of your vision go blurry as you lose the strength to hold your hand up, and kazuha does it for you.

“Swear to me. swear that you won’t forget how much i love you,” you whisper, and you can feel yourself letting your eyes close. if you have any hope of living, you know you need to keep them open. kazuha does too as he ushers you to look at him, to reopen your eyes, to say something. anything.

He can feel his will draining from his limbs as he hugs your dying body close to his. you’re cold, colder than any cryo beast he’s ever fought. colder than the rain falling on your bodies. you’re already gone, he realizes. pulling your body into his lap, he wraps an article of his clothing around you as he leans against a rock. letting the rain soak through his hair and into his clothes, he holds you close to him as your blood seeps into his clothing.

“I swear it.”