WIP Wednesday
Thanks for the tag, @tinyarmedtrex!
(I'd forgotten it was Wednesday like twice already.)
For this WIP Wednesday, I'm going to give you a chunk of Geheugen, the 13th story in my Kanej Wensen series. Kaz & Inej are winding down and trying to recover from an argument. I wanted to explore Kaz's feelings that he doesn't always deserve Inej, and her refuting it rather strongly.
“Inej… I… I wonder, sometimes, if you’ll realize you deserve better than me… Better than I can offer you, than I am capable of being… Someone who has an easier time revealing his entire hand. Who isn’t made of secrets, who doesn’t have so many voices in his head…” He trailed off as Inej lifted her head to stare at him, her hand skimming up his side to rest over his heart.
“Kaz… Did you never realize that maybe you’re exactly what I deserve? Someone who loves me for exactly who I am now? Violence and strength and sharp edges? I wouldn’t ever be content with a nice Suli husband who wanted me to stop hunting. I want the man who has never doubted my ability to be dangerous. I need the man who’ll fight by my side. You asked me to trust you earlier, and I’m asking that you trust that you’re exactly who I deserve.”
Her words hit him like a hot shower, washing away most of his doubts. The phrase ‘violence and strength and sharp edges’ stood out. He’d known from the moment he’d met Inej that she was strong, and her sharp tongue and wit had impressed themselves upon him soon after. But violence… that had surely come from him. From everything he’d asked her to do as the Wraith. It troubled him, so he asked, “Do you deserve me because you’re violent, and so am I? Because I feel like I led you to that path, Inej.”
She pulled away enough to be able to meet his eyes. “No… Our violence and our gentleness balance out in each other. You had to shove all of your good deep inside to survive the Barrel. I shut mine away to keep it safe. But we call it out in each other, Kaz. Without having to let go of the things that kept us alive. Our instincts help us fight our enemies and our demons, even now. You might have given me my first knife, but I chose to use it. I chose to sharpen it, sharpen myself.” She paused, breaking eye contact as she glanced away, towards his wardrobe. “You weren’t there, guiding my hand, when I used Sankt Petyr to cut off Captain Orlov’s clothes, or Kasim’s knives to torture him… that was all me. I can’t blame you for my actions, and you can’t take credit or blame away from me.”
“I’m not trying to, I just…”
Inej’s gaze whipped back to him, “We deserve each other because of all of it, Kaz. Because of all of the horrible things we’ve been through. Why don’t you think you deserve good things?”
Kaz closed his eyes and whispered through the ache in his chest, “Because I’m afraid I’ll lose them. That I’ll lose you. I’ve lost so much already.”
Without warning, Inej wrapped her arms tightly around him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “You won’t be rid of me easily, Kaz Brekker.”
He returned the embrace, inhaling the scent of her freshly washed hair, and attempting to believe her fierce assertion. “I hope not… Because you… you made that word a part of vocabulary again. Hope. It was a foolish thing to let myself have. And now I can’t help it. I can’t help but hope for our lives to be intertwined. It’s all your fault, Inej Ghafa.”
“I will happily take the blame for that.”
Geheugen should be coming soon to A03, once i get it through another edit run!
Soft tagging: @kezzzx, @19burstraat, @intosnarkness
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The Queen
Ryomen Sukuna x F! Reader
He never orders you around - rather, he requests.
Tags: slight gore, suggestive, fem reader, true form Sukuna
Word count: 1,7k
Masterlist
AN: Fanart used in banner made by the amazing @innaillus - be sure to check out their divine fanart
Written as a Secret Santa's gift for @zoyakuna - Merry (early) Christmas! (and pls stop slandering Giyuu, it's causing me undue stress)
There was little to amuse you in your secluded throne room underground.
Correction - there had been little to amuse you out of your throne room, so you had retreated back into your palace - and even then, was it a palace, when there were no servants, no great halls, no music, and no consort?
Just you - the Supreme Sovereign - and your throne made of roots and vines.
Which made it odd to hear a sound echo in your chamber. You feared nothing, no one, and your heart remained steady, not a beat out of place, your eyes closed as you rested from lifetimes of exhaustion.
“Who goes there?” you called out, not moving from your reclined position.
You were it to him, the holy grail of his searching - the Queen of Curses. Your name was feared enough that it had been scratched out from all written sources, the feats accredited to you terrifying… yet thrilling to Sukuna. He had needed to meet you, though he knew not why… A deep hunger for companionship, another who could stand at his level, who could reign with him from his Shrine, a craving so consuming he nearly went mad with his searching.
And he did find you, though hardly in the condition he thought he would.
“This is what You have become? The cynosure of all mortals reduced to a wretch.”
The voice was rough, forceful - distinctly male - though the tone held a hint of remorse and confusion. “All beauty is short-lived,” was all you said, a slight irritation churning your stomach for the first time in - decades, centuries, millenia? Who knows?
“Not for curses. We are eternal.” You felt the way cursed energy swirled around him - violent, and intense. It lashed out at your own, but like water parting around a blade, yours did too, accepting and redirecting the angry force, dispersing it, and eventually absorbing it. It was like taking a deep breath of fresh air after being suffocated under the weight of the world, a drop of water quenching a soul-deep thirst in the desert of life.
You opened your eyes and sat up properly as you studied him.
The man - curse - was tall, broad, and regal. A king would be a title befitting his posture. His hair was a light color you could hardly make out in the darkness of your abode. The dark marks adorning his face stood out starkly against his skin, as did the shape of the disfigured flesh on the right side of his face. Four gleaming eyes were focused on you, four arms relaxed at his sides.
This man was fascinating, and beautiful; he could easily sway the hearts of humans, bring them to their knees. Too bad you were not human.
“Join me, your Majesty.” Despite the wording, it was a plea. How odd.
“Who are you to ask anything of me?” You blinked slowly. You felt the way cursed energy swirled around him - violent, intense, … defensive, lonely. It enticed you, spoke to you in a language you understood all too well. It wasn’t in your nature to deny an honest request.
“Ryomen Sukuna, your Majesty,” he introduced himself. There was a sense of pride in the way he spoke, as if his existence was created, carved out, into the world by his own hands.
Perhaps Ryomen Sukuna would be the cure to your continued boredom.
You stood up from your throne, your figure hardly atrophied as your cursed energy kept you in peak form. The roots and vines retreated into the cave walls, leaving no trace of your royal seat, the chamber empty again for centuries to come.
“Very well.”
Living with Sukuna was hardly boring. Each day, you felt your apathy falling away as you spent time with the King of Curses, until you smiled freely in his presence. The day you realized he softened you to this degree came all too suddenly.
His cruelty to humans who sought to undermine him was but a flimsy curtain of who he truly was. Like a displeased cat, claws exposed, he scratched up those daring to approach him, but with you -
With you he was as playful and borderline affectionate as the tabby you used to feed back in your human days. It warmed your heart, and your cheeks, to feel his eyes on your figure. It made you feel unsteady on your feet. It made you question who was the ruler of the other, who held the power over the other; the power imbalance slowly became a balance - your energy dimmed by the way he could play you like a puppet.
All these feelings weaved together and knotted around your heart, snaring you in a complex web too tight to escape, exposing your throat to him like a delicacy to be gorged upon.
Only if you let him know, that is.
You somehow felt that a man like him wouldn’t settle, and more importantly, he was a man; just another one of the hordes who wanted a demure consort, you could bet. You were not a dainty flower he likely sought; you were a weed - growing strong despite the harshest of conditions, clawing out a place for your existence where there had been none before. The Curse of Curses.
So you buried those feelings like a female buried herself under layers of junihitoe - though you refused to wear that monstrosity despite the latest fashion in Japan, as all the fabric was too heavy for comfort. You made do with the yukata you stole from Sukuna’s wardrobe. It was definitely not because it smelled like him.
You kept away from the humans and the ruling in his Shrine, spending time with Uraume, him, or alone in the gardens - until you could not. He’d left you in charge of his Kingdom when he had business to do.
Human men were deplorable, thinking you were just a weak curse to be manipulated and slandered. You didn’t raise your voice at all, yet it shut everyone up in the hall - save for one local lord thinking himself too mighty to listen. No amount of flattery would have kept him alive after that. A wave of your hand made vines grow out of his guts - burrowing through his flesh as easily as tearing paper apart; sweet-smelling white flowers bloomed from the mess of red-coated plant matter in the middle of the chamber.
You sat in Sukuna’s throne of bones, regal and untouchable.
That was how he found you - presiding over his subjects like the Goddess you were, and bloody Spring sprouted in front of him, rubies glinting upon the stone floors like a grotesque decoration.
At first, he had wanted to study you - the Queen of Curses, the Supreme Sovereign, older than him, wiser, more powerful. Forgotten, yet not forgotten enough for him not to find any sources mentioning your title. He had been curious about you, and then he became curious about the feelings you evoked in him. Your presence in his home converted from an adornment into an emollient to him, smoothing the rough edges and softening the spikes of his defenses against you, yet you remained the centerpiece of his attention, even when you weren’t in his presence. He found himself thinking about you in all his waking moments.
“Everyone, out.”
He could not hide his devotion to you if he tried now - it had grown roots in his soul and fed off of his life-force, yet strengthened it twice as much. His heart was set ablaze every time he laid eyes upon your form, the blood in his veins searing hot, branding him from the inside - a slave to you forevermore.
And so he knelt at your feet, the bottom two of his arms supporting him as he leaned forward, his top pair carefully reaching for your foot and raising it to his face.
The King of Curses kissed your ankle, closing his eyes in silent worship to his Goddess, his World.
“Your Majesty,” he greeted you in a whisper, his lips caressing your skin.
Your eyes grew soft as you studied him, your posture proud but your expression fond. “Sukuna.”
Wet, hot tongue darted out to taste your skin, making you jolt and tear your leg from his grasp with pursed lips. The tabby was particularly impertinent today.
“You have no respect for your Queen, do you?”
“On the contrary, I hold all the respect for you.” His smirk was mischievous, he knew as well as you did neither of you were serious about this. Just a harmless teasing, if a bit skewed.
You used your foot to lightly push against his chest to tip him over onto his back - which he let you do, for he could have as easily resisted. Even falling down, he looked graceful. It made you feel warm inside your ribcage as you pushed a joyous smile down.
Sukuna turned the fall into a backwards roll, ending up on his knees again.
“At least you know your place - on your knees before me…”
“I-” he licked his lips, “I would gladly be on my knees for you all day, Your Majesty.”
Oh? It was your turn to give him a smile full of mischief as he slowly moved back to you. You remained silent.
“Has a cat got your tongue?”
Sukuna shuffled forward on his knees, his top pair of arms resting on the bones of his throne as he came even closer. Palms trailing to your thighs and covering them with his hands - an easy feat with his size.
You could do naught but marvel at the contrast of your limbs and his - each powerful and deadly in their own right, each in a different way. There was no tremor of fear in your muscles, only anticipation, even while he lightly spread your legs to fit his torso between them as you lounged on his throne.
“Let me feast on your nectar.” His voice, smooth like silk, a plea rather than an order, the nuance of his tone telling all you needed to know. He appeared unreadable to others, but he was as exposed and vulnerable as a newborn babe to you at this moment.
Even so, your lips parted in surprise at his request for you didn’t expect him to say it out loud at last. “Forward, aren’t you?”
His carmine eyes - all four of them - focused on yours with an intensity you were only just getting used to with him. Sukuna said nothing as he waited for your response.
The devil didn’t bargain, after all.
“Very well… Show me how you would worship your Queen, my King.”
dividers by the divine @benkeibear
network: @enchantedforest-network
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