#mouth feels like it's a home to ants | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luminiamore · 5 months

Text

STRETCH.

yoga instructer choso x black man-eater reader

a/n: this is heavily inspired by jennifer’s body (・_・ヾ

also 1000 followers WHATT? (つ✧ω✧)つ

no branding included in this fic actually, so yk what that means. part two in the future asf (ﾉ´ з `)ノ

warnings: murder, reader is a succubus who eats boys & the girls she sleeps with (not choso), reader has fangs, big dick choso, he’s shy, he do be eating ass though, sloppy eater, whiny choso, pussydrunk cho, breeding asf, soft dom choso but like (￣ω￣;) subby, he makes reader submit, just nasty, also frens with satosugu

masterlist

man-eater

Noun

man-eater (plural man-eaters)

An animal that attacks and kills humans for food, such as certain tigers or sharks; any animal that consumes human flesh. quotations

A cannibal; a human that eats other humans. quotations

(by extension, slang) A seductive dangerous woman, often readily taking and discarding male romantic partners.

One thing you loved about the 21st century is that there was never a shortage of people. They were everywhere. Crawling around like little ants and fucking rapidly like rabbits. You never ran out of your source of food, your source of life.

Your species have been around for a long time. You don’t remember how you came to be, but when you first opened your eyes, you were in the center of hot molten rock from the middle of the northwest Pacific Ocean. Tamu Massif, the world’s massive underwater volcano, just 1,600 km east of Japan, was your home.

Your first feeding, your first kill, happened off the coast on the Seychelles beaches about two days after you were awakened. Your brown body was paling by then, but you didn’t know why. At first, you didn’t know what you were, but you knew you were weak and physically unable to move at some point. While still beautiful, your eyes lacked any life in them. You needed energy.

In your defense, they came to you. The wife did, more specifically. You were under the sun a lot; it was the only thing that could at least give you some life. You suspected she and the buff man with her were here as tourists, a honeymoon vacation spot perhaps. But, even after just being introduced to this world, you knew what you preferred. You were selective.

Her husband wasn’t all that interesting to break, but her...

She was gorgeous, downright angelic. And you had such a strong desire to fuck her. And weirdly enough, your mouth started savoring at the thought of eating her.

It seems you hadn’t known just how insatiable you can be, just how powerful you really are. It wasn’t on purpose; you swear it wasn’t. But you know what they say about firsts. She was addicting. How soft she was, how perfect her body fit with yours. She taught you how to feel, how to let go. You were so high on pleasure.

So, you can imagine your distress when you wake up to her unmoving body on top of your naked one. When you shift your eyes to the left, you notice her neck, specifically the missing chunk of it. You lick your lips and immediately grimace at the saltiness. You pushed her body towards your side with a huff.

At first, you felt quite hysterical. You ran toward the mirror and saw something that caused you to gasp.

Was that blood?

Red spots were all over your face, and your mouth area was even more adorned. Your locs are messy, cascading down past your hips. It wasn’t difficult to figure out what occurred while you were intoxicated with pleasure.

Your face is grim as you grasp onto the skin of your forehead, groaning. Flashes start to appear in your mind. A glimpse of her face, body, her pussy. Flashes of you leaning into her neck, flashes of her neck being torn apart, and flashes of her body shaky under your firm hold.

Oh.

After about ten seconds had passed of your staring in the mirror, you accepted that this woman was now dead. You had killed her.

But.. you weren’t overwhelmed by dread. Not upset or guilty that you completely depleted this woman’s life force. A strong feeling coursed through every nook and cranny in your veins, and you felt rejuvenated. The eye bags that had formed beneath your wispy eyelashes were absent, you could tell that much despite the amount of blood splattered on your face.

You had a liking for this feeling. Your strength was apparent, and your skin was brighter and clearer. You experienced such a state of euphoria. And well, you would die if you didn’t get more. Literally and figuratively.

You didn’t make an effort to conceal the body; you felt no need to. You felt compelled to go somewhere, but when you looked in that direction, all you could see was the moving water. You escaped into the ocean at the exact moment, moving as fast as you could away from the small island and following the intense pressure calling out to you.

Since that incident, you’ve stayed in Japan. A black woman with unnatural beauty stalked through the night, undeniably being the center of attention. You were the talk of everywhere you went; people often compared you to a witch, a vampire was the funniest one you’ve heard. You were unusual and feared a little by the public. Although you were beautiful, every step you took was infused with a sense of danger and mystery. Death, even.

It’s common for people who left with you to never be seen again. In the event that they were, they weren’t the same. People had this inexhaustible attraction towards you. They wanted to know more, they tried to discover the secrets you held. But unless you choose them, all people could potentially get out of you was a meaningless glance.

The more you kill, the stronger you become. You became aware of this shortly after your second kill, and you could soon hold off on feeding for weeks if you needed to. Though you’ve grown to realize that you’re superior to a particular breed, you were never the type to go crazy with power. Many of your species, you could tell, were famous and had the most influence on the public.

Take the city’s most well-known billionaires, such as Suguru Geto and Satoru Gojo. Their ownership of many corporations and businesses allowed them to have multiple connections with dangerous parts of Japan, such as the Yakuza. However, they also contribute significant amounts of income to the city annually. Their support of the most popular things in the population was indisputable, making it impossible not to like them. It wasn’t because they wanted to; they weren’t that generous, but because they loved power.

Passing them on your stroll, you could tell they were similar to you. Their scent was unlike that of humans, and their energy and absolute pheromones were ridiculous. They were looking for prey that night, you could tell by how potent it was. And perhaps if you were human, you would have fallen for their charm when they called out for you.

They had plans to make you their meal for the night, but unfortunately, their hypnotic effect on humans didn’t work on you. That’s when they realized that you were like them, and well, they were both amused.

“Aw, how cute,”

“Bet you would’ve tasted real good too.”

To this day, you don’t know if Suguru was talking about eating you or your pussy. Even so, you became a close friend of the pair from that moment forward. There were days when they would pop up to your apartment unannounced and grace you with their antics. It was more of a domestic setting, not sexual, but they enjoyed being around someone who deeply understood them.

Today was one of those days. Your peaceful nap ended when they entered your bedroom and plopped down on your bed, discussing the last feeding they had. Satoru’s voice reaches an enthusiastic pitch,

“She was so bendy, Suguru! She bent over backwards, and she was still taking my dick,”

The long-haired man shifts his eyes carelessly towards his best friend, who is resting on your thighs and intensely focused on something on his phone. You were oblivious to the words spewed out by Satoru, fighting against the sleep you had gotten before they arrived. The latter raises a brow,

“Hmm,”

“She told me she takes something called yoga classes? It’s a shame she’s dead now, she was fu- Wait! Hey, Y/n?”

Your response is a hum as he shifts his head to your face and speaks with a sly smile on his lips,

“Do you take yoga classes?”

You were not very fond of modern activities, so you rarely indulged in them. You rarely attempt to learn about human life and what they do for fun or work due to that knowledge. Their values never weighed down on you, and as a result, you lived a peaceful life. When you glanced down at piercing ice eyes, the confusion was evident on your face,

“What’s..yoga?”

Suguru gave a response instead, knowing that Satoru would give you a misleading description of the exercise,

“It’s just an activity humans do to calm the mind and stretch the body.”

“I see. Does it bring pleasure?”

“Maybe, they seem to be very satisfied afterwards.”

You twist your head in thought, interesting. Satoru pokes at your shoulder, and when you glance down, he shows you his phone screen. Plentiful pictures of women in various positions, very flexible..positions. Was she holding herself up on her forearms?

“Where can I find this? I’d like to.. learn.” Your own words caused you to startle yourself, and now you’re completely awake.

Since when?

You hear a breathy laugh coming from beneath you. “Oh yeah? Didn’t peg you as the type to like playing with your food.” His fingers move to find the nearest yoga studio by your building, despite his taunting, and he feels internally happy when he discovers it’s one he knows.

You flick his head, giggling while he grunts a bit. “It’s interesting. I didn’t know the body could shape itself like that.” In all honesty, he presented you with some pictures that made you grimace a little.

“There’s a place called Kamo’s Zen Sanctuary a few blocks from here. Of course, Suguru and I are friends with the owner.”

The mentioned man hums in assurance,

“We can send a car to take you tomorrow afternoon if you’re up for it.” He wiggles his brows as he waits for your response.

As always, they kept their word without fail. Before the car arrived the next day, a large package was delivered to your door with a flimsy note that said, ‘You’re welcome.’

It’s probable that you only needed one yoga set, but your friends wanted to give you a wide array of choices to pick from. Ultimately, you opted for a lightweight black set. When you looked in the mirror, you really saw how the clothing accentuated your body, especially your ass. Oh, you liked this.

Stopping outside the studio, your mind suddenly became well aware that you didn’t know how human establishments operated. You took pleasure in the decorative pieces that this place had. Cold air, a Buddha statue spilling water steadily in a bowl, and soothing violin music immediately welcomed you upon arrival.

Despite not being familiar with the environment, you still entered it with grace. You would have left if it weren’t for the tall, handsome gentleman who sneaked up on you from behind. His silent demeanor made it impossible to hear him, and when you saw his face, you indeed weren’t disappointed.

“Do you need help, miss?”

Smooth was how his words came across. When you faced him, his face was smooth, too. Your body vibrated, your fingertips were slightly twitching, and your mind was reeling in the fact that you were suddenly very, very hungry. Although it’s been a week since you last had anything to eat, you’ve already found your next prey.

Him. The quite pale man with a pair of beautiful, solemn eyes. The dark line across his face is a perfect fit for him, and it’s hard not to notice. His plum lips are almost puckered, but they look so soft you want to sink your teeth into them. You want him.

You eye his exposed biceps in the black shirt clinging onto his pale skin, “Yes, I want to learn yoga. How can I?”

Even as his ears flush, he maintains a steady tone and unbothered expression when addressing you, barely making eye contact, “I can get you started with that. My name is Choso. I’m an instructor here. Come with me, miss.”

You nodded without reason because the man had already turned and started walking to a different room. You’re staring at him, more so the way his muscles ripple with every step he takes. There’s an intangible desire on your part to fuck this man, bite every inch of his body until he was withering in pleasure.

Choso seemed shy, but you liked that he was nervous and fidgety around you as you faced him in a larger room with a mirror covering both ends. There were no lights on, only candles surrounding the black walls. The echo from the fish swimming in the small pond could be heard throughout the space.

His back could be seen through the clear glass. As you looked around, you also noticed red mats and..blocks? This place was strange. You lick your lips when he speaks again,

“This is where we do the practice. I sense that you’re new to this. Do you want to start with a small stretch first?” His hand reaches behind him to pick up a thin mat, his low purple eyes flickering between the object and you.

“Of course, Choso.”

Choso has a sweet scent, almost like a bakery. The moment you walked inside, his scent infiltrated your nostrils. The sheer proximity of his body when he guided you into what he said was the downward dog position made you feel like you were floating. You felt hot, even on fire, when he touched you. The fabric you wore was so tightly held onto your body that it felt like he was touching your bare skin.

He was exerting pressure on your lower thighs, making them conform to the position. When you glanced in the mirror, he seemed so focused on what he was doing. You swear your pussy had a heartbeat. His gaze catches yours,

“Head down, miss.”

You listen wordlessly, your locs making small thumping sounds when they hit the red surface. Maybe Choso could feel the heat and craving radiating off of your body. Maybe he couldn’t. It’s impossible to read his thoughts, no matter which way you look at it. His face remains blank after he says ‘good job’ for maintaining the position after a minute. If he can feel your body heating up like you can, his expression doesn’t make it known.

His body, however, does. More so, how red he gets, as if he’s heating up too as if he’s experiencing the same shit you are. Could he be?

Choso tells you about the next position he’s going to put you in,

“You’re a little tense on your outer hips, so we’re gonna do something called the Pigeon pose.”

You’re almost about to ask, ‘What’s that?’ but he shows you before you can even part your lips. Your right leg is flat against the floor, twisted in front of you almost perfectly, while your left leg elongates towards the back. Choso observes the difficulty of your arms in holding you up, so he goes in front of you to help. The firmness of his hands on your hips reflects his strength, especially when he presses down slightly to stretch the area.

“It’s okay. Your legs are supporting you. You can relax a bit.” Can you, though? With the way, he’s pressing on an area that’s suddenly very sore to you. His voice is scratching some primal part of your brain. You think it’s impossible.

“Am I supposed to be doing something while in this position?” You intentionally lower your voice to make him look at you. He does, just not in the way you want. That stupid, blank expression is still on his face. You rub your lower body on the mat, shivering a little as it barely touches your clit through the fabric.

“You’re supposed to breathe. Just be.” He speaks softly against your face. You were fond of his closeness, the sensation of his breath being directly on your skin.

“When will this feel pleasurable?” You exhale. You honestly weren’t seeing any interest in human activities again. You were only getting a slight burn on your legs, and that was due to the grip Choso still had on you.

You don’t know what it is you said, but you watch Choso intensely. You can see his eyes widen for a split second before returning to their original state.

“Pleasurable? You came here.. for pleasure?”

There was a slight hiccup in his voice at the end of his question. You got him, you think. It shouldn’t be much to get him under you now. He taps his long fingers on your hip twice twice in an attempt to make you shift to the other leg, causing you to jump.

A wince escapes your lips as he releases his grip on you, “I hear that this practice can give that. Is it true?”

You finally caught Choso’s eye on you. In fact, his gaze remains on you even after he observes your body shift its position. You believe that you like his eyes on you. He lowers himself to your level to help you still your body.

“I suppose it depends on what kind of pleasure you’re looking for, miss.”

You hum softly as you breathe him in once more today when his palms rest against you once again. What did he mean by that?

You reply, but your gaze never leaves his, “What kind of pleasure can you give me, Choso?”

Choso was quiet, reserved from the public, and honestly tried his best to avoid any eye contact with you during your entire time in his studio. But he only has so much self-control, as did you. The only conversation was a series of intense squelching sounds as Choso sucked on your pink bud obscenely.

“Oh fuck- Just like that, Cho!”

He moaned fervently against your brown lips, pulling your hips against his face and keeping your cheeks apart with his large grip. You were on your knees, back shaped into a perfect arch. He was not letting go, squeezing his tongue down your wet pussy lips. Your body shakes as his tongue licks a stripe through your folds, circles all over your puckered hole, and drool slips onto the thin mat.

“Ah-!”

Your cries made Choso even more red in the ears. He thought he was pretty dull, not exciting or engaging to talk to. He didn’t pay much attention to his looks, girls always found him too.. weird. It wasn’t something he expected to happen on his day. He knew who you were before you came in, Satoru had the pleasure of letting him know you were on your way. But the minute you came into his place of work, he found it very hard to resist you. That’s why he didn’t make any eye contact.

The truth is, Choso was deeply attracted to you and found it terrifying.

Choso’s pretty head was puzzled by the fact that he was responsible for the angelic sounds that emerged from your plump lips. He couldn’t fathom that he was on his knees licking the most sensitive parts of your body. But, he welcomed it, letting himself sink into the essence of you with a feeling of overwhelming desperation.

“Want more. Come on, miss. Give m-me more, please.”

How much more can you give him? He already has his face deep inside of you. You understand what he is trying to say when he inserts two fingers into your wet mound, dragging them in and out and carefully grazing the spongy spot that makes you thrash around. You immediately clench at the intrusion, feeling the overwhelming pleasure burn in the pit of your stomach.

Choso is eager to pay attention to all parts of you but doesn’t know where to focus. Every part of you tastes so celestial, he wanted you to give him everything at the same time. His finger-fucking is swift, and your mind is entirely absent when the man pushes his tongue into and out of your ass simultaneously. Choso was so turned on that his precum was making a stain on his shorts from how much he was leaking.

His moans vibrated against your lower lips, and you swore in all your existence that you had never been eaten so nasty like this. He was going to make you cum so fast that you couldn’t even be mad about it.

He can feel it. The fatness of your pussy is pressing against Choso’s two big fingers, forcing him to use more strength to maintain his rapid pace. Your wetness creates a beautiful clear puddle under his attack, and he can feel it. Could you also do that on his dick? Milk his cock over and over and over again until he couldn’t cum anymore? Choso has been an atheist his entire life, but he almost prayed for this one favor.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Ouuu fuck! I’m g-gonna-”

The man doesn’t respond at first, only presses into your G-spot harder and more forcefully, as if he has a point to prove. He circles at your clit, wrapping the twitching bud around his lips, and sucks hard. What does it for you is the drunk whispers vibrating against your core of ‘Please, give it to me. Just cum. Fuck, it’s so wet.’

Your stomach tightens, your hands grip the carpeted floor in front of you, and your mouth releases pornographic moaning as cream pours out of you and onto his waiting tongue. Choso is clamoring for your taste, and as a result, he moans out with you. You have a strong desire for him, but for some inexplicable reason, your body is unwilling to eat him. Instead, you never wanted to fuck a person so badly in your life.

Choso’s close proximity makes him ignore your little whimpers while rubbing his blushing, leaking tip up and down your sloppy cunt. When did he even pull his dick out?

“Bet it’s so w-warm inside. Ah-” When his flushed tip accidentally slips in, and he gets a taste of the warmth you bring, his breathy voice cracks. You’re whining now. Pushing back on Choso, sucking his wide cock in your greedy hole, feeling impatient to force him down far enough to rip your pussy.

Choso has the most beautiful moans you’ve ever heard. His voice is deep, but his tone gets so high in pitch when he’s like this. It’s so whiny it makes you cream. Literally. His voice cracks, just like his resolve does when you slide all 7.8 inches of him in so that your hips are flush against his pelvis. The feeling of his dick inside of you is so good that you’re so close to begging.

He thought he could have some self-control, but he barely kept it together when he was just eating you out. Your drooling pussy convulsing and contracting against Choso, against his cock, is a sign that his soul has reached a part of heaven. He couldn’t stop himself, really. He couldn’t do anything but relentlessly fuck you at an inhuman pace.

“So good. So good. Pussy’s so fucking-” He cuts himself off with a loud groan when he witnesses your soft brown cheeks being spread apart for him, revealing a magnificent view of your pussy being stretched beyond their limits. Giving him a beautiful view of your messy pussy creaming the more his dick repeatedly punches your g-spot again and again and again.

You’re wailing. You’re trying to find something to hold onto that can bring your mind back to reality. Choso makes it so hard. He is becoming more and more clingy to your liquids, and his hips are vibrating violently against yours, making you believe he might be bruising your cervix. You love it. You love every speck of pleasure flowing and rippling through your body. You love everything he’s giving your body at this moment.

“I-I know what you- Oh fuck. W-what you are,”

Huh?

The thought is almost pushed out of your head when he angles his hips to get deeper inside of you. Wet and dirty sounds of his balls hitting your clit are filling the air of the stretch room. Choso is rambling now. Your pretty pussy’s attempt to milk his cock until there was nothing is making him feel delirious. It just feels so good, so safe, so wet. God, you were so fucking wet for him. He continues his fucked out declaration,

“A-And I can tell y-you don’t like c-commitment, but please. Please let me k-keep you satisfied for all e-eternity.” His rough and insatiable pounding sends your mind to distant places while he pleads.

With whatever coherent part of your brain is still there, you cower away at the proposition. Shaking your head rapidly in a ‘no’ motion. His harsh thrusts are practically felt in your womb, pushing your hips away when you scramble to grab something stable to hold you on the floor.

Of course, Choso doesn’t let you run away like that. He quickly brings your waist back against him, making sure that his cock is nestled in the deepest parts of your warmth for a moment before starting to thrust again. You’re forced to take it all, and he doesn’t even need to say a word to prevent you from trying that shit again.

Still, you whimper out,

“Chooo baby, I can’t- Ahhh! Can’t l-let you do that.”

Choso only frowns at the evident lie on your lips and pushes your entire body harder onto the mat. A loud gasp escapes your lips when you unexpectedly squirt all over the thin object due to the sudden pressure you feel on your cervix. He was so deep.

Choso doesn’t slow down; he only moans with staggering moans when your pussy sprays its juices on him. In fact, he goes faster.

“P-Please, miss. I can make you feel this g-good whenever you want. I can- Fuckk. I promise I c-can always fuck you deep like t-this. I’ll worship you. I’d do anything you- anything you ask, just please. L-Let me.”

It seems that Choso understood precisely what you needed, a bit of prodding and persuading. He’s sure that if someone happens to walk into the lobby, they’ll hear exactly what’s going on due to the loud squelching you both are making. But why does he want that? Why does he want everyone to know that he is the one making you cry out so pretty as if he were your god? Despite your brief resolve, you give the handsome man exactly what he asks. You.

“Yes! Oh fuck yes! M’all yours, Cho! M’cumming- Shit. Shit. Shit. I’m-”

The sounds you both made at the same time were too much for your lovemaking to drown out. With your dam breaking, your pussy twitching open and closed, and your tight pussy covering his heavy cock with splashes of clear liquid and your sweet, sweet cream, Choso gets a taste of heaven. He cums with you. His hand grips the sides of your hips so hard, even through your dark skin, that it might leave bruises. Your perfect pussy squeezing a heavy load out of the man so much that he was shaking when he felt it overfill your cunt. Fuck, you’re too much.

Heavy breathing and a light pap sound coming from his cum dripping out of your poor pussy could barely be heard by both of you. Choso was in such a headspace that his mind needed to take a breather to gather what the fuck he was going to say to you in a few minutes, his dick softening inside you. You were feeling the after-effects of being fucked so good, buzzing in your right ear, spasming on a cock that’s still buried deep inside of you, and aches on your lower body.

You start to pull off of him, thinking that’s what he wants, but he immediately grabs your hips and keeps you still, still not getting over the euphoric feeling of your pussy on him. Choso realizes something, and at this moment, he feels the most embarrassed he has ever felt. He managed to get a girl's commitment without even knowing her name.

“Um.. miss?”

You barely let out a whisper, “Yes, Cho?”

“… What’s your name?”

There’s a beat of silence. Please don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me. Choso is pleading that you won’t hate him.

His thoughts were disrupted by a melodic laugh and a honey voice, “It’s Y/n, cutie.”

Y/n? He finds that name so.. pretty. Almost as pretty as your body. Almost as pretty as the sight of your tight pussy creaming up and-

Well, now he’s hard again. You won’t mind if he pleases you a little more, right? After all, he made a promise, and Choso is never known for breaking his promises.

tags🏷️:: @hatake05

tags🏷️:: @thickbihhwitdagapp

check out my store :D

1K notes · View notes

rottiens · 20 days

Text

BAD DECISIONS┊RYOMEN SUKUNA

wc. ౨ৎ⋆˚ 1.9K

tags. ౨ৎ⋆˚ 18+, modern au, all characters are adults (21+), marking and hickeys, enemies to ?, bully sukuna, none of your friends like him but he is around because he is yuuji's older brother, fem reader, dirty talk, praising (atta girl), fingering.

In late September, a few weeks away from embracing autumn, anyone would think that the weather is starting to cool down, that the unbearable sun is lowering its intensity for the poor mortals who walk under it like ants fleeing from a child with a magnifying glass, but in Yuuji's apartment it's much worse. The air conditioner died months ago and none of the brothers have bothered to fix it, making it a challenge every time the group of friends gathers at the Itadori's apartment not to die from a heat wave.

At least for you, who have been accused of being more sensitive to heat than any other average person.

Too hot to be outside on the balcony (exposed to the hot air, to Maki's cigarette smoke), too hot to be all inside the apartment (piled up like sardines on the couch).

So all your friends are very unevenly distributed. About five are inside the apartment watching the soccer game while the rest are outside trying to cool off every time the warm air blows.

You are uneasy, this is the third time Nobara has commented on it. An hour ago she stopped your foot tapping against the ground with a gentle kick from the sole of her shoe and now she comes back and does it a second time.

"Stop it," she says with a frown, a few shades more annoyed due to the heat. Then she laughs softly downplaying her apparent anger. "What's wrong?" she asks softly, examining you.

Nothing, you lie the first time she asks. And you lie to her again now. "Seriously, what's wrong?"

You hide half your face in the glass to take a long drink of the now warm soda that is beginning to taste salty. Raising your head, you can't escape in time this time, Sukuna's eyes look you up and down from across the floor. He wears the same look as a wild animal, his hair disheveled from the heat, gray pants and compressed black t-shirt tell you he's barely home from the gym. You take another quick drink that hurts your dry throat.

Sukuna shakes his head to the side indicating for you to follow him, then hides down the hallway to continue his route.

Your fingers squeeze the glass full of water droplets that slip through your hands from time to time. You feel Nobara's gaze piercing your temples, so you decide to look at her.

Your mouth opens, but nothing comes out of it. So you try again.

"I'm going to use the bathroom. It's too hot," you lie (again) with wrinkles in your forehead, then take an unsure step forward to move away from the balcony but her fingers squeeze your forearm gently stopping you from your escape.

"Is it Sukuna again? Is he bothering you?"

Fuck. Guilt shot through your chest, your teeth were sinking into your lip.

"I- no. I told him not to bother me, I'm not interested in the same annoying games from when we were six."

You sound convincing, enough for Nobara to let you go shaking her head in approval, along with a look that assures she's willing to fight anyone for you.

You slip out of her hand and behind the couch where the group of men are talking and yelling and chewing nachos too loud for any normal chewer.

Your heart beats fast, guilt, adrenaline and excitement is a dangerous cocktail that pushes you to search for Sukuna through the narrow corridor, lurking in the corners of the half-open doors. You were going through the bathroom when an unexpected force pulls your body inside, the force, now materialized as Sukuna, smashes you against the door without gentleness.

"Fuck you," you complain at the impact, wrinkling your nose.

"I might," Sukuna retorts, dark eyes set on your lips.

You clear your throat and fix your back, dry your hands on the denim of your shorts and force yourself to look him in the eye.

"This has to stop."

"What?" Sukuna asks, dangerously close to your mouth. His hands are around your head over the door preventing any escape and his cologne mixed with sweat numbs your senses.

"This," you point a finger at each other's bodies, between the little space between you two. "This! You, flirting with me..."

"Brat."

"Stop."

"We've done more than flirt."

He is smiling again, that smile that signals danger. That smile that shows his sharp fangs that could cut through the darkness. You clear your thoughts with a breath of air from his scent.

"It was just a kiss," you defend yourself with a hint of indignation, flashes of the scene of you on the stairs of Megumi's house detonating in your head.

"You gave me a handjob."

"Jesus."

Unfortunately, you did. You squeeze your eyes shut pushing out the memories of that bad decision along with a throbbing headache that threatens in your temples.

"Sukuna..."

He pulls your chin with two fingers, the action makes you snap your eyes open focused on his gaze and long lashes, your skin burning under his touch. He keeps looking at your mouth.

"I like it when you say my name," he confesses.

"Sukuna..." you can't help but call him back.

"Yeah, just like that."

Sukuna traces the line of your jaw with his soft lips, the shadow of a beard tickles your skin, his nose stumbles against your flesh as he creeps up to your ear painfully slow.

"I thought I'd return the favor," he murmurs, patting your pussy covered by the thick fabric of your shorts and you wonder if even through all the fabric he can feel the heat emanating from your core.

"You don't have to..." you stutter.

"You just keep calling my name."

Expert fingers remove the button and undo the zipper without wasting time, then push your panties aside and what he stumbles over makes him laugh unfunnily at the line of your throat.

"All this for me?" You try to stop him, have an excuse with which to defend yourself when you tell your version of events to your friend and push his hand away while at the same time moving your hips towards him. "This pussy is so wet just for me, for your bully? That's what you call me, isn't it?" he laughs again, the vibrations tangling in the back of your ear and in the wet strands of your hair. You swallow and think about Nobara, what she will say, how guilty you feel and the pain in your temples that is starting to become more noticeable.

Sukuna carefully slides a long finger between your folds making a mess of your pussy juices. He flicks your clit a little in tight circles, you spread your legs wider to give him permission.

Your head hits the door with a soft sound exposing your throat to him, the heat of Sukuna's body drowns you, increases the heat of the room in the form of steam and you feel you can't breathe as he keeps kissing, biting your neck, the piercing ball on his tongue is cold and slippery. One finger pushes inside your slippery pussy easily and a second follows.

"No marking," you remind him, gasping as he adjusts his wrist to go deeper and increase the pace.

Sukuna's kisses on your neck distract you, his tousled hair tickles you. His open mouth leaves kisses on the salty skin of your throat and he sucks and licks and bites at it in a way that makes you wish he made his mouth be somewhere else on your body.

You gasp weakly, his fingers moving in a different way inside you, the squelch of him fucking you hard against the bathroom door bouncing between the tiles and into your skull, all you can hear is his chuckle and how wet you are. Your body slips through the door but a hand on your waist forces you to stand closer to his body and it is only then that you realize how hard he is against your thigh.

Your gazes connect and he gives you that lopsided smirk. "There you go, attagirl."

You squeeze around his fingers, your arousal spilling out around them. You're panting like a dog, your mouth open and Sukuna has to force himself not to bend over and suck your tongue.

Suddenly someone tries to open the door, jiggling the doorknob and knocking desperately. "Hey!" Nobara. Your eyes widen, you try to stop Sukuna but his fingers keep abusing your poor pussy, maltiling a spot inside you.

"You're going to cum," Sukuna murmurs into your temples. "Bite me if you have to."

No! you move your lips without getting the word out, alarmed.

"You will. You are going to cum so hard on my fingers while you fantasize that it's my cock making you feel good," he whispers in your ear, biting it, the ball on his tongue rolling all over the lobe of your ear.

"Hey, baby? Are you there?" Nobara insists.

You can't. You want to run away from there, you want to resist it.

"What do you want, brat?" Sukuna raises his tone of voice.

Sukuna's body embraces you, he is everywhere, the girth of his cock presses against you and you can't help but remember that day. How wet he was from his precum, from your spit, you don't want to think about how big it was, how thick and how good it would feel stretching you.

"Open the door, Sukuna. If you have her there with you..."

You think you might cum with just the tip throbbing inside you, you've seen it before: it's thick and turns red just before he cum. Your fangs sink into his skin marking him, cumming silently as you think about how it would feel to finally have him sinking into you.

"I'm taking a fucking shower, if you want to see my dick just say so."

"You're disgusting." And you are more so. This can't happen again.

As soon as Nobara moves away from the door you push him off your body to go wash your face, the water cools your cheeks and neck but does nothing for your clouded thoughts.

"You..." You look at him, but he's licking his fingers, his pierced tongue licks them up and down and your eyes without permission go to his hard cock where there are now little wet spots. "I hate you."

You are ready to leave but Sukuna wraps his hand around your wrist and pulls you close to his body.

"You can hate me all you want but that pussy of yours….” he smiles.

"Shut up."

You don't know how much more you could take of his dirty mouth without your face exploding with heat, you pull your arm and manage to escape his grip. Looking at him one last time before you open the door.

"Not even a kiss goodbye?"

"Ugh!"

You slam the door shut, trotting into the kitchen where you open the fridge and take out a bottle of water, which you immediately bring to your dry mouth. As you close the door, as if it were a ghost Nobara is waiting for you on the other side with arms crossed, making you choke on the water and immediately cough.

"Where were you?" She asks with a judging look examining you up and down.

"I was... looking for a charger."

"You've got to be fucking with me."

"What?"

"The hickey on your neck, smartass." Fuck! "You could at least pretend. Your fucking zipper is open, really, Sukuna?"

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

#wr #wr.sukuna #divider by adornedwithlight #sukuna x reader #sukuna x you #sukuna smut

551 notes · View notes

messylustt · 1 year

Text

౨ৎ ‧˚

𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨 (𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥) — 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠

miguel o’hara x fem!reader. 5.4k words.

fic masterlist previous part pt five next part

angst??; violence; speaking of injuries — damn y/n is in the wars; cute little worried, mad miguel; since I’m going from y/n’s perspective to miguel’s a few times it’s may seem a bit jumpy, hope that doesn’t annoy anyone — miguel gives you shocking news. and as you go to head home you end up in a different universe, meeting some spider kid, leaving miguel and the rest of them to worry and search for you.

You walk with purposeful steps. Passing by spider variants, who spare you confused glances at your almost pissed off expression. Though when one would meet your gaze you’d smile—genuinely, which made them think that a certain person was the target of your anger.

“Oi y/n— wow.” Hobie jumped down in front of you, observing your furrowed features. But yet again they would smooth out upon seeing a face you didn’t want to punch. Pavitr and Gwen were close, coming to stop beside Hobie.

“Hi.” You greet them.

“You look stressed as hell.” Hobie comments, making you forcibly chuckle.

“Not at all.” You quickly say, before veering to pass them.

“You alright, y/n?” Gwen asks.

“I appreciate the concern. I do.” You say, walking backwards. “But I’m in a bit of a rush. And annoyingly this can’t wait.”

“Careful!” Pavitr warns as you quickly skirt past a table your hip almost hit.

“Thank you!” You shout back as you rush towards a certain office that made the lines return to your forehead.

You push open the door, stalking towards the centre of the room. At the outburst Miguel looks down. He looks away knowingly, upon seeing you and your angry expression.

“Fired?!” You exclaim up at him. He doesn’t spare you a glance, continuing to tap and swipe at different screens. “I’m fired?!”

You hold up a scribbled note that said ‘You’re fired as of Tuesday’.

“You still have a day.” Miguel comments calmly.

You scoff in disbelief. “What the hell did I do?! …and can you come down here, it’s very hard yelling like this!”

Miguel sighs, but drops down in front of you. He looks bored. And that seems to piss you off more. You step closer. “You wrote me a note?” You’re still in disbelief. “You didn’t even add the reason.”

“Believe it or not that was purposeful.” Miguel monotonously says.

You narrow your eyes. “Why?” You try to lower your tone, taking deep breathes.

Miguel just tilts his head, observing your antics. You blink. “So, you’re not gonna tell me?”

He doesn’t say a thing, confirming so. You’re beyond annoyed and in all honesty what have you to lose? You’ve already lost your job, for a reason you’re dying to know and your adrenaline enduced veins seem to think that pressuring him is a smart idea.

You step closer, but realise that your “intimidating” gaze is doing nothing, his towering height making you feel like an ant. You dart your gaze around, stopping on a swivel chair, you snatch it, quickly standing on it, so that you’re somewhat of a millimetre taller than him.

“We made a deal.” You say, finally feeling a little more in control now that Miguel is looking up at you.

“And now its over.”

“That’s not how deal’s work.” You say.

“Oh.” Miguel hums. “That’s a shame.”

Your nose twitches as you hold back a snarl. Miguel is an infuriating man—it’s just that simple.

“I’m not leaving, not until you at least give me a reason.” You say, trying to appear threatening. But being in front of a man who looks it 24/7 is really dampening your confidence.

He continues to look up at you and your heaving chest, and face that’s tightened in annoyance. He sighs. “It’s better this way, y/l/n.”

“And why is that?” You try again to get the ‘reason’ out of him.

“You can go.” He turns, beginning to head back. You stare after him, mouth opening in disbelief at his complete dismissal.

You go to get off the chair, feeling your entire being deflating. But your foot seems to miss the step down as you begin to tumble forward. But before you can hit the ground a web is attaching to your hand, and yanking you into a chest.

Miguel’s breathing is displayed in that quick moving chest. One hand wrapped around your waist, while the other—that had shot the web—has ahold of your wrist.

Your eyes are wide at the fast movement of it all. “You want to know why you’re fired?” Miguel begins. “Because you’re accident prone. One trip and you could mess everything up.”

You meet his gaze. “That’s very assumptive.” You say. “You and I both know that I haven’t “fucked” anything up.”

“Yet.”

“Yet?” Your brows furrow. “You’re betting on a ‘yet’?” You step away from him, getting your wrist out of his hold. “You made a decision based on your own wrong assumptions.”

Miguel’s expression has finally changed, actually displaying an emotion—anger—but still an emotion. He grabs the bottom of your shirt, pulling you harshly back to him as his breath fans over your face.

“How do you know my “assumptions” are wrong? Huh?” He snarls.

You glare up at him. “How do you know they’re right?” His grip tightens around the material of your shirt, but you continue. “Right now, if you were to tell me that you hated my work ethic, or that I was genuinely shit at my job, I’d leave—maybe a bit upset—but I’d understand.”

Miguel’s eyes are darting everywhere they can.

“But you’re giving me nothing.” You’re blurting everything you can think to say. If not the job back, then you’re going to get your reason for it being gone. “Just say, you hate the way I work.”

You stare at him. “Please.” You’ve somewhat calmed down. Your face softening to one close to simple pleading.

Miguel gulps, his chest slowing but his heart beating on overdrive. You were so close, looking up at him with a genuine pleading look. You just wanted closure.

His hand hadn’t let up its grip on your clothes, part of him not wanting to let go.

“I thought you said you had to have a reason to fire me.” Your voice is back to your normal tone—one that always made Miguel feel comfortable, safe. Which is odd considering you wouldn’t be able to protect him or practically anyone here. Physically at least.

You sigh, realising that there’s no budging Miguel. It’s him, for crying out loud. You were stupid to think you could get anything out of him that he didn’t want you to know.

You reach your hand down, grabbing his wrist and pulling your shirt away. You back up, hands up in an almost surrender—saying ‘fine, I’ll go’.

Miguel doesn’t like the silent sentence for some reason, his expression morphing back to anger. He again swiftly shoots a web to attach to your stomach, yanking you forward again.

“Can you stop that?” You ask, once you’re directly in front of him again. “At this rate put a leash on me.” You mutter. You’d given up. And all you wanted to do was pack up and leave. Why was he dragging this out?

“Would that work?” He whispered. And now through your annoyed haze you noticed how close he was…again.

But the drop of his tone made your breath hitch, different from before. He leans closer, red eyes fully focused on you. “Would it?” He asks again.

“Would what?”

He tilts his head, licking his lips. “A leash.”

Your eyes widen, as you choke out your answer. “That was…a joke. I was kidding.”

“But would you stay out of trouble if you had something constricting you?”

Your mouth opens and closes. He had slowly been pulling you closer by the attached web, his claws dancing across the orange before they reached the material of your shirt again.

“Es eso todo lo que tengo que hacer, chaparrita?” (Is that all I have to do) He darkly whispered.

You focused on his words. You had wanted to understand Spanish before, but now you’re dying to know. And luckily, in your own time you had been studying—having stolen your phone back.

“No, O’hara.” You begin. “Todo lo que tienes que hacer es ser honesto.” (All you have to do is be honest.)

Miguel stares at you, brows furrowing for only a moment. He looks taken aback. And from his underlying impressed expression, you know your words had made sense.

“When did you learn that?”

“Why are you firing me?” You counter.

And for once, Miguel finally gives in, up to a peak with his emotions. “Because of the fucking attack!” He finally says it, or more so ‘exclaims’ it.

You pause. “The attack?”

He hisses in annoyance at himself. “I’m supposed to be helping people—the multiverse. That was the whole point of this.” He mutters out.

“I’m not following… How did I mess that up?” You ask, staring at him in confusion.

“You didn’t. Which is beyond annoying, because I’d much rather a reason where you were the problem.”

“That’s…very flattering.” You mutter, as he continues.

“But the reason why I’m firing you is because…” he clenched his jaw, closing his eyes for a moment, seeming annoyed to even think of saying it.

“Because you got…hurt.”

And of course it goes in one ear and out the other. Because in what universe does that make sense. You stare at him, blinking too many times.

“What?”

“I’m not saying it again.” He says, stepping away from you.

“No, no. What?”

Miguel is turned away and cursing at himself. Why did he admit that? He should have just said you were shit at your job.

You finally assess his words, maybe not the underlying meaning, but his general words at least. “I’ll be honest…” you begin. “I thought that was in the job description.”

Miguel turns. “What?”

“Getting hurt.” You say. “I mean maybe not that extreme considering I’m behind a desk, but I knew the risk.”

“You knew you might get hurt if you took this job?” He reiterates.

“Yeah.” You breathe. “But you’d understand. I mean you are spider-man.”

“Yeah…” he drifts off. “But you’re…”

“A weak human?” You ask.

He looks away, frowning. “I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s fine.” You say. “I can’t lie and say it isn’t the truth.”

“It’s not—“ he says extremely quickly before he extremely quickly follows with: “—entirely true. You’re also annoying.”

You raise your brows. “So, I’m an annoying, weak human who just got fired?” You slowly ask.

Miguel presses his lips together. “It’s bet—“

“Better this way.” You cut in. “Yeah, I heard you.” You sigh. “Thanks for telling me the reason.” Your tone has shifted to one Miguel really doesn’t like. You sound…disappointed…distant. And why wouldn’t you be? Of course Miguel expected this but for some reason it just didn’t settle right in his stomach.

But before he knows it you’re opening the exit door, giving him a small smile and a nod, saying: “Sorry for the…outburst.” Before you’re shutting the door and leaving.

;;

“Where is she?” Miguel is asking Peter, thankful for once that he didn’t bring Mayday.

Peter scratches the back of his head, pretending to look busy. Miguel begrudgingly turns to Hobie, raising a brow. Hobie looks him up and down before scoffing. “You’re the one who ‘fired’ her, remember mate?” He sounds annoyed.

Miguel swiftly shifts his gaze to Gwen. “She still has a day. Where is she?”

“She decided it was best to leave today.” Gwen says.

“How’d she get a wristband?” Miguel asks, narrowing his eyes. He slowly shifts his gaze back to Hobie, who is sitting, legs up on a table.

“Hobie.”

“Yes, boss?” Hobie asks, praying innocence.

“Why?” Miguel asks, gritting his teeth.

Hobie stands, walking up to him. “Why do you care? Ya clearly seem to think she’s an annoyin’, weak human.”

Miguel holds the bridge of his nose. “Did she tell everyone that?” He mutters out in question, more so to himself.

“No, she didn’t. I ‘appened to hear it.” Hobie says, making Miguel look back up.

“So she just left?” He asks, his uninterested expression cracking a fraction—only a fraction.

“That is what you wanted.” Pavitr chimes in, twisting one of his gold bands.

;;

Miguel breathes, heading back to his office. Once inside he taps his wristband, opening up a portal. He pauses. Why was he even going? You’re gone, home, safe. Just like he wanted. Why is he messing that up by seeing you?

But he’s already through the portal arriving outside your door. You lived alone so he didn’t have to worry about scaring your family. He knocks on your bedroom door, and waits. And waits. And waits.

Look, patience isn’t something Miguel is very good at, so he twists the handle, opening the door to your room. He narrows his eyes, seeing you not inside. Sure, you could have easily gone out, but as he scouted the room, he began to realise that you hadn’t been in here for a while. Dust had formed on your desk, while your bed stayed untouched and made.

“Lyla.” He calls, her appearing quickly by his shoulder. “Was y/n here?”

Lyla computes the room, scanning for footprints or any of your fresh DNA. “No. She hasn’t been here for a while.”

Miguel goes to turn back to his portal, when he steps on something. Looking down, he sees a bracelet by the very edge of the door. Picking it up, he asks Lyla again.

“Ah, she was here, recently. Only in the doorway, it seems.” She answers.

Miguel goes to pocket the bracelet but realises that he technically doesn’t have any, so he instead puts the bracelet around his wrist, walking back through the portal.

;;

“What?” Peter voices his surprise. “But she was just heading home. She’s not there? And hold up, why did you go—“

“Hobie what wristband did you give her?” Miguel interrupts, turning to Hobie. “One of your faulty ones?”

Hobie rolls his eyes, swinging his guitar strap around his body. “It was a normal one, a spare I found.”

“And you’re sure she’s not just out?” Gwen checks.

“No, I’m not, Gwen.” Miguel sarcastically states. “You really think I didn’t check?”

“Do you think she could have gone to another universe?” Pavitr asks.

“Why would she do that?” Peter asks, brows furrowed.

“Dunno, maybe she wanted to rebele.” Hobie comments. “Wouldn’t blame her.” He shoots this at Miguel, who narrows his eyes.

“I called you all here to find her.” Miguel says. “You seem to have been around her a lot. You’d have more of an idea then any other spiders.”

;;

While the spider-men and woman were all wondering where you had went, you were wondering the exact same thing.

You had been walking down the street, trying to face any form of familiarity. But nothing stands out. This wasn’t your home. This wasn’t your universe.

You keep touching your wrist in hopes to magically find the wristband there, but no, it’s still gone. Where? You wanted to know that too.

You watched as people chatted and ate, many at the city’s cafes and restaurants. It was growing darker and as you looked up you felt a single drop of water land on your cheek.

You manage to reach a bus shelter, taking a seat. Where the hell were you?

“Miles!” A man’s voice calls.

“I’ll be back, dad! I just…forgot something…at school!” Miles answers.

You shift your gaze from the falling sky to a cop and his assumable son, who is rushing down the street. You go to shift your gaze away again when you catch sight of something falling out of the kid’s bag. Narrowing your eyes you just catch what looks to be a spider-man mask, before Miles is quickly shoving it back in.

You then hear a ruckus some way down the street. A shop…being robbed. Then it clicked. This ‘Miles’ was running to the scene, because he was this universe’s spider-man.

You quickly stood, covering your head with your hands, preventing some of the rain from soaking your hair as you rushed to follow. Maybe this spider-man was apart of the spider society, and had a wristband. Whatever the outcome, you felt better that you had somewhat of a plan.

;;

When you reached the shop you chose to wait outside, knowing it not smart to just run into danger.

The fight is finished rather quickly, with a few broken windows and thrown food, but no one from the looks of it got hurt.

And as you began to follow Miles—having spotted him heading to an alleyway—you realise how creepy you would seem just following this kid who doesn’t know who the hell you are. But it’s too late to backtrack because he’s swiftly turning and shooting a web to attach your hand to the concrete wall.

You gasp in shock as the kid quickly runs up. “I’m sorry, I thought you were—“

“An evil dude, yeah don’t worry I started to think so too.” You chuckle, slowing your breathing. Your hand had smacked pretty hard against the wall, and as Miles cuts the web you realise that your hand is partially red and bruised.

“Sh— I am so sorry.” He said, spotting the slight injury too.

You wave him off. “That’s alright. I…uh needed to ask you something.”

Miles stands straighter, probably expecting you to point him in the direction of more danger. “You are the spider-man of this universe, right?”

Miles pauses. “Wait, you know—“ he shuffled closer, whispering. “You know about the other universes?”

You nod. “I was wondering if you had a wristband.”

“A wristband?” Miles’ confusion makes you deflate.

“So you don’t know about that…” you sigh, your plan dissolving away.

“Know about what?”

You smile. “That’s alright.”

You begin to step back out of the alleyway, placing your hands in your jacket pocket. “Nice job, by the way.” you gesture to the hung up robber.

“Thanks.” Miles shrugs, still looking thoughtful.

But as you near the street, you suddenly glitch, hitting against the wall, hissing in pain. Shit, or course. You were in a different universe…without a wristband.

Miles quickly reaches your side. “You’re not from here.” He mutters. He then loops his arm around your midriff, your body continuing to slightly glitch. “Jeez, I didn’t think that would hurt as much.” You mutter.

Miles brings you back into the alleyway, resting you against the wall. “What universe are you from?”

“Earth 1–“ you glitch. Then finally you stop, resting your head against the wall.

Miles kneels by you, still deep in thought. “Would you know a girl named Gwen Stacy?” He suddenly asks. Almost as if he had been waiting to ask someone this exact question.

You quickly meet his gaze—through the mask, of course. “You know Gwen?” You ask

“You know Gwen?” He repeats back.

“Yeah, she’s apart of the spider society.”

“The spider what?” Miles asks.

But you continue. “How do you know her? Wait.” You pause. “You’re Miles right?” You double check, not wanting to seem creepy and stalker-like.

“Yeah…” he drifts off.

“She spoke about you.” You smile. “A lot, actually.”

Miles decided on taking his mask off, either deciding on it being fine for you to see, or knowing that you must know what he looks like already. You can spot a faint blush on his cheeks at the mention of Gwen mentioning him.

“How did you get here?” He asks.

“It had to have been from the wristband.” You mutter. Before speaking louder for Miles. “There’s these wristbands that can transport you to different universes without all this glitchy mess.”

“Wow. Do you have one now?” He asks, looking to your wrist.

You shake your head. “Somehow I lost mine. And to be honest, I didn’t plan on coming here. I meant to go home.” You then get reminded of the fact that you got fired, and you mentally narrow your gaze at a non existent Miguel.

His reason still didn’t make sense to you. But you did get one. And you weren’t one to backtrack on your word, leaving like you had said.

“I’ve helped send a few spider…people back to their universes.” Miles begins. “But that was using something kingpin—this villain, created.”

You rest your head back against the concrete wall, the rain growing louder and louder, and heavier and heavier. “How are you gonna get home?” Miles asks.

You sigh. “I’m really not sure.”

;;

Miguel has gotten Lyla to try and retrace your steps through the different universes. But there’s a lot. So, even though it’s been a few hours she’s found nothing as of yet.

Miguel didn’t know how to feel about the two different options of your disappearance. You could have either gone on your own—chosen to, like Hobie had said. Why you would ever do that, Miguel would love to know. But would that make it his fault if something happened?

He knew you loved your job. And he had fired you, for selfish reasons that he covered up with, it being ‘in your best interest’. To Miguel it was, but you wouldn’t see it that way. He’s sure you don’t.

But then there’s the alternative that you had gotten taken. Miguel barely dove into that theory, his hands turning to fists so tight that he cut the skin of his palms through his suit, his claws tainted with his own blood. He almost felt bad for whoever had the terrible idea to take you.

If you thought what happened to those masked men in the office was bad, then you’d be horrified to see what he’d do to this supposed captor.

But right now it seemed to be worse—the not knowing. He didn’t know if you were happy, scared, living your best life, or…dead.

“Lyla!” He exclaimed turning to her and her tiny computers.

“No matter how many times you yell my name, it’s not gonna make me find her any quicker.” She sing songs.

He groans, going back to pacing. Then he hears the arrival of Gwen, Hobie, Peter and Pavitr. Turning, he doesn’t like the looks on their faces. “What is it?” He asks, crossing his arms.

Gwen looks down. “We found out that…she didn’t go voluntarily.”

There’s silence besides the almost ‘loud’ gaze of Miguel. “What was that?”

“There’s been talk through majority of the universes, about these…guys.” Peter begins.

“And when one showed us a left behind mask, it was the exact same as what those men that infiltrated HQ wore.”

“What do you mean by ‘didn’t go voluntarily’?” Miguel asks, stepping closer to them all. “How do you know that?”

“It’s more ov’ a guess.” Hobie says. “From what people were sayin’, those “guys” never let someone get away alive.”

“Y/n did.” Gwen adds, looking solemn.

“So, you lot came here, with one piece of information saying that she’s either gonna get killed or is already dead?” Miguel calmly asks.

But his ‘calm’ tone isn’t necessarily…calm. It’s more like the calm before the storm.

“It’s information that could help us.” Gwen tries to stay positive. “We can try and track these masked guys. Maybe there’s a base in a universe. That’s where she could be.”

“All I’m hearing is ‘could’ and ‘maybe’, Gwen.” Miguel says. “I’m gonna need something a little more definite than that.”

All the spider-people seem to notice the way Miguel’s expression shifted the moment the ‘masked men’ were brought up. He knows something they don’t. And that seems to irritate Hobie the most.

“Well, what do you ‘ave?” He asks Miguel. “We’ve at least found some’ing. What ‘ave you found?”

Miguel’s gaze is narrowed, his face solemn as he stares at Hobie. Hobie steps closer, his boots the second loudest thing in the room.

“Another thing,” Hobie adds. “While I’m talking…” He taps at his jeans to a beat only he can seem to hear. “I’ve never seen you act—I’m surprised to say—worried. Especially with y/n. I thought you hated her.”

“Mind your business.” Miguel turns, preparing to web up to the screens.

“My bad, boss.” Hobie backs up, a small smirk on his face.

“I thought you two were friends?” Why Miguel was suddenly having this conversation with Hobie he wasn’t sure, he just felt angry, because Hobie sounded so entitled to you. Like Miguel should stay “hating” you and that’s it.

Of course Hobie was just being his normal self, but with Miguel’s gaze glazed over with too many emotions he’s barely felt before, he sees red.

“So, why don’t you seem more worried about her?” Miguel continues.

Hobie chuckles. “You are worried.” He mutters to himself, shaking his head.

Miguel grits his teeth. “Ever heard of guilt?” He asks. “I don’t particularly want her to die. Having that on my back is gonna be extremely annoying.” Lies, lies, lies.

“Sure, Miguel.” Hobie hasn’t wiped his smirk off yet, and Miguel’s temper is rising.

“Alright, this is not helping.” Gwen quickly chimes in. “Y/n’s helped us, and we’re gonna help her…let’s just leave it at that.”

Miguel heard her. But all he can seem to focus on is Hobie’s smug face, as if he knows something no one else does. Something not even Miguel has really admitted to yet.

;;

You and Miles have talked, about a lot of different things actually. You had originally been trying to come up with a plan to get you home, but it soon evolved into telling each other’s life stories.

“Please tell me that is not how Gwen got her hair like that?” You’re laughing.

“I hadn’t known what to do.” Miles groans, slightly embarrassed at the memory of his first day as spider-man. His hand—being extremely sticky—not leaving Gwen’s hair.

“Wait.” Miles suddenly stands, gazing around. “Somethings wrong.”

You quickly join him, darting your gaze around the alleyway. The rain had ceased, so the sound of heavy footsteps were growing much clearer.

You stiffen, as you carefully follow Miles to edge of the alleyway, right before you walk onto the street. But that’s when your heart stops.

A small group of masked men stand, much more intimidating in the clearer light—the rush of the explosion and fear before having clouded your vision. What were they doing here?

“You were supposed to watch her!” One is exclaiming to another. “Now she’s run off somewhere. Did you at least take her wristband?”

Your eyes widen. They’re the reason you’re here? You press further into the wall, listening hard. Why? You desperately wanted that answer.

“Of course I took—“ but he stops, quickly snapping his head in the direction of you and Miles. You quickly hit back against the concrete, Miles doing the same as both your chests heave.

Miles begins to pull down his mask, preparing to face them. But you grab his arm. It wasn’t a coincidence that these same men infiltrated HQ and are now here, assumably having sent you here as well. Something didn’t feel right, and something seemed to tell you that they upgraded in some way since their last attack.

These guy’s suits are bigger, more armoured, with neater woven green stitching. This was obviously some sort of ‘crew’. Most crews are based on a cause. Like the spider society, for example. They’re there to protect the multiverse from inter-dimensional anomalies.

What are these guys fighting for? Could they possibly be fighting against something?

You had too many unanswered questions to let this kid get involved. “Just hold on.” You say to Miles, staying pressed to the cold wall. He pauses, shifting his gaze who you, in question.

“I’ve seen them before.” You begin. “I think they might be the reason I’m here…”

“Then we should talk to them. Capture them and get them to talk.” Miles eagerly says.

You chuckles. “I appreciate that. But I don’t think it’s wise. Not with them.”

Miles goes to say more, when the sound of footsteps near. You immediately pull Miles farther out of view. Then Miles feels it. Instead of the ‘tingle’ he gets when danger is near, it’s more like a foreboding that travels though his entire being. And now he can understand your cautiousness, because for the first time in a while he feels genuinely scared—powerless.

The only thing you can think to do is begin to head down the alleyway, picking up speed. Then you’re both running. “Hey! I think I found her!” A voice shouts, and that’s when you run. The type of run that makes you feel lightheaded, and sick in your stomach.

Miles grabs you, web slinging across a building. “I should be fighting them!” He exclaims through the wind. “Why am I running away!?”

“It’s probably a survival instinct!” You exclaim, as he continues to swing. “Which is concerning since your spider-man.” You mutter this more to yourself. If spider-man’s first instinct was to run then what could this mean for the rest of society?

Then suddenly Miles is getting yanked back, his web snapping, resulting in you both falling to the hard ground. You hit the concrete with a harsh slam, making your eyes blur and your ankle scream.

“Shit.” You mutter. You’re praying it’s not twisted. Please don’t be sprained—you chant in your head, as you scramble to your feet, spotting a nearing masked man, claws out and ready.

You couldn’t see Miles, but to be fair you couldn’t see much. So you ran, or more painfully hobbled away. You had to put pressure on your ankle so that you would move. The man is nearing, his heavy breathing sounding louder than it should be.

But then you feel a hand wrap around your waist, pulling you somewhere dark and desolate. You go to scream, eyes wide, when a hand gets placed over your mouth, quieting any forming sounds that were about to fall.

You can’t see who it is, your blurry gaze and the dark atmosphere making it difficult. You squint, only knowing that someone is pushing you up against a wall, one hand wrapped around your waist, as the other keeps you quiet.

Then you feel a breath by your ear. “Don’t move.” He breathes. And finally the slight accent and familiar tone makes your entire body slump.

Miguel.

You never thought you’d feel so relieved to know it’s him, but once he had spoken, Miguel could feel your entire body relax, nearly sliding to the floor, the pressure you were placing on your injured ankle now faltering.

Miguel keeps you upright, tightening his grip on your waist, as he keeps his mouth by your ear. “Would now be a bad time to ask why you left a day early?”

And you actually laugh, half heartedly and mixed in with a groan of pain, but still a laugh nonetheless.

Then Miguel is moving his hand to hold your chin, as he tries to focus your gaze. “Can you see?”

Your eyes had begun to droop, the exhaustion gradually catching up to you. But then you grab Miguel’s arm tightly. “Miles.” You say, remembering the kid.

“Miles?” Miguel questions.

“The kid. I was with a kid. Another spider-man. Is he okay?” You rush this out, forcing Miguel to place his hand back over your mouth.

“Shh. You’ll get us caught.” He whispers.

You protest, needing an answer, because you could feel yourself slipping from consciousness.

“He’ll be fine. Gwen is with him.” Miguel consoles, seeing your stress. Your shoulders slump in relief, and finally the exhaustion catches up, grabbing a hold of you, as your eyes begin to flutter.

“Wow, wow.” Miguel mutters, catching your dropping body. “Don’t close your eyes.” He all but demands, but it’s too late. Your eyes roll closed, as darkness gives you a hug.

Miguel slips to the ground with you, holding the back of your head from hitting back. He prays that it’s just exhaustion, and nothing more…permanent.

His chest is heaving, his eyes trained on you, while his ears stayed focused, in case the sound of heavy boots broke the city noise.

But he hears nothing of concern, his finger—at first without permission—dragging along your jaw.

Your lips were slightly parted, your body so limp in his hold. “I’m sorry.” He mutters quietly, his dragging finger drifting up to your face, to brush a stray hair, still slightly damp from the rain.

His finger pauses by your lips, not quite touching, just hovering. He’d been in denial. Big denial. And maybe you wouldn’t feel the same, maybe you hated him. But right now Miguel couldn’t find it in himself to care, all the loud voices in his head zoning out to one single voice saying ‘I like her’ … ‘I like her a lot’.

sorry, this one kinda goes everywhere. i needed to add my guy miles <3 i don’t know if I like this one *crying* it feels too random. I’ll hopefully get back on track next chapter

part six is on its way! — thanks so much for all your guys support on this series, you guys are truly incredible

taglist: @dangerousdreamkitty @ale-maral @inosukesweirdwife @flooftoof @cynicallyaestetic @silassinclair @mariiyoushi @ilovedilfjake @toastlover21 @wlellsl @k1rbbo @bitchotine @guacam011y @blnk338 @wolfiepirate @kurxxmi @corpsebridenightamare @ohantonia @yunonaneko @irenered-20 @z3r0art @sunflowercandie @perilous-pasta @gloriouskryptonitecrown @whyamistillhere78 @ritzzzsblog @mm1sta @tealcoloured-murder @aweebsimp101 @livelaughlaurv @s0dium @roguepancake @sunshiines-stuff @internal-soundtrack @oscarisdaddy69 @clairacassidy @captainquake42 @nanaloverz @ilyless @sindulgent666 @shine101 @thebadasssass @hibeejibees @nirishin @ily2lia @lillunna @cinnamoncattie @futuristicpandakid @maroonobserver @thatsopanu @edgyficuselastica @kittekat420 @stararctic @maxi-ride @renn-pumkin-head @scaraza @justanotherkpopstanlol @fauxizs @cloudsandrenoswife @ilmovor @larissa-lolll @elliemm @httpkiyoomi @j2warren @arquiiva @ilovemiguelohara @a-monster-can-filled-with-cum @fandom-gal44 @elwyn7 @albiebright

taglist #2 taglist #3 taglist #4 taglist #5

#the miguel effect #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel fucking o’hara #miguel o’hara smut #miguel o’hara #miguel o’hara fic #miguel o’hara one shot #miguel o’hara x y/n #atsv miguel #miguel o’hara x you #miguel x reader #miguel o'hara #miguel o’hara across the spider verse #atsv #atsv x reader #spiderman atsv #spider man 2099 #across the spider verse #across the spiderverse

5K notes · View notes

sylusjinwoon · 3 months

Text

{ 184 }

that green gentleman (things have changed).

single.parent!sung jinwoo x fem!daycare worker reader

{ things have changed for me, and that's okay | i feel the same, i’m on my way, and i say | things have changed for me, and that's okay }

you had simply been tidying up the area, placing all of the toys back in its respective boxes as each child went home with their parent for the evening when you heard your coworkers groaning and talking amongst themselves.

"it appears the father of that child is asking us to keep an eye out for suho, since he's working overtime yet again at the station."

"goodness, i would stay back, but my husband's waiting for me."

"same here, i haven't even picked up my groceries for dinner yet!"

you look back to see the cute, 4 year old boy named sung suho remaining quiet, spending his free time drawing as he surrounded himself with a plethora of crayons. being familiar with suho and his father, sung jinwoo, you knew how difficult and challenging it was for a parent to raise their child on their own.

"sorry ladies, but i couldn't help but hear that sung jinwoo may be late in picking up suho?"

your coworkers heave out yet another sigh. "indeed; honestly, i wish i could stay back, but i've got my own errands to fulfill before i come home and prepare dinner."

"and my own husband is waiting for me as well..."

"if that's the case, why don't i stay here with suho and close up the daycare?"

your coworkers' eyes go wide, with them stating your name in an incredulous, but grateful manner. "you'd do that for us?"

"of course! you ladies go on and head home. i'll keep suho company and wait for his father to arrive later tonight."

after receiving their gratitude at least a hundred times, you watch as your coworkers pack up and leave the daycare, leaving you alone with the tiny boy.

smoothing your apron, you come closer toward suho, seeing a new stack of drawings settled next to him. no one else knew this, but you developed quite a fondness for suho, often admiring his imagination and how colorful his drawings were.

"hey there, suho. your papa says that he'll pick you up later, so since it's just me and you, you don't mind spending some time playing with me, do you?"

suho vehemently shakes his head while flashing you a wide smile that had a few gaps between his front teeth. "hello miss, and i don' mind playing with you til daddy gets here!"

you giggle along with him and press a finger against your lips, playfully telling suho to remain quiet (as if you were keeping a well kept secret), "since it's just us, how about i get you some snacks? would you like some pudding and strawberry milk?"

suho's eyes go wide as he presses both hands against his mouth, not saying a word as he gave you a series of nods.

"okay, i'll be right back with those snacks."

you bask in suho's sweet giggles, going into the fridge to grab a cup of pudding with a carton of strawberry milk. returning to suho, you help him open his pudding and milk while giving him a plastic spoon. as the toddler enjoys his snacks, you trailed your eyes over to the stack of drawings.

"mind if i look and admire your drawings, suho?"

suho simply gives you a nod with a spoon in his mouth. you thank him and pick up the stack of pictures, tracing over each crayon mark. there were lots of purple and black shadows that surrounded figures that appeared to be suho with his father. despite how malevolent the shadows seemed, the painted smiles on each of the shadows' faces dissipated any amount of concern you held. if these were suho's imaginary friends, then it was clear that they made him happy (with his favorite one being in the shape of a giant ant.)

as you turn the page, you saw a drawing that broke your heart. in it, suho and his father were settled on the couch while watching the television with a frown on their faces. on the screen was what appeared to be a blonde woman smiling with a microphone in hand as she waved at the cameras.

"that's mama." suho says with a bit of a sad tone. you nod and place the drawing of his mother back on the table for suho to see. he was frowning, pushing aside his empty cup of pudding while pointing a finger at her. "papa says she left when i was two... i don't remember her, but papa says she's happy in the t.v., singing and taking pictures."

"i see. your mom is very pretty?"

suho gives you yet another nod. "yeah, papa says she was so pretty that she left us."

suddenly, tears fill his grey eyes when he turns his gaze to you, filled with a desperation as he shakily asked, "did mama leave because i wasn't a good boy?"

"oh no, honey. no no no, this has nothing to do with you." you automatically bring suho into your embrace, gently caressing at his hair as he cried against your apron. "sometimes, adults have dreams they wish to achieve, too, and such dreams make them blinded. i'm sure your mama still loves and thinks about you, she just wishes to make her dreams come true first and foremost."

suho continues to cry while in your arms, yet still, you remain by his side, comforting him. you trace random shapes against his back while humming a lullaby. soon enough, the tears slowly begin to cease as you heard the soft sounds of his breathing.

with a fondness in your gaze, you turn suho around so that you were cradling him in your arms, rocking him back and forth while placing a gentle kiss against his forehead...

"suho." a deep yet breathless voice was heard calling out to the little boy, and as you trailed your eyes forward, you were met with what appeared to be a much older version of suho himself-

you were met with jinwoo, his father.

{ ... }

jinwoo was cursing all the way toward the daycare, berating himself for being so caught up in yet another cold case. the time was nearing 10 in the evening, which was past suho's bedtime as he rushed toward the daycare.

admittedly, ever since cha hae-in's departure (leading to their inevitable divorce), it was difficult for jinwoo to care for his son. of course, he had his loyal shadow soldiers that protected and kept watch over him-

but what suho needed was that soft, maternal touch he was certain his son had been deprived from when hae-in left and gave him complete custody. in her own way, jinwoo knew that hae-in loved her son-

yet the promise of being more than a simple housewife was a calling that such a gorgeous woman like his ex-wife could not ignore. she had big dreams when she was younger, but was unable to reach them until recently. their child was barely 2 years old when an agent caught sight of her and made her an offer she could not refuse.

jinwoo spent months arguing back and forth with his wife, wondering why their son wasn't enough (why he wasn't enough) to make her stay-

but in the end, he ultimately relented and let her go.

after all, he loved her enough to let her go and help her pursue her dreams-

even if it didn't involve either him or suho.

the memory of it all was enough to make jinwoo's heart twist, his hands clutching at the steering wheel when he arrives at the daycare, parking haphazardly before tossing the door open. he runs a hand across his unruly locks of hair, entering the building while calling out his son's name.

"suho-"

he trails his gaze forward, only to feel his throat closing up in response at the sight before him.

jinwoo sees suho in the embrace of a kind young woman. she meets his gaze while placing a finger up against her lips, humming a lullaby as suho remained asleep in her arms. his heart was racing, practically melting at the sight of her. when she finishes her lullaby, she beckons jinwoo closer, allowing him to take suho within his embrace.

he lets out soft coos of his son's name, feeling him stir the tiniest bit before settling within his arms. he looks back at the woman and thanks her, seeing her name tag while referring to her by her first name, "thank you, for caring for my son. and ah... i apologize for arriving so late."

she merely giggles, waving off his concern while taking off her apron, hanging it somewhere before grabbing her bag. "don't worry about it, mr. sung. it's tough working as an investigator. i don't mind spending a few extra hours keeping watch over suho until you pick him up."

jinwoo thanks the woman once more, this time with his eyebrows furrowed in response. "say, it's getting pretty late. is your boyfriend or partner picking you up?"

he hears a choked laugh coming from the woman. "ah, no mr. sung. i'm afraid i'm single and must take the train back to my place."

"the trains stop running by midnight, ma'am. you'll never make it." jinwoo tells her with a whisper of urgency. "i'm sorry, this is all my fault. let me give you a ride back."

before she could even protest, jinwoo's voice takes on a more authoritative tone. "trust me on this; it's late at night and you're a young woman. do you know how much the rates of assaults have increased this past year? there are millions of depraved men still out there."

his words end up striking a nerve within her, and he watches as she purses her lips before nodding, "well, okay mr. sung. if it isn't too much trouble-"

"don't worry, it's no trouble at all. after all, it's my fault that you had to be here so late. and please, call me jinwoo."

while keeping his sleeping son within his embrace, he watches the kind daycare lady shut off all the lights before locking up the daycare, following him to his car. as he opens up the backseat, he had a hard time getting a good grip on suho in order to transfer him to his carseat. it was during this moment that jinwoo witnessed her unconditional kindness once more.

like it was second nature to her, jinwoo watches as the woman gently ease suho away from his embrace, angling her body so that she had better access to the carseat. with gentle movements, she places suho in his carseat while buckling his seatbelt. "i'll remain in the backseat with this little guy. i can tell you my address as well."

taken aback by her easygoing nature and genuine kindness, jinwoo could only manage a nod in response, watching as she sits next to suho's carseat while he settles in the driver's seat in a bit of a haze. turning on his phone, he types in the woman's address and begins to back out of the parking lot.

with each stop light, jinwoo couldn't help but sneak glances at the kind woman, seeing the way she kept a protective arm around suho's carseat while looking out the window. seeing how soft and nurturing she was makes jinwoo smile, filling his heart with a warmth that he hadn't felt in a long time.

after what seemed like mere seconds, jinwoo arrives at her apartment complex. he was filled with a reluctance to see her go, especially when she gives suho a gentle kiss against his hair. "night little guy, i'll see you tomorrow."

giving jinwoo one last thank you, she exits the car and makes her way toward her apartment building, with jinwoo remaining parked in the front, not moving until she was completely inside of the building.

"papa..." jinwoo's ears perk when he hears suho calling out to him.

"yeah suho?"

jinwoo tilts his head back to get a good look at suho, seeing him yawn before telling him, "i really like her."

he hums in agreement, "well, you've got good tastes, suho. i really like her, too."

suho lets out another yawn before falling back asleep, making jinwoo smile as he started the car once more, thinking about how the next time he went to pick up suho that he'd need to place a soldier within her shadow...

{ ... }

you had fallen into a bit of a routine with jinwoo for the months that followed.

more often than not, jinwoo would end up working overtime at the station while you would always offer to keep watch over suho. and during those late nights when jinwoo picks suho up, he would always take you home.

but lately, it seemed as though you were steadily doing more... intimate activities.

for example, during the weekends where jinwoo was able to take some time off, he would pick you up after your shift at the daycare center and invite you out to dinner with him and suho. whether it be to a nice restaurant, or to a comforting, home cooked meal made by jinwoo himself-

it truly was nothing short of bliss to you.

and it was during moments like these that you found yourself falling utterly and irrevocably in love with the man named sung jinwoo. everything about him was just so perfect to you, and you found yourself thinking on how crazy his ex-wife was for leaving such a perfect family behind-

but you digress, since you were certain that it was simply the jealousy getting to you.

it was your day off, and you were simply doing mundane chores when you heard a knock at your door. drying your hands against a towel, you answer the door, only to feel your eyes go wide when jinwoo was found in front of your apartment. he was dressed comfortably in a black turtleneck sweater with matching jeans and a pair of converses, holding in his hand a bouquet of your favorite flowers.

"hey, do you mind spending the rest of your day with me?" he gives you a sheepish smile, placing the lovely bouquet within your hands. you felt flabbergasted, gaping a bit as you looked around for any signs of suho.

"suho's with my parents for the day, so it's just me and you." as if reading your mind, jinwoo reassures you, placing a hand within the pocket of his dark jeans.

"oh, well, yes! i don't mind spending my day off with you. hold on, i'll place these flowers within a vase, and i'll grab my bag, then we can go."

jinwoo chuckles while telling you to take your time, simply watching you while in your doorway as you fluttered around your living room. after filling a vase with some fresh water, you place the lovely bouquet inside and grab your purse from your room. you join jinwoo after locking your door, smiling up at him as he takes your hand in his.

feeling the heat against your cheeks, you remain silent, simply allowing jinwoo to interlock your fingertips together with his. "let's take a walk, there's something i'd like to talk to you about."

you nod, "okay, lead the way, jinwoo."

he tightens his hold on your hand, walking with you out of your apartment complex. remaining on the sidewalk, you walked for about 20 minutes before arriving at a nearby park. he keeps on walking deeper into the park, not stopping until arriving at a gorgeous garden filled with a rainbow color of blooms. spotting an empty bench in the midst of such a wonderful garden, jinwoo gestures at you to sit as he settles beside you.

you both remain quiet, simply admiring the scenery. you were in the midst of counting how many flowers there were in a single section when jinwoo calls out your name. you feel him taking a hold of your left hand and begin speaking.

"you have sparked a fire in me that i didn't think even existed anymore."

the way jinwoo's voice cracked made you look back at him, your eyes being filled with empathy. you felt him giving your hand a squeeze when he meets your gaze. "ever since my ex wife left me to pursue her dreams, i buried myself in my work to forget about the pain of her abandonment. i did my best to raise suho on my own because of how much i love him, but it hasn't been easy.

what suho needs is a nurturing touch of a mother. he needs a gentle and kind love, that unconditional type of love that his own biological mother was unable to give.

truly, i was at a loss; uncertain of what i could even do to help him fill that void. and when i felt as though i were close to giving up and losing it all, that's when you came into my life."

your breath hitches in response to his confession, feeling him reaching out to you with his free hand as he cupped at your face. "you were like the sole beacon of light my soul was searching for. when i saw you that night, cradling my son so gently within your embrace, i knew that my heart was yours."

jinwoo finally lets go of your hand, making you let out a gasp when you saw a beautiful diamond engagement ring settled against your left ring finger. "j-jinwoo-"

"i know, i know, you may find me to be a rash man, proposing to you so suddenly, but i obtained such a trait from my own father." jinwoo lets out a rich chuckle while pressing a kiss against your ring finger, "the sungs have always been men who knew what they wanted and would do anything to pursue it-

and the only thing i want is you..."

jinwoo's eyes begin to glow purple just then, and you felt him framing at your face as he presses kisses that were no heavier than dew against your parted lips, "so please, marry me. make me and suho the happiest boys in the world. suho needs you- i need you in order to feel whole again."

with tears streaming down your face, you lean forward to press your lips against jinwoo's in a searing kiss, knowing that you would simply be a fool to reject his proposal.

[ epilogue ]

suho was getting ready for his first day of school, face frowning into the mirror as he kept trying to adjust his bowtie-

yet still, it seemed like no matter what he did, it forever remained within its lopsided state. with a pout, he stomps his feet and marches his way over to you.

"mom! i can't get this!"

you giggle and put aside the book you were reading, resting a hand over your rounded belly as you beckoned your son closer to you, "come here, sweetheart, let mommy help."

suho hums, remaining still like a good boy as you fixed his bowtie, settling it perfectly in the middle of his shirt. he gives you a toothy grin and leans down to kiss your stomach. "mwah! is my baby sister ready to come out yet?"

"not quite yet, honey, but soon, just have patience, okay?"

suho gives you another pout, ready to say something else when jinwoo's whistle was heard echoing throughout the house, "come on, suho! it's time for school! give your mama and little sister one more kiss, and i'll take you!"

suho listens to jinwoo's words, giving your cheek and your rounded belly yet another kiss before skipping away from you and toward his father, "bye mama!"

jinwoo gazes down at his son with a fondness, catching your stare while giving you a wink before leaving the house. and as your husband and son departs, you were aware of the shadowy wisps that surround you, making you smile as you knew that you would forever be protected by the man who was the absolute love of your life.

a.n. - an early father's day gift for the daddiest of them all lmaooo i'm sorry i need to write something fluffy and sweet for my hubby due to the stress i'm feeling. currently unedited, but i'll make any changes once this is posted 😭

all stories are written by rei; reposts, translations, and plagiarism are not allowed.

#sung jinwoo x reader #jinwoo sung x reader #sung jinwoo x you #jinwoo sung x you #solo leveling x reader #.stories

527 notes · View notes

vivwritesfics · 3 months

Note

Hellooo!!!

I basically had this idea for a long time now.

Landoscar x reader, where there is an article of them with pictures. Like they are in a hotel balcony, in robes, sharing a cigarette, and just small touches and smiles? Like you can clearly see that they did the dirty??👀

And later on the boys are asked about it, and they don't deny that the 3 of them are in a romantic relationship?

You can do whatever you want with the ending, I am happy with anything.

Thank youu❤️

okay i know i have requests in my inbox older than this one, but this jumped out at me the minute i got it and i just had to get on and write it

Warnings: smoking

The shirt on her body wasn't her own. Her forearms were on the balcony as she lifted the cigarette to her lips. The people marching through the streets below looked like little ants, she thoughts. But then she shook the thought away because it made her feel a little bit too much like an evil dictator.

"Hey," Lando walked up behind her, hand on her back as she came to stand beside her. He wore the softest smile as she rested his back against the balcony railings, looking back into the New York apartment they'd rented for the weekend.

Stubbing out her cigarette, she popped a mint into her mouth and stepped towards him. His nose crinkled at the smell that clung to her, but he quickly dropped it and wrapped his arms around her.

It was like they couldn't bear to be apart for more than two seconds. Looking at them, it was like they'd been apart for months, reunited at long last. At least, that was what Oscar thought as he watched them.

The coffee machine stopped. Grabbing the two mugs he had ready, Oscar walked out onto the balcony, joining his loves. He gave her the spare mug and stood beside Lando as he sipped his own. Lando never got a coffee; he hated the taste and the smell.

"You guys are killing me," he groaned as Oscar leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

"You're so dramatic," he laughed, hand on Lando's waist as he stepped around him to kiss her.

The post coital haze was like no other. They stood together on the balcony of the New York apartment, exchanging kisses and touches. New York, because they weren't expected to be there, because they had no reason to be there. New York, because it was a perfect escape.

Oscar was wearing his McLaren hat. Well, he was until she knocked it from his head and placed it down onto the table. "There," she said, raking her fingers through his hair, messing up the tamed locks.

By that point, it was too late. If Oscar hadn't been wearing that hat, they probably wouldn't have been spotted. Well, they might have. The tabloids always managed to find Lando. Fangirls on tiktok always managed to find Lando.

That was how images of the three of them getting rather... frisky on the balcony spread around the internet. If the pictures had just been the two of them kissing her, they could have saved face. But no. There were plenty of images of Oscar and Lando, lips locked and groping each other.

The three of them didn't know about it until the next race. She was home, watching it all unfold.

When the interviewer first asked about the pictures of them on the balcony, first asked about their trip to New York, both of their faces dropped. Nobody was supposed to know about that trip, nobody but them. The only pictures from that trip was supposed to be the polaroid Oscar took of her back covered in Lando's cum (the picture in his wallet).

Lando looked at his teammate. Neither of them really wanted to reveal their girl. They didn't want their relationship in the spotlight, but they had no choice.

Oscar cleared his throat and lifted the microphone to his lips. "That-" He looked at Lando. "-is our girlfriend."

Truly, it was a weight lifted for both of them. The world knew that they were together, knew about the girl they loved. They didn't need to know much more than that, didn't need to know their story, how they met, how the three of them got together.

They didn't need to know their story.

Now it was out, they couldn't wait to take her to a race. It was going to take a long while for them to get to that stage, to want to have her around the cameras and the interviewers.

But one day. One day it would happen.

729 notes · View notes

roosterforme · 9 months

Text

The Younger Kind Part 45 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Bradley is loving his life at home. Skittles continues to fit right in while you inadvertently insist on nearly finding the one thing Bradley wants to keep hidden. A family day at the beach followed by a night alone with you are the only things he wants to focus on right now. It would be great if that's what he was allowed to do.

Warnings: Swearing, angst, fluff, smut, and age gap (18+)

Length: 4000 words

Pairing: Single dad!Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x babysitter!female reader

Check out my masterlist for more! The Younger Kind masterlist.

It was late by the time Bradley got home with Skittles, and you were pretty tired after assisting with an emergency at work. But Noah must have heard him pull into the driveway as he called out, "Daddy's back!" in the middle of coloring a rainbow turtle. He was out of his seat and heading for the front door before you could stop him, but it didn't matter, because you were anxious to see Bradley, too.

When you rounded the corner, he was kneeling on the floor and collecting Noah in his arms, a light blue bakery box on the floor next to him. You were used to seeing him with one arm around Noah while he held Skittles, but right now he was looking up at you like you were the only thing in the room worth his attention. It was remarkable that he still made you feel this giddy.

"Hey, Baby," he rasped. "You had a good day? Your emergency patient doing okay?" Then he stood up with his arms full and leaned down to kiss your forehead. He was still in his uniform, tall and strong, holding everything you cared about against his chest.

"Yeah. I had a good day," you replied, somehow managing to squeeze your way between Noah and Skittles to give him a kiss on the neck while he chuckled.

"Me too. Skittles got a clean bill of health," he whispered, and you could hear his stomach growling. It had probably been seven or eight hours since he had lunch, so you bent to pick up the bakery box, already craving a donut.

"That's good. Come on," you coaxed, tucking your index finger inside the top of his pants and earning a raised eyebrow as you tugged him toward the kitchen. "We already ate, but I'll heat up some leftovers for you while the two of you color."

"Daddy, is Skittles your best friend?" Noah asked as you set the box on the counter and took a peek. You gasped, because it was filled with crown donuts. You looked at Bradley over your shoulder where he was now sitting with his son on his lap.

"I think technically either Mommy or Aunt Natasha is my best friend, Bub."

You smiled as Noah sternly said, "No. It's Skittles. Mommy and Aunts don't count."

"Right. My bad," Bradley replied as he fiddled with something in his pocket. When he met your eyes, you noticed his cheeks were a little flushed as you bit into one of the donuts. "I got you a whole dozen this time."

"I see that," you replied, setting it down again so you could heat up a plate of food. "Did you run into Casey?"

"I did not," he replied as Noah handed him a green crayon. "It was just Skittles and I running up the credit card bill. That animal clinic is expensive."

"I believe it," you replied, taking a bite of potato from his plate to make sure it was hot enough. You'd always wanted a dog, but according to your parents, everything to do with pets was too pricey. They wouldn't even let you have a goldfish when you were a kid.

You set Bradley's dinner in front of him before grabbing the container of ants on logs out of the refrigerator for Noah. You arranged them on a plate in a zigzag shape before giving them to him, and he had one in his mouth before the plate was all the way set down. When you turned to get your donut, Bradley reached out and wrapped his hand around your thigh, pulling you back to him.

"Princess," he whispered. "I love you."

He looked tired, and he was clearly in a bit of a soft mood. Maybe even sentimental. The way he called you his best friend a few minutes ago made you smile even now. But his dark eyes held so much devotion as he examined your face that you ran your fingers down along his cheek and let your forehead rest against his. You knew he was starving; you could still hear his stomach growling, but he made no move to release your leg to take a bite of his dinner. So you just stayed there, your lips brushing his every time you moved.

"I love you too, Daddy."

You grinned against his kiss as Noah crunched loudly on his carrot sticks. This was where you belonged. You could barely even remember the details of your tiny rental because of all of the richness of your home with Bradley. It was overpowering. Living with Bradley and Noah had a dreamlike quality that made everything better.

"You need to eat," you whispered, kissing Bradley one more time before returning to your donut.

-----------------------------

"I want Skittles to sleep in my bed!" Noah was practically crying, his cheeks bright red with frustration as Bradley tried to get him ready to go to sleep. He was overtired and cranky, and right now he was inconsolable. "You said after she got her cast off, she could sleep in my bed!"

"Noah," Bradley said in his softest tone as his son's arms flailed in his pajama shirt. "I said we can try, but we can't force Skittles to do things. Do you understand?"

But he just whined, "I want her to sleep in my bed!"

Bradley sighed where he sat in the middle of Noah's bedroom floor, the engagement ring still tucked in his khaki uniform pants pocket. He didn't know where to put it. He didn't even know exactly when he wanted to give it to you. But he desperately needed to get it stashed away somewhere before he just proposed to you tonight, because having it on his person was making him feel a certain way about you. Maybe it was a good thing that Noah was kind of killing the vibe.

"Just get in bed," Bradley told him. "If you get in bed right now, I'll bring Skittles in."

He watched Noah launch himself into his twin bed and pull the blankets up to his chin. The odds that the pup would stay in Noah's room even for a few minutes were pretty slim. You had her out in the backyard right now so she could go to the bathroom, but the little pooch was almost glued to Bradley's side whenever he was home.

As soon as you walked back inside in your cute little shorts and tank top set with Skittles at your feet, Bradley bent and scooped her up. "Noah is losing his mind. Wish me luck." He turned away from you with a smirk and kissed Skittles on her head. "If you stay in there until Noah falls asleep and long enough for me to fuck my Princess, I'll give you a treat."

You were cracking up in the kitchen as he walked away. "You're bargaining with the dog!" But he knew better. Skittles wasn't just a dog, she was his best friend after all.

Noah's eyes lit up in the soft glow from the nightlight when Bradley entered his bedroom with the pup. "She got used to her own bed, okay? So if she doesn't want to stay, we can't make her." But Noah's arms were outstretched, ready to hold his pet, and Bradley got her nestled in under the blankets next to his little body.

As the dog looked up at him, concern for her new sleeping arrangement in her puppy eyes, Bradley bent to kiss Noah on the forehead and Skittles next to her bow. "Try to go right to sleep," he whispered to Noah. "I'm serious."

He just giggled in response as the dog licked his face, and Bradley did not see this little experiment ending well as he exited the room. He patted his pants pocket just as he had been doing all night. It took all he had within him not to open up the box and check to make sure your ring was secure, and he still didn't know where to put it for safekeeping.

When he entered his bedroom, he abandoned the idea of finding a good hiding spot when he found you in the middle of the bed wearing your paper crown. You looked so young and impossibly innocent with your glossy lips and your pajama set, but your filthy words betrayed you. "I heard you wanted to fuck a Princess."

He ran his fingers through his hair and smirked as he stood next to the side of the bed while you crawled toward him. "I always want my Princess," he whispered as your lips hovered just inches away from his zipper. When you looked up at him, every trace of innocence was completely gone, and you leaned in until your lips met his tip through his khakis. "Baby," he moaned, but before you could get his zipper down, he reached for your hands.

"What's wrong?" you asked as he pulled you up so you were kneeling in front of him.

"Nothing's wrong. Everything is very right."

You smiled up at him as he kissed your lips softly. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with you, as plainly evidenced by the ring in his pocket right next to where your hand just settled. So as he guided your fingers up to his chest, he asked, "Do you want to go on a date with me?"

You laughed against his lips. "You're asking me on a date? We're already in a relationship."

Bradley's hands settled on your hips as he nipped along your jaw until his mouth was next to your ear. "Doesn't mean I can't ask you out. I got selected to fly in the air show, and I want you to be my date for the weekend."

"Really?" you gasped, your fingers tightening around his shirt buttons. "Noah and I get to watch you fly? And you and I can tour the children's hospital?"

"Mmhmm. I wasn't about to let you go with Jake. That man only has one thing on his mind when it comes to you."

"Oh yeah?" you asked, feigning pure innocence once again through your voice. "What does he have on his mind?" When Bradley responded by tucking his hand inside your tiny shorts and stroking your bare pussy, first you gasped, and then you laughed.

His touch remained soft and tentative as he slipped one finger down to tease your opening. "You see, he doesn't want you the way I want you."

"How do you want me?" you whimpered softly, kissing his lips.

"I want you with me for the rest of my life."

"Daddy!" you whined, kissing him desperately as you wrapped your arms around his neck. He knew nobody else had ever spoken to you the way he did, but he also knew he'd never been in love like this before. This time, when you reached for his zipper, he let you have him. His shirt and pants ended up on the floor along with your tiny pajamas, and you welcomed him into your tight pussy as you told him you loved him.

"I have everything," he groaned as he made love to you as you peppered kisses along his flushed cheeks. "You're everything."

After you came for him, Bradley let himself indulge in filling you up while thinking about your belly all swollen and pregnant, and you reached for him just as Skittle came trotting back into the bedroom. Your soft laughter as Bradley curled up behind you had him laughing, too.

"The dog will literally do anything you ask," you whispered as she walked across the room and turned three circles around her dog bed before plopping down. "She stayed in bed with Noah long enough for you to fuck me."

"Dogs are man's best friend for a reason, Princess."

You snuggled in his arms for a few minutes, fingers laced with his as you kissed his forearm. Just as Bradley was starting to doze off, you said, "I'll check on Noah before I get ready for bed." He squeezed you tight one time before releasing you and rolling onto his back to stretch. "Ow!" you gasped when you climbed out of bed. "Shit! I just stepped on something hard in your uniform pants."

His eyes went wide as you started to bend down to investigate, but he vaulted out of bed. "I'll take care of it," he practically yelled, and you dropped his pants. The ring box made a soft thud as it hit the floor, and you gave him a strange look.

"Okay," you replied, glancing at him one more time before pulling your pajamas on and heading out of the room.

"Fuck," Bradley grunted, picking up the pants and rooting around in the pocket until the box was in his hand. He turned away from the door and snapped it open, revealing the most perfect ring he had ever seen. He was already obsessed with imagining it on your finger. But he snapped it closed again quickly and ran for the dresser.

He could leave it with his undershirts, but when he opened that drawer, he realized you were in that one a lot, often borrowing from him. He opened the next drawer down, but it was filled with your cute underwear, so that definitely wouldn't work. He reached for the bottom drawer which was filled with his socks, but he heard you coming back down the hallway, so he dropped the box and kicked it shut.

"Aren't you going to get ready for bed?" you asked as you plugged your phone into the charger, still eyeing him a little cautiously. Bradley realized he was just awkwardly standing there naked in front of the dresser for seemingly no reason, so he was definitely going to have to move the ring later.

"Yeah," he agreed, grabbing some clean underwear and kissing you as he walked past. "Getting ready for bed."

--------------------------

On Thursday, Bradley let you know that everyone was insisting on a beach day on Saturday, but when you texted Natasha about what kind of bathing suit she was planning on wearing, she claimed she might not even go.

"Well I don't know if I want to go if Nat isn't going," you complained to Bradley while you made dinner. "I don't want to be the only female there. In a bathing suit. That would be weird."

"She's going," Bradley said with an eye roll. "She's just being difficult, because she's trying to pretend nothing is going on with Javy. Besides, I'm not going unless you're going." He took the spoon you were holding out of your hand and spun you around to face him. "I don't want to go anywhere without my Princess."

You let him kiss you and slip his hands underneath your top, trying not to moan as his calloused hands danced softly along your skin. When his lips skimmed along your cheek, you whispered, "You just want me there to help you walk safely across the uneven rocks and sand." You bit your lip as he eased his face away from yours to give you a cautionary look. So of course you immediately added, "Because you're such an old man."

One big hand slipped down and softly spanked you on the butt as you laughed. "Old or not, I can still get the job done. And that includes walking across the beach."

"Sure, Daddy. But I'll go, too. Just in case."

"Thank you. Now if you think you can be nice for a minute, I have something to tell you."

"I can be very nice," you said, kissing him on the tip of his nose before spinning around to check on dinner.

Bradley patted you on the butt before reaching into the refrigerator to get two beers out. "Penny offered to take Noah home after the beach and keep him for the night."

As he opened both bottles, your gaze drifted to where Noah was sitting on the kitchen floor, building blocks while Skittles basked in the last rays of the setting sun. You licked your lips as you watched Bradley press his mouth to his beer and take a long drink, the bob of his Adam's apple capturing your attention. "We'd have the house to ourselves for the night?"

He winked at you as he set his beer on the counter and pressed the other one into your hand. "Just you and me," he rasped, pecking your cheek. "And I can think of a few fun ways to pass the time."

Then he was on the floor with Noah, and Skittles was in his lap, but he kept shooting you his smug smile that you liked so much.

On Friday night, after Noah was in bed, you started to get things packed up for the following day. "Why do we need so much stuff to go anywhere?" you mused out loud as you found sunblock and beach towels.

"Oh, hell no," Bradley said, taking you by the hips and pulling you away from the tote bag you were packing. "First of all, you used to bring your textbooks over in that bag when you were babysitting, so it gives me an instant boner." You erupted into laughter as he held you against his chest. "But second, you drastically over packed when we went to the lakehouse."

You looked up at him over your shoulder. "I know," you whispered. "But I want Noah to have anything he might need or want. And you know how my parents were." You didn't like talking about them. They never understood you when you were a child, and that's why you'd moved out as soon as you could. They were also the reason you had a hard time spending Bradley's money even though he wanted you to be comfortable.

"I know, Baby," Bradley crooned, and you melted back against him. "I love how much you love Noah. And I hate that you never got to do anything or ask for anything when you were his age, but there's no need to go overboard for a beach day."

You nodded. "Well then why don't you help me pack?"

"I'd be happy to."

But you and Bradley spent more time kissing and laughing softly than anything else. His hands were all over you, just pulling you closer and trying to keep you there. "Let's go to bed," he whined for the third time, convinced you'd packed everything the three of you could possibly need. "I want to cuddle with you."

You nearly shrieked as he picked you up, leaving the pile of gear for the beach next to the front door, and carried you back to the bedroom. "Oh, you want to cuddle?"

He hummed and nodded against your shoulder. "Yeah. Let's save all the nasty shit for when we're home alone tomorrow night." Butterflies erupted in your belly as he set you down on the bed and climbed in next to you. "Let's cuddle."

You were wrapped up tight in his arms, Bradley's soft, even breaths tickling your neck as he whispered that he loved you. This was perhaps the safest you'd ever felt in your life. Nobody was going to hurt you here. Not now. Bradley would take care of that. And you would take care of him.

As you snuggled in to go to sleep, your eyes caught on the items lined up on the dresser. "What's all of that out for?" you asked softly.

"Huh?" Bradley grunted, probably already part way asleep. But you propped yourself up on your elbow and looked at the purple USB drive, a pile of your underwear, your purple plug, your paper crown, and the bottle of lube. All sitting in a tidy row.

"On the dresser, Bradley."

"Oh," he said with a chuckle as he pulled you down flat again. "I started packing for the weekend, too. So to speak."

-------------------------

Bradley grunted, trying his best not to let you see how awkwardly he was walking across the sand. Not after you made the claim that he'd need you to hold his hand and guide him. You and Noah pranced ahead of him, but he was stuck carrying two bags, a cooler, an umbrella and a beach chair. And the temperature of the sand was roughly that of the surface of the sun.

"Fuck," he growled as the sand rushed into his flip flops and his aviators slid down his nose. How you were managing was literally beyond him. He just wanted to get this afternoon over with and get you back home and into bed. He had some plans for you, all of which were becoming more explicit by the moment as he watched your ass swaying in your purple bikini bottoms.

Literally the last thing he needed right now was to become aroused, so he just pushed your delicious looking rear end from his mind. Apparently you found the perfect spot, because you finally stopped and turned around to look for him. Then you laughed and left Noah with Nat while you made your way back to him.

"This sand is fucking hot," he complained before you could say anything at all.

You took one of the bags and the umbrella from him as you said, "It's August, Daddy. Of course the sand is hot. Do you need me to help you along? Or, I could run back to the Bronco and get your walker?" You started to turn in the direction of the parking lot with an innocent look on your face.

"You're really looking to get it tonight, aren't you?" Bradley replied, dumping everything next to where Noah was burying Nat's legs in the sand. You looked so pleased with yourself, and he thought about the ring that he had moved to the pocket of his dress whites that he'd picked up from the dry cleaner. They were hanging in the back of the closet, and he figured you'd have no reason to look there. Before you could run off, he pulled you in for a tight hug and said, "Stay out of trouble. Be a good girl. And I'll give you anything you want later."

Your lips met his ear, nudging his aviators crooked. "I love you." His fingers skimmed your skimpy bathing suit bottom as you joined Noah who had Nat covered to her thighs.

Javy was trying his best to casually toss a football around with Mickey and Mav, but he couldn't keep his eyes to himself. It was a good thing Bradley was absolutely convinced he was looking at Nat and not you, otherwise he'd have a problem. He left you next to the pile of everything you packed, intending to simply join the little football scrimmage that was going on, but then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, that's really nice, Bradshaw," Jake drawled. "You brought the family today. The little ball and chain, and the big ball and chain."

Bradley hooked his sunglasses with his index finger and dragged them roughly down his nose. "Funny," he said without emotion. "But you weren't calling her a ball and chain back in April when you tried to hook up with her in my kitchen."

Jake hooted with laughter, and it made Bradley's skin crawl. He was such a dick most of the time, and it was always intentional. "There's a difference between hitting a tight pussy and inviting it to live with you. I know the difference. You don't seem to. I'm surprised you didn't bring your dog along, too."

Bradley snapped. "What the fuck is your problem, man?"

Jake met his gaze, and Bradley was reminded without a doubt that Jake would love to get inside your little bikini bottoms just to say he could. "I don't have a problem, but it looks like you do." He jerked his chin toward the volleyball nets, and Bradley turned to investigate. You were standing there, holding hands with Noah while you talked to a guy with blond hair. Upon further inspection, Bradley realized it was your ex boyfriend, Greyson.

--------------------------

Well, well, well. We actually hate you, Grey. If Daddy and Princess can manage to make it to their sexy night home alone, what would you like to read about? And I really hope that ring is well hidden until Daddy comes up with a plan. Thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 46

@hotch-meeeeeuppppp

@chassy21

@solacestyles

@daisyhollyxox

@wintercap89

@blog-name6996

@bcon24

@chaoticassidy

@avada-kedavra-bitch-187

@katiebby04

@marantha

@averyhotchner

@abaker74

@heli991113

@k-k0129

@noz4a2

@tallyovie

@shanimallina87

@little-wiseone

@ccbb2222

@lilyevanswhore

@xoxabs88xox

@thedroneranger

@cherrycola27

@fanboyswhore9

@xomrsalliej4787xo

@desert-fern

@sylviebell

@wkndwlff

@horseslovers2016

@gennyanydots

@mattyskies

@hookslove1592

@blahehblah

@sadpetalsstuff

@local-spidey

@schoollover

@lex-winchester

@magicalmorg

@nicole01-23

@jessicab1991

@happyrebelruins

@samsgoddess

@ughthisisntright

@bellaireland1981

@sagittarius-flowerchild

707 notes · View notes

agirlnamedelia · 1 month

Text

Red Light Flirtation || Levi x Reader

Levi had just finished loading groceries into the trunk of his car when he heard a voice calling out from the next lane over. He glanced up, only to see you sitting in the driver's seat of your car, the window rolled down, and that mischievous grin on your face that he knew all too well.

"Hey, handsome!" you called out, your voice dripping with playful flirtation. "You single?"

Levi's eyes narrowed, and he shot you a glare. "Tch, what do you want?"

"Oh, come on," you continued, undeterred by his cold response. "Don’t be like that. A guy like you should be used to a little attention. How about giving me a smile, huh?"

Levi's hand paused mid-air as he was about to close the trunk. He tried his best to keep his expression neutral, but he could feel the corners of his mouth betraying him, twitching upward ever so slightly.

He slammed the trunk shut with a little more force than necessary and started walking toward the driver's side of his car, shaking his head. "I can't stand you," he muttered under his breath, but you caught the slight softening in his tone.

You leaned out the window a bit, exaggerating your pout. "Aw, don't be like that! I bet you have a beautiful smile. Come on, baby, just one? For me?"

Levi stopped in his tracks, his fingers resting on the car door handle. He turned to face you, giving you that signature deadpan stare, but the facade was starting to crack. You could see the telltale signs – the way his eyes softened just a fraction, the way his lips were pressed together to suppress a grin.

Unable to hold back any longer, you upped the ante. "What, no smile? How about a date then? You free tonight? I promise, I’ll treat you real nice."

That did it. Levi's composure broke as he let out a short, dry laugh, quickly followed by him flipping you off without even looking your way. "You’re an idiot," he muttered, but his voice was laced with affection.

You laughed, triumphant. "There it is! I knew you had a smile in you somewhere!"

Levi finally looked at you, his eyes narrowing but with a warmth that wasn’t there before. He shook his head as he opened his car door. "Get out of here before I decide to follow you home and make you regret it."

You winked at him as you rolled up your window, still laughing. "Promises, promises! I'll be waiting!"

Levi couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips as he got into his car. He shook his head again, this time more in amusement than in exasperation.

As he started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, he glanced in the rearview mirror, catching a last glimpse of you as you drove off. "Damn brat," he muttered to himself, but there was no denying the fondness in his voice.

Because if anyone could make Levi Ackerman laugh and smile like that, it was you. And maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

#levi ackerman #captain levi #levi x reader #levi x y/n #reader insert #attack on titan #fluff

197 notes · View notes

ssweetreveries · 1 month

Text

messes & kisses

✩ wonbin x reader (ft. seunghan)

. 18+ mdni!

. word count! 3.6k

{oneshot, smut, nonidol!wonbin, nonidol!seunghan, fwb!seunghan, afab!reader, mentions of Anton and Eunseok, unprotected sex (wrap it up guys), thigh riding, oral sex (m.receiving), cheating, it’s a bit angsty but not really, kinda public}

a.n i apologize if there’s any mistakes, this isn’t proof read and english isn’t my first language, please bare with me!! i don’t know how i feel about this one, not super proud of it but i hope u enjoy! ><

synopsis . you meet a boy at a party and he makes you forget about all the bad things

With a hand around your neck and a knee between your legs, Seunghan continues roughly attacking your lips with his. “Fuck..”, you mutter breathlessly when he presses his knee against you. Making out in the campus’ bathroom stall with Seunghan wasn’t something new, infact, you could consider it a part of your routine at this point. You knew it was wrong, he was already in a relationship. At the end of the day though, you always found yourself going back to him. He was your drug and you were his.

You’re brought back to reality at the feel of his cold hands snaking up your shirt. “What are you thinking about hm?”, he whispers, his hot breath against your ear making you shiver. “Mmm, nothing,” you reply, attaching your lips to his once again. You have to bite back a moan at the feeling of his tongue in your mouth and the pressure of his knee against your core, and you can feel him smirk against your mouth. He pulls back for a second and–

“Are you guys done fucking like animals, cuz your girlfriend is looking for you.” an all too familiar voice announces, making both you and Seunghan jump a bit, not having heard the door open. “Shit..” Seunghan mutters under his breath before pulling away and getting out of the stall. “Next time, maybe make your presence known instead of scaring the living hell out of us, Ant.” he says before exiting the bathroom. Anton just ignores him, walking towards you, his eyes softening a bit. You fix your attire in the mirror before turning to face your friend. “Do I look okay?” you ask him. Anton nods, “You’re good.” You hum and start walking towards the door, but Anton’s hand catches your wrist. “Y/N.” His voice is a bit too serious for your liking.

“What..?” you reply.

“I’m not gonna keep covering for you guys all the time, you know? I know it’s none of my business but as both of your friends I think this should stop. For God’s sake Y/N, he’s in a relationship. You know he’s playing both of you.” Anton says. And you don’t know why but his words make you slightly angry.

“Look Ant, I appreciate the concern but this is between me and Seunghan. And what do you mean, “he’s playing both of you”. I don’t feel anything for him, he’s only giving me benefits and that’s our mutual understanding.” You reply trying to state your point. Anton sighs, “I’ve known you for long enough to see the way you look at him, Y/N.”

“Look at him how, Anton!” you reply, your annoyance level going up. “I know there’s something Y/N, I’m not stupid.” he says rather calmly, opposed to you. “And I’m telling you there’s nothing there!” you reply one last time with a huff before turning on your heels and leaving.

You frown as you make your way out of the campus’ building. The truth is, deep down you knew you were mad because Anton was right. As much as you deny it, and as much as you hate yourself for it, there was something about Seunghan that tugged at your heartstrings. It’s not your fault he decided to go out and get a girlfriend. Your relationship with him existing long before her anyways. But alas, you guys agreed upon being friends with benefits after a drunken hookup and that’s all you were. You guys agreed not to catch feelings for each other so that was your problem.. for another day.

Wanting to get your mind off things, you decide it’s best to head home and bury yourself into completing your missing assignments. And well, being left high and dry were not in your expectations today, so let’s just say getting there as soon as possible and taking a cold shower were also in your plans.

You enter your room as you finish drying your hair with a towel, noticing the dim screen of your phone lit up with a notification. You sit down on your bed, phone in hand. It was a text from Seunghan.

{hani<3} hey 10:26pm

Y/N? 10:39pm

{y/n} heyyy, what’s up? I was in the shower 10:40pm

{hani<3} ur good 10:40pm

my friend is throwing a party this friday 10:41pm

wanna go with me? 10:41pm

{y/n} uhh, what about ur gf 10:42pm

{hani<3} dw about her, she’ll be out of town 10:42pm

so? 10:43pm

{y/n} I’ll come 10:43pm

You answer before closing your phone and throwing it on your bed. You groan, knowing you shouldn’t have said yes but.. Whatever, as much as you hate it, you can’t lie and say you don’t like spending time with him.

You spent the last few days anticipating friday, but now you find yourself nervously fiddling with the hem of your little black dress, waiting outside of your apartment for Seunghan to pick you up.

A car pulls up and you recognize it as Seunghan’s. When it stops, you open the door and get in.

“Hey,” he says, giving you a sly smile. You greet him back as you buckle the seatbelt. As he drives away, his hand makes its way to your thigh, gripping it slightly. Seunghan looks at you and smirks when he hears your breath hitch. “Stay focused on the road..” you mutter. He simply hums, amused. He does as told, eyes looking forward but his hand remains on you, massaging circles on your plush skin with his thumb.

You can feel his hand snake higher when he pulls up in the driveway of a bustling house. “Seunghan,” you say under your breath. He chuckles and stops the engine before taking his hand away, and you shiver at the now lack-of warmth on your thigh. “C’mon, let’s go in.” he says before getting out. You follow suit, jumping out of the car and meeting him at the front porch of the house. It takes a few knocks before someone opens the door. “Hey, man! Come on in,” says the guy, dapping up Seunghan. You soon learn that the guy’s name is Eunseok, one of Seunghan’s friends and the one hosting.

Inside, the house is crowded with people. There’s people chatting, some are drinking, couples making out sloppily, some grinding on each other, there’s bodies pressed together everywhere. Not to mention the loud music and chattering. This is a party alright, you tell yourself.

Seunghan pulls you along by the hand, taking you to the room where everyone is dancing with each other. The sound of the music is especially loud in this room, and you can barely hear each other. God, your head is already pounding from the noise. You definitely will need a drink to survive the night.

You tap Seunghan’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back! I’m going to grab a drink, want anything?” you basically scream at him, so he can hear you over all the noise.

He shoots you an ‘OK’ and tells you to get him anything, he’ll be waiting for you back here.

You nod and separate yourself from his hold, maneuvering your way out of the pit of bodies. You exhale deeply when you leave the room, all the people pressed together were making it quite suffocating.

It takes you a while to figure out where the drinks are, never having navigated this house before but you eventually do. You take two random mixed cocktails from the drinks table and make your way back to the dancefloor to find Seunghan.

Upon entering the room, it takes you a while of searching until your eyes land on him.

“What the fuck..” you mutter under your breath, heart aching slightly. Your eyes are wide as you stare at him and another figure next to him. Why was Seunghan with another girl? And why were they all up in each other’s business. You scoff and shake your head, trying to keep your cool. But next thing you know, his mouth is on hers and they’re all over each other.

Your heart drops and tears of frustration spring in your eyes. Seriously? You blink your tears away, Anton warned you, you just didn’t want to believe it. You knew Seunghan was a player, gosh, he was even playing his girlfriend with you. You just didn’t expect him to go off to someone else, why did he even ask you to the party then? You laugh dryly feeling stupid and used.

You turn on your feet, making your way to the mostly empty room you saw when you passed by earlier. It was a more secluded area, the music also being less loud over here. There were a few people, a couple making out, two guys talking to each other at a table, and a guy on his phone sitting alone on the couch.

You sigh and opt for the couch, the only sitting space available next to the guy. You set the drinks down on the table as you sit down, and take a sip of your now, much needed cocktail. You can feel him staring so you decide to take a glance at him too.

Woah. Your eyes go wide, almost choking on your drink when you get a good look at him and you can see him smirk at your reaction. Pretty was an understatement, this guy was easily the most attractive man you’ve laid eyes upon. You clear your throat and direct your eyes back to the cocktail in your hands, swirling the liquid in the cup.

A few minutes pass by in silence before he speaks up. “Here alone?” he asks.

You jump a bit at his voice, not expecting him to initiate any conversation with you. Gosh, even his voice was pretty. “N-no, I mean, actually, yeah” you mumble.

He raises his brow, but doesn’t push it. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N, what’s yours?” you return the question.

“That’s a pretty name, quite suitable for a pretty girl like you” he says with a flirty smile, “I’m Wonbin, nice to meet you, Y/N.”

You feel your cheeks getting warm at his words, he thinks you’re pretty? You shake your head, he’s just flirting with you. “Nice to meet you..”

“Are you here alone?” you throw the question back at him.

He hums, “got dragged along by the boys, my friend’s hosting.”

You nod, unsure what to say next.

“So, Y/N, why are you here alone?” Wonbin asks.

You sigh, re-calling the situation to him. It was a bit embarrassing but hey, he asked and you had someone to let out your frustrations to.

“What an asshole,” he scoffs, “I’m sorry he did that, you deserve to be treated better.”

You shake your head, “It’s okay, I should've seen it coming. Anyways, I didn’t want to let it ruin my night but here I am. I wanted to distract myself but I guess it’s still on my mind.”

Wonbin listens to your rant before placing a hand on your thigh. “I can be your distraction, Y/N.” he whispers.

“W-what,” you blurb out, taken aback. “What do you mean, Wonbin.”

He smirks, “I meant what I said earlier, Y/N. So, will you let me be your distraction, pretty?” he says headily.

You stare at him, his own eyes staring back at you intently. He leans in closer and you can feel his breath against your lips. “Can I?” he whispers.

You quickly nod, wanting to know how his lips would feel like on yours.

With your approval, Wonbin closes the distance between your mouths. One of his hands comes to gently cup your cheek, while the other leaves feathering touches down your body.

You sigh softly against his soft lips, of course he’s a good kisser on top of everything. God, this man was dangerous.

You pull back for a second, softly pushing him so he rests against the couch, readjusting your position so you're straddling him. “I- is this okay?” you mumble shyly.

He laughs softly, his hands coming to rest against your sides. “This is great actually,” he smirks before leaning in to kiss you more.

You let your hands rest on his shoulders, leaning in closer and deepening the kiss. His tongue swipes against your lips, a silent ask, and you gladly oblige. He pushes past your lips, tongue playing with yours.

A soft moan leaves your lips as the kiss turns more heated by the second. Wonbin groans against your mouth, you taste so good and your lips feel perfect on his, like you were made for him. You pull back for a second to catch your breath and Wonbin takes the opportunity to attack your neck.

You play with his hair as he leaves love bites all over your neck and collarbone, god these we’re gonna be a pain to cover up, but you couldn’t care less at the moment. He pulls back for a second admiring his work with a satisfied smirk.

“Fuck, you look even more pretty like this, covered in my marks” he whispers heatedly.

You hum with reddened cheeks, feeling yourself getting desperate for more. You lean down, feverishly leaving kisses down his jaw, making your way to his neck and leaving markings of your own. A soft noise leaves his lips at your attention and you pull back with a gasp as you feel him getting hard against your clothed pussy.

Amused by your reaction, he pushes you harder against the tent growing in his pants. “F-fuck, you’re so hard.” you moan out at the feeling.

“Mmm, it’s all because of you” he purrs, hands slipping under your already hiked-up dress. You shiver at the feeling of his cold hands on your bare skin.

Wonbin begins rocking your body against him, enticing you to grind on him. “F-fuck, bbin-” you breath out, his hard on pressing on just the right spot.

Wonbin smirks at the nickname you gave him, “feel good, hmm?” You just nod, focusing on rolling your hips against him.

You whine when Wonbin holds you down, forcing you to stop your rhythm. “Why–”

He repositions you so his thigh is directly under your core, pushing you down on him. “I want you to make yourself feel good,” he says in a husky voice, flexing his muscles under you, the feeling making you grip his shoulders harder.

“C’mon, you we’re doing so good earlier, baby” he cooes, moving your hips against him. You whine, feeling shy but letting him rock you against him. Eventually, you feel yourself growing needier, finding a rhythm of your own.

“F-fuck, Wonbin, ah-!” you moan out as he attaches his lips on your neck, sucking that sweet spot and leaving yet another mark.

You can feel yourself getting closer, hips desperately grinding down on him and Wonbin can’t help but look at you with an amused expression. “C’mon, pretty, are you close?”

You just hum, eyes shut and eyebrows knitted together, chasing your high. You gasp when Wonbin flexes his thigh and pushes you harder against him, helping you get there.

You can feel it coming, legs starting to shake under his hold, but Wonbin keeps rocking you against him. “A-ah! Wait, fuck–!” you whine as you cum, letting your head fall against him as your body sputters in his hold.

He lets you catch your breath, hands rubbing down your sides in a soothing way, “That was so hot,” he chuckles.

You sit back up, looking at him with a smile before your face drops. Oh my god, you completely forgot that you weren’t alone in the room. Wonbin sees your expression as you look around the room, catching on.

“Don’t worry, they left earlier, if that’s what you’re worried about.” he reassures you.

You let out a sigh of relief, turning back to him and pressing a kiss to his lips. He catches your lips with his, sharing another heated kiss with you.

You teasingly move on his lap, earning a groan from him. “Fuck, pretty, don’t tease,” he rasps out. You give him a sly smile, running your hand down his chest until you reach the tent in his pants.

His breath hitches as you grab him through his pants, watching you intently, anticipating your next move.

You get off his lap painfully slowly before dropping to your knees in between his legs. You look up at him with sultry eyes as you unzip his pants. He curses, the way you look at him making him feel things.

You can’t help but gawk at him when you finally free his aching cock. Was there anything about this man that wasn’t pretty?

You wrap one of your hands around him, giving him a few pumps before licking a strip up his length. “F-fuck–” Wonbin hisses, throwing his head back at the sensation.

You giggle, kissing his tip already leaking with pre-cum, earning another groan from him. Without warning you take him in your mouth, swirling your tongue around his tip. His head snaps back up, wanting to watch you suck him off. He grabs your hair in one hand so he can get a better view.

And, fuck, isn’t that a view to look at, Wonbin thinks to himself. Your small mouth wrapped around him with your saliva dripping down his cock turning him on even more.

Maintaining eye contact with him, you start taking him deeper in your mouth, bobbing your head up and down and hollowing your cheeks. His hips involuntarily buck against your mouth at the feeling, causing you to gag on his cock.

“S-shit, sorry pretty, you’re making me feel so good,” he says through ragged breaths.

You moan around him at the praise, the vibrations making him twitch in your mouth. “Fuck, I want to fuck this pretty little mouth, will you let me?” he asks desperately.

You hum in response and that’s all it takes before he starts rutting in your mouth, tears prick your eyes as you try not to gag.

You hold onto his thighs for stability as he continues abusing your mouth, his tip hitting the back of your throat which will surely leave a bruise, but all you could care about right now is making him feel good.

He groans, hips starting to stutter, “y-you’re taking me so well, pretty”

You moan, hollowing your cheeks for him, making him shutter.

You can feel him start to twitch in your mouth, indicating that he is close. “F-fuck, where do you want me?” He pulls out quickly, fisting his cock in his hand. You open your mouth for him, a silent answer.

After a few more pumps, he shoots ropes of white into your mouth. Without breaking eye contact, you swallow every last drop of his load.

“Fuck,” he stares down at you, patting your head while breathing heavily. “You did so good, pretty” he says, pulling you back up to kiss you hungrily. You moan into the kiss, and Wonbin smirks against your mouth.

You pull back, “Wonbin.. I want you,” you murmur needily.

“Yeah?” he hums, amused, before gently pushing you down on the couch, climbing over you.

Wonbin lifts your dress to have easier access to your entrance. And he can’t help but chuckle at your drenched panties, tossing them to the side.

He drops a kiss to your lips before aligning himself with your entrance. “I’m going to put it in, okay?” he says before entering you.

You moan at the feeling, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him closer to you. “S-shit, you’re so tight..” he groans.

“I’m gonna move now,” he warns you before slamming his hips into you, your wet cunt taking his dick perfectly.

You pull him down, attacking his lips with yours. He’s making you feel so good, his cock hitting all the right places. Your hands bury themselves in his long hair, tugging here and there.

Wonbin groans, “look at you taking me so well, pretty. It’s like you were made to be mine,” he purrs.

You moan, arching your back into him when he hits your sweet spot. “R-right there, bbin, ah-! Fuck!”

Wonbin continues hitting that spot, hips snapping against yours, increasing his speed when he feels you clench around him. He’s not gonna last long if you keep sucking him in like this.

Luckily with a final snap of his hips, you reach your new high, legs trembling as ecstasy takes over your senses. Wonbin quickly pulls out, fisting his cock a few times and spilling his load all over your lower stomach.

You look up at him with a lazy smile, “that was amazing, bbin”

He chuckles before getting up, fixing his pants and grabbing tissues from the table, cleaning you up. You thank him before getting up and fixing your dress.

Wonbin grabs your hand, clearing his throat, “uhh, i don’t know if it’s a right time to ask but, would you let me take you out, tomorrow?” he asks sheepishly.

You giggle, “Sure, I’d love that.”

Usually the date would come before the hook up, but you wouldn’t mind doing things upside down with Wonbin.

“Great,” he smiles, “now, let me take you home.” he offers and you smile.

Wonbin was, without doubt, the best distraction you could’ve gotten.

You’re gonna end whatever is going on with Seunghan tomorrow morning, for now, you're gonna enjoy the rest of your night.

155 notes · View notes

ammoniteblue · 2 months

Text

Not a Hero, Just an Author (p.3)

kenji sato x reader

Her latest novel a flop, Y/N is starting to worry she wasn’t meant to be an author. She’s 24, lives alone and most of her college friends are either married or in more traditional jobs. she feels like she’s being left behind. That is until a charming baseball player finds his way into her life and shows Y/N that it takes more than talent to be a star.

tagline: @aise-30 @spencerrxids @scarasw1f3 @m3lodyxo @no-lessthan3 @ladyaaliy

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Not even a week had gone by since you were last caught in an attack, and yet here you were. Frozen stiff. Surrounded by crowds of screaming fleeing people. Unable to look away from another beast that looked like it had been pulled from the deepest darkest nightmares.

It was massive. Scaled with eyes the colour of poison.

As if swatting flies, the dragon-like monster had knocked down two helicopters. They fell through the sky, weightless, hitting the ground in loud fiery explosions.

People had been in there. Pilots. Men and women. Was there anyway that theyd survived a fall from hundreds of feet in the air ?

Chaos had erupted around you.

People were pushing and shoving to get through the exits. The wails of small children filled the stadium. The little girl next to you, who’d stared at Kenji with wide adoring eyes, cheering and laughing, was now sobbing her eyes out, cradled in her mum's arms.

All the players had cleared the field. All but Kenji.

He was still there, stood by the home plate. Like you he was frozen still, eyes locked on the Kaiju as it flew over the stadium.

So often in life you felt small. you felt it at conventions, watching fans crowd around their favourite authors. somehow your table always seemed empty. You felt it at Q&As, when you’d only be asked maybe one or two questions and always about the same thing:

“what’s it like being a young author in the publishing industry ?”

You felt it in the streets, watching hundreds of people live their lives always seemingly with more conviction and direction than you.

But stood there, under the towering shadow of a beast, that must’ve crawled out of the deep bowels of hell, you realised for the first time what it felt like to be truly small.

an ant to a snake. a man to a god.

The last time this had happened, only a week ago, it had been your drive to save the old lady that had saved you. Seeing her, keeled over on the street, had pushed you into action. but here there wasn’t anybody to save. No. It was just you, alone, still and unable to look away as the beast opened its mouth and roared.

Orange lit up the sky. it bathed the darkness in a hellish light. flames licked up the sides of the stadium. they caught fire to treetops and burned them to ash.

If you stayed there would that be you too ? a pile of ash on the floor ?

Move damnnit. You could save the old lady but you couldn’t save yourself ? how did that work ? save a stranger but not yourself ? why?

did you maybe, somewhere deep down, not think you were worth saving…..

“You need to move !” Hands fell onto your shoulders, clutching so tight you could feel nails dig into your skin.

Something tugged at your right hand. Warmth slipped into your palm. Skin against skin. Then you felt yourself be pulled away, away from the pitch and towards the exits.

Only a few people were still scurrying to leave, and with ease Kenji dragged you out of the stadium, over the ticket barriers and into the car park.

It was chaos outside too. Sirens wailed in the distance. Some people had stayed, transfixed by the burning red sky. Others rushed to their cars, the squeal of tires grinding against tarmac making you wince.

Your chest heaved. Breaths came out in short sharp gasps. An iron taste filled your mouth, a burn punctured your lungs. Smoke was thick in the air. It burned your eyes and scratched the back of your throat.

“Y/N ! Y/N !” Kenji waved a hand in front of your eyes, calling out to you.

You blinked and realised he’d been talking to you. You watched his lips move, parting and closing so slowly. His voice sounded distant like he was screaming at you over a great distance. Everything felt slow. From the way he shook a hand in front of you face to the people running past you.

What was going on ?

“Y/N you need to take a deep breath.” Kenji turned you around, so you were facing with your back to the flames.

You couldn’t see the Kaiju anymore but you could hear it. It’s furious roars, the tremors of its steps. The earth shattering under a giants feet.

“Look at me,” Kenji demanded, “Y/N damnit look at me.”

Finally, you did. Your eyes drifted to his and only then did you realise that the Kenji Sato, a legend, an untouchable god, was scared. Something fragile settled in his dark blue eyes, giving them a glassy quality. The hand holding yours trembled. it was ever so slight but it was still there.

The Kenji Sato, scared just as shitless as you.

“How did you get here ?” His voice is firm but the shake in his hands, the look in his eyes, it betrays him.

When you speak it’s not you. It’s automatic. The noise is foreign to your ears.

“Car.” that’s all you can say.

Your mouth feels numb. Everything feels numb. If you ran would your legs even work ?

“Right,” this time you hear the panic in Kenji’s voice, “fuck you can’t drive. you can barely stand. fuck. fuck ! what am i gonna do ?”

He runs his free hand through his hair, tugging anxiously at the roots. The helmet he’d been wearing has long since been discarded, stranded on an empty pitch. a burning blackened pitch.

you want to reach out, to pull his hand from his hair, to tell him not to hurt himself. you want to do so much more. anything that would get rid of that terrified look in his eyes. it doesn’t look right, not on him, not on Kenji Sato.

“Please.” You’re just able to whisper, gently tugging his hand away from his hair.

Now both your hands are in his. Theyre warm. So warm. you can feel the hard edge of callouses, built up from years and years of throwing and batting and training. Along one finger you’re sure you feel the thin jutting line of a scar. you want to ask how he got it. you want to ask so many things.

were you about to die ?

your gazes are locked. despite the crowds fleeing, the sky burning and a monster stalking towards you, you both stand there.

For a moment you think he might kiss you. you realise you want him to. but instead you watch as something shifts in his eyes, a look of….resolution ? the fear is still there but now it’s diluted by something like determination but also resignation. as if he knows he has to do something but he really doesn’t want to.

You open your mouth to ask what’s wrong. But you don’t get the chance. Not when Kenji suddenly darts forwards and places a kiss on your forehead. it’s startlingly intimate, and even in your current situation you can’t fight the blush from your cheeks. It feels like the kind of the gesture a soldier makes to his lover before he goes off to war.

It’s so eerily similar and then you realise why.

Kenji Sato. baseball player. international heartthrob. a living legend.

......Ultraman.

He steps away from you and with your gazes locked, you watch as his body is engulfed in a ray of bright light. It's unearthly, the way it shoots out of seemingly nowhere, swallowing Kenji whole. It burns to look at but you cant look away. You're sure you hear yourself scream his name, feel the shape of it on your tongue.

There’s a rush of heat, of something electric and when you turn back Kenji is gone, in his place a being several metres tall, taller than the stadium, taller than skyscrapers.

Kenji Sato is Ultraman.

It doesn't register at first. It doesnt matter that you just saw Kenji be surrounded by a light that could only have appeared from something not of this world, to find Ultraman in his place. Your mind refuses to make the connection. It cant. Because eveyrhting would change. Something that had onyl just started, was meant to start today and it would be gone.....ruined.

A strangled gasp passes through your lips as you watch him turn and charge towards the Kaiju. They collide with a bang so loud you have to cover your ears. It takes all your strength not to fall to your knees.

Ken- Ultraman whichever, threw the first punch, bringing a fist into the Kaiju’s stomach. The beast roared, a pained cry that shook the ground. Kenji went for another hit, but he wasn't quick enough.

“Kenji !” You screamed as the Kaiju opened its mouth and engulfed him in fire.

Thankfully nobody else was around to hear you so carelessly scream out his identity. everybody else had the common sense to flee the scene. but you couldn’t. not when Kenji was there, a hundred meters tall, in red and white and silver.

Kenji. Kenji was Ultraman. Ultraman was Kenji.

How ? How was that possible ? How was any of this possible ?

“Ma’am you need to come with us.” A paramedic finds you, trembling among the smoke and flames, terrified as you watch the Kaiju wrestle Kenji to the ground.

“N-No !” You cry out, trying to resist as another paramedic comes up to you.

Together the pair drag you away from the scene. It doesn’t matter that you beg them, plead with them to let you stay. that you have to stay. They don’t care. they don’t listen.

Youre piled into an ambulance and can only watch through a window as kenji becomes smaller and smaller in the distance. eventually the fire becomes nothing but a candle flame in the distance and even the smell of smoke fades.

Perhaps from exhaustion or perhaps from sheer shock, whatever the reason, you find it hard to keep your eyes open. An unnatural heaviness settles over them and with every attempt at keeping them open they become even heavier.

When you fall into the darkness you see flames and smoke and amongst it all him. His navy eyes, his cloud white jersey.

“Kenji.”

When you awake it isn’t too fire and debris and pillars of smoke. The sterile smell is what hits you first. the scent of chlorine, of cleanliness and bleach. it’s bright. oh so bright. you wince as you blink, eyes slowly adjusting to the light.

There’s a pounding in your head like nothing you’ve ever felt. Worse than any hangover. the beeping of something robotic, a monitor maybe, in the background only amplifies the pain.

“Auntie !” A high pitched voice cries.

You grimace, a hand coming to your head as if cradling it will make the pain go away.

“Chiho this is a hospital. indoor voices.”

A hospital. You were in a hospital. But why ?

A small figure, no taller than knee height clambers up to your side. you peered down from the bed to see your niece's smiling face blinking back at you.

Chiho…..which meant Ami wasn’t far behind.

Speak of the devil. In through the doorway she came, her usually smooth hair frizzy and unkempt. She was wearing pyjamas, the set you got her for christmas two years ago. a coat was hazardously thrown on over top. And you realised after glancing at Chiho again, that she was also in her pyjamas. Had they just woken up ? What was going on ?

“Oh thank god you’re awake.” Ami cries, rushing to your side.

you startle when she flings her arms around you. It’s not like you guys weren’t close but she rarely showed this amount of affection. Ami was like that, headstrong, all business. Hugs from her were rare and savoured moments. she had the ability to make you feel like everything was going to be okay with just a hand on the shoulder.

“Ami,” you were startled at how hoarse you voice was, “what’s going on ?”

Her face paled. She quickly glanced at Chiho, who was distracted by a magazine left on one of the tables, before speaking.

“there was an….incident. A kaiju, it attacked the stadium. I-I didn’t know you were there. I would never have left-t I can’t believe i didn’t see you.” She’s close to tears as she speaks.

your big sister, the ice queen, nearly crying because of you.

“I’m sorry.” it’s all you can say.

This time you reach out to her and she settles into you like two halves of the same shape, of the same coin. Your big sister.

When, after several exams at your sisters insistence, you're finally discharged Ami refuses to let you go home. There’s no argument. She shoves you into the backseat, among piles of stuffed toys and picture books, even putting the seat belt on for you.

Your mum was at her house and when you came in it was Ami all over again. She wept, clinging to you, kissing your sore forehead, pushing you into a bed. Who’s you didn’t know. The three of them stood around you, like you’d disappear if they looked away even for a second. It was only after Chiho yawned that Ami relented and took her daughter to bed. Your mum though seemed to make her sleep perfectly comfortable in the chair by your bed.

When you asked if she intended to stay there all night she merely shrugged and told you to shut your eyes.

Who were you to argue ?

Sleep sounded so good. It was just a shame that even in your dreams all you could see was Kenji in his shining red and silver suit, towering over the world.

It wasn’t just that night Ami made you stay at her place. She kept making excuses.

“You might be concussed !”

“Umm okay then why did you let me sleep ?”

“….don’t talk back to your older sister.”

“I need someone to babysit Chiho.”

“Yah babysit me auntie ! We can play ultraman and Kaiju.”

You didn’t miss the way Ami glanced at you, her usually cool eyes soft, as if worried the mere sound of his name would send you bawling. She didn’t know, of course she didn’t. You hadn’t been able to say the words aloud let alone tell someone. But any mention of Kaiju or fires or Ultraman had sort of been prohibited.

She, your mum, they were worried. You weren't doing good before. Maybe they thought the smallest thing would be enough to push you over some imaginary edge. maybe they were right.

So you hunkered down in her house for a few days, allowing Chiho to braid your hair in a hundred different styles, or paint your face with makeup that definitely wasn't stolen from Ami's dresser. You chopped up vegetables while your mum roasted meat, listening to her rant about this or that. Just like Ami she was full of opinions and observations. You joked that’s where she got her natural born journalist instincts from.

You, for the first time in forever, let your family take care of you. it was nice. you’d forgotten what it felt like.

Of course you couldn’t hide from it forever. whether you liked it or not, the truth was there. Hiding behind doors, peeking out from the closet. A metaphorical boogie man.

Kenji Sato was Ultraman, and to save your life, to save the city he'd revealed this information to you.

You hadn't dared reach for your phone since that day. It was in your purse, sat atop Ami's dresser. Undoubtedly, it would be teeming with missed calls and messages from your editor Sana. Would Kenji have called you ? Texted you ?

You didn't even know if he was okay....

The last time you saw him, the Kaiju had him pinned to the ground, and you just left him there. Like a coward. You should've fought the paramedics harder. You should've stayed.

It was only once you knew everybody else was asleep that you slipped out of Ami's room that night. She was sleeping in Chiho's room, letting you take her big bed. As you crept down the hall you could hear her soft snoring, your mother's garbled words as she mumbled in her sleep. It wasn't till you reached the balcony, sliding the door quietly shut behind you that you let yourself breathe.

With shaking hands, you opened up your phone. It wasn't the 27 missed calls and texts from Sana that worried you.

''we need to talk.''

So he was alright. Tension eased from your shoulders. At least it was one worry put to bed. But now you had to face the fact that Kenji had let slip a secret that could shock a nation, maybe the world even. This was beyond anything you'd ever dealt with before.

You didn't know what to do, so you swiped on his contact and pressed call.

It rang. once, twice. your heart constricted in your chest.

''I was hoping you would call.'' He's there, same smooth voice, same teasing lilt to his words.

you aren't sure if you want to cry or scream.

''You're okay.'' Its all you can say.

He laughs, its a tired sound.

''Yeah, I'm okay,'' a pause and then, ''are you ?''

You look out onto the dark streets of Tokyo. in the distance the Tokyo tower peeks out, a bolt of red against the navy sky. Are you okay ? Your life, which was already tearing at the seams, had somehow taken a massive 180 in the last two weeks, and it had all started with him. him in that damn ramen shop, a baseball card and smile that made your heart float.

''Yeah, I....I'm okay.'' To tell the truth would be too hard, too long.

Even though you cant see him you know he's tired. you can hear it in his voice. he sounds like hes aged fifty years in just three days.

''Y/N...'' Why did he always have to say your name like that ?

''Yes ?''

You know where this is going, you both do. the question is who will admit it out loud first.

''I'm Ultraman.'' He says it clear, direct, voice exhausted.

its not how you imagined someone would admit to being a beloved hero, an icon of the city. he says it like its a burden, a mantle thrusted onto him without a choice. it makes your heart squeeze.

''I know Kenji,'' you suck in a deep breath, ''I'm not going to tell anyone. I promise.''

There's silence from his end. For a moment you think the call has disconnected, until finally you hear him sigh.

''Do you want to come over ?''

That's how, an hour later, you find yourself sat outside in your car, in front of a mansion that belongs inside the pages of Architectural Digest.

The front door slides open and Kenji, in flesh and blood, stands in front of you. He's alive, he's okay and when he sees you he smiles.

stay tuned for part four, there's a little surprising twist. It's cute though, very wholesome. thank you to all who've kept up with the story so far. i hope you're enjoying it <33

#kenji sato x reader #kenji sato #kenji x reader #ultraman rising #ultraman #ken sato #ken sato x reader

193 notes · View notes

harufluff · 6 months

Text

my seahorse ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊

💬 : fluff, unestablished relationship au, afab!reader x bff!anton, ⚠ best friends to lovers trope, not proofread, 0.7k

“could you come over…” your voice was shaky through the phone speaker. anton had known you were at home because you had texted him hours before complaining about your neighbors.

“a-are you ok? did something happen?” his heart started beating faster. despite just being a friend, a best friend as you would put it, anton always worried about you.

weather you are up to no good, or just getting good news. he was here to support you no matter what. maybe a little too much for just a friend.

“i’m fine. just please be fast.” and just like that you had hung up, leaving anton scared and surprised with the various possibilities bouncing around his head.

anton made his way to your house as fast as he could. when he finally got to the front door of the house he had been to so many times before, he knocked. his heart finally began to calm as he heard the soft footsteps of your feet coming down the stairs.

the door opened to your face. no makeup, inches shorter than where his face is, and a blanket wrapped around your head. “what’s wrong?”

anton’s soft, calming voice makes it to your ears. before he can even blink again, the door swings open and reveals your blanket covered figure coming towards him for a hug.

“y/n, seriously what’s wrong? are you hurt?” your best friends hands now coming up to take your hands in his, inspecting for any injuries.

“come look.” you use his hands current position to your advantage and take one of them, dragging him up the stairs to your bedroom, a room he has been to more times than he can count.

you sit down on your bed, blanket still covering your lap, while anton stands in the doorway, still astounded, but mostly confused of your intentions.

“come sit. i wanna show you something.” he came to sit down on the bed next to you, anxious of what was to come.

anton’s nerves continued to be more prominent. “are you sure you’re ok?” he asks one more time before you dragged your laptop to your legs.

your curser traveled to the corner of the youtube screen to press the play button, then a pair of sea horses swim into the view of the camera.

a deep, manly voice comes out of your computer explaining how sea horses mate for life and stay together forever. your head turns in your best friends direction, tears on the brim of falling down your face.

“w-wait, what’s wrong? why are you crying” anton asks you, words coming quickly out of his mouth. “they mate forever, ant. imagine staying with someone you love for the rest of your life!!”

a slight smile rises to his face, finally realizing your sudden sadness was not necessarily sadness. “you still haven’t answered my question. why are you crying over some sea horses, y/n.”

anton held your face with one of his hands and whipped the stray tear now running down your face. “it’s just so romantic, y’know?”

you let the weight of your body tumble down as your back hit the soft covers of your bed. “i wanna find someone like that one day.” your eyes rest in the same place of your ceiling.

anton thinks about what to answer with for what feels like a couple seconds too long. “i have already.” you sit up straight right away, eyes wide open and staring into your best friends.

“who….?”

his cute smile made its way up to his lips as his face began to grow pink. “it’s you. you’re my seahorse…” anton tried his best to keep the eye contact with your still wide eyes.

“if you don’t feel the same way just tell me and i’ll forget i ever said it.” his gaze then dropped down to his hands that were resting in his lap.

“anton…you’re my seahorse too…” all of a sudden you felt anton’s body weight on top of yours and the room was filled with giggles from the both of you.

his face pops up from the crook of your shoulder, a lasting smile still on his face along with yours. “my seahorse”

a.n - sorry i havent posted in like so long lol. please enjoy! <3

©️harufluff 2024

376 notes · View notes

zweiginator · 2 months

Note

pls hear me out on this🙌

so like you live in a small home town, and when the zweigs move there to settle down, they join the local church to get to know people better, but patrick is completely against it until he sees reader — who is so cute and innocent and would never do anything to upset God because she’d feel so guilty and immediately go to confess her sins — and he just wants to corrupt her completely so the only person she can worship is him🤭

yes. and mr. zweig was so well-respected and established in the city they lived in before they decided to move. they want a farmhouse and to live by the countryside. a simpler life. patrick loves the bustle of the city and being surrounded by people. he despises the idea of moving and everyone knows it. the family just wants to ground themselves a little better in your town; they aren't highly religious people, but given the role of the church, it would be stupid to stay neutral.

so the zweigs join. and patrick figures they're pulling his leg, or it's something they'll back out of once 8 am on sunday rolls around. but there his father is, knocking on his bedroom door at 7:30, telling patrick to get his slacks on and he just can't fucking believe this.

they're too small for him; he's grown a few inches since he last wore them for his high school graduation three years ago. he really doesn't want to go but arguing with his father would be a death wish and two hours wouldn't kill him. he packs a joint and shoves it in his front pocket, slips a lighter in the other.

when they get to the church, a bonafide chapel with a pointed white roof and rows of scratched wooden pews, windows with rainbows of stained glass--patrick realizes this is the real fucking deal. it gives him the creeps, but he sits down and then he sees you across the aisle, smoothing your pristine ivory dress. you're sitting so straight and you're oh so attentive to the pastor. your hands are already neatly folded on your lap, as if you can't wait to pray and fuck--why does patrick always want what he can't have? what he shouldn't have?

you look over at him, feeling the intensity of his stare, barely visible in your peripheral vision. patrick's green eyes meld into yours and even how he looks at you is demanding. all-encompassing and powerful. it makes you blush and you've never seen him before. but you're not involved with boys. your father wouldn't allow it. and even though you've had crushes, temptations and desires, you don't give into them. it's not worth your father finding out. even if he didn't find out through word of mouth in your tiny little town, he would inevitably hear it from you, yourself as you confessed to him, knelt in that wretched little booth as you begged the Father--and your father--for forgiveness.

so you didn't dare break the rules. you would sit patiently and wait for your knight in shining armor like your father always says will happen. you would move slowly until he asked you to marry him and you would only consummate the marriage after everything was perfectly official. that's how it works.

but patrick's eyes don't stop watching you for the entirety of the service. you feel like a tiny ant, stuck under a microscope in the burning daylight because you swear his gaze is making your skin burn and you just want to tell him to stop. what does he want? hasn't he heard of being respectful? a gentleman?

you can also hear his foot tapping. his pressed shirt crinkling as he raises his wrist twice every minute to check the time as if that will make it go faster.

you glare at him. it's rude, but you're annoyed and this is church. who doesn't listen to the word of the lord?

patrick isn't affected. he winks at you and then you see he's flipping a red lighter in his right hand and you look at him quizzically. you shake your head at him and revert your attention back to your father, leaning forward slightly.

patrick starts flicking his thumb across the starter of the lighter. it's loud and obnoxious and distracting. your jaw tenses but you don't look at him. you won't.

two minutes later, you look over and he isn't there anymore. there's an empty space between who you assume are his parents. thank goodness, you think.

no more distractions.

and then you hear rustling by the window you're closest to. and through the kaleidoscope of the red and blue stained glass that separates you, you can tell it's patrick. and he's smoking.

you excuse yourself and pretend you have to go to the bathroom. you'll ask for forgiveness later.

you go outside and turn the corner. sure enough, you were right.

you tap him on the shoulder.

"mm." his eyebrows raise as he takes a puff of whatever it is he's smoking. it smells awful. "hey. do you want some?" he extends his arm and you shoo it away.

"no, no! what is that? you can't be smoking here." you cross your arms. patrick is much taller than you. he smiles down at you and although it could be genuine, it feels condescending regardless.

"what do you mean what is that? are you serious?" patrick coughs.

you shrug, egging him on to just tell you.

"it's weed. jesus, you're sheltered."

your eyes widen and patrick kind of feels weird because it turns him on and he realizes you can't believe he just used the lord's name in vain. jesus christ.

"hey, don't say that." you watch his, as he takes another puff. sharp inhale, deep exhale. his chest is broad like his shoulders. he has a scattering of freckles and a smile that is almost endearing. he's obviously a year or so older than you, but his smile has the remnants of a boyish charm. mischievous.

"or what? i'll go to hell?" patrick leans forward and it's too close.

"can you at least aim away? i don't wanna smell like that stuff."

you're so proper. your brows are furrowed but you don't commit to your anger. patrick assumes you feel bad for being upset. like you're going to get in trouble with the man upstairs. so it's a soft anger. you'll do your due diligence in keeping things holy, but you won't yell and scream.

"then why did you come here?"

"because you were distracting me."

patrick laughs. "so i was distracting you and you wanted to distract yourself more by coming out here to let me know i was distracting you?"

"if that's how you wanna see it, then sure."

patrick swears you roll your eyes at him. it's cute, how sweet you are. he can smell the repression emanating from your pores.

"you probably already smell like it, by the way." patrick winks.

it's thursday, and your father knocks on your bedroom door.

"we're having guests over for dinner tonight. wear something nice." he smiles at you and you return one. you don't think much of it, until it's 7 and you're walking down the stairs and there he is. you don't even know his name.

he hands it to you as he grabs your hand to shake it.

"i'm patrick zweig." he says, beaming. you introduce yourself and you can't help but be a little cold. your mom looks at you, shaking her head. a warning.

the zweigs are very respectable, you realize. patrick's parents are successful and kind and charismatic. patrick's little sister is going to brown in the fall, and patrick himself is a nationally ranked tennis player. you congratulate him.

your father brings up how you've always wanted to learn how to play tennis and you shake your head.

"oh, i don't think i have enough time." you push your potatoes around with your fork.

"honey, it's summer. there's plenty of time." your mother says.

you feign a smile at patrick, who pulls his bottom lip between his teeth.

and then you feel his foot against your shin. the rubbery sole of his leather dress shoe as it pushes up your leg, moving your skirt. you kick him.

you excuse yourself. there's something in your throat you say.

when you come back, dessert is on the table. patrick eats the strawberry shortcake sinfully. he's making a show of licking his fork and complimenting your mother on her baking skills. you can tell she's eating it up.

there's whipped cream on his lip.

"there's whipped cream on your lip." you point.

he pretends not to be able. he acts stupid, until you lean over and wipe it off for him and he thanks you profusely, like a perfect gentleman.

your father gave patrick your phone number. for tennis lessons. he even said he would pay patrick fifty dollars an hour.

how does a lesson at 4 sound?

it's patrick btw

you groan. you really don't care about tennis at all.

i can't. plus, i'm not interested in tennis. sorry

but somehow, your father finds out you declined and now it's 4 pm and patrick is picking you up. he smokes a joint on the car ride to the courts.

"stop! you're going to get in trouble and you're going to get me in trouble!"

patrick blows smoke out the window.

"relax, why would you get in trouble? you're not driving."

he's so nonchalant. doesn't care about consequences or doing the right thing or being holy--he only cares about himself. it's so unattractive.

patrick thinks the opposite of you. loves how you give him a hard time. how you're a piece of work, a perfect angel, daddy's little girl. here you are, in his passenger seat in a little white skirt and a tight tank top. patrick tells himself that in a way, it's all for him. you excite him.

and you're really bad at tennis. he can tell it frustrates you, and patrick is deliberately making it hard. serving the ball harder than he should, smacking it out of bounds.

"come on, you got this! just gotta get to the ball faster!" patrick yells.

you groan and throw his racket down. "can you play fair? you're supposed to be teaching me!"

"god wouldn't like that you're taking the easy way out."

patrick is mocking you and you hate how he always brings god up like that. like it's a joke. you walk over to him.

"take me home." you demand.

"it's only been thirty minutes." he peers down at you, like you're his subject.

"i don't care take me home."

patrick moves closer to you. "can you get my racket?"

you jump over the net and bend over to pick it up and when you turn around patrick is ogling you. you smack his stomach with the racket.

"what the hell!" he holds his stomach but he's laughing at you and he makes you feel so small and stupid and you march to the car. he won't unlock it.

he just stands in front of you and watches you gnaw on your lip, listens to the tap, tap, tap of your sneakers on the pavement. he opens his mouth to sigh and you don't know what you're doing or why you're doing it. something just comes over you; a wave of sinful lust, or something akin to hatred--it all boils over and you pull him by the collar. kiss him hard. patrick pushes you against the side of his car. the black metal is hot against your back but you don't care. your tongue shyly pushes into patrick's mouth and he smirks against you as his lips part and he sucks you in like a serpent, licking into your mouth and seducing you. like some sort of devil. his hands roam and pry and he touches your waist and the curve of your ass, barely covered by the skirt that had ridden up during your short practice. you try to resist the urge to kiss him again but nothing can stop you and patrick just pulls you closer and closer and he tastes like weed which is even worse. you're guilty before it's even over. would it really be so bad not to confess?

patrick picks you up and opens the backseat. he pushes you inside and closes the door and you're still latched onto him. your innocent eyes beg him for more. he ruts his clothed cock against your pussy, your skirt flipped up to reveal the tiny shorts underneath. his lips ghost over yours and he resists your desperate pulls on his collar to get him to connect them to yours.

instead his hand glides down your body. slides between your tits and over your naval until he reaches your cunt. you're wet.

"what's this?" patrick asks you.

your breath is shaky.

"you're a bad, dirty girl. do you know that?" patrick grabs your jaw. you have to hold back a moan.

"no, i'm not." you shake your head.

"good girls listen to god." patrick lets the saliva build up in his mouth. it's easy when you look like that beneath him. when your voice trembles. "good girls don't listen to boys like me. and they certainly don't like this."

he lets a glob of spit drop from his mouth and you watch as it falls into your own.

your brain wants to hate it. you want to tell him he's disgusting and push him off of you. but you don't. you moan. and it's guttural and you pull his collar so hard you tear the seam as you kiss him again.

#ask #challengers #patrick zweig #patrick zweig x reader #patrick zweig smut #challengers smut #corruption kink lets go

178 notes · View notes

luveline · 10 months

Note

hi jadeee!!! :D i read the fic abt poly!marauders with depressed reader and i was wondering if you could do one with aaron? for example r having trouble getting out of bed or doing small tasks and her mental health getting bad again, i don’t know if its just me but i rarely find these kind of fics <3

hi gorgeous i hope this is ok! fem, 1k

“How are you feeling?” Aaron asks, patting his face dry with a towel.

You rub sleep from your eyes, catching Aaron's eyes in the mirror over his broad shoulders. You offer him a tired sort of smile.

“Come here,” he says.

You do as he says. Aaron's getting dressed for work, and it's miraculous to have you up and out of bed before him considering how depressed you've been lately. Your abdomen presses to his.

“What are you going to do today?” he asks, wetting a washcloth in the sink. He feels the temperature of the water for a few seconds.

“Um…” You close your eyes in preparation. “I have to shower. And I want to… make you dinner. So I'll do that.” He brings the washcloth to your face and rubs at your skin gently, little rivers of warm water creeping down your face and neck. “Is my appointment today?”

“No, sweetheart. It's not until Tuesday.” He cleans your nose, your sleep-crusted lashes. “Why not have a bath? That way you can sit. You could bring your laptop in here and watch a movie.”

“That…” You run out of steam as he wipes the last stretch of your cheek gently.

If you can't manage a shower today, Aaron will help when he comes home. He never makes it seem like an obstacle or an imposition to help you through these things, treating it like any other hour of time spent together. “Dinner would be nice. But make sure you set the timer if you use the oven. I'll worry.”

“Yeah.”

He passes you your toothbrush and toothpaste. You squeeze it out onto the bristles as he sets about neatening your hair for the day, fingertips gentle on the soft skin of your hairline. You force the toothbrush into your mouth and start out slowly. You feel a disconnect between you and your actions, his touch the only tether, and every brush takes effort you don't have.

“I didn't say good morning,” he says apologetically, rubbing your shoulders with some loving roughness. “How did you sleep?”

Sleep is a big blob you don't have words for. “Good morning,” you say through toothpaste, leaning your face into his arm.

He kisses whatever bit of your face he can reach. “Good morning.”

“Sorry if I'm dirty.”

“You aren't honey, you're fine. We just need to keep on top of it.”

He pulls away to let you finish your half job, offering you a floss pick that you take on automatic but can't force yourself to use. It stays in your hand all the way to the breakfast table, where you get served sliced fruits and toast with chocolate spread. It's the kind with lots of calories, to keep you going if you can't manage your own lunch. Aaron makes you lunch most of the time if you can't do it yourself and leaves it in a tupperware in the fridge, but actually getting up to reheat it is another thing. You usually do it if your stomach aches but not otherwise. Already, you're wanting to go back to bed. Another day of letting him down.

He gives you your medication divider, sipping at his own mug of coffee. “Jack's coming back tonight. Are you excited?”

“So excited,” you say honestly. “Did he have a good time at, uh, Mason's?”

“I think so. They went to Pizza Hut buffet. He said we have to go for his birthday.” He smiles at you from over the lip of his mug, eyes all manner of tender. “He asked if you're still sleeping.”

“Don't let him worry about me,” you say, half-pleading.

“No, I won't. You know I won't. He's just noticed you're not feeling your best, but it's not a bad thing. He wants to tuck you in.”

“He said that?”

Aaron nods with a smile. “He misses you when he doesn't see you.”

“I miss him… I'm sorry. About all of this. I really…” You look down at your hands. Toast crumbs cling to your fingers, little white ants that catch hold when you attempt to shake them off. You wipe them in your pants. “I promise I'm trying.”

He rounds the table. Takes your face into his hand, but doesn't force your head up. “That's not in question,” he says in his dulcet tone. “We want you to feel as good as you can. It doesn't matter how long it takes.”

“I just want to be better.” I just want this feeling to be over.

He hums into himself, his big hand a warm, steady thing where it covers your cheek. He's so solid.

“Listen,” he says, bending to meet your eye. “Today, I only want you to do three things. Do you think you can do that? If you can't, I won't be mad, but I want you to try.”

“Okay.”

“Firstly, what you said about dinner? That sounds nice. Being active is good for you.” He measures your reaction. You've schooled your features into a determined seriousness that makes him smile. “Alright. Secondly, you take that nice long bath.”

Your seriousness falters. “Sorry.”

“No, no, don't be. It's not like that, sweetheart, I just want you to stay healthy, and to feel good about yourself. That's why I need you to eat lunch too.”

“Is that the third thing?”

“No, the third thing is to give me a kiss because I'm about to be late for work.”

You tip your head up and he kisses you sweetly as always. You let him fawn and fret for a few minutes before he really has to leave, and then it's your fault he's late, calling him back in for a last hug. To be fair to you, it's a hug you really, really need.

“Call me if you need to,” he says, his cheek against your temple. “I'll come home. I promise.”

#aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner x y/n #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner blurb #aaron hotchner drabble #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #hotch x reader #hotch #hotch x you #hotch blurb #hotch drabble

702 notes · View notes

1800titz · 4 months

Text

HI BESTIES. This is the first part of Shibari man/Shibari Asshole/Rigger!Harry x Rope bunny!Reader ((the one I teased here))

The one where Harry runs shibari classes and you think he should smile more

WC: 2.4K

This is part one of a patreon exclusive series; the rest will only be accessible through my patreon. You can already find part 2 up on my patreon (✿◠‿◠)

When you were a little kid, your brother had an ant farm.

An acrylic formicarium that’d started out as two boxes with a set of tubes. Over time, it morphed into a staggering, caged cityscape of twisting, pellucid hoses and burrows that spanned the entire length of the desk in his bedroom.

You'd watch them scatter the tunnels as a little girl, lugging cracker crumbs and bits of fruit off your sticky fingers, weaving along the chutes connecting the boroughs of their curated city.

Your brother did what any nasty, older brother would do— those harvester ants were the torment of your childhood. You'd bicker, and he’d threaten to spill them into your bed when you were sleeping. Told you that the colony would eat her toes, that you'd wake up to wiggle nothing but grisly, little, ichor-soaked stumps.

The gory intimidation tactic never really did much.

You'd still press your nose to the screen barring the insects and smudge your fingerprints over, fascinated as they congregated to the wet cotton ball in the depths of their home.

You think it's a little like that now, wandering the swarming alcoves in the underbelly of New York. You're a little harvester ant (all exoskeleton to sheathe the pulpy anguish of a long day— ball it inside, keeping your face even and your mouth in a line), plodding through a network of crystalline, vinyl tubing. Swimming against the swathing current of the colony seeping past you in their beanies and their coats, deadpanned on their dog-eat-dog pursuit of errands.

During the evening rush hour, it’s teeming under the city that never sleeps. It’s a stunning exhibit, maybe, for a tourist whose hometown flickers every porch light off by nine and has one tributary of a road that seeps away from the community, but it doesn’t help the headache thrumming behind your temples. Instead, it kindles the narked throb in your limbs until it feels like an itch in your bloodstream.

The day’s chewed you up with its sharp, ivory incisors and spit you out. Left something tired and empty. The dregs are grounds of a mucky ire, ready to be shed under the scalding spew of a showerhead.

You mingle through the horde, slinking the gaps you can manage to squeeze past. Your nose burns. Anti-seize lubricant. Cherry cleaners and old concrete. Musk and brake dust. Ground up, heated steel from the wheels burning — metal on metal. Grease. It smells like asphalt and strife.

The car is packed. A lumbering throng that weaves and scatters, either casting indignant looks over their shoulders when they’re nudged as you politely shoulder your way through, or soul-sucked into their phones altogether, scrolling in detachment.

There’s one tawny seat, empty and tucked against the back wall. You inch for it on aching ankles, burning knees; the bits of a long day left sewn into your joints. It gnaws into your marrow, and nothing sounds better than hot water on naked skin. You twist—

Marimba blares from you bag. Someone casts an irrationally exasperated side-eye over their shoulder. You straighten out, and rummage through the contents. Find a battered lanyard. A spare stick of deodorant. A hair tie coated in lint and a sparse handful of change—

Drink water. You thumb the alarm off.

When you sit back, it’s rigid. Firm and uneven. Warm, like a breathing furnace. It takes you all of a split second to recognize that you've managed to perch on a splayed thigh, clad in denim that’s shredded at the knees, rather than the grooved, ochre plastic of a hovering seat.

You had thought there was little emotion you could have summoned beyond something drained and miffed. The day surprises you, yet, in its dying breaths. Like a mortified buoy, embarrassment bobs from the cesspool when you startle up and twist.

There’s a man in your seat.

He looks oddly comfortable, almost as if he’d been there all along. As if you had just conjured a mirage of an empty seat. The only acknowledgement he gives you, blinking up from the phone cradled in his enormous, right hand, is a stoically disgruntled glance from behind the squared, pitch-framed lenses resting on the bridge of his nose.

“Um. Excuse me—” you blink. Your brows crease, “I was sitting there.”

He spares you a glance. There’s gems in his sockets. Emeralds. Dewy and dulled from the same, shitty day of skyscraper-morphed incisors gnawing. He looks away, and they coruscate in the near blinding glare of his LED, cast in a faint echo over his glasses.

“No, you weren’t.”

You blink again. He doesn’t even spare you a glance as he denies it. You're forced to stare at the part in his hair; the way a burnt umber curl sweeps over his temple. He scrolls over his screen, instead, with a neatly saffron-lacquered thumb.

You swallow a flattering epithet that (his obvious disinterest) nearly wrests from your mouth. A flimsy facsimile of a smile sculpts over. Appalled. Nearly seeping into the beginnings of borderline deranged as your threadbare composure gets toyed at by a prick with a clandestine pair of scissors. Almost, almost, almost.

“Well. I was going to.”

“That’s unfortunate,” he murmurs, brows kinked, “because this seat is taken.”

A little noise clambers from the back of your throat. You swallow it down and scoff. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly.”

It’s dry, derisive, disinterested. The three D’s that are going to get his glasses plucked off and tossed to the floor to be crushed under someone’s heel.

“Unbelievable.”

His eyes— mossy, reminiscent of the woods— sweep up. He’s quiet. Stony. For the first time, you really get a good look, and decide, instantly, that if he weren’t such an apparent dickhead, maybe his specs and his voguish jumper would make him look sophisticated. Handsome, with his even slope of a nose, full, pink lips, and the dusting of stubble along his cheeks and jawline.

There’s a sharp contrast to him, like inverted colors. Patchwork of sutures that don’t fit. It’s off, his cozy sweater and his soft hair. He looks like a warm, barbed hug.

Prickly— saguaro, in a Marc Jacobs pullover, with stinging spines sticking through the stitching.

“What’s the matter with you?” It’s softer that you'd intended.

You quiver— everything, all over. Your bottom lip wobbles, your mandible sets, your fingers wring at the strap of your tote. They twitch and stretch at your side with this provoked, goopy slurry of cortisol and adrenaline. It permeates your pericardium. Snakes the tubing with an incensed warmth— embers kindled.

“Do you realize how rude that is?”

Asphalt and strife. Someone to your side glances over their shoulder and then turns back. The stranger blinks up at you from his phone with soft features chiseled apathetic. Vetiver and musk.

“M’not sure what you mean.”

“Are you joking? You stole my seat, dude,” you wave out with your hand.

He blinks again.

“I don’t think it ever belonged to you, to be fair—“ then, “Is your name on it?”

It’s a childish retort to spall your argument into flinders. Your eyes narrow into anticipatory slits.

“No—“

“Then I suppose it’s not your seat, is it?” he responds sharply— chiaroscuro to the lax, impassive shape that molds his face, “S’first come, first serve …dude.”

A stranger grazes your shoulder blade in passing— something you've become accustomed to. People finding walkways in strait gaps on a train that’s packed like a can of sardines.

“Oh my God. You are such an asshole— I could be pregnant.”

He raises his eyebrows. His eyes trail. A slow once-over, wry and disbelieving. Sage and owlish. A stray curl stemming from the forefront of his crown meddles to coil over his forehead. The corner of his otherwise indurated mouth twitches.

“Are you pregnant?”

No.

“Yes,” you glower.

It slinks from the back of your throat, unbidden— this lie. Rides up the back up of your tongue and slips through the cracks of your teeth. It’s curdled and twisted, miasmic pulp in tar— who the fuck lies about being pregnant for a subway seat?

You're never going to see him again.

You're never, ever going to see him again.

You cup your hand over the underside of your tummy. Sell it, now that you have to. All soft flesh under the button of your jeggings, shrouded under the boxy shaping of your fleece turtleneck— where a baby (that definitely doesn’t exist, last you checked), the size of a citrus limon, would curl up. You tuck your palm over the phantom at your underbelly.

You've had a shitty day, and now you've been backed into a corner, offering the universe shitty manifestations with your hands cupped out.

The seat stealer ogles. Meanders from your strategic hand placement to your ireful scowl. Back. His mouth purses.

“So, it’s not that you could be,” he clarifies, slowly, “It’s that you are.”

Languid. Unrushed, like an overflowing, murky lake lapping at a berm. Someone brushes the back of your arm.

“Yes.”

“Are you lying?”

You scoff. He’s fully transfixed on you now, the glow from his smartphone dimmed on its pending shut-off timer.

“Are you kidding? Who—“ you hike your tote up, “lies about being pregnant for a subway seat?”

He purses his lips again, ruddy pillows bordering the sharp chasm of his mouth where the tools to dissect her claims are stowed. Bobs his head.

“How far along are you, then?”

You grit out, teeth bared, “Thirteen weeks—“

And a stranger prods past with enough force to nudge you forward. Enough for your shin to brush against the bespectacled stranger's own. Enough to step into his space, nearly between his parted thighs. He frowns.

He does another slow sweep with his gaze. Furrowed brows, glimmering viridian dancing from behind limped lenses. Gleaning pieces like cattail and twine for a nest. Deciding; are they worthy? A grip over your underbelly, the little frown on your lips that mirrors his own, the way you suddenly crowd his atoms. He’s unconvinced, almost. Apathetic.

You fully expect him to tell you to fuck off, but then he nudges with his stubbly chin. You shuffle back as much as you can with about three, broad strangers at all sides.

He bleeds out into you, for a moment, all heat, when he clambers up and steps in to make your cycle — this game of musical chairs to the tune of white noise, flitting on a screeching rail through a tunnel— smoother. He’s broad. Tapered. Thick in the shoulders, a carnegiea of a man towering when he nearly presses his firm chest to you, wrapped in french terry. He’s much softer to the touch than the spikes bristling from his mien implicate. Woodsy and clean, like smoke, and cedarwood, and soap. It flushes the miasmic undertone of grease the subway always has.

He cocks his head. Sit down.

“Congratulations,” he tells you when you slot into the nook, splaying your tote over your lap.

He’s kept your seat warm.

Whether the statement is in reference to your unborn pseudo-baby or your victory, you're unsure.

KNOTS resembles a yoga studio, with its clean, tall walls, its french oak flooring, and its bone-white bulbs, linearly tiled into the ceiling. It smells like an amalgam of grapefruit cleaning products and spritzes of an air freshener that vaguely echoes the lapping sea.

Salt, an airy ozone, muguet. Something pretentious that doesn’t fit into the city.

If it weren’t for the myriad of ropes, lubricants, and toy cleaners stacking the shelving units by the front, you would have felt as if you were here to attend a pilates class. Cycling, maybe. Something sweaty and less …abrasive.

You're late for your seven-to-nine open level, beginner’s course— two soporific hours of staring at rope and tying knots that you'll never get back.

(Slaphappy and fecklessly inept at knot-tying are two traits that don’t work well to take up shibari as a hobby.

“Please— she’s been begging for months and none of those online tutorials make any fucking sense.”

“So— why don’t you take her with you?”

“Because I want it to be a surprise,” Niall had opposed. Puffed his chest, “I wanna surprise her. Like a proper ropes guy, you know. And she’s so flexible, too, I could tie her in loads of positions—“

You'd raised your hand. “Spare me.”

Niall’s always been a glass half-full. Crystalline, effervescent. A bright color.

You couldn’t bear to ruffle his plume when, two autumns ago, he spent a Wednesday afternoon standing outside a women’s handicapped stall in an auto shop for pure, courageous moral support as you took an actual pregnancy test— not even by his doing, and he still was a very good sport. Even if he’s absolute shit at knots beyond tying his own shoes.

You didn’t have the heart to tell him that if he struggled with twine and a palomar, it wasn’t going to matter how bendy his girlfriend was.)

You're fourteen minutes late. Eight-hundred-forty seconds and change for every two steps, by the time you find the right door in the balmy corridor of boundless doorways. The portly, alder ingress squeals on its hinges when you shuffle, as quietly as you can manage, into what vaguely resembles a dance studio.

The attendees look the part, too, perched over their yoga mats in contemporary dancer garb, turning their chins over their shoulders at the disturbance. Dress casual and comfortable. There’s only about eight of them, and they coil in a piqued coterie ahead of the instructor, who has about six varying ropes, diverse in their tint and structure, and then he peers up—

It’s him. Saguaro, with the frames and the eyes like beds of flinty malachite.

He’s holding a furled, plaited cord, the head of the class, and he pauses, blinking up. Briefly. He clears his throat—

”—Jute, on the other hand, has great knot stability. You can see here, the braided texture— that makes it less slippery.”

Compunction crinkles the valley of skin between your eyebrows as you trudge in alongside Niall— he’s much more amicable about it, mouthing apologies and raising his hand in friendly hello’s that don’t receive much beyond awkwardly indifferent glances. You sink to your knees toward the back, which isn’t all that far from the front, all things considered. It’s a small class. The wood burrows into your tailbone— were the yoga mats a complementary piece? Were you supposed to bring a yoga mat?

“It’s great for floor bondage, but it’s water sensitive. So if you want to work it into suspension, don’t wash it too often. Otherwise, you’re losing carrying capacity.”

The city of New York is a metaphorical hayrick. It’s a paradox, since the big apple is the furthest thing from watery mud, fir-constructed barns, and scythes sweeping through crops.

Theoretically, though, you should have never seen this man again.

He should have become swept into the mound of straw— got lost in it. Mortification strums at your muscles, tensing every sinew. It scars deep— scrapes at your cartilage. If you'd known this needle would prick your thumb again, maybe you wouldn’t have waged war for the seat on the subway.

And yet, here he is.

#harry styles smut #harry styles #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #dom harry styles #dom!harry x sub!reader #dom harry #enemies to lovers #harry styles fluff #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fic #harry styles x reader #shibari!harry #rigger!harry #harry styles fanfiction

186 notes · View notes

thegnomelord · 4 months

Text

CH 3: Hold Your Demons Close Maybe Then You'll Feel Something

CW:NSFW blood, gore, mutilation, killing, cannon typical violence, child abuse (it's minor but still there), drugging, military inaccuracies, Mage reader, Monster cod AU, poly141, eventual poly141 X reader, reader isn't a good person, a few masc terms used but overall gn.

Ao3; Word count: 19.1k (It's a heckin chonker) Big thanks for @rodolfoparras and @princeguri66 for betaing for me, love you guys!

Masterlist; Chapter 2 <-Chapter 3 (You are here) -> Chapter 4

Aisha remembers the day she thought she would die.

As a gift for the 10th birthday her mother had taken her to the market in the big city. It had been chaotic compared to their little village, so many people donkey carts, and mopeds moving around like crazy ants in a freshly exposed nest. Aisha had gotten lost, swept away by the time of movement, and ended up at the entrance of a shady alley where she'd stumbled on an old beggar woman.

Long as she lives she will never forget the sight of the woman. Strip her of flesh and blood and the memory will still be etched into her bones — of ghostly blue lines forming impregnable chains across sunken sunburned skin. Of dirty rags loosely hanging off skeleton thin shoulders. Of blood crusted bandages wrapped tightly around her shaved head to not scare the children running about, the cloth dipping into the eyeless sockets of her skull. Of her asking passerby for alms with the handless stumps of her arms.

The sight alone had frightened Aisha, but then the beggar had turned her head to Aisha as if she could hear the frantic beating of her heart. A sad saccharine croon left the mage woman's chapped lips as she looked right at her. "Hello, fellow daughter of Magnus."

Her mother found her then, pulling Aisha back while shouting at the woman at the top of her lungs. Aisha's mind had been too full of thoughts to notice her mother drop their shopping in favor of scurrying out of the market with Aisha in hand. She had only snapped back to reality when her mother had thrown Aisha into her father’s rusted little car, barely able to sit up straight before they were driving home to their village as fast as the car’s geriatric engine could go.

Aisha had been locked in the room she shared with her sisters, but the door did little to mute the way her parents argued all day long, accusations of infidelity and cursed bloodlines thrown around like bird feed. Most of it flew over her head, but Aisha had understood one thing: Her parents were afraid.

The strange men came to her house just as the sun had set, drawn out by the dying light like coyotes hunting for a stray lamb. The strong stench of rot heralding their arrival made her sputter to hold back the bile burning her throat. She remembers the sparks of yellow and red and blue and all the other stolen colors of the rainbow swirling in their cold eyes.

They chatted while inspecting her like a cow in the market, their language just as rough and hard as their hands. But they lost interest quickly, unable to find what they wanted to see. They turned to throw lecherous looks at her mother and older sisters before her father had stepped between them and her, protecting his daughter now that he knew Aisha wasn't a freak. He'd tensely asked them to leave after paying for their time, standing in the doorway and only going back inside when the strange men were well and truly out of sight.

Her parents let them in without complaint; Her father held her down, his steely gaze watching the men crowd her. Her mother whispered trembling words into her ear to just be a good girl as the men tore her shirt off. Aisha's questions and pleas and panic fell on deaf ears, her mother pressing a worn hand over her mouth to silence her cries as the men inspected her chest and arms. They pinched and pulled on her skin with hands scarred like gnarled tree bark, the roughness of their palms chafing her soft flesh.

Aisha remembers the days she thought she would die.

Waking up each day to wash under her mother's stalwart gaze so she could ensure Magnus hadn't sown seeds into Aisha's body while she slept. Going each week to the village elders to drink the special brew of Morgana's tears, spending agonizing hours curled up and sobbing on the floor with a stabbing pain in her chest, her heart beating like the wings of a snared bird as the poison made its way through her system. She'd lost count how many times her heart would stutter after every bout of joy or childish argument on the rare moments the children of the village would interact with her — any lick of emotion would force her to run home to check the pads of her fingers in fear that this time magic had cracked through her skin.

She had been so happy on her 15th birthday — the danger had passed. She wasn’t a mage. She could finally live a normal life, meet a boy, get married, have a family.

She’s 16 now. All those years of worry and fear feel like childhood bliss.

Aisha knows she will die.

It happened so suddenly; When her friend had jokingly rubbed a feather duster in her face, Aisha would have never expected a stupid sneeze to force liquid frost through her fingers. Pain had raced through her chest at the speed of lightning, an unknown force pulling her arms up, and the next thing she knew she had frozen over her neighbor's entire crop field. Aisha had barely heard her friend scream over the pounding in her ears, her legs moving on their own long before her brain could understand the pain in her hands or what she had done.

Her mind might still have been reeling, but her body understood she needed to run, needed to hide, before the sun fell and the coyotes came for her.

The house she's found to hide in is one of the many corpses the Russians left behind, stripped bare to rotting wood bones and crumbling bricks, moldy wall paper peeling in long thick strips and rickety boards creaking under the slightest pressure. Gravel crunches beneath heavy tires outside the decrepit house and a rumbling engine cuts through the silence. Aisha scrambles up the stairs to the second floor, hiding in a dingy closet with it's walls closing in around her like the sides of a cramped coffin. Termite made holes in the closet door act as peepholes, letting her see into the bedroom and watch the long shadows created by the car's lights stretch across the floor.

She bites her lip as the slightest twitch of her pinky finger makes pain bloom across her entire hand, though she's barely able to move her fingers with how stiff they are. Her tan skin bellow the wrists is corpse pale and cold, blood crusting the creases of her knuckles. The creaking of floorboards has Aisha hastily pressing her ice cold hands against her lips, the taste of her blood — copper and iron with a hint of something sweet like antifreeze — failing to churn her stomach when even the hint of slowly encroaching rot has her heart clogging her throat so not even a whimper can make it past her lips.

She’s sure her lungs stop working when a man crosses the threshold into the room, and immediately she’s hit with such a strong smell of decay, like death had crawled up her nose and died there. Her throat and chest spasm with the need to cough, tears freely running down her cheeks from how much effort it takes to keep quiet, but past her blurry vision she can see the man slowly walk into the room.

He’s tall and gangly like a newborn foal, bulky clothes widening his frame that’s mostly skin and bones, thinning blond hair badly swept over a sizable bald spot. He wouldn’t be so scary if his eyes didn’t glow an unnatural mixture of toxic green and burning red— the sight alone has goosebumps spreading across his skin, followed by a deep seated discomfort as if leeches are crawling inside her bones.

“Come out little girl,” Even his voice feels wrong, like glass ground on sandpaper, but he speaks with so much sweetness it’s disgusting. “We only want to talk to you, don’t worry you’re not in trouble.” She can tell he’s not from Urzikstan by the rough accent that muddles the Arabic words he speaks.

The floorboards creak softly as she shifts. His head swivels to look around the room and the man quickly walks over to the bed, dropping to his knees to look under it. “Fuck!” His facade falls as he snarls when he sees she’s not there, stumbling to his feet like a drunk. “I mean uh- don’t worry I’m not mad kid,” He chuckles lightly, trying to put on an act of a worried Samaritan, though the attempt falls short when his predatory eyes fall on the closet she’s hiding in.

“Hey, did you find her yet?” Another voice rings from the entrance of the room, this one feminine and with a slight drawl to her words as she speaks in english. It makes Aisha jump, though the squeaking boards beneath her go unnoticed when the new voice continues. “Boss is starting to get antsy and if we don’t find her soon he’ll be sticking your ass with the pigs.”

She can’t see well, but she’s certain the man shows a middle finger to the unseen person. “Fuck off,” He spits out the response like it’s a mouthful of poison, “We both know you’re the dead weight.” He says, taking a few steps around the bed, but luckily for Aisha he stops in the middle of the room. Aisha can hear how deeply he breathes in, before something catches in his throat and he coughs. “I can smell the magic, the wench is still in the house.”

“Bullshit.” The woman scoffs, “You say that every hunt and we end up wasting our time.” A moment passes before the unseen woman chuckles and adds. “You couldn’t smell shit if you shoved your head up your ass!”

The man openly seethes, quick and heavy footsteps carrying him right up to the woman and out of Aisha’s field of view. “You take that back you fucking bitch!” The snarl is more animal than man. Aisha can only assume he punches the woman from the way the floorboards groan loudly in the otherwise silent night, shoes scuffing on the floor, grunts and swears filling the air as the noises of fighting steadily recede to another room.

She’s light headed by the time she manages to pull her hands away from her mouth enough to draw in a breath of stale air, her lungs burning from how long she had gone without breathing. Her heart drums loudly in her skull, her ears pricked to listen to the two strangers exchange angry words in a language she doesn't understand, each passing second of the continuing scuffle making confidence slowly form in her mind.

This is her chance!

. . . to do what?

She doubts she could take them on, she's pretty sure she saw a gun hanging off the man's waist, and she definitely knows she won't be able to outrun them. She's stuck. Cornered.

“Whatever, you just fin-” The sound of footsteps once again nearing the room she's in forces her body to act without her input.

Fishhooks tug on her fingers and force them to splay out flat in the air despite the pain. Her mind scrambles to think of something, anything, before unseen hands pull her mouth open. A shaky breath escapes her lungs and before she knows it words are falling from her lips, so smooth and fluent like her mind is reading a script carved into her bones. “Oh harsh creatures of brutal winter, please, I need your help-” Something cold and sharp stabs behind her chest, more of her skin turning pale as magic slowly crawls down her arms.

It hurts —

Spiderweb cracks of broken glass spread across her knuckles and a fat drop of blood rolls down her chin from how tightly she bites her lip. Her blood beads through the cracks in her skin, the dark crimson turned a light pink by the freshly exposed white light that pulses beneath her skin like a living thing. Aisha sucks in a sharp breath before continuing, “- I beg you, give me a crumb of your power, a ball of silent snow to hide my life-” The more she speaks, the more the white light cracks through her skin until it cracks through the pads of her fingers and escapes as shoddily formed snowflakes.

They dance through the air like drunken fireflies before finding the right position and floating in the air. More of them spawn from each finger with every word spoken, taking their own place in an unknown pattern.

Slowly the overlapping snowflakes take on the shape of a scratchy circle, trembling lines forming a complex web of shapes inside it. The pain grows with it; it turns her fingers pale and numb as if she had stuck her hands in freezing water, the icy bite of frost spreading up her wrists. Her frozen skin cracks from even the slightest tremor in her hands, white speckles dancing in her crimson blood as it leaks down her palms. Each second taken to breathe and bite back a whimper disrupts the fragile collection of snowflakes, causing parts of the circle to break off and drop to the ground in big watery drops.

Her chest feels like it’s tightly packed with soaked wool, a type of pressure building behind her sternum, her shoulders stiff as her body is getting ready for. . . something good—

The closet door swings open with enough force to break it off its hinges. White light of the circle refracts off the gun aimed at her.

Bang!

A bullet tears through the magic circle and shatters it into pieces, all the pressure that had been building in her body rushing through the crumbling remains of the circle right back at her.

She screams and shakes, fat tears freely running down her cheek like the blood flowing from her palms. There’s not a single word in any language able to describe the pain rushing through her veins, the liquid agony infesting every cell — sharp and blunt and deep and gnawing, like her body is trying to eat itself, like she’s infested with maggots; the bullet that tears through her side feels like a soft mercy.

“Fucking moron!” She barely hears the woman snarl over the rush of blood in her ears. The gun aimed at her is roughly pushed down. “Are you trying to get the boss to take our heads?” The stench of rot only worsens it, disorientating her further and she’s barely able to make her fingers twitch. She’s got no defense from the rough hand that roughly grabs her by the hair and pulls her out of the closet.

“I’d rather not die from a first time mage!” The man yells, grabbing her by the shoulder. Aisha’s legs can’t support her weight no matter how much she tries, but the man is far stronger than she had expected and has no problem holding her up. Her lungs manage a pained sound before her arms are grabbed and painfully wrenched behind her back, handcuffs softly clicking as they’re tightened until the steel digs into her aching wrists.

“Oh so when I’m the one on the end of the damn spells it’s fine then?” The woman’s anger shows in the way her cracked nails dig into Aisha’s scalp and pull her head back like she's trying to take it off entirely. Aisha struggles to breathe, gasping and wriggling to the best of her ability but it’s useless and a second later a thick metal collar is tightened around her neck, rusted needles on the inside of it pricking her skin enough to draw blood.

It burns. The collar rapidly heats up like she's got a string of hot coals around her neck, the heat traveling down her skin to grip her heart in a vice. The collar is so tight she can’t even gasp, fresh adrenaline pouring through her veins as she tries to scramble out of the handcuffs, tries to shake out of their hold, tries to just get away. . . but she’s about as strong as a kitten.

“You’re expendable. The girl could make a better spell than you.” The man holding her shoulder laughs and pulls her away as soon as the woman lets go of her hair, all too happy to drag her like a sack of potatoes behind him. Each step down the stairs has the base of her spine awkwardly hitting the step, accosting her frazzled brain with even more pain.

“We got the girl, boss!” The man says triumphantly, pulling her up so she’s facing another man. Even with the tears blurring her vision, Aisha can tell the ‘boss’ isn’t from Urzikstan; He’s a pudgy little man with a wide flat nose and other features that don’t quite fit his face, but his eyes — they glow the same rainbow hue as the other two, with the same malice.

“Finally.” The boss huffs, not wasting a single second and pulling a knife from his pocket. A rough hand holds Aisha’s head so she can’t squirm away from the knife as it cuts across her cheek. Just that small cut feels like a gaping wound and a small whimper falls from her lips as the boss pulls the knife back, specks of white floating in the dark blood coating the metal. A black tongue slips from his lips to lick up the bloodied edge, the sight making her stomach curl with disgust.

Another hand grabs her cheek, cracked fingers like claws digging into the cut until blood flows over the man's fingers. The man holding her pulls his bloodied fingers into his mouth, humming. A second passes before he curses and spits at his feet. “There’s barely anything there,” He says, the hold he has on her tightening. “Barely worth the bullet.”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem.” The boss waves him off, sharp rainbow eyes looking her up and down. “Couple of grams from ol’ daddy Magnus and we’ll have ourselves a proper sow.” He reaches out to pat the top of her head, condescending — like she's just a dumb animal. “Alright, put it in the truck.” The boss orders and the man holding her complies, starting to drag her to the truck parked in front of the house.

Somehow, behind the the loud beating of her heart, she hears rumbling. Somehow, though her mind is like tangled yarn and she can barely grasp a thought, she feels something — an emotion that doesn't belong to her: Anger

Violent anger. Burning hot in the cold night, so all consuming it leaves the world around her trembling.

"Hold on-" The boss says suddenly, quickly raising his head to sniff the air. "Do you smell that?"

Tires screech against the rocky road, orange flames sparking from thin air as a motorcycle appears out of nowhere. Aisha only manages to get a glimpse of glowing orange eyes before she's blinded by bright light. She closes her eyes, heat washing over her body before she hears the head of the man holding her explode.

Shards of bone and brain matter rain down on her, sticking to her dark curly hair. The body stands for a second, unaware it no longer has a head as the charred stump of the neck steams. The body falls to the ground and takes Aisha with it, falling on top of her.

The elbow digs into her bleeding side, her eyes flying open as she struggles to get out from under the man, managing to push him off. Her gaze flies to the steaming charred stump where the head used to be. Panic rising she breathes in and oh god the smell — it’s an automatic response; Her stomach convulses and she pukes, bile burning her throat, retching and crying as the scent of her bile only makes it worse.

She feels heat rush over her and she doesn’t need to see to know your magic makes the other man and woman’s heads pop like grapes. Their bodies drop to the ground somewhere behind her, but what makes adrenaline rush through her is the soft sound of the motorcycle stand clicking against the ground.

Her head flies up to look, heart beating like a bird in the cage of her ribs; Dirt crunches beneath your boots but to her it sounds like breaking bones, steam rises off your body, the bright glow of your arms and the intense glare of your eyes behind the tinted lenses of your mask. . . it all gives the image of a demon — of something she needs to flee from.

If the people had been coyotes, then this person— no. . . the thing that had found her was a starved lion.

She tries to scramble back but it's useless when the smallest twitch of a muscle has her whimpering, blistering cold gnawing on every inch of her nerves.

You reach her in seconds, leaning down to grab her by the front of her clothes to pick her up like she weighs nothing. Your scent floods her nose, rot and just a small hint of sweetness, like honey poured on the floors of a burning charnel house. She tries to kick you but can barely move her toes, her legs just swaying uselessly beneath her. Your fingers, warm but not burning hot, hook under the steel wrapped around her neck.

Your jaw tenses, trying to remember how to speak. "Hold still." You order.

Your voice is soft. Not the velvet softness of her mothers', more akin to the smoothness of a tar pit right before it pulls a hapless creature into its inky depths. But you don't hurt her.

Metal screeches as the rusted steel bends like clay under your fingers. It only takes a few seconds before the collar clatters to the ground. The sudden release of pressure has Aisha gasping for breath so quickly she starts coughing and almost pukes but luckily her stomach is empty.

She doesn't feel you free her hands, the world spinning a thousand miles a minute before her eyes. She's forced to close her eyes shut in an attempt to fight back the nausea, rainbow spots crackling in the darkness of her vision.

Casually stepping over the corpse of the Devourer you sit her down on the hood of the truck, keeping a hand on her shoulder to make sure she doesn't fall face first to the ground. She shivers under your touch, trembling hands slowly raising to grip your wrist. You don't need magical sight to know an aborted spell is ravaging her insides; her fingertips turning black in front of your eyes and the specks of white dancing in her pupil is enough.

Judging by the way you can barely pick up the scent of mage standard rot on her, you can only assume she's a late bloomer. With a small huff you place your other hand on the middle of her chest, casting a simple circle at your palm.

Aisha gasps, fingers scrambling to try and pull your hand off, too numb with cold to register how the cooling lava making up your skin warms up. But it's like trying to move a mountain. You don't budge an inch. She can feel something inside her move, burning frost shepherded by blistering heat slinking down her fingers back into her heart, increasing speed with every inch it travels. She barely notices the aching in her side subsiding, or the sensation returning to her fingers.

You let go of the girl when you’re satisfied she won’t die from either blood loss or mana shock, leaving her to sit on the hood of the car as she looks dumbly at you.

The bullet loudly clatters on the steel hood. She turns her head and her eyes nearly pop out of her skull at the sight of her blood literally bleaching out of her clothes like it's being drawn back into her body. Letting go of your wrist she lifts her shirt, and there's not even a mark on her tan skin.

She’s no threat to you.

No sooner that you take a step away from her does Beelzebub's cold presence rush out of your heart with enough force to make you stumble back. People say it’s madness for a spell, a tool, to have personality. But the way black candlelight flames spark at your fingers and immediately rush out like a swarm of locusts to devour the three bodies is. . . it's angry. Vengeful As it should be. You can't fool yourself into thinking the way Beelzebub's magical fires eat away the Devourers hands before spreading over the rest of the body, crackling and buzzing like thousands of flies as they devour skin, then muscle, then bone until not even dust remains, is anything but vindictive.

Like erasing mistakes, it brings you a sense of satisfaction.

Your fingers twitch but you stop yourself from reaching up to trace the faint blue magic gluing your throat together. Instead, you focus on converting the mangled chunks of mana Beelzebub deposits in your chest into something you can use. Devours are a pain in the ass, so much different mana all twisted and held together with gum and staples, all of it now bashing against your ribs like wailing ghosts. With a huff you focus, the rock chunks on your arms getting wider and bigger as you store the stolen mana for later use, steam lazily rolling off your shoulders.

Aisha watches you, eyes wide, but. . . not scared. She doesn’t notice when she opens her mouth, her voice far too loud in the silent night. “Are you a jinn?” She asks, and cringes at her words. Of all the things she could have said, she chose that?

You don't know how you manage to open your mouth enough to answer. “No.” Beelzebub, satisfied as a hog in shit, burns on the ground for a few seconds in the shape of the bodies before seeping back into the earth, settling back to slumber in your heart.

You roll your shoulders. The slight bite of pain and the spasm of your muscles reminds you of the glass sticking out of your back. A grunt forces past your lips, more from annoyance than actual pain. A simple thought is enough to activate the magic you had cast on yourself, vestigial sparks flickering across your shoulders and boring a hole into your jacket. The edges glow brightly before they birth flames that eat away the bulletproof vest and the rest of your clothing until a sizable chunk of your back is exposed.

Aisha catches the edge of a small circle scribed atop your spine in the middle of your back, but her eyes are soon drawn to the mess of glass shards sticking out of your skin. There’s not a speck of blood in sight, but somehow that makes the sight more disturbing. Her gasp falls deaf on your ears, your mind more focused in trying to remove them.

Forcing your opposite hand to cool down enough so the heat doesn’t shatter the glass, you reach back as far as you can, trying to feel as best you can with your numb fingers. But your hands are stiff and unfeeling, making you fumble about like a bull in a china shop as you try to get one shard and miss. The only time you manage to grasp the sharp edge, you break it when you attempt to pull it out. A curse slips past your lips and you crush the broken piece between your fingers.

Aisha doesn’t know what possesses her, nothing good probably, but she speaks up. “Can I-” Your head turns to her so fast she startles, mouth snapping shut with an audible clack of her teeth. She can only stare at those burning eyes for a second before her animal brain forces her to look away, focusing on the gas mask portion of your mask because looking at your eyes feels wrong. But she powers through it, forcing herself to speak. “Can I help you?”

That was not what you expected.

“No.” You say, your head swiveling to glance at the road and then back up to the sky, a pulse of formless magic slipping past your fingers on instinct to ensure you’re covering all your bases as far as relative safety goes. You don’t see nor sense any form of life besides the girl, nor any mage magic save for the tracker in your pocket.

You hate to admit it, but the wraith was good. And so was the mage that made the tracker, it took you a good while until you had sensed the small piece of enchanted rock hidden in your pocket. You’re still unsure what you want to do with it, maybe you could somehow game the situation or send the monsters after you on a wild goose chase, so for now you’ve only isolated it with your magic instead of destroying it.

Aisha persists. “Please,” She grits her teeth, resisting the urge to shrink back when your eyes once again settle on her. “I- you helped me, I don’t want to hold debts.” There is a kind of determination in her eyes you know too well, the same kind Frosty had right before you and him—

If anyone asks or puts a gun to your head, you will blame this moment on many things — the fatigue, the side effects of using too much magic, the spiraling descent into lichdom, finally losing what dredges of sense you have in your no good skull; “Fine.”

You take careful steps towards her until your knees press against the bumper before turning your back to her, forcing her to spread her legs to accompany your body. You keep your body turned in a way that still keeps her in your periphery. Not that it matters. Even if she had a knife hidden on her person nothing short of 30/06 ammo could leave any damage you couldn’t immediately heal off.

Aisha hates the part of her that regrets her decision now that she's presented with the large array of glass sticking out of your skin. She reaches out like she would try to pet a wild dog, cold fingers gripping the sides of one piece, bracing her other hand on your back. She tries to wiggle it out, and though you keep yourself from hissing, your muscles still spasm around the sharp glass. “Sorry, sorry-”

“You’re fine rookie,” You grunt automatically. “Just yank it out.”

She sucks in a sharp breath and prepares herself like she’s the one with half a ton of glass using her as a pin cushion. But she does as you say before she can shy away from it. The glass slides out easily enough, glowing orange blood staining it. Her eyes go wide when the blood suddenly drips off the shard in one continuous stream until she’s holding a perfectly clean piece of glass. The blood lands on your back and slithers up your skin into the wound, repairing muscle and flesh until there’s not even a mark to indicate where the glass had pierced your skin.

“Are you like me?” She asks tentatively, mentally hitting herself for such a stupid question; of course you’re a mage, what is she even thinking? Hoping to escape the embarrassment she pulls another shard out of your back.

“You and I are mages.” You say simply, occasionally glancing to the road and sky before turning your attention back on the girl. It feels… strange. You don't remember the last time you've spoken with someone who didn't want anything from you. Someone who didn't want to use you. Kill you.

“Ye- yeah, I figured.” Aisha bites her lip, squinting her eyes. “Why… why did you save me?” She finally asks the question that had been plaguing her.

“I just did.” You shrug your shoulder, a small breath slipping past your clenched teeth as the motion makes the glass dig deeper into your shoulder.

Aisha’s shoulders fall, a frown tugging on her lips. She doesn’t know what she had expected. “Thank you.”

Her words make your head turn to look at her fully, “Why?”

“Why not?” Another chunk of glass falls to the ground, “You saved me from. . . them. You killed to save me.” She says, nodding her head at the three body shaped scorch marks on the ground. She doesn’t know why talking about the death of them suddenly feels so. . . normal, like she’s walking through a dream and none of this is real. More like a nightmare.

“Killing bad men doesn't make me a good one.” You grunt, choosing not to voice how your motives for killing them had been far more selfish than she could imagine. Vengeance and anger are poor motives, but motives nonetheless.

Aisha clicks her tongue and scowls. “And saving me would make you bad? One good deed has to amount for something, right?”

A pregnant pause rings through the silent night.

“You are strange.” Is the only thing your mind can turn into words.

“So are you!” She shoots back quickly, lowering her head when her words register in her brain. Chewing on her bottom lip she pulls out the last glass shard from your skin, letting it fall from her fingers where it joins the small pile on the ground. She awkwardly pats your shoulder. “Who were they?” She finds her voice again.

“Devourers.” You fail to hide the hate in your tone. Stepping away from her you activate the spell you’ve cast on yourself. The magic burning at the edges of the hole in your clothing flares up, fire washing over your naked skin to reconstruct the fabric you had destroyed. “Humans who want magic, and will bleed you dry to get it.” The jacket feels bigger on you than it should, you don’t even doubt that you’ve lost a few pounds just in the past few hours as you’re forced to tighten your belt to keep your pants from sagging. "Kill them if you can, avoid them if you can't."

“Why did they want me?” Aisha asks, bracing herself on the car’s hood and slowly sliding down until her feet touch the ground. She feels lightheaded and sways on her feet, gripping the hood to keep upright. You glance at her but she just shakes her head — you two are even now, she hopes, she doesn’t want to have to ask for help for something as simple as standing.

“You’re a mage, they want magic.” You shrug, fixing the cuffs on your jacket so not an inch of your mage marked skin shows. “They want your blood, by drinking it they can use what they lack.”

Unwanted thoughts laugh at the back of your mind. Phantom pain blooms across your throat as you swallow, your lungs stuttering to draw breath. Memories you'd rather not revisit nibble at the back of your mind, just begging to gain your attention. Your hand reaches out to hold the tags—

Nothing.

You come up empty.

Your heart finally stops.

You hold your fist against your chest for a few seconds, the need to break something, even your own sternum, crooning soft melodies in your ears. Finally your fingers slowly uncurl so your palm rests flat over your heart. Your body is warm, but a blizzard rages inside your ribcage. You lost them, again. . . and you don’t feel fury, or sadness, or any other way. You don’t feel shit.

A low pathetic sound escapes you. Titanium wires stitch your jaw closed, pulled so taut you'd chip a tooth without your magic. For a split second you think of dispelling the magic around the tracker and letting them come to you. . . but you don’t; at least Taurus’s training remains effective. You’re sure your brain will let you feel anger as soon as you’ll be in a position to survive the consequences of anger birthed stupidity.

Aisha leans to her side just enough to see your front, confusion written on her face as to why you had suddenly gone quiet. Though your eyes still burn with an inferno, they feel empty to her. She remembers her father’s eyes had been the same when he had returned from fighting. “Did you lose someone?” She asks, voice soft.

“Yes.” You grunt, and fuck, it feels insulting to them how lost you sound. You’re one of the best mages on the planet for fuck’s sake, you’re not supposed to feel this way. “Lost a lot of people.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be.” You finally pry your hand off your chest, both hands now hanging by your sides, fingers curled into fists. “You had nothing to do with it.” You wish you could say the same to yourself.

You shake your head; feelings can come after the job is done. You know the general lay of the land enough to know there is a small city not far from where you are, one that isn’t too harsh on mages. It would take her a couple of hours on foot to reach, but it’s better than nothing. You tell as such, starting to walk towards your motorcycle. “Get to the city, don’t linger around here.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Aisha follows after you, struggling to keep up. “What am I supposed to do when I get there?” Her mind swirls with all sorts of questions, where will she go? What of her parents? What if—

“Do what you want.” You shrug and get on the motorcycle, the engine roaring to life. “Join the military or the circus or whatever else, just don’t stay here.” And with that you drive off.

. . .

"Well, would you look at that." A man sighs as he pulls the binoculars down to rest in his lap, a deep frown on his face. It only lasts for a scant few seconds before he smirks, crows feet forming around his eyes. "Our firebug's manners haven't changed one bit." The man chuckles and turns his head to regard his companion, eyes glowing the color of crystal clear quartz.

"Oh, I wonder who taught him that." The woman sitting next to him snarks, the blue chains marring her arms disappearing like a mirage when she dispels the illusion spell. The human skin melts away to coarse sand and weathered whalebone, red bone eating worms squirming and boring holes into the whalebone, small anglerfish lures softly waving through the air as if she's deep beneath the sea.

The man purses his lip, "I've no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm sure, mister 'I dropped a mountain on an oil rig with my second in command still in it'." Water flows between the seams of whalebone, extending past the stumps of her wrists to form hands of seafoam and salt.

She uses her newly remade hands to tug on the man’s ear like he’s a disobedient child.

The man scoffs and bats her hand away. "Hey now, you did say you wanted to go diving." He shrugs, "Oh, and looks like I won our bet." He smirks, catching the golden coin the woman throws him. Charles's face smiles on one side of it, but the man pays it no mind and puts the coin in his pocket; they’re both far too old to care about money and the dead kings on them.

“Yes, but not like that!” She snaps, not even the bandages around her head able to hide the glare she throws at him. But instead of following up on her anger she sighs and looks down at her hands. Glowing blue plankton swim in the crystal clear waters, but it feels like yesterday her hands were dyed a burning orange.

She hates what they had to do. What they continue to do. “Ifrit is still too reckless. Your plan failed.”

“No it didn’t.” He shoots back. “We just overestimated the kid again. It wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t coddled them all so much.”

The man fully expects the slap on the shoulder he receives, cool water splashing on his greying blond hair. He doesn’t comment on it, simply runs his hand over the patch of wet hair. Small green shrubs bloom on the cracked earth texture of his palm, moss crawling up the crystalline outcrops along his elbow bone, little flowers sprouting in his hair and beard.

They sit in silence for a moment before the woman sighs and hangs her head. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” Lifting her head she angles it to look at the man. “I just… I wish we didn’t have to do this.” She confesses. “It breaks my heart to see Ifrit so lost.” As much as her still heart can be broken.

“I know, I know.” He reaches out to gently take her hands into his. Though she can’t see his face, even her magic can only go so far, she knows he’s sporting a gentle smile. “Ifrit will be fine. He has no choice.”

Two jet planes fly overhead, engines screaming, blind to their existence as they rush after their prodigal soldier like bats out of hell.

The woman grimaces, water easily sliding past his fingers as she pulls her hands away. “I know,” She tilts her head towards the abandoned house, and the girl slowly walking away from it. “I suppose I’ll find something to occupy myself with.” The woman gets up, glancing at the man once again. “I hope you know what you’re doing Taurus.”

"I always do Sierra."

. . .

The atmosphere is so thick a vampire could bite into it. They all know first hand how missions can go wrong in a moment’s notice, but none of them had expected it to go this pear shaped; some of the mages they had been given are dead, the rest are all in some kind of coma, and it’s a miracle that Captain Roberts had survived long enough to get medical evac with how burned up she was. Gaz had almost lost his lunch when he’d gone to pick up the mage captain and her arm had fallen off in brittle pieces of blackened bone, fabric and skin melted together all over her torso.

"Are you boys alive?" Is the first question out of Laswell's lips when the contact her. The shoddy connection makes her face grainy and pixelated, but her voice is clear enough, tinged with exhaustion and the light of the screen darkens the bags under her eyes.

“Yeah,” Kyle says, “Besides nearly getting turned into KFC we’re fine.” He moves his wings for emphasis, holding back a grimace at how the residual soot and ash irritates the soft skin beneath his feathers. He’ll be lucky if it’ll wash out after a week, though the grime is only secondary to the stench of death and heat clinging to him.

Soap grunts, not bothering or simply forgetting to pull the frozen piece of rubber from his mouth before speaking. “O-cgh ohnlhy ah fheph burhnrs.” Spit leaks down his swollen lip as he gurgles. It hadn't been noticeable at first, but when the adrenaline wore off the pain in his gums hit him like a truck. The medic had given him the rubber to soothe the burns all over his mouth, and he would have been pissed about how much it looked like a doggy chew toy if the relief it brought wasn’t worth it. Doesn’t mean he’s any less agitated about looking like a teething puppy.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Kyle chides, singed wingtips flicking against the back of Soap’s skull.

Johnny pulls the rubber out of his mouth enough to growl back and simultaneously tries to swallow the saliva. He chokes, hitting his chest a few times and coughing, “Yae try ta talk with a burned mouth! Feel like ah’ve been gargling devil pish.”

“Boys.” Price snaps, voice as cold and hard as his reptilian eyes. “Enough.” There’s a hardness in his gaze neither men have seen in a while or even think of challenging. It’s easy to see that something is bothering the dragon, even if he doesn’t say it, and whatever it is, it’s got Price angry.

Not the usual ‘shouting and arguing’ angry Price gets when he’s given dog shit orders, no. This is the cold and silent anger that precedes the destruction of cities.

Soap looks away, biting down on the frozen rubber. Gaz mumbles an apology.

“John,” Kate begins, sensing the storm in his head. “What did you find out?”

“Ifrit knows Ruin magic.” Price says, bits of steam rising from the corners of his lips as his anger shows. He had gone centuries believing that despicable magic had finally died out and rotted away like every mage that used it. He was wrong. Very wrong.

“Shit.” Laswell rubs the bridge of her nose, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Price’s wing flares out a bit, tail flicking side to side in a subconscious show of agitation. “I felt it.”

“Anyone care to share with the class.” Simon asks, arms crossed over his chest and claws digging into his biceps. The light pricks of pain keep him grounded enough to ensure his arms don’t turn into puffs of dark smoke; he’s had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach ever since the fight, something about you — how you moved, how confidently you used magic — he hadn’t seen it in a while.

And it didn’t bode well. It was better when a mage was scared of their own shadow and put on a cheap mask of confidence. But with you? There wasn’t even a single second of hesitation in anything you did.

Price looks at him, then at the two sergeants, finally looking at Laswell as the two exchange nods. “It’s nothing good.” A sigh leaves him. “Ruin magic is old and dangerous,” Price starts, eyes hard like stone. “The last time it was used a plague swept across Europe.”

“What?” Kyle’s eyebrows furrow. “Do you seriously mean the black death was caused by magic?”

"Yes," Kate says, "But we can have a history lesson later. Ifrit knowing ruin magic changes things, they're now our top priority."

"Ah dhogh geh-" Soap remembers they can't understand him and pulls the rubber out of his mouth. "Ah don't get it, what's so special about ruin magic? Ain't all that magical shite the same?"

"No." Price grunts, "A ruin mage needs the body of another person to learn a spell. They see anything or anyone living as chunks of meat to be used in their spells." His eyes darken, claws digging into his palms.

He shakes his head. “Did you manage to get any information about Ifrit from the tags?” Price asks. He had sent photo copies of each dog tag to Laswell as soon as Johnny had given them to him.

Soap pulls the rubber from his mouth, swallowing the excess spit before reaching out to grab the tags laying on the table. He doesn’t know why, but something about holding them feels sacrilegious to him; like he’s holding the pelt of another werewolf instead of pieces of metal.

“No, Ifrit’s tags aren’t ones made by the military.” Laswell says, and that piques Kyle's interest. He leans over to look at the tags as Johnny inspects them. The metal chain hangs loosely off his fingers, weighed down by more than a dozen tags dangling from it. They vary in damage, some are bent, some have black heat marks on them in the shape of fingertips, and some are so blackened he needs to use his fingers to feel the text. Silicon silencers prevent the tags from making noise when he lays them down in a pile on his palm, a couple of them spilling over to hang at the sides of his hand. The first thing he notices is the stench, nothing specific like the smell mages have, but it’s not pleasant either.

Soap takes a random tag and reads off the fine text —

‘JACHAL

VENENUM, ACIDUM, L9

MAJOR

O NEG

JEWISH’

“Yer telling me.” Soap huffs, taking out his own tags from beneath his shirt to compare the two, just to make sure he’s not insane and the tags don’t make sense.

“What kind of shite even is this?” Johnny’s tags sport his full government name and security name without mentioning his rank. The tags he has in his hand look more like the ones civies would get personalized than anything else. He grimaces and hands the tags over to Gaz, “Are they even real?” He asks.

“Why would someone just carry around a bunch of fake tags?” Gaz asks, inspecting them as well.

“Could be part of a wannabe militia. Wouldn’t be the first time some punks with guns tried to play army.” Ghost shrugs. “Could also be to throw us off.” Ghost suggests, tilting his head enough to see Kyle appraise the small hunks of metal. “Or it’s all for shits n’ giggles.”

Kyle’s sharp eyes spot the tag he had been looking for; the tag is the only one without a silencer, the metal caked in soot and ash that the letters are hard to see and Kyle needs to trace the metal with the pad of his thumb to understand what they say:

‘IFRIT

IGNIS, CINIS, RUINA L10

CAPTAIN–

“Whoa,” Gaz’s eyebrows raise. “Ifrit’s a bloody captain.”

“What’s someone like that doing as a terrorist’s dog?” Soap asks.

“Ifrit’s motives remain unclear, but I did find something.” Kate shuffles some papers off screen, pulling up two thin looking file folders. “Two of the tags you sent me have actual people on them.” She says, taking a paper from each folder. Even through the camera they can see how the once crisp white paper has been yellowed with age. “Lance Corporals Hutch and Lambert, both presumed KIA nearly 11 years ago along with their entire squad. Apparently they were led by Corporal Yerrow to conduct a reconnaissance mission in Iraq to investigate a human smuggling ring, but a shoot-out caused a forest fire and no bodies were ever recovered.”

Johnny sniffs the air, crossing his arms over his chest, tail tip slowly wagging. “Anyone smell bull shite?”

“You’re not the only one.” Kate turns the files so the text side is aimed at the camera. More than half of the documents are redacted to the point it looks like a rorschach test. “I haven’t been able to access the original files, if they even exist, but the agent that oversaw the mission was a predecessor of mine, I’ll see if I can get in contact with him. ” It wouldn’t be the first time the CIA covered something up, but what could have happened back then that even Kate couldn’t get to the files?

“Great, what other shite can we pile on our plates?” Soap growls, ears twitching.

“Don’t jinx it.” Kyle says, gently setting the tags on the table.

“There’s another thing.” Kate adds, putting the files away.

“Nice going puppy.” Ghost grunts, ignoring the look Soap gives him.

“Whatever it is, it’ll need to wait.” Price says, speaking up finally. “Ifrit’s a ruin mage. We need to put it down before it melts half the country to slag.”

“That’s the problem.” Kate’s voice makes Price’s eyes sharpen, slitted pupils turning into thin black lines. “We’ve managed to identify the gas used in the terror attack. It was Sarin gas, remnants of Barkov. The same ones Makarov stole.”

“Told you they’re a damn magnet fer wankers.” Soap mutters under his breath. Price's eyes shift to him, giving him a hard look and making it very clear it’s not the time for his comments. Soap’s ears twitch and his tail curls around his leg.

“How did Al-Qatala get their hands on the gas? There’s no way Makarov would just hand over his toys.” Ghost asks.

“We don’t know yet. And we might not ever know if you don’t hurry.” Kate stresses. “The top brass figured out Khaled’s location, they think Ifrit’s going after Khaled so they’re sending troops to take them both out in one place as we speak.”

Price catches on quickly. “Kate, you’re not telling me we need Ifrit alive?” Price stresses, body stiff.

“I’m not,” Kate rebuts, just as tense. “This is an order.” Price flashes his teeth at her, but finally looks away, black smog escaping past the corner of his lips.

“If you can’t get to Khaled, Ifrit will be our only chance to get Makarov.” She ads.

“So go capture the human bomb without dying.” Gaz summarizes, claw tips nervously scratching at the fresh pin feathers growing from his forearms. “Sounds easy.”

“Walk in tae park.” Johnny snarks.

"Only the parks on fire." Ghost adds, tone dry as old bone.

Price stays still and silent for a few moments. Thunder rumbles in his chest and his tail tip lashes against the floor as indications of his anger. His claws scrape against his palms with the need to tear into the festered flesh of the ruin mage, to rip out the heart and destroy it so he can make sure that blasted magic is gone for good.

But he relents, only so he can have unrestrained access to you once they get the information they need. “Pack up. On the double.” Price growls. “We’ve got a mage to hunt.”

. . .

Why did you do it?

It had been a split second decision to divert course when you'd sensed the Devourers, and even then, the mana they gave you through Beelzebub was miniscule compared to what you were used to handling. Hell, you probably wasted more mana using the temporary invisibility spell to get close to the Devourers than what you made from them.

With Khaled's betrayal and an unknown military likely after your head, ignoring the Devourers would have been the smart move. Your ‘heroic’ act won’t earn you any brownie points with whatever made the mistake of putting you on the planet — that’s for fucking sure.

But. . . she reminded you of, well, you. The you violent flames had cremated when they first sparked across your fingers. The you you’d left behind when you took your friend’s hand and ran as fast as your legs could carry. The you you’d been forced to stuff beneath the floorboards and ignore as you lied to the recruiter. The you you sometimes wish you hadn’t forsaken for the sake of survival.

. . . eh, what does it matter? Frosty’s as dead as the rest of them and no amount of grief and tears (assuming you could even force yourself to weep) will bring him back. Maybe it’s a good thing you never found his tags, the universe’s way of keeping him from suffering the humiliation you’ve inflicted on the others.

The engine roars beneath you like a caged beast, each little rock and hole in the uneven terrain causing the motorcycle to buck, the back of the seat knocking up into your tailbone. It’s a necessary evil, driving far away from the main road with the lights off helps you evade detection slightly better, and you’ll take anything you can get. Your commander’s words are etched into your bones: “Only let your enemies know you’re coming when your knife is hilt deep in their throat.”.

The sizzle in your bones and little deep pinpricks of pain in your lower back are barely noticeable with how numb you feel. Both in body and in what’s left of your humanity. You’ve gotten good at that — turning off your emotions and doing what needs to be done; you’re sure if you got shot dead that your body would finish the mission before it figured out there was a bullet in your skull.

Sometimes you even wonder what a witch would see if she ever tried to scry into your heart. Would it still be the hellish landscape Taurus showed you all those years ago? Or would it be like Pompei? Or some other landscape of impeccably preserved tragedy?

Your fingers twitch around the handlebars in an attempt to stop yourself from reaching out for something that’s not there anymore. Some vestigial and selfish part of you whimpers and yearns for the brief respite the tags brought. Their absence feels more suffocating than all the times you’ve been hanged; more painful than when your throat had been used as an artistic butcher’s canvas.

Your magical senses pick up the life signs long before your enhanced ears hear the screech of jet engines. You nearly snap your neck with how quickly you look up, able to catch two jet planes flying overhead by the glow of their engines, trying to track both of their flight paths.

You tighten the grip on the handlebars and increase the speed. You don’t stop to see if they saw you, you know they did from the way the planes twirl in the air. . . and from the way they shoot rockets at you.

Letting go of one handle you let mana rush to your fingers, cinders burning away your sleeve and glove. Just as the rockets get close enough for you to hear their screeching you swing your arm up, a burning arch of flames following after your palm. The motion is enough to tell your brain what you want, a thick screen of roaring flames spreading out from the arc in front of you.

The missiles hit the wall of flames instead of you. You swear you nearly go deaf from the loud explosion the missiles make when they connect with your defense magic, everything around you shaking from the sudden force but the spell holds, not even a scratch in sight. The resulting smoke flares around the sides in a suffocating cloud, the thick wall of fire obscuring your vision and forcing you to blindly swerve side to side.

Your magic may protect you, but it can’t stop the rocket from hitting the ground right in front of the wheel. The whistle and screech of the missile is the only warning you get before the ground beneath you explodes and sends you flying. You hit the ground and roll, jagged rocks slamming into your bones, scraps of metal pelting your back. Magic washes over you to heal the bones you break.

It leaves you feeling every bit of pain when the motorcycle falls on top of you, pushing the breath out of your lungs. The sudden force has your jaw slamming onto the ground, your tongue caught between your teeth. Blood floods your mouth. It tastes like battery acid and burns your throat on its way down to your stomach, but it forces adrenaline to rush through your system and let you push the motorcycle off you.

Your spine cracks multiple times in the short seconds it takes for your magic to fix the bones, giving you back the sensation in your limbs so you can roll to your side and avoid another missile. You summon a few smaller flame shields to protect your head and vitals from the blast, but not from the sharp rocks that hit your back like grenade pieces.

Your vision swimming and ears ringing you scramble to your knees. You’re given no choice but to use your own blood. Even with the distraction of another missile hitting your shield, it’s easy for you to focus your mana. It flows from your heart to your fingers but you don’t let it escape like it wants. Forcing it to pool in your palms until the heat burns away your remaining glove and turns the stone of your hands into lava.

It only takes a few seconds for fat drops of brightly melted rock to drip onto the ground, and only then can you feel your blood, both the one in your veins and the rivulets of bright orange freely flowing down your back. Burning hot and brimming with so much mana it’s no problem for you to take hold of the blood you've bled. Bright crimson crawls across your back to draw a magic circle from memory alone.

Quickly hunching your back generates enough force to make your blood bust through your vessels, two arcs of blood tearing through skin and muscle like a knife. The bright glow of your blood lights up the dark, stray droplets hovering in the air like oil in water as more of it flows from your body and branches out until it resembles skeletonized wings. Fire sparks at your skin and follows the blood, forcing it to crystallize in place as ash takes up the space between the bones and cascades down in long shrouds. Obsidian sharp crystal blood digs into your skin with every little move of your new wings as they twitch erratically. Lighting races up your spine, your mind forced to create new nerves and deal with sensations it wasn’t designed for.

You summon a circle beneath your feet, ash bursting up to send you high into the air in a long continuous column like it’s the tower of Babel just as another missile hits the place you had been moments ago. The spark from the rocket ignites the ash, giving you an extra few feet in the air before you start to fall.

The leftover smoke swallows you whole, gravity forcibly tipping you back until you’re falling head first. The wind screeches in your ears and the grounds gets closer and closer with every second, the grim reaper laughing over your shoulder; you remember yelling and screaming, even passing out, many times during this type of training. Now, you are calm.

Your mind finally creates the right nerves to move your limbs. Your wings spread out with the same violence they burst out of your back, sharply pulling on your chest muscles as they swing out and down. The flap of your wings breaks off a bit of the ash covering your crystallized blood, flames burning at the tips of your wings making the ash erupt in an explosion and creating enough force for you to soar high into the air.

Flying is hard regardless of how often you’ve done this, your back muscles cramping as you struggle to use your new wings. Not that it actually is flying in the same sense the harpies or other winged creatures would call it. More like gliding with extra steps. Either way, it serves its purpose in making you airborne and mobile.

You shoot high up into the sky like a bullet, trails of ash following after you and wrapping around you like a shroud. The quick movement of your wings and sharp turns let you avoid a set of missiles shot at you, but even at your fastest speed you’ve got no chance of hitting the quick jets flying around you like flies. So instead you use simple spells and hope your aim hasn’t gotten rusty. The muscles in your core and arms tense, a circle forming flush with your palms. Mana rushes to your arms and you use the brief stability in the air between the flaps of your wings to set off your spell.

A solid beam of concentrated flame shoots out, thin as a pencil but it tears through the clouds and metal plane like butter. You manage to cleave off a wing, the wound left behind in the metal glows brightly, before a simple thought activates the latent magic and the entire jet explodes a second later.

Rockets and bullets fly at your back like plague carrying insects, only to be burned away by your magic. Your neck hurts from how sharply you jerk your head to look behind you, mana flowing to your eyes to enhance your sight until the jet is clearly visible. At least you have comfort in the fact your hand eye coordination is still as sharp as ever, another beam of fire cleaving the jet in two.

And just like that, you’re alone in the sky.

You don’t realize how rapidly your heart is beating until you take a moment to breathe, wings spreading out to let you glide through the sky. You reach into your pocket to pull out the tracker, a small piece of rich green rock. Your magic swirls across the surface of it, cinders worming through the stone; You don’t know how they found you when your magic is still active on the tracker, there are no ‘happy accidents’ in your line of work.

Gritting your teeth you dispel your magic around the tracker and toss it as far as you can in the opposite direction, wings pressing closer to your body to increase the speed of your glide.

With your motorcycle more than likely fucked, you have no choice but to rely on your bloodmade wings longer than you’d like. Using the mana you’d stuck on Khaled as a compass you let yourself fall and gain speed before spreading out your wings. The deep muscles in your back and chest scream for a second with each flap of your wings before your magic silences them, the discomfort of using temporary limbs easy to shove into the back of your mind. Your flying speed is much faster than that of the motorcycle, the ground moving rapidly beneath you.

You’re only mildly surprised to feel Khaled’s presence in his base. It’s an old oil refinery that was abandoned when the Russians restricted the production of oil in the country. Khaled found it and turned it into a bastion, hiding up high in the mountains like he’s some kind of king.

Any old dragon can attest a kingdom of steel and concrete like that won’t survive scorching flame.

Your only problem is that it’s got magic sensing tech, which just means there’s some extremely sensitive electronics that end up sparking like shoddily made light bulbs when more than just the smallest amount of modern magic is used. Sometimes you hate how thorough you are.

Luckily for you, it’s not the first time you’ve had to sneak past such tech.

You land near the base of the mountain, just at the edge where you know the range of those sensors ends. You’d like to say you land gracefully and with barely a sound, but you’re pretty sure a tank would have an easier time than you. The exhaustion and the added weight on your back doesn’t help you in any way to keep balance, making you stumble forward and almost trip on a root. Your arms spread out to grip the trees for support, but you underestimate your strength and the wood splinters under your right hand, making you fall face first.

The few seconds you spend flat on the ground is probably the longest you’ve spent laying down in the past month.

With a sharp breath you get to your feet, carefully leaning your shoulder against a tree. Your makeshift wings press against your back and pull on your muscles, but the thought of ‘what if you’ll need them?’ keeps you from dispelling them. Embers burn away the clothing shielding your front, giving yourself just enough sight of your skin to be able to cast the spells you need.

It’s one thing to push your mana to your hands and out as magic, it’s another to force the burning heat through every little capillary in your skin and pull on it in certain spots until magical circles etch themselves into your skin. It’s not that far off from using blood magic, only it requires a little less mana and focus. You’ve done this so much you could do it with your eyes closed, filling the insides of the circles with little diamonds and magical sigils only your mind can grasp.

The body enhancing spell has an immediate effect. The pain in your back disappears suddenly like it was never there, the vestiges of weakness from mana use getting pushed back to the back of your mind. It even dispels the base painful thrum in your skull you hadn’t realized you had.

With a clearer mind you go about casting more similar spells that carve themselves into your skin; one to temporarily strengthen your body beyond what you already have, another to force your mana generator to increase in productivity, yet a third one to increase the potency of your spells; Buffs that push your body past the edge of what it can take, to the point you barely feel human.

This is the closest man will ever come to godhood. ”Don’t let it get to your little head firebug.”

Your last spell to prepare is different. A dirty trick.

“Valefar.” You huff, speaking another name for a spell that deserves respect. Nothing happens at first, but then you feel it. Like a living thing deep beneath the earth, Valefar hums a soft lullaby to the tune of crackling flames. The dirt beneath you expands and black flames break through the earth, creating a spider web of dark old magic that fills up the empty root system spanning the entire mountain. The flames don’t dare touch you yet. They’re waiting. . . hungry.

Before the problematic thing in your skull can give you grief, you let the waiting beast in and welcome it like a brother. Valefar’s black flames shudder and slowly, carefully, crawl up your legs, scampering along your abdomen and kissing the sharp transition between skin and mage marks. They paint the yellow glow of your mage marks a pitch black, the magma of your arms and your crystalized blood turning black as obsidian. Even the flames tipping the ends of your wings turn black as pitch.

For a second you’re accosted with the sensation of every bit of magic you had pushed into the earth over the months, every drop of mana obediently waiting its time in the rotten root system. But Valefar soothes your mind, dampening the glow of your eyes and shrouding your brain in water cool flames. Valefar lacks the crushing weight or the freezing cold of most ruin spells, simply almost thrilled to be used.

Ruin magic is too old to be tracked by modern means, and you take the first step into the range of the sensors without fear. You knew Khaled would betray you, you’ve almost started growing old in an industry that killed its soldiers young, you knew to listen to your stomach. Khaled had been one of those people you wouldn’t trust as far as you could throw them, though you never expected him to be so brazen about it. It’s no different than the day hellfire rained down on your hea-

You stop yourself mid thought the second you register your anger trying to boil over, the burning heat inside your chest making steam rise off your shoulders. Asmodeus, the one spell you won’t ever use, sparks beneath your skin; angry, vengeful. You stifle it before it can gain an upper hand, sparks of black flame flying past your lips as you breathe out and escaping through the filters of your mask.

Taurus always blamed your hotheadedness on your magic. What is a mage if not the fire Prometheus stole for you? The suffocating hate Vesuvius spewed? The blackened rotten blood giving birth to spells like Beelzebub and Valefar?

Loud gunfire breaks through your thoughts; Khaled would never practice shooting drills in the middle of the night.

You increase your pace, turning your jog into a run. As you near the old refinery something immediately stands out to you – there’s way too many life signatures than there should be. Even without a good line of sight you can sense them, all those beating hearts and flickers of life fluttering together like moths until you find yourself with a massive pain in your skull.

Breathing out a small breath you duck behind the tall trees just at the edge of the compound. To say you’re surprised to find Urzikstan soldiers engaged in combat with Khaled’s men would be an understatement. And the army didn’t hold anything back. There’s a fuck ton of soldiers, most of them hiding behind tanks that block the only exit from the compound and sponge up the machine gun fire Khaled’s men are unloading into them. Bullets rain down on both sides, there’s even fucking helicopters flying in the air — this is a full on assault.

You can still sense Khaled is in the refinery somewhere, you would be able to narrow down on his exact location if there weren’t so many living bodies buzzing around like ants. Your mind whirls with ideas; you could use the distraction and sneak past, or you could just destroy both sides in one quick and clean attack, you doubt anyone would be able to notice you using magic when they’re more focused about the hail of bullets.

A tree branch snaps beneath you, followed by the clicking of a gun and three rounds going off. “Mage in sight! I repeat I got mage in sight!”

Nevermind.

The bullets tear through your vest but just bounce off your magic enhanced skin. You turn on your heel, holding your arm out. “Beelzebub.” Burning cold swells in your heart and crawls through your veins, black flames shooting out from your palm at the soldier. He barely has the chance to scream before the black fire eats away his vocal cords, his gun clattering to the floor. In only a few seconds the only thing left of him is the uniform and the black flames burning in the shape of a man.

Despite how stupid it might be, you let go of the fine control you have over Beelzebub. It doesn’t waste a second, thousands of little wisps of obsidian fire breaking off from the main mass and shooting out at the nearest source of organic matter. Be they tree or human, Beelzebub will devour them all the same.

Fresh mana fills your chest and you’re quick to turn it into something useful. This time it takes significantly less time to spread your wings, summoning ash beneath your feet and launching yourself up into the air.

Tree branches whack you over the head before you make it into the open air. . . and accidentally smash your head into the belly of a helicopter. A dull 'thump' sounds and you're not sure if it's your head that's empty or the helicopter.

Your vision blurs for a second, and you shake your head to get rid of the temporary headache. The helicopter swerves to the side, the tail swinging right at you, the soldiers inside yelling. Tucking your wings close to your body you fall just in time to avoid the tail, twisting your body as you careen through the air until you’ve got a clear line of sight. One magic circle is all it takes to blast a sizable hole through the center of the flying machine, taking out the engine and the blades all at once.

Quickly flapping your wings you dart up through the hole you created, ash flooding the inside of the heli as you pass and erupting in an explosion a second later. The heli plumets down to the ground but you stay in the air, spreading your wings out to soar. This high up you’ve got a clear view of everything — the entire compound, made up of two big buildings connected with a catwalk and oil storage towers; The machine gun men shooting at tanks with no regard for how many bullets they use; Beelzebub’s black flames spreading across the terrain like a forest fire, consuming everything in sight until the only thing left is scorched earth and dust.

First things first, the machine guns. Though not as dangerous to you as the tanks, you’ve had enough of them to sate you for a lifetime, and you’d rather not be on the receiving end again. With sitting ducks for targets it’s laughably easy to cast simple homing spells to kill the gunner and melt the machine guns mounted on the rails.

A bullet hits your chest, tearing through the bullet proof vest. It bounces off your skin but the force nearly knocks you out of the sky. You go with the force, tucking your wings and flipping backwards in the air until you can spread them out to glide down. You notice the snipers, two on the roof of each building, one on the middle one of the tall oil towers just behind the buildings. You go for the straggler first, diving down with the speed of a bullet.

The sniper tries to shoot you again but you barrel roll out of the way. You shoot a ball of flames at the sniper when you're close enough, completely disintegrating him on contact. Turning to your side you soar through the gap between two oil towers, making a sharp left turn around the tower with a quick flap of your wings so you can quickly soar up.

The building to your right is closer and your next target. Gliding down close to the roof you you summon your spell, incinerating the closer of the two snipers. The other one drops his rifle to shoot at you with a pistol, but you just tuck your wings close and barrel roll to evade the bullets.

Your wings suddenly spread out with the force of a tightly coiled spring, the crystalline edge slicing straight through the sniper's neck like a guillotine. You're given no time to focus on the remaining snipers when a massive artillery shell flies at you. With a swing of your arm your flames race out to collide with the shell, an explosion going off right in front of your face. Ash and soot cake on top of your lenses but that's a small price to pay when you can safely dart through the smoke cloud; looks like the tanks have noticed you.

Pulling your wings close to your wings close to your body you divebomb to take out the final two snipers. You crash into one of them, your boots making contact with his chest and the force you’ve generated from your flight means you completely smash through his ribs the second his back hits the roof. The concrete cracks beneath your boot, but that doesn't stop you as you race across it, pulling your arm back to swing a fist at the remaining sniper. The skull cracks the second your fist connects, breaking completely under your knuckles, blood and brains splattering on the lenses of your gasmask.

The roof you're on has a helicopter on it, and you think of destroying it, but the tanks present a bigger problem. Leaping off the edge of the building you launch yourself back into the air, turning your attention to the tanks. There’s four of them, all spread out in a vague arc across the empty field of land between the buildings and the road leading out. Not a problem for you.

Slowing down to a smooth glide you stretch your arms out in front of you. Your flames rush out to hit the artillery shells shot at you, but it also forces the mana Beelzebub keeps stuffing into your chest to move to your palms. Summoning four evenly sized circles in front of you is easy for a mage of your caliber. With mana burning in your palms you squeeze your hands, forcing all that magic to shoot out through the centers of the circles as concentrated beams of flame. As if struck down by some god's smite, The tanks blow up the moment your magic hits them, leaving smoldering half melted skeletons of steel behind.

You land near one of the tanks with enough force to crack the charred ground beneath you, stumbling a few steps forward. You turn your head, using the tattered remains of your jacket near your shoulders to wipe away the lenses. It makes you see the clear destruction Beelzebub has wrought, the once lush forest surrounding the compound turned baren. Yet the spell hungers still, given the chance it would easily devour the entire world, and you can feel it gnaw on the edges of your passive control in it's attempt to stray away from you. Biting the hand that feeds. Arrogant. Just like Lambert.

You're forced to snuff it out, dispelling Beelzebub before it tries to sweep through the country like all ten plagues.

A shuddering breath leaves you for the first time in a while, your lungs stuttering as you breathe in for the first time in a while. Despite how stuffed to the gills with mana your chest is, how you can barely breathe with the pressure against your ribs, you can feel the familiar sting of your bones — the cost of mana use burrowing into your marrow. The missions, the ambush, this, it’s all starting to pile on. It’s the cost, you suppose, no mortal will ever become god, this is simply a consequence for your choices.

Shots ring out above the crackle of flames, bullets bouncing off your body and only making you aware of the soldiers. Thy are too much of a problem to be kept alive, but killing them with magic would be a waste of mana considering you’re slowly reaching the breaking point of how much even your augmented body can handle.

Fortunately, you’ve got a cheap trick up your sleeve. Quickly sensing the exact location of the Urzikstan soldiers you cast another spell, circles forming beneath their feet before chains of living flame ensnare them like rabbits. "Belial." You say, your gaze fixed on the Urzikstan soldiers.

Belial is softer on your arteries than Beelzebub, but it still passes from your heart and into your fingers like a kidney stone. Big globs of tar black lava drip from your arms, sizzling and steaming when splatter on the ground. But they don’t stay inert for long. You’ve seen the sight a thousand times; Roaches made of pure black lava crawl out of the puddles by the dozens, quickly skittering towards the hapless humans. They crawl up the bound soldiers, fiery mandibles eating away the flesh and boring holes through muscle, squirming into every orifice, infesting every inch of their insides.

The soldiers try to scream but their vocal cords are soon devoured as the roaches eat everything they deem useless. They gorge themselves on the fat, groups of them peeling off the skin in long strips until the bowels and other organs fall out to the ground with a wet 'splat' to be eaten by yet more roaches. The bodies twitch and convulse, falling to the ground when you dispel the chains. Blood and mucus froths at their mouths but the roaches drink up even that like it's the finest wine.

When they're done feasting they crawl into the body that's nothing more but muscle, ligament, and bone. A single hand motion is enough to command the bodies to rise. They do so slowly, limbs twitching and bodies shaking as the magical roaches squirm in the homes they've made between muscle fibers. The bodies stumble to their feet, eyeless slack jawed heads full of roaches staring at you.

Your control over them isn’t as fine as Jackal had over his puppets, but it’s still better than what most militaries see. Your well hidden anger bleeds into your magic, you don’t even need to speak for the charred puppets to stumble past you, seeking out to devour the stragglers you missed.

With that done you turn your attention to the large two story building where you can still sense Khaled’s presence.

. . .

"Ah still think this is bollocks." Soap growls when his head bumps against the roof of the Humvee because Price drove over yet another pot hole in the road. "Go capture tae mage that can turn yeh into a kebab, wonderful idea, no wee problem there."

"Noted sergeant." Price grunts, knuckles almost white as he grips the steering wheel. "Anything else you want to add?" He asks but receives a few grumbles in return. They've heard that one part of the army had come to lay siege on the refinery, and from the preliminary reports Laswell gave them, it didn't end well for the poor bastards.

"Do we even have a game plan sir?" Gaz asks, glancing between Ghost and Soap sitting in the backseat. "One that isn't 'let the mage shoot at us until they tucker out'?"

"Got a better idea?" Ghost asks with a small huff. "Let me n' Price do the heavy lifting." He grunts, "You two stay back and provide support."

Even with irritation nibbling on his nerves, Soap can't help himself. "Oh, you like it hot Lt?"

Gaz gives a surprised snort. Ghost side eyes Soap. "Mhm, scorching."

"We're getting close." Price warns, switching gears as the road starts going up the hill. His sharp senses already pick up the lingering hints of smoke and ash along with the tang of burnt flesh. Beneath all of that is something older: the rancid festering flesh of crumbling empires and wild animalistic grief.

Price grits his teeth. "Remember, we need Ifrit alive."

"Laswell never said we had to keep 'em in one piece." Ghost ads.

"Thank fock for that." Johnny says and bumps his shoulder against Ghost's. "Yae reckon she won't mind if ah take a few fingers off?" He asks, a mean grin pulling his lips back to bare his teeth.

"Play nice and I'll throw you a femur too." Ghost chuckles, ignoring the look Johnny gives him.

"Are we even sure this thing will work?" Gaz asks, looking down at the heavy piece of metal in his hands. It looks like a metal collar, runes and circles etched into the outside surface, tiny needles poking from the inside. Three vials filled with bright purple liquid are slotted into the back of the collar. The thing buzzes softly beneath his claws, like there’s a thunderstorm stuck inside the metal, making his fingers go numb.

"That's why we brought the arm restraints to be sure." Ghost says, absentmindedly tapping a clawed finger against the restraints he's holding. They look like big elbow length mittens made out of metal, similar runes scrawled over every inch.

Kyle purses his lips before his gaze turns to the roll of silver tape Price had haphazardly thrown on top of the dashboard. "What's the tape for? Planning to put a bow on Ifrit?"

"Got to wrap up the gift somehow." Ghost shrugs.

"Oh yeah, an I reckon the mage will just sit nice n pretty and let us play dress up." Soap snarks.

"Focus." Price orders, pulling their attention to the front windshield. The forest surrounding the main road abruptly disappears as if a god had photoshopped a different part of the world in it's place, verdant green replaced by scorched black ground and nothing else. The smell of burning metal and flesh is inescapable now, seeping through the cracks of the windows and making Gaz cough.

"Fucking hell." Gaz mumbles, tears stinging his eyes and forcing him to quickly put on the gas mask hanging off his neck. It doesn't help a single bit with the god awful smell.

"This shite is useless." Soap complains as he secures the gas mask to his own face. Soap had smelled his fair share of foul things in the demolition school, from Sulphur to gas and everything that could be used in making explosives, but the stench he's exposed to now makes everything else smell like daisies. "How the hell did the matchstick do this?" He can't help but ask.

"That's the work of ruin magic." Price says, tone hard and clipped.

They're forced to stop a little bit away from the compound as their path is blocked by the wreckage of a helicopter, the steel melted into the concrete road and the sides of the road too steep to drive around. They pile out of the Humvee, Soap and Gaz clutching their guns close; it's uncommon for them to use human made weapons when they're monsters, but Price isn't taking any chances with his mens safety.

They inch carefully past the remains of the helicopter, burnt cracked dirt crunching beneath their boots. With no trees in the way the compound is easy to see, and it looks just as bad as the surrounding area.

"Steaming Jesus." Johnny mutters as they walk around one of the four tanks, the metal melted and flames still flickering a top it. The land here looks like the hell his ma would describe in an attempt to put some godliness in him; The ground is cracked and charred black, hot under their boots. Ash and steam blanket the ground, making it hard to see where they step. Parts of the buildings have been melted, long strands of slag running down the sides of them. There's no light save the fires burning haphazardly across the ground, but their eyes can see fine in the dark.

"Should we check for survivors?" Kyle asks, finger tightly pressed against the safety switch, his wings spread out just enough to be able to quickly launch himself into the air if the need arises.

"Don't bother." Simon says, dark smoke slowly fizzling off his hands. The air in the compound feels heavy, feels like he's back in that fucking coffin. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, anticipation crackling under his skin like static. "We didn't bring a dust bin. Or Henry the Hoover."

"Fuck Lt," Soap opens his mouth to speak more, but before he can make a sound, they hear a half mangled groan ring out from their side. Immediately raising his gun Soap narrows his eyes, managing to make out a dark outline stumbling towards them. At first Johnny thinks it’s a survivor, but then the steam clears enough to see it’s clearly not. What stumbles towards them is a completely skinned human, muscle and bone charred black, jaw gnashing as if it's already got their throat between its teeth.

Without thinking Johnny unloads a couple of bullets into the body, silenced gunshots echoing in the smoke. The body just soaks up the bullets, continuing to stumble after them. "Shit!" Soap hisses as he steps back, but before he can shoot at it again, Simon's shadows lash out at it.

The whips of darkness knock the corpse to the ground, managing to tear off a desecrated arm off in the process. A disgusting sound gurgles in it's throat as it tries to crawl towards them, the cracked bone of its fingers clawing at the ground. Simon moves his hand up and a spike of darkness erupts from the walking corpse's shadow, destroying the head in an instant. Soap doesn't even have time to breathe before the body starts convulsing, large black pustules rapidly swelling on its back. They explode without warning, black flames spewing out in a few feet around it like a miniature bomb, incinerating the corpse in the process.

A second of silence passes.

"What the fock was that?" Soap stresses, staring at the black flames as they burn on the ground.

"Belial." Price mumbles under his breath, blue eyes narrowing as a small breath of smoke escapes past his lips. "Magic made undead.” Price grunts. “Ruin magic lets the mage control the body like a puppet."

"Great." Soap grunts, trying not to breathe in the scent of burning flesh. "First the bomb shaped mage, now focking zombies? Firecracker's pulling out all the stops." Soap’s tail flicks to his leg and he grips his riffle tighter. "Shit, that smell too." He doesn't know how you keep managing to make things smell worse and worse, but fuck, he's sure the stench will be stuck in his pores for the rest of his life.

"Not a fan of barbeque?" Ghost asks as they step around the burning corpse. Or rather what remains of it.

"Not quite the cook out ah have in mind LT." Johnny grumbles.

"Remind me not to join you two at the next brass dinner." Gaz ads with a humorless chuckle before his harpy eyes spot more movement. "Tangos, one o'clock." He says, and doesn't need to be prompted to fly up into the sky to be their eyes.

"Stick close and aim for the head." Price orders, all of them slowly and quietly making their way into the compound. They encounter more zombies, some of them stumbling around mindlessly, some simply standing. Knowing where to hit they're easy to take out unawares, a couple of bullets through the skull enough to get the corpses on the ground.

Kyle lands behind them when they near a two story building. Another one is opposite it, a catwalk above them connecting the buildings together. A nearby door is torn off its hinges, smoke spilling through it into the surrounding air. It's the only place they can think of where you might be.

"Simon, with me." Price says, "Gaz, Soap, secure the perimeter." Price doesn't need to say it twice. Simon steps close to him, guarding his six as they enter the building. Large holding tanks are built in the center of the building, smoke filling the room up to their knees and the occasional cinder of ash gracefully fluttering through the air. Price automatically checks his right, eyes focusing on the stairs leading to a small room on the second floor, one set of stairs on both sides of the room. Bits of thick ash cascade down the stairs, and both of them can smell the rot.

He makes a small hand motion and Simon understands easily, leaving his side to duck behind the towering oil tanks, crossing the room and reaching the other set of stairs. Quietly they make their way up, making sure not to make a single sound. The door on Price’s side is torn off too, his pointy ear flicking as he hears what he assumes to be your voice, low and muffled, simply asking: "How?"

. . .

Your hand shakes from how hard you try to keep yourself from crushing Khaled's skull. You can already imagine the way bone would softly creak before finally splintering to pieces, the way blood and brains would squelch between your fingers. You grip his head hard enough to bruise instead, his skin bubbling and hair burning from the barely controlled heat of your hand.

Khaled looks exactly how other prideful men look when you come to collect your due — eyes wide, teeth clenched, legs weakly kicking you as you have him dangling in the air. You’d usually feel satisfaction, but the only thing in your heart right now is a suffocating cold.

The cold extends to your free hand, turning the lava into inert stone so not even a single thread of the patch laying in your palm is burned; A black decapitated right hand sits in a crimson backdrop. A crimson eye in the center of it cries bloody tears. ‘Mortem Opetere’ is stitched on top of it, boldly proclaiming what awaits you. Across both sides just three measly words turn your world upside down: ‘Red Right Hand’.

Your jaw feels welded shut as you try to open it, moving your tongue like your mouth's full of barbed wire before you manage to force out one word: "How?"

Khaled grunts instead of answering, coughing as the ash cascading off your wings continues to twirl in the air. Beelzebub’s flames dance at your feet, consuming the magical ash the second it touches the floor so the room feels suffocating, but it doesn’t make him pass out.

You grip him harder, claws of lava burning through the surface of his skin until you’re digging into the muscles covering his bones, his screams fall deaf on your ears. Even like this, barely able to hold yourself back from cracking his skull like an egg, your magic is controlled. You only let enough mana linger in your palm so the heat burns and stabs at his nerves, but not enough to completely destroy them. “How. Did. You. Get. This?” You ask again, each word like a sharp stab to your tongue.

Khaled bites his lip so hard it bleeds, glaring at you with utter disgust in his eyes. “Ask your- mh!- your commander lich-”

You notice the enemy presence a second too late, gunshots blasting in your ears. Having dispelled your body enhancing spells because of how taxing they were, you’re left with no choice but to blindly throw up a shield of crackling flames to destroy the bullets.

You miss one.

The bullet hits the crystalized bone of your wing and it's all it takes to create a spark. The ash making up your wings erupts, the resulting explosion unable to damage your wing but it does knock you forward. Khaled slips through your fingers as you both are tossed to the ground from the force. Your magic surges through your hand even as you scramble to stand, magic circles forming in the air to shoot uncontrolled flames at the two exits of the room.

Ropes of dark shadows shoot out from the right doorway, forcing you to throw yourself to the side to dodge them. You get to your feet just as the shadows hit the wall at the height of your head, quickly eroding a hole into the steel; The wraith has found you, and likely the rest of the misfits too.

You're careful as you stuff the patch into your pocket, but have no regard for the muscles in your back when you spread your wings out. Fresh ash cascades down the crystalline bones just as you flap your wings to send a gust of ash towards the front of the room. Mana surges to your cold arm and melts the stone into liquid lava which you fling into the cloud of ash, the heat from those drops of lava causing another explosion. Unable to sense where the wraith is, you focus on completely blocking off the exits in your flames, bright circles forming at the doorways and white hot flames shooting up, spilling over the door frame to scorch the ceiling.

You’re too distracted to notice Khaled move "Idiot boy have I taught you nothing?" the crackle of flames and the exploding ash masking his labored footsteps. His hand grabs your shoulder and pulls you back enough to jab a cold needle of a syringe into your neck.

Your wing shoots out automatically, knocking him back with enough force to have him crash into the wall. You yank the syringe out and toss it to the ground. The glass shatters, residual drops of bright purple liquid seeping into the ground.

But it’s too late.

You can feel Morgana’s tears course through your system, burning each cell in your blood vessels like battery acid, leaving your throat feeling numb and head light and heavy at the same time. You sway on your feet before your legs go weak and you fall to your knees with a gasp as if someone had punched you in the gut, your burning fingers tearing gouges into the floor as your muscles tense and relax a million times a second. Beelzebub’s black flames shoot out from between your fingers, freezing cold solidifying around your heart and in your arteries. It's a useless attempt to stave off the serum, to give you a few seconds more to escape, but you're glad for it.

You push on the ground with all the strength you can muster and get back on your feet. The weight of your wings nearly makes you fall on your ass as you’re forced to take a few shaky steps to keep your balance. From the corner of your eye you can see Khaled stumbling away from you, to the third exit to the room which leads to a catwalk connecting this building with another.

Raising your hand you try to summon a spell to take him out, a shaky circle forming at your palm. It breaks into a million pieces when a heavy body slams into you like a train, breaking your concentration and your ribs. You’re forced back until your wings hit the wall, forcing them to spread out as some of the crystal audibly breaks and cracks, accosting your brain with pain signals your mind was never created to handle.

Your hands shoot up, “Fire-” You force out in an attempt to combat the shroud Morgana’s tears weave around your mind. A circle forms, the usually crisp lines wonky and inconsistent. A few measly sputtering sparks flicker in the center of the circle before you’re able to force a bout of unwieldy flames in the face of your opponent.

You can feel how weak your fire is, you doubt you could give a man a second degree burn, let alone scratch the fireproof skin of the dragon that comes charging through your magic. Icy blue eyes dance in the periphery of your vision seconds before the dragon punches you right in the diaphragm.

You hunch over and almost vomit up an organ as all the air is forced out of your lungs. You feel your muscles tear and ribs break, your magic too focused on healing you to numb any of the pain that comes racing to your brain. You don’t know how you’re still standing but you weakly manage to slam your elbow back into the wall, quickly cooling lava scraping the metal and causing a spark.

The ash explodes for a second time, the force of it making your wings crack further yet they still hold. It creates a hole in the wall and forces the dragon to stumble back with a cough. You tip back and fall through the hole, the whole world weighing down on your body before you crash on the hot hard ground. The sudden stop knocks the breath out of you a second time, every muscle in your back screaming at you. Your chest is steadily growing colder as Morgana’s tears bypass Beelzebub, your arms feeling stiffer with every waking second as the serum forces your mana to slumber.

Your vision swims and blurs like the lines of a water drenched painting, voices somewhere close echoing in your ears. The dragon’s cold blue eyes stare down at you for a second before he jumps through the hole. You roll out of the way with great difficulty, avoiding him just in time as the dragon’s fist lands where you had just been and shatters the earth.

Stumbling to your feet you feel your blood leak down your back, pain pulsing in your chest as your mana struggles to heal each broken bone. Your mind is scrambling for the names of the spells you haven't needed to use in a long time, your thoughts further slowed by the fact you need to dodge out of the way of the dragon's fist. “Jump.” You speak. You summon a circle beneath your feet you that launches you into the air, the whirling world almost making you vomit and you barely manage to catch yourself on an oil containment tower.

Somehow through the ringing in your ears you hear the whirring of helicopter blades, turning your head to see a helicopter quickly rise from the roof of a building and start to fly away. You don’t need magic sense to know Khaled is in it. Your hand shakes as you raise it, Morgana’s tears steadily taking more of your mana hostage to the point it's getting hard to cast a single spell. “Fire bullet.” You manage to say, shooting off a shaky ball of concentrated flames.

You miss the rotor you had been aiming for, but by a lucky chance manage to hit the tail. Your fire isn't hot enough to melt the metal fully, but it still enough to make the helicopter swerve wildly. You watch it slowly loose altitude and crash somewhere beyond the tree line.

You’re not given even a second to catch your breath before the tower shakes violently, beginning to list heavily. You catch sight of a werewolf trying to scale it and that forces you to jump off the tower. You land on the one in front of you and don't stop, leaping across the three towers. Jumping off the last one you manage to flap your wings, the pitiful explosion that goes off beneath you gives just enough lift for your slowly liquifying wings to reach the roof of the second building.

You stumble as you land on the roof, the coagulated blood forming your Daedalus wings falling to the ground with a wet 'splat'. It feels like every single inch of your veins and arteries have been turned into pin cushions, the hot lava of your arms, absent of mana, quickly cools until there’s only a thin surface of cracked rock covering your muscles and bones. Your vision swims and you can barely move your arms, trying your best to just stay upright.

Asmodeus is the only thing unaffected, burning at the back of your mind like the last star of an empty universe. It tempts you with the heat of the magic it can give, with the power you could use if you just let it in. What's a few more drops of blood when you're drowning in it?

The harpy comes out of nowhere, slamming into you with enough force to knock you off the building.

You land on your back, barely able to utter a sound from how loudly your bones crack. Your leg is numb. Lingering dredges of your magic crawl across your spine, trying to fix your wounds with the same grace as cavemen with stole tools. You whimper like a child as you try to get up, barely able to dig your fingers into the scorched dirt to get some stability.

Footsteps approach you. A boot sharply kicks your side and forces you to roll on your front. "Playtime's over." A voice rings somewhere in your ears. Your scattered brain focuses on the accent — Manchester you think — instead of the clawed hands that yank your arms behind your back. Instinctively you try to scramble out of the firm hold but it's useless and the only thing you achieve is making the enemy pull on you harder.

Your arm is forced into a sickeningly familiar constraint; The mage cuff seals around your forearm and forces your hand into a fist, the binding spells making the metal feel like your arm is coated in liquid nitrogen. Your other arm follows suit, powerful magnets activating and binding the cuffs. They lock your arms together and painfully force your chest to stick out to the point you can barely move your arm without the risk of dislocating it.

More footsteps ring behind you as you weakly struggle. "Stay fucking still." The man above you growls as he yanks the helmet off your head with enough force you’re surprised he doesn’t take your head off. You gasp as the ash and smoke filled air enters your lungs, so unused to going without your helmet. A collar is quickly snapped around your throat, so tight you can barely breathe, needles on the inside digging into your skin. The binding spell on the collar is just as vicious as the one on the cuffs, forcibly pulling your brain into the bottom of the ocean.

Your vision swims with black spots and you’re barely able to see a man squat in front of you until rough clawed fingers grip your chin hard enough to make you bleed dark purple-red blood over his fingers. The enemy tugs your head up, but you’re unable to make out more than bright blue eyes and a stupid mohawk. "Huh, ah was expecting uglier."

Spite flares in your heart. A glob of spit and red blood shoots from your mouth at his face before you can think. The slap you receive nearly knocks your head off your shoulders and bashes your brain against your skull. His claws rake across your cheek, blood pouring down your skin. "Ahgk! Fockin' disgusting-" But It's worth it to hear the man curse.

"Told you not to take it off." The enemy on top of you growls.

"Charming." A lighter voice, you think it's the harpy, ads. "He's not going to turn into. . . one of them?"

"No." A new voice joins in, hard, angry, rumbling like thunder. You think it's the dragon, but your brain struggles to stay conscious let alone try to think. "Tape."

You shake your head to be difficult just out of spite, but sharp fingers bury into your scalp and pull your head up so the tape can be sealed over your mouth.

The enemy, wraith, your mind reminds, has no problem hoisting up your cold body, manhandling you like a doll.

You’re barely conscious as you’re roughly pushed into somewhere, somewhere without a lot of space. Two unyielding bodies squeeze you in on either side, your chest is barely able to move enough to ensure your lungs get a bit of air. Panic tries to get a foothold in your mind, to make your silent heart race. The walls and ceiling feel like they’re closing in, like you’re getting squished down and at any moment your organs will rupture—

But the drugs smooth out your brain like ocean waves weather down massive cliffs, your body so exhausted you can’t manage even a small twitch of a struggle. You feel the cold muzzle of a gun press against your temple, the cool sensation making you aware of the pounding headache.

"Move," The man on your left says, voice rough like sandpaper and with a distinct accent, "An’ yer dead." His threat sounds like an order, you don’t doubt he’s just itching for you to make a single move he can justify to his brass as aggression and kill you. You know you would do the same.

The vehicle you’re in rumbles to life but you can barely feel it, body and mind too exhausted to even hold your head up. Your stomach twists and turns as if trying to find a way to crawl up through your mouth, your lungs burn from the lack of air.

“Laswell we got-”

“-bout Khaled-”

“-ead, arsonist shot do-”

“-get out, the army reinforcements are co-”

You try to pay attention to what they say, but their words bang uselessly around your hollow skull, shapes and edges blurring together into abstract art. With nothing stopping it, Morgana’s tears leisurely branch through your blood vessels like brambles, making you shiver from how cold you are. You’re stuck in maddening limbo, there’s not enough of the drug in your system to turn you temporarily catatonic — your body is too used to the drug — but at the same time it’s fucking agony.

You've done this before, you know how much small victories count. You don’t know what they want from you, but you swear to yourself not to cry from the pain, both now and when the torture starts. You’re not a fucking child, not that snot nosed private you were when you first felt the sting of Morgana’s tears, you’ve been through worse.

But the problem is, you’re not out of tricks.

Your control over Valefar slips, the exhaustion and drugs slowly wearing down the rope of control you've been maintaining for months. Since the first day you started working for Khaled. You knew he’d betray you, you had that feeling in your gut. The collar beeps as mana suddenly sparks in your chest, thawed by the ancient magic you use. Without warning the needles in the collar jab into your neck as your mana builds, pumping more of the poison into your blood.

But it’s useless, with steam starting to rise off your chest not even you are able to hold it back. A rough chuckle forces its way out of your throat. You always figured you would die by your hand or not at all.

"What’s with the giggling?" The werewolf demands, gun still trained on you. "Something funny?"

You gather your strength and slowly roll your head back, every vertebra in your spine cracking from how much damage your body has received. The trembling wall of the truck gives you the support you lack. Black spots dance in your vision, but you manage to turn your gaze to one side.

On your right is the wraith. A creature of death. Violent Death.

You feel like there’s a joke about the situation somewhere. Figures you’d be sat against the personification of violent death. You’ve been living on borrowed time for too long, the reaper doesn’t like to wait.

Shadows darkening what little you can see of his face through the skull mask, making his eyes look like you’re staring into the void.

Unnerving.

You’ve been told your eyes are much the same.

The wraith stares at your face, into your eyes. You’re pretty sure this is the first time in ten years that someone has seen the eyes you were born with. The color is so painfully drab and human.

But it don’t last. Out of nowhere mana sparks in your eyes like a violent forest fire set off from the cinder of a forgotten cigarette. Oranges, reds, and yellows swirl around the pitch blackness of your pupil, bright and intense like staring into a black hole.

There’s no grand gesture to show the snapping of your control. Your heart skips a beat as it births Valefar, the soft cool magic nibbling on your veins as a pulse of cool mana rushes through to your fingers. You see the wraith stiffen, only barely able to sense how the world quivers.

The earth shatters.

The truck jerks forward and you almost fly out of the front windshield, kept in place by someone's rough hand gripping and pulling you back in place. The earth shakes violently as months of accumulated mana melts through rock and suddenly erupts from the ground as a beam of pitch black flames. You can feel Valefar laughing beneath the ground, inside your hollow heart. It takes joy in spreading your magic as far as it can, incinerating the arriving helicopters full of soldiers before they can even understand what's happening.

The car swerves to avoid the rocks falling from the sky, the air around you trembling as Valefar makes a crater out of the mountain. They’re lucky that your control finally evaporated when they were far enough to escape the impact zone.

You tilt your head, catching sight of the wraith. He stares at you.

Your eyelids flutter without your consent, all strength leaving you, but you manage to wink at him.

You pass out.

Tag list: @resident-cryptid @diejager @lovingtyrantkitten @lieutnt @lilpothoscuttings @krystiannng @crankyweasel @ashy-kit @fyolaizs @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @aldis-nuts @whoislucas @birdiiiiiiiiiii @thigh-o-saur @dont-look-at-me-im-shy @reaperxxxxzz @patronizingbitch @kaoyamamegami @mauvette268 @inspector-m3 @gaynesspersonified @fluffysteampunkd @fall-myriad

367 notes · View notes