#like fully lets the mother of all monsters

[rosered12]

Pjotv spoilers!

Me trying to hold it together when Percy tricks Annabeth to save her and Grovers life while he literally poisoned

[sooniebby]

Alr bro I am BACK from the Malevolent Kitchen- So this whole thing takes place in the Heian era, when Sukuna was at his strongest and walking around as a four armed, tall monster of a man (he has two massive dicks I am not being told otherwise don't even play, lad)

Reader (do I even gotta say it? I'm real predictable let's be fr 💀) as Sukuna's favourite shrine keeper- as he's speaking to some sorcerers (prolly begging for mercy or smth), he calls the reader over and commands him to strip and warm his (massive) cocks, all the while the poor sorcerers are just fucking sitting there. Eventually, he gets tired of the reader just warming his cocks and commands him to start moving, scoffing when the reader is too slow for his liking- ultimately he just grabs the reader's hips with his lower pair of arms, using him like a fleshlight,,,,,,,

ALSO if and only if you are feeling up to it,,,,, skip to modern day when Sukuna gets incarnated again and is immediately like okay where the fuck is reader (he's been alive with Uraume, which is why he hasn't physically aged, either) so he can drag the reader into his innate domain and get his dick wet after centuries of no bf :((( kinks- degradation, sadism/masochism, size, double penetration, exhibitionism

ఌ 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍

꧁ 𝙍𝙮𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙣 𝙭 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧 ꧂

w.c. › 9.1k

Warnings › first time ever writing Sukuna. Reader is trans male and he has breasts. Use of breasts and chest is interchangeable. Pussy, cunt, and hole are also used. Sukuna is still very mean but I made him just a little bit nicer, cuz romance lmao. Mentions of suicide. Boku is the JPN male version of I. Reader slurs his speech a lot

Kinks › degradation, sadism/masochism, size, double penetration, exhibitionism, nipple play, creampie, breast/chest play

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

Wakizashi.

That’s what your dad called it. A Wakizashi. Shorter than a katana, larger than a dagger. The only weapon a civilian could handle in broad daylight without being seen as a threat. Many used it as a way to commit suicide.

He told you to use it for that reason.

It was the only good thing you could do.

The Fujiwara clan was powerful. No doubt about it. And while your father wasn’t the strongest, he was well respected. Many were excited when his wife was pregnant with you. Even when you came out as a girl, they weren’t too disappointed. Even a woman could be a strong sorcerer.

But you never did.

You had a curse technique.

But it was weak. It was fully based on defense.

The technique to manipulate shadows. But it was only your own. You could hide well but how does that help you in combat?

Didn’t help when you started spewing “nonsense” of not being a woman.

That earned you multiple whippings.

Everyone in the clan stopped paying attention to you after that moment. Your back covered in scars.

And the one large scar across your face.

Your Wakizashi flickered in the soft pale moonlight. The gold casing shining proudly. You took great care of it.

The harsh patters of feet caught your attention. You stood up from your makeshift mat, shuffling over to the small crack in your dilapidated cabin. It was practically a box. You glanced out, seeing multiple assassins hurriedly rushing out.

It looked to be the entirety of the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad and then Five Empty Generals. Odd.

You shrugged it off, going back to lay down. You turned your attention back to your Wakizashi. It was the only thing you had in this box. You flicked your wrists, practicing your technique.

Even though you were weak, you still practiced everyday. With a sigh, you collapsed onto the bed. The rebellions you used to do as a child seemed so silly now. Cutting your hair, bathing with men, wearing male kimonos. Just to be locked away in the corner of your own home.

The door was unlocked but they made sure to make you fear even pushing it open.

Your mother took pity on you, being the one to deliver you food. You were sure that if she didn’t, you would’ve starved to death. But she seemed to be late today.

The soft sound of wind creaked against the old box. It shook slightly, always threatening to just collapse over you. Your eyes fluttered closed, clutching your Wakizashi close. It was only a few minutes later when the sounds of screaming caught your attention.

“He’s here!”

“Do not run away! We are the Toh!”

You sat up, staring at your door as the screams women, men, and even children reverberated through the cabin. Your grip tightened around the Wakizashi, bringing it up to your chest. Slowly, you crawled over to the door, pulling it inward to peek outside.

The sight… was horrific.

Blood. Blood everywhere. Weapons scattered. Arms detached. Heads rolling off bodies. Even a few bodies didn’t have the upper half. Many sliced into pieces.

You wanted to vomit. Who was doing this?

The Toh… was defeated.

You stepped outside the cabin, your bare feet touching the soft grass. The grass was colored red as you walked over to the piles of bodies. Your eyes scanning them, being able to name at least a fraction of the corpses. Underneath one, your mother’s eyes stared right at you.

Your breathing hitched, your hand clamping around your mouth. Despite the cruelty they gave you—it was difficult seeing them like this. The further you walked to the entrance of the Toh estate, the more gruesome each body became.

A few just being blood splattered against the floor.

“(Name).”

You shrieked, feeling a hand grasp your leg. It wasn’t someone you knew but her eyes were filled with fear. Blood trickled down her face.

“Run…. For your own sake.” She whispered.

Your eyes trailed over her body before you backed away.

The lower half of her body was gone.

Her arm fell down as her eyes closed.

You needed to run. If people as powerful as your clan were dropping like flies, you’d be killed immediately if this thing came to see you.

You began to run. Ignoring the bodies you had to jump or step over. You kept your eyes straight ahead. The Wakizashi tight in your grip. You hoped and prayed you would make it out free.

“Sukuna, is there any you want for dinner later?”

A horrid gasp left your body as you skid to a stop.

Your dad’s head hung from the grasp of a person. They were dressed in a kimono, short white hair. They held your father’s head up to a… thing behind them. The thing took your father’s head and examined it before tossing it aside.

“Not that one. Look for another.”

Its voice shook your body. The two of them were speaking as if they were looking at meat. Did they eat humans? But the white haired one looked like a human. You didn’t get the chance to think further when they suddenly turned over to you.

“Was something there?” The white haired one asked.

They saw nothing. The spot you once stood was empty, the only sight being corpses. They turned over to the thing, Sukuna.

“Go look for acceptable meat, Uraume.”

“Yes, Sukuna.”

Uraume began to move a few of the bodies about, looking for one that was acceptable for Sukuna. Sukuna hummed, cracking his neck as he looked around. His staggering form covered in blood. He stared in the direction of where you once stood.

You kept silent, staring right back at him. You had hastily summoned your curse technique, making yourself invisible to the naked eye. Your curse technique allowed you to hide in the shadows and even manipulate your own to hide yourself.

But it wasn’t strong, you could never hold it for longer than five minutes. And you haven’t eaten all day, you were weak. Hiding yourself physically didn’t hide any noises you made. So you clamped your lips shut, trying to not breathe, hoping he’d look away.

If you moved, he’d surely hear your footsteps, especially with how quiet it was. Your knuckles turned white as you clamped tightly at your Wakizashi.

Unable to hold it any longer, you let out a soft huff, pulling in as many air as possible.

But that was enough for Sukuna.

A large puff of air attacked you as you lost control of your technique, suddenly becoming visible. You collapsed to the ground, crying out in shock as you stared up at Sukuna.

He was large. Four arms and two faces. His eyes narrowed at you, glancing over you as he began to smirk. Blood covered his body. You knew your father and mother’s blood was mixed in there.

“How could I have missed you? You puny little thing.” He reached over to grab your hair but it went right through your body. Sukuna huffed, slightly confused on what just happened.

Your other ability, besides just becoming one with shadows, was the short ability to make your body unable to be touched. Sukuna pulled back clamping his fist before thrusting it into your chest.

It went through, but he didn’t kill you. Sukuna pulled his arm away, his head tilting. He didn’t look angry, on the contrary. He looked amused.

You quickly pulled the sheath off your Wakizashi and stood up on shaky legs. You had never fought. Never even used the Wakizashi against a real opponent besides a tree.

Sukuna chuckled. “Do your best.” He said, grinning. It was no encouragement. He didn’t even move into a fighting stance. Just from a look at you, he knew he was going to win.

“Domain Expansion: Moonlight Paradise.”

Dark matter spilled out from the ground as it formed into an orb around you and Sukuna. Your domain wasn’t strong. It wasn’t anything that helped you win fights.

It was a paradise.

A crescent moon shined, adding light to the otherwise dark domain. Spider lilies grew from the ground, surrounding you like a barrier of protection. A large sakura tree sprouted from the ground, growing tall as it quickly blossomed.

You shivered as you looked up at Sukuna. A feeling of bile filled your throat as you doubled over and coughed out blood. Sukuna looked at you with disgust, the hell was this?

“Is this your best?” He asked, stepping over to you. He was hoping for some sort of fight. But this was all you had to offer? A piss poor attempt at a domain.

You held out your Wakizashi, handing the hilt to Sukuna.

“If… die…” You winced, unsure of how to explain yourself. You weren’t taught to speak. Not after your whipping at age 9. And with everyone no longer speaking to you, you hadn’t spoken in years. Your voice was hoarse, struggling to work after years of being dormant.

You made the effort to write and read. But you stopped speaking. You hated your voice. This female voice that wasn’t yours.

Even now, just hearing your voice made you angry.

It’s a shame you were going to die with this voice.

“If…I…must die…You…willdo..bymy…Wakizashi.”

“Boku?” Sukuna muttered, staring at you. His eyes roamed your body. You weren’t a man. Not by the sight of your ample chest. You were wearing a female kimono. But your hair was cut short by a blade, judging by the jagged ends.

“Boku!” You screamed, glaring at him. You weren’t going to die being misgendered. You were going to die with the pride of being a male.

Sukuna grabbed the Wakizashi. It was small in his large hand. He lazily spun it around, making you slightly worried that he’d break it.

“You call yourself a man but you give up so easily?” He tossed the Wakizashi to your feet. “Pick it up. You have a technique, use it.”

You bent down, picking it up. “Nouse…strongerthan… me.” You could tell he had a bit of trouble understanding you, but you didn’t care. You just wanted your death to be over with.

“Why the domain?”

“diein…pretty…place..”

Sukuna glanced around. Your domain seemed to be just for aesthetic. There wasn’t any hint of anything else brewing inside. Nothing that was waiting to attack him. You really seemed set on dying without a fight.

You knew your place quite well.

He liked that.

“Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine.”

Your own peaceful domain was torn to shreds as red covered the sky. A large Buddhist shrine grew out of the ground behind Sukuna. Skulls decorated it. It looked to be human skulls. The ground beneath you became dark water.

But your spider lilies stayed alive. The crescent moon still shining down on you.

Sukuna sat down on his throne, his leg resting against the arm. He stared down at you, his eyes roaming you from his new position over you.

The Sakura tree died, disappearing like a puff of smoke. You collapsed to the floor and coughed heavily, the toll of opening your domain already affecting your body.

“Are you from the Toh?” He suddenly asked.

You mutely nodded.

“Look at me when I speak to you.”

You glanced up, trying to ignore the growing pit of fear in your belly. He smirked, leaning forward. One of his hands resting on his knee. The other holding up his chin.

“I find you interesting. I’ll allow you to live, as my shrine keeper. Once I’m bored, I’ll kill you.”

“inmy…domain..?”

“If that’s what you desire.”

Despite the voices in your head tell you to not accept, you nodded. You knew at most, this curse would only let you live for a day or two before he kills you. At the very least, you’d get to enjoy Earth’s beauty in the fullest.

ཆི❤︎ཆྀ

“You’re filthy.”

A basin of water poured over your head as you shivered outside, fully nude. Your arms tightened around your chest as you were soaked twice before a rag began to rub against your body.

It was Uraume. They weren’t impressed that Sukuna had chosen to keep you alive. You were weak, what did Sukuna gain from keeping you?

But Uraume didn’t question it. They knew their limitations.

“When was the last time you bathed?”

You winced, being roughly manhandled to face Uraume as they kneeled down, scrubbing between your legs.

“River…bathein..River.”

Uraume hummed. Their hand trailed upward, unabashedly scrubbing your pussy before moving to your ass. “What’s your technique? Or were you not blessed with one?”

“Shadows.”

“How does it work?”

You bit your lip, unable to stop the slight giggle when Uraume moved up to your ribcage. They stopped for a second, believing they had hurt you until you gave a slight smile. They huffed and continued on, making sure no part of your body was left untouched.

With the moonlight shining down on you, you glanced down at Uraume’s shadow. You reached out and gently poked the shadow’s cheek. Uraume stopped, looking up at you with wide eyes.

You couldn’t help but grin. You grabbed the shadow’s hair, twirling a strand. A strand of Uraume’s hair began to twirl as if a finger was doing it. But there was nothing holding it up.

“You can manipulate shadows?”

“Mhn…justtouch.” You slurred. “Can’t…domuch…wasn’t…taught.”

You stepped away, shyly smiling as you slowly disappeared into your own shadow. Uraume hummed, nodding themselves as they watched you come back up.

“Can’t…hidefor…long. Noise…canbe…heard.”

“Do you have no offense attack?”

You shook your head. “Touch…couldbe…offensive…buti…can’t… can’t handle…weapons..too…weak.”

“I don’t believe that. Every curse can be offensive. You simply wasn’t trained properly.” Uraume walked over, grabbing the basin filled with water. They brought over your head and dumped it, ignoring your slight shriek at the cold water.

“It won’t matter now. Sukuna more than likely won’t let you live longer than a day. It’s a shame.” They draped a small towel over your body. “Use this to dry off. I’ll retrieve your clothing.”

As you dried off, you thought about what they said.

Was that true?

Could you use your technique for offense?

It made sense. You were never taught to try as you had quickly mastered hiding first. And then the whole problem of your stunts of being a male, it’s no wonder you stuck to defense.

It was the only way you could protect yourself from such hatred.

It didn’t matter now though. You were going to die in a day, anyway.

ཆི❤︎ཆྀ

It’s been months.

It’s been months and you were still alive.

It was shocking. After the first day, you were so sure you were going to die. But Sukuna didn’t even pay attention to you. He walked right past you. He hardly talks to you at all.

You stuck to cleaning his shrine, most of the time.

Even Uraume seemed surprised you even made it to a week. But soon, they started to treat you… decently? They showed you how to cook certain meals and if they were up to it, taught you ways to use your curse technique in an offensive manner.

“Speak slowly.” Uraume said, sitting across from you in the small room. You and Uraume lived in a small minka, just a few feet away from Sukuna’s shrine. He seemed to have two shrines, one in his domain and the other here.

You sighed, nodding your head. Uraume would sometimes hold speaking lessons. They had gotten tired of having to listen to your almost incoherent way of speech.

“I…wield…theknife—”

“—The. Knife.”

“The…Knife…”

“Continue.”

“The…Knife…to…cut…meat.”

“Good enough. Go bathe.”

You nod, grabbing your Wakizashi and walking outside. Since the minka was small, the shower area was just outside the home. Your robes pooled around your feet as you filled in the basin, yawning to yourself.

“You’re still here?”

A chill rushes up your spine as you look back, gasping in shock. It was Sukuna. He stood only a few feet away from you, his eyes trailing down your nude body. You blush, using your hands to cover your crotch and chest from his gaze.

“whatdo…you..mean..? Why…wouldi..leave?”

Sukuna smirked. “You have no sense of free will. You had multiple attempts to run away. Uraume can’t sense you when you use your technique. Yet you’re still here.” He walks over to you, kneeling down to your level. You gulp, wondering if this is the moment of your demise.

His hand reaches out, coming into close contact with your face.

Your eyes clamp shut, leaning away.

But he doesn’t hurt you.

You feel a hand squeeze your right breast. You open one eye and look down. Sukuna’s hand squeezes your breast as he hummed in satisfaction.

“It’s soft.” He said.

“Mngh?!” You shriek, unable to really move in fear he’d tear you in two.

Two of his hands grasp both of your legs, spreading them open as you cry out. You were practically manhandled, spread open for his eyes to see. Your hands flung to his chest, embarrassment filling your chest as you tried to calm down your heavy breathing.

“If you wish to keep living, become useful to me.”

“Useful…?”

“I already have a cook. I need pleasure in other ways.”

A feather like touch teased your cunt. You gasped, looking down to see his one free hand slightly teasing your cunt. You’ve never touched yourself down there. It felt odd. You didn’t understand how this could give him any sort of pleasure.

Sukuna seemed to notice your confusion as he chuckled lightly, manhandling you to rest on your back, legs still held up high.

“I will simply train you to handle me.” Two fingers sinked into your tight heat. You felt your body thrash against his hold, believing he was somehow killing you. It felt strange. So strange to have something inside you.

Was this apart of his technique?

Would you explode if he curled his finger?!

Sukuna chuckled, enjoying your fearful expression. “Relax. Pleasure will soon consume you.” The fingers began to slowly move in and out, rubbing against your wet walls. You gasped, toes slightly curled as something weird began to burrow in your belly.

His thumb rubbed against your clit, causing you to cry out. That seemed to be your weakness. For the next few minutes, he slowly teased your cunt open, occasionally rubbing your clit. Your body stopped thrashing but you couldn’t help but arch your back, biting your lip as screams threatened to live your throat.

“eeeeh…pee..pee..!” You cried out, tears welling in your eyes. Sukuna’s fingers didn’t stop, instead they continued. Even as you continued to cry that you were about to piss, Sukuna only laughed.

Your cunt clamped tightly around his fingers as you felt your body spasm. A moan left your throat as something washed over you. You felt…good?

What was this? Why did you feel so sleepy?

With what little strength you had left, you grabbed your Wakizashi and held it against his chest, glaring up at him. Sukuna released your legs and grabbed your hand, simply having to squeeze it to have you release the Wakizashi.

You felt too sluggish to actually put up a fight.

“You orgasm but still have the energy to use a weapon.” He laughed to himself. “You truly are interesting.”

He stood up and walked away, leaving you on the floor, legs spread open.

Just…. What the fuck was that?

ཆི❤︎ཆྀ

Orgasm.

It was an orgasm.

And Sukuna had been giving it to you constantly.

He appeared more frequently at the minka. He grabbed you whenever he pleased, even if Uraume was in the area. Spreading your thighs as he fingered your heat. He would sometimes squeeze your breasts, always commenting that it was his favorite body part of yours.

You were even forbidden from wearing underwear.

Easy access, apparently.

Uraume didn’t seem to comment or care about this new development. They simply helped you bathe whenever you were too tired. You still had your occasional lesson on speech and offense but you weren’t making much progress.

But somehow, the crazy murder, Uraume was encouraging. Believing it was just difficult for you to let go of old habits, especially in speech. You still couldn’t believe that they were a ruthless killer by how nicely they treated you.

It had been close to a year now.

You still thought about your clan. The massacre that happened right in front of you. But you couldn’t mourn them. Not after how they treated you. Such cruelty.

Sukuna and Uraume treated you like a male.

How could monsters treat you so well but not your own family?

There were days Uraume and Sukuna were gone. Those days you knew they were killing some other clan. Killing any sorcerers that dared stumble onto their path. But you never ran away.

Despite the amount of times you could.

You just never did.

Your fingers traced against Sukuna’s shrine, making sure there was no dust collecting on it. This was one of the rare occasions you were in his domain. But there were other sorcerers here—they were on their knees, pleading for their life.

You didn’t look at them at all, not wanting to be reminded of their humanity. To be reminded that Sukuna was a ruthless killer. That you were lucky you could stand near him and not fear death.

“(Name).”

You glanced up, looking over to see Sukuna motion for you to come over. Your bare feet pattered against the dark water as you went over to him, standing up straight as you waited for whatever he could want.

“Sit.”

When you moved to kneel, Sukuna grabbed your arm and pulled you onto his lap. You cried out, feeling your body freeze at the sudden closeness. You’ve never been so close to him. Being able to feel his breathing. The slow swell of his chest.

He began speaking to the sorcerers again but you didn’t pay attention. Hypnotized by this new position. Your hand slowly rested against his chest, your head leaning on his shoulder. You looked so small against him.

You couldn’t help but sniff the air, wondering if he had a scent.

He didn’t.

You stayed on his lap for a moment, wondering if he had just wanted you to cuddle him but you felt something twitching against your crotch. It was thick. Being strained by his robes. You wondered if it was just his knee but it kept twitching.

It was strange. It pressed against your cunt, earning a whimper from you. You had gotten so sensitive down there, easily orgasming when Sukuna touched you.

There was a tug at your robes as it was pulled down, causing you to gasp. Your breasts plopped out but you quickly covered them. It was luck that you had your back facing the sorcerers. Though they seemed to have stopped talking—only their soft whimpering and cries heard.

Sukuna didn’t say a word as he pulled open his own robe, two cocks springing free. You stared at it in shock. You’d never seen anything like it. It’d been years since you saw male genitalia. Did all males have two? That seemed a bit much.

You were glad you didn’t have any. It looked to be a pain to have to walk with something so huge between your legs. They pressed against your pussy—teasing your entrance. You backed away a little, only to have Sukuna grip your waist with his two lower hands.

“I trained you for this.” He simply said before turning his attention back to the pitiful sorcerers.

Training?

That training was for this?

Is that even safe?

You felt nervous. That… thing was supposed to go inside you? It wouldn’t kill you? You slowly sat up, hesitantly hovering over his cocks. The thought of putting two in so quickly, you didn’t think you could handle it. So you settled for one at a time.

The bottom cock slowly nestled inside your cunt as you eased it inside. It wasn’t painful but you didn’t like the feeling. It was odd, different than Sukuna’s fingers. His hands squeezed your waist once you finally bottomed out.

You glanced up, seeing his eyebrow raised. It was easy to tell that he was amused you could only fit one. You pouted, burying your face in his chest. He couldn’t blame you. You didn’t even know cocks could go inside a person! How could you fit two in the first try.

His second cock rested against your tummy. It looked a bit dejected. You kinda felt bad.

Sukuna and the sorcerers continued their conversation. You couldn’t pay it much attention. Your pussy clenching tightly around his cock. Your fingers clutched at his robe as you took deep breaths, beginning to feel weird with the thick cock spreading you full.

The sound of someone screaming caught your attention, but when you made the effort to turn around, Sukuna kept you still. He pushed you to rest against his chest, face smushed against his shoulder.

Someone was killed.

It was silent for a few more minutes before the remaining sorcerers began to speak about festivals they would hold in Sukuna’s honor. Sukuna’s cock twitched inside you. Huh, he must find that arousing.

Your eyes fluttered, sleep almost taking you over until Sukuna’s hands tightened around your waist. You felt your body be lift up until he slammed you back down. Your back arched as you screamed out.

The pain of the sudden movement somehow made you feel good. He bounced you on his cock as if you were nothing but a plaything. His grunts filling the domain. You were so happy he couldn’t see the sorcerers eyes on you, watching as you were used by the King of Curses for his own personal pleasure.

The thought of anyone in your clan knowing too brought fear inside your heart.

Any sort of pleasure you were feeling left. Your eyes fluttered closed as you just allowed Sukuna to take whatever he pleased. The reality of your situation had hit. You were nothing.

A toy for Sukuna.

Pitiful.

You were fucking pitiful.

Something warm erupted inside your heat, coating your walls. You let out a shuddered gasp, unable to ignore the small amount of pleasure that brought you. There was something white coating your tummy from his second cock.

Was this sperm?

It didn’t matter.

You couldn’t live like this anymore.

You proved your father right.

You were only good for one thing.

ཆི❤︎ཆྀ

Wakizashi.

The Wakizashi was smaller than a katana, bigger than a dagger. A weapon civilians could carry around safely.

A weapon many used in suicide.

It was midnight. The moon shining down at you. You stood deep in the forest, bare feet touching the soft grass. You always loved the beauty of nature. The one thing that couldn’t be tainted.

You wore the female kimono you were forced to wear in the Toh. Despite the trauma, you still held the kimono close to you. It was made by your mother.

Your Wakizashi was held tightly in your hand. Its sharp blade glistening in the pale moonlight. You slowly widen your stance, arms gently moving into position as you whispered those faithful words.

“Domain Expansion: Midnight Paradise.”

The paradise soon engulfed you. The familiar spider lilies blooming around you. Sakura petals fluttering from the makeshift sky. It was peaceful.

The ground, however, was dark water.

You’d never done that before. Sukuna must’ve rubbed off on you. A bitter laugh left you. You really allowed a curse to take you—allowing it to plant itself into your heart.

The Wakizashi felt heavy in your grip. Even as you placed the blade against your neck, your hand shook. It rattled in your hand as tears streamed down your face. You didn’t even know why you were hesitating. Sukuna didn’t like you.

He used you for pleasure—he said it himself.

You were simply doing him a favor.

Your grip tightened as you sighed. It would be okay. This is what you always wanted.

Maybe, you’ll be born to a happy family.

The blade cut clean through your throat, blood oozing out. You dropped the Wakizashi as you collapsed. Your eyes fluttered closed as you accepted your death.

Only for you to realize you weren’t bleeding anymore.

You reached up and touched your throat, feeling a scaring instead of the open wound. It… healed?!

“Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine.”

“You humans are amusing.” The calming paradise bursts—Sukuna’s shrine appearing in front of you. The spider lilies stayed, curling around you as if it was comforting you. “You seem to have forgotten you belong to me.”

Sukuna appeared on the throne, staring you down with a glare. “I choose when you die. I will grant you the freedom of death. Now, come here.”

You slowly sat up, staring at him in shock. You had so many questions. How? Why? What did he do to make you live?

“Come here. Now.” He said, his tone stern. You stood up on shaky legs, slowly walking over to him. His body seemed larger than before. His eyes narrowing at every movement you took.

Sukuna grabbed your kimono as soon as you were close enough and tore it open. It ripped to shreds, falling to your feet in minutes. You held back your tears, keeping your eyes on the ground.

“(Name), you will look me in the eye when I speak to you.”

You glanced up, feeling your body hiccup as your tears began to flow. Sukuna simply stared at you, his eyes roaming your nude body. He stood up and gripped your face, moving your face upwards.

You expected anger. His cruelty to show for your actions. But his thumb gently traced the scaring across your face. It was from the whipping back then. It was jaggeder, covering your left eye to your right cheek. It was pure luck that you could even see from that eye.

“This body,” his hands trail down to your throat, tracing your new scar across your throat, “isn’t yours anymore. It’s mine. If you wish to die so badly it’ll be my hands.”

His grip tightened, causing you to gasp, your hands clutching at his arm. He stared you down, eyes showing no sign of any heart. But he didn’t strangle you. He moved down, grasping your right breast.

“Humans are insignificant. You should be grateful that I keep you alive. Your only purpose is to please me.” He pushed you into the ground as you gasped out, staring up at him as he kneeled down, tearing off his own robes.

You parted your legs, not even attempting to fight back. But you didn’t want to fight back. You wanted him.

Sukuna smirked. “Some man you are. Whoring yourself so easily.”

“itsokay…becauseits…Sukuna…” You whispered, giving him a soft smile through your tears. Sukuna froze for a moment, staring down at you as he grunted in anger. His hands gripped your waist and pulled you close, rubbing his cocks against your pussy.

“You know your place now?”

“Mmmmh. Sukuna’s…”

Sukuna chuckled, his lips slightly tugging into a smile. It was odd. You felt safe in his presence. The dark thoughts swirling in your brain felt like nonsense when you were near him. But you didn’t know why.

It felt counterintuitive to feel safe in the arms of a man that committed a massacre.

His degradation felt like care. He used a technique to save you.

He must care about you.

Even if the way he showed it was cruel.

Perhaps you weren’t mentally sane.

More than likely.

You reached over, grasping two of Sukuna’s hands and bringing it to your breasts. He easily squeezed them both, pulling at your nipples. A shuddered breath left your lips as you whimpered.

“You must be punished—for damaging my possession.” You feel his cocks teasing your pussy. There was no getting out of it. You’ll be taking both at the same time.

Slowly, inch by inch, his two cocks sinked into your pussy. It was painful—nothing you could have ever imagine. Your breathing shuddered, hands gripping at his shoulder for some form of relief.

How could anyone like this?

Two of his hands gripped your breasts while the other two held your waist down, keeping you still. You wanted to thrash around, pull away due to the pain but he was too strong. But even though it was so painful, your cunt clenched around his cocks.

Your hands moved downwards, tracing his abs as you giggled to yourself. Being so close to him, you could finally take a good look at him.

The black markings all over his body. The second face. His four large arms.

He looked better in the moonlight.

Your hand moved away from his chest, reaching over to grab your Wakizashi. With a swiftness, one of Sukuna’s hands grabbed your wrist.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Wakizashi.”

You managed to pull your wrist away and grab the Wakizashi. You used your other hand to grab one of his and place it over the other gripping the Wakizashi. Sukuna’s eyes stayed on you, his eyebrows raising as he watched you with curiosity.

“Myheart…and….Wakizashi…belongto…Sukuna…Ryomen.”

A childish grin spread on your lips as you leaned up and gently kissed Sukuna’s hand that gripped yours. You looked up, unsure if Sukuna understood you. He seemed to have trouble understanding your form of speech.

But the look he gave you was scary. It was as if he was angry but also… lustful?

He released his grip on your hand and reached up, grabbing the back of your head as he smashed his lips onto yours. Your eyes widen, your hand releasing the Wakizashi. It clattered onto the floor before being pushed away by Sukuna.

You didn’t know curses could kiss.

You never thought a curse would be your first kiss.

But you eagerly kissed back, wrapping your arms around his neck. He manhandled you to lay back down your back as two hands lifted your legs. You almost forgot all about his cocks inside of you.

His hips moved back before slamming forward, causing your body to jostle from the force. You screamed out, nails beginning to claw at his back as he took you.

The sounds of skin slapping and your stuttered moaning filled the domain. Sukuna’s cocks stretched you full, reaching so deep inside you worried he’d spilt you open. You glanced down, seeing the soft tell sign of something bulging against your stomach.

From the inside…

Was that his cock?

Curses were insane.

It didn’t take long for you to reach your orgasm, your cunt clamping tightly around his cocks. But he didn’t let up, using you like a sex toy. Though it didn’t bother you this time—you liked it.

Sukuna’s hips slammed into you as the warm sperm began to coat your inner walls. That was fast.

You glanced up at Sukuna to see him looking away, as if he was also shocked he came that fast. A cocky grin appeared on your lips as you giggled, pressing kisses on Sukuna’s cheek.

“Wasi…thatgood?” You asked, looking up at him with eyes that resembled a puppy. Sukuna didn’t answer, simply pulling away from you despite your whines.

“I’m hungry. Go tell Uraume to cook me a meal.” Sukuna bluntly said, standing up as he slipped back into his robes. You simply wrapped an arm around your chest and clamped your legs closed for decency.

You reached over to grab your Wakizashi when it was quickly taken from you. Your eyes nervously turned over to Sukuna, watching as he lazily flipped the weapon before hiding it in his robe.

“Uhm….my…”

He smirked, “did you not say that it belongs to me now?”

You frowned. Well now you regretted that.

“You’ll earn it once you learn your place. Now go.” His eyes trailed down to the new scar on your throat. You could never tell what Sukuna was feeling but you could’ve sworn he seemed… upset at the sight. But his face quickly became neutral as he walked back to his shrine, sitting down and getting comfortable.

Your fingers gently traced the scaring on your throat. You’ve never seen the technique Sukuna used. It wasn’t something anyone taught you. But it must’ve been a strong one.

And he used it to save you.

Was that….

Love? ཆི❤︎ཆྀ

You haven’t gotten your Wakizashi back.

Sukuna would occasionally taunt you with it, threatening to snap it in half. But he never did. He seemed to enjoy your panicked responses.

He kept it close though. It was always tucked inside his robe. You wondered if he ever used it when he went on his sorcerer killing sprees. Not that he’d ever need to. He could kill towns in minutes.

But it felt nice to have him hold it.

Your speech was still terrible. Uraume was the only person who could understand you, especially when you spoke longer sentences.

“Andi…sawthe…bunnyrush…awaytothe…burrow..! Butigrabbed…thecarrots…itstole!”

“You should’ve killed the bunny.” Uraume responded, handing you a bowl of miso soup. They gave Sukuna a plate that looked to be human meat. You had gotten used to ignoring the smell.

Sukuna stared at you from across the table. “The bunny ran where?”

“Theburrow.”

“Uraume, I thought you were teaching him to speak clearly,” Sukuna said. Uraume shrugged as they sat down beside you.

“Teaching takes time. (Name) is twenty two, it’s harder to change habits by this age.”

It practically became a habit for you to constantly repeat yourself when speaking to Sukuna. Other times he’d tell you to stop speaking. He was still rude and a bit cruel.

But he certainly changed. Judging by the fact he’d occasionally kiss you. Though it wasn’t soft and romantic kisses. Most kisses would leave you breathless with bruised lips.

He still took you whenever he pleased. Having you ride him in front of people. That was still embarrassing. But you learned to live with it.

You were sitting outside, the moon shining down at you as you slowly weaved a bracelet with flower stems. There were three others scattered beside you, dawned with small chrysanthemums decorating them.

The thin robe you wore hardly covered you properly causing you to shiver at a particular rush of cool breeze. You grinned, holding the finished bracelet in triumph. They were larger than your wrists, having been made as large as possible.

As you grabbed the other three, two hands grasped your breasts, harshly squeezing them. You gasped, almost dropping the bracelets as you looked back to see Sukuna. He used his other two hands to lift you up, just as his domain opened around you both.

He sat at his shrine, settling you onto his lap. His hands pulled your robe off as you clutched the bracelets tightly, making sure to not accidentally drop them.

One of his hands trailed between your legs, easily teasing your pussy. You shivered, resting your head on his chest as he slowly teased you open. His large fingers slipped inside your cunt, stretching you out.

“Sukuna…” You mewled. “Gotyoupresent…”

You felt the loud reverberation of his grunt through his chest. It was somehow comforting that he had such human bodily autonomy. Your hands slowly opened, holding them up for him to see. Four brackets with red and white chrysanthemums in the center of the flower stems.

Sukuna grabbed one of them, examining it as his finger continued to stretch you open. He chuckled slightly, placing it back into your palms.

“I don’t need gifts from you.” He said, earning a frown from you. Your lips parted as you tried to argue back only for him to lean down and nip at your lips, kissing you with as much softness as he could possibly muster.

“I already own you.”

Your breathing hitched, staring up at him in shock. You eagerly kissed him back—moaning as he began to feverishly finger you open.

“Takeme…please.” You whispered, placing the brackets onto the ground as you moved to properly straddle him. Your hand pulled his robe open, allowing his cock to freely press against your thigh.

You shyly grinned, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Useme…Sukuna Ryomen.”

Sukuna smirked, two of his hands instantly gripping your hips. “You don’t get to complain later.” He said before slamming you down onto his cock. You screamed out, the painful stretch bringing you a pleasure that you had learned to love.

He bounced you up and down on his cock with reckless abandon. Your sweet, high pitched cries being music to his ears. The sight of you was intoxicating. Your breasts bouncing in tandem with his thrusts—your cunt clenching around his cocks like a vice.

And to think… he was going to kill you that day.

He would’ve missed out on such great pussy.

Whatever he felt for you, he wasn’t sure. But what he did know was that he loved fucking you.

His hand reached down, kneading your ass. He leaned over and began to suckle on one of your nipples, earning a whine from you. You would always end up cumming more than twice, the least.

His name left your lips like a prayer, your nails digging into his shoulder as you wailed out.

You reached your first orgasm in minutes. He could always tell whenever you did. Your nose would scrunch up, lips curling into a frown, as your body began to stiffen. Your cunt would always tighten as well, practically begging him to fuck his cum into you.

The effect you had on him was different. He could last longer with random woman he found but with you… He always found himself releasing faster.

He bit down on your nipple, causing you to shriek at the pain. Despite the cries and whimpers you gave whenever he would intentionally hurt you. Twist a nipple too hard. Spank your ass a bit too red. You would always come back for more.

Fuck… just what have you done to him?

He pulled away from your breasts and pulled you closer, claiming your lips with anger. You helplessly kissed back—unable to really take any sort of control in the kiss.

You pulled away from the kiss to breathe, hiccuping as you nuzzled your face into his neck. He continued to bounce you on his cocks, getting you closer to your second orgasm.

It was unreal. To be so connected to a curse. The King of Curses no less.

You felt the quick swelling of his cocks, indicating he was about to cum. Your cunt tightened as much as it could, earning an animalistic grunt. He began to use you with no regard whatsoever to the bruising his grip left on your body.

He slammed into you just as his cocks began to cum deep inside you. You pulled him close to give him a kiss, reaching your own orgasm.

You didn’t know if what you felt for Sukuna was love. But you certainly didn’t want to live without him.

It’s a shame this would be the last day you saw him.

ཆི❤︎ཆྀ

It was interesting to see Japan grow so much.

You didn't know that you would’ve been alive for so long. To not age at all. It was a blessing and a curse. You certainly stopped getting to know people, tired of seeing them grow old in age or even die by unfortunate events.

You would occasionally see how the sorcerers were doing. But you never got close—knowing you were technically a betrayer. Uraume was still with you though they would occasionally disappear to meet a man named Kenjaku.

Other curses still disgusted you so you never made any effort to speak to them like Uraume did. They kept speaking as if they could bring back Sukuna but you didn’t really believe it.

No, it was more so you didn’t think it would be a great idea. You’d lived longer than you’d been with Sukuna at this point. And while you still love him, you knew deep down humans were doomed if he were to come back.

The soft breeze gently flew past as you sat in the woods. Moonlight shining down on you as you moved to lay down.

Something felt off, but you had pushed the feeling away. Being able to live for so long should’ve been a blessing though you would occasionally wish to die.

But you never got your Wakizashi back. You assumed Sukuna died with it.

You didn’t know if that made you feel better or not.

People were nice. Many calling you a man. It was like a dream come true.

It was like two sides fought inside of you.

The need to protect human lives.

The want to kiss and hug Sukuna.

Why couldn’t you have fallen in love with someone normal?

ཆི❤︎ཆྀ

“You shouldn’t come to Shibuya tonight.”

The soft hums of the television almost entirely drowned out Uraume’s voice. You looked over at them, watching as they grabbed something from the closet. Shibuya?

“I haven’t been to Shibuya in a while.” You said, glancing back at the tv. Your style of speech was more coherent after centuries of practice. Though you would sometimes revert back when emotional.

“Why? Is something going to happen in Shibuya?”

Uraume simply hummed. “Could your body handle Sukuna today?”

You got up from the couch and walked over to Uraume. “Hm? Handle him?” Your hands rested against the countertop of the kitchen as you thought for a moment. “No. I haven’t had sex in centuries. I’m a virgin again.”

You giggled at your own joke while Uraume rolled their eyes.

They turned over to you, their eyes trailing over your body. “Your chest is bigger.”

You glanced down at your chest before glaring at them. “I just gained weight.”

“That’s a good thing.” They patted you on the back. “Bigger is better. I’ll be back.”

You mutely waved as Uraume left, humming to yourself. Bigger is better? You were pretty sure you had seen porn ads with that as a slogan. But there was a weird feeling your tummy. Why did Uraume suddenly ask you about Sukuna?

It been forever. Did they….

No. You pushed the thought away. You’d become a stuttering mess if Sukuna appeared in front of you.

But you were sure you’d kill him.

Just for leaving you.

ཆི❤︎ཆྀ

“You’re okay keeping your face like that?”

“For now. If I’m going to be fighting amongst sorcerers, it’s better to maintain this kind of appearance.”

…..

“Where is he?”

ཆི❤︎ཆྀ

Uraume hasn’t been back for a while now. You didn’t get too worried, they had a habit of doing so. It mainly worried you that things seemed off. A massacre happened in Shibuya.

It felt too similar to his work.

You shrugged it off, knowing just how difficult to was to reincarnate Sukuna.

But what if…

You groaned in frustration. You needed to go visit the forest. Your favorite forest was all over the place. You would always change it whenever you felt tired of another. This forest was beautiful with a large crystal blue lake.

Small baby ducks floated about while its mother watched. You sat down right next to the lake, putting your feet in it for some cool water against your skin.

The pale moonlight shunned down on you, always being a comforting blanket. It would always calm you down. Your legs slowly treaded through the water, sending small waves to the ducks.

A giggle escaped your lips as you watched the baby ducks scatter at the sudden movement.

You leaned over and stared at your reflection, gently poking it with your index finger. Soft ripples carried across the lake.

Your mind began to blank as you yawned. The ease of distractions began to push away any worry you had before. Until you felt… something was off.

The forest was silent. No more soft rustle of the wind. Crickets. Birds. Even the ducks on the water were long gone. Something was wrong.

You slipped out of the water, glancing around. You slowly stood up and tried to ignore your own wishes for your Wakizashi. You’d get through without it.

But nothing happened. It was still—nothing came out and attacked you. You shook your head, scratching at your scalp as you turned back to face the lake.

“Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine.”

Those words.

That voice.

The familiar black water pooled your bare feet. The same shrine covered in human skulls. The memories of cleaning it. Sitting on Sukuna’s lap while he taunted helpless sorcerers.

Spider lilies began to bloom around you, forming a circle. The moon was still shining down on you. You didn’t want to turn around. In fear of just how you’d react to seeing him.

Would he look the same? Did he still like you?

Did he ever like you?

You felt young again. The young and naive (Name) rushing back in. Who couldn’t speak properly. Who couldn’t fight to save his life.

Two hands suddenly appeared from behind you and spun you around.

He was still taller than you. His markings still all over his body. But his hair was black this time. He didn’t have two arms either. You almost didn’t believe it was him until a smirk spread on his lips.

Yeah… that’s your Sukuna.

Your body felt stiff as you slowly stepped forward before leaping into his arms. His arms immediately wrapped around your waist, holding you close as you began to wail. Your hands gripped at his body—making sure this wasn’t a dream.

He was real. He was real.

“You’ve missed me, huh?” He teased, his hand trailing downwards to grip your hips. His thumbs sinked into your skin as if he was now checking if you were real too.

“Mhm….missedsukuna…solonely…” You whined, cursing when you noticed you couldn’t speak properly anymore. Now that was just embarrassing.

You continued hugging him, leaning in as close as humanly possible. Your hands gripping at his shoulders while you buried your face in his neck.

You really did betray your clan, cuddling with the murderer.

A sudden squeeze at your breasts caught your attention. You pulled away a bit to see Sukuna squeezing both of your breasts together. He smirked, his thumbs rubbing against your nipples through the shirt.

“They’re bigger.”

You glared at him. “Stopit. Youcanttouch…meuntil…iget…Wakizashi!” Sukuna rolled his eyes but complied, pulling away as he reached into his robes. Slowly, he pulled out your Wakizashi. Its gold sheath somehow still shining proudly.

Your hands practically snatched it away from him as you held it in the air, letting the moonlight shine down on it.

As beautiful as you remembered.

It looked recently cleaned. You glanced back at Sukuna, biting your lip. He kept it safe. He kept your Wakizashi safe.

Which meant…

He kept your heart safe.

“Do I get a reward for keeping that pathetic excuse of a weapon safe?” Sukuna asked, crossing his arms across his chest. Despite his words, you knew he took its protection seriously.

You mutely nodded. “Didn’t….sleepwith…anyone. Not since…youwere…gone.” You slowly placed the weapon on the floor as you stepped over to Sukuna.

“Kept myself just for you.” You managed to say before looking down in embarrassment. “Istill…belong…to…sukunaryomen.”

A grip on your chin caused you to flinch as he forced you to look up at him. Sukuna stared down at you, his eyes roaming your face. The same whip scaring on your face almost gone in its entirety. The scar on your neck completely faded.

“I see I have to remind you of the rules.” He said, forcefully tutting your head around as he continued to look at you. “Let’s sey that cunt of yours can handle me.”

ཆི❤︎ཆྀ

You missed this. His fingers thrusting into your pussy as he stretched you. Roughly kneading your breast with his free hand. It was weird being only touched by two hands—you couldn’t wait until he got his normal body.

Your back arched, soft mewls leaving your lips. You were fully nude, sat atop of Sukuna’s lap as he sat on his throne. Your cunt was tight. You really haven’t touched yourself ever since Sukuna left.

“Were you waiting for me?” Sukuna suddenly asked, his thumb teasing your clit as you whimpered. “Waiting to be used as my whore again?”

“Nghhh…”

“I was waiting to fuck this pussy again.” He slowly spread your pussy open. “Squeezing your tits. All I had was that fucking Wakizashi of yours.” He muttered bitterly, slamming his fingers deep into your cunt. You cried out, your hips moving upward as you tried to catch your breath.

He didn’t care that it had been centuries since you had sex. He seemed to enjoy that you were so loyal to him that you practiced celibacy.

“You’re lucky I need to feel your pussy around my cock—you deserve a punishment for not fulfilling your duties.” He pulled open his robe, his cock springing out. Your shuddered, feeling it rub against your pussy.

“What…duties…?” You whispered.

Sukuna harshly squeezed your breast, pulling at the nipple. You cried out in pain—your body squirming in his grip as his cock began teasing your pussy.

“You must’ve forgotten your place.” He whispered into your ear. “No matter, I’ll remind you of it.”

His cock slammed into your pussy, ignoring your scream of pain. He was harsh and unforgiving. Your body spasmed as it tried to get used to the harsh thrusting. It’d been so long, you already felt yourself feel close to an orgasm.

Sukuna’s hands gripped your thighs, pulling them upward as he thrusted into your tight cunt. The sound of skin slapping and your stuttered moaning filled the domain.

Despite the pain, you couldn’t help the slight smile on your lips. You missed being used like a toy for his pleasure. A groan left you as your pussy clenched around his cock. Even as you orgasmed, Sukuna didn’t let you, using you to reach his own.

You felt his cock suddenly pulsate in you as warm cum filled your insides. A shuddered moan left your lips. You almost forgot just how warm sperm could be.

But you began to feel yourself being moved up and down. His hands moved to grip your waist, easily bouncing you on his cock. The overstimulation instantly caused you discomfort but your whines fell on deaf ears.

“I’ve been without your cunt for centuries.” He said, grunting as you clenched around his cock. Your hands gripped at his thighs. You couldn’t hold back your moans, they were on the verge of screams. It was so much for what was essentially your first time.

Sukuna grabbed a fistful of your hair and pulled your head back, smashing his lips into yours. You eagerly kissed back. The kiss reminded you of all the past ones. The bites on your lips. The feeling as if he was stealing your breath away.

As you pulled away, he gave you a lustful smirk.

“I intend to make up for lost time.”

You weren’t going to be able to walk for years.

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

wowowo….my first fic at 10k words…. Jesus! I hope I did Sukuna justice <3

tag list: @the-ultimate-librarian @chill-guy-but-cooler @iwishtobeacrow @tehyunnie @flurrina @mello-life69 @ofclyde @smellwell @tomoeroi @remdayz @rhetorical-conscience @love-kha1 @star-3214 @kiiyoooo @ac3ifix

[cupidddd-d]

oh heart, and then it falls

in which theodore nott is actually nice to you?

gn reader but it's mentioned that they wear lip gloss !!

"ow, fuck!" you cried out as your potion bubbled over the edge of the cauldron, oozing onto your hand. tears of pain sprung to your eyes, and you could already feel the burns forming underneath the thick sludge sitting on your skin.

"nott, you were supposed to be watching the potion while i wrote notes!" embarrassingly, your voice broke, and you could feel a tear dripping down your face. your notes were ruined, your hand was burnt, you were crying in front of the boy who was most likely to make fun of you for it, and your potion was completely unsalvageable. you may have been hallucinating, but you could have sworn that you could smell burnt flesh.

"huh?" theodore's head jolted up from his conversation with draco. his eyes glanced from your hand to your face, and then back down again. "merlin...we've got to get you to the hospital wing..."

you walked in silence as he led you out of the hospital wing, staring down at where he was applying bandages to your hand. he had poured a numbing potion over the wound, but memories of your previous pain echoed around your body.

"why are you doing this, nott?" your mouth was dry as you stared down at his gentle movements. what happened to the boy who practically fed off of your despair?

"i mean...i'm not a total monster. i don't like you, but it's not like i want you to be hurt." he let out a little scoff, his eyes darting to the side.

"could've fooled me," you rolled your eyes. "remember that time when you pushed my head into the cake on my birthday?" a little smirk was starting to cross your lips.

"that was 9 years ago, and i apologized!" he protested, a matching grin growing on his face.

"only after your mother forced you to," you retorted, rolling your eyes.

"at least i still apologized, right?" he shrugged, giving you a charming, well-practiced smile.

"shame, i still don't accept your apology," you mused.

the two of you sat in silence for a moment, letting him fully concentrate on fixing your hand.

"why are you doing this, nott?" you asked again, the question still weighing on your mind. for some reason, his previous answer didn't feel like the full truth. your eyes bore into his, your gaze so beseeching that it makes him divert his attention back to your bandaged hands.

"you know why." he said simply. quietly. his eyes were dark as they flit back to yours.

you inhaled sharply. if he was saying what you think he's saying... "no, i don't." your voice came out trembly and embarrassingly weak, and you kicked yourself mentally.

"i don't really have to spell it out for you, do i?" he was moving closer and closer. "stop me if you don't want this--and you should probably do it now, because i've waited so long for this moment, i think this might be your only opportunity."

his breath was fanning your lips now, his gaze stuck on your parted lips. you leaned in, and that was all it took for him to dive into you. his lips seared into yours, the kiss fervent. his hands were everywhere, cupping your jaw, pulling your waist to bring you closer to him, wrapping in your hair.

your eyes were wide as he pulled back, a smug smirk on his face as he licked his lips. "what is that, cherry flavored lip gloss?"

"nott-" you managed to stutter out.

"come on, darling. after what we just did, i'd expect us to be past the last-name basis." he snickered, leaning down to capture your lips with his once again.

[servingrobin]

monster trio + law please *--* where Reader F are arguing about something and the reader is acting so petty and arrogant that it makes them excited to show the reader who's boss in a hot way 🔥

I'm loving your blog lately 💕

Oooh mother this was rough and steamy and I loved every word - someone else requested angry/hate sex too so hope you don’t mind I thought they’d go well together!! - I’ve done these as blurbs to stop this post getting toooo long, please let me know if you’d like me to continue any of them as full pieces as they were super fun to write!

Sanji, Zoro, Luffy

Warnings: all of the warnings, choking, spit, spanking/impact play (including face tapping), rough, semi-public, fingering, oral, hints to anal

✨requests open✨

He had you down on the floor before you’d even blinked. It had been a long day of arguing and sparring - your preferred method of settling disagreements. Quite often you both forgot the problem and just settled into the competition, taking well-aimed jabs at one another and tallying up your wins. It was intense, but cleared air better than any other arguments you had with anyone.

Zoro was fierce this round though, agitated by your goading, the smug look on your face as you swung at him, the smirk you gave when you landed a hit, and most importantly the righteousness in your argument - you both knew you were in the wrong but you were far too stubborn to give in.

So he showed you why he was going to be the best swordsman in the world. You were a brilliant fighter but no match for Roronoa Zoro with a grudge.

He flipped you round and slammed you down on your back, knees on either side of you. Zoro smirked down at you and told you to open your mouth.

“What? Why?”

“You’ve been pissing me off Princess I think you need to learn a lesson.”

You bit back the sarcastic retort on the tip of your tongue and opened your mouth with a face. Zoro nudged his trousers lower from his place sat on your chest and scooted forward, easily able thrust into your mouth from his new position.

He used both index fingers to slacken your mouth open and then tapped you lightly on the face when you immediately closed it again. You were burning red from the attention but still stubborn so Zoro returned his fingers to either side of your mouth, and held it open whilst he inserted his cock.

He gave a few experimental pumps to cost himself in your saliva before pushing in fully, not stopping until he heard that blissful gag that signaled the back of your throat. Your mouth tightened around him as you choked on his cock and Zoro simply laughed and started to thrust in a more regular pattern - hard and fast and coated in spit.

You were a sobbing mess before long, tears streaming down your face as you struggled to take his cock fully. Zoro fucked your face with abandon, growing closer and closer to his release.

Without warning he pulled out and flipped you around again, the lack of airflow making you dizzy and unable to process your own movement. Zoro impatiently pawed at your leggings until they pulled down, watching your ass jiggle with the movement. He cackled at your squirming and used his large hands to spread your cheeks apart, staring down at your tiny hole and glistening pussy underneath. He used one hand to keep your cheeks spread as the other came down in rapturous taps, leaving crimson handprints on your ass.

You shivered in anticipation as the silence was built and then cut up into something electrifying. Zoro thumbed between your cheeks thoughtfully before spitting directly between them. You gasped at the surprising sensation and couldn’t stop the clench of thighs beneath your lover.

“Seems you liked that a little too much, such a good little slut…maybe next time.” Zoro chuckled at you, lining his heavy tan beast of a cock with your cunt.

Luffy:

You were locked in a staring contest with your boyfriend, his gaze determined whilst yours was sassy. You were arguing about something silly and Luffy had enough, giving you the glaring silent treatment from across the bedroom. You refused to give in and huffed over to the couch to stew in your own negative feelings.

Finally Luffy could take no more and came over to you, hands raised in surrender. That changed quickly when he saw your smug look however.

“Oh no mama yer really couldn’t hold it back could ya?” Luffy grabbed at your hips and swung you straight over the back of the couch, ass swaying in the air.

Luffy was an extremely easygoing partner and Captain, but even he had his breaking point. He ripped your shorts by the seam, leaving you bare to him.

“I’m gonna teach you a lesson puddin, I want yer to count for me.”

You were puzzled by his words but had no time to wonder before his enlarged hand smacked across your ass cheek like a paddle. You let out an indignant squeal and tried to turn around, only to be held in place by Luffy’s other arm twisting around you like rope.

“I said count sweetie, be a good girl for yer Captain.”

He swung at your ass again and you managed to choke out a “one”, backside stinging but pussy buzzing with excitement. You adored your sex life with Luffy but this was the first time he was more rough with you.

He smacked your ass until it was bright red and pulsing, and you were dripping in excitement. Luffy took one look at the slick collecting on your pussy lips and huffed in amusement, elongating his tongue to lap up your juices.

When he felt you were sufficiently throbbing, Luffy took out his cock - rock hard and weeping from his ministrations. He lined up with your hole and in one smooth rut, buried himself deep inside you. Luffy smooshed your face up against the porthole and fucked into you while you whined like a bitch in heat.

Sanji:

You’d been shouting back and forth for hours, the same argument cropping up again and again. Sanji had been his usually flirty self and whilst you mostly didn’t care, the way he had picked Nami up out of the water after swimming had set you off (and rightfully so). You’d made more than a few bitter comments until Sanji had just about had enough.

“WILL YOU STOP?” He exploded, turning on you and crowding you up against the bedroom wall, the current habitat of your angst.

“You are my goddess, my love, my heart. No one else even comes close to the effect you have on me.” Sanji was breathing like a dragon by the end of his tirade and the heat of his breath against your cheek made you swoon.

Sanji dropped to his knees before you and roughly hiked your knee up over his shoulder.

“What’re you doing?” You were still fuming but the tingle of your lovers actions buzzed through you.

“I’m fed up mon coeur - you know I am a gentleman, I will not ignore a lady in need…. However there is only ONE woman I will ever service so intimately.”

Without another word Sanji surged forward and suckled on your panties, right over the spot he knew would send you crazy. He wasted no time in shucking the cloth off you, reaching one hand up and running along your folds to gather the already growing wetness.

He smirked at you and placed the fingers in his mouth, eyes fluttering back and a guttural moan leaving him at the taste of your sex.

Sanji returned to your folds, sliding through with ease and slipping two fingers inside you with very little resistance. You couldn’t contain the mewl that escaped you. You were still bitter though, and bit your tongue to stop any more noises. You thread your fingers through the man’s blonde locks and pulled hard.

Sanji simply rolled his eyes and pressed his fingers even deeper, the bruising pace his palm hit your pussy lips miles away from his usual soft seduction.

He carefully probed for that spongey spot within you, and once found played it like a button. His movements were knocking you back and forth into the wall, and when Sanji leaned forward to lend his tongue to your clit, you could hold out no longer. You let out a screech as his forceful suction and attack of your pussy sent you careening towards your first orgasm.

Sanji sped up to an inhuman rhythm, fingers flying in and out of you roughly. You moaned and grunted, pressure building in your abdomen. You fell over the edge when Sanji’s teeth grazed against your clit, gentle but threatening.

You let out a scream and came, eyes focusing in and out of existance as your pleasure squirted all over the blonde’s face. Sanji lapped at every spurt, drinking like your cunt was his oasis.

“Not good enough, turn over.” Sanji commanded while your knees went weak, pulling you around like a rag doll so you were bent over against the wall, ass shaking in the air.

You could only beg for mercy as his face buried between your legs once more. He ate until you were shaking and his face was the only thing holding you up. It was glorious the way you quite literally sat on his face to keep yourself up and Sanji felt himself straining against his pants at the pressure

[quack-quack-snacks]

Floating Above Those Dark Skies

My Navigation and Masterlist

My Sweet Home Masterlist

My Cha Hyun-su Masterlist

Pairing(s): Cha Hyun-su x Fem!Reader Summary: Living with the love of your life and the girl you love like a daughter is perfect. Except for all the bad parts. Warnings: Season 2 spoilers! Follows the dialogue of the episodes relatively strictly (I know some people like that but some people don't so it's a warning), Reader being like a second mother to Ah-yi, Hyun-su being a great big brother/father figure, slight talk of previous suicide attempts (The National Suicide and Crisis Hotline is 988. There are so many people who care about you and would love to help you. You are not alone), injuries, underage drinking (but they're in the apocalypse so who cares), canonical death, hurt with comfort, the appearance of (soft and kinda ooc) monster!Hyun-su, no use of (y/n), reader has the nickname "Lucky". Word Count: 17,132 (wow, what a doozy)

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Hyun-su led the way as you all walked to his home. Halfway there, Ah-yi complained about her feet hurting and it was then you noticed she had been barefoot this entire time. 

‘We definitely need to fix that,’ you thought. 

Before Hyun-su could even open his mouth, you crouched down and extended your hands out to her. She rushed forward to jump into your arms with a tired smile. When you straightened back up, she rested her head against your shoulder and was out like a light within a few minutes. 

“She seems to like you a lot,” Hyun-su whispered fondly as a gentle smile laid itself on his lips. After making sure she was secure in your arms, you smiled back at him and dropped one hand from holding her to hold his hand. 

“I guess I’m just a toddler whisperer. I think she likes me better than you,” you joked and he let out a scoff while squeezing your hand.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” he told you in an offended tone you could tell was fake by the smile threatening to break his facade. 

After a few minutes of comfortable silence as you walked, you asked the question that had been burning in your mind since you saw him again with the girl in your arms. “So… who is she?” 

He let out a heavy sigh before pushing a tree branch out of the way for you to walk through since your hands were full. 

Always the gentleman.

“She’s Seo Yi-kyung’s baby.”

You let out a quiet gasp. “What? But she hadn’t even been pregnant for half a year? And this is at least a 4-year-old child!” You whisper shouted at him, completely shocked by the information. 

“I don’t fully understand it either, but I do know she’s hers,” he assured you and you let out a sigh, your eyes wide as you tried to process the information. 

“So, is she a monster-human mix as well? Is she like you?” You asked. You hadn’t noticed the way Hyun-su snapped his head towards you because you were too focused on the girl in your arm, letting out small breaths that tickled your neck. The way you said the sentence was so unlike anything he had heard before - especially relating to talking about monsters and neohumans. You sounded so soft, not an ounce of judgment or resentment in your voice. You sounded like no matter what the answer was you wouldn’t treat her any differently. You would adore her just as much as you were in that moment with your face buried in her hair as she let out quiet snores in her sleep. He gave a soft smile at the thought. 

“I think so. She's grown so much since I first met her. Her actual age is around 5 or 6 months.”

“Wow,” you breathed and he couldn’t help but marvel at the way your voice embodied adoration and your smile was so bright it set the sky on fire despite the sun falling over the horizon. “That’s… wow.”

The rest of the walk was spent in silence. At some point, Hyun-su’s hand moved from holding yours to circling your waist as you hugged Ah-yi to your chest protectively. Eventually, the three of you arrived at a dock where a large boat was parked. 

 You weren’t all too surprised to find he had lived on a boat for the past half-year but you couldn’t help the small part that didn’t believe him when he told you. 

He hopped up onto the boat first before helping you, careful not to wake Ah-yi. After the two of you were safely atop the boat, he led you to the captain’s quarters and helped you lay the girl in your arms down onto the nest of blankets and sweaters assembled to make a bed. Her dress had dried surprisingly quickly on the way to the boat, the only thing left to be damp was her hair.

 You weren’t so lucky.

Your clothes stuck to your skin uncomfortably but you refused to complain, giving a - hopefully convincing - smile to Hyun-su when he saw you detach your shirt from your chest with a grimace. He walked away for a few moments and you sat down at the entrance to the captain’s quarters, resting your head against the door frame until his soft footsteps brought your attention back to him. He stood in front of you with a pair of folded clothes in his hands. 

“I have these if you want to change into some fresh clothes. I don’t have any towels but this might help.”

The hesitant and shy look on his face made a smile break out on your own. You gave him a nod and took the clothes from his hands. You didn’t comment on how they were exactly your size but it made your heart flutter. 

“Thank you,” you told him genuinely.

He nodded back at you before pointing to a door inside the quarters. “In there is a bathroom for whenever you want to change. I’ll wait for you out here.”

You nodded and turned before the smitten smile overcame your face stupidly at the thought. He just said he would wait for you and you could feel your heartbeat quickening alarmingly while heat rose to your cheeks. You walked into the bathroom and looked at yourself in the mirror. It was kind of scary. You hadn’t seen your reflection in a few months, never venturing into any areas with cars and rarely going near water. All the mirrors in the women's locker room back at the stadium had been broken after a monster outbreak and the monster breaking all of them because she was ‘too ugly.’ 

You honestly almost forgot what you looked like, but you were beautiful. You had always thought of yourself as a relatively attractive person but never the kind that would make someone turn their head. Now, you found yourself unable to look away. Your skin was glowing, whether that be from the sweat collecting from the walk or the water, you didn’t know. Any blood that had collected on you over the past few weeks had been rinsed off in the lake and you relished in the feeling of being clean of it for once, despite how the stickiness of the wet clothes you were still wearing still made you feel a bit dirty.

Snapping out of your amazement, you quickly took your old clothes off, replacing them with the ones Hyun-su had given you. It was a simple pair of dark gray sweatpants and a maroon short-sleeved shirt. You took off your unbearably uncomfortable socks and replaced them with the soft wool socks he provided as well. Now dry, you exited the bathroom to see Hyun-su had stuck to his word and was waiting for you as he leaned against the door frame of the room, though this time in a different, dryer outfit. 

“Hey,�� you said softly to get his attention. He looked over at you and smiled when he saw you all dressed and dryer than before. 

“Hey,” he whispered back. He held his hands out for you to give him your wet clothes and you did reluctantly. He walked over to the edge of the boat and laid them over the edge so they could dry before returning to you. “Well, you should get some sleep.”

As if his words were magic, you suddenly felt the events of the day hit you like a truck and you yawned, nodding your agreement. “I think that’s a good idea.”

You gave a quick look around the room before deciding to sleep next to Ah-yi with your head using a part of her ‘bed’ as a pillow.

Hyun-su winced as he saw you settle against the hard floor of the boat and walked forward without thinking. He gently grabbed your shoulders, lifting you and then settling you against his chest while you sat in between his legs. 

You blushed but said nothing as you settled with your cheek pressed against his chest, his heartbeat echoing against your ear and calming your nerves.

“Sleep,” he told you and tightened his grip around you. “I’ll keep watch.”

Your tongue felt heavy with sleep as you spoke your next words with a slight slur. “But what about you?”

He let out a soft laugh as he heard your breathing even out almost immediately after your sentence ended. He let his head rest against the wall behind him as he kept his gaze on the door.

“I’ll be okay,” he whispered as he briefly looked down at your peaceful sleeping face. “As long as you’re here with me…”

“Lucky.”

~A Week Into The Apocalypse, In Green Home~

It had been a week since the apocalypse started, and you had barely seen Hyun-su. The way the other residents and survivors treated him caused you to be so angry. You were thankful that at least one person - Eun-yu - didn’t treat him like a monster. 

She wasn’t much different though, considering she still avoided him most of the time. 

It was after the reappearance of Yi-kyung and the failed mission to retrieve medicine for Ji-su and her surgery that you got the chance to talk to him for more than just a quick goodbye or hello. 

“All alone?” You asked him as you approached the staircase. The candle in your hands burned a bright yellow and smelled of cinnamon sugar. His head looked up at where you were approaching and nodded as you settled yourself on the stairs with him. Although he appreciated you trying to give him space and sitting a short distance away, he couldn’t help but wish you were closer. You smiled at him and smoothed your hands along your pants when you were seated. 

“Are you scared?” 

The question through you off guard. Giving a quick look around the room, you didn’t see anything that you would consider to be a threat so you weren’t really sure what he was talking about. 

“Of what?” You asked, tilting your head in confusion at the boy. 

He mirrored your head tilt with a confused look of his own. Inwardly you laughed at how the two of you must look like confused dogs when their owners told them a command they didn’t understand. 

“Of… me?” He questioned again and a small laugh left you when you finally realized. 

“Oh, Hyun-su,” you reached over to gently grab his hand as you looked him deeply in the eyes. “I promise you I could never be scared of you.”

He looked down with a small smile at that and you could see the small hints of red on his ears and cheeks. 

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” you started and gently released his hand. He immediately felt cold at the lack of your added warmth. “I never tried because I wasn’t sure if you even wanted to talk to me, but is there a reason why you never came by? Even after you were given a choice to leave the quarantining room?”

He paused as he thought for a moment. “I thought you didn’t want to see me. You were the only person not put on guard duty so I figured it was because you asked not to.”

You let out a sad sigh. “Shit, I’m sorry. I promise that’s not what happened.”

He looked up at you with sad, confused little puppy eyes. “It’s not?” 

You shook your head. “The first, and only, time I was put on guard duty, I tried breaking the lock on the door,” you told him and looked away sheepishly. 

“Really?” He asked after a moment of stunned silence. 

You nodded in assurance. “After that, Eun-hyuk tried to do whatever he could to keep me as far away from you as possible. I was hoping that would change since you got out but now I know why it didn’t,” you smiled at him sweetly and he felt the heat rise to his cheeks so he looked away. “You know,” you continued. “I always saw you stop by my door right before you would leave, but you never said anything. Was that also because you thought I didn’t want to talk to you?”

“Partially. It was mainly so I could just see you before I left. Every time I thought I was going to die I thought about returning so I could at least try to fix whatever was happening,” he told you. Now he was the one who looked sheepish as he scratched the back of his neck. “I always backed out at the last minute though.”

You smiled and scooted closer to him on the stairs, moving down so you were on the same level and making it so only half a foot of space separated you. “I guess I was like your lucky charm then, wasn’t I?” You teased and lightly bumped your shoulder against his. 

“Yeah, I guess you were.”

~Back To The Present~

It had been about a month since you reunited with Hyun-su. You’d grown closer to Ah-yi in no time. She looked up to you and it seemed she just needed another girl in her life to have around. Your favorite part about growing closer to her was she had upgraded your honorific from ‘Miss’ to ‘Unni’ which made your heart clench adoringly every time.

The first time Hyun-su decided to make a trip into the city to collect some supplies, he was so hesitant to leave the two of you alone. You promised you would protect Ah-yi and yourself with whatever it takes; that seemed to be enough for him to be comfortable enough to leave. He never lost his hesitancy to leave the two of you alone despite each time he came back the two of you would be fine.

The most recent time was no different. You sat on top of a large, red, metal shipping container with Ah-yi as the two of you drew using the chalk you were fortunate enough to find a few days ago.

“That looks beautiful, Ah-yi! You are such a good artist,” you praised her on her drawing and she visibly beamed. It was a simple drawing of some flowers and her, you, and Hyun-su. It was clear it was made by a child but it was so beautiful in your eyes. 

“Thank you, Unni!” You ruffled her hair which she squealed at until you noticed Hyun-su walking towards the two of you with a smile on his face and a hand hiding behind his back while the other supported a red bag over his shoulder. “Oppa!” Ah-yi exclaimed and you smiled at her excitement. 

He rounded the corner of the large container and brought the hand hiding behind his back out to place a pair of pink shoes on the top. Ah-yi gasped while you had a big smile on your face. 

“Come on!” You urged her and she sat on the edge of the box so Hyun-su could slip the shoes onto her feet with the cutest smile ever on his face. Once the shoes were on, he held his hands out for her and she eagerly jumped down, having full faith that he wouldn’t drop her. Once he set her down, he reached his hands out for you to take and you gave him a funny look. 

“What’s wrong, Lucky?” He voiced his thoughts with a confused tilt of his head. You rolled your eyes at him while smiling. Your heart fluttered at the nickname. He’d started calling you it more often since the two of you reunited and yet it still gave you butterflies.  

“I’m okay, I can get down by myself,” you reassured him and turned around while you slowly lowered yourself from the canister, your front facing the metal. 

You heard Hyun-su softly breathe out a laugh from behind you before a hand grabbed onto the back of your shirt and pulled. You let out a yelp as you felt yourself falling only to land bridal style in Hyun-su’s arms. You clicked your tongue in faux annoyance and crossed your arms while he tried to hide the smug smile on his lips. 

“Going full ‘knight in shining armor’ mode, are we now?” You teased him and he blushed, pointedly avoiding your gaze. Suddenly, your stomach dipped as you felt him pretend to drop you and your arms wrapped themselves around his neck while he looked at you with another self-satisfied smirk.

“Well, it looks like my ‘princess’ needs her ‘knight in shining armor,’” he said softly as he looked away from you and you slapped his chest. He kneeled down when Ah-yi ran up to him. Knowing exactly what he was offering, she used one of his extended hands along with yours to help prop herself onto his shoulders. Hyun-su regained his grip on you as he grabbed the red bag he had set down and stood back up to his full height before starting the walk in the direction of the boat. You rolled your eyes, knowing any protests about him carrying you would be brushed off. Instead, you just snatched the red bag from his hand, placing it on your lap and holding it tightly to your body as you gave him a challenging glare. He just rolled his eyes with a fond smile and continued walking. 

The three of you made small talk as he carried you. Ah-yi explained what you and her had done while Hyun-su was venturing off and you chimed in every now and then with a comment. Hyun-su explained how he saw a peculiar monster today.

“It was like a mermaid with wings.”

Then, you both went on to explain what a mermaid was to the child. 

When you arrived at the boat, Hyun-su set the both of you down and Ah-yi started pulling you to the edge of the boat. You laughed as you walked up to the contraption. It was during your first week that you made the efficient self-fishing machine. It was a relatively simple mechanism that was made of a bunch of fishing poles and a homemade weight sensor. Whenever one of the poles was tugged on by something in the water, the device yanked it up and whatever was attached to the hook was left dangling in the air. 7 times out of 10, the hook was caught on litter in the ocean or a monster that was able to detach itself but there were the 3 times where you would catch a fish or two and the three of you would share it for dinner. 

It became a bit of a game for Ah-yi and yourself, guessing if the day would end with a fresh meal or a degrading empty can with barnacles growing on the side. 

As Hyun-su smiled at the two of you, he walked over to the stairs leading to the roof of the captain’s quarters and sat on the top, watching the sunset. No matter how many times you invited him to join the two of you, he always refused. It was nice you had a special activity to bond with Ah-yi over and he used that as his excuse every time.

It wasn’t even 10 minutes later as you were skinning the rare fish you’d caught with Ah-yi watching attentively as you explained the different anatomy parts to her that Hyun-su noticed a familiar face climbing the steps of the boat. He climbed down and started walking over to her while the two of you stayed distracted. You only looked over and noticed the two when you heard their footsteps. You carefully set down the knife and fish, wiping your hands on a stray towel beside you, and stood up to walk over beside Hyun-su. Ah-yi followed up behind you, grabbing onto the back of your shirt shyly. 

“I came too late, didn’t I?” Yi-kyung asked from in front of you as she looked at the girl shyly standing behind you. You decided not to answer considering you still weren’t sure how you felt about the whole situation of her leaving her child. Instead, Hyun-su answered her question.

“Not at all. You’re here now, right?”

She looked down and you could see the guilt and regret on her face. Slowly, you turned around to face Ah-yi. “That’s your mommy,” you told her and she looked at her hands shyly. “Why don’t you say hi.”

You lightly pushed her in the direction of Yi-kyung and the woman kneeled so she was face to face with her.

“Hi there,” you heard her whisper to the girl while you stood up to your full height. You wrapped your arms around Hyun-su’s waist and leaned into him while you watched them interact. Yi-kyung brought her into a hug and you smiled at the relief that settled on her face. 

Over the next few months, you and Hyun-su traveled through the city together, occasionally going back to visit Yi-kyung and Ah-yi but mainly wanting to give them the privacy a mother and daughter should have. It was adorable to come back and see the markings on the wall increase where Yi-kyung marked her daughter’s growth every day. Everything seemed to be going perfectly for the family of two.

Up until that day.

You had an awful feeling in the pit of your stomach for the entire day, feeling as if something bad was going to happen and you needed to get back to the two girls on the boat. When you shared your feelings with Hyun-su, he didn’t question it for a second, immediately going with you to rush back. 

When you arrived at the boat, you found a teenage girl covered in blood wearing the same dress as the little girl you’d grown to love while sitting on the bed blankets and jackets. You walked slowly towards her and she snapped her head up when she saw your feet enter her vision from where she had her head hung low. You kneeled in front of her, tentatively reaching a hand out to hold her cheek and she leaned into it.

Just like Ah-yi always did.

You let out a shaky breath as you finally voiced the question. 

“Ah-yi?”

She nodded, her eyes filled with fear.

Fear of resentment.

Fear of abandonment.

Fear of your fear. 

You just let out a sigh, whether it was from relief or surprise, you didn’t know. What you did know was that this was your Ah-yi and you would love her no matter what form she would take. You wrapped your arms around her and brought her in for a hug which she returned immediately. Relief coursed through her body so evidently that you could practically hear it. 

“It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” you dispelled her fears, bringing her closer and rocking her as she cried into your shoulder and told you what happened. You smoothed down her bloodied hair, not caring about how she was staining your clothes with the blood coating her. 

Once she calmed down a bit more, you gathered a rag from the bathroom.

“I’ll be right back, okay?” You promised her and she nodded. You turned and left, closing the door behind you and giving her a playful wink through the window which she giggled quietly at. Hyun-su followed you as you walked down the stairs of the boat and to the edge of the water. As you kneeled down to dip the rag into the lake's water, you started asking the questions on your mind about what Ah-yi told you happened.

“How did they even find this place? How did they find out about her being mixed?” You asked Hyun-su. His lips twitched into a small smile when he heard you refer to her as ‘mixed.’ He remembers you telling him the reasoning behind it like it was yesterday.

“I don’t like the word ‘monster.’ I always associated the word ‘monster’ with someone who acts evilly and neither of you are like that. I know you’re not entirely human anymore but I refuse to call you monsters. Human or not, you are still a good person.”

It was the moment he had set it in stone that you were the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. 

“I don’t know,” he answered your questions. “But I have a bad feeling about the whole thing,” he paused momentarily before continuing. “What do you think we should do about the whole… touch thing she has?” He asked you and you frowned in thought.

“Well, I don’t think we should do anything. It’s a part of who she is and she shouldn’t feel the need to be ashamed of it. I don’t necessarily think she should use it on people, least of all those undeserving of it, but she can learn to control it. She doesn’t have to live in fear of herself.”

Just as Hyun-su was about to reply to your heartwarming statement, the two of you were interrupted by Ah-yi screaming and crying from the boat. You both ran in the direction of the scream and when you got there you saw Yi-kyung with her head down as blood dripped from her eye while Ah-yi was rubbing at a wound on her forearm. 

“What’s going on?” Hyun-su questioned in a panic. Seeing the bloody knife on the ground as well as a bloody pencil, you pieced together what happened. It seemed Hyun-su did too, if his sigh was any way to tell. “Why did you have to do this?”

Yi-kyung let out a few heavy breaths as she breathed through the pain coursing through her eye. “I’m her mother. No matter how she changes, or what form she takes… I need to recognize my little girl. I won’t ever lose her.”

It was then you realized the wound Yi-kyung inflicted on Ah-yi was black. You let out another sigh, anger, and understanding fighting for control of your emotions as you realized the purpose of her actions. She may have had better intentions behind the action, but how she carried it out was not the way to go. 

As Yi-kyung rose and left the scene, you sat down in front of Ah-yi, carefully reaching for her left arm where the wound had already healed. You gently used the rag to wipe down her arm, then her other arm, and then her face. You wiped down all the blood that tainted her smooth skin while she sat there silently, most likely in shock by what just happened. The domestic act, despite the violent acts that brought it about, brought a wave of emotion over Hyun-su as he watched the two of you. 

It made him realize how much he wanted a family with you one day. 

After Ah-yi was all clean, you gave her a pair of clothes to change into while you and Hyun-su went to the opposite side of the boat to talk while you waited for her. When she came out, you walked over to give her a hug which she gladly accepted. She squeezed you just as tightly as you squeezed her. You wished you could engrave it into her brain that you would never, could never, be afraid of her. 

Afterward, she went to sit on a barrel, swinging her legs back and forth while you watched her and leaned against Hyun-su’s embrace. It was all so calm until Yi-kyung appeared from the boat’s stairs and walked towards Ah-yi with purpose. Ah-yi, still angry at her mother for what she did, hopped off the barrel and started walking away but was stopped when Yi-kyung’s hand wrapped around her bicep and aggressively pulled her back. The woman shoved her daughter’s hands into a pair of pink gloves connected by a rope that she placed behind the girl’s neck. 

“Don’t take those off no matter what. Understand?” Yi-kyung told her daughter. You rushed forward, feeling anger simmer beneath your blood at the sudden display of aggression she started showing toward her daughter. 

“Hey, don’t you think this is a bit extreme?” You told her, standing in between the two girls. You felt Ah-yi grip your shirt from behind you. You could tell even if her body had grown more, she was still used to her childhood ways of having you protect her. 

“She’s my daughter, I will do as I see fit,” Yi-kyung told you sternly before swiftly turning around and walking back down the stairs of the boat, leaving the three of you alone. 

You turned around to face the girl and sighed when you saw her speed-walking to her sleeping space in the captain’s quarters and locking the door behind her. You and Hyun-su decided to just set up camp outside the door, leaving her alone for the time being so she could sort out her thoughts. 

The next morning, you woke up to the sound of Yi-kyung panicking. You instinctively looked around, looking to protect Ah-yi until you realized she wasn’t there. You rushed to stand up and ran to where her mother was breathing heavily and pacing back and forth.

“What’s going on? Where’s Ah-yi?” You questioned and she turned to face you.

“I don’t know! I was looking for her this morning and I can’t find her anywhere!”

“Shit,” you muttered to yourself. Your thoughts were racing, trying to think of any place she could possibly be. When you finally landed on an answer, you started walking off.

“Where are you going?” Yi-kyung called out to you and you scoffed, not bothering to face her as you continued walking. 

“To find your daughter.”

When you got to the garden dome, the rusting doors were firmly closed unlike the previous times you were here with Ah-yi. Not deterred in any way, you rammed into the doors, successfully sending them flying open. You winced at the loud noise and walked in. 

“Ah-yi!” You yelled out, praying your instinct was right and she was here.

“Go away, Unni,” you heard her soft voice tell you from further into the garden. 

Sighing, you walked closer until you saw her sitting on the grass flooring while playing with a flower. 

“Ah-yi, why don’t you come home?” You tried but she just shook her head. When you realized she wasn’t going to say anything else, you walked closer.

Imagine your surprise when she scrambled away from you, desperate to keep the space between you two. 

“Ah-yi, what’s wrong?” You asked gently, stopping in your tracks to give her the space she desired. 

“Don’t touch me! I might hurt you!” She exclaimed fearfully through a sob and you cursed her mother for putting that image in her head. Taking another slow and gentle step toward her, you internally cheered when she didn’t move away. You took more steps toward her until you were sitting right in front of her and your hand reached for hers. 

When she pulled back, you gave her the best reassuring smile you could muster. “Sweetie, I know that you won’t hurt me. I promise.”

She hesitated but when you reached for her hands again she let you take them. You gave her a smile and squeezed her hand before pulling her into your chest. Your arms wrapped around her shoulders and held her tightly while she started crying more, her body wracking with the violent sobs she let out. 

“I just don’t understand why she hates me so much! Those men hurt me first!” She sobbed into the crook of your neck and you softly caressed her hair, brushing the loose leaves and grass strands out. 

“I know, I’m so sorry she did that to you. You definitely didn’t deserve that,” you reassured her and lifted your chin to rest your head on top of hers when you saw Hyun-su leaning against a wall while watching the two of you with a frown. You used a hand to wave him over and he slowly walked over so he was sitting about a foot away from the two of you. You looked back down at her and kissed her forehead lovingly. “I don’t want you to be afraid of yourself. You did what you had to do in that situation and no one is blaming you for it. Your mom is just…” you hesitated, looking to Hyun-su for support on how to explain the girl’s mother’s actions in a way that wouldn’t drag her name through the mud any more than it already was.

“Your mom was just worried,” Hyun-su intervened when he noticed your pleading gaze, bringing a hand to rest against Ah-yi’s back comfortingly. Ah-yi jumped a bit, startled, but otherwise didn’t do anything. “It was a shock to her to not only see you grow 10 years older in a few seconds but also to see how you dealt with those men. She didn’t want to lose you.”

“You mean she was scared. Scared of me,” she argued.

The both of you stayed quiet for a minute before you spoke again. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now because of what happened yesterday, but I promise you she loves you,” she started crying again and you just hugged her tighter to you. “And if you don’t believe me, at least know that I love you.”

It was the first time you’d expressed that to her in words and she looked up at you in surprise. 

“Really?”

The pure innocence and surprise in her tone were enough for a genuine smile to break out on your face. 

“Of course,” you told her sincerely and brushed her overgrown bangs to the side of her face. 

‘I guess I should trim those soon,’ you thought to yourself. 

“How could I not love you? You’re amazing!” You teased her lightly and she grinned at you. “You’re like a daughter to me, Ah-yi. I can’t see a life in which I wouldn’t love you.”

She dug her head into the crook of your neck again at your words. 

“I just stopped crying,” she complained with a whine that made you laugh. “Don’t make me start again!”

“Okay! Okay,” you caved and leaned back to look at her again. “Why don’t we go home now?” She hesitated for a moment before nodding decisively. 

The three of you stood up and you offered your hand to Ah-yi without a second of hesitation, something you could see in her eyes she appreciated. 

“Ah-yi,” Hyun-su said as the boat came into view in front of you all. You’d stopped by the lake where you saved her all those months ago on the way back and spent a few hours there. Both of you could tell she didn’t really want to go home yet so you extended the day as long as you could. 

She hummed and looked over at him from where you had her propped up on your back in a piggyback ride. She had stepped on a rock and dramatically complained about it until one of you just decided to pick her up and bring her along. 

That someone being you. 

“I…” he hesitated and you freed up a hand to reach over and give his hand a reassuring squeeze. “I need you to do me a favor. When we get back, I need you to go easy on your mom.”

You could feel her body tensing on your back, not expecting his words to be that. You quickly intervened. “We don’t expect you to forgive her anytime soon. Hell, I don’t really expect you to ever forgive her, but I think we both agree that you should give her another chance,” you told her. She huffed and rested her chin on your head childishly. “We’ll talk to her whenever we get back and tell her what she did was wrong, but she was only trying to keep you with her.”

There were a few moments where Ah-yi stayed silent as you walked and you got nervous about what her reaction would be until she sighed. 

“Fine.”

You sighed in relief and smiled. What you wouldn’t tell her is that the ‘talk’ you would be having would most likely be a screaming match between the two of you while Hyun-su tried to be the mediator. 

It had been about a month since that day and you’d stayed with Ah-yi and Yi-kyung for about half of it. The rest of the time, you and Hyun-su traveled through the city together, enjoying the feeling of being free with each other and occasionally spying on the soldiers of the stadium when they went out on their supply runs. 

“I have a bad feeling,” Hyun-su told you one day while the two of you were washing a muddied shirt in the river. 

“Let’s go check it out then,” you told him, standing up and wiping your hands on your trousers but he held his hand up. 

“I… I don’t think you should come with me.”

You looked at him, feeling shocked and slightly hurt but masking it under a calm exterior. “O-oh. Oka-”

“I just mean it feels dangerous. I don’t really know how to explain it,” he interrupted you quickly, hesitantly taking one of your hands and squeezing it reassuringly. 

You gave him a small frown. “But I don’t want you to be in any danger either.”

He smiled confidently at you and stared deeply into your eyes. “I promise I will be okay. Just stay in the shed until I get back. I’ll be back in a few hours at most.”

After a moment of hesitation, your eyes flicking between the broken down shed behind you and Hyun-su’s dark mocha brown eyes, you nodded in agreement. He smiled at you before turning in the opposite direction and starting to walk away. Just as he started to get out of arm's length, you tightened the grip you had around his hand. He turned back to you, tilting his head in question but your head was down, your eyes focused on his hand where you gently played with his fingers. 

“Please return to me,” you whispered, barely audible to him and he sighed. Taking a step forward, he wrapped his arms around you, one resting on the back of your head and the other around your waist. 

“I will, Lucky. I always will.”

Eun-yu walked down the empty street of the city, darkness clouding every corner and making her jump at every noise. She wasn’t nearly as experienced as you when it came to venturing off alone and outside of the stadium so it was all new to her. This was her first time out of the stadium, let alone all by herself, and she had barely any idea of what to do or where to go. It all started when she was waiting for you at the exit you used to go through when you went on your personal expeditions. 

She wasn’t dumb. She knew you were leaving every day and trying to hurt yourself, yet every day you came back safe. Maybe a little broken and bruised at times, but alive nonetheless. Despite the two of you not being close, she still cared about you more than anything. You were the closest thing to a friend that she had. She was positive you didn’t remember this, but she had helped comfort you one night as you cried after another - but also thankfully your last - attempt to leave this world. You told her about the force that kept you alive, protecting you from monsters and from yourself. You told her about how you blame yourself for Hyun-su’s disappearance and how he was most likely dead. You told her everything. Afterward, you ended up passing out in her embrace and sleeping the entirety of the next day away while she stayed by your side to ward off anyone wanting to wake you. 

Once you woke up, you seemed normal. The same expressionless look on your face as you went on with your day. It stayed that way for a long time. Eun-yu tried her best to do subtle things to help you; to make you feel more wanted and make you blame yourself less.

Until one day, you never came back. 

You leaving and never returning is what led her to be standing at the exit not even a week ago, feeding some of her rations to a small stray kitten. It’s what led her to stay there even when Chan-young approached her and asked her what she was doing. It’s what made her stay even after a young girl she hadn’t recognized revealed herself. It’s what made her stay despite the pleas to go back inside from Chan-young and allowed her to see the woman she thought had died show up and take the girl with her. 

It is also what led her here, all alone looking for you or the girl or Yi-kyung. Whilst finding you was her main goal, she would be satisfied with any of the three. 

She lost Chan-young somewhere along the way after he was poisoned by the girl accompanying that old man but she didn’t let that deter her. 

Now, in the dark shadows looming over the alleyways she walked through, a long metal pipe clutched in one of her hands, she searched the abandoned city with the need to find you forcing down any fear she was feeling. The unoccupied hand had an old piece of clothing wrapped around it, protecting any dirt from getting into the wound where she protected Yeong-su from that soldier.

She often wondered if you knew how much you inspired her to be brave and protect those around her.

After some time, she found herself standing in front of a large greenhouse. Most of the windows were broken and she could see the plants inside had overgrown their once pristinely gardened form, but it was gorgeous regardless. The moonlight shone through the broken glass and cast spotlights of glimmering luminescence across the vegetation. She took a moment to admire everything, noting how you would’ve loved a space like this until she heard a growling sound from behind her and her guard immediately went back up. Moving the pipe so it was tightly grasped in her hands like a baseball bat, she held it defensively and slowly crept closer to the source of the growling. The large crater in the ground made her sick, reminding her of the tragedy that happened less than a year ago when the government tried to kill as many people as possible in order to ‘save humanity from itself.’ 

As she got closer, she raised the pipe over her head, ready to strike at any moment. The growling of the monster got louder as she approached and she prepared herself to swing until-

“He won’t attack you.”

Eun-yu turned around, facing the new voice and seeing the same girl from before. She lowered the pipe, letting it hang loosely at her side as the girl took slow steps toward her. Since she was almost positive this girl would have nothing to do with you, she instead asked about Yi-kyung. “I’m looking for Yi-kyung. You know where she is, right?” The girl stayed silent, gradually getting closer as she continued with her measured footsteps. “I have to meet with her.”

The two girls stared at each other as the younger girl approached. Silence stilled the air until it was broken.

“Mom… the people… they’re all bad.”

“Did you say ‘Mom’?” Eun-yu questioned, her face portraying her confusion and shock.

‘She couldn’t mean Yi-’

“You’re no different,” the girl concluded, taking her last few steps forward more quickly and launching Eun-yu down into the hole behind her. Feeling the ground disappear from below her feet and the wind rush through her hair, she screamed. 

A scream.

A scream was what stopped you from continuing your washing of Hyun-su and your clothes. You snapped your head in the direction of the noise so fast you were worried you got whiplash. Unconsciously clutching the current piece of clothing you’d been washing in your hands, you started sprinting in the direction of the noise. As you got closer, the area around you got brighter and you noticed it becoming increasingly more familiar to you. It was when you saw the familiar metal canisters that you realized you were near the boat.

It was also when you realized the boat was on fire. 

You gasped as you saw the flames licking away at the deck in the distance, pushing your body past its limits as you forced yourself to go faster, faster, faster. You were beyond terrified at the implications the fire had.

‘Was this the bad feeling Hyun-su had?’ You asked yourself. You tried your best to stay as positive as possible until you got there but it was difficult with all the possibilities swirling in your mind. However, there was one possibility you clung to: while the boat burning was bad in itself, maybe nobody was on it.

Maybe.

When you got to the stairs of the boat, you climbed them as quickly as you could, ignoring the pain in your foot when you slipped down one and ended up stepping on it wrong.

‘That’s a problem for later.’

You got to the top, not seeing anybody in the burning embers surrounding you. Quickly covering your mouth with the still-damp piece of fabric in your hands and thanking yourself for unconsciously holding onto it, you ran around the top of the deck, looking for any signs of life while simultaneously praying for none. Seeing nothing, your mind ran at a hundred miles per hour as you tried to decide if that was a good or bad thing. 

“Cha Hyun-su!” You screamed out, the use of his last name representing your evident panic. “Seo Ah-yi!” It was when you circled the captain’s quarters that you saw a familiar lean body. “Seo Yi-kyung!” 

You rushed forward, sliding down to your knees as you reached her and turning her onto her back. You winced as you saw the burn marks and ash littering across the side of her face. You brought the wet clothing down from where it covered your mouth and nose, quickly replacing it with the cuff of your jacket as you used the wet fabric to cover Yi-kyung’s nose. The fire caught onto your pants and you scrambled to put it out, letting out muffled screams into your sleeve as it burned your skin. 

You watched as the small baby monster you knew to be Ah-yi’s friend approached you and Yi-kyung. You were mainly confused about why it showed up here willingly, usually, monsters were terrified of fire and would avoid it at all costs but that didn’t seem to be the case. 

“Go away! Get out of here!” You screamed at the baby but it just babbled at you, running up to you and setting out the fire on your pants. Then, it began to circle around the two of you, using its body to roll out any fire that got too close. You quietly sobbed, your tears feeling like ice against your flaming skin. “Thank you,” you whispered to the small creature, feeling so grateful yet guilty for the way it was putting itself in danger for you. 

Suddenly, as you felt yourself fading out of consciousness, the exhaustion from the run over, and the pain in your foot getting to you, you heard a familiar voice call out for you.

“Lucky!”

Hyun-su...

Eun-yu screamed out as she fell until she quieted, accepting her death to be by falling down a large hole while not knowing if her only friend was dead or alive. Just as she lost all hope, the sound of something whipping through the wind above caught her attention along with a familiar large wing made of bone and muscle only. It was only for a moment that she caught a glimpse of the boy’s face before his arm wrapped around her body and they shot up. 

Reaching the top, Hyun-su swung around so his body would take the brunt of the fall and they crashed. Sliding across the concrete, he used his wing to slow them down as much as possible and keep her as unharmed as he could. Barely taking a minute to breathe when they came to a stop, Hyun-su opened his arm and rolled Eun-yu off before standing back up. 

“Cha Hyun-su,” the girl tried, struggling to lift herself from the ground. Receiving no response as he continued walking toward Ah-yi, who was watching curiously from the other side of the crater, she tried again. “Cha Hyun-su!” She finally made it to her feet as she screamed.

Hyun-su let out a breath. He took a moment to force his eyes to return to their natural state instead of the endless void that would consume him when in his monster state before slowly turning around to face her.

“Are you really just gonna leave like that?” She asked him, more quietly this time as he faced her. His wing flapped lightly at his side, whistling through the wind in an ethereally beautiful way. 

At least, that’s how you would often describe it.

“Were you expecting a hug or something?” He asked her in a blank tone and she looked at him with exasperated annoyance. 

“Yeah, I was. I expected at least a ‘Glad to see you. How’ve you been?’” She retorted back at him, getting angrier by the moment at the completely blank look on his face. 

“But I’m not glad to see you,” he told her and she couldn’t help but expect it. She knew they weren’t close. Nowhere near as close as you were with Hyun-su. You always tried so hard to make him feel included, to fight for his rights even when Eun-hyuk kept you as far away from him as possible. After you tried to break the lock of the door that one time, he gave strict instructions to everyone who had a guard duty that they were not to allow you near the room. You would always leave Eun-hyuk with the same phrase after each failed attempt to see the boy.

“You’re a coward. You won’t go up the stairs to retrieve the residents’ items yourself and then you treat the man who does do it like scum. I can’t believe you.”

It was what made her like you in the first place. While she knew you and Hyun-su had known each other for a brief period before the apocalypse, she couldn’t help but admire how you stood up for the boy without a second thought. She was pretty sure she realized your feelings for him before even you did. 

“You weren’t supposed to know how to leave the stadium. You should’ve just stayed away,” Hyun-su’s voice broke her out of her brief flash of memories. 

“It was you all along…” she started, taking a stuttering step toward him. “That night with the rope… all the times she tried to kill herself… it was you who saved her, wasn’t it?”

By the lack of surprise or questioning on his face, she knew her answer. They stayed silent for a few more seconds, Eun-yu waiting for an answer and Hyun-su trying to provide one. Though his face remained monotonous, he was trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t give her too much information but would satisfy her concern and need to know. 

“We crossed paths. I figured since we weren’t strangers I might as well help her out. I know what it’s like. She doesn’t deserve that kind of a death. That’s it. Nothing more,” he looked at her, making sure his words weren’t just floating in one ear and out the other. “You understand?” 

Without waiting for her to respond, he turned around again, rolling his eyes.

‘I have to get back to-’ 

“That’s bullshit and we both know it!” Eun-yu yelled from behind him, interrupting his thoughts. She took fast purposeful steps toward him as she continued to speak. “You’re in love with her, she was your everythin-!”

Hyun-su brought his wing down and scraped the concrete behind him, only a few feet away from where Eun-yu was standing. She held her breath, waiting for his next move and cursing herself for the shiver of fear that ran up her spine at his actions.

‘You would never fear him like this.’

Seeing him not make any more moves, she tried again. Prying her feet off the floor from where the strange acid was kicked up by the large appendage, she started walking again only for Hyun-su to slam his wing down again. This time, the toe of her front boot had melted off and she could see the black socks she wore underneath peeking through. She mentally slapped herself for how the breath she let out was shaky. Forcing herself to peel her boots off the ground again, she tried to take another step when suddenly a hand latched onto her bicep and pulled her back, sending her tumbling to the ground. 

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” The large man, Ho-sang+ asked. His shoulders were draped with a homemade camouflage outfit made of grass and hay. The man raised his shotgun, aiming it toward Hyun-su who had still yet to turn around. “You monster piece of shit, what are you doing here?” The boy turned to look over his shoulder at the new voice. “Get gone!”

Right as Hyun-su turned back around to keep walking, Eun-yu spoke up again.

“Wait!” She scrambled to her feet, intending on running over to Hyun-su but the older man grabbed her shoulders and held her back. “Cha Hyun-su. Cha Hyun-su!” He came to a halt again and it was enough of a tell he was waiting for her to continue. “She…” she began, hesitating to tell him this in case her gut feeling was wrong. “She’s been missing for months. Do you know… I mean… is she…” She couldn't force herself to get her words out, only able to speak in between shaky breaths as she started to think of the worst possible outcomes. If her gut feeling was wrong and you weren’t really with Hyun-su, she didn’t know what she would do.  

Hyun-su turned back around to look at her over his shoulder. Keeping eye contact with her for a few moments as he debated whether to tell her or not, he relented.

“She’s alive.”

Turning back around, he could hear the breaths of relief Eun-yu and the older man both released, albeit for different reasons. 

Following Ah-yi, they both walked away from the two humans. He waited until they got to the edge of the river to start talking.

“Why did you do that?”

“I don't like her,” Ah-yi responded.

“So why don't you like her?” He pushed, 

“Every human is the same. She’s no different,” she yelled angrily before her voice dropped to a mumble he was just barely able to hear. “The only human to be an exception is Unni.”

Hyun-su looked at her when she stopped, the anger being shown clearly on her face and he was confused about why she was so riled up. The quiet atmosphere was only interrupted by the hooting of the owls in the nearby trees. 

“I was curious about humans at first… because both Mom and Unni are human. So I said ‘hi’ and they…” She took a shaky breath in before continuing. “They hurt me. They yelled and they pushed and... and they hurt me too. And they killed all my friends and monsters!” She screamed out, her voice heavy with raw emotion. “Leaving just me.”

“They were just scared,” Hyun-su tried to soothe her anger and pain as her eyes filled with tears. “Afraid of losing someone.”

“Then I'll give them a reason. Show them how scary it was,” her heavy breathing slowly evened out and Hyun-su sighed. He knew you would be able to help her with a situation like this better than he would. From the very first day, you always seemed to have a way of calming her down and helping her through the more difficult times.

“Let's get out of here. Yeah?” He suggested as tears began to fall down her cheeks, hitting the pavement below with an imperceptible plop. 

“There's no place for me. My house is gone,” she told him. 

“What… do you mean?” He asked after a few silent beats. 

“I… no longer need you. Not you, or Mom…” she paused to calm herself but couldn’t stop the sob that came with her next words. “Or Unni. Not anymore.”

Hyun-su let out a slight gasp before sprinting in the direction of the boat. He hoped his suspicions were wrong. He hoped Ah-yi wouldn’t do that to her mother.

But he knew she would.

He’d heard the countless nights you spent with her in your arms as you consoled her and reassured her about her mother’s love when she was positive it no longer existed. He knew how much she hated the woman who gave birth to her, hated her for the love she once had but lost on that fateful day. 

Hyun-su ignored the sharp pain in his lungs as he sprinted toward the boat, cursing lightly when he saw the fire engulfing it from afar. Finally reaching it, he ran around looking desperately for Yi-kyung and screaming her name. 

It wasn’t until he found both her and you lying on the ground that his panic started to take over. 

“Lucky!” He screamed, running towards you and dropping to his knees. He quickly picked both of you up, the weight not a struggle for him but the positioning of your bodies being a bit awkward. He ended up with Yi-kyung on his back piggyback style and you being held in his arms like his bride. Seeing the small creature passed out only a few feet away, he picked it up too and put it on your lap as he walked off the boat, letting the home full of memories burn itself to the ground forevermore. 

Hyun-su walked towards the swan boat about a quarter mile away from the boat. Gently setting Yi-kyung down first, he placed you down with your head in his lap. He cursed himself. He couldn’t believe he had just left you alone. He couldn’t believe you would go into such a dangerous place willingly. 

But then again, he couldn’t be surprised. You were like that, so selfless and kind. If you saw the boat on fire you would never allow yourself to stay behind while there was a potential of the people you loved being on that boat. 

He was thankful you at least were smart enough to cover your nose and mouth when you were there. The ripped and slightly scorched shirt covering Yi-kyung’s mouth was one he recognized to be yours. And although it wasn’t a great replacement, he saw how the cuff of your jacket sleeve was loosely placed over your own mouth, slipping once you’d fallen unconscious. 

As he was picking the bits of seared wood and singed fabric from your hair, a small whisper of his name drew his attention behind him to Yi-kyung.

“Hyun-su…”

He turned around, making sure not to jostle you around too much as he looked at her. Her face was burned, fresh wounds scarring the flesh of her cheeks that would forever alter her appearance. 

“Are you okay, Yi-kyung?”

“It’s all my fault it’s like this,” she started. Hyun-su stayed silent as she continued. “I just wanted her to be safe like you were,” she whimpered, it was unclear whether it was from the pain on her skin or the pain in her heart. “All I wanted was for her to…” she sobbed but no tears came out yet. She was dehydrated and wounded and it was clear she wouldn’t make it without medical help they no longer had. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Hyun-su refuted.

Yi-kyung groaned as she sat up, leaning heavily against the edge of the swan boat. “I should’ve killed her.”

Hyun-su’s eyes widened at her words. While he knew that was what she had wanted when her baby was first born, he didn’t know it was still something she thought about. 

“In the back of my mind, I always had that thought. I know she must’ve felt it when I had those thoughts,” she breathed heavily, her breaths sounding gritty and labored. She looked at the girl lying in Hyun-su’s lap, feeling angry, regretful, and jealous, but mostly grateful. Grateful she had at least you to look up to and show her the way when she couldn’t. “I know she would always tell her about how she hated me,” she pointed at you weakly. “I know she always saw her as more of a mother than she did me.” 

“You’re wrong,” Hyun-su protested. “While Ah-yi loves Lucky, she needs you as her mother. I know because I was there too through all those days,” he looked down at you, eyes still shut and sweat clinging to your skin. “So was she,” he breathed out a sigh and looked back at Yi-kyung. “You said you were a bad mother, but you know that’s just not true.”

“The fault is all mine,” tears fell down her cheeks as she spoke, a soothing touch to her wounded face. “I was the one who made her like this,” she blamed herself, Hyun-su’s reassuring words either not registering in her brain or being completely ignored. “No, this is good,” she accepted. She knew her end would be soon. “It turning out like this is for the best. This way, I… I don’t have to kill my daughter.,” she sobbed.

“Were you really going to kill her?” He asked incredulously. At her lack of response, he continued. “Why? You’re her mother! So why?” 

“I don’t deserve to be,” she cut him off. “I could never be worthy of her, not when I treated her so differently than you did. Than she did,” she explained. She couldn’t fathom saying your name, feeling unworthy of being near you when she always had those terrible thoughts of hurting her own flesh and blood. You had always treated her so much better than she had, treating her like your own daughter, whether it was by blood or not. “I had the same thought hundreds of times. ‘Why is she cursed like this?’ Why?” She started sobbing again, the guilt and blame she put on herself for the past year torturing her soul. “It’s all my fault. My awful thoughts and desires turned her… into a… monster.”

Hyun-su scoffed. “Yeah, so what?” He looked at her and the surprise of his words stopped her crying. “Are monsters really all bad?”

Yi-kyung sighed and just as Hyun-su was going to continue talking, the soft babbling of the baby monster sounded out again, drawing both their attention to the mini creature. He gently picked it up, holding it in his arms as he spoke again. “This one saved you. Saved both of you. Saved you because you’re family…” his eyes filled with tears but he refused to let his voice break. “You see, monsters feel and recognize people. Because they were human once too.”

He hugged the monster to his chest, and the conversation ended when Yi-kyung faded out of consciousness. 

The group sat around the campfire, Ha-ni snuggled up against Chan-young’s side while the other two sat alone.

“So, which is it?” Eun-yu asked. “A brother? A boss? A dad? What are you to each other?”

“Why the hell does it matter? Just eat and get lost,” the older man evaded the question. 

“Um… why don’t you come back with us? You’ll be safer there,” Park Chan-young offered and Ha-ni’s head perked up in excitement. 

“Are we getting married then?” She asked, moving closer to his side and resting her head against his shoulder.

“Uh, that’s… that’s not what I’m saying,” he repudiated. 

“Safe? You guys have just been lucky,” the older man rolled his eyes at the suggestion. “That, or you don’t know better.”

“I think you might be underestimating some of us.”

“I don’t trust humans, okay?” He concluded.

“I’m not surprised. But you don’t trust monsters either?” Eun-yu integrated herself into the conversation once more. “And what about her?” She asked, tilting her head at Ha-ni. “You trust her?” He didn’t respond and it was silent for a minute. “Sure seems like it.”

Ha-ni, noticing how the atmosphere was turning strange and uncomfortable, interrupted. “Let’s go with them. Let’s go together, teacher, hmm?” She insisted, leaning forward in her seat to emphasize her wants. “Hey, let’s go!”

The older man looked thoughtful for a moment, considering his companion’s words before noticing something in the distance. 

“What are you doing here?” He screamed accusingly, raising his shotgun threateningly toward the figure approaching. 

Hyun-su walked forward. Yi-kyung was tied against his back using the long-sleeved shirt you used to cover your mouth in the fire meanwhile you were held in his arms, cradled against his chest protectively. 

He raised his head slightly to look at them, continuing his stride forward despite the threat of the gun in front of him. 

In the blink of an eye, Ha-ni appeared next to Ho-sang as he held the gun and moved his arms, forcing it to face the ground just as he pulled the trigger. It hit the rocks harmlessly and she looked at Hyun-su curiously. 

Taking a deep breath, he slowly lowered himself to his knees and placed Yi-kyung on the ground after untying her. Keeping you in his arms as he rose again, he held you close as Eun-yu rushed forward. Stopping just a foot in front of him, she looked down at you in shock. She reached her hand out to caress your cheek but stopped herself at the last second. 

“Please help,” Hyun-su begged and Eun-yu lifted her chin to look at him. “This was the only place I could turn to.”

Both Chan-young and Ha-ni walked over to where Yi-kyung was lying on the ground, kneeling down to properly assess the damage on her body. 

“How did she get like this? And the kid? The girl who left with you?” Eun-yu asked before looking down at you still in Hyun-su’s arms and finally allowing her fingers to skim along the feverish skin of your cheek as she whispered your name, stunned. “And what about her? Is she okay? Why isn’t she awake?”

“First, let’s get them both inside,” Chan-young stopped her questioning before Hyun-su could respond. Ha-ni helped him prop the woman on her back, fully intending to bring her into the trailer until a gunshot sounded. 

Eun-yu froze in shock, paralyzed by seeing Hyun-su stumble back with a gunshot to the shoulder. He fell to his knees once more, his grip on you loosening but refusing to let go. He gently set your lower body down onto his lap, his now free hand going to hold his wounded shoulder while the other held your upper body to his chest. He ignored the anger that stirred in his chest when he saw how close the shot came to your face, just missing by a few inches. Clenching his eyes closed tightly and blocking out the sound of everyone talking and screaming around him, he forced the familiar feeling of his monster down. When he finally looked up and opened his eyes he saw Eun-yu holding Ha-ni against her chest with blade centimeters from her neck. 

“- and I’ll cut her fucking head off.”

Ha-ni scoffed at her words with an annoyed smile but didn’t try to fight back or move away. 

“Way to prove my point about humans,” Ho-sang told her, not lowering his gun. “Pulling this shit after I saved your life is rich.”

“I said I’ll take him with me. I said I’ll take them so just… what's your problem?” Eun-yu begged the man, tears forming along her waterline as the situation continued to go downhill. 

“You’re with monsters,” Ho-sang explained, glaring at her from his spot. “That makes you a threat. And you call yourself human? Jesus.”

“You call yourself human when you just almost shot a girl in the face? He might not be human but she is!” She screamed at him and continued when she saw the flicker of guilt in his eyes. “And what makes you special? How can you be sure you’re gonna stay immune?” She questioned but he stayed silent. “What if you were to start showing symptoms? Seems a bullet is your only option. Since monsters have to die.”

Hyun-su groaned in pain before trying to stop her from baiting the man. “Stop it,” his words were spoken weakly as more blood spilled from his wound. He covered it with the fabric of his shirt, trying to avoid getting as much blood on you as possible but the splatters of blood across your forehead and cheeks told him it was already a bit too late for that. 

“And her?” Eun-yu continued, ignoring the boy’s warnings and protests as she started to speak about Ha-ni. “Could you put a bullet in her?” Her words were spoken softly but Ho-sang heard it loud and clear. He stayed quiet again, not willing to speak of the situation he feared the most. “How about I save you the trouble?” She offered.

“Oh, yeah. So this is who you are,” he finally spoke, nodding in disdain at her actions. 

“Stop it,” Hyun-su tried again but again was ignored. “Don’t do this Eun-yu,” he begged. 

Suddenly, Ha-ni grabbed the wrist holding the knife to her throat, and twisted it away from herself, spinning around so the knife was now in her possession and the tip was pointing directly at Eun-yu’s neck. There was a collective gasp from everyone watching and Ho-sang lowered his guns in shock. “Ha-ni!” He yelled at her as she stuck the point of the blade in Eun-yu’s neck, causing a trail of blood to leak out. 

After a moment of tense silence, she pulled the knife away and dropped it to the floor where it clattered against the rocks loudly. Pushing her forward, she walked over and entered her car, entering it and called for Ho-sang to join her. 

“In this life, we weren’t meant to be,” she started, talking to Chan-young as her companion got into the car and started it up. “Maybe the next one. Get rid of the girl though.”

The group watched as the two drove off before Chan-young turned to Hyun-su. “Are you okay to move? How’s your shoulder?”

Hyun-su pulled his hand away, the wound already having closed and the blood surrounding it was the only reminder that it was ever there in the first place. He nodded. “It’s okay.”

Chan-young took a few steps closer to him before kneeling beside him and looking at where you rested in his arms. The pain from your ankle and slight burns showed on your leg but you luckily didn’t seem to have any difficulty breathing or major damage. “And her? Are you still okay to carry her?” 

Hyun-su nodded once again while he moved his empty hand to once again rest under your knees and stood up. “Yes, I’m okay.”

“I think we’d better go. Monsters may have heard the gunfire,” Chan-young concluded and walked behind Hyun-su as he started the path to his chosen destination, whatever that place may be.

Eun-yu kneeled down to grab her bag and knife before looking back at Hyun-su. “Let’s go.”

He sighed as she started to walk behind him, taking a moment to look at you and make sure you were alright before he followed. He would have to wipe his shoulder down and clean the blood from your face before you woke up. He didn’t feel like worrying you about his injury just yet. 

Sighing once more, he turned around and started to follow the two. 

They arrived at the destination Chan-young had brought them to. It was a hospital, or at least it used to be. As they got inside, there was broken glass everywhere and scratches from an unnatural creature lining the floor. It was clear it was no longer the medical place it used to be. 

Setting Yi-kyung down on the hospital bed they found, Chan-young turned to Hyun-su and asked, “What happened to her?”

“A fire started where she was staying,” he started to explain, still holding you since all the other hospital beds they could find were not exactly clean. At least the one Yi-kyung was lying on didn’t have any blood stains on it. He didn’t mind though. “I think there was no way out. She was already unconscious by the time I made it in.”

“It’s carbon monoxide poisoning,” Chan-young concluded from the evidence provided before standing up urgently and turning to Eun-yu. “Something like a small gas tank should be lying around. Go look for some,” he then turned to Hyun-su who was getting ready to stand and help them. “You should probably stay here,” he told him and Hyun-su stayed silent for a moment as he looked at you in his arms before nodding in agreement. He moved to lean against the wall as the other two went off in different directions to search for the gas tank. 

After a while, there was the faint sound of someone yelling, “I found one!” Soon after, both Eun-yu and Chan-young returned to the bed, the boy carrying a gas tank in his hands which he set up next to it. Expertly, he plugged the tube into the tank and turned the air on, testing the pressure and how much oxygen was left in the tank. 

“Does it work?” Eun-yu asked just as the arrow pointed to ‘REFILL’ and Chan-young sighed. “What? What is it?”

“It’s out of oxygen,” he explained.

“So what happens now?”

“Her organs will start to fail without… without a steady supply of oxygen,” he told them before his head fell forward. “Fuck me.”

“Enough of that crap. Is there any other way?” Eun-yu begged, unwillingly to give up so soon. 

“It’s already too late.”

“Don’t say that unless you’ve tried everything,” she told him seriously, she then moved over to start picking Yi-kyung up by her arms. “Park Chan-young, help me carry her. Let’s get her to the stadium. We have to leave now,” she ordered but he didn’t move and Hyun-su just buried his head in your hair emotionally. “I said help me carry her!” She sobbed, setting her back down when he still didn’t try to help her and covering her face with her hands. 

The group just finished moving both you and Yi-kyung to another room, this one finally having another bed that wasn’t stained with blood and smelling of a rotting corpse. Chan-young helped Eun-yu carry Yi-kyung to the room while Hyun-su held you close, only letting you go when they found the bed for you to lie on. 

Despite how his monster body protested, he allowed Eun-yu to have a moment alone with you and Yi-kyung in the room, choosing instead to wait on the bench outside. He saw through the crack in the door how she held your hand gently and spoke words he couldn’t hear. He watched as she set your hand down across your stomach and retreated from the room to sit on the bench with him, leaving an empty seat between them. 

“Are you feeling better?” Hyun-su asked her once she sat down. She sighed quietly and he took that as her response. “We did the best we could.”

“Are you comfortable with this?” She asked him, not understanding how he could be so calm in a moment like this. “Is leaving her to die like that really the right thing to do?”

“Now that I think about it… I think it’s what she wanted,” he construed and she turned her head to look at him. 

“What?”

“Her boat was deliberately burned, but she chose to stay aboard.”

“Why, though?” Eun-yu whispered. “Why would Yi-kyung do that?”

“I wanna ask you something,” Hyun-su told her and she stayed quiet as she waited for him to speak. “How’s everyone doing? I’ve tried asking Lucky but she always gets really quiet when I do.”

Eun-yu’s lips quirked up minutely at the familiar term of endearment but the memory of her grief overwhelmed it. She took a few deep breaths to compose herself before answering him. “Hye-in and Su-yeong are dead. And Yoon Ji-su, too.”

Now Hyun-su knew why you would never talk about it, why you would always get quiet and have that far-away look in your eyes when he asked. He always figured you just didn’t know, that maybe you got separated at some point, but somewhere deep down he knew that was just wishful thinking. While he hated that you didn’t confide in him, he understood where you were coming from. Even a year isn’t always enough time to heal enough to talk about something so tragic. 

“Just like that, they’re all gone,” she continued in a whisper. He turned his head away from her as a tear fell down his cheek before she spoke up more loudly this time, masking the emotion in her voice with false confidence. “Now let me ask you a question,” she said. He turned to look at her but she was looking in the direction of where you lay on the hospital bed, head tilted to the side as you breathed easily. “How is she doing, really? Is she better?” Her voice almost broke as she unwillingly thought back to how you were feeling during your time in the stadium but she was able to mask it with a cough. While she was hoping you were doing better now that you were with Hyun-su and hopefully didn’t blame yourself for his disappearance anymore, she had to be sure.

“She’s doing good. She still has her bad days but overall she’s doing better.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, a single tear falling down her cheek. “Thank you.”

He turned his head to look back at her and saw she was now staring at him. “Hm?”

“You brought her back to me. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t at least see her one more time. If I didn’t make sure she was still alive. So thank you.” 

He nodded. “Of course.”

“I also,” she continued. “Want to thank you for returning to her,” she shot him a watery smile as her eyes brimmed with tears. “God knows she deserves it.”

When you woke up, the first things you saw were the blaring lights of the white lighting fixture above you. Groaning, you brought a hand up to cover your eyes and turned your head only to gasp when you saw the burned face of Yi-kyung on the bed next to yours. Quickly throwing your legs over the side of the bed and standing up to check on her, you let out a yelp of pain as you stepped on your wounded ankle and crumpled to the floor. 

Breathing heavily, you cursed yourself before hearing the sound of fast-paced footsteps entering the room you were in. You leaned up on one hand and saw a face you’d longed to see for weeks. 

“Eun-yu?”

The girl snapped her head to where you sat and gasped out your name, running toward you and crouching down. She grabbed your arms and helped you stand up, making you sit on the edge of the bed so she could check out your foot. 

“How are you feeling?” She asked, concerned but all you could think about was the woman breathing unevenly on the bed behind her. 

“Fine, fine,” you said dismissively, only half listening to her concerns. “How is Yi-kyung? Is she okay?”

Eun-yu slapped your arm lightly. “You were passed out for half a day, let me worry about you.”

You gave a small chuckle at her words, reaching your arms out to wrap around her shoulders. “It’s good to see you, Eun-yu. I’ve missed you.”

She exhaled slowly, wrapping her own arms around you and letting herself relax in your embrace. 

“Wait, what am I doing here?” You asked as you softly pushed her away from you. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the stadium? Are you okay?” You gasped, firing questions at her like a machine gun prior to grabbing the sides of her puffy jacket sleeves and pulling her a few inches closer as you looked her over for any injuries. Other than the small wound on her neck, she seemed to be relatively unharmed.

“That doesn’t matter right now,” she scolded lightly and lifted your wounded and swollen ankle up. “First, we should fix this up. I’m sure there’s some tape or something around here,” she started to walk away but turned back to look at you. “Don’t move,” she scolded with a finger pointed at you accusingly. You held your hands up in a surrender motion and laughed. 

After a while of looking around the room, she walked back with a wad of medical tape in her hand. You watched in awe as she started to expertly wrap your foot with the medical tape in a way that would help keep it in place. Noticing your stare, she explained. “I used to do ballet. I sprained my ankle and had to do this every day.”

“Well lucky me then,” you told her with a smile that she returned once she finished. She then cut the ripped pant leg off at the knee and cut the singed parts off. Using the burned-free part of the fabric, she gave you her hand to squeeze as she poured the clear liquid inside a bottle of vodka on your burns. You screamed and stuffed your sleeve into your mouth, both stopping yourself from breaking your teeth and muffling your pained noises. After finishing disinfecting the wound, she got to work on wrapping the cut fabric around your burns to prevent any further dirt from entering it.

Breathing heavily through your pain, you grabbed the nearly empty bottle of vodka after she set it down and lifted it to your nose. 

It looked like vodka.

It smelled like vodka.

Taking a sip, your face scrunched up in displeasure. 

Definitely vodka, although something was off. 

“Why is it so watery?” You asked her. Eun-yu’s head snapped up to see you bring the bottle to your lips again to take another sip. 

Grabbing the bottle away from you, she smirked and brought the bottle to her lips, drinking the last of the liquid while you whined. After sighing overexaggeratedly, she smiled at you and handed the bottle back to you. You shot her a glare “For one, when are you ever going to find a steal like that again? Had to make sure it lasted!” You laughed. “And second, regular vodka is too potent to use as a disinfectant by itself, you have to water it down so you don’t burn away your nerves.”

She secured the fabric with the medical tape and tapped your knee to signal she was finished. She helped you down from the table and let you wrap an arm around her shoulder as you limped over to the bench outside of the room. You thanked her just as you saw another familiar face appear around the corner. “Park Chan-young? What are you doing here?”

“Ah, you’re awake! How are you feeling?” He asked instead of answering your question. 

“I’m feeling okay, my ankle hurts a little but not too bad,” you told him with a smile before it faded and your head turned to look at Yi-kyung through the still-opened door. “She’s not going to make it, she?”

You heard the two of them sigh behind you and you let out a shaky breath. Tilting your head up, you tried to stop the tears from falling. 

It was silent for a while, the only sounds were the ragged breathing from Yi-kyung in the next room until Chan-young spoke. 

“Cha Hyun-su, was it?” He asked and your head snapped up to look at him while Eun-yu who was sitting beside you didn’t even flinch. “That’s the monster that killed Mr. Kim, right?”

You opened your mouth to ask what he meant when Eun-yu spoke before you could.

“It gets on my nerves when you use the word ‘kill’.”

He sat down next to her and leaned forward in his chair with his elbows resting on his knees. “Well, nonetheless, that’s how it went down.”

“Your curiosity will cost you someday,” at his silence to her words, she sighed and continued. “Mr. Kim was displaying symptoms.”

The news of this story was no surprise to you. While you weren’t there when it happened, you do remember how Eun-yu had relayed the story to you only a few nights after the incident. You didn’t know she knew it was Hyun-su though, and to be honest you felt slightly betrayed. 

“I don’t know when it’d begun.”

“Wait,” Chan-young started, gasping at the new information. “But why didn’t you say anything? You were branded as a murderer.”

“The Chief and I have had… a long-standing grudge. Yet we all lived because she opened the stadium to us. I can’t deny that. I just couldn’t screw her over like that.”

You quietly gasped. Despite the information not being new to you, you hadn’t known the reason she never spoke up was because of that. 

“Lee Eun-yu,” Chan-young said softly.

“Eun-yu, you shouldn’t have done that to yourself,” you scolded her quietly. 

“Don’t get me wrong. That wasn’t the only reason,” she continued, leaning back in her seat. “I didn’t know it was Hyun-su, but… either way, I didn’t want to tell Crow Platoon.”

Oh. So Eun-yu didn’t know it was Hyun-su. That definitely made you feel better than the idea of her knowing this entire time and just not telling you. 

When a sudden gasp was heard from the room Yi-kyung was in, all of your heads snapped up and Chan-young and Eun-yu rushed into the room. You stood up, hopping over to lean against the entrance when you slipped. 

Just as your hand missed grabbing the frame of the door, you felt an arm wrap around your waist and pull you back up. Turning your head to look at your savior, you were surprised to see Hyun-su with his arm supporting you and Ah-yi standing beside him, looking at you with just as surprised eyes as you were at her. The boy moved you so you were propped up against the door frame before he stepped into the room. 

“Could you step outside for a moment?” He asked the two as they stood beside Yi-kyung’s bed. They hesitated but eventually made their way out of the room. As Hyun-su walked up to the woman, leaning over her as she breathed raggedly, you wrapped your arms around Ah-yi and brought her into a hug. 

“Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry,” you expressed your condolences before pushing her away just enough so you could see her face. “How are you doing?” You asked her as you caressed her cheek and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. 

She shrugged her shoulders, looking away unconvincingly. “I’m fine. She hated me anyway. I only came for Oppa.”

You tsked and brought her back into your embrace. “You and I both know that’s not true.”

She didn’t respond and Hyun-su turned back to look at the two of you, motioning for Ah-yi to walk in. As she passed by you, you smoothed down the back of her hair and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. 

Hyun-su walked past her, letting her have her final moment alone with her mother on her deathbed. Instead, he walked over to you, wrapping his arm around your waist to help you walk as you all moved further down the hall to give the girl some space. Once he decided it was far away enough, he moved you over to the wall so you could lean against it and stood beside you. You leaned your head against his shoulder, wanting to give and gain comfort from the action. You all stayed there, silently, for a few minutes until Ah-yi walked down the hall. 

Hyun-su popped off the wall and she turned to face the two of you, mainly Hyun-su as he started to speak. “Why are you out here already?”

You leaned forward, grabbing onto his arm to support you as you looked at her. “You should stay with her a while longer,” you insisted softly. Her eyes fluttered down to where the medical tape peeked out above your shoe and the pant leg was taped in place around your calf before she fluttered her eyes back up to yours. 

“Mom’s not going to die. So stop crying, please.”

The way she said it gave you a bad feeling and the clattering that came from the direction of the room didn’t help to ease it. Hyun-su turned, making sure you were balanced before rushing over to the room. You glanced at Ah-yi before heading that direction as well, having Eun-yu and Chan-young help you.

“Yi-kyung!” You heard Hyun-su exclaim just as you all got to the doorway. When you looked into the room, you saw Hyun-su on the ground with Yi-kyung held in his arms while tears fell down his cheeks. 

You covered your mouth in horror as your own tears started to form. You stayed there, supported only by the door as you all cried over the loss of your friend. 

Your eyes shot open when you heard the sound of bones cracking. Her head was thrown backward and her back arched to the point where you were sure that was the bone-breaking sound you heard. The skin on the left side of her body started to turn black, almost as if ash had been painted across it. She started thrashing around, her body contorting inhumanely and her skin releasing a dark, unnatural smoke. As she rolled onto her stomach the bones in her back crunched loudly and she shot up. 

You barely had enough time to move out of the way before she ran into the door you were leaning on. Disoriented and dizzy, you couldn’t bring yourself to focus on what was happening around you until you heard the ringing of a gunshot and Yi-kyung’s half-monsterized body fell backward at the waist. 

“No, don’t do that!” Hyun-su screamed, rushing forward and moving Chan-young’s hands away while he held fast to the gun. 

“It’s too late for her. She’s already gone!” Chan-young yelled at him. 

You looked back at the woman to see the gunshot wound already gone, now covered with the same black markings that covered one half of her body. “H-Hyun-su,” you whimpered weakly and both men turned to look back at Yi-kyung. You let out a soft sob as you saw the tear slide down her face. 

“Yi-kyung,” Hyun-su whispered and she raised a hand toward him. Reaching for him, she started to walk forward before her other arm, the remaining human arm, reached out to grab her own hand, almost as if to pull her back. “You guys should go back,” he whispered to you all. “Take Lucky with you, she can’t walk on her own.”

“No! Not without you!” You protested but Hyun-su didn’t turn to face you. Eun-yu looked at you hesitantly before turning back to him. 

“What about Yi-kyung?” She let out through a sob. “How could she turn so suddenly? She wasn’t showing any symptoms.”

“Her daughter did this to her,” he explained hurriedly.

“Ah-yi…” you whispered in realization. 

“She turns people to monsters?” Chan-young questioned, still aiming the gun at Yi-kyung. “Monsterization is uncontrollable by humans.”

“She’s not a human,” you said lowly. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Eun-yu screamed at you just as Yi-kyung rushed forward to jump out the window of the room behind you. 

“Leave! Now!” He yelled at them before jumping out the window after her. 

“Hyun-su, no!” You cried out, trying to lift yourself to your feet to no avail. Eun-yu and Chan-young, ran to the broken window, looking out as you continued to struggle. “Eun-yu!” You screamed at her and she turned around to face you with widened eyes. “Please! You have to help him! Don’t let him get hurt, please,” you begged her.

She nodded, determined. Turning to Chan-young, he nodded at her and they set off in the direction of the stairs to the bottom floor. 

You sat against the glass doors of the room Hyun-su was resting in. For the first hour, you were in there with him, holding him while he cried. After he fell asleep, though, you decided to give him some space. You waited outside, leaning your head back against the cool surface of the glass with your uninjured leg bent and held to your chest while the other was extended outward. 

Down the hall, you could see Eun-yu watching you until Chan-young approached her. You looked away as you saw them staring at you. Both had sympathy lacing their gazes that you couldn’t stand to see. Sympathy meant you had something they felt sympathetic towards. You didn’t want to think of what that thing was. All you wanted was to be back at your shed, doing laundry with Hyun-su while Ah-yi sat down on the edge of the river bank with her feet dipping into the water. 

But those days were over, at least for the time being.

“What are you gonna do now?” Park Chan-young asked Eun-yu, her gaze still locked onto your form curled up across the hallway. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I found her, and she’s alright. That’s good enough for me. I know she’s in good hands with Cha Hyun-su. I don’t want her to come back to the stadium with us. Not when she was so miserable there,” she told him, thinking for a moment before giving a conclusive answer. “I’m gonna wait for Hyun-su to wake up. I’ll wait with her until then. Then I’ll say my goodbyes and return to the stadium. You?”

“I should get back there,” he decided. “I’ve been gone for too long.”

She nodded in agreement. “Yeah.”

Chan-young gave a final look back at where you sat now with both your knees bent and your face buried in your arms. “Send them my regards, both of them,” he told her and she nodded up at him. “I’ll see you at camp.”

With a moment of hesitation, he turned in the direction of the stairs and started walking toward them. 

It had been a couple of hours since Hyun-su fell asleep. Eun-yu had dozed off about an hour ago but you couldn’t bring yourself to shut your eyes for too long. So you sat there, your eyes staring off into the distance, unfocused and blurred. It wasn’t until the sun started to set, the light shining through the blinds of the windows and casting a golden orange glow onto the tile floor that you snapped out of your daze. Carefully bringing yourself to a standing position, you turned around, opened the door, and walked through. Your eyes immediately went to where Hyun-su was previously lying down, but when you didn’t find him there, you panicked. Raising your eyes, you let out a breath of relief when you saw him sitting on the bed next to the windows, leaning back on his right arm and swaying slightly. 

“Hyun-su?” You asked softly but received no response. Walking closer, you saw his eyes were closed as he continued to sway. It seemed like he was barely conscious and his body kept falling right before he caught it, over and over again. Reaching the point that you were standing right in front of him, you reached up to place your hand on his right cheek, a feeling he immediately leaned into. “Oh, lovely,” you whispered. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

About to pull your hand away from his cheek to clear the pillows and blankets piled on the bed behind him, you stopped when his left hand shot up and grabbed onto your wrist, keeping you in place. Confused and concerned, you brought your other hand up to hold his other cheek. “Hyun-su?” You asked. “Are you okay?”

He slowly opened his eyes and you gasped once you saw them. 

You’d only seen him like this once before and it was after he protected you from a particularly strong monster. Halfway through the battle, all of his mannerisms changed and he moved completely differently. It wasn’t until the monster ran away, Hyun-su covered in its blood yet not a scratch on him, that you saw his eyes. 

You weren’t scared. You could never be scared. 

Not of him. 

Never of him. 

But it did surprise you. 

After he returned to his normal self, he told you about how he tried to never go into that state of being because he wasn’t in full control. Despite the honest way you told him he would never hurt you and that you trusted him, he still kept the monster side of him tucked away as much as possible. 

It seemed that wasn’t the case right now, though. 

“Why are you here?” You whispered to him, your voice not at all accusing or scared, not even a little bit tentative. 

“You don’t want me here?” He questioned. It was so strange to see Hyun-su’s body and hear Hyun-su’s voice but know it wasn’t him, at least not completely. 

“I didn’t say that,” you told him, your eyes lightly scolding him in a way that made his lips quirk. “I just asked why you were here. Is he…” you hesitated, still unsure of how to fully phrase questions when he was in this state. “Are you okay?”

“He’s hurt. Let him rest for a bit,” he explained as he leaned more into your palm. His grip on your wrist hadn’t been all too tight to begin with but it still softened to a loose hold as he kept eye contact with you. 

You nodded at his words, brushing your thumb along his cheekbone and your lips curving into a subtle smile when his eyes closed contently. “Is that why you’re here?” You whispered, not wanting to break the calm atmosphere. His eyes opened again and he stared at you. “To help him with the pain?” He nodded and you sighed. It wasn’t the physical pain on his body either of you meant, and you both knew that. The pain of losing Yi-kyung, and then losing her again at his own hands was too much for him. It most certainly would have been too much for you, so you couldn’t blame him. Not that you would have anyway.

He tightened the grip he had on your wrist and gently brought it away from his cheek before releasing it completely. He turned his head to look forward in the mirror in front of him and used the hand once holding your wrist to move the collar of his shredded jacket away from his shoulder. You winced as you saw the wounded skin there, bringing a hand up to do something but hesitating. Instead, you looked around the room before your eyes lit up as you found what you were looking for. You released his face from the hand still holding his cheek and turned around, taking a step forward with your good foot. He leaned forward, leaning off his right hand and using it to grab ahold of your wrist. You looked back at him. 

“Stay,” he said simply and you smiled.

“I’m not going far.”

He held onto your wrist for a while longer before softly sliding it down to the tips of your fingers and slowly releasing you, all the while keeping eye contact. You felt the heat rising to your cheeks and turned before he could tell how flustered you were at the simple action. Taking another step, you tried to hide the limp in your walk and mask the pain on your face as you grabbed the materials and returned to where he was seated. Setting the medical supplies down next to him, you reached for the pillow behind him and took off the pillowcase surrounding it. Grabbing the mostly empty bottle of rubbing alcohol, you poured some onto the pillowcase before using one hand to pull the collar away to reveal the dirty wound underneath. 

You raised your gaze to his eyes only to find them already looking back at you. “This’ll probably sting,” you told him sorrowfully. You waited a moment for him to acknowledge your words but he just continued to stare at you with a blank, yet almost soft, look. You used your other hand to hold the alcohol-soaked pillowcase and bring it up to his wound where you carefully started dabbing away the blood and dirt. Looking over at him every few seconds to see if he was in pain, you found none each time whilst he didn’t take his eyes off you. Once the blood was cleared away and the pillowcase was thoroughly stained, it was clear to see the wound was much smaller and less serious than it originally seemed. A fact that made you sigh in relief.  

Before you could reach for the bandages to cover his wound with, Hyun-su grabbed your waist and pulled you to stand in between his legs. 

“Wha-?” You started to question but stopped when his arms wrapped around your waist in a hug. His head turned to the side and he rested it against your stomach. It didn’t take long for you to return the hug, albeit a little confused and startled. 

“You know I love you, right?”

The sentence sounded slightly muffled, and you weren’t sure which version of Hyun-su was speaking, but regardless, you answered, “I know.”

His arms tightened around you, a comforting and promising squeeze. “And you know I’m never letting you go again,” he paused, turning to look up at you. It was both a surprise and yet not when you saw one of his eyes was still the bright blue he had in his monster form, but the other had returned to his natural brown. “Right?”

You placed your hands on his cheeks, leaning down to leave a tender kiss on his forehead. 

“I know.”

[anthotneystark]

Wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face

(Also on AO3 now!)

It doesn’t happen suddenly.

Or, it does, but it’s a long time coming.

It’s a long time coming because it’s been coming his whole life. It’s been coming since the first time someone looked at him and said “it’s a good thing you’re pretty”. It’s been coming since the first time he heard someone say “beauty over brains”. It’s been coming since he was old enough to know that his dad was already planning on having to make connections to get him into a school of his choosing. He’s always known his book smarts were lacking, but it always hurt when he was reminded of it.

But it’s been more recent than that too.

It’s been coming since he felt that slick tail wrap around his neck. It’s been coming since Robin helped to change the bandages on his back. It’s been coming since the first date after everything ended with him going to bed alone because “I’m just not in the mood anymore” followed him pulling off his shirt.

It’s been coming since forever.

His looks have been his biggest asset his entire life, the only thing he could really use to get attention. And now there’s scratches in the paint.

After everything, when they’re finally safe, everything changes.

He doesn’t change, or he doesn’t think he does, because his habits are the same and his thoughts are the same and his nightmares are the same. But life slows down. And with it slowing down, he changes anyway.

Where once he was all lean, taut muscle, he softens. It’s still there, his daily runs and exercise are proof of that, but it’s a little more insulated.

(Robin tells him it’s because he’s been living with the stress of monsters for years, that feeling safe has pushed his body out of survival mode.)

It’s been coming though. With each comment from his mother about how he’s clearly eating too much junk food. With his father’s comments about how long his hair has gotten. With how girls’ eyes just skim right over him and move on.

It’s not all bad, of course. The kids, surprisingly, don’t comment beyond their usual teasing over things within his control – “stripes again? Don’t you have any other patterns?” or “why do you have to wear those shorts while you’re cleaning the pool?” which is usually followed by Eddie smacking whoever said it. Max makes exactly one comment, quietly, when it’s just the two of them still awake during a movie night.

“You’re a better pillow these days.”

Maybe it’s a joke, maybe she’s just being nicer with her teasing, but whatever her reasoning he likes it. When he thinks about it like that, being different doesn’t feel like a bad thing.

It doesn’t usually last long though.

So it’s not a sudden thing, until it is.

He’s not even totally sure what causes it. Some comment, sure, but the words themselves are in one ear and out the other. His parents are leaving for another trip, his mother comments about eating healthier while they’re gone, his father makes some dig that’ll lodge under his skin with all the other barbs he’s thrown at him for all these years.

All he really remembers is that a comment is made. The rush of heat and sour bile in his throat. The door shuts and all he can hear are overlapping echoes of all the comments that have ever been thrown at him. All he can feel is the tightness of the tee shirt he’s wearing the weight that no longer rests on his shoulders, but which is spread over his entire body. He finds himself looking into a mirror and suddenly cannot look at that any longer.

His hands shake and he doesn’t trust himself, but he knows where he can go.

It should scare him that he doesn’t remember the drive. It should scare him that he’s here but doesn’t fully know how he got here. But he doesn’t have room for more panic in his head. They’re past the point of knocking, of waiting to be let in, so pushing through the doorway of the trailer is a familiar motion. Eddie looking up and smiling where he’s strumming his guitar is a familiar sight.

The way his smile faulters and turns into a frown is less familiar.

“Stevie? What’s wrong?” He feels like he can’t breath, can’t possibly explain everything in his head, but he can’t just expect Eddie to read his mind. He’s not Robin after all.

“I need it gone. Off. I can’t…I can’t,” he manages, one shaking hand sliding into his hair and tugging, the pain grounding for just a moment. Eddie might not be able to read his mind, but he understands him these days more than most people. It’s an unlikely friendship founded in terror and fortified by countless hours in hospital rooms and new homes.

“Oh sweetheart. Are you sure?” He knows it’s extreme, but he can’t help what he needs, even if Eddie is concerned. He nods, swallowing hard. Eddie doesn’t try to talk him out of it, just pulls him to the bathroom and sits him on the edge of the tub.

“Lets start small, okay? And we can go as far as you need from there.” He wants to argue, but at the same time he knows it’s reasonable. And it’s Eddie. He trusts Eddie. He can’t make any words come out, but he manages a little nod. Eddie, doing what he does best, just starts talking. He’s not really paying attention to the words, but he doesn’t have to. He can feel the chill of the metal scissors, the soft rumble of Eddie’s voice, the too gentle fingers pushing and pulling him into whatever position is best. Eddie pauses now and again, a question in his eyes, but continues on when he sees whatever he’s looking for still lingering.

It's not until Steve feels his shoulders slumping, his hands loosening where they’re clenched at his knees, the chill of the breeze from the open window hitting skin that no longer feels boiling hot, that Eddie sets down the scissors. He feels lighter, doesn’t even care about the itchy feeling of stray hairs clinging to his clothes and skin.

When he finally looks in the mirror, his hair is shorter than it’s been in years. It’s not gone, not buzzed off, but it’s not the same as it was.

Neither is he though.

Eddie’s giving him a knowing look, one that says he’s got something to say but is holding off.

The cut itself is a little rough, but in a good way. It’s clearly not a professional sort of thing; he likes it more because of it.

“Thank you,” he whispers, exhaustion and relief hitting him in equal measures.

“You know, when I buzzed my hair, there were a lot of rumors,” Eddie says softly. “Stuff about my dad punishing me, about looking too girly before, that sort of thing. But really, it was just…so much going on all at once. My dad had just gotten arrested, mom took off, Uncle Wayne was stressed over having another mouth to feed. I felt like I couldn’t breath and just-” he makes a buzzing noise and mimes shaving through the mop of dark hair, which he’s got tied back today now that Steve can actually see it.

“Just had to get it off?” he asks.

“Yep. Needed it gone. Growing it back was a pain, but it was good too. Felt like a fresh start even if it was a little like trying to get back to where I used to be,” Eddie explains. It makes sense, at least to Steve. “So, you know, I get it. But I also know you’d have another breakdown if we shaved it all off completely,” he jokes. It’s enough to drag a laugh out of him.

It’s very Eddie, baring his soul while he’s helping to bandage a lost sheep, and Steve wishes he had the words to say how grateful he is. Instead, he just takes the towel Eddie throws at him and the soft, well worn clothes Eddie sets on the counter. He showers, pulls on a shirt for a band he doesn’t recognize, and breathes out a sigh of relief when the vice around his body finally, finally, comes loose.

Eddie doesn’t wait long once he sits down on the couch, immediately flopping back to use his thighs as a pillow while he goes back to strumming along to the music in his head. It’s a quiet moment, a safe moment. He doesn’t even notice as his head drops back to rest on the cushions, his breathing slowing as he finally feels light enough to rest.

Later, he’ll wake up with their positions reversed, with Eddie playing with his hair in a way that’ll make his brain turn into mush. Later, he’ll gather the courage to finally stop toeing that line of friendship and more that he and Eddie have been dancing on for so long now. Later, Eddie will hear everything that’s been in his head and will hold him down while he kisses every last insecurity and promises that it’s only made him more obsessed with him.

Maybe that won’t fix the insecurities, but that doesn’t mean Eddie isn’t going to make it very clear just how happy he is loving Steve exactly as he is at every point in time.

Because it doesn’t happen suddenly.

Or, it does, but it’s a long time coming.

[safination]

Mother Of Mine

|Masterlist|

Pairings: Alastor x Reader, Velvette & Mom!Reader CW: Alastor, foul language, talks of murder, (Hopefully not, but possibly) OOC

Requested by: @thill20712 My inbox is still currently open. Feel free to keep requesting.So I just did a headcanon format for this. It was pretty fun. Listen, is this my best work? No, but that’s fine because it was actually very entertaining for me, and that’s all that matters. Tbh, I would actually like to turn this into a series but undergrad studies are killing me rn, so maybe in the future. I can like already see so much fun shit around this concept. Imagine the family dinners, or like Alastor going to an Overlord meeting and just unknowingly being slightly less of a chaotic shitlord to Velvette because there’s something faintly familiar or like Vel and Al just both doting on you.

Your husband died.

Everyone found out what Alastor had been doing. The city had no compassion for a monster’s grieving widow. Ha! Alastor would have a kick of your current situation, that’s for sure. It should have been you and him running for your life as the city chases you out of his mother’s home.

That’s how it should have been.

There wasn’t even time to gather all your belongings before those who wanted revenge go to fulfill their goal. Just a measly change of clothes, some emergency money, and documents. Photos never made it to the list. It’s funny how a single piece of film could pack the most weight.

As your ran for your life, cold and frightened, you heard muffled wailings.

And they called Alastor cruel. Who would leave a baby inside a dumpster? You thought about it . . . . Just for a second. The baby’s shrill cries were getting on your nerves, and there’s no way it will survive the night. And an orphanage is no place for a child to grow—you know that much.

So . . . why not? You could just end it’s suffering—Right here, right now.

Compassion isn’t your strongest trait. It’s why you never said anything about all those people who fell under Alastor’s pursuit of self-righteous justice. Who were you to care for someone you don’t know?

You don’t hate children, far from it, actually. Children are the light of this world, and they were the path to bring a better future into this world.  Such pure creature shouldn’t be stained by you. Especially, because you’re not sure if you could ever fully love a child the way it needs to love. Children deserved care, and you refused to bring a child into this world without the assurance that it would be loved.

It was an easy decision that Alastor wholeheartedly supported.

The world took away the very few things you truly loved. Maybe, you could return it ten-fold. . . but you’ve been cold and frightened before, just like this baby. Actually, you’re cold and frightened, right now. Also, just like this baby. Two cold and frightened souls.

So, with the clothes on your back, and no home to call, maybe¸ you’ll find warmth and safety together.

There’s always the option to give it—no, the child, just for a night. Drop the baby off on a porch of some nice couple’s home.

Tomorrow, you’ll give this baby girl away.

• Tomorrow never came

People keep assuming this baby girl is your daughter. You don’t bother correction them. Why should you? It’s not like you’re eager to say that you skipped state lines because of your dead, murderous husband, and basically kidnapped her.

It’s easier to let people assume.

And you can’t keep calling the baby, ‘that baby’. She needs a name eventually, and Alastor always spoke fondly about his mother.

Tomorrow never did come, and tomorrow never will come. Despite this, the sands of time trickled down.

The baby turned into a girl and the girl also grew. Part of your misses the days when she would raid your closet, and dress you up like a doll with a sharp tongue and a demanding attitude. Gone are the days when you’d be sleeping on the same bed, and gone are the days when you would tell her about Alastor.

You would tell her about the flowers, and how Alastor drove around the city, with you right next to him. The sun went down, the moon rose high into the night, and that sun eventually appeared once more. Yet, neither of you were ready to leave each other’s presence.

That girl grew, and took up a weird hobby of wanting to be called, ‘Vel’:

Vel walks into the room, her nose high in the air as she sharpens her tongue against you. “Mother, you cannot walk around looking like this!” she tells you. “The colors look absolutely atrocious. I will burn that shoes the next time I see it on your feet.”

Daughters can be quite judgmental. Maybe, you really should have left her in that dumpster.

“I’ll change my shoes if you stop calling yourself, ‘Vel’,” you tell her, smiling. “I gave you such a nice name, and it makes me sad that you aren’t using it!”

“It’s a stage name,” she says, rolling her eyes at you. So judgmental, that girl. “It’s what I’m going to be called when I finally get out of here, and such a drabby, old name like mine won’t get men anywhere.”

“Well, Vel, I got a call.” You tap your fingers across your knee, staring her down. “Apparently, Mister Joseph doesn’t appreciate being called a, ‘Pathetic and blind fool who goes to work looking like dog poop’.”

“I did not say fool or poop,” she says. “And that old fucker knows it.”

“What I want to know now is—Why?” You stroke your forehead. “What was he wearing too much brown?”

“No.” Vel crosses her arms. “Because my mother was called, ‘an unmarried whore, and who knows where that child come from?’”

“I am married!” You press a kiss on her forehead, chuckling. “It’s just not my fault my husband died not was it my fault your parents didn’t want you.”

Vel rolls he eyes, and sticks out her tongue.

You flicker her nose, and stick out your own tongue.

But time goes on, and as they do. All came to dust and all return to dust.

Of course, you’d end up in hell. It would be a shame that Alastor would never get to meet your daughter. It eventually all blurred into one. And if you didn’t give a flying fuck about others on Earth, why would you give any more fucks to care in Hell of all places?

Building kept growing higher and higher. Bright lights and television shaped morons came into picture. If you could find Alastor, surely, you would have a laughed together. Radio will always be superior. So, you kept your distance from that part of town.

More years kept passing. Alastor was nowhere to be found.

When enough time passes, things tend to loop. Like how you’re hearing cold and scared cries from an alley way. Something posses you to step into the alley. Piss and death and a sweet perfume all assault your nose. You keep walking and . . . somehow, your daughter ended up with you in hell.

Daughter really can be so cruel to their mothers.

Maybe, you actually should have left her in that dumpster. You were destined for Hell, and it seems you dragged your daughter down with you. If you did leave her, surely, Heaven wouldn’t turn away such a new soul.

You squat next to your sobbing daughter in this random corner in hell, and watch her tears with a small smile. “This is exactly how I found you all those years ago,” you tell her. “Although, you were much cuter.”

Her head snaps up, and through her tears, she glares at you. “Mother.”

“Yes, dear?

“Mother,” she says again, and fat tears streams out of her face. “What the fuck are you wearing? It’s soooo ugly!”

“I’m going to leave you here.” You blow a strand off your face, and lean against the wall, next to her.

It’s a lie and you both know it. If you cold leave her, cold and frightened next to a dumpster . . . Well, you would have done it a long time ago.

“Why are you even in Hell? Actually—Don’t answer that,” she says, that same sharp tongue somehow even sharper. “You were a nasty bitch in life. It’s no wonder you’re here.”

“Language.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Vel slumps on you, curling around your shoulder. There’s a scowl on her face even as she settles her body next to you. “You really are nasty. How come I’m only seeing you now! I’m sure even a recluse like you should have heard of me.”

“What am I doing here?” you parrot, matching her scowl. Actually, she got that scowl on you. That’s your scowl on her face. “What are you doing here? I raised you to be a good person worthy of Heaven!”

You pat her hair a bit, glad that she couldn’t see your face. Did you really drag her down to hell with you? Was it a mistake to love when your very love condemned her?

“That’s bullshit,” Vel says. “The decisions I made are my own. I’m here because it’s what I decided to do.”

You flicker her nose and laugh when her scowl deepens. “Please, please! Tell me you’re still not going by ‘Vel’.”

“It’s ‘Velvette’ now, actually.”

“That sounds like a stripper name,” you say, barking out a laugh. “I gave you a nice and proper name! Your name came from—”

“Mother! No one goes by their real names here!”

So that’s how you, sadly, found your daughter in Hell. Daughter, yes. Husband, no.

Oh, where is your Alastor?

Clothes are thrown everywhere. Your daughter has an eye for fashion and surely, you’re capable of remembering anything she’s tried to tell you. And granted, Velvette did tell you quite a lot of things about clothes . . . a bit too much.

Maybe you should call her, but you wouldn’t want to inconvenience her, especially since she has that show coming up. She’s worked so hard, and you’ve learned to accept that she works in such a noisy and bright place. And you have thought about those co-workers of hers, but that’s not important right now.

The door bangs open and Velvette stands there irked. “I’ve been knocking.”

You grab her and ask her about the clothes. “What do you think?”

“You know what I think about your clothes,” she says. “You haven’t been answering my calls.”

“Is that the thing that keeps ringing?”

“Mother!” Velvette says, irked. “Answer my calls, and put that down! Neon is never a good color on you.”

“Then help me then!”

“I can’t help you if I don’t know where you’re going.”

You pause to think, dropping the clothe around your arms. “I . . . I found my husband,” you say. “We’re going on a date.”

 “Are you sure about this?” she says, slowly . . . carefully. “It’s been so long. What if he’s just trying to get your soul? If you finally tell me his name, I can take a look at him. I mean, there could be other –”

“No, there’s no one else,” you say with a small giggle. It’s like you’re back to being a love sick-teenager. “There will be no one else. I’ll chain him to my basement if I have to.”

 “You keep that shit to yourself.” Velvette sinks on the couch. “I don’t want to hear about this.”

“Oh sure, but when it comes to those little co-workers of yours, suddenly, every detail –”

“Mother!”

Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t leave her in the dumpster because with a snap of her fingers, you look beautiful.

Velvette crosses her legs. “I’ve never seen you this happy.”

“That’s not true.” You approach her, and press a kiss on her forehead. “I’ve had my happiest moments because of you. Maybe, you just weren’t watching.”

Apparently, Alastor and Velvette are familiar with each other. Unfortunately, they aren’t on very friendly terms. Actually, your house would say that they were on very hostile terms. It would be a drag to have to find a new house, but luckily, your daughter is an Overlord, and it seems your husband is also an Overlord.

Those two things overlapped, and when Velvette opened the door to see Alastor at your door. Well, the house couldn’t withstand their argument. Thing settle down, eventually.

Velvette is off showing her frustration on your poor neighbors.

Alastor stands proudly next to you, a constant and intimidating smile on his face despite the dirt and tears on his clothes. He watches Velvette curse and shout into the air. “Ours?”

“No, not at all,” you say, smiling as you watch your daughter. “Mine.”

Velvette stomps back, clothes also as dirty and torn. “I would rather skin myself than share the same blood with this tacky, old joke,” she says, hissing at him. “You’re not wanted here. It takes another level of pathetic to be shot while trying to hide a dead body.”

Alastor’s eyes twitch, and there’s that long, tried look on his face.

Maybe, hell isn’t so bad. You’ve got your daughter, and you’ve got your husband. A happy, little, chaotic family.

[talktonytome]

They’re sprawled in the bed of Tommy’s pick-up under the desert night sky. There are millions of stars twinkling down on them, and it makes Buck feel both infinitely small and a part of something big at the same time. He makes out some constellations, easily spotting the Big and Little Dipper, but surprisingly doesn’t have many others stored in his mental catalogue of information.

As if he can sense what he’s thinking, Tommy turns to him. His profile in the moonlight is breathtaking. He guides Buck to sit up with his back against Tommy’s chest and pulls the blanket he brought snug around them.

“Are you familiar with the Andromeda and Perseus constellations?” He asks softly, breath tickling Buck’s ear.

“Not really,” Buck admits. He’s used to being the one with all the facts, but he loves learning, especially from Tommy. “Tell me about them?” He leans his head on Tommy’s shoulder, feels the rise and fall of his breathing as he waits for him to start.

“See that horizontal ‘V’ and to the left of it, a scraggly, almost sideways ‘M’?”

Buck takes a few seconds to scan his eyes across the sky, concentrating on the brightest points, but they honestly blur together. “Um, I’m not sure, to be honest,” he says. He doesn’t feel self-conscious though. Tommy never makes him feel like that.

“Here,” Tommy says grabbing Buck’s right hand. “Let me show you,” he brings their hands up and uses Buck’s pointer finger to start tracing the first constellation. He stops at the first bright dot, of what Buck now realizes, is the sideways ‘M’ Tommy was talking about.

“This is Perseus,” Tommy explains quietly, moving his finger to the next point and then the next. “According to myth, he rescued the beautiful Andromeda from Cetus.”

“The sea monster!” Buck exclaims excitedly. “I know that one.”

Tommy chuckles, not offended at the interruption, already long-used to Buck’s random interjections. “That’s right,” he nods, smiling. He continues tracing down the middle slope of the constellation and back up to the last one. “He found her chained, as a sacrifice to Poseidon and immediately fell in love with her.”

“Wow,” Buck breathes as Tommy stops at the last end point of Perseus. “It’s beautiful.”

“Y-yeah,” Tommy says, breath catching. Buck feels Tommy’s eyes on him, and his cheeks and chest flood with warmth.

“And this one,” he moves over to the ‘V’ laying down on its side, to the right of it, “is Andromeda.” Buck hums, lulled by the deep, soothing timbre of Tommy’s voice.

Tommy continues in the same vein, tracing from the top of the first point down to the valley of the V. “Her mother was Cassiopeia, a vain queen who boasted of Andromeda’s beauty, which angered the sea nymphs, who took matters to Poseidon,” he says. “Poseidon unleashed Cetus to ravage the coast of their kingdom until finally King Cepheus went to Zeus, who suggested they sacrifice Andromeda to appease Poseidon.”

“And that’s how she ended up chained, until Perseus found her.” Tommy finishes as they arrive at the last star, the second high point of the V.

Buck realizes that it looks like an arm reaching out to the last leg of the Perseus, two lovers forever reaching out to one another. For a moment, he imagines it’s him and Tommy, immortalized in the sky, and it feels like his heart is too big for his chest.

He clears his throat, and blinks back the tears threatening to roll down his cheek. If Tommy notices, he doesn’t mention it. “Thank you for telling me about them,” he says sincerely.

“Of course, anytime,” Tommy replies easily. “You know I love teaching you things.”

“I think they may be my favorite constellations now,” Buck declares. “Not that I knew many before, but,” he shrugs. Tommy gets it, if his soft smile is anything to go by.

He twists so he’s facing Tommy more fully now and asks, “So how come you know so much about constellations? Were you an astronomy club nerd?” He teases lightly, letting Tommy take an out if he needs to.

“Uh no, actually,” Tommy rubs his thumb across the knuckles of Buck’s hand, still grasped in his own. “When I was in the army, I spent a lot of dark nights in the desert and there wasn’t much to do when we weren’t, you know,” he swallows.

“Hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to tell me,” Buck assures him. Tommy doesn’t talk a lot about his time in the army, he knows there are a lot of painful memories, and he never wants to press.

“I’m okay, but thank you,” Tommy lifts their joined hands to kiss Buck’s palm.

“So, I taught myself constellations and planets to pass the time, read the myths, and when I flew, I felt so close to them- almost like I could reach out and touch them, and it made me forget all the bad, at least for a while.”

Buck tucks aways this new piece of information, for safekeeping, like he does with every new little thing he learns about him. He gently sets it in the bright room of his mind labeled ‘Tommy’, sees it peeking out at him from the window.

“Thank you for telling me,” Buck says, a softer echo of his earlier words. He knows how precious this is, the weight Tommy’s letting him hold in his hands.

Tommy only smiles and leans in to kiss his cheek, then moves Buck to settle against him once more.

[fumifooms]

Analysis of Laios’ succubus and theories on what it means - deep dive on Laios’ desires in human connections

Laios’ succubus is a very odd incident. I have some particular interpretations of why it was Marcille, and why things went down the way they did.

We know that a succubus shows what one desires, stated in canon as “an alluring form”; yes often in a romantic or sexual sense, as seen with Chilchuck’s succubus being entirely set on looks and seduction, meanwhile Marcille’s does have a focus on chivalrous noble demeanor as well, showing romantic behavior and personality. BUT with Izutsumi we also see that the liaison doesn’t have to be romantic or sexual at all, either, in Izutsumi’s case it’s a familial bond she craves. So perhaps we can say that the succubus exploits a desire based on connection, in whichever form that takes. Marcille wants an emotional connection foremost(which is also reflected in how it’s a character she knows very well and not a stranger. Perhaps romantic.), Chilchuck wants pleasure(a simple pleasure not unlike alcohol, perhaps such a connection is free of the more risky or unpleasant parts of a relationship, he doesn’t have to worry or to think and can just let himself go. Sexual.), Izutsumi wants a mother figure that can offer her warmth and comfort with who she doesn’t have to be tough (Familial), and I believe Laios’ is platonic and centered on his desire to have people with who he belongs and can be himself with…

But Laios’ case is more complex, it has layers. The thing is, even if Laios wanted to have someone able to turn him into a monster—which it didn’t even have to be, could straight up have just been a monster with such powers—, it didn’t have to be someone he knew. You could say the succubus wanted to disarm Laios’ suspicions with someone he knew and that was nearby, but the succubus seem very direct in every other case, simply appearing with someone’s greatest appearance even though both Marcille and Chilchuck were fully on guard and the succubi knew it. "Believability" isn’t an important factor. No, his succubus being someone he knew was important. It being Marcille was important.

There’s a TLDR at the end of this if you want to cut it short. For everyone else, strap in everyone, if you don’t know me hi I’m Fumi and I made this 3k words long analysis and theorizing bc I am autistic much like the character in question and I think this is both fascinating and has a lot to say. In this I offer both platonic and romantic reasonings and I do go rather in depth in Laios’ psychology and relationships to dissect what ever could this damn cryptic event MEAN. Spoilers for the succubus chapters obviously and also the last few arcs of the series so… Spoilers for the series as a whole!

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So attraction wise it’s kinda unsure where Laios stands. He does sort of logically list off aesthetically pleasing traits of the orc’s wives, but besides that… Not really, or he never voices it anyways. He and Marcille never share like “omg you’re pretty” moments or anything. Senshi gets more compliments than either of them through the series lmfao. Maybe Laios is asexual, maybe he simply doesn’t show outwardly his attraction much or even maybe isn’t self-aware about it, regardless… Laios HAS implied preference for Marcille’s looks in the past. With the orcs, he said that “tallmen like long ears”. Laios’ shapeshifter of Marcille has her hair down just like her succubus, which by Kui is explained to be because she had it down when she revived Falin and it really marked him, though it could also be interesting to see it as his mental image of her as her most authentic self, I’ve seen it theorized that it’s a preference too but I think that’s disproven. But of course the most damning evidence itself… The succubus scene. It could have been anyone else in the party, certainly Senshi shares Laios’ interest in monsters much more already. We shouldn’t discredit the way Laios was blushing madly once she revealed she was a monster, that made her more attractive to Laios for sure, but he still wouldn’t have reacted that way if it was just anyone. The contexts are very different, but we can compare it to how Laios reacted when Lycion turned into a wolf man in front of him for instance. Laios certainly doesn’t act that way with Izutsumi- and it’s confirmed like a page later that he does see Izutsumi as a monster already. AND!! Laios starts blushing madly BEFORE she says that she can turn him into a monster- and we can safely assume that the blush isn’t out of simple fluster but out of desire/infatuation since he clearly wants her to bite him in the next page and his blush does not relent at all.

There’s something we could say about Laios’ liking of Marcille being born out of companionship rather than aesthetic attraction, on familiarity and intimacy. As members of the same party they’ve spent a lot of time together and we’ve seen that Laios trusts in her and relies on her for her skillset and avice. If Laios’ interest in her developped more naturally and gradually, valuing the familiar bond they have, I don’t see why he’d be acting all blushy and lovesick every time they interact or whatever, which is the explanation I have for Marcille genuinely being Laios’ most alluring form but him not freezing at the sight of it. That could also be a reason why he physically rejects succubus!Marcille instinctively, because something about her feels off or different (which is sorta the most direct interpretation of the scene, since Laios’ first thought is that it can’t be Marcille and must be a monster).

 [Edited in: Oh my god. The picture above is the last page of the dullahan chapter, chapter 57, a chapter that centers around Laios and Marcille’s relationship through flashbacks as Laios is on the brink of death and sees his life flashing before his eyes (he remembers how they first met, etc, which is also interesting to note that on the brink of death he reminisces about her the most). The last page of that chapter, more or less the thesis of the chapter in which we see Laios opens up about the real reason he and Falin go dungeon diving to her after them having a rough meeting but she turns out to also have an interest in dungeons, has Laios go "she starts out frowning but she ends up smiling! Wether its’s about eating monsters or about me :)”. That chapter is the one right before th succubus chapters. Laios’ most alluring form wasn’t “just” Marcille, it’s a SMILING Marcille. Which is why the succubus had such a weird and off demeanor right away (which gets knocked off once it doesn’t work and becomes a more Marcille-like Marcille)! It was only focused on smiling because it was the angle it was working from.

Oh my god it makes sense. It’s a direct narrative link, it’s as explicitly put with its story structure without Kui just stating it, besides, you know, the many times Laios says how precious her smile is to him. He’s like “I love her smile” and right next chapter the succubus is like “yes this is what he likes seeing most”. But… This also does mean that the focus might be less romantic, like Marcille’s significance doesn’t diminish, but then the alluring form might be less about her and more about the smile itself. About having a friend who looks at him like that, about someone who smiles after eating monster dishes or surpassing obstacles together… Or it can actually be so much more romantic. Like, maybe the smiling Marcille doesn’t work is because well, it’s not like Marcille, she wouldn’t just be smiling like that and behave like that (esp since his musing is about how her smiles are sort of “earned”, that she doesn’t smile right away but it’s sort of like a rewarding sight when she does). So then the most alluring form of Marcille doesn’t work because she doesn’t convincingly BEHAVE like her. His most alluring form isn’t a Marcille-lookalike, it’s her as a whole. More on the succubus shifting/switching in its approach later.]

Anyways.

Where was I. Ah yes, “It could have been anyone else in the party, certainly Senshi shares Laios’ interest in monsters much more already.” But then that’s the point isn’t it. I think Laios’ succubus being Marcille is because his wish isn’t so much focused on her, or on becoming a monster, but on not being alone. On being understood. On having others finally share his interest. On not only becoming a monster, but having someone to share that with. A trusted friend, a companion, or a lover, it matters little in my interpretation, the bedrock of it stays the same. And this is why it’d be someone he already knew instead of someone new, because it’d defeat the point, and it was maybe Marcille because she’s the most vocal about finding monsters disgusting: it’d have finally been a shift in her that she now liked monsters. And again this brings back to when he talks about her smile, when he says that she starts out unhappy with eating monsters, but ends up smiling by the end of it. Her smile itself represents that though first impression or reflexive dislike, someone can turn around and end up liking it anyways, it’s hope for his interests to be liked and perhaps for him to be lovable as well, that it’s possible to be accepted.

But I do think it would be a mistake to say that there’s absolutely no romantic interest, that it’s plainly platonic or another kind of interest misplaced and idealized in her. What we saw with the other succubus is that they 100% act in ways that the person desires, sure Izutsumi’s start attacking after a while, but that was after pushing them over the edge, and succubus Marcille wasn’t being agressive nor did she have a reason to be (even when she could have with Laios’ choking, she didn’t turn to violence, so she was 100% still in seduction mode). Ultimately the goal of the succubus is to make physical contact to be able to suck their essence, but the way they go about achieving that is tailored to the individual’s desire, Marcille’s kissed her hand and Izutsumi’s offered a hug.  The succubus can identify and embody complex desires, often subconscious ones, shown with Izutsumi’s. They go straight to it without complex subterfuge either. Chilchuck’s succubi were very direct because that’s what he wanted, Marcille’s was courtly because that’s what she wanted, Izutsumi’s offered motherly comfort and affection because that’s what she wanted, and Laios’ is Marcille attempting to kiss him. Let that sink in.

Laios why are you choking the supposed key to your heart?

Ok so the theory that Laios’ desire is to have a deeper companionship from an existing companion is pretty tame and surface level I’d say, but strap in… The way Laios reacted violently to Marcille trying to kiss him is VERY interesting. The first thing he thinks about is that she isn’t Marcille so she must be a succubus, then confusion at to why it’s her. He’s even afraid of what the others would think, feeling… Shame? With how he imagines Marcille would be horrified that he likes her that way. Fear of rejection?

But no no, what interests me is the shift that the succubus makes. It seemed very confident at first, went straight in, but when overpowered shifted the direction it was going in- shifted from a desire for Marcille to a desire for a monster Marcille and whatever deeper desire that hides. But??? Succubi did not make mistakes as to what someone wanted thus far, possibly that has never ever happened before by human records. Could the succubus truly have miscalculated what Laios desires? It’d be hard to imagine that the succubus would misunderstand what type of companionship someone wished for or what approach to take, since it’s done complex cases before too, Izutsumi being very much in denial before it & at first. In Izutsumi’s case, even with her complex feelings over it and her two souls desiring different things, the succubus did not miss its mark, and ultimately it was having a second soul for who the succubus wasn’t alluring that allowed her not to be frozen to the spot. But with Laios the succubus fully switches strategy.

The thing is that succubi don’t usually need to switch strategies, because the form and approach they take always work and always leave the victim frozen. Izutsumi bypassed this because of her two souls, but was still frozen and struggling to reject the succubus at first. And yet? Laios did. A succubus’ victim is supposed to be instantly frozen, and yet Laios acts on instinct and defensively agressive as soon as his reaction time allows. And well, it’s hard to really come to a logical conclusion as to why, since we have no idea of what rules can override a succubus’ temptation besides multiple souls… C’mon regular Marcille can’t be the winged lion/kenksuke’s desire bc of the loose hair being Laios’ mind-Marcille we’ve gone over this /hj Although, since it’s confirmed that the winged lion was watching with the dream Laios gets induced right after, maybe he’s what allowed Laios to be moving? It’s possible that it’d have frozen him otherwise, even if Laios with his full rationale wouldn’t have accepted the kiss faced with supernatural allure he might have gotten paralysis from being overwhelmed, similarly to how if Chilchuck had his full rationale he wouldn’t allow a woman like his succubus to kiss him (he’s always stayed faithful to his wife even after 4 years of separation, give the guy his earned credit). Getting somewhat offtopic, but something to say about how if that’s the case once again the theme of ‘irrational desire you crave vs what you truly want/need’ that is present throughout the manga would be reflected.

My best guess however on why Laios reacted so quickly and forcefully is: trauma. The more recent arcs with Laios suggest that Laios has deep-seated trauma over humans. He dislikes humans as a whole, that was like, pretty much stated, though perhaps exaggerated. As a kid he fantasized about monsters wiping out human towns. We know Laios has been ostracized for most of his life by others, in his village and in the military, and beyond social rejection it’s shown he got beaten in group too and it was implied that it happened regularly. But damn, disliking humans to the point of wanting to be a monster and murderous genocidal reclusive envies and all of that stuff? That is massive trauma, massive identity & belonging issues and hint at massive trust issues.

So then, the negative reaction could be because of Laios’ deep trauma with humans. Because of trauma getting activated, not due to a miscalculation on the succubus’ part but due to a contradicting dislike of the desire that makes the form inherently and straight out of the gate un-alluring, Laios’ repression being so strong that he’s able to affect his own desires in that way, or an instinctive defense response to the trigger (a human).   Even though Laios hides it well, once again recent arcs (and some other moments) make it clear that Laios still has some innate dislike of humans, which in canon is a term that all races like elves fit in. He has a bias against them, perhaps even an innate distrust of them. Who knows how aware he is of it, or how much control and will he has over it. What if Laios reacting agressively to it was his defense mode tied to this kicking in, a survival and security instinct, stopping any possibility of Laios wanting a romantic relationship with a human? Any chance of that human getting close and being hurt by it, either rejected or stabbed in the back? It’d then make sense if Laios is unaware and doesn’t understand his attraction to Marcille then, if it’s a sort of self-made blockage, denial. And that’d make full sense with how, when Marcille is suddenly a monster, then all of Laios’ reluctance is gone and he’s fully enthralled, all that it took was taking away that one blockage for Laios to be utterly charmed. It takes away the trigger element, humans, and replaces it for something safer. A desire for connections, but connections with people that are ‘safe’, people who also don’t fit in with society, who are part of his interest in monsters, who would accept and understand him. I think that Laios does desire human connections, specifically, but can’t allow himself to pursue them either from conscious or unconscious trauma, so though he does desire it he can’t accept that he does/can’t accept the relationship even if it’s handed to him on a silver platter.

Conclusion

The succubus’ shift could then be either that it switched from one wish, a wish for Marcille, to another, a wish for companionship in monster-liking, or that it stayed on the same fundamental wish, but had to improvise with the new information (that Laios is human-averse)(not bc it didn’t exist previously but bc it wasn’t manifested) to take out of the equation the thing that was holding Laios back (from giving in).

But well, the fact that the rest of the party is included does lean towards the former, but in any case that doesn’t erase all I’ve spoken about, all about how Marcille is 100% the focus of this whole thing. It could still be a bit of both. But it is interesting that he worries about the party’s reaction to seeing his succubus being Marcille, and when she shifts into monster Marcille he *still* worries about the others: “b-but what about the others?” He’s a mess, with his most alluring form seducing him, and he still has a shred of resistance in him to question how the others would react, and it’s only when she says that they’re already monsters too that he truly gives in. Is he really so afraid of ostracization? Of losing the people he cares about due to judgement? Then the mention of the others in the party can simply be something the succubus added on top to unlock another “blockage”, the same way she added Marcille being a monster on top of the basic premise of Marcille; Take out the immediate dismissal of humans first, and then the fear of loss and judgement from other friends so Laios can finally stop worrying and give in. That worry/framing I’d say makes the latter more credible, because it’s not the premise of the alluring form but an extra.

In the end, like the recent arcs kind of spell out, the thing central to Laios’ character is less so a love for monsters and moreso a dislike for humans, and this is what this puts on full display.

Laios’ most alluring form is Marcille, a human that doesn’t understand his interests and thus him, and regardless of everything else that Marcille is, that is so traumatic to him that all of his being immediately rejects it.

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Thanks for coming to my ted talk! I’ve spent so much time thinking about this and wording and rewording this same train of thought, also it’s the end of my college semester and I’m going crazy

Tldr: My personal fav theory for Laios’ succubus is that Laios really values Marcille’s smile a ton like it’s often mentioned, and that’s what his most alluring form centers on. I’ve got a ton of different interpretation on the why it’d go for a kiss? Since it tailors its approach to the person’s desires, but obviously something goes wrong with Laios’, which is really interesting because even with Izutsumi who resists because she has 2 souls so one part of her can always remain unaffected, the succubus hit bullseye on her most alluring forms. But regardless of that, I think his desire for Marcille (either her or what she represents, wether as a platonic ideal or something else) isn’t wrong/untrue perse, but that Laios has such a complex with humans and intimacy and connecting with others that his defense mode kicks in and that’s when the succubus has to shift into a different, safer desire: one that doesn’t involve humans but that still shows connections and acceptance and belonging. Also Laios realizes that it isn’t Marcille when she goes in for the kiss, which if his allure for her is based on familiarity since they’re friends and all could make sense that it’d break him away from it, or since it’s a liking based on familiarity he doesn’t freeze, or maybe it’s because the winged lion has its eye on him. I think that’s so much more likely with how Kui makes even her jokes be character moments or at least consistent, and also with the tension of the scene, than just the scene being a gag about how Marcille doesn’t mean much to Laios actually.

I think there’s a lot to be said about why Marcille is special to Laios, why her smile means something to him, etc, and I don’t think saying Marcille is special to him is exaggeration or reaching at all. Laios, Marcille and Falin are the golden trio, she’s the deuteragonist, she’s the only other character in the main party whose goal in going back for Falin is Falin and who has a bond with her and Laios outside of being coworkers, in post-canon they live together, happily, in the anime’s ending they’re emphased on by dining out all three together... I could go on.   Marcille has the benefit of being very trusted by Laios, not only with the time they’ve spent together but how she was Falin’s friends first, the person he himself feels so protective of and has been so consistently ostracized throughout her life. Marcille represents a positive odd one out that’s like, the good example of "humanity can be good and safe and warm actually".  Which is a big reason why imo Marcille is like, the secondary protag and with Falin they form the golden trio. She’s central to the story in many ways including making Laios see that humanity is worth saving and sticking with, but that’s a topic for another analysis. One such reason is how his first meeting with her went: it started really badly but ended with her coming around and unexpectedly sharing their interest in dungeons, which made him and Falin open up about the real reason they go dungeon diving, perhaps for the first time. There is just so much that goes into it but Laios seems generally very expectant of rejection: in the climax chapters after he transformed back as a human and was hiding out in the woods, pre-canon in an extra where we see him battling himself on if he should suggest eating monsters or not. But another one, the one I truly want to bring up in this post, is how genuine Marcille is! And funnily enough, how dramatic she is, and how her elf ears change position depending on her emotions. Like, let me compare her affectionately to a dog for a second, but dogs move their ears and use whole body language to communicate, and I think that part of Marcille, really strong emoting, with her ears and body language on top of her often dramatic facial expressions, reassure him. Like ok, maybe he can’t tell when Shuro and Kabru would lie to him, but Marcille? She wears her heart on her sleeve and her feelings on her whole self. And that takes away some of the stress and trauma he has with humans, explains why her smiles would “put him at ease”, doesn’t it?

I don’t remember wether I’ve mentioned this somewhere or just in my reblog linked at the end of the post, but while at first I thought the succubus going for a kiss on the lips heavily implied a romantic desire in Laios,  now I have a couple different theories on why the succubus would have gone for that approach. I think the most likely is that, if the principal allure of his succubus is her smile, the succubus is like "as long as he sees her face right up until i can suck up his blood and he passes out I’ll be gucci", so it’s not about the kiss but about him seeing her face all the while until the very last moment, so he stays charmed.

Btw chapter 34 explores Laios’ relationship with touch too imo, and we see that he is uncomfortable with touch to some degree, very unsure and hesitant and tense. I feel like it’s something more shown in a bigger picture sense with his whole struggles with humans and extras, than just in any one page so go reread the beginning of that chapter if you want I’d say, but putting a page below as example anyways. I think it’s notable that it’s a character moment shared with Marcille too, she acts sort of like a bridge to humanity with social propriety and being extroverted in many cases. In the chapter Chil and Marcille point out how awkward he is with touch, but he learns to be casual/comfy enough about touch to do healing magic with her (something that was also enforced through him having to practice magic on Marcille turned to stone, he got a lot of touch exposure and magic practice done in those days. Dammit Laios, MArcille and touch is worthy of a whole analysis of its own). She’s just like, his human comfort zone, even if they aren’t that close at least at first, besides Falin he has literally like no friends and I think that itself shows how he doesn’t fit in well socially and that it’s a significant struggle for him. But yes what I was saying here is I believe there’s setup for him recoiling from touch like he did with the succubus (due to an instinctive aversion to touch made especially intense due to the succubus’ oddness and forwardness).

I have even more theories and rambling on details on the succubus here in a reblog, but unless I want to put in some pictures of Laios repressing himself around others and such I don’t think I’ll be touching this post again in a while

[atlabeth]

greener grass | luke castellan

i recommend reading bleedin me dry before this as this is the au to that!

summary: what if you left with luke that day in the woods?

a/n: would just like to give a HUGE thank you for the massive amount of support on my luke fic!! and another huge thank you to all you angst demons because why do you want more of it. i mean i get it but why. anyways here’s a different path of actually accepting luke’s offer like so many of you said you would instantly fold lmao i hope you enjoy

wc: 3.2k

warning(s): fem!daughter of demeter reader. luke is his own warning. kind of unhealthy relationship, weird vibes all around

The stars were brighter than ever tonight. 

It was one of the first things that stuck out to you when you got to camp, and it was one of the first things that you noticed when you first got on the road with Luke. 

You’d always loved the stars. They were a rare sight coming from the city, such a sign of nature and purity that it honestly shouldn’t have been a surprise when you were claimed. You still remembered the shock that went through you when you first saw what a night sky free of pollution could be, and you still remembered the first time you risked your life with the harpies just to spend the night star-gazing. 

And you could never forget the first time you dragged Luke along with you, his wry protests falling on deaf ears though he grinned the entire way down to the beach, his hand laced in yours.  

Gods. 

Luke. 

Even the thought of him these days was enough to make your heart clench, a slight shiver run down your spine, and you weren’t fully sure as to why. 

You loved him. You ran away with him. Every path that led you here, you willingly chose to walk down. 

But you still questioned every second of every godsdamned day if they were the right decisions. Especially now, as you sat alone in front of the fire, carefully stoking it with one of the few dry sticks you’d been able to find after taking shelter—in your own haphazard tent made of vines and tree trunks and any other bits of nature you’d managed to sprout from the ground with your powers—to wait out a rainstorm. 

You decided to spend the night, deciding that traveling through the darkness was too risky after the last monster attack, but the minutes couldn’t have been creeping by slower. If being in nature didn’t quite literally fuel you, you knew you would be far more miserable than you already were.

You loved Luke with all your heart, and if he was willing to potentially throw off his entire plan just so he could bring you with him, then he had to love you the same. You owed him this, at least, to not abandon him. 

You— you didn’t want to serve Kronos, but you didn’t want to serve the gods, either. Your mother abandoned you before you were old enough to know what the word meant, leaving you on your father’s doorstep swaddled in blankets and with a note that he still had to this day. 

Demeter left your father to raise you on his own, left you to live the half-life of a half-blood, and hardly paid attention to you since. She didn’t help you when you were on the road to camp with your satyr, wondering if every bump in the night would be your end, and she let you feel worthless for an entire year before she finally decided you were deserving of her claim.

Or maybe she just finally remembered you existed. 

You understood Luke’s anger—you felt it yourself more than you liked to admit—but the path he was on was a dangerous one. You doubted you could take him off of it, but you could keep him safe, and you could prevent more damage. That was all you cared about at this point. 

How long you could walk this line was an entirely different question. 

You sensed him before you heard him even lost in your thoughts, but the snapping of twigs still made your breath catch for a moment. You kept your gaze on the fire as you spoke. 

“Anything?” 

“These woods are surprisingly bare for the time of year,” Luke said as he set his backpack on the ground, kneeling down to rifle through it. “I feel like Artemis is punishing me.” 

“Well, she doesn’t exactly have a reason to help you,” you said wryly. You gestured with your head towards the miniature orchard you’d been making at each one of your camps—one pro of your parentage was that you—hopefully—wouldn’t ever starve on the road. You’d been growing plants since you realized you could, so it was practically second nature at this point. “Fruit’s on the menu, if you’re interested.” 

Luke chuckled as he walked over, and as he plucked a perfectly ripe strawberry, he glanced at you. “Feeling nostalgic?” 

You shrugged. You wondered which of your siblings would be in charge of the strawberries with you gone. You hoped Mr. D wouldn’t give it to one of his kids. “Do you blame me?” 

“Not at all.” He popped it into his mouth then took an apple from the smallest tree you’d been able to grow. “It was home for us both, for a while.” 

You bit your lip. It still was your home—it had been for the past four years. You wanted to go back eventually, but you felt like you had sealed your coffin by going with Luke. Would they ever welcome you back, knowing you willingly followed him into the darkness?

“How long do you think we’ll be on the road?” you asked, finally looking over at him as he sat down across from you. “Not that I don’t enjoy being with you, but… it’s not exactly the safest.”

“At least another week or two,” Luke said. You tried your hardest to keep your expression even as he settled the full force of his gaze on you—you couldn’t deal with the scrutiny. “I need to make sure they’ve lost our trail. The last thing we need is a questing group on our asses.”

You huffed a laugh. “You think they’ll actually send anyone after us?”

Luke shrugged. “If all went well, camp is in total disarray. If it didn’t, they still know I’m with Kronos. I can’t imagine Chiron would take that lightly. And,” he inclined his head, “I did kidnap you.”

You scoffed. “You didn’t kidnap me.”

“They’ll probably think so,” he said, and there was something strange in his eyes. “Doesn’t make sense for you to come with me willingly.”

This again. “Luke—”

“I know,” he said, a slight smile on his lips. There wasn’t much heart in it. “You don’t have to explain yourself again.”

“I just don’t want you to think I’m not with you,” you said. “I— I am. I’m only here for you, Luke.”

His eyes softened. “You mean it?”

“I do,” you nodded. “I couldn’t just leave you.”

“I don’t take any of this lightly, you know.” His eyes never wavered from yours, the orange light flickering across his face and casting a devilish shadow. “You being here means the world. Nothing’s gonna happen to you—I’ll make sure of it.”

“I’m not just gonna lay you out to dry, either,” you said wryly. “We’ll protect each other. Like we always have.”

“Exactly,” Luke affirmed. He bit into the apple he’d seemingly forgot about, and you looked up at the sky in the resulting silence.

It felt like your mind always drifted back to camp, back to your siblings and friends and the victims of Luke’s crusade.

Your summer siblings who would come back next year and wonder where you went, your year-rounders waking up the next morning and all the mornings after with a discontented glance at your bed. 

How long would it take for them to forget you? For you to just be another lost demigod in the camp files?

And poor Annabeth Chase. Luke practically raised her, and he walked out on her without a word—you considered yourself lucky he didn’t do the same to you, and you had no idea what awaited you on your path together. 

The gods had never been one for listening, and certainly not to you, but you hoped at least one of them would look down on you. Maybe your mother could provide some of that wizened second child advice, shine her favor on you for the first time in your life.

Well. You doubted Demeter would very much appreciate your quasi-support of the titan that ate her. The thing you should have considered yourself lucky for was that your powers still worked. 

Luke brought you back to Earth by saying your name, and your gaze snapped back down to meet his. His scar seemed especially grisly in the firelight, at odds with the softness of his expression—something that felt all too rare these days. 

“What’s on your mind?” he asked. 

“What else could possibly be on it?” you asked wryly, tossing the stick you’d been fiddling with into the fire. It crackled as the flames devoured it, something so out of its realm thrust into it anyways. 

“Stupid question,” he admitted. 

“We’re practically fugitives, Luke,” you said. “We have monsters after us, and possibly people from camp. We left everyone behind. I’m with you, trust me, but— but I can’t just get over it all as easily as you.”

“And I get that,” he said. “This—” he sighed and shook his head— “you really don’t know how much you being here means to me. I thought I was going to be out on my own on all this.”

Your throat bobbed. You’d never tell him, but you didn’t even know what your answer was going to be until the words left your mouth.

“And you’re telling me that you’d still choose them over me?”

“No,” you said. “I wouldn’t.”

Luke’s eyes softened and your throat felt like it was closing up.

“Then come with me,” he whispered. “We will change the world together.”

“I can’t,” you asserted. “I can’t just leave everyone behind— I’d be leaving my entire life behind, Luke!”

“You’ll help them more this way,” Luke insisted. “The gods aren’t on our side—we’re here so they don’t have to pay attention to us. If we want anything to change for the better, we’re gonna have to do it ourselves.” 

You bit your lip, and he brushed a strand of hair out of your face. 

“I wouldn’t ask you this if I didn’t think you were right for it,” he murmured, tilting his head as he gazed into your eyes. “Your mother’s never bothered to see you before. I’m gonna make her see you.” 

“How?” you asked, hating the hints of desperation coloring your voice. 

“You’ll see,” he said. “But we’re gonna do something so big that no one’s going to be able to ignore us.” 

Memories of the past four years flashed through your mind, but the two at the forefront were ones with Luke and ones without your mother. 

He’d always been there for you, even when Demeter—especially when she wasn’t.

You couldn’t just leave him on his own. Not when he was baring his soul to you—not when his quest for greatness included it for you too. 

Not when he was the first boy you ever loved, the one who brought you back from the god-induced edge. 

“…Okay,” you said, the word feeling like an ultimatum the moment it left your lips. “Okay. I’ll go with you.” 

He stared at you for a second like he didn’t hear you, or rather like he didn’t actually believe it. And then he broke out into a grin. 

“Really?” 

“Yes, really,” you said. “Have I ever lied to you?” 

“Go to your cabin and pack your bags,” Luke said, still unable to control his exuberant expression. We’ll meet each other at the top of the hill.” 

“Right now?” 

Luke nodded. “Only a couple hours until we’re harpy feed. Everyone’ll think we’re just leaving for the school year.” 

“You’ve always been a year-rounder,” you said. “Won’t people—” 

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “No one’ll think anything of it. We just have to get out before anyone asks any questions.” 

“Luke,” you murmured, “are you—” 

Luke cut you off with a blazing kiss, the same kind of fire in his eyes when he pulled away, a slight smile on his lips at leaving you breathless. 

“I’m sure,” he whispered. “You’re not going to regret this. I promise.” 

It was all you could do to stare up at him, his grip on your arms the only thing keeping you upright for a solid moment. 

“Go,” he said. “Take your time—don’t draw any suspicion. I’ll meet you there.”

“You’re really sure?” you asked, finally able to form words. “Really really sure? About this, a— and me?” 

He cupped your cheek, tracing his thumb along your jaw. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life than I am about you.” 

Leaving camp was insane—when Luke told you of Kronos’s plans, it was even more insane—but it had always been you and Luke. He’d been such a huge part of your life, ever since you first came to camp, that you couldn’t imagine yourself without him. 

And when you looked back at him, illuminated by the fire, you were sure of at least one thing. 

You weren’t leaving any time soon. Not when you could still fix all of this. 

A yawn got the better of you, and you felt Luke’s eyes on you as you covered your mouth with a fist. 

“You should get to sleep,” he said. “It’s been a long day.” 

“It’s been a long day for both of us,” you said. “We both had to get here—and you were the one who wandered around in the woods for two hours trying to hunt.” 

“How do you know I wandered?” Luke asked, setting the apple core down on the ground next to him. “You weren’t there. Maybe I had a very respectable saunter and just came up with nothing.” 

You chuckled. “The trees speak to me.” 

“Really?” he asked, clearly amused. “And what did they say?” 

“That you’re an awful hunter,” you mused, “and you should be very thankful that your girlfriend is good at everything.” 

Luke smirked and got up to start walking towards you. “Your ever-knowledgeable trees should know that I already know.” He kneeled down in front of you, a slight smile curling on your lips. “And that I am very thankful.” 

He pressed a heated kiss to your lips, and you reciprocated, looping an arm around him to keep him close before you pulled away. 

“It’s always good to hear it,” you murmured. 

“I’ll say it as many times as you need,” he assured. Luke stole another kiss then gestured towards your makeshift tent. “But you do need to get some sleep. We’re picking up at first light.” 

Your smile wavered. “We’ve been moving break-neck for a week already. Are you sure we can’t ease up?” 

“Soon,” Luke promised. “I told you, I just want to make sure we’ve lost any tails. We can’t afford that right now.” 

He must have seen the change in your expression, because his eyes softened and he took your hand. “It won’t be like this forever, babe. You can handle it.” 

“It doesn’t mean I want to,” you said dryly, but you sighed as you squeezed his hand. “I’ll turn in if you do too.” 

“Anything for you,” Luke said with a smile. You chuckled and shook your head as you stood up, and Luke grabbed his backpack before he went over to the tent with you. 

Your meager belongings weren’t much. You’d stuffed all the demigod essentials, some outfits, and a sleeping bag in your pack before hightailing it to Thalia’s tree, and Luke hadn’t packed much more—but at least it was light traveling. 

Every night had been spent in the same way, sharing your sleeping bag as you got what precious sleep Luke allocated before you were back on the road again. You were sure the only thing that got you through each early rising was his soft touches and easy murmured words. 

You laid down, staring up at the roof of brambles and bark, and you twisted your hand just so to make them twist away from each other for a small opening. 

Luke raised an eyebrow at you as he zipped his bag up, still crouched on the ground. “What’s that for?” 

You shrugged. “I’ve always liked sleeping under the stars.” 

Again, that small smile. It could still make you melt, even now. “I remember. I just hope it doesn’t start raining again.” 

“Like rain’ll be the worst thing we’ve dealt with,” you said wryly. “Besides, I can feel it in the air. We’re gonna be fine.”

“Yeah,” he said. “We are.” 

You glanced over and he was looking at you. You patted the spot next to you. 

“C’mon,” you said. “I’m cold.” 

“Oh, we can’t have that,” he said, amused, and he huddled in next to you. You let out a contented sigh as his body heat sunk into you, and he draped an arm across you to pull you closer. 

“That better?” he asked. 

You hummed in response. “Thank you.” 

“Always.” 

You closed your eyes as you exhaled deeply, trying your best to unwind the tension in every part of your body. You weren’t used to trekking miles every day, eating rations you’d packed from camp or gas station food from whenever you ended up close to town, only having the woods and the sky and Luke for company. It was starting to wear on you, but you weren’t going to let Luke know. 

“I love you,” Luke said suddenly, breaking the silence, his breath tickling your neck. Your eyes snapped open. “You know that, right?” 

A moment passed before you murmured, “I know.” 

You could feel some of the tension leave his body, and he adjusted his position to be closer to you. 

“Good.” 

His curls brushed against your skin as he rested his head in the crook of your neck. Luke was a comforting presence behind you, like an anchor in the choppy waters you’d thrown yourself into, but it… it just felt different than the countless other times. 

But that was only natural. You were back on the road, living the way you did when you first made the trip to Camp Half-blood with your satyr. Of course it felt different than the crowded chaos of the Hermes cabin, or the beach underneath a tapestry of stars, or your own bed at the behest of your siblings. The only thing that stayed the same was the scent of nature, and the scent of Luke. 

Things were different, yes, but you knew that would happen. Luke was different, but you knew that would happen—half the reason you came along with him was because you wanted to make sure he had a lifeline, a way to come back to shore when he decided his crusade was over. 

Because it had to be over eventually. He would decide that there was no way you could beat the gods, that it wasn’t worth killing himself over some meaningless mission. The gods had never cared about you before—you didn’t know why they would care about some half-baked rebellion by two of their least favorite kids. 

You loved Luke. He loved you. You told yourself that was all that mattered, because you were in this together now. 

For better or for worse. 

[nyx-is-missing]

Graceland too

Clarisse la rue x fem!reader (Athena's kid)

Sumarry: When a certain daughter of Athena felt unappreciated her whole life, someone was there to see her.

Warnings: Sad girl hours, shitty parenthood, hurt/comfort because im no monster and probably other things wich i forgot.

a/n: look who is back!

Demigod.

Half blood.

Half a goddess.

Half a human (?).

And yet, fully a disappointment.

When Athena sent me to my Dad's house, in a golden crib, dressed in pure white dress, glowing, how the myths would expect a demigod to be, then, and only right then i was a gift.

A piece o divine love, something to prove to him, till the end of his life, that at some point, he was good enough for a Goddess.

But days after, immediately, i was just a crying baby, hungry, with a busy father, without a mother, and that only made him remember that, that was it.

He wasnt good enough for her, she wasnt staying, she never even actually even considered, he would never have that kind of honour, only a crying baby he never expected.

I wasnt a gift anymore, it actually felt like i was a insult, everything about me started to enrage him.

And oh, how did he reminded me of that every single day of my existence.

When i got diagnosed with dyslexia all i've heard whas that Athena gave me up to him because i was defective, when i couldnt sit still during classes, and exploded with all the repression i suffered everyday, suddently i was a clock bomb, when my grades where great, i was never rewarded, it was "the least i could do, to make up for the shame that i was".

I was never loved, never wanted, never encouraged, at least not by him.

The very little love i've known in my life, i own to the people who felt pitty of me.

The teachers, the neighbours who have heard the insults, the stray animals who could sense sadness, the very old grandparents who never actually saw me more than twice a year, and the people who worked at a nerby library, who let me stay past closing time, leaving only with the cleaners.

I was 12 when he had enough and sent me to camp, literally the very day school was over.

I came home to my clothes packed and him waiting by the car keys.

Being in camp for the first time, was also the very first time in my life i have ever felt....normal.

Not good, not bad, not great, not terrible, i was one, and that was enough.

I spend that summer being quiet, i sat in the corner, i didnt spoke, i didnt interrupted, i didnt had any ideas, i wasnt good enough to do that, thats what i've been told my whole life, thats my true.

It took a whole new summer for Athena to claim me.

I have always wondered if she was fighting with herself, if she had any problems having to admit that she made a mistake, with me, or with him.

It didn't matter, for the first time i had brothers and sisters, who wanted me, who understood when i wasnt the best, who asked for my graded tests, to put up in the wall.

They understood when i was hard to crack, when i insisted in being quiet, when i wouldnt share my ideas, they understood it all.

I didn't.

Each and every new summer i spent there, all i could ask myself was:

Why could i not be great like all of them?

Why im still afraid?

Why i was still useless?

Im now sixteen and the same questions still were unanswered.

And today i felt worse than ever.

It was my birthday, and i havent got a single letter from him, nothing, nothing.

It felt like he was saying i wasnt worth anything again.

Earlier, i tried to pretend nothing was happening, smiling with my siblings, finally making plans for capture the flag, finally belonging like i promissed i would try to do that year.

My plan was used, it wasnt perfect, but it was used, and surprising myself and the other team, we won.

I could see the other team confused, and Clarisse cussing us to death.

Still i was so happy, for the first time in my life i showed myself, and i worked....partially.

The happiness of victory didnt last much in me, because i saw a new brother of mine almost bursting to tears, he was young and just got claimed a few days ago, he wasnt used to that, and he wasnt supose to get hurt, but the red that painted his arms said otherwise.

I couldnt stare at him without feeling like i failed again.

Why couldnt i be perfect for once?

I took him to infirmary and held his hand while he was getting his stiches, saying sorry all the time.

I tried thinking it was okay, people get hurt, move on.

I had diner, i took a bath, i tried to sleep, i couldnt.

The tears were falling down and i knew i wouldn't be quiet.

So i got up and walked to the cabin's porch, sitting on the last step and letting my head fall to my knees.

Why couldnt i be great?

Why couldnt i be in peace with myself?

Why couldnt my mom bless me?

Why couldnt my dad love me?

Why did he had to be so mean?

I was a kid for fucks sake.

"Are you okay?" I heard someone saying, that made me freeze, that voice was not from any of my sisters, was i crying so hard i woke up someone from other cabin?

"I- yes, sorry i didn't knew i was crying so hard to wake people from other cabins, im sorry"

"You didn't, i was sneaking out to train some more, and saw you, our cabins face each other"

That was...Clarisse?

I wiped my tears and look up, she was staring at me with a almost worried look

"Clarisse?"

"Yes, why are you crying?"

She sat down by my side, dropping a sword in the grass.

"Its nothing really, im fine, you dont need to bothe-"

"No, cut the crap" she stopped me mid sentence "no one ever weeps in the middle of the night out of happiness, you are not fine and im not letting you lie OR leave until you tell me what it is"

We stare at each other, and ill need to thank the night light being bad because i probably look like crap right now, im sure my eyes are red, my nose too, im probably with a very swollen face and id bet all the dracmas i own that my hair its no better than a nest of birds.

"Go on...tell me"

I layed myself in the stairs, looking at the sky, trying to think of a way to tell everything, without sounding crazy

"I dont deserve to be here, Clarisse."

"Here..where?"

"This cabin, i dont deserve to be called daughter of the goddess of wisdom, i dont deserve being here with them, my siblings they are great, more than good, great, they will do great things with themselfs, amazing writers, architects, brilliant musicians, historians, why am i here? Im not even good, why im with the great?"

"Wait wait wait" she made me sit down again and look at her "not even good? What are you talking about? Wasnt the strategy in the last capture the flag yours? Yall won, and if somebody asks me later i've never said this but that was good, some really good strategy, i was almost thinking of asking chiron to switch you teams, you were great, more than that, and now you're here telling me you are not egen good? Are you on drugs?"

"Clarisse you dont need to pretend you care that much, and my plan wasnt all that, my brother got hurt, that wasnt supose to happen, i failed him, if i was good enough he wouldnt even be there"

She had a very confused look on her face, like she really did not knew what i was talking about.

"You're not talking about the little boy you took to the infirmary and that small cut in his forearm are you? Cause that boy was far from almost dying like you are making it sound like-" she looked at my eyes, i didnt needed a mirror to have sure how i was, i've seen myself like that too much to count, everytime my dad said i wasnt good enough, sad, lifeless.

"I failed again Clarisse, im not good enough to be here, im useless, worthless"

She looked at me and did the last thing i tought she would, Clarisse hugged me.

"Dont say that, c'mon, worthless? I've seen you fight, i've seen your plans, you dont talk much but i've heard your ideas, you are far from being useless or worthless, who the fuck told you that?"

"My f- you heard me?" I looked at her, only to see a look i couldnt distinguish "what do you mean?"

She looked at her own feet, then at her sword, reflecting the moonlight.

"You really dont know?" She looks at me "i- well, i've heard you, the same way i see you everyday, thats how i know you like morning walks, sweet green grapes, baked goods...how i know you are probably the only child of Athena who has never read "the art of war", that you walk without looking at peoples faces....its weird, i've seen you so much throughout this years and it feels like this is the first time you are actually seeing me"

"But i've saw you before-"

"Thats not what i was saying, you looked at me many times, but did you ever saw me until today?"

I looked at her blinking, and after a moment of silent i said "you like dark chocolate, and lemon flavoured soda, and sneaking out to train when the harpies take their breaks, by the way you missed that, and you always ask for double the quantity of food you eat, so when you burn it you still can eat enough, by the way i stole that idea-"

She is smilling, big, really big, i think i am too.

Of course i saw Clarisse, who wouldnt, she was strong, brave, beautiful, to me was a wonder she didnt had people running to get her attention.

She got closer to me "does that mean i can-" i stopped her mid sentence again

"Maybe..."

"Im going to make you forget that "im not good enough" nonsense, belive me"

She is smilling while kissing me, and i am too.

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

Ajax meeting a child his age from the House of the Hearth.

his family is taking a rare trip out of Snezhnaya to visit some friends in the Court of Fontaine- his parents' friends to be clear, which he finds horribly boring. luckily his mother and father are very much aware of Ajax's curious nature and let him wander around the city, provided he stay above ground and not leave the Court. he's quietly exploring, a little head of ginger hair weaving in between the busy adults and gardemeks when he catches a glimpse of someone his height scurrying away. a kid! someone like him, and not those boring grownups! Ajax grins and darts after, cheerfully yelling out for them to wait before he catches up and tugs on their wrist.

you yelp in surprise, snapping your head around to stare at him. the boy smiles at you, eyes like sun-dappled water, and sticks his hand out to shake like his father taught him to.

"Hi, I'm Ajax! What's your name? I like your clothes!"

you glance down at your uniform, perfectly tailored to your size and in the colors of the House of the Hearth. the other children- your siblings- all wore their own clothes, but you never had a preference. Mother was merciful enough to at least provide you with a wardrobe... although the coldness in her eyes told you she was merciful for little else. with tentative movements you grasp Ajax's hand and give it a small shake, and his grin widens further in delight.

time flies away as you slowly settle and become comfortable with him. Mother isn't happy when you return home past curfew.

it's years later when you see Ajax again. the House of the Hearth has changed; Mother and most of your siblings are dead, although you can't say you're displeased about the former, there's a new head of the House, a multitude of scars have formed on your body from Mother's brutal training. yet, you have remained, much to your surprise. you fully expected to die or be disposed of even after Mother was slain, but luckily Peruere- Arlecchino allowed you to stay. you observe the new Fatui recruits with her in Snezhnaya, none of them from the House of the Hearth, not this year. A yawn almost slips out of your mouth which you quickly shield with your palm, before a strong hand lightly smacks down onto your shoulder.

it's Ajax. older and taller with messier hair, but you'd recognize that coppery hair and dark blue eyes anywhere, even if they've turned from shallow waters to the deep sea. you stare at each other for a moment, then Ajax's face breaks into a huge smile as he picks up your hand and gives it a firm, familiar shake.

"I missed you."

slowly, you smile back, and the Abyssal monster in Ajax's head lets out an awed croon when he finally sees the person his host has been telling him all about.

[xztloux]

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿

↳˗ˏˋYandere/Dark Percy Jacksonˊˎ˗ ↴

▸ content warnings: kidnapping, injury, swearing, my shitty writing 🫶

▸ summary: Percy, a lonely god finds you injured in his temple and decides to keep you..

▸ A/N: this is my first time writing something yandere or dark or anything like that so sorry if it’s bad. No spell checks so stupid my be spelt wrong.

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿

Perseus, son of Poseidon hero of Olympus, god of loyalty. Well, at least thats what camp taught you.

Percy accepted godhood many, many, years ago. Now the days blur together and as the days blurred together Percy stopped looking after his temple. He has outlived everyone he loved, his mother, his friends, everyone.

He locked himself in his temple letting years, decades, pass not caring for mankind, he became selfish like the rest of the gods. That was until one day, you, stumbled into his temple, an injured demigod. His temple was overgrown with vines and the smell of sea water lingered in the air.

You felt so happy to find a place to shelter in for the night until the rain passed, and to patch up your injuries, the place looked and felt abandoned so you just stepped right in. Yet you didn’t know how much you’d regret finding this temple in the future..

You stumbled through the doors wincing in pain as you held your side, that had been badly injured from a monster. Throwing down your backpack you slid down the wall, quickly searching for the bandages. The wound caused sharp and stinging jolts of pain but you powered through.

"The rain must be rather inconvenient for you."

Percy spoke as his voice carried through the entire temple, he had been woken up from his sleep when you stumbled in. He seemed rather calm for someone who had just been awoken from their slumber. Although, his voice was rather cold and detached, lacking any emotion."You're a demigod I presume."

Not expecting to have company you practically jumped out of your skin.

“Shit!” You yelled quickly grabbing your weapon (which really hurt your side) before you realised who or rather what he was, a god.

“Sorry—sorry you just made me jump..” you muttered looking up at him while holding your side trying to make the pain go away, you had this..weird feeling about him but you didn’t know what..

“Come here.”

You were in not position to refuse such help, especially from a literal god. So, you walked up to his throne and sat down, it was a bit cramped. Percy started to look at your injuries, analyzing them as he grabbed your wrists to pull your sleeves back and get a better look. He seemed to be rather interested in the way your injuries looked. His grip was also rather tight causing you to wince in uncomfortable pain. Yet the he seemed to completely ignore your flinch.

“I’ve heeled your minor injuries but the one on your side will take another week or two, to heal fully.” He stayed almost as if he was talking past you and not to you. You nodded in response getting off his throne and picking up your bag. It was a bit pathetic really you could hardly walk.

"You should probably rest a bit more."

He spoke bluntly as he watched you struggle with walking, his tone of voice was still cold. Which is weird seeing as he was talking to you. Usually the gods have a more.. friendly tone when speaking to demigods. It was all strange. He seemed to want you to stay here.. for a reason he hasn't told you yet..

“I don’t wanna cause any trouble..” you chuckled awkwardly “like you said my side will take about a week or two to heal..”

He raised a brow as he tilted his head to the side. The blank stare was growing more prominent in his eyes now. It was as if he couldn't understand why you'd want to leave, especially while you were still injured.

"Rest."

He spoke once again as he gave a firm nod. He was telling you to stay put.

“Okay..thanks..” yoh said smiling slightly before you put your bag down he led you to one of the bedrooms in the temple for you to sleep in. It was a nice place really considering the temple Was overflowing with vines.

Percy watched you as you made yourself a bed. His gaze was still focused on you as you got yourself comfortable enough to rest. He watched you settle for a while longer. He was rather silent as he continued to stare at you. When he finally spoke up he was still stoic and expressionless.

"You're staying here."

He spoke firmly and clearly. He was ordering you to stay here... not asking you.

You nodded slightly “till I’m better yeah.” yawning slightly your energy had been drained from his healing.. your head hit the pillow and immediately you fell asleep. Percy on the other hand..continued to watch you. He wasn't planning on letting you leave his temple until you were healed. As you laid down he just stared you down.. his eyes following you as you turned to your side.. he was.. fixated on you.. even while you slept.. he continued to watch you for what must have been hours..

finally two weeks had passed, you could finally leave and make your way back to camp, over those two weeks he’d warmed to you slightly but that bad feeling was still present. Packing up your stuff into the bag getting ready to leave.

“thank you again” you smiled at him as he sat on his throne, you were great full that he had helped you.

He had crossed his legs as he spoke monotone as always..

"It was no issue."

Although his response had been short and rather emotionless, he spoke with rather clear.. authority. He sat there watching you now. Watching you pack up as you got ready to leave.

"Are you sure you are well enough to leave?"

“Yeah.” You smiled at him before walked towards the doors of the temple. you tried to push open the doors but they wouldn’t move? You’d opened them easily before but now they wouldn’t budge..

“hey um..i think there locked or something..?” You asked awkward the bad feeling grew and grew..

He looked at you as you tried to open the doors and noticed that they were.. locked.

Percy then tilted his head to the side as he spoke.

"I locked them."

For some reason his response caused your bad feeling to grow further. He didn't say anything else other than that.. He seemed to wait for you to ask why he locked the doors.

“Well could you open them for me?” You asked him tilting your head slightly, you hoped he forgot to unlock them..

"No."

His voice seemed to have gotten more monotone as soon as he spoke, his stare was still cold as ever. His response just further added to your bad feeling.. you didn't know how much longer you could stay locked in here with him.. for some reason he seemed to want to keep you here.. before you could speak he spoke again.

"I do not want you to leave the temple."

He spoke rather bluntly as he leaned back onto his throne. He didn't elaborate on that response, though.. He didn't really seem to want you to know why he didn't want you to leave.. he just seems to want to keep you locked in here with him for some odd reason.

“B—but..” you tried to argue as you looked at him sitting on his bloody throne “but—“

He cut you off before you could even properly argue by speaking once again.

"Do not argue with me.

He stated plainly as the god spoke he looked down at you as he straightened out his legs that were crossed. He seemed rather serious, almost to serious when it came to you.

His expressionless stare was still fixated on you as he continued to speak.

"You will stay here, with me.”

You were trapped with a god who’s loneliness had driven him mad.. and there was no escape..

[goodnightmemes]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON SEASON TWO SENTENCE STARTERS

❛ Duty is sacrifice. It eclipses all things, even blood. All men of honor must pay its price.

❛ War is coming, to the whole of the realm.❜

❛ I am indebted to you. ❜

❛ I'm afraid. ❜

❛ We should've just killed her when we had the chance. ❜

❛ When the king speaks, Your Grace, all hear it. ❜

❛ I find myself wondering...do we pursue the same end? ❜

❛ You must accept that the path to victory now is one of violence. ❜

❛ Did you think I would wither in your absence? ❜

❛ You only blame me because your true enemies are out of reach. ❜

❛ She holds love for our enemy. That makes her a fool. ❜

❛ I promise you, you will have all the vengeance that you seek, but you must keep a grip on your impulses. ❜

❛ Do anything but what I ask, and I'll bleed the whole lot of ya. ❜

❛ The gods punish us. They punish me. ❜

❛ This is not the time for blind accusations. We'll know who did this soon enough. ❜

❛ I will not be seen as weak. ❜

❛ Sometimes, we have to pretend. ❜

❛ I cannot trust you. I've never trusted you, wholly, much though I wished to, willed myself to. But now I have seen that your heart belongs only to you. ❜

❛ You think me some kind of monster. ❜

❛ You're pathetic. ❜

❛ We can afford no further mistakes. ❜

❛ You are mad. Mad! You cannot think that I did this! ❜

❛ You would send me to my death. ❜

❛ I would remind you only that when princes lose their temper, it is often others who suffer. ❜

❛ I see all your great adventures have done nothing for your looks. ❜

❛ For too long, I made it my aim to be of consequence. But now, I see that was the wish of a child. ❜

❛ I wish to spill blood, not ink! ❜

❛ Instead of judgment, you display impetuousness, and diminish us in the eyes of our enemy! ❜

❛ Fuck dignity! I want revenge. ❜

❛ They wish now not for the good of the realm, but for the petty satisfaction of vengeance. ❜

❛ Soon they will not even remember what it was that began the war in the first place. ❜

❛ There is no war so hateful to the gods as a war between kin. ❜

❛ I'm as fearsome as any of them. ❜

❛ You showed me grace when you could have withheld it. I'm not often surprised. ❜

❛ I cannot promise to make you happy. But I ask you: make this sacrifice willingly, for all of us. ❜

❛ If you've not yet surmised, you are welcome here. ❜

❛ Sin begets sin begets sin. ❜

❛ If dragons begin fighting dragons, we invite our own destruction. ❜

❛ Do not coddle me. Grant me at least that dignity. ❜

❛ Sadness is a condition of motherhood. ❜

❛ You have as much claim to grief as anyone. ❜

❛ Tales take on a life of their own, like weeds. Unless they are tended. ❜

❛ Always coming and going, aren't you? And I have to clean up afterwards. ❜

❛ You will die in this place. ❜

❛ I have been, at times, unkind, but never untrue. ❜

❛ You must go before you are discovered. ❜

❛ Your mother must've been very beautiful. ❜

❛ You should've burned them when you had the chance. ❜

❛ Is there no honor left in this world? ❜

❛ This is a better death than a traitor deserves. You should thank me for it. ❜

❛ I will not be made to look a fool in front of my allies and enemies. ❜

❛ I believe it is a sin to deny your appetites. They are what make us fully alive as mortal men. ❜

❛ If I may be so bold, you have not seemed yourself of late. ❜

❛ I've barely had the hours to grieve one tragedy before suffering the next. ❜

❛ I've come to know the face of tortured rest well enough. ❜

❛ Do you think simply wearing the crown imbues you with wisdom? ❜

❛ You have no idea the sacrifices that were made to put you on that throne. ❜

❛ What would you have me do? ❜

❛ Do simply what is needed of you: nothing. ❜

❛ Where have you been, these last days? You vanished without so much as a word.❜

❛ There are those who have mistaken my caution for weakness. Let that be their undoing. ❜

❛ If you die, all is lost. ❜

❛ The horrors I have just loosed cannot be for a crown alone. ❜

❛ Do you take issue with me? ❜

❛ I can sit still no longer. I must act. ❜

❛ I did not think they would be so eager to die. ❜

❛ I need them alive. I came here to raise swords, not corpses. ❜

❛ Will you goad me? When your bread and shelter now depend on my pleasure? ❜

❛ I mislike feeling powerless. ❜

❛ I do not know my part. The path I walk has never been trod. ❜

❛ What you cannot do, let others do for you. ❜

❛ There is more than one way to fight a war. ❜

❛ I do not wish to stand alone. ❜

❛ Has your loyalty faded? Or does it flourish only at night and flee the sunrise like a moth? ❜

❛ What we must do now is... terrible. ❜

❛ This is not war. These are crimes against the innocent, that any upright man would repudiate. ❜

❛ And once again, in the name of power, it's the weak and the women who must endure. ❜

❛ Was it worth the price? ❜

❛ I caution you, boldness is one thing, but overconfidence… ❜

❛ You have the impetuousness of youth, and its arrogance, neither of which is to be desired in a king. ❜

❛ Have the indignities of your childhood not yet sufficiently been avenged? ❜

❛ To claim a dragon, you must also be prepared to die. ❜

❛ You can't possibly still be angry about this. ❜

❛ You weren't going to bid me farewell? ❜

❛ It is your way, is it not? When something does not please you, you run. ❜

❛ There are older things in this world than you or I, or living memory. ❜

❛ You are not the player, but a piece on the board. As am I, for that matter. ❜

❛ It is my fault, I think, that you have forgotten to fear me. ❜

❛ It was worth the risk, no matter the outcome. ❜

❛ The enemy without may be fought with swords. The enemy within is more insidious. ❜

❛ Do you take me for a fool? ❜

❛ Oh, you make an art of provoking me. ❜

❛ Stop wasting your life waiting for something that'll never come. ❜

❛ I'm sure you did your best. ❜

❛ They will underestimate you, and this will be your advantage. ❜

❛ If the gods call me to greater things, who am I to refuse them? ❜

❛ Nothing is clean here. ❜

❛ The order of things has changed. Why not embrace it? ❜

❛ It does seem to me that you've made rather a mess here. ❜

❛ I don't need their love. I need their swords. ❜

❛ Mind your tongue. ❜

❛ I mislike all of this. ❜

❛ It seems you need us more than we need you. ❜

❛ So, what was the fucking point in all this then? ❜

❛ It's best to live, I think. However you do it. ❜

❛ You are not alone. ❜

❛ Will you prepare to face such an enemy? Or will you stay here and make yourself easy? ❜

❛ If you hinder our efforts through sloth or unreadiness, I will see you hanged, and your body fed to the dogs in the street. ❜

❛ You've arrived just in time to see my new army. What do you think of it? ❜

❛ This place will have you barking at the moon. ❜

❛ We must all make our sacrifices. ❜

❛ 'Tis no longer our rule that is threatened, our very lives. ❜

❛ Perhaps all men are corrupt and true honor is a mist that melts in the morning. ❜

❛ The dragons dance, and men are like dust under their feet. ❜

❛ We march now toward our annihilation. ❜

❛ There will be time enough to see which one of us is a coward. ❜

❛ There are omens here for those who seek them. ❜

❛ It's all a story and you are but one part in it. You know your part. ❜

❛ I am meant to serve you, and all of these with me, until death or the end of our story. ❜

❛ Be strong. You know you are just. ❜

❛ History will paint you a villain. ❜

❛ I am at last myself, with no ambition greater than to walk where I please and to breathe the open air. To die unremarked and unnoticed and be free. ❜

❛ You speak as if from a distant dream. ❜

❛ Come with me. ❜

❛ My part is here, whether I will or no. It was decided for me long ago. ❜

[xan-izme]

Dubble life 11 (ATSV x Reader x Batfam)

Summary: You can't do this alone

Part 10, Part 12

You felt stressed. The anomalies were popping up in Gotham and in New York at the same time. Of course, Aaron and Miles are there to handle things. But you no longer want their help. You don't want them to have that responsibility anymore. None of the burden.

And with Bruce. He hasn't talked to you. You haven't seen him in a few days. You felt like you have messed up everything. That he now hated you because of what you said.

But in truth. Bruce was just sulking behind closed doors. He's raised 4 boys so far, and he likes to think he's done a great job. Well, not a great job but an okay job. But with you, he feels like he's failing with every move he makes. He knows what you said is true.

He has the papers to prove you are his daughter. But he's missed 16 years of your life. Your uncles were more like fathers to you than he will ever be. And it hurts him. More than he would expect. And what hurts the most is that was the true you. Not the act you have been putting on for a few months. What he saw was a child struggling to morn her mother.

He would know.

But it must have been harder on you. Because you only had her. And now she's gone. And now you're stuck with him.

It was another night of kicking anomalies through portals. Preventing some minor crimes and avoiding Batman.

You sighed as you sat on top of the Wayne Mannor roof. The sun should be setting soon. You used to watch the sun set back in New York before beginning your day as spider woman.

You sighed as you pull out your phone.

Jason was looking for you. He needed to speak to you about, well everything. If he was to keep your little secret. Then he needed to know what the hell was going on. What's with the portal he saw you kick that one villain in, what was in the suitcase. Why are you being so secretive. It's suspicious, and he can't trust you fully. And he needs to trust you a little bit for this to work.

Jason enters your room, but you were nowhere to be seen. He assumed you were out with Damian.

If your gone. . .

Jason smirked to himself as he got the idea to snoop around. He walked around. He was Immediately at your bookshelf. He sighed in disappointment when he only sees education books. Books about physics and geology. Technology.

"No one is this into school." He pauses for a moment before correcting himself. "Tim. Tim is."

He grumbles as he tries to see anything else he can find. He circles around to a different side of your bed. He gasped as he finds a secret stash of books.

All fantasy fiction and history books Manga too. Harry Potter, Hunger games, Art of war, Game of thrones, The Odyssey, The lightning theft- the whole damn Percey Jason series. Heros, Gods and monsters of Greek Mythology- Wow! you're really into Greek mythology.

He hums in amusement and put things back. He Looked up to your desk and picks up a little picture of you and your cousin. He takes note of how you reacted when he mentioned Miles knowing about you being Spider woman. Probably the angriest he's seen you.

Your protective.

He sets the picture down and walks into your bathroom. Nothing out of the ordinary. A lot of hair products. He opens the mirror cabinet. Painkillers. Tylenol, ibuprofen. First aid which was, empty.

He pauses for a moment. Something doesn't look right. He closes the mirror cabinet. Then opens it again. He repeats the process before finally taking a look at both sides of the mirror. He knows this manner inside and out. practically memorized the blueprints. Both old and new.

He decides to try and pry the mirror cabinet open from the wall. And there, a secret stash within the wall. He grabs the small duffle bag. He opens it up to see your suit. and a Polaroid picture of a woman. Your mother he assumes.

He lets out a small sigh and puts it back and closed the mirror cabinet tightly. He decided it was time he goes back to looking for you. Yours still in the manor he knows that much. He saw your shoes and window open. He searched the manor but could not find you. He stepped outside to see if you were at the barn.

But when he looks up. He sees a glimpse of a head. Someone was on the roof.

Jason hurries back into the manor and makes his way onto the roof.

You stare at the video playing on your phone. Sniffling a little.

"Mom, stop. I mean it!" You laughed as you try to back away to a wall

"Nope. not happening!" Your mother pointed the water gun at you and started shooting

"AH! Mama!" You tried to run but tripped and fell on your face.

"Pfft-" Your mothers laugh could be heard along with yours

You continued to solemnly watch the old video. Not noticing Jason a little far behind from you. Listening and watching you. You looked so sad it was unconfortable.

But he felt, a little guilty. Just a little bit. Because if he thinks about it you have been through a lot. Jason took a few steps closer and cleared his throat to signal his presence.

You jolt at the noise and glance back and see Jason. You quickly look away and wipe your tears.

"What do you want."

Jason stood there awkwardly before taking a seat next to you. You stare at him with your tired eyes. Jason sighed as he looked back at you. "Look, kid. I know I'm a jerk. I'll be lying if I said I didn't mean to. But can you blame me? You're not telling me anything."

You stay silent before looking away. Contemplating weather, you should tell Jason the truth.

"You can't do this alone kid. Trust me, it won't work if you do this alone."

You let Jason's words sink in. Slowly realizing. He was right. You were scared, and truly didn't want to go through this alone. And this was Jason, so it should be okay, right?

"Do you believe in the multiverse?" You finally spoke up. Your words made Jason look at you a little confused.

"The multiverse, like different universes. Timelines and stuff."

You nod. "Yeah, something like that. . . it's real. The multiverse is real. And, in every universe, there is a Spider Woman or Spider man to protect and keep balance. This universe is mine to protect. Those bad guys you see me throwing through portals. Those are anomalies."

Jason listened in closely. Half of him believes you, the other half not really. But he's all ears.

"Anomalies from different universes, brought by portals that were ripped due to mankind tempering with forces that were beyond our understanding."

You talked about everything. About the society. About Alchemex. And the whole cannon situation. A fate every spider hero had to succumb to.

It felt nice to let everything out now, like some wight was lifted off.

Jason believed you. Well, he kind of does. He only believes you because, well it's you. And he doesn't see the use of you lying about something as crazy as multiverses.

But the fact that you were hiding all of that and you were planning to carry the burden alone when still in the process of mourning the loss of your mother. It concerned him a bit.

He could tell Bruce. This could be a family effort. You're a vigilante, so are they. The whole bat family can help. But you have already expressed that you can't let anyone else know about the multiverse thing you have going on.

For safety reasons you claim.

---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---

A/n: sorry, this is a little short, but I do want to warn everyone that I will be a little late with the next few chapters because they will be longer and might be traumatizing. so, yeah. Thank you for reading

@huening-ly. @mariadvorak, @superherosdystopiafreak, @chelluv, @houseissofine, @esposadomd, @greyeyedmockingbird, @1-800-daisy, @c0c0-puffsxxx, @arthurswife, @h0rr0r-10ver-69, @josiepapen, @natashanice165, @amber-content, @mahbeanz, @azurewisteria, @seraph101, @skepvids, @lara20aral, @iwasveronica, @jackrabbitem

[raisedbythetv89]

Never not thinking about how Buffy has to beg and plead for Angel to not let the sun kill him when the first was tormenting him with what he’s done and that fact that soul or no soul he still wants to hurt Buffy and he concludes the only way he won’t is to kill himself….. and the only reason he didn’t dust was the storm and he was fully gonna let her watch him die again because he couldn’t face what a worthless piece of shit and a monster even with the soul he really is (and then suddenly they’re back together even though Buffy said they couldn’t be together anymore like RIGHT before all this so essentially Angel threatens to kill himself and then suddenly he and Buffy are back together 🙃 i hate it here)

Riley was gonna let himself die rather than become even weaker than Buffy while she again begs for him to stop being a whiny attention seeking toddler and grow the fuck up and do what he needs to do so he won’t DIE (my words not hers obviously lol) and when that doesn’t work and she still doesn’t “pay enough attention to him or need him enough” in his eyes while she’s ya know being the slayer, raising her sister and taking care of her sick mother…. He cheats on her in a way that again threatens his own life and the lives of everyone he could easily kill in her life if he were to be turned and when THAT doesn’t work he threatens to leave forever unless she forgives him IMMEDIATELY

And Spike who is the only one to actually die after she again is pleading you don’t have to do this “no there’s still time you’ve done enough” because Spike knows Buffy doesn’t deserve “good enough” Buffy deserves everything, she deserves to be free of the hellmouth even though that means they can’t be together and he’ll die

Two man-children who threaten to kill themselves because they can’t handle what they’ve done or that they’re not as strong as they think they are and drag an overburdened and traumatized young woman they had no business even dating in the first place along for their self-destructive ride vs a man who literally already sacrificed everything he was to become someone she could love without guilt, sacrificing everything he fought to become, for her and her beloved world she loves so much and fights so hard to protect.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO MEN WHO THREATEN DEATH VS THE MAN WHO ACTUALLY DIED AND THE VASTLY DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THESE THREE EVENTS 😭😭😭

Spike dying BECAUSE he was worthy of Buffy’s love rather than because he wasn’t like the two who came before him