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romance-geek · 3 years

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sleep my long, unbroken sleep (niragi x oc)

warnings: violence, blood

author’s note: it's been a long long time?? i feel like most of the hype for alice in borderland has gone now, but i've gotten the urge to write again. so sorry it took so long! i'm thinking i'll do big chapters every update since future updates will probably a while, depending on my mood. hope you like it!

summary: Kuroba Chiyori may be born in the Borderlands, but no way in hell does she want to die in it.

AO3 LINK

CHAPTER TWO: fires find a home in me

PRESENT

Chiyori crouches down behind a tree outside one of the city’s stadiums, where the lights are as bright as can be in the Borderlands, beckoning players from all over Tokyo to join. There are signs nearby to lead people into the venue. Having been a citizen for all her life and a child of two of the most ruthless Game Masters, Chiyori knows the usual haunts; where to avoid and where to flock.

As much as she likes to consider herself an independent woman (and she very much is a woman now, thank you very much!), she prefers being surrounded by people whether familiar or not. Those earlier years spent locked inside a library with only books and dust as friends truly did wonders for her touch starvation. Craving companionship, but knowing death could pry them away from her bloody fingers in a blink of an eye. Her eternal dilemma.

And that night, nearly a decade ago, a decade of murder and sin, death stole the ones who brought her to life. She who guided the fates’ scissors, who lured her parents into a game they had a hand in orchestrating.

Thus began her undoing.

She could never really recall the whole night, most of her memories were of after. Bits and pieces would flash to her mind at the most inopportune moments (resulting in many near-death experiences), and to this day she cannot say what events led to the single clear picture in her mind. Of blood, gushing like a geyser from her father’s headless neck; of his wide-eyed head with a mouth frozen in a silent scream, rolling to a still beneath the shaking legs of her mother as her pulsing entrails out of her with a katana stuck to her spine, like a sick version of a magician’s show but only nearly succeeding.

Countless deaths had she witnessed in her childhood alone, usually by the lasers that come to claim players with zero days left as she watched through her library windows while nibbling on biscuits. Yet, this was the one that had her hurling her guts, almost in tandem with her mother’s dripping entrails.

Chiyori couldn’t tell you when was the first time she witnessed death, but she remembered the first time her hands took away someone’s life.

In a bout of adrenaline, and because the rules of the game permitted her to do so (each weapon can only be used once by each player, to up the ante), Chiyori wrenched the katana her mother’s killer used and drove it straight to his heart.

Battle Royale Kill Count.

Pretty straightforward name. Like Battle Royale, except only the one with the most kills survived. It was unlike the fiction novels she had read in her little library home, not like The Hunger Games where it only mattered who survived until the end even if you barely killed anyone, or like The Lord of the Flies where an adult appears to save you in the end.

At first, no one wanted to harm her. A child in the Borderlands? Unheard of. But as the game went on, the timer ticking down, the number of players dwindling, she knew they would come for her.

So she had to come for them first.

The katana was of no use to her any longer, so she had left it on her parents’ killer’s chest as he laid facing the ceiling, like a crude cross marker for her two parents.

She spent half of the time left looking around for stray weapons, but most of what she found were close-range types. She didn’t want to risk revealing herself to the others, so she persisted in looking around.

In one of the many rooms there, she found tucked into the corner behind a pile of boxes a large jug of gasoline. Relief flooded through her body as she scrambled for it. It was perfect! She only needed to spread the gasoline around, and it would only take one match for the whole building to burn.

Speaking of matches… She smiled horrifically, her face a mess of tears and snot with blood dripping down her nose, finding a little box with a few matchsticks amidst the junk.

Chiyori ran on the tips of her toes to avoid attention, hefting the jug and pouring it everywhere she could. All of a sudden, someone violently pulled at her ponytail. The gasoline sloshed over her front and clung to her clothes as the jug crashed to the floor.

She screamed as she was dragged back by a man with desperate eyes. He held a small knife, which trembled in his hands. The man struggled to straddle her as she kicked frantically, keeping eye contact with her while seeming to be in an internal war with himself. He raised the knife up high with both hands, the dull glint of it invoking her to grasp for something, anything to defend herself with. Her fingers latched on a broken piece of wood, with splinters and nails at the other end.

With a guttural yell, akin to the sound of pigs being slaughtered, the man drops his knife to try and dislodge the wood from the side of his head. It squelched in his efforts, blood and bits of skin coating the nails. While he was distracted, she grabbed the knife and plunged it into his right eye and twisted.

Chiyori knew something was wrong with her when she relished in his pain.

He dropped to the ground as she pushed him off, taking the jug and what amount of gasoline it had left to dump it all over his writhing body. She grabbed the matchbox from her pockets. She took one stick and struck it to light.

For a moment, she stood there, transfixed in the tiny flame.

Then, she dropped it.

The man lit up in a manner of seconds, his screams reaching a crescendo as the flames enveloped him.

Vicious thoughts ran through her mind. Vengeful. Mournful.

Hysteria replaced them when the flames licked at her clothes and ignited her as well.

She tried to roll around, but the room was quickly filling up with smoke and grew with even more flames. Chiyori ran outside, flailing her arms to no avail as it only seemed to fan the fire. Finding a clear patch of floor, she dropped and rolled for what seemed like hours of agony but was probably only a few minutes until the fire was completely smothered.

Third degree burns covered her arms, part of her abdomen, and her left thigh. The clothes stuck to her skin. The smell of barbecued pork along with smoke made her dizzy.

She stood up with a pained cry and limped as fast as she could to the entrance of the game venue. From different rooms, she could hear the panic of the remaining players as they fought against the fire.

The screen that dictates the amount of kills per player chimed with each death, the only number to increase was under her name, as she lit the fire that killed them. Subsequently, the number of remaining players were slowly counting down. She kept her gaze locked onto that number. The only way the game would end was when everyone else died.

Smoke started seeping into her nostrils again. She knew it was only a matter of time until the flames were upon her once more.

Finally, the screen changed.

𝐑 𝐄 𝐌 𝐀 𝐈 𝐍 𝐈 𝐍 𝐆 𝐏 𝐋 𝐀 𝐘 𝐄 𝐑 𝐒 : 𝟎

𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐂 𝐋 𝐄 𝐀 𝐑 𝐄 𝐃

𝐂 𝐎 𝐍 𝐆 𝐑 𝐀 𝐓 𝐔 𝐋 𝐀 𝐓 𝐈 𝐎 𝐍 𝐒

The phone she grabbed at the beginning chimed in one of her cargo shorts’ pockets. When she fishes it out, the screen lit up with the following message:

【 𝙶 𝙰 𝙼 𝙴 】

♤　♤　♤　♤　♤

𝐖 𝐄 𝐖 𝐈 𝐋 𝐋 𝐒 𝐔 𝐏 𝐏 𝐋 𝐘 𝐀 𝐋 𝐋 𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐒 𝐔 𝐑 𝐕 𝐈 𝐕 𝐎 𝐑 𝐒

𝐖 𝐈 𝐓 𝐇 𝐀 𝐓 𝐄 𝐍 - 𝐃 𝐀 𝐘 𝐕 𝐈 𝐒 𝐀

The irony of her father, the King of Spades, dying at a Ten of Spades game to protect her and her mother… Were it not for Chiyori, both of her parents would still be here right now. Maybe they would’ve trained her in preparation for the games that she wanted to play since she was a child.

But now?

She wondered why she ever wanted to play.

After that game, she immediately sought help from her parents’ fellow game masters, but after her wounds were cleaned and patched she holed up in her library home with the intent to let her visa run out by itself.

Only it didn’t. Not really.

She thought she lost her sense of time when the number stayed at zero for nearly a week, only to realize that the Borderlands didn’t want its single native citizen out of its clutches. Whichever god that rules this sinful place, if there ever is one, plays with her life almost daily with its cruel tribulations, but condemns her efforts to die outside of the games. It is almost as if they want her to play in order to die.

Chiyori isn’t particularly religious, but she has often read books about religion and philosophy. When one has questions, one seeks answers, but none of the books in any library in Tokyo have ever explained the nature and laws of this place.

With the games not being necessary to her life and being the only way to die, she needn’t participate. And for a while, she didn’t want to either.

Slowly, she began to open up to her parents’ friends, but the Borderlands only took them one by one as each cycle passed until she didn’t have anyone left but herself and her books. But even books couldn’t give her the happiness it gave when she was younger. By that time, she was thirteen, still a child but now numb to the death that surrounded her. She started participating in a few games a year, to a few games a month, now nearly everyday when she realized that those deadly games were the only things that made her feel alive anymore.

Sure, she meets friends along the way, but they only die in the end. Sometimes by her hand. Such is life in the Borderlands. The sooner you accept that, the better you’ll survive.

When a good amount of people have arrived at the game venue, she stands from her hiding place and nonchalantly walks over to join them, hands tucked into her denim jacket, the leathery scar on her left thigh visible as she only wore cycling shorts.

The clunk of her combat boots prompts several of them to glance at her entrance. She coolly raises an eyebrow and runs her eyes over everybody, reading them almost like her beloved books.

Chiyori runs a finger along the table of phones, choosing one with a sleek black case. After it scans her face, she saunters to a wall and leans back to continue her survey of the other players.

“Hey, are you new here?” A guy wearing a long-sleeved neon green shirt asks her. There’s a girl with a thankfully less bright top holding his hand. Both of them are looking at Chiyori worriedly.

She gazes distastefully at his shirt. With a scoff, she asks, “What makes you say that?”

“If I may, miss,” the girl interjects, “You look like you don’t realize how dangerous these things can get… We only wish to help educate you.”

Their familiarity with each other suggests that they knew each other before ending up at the borderlands. Both of them had dyed hair, the guy sporting blond tips while the girl had long pink hair. The fact that the girl had no roots showing tells Chiyori that they must’ve only been in the Borderlands for less than three weeks.

No, Chiyori decides after a peek of inked flesh on the guy’s bicep, about as big as the size of her palm. It still has a cling film wrapped around it, so it couldn’t have been more than three to five days.

The girl knew the games were dangerous, so they played at least one, not very hard if they’re already at another. This is probably their second or third game. Most likely the second.

In spite of herself, Chiyori smiles at them. They might end up betraying her later when the game starts, but she appreciates their concern. Not that she needed it.

“Thanks,” she says. “But I think I can manage. You guys worry about yourselves, you haven’t experienced real danger yet.”

The couple looks at her, at each other, then they shrug as if to say ‘Suit yourself.’

Chiyori’s gaze drops to their locked hands as they leave to go back to their corner. A twinge of longing cuts through her.

She thinks the game should start any minute now when a guy with black hair almost to his shoulders and a few face piercings walks in hesitantly, looking around in confusion as he taps his hand against an ear. Her eyebrows go up as she checks him out appreciatively.

“He’s new,” she remarks quietly to the couple. “You guys have been here only about a few days, I can tell.”

The girl whispers, “How’d you know?”

“You guys are pretty obvious, as is that guy. How?” Chiyori nods to the guy with piercings. “Look at his hands. He’s patting his pockets, and from the shape of it it’s a phone. Where he came from, it was loud, so he’s here to watch a game but when he entered the noise was gone. So he’s new new.”

Chiyori can tell that although they’re impressed, they’re unnerved by her. As most people are. So she pushes off the wall and saunters towards the guy who is now fiddling with his phone, trying to turn it on.

The way he hunches his shoulders tells her he is a private person, so she stops a respectable distance from him. “Hey.”

He lifts his head up to look at her, eyebrows furrowed. “What?” His voice snaps, almost defensively.

She doesn’t smile at him, thinking he seemed the type of person to think it was condescending. Instead, she points with her thumb to the table where only a few more cellphones were available. “Your phone is busted. Take one of those.”

He sneered at her and says, “Fuck off.”

Rolling her eyes, she says, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Take a phone or you’re disqualified and trust me, you don’t want to be disqualified.”

He still makes no move to the table, so she takes his busted phone with a quick movement and throws it to the entrance of the stadium. The other players watch them, not wanting to intervene.

“You bitch, what—?!” His enraged shout is cut off when a red laser beams down from the ceiling and puts a hole into the phone. “What the fuck?!”

Chiyori locks her eyes with his, smirking at the contempt that he displays for her. “You came here to watch a game, did you? Which teams are playing? Doesn’t matter. You’re not here to watch. You’re here to play.” She shoves a new phone in his hands. “Humor me, would you?”

With a glare, he turns on the phone. Almost as soon as his face is done scanning, everybody’s phones start chiming.

“Let the games begin,” Chiyori says, her excitement evident.

𝐑 𝐄 𝐆 𝐈 𝐒 𝐓 𝐑 𝐀 𝐓 𝐈 𝐎 𝐍 𝐇 𝐀 𝐒 𝐂 𝐋 𝐎 𝐒 𝐄 𝐃

𝐓 𝐇 𝐄 𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐖 𝐈 𝐋 𝐋 𝐍 𝐎 𝐖 𝐂 𝐎 𝐌 𝐌 𝐄 𝐍 𝐂 𝐄

𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 : 𝟐 𝟎 𝟎 𝐌 𝐄 𝐓 𝐄 𝐑 𝐑 𝐀 𝐂 𝐄

𝐃 𝐈 𝐅 𝐅 𝐈 𝐂 𝐔 𝐋 𝐓 𝐘 : 𝐓 𝐄 𝐍 𝐎 𝐅 𝐒 𝐏 𝐀 𝐃 𝐄 𝐒

When the difficulty level is announced, almost everyone starts cussing or panicking, apart from Chiyori and the guy with piercings.

She is momentarily breathless as memories of another Ten of Spades game come to her, but she shoves them at the back of her mind and turns her attention to the guy. Hostile he may be, something in her wants to help him. “This is the last time I’m gonna warn you. It’s kill or be killed, alright?”

He looks at her almost like a puppy, the angry facade he keeps up down for a moment.

“Welcome to the Borderlands,” she tells him.

They enter through another entrance to go into the arena itself. She hears the guy mutter in shock when he sees the arena. Like the rest of the Borderlands, the fauna is overgrown intermixed with other weeds and plants, except for a rectangular patch of land in the center where it was just plain dirt. Ostensibly 200 meters wide.

At the end closest to the entrance they came through is a long table full of weapons ranging from bows and arrows to javelins to throwing daggers. No guns. There are three people wearing grotesque halloween masks and nondescript clothes behind the table, waiting patiently for the game to start with hands clasped.

There were 21 participants in total. You know what they say: the more, the deadlier.

The guy in neon moved to grab a weapon off the table, but one of the dealers stopped him from doing so by brandishing a machete to his face. “Shit!” He squeaks. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing!”

The dealer with the machete brings one finger up to the lips of his mask, as if to sush him, then wags the finger like scolding a child. The other dealers gesture for them to wait for the rules.

Their phones chime once again. “Rule: Players must race through 200 meters to get to the other side. Condition: Finish the race within ten minutes.”

Chiyori smiles grimly, realizing what the weapons were for. She drops her denim jacket to the floor, revealing the burns on her arms, and readies herself.

“Start.”

She sprints ahead of everyone else, zigzagging and changing direction at random intervals. Screams start to rise. Behind her, the familiar squelch of someone being stabbed urges her to run faster. Someone manages to run even faster than her, even with her head start, but who said the game is about how quick you can finish the race?

A javelin goes through the head of the player.

Not even sparing them a glance, she jumps over the body - because that’s all the player is anymore, a body - and nearly collides with the guy from before. He looks like he wants her to die, but contradicts himself when he pushes her away from a flying arrow.

She barely gasps out a whisper of gratitude before they both continue their run. The timer loudly ticks down from the stadium’s screens.

They are only a few meters away from the finish line when she notices a small movement from behind the tall grass at the other end. She grabs the guy’s arm and pulls him while still keeping them in motion, albeit going back in the opposite direction.

“What are you doing?! The finish line’s right there!” He growls.

“Look again,” she snaps at him. “Someone’s waiting for us.”

He glances back and confirms it for himself. “What the fuck kind of dystopian shit is going on here?”

“These games are never simple,” she says.

By now, there were only about half of them still alive. A few have run past the two of them already, but Chiyori knew they would regret not thinking twice. She runs to a body that has a throwing axe deep into the side of her neck.

A glance at the starting line lets her know that the masked people only have a few weapons left to throw at them, but she still remains cautious in her running patterns as she runs to a few more bodies to collect more light throwing weapons. The guy follows her example, a bloody machete in hand.

They run back to the finish line, where a few of the others have begun to realize that there was one more masked person to torment them. Their weapon of choice? An actual roaring chainsaw.

“I should have stayed home!” The guy with piercings groans.

“Would’ve been the better choice,” she agrees.

The masked person slashed their chainsaw with reckless abandon at whoever dared to come close. One of the players was using someone’s lifeless body as a shield to get closer. Another player runs to the side of the race track, but a laser immediately comes for them.

Chiyori glances at the guy with piercings, locking eyes with him, darts her eyes to the masked person then back at him. He nods.

Holding her breath, she assumes a throwing stance. She brings the axe behind her head, then extends her arm forward while at the same time letting go of the weapon while keeping her wrist and elbow firm. It sinks into the masked person’s jugular.

Trusting that the guy would take over, she whips back to face the starting line and grabs the small throwing daggers she collected in each hand. Just in time to dodge a masked person’s forward slash. She drops to the floor and rolls over, kicking them on the head to dizzy them. She jumps on their back and uses another dagger to cut their throat open.

With her legs wrapped around their torso, she rolls both of them over just as several arrows lodge onto the masked person’s chest. Heart pounding at the close call, Chiyori throws her remaining daggers and knives in rapid succession towards where the arrows came from, hoping to buy time.

She crawls to the nearest body, who is rendered nearly headless by a curved blade. She pulls it out, spraying even more blood all over herself and the floor. When she looks up, she finds a masked person struggling to remove a knife embedded into their eye socket. Stopping for a second to marvel at her blind but successful aim, she puts them out of their misery with a swing of the blade.

Chiyori looks around for the third masked person, finding them grappling with another player. She turns her gaze to the guy with piercings, who seems to have successfully dispatched his opponent. He has his hands cupped around his mouth, shouting at her, but she is too far away to hear him clearly.

“... over here!”

“What?!” She screams.

The guy runs a hand through his hair in frustration, then points furiously at the stadium screens. She follows the direction of his finger, to find that there is only less than a minute left for her to cross about 100 meters to the finish line.

With no time to waste, she tightens her grip on the handle of the curved blade and runs for her life.

Chiyori is only a few feet away when a javelin twirls through the air and nicks her calf. She nearly drops at the pain, but perseveres and limps as fast as she can.

The guy with piercings picks up his opponent’s chainsaw and turns it on with a loud roar.

He sprints for the masked person making their way to Chiyori and slices them in half jaggedly.

With only twenty seconds left on the clock, he barks for the two other players in the finish line to help him drag Chiyori to safety, but only one actually does.

They cross the finish line with two seconds to spare.

Their phones chime in unison.

𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐂 𝐋 𝐄 𝐀 𝐑 𝐄 𝐃

𝐂 𝐎 𝐍 𝐆 𝐑 𝐀 𝐓 𝐔 𝐋 𝐀 𝐓 𝐈 𝐎 𝐍 𝐒

They all pant in exhaustion, bodies slick with blood. Blood from the masked people, from the other players, from them. Chiyori can’t wait to go home and wash it all off, maybe take a week off from playing the games.

【 𝙶 𝙰 𝙼 𝙴 】

♤　♤　♤　♤　♤

𝐖 𝐄 𝐖 𝐈 𝐋 𝐋 𝐒 𝐔 𝐏 𝐏 𝐋 𝐘 𝐀 𝐋 𝐋 𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐒 𝐔 𝐑 𝐕 𝐈 𝐕 𝐎 𝐑 𝐒

𝐖 𝐈 𝐓 𝐇 𝐀 𝐓 𝐄 𝐍 - 𝐃 𝐀 𝐘 𝐕 𝐈 𝐒 𝐀

She struggles to stand, waving off any help offered to her.

Hand still gripping on the curved blade, she uses it to cut away at the long grass until she finds a small table with a single Ten of Spades card on it. Despite not having the need for it, she swipes it and hides it in her bra.

Chiyori limps back to where the others are. The guy with piercings has blood dripping down his nose, and a cut somewhere on his trunk causing the shirt he has on to cling to his form.

“Welcome to the Borderlands,” she repeats with a smile, referring to before the game started. “I’m Kuroba Chiyori. What’s your name?”

Warily, he considers the hand she offers for him to shake. He glances at her face, at her horrific smile, teeth stained with blood. He takes her small hand into his much larger one and slowly shakes it, feeling vaguely like he is making a deal with the devil.

“Niragi Suguru.”

#niragi suguru x reader #niragi x reader #niragi #alice in borderland #Dori Sakurada

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kingrcse-a · 2 years

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* ━━ ✦ 「 @citysided sent , ❛ can you move ? ❜ / accepting from this.」 ☆

In all the chaos, a harrowing experience played out in panicked screams and running, they've begun shoving to get away from the uproar of a pulled alarm. It had been a calm and orderly exit until some five-head smelled the distinctive odor of grease and burning and decided it was a good idea to scream out, ❝ Fire ! ❞

❝ Fire ! ❞ he'd repeated again, because it didn't quite seem to register to those shuffling single files out the door the first time. He'd said it again and set the herd off like skittering buffalo in a narrow valley trying to squeeze and shove their way out the door. Mass hysteria and panic was all it took to turn what felt like a routine fire drill into this chaotic writhing mass of bodies. People were being knocked around, pushed to the floor, and trampled over. No one seemed to stop and think about the person they were crushing under their heels so long as they survived the ordeal.

The constant shoulder checking sets Billy's teeth on edge; their stupid, formless desperation sickens him. He turned to tell the sweaty fucker that shoulder checks him a fourth time where he would find his fist, if he kept at it. It was serendipity that someone had decided to throw an elbow into the fray. It was his font of bad luck that made perfectly sure it was his face they'd managed to hit.

In all this the sound of chairs being pushed over, the sight of people sent sprawled out before being covered by rushing stampedes of footfalls, there is a breath of a moment building like a silent crescendo. His hand rose tenderly to touch his face, his nose, and withdrew, covered at the tips with ruby beads of blood smeared on his dirty fingers. The silence rolls around in his head, thick as cotton between his ears, muffling everything into a jumbled mess that picks and picks at his resolve to the time of people shoving into him — his lips peel back over his teeth, baring ivory enamel to the open like some challenge to the shapes dancing along the walls to the movement of people flailing. His rage punches him square in the chest; faceless, nameless, and disconnected from a source, but far more fanged than it should be.

Billy wants to blow everything he turns his hues onto into oblivion, obliterate it into ashes just to try to appease this rolling fire setting him supernova into a thousand threads of ugliness in the blink of an eye, but through writhing bodies and mass, one was knocked into him after being elbowed to an inch of his life. They're sent careening to the ground at his feet and that's it; that's all he can take.

Steps coming to a sudden halt, he settles his stance and squares his shoulders in that undeniably Billy way he does, wild. Through the anger, he's the eye of his own storm and his body moves on its own. They can't upend him when he's like this, detached and formless, and yet, heavy as a bolder sinking into rolling tides. The creatures of the upside down had gifted him this ability to be immovable, stronger, and he would use it to his last. He would use it, but it left him … well, a lone rock sinking into the ocean. Fixation. Fixation. Fixation. It helped. Anchored him back to the side of the planet feet first. It was the trade off in this exchange offered to him through force by his experience being mind-flayed.

Hues fell to the body at his feet, he decided quickly what his target was. The male hesitated, before kneeling down on a single knee to sit at the other's side for just a moment. ❝ You're alright , ❞ he coos a soft, but harsh utterance in the ever narrowing space between them.

❝ Can you move ? ❞ he asked the other, blue irises shooting off to the edges of the crowd. No one thought much about the fire exits in all this madness. One sat innocuously between them and a hundred rushing bodies, a chance. Just one, but he needed to know if the other needed assistance of any kind, first.

#* ✦ 「 👑 🌹 」 ☆ 𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅 .#citysided

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syntheticpoetry · 4 years

Text

Constellations

Summary: When the text comes in from Tina, Kurt can hardly believe what he is reading. When Blaine doesn't respond to his messages he thinks his heart may actually stop beating. AO3 link || FFN Link

Author’s Note: I was watching Shooting Star and overcome with a million emotions, mostly having to do with the fact that we don't get ANY conversation or scene with the NYC gang during this insanely emotional episode. So this is my take on it. A little bit of canon, but a little divergence for the Klaine scene I desperately wanted to see as well as Kurt, Santana, and Rachel’s reactions. I promise there is a happy ending in this through the rollercoaster of emotions that is Blaine's mind during this absolutely horrifying ordeal. Big thanks to @roxymusicandlayers for beta reading this for me!

“And I am lost, so lost, but you’re the constellations that guide me.”

_________________________________________________________

“Alright guys, start texting and tweeting, whatever social media you use. Let everyone know what’s going on here. But don’t say where we are, shooters have smartphones too.”

Blaine hears Mr. Schue’s urgent whisper as though he is underwater. The words sound muffled and heavy with the depth of the room’s collective terror embedded into every upturned syllable. Despite his best effort to keep the hysteria at bay, they know he is just as frightened as they are. Blaine bites his lip and remains so still that every muscle starts to quiver, threatening to give way. The burn feels familiar, like the ache he gets from lifting weights in the gym with Sam, and he pushes through the pain as though it is just one more rep away before they can finally rest.

Any slight movement will betray his feigned composure and he knows the domino effect of his breakdown will begin. Around him the gentle, frantic padding of fingers against glass echoes around the room like a discordant symphony of additional gunshots. He knows they are not as loud as they actually sound in his head. But the panic in his chest still swells. He hugs his knees tighter. The small movement is enough to send the first wave of tears down his cheeks. He bites his lip harder and tries to focus on the pain of teeth against flesh instead.

‘I should do what they’re doing. Pick up your phone. Keep it together.’

“Blaine, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” Sam reaches a hand out and the touch of his fingers against Blaine’s forearm sends thunderbolts up his spine. “Where’s your phone?”

Blaine opens his mouth to speak and instead gasps loudly, the breath shuddering on the sharp intake of air. He claps a hand over his mouth and squints his eyes shut as more tears come. His mistake was moving at all. Statues never cry. He stretches out one leg and wrenches the phone from his pocket to see it at 1% battery. With one hand pressed firmly against quivering lips, the muffled whisper comes convulsing out in staccato bursts. “It’s— it’s almost— d-d—”

He can’t bring himself to say the word dead. As though breathing life into it will somehow fulfill some unspoken prophecy, and he is bound to doom them all by simply uttering it. Sam squeezes his arm and whispers back, “Do you want to text anyone with my phone?”

Blaine nods frantically when his phone screen finally turns to black. He gingerly places it on the ground in what feels like slow motion, taking extreme care not to make a sound, and extends his hand out to Sam. He thinks back to Mr. Schue’s garbled words and wonders if they really are underwater.

“I can’t get in touch with my mom,” The subdued sound of Marley’s panicked sobbing ricochets off of the walls. “She won’t respond! What if she— there’s no back way out of the kitchen!”

While Kitty and Jacob whisper empty reassurances Blaine stares at Sam’s phone in his hand like it is a foreign object. He knows what he is supposed to do with it, but the phone numbers in his mind are written in invisible ink.

‘I can’t even remember my parents’ phone numbers. Oh god, what if we die in here. What if I never see them or Cooper or Kurt—”

A flash of hands clasped tight, buried deep into a mattress fills his vision. The breathy whisper of his own name makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. His trembling thumbs begin to fly seamlessly over the keypad and he has never been so thankful for autocorrect before. Just as he hits send the dull pounding sound of running footsteps in the hall crescendos until—

Rattle! Rattle! Rattle!

The jittering of the door handle makes them all collectively jump as though this is just another lesson in synchronisation for their next competition. Blaine’s heart slithers its way into his throat, and he drops the phone. It slides away from him and bumps into Sam’s ankle. Sam’s leg jerks and sends it careening across the floor of the choir room where it settles underneath the piano. The entire scene is something straight out of a shitty comedy movie that feels completely unbelievable, like the chances of something like this happening are one in a million. The irony of the realm of impossibilies reaching its peak today is not lost on him. The entire room stills. Blaine wishes that stupid ticking of the metronome in the center of the room would. Just. Stop. It feels like a countdown.

Smash!

Blaine jumps again and presses his hand harder to his mouth to suppress the sound that begs for escape. He hugs his knees closer to his chest in a one-armed embrace and tries to will the demon perched on his shoulder whispering unpleasantries to vanish. The burn settles in again. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Artie struggling to sit himself up against the cabinets. He wants to move, wants to help him; but when he tries to unhook his arm from his knees, nothing happens. He continues spectating as Sam begins lifting Artie up by his shirt until he’s sitting comfortably upright. Then he witnesses the moment of pure panic in his best friend’s eyes right before Sam hisses frantically to Mr. Schue, “Brittany doesn’t have her phone, she’s in the bathroom! She’s all alone!”

___________________________________________________

“Oh honey, no goddamn way!” Kurt snatches the remote back from Rachel. “Santana and I were here first, you don’t just get to come in and throw a hissy fit about having a bad day so you can put on whatever you want. How do you know we didn’t have a bad day too?”

Santana averts her attention from the television to watch them instead, positively beaming. Their fights are honestly her favourite thing to watch. Always far more entertaining than whatever trashy reality shows she and Kurt had been immersing themselves in lately. Today it had been a marathon of the first season of Rock of Love.

“Well, considering you’re both in the exact same spot I left you in this morning I seriously doubt it,” Rachel huffs loudly and sinks down into a creaky wicker chair, arms folded tightly across her chest. Kurt rolls his eyes at her and changes the channel back before the gentle buzzing of his phone across the coffee table distracts him from Rachel’s moodiness.

“Go make some popcorn and I’ll let you vent— oh,” Kurt stares down at his phone.

“What?” Rachel lowers her arms, keeping them folded across her stomach still, and exchanges her scowl for curiosity.

“Sam texted me, he usually never…” The rest of his sentence trails off once he opens the message, leaving them to stare. He loosens his grip and drops his hands against his thighs, the phone resting precariously on his open palms. After the fourth quick scan of the text the message still does not seem to sink in.

Sam 12:36 p.m. I love you so much and I’m so sorry about everything that happened I’m so glad I got to see you at the wedding you’re amazing and deserve everything in the world I’m so proud of you don’t ever settle for anyone less than perfect because that’s exactly what you are

‘This can’t be for me.’

“Kurt, what is it? What’s wrong?” Rachel leans over, her palms on her knees now, her brows furrowed in concern.

“What’s Trouty mouth saying?” Santana snatches the phone from him. He does not even protest her invasion of privacy, his brain is too busy slicing through the fog to decrypt the reasoning behind the message. She frowns and looks between the screen and Kurt a few times. “Did I miss the part when you and Sam got together? No way my gaydar is that far off.”

“There’s no way that’s for me. He obviously meant to send it to someone else. Do you think he meant it for Mercedes?” Kurt plucks the phone back from her hands to reread the message before typing out a reply.

Kurt 12:44 p.m. I don’t think you meant this for me?

“What did it say?” Rachel pipes up and cranes her neck to try to read over Kurt’s shoulder. Kurt tilts the phone to show her. “Ooooh, wait did something happen between them at the wedding? Wasn’t he there with Brittany then though?” Kurt shrugs and scrolls through his contacts until he lands on Mercedes’ name.

Kurt 12:50 p.m. Okay maybe random question but is there something going on with you and Sam again? I got the weirdest message from him just now

Mercedes 12:55 p.m. ???? What did he say?

Kurt takes a screenshot of the message and forwards it to her.

Mercedes 1:00 p.m. Omg nope nothing happened with us at the wedding. Maybe he meant to send it to Brittany? Has he not replied?

Kurt 1:02 p.m. Nope

Tina’s name flashes across the top of his screen in a drop down banner and he taps on it. “Oh my god.” The words come out small and frightened as he reads the message. “Tina just said—”

“She just texted me too,” Santana replies in an eerily despondent voice that Kurt has never heard her speak in before. It suddenly makes the situation feel ten times more real. For once, she’s silent as she stares down at her own phone, frantically typing out a text.

“Me too,” Rachel whispers. “Oh my god, do you think everyone is okay?” She stands and crosses the room, pacing by the window as she rereads the text over and over again. “Kurt, have you heard from Blaine?”

‘Blaine.’

Kurt cannot find the words to respond to her as he taps on his favourites list. Blaine’s name is still at the very top. He had told himself he had never gotten the chance to adjust the list and remove him after their breakup. Really, he never had the heart to erase his name. The sight of it now makes his throat constrict. He tries to speak but no sound comes out.

“Brittany isn’t texting me back. Neither is Sam,” Santana borders on hysterical as she grips her phone between her hands like it is her only lifeline. Kurt mimics her action as he composes a text to Blaine.

Kurt 1:10 p.m. Tina texted me are you ok

“Has anyone heard anything from anyone else?” Rachel asks. Neither of them respond.

Kurt cannot look away from Blaine’s name. The feeling washes over him suddenly and intensely, dragging his logical mind into the riptide of superstitious terror as he recites the name silently like a mantra. If he looks away, he might lose him forever. It doesn’t make any sense to think that way. He knows it. But it provides some tiny semblance of comfort and control as he tethers himself to it and waits for a response. Two long minutes pass by and still nothing comes. Tina’s name and phone number fills the screen, swallowing Blaine’s name, and he finally finds his voice, the words frantic and choppy as he taps multiple times to decline the call, “Someone call Tina, she’s calling me. Someone call her so she stops calling me!”

The sight of Blaine’s name again anchors him down once more and the rest becomes background noise.

'Please be okay. Please be okay. I’m never saying goodbye to you, you idiot. Just text me back. Please.’

__________________________________________________________

“Mr. Schue, I have to get to her! I have to make sure she’s okay!”

Blaine watches, horrorstuck, as Mr. Shue and coach Beiste struggle to restrain Sam. He is thrashing wildly in their arms, his quivering voice crescendoing past the panicked whispers that everyone else has adapted. It isn’t until coach Beiste whispers something in his ear that Blaine cannot hear, and Sam locks eyes with him that he finally settles down. Blaine exhales sharply, lungs blazing and heart thudding at the base of his throat, and realizes he must have been holding his breath at some point. Sam slinks back over to their corner and sits beside Artie, his head hanging down in defeat. Blaine tries to parrot back the same empty promises Sam had whispered earlier, wants to tell him everything will be okay even though he is not quite sure if he believes it himself, but nothing comes out.

“Maybe she’s with Tina,” Artie whispers hopefully to Sam. “Maybe she isn’t alone.”

Blaine takes note of Artie’s lack of confidence and how he is careful not to speak in absolutes. But maybe he is right. He thinks about the word maybe in the context of his life. Maybe Kurt did not want to admit how much their hookup at the wedding had meant. Maybe he and Kurt really are back together. Maybe Kurt still loves him. Maybe he will see him again when this entire ordeal is finally over with. ‘Maybe’ starts to feel like a pretty good word the more he thinks about it. ‘Maybe’ feels like hope. ‘Maybe’ feels like a second chance.

The sound of a door opening breaks through Blaine’s inner dissection of the word, and he looks over just in time to see Mr. Schue skulking out of the door. It reminds Blaine of one of Finn’s video games about spies and stealth. Maybe they will get another chance to play it together after this. He clings to that and tries to focus on the upcoming Friday night dinner with him, Burt and Carole as Marley’s sobbing continues to grow louder. Her gasps for air further enforces his previous belief. Maybe they really are underwater.

It isn’t long before the choir room door opens again and a collection of cheerleaders rushes in followed by Mr. Schue. Blaine watches Sam vault off of the cabinets like a spring loaded toy to pull Brittany into his arms. She has never looked so terrified before. But there is no sign of Tina amongst the red and white uniforms. Blaine forgets about the maybe’s floating around his brain like buoys at sea and feels like he is drowning again. He twists his head away and stares down pathetically at the blank screen of his cellphone, willing it to magically come alive.

‘How could I have forgotten to charge it? I used to lecture Kurt about this all the time.’

Maybe it is a sign. Maybe it is a metaphor of sorts.

He does not know when Artie began recording them with his phone, but the start of Marley’s hiccuped confession fills his lungs with water again. “In the bottom of my desk drawer,” She breaks off to compose herself. The volume of her crying sends off alarm bells in Blaine’s head and he tunes out the rest of her message. He looks towards the hastily strewn barricade against the door. Maybe it will prove to be sturdy, but it does not feel like enough. The continued tapping of fingers against glass screens fills in the gaps of silence between the metronome and scattered crying when Artie pans the camera onto Blaine. It feels like a slow dance towards a death sentence. Maybe the rhythmic ticking really is a countdown.

“Blaine, do you want to say anything to anyone?”

He drops his face down into his knees. Maybe he should take the opportunity to leave behind one tiny fragment of his life before he becomes another forgotten statistic. But Artie has already redirected the phone towards Sam and Brittany when Blaine looks up again. Maybe he has missed his chance. ‘Maybe’ starts to feel like a cursed word now. Like something sinister and evil and concrete. Maybe he has inflated the word with too much hope causing some sort of rebound effect. Maybe—

“All clear!”

The words break through the hurricane in the choir room and suddenly everyone is getting to their feet except Blaine, who still feels sluggish and dazed. Sam and Brittany approach him and hold out their hands. He stares at their open palms, trembling and sweaty, and his body acts before his brain does to grasp them. They lift him up like he is made of helium despite the lead shackles he envisions around his ankles. He becomes aware of Sam’s arms around him and shakes away the anchors in his own arms to return the embrace. The burn is still there, leaving his muscles fatigued and weak, but he cannot bring himself to let go now that he has latched on.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. See? We’re okay,” Sam whispers against his ear before Blaine realizes why he is taking such extra care to console him. The sound of his own sobbing, punctuated by rattling intakes of air, reminds him why he tried to remain so still at the start of all of this. He buries his face deep in Sam’s neck to muffle the sound and feels the addition of Brittany’s slender arms around both of them, leaving him sandwiched in between. The shuffling sound of footsteps towards the door leads to the eventual end of the embrace and Sam jogs over to the piano, crouching down to retrieve his phone before they join hands and follow everyone else on the way to the parking lot.

“Blaine, I have a charger in my car.” Sam says as he raises his phone to his ear. Brittany slips her hand away from Blaine and he hears her whimpering Santana’s name before seeing she has also pulled out her phone. Blaine laces his fingers with Sam and clings tightly as they weave their way through the crowd towards Sam’s car. “Mom, hey I’m okay. We’re okay. We’re outside now— please don’t cry, I promise I’m okay.”

When Sam finally pulls his hand free, Blaine thinks he might just float away. It takes Sam only a few seconds to wrench open the car door and jam his key into the ignition. “Blaine, here— Wait, Kurt’s calling my phone. Mom, let me take this, and I’ll call you right back? Blaine’s phone died, he has no way to— yes, I’ll be right home as soon as I can. I love you too.”

Blaine’s fingers are numb by the time Sam has pressed the phone into his hand. Kurt’s frantic, breathless voice breathes life into them, and he curls them tightly around the device just before it is about to fall. “Sam! Brittany called Santana and said you guys made it out. I can’t get in touch with Blaine, is he—”

“It’s me,” Blaine exhales and the volume of Kurt’s sob makes his knees shake. He leans against the car door but slides down it as Kurt continues to cry loudly in his ear.

“Why weren’t you answering me?” Kurt sputters out, his voice traversing the length of his entire vocal range like a warmup.

“My phone died, that’s why I texted you with Sam’s—”

“You didn’t say it was you!” Kurt’s voice rises three octaves. Blaine presses the phone closer to his ear like it will actually close any of the distance between them. “I thought it was a mistake! I thought it was Sam! Why didn’t either of you get back to me on— Blaine, are you crying or laughing?”

“Both, I think,” Blaine responds airily between watery laughter. In the timespan of less than two hours he feels as though he has mastered every element associated with human emotion. The fire in his lungs has been reduced to embers as Kurt’s voice continues to blanket him. The laughter should feel inappropriate, but it feels like letting go. It feels like a release. He finally feels grounded. “The stupid phone— it was insane— I dropped it and Sam kicked it under the piano— if you saw it— I’m sorry, I don’t know why I can’t stop laughing, but it just feels so good to hear your voice again. I thought I was never going to hear it again or see you or—”

“Don’t you ever, ever, write a message to me like that again!” Kurt interrupts his rambling and suddenly the laughter becomes lodged in his throat. Maybe he had been wrong to assume all of those ideas about them earlier. Maybe Kurt’s next few words will feel like an actual gunshot wound.

“Kurt, I’m sorry, I thought—”

“I told you I’m never saying goodbye to you,” Kurt parades through his apology, trying to sound bold and certain. Blaine can see the hairline cracks in the foundation as Kurt wavers through the next command. “Don’t you ever try to say goodbye to me like that again, do you understand me?”

“Understood,” He replies with the remnants of his previous laughter, the solitary sound coming out strangled and relieved all at once. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“You’re sorry you—” The way he says it sends shivers down Blaine’s spine. It is the same breathy exhale that had been reserved for their night in the hotel as their hands sank deeper and deeper into the mattress. “Blaine, you must have been fucking terrified, how can you focus on me?”

“Because I love you,” Blaine says simply. For once there is no anxiety or fear to cage the confession. It flies freely over the soundwaves and he does not worry about the reply because he already knows the response without Kurt having to say it. But Kurt says it anyways.

“I love you too.”

‘Maybe’ starts to feel like a second chance again. ‘Maybe’ feels like a promise.

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write-it-motherfuckers · 5 years

Text

Looking up from your book as the noise around you seemed to reach a crescendo, you let out an exasperated sigh, taking a moment to watch the ridiculous antics of your current guests, and their newest petty fight.

They’d been staying with you for a little over two weeks now, after having accidentally dropped into your life rather abruptly, whilst you were out enjoying your garden one night.

Quite literally too.

After all the frantic questions had been answered and the hysteria and suspicion had faded somewhat, you had finally managed to discover that they were from a completely different time period, perhaps even a completely different world.

Despite your misgivings, you’d eventually given into your compassionate side, allowing them to stay with you for their own safety, as you knew that most others would react far more negatively to their existence. Thankfully, the place you lived in, was a decent drive from the town, something that allowed them to have some measure of freedom, even if they could only visit the town itself in small groups with you by their side.

An experience that never failed to leave you completely exhausted.

To your surprise, you found yourself getting along remarkably well with all of them, though unfortunately the same couldn’t be said about their interactions with each other. No matter what you did, they couldn’t seem to get along for long, though you supposed it made sense, given the fact that they were supposedly from completely opposite sides.

You were just glad you’d made them hand over all their weapons the very first day. Had you not, you had no doubt that their petty arguments and fights would have become very deadly, very fast, something you desperately hoped to avoid.

Luckily, the only casualty so far, had been a rather unfortunate pot plant, for which the guilty parties had given no end of apologies for. Much to your silent amusement.

Your only hope was that you could keep it that way until you could find a way to get them back home safely, back where they belonged.

You also pretended not to notice just how much the thought of them leaving, made your heart ache terribly in your chest.

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headoverhiddles · 5 years

Text

I Fiori Del Male - John Brannox (The New Pope) x Reader [Smut]

Synopsis: Scandal is trivial when it comes to Catholic factions, as long as it’s well hidden. You, a nude model, and the High Priest of England are forced to put that to the test during one last night of passion, when Papacy looms.

Notes: Once again my love of old men is my downfall. I watched the show for Manson, and ended up really liking John Malkovich’s character as well. He’s just so sweet and charming! So here’s a sporadic one shot I really enjoyed writing.

Gif belongs to lousolversons!

Your robe trails behind you along the marble floors of the manor. It’s the middle of the night, and you knew he’d be waiting for you when you arrived on the grounds.

“You’re early,” John says, smiling. You shut the door quietly, walking over to the bed and discarding your robe. The older man is sitting, contented, by his fireplace, harp resting comfortably in his lap.

“I got here just when I intended to,” you reply, and he pauses his playing of the harp to admire your body. He turns back to face the far wall.

“You’ve heard the news, I take it.”

You take a breath. You hadn’t expected him to bring that up before joining you in bed… it took a toll on the expected activities of the night. “Yes. I’ve heard.” He plucks a couple of the strings on the harp, and you realize you’ve closed the conversation too early. “When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow.” That, you weren’t expecting. John glances over, eyebrows raising a little at your reaction. “You’re upset.”

“I’m surprised,” you correct, though you can’t ignore the tugging feeling you have in your stomach. John stands, abandoning his instrument, and walks leisurely over to the bed in his purple velvet dressing gown. A small smile appears on his lips.

“You’re upset.” Before you can search your brain for any excuse or assurance that you were, in fact, unaffected, he puts his hands on your shoulders. “I’m upset as well.”

“You agreed,” you whisper.

“After difficult deliberation.”

“It mustn’t have been all too difficult. Will you take all your books and antiques? Music, cultured possessions, what you need to teach Rome?”

“I’ll take what I can.”

“What about what you can’t?”

“The Papacy is an honor.”

“You’re a high priest.”

“Pope is a tad higher, my dear. An honor which should have been bestowed upon my brother. Or according to my dear parents, that is.”

“So, what?” you ask, blinking demurely up at him through your eyelashes, “You want to prove you can be a better Pope than Adam could have been?” Any other man with John’s history would have lashed out at that. But your lover was a gentle, kind man—commanded loyalty and obedience, no doubt, but he did so with benevolence.

“I do not know what sort of Pope Adam would have been, since Adam is dead. A living Pope is superior to a dead one, so right from the start, I… have a slight advantage.” His tone is contemplative, empty of any implied sarcasm. You sit up on your knees, and place your right hand on top of his, where it’s still resting on your shoulder. You then begin to kiss up his arm, until you can no longer bunch his dressing gown sleeve any higher.

“Take this off?” you ask, eyes hooded.

“Already there, are we?” he murmurs, taking your hand and squeezing it. “I thought there’d be more of an argument.”

“Passion, good or bad, shows its colors in the throes of pleasure,” you respond, and move your hands in, feeling his chest and shrugging the robe off for him. He removes his underclothes with precision, eyes never leaving your naked body.

“You’re like a sculpture, my dear (y/n),” he says, leaning in to brush his lips across your cheek.

“You can’t touch sculptures,” you breathe, crawling backward on the bed. He joins you, eyes descending to your spreading legs.

“I can do as I please. I’ll be the Pope this time next week.”

You grin, and he kisses you properly, lips always the perfect feeling against yours. The pleasant familiarity of his beard scratching your chin almost helps you forget that it may be the last time you’d feel it.

“A work of art,” he continues, “I stare at the painting of you we’ve got in our west wing drawing room. If I wasn’t leaving so abruptly, I’d have half a mind to have it moved to my study.”

“Why don’t you move it to your chapel?”

“What an intriguing idea.”

“People would certainly talk.”

“People do talk. It doesn’t mean we have to listen.”

You giggle, wrapping your legs around him and dragging your foot up his back. “You’re no Pope, John Brannox.”

“On the contrary. I believe I can restore sanity to the Vatican, if nothing else.” You hum, and he feels a hand down your chest, cupping your breast as he makes sure you’re wet and ready for him.

“I remember the day I was painted on that couch,” you say. “I do so many, it’s hard to recall most, but that one I remember. It had been commissioned by your estate. It was to go to the High Priest of England, Sir John Brannox, the painter told me.”

“And did that affect your position, my dear?” he smirks, touching your clit. You gasp, rolling your hips up to his hand.

“Yes. I posed as I do in my others, but my eyes… they bore the seduction. I imagined what you would do with the art. Perhaps, your reaction to it.”

“My reaction to it was most underwhelming, I must disappoint you,” he smiles, “I couldn’t very well show how taken with it I was.”

“But did you think of me that night?” you moan.

“Every night since,” he replies. “I was enchanted. I still am.”

“And I am enamored with you,” you tell him, pressing your lips to his again. “When you arranged that meeting with me, I believed you would be the same as every important man in this country.”

“I am not?” he asks.

“You know you’re not. You’re not arrogant. You flaunt, but you do so tastefully. That, I can forgive.”

“If your goal was to flatter me into proper form, it’s done the trick,” he laughs fondly, and you look down to see him hard. You place his hands on your breasts again.

“Soon, that painting will be your only reminder of me. Touch me while you can. Commit my body to memory for lonely nights, and I will do the same.”

He does as you say, burying himself inside you with a laboured intake of breath. You hold onto him as he builds up a perfect pace, each thrust deep and satisfying. He listens to your body, knows without a word from you when he needs to try something new.

“Will you find another lover as versatile as I am?” he teases, new vigor restored to his expression as he takes his younger companion. You roll your eyes. No man is immune to praise, especially that of the sexual nature and during the act.

“Your talents will remain unmatched, I’m sure,” you huff, and he thrusts in hard, grunting softly.

“Are you certain you won’t find some… younger man, who will bring you to your climax faster?”

“I will never fuck a man who does not appreciate the art of slowly taking a woman apart like you do,” you tell him.

“That’s reassuring,” he says, “These new romantics these days have studied up on their poetry, I’m sure, and I’m glad for it.”

You breath his name as his thrusts get faster, then recall a line of poetry out of Rome that you’ve always meant to write down somewhere. “Che mistero è questo, che posso sentire le mie labbra sulla punta delle dita.” (What mystery is this, that I can feel my lips in your fingertips.)

He gasps, hips moving quickly as he responds in broken Italian. “E quando mi ha guardato, avevo dimenticato quale fosse la sofferenza, ma sono morto mille morti.” (And when she looked at me, I had forgotten what suffering was, but died a thousand deaths.)

“I want you to take me harder than you’ve taken anyone,” you whisper in his ear, lips falling further open and legs spreading even wider for him, “I won’t break.”

He takes this seriously, reaching every part of your body and going harder than you’ve seen him ever before. It’s magnificent, but he’s starting to get tired, you can tell by the way his forearms are beginning to quiver.

“I’m very close,” the older man whispers in your ear, stroking your hair back, “Are you?” You arch your back, your fevered moans reaching their desperate crescendo in an answer to his question.

“Come when you need to,” you tell him softly, “I don’t mind.” But he’s not about to leave you. A few more thrusts, and you both finish together.

John breathes heavily beside you, lowering himself down and pulling out of you. You watch him as he gets up, and walks over to his mirror, sitting down in front of it to wipe at some of the dark eyeliner he had forgotten to remove before nighttime. You stretch out across his four poster bed, golden sheets satin against your skin.

"Do you love me, John?"

There was a steady pause, more silence following still.

"Yes."

The answer sounded careless, but you knew him to be a careful man. You meet his eyes in the mirror. "Then take me with you."

He merely looks back at you, a sort of softness in his eyes. It's nothing like condescension, the knowing male gaze that tells you that you simply wouldn't understand. His eyes carry the weight of knowing that you know, and knowing what that means for him.

A night spent together with an unmarried young woman carries more gravity when it is done wearing the Cloth. As a High Priest, it can be explained away to God as a simple sin, a carnal desire passed off and forgotten in a confessional, but under Papacy? Such a thing is not so easily forgiven.

“Everything evil in this world is hysteria of love,” he says. “Distortions of our ability to love. It’s a beautiful thing, but it’s just beyond my grasp. And my hopes are, you can share it with another. Please, for both of our sakes, my dear… mistake my love, one last time, for tenderness. For that is what I can offer you, and all that I can offer you.”

From that moment, you knew. He was the New Pope.

#john malkovich fucks #yea I said it #this is probably the most romantic my writing has gotten since I was like 14 #john malkovich #john malkovich x reader #reader x john malkovich #john paul III #john paul III x reader #the new pope #the new pope hbo #pope daddy #john brannox #the young pope #john brannox x reader

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eastertag · 4 years

Text

@tracybirds gift for @overlordraax

Dissonance

Happy Easter @overlordraax! Thank you for your wonderful prompts and I hope you enjoy the read!! Thank you as well to @ak47stylegirl for your organisation of this fun event!! Be well!

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Just sitting on the piano stool was enough to calm Virgil’s racing mind and fidgeting fingers after a long, hard day of rescues. A day when he was too caught up in heartache to concentrate on anything arduous, when all he could do was form the familiar chords with his hands and lean into them. He allowed them to ring, I … IV … V … I, first in C major, then in A minor, G major, F major – the same chord progression he had been acquainted with since he was a child, played over and over again.

Eventually, the music restored his soul enough to move on to scales and arpeggios, still friendly and familiar to his ear. A juxtaposition to the way he felt inside.

He needed more, the repetition that had been a soothing balm becoming tedious and filling him with anxiety. It matched the way his mind replayed the events of the day and he knew he needed to break free from the pattern.

Virgil began to perform.

An outpouring of grief, slow and soft, the sustained notes holding his soul aloft as he reflected on the mission. As tears gave way to anger, the music shifted, the tempo increasing as his breathing quickened, to rising crescendos and structured dissonance that he could pour his heart into. The pitch rose as hysteria bubbled in his throat, his mind whirling as the musical phrase repeated again and again and again.

An electronic trill caught on the notes, discordant friction in the soundscape and changing the musical form he was sculpting out of melody and rhythm.

Virgil opened his eyes and glared at the holoprojector, the interruption ensuring he still felt jumbled up inside. There was no John hovering above the conversation pit however, just a ring of lights slowly orbiting in the air.

“I must request you stop this.”

Virgil’s sour mood took a turn for the worse as he stared at EOS. She didn’t know what she was asking, but his self-control was frayed and he couldn’t help the snapping response that fell from his lips.

“You can’t make me.”

The lights that marked EOS’s presence flashed and the holoprojector died. Virgil turned back to his music and if he banged on the keys a little harder than necessary, well, no-one was around to call him out on it.

“You must stop.”

He yelped and jolted backwards as EOS leapt into view in front of him over the piano itself.

“I can’t.”

“You must.”

Virgil frowned. EOS was rarely so insistent on her perspective when it came to things she didn’t understand. Her primary function was to play, and although John tried to keep her contained, her drive to seek out novelty and experiment with new ideas meant the family was used to narrating their daily lives as she peppered them with questions.

This was not the kind of request EOS usually made.

Virgil closed his eyes, knowing he would need to put aside his own emotions for the time being.

“Can you explain further, EOS?”

Instead of replying, her image was replaced by a projection of Virgil’s own biometrics.

“Your blood pressure and breathing rate have both increased. I am detecting a loss of stability in your extremities and your hormone production indicate the inducement of severe stress in your body.” She paused, allowing Virgil to digest her words. “The only stimulus in the last hour has been your piano. You must stop.”

The emotion swelled inside Virgil, bitter on his tongue and his heart constricted. He looked past EOS’s display and returned to the familiarity of pounding scales. A placeholder only – and no way to allow the pain that rested deep in his gut to leech from his core, through his skin and out into the air. As long as EOS was there, it couldn’t be released. He didn’t have the words to explain to her what was truly wrong, couldn’t bear to battle over the precise meanings of grief and anger and pain.

“Virgil, please,” she said, her voice ticking up a by a perfect fourth as she spoke. Her tone was exact and unwavering most of the time, and Virgil knew the sudden change was an appeal of pathos – as much as EOS’s programming could allow.

His vision blurred as he continued to move his hands across the keys, plucking the various forms from memories of long ago. He ignored the watery, laboured breathing that accompanied his music, ignored the fingers that slipped off the black keys and soured the notes even more. Anything to ignore that creeping guilt that told him to explain to EOS what was wrong.

“Virgil.”

He opened his eyes in shock, staring at the brother EOS had gone to fetch.

“Are you okay? EOS said you were in distress.”

John looked confused, assessing Virgil quickly as he looked him up and down.

“I’m fine.”

“No,” said John, now frowning. “No, you’re not. Your stress hormones are off the charts.”

“I said ‘I’m fine’,” said Virgil. His voice reverberated around the room, mixing with the piano. There was no more energy for scales running up and down the keyboard. Instead harsh, angry notes grouped themselves together under his direction. He didn’t care about chord progressions or musical theory, he only cared about his emotions trapped inside being lanced from his soul.

“Virgil, calm down,” said John.

Clashing discordance rang through the room as Virgil slammed his hands down.

“Leave me alone, John,” he shouted. He could hear footsteps running towards the living room, and turned away. His eyes were burning from both exhaustion and the effort to keep back his tears. “Take your damn computer virus and leave me be.”

He stood abruptly, the stool falling backwards with a bang.

“That was Mom’s.”

“And now it’s mine,” snapped Virgil, the hot rush of anger painting over the hurt on John’s face.

He pushed past Gordon, who had skidded into the room with wide eyes.

“Get out of the way,” he muttered, trudging past him.

The silence followed him all the way to his suite.

“Virgil.”

He should have known she wouldn’t let it lie.

“EOS, not now, I’m…”

He couldn’t find the words. They stuck in his throat. He could hear the sound they made, the sharp staccato of rash anger, the modulation between grief and guilt. Without his music holding him together, he crumpled onto the soft sofa and let himself cry.

“Virgil.”

EOS could sweeten her voice when she chose, could shape it so that its melody became soft and smooth.

“I wish to make reparations for my actions.”

Before Virgil could reply, a jaunty rag played from his speakers. Bright syncopation and cheery colour exploded around him.

“Mute,” he snapped.

The music sat unresolved, weighing down his heart all the more.

“You can’t make me feel better just by playing a happy tune, EOS. People died today. You can’t just forget that.”

“You could not have done more.”

“I know.” Virgil sat up slowly, making eye contact with the holo. “But I wish I could have. And I know what their families are feeling.”

He shuddered, the old memory still recalling fresh pain. The seeping wound that he couldn’t heal no matter how desperately he painted over it, no matter how loudly he played to drown out the sorrow. And now a new family would learn to live with that.

Because they hadn’t been enough.

“You are upset again. I sought to change that. Music does not help.”

“It’s not about changing my feelings, EOS,” said Virgil quietly. “It’s about expressing them.”

“But people use music to influence emotion constantly.”

Virgil shook his head. “We convey emotion with music. People are just naturally empathetic.”

“Then why do you not empathise with this performance?” asked EOS. “If you empathised with it, you would no longer be sad.”

Virgil ran his hand down his face.

“Because I’m not in a neutral emotional state to begin with. It’s difficult to empathise with happiness when you’re already feeling upset.”

EOS was quiet.

“What about this one?” she asked.

Virgil closed his eyes as one of Chopin’s Nocturnes filled his room.

“Closer EOS,” he breathed. “That’s closer.”

He lay back and allowed the music to flow over him. As the notes died away, he could feel his emotional equilibrium begin to realign.

“Thanks EOS.” His eyes fell on the old upright piano that stood in the corner of the room. It wasn’t as nice as the grand in the family room, the paint chipping away and the white keys yellowed with age. But it had been his first piano, the one his mother had dragged into the house before they were all born.

“Was it enough?”

“No,” he said quietly, sitting on the piano stool. His fingers ran across the piano lid before he lifted it and he sighed as he picked out the familiar melody of another Chopin.

“It’s not your fault EOS,” he said, leaning into the music. “Listening has never been enough for me. You did help.”

The ring of lights shone green for a second.

“How can I tell the difference?”

“The difference between what?”

“Between the happy and the sad pieces?”

Virgil paused for a second, thinking it over.

“Why did you pick the first one?”

“I cross referenced the metadata that was attached to copies of the music on the holonet. They all recognised the piece as happy, or of synonyms of the word. The specific combination of rhythm and pitch hold no more significance than any other, and I have no experience to compare them with.”

A soft round of simple intervals filled the air.

“Can you hear the difference?”

“Of course. One pitch remains the same and the other changes.”

“No, no,” said Virgil. “Listen to how they interact, can you hear the difference.”

A major chord. A minor chord. Only one semitone between them, a half-step that painted the world in simplistic feeling.

The notes faded away. EOS remained silent. Virgil played the chords again, waiting for her response.

“They combine differently. The ratio of their wave frequencies are different.”

“How so?”

“One produces a more complex sound. It has a higher frequency ratio.”

Virgil smiled.

“The more complex, the more dissonant. Usually.”

The notes repeated a few more times as EOS tried it out for herself using her own databanks. Virgil sat back, listening to her experiment. It reminded him of himself as a young child, banging enthusiastically on the piano. He wanted to make the same pretty sounds as his Mom, but at the same time, he just wanted to play.

“I don’t like that one.”

“Which one?”

The sharp, sour notes of the tritone interval filled the room.

“Ah, yes,” said Virgil wincing. “Used to be called the devil’s chord.”

The implications of what she had just said caught suddenly on his mind.

“What do you mean you don’t like it?”

“It has a 45:32 frequency ratio. It doesn’t superimpose well. The sound is… dissonant.”

Virgil’s face split into a grin. “That’s what we hear too. Except we can’t describe it as accurately, so we assign emotion to it instead. How does it make you feel?”

“I feel…” EOS paused and the clashing notes silenced. “I feel unstable. I know the sounds that are easier to comprehend and I want to return to them.”

A number of artificially sped-up pieces flew through the speakers.

“Not all music follows this pattern.”

“Well, no,” said Virgil. “A lot of music is about expectation. What you think should happen next and whether or not that is fulfilled is an important part of the experience. Different cultures, different time periods, even different styles use different patterns in music.”

His hands sought out the modal scales he had been taught in high school, the first example that leapt to mind. Smiling, he launched into one of his favourite jazz pieces.

“Some styles will rely on dissonant intervals so much, they become normal to the ear. The more you listen, the more you’ll be able to identify the different types of patterns.”

The music ended with a flourish.

“But we’re talking about emotion, aren’t we EOS?” A new melody spilled out of him, the memory of its last performance itching at the back of his mind. “Without dissonance, the music is dull, it’s monotony and boredom and drudgery. Like a life where everything is perfect and you always get your way. Dissonance breaks the pattern, it create interest in the music.”

“The change affirms your turbulent experience in the world.”

“Exactly,” said Virgil. “It can reflect so much, the way we explore new ideas, how we take risks or grow from failure. Without dissonance, music would be nothing more than a predictable pattern and have no creativity or drive behind it.”

“No life. No emotion.”

“And if we cut it off, if we never bring the music home?”

The final notes hovered in the air and Virgil could almost see the way they floated next to EOS.

“I feel incomplete. Like I’ve lost something but I don’t know what.”

Soft arpeggios brought the music back to life. Virgil watched as EOS processed and catalogued the newly made connections.

“The pitch of the sound can’t be the only contributing factor. The amplitude of your playing has changed in a manner consistent with your stress levels. If there are direct connections to be made, is this another one?”

Virgil continued to play, soft and light as he analysed his own emotions. He’d forgotten where all this had begun.

“Not always,” he said. “But often. You can’t just look at one part. You have to take them in relationship to each other. The choice of instruments, the articulation, the rhythm, the harmony. It all combines to make something greater than it would be if only one form of expression was used.”

“Music mimics its makers.”

Virgil blinked.

“I’m sorry?”

“You are only one part. And you combine to make something greater than you would be alone.”

“I–”

A sharp buzzer jolted Virgil from his thoughts and he stared dumbly at the door.

“Virgil?”

The worry was evident in his brother’s voice as it crackled through the intercom. He spoke softly, cautious of interrupting Virgil but convinced of its necessity.

For a moment, he considered retreating into the bedroom, where he knew Scott would leave him be.

He didn’t want to leave his piano though. Not yet.

“Thank you EOS. You should go.”

He turned towards the door, raising his voice slightly.

“Come in.”

Scott slipped inside and shut the door firmly behind them. Virgil could smell the soap as he walked closer, the collar of his shirt wet from the hair he hadn’t quite finished drying.

“John called me when he couldn’t get a hold of you,” he said simply, making himself comfortable on the sofa. “And Gordon nearly dragged me out of the shower to come talk to you.”

“You could have spared an extra minute to dry off.”

“Whatever.” He picked at the pilled fabric of his trousers. “Was more worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

Virgil didn’t know what to say. He had been angry, hurting, grieving. The ache was still present in his chest, but he wasn’t sure how to explain to Scott how already the solace he found in music was beginning to take effect. Scott wasn’t dismissive of his love of art but his experiences were firmly rooted in a more concrete reality.

“I was talking to EOS.”

The expression on Scott’s face was unreadable.

“I see.”

“She asked for more information about my… outburst.” Virgil turned to face the piano so he wouldn’t have to look his brother in the eye. “We talked about music. I explained how I was feeling.”

“Did it help?”

Virgil closed his eyes and listened. There was melancholy there, a rough bittersweetness that underpinned the soft, sad acceptance of the events of the day.

But there was a restful peace there too, a flowing movement of sound that had begun to grow louder with the reminder that he wasn’t isolated in his emotions.

The framework for a new composition.

“Yeah, Scott, it did. She did.”

Virgil rested his hands on the piano.

“Stay a while. I want to play something for you.”

————————————————————————

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”

~ Victor Hugo (Essay on William Shakespeare)

STS.034

#thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds 2004 #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds tos #Virgil Tracy #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #EOS #EasterTAG #submission

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lloydskywalkers · 5 years

Text

and it is a shame

Listen....I am a simple fic writer....those episode summaries hinted at stuff....the stuff hinted at angst....I came for it...

This is based ENTIRELY off of the episode summary leaks for the last few episodes of s11, so if you haven’t seen those beware!! BIG SPOILERS!!

(I have no idea how it’s going to go down but it’s heavily suggested that this confrontation is going to exist, so here’s my take since we apparently have to wait forEVER for the real thing)

Lloyd isn’t sure what hurts worse — the face under the helmet, or Akita’s teeth in his arm.

“Let me at him,” she growls, sharp teeth glinting in the eerie light of the ice palace. “Let me kill him—“

“No, Akita, don’t,” Lloyd begs, his eyes smarting through the pain of where she’d bitten him. His fault, he’d stepped in front of her, but he couldn’t just let her—

“He killed my brother!” Akita roars, writhing against his hold as she strains toward the throne. Vex watches in amusement now, instead of the wide-eyed terror he’d worn mere seconds ago.

“He is my brother!” Lloyd screams back, refusing to let her go. The horror of his own statement threatens to choke him, but he fights it back, along with the spinning of his head.

Zane, oh Zane no, is this why we couldn’t find you—

“Your brother,” Akita spits, her shoulders heaving. “Is a murderer.”

Lloyd shakes his head violently. “No,” he denies, but his voice is thin. “No, Zane isn’t — Zane wouldn’t.”

“Lloyd, look at him.”

Akita’s voice isn’t as harsh this time, and there’s an undercurrent of sympathy in it, if Lloyd were to look hard enough. But he can’t, not at the truth in her voice and not at the emperor. He can’t see Zane like this, because it can’t be Zane—

The emperor’s helmet lies discarded on the floor, where Lloyd had knocked it free mere seconds earlier. He’d been so close, so close to sending a blade through him. So close to ending the reign of ice in this cursed realm.

The face beneath the helmet had stopped him dead. The same face they’d been looking for, the face that’s lived in Lloyd’s best dreams and worst nightmares these past weeks, the face of his brother, it was the same face—

“It’s not him,” he whispers. “Akita, he’s not himself, he would never.“

Akita’s jaw tighten, and her eyes flash. “Lloyd—“

Ice suddenly erupts across the throne room, slicing in front of them as they fall apart with twin cries of shock. Vex’s laughter echoes manically across the throne room, and Lloyd stares at Akita through a sheet of ice, his eyes as wide as hers.

The emperor is descending from his throne.

“Run,” Lloyd says, his voice pitched high in panic. “Akita, run!”

Akita throws him a desperate glance, her face torn — then she shifts, the red and white features of a wolf solidifying, and she’s off in a flash, darting from the throne room.

“Don’t let her escape!” Vex howls, and the emperor’s scepter lifts.

Lloyd catches it off balance with a burst of power, cutting off the ice in a shower of green sparks as he skids in front of them, fists humming with energy.

“Your fight’s with me,” he growls, glaring at Vex. “Now — tell me what you did to my brother.”

Vex looks at him, then laughs. “I did nothing,” he says, his voice derisive. His eyes glint, and there’s the familiar crackling sound of ice. “Ask him yourself.”

Lloyd is forced to dive aside as the emperor sends a wall of deadly ice hurtling straight for him. He rolls to his feet, pushing himself into a sprint.

He was wrong, Lloyd thinks as he races for the gaping doors, his thoughts tinged in hysteria. He shouldn’t have gone alone. He should’ve brought the others, he shouldn’t have come at all, he isn’t prepared for this, how—

Zane, how long have you been like this—

Spiked structures of ice erupt before him, and Lloyd’s forced to skid to a halt, slipping across the icy floor. He turns on heel, sprinting in the other direction — only to immediately meet a similar wall of jagged, glimmering ice.

Lloyd’s breath catches in his throat. The ice keeps growing, throwing his own wild-eyed reflection back at him in gleaming kaleidoscopes of blue, and Lloyd is reminded of the Caves of Despair for a horrible second. He feels the same kind of helplessness threatening to overwhelm him, a despair similar to the crushing weight of Morro.

No, he seethes internally. No, this isn’t the same. He’ll stop this, he’ll free Zane from whatever’s gotten him. He just has to get out of this stupid ice.

Lloyd’s hand glows, and he sends his power hurtling at the ice in front of him, smashing a path open for him to sprint through. He can see the balcony of the fortress just beyond, and the swirling, snowy darkness of outside. If he can just reach it — if he can find Akita and get to the mech, then he can get back to the others and—

He misses the gleam from below him. A solid block of ice suddenly shoots up beside him, slamming into Lloyd’s side and sending him sprawling to the floor, the wind knocked clear from his lungs.

Lloyd wheezes, curling in on himself as his ribs throb, his lungs sputtering as he tries to inhale. He finally coughs, drawing in a ragged breath of freezing air, tears pricking at his eyes from the burn.

With a flash of terror, it occurs to him that the air shouldn’t be this cold. Not unless—

“You shouldn’t have run.”

Lloyd cries out in alarm, scrambling backward across the icy floor, frantically trying to put distance between him and the frozen figure. Heavy boots stalk toward him, and Lloyd’s fingers scrabble desperately, fighting against the suffocating panic as he tries to light his power. Alarm is blaring through his head, making it hard to think.

A heavy boot comes down on his chest, pressing against his already-aching ribs, and the alarm screeches into a crescendo.

Lloyd shoves desperately, cracking his head against the ice as he struggles to throw him off.

“Zane, come on,” he croaks, through blurring eyes. “This isn’t you.”

“I am not Zane,” the emperor rasps. “Zane is no more. Only his power.”

That hurts worse than his ribs do. Fury lights in Lloyd’s chest, and he grits his teeth and pushes, green bursting to life from his fingertips and blasting the emperor off his feet, sending him flying across the icy room.

“Liar,” Lloyd hisses, trying to regain breath from his aching chest. He staggers to his feet, sweeping his glowing hands before him defensively. “I know Zane’s in there. Give him back.”

The emperor slams his frozen scepter to the ground, using it to push himself to his feet slowly, his head raising. His face is twisted in cruelty, hateful where it turns to Lloyd, but it’s the eyes that chill his blood.

There’s no warmth in those eyes. There’s no light, no kindness, none of the familiarity that’s Lloyd’s brother. It’s as if someone’s froze him over and sucked all the Zane out, leaving a cold, empty husk wearing his face behind.

Lloyd wants to cry.

“Zane,” he whispers. “Who did this to you.”

Lloyd will blame his own stupid hope for what happens next. He’s hesitating, waiting for an answer that will never come, because he can’t blast his brother—

—when the emperor darts forward, knocking Lloyd’s blast aside before he can throw it, his hand locking around Lloyd’s wrist, holding him in place.

Ice immediately begins to spread where the emperor’s hand grasps his open skin, misting and sharp and burning with how cold it is. Lloyd yelps in pain, struggling to yank his arm from the icy hold. But the emperor’s grip is iron, unflinching and unyielding, and Lloyd can only watch in horror as the ice spider-webs across his arm, slowly snaking beneath his gi and across his skin, crystalizing the blood seeping from his wound as it freezes. He cries out in a mix of pain and panic, clawing in vain at the hand with his free arm.

“Zane, Zane let go, Zane please—“

The ice continues, climbing higher and higher, sewing agony into Lloyd’s veins as he writhes against the freezing hand, twisting vainly away. He finally kicks out at the emperor in frantic hysteria, crying out at the pain slicing through his arm.

The ice falters as the pain does. Brilliant blue eyes suddenly dart up meet his own tear-streaked ones, and Lloyd’s breath catches in his throat. He barely manages to get out the name, in hope.

“Zane?”

The emperor blinks. For a second, Lloyd sees confusion there — as if one waking up from a long sleep. The grip on his hand loosens, the burning ice halting. A shaking hand passes over the frozen face, and the emperor’s head drops, his eyes shadowed.

There’s a hoarse, quiet voice, frightened and confused.

“Lloyd?”

Lloyd’s heart almost bursts. His face threatens to split with the smile of relief that breaks across it. “Zane!” he gasps. “Zane, it’s me, it’s Lloyd! We came for you, we’re here to take you home, everyone’s—“

The hold around his arm tightens. Lloyd’s heart drops.

“Zane?” he whispers.

His head rises. Any warmth Lloyd had hoped to see in his eyes has vanished, frozen out by the pale, icy blue. A cruel edge sets back into his mouth. It’s the only warning Lloyd gets before his hand switches, releasing his wrist before shooting out and locking firmly around his throat.

Lloyd chokes, a strangled gasp escaping as he claws at the hand suffocating him. He’s unable to gain any leverage, his fingers blistering against the icy hold, and Lloyd fights back tears. Dark spots burst at the edges of his vision, and sounds muffles out in a high-pitched buzzing that rings in his ears.

A hazy part of him wonders if this was what it was like for the others, with Morro. If this is how it hurt, seeing the face of someone you love used like this.

Zane, Zane I’m so sorry—

A half-second before darkness claims him, the hand loosens, before finally releasing entirely. Lloyd drops bonelessly to the floor, unfeeling of the freezing ice beneath him. His vision blurs, fuzzing at the edges as it fades in and out of darkness, unconsciousness threatening with every strangled breath his abused throat manages to choke in.

“He will be useful.” The emperor’s voice is rasping now, harsh and scraping. “In time.”

“Throw him in with the other prisoner,” he hears Vex’s voice bark, taking over for his emperor once again. Cold hands lock around Lloyd’s arms, hauling him from the floor, and he sees more than hears the slide of Vex’s sword, threatening him if he tries anything.

Lloyd couldn’t if he wanted to. It’s as if the cold’s seeped into his very soul, biting and draining and leaving him hollow. He can barely keep his eyes open as they drag him to the depths of the palace, his vision fading in and out. It doesn’t matter — his thoughts aren’t of escape, anyways.

I’m so sorry, Zane, he thinks bitterly. I couldn’t save you this time, either.

#lego ninjago #ninjago #ninjago spoilers #lloyd garmadon #zane julien #akita's in there too for like 2 seconds #anyways its the pain train!!#the ep hasn't even come out yet and i'm already dying :'))#ns11 spoilers #my fic

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sugaxjpg · 6 years

Text

danse macabre; m

⤷ As a newborn vampire, you still have a lot to learn ― fortunately, someone is very happy to teach.

“Step number one: pick your prey.”

✓ Couple: Taehyung x Reader | Vampire!AU

✓ Filed under: light angst and horror; smut

✓ Look out for: gore, violence, mentions of death, blood play

✓ Words: 13,702

Author’s Note: Adapted from my old persona, and switched to second person. If you say that this entire fic was an excuse for me to write blood play, you are absolutely right. Have fun.

Under the heavy raindrops of a decaying city, the raven sky of dawn crawled away slowly, giving its place to a kind morning semblance, a pale shade of pink that originated in the horizon. The streets found themselves in the transitory state between the ebullient sibilation of night encounters and the gradual awakening of a mundane day, utterly relinquished beneath the consolidated ashen clouds.

Despite all that, not every aspect of that stationary instant was permeated by peace. Somewhere amidst the grey buildings and endless traces of monochromatic asphalt, a reticent scream was muffled in trepidation and fear; eyes blown wide in absolute panic. The man’s fingers were already faithlessly gripping to the asperous brick wall behind him, clothes bathed in the deepest of cardinal as he merely watched, impassive and hopeless, as his life was drained from him, dripping down his figure and accumulating in deep, ruby puddles around his trembling feet.

You could hear a strong, booming pulse around you, a frantic heartbeat that fought to keep living on as it echoed inside your skull, reverberating in your chaotic thoughts and sending waves of heat through your ecstatic body. It was not your own, and you had no idea who it belonged to. In fact, there was no reasonable facts within you that could call you back to the perceptions of reality, for, in that dark alley, you were absolutely overtook by an unknown euphoria, moved by the most absolute carnality of your existence. The amative, enticing aroma of blood involved your very personality in an embrace of sadism, engendering you to carve your canines even deeper inside the stranger’s bloody flesh.

Under the heavy raindrops of a decaying city, you could feel everything.

The man’s knees fell limp and his body sluggishly drifted away from your grip, dragging down the brick wall as another call for mercy cut his tight throat. Groaning, you allowed for it to meet the floor and, after a mere second, you were already moving on top of it, sinking your sharp teeth once again into his colorless, numb skin. The phlegmatic human was cold underneath your touch, the iciness of his figure reaching for an overwhelming crescendo of necrosis. Nevertheless, you could not care for it. Hunger was finally being satiated, striking your senses and sending your rampageous mind into absolute overdrive. You were feeding, and could no longer stop yourself.

With a compediary grunt, you swallowed all you could, savoring on the metallic palatableness of such delighting scarlet hue. Rationality and sanity long forgotten, the blood being dove into your most primal impulses, the concept of consciousness scattered around your hysteria. Your brain got dangerously vertiginous, unfocused; fingers losing their force around the stranger’s shoulders — was there something wrong?

You did not care.

It was gradual, almost unnoticeable; but the delectation of the meal was transforming into a slight feeling of confusion, accompanied by an odd numbness at the region of your stomach. Almost as if your body was warning that some aspect was out of place, you felt your fangs retrieving back to the gums; causing for a frustrated groan to vehemently echo on that deserted alleyway, both grievous and filled by fury.

Even though your limbs grew weaker, you could not move away. The taste of blood was less delightful, but yet far too craved to be ignored so rapidly. Lackadaisical, you forced yourself to continue savoring the human being under you, even though all signs pointed that it was better to choose otherwise. You were starving, drowning in the famine those excruciating weeks had concentrated—

There was an impact. So unforeseen you could not react as it gripped the back of your dress, so vigorous that it sent you flying across the narrow alleyway the very next second. An anguishing scream of pain perished in your chest as your back collided against the humid brick wall, a dim crack rupturing your shock and warning your bespattered mind that the sharp pinch on your lower body was mostly caused by a couple broken ribs. More of surprise than of agony, a spasmodic whimper fell from your wet lips, eyes fighting to stay focused after the abrupt attack.

Now, there was no doubt that something was wrong — you could not get up.

The silhouette of a man was atramentous as onyx, surrounded by the hypnotic lines of falling raindrops. For an instant of diffused images, all that echoed inside your mind was the sounds of his shoes against the wet concrete ground, his silky voice sounding as strangled as if you were miles and miles underneath the seven seas. Wrapped in a long, dark raincoat, he moved instantaneously in your direction, stepping over the decaying victim’s body as if it was nothing above a meaningless doll.

You coughed twice, droplets of blood hitting the floor and painting the accumulated water in pale pink, “Who—”

Before your sentence could meets its ending, the figure moved as fast as a lightning bolt; standing in front of you in mere seconds. A dumbfounded exclamation was captured in your esophagus as his slender fingers curled around your neck, pulling your body upwards against the cold surface. You could only perceive a vague flickering of his profound eyes as they were painted by detestation, ears ringing in a distant call for your to wither into unconsciousness.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he venomously spat. The stranger’s voice was rusty, low; barely a furious groan beneath the merciless rain. In a desperate attempt, you opened your blood-painted lips, impulsing your body forwards: no avail. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

All forces had ran like the translucent drops of water in between your fingers, body left completely helpless. You were going to faint, “I-I ca—”

“—You newborns are always so damn ignorant,” the stranger cursed, taking a step closer. With his chest pressed up against your own, he increased his force around your neck, and you were sure he could tear it in half if he truly wanted to. “You cannot drink from them when they’re dead.”

Those were the last words that reached your ears, the terminal warning that echoed amidst the pandemonium of your thoughts as you began to lose consciousness. Befuddled, you could merely behold the movement of his lips as he said something else; alarmed tone intermingling with the incessant, roaring mourning of the storm above their heads.

Under the heavy raindrops of a decaying city, your universe was absorbed by caliginosity.

The vague aroma of vanilla and wine was the primordial fragment that reached your senses, gingerly curling around on the placidity of the warm indoor air while your blinking lids battled against the need to dive into unconsciousness anew. Lightheaded and discombobulated, you fought to open your eyes, reality slowly painting the world around your as you did so.

Scarlet bathed the dimly lit accommodation, mingling with the flickering of candles as the incandescence of fire embraced the atmosphere in a surreal, almost sepulchral aura. The long alabastrine curtains were closed; utterly immobile as they contrasted with the gloominess of the unfamiliar location. In progression, as your vision started to regain focus, you could define the outline of a bed enveloped in red silky sheets, in which a slim figure sat, its gaze locked on you.

A suppressed groan left your mouth as you attempted to move, but, with the unmistakable ringing of metal, you soon found out your arms were handcuffed together. Placed behind your back, the chains passed through a silvery metal ring that was drilled to the wall, making it almost impossible for you to remove them anytime soon.

In consternation and anger, you turned your fulminating eyes back to the unrecognizable man, knowing without a doubt that it was the same person from the alleyway, “Where am I?” you firmly questioned, inducing for the man’s eyebrows to elevate in sheer interest.

“My house,” he answered promptly, tone much more euphonious than aforetime. Now that you were a bit more tranquil, it was possible to contemplate the way his caramel-colored hair fell over his cardinal eyes, delineating his features with undeniable winsomeness. You knew, as his gaze burned in the purest of amber, that he was the same beast as you — however, the cognizance did not feel as alleviating as once envisioned, for you felt much more vulnerable than ever before. “More specifically, the guest bedroom. Hope you appreciate the decoration.”

You neglected his unfitting comment, the tingling of moving cuffs impregnating the quiet room as you formulated your next inquiry, unsure for a second if a response was, in fact, wanted. “Who are you?”

“That is not important for now,” the stranger murmured, leaning forwards on the bed and crossing his legs. He took one hand to his lap, and you observed the dim silver glimmering of a small key sprouting from in between his slender, cadaverous fingertips. “I’m more curious to know who you are.”

“Tell me why I’m chained up,” your timbre came out in a middle ground, pending more towards a bargain than a cold command.

“For your own good,” he remarked promptly, talking with so much fluidity and peacefulness that you questioned the mundane aspect of those circumstances for him. “Don’t worry, it won’t be for long. I simply want to talk to you, and you would never allow me to hold a conversation otherwise.”

“Let me go and we can talk,” you said within a heartbeat. As your usual collected thoughts returned to your mind, the hunger once felt now lingered right beyond your perception, ready to crash once again. Calamity would ensue once again if you allowed for your barbaric impulses to tyrannize you, and the very last thing you wished for was to go against that unknown beast. “I promise I will behave, I won’t try anything.”

He chuckled, finding entertainment within your masked distress, “Oh no, love, you cannot give the orders here,” he spoke, raising the small object in front of his face to prove his point. It scintillated under the anemic lights, causing for a breath to get stuck in your parched throat. “I’m the one with the key.”

After reflecting on his words for a breviloquent moment, you spoke again, yanking at the chains. “I'll just let myself out, then.”

The man simply watched as you attempted to get free from the silver ties, pulling and forcing on the chains. Both knew that, under different conditions, such objects would have been quite easy to break for a species like yours — but, as you looked up at him from the corner of his gloomy bedroom, there was a mutual knowledge that you were far away from the most powerful position at that instance.

“You are far too weak for that, aren't you?” he examined, but held no bad intentions in his tone.

“Hell,” you cursed, giving up on your futile fight. Just by that simple effort, your arms had already grown sore, trembling. “What do you want from me?”

One second passed by as he took in the susceptibility of such situation, delighting on the way his prisoner's features were so gracefully embraced by the ruby radiance of his crepuscular room. There was something within your harsh, malevolent gaze that tempted him into voicing his curiosity, “I want to know who bit you.” he verbalized.

His question lingered around the air for a thick instant before an answer came, “What?” you blurted out.

“You heard me,” he pressed on, running one hand through his silky locks. Now with his hair pushed back, his gaze burned even more, so piercing that you felt as if you were shrinking underneath his gargantuan presence. “Who did it?”

“I don’t…” you shook your head, both trying to find an answer and pushing those dreadful images away from your perception. Regardless, nothing emerged within your brain. “I don’t remember.”

It was dubious, nebulous within the corners of your mind, but a lost fragment of such recalling remained there, ruptured into incomprehensible bits of information — the sharp pain in your throbbing neck, the cadaveric, cold grip around your still-human shoulders. You remembered the pale glow of the stars above you, the rapid beating of your own heart as you battled against the faceless beast, but could not draw the features of the one who caused your so much torment. Nor did you wish to.

After a second of ponderation, a long suspire departed from his roseate lips, “What a shame,” the stranger lamented, disappointed, “I thought that would be the case. Whoever it was, did a horrible job on it… How rude of them to leave you alone and not even bother to see if you were dead and not transformed,” at that, a dry chuckle left his plump mouth. “These kids are getting worse by the century.”

You frowned at that, “I don’t think I understand what you are talking about.”

“That is exactly my point… I cannot blame you for drinking dead man’s blood. Of course you would do something like that when you didn’t have any sort of assistance,” his shoulders fell, velvety tone getting softer as his aura subsided into a more inviting, lukewarm posture. That was all that he needed to hear, for you were not the one to punish. “You are hungry and scared, not exactly on your most rational state.”

The man remembered, even against his intention, how horrendous those first days could be. Even if his own transformation had occurred countless centuries ago, the image of his petrifying panic was still clear within his mind, playing like a broken record during moments like those. He would never admit so, but the older vampire he saw himself in you, and could not simply allow such clueless child to dive into your own demise. Not the way he did.

Your tongue felt dry as a desert, and struggled to get any words out after a second of silence, “Listen, I don’t know who you are—”

“—I’m Taehyung,” the stranger exposed his identity promptly, almost as if he was expecting your defensive posture to continue tormenting him. His name did not bring any memories back, and you were not sure if that was a good sign or not. “You?”

There was a second of hesitation before the answer distastefully left your chapped lips, “YN.”

Taehyung seemed content with what he got, for a modest smile effloresced on his scarlet lips. As much as your distrust did not allow your to fully dive into his beauty, you could perfectly acknowledge the uncharacteristic ethereality of such monstrous being; the empyrean traces of his soft features, “Well, YN, lesson number one: dead man’s blood is toxic,” he continued, voice as monotone as if he had said that countless instances before. “You would have been dead by now if I weren’t there.”

You scoffed, unamused, “Maybe that’s for the best. I would rather be dead than to be this… thing.”

“That can be arranged,” under the dim lights of his room, Taehyung’s eyes coruscated in michiviancy, and you had a glimpse at the true murderous being living within him. “Even though I’m not big on killing my own kind.”

“That’s a shame,” you pronounced, sounding as if your heart found itself somewhere amidst the skepticism and fear. Though, against what he conceived, your worries were not directed towards what he could do to you, but towards the everlasting need to savour the mouthwatering taste you longed for. “I’m not big on killing anything. But I guess there is a first time for everything.”

The man leaned back slightly so he could dive into his own paradoxical thoughts, wondering if the wisest decision would be to let your go alone or, perchance, use it as an opportunity to be the mentor he never had. A silent symphony delicately fell over the unfluctuating room, causing for your to close your eyes in a desperate attempt to ignore famine reappearing in your body.

Taehyung’s eyes fell to the rising movement of your blood-covered chest, and he noticed that, even though you did not need to, your organism still fought to breathe in mere habit. For a blood being, you held the danger of a ticking time bomb, and he was sure there were only two sides you could explode into — either would lacerate countless humans for a single drop of crimson, or would starve to death, hiding behind the fraudulent facade of mercy.

He could not simply let you go.

“Do you want to know how it is?” Taehyung abruptly questioned, causing for your eyes to shoot open. The craving for blood was becoming so unbearable that the world had morphed into white noise, and you had almost forgotten your current position.

“Know how what is?” you asked back.

“To hunt,” he explained, pale fingers foolishly playing with the silver key. “I suppose you should at least try it before you give up entirely.”

Even though you tried otherwise, your words came out lacking the certainty you wanted to pass. “I’m not a killer.”

“Funny,” the beast smiled, finding humor in such denial. “The dead body I found you on top of says otherwise.”

You licked your lips, cursing the doubts that appeared around your once again, “I wasn’t—”

“—Thinking straight, I know,” Taehyung completed, tone much softer than expected. The man looked like something other than a monster, you noticed. There was too much perfection within him to reflect the darkness of his identity; incalculable knowledge glistening inside his amber eyes — those were eyes of stupendous, perpetual maturity; of absolute experience; eyes of a being that had walked earth for too long now and that held the secrets only immortality could provide. “I’ve been where you are, we all have.”

“Your empathy doesn’t make me feel any better,” you debated.

“It’s not supposed to,” the man recognized, slowly getting up from his bed. Now on his feet, he stared down at your with undeniable wisdom, his tired eyes holding the very iciness of his existence. “We are all hesitant at first, it’s normal. But I can see you already noticed how things may change when you get around blood. I could teach you how to hunt, how to do it right. How to control those animal-like impulses, maybe even use them in your favor.”

At the mere mention of what you so desired, your teeth found your lower lip, biting down in a faint attempt to hide your anguish. You could feel as your gums itched, canines digging their way through flesh as the revenant of such delicious, ferruginous scent reached your nostrils once again. If your heart were still beating, its rhythm would increase in the silence promise of blood, shivers running down your spine in utter expectation.

What had you become?

“Don’t try to hide it, dear,” Taehyung chuckled, amused at your distress. The monster was now in front of you, crouching to reach your level. “I bet you’re aching to taste it, aren’t you? You don’t want to, but you can feel your limbs heating up just at the thought of it… the warmth running down your mouth, eyes blown out… It is truly delicious, I cannot blame you.”

You licked your bruised lips, chest tightening in anxiety. The stranger looked down to find that your mouth was still vaguely outlined in a pale red hue, and he found beauty within that sight. “I don’t want it.”

Taehyung chuckled, “It won’t change anything now, you know?” his aura was consuming you, now so threateningly close to your own. With darkness pulsating behind his actions, your capturer took his hands to the handcuffs. “Not drinking blood won’t turn you back to human, it will only make you starve to death… if that can be achieved again.”

“I’m not a monster,” you guaranteed as the metal clicked open, key falling to the floor as the other vampire moved back. The purple rings around your wrists did not reflect on the absence of pain, and were quick to fade away as you stared down at them. If there was something good about your kind was the rapid way your wounds healed.

“Only monsters feel the need to say that,” he rationalized, voice soft as the silky sheets on his bed. Taehyung smiled fondly, taking his fingers to hold to your chin, making your look up at him. His digits were glacial, but your skin was no different. “Come on, darling, let’s have some fun. You’ve been here for almost a day now, aren’t you hungry?”

You could observe amaranthine details of how his interminable stare were so dangerously empty, but yet could pass an enlightenment you could not even begin to comprehend. You did not know him, but was confident about how demonic Taehyung was, a master of manipulative words and fluid movements, someone who was able to read inside your very soul and take out of it the fragments he needed to bend it just the way he wanted to.

Tired, starving for energy — you could no longer withstand the utter necessity for your most carnal of desires, the hypnosis of his presence pushing your over the edges of hesitation, “Teach me,” you, at last, consented.

The man smiled and, when his eyes sparkled in eagerness, you envisioned how peculiar that night would be.

Night had once again casted its penumbra over the vicious cityscape by the time the two blood beings departed from the cloistered residency. Just before the construction melted into the horizon, you thought how it resembled a deteriorated victorian mansion, pondering how was it possible that its conserved interiors did not match such decaying, putrid facade.

Taehyung laughed when you shared such reflections with him, guaranteeing that it was never his intention to copy that specific era of architecture. Furthermore, in his words, there was no reason to adapt his house to the current times, for it was better if humans saw it as a mere deserted residency, “They come explore, I don’t even need to hunt,” the vampire smirked, “Adventurers walk directly into the lion’s open mouth. It’s almost adorable to witness.”

Downtown was flaming in phosphorescent lights once you two finally reached the outskirts of a booming club. Even from across the crowded street, your sharp senses were able to perceive the indisputable redolence of alcohol and cardice; the percussion of the electronic melody being repressed by each individual, idiosyncratic heartbeat of the mortals around. Against your best judgement, you could almost visualize the ambrosial, mouthwatering liquid as it was pumped through their bodies. Such conception was driving you towards the margins of sanity, black pupils expanding to cover up the redness of your eager irises. Your hunger was barely at its primordial state, but it was strong enough for your to feel how your canines started to puncture your gums, tongue growing drier by each frantic beating of a human heart.

You just wanted to drink from them, what was the problem with that?

Taehyung’s voice ruptured the suffocating silence between your slender figures, so abruptly that you could not camouflage your unpreparedness, “Do you remember what I said was your first lesson?” he asked.

You assented, clearing your throat. The thoughts of blood were pushed back inside your mind just enough so it would be possible to respond, but still mocked your lack of free will when it came to its denial, “Dead man’s blood is toxic,” you recited, almost robotically so.

“Correct,” the man agreed, then placed his hand on your lower back. Just as you were about to protest against the proximity, he motioned towards the side of the building with his chin. “I see you’re a fast learner, keep playing along. Let's go this way.

Your arguments perished within the captive of your throat, exasperated eyes flickering to absorb every detail of that scene — the golden hue of streetlights, the penumbra that overtook the alleyway you two were headed towards; the effervescent mumble of oblivious citizens sounding like a serpentine hiss to your ears, “Are we breaking in?” you reluctantly asked and Taehyung merely chuckled. After he was sure you knew the path to follow, he removed his icy palm from your body. Inexplicably, you perceived its absence with certain disappointment, but soon ignored it and moved to other, more relevant inquiries. “So... what am I supposed to do?”

“Before all, don’t kill them,” he said, ignoring your translucent skepticism. Next to the two night creatures, a long line of humans seemed oblivious to your presence, raising their heads to glimpse at the entrance door in expectation. Their heads were as hollow as their hearts, you thought, “You have to drink from your prey when they are alive, stop if they faint. The problem with newborns is that you don’t have self control just yet, you are all so… eager.”

“I’m not eager,” you denied instantaneously, but were not as certain as you wished to be.

The yellow streetlights casted their aureate incandescence on the man, embracing his face in a sanctified semblance — something, to your perception, quite ironic, “We’ll see about that, love,” he purred, eyes expertly moving through the ebony-painted streets. Two more steps, and his features were immersed in shadows, “But don’t worry, I will be right behind you to help you if anything goes wrong.” he made sure to add.

“That doesn’t calm me down at all,” you informed, relieved once they finally entered the dim alley. The idea of being the same as the one he found you in crossed your mind, but it was nothing more than baseless paranoias — different part of town, different alleyway. “I’m pretty sure I’ll lose control the second I taste… it.”

Taehyung smiled at that, finding it quite adorable that you would admit such thing — that was good, he thought, that meant you were not as prideful as other newborns; not arrogant enough to believe that you would be able to battle against your most primordial, savage desires, “You can’t lose something you never had,” he uttered, his entertainment not diminishing once he felt your burning gaze, “What? Darling, control is something you earn, something you fight for. It’s not gifted to you.” he spoke further.

“Seems like I have the rest of eternity to earn it,” you ignored his claim with a sarcastic scoff, “It’s been three weeks, you know? I guess I would have earned control by now.”

He smirked, glimpsing at the humans behind you in mindless expectation. Equally as before, they made no mention to even recognize your presence, even less the form how you two had clearly walked towards the side entrance, ignoring the main line, “Not quite a justificative: you can fight for control at the first day, or ten centuries after your transformation,” he contradicted, pausing so he could ponder on an emerging inquiry, “How many times did you feed?” Taehyung voiced.

“About... four,” you replied, meeting his expression — a visage that resembled a concoction of stupefaction and skepticism, “Why the look? I told you I’m not a killer.” you said.

With a small shaking of his head, Taehyung chuckled, “It’s not a surprise you tore that poor man to pieces, then,” remarked the vampire, “You were starving yourself. No blood creature has control in a position like that.”

Acknowledging his reflections, you merely hummed in agreement — it made sense, after all. You had never felt so hungry, so malnourished, in your entire existence, “Your point?” you questioned.

Now before the doorway, the rufescent neon lights of the club dripped down Taehyung’s lineaments. Smirk embellishing his gloomy features, you swore you could die drowning in the profoundness mischiviancy of his deep ruby eyes, “I still have faith in you,” he responded, placing his hand flat against the magenta door, then opening it with facility. “Shall we?”

If not for the way a lock fell on the other end, hitting the wooden floor of a dusty room, you would have claimed it had been left unlocked. Just by that mere presentation of superhuman strength, you internally questioned if you, too, did not know your own force — if you, too, had lost all residuals of humanity. Oddly so, you did not wish to know the answer to the second inquiry.

Time did not mean much for an eternal creature, and you were comprehending that a bit faster than you prophesied. Even if you had been bitten merely three weeks ago, your previous life was now far beyond the limits of your most fabulous fantasies; the shattered spirit of a personality long departed. Humanity had been depleted from your organism, barely an eidolon of who you once was, and could never be again. Perchance, you thought, it was one of the side effects contained within your predator’s venom; for it would make a much more efficient killer the ones who did not grow attached to their previous existence.

You tried not to do it. you swore you did, but it was much tenacious than any self control you still had. The hunger was devouring your inside out, burning the cords that held your to sanity as it did so. It was scorching, barbaric; much more devastating than any other sentiment you had ever experienced. Famine made your slaughter innocent lives in an infinite seek towards a satisfaction that you shall never reach. Famine made your into the monster you so feared to become.

It was a bit sad how you could not recall your inaugural victim. Memories saturated your mind in the form of diffuse conversations and nonconcrete recollections, the face of the poor young man barely an abstract constitution within your brain. As much as you tried, you could only solely look back at the nectarous redness that ran down his neck, the suffocated screams that echoed amidst the lonely park, a final melancholic song for no one to hear. You drank from him until he passed out, but had to stop once your enhanced senses caught someone reaching closer — the man was left there, barely a faceless mannequin drowning in a pool of his own blood as his attacker vanished, mingling with the penumbra of night.

A few minutes later, you heard a scream. You did not look back.

Indubitably, you thought that would be the end of it: you had, at last, given in to the most carnal needs of your kind, and was now free to turn away from them. To your demise, such utopian conceptions were not made reality, and the hunger you imagined would subside only came back stronger the very next day. You had tasted blood and, now, it would be so much harder — if not impossible — to stray away from it.

“—Are you listening to what I'm saying?”

Taehyung’s voice made you blink as you flickered back to substantiality, confused at the sudden awakening of your senses, “I'm sorry, what?” you inquired, lost.

In fact, the switch was so intense that you saw yourself growing vertiginous at the thundering compass of the song, the intoxicating redolence of alcohol and perspiration resembling poison being inhaled. As much as you still found it terribly strange not to breathe, you forced yourself to cease the rise and fall of your chest just enough so the smell would not bother your any further — when did you two arrive at the main floors, too? You needed to focus.

“Attention on me, dear,” the man chuckled, resting against the bar counter. Psychedelic lights danced on his raven hair, and you swore it was almost enough to cover the nefariousness radiating within his pupils. “I know this might be a bit overwhelming, but you should focus if you want to learn something from this peculiar night.”

“I'm focused” you said instantly, battling for your words to come out with conviction. “I'm sorry, what did you say?”

“Oh, the sweet misery of newborns,” he verbalized his amusement, shaking his head in inner skepticism. Taehyung pondered how his interaction with your was like a mirror; a vortex that took him directly to his long gone past. He could not declare that he liked it, but it was an interesting experience at the very least, “I was telling you to focus on something other than your hunger.” he repeated.

It was your turn to shake your head, traveling gaze wandering on the fuzzy, smoky landscape behind your company, “Easier said than done,” you asserted, tongue feeling nearly as arid as sand dunes. “Just keep talking. Let’s get this over with.”

Taehyung smirked at your reaction. “See? You’re eager.”

You repudiated his sarcastical claim, “I’m hungry, not eager.” you contradicted.

He scoffed, “First step is acceptance, dear.”

“Don’t test my patience,” you warned back.

“Very well. Let’s move along.” he accepted your behaviour at last, leaning with his lower back against the counter. You had perceived the manner the bartender seemed almost puzzled at your presence, but, unlike the other guests, he did not approach neither of you to question about the beverage choice. It was almost as if the stranger was supraliminal, in some downreaching level, of the inextinguishable malevolence that surrounded the two of you but, logically speaking, could not determine the foundation of his peculiar hesitation.

Now back to your usual attention, you could observe with unshakable reasoning that, in reality, the barman was not the only one to be acting like that — humans passed by the two of you as if you did not belong to the land of the carnal, your own images as transparent as the one of a poltergeist; only to explode in surprise once they finally recognized your presences as being substantial. Only then, mortals would be petrified but, at the same instant, pulled in by the magnificence of such ethereal beings.

Analogous to quicksand, they dove in deeper every time they attempted to fight back.

“Step number one: pick your prey,” Taehyung started, incapacitated to dissimulate his crescent, impetuous enthusiasm, “See anyone you like?” he questioned further.

By mere habit, you took in a profound inhale — only to feel nauseous once the smell of alcohol and artificial smoke reached your enhanced sensations. Camouflaging your repulsion with a subdued hum, your eyes scrutinized the place that expanded before the two of you: concatenating the imaginary pathway that originated in the exhilarated dance floor to the ivory couches placed near the tall walls; then from the bar counter to the second floor, where you finally found your target.

Bordering his mid-twenties, a young man came down the stairs with a cyan drink in his hands. His exquisiteness was undeniable, and the perfection of his sharp traces caught your attention instantaneously, “Him,” you voiced, “the young man on the stairs.”

Taehyung followed your stare until he met the figure that was now entering the margins of the dance floor, soon vanishing amidst the frenzied ocean of bodies, “Adorable choice,” he praised, “and a very convenient one too. He has been eyeing you since we arrived.”

“For some reason I don’t believe in you,” you frowned, revolving to your previous conceptions. Despite the fact that you was convinced the handsome stranger did not discern you, you could not disacknowledge how truthful Taehyung appeared to be, “What now?” you pressed further.

“Step number two,” he impassively continued, getting to his feet. Amidst your mercurial thoughts, you understood it was time for him to take a step back and merely guide your from afar if so needed. “Make your prey hunt you.”

The prospect of being alone with a human — a so called prey — was alarmingly disconsonant. You felt as if you were glaring at the barrel of a gun, watching dispassionately as you walked directly to the edges of your minimum self-control. To you, albeit you desiderated blood like nothing else, you did not want to collapse into the primitive temptation of carnality once anew.

Regardless of your internal preoccupations, you voiced an inquiry that did not match your apprehension. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“First, you should start breathing again,” he smirked, delighting in the adumbration of horror that was casted over your apprehensive features. “I am well aware of how disgusting the smell can be, my dear, but some sacrifices are necessary in times of need.”

“Very well,” you reluctantly consented, taking in breaths short enough so it would not envenom you, but also predominant so it would reflect on a false progression of a respiration. “Is there anything I should know about how to keep his attention? As far as I'm aware, I'm merely playing the seductress.”

Diverted by your unconventional correlation, Taehyung permitted for a smile to bloom in the mists of his delicate traces, “Here's a funny little thing about mankind: they are quite fascinated by the darkness of existence,” remarked the immortal being, such words ringing to the ballad of his superotemporal wisdom. “You don't have to lure him in, he already wants you.”

You frowned at his unforeseen claims, “So I'm just supposed to stand here and wait for him to show interest?” you asked.

He took one step backwards as an imperceptible hum reverberated on his broad chest, “I think he’s quite interested already, you don't have a lot of work to do” Taehyung assured, certain of his own declaration, “Flirt a bit, but don’t give him everything just yet. Once you get him out of here, you can take him to the alley we came through, and have your so expected meal.” he advised.

At those propositions, you finally articulated your worries with an empty sigh, “It feels as if there is a huge margin for mistakes,” you admitted, hoping that your companion would prove otherwise. “I really don’t want to murder anyone else, I’m tired of losing control.”

“Don’t be nervous, my dear, I’ll be your self control for this lovely dawn,” he assured you, the enjoyment in his abysmal gaze not crumbling for one mere second. Taehyung found it strangely entertaining to see such hungry creature still holding space for empathy — or the closest your kind could ever reach. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Where are you going?” you impulsively questioned, feeling as if you were nothing above a lost child.

Taehyung could not battle against the chuckle that poured from his chest, “I can't do your work for you. Just have fun, I bet you'll like it more than you think,” the man assured before, at final action, walking away.

You accompanied his silhouette as it dematerialized amidst the tides of bodies, unsure about which sentiment you should be experiencing. There was no true sense of worry now, but an hollowness almost as immeasurable as the undying gaze of your instructor. Famine was still present, however, it was sequentially gifting its position to what you could only characterize as the thrill of the hunt; the splendiferous sensation Taehyung had preached so much about.

As the stranger you were eyeing slowly made his way through the rhapsodic crowd, your gazes met the at very instant you embarked in the realization that such experience was just being born, for you never fully ruminated on your actions before taking them. No, your delectation was much more punctual, holding hands to the ephemerality of your bursts of savagery; no more than delirious combustions of satisfaction before the entire perverse circle of starvation and craving began one more time.

Monster was a word that haunted you ever since your transformation, but never once had you reflected that, perchance, you were already acting as one. By abnegating your organism from its most fundamental necessities, you had been piling up a disatisfaction that constantly crumbled down in a massacre, a seek for such needs. Monster was what you had made of yourself, but now had a chance to ameliorate it — regardless of your moral code, you needed to feed just like any other living being, so you might as well do it in a safer manner, in a way your victim would not meet death by the hand of your imprudence.

That night was one of many, you came to understand. The unfamiliar man now standing before your was solely the primordial victim of countless to come, but also the chance you had to prove you were not the barbaric creature you envisioned.

You could only compare that futile, diaphanous conversation the two of you shared to the booming thunder before a storm, the lightning that coruscated within thick clouds before cascades of rain came crashing down. As much as you had been paying attention to the stranger’s words and his explicit flirting, your interest was forever deadlocked on the pulsation of his heart and the ensorcelled rise and fall of his chest; the way his neck moved every time he swallowed dry.

He had presented your with his name at some point, but you feared it had already been forgotten amongst your roaring appetite. Young, full of life — those were the two adjectives you would apply, amidst your internal derangement, to elucidate such idiosyncratic creature; a human whose own ravenousness blinded him from the awful veracity of the blood being standing right before him, “Are you staying for long?” the nameless man questioned at some point, resting his empty cup on the perfectly polished counter. You found it whimsical how his mesmerized stare could not leave your for one sole minute, your aura enticing him closer like magnets to a piece of metal.

Hair delineated by the iridescent bar colors, abyssal gaze trapped underneath the thickness of your black eyelashes; you had your prey under the shadow of your tantalization, and you were tired of playing those futile games, “Depends,” you responded after a second chewing on your answer — he found you absolutely enthralling; even the movement of your cherry-painted lips appeared to ignite his most intense lust, “When do you want to leave?” you asked.

His gaze lit up at that, grasping the meaning behind those conventional words, “I just need to go to the bathroom before,” he mentioned, blinking twice in a faint attempt to awaken his senses from the spell you had casted upon him — no avail, “but then we’re free to go wherever you want to,” he made sure to add.

“Sounds good,” you smiled, fingers tracing indescribable patterns on the wooden surface of the bar. Even the delicate dynamism of your fingertips seemed spectral, surreal to the man, and he could not understand his desire to dive deeper into the fascination you instigated within him. “I’ll wait right here.”

Not long after the unknown man had walked away, your companion returned.

“He went to the bathroom,” you spoke with patience, not allowing yourself to look too long inside your teacher’s irises — they were dangerous, you came to understand, able to rearrange your thoughts with a mere glimpse, “Whatever you have to say, you should say it quickly.” you rushed.

Taehyung smirked at that, but perceived that the hurriedness of your voice did not match the true sentiment of your voracious eyes, “No need to rush, that was quite good for your first try,” the creature pridefully admitted. “I must say, dear, you impressed me.”

“I impressed myself too,” you confessed with an exhale, turning on your seat to better converse with the newcomer. Taehyung was both as sepulchral and breathtaking as you recalled, and that made your wonder if mortal beings perceived you equivalently. “I barely had to do anything, I suppose you were right about his interest.”

He leaned against the counter, but made no mention he planned to seat down before you, “After being dead for so long, you could say I’m a fairly good judge of character and intentions,” the older creature remarked, running one of his hands to remove a few strands of hair from the front of his attentive eyes, “Darkness pulls them in, even if they wish otherwise. Have you ever heard of the undead being hypnotic?” he inquired.

You thought for a second, and some tales regarding such seduction came to mind, “In victorian stories for all I care,” you breathed out, overlooking such frivolous subject. You wondered if your eagerness to feed was again distinguishable through your disposition and, in the form a frown withered on Taehyung’s features, you thought that was exactly the case, “Regardless, what am I supposed to do now?” you anticipatory pressed on.

“Oh, love, now the fun part begins,” the older vampire presented your with a wicked smile, noticing how expectation was already blazing inside your body, “and also the one you might be expecting the most since our little… adventure started.” he said further.

You suspired, “Finally,” you sounded relieved, bliss sparking in your cardinal irises. “Tell me I’ll—”

“—Step three: hunt them,” Taehyung interrupted, watching as assuagement dominated your pulchritudinous, statuesque features. He had found you beautiful before, but, as the night moved along, those thoughts creeped back to him time and time again. “And this also takes us to lesson two: the blood is not in control, you are.”

You swallowed dry, the wondrous taste of blood infiltrating your every sense — you needed to drink it again, it was consuming you, “Easy for you to say,” you declared, visibly affected. “Why did you have to remind me of it?”

Before Taehyung could give a proper response, his eyes flickered to an umbrageous silhouette beyond the bar, “He's coming back,” the vampire warned, but held to apprehension as he did so. You noticed how imperturbable and collected he was acting, as if your companion was already assertive of which outcome that night would have. “Remember, love, you cannot kill him. Dead man’s blood is poison.”

Your lips parted slightly as a sentence hung at the tip of your tongue, but it was never verbalized. The other blood being moved away from your with the fluidity and placidness of a running river, mingling with the fervent landscape beyond your reach. From behind you, a now familiar voice resounded, rupturing your germinating preoccupations, “Ready to go?” it said.

In anticipation, you swallowed the dryness of your throat before responding, “Sure thing,” you consented as you turned around to face your prey, then gladly took his hand as you got up.

You were walking the wire that divided your humanity from your intrinsic monstrosity, absolutely affrighted to look down and see which side you would fall into. The stranger’s heartbeat was overlapping every other sound that echoed in the cosmos of your temptation, replenishing your mind singularly with the hankering of such scrumptious meal. You had been thinking about blood for a prolonged period of time, your lucidness was far too fracturable, too fragile to take in its sapidity and not shatter under the avoirdupois of its elation.

Perhaps you were eager and, even worse, you might have been far too capricious when pushing such bestial reflections to the back of your nubilous awareness. Nevertheless, those disturbances did not fully pollute your mind until the frigidness of the midnight breeze enveloped your stuporous figure and perforated your consciousness with the veracity and precision of your position — as imponderous as a feather, the realization delicately landed on your perception: you were about to feed. At last, your hunger would be satiated, the phenomenal flavour of blood would once again greet your tongue with its lukewarm, metallic substantiality.

You could not hold back any longer.

Once you two crossed the obscuration of the side alley, you made your move. With serene, controlled actions, you dissimulated your inner distress as you joined your lips in a suave kiss, feeling his muscles tense up in stupefaction. Regardless, the anonymous man was soon giving in to the temptation of your mouths, the awe-inspiring waltz they performed under the cimmerian hue of dawn. You had him under your incantation, and you too was being taken over by the carnality of such caresses.

If contemplated, the circumstances would trace parallels the one in which Taehyung had found your aforetime: ambushed in a hurricane of a fervent kiss, your victim had his back against the icy wall, showing no concern as your hands ever so expertly navigated up his torso to sense the heartbeat beneath your fingertips. He could only concentrate on the spellbinding manner you drew him in, sucking and biting his lips as a groan resounded in his throat, “Damn, you’re so eager…” he struggled to speak out. As he leaned his head upwards, he noticed how peculiarly vacant those streets were, seeming as if the two were the only beings in a particularized macrocosmos.

Heavens, it was right underneath the edge of your tongue, throbbing against your sensitive lips. You could nearly taste your meal as it invaded your mouth and poisoned your being; gums itched as your fangs carved their way out of them, mouth salivating in sheer euphoric expectation.

Chuckling at his almost hypnotized state, you choose to neglect the man's mouth, humming in content and anticipation as you trailed the path towards his pulsating neck, “You have no idea,” you whispered against his warm skin, fingers traveling to his shoulder blades — precaution, for you knew he would attempt to fight back.

And so, in between two feather-like kisses on his neck, you dug your canines through his flesh.

If he attempted to scream, the sound did not reach your suppressed hearing. After puncturing his skin, you withdrew your teeth from the fresh laceration and suctioned so impetuously that any cry for help from his part would be instantaneously quietened. The disequilibrium that indicated his weakness and powerlessness only came as a copacetic hysteria to you, the delightful liquid filling your mouth with its magnificence and drowning your tongue in sheer pleasure.

You swallowed and swallowed, fingers unflinchingly holding the man down from any attempt of getting away from your constraint. In the depths of your delirious mind, you were aware of how carelessly you were giving into your so repulsed monstrosity yet again, permitting to have your empathy drained by the ravenousness for more — more blood, more satisfaction.

His pulse was dangerously lethargic now: you were getting carried away. You had been enchanted by the spectacular sensation of the febrile liquid burning down your throat and dripping down your chin; falling in the valley between your breasts and accumulating in small crimson puddles around your feet. You were making a mess. You had sliced his flesh and was sucking more than you should ever take away. Death was embracing his weak figure, cooling his skin right underneath your firm fingertips.

Just as you was starting to think your victim would meet his demise, a familiar voice broke the catastrophe of your euphoric mindset, inducing for your to come crashing back down on the reasoning of reality, “That’s enough, love,” Taehyung muttered from besides you, his figure eveloped by the aurelian emanation of the faint streetlights. Even in the low luminescence, the glow of the street was able to make his image border on perfection — surrounded by pale particles of dust, between the exquisiteness of the living and the utter melancholy of death. “Come on, now. Remember what I told you.”

Blood is not in control, you are.

Contradictory to every impulse that oscillated in your body, you forced yourself to pull away from the inconscient man with a throaty groan. His figure crumbled on top of the slatternly cement, harmonizing with the arrhythmic compass of his hunter’s steps as you moved backwards, utterly overtook by the ravishment of such succulent, lascivious meal.

Kaleidoscopic, exhilarated lights danced on your nubilous vision as you turned to Taehyung, hoping and wishing that his reassuring stare would be sufficient to keep your anchored down to the verisimilitude of reality. He, discordantly, merely intertwined his pale fingers in your own, muttering a hushed, “We need to leave now,” before trailing off into the tenebrosity of dawn.

The euphoria was gargantuan, annihilating your reason and turning your thoughts into a pandemonium of nonsensical conceptions. You allowed for your companion to navigate your dazed figure through back alleys and adumbral streets, his senses preventing them from finding mortals, that could be frightened by the cascade of blood weeping down your body. You felt overwhelming gratification and pleasure, the abstraction of the universe around your causing for your discernment of realism to be embellished by the fantastic, paradisiacal sensations of the fresh vital fluid you had consumed.

Blood was your poison, but it had also become your antidote.

“Taehyung,” you called at some point, slowly coming back from your high. The man followed the actions of your figure as you leaned against a dirty brick wall, finding shelter under the crepuscular shadow of a dead tree, “This is a lot, I need a second to compose myself.”

From the way he swallowed hard, you pondered if he was as affected as you by the palatable scent of blood, “Understandable, love,” he cleared his throat, but avoided to cross his gaze with your own. The redness was sickening to him, an endless provocation, “We cannot stop for long, though.” he added.

With a trembling breath, you overlooked his claims to call for his name once again, this time in a whisper, “Taehyung,” you verbalized, pausing for a second to delight on the ferruginous aftertaste that lingered in your senses. “Look at me, please.”

Reluctantly, he did as you requested. His cimmerian eyes burgeoned into sheer desire as he did so, scintillating in burning carmine as he took in the mind-bending pulchritude of your blood-bathed form. Taehyung could not censor himself from taking a subtle step closer to your immobile silhouette, absolutely overtook by the magnificence of your ensanguined countenance, “I am looking at you, love,” his stormy eyes shone under the anemic moonlight, blooming in the most vivid of ruby. The older vampire, as disciplined as he was, also had his limits when it came to being so hazardously close to the remnants of such ambrosiac meal. “You look... simply marvelous.”

You could not move as he took one of his hands to your face, slender fingers delineating the outline of your wet lips. Humming in content and satisfaction, Taehyung examined carefully the blood on his fingertips before taking it to his mouth, savoring on the succulent liquid, “Look at the mess you’ve made… you newborns are always so careless,” his voice sounded groggy as he trailed off, eyelashes fluttering shut as he pushed himself to step away, crashing back to his most logical senses. “We really should go now, my dear, we can't make a fuss.”

Bewildered and frenzied by the sudden switch of his uncharacteristic demeanour, you consented to his decision and, at last, followed him into the shadowy veils of dawn. On your skin, the ghost of his touch still lingered.

Sat on the corner of the silk-covered sofa and facing the consuming light of the fireplace, you swore you could perceive your own faint figure overlapping the conflagration of licking flames; eyes as a mirage amidst the golden refulgence, but bathed by the same burning yellow. Inside the unmoving living room, your silhouette contrasted against the outline of the scorching, phosphorescent flames, its heat never entering your cadaveric figure.

From the half open window of the perpetual, unapproachable construction, the pleasant odor of petrichor crawled inside the caliginous room, mingling with the vague symphony of a strangled violin, an old classic tune playing to the ghost of your presence. You had been in that position for what resembled hours, the concept of time a mere fluzz within your ecstatic mind; senses overtook by the euphoria of your recent meal precipitating for your to simply swirl in its magnificence — experience the satisfaction, but not present it.

Your beauty was something Taehyung could solely designate as tragic, the kind of elegance and refinement that resembled the melancholy of damaged roman statues. He had been eyeing you ever since the two of you had arrived back in his residence, feeling as his vision melted into fuzz each time it met the germanium-colored scintillation of semi-dry blood. The older being could not tell if the allurement that pinched his insides came singularly from the presence of his craved aliment, or if it was enhanced by where it was located — down the curvature of your cheeks, around your lips, then dripping down your neck and curling between your breasts.

Taehyung’s momentary trance was broken once your vague gaze traveled upwards, rupturing the stillness of your figure. Oblivious and unfocused, you soon distinguished a portrait amidst the penumbra, a canvas that rested superior to the golden, halcyon hue of the fireplace. After your vision has grown accustomed to the change of brilliance, an interrogation left your throat, “Is that you?” you curiously voiced.

He gifted your a low hum of concurrence, taking a step closer to the object of interest, “Oh, yes, centuries ago.” Taehyung acquiesced.

“You look… alive,” you trailed off with a slightly groggy voice, squinting your deep red eyes as if some constituent of your psyche was still abnegating the reality you were presented with. Although you could contemplate the unquestionable resemblance between the two men, the rosy cheeks and lively eyes did not match with the undead that accompanied you.

“Very observant,” Taehyung sarcastically complimented, placing his pale hands inside the pockets of his ebony trousers. For the first time, you perceived how the creature made no sound as he moved towards your figure, almost as if he was not even material, “It was before my transformation. Merely a couple months, if I’m not mistaken,” he added.

Your ensanguined lips opened slightly as you chewed on your succeeding words, considering not even pronouncing them, “Who did it?” you articulated, taking an instant before completing your inquiry, “Who bit you?”

The older creature pondered, but judged to be far too personal to share with his new colleague, “It is a long story,” Taehyung stated, seating by your side in a swift lowering of his silhouette. “Let’s just say it was… a friend.”

“A friend,” you echoed, scrutinizing every faint contour of such vintage artwork. The lines were starting to get erased by the sands of time, the medieval-type attire standing out to your like bright stars in a moonless sky, “What kind of friend would do such thing?” you pressed on.

“A friend that was willing to listen,” the man implied, quicker than he could contain himself. It had occurred so many centuries ago, but Taehyung could recall faultlessly the form he had requested for such fate, “I asked him to bite me, to transform me,” he explained further.

Stupefied, you raised your eyebrows, “Why did you do that?”

Vanity, Taehyung mentally responded. One of the many sins condemned by the church during the fourteenth century; the peccability that anathematized his soul for eternity. Forasmuch as he had always acknowledged and dove into his privilege — of being born into the richest family of the local village — and ethereal looks, he feared that the damnation of the Black Plague was the last drop he needed to understand how evanescent his life was.

Taehyung had been target of countless courteous compliments when he was a young human and, after that long, soul-wrecking period of darkness and pestilence, the ephemerality of youth and beauty came crashing down on him in a thunderous epiphany: he would lose it all, just like all the dead men and women around him had lost their essence. Matter not the money nor the diversion of his adolescent years, for they all would come to a drastic, merciless ending.

Looking at his own juvenile traces so freakishly portrayed in a messy painting, he found himself below a storm of realization, the veracity of those comments bursting over his head like booming thunder. He had perceived, as his pulchritudinous face stared back at him, that all that was nothing more than mercurial semblance: for cardinal would soon vanish from his perfectly-painted lips; wrinkles would break his face, and childlike eyes would fall into the fatigue of existence. He would age, lose everything he once dwelled in.

He simply could not take such horrific thing.

“Immortality is... tempting,” he explained in simple manners, eyes losing focus as he dove into his own dreamy abstractions. From the form his speech slowed down, you could tell memories started to consume his brain, the despondency of his former times coming back to him. “Especially after you lose your entire family to the Plague. Who wouldn't want to live forever?”

You took an instant to fully comprehend his words, then added your own point of view, “I can say with certainty it was never my dream,” you contradicted, gaze locked on the painted figure before you; malice seemed to irradiate from the mere gaze of the oil-made image. “I’m sorry about your family.” you made sure to add, even if your feelings were not so genuine.

Turning his figure towards your own, Taehyung found a more comfortable position on that couch, his gaze traveling from the nostalgic artwork to the scorching incandesce of the fireplace, “It's no bother, dear. I stopped grieving centuries back,” he truthfully assured, waving your worries away as he looked back at you — for a second, taken aback by your ethereality yet anew, “Now, we should get you cleaned up. You've made quite a mess.” the man smirked, looking down at the tinge of dahlia that oh so perfectly reflected the warmth of the fire.

“I don’t really mind,” you shamelessly confessed, irises flickering into interest as you met his ever so concupiscent stare. Taehyung looked at your as if he was about to consume your body, and you were not exactly bothered by it, “Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but you don't seem like you truly want me to do such thing.” you dared to comment.

A low chuckle fell from his curled lips, “I must say I would not rush it,” Taehyung concurred, “Come closer,” he induced, placing one of his hands on your waist. If your heart still beated, it would have quickened at the spontaneous prospect that emerged inside your nebulous brain — Taehyung was leaning in. “Let me have a taste, love.”

Instead of what you had presupposed, his lips featherly met the delicate skin of your neck before sucking on it lightly. Taehyung first kissed his descent into the extension of your clavicles, then came back up to dwell in the sensationalistic sapidity of his so craved meal. Almost timidly, his tongue jubilated at the blood that adorned your physique, savoring its luscious taste as a low, satisfied moan dripped from his throat.

Sooner than you would like, his touch departed from your body, “Marvelous,” he complimented as he leaned back, mouth now stained by the liveliest of carmines. The spectral, greyish skin beneath his fingertips might have not exposed your allurement, but your blown out pupils did it flawlessly. Although, he was not any different, “Simply marvelous.” he repeated, hypnotized.

Parted lips hung slightly open as you fluttered your eyes shut, experiencing the sensation of his hands as they slowly contoured the droplets and lines of blood that ran down your flesh, “Thought you had more control when it came to blood,” you teased.

“I wasn’t commenting on the blood,” the man whispered underneath his breath, gaze lost in the profound ruby that contoured your features with such breathtaking impeccability; the winsomeness of his companion in coalescence with the idealism of the vital red fluid. The metallic redolence of such craved liquid had now completely overpowered his conduct, causing for him to come dangerously nearer to the petite contours of your ensanguined mouth, “Come here, my dear,” he requested once again, now with distinct intentions.

From the very instant your lips met, you were certain that his kiss was like tasting death at the tip of your tongue, the sourful honey that involved your like the melancholic melody of a solitary siren. It was an harmony that induced for your to land your palms on his broad chest, pushing him against the silky couch as you dared to move nearer — craving for more — embracing every hum and sigh that resonated in between your bodies.

The prurience that emanated from him was as atypical as that amaranthine dawn, astringent and pungent as the fantastic palatableness that lingered in your lips. With a imperceptible sigh, his hands drew around your curves as you gingerly placed your weight on top of his lap, legs straddling his thighs as the kiss deepened even further.

Taehyung grunted the very instant their tongues met, the heavenly, ambrosial taste of blood poisoning his senses and igniting his instincts into absolute ecstasy. He kissed you with the same lasciviousness you presented him, held to your hips with the force of someone who feared their beloved would disintegrate in any given second. The two of you were moved solely by a mixture of lust and hunger, lost amidst the ebullience originated by the thrill of the hunt — mortals could never understand how phenomenal it was the delirium fundamented by the magnificent, incarnadine liquid, the form it sent their minds into complete, feverish mania.

In a single act, his hands flew to your waist, pulling your body hard against his torso. The movement was saturated by sheer devotion, the famishment to savor more of such paradisiacal liquid only causing for him to move faster. Not long after, his fingers were already working their way to undo the zipper of your dress, harshly pulling the fabric down towards your hips.

Enraptured by the magnificence of your caresses, Taehyung leaned away from the messy kiss, plump lips working on the path down your cold neck — the blood was now as gelid as your skin, but still sensational to get a taste of. He hummed and groaned as he kissed, sucked, and licked your flesh; consuming all he could from the fluid, “Just take a look at you, my love,” he muttered after a particularly sharp bite on the curvature of your neck, followed by a deep grunt as you pulled your center against his clothed arousal. “Look at the mess you've made…”

You could not distinguish if his comment was in regards of the luscious fluid, or the effect your red-painted figure was having on his discipline. Your response came bordering on a whisper, timbre filled by the deepest of desire, “Seems like you're already cleaning it,” you observed, hearing the throaty moan that vibrated against your body; Taehyung’s lips zestfully working on your naked chest. “Is your self control gone as well?”

“How could it not be?” he inquired, not expecting an answer from your part. With a gentle bite, his mouth navigated around one of your breasts as the other was squeezed by his hand; the softness of your flesh causing for him to moan in complete delight, “You're driving me insane, my dear...” the man groggily spoke out.

It was the blood, he observed, the lascivious crimson that enchanted him to need to have you more than anything else. Taehyung might have been older than you, but some primordial compulsions could never subside enough for him to fully ignore: consonantly to any other member of his species, he needed to feed, was required to drink of the essence of scarlet — and now, it was bathing one of the most beautiful, sumptuous creatures he had ever seen.

He used the palm of his hand to spread the liquid down your exposed chest, using it to massage your breasts before trailing the outlines of your waist with such gorgeous carmine, “Beautiful,” Taehyung murmured, looking down at the masterpiece he had just created, the blank canvas he had painted in the purest of sanguine, “So, so beautiful…” he echoed.

Humming in delectation, you stared down at him, your desire only increasing as you found the absolute lust shimmering within his empyrean traces, “Didn't think you were one to play with your food, Taehyung,” you teased, making sure to pressure your hips against his hardened member — an action that made him grunt in an immediate response.

Taehyung opened his lips to respond, though, as soon as his hooded eyes met your own, needy ones, all the remnants of his self control shattered underneath the exquisiteness of your existence. His fingers left your waist with the same agility his other hand moved to the nape of your neck, guiding you to crash your lips against his once again. Taehyung moaned against your mouth something that resembled the fragmented syllables of your name, cursing mentally as his member made his trousers grow tighter.

You interlaced your fingers in his silky strands of hair, moaning against his mouth as you felt his hands moving downwards, hastily playing with the fabric of your dress, but never once removing it, “Don't you dare rip it,” you warned against his swollen lips.

Taehyung chuckled in diversion, “You read my mind,” he shamelessly admitted, then removed hands from the piece of clothing. Before his consequent words collapsed on the tip of his tongue, the man took his time to kiss your profoundly, groaning as blood danced in their mouths, “Take it off for me, dear,” requested your companion as he suavely pulled away from your scarlet lips.

Consenting to his request, you stood up before the couch, silhouette so magnetizing that completely overtook the luminescence of the burning fireplace behind it. The absence of your aura was smoothened by the astonishing spectacle you gifted him — the form your slender fingers curled around the piece of clothing, sliding down your legs before it met the polished wooden ground; your chest covered by the same traces of blood that accumulated at the corners of your mouth turning your image into one of the most splendiferous works of art Taehyung had ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

Your beauty was as overwhelming as he expected, your naked body so lascivious that the man could not hold back from removing his own trousers — eyes never leaving your figure — and delicately placing his palm above his member, only covered by the thin cotton of his underwear. Although, as soon as you removed your own intimate pieces of clothing, Taehyung moaned out in sheer delight; pressing down on his erection in a faint attempt to contain his desire.

More than the aphrodisiac sight, he could smell the saporous redolence of your dripping core, and the scent only increased in force once you sat back down on his lap. The sacchariferous aroma of your nectar was erasing all traces of his sanity, presenting him with the lusciousness of your figure yet again, “Let me feel you, love,” the man verbalized in what resembled a supplication, joyous at the manner you ever so promptly agreed to his appeal — raising your hips just enough so one of his hands could slip in the humble space between their figures.

A throaty, guttural groan resounded throughout the room as his digits dwelled in your arousal, experiencing just how ready you were for him, “Dear, you are absolutely soaked,” Taehyung purred, long fingers trailing the wet pathway from your clit to your entrance, “How do you expect me to hold back when you provoke me like this?” he inquired.

You perked up your hips as his fingertips unhurriedly entered your center, a small sigh escaping your crimson lips, “I don't,” you breathed out, leaning your head to the side to place a small peck on his bloody mouth, “I need to have you.” you confessed.

Anticipation was poisoning his perception, the absolute craving for your figure taking over his most logical senses, “You have me,” he responded in a drunken mumble, eyes falling shut as your delicate hands found the hem of his underclothing, “Love, I need to feel you before I go crazy.”

Those words, as transparent as they might have sounded, were what you necessitated to perish into your desire. Volcanically, the need to have him inside of your erupted in the form of a motion that pushed your forwards, sending your to collide your mouth against his once again; this instance moaning his name against his blood-stained lips as you leisurely rolled your lips against his rigid member.

Taehyung hissed against the kiss as you finally pulled the item of clothing away from him — a sound that soon crumbled into a long whine of desperation as your slender fingers curled around its shaft, teasing its way towards your wet center, “Love, don't make me beg for it,” what was intended to be a warning transfigured into a weak request halfway through your figures, the hoarse voice of a man that could no longer take the prolongation of his craving, “I want you to take me.” he helplessly spoke out.

A faint, debilitated whimper exuded from his chest as you moved down on his member, his hands flying to find shelter on your hips as your walls clenched around him. Groaning in overwhelming satisfaction, his eyes fell shut as he leaned his head against the seat in the purest of felicity, “That’s right, love,” praised Taehyung, slowly thrusting upwards in a inaudible imploration for you to move, “Take all of me, just like that…” he trailed off.

You then started to move your hips against his; rolling, rising and falling. Taehyung dwelled in the symphonious rhythm of your constant sounds, those being the most melodious notes to ever grace his ears. Ecstasy took over your bodies as you moved on top of him, causing for the man to start raising his own center against yours in a faint attempt to reach even further inside your core, “You feel so perfect, love...” Taehyung gasped, fingers digging to your waist while you moved up and down in an hypnotizing pace.

You pushed him towards the boundaries of delirium, thrusts slowing down as the pleasure increased inside of him, following the progression of a bittersweet ballad. The man wanted to prologue that ravishment for as long as he possibly could, feeling the extraordinary way your walls clenched around him until he could no longer endure it; until his lungs gave out and he had lost all energy to keep moving forward.

You cried out his name, fingers digging to the skin of his shoulders as you attempted to find your relief. Taehyung felt oh so delicious, hitting all the pleasurable places and calling for your name in empty, constant worships. His touches, ever so frequent, explored the path from the bouncing of your red-painted breasts to the curves of your ensanguined hips; greedy to glorify every place at the same instant.

Taehyung thrusted up and down with absolute concupiscence, moaning and grunting next to your ear in a way that it bordered on the primal. He licked the path of blood down the curvature of your neck, biting softly on your flesh as his movements made your entire body shake in lust. His gaze fell to the movement of your chest and to the rhythm of your hips, dancing oh so palatably to the sound of your intertwined moans. From your bloody lips, resounded whines and cries, swimming in ecstasy as you felt your orgasm approaching; those sounds pulling him towards absolute hysteria.

“Dear, you'll make me go insane,” the man moaned out, delighting in the ferruginous scent that invaded his nostrils. The overwhelming sensation of your insides clenching around him made him lose his trail of thought and, with that, the remnants of his composure. “Hell, you feel j-just perfect…”

The roughness of his actions made your whine out in delectation, perking up your ass as he reached even deeper within your core. It was all becoming too much for your to follow, and the flavour of blood lingering on your bruised lips only induced for your to succumb even more into lust. The liquid felt as if it was everywhere and nowhere at all, consuming the remnants of your spirit as you moaned out in sheer pleasure, “Taehyung, please—” you cried out, fingers digging to the pale skin of his broad, tense shoulders. “Yes, please, don't stop—”

He groaned as your walls grew tight and pulsated around him, signaling your approaching release, “Are you close, dear?” Taehyung questioned, his voice barely a broken whisper next to your ear. He too was not far away from his apex, sensing it as it tingled just at the base of his spine.

After a prolonged moan, your response came out in a air-deprived storm of pants and whimpers, “Y-Yes...” you answered, completely overtook by the heaven of his touches, the manner you felt so deliciously full of him.

“I want you to come all around me, love” the man practically commanded, his own climax starring to show its signs. God, he wished he could never stop, that he could feel that marvelous sensation through his never ending days. “Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, yes—” you whined, the pressure in your lower abdomen already unbearable. “Don't stop, please—”

A long, deep groan reverberated on his chest as Taehyung threw his head back in absolute bliss, “I won't,” he breathlessly assured. His very tone was bordering on the orgasmic, utterly filled by libidinousness, “Come for me, l-love, I want to see you.” he requested again.

And, so, you did.

The pleasure that took over your was feverish, ecstatic; pumping through your veins and you called out his name in stammering, incoherent pleas. Beneath you, Taehyung panted and groaned; his heavy breaths echoing around the heated environment as he thrusted up inside your heat, lips parted open as successive, desperate moans fell from his mouth. you felt too good to be true, far too stupendous for him to control himself. It was all too much — too euphoric — for any of you to endure.

“So... beautiful,” he acclaimed amidst fatigued breaths, holding tightly to the flesh of your hips. The man continued to thrust upwards, his member throbbing inside your heat as he slowly reached for his so craved climax, “All of you… for m-me…” Taehyung moaned out, looking at the cherubic forms of your figure as if it was all part of a spasmodic, preposterous reverie.

“T-Taehyung,” you whimpered, nails digging on his shoulder blades. Oversensibility was starting to show its signs, causing for your to flinch a bit as his harsh movements increased in speed, “It's too much—” you averted, vacillating.

He gasped, experiencing the delightful sensation of your clenching and pulsing around him, “I know, dear, I’m close—” Taehyung moaned out, interrupting his own sentence with a long whimper. Your name dripped from his lips in never incessant, languorous prayers, echoing again and again as he grew dangerously closer to his peak, “Oh, fuck—” he whined.

Soon, he too came undone.

Skin against skin, chest pressed against chest. Taehyung found his release as his swollen lips crashed anew against your on; his messy, erotic kiss muffling the honey-like moans and whimpers that dripped from his mouth. Finding support on the curvature of your waist, the man rolled up his hips a few more times in absolute ecstasy, disunited syllables fluctuating in between your faces in what resembled fragments of your name. At the same pace his stamina decreased, he decelerated his actions back into stillness, holding to your body as if it was his own version of redemption.

With a trembling sigh, Taehyung placed his forehead against your own, taking a few seconds to dwell in what had just occurred. It all seemed simply quixotic, merely a fantasious delusion he was living in, ready to wake up from once the aureate rays of the morning sun signaled the start of the new day — although, as such imagery did not come, he decided to open his eyes meet your stare, wondering if you were as overwhelmed as he was.

God, were you breathtaking. From the rise and fall of your fatigued breaths to the ethereal way your cheeks were still nebulously painted in dim vermillion, Taehyung could no longer hold himself back from smiling under the exuberance of your silhouette; submerging profoundly inside the expanse of your sagacious gaze, “My dear, we might have gotten a bit… carried away,” teased the older being, voice hoarse.

“Just a little,” you acknowledged with a small, diverted chuckle. The tenderness of his embrace was comparable to the calmness after a merciless storm; a vernal breeze amidst the icy claws of winter. Neither of them thought too much about the unforeseen twist at the end of their night, but they could not claim they despised it, “I believe this marks the end of our lesson,” you weakly spoke out after a second of silence, causing for his experienced eyes to meet the sempiternity of your own vague stare.

Smoothly, he removed one strand of hair away from your face, using the opportunity to then place his hand at the base of your neck, “Oh no, my love,” Taehyung denied, the smoothness of his voice as predominant as ever. From below your figure, his claims waltzed in the warmth of the now motionless atmosphere, a heat that could never infiltrate your bodies again, “That was only the first class.” he contradicted.

You elevated one eyebrow in unquestionable interest, gaze crumbling to his sanguine-stained lips, “I look forward to it, then,” you verbalized your position and, in the form his eyes shone in blazing amber, you were sure he had understood the hidden meaning behind those simple words. “I believe there is still a lot left for me to learn.”

With a deep chuckle, Taehyung concurred as he took one of his palms to your cheek, caressing the place with tender fascination, “I agree,” the man purred, moving closer to your bloody lips. Now, however, it was not solely the sensation of the red liquid that invaded his mind, but the enthralling dance of your mouth against his own — the never ending possibilities only immortality could provide the two of you. “And oh, dear, how entertaining will they be.”

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the-purple-martin · 6 years

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Chapters: 19/? Fandom: Fallout 4, Fallout (Video Games) Rating: Mature Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor, Paladin Danse/Sole Survivor, Arthur Maxson & Female Sole Survivor, Arthur Maxson/Sole Survivor (one-sided) Characters: Paladin Danse, Female Sole Survivor, Arthur Maxson, Scribe Haylen Additional Tags: Post-Blind Betrayal, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Strong Language, Violence, vengeance, Rape/Non-con Elements, Angst, No Fluff, Mental Health Issues, Sexual Coercion, Guilt, Ok Maybe Some Fluff, Sexual Content, Consent Issues, Canon Divergence, Modified Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Redemption, just be patient

Five minutes.

That's all the time she allowed herself to waste. To crumple to the floor and succumb to the utter and all-consuming panic. Her hands clutched at her ribs, nails digging into her sides as she heaved and screamed and cried. Overwhelmed by the reality that Danse was likely already dead.

Her world blurred and the bleak walls of the bunker came crashing down on her. Pinned beneath the weight of her hysteria, she retched and choked on bile. For a fleeting, desperate moment, she entertained the idea of breathing in and letting herself asphyxiate on the filth in her mouth.

Breathe, just breathe.

Her mind eased her racing thoughts. Slowly the room stilled and she was left a pathetic mess, weeping on the floor and drowning in self-loathing. This was selfish, a waste of time and above all else, it was not about her.

With the reminder that Danse’s life was dependent on every second she wasted, Jackie pushed herself to her feet and urged her limbs to stumble through the irrational haze. She staggered across the room, aimlessly groping for a plan, and dragged a dirty sleeve across her face. Except it only furthered her dilapidated state by smudging her cheeks with grime.

Don’t forget to breathe. Mindful breaths.

It had been years since Jackie had struggled with anxiety so intense that it triggered panic attacks. But waking up in that goddamn vault had brought about a new kind of hell for her mind to wander in. Often in the months before joining the Brotherhood, she had found herself pressed into a dark corner, stricken with fear, unable to move or breathe or think. Terrified that some horrible creature or the perversions of man that called themselves human beings would find her and she would die alone and forgotten in this shithole.

Once she started traveling with Danse, she had been able to keep her anxieties at bay for a time. He reminded her of Nate and despite the heartache it brought her, Jackie didn’t feel so vulnerable in Danse’s presence. A sense of normalcy had begun to return and with each passing day she reclaimed a piece of her sanity.

As much as she tried, she couldn’t keep her demons stuffed away forever though. On a frostbitten night in midwinter, they had stopped to set up camp, hunkering down in a crumbling building for the evening. That night, Jackie had awoken in a panic. She’d jolted awake, cold sweat trickling down her back, convinced that this was the end.

“Danse?” she called out to him, hearing only faint rustling from somewhere beyond the shadows in return. She clenched her sleeping bag in her hands, her heart hammering away in her chest. “Danse!” again she cried his name only for the rustling to crescendo into horrid hissing and screeching.

She desperately groped around for her weapon, her Pip-Boy, anything to help fend off whatever was lurking in the darkness, except she came up empty handed. This was it. She was going to die, torn apart by some wretched wasteland creature, feasting on her innards as she screamed in vain.

Suddenly loud crashing and the sounds of grinding metal filled the air.

“Soldier?” It came out forceful and frantic as Danse clanked through the room, “What is it? What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know!” Jackie panted, unable to catch her breath, “I don’t know! I can’t breathe!” The panic threatened to strangle her and she shook with the pounding of her heart. “Something’s wrong!”

Unable to control her racing thoughts, Jackie was convinced she would hyperventilate, or at the very least, die of embarrassment. She pressed her face into her hands, attempting to conceal her shameful state and regain some semblance of control.

“You’re alright.”

She nearly leapt out of her skin at Danse’s hand on her shoulder and his voice in her ear. So consumed by her irrational fear, she hadn’t even heard him exit his power armor. It stood a menacing stance at the edge of the shadows and Danse... Danse was so near that Jackie was suddenly overwhelmed by all the emotions she’d been trying so hard to bury since leaving the vault. All the pain and heartache, her insurmountable grief, leaked from the little box she’d haphazardly stuffed them away in.

“It’s not real, you’re safe. It’ll pass, just breathe.”

Danse had taken a knee beside her and his grip, firm on her shoulder, moored her to reality. At least until she met his gaze and those heartbreakingly familiar brown eyes shattered her sanity. It took everything in her not to clamber into his arms and weep away her troubles. Instead Jackie clutched at his uniform and squeezed her eyes shut to block out the haunting reminder and hold back the tears caught just behind her lids.

Nate...she missed him so goddamn much it hurt. But Danse...right now, Danse would have to do. She let his soft, calming words sooth her aching heart and slowly the panic subsided. Left with only an echo, Jackie’s hands fall into her lap. Broken and hollow, she grasped at the ghosts of her former life splintering in the parallels of her mind.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered and pawed at her face, wiping at tears or the flush of shame she didn’t know.

“This is common among soldiers.” His hand lingered on her shoulder, a gentle reminder that despite her madness Danse still had her back. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Jackie just stared at her hands. There was sadness in Danse’s voice, a resonance of understanding that made her wonder about his own mental state. She wasn’t blind. She’d seen how he struggled. How he kept himself endlessly busy, avoiding sleep or rest so he didn’t have to confront his demons. Danse carried the weight of the wasteland on his shoulders and clearly he cared about her. He was a tough nut to crack, but underneath it all he was kind: a good man.

All Jackie had done since enlisting was repay his kindness in cruelty. She had been insubordinate at best and nothing short of a cold-hearted bitch at worst.

“I haven’t treated you fairly,” she admitted, “I’ve been angry and so caught up in myself. You...” she nervously wrung her hands together as she trailed off. “You were an easy target.”

Danse shifted to lean his elbow on his knee. “Sometimes trauma makes us do things we aren’t proud of.”

“Doesn’t give me the right to be nasty.” She glanced over at him and was met with the faintest of smiles.

“Is that an apology I hear, soldier?”

“I-ah…,” she tittered to herself, “yeah, I suppose it is.”

Danse continued to grin and he knocked his shoulder against hers, "I appreciate the sentiment.”

She leaned into him, wishing he could give her so much more than just fleeting touches. “Thanks,” she muttered and pulled away before her emotions got the better of her again. “I can take watch if you want.”

“Negative,” his fingers brushed against her shoulder as he stood to retreat back to his armor, waiting until he was safely encased inside before continuing, “but you can sit with me if you’d like.”

Jackie’s chest ached thinking about that moment. What if she never saw Danse alive again? The realization halted her advance across the room. Danse…he was the only thing worth fighting for in this world, the only thing that kept her breathing. He was her lifeblood and if he died at the hands of the Brotherhood for her foolish, selfish mistakes, they might as well kill her too.

This was her fault. She should have done more, fought harder, told Maxson where could shove it and walked away. Should have run and never looked back. Taken Danse somewhere far away. Somewhere near the sea where they could watch the sunrise and hear the waves crashing upon the sand. Leave it all behind and allow the Commonwealth fall to its own demises. But Jackie had been broken. Gutted and left to bleed, too scared to retaliate or flee and worse, too afraid to say no. Now she would atone for her sins in fear and blood.

The cycle of panic threatened to repeat itself but someone had once told her that, ‘courage was not the absence of fear, rather the knowledge that something else was more important than fear.’ Danse was more important than her irrational mind. If she had any hope of saving him, she needed to take action.

Fear still rattled her bones, scratching at her skill like the parasite it was, but Jackie pushed herself forward. She forced her feet to carry her across the room to where she had dumped her duffle bag the night before. Hastily she stripped of her soiled clothes and plucked a clean uniform from her pack, dressing with little regard to her personal appearance.

Unkempt and unhinged, it would have to do. She would have to do.

With a sigh and a final glance around the room she jabbed the elevator call button, pacing and trying to formulate a plan while she waited for its decent. A plan that didn’t involve her solo assault of the Brotherhood stronghold or the very real possibility that she would be forced to murder their Elder.

Shit.

Jackie stumbled to a stop, staggered by the consequences of Danse’s actions. If she wanted him to come out of this alive, she was going to have to bring down the Brotherhood -- alone. If by some stroke of dumb luck she was successful, then what? The Commonwealth would crumble at the sudden power vacuum.

Dammit Danse!

The door to the elevator clanged open and Jackie was left standing there, messaging her forehead between her fingers. She didn’t know what the hell she was going to do but she slung her duffle bag over her shoulder and snatched up her rifle nonetheless. She would make it up as she went and hope to whatever gods were still listening that they didn’t end up dead.

The elevator made an agonizingly slow ascent to the surface and Jackie prayed that she was wrong. She hoped that Danse had just gone to patrol the perimeter or ventured to a nearby settlement for supplies and he would be waiting for her in the vestibule of the bunker. If only she could be so lucky.

When the elevator finally rattled to a halt, Jackie was greeted with darkness. Quiet and empty, midsummer twilight hung in the sky beyond the open door. Her heart skipped a stuttering beat at the sight. This was good. In the cover of night and concealed in her armor, perhaps Danse was still alive. Kept safe in the guise of a much-coveted Brotherhood paladin set on a warpath to bring them to their knees, burn them to the ground for betraying not only himself but the woman he had devote his life to.

The irony nearly had her smirking, except she was reminded that they were likely both going to wind up dead before this was all over.

Jackie made her way out into the desolate wasteland and rooted around in her bag, searching for the signal grenade she had stashed away in case of emergency. The sun pushed the envelope of dawn painting the skyline in faint wisps of pink and orange. It lazily eclipsed the deep blues and black of night as she walked out into the open, heading east to the unofficial extraction point.

It was the quiet of the wasteland that unnerved Jackie as she walked. Here silence didn’t necessarily mean safety and she had spent the entirety of her life before the war surrounded by constant background noise. The world never stopped, even in the dead of night, there was never true silence. Now her surroundings were deceptively quiet, peaceful even, and it unsettled her.

It didn’t take long to reach the designated location, a vacant stretch of broken road behind the old ironworks factory. She threw down the signal grenade and watched as the plume of smoke circled up into the air. Not so patiently she waited for the distant hum of the vertibird’s engines to break the silence.

The sun breached the horizon and with it brought the feeling of failure. Not once had she bothered to check in with Danse last night to assess his own mental state. His deteriorating physical health had been an obvious sign of his instability, yet Jackie had failed to acknowledge it. Instead, she burdened him with her insignificant troubles. She’d neglected to reciprocate his kindness and allow him to voice the complexities and emotionality of his internal conflict, and look where it had gotten her.

She had promised to be there for him, help him heal, and secretly she had vowed to love him. Then in the face of hardship, she’d abandoned him. Jackie couldn’t breathe and before she could stop it, tears were leaking down her cheeks. She had betrayed him when he had needed her the most.

The crippling intensity of her guilt sliced at her underbelly, threatening to tear her open and spill her guts upon the pavement. It would have been better, easier for them both, if she had just endured the pain of letting Danse go. Allowed him to move on and live out his days in peace. After everything he’d been though, he at least deserved that much. In the end, Jackie had let her self-serving desires get the better of her. Now, it no longer mattered, she would be forced to pay it forward, with her life and his.

The ground groaned beneath her feet as she paced in an attempt to occupy her mind and halt the hemorrhaging of her spiraling thoughts. Bile rose in her throat and she commanded her body to be still, but she lost the battle and just barely caught her knees in her hands as she retched and stumbled forward.

The pooling sick a reflection of the disease that festered within her. It disgusted her how far she had fallen, the things she had done, people she’d killed, monsters she’d made. Jackie didn’t deserve this life and she clung to the shards of humanity that still resided within her.

Her urge to vomit again was quelled just in time to hear the familiar whirl of a vertibird’s engines approaching. Earth and grass were whipped about and dirt was violently kicked up with the aircraft’s landing decent. Jackie covered her face with her arms, attempting to shield herself from the dust storm. Despite the sickening feeling that still lingered, she hoisted herself up into the ‘bird as soon as the landing gear made contact with the ground.

A familiar face, clad in aviators and arrogance, greeted her as she clambered inside. It was always the same Lancer who picked her up. The same pilot who had run transport for Danse and his team and who had taken Maxson to the bunker. He was the only one authorized for extraction from this location and even though words had never been exchanged, Jackie knew he knew and she wondered what price he had paid to keep their secret.

He handed her a headset as she scooted by to sit into the co-pilot’s seat, the roar of the engines was drown out when she slipped it on.

“Paladin,” His voice crackled through the earpiece, followed by terse nod and a salute.

“Geers.” Jackie returned the gesture out of habit.

For a moment Geers watched her, taking in her obviously disheveled state, but chose not to comment, “Ma’am, you’ve been given orders to report to the Command Deck immediately upon arrival.”

“Wonderful,” she scowled, “who did I piss on this time to be owed the pleasure?”

A knowing look passed between them before he spoke, “The Elder knows where you go when you disappear.”

Jackie said nothing and stared at her feet, the knots in her stomach twisting tighter.

Geers allowed the void of conversation stretch on before he added, “Maxson thought you weren’t coming back this time.”

And there is was, the painful reminder of her violation.

“Yeah, that was the plan...” She could feel his eyes on her, pitying her, questioning her.

“So why did you?” he dared to ask.

None of your goddamn business.

Jackie wanted to snap at him. Put him in his place and maintain the distance that was held within the chain of command, but she bit her tongue because it was rude and Geers was one of the few people she could still trust – her friend.

She twisted her hands together and mused her bottom lip. Should she tell him the truth? The truth would likely get him killed so Jackie decided on a half-truth. “There's been a recent development that requires my immediate attention back on the Prydwen.”

Static hissed in coms while Geers watched her with a frown hovering upon his brow. “You told him about Maxson...didn’t you?” he pressed her with the demand and sharp angel of his eyes when she didn’t immediately respond. “Jackie-”

“Just take me back.” It wasn’t a request, she was done playing games. Every second she spent dicking around with Geers put Danse at risk, they needed to leave – now.

Geers cursed under his breath and Jackie could hear the eyeroll as he turned back to jab at the instrumentation panel.

“Whiskey, golf, echo, seven, this is Lancer-Knight Geers en route to the Prywden.”

Static droned in her ears, her stomach lurching when he abruptly jerked the stick the get them in the air.

“Acknowledged, what’s your status Lancer?” the voice on the other end asked.

“I’ve got movement. Delta November inbound. Juliet Charlie,” Geers glanced over at her, looking more smug than ever, “secure. Give the order.”

More static and then finally air traffic control came back, “Roger that. You’ve been cleared for landing in bay two upon your arrival.

“Roger out.” Geers responded and flipped a switch, cutting out the static.

“What was that about?” Jackie wasn’t sure she liked what she just heard.

“You aren’t the only one with secrets.” There was that look again. Whatever Geers had been up to, he was damn proud of himself.

If Jackie didn’t know any better she would say this reeked of mutiny. “I don’t like this,” she frowned and shook her head.

“Too bad, sister. You gave up control when you climbed in my aircraft.” Geers pulled down his sunglass just enough to wink at her like some crazed junkie. “Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.”

God, she wanted to smack that stupid grin right off his face. Though, as much as she hated to admit it, he was right. All she could do was close her eyes and hope that whatever half-baked plan Geers had cooked up didn’t get them all killed.

#fallout #fanfic #sacrifices #danse #paladin danse #rewrite #sole survivor #jackie #danse/f!sole #chapter 3 #the road to righteousness #my writing

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