#he barely can sit up you expect him to control ghost wings? he is only babey

[smashwolfen]

Adding from this post, I made more sinnoh babies! Arceus is nothing but legs like a deer/horse/llama baby should be, and the others are pudgy fat baby creechurs. Please hold them all gently like fresh loaves of bread~

Also had the idea to doodle lil Giratina as soon as he hatched from his egg in the HGSS Arceus event. Ethan congratulations your a dad to a god now, Cynthia is there too and flabbergasted at how liddol a god is XD

[peachy-panic]

I wish you would write a fic where *(everything you've already written because it's all perfect)*

XD but, here's a real prompt too: I wish you would write a fic where Sebastian gets in trouble for something Jaime does (like accidentally breaking something, etc.), but he's happy to take the blame since obviously the consequences will be way less severe for him

(I have been sitting on this ask for truly forever, so here, have a whole ass chapter in response)!

WARNINGS: Vague references to suicide/suicidal ideations, vaguely implied noncon, general abuse of power, BBU/BBU-adjacent

As a rule, Sebastian spends as little time as possible in the facility outside the walls of the clinic.

The medical wing is its own special level of hell, but at least he has some amount of control over the environment. It’s not enough—not ever—but it’s a step above utter helplessness. In the clinic, particularly the moments when Dr. Greer is otherwise occupied, he can offer his patients a bit of reprieve and protection. Out here, in the common hall between the administrative and training and residential wings, he is surrounded by a constant, unyielding misery that he can do nothing to ease.

As he walks between clusters of administrative employees in suits, laughing and sipping overpriced coffee out of company-branded cups, he watches the gaunt figures that roam the halls like ghosts among them, loose cotton hanging off their frames like branches on a weeping willow. Cleaning, carrying heavy boxes between offices, delivering food. This is what their lives consist of while they await the next contract.

Most of the Companions he passes are assigned to housekeeping. They carry mops and brooms, push rattling trash cans on wheels down the pristine, white hallways. They are silent and unobtrusive, heads down, blending into the walls as best they can. Sebastian used to smile at them when he passed, until he realized the gesture only serves to force one from them in return, when smiling is probably the last thing they want to do. Now, he matches their posture, guiltily avoiding their eyes as he makes his way back to the clinic.

Sebastian turns into the staff bathroom at the end of the wing, and when he does, he nearly collides with a solid wall of dark gray.

The thick, canvas-like material of the Handler coveralls always carries the same pungent smell, whenever Sebastian is unfortunate enough to be within proximity: a blend of sweat and musk and the faint but sharp twinge of copper. Like blood and adrenaline and a tangible fear that never fully washes out. It’s a smell, he imagines, that haunts the nightmares of so many people in this building and outside of it.

He takes a step back, and the handler barely spares him a glance when he brushes past him, still readjusting the zipper at the top of his uniform. The heavy footfalls carry down the hall behind him beneath the jangle of the silver keycard fastened at his hip. “Asshole,” Sebastian mutters under his breath, pushing into the bathroom.

The fluorescents are almost painfully bright, lined above a row of black-marble sinks. The grandeur of it all is just another glittering reminder of the lengths this place will go to to keep their employees happy and complicit.

A mop and rolling bucket are propped in the corner outside the far stall. No sooner does he see it than he hears a scramble of movement coming from behind the stall door. Out shuffles a familiar frame, draped in loose-hanging gray cotton. Jaime’s eyes are respectfully lowered, focused somewhere just below Sebastian’s kneecaps. There is a moment of recognition Sebastian watches play out in his face as he registers the pale-blue scrubs instead of whatever else he was expecting. Jaime looks up, meeting his eyes for half a second before he realizes himself and jerks them back down. “Sorry, I can get out of your way,” he speaks quickly toward the reflective tile, grabbing the mop and bending down to retrieve the bucket.

“Oh, no,” Sebastian says, raising a hand. Jaime stops immediately, freezing mid-crouch. Sebastian bites down on the inside of his cheek. “Sorry, I just… I meant don’t let me interrupt your work. Please.”

Jaime is still for another long moment before he straightens his legs. He goes to work, robotically dipping the mop into the bucket and dragging it back and forth over the tile, but there’s a tension in his posture, a detachment from his movements. Sebastian makes the belated decision to stop fucking hovering and go about his business.

When he comes out of the stall and walks up to the row of sinks, Sebastian’s gaze draws to Jaime’s reflection in the mirror. He washes his hands slowly, thoroughly, buying himself enough time to… what? To talk to him? To ask him how he’s doing? The answer is always going to be glaringly obvious while he’s inside these walls. Still, Sebastian can’t help but assess his wellbeing. His hair is ruffled and his cheeks are slightly flushed, and even from here, Sebastian can see the faint tremor in his hands as they clutch the mop.

The knowledge of the handler leaving the bathroom just before Sebastian’s entrance lingers in the back of his mind. He tries to push it away. He has no reason—other than the general nature of this place, he supposes—to suspect anything happened, but his instincts tell him otherwise. Jaime could have just been cleaning when he came out of the stall. He could have just been… wiping something down, replacing the roll, scrubbing the fucking toilet, anything other than the assumption that creeps into Sebastian’s mind.

But what if that wasn’t it?

Aria’s words from the week before come back to him.  Sebastian had been the one to raise the conversation about reporting internal abuse. Her answer, while not surprising, was disheartening to say the least. Reporting the exploitation or abuse of a Companion while in the care of the facility requires two things: concrete evidence, and a first-person complainant. No action will be taken without the Companion corroborating the claim, and while sometimes evidence is obtainable, asking these people to actively speak out against their abusers is asking them to put themselves directly in harm’s way. Especially when the line of solidarity amongst handlers is so unwaveringly solid. They report one, they get the backlash of a dozen others.

Fuck whatever “zero-tolerance policy” might exist in the rulebook. The system is designed to keep these people silent, and it works.

Sebastian pulls his hands out from under the spray and puts them under the air dryer. The silence that falls after the machine shuts off is broken only by the soft scrape of the mop against title. When there is nothing left to delay his leaving, Sebastian looks up at Jaime in the mirror.

He blurts the first thing that comes to mind. “How is your hand doing?”

The question seems to startle him. He looks up, then quickly down again, flexing the hand in question at his side. The scar has almost lost all its pinkness now, faded to a thin, white line. “It’s doing well,” he says with the robotic delivery Sebastian has come to expect. “Thank you.”

“Good. I’m glad. Any, um…?” He is openly stalling now. “Complications? Trouble moving it, or… numbness? Anything?”

The way his eyes flit back and forth over Sebastian’s shoes tells him he is searching for the trick in the question, weighing his options for the answer he thinks Sebastian wants to hear. “It doesn’t impede my ability to work, sir.” He sounds scared when he says it, and selfishly, Sebastian feels a knee-jerk stab of hurt. He wants to believe that he has offered up enough gestures of goodwill to earn some modicum of trust, but the logical part of his brain recognizes the privilege of that perspective.

“That’s… good.” He nods, wincing. “But I was asking more about your general comfort.”

He can tell by the twitch in Jaime’s jaw that this was a particularly obtuse thing to say, though it’s quickly covered with a smile. Or rather, the haunting imitation of one. “I’m fine, sir. Thank you.”

This is the part where Sebastian should walk out of the bathroom and leave him alone. He knows this. Instead, he turns around, leaning back against the sink to face him fully.

“Hey,” he says carefully. Jaime tenses once again, fingers locking around the mop. “You don’t have to say anything right now. And I’m not… I don’t mean to imply that anything happened or that it didn’t. I just wanted to put it out there, that if you ever find yourself in a position where you wanted to report something that… that shouldn’t have happened, you can come to me for that. Always.”

He gets a nod in response, but it’s too immediate to hold any weight. Jaime’s eyes are still lowered in that subservient way that makes the underside of Sebastian’s skin itch.

“I know it’s a complicated situation,” he adds. “And I’m sure you’re more aware of how this works than I am. Obviously I can’t make any promises about where it would go once it’s out of my hands, but I just… need you to know that the option is there, should you ever want it.”

“Okay.” Jaime murmurs toward the floor tiles.

“Okay.” Sebastian nods. He sighs, then immediately regrets his transparency as Jaime visibly winces at his disappointment.

“T-Thank you,” Jaime adds quickly, misreading the expression entirely. Before Sebastian can say anything else, Jaime is scrambling to get back to work, shuffling his mop and bucket to the other side of the room. But as he goes to pass Sebastian, Jaime’s foot catches on the limp handle of the bucket, tugging it sideways and then toppling it completely in his effort to retract himself.

Foamy water spreads over the tile in an instant, surrounding their feet. Where Sebastian’s rubber-soled work shoes combat the flood well enough, the thin canvas on Jaime’s feet is soaked-through in a second, followed by the rest of him, as he—much to Sebastian’s horror—drops onto his hands and knees in the middle of the puddle.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The frantic whisper pours from Jaime’s lips as his hands hover over the mess that surrounds him on all sides, desperately searching for some way to fix it. His eyes briefly dart around the room, then quickly lower again when he finds nothing of use. What a regrettable time to have nothing but the eco-friendly hand dryers at their disposal.

“Hey,” Sebastian says, taking a step toward him and hearing the squelch of his shoe against the tile. “It’s okay, just… hang on, we can fix this.”

Jaime doesn’t seem to hear him. “I’m sorry,” he repeats again and again, visibly trembling. Before Sebastian can find anything useful to offer, Jaime lurches forward, forearms to the floor, dragging the sleeves of his oversized sweatshirt across the tile.

“Jesus,” Sebastian whispers under his breath, pressing his hand to his mouth. He blinks at the sight before him, at Jaime fucking… using his body to mop the bathroom floor, and it takes a second to force his body to move. He crosses the few steps that separate them, crouching down at his side. Jaime flinches, but he doesn’t try to retreat. The involuntary movement only pulls his face closer to the ground, his shoulders further up toward his ears. He freezes in position, murky-gray water soaking up through the threads of his shirt.

“Hey,” Sebastian repeats, carefully, so carefully, laying a hand on Jaime’s shoulder. He remains still this time, almost eerily so, under his touch. “Come on. Let’s stand up. You don’t have to do that.”

There’s a shake of his head that might just be a full-body shudder, but he at least seems to be hearing him now. “I- I need,” Jaime whispers, his fingers curling at the ends of his sleeves. “I need… I need to clean it up, I have to fix it—”

“Not like this, you don’t.” There’s a tone of authority that slips into Sebastian’s voice that he’s not expecting, but it must register to Jaime as well, because he sits up and back, his heavy, dripping forearms falling onto his lap. Sebastian’s heart folds when he sees the wet streak of tears on his face. “Oh, Jaime,” he whispers.

The use of his name hangs heavily between them until the bathroom door swings open, shattering the moment.

Jaime seems to detect the sound of movement on the other side half-a-second before Sebastian does, but he doesn’t have time to do anything more than tense in preparation. Sebastian registers the charcoal-gray coveralls at the same time as Jaime, as evidenced by the sharp intake of breath and the way he immediately lowers his head once more. Sebastians bites down on the inside of his cheek as he looks up into the eyes of Julian Hernandez, and worse, the handler who trails in behind him. It’s not Smith—thank fuck—but still, the added presence is sure to escalate an already tense situation.

“What’s going on?” Julian asks, his eyes only briefly cutting to Jaime’s bowed form before returning to Sebastian and hardening.

He feels Jaime’s tension reach a peak beside him, his instinctive need to respond to any demand battling against his fear, so Sebastian speaks before he can. “It was my fault,” Sebastian says, pushing himself to his feet. “He was cleaning and I knocked over his bucket. On accident,” he adds quickly when Jules’s eyes narrow in on him even further.

“Why are you on the floor?” The second handler’s question is pointedly directed at Jaime this time, who shrinks under the attention.

“I was trying to clean it up.” He swallows, keeping his eyes on the soapy tile. “My mop was already w-wet, sir, so I couldn’t…”

The man’s eyes travel over the dark, sodden material hanging off of Jaime’s frame. “That’s enough.” Jaime’s mouth snaps shut. The handler clears his throat, then says, with more authority, “Stand up. Come with me.”

Jaime immediately begins scrambling to his feet, but Sebastian takes a step between them. “Where are you taking him?”

Something twitches in Julian’s jaw. “Not that it’s any of your concern, Dr. Tate,” he bites, “but it appears he could use a change of clothes, does it not?”

Sebastian doesn’t back down. “Have the clothes brought to the clinic,” he says. “I think he might have twisted something on his way down. Better to be safe and check it out.”

The second handler shifts his eyes back to Jaime. “Are you hurt?”

Something twists in Sebastian’s gut as he realizes the predicament he has put Jaime into by lying on his behalf, and forcing him to follow suit. There is the slightest twinge of movement, just enough bounce the tips of his blonde waves to show that he had tried to look up at Sebastian before correcting himself and keeping his eyes low. “Yes, sir,” he says quietly.

Sebastian breathes out.

“We’ll need to alert his primary if he’s being admitted,” the handler says. Jaime’s fingers flex and curl at his sides.

“That won’t be necessary.” Sebastian is quick to shut that down. “Just a quick check up and he will be back to work.”

“He’ll need a senior handler to escort him between wings,” the man says, only a little argumentatively.

“I’ll go,” Julian finally speaks up. He meets Sebastian’s eyes again when he says it.

They leave the mop and bucket propped in the corner. Julian utters something into his walkie about sending another Domestic over to take care of the spill. He grabs Jaime by the upper arm to guide him out of the bathroom, and Sebastian pays close attention to the amount of pressure he applies as he follows behind. He is surprised, in a cautious, skeptical kind of way, to see that his grip loosens considerably when they step out of his colleague's view.

***

Jaime starts stripping as soon as Sebastian hands him the clothes, so that’s his cue to leave.

Scrubbing a palm over his face, Sebastian makes his exit from the exam room with a promise that he will be back in a minute. He ducks into the nearest supply closet, closing the door behind him and just… taking a moment to breathe. The moment is over as soon as it starts, though, as the door swings back open. Sebastian pops an eye open, then closes it again, leaning his head back against the wall. “Thanks for knocking,” he says.

“It’s a closet,” Aria points out. “What were you doing with Jules?”

“A riveting game of chess. What else?”

“Tate.”

“He was just being his usual helpful, charitable self,” Sebastian replies, equally dryly. “Helping me escort a patient to the clinic.”

“That was the kid from the surgery, yeah?”

At this, Sebastian tilts his head back to center, meeting her eyes. “Yeah. That’s him.”

“He okay?” They both know the real answer to that question, but he knows what she’s asking.

“Yeah. I might have lied to get him in here,” he admits, glancing briefly toward the open door. She raises her eyebrows. “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s a long story. I just… I thought he could maybe use a few minutes to decompress.”

She nods, arms crossed over her chest. “Alright,” she says, pushing off from the doorway. “Be careful, Tate.” She starts to walk away, but he reaches out, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, wait. Can I ask you something?”

She turns back to him, lowering her voice. “Is this a closed door kind of question?”

“Um. I don’t think so?”

She closes the door anyway.

“Okay,” Sebastian says. “I was just… wondering. These people, between contracts, they’re assigned to work all around the facility, right? Why not here? In the clinic?”

“Sebastian…”

“I just want to know,” he continues before she can stop him, “has it been done before?”

“Yes.”

He blinks, somewhat surprised at the candor. “Yeah?”

“It’s been done before,” she says. “But there’s a reason you don’t see it happening often. It’s a risk. The close access to the drugs, to the instruments… it’s dangerous.”

“Have there been…?”

“Yeah.” There’s a weighty pause between them. “I’ve seen it myself, at a previous facility. They were a little more lax on the rules. Look. These people are in a desperate position, and in the eyes of the people who run this operation, putting them here poses a real messy problem.”

It gives him pause. Admittedly, that isn’t something that immediately occurred to him when he asked the question, and now he wonders if he should kill the idea before it can get its claws in him any further. But still, the question springs out of him, unhindered.

“But there’s no official policy saying they can’t?” He prods. “Be assigned to the clinic for their daily work?”

Aria raises an eyebrow. “Do you plan on telling me what you're plotting, or are we going to continue this ‘hypothetical’ song and dance the whole time?”

“I just think,” he says calmly, “that we could do some good by keeping some of these people under our wing when we can. What was all that you said about direct access having the biggest impact?”

“Are you going to feel the same way when someone swallows a bottle of sedatives on your watch?” Her tone is not unkind, but the reality of her words are sharp enough to cut. And they’re effective. Sebastian falls silent. Aria softens. “Look,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s something they would approve of or not. I’ve never tried. But if you pursue something like that, I would encourage you to consider every angle first, because some small wins are not worth the risk they accrue.”

With that, she grabs a clean stack of linens from the shelf behind him and leaves him alone in the closet, more aware than ever of the responsibility he holds in his hands, and less sure than ever of how to wield it.

***

TAG LIST: @whumpervescence @shiningstarofwinter @distinctlywhumpthing @whumptywhumpdump @nicolepascaline @anotherbluntpencil @hold-him-down @crystalquartzwhump @maracujatangerine @batfacedliar-yetagain @thecyrulik @pumpkin-spice-whump @melancholy-in-the-morning @also-finder-of-rings @insaneinthepaingame @skyhawkwolf @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @mylifeisonthebookshelf @dont-touch-my-soup @whump-world

[mmvalentine]

Take It Off | Feysand

I'm in my spiky feels... time for smut. Canon compliant.

Rhys hasn't seen Feyre in two weeks and he's going out of his mind.

She's at the Summer Court. On a diplomatic trip that he was had every intention of joining Feyre on but she didn't let him.

"Because you already have so much work in Velaris," she had said. "It's only two weeks, there's no point in you taking on even more when you barely have time to breathe as it is."

"That," Rhys had said, his arms looped around her waist and his teeth clenched so hard his jaw ticked, "is not a good enough reason to be parted from you."

"Fine," Feyre said, and her eyes sharpened. "Then it's because I'm keeping you far away from Cresseida and her greedy little claws."

"What?" Rhys balked. Feyre slid her hands up his chest, and pressed her lips to his throat.

"I've seen the way she looks at you. It would not be in the diplomatic interests of the court for me to strangle her in her sleep."

"Gods but you're sexy when you're jealous," Rhys said, and Feyre reached up on her toes to kiss his nose.

"I know," she said. "I'll be back for the Beltane revel."

And then she had swept out of the room and even though Rhys knew she had no such insecurity, he delighted in how wickedly fae she had become over the years.

In between now and then of course Rhys had spoken to Feyre every evening. Had spent time curled around her mind as she drifted off to sleep, sometimes having to wait while she worked late and other times watching the mists of her dreams curl upward like smoke.

One night she dreamed of him.

Rhys was almost asleep when he heard Feyre moan, as clear as if she was lying right next to him. He woke up, wandered down the bond and watched her back arch as she slept. Her small hands were fisted in the sheets, and brow creased as her head tossed. Rhys ghosted a finger down her heated cheek, growling for not being able to to touch her. She moaned again, and he knew that moan. It made him hard as a fucking rock.

It's not often that Rhys intrudes on Feyre's thoughts. But the hunger for her, the need to be close to her, egged him on. He wanted to see what was making her squirm- because he was fairly sure he knew. And he loved it.

Feyre's dreams were mostly just snatches of feelings and remembrances. Nothing especially substantive or specific. Nothing in comparison to the vivid memories he started threading into her mind. Just to... help her out.

Memories of the last time he had had her. In the bath tub. The steam rising around them. The water dripping off his wings. His cock buried so deep inside her she could have choked on it. Rhys replayed the feeling of her, tight around him as he slid in and out, in and out. Getting lost in it. He hoped she knew just how fucking good she felt.

Feyre woke, half way to orgasm, and Rhys didn't say a word as her hand slipped under the covers and between her legs. Didn't need to get behind her mind's shields to remember exactly how wet she could get for him and what that felt like on his fingers. Feyre moaned once more and he swore before grabbing his cock, too, miles and miles away, and moving his hand in time with hers.

"Yeah, just like that," Feyre whispered, still half asleep, and Rhys was burning up. The lust dripping down the bond had his vision blurring his cock aching. When Feyre finally opened her eyes, she looked straight at him, and all he could see was those baby blues, whether his eyes were open or closed. And then he was gripping himself harder because when she was staring at him like that with desire ringing her pupils he knew he was completely hers.

Let me see, Feyre murmured.

See what? Rhys asked muzzily.

You know what. Let me see.

What? Rhys said again. See this? He looked down at his cock in his hand.

Yeah, Feyre breathed.

You want to see what you do to me? He moved his hand up and down. You want to see how hard you make me? You know this happens every time you're on my mind. I'm walking around like this all day because of you.

All day? Feyre licked her lips, and Rhys watched her watching him.

All fucking day, he growled. And when I've got your voice in my mind, when I know you're lying there in bed all alone, thinking of me with your hand in your panties... it makes me just...

He trailed off, but his hand sped up and Feyre moaned a little.

You like watching, huh? Rhys asked her. You like watching me stroke it for you?

In another room, in another court, Feyre bit down on her lip and nodded.

Are you playing too? Rubbing that clit while you think of me?

Yes, Feyre whimpered, and her hips lifted off the bed.

I want you to slide your fingers inside yourself. Do it and imagine you've got my cock in you.

Feyre obeyed, and Rhys groaned. He stroked himself faster, and felt Feyre's attention shift back onto him.

Are you gonna match my pace? He asked. You fucking yourself just like I want to fuck you?

Feyre nodded and sped up. Her breathing shallowed, and Rhys growled low.

You wanna see me come?

Yes, Feyre said, and he could feel the wetness gathering on her hand.

You first, Rhys snarled. Come on your own fingers. And she did, so hard he felt it shudder down the bond, and there was only so many moments he could hold on after that before he was coming, too.

Feyre laughed softly as she drifted back to sleep.

I love you, she said, and then dropped off.

I miss you, Rhys whispered. He rolled onto his side and tried to get some sleep too. But somehow, he was still hard. No imagined tryst was as good as his mate in the flesh. He groaned, turned around to his back again, and jerked off hard and fast with the scent of her in his nostrils.

In much the same fashion, this night does not soothe him, only makes him more restless for her return.

Now two weeks later he is stalking around the moonstone palace with energy crackling at his fingertips. Feyre is due back today. Fourteen days without his mate is far too long, and his friends have started to avoid him. Had just teased him at first, but then he had become so irritable and unpleasant that they just steered clear altogether.

Which has left him slouching in his throne, wondering where the hell Feyre is. She hasn't so much as whispered in his mind all day.

And then just when he is about to storm into the Summer Court and fetch her himself, Feyre walks through the door and sits herself on the arm of his throne, casual as anything.

"Darling I'm home," she purrs, leaning back and gazing out at the crowd.

"And just where have you been?" Rhys asks, still looking out at the revellers.

"Working, lover, as discussed," is the cool response.

"I expected you back hours ago."

"I was... detained."

"At Tarquin's behest, no doubt."

"Perhaps."

Rhys grinds his teeth. In the corner of his eye, Feyre crosses one of her legs over the other, so that the toe of her pointed shoe grazes his ankle. Finally, he looks over, and his mouth goes dry.

Feyre is wearing the black dress, the Court of Nightmares dress, and the black diamond diadem to match. She looks down as he stares, and raises an eyebrow.

"What?" she says, and it is so insolent Rhys has a mind to bend her over that infernal armrest and take her in front of the whole court.

As it is, he manages not to. Turns his body toward his mate's, and runs his hand up her bare thigh, over the curve of it so that his fingertips travel the inside edge of her skin. He stops himself at the top of her thigh, barely holding on to his self-control. He remembers the first time she wore this dress and he had touched her like this. Her face watches his impassively, but her legs fall open just a fraction, and Rhys, wound up as he is, feels a shudder run the length of his body.

"Fuck," he hisses, and he is so hard it hurts.

"Something troubling you, my lord?" Feyre asks, all wide-eyed innocence.

"We're leaving," Rhys grits out.

"But darling," Feyre says, and she shifts her hips so that his hand, resting just under the satin of her skirts, finds that she is not wearing any underwear. "The revel has only just begun." This fucking dress. He doesn't know what's more tantalising- the exposed curve of her breast, or peak of her nipple beneath the fabric, so fine he thinks it doesn't count as clothing.

Rhys visibly swallows, moves his fingers so that they only just brush against the soft lips of her bare pussy, and looks at her with desperate eyes.

"And I just got here." Feyre smiles beatifically, and her mate growls with all of his teeth showing. She tilts her hips, outwardly not seeming to move from her perch but managing to shift to that his fingers are right on the centre of her. Rhys stares at her navel, seeing nothing, transfixed by the silk and heat of her. "Shouldn't we stay just a little longer?"

Feyre blinks at him, all wide-eyes innocence. But then his fingers twitch and even this tiny movement has her soaking, and it's far too much.

"Take it off," Rhys snarls.

"What?"

"Your dress. I can't stand to have you covered up another fucking second."

"My love, you can hardly expect me to strip off in front of all these good fae."

He grabs her wrist, and the next second they've winnowed into their bedroom.

"Take. It. Off."

Feyre tips her head to one side, and looks at her lover, half-feral by the closed door.

"Did you miss me when I was gone?" she croons.

"Off," Rhys repeats, and Feyre's gaze meets the protrusion in the front of his trousers. Her mouth forms the shape of recognition, and her eyes sparkle. She lifts her hands to the fastenings in the back of the dress, but she is too slow.

Rhys crosses the room in three strides and tears the fabric with his hands. Feyre gasps as he touches her, puts his hands on her everywhere. His teeth pull at the skin of her neck, his thumbs stroke over her nipples. His fingers find the clasp of her necklace and remove that too. She goes to lift the tiara from her head, but Rhys stops her.

"That, you can leave on," he growls, and then finally her kisses her and it's somewhere between scathing possession and relief that could shatter him.

Feyre whimpers, it's a long moment before Rhys can pull himself away. Then with steely eyes but gentle hands he pushes her to her knees.

Feyre looks up at her mate, keeping her eyes on his as he takes his cock out and lowers it to her lips.

"Are you going to be a good girl?" he asks, low and dangerous. "Are you going to give me what Tarquin doesn't get?"

Feyre doesn't break eye contact as she takes his entirety into her mouth, relaxing her throat to fit him in. The groan this pulls from Rhys is entirely worth it.

"So good," Rhys murmurs, as she starts to move her head back and forth. At that moment, Feyre flashes up a memory. Her and Tarquin sitting at a long table. So good, Tarquin says with his eyes on Feyre's and a dessert spoon in his mouth.

Rhys growls, and his hands slide into her hair. He holds her in place as he fucks her mouth a little harder, and Feyre's laughter tickles the bond.

"Oh you think that's funny, do you?" Rhys snarls, and in the next second he's pulled out, lifted her up and over his shoulder, and is carrying her to the bed.

Feyre is dumped unceremoniously on her back, and before she can sit up Rhys’s whole weight is on her and his snarl is grazing the shell of her ear.

”You‘re a fucking tease, my darling,” he says from his throat. Feyre starts to reply but he’s pressing the air out of her. "I think you'll pay for that now."

Without breaking eye contact, takes her bottom lip between his teeth, and slowly pushes his cock inside of her.

Feyre's head tilts and her eyes roll. Her lips part and she goes for a gasp, but Rhys is still heavy on her chest and she can't get any air in. Her mouth opens and closes, and her hands tighten on Rhys's arms. Rhys's lips curl, as he reaches his hilt. He kisses gently down Feyre's neck, still not letting her breathe. His hands lift hers above her head, and his tongue glides all the way back up her throat to her ear. When he finally lets up, he watches her inhale as he withdraws, and then just before she exhales he punches his hips forward so her next breath is forced out in a cry.

Rhys loves watching Feyre when he's moving inside her. She knows he loves her wicked words and taunting eyes, but even her mind is silent as this sensation, this bond, this coming home after weeks away becomes more important than everything else.

At first, Rhys is hard and desperate. Needs to feel her everywhere so he knows she's back and she's safe. Needs release after so long in a cold and empty bed. And he's in love with the way that she responds to him, never shying away from him even when he's sharp and rough with her. In fact, she seems to need it too, and when her fingers taper into talons that drag down his back, he shudders with his whole body as his wings ripple out from beneath his skin. Her knees hug his ribcage, and her can feel the pulse in her throat beneath his lips.

And then her eyes open and the entire sky is framed in her lashes. Rhys's heart breaks and suddenly he's moving slow, sinuous, deep and rolling. His wings shut out the twilight, narrowing the world to just the two of them. Feyre's breathing changes and then the moans are long and keening. Rhys holds her gaze as she starts to unravel in his arms. He moves a thumb to circle her clit. He moves in, and out, and in again.

"Come for me," he whispers in her ear, and when she does it's delicious. When she's halfway through her orgasm he picks up the pace again because he isn't going to let her come down. He's got two weeks to make up for.

Feyre is screaming as his hands slide over her and squeeze her breasts. His thumb caresses her nipple, gentle even though his hipbones are knocking hard against hers. He kisses her open mouth and uses his tongue to cut off the sound, and her grip is so tight in his hair.

Please, Feyre finally begs. It's the first word she's uttered since they began. Now it comes in a litany. Please, please, please.

Rhys scoops his hand behind Feyre's head, fingertips scraping against her scalp before pulling her hair so hard her head tips back. Her eyes slide closed and her hands shake on his shoulders.

Please, I need you.

Rhys turns her head slightly to the side using the fistful of hair he's got, exposing more of her throat to him. He bites down between her jaw and her ear lobe, where he can taste her heartbeat and the smell of her is clearest, and when all that's in his mind is his mate, he comes hard in the tight heat of her and she's got tears in her eyes when she comes again with him.

In the fading light, in this sumptuous bed, in the embrace of his lover, Rhys puts his face into Feyre’s neck and breathes deeply. He grins against her dewy skin as he listens to her heart stutter and catch its breath. Feyre sighs contentedly.

”You know,” she says after a moment, “leaving you is almost worth it for the reunion sex.”

Rhys growls at her, tugs her down the bed and flips her over. Feyre laughs breathlessly as he smacks her once on the ass, and then he pulls her hips back toward him and fucks her until her laugh has turned to moans and her moans have turned to sobs. And this time when he’s done with her there are no smart remarks, just her curled up on his chest like a limp kitten and he traces his bitemarks in her skin until she’s falling asleep.

“Alternatively,” he whispers, “you can just never leave me again.”

He takes her lack of reply as an agreement.

**** MASTERLIST

TAGLIST: @ghostlyrose2 @highladysith @stardelia @feysand-loml @tillyrubes10 @ratabrasileira @live-the-fangirl-life @maybekindasortaace @annejulianneh111 @thebonecarver @rowaelinismyotp @loosingdreams @whythefuckdoiexist @inejsarrow @swankii-art-teacher @sjmships @courtofjurdan @teddytdr @positivewitch @thalia-2-rose @darling-archeron @rapunzel1523 @fairchildjace @philosophorumaurum02 @story-scribbler @allthecolorsneverseen @asteria-of-mars @fandomstalker27 @realbookloverproblems

[mxvladdy]

What do you think would happen if MC (in an attempt to keep it away from him) tucked Goldie under their boob?

[A bra is the best wallet but underneath even a C-cup boob is damn near Fort Knox (or the tower of London, I.e. Impenatrable fortresses)]

lmaooo. Let’s us gather round and pray for Mammon’s remaining sanity. What little remands. The himbo never saw it coming. I’m weak and got a little spicy at the end, apologies if that’s not what you wanted my heart was thirsty for ONE greed man;.;

  A/N I originally called this work Tiity prison bc I have a sense of humor lol.

Hope ya like!

To say he is conflicted is an understatement. Depending on when and where you do the titty lockdown will change how he reacts.

If it's at school, he is a mess. I’m talking about the works. He’s red in the face, can’t focus, and sweating the whole rest of the school day. He is definitely torn between fighting his goldie withdrawals and making a pass at your chest.

He won’t do the latter, as much as he threatens it. He may be scummy but he has a code of conduct (most of the time). You get a kick out of watching him try not to stare at your chest and getting smacked by Lucifer when caught.

If it’s on Lucifer’s orders to keep his card away from him he’ll have a bit more control but will bitch the WHOLE day. Honestly, you might give it back just to shut him up.

He won’t outright grab your chest or physically try to snatch it. He’ll try to be sneaky about it. Dropping stuff and making you bend over to grab it. “I swear I ain’t try nothin’”. Right.

If desperate enough he’ll just downright pick you up off your feet and jiggle you like a piggy bank. Like I said, he has a code of conduct. It’s just kinda flexible sometimes.

“C-come on! Give ‘er back.” Mammon pleads, pulling off his classic bagger’s pout. Good thing you were immune. His toned arms cage you in, your back resting on one of the school’s marble walls. “How am I going to buy lunch?”

“I made you lunch.” You laugh. Ducking under his arms you make your way to the dining hall ignoring his flustered shouts. He’ll follow soon enough. The promise of your cooking and potentially nabbing goldie back was too great for him to ignore. Sure enough, he slinks in a few minutes after you. His shades now out and perched on his nose. Even hidden under the tinted glasses, you could see his flushed cheeks and darting eyes. “Better eat now, Beel is going to join us today.” You say around a mouthful of food. He whines but forces himself to focus on his quickly cooling food.

He follows you even closer than before after lunch, barely a hair’s breadth from your back. His clever fingers pinching and pulling at the bottom of your shirt in the crowded hallway. “Please~” He whimpers through his teeth after your swat his hands away again. “I swear I won’t use her.”

You plop down at your desk. “If you’re not going to use her, then she is safe where she is.” You stick your tongue out and give the boob hiding goldie a lovely squeeze. Mammon groans as if stabbed, teeth bared and fangs growing in a mix of frustration and want. “Babe come on. Ya’ killing me.” His eyes are glued to where your hand rests.

Before you can respond a leather-clad hand smacks Mammon across the back of his head. Mammon yips in fright. “I will kill you first if you don’t keep your eyes up at the board.” The cold warning from Lucifer was enough to shut you both up for the rest of the class. You watch him disappear when the bell chimes. His next period was across campus while you were stuck here for another hour. Your phone buzzes the moment his designer boots disappear out the door.

Pretty Boy: what did you do to Mammon?

You: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

You catch Asmo’s eye from his seat a few rows back from you. He winks at you, thumbs flying across his lit screen.

Pretty Boy: Bull- tell me your secrets. I haven’t seen him that flustered in eons, not since Helen paid a visit.

You: Got “asked” by Lucifer to keep Goldie away from Mammon for the day. A limited edition car he wants just got released. Luci is still paying off Mammon’s last shopping spree, so he’s on ice till tomorrow afternoon.

Pretty Boy: Ouch- you not telling him where it is?

You: Oh no. He knows exactly where it is. He is just too nervous to go for it.

You hear Asmo’s scandalous gasp behind you earning you both a glare from the professor. You bite your tongue to hide a chuckle. The professor turns with a huff, and Asmo starts up all over again.

Pretty Boy: Is it in your pants! Can I take a look ;*

You: No and No.

Pretty Boy: Ah- he was always a chest man. Good luck with that, he can hold out for only so long :)

What does that mean? You whip your head around waiting for an explanation text. Asmo has the gall to ignore you, busy reapplying his lip gloss. Even if he wasn’t looking at you, you knew that impish smile was for you. Turning back around in your seat you shiver, now you weren’t sure if you should be scared or excited.

The rest of the day passes quietly. Too quietly. It gives you the jitters. Every corner of the school could be a potential hiding spot for one conniving demon. You weren’t expecting him to attack you, not outright. Yet, you were expecting some sort of retaliation. The last bell of the day came sooner than you expected and it was time for afterschool activities. Packing your bag you wave off Beel and Satan, assuring them you would be fine to walk to the music and arts wing by yourself.  They had their own clubs to get to anyway.

Making your way to your activity you feel the hair on the back of your neck began to rise. Something wasn’t sitting right with you. You look up and around. No one was in the corridors, not even a stray teacher rushing to the breakroom. Odd. You peak over your shoulder and frown. Even the air was still. Chalking it up to a probably very haunted school, you pick up the pace. Even if you didn’t believe in the ghost stories like Luke, it was best to just never find out. No matter what hallway you took or how fast you walked the feeling of being watched only intensified. Your flight or fight instinct kicked in.

Who could you call if you need help? Where in the hells was Mam- was that your pencil case? You skid to a halt bemused. There, in the middle of the floor was your favorite case. The calico kitty design stares up at you innocently from the floor. You open your bag to double-check. You could have sworn you had thrown it in there after last period. Did it fall out? Had you taken this path before? You approached it cautiously, bending down to grab it.

Strong arms wrap around your waist locking around you like a spring trap. They lift you up and up and up. It was so sudden you could do nothing but squeak in surprise, pencil case clutched tightly to your chest. Were you really going to die here? Caught in such a childish trap...wait.  “Seriously Mammon!” The fear disappears, replaced now with exasperation. He grunts ignoring your words to shake you slightly. You yelp feeling goldie and your bra shift. “Oh, my Gods. Mammon! I know you can do better than this.”

“Shut up! I’m desperate.”

Unbelievable. "That's the best you got? Really, I’m kinda insulted." Mammon stops shaking you, his arms loosening enough for you to turn around to face him. He looks up at you batting his long lashes. “Put me down.” It wasn’t a pact order, but firm. He pouts but sets you back on the ground gently. Not before giving you a hearty squeeze. You catch his hand sneaking up the side of your shirt with a raised brow. "Why didn't you just make a grab for it in the first place?"

He scoffs turning pink. "'M allowed ta just cop a feel whenever I want now?"

"Absolutely not, not in public at least. I like you breathing."

“Could have fooled me,” Mammon chuckles. He glances around the empty hallway then back to you. A slow rolling purr starts deep in his throat. "Though, there is no one here now." Slowly his dexterous fingers glide back over your sides. His touch is searing on your shirt. You could feel goldie pulsing underneath the cotton of your bra. The plastic seemingly growing warmer than your skin as his hand travels closer. You do nothing, watching his face grow hungrier with each passing centimeter as he gets close to his prize. “What’s stopping me now?”

“Just you.” He stops at the side of your chest, eye wide and greedy. You could feel him trying to temper himself. His adrenaline, fear, lust, and his raw cardinal desire thicking the air around you. It all pulsed red hot in his veins and travels down to yours. He wanted more than just goldie now. His natural magnetism pulling you in closer. You wanted him, you wanted him to just take it- take everything. The pact mark slams shut, its heat snuffed out like a candle. "Mammon?" Had your teasing gone too far?

"Hold tight to her till tonight." He growls tapping your chest possessively. His many gold rings resemble talons as he drags his fingers across the stitching of your school uniform. "I'll come for her tonight," He leans in, smoke and leather clouds your sense. "and I'll be taking a tithe for all the trouble you caused me too." His husky promise sends a shiver down your spine, gut twisting in anticipation. Mammon's bright blue eyes jump over your shoulder, a frown grows on his beautiful face, he could hear footsteps approaching from your club room. Probably the angels looking for you. Brushing his lips across your cheek he parts, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Be ready. You know I always come to collect."

[readiajin]

To Love Herself - Chapter 2: Wherever

Synopsis: Following ACOSF until Nesta’s confrontation with Amren. Rather than going to hike and soul search with Cassian in the wild, Nesta uses her powers to disappear.

In celebration of being done with my finals I finally finished chapter 2! I found writing the inner circle hard because I wanted to be consistent with the books but also got frustrated at them... Enjoy!

Prologue: Disappear

Chapter 1: Appear

Chapter 2: Wherever

Cassian - After Appear

“Don’t finish all the wine before Feyre gets here.” Cassian met Mor’s gaze over the top of his wineglass, her own hovering just about her lips, curved in a teasing smile.

“You’re one to talk,” he shot back.

“It’s not my fault Feyre’s late.”

“You both have a problem.” Cassian looked at Amren, who was practically in Varian’s lap next to Mor on the couch. 

“Where is Feyre anyways?” Elain asked from her seat next to Cassian. That was addressed to Rhys, who was walking into the sitting room from checking on Nyx. 

Rhys took a seat in one of the two open arm chairs in front of the fire. “She said she lost track of time in the studio. Is on her way back now.” 

“What is she doing? Walking?” Mor asked. 

“Yes, said she wanted to enjoy the night.” Rhys said this casually, but Cassian knew his brother well. He could tell Rhys was bothered by Feyre’s absence. They hadn’t had a planned dinner tonight, their family convening spontaneously as Cassian and Mor reported in on court business to Rhys and Amren. Azriel had been here after training Nyx earlier. Varian was the only one besides Feyre told to come over. 

Dinner had been casual and quick as Nyx had been full of energy before Rhys got him down. Nyx had asked for his mother, and Cassian didn’t think she had ever unexpectedly missed his bedtime, especially just to paint. Rhys seemed to be thinking the same thing. Cassian knew his brother probably wanted to go get Feyre himself, but she had most likely told him no. Rhys understood how important it was to respect Feyre’s independence.

Still, Rhys accepted the glass of whiskey Azriel placed in his hand before returning to his chosen spot leaning against the sideboard. 

Rhys was about to take a sip when his head snapped to the doorway. 

Feyre stood there. 

Cassian could immediately tell something was wrong. She didn’t say anything, barely glanced at any of them as she made her way to take the last open seat in front of the fire. Rhys stood, but Feyre only reached out to take his glass of whiskey before sitting, and downing the glass. 

“Feyre, what’s wrong?” Rhys asked this with a deadly calm Cassian knew was to cover his panic and rage at whatever had happened. The fact that he asked it out loud meant she must not be responding through their bound, something not lost on anyone else in the room. 

Feyre finished the glass and closed her eyes, letting out a sign.

“What happened girl?” Amren asked somewhat tentatively. Tentatively for Amren, which was even more alarming. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” It was true, Feyre was deathly pale and her hands shook slightly. 

Feyre let out a shaky laugh. “I have.” 

No one spoke, the crackling fire the only sound. 

Feyre’s eyes fluttered open, going straight to Cassian. In that split second before she spoke, Cassian already knew what she was going to say. 

“I saw Nesta.” 

Time stood still as a million different things flashed through Cassian’s mind. He saw her, Neata, the last day he had seen her eight years ago. Her face flushed with anger, then frozen, her eyes empty. He saw her burn herself up in silver flames, then gone. 

He also saw the memories of her he clung too. Training with that determined look in her eyes. The I will slay my enemies look. A ghost of a smile on her lips as she talked with Emerie and Gwyn, or even with him, even when she fought it. He saw her naked, breathing heavily beneath him while looking at him with a feeling in her eyes he had thought he knew but was too scared to voice. A feeling he now understood had just been wishful thinking on his part. 

“What do you mean you saw Nesta?” Rhys’ deadly voice brought Cassian back, his eyes still locked with Feyre’s. At the threat of violence in Rhys’ tone however, Cassian found his gaze drifting to Rhys, who still stood next to Feyre, and a rising tide of his own anger with it. 

“She showed up at my studio as I was leaving.”

Cassian found his voice to ask, “And where is she now?” Save for Rhys, who was focused on Feyre, Cassian sensed everyone else watching him. 

“She left again. She was only there for a few minutes.” 

“What did she say?” asked Amren

“She said…” Fryre stumbled over her words as she stared towards the back of the room, as if she could see Nesta standing there now. “She looked great.”

Cassian frowned. He had pictured Nesta as she had been at her lowest. In the old apartment, drunk, and reeking of sex. These past eight years had also been ample time for him to imagine her lost, starving, bleeding out. He had pictured her in the same pain he had been since she had left. He didn’t understand what Feyre meant by ‘great’. “What do you mean?” 

“She looked healthy. She had the Great Sword with her.” 

“Of course she did,” Mor scoffed. “Did she have the other weapons with her? Did you ask?”

“No, but she told me… some things.” 

“What things?” Amren demanded. 

“She said we needed to look for dissent among the Illyarians, that some were conspiring with… someone on the continent.” 

Cassian exchanged a glance with Azriel. “Feyre, can you start at the beginning, what happened.” Az said this as he switched Feyre’s empty glass for one with wine.

They waited as she took a sip before explaining how Nesta had appeared behind her, and what she had told Feyre about a group on the continent looking for Prynthia’s power. 

It was Mor who broke the silence that followed. “Well that sounds like a load of shit if I have ever heard it. Seriously, she expects us to believe that? If there is a threat to Prynthia, it’s her. Did you ask her about the kidnapped priestesses?”

“No, I didn’t think of it. But she wants to meet in two days.”

“Absolutely not,” Rhys finally cut in. “I’m not having my mate go anywhere near her.” 

Feyre set down her wine glass to glare at her mate. “She’s my sister, of course I’m going.”

“A sister who lied, left, and stole from you,” Amren scoffed. “Nesta didn’t deserve you before, girl, nor does she now.” 

Cassian’s head and heart were pounding. Part of him wanted to rip into Rhys, Amren, and Mor for what they said, but he was feeling too much. He should say something, but they all knew how he felt already anyways. They had seen him in the weeks and months after she disappeared after all. 

Azriel, thankfully, spoke up. “We should meet her. If not to hear what she has to say but then at least to check out her magic. My shadows have never been able to track her. She seems to have mastered her powers if she was able to get into the city and sneak up on Feyre.” 

 “She also could have help,” Varian added. “Getting into the city itself is a feat, but she was able to get those weapons and priestesses out seven years ago, right?” 

“I agree Nesta is a problem to be dealt with, but that should be done without meeting in a situation she controls.” Rhys said. 

“What do you mean ‘dealt with’?” Cassian asked with a deadly calm.

Rhys turned to Cassian, his face cold. 

“I told you before her power is death. I will not tolerate any threat to the Night Court.”

“Nesta’s a threat to the Night Court? Or do you just think she is a threat to you?” Cassian growled. Cassian would never forget Rhy’s threat to kill Nesta after she had told Feyre about the risk of the baby. Despite his later apology, Cassian knew Rhys had meant it at the time. 

Rhys’ violet eyes flared and the air became charged with his powers. Cassian’s siphons flared in response. 

“Enough!” Feyre jumped up and stepped in between them before they both did something they would regret. In over the 500 years Cassian had known Rhys, the only things that had ever caused them to threaten real violence towards each other were Feyre and Nesta. 

Feyre whirled on Rhys. “I am in no mood for your overprotective male bullshit. Nesta is my sister and I am High Lady. I will meet her if I wish.”

Rhys settled back a bit, but his voice was still hard as he replied to his mate, “You are also a mother. What about Nyx.”

“Don’t use our son as a reason I can’t do something. Besides, Nesta is not a threat.”

Once again, a tense silence filled the room. Cassian couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Rhys and Feyre fight like this, if ever. Usually they kept their disagreements silent and between them. 

“What do you think Elain?” Azriel asked, breaking the tension even if it required him addressing Elain. They had enough tension between them without getting involved in other’s. Still, Rhys and Feyre both took a step back from each other and turned their attention to Elain next to Cassian. 

Elain, who had been sitting so silent throughout the debate that Cassian had forgotten she was there, stood. “I think Nesta has always made the wrong choices. But she wouldn’t have come back or asked to meet without a reason. You should at least go meet her.” 

“You?” Feyre asked, frowning. “You don’t want to see her?”

“No, I don’t.” Elain said this with a confidence Cassian rarely heard from her. “Hear her out, but I agree with Mor. She can’t be trusted. I’m going to bed, let me know what you decide in the morning.” With that, Elain left the room. 

Cassian attempted to keep his voice neutral as he said, “So we will meet her in two days where she said.”

“It seems so.” was all Rhys said.

Cassian knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it together for much longer so he downed the last of his wine and walked to the doors leading outside. No one tried to stop him. 

Out on the patio he breathed in the cool air in an attempt to calm his pounding blood. He flared his wings with the intention of flying to cliffs on the coast to scream out everything he was feeling, when the door opened behind him. 

Feyre stood there, her eyes, Nesta’s eyes, sad.

“I’m sorry Cassian.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?”

“I’m sorry for everything,” Feyre ran a hand over her face. “I’m sorry for her leaving, I’m sorry for how she behaved before that, and for how I behaved towards her. I’m sorry she came to me and not you.”

Cassian’s chest tightened. He didn’t want to feel this way, but envy wasn’t rational, and he couldn’t stop the pain at the thought that Nesta went to Feyre but not him.

“She’s your sister, of course she went to you.”

Feyre gave him a sad smile and leaned against the railing, looking up at the stars. “She did ask about you.”

Cassian’s voice was breathy as he said, “Really?”

“Yes.”

They both continued to examine the stars before Cassian asked what had been nagging him the most. “What did you mean by she looked great and healthy?”

“She was tanned and looked to have a good amount of weight from what I could see. I think she was in fighting leather’s, but not Illyarian ones.”

“But she didn’t give any clue as to where she has been the past eight years?”

Feyre shook her head. “Said it was a long story.”

“I’m sure,” Cassian scoffed, the back of his mouth bitter.

“We will find out in two days.”

Cassian nodded, but didn’t say anything more as he spread his wings and launched into the night. 

•••••

Nesta - After Disappear 

The first thing Nesta became aware of was the sound of wind rustling thousands of tree needles somewhere above her. 

Nesta took a deep breath of the earthy, spiced tinged air as her eyes fluttered open. The world was a mix of red and green, but far above where she lay, Nesta could make out bits of blue sky and white clouds through the forest canopy. 

Gods, her head pounded. But not like it did after she drank. No, the last time Nesta had felt like this was after the battle with Hyburn. Memories flashed in Nesta’s mind as she recalled what happened. Cassian asking her for sword names, to the rage she had felt at them all, herself, and then the tears she caused Feyre to spill.

And the magic. Nesta had not just let her powers slip, she had used them, allowed them to take her. To here. Wherever this was. 

Nesta’s fists closed around handfuls of soft wood and dirt. Slowly, she pushed herself up to take in her surroundings, and her breath caught. She was surrounded by the most enormous trees she had ever seen. Their orange-red trunks were thicker than her family’s old cottage, with the lowest branches several stories above her head. 

Nesta had never felt so small. So insignificant. 

She had done it. She had left Velaris and her sisters. And Cassian. She had left Gwyn and Emerie with no explanation. Guilt settled in her as Nesta remembered their concern after she had argued with Cassian earlier that day. Oh gods, what day was it?

Nesta pushed to her feet only to almost collapse immediately, her head spinning. She had no way of knowing how long it had been since she had left. Her mouth felt like sandpaper and her stomach ached painfully.

The forest around her was unsettlingly peaceful. Wind high about shifted the needles and branches, but the world at the ground where Nesta stood almost seemed frozen in time. By the sun’s soft light, she figured it was mid morning. She saw no animals, or much vegetation besides small bushes and ferns scattered about the bases of the trees. 

It would be a fine place to lay down and die. Of all the places Nesta had ever been, this forest was one the nicer places. Better than her run down apartment, or Feyre’s ornate palace on the river. Definitely better than the townhouse and it’s claustrophobic walls.

Nesta felt a pang in her chest as she thought of the House. It may be ridiculous but the House was her friend, and the first home she had felt comfortable in. Even if it hadn’t been her choice. 

Now it was all gone. Everything she knew was gone. He was- no. This had been her choice. 

The thought spurred Nesta to move. She picked a random direction and started walking. She needed water. And food. And shelter.  

Despite everything her family had been through, Nesta realized, she had never truly been without. Even in the grips of poverty they had a house, no matter how small and rundown. And Feyre had always been responsible for food. A familiar heavy wave came over Nesta. None of that mattered anymore. She wouldn’t be a problem for them anymore. 

There was too much to take in as Nesta made her way through the huge forest. She felt like an ant crawling on twigs as she made her way around and over fallen branches. The red trees were soft, with many branches and old trunks shattered across the ground. 

It was hard navigating, as the trees made it hard to see more than a few meters. 

A small stream came into sight and Nesta had to restrain herself from jumping into it. Swallowing her dry mouth took a lot of effort now. Walking to a mini waterfall where the water ran clear, Nesta collapsed to her knees beside it. She cupped her hands and drank, not caring about the water she dribbled down the front of her training leathers. 

The water was rejuvenating. After thoroughly quenching her thirst, Nesta splashed water on her face.

Refreshed, Nesta sat back and closed her eyes, taking a breath. The water helped, but Nesta knew she needed food. And shelter, and a plan. Because she had no idea what she was doing. 

Nesta tried to clamp down on her rising panic. She would get her wish and she would die here in this strange forest because she was so unskilled she lacked the basic abilities required to survive and feed herself. For all her training with Cassian, he had never taught her to be self reliant. She hadn’t even trained with a real sword.

Nesta felt a sob build in her throat and tears threaten to spill despite holding her eyes shut. It was only shock that stopped Nesta’s breakdown. Shock when a voice said from behind her:

“Who the hell are you?” 

•••••

Thanks for being here :)

Tags:

@bluassassin @my-fan-side @nehemikkele @vidalinav​ @dread3r @vasudharaghavan @laylaameer01​ @little-shipper55 @aelinchocolatelover @mis-lil-red @missing-merlin @frosted-crackers​

[the-smol-boys]

Size shifter! bad

Part 4 I think?

—————

Skeppy woke up the following morning in Bad’s chest. The demon was actually awake and seemed to be staring at him.

“You watching me while I sleep, bad? That’s creepy”

The other immediately flushed. “W-what no it’s not! I mean I wasn’t even looking at you! And if I was it’s because there’s nothing else to look at in this cave....and you look pretty cute when you’re this short~”

“What the hell bad! I’m not short! You’re the one who’s tall!”

“Hey! Language!”

The two bickered for awhile as usual. Skeppy was happy Bad was acting like himself despite everything.

—

Bad is still a giant and it looks like he will be for awhile, but he agrees to go back to the badlands with Skeppy riding in his scarf. The first order of business is fixing up the mansion, so they head to the neather as soon as Skeppy builds a big enough portal for bad. The trip goes a lot easier than usual. Bad is fire resistant and can wade through the lava. He can also take down blazes, piglins, ghosts...basically everything With ease. Even so Bad is still careful to avoid stepping on any of the peaceful striders, which makes Skeppy smile a little, Bad will always be Bad no matter what size he is.

“Step on them, bad! Crush them! Crush them!”

“No skeppy! That’s awful don’t even say that!”

“Hehe but whyyyy?”

“Stepping on them is mean! And then don’t even drop anything anyway...” the demon frowned and poked Skeppy in the stomach.

“Owwie...” he whined

“Oh my gosh Sgeppy I barely touched you!”

“That huuurt” Skeppy pretended to whimpered

“Sgeppy! Did I really hurt you!? I’m sorry I didn’t mean-“

The diamond boy burst out laughing. “Hahaha, did you really think you poking me would actually hurt? My bones are made of diamond!”

“Geppy! that’s not funny! You’re a muffin head! Don’t do that!” The demon whined

“Ok ok, I’m sorry, but I have to mess with you a little when you’re like this!”

“...no you don’t”

“Bad come on, I’m sorry...”

“Grrr...”

“Bad, please I won’t do it again, I promise”

The demon sighed. “Ok I forgive you Skeppy, just don’t do it again.”

—

Mining quarts was a lot easier when you had a giant friend. Bad held Skeppy up to high places to reach quarts that was on the ceiling and they didn’t have to go around lava pools as bad could just walk right through them.

It wasn’t long before they had enough quartz to repair the house and then some.

—

Bad watched Skeppy fix the house. He was too scared to get close to it and risk falling onto it.

It took Skeppy about half the day to finish fixing it up.

“There” he said as he placed the final block. “All done!” He beamed at the demon who was sitting 20 feet away.

“I can’t fit in it...”

“You will once you go back to your normal size”

“What if I never...”

“Bad..we’ve been over this...”

“I know...I know it’s irrational but still...”

Skeppy approached his friend and took one of his clawed fingers and hugged it. “It’s going to be okay bad, no matter what happens alright?”

The demons face turned a muddy red. ‘He’s blushing’ Skeppy thought with a bright smile plaster fo his face. Bad smiled back and Skeppy swore he saw him shrink ever so slightly, no more than a foot, but it confirmed his suspension that Bad wouldn’t be stuck like this forever. “I bet one day you can learn to control it, then think about how much we can mess with the others”

Bad laughed evily . “Ooo, you’re right, I can force everyone to do my bidding and make me all the muffins in the world!”

“Bad...so devious~” he smirked, happy he managed to cheer his friend up. Unfortunately the good mood didn’t last long as lightning flash across the sky, followed by booming thunder and then a down pour of rain. “Shit...”

“Language...” Bad outstretched his wings to cover himself and Skeppy from the droplets. “You should get inside geppy”

“What about you?!”

“I’ll just hide out in the nether for now”

“Oh..good idea”

Bad picked up his friend and set him down in front of the mansion. “It’s late anyway. I’ll see you in the morning and hopefully the storm will be over by then..”

“Yeah...night, Bad”

“Goodnight sgeppy”

the demon lingered for a moment, Skeppy realized he was waiting for him to go inside. He went inside the mansion and he watched bad head towards the portal through the window. “Poor Bad...” he sighed and turned to go to the bedroom. It looked a bit different now, Skeppy wasn’t able to fix it perfectly. Not to mention Bad had crushed to the bed and most of the other items that decorated the room. Skeppy had to throw everything out basically. All that remained was a small bookshelf and a small bed he got from the guest room. He crawled in, Skeppy knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. He missed Bad’s warmth and the way the demon would curl around him in his sleep. He even missed his soft snoring and how he’d hog the blanket and Skeppy would complain and try to take it back only for the demon to wrap one of his wings around the diamond boy to get him to shut up.

He was tossing and turning for hours before finally giving up. “Ugh! This will never work!” He sat up and stomped out, heading towards the nether portal. Skeppy was drench by the time he entered the glowing purple field.

It didn’t take long at all to find bad. He had dug out a little cave in the netherac wall and was laying down but seemed to be having the same trouble Skeppy was.

The demon perked up when he noticed his best friend. “Sgeppy, something wrong?” His voice full of concern

“No...well, yes. The bed I took from the guest room is super uncomfortable...”

“Oh?”

“Yeah so...um..can I just-“

“Stay here? Of course you can Skeppy! Come in” Bad moved so he body wasn’t blocking the entrance.

“Why thank you~” he said while hurrying inside.

Bad moved, blocking the entrance again. He definitely didn’t want any mobs sneaking in now.

Skeppy didn’t know what he was expecting. The little artificial cave was completely barren aside from some glow stone lighting up the ceiling. He turned to look at bad, who had his wing raised, offering Skeppy to cuddle with him, which the diamond boy gladly accepted, laying down on his friends chest. Bad placed a hand over Skeppy and curled his wings around the both of them in a cacoon, making the smaller feel safe and protected, in the nether of all places!

The demon hummed happily, and Skeppy could feel the vibrations of it. “Goodnight sgeppy, for real this time”

The other giggled “yeah yeah, goodnight bad, love you”

“Love you too geppy”

—————

Day 5 of not knowing how to write but writing anyway

Is it a plot hole that Skeppy is able to sleep in the nether?

[neovisioned]

♡ꜜ 0 miles away﹫jeno lee

pairing : jeno x reader (f)

genre : smut with some plot, fluff if you squint, established relationship.

warnings : mainly smut, dom!jeno gets tied, uses of a sex toy, edging, oral (f receiving), choking, manhandling. 

word count : +4k

synopsis : where you finally see your boyfriend after months away due to quarantine and things get heated. you quickly find Jeno got a little toy to take care of himself and forgot to inform you beforehand. 

a/n : here's to 1 000 followers ! thank you so so much to my og followers for sticking around even when i was inactive and thank you to every new follower and welcome ♡

There’s a slight touch on your naked arm, one you know very well by now, even in your highly concentrated state. Lukewarm fingertip drawing random shapes on your skin, you hum as your boyfriend takes his eyes away from the screen, though you suspect he never really payed that much attention.

“Are you really watching ?”, the black-haired asks, nose dipping into your hair and oh, you know him too well. You know this very pattern too well, the one where you’re doing something, focused and yet, Jeno thinks you can not feel his hard on against your backside. This very behavior where he tried his best to stay calm and yet, the slight alteration in his breathing doesn’t go unnoticed, the way he shifts while cuddling you doesn’t either.

You have to say, you’re quite surprised it didn’t happen earlier. See, after months away from each other, only having your phones to communicate, you finally, finally reunited with your boyfriend.

You remember joking about being shy around him now that you spend weeks without his presence beside you but you almost think he got shy after so long, it’s funny.

A simple date was set up in his apartment, a movie and some things to eat and Jeno didn’t make a move until now, a third into the second movie.

“Yeah. Are you not ?”, you ask, voice slightly teasing.

“I don't even know what the fuck this movie is about.”, and there it is, the deep in his voice. It sends shivers down your spine, almost inaudible sigh escaping your lips when his ghost over the skin of your nape.

Your boyfriend peppers kisses on your skin and oh, how you missed it. You missed his mouth exploring every parcel of your body, you missed his firm grip, the same he uses to turn your body around.

“I was watching.”, you whine and yet, your body follows his hand, chest to chest, movie long forgotten behind you.

Jeno can not be fooled, small smile tugs at his lips, right hand cupping your jaw.

“You were ?”, he asks but barely lets you answer before his lips crash against yours, thumb lovingly stroking your cheek.

It's not like your boyfriend did not kiss you the moment you stepped into his apartment, but you still melt against his mouth like you want to get back all the months away from him.

When the first kiss he gave you when you entered his place was soft, this one is a lot more eager. Slow, sensual, bruising, no matter how long went by without seeing each other, Jeno still knows your body like the back of his hand.

Fingers lay behind your head, tilting it like he pleases, fingernails lightly scratching your skin.

A grown gets muffled against your mouth when you lightly bite down on his bottom lip, slightly tugging at it.

“I missed you.”, your boyfriend breathes, and you can only breathlessly return the sentence when his strong arms sneak around your waist to push you under him.

The golden necklace you gave him for your anniversary slips out of the black shirt he's wearing, dangling between your bodies. Such a simple thing but it has the power to grow butterflies in your stomach, flapping their wings when it moves left and right. Fingers wrap around the small charm and you use the light grip to tug him closer, closer, closer.

Lips crash for a second time. Sloppy, wet, hungry. Jeno cages you between his arms, using his forearms on each side of your head for leverage while you cling onto him, legs wrapping around his hips.

“Missed you so fucking much—. Ah, fuck.”, you're about to tell him your fingers weren't enough for the long time period, right after painting an innocent kiss on his cheek but your boyfriend decides this very moment is the best to roll his hips against your core, hard and slow, lips diving into your neck.

The moan that tumbles from your lips seems to do it for Jeno, poor boy is already hard as a rock against his jeans and you wonder how long he's been like that. Desperate, cold ring-clapped hands grip at your waist under your shirt and you get the hint, legs tightening around him, arms wrapping behind his neck.

“I can't believe we managed to go so long without seeing each other.”, the tallest giggles against your throat, hands shamelessly gripping at the flesh of your ass as he lifts you up, away from the sofa.

“Yeah ? We made it work, though.”

“Phone sex is great once in a while.”, in another situation, you'd laugh at how desperate he's being. Can you really make fun of him when you're in the exact same situation ? Fingers slide between his dark locks, you notice how long they've grew these past mouths but, you don't complain at all.

Jeno is quick to walk to his bedroom. His back pushed the door open before he kicks it close with the back of his heel, as if anyone could walk in. But after all, Jeno is a possessive boyfriend, you’re his and he’s yours.

It happened countless times, the walls and pictures hanging in your boyfriend’s room a blur as he easily moves you around, mind and body hyper-focusing on the black haired. It’s something Jeno seems to love, the way you still gasp when he throws you on his bed, back hitting the soft mattress.

“Fuck, missed having you like this.”, he has always been a passionate man, but it seems tonight, he is even more. The tallest crawls on his bed right after taking his shirt off and, you have to say, the hunger in his eyes makes a wave of heat crash against your body. You really missed it, the anticipation, not knowing his next move, slowly going putty in his hands, melting under his touch.

Pearly teeth bite down on your lower lip, you unconsciously crawl back until your hands touch his soft pillows. Nowhere to run and yet, you smile back at Jeno’s carnal smile when he gets closer and closer until he follows your head slowly resting on his pillow. Or rather, the one he bought for the nights you stay at his place.

You’re about to rest your head on the soft-.

“What’s-.”, when you think the back of your head is going to hit the fluffy pillow, the top hits something hard, a shape you can’t make on the spot but the object hits the bed’s headboard and it doesn’t sound shallow.

Oh, to be Jeno in this very moment. Confusion takes over his pretty features and vanish away in a millisecond, it’s funny how the mechanism in his brain seems to work full speed when he understands.

Fuck, fuck, FUCK. He thinks at this very moment, he’s an idiot.

“Y/N-”, he starts but, it’s too late. Your curious hand taps away on his mattress, quickly lifting his pillow up to see what exactly knocked the back of your head.

It’s not like nothing ever came between you and Jeno, you expect to see his laptop, even if the shape doesn’t correspond, his PlayStation’s controller maybe, even. But this, this you did not expect.

The same confusion twist your features, it’s funny how easily you take other people’s habits when you stay with them for so long. But, your confusion turns into shock in a few seconds. Finger wrap around the black, circular object. You even think it’s a flashlight at first, silly you. Lo and behold, you’re wrong by a letter.

Slightly wider to a side, skin like color on a rubber material and instead of dropping the thing you quickly understand is a fleshlight and not, a flashlight, you tighten your grip on it.

Your grip tightens as Jeno’s hand flies to grab the object, body slightly dropping against yours. He desperately tried to put his hand on the toy he now see as shameful, even if he used it without a second thought for some time now.

“Y/N, I-.”, he tries to grab it a second time, but your boyfriend has to lean back when you sit up on his bed. Are you angry ? Disappointed ? Disgusted even, maybe ?

After dating for a year and a half, Jeno can read your eyes, but not right now.

“What it this ?”, you ask him, even if you know. There’s a need to hear him say it. See, toys were never a no in your relationship with the black haired but, you thought it was a silent agreement to inform each other maybe. Jeno knows you have some, most he uses on you, but the thought of your boyfriend having to use one when you’re not around lightens something in the deepest of your core.

Jeno’s lips part for a second, a single syllable coming out.

“A- Ahm…A fleshlight ?”, he says, tone unsure. Pearly teeth bite down on his bottom lip, bruising until iron coats his tongue.

“You never told me you had one.”, you say, curious eyes detailing the object and fuck, maybe if your mind wouldn’t picture the men on top of you using the very toy you’re holding, you wouldn’t be so turned on.

“I-, I just got it a month into quarantine. Let’s just-.”, forget about it, put it aside, there’s so much Jeno could’ve said at this very moment but it seems you’re a lot faster than he is.

See, Jeno losing his words is something you rarely see. Your boyfriend’s a confident men, he knew what to say when he asked you out, he never hesitated to whisper the dirtiest things in your ear. Seeing him almost shy, breaking eye contact every now and then, almost submissive makes something else grow in your eyes.

“Does it feel better than me ?”, you ask, voice sultry. It drops, it’s quieter and visibly, it takes Jeno back. You didn’t seem upset and…he knows this long in your eyes, the one you have when you tease him in public, the one you have when he just discovered the new lingerie you bought.

It’s comical, how his eyes grow wide for a second, right before letting out a sigh as he understands.

“No, no she doe- It doesn’t mean anything !”, your boyfriend starts, voice slightly panicked but, your hand mimicking his previous move and cups his cheek.

“Oh, shit.”, the touch turn teasing in second when you drop your hand to his crotch, the fabric of his jeans tense around his hard on.

“Yeah ? Sure ?”, you continue, setting the object to the side. If Jeno lets his guard down for a moment, you sure will take advantage of it. Plus, the idea of using a toy on your boyfriend is way too appealing to let go.

“Baby, yes. So much better, I swear.”, finally, the black haired seems to find his words again. Your hands find his belt, leather fabric and you tug at until it is out of his belt loops, “Lets find out, yeah ?”

Jeno decides he loves this side of you when you crash your lips against his, it’s heated, rushed, his hand grip your hips before you stop him.

“Give me your hands.”, you breathe out against his lips. He obliges before even understanding the meaning.

“Oh…Oh, tying your man up, hm ?”, the slight pride in his chest makes you smile up at him when you use his own belt to tie his hands together, leather fabric tightening around his wrists.

“Hm hm, lay back for him.”

Four words he gets hypnotized by, laying back on his bed when you use your leg against his hip.

“Shit, you’re so fucking hot.”, your boyfriend moans out the moment you sit on his lap to work on the buttons of his jeans. Quickly, you get rid of the piece of clothing until it stops mid-way around his thighs. Grey boxers you know very well, the dark, wet spot on the fabric adds to the outline of his hard cock.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”, you hum, a hand teasingly caressing his member before sliding your fingers under the thin fabric.

“I didn’t know how to. Bab- shit.”, Jeno’s sensitive, so fucking sensitive. Your thumb runs over his head – you don’t even need to see it to know how red it is – and your boyfriend moans. A broken moan ringing in your ears, you free his shaft from the last piece of clothing.

“Maybe just, hey babe, I bought something today !”, you let out sarcastically, right hand grabbing onto the object in the center of it all. The black haired sighed, or maybe he groans but he doesn’t answer, you don’t let him either.

Curious eyes detail the fleshlight a second time, a small smile creeping on your lips.

“Come on, let me see how use it.”

Jeno thinks he might come right then and there. His lips part, heavy eyes traveling from yours to the said toy. The very toy you bring to his wet, angry tip.

Your boyfriend felt this too many times during the quarantine and yet, it feels different when you do it.

“Y/N, oh, fuck.”, it's hypnotising, how sensitive he is. You twist your wrist just the right way so his head enters the toy and, his hips raise from his bed.

“Feels good ?”, you hum and, you don't let him answer. In a swift motion, you bring the fleshlight to his base and the moan has rips from his mouth sounds oh so beautiful.

The black haired's hands tighten around the leather fabric of his belt and it is at this very moment that he understands how you feel when he ties you up.

“Not as good as you.”, he rasps out, fucking up into his toy before you even need to say it. You move it, slowly, up and down regardless.

Your boyfriend looks breath-taking at this very moment, chest red, irregularly raising up and down. A thin sheet of sweat under his hairline, knuckles white. You ask him to tell you more, you want to hear him, hear his voice crack under your touch.

A hand pressed on his hip, enough for him to understand not to move but he does it anyways, your hand isn't that strong.

“It's not as tight.”, a snap of his hips.

“Not as wet.”, another. His voice cracks, he struggles around his restraints.

“Not as hot.”, it's your turn to start moving the toy faster, find the right angle.

The sigh is herotic, he gets lost in pleasure, his hips lose rhythm. You probably will have to excuse yourself to his neighbors, his moans get louder, louder, louder. He doesn't even try to hide his sounds, and you think you never heard so many moans coming from your boyfriend.

“God, I'm gonna come.”, he warns and, when you abruptly stop, you think you might cum at the long groan he lets out.

Your panties are ruined, you're sure of it, any mouvement makes the the fabric stick to your body and you decide there's no way you're staying any longer like this.

“Fuck, baby, why did you ?”, poor boy struggles around his ties again, and thankfully for you, it isn't moving a bit for now. The look he gives you when you set the toy aside almost makes you laugh. His cock rests hard and angry against his stomach, you don't doubt your poor boyfriend may now more than ever understand the struggle he puts you through whenever he edges you.

You don't answer, you'd rather show him. You quickly get rid of your jeans and you're thankful that they aren't as tight as your boyfriend, letting your shirt fall somewhere alongside.

“Fuck, you're so fucking wet. Can see it from here.”

Just like you thought, you soaked your panties. A hand dips into the piece of clothing, index and pointer gathering your wetness.

“Open up.”

Ah, if your boyfriend was like this everyday. Such a good boy, he opens his mouth on cue, lips wrapping around your digits. He hums, so gratefully like someone finally giving him his meal. His tongue swirls around your fingers, getting every last drop of your wetness.

“Sit on my face.”, he growls, teeth playfully biting down on your fingers.

The proposition takes a moan out of you, and you don't hesitate. God, you sure love your boyfriend's fingers, you also fucking love his tongue.

Your panties are thrown beside his bed, and it's not long before you plant your knees on each side of his head.

“Untie me.”, your boyfriend might be good at sweet talking, he doesn't get through your head this time.

“Nu-uh.”, big puppy eyes look up at you when you shake your head left to right, lowering yourself.

Your hear him mumble something about getting back at you before his tongue laps at your core, eagerly gathering any wetness pooling on his tongue. He's sloppy, noisy, eating you out line a starved men.

He makes up for the lack of fingers by moving his face, left to right. You have to support yourself on his headboard, forehead against the cold wood.

Your moans flow freely, there's no need to hide them, you don't even think about doing so when his lips wrap around your bud of nerves and he sucks.

He does again, again and again, groans sending vibrations up your spine until you have to stop him, shaky hand planting itself in his locks when you feel your stomach tightening.

“Wanna come around you.”

“Fuck, please.”, and he whines, a whine you'll probably keep in head for a while. Lips, wet and red shine when you crawl backgrounds, seating on his lap again.

It is torture at this point, for the both of you, when you roll your hips against his, bare core against his cock.

A whispered “please”, tumbles from his lips and you oblige, how can you say no when he looks like the most the most sinful angel, pretty face wet by your essence. Or maybe he looks like the most angelic demon, hungry stare in his puppy eyes.

Finally, after months, you sink down on Jeno's member, ever so slowly. The stretch is familiar and yet, you need some time to get used to it again. How good it feels to be complete again, feel every ridge and every vein, every pulse and every snap.

Hands plant itself on his lower torso when you reach the base, head lolling forward as you breath in. It's overwhelming, how the craving finally gets filled.

Your ears buzz, it's hot, too much and not enough at the same time. In the background, you hear Jeno breathing deeply, the slight noise of metal hitting metal.

And, before you understand, cold ring clapped hands grip your hips.

Your eyes snap open, head looking up and as you do so, your boyfriend flips you over, hovering over you in seconds.

Your mouth falls open like a fish out of water, you need seconds to understand what just happened. Somehow, he got out of his ties, and didn't hesitate to reverse roles.

Apparently, the black haired finds it very funny, smirk tugging one side of his lips as his dark locks fall in front of his eyes, anything puppy like long gone for the wolf like stars you know so well.

Abruptly, his right hand wraps around your throat, your head lolling back against a cushion.

“Told you I'd make you pay.”, you can only moan at that, Jeno quickly finds the right position between your legs and his hips start snapping against yours.

Barely any time to adjust to the rhythm he imposes, you twist under his body, a sigh your boyfriend loves.

He love how your body reacts, how it turns and archs but, with a hand, he can stop it all. Just like you did, his right hand falls to your hips to push them down.

“Definitely. So much better.”, the growl again, his lips find your neck again but long gone are the sweet kisses, he bites down on the skin just to mark you, leave purple bruises for everyone to see.

There's a snap, harsh, deep, punishing, one that rips a moan of his name and Jeno breathlessly laughs at that, sadisticly copying the same mouvement.

“Look at you. Weren't you all fierce moments ago ? Where did my girl go ?”, he asks, hand grabs your jaw to force you to look at him, his thumb sneaks between your lips when you try and muffle your moans.

“There she is, my good little girl.”

Somewhere, in the middle of his mumbled words, you breath out how close you are and, thankfully, it seems your boyfriend isn't taking full revenge on you tonight.

The golden necklace drags against your skin and your grab onto it a second time when your walls tighten, knot grows so he can kiss you again.

It's all tongue and teeth, messy and broken, but you moan out against his lips when he hits this one spot just like you love and he makes you see stars under your eyelids.

That's also all the black haired needs, left hand leaves croissant shapes on the skin of your hip when his shutter and come to a stop, long stained groan coming out of his lips. Jeno come inside of you in drawn out pauses until his hips slow down, gently fucking you through your orgasm.

“Holy fuck.”, the black haired concludes once he pulls out, wrapping his sheet around the both of you. It's crazy how his features change so easily, you notice again in your slightly distant state.

An arm wraps around while the other massaged the skin of your hip he knows he bruised, a single kiss is placed on your head.

“If I knew you'd react like this.”, he giggles out and your only response at the moment is to hit his shoulder has you curl up against his chest, meaning to enjoy the silence and dusk falling outside.

But apparently, Jeno doesn't have the same in mind. Blue light of his phone annoyingly flashes on your face and you have to whine. The screen's hidden, but your boyfriend's checking the uber eats order you two placed and completely forgot about, order that has been left in front of his door for so long now the food is probably ice cold.

“What are you doing ?”, you groan out, desperately trying to take his phone but, Jeno quickly stretches his arm away.

“Ordering new toys I can buy and hide for you to find, duh ?”

© NEOVISIONED l NO REPOSTING OR TRANSLATIONS ALLOWED.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Club Takamagahara (Part 1) Z

This is probably going to be the hardest to shove the MC into to be honest. But I think my premise is good, but let me know what you think!

MC sat on the edge of a mossy cliff that was covered in scrubby, grey grass. Rocks were patched with bright orange lichen that were splashed on like paint. The sea was blue with fresh melt water from the ice caps that defrosted, a pale blue that didn’t quite reflect the sky. You learned that it was the minerals from the earth that gave the sea this unique color. The breeze caressed your dark hair and drew it across your face.

You’re back in Black Swan Bay in midsummer. You feel that it should be night, but like the winter months were dark with the sun never rising, in summer, the sun never set and the sky was always bright. Most people would never understand how a place like this could be so familiar when for them it was like living on an alien planet, but for you, even though the sky was always brilliant in the summer, you could tell the time of day by the level of light in the sky, a technique acquired by someone who grew up with exposure to an eternal day.

You’re not alone. Boots crunched in the pea gravel and approached. They were black, and lined with fur and half covered with a long, black fur lined coat worn by a young man a few years younger than you. He sat down, stretching one leg in front of him and resting one arm on his knee.

He had dark hair like you, but his eyes were a bright gold in his pale face. You always thought they were beautiful eyes, but now you understood what they meant. He had dragon blood flowing in his veins. He turned to look at you.

You remembered him being reclusive, not talking to you much unless it was to exchange witty banter. He was relaxed, always smiling cryptically, never bothered by the nurses or the rules, but never really getting into any trouble either. He knew your name when you met despite never having met you before. He reached up and brushed your hair back with one gloved hand to tuck it behind your ear.

Your expression goes deadpan. “I’m not dead, am I, Z.”

The golden eyed boy’s expression reflects surprise and then breaks into a hearty laugh. He covers his face with one hand while you watch him try to get control of himself, a warm feeling spreading in your chest that teases a smile out of you. 

Z finally stopped laughing and sighed wistfully, looking out over the ocean. “I missed you.”

He turned to you again with a look that was affectionate but calculating, like he was holding in a secret but barely. “No, you’re not dead.”

Your smile fades and you turn back to the ocean. “Why not?”

Z reached to one side of him and lifted a thick book in black leather. On the cover, a golden cross was embossed on it, but the cross didn’t look like a crucifix. Instead, it appeared to be on fire, with the flames appearing to be like a dragon’s wings. Z lifted the golden ribbon that marked a spot near the beginning.

He read from the book, his voice rose over the wind and the crashing waves. “And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power…”

“You’re doing this?” 

Z clapped the book shut and it vanished in a haze of golden dust. “I can’t explain everything. The pieces are not in place yet and it won’t make any sense to you. You won’t understand until the very end. That said, I can’t do everything. You had a very close call. So I wanted to warn you not to be too reckless.”

You sit up straight. “You’re alive? Where are you, Z?”

“I am alive but… Like I said, you won’t understand. Just be more careful. Alright?” He’s staring at you seriously. Back in Black Swan Bay, most people ignored his existence, but you felt he was calling you, drawing you to him for some unknown reason. At times, he would just appear next to you, like he was following you around like a ghost. And now you feel lost in those eyes once again in this strange dream world.

“Okay. I promise.”

“Promises are meaningless.” He shook his head. “Just do it.”

You nod again. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

“One more, hurry.”

“Why me of all people? Why not Renata or Vera? Or Anton or...”

“Because you were the strongest … second to Renata.” The world started to go dark, like a curtain was falling over the sea, the rocks and the grass. The wind grew still and you felt a bit stuffy and tired. Soon all you could see were those golden eyes.

“And well… you make me laugh.”

You relax into the darkness and for a moment your mind goes blank. But then your mind revives again. “...was that a Roger Rabbit reference?”

“Dammit, MC! Wake up!” He says in a harsh whisper.

Your eyes open wide. Lu Mingfei - not Z - is leaning over your head, appearing upside down in your view, arms on either side of your face. You blink wearily. “Mingfei?” Your voice is hoarse coming out a dry and scratchy throat. 

He puts one finger to your lips. “Shhh… You’ve got to stay quiet. No one knows you’re here!” He’s wearing very fancy clothes, the type of suits you see in photos of weddings and official events from magazines that depict life in Moscow. A black suit, a button down shirt with a stiff collar. Diamond studded earrings were in his ears. His hair was swept back and gelled. "If you keep moaning like that you'll get discovered! The walls are very thin and if you’re discovered we’ll be in BIG trouble!" Lu Mingfei was indeed keeping his whisper very quiet.

You’re surrounded by walls on all sides of you, made of dark wood paneling and covered by shelving from floor to ceiling. Your bed takes up the rest of the space. In fact, Mingfei is leaning over you like this because he can’t squeeze his legs between the narrow space between the bed and those shelves. As you look up at him, you can’t help but notice Mingfei’s resemblance to Z. Perhaps if Z had grown older and been able to eat more, he would have grown as tall as Mingfei.

You examine the curve of his eyes and the lift of his nose and squint. You didn’t notice this before because Mingfei does look different, he talks differently, and he acts differently. He doesn’t give off Z’s mysterious, mischievous, and dangerous aura. Z always looked like he had something up his sleeve. It could be good or bad and you didn’t know until you had it in your hand. The way he talked made you want to know however.

Lu Mingfei always looked fearful, reactionary and caught off guard. If Z was the prankster, Lu Mingfei was the pranked. So it was no wonder that you never noticed the physical similarities between someone so different until you woke up from one face to another face.

He sighed, hanging his head. When he looked up again, deep concern was reflected in his eyes. “I’m so glad you’re alright. I seriously thought you were a goner.. If we hadn’t been picked up and taken somewhere they had a nice kit, you probably would have died out there on the street.”

He lifted your hand. A clear IV tube was running from it to a bag of fluid hanging from a hook nailed into one of the shelves. “Where am I?”

“I.. '' Lu Mingfei’s lips pulled down and he looked ill. “Ugh. It’s better you see for yourself. I don't even know how to begin.”

“Caesar?”

“Oh, he’s fine. And so is Senpai. I’m the one suffering here!” He whispered, casting his eyes to one side bitterly. 

He held a clean cloth to your hand, and removed the IV and bandaged it. “I’ll give you the rundown of the situation because we’re seriously up a creek. The Hydras are labeling us as dangerous foreign terrorists, gangsters, and everything else under the sun. They’re running the news to look out for us 24/7. If we show our faces anywhere we are absolutely doomed. They have the whole country after us. We can’t use any credit cards, we’ve lost contact with the college and as soon as we try to get into contact with them, Kaguya is on us like a ton of bricks.”

Ton of bricks. The phrase reminds you of the fact that you managed to get a bootleg copy of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' and watched it over and over on a TV hidden in a shed. If you could get your chores done quickly, you could watch the movie there without being noticed. “Mingfei… have you ever seen ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ Do you like it?”

“What? Are you feverish?” He put one hand to your forehead. “Please try to focus! This is important! None of us can touch the network because we’re traceable. Except you!”

“Me?”

“Yes. You’re the only one of us with zero internet presence. You’ve never had so much as an email. Almost all the information on you is held by EVA and not even Kaguya can breach her system so you’re more likely to be able to log in and find some way to contact the College without getting caught, so we need you to stay safe. Got it?”

“Yes, Senpai. I understand.” You nod. Z’s warning to you in a dream seemed even more relevant now. He was protecting you by some form of mystic way, but the danger now was so great that even he had to warn you to be careful. 

Mingfei stared at your deferential response in shock. “Are you sure you’re alright? I expected you to sneer at me.”

“It’s just… you remind me of someone else just now.” You whisper, you lower your eyes. “I’m sorry if I made trouble with you. I had to do it. I’m glad you’re okay. I’m glad everyone’s okay.”

Mingfei took a deep breath. “We’re all grateful for you too, MC. So don’t worry about anything. Senpai told the boss about what you did in the Trieste. He owes you twice now. There’s no way he’d rat you out in the reports. You’re fine with everyone, okay?”

“Even Zihang?”

“Zihang doesn’t take anything personal.”

There’s a stiff knock on a door beyond the closet. “Little Sakura! You’re needed on the floor!”

Mingfei turned around, his voice squeaking loudly. “Coming!”  He turned back to you. “Okay, can you walk?”

He helped you up out of bed. You were wearing a thin nightgown and your feet were a bit wobbly but you could stand on your own. 

“Good, Caesar prepped some clothes for you, but I suggest you stay down here for now. I have to go back to work.”

“Work?”

More knocking. “Little Sakura?”

“Why are they calling you that?” You whisper. 

Lu Mingfei growled low. “Why is my life so terrible all the time? I don’t know!” He returned his eyes to you. “Stay here okay? The Boss will be back once his shift is over.”

He hurried out of the closet. You notice he’s wearing some sort of shiny loafers. The type worn without socks. 

You hear a sliding door open and then shut and then the murmur of a television. Once you were sure everything was quiet, save the very muffled beat of music somewhere above the ceiling, you venture out. 

You peer out from the closet into what looked like a bathroom with wood paneled walls and a tiled floor. Three barrels with metal bottoms were suspended over wood fired stoves. A shower was in one corner. The TV in the other corner was on, likely to mask any noise you might have made while you were unconscious. A woman was sitting behind a desk, speaking Japanese, dressed in smart business attire. It looked like a newsreel of the destruction of Chizuru -- the wrecked streets, the firetrucks and the body bags. 

You start to think maybe you overdid things a bit. Your eyes scan over the date. You’ve been out cold for 3 whole days.

On top of the TV was a small comb that looked to be made of real ivory and adorned with a blue jeweled flower. Underneath was an envelope with your name on it. Inside the envelope was a note. “I hope the offer of lessons over sake still stands.”

You smile. Of course it did.

Hanging behind the TV was another cheongsam, this time, silver and blue with embroidery of flowers. There’s also fishnet stockings and a pair of blue heels. You take the dress off the rack and step into the shower. Once you were dressed you listened hard to the sounds outside the hall and heard footsteps. 

Another knock. And there’s a shouted warning before the door slides open. A short old woman is holding a mop and walks by you as you press yourself to the wall. She’s pulling a pile of logs on a cart. Her ears are stuffed with earbuds and she’s so focused on her work that she walks right by you on the way to the rack where the wood for the stove is held. 

Heart racing, you dash out the door.

Outside is a European style promenade, completely different decor, but with the same level of luxury. The floor was covered with golden teak wood. The walls were covered with paintings of naked young people drawing water from a well. The ceiling hung with crystal chandeliers, one after another.

“Wow.” You whisper.

At the end of the corridor was an elevator with wooden doors inlaid with swirling bronze motifs of ferns. You’re supposed to stay put, but so much for that! You probably couldn’t be seen out in the hall! You pressed the only button available on the elevator - Up - and school your face cool to pretend you belong there.

Already a story is in your head, you’re an heiress to a fabulous estate. You’re orphaned at a young age and just gained your freedom to escape your stuffy household! As the elevator rises, the sound of the bassline of the music gets stronger and stronger.

Your mind is still writing your backstory when the wooden doors part and you’re hit by the bass line full force. The heat from hundreds of bouncing and gyrating bodies rushes into the elevator. Right in front of you, a man is holding up a flute of that golden sparkling liquor - Champagne. His shirt has puffy sleeves and open to reveal dark curly hairs on his muscular chest. He’s surrounded by three women in colorful half masks who are climbing on him, grabbing his hands to get at the champagne. They were all wearing skin tight, sleeveless, low cut dresses and dangerously high stiletto heels that made your demure blue cheongsam look like a formal maid’s outfit in comparison.

“Ladies! Ladies! One at a time!” He’s shouting with a brilliant smile. One of the girls bares her teeth as if she were trying to bite him and you move away.

A crowd of people, women outnumbering men 10 to 1, were all dancing in front of a brightly lit stage that was smoking with dry-ice that poured over the edge.

The elevator doors start to close and you slip out, looking for Lu Mingfei - that is, Little Sakura. Everywhere is more of the same. There’s a circular couch where drunk women were reclining over another man while holding out money for passing waiters who seem to know what it meant. They took the cash from their delicate painted fingers and passed them another bottle of liquor in exchange. All of the women turned, shook and then uncorked the bottle, spraying the Champagne in the air! It all fell in a shower while they laughed and squealed with glee!

You take a breath. You were going to stand out like a sore thumb unless you did something right now. The beat of the music was jarring your rib cage but people were bouncing to it while shouting on the stage. “Ukyo! Ukyo! Ukyo!”

You had no idea what Ukyo meant so you do the same all the while looking for any sign of Mingfei in this scene and realizing he might not even be on this floor.

“Who wants glitter?!” Someone shouts next to you. A man with a bowl of silver glitter holds it up while people stuff money in his low cut shirt and press their hands into the bowl to turn around and smash it into the sweaty chest of another man, leaving their marks on him. Your mind makes a leap to a story you heard about human and animal sacrifices in Satanism and wondering if that was what was going to happen next.

You also realize you don’t have any money. Your voice is trained by terrible punishment to be quiet so you can only let out a weak little “Woo..” and “Yay… Ukyou” while your eyes search the crowd.

What happened next was that the music suddenly ended and the sound of a Asian music, something you might hear played in a period drama, replaced it. Rather than being subdued, the crowd flooded the quiet with screams so loud your ears rattled and you had to fight to keep your hands from covering them and stand out as an outsider. 

The curtain opened and there stood a lone figure on the stage. The lights all went out, leaving a single spotlight descending to illuminate him. He’s in a white cloak with flowy sleeves, with a blue hakama and long hair that covers half his face. Cherry blossoms blow from an unseen fan, fluttering his sleeves in the wind.

[empiresmostwanted]

Hi!! From that quote prompts list, a few that stood out for me were “it’s a brutal world” and “what are you humming?” for Rex? Im imaging either a mechanic/civilian reader or a shiny new clone trooper is accompanying the 501st on an off-world mission and they are sitting by the campfire late at night, a little shaken by the battle earlier in the day. Rex notices and goes to comfort them, and perhaps there is a singing motif??

Also! I loved Sabacc Face and im making my way though your other works this weekend 💕

Thank you so much @maulpunk for the prompts 😘

I'm sorry it took me so long to write, work has done a number on me this last week or so. Grrr. But I was happy to get back to writing this, although I must apologise for straying a little from the parameters of the request (it turned out to be a little too angsty for a singing motif, oops). I hope you like it all the same!

(P.S. Thank you so so much, I'm thrilled you liked Sabacc Face. It was a lot of fun to write, I hope it was just as fun to read!)

posted on AO3 | the prompt list | my writing

Words: 1.5k | Warnings: Post-Umbara Arc, Grief/Mourning, Angst (and lots of it, sorry-not-sorry), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, a certain Besalisk's name is briefly mentioned (okay, I am sorry for this one)

GHOSTS IN THE UMBRA

20BBY

☾

CT-0292 couldn't sleep. When he closed his eyes, rounds of blue plasma bolts flashed through the darkness behind his lids. Hands, his own hands, held a DC-15 carbine aloft, and one single finger under his control pressed on the trigger, mowing down the Umbarans in their disguises.

But they hadn't been Umbarans. They'd been his brothers.

A strangled sound escaped him, somewhere between a gasp and a sob that he caught in his throat. His chest ached with the effort to hold it, the urge to release it. And it ached as if his brothers had occupied a place there, the loss of them leaving the muscles of his heart to constrict around empty space.

He blinked away sharp tears, then pushed off the weighted blanket – its presence more suffocating than soothing – and climbed out of his rack. He gathered up the armour stacked in a neat pile from the foot of the bunk's frame and applied it, piece by piece, from foot to neck.

If he couldn't sleep, he might as well be useful. He'd never been very good at keeping still.

Around him, his brothers lay in their cots; some slept, restless, while others remained painfully conscious. From his own squad, only himself, Wil (Private), and Ridge (Private) remained. The others, along with their sergeant, had fallen to General Krell's lightsaber.

All was quiet. And Ridge was nowhere to be seen.

0292 shook his head, lightheaded, the back of his neck prickling. After checking his blaster was fastened to his belt, he tucked his helmet under one arm and crept through the rows of bunks like a ghost, leaving the sterile barracks behind.

For a moment, he stopped outside the blast doors as they sshhed to a close behind him, and took a deep breath. Had he caught the scent of rain and salt water in the air, it might have grounded him; but this planet was as unfamiliar to his nose as it was to his eyes and ears. With the tang of metal in his nostrils and on the tip of his tongue, he set off across the floodlit compound.

Beyond the sensor wall, he spotted the warm glow of a natural fire flickering in the perpetual dusk, its light peeking through the mist and the dense formation of local flora. He frowned. Patrol taking a break, perhaps?

CT-0292 made his way to the airbase's entrance. As he approached the gate, he passed skeletons of Umbaran machinery looming out of the fog, and squads of troopers pacing as silent as wraiths.

The planet was reclaimed, but no one had come out of the campaign unscathed.

At the gate, two troopers bearing the colours of the 212th stood guard, blasters held across their bodies, and faced the darkness beyond. With the sight of their armour came a fresh wave of guilt, at once hot and cold, that settled in the pit of his stomach. He cleared his throat upon approach; one started as if he'd been shot, and the other patted him on the shoulder.

"Easy, trooper," said 0292, holding out a placating hand. "Just passing through, lending a hand to patrol. That them over there?"

They followed the direction of his pointer finger, to the small fire burning gold in the gloom. The one coiled as tightly as he himself nodded, and turned back to him. "They're taking it in turns to sweep the perimeter."

"Thanks." He inclined his head, and stepped over the threshold of the airbase.

As his footsteps tapped a muffled rhythm into the damp earth, the chill air cooled the sheen of sweat on his forehead, and pressed cold fingers to the nape of his neck. With a shiver, he donned his helmet and activated its spot-lamp, before succumbing to Umbara's gloaming.

*

CT-0292 walked through the forest of Zabrak Spines, their bioluminescent ridges reaching towards the sky and cutting through the umbra like angry wounds. The glow of giant red thorns shrouded the woodland in an unsettling pallor.

Every small noise was amplified in the stillness around him: the snapping of twigs beneath the feet of tiny creatures, the whooshing of spectral wings overhead, and what seemed like footsteps somewhere behind him, approaching – but when he looked over his shoulder, there was nothing there. Each sound sent a spike of cortisol through his body, and he tried not to hyperventilate to the beat of his pulse.

The immediate threat from the Umbarans had been neutralised. But he and his brothers had found out the hard way that this shadowy world kept its secrets close.

You're out of the woods when you're out of the woods, his instructor back on Kamino used to say. It had seemed redundant to him then.

"What's that you're humming, trooper?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin. He looked back and came face-to-face – or helmet-to-helmet – with Captain Rex materialising out of the fog, easy to identify by the jaig eyes and the modified armour.

The captain removed his bucket, brow furrowed in concern, and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Relax. I didn't mean to startle you," he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "It sounded familiar, the song you were humming."

"I didn't realise I was humming it aloud," the trooper admitted, face heating as Captain Rex fell into step beside him. "I was thinking of my instructor, back at the facility: she smuggled her own radio into Tipoca, and she'd play it for us during downtime. That one was her favourite, I think. I don't know the words, though. Just the tune."

"Ah."

They walked for a way in companionable silence, each lost to their own thoughts. Confronted once more with the familiar face of his brothers, CT-0292 replayed the moment of terrible realisation, and the skirmish with Krell. The Jedi – if one could even call him that – might have been dealt with on a permanent basis, but his reach would extend far beyond his death.

"Couldn't sleep, either?" asked the captain, dragging him out of his own memories.

He shook his head.

Rex sighed. "It's a brutal world out there."

CT-0292 couldn't be sure if he was referring to Umbara, or the entire galaxy. 

"I admit," he began, "I wasn't expecting to kill other people. I've been training to take down and disable battle droids for nearly ten years, and I thought I was ready, but this …"

It didn't even begin to cover the atrocity of slaughtering his own, knowingly or not.

They heard the voices of their brothers before they saw them, hushed and sombre. Upon stepping out of the forest, they found themselves in a small clearing, lit from above by towering plants, incandescent with pink and purple and blue light, and lit from within by a humble campfire. At least ten troopers were gathered around it, talking in lowered voices amongst themselves.

Rex came to a halt on the edge of the clearing, and stopped 0292 with a hand on his arm.

"If it's of any comfort," he said, "every one of us here is feeling the same right now. No campaign is easy, no life lost is worth less. But this mission has taken its toll more than any other. You say you're not ready, but I recognise the blue bird painted on your bucket. I saw you take charge of your squad when Sergeant Jax was killed, and you kept the rest of them alive. There might well be a promotion coming your way."

A promotion. He'd always harboured the hope of making his way up the ranks, proving his worth and ability along the way. Seeing the captain in action, the way he was respected and admired, had only solidified that desire. But he hadn't entered the GAR as a sergeant, or a captain. It had never really occurred to him before now that someone would have to die for him to take their place.

But he nodded, and said, "Thank you, Captain."

"What's your name, trooper?"

"CT-zero-two-ni—"

"Your name, trooper," Rex clarified. The smile on his lips belied the sadness in his eyes.

CT-0292 removed his helmet. "It's Vaughn, sir. My batchmates called me Vaughn."

"Then welcome to the five-oh-first, Private Vaughn. Over there are your brothers. It won't always be easy, but whatever happens, we look out for each other. And I know you barely got to see General Skywalker in action, but I can promise you that he – and Commander Tano – are nothing like Krell. You'll see."

"Thank you, sir."

Captain Rex clapped him on the arm, then strode off across the clearing, towards the campfire. Vaughn followed, kicking up the smell of damp earth and decaying foliage, sickly sweet in his nostrils. He was pleased to see his squadmate, Ridge, among the ranks of troopers around the flames, and another who'd introduced himself as Sterling just one rotation prior.

"Room for two more, boys?"

☽

Thank you so much for staying to the end! Even though I enjoy reading some good ol' angst, it's definitely tricky to write, so it was nice to stretch those muscles for this prompt. Hope you liked it 💜

[wordstro]

[3:08 PM] + naruto/ninja au + “thank you, for everything.”

note: shinobi = ninjas, chakra = energy reserves, yunho x gender neutral reader x mingi implications

-

your team was always dysfunctional. you should have known you’d never grow out of it. you started out as barely teenagers after all, made to train your asses off since you were toddlers in order to protect your village. they’d left your team under the supervision of some twenty something year old shinobi with unprocessed trauma of his own and expected you to come out unscathed. it’s almost laughable to think your team would end up as anything but dysfunctional.

not to mention the ghosts each of you carried with you from the very first day. you’d grown up orphaned and ostracized, with a cursed demon sealed into you that had been responsible for the destruction of your village and the death of your parents. he liked to speak to you, remind you that that was also why your village ostracized you. sometimes the demonic fox spirit would curl its teeth back and remind you that you’d killed people because you harbored him inside you. frankly, it was fucked up.

then there was jeong yunho, kind faced and handsome and infuriatingly good at everything. you’d developed a small rivalry with the boy, only because he’d grin and call you idiot and you knew if you could beat him then all the whispers would cease. he was the last of the jeong clan. yunho sat there on the first day of training with your team and activated his clan eyes, red swirling eyes born of anger and death, and he said he was going to avenge his clan. he would take his brother’s life for killing his clan in front of his eyes. and you thought your life was fucked up.

last was song mingi, with his jokes and clumsiness and heart eyes directed at absolutely anyone who would treat him with kindness. he’d lost his parents to the demon fox spirit’s attack on the village. he looked at you sometimes like he knew exactly what you harbored. or rather exactly what you’d done, as the fox spirit liked to remind you. he was perceptive, but determined, and he could have been the strongest of the three of you if blood techniques and fox spirits did not give you and yunho an advantage over him.

years passed since that first day, and you are all more dysfunctional than ever. perhaps, you are worse off now then you were before. perhaps it was the invasions from enemy villages, the kidnapping and demon extraction attempts made on you, the broken limbs and broken hearts, the reappearance of yunho’s brother and the deep seated anger that reappearance brought out of yunho. with the realization that he was still not strong enough to avenge his family and kill his brother, yunho’s kindness melted into a rage that ate away at everyone and everything. mingi tried to keep you all together. but yunho tried to tear you all apart.

maybe your team's destruction was inevitable.

it’s why you find yourself here now, at the great valley of shinobi, face to face with your self proclaimed rival-turned-best-friend, the demonic fox spirit inside you keening for the chance to be unleashed.

yunho stands across the valley, tendrils of inky black spreading across his skin, over his face, down his arm, reddening his eyes. the curse mark. he’d gotten it during your first exam years ago. you still had no idea how it happened. one moment he was fine and the next he was knocked unconscious over mingi’s shoulders, and when you’d asked mingi what happened, mingi merely curled his fingers into tight fists at his lap and shook his head, wordless. the only explanation you had was watching yunho nearly murder neighboring shinobi during the exam's second round matches.

now, mingi stands at the bottom of the valley, his head tilted upwards, watching both of you. he kept a distance, but he could hear them. he needed to watch them, even when you'd selfishly suggested he stayed back.

he’d mentioned once, in the quiet of an evening post-mission when the three of you were settling into bed with bruised limbs and a deep exhaustion, that he hated how useless he felt in your presence. it wasn’t fair that you had seemingly endless chakra reserves and yunho, well, he was merely perfect in every way. it wasn't fair how weak he was compared to both of you, how he would always be a step behind no matter how strong he got. yunho with his clan techniques and clan eyes and you with your endless chakra and strength. this was before yunho had gone mad for his vengeance. he’d reached out and pressed a hand to mingi’s and said, “you could never be useless. without you i would have died in that forest.”

you’d nodded, whispered, “if anyone’s useless it’s yunho. what kind of shinobi almost dies in a forest?”

yunho tossed his pillow at you and mingi let out a small, choked laugh at your shriek. you’d wiped at his tears, patting his cheek, and yunho rubbed his back, with that kind smile you’d started to mind a lot less.

you tear your eyes from the mouth of the valley, from yunho, from your thoughts of the past, focusing on the here and now.

“you’re really going to desert the village? after everything?”

yunho tilts his head and there’s a familiarity in his smile. he’d look at you like that sometimes, when you’re all trudging back from a mission or after a particularly grueling training session where you’d sit up from where you lay on the dirt, making grabby hands for water, and yunho would toss you his water bottle, laughing quietly when it’d slip past your fingers and hit your chest. he’d look at you with affection. like he was fond of you.

“it’s the only way i can get stronger and achieve my goal.”

yunho’s voice echoes, the curse mark growing larger as it encompasses his face.

“this place is a distraction.”

“bullshit and you fucking know it. we’ve been good for you. if you'd just take your head out of your ass for one moment, you'd see that.”

“let me specify,” he bites out, “you are a distraction.”

“yeah fucking right.”

“and useless,” he spat, unkindly, uncharacteristically. his eyes darted to the mouth of the valley, where mingi crouched, close enough to listen, “both of you.”

he hadn’t thought that when he’d take you and mingi to eat ramen after a long day of training. he hadn’t thought that you were useless when he learned of the beast inside you and his eyes changed, for both better and worse, when he decided he needed to surpass you too. he spent years building mingi up, holding his hand after missions gone awry and reminding him that he was everything but useless, that it was hardly fair for him to compare himself when his strengths lied in chakra control. he spent years sparring you and nodding appreciatively whenever you’d thoroughly kick his ass. if he really thought you useless or a distraction he would never have taken his time to bandage up your wounds after particularly bad missions. he was destroying everything he had here, at home, for his futile vengeance. you could imagine mingi's hurt at his words, even without looking at him. the same feeling, the same hurt, coursed through your veins, consuming you. the demon fox spirit inside you fed off it.

“i’m not letting you do this, yunho. once you step out of this valley, they’ll put you in the bingo book. you'll have a reward out for your head. you’ll be a deserter...a traitor. they won’t let you come back, yunho. you'll ruin your life.”

“you won't let me?" he ignores everything else you say and you notice. he glares, "who are you to make decisions for me?”

“your best fucking friend.”

“that’s useless too. it’ll just make me weak. it's already made you weak. look at you, on the verge of tears. look at mingi.”

you grit your teeth. you want to yell at him, tell him that you and mingi have made him stronger, just as yunho and mingi have made you. friendship, bonds, were not weak. it was not useless. love was not weak.

but you were always bad at speaking your feelings. you worked better with your fists. every disagreement you've ever had with yunho was resolved on the training fields, with well placed punches until you were both too exhausted to move. there was a reason why mingi was the heart of your team.

you clench your fists, before raising them, steadying your chakra, readying yourself. you bite, “i’ll drag you back if i have to.”

yunho laughed, and it was still the same loud laugh you’d grown accustomed to. you glare as he calls, “i’d love to see you try, idiot.”

the demon fox inside you jeers in anticipation. you shoot forward and yunho laughs as he grabs you by the neck, shoving you down and into the mouth of the valley. he moved faster than he ever had before. you vaguely hear mingi shouting at both of you, blood rushing to your ears. you fight, and you bleed, and yunho does not back down. he gathers electricity at his hands, striking midair, and you gasp, tumbling before you steady yourself, moving just as quickly. yunho does not relent, even when mingi steps in.

mingi gathers chakra, eyes determined, but yunho is too fast for him. with his cursed mark energy, he moves faster than even you can track, and his clan eyes make it worse. yunho clamps his hands around mingi's throat and you don't hear what mingi says to him, you just see mingi's mouth moving and yunho's brows furrowing as he stills for a moment. and then yunho blasts mingi into the side of a cliff with a sickening crunch. mingi crumbles into a heap and that spurs you into another wave of anger as you pummel yunho, screaming at him. how could he hurt mingi? he swore he never would. you were fair game, but mingi was different. you both decided that from the moment your team was formed.

he turns into a cursed beast with skeletal wings and black eyes and fangs. his clan eyes spin. he is ruthless. you turn into the demon fox spirit. it salivates at it's chance to be released.

still, in the end, you lose.

-.-.-.-.-

your vision is a blur as you heave for air, your sides burning with each breath. the demon fox inside you growls at you to get up but you’ve used up all you chakra. you vaguely make out yunho slumped over you. he stumbles to his feet, dragging an unconscious mingi to your side.

he looks between you both, the moon framing his slumped form.

“don’t,” you breathe, voice raspy, stilted, “please yunho, don’t go.”

he looks down at you as if he is committing you to memory, even like this. his gaze flits to mingi and he does the same, before he tilts his head up, closes his eyes. his jaw clenches. then he looks at you.

“thank you, for everything,” he says with a quiet finality.

your vision blurs, and you’re fading, but you still try to get up, to move. you’re too weak for any of it. he watches you struggle for a moment, before he turns and he walks away. he leaves you.

later, mingi sits by your bedside in the hospital and you murmur to him, “i swear i’ll bring him back.”

“no,” he reaches out and squeezes your hand, “we’ll do it together.”

[browniefox]

The Spectral Turnabout 3/?

Miles gets the truth of his ‘hallucinations’ revealed to him.

oOo

“Please, Edgeworth, let me help you.” Phoenix asked once more, a little quieter this time, a little more sure of the answer he was going to get. He was already knee-deep into the case. The dl-6 incident was dusted off. Phoenix’s single-minded focus had already locked onto this case, onto this murder, onto Miles’ innocence. 

The spirit that followed Miles’ had set her head on the table before him, less than an inch from touching the man’s hand, eyes flicking between Miles and Phoenix. She was sitting completely still, and Phoenix imagined if she was a living creature she’d be holding her breath. 

“... yes.” Miles said, almost more of a whisper than anything. Phoenix felt the weight of the case settle on him, officially under his responsibility. The spirit tipped her head back and howled with joy, jumping and hopping around in her excitement. She slipped through the wall dividing Miles and Phoenix and ran right into Phoenix, bowling him over with her force.

“Yes yes yes! Thank you thank you! I promise you won’t regret this, I promise! He’s innocent, I was with him all night, he’s innocent and I know it so don’t you worry, you’re doing the right thing!” The spirit cheered, giving Phoenix’s face a lick that definitely felt like being licked by a dog, and he had to wonder if normal people would see the slobber on his face or not. 

“Hey, yes, I am, and that’s great, but I need to talk to Edgeworth a bit more!” Phoenix did his best to gently nudge the spirit off, but she was big and heavy. Maya was over in a moment, grabbing the spirit from the back and lifting her off. The spirit made a sad noise, the wings on her head fluttering around. 

“You have to get him acquitted, okay? He’s innocent!” The spirit continued to insist.

“We will!” Maya promised. This made the spirit’s wings - both the set on her head and the set on her back - flutter about even more in joy and excitement, pushing away from Maya and flying through the wall again to rest her head exactly where it had been before, nice and close to Miles.

Miles. 

Who was still on the other side of the glass. 

Who must’ve just seen Phoenix fall backwards for no reason, talk to nobody, and then Maya perform some impressive mime of trying to lift something heavy that didn’t exist. 

Who was speechless staring at Phoenix and Maya, not blinking, maybe not breathing. 

“Ah, uh, you, your response,” Phoenix desperately fished for a way to explain what had just happened. 

“We’re practicing! For a show!” Maya said quickly, coming in clutch. 

“Did you hear, Miles? They believe me! They’re going to save you, you’ll be okay!” The spirit said. 

And then, Miles eyes darted down to the spirit, and a purple spectral energy began to come off of him. 

“Edgeworth?” Phoenix said slowly, cautiously, getting back to his feet and close to the glass again. Miles’ chest was moving quicker and quicker, moving up and down in great big movement that almost looked painful. The spirit touched her nose to Miles’ hand, such a small but very deliberate gesture. 

“You’re a spectral?” Maya asked, clearly as surprised as Phoenix. 

Miles’ shoulders shook, a chuckle escaping from his mouth, and then he was full-on laughing. The spirit made a pained noise and began to wrap herself around the man, just like Phoenix had seen her do during court; a position that now had a different meaning knowing that Miles was aware of it, let the spirit do so. The spectral energy rolled off of him in disjointed and randomly spiking waves`

“Edgeworth…?” Maya shuffled awkwardly. Miles' laughter petered out quickly, and it sounded more like coughing, like sobbing, but he wasn’t shedding any tears. One hand was raised up and just barely not touching the spirit who was trying so hard to comfort him. 

“Say it again,” Miles asked, no, he begged, “Ask me again.”

“Miles,” Phoenix let out a slow breath, “Are you a spectral?” Another dry chuckle forced its way out of Miles’ chest in a way that looked like it was against his will. 

“Y… yes, yes, I think I am. At least, that’s what Pess told me.” Miles said. He rubbed his face, making an effort to get himself under control again, and with the action his spectral energy crept back inside of him, hidden once more like it had never been there. It was a subtle difference, considering with the spirit draped over him, her own spectral color a match for his, it was almost impossible to tell them apart. 

“Mr. Edgeworth… are you okay?” Maya asked, brow furrowed in concern. 

“There’s… I have so many questions, but now isn’t the time, is it? I finally have answers literally right in front of me, and I can’t even reach out and grab them.” Yet another humorless laugh shook him, “When this is over, however it ends… tell me about this then. For now, take this. It’s a request for you to be my attorney.” 

Phoenix took it, not knowing what to say. He looked down at it, turning it over in his hands. Miles had come into the room with it in his hands, despite his insistence that he wouldn’t let Phoenix take his case. The thought made something swell in Phoenix’s chest, but the emotion was dampened by the entire exchange that had just happened.

“Miles-” Phoenix started.

And then the world shook, and anything he might’ve said was lost. 

 oOo

 “Spectral.” Miles repeated the word to himself. He’d committed the word to memory years and years ago, from the night that Pess had told him, but he’d never said it out loud since. Now, he rolled it over his tongue, acknowledging the way it sounded when said out loud. It was a word, a real word, with a definition and everything. A noun, a term to describe somebody like him that could see spirits and ghosts.

“I did tell you.” Pess reminded him.

He was lying on the bed in his cell, Pess’s head set on his chest. The meeting with Phoenix had been… quite something. There was the feeling of failure at having been unable to keep the man away from the DL-6 incident, then being shaken completely to his core by the sharp upheaval of his reality with the fact that he wasn’t, in fact, insane or hallucinating all these years, and then the great and final note of an earthquake more literally shaking Miles. He wasn’t aware of what he’d done in the moment, but when he came back to himself Phoenix and Maya were gone and the guard - who until then had stood quietly by the door, for all the world unaware of Miles’ and Phoenix’s meeting - was kneeling over him with concern on his face and had then taken Miles back to his cell. 

“Yes, you did.” Miles relented. The words were still a whisper, so deliberately quiet, and he wanted nothing more than to pet Pess and bury his face into her fur, but he wasn’t home. He only let himself acknowledge Pess when they were truly alone. Except… except she was real, she wasn’t a figment of his imagination. 

That didn’t change the fact that hardly anybody could see her, and they would think he was crazy if they found him talking to air. 

“When you get out of here, maybe they can tell you more about being a spectral.” Pess said, nuzzling Miles as she spoke.

“When I get out.” Miles wasn’t sure how much he believed that would be a thing. The evidence was against him. Then again, if Phoenix had demonstrated anything in his first three cases, wasn’t it that he could and would work against impossible odds? 

It was a shame, he thought, that you couldn’t really put a spirit on the witness stand. Pess, as always, had been with him the whole time, and she would vouch for him before a judge given the chance.

He wasn’t crazy.

Something in him hadn’t snapped irreparably that day in the elevator. 

Miles stopped as a thought occurred to him. If he wasn’t crazy, if his memory was indeed reliable… he always dreamed of that day, of the man attacking him dad, of throwing the gun and the sound of it going off.

If he wasn’t crazy, then that had really happened. And if it had really happened, then what if that bullet had been the one to hit his dad?

Miles gave in to digging a hand into Pess’s fur and she snuggled closer.

“Everything is going to be okay, Miles.” She said.

Miles wished he could believe that.

 oOo

  When it’s over, when it’s all over, Miles was left with a business card. 

He must’ve gotten it at some point when Phoenix had practically dragged him out of the courtroom, a big goofy grin on his face, Maya cheering behind them. Pess was literally howling with joy, flying circles around the group, which grew in number with Gumshoe, who had been waiting just outside for them. Miles wasn’t entirely sure he could name the emotion he was feeling at the time, but he knew it felt good, it felt fan-fucking-tastic to see the man who’d shaped him into the demon prosecutor killed his father convicted for the act. 

That was a few days ago, however. 

Now, Miles was standing outside of an office, holding a business card in his hand, looking from the address printed on it to the number on the door, over and over again and making sure he had it right.

Not that there was much question whether he was in the right place or not. The words ‘Wright & Co Law Offices’ were printed in clear white letters on the door.

Miles took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Pess shifted on her feet next to him, and Miles’ head did a weird flinching thing as he was conflicted on whether to look at her or let the years and years of practice doing specifically not that guide him. In the end, he didn’t look, but he did brush his fingers against the top of her head. He raised his other hand and knocked on the door. 

The door was answered by Phoenix himself. Instead of finding the man in the blue suit and pink tie he seemed to wear to every court session (Miles wondered if Phoenix even owned a second suit), Phoenix was dressed in a plain black tee shirt and baggy white pants with an indigo sash tied around his waist. There was the thinnest sheen of sweat on his brow, and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. It definitely wasn’t the attire one expected to find from someone at a law office, and Miles wasn’t sure what to say to that at first. Luckily, he didn’t have to as Phoenix spoke first. 

“Oh, Edgeworth! I didn’t expect you to drop by. You should’ve called ahead.” He said, blinking away his own surprise and then smiling simply. “Well, come on in. What can I help you with?”

Miles had never been inside of Phoenix’s office, but he was fairly sure it didn’t usually look like this. The main desk, chairs, and coffee table had been shoved to the edges of the room. Maya was standing in the center of the open area, wearing an outfit nearly identical to Phoenix’s with the exception of a purple sash instead of the blue. She had her finger pointed in the shape of a gun, her spectral energy condensed at the tip of it, and she fired it at Phoenix. 

Phoenix put a hand in front of him, his own indigo energy shaping into a shield. The little bullet harmless hit the shield with a little ‘pop’ sound. Maya grinned.

“Your reflexes are getting better.” She said approvingly. In response, Phoenix fired off his own little ball of a spectral energy, which Maya dodged with ease. Phoenix shook his head, but he was smiling, and turned back to Miles.

“Sorry, you wanted to talk about something.” 

“Yes,” Miles let himself look down at Pess this time, who gave him an encouraging nod, “I wanted you to tell me about being a s-spectral.” He silently cursed himself. For all the times he’d whispered the word out loud to himself, saying it to another person felt strange.

“Oh!” Phoenix binked, and his spectral energy spiked. 

“Really? You came at the perfect time!” Maya ran over, hands clapped together in excitement. “Nick and I are practicing right now!”

“Practicing?” Miles thought back to what he’d seen, of how Maya and Phoenix had done something with their spectral energy. He’d had no idea it was so moldable. 

“Yeah! You don’t become a spectral master by just sitting around.” Maya curved her fingers like claws, and the spectral energy pooled around it into a form like two bear paws. Phoenix rolled his eyes. “You can join us if you want.”

“I-I don’t-”

“We should!” Pess looked up at him, tail wagging hopefully, “They’ll know a whole lot more about this than I do.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not hard.” Phoenix promised.

It’d be so much easier to turn around now. To just walk back out the door, and stay the way he’d been most of his life.

But the easy way didn’t necessarily mean it was the better way.

“Okay.”

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

absolution, a oneshot

Yeah, not my usual content, but I wrote this a while ago and I figured it was short enough that I crosspost it from Ao3 to tumblr. ‘Twas inspired by a Dead Apple prompt on the Chaos Cult Discord server: What if when Dazai died (for a little bit ofc) he got to see Oda again one last time and Oda got to see who Dazai became?  -- -- -- -- 

In the top floor of a tall, abandoned building, there are three figures all wearing white in some strange facsimile of purity and innocence. Innocence, for these three, is as far away a dream (a nightmare?) as flight is for a dog. They exist somewhere out of time, displaced entirely. 

The demon, the sinner, and a corpse. The demon is smiling as he fingers the knife in his pocket, hidden from view. He knows that his plans are unlikely to bear any fruit, but he bites from the apple of knowledge anyway and revels in the taste. He is God, after all. What was forbidden for Adam and Eve is his to create and his to take. 

The sinner looks on with a cold, dead gaze, because he is not surprised. He is never surprised. The world ticks on, every second that passes takes him closer to his story’s inevitable conclusion. Perhaps he has forgotten where he came from, but he could never forget where he is going. After all, he lives on borrowed time.

How funny that the man who considered himself least human, of the three, is the one with the most humanity.  

“How could you?” Dazai asks, his eyes starting to close, but the question is entirely rhetorical. He has expected this ever since he made his last move, sitting in a bar surrounded by ghosts. His plans are out of his hands now, and it’s not up to him anymore. All he can do is trust, but if he dies here, it will have been worth it. 

Odasaku, was I a good man?

The roaring in his ears is getting louder but he can barely feel the knife in his back. The floor presses into his cheek, and it’s as cold and unforgiving as the darkness that sweeps over him. He murmurs what he knows might be his last words. 

“This feels great.” 

He is smiling.

—

Dazai is sitting in a dimly lit bar. The amber paneling of the walls are dusty and scarred, but in the end, it contributes to the overall aesthetic. The bartender is in the corner as he usually is, wiping absently at a glass in his hand. The air is dry and still. 

He looks at the clock on the wall. The time is 10:32, and the hands of the clock are not moving. He realizes that he’s wearing his tan coat, and the bandages wrapped around his wrists are a familiar comfort. Something about this feels wrong. Shouldn’t he be in white? 

What an odd thought. He never wears white. He’s at the Bar Lupin, so he should be in black. Why isn’t he in black, and why has the clock stopped ticking? 

“Dazai.” 

He whips his head around to the right, and his eyes widen. “Odasaku,” he says, smiling. His colleague is sitting a couple stools away from him, wearing his usual beige blazer and dark button down. He has a glass of whiskey in his hand and he swirls it gently. He takes a sip. 

There is a matching glass of whiskey in front of him, Dazai realizes. Has it always been there? He feels slow and stupid, as if his brain is moving through molasses. It’s an uncomfortable thought. “Ango’s late,” he finds himself saying, and Odasaku sets his drink down. He stares at something far away. 

“Ango’s not coming.”

The words echo strangely in Dazai’s ears, and he lifts his glass of whiskey. The light refracting through the amber and the cut glass casts liquid shadows on the bar top. “I see,” he says, though he really doesn’t. He wants to ask why Ango isn’t coming, and why the clock has stopped ticking, and where his black coat has gone. But something stops him, and there is an odd feeling rising in his chest. His mouth suddenly tastes like fear. He puts his glass down, the bottom of the glass making a hollow noise against the bar.

Instead of asking any of the questions on his tongue, he makes a humming noise and drums his fingers against the bar. His fingertips make small pattering noises against the wood.

His hand is covered in blood. 

No, it isn’t. Dazai blinks down at his hand, and it looks normal again. He turns to Odasaku, who is sipping at his whiskey. “Where’s Ango?” he asks finally, and while Odasaku’s face doesn’t change, he imagines that something in it becomes sadder. “I figured you’d ask that,” he says, and Dazai turns toward him. 

“The clock,” he says. “The clock and my coat and Ango.” 

Odasaku nods. For a moment, he isn’t wearing his usual work uniform. Instead, he has his pistol holsters hanging empty at his sides. There is blood on his clothes, and somehow, Dazai knows it’s his own. 

“You remember, don’t you?” he asks, and Dazai does. His hand fists uselessly on the bar top, and he looks away. There is a well of directionless fury inside of him and he does not know what to do with it. “I remember,” he replies. Something makes him open his mouth again. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he can’t remember the last time he said that to anyone. But hasn’t Odasaku seen the worst of him already?

He remembers stained glass, a sunset, and a deep river of loss to drown in. 

“Don’t be,” says Odasaku, and Dazai lifts his head to look at his coworker—no, his friend—in surprise. He is smiling, quiet and fond. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

“You died,” Dazai says, and it takes all of his considerable willpower to keep his voice from shaking. He feels eighteen again, irresponsibly young and so, so stupid. Stupid enough to believe that Odasaku would be spared. That the optimal solution Mori found didn’t involve getting rid of an annoying mafia member, one with something as foolish as principles. His hands are covered in Oda’s blood because Dazai should have protected him. 

“So did you,” Odasaku points out mildly, and suddenly Dazai remembers why he should be wearing white. 

His hand twitches. He wants to grab at his back, pull out the knife whose ghost he can still feel, but it’s a phantom pain. Here, in the bar with its dim lighting and still air, there is no fruit knife. There is no demon with flashing eyes. There is no Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, whose pain and misery can be felt just by occupying the same room as him. 

There is only the bartender, Odasaku, and himself. 

He takes a sip of his whiskey to give his hands and mouth something to do. He hates the taste and the burn of the alcohol as it goes down, hates the feeling of glass between his teeth. It’s why he’s always refused to drink anything he ordered when he went out drinking with Ango and Odasaku. That, and alcohol makes him slow.

Back then, he couldn’t afford to be slow. He can’t even afford to be slow now, but something about this place forces stillness upon him. The bar calms his ever-whirring mind and beating heart, as quick as the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings, to something more normal. More human. 

Dazai hates the irony. 

“Did I fail, then?” he asks, turning to Odasaku. “Has Yokohama burned to the ground?” 

Odasaku takes another sip and makes a negative sound. “Not yet, at least,” he adds, and the revelation causes panic to rise inside him. 

“Then what am I doing here?” he demands, and he’d forgotten how grating it is to be the petitioner. Dazai doesn’t make a habit of being the one asking, instead of the one answering. The loss of control is almost enough to make him shatter his whiskey glass. He can’t remember the last time he had let himself just be carried along by the currents of someone else’s agenda. 

No, he could. A reminder of the consequences was sitting two seats down from him, drinking his whiskey as if he didn’t have a care in the world. 

“You’re dead,” Odasaku reminds him, and something in his face softens. “For now, anyway.”

Dazai nods. While he had suspected as much, there had been enough uncertainty to throw his entire thought process into disarray. With that out of the way, the storm inside him quieted momentarily. 

“Nakahara-san, was it?” Odasaku murmurs. “He’ll come through.”

Dazai smiles a little. “He always does,” he says, and Odasaku smiles back at him. 

The two of them sip at their whiskey in companionable silence. It’s almost comforting until, after what could have been minutes or hours, Dazai feels a tug. As if a small child has latched onto the hem of his coat and is pulling at it to get his attention. He looks down, but there is nobody there. 

“Your time’s up, Dazai,” says Odasaku, and the simple phrase hits him with the force of a sledgehammer. He lifts his head to look at his friend, and Odasaku is still smiling. It’s not even a sad smile, like Dazai expected. Is that...pride?

“I do check on you, every now and again,” Odasaku admits. “Because I’m curious, and it can get boring here.”

Dazai can’t speak around the lump in his throat, and he doesn’t even try. Odasaku gets up from his stool and walks over, hands in his pockets, before reaching out. He ruffles Dazai’s hair. “The answer to your question,” Odasaku says, “is yes.”

That single word is absolution and penitence and everything he has been running towards since he threw off his black coat. Dazai opens his mouth to say something, anything, but he is ripped away from the bar and back to the living world with a punch to the jaw that sends him reeling. He is wearing white, and he is floating. Above him, Chuuya floats with his fist outstretched and a savage snarl twisting his face. Part of him is disappointed, and the other part of him is relieved. 

He can still feel the wound in his back, which throbs with every passing second, but he also sees the droplets of blood hanging suspended in the air like tears. He lifts up a hand then, even though it hurts, and touches Chuuya’s cheek. The activation of his ability feels like a cool wind rushing through him. 

“You used Corruption, believing in me?” he asks, though it’s a herculean effort to speak. His tongue feels like lead and his head is still spinning from being yanked unceremoniously back to consciousness. But he has enough energy to smile wryly and say, “How beautiful.”

“Yeah, I did,” says Chuuya, as blunt as he always is. “I believed in your disgusting vitality and craftiness.”

The words sting a little, but it’s nothing more than he deserves. It is, after all, his disgusting vitality and craftiness that keeps him from drinking whiskey with Odasaku, in a bar removed from time. The thought doesn’t depress him like it should. 

Because it will annoy Chuuya, he widens his smile. “That was a somewhat violent way of waking Snow White.”

There is violence in the tension of Chuuya’s shoulders and his narrowed eyes, but he just used Corruption. Dazai figures he can barely speak in his current state, let alone move. His jaw throbs anyway, because Chuuya hadn’t pulled his last punch at all. 

When he gets to the ground, with Chuuya collapsed on his thigh, Dazai allows himself to close his eyes for slightly longer than a blink. He leans against the rubble and tilts his head up to the sky. His hand is on Chuuya’s head, fingers resting lightly on his hair. He’s exhausted, but he cards his fingers gently through Chuuya’s hair anyway. 

“Ne, Odasaku,” he murmurs, and fancies that wherever he is, his friend can hear him. “You were right. You always were.”

With his face still tipped up to the sky and fingers still combing through Chuuya’s hair, he smiles. “I even forgot to say thank you.”

—

“Be on the side that saves people. If both sides are the same, become a good man. Save the weak, and protect the orphans. Neither good nor evil means much to you, I know…but that'd make you at least a little bit better…”

“How do you know?”

“Of course I know. I know better than anyone. Because…I am your friend.”

-- -- -- --  A link if you want to join the server: https://discord.gg/wGfPdaV

[thespianbooks]

A Court of Nightmares and Starlight //Chapter 7//

(Chapter one) (Chapter two) (Chapter three) (Chapter four) (Chapter five) (Chapter six) (Chapter seven) (Chapter eight) (Chapter nine) (Chapter ten)

(tags:  @thron3ofbooks, @df3ndyr, @courtofjurdan, @art-e-mis, @herondamnn , @the-third-me, @im-still-trying-here, @emikadreams, @paytin77, @mis-lil-red)

Two things were becoming increasingly apparent: the first being that Rhys wouldn’t be the only one to coddle me for the duration of my pregnancy, and the second being that my adverse symptoms wouldn’t be alleviating any time soon.

I had a full week of reprieve where I was beginning to gain back some of my energy, and I was able to fall into a new work routine with Rhys; one where he insisted we work together in my office so he wouldn’t have to leave my side, before the waves of nausea and extreme fatigue returned. My vivid and violent nightmares also reappeared with a vengeance, and there was a night I awoke with quite possibly the worst I have ever had and spent the rest of the night in the bathing room. The next day I couldn’t leave the bed or lift my head without being overcome with a terrible dizzying spell, and barely managed to hold down the broth Rhys tried feeding me.

It took hours of negotiation to convince him not to summon Madja after I insisted that this was all, unfortunately, part of early pregnancy I would have to endure for the time being. Seeing me in such a state left him feeling anxious for my health, and I knew the same was true for the rest of our family as well. When I had confined myself to our suite after my symptoms flared up, the Illyrian males would take turns poking their heads in the door to check on me before Rhys eventually shooed them away—trying his hardest not to snap at them. At one point, when Rhys had a meeting with a palace lord that he couldn’t reschedule and begrudgingly attended, Cassian was the one to hold my hair back and comfort me during a particularly brutal wave of nausea.

Even Mor and Amren wanted to ease my burdens; both going so far as to take over my paperwork duties. Their reasoning being that as my second and third in command, they could sort through “frivolous” desk work. Elain, aside from Rhys, fussed over me the most. She was up earlier than normal in the mornings, brewing plain broths and my prenatal herbal teas that Nuala and Cerridwen taught her to make in the kitchen. Throughout the day she delivered my meals to either my bedroom, which I couldn’t leave until the day before last, or my office—where I now worked exclusively from my loveseat. Once I had the energy to resume my work, Rhys rejoined me in my office; picking up on his own work he had abandoned in order to tend to me. There were times when even Nesta would join Elain on her frequent visits, sometimes just surveying me from the doorway. I didn’t mind her distance, however, and gratefully drank the anti-nausea teas she acquired for me from Madja’s clinic.

I sipped on it now as I lounged in my office with Rhys, both of us going over our annual reports as he ran a finger along my calves that I draped over his lap. Every few seconds I felt his glances over in my direction, checking my overall well-being and ready to nurse away any sudden ailment. After what seemed to be his hundredth glance, I finally set my stack of papers down.

“Rhys,” I warned.

“Yes, darling?” he asked innocently.

I rolled my eyes, “Will you stop? I’m fine. I actually feel a little better today,” I promised.

“That’s your second mug of that anti-nausea brew today, you’re not fine,” he said simply.

I sighed, settling back into the lounge pillows as I took another sip. “Just because I’m a little nauseous doesn’t mean I’m not alright,” I reasoned. “You don’t need to sit in here and babysit me.”

“I’m not babysitting you, I’m babysitting my son.” He said nonchalantly, a hand coming to sneak under my lightweight sweater in order to rest on my bare stomach.

“You can’t babysit a baby that hasn’t been born yet.” I deadpanned, only mildly annoyed.

“Are you trying to kick me out of your office, Feyre darling?” He teased.

“Maybe. This is my personal space, after all.”

“Ah, but you know what a fan I am of your personal space.”

I tried not to smile at his remark and set my mug and paperwork aside, relaxing again and inviting him to lay beside me—which he happily obliged to as he settled in beside me, placing his own work aside as his mighty wings curled over us easily. His hand resumed its position on my stomach, pushing my sweater up in order to admire the ghost of an outward curve that resembled more of a full belly than an actual baby bump.

I placed a hand on his cheek, but before I could say anything, he stiffened and growled darkly with his wings flared as we both heard a set of voices on the other side of my office door. Cassian had been about to knock on it when Nesta stopped him with a sharp slap on his hand.

“Don’t bother. She and that High Lord of yours have been in there since breakfast, she’s fine,” Nesta scolded.

“Ow! I just wanted to say hi,” Cassian complained.

“There’s no need. One insufferable Illyrian is enough for a pregnant female,” she retorted.

“You’re one to complain about insufferable Illyrians,” he taunted, and I could practically see the pompous grin on his face as Nesta shushed him fiercely.

I couldn’t hear her comeback as she presumably pushed him down the hall and away from my door. I returned my gaze back up to Rhys, who instantly started to relax as their voices drifted away.

“Mating bond chafing a bit, Rhys?” I teased, repeating the same words Cassian had taunted him with after we first mated.

He barked a laugh, despite being feral just seconds before. “I can’t help it, Feyre darling,” he admitted. “Just the thought of another male coming near you sets me off.”

I stroked the hard plane of his cheekbone with my thumb, “I know, but it wouldn’t hurt to release some of that aggression, like you’ve done before,” I suggested.

He shook his head, “I don’t want to be that kind of male; one who can’t control himself or his temper.”

I frowned, knowing who he was referring to and cupped both sides of his face, “You aren’t that kind of male Rhys. You never have been, and never will be. Working off some steam doesn’t mean you can’t control yourself,” I promised.

He further relaxed into my touch, his brow coming to rest against mine as he breathed in my new scent—the baby added the smell of jasmine to my normal lilac and pear that he previously described to me.

“I can’t bring myself to leave your side,” he said quietly. “Every second I’m away is agonizing. Not just in an intimate sense like before, but...I feel a sense of danger that grows stronger the longer I’m away.”

I kissed the tip of his nose, wrapping my arms around his neck loosely—silently reassuring him of my understanding. The mating bond was stretched tight for the both of us. Just as harrowing as it was for him every second we were apart, my own instincts left me completely and irrationally distraught. I made a mental note to mention it to Madja at our next appointment in a couple of days, but I chalked it up to our bond being hypersensitive thanks to the new life I was growing. That new life that also had every one of our friends and family doing their best to cater to my needs.

It was odd, but strangely comforting seeing their concern and their willingness to help. Apart from my sisters, I still worried that they only offered said help due to their sworn oaths to me as their High Lady and the child I was carrying.

“They’re not,” Rhys quietly interjected. I sighed, knowing my mental shields were left wide open again since I didn’t have the energy to build them back up. “They help and check on you because they genuinely care and worry about you, and the baby.”

I nodded, “You’re right. I guess I just know that even if they absolutely hated me, they still would.”

Rhys snorted, running a hand along my spine lightly as he contemplated. “I’m starting to worry, Feyre. I know Madja said to expect some nausea and fatigue, but your symptoms are well beyond that. I don’t know how much longer I can watch you suffer before I override your decision to call her,” he explained.

“I told you before, this is all a part of the process. If it makes you feel any better, we’ll bring it up to her at the next visit,” I reasoned.

He sighed deeply but reluctantly agreed, “We’ll wait until then, but if you try to underestimate any of your symptoms, I’ll be sure to set her straight. There must be something she can do.”

I giggled and nuzzled into him further, breathing in his salt-and-citrus scent as I closed my eyes, “Someone’s still being bossy,” I teased.

“Forgive me for not loving the sight of my pregnant mate hurling her guts up and having to take seven naps a day,” he retorted softly, still rubbing my back.

“But you said I’m cute when I’m sleeping,” I complained quietly, on the edge of unconsciousness.

“You’re even cuter when I’m assured that you and our son are healthy,” he said.

“You’re cute when you’re quiet and let me sleep,” I yawned.

A soft chuckle was his only response as he buried his nose in my hair, taking this opportunity to join me in a nap he rarely took. After a week of nightmares that left me restless at night, I knew he wasn’t getting any more sleep than I was. Any nap he took was just as well deserved as mine, and I relished in falling asleep to the sound of his even breaths.

X

“Your lingering fatigue and nausea are a bit concerning,” Madja began after her routine examination. I made good on my word and informed her of the extent of the symptoms I was experiencing. Despite feeling a little silly and worried that I would end up sounding like I was whining about the things she already warned me to expect, Rhys insisted we emphasize just how severely I was being impacted by them.

“In another two weeks, you’ll officially be in the second stage of your pregnancy—which is presumably when your early symptoms should be mitigating,” she continued. “That’s not to say they won’t, a lot can change in a couple of weeks, but most females tend to experience these symptoms until giving birth.”

I squeezed Rhys’s hand reassuringly, “See? I told you this is normal,” I said as I glanced up at him from my spot on our bed, and he helped me sit upright—noting my strain.

“Even the nightmares?” He asked with a frown.

The healer nodded, “Even the nightmares. I’m afraid pregnant females frequently experience more lively dreams—horrible as they may be.”

“I’m concerned with her stamina as well,” Rhys added. “She’s been practically bedridden this week.”

I sighed and reluctantly admitted, “I do get dizzy from regular activities now, like walking from one end of the estate to the other.”

Madja acquiesced, “That is common as well, and I assure you both that these are not signs of an unhealthy pregnancy, but rather a taxing one. You are both substantial high fae,” she said and motioned to Rhys and then to me respectfully, “As you are the most powerful High Lord in Prythian, and as you were resurrected with the combined abilities of all seven High Lords, your child will be a powerful high fae—perhaps more so than you both. It is likely that your developing youngling is draining your energy as your body attempts to keep up.”

“Is that dangerous?” I asked before Rhys had the chance to.

The healer shook her head, “No. In fact, this is a good sign. It means you are able to maintain a pregnancy this extraordinary. Odds are, as the youngling progresses into further stages of development, your body will continue to accommodate and you’ll begin to gain back some of your energy.”

I gulped, not exactly relieved. Rhys cleared his throat as he spoke up, his hand coming to rest on my back, “We don’t have anything to worry about then?”

“Not at all,” Madja reassured, touching my knee gently. “It will be a long journey, but you will carry to term and deliver a healthy baby. So long as you keep resting, eating well, and limit any stress on your physical and mental health I see no cause for concern. I will change some of the dosages in your prenatal and anti-nausea brews, so that you are able to stave off the queasiness better and hold down your meals. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, your desire to eat will increase.”

“Are there any other alarming symptoms we should be aware of? Any warning signs we need to look for?” Rhys asked.

“Of course, and I have created a list of normal and abnormal symptoms, some I’ve mentioned before and some yet to come as things progress,” the older female replied, handing my mate said list. “As of right now, I’m confident you and your youngling are both in top condition.”

I nodded, still a bit tense as I asked, “Should we be worried about our mating bond? Both of our instincts have been a little...intense.”

Madja chuckled, the skin at the corner of her eyes crinkling in amusement, “I did warn you the mating bond would heighten your instincts now with a little one to consider,” she said.

“It's normal then, to feel a sense of...panic, when we’re apart?” Rhys asked.

“And to feel overprotective, and desperate,” the healer said, as if she were reading my mates mind. “You two are soon going to be parents to a beautiful, strong, and healthy baby. Given this is your first child, and considering your positions of power, you are going to be anxious—rightfully so. I want you both to realize your anxieties are normal, so long as you don’t allow them to cause you to live in fear,” she explained, taking our hands and squeezing them warmly with her own small wrinkled ones.

Her short speech caused my eyes to burn and without warning I burst into tears, a sob tearing through my throat as Rhys instantly wrapped me in his arms to console me. “I’m guessing this reaction is normal as well?” He asked, albeit sympathetically as he rubbed my back soothingly.

A warm smile graced the healer’s wrinkled lips as she nodded, “Yes. Expect more changes in mood from your pregnant mate, my lord. If she wasn’t prone to tears before, happy or sad, she will be now.”

I sniffed as I composed myself, willing the tears to stop, “I’m just...grateful. You’ve assured us on every front, and eased our concerns, and I’m so grateful to you.” I said, sniffling a bit pathetically.

“That is what I’m here for, my lady. And for you as well, my lord.” She said to both of us.

Rhys nodded appreciatively, “Thank you.”

She bowed her head and began gathering her things as Rhys turned back to me, taking a step back to kneel in front of my spot on the bed. “You were right. This is all normal,” he said as his hands came to rest on either side of my thighs. 

I nodded, wiping at my tears, “Just exhausting.”

We both nodded in earnest at Madja as she excused herself from the room; Rhys coming to sit beside me on the bed.

“Maybe it's time we hire an assistant, just to lighten your workload a little,” he suggested.

“I suggested an assistant for both of us, not just me.” I reminded him.

His returning grin was wicked as he shrugged casually, “I wouldn’t mind having an assistant.”

I sighed tiredly and moved my head to perch on his shoulder, a hand resting on the small curve of my stomach. It was barely noticeable through my wool sweater, further hidden by the leggings I wore around the estate, but since noticing the small swell in my abdomen, we both couldn’t resist caressing it.

“Having an assistant would give us more time together, especially when the baby comes,” I said.

Rhys’s hand came to cover mine, squeezing gently, but when I turned to smile at him, I was met with a furrowed brow as he stared at my stomach. “What’s wrong?” I asked hesitantly.

“So small and already giving his mother a hard time,” he said softly, and I could hear the concern laced behind his words.

“Well he is his father’s son,” I tried to joke in an attempt to ease back into our relief after Madja’s exam, but his frown remained.

“His power is going to surpass both of ours,” he said, a sense of alarm gathering behind those violet star-flecked eyes—the same I had experienced after the healer first confirmed my pregnancy.

“I once warned you what it meant to marry me, to carry my offspring. A life with a target on your back. I wasn’t worried so much about you because I knew how strong you were, especially once you came into your powers, but now—with our child…” his voice trailed off as I moved to straddle his hips, wrapping both my arms around him as my hands tangled in his hair. I brought his head to rest against my chest in an effort to calm him.

He sighed deeply, closing his eyes as he breathed in my scent, his own arms encircling my waist and relaxed as he kept his brow pressed between my breasts. “He’s going to be okay,” I whispered after a couple of minutes. “We have alliances with all but two courts now. Our world isn’t what it was before the war. Things have changed, even with the Mortal Lands,” I explained quietly as I stroked through his hair lightly.

I was glad that much was true. In the decade since the end of the war with Hybern, our alliances with the Summer, Winter, Day and Dawn Courts had solidified. As the years went by, we had been able to strengthen our relationships with Tarquin, Thesan and Kallias—more so with the latter since Viviane and I had developed a closer friendship. She was now the first High Lady of the Winter Court, just as much Kallias’s equal as I was Rhys’s, and we both held our heads high among the males surrounding us.

Once a year, we made a tradition of gathering all the High Lords—and Ladies, of Prythian as we had before the war began and met at the Dawn Court Palace. Lucien, Jurian and Vassa also attended those meetings; Vassa and Jurian representing and speaking on behalf of the Mortal Lands, with Vassa having taken over as the sole ruling Queen thanks to Jurian’s help at overthrowing the other traitorous queens. Collectively, we thought it best to let the human forces work together during that conflict—offering assistance if the humans needed it, but allowing them a chance at rallying their territory before we officially created a new alliance without the need for a wall.

At our new meetings, high fae and human finally together as one, we made it a point to keep each other in check—although no one had the urge to try and overthrow the other or expand their lands, but in recent years our main concerns were with the Autumn and Spring Court.

After his losses in the war, our alliance with Beron remained tentative, and it was Eris who appeared at our yearly meeting on behalf of the Autumn Court. Since he wasn’t a High Lord, however, and continued to have little sway on his father, the eldest son of the Autumn Court only attended to inform and assure us that Beron wasn’t making any advances on expanding into the Mortal Lands or staging any kind of uprising against the other courts. Still, with his cruel facade ever-present and his occasional visits to Keir in the Court of Nightmares, it was hard for the rest of us to completely trust him. Rhys, Mor and I made it a habit to pop into the Hewn City unannounced whenever Eris was there; making sure to send a clear message that we wouldn’t allow any secret negotiations to take place between the heir to the Autumn Court and the steward of our throne.

Tamlin was a separate issue. After reluctantly agreeing to allow Tarquin’s forces into his territory and reinforcing his borders, he was slowly able to rebuild his own army—some of his old sentries returning to serve him, appreciative of his assistance during the war and the attempts to bolster the Spring Court lands. The rest I wasn’t sure of, and the little I did know of had been gathered from what Lucien told us. It was no secret things were still, and would probably always be, strained with Tamlin and his court, and neither he nor any representative to speak on his behalf attended our meetings. At first, Rhys would occasionally visit on Tarquin’s behalf, checking on the warriors he supplied, but as the years went by and things seemingly improved, he stopped when Tamlin hadn’t bothered to greet him anymore.

However provisional things seemed to be with the Sprint and Autumn Courts, I knew our friends in the others would be happy to hear that we were expecting—especially Viviane and Kallias, who were also due to expect their first child in a couple of months. I made a mental note to contact Viviane and ask for advice on how she was coping with her pregnancy.

“Something isn’t sitting right with me,” Rhys finally admitted after a couple of minutes of silence passed between us.

I pulled back to meet his eyes, my hands coming to rest on his shoulders, “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

Just as he was about to speak, his shoulders tensed and his wings flared as a hard knock was heard on our door. It was Azriel’s voice that came from the other side as he said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have news from the Illryian war camps.”

I climbed off of Rhys as we both moved to stand, Rhys answering the door before I could reach it. “Kallon?” He asked Azriel, who nodded grimly in return.

Rhys swore under his breath, “Get Cassian. We’ll meet in my office in two minutes,” he ordered the shadowsinger. Azriel nodded and left to do as he was instructed.

I frowned, “This is more than just Kallon spreading dissent, isn’t it? What if he’s planning something, an uprising of some sort?” I asked.

It was a possibility we hadn’t wanted to face, but after Azriel began to gather more and more intel on the camp lord’s resistance since their presence at the Blood Rite, it was now something we couldn’t ignore.

“It’s likely. The bastard has always hated us, and this is something he would try to pull after years of silence,” Rhys growled as he went to the desk we held in the corner of our room, searching for Az’s previous reports.

“He wanted us to think he wasn’t a problem,” I said as I went to help him look.

He grabbed my hand gently, “Let me handle this, please. Madja said you shouldn’t be under any stress,” he pleaded.

I stared back at him, my eyes hard, “I am High Lady of the Night Court, that includes the Illyrians as well. We handle this together.”

He chuckled humorlessly and only nodded in return without a second thought. He found the reports and we left together to meet Cassian and Azriel in his office. The two Illyrian warriors were in a fierce conversation as we walked in and Cassian immediately turned to face us as he growled,

“The bastard is planning a coup.”

[beyondtheciouds]

.20.

A dream. It was. Wasn't it?

Sweat trickles and tickles like the blood dripping down the handle of her axe. It pools into her lap, spreading across her nightgown like a slow disease.

Lucie's knees are drawn up to her chest; the nightgown ripped and torn at the collar and shoulders where hands were grabbing her. The gold locket clings to her skin and is smeared with crimson; the blood of thorns. The gold still hangs around her neck like a noose, tying her to this awful, awful world.

Her throat feels tight; the ghost of his hands strangling her even though he is dead. She can't speak, her actions are horrifying her practical side.

Lucie stands, unable to make sense of her unspoken crime. Her hair is knotted and she absently tugs on it, commanding herself to use logic.

Who did I kill? Lucie thinks, but can't remember. Her hand aches, the knuckles bone white and swelling beneath the veil of blood. Her chest heaves; deep breaths in, shallow exhales as her heart pounds in her ears. Panic. Blue eyes close and then open wide.

What happened?

Jesse's body is hazardly spread out on the ground like a broken doll. Pools of blood glisten like water beneath him in the solitary glimpse of the moon as it peaks out behind the trees. His arms and hands are covered in defensive wounds; cuts and scratches deep enough to introduce bone to the outside world. His bare torso is open to the insects, buzzing at her feet. A feast for the wildlife, his body deceased for the second time.

Tatiana appears like a puff of smoke. The woman claimes no remastered remorse as she slashes Lucie without warning.

Lucie tries to move forward out of her reach, but it is too late. Tatiana is already dragging her blade clean and clear across Lucie's side.

For a long, agonizing minute Lucie believes she is sobbing, not bleeding.

Double screams pierce the air as Lucie drops to the ground like a rock. She is quickly losing consciousness. Bright blood flows like water from the glistening gash in her right side and down her legs like its her monthly time.

Sickened with the shock and alive because of adrenaline, Lucie jolts awake. She drops her weapon and creeps on her hands and knees on the ground to get out of the smokey air.

The inferno around her is still burning.

Flesh tears on her knees and elbows split and scrape against the rockiness of the terrain. Lucie wants to stop, but she ignores the intense pain and keeps pulling herself until she is breathless.

Hiding behind a tree, out of Tatiana's sight, Lucie's hands cover the oozing wound on a secondary instinct. She rolls onto her back, blue eyes dazed, gazing into the smoke engulfed sky thinking of her mother.

Above her, the murder collects and calls themselves to order. The court settles unsettlingly in the crooked branches of the tilted trees.

Six. Six. Six.

Three branches. Three murders.

Lucie coughs, her breathing shallower. I am the first, she thinks as her eyelids get heavy and her breathing slows. Her blank eyes are staring at the winged spectators to her death. She desperately cries out for her brother in-between coughing fits.

Tatiana laughs wickedly in the distance and squares herself away in the shadows without glancing at the mutilated body of her son.

Beady eyes look conspiratorially at Lucie as she rolls onto her stomach. She drags herself forward, determined to find the real Jesse.

All Lucie can do is think of the blood moon as she stops, nearly dead in tracks. As if she has a tracking rune, her eyes catch movement in the shadows. Nate whirls, blue eyes discolored as he watches Lucie as she watches him. A square off.

Suddenly he vanishes in a cloud of incense singed smoke like a bad magic act.

Lucie can't move.

Frozen, she looses consciousness for the third time.

****

A damp cloth rubs the skin between her closed eyes; the unexpected gesture causing her mind to spin with shooting pain. Lucie struggles to stay connected, but it is only seconds before she blacks out, thinking of that black-haired boy on the ground again.

Matthew insistantly presses the damp cloth to her forehead; his hand careful and confident as it dabs her hot skin. His face is a hollowed place that is set up to dissuade polite conversation. His typical grassy green eyes are dark and unusually strained; the grimness in his wild irises apparent.

Matthew's work of art mouth is pressed into an intense line. Several bruises color the rose flush of his cheeks in a rainbow of yellow, purple and green.

Melancholy, Matthew sighs, his free hand on the bed beside her. His finger twitch and move; the light reflects off the numerous rings like shiny kisses. Casually, he glances at the robed figure standing beside the bedside. The Silent Brother's old, bleached hands have Lucie's hand in his. Two of his fingers are lightly pressed to the soft spot on the inside of her wrist.

Matthew frowns, wringing out the wrinkled cloth in the basin on the bedside table. The fire in the fireplace reflectes his mood; the flames shifting high to low like in a far away wind. He dips the cloth in another basin filled with warm water and looks over at Jem who is examining the deep slice on Lucie's side, just under her ribs. Mmm. Lucky.

"Will she be alright?" Matthew asks. He looks dubious as James draws another rune on Lucie's leg with his stele.

Cordelia glances around Matthew's messy bedroom in his flat. Clothes are strewn on chairs and on the floor. Poetry books and paintings were tossed in corners among other things. Dishes are piled like pillows on the numerous small tables and fabric chairs. "Maybe I should do that and you should clean up."

Matthew grunts his disapproval. He isn't moving.

Cordelia sighs, moving the to chaise lounge.

Lucie hears a murmur calling to her. The voice is shaking her. It is soft and sweet in nature but indecipherable in tone. The voice is familiar in her head, one she has known since before birth. Please Lucie. Wake up.

Her body is badly dehydrated and burned-out. Her limbs are limp like a doll's; held by both familar and unfamilar hands with their fingers stiff and cold like the dead.

Lucie's mind; troubled by weakness relents. Her subconscious has trapped all her thoughts in a cave unaccounted for in the space of time. Memories fall adrift like snowflakes against the thick, London fogged windows of the present.

What was yesterday is now today.

Tense shadows are tossing and turning all around her. Mistakes cloud her vision closely behind the lids of her eyes.

The heat of a hot stele burning runes into her flesh briefly awakens her; the scent of leathery licorice drowning the stench of burnt flesh.

James frowns and sits back. He glances at Jem expectant of a prognosis. Lucie doesn't open her eyes or move. "Uncle Jem?"

We are not involved anymore than we already are, James. Jem says, his voice stern. The other Silent Brother doesn't agree or disagree.

Familiar voices invade the room; chaos amid peace like unwanted visitors. Sleep controls her body and the lullaby of bleak conversation threatens to lull her sleep.

A jumble of sounds that make no sense briefly shifts her attention to the bed, where Matthew sits beside her. Something to focus on, to stay awake. To listen. Pay attention Lucie.

Lucie absently tugs the sheets. She knows without looking they are Egyptian cotton; the color sunset crimson. Made soft as silk and 600 thread count fine.

The warm blankets go against her and soothe her like a secret skin; aloe against her battered body. Despite her efforts, Lucie falls into a deep sleep.

Anna sighs, her expression sad as she sips her cup of gin. Her blue eyes are like thick glass as she watches Kit over the rim. He is pacing unsteadily back and forth, clearly drunk.

Anna stares at him with the context of concern on her face only an older sister is able to have. "I so do not appreciate being the oldest one."

Kit stops and turns to his sister. A lopsided grin expands his mouth. "But that makes you the wisest."

Anna rolls her eyes and Kit resumes pacing.

Thomas frowns at Anna, his expression pensive as he asks the question on everyone's mind.

"What should we do?"

[sienna-writes]

Butterfly Blood || novel update

chapter three

I initially had a lot of trouble with this chapter. It’s been through about three drafts and it’s still nowhere near perfect, but I’m working on just moving forward with the novel now and am trying to quit obsessing over revising because... it’s unrealistic to expect a first draft to be perfect. 

The first draft of this particular chapter, though, was basically all dialogue, and all very poorly executed dialogue. (Dialogue is absolutely the weakest aspect of my writing but I’m working on it.) On my second attempt at the chapter I initially attempted to create an outline, thinking this would help me find a direction. However, in my next writing session I ended up totally ignoring the outline and just winging it, and the second draft was formed. I really liked the events in the chapter now but still wasn’t happy with some of the individual scenes so I reworked it yesterday morning. The argument between Rowan and Karmen still needed revision  because Karmen’s character within it was totally inconsistent to his usual disposition. So! The final (for now..) draft is a more stripped back, since Karmen is too disassociated to get as angry as he did as quickly as he did, and I think the tension and the build up is a lot better timed and more... muted? It’s less overt, more subtext heavy, and I'm relieved because that is what I had been trying to achieve all along.

Again, it’s not perfect, but it has evolved and it is definitely better than before. 

The chapter is just over 3000 words now, but I am only going to be sharing the main, gritty extract. The other scenes are less exciting, but I also suspect they need the same amount of work till they're even remotely sharable. (I was going through a bad writing slump in this chapter lol.) I really hope you enjoy it? I'm ultimately quite proud of how it turned out in the end :)

excerpt:

[Rowan has missed her GP appointment + her dad uses it as an oppurtunity to also be angry about her slacking in school]

    “I’ve booked another for tomorrow morning. You’ll miss some school, but I figured that’d be an incentive since you don’t seem to care about that anymore.” There is now an edge to his voice that hadn't been there before.

    Rowan visibly flinches, digging her fingernails into the supple skin of her palms. The dents purple then fill with blood. She locks eyes with her father, searching for the reason for his sudden anger. He has struck a nerve and he knows it.

    “Miss Phelps called.”

    She pushes her toes into the dirt, white sneakers now blotted with dust. “Oh.”

    He doesn’t ask for an explanation, simply straightens his back like an ancient scroll unravelling itself and meets her gaze finally. Karmen stands with his chest puffed out and his chin pointed forward. It is apparent that he won't ask her side of things. He’s heard enough, and has his made up his mind about her already.

    Rowan pushes past him to get inside. Karmen doesn’t shift as she squeezes by his statuesque stance. His face twitches like a camera shutter, so fast she can barely believe the change in his expression. She convinces herself it didn’t happen and throws her bag onto the couch, almost tempting another lecture. A tamer one. Something he could murmur through his daydream fog before slipping back into his silence and letting everything remain undiscussed. Like it normally is. Her slipping grades. Her laziness in class. Not writing a single word in an entire school day. Talking back for little to no reason.

    He turns as her rucksack lands, his footsteps looming behind her. Something sharpens the air between them, but she can’t tell what. The elephant is in the room and it is wrecking the place. They watch the destruction mutely, each waiting for the other to intervene and consequently letting the walls crumble into ruin. The old house audibly creaks, it is so quiet. Finally, Karmen speaks. “What’s the matter with you?”

    Rowan runs through all the excuses she can think of. I was dropped as a child. I was a premature baby, so my brain must be under-developed. The content is so easy it feels obsolete. I’m being bullied. I’m just not as smart as you thought, dad, sorry. Teachers are liars and we both should have known this.  “There’s just too much.” She says instead, through gritted teeth, moving into the kitchen. “I can’t focus on school and have to be there for everyone.” It is limp and she knows it. It flops between them weakly like a helpless fish. She takes a glass from the cabinet and closes it softly.

   He consumes the lie like a starved ghost, though. Proving he doesn’t know her. Doesn’t know how absent a friend she has been of late. How she has become her father at school, numb and quiet. How, secretly, she enjoys the façade because people avoid her, don’t ask difficult questions, don’t tackle her with unnecessary comments about her long-lost mother. “Then stop being there.” He says simply.

Rowan scoffs. “I do enough of that at home.” She studies her dad’s face—clenched jaw and squinting eyes—as if it hurts to look at her. “Everyone’s always telling everything how things must be. I must participate, I must be smart not emotional, I must not slack for exams I know I will pass without a glance at my books”—suddenly an urge to twist the knife into his gut overwhelms her, she draws out the moment as she fills the glass with a thread of water from the tap—"I must deal with a stranger for a Dad and a god knows what for a mother. A shrieking banshee? An abusive fugitive? She’s probably become a social worker just to scorn us.”

    He rolls his lips, lowers his gaze and chews on the inside of his cheek, sucking it in. Rowan’s breath catches in her throat. In this moment he looks shockingly hollow. Did she empty him? Wind him with her blows? Spoon out his entrails with an ice cream scoop? Carve him like the roasted corpse of some great beast? Karmen puts two hands on the back of the chair opposite her, clutching it as if he might just fall over. His stare is cold and unsympathetic when he raises it toward her. “Don’t you want to make something of yourself?”

Yes. “What?” She laughs bitterly, placing the tumbler on the counter with a satisfying thud. “Like how you made something of yourself?” There is a terrible moment where he sits in the midst of the cruelty, shrinks into himself as if absorbing it, before his mouth creaks open and he lets out a broken shriek.

“GOD DAMMIT ROWAN!” Rowan flies back, arms sheltering her head instinctively as he reaches for the glass she placed on the counter, spins, and throws it at the wall. One big horrific movement. A cutting arc of his arm through the air and then the shattering. “Are you ever even listening?”

    Millions of glittering fragments of her life laid out before her, encircling her bare feet. She thinks of the sneakers she slipped off at the door, wishing she had them now.  Something about naked feet look so naïve, so vulnerable. Her toes shrink, curling inward. Her breath quickens and her hands begin to tremble. All this broken glass. All these fragments like a lifeline stretched between them. Her eyes blink away tears in different shards, her reflection is fragmented, her features lost and bobbing about as if at sea.

    “Are you, dad?” Rowan asks in an empty voice, staring at him till he flinches. He stares at the glass on the floor in shock.

    “I...” He crouches, sifting through it with his bare, shuddering, and unsure hands. “I don’t know why I did that...”

    Rowan gets a sudden urge to have the last word. Except she doesn’t speak. Her eyes settle on the glass and the idea flourishes like a flame in her mind, burning everything rational, everything he might think. To hell with appropriate. To hell with acceptable. One unsteady step. She expects a crunch or a crackle, but instead there is a damp muffle and squelch. Her spine rattles and her teeth prickle in response. A sunrise in her chest warms her throat but she presses against it with her palms, forcing it down. It is a scorching, molten pain. Third degree burns and all she swallows rays of light till she is drowning, gorging. Slipping through furnace tongue flames. Rowan gags. Bile and acid boils her tongue and the bright, burnt out orb slips into her stomach. She gulp, gulp, gulps every atom of the blaze that consumes her. Till she is heavy. She walks across the broken glass as he yells out. Let there be outrage. Let the sky fall. Its clouds embrace her limbs, draining everything fluid from her, letting her grow limp. Letting her rain. Heavy. As she moves away from the kitchen, she feels her footsteps peeling from the floor, warm and wet. And she is so, so heavy. Then she stumbles, splintered feet unable to keep her up—her legs can no longer hold her and her lava—as the pain erupts within her fierce and sharp and sudden. Flashing its ugly teeth. Catching one last glimpse before her vision goes dark, she sees a red ocean seeping into the living room. How could one body hold so much? Fast and gushing the rapids wash her dregs of consciousness away. It was just a few steps...

soo... yeah. Rowan walks on glass because, oh lord that girl has no impulse controls. 

I'm not going to lie, although it was a pain to get this scene to the stage I have just shared, I think it's one of my favourites in the book so far. I'm proud of how much it's grown. Also, I love me some dramatic descriptions of pain and characters being nasty... :”)

I hope you enjoyed this update! (if you did, reblogs really help me out, but absolutely no pressure <3) I’m also still looking for people to add to the tag list, so if any of this interested you, feel free to send me an ask, message or comment. :)

Tag list under cut (ask to be added or removed):

@alicewestwater @elaz-ivero @coffeeandcalligraphy @hanwatchingmovies @sirfitzroys @chloeswords @nev-953

[sisterpiranha]

The Art of Snake Charming, ch. 8

Pairing: Lawrusso, Daniel Larusso/Amanda Larusso (at the start, I mean, they are engaged) Johnny/Shannon, mention of Johnny/others

Summary:  Johnny is a stripper. Daniel has a bachelor party. Louie is an idiot.

MASTERLIST

(translations for the Spanish text at the end)

I've been struggling with this story a bit since I'm in two minds about how to end it. And this is a decision I should make before moving forward. So just to give myself time to mull this over, I wrote this chapter from Johnny's perspective and about his history. It's extra self-indulgent and has little to no dialogue. So I'm very sorry.The good news is that it can be skipped without affecting the reading of the rest of the story. So enjoy! (or not!)

As usual, not beta. And I didn't have time to edit this as much as I wanted, so there might be more mistakes than ever. And the tenses are all over the place.

CHAPTER 9

Johnny saw Daniel leave. He saw the door closing behind him and wondered if he would see him again. Probably not. Or if he did, it wouldn't be the same. He’d be married by then, maybe had kids of his own. And Johnny would be nothing but a stupid mistake of his past. He wondered what would happen if they were to meet in 15 years. Would Daniel avoid him? Pretend he didn’t exist? Or would he say hello like they were old friends and ask him how he had been, like he had never begged Johnny to stay the night with him or ask for a kiss goodbye? Would Johnny still care? He didn’t doubt that he would. He had carried Daniel in his heart for the past 17 years and he had little doubt that he’d be a weight pulling him down for 17 more.

Johnny felt tears running down his cheeks and rubbed them furiously with his hand. He was stronger than this, he had to be. It’s not like he hadn’t known it would end this way. From the moment he had seen Daniel’s big Bambi eyes staring at him in shock a few nights ago, he had known that whatever happened, he would have ended up broken-hearted.

Daniel had been his first crush, the one that had made him realise that he wasn’t as straight as he would like to be, the one that catalyzed everything. Even back then, he would think of what things would have been like if they were different. What if Johnny had had balls enough to break away from his friends and Kreese and extend an olive branch to Daniel? Would the boy have taken it? Would they have become friends? Johnny liked to imagine so. 

But his olive branch had come too late. After the tournament, he’d wanted to go see the other boy to apologise, make amends, show him that he could be better than he had shown himself to be, but he always put it off. After the poisonous haze of Kreese had cleared from his mind and the bruises from his face and neck disappeared, shame had taken control. It was only six months later that he managed to gather enough courage to go find him.

But he was nowhere to be found. His old apartment was not occupied by someone else, and no one answered at Miyagi's place.

Johnny would come back to the old man's house and wait outside for a while in case he had missed them, in case he had caught them when they were away, but they had all been gone. And Daniel became a ghost alive and real only in Johnny’s memories. 

The last time he had waited for him was after being thrown out of his house. Sid had caught wind of the kind of clubs Johnny had been frequenting. Between that and him quitting school, it had been the last straw. He didn’t remember much from that night, but amidst the pain from Sid’s punches and the sound of his mother crying still ringing in his ears, what he remembered the most was sitting on the hood of his car for hours and hours, drinking beer after beer and looking at every passerby in the hopes that he would recognise the big brown doe eyes that he craved. As if by just wishing, he could make Daniel materialise in front of him. He had slept in his car that night and had woken up the next day hangover and with the certainty that Daniel had left for good. 

That had been the start of his downward spiral. 

Much of his twenties, he had spent in a haze of alcohol, drugs and sex, making the worst decisions possible and trying very hard to purge every single memory of his last year of high school from his brain, and yet, countless times, waking up in bed with dark-haired men with big soft brown eyes and tan skin that looked nothing like Daniel in the harsh light of day. 

There were many wake-up calls during that time: ending up in the hospital with an overdose or after getting beaten up, getting arrested for stealing and solicitation, almost being sent to prison. Without friends, without his family and without a sensei, he looked for the worst company he could find and let himself be dragged down with them. 

One call, however, had changed it all. 

He’d barely recognised Sid on the phone, but his words still struck him like a knife. His mother was ill. The kind of ill you didn't recover from. Sid was willing to let him come back as long as he promised to clean his act and leave his more "undesirable proclivities" in the past. Normally Johnny would have sent the man to go fuck himself, but the word ‘cancer’ was still rattling in his head. He wouldn’t abandon his mother again. So he accepted and, like the prodigal son, he went back to Encino and to the arms of a mother who was barely strong enough to hold him.

Things moved fast from there. He went to rehab and met Shannon, someone who was as broken as he was and who didn’t flinch whenever his mask showed its cracks. She had deserved better than him, but, at the time, they had clung to each other like a lifeline, hoping that the other was strong enough to save them both. But they hadn’t been strong at all and the pregnancy had ended up destroying what little love had been left between them. 

When Laura died, Johnny’s heart broke once again and he went back to the only refuge he had known. The end of her mother’s life had almost put an end to his, but it didn’t. The moment his son had been placed in his arms had changed everything. Robby had saved his life. Shannon hadn’t been so lucky.

And Johnny remembered clearly the first time the boy had grasped his hand, his little hand looking tiny next to his. He remembered crying more than he had cried before, he cried for Shannon who would never know her son. For Laura who would have loved to be a grandmother. For the sacrifice, her mother had made just for him to throw his life away. For Robby and his bad luck of not being born to a better family. Even for Daniel who, years later, still haunted his memories.

Turning his life around had taken a lot, but he knew Robby was worth it. Many times, he was tempted to go to Sid and ask him for money or some help. But his mother’s death was still too fresh and his wound still too raw for him to take the humiliation. Without meaning to, Laura had taught him a lesson that he never managed to learn herself: money, and a mansion and a position were not worth having to live with the constant abuse of someone like his stepfather. 

So Johnny rented an apartment and struck on his own. Things got difficult then. For one thing, he wasn’t someone people were eager to hire. He worked odd jobs as a handyman here and there. He occasionally got some money playing pull. And when things got really tight, he wasn’t above doing other things for money, too. He wasn’t proud of that, but he needed to provide for Robby and it’s not like he hadn’t done it before. 

But that wasn't his only problem, he also knew very little about babies. In that sense, the Diaz family had been his salvation. They had moved to the building two months after he did, fleeing the violence of Carmen’s husband, who remained in Ecuador.  And Carmen and Rosa had had no qualms to take him under their wing. Rosa would look after Robby when he had to work and teach Johnny how to take care of him. And he would take Carmen to work and accompany her wherever she didn’t feel safe going alone. 

Working at a strip club was something he had never expected. He had met Lenny one morning when he was exercising. He had seen Johnny doing some katas in the park wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and struck a conversation with him. When he made an offer to come work for him, the blonde thought he was full of shit, but it turned out that it was a legitimate job offer and not just a way to get Johnny on his bed. Johnny knew next to nothing about stripping, other than he was meant to take his clothes, but the money was better than anything he could make on his own, so he was willing to learn. In that sense, karate had been a huge help. So when it came the time for him to create his stripping alter-ego, the decision had been obvious. And the jacket still had fitted like a glove.

Johnny would be lying if he said that, throughout this time, he had never thought of Daniel Larusso. Dating was hard with a baby. Even worse in his line of business. He’d tried a few times, but nothing had come of it, so eventually he just stopped trying, other than occasional one night stands. But his mind couldn’t help going back to Daniel. He imagined a thousand different little scenarios in which they would meet again. He didn’t even know if Daniel had come back to the Valley, but he imagined maybe they would bump into each other in a shop or the park. They’d get talking and maybe Johnny would ask him out for a coffee or a drink. 

However, in all his fantasies, Johnny was never a stripper. It wasn’t like he was ashamed of it, necessarily. But Daniel had seen him at his peak, he had been a king back then living the life of a rich Encino kid. And now? He lived in a shit apartment and he made ends meet by taking his clothes so people could stuff money in his jockstrap. He couldn’t imagine Daniel’s face if he ever found out.

And sadly, he didn’t have to. 

Seeing Daniel again, in the flesh, had shocked him more than he had let on. The man had been a construction of his imagination for so long that seeing him actually standing before him seemed unreal. Johnny felt like he had walked into a daydream where anything could be possible. That was the only explanation on why he had behaved the way he did, staying when he knew he should have left, and carrying something forward when the only possible outcome had been Daniel leaving. But there had been something in Daniel’s eyes that first night that called to Johnny. The eagerness with which he had followed him outside and sought after him the following day, and the obvious jealousy whenever Robby came up in conversation had given Johnny a strange hope that maybe he hadn’t been alone in his inability to put his old rival out of his mind.

And Johnny was even ashamed to recognise that, even though rationally he knew that Daniel was going to get married, there was a deep, hidden part of him that had also wished that maybe Daniel would end up not going through with the wedding. That the time they spent together had made him change his mind. And when he opened the door of his apartment to see him standing there, that stupid part of him roared in his chest. But just as soon as hope flared, it died down. Sure, Daniel was attracted to him and, under different circumstances, maybe things would have been different. But it was the money that made him come back, money that Johnny had forgotten all about. That and closure. Daniel wanted to move on with his life, put Johnny and everything else in the past and carry on with his new life.

The sound of the door opening pulled Johnny out of his thoughts and two excited toddlers threw themselves on Johnny at the screams of ‘dada!' and 'tío!”. Rosa, on the other hand, had only to look at his face to guess what had happened. 

“Ay, Johnny,” the woman said getting closer and caressing his cheek. “¿Por qué no vienes a comer con nosotros? Te haré los plátanos que tanto te gustan.”

He nodded and followed the woman out of the apartment, carrying the giggling boys in his arms. Daniel had decided to move on with his life, and maybe it was time he did the same.