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mochie85 · 5 months

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House of Cards

These Wicked Games Collections | Complete Masterlist

Summary: You and Loki finally confront each other about your feelings and what went wrong. Suggested Song: "Fantasy" by The Driver Era Word Count: 2.9K Pairing: Loki x Female Reader Warnings: Smut. Dominating/Controlling Loki, Angry sex, rough sex.

Loki’s room was dark and humid. Thick waves of moisture rolled to you from his en suite, bringing with it the scent of his soap and aftershave. He must have taken a shower moments before movie night, you mused to yourself.

As the latch on his door clicked closed, the fireplace roared to life startling you. The heat from the fire only made his scent grow deep and heady. Warm yellow light canvased the room. You followed the flicker of the flames as your eyes took in Loki’s private chambers.

There you were…alone in his room. His sanctuary. A rare opportunity to sneak around and find out more about the intimidating god of mischief. Nothing had changed since that fateful night when you challenged him to Blackjack. That following morning, you were too hurt and busy trying to get out of the mortifying situation you walked yourself into to appreciate anything else.

His desk sat in the middle of the room, facing his bed. A house of cards was meticulously crafted on top— an elaborate pyramid of angles and shapes. Some cards, magically teetering on their corners. You had forgotten your deck that night, in a hurry to leave and lick your wounds from Loki’s casual opinion of your relationship with each other.

You reached out to take one— a discarded card lying on the bottom layer. You focused on the filigree and the cherub on the back cover, greeting you back.

“I thought I told you to wait for me on my bed?” His deep voice froze your movements, squeezing the air from your lungs. You turned quickly to find Loki, already closing the final steps to you.

“Loki, I-” He didn’t let you finish as he seized your lips and invaded your senses once again. His fingers laced themselves in your hair. His other hand pulled your shirt off from behind, popping your buttons, and exposing your breasts that were already spilling over your bra from his groping earlier.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, hoping to melt with him. You needed him closer. You needed his every being to get reacquainted with you. God, it's been so long.

His kiss was never-ending. He didn’t let you catch your breath, stealing your mouth every time you moved to inhale. His lips were so ravenous and demanding that it almost hurt. “…Loki…” you whined.

At long last, his fingers pulled your hair and brought your face up to meet his eyes. “You never do as you’re told, do you, darling? You never listen. Always worried about letting people inside.” His fist in your hair got tighter. His breath was hot and sweet; trying to hold back an emotion you had yet to work out. “Is that why you perfected your poker face? To hide the lies underneath?”

“What lies?!” you asked insulted and slightly afraid. “You lied to me! You used me just to play some game! Toying with me! Just entertainment for the night!” You tried to push him back, but his body was hard and unyielding. You pounded on his chest, trying to get away. But he trapped you in his arms and he wouldn’t let you go.

“You don’t listen! I have already told you, and yet you still pay no heed to my words! Do you even know how the last two weeks have been for me?” he said with a cold glare. “Torture! The moment you walked out of my bed, I started doubting myself. I started doubting you! I never thought you of all people would play me for a game like you do with your cards and tricks.”

He was furious! You had no idea how this would go, where Loki was going with his discourse. You knew Loki would never hurt you intentionally, but the look in his eyes was undoubtedly anger and pain. Not knowing terrified you and it also sent a thrill down your spine.

You had hurt him. You can see that now. He was affected as much as you were that night. You could see it in the unshed glimmer in his eyes. “You do care about me,” you realized.

“And what made you think I didn’t?” he demanded. His hold on you tightened. To be in his arms and to know that he was holding back so much of his godly strength. It hurt to almost breathe in his presence. But that was nothing compared to the guilt you felt inside. It hurt to know that you had assumed the worst of him and failed to communicate what you wanted. That you had missed out on two glorious weeks of being with him.

“You said you liked playing games. The way everything unfolded…I- I didn’t know what to think. I had no idea you even looked at me that way! And in mere hours I was splayed like a toy for you in your bed, Loki! What was I supposed to think?! How was I to know that I wasn’t just another conquest for you? That your confession was true?” you yelled back at him.

“Does this feel untrue to you!” he bucked his hips to yours, pushing you against his desk. You let out a carnal moan as you felt the length of him rub against your awaiting clit- throbbing to feel more of him, to be closer to him. The pyramid shook slightly behind you but remained standing. “Perhaps, you need a little reminder…” he growled as he kissed your lips boldly.

Blurring colors started to form and solidify in your head. Memories took shape as if they were tangible moving pictures.

~Loki growled. His fervor and desire ruling all rational thought. “I love that you’re intelligent,” he said as he flattened out his tongue and lapped the juices flowing from your cunt. “…Loki…” “I love how clever you are.” He said giving your sensitive clit a soft kiss. “I love how you’re willing to play my games.” He laughed as he kissed his way up your stomach. He knelt up on the bed, towering over your lustful figure beneath him. His eyes were wild taking in your heavy breathing, your glowing skin, and how utterly besotted you were when you looked at him. Your eyes were hooded and pleading, missing his tongue. Your mouth was open, ready to beg him to continue. “And by the Norns, you look absolutely sinful laying on my bed the way you are now.” He lined his hard cock at your entrance and slammed his way inside your tight folds.~

You felt him thrust towards your aching cunt, as if he was reliving the memory himself. The heavy force of his illusion pushed you back into reality. The house of cards gave way and fell behind you in one fell swoosh.

“You love me,” you whispered to yourself. Tears brimmed your lids as you looked at the truth in his eyes. The realization was heavy and thick; along with the guilt of invalidating his feelings.

Loki closed his eyes as he leaned in to rest his head on yours. He took a deep breath, relieved you had finally understood what he was trying to convey. Your fingers brushed through his silken hair, pulling him closer. Your lips apologized for you as you assailed his beautiful face with kisses. Softly, one after another. His fervid cheeks. His troubled eyes. His sharp chin. He felt each kiss as a prayer of penance asking for his forgiveness.

Your velvet lips turned into passionate kisses the more you held him. Loki returned your fervor with as much desire, if not more. How long has he waited for this? Dreamt of this? Wondering if he’d ever get the chance to kiss you again like this.

He had already granted you his pardon- earlier tonight when you had confessed that you imagined kissing him instead of Rogers. Perhaps even earlier than that, when you sat down on his lap and acknowledged his presence, finally, after weeks of disaffection. You had his forgiveness, but not his mercy.

“Loki, I need you. Please,” you begged. You started to unbutton his shirt, your fingernails nicking and scratching at his creamy skin in haste. “Make love to me,” you whined, wanting to compensate for lost time.

He licked his lips and savored your words. “Oh no, pet,” he chuckled darkly. “Only good girls get made love to...” Loki pushed your shoulders down, laying you on his desk. Your eyes widened in shock as your hair flowed around you, weaving with the cards of the fallen castle. He pulled your legs forward, bringing your hips flushed with his hard cock. “…Bad girls get fucked!”

You took a sharp intake of air as his words rattled your nerves. You heard the zip of his pants as his hands held you down on his desk. He nudged the wet gusset of your panties aside and guided the tip of his cock at your entrance. You moaned shamelessly when you felt him inside you for the first time in weeks.

He let out a shaky breath as he dragged himself up and down through your wet lips. Slowly teasing you, making you squirm with need. “…please…” you said so quietly you thought it was in your head. “…please, Loki…”

He gave into your cries. Into your begging; and thrust quickly inside you. You let out a vulgar moan at the sheer length of him filling you completely. Your knees squeezed around his hips as you tried to slow his assault. Your nails dug into the soft wood of his desk trying to hold on. “Stop resisting, my love. I thought this was what you wanted?” he grunted.

Your hands gripped his wrist that was holding down your shoulder. He gathered your skirt around your waist and used it as leverage to thrust deeper into you. “Just a little bit deeper…fuck…When I’m…when I’m done with you…I’ll make sure…you can’t walk in the morning…” he vowed. “So, you won’t leave my bed like you did that day.” His rage was palpable and cloying.

“…Loki…” you whined. But that only made him go harder. Faster.

You held the edge of the desk above you, trying to meet his passionate thrust with your own. Strands of your hair fell off to the sides. Your back arched, and you could feel the cards stick to the sweat of your skin.

“You like this, don’t you? Look how wet you are for me.” He watched as your sweet cum coated his shaft, making him groan. You could feel it dripping from you with each hard thrust of his cock. “Do you like it rough?”

“…fuck, Loki…please…”

“You’re enjoying this too much.” His hand moved from your shoulder up to your throat. He grabbed your chin in between his thumb and forefinger, “Next time, I’ll just fuck you in front of the team. So, they can see what a begging mess you become for me.”

And he was right. You are a mess. And you are enjoying this too much. You had always prided yourself in being a tough and independent person. But when it comes to Loki, you didn’t hesitate to be cuffed and barred. You didn’t fight it when he chased you. You wanted him to catch you. You wanted his dominance.

Loki bent to hover over you, pinning your hips down to his hard desk. “You are not to leave me. Ever. Do you understand?” his breath came out labored and grunting. “You can storm out angry. You can yell, scream, and fight. Hell, I prefer it. But you are never to leave without returning and talking about it afterward. Is that clear?” He thrust deep to mark his point. You moaned loudly into the stifling air. Your fingernails digging into his shoulders.

“Say it!” he thrust again, demanding an answer.

“yesyesyes…please Loki…I’m a-about to…” you squeezed tighter around him. You wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him.

“Come on then. Give it to me.” He demanded in your ear. You wrapped your ankles around his waist, keeping him locked to you. Loki stood back up, taking your wrist ad holding them down against his desk. You were trapped in between his corded arms. All you could see was the beautiful face of a god unraveling above you. His slanted brows and his gritted teeth, his deep voice grunting at the feel of your warmth around him.

You could feel the tight pull of his shaft against your walls when he dragged himself out and plunged back in. “Fuck baby, that’s it. Tighter. Come on.”

Your legs shook and you screamed his name one last time. Your orgasm pulses inside you, making every single part of you sensitive and euphoric. Loki followed soon after. His hips jutted forward with each grunt and spill of his climax inside you.

Loki bent over you again. He caged your head between his arms and kissed you softly on your swollen lips. Your hands roamed his back, feeling his powerful muscles contort and contract as he moaned above you. Your nails would scratch on his smooth skin whenever his cock twitched inside you. “Loki.”

Without breaking your kiss, he scooped you up from his desk and walked over to his bed. “…such a good girl for me, darling…” he whispered on your skin. “…taking me all in like that. Good fucking girl...” Your throat was hoarse and stung too much to answer anything above a sigh. His plush blankets welcomed you as he laid you down on top. “…and do you know what good girls get?”

You bit your lip to stop from giggling. Loki lined himself up with your entrance once again and pushed slowly. Your giggles turned into moans as he continued his rhythmic thrust against your heat.

“Look at me, darling,” he asked so sweetly. Your furrowed eyes caught his. “I love you,” he murmured. “I should’ve said it from the very beginning.” He continued at a tantric pace, keeping his stare at yours. You tightened around him and you got a more genuine feel for him. Every vein, every inch, pulling your moans from your lips and leaving you with nothing but the sensation of his love and adoration for you.

He looked deep into your eyes, and you could tell that he was close again. “I love you too,” you whispered. Loki let go. At the same time, your body releases itself into a climax. One of the strongest, and most powerful, ones you’ve ever felt.

His body sunk on top of yours. He was finally letting go of the weight and worry that he held these past weeks. And you welcomed it by holding him tighter against you.

You woke up the next morning, tender and stinging. The tiniest movement of your hips shot an aching soreness throughout your body. And you smiled. Your mind reeled at the memories of last night. After your shared confessions, Loki took you again in the shower, then on the floor, and then in the shower again. He fucked you in every conceivable space in his room. And then he would make love to every inch of your body afterward.

“Can you walk?” his voice was low and gravelly. The dredges of sleep have yet to release him from their grasp.

“Well, good morning to you too.” You playfully pushed him aside, pretending to be insulted. He laughed as he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you in for a morning kiss.

“Good morning, my love…” he said with adoration. “…Can you walk?” he repeated. You rolled your eyes at him, smiling. You knew the answer before you even attempted to sit up and try to get off his bed.

Your hips felt out of place. Your thighs burned and screamed at being used again so soon after last night. And your feet could barely hold you up threatening to slip. “No, I can’t. Are you happy?”

Loki scooped you up making you yelp and grab hold of his shoulders. “Tremendously, so.” He said kissing you heatedly on your lips.

Nat sat in the conference room, reading Tony’s mission briefing from the night before. The rest of the team returned early last night and decided to join in on the movie. No one had noticed that you and Laufeyson were missing until Thor asked where his brother was. “They were both very tired. I think they might’ve gone to bed early,” Nat smirked.

And now, here she was watching the two of you come out of the bedroom hallways. A sudden giggle escapes from your lips. She looked over the paper and witnessed Laufeyson carrying you into the kitchen bridal style. “Put me down! I can walk now you know,” you whispered into his ear.

“Oh, darling. We both know I’m too good for that to wear off so quickly.”

“You pompous ass!”

“Yes, one that has your scratch marks all over it!” He gave you a quick peck on the lips, followed by his signature devious smirk. Loki pulled out one of the chairs and sat down with you on top of his lap.

Oh, this oughta be good! Nat neglected the rest of her work on the table and made her way over to the two of you. Loki had conjured a muffin and some coffee for you. While you sat on his lap feeding him grapes like he was Dionysus himself.

“You know, when I dared you to sit on his lap, I meant for the length of the movie,” Nat said coming up from behind you and sitting across the table. “Not indefinitely.”

“Your lovely friend here has been incapacitated, Agent Romanoff.” Loki smiled, nuzzling his nose against the smell of his shampoo in your hair. “I’m afraid she’ll need assistance from here on out. For the foreseeable future.”

“Stop it!” you chided him.

“Make me,” he teased.

⬅️ Truth or Dare | Hide and Seek (Coming Soon) ➡️

A/N: I guess I wasn't ready to let go of these two yet. This series wasn't supposed to have any major angst or plot. It was just supposed to be a collection of these two characters playing random "adult" games. So, I will try to get back to that thought and update whenever I think of something for them to do 😉.

🏷️ @emarich7 @michelleleewise @coldnique @psychospore @lokisgoodgirl @silverfire475 @fictive-sl0th @springdandelixn @wheredafandomat @goldencherriess @peaches1958 @salempoe @thomase1 @kkdvkyya @a-witch-with-words @mischief2sarawr @sarawr-reads @vbecker10 @peachymallow @irishhappiness @cakesandtom @simplyholl @here4thefanfics @tallseaweed @immersed-in-mischief @joyful-enchantress @lokisninerealms @kikster606 @glitterylokislut @loz-3 @slytherclaw1227 @chantsdemarins @the-lady-amphitrite @eleniblue @km-ffluv @lokidokieokie @n3rdybirdee @melsunshine-blog @gigglingtiggerv2 @lokischambermaid @cjand10 @asgards-princess-of-mischief @chrisevansmaindish @capswife @dangertoozmanykids101

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stunie · 5 days

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౨ৎ 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝓇𝑜 — welcome to evie’s 1st kinktober! there’ll be 11 prompts this year. wind breaker centric . . nine drabbles & two longer fics !! plus two bonus sfw drabbles sprinkled in there. everything already has at least a rough draft. and of course, as a gentle reminder. . . you must be 18+ and have an age on your blog to interact with me.

૮ ྀི◞ ⸝⸝ ◟ ྀིა this only contains wind breaker— excluding one undecided prompt. please vote for the fandom you’d like to see for it here! & to sign up for my tag list, either comment on this post or fill out this form. fill out the form if you only want to be tagged in a few works, and comment if you’d like to be tagged in everything. please heed any and all warnings below! thank youu !! <33 reblogs r appreciated!

OCTOBER 1 — PET PLAY

KIRYU MITSUKI X F!READER ﾉ 1328 words ﾉ in which kiryu dresses you up as a cat- so make sure you commit to it and act like one! he’ll reward you nicely. he always does.

OCTOBER 3 — CUCKOLDING

HAYATO SUO X F!READER ﾉ 1031 words ﾉ FICS4GAZA ﾉ sakura doesn’t think he’s ever held his phone in his non-dominant hand until tonight.

OCTOBER 5 — MASK KINK

ENDO YAMATO X F!READER ﾉ 1130 words ﾉ endo thought you were joking about masks being hot, but . . . if you really like them so much, then maybe he’ll put on a show just for you.

OCTOBER 7 — SUCCUBUS?!

SAKURA HARUKA X SUCCUBUS!F!READER ﾉ 1011 words ﾉ there’s no better way to lose your virginity than to a succubus, right? do those even exist? he was skeptical before he met you.

OCTOBER 11 — OVERSTIMULATION

KAJI REN X F!READER ﾉ 1093 words ﾉ does flavored lube taste good? he hopes it does. it’s the reason why he bought a entire pack— so let’s play a guessing game with it and see.

OCTOBER 15 — NETWORK COLLAB

unannounced! tba . . vote for the fandom you want to see me write for here! thank you. kink is also tba but it is not dc.

OCTOBER 17 — APHRODISIACS

DAN HENG X F!READER ﾉ 1040 words ﾉ the two of you wouldn’t even be in this situation if you had just listened to him. he had already warned you to stay close to him— but that seems to be the least of his concerns now.

OCTOBER 19 — “HOUSEKEEPING!”

FIC 1 — HOUSEKEEPING! togame jo x roomie!f!reader ﾉ 7387 words ﾉ you don’t realize how loud you are, do you? or are the walls just paper thin? his patience seems to also be running thin, but he’s always thought that he tries to be a pretty decent guy most of the time. a decent enough guy that doesn’t fantasize about fucking choji’s childhood friend raw, at least.

OCTOBER 23 — EXHIBITIONISM + TOYS

TAKIISHI CHIKA X F!READER! ﾉ 1085 words ﾉ you’re at a dinner date with your friends! looks like you’re one seat short, so there’s no other choice but to sit on his lap, right? though you’re pretty certain he can feel the vibrations like this.

OCTOBER 27 — MILD YANDERE

YANDERE!UMEMIYA HAJIME X F!READER ﾉ 1074 words ﾉ no one would dare hurt umemiya’s girl. they shouldn’t. they wouldn’t dare. but after some time.. he thinks he should give them another reminder. it wouldn’t hurt.

OCTOBER 31 — “CAN’T YOU JUST PRETEND?”

FIC 2 — CAN’T YOU JUST PRETEND? hayato suo x camgirl!f!reader ﾉ 4098 words ﾉ you always do what the highest tipper says, but looks like that’s backfired tonight! “bring someone to fuck you raw on your next stream” oh. but you don’t have a boyfriend, do you? so the second best option would be to swallow your pride and go ask one of your friends to act.

BONUS — UNSCHEDULED SFW DRABBLES!

ENDO YAMATO X F!READER ﾉ movies and cuddling! it’s your first halloween together… and oh. you even remember his favorites snacks? his heart flutters at the thought.

GHOST! HAYATO SUO X F!READER ﾉ you seem to be the only one who doesn’t mind the ghost following you. your friends want to get rid of him, but you look happy in his presence… so they’re left to just hold their breaths & deal with it.

#kinktober!#click this tag <- to see what other blogs are doing for october!!! lots of stuff there #wind breaker smut #wind breaker x reader #evie’s kinktober

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miller-lookforthe-lite · 9 months

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steps: part one

joel miller x f!reader

rating: M

words: 6.6k

summary: Westward bound, and your steps are uncertain. Your hands shake, and it's hard to keep the food down. Joel thinks he might know why. (or, how accidents sometimes lead us to our fates.)

tags/warnings: unplanned/(unwanted?) pregnancy, thoughts and discussion of abortion, vomit, canon-typical violence, nightmares, hurt/comfort (u already know what it issss) - please heed the warnings, as these may be triggering to some! MDNI

read on ao3

a/n: here she is boys here she is world. My first TLOU and my first x reader, all in one. this one means something to me, hope it does to you too. part two coming soon

The road is twisting around a bend when you make Joel pull over. He eases as gently as he can off the asphalt, the dense, looming forest closing in around you in the twilight. You swing open the door and barely stick your boot in the grass before you’re emptying the contents of your stomach into the ditch. The skin of your throat burns and your nose reeks, the scent of it is everywhere. Hands on your knees, you heave until nothing is left. You wipe off your mouth with the back of your hand and catch a glimpse of an eagle high above in glowing sunset, what’s left of it to see anyway. You put your hands on your hips, give yourself a second to breathe. In and out, in and out before you have to look at the crease between Joel’s eyebrows, the question hidden under his tongue.

You turn back around and pull yourself up into the beat-up black pickup. Ellie’s faint snores from the backseat almost impress you, her ability to sleep through a loud bodily function steadfastly enduring throughout your journey. A light breeze trickles its way over your spine before you can shut the door and your hair stands on end. You reach for the seatbelt and chance a glance at Joel. He’s making no move to shift back into drive. He frowns at you with that question in his gaze, his wondering brown eyes flicking between your own like he might be about to crack open his dry lips and ask, but he’s snapped out of his reverie by a gunshot off in the woods. He wastes no time, throwing the truck back into gear and pushing onward down the road, resting his hand on your denim-clad, gooseflesh thigh.

Your destination is Wyoming, some Western mountain-filled land that you’d never seen, but had come to know well through old faded maps and silent wishes in your companions’ eyes. Weeks ago, before everything had happened, before Ellie, before losing Tess, Joel had confided in you in a rare moment of quiet that he had always wanted to visit. “The Grand Tetons,” he had muttered darkly. “Thought they might be nice. Guess Tommy did too.” You hope it’s nice. You try hard to tell yourself this, that the beauty of the natural world will make up for its horrors, that there’s something beyond shuffling Infected and the Raider country you currently roam through. You picture a haven in your most secret dreams; maybe a bunker, secluded, serene. Stocked with nonperishables. Perfect for weathering a wretched existence.

Sometimes you convince yourself the truck was a bad idea. It’s loud and gasoline isn’t always so easy to come by, but you’re still too far away. Several weeks skirting broken and ancient infrastructure, and you’ve made it west but not to the West, not the mountains, not the cold like you know must be coming. It’s still too warm, the trees are too deciduous. You have the ridiculous impulse to fan yourself.

You lean your head back against the seat to let your fantasies play out behind your eyelids. There you see Ellie, chattering away with some long-forgotten board game under her arm and plenty of food in her belly. Joel, shaking his head but with eyes glistening joyfully. You, not having to pretend that you aren’t terrified, not running, not pleading, not shaking. Not sick.

A gunshot strikes through the air not far away, pulling you from your daydream. You glance over at Joel, but his eyes stay firmly on the road and his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel.

“Are they close?” Ellie whispers from the backseat, and you start, not even realizing she had stirred. You shoot her your most half-hearted smile and reach your hand back. She threads her fingers through yours absentmindedly.

“We’re okay. We got plenty of gas left. We’ll be out of here before they can even shoot again.”

Ellie’s eyes are wide, she wants so desperately to believe you, and you want so desperately for her to believe. To give her this, one breath of relief.

“Okay,” she murmurs, not releasing your fingers until the night has shifted once again to day.

“Come on!” laughs your brother, egging you on from his perch across the rooftops. He and your younger sister are soaked through, having already braved the icy downpour, the leap across buildings. You laugh along with him until you shift your gaze to where he’s looking. The other crumbling rooftop is empty. Your sister’s not there.

“Brandon, what…?” When you turn your head to look at him, he is gone.

You blink, and you’re in his fancy new office in the FEDRA headquarters. He’s older, just been promoted to some kind of private. He’s ruffling your hair and you’re mad, you know you were trying to say something important, something that would help him, and he’s brushing you off again. “Fuck off, asshole!” You can see the force of your words hammer through the air as you say them. The blast blows Brandon off his feet and he hits the wall, his head snapping to the side. He hits the floor with a thump and lays there without moving.

You open your mouth to shout but your sister’s face is in front of you. You’re in a back alley in Boston, it’s cold, so cold, and you’re so worried. “What did I tell you?” You know to say, grabbing her shoulders and shaking a bit.

“This is the right thing. This is right,” she insists, and your heart sinks.

“This is stupid,” you hiss. “They’ll kill you, Katie. FEDRA will kill you. Whatever war Marlene thinks she’s fighting - it’s not yours to fight - it’s not yours to die for —”

A harsh laugh splits from her throat, and you’re shocked to hear such bitterness pour from the mouth of the little girl you helped to raise. “What the fuck else am I supposed to do? I’ll die anyways, it should be for something, it should be —”

She was too loud. She raised her voice too much. She gave away your position. A shot rings out and the heavy weight of your sister collapsing knocks you to the ground.

You’re lying on the ground with Brandon. Dust chokes the air. Something heavy lies across your legs. You push as hard as you can, but it doesn’t budge. You grunt with the effort, but the thick air fills your lungs and you gag. You blink soot out of your eyes and turn your head to Brandon. He’s so still. Whatever’s lying on your legs is almost completely covering him. A trickle of red spills from down the corner of his mouth. Your lungs are filled with ash, dust, panic, terror. You try to say his name, but your lips can’t move. Brandon, your baby brother. Brandon. Just as you hear the big metal object creak, shifting for the first time, the air clears.

You’re standing in a dark hallway, dilapidated wallpaper peeling into its yellow crest all around you. Sobs and groans echo throughout the dim, and your feet carry you to the doorway. A make-shift hospital bed, a woman lying in it. You creep forward to see her face, to see your mother without her breath and her blood standing still. You reach for her, at the same time scurrying away, as far away as you can get.

You jolt awake with a scream, deep and entrenching. There’s a hard, calloused hand over your mouth in an instant, and you vaguely register that Joel is hissing at you to stay quiet, but you can’t control the wracking of your body, the panic coursing through your veins. You come back to yourself slowly, realizing there’s no blood on your hands, just Joel’s arms around you, just a thrashing heartbeat that threatens to beat you to a pulp. You’re pressed up against his chest in the bed of the truck, Ellie on your other side whispering frantically at you to calm down. It’s still dark out, but you can hear machine gun fire in the distance. You twist your head to look at him, reach out your hand to touch him, need to make sure he won’t disappear too. He’s real and solid, and his eyes glitter with apology in the moonlight. Ellie presses into your other side, arms coming around you in her sweet child’s embrace, and you’re ashamed that she’s had to witness your despair, that she is the one who shoulders your burden. Joel takes his hand off your mouth when he’s sure you won’t make any more sound, but holds you closer still, like he knows what you dreamed and is afraid of the same thing.

You met Joel for the first time when he was asking for directions. A weathered, haunted look in his eye, like he’d rather be doing anything other than asking the girl distributing rations which way around the construction detour to the South End, but a Boston native like yourself couldn’t resist the urge to demonstrate your own knowledge. That’s how you unknowingly wound up leading him straight to Robert’s new basecamp setup, an itch creeping up your spine once you realized what his intentions were. Stupid, you had thought, stupid to think nothing bad could happen in broad daylight, that he was beautiful so he was safe. So stupid.

It was there, when one of Robert’s fucking goons tried to rob the two of you at gunpoint, that Joel realized you had extra rations in your bag, rations that you had stolen from the distribution center — “They’re for my sister,” you protested —and that you had something more to offer him than just the best way to Richmond Street.

You set up a deal of sorts, after he had wiped his hands of your assailant’s blood. You stashed two extra cans per shift in your pack, and brought them to him. In exchange, he kept the gnashing teeth of the city’s smugglers’ off of Brandon’s back, offering your little brother a protection that his FEDRA school never could.

It was through this deal that you met Tess, that you had loved her, too — She took care of things in a way you had always wished you could, but without fucking up, like you did. She was calm, and powerful, and knew she was right, always. Joel looked up to her, too, even if he was too hurt to ever show it.

When she had asked you to come on a special run outside the walls, you were hesitant — several years into your partnership with the smugglers, and you’d only ever been outside of Boston once, to make a drop in Lincoln and get to meet that charming Frank that you’d heard grinning over the radio so many times. It was important, she insisted, a cargo like nothing they’d ever transported. A kid. You said yes, mostly because by this time you didn’t have anyone left to take care of, not the way you longed for, the way you knew how to.

You loved Ellie from the start, loved her spirit, her bite, so much like Katie in her fierce determination, and the ache of remembering didn’t hurt so much as Ellie’s grin helped. You guided her down the road like you knew you were meant to do - to give, to lead, to provide. Tess was more hesitant, but would always answer to Ellie’s curiosity, and always with kindness underneath her brusk.

Joel, of course, didn’t say much. Even after years of handing him can after can of crushed tomatoes, of deliberately brushing up against his fingers just to feel that shock of cool air when he pulled back, he didn’t even say much to you. You knew some things; you knew that he was from Texas, that he had had a brother who used to work with him and Tess, but who left. Who called once but didn’t any more.

You wound up knowing more about Ellie than Joel, strange given the amount of time you had passed with each of them, so much more with Joel, but so much fuller with Ellie. Her secret, her golden Immunity hung its mantle like an axe above each of your throats. It made Joel angry - it made Tess hope. It just made you wonder.

When Tess died, lighting her own pyre to ensure your safety, and Ellie’s and Joel’s, you felt even stronger the pull to shield your traveling companions. Tess was another mark against you, and you wouldn’t let her, or whoever was watching you fuck all these things up, see you fail again. So you tucked Ellie delicately under your wing, and she came willingly, so desperate to be talked to and known. You tried with Joel, too, but your urges competed. He wanted to protect, you wanted to control — you exchanged heated words at the hardest of times, but the journey didn’t stop for your obstinance, so they faded away as the Eastern coastal plains rolled behind you.

—

The End of the World chases you so all you have left to chase is euphoria. It’s some desperation to feel wanted, you know, and you’re sure that he’s just desperate to feel anything at all. That’s how this thing between you started, sparked from argument tinder and nurtured by lonely swollen nightfall.

After all this time, you know he cares about you. You know. He loves you. It’s clear in the way he’ll step in front of you when he perceives a threat, how he always makes sure you and Ellie have taken your first bite before he takes his. He loves the way a leader loves, by leading.

But he doesn’t love you like you loved him, not like when you led him down a Boston street like you knew the world, like when he pushed a bullet from its path to you on that first day, and every second and shattered heartbeat in between.

So you chase this parallel sensation as hard as you can. You chase his fingers, his tongue, his quiet exhales behind trees and in the dark, across a clearing, behind the truck. You try to pretend, however long it takes to find release, that somewhere beneath his rough and his scorn he could feel something for you.

—

Joel pops open a bag of stale, questionable chips and the smell explodes throughout the cab of the truck. He fishes out a few with fingers long and thick and the holds the rest of the bag over to you, but you can’t bring yourself to look at it. You turn your face away and put your hand over your mouth. You think you might vomit again, but Joel’s furrowed brow, his telltale sign of anxiety, appears unbidden in your mind. Nothing’s wrong, really, nothing is, so you hold it in.

You hear him give the bag a little shake. “Hello? Are you gonna take some?”

You manage to look back over at him, but can’t open your mouth lest the scent hits your taste buds. You shake your head mutely.

He frowns. “You have to eat something.”

“Not now,” You wave away, like your insides aren’t churning.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Ellie declares, swooping in to snatch the bag and chomping loudly on her prize.

—

“What is that? Over there?” Ellie sticks her head between the two of you in the front to point over the front dash. There’s a strange movement in the trees, a foreign shape marring the landscape. As you get closer, it comes into view. Two figures sway back and forth amongst the trees.

“Drive,” you breathe. “Keep going.”

“What is it?” Ellie demands, a current of panic running thick through her voice. “What’s—”

“Stop,” Joel says harshly. “Ellie, don’t look.” He presses his foot firmly to the peddle, but he can’t drive anywhere but past them. Bile rises in your throat. You hear him swear softly when the girl clearly refuses, but you can’t make yourself look away, either.

The image burns into your mind long after you’ve passed them, and you’ve crossed state lines, and the sun has set. Two bodies, suspended from rope tied round their necks. One is a young girl, small body, youthful cheeks, hanging dead from a tree. The body next to her is her older carbon copy, it must be her mother. They dangle in the wind.

Ellie finds her voice, however hoarse, sometime later. “We should have stopped.”

Joel grunts. “No time.”

Your mouth is dry. You say nothing.

Ellie sniffs in the backseat, and you can’t help but feel that it’s another mark against you.

You’re so fucking tired of this shit. Every day’s the same, you wake up and think you’re gonna hurl. You smell anything other than clean air and feel the same. You almost can’t remember what it feels like to be not-nauseous, to be free in your body and have it do the things you want it to do.

You just want to feel something good, anything ever again, so you push Joel down in the backseat early one morning while Ellie still sleeps outside and cover his mouth with yours. He don't complain, seemingly content to lie back against the ripped plastic seats and massage the skin at your hips with his thumbs. You sigh into him, convince yourself that this is what it felt like before your body betrayed you, before you couldn’t move without the urge to empty your stomach. His tongue moves with yours, against yours, for yours - you don't know. You push your hips down against him, more for yourself, the rough denim of your jeans pressing wickedly between your legs. He drags a rough hand up under your shirt and tugs aside your flimsy bra, squeezing your breast in his hand.

A sore, tugging pain radiates from where his hand squeezes, and you moan into his mouth. He brings his other hand up and squeezes both of your breasts, harder, rolling the tips between his fingers, and you think you might burst. They feel heavier hanging off of you than they ought to, more burdensome than you recall. The pain builds and builds with your panic as he continues to knead - if you tells him it hurts, he’ll stop. You need him not to stop.

You grab his shoulders to pull him up into a sitting position and untangle yourself from him to turn around. You shuck off your jeans as best as you can in the cramped cabin.

You brace yourself against the window, the dawn light just beginning to filter through the trees. His hand slips down to hold you, wet and wanting, and his teeth scrape the top of your spine. “Good?” He asks, like he somehow always does. You want to say no, not good, so bad, but you’re all that’ll make it better, you’re it, I don’t know what’s wrong, but you’re right, please don’t stop —

You don't trust yourself to look back at him. “Yes,” you breathe.

He lines up with you, sweetly mouthing at the strip of skin your neckline exposes. You try to pretend the pain in your chest is gone when he slides into you from behind. This is how he likes to do it — no faces, as many clothes as possible, as few words. He’ll check that you’re okay, and then silently rush to his finish, blessedly pushing you over the end with him. For once, today, you’re grateful for his preference. This way he can’t see the tears you furiously swipe away.

—

You come across a small market store not far from the Missouri border. It doesn’t take long to scope the area out. There aren’t any people, just like there isn’t much food. Some gum and pre-packaged cakes that make Ellie scrunch her nose in distaste are on a bottom shelf in the back, so you throw them in the bag. It’s not much, but you’ve only got crackers and a few cans left in the truck. You’re not so much able to refuse anything. The thought of eating the cakes sends your stomach for a spiral, and you squeeze your eyes shut for a moment. Not here. Not now.

Ellie notices, of course. “Woah… are you okay?”

You force your eyes open and give her a tight-lipped smile. “Yeah. Just dizzy. Let’s get going.”

Right as you’re about to leave, another truck screeches out of the trees and into the parking lot. The headlights shine through the glass door straight into your eyes. Joel sucks in a breath. The truck pulls to a stop not far from yours and four men get out, all covering their faces, one with a machine gun pointed towards the sky.

“Fuck,” you whisper, Joel grabbing your arm and whisking you to the back before you finish speaking. Ellie’s already crouched down behind an empty shelf, her lips set in grim determination but her grip on her pack shaking.

Joel taps you to get your attention, jerking his head towards a back door. He moves slowly, gesturing for you and Ellie to follow. The shift of his jeans and the crack of his knees make your heart beat even faster. The bell above the door rings and heavy footsteps follow into the space. The three of you freeze, and through the gaps in the metal shelving, you see them.

Tall, brutish. All four armed, and deadly. Their neanderthal brays pierce your eardrums.

“Who’s here?” Calls one while the others cackle and titter. Right, the truck. They would have seen it.

“Come out, come out…” One of them jokes, knocking over a display by the door with unnecessary grandiose.

Ellie clutches onto your sleeve, her wide eyes begging you for an answer. Joel’s the one that gives it to her. He points at you and Ellie, then down at the ground. You stay. He points to himself as he pulls his rifle around his front, then over to where the mean are kicking around the front counter. I go. He locks eyes with you and nods his head to Ellie, then the back door. Get her out of here.

You nod, a calm determination washing over you, dampening your racing heart. You grasp Ellie’s hand in your own and count silently in your head as he sneaks towards the Raiders on bended knee, though you’re not sure what for. He starts to lift his gun, your signal to pounce on the back door, when suddenly a tidal wave of nausea pours over you, dousing you from head to toe, swirling your insides and turning the room upside down. You don’t stand when you’re supposed to, not when there’s shouting and gunshots and Ellie yelling and tugging you towards the exit. It’s hard to see, it’s hard to breathe. All you can feel is the acid rising to your lips.

The three of you barely make it out alive.

He slams his foot on the gas petal and the tires screech as you careen out of the parking lot. You stay turned around watching the world disappear behind you, ignoring Ellie’s eyes that bounce between your face and the trail of dust you leave behind. You fly down the road, faster than he’s dared to go before. After several miles, you let yourself collapse back into your seat, facing the front. You let out a breath, trying to focus on a single point on the dashboard in front of you, trying to quell the dizziness, this sensation that the world is spinning off of its axis.

“I don’t think they’re following us,” Ellie supplies. She’s quiet for a minute, then adds, “they won’t, right?”

Joel don't reply. You chance a glance over at him to find him fuming, his jaw locked in place and his eyes glued to the road. His arms bulge like they do when he’s tensed up and not even realized it. His grip on the steering wheel threatens to snap the plastic.

His ire fans the flames of your own. Something wild in you pushes you forward, nudges you to ruffle the lion’s mane, some alien urge that you’ve no name for. “Think we’ve got bigger fish to fry in the car with us,” you mutter.

You can hear his jaw pop. “Oh, like a delinquent that can’t stand on her own two feet?” You flinch like you’ve been stung. You want to sting him, too. “What, you’re just gonna pass out every time we’re in a life-or-death situation?”

“I didn’t pass out,” you snap. “I just got dizzy. It wasn’t a big deal, you asshole.”

“Until it was,” he seethes, still careening down the road. “Until you had to run, with her, and you couldn’t fuckin’ see straight. You didn’t think to say something beforehand?”

“What would you have done differently, then?” You hiss, suddenly overwhelmed, not ready to be on guard again so soon. He’s saying things that make sense. You’re losing. Again. “Asked them nicely to leave us alone?”

“Might’a left you in the truck, might’a had a different plan if I knew the person I was relying on was gonna choke, fucking Christ —”

Your heart clenches at the word rely so you scoff to hide it. “Fuck off.” What if he hadn’t been able to take them down, to get you all out of there? What if you had cost Ellie her life? You’re raising your voice and you know that won’t help anything, but your vision is still swimming and adrenaline is still coursing through you and you don't know what else to do with that combination.

“I will not!” Joel’s shouting, and you start. He’s never shouted at you, not once, not even on that first trip to Lincoln when you almost got caught sneaking back into the QZ, not even when you survived and Tess didn’t, not even when you made him give himself to you over and over. His foot is letting up off the gas petal and the truck slows down, like he knows if he puts his foot down the way he wants he won’t be able to stop and he’ll drive you all off the edge of the world. “You got sick a few weeks back, too. What, you got bit or somethin’ too? Think I’m worth tellin’ about an aneurysm, a heart attack—”

“It’s only sometimes,” You snap, shaking with rage or sickness, you don't know. “I’ll be fine in thirty fucking minutes. It keeps happening.”

His foot is on the brake, a sudden screech against the road as the truck skids to a stop. You jerk back in your seat. “What the fuck, Joel?” Ellie exclaims.

“What are you doing?” You hiss. “We need to get further away—"

He stares straight ahead at the road, chest heaving, face impassible. “How long?” He breathes.

You glares. “How long what?”

“How long has it been goin’ on?”

“I don’t fucking know, Joel, a couple weeks? I—”

He doesn’t listen to the rest of your sentence. He’s out of the truck, slamming the door behind him before you can blink.

You glance back at Ellie, who looks deeply uncomfortable, and sigh. “Gimme a second.”

You unbuckle and follow him outside, a few yards into the treeline, urging your shaky legs onward. “Joel, get back in the fucking truck, this is insane —”

“You won’t eat.” His interruption is pained as he stops in his tracks, face pointedly looking out at the trees, not at you, not at you. “You’re not eatin’. And there’s the nausea, then soreness, dizziness -"

“What’s your fucking point?”

He takes a moment to respond, jaw working itself to bits. When he finally turns to look at you, you realize his expression isn’t as stoic as you thought. “When did you have your last period?”

Your heart stops beating in your chest. You sneer to hide it.

“Girls who don’t eat don’t get their period, dumbass-”

“When?” He demands.

Your veins are full of icy frost, not blood, blood would move and cycle and make you feel alive, this just makes you feel still, frozen, gone. You close your eyes. “I - I don’t - I don’t know. I don’t know. But it hasn’t come, for a while. It hasn’t come.”

After a moment of silence you hear the sound of Joel moving back to the truck, closing his door more gently behind him this time. You don’t remember your ghost feet floating back to your side, not wanting to find out what would happen if you kept him waiting too long. Your fingers shake as you buckle back in. Ellie, for maybe the first time since you’ve met her, doesn’t say a word. The world begins to move forward again. You grip the door next to you so tightly you think your fingers might fall off. You don’t remember falling asleep like that, but when you do it’s a sweet, welcome relief.

—

When you wake up, it’s dark out, but the road outside is wider than you expected it to be, having stayed mostly on backroads and service paths. The only light comes from the truck’s headlights and the moon shining up above.

“Where are we?” You murmur, stretching out the aching muscles of your back. Ellie seems to have joined you in slumber, slumped awkwardly against the door behind you.

Joel’s hand slides over the top of the steering wheel. “Nearby Kansas City,” he offers.

You become more clearly awake at this. “The QZ? Why do you wanna head so close to it?”

He rubs the steering wheel again, drawing from it some kind of power to speak. “Figure we stash the truck somewhere, enroll at the gate as refugees. Get what we need, get out.”

“What we need?” You’re still confused.

“A doctor,” he says. “It’s nearby and you need a doctor. So.”

You’re at a loss. You can’t keep up with the implications, with the unspoken, terrifying truth of the question he’s asking you, he’s been asking you. You open your mouth, but the sounds are weak to your own ears. “But — it’ll take too — Wyoming, we have to — and Ellie — and Tommy —”

“We’ll get to Wyoming,” he promises. “First we check on you.”

Something bubbles up in your chest and you shift in your seat, too afraid to ask but too afraid to not know. “Are you angry?” You venture, keeping your eyes on what little of the road you can see in front of you.

You can see him puff air through his lips from the corner of your vision. “I do generally like to know about things before they became an immediate issue, so next time —”

“No,” You say too quickly, and he stops, looking over at you. “I mean, were you mad about - you know, if I am” — you choke on your own spit, can’t bring yourself to say the word — “If I am, are you angry with me?”

Your voice sounds too small to your own ears, this isn’t the You you know, but you don't remember how to be that girl anyways, don't remember how to survive without him. If he’s not with you, and if what he thinks is happening is happening, this could be it for you, this could be his final straw, too much baggage, not giving enough, not —

“You, what? Listen, no, I don’t —” He takes his foot off the gas. The truck slowly but surely rolls to a stop, so starkly contrasting the abruptness of its earlier halt. He shifts the car to park, not even bothering to pull off the road like he usually does when you stop for the night. You can feel him looking at you but you can’t bring yourself to look back.

You sit like that in the quiet for a minute before he speaks. “I’m afraid,” he confesses to you like he worries the night sky will hear his secret. “I’m afraid and I’m sorry that I made you think I was angry. I’m not angry. You ain’t done nothin’ wrong. You understand? Nothin’."

You don't realize you’ve begun to cry until his arms are reaching over the center console to pull you into his lap. A mess of limbs and you find yourself between his solid frame and the steering wheel, his arms holding you like they do when you sleep, but this feels different, this feels tighter, this feels dangerously close to touching the reason you shake, the reason you burrow yourself into him at night.

“We’ll be alright,” he promises so fiercely it startles your eyes dry. “You’ll be alright. I promise.”

It’s late at night in the QZ a few years earlier, dim street light beaming through the dusty window. You sit with your back against the rotting drywall, Joel with his against the couch. You’re waiting for Tess to get back with a drop from a new partner, something she said felt “promising,” but that she wanted to handle with caution. The two of you would always listen to her, so you’ve stayed behind, but you’ll also always worry for her, so you stay awake into the early hours of the morning just to see the promise of her wellbeing slip through the doorway.

You’re picking at your fingernails, something Katie would always turn her nose up at you for, “makes ‘em look ugly,’ she’d say, but everything’s ugly here so you might as well match. Katie’s on your mind just as much as Tess - she’s been gone from your shared residence more often since Brandon died, you think she can’t stand to see the hallways you once all ran through together as children. You worry for her, too. Her great love for a woman named Marlene and ceaseless ardor for Marlene’s cause put her in more danger everyday. She’d do anything for the Fireflies, plant any bomb. Maybe even the one the killed Brandon. Neither of you are sure, and you definitely never talk about it.

“Will you quit?” Joel’s gruff voice startles you out of your spiraling reverie, and you realize blood has started to seep from around some of your cuticles. “Fuckin’ — fidgeting’s makin’ me nervous.”

“Sorry,” you say, not really meaning it but feeling sheepish nonetheless. Joel intimidates you; he’s quiet, and strong, and definitely beautiful, and maybe knows something about life, maybe too much about life, maybe that’s why he’s so dour all the time. However, sitting here on the floor, waiting for your shared comrade’s return, you feel emboldened or delirious from the witching hour. You open your mouth before you can stop yourself.

“Didn’t know you got nervous.”

He scoffs abruptly, a sound you might almost have called a laugh in another life, and runs his fingers over his mouth absentmindedly. The streetlamp glow slants across his cheekbones just so, and in this dilapidated, peeling living room, he looks almost otherworldly. “‘M always nervous.”

He doesn’t say anything more, settling back into his friend The Silence, and you don’t believe him. He doesn’t look nervous, doesn’t pluck at his own feathers like you or move to fill the time.

“About Tess?” You venture, high off of his conversation, elated at his breath expelled in your direction. It feels like something, it feels like anything, and you’ve been dying - Katie’s never around anymore, the other girls at the food bank are even more dried up and sullen than you, and Tess, beautiful Tess with her clever wit and grounding roots isn’t here - you need more.

Joel casts you a sidelong glance. You suddenly wonder if you remembered to run your fingers through your hair this morning. It surely looks a mess. You go back to picking at your nails. The blood feels warm and soothing. “Yeah,” he acquiesces, eyebrows raising slightly. “But she can handle herself.”

Your heart races. “I know! I didn’t mean to say she couldn’t. I just —”

He holds up a hand to quell your ramble, and you crumble to his command. “I know. We still worry.”

You exhale long, arduous. “Yeah,” you agree softly.

He taps his finger on his knees, joins you in your fidgeting realm, his feathers pluck, his callous peels. “Don’t you got someone waitin’ for you?” He says suddenly, and you know he knows these things about you, but it’s a shock to hear him acknowledge it.

“My sister. And no. She doesn’t come home much these days. ‘Sides, I’d rather be here anyways.”

He narrows his eyes at you. “What’s she doin’ away at this hour? Isn’t she younger?”

The hair on the back of your neck stands up, and for a moment, your hackles raise. “She’s a grown woman. That’s her business, not mine.” As if it’s your fault that she’s joined up with a vigilante guerilla. As if it’s your fault that you don’t know where she sleeps these days, or if she gets enough to eat besides the times she comes to pick up the extra cans you still steal her. She is younger than you, he’s right, and you tried to provide, tried to take care of her the way your mother had tried to before she passed, before the outbreak, even. You were only 8 when the world ended, and your mother had died just a few years later. The only thing that had kept you and Katie out of military school was the older woman across the way who lied and said she was watchin’ over you. It hadn’t worked for Brandon, though. He was too young for anyone to care for, and was rocked right into the deadly cradle of FEDRA.

Joel pauses for a second, quietly contemplative, before nodding. “Suppose you’re right.”

Your breath drops back down into your stomach. If there’s anything you and Joel Miller would ever shake on, it would be leaving others to mind their own.

You wonder what his life must have been like before. What sorrow left him this way, bewildered and cold and fortified as the QZ itself.

“When did Tess say she was getting back again?” You say to fill the space, to fan the coals of a conversation long dwindled.

“Said she wasn’t sure.” He’s annoyed, you can tell. “Said it could take the whole night, or longer. Were you even listenin’?”

You purse your lips, and the apology slips from you without your own permission. A longing to stand your ground far outrun by the desperation for his voice, for his grave countenance continued. “Sorry. I don’t remember things like I’m supposed to.”

Your voice catches in your throat at the last few words, and you have to look away from him, have to blink a little faster than perhaps is natural. You’re not just talking about Tess’s debrief, you know.

You don’t expect it when he replies. “I remember it all.” A quiet confession to the night draft through the pane, shaking the dust on the counter. You look back to him, eyes wide, and his tongue peeks out to wet his cracked lips. It’s like he knows, he knows what you meant, and he can see right through you and this flimsy excuse for skin you wear, this flimsy excuse of a girl you are. He sees you, and you feel like the recipient of a crown jewel, a treasure held close to your heart for this little bit of him that he’s allowed through, this morsel of self that’s scrapped so haggardly to his surface.

His eyes lock with yours, his face set suddenly with a grim determination. “Listen, she’ll be alright. We all will. I mean it.”

You nod, his earnestness permeating your jellyfish shroud, spineless, maybe he could prop you up. Maybe he’s doing it now. You turn back to your nail beds to shred until the early morning sun brings Tess home with it.

#joel miller x reader #joel x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #joel miller fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fanfictioin #joel miller #joel x f!reader #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfic #tlou fic #tlou fanfic #tlou

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darlingdarkly · 6 months

Text

Fates Worse Than Death

A Deimos x f!reader Series

Chapter 1

Word count: 5k

Part: 2

OG A/N: Hey, hi! So, tomorrow is my birthday. And for my birthday I decided to write a hugely self indulgent smutty fic for myself and instead of writing one for cod like I’ve been doing and contributing to an already super saturated fandom I have decided to write it for my r6s fandom, which admittedly keeps looking deader and deader, but I know that if I’m scouring the tags for fics then maybe someone else is too and so I’m gonna share my gift to myself in hopes that someone else who’s desperate for content will find it and be glad it’s there.

Second A/N: Hey! So I decided to make this a series actually. This will stand as chapter 1 💕

Dead Dove Do Not Eat

Listen to me 👁️👁️ I need you to heed the tags. I am going to tag the hell out of this thing and if you don’t read the tags then you’re throwing yourself into a mixed bag of whatever the hell and that’s on you. The tags are there for your benefit. Not mine. You have been warned.

CW: non con elements, dub con elements, interrogation, belt spanking, bondage, unprotected climactic p in v intercourse, oral (f!receiving), abduction, hair pulling, fingering, death, blood, mild game spoilers 🤷‍♀️

This is the point of no return, you click this button and you consent to the content on the other side.

This takes place after Deimos has killed Harry but before Rainbow has captured him, if you give a shit about canon events and timeline. Enjoy 💕

The chilly night wind whipped through the leaves, rattling them noisily and aiding in concealing your stealthy movements. You and three other operatives cut through the wooded terrain like silent wraiths as you sought out the hidden compound due north, said to be home to his lair. The mission was simple, get in, extract Deimos and exfil.

You moved quickly and quietly bringing up the rear of the squad. Rifle locked and loaded, the muzzle pointed out ahead of you, strafing for contact. You heard your squad leader over the comms, gruff and clear as he spoke to your contact back on base.

“Rainbow, this is O1, we are two clicks due south of the compound. ETA 15 for contact, are we a go?”

After a moment of measured silence he got a response. “Rainbow to O1, you’re green lit. Standby for evac.”

O1 came back moments later. “Copy that. Over.” There was an audible cut through the radio before O1 addressed your squad. “Alright, squad. You heard the man. On your toes.” Each of you responded in turn. “O2 copy.” A pause. “O3 copy.” You depressed the button on your headset and responded. “O4 copy.”

Soon after, the four of you crested a hill and fanned out over the top of it, laying eyes upon the brilliant glow cutting through the velvet of night like a knife. O1 came through your ear piece and gave curt instruction. “O2, follow me to the east. O3 and O4 you take west. Stick close to the perimeter, plant the charge and fall back. We detonate on my count and breach simultaneously. Do you understand?”

The three of you responded in unison. “Sir, yes sir.” You saw him motion forward and your group began to move, splitting into your assigned pairs and descending upon the compound. You lost sight of your squad mates in the thick of the trees but kept close to O3 as you neared the far west walls of the hidden base. Just as you made the bottom of the hill there was a panicked cry over the comms from O2. “What the fuck is that? O1 we have a disturbance.” There’s a break in his speech, a long drawn out eerie quiet that unnerves you.

“Sir, we’re not alone! I repeat, not alone.” There was a faint scuffle in the distance and a single gunshot before O1 came over the comms, frantic. “O1 to Rainbow, we’re made! Requesting evac. It’s him.”

You and O3 stopped and turned towards the commotion, unsure of how to proceed. There was a heart stopping, pained scream in the distance and you heard Rainbow call to the pair of you over the comms. “O3, O4, this is Rainbow. Get out of there, you’re compromised. Get to evac. I repeat, Get to evac!”

The pair of you took off in the woods, abandoning mission and headed west towards the evac point. You could feel your heartbeat in your chest and had to focus to calm your breathing. At this point it was about survival as you followed close behind O3 and cut through the woodlands for the helo just eight clicks west.

There’s a flutter in the air, a woosh of displaced air as something whizzes by and you hear O3 ahead of you begin to panic. “Christ it’s him! Run for it, now!” O3 bolts forward and you’re sprinting to catch up but soon he’s lost in the copse of pines and all you have left of him is his panicked yells and heavy breathing over the radio. “O3, where are you? O3!?!” You hear the deafening discharge of a heavy caliber ring out in the still night and it’s too close for comfort.

You veer away from it and towards the evac. Splitting off on your own as the blood of your last remaining squad member drains from the brand new vent hole in his head and begins to quickly cool in the night air. You can hardly hear yourself crash through the woods, boots scaling over rocks and fallen logs as your breath quickens and terror begins to set in.

You miss the whirring of the foreign object the second time around but there’s no mistaking the calm, collected voice in your ear as he hacks through your comms and makes himself known. “There you are. There’s no hiding. Not for you. Not for me.”

Rainbow comes in low and static-y though the comms and you struggle to make him out clearly. “O4 do you… in O4… Get out! I rep-… Deimos is tra-…. On your posit-….” And then everything cuts. Your comms go dark and you’re officially alone, the last of a nearly dead and shattered squad in the dead of night in the thick of the sticks.

Determined not to die in the midst of these pines you beeline for the green blip on your gps. If you could just make it to the helo you’d survive but as you took a final glance at your position a second blip pinged. A dark red skull just twenty meters back. His deathMARK. You felt a lump in your throat as you realized you’d been made and triple timed it, arms pumping at your sides as you tore through the woods in fear. Pure terror coursed through your veins and nipped at your heels, promising death if caught. There was no capture, Deimos wasn’t known for taking prisoners.

You mounted a hill and pushed out between two huge oaks as you practically slid down the other side. You made huge strides, legs driving you towards salvation as you pushed them to the limit in hopes of escape. You were only four clicks out when you tripped, stumbling over something hard and unseen as you crashed ungracefully to the ground and tumbled in the leaf litter. You scrambled to regain your footing, clawing at the earth and struggling to your feet.

You had just made it up when he hit you like a freight train, violently tackling you and knocking you on your back. The pair of you rolled in the foliage, tumbling over one another in the night and sprawling apart as you came to a jolting stop.

This was it, it was fight or die so you grabbed for the push daggers secured to the straps of your tac vest and faced your adversary. He came up ready to fight, charging forward and lunging for you. You drove forward with a fist, spearheaded leathily by the edge of the knife and swung out to bite at his throat. He pulled back and you sliced through air instead, he followed through with an arm on your elbow and brought your arm down over one thick thigh, breaking your hold and successfully disarming you.

With one knife left you pushed back at his chest and swung forward to attack, hoping to aggressively close the distance and quickly end him but he grabbed your arm with his strong gloved hands and twisted it around until your back was socketed into his chest. He pulled on your limb and brought it down hard over his knee, breaking your hold for a second time and disarming you completely.

You struggled out of his grip and tried to make a break for it, a last ditch effort to stay alive and bolt but he caught a grip on your ankle and you once more went sprawling to the ground, ass over teapot. When you turned around to face death you caught sight of his ballistic mask towering over you, he held the magnum in a tight grip in his right hand and you knew it was over. At least you’d die with your squad, knowing you’d done your best and been outplayed.

But instead of staring down the unblinking black eye that was the bore of his barrel you felt the butt of the .44 Vendetta crash down on your temple before the night stole over you and blocked out all thought.

It wasn’t til much later that you awoke, sluggish, confused and in tremendous pain. The room was bright but cold and when you tried to alleviate the pain in your head by bringing your hand up to soothe it you realized you were bound and secured to some kind of padded platform. Your arms were stretched out and down in front of you, bound together by something strong and without give. Your legs were similarly bound but tucked up beneath you on the padded bench. It was then you realized you were also naked from the waist down. Your chest was covered but had been stripped of your tac gear and uniform and replaced with a stark white tee, your bra was also missing.

You weren’t blindfolded or gagged but when you tried to whip your head around you found it hard to maneuver, only about five degrees of field of view to see on either side and all you could see of that was dingy white tile from floor to ceiling. You struggled in your bonds but stopped as you heard the slow, methodical blows of his boots on the concrete steadily drawing nearer. You stiffened and tried not to think about the view he no doubt was privy to from this angle. He broke the silence first.

“Well she’s finally awake. Don’t struggle, the knots won’t give, I tied them myself.” He sounds smug and confident as he strides up behind you, voice low and clear, not quite deep but thoroughly resolute, the draw of a southern twang peeking out subtly but sophisticated. The venom in you begins to well up in your throat, your teeth grit and body tensing as your anger builds and your hate gestates.

You let loose on him, anger burning a hole in your chest as you feel robbed of your rightful death, you shouldn’t be here still breathing, you should be dead in the woods with your squad, not tied up and captured like some kind of prized war spoil. “Fuck you! Kill me, you bastard!” He let himself come into view, circling around you with his arms clasped behind his back. He was still fully clad in his black tac gear and ballistic helmet, the dark, obsidian lenses of his eyes gleamed deviously in the fluorescent light.

“Can’t get information out of you if you’re dead, now can we?” You ground your teeth in your skull, body trembling in half fear, half seething rage. “You won’t get a damn word out of me, motherfucker! You’ll have to kill me, I won’t talk!”

His head tilted slightly as he tisked, chiding you calmly. “Such a nasty mouth.” He disappeared from view, the dark drape of his cape flowing out behind him, returning to his position behind you as you heard a rustle and the soft tink of metal on metal as he lifted something off of a table. “My godfather was a stern but loving man. He taught me at an early age about duty and responsibility. About discipline and respect. I loved and respected him dearly but as all boys are, I had a tendency to be rowdy and disrespectful at times. He taught me these values with a firm and unyielding hand. Something I think you could use a good helping of.”

You heard the crack of the belt as he brought the two looped ends taut in his hands and immediately stiffened, the hairs on the back of your neck standing straight up. “You’re going to tell me everything I want to know, including the details of your mission, the intel you received and who you received it from along with the coordinates of the Rainbow base.” He stopped and waited for your response, you sat still and silent, mentally preparing yourself for the coming onslaught.

“Nothing to share?” You shifted in place but spat out at him, tongue in cheek. “Fuck you.” Shortly after you felt the first lick of the belt as it cut through the air and cracked across your bare ass, making you jump and yelp. It may have been a far cry from conventional interrogation methods but it was still painful and humiliating. You heard the leather slide in his fist before you felt the second blow, just parallel to the first, aimed and executed with precision to land just beside it on the same cheek. “Fuck!”

He hummed contently. “Tell me what your mission objective was.” He languidly paced behind you as he waited for your answer, when none came he brought the belt down on the other cheek twice in rapid succession, giving you no time to recover. You tried shifting away from the blows but had about a half an inch of clearance for wiggle room, there was no evading it.

He kept it up, pausing and then attacking ruthlessly, periodically stopping before doling it out again, fat, opaque lines began to criss cross on the smooth surface, marking his progress. He questioned you again and you held silent, preferring to suffer through the consequences rather than give in and endanger an entire base of your colleagues for the quicker respite of death. He’d kill you in time either way, it was better to hold out and die honorably than relent for a swifter end.

“You’re resilient, tough little spit fire, I’ll give you that. But you should know your silence has consequences.”

You sneered at him where he couldn’t see. “I don’t give a fuck about me. Beat me, torture me, cut my toes off one by one, I don’t care. You’ll kill me when you figure out I’ve got nothing to say to you and I will die honorably.”

He laughs and it makes a sliver of uncertainty worm through you. “I’m not going to kill you, sweetheart.” The pet name makes you queasy but his response only confuses you. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“When our little talk ends, the door closes. If you don’t tell me what I wanna know by the time we’re through here your life as you know it ceases to exist.”

“I already told you to just go ahead and kill me. I’ll die before I tell you anything that would put Rainbow at risk.” Instead of punching you in the ribs or breaking a finger he just leaned in til you could feel the warmth of his chest settle over the top of your bare ass and it felt much more sinister than any strike or blow.

“Oh sweetheart, there are fates much worse than death.” You still don’t quite understand and he senses you struggling to grasp the full scope of the threat so he takes a break from the spanking and explains it to you in full detail.

You hear him set the belt down on something before you feel his gloved hands caressing your ass, running the covered fingertips over his handiwork and down the swell of your cheeks before dipping lower and skimming the slit of your sex. His fingers come away slick and he smirks behind the mask where you can’t see.

“If you don’t tell me what I want to hear then I’m going to take these-“ You hear a jingle from behind you and know they’re your dog tags, probably scalped from your neck as he undressed you no doubt. “-and I’m going to throw them out in the woods with your dead squad mates. They’ll think one of two things. Either you died out there like a good soldier and some animal, pack of coyotes perhaps, carted your body away or, I finally caught up with you, gave you an ultimatum, and you sold them out from under the rug. Either way they’ll come to the conclusion that you’re beyond saving and they’ll bury you in an empty casket and move on.”

You felt it all coming to a head and the audacity of it came to be too much. “You’re wrong! They’ll never stop looking for me! You think they’ll give up so easily! They won’t stop until they find me! Ohhhh and they will find me! You are so fucked! You are sooo-“

The crack of the belt against your ass cut off your angry rant, the words dying in a pained yelp as he brought the leather down on your ass in an angry torrent. SMACK. SMACK. SMACKSMACKSMACK.

You clenched against the pain, trying to curl up on yourself but of course it was no use, you could only sit and take it. When the onslaught ended he continued.

“You didn’t let me finish. Either way… no one is going to come looking for you. And I think I’m starting to like you so instead of killing you, like you’re dying to have me do-“ You feel the return of his fingers, the cool leather of his glove soothing against the heated stinging welts already swelling on your cheeks. Then they glided down and you felt his fingers spread your lips and when he spoke this time he sounded different somehow, louder and clearer.

“-I’m going to keep you all to myself. I’ll house you, clean you, feed you. During the day I’ll keep you tied up in here, my own sweet little stress relief, make the walls of this room echo with screams of a different caliber for a change.”

It wasn’t until you felt the flat of his tongue glide up the length of your sex that you realized why he sounded so much clearer, he’d taken his mask off and now he was casually eating your pussy, tongue dipping in between his fingers spreading you apart so gently, a stark contrast from the harsh belt treatment he’d been afflicting upon you moments before.

He hummed into your pussy and you squirmed against the heat of him, simultaneously freaking out yet undeniably turned on as his tongue probed you and his hands caressed the cheeks of your ass. He pulled away and you weren’t sure if it was a sigh of relief or a whine of protest that built a home in your throat, kept at bay only by the last mustering of your will.

“So sweet. When I was a boy growing up in Birmingham, I used to play in the sugar cane fields for hours. Me and my friends would cut away stalks from the edges of the field for a taste. You taste just like that, fresh cut sugar cane.” You shuddered in his hold and told yourself it was all psychological warfare, it changed nothing. When he had the information he seeked he would cut you down just like he did all the rest.

You felt him step away from behind you and come up to your side, his hands trailing like fire along the length of your body as he did so. He reached under the platform you were tied to and suddenly your arms pulled forward in front of you, forcing your chest to pull forward and press against the bench. Your ass raised up high and unshielded as you felt the collective wetness of his saliva and your slick coating your lips, chilly exposed like this, but it doesn’t take long before he’s resumed the position and you feel his hot breath fanning against it, rewarming his meal.

“We’re gonna have a lot fun, sugar cane.”

“So.” Lick. “Much.” Lick. “Fun.” Lick.

You couldn’t help the moan that escaped, at this new angle he had access to the fulty of you and his tongue dipped down and swiped at your clit on the last lick making you momentarily lose yourself in the white hot pleasure of it. “Fuck!”

“I intend to.” You don’t grasp until much later the meaning of that, lost to the way he eats you so slow and sensual. He chuckles behind you and you know now, without a shadow of a doubt, that he intends to keep true to his word because he’s stopped questioning you, stopped beating you, just content to sample his new toy. Your life is over, because you won’t give up Rainbow and you won’t tell him a goddamn thing and your stubborn honor has damned you in a way that was worse than death and now you’ll spend the rest of your days keeping his cock warm until you’ve gone insane from it.

Taking his time and savoring the taste of you on his tongue, you feel the first press of his padded fingers prodding your entrance. Gently pushing forward til he was in just up to the first knuckle, sawing them in and out slowly and twisting them in your heat as his tongue stayed latched to your clit, suckling it.

“Deimos!” He rewarded you with an open mouthed kiss to your clit as he pushed his gloved fingers further into your depths, exploring them as your back arched nice and pretty for him as far as your binds would allow.

He pulled his tongue away to your dismay but kept his fingers buried in you, stilling their movement but curling them inside you to press teasingly against your sweet spot. “Got some new insights for me, sugar cane?”

Your lips were sealed shut as far as that was concerned but your resolve was waning, you recognized the point of no return you were quickly approaching and despite the horrible implications of your future, there were just too many good men and women with their lives on the line for you to justify the alternative.

So you shifted shamelessly to push back on his fingers, eyes squeezing shut as you tried to focus on the pleasure and not the humiliating position you were quickly failing to resist against. He recognized the move as you made it and gave you what was to be his last warning.

“Let me put it in no uncertain terms for you. When I come right in here-“ He flexed his fingers inside you to demonstrate his point, eliciting a high whine from you. “-your time is up. You can sing all you want but past that point you’re no longer your own woman. You’re mine, do you understand?”

You didn’t even consider your freedom for the briefest of seconds, just nodded solemnly as you accepted his terms, though little they mattered. Although he’d seen your nod it mustn’t have been good enough as you felt the all too familiar crack of the leather, jolting you from your thoughts and bringing you back to the present. You clenched down on his fingers, eyes rolling in their sockets at the euphoric sensation.

“I need a verbal answer.” Your grit your teeth for not the first and certainly not the last time dealing with him. “Screw you!”

He laughed, it was easy and carefree. “All in good time, sweetheart. I’m gonna enjoy my meal first.” With that he seemed to be done speaking, leaving you to stew over a decision you’d already made and ruminate in the consequences of it. He dove eagerly back into the heat of your sex, plunging his fingers enthusiastically in and out of your pussy while his tongue lapped at the juices that seeped out around them.

He watched as your toes curled in on themselves, mouth dropping open where he couldn’t see and expelling breath in a silent moan. He proved to be skillful in a manner of ways and this seemed to be no exception to the rule, making light work of bringing your pleasure to a head and threatening to throw you over the edge quicker than you’d like to admit.

You fought for control of your body but it was a battle you were unavoidably losing as he pulled his fingers free and replaced them with his tongue, pushing it deep into you and occupying his hands by rubbing circles over your clit with his thumb. It was a devastating sensation that pulled your muscles taut, your head raised up off the padding and tipped back as far as your restraints would allow as you suddenly came violently.

He spurred it on, lapping at your sopping wet slit and never ceasing the movements of his thumb, making you shake and really test the strength of your ties. He drove you through your orgasm, not even slowing as you began to plead with him to stop, it was too much. When you thought you’d tumble head first into a second one he finally relented, leaving you gasping and panting as you vaguely heard him shucking his pants behind you.

You felt something hard and blunt at your entrance as he slid his cock up to you and rifled it up and down your slit, wetting the tip and enjoying the light springy jump that coursed through you every time his head hit your clit.

“Last chance, sweetheart. As much as I’d hate to lose your company, you’re running out of chances to secure your freedom.” You could hardly focus on his words, still caught between struggling to catch up from your first mind blowing orgasm and steeling yourself against the promise of a second one if the way your pussy was trying and failing to catch his tip and suck it in was any indicator.

He lined himself up and pushed forward, causing you both to moan out together as he stretched you open on his girth. “Fuck me, you are sweet.” He slid home, hips pushing flush with yours as you adjusted to the way he seemed to fill you out perfectly. Your head dipped as he began a steady, unrushed rhythm, slapping his hips to yours every time he drove it home.

You had stopped breathing since he’d entered you and suddenly took one huge sucking breath in, filling your lungs just to immediately expel it as a broken but pleasured moan. He growled behind you and you could feel it vibrate through you in a whole new sensation, overloading your senses, coursing white and blinding in its intensity.

“Please!” You had no idea what you were begging for but it just felt so right, losing your sense of self, reduced to nothing more than nerve endings. He reached forward and grabbed a fistful of your hair, pulling back and taking out the slack as your back arched to accommodate his hold.

“Oh god!” You could hardly imagine how you must look, head cocked back and slack-jawed as he split you open from behind. Each thrust was precise and calculated, wringing you for every last drop of pleasure until your mind went blank and your whole being submitted to the fucking.

He leaned forward, breath hot and heavy right behind your ear as he spoke and he must’ve known you were a goner because instead of trying to extract information he just spoke of the future. All the ways he’d bend you to his will, how he’d break you and build you back better in his image.

“It’s truly a shame we met under these circumstances. Under a different light I’d have enjoyed training you, honing your skills instead of wasting all this potential such as it is. Under me you’d have made an unstoppable operator. Now you’ll never see combat again.”

For some reason this truth had only now dawned on you, some deep part of your brain had held out hope of escape or retaliation or vengeance but cock drunk beneath him you knew it was hopeless, he was absolutely right and you were ultimately fucked.

As if he’d been holding back he renewed his vigor and began to pound into you from behind with abandon. Your mouth was dry and your knees were screeching at you from below, despite the padding, but all you could focus on was the pool of pleasure building heavy in your gut. There was no turning back from this, your mind screamed for you to do something but any other thoughts were beyond you and so you expelled them with the rest and took your fate as it sealed, securing a chokehold around your throat and brought you to heel.

You came around his cock, the second world shattering orgasm of the evening and much more all encompassing in its magnitude. You were certain you felt your heart stop, lungs burning for air as you clenched down around him. Seconds later he followed, coming with a half moan, half growl as you squeezed him for all he was worth. White hot spend filled you from the inside out and it was as blissful as it was damning.

The game was up, you were his. You stayed like that, riding the bliss and eyeing up the defeat that swelled up to take its place as it faded. He pulled out of you slowly and you felt his seed drip from you, slide down your thighs and puddle on the bench below you. You hardly heard him as he cleaned himself up and redressed. There was a click as the door to the room opened for the first time you were aware to hear it and two men stepped into the room.

There was a moment of nothing before you felt two firm hands wrap themselves around your arms and loosen your binds. They held you up til the tips of your feet hardly grazed the cool concrete floor and stationed on either side of you, held you up for inspection. You lifted your head to see him standing before you, dog tags dangling from one fist and the belt folded over on itself held tight in the other.

“I can’t say I’m disappointed in you, soldier. You stood your ground and that commands immense bravery. But you knew the rules and now you’ll reap what you’ve sown. You mustered up enough strength to gather saliva in between your lips and spit at his face. It didn’t quite make it and landed at his feet but you could hear a smile in his voice as he commanded the men at your side to carry you up to his quarters. He’d be seeing you again very soon.

#dead dove do not eat #tw noncon #tw dubcon #dark fic #tw dark content #tw dark themes #r6s #r6s deimos #r6s Deimos smut #r6s Deimos x you #not cod

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scarletwritesshit · 9 months

Text

♠️ Aventurine x Reader ♠️ Under the Gun

For a man who was betting a ton of credits, he looked unusually confident.

He could just be bluffing. You hoped that he was bluffing. But, from the nightmares described by various IPC members, as well as a bit of personal experience, you had to agree that perhaps, Aventurine was indeed a menace to deal with.

Among the complaints of varying degrees, Topaz’s gripes stuck out the most. She constantly mumbled about him being a slimy, unsavory bastard, and despite the two of you being on less than positive terms, she wouldn’t wish his presence upon you in a thousand Amber Eras.

Did you ever heed her warnings? Clearly not, as you were face-to-face with Aventurine in a two-person game of Belobog Hold’em. From the dastardly look on his face, he seemed to have a plan. And that plan was to completely drain you of whatever credits you had left in your pockets with his next move.

He rested his head on his hand and smiled at you, his eyes piercing your soul through his rose-tinted glasses. Aventurine’s smirk was that of a confident man who knew what he was doing, and perhaps nothing you could do could stop him from winning this game. Keeping your composure at such a sight was proving to be a challenge, especially considering how your hand wasn’t exactly the best. Aventurine could practically see through your hand, it felt like, and he was secretly amused by the almost guaranteed loss you were staring at. To have this much confidence, he must either have ended up with a practically unbeatable hand from the sheer force of dumb luck, or he knew how to, quite literally, play his cards right.

Or, perhaps he could see that you were not quite paying full attention to the game, and your focus lied primarily within Aventurine himself. It was a sense of morbid curiosity to see if he was as truly awful as the rumors and tales had described that inclined you to play a one-on-one private game of poker with him. To Aventurine, it was all another one of his “business deals,” and he had business of lining his pockets with the spoils of your failure.

You had put so much money in, just to see how far you could take this game, but with every credit wagered on the table, his smile grew ever more confident. Perhaps you should’ve quit early to minimize your losses, but there was something about seeing that dastardly smirk that caused you to stray from your real goal of satisfying a basic curiosity.

Or did this “curiosity” extend beyond the simple urge to meet him alone?

The realization of your impending losses began to set in, and you were looking back and forth between your awful and Aventurine’s confident gaze. You couldn’t let things end here, but you knew that he had you backed in a corner and that a second round with him just wouldn’t be possible.

“Well?” he said with a little laugh, “What’s the holdup?”

You said nothing, as you attempted to maintain a cool and collected expression to hide the despair in your hand.

“Cat got your tongue, my dear?” he said, waving his cards mockingly like a fan.

“No,” you said, forcing your eyes off of him.

“Ah, then…what’s the holdup? Thinking a little too hard, perhaps?”

You didn’t want to allude to the awful position you were in. Not to him, especially, but at this point, what more could you do? No matter how hard you looked at your final hand, all combinations of cards were beyond awful. Aventurine could play the most underwhelming hand and he would still have you defeated like a sore loser, and his smile told the entire story.

That was a face of a man who knew he had won, one that had a chokehold on you.

Shaking your head, completely defeated, you placed your cards down on the table. Aventurine was all too happy to place his down with the same smug look that had been taunting you since the very beginning of this game.

You didn’t want to see just much Aventurine won by, so you merely concentrated on your own depressing cards as you flipped them over. A pair. There was no way you were winning anything with that.

“Well… it seems like I win this one,” Aventurine said.

After taking a deep breath, you finally convinced yourself to look at his cards. You knew he had you beat quite badly, but you didn’t want to see just how badly.

Four of a kind. It would’ve taken some immense luck on your end to beat that, something that you simply did not have. And now you found yourself down more credits than you actually had.

You should’ve heeded the warning of Topaz and the others. Aventurine was not one to be taken so lightly in the very game he specializes in.

“Another round might satisfy you, perhaps?” Aventurine asked, picking up a chip and fidgeting with it in his fingers.

“As much as I would love to continue playing with you, first I need to figure out how to pay you back,” you admitted.

“Pay me back? You mean to tell me that you kept betting with credits that you didn’t have?”

You nodded your head. You knew it wasn’t the brightest idea, but hearing Aventurine flat-out expose you in such a manner provoked some sort of irritation within you. The problem was, you couldn’t tell if you were more frustrated with yourself or him.

“And in a game with an IPC member, too. What-ever could you have possibly been thinking? Did you maybe, want to go into debt or something? Did you want me to go after you?”

You were supposed to be the one going after him, but Aventurine took advantage of your blunder and turned things against you. Except, he wasn’t curious about some rumors, he wanted to collect his rewards. And a debt you did indeed owe to him, one he was all too happy for you to owe. It was as if he was awaiting this moment the entire time, as if he had a surefire way of making sure he would end up on top.

A method such as rigging the game, perhaps.

“Go after me? In what sense?” you asked.

“Hmm, how do you think? Relentlessly pursuing you until I get what I am after? Haha, though I have got to admit, I was fully expecting you to hit me up for one more round, maybe to try and win everything back. Takes a lot for someone to finally admit defeat.”

Was he complimenting you? Surely, he couldn’t be complimenting you, if anything, it was a snide commentary on how well you’ve managed to dig yourself a hole.

“Thanks?” you said, at a genuine loss for words.

“Ah, well, I know you’re thinking that you’re going to have to pay up eventually, but I can’t help but be curious that there was something else you were after,” he said, ceasing the fidgeting of the chip in his fingers and began smiling with devious intent.

“After what, exactly?” you asked, trying to clear up exactly what he was implying.

“Something that, to you, must be more valuable than any singular credit in all of Penacony. Something that was clearly enough to deviate your focus from the game and instead direct it to what was in front of the very cards that determined your fate.”

“You mean like the chance to wipe that insufferable look off of your face?”

“Oh, if only I could believe that you would do such a thing.”

You could challenge him to yet another round of Belobog Hold’em anyways, but he was well aware that your pockets were heading deep into the negatives, and the risk of falling even further into debt was greater than the reward. Your options were ultimately limited, but you weren’t willing to back down so easily. Especially not to someone as insufferable as Aventurine.

“Want me to prove it?” you said, glaring into his eyes.

Aventurine put the poker chip that he was fidgeting with prior down on the table.

“Now you’re getting awfully bold for someone who finds themselves deep in debt. I’ll have you know, it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about my IPC duties or playing cards, because I always hit the jackpot.”

“Jackpot?” you said, snatching the poker chip out from under him. “Can you really say that with such confidence, especially when foul play is involved?”

You held the poker chip up to one of your eyes, and closely observed Aventurine through the other. His confidence was not diminished by your revolt, and his grin seemed to grow ever slyer by the moment. He either knew that, despite you catching on, he had gotten away with his trickery, or Aeons be damned this man truthfully knew how to play his cards right.

“Luck and foul play do not equate, my dear,” Aventurine said.

“Do you want to run that by me one more time?” you said, moving the poker chip down from your eye and squinting at him.

With a teasing laugh, Aventurine stated, “I said, luck and foul play are not the same, my dear.”

He was driving you to your wit’s end. Aventurine had to be hiding some kind of dirty secret to never lose in such a manner. You were determined to fight the answer out of him, whether it truly was some form of hidden skill or everything now and before was rigged. Sometimes, the best way to counter foul play was to break the rules yourself and knock the self-declared king down the hierarchy.

Aventurine would spend the entirety of the evening waving his winning hand in front of your face if that is what it took for you to back down.

At this point, you didn’t have the patience for any more of his antics.

No roundabout way of making him confess his dirty little secrets would cause him to crack any time soon. Not to mention, you were nearing the point of wanting to choke him out.

You slammed the stolen poker chip on the table, which Aventurine looked down at the cards and chips rebounding from the force.

“Getting a little feisty now, aren’t w- “

You reached out while Aventurine was focused on the disturbed table and slipped your fingers under his choker. Before he had a chance to react, you pulled him forward across the table, knocking over what remained of the stacks of chips and cards. You held him firmly in front of you, giving Aventurine almost no other option but to look directly into your eyes.

“Two can play at that game,” you said, tightening your grip on his choker.

Despite the situation Aventurine now found himself in, he was strangely calm about the entirety of it. The smile on his face, though dastardly, was tainted with some sort of twisted joy.

“Ha, I can’t say I’ve ever played a game that ended with me in such a tangle,” he said.

“That’s an awful surprise considering how insufferable you are.”

“Insufferable? Coming from you, of all people? I’d argue that you’re doing this strictly on purpose, to study my ‘tactics’ up close and personally.”

“Because I am, so I can catch you in case you try to pull a fast one on me.”

“By looking at me ever so closely? Why, I’d argue that you’re more interested in me than that little bet you claim I’ve won by illicit means.”

You tugged on his choker a bit, to try and shake a little sense into that man. However, Aventurine’s smile never dissipated; his eyes only grew more focused with a kind of hunger only a man seeking his reward could have. He should sensibly be threatening you to hand over his payment, yet he had not uttered one word of demand for his credits this entire time.

Could he actually be finding some form of enjoyment from this? Enough to forgo the temptation of the hefty balance of credits that was being dangled in front of him like an earthworm worm to a fish?

“And for a man with the promise of becoming rich, you seem awfully distracted from your bounty.”

“Becoming rich?” he said with a laughter muffled by your grip, “Oh, sweetie, I have more money than your mind could possibly comprehend. It’s not often that I get as much enjoyment out of a simple game of poker as I am right now.”

It would appear that your theory was right. Aventurine was deriving some sort of sick enjoyment from your threats. Perhaps, he wouldn’t mind it if you stepped things up a notch, then?

“This isn’t a matter of it being a so-called simple game of poker,” you said, pushing aside the cards and chips that were in your way.

“It’s more of a game between us now.”

You pulled Aventurine even closer to you, close enough to where you can feel his breath on your face. Any further, and he would be pulled out of his chair onto the table, or even worse, a bit too close to you.

“Now? Are you sure that it wasn’t always between us?”

“Very clever of you to think such absurdity, though it would explain how horribly you were playing. Or, perhaps you’re just naturally awful. But I couldn’t blame you regardless, as I am quite the charmer, after all.”

“You want to repeat that, pretty boy?”

“Pretty boy. I do like the sound of that.”

You wanted to tug Aventurine even closer, but you physically couldn’t, unless you wanted him directly against your face. The most you could do is grip his choker even tighter, wearing at the leather with the sheer force of your fist.

“Quiet now, you scoundrel,” you snapped.

“Pretty boy? Scoundrel? Make up your mind,” Aventurine taunted.

He was indeed a pretty boy, but at the same time, he was a scoundrel. He had a way with words, a way with looks, and unfortunately, a way with cards.

“You’re keeping me awfully close for someone who thinks I’m a scoundrel,” he continued, “Aren’t you afraid I’m going to cheat you out of a little more than your money?”

“What could you possibly do with this quite literal chokehold I have on you?” you said.

“Repay the favor, of course,” he said, lifting up one of his hands that he used to steady himself.

You braced yourself for a hostile retribution. Repay the favor how, exactly? Did he have a genuine suspicion that you were trying to kill him? Out of sheer instinct, you grabbed your pistol with your free hand and held it directly against his head, flicking off the safety and finger almost desperate for the trigger. Even in the face of death, Aventurine did not flinch, and his smile was as dastardly as ever.

To your great surprise, he simply brushed some of the hair that had fallen in front of your eyes away. Despite the gun armed and ready to blow his brains out should he attempt something clever, he paid no mind to the imminent threat to his life.

“That’s it?” you said, completely deprived of words. “Not even with a gun aimed directly at your vitals?”

Aventurine nudged the gun away from his head, aiming it at the ceiling directly above him. You didn’t bother to reposition yourself, though you still kept the safety off, just in case.

“Oh, I know you couldn’t bring yourself to do such a thing,” he taunted.

Unfortunately, Aventurine was right. As much as he was getting on your nerves, it didn’t warrant taking his life. You slowly lowered your pistol onto the table, still keeping it close, just in case.

“Ha, you’re quite the pretty one yourself, even when you’re acting all scary. It’s almost enough to distract a man as sharp as me.”

“Almost? With the way you were eyeing me up, I could almost believe that you were too focused on me to even think twice about cheating.”

“Oh, back on that again, are we? Isn’t there something you’d rather focus on, instead of whether or not you can trust a little ol’ member of the IPC?”

Almost impulsively, you pulled him ever so slightly closer, to the point where he was agonizingly close to you. Hardly even a single inch of space separated you and him.

He was right. With him so close and in your grasp, you could care less about all of the credits you owed to Aventurine. Though, every time the topic of the debt was mentioned, Aventurine brushed it off almost as quickly as it came up. In a way, it was almost as if he could care less about what would be pocket change to him.

“Focus on what, exactly?” you asked.

“Who else, other than the bastard you have in your grasp right now? The one who you absolutely refuse to break eye contact with, the one you claim to despise so much?”

“Despise enough to not back down from, but…not enough to reject his company.”

“My point exactly,” he whispered while running his finger across your cheek, gently brushing the edge of your lips.

“Now what are you playing at?” you snapped, in an indirect way to ask for clarification on Aventurine’s intent.

“It’s something that I want, something that we both want, more than the truth behind the legitimacy of a back-alley game of poker,” Aventurine said, with a smile that suddenly went soft.

“Long story short, you mean each other. You think that our intent for allowing this game to spiral out of control was to win over each other, and not for the spoils of currency?”

“Judging by your poor performance, I’d say it’s far from an improbability.”

“And your constant diversion from the topic of the money,” you said.

“Perhaps.”

Your grip on him suddenly softened, allowing Aventurine a bit more freedom to move. Certainly, you weren’t expecting this to happen just because you wanted to fight back a little, but if that were really the case, then perhaps you were a bit too rough with him? No, Aventurine was clearly indulging himself in the pleasure of someone bold enough to step up to him. Someone who knew very well of his dangers, yet still faced him head on.

Everything about that gaze, that smile, those bastardly mannerisms of his had you so entranced.

And you so very badly wanted to put him in his place.

“Giving up already?” he said, disappointed at your sudden withdrawal.

“What? Did you want me to choke you out?”

“Ha, you like me too much. But feel free to tug me as close to that pretty face of yours as you wish.”

Obedience was not exactly what you were so eager to show Aventurine, but the chance to tug on him even more was not something you were going to pass up. You forcefully pulled him even closer, once again reducing the distance between your faces to hardly a single inch. The two of you were locked in a stare, closely watching for each other’s next move.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Don’t tell me you’ve gotten too shy all of a sudden.”

“I’m not, it’s just, is this really what you want out of me, Aventurine?”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to pry out of you this entire time, sweetheart?”

It would be comedically cruel to toy with him further, but also a wait that you could no longer bear. With no resistance from Aventurine himself, you yanked his collar further until your lips met at long last. Yet, you did not free Aventurine from your grasp the entire time, but he seemed to care not, as he had finally hit the jackpot he was alluding to throughout the entire game.

Once you two had drifted apart, you rested your foreheads against each other, though your fingers were still gently hooked on his choker.

“You freein’ me now that you’ve had your fun?” Aventurine said.

Sighing, you unhooked your fingers, allowing him to relax back into his chair. He stood up, and in one swift, graceful swoop, Aventurine collected the scattered deck of cards, even snatching your depressing play right from under your nose. The chips were neatly stacked and set to the side, no longer accounting for what either party had on the line.

“What about the debt?” you said, looking at the pile of now neatly organized poker chips.

“Debt? What debt?”

He didn’t forget about those credits at all, but Aventurine could care less as he simply won something far better than any form of monetary value.

“Don’t be afraid to hit me up if you ever feel like throwin’ down some cards again,” Aventurine said.

“I can’t guarantee that it wouldn’t end with me throwing you down on the table.”

“Are you threatening me with a good time?” Aventurine said, turning to look at you with a smirk. “Because if that’s the case, why don’t we skip the card games and head straight to the fun?”

#honkai star rail #honkai star rail fanfic #hsr aventurine #aventurine x reader #fanfic #fanfiction

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kinninggojo · 1 year

Text

detailed fluffy/smutty headcannons! draco malfoy as your boyfriend.

i’m writing this as a continuation of “ive got my eye on you”, and sooort of requested by @dolcid. i’ll hopefully write a proper part two soon but for now here are some detailed, fluffy bf!draco headcannons to keep you satisfied. ive thrown some smuttys hcs in as well, so you really get the picture (i love reading headcannons so i hope you’re as pleased with this as i am!) <3

WARNINGS! SEXUAL CONTENT. SMUT. 18+

malfoy is a really good boyfriend. you’ve never had one before though so you can’t compare him to much :(

the way he confessed to you was really impressive though (and really turned you on! drunk kisses > )

he gets better and better at kissing every time you do it. he’s not very emotional but he’s passionate, if that makes sense?

when you’re kissing he doesnt administer alot of touch himself but he loves it when you touch him. he lets you run your hands all over his chest, it makes him groan.

when he DOES touch you, its usually your thighs.

despite all the kissing, he’s actually very cautious about going any further with you, because he knows you’ve never been fucked by anyone before. in the first few weeks, he sticks to hot makeout sessions with you.

he used to tease you for being ugly when you disliked eachother, he never meant it, by the damage it did to your confidence meant you never pursued a relationship before him so you’re really a virgin in every aspect. (slay tho <3)

draco doesn’t do dates really. he likes to keep you all to himself, he’s selfish like that. so he usually invites you to the slytherin common room, and takes you up to his dorm.

he banishes the goons from the dorm to spend time with you because he knows they make you uneasy.

he really cherishes quality time over anything, that’s his love language. he doesn’t have to be kissing you the whole time, sitting beside you whilst you read is enough for him. he’s enamoured with your presence.

he’s always been enamoured with your presence, even when he pretended to hate you.

draco is quite a grumpy boyfriend. not mean. just moody. he doesnt like other people. he especially doesnt like harry potter. or anything about any of the gryffindors. you pay it no heed, you just find it cute.

he takes things further one day and you let him eat you out. he doesnt do this alot. hes mostly a receiver.

he’s really dirty when he wants to be, its the fault of his smirk, it makes him look even dirtier.

draco is heavy on the dirty talking and teasing, after all your relationship begun because of his unremitting teasing.

so when he’s licking your pussy, he’s doing it whilst smirking and cooing annoyingly because of how red your face is going.

he gets really hard because its his first time going further than kissing with you. youre the first girl that hes had feelings for as well, so it makes it unreal for him. he gets so hard he has to ask you to suck his dick.

he doesnt beg you though! his voice is cool and nonchalant like it always is.

instead of cumming in your mouth, he comes all over your pussy because he likes how it looks.

when you two finish, he isn’t one for cuddling, but he lets you lay beside him in his arm, and fall asleep on his chest.

when its time for you to go back to your dorm, he folds all of your things up for you, stacks all of your books. hes weirdly a neat-freak.

when you aren’t hanging out on his bed, you’re watching his quidditch games.

one day he has a bad fall and ends up in the hospital wing, with his arm in a sling. typical draco!

he’s a hypochondriac lol!

you drop your studies to sit with him. he grumbles profusely about the pain and the sling. he loves complaining.

you shut him up by kissing him, which makes his expression harden because you two werent public about your relationship yet. but you dont care.

when he’s injured in hospital he lets you groom his hair for him. he cares alot about his appearance. its a frequent occurance. because hes not one for skinship its how you feel close to him.

he warms to the idea of cuddling a bit, but when he does he prefers to be spooned rather than spoon you. and he always does it under the blanket so no one could accidentally see.

he’s a tall, protective boyfriend. he usually wards “threats” away with rude, witty comments, or dirty looks. he doesnt care. you’re his.

when you’re in public, he stands behind you w his hands on your shoulders so he can protect you at all times if he needs to.

he gradually becomes more comfortable being emotional around you. not emotional as in sad or cloying but. he smiles more. not big cheeky smiles, but small ones you notice when you catch him off gaurd.

he kisses you alot before bed, you start sleeping over in his bed in the slytherin dorm, you get away with it because he becomes a prefect.

he kisses the top of your head and your hands/fingertips the most. you’re precious to him, that’s how he conveys it.

after a few weeks of sleeping in his bed, he makes the ultimate move on you and fucks you for the first time. “making-love” is a bit cringe in dracos opinion, he is draco malfoy after all. but it isnt senseless fucking.

he loves the power imbalance of you getting onto your knees for him and sucking his dick. like i said, hes a receiver!

he puts his big, pale hand in your hair and bounces it harshly on his dick. he doesnt make you choke on it though, he doesnt like that.

he actually doesnt fuck you in his bed, the first time. you both get so carried away that he takes you against the wall. from all angles. behind. from the front.

it’s rough, desperate fucking. youve never been fucked before. its such a new and overwhelming feeling. youve been pining for eachother for so long.

he cums all over your pretty pussy again, but not inside it (obvs) and admires it for a while whilst catching his breath.

you start crying after! it was such an intense experience that you get a bit… worried? overwhelmed? it’s not serious crying but you need some softness.

draco isn’t always the best person to rely on for softness but he knows that you need it right now after the way he’d just fucked you.

you cuddle properly for the first time. all naked and sticky (draco HATES that, but he doesnt mind tonight bc its you) and he kisses your head over and over.

hes not big on aftercare usually. but hes patient with you tonight. he lets you sleep off the feeling, and wear his big, boxy school shirt whilst you do so. it smells of him. you love it.

you love him.

he loves you too, hes thinking.

but you don’t tell each other just yet ;)

#draco malfoy #draco x you #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter x you #draco fic #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy x you #draco x reader #harry potter

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reminiscingtonight · 1 year

Text

It’s All Fun and Games...

Leah Williamson x Morgan!Reader

Word Count: 662

A/N: These burbs aren’t in any specific chronological order

Sisterly Love Masterlist

[WOSO Masterlist]

As a professional soccer player, sometimes you don’t want to be playing soccer in your downtime.

Today’s not one of those days.

You can’t really remember who proposed it, but someone said something about a little friendly 2-on-2 and the next thing you know, the four of you are trudging to a nearby park.

Alex (Morgan) was visiting for a couple days, so like the proper best friend she is, Alex (Scott) also wanted to tag along when she heard Leah making plans. The four of you had just had a nice little brunch, and with the great weather in London, it seemed like such a shame to let it go to waste. The solution ended up being a small 2-on-2 match, something that surprisingly no one objected to.

You’ve just dropped the ball on the ground when Alex asks a pretty reasonable question. “So how are we choosing teams?”

Leah opens her mouth, but before she can answer, you’re blurting out a response of your own.

“I call Scott!”

“What?” Leah whips her head around, face scrunched up in confusion.

“What?” Your sister’s glaring at you, a little offended at not getting picked.

“Me?” Alex looks a little pleased, but still feigning nonchalance to avoid the wrath of both your girlfriend and sister.

Shrugging, you try to hide your grin. You slip an arm around Alex’s. “Sorry gals, you snooze, you lose. Plus Alex is like a football legend, of course I’m gonna want her on my team.”

“I’m sorry, which one of us has won two World Cups, gotten an Olympic gold, and--”

“Vanity isn’t a pretty color on you, Al,” you tsk, ignoring the offended gasp your comment earns you.

“Excuse you, forget Alex. What about me?” Leah pushes her way in front of your sister. She’s looking pretty peeved at being left out of consideration. “I’m your girlfriend. Where’s the Arsenal loyalty, babe?”

“Legend,” you repeat, pointing at the woman still attached to you. “Arsenal legend. If anything I’m being even more loyal to Arsenal by choosing her.”

“Oh shut it, you know what I mean.”

“You know what, Leah? It’s fine.” Alex (Morgan) places an arm on your girlfriend’s shoulder. “I for one am happy to have you on my team. And we’re going to have a blast creaming them.”

Never one to be left out of conversation, Alex (Scott) speaks just before the four of you head to your respective halves. “So is there anything at stake in this game? Do the winners get anything? Or punishments for the losers?”

“Loser has to adopt (Y/N),” Alex (Morgan) grumbles, tightening her shoe laces.

Leah’s eye twitching is the only evidence of how close she is to considering it. “Losers buy dinner tonight?” she proposes instead.

“Hope you like pasta!” you sing out, pretending not to notice the dirty look Leah instantly shoots your way.

While Alex and Leah quickly huddle up to talk strategies, you and your Alex huddle up to do the same.

Before you can get a word in, Alex is putting a hand on your arm, tilting her head at you inquisitively. “Love the vote of confidence, ‘go us!’, but you do know I’m the only one out of the lot of you who doesn’t play professionally anymore, right?”

You shrug. “And? Don’t say you’ve never wondered what it would be like to score against Alex Morgan. Or better yet stop her from scoring.”

You must’ve said something wrong because Alex is instantly trying not to laugh. “Oh honey,” she coos, lips twitching in amusement. “How old do you think I am? I’ve most definitely played against your sister before. Not really something I’m looking forward to doing again, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?”

You should’ve heeded Alex’s warning a bit more.

Leah tries not to be too smug when you end up getting Nandos for dinner.

Your sister on the other hand, well she doesn’t even try to hide her glee.

#leah williamson x reader #leah williamson imagine #woso x reader #woso imagine #uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine #Ace writes

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bitethedevil · 4 months

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Living with The Devil You Know (Raphael x Tav): Chapter 8

Chapter: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen

Read this fic on AO3 (Link)

Fic Summary: Tav broke their agreement by handing the Crown of Karsus to Mystra instead of Raphael. Not only that, but she also robbed his house and killed his incubus. Raphael is patient and he is determined to get his revenge.

…Tav isn't too bothered. She will figure something out eventually. Until then she just has to find a way to live peacefully with a devil.

Chapter Summary: Tav snaps. Her determination to get out becomes stronger than ever and she decides to change her tactics when it comes to dealing with Raphael.

AN: This turned super horny, idk what to tell ya. Also, I found it really difficult to write Hope because she just acts and speaks in such a specific way that's really hard to capture.

TW: Mentions of Abuse

WARNING: NSFW

Tav sat up in the bed and looked at him. Raphael so blatantly admitting to what he had done had made something snap in her head. It was as she was finally resurfacing back to reality and back to the person she had been before Raphael had gotten his claws in her. For the first time since she got to the House of Hope, she saw him for what he was.

“I thought you said that your plan was to kill my friends and then me,” Tav said with a calmness that surprised even herself.

“And I am a man of my word,” Raphael said, still lying in bed. He was studying her face for a reaction. “I never specified when. I will one day take your soul, which is my property by right, and should your friends decide to pay us a visit I will kill them. Though I have removed any motivation they might have to come knocking on my door, for which you are very welcome, by the way.”

He ran his fingers over the metal cuffs around her wrists.

“So, you are not even trying to lure my friends here. You intend to keep me here…indefinitely...” Tav said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I want to,” he answered. “I made it clear from the beginning that you would never leave, did I not? Death would have been all to easy for such a fearless little thing like you. It has been much more fascinating to see you trying deal with all those wonderful conflicting feelings of yours.”

She could see it in his eyes and his widening smile that he was expecting a reaction from her by saying this. He wanted her to get angry, to cry, to be scared. Something in his eyes reminded her of her father. The way he would look at her after he had beat her or said something cruel to her to get a reaction out of her during her childhood. That gleeful anticipation as they waited for her to either explode or break.

She looked at him and was quiet for a moment. She could hear her blood pounding in her ears out of anger, but her expression remained unreadable.

Then a smile spread across her face, and she leaned forward to brush a hand over his hair. She kissed him sweetly on the lips and he froze.

She wished that she could bottle up the look of genuine confusion she saw on his face.

She did not say anything. She just laid back down on the bed beside him. She pulled his arm around herself and got comfortable.

Raphael had made a misstep in his eagerness to piss her off: he had admitted that it was not his plan to kill her anytime soon.

Tav was not going to let herself be a passive player in his little game anymore. She would play and she would win. Not by giving him the resistance that he seemed to be thriving on, but by giving him exactly what he wanted.

He had told her the first day they met that he liked when people put up a fight. She would not. She would shower him with affection, heed his every whim, be his adoring little mouse, and when she finally found that damn hammer, she would watch him burn, just as she had watched her father do all those years ago.

As always, he was gone when she woke up. She got dressed. Instead of searching for the least provocative piece of clothing she could find as she usually would have, she grabbed a rather revealing dress from the wardrobe.

It was a tight-fitting dress with a plunging neckline in a burnt orange color that complimented her red hair. There was a matching gold choker with yellow stones that she also put on.

It looked completely foreign on her who had mostly dressed in thick robes for the majority of her life. It felt more like a costume, she thought as she looked herself in the mirror. Then again, she was definitely playing a part with what she had planned, so perhaps it was fitting.

She left the boudoir. She reached the entrance to the main area where she usually ate her breakfast when she stopped in her tracks and her eyes widened.

With her back turned to Tav, she was looking out over the balcony: it was Hope.

Hope! How could she had forgotten Hope? Tav felt terrible but she had not as much as given a thought to the odd Dwarven woman she had met back when she had broken into Raphael’s home. Tav had even promised to free her, she remembered with a knot in her stomach.

It had been too risky to free her. She even remembered selfishly thinking to herself that it was not her problem before they left. What Raphael did in his privacy was not her business. Neither her nor her companions ever spoke about her after they had left.

How fitting that Tav herself should end up in the very same position as her. She really did deserve it in a way, she thought to herself. She completely understood why Hope had stayed away from her during her time there. She had every right to hate her.

“Hope…?” Tav called out softly.

The projection of Hope turned around and a wide cheery smile spread across her face.

“There you areee! And without my sister or his new one at your heels!” she said in a cheerful tone. “He has barely had time to torture me since you got here, you know? Maybe if he leaves me long enough, I’ll be in one piece for the first time in years!”

The sad and pitying look in Tav’s eyes strongly contrasted Hope’s cheerful demeanor.

“What is it? Are you hurt?” Hope asked, looking her up and down. “Hurt, but you still look like you are in one piece…Hm…Oh! Oh! Did he drown you? Suffocate you? Was it the Omuan dreamcatcher? Oh, he loves that one.”

“I’m fine, Hope…” Tav said quietly as she tried to hold back the ocean of emotions that was building up inside herself by seeing Hope again.

She could not even begin to imagine the things Hope had endured. Her heart had sunk to the floor. Who knows how long Hope had resisted Raphael’s persistence? And Tav had brushed her off back then instead of saving her while she still had a chance…

“Oooh, no one’s fine here for long,” Hope said with the same manic intensity. “He prods and pokes and slices and cuts and then he puts you back together to do it all over again!”

Tav took a deep breath. The guilt she was feeling was crushing her.

“I’m so sorry, Hope,” Tav managed to say. “For not saving you back then…”

Hope went quiet for a moment.

“And I’m sorry that you are here…” Hope said in a sad tone, though it quickly turned hopeful again. “But…your friends will come with the hammer and save you! Maybe they will smash my chains as well. Oh, please don’t leave me here after you kill him…”

Tav sighed. She almost did not have the heart to tell her.

“My friends can’t get to it right now…Raphael took it back,” Tav said in a defeated voice. “But I’m determined to find out where he is hiding it. When I do, I will free both of us.”

Hope's smile returned even bigger than before.

“This is great news!” Hope said. “It means it’s here. It will be, it has to be, it is! It’s hidden, but it’s here.”

Tav’s brow furrowed.

“How are you so sure?” she asked.

“It’s what he does…” Hope said, still smiling but with a sad tone in her voice again. “He dangles things right in front of your nose. Freedom, riches, everything you could ever want! Always so close that you can smell it and always just out of reach.”

The projection of Hope froze after they both heard a noise. A servant was walking down the corridor towards them.

“Oh! I have to go,” Hope whispered.

“No, wait—” Tav said, but Hope had already disappeared.

Tav was looking at the spot where she had just stood. If Hope was right, there was a chance that she could find the Orphic Hammer and escape on her own without the help of her friends, which would be ideal.

Her meeting with Hope reaffirmed her plan. Resisting him was not the way to go. Hope was the living example of that. Perhaps, there was a chance that he would even grow bored with her if she simply gave him what he wanted.

She would keep the peace. She would keep him happy and distracted for as long as it would take her to figure out how to escape and then she would strike.

She had been scouring the parts of the house that she could access without servants or debtors watching her for where Raphael might be hiding the hammer. There were a couple of options for where it could be that she knew of: the archive or the vault.

It was obviously not on display in the archive, but she knew that there were more to the archive than what met the eye. She had heard that more artifacts were hidden in the bowels of the house underneath the archive. How she would access it or even find the entrance, she was not sure, but perhaps Hope knew if she could find her again.

Then there was the vault. Her and Gale had tried to break into it back when they had broken into his house, but without any luck. The lock was heavily protected with magic, but if she could get to it without any debtors or servants watching, she might be able to crack it with enough time on her hands.

She had given up for the day, but at least she now had some leads as to where to look. She knew that it would not be long until Raphael arrived home again, so she sat down in the archive to read and prepare herself for her role as his adoring prisoner.

For once he sought out her and not the other way around. He entered the archive and smiled when he saw her. He was in human form. She looked up from her book and smiled back warmly, without showing as much as a trace of bitterness in her expression. She saw him narrow his eyes at that, but his smile did not falter.

It was clear that he was still waiting for a reaction. For her to either explode or break down crying. It was delicious to see him treading so carefully, because he was not sure what to do next. She was not following the script that he had so carefully planned out for her, and she could see that underneath his smile, there was a tinge of frustration over it.

“Evening,” Tav said breaking the silence.

He took a seat in the sofa opposite from where she was sitting.

“Good evening,” he said back, still studying her face for a reaction.

Tav’s smile widened as she noticed how he had decided to sit away from her. She closed the book she was reading and put it on the table before getting up from her seat. She walked over to where he was sitting at a leisurely pace. He sat in silence as his eyes followed her every step.

He then seemed to notice she was wearing much more revealing clothing than she usually did. His eyes were devouring her exposed skin for a moment before they settled back on her face.

She sat down right beside him on the sofa. She leaned forward to place a quick kiss on his cheek that seemed as casual as if she had done it a hundred times before. His body tensed but he did not move away from her.

“How was your day?” she asked with a bright smile.

She could see that there was a bit of amusement to his smile now. It was clear that he was not quite sure what was happening, but he knew that she was up to something.

“Slightly tedious,” he answered casually. His eyes drifted down to her dress and lingered on her cleavage for a moment. “You look even lovelier than usual. The dress suits you…as does that charming smile of yours. You really should smile more, my dear.”

Tav’s eye twitched in annoyance at his last comment, but she quickly hid it. Though not quickly enough that Raphael did not notice it, and she could see the satisfaction in his smile at his comment managing to get a reaction from her, albeit a small one.

“Thank you. That’s sweet of you to notice,” she said instead of the many things she wanted to say to that comment. “It’s difficult to smile when I miss you so much all the time.”

“Is that so?” he purred and snaked his arm around her waist to pull her closer.

She was not fooling him, and she could see it in his face, though that did not stop him from seeing how far he could push her in the little game they were playing.

“Mhm” she affirmed and leaned more against him.

“Hm,” he hummed and kissed the side of her head before murmuring into her ear: “Nothing ruins a good play quite like actors overplaying their parts, dear.”

She smiled and turned her head towards him. Her nose was almost touching his and she was looking directly into his brown eyes.

“You’re one to talk,” she said before kissing him.

He kissed her back and tightened his grip around her waist. He put his other arm under her leg and lifted her to sit on his lap.

He was in control again and Tav was not having it. She was done with simply letting him do what he wanted to her and be a passive participant like she always was with him.

She snaked her arm down between them and felt his hardening erection. He made a low groan in response and his tongue invaded her mouth. Both of his hands were around her, kneading her ass as she rubbed him through his pants. It did not take long before she could feel that he was fully hard.

She tried to discreetly unbutton his pants while they were kissing, but one of his hands slid up her back and into her hair. He yanked her head back.

“What is it that you are trying to achieve with all of this?” he asked, looking into her eyes. Though his question had no doubt been meant to sound threatening, his tone and dilated pupils revealed just how aroused he was.

Tav smiled. Oh, she was having fun with this. It was immensely satisfying for her to finally see him a little rattled and confused. She traced the outline of his cock through his pants.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asked.

Raphael growled in a way that sounded simultaneously aroused and frustrated, as she touched him. He yanked her head back further, so her neck was exposed to him. He left a kiss and a gentle bite just above the choker she was wearing, before letting go of her hair.

“Off,” he commanded. He gave her a firm but not painful slap on her ass and then gestured for her to get off his lap so they could go to the bedroom.

To her surprise he indulged her and let her take the lead, at least for the moment it seemed. He had always been on top of her, but now she was on top of him, kissing her way down his body. She heard his breathing become heavier and heavier the closer she came to the part of him that was aching for her.

The moment her kisses and bites down his stomach reached to just above his cock, she heard his breath hitch slightly at the sensation. She saw his cock twitch in anticipation. It was her first time seeing it so up close. Even in his human form it was impressive in both length and girth.

She teased him by leaving sloppy kisses and small licks up and down his shaft, all while keeping eye contact with him. She could see that the teasing was getting to him. His body was aching for her, and he seemed to be on the verge of losing control.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked impatiently, referring to her endless teasing. She could hear that he was getting impatient, but it was too delicious to have him in the palm of her hand like that for her to stop.

“Mhm,” she affirmed and ran her lips over his shaft, earning her a groan.

She felt his hand tangle in her hair. He was not taking control over her movements yet, but it was a clear warning that he would if she kept going.

“Patience is a virtue, you know,” she said.

She teased the head of his cock with her tongue. It made him instinctively tighten his grip on her hair and groan deeply.

“Is that so?” he said. “So is humility, I hear.”

With that he pushed her head down, signaling that he was done waiting. He inhaled sharply as she took him fully in her mouth. When she began moving her head up and down on her own, his grip on her hair loosened and he let her do it at her own pace.

It did not take long before she managed to push him over the edge. She dug her nails into his thighs as he came in her mouth. He held her hair in a grip that told her that he expected her to swallow. His seed was almost burning in her mouth, but she forced herself to swallow.

He was breathless. He loosened his grip and ran his fingers through her hair instead.

“Such a good little mouse,” he said condescendingly, almost as if to a pet, which somehow managed to both piss her off and turn her on at the same time. “Come here.”

He gestured for her to kiss him. As she did, she wondered exactly how far he would let her take her little game. She felt daring. She wondered, not for the first time, how it would be to sit on that smug face of his and shut him up.

She moved further up his chest, and he must have guessed her intentions, because he smirked and grabbed her. He pushed her backwards, so she landed on her back. He pinned her to the mattress and then he started kissing his way down her body, the same way she had done with him.

“Control freak,” she muttered under her breath. She received a bite on her stomach for that comment.

Raphael was twice the tease that she had been. When he finally reached her now dripping core, he started teasing her with his tongue in an excruciatingly slow pace. She bucked her hips against his mouth, which only made him grab around her thighs to hold her down.

“Tut-tut. Patience is a virtue, dearest,” he said repeating her own words.

“You’re—” she interrupted herself with a moan as Raphael lightly ran the tip of his tongue over her clit. “You’re hilarious…”

So much for staying in control and not being a passive participant. Raphael was being relentless with his teasing, to the point where she was becoming a moaning and dripping mess under him. It went on for a long time and it was pure torture.

“Perhaps I would be able to find a shred of sympathy for you, if you begged nicely,” he suddenly said. She could feel him smile against her inner thigh, as he kissed and nibbled at the skin there.

Tav had to remind herself of the role she was currently playing. She was supposed to indulge him in what he wanted instead of resisting.

“Please…” she said.

“Oh, come now, dear,” Raphael said and looked up at her with a look that was downright sinful. He inserted a single finger into her, making her grasp the sheets. “Surely you can do better than that.”

He curled his finger inside her.

“Please, Raphael,” she moaned. She almost cringed at how pathetic and desperate she sounded.

“Much better,” he said and spread her legs slightly more.

He transformed into his devil form without warning, making her jump slightly in surprise. She seemed a bit confused with why he would suddenly do so, until he lowered his head between her legs.

“Mind the horns…” he said before he started eating her out.

He had to hold her legs open, so that she would not instinctively close them and hurt herself on his horns because of the sensation she felt between her legs. She suddenly understood why she had changed into that form: his tongue was not only longer but it was also forked.

He was looking up at her through the whole thing. He was making a low rumbling noise in his chest that almost sounded like a deep purring sound as he hungrily ate her out. His long tongue was inside her, and it almost sent her over the edge immediately.

She came harder than she ever had before, and it took her by complete surprise. She was grasping the sheets and on the verge of screaming as her climax washed over her. She closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath as it passed. Her legs were shaking, and she could hear Raphael chuckle as he was looking at the state of her.

Fuck him for being able to make her feel like that, Tav thought.

He leaned over her and kissed her. His long tongue was almost in her throat, and she could taste herself on his tongue. It was passionate, hot, and intoxicating. When he let go of the kiss, his gaze went from her lips to her eyes.

She was looking directly into his burning orange eyes when he suddenly changed back into his human form. He kissed her again, but this time it felt sweeter and more loving. His hand was caressing her face gently.

He left sweet kisses down her jaw and neck before laying his head on her chest. An all too vulnerable gesture that made her freeze.

She was not quite sure how to react.

She put her hand on his head with the gentleness of someone daring to touch an animal that might bite them. When he did not move or make a snarky comment at the gesture, she started slowly massaging his scalp with her fingers.

He made a low rumbling noise that almost sounded like a purr. He fell asleep on her chest not long after. Tav could not sleep. His arm was around her waist and his head was resting over her heart as he began snoring softly. She looked down at him. This man who was bigger than her and who was snuggling up to her in a way that seemed completely out of character for someone like him.

There he was, the devil that rips people apart simply to put them back together and start all over again, being infuriatingly human and vulnerable in her arms.

He was doing it on purpose, the bastard, Tav thought. He knew that she was playing games with him and now he was doing the same to her just to assert control over the situation.

She would not be fooled by him again, but she would play along.

#raphael bg3 #raphael the cambion #bg3 raphael #raphael x tav #bg3 #bg3 fanfic #bg3 fanfiction #raphael fanfic #baldur's gate 3

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squintyeyedjoel · 6 months

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Through Your Eyes | Part 2 - More than Meets the Eye (Joel x Reader)

A/N: IT’S FINALLY FUCKING HERE!!!! I’m so sorry it took so long! I’ve been sitting on this for almost a year and it’s just been evolving and marinating and improving, and I hope it lives up to the hype. It’s time for it to be set free. ✨ This is truly a hybrid of game and show Joel. I see them both, hence both gifs.

I do not own The Last of Us or it’s characters. Sadly. But I carry them in my heart. Does that count for something? My soul says yes.

Warnings: Oooo, this one’s a doozy. So many things. (Let me know if I miss anything.) 😮‍💨 Some original characters, mentions of an elderly family member passing, lots of canon violence and swearing, (this one is a big one. Like a lot. There’s a hefty amount of swearing.) mention of attempted sexual assault (not to reader) without detail, graphic description of injury (not to reader) and blood, attempted abduction? Reader is a badass and sports a black eye and bloody knuckles with pride. Panic attack? But Joel scares it away. 😌 We round it all out with obscene amounts of fluff and humor between it all, sweet moments, and just soft things. It’s me. I can’t not. No use of Y/N.

Word count: 11,928

Thank you to @fordo-kixed-rex for reading over this five bazillion times for me and fangirling over it when I was having my down moments. You’re a real one.

Previous | Series Masterlist | Masterlist | Next

Xxx

You rocked in the saddle of your horse as she slowly followed behind the first few people in the group.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Right.

Over.

And over.

Some quicker footfalls to your left made you turn your head, seeing Joel atop his horse come alongside you before slowing his steed back to the slow crawl the rest had fallen into.

“You okay?” He mumbled. “Look like you’re about to fall asleep.”

“Don’t tempt me,” you groused, turning back to face forward with a yawn.

He huffed out a laugh before shaking his head at you almost imperceptibly, nudging his horse to go a little faster toward the front of the group.

Watching him with narrowed brows, you saw everyone else make sure to steer clear of him, giving him a wide berth and a clear path to the front. Tommy’s words from that first day rang in your head.

“You saw a side of Joel right out the gate some wait a lifetime to miss.”

Joel whistled loudly, gathering everyone’s attention, as the whole party came to a stop. “Alright! Listen up!” Some grumbles began to go around, but stopped with one crook of his brow. “That’s an awful lot of yappin’ for people suppose t’be listenin’.”

If a pin had dropped in the grass underfoot, it would have echoed in the vast forest around you. Even nature seemed to heed his warning, only a few stray birds chirping somewhere in the distance brave enough to break the silence. A lone frog echoed in a nearby creek bed. A few bugs buzzed by, trying to ease the tension, and it seemed to work, because finally Joel went on after staring at everybody.

“We need to pick up the pace. This isn’t a leisurely walk to the park and back. We have a goal we need to get to, and back, and we got one week to do it.”

“Who made you the boss?” Some poor brave soul asked from behind you. A young man, maybe in his mid twenties from how he sounded. You didn’t dare turn to look at him, not wanting to move your eyes from Joel, because if looks could kill…. Joel would currently be facing a serious charge for the way he was glowering at the faceless voice behind you.

“Common sense.” A few small laughs went around the group, the corner of Joel’s mouth twitching up just slightly when he saw you shake your head with a smirk. “This was my run- our run,” he pointed to you then back to himself before retaking the reins to his horse, “and the council thought it best you all tag along to bring the most back we could. Now I don’t mind-”

“Yes, you do,” another voice behind you said, female, almost teasingly, making another round of soft laughter go around.

“Fine. I mind. A lot. But we’re here now. So, since you’re tagging along on our run, what we say goes. Agreed?” When no one protested, he gestured you up to the front with a tilt of his head, going on while you nudged your horse forward.

“Now, we need to move faster. Any bandits or infected we pass by would pick us off like flies at this pace. The cart will be the slowest, I want the four of you to stay with the cart at all times and watch all four sides.” He pointed to four individuals who nodded, moving toward the cart pulled by a single horse and rider.

“The three of you pull up the rear.” More pointing and nodding. “The rest of you, in the middle. Keep your eyes open. Everyone keep at a steady pace, we camp at sundown wherever that is. Don’t push your horses too far.” He began to turn his own mount to move forward. “Not their fault we’re a bunch of dumbasses.”

“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard him say at once,” you heard someone mutter behind you, making you smile.

“At once? Try ever,” another retorted.

Joel looked over at you. “What? Why you grinnin’?”

“They respect you.”

He scoffed. “That so hard to believe?”

“It’s a side of you I’ve not seen before. I’m used to bad puns and screwdrivers, not….” You made a swooping gesture to the group behind you, “that.”

He shook his head once, tisking at you. “Shows what you know. I’m actually partly in charge of security around Jackson.”

Your eyes widened as you turned as much as your saddle would allow to look at him, the leather creaking against the movement. “Really?”

He nodded once in confirmation, a proud smile starting up his face. “Only a part time type’f thing, and it’s purely on a trial basis right now, but…. Yeah.” He grinned brightly at you. “The jokin’ and woodworkin’ are just for fun.” The smile turned somewhat dopey and lopsided.

“There’s more to you than meets the eye, Joel Miller.” He rolled his eyes at you, the grin melting into a scoff and his signature sour expression with impressive speed. Though his eyes still shone brightly, giving away his true amusement. “And I’m gonna try to see it all.”

Shaking his head at you again, Joel looked back forward, nudging his horse to go a bit faster and pull ahead of you. “Nah. Not that deep, darlin’.”

Urging your mount forward, you maneuvered to your right, and fell in beside him with a grin. “That’s what you think.”

Joel tilted his head down and to the side toward you as he spoke for emphasis, keeping his eyes forward. “That’s what I know.” He cut his gaze to you briefly after a moment to try and drive his point home before straightening back up in his saddle, his eyes going studiously back to the wide expanse of land ahead.

Your grin melted into a smirk, seemingly a new permanent fixture since moving to Jackson. Or more specifically, since moving in with Joel and Ellie. That thought made the side of your mouth tick even higher. “We’ll see.”

Xxx

In the chaos of starting up a new life in Jackson, you’d overlooked one little detail. While you could repair and paint just about anything on your own, you were shit at stitching any stuffed toys back together Joel happened on during runs. It was possible, but it was slow going, and to be honest, looked a bit like field dressings for a battle wound instead of repairs.

You’d thrown the last attempt of an old wrinkled teddy bear at Joel when he’d called it Sargent Cuddles, Ellie only adding to the confirmation when she asked if you could make an eyepatch for the bear instead to cover the deep scar you’d given it by way of cross stitches.

Halfway through that first week, you’d walked into the town’s seamstress with the best smelling cinnamon loaf the bakery had to offer, fresh and steaming, under your arm. When the girl behind the counter stopped what she was doing, setting down the socks she was darning while her nose went high in the air like a bloodhound as she took a deep sniff with her eyes glassed over, you grinned.

Target acquired.

“Can I help you?” Her voice was soft and kind, and her smile as she rose to her feet from the chair helped settle any trepidation you felt about reaching out.

People hadn’t always been kind about your hobby, for one reason or another, hence why you came with bribes at the ready. But you had a feeling this time would be different. You smirked as she nonchalantly eyed the loaf under your arm.

“Hi! Yeah! I’m the one who restores the toys? I opened up in the old bookstore down the street?” You introduced yourself, and recognition went off behind her eyes at the sound of your name.

“Oh! Joel’s girl!”

Your breath caught in your chest as your head gave a little shake of confusion at the declaration. “What?”

She chuckled somewhat nervously. “No! No, not like that, I mean…. His neighbor. His new lodger. The one in the attic.” She was talking a mile a minute. “Not his ‘his’ girl….” She slapped a palm to her forehead, cradling her head in her hand as she rocked it back and forth before pulling back just enough to look at you conspiratorially. “But can you imagine?”

After a moment of silence where you both simply stared at each other, soft laughter took over, melting the tension between you.

“Let me start over,” she huffed, lowering her hand from her face to extend it to you in greeting. “I’m Jane. Nice to meet you.”

As you shook her hand, you couldn’t help but smile at her antics. “Likewise.”

Jane turned her attention back down to the socks she had abandoned when you came in, fiddling with them absently before she looked back up at you, a soft tint of embarrassment staining her cheeks. “So, what brings you here?”

“Oh! Right.” Setting the loaf on the counter, you shrugged the backpack off your shoulder and set it down beside the bread, fishing out the few stuffed animals Joel had brought back that needed the most help. “I was hoping we could work out a deal. I can do some basic stitching, but even then, Joel and Ellie have compared my work to that of a field medic more than anything.”

Jane snickered at the comment as she took one of the worn stuffed animals, turning it over in her hands and analyzing it as you continued.

“People trade me all sorts of goods for these, like this loaf.” You gestured to it with a bob of your head, then placed your hand on the still steaming bread. “The baker’s son has a birthday coming up, and she wanted something special. Joel and Tommy don’t always bring back stuffed animals so it wouldn’t be constant work, but I was hoping when they do, I could bring them here, and we could work out some sort of trade system for the repairs-”

“No need,” Jane said, smiling down at the stuffed tiger in her hands. You arched a brow at her, waiting for her to go on, and she finally tore her gaze away from the toy and up to you. “I had one just like this as a kid. Loved it to bits. It looked like it had been through the wars before I lost it, patches everywhere and stuffing missing so it was lumpy…. I learned to sew on that thing.” Jane looked back at the toy again fondly. “I’ll help you. All I ask is that I get to keep this one, and maybe one every few runs if they happen to stumble on any others like I used to have. I…. I had a collection.”

When she brought her gaze back up to meet yours, her eyes were misty. “It was small, but it was everything to me. Got a new one every year when I was little from my grandparents. Stopped when I hit that certain age where adults deem you too old for those things. Which was fine.” She sniffed, a tear falling silently down her cheek. “Then my grandpa he…. He started having memory issues.” She took a deep, shaky breath, smiling sadly at the toy. “Regressed a certain amount of years…. Just so happened to be when I was a certain age, still, in his mind, and he got me a stuffed toy every year for my birthday, until….”

You reached out, placing your hand over hers. “Keep whatever you want. You don’t even have to do repairs to keep them.” She began to protest, swiping at her tears with the back of the hand still holding the tiger when you squeezed her other hand gently. “The whole reason I’m doing this in the first place is to help bring some joy back into the world. And I want you to be happy, you deserve to be happy, without me lording something over you like demanding a trade in exchange-”

Jane flipped her hand in your grip, squeezing you like you had her. “And doing this will make me happy.” You studied her for a long moment. “Do you know how boring it is to darn a sock?” You snorted a laugh, and she smiled. “Everybody in this damn town needs to take better care of their socks, I swear…. I’m up to my eyeballs in them. Nothing would make me happier than to work on something that would be giving back more to the community than dumb stinky, holey, wool.”

With a nod, you gave her hand still in your grip one firm shake, a grin crawling up your face. “It’s a deal. I’ll try to tackle the easy ones and send the few in need of more love your way. But!” You let go of her hand and held up a finger, wagging it like you were lecturing a petulant child. “I’m also dropping some of these goods by, too.” Patting the bread on the counter before softly pushing it closer toward her, you laughed at her show stopping grin and good-natured roll of her eyes in response.

“Fine,” she mumbled around the smile, the sound anything but angry. “If you insist.”

A few days later, you’d dropped a few stuffed animals off to her that Joel had stumbled on during patrol, Ellie tagging along with you. She had opted to stay outside the shop while you went in though, leaning against the doorframe by the front window, taking in the sights and sounds of the city street.

“Not a fan of needles,” she mumbled, glancing into the shop as you opened the door to go in.

“This isn’t that kind of needle.”

“I said what I said.”

You didn’t press her on it, just nodded and mumbled an ‘okay’ before disappearing into the shop.

“Hey!” Jane greeted you, pushing aside her current project immediately to make room for the box you were carrying. “Oh, these are cute!” She picked one up in each hand, lifting them up to look at them better before trading them out for another and repeating the process until each patient had been analyzed. “They’ll be easy.” She turned to you with a smile. “I’ll be done by this weekend.”

“No rush!” You assured her as she set the box behind the counter. “If you’re not done until then, you’ll have to leave them with Tommy, though. I’m going out of town with Joel on a run, it’ll take a few days, maybe a week max. We leave tomorrow. Though, no, actually, you can just leave them with Ellie, what am I saying-”

“You’re doing what?” She interrupted you.

Focusing back on her face, you tried to get back on topic. “What? Oh, yeah! We’re going back to where I lived right before Jackson to get the stores of paints and stuff I had. Bucket loads of it, no pun intended.” You turned to look at Ellie over your shoulder. “She’s rubbing off on me in more ways than one, I guess….”

“Is it just you and Joel?”

Her question caught you off guard, pulling your gaze back to her with knit brows. “It was going to be, but the council decided it was a ‘waste of resources’, so we have to take a little group with us. Why?”

“I’m coming with you.” No hesitation, just straight to the point.

Your eyes went wide. “What? Why?”

“You said you lived about a week north, right? Near the university?”

“Yeah. Because of the university, there were storage units nearby, used to be climate controlled before everything, now they’re just enclosed spaces with extra security to keep clickers n’ shit out. I lived in one, worked in another, and stored in a third. Got pretty good at picking locks, too.” You smirked.

Her eyes were wide and serious. “The ones by the north end of campus?”

Your expression went flat. “Don’t tell me….”

“I lived in an abandoned place on the south end of campus.” She had started to grin like a Cheshire Cat. “We probably were within spittin’ distance of each other and didn’t even know it.”

A laugh barked out of your chest, several more tumbling out after it until you were bent over her counter on your elbows, wheezing. Pushing up to rest on your forearms you met her gaze again, amusement on both your faces. “No fucking way.”

“I left a sewing machine behind. It was there when I moved in, and I hope it’s still there and still works, heaven knows, but…. The buildings by the school had power when the Fireflies were there. I’d use it when I could, and I was able to do so much more work. Now that I’m here I could actually make use of it with all that I have on my plate, and the dam giving us electricity….” She sighed dreamily. “I’m going. That’s final.”

Before you could respond, the bell over the door jingled, making you stand up straight and turn to look at the newcomer.

“Everything okay?” Ellie’s voice was soft as she poked her head in, causing you to do a double take. “I heard raised voices.”

You nodded once. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re all good. Just excited. Turns out we lived right by each other before moving here.”

“Oh shit! No way!” She stood up straight with a wide grin, stepping fully into the shop and letting the door close behind her.

“Language,” you scowled.

“Sorry, Miss Fanny,” she looked sheepish, spinning on her heel dramatically before exiting the shop.

You turned back to Jane who looked on amused. “She thinks she’s funny because I use a fanny pack.” Plopping onto a tall stool that sat in front of the counter, you stared at your friend.

Jane let out a low ‘ah’ as if she now understood everything.

Knitting your brows before arching one, you leaned on one elbow on the counter. “What?”

“Why is she outside?” She asked as she fiddled with some projects behind the counter.

“Said she ‘wasn’t a fan of needles’,” you mumbled, air quoting her words as you turned to look back at Ellie through the window. “Whatever that means.”

Jane hummed in understanding, drawing your eyes back to her. “Tommy got really drunk at the bar one night after I first got here. Saying all kinds of shit. People kept walking off because he wouldn’t shut up, so I opted to walk him home to Maria. It wasn’t far, and he’s a good guy. Anyway, on the way to his house, he starts mutterin’ about his brother and his new kid, how they just got back from some failed medical something or other with the Fireflies, most of it was unintelligible.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, looking at Ellie. You followed her gaze, finding the teen walking back and forth in the shade in front of the building, scuffing her heels as she went, and kicking rocks.

“Then, he got real sad, and said somethin’ about how he’d sent them to the university right after seein’ him for the first time in months. It was to get info on where to go for the medical procedure, I guess. Anyway.” She took a deep breath. “Apparently they got ambushed there, and Joel got stabbed real bad, almost didn’t make it. That girl out there had to care for him for weeks, drag him somewhere safe, stitch him up….”

Your breath caught in your chest as she paused for emphasis, unable to tear your eyes from Ellie as emotion swelled in your gut for your fellow housemates, but especially the tiny redhead on the other side of the glass.

“Tommy was real broken up about it. Said Joel almost died, and he felt like it was his fault. Ellie had to hunt, and somehow got Joel medicine.”

You turned to face Jane again. “How?”

“Those details weren’t real clear.” She shrugged. “Like I said, he was plastered. Maybe this whole story is some drunken imagining, but the way he sounded compared to all the shit he said in the bar?” Her face melted into something between sadness and understanding. “I’m inclined to believe him.”

She took a hesitant breath, but stopped before letting it out slowly, then closed her eyes for a moment. After another shallow breath, she opened them to focus on you, and tried again, her voice even softer still.

“We’d made it to his house by this point. Maria had come out and was helping me to get him inside, up the porch steps…. And he just broke down halfway up. Sat down, broke down, and started sobbing. Made it even harder to understand.” She rolled her eyes and you chuckled softly. “He said something about the medicine came at too high a cost. That Ellie paid…. Would be paying….” Jane swallowed roughly, looking to the girl through the window with something akin to admiration, then back at you. “He said it changed her.”

“Changed?” You could only whisper.

“Broke her. He said whatever happened was enough to take a spitfire, and make her an ember.” You both looked back at the teen one last time. “She’s improved a lot. I’ve seen her grow, come out of her shell just since I’ve been here, but…. It’s her eyes. They’re haunted. Whatever happened out there…. It didn’t stay out there. And it ain’t leavin’ anytime soon.”

“That explains a lot. About both of them,” you mused quietly.

“Joel I don’t know much about. He’s just the town grump.”

Despite the dark turn the conversation had taken, you burst out laughing, seeing Ellie turn toward the window at the sound with a grin.

“Everyone keeps telling me that, even him, but I just don’t see it!”

Jane’s face turned up in amusement softly. “Well, maybe you’re just one of the lucky ones like Ellie, and he likes you.”

“I think he tolerates me.” You looked across your shoulder at her, getting back to your feet from the stool you’d been perched on and faced her fully. “I live in his house. It’d be awkward if we hated each other.”

“True,” she grinned smugly.

“What?”

“You’ll figure it out.”

Xxx

Jane came riding up beside you, smiling wider than the canyon you’d passed a few miles back.

“I’m gonna regret askin’ but what in the hell has you happier than a butterfly on a daisy?”

“That’s not a real saying,” Jane mumbled, looking at you through skeptical, knit brows.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not applicable,” you countered, your own brows arched high in challenge.

With a roll of her eyes and a sigh, Jane circled back to the topic at hand. “We’re out in the open!” She whispered, excitement lacing her tone. “I love Jackson, don’t get me wrong, but it’s so nice to be able to breathe.”

A smirk made its way up your face. “I know what you mean. Problem is you trade security for a great wide unknown. The possibilities of things that can go wrong out here are much scarier than anything in Jackson.”

She pulled a face. “Nothin’s gonna go wrong when we have a man like Joel leading us. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Most of the time,” you mumbled. “The rest he’s just wingin’ it.”

“Heard that,” Joel grumbled as he passed by your other side, pulling in front of you from the back of the group where he was making rounds. “You’re one to talk.” He looked over his shoulder at you, face stoic as ever, but his eyes showed his amusement.

“I know things,” you shot back, head tilted back to look down your nose at him. “Lots of stuff.”

“Oh, I see,” his tone was condescending, but playful. “Stuff.”

“And things.”

“Oh, we mustn't forget the things….”

“Yeah, okay.” You looked to the side with an unamused grin. “Fuck you, Joel.”

“I mean, if you’re offerin’….”

Your jaw dropped as your head turned slowly to face him, eyes wide as you simply stared at him in shock.

He smirked. “What? You can dish it, but you can’t take it?” Joel’s tone was nothing but teasing, his eyes dancing with unspoken amusement.

Narrowing your eyes at him, his smile faltered slightly. “You have no idea what I can take.” Nudging your horse forward to fall into step beside him, you held his gaze with your head high, brow arched. “And I don’t think you want to find out.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“When I push back. You wouldn’t be able to handle it, Joel.”

He cleared his throat. “Look, I was just messing around. This wasn’t supposed to take such a serious turn. I’m sor-”

You couldn’t take it anymore. The laugh tumbled out of your mouth before you could catch it, more and more coming out to join it.

Joel lowered his brows, glaring at you. “That ain’t funny.”

Wheezing, you pointed at him. “You should have seen your face!”

A horse trotting up beside you made you turn, expecting to see Jane once again at your side, but all you were met with was her horse, sans rider. You thought quickly enough to grab the reins and guide it along with you, before you looked back at Joel, finding his eyes already searching the group. Turning, you tried to sit higher in your saddle for a better vantage point, when movement out of the corner of your eye caught your attention.

Near the tree line, Jane struggled in the arms of a man as he yanked her back towards the cover of the woods, none too delicately, one hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.

“Jane!” You yelled at the top of your lungs, and you could see when she heard you, her body going rigid in her captor's hold.

The man yelped, pulling his hand back from her mouth and shaking it.

She must have bit him.

Before you could fully process much of anything else, Jane was screaming at the top of her lungs, “Run!”

The hand was back over her mouth before she could say anything else, the raider pulling them both back until they disappeared into the trees, Jane putting up a violent struggle as they went.

Not willing to look away from where she disappeared, you called out for Joel, and he was beside you in an instant. His horse picked up on the sudden unease spreading over the group, shifting its weight from foot to foot restlessly.

“We’ll get her, darlin’,” Joel reassured in a low voice. “Don’t you worry. We ain’t-”

Suddenly the entire group was surrounded by raiders, guns and knives of various sizes pointed towards every member of your party, violent threats being traded back and forth from both sides.

While you had thought your group was large, this bandit raid made your numbers pale in comparison. At least double your head count at first glance, easily. And you had a feeling more were lurking in the shadows somewhere, if what had happened to Jane was any indication.

You noticed that while several of the men aimed menacing looking rifles at your party, they lacked the magazines full of ammunition to back them up. Leaning toward Joel as subtly as you could when they ordered everyone to dismount their horses, you mumbled under your breath, “They have no bullets.”

He looked at you in confusion for just a moment, brows knit until one of the raiders yelled loudly and pulled his attention away.

Falling in behind him, you whispered again, “Their rifles. They have no ammunition. No magazines. It’s all for show.” You saw the moment the information registered for him, his shoulders setting a bit broader, and his head held just that much higher.

A raider a few feet to your right was eyeing you skeptically, looking like he might dismount his horse any second and make a move toward you, so you pretended to trip into the back of Joel, smirking into his chest when he caught you.

Without missing a beat, his arm firmly around your shoulders to steady you, Joel went straight for negotiations, trying to talk the men down, offering supplies, whatever they wanted. You weren’t far from Jackson, it was a smart move. You could get back and recoup your losses in no time. But people? You can’t replace them.

“Nah,” the head honcho said with a sarcastic sneer. “We’ve got somethin’ else’n mind.”

You didn’t like the sound of that.

The raider in charge gestured Joel over to a smaller group of his men, which he obeyed reluctantly. After looking down at you for a moment, offering the most subtle nod you’d ever seen a person give, he began to move toward the small group of raiders.

The boss stopped him just short of the rest and asked him a question in a low voice, which Joel answered softly, shooting you a look which you couldn’t quite read. You couldn’t quite make out what he said, either, but then the head raider decided to make a scene, show who was in charge, and it all made sense.

In a loud voice, full of bravado and misplaced charisma, the raider turned back to your group with arms spread wide, rifle held lazily in one hand, and called for Joel’s second in command - Will - to hop down and join his ‘fearless leader’.

Surrounded by the smaller group of thugs, you could tell what the goal was…. They meant to make a spectacle for the rest of you. Take the leaders down, the rest will follow. But Joel didn’t let them get that far. He mumbled something to Will so subtly, you almost missed it, but you saw the younger man’s eyes dart to one of the raider’s guns, and you immediately knew where this was headed.

It all went by in a blur, and yet it was like you could see every detail in painful accuracy. And you couldn’t look away.

In an instant Joel had dropped three of the men in the smaller group surrounding them.

Will another two.

They both had commandeered their own rifles back off of those men, and they were now aimed at the remaining two raiders around their small group.

The one in front of Joel began to move forward, only making Joel smirk as he jerked the bolt action on the rifle. “Try it.” The raider stopped, making Joel’s smirk only rise higher up his cheek. “Good choice.”

That’s when all hell broke loose.

It was almost like someone kicked a pile of ants. The stillness of the valley you were in was broken and everyone swarmed at once. A cacophony of sounds clashing all around you.

You went on autopilot for most of it, simply fighting for your life and that of those in your group. It could have been hours or only minutes later, but the next time you really started to pay attention, or frankly, were able to focus on any one thing in particular, you saw a raider sneaking up on Will a few paces in front of you, and you lifted the rifle you’d snagged off of one of the men you’d taken down.

“Hey, bucko!” The raider froze and turned to you with a sneer, the expression falling off his face when he came nose to nose with the muzzle of your rifle. You cocked the bolt action just for added effect, chambering a bullet as you somehow had found the one locked and loaded gun the raiders had. Hands lifted in surrender, he slowly took a resigned step backwards, grip tightening around the knife still clutched in his right hand. “Drop it,” you ordered, narrowing your eyes at his slight smirk. “Nice and easy, now.”

Will turned to see what the fuss was, his eyes going wide when he realized what had happened. He looked between you and the raider from over the bandit’s shoulder, raising a brow at you in question, but you motioned him on with a jerk of your head to the left, keeping the rifle braced on your right shoulder and aimed at the raider. “I got it. Go help the others.”

Nodding, Will took off toward the remaining chaos, leaving you with the scumbag at the end of your barrel. He started to move after Will but you tisked, taking a step closer. “Not a good idea.” The lowlife hissed through his teeth in aggravation, but you cut him off before he could even start in on an actual sentence. “Knife. Ground. Now.” With a half step forward for emphasis, you gestured toward the field underfoot with your rifle before centering your sights back on their target.

The man arched his back away from you as you took the small step closer, his hands shooting up higher beside his head. He then began to slowly lower to his haunches to lay the blade on the grass, his other hand still held up in surrender. His eyes flitted from the weapon to something behind you, and before he could set it all the way down, or you could turn to look, an arm wrapped around your neck, cutting off your air supply.

Both the man behind you and the man in front of you laughed, cheering at your misfortune as you dropped your rifle, the weight of the weapon jerking its strap across your shoulders as it fell to your side.

You clawed at the arm wrapped around your neck, gasping for air, and grunting as you tried to get a shot in with your elbow, but he pinned down your arms with his other arm wrapping around your torso.

A voice close to your ear leered, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’ll all be over soon.”

The raider in front of you suddenly started screaming, dropping the blade in his hand in order to clutch his knee, blood pouring violently from a wound made by a large pocket knife you’d know anywhere protruding from its side.

“Don’t move!”

All three sets of eyes pulled over to find Joel standing just a few feet away, rifle raised and aimed at the raider now in a heap on the ground. His gun swung over to the man still holding you hostage, a dark chuckle rippling out through the chest pressed closely to your spine at the movement, and it made your skin crawl.

“Let ‘er go,” Joel said in a low voice, something dark and menacing thrown right back at the thief trying to steal your life away.

“Nah,” the man said after a minute, amusement heavy in his tone. “We’re just havin’ too much fun, aren’t we, sweetheart?” He tightened his grip around your neck as he pulled you closer, squishing his cheek to yours in mock affection.

You mumbled something as best you could, but it came out all garbled from the pressure on your windpipe.

“Aw, I’m sorry, I’m bein’ mean, aren’t I?” His tone was mocking. He loosened his grip slightly, the arm around your midsection disappearing altogether as he twisted slightly to get a better view of your face. “Now, try that again?”

“I said,” your voice was hoarse from the struggle, so you cleared your throat, shifting your weight slightly as you looked to Joel with wide eyes in mock fear. “I said-” In one smooth motion, you swung the butt of your rifle up and back, and slammed the man in the face, squinting when blood sprayed out of his mouth and onto your cheek.

Taking the opportunity, you elbowed him in the ribs, before stomping on his foot, spinning around once his arm around your neck released you and kneeing him in the crotch.

Stepping closer to him once he fell to his knees cradling his damaged manhood, you looked down at him as you wiped his blood from your cheek with the back of your sleeve. “I said fuck you.”

With a quick jerk of your knee to his face, the raider fell backwards, out cold. You turned to face his friend who laid in a ball on the ground, hands gripped tightly around the knife still protruding from his knee.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He began to try and scramble back, looking to Joel for some sort of help as you approached.

Joel only shrugged, looking at you with wide eyes for just a moment before turning back to the poor man. “Hell hath no fury ‘n all that….”

Kneeling in front of the man, you smiled disarmingly sweet. Reaching out to grip the knife, you looked up at Joel. “This yours?” Lifting a brow at your rhetorical question, you knew very well it was his, he nodded. With a yank, you pulled it out of the man’s leg, his screams cut short when you elbowed him in the face, knocking him out like his companion.

Lifting your rifle slightly, Joel began to make a fuss, “Darlin’, they’re down-” but he stopped when you over exaggeratedly clicked on the safety, lifting a sarcastic brow at him. Rising to your feet, you wiped the blade off on your jeans before closing it and handing it back to Joel.

He took it cautiously, watching as you rubbed at your throat with a wince. “Thanks.”

“No, thank you. If you hadn’t shown up and distracted them, I wouldn’t have been able to get the jump on ‘em.”

He looked at the two men before looking back at you, his eyes flitting down to the rifle for the briefest of moments. “Looks like you would’ve been just fine.”

You leaned in closer to him, adjusting the weapon’s strap across your chest. “Take the compliment, Joel.”

He grinned softly. “Yes ma’am, Miss Fanny.”

You groaned at the nickname. “You know what? I don’t even really mind.”

It looked like Joel wanted to say more, but other members of your group came running up, looking around frantically only to find all the enemies already taken care of.

“We didn’t hear any shots,” Will said absently, staring at the two motionless forms on the ground after a wary glance. “Thought you might need some help.” After a long moment of silence, he looked from you, to Joel, then the raiders. “They still alive?” He pointed toward the men, one of them stirring with a pained moan.

“Only just,” Joel mumbled, watching the one man begin to roll to his side, the one who had held on to you, before his gaze flicked to the other, noticing his breaths becoming shallower and shallower. Gesturing to the latter with his rifle still held in his hands, he looked back up at Will. “That one’s not longed for this world if you don’t get something to stop the bleedin’. Need information from both, preferably.”

Will nodded, motioning to the others with a nod of his head, quickly moving toward the raiders.

You had turned toward Joel, your back to the men when a twisted voice rose up behind you, slurring around laughter as if it knew the funniest joke in all the world.

“Well, sweetheart, I’m just so goddamn sorry things didn’t work out ‘tween us.”

Joel glared at the raider over your shoulder. “Stop talking, asshole,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes as he took a step closer to the man, slightly in front of you. Turning to face the man yourself, you thought you’d steeled yourself for whatever you’d see, but the twisted smirk you were met with made your stomach drop.

Laughter turned to wheezing, wet coughs before the man spit off to the side in front of him, blood painting the ground an ugly, violent color. He lifted his head just enough to look at you again, snickering as he peered through his lashes. “I had such plans for you….”

“I said be quiet,” Joel’s voice had grown more firm, and he opted to step to the side, obscuring your view of the creep instead of taking any steps closer.

“Oh, but they were nothin’ compared to what we were gonna do to that little friend of yours…. That blonde? Whoo! She was feisty!”

“Can somebody shut him the fuck up!” Joel bellowed, turning to the group simply standing by and watching the exchange.

Will shrugged off his outer layer flannel, balling it up as he stomped toward the man and began to shove it in his mouth.

The man weaseled back away from the cloth, shouting with wild eyes, “You’ll never find her!” His following laughter was muffled around the material, manic and unhinged.

“Will, I need you to….” Joel trailed off when you put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him to the side gently. He tried to stop you walking towards the lunatic, but you met his gaze with your own, unwavering, and he let you go, following close behind, one hand adjusting his grip on his rifle as he held it loosely just in case.

Kneeling down in front of the man, you got close to his face. “What did you do with Jane?” Your voice was so low and quiet, you barely recognized it.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” The man mumbled around the shirt, eyes wild and sure of himself.

Looking down toward the ground, you huffed out an unamused laugh. “I’m going to ask you one more time,” you lifted your gaze to look at him straight on again, “and you’re going to tell me, or else my friends are going to be not so nice to you.” The man scoffed. “What did you do…. with Jane?”

The man leaned forward, his nose almost touching yours. “Go fuck yourself, bitch.”

Without hesitation, you slammed Joel’s pocket knife you’d swiped from his jacket a moment ago into the man’s hand where it rested on the ground with your left hand, yanking the shirt out of his mouth as he screamed with your right, and tackled him backwards onto the ground, pinning your right forearm against his throat. As he struggled against your hold, you twisted the knife still gripped tightly in your hand, making him settle into the dirt.

“Okay! Okay! Okay! Fuck! Just stop!” He looked at Joel with wide, wild eyes. “Get the bitch off me!”

You noticed some of your party moving toward you, but they stopped with a hand motion from Joel.

He studied you with an unreadable expression before looking back at the man and jutting his chin toward you. “Tell her what she wants t’know.”

“Get her off me first!”

“Talk!” You growled, digging your arm in further, making him gasp. When he turned a defiant look up your way, your knee ‘slipped’ where you straddled him and landed dangerously close to his ego once again.

“Okay, okay, goddamn!” He wheezed, collapsing fully into the ground below him, eyes fluttering shut as his face twisted in pain.

It was all you could do to repress the triumphant smirk wanting to crawl up your face, your brows arching in amusement instead.

“She’s back at our camp. ‘Least that’s where we left her. Don’t know how she’d move much after what boss did, though.” He looked back up at you again, everything about his expression amused, and nothing seemed to dull it, even as you pressed your arm harder into his throat, only causing his words to take on a sinister hiss. “He stuck her good. You think this little knife is somethin’, you should see the one he used on-” his words trailed off on a gurgled chuckle as you continued to lean into him.

“Hey,” Joel’s calm voice near your ear made you pause, staring down at the creep. “We need him alive, darlin’. Stop.” A warm strong hand gripping your upper arm firmly made you lift off the man just slightly, glaring down at him as he sucked in a breath and started coughing, grinning up at you triumphantly. He hissed with a wince when you yanked out the knife, bringing the hand close to his chest to hold it tight with his other, and wrapped it haphazardly with the flannel Will had shoved in his mouth to stop the bleeding.

“You Jacksoner’s are all the same,” he shook his head in amusement. “Bleeding hearts, all of ya!” He grinned up at the group in the most sinister way you’d ever seen. “And that is why you’re all gonna burn.”

At that, Joel was yanking you off the raider and pulling him up to a seated position with both hands twisted into his jacket, getting right into his face with the most menacing voice you’d heard yet. “What did you just say?”

The man just smiled a tight lipped smile, eyebrows shooting up before he used his good hand to pantomime locking his mouth and tossing away the key.

“They had a bunch of dead guns. No ammunition. How in the hell were they planning to do something to Jackson?” You mused offhandedly, mostly talking to yourself.

“Guns ain’t the only way to make somebody bleed,” the freak singsonged, looking at you gleefully.

You glared at him. “I liked you better out cold.”

He guffawed. “I liked you better up close….”

Joel gave the man a forceful shake by the front of his shirt still in his grip. “What’d I say?” The man rolled his head back to Joel with a bored look, his lips twitching up just slightly. “Y’either start talkin’ ‘bout somethin’ important I want t’hear about, or I’ll reach my hand so far down your Goddamn-”

“This one’s not doing well, Joel,” one of the party mentioned, checking the pulse of the other raider. “We need to get them back to camp.”

The man in Joel’s grip slowly melted into a wide grin. “Looks like you need me now more than ever.”

Joel began to smirk, and it made the raider’s sure grin falter. “Yeah, but that can change real quick.” He shoved the man back, rising to his full height before turning back toward you and walking quickly. A hand closing around your arm once again, you followed where it led.

“Get them to camp. Will, get a party of four together and come with us to go get Jane. The rest of these assholes are dead, there’s no one to keep her there anymore. She probably tried to run, and if she’s injured, we need to spread out and cover as much ground as possible.”

He stopped, looking over his shoulder when no one was moving. “Let’s go!”

When he turned to look down at you, you saw something in his eyes close to fear. “We’ll find her, Joel.”

He held your gaze as he kept moving you further away from the scene. “I know, darlin’.” He looked forward again, walking a bit faster. “I know. Now let’s get goin’. Sun’s gonna be settin’ real soon.”

Xxx

As the two of you made your way in the direction the thug had sent you in, your mind began to wander.

“What if it’s the wrong direction, Joel?”

“He said go east-”

“No, I know.” You closed your eyes briefly as you took in a sharp breath through your nose before looking forward once again. “But what if he lied?”

Joel sighed, looking down at his feet as he continued to walk. “Darlin’,” he looked deep in thought but also at a loss for words at the same time. It was such an inextricably Joel thing to do, it almost pulled a smile up one side of your face.

Almost.

Glancing over his shoulder toward the small group that was following along to help, the rest staying behind with the two assholes, he then took a step closer to you, speaking in a low voice.

“He very well may’ve.” When your eyes went wide, Joel was quick to continue on. “But,” he smiled at your now narrowed glare. “I’ve been patrolling these hills for a few years, now. Never out this far, mind you, but I know the general area. There’s a stream that runs not far from here. Anyone with any brains would camp near it. I know the worlds gone t’shit, but I refuse to believe we as a species have fallen that far that fast.”

His smile spread a little further at your soft chuckle.

“Touché, Miller. Touché.”

Grinning like a child, Joel turned back to the rest of the group, his expression turning stony in an instant. “The rest of you, fan out!” His voice was a low hiss. “Keep quiet and keep aware. These trees are dense from here on out to the creek. Keep a lookout. I’m not responsible for your own stupidity.”

Good-natured eye rolls went around as the few people spread into the trees starting to populate the clearing you’d been passing through.

Joel grabbed your arm when you went to take a step forward. “Not you.” He shook his head gently when you looked up at him. “You’re coming with me.”

“I’ll stay within sight,” you argued, pulling your arm from his grip. “I’m not a child, Joel.”

“No, you don’t-”

“I can take care of myself.” Taking a few steps forward into the tree line, you looked for any signs of life, but before you could get far, Joel’s voice was at your ear again.

“Don’t-”

He yanked you back into him, making you stumble into his chest. Lifting your head up to glare at him, you came nearly nose to nose as he looked down at you and you looked up at him. Your breath stopped, catching in your chest as your eyes scanned his face.

“Tripwire,” he mumbled, his eyes firmly watching your lips as they moved soundlessly in shock.

“Thanks,” you finally managed, closing your mouth and clearing your throat.

Joel nodded.

You went to take a step back, looking over your shoulder towards the trap, but his grip on your upper arm wouldn’t let you move.

Turning back to look at him in question, your curious expression melted when you found him even closer than before, his eyes cast down as his nose lightly bumped the side of yours.

The distance continued to close, only a breath left between you when a faint scuffle then a thud was heard, making you both pull apart like lightning.

Turning, the two of you saw Will suspended upside down by his ankle from a nearby tree.

“Careful. Tripwire,” you grinned.

Will smirked sardonically, arms coming to cross over his chest after batting away his flannel outer layer that hung in his face since he was inverted - he’d dug out a spare from his bag after using his original to shove into the mouth of the crazy raider. “We found a blood trail.”

The smile fell off your face as your gut sank. “That’s-”

“A good thing,” Will cut you off. “Means she was moving. She was alive.” After a loaded moment of shared looks, he cleared his throat. “Can someone cut me down, please? I’m getting woozy.”

Xxx

You only encountered a few stragglers at the camp, Joel earning some bloody knuckles and you a black eye, but the remaining members of the bandit group lay in lifeless heaps at the feet of your group when it was all said and done. There was no chance for prisoners, they weren’t going to be taken alive.

Which meant that one idiot back at the camp who’d tried to kill you had to stay alive if you wanted any answers.

The thought of that made you start to hyperventilate.

Which wasn’t like you.

You took everything in stride, this new world required it, but suddenly you felt his arm around your neck again, and you began to claw at the phantom limb, gasping for air as tears began to stream silently down your face.

You couldn’t look anywhere without seeing a body, violence, bloodshed….

Can’t breathe….

Everything blurred by as you faintly registered your feet moving you forward, a warm hand around your forearm pulling you gently along before the firm press of tree bark met your back with a gentle thump.

The soft trace of rough, callused fingers making their way past your cheeks to rest behind your ears drew a shiver from your bones. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. You’re good. It’s over. I’m here.” Joel’s mumbled words vibrated somewhere in front of you, desperately grasping at you to give you something to hold onto. Cradling your face in his hands, Joel stood toe to toe with you. He took a small step closer and leaned down, pressing his forehead to your own as you fought for air. “Nothing’s gonna get you. I won’t let it.”

The phantom touch of that asshole’s arm around your throat still constricted your airway, threatening to make the world cave in.

Joel reached up to gently grab your hands still frantically clawing at your throat, placing them on either side of his ribcage, and you clutched onto his flannel under his jacket for dear life. The warmth from his body heat radiated into your palms and sent a wave of something down to your toes. Worrying the threadbare fabric between your fingers mindlessly, Joel seemed to notice and step even closer still, enough that a deep enough breath would close the distance.

Though, as you thought about it, how he still had room to maneuver any further into you was a mystery, you didn’t even know it was possible. It seemed like every part of you was wrapped up in every part of him.

His voice drew your thoughts back to the present. “Hey, hey. Shhhh…. No more. He’s gone.” Did his voice just crack? “It’s over.” His voice grew a little firmer, if not quieter. “It’s over.”

If only he knew, you weren’t struggling to breathe because of the remnants of a panic attack anymore. No, now it was his proximity. His warm breath fanning across your face as he mumbled words of peace. The press of his skin against yours as he cradled your face so gingerly.

Time stopped, the world ceased its spinning, and suddenly all that was left was this right here between the two of you. This quiet moment, in the middle of a forest, painted in violence and hope, in fear and tenacity, in…. Vibrant shades of both of you.

Will walked up around the tree quietly, clearing his throat softly. “Some of these men were dead long before we got here.”

“Jane,” you smiled.

“That girl sure is a spit fire,” Joel remarked with his own grin, pulling away from you just slightly, but still keeping you in his hold.

Turning to Will, you steeled your shoulders. “Take me to the blood trail.”

Xxx

It took all of ten minutes of tracking to find Jane leaning against a tree with her back to you, heaving breaths as the right side of her shirt was stained crimson. The violent splotch was spreading, whatever wound obviously still angry and weeping under her white shirt, her outer layer long gone and forgotten in the chaos by now.

“Jane?” You called out softly from several yards back. A twig snapped under foot, causing a flock of birds in the trees above to startle and take flight in a whir of wings and wind.

She whirled around, knife held out in front of her at the ready, eyes wide and wild from the adrenaline. When she realized who it was, relief washed over her features so strongly it brought tears to your eyes. She dropped the blade to the ground with a clatter and slumped the side of her shoulder against the tree with a huff.

“Took you long enough,” she breathed in amusement, turning so her back was to the tree with her head thrown back, her face toward the sky, wincing in pain.

Before you could even make a move towards her, Will was there helping her back to her feet, scooping her up bridal style and carrying her back towards camp, her head on his shoulder as she went limp, finally able to rest.

Will glanced back when no one else moved. “Come on!” He whisper shouted. “She needs help as soon as possible, or I’m going to-” He caught himself. “We’re going to lose her.”

As the group moved in unison behind a speedwalking Will, you glanced up at Joel in amusement. “Do you think he knows?”

Joel shook his head with a grin. “Everyone else does, so no, probably not.”

You chuckled, despite the situation. It was probably the relief that she was alive finally catching up with you. “That girl’s got his number.”

Huffing a laugh, Joel looked at the back of Will’s head as he rapidly disappeared at the front of the group. “Wrapped around her little finger like those little things she uses to protect herself when she sews back at her shop. Oh, what’re they called?”

You stared at him for a long moment before quietly suggesting in hesitation, “Thimbles?”

Joel slapped his thigh before pointing at you with a renewed grin. “That’s the one!”

With a shake of your head, you turned back to face forward and head up toward the front with your friends. “Ellie was right. You’re losing it, old man.”

“Ain’t old,” he grumbled, his face instantly turning sour. “Jus‘ ‘xperienced.”

“Then you should know all the words, Joel.” You smirked. “No excuses.”

“I do know all the words,” he groused. “That’s the problem. I know too much, my brain can’t keep up.”

You turned to face him, walking backwards. “Sure. That’s the problem.”

“I know things,” he shot back, echoing your words from earlier, his head tilted back to look down his nose at you in a mirror image as he continued to mock your earlier statement. “Lots of stuff.”

“Oh, I see,” your tone was condescending, but playful as you mimicked him right back. “Stuff.”

“And things.” He was trying so hard not to smile.

You were not, letting the grin spread broadly across your face. “Oh, we mustn't forget the things….”

“Yeah, okay.” Joel looked to the side to try and hide his amused grin. “Fuck you, darlin’.”

“I mean, if you’re offerin’….”

His head snapped back to look at you in surprise as you threw his words right back at him yet again. Joel opened his mouth to refute, but you cut him off with a grin.

“I’m going to go make sure he doesn’t promise her his house or something. Boy would give her half of Jackson if he could.”

“He can have your half, you jackass,” Joel grumbled playfully as you turned back to face the front of the group. “Mine ain’t for sale. Don’t care how pretty you are.”

You glanced over your shoulder, fluttering your lashes ridiculously. “You think I’m pretty?”

“I meant her,” Joel gestured to your friends with his rifle still loosely gripped in his hands, strap slung over his shoulders, at the ready just in case, like always. “Ain’t nothin’ pretty ‘bout what you just said.”

“I only spoke the truth.”

“You’re only makin’ it worse.”

Xxx

The sun was setting by the time Joel was able to pry you away from Jane. You hadn’t wanted to leave her side as Will took it upon himself to treat and dress her wound.

You held her hand as she grunted in pain while he disinfected the area with a bottle of alcohol someone had brought, then stitched it up. Luckily the blade had missed anything vital, and hadn’t been rusty, thank goodness.

So far this whole trip had been getting by by the skin of your teeth, and that didn’t bode well with you.

Once she fell asleep, Joel coaxed you over to a clearing not too far away for a breath. A bucket full of water from the nearby stream had been brought to wash the blood off your hands.

Staring down at the water as it turned pink under your touch, tinged with the blood of your friend, you looked up when a shadow crossed over the little bit of sunlight left in the day.

Joel stood just in front of the dying light, backlit and a silhouette as he extended a…. rock? to you.

“That creek is fed from the mountains. Snow melt. Coldest thing around. Best alternative to ice we’ve got right now.” You narrowed your brows at him, making him sigh in frustration. “For your eye,” he said as if it were obvious.

“Oh,” you said dumbly and took it, lightly resting it against your left eyebrow where you felt the worst of the black eye forming. The cool, smooth stone instantly offered some relief for an ache you hadn’t even realized you had, making you groan softly, and shut your eyes with a grateful sigh. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “Mmm-hmm.” The side of his mouth twitched up as he lowered himself to the ground beside you with a quiet groan. “T’ain’t nothin’.”

Pulling the stone away to examine it for a moment, you arched a brow when Joel slowly pressed it back to your head. “Don’t work if you don’t keep it there, darlin’.”

“Really?” You said as sarcastically as you could muster.

“Huh-uh,” he confirmed with a gentle shake of his head, keeping the stone pressed firmly to your skin. “It’s not a comfort by osmosis thing.”

“No healing by proxy?” You groused, despite the smile working its way up your face, your one good eye squinting from the held back laughter you were just managing to reign in as you looked up at him.

The corner of his mouth lifted so high a dimple creased his cheek. “Now wouldn’t that be somethin’,” he mused softly.

The two of you sat in comfortable quiet for a long moment, his hand still holding the rock to your head gently until you finally decided it was time to break the silence.

“So what’s the plan from here, Mr. partially-in-charge-of-security?”

Joel’s hand fell from you with a sigh as he shook his head slightly in disbelief, his gaze turned forward as if he couldn’t even bear to look at you after an attempt at a joke that bad. “I’ve been goin’ over it in my head since we left their camp-”

“That must’ve been painful,” you muttered, grinning innocently when he cut his eyes over to you.

They shut briefly with another loaded sigh before they fluttered open and he turned to look at the forest on his right while he continued. “Best I can come up with-” he held a finger up in front of your face without a glance back your way. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

You stared at his finger inches from your nose. “I wasn’t-” You totally were.

The finger began to wag as his head rolled back to level you with a look. “Now, we both know that’s a lie, darlin’.” You shrank under his continued stare and he went on. “Best I can think of is to send the majority back home since we’re still so close to Jackson. Have them protect Jane and those two raiders we got to interrogate.” His arms were propped up on his bent knees, and his fist clenched at the mention of the thugs.

After he stared off vacantly for a moment, he brought his gaze back onto you. “That means the cart is going to have to go back with them, though. Jane’s in no condition to walk, and you did a number on asshole number one.” He chuckled.

“Don’t even worry about the cart,” you waved him off. “Jane is more important. What about asshole number two?” Rubbing your throat absently with the hand not holding the rock to your head, you stared into the trees straight ahead before you realized what you were doing and lowered your hand, turning your gaze back to Joel. “He can still walk just fine.” You tilted your head in thought for a moment. “May be a little bit more of a waddle, but….”

Joel chuckled darkly, hanging his head as his shoulders shook with the laughter. Finally he looked up at you through his lashes, a conniving expression twinkling in his eyes. “Let the little ugly duckling waddle back, then.”

“How will we be sure he doesn’t waddle off?”

“I’ve been known to tie a knot or two in my day.”

As the novelty of the whole situation wore off, you turned to face Joel a bit more fully, letting the hand that held the rock fall from its spot against your face to rest in your lap, ignoring Joel’s scowl in protest.

“You said most of the group. Joel, we should all go back. Safety in numbers. Making sure everyone is safe is more important than my paint-”

“Safety in numbers. Exactly. That’s why most’f’em are goin’ back. We only need a few t’do this run. It also made us a target bein’ such a big group. The council made a shit decision ‘bout that. There’s a reason patrols’re only two people.” He looked out at the woods again. “It was temptin’ to leave it just the two’f us as originally planned, but, after yesterday, even you could see the perks’f havin’ a few extra people should somethin’ happen.”

“Quality not quantity.”

Joel bobbed his head, his eyes shining proudly as you understood. “‘xactly.”

Something wasn’t sitting right. “But what about the threats, Joel? They said somethin’ about Jackson was gonna burn….”

“People say all kinds o’shit when you’ve got a pocket knife in one hand n’your knee pinnin’ their crotch to the dirt.”

You let out a snort, unable to contain your laughter at his blunt explanation. “Can’t say you’re wrong there.”

Joel leaned back with a contented sigh, propping his arm up on his bent leg. “I’m never wrong.”

You let out another snort of laughter, more bubbling up and out when he shot you a glare.

Xxx

That night, just as the sun began to set, Joel slammed the back tailgate of the cart shut after helping Jane up into it.

“You good?” He asked quietly, his voice soft and kind.

“I’ll be fine. Thank you, Joel.” Jane reached out a hand to rest on his shoulder.

“Not worried ‘bout you, sweetheart,” he mumbled, his eyes darting over to the wounded raider sitting as far from him as he could get in the front corner of the cart. The bandit cowered under his stare but stayed silent. “Was more worried ‘bout him.” Joel looked at Jane pointedly as he explained, his head tilted forward while he looked at her through his lashes and arched brows.

“Like I said,” Jane spoke firmly, her voice low and even as she turned to look at the asshole, making him cower even further. “I’ll be fine.”

“Whaddabout me?” The second bandit who had tried to choke you said loudly and amusedly from where he stood behind the cart a few feet away from Joel, his hands bound by one end of rope and the other end tied to the back of the cart. “Do I get a send off from tall, dark and brooding?”

Joel turned to him without even fully looking at the man, cocking his rifle as he spoke on a tired sigh. “That can be arranged.”

The raider guffawed as he stumbled back a few steps, Joel striding forward the ground he lost, while you stepped in between, hands extended.

“Stop. There’s no time for this.” Turning to face Joel, you lowered your arms. “Joel, let the little shit leave.”

The raider’s voice rose behind you like a forgotten tendril of smoke, thin and pungent, just enough to remind you it was there. “Ain’t nothin’ little ‘bout me, darlin’.”

Without a second thought, you whirled around and clocked the thug in the eye, making him stumble back further, the rope stretching to its limit and yanking him forward to his knees.

“Except your brain, apparently.” You shook out your hand to your side, the impact from the punch leaving a searing sting across your knuckles. “You don’t get to call me that.”

“What do I get to call you then?” The man sneered, bringing his bound hands up to swipe at his face.

You took a step closer, smirking, and enjoyed how the amused sparkle in his eyes faltered slightly at the sight. “Whatever you say when you’re begging for your life, tough guy.”

The man swallowed nervously, despite his narrowed eyes of contempt. “I don’t beg for anything. From anyone. ‘specially not you.”

You let your eyes travel up and down the length of him slowly in an unnerving appraisal. “We’ll just see about that. Won’t we, Joel?”

“Lookin’ forward t’hearin’ just how loudly he won’t beg….” Joel mused behind you.

“Fuck. You,” the man hissed.

“No. Thanks,” you sneered back.

Will pulled your attention away as he stepped up on the wheel of the cart to lean in beside Jane, his weight making the whole thing squeak under the pressure. “Are you sure you don’t need me to come with you to keep this asshole in line?” He jerked his head toward the guy tethered at the back.

Jane smiled and patted Will’s cheek lightly. “I think I’ll be just fine. Like I told Joel.” Her eyes flicked between the two of them. Her voice sickly sweet. “Now if you two don’t stop coddling me, one of you is going to be injured and sitting beside me on this trip back to Jackson. So shut,” she looked at Will, “your,” Joel, “piehole.” She looked at you.

You raised your hands in surrender. “Me? “ They turned out in question. “What did I do?!”

She shrugged, her head tilting just slightly. “It was preemptive.” Leaning towards Will again, she kissed him on the cheek, smiling when he began to sputter and turn six shades of red. “Stay with Joel. He needs you here more than he’ll admit.”

“I heard that,” Joel grumbled, walking past the end of the cart as he began to check in with the rest of the group.

“Good. You were meant to,” Jane grinned, lurching slightly as the cart began to move forward, Will jumping from the wheel before it could turn fully.

As the bandit walked past Will, he turned to him with a sadistic grin. “Don’t I get a goodbye kiss, handsome?”

“Sure,” Will said with a disarming smile, making the other man stumble for a moment. The next he was stumbling further after Will sucker punched him in the mouth. “How was that? Was it good for you, too?”

The raider in the cart was looking on wide eyed, but you caught him grinning slightly at the exchange, looking away quickly to try and hide it when Will glanced his way.

Jane was laughing as the cart began to disappear into the sunset. Her head thrown back, eyes closed, hand over her stomach type laughter. “Don’t make me laugh! It hurts!”

Will gave a dopey grin as he watched them disappear into the dying light, Jane and the bandit tied to the back of the cart bickering back and forth about nonsense that you couldn’t quite make out at this distance, but you could tell she wasn’t taking any shit.

“She’ll be okay.” You walked up to Will, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, I know.” He was distant, his mind a million miles off. “I know.”

Xxx

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m-y-fandoms · 2 years

Text

(NEW!) Super Danganronpa 2 boys reaction to: their S/O thinking they were going to hurt them - COMMISSION

You feral beasts have been asking for this for like two years LMAO. Someone finally commissioned me to do it so let's get it!

V3 boys version link

The reader's pronouns are never mentioned, so anyone can read this with themselves in mind!

Word Count: 13k words!! 4.8k of those words are Nagito's section alone, as the commissioner requested for Nagito's to be longer than the rest (Please show this some love my hands hurt)

Trope/Scenario: A couple is in an argument or stressful situation. One partner moves suddenly, maybe to ruffle their hair or wipe sweat from their face, maybe grab something or gesture as they yell, but their S/O cowers/flinches at the sudden movement, and braces themselves or cries out, thinking their partner was about to hit/hurt them. Then, the angst ends in fluff with the other partner expressing that they would never hurt their beloved. I will make variations to this base concept to spice up the piece and fit the characters because we DON'T do O.O.C. here!

WARNINGS: SPOILERS FOR ALL OF SDR2/SDR2 CONTEXT NEEDED TO UNDERSTAND SOME SECTIONS - additionally, SFW sexual content-wise, but mature themes are explored like explicit language, possessiveness, abuse, and unhealthy relationships. Remember, the games themselves are rated M.

Nagito Komaeda

It all happened so fast. You’d begged them not to do it. It didn’t need to go down that way. This never would’ve happened if they’d just listened to you.

It all happened so fast. One second your friends, your best and only friends, were piling onto your boyfriend, pinning him to the ground of the hotel lobby and the next, the world became an explosion of fiery red. A loud blast rang in your ears like a flash bomb or a gunshot fired off right beside your head without protective equipment. Kazuichi went flying, the back of Akane’s clothes were aflame. Fuyuhiko took on an expression you’d never thought you’d see from the resident tough guy of the group: eyes wide in genuine terror, mouth agape as he dove forward and away from the blast.

You begged them not to do this. Don’t corner him. Don’t force his hand. You knew him better than anyone else. And they didn’t listen to you.

You’d all grouped up before hand (minus Nagito of course) to discuss what to do about him. He was getting more and more unhinged as the days went on. Before the funhouse, everyone except for you saw him as a bit crazy, a nuisance, a freak but safe at a distance. Now… he was clearly a danger to himself and others. He knew something you all didn’t, and it was sending him into the self righteous hope power trip of the century. Something was so very different from the Nagito you knew and loved.

You’d warned them that it wouldn’t be like last time. He wouldn’t submissively let them tie him up in the old building and wait to be fed or released by Monomi. He was on the warpath now. You knew him. Once he got an idea in his head, that was it.

Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi had dismissed you immediately. You loved him. You’d do anything to protect that freak. They weren’t gonna heed your warning, because at the end of the day, you cared about him just a little more than you cared about the rest of them. Hajime and Sonia, even Chiaki - the more compassionate members of the group - had looked at you with pity in their eyes. They knew the last thing you wanted was to see your boyfriend tied up or hurt, and they felt for you, but at this point, the main focus had to be figuring out who put them on this island so they could escape, and preventing more death. Nagito was getting in the way of that. He needed to be restrained.

You never thought it would be like this, though. You knew he’d retaliate this time, that he’d resist, but maybe in the form of a struggle with his attacker: a punch, a kick, running away, hiding… not a fucking bomb.

As the explosion rang out from behind you, sending you leaping forward defensively, the world seemed to move in slow motion.

How could he do this? It’s one thing to fight off those who are actively trying to subdue you, but to blow up the entire hotel? He was really willing to hurt or even kill everyone too close to the blast, even those with little to nothing to do with the plan? What about you, who he claimed to love, who was his shining hope, who had been the only one in his corner at all times? He was willing to just blow you away as well?

Time sped up again, and you sat with your legs crossed in the rubble, ash and sweat smearing your skin. You just sat there, breaths hitching in your throat as you held back tears that threatened to fall. It felt like you were in a trance as you sat and thought this all over. Nevermind the flames at your back or smoke in the air. Why, why, why???

It wasn’t the little bit of blood running down your arm or the ringing in your ears that broke through your haze, but the clap of a hand on your shoulder blade. You turned and looked up at Hajime, dust in his hair and a cut on his cheek. The white uniform shirt he always wore was stained up and torn in one area.

“Hey, (Y-Y/N)!” He coughed, soot in his throat. “Are you alright? Come on, we gotta get out of here! Smoke’s not-” a beam collapsed behind him, startling him as he hooked his hands under your armpits and lifted you from your seated position. “Come on, this smoke’ll kill you!” You stood with his help, still halfway in a state of shock, and in truth embarrassment that the one you constantly defended from your group of peers had done all this…

“Is everyone…” you spoke weakly, your mind flashing to the safety of your friends.

“Everyone else is out. They’re safe, let’s go!” Hajime guided you out the way he came in looking for you, past a flipped couch and under a fallen beam. Once out in the fresh air, you regrouped with the rest, all in various states of shaken up.

Sonia immediately rushed over to you, ripping the red bow tie from her neck and dabbing the cut on your arm with the fabric before wrapping it around the wound. You thanked her with a nod. Akane, usually a bit scantily-clad anyway, had most of her remaining clothes singed off or torn. She looked more defeated then you’d seen her since Nekomaru’s death. She’d probably bounce right back soon though, knowing her. Fuyuhiko looked more pissed than usual, sitting by the pool alone. Kazuichi was being tended to by Chiaki. You overheard her saying Monomi would be bringing medical supplies and helping transport those seriously injured to the hospital for a quick check up. The students protested, however, wanting to stick together in the resort and heal up in their cabins. Your eyes bounced around the group, looking for someone in particular, though you didn’t know why.

Why? Were you truly that delusional? You must’ve been under some type of love hex. Had you Stockholm Syndrome’d yourself into being blind to his every fault? You couldn’t help it - you couldn’t deny the feelings you retained.

“Where’s…?” Your words faded off, thinking better of it. Maybe this was the wrong time. They probably didn’t want to hear about the dude who just tried to send them on a one way trip to heaven. It was too late, your words had been picked up by Fuyuhiko’s relatively undamaged ears.

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” He scoffed, yelling over from the pool. “He ran off as soon as he got the chance. Didn’t waste a second to make sure you were okay. You’re still worried about that asshole? He just tried to fucking kill us! You must be as crazy as him. I’m starting to think so, at this point…”

“Fuyuhiko…” Sonia warned, a small frown creasing her porcelain face. Fuyuhiko sighed deeply, backing off the attack. He didn’t mean that last bit, he was just frustrated. He threw in the towel, too tired to continue putting up a fight. The old Fuyuhiko would've laid into you a little longer. True to his word, he was a changed man. He shook his head and went silent, disappointed in you to say the least.

You were a bit disappointed in yourself as well, frankly. Why did you still want to see him so badly, to make sure he wasn’t hurt, to make sure he knew you still cared? You didn’t know what you’d even do if you saw him again. The mix of fear, confusion and foolish adoration was potent within you right now.

After assessing everyone’s needs and injuries, it was decided that you all were to go to your cabins and rest for the night. Tomorrow, you would go as a group to the new island unguarded by its Monobeast and resume the search for the truth and freedom.

“Everyone just… yell as loud as you can, or run out of your cabin and alert the others if… if anything happens,” He looked you in the eyes as he spoke those last few words. Hajime chose the phrasing carefully but you all knew what he meant:

If Nagito came around looking to further this deranged and deadly plan of his.

They said as he ran off he was blabbering on, yelling about the “end of Jabberwock Island” and such. It was pretty clear to the entire group that whatever he had in mind would mean chaos and peril for everyone still left alive.

Now back in your cabin, the sun had long since set as you continued to pace back and forth across the floor, from the full length mirror on your sliding closet door, to the entrance, then over to the small bathroom area and back again. You’d not even taken the time to shower and change your clothes. You were still a mess, your thoughts too busy to care about the blood and grime coating you.

Your mind raced, taking in everything that had happened so far in this nightmare of a class trip, taking in everything that could happen fairly soon.

Your mind bounced to Nagito, purposely being coy when you all needed his mind desperately during trials.

To Nagito, who actively tried to hurt someone in the very first trial, who offered to help a blackened if they ever needed him.

To Nagito, who held you close at nights and who you could open up to for hours. The same Nagito who you’d fallen for, body and mind, and who now was an object of fear and anxiety for you.

Were you really scared of him now…? Your Nagito?

A quiet knock at your door shook you out of your pacing routine. You figured it was Hajime, arranging another group meeting or maybe sweet Sonia coming to check up on you. Rushing to the door, you opened it just a crack and peeked out.

Your blood ran cold, a shiver shot down your spine. You’d never reacted to seeing him like this before. Not even close.

“Hello there, (Y/N). Oh wow, you look awful…” Nagito smiled gently at first, then the corners of his mouth slightly drooped, downturned at the state of you. You looked yourself up and down once quickly, now acknowledging that you had in fact forgotten to wash up, overwhelmed by the day. A moment passed with your heart beat picking up quickly, and you began to merely stare at him silently through the crack, unsure of how to proceed. Should you scream? Should you warn the others? Even if Nagito wouldn’t hurt you, what if he made his rounds to the other cabins and hurt the others? He wouldn’t hurt you, right? That assumption of yours was correct, right? You weren’t so sure anymore. “Well, are you gonna just stand there or are you gonna let me in?” He smiled innocently again before pushing his way past you and into the expanse of your personalized cabin. Your safe space.

“Nagito…” You let yourself exhale the breath you’d been holding in, turning to close the cabin door behind him. You hesitated on the door knob, contemplating making a break for it right then and there. “What are you doing here?” You tried to keep your voice steady and even, even as your chest thumped.

“What?” His brow furrowed, rounding on you as you closed shut the door and turned to face him. “What do you mean? I always hang out with you here!” Was he just not going to acknowledge today, when you literally could’ve died due to his actions? “I kinda missed it, you know, the smell of your cabin, your smell. Being in the funhouse all those days was such a bummer.” Approaching you in two strides of his long slender legs, he took you tightly into his arms, nevermind the dirt and ash that transferred from your clothes to his.

“N-Nagi-” your words were muffled into the fabric of his green jacket, and for a moment your spine stiffened, not sure how to receive the hug. You corrected yourself though, and relaxed, embracing him back. Nagito was volatile right now, extremely unstable, and you didn’t want to be perceived as disloyal, untrusting. Nothing to trigger him. He was clingy and needy with you quite often and that part you didn’t mind. You cared for him the way he was… but who he was had slowly been changing. Ever since he entered that damned Final Dead Room.

Nagito didn’t miss a thing, however, and you knew that. Your hesitation to hug him back made a blip on his radar.

“Is everything alright? How is my little ray of hope tonight?” He pulled back a bit, holding you at arm’s length to observe your features closely. This was so uncomfortable: the scrutinizing gaze, the sorry state of your body at that very moment, the sweat that began to bead on your forehead.

“Well, Nagito, you…” you wanted to soften the blow, and so took the initiative to this time hug him first, leaning your head onto his chest. This is what he wanted, right? Play along, don’t slip up. It’s funny, when your head rested flat against him and you inhaled his familiar scent, you felt that warm feeling that made you fall for him for just a second, until you began to finish your thought. “... today… earlier today… why did you do that? I mean… how could you, to me of all people? What if… I mean what if that explosion killed me?” Your heart beat sped up.

“Oh, silly, it wouldn’t have!” He replied as if the answer were obvious. “You’re my shining hope, my everything, and that bomb was only intended to disrupt the plans of those who were there to trap me! I was one step ahead my love. You were never in any true danger.” Ironic, as he ran a hand up and down the arm with the deep cut on it.

“Well, how would you know for sure? What if I were standing where Kazuichi was? He got the brunt of it…” you asked, but you knew whatever answer he had for you wouldn’t calm your aching heart.

“I relied on my luck, of course! It’s all I have to rely on now: you, and this useless ‘talent’ of mine.” His tone was bittersweet. His luck? He really left your safety up to his luck? Sure, you’d never seen it fail him before, but seriously…

“About that… Nagito,” you pulled away, expectantly unsatisfied with his reply and no less terrified of the inner workings of the man in front of you, “what’s made you feel this way, all of a sudden? Sure, our classmates were a little wary of you, but we were friends, all of us. You had them, too. What changed? In the funhouse you - well ever since the Final Dead Room, you’ve changed. In the trial, you said you’d learned about Hajime and how he doesn’t have an ultimate talent, and the secret behind the funhouse’s design… but there’s more you aren’t telling us… I can feel it.” Walking over to a chair beside your bed, you sat down, wrapping your arms around your middle defensively. You felt small and vulnerable under his gaze, which followed you like a hawk.

He didn’t like hearing that - that he’d changed - not from you. You were the only one exempt from his plans, even if you didn’t know it at the time. He loved you and you loved him, and he didn’t want anything to change about that. This couldn’t be just another thing that his miserable life ruined for him. For now, he ignored it, deciding that maybe letting you, the only one he could truly trust, in on his little plan would ease your mind and bring you back to him whole.

“You’re right as usual, my love.” He stood in the center of the room, gesturing as he began to get off of his chest all that he’d gleaned from his time in the funhouse. “How perceptive of you. My little hope is so incredibly smart. It’s one of the reasons I know you’ll guide this useless pack of idiots, including myself, to the highest potential our negligible little lives could ever reach!” How could you have guessed at that time that he meant when he and all the rest he deemed unfit were long gone, wiped from this world by his own will? “I’ll let you in on it, if my little bird promises not to chirp to the rest of the flock, of course…” He grinned at you as if he were a mischievous little kid about to announce a school prank and not a man dead set on getting his classmates killed. You nodded instinctively, not prepared at all for what you were about to hear. “Well it’s quite simple, really. We’ve known about the existence of a traitor for awhile now, right? We thought this entire time that the one of us who was not like the others was to blame for this entire thing, that the despair that ensnared us and caused death after death was caused by this ‘traitor’, right?” You nodded again, wanting desperately to appease him in any way you could. “Well, we couldn’t have had it more wrong, and as my reward for winning the ultimate roulette in the Final Dead Room, I was allowed this knowledge to share - or not share - as I please.” He was smirking now and your heartbeat began to pick up once again. You did not like that look in his eye. The pale planes of his cheeks began to get rosy with that self-satisifed expression he often donned when he knew his plans for hope were on track.

“W-what do you mean, Nagito?” Your voice shook and you sat up in your chair, shifting uncomfortably in place, a motion he noticed immediately. Again, he didn’t appreciate that reaction from you one bit. Why were you so uneasy around him tonight? His mind couldn’t comprehend it.

“Turns out, this whole time,” he held his arms out to each side as if surrendering himself to the powers that be, “It was us! We were the wicked ones. We were the despair, the disgusting evil that clouded all hope.” He began to chuckle at the irony that only he understood in his words. “This ‘traitor’ is the only one who can stop us! They are meant to save the world from the plague of our very existence!” He began to chuckle, a devious and unstable sound emanating from his core.

“H-how could you mean - I mean… Nagito, how could we be evil? Why would you think that? We have been working together to stop Monokuma this whole time. It couldn’t be -”

“Does it really matter how? It’s the truth! I know it is!” He cut you off, startling you as he approached and sank to his knees in front of your chair. Leaning in, he took your hand in his clammy, translucent one. He kissed the tops of your knuckles sweetly - a gesture he often did when you were alone together - and you went rigid, unsettled by his manic words. Another reaction he frowned at. “I mean, you believe me, don’t you? Have I ever been wrong before? Every time I tell you who the blackened is, I’m right! Every mystery I’ve uncovered on this island, every deduction I’ve shared with you and only you, has been correct! Every time I’ve been ‘wrong’ to them, I’ve chosen to play dumb. I’ve never lied to you, I wouldn’t!” He looked frantic, his eyes darting back and forth between yours. When you didn’t reply, he continued. “The traitor, they are the one, true hope for our vile and corrupted lot!” He smiled, again, as if this were the obvious conclusion one should draw from his words, but you just couldn’t see your friends as the monsters he portrayed them as. You couldn’t even see him that way. It just didn’t make sense. Maybe whatever he read in the Final Dead Room was just more lies, planted by Monokuma as a motive to sow more division. Nagito was too smart to fall for that…

“So, what is the solution, then… your plan?” You were almost too afraid to ask, having a good idea of what it would be. His frenzied grin softened into a straight and very serious line. You felt your stomach twist itself into knots.

“Well… we have to go, of course. All of us, except for the traitor.” He stated plainly. Eyes widening just a tick before going neutral again, you tried not to convey the abject fear in your heart. “We all have to die, it’s the only way. The traitor will go on, as the only ray of hope we have left.” With that, you yanked your hand from his grip, and his eye twitched in response.

He was willing to kill you all? All of your peers, your innocent peers who had been through so much already, together… snuff them out just like that?

“Nagito… you know who the traitor is, then…?” His head tilted at that, like a curious puppy confused at his owner’s words. “The one you’re going to spare, you know who it is?” Did it even matter anymore? At this point, the Nagito you loved was long gone. You needed to warn the others. His answer mattered to you personally, nonetheless. Your brow furrowed, your psyche overstimualted by this entire conversation. You pressed him. “Nagito… you know who the traitor is, right?” A little sterner this time, you waited for an answer that would never come. Almost as if he were too prideful, or maybe too ashamed to admit he would have to rely on his luck yet again to meet his goals, he ignored your question.

Chills running throughout your body, you quickly shot up out of the chair. Standing abruptly and causing the slender man to stumble back a bit, you steadied your shaking hands by balling them into fist at your side.

“(Y/N) -” Nagito began as he stood to meet you. Why were you acting like this? Didn’t you have the same goals as him? Didn’t you see the necessity of this plan? Didn’t you love him as much as he loved you? Didn’t you know that know that you - his unbreakable hope - the only pure thing on this miserable island, had to be the traitor? How could it be anyone else? He couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, as the file in the Final Dead Room didn’t name you specifically, but it just had to be you. It had to be. He would delude himself until his last breath.

“O-okay, Nagito, I agree! Yes, y-you’re right of course!” Play along, (Y/N), play along, your survival instincts screamed at you internally. Now it was Nagito’s heart that began to beat fast. He could sense a lie a mile away, and you knew that. Was he truly losing you? “Tell you what, let me shower, I can’t stand this filth on me for one more second.” You forced a nervous chuckle. “After that, I’ll meet you somewhere, um… away from the cabins so the others don’t find out, and we can discuss this further.” In reality, you were hoping that as you showered, he would leave to find a meeting place so that you could run to the other cabins and warn the others. He took a step toward you, and you took a step back in turn. He cringed at that, a hand reaching out weakly for your touch. It fell to his side when you backed away until your back was at the bathroom door and you reached behind you for the handle. “Okay? You go scope out a safe place for us to meet!” You looked for confirmation, fake smile still plastered across your face until your jaw hurt from clenching so hard.

“Okay, (Y/N)...” his heart broke at your willingness to lie straight to his face. You’d never done that before. You would always be honest with him, even with the silliest thoughts. You nodded in reassurance, slipping into the mini bathroom afforded to you by Monokuma and closing the door. It was a modest thing, a small alcove in each cabin with merely a shower stall, sink with a mirror, and toilet all snug into one tiny area. You undressed like the wind, ready to take the quickest shower of your life. Just a rinse for the blood and dirt, running the water long enough to be convincing and you were out. You needed time to run to at least a few of your classmates' cabins before Nagito got back. Whoever you got to first could spread the word. You slid the glass shower stall door open and jumped inside, not even waiting for the water to warm up.

Soaking yourself promptly, you began to scrub off the day you’d had with a small wash cloth nearby. Mere minutes into your shower, you heard the small bathroom door slam open. Freezing instantly, you halted all motion and stared at the figure in the doorway that was a blurry mess of greens, creams and whites through the frosted glass of the shower door. Without a word, the figure approached the shower door and you felt your body go into fight or flight mode, adrenaline kicking into high gear.

This was it… you thought. You were sure that if you were the traitor, you would’ve known. The traitor was still out there, hiding their identity, and now Nagito was going to do exactly what he said he was going to do. You had to go… hope for the world was the end goal that superseded romantic feelings. Your life flashed before your eyes, and you thought of your friends, and how you failed to save them.

Nagito threw open the sliding door, and you fell back against the beige tile behind you, hands flying up to protect your head and face. You didn’t know how he would kill you, but braced for an expected blow. Exposed, defenseless and naked, vital organs unprotected, you began to sob.

“No! Nagito, please!” You screamed at the top of your lungs as he entered the shower stall in a panic, clothes and all. He clapped one cold hand over your mouth, a hand that was shaking. Instantly, tears sprang forth from his own eyes. Were you really that scared of him?

“No, don’t scream, please! Please, (Y/N)!” He released your mouth, throwing his arms around your shoulders in a crushing embrace. The shower head continued to spray down, soaking him now along with you as he clung to you like his life depended on it under its stream. His wild, long locks clung to his neck and forehead and his wet jacket weighed him down. You both stood weeping onto each other freely, Nagito from a broken heart, and you from shock. You were too terrified to move, to care that you were completely nude. He didn’t seem to care either, crushing you in his grip. He was a lot stronger than he looked.

“Nagito… Nagito please…” you pleaded, still not entirely sure these weren’t your last moments.

“I can’t bear to see you terrified of me. You’re… you’re the only one…” He could barely speak through his choked out sobs. He shook his head vehemently, needy for your touch. His hands roamed up and down your back desperately. He needed to feel you there, to know you were real.

“What…?” You didn’t understand.

“You’re the only one,” he sniffled, “who shouldn’t be afraid of me! You’re my shining hope. You’re my light in this darkness!” Tears wracked his body. “Why would a complete and utter nobody like me, talentless trash undeserving of your love ever try to hurt you? I wouldn’t even dream of it. (Y/N), please don’t hate me. I couldn’t bear it!” His finger nails dug into your spine. He was conflicted, and couldn’t fight the swell of anger that contended with the sadness in his chest. It felt like you didn’t know him at all to think he would hurt you. You weren’t the despair he sought to end. You had nothing to fear.

“But, y-you said- !” You began and he interrupted, unable to hear any more doubts of his loyalty to you.

“I know you’re the traitor. I just know it! You’re too good, too perfect to not be…” You’d never heard him so unconfident in his own reasoning before.

“You can’t possibly know that, Nagito!” You spat back, limp in his arms.

“I do know it. I know it. I’ll bet my luck on it. I want it so badly, my luck has to come through. It’s you, it has to be! I could never kill you. I could never get you killed. The others are the despair, you’re the solution. I know it’s you. I’m gonna make it all right… just watch!” He stepped back, taking your puffy face in his hands, staring directly into your eyes. “You’ll make it out of here! You’ll survive the last trial and go on without me, my love. I know it’s you!” He was deceiving himself once again, daring to want something so badly, so selfishly.

He would never live to see just how wrong he was.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu

You, your boyfriend Fuyuhiko, and your best friend Peko went way back. As a kid growing up on Fuyuhiko’s side of town, everyone knew to avoid Kuzuryu property. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately looking back at it, you were a pretty reckless as a kid, even if you weren’t now. You used to to slip through fences and past security cameras all the time to play with the blonde fuzzy-haired kid and the girl with the cool sword. Your parents scolded you when you came home, not knowing where you really were, but you always found your way back. The boy, who always had a temper, and the girl, who was the calm to his storm, repeatedly called you names, told you to never come back or his family would kill you, then played with you all day anyway. You had no idea what his family truly was, what the word yakuza really entailed, only that everyone said that part of town was dangerous. You didn’t see it that way, not when you played cops and robbers or samurai and peasant with your two best friends nearly every day. The boy, Fuyuhiko as you’d come to learn, would always rush you off the property if his father was coming home or when less friendly clan members came around, and you didn’t learn until years later why.

By that time it was too late for you to be scared of his yakuza status or Peko’s true strength now revealed to you. You were besties, and nothing was ever going to change that. Through middle school, you formed quite the crush on the petite bad boy, and although he still had a nasty temper and could be quite aloof at times, you wanted him all the same. A lifelong friendship bloomed into a romantic relationship - with hesitance on his part - and before you knew it, you were set to attend Hope’s Peak together. You kept your relationship secret from everyone save for Peko. Fuyuhiko insisted on this, for your own safety.

Now here you were, on this mysterious tropical island with all of your memories of Hope’s Peak wiped clean. You found that in general, many memories of your past were wiped clean, save for those few precious and essential ones. You remembered growing up with Fuyuhiko, your relationship with him, and Peko who you loved like a sister. Everyone else were strangers, strangers who seemingly also couldn’t remember how they got there or how you were all connected. You were all freshmen it seemed, and that was were it stopped.

Almost immediately after Monokuma’s appearance and monologue, Fuyuhiko had pushed both you and Peko away. He demanded you both pretend like you didn’t know him, treat him like everyone else and if need be, you’d meet in secret and away from prying eyes. This was to be a killing game with rules and trials, and no one else here seemed to know each other from their past. If the others found out you three were connected, you would no doubt all be dragged down if one of you got caught up in something nasty. Allies, a package deal and all that. He didn’t want your connection to him to put you or Peko in danger. He knew you’d both die for him, and he for you, and he wouldn’t let any of these idiots use that weakness against you.

The cat was long since out of the bag. Peko was gone and you’d helped Mikan nurse Fuyuhiko in and out of the hospital after his near-fatal wounds from trying to save the swordswoman from her from execution. Everyone knew of your relationship now, which meant no more sneaking around behind everyone’s back, but Peko’s life wasn’t the price you ever wanted to pay for that freedom. Along with Peko’s passing additionally came a visible change in your boyfriend’s soul. Though he still had that fiery temper, he controlled it with great effort now. He tried harder with people, forgave easier, loved better, appreciated more. The days of reflection in the hospital stirred something in him.

Weeks passed, and it was one tragedy after another. From the group giving you hell about keeping secrets, to tending to Fuyuhiko’s extensive wounds, to now finding Ibuki hanging from a rope and Hiyoko posted up against a pillar with her throat slit, your group couldn’t seem to catch a break.

Though Mikan and yourself begged him to get some rest - as his wound had already reopened once - Fuyuhiko insisted on investigating in preparation for the trial with everyone else. He was as strong-willed as ever. You searched the hospital with him for clues or evidence the blackened may have sloppily left behind. He was on edge, and you couldn’t blame him. Everyone was, these were the fifth and sixth classmates dead in the blink of an eye, and the killer was still on the loose. Your skin crawled and you were extra jumpy today. Every corpse you had to look upon took a little more of your innocence and vitality from you, and this maniac had already killed twice. What was to stop them from killing again?

Fuyuhiko insisted that he wasn’t scared of the blackened, quite the opposite. It was his rage aimed at them that would fuel his strength to move on and identify them. You knew him well, and knew when to back off when he was in a mood. Everything seemed to annoy him at the moment. It was hard to search with him and cooperate when he got pissed off everytime you fussed over his healing injuries. He kept swatting you away then apologizing for being irate and short-tempered. He just wanted you to stop babying him.

Just now bending over to search near a hospital bed, Fuyuhiko shot upright, jumping at a sudden sound that startled him.

“What the fuck-?!” He turned to the source of the loud crash behind him. You were splayed out across the floor behind him, a deep gash on your cheek spilling blood down your face as you sat up. “What the hell did you do?!”

“I just tripped! I’m fine!” You gestured with one hand to a small table you’d toppled over, holding your bloody cheek with the other. The contents on said table, various sharp little medical instruments and tools, were strew about and on top of your body. Fuyujiko glared at the hard counter top of the cabinet you’d hit your cheek off of on the way down. Now you knew how Mikan felt, always making a mess of her clumsy self.

“You’re a fuckin’ idiot! Why don’t you watch where you’re going?! We’ve got enough shit to deal with right now!” He kneeled down to your level and started rapidly picking up the various scalpels and knives around you.

“I’m sorry, ‘Hiko…” the shame was setting in. He was already ornery today and you’d somehow made it even worse. He leaned over your body, reaching for more of the small instruments.

“Sorry’s not gonna cut it! You-” hovering over you, he lifted one of the razor sharp tools above his head in a clenched, angry gesture. You turned your head, gasping slightly and flinching away from him. Your free hand came up to cover your face with your eyes shut tight in a grimace. Upon seeing you recoil, cowering away from him like that, he halted, the rest of his complaint dropping off into oblivion.

He didn’t want to be like that anymore, remember? He reminded himself of his temper, of his talks with Hajime in the hospital, of Peko’s memory urging him to do better, of his display of humility to Hiyoko in the hotel restaurant.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, putting the instrument aside and gently pulling you to your feet alongside him.

“Come on, sit down. Let’s get you cleaned up.” He pushed you gently down to sit on the hospital bed and reached for some simple disinfectant, a cloth to put it on, and a large bandage. He began to pat the blood away. “We’ll have Mikan look at this later to see if it needs stitches, but this is the best I can do for now.” He noticed you avoiding his eye contact and his heart sank. “Hey…” He held your chin, titing your head to look up and meet his gaze. “I’m really sorry, okay. I would never lay a hand on you. That is a fact. Please… know this for certain.”

“I know, I just… I don’t know… I’m sorry I reacted that way.” His apology helped, but you still felt a little foolish.

“No, it’s me who should be sorry. There’s no need to get that angry, especially at you, especially for an accident.” He sighed, running a hand down his face. He had a long way to go. “Please slow down. Be more careful and worry about yourself as much as you worry about me. I can’t lose you, too.”

Hajime Hinata

You’d closed yourself up in your cabin for good, with no plans to go out in the foreseeable future. Every few minutes you checked the locks, on both the doors and the windows, biting your nails down to nearly bleeding. In addition to shutting yourself in, you’d shut the world, the island, and all your classmates out. You were a nervous wreck.

Mere hours ago, Nagito had blown the hotel lobby and everyone in it sky high. He’d finally lost what little marbles he had left. Nobody knew fully why, but he’d snapped too far beyond repair. Both you and poor Kazuichi were very near to the blast zone, and even now you felt a dizziness and slight loss of hearing. You were sure that over in his cabin, Kazuichi was feeling the same way. You wanted to pass out, to scream, to topple over in exhaustion but refused to let yourself leave your post. As much as you were tired and dizzy, you were equally as terrified. What if that maniac Nagito showed up again to finish the job? Though the vertigo threatened to take you down for the count, you were determined to stay vigilant. Your mind grew more and more dull and hazy by the second, though.

Hajime and the others wanted to go to the new island in the morning, and as far as you were concerned, they could search until their hearts were content. You’d given up. You’d been broken. You’d been beaten by Monokuma and this killing game. Why go to a new island? Every time you guys went to a new island to explore, someone died. Everyone was dying. There was a psychopath hell-bent on blowing you up - or worse - on the loose. You were content to stay in your cottage and rot away. Paranoid and eroded away from trial after trial, you’d refused to let anyone in, even your sweet boyfriend, Hajime, who’d already tried to come check on you several times that night. Even as the rain poured down from the night sky and lightning cracked consistently, he kept coming back. He was extremely concerned about you, but you just couldn’t do it anymore. You didn’t trust anyone anymore. You couldn’t.

You trusted Teruteru, and Peko, and Mikan, and Gundham, and Nagito… it was all too much. Who would betray you next? Who would stab you in the back when you least expected it for a chance at freedom as a blackened who got away with it? It could be literally anyone. Sonia had a country to get back to, an entire country waiting for her. Fuyuhiko had an empire. They all had a reason to live and you’d be an easy target in this state of barely conscious, injured and mentally broken.

You’d almost fallen asleep when a knock came at your door, again…

You almost chose to ignore it, but figured getting your body moving would keep you awake, so you forced your feet over to the door.

“Hajime…?” You assumed, your voice weak.

“Man…” he sighed loudly, muffled by the rain and the barrier of the door, “(Y/N)... you sound terrible. I really do think you have a concussion. Please let me in. I’m worried sick.”

“Please go away, Hajime. I’m sorry… I’ll be fine. I just -”

“I know you’re scared. You know you can trust me.” There was that word again… Moments passed in silent contemplation. “... I’m gonna keep coming back until you let me in. I’m soaked… please…” he whined, jiggling the door handle on his side. Now it was your turn to sigh. You rested your head against the door, senses dimming fast. He was probably right, you most likely did have a concussion. Your head ached, your vision was a bit blurry, the light of your cabin bothered your eyes. “You can’t just stay in there forever, you need medical atten-” The door swung open before him, and you hurriedly signaled for him to come in, swiftly locking the door behind him.

“No sudden movements. I’m a bit confused right now… everything’s a bit slow…” Your words slurred out but he seemed to catch them all.

“Yeah, no shit. You were blown all the way across the hotel floor. Come here, let me check something.” He took your wrist and stood you in the center of the room in front of him. He pulled a small flashlight he won from the gacha machine from his pocket and flashed it into your eyes slowly. “Try to stand still.” You were trying to, but swayed and stumbled regardless. “See, you can’t even do that much. Look, since Mikan is gone, we gotta let Monomi help us out. Let’s get you to the hospital.”

“What?! No, no no…” your heart beat quickened, feeling that paranoid panic set in again. “I’m not leaving this room.” The confusion was hitting again as you stumbled backwards a step and your back met the side of your bed. Was this a set up? You already let him in, now he wanted to get you out in the open? “Something’s gonna happen! I won’t go!”

“(Y/N), I promise I’ll get you to the hospital safely and I’ll stay with you the whole time. I know you’re scared but you’re being irrational right now!”

A thunderous boom sounded outside as high above your cabin the lightning cracked. In an instant, all of the lights wavered and went out. You cried out into the pitch black. You couldn’t see even a foot in front of you. This was definitely a set up. It had stormed plenty of times on this island, and the lights never went out like this.

Hajime reached out for you in the dark, and you screamed even louder at his touch. This was it, the betrayal. It was inevitable on this hell of an island. No one could truly be trusted.

“(Y/N), stop! Stop yelling!” Hajime grabbed one of your wrists in the dark, and you sank to the floor, too dizzy to stand any longer. He heard the thud of your butt hitting the ground, though he couldn’t see it, and sunk to his knees beside you.

“Please… don’t hurt me, Hajime…” the words tumbled out of your mouth lazily. You wanted to pass out so badly.

“Hurt you?” He sounded incredulous, almost scoffing. Turning the screen brightness all the way up on his e-handbook, he set it on the ground beside you both for some type of light, as meager as it was, and sat the flashlight beside it. He grabbed your face in his hands, gently shaking you to alertness. He’d heard it wasn’t good to let someone with a concussion fall asleep. “I’d never hurt you.” He stated almost matter-of-factly. “You’re just going through a rough time right now... Don’t talk like that. You know I’d never hurt you. I care about you, a lot.” He adjusted your position so you were sitting up a little straighter.

It pained him to see you this way. This killing game was stealing your luster, your goodness, your spirit. He’d noticed that your smile - a smile he loved so very much - grew smaller and smaller with each trial. Now it’d come to this. You were frightened of even him…

“I’m so scared, Hajime…”

“I know. I know you are.” He spoke with compassion in his voice. “Will you let me help you? Please…?” He waited for your nod of confirmation before continuing. “Come on,” he scooped one arm under your legs and the other under behind your back and stood with you in his arms. “We’re gonna get you the help you need. I know it’s hard, but we are a team. You, me, Chiaki, Sonia, Kazuichi, Fuyuhiko, Akane, we need to do this together. I know it’s hard to trust after all that’s happened, but I’m gonna keep you safe, and we’re gonna survive this, together.”

Kazuichi Soda

Kazuichi sat in front of the busted funhouse elevator, ass nearly numb from sitting in that position for hours. He was squatting before, until his knees began to hurt as well. You sat behind him, handing him tool after tool when he needed it and offering encouragement and advice when you could. Still, he was being testy and very short with you and the two of you had gotten into it several times today already. Nothing big, just a few little spats. You had to keep reminding him that you were only trying to help, but nonetheless he was in a foul mood.

You knew he was truly mad at the situation, not you. His anger was misplaced but it still hurt. You’d all been locked up in the funhouse for days without food and with minimal sleep due to Monokuma’s interference and everyone was on each other’s last nerves. Now the elevator was broken, and the Ultimate Mechanic was expected to be the one to fix it. He’d been at it all day, and with each set back or miniscule perceived failure, he got more and more irritated.

You handed him a wrench you’d gotten from the hidden room beyond the Final Dead Room. All the tools he was currently using were from there as well. Oh yeah, that was another reason he was so pissed off. He’d never admit to it, but the fact that you were smart and brave enough to pass the Final Dead Room’s test unscathed and here he couldn't even fix this measly machine irked him like nothing else. He felt like the word useless might as well have been stamped onto his head. After he let out yet another frustrated groan, stretching out his sore wrist, you sighed and spoke up:

“Hey, Kaz’, it’s okay if you can’t get it done today. Let’s get some rest. We need to conserve energy.” He looked at you as if you’d just called him the biggest loser ever.

“That’s easy for you to say! You’re actually contributing to the group! You don’t have the burden of feeling like a failure on your mind!” He gritted his sharp teeth.

“You are contributing by even trying to fix it!” You retorted, not appreciating his tone or him starting an argument with you yet again today.

“Oh, don’t patronize me! You just don’t get it! Everyone likes you and you’re good at everything you try! I can’t even do what I was literally born to do correctly!” He spat.

“Oh, Kazuichi, give me a break! It is not that deep! Nobody even needs to use the elevator at this very moment!” You shifted your position right next to him, crossing your arms over your chest in a pouting display.

“If you’re not gonna help, then just go away!” He leaned forward toward you, raising the wrench in his hand in exasperation. You jolted backwards, leaning away from him with a fright.

…

Things got really awkward, very fast. The air went dead silent and all anger drained from his face. He lowered the wrench as a blank expression took over, followed by one of slight embarrassment. Did you really think he was gonna hit you with it? A moment passed, and you both looked away from each other, refusing to make eye contact.

“H-hey…” Kazuichi hesitated for a second, then made up his mind. Grabbing your shoulder, he seized you into his chest and held you tightly. His mind flashed back to his years in the family shop, to glimpses of his dad screaming whenever he angered him, even hitting him sometiimes for fucking up on a car. He might have even deserved it - he thought - but you didn’t. For sure, you didn't. He respected but feared his father, and he didn’t want to make anyone feel like that, especially not you. “I would never hit ya like that! Y-you gotta know that, right?!” His voice broke as he fought back tears. “I’m sorry for being an asshole today. This place just fuckin’ sucks you know? I can’t take it anymore!” You felt wetness soak through your shirt on your shoulder though you couldn’t see his face. You returned the hug, pulling him tighter into yourself. You two sat like that for a long while, resigned to give the elevator another try sometime later.

Nekomaru Nidai

You and Nekomaru were kinda… a thing? It was complicated because you were two very different people, but there was a little spark, a mutual crush that was known of and whispered about by the other students. It was weird, because you two flirted with each other, but nothing really ever happened because when he was around, you felt like a flustered mess, a puddle of mush. He was an intimidating, extroverted mountain of a man, and it was easy to become nervous in his presence. It’s like you were touch-starved, head over heels for your handsome classmate and yet the thought of him touching you turned you into an anxious idiot at the same time. You spent a quite lot of time together but there was rarely any touching other than a motivational clap on the back or the slap when you made a good joke, maybe even a very platonic-feeling bear hug as a greeting every once in a while.

In fact, you saw more chemistry between him and Akane, or even him and Hajime, two people he hung out with all the time. Heck, he touched Akane a lot more than he ever touched you. It made you feel a bit jealous, even. You felt silly even admitted this to yourself, as he wasn’t even your boyfriend and could do whatever he pleased, but it was frustrating nonetheless.

You wanted to be mature, to be honest and communicate your feelings with him once and for all because the pining, the unfulfilled feelings were driving you crazy but it had totally blown up in your face. Turns out your relationship with him was a lot more complicated than you originally thought. The talk ended up as a bit of an argument… well, it felt like you were arguing and stumbling over your feelings while he didn’t seem to be upset at all, which made you feel even more overwhelmed. You felt childish, unable to express yourself in a way that didn’t feel humiliating. He always seemed willing to talk something out, but at the same time didn’t really seem to understand how you felt in any other way than on a platonic level. He motivated, talked to, trained, and fixed people for a living, but maybe sports and romance were just too different for this conversation to click in his head. Or maybe… you were reading the signs all wrong. Maybe he didn’t like you back at all. Maybe you and your peers had misinterpreted his fondness for you as flirting, and you decided to accept that. You respectfully asked him to forget about everything you said, and apologized for the confusion and awkwardness, making your swift exit.

Sulking, dejected and needing some alone time, you walked along the lengthy bridge that connected Jabberwock Park to the island that housed the supermarket and resort. The sun was in the process of setting, leaving the island nearly dark with last last bits of daylight.

“(Y/N)!” You looked up from your navel-gazing to see a large figure bolting toward you at the speed of light. Nekomaru’s sudden appearance startled you even though you knew the guy to be loud and over the top. At that distance, you may not have been able to tell it was him in this little lighting if he weren’t yelling out your name. You’d recognize the voice from a mile away. As he finally approached, not the least bit out of breath, he began to speak immediately.

“Hey, (Y/N)!” He seemed a bit different, a bit less charged-up than his usual state. It was like a calm state of focus.

“Hey… Nekomaru.” You smiled weakly, still extremely nervous standing in his shadow. You had to tell yourself that you only felt this way because you liked him, and you had to let go of those feelings. “What’s up?” You twiddled your thumbs timidly, eluding the eye contact.

“I wanted to talk to you about earlier. When we chatted… well, I’ve been thinking about it all day. It’s been bothering me! So…” His brow furrowed. It wasn’t often he was speechless. “Uhhh..” he stalled in his deep rumble of a voice. He took a step closer to you, and you took one skittish step back. It felt weird having him in your personal bubble. It bred butterflies in your stomach. You began to shiver. It was partly because of the chill in the evening air, and partly because you dreaded confrontation like this. You feared he would make this more painful and awkward than it already was. Why couldn’t he leave it be? You weren’t his type, you accepted that! You took another self-conscious step back.

“We don’t really need to talk about it. I get how you feel, it’s fi-” a gasp passed through your lips as his massive hand suddenly flew down toward you. You flinched backward just a tad and felt your heel slip off the edge of the bridge. His hand found its desired destination around your waist and he pulled you in snugly to his wide, warm chest.

“W-why did you do that?” You looked up at him, your face pulsating with warmth just underneath the skin. He raised a brow apphrehensively at your reaction.

“You were shaking, so I figured you were cold. Plus, you were about to fall off the bridge. Two birds, one stone! Bet you’re warmin’ up now, huh?” He grinned down at you briefly before the wary expression took over again. “Hey, I know I’m a big dude an’ all, but you don’t need to be afraid of me or anything…” he mumbled and you could feel him speak from your position smashed against his chest. You looked down now, a bit ashamed that you made him feel that way. You didn’t know why he cared what you thought of him, but you could hear the slight hurt in his voice.

“I’m not scared of you, Nekomaru… quite the opposite…”

“Whaddaya mean?” What did he mean what do you mean??? Was he really that clueless? You literally had a whole conversation about this earlier today. Did the meaning of your words fly totally over his head… or were you just not clear enough?

“Nekomaru… I’m not scared I just…” you paused, debating just shutting up then and there, “I just get really nervous around you because… I really like you. Like as more than a friend…”

“You do?” Why did he sound genuinely surprised?

“I told you so earlier…”

“You did?!” He donned a puzzled look, and you looked up at him, incredulous. “No way!”

“I told you how I felt earlier, and you didn’t seem to feel the same so I let it go!”

“See, I told you it’s been bothering me, because I couldn’t for the life of me understand what you were so upset about earlier!” He threw his head back in one of his endearing, hearty laughs. What was that stereotype? Dumb jock?

“I mean, I tried to tell you, without being too forward or blunt. I was afraid you’d reject me…”

“Haha! Next time, why don’t you try to be more straightforward and honest with your feelings? It feels good!” He flexed the arm that held you close, giving you a good squeeze. You felt your cheeks warm up sheepishly.

“Like I said… you make me nervous…” you chuckled diffidently.

“Well, what do you say we try that talk again?” He began to resume the walk across the bridge, with you under his arm. “This time, we both be clear adn honest with each other?” His eyebrow wriggled rather mischeviously. “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.”

Twogami / Ultimate Imposter

You’d spent nearly all of what little time you’d been on the island with Byakuya. You were starting to form a little crush on him, and he was rather fond of you as well (not that he’d ever openly admit it) so he allowed it. You of course knew about the Togami family’s power and influence, everyone did, so you found yourself a bit shy around him, but having fun at the same time getting to know him. You were a bit of of a people pleaser, both curious about him and eager to help if he needed it. There were times when you two simply hung out, like two normal people, and sometimes he even seemed to find you as fascinating as you found him. When he found himself asking one too many questions about you, however, he always seemed to reel it in, pulling back like he had some type of wall up.

You were fine with it. You’d just met a few days ago after all, and the friendship… or something more, would form when it formed. You didn’t want to force it. You were already feeling a bit silly and about wanting to connect with the Ultimate Affulent Progeny in the first place. Someone with his wealth and status could probably spend his time with anyone he wanted.

The threat of the start of a potential killing game was putting everyone on edge, even the scion himself, though he carried it better than most. He genuinely looked like someone your class might be able to look to as a leader.

The group had decided to throw a little party later that night, and you offered to help Byakuya tick off and confiscate all weapons or even potential weapons in the old building that would house this party… for some reason. Every loose wooden plank, every butter knife, every pointy object had to go. It felt like he knew something no one else did… but, you happily followed along, helping him with this task. Honestly, though, on the inside, you feared he was being a little too uptight. How would he enjoy the little get together tonight in this state of uneasiness?

In between locking up items he dubbed nefarious and double checking every corner of the building, you two actually got to know each other a little better. After hours of work, he was satisfied. All the while, he seemed to be watching Teruteru and Nagito like a hawk as the two shuffled in and out of the building preparing tonight’s dishes and cleaning respectively. What was Byakuya hiding from you? Why all the suspicion? Did he genuinely think one of your classmates would kill someone tonight? That was just insane to even think about.

Trying to ease his mind, you started up an innocent conversation.

“You shouldn’t worry so much, really! Tonight will be great! I know it. I brought my good luck charm and everything!” Smiling and seeking to distract his tense mind, you brought a little trinket out from your back pocket. In your flattened out hand you displayed a little baby blue pocket knife, barely the size of your palm. “My dad gave it to me when I was really little, and I -”

“What is wrong with you?!” Byakuya’s hand shot out toward you to grab the small blade and you flinched backward, holding your hands up defnesively and dropping it onto the floor in the process. The sudden, angry movement had frightened you, especially coming from a man who knew how to hold an intimidating presence.

The silence then was palpable as it hung in the air, and he, the real him, wanted to apologize, to explain himself and express regret for overreacting. He wanted to say that you’d been a joy to hang out with these past few days and that he’d never raise a hand to you, but Byakuya Togami would never lower himself to say these things… and right now, he was Byakuya Togami. He steeled himself to speak.

“I was merely going to confiscate the blade from you. What a gross overreaction…” He spoke condescendingly. “Do you really think me some animal, some lesser beast who physically assaults people? Don’t insult me so…” He scoffed, plucked the blade from the ground and pocketed it. “I don’t know what kind of men you’ve dealt with, but clearly you’ve been hanging around with the dregs of humanity.” Crossing his arms nonchalantly over his chest, he left you there without another word, satisfied that his facade had remained in tact. Inside, it burned, it hurt to be so cruel to such a sweet person like you. He left to make final preparations for the party tonight and you stayed behind, offering to help Teruteru and Nagito since you were already there. It would take your mind off of the humiliation you just suffered.

Early into the next morning, when Monokuma dismissed the survivors of the very first class trial back to their cottages at last, you’d nearly missed it as you crawled onto your bed in a tired, traumatized ball:

A rectangular black box sat on your bedside table. It wasn’t yours, and you were sure your cabin door was locked. How did it even get there?

You opened it cautiously and found the most expensive looking, elegant, and elaborate looking pen in the world within. On one side was the Togami family crest, engraved delicately and masterfully. Tucked under it was a small note. You read it, tears welling up immediately.

A replacement good luck charm - T

Gundham Tanaka

Gundham felt totally secure with you, a feeling he’d never truly felt with anyone else. He’d never state it in plain words, but it was true nonetheless. You’d always been accepting of him and his rather eccentric ways. He didn’t need to feel like an outcast around you. He felt completely seen, understood on a whole new level. He could’ve sworn you cast some sort of spell over him, the way his cheeks and the tips of his ears would feel like they were on fire when you complimented him or held his hand. He nearly burst into flames when you once pecked his cheek with your soft lips after he carried a bunch of stuff back to your cabin for you as a favor.

You two spent nearly every day together. Everyone knew you two were a thing and you didn’t mind the teasing. You had no reason to be ashamed of how you felt about Gundham. He was the kindest soul you’d ever met, it just took a little digging to figure that out. Other than Hajime and Sonia - the only other two who really tried to get to know him - you were the only one who he’d let tend to the Devas. You often held them, fed them, watched them in your cabin when Gundham showered or needed a short break. The hamsters and Gundham himself provided a much needed light for you in the darkness of this killing game. The little things you did with him mattered so much to you. You appreciated every moment when in this place, you could be very much dead the next day. You swam at the pool and went shopping at the supermarket together on the main island, ate at the diner together on the second, hung out at the music venue together on the third, and now, trapped in the funhouse with starvation as the motive, Gundham insisted that you share the sound-proof, luxury room with him.

You’d initially gotten extremely flustered by his request but eventually accepted. Gundham didn’t seem to think twice about it. You supposed he was so naive to romance that he saw nothing wrong with you two sharing a bedroom at all. Maybe he did know, but cared more about your safety than the embarrassment. You knew he’d never do anything without your express permission anyway, so after deliberating, decided it was a non-issue. It was unusual for Monomi not to pop up to protest, however.

Days into being trapped in the funhouse, you sat at the small desk in your room feeling like a total asshole. You’d been in an argument with Gundham earlier, one that you’d totally started and knew you were in the wrong for. You rarely ever had a disagreement with him, much less gotten into a full-on fight. It was a bit one-sided however, as you yelled and complained while he just tried to reason with you and ultimately ended up leaving you alone in the room for some space. You regretted it the instant he left, and had made up your mind to apologize the second he returned. You were miserable: starving and dead tired from Monokuma Tai Chi every morning, but that was no excuse for your behavior. Everyone else was hungry and cranky, too, and you’d taken your anger out on Gundham for no reason.

You pulled out the headphones and small MP3 player Hajime gifted you when you hung out a few weeks back and slumped forward on the desk, moping as you put the headphones in and blasted the music as loud as the cheap earbuds would allow. You had to pass the time somehow, and walking around looking for Gundham when he’d eventually come back here to sleep would waste what little energy you had left. There was a small part of your mind that wondered: what if he didn’t come back? Your heart ached. Everyone was starving… someone would have to kill soon to get out of this hopeless situation. You could only hope and pray that the last thing you said to Gundham wouldn’t be that hateful nonsense. You let yourself zone out, head down on the desk and eyes closed lazily. You began to doze off and wouldn’t know how long you were out.

You awoke to the music still blasting in your ears and a tap on your shoulder.

“Hmm?” Groggily you turned to see Gundham behind you. Gripped tightly in his gauze-wrapped hand was a large, sharp knife the length of your forearm. Your eyes widened and you screamed, taken off guard by the frightening sight. “Gundham, please, no!” It was a bit odd that he looked more shocked than you did as you backed away from him, falling off the chair and onto the floor behind it with a thud. Tears began to stream down you face.

You didn’t think it would end like this, but it was kinda of the perfect location. The room was sound-proof, after all. You just never expected a betrayal this cruel. Maybe you should’ve. After all this time, all of these deaths, it was naive to truly trust anyone on this island. Why did it have to be him though of all people? Maybe he had to do this. After all, the Devas were starving, too, and they meant the world to him. Getting out meant saving them as well.

Tossing the knife onto the bed, he rushed over to you, kneeling to the floor and tearing the earbuds out of your ears.

“What sort of demon has possessed you?!” Confusion coated his visage and the Devas hopped down from their master’s scarf and swarmed you, sensing your distress.

“What do you mean?! You just scared the shit outta me!” Fresh tears sprang forward with your frustration.

“That was never my intention, my beloved…” he shook his head apologetically.

“Well you can’t just pop up out of nowhere with a knife like that, especially in a situation like this! I thought you were about to fucking murder me!”

“I assumed you knew that I would never do you harm, so I didn’t see an issue with my approach… These other peasants would do well to fear my dark powers, but I thought you knew that my loyalties lie with you, dear one!” He pulled off one of his dramatic gestures. You pulled your knees up into yourself, suddenly feeling very stupid.

He proceeded to explain that while he was gone, he’d decided to take on the Final Dead Room in hopes of finding a route of escape from the funhouse because he couldn’t stand to see you suffer like this for a single day more. Instead, he came upon a cache of weapons of every sort and size, and begged you to keep that fact a secret. Pulling you to your feet, he sat you down on the bed and handed you the knife.

“Since I can not spirit you away from this hell, I have chosen to provide you with the means to defend yourself should I ever fail to. Hide it somewhere that is always accessible to you and no one else. And my darling, I beg of thee,” he pleaded, “cease all usage of that wretched machine!” He pointed to the MP3 player discarded onto the ground. “You must be on your guard at all times in this place, especially if the Devas and I are not there to guard you.” Your bottom lip quivered, heart swelling at his concern for you, even after you screamed at him earlier. You sat the knife down and threw your arms around him, collapsing into his chest. You didn’t deserve him.

“I’m so sorry, Gundham! After I sat here and bitched at you for no reason, you went out and still thought of my safety? I’m so, so sorry!”

“Think nothing of it, dear one…” He mumbled, burying his red face in his scarf.

Teruteru Hanamura

Most of the your other classmates were repulsed or at the very least annoyed by Teruteru’s antics. His behavior: overtly flirty and forward, even to the point of perversion, was a major turn off for most of the people he talked to, but you actually really liked him. You found his one-liners funny, his pick up lines amusing. He was genuinely fun to hang out with, in your opinion. He complimented you a lot, and you would playfully tease and flirt back. He really seemed to enjoy the matching of his energy, and though you’d only known each other for about a week, you spent a lot of time together. He was usually showing you some simple yet delicious recipes and letting you taste test his meals (of course with a lot of innuendos built in) and you would share your interests with him while you cooked together. You noticed, also, that the more time you spent with him, the less time he spent bothering the others. Maybe all he needed was a little positive attention all along.

Tonight, all of your classmates would be attending a party, both to socailize and ensure that nothing could happen because you’d all be in the same place, which would leave too many witnesses, therefore making a killing unlikely. Teruteru of course was excited to do what he did best and provide the meals for the party, but his mood seemed to be like a rollercaster that day. As you spent hours helping him cook, sometimes leaving to take breaks or talk to the others, he seemed to go from flirty to worried, salacious to nervous, confident to angry. His mood seemed to turn foul when Nagito would waltz by the kitchen, passing through as he did his assigned cleaning duties in the party building. You noted this, but it was strange, as you hadn’t known Teruteru to particularly dislike any of your peers… Did he have an issue with Nagito? But Nagito was so chill…

No matter the reason for his mood swings, you took them for what they were and tried to help out by offering an extra hand (which he made a dirty joke about) or changing the subject when he got gloomy. You could only do so much to stabilize his mood, however, and eventually he seemed to just be barking orders or frustrated with you. He was already in a bad mood and you didn’t want to contribute to it. You weren’t a true chef anyway and you were probably just getting in the way, you figured, so you took a big tray of finished dishes and began to make your way out to the dining hall.

Your shoe caught onto a thick chord just outside the kitchen door, just a piece of junk Nagito hadn’t gotten to yet and you tumbled forward, spilling the entire tray onto the floor. You gasped as you hit the floor, your knees stinging with the impact. Teruteru, who witnessed the whole thing, ran over to you with a shriek to make sure you were okay. The melancholy melted away, and checking on you was all that mattered.

“(Y/N)!” Mistaking his tone for anger because of his previously existing foul mood, you were startled by his approach, flinching away, shrinking backwards slightly. You fucked up, you ruined the dishes he spent hours making. He was probably furious with you. He stopped dead in his tracks, shocked by that instinctual response from you. With your reaction, he finally realized how rude he’d been to you all night. It wasn’t your fault Nagito was up to no good, and even knowing what he knew, he shoudn’t have taken his mood out on you. He was pushing away the one person who treated him with such kindness and respect on this island. His mother wouldn’t have been proud of that. “Take my hand.” He extended it to you and helped you to your feet.

“I’m so sorry, Teruteru, your food-!” You began to apologize profusely but he cut you off.

“I can always make more. I enjoy making more. Are you alright? You took quite the spill!” He smiled warmly at you. “I shoudln’t have been so… intense earlier. My apologies.”

“Oh I’m fine! It’s okay. But, about the food… are you sure it’s gonna be okay? Can we really make more in time?” He nodded enthusiastically in response. When you beamed back at him, he felt his inside twist into a knot.

He had to stop Nagito tonight. It was decided. He didn’t know how, or the extent of Nagito’s plans, but he couldn’t let him start the killing game with that knife he’d caught him taping under the the dining hall table earlier that morning.

Because… what if Nagito chose you, as his victim?

579 notes · View notes

mcflymemes · 1 year

Text

ASSASSIN'S CREED III PROMPTS * assorted dialogue from the video game, adjust as necessary

we never took them seriously. maybe we should have.

i'm getting ahead of myself.

we've been fighting them for thousands of years.

i've seen the truth.

it holds the power to change everything.

there's only so much we can do.

if we can't find a way to stop it, these next few weeks will probably be our last.

it worked. we think. we hope.

we're here. let's go.

you must find the key.

here we go again.

do you hear us?

you collapsed and entered into a fugue state.

you weren't in any danger.

i know what i'm looking for, by the way. it's a key.

i'd like to run a couple of quick tests.

have you seen it before?

my father brought me here as a child.

on to business then.

the stairs are watched. you'll need to find another way up.

you should have come to me.

for what it's worth, i'm sorry.

that's why we've called you here.

i am yours to command.

well, then i'd best be on my way.

my research has been stolen. without it, i'm of no use to you.

i'll see if i can't speed things up.

we need to find a way inside.

i believe i've found the solution to our problem.

we'll attack on my signal.

i made a promise to you, [name], one i intend to keep.

the sooner we're done, the sooner we can get out of this cold.

it does not engender peace to cut your way to resolution.

if we applied the sword more liberally and more often, the world would be a better place than it is today.

now i've upheld my part of the bargain, i expect that you will honor yours?

you seem disappointed.

you have shown me great kindness, [name]. thank you.

really? that's your response? it's like dealing with a six year old.

i sense my words cause pain.

do you even know what that symbol represents?

come on. i've got something to show you.

very well. i'll train you.

you're also going to need a new name.

what's true and what is aren't always the same.

you'll be happy to hear there's actually good news for once.

it's silly for us to go back and forth like this.

we cannot give up our home.

do you have a name? do you know who is responsible?

time will tell if you speak the truth.

why are you here? has something happened?

you should have heeded my warning.

perhaps you'll respond better to the sword.

are you threatening us?

i thought it might bring clarity or instill a sense of accomplishment. but all i feel is regret.

such sacrifices must never come lightly.

all of them must be dealt with in turn.

you speak the words, but do you believe them?

takes a true monster to do something like this.

every day i wait, more will suffer.

many who should've died today now live because of you.

we do the best we can with what we've got.

you wield your blade like a man, but your mouth like a child.

there are more important things at stake here.

i do what is right. no more. no less.

i don't even see a stall in here. what if i had to take a dump?

please just mute the microphone if you do.

life is not a fairy tale, and there are no happy endings.

in your haste to save the world, take care you don't destroy it!

our interests are aligned.

perhaps some time together might do us good.

i can kill you now if you prefer.

would you like me to come along and hold your hand, perhaps?

why the change of heart? where is this coming from?

you oppose tyranny. injustice. these are just symptoms. their true cause is human weakness.

you have said so much... but you have shown me nothing.

tell me of your latest exploits.

you have not come this far to throw it all away over misplaced sentiment.

there is nothing more to discuss.

i should have stayed.

now you must hide it.

what once was shall be again.

113 notes · View notes

cultoftrinkets · 3 months

Text

Interest has been shown. The first page exists below.

Yet sacrificial beast take heed, for a crown cannot sit upon two brows.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t been warned, now that Lambert thought about it. What god wanted freedom without first maintaining the powers he already had? And truly, had Lambert expected to survive the conclusion of their deal? Certainly not, some part of them had already known that their fate would likely take a twist, from the desperate clings of survival to the turbulent unknown.

Still, they’d been…optimistic.

They’d let themselves become attached to their new life, as best they could in the throes of grief. Replacing distant cloudy figures of guardianship with their first mentor, Ratau. The giggles and games played with friends long past haunted their dreams, and yet they awoke to equally friendly faces, all praising their name, all overjoyed at their deeds. Lambert had grown fond of them, their little flock, built from the stragglers of those not unlike them; family gone, friends sacrificed to the old faith, and yet they remained. Scarred, yet alive, and given new purpose within their cult, to be whatever they wanted to be. It was their loyalty that kept Lambert living- for every lamb needed a flock to support them- and together, from one, to two, to three, to four, to five, to over 30, Lambert’s flock, faith, and power grew.

They’d let themselves become used to it. The clack of rolling dice during knucklebones, Ratau’s silly laughter each time he won a measly ten gold from them, the rowdiness of the shack as it slowly filled with Ratau’s most loyal, goading them on. The nights spent curled up in their tent, gazing out at their flock- cult, Lambert, cult- and watching their breaths rise and fall steadily in slumber. The warmth of the ovens, the steady flow of water onto the farm beds, the toiling of their followers as they collected resources for their leader to use whenever they pleased. Lambert had never fashioned themselves a chieftain in their mind, had left such fantasies to their older siblings, who had more hold on the title then they ever had. Still, when they looked upon their cult, met with awe-filled eyes and enthusiastic expressions, they wondered if maybe they would have been a good one. If perhaps, under their rule, their family might have survived.

They’d never know. Their family was dead, gone, taken from them by the bishops, and soon, they would be too. They’d gotten the revenge that they’d wanted, hadn’t they? Lambert had slain each of the people responsible for the eradication of their closest, had seen to it that they were brought low, their heretical cults diminished to scraps. This was the next logical step; they had traded all of this for the eventual freedom of The One Who Waits. And wait their master certainly had.

“Return the crown to me, and embrace the end that awaits you,” The One Who Waits had uttered, a decree and demand all at once. “With this last sacrifice of my most devoted follower, I will be freed!”

There was such joy on his face, disbelieving, hopeful. Lambert couldn’t stand to look at it.

Rather, they looked up at the cages on either side of The One Who Waits, where their followers stood, looking on with wide, tearful eyes. What other meaning could one take from such a being when they told your leader to lay their life down? Lambert could see they understood, even if the missing context was surely eating away at them. This was it. The end of Lambert’s life. But not, they knew, the end of their cult. The One Who Waits would need them to continue generating his power, at least for a time, and that would assure their safety, even when Lambert’s own was in question.

They gave their cult- their flock, oh, their flock- an encouraging smile. The same quiet comfort they gifted to each huddled creature awaiting their fate with quiet sobs, only to be met with a lamb whose hands brought only care. A gentle spirit, who led with mercy and joy before all else. They had never sacrificed a follower; their first and last would watch this spectacle, would witness their leader be brought as low as the bishops before them. The world held itself in silence.

Lambert obeyed. Met the eyes of the three before them head-on. Aym and Baal looked on as passively as they ever had, though they could see the held winces as their knees hit the middle of the sacrificial circle. It was an all-too-familiar position, and yet so different from their first encounter with execution. Here, they looked into the face of death himself, and their fate would be found in freeing him rather than keeping him chained. It was a worthy goal, one that they were sure their family would be proud of, when they passed to the other side. Hopefully, the world The One Who Waits imagined in his incarceration was one of peace, too. With blooming flowers, joy, plentiful food, and restful nights.

Lambert closed their eyes to the cries of their followers, a gust of air past their neck.

They awoke once more with a gasp, hands scrabbling on cold stone, shuddering in the brightness.

A gentle breeze flowed through the air, breaking the warmth of the sun. Quiet conversations and amusement reached Lambert’s ears, and when they squinted into the light, it revealed flowers of all colors, rolling fields blessed with a bountiful harvest, and the sight of their flock, dotted across the landscape, eyes darting over to them warily every once in a while. Waiting? Why would they wait for them? No, they couldn’t see Lambert. So, they weren't completely dead, then? Perhaps they’d been made into a ghost, trapped by magical energies. Was that even possible?

“No, it isn’t. You’re quite alive. At least, you are now.”

Lambert’s head whipped around, into the darkness, and they paused for a moment, eyes adjusting down into one focused point. There he was, their incarnation of death, their master. The same pride in his eyes, the same gentleness on his face as he once held when comforting a frightened lamb after their sudden death moments before. There. In Lambert’s temple, where they’d delivered sermons praising the name of The One Who Waits, insisting their followers direct more worship to him than themselves, though the sweet creatures hadn’t quite listened. The red crown- once a constant companion of Lambert’s that they’d treated with care and shown the beauties and horrors of the world- now sat on its owner's head, scarlet eye fixed on Lambert as it always had been.

“Why?” Lambert made their way to their feet, trembling. Aym and Baal, still at either side of their master, started forward to catch them before their legs could give out. “My sacrifice was meant to free you. It worked, right? I didn’t…I didn’t fail, did I?” It certainly didn’t look like Lambert had; The One Who Waits, once in chains, now moved with ease and grace. With the crown returned, and the veil removed, he looked entirely different. Stronger, assured, and lighter than the burdened shoulders of before.

“You did not fail.” The One Who Waits blinked, and Lambert found themselves taken aback. Why did their master exhibit such confusion? Was such a question so out of the blue, when they’d been about to die, and could still feel the air in their lungs, the beat of their heart? As if reading their thoughts- and Lambert gulped when they realized he probably could- their master flinched, the look of pain on his face a stab to Lambert’s heart.

“No. No, I would not…I was not specific enough.” He sighed. “I needed to sacrifice you as an act of ritualistic integrity. That wasn’t false to believe. However, nothing prevented me from bringing you back in the aftermath. Your end was to be brief. I needed your life force to break my chains; now you have it back, albeit in a less empowered position.” Before their eyes, he shrunk from the looming presence of before to something more familiar, alike to the cats they’d brought back to the cult from Darkwood. On either side of Lambert, Aym and Baal retreated, their closeness a comfort as Lambert struggled to remain standing. I was never meant to die permanently.

The lamb’s eyes darted up, meeting those of The One Who Waits-

“Your death was always meant to be short. And it’s Narinder. I no longer wait for anything.” It was a familiar smirk that danced across his features now, so similar to the one he gave them each time they returned to him, bloodied from fights with his siblings, and yet triumphant with their hearts in Lambert’s hands.

“What are your desires, my lord? How can I serve you now?” Lambert straightened, though their knees still wobbled. How pathetic they must look, wobbling in front of him now, as if they held any use to him. Ah, a dampening to his smile. They would need to be more careful with their thoughts than they ever had been before, if they wanted to obscure from him how- grassy fields, their cult’s delighted exclamations, grass covered in blood, the wails of their mother as her child left her side, forced away, lamp posts wrapped in leafy green glowing through the night, torches in a writhing dance, trees on fire, the eyes of their lord, The One, Narinder, exasperation pulling his muzzle-

“Don’t bother. Your thoughts are those of a mortal, even within your immortal state. Nothing you think should shock me more than any of your followers.” Contemplation, and then, “As for what you can do for me; you may build a cult in my name, as vast and great as any of the old faith, if not greater.” A weight settled upon Lambert’s brow; a temple window gave them access to their reflection, a golden crown resting atop their head, that had before been a sign of discipleship. Atop their head, it felt as tangible as the crown had. “Do we have a deal?”

Lambert gazed into four scarlet eyes, filled with pride. With a smile, whispered, “Absolutely.”

#the last sacrifice au #not trinket #cult of the lamb #cotl au #cotl lamb #cotl narinder #fanfic #fanfiction

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 1 year

Note

Curtis Everett, Outta my mind by Monsune

"You've been haunting me for forty days and forty nights

I been waiting for the right time

To let you know that I been lookin' for you all of my life

Feels like walkin' on a landslide

Let me take you, take you down"

Sun In Your Eyes

Warnings: none

Character: Curtis Everett

Summary: You return something important to your neighbour.

As always, I appreciate all kinds of feedback. A like and reblog means so much to me! <3

“Tanya!” You shriek, “ew, that’s enough.”

You stick out your tongue over the top of your bottle. She can be so crass and her account of her last fling is hardly wholesome. She giggles and you can’t help but join her. God, you missed this.

“I’m gonna get to school and be a mile behind you, Yaya,” you sigh and take a swig of the Corona.

“Nah, you’ll catch up,” she winks as she leans back, her pink bikini top low on her cleavage, the bottoms skimpy and barely clinging to her hips. “Guys love the cute ones.”

“Cute,” you pout and look down at yourself. Excuse her, you’re wearing a two piece. The halter top and match high rise bottoms are a blue and white checker print you particularly adored.

“Ah, you know I’m the bad girl of the bunch, bestie,” she tilts her head back, basking in the sun as it glistens on her mellow skin. “I told you we should’ve done this at my place, no fun without a pool.”

“We have a pool,” you scoff and point to the kiddie pool by the fence.

She snickers and flicks you off. She lays back full on the lounger and flips down her sunglasses.

“Good thing your mom doesn’t count her Coronas or I wouldn’t have bothered.”

“Don’t be such a downer,” you chide as you take another deep gulp. The sun is hot and vibrant and the beer isn’t helping how it makes your head swim.

“You’re a terrible host,” she drains the last of her bottle and wiggles it in the air, “I’m in need of a refill.”

You stand and huff, dramatically trodding over in your flip flops, “and you’re a prize guest.”

You laugh and take the empty. Tanya’s funny. She talks a big game but she’s bent over backwards time and time again. She plays the bitch but has the biggest heart you know of.

“Maybe you should have some water?” You tease.

“Bring me some water and I’ll make sure to cool you off,” she threatens.

You snort and leave her. She fans herself with her hand as you peek back from the sliding door. Your gap year couldn’t end soon enough. Each day you regret your indecision and the months spent trying to pick a program all while pushing face cream down at the boutique.

As you pluck a fresh Corona from the lower shelf, the doorbell nearly has it slipping from your grasp. You set it on the counter and go to see which neighbour is there to tell you to turn your music down. You inch open the door and peek out, surprised at who awaits you on the other side.

“Hey, Curtis,” you greet awkwardly as you hid behind the door, “mom’s away with Dawn.”

“Ah,” the syllable rumbles in his chest. His lazy blue eyes meet yours as he brushes a hand over his buzzcut. The front of his grey tank top is soaked in sweat and streaked with oil, “no problem. Um, I lent her a wrench, I was just hoping to get it back.”

“Oh? I wouldn’t know… uh, yeah, let me see if I can find it.”

“Thanks,” he tucks his thumbs in his pockets and looks over his shoulder.

“Er, you wanna come in? It’s hot out here.”

“I’m fine,” he shrugs.

“Okay, well, you’re more than welcome,” you let the door open a little more, “I’ll just go check the mess drawer.”

“Sure.”

He doesn’t make a move to come inside. You leave the door open and skirt away to the kitchen. You pull open the junk drawer but there’s only duck tape and a pile of outdated bills. Hmmm. You flutter over to the closet behind the bathroom and sort through the box of old frames and cassettes. Shoot.

Oh, wait.

You rush back into the hall. Curtis’ shadow looms in the doorframe but you pay him no heed as you turn and head back to the sliding door. You let yourself out as Tanya rolls onto her stomach.

“Where’s my beer?” She pouts.

“Coming, just gotta…” you trail off and disappear into the shed. Got it.

You grab the wrench and hurry back across the yard. Tanya mutters, ‘typical’, but doesn’t complain further.

You bounce down the hall in triumph, forgetting yourself as you present the prize. “Here! Sorry, mom’s not really the organized type.”

“No problem,” his cheek dimples as his eyes flick up to meet yours.

You cross your arm over your stomach, suddenly embarrassed. Oh gosh, that must’ve been a rather ungraceful entrance. You hold out the wrench and he takes it slowly.

“Thanks. You get a pool or something?” He wonders.

“Just getting some sun,” you trill. Curtis isn’t usually that talkative. You only ever see him hiding behind his motorcycle, clunking away with his tools.

“Enjoying some beer?” He asks.

You give a guilty grin, “maybe.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you,” he spins the wrench in his hand. “I like that colour.”

You look down again and play with the loose strings that trails from behind your neck. You raises your shoulders sheepishly.

“Thanks, Mr. Everett.”

His cheeks colour slightly and he once more runs his hand over his closely-trimmed hair. He gives his own attire a self-conscious look. He tugs the bottom of his tank and peeks up at you again.

“Sorry, I’m a bit of a mess,” he mutters, “well, uh,” he examines the wrench in his hand and tilts it towards you emphatically, “thanks.”

“No problem.”

He turns and marches to the top step. He pauses and turns back as you ease the door towards the frame. You stop as he shifts back on his heel.

“You can call me Curtis, I don’t mind.”

He sets back on his path and you watch him trod to the curb. As he peers back and forth down the street, he rolls his shoulders and wiggles the wrench in his hand. He tosses it and catches it before he continues on. He must really need that wrench.

#curtis everett #drabble #request #snowpiercer

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hollyethecurious · 8 months

Text

CS AU: Pan Says... (7/?)

Summary: After waking up in a strange room with a naked stranger, Emma and Killian must endure the twisted game their kidnapper insists they play in order to gain provisions and avoid punishments.

A/N: I know, I know... all I do lately is apologize for not updating more frequently. I promise to try and do better, and as penance I have for you today a longer update than I had originally planned, so... forgive me?

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE! Heed the warnings listed below. This chapter is a bit of a doozy.

Lots of love to @ultraluckycatnd and @kmomof4 for their exceptional beta skills!

Rated E /Also available on ao3 and ff.net / buy me a coffee / add to tag list / Curious? Come Ask Me!

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six

Chapter Prompts: I received a couple of Asks asking for scenarios I've included in this update. Most of them were anonymous, lol.

Warnings: This chapter contains depictions of medical assault and rape by instrumentation. Also includes somnophilia, dubious consent, and a POV some readers might find triggering. Please feel free to message me for specifics before reading if you need to.

Part Seven

Nature’s call pulled Killian from a deep sleep. He stumbled his way to the water closet, trying his best to not wake Emma as he closed the door and relieved himself. He’d just finished a haphazard washing of his hands when he heard the soft click of the lock on the bathroom door, and then the dread-inducing screech of the metal door that separated them from the rest of the compound. Someone had entered their room, Killian realized in a panic, frantically trying to open the firmly locked door that separated him from his Swan.

“Emma!” he shouted, hoping to rouse her from sleep before their intruder did. “Emma!”

Startled exclamations muffled their way to his ears, as did the rustling of sheets and thuds from bootfalls. Again, Killian cried out Emma’s name, banging on the door and demanding to be let out.

“Killian!” he heard Emma shout, a bit more distant than he’d expect if she were still on the bed.

More rustling and shuffles of feet, followed by the agonizing sound of the metal door sealing shut once more had Killian’s pulse spiking in fear. When the soft click of the lock finally released, he burst out of the bathroom to find the room vacant.

Pillows and linens were strewn across the bed and onto the floor. Killian followed the trail of the bedsheet and hammered his fist against the door. “Let me out!” he demanded, pain shooting up his arm with each pounding. “Let me out!”

“Why would I do that?” Pan’s voice crackled from overhead.

Killian turned to face one of the many cameras “hidden” within the room. “Bring her back!“ he shouted. “Bring Emma back!”

“I don’t think so,” Pan drawled, a hardened edge underpinning his words. “I think some time away from each other to reflect upon what you’ve done will do you both some good. Besides…” he drew out the dramatic pause, and though Killian had no idea what the vile little imp looked like, he couldn’t help but imagine a sinister grin being applied to his next words. “We both know your little act of defiance last night cannot go without punishment.”

“Take me, then” Killian pleaded. “Bring Emma back and take me! I’ll bear the punishment. Just… don’t hurt Emma.”

“Oh, you’ll share in the punishment,” Pan promised. “I have something very special planned for the both of you. Don’t you worry about that.”

Feedback shrieked through the speakers, forcing Killian to cover his ears as Pan quite clearly and effectively shut down their communication. Tears welled in Killian’s eyes and his whole body shook from the overwhelming fear consuming him.

What was Pan planning to do? How long would he and Emma be separated from one another? What would they have to endure whilst they were reflecting?

Killian sank down on the edge of the bed and buried his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry, Emma,” he whispered into the silence. “I’m so sorry, my love.”

Eventually, he traded his seated position at the end of the bed to being curled up in the fetal position upon it. He watched the path of the sun as its beams entered through the high window after sunrise and crossed the floor of the room during the early morning hours. He was numb and emotionally spent, having given over to the terror and tears that had wracked his body for what seemed like hours. Now, he just laid there, staring at the chips and cracks in the floor, without even the energy to chastise himself. What would the point be in that? It wasn’t as though there was anything he could do. No way out of the room, no way to communicate with anyone, no way to help Emma.

Killian clamped his eyes shut and fought back the rising bile his mutinous imagination threatened to bring up. Try as he might to keep the thoughts and visions at bay, he couldn’t help but consider the atrocities Pan might be subjecting her to. He turned his face into the mattress and balled the sheet in his hand, attempting once more to expel the torment of his mind.

The crackle of static from the tv screen grabbed his attention and Killian bolted off the bed. The monitor showed a sterile looking exam room, much like one would find at a physician’s office. Coming into frame from off screen, a Lost One appeared carrying an unconscious Emma in his arms. Killian tensed as he watched him lay her on the exam table, only relaxing when he disappeared out of frame again. The relief was short lived when another man entered, quickly followed by a small statured woman. Both were garbed in medical scrubs, including surgical masks, which obscured their identity.

Killian watched in confused horror as the woman - a nurse? - folded out a pair of stirrups from the end of the table and set Emma’s feet into them. She and the doctor (or at least, Killian hoped he was a doctor) positioned Emma to their liking, covering her lower half with a sheet before the doctor brought over a stool and sat between her spread open legs. Killian watched with shallow breaths and clenched fists as the nurse handed the doctor instruments so he could perform some sort of procedure. When it finally became clear to him, Killian was shocked to realize what he was witnessing.

They were removing her IUD.

Pushing himself away from the exam table, the doctor stood and removed his gloves. There was no audio, but Killian deduced he had given the nurse instructions before departing. It wasn’t until after the man had gone that Killian acknowledged the reason for the extra tension he’d been holding. As violating as the procedure had been, Killian had prepared himself to witness an altogether different kind of violation of his Swan.

Shaken, Killian sat back down and ran his hands through his hair, only vaguely aware Pan had come back on the speaker.

“What?”

“Pan says,” he repeated, “you are not permitted to tell her what you just saw.”

Stunned, Killian blinked several times, letting his mind catch up to the horrors Pan continued to lay before him, then thunderously, he stood and shouted, “You can’t expect me to keep something of this magnitude from her!”

“You will if you want to keep her alive,” Pan stated flatly, sobering Killian and sending a chill down his spine. “Keep this to yourself,” Pan warned again. “Or your punishment will be paid by her… with her life.”

~/~

Emma sat on a tiny cot with her knees pulled up to her chest. The hospital gown they’d given her the day before was stiff and scratchy against her skin, but at least she was no longer cramping.

Pan had told her that she would be the one punished, because she had been the instigator in her and Killian’s “dalliance”. The price for such an offense… she had to have her IUD removed, and she had to keep its removal a secret from Killian.

“You can’t expect me to keep something like that from him!” she’d protested, yelling up at the speakers embedded in the ceiling of her new, tiny cell.

“If you do not,” Pan had warned her coldly, “Then I will force Killian to pay the price… with a pound of his flesh.”

When the doctor had come in to talk with her before the procedure, she’d learned he was one of Pan’s poor unfortunate victims as well, forced to serve as the demented imp’s medical errand boy. He seemed professional enough, though perhaps a bit arrogant. His brash demeanor shifted though when Emma asked him what Pan had meant by “a pound of flesh.”

Swallowing hard, the platinum haired man exhaled deeply before confessing, “It could mean a variety of things. Having an organ removed so it can be sold on the black market, or even an… an amputation.”

“Amputation?!” Emma exclaimed in a shocked whisper. “You mean you…”

Solemnly the man nodded. “I’ve been forced to remove every organ imaginable and sever untold numbers of body parts from various victims of Pan’s.” Taking her hand in his, he squeezed it tightly and advised, “If you want your friend to remain whole, then do as Pan says.”

She’d woken up in this new room some time later, sore between her legs in a different sort of way than she had been after her night with Killian. A note with self-care instructions and a bottle of ibuprofen had been left on the table by her bedside, and it was then Emma had realized she’d mercifully been anesthetized for the procedure. The day had stretched into night and Emma had sat paralyzed with guilt and fear over what Killian might be going through. She’d had little to no sleep, and was therefore more on edge than normal when the door to her cell opened the next morning.

“Sorry,” the doctor apologized, noting how she’d balked at his appearance. “I just wanted to check and see how you were doing. Is it alright if I examine you? I have my nurse with me.”

Emma consented to his examination, not wishing to give Pan any further ammunition to use against her, or worse… against Killian.

“Everything seems to be in order,” he told her. “Anything bothering you physically? Any pain?”

Emma shook her head and mumbled she was fine, then sat back up with the assistance of the nurse once he’d finished. She was just straightening the hospital gown when she felt the prick of a needle pierce her shoulder.

“What did you…” The question fell away as numbness immediately began to overtake her. Within seconds, Emma could not move her arms or legs and she slumped over into the doctor’s arms, unable to keep herself upright.

“It’s okay,” the man soothed, laying her back down on the cot. “The effects are temporary. You’ll remain conscious, but you’ll be unable to move or speak until it wears off.”

More and more of her succumbed to the paralysis, her entire body becoming heavy and unresponsive. When her eyes would not open again after a blink, Emma panicked. Her heart raced at the sound of bootfalls entering the room and a silent scream echoed through her mind when she was hoisted off the cot and over a man’s shoulder.

~/~

Killian stood in the corner opposite the door, anxiously waiting for it to open. He wasn’t sure if having forewarning of Emma’s return was better or worse than simply being surprised. In the last few minutes since Pan had given him the news and his instructions, Killian had worked himself into another right state.

His stomach churned in a way that made him thankful for his lack of appetite since Emma had been carted away. Although, its lack of contents did not stop the threatening bile from creeping up his throat. His palms were slick with a sweat that was slowly breaking out over his entire body and his heart felt as though he might choke on it.

With the notice and instruction had also come the reminder to not let on what he’d seen the day before. As if he could forget. However, when the door finally opened and the Lost Ones entered (one with Emma over his shoulder and the other brandishing a cattle prod in Killian’s direction), Killian understood why Pan felt the need to remind him. All he wanted to do was take her in his arms and reassure himself of her safety, to inquire how she was feeling, whether she was in pain or needed anything from him to ease the after effects of what she’d been through. Of course, he couldn’t do that. He had to pretend he didn’t know any more than she did about what happened to her during their separation. Her life depended on it.

“Swan?” Killian called out as the Lost One laid her on the bed. “Swan, are you alright?”

She didn’t move. Didn’t respond. For an awful, gut-wrenching second, Killian thought she might be…

A sigh of relief whooshed from his lungs when he saw her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. She was alive. Thank God!

“I’m afraid she is currently… unable to respond,” Pan said over the speaker system as the Lost Ones backed out of the cell.

Once the door was secured, Pan gave Killian permission to leave the corner, and he wasted no time in rushing to Emma’s side.

“Swan?” he prodded, gently shaking her shoulders. “Emma, love. Wake up.”

“I told you,” Pan sighed in a bored yet exasperated tone. “She is unable to respond.”

“What did you do to her?” Killian demanded, his gaze sweeping over her form, working in tandem with his hands as he searched for injuries or any other clue that might explain her comatose condition. Was she still under the effects of the anesthetic she’d been given?

“Careful,” Pan warned in a feigned voice of concern. “She has a number of bruises and abrasions. You wouldn’t want to go and injure her further.”

Killian’s head snapped towards the camera perched over the TV monitor and again demanded, through grit teeth, “What did you do--”

“Oh, don’t look at me,” Pan said. “I had nothing to do with those bruises, or any of the other markings. You did that.”

Killian’s eyes slid back to Emma’s body, and he began to note the marks his mouth had made on her neck, as well as the faint impressions his fingertips had left behind.

“Pan says,” the voice commanded in an accusatory tone, “undress her and take a good look at what you’ve done to her.”

“No,” Killian stated, defiantly. Standing from the bed, where he’d been kneeling next to Swan’s prone body, he took measured steps towards the camera, wagging his finger in its direction. “I know what you’re doing,” he said. “I won’t have you twisting what happened. I know what Emma and I shared the other night and it wasn’t what you’re insinuating.”

“Oh? What was it then?”

“It was magic,” he declared vehemently, with his arms spread in boastful defiance, “And freedom. Full unabated freedom. The kind you experience with someone you trust unequivocally, with whom you can bare yourself in ways you never thought yourself capable. The kind that requires a level of understanding, devotion, and acceptance rarely found between two individuals.”

Each word of defense against Pan’s implied censures was also a much needed reminder to himself of the truth of what he and Emma shared. He would not let this vile monster take from them what they had sought to claim for themselves.

“That’s what Emma and I have and nothing you can say or do is going to change that fact.”

“Oh?” Pan drawled. “Perhaps not,” he stated as the cell door squealed opened and a Lost One sauntered into the room. “But I imagine he can.”

Positioning himself between the Lost One and Emma, still lying helpless on the bed, Killian braced his posture and demanded to know, “What do you mean? What’s he going to do?”

“That depends on you,” Pan replied. “If what you say is true, then surely Emma won’t object to you taking some liberties with her whilst she is currently… indisposed.”

“Liberties?” Killian questioned. Though a sick feeling forming in the pit of his stomach had already begun to deduce the madman’s meaning.

“It appeared to me that she took quite a few liberties with you the other night, so I’m simply letting you return the favor. Of course… should you refuse…”

The Lost One’s hands dropped to his waist and he began to loosen his belt, his salacious gaze and a hint of a smug smile peeking out from the mask he wore.

“No! Stop!” When Killian’s words failed to stall the Lost One’s actions, he turned back towards the camera and agreed with Pan’s wishes. “I’ll do as you say. I’ll take whatever liberties you demand, just…” Pointing a stern finger at the Lost One, Killian implored, “Get him out of here!”

The Lost One’s hands balled themselves into fists and he hesitated for a moment after the order from Pan was issued. His eyes fell to Emma, a sinister sort of longing swirling through their brown depths, before he flicked them back up and glared at Killian as he backed out of the cell.

He’d wanted her, Killian realized with a jolt of propriety rage and jealousy. It hadn’t simply been a command he was conditioned to obey that had made him willing to do the unthinkable to Emma. He wanted her, had been eager to have her, even.

Emma’s comments about her exchange with one of the Lost One’s returned to him and he couldn’t help but wonder if the Lost One he’d just encountered had been the same, or… No. She had said the Lost One who had carried him back after being drugged seemed to care for him. That Lost One, the one who had just departed, held nothing but animosity towards Killian. Did that mean…?

If Killian had a connection to the other Lost One, then was this Lost One connected to Emma somehow?

The startling question would have to be left unanswered for the moment. Killian needed to focus on the rules and procedures Pan was currently laying out for his new depraved game.

~/~

It had taken some doing, but Emma had managed to quiet the panic deafening her mind. Being unable to control one’s body, to even open your eyes or utter a sound was the most unnatural and surreal feeling she had ever experienced. The only thing she could seem to manipulate was her breathing, but it also continued to work involuntarily as well.

She’d held her breath in awe against the swell of emotion that had filled her during Killian’s declarations, but it had sped up on its own, almost to the point of hyperventilating when the Lost One had returned and Pan’s intentions had been made clear.

Never doubting that Killian would do whatever he had to in order to keep her safe had not kept her from again holding her breath until the sound of the door screeched closed this last time, ensuring she would not suffer at the hands of some stranger. Now, she attempted to regulate her breathing once more as Pan gave instructions to Killian regarding their new game.

“Of course, I realize that my voice might be a bit of a distraction… a deterrent even. So, you’ll know a new Pan Says has been issued when the lights flicker. You can then receive your next set of instructions from the monitor. Understood?”

“Aye,” Killian clipped out, sounding closer now than he had a moment again. “Let’s get on with it.”

“Excellent,” Pan crowed. “This will be my last vocal command until our game is at an end. Pan says… undress Emma.”

The bed dipped and she could feel Killian’s presence. She longed to reassure him, to look into his eyes and let him know she was alright, that she wouldn’t hold anything he had to do to her against him. All she could do was lie there, though; a limp piece of dead weight he had to roll and reposition without any assistance in order to appease Pan and his perverted commands.

Once the hospital gown had been removed, leaving her thoroughly exposed, Killian returned her to her back and from behind her eyelids she could detect the change in lighting as they dimmed and brightened, signaling a new Pan Says. If she could have scoffed, she would have. Of course he was giving written instructions. Pan knew she was conscious and could hear everything. He didn’t want her to have any forewarning of what was to be done to her, the bastard.

The mattress dipped next to Emma’s head and she felt the scratch of Killian’s beard against her cheek. Inhaling deeply, she let his scent fill her lungs, let its calming balm soothe her racing heart.

“I’m sorry, love,” he whispered low and soft into her ear. “I’m so sorry. I hope you can forgive me for what I must do.”

I already have, she told him, if only in her mind.

Her breath hitched at the feel of his rough tongue caressing the space below her ear. It only took a few swirls and licks for her to process what he was being forced to do, her skin still sore in the places where he had sucked his brand into her flesh during their lovemaking. Pan was making him trace every mark, every bruise, every abrasion Killian had left on her body with nothing more than his tongue.

Pin pricks of wonder rippled across her skin when he reached her breasts. His hot breath preceded the warmth of his mouth as it caressed the scrapes previously left behind from his teeth. She wanted nothing more than to arch her back and encourage him to take her nipples fully into his mouth, but her inability to move was proving torturous in ways she had not considered.

Her stomach, her hips, the insides of her thighs, all points of contact along the front of her he had to trace with his tongue before rolling her onto her stomach. He took extra care and attention to place her arms and head into as comfortable positions as he could before continuing his ministrations down her back. Long, lingering, dampened laves followed the welts and scratches left by his nails and soft flutters caressed the bruises on her hips and buttocks, causing a shiver to run up her spine and a dull ache to begin throbbing from between her legs, which were dangling awkwardly off the bed.

The lights dimmed and brightened again and before Emma had a chance to wonder what Pan’s new demand was, a light smack landed on her backside. The lights flickered again and a slightly harder slap cracked across her ass. When the lights signaled again, the sting of Killian’s palm, firmly making contact with her already reddened and raised flesh, brought tears to her eyes. As did the next strike, and the one after that, and the ones after that. Tears broke free from her lashes, pooling in the crease next to her nose before slipping across her face into the sheet beneath her cheek. Killian’s rough, calloused hand stroked her ass, attempting to soothe some of the pain he’d inflicted. Pain she absolutely did not mind. In fact, she kinda got off on it, and when his fingers dipped between her legs to find her wet and wanting, his groan told her it was a fact he was now aware of as well.

A series of strobing lights had Killian on his knees in front of foot of the bed, his face buried in her folds with his mouth latched to her clit, while his fingers toyed with and probed her holes. He was knuckle deep in her ass, fucking her with his fingers as his tongue assaulted her cunt and she could hear the cries of her body, begging for release, whimpering in her head, unable to convey its desire in any way, shape, or form, which had to be the most maddening experience of her life. When relief finally came, her orgasm slammed through her completely unobstructed with an intensity far greater than any she could ever remember having before. A moan vibrated through her pussy, prolonging her climax, and Emma wondered if, despite her inability to tell him so, Killian could tell she had come from his tongue.

Her breathing was labored, the sound of her blood roared in her ears, and she felt flushed and sated from the tips of her ears to the points of her toes. Unable to vocalize, a groan stuck in her throat when he removed his fingers from her depths and began to roll her over onto her back once more. She hadn’t even noticed the lights indicating a new task.

Attempting to regain her bearings, Emma could hear the rustling of fabric and suspected Killian was taking off his clothes. Her heart rate picked up at the prospect of him being inside her, filling her like he had the other night, and a fresh ache took hold of her core even as she worried about her new unprotected status. With a firm tug, he pulled her closer to the edge of the bed until her ass was practically hanging off the side. Lifting her hips, he wedged a pillow beneath her, raising her pelvis and tilting it up to meet his groin.

She startled when his cock slapped against her clit, not that he would be able to tell. Her skin raised in a ripple of goose flesh when he did it a second and then third time before lining himself up with her entrance and stretching her in that delicious way as he entered her. Grabbing her ankles, he draped them over his shoulders, then wrapped his arms around her legs, holding them tight to his chest as he began to rut his hips into hers. The rhythm he set was punishing, the force of each thrust making her breasts bounce wildly, borderline painfully, as he pistoned deeper and deeper into her. His pace was relentless, slowing down only once several minutes into the assault, when the lights flickered and he presumably glanced over his shoulder to read Pan’s newest command. He fucked her for an indeterminate amount of time after that. Forcefully, savagely, almost brutally.

The sound of their bodies slapping together echoed through the room, as did Killian’s ragged breathing and choked back utterances. Just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, he pulled out and let go of her legs, causing one of them to slip off his shoulders. He grunted and cried out as hot streams of his release coated her breasts and stomach. Staccatoed breaths and moans reverberated off the metal walls until he was thoroughly spent, then he brushed a gentle kiss to the inside of her leg before resting his head against it, the sweat of his brow making it a slick point of contact.

“Good boy, Killian,” Pan rasped from overhead, ruining any tenderness Killian had been trying to infuse into the moment.

“Fuck off,” he snapped back, lowering her leg back down while removing the pillow from beneath her.

“Ah, ah,” Pan tutted. “Pan says to leave her as is.”

“Let me at least pull her further up the bed, so she doesn’t slip off onto the floor,” Killian argued.

When Pan did not respond, Killian climbed onto the bed and positioned himself behind her. Grasping under her arms, he hoisted her up the mattress until she was now completely situated on the bed. It shook as he collapsed next to her, his breaths still coming in pants from the extreme exertion he’d put both their bodies through.

She could visualize his face in her mind. Beads of perspiration were probably littering his brow and gathering in the hollow of his throat. His eyes were likely closed, his long lashes resting against his rosy cheeks, which would be nearly as pinked as his lips, red and swollen from the way he’d practically made a meal out of her. She longed to sweep his bangs off his forehead, to run her fingers down his face and trace his lips, allowing him to kiss each tip and tease them with his tongue.

As they lay there a tingling began to work its way through the numbness. Small jerks and spasms rippled through her extremities, exacerbating the soreness in her tender places. A groan made its way past her lips and she was finally able to pry her eyes open. She could feel Killian roll towards her, concern and guilt swimming in his eyes as his face came into view overhead.

“Swan?”

“K-Killian,” she croaked, attempting to raise her hand so she could cup his face, but it wouldn’t cooperate.

“Don’t try and move,” he said, making his way off the bed and into the bathroom. “I have to… you’ll need to…”

Unable to finish his thought, it wasn’t until she was finally able to turn her head and saw him return with a wet washcloth that she realized what he was struggling to tell her.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, trying to work up the necessary saliva to wet and clear her throat. “I know. I was conscious the whole time.”

“You… What?”

When she tried to sit up, he climbed back onto the bed, stalling her actions and encouraging her to lie back while he cleaned her up.

“Yeah, they injected me with… something. I don’t know what,” she explained, enjoying the feel of the damp cloth as it ran over her breasts and across her stomach, wiping away the now dried-on mess. “I couldn’t move or speak, but I was aware of everything. Could hear and… feel everything.”

Killian’s face pinched in a pained expression, and she could practically feel the guilt rolling off him. “I’m so sorry, Swan. I--”

“Hey,” she soothed, taking his hand. “It’s okay. You have to know that no matter how deranged or depraved, I’d rather it be you doing those things to me than--”

“Aye, I do… it’s just...”

“What?”

The muscle along his jaw tightened, causing a small spasm to ripple beneath his skin. Unable to meet her gaze, he confessed with a heavy dose of shame and penitence, “I enjoyed it.” His voice was little more than an exhale. If he’d been any further away, she likely wouldn’t have heard him at all. After a long pause he finally worked up the courage to look at her as he continued, “I didn’t want to. I only wanted to get it over with, but I… I started to enjoy it and--”

“Killian,” Emma sweetly admonished. “Do you really think I’d fault you for that? Do you think I was suffering the whole time? Because believe me… I wasn’t.” He offered her a small smile, but still didn’t seem convinced. Squeezing his hand more tightly, she added, “I will never hold my bringing you pleasure against you, no matter the circumstances. Every time there’s been intimacy between us, I’ve enjoyed it, at least on some level. Every. Time. Don’t ever forget that. Don’t ever forget those beautiful words you said to Pan about us.”

His eyes widened, perhaps realizing for the first time that she had been conscious for that part as well.

“I meant every word,” he assured her. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty for the things I’ve done to you. Even though you say you enjoyed it, I see the bruises I left, from both the other night and the ones forming from my actions from only moments ago, and I hate myself for causing you pain.”

Stronger now, she sat up and cupped his face. “I won’t pretend I’m not sore, but… being with you is hands down the best sex of my life, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.”

His eyes flickered between hers, reading the truth in her gaze and causing a more genuine smile to bloom from his face.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he replied on a heavy, relieved breath. Then a smirk lifted the corner of his mouth and with a raised brow he cheeked, “Though, given what you’ve told me of your past sexual encounters, that isn’t really saying much.”

She laughed and slapped his shoulder before falling into his arms, surrendering into his embrace as they clung to each other for several minutes. It wasn’t until after they’d broken apart, with him helping her off the bed so they could both get dressed, that a sobering thought occurred to her.

“You know,” she said, uncomfortably clearing her throat as she pulled her pants up over her hips, “given what I know of your past… I’ll understand if you don’t feel the same. About the sex, I mean. Well, that and--”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, interrupting her before she could mention Milah, the love he had lost and practically ruined his life for. “I loved Milah and we had many wonderful experiences together, but,” he took her hands in his and gazed at her in a way she thought she might drown in those blue depths, “nothing as ever amazing as… this.”

Guiding her back to the bed, they sat on its edge and he further confided, “I think Milah and I always had a part of ourselves held back from the other. Regardless of how we felt, we knew it was wrong. We knew we weren’t free to truly love one another, and since having met you, I’ve come to realize something.”

“What?”

Flicking up his gaze, he said something she never would have expected. “How alike her husband and I truly were.”

Emma blanched. “What do you mean?”

Running his thumb over the backs of her knuckles, he paused for a long moment. Emma could tell this revelation was not easy for him. Perhaps he was still trying to find a way to verbalize it. Sensing he needed time, she waited patiently for him to continue.

“She belonged to him. That’s what he always said,” he relayed, haltingly, from the memories he was dredging up. “She belonged to him. Her husband.” Pulling himself back into the here and now, he focused on her once more and a sad smile ghosted across his lips. “Milah used to assure me that despite the fact she was married, she belonged to me, and I took that to heart. I started to feel like she did belong to me, and I was wrong for doing so. Not because she was married, but because… a woman should not belong to anyone. She was not an object to possess, anymore than you are.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his attention turned towards the door of their cell. “He thought you were his to possess. I see that now.”

“Who?”

“The Lost One who came in here when Pan threatened to have another fulfill his demented wishes.”

Her gasp pulled his attention back towards her, and she felt as though her heart might hammer its way out of her chest as he told her, “I think he has a connection to you, Swan. Like the other Lost One has towards me. I think you know him, because I am certain he knows you.”

“How?” she asked, breathlessly. “How do you know--”

“He wanted you,” Killian begrudgingly told her. “But more than that, it was like he felt he had a right to have you. I could see a longing in his eyes, as though he knew… knew what having you would be like.”

Emma opened her mouth to respond, her mind racing with the implications of Killian’s words, but before she could say anything he took her face in his hands and the look in his eyes stole her breath away.

“You may have given me your consent. You might even think I had a right to do what I did in obeying Pan’s rules in order to safeguard your body and your dignity, but you do not belong to me, Swan. You are not mine to do with as I wish.” Pressing his forehead to hers, he murmured, “But I hope you might feel as though you belong with me, as I feel I belong with you. That we belong together, not to each other.” Swallowing thickly, he pulled back and softly whispered, “I love you, Emma.” Then captured her lips before she could reply.

Part Eight

#csff #cs ff #cs fic #cs au #pan says...#heed the warnings #words by hollye

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smallraindrops-blog · 3 months

Text

Wake Me From This Dreaming

(Part 17)

Word count: 8.8k

Warnings: graphic descriptions of killing of a child, violence, torture, trauma, no beta

Notes: hi! Thank you to everyone for the love and support. It still blows me away with how many people are here with me for this journey. I hope this part was worth the wait.

If you haven’t, please take a look @jun-yng’s lovely artwork! They are so talented. And give @playlistanon’s playlists a listen! Great taste in music!

The Masterlist

A03

Please heed the warnings.

Troy had fallen.

Screams had been quietened, the creaking of wood nothing but an echo now, the soft flap of fabric in the wind, the rush of water from a fountain, the statue of the woman had lost her head among the chaos.

All there was the rosy red arrival of a silent dawn.

You wondered if the taste of ash will ever leave your mouth.

The sound of your name was an odd sound on Pyrrhus’ tongue. A bitter taste of something that should have not been, a different world with different people.

”What is it?” You asked, eyes dry from the harsh smoke. You didn’t bother to look at him. You didn’t want to see your Father in a stranger right now.

“They are dividing up the goods, I thought you would like to know. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on the riches.” Pyrrhus said lightly, stepping into your line of sight. He clasped his hands behind his back, studying the statue with boredom.

You just scoffed. Pyrrhus knew you didn’t care. After all, it wasn’t you that was counting Achilles’ coins, admiring his prizes right up until the final battle.

Pyrrhus rolled his neck, his fingers tightened around his wrist, giving you a quick glance before looking away.

You were careful not to change your expression but you watched him like a hawk. Pyrrhus was a showman, above all else. He reveled in showing off his powerness, especially over others.

Especially over you.

”My father.” Pyrrhus sighed, as if the words caused him a great deal of pain. His blue eyes drifting over to you. “My father was a great man, was he not?”

Every instinct you had was tense, taut like something was pulling at you. You said nothing. Every response that wasn’t a fist to Pyrrhus’ jaw felt like the wrong one.

Pyrrhus narrowed his too blue eyes at you, displeased that you weren’t playing along. His armor had been freshly shined, the bloodbath of the night eased like footprints on the sand. His hair combed and his face washed.

You and almost everyone else were still marked dried blood and pale ashes. In the distance, you heard one of the men calling out the number of bodies.

Hundreds. There was no way to carry all of them back to camp. You sighed. It would have been easier to be among the dead yet you still lived. What would it take for you to die?

“Get on with it, Pyrrhus.” You told him. “What is even the point of this little game of yours?”

“Game? I stand here, trying to speak to… a brother about my father and you dared call it a game?” Pyrrhus gasped as if hurt but you saw the faint upturn of his mouth, the pleasure he took in this.

You were done. “Goodbye, Pyrrhus. If I never see you again, it would be too soon.” You told him, walking away.

Pyrrhus waited for a moment. “At least I made sure my Father’s honor had been made whole once more!”

You waved a hand as if swatting a bothersome fly. You didn’t care about whatever bullshit Pyrrhus was going on about.

“Hector’s bloodline is no more, because of me. What can you even say you did? Nothing, that's what you can say.” Pyrrhus called out, his prideful voice ringing out. That gave you pause.

You knew Hector of Troy had a son.

One far too young to fight.

Not even old enough to walk if you remembered right.

A babe that should be in his mother’s arms right now.

There were some quiet murmurs from nearby warriors, all too aware of a fight brewing in their mist.

Slowly you turned around to face him, studying how the morning light touched his face, casting gold into his red hair. It was like Achilles was standing there, a younger version of him but his expression was wrong, twisted with maliciousness.

“Pyrrhus.” You kept your eyes locked on him, like one would to a snake. “What did you do?”

Pyrhuss jutted his chin out, his eyes cruel as ice. He knew he won this battle, but you didn’t care about the scoreboard like he did. This war might just have been a little game for Pyrrhus, but it wasn’t to you.

Not when you had sacrificed ten years of your life, your damn sanity to it, lost your parents to this damn thing.

“Tell me.” You snarled, your hands tightening into fists. You thought you heard Odysseus from behind you, ordering everyone to calm down as he pushed through the crowd.

Pyrrhus remained silent for once in his goddamn life, his lips curling up into a ugly smile.

You went to him in three quick strides, grabbing him by his chest plate, ruining the shine on it. He didn’t seem to notice, his eyes - the same everblue shade of Achilles- were too focused on you.

“Tell me.” You whispered, dragging him closer to you. You felt hands on your shoulders, tugging at your arms, voices pleading but you remained unmovable as the mountains. More apathetic than the gods themselves were to mortal suffering.

“I found them in the dark, even the king himself, all hiding in Hector’s tomb.” Pyrrhus confessed, a soft lock of his hair fell in front of his face like a scarlet mark. “She wouldn’t let go. Not at first.”

Every word he said felt like a heavy stone upon your soul as if you were Pyrrhus, committing something unspeakable. You couldn’t breathe.

“I took the boy by his ankles. It was easy even with both the damn woman and old man clawing and screaming at me.” Pyrrhus said lightly as if commenting on the weather. Glee bright in his eyes, in the curl of his mouth. “I took the boy and I used him as a club against Priam. Until both of their skulls broke open, their brains matter all over Hector’s gra-“

You didn’t realize you moved that you had head butted Pyrrhus. Hard enough to break bones. Not until you felt a sharp painful jolt in your head.

Pyrrhus was falling back, his men caught him before he landed on the ground, his hands covering his bloody face.

There was a growing wetness between your eyes, blood dripping onto already soaked grounds.

You shrugged off the hands, and the Greeks flinched when you turned around to face them. Odysseus stood there, his hands spread out. He whispered your name, the tone so like Patroclus that it felt like a slap.

”I’m done.” You told him quietly.

Pyrrhus was screaming, howling like a kicked beast. How did this foul creature come from a man like your father? Were you looking at what would have been Achilles’ fate if he and Patroclus never found each other?

Odysseus didn’t spare Pyrrhus a single glance, his dark eyes on you. The king of Ithaca, of rocks and goats, inclined his head in quiet understanding.

With that, you left the last ten years of your life behind. Now all there was left was your parents’ ashes and the fresh blood on your face.

To Hypnos,

I want to apologize

I don’t have the words-

Why did my son do this to you?

(letter from Achilles, never sent)

In the center of Hypnos’s bedchamber, you kicked a few more pillows in place as you reset the landing area- or the nest as Hypnos had taken to calling it.

Hypnos yawned widely as he watched you with heavy eyes. His hair was disheveled, the pale curls sweetly framing his cheeks. And he looked like he was close to falling asleep.

You tried not to frown when you studied him. Hypnos side-eyed you, taking a step back. Really you shouldn’t have found his stubbornness adorable as you did.

“I want to keep trying.” He informed you tartly.

You lifted an eyebrow. “Funny, I think I remember a certain god telling me many times how important rest is.”

Hypnos crossed his arms and you copied him, which only seemed to upset him more. He tossed his hands up. “I thought training more would make everyone happier! Oh look at lazy Hypnos, actually doing something for once! Too bad he can’t even do that!”

You let him have a moment to get his breath back. You stepped over the pillows, meeting him in the center. You took both of his hands into yours, and brought them up to your lips.

Hypnos glanced away, oblivious shame causing his cheeks to flush. He said nothing.

“You know I don’t think that. You have been working so hard, my love. I just want to take care of you like you do for me.” You told him, pressing another kiss on his knuckles.

“I know. I know.” Hypnos closed his eyes. “I will stop after this. I just really want to try one more time.”

“One more time.” You agreed, getting a grateful smile from him. You squeezed his hands before letting go. You took a few steps back, ready to catch him if needed. Hypnos straightened up his back and took a deep breath.

He placed a hand over his chest as he closed his eyes once more, his lips moving silently, the shapes of the words unfamiliar. There was something in his form, an almost warmth to it.

Maybe this time, maybe. Maybe-

Hypnos went still, then he swayed. You caught him in time, lifting him completely off his feet as he slumped against your chest. He was trembling, his fingers unable to curl close.

You immediately took him over the bed, fear creeping into you because you never saw him shake this badly before. Damnit, you shouldn’t have allowed him to push himself so much.

When you laid him down on the bed, Hypnos turned his face away. You checked over the rest of his body, hands gentle as you tried to assure your own mind that Hypnos was okay. Or okay as he could be.

“I’m fine.” Hypnos snapped, rolling on his side, his back facing you as he curled into himself. You resisted the urge to pull him back toward you.

Letting out a breath, you just looked at him. He looked so very small, all alone in the bed. Unable to stand it, you joined him on the bed.

The bed dipped so much that Hypnos ended up against you anyway, and his mostly healed wing fluttered.

You bit back a smile as you traced a line along the delicate limb. The wing fluttered some more before it rested against your fingers.

”It is not you I’m mad at.” Hypnos muttered a few minutes later. The anger from earlier was already unspooling from his body. It left his voice worn out, quiet among the gleaming stars.

You wrapped your arms around him, pressing a kiss against his shoulder. “I know. But you can be if you want. Yell at me about the pillows or something.”

Hypnos laughed, shaking his head at you. Even when Hypnos was clearly exhausted, it was a lovely sound. One that made you want to grin like a fool.

“I will find something later.” Hypnos promised as he turned around to face you. His irises were darker, cooled to amber. You cupped his cheek, running your thumb along the apple of his cheek.

”Every part of you, Hypnos.” You reminded him in a whisper. His face crumbled and Hypnos closed his lovely eyes.

”I know. I know you do.” He said tearfully. “But I don’t know if I want those parts of myself.”

Your heart broke at that because what in the world could you say to that? Nothing. There was nothing you could say.

So you did the only thing you could do, you pulled him into a tight hug, kissing his forehead. Hypnos wrapped his arms just as tight, holding onto for dear life.

If nothing else, you would happily be his shield against the world. Until he was ready to come out.

(Current)

There was a scream in the far distance, desperate and high.

Hypnos flinched as he turned, trying to find the source as if he couldn’t help himself. You placed your hand on his back, using a gentle force to keep him moving.

It was already going to be bad enough when Hypnos saw the horrors of the prisons. You didn't want him to see the brutality between the shades that haunted the depths of Tartarus.

“We’re almost there.” You told him, scanning the area for threats. However it would seem Zagreus had recently stormed through, leaving most of the rooms emptied save for handfuls of scavengers who fled when they saw you come in.

“I don't know how Meg works in this place.” Hypnos muttered, pressed in closer to you as another shrill cry echoed, only this time it was cut off abruptly. The silence it left behind was deafening.

You had to agree, this place was a miserable pit. The sooner you got Hypnos out of here and back to the house, the better. You eyed the door, hoping this was the one you seeked.

When you walked through, you kept a protective arm in front of Hypnos, scowling darkly at the few shades who lifted their heads. They quickly looked away, metal rattling.

Finally. This must be one of the first levels of the prisons.

Hypnos was looking everywhere, grimacing at the filthy surroundings and tightened his cloak around himself like a shield. His hand went to a spot on his chest, rubbing at it.

it seemed like he didn't realize he was even doing it. You frowned.

“Oh a house guard? And a god?” A man's voice came, and your eyes landed on a giant of a man, taller and wider than you are. He offered you a gentility nod, his blue eyes bright with curiosity.

A large boulder loomed over the room and its occupants.

“Sisyphus.” Hypnos muttered, his mouth formed into a hard line of disgust.

“Just stay behind me.” You ordered as you went to the fallen tyrant. Hypnos grabbed your cloak but didn’t stop you as he followed.

Sisyphus watched with mild interest, as this was a normal occurrence. Although with Zagreus causing havoc, you and Hypnos weren’t all that unusual.

“I remembered you.” Sisyphus greeted. “You and Thanatos tore a warpath here once.”

“I don’t remember you at all.” You said, your eyes flicking over his chains. They were thick, almost like the ones that had bonded Hypnos’ wrist.

Sisyphus laughed at that, “I will take that as a good thing since I was trying to stay out of the way.”

Your finger twitches but you didn’t curl them into fists. The less Sisyphus saw of your own wariness, the better. You kept your face neutral when Sisyphus looked at Hypnos.

”Oh. I must say you look remarkably like a certain someone I knew.“

”I’m his twin.” Hypnos snapped, not able to keep his cool as he moved forward.“I would appreciate it if you didn't speak of my brother like you knew him. Since I don’t know- oh, wait that right- you decided to have the wonderful idea to kidnap and shove him into a dark box.”

“Hypnos.” You warned softly, blocking him from getting near Sisyphus. You completely understood his anger but it wouldn’t help, not now.

“Ah. Forgive me for my casual response.” Sisyphus’ smile dropped. “I must say I heard of you, O’ Sleep. A gentle god if I remember correctly.”

”Not to you.” Hypnos grumbled, stepping back, almost leaning into you.

Sisyphus bowed his head, his smile turned solemn as he looked back at you. “I take it that you have a reason to be here.”

You nodded, wrapping a hand on Hypnos’ elbow to keep him close. Before you could speak, a feminine voice spoke up.

”Yes, I would hope you both have a good reason to be here and disturb my work.” Meg said. Her steps echoed as she came closer, her whip bright in the dim lights. Her catlike eyes watchful on all three of you. Her skin gleamed as if she had freshly come out of the river.

Sisyphus hutched as if trying to make himself smaller. Hypnos gave the shade a glance, the fire in his eyes dying a little. He turned away from Sisyphus, sliding his arm into yours.

”We need to see Pyrrhus.” You informed Megaera.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, as if she wasn’t expecting that response. She looked at Hypnos who nodded, his other hand on his chest. He was rubbing at the same spot again.

“Why? Never mind.” Megaera shook her head, her ponytail flickering like a whip. “I am not having this conversation, not in front of this one.”

Megaera stepped past them and toward Sisyphus, “I thought I told you what would happen if I found you lazing around again.”

“I remember, Lady Megaera.” Sisyphus murmured, his eyes lowered to the floor.

“I will return.” She promised him, her voice dripping with shadows. Hypnos shifted on his feet, still rubbing that same damn spot. You gave him a squeeze of comfort.

Her eyes flickered toward you, a touch of disapproval on her lips. You didn’t know if it was for the show of affection or Hypnos’ troubled expression. You didn’t care, only lifting a cool eyebrow.

Megaera rolled her eyes and gestured for you to follow with a jerk of her chin.

(One day after the fall of Troy.)

It horrified you how quickly ten years can disappear.

Tents were coming down quickly, men yelling as they carried crates of stolen goods, weeping spear brides held each other tightly, many realizing they would likely never see their homes again.

It would take another day or so for everything to be gone but Troy would still be ruins, unable to attack.

You stood in the center of the tent, alone among your parents’ stuff. The carefully tended herbs, the sharpening stone for the spears. The gleam of stolen treasures.

Ten years.

“Master Y/N? You sent for me?” Her soft voice was still nervous after all of these years. You couldn’t blame her. She had seen men like you annihilate whole families. Stole her and her daughter away from the only world they ever knew.

You turned around, “You don’t have to call me that anymore.”

Carina blinked dark, heavy eyes at you. The kind of eyes her daughter had, that Briseis once did. She said nothing, her hands clasped together.

It was an odd relationship that you and her shared. Much like Patroclus once had pleaded for Achilles to help Briseis, Pa asked the same for you to help this woman and her daughter.

Many men their spear brides to bed, often unwilling ones but you never laid a finger on her. And once her daughter was under your protection, she was safe as well.

This would be one last act you could do for them.

Going to the bed, you grabbed the pouch, heavy with gold coins and priceless jewelry. When you went to her, she took a step back and it took her a long moment to take it.

Her eyes went wide at the weight of it, her mouth parted in a soft ‘o’. “I- I don’t…”

“This should be enough for you and your daughter, anywhere you wish.” You whispered, keeping your eyes on hers. She needed to understand what she was carrying. “You still have family? Ones that you can go to?”

She nodded slowly, as if she was in a dream.

“Wait until nightfall.” You continued quietly. “Right now, the men are busy, but they will be drunk the moment dinner begins. Be patient, wait until the last of the fire dies down. Use your common sense, do you understand me?”

“Thank you.” She whispered, tears forming in her eyes. She held the pouch closer to her chest like a babe. “Thank you.”

You grimaced, uncomfortable at the sight of her tears. You would rather face a group of Trojans alone than deal with tears.

“Lad? I need to speak to you.” Odysseus’ voice boomed, and you took a step back.

You smirked with some wry amusement, it would seem the gods sent you someone worse than Trojans to answer your prayer.

Catrina hid the bag quickly, her dark curls hiding her face as Odysseus invited himself in.

Good. She already knew what to do. She and her daughter would survive.

”Ah, I hope I am not interrupting anything?” Odysseus flashed Catrina a charming smile and she shook her head, a pale blush forming on her cheeks. Something about Odysseus just seemed to charm women.

Shame for them, he only seemed to know the name of one.

“You may go, and fetch me a bowl when they start serving.” You ordered with a dismissive flick of your hand. She bowed, and quickly ran out.

Odysseus went to one of the chairs, stretching out his legs to get comfortable.

”By all means, make yourself at home.” You said, grabbing two cups and a pitcher of wine. When you handed Odysseus his drink, he lifted it up with a ‘cheer’ before downing the whole thing.

You only lifted an eyebrow and poured him another cup. “I do hope you are here for a reason then to drink my wine dry?”

With a deep sigh, Odysseus nodded with a grim smile. “I know I am probably telling you something you already know, but Pyrhuss is laying claim to all of it. The ships, the men.”

He paused, waved at everything in the tent, “To this.”

“I can’t say I am surprised, but I thought he would have tried this sooner.” You told him, sipping on your drink, the rich bloom of the wine sour on your tongue.

“Agamemnon plans to honor his claim.” Odysseus said. “Lad, I tried to stop them. They can’t take what you have won but every single coin that belonged to your father…”

You thought for a long moment. The treasure you didn’t care about, hell take the men as well. Less work for Y/N to deal with but the problem was those ships were your way back home.

Was there anything that you even wanted to return to? It wasn’t likely Achilles’ father would let you return to your childhood home. You had no one waiting for your return.

”I came here to make an offer.” Odyessus took off his cap and placed it on his chest. “Join me and my men. My kingdom might not be much, but I can give you a place among my advisers, such a high standing in my court will make sure you are comfortable.”

Then he smiled, his expression softening as he looked beyond you, to someone no longer there. “And you will get to meet my Penelope.”

“The famous lady herself? More lovely than her sister Helen according to you.” You teased, and Odysseus shot you an unamused glance.

“And I would like to thank you for keeping your eyes to yourself. Since I know you would not dare to cast a glance at my wife.” He warned, placing his hat back on.

It was a horrible weakness, one your parents shared with this man, to so easily be affected by a single person. It made you feel a bit of affection for him anyway.

“Give me until sunrise to think about it.” You told him with a nod, although you were already seriously considering it. Your eyes went to your parent’s urn, together once more. You hoped the afterlife was good for them, they were finally resting together.

Odysseus might be a scheming bastard - and there might be a plan that could damn you under those words - but he took care of his men. If Odysseus was being honest right now… then perhaps, you could make use of yourself still.

“Please consider it, lad.” Odysseus said, standing up after stealing himself one more drink. “I always admire how you cared for those under you.”

He paused, “Including spear wives.”

You placed your mostly full cup on the table, narrowing your eyes at him. “Oh?”

“Just something I noticed over the many years of our brotherhood. War does that, you know.” Odysseus promised, his smile innocent.

You and him both knew that was bullshit but you let it go. Just a good reminder of what you were dealing with.

“Sunrise.” You reminded him.

“Sunrise.” Odysseus agreed.

(current)

The place Megaera took them wasn’t much better. It was a damp, cramped room with dozens of looming doors, all leading to places unknown.

The fury placed her hands on her hip, giving you an unimpressed sneer. You knew she was asking why you brought Hypnos here. Tartarus wasn’t a place for gods like Hypnos to wander around as they plead.

You wanted to tell her that you would rather Hypnos was safely tucked away in the house, far away from possible harm.

“Megaera, I really need you to take us to Pyrrhus.” Hypnos said, grimacing at the puddle of green goo on the stone ground.

“And why is that?” Megaera crossed her arms. “If you are here to torture him, it will have to wait because-“

“What? No. Nonono.” Hypnos paused, as if considering something then shook his head hard enough for his mask to slide down. “No.”

“We have questions about Hypnos’ powers, we think he might know something about it.” You informed her as Hypnos fussed with his mask. “We need to speak to him now.”

Megaera tapped the handle of her whip in thought. “I see. I can go to him and handle it. Hypnos, you have a growing paperwork waiting for you so you and Y/N need to go back.”

Then her scowled grew a touch softer. “Besides, I do consider you a friend to me, Hypnos. I don’t think it would do any good to see this.”

“It needs to be me. Or at least I need to be there.” Hypnos said, his tone surprisingly firm. “I am not doing this for kicks, believe me. I don’t want to be here either-”

The last word ended with a squeak as a very small rat ran past and Hypnos nearly jumped into your arms, his hands grabbing at you. You bit back a laugh as you patted his back comfortingly, it would just be mean.

Megaera pitched the spot between her brow, like she couldn't believe this was how her day was going. “Fine. But you are not going to like what you are going to see.”

Her amber eyes narrowed on Hypnos. “I can’t tell you if you will be able to get much out of him. The lack of sleep had taken a toll on him.”

Then Megaera glanced at you, “If a fight breaks out, you will have to deal with it on your own. I already have enough to do without this.”

“I can handle Pyrrhus.” You promised her, your voice just was black with anger as it always was when it came to Achilles’ firstborn. You waited until she broke eye contact, glancing at Hypnos who offered up a nervous smile.

Besides, if Pyrrhus needed a reminder of his place, you would be more than happy to provide it.

You wished you could ease his fears, to wipe away the memory of Pyrrhus’ touch of his skin. Hypnos still had nightmares, and you knew it was always Pyrrhus, of your failure to save him.

Megaera sighed and turned on her heels, opening the door in the farthest corner. The darkness seemed cavorous, waiting like a beast’s black maw to swallow more victims.

She reached for a torch, whispering something to the flames and it grew, illuminating the lines of her face.

Even Megaera’s tall and proud stance seemed weak before it. When she turned and looked back, you nodded. Hypnos grabbed at your bicep, his eyes wide.

“When we go down there, I just need you to- um, I don’t know what is going to happen- so I-“ Hypnos was stumbling over his words. You held up a finger to Megaera as a gesture to wait.

Then you turned yourself and Hypnos away, using your cloak as means of some privacy.

“Whatever you need from me, it is yours.” You told him quietly, lowering your head closer to his. “I won’t let Pyrrhus hurt you if that is what you are afraid of.”

“No- I mean a little bit - but what if we go down there and he won’t tell us anything.” Hypnos gasped out, closing his eyes, his hand over his chest. “Gods, I just have this awful panic in my chest, like my heart is going to fly right out.”

You used your other arm to pull him into a hug, and Hypnos wrapped his arms around you gratefully. You just held him for a long moment before speaking. “If Pyrrhus doesn't have the answers, we will keep searching. We won’t stop. I promise.”

”Are you both done?” Megaera called out, annoyed.

Hypnos sighed, squeezing tightly like you were a beloved teddy bear and you returned it.

When he let go, you dropped your cloak. Hypnos walked toward Megaera, beaming his usual cheerful grin as you followed. “Just discussing the tasteful decor Hades picked out for this place, nothing to fret about.”

Megaera rolled her eyes at him and without another word, she went inside, sinking into the shadows. Hypnos shuddered and glanced toward you, you nodded in quiet support, placing a hand on his back, he stepped in the waiting shadows.

And with that, you followed him into the dark.

(Last night at Troy)

Long after supper, you went to the tomb.

The starlit skies gleamed over the wine-dark ocean. The glowing moon charting her path over mortal lands. The cool breeze brushed against you, but you ignored it as you walked upward on the rocky path.

Safely tucked in your arms was your parents’ urn. It was both the lightest and heavy thing you ever carried. When you arrived, you found a comfortable spot in front of their tomb.

Their names were carved beautifully. You just wished it wasn’t here, it would have been nice to have to visit back home. Another reason to join Odysseus, you suppose. If there was nothing waiting for you, then you might as well go where you please.

”Why are you here?” Her raspy voice was quiet, nearly lost among the waves. You didn’t look at Thetis.

“One last visit before the ships leave.” You told her, placing the urn down.

Thetis said nothing and you weren’t surprised. She never revealed herself to you until after your Father’s death, always demanding your father to meet her alone. It suited you just fine especially with the pained face Pa made whenever she came up in conversations.

With a sigh, the goddess loomed over you, her hair almost brushing against you, her fingers tracing Achilles’ name.

Your eyes flickered over it, but then you shifted around, getting a good look of the remaining tents. Most of the ships were already gone, and the rest will be gone in the morning.

“Pyrhuss had been named Achilles’ true heir.” Thetis remarked coolly, staring down at you with her black eyes. ”That so-called king of men may be a fool but even he will not defy the gods.”

You knew she was waiting for your rage to surge forward, for you to deny it in a childish fit. So you only nodded. You had your parents’ ashes and that would be enough.

It had to be. Because they were beyond your reach now.

Silence reigns over both divine and clay. A gentle wind rushed, playing with Thetis’s long, dark hair.

This high up, you saw everything. You saw the group of men following Pyrrhus into your tent, quickly carrying out the goods. You only gave the sight an unimpressed sigh.

All the gold in the world, all the fastest ships, the most beautiful women, wouldn’t satisfy Pyrrhus.

You almost didn’t see it.

In the darkness, two cloaked figures darted out of the camp, one holding the hand of the other. They rushed into the woods and when no one followed, you let out a sigh of relief.

There was nothing else you could now but hoped the gods would let them arrive safely home.

“Even they don’t want you.” Theist scoffed but her tone gave away her surprise. She knew. Somehow she knew you let them leave.

You finally met her eyes, dark and cold as the sea itself. You wondered how someone golden and bright like your Father came from her womb.

“If you are worried I might fight your grandchild for whatever worthless things he claimed, don’t. He has nothing I want.” You placed a gentle hand on the urn. “I will leave for Ithaca tomorrow and you will not see me ever again.”

Theist said nothing. Then as if exhausted, she joined you on the ground, staring at the tomb. For a long time, you and her sat there, saying nothing.

You wanted to ask if she knew what Pyrrhus had done to Hector’s son. Even she must have turned away when everyone else learned of his horrible actions.

Then you saw him.

His flaming locks were impossible to miss even in the dead of the night. Right behind him, Odysseus was chasing after him but he was steadily falling more behind. The rocks didn’t seem to slow Pyrrhus down at all.

He looked like a fury almost, righteous in his anger. You stood, handing over the urn to Theist. You knew she would not let anything happen to Achilles’ ashes, not even Pyrrhus.

“You.” He snarled like a wild thing, practically spitting as he screamed out your name. “Worthless street mutt! You dared to mix my father’s ashes with that worthless slave!?”

“Pyrrhus.” You warned quietly. “Leave now.”

He bared his teeth, stepping up closer to you. “Make me.”

Until their skulls cracked open-

You forced yourself to breathe, to be the stoney mountain to his storming rage. You would not lose your head, not over him, not anymore.

He laughed, then as if he finally just saw Thetis, his blue eyes widened in shock. His gaze flickered between her unreadable expression and the urn.

“You knew.” He accused in a whisper. His tone caused the unshakable Thetis to flitched as if she was slapped. “This whole time, you knew.”

”It is only ashes now.” Thetis said, her voice was a broken thing. “Your father- my son- belongs to the underworld now. This was the only way for him to get rest.”

Pyrrhus stumbled back, shaking his head in disbelief. He laughed, it was an ugly sound.

Odysseus finally made up, a hand pressed to his side as he wheezed. “I need to work out more.” He muttered.

Then he straightened up, giving a weak grin. “Let all calm down, lads. There had already been enough bloodshed to fill even Ares’ cups, let not add more.”

There was a flicker of guilt in his expression and you narrowed your eyes at him. “You told him, didn’t you?”

Odysseus winced as he tried to laugh it off, but at your scowl, he stopped. “I had my reasons, lad. You weren’t down there-“

Pyrrhus jerked toward Thetis, his hands outstretched toward her, his speed quick as lighting. You moved before you registered it, your hands on his shoulders as you used all of your strength to slam him back down.

He screamed in animalistic rage, his hands grabbing at your legs and you went down with him. Sharp pains jolt through you as you and Pyrrhus both roll down the rocky steps of your parents’ grave, with Pyrrhus still trying to attack you.

Odysseus and Thetis were both screaming, but the words were lost.

You tossed him off of you, sending him farther downhill and he let out a pained groan. You spat out the dirt as you stood and went to him, grabbing his red hair as you pinned him down and you shook him. Hard.

“You are a goddamn fool.” You roared as you slammed him back into the stones once, then over and over. His nails scrabbled at your arms, your face but you ignored it. “If Father knew what you had done to that child, he would have killed you himself!”

Thetis’ fingers dug into you, but not even the goddess was not strong enough to pull you away.

Red blood stained the pale stones but you still didn’t stop. Pyrrhus’s blue eyes- just like Achilles, and it killed you- were going wild in despair as he tried to fight you off.

It would be so easy, just end it here now. All the goods, the men, the ships, the titles would all return back to you.

But you didn’t want any of it.

You just wanted your parents, you wanted Hector’s son to be alive and safe in his mother’s arms, you wanted this war to never have happened.

Killing Pyrhuss wouldn’t bring them back. It would only blacken your soul even more.

So you stopped, letting a horrified Thetis shove you away. You stood up, breathing heavily. Thetis curled over Pyrrhus, muttering comforting words as she tried to stop the bleeding.

Her pale, godly hands were covered in red blood. Just as your ruined, mortal hands were as well.

”Leave.” She hissed at you, her lips quivering. “You have done enough, just leave.”

You didn’t acknowledge her as you turned around to Odysseus, his expression grim as he offered up the urn. You took it, smearing it with fresh blood. You studied it for a long quiet moment.

”Lad?” Odysseus’ hand lifted as if he was going to touch your shoulder but he dropped it a moment later.

”I won’t join you on your journey.” You said, so numb that it felt like another person was speaking. “You put the last thing I care about in this world at risk, they might only be ashes now but they were mine. Just for a little while, they were my parents and they loved me when no one else did.”

Odysseus bowed his head, and you wondered if he was thinking about his own family. “I understand.” His voice was so low, you thought the wind might have stolen it away.

You rubbed your thumb on Patroclus’ name, marking the center with blood. “Odysseus?”

”Yes, lad?” He said quickly, as if he saw a chance of a small redemption in your voice. You glanced up, arresting his dark eyes with yours.

”Give me a horse, any big one will do. And a week worth of food. Tonight.”

At his surprise nod, you began walking down the path. When you passed the limp, but alive body of Pyrrhus, Thetis didn’t look at you, didn’t acknowledge you at all.

Her dark hair was a heavy veil over her and Pyrrhus’ face.

You thought you heard weeping.

To Hypnos,

I still remembered when we first met, you were already your cheerful self in the gloomy house. So unlike my y/n, so grumpy even as a child-

This isn’t how I wanted to-

(letter from Achilles, never sent)

(A stolen moment before a workday.)

The bed was a mess, pillows spilled everywhere but the lovers didn’t care, too wrapped in each other, softly murmuring promises between gasps of reliefs and kisses that devoured.

Later, Hypnos had claimed your shoulder as his pillow, half-awake as he cuddled in close, your hand a solid weight on his hip.

“How far did you go?” Hypnos asked, his fingers caressed the line of your collarbone, writing letters into your skin. You hummed, eyes closed as you just greedily soaked in the softness of his bared body against yours.

“After the war I mean?” Hypnos’ fingers trailed across your chest, your stomach, using your scars like a map.

You finally opened your eyes, meeting Hypnos’ sleepy ones. He blinked at you, his irises were honey gold and languid warmth and it wouldn’t be long before he gave in.

Sometimes you liked that you could tempt the god of sleep himself to try to stay awake just a little longer, just because he wanted to be with you. Maybe that's why you didn’t mind speaking of it.

It seemed like a fair trade.

“I left Troy on horseback.” You said, your voice all gravel. You laid your head back down, staring up at the gleaming stars. Hypnos’ fingers slowed, then stopped over where your heart once had been.

”Chiron was all the way back in Mount Pelion in Thessaly. And I knew the way I spoke would be a dead giveaway that I was one of the invaders. So I went to head down to Miletus, sold the horse and I had just enough to get on a boat to Athens.”

Hypnos propped himself up on his elbow, his cheek on his palm as he listened. His curls had spilled around his face, the sleep mask long lost somewhere in the bed. You reached up and tucked a stray curl behind his ear, letting your fingers linger over his soft skin.

”Eventually I got there.” You went quiet, lost in the memory of Chiron's expression, the way he invited you to join him, he would have tried to keep you safe but you were not willing to risk something happening to Chrion’s children or wife.

Pyrrhus had destroyed enough families, you would not allow Chrion’s to be one of them.

“Then I just moved around, so Pyrrhus couldn’t find me. Spent a lot of time in Sparta, easy money to be made there. Then I ended up in that little fishing town.” You finished, your words trailing off.

”Did you like it there before…?” Hypnos asked, his eyes searching yours. “Or any of those places?”

You shrugged, quiet when you spoke. “It wasn’t home.”

Something cracked in Hypnos’ expression, “And what about now?”

You held his gaze, smiling. “When I am with you, I am always home.”

He chuckled breathlessly, his relieved smile gorgeous as it grew.“Such a way with words.”

Then Hypnos leaned down, brushing a chaste kiss against your mouth. You pressed into it, ready to forget the past and focus on Hypnos. To focus on the good.

(Current)

Somewhere there was a house in chaos, gods and shades looking high and low for a certain god and a missing house guard. Not even Hades’ booming voice seemed to reach their ears.

Zagreus winced as his father yelled once more, rattling the walls. His mother looked exhausted from her hurried journey but she didn’t sit down even when Zagreus tried to offer her a seat.

Both she and Nyx were accepting calls from Olympus. Right now it was Aphrodite nearly howling in grief at Nyx about her beloved doves slamming into walls. Dionysus was in quiet disbelief that his gardens were beyond even Persephone’s help.

Hades stomped toward the administrative room, and Zagreus winced when he heard the booming orders for two pink slips. He still had his papers somewhere in his bedchambers. He would have to speak to his father when he was calmer, Zagreus wasn’t about lose two people who actually make his day a little interesting.

It was the pitch between Than’s eyebrows that made Zagreus go to the training room, grabbing Stygian. Perhaps they were somewhere in the underworld and it wasn’t like they could have gone far.

Zagreus just hoped it had nothing to do with that wretched shade that was Y/N’s brother. Even now, the memories of how empty those eyes were of anything human still made Zagreus shudder.

With a nod toward Skelly, Zagreus leaped into the pit of Tartarus.

(current)

Each door Megaera took you and Hypnos through only seemed darker than the last, shadows clinging to the walls. The darkness was so pure that it was a miracle that the green flames worked at all.

It felt like you were following Hypnos to the center of the world. You knew of the tales of Tartarus going so deep, it hollowed out the earth.

You didn’t believe at first but now a part of you wondered. You eyed the inky shadows that seemed to trail after the group,

Hypnos wrapped the cloak around himself tightly, his mouth thinned out in stress. You saw how his golden eyes lingered on the shadows as if searching for something. Or for someone.

You kept a hand on his back, a show of quiet support. You hated that you couldn’t do more, that he had to be down here at all.

It had been years for all you knew when Megaera finally paused in front of a wall of solid darkness, not even the green light was able to illuminate past it.

“Last chance.” Megarea told Hypnos, her fingers tight around the torch. Hypnos nodded, his golden eyes bright in the dark. Like twin stars.

Your heart ached with how much you loved him, that even the dark, he still shined.

“Lord Erebus! Reveal the door.” Meg called out as she moved the light in a sweeping arc. The green light dimmed then brightened once more.

You heard the hitch in Hypnos’s breathing. The way he leaned forward as if to greet someone.

For a long moment, nothing happened. The silence was becoming a crushing weight.

Then you and everyone else was plunged into the pitch blackness, all of your senses were made redundant, a second death. It was only for a second or maybe for hours then light hit your eyes and you flinched at the sudden pain in your eyes.

Megaera was still standing before you, the torch was gone. so were the shadows.

You immediately checked for Hypnos who was still by your side, rubbing his eyes in annoyance. He blinked at you several times and you resisted the urge to kiss the adorable pout on his face.

You scanned the surroundings only to realize this was merely a new part of Tartarus. Chains dangling from the walls, and when you looked farther out, you saw flaming wheels, with a shade howling and sobbing.

Then your eyes landed on a large, looming golden bull, fresh smoke spilling from the nose.

Realizing what you were seeing, you immediately blocked Hypnos’ view before he glanced over, but his face paled at the sounds.

“Don’t pity them. It will be the both of you soon enough.” Alecto scoffed as she came to join, her wolfish smile grew when a scream abruptly cut off. “I must ask, Megaera, why aren’t they in chains?”

You moved Hypnos behind you with a push of your arm, not liking the way her bloody red eyes lingered on him.

“Alecto.” Megaera warned. “They are not prisoners. They are here to speak to Pyrrhus.”

The sisters shared a glance, a silent conversation between them.

Alecto’s grin only grew more bloodthirsty, more jagged as she looked back at you and Hypnos. “I see.”

Without another word, the fury sisters walked off. It took a gentle nudge from you to get Hypnos to jolt and follow after them. You did your best to block the view from the slaughterhouse but there was nothing you could do for the screams.

“Cover your ears. This won’t help you to hear it.” You ordered quietly, so the furies wouldn’t overhear. Hypnos shot you a glance, looking ready to argue. A sudden wail reached them, some poor soul crying out for their mother.

Hypnos obeyed with a pained grimace.

When you saw shades’ eyes following the group, some lingering on Hypnos, you glared darkly at them, all but baring your teeth. Most of them looked away but a few of them held your hard stare, challenging you even when bound in chains.

“Megarea, how much farther?” You called out. If it was you, you wouldn’t care how damn long it took but Hypnos with his red cloak and pale curls were like a beacon.

“Not much longer.” She replied coolly.

You fought down a growl, and kept a wary eye out, with a tight grip on your spear and the other one on Hypnos’ back.

To Hypnos,

I debated countless times over how I should address my apology to you for my firstborn’s actions. I know what he did could never be forgiven. Or should be.

Of course, I had apologized in person but I felt the need to write this letter anyway. I must have sounded like a rambling fool. Nothing new there, I suppose.

When I was the house guard, I remember how often you were the only one who ever smiled in that gloomy house even when Hades was at his worst.

Then when I got my own lectures from Master Hades, you were the only one to offer me an easy smile and a friendly pat on the shoulder. Or a horrible joke.

I don’t think you knew how much someone acting like a normal person in that house helped me.

Then you gave my son that same cheerful smile and brought him back to us.

I cannot thank you enough for that. I thought after the war, after everything I wouldn’t see him smile that carefree ever again.

There is nothing in the world you couldn’t ask of me. Even Patroclus smiles when you and him trade those books and- and.

…

I am rambling. Again. I don’t think I will send this one. Another one for the pile.

(Letter from Achilles, never sent)

(Current)

The door was simple, with the customary skulls looming overhead, watching with twisted, pained expressions.

“When you both go in, I need to both listen to my orders. No matter what, understood?” Megaera said and didn’t move until both you and Hypnos nodded. Megaera turned to her sister, ordering her to stand guard.

Something that Alecto didn’t appreciate, snapping back at Meg.

Hypnos grabbed your hand, his eyes locked ahead on the door and you gave him a reassuring squeeze, and waited until Hypnos let go first.

“It’s going to be okay. I’ll be by your side.” You whispered and Hypnos let out a shaky breath then nodded.

Alecto groaned loudly and slumped against the wall. She glared at everyone as she crossed her arms. “Fine. Be a bore like you always are.”

Megaera sighed, and began opening the door, going through the locks. Alecto flashed you and Hypnos a toothy grin. You glared at her in warning but that only seemed to delight her.

“Good luck.” Alecto taunted, and you resisted the urge to smack her. Thankfully Meg did it for you, hitting her arm.

The door creak opened, dust spilling out like it was a tomb.

In a way, it was Pyrrhus’ final resting place, left to rot just like you had wanted the moment he touched Hypnos.

The walls were empty, only with cracks and the rustle of rats for company. The floor was covered in grime, the darkness loomed over all the occupants.

Far away, almost tucked in the corner, you saw him. Chained bound his hands and feet, the metal led to a bed behind him. At first, it looked like a heavenly place to rest, soft pillows and blankets.

Then you saw the spikes jutting through everything.

Hypnos inhaled sharply, his eyes on the bed.

The noise must have reached Pyrrhus, lifting his head, face hidden by a curtain of dark red locks. Otherwise, He didn’t move from his slumped position on the wall.

Megaera parted her lips to speak but Hypnos held up a hand. Megaera gave him a surprised glance. He shook his head at her then he began to walk toward Pyrrhus. You jolted, grabbing his elbow but didn’t him pull back.

Hypnos gave you a look, a silent ‘it’s going to be okay’. He smiled, wobbly at first. You breathed out.

It took everything in you to let him go but you stayed a few steps behind. Ready for anything.

“Pyrrhus?” Hypnos called out, moving carefully. His voice was airy, almost kind in the ugliness. “Can you hear me?”

The shade didn’t move until Hypnos stopped just out of reach. His fingers twitched, but otherwise he did nothing.

”Pyrrhus, It’s me. Remember? The god you tried to kill, no biggie.” Hypnos teased, his smile tight. You wanted to grab him, to tuck him safely away in your arms.

Then Pyrrhus shifted, lifting his head up enough that the bloody veil of his hair fell away.

His blue eyes were dull, black circles marked him like bruises. He blinked once, as if he didn’t realize Hypnos was there.

He breathed. Stared.

Then with a swiftness that shouldn’t have been possible, he lunged at Hypnos. You grabbed Hypnos and pulled him away in time. Pyrrhus’ fingers brushed along the hem of his cloak but was unable to grab it.

Pyrrhus sobbed, his broken nails crawling at the ground. Then he began screaming, so loud that it echoed in the room.

Meg moved quickly, shoving him back with a crack of her whip. “Be silent!” She growled and Pyrrhus, to your surprise, went quiet. Whimpering like a broken thing.

Hypnos was breathing heavily, his fingers digging into your arm. “What happened to him?”

“Nothing that he didn’t deserve.” You told him, staring down at him with disgust. Hypnos said nothing back.

Megaera stepped back, her whip coiled at her feet, ready to strike once more.

The shade, the monster known as Pyrrhus, the hero that felled Troy, Achilles’ son and your brother, stared at Hypnos like the god himself held the key to his salvation.

You just prayed you haven’t made another mistake that Hypnos might have to pay for.

#wake me from this dreaming

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