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retrievablememories · 3 years

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matched | ten (m)

title: matched pairing: alien!ten x black!reader genre: sci-fi, angst, fluff, romance, smut summary: the quest for love leads you to a new dating app with a slight twist—and straight into the inbox of someone who’s light-years out of your usual dating pool. word count: 9.7k warnings: familial conflict, strained parental relationship, mentions of cheating, prejudice/discrimination based on species, body modifications/alien biology, unprotected sex, oral (female receiving), dom!ten, photography during sex, cumshot, squirting, some spanking a/n: as always, i lose all impulse control whenever i get a ten request so i have finished this sooner than i expected

i decided to lean more into the romance plotline than stress too much over the realism of the science-fiction elements with this fic, so there are some inaccuracies/impossibilities...but that’s fiction for you 🙃

AM 2074 (After Migration)

You are lonely.

Your last breakup did not end well, to say the least, and you haven’t dated for a while since then. It seemed like a smart move—a safe one—to shun all romantic relationships until you felt ready again. At the beginning, you were glad to be alone for a while, to regroup and rediscover yourself worrying about another person’s opinions on everything you did. To not have to deal with someone else’s drama.

The toll of not having companionship is gradually getting to you, though. Even if your last relationship was a mess more often than it wasn’t, you still long for those good moments, like going on night dates on the weekends and sharing pillowtalk into long hours of the early morning. You hadn’t realized how much you’d missed those things until all the emotions of it crashed down on you at once.

Your friend Malika claims to have a solution for your loneliness. Now, sitting at this outdoor cafe, you’re simultaneously eager and hesitant to hear what she has to propose, knowing her track record for silly plots.

With twinkling eyes, she looks at you and says, “You should try a dating app.” She clasps her hands together and puts them on the table like she’s made a grand announcement. You absorb her words for a few moments, looking out at the street across from you and watching cars—some hovering above the asphalt, some driven autonomously, and many still with human drivers—pass by.

You eventually sigh, your shoulders slumping. “That’s the big solution you called me out here for? People have been using dating apps for decades, that’s nothing new.”

“Exactly! The fact that they’re still popular even in 2074 is proof that they work, Y/N. You can put yourself out there and talk to dozens of guys without even meeting them in person. If one connection doesn’t work out, you don’t have anything to lose, and you don’t have to see the guy ever again.”

“Maybe I’ll lose my sweet time and patience during the process, though.”

Malika shakes her head and types something into her hologram pad, then holds it up for you to see. The hologram displays a dating app called matched—it reminds you of what Tinder was supposedly like before it became eclipsed by more advanced platforms, though that happened years before you were even born. “This one is kinda new, but it’s gotten popular fast and has good success rates. I’ve tried it before and met some nice guys. Give it at least one chance before you hate on it.”

“Ugh, I don’t know...there are always so many weirdos hanging out on those apps. What if I meet someone who keeps a collection of severed alien tentacles in an icebox in their house? Like that one guy who showed up on the news?”

“...Really?” Malika rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. Stop getting in your own way and just take a risk for once.”

You shake your head at her optimism. “I’ll do it because I know you won’t leave me alone about it, but don’t expect me to find some great love story on this app.”

Once you download the app and start making an account, it becomes pretty obvious that this isn’t just a regular dating platform.

Choosing your gender and age preferences is normal enough, and you pass through those screens quickly until you get to one that gives you two new options.

➤ Species Preference ❐ Human ❐ Extraterrestrial

Whoa. Aliens? An alien-friendly dating app?

You weren’t overly familiar with the mechanics of dating apps, and you certainly didn’t consider that ones allowing aliens might’ve existed until now. It had been 15 years since the first contact with aliens was established, and a little less than a decade had passed since aliens began migrating to Earth and taking up permanent residence—and vice versa.

Humans had little problem with accepting aliens’ technological adaptations and claiming them as their own, though they were far less welcoming of the aliens themselves. That resulted in strained interactions between the two species, with aliens trying their best to assimilate and humans questioning their every motive. As far as personal relationships went, interspecies mingling between humans and extraterrestrials was still fairly uncommon—something that only people who were considered to be on the fringes of society participated in. There were “normal citizens of society” who built relationships with aliens, but many of them also kept it solely as a kink or fetish to be done only in the dark.

You decide to check both options. It feels a little scary, like diving headfirst into the unknown, but you are open to it either way. You’ve interacted with aliens before, both as kind acquaintances and near strangers, and they’ve always been relatively normal in the grand scheme of things—beings trying to survive and make a life for themselves like anyone else. Certainly not plotting how to take over Earth as many people have speculated. If they really wanted to, they possess the technology to have done that ten times over already.

You take a while trying to come up with a clever bio and spend an even longer time mulling over which pictures of yourself to choose, but you eventually complete your profile.

The first few matches you make are not very successful.

Whether it’s human guys feeding you terrible pickup lines or alien guys who can’t make it past the language barrier—or who ask you to move back with them to their home planet after two days of talking—you don’t see any potential love interests during your first two weeks of using the app.

You’re not sure what kind of skills Malika used to make multiple good matches, but maybe you need to interrogate her so you can sharpen your own. So you decide to do exactly that.

“Don’t give up on it just yet. Just be yourself—which also means not being afraid to cuss someone out if they come at you crazy. Some of these dudes lowkey like the mean girl shit, though, which is kinda weird.” Malika speaks from the shimmering translucent mirage of your hologram pad as you walk through the park one afternoon. She couldn’t make it out to meet you today, but you managed to snatch a moment to talk to her even if it couldn’t be face-to-face. “You probably shouldn’t expect to find a boyfriend in the first few days—”

“Girl, I don't think anyone was expecting that. Duh.”

“I’m saying, just give it time!”

“Okay, but listen. You didn’t tell me it’s also for aliens. Have you dated one before? You never told me!” You lower your voice then, not wanting anyone nearby to eavesdrop on your conversation and hear that part. You feel kinda bad for even thinking that way, but it’s hard to shake the stigma associated with interacting with aliens.

“Yes, and it was the best sex I ever had, but maybe I’ll tell you about that later.”

“Sis. Don’t withhold tea from me!”

“Someday when you’re not literally standing in the middle of the park, okay?” Malika shakes her head, smiling.

“Don’t forget about it, either.”

“I won’t. And you know what to do if you find a guy. I want to be the first to know!”

“Sure, sure. I wouldn’t hold my breath on it, though.”

You decide to spend some more time on the app after that conversation instead of just deleting it like you’d planned to initially. And one day, you get another new match that catches your eye out of the many others.

“Ten? Like the number…?” Besides the interesting name, you immediately see that he’s an extraterrestrial. From the Sommu race, as it says in his bio.

You click on his profile.

You’re a little surprised by how pretty he is, which isn’t to say the other aliens you matched with were all hideous. But he doesn’t have tentacles coming out of his face or two sets of eyes, either. The most noticeable thing about his alienness is his blue skin.

“Likes...dancing, art, music, okay so we have an artist type here...dislikes...fruit. Huh. That’s...interesting.”

The pictures of him on his profile are all deliberately artistic, as in they aren’t just some half-baked selfies he took with a hologram pad. You grow increasingly curious. It’s safe to say he’s either super into himself or just appreciates the art of good photography, and you figure there’s only one way to find out. You decide to take the first step and message him.

➤ Nice pictures :)

You don’t know when or if you’ll get a message back, since he’s not online when you send it, so you try not to get your hopes up too much. Maybe you should’ve tried to come up with something more cool and funny—nice pictures?—but you try to remember Malika’s advice and roll your eyes to yourself. There’s no point in getting stressed over a dude you don’t even know yet.

You eventually get a reply back from Ten.

➤ thank you 🙏 are you into photography too? you have talent for taking beautiful photos

You giggle quietly to yourself; another line, but it’s definitely one of the tamer ones you’ve received. Why not see where this one goes?

The first conversation you have consists mostly of the regular getting-to-know-you talk, such as your personal interests and favorite things. You get him to talk more about his photography hobby, which he’s eager to tell you all about—as well as his penchant for art.

To your optimism, you and Ten quickly get comfortable with each other. You soon forget about all the other potential matches you have, but those don't matter much to you anymore. So far, you’ve connected the most successfully with Ten, which means you’re more than glad to stop spending your time reading boring messages from guys who’ve only pretended to have things in common with you.

Things go so well, in fact, that he asks you to meet in person not long after you begin talking to each other.

For your first meetup, you decide to meet at a park nearby—the same one you’d been walking through the day you were talking to Malika about that very dating app. You and Ten have talked through the hologram pad on multiple occasions, so you’re more reassured that you’re not starting from scratch with some faceless being. Still, the thrill of seeing each other in person for the first time is undeniable.

“Y/N?” You turn your head at the sound of your name, and you see Ten walking towards you.

“Ten!” You give him a smile, waving at him. You feel a little more nervous than you usually would on a date, though you can’t tell if it’s the good kind of nervousness. You mostly chalk it up to not having been out with anyone in a while.

Ten’s just as pretty up close as he was in the photos and on camera, if not even more attractive; he’s breathtaking in the light of the sun. His hair is styled nicely, meticulously-place strands curling over his forehead, and his clothes perfectly outline his slim body. He looks pleased to see you, his lips curving into a coy smile.

“You could’ve given me a warning,” he says as he outstretches his arms to you. You hug him, but not without a questioning glance on your face. He is warm and smells good, like juniper, which almost makes you forget about your question.

“Warned you about what?”

“How you’re even more beautiful in person.” He says this at your ear before pulling away, and it makes the back of your neck bloom with heat.

“Oh, you’re laying it on thick.” You giggle nervously, shifting on your feet.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks.

“Yes, let’s go!”

You leave the park to go to an aquarium nearby, which is the biggest one in the city. You find out quickly that Ten is easily fascinated by the wide range of creatures there. Despite living on Earth for a few years now, he hasn’t seen a lot of them until now.

You walk through the blue-lit hallways together, surrounded by water everywhere you turn. You observe the different animals up close and from far away, reading information about them from the signs beside their tanks.

“What the hell is that?” Ten says through laughter, looking at the squished-up mouth of a stingray as it floats in front of the glass, baring its pale underside to you both.

“It’s a stingray!”

He scrunches his nose up. “It’s ugly. But kinda cute, too…”

You both end up staying at the aquarium longer than you expected, with Ten wanting to see practically every animal they had on display; plus, you got to see some you weren’t familiar with before either.

After visiting the aquarium, you go downtown—which is otherwise known as food truck central, where you can get pretty much anything you’re craving. This area is always quite busy this time of evening, especially on the weekends. Food in hand, you and Ten end up walking through a few of the quieter back streets where there’s not as many people—streets where the closely-packed buildings give way to the grassy yards and paved roads of nearby neighborhoods.

“Should we talk about our families now, or is it too soon?” you say jokingly. “You know, that seems to be the only thing we haven’t mentioned after talking about everything else under the sun.” You’re not entirely sure why you bring this up while knowing your own relationship with your parents isn’t great, but you are curious to hear about Ten’s family.

“I don’t really know mine,” he replies.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You feel a little bad about it, thinking there was definitely a reason why he never mentioned the topic.

Ten looks confused for a moment before shaking his head. “No, it’s not like that. Sommu never form close bonds with their parents or siblings.”

You give him a curious look. “Why not?”

“Well, we aren’t born or raised the human way,” he explains. “Our parents have a bunch of us at once, raise us for the first couple of years, and then go off to reproduce again and continue the population.”

You’re startled at that. “Just for a few years? How do you survive?”

“We age faster...both physically and mentally. We become independent around 4 or 5 years old, and we can live without our parents.”

“That’s...definitely very different.” You try to wrap your mind around that information, though it’s difficult. Even with your not-so-healthy relationship with your parents, you couldn’t imagine having no family whatsoever at such a young age. You also can’t even begin to comprehend what it’d look like to be taking care of yourself at only 5 years old, fast aging or not. “But, you said a bunch at once...how is that possible?”

“We are formed inside things like eggs. It’s not like your form of childbirth. See?” And you become flustered when he lifts his shirt up to show his lack of a belly button, right there in the middle of the street.

“Uh, wow.”

“The human concepts of ‘family’ and ‘relationships’ are...very new to me.” He seems a little embarrassed to admit this. “That’s why I, um, joined a dating app, for more experience...I was told I need to learn to be more…” He searches for the word. “Im...pertinent?”

“...Empathetic?”

“Yeah, that.”

“So, did that come from a previous partner, or…?”

“Yeah, I’ve had two relationships since I’ve been here.” He seems wistful now, maybe a little sad. “They didn’t work out well. Maybe we were too different.” Before the mood can shift too far into negativity, Ten turns to you with a soft smile. “But maybe that’s not the kind of thing you want to hear while we’re on a date.”

You shake your head and smile. “I don’t mind, it’s interesting to know about.” More than interesting. You want to ask him a hundred more things about what his life was like when he first got to Earth. “Anyway, you can never have too many new starts in life. Let’s enjoy this one.”

At the end of your date, Ten walks with you back to your place. It’s almost midnight at this point, with you both walking all the way back from downtown. You’d drawn more than a few skeptical stares over the course of the day, but you both did your best to ignore those and just focus on each other.

“I’m really glad we got to go out today, it was fun,” you say, hugging your arms to yourself to shield against the cool spring breeze.

“I think I haven’t had that much fun in a while,” he agrees. Ten smiles wide then, the tip of his tongue sticking out from between his teeth, and you have to do a double take.

“What—”

“Oh, that. Sometimes I forget everyone doesn’t have this...” And when he sticks his tongue out, you see clearly now that it’s split halfway down the middle. Sort of like how a snake’s would be. “D’you like it?” His expression is wicked when he asks this, and a strange heat sweeps through your body.

“Wow.” You cringe at your lackluster answer, but that’s the only thing you can muster up at the moment, too busy internally questioning yourself. You��ve seen body modders with split tongues in documentaries and on the internet, but it’s never appealed to you like this before, and you don’t know what to do with that new realization.

“It’s okay, it takes some getting used to.” He gives you a smile that might be called innocent by anyone else, but to your eyes it’s quite obvious he’s proud about making you flustered.

“Getting used to...yeah, I’m sure.” There are about 15 different questions you want to ask him about that, too, but you aren’t going there on the first date.

“So...can I expect to see you again?”

“Of course.” You smile again at the hopeful note in his tone. “Just let me know whenever you want to go out again.”

Before Ten leaves, he places a hand on your shoulder and kisses you on the cheek. It’s a simple and short kiss, but it still makes you blush beneath your brown skin.

You wave goodbye to him from your doorstep as he goes, feeling like you’ve finally done something right for the first time in a long time.

You’d taken a chance with dating an extraterrestrial, someone so different from yourself and your species, and you figured it would be a new experience. Obviously. What you did not bet on, however, was the idea that you’d fall for Ten so fast.

After three months of dating exclusively, you feel like you could say you love him, which is frighteningly quick for you; though you don’t tell him this yet.

You’ve decided to bring him to meet your family. The idea frightens you, because your parents have never been very receptive to the aliens’ migration. But you are still holding out some hope that maybe they’ll realize all their assumptions were wrong, and that you’ve found a nice man who you love and who you’re sure loves you just as much. Whether he’s human or not shouldn’t matter.

You manage to set a date when all your schedules match up so you can bring Ten over to your parent’s house. Ten is nervous—more nervous than he was when you went on your first date—which you find a little surprising. You’ve gotten used to him being the one who you can lean on, who always seems to know the right answer.

“Do you think it will go well?” he asks, his tone implying he’s not confident of the answer.

“I hope so.” You give him a smile that you hope is reassuring and squeeze his hand.

When your parents open the door, there’s visible surprise on their faces. You’d already told them your boyfriend was not human, which drew doubtful responses when you first said it, but they’re acting as if they never knew that information—as if this is the first time they’re seeing an alien, period.

“Um…hi, mom, dad.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ten says, though his own tone is overly formal, like he doesn’t know how he should speak. “I’m Ten.”

Your parents pause for a few moments longer. Finally, the awkward quiet is broken. “We thought you were just messing,” your dad says, though he steps out of the way to let you both come in, if a bit reluctantly.

“I—no.” You’re uncertain how to respond to that, though you don’t feel optimistic about what it entails. Your mother doesn’t say anything at all, just stares at you and Ten like you’re both strangers who’ve just waltzed in uninvited. She goes back in the kitchen to finish dinner once the door is closed, not saying anything to either one of you, and you already feel a cold pit settling in the bottom of your stomach.

Your dad sits in the living room with you and Ten, and another awkward silence ensues as your dad gives a stiff smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He clasps his fingers together and pulls them apart repeatedly, like they’ll give him the answers for what’s going on.

“This is just a fling, right? Of course you won’t be staying with this ma—” Your dad almost says man but then stutters, thinking maybe the term isn’t appropriate since Ten isn’t human. He makes a vague gesture to fill in the space of the missing word.

“It’s not a fling,” you say, feeling like you’ve had cold water poured down your back. You’re sitting straight and still on the couch, and it’s not comfortable, but you’re too tense to move. Ten is almost equally stiff beside you.

“Y/N, we just want you to make good decisions for yourself.” That’s what your dad says out loud, though the look in his eyes finishes the rest of that sentence: And I don’t think this is a good decision.

“I am,” you insist. “I don’t need to be told that over and over again.”

“Me and Y/N are happy together,” Ten explains, and your dad seems a little shocked that he’s decided to speak.

“Do you truly think you’re what she needs?” your dad asks. You’re not sure what makes you more angry; the question itself, or the fact that he keeps his tone non-accusatory and light, as if he’s only asking something like where do you work? Like the answer doesn’t matter because he’s already made up his mind.

“As long as Y/N wants to keep seeing me, there’s no reason to stop our relationship.”

A sound of displeasure comes from your mother in the kitchen, and your skin prickles. Your dad nods to Ten’s answer, but he does so in a way that conveys he just wants this conversation to be over rather than consider anything that was said.

You deeply regret not leaving straight after that failed discussion, but you soon find out just how bad it can get once you all make it to the dinner table. Your mother is chillingly silent for the first half of the dinner, acting like neither you nor Ten exist, while your dad attempts to make awkward small talk about how things are going.

There comes a point where you can no longer handle the cold sweat and the nerves, and you put your utensils down. Not that you had much of an appetite anyway.

“Why won’t you even talk to me?”

Your mother glares. “You can’t guess? What kind of question is that to ask?”

You falter. You don’t know why she always does this to you. Ask ridiculous rhetorical questions that you both already know the answer to. Now you must sit here and explain why you asked like it isn’t already obvious.

“I’m visiting after I haven’t been here in a while. With my boyfriend. I thought...I don’t know. The least you could do—” Your mother shakes her head at the word “boyfriend,” and you already know everything else you said went in one ear and out the other.

“I still don’t know why you didn’t just stay with Christian?” she interrupts. “He had a decent job, came to see us often, and was NOT an alien.”

“But he cheated on me,” you say, a sickness rising in you.

“That’s what men do sometimes, Y/N. You deal with it and move on. You’re supposed to be strong—fix whatever is making him do it.”

You and Ten exchange a tense look, and there is clear confusion whirling in his eyes, but you don’t say anything to each other. “That relationship is over. I’m trying to do something for myself for once, not whatever you think I should do.” Even saying those words makes you internally recoil, unsure of what the reaction will be, but you don’t take them back.

“You may be an adult but we’re still your parents. Frankly, you need to be with a man of your own race and species—not this blue Martian here. How would you even have kids?”

Ten gives a humorless laugh, like he wants to respond but doesn’t want to make the situation worse or offend you. “You know what, I should just leave,” he says abruptly, rising from his seat.

You get up quickly after he does, but your mom slams her hand on the table. “Y/N, you better not walk out of here.”

You feel defeated and exhausted, like you always do when dealing with your parents and their objections to every single thing you do, but you decide not to give in this time. “Stop treating me like I’m still a child, ma.”

“What does being an adult matter when you still act childish? Don’t come back here crying when this doesn’t work out. I’ve already warned you more than enough.”

“That isn’t going to happen.”

“So now you think you know better than me, when you couldn’t even keep a man the first time around.”

“This is hopeless,” you sigh, feeling wounded and angry at all these cheap shots.

“Y/N, please just listen to your mother for once…” your dad interjects, but you try your best to ignore their protests as you grab your things and follow Ten to the door. You can still hear your mother’s angry complaints as you close the front door behind you, though you’re surprised—but grateful—that neither of them attempt to follow you outside.

The ride back home is uncomfortable and mostly quiet.

“I’m sorry, Ten,” you say, feeling like you’ve been frozen from the inside out despite it being nearly summer. You’re near tears when you speak. Ten shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

“It’s not your fault…” he replies weakly, though his words aren’t very persuasive to either of you.

He still walks you up to your door when you arrive back at your place, trailing slightly behind you. The night air is distractingly humid, wrapping around the both of you like a physical thing. Neither of you know what to say to each other.

When you get to your front door, you turn to look at him. “I shouldn’t have made you come. I should’ve known...”

“I wanted to come,” he points out. “You didn’t make me do anything.” Ten’s tone isn’t outright harsh, but the words are noticeably sharp. Maybe he realizes it, because his face softens as if he’s said something wrong.

You nod. It’s as if there’s a mountainous gap between you two that you just can’t cross right now. “I get it.” You say this almost mindlessly, because you’re not sure what you’re getting, exactly. Your hand rests on the doorknob. You don’t want to end the night on this awkward and painful note, but neither of you are making any progress with this lack of a real conversation. Maybe now isn’t the right time to try to talk about it.

“I think...I’ll just go home tonight.” You expected he’d say that, but the words still make your heart hurt, even if you don’t want them to. He looks like he might say something else, but he just gives you a small nod before starting off.

“Ten…” You don’t know what you want to ask of him or tell him, if anything, but his name slips from your lips like it’s something you can’t keep inside.

Ten stops for a moment and turns back to you. He steps closer again, leaning forward to give you a soft kiss on the lips. When he pulls back, his eyes hold you in place.

He mumbles, “I’m not mad at you,” before leaving.

More than anything, you want to know how Ten is doing, but you’re too ashamed to contact him for the first couple days after that mess of a night. Maybe he thinks you’re just like your parents and doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore. His reassurance at the door wasn’t enough to soothe your worries, and you end up tearing yourself up internally over it—repeatedly recalling the warmth of his lips and wondering if that’s maybe the last time you’ll ever feel it.

Similarly, nothing but radio silence comes from his end. He doesn’t respond even after you finally muster up the nerve to send him a text—a short text, but still a message all the same—and you fear he must really be done with you.

On Ten’s part, he does have one justification for it; he’s preoccupied with dealing with the avalanche of unpleasant memories and emotions that incident resurfaced. Everything about what your parents said and how they looked at him reminds him of his past and ongoing struggles with trying to assimilate on Earth.

Even though he’s often very sure of himself and what he wants, he begins wondering if he’s “enough” for you. Maybe you’ve just been humoring him this whole time, or you’ve decided your parents are right and you’d be better off with another human.

Those thoughts keep him up into the early morning hours, and he soon realizes he doesn’t want to let you go. In fact, he’s not sure what he’d do with himself if you decided to walk out of his life right now, and the idea of it makes him ill. Which makes him feel even more foolish for tuning you out.

Ten’s anxiety over losing you culminates in him standing on your doorstep again after almost a week of emptiness and not knowing how you were thinking or feeling—which has been killing him in its own way.

You’re not quite sure how to feel when you open the door and see him on the other side, but relief shoulders its way to the forefront.

“Y/N, I’m sorry—”

“Can you please—”

You both speak at the same time, your words breaking afterwards.

“You can talk first,” Ten says.

“Come in.” You let him in the door, and the words start spilling before you know how to stop them. “Ten, I-I’m...really sorry. I should’ve known better than to put you in that situation, but I thought…” Your words trail off. You don’t want to let him know just how desperate you still are for your parents’ approval sometimes. Even though it’s a fruitless case. “I just wanted it to go well. I want things to work now, for us. I really, really want things to work for us.”

Ten surprises himself with how quickly he moves to take you in his arms before the last words have even finished settling in his mind. He hugs you tightly. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want me anymore,” he whispers, like he’s telling you something forbidden.

“That couldn’t happen.” You’re saddened he’d come to that conclusion. “But...it’s not fair for you to leave me in the dark, either. I want to help you...so would you please let me?”

Ten squeezes you a bit tighter, as if you might disappear from his arms. “I’m sorry I ghosted you...it brought back bad memories of how things were when I first got here. When people were more open about treating me like some kind of enemy. I didn’t know how to deal with it.” You tuck your chin into his shoulder and listen to his breathing, his heartbeat, the sound of his words. “Y/N, I’m not sure if I’m very good at love, or if I even know enough about it. Maybe the others were right and I’m kidding myself with something I’ll never properly learn. But, I…” His voice cracks. “I-I think I love you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Entirely overwhelmed, you answer his admission with a long kiss, cupping his face in your hands. His response to your kiss is automatic, the knots of tension unraveling in your embrace.

“I love you, Ten,” you whisper against his lips after you separate. Here and now, it doesn’t feel too soon at all; there couldn’t be a better time to say it. His expression is a lot of things at once. Relief, happiness, contentment...he’s blushing, but it shows up as a darker blue on his already blue skin. When he smiles, it turns his whole face into a picture of joy.

“I want to go away.” Quietly, you tell him this as you rest your head in his lap.

You’re both lying on your couch, the room dim and the sound of rain occupying the silence. A downpour started coming down soon after Ten got to your place. You’ve sat there just like that and listened to the rain on the windows for the past couple hours, not wanting to do anything else or separate from each other. You knew he wouldn’t want to go home, and you didn’t even have to ask him to stay.

Ten’s been petting your hair the whole time. The motion of his fingers in your kinky strands makes you sleepy, but now the movements pause at your words.

“Go where?” he asks.

“Away from all this. My parents hate me, and they won’t let me have any peace as long as I’m with you. I just want to go away for a while.” Despite you overflowing with love after finally getting your feelings out in the open, the thought of your parents’ disapproval has lingered steadily in the recesses of your mind. You close your eyes against the tears that begin to well up. Ten’s quiet for a few more moments, and then begins stroking your head again.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

A few tears fall despite you trying to keep them in, and your eyelids flutter when you feel Ten’s fingers on your face, wiping them away. “Then we’ll go away.”

Ten’s homeland is a planet where the sun—or rather, a star called Proxima Centauri that’s much like the sun—is always out, no matter what time of day it is. There are days where it rains or gets cloudy, but night never falls and the star never dips any lower in the sky, always staying pinned in that same spot like a tack on a corkboard. That everlasting light throws your body clock off, and combined with this weird new form of jet lag associated with space travel, you are a mess for the first week or so after your arrival.

Ten makes a few jokes about fragile human bodies, but for the most part he tends to you as best as he knows how and tells you stories about how he grew up to get your mind off the discomfort. He feeds you these neon green drinks that don’t look like anything on Earth you’ve had before, and although they do make you feel better, you begin to think maybe you should’ve had a wellness plan before running off-planet.

You aren’t the only human who’s ever visited or even lived there, though, which gives you reassurance about adjusting to everything. By now, there’s a small population of human beings living here due to the interplanetary exchange initiated by Earth.

Before you left, Ten told you he had a small home in his homeland. You didn’t quite expect to hear this, since he’d been on Earth for a while now and had no family to return to. Though he’d migrated, he still expected to come back to his planet every so often, if only to visit. Now was as good a time as any.

Although many differences exist, the scenery is much like Earth’s; there are ecosystems with plants and animals and other living beings—like the Sommu themselves. Ten’s homeland is not filled with wall-to-wall technology like you’d expect an alien city to be, based on the small examples you’ve seen on Earth. You might compare it to the tropics back on Earth, with the Sommu yielding to nature’s rightful place in their ecosystem instead of clearing out whole forests or continually mining for resources. Ten is amused by your struggle to comprehend the newness and unfamiliarity of it all.

When you feel good enough to explore, he starts taking you to the beach often. It looks mostly like any other beach, but there are large coral forms that grow out of the ocean, reaching up towards the impossibly blue and constantly illuminated sky. Because there is no moon to guide the tides, the water is eerily still, the surface mirror-like—like a huge lake or pond that extends in almost every direction for miles. You’d almost believe it was a mirror if you hadn’t seen a bird-like creature skimming across the surface as it flew by, creating fleeting ripples.

You swim around a little in the still waters after Ten convinces you that you aren’t going to turn into a fish or something equally scary. He has to hold both your hands the entire time to get you to step in, and he doesn’t let go until you’re confident enough to explore the water on your own.

“Just focus on me, okay?” His smile is bright and shining against his blue skin, and he looks you directly in the eyes as he backs into the water, breaking the surreal stillness of it with his movements. “It’s just like the water on Earth.”

“Okay, okay,” you say uncertainly, gripping his hands and stepping in tentatively. The water does feel like any other water you’ve touched throughout your life, which helps you calm down slightly. His hands stay tight around yours as you get waist-deep into the water.

When you’re finally able to let go of him, he claps his hands more enthusiastically than the situation probably calls for. “Yay, you’re a big girl now!”

You roll your eyes at him. “You’re not funny, Ten.”

On a bright afternoon, Ten lets you into a room of his house you haven’t entered before. You’ve passed by this shining white door several times, but it’s always remained firmly shut until now.

“What’s in here?” you ask as you hold his hand.

“That’s what I’m going to show you.” He laughs and pushes the door open.

You think it’s a darkroom at first, seeing nothing but dim light and the shiny surfaces of what looks like photographs as your eyes adjust. But when he touches his hand to a panel on the wall and the lights come on, you realize it’s not a darkroom. More like a small gallery for all his pictures.

The “pictures” are physical, but they aren’t like the old Polaroids or film photos that have begun fading out of existence on Earth. They’re small crystalline squares that play eternally-moving videos on their glossy surfaces—a bit different from the translucent holograms Earth adopted. You step further into the room to look at them. It’d probably take days to explore them all, there are so many. Different scenes play out as soundless movies, and when you look for long enough, you realize they’re split into different categories. Numerous events within a life.

Many are of the beach, other scenic places around his homeland, oddly-shaped buildings, and plants in colors that there are no names on Earth for. You step closer to one of the walls to look at the collection of images more closely. You actually do “recognize” a select few, linking them together with old memories Ten had shared with you only weeks ago. There’s so much happening in these small snippets of time, so many stories you haven’t yet heard, that you feel like you could look at them forever and not get enough.

“This is...something else.” Your words seem inadequate, but you don’t quite know how to express your sheer wonder.

“I could take some of you,” Ten suggests, from somewhere behind you. “I want to.”

You glance back at him. “Hm, yeah.”

“I’m serious.” Ten comes up behind you to clasp his arms around your waist. He tucks his chin into your shoulder. His lips are close at your neck, and you let them linger there. One of your hands goes to his own hand that’s over your waist, and you run your fingertips over his knuckles as you gaze at the photo wall before you. “I think you’d be the perfect muse.”

“You could do that.” You’re still entranced with it all, and you already know you’ve made up your mind to let him take as many photos of you as he wants.

The next time you go to the beach, Ten takes some photos of you standing near the huge coral forms—or at least as close as you are willing to get—and he laughs at your lingering hesitation.

Still, the crystalline photos he takes of you are the embodiment of perfection. When you look over them later, watching yourself twirl around and strike silly poses in the water, you can almost hear the sound of your laughter twining together and feel the warmth of a star that’s not the sun on your skin.

“What if we stayed here?”

You ask Ten this while you’re lying in his bed, watching a kaleidoscope of shapes on the ceiling. The bedroom window is open to allow the breeze to come in. The ceiling of the bedroom—and every other room in the house—is more like an ever-changing reflection of shapes and colors than an actual ceiling. You might compare it to a mirror, like the surface of the ocean, but you think it’s much more complex than that. Sometimes you can see the distorted outline of yourself in it, like a funhouse mirror. Other times, you see the sky above.

Ten lies beside you with one hand behind his head and the other resting on his stomach, and he turns his head to look at you.

“Stayed?”

“If we just decided not to...go back to Earth.”

He pauses for a few moments. “Is that a good idea? You have a whole life there...and your friends…” Ten doesn’t mention your family, which you are grateful for.

You sigh. Nothing like a quick injection of reality after letting your imagination get ahead of you. “We’d have to go back. I’d have to tell them goodbye. And sort some other things out. Maybe it wouldn’t happen right now. But, after I do everything I need to do on Earth...maybe I could migrate here.”

“That’s a big decision to make...and it should be yours to decide.” Ten pauses again, like he’s weighing his words. “You know I don’t have many connections on Earth…” In other words, leaving Earth and returning home for good might not be as big of a deal for him as it would be for you.

You sit up and look out the window, seeing how the warm wind stirs the trees outside. “I want to.” You say it almost inaudibly, your words nearly carried off by the breeze. You turn back to him only to find him already there, sitting across from you and looking at you closely. Your faces are only inches from each other’s as he searches your eyes. “What do you want to do?”

“I’ll do anything you want to.” Ten’s voice is earnest, like he’d follow you to Hell and back if you asked, and you believe him.

Resting your hand on his cheek, you kiss him.

This kiss is a little different from the ones you’ve shared before—more yearning. More desperate. You kiss like there won’t be enough time to do all the things you want to do with each other—to each other. His split tongue bumps against yours, caresses it, and it causes a shiver to go down your spine, like it always does.

You end up lying back on the bed again with Ten’s body crowding yours in, legs tangling together and hips pressing against one another’s. Neither of you have made a move to take the other’s clothes off yet, but then he separates from your lips for a long moment and studies your features, from your eyebrows down to your mouth.

“Touch yourself for me.”

Your mouth drops open slightly.

“I want to see it.” He takes one of your hands and guides it up under your skirt and between your legs, pressing your fingers against your sex through your underwear, and you look at him with wide eyes, taking a deep breath. He lets go of your hand, and you keep yours right where it is. You’re slightly nervous about his black gaze trained on you, unrelenting and prying, but you begin to move your hand anyway.

Over your underwear, you press your finger between your lower lips, sliding between them and over your clit, and a little tremor goes through your body. You find yourself getting wet more quickly than you normally would with Ten watching you as you tease your entrance. You breathe a little heavier but make no sound yet. One of Ten’s hands reaches out for your ankle, though he doesn’t do anything other than keep his fingers there, a light touch that keeps passing back and forth over your ankle bone.

You circle your fingers across your clit more insistently, your legs tensing as the pleasure mounts higher. Ten’s lips part as he watches you, a heavy breath escaping from his chest. The hand on your ankle slides higher up your leg, just below your thigh, like he wants to slide his fingers into the mix and take over, but he doesn’t make a move to do so just yet.

Finally, Ten reaches under your skirt to pull your sticky panties off, sliding them slowly down your legs and leaving them somewhere on the floor. You want him to touch you again, the brush of his hands against your hips not enough, but he doesn’t grant your desire. “Keep going,” he says, leaning back on his hands, and you can see he’s growing hard.

You bring your hand back to its original place between your thighs, sliding through the wetness more easily and shuddering when your fingertips graze over your clit. You slide a finger into yourself then. A small moan slips out, and you close your eyes, but Ten’s fingers pinch your chin—not enough to hurt, but the sudden touch makes you look at him. “Keep your eyes open.” His thumb presses into your lower lip, and he stares at your mouth for a moment like he’s imagining sliding something hard and hot between your lips.

Ten kisses you on the lips again, and this time he trails the kisses down your body until he’s gripping your thighs on either side of his face. You pause in your movements when he reaches the junction of your thighs, and you watch as he grabs your hand and slips your finger out of yourself. He sucks the slick digit into his mouth, and you cannot tear your eyes away from him.

He lets your hand go and pulls you a few inches closer to his face, dragging you across the bed, and you can barely get your bearings back to sit up again when he slips his tongue through your lower lips. You moan, and he responds to that by repeating it again, catching your clit between the split in his tongue, and wiggling both sides.

“Oh Jesus...oh fuck.” Your hands go to Ten’s hair, pulling on it as you push your hips closer to his mouth, your back curving up. He is alluring tucked between your thighs like this, teasing and sucking your clit with his split tongue and prodding his fingers at your hole until he chooses to slide two of them inside.

His free hand keeps you close against his face as he eats you out, that wondrous tongue sliding against the most sensitive part of your body and making you gasp with boundless pleasure. Little droplets of moisture bead at the corners of your eyes from how good it feels, your stomach tensing and releasing as you try your best to keep still.

He has to keep his grip on your body tight when you come, as you try to squirm away from his tongue because of how stimulated you are. He only lets you go after he’s satisfied himself with licking up all the wet that’s spilled from you.

Then he strips your skirt off for you, because he knows you’re not quite in a state to do it for yourself right now. He peels the rest of your clothes off similarly, which doesn’t take much time or effort to do; you’ve dressed lightly for the weather.

Ten looks at you lying beneath him on the bed, his gaze stuck somewhere between awe and lust.

He slips out of his own clothes with a certain practiced ease. Yes, he’s really blue everywhere. He looks mostly human-like everywhere, too, except for the lack of a belly button.

Ten kisses you deeply as he slips into you, and you clutch at his sides. He tries to keep his pace slow at first, maybe for your sake or to just savor how it feels, but he gives into the feeling of you squeezing around him and starts thrusting into you faster. There is already sweat sliding down to his jaw, though you think it might be because of the heat, too.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” comes out of you in a voice you hardly recognize as your own.

His pelvis sliding against your clit from the proximity of your bodies makes you curl your fingers into the strands of his hair, wanting to touch every part of him you can. His lips go to the sweat-slicked skin of your shoulder, leaving little wet kisses behind as he wraps an arm around your waist and simply fucks into you, his shaft dragging against your walls.

He eventually separates himself from your neck, though it comes with some effort, to gaze at your face again. However, he finds that your eyes have drifted shut.

“Do you wanna come?” Ten asks, softly, gently, like you might break apart if he speaks too loud.

You’re a little winded from how he’s thrusting into you and can’t yet see the motive behind this question—because of course you do—but you answer with a shaky “I-I want to.”

“Then don’t look away from me.” His voice becomes harsher on these words.

“I…” Your lips move without any real words behind them as he thrusts into you harder, sinking all the way into you before pulling out to the tip. You want do what he’s just told you, but you find it difficult with the way he’s intent on burying himself into you, his eyes piercing into your own. “Mmm, I-I…”

You don’t know if you can, but the way he’s kindling your rising heat with each thrust makes you want to try very, very hard. Ten keep his hands on the sides of your face so you cannot look anywhere but at him.

The pleasure bears down on you more with each second, and you try to keep your breathing steady as another climax approaches.

“You’re almost there, come on baby,” he coaxes you, sloppily kissing the corner of your mouth before slipping his tongue in again. The way you gasp against his lips and tighten around him signals him to your orgasm, and he sits back to watch it play across your face, smirking at how you moan his name desperately.

Ten’s continued thrusts make you shiver from the flood of sensations overcoming your body, and you whimper at his movements until he pulls out and comes on your abdomen.

Ten gives you time to recover after you come down from your second orgasm, though he makes sure to lay a few more enamored kisses on your weakened body. He gets off the bed and exits the room after that. You don’t bother to ask where he’s going, because you know he’ll be back anyway.

When Ten comes back, he has his camera with him. The teasing tilt of his lips never leaves his face as he points it towards you. He takes a photo of you lying on his bed nude, with the breeze coming in and rustling the tree leaves and your hair, your skin shining bronze under the light of the eternal star. Then he comes closer, making the bed sink under his weight, and nudges your legs apart. He takes more photos of your lower stomach glistening with sweat and his cum—and photos of him sliding his slender fingers between your thighs and bringing you careening into another bout of euphoria.

The camera is soon forgotten after you come again. Ten climbs fully back onto the bed now and pulls you into his lap. His dick is hard again, and the length of it nudges against your lower lips, making you whimper from how sensitive you still are. He shushes you with a kiss and lifts your hips so he can slide into you, his shaft nudging that soft spot inside you and making you grip onto his arms.

You’re too mushy and dazed to do anything but let him push his hips up into you while you cling to him, your head lolling back. Ten’s mouth goes to the open expanse of your neck, and he wets your skin with his tongue.

The kaleidoscope of shapes above you on the ceiling morphs into one glistening reflection, throwing the blurred shapes of your bodies back to you. It’s like looking through a dense fog. You’re a little caught off guard by it, and you stare up at your nude forms. Ten looks up as well to see the cloudy figure of you cradled in his lap, and he only grins and thrusts up into you harder and smacks your ass in reply.

He grinds into you while he has you sitting full on his dick, and you think he must have set off your internal “reset” button somewhere between landing slaps on your ass and repeatedly hitting your g-spot. Your mind is blissfully, amazingly blank. The only clear thing you can distinguish is how he feels in and around you.

When you come this time, it comes with a gush of wetness that makes Ten whisper several smug praises into your ear for being such a good girl and making a mess on him.

As you quickly find out, Ten’s refractory period seems to be nonexistent, while his stamina is overflowing.

Ten knows how to mix the pain with pleasure in a way that enhances both feelings, and you don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anything more perfect. One moment, he’ll say something romantic and fairytale-like to you before shoving your head into the pillow and taking you from behind in the next moment, pulling one of your arms behind you for leverage as he thrusts into you hard. You want him to do whatever he desires to you, and so you let him hammer into you until you think your hips and ass will be bruised by the next morning.

You’ve never knew that sex could be so carnal and so loving at the same time, but this is all of those things, and it makes you feel so full that you could split at the seams. You scream, cry, and moan more times than you can count, so enveloped by pleasure that it seems like the atoms of your body will simply dissolve from the intensity.

When you both finally become too exhausted to continue, it’s still daytime. Of course. But Ten draws the blackout shade forward and seals all the light out, and so you know it must be time to sleep. Time blends together here. Even if it’s not yet the midnight hour, it will be as long as you deem it so.

“Come here,” he says, and rolls you over on the bed so you don’t have to sleep in the wet spot. You grin in sleepy amusement against his neck as he hugs you to his body. “Let’s stay right here.”

You know he’s talking about sleeping for the next few hours, but you can also imagine he’s referring to your new life—one you’ll create together.

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johaerys-writes · 4 years

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Dorian Pavus/Trevelyan

A World With You, Chapter 34: Eclipse

The boys finally face the demon- but how do you fight something that keeps slipping through your fingers?

In other words: BOSS FIGHT >:D

Read more on AO3 | Read from the beginning

It was comfortably cool where Dorian lay. The pillows underneath him were soft and pliant, retreating readily under his weight when he pushed himself up on his elbows. Pale moonlight filtered through the domed, clear glass ceiling overhead. The sky beyond was a dark blue velvet canopy, held in place by a myriad of stars, bright like silver pins. In the distance, nightlarks cooed.

He was in a glasshouse of sorts; the scent of flowers filled his nostrils with every breath, jasmine, hibiscus, hyacinth. An expansive garden stretched and blended into the night beyond the glass, the waters of a large lily pond shimmering under the moonlight. In the shadows underneath the slim branches of a rose flowering thorn Trevelyan stood; he turned to Dorian as soon as he heard him shifting on the pillowed bench he was lying upon.

“Dorian,” he breathed, coming to kneel before him. “Are you alright?”

“Yes. Yes, I…” Dorian blinked, wondering if it was all a mirage. “Where are we?”

Trevelyan’s hand was cool when he lay it on his own. “In a safe place.”

Dorian stared at him, not quite able to bring himself to believe the words. “We escaped the demon, then?”

In the waxing moon’s silver glow, he looked like a creature wrought in starlight, his skin pale and translucent. A strand of silken hair drifted before his eyes, and he slowly pushed it behind his ear as a small smile widened his lips. “We did.”

“So it’s over.” He let Trevelyan help him to his feet, then pulled him in a tight hug. “Fasta vass, it’s over. For a moment, I wasn’t sure we’d make it out unscathed,” he admitted quietly, letting his relief flood him.

“Dorian Pavus, giving up hope? That’s so unlike you.” Trevelyan wrapped his arms around him in response, burying his face in the crook of his neck. “We made it,” he whispered against his skin. “We’re safe now. This is a dream, not a nightmare. No more nightmares.”

Dorian nodded, pressing his lips to the side of his head. He suddenly didn’t want to let go, lest he lose him again. He took in a deep breath, letting the calmness of the moment sink in. “Can we wake up now?” he asked softly, though he wished they could stay there, just a little while longer.

“In a moment.” Trevelyan took a step back and turned to gaze at the pond in the distance, beyond the glasshouse. A gazebo stood at its banks, amidst tall willow trees, their low hanging branches stirring every time the wind blew. Its still, calm waters were dark and glassy, stars reflecting on its surface. “It’s beautiful, the way it catches the light, isn’t it?”

Dorian could only stare at it, entranced. There was an odd sort of calmness to the sight, a beauty, that drew him in and captivated him. “It is,” he whispered. Dorian let himself relax, leaning against him. They had time. They had all the time in the world. He closed his eyes.

****

Tristan came to with a gasp. The world around him was a flare of pain, every second that passed digging into his brain like shards of broken glass. The mark on his palm pulsed steadily, blinding him with its fluorescent green light. He squeezed his eyes shut with a groan. The ache was unbearable. It seemed to be coming from everywhere at once; there was no part of him that wasn't hurting. Taking a sharp breath, he pressed his palm to his side, where the agony was the sharpest. There was a narrow slit in his armour where a dagger had stabbed through, and the leather was slick with blood.

Panic surged through him in a wave. He spit the foul taste of sewer water from his mouth as he pushed himself, trembling, on palms and knees. His head spun with every move. In the dark, he leaned against the wall beside him and worked the latches of his armour open. He moved as quickly as he could, without even stopping to think. His shirt was damp with water and sweat when he tore a large strip and pressed it on the wound. It was a bad place for someone to get stabbed, and likely not picked at random. If he didn’t do something about it he would soon bleed out. He didn't want to think about what would happen to him in the waking world if he bled out in that place.

Which left the question: who had done this to him? And where were they?

It was almost entirely dark without Dorian’s spell to light their path. Dorian himself was nowhere to be seen. A new bout of alarm rolled through him. Tristan called out his name, but it was only the weak echo of his voice that came back to him. He glanced about him as he struggled to push himself upright, dread rising within him with every breath. Had he been attacked too? The dark passage before him was empty. He could see no one, nothing.

“Dorian?” he called, louder this time. “Dorian! Do-”

“It’s alright,” a voice said. “I’m here to help.”

“Cole?” Tristan looked up, leaning against the cold, damp wall. The spirit stood before him, his bright blue eyes gleaming in the dark. Relief washed over him. Tristan clung to it to keep himself from drowning. If Cole was there, then not all was lost. “Where’s Dorian? Is he hurt?”

“He has gone ahead,” Cole told him calmly. “I’ll take you to him.”

“Ahead? Where?” Cole’s presence was a sudden comfort, but the pain and his pulse that thrummed in his temples made it difficult to think. “Cole, someone attacked me. Did you see who it was? Did you see where they went?”

Cole just stared at him mutely.

“Where were you? You-” Tristan pressed his eyes shut, breathing through the agony. “You disappeared. I couldn’t find you. And then someone- something-”

“Whoever it was, they’re gone now.” Cole extended his hand to him, palm up. The skin that stretched over it was pale, smooth, unblemished. “I know the way out. Come with me.”

Tristan glanced at Cole’s hand before him, then up into his eyes. Cole’s lips widened in a small, encouraging smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.”

He let out a slow breath as he reached for him, them stopped midway. He glanced at the dagger hanging by his belt- there was fresh blood on its handle.

Tristan pulled back as if stung, scrambling away from him. His pulse was a buzz in his ears when he drew his dagger. “You,” he whispered, clutching the hilt firmly as the pieces started falling into place. “It was you. You attacked me. I should have known-” He stopped, breathing hard. Damn him, but he should have known. He lifted his blade, though his hand trembled. Cole. Cole, who he had trusted. Who he had counted on to lead him out of this mess. He should have realised, long before, that he should never have counted on anyone else, not for something like this. He should have been smarter, thought faster, listened to Dorian. Maker, he should have listened to Dorian.

“What?” Cole’s voice dragged him violently out of his thoughts. “What is it you should have known?”

Tristan returned his gaze levelly. His eyes burned hot with the betrayal, but he dared not let any of it show on his face. He stole a glance down the dark corridor that stretched before him, behind him. Nowhere to hide. He’d been caught, like a rat in a corner. He could only pray that Dorian had found a way out, that he had finally woken up.

“I should have known you were not to be trusted.”

Cole straightened, looking down at him calmly. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“How long have you been planning this?” He forced his voice to an even tone despite his pulse that thundered in his throat. The longer he kept him talking, the better he could scan the place for advantages. If it came down to fighting for his life, he would have more chances if he knew where he was fighting. “Was your ‘coming to help’ a ruse too? Were you the one to keep me here, to lead me to this place?”

“How do you know it was me, and not the mage? Suspicious, is it not, that you’re here and he isn’t?”

“He’s not-” Tristan glared at him. His patience, whatever was left of it, was getting thin. “He would never betray me. He’s not like you.”

Something flashed in Cole’s eyes then, something dark and sinister, like hunger. “Are you aware of all the vipers you harbour in your midst?” He smiled, sharp, and there was something in that smile that caught Tristan's breath. It was familiar, the way the echoes of a terrible nightmare were familiar at dawn. Cole would never smile like that, even if he had planned to take his very life.

"You," he whispered, and the realisation hit him like an arrowhead. So many times the webs had been laid before him already, and still he had walked right into them. Not this time. “You are not Cole.” There was something there, an entity that was looking at him through Cole’s eyes, speaking with his voice. The same entity that had been hunting him all this while. He cursed himself for not realising sooner, for getting swept into the hurt of his imagined betrayal. The betrayal the demon wanted him to feel. The reality was much, much worse. “Do you think me that dense? Did you think I’d fall for your tricks again?”

All pretence slid away. The creature that wore Cole’s skin tilted its head to the side, peering at him with blatant amusement. Watching him, like he was a dancing bear in some travelling show. “My dear Inquisitor, you already have.”

Tristan leaned heavily against the wall, holding his ground, even as his heart threatened to jump out of his throat. He tried to breathe as he held his daggers with trembling hands. He had to focus, if he were to get out of there alive. And Dorian with him.

“Where is Dorian?” he demanded. “What have you done to him? And what have you done to Cole?”

“Your little mage is safe. For now,” the demon informed him casually. “And this ‘Cole’ you speak of has come to me willingly.” Pale lips peeled back in a wolfish smile. “He realised, you see, that it is useless to resist. As you will.”

So the demon had Dorian, was holding him somewhere out of reach. And Cole- he didn’t even want to think about what had been done to Cole. Locked away, possessed, corrupted- there was no end to the things it might have done to him. All because he had tried to help. Help him.

He schooled his features to placidity, returning the demon’s gaze levelly although he could feel himself hanging by a thread. “What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?”

The demon straightened, that bloodcurdling smile never leaving its lips. It was odd to see such wickedness twisting Cole’s familiar features. “It is not for the mouse to know the will of the cat.”

“Mouse?” he echoed. “I’m the mouse?” Anger rushed to his head, half blinding him, before he could stop it. Tristan knew the arrogance, the blatant disregard for everything considered lesser, and it was not a trait reserved for demons alone. With a low growl, he lunged forward, slashing at the demon with his daggers. The sudden movement took the creature by surprise. Tristan’s blades slid through Cole’s armour, striking flesh. “You misunderstand. I am not stuck here with you.” The mark in his hand pulsed, matching the waves of rage that rushed through him. “You are stuck with me.”

The demon regained its bearings quickly, hopping back out of his reach with a pained hiss. The sharpened edges of Cole’s daggers caught the feeble moonlight that slithered in through a crack in the wall when they were drawn out of their scabbards. Its eyes, pale and ghostly blue, gleamed in the dark as they followed his every move, like a bird of prey. Tristan’s daggers hissed as he attacked him, over and over, ignoring the pain that drove through him like a lance every time he moved. He knew the rhythm of Cole’s movements; he had fought by his side often enough to know when he was about to lunge, when to strike, when to disappear, yet now the demon moved in an entirely new way, one that Tristan couldn’t quite track or predict. It was like Cole’s form was shrouded in a dark mist, indistinguishable from the shadows that surrounded them.

A blade flashed mere inches away from his face. He barely managed to jump out of the way, stumbling back. His foot struck an upturned rock, and then he was falling. His breath was knocked out of him when he struck the ground, the pain overwhelming him. He saw the demon grinning as it lunged forward, daggers brandished. The world slowed down; time was caught in a stand still as the demon covered the distance between them. His mind, his strength were failing him.

Adapt, he heard Heir’s voice in his head. Use everything you can to your advantage.

A pile of small rocks lay not far from him. He suddenly remembered having seen them before, when he’d been scanning the place. He grabbed at them, along with a handful of mud, and threw them in the creature’s face. It stumbled backwards with a growl, flinching away from him. It was instinct more than anything that urged him to push himself up, to bring his own dagger down on its elbow. The demon let out a furious snarl as it retreated, cradling its injured arm. Cole’s arm.

“I do not need this form,” it informed him calmly, if tightly. Blood was already trickling down the several cuts Tristan had managed on it, staining Cole’s leathers. The demon glanced down at them, as if they were nothing but scratches. “I can go on until there’s nothing left of it.”

Tristan took in a trembling breath. The thought of harming Cole, or what was left of him, made his stomach twist. Yet, if that was the only thing standing between him and Dorian, he was left with little choice. He had to get to him. He would find him, wherever he was, no matter the cost to him, or anyone else. Finding Dorian was worth anything. Anything.

The hilt of his daggers dug into his palms when he tightened his hold on them. “Then there will be nothing left,” he said quietly. He lunged.

Read the rest on AO3!

#dorian pavus #dorian pavus x trevelyan #pavelyan #dorian pavus/trevelyan #dorian x tristan trevelyan #dragon age inquisition #dragon age fanfiction #tristan trevelyan #a world with you #johaerys writes

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chapitre7 · 8 years

Text

Paradox

Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo [달의 연인-보보경심 려] fanfiction

Wang So/Hae Soo

Set after the end of the series

A poetic study on Go Ha Jin’s time travel

나 우리의 첫 입맞춤을 떠올려 그럼 언제든 눈을 감고 음 가장 먼 곳으로 가요

I remember our first kiss I close my eyes whenever I can and go to the farthest place

IU (아이유) - Through the Night (밤편지)

Choi Ji Mong doesn’t know the purpose of it all.

She talks to him between cups of tea. She has shed so many tears her body feels dry, the grains of sand that are too far from the ocean, waiting for the waves that take too long to grace them. Just like the waves, he’s not close, he’s so far, a millennia, light-years away. He is but a star in the sky now and she’s back where she began, penniless and loveless, her only company a man who doesn’t know the answers. He used to know so much but there’s only so much he can know. Why they couldn’t be together. Why happiness had been so short.

Gwangjong is a fixed point in time but you being there changed his heart.

She has moments.

Moments where she hates it all, where she hates the way she was thrown back and forth through the stream of time, hates that they had to meet only to be torn apart. It would have been better to not meet at all. She’s bitter and she cries when she dreams of him. It hurts. Not her chest or her knee or her head anymore but a crippling kind of pain that makes her mother worried sick and her friends whisper behind her back. Meaningless, it was all meaningless, then and now and who knows for how much longer. She wants peace. She gets the snow and the memories instead and after a hundred days it hurts a little less. She looks up at the night sky and outstretches her hand and she can almost feel him beside her. Watching her, the one moment they’re together and they’re not speaking or fighting or doing anything but enjoying the falling snow. She lies in bed and remembers the fairy tales she used to tell and she can almost feel his hands holding her, see his smile in the dark, she’s Scheherazade and she’s postponing their happiness for one more night. She makes tea and her mother complains they’re too bitter and she tells her she once knew a man who loved her tea, who loved poetry, and her mother says she remembers no such boyfriend and she smiles, the secret a locked door in her heart adorned with the finest designs. She hates, she loves, she balances herself on a tight rope of longing and resignation. Choi Ji Mong pats her hand.

You gave him love when he needed the most.

Her feet dangle above the water. She has never felt suicidal, has never wanted to die, she already has, twice in a lifetime, but it all hurts less than the doubt, could it happen again, if I jump in, would I be able to see him? Ji Mong speaks of eclipses and the impossibility of recreation but he had been wrong before. She tilts her head from one side to the other and she looks at her reflection, Go Ha Jin and Hae Soo, co-existing under the afternoon sun of a day with no name. A pebble causes the surface to ripple and the disturbance makes her look up. She doesn’t try that day but she feels she may try again. Ji Mong can’t stop her. He’s stopped her enough.

She hates history.

You were able to flourish despite the adversities of the time. You’re the most outstanding woman I’ve ever known.

Sometimes she almost forgets. She watches TV and reads books and works and talks to people about politics and it all feels distant and blurred and unreal. She never sat in a room full of guards who pressed tools against her skin, who bled her and glared her down until she was broken on the ground. She never had her trust broken by the one man she trusted, never had her heart played with, was never manipulated by her best friend even though they were family. Never loved so much but restrained herself for years, in fear of a palace that was like a beast, of her own place and her own heart. Never, never, never. Until she’s half-asleep on her couch, her hand dangling in the air like a pendulum pulling her eyelids down and the TV shows a happy ending and a marriage and a child and she has to stand up, to walk away, walk under the stars. She has lost before and she has loved before but mourning never felt so hard. She calls Ji Mong and he speaks of her prince’s smile as a child, of Mu’s kindness, and together they cope. They don’t know the answers behind it all but they cope.

It was good to have known him. It was.

You loved them all and they loved you. Isn’t that in itself a gift?

Their eyes meet from across the street.

She’s half anguish, half euphoria, round eyes filled disbelief. The umbrella falls to the sidewalk and with every step he takes, she’s sure something is going to happen, she’ll blink and he’ll be gone, merely a mirage conjured by a heart that couldn’t let go. But wasn’t she starting to let go, little by little, baby steps, smiling at the memories because they were memories, healing and getting back to her Go Ha Jin life? At that moment, her chest aches like Hae Soo’s. He stands before her and his height is the same, the wrinkle at the corner of his eyes when he smiles, his black hair framing his face. When he speaks, his voice is the very same.

“I’ve found you, my Soo.”

She falls and he catches her.

Choi Ji Mong doesn’t understand anything, after all.

The eclipse brought us together, and the people we were before disappeared.

He’s more patient than she expected him to be. They run through the streets and all the while the tears and the rain blind her. At his place, he allows her to compose herself, gives her clothes — they smell of him beneath the smell of soap — , but she’s far from composure, she falls apart when she sees his smile and she apologizes for everything, she hits her fists against his shoulder, asks him what took him so long, and he takes it all, apology and anger, holds her loosely when she’s thrashing around, holds her tightly when she’s weak. She remembers he hurt too, it’s what tore them apart, but he comforts her like his pain matters little. The cosmic answer to his presence is something she can never conjecture but on that night, she calls her mother to tell her she’ll sleep out and she clings to him like they’re pole opposites that couldn’t be torn apart. She’s tired when she falls asleep and she doesn’t know what to do with herself when she wakes up, she doesn’t want to do anything else but look at him, breathe him, be enveloped in his warmth.

I think it’s always been him.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to come to you,” he says, and she’s brought back, it’s everything she wanted to hear, then and now and forever in inconstant time.

The force that pulled me on that day.

He doesn’t let her go the entire day, barely letting her make her phone calls. She’ll talk to him about in due time, he can’t be the center of her universe and they both know it but he wants to be selfish and she wants too and she allows the little mistakes. She asks him about his life and he tells her he adapted better than he thought he would, probably memories of the body he took two years prior. Go Ha Jin feels sorry for the man he used to be, like the Hae Soo she never knew, and hopes that those two can meet as well, in a different reality. Maybe they’ll fall in love. She giggles at the thought, a twenty-first century man falling in love with a tenth century noble woman. Her So doesn’t understand her laughter but he smiles back.

I think he drew me back in time and back again when I died.

Together they promise not to keep anything from each other again.

To love him like no one would at the time.

When she steps outside his apartment, she turns around and he’s looking at her, waving with a strained smile, one foot down the steps like he could run towards her at any minute.

To love me like no one would at my time.

She looks down with an embarrassed smile before she closes the distance between them, circling his middle with her arms, holding him tightly like on the other day her wait ended, on the day he showered her with all the love they had been holding back for years. A millennia now. It all mirrors itself. A repetition, a parallel. He’s her constant, her weight, her ground. Her gravity.

Ji Mong, I think he broke time for me.

His kiss is sweet and she feels she’ll have many mistakes to correct in the future, in this twenty-first century, both his and hers, because he feels like everything to her. The center of the universe.

I think we’re a paradox created because we wanted love.

It holds no scientific explanation but it holds truth.

Choi Ji Mong looks happy.

Above all, he looks hopeful.

#Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo #Scarlet Heart Ryeo #Moon Lovers #fanfiction #Wang So #Hae Soo #Choi Ji Mong #Wang So/Hae Soo #So/Soo

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