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flowerandblood · 24 days

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The Lost Haven (16/16)

[ modern mafia • Aemond x niece •female ]

[ warnings: incest obviously, sex content, dirty talk, smut, the angst, murder, character death, miscarriage and the trauma associated with it, panic attack, mafia stuff, brutal violence, uncomfortable conversations, bad, bad things ]

[ description: The vacation from eight years ago still haunts his memories and doesn’t let him forget what happened between him and his niece, the daughter of his sister and Harwin Strong. Their paths separate and he immerses himself in his father’s mafia world until the day she calls him for the first time since those events. Sexual tension, dark, dangerous, withdrawn, thirsty Aemond. ]

Author’s note: As promised, this is another, this time official modern version of The Fall from the Heavens. In this version, Daemon is not related to the family, but is simply Rhaenyra’s husband and the leader of the second gang, Alys and Larys are also not related to each other, but Larys is Harwin’s brother. I will partly refer to the original series, hiding some easter eggs, and some will be a completely new, fresh plot. As in every universe, only Aemond calls her Rhaenys and this is not her real name (she is unnamed character and the others also do not know that he calls her that). There will be a lot more brutality and angst in this version, so watch out. You can read this as a standalone story.

Series & Characters Moodboard Aemond & Rhaenys Moodboard

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

She was pregnant.

Although, according to all moral and social norms, she should have been crying in despair, she was happy: touching her belly with her hand, she felt nothing but love for this little being that was slowly growing inside her.

The fruit of their warm, deep, sincere affection.

The knowledge that she was not alone helped her when it was time for her to meet the staff for whom she was to be responsible from now on. Aemond insisted on being with her, fearing for some reason for her and the baby, she, however, knew that this was something she had to do alone.

Their stares when she walked into the VIP room in which she had ordered the meeting told her everything – grown men and women who looked as if they had seen far too much in their lives watched her in disbelief.

She knew they thought with disapproval that she was just a little girl, a whore who had been given this place as a gift by their boss that she wouldn't know what to do with, pestering them with her stupid bullshit.

She sat down in one of the empty armchairs, a few people lit cigarettes and grunted, other than that, complete silence all around her.

"I know what you're thinking and you're right. The fact that I have taken over these premises is a form of security for me. In true, not only for me, but also for you. Aemond will stop the flow of drugs through these and two other places that used to belong to my father. I have no intention of changing managers or leadership, quite the contrary – I want to talk to you about what you need. I want this to be a clean, legitimate business that is profitable. No drastic changes." She said, looking at them expectantly, feeling her heart pounding like crazy.

A few people twisted in their seats, others looked at each other.

Silence.

Obviously they didn't trust her.

"Think whatever you want about me. It doesn't matter. Know, however, that my stepfather no longer threatens you, and Aemond will still protect this place. All I ask for is loyalty. If there is a problem with something, come to me with it, not to my uncle, or he will be furious. Now get back to work, I want to stay with the manager." She said calmly.

All but one man who could easily be her father got up from their seats and walked out, leaving them alone.

"This is not a toy you can just pick up and have." He said finally, firing up the lighter, leaning over the flame with his cigarette.

"I don't see it as a toy. We can all gain something if we accept each other. Would you rather keep wallowing in this shit and selling ecstasy to young kids? Don't you have children of your own?" She asked coolly, and the man snorted under his breath, the corner of his mouth twitching in a smirk.

"I do. Three. Two sons and a daughter. Each of them works here. The sons as security guards and the daughter behind the bar." He said dryly and she swallowed hard, feeling the cold sweat on her back.

Fuck.

Had she just insulted him?

"You let your own kids do drugs? Do you want them to be arrested with you if the police come by here, as part of family integration?" She asked, and he sighed heavily, taking a loud drag on his cigarette.

"I didn't say that." He replied, letting the smoke out through his mouth.

"And I don't want that either. Help me protect you." She insisted, and he looked at her finally, as if he had made up his mind.

"You're just like your father."

She exhaled loudly, in an involuntary reflex she'd been holding back for the last few hours touching her lower abdomen as soon as the car door closed behind her.

"And how was it? Everything okay?" Her uncle asked, immediately grasping her hand in his, looking at her expectantly, tense.

"They are difficult people. Difficult, but tired. They don't want problems. They get used to it." She said quietly, exhausted and sleepy.

She looked at him, a worry in his eyes but also a tenderness from which she felt warm in her heart.

"Take me home."

The road to the sea was getting terribly long, perhaps because once in a while she felt an unpleasant twinge in her stomach, indicative of what was about to happen.

"– no – no, stop the car, stop the car –" She muttered, and he immediately pulled over to the side of the road – she only managed to open the door before she vomited on the grass, panting heavily.

"– oh, baby – why don't you lie down in the back seat? – you'll be more comfortable –" She heard his voice, his broad hand stroking her back.

Ever since they'd found out they were going to be parents he'd been so tender, so good, so sweet.

Exactly like he had been back then.

"– okay –" She mumbled and swallowed hard, wiping her mouth with her handkerchief. She unbuckled her seatbelt, climbed out and opened the door in the back, laying down on both passenger seats, closing her eyes.

"– sleep, little one – I'll drive slowly – we're not in any hurry –" He said, looking at her in the rear view mirror, and she nodded.

She flinched when she felt the car finally stop – she heard someone open the door, the fresh air and his familiar hands enveloped her, lifting her up, and she clung to him like a small child. He carried her into the house, to a room that belonged to him, where they had set up their makeshift bedroom for the time of renovation.

She felt him lay her gently on the bed, taking his place beside her a moment later, embracing her from behind.

"– you're tiring your mummy terribly –" He whispered, stroking her belly with lazy, calm motions of his hand. "– you need to let her rest –"

She smiled, allowing herself to fall asleep again, this time in his embrace. Her uncle often addressed their child as if the baby could already understand him – he was making a connection this way, realising that he was really going to become a father.

He was involved in everything about preparing for the arrival of their child into the world – they decided to dedicate the room she slept in that summer holiday to their future offspring and repainted it together, sticking cute glow-in-the-dark stickers on the walls in the shape of various planets and stars.

With some things, they had to wait because they didn't know if the baby was going to be a boy or a girl.

"It cost me a lot of money, but I made it. I have written permission from the Archbishop. Rhaenys, we can marry." He said to her one morning, holding a piece of paper in front of him that was to change their lives.

A dispensation for a church wedding.

"We need witnesses." She muttered, gripping his hand in hers. Her uncle nodded, as if he knew she'd said it.

"I know, Helaena agreed. I didn't want to decide about another person for you." He said, and she smiled, feeling grateful.

He became more open, more affectionate, always thinking of her and her needs too.

She knew who she wanted by her side.

"I know I'm asking a lot and that I'm not entitled to it. I know your father will be furious if you say yes, but… you have always been close to my heart. You didn't judge me. I wish I had you with me on this day." She mouthed in a breaking voice, standing alone in the bathroom with her phone pressed to her ear, wiping her face wet with tears.

She heard Baela swallow hard, shocked by her words.

For a long moment, they were both silent.

"– I – God – I've always felt you were in pain – only now I know why and I'm sorry you've been alone with this for so long – I don't want you to not have your bridesmaid on your wedding day – just tell me when and where –" She muttered and she burst out into a quiet sob, feeling relieved.

"– forgive me – forgive me for being such a disgusting person –" She choked out, whooping, feeling that she had finally described herself truly.

She had fucked her own uncle and was going to have a baby with him.

She was sick.

Baela drew in a loud breath.

"– stop – if he was your own birth brother, it would be much, much worse – on the positive side, he's actually only half your uncle –" She said, and for some reason she burst out laughing.

God.

"– right – it's a good thing I didn't choose Jace –" She mumbled, and Baela snorted.

"– exactly – let's stick to that –" She said.

"– it would be funny if the police burst into the church and arrested us –" She sneered, fiddling with the soft towel hanging on the rack, imagining commandos with guns ordering them to fall to the ground.

"– for what? – for drug dealing or for incest? –" Baela scoffed, and she giggled under her breath.

"– for everything – the list of crimes is long –" She said with a smile, for some reason feeling lighter.

It was the first time she had ever talked to someone about it completely honestly.

She shuddered when she heard a loud knock on the door.

"Rhaenys? Are you all right?" She heard his concerned voice.

Ever since he had found her in the bath then, he had been afraid if she stayed in the bathroom too long.

"Yes. I'm talking to Baela. She agreed." She called out to him.

"That's great." He said with sincere relief, as if he was afraid she would suffer another disappointment and rejection from her family.

They hadn't planned to invite any guests to the event, have a dinner together or anything of the sort – they knew that most of their family felt there was nothing to celebrate, and for them, as it wasn't a state wedding, it only had symbolic significance.

Helaena helped her choose the right dress – she wanted to look special that day, because even though their nuptials were going to be bittersweet, she was, in the eyes of God, going to be his wife.

"– oh – look – this one is lovely –" Helaena hummed, taking from the rack a long, white gown with a cut-out back and lace at the neckline and the ends of the delicate, long sleeves.

"– you're right – it would match the flowers in my hair –" She said, in her perfect image of herself that day wishing she had daisies woven into her curls.

Helaena dropped her off in the car at a shop near their house and they said their goodbyes – she needed nothing so much as a walk and some fresh air, however, she wanted to cook them dinner too, knowing that her fiancé would be back late.

Since he had started telling her about his affairs, what he needed to do and where he needed to go, she felt calmer and his absence no longer frightened her so much.

Besides, he wasn't leaving her alone anymore, she thought, touching her stomach happily, looking curiously at the shelves full of different kinds of pasta, searching for the perfect one for spaghetti.

She shuddered, having the feeling that someone had rubbed against her by accident, but then she felt that person holding something against her back.

"Be quiet and leave the shop slowly." She heard a cold, unfamiliar voice behind her and froze, feeling her heart leap up into her throat, a cold sweat on her back.

She looked to the side, wondering if she should scream, if anyone would help her, not knowing if this man held a gun or a knife against her body.

"Don't try anything or I'll butcher you like a pig." He said, as if he was reading her mind, and she swallowed hard, feeling burning tears of terror under her eyelids, her body involuntarily began to tremble.

She simply moved towards the exit, and the man she was afraid to look at put his arm around her like he was her boyfriend, clamping his hand firmly on her waist to make sure she didn't try to escape.

As soon as they left she sprang up to throw herself into a run, but the man grabbed her waist and clamped his hand over her mouth – she bit him with a loud squeal, but he only hissed, not letting her go, hiding behind the wall of the shop, two other men got out of the car.

One of them, a blond man with a beard and blue eyes had a scars on his left cheek.

"– come on, what the fuck are you waiting for – faster –" Tyland Lannister growled, and the man who was clearly his bodyguard forced her to bow her head and forcibly shoved her into the back seat, closing the door behind her.

She burst out crying, curling up as Tyland sat down next to her and the two men took their seats in front, driving away with a squeal of tyres.

"– shut the fuck up – be a good girl and no harm will come to you – I need to clear up a few things with your uncle –" He said lightly – only when she looked at him did she notice that he held in his hand a gun pointed towards her.

She pressed her body against the car door, looking at him with big eyes and shook her head.

"– please – please let me out, I'm pregnant – I –" She mumbled out and squealed, leaning forward, feeling a sudden, penetrating pain in her lower abdomen, and then another and another.

She began to pant loudly in terror, and wailed as Tyland slapped the back of her head with an open palm.

"– stop pretending – I told you to fucking calm down, I won't do anything to you – I won't –" He muttered and fell silent, looking with her at the drop of blood that ran down her thigh from under her dress.

She covered her mouth with her hands and screamed loudly, falling into sheer hysteria, the man in front cursed, telling her to shut up, and Tyland just stared at her, his mouth wide open.

"– stop –" He muttered. "– fuck, God, stop, stop, stop –"

"– here? – boss, we're in the middle of a country road –"

"– STOP, I SAID –"

The car stopped at the side of the road with a screech of tyres in a way that made her hit her head on the seat in front of her – Tyland opened the door, grabbed her ankle and dragged her out of the car like an animal, leaving her on the grass, then got back inside.

The car drove off.

She just breathed, whooping with tears, looking at the grass around her and the tree trunks, feeling a horrible warm stickiness between her thighs, twitching all over, not having the strength or the will to get up.

After a while some other car stopped beside her, the people inside screamed in terror and got out, a woman who could have been her mother ran up to her and covered her mouth with her hand.

"Good God, I think they raped her."

No, she thought.

They took something much more precious from me.

She heard his loud, frightened breath as she lay in the hospital bed, the policemen standing beside her grunted at the sight of him.

"Are you her family?" Asked one of them.

"Y-yes, I'm her uncle. Good God, what happened?" He mumbled in a breaking voice.

"Your niece was found by a woman on a country road, thrown out of some car. She immediately informed us, suspecting that a rape had taken place, however, the cause of the bleeding was a sudden stress-induced miscarriage. The victim does not speak and does not want to say who did this to her. Could you please…"

The man did not finish as she heard him burst into a loud, mournful sob, felt the touch of his hands on her body, his face pressed into her hair, his broken, heavy breath.

Her eyebrows arched in pain, a single, lonely tear ran down her face.

Daemon had warned her.

The hours, the voices, the smells merged into one for her – she heard her uncle's voice, her mother's voice, she smelled their scent and touch, she heard their weeping and despair, but she herself felt like she was dreaming awake, feeling and experiencing nothing.

She felt herself awake when she heard another familiar voice.

"Did she say something?"

"No. She's silent. There's no contact with her. She's in shock." Her mother muttered, and Daemon embraced her, looking her straight in the eyes.

She felt something – she felt her heart hit harder in her chest, her eyebrows arched in misery, her breath caught in her throat.

"– baby – baby, please, say something to me –" She heard her uncle's whisper and only after a moment did she realise that he had been lying next to her on the bed all this time, that he had been stroking her head, that he had been looking at her, that he had been crying like a little baby.

"– get out for a while – leave us alone –" Daemon said – her uncle opened his mouth, furious, but she spoke up before he could say anything.

"– I want to talk to my dad –"

Everyone around her fell silent – Rhaenyra walked over to her brother and took his hand, explaining to him in a whisper that they would be back soon, that she was no longer in danger, that everything would be all right.

She felt herself quivering all over when Daemon took the chair and sat down beside her bed exactly as he had done then, after she had tried to take her own life.

She looked at him, into his bright, piercing eyes, and thought that this was what he was trying to protect her from.

"I wanted this child, dad. Very, very much." She muttered and closed her eyes, feeling the blissful emptiness she had surrounded herself with begin to crack, the pain that pierced her body, her heart so strong that she sobbed.

"I know." He replied.

"Is the baby…is the baby still inside me?" She choked out with difficulty, whooping with her own tears, feeling like she couldn't catch her breath.

"No. I'm very sorry, but no. It was too early, the baby was not yet formed. Nothing could be done." He said and she clamped her hands on her lower abdomen, thinking she felt like ripping out her uterus and other entrails because they were useless.

She was full and suddenly empty again.

She felt her father's hand on her arm, his fingers strong, his embrace giving her a sense of security.

"I have abandoned you. I chose my own pride. I knew he would want to take revenge on him. If I had given you my protection, it would never have happened. Forgive me." He said, and she closed her eyes, thinking that she wanted to become nothingness and disappear.

Despite Daemon continuing to speak to her, she fell into a state of half-sleep again, unable to think about it – her mind was repressing everything that had happened and waiting, although she didn't know what for.

What was she actually waiting for?

For her baby, she thought.

Little girl or little boy will be born in a few months.

No, she realised.

Not any more.

Tears ran down her face, but no sound came out of her mouth.

She saw him – her uncle stood in the doorway of her hospital room drenched in tears, trembling like a small child, just like she had been when she came into his room then, terrified of the darkness.

Darkness surrounded him, and he was frightened.

She didn't want him to be afraid.

He cried out loudly when she reached out her hand to him – she realised it was already dark around him when his body snuggled against hers, when he embraced her and kissed her cheek, when his face snuggled into her skin.

They lay, just breathing, holding hands – there was something comforting about that – in his silence. The fact that he knew there were no words of comfort, of justification, of absolution for them.

What did exist, however, were their bodies, warm and familiar, clinging to each other to find shelter.

She fell asleep, wrapped in his scent.

"I know you think this is my fault. That you will never forgive me." She heard his voice as if from a distance – she blinked, surprised to see that it was already daylight all around her, that her uncle was sitting beside her in a chair, looking at his hands.

Days flew by between her fingers.

How long had it been since that incident?

Since when had she been empty?

She pressed her lips together, feeling nothing but rage.

"I want Tyland Lannister." She hissed in a cold, shaking voice, and he looked at her in shock.

They stared at each other for a moment – his lower lip twitched when he suddenly realised what had happened, something in his gaze that had always frightened her, but now pleased her.

Aemond

Emptiness.

It seemed to him that he had simply gone through all the phases of grief – from despair, through denial, to a state of complete indifference.

His child, whom he had so desperately wanted, was no longer there.

He thought it would help to give the baby a funeral, even though they had nothing to bury – that's why they put the glowing stickers they had stuck on the walls of the room that was to belong to their child in a small box and buried it under a tree in the garden of their house.

She wanted the thing that would remind her of their loss to be close by, so that she could look at it every morning from her window.

It was an ordeal they lived through together, and although they suffered, they found relief in each other's arms.

She let him take her for the first time two weeks after it happened.

Lying in front of him in his embrace, she took his hand in hers and slowly guided it down under the material of her panties – she surprised him with this, because he was convinced that the vision of him touching her like this would be something disgusting to her – she, however, was wet.

He couldn't hide how much he missed her, and after a moment they were both naked from the waist down, fucking each other like animals with loud smacks of their hips, wanting nothing more than to feel fulfilled and relieved – the release he felt when he finally came inside her was like a revelation, her body hot and sweaty in his embrace, her little cunt pulsing on his erection, sucking his seed.

I'll give you another baby, he thought tenderly, kissing her long neck, not saying it out loud though, not wanting her to think he had already reconciled himself to their loss.

I will give you another baby, and then another and another.

We will be a big, happy family.

If he could say that anything good had come out of this awfully sad situation, it was that their families had begun to talk to each other again – Otto and Daemon couldn't forgive the murder of their grandchild, and Alicent, Rhaenyra, Jace and Baela had watched over his niece in his absence, looking after her.

Even Aegon asked him for a meeting, which was strange and downright comical. His brother put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him in a way from which he felt a squeeze in his throat.

"We're going to catch that son of a bitch."

The only person who was afraid to meet them was Helaena, blaming herself for what had happened despite the fact that neither he nor his Rhaenys resented her.

"She said she wanted to go shopping. Your house and the beach was across the street. I-I had the security guards go and take her dress to your house. She wanted to take a walk, she insisted. I…"

"Stop. You are not the one who did this to her. No one is blaming you." He said calmly, staring dully ahead, sitting in his car, feeling that his heart, his skin, his body, his breath were cold.

I want Tyland Lannister.

He licked his lower lip when he spotted his silhouette in the distance, coming out of one of the clubs surrounded by a few of his thugs, surely for protection.

Jason helped his brother move to another city, hoping they would never find him.

But he was wrong.

"I have to go." He said and hung up, starting the engine, dialing another number.

He never thought that he'd talk to him of his own free will.

And yet.

"He just left."

He followed him for a few streets, driving a few cars behind him, feeling strangely calm and patient – he had the impression that there were no more tears he could cry or screams he could shout.

His persona had come full circle, becoming again exactly who he had been before she had called him that evening for the first time in eight years.

He smiled, seeing that they had realised that someone was following them, trying to change direction suddenly – as he had predicted, they had fallen straight into their trap, and hundreds of loud gunshots rang out around the corner.

He pulled over to the side of the road and stepped out of the car, watching as Daemon's men slaughtered Tyland's men one by one, surprised by the manhunt from both sides, unprepared for such a sudden, merciless attack.

"– please –" Tyland mumbled, crawling on the ground at Daemon's feet – his sister's husband held a baseball bat in his hand, all dirty from his blood.

He thought with amusement that Lannister's face looked like a squashed tomato.

Together with Daemon, he dragged him, moaning and crying, to the boot of his car, locking him in there, and together they set off without exchanging a word.

By the time they reached the house by the sea there was only an hour left until dawn – Tyland had passed out in the boot from a lack of oxygen, and a strong kick to the liver revived him, making him draw in air loudly and cough, spitting up blood.

"– no – no, no, no, no, please, no –" He whined as they began dragging him along the ground towards the door, leaving a trail of his blood on the ground behind them.

When they walked into the house they threw him to his knees in front of her – his Rhaenys looked at his hunched, pathetic figure sitting in front of him on the couch in a white dress he was seeing for the first time, a knife in her hand.

Was this supposed to be her wedding gown?

I have taken away your purity and innocence, he thought with pain, looking at her with adoration.

Kora was no longer there.

Only Persephone was left.

His Queen of the Hades.

He longed to lie down at her feet and simply abide.

"– I lost someting because of you –" She said and raised herself up, touching her lower abdomen. "– my baby didn't even manage to take their first breath –"

He closed his eyes, feeling the squeeze in his throat, the pain he felt in his heart unbearable.

"– I didn't know – I didn't know, I'm sorry, I didn't know –" Tyland mumbled, because of how swollen his face was his words were indistinct and difficult to understand.

Standing over him, in her white dress, with a knife in her hand and with her beautiful hair loose, she looked like a ghost.

Like Death.

"– you threw me out of the car like an animal – you left me to die and drove away –" She whispered, tears one after another rolling down her beautiful, tired, pale face.

She had waited so long for this.

For relief.

For justice.

But no more.

"– please – please –" He begged, and she took a step towards him and knelt before him, looking straight into his eyes.

"– let me, Rhaenys –" He muttered, not wanting her to burden herself with this, to dream nightmares like him, to suffer like him because of what she had done.

"– no – I want to feel the life drain out of him – as it did out of me, then –" She said, and the knife she held in her hand stabbed into his side like butter.

Tyland wailed, grabbing the hilt, but Daemon held him down, preventing him from moving – he saw her slide the blade out, a huge bloodstain spilling down his shirt, dripping down his leg straight onto the foil-lined floor.

"That's enough. I'll take care of the rest. Take a bath and burn everything." Daemon instructed, laying Tyland's barely alive body on the ground, his breathing shallow until his eyes went blank.

His soul had left his body.

"Come." He said to her, taking the knife from her palm, placing it on the floor. He nodded at Daemon and grabbed her hand, leading her upstairs to the bathroom where the bathtub was.

Her entire dress and hands were in blood.

"Come here, little one. Come, let's wash it all off. It's okay, honey." He whispered, hugging her close, sinking his hands into her soft, smooth curls, and she reciprocated the embrace, sighing, closing her eyes as if relieved.

"Thank you."

Again she lay in the bath red with blood, again she was pale, however this time he felt that the life was not escaping from her, but returning to her – with each passing minute her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide as if her mind had returned to reality.

"Is he dead?" She muttered, and he swallowed hard, washing away with his hands any trace of what they had done from her beautiful, innocent body.

"He's no longer here. He's disappeared. He was just a monster from the wardrobe, nothing more, my love." He said quietly and she sighed, her hand touching his face.

"Do you still love me?" She asked in a trembling voice, and he looked at her, shocked.

"You are the love of my life. You need to rest. You are very tired. You haven't slept well in a long time. You're daydreaming." He replied, taking an unruly strand of hair from her face, her gaze warm and tender, meant only for him.

"Are you not disgusted with me? I've done something monstrous. I think I killed someone." She whispered, her eyes full of tears.

"– shhh –" He hushed her, pressing his forehead against hers, stroking her hair as if she were a small child. "– I forbid you to say such things – it will be our secret – mine, yours and your dad's – only we will know about it –"

"– about the monster from the wardrobe? –" She mumbled, and he nodded.

"– yes –"

Rhaenys

"– I'm scared, mummy – can I have my little lamp lit today too? –" Aemma muttered, but before she could answer her anything, she heard a voice from the bed above them, belonging to Visenya.

"– no, I can't sleep then –" Her older sister hissed, looking down at them, the bright curls she had inherited from her father in disarray.

"– I'm afraid of the monster from the television – the one from the horror movie that Aegon was watching –" Her daugther said in a breaking voice, and she furrowed her brow, shaking her head.

"– I told you this is not a film for small children –" She said sternly, and Aemma lowered her gaze on the verge of crying.

Vinseya groaned in frustration and climbed down the ladder, lying down under the duvet next to her little sister.

"– move along, coward – I'll kill any monster that disturbs my sleep –" Her daughter muttered, and she smiled and stood up, turning off the lamp.

"– good night –" She hummed and left, closing the door behind her.

She sighed, seeing the light on in his office, and moved lazily in that direction, finding him bent over documents. He glanced at her, then at the silhouette of her naked body hidden only beneath a soft silk bathrobe, and licked his lower lip with his tongue.

"– I'll come soon – give me a moment longer –"

"– talk to Aegon tomorrow – he mustn't let Aemma watch horror movies with himself because she is afraid afterwards – she's too little –" She said.

He shook his head, signing a few things.

"– I'll try, but you know him – he'll find a thousand excuses and explanations –" He grunted, and she laughed under her breath.

"– he resembles your brother –" She said amused, leaning her hip against the doorframe, and he snorted under his breath, the corner of his mouth lifted upwards.

"– indeed –" He said and looked up at her, his gaze again escaping down to her breasts and then even lower.

"Come here. Sit on the desk." He said, leaning back in his chair, and she obeyed his command with a smile, walking closer with a lazy step.

He stood up as soon as her buttocks touched the tabletop, spreading her thighs apart, making her have to reach back with her hand to catch her balance.

"– ah –" She gasped as his fingertips sank into her fleshy, warm womanhood, collecting her sticky wetness.

"– since when are you in this state? – hm? –" He hummed, pushing her closer to him with an impatient tug of his hand on her ass, the other digging warningly into her delicate skin, trailing it around her swollen clit.

"– since this morning – since I saw you come out wet and naked from the bathroom in our bedroom – I've needed you, and you haven't touched me –" She mewled regretfully, feeling her walls clench greedily around nothing, craving him inside her.

What he heard was enough for all his foreplay, and with her help he quickly undid the belt of his trousers, his breath heavy and hitched.

"– after all, I fucked you last night – I had to drive Aegon and Visenya to training – you could have joined me in the shower –" He exhaled, impatiently releasing his long, hard erection from his boxers.

She sighed and tilted her head back as, without even waiting for her response, he directed the head of his cock against her slit, opening her wide on his fat length, filling her with himself with one, lazy thrust.

"– uncle – o-oh, fuck, uncle, yes, yes, yes –" She cried out, resting her hands behind her back, letting the material of her bathrobe slide off her shoulders, revealing her breasts full of milk, bouncing each time his hips pounded against her buttocks.

"– God, be quiet – shhh, be good or I won't let you come – is that what you want? –" He breathed out and she bit her bottom lip with her teeth, looking up at him pleadingly, something in her gaze from which he began to slam into her like mad, himself struggling to restrain himself not to moan.

"– that's what I thought – you come to me – ah – begging with those big eyes for my cock – and then you can't even fucking behave –" He growled and sighed, feeling her struggling to stifle a sob of pleasure when another thrust against that same sweet spot made her fall apart in front of him, panting heavily along with him, the next few loud, sticky slaps of their bodies were enough for him to cum with a sigh of relief.

They knew each other's bodies all too well by now and, with amusement, found more and more that they had trouble holding back from coming too early.

It was just too pleasant.

"– I'm pregnant –" She whispered, and he blinked and looked at her, as if he needed a moment to start thinking soberly after such intense fulfilment.

"– what? – but –" He exhaled.

"– I'm sure – I went to the doctor today –"

"– you lied to me –" He said with irritation in his voice.

"– Criston drove me there – I told you I would go shopping with him and we did after the appointment – no lies –" She said with a smile, touching her belly affectionately.

Her husband sighed, placing his hand on hers, the expression on his face calm and gentle again.

"– it's the sixth – what a big family indeed –" He hummed, and she laughed, nodding her head.

"– yes, my love – another child to drive to training –" She said amused, and he kissed her forehead with tenderness, from which a pleasant warmth spread over her heart.

"– don't sit here too long –" She sighed, jumping off his desk as soon as he slid out of her.

"– I won't –"

On her way to their bedroom, she walked into their youngest child's room and smiled, covering her little son more tightly with the duvet. Aemon's leg immediately pushed the bedclothes off him with his mutter of displeasure, so she gave up and left him alone.

She froze, spotting a silhouette in the corner of the room, thinking it was a man, with bright eyes, blonde hair and a beard, but was relieved when, after a moment, she noticed that it was the only shadow cast by the wardrobe standing nearby.

When she walked into their bedroom, she immediately turned on the lamp by their bed and waited patiently for him to return.

She knew she wouldn't fall asleep anyway.

When she was alone in bed, she saw his face and her hands sticky with blood.

When she heard her uncle's footsteps, when his warm body finally lay down beside her and his lips placed a soft, sticky kiss on her neck, she turned off the light, his whisper next to her ear like the calm hum of the wind.

"– now I will let you moan as much as you wish –"

"– Aegon – don't let her swim out into the deep water – Daeron, Visenya keep an eye on her, after all you can see she can't swim well yet –" He shouted to their children the next day, lying in front of her on a towel on the beach, little Aemon, sitting next to them, was building a sandcastle, the hot sun burning their skin.

"– okay, Dad! –" She heard Daeron voice behind her, lying on her stomach in her black one-piece bathing suit with her back cut out, reading a book, her husband's doctoral thesis on an excavation he had run with her in one of the cities the year before.

"– what do you think? – it's the last time for corrections – I've read it hundreds of times and it already makes me want to vomit when I look at it –" He said disapprovingly, turning his gaze towards the sea again.

"– it's the best doctoral thesis I've ever read – really –" She said softly, turning the page, amazed at how effortlessly her husband wrote.

"– look, mummy – it's a fortress, and here's the moat – and there's a dragon on top –" Mumbled Aemon, forcing the Mighty Vhagar figurine that had once belonged to his father onto the top of the tower.

"– beautiful, darling – it looks like the real thing –" She said with warm approval, and Aemon smiled broadly, satisfied, busying himself with creating a bridge over the moat from sticks.

"– Aemma, don't swim so far away – how many times do I have to tell you? –" Her uncle called out, raising himself angrily on his elbow, and she sighed heavily, throwing him a look full of pity.

"– she has swimming sleeves that are full of air that will float her even if she stops moving her arms and legs – she won't drown –" She said, and her husband sighed heavily, looking anxiously towards their children playing in the water.

"– I prefer to be sure –" He muttered.

She looked at him tenderly for a moment, feeling nothing but warmth in her heart.

He was such a good father.

Such a good husband.

She knew that one day they would have to explain to their children why they only had a church wedding and were not married before the state.

But not yet.

"So let's make sure. We should swim with them." She said, extending her hand to him, and he looked at her, apparently recalling their conversation in his car then, many years ago, when he had described his fantasy to her.

He licked his lips with his tongue and grinned in a way she loved.

"Come."

______

Author's note: The child that Rhaenys lost was Viserys: I decided that this story, because it is so dark, could not end differently, and the decisions of the characters had to lead to tragedy sooner or later. Something dies in Rhaenys, but thanks to this she can finally fully join her husband in their Hades, crossing the border of innocence and naivety, maturing in a kind of cruel way. However, the rest of their children, who appeared in the original series, are born. After losing Viserys (in this version they did not know that it would be a boy), they decided that they wanted to have as many children as God would give them, since he took one away from them (in their eyes one too many). Visenya and Aegon will definitely become mafia bosses in the future, just like their father, lol. Their children have the same characters and looks like in the original series, which you can see here.

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deanscherrypie420 · 3 months

Text

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐫

A/N: Hi! This was third most requested on the poll! I hope you guys enjoy, it took me forever to think of a story OMG!

Characters: BAU Team, Reader Y/N

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner X Reader

Warnings: Soft!Dom Aaron, description of crime scenes, antagonizing, sensitive neck area, implied smut but no actual, teasing, lots of kissing towards the end, pretty cute ending, praise kink, spitting (spits into her mouth once), getting interrupted (they were just kissing, don't worry), (Let me know if I missed anything!)

Summary: After getting on your new boss's bad-side, you face his irritation throughout your case. When you get back, however, it seems he's a better profiler than you thought.

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It was her first official day at the Bureau. She had been training alongside a different team for a few weeks before being sent to work with the BAU.

When she entered the conference room, she was greeted by a woman in a dashingly bright outfit. "Hi! I'm Penelope Garcia, technical analyst for the BAU. You're the new agent, right?"

Y/N nodded and shook her hand, a faint smile on her lips. "Hi, yeah. I'm Y/N Y/L/N." She stated simply, pulling out a chair to sit down. Penelope stepped out of the room for a moment, calling the rest of the team in.

One by one, they all piled in. Two other women came to shake her hand and she declined, passing it off with a joke. They didn't seem to mind, sitting down beside her and engaging in small talk.

The last person to come in was an older man dressed in a nice suit, clean cut black hair and dark brown eyes. She perked up, recognizing him immediately.

SSA Aaron Hotchner, BAU Unit chief.

"Y/L/N, good to finally meet you. We've heard great things." He complimented, reaching out to shake her hand. She gave a sharp smile, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"Thanks, unfortunately I can't say the same about you." She set her hand on top of his, gently pushing it down to decline his offer. He noticeably stiffened, and the room filled with tension. "Excuse me?" He questioned, brows knitted tight together.

"I mean, you're practically a rogue agent. You're constantly under the microscope," She shook her head with a quiet laugh, "And from what I hear, you've always been off the rails, even with a stick up your ass."

Before Aaron could respond, Garcia interrupted, getting into the grimy details of a murder in Colorado. After the brief, everyone exited the room, leaving Y/N and Hotchner in the room alone.

His hand clamped down on her shoulder, squeezing tight as he leaned in behind her. "I advise you to stay in your lane. Keep that dirty little mouth of yours shut." He whispered in her ear.

She felt her breath hitch in her throat, heat rising to her cheeks. He patted her on the back before stepping out, returning to his office to collect his to-go bag.

She stood up and grabbed her bag from beneath her, already prepared for her first day. When she made it to the jet, she claimed a seat next to the blonde woman, who she vaguely remembered as Jennifer.

"Rogue agent, huh?" The older man in front of her asked. She studied him, his fingers in a triangle shape resting on the table, grey hair blooming within his black strands.

She grinned and nodded, leaning back into her chair. "I can't repeat what I've heard?" She prodded, tapping her foot on the ground. She knew it wasn't the smartest thing to do, but she didn't care.

As if he read her mind, he hunched forward and reciprocated her smirk. "Not if you want to last longer than day one. You may have heard some interesting things about Aaron, but I'm sure you've also heard that he doesn't take bullshit from anyone. Especially not from beginners."

She swallowed hard, feeling everyone's eyes on her. She tried to think of a witty response, something to drag her out of the pit she was in. Her brain paused when the same hand from before ruffled her hair, a stiff smile on Aaron's face. "I'm sure it was a mistake on her part. Right, Y/N?"

She nearly choked, reaching up to fix her hair. "Whatever helps you sleep at night." She croaked out, an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. Rossi just shook his head and 'tsked' in disapproval.

After another quick conversation about the case, Aaron paired everyone up. "Morgan, JJ, you check out the body. Rossi, Prentiss and Reid, set up with local PD."

After not addressing her, she raised a brow. She turned to face him, an annoyed look on her features. "What about me?" She questioned, and he gave her a smug grin.

"You're with me. We'll examine the crime scene." Was all he said, turning his attention back to the file. She slumped in her chair, glaring at Morgan when she heard him chuckle.

Dammit.

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

"So what do you see?" He quizzed her, motioning towards the crimson stained kitchen. She studied it for a moment, chewing the inside of her cheek as she thought.

"Rage fueled kill. Blood painted on the walls, clearly over-kill. He doesn't like authority figures, this is the third he's killed this week." She explained and he scoffed.

"You aren't projecting, are you?" He asked her, and she froze. "What do you mean?" Her fists balled up, biting her lip to withhold any rude remarks she might let slip.

"You have issues with figures of authority. You tried to embarrass me in front of my team, and the whole drive here you ignored everything I've had to tell you." He stepped closer to her, his dark eyes boring into hers.

"If I had to guess I'd assume parental issues. You have a sharp tongue, a defense mechanism to keep people at arms reach. Should I keep going?" He had a stern, yet calm look in his eyes. She bit her cheek and pondered, unsure how to respond.

"You're uncomfortable." He noted and she raised a brow. "Am not. You're not as intimidating as you think, Aaron." She snapped back, and he stepped even closer, his face mere inches away.

"I didn't say intimidated, but thank you for letting me know that's how I make you feel." He smiled down at her, making her stomach churn. She turned on her heel and hurried out, slamming the front door behind her.

He chuckled and shook his head, walking out behind her. "Where are you going?" He asked and she crossed her arms, stopping at the end of the road. "Away from you." She muttered and he stopped a few feet in front of her.

"You're acting like a child. Get in the car, now." She huffed and brushed past him, ramming her shoulder into his as she went. He had to hold back from grabbing her and slamming her onto the car.

She slid into the passenger seat, throwing her feet up on the dash and sinking her teeth into their spot in her cheek. Aaron got into the driver seat and stared at her.

"I understand this is your way of defiance, but it's not amusing. Legs down." He ordered and she unwillingly obeyed. "Sorry." She spat, sarcasm creeping in her tone.

"Being a brat isn't gonna work for you, not with me at least." He warned her and she barely nodded, glancing over at him. She didn't know why, but she kind of liked it when he talked to her like this.

However, she couldn't help but want the softer side of him too. He felt her staring as he drove to the local police department, finding it cute when he looked at he and she turned away.

"You're a lot more shy than I expected." He told her, making her look away again. "Pardon?" She croaked, heat rushing up her neck. He set his hand down on her knee and his thumb rubbed circles against it.

"Nothing, just keep your act together."

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

After the case, Y/N was waiting in Aarons office. They had tension all throughout the trip, getting her in trouble and now having to have a mandatory "behavioral conversation."

When he entered the office, he closed the door quietly and turned to face her. His face was stone cold, unreadable and harsh. She bit her lip and fidgeted in her lap, picking at her nailbeds.

He sat down in front of her and cleared his throat. "Is this what you wanted?" He questioned her, catching her off guard. "I don't understand?" She responded, her tone rising at the end a bit too high for her liking.

"I'm a profiler, Y/N. It's my job to study behavior. What did you think you would get by throwing tantrums?" His words made her squirm, understanding what he was referring to.

She didn't respond, looking down at her legs and trying not to drown in humiliation. He chuckled and stood up, making his way behind her. He slowly started to knead her shoulders, earning a quiet gasp from her lips.

"I know, Sweetheart. You just want to be a good girl, yeah?" He cooed, adding more pressure and making her moan. She nodded and squeezed her thighs together. "Th-this is inappropriate." She mumbled between quiet groans and he smiled down at her, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head.

"You don't seem to care about what's appropriate or not, don't start pretending now." He whispered and she melted, her hands clawing at her knees.

His thumbs pressed into her neck, pressing nerves within and making her recoil, an unexpected moan bellowing out of her. He quirked a brow and raised one of his hands around the back of her neck.

"Well, that was interesting." He remarked before squeezing down on the pressure points, forcing her to curl up, such an intense reaction from such a little gesture.

Incoherent whimpers and whines escaped her lips, her hand buried between thighs as she tried to gain friction. He chuckled and shook his head. "Needy girl."

He jerked her head back, forcing another moan out of her. Her mouth hung open, eyes glazed and cheeks flushed. He loomed over her, spitting into her mouth.

He took his hand away from her neck and spun her chair around, crouching down in front of her with a small smile. "Swallow, pretty girl."

She obeyed, nodding mindlessly as she did. He kissed the top of her knee and then stood up, gesturing for her to do the same. He cupped her cheek and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer.

"Go to your office, get all your paperwork done, and then come meet me back here." He looked so comforting, and he felt that way too. "Okay.. I can do that." She spoke barely above a whisper, still flustered from the situation.

He smiled and leaned down, placing a gentle kiss on her cheek. She wanted more, but didn't say anything, just carefully pulled away and walked towards the door.

He grabbed her arm and brought her back to him, her chest flushed with his. "Use your words." He prompted her, and she bit her lip, a small smile of her own growing.

"Kiss me, please."

He leaned down and their lips met, a slow but passionate kiss. His hands slid around her waist and he crossed his wrists above her hips, bringing her impossibly closer.

Her hands cupped his cheeks and he smiled, the warm feeling of her palms making his shoulders relax.

Suddenly, Penelope and Emily barged through the door, David, JJ and Morgan not far behind them. "Dinner at Rossi's-" Penelope started in a cheery voice, but froze when she saw them.

Quickly, Y/N broke away from Hotch, her back to him as she smiled awkwardly. Emily's jaw was practically on the floor, and Garcia gasped.

"Oh my," She whispered, and Morgan glanced over her shoulder, quickly catching on to the situation. "Aaron. Hotchner. Gettin' some lovin' from the newbie is not something I expected." He teased and Y/N felt her face warming, something she was getting used to now at the BAU.

"Guys, it's not-" Aaron started but was quickly cut off by JJ. "This was not something I had on my bingo card this year." She joked as she sped away with Reid, who was quickly mumbling some facts about business hook-ups.

Following in suit, Penelope grabbed the door handle and apologized repeatedly. "Just come find us when you two are done." She said quickly as she slammed the door.

Aaron leaned down and snaked an arm around her, pulling her closer once more. "We'll catch up on this later." He said as he kissed her temple.

"Do I still have to do my paperwork?" She asked in a fake-innocent voice. "Absolutely," He said before leaving soft, bruising kisses down her neck. "But you can wait until tomorrow."

She rested her head back on his chest, breathy moans parting her lips. "That's not fair. I should get special privileges now." She pleaded and he sunk his teeth into her neck, making her gasp.

"You're a smart girl, you can do a little bit of work. I'll even reward you if you do a good job." He teased, squeezing her hip with his free hand. She giggled and moved his face up to kiss him, their lips easily melting together.

"Hurry up you two! This is Y/N's first cooking lesson!" Garcia yelled through the door. Hotch let out a quiet groan as he finally pulled away, placing a few more quick kisses all over the side of her face.

She giggled and hollered back, "We're coming!" He gave a playful tap to her ass and she waited for him to grab his coat before leaving. "I didn't expect that sleeping with my boss would make my co-workers like me so much." She joked and he raised his brows suggestively, collecting his stuff from beside the desk.

"We haven't slept together yet, but that's a great idea for dessert."

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

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed! I finished this at three AM so I'm sorry if its a bit rushed or messy. This is my first Hotch fic so it took me a bit longer to get a decent idea.

Feel free to send in requests! <3 Like, comment, and follow :)

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artyandink · 1 month

Text

the art of heresy forged 2022

SUMMARY: Modern day, 2022, and you have no clue what’s going on. You knew what you went through. You knew it was real, but why were there people trying to convince you that everything that happened to you wasn’t real. Hell, you called bullshit. But you get your chance to fight back when you get a call at your door.

TW: psychological torture, trauma, angst, smut, drinking, consumption of drugs, smoking, mentions of sex, blood, murder, gore, Ben (cause he’s an individual warning), derogatory remarks, gunfire, murder, killing, lots of it, it’s The Boys so be careful guys, really creepy shit, crack, literal crack

STW: fingering, Ben being Ben, degradation, explicit spoken detail, practically manhandling

A/N - divider by @chachachannah

Song Inspo: Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift

keep it quiet

NICARAGUA, 1983:

The sun hung low in the Nicaraguan sky, casting long shadows over the dense jungle. The air was thick with humidity, clinging to every leaf, every blade of grass, and every breath the small town's inhabitants took. A deep, unsettling quiet had settled over the place, punctuated only by the occasional call of distant birds or the rustle of leaves. The tranquility of the town was deceptive, however, masking the turmoil that had gripped the world beyond its borders.

In the heart of the town, a small news station buzzed with a rare energy. Reporters shuffled about, their voices tense, their faces drawn with concern. The camera lights were harsh against the evening gloom, casting sharp shadows on the walls of the makeshift studio. Outside, a handful of locals gathered, their curiosity piqued by the unusual activity. News had traveled fast, as it always did in small towns, and the disappearance of Soldier Boy was no exception. For the people of this remote corner of the world, the arrival of a famous superhero—however dire the circumstances—was an event worth witnessing.

Inside the studio, the main anchor, a seasoned reporter named Esteban Garcia, sat behind a worn wooden desk, straightening the stack of notes before him. His dark eyes were set with a determination that had been honed over years of covering stories that often blurred the lines between the ordinary and the extraordinary. But today, the story was unlike any other he had ever covered.

Esteban had been one of the first to receive the report that Soldier Boy, the legendary superhero and symbol of American might, had gone missing during a covert operation in Nicaragua. The details were still murky, shrouded in a haze of classified information and official denials. What was clear, however, was that the man who had once been invincible, the man who had been the living embodiment of strength and bravery, was now feared dead.

As Esteban shuffled his notes one last time, the door to the studio creaked open, and in walked a woman who seemed to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. Crimson Countess was a striking figure; her red hair, usually fiery and untamed, was pulled back into a tight bun. Her crimson suit, once a beacon of power and confidence, seemed to have lost its luster, the fabric dull and wrinkled as if it, too, had been drained of life.

She moved with a heaviness that Esteban hadn't seen before, her every step measured, her every breath labored. As she approached the interview chair, he could see the dark circles under her eyes, the way her hands trembled ever so slightly. This was not the Crimson Countess the world had come to know—the fierce, unyielding force that had fought alongside Soldier Boy for years. This was a woman on the brink, teetering between despair and the desperate need to hold herself together.

"Thank you for coming, Countess," Esteban said, his voice gentle but firm. He gestured to the chair opposite him, and she lowered herself into it, her movements slow and deliberate. "I know this must be an incredibly difficult time for you."

Countess nodded, her lips pressed into a thin line. For a moment, she seemed unable to speak, her throat working to push down the grief that threatened to spill over. When she finally did find her voice, it was hoarse, raw with emotion.

"Difficult doesn’t even begin to cover it," she murmured, her eyes fixed on some point in the distance, far beyond the walls of the studio. "I’ve… I’ve been through a lot with Soldier Boy. We all have. But this… this is different."

Esteban nodded, giving her the space she needed to gather her thoughts. The silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken words, with the weight of shared history and the looming specter of loss. Outside, the gathering crowd pressed closer to the windows, straining to catch even the faintest whisper of what was being said inside.

"He was… he is," she corrected herself quickly, as if to banish the thought of his death from existence, "the strongest person I’ve ever known. Indestructible, or so we all thought. To think that he could be… gone… it’s like waking up in a nightmare you can’t escape from."

Her voice cracked on the last word, and she closed her eyes tightly, as if that could somehow block out the pain. Esteban felt a pang of sympathy. He had seen many interviews like this before—family members of the missing, the grieving, the lost. But this was different. This was Crimson Countess, a superhero, someone who was supposed to be beyond the reach of such ordinary, human emotions. And yet here she was, broken in a way that no enemy had ever managed to break her.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Esteban asked softly, careful not to push too hard, but knowing that the world was desperate for answers. "Anything at all that you know?"

Countess opened her eyes and looked at him. For a moment, she seemed to be weighing her words, deciding how much to reveal, how much to hold back. Then, with a deep breath, she began to speak.

"It was supposed to be a routine mission," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "We’ve done this kind of thing a hundred times before—go in, neutralize the threat, get out. But something went wrong. I… I wasn’t there when it happened, I was in a different part of the field, but I spoke to him on the comms. He was… he was confident, as always. He didn’t think anything could go wrong."

She paused, swallowing hard, as if the memory of that last conversation was too much to bear. "But then we lost contact. Just like that. One minute, everything was fine, and the next… nothing. No signal, no word. Just… silence."

Esteban leaned forward, his brow furrowing in concern. "And you haven’t heard anything since? No communication from Soldier Boy or anyone else on the mission?"

Countess shook her head, her expression one of helplessness, an emotion she was clearly unaccustomed to. "Nothing. It’s like they vanished into thin air. The government’s been tight-lipped, as always. They’re saying it’s classified, that they’re ‘looking into it,’ but I know what that means. They think he’s dead. They just don’t want to say it."

The words hung in the air, heavy and ominous. Esteban could feel the tension in the room rising, the weight of the world’s expectations pressing down on this woman who had spent her life fighting battles that most people couldn’t even imagine. And now she was fighting a battle of a different kind—one that she had no idea how to win.

"What does this mean for you, Countess?" he asked after a long moment, his voice soft with understanding. "For the team? For the world?"

Countess looked at him, her eyes filled with a deep, abiding sorrow. "I don’t know," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. "I really don’t know. Soldier Boy was… he was the heart of the team. The backbone. Without him… I don’t know how we go on."

The room fell silent again, the weight of her words sinking in. Outside, the crowd had grown larger, their faces pressed against the glass, their eyes wide with fear and fascination. They had come to see a superhero, but what they were witnessing was something far more profound—a woman laid bare, stripped of the armor that had always protected her, struggling to make sense of a world that no longer made sense.

Esteban knew that he had to tread carefully now. He could see how close she was to the edge, how fragile her composure had become. But he also knew that the world was watching, waiting for answers, for some kind of closure. He took a deep breath, choosing his next words with care.

"Countess," he began gently, "the world has always looked to people like you and Soldier Boy for strength, for hope. In times of crisis, you’ve been the ones to lead us, to show us that even the darkest times can be overcome. What would you say to those who are watching right now? To those who are afraid?"

Countess stared at him for a long moment, her eyes searching his face as if looking for something—perhaps a lifeline, perhaps an escape. When she spoke, her voice was stronger, more certain, as if she had found some small reserve of the strength that had always defined her.

"I’d say that fear is a natural response to the unknown," she said slowly, the words coming out measured and deliberate. "But fear can’t be the end of the story. Soldier Boy… he wouldn’t want us to give up, to let fear consume us. He’d want us to fight, to keep going, no matter how hopeless it seems."

Her voice grew steadier as she spoke, the words seemingly giving her strength. "I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I don’t know if Soldier Boy is… if he’s really gone. But I do know that he wouldn’t want us to stop fighting. He’d want us to keep pushing forward, to keep believing that there’s a way out of this, even if we can’t see it right now."

Esteban nodded, feeling a sense of respect for this woman who, despite everything, was still finding a way to inspire hope. "Thank you, Countess," he said quietly. "I know that wasn’t easy."

Countess managed a small, tight smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. "Nothing about this is easy," she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. "But it’s what we have to do."

As the interview drew to a close, Esteban could see the exhaustion in her eyes, the way her body seemed to sag with the weight of it all. He knew that the moment the cameras stopped rolling, she would retreat back into the private hell she was living, the grief and uncertainty gnawing away at her resolve.

"Do you think he could still be out there?" Esteban asked, unable to resist the question that had been on his mind since the beginning of the interview. "Do you think Soldier Boy could still be alive?"

Countess looked at him, her eyes filled with a quiet desperation. "I have to believe he is," she said softly, the words laced with a fragile hope. "Because if he’s not… I don’t know how we move on from this."

The camera panned out, capturing the room in its entirety—the small, stark studio, the gathering crowd outside, and the lone figure of Crimson Countess, sitting in the harsh light, her face a mask of controlled despair. The broadcast would soon be over, but the impact of her words would linger long after the screen went dark.

NOW:

“Whatever you’re experiencing, it’s not real.” Your shrink - you still didn’t know whether her name was Emily or Earhart - assured you, but you knew better. “Vought only wants to help you get better.”

“They’ve been so called helping me for forty fucking years.” You gritted out, your fingers gripping the chair you were sitting on. The maroon chair, with some fugly beige cushions in this fugly beige room. You hated it.

Fuck all.

She sighed, leaning forward. “You exhibit signs of anger issues and PTSD. Vought is merely facilitating your recovery and return to glory.”

“They’re fucking with my head!” You burst out, standing up abruptly, surging forward and grabbing her throat, your eyes turning black, gleaming with wisps of purple. “Tell me the truth.”

Tell me the truth. It resonated through Eleanor’s head, and her eyes turned the same colour as yours, her jaw going slack as she stopped resisting.

“You’re not crazy.” She whispered, her eyes wide and unfocused. “You never were.”

You let her go, and her eyes returned back to normal, a shaky gasp escaping her lips. You bent forward, trapping her between yourself and the chair.

“You tell anyone what I just did, sweetie,” You warned lowly, “and I’ll snap your neck by the time I next come in here.”

“Of course.” She whispered, her voice cracking.

You sat back down on the armchair, cracking a smile as you examined the fear in her eyes. Good. “Shall we continue?”

They’d gotten into some weird shit.

“Is he always gonna be doing that?” Hughie whispered to Butcher, watching Ben crush some medicine and snort it like it was nothing. They’d broken him out of his cryogenic capsule, and it’s safe to say that he was an incredibly pissed off individual. Understandably so.

“Just let ‘im, it ain’t killing us.” Butcher replied under his breath, and then snapped into suave gent action when Ben cleared his throat and looked up. “Everythin’ alright, there, guv’nor?”

“Gotta add another name to my kill list.” He cleared his throat again, grunting distastefully.

“One more?” Hughie asked, eyes widening slightly, but he recovered. “Uh, w-who is that - the one you want to kill - who?”

Ben grunted again, snorting up more crushed pills. “Tricky bitch, she is. Superhero by the name of Psyke, she was my co-leader and fuck buddy. Real tricky to get past. She can create illusions that you’ll fall for if you’re a dumb piece’a shit, and if she gets her hands on you, game over.”

Butcher crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. “And why’s that?”

“One, she’s hot as fuck. And a great fuck.” Ben chuckled, reminiscing the days. “Second, she’ll just whisper a command and you’ll do it no questions asked.”

“No problem, guv.” Butcher smirked confidently, but Hughie raised his hand. “Put your hand the fuck down, we ain’t in school.”

“Cocksucker.” Ben snorted - not recreational drugs this time - drinking his beer. “What is it?”

“Psyke, she… she’s impossible to get to.” Hughie revealed, scrolling on his phone. “Apparently she had a psychotic outbreak after you were put in the freezer in ‘83. Vought’s holding her for rehabilitation and therapy. Has been for forty years.

Ben saw the picture of the old newspaper, the title blaring in his face. ‘Psyke in Rehab for Violent Behaviour’, but no explanation. It told him one thing— that you must have known something was wrong.

And Vought imprisoned you for it, the bastards.

There wasn’t a world in which Vought would imprison their darling, their golden girl. Not unless she went rogue.

“That means she’s deep in a Vought facility.” Butcher smirked, glancing between the two others. “We get the team together, launch an attack on the cunts holdin’ her, we can get her out quick an’ easy.”

Ben’s protective instincts over you flared up when he thought of what Vought could’ve done to you. “She gets out unharmed, y’hear?”

“Loud and clear, guv. Not a scratch.”

Oh, fuck. You could go for one of those at the moment.

You were left on the ground, on your back, trembling. Your brain felt like it’d been stretched and then left to rebound against all four walls of your brain, close to turning into mush had you not been fighting the drug injected into your system with everything you had.

“She’s resisting.” You heard one doctor mutter to another, just as searing, white hot pain made the corners of your vision turn black.

And then they shaped into the nightmare land, taking over your vision until it was half reality half illusion, messing with your perception until you weren’t sure which was actually happening.

You could see Nicaragua.

The blood, being distracted by a legion only to find Ben being subdued by Novichok.

Fighting off every member of Payback, making them turn on one another with nothing but a hand on their shoulder and a persuasive whisper.

Getting hit with a cheap shot from behind, and both yours and Ben’s bodies were dragged across the dirt.

Only difference was that you were barely awake. Awake enough to see his unconscious face as they took him away and put him God knows where.

“Have we tried giving her a stronger dose?” A male doctor replied, the corners of your vision blinking from reality, back to nightmare, reality, nightmare, reality- nightmare—

Keys jangled. “We give her a stronger dose and she’ll go up in a stroke. Homelander wants her alive.”

“I don’t understand why, she’s a walking weapon.”

“Talking like I’m not there.” You rasped out, like you hadn’t spoken in a hundred years. A rough chuckle left your mouth as you shakily pushed yourself up, the pounding in your head still there but finding it easier to regain muscle control. “Ballsy move, especially for a couple of dickless scientists.”

You pointed at the lady. “You’re already dickless, so you don’t count.”

The two doctors looked between each other, getting more and more anxious as you found your feet, staggering towards them, almost shuffling, footsteps uneven.

“Uh, what are you-” They froze when you clapped your hands on their shoulders, leaning forward so you were speaking in their ears, your iris turning into gleaming purple mixed with black.

“Kill each other.” You whispered, and the command resonated. The urge to pick up their pens and go postal overtaking them.

Kill each other.

It went through their mind, body, soul. Clipboards flattering to the floor as their irises turned black and swirled with purple, turning to each other slowly. Teeth gritting, veins popping as the two doctors looked into each other’s eyes with pure hatred and a chuckle left your lips as you watched them click their pens and go straight for the jugular.

Over and over again.

“Sleep tight, bitches.” You muttered in satisfaction just as armed Vought soldiers burst in, two forcing you to your knees while two others went to check the tangled, lifeless bodies of the two doctors running rampant.

And you did that.

It felt amazing.

1980:

Mmh, fuck.

“Bet you’re so wet for me, pretty thing.” Ben chuckled against your lips as you stumbled back into the his hotel room, the rapid undoing of clothes not privy to the two of you as the curtains were wide open. Everyone in the street below could see the filthy way yours and Ben’s lips joined together over and over again, eyes closed but hands familiar with where they needed to go to make the other moan.

Ben separated from you to go and close the curtains, leaving the taste of whiskey on your tongue, still in his slacks from the press conference while he’d ridden you of everything but that delicious fucking lace you’d worn under your dress.

He’d been eyeing you all day in that thing, and all he thought about was having it off.

“Didn’t have enough after coming like a faucet on my cock this morning, hm?” He added, toeing his shoes off and working on his belt, his lips descending to your neck and leaving hot trails of kisses and rough sucks. “Nah, you didn’t.”

Your hands slid up his chest, and then one went down to palm him over his slacks, which had the vein in his neck popping, jaw tensing as his head fell back for a quick second.

Then he took control of the situation, tearing your panties off and throwing you onto the bed, the bra going with it as he sank two thick fingers knuckle deep in your pussy.

“Shit-” You gasped, arching off the bed, your legs widening instinctively as he set a brutally delicious pace, leaning forward to lick and suck at your nipple, biting and tugging at it with his teeth at his fancy.

Ben only laughed, manoeuvring your body how he wanted, rocking your hips in time with his fingers, hearing your moans, seeing your eyes roll back, knowing you were close-

NOW:

“TMI.” Hughie groaned, putting his hand out and shaking his head. “Really, dude. Ew.”

Ben frowned. “TMI- the fuck does that mean?” He thought for a second, then waved Hughie off. “Eh, I don’t give two shits.” Then he chuckled at the memory, nodding and hitching his shield higher on his arm. “Psyke, man. Best fuck you could ask for. She’d ride me like a damn champ, knows how to suck you off too. Had a mouth like a goddamn vacuum-”

“As much as I want to hear about your old buddy’s jerkin’ off talents, guv,” Butcher cut in with a wave of his hands as they walked, “we have half an hour to get in an’ out.”

“We’ll get her.” Ben assured, finding a Vought guard and slamming his shield into their face, successfully breaking their nose and making them drop, crumpling like a wet sheet of paper.

“Fuck you.” He added, sneering at the unconscious guard before trudging further through the halls, Hughie and Butcher keeping up right as the alarms blared red.

The moment they did, you - in your cell - smirked, finding an opportunity. The guards were about to restrain you, but you used their grip on your arms to knock them into each other, rolling out of the way and grabbing their handgun, shooting them both once each in the head before anyone could react.

You barely dodged a bullet (literally), jumping and spinning, whipping your leg around so your heel could connect with the side of one’s head, snapping it sideways and sweeping another guard’s legs out from under them, grabbing their head and snapping their neck.

All the guards were down, so you got up, looking at the massacre - the art - you’d created with a small smile on your face and an approving nod.

“Cocksuckers.” You muttered under your breath before shaking your head, clearing the corners of your vision of Nicaragua, induced by whatever shit they put into your system. Wasn’t the good shit either, it was bad shit.

You really needed a smoke round about now.

But now wasn’t the time, so you picked up the guard’s assault rifle and pocketed a few rounds, making your way through the clinically white halls with it held up, popping a few rounds through the heads of the guards you met.

Eventually, of course, all your rounds were depleted soon enough, and you resorted to using your hands (and not in the sexy way), Nicaragua threatening to take over your vision

“You can check that way, guv, she might be there.” A voice with an accent said gruffly, and when you looked around the corner, you saw a boot disappearing down a side corridor, and two other guys. You stepped up behind the smaller one, your bare feet silent on the cold floor.

With a sharp movement, you grabbed the smaller one’s shoulders, yanking him against you as your powers activated again, ready to strike. “Move a muscle and I tell this one to dislocate his own shoulder. Maybe break a leg.”

“What the fuck- I don’t wanna break a leg!” The dude held to you squeaked to the taller guy, who turned around, taking one look at you and smirking.

“Guv, we found ‘er!” He yelled, and a large red and brown boot stepped out, connected to a much larger body that you knew all too well. Only difference was that his hair was darker and he had a trimmed beard. Oh, you’d have fun with that - you mused, right as a grin spread on your face.

“Son of a bitch.”

©️ 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐤 / 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲’𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨

𝐈 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐝/𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝

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#soldier boy angst #soldier boy x you #soldier boy x reader #soldier boy fanfiction #soldier boy smut #soldier boy #the boys #soldier boy x reader smut #soldier boy x reader angst #jensen ackles fanfiction #jensen ackles x you #jensen ackles x reader #jensen ackles #artyandink #arty writes #the art of heresy #keep it quiet

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quill-is-brainstorming · 1 year

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I've just re-read the short lived duel that Aeneas and Achilles have in Book 20 of the Iliad and it's actually the most hilarious fucking thing.

So it starts out with Apollo disguising himself as Lycaon, one of Priam's many sons, and telling to have a go at Achilles. Keep in mind that this is post-Patroclus Achilles. Aka: berserk Achilles. Aka: so fucking mad he would fight a literal river Achilles.

Aeneas, who is capable of critical thinking, says he doubts he can actually take him on. He also references a time when he was herding cattle on Mount Ida and Achilles ambushed him, adding that the only reason he survived then was because Zeus gave him enough strength to book it (cracking up the official times that he's been saved by a god from certain death to 3, you go dude!).

However, after a bit of back and forth and a ton of hyping up on Apollo's part, Aeneas decides to try anyway.

Like, what could possibly go wrong?

Achilles notices Aeneas charging at him and he begins to taunt him. It's something among the lines of: "I'm sorry, are you, background trojan character #61, actually gonna try and beat me? And then what? Do you think that Priam will reward you in some way? Maybe making you king after him? Well it's BULLSHIT, because Priam fucked so much that your chances of succeeding him are basically 0. Ahah. Loser."

Now, you'd think that maybe Aeneas got enraged at the comment and attacked him, or maybe he even got scared and backed down, but NOPE. What does Aeneas do?

Well, first of all, he insults Achilles' insults, comparing his bickering to that of a child. Literally, "I heard third graders do better than that." And then he decides to list his and Hector's entire fucking family tree.

You know that part of the Bible that's like "this guy sired this other guy, and this other guy sired yet another guy" and so on? It's basically that.

So after he's done with all that, Aeneas states that while he'd love to have a battle of insults with Achilles, because according to him he's actually very good at insulting people (his words, not mine), they should probably throw hands now. Achilles agrees.

The duel is shortlived and Aeneas gets his ass handed to him. Badly. As expected. And he's about die when ✨️POV shift✨️ we're not on Olympus where Poseidon, Hera and Athena are watching this absolute train wreck go down.

Poseidon, pitying Aeneas, suddenly goes on a rant. It's something among the lines of: "come on guys, look at him, he's just a little guy! He literally has no stakes in this war, he doesn't deserve to die here! He even gives us lots of gifts and sacrifices, he's literally such a nice guy. How can we do this to him!?

...oh and also he's part of some prophecy, Zeus would get mad if he died."

The fact that the way it's worded makes it sound like Aeneas being part of a literal prophecy is an afterthought to him absolutely floors me, Poseidon is literally just attached to a random dude that's fighting on the opposite side to his because he thinks he's nice.

After all that Hera is pretty unimpressed and states that she really doesn't care if our man lives or dies as neither her or Athena have ever saved a Trojan from death, she however adds that Poseidon is free to do whatever he wants.

The literal moment Hera stops talking, Poseidon lunges down from Olympus and onto the battlefield to look for the two combatants. When he does, he saves Aeneas like only he can do.

You know how when Diomedes first tries to kill Aeneas, Aphrodite gently folds her hands around him to shield him? There's none of that here. Poseidon just runs up to him and literally flings the motherfucker.

It literally says that he flies "high in the air". It's like a Looney Toons sketch.

So Aeneas lands and, while he's obviously a bit dazed, Poseidon proceeds to call him a madman and essentially tells him to never do something stupid like that again and just wait until Achilles is dead, then he'll be able to murder Achaeans to his heart's content. Aeneas is fine with that.

Achilles, who just saw his opponent just get yeeted into the fucking sky, just shrugs and goes "welp, guess that guy's off limits, I'm gonna go kill someone else now I guess lol".

This entire scene is pure fucking gold and the fact that I've literally never seen anyone talk about it just breaks my heart.

#tagamemnon #trojan war #the iliad #the aeneid #achilles #aeneas #apollo #poseidon #hera #athena

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zepskies · 1 year

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Smoke Eater - Part 6

Pairing: Firefighter!Dean Winchester x F. Reader

Summary: Dean Winchester is the cocky, but well-respected Lieutenant at Firehouse 25. He leads by example, but he’s also known to break a few hearts. He’s starting to crave something he’s never had, though. Something stable. Something real.

That’s when he meets you, on a truly terrible day, trapped in a rickety old elevator.

🔥 Series Masterlist

Word Count: 7,000 Tags/Warnings: Fluff, jealousy, angst, hurt/comfort

Part 6: “Just Casual”

A few days after the house fire that claimed the life of Paul Richardson, father of two, Chief Bobby Singer was joined in his office by Detectives Winchester and Novak, along with his resident Squad Captain and Truck Lieutenant, Benny and Dean.

“The Richardson fire has officially been determined an arson,” Bobby revealed.

“They found a time-delay incendiary device hidden in the attic. No fingerprints. But that’s not even the odd thing,” he said. “The medical examiner found a brand mark on his wrist that was inconsistent with his other burns. Which is why you’re here, I reckon.”

Bobby directed his gaze at both John and Cas, who didn’t look surprised to hear this news.

Dean raised a brow. His gaze shifted to his father, but John only met his stare for a moment before he answered Bobby’s unspoken question.

“We’ve been investigating a series of murders in the area over the past six months,” John said. “Each victim died in their home, with the same brand somewhere on their body. Typically the wrist, or the back of the neck.”

“So we officially have a serial killer turned arsonist on our hands,” Bobby concluded. His attention shifted to Benny and Dean. “Keep this close to the vest, but keep your eyes open.”

“Arsonists are hard to catch,” Dean said, looking to the detectives. “What do you know about this guy?”

Cas glanced at John. The older man could feel his stare, but had to ignore it for now.

“Not much as of yet,” John said. “Right now he’s a coil of smoke, if you’ll pardon the phrase. Our psychologist says he’s most likely a white male, statistically speaking. College educated, or at the very least intelligent, efficient, and so far, he thinks every step through. Like he said, no prints. But the brand is a message.”

“To who, and why, is what we’ve been trying to figure out,” Cas added. “We think that’s the key to pinpointing a suspect.”

“Really,” Dean said. He raised a brow and crossed his arms. “Six months, and that’s all you’ve got?”

“Dean,” John started, but the Lieutenant shook his head.

“Come on, Dad. I know you. Who is this guy?”

“Dean, this is the best I can give you right now, but believe me, we’re working on it,” John said, that tone that boded no further argument.

Bullshit, Dean wanted to shoot back. But he held his tongue for now. He knew that John wouldn’t budge. Instinct still told Dean that his father was holding something back though.

As the men filtered out of Bobby’s office, Dean held Cas back for a moment.

“Watch the old man’s back, all right,” Dean said. “He’s got a penchant for being reckless.”

Cas gave him a wry, pointed look. “I’m doing my best. Winchesters are a stubborn lot.”

Dean smirked and walked out with him. Meg was headed inside, having just come in from an ambulance call. She smiled when she saw her boyfriend.

“Hey, lover,” she greeted. And she smacked his ass in front of God and the entire Rescue Squad, who liked to sit outside the firehouse and play cards at their table.

Ramirez and the others smirked and called out their customary whoops and cat calls. Dean smirked at the actual blushing discomfort that tightened up Cas’s face and shoulders.

“Dinner tonight at Casablanca’s, right?” Meg asked, unfazed by the catcalling peanut gallery.

“Right,” Cas said stiffly. But he still brushed her cheek with his thumb in affection. “See you later.”

“Yep,” she nodded, though she shot Dean a wry brow. “What? I stole your boyfriend. Get over it.”

She continued on her path back inside the firehouse, leaving Dean and Cas to stare after her in annoyance and begrudging fondness, respectively.

Dean turned to his friend and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Good luck and Godspeed, my friend. That woman’s fuckin’ terrifying.”

Cas gave him a lazy salute as he walked away. He found that John had already started up their police car. He was in the driver’s seat, as always, with a hand resting casually on the steering wheel.

Dean typically sat in much the same way. Cas thought both men were more comfortable in a car than anywhere else in life. Except, maybe, the precinct and the firehouse.

Cas slid into the passenger seat and gave his partner a knowing look.

“I still think you should tell Sam and Dean what’s really happening here,” he said.

John looked over at him with an almost unreadable expression. But they had been partners for a few years now; long enough for Cas to get a read on the older veteran.

“I understand why you want to keep them out of this, but now this guy is starting fires. Here, in Dean’s district,” Cas pointed out. “Wouldn’t it be safer for him if he had clearer eyes walking into the next one?”

If, God forbid, something should go wrong on the next call Dean responded to, John would never forgive himself. Both he and Cas knew this, but John never answered his partner’s question. He didn’t want his sons getting their noses in this just yet, even if it meant the worry he saw in Dean’s eyes.

So he put the car in “drive” and peeled away from the firehouse.

Trying to match your schedule with Dean’s was a challenge you two were trying to figure out. Though you’d fallen into a pattern of talking on the phone to fill the void when you two couldn’t meet.

Even after almost two more weeks and a third date, you were pleasantly surprised that you and Dean still had plenty to talk about. You told him more about your childhood with your grandparents, while he told you funny stories about him and Sam growing up with their dad, though he was often gone while working on cases.

It was family friend and Fire Chief, Bobby Singer who looked after them whenever John couldn’t, or his old partner Jody Mills, or even Ellen Harvelle, owner of the Roadhouse.

The more you learned about Dean, the more invested you became. And he listened to you when you went on tangents about new recipes you wanted to try out (as long as he got to be your official Taste Tester).

You two argued, playfully and fervently, about music. And you’d been creating a list of old shows the other hadn’t seen, but absolutely needed to.

Dean had suggested Dukes of Hazzard, for example, while you suggested Smallville. You each only agreed to put up with this list if you two watched it together. (Needless to say, there would be some marathon binge watching in your future.)

You particularly took notice though, when Dean invited you to join him at the Roadhouse to meet Cas, one of his best friends, and his girlfriend Meg. You’d invited Andréa to come along, and even Dean’s friend Benny, who she’d also been seeing ever since that night at the Roadhouse.

Apparently, the couple had their own plans.

You tried not to feel some type of way about her brush-off, but your friend had been increasingly distant since she met Benny Lafitte. However, you supposed you couldn’t judge. You hadn’t been calling her as much either, ever since you met Dean.

You knew that if you kept dating him, some adjustments would have to come in your life. You also promised yourself that you’d never be someone who forgot your friends for a man…even for a man like Dean Winchester.

Tonight, however, you’d come directly from work to meet him at the bar. It made more sense than to make him come pick you up from your house, so you sat with a ginger ale while you waited. He’d promised you via text that he was on the way, just stuck in traffic.

Okay, drive safe. 😘 Don’t speed, please.

You knew how he liked floor the Impala with that damn lead foot of his.

No promises. 🏎️

You wanted to roll your eyes, but you were smiling unconsciously as you read his reply.

You were soon knocked out of your thoughts when a smooth voice said your name. You looked up and to your right, and there stood a familiar face. The man greeted you with an easy smile as he sat down next to you.

“I thought that was you,” he said. He reached out his hand and re-introduced himself. “Gordon Walker. Not sure if you remember me.”

“Oh, yes! Of course I do, Gordon,” you smiled and shook his hand.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said. His dark eyes subtly took you in from head to toe in your skirt, heels, and blouse. “Though I’ve gotta admit, I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Ah, right,” you said. “Well—”

Before you could explain, Gordon held up a finger as he noticed your drink of choice.

“Oh, wait a sec. Let me get you something stronger than soda,” he said. He started to flag down Jo, but you shook your head and made a cutting motion with your hand.

“Uh, no, that’s okay,” you said. “I’m waiting for someone.”

“What?” Gordon asked.

It was getting busy in the bar, making it loud enough that you could understand why he hadn’t heard you. You leaned over towards his ear.

“I’m good for now, thanks,” you said, raising your voice a bit. Gordon leaned in even closer and chanced resting a hand above your knee.

“You sure?” he asked. He gave you a smile that was all smooth sex appeal and confidence, without being arrogant.

It was undoubtedly attractive, but you were more shocked than charmed in your blush. You instinctively leaned back when you felt his hand on your thigh. Your hand clenched on the counter.

While your brain scrambled to figure out a response that would successfully remove it (without snapping rudely like you were itching to), a hand slipped along your lower back.

You jolted a bit in your seat with a flare of unease, until you turned your head and found Dean.

“Hey, baby,” he greeted, and dropped a kiss at your hairline. He also clapped a heavy hand on Gordon’s shoulder and squeezed. The other man graciously got the hint and leaned back, withdrawing his hand from your thigh.

“Hi,” you said, finally able to breathe a bit easier. You gave Dean a smile, and he returned it.

He looked over at his friend with a sharper smile. “Hey, Gord. How’s your night goin’?”

“Good.” Gordon nodded, now with a knowing gleam in his eye. “Though I’m sure your night’s gonna go better.”

You weren’t sure how to take that remark, considering the way Dean reacted with a tighter expression and pursed lips. Then, they flickered at a smile.

“Well, we’re meeting up with Meg and Cas in a minute. You should join us,” Dean said. Even though his tone wasn’t so very inviting. The two men seemed to have a wordless conversation between the lines that you couldn’t decipher.

Gordon shook his head, but raised his drink. “No worries, you guys hang. I’m leaving in a few.”

“All right. Let us know if you change your mind,” Dean said. He thumped Gordon once more on the back, more friendly this time.

Dean’s other hand slipped around your waist. He tapped you on the side.

“Come on, I’ve got us a table. It’s quieter,” he said.

You nodded and slid out of your seat. You offered Gordon a polite smile, even if you’d rather not.

“Have a good night,” you said.

The other man’s smile was less flirtatious and more polite this time as well.

“You too,” he said.

Dean helped you onto your feet, like the gentleman he was, and he continued to lead you away from the bar with a hand on the small of your back. You instinctively pressed against his side to squeeze past the throng of patrons.

When you reached a high-top table in the corner, he pulled out your chair and held your hand as you climbed up in your skirt. You thanked him with a more genuine smile. Though once he was seated next to you, you leaned towards him and laid a hand on his arm, which rested on the table.

“I tried to tell him I was waiting for you. He took me by surprise,” you whispered.

Dean’s brows rose, but his face soon evened out with a smile. He tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

“Don’t worry about it. He didn’t know about us,” he said. “He was shootin’ his shot…a bit aggressively. Sorry about that.”

“Oh…it’s okay. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” you replied. Though butterflies ran through your belly when you considered what us meant.

You noted his frown at what you’d said though, and so you aimed to change the subject.

“But Cas and Meg know, right?” you asked.

Dean nodded. His frown started to lift. “Yeah. Cas is one of my best friends. Meg is…well. She’s the little sister I wish I didn’t have.”

You shook your head in amusement. Then you let out a squeal as Dean hooked a foot around the leg of your chair and brought you closer. He stopped you from becoming too unbalanced by wrapping an arm around your waist. You clenched your hands into the open panels of his plaid shirt, and his charming smile greeted you.

“Hi,” he said.

You laughed. “Yeah, you mentioned that earlier.”

“Well, I’m doing it right this time,” he said. And he dipped down for a lingering kiss.

Across the bar was Jo Harvelle, doing her job behind the counter. She poured five shots in succession and doled them out to a party of frat bros without even looking.

Her eyes were drawn to the back corner of the bar, where you and Dean sat closely together, exchanging whispers and the occasional steamy kiss.

“Mind your business,” came Ellen’s whisper in her ear.

Jo whipped her head to glare softly at her mother, but she saw Ellen’s point. It was both obvious and pathetic of her to stare.

Despite the unease making her feel a bit sick to her stomach, Jo went over to Gordon down at the end. His sympathetic smile bothered her; she knew then she hadn’t just been caught by her mother.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” he remarked.

“What?” Jo said. She began wiping down his area of the counter. “Would it kill you to keep it in the glass?”

Gordon gave her an amused look as he sat back in his seat. His tumbler of whiskey was drained.

“Look, I’m sorry, all right?” he said.

Both of them knew he wasn’t apologizing for the spill.

Jo’s brows knitted together, mostly in annoyance. “Again, for what?”

“I know it’s gotta be hard to see him actually moving on,” he replied.

Her lips pursed, and her eyes darted to the back of the room again. She stared for a moment at the side of your face.

“Knowing him, whatever it is won’t last,” she muttered.

Gordon hissed at the "burn," with a deep chuckle. She knew her words weren’t kind, but it was how she felt.

“That may be,” he allowed. “But he’s not just chasing tail anymore. That’s what scares you.”

Gordon dropped a nice tip for her next to his glass. He grabbed his coat off the back of his chair and left Jo with the churning in her gut.

Cas and Meg finally arrived a few minutes later.

Dean knew you’d been to the Roadhouse before, but this was different. You were meeting some of his friends, and he realized how much he wanted you to. He felt…comfortable around you. And he wanted his friends to know you, and to like you.

“As you know, Meg’s our Paramedic in Charge over at 25,” he began, gesturing at the woman as she got settled in her seat.

You admired her long brown hair, tall boots, and black leather jacket. She seemed to ooze confidence and dark charisma as she tossed you a smirk.

“Guilty,” she said.

You smiled back. Dean gestured at her boyfriend next, clad in a beige trench coat, slacks, and blazer.

“And Cas, who bravely suffers being my dad’s partner on the job.”

Cas nodded wryly at the introduction. His dark hair and blue eyes were striking, you could admit. His tie was loose and slightly rumpled. Along with the stubble coating his face, he was handsome, if a bit scruffy. It was hard for you to believe he’d earned the top scores his year in the Police Academy, but you supposed that looks could be deceiving.

“What’s that like?” you asked with a smirk. “From what I’ve heard about John Winchester, he sounds like he’s a bit of a hard-ass.”

Dean barked with a dry laugh. “An understatement.”

“He has a crab-like shell,” Cas agreed. “But he has a soft center where it counts, not unlike his sons.”

You turned to Dean with a more teasing smile. “Aww…”

He rolled his eyes, even though his arm, which had been draped across the back your chair, now dropped to curl around your waist.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever, Columbo,” he remarked at his blue-eyed friend.

Always had to get the last dig in, it seemed, but you couldn’t help but laugh a little along with Meg at Cas’s expense.

“You guys all seem really close,” you said. It was nice for you to see.

Dean shrugged like it was no big deal. Or rather, like it was commonplace.

“Well, maybe family ain’t just about blood,” he said.

Meg rolled her eyes. “Ugh. What a friggin’ sap.”

“You love it,” Dean grinned. She smiled, begrudgingly.

Family ain’t just about blood.

You liked that sentiment as well. It seemed to be true here.

Even Ellen Harvelle treated Dean like a son when she came over to greet your table. She kissed his cheek and gave Meg and Cas’s shoulders a squeeze. Even you got a warm hand on your shoulder when she introduced herself.

“Welcome, hun. I understand it’s not your first time here, but if you got any questions on the menu, you let me know,” she said.

Dean shot you a conspiratorial smile, and it got you wondering what he was about to do.

“I mean, I don’t know why you don’t put the order in for chili fries the second you see me come through the door,” he teased. “Come on, Ellen. How long’ve I been coming here? Since before I had a license?”

Ellen narrowed her eyes and flicked the side of Dean’s head, regardless of his flinching protest.

“Don’t you go sayin’ that so damn loud,” she reproached. “You never drank underage at my bar.”

His eyes averted with a smile, in a way that told you Ellen was a damn liar. You bit your lip to try and hide your smile.

“Anyway, I’ll get your damn fries—”

“And a beer,” Dean interjected. She rolled her eyes.

“And a beer. Four?” she pointed at the rest of you, and you, Cas, and Meg nodded in agreement.

“All right, four beers. Anything else, darlin’?” She looked at you with a mother’s charm.

You looked up from the menu and unconsciously smiled.

“Um, sure. Can I get the chicken sandwich?”

She patted your shoulder. “You sure can.”

Ellen then took the rest of their orders without writing a thing down. You were impressed by her memory. At the end though, Dean didn’t let her go without a hand on her arm.

“Thanks, Ellen,” he said with a more sincere smile.

“A-huh,” she replied, with all due sarcasm. But there was a fondness in her eyes that was hard to miss when she playfully grabbed the back of his neck. “Knucklehead.”

A giggle escaped you, and Ellen tossed you a wink before she went to put in the orders and get the drinks.

Conversation flowed easier when the alcohol came. One beer became two, and even three (four, for Meg). By then, you were sure it was one beer too many for yourself, but you didn’t want to be the odd one out. You were mostly listening to the three of them bounce back and forth between reminiscing with old stories and roasting one another mercilessly.

It was hilarious and entertaining, but you were trying not to get caught in the crosshairs of the volleying. Inevitably though, Meg’s attention turned to you with a certain sly smile.

“You must be real special,” she remarked, gesturing at Dean. “He usually doesn’t bring his girls around here, where he actually likes to hang out. Guess that’d mean he’d have to see ‘em again with the lights on.”

You blinked in surprise.

“Meg,” Dean’s voice cut like a warning.

Your eyes widened as you took in the change, his deeper voice, his more serious gaze, versus Meg’s nonchalance. Even Cas gave her a chiding look.

“Not sure I want to know what that means,” you tried to joke.

But you could guess. It was fairly obvious.

You glanced over at Dean, whose lips pursed. Before either of you could say anything more, Meg chimed in.

“Oooh, is this gonna be your first fight?” she teased.

Dean’s brows furrowed with a glare. “That’s enough.”

“And that’s our cue,” Cas nodded. He’d already slipped out his wallet as soon as his girlfriend started talking. He left a generous few bills to cover their half of the night, plus tip, and got up out of his seat. He claimed his coat and then encouraged Meg off her chair.

“What? I’m not done with my beer,” she protested.

“I think you are,” Cas said.

Meg scoffed, but she allowed his manhandling as he wrapped a supportive arm around her waist.

“You’re not the boss of me, Clarence,” she snipped.

“Certainly not,” he agreed. “But you’re a lightweight. Time to go home, before you insult the entire bar.”

“You’re no fucking fair,” she groused, hitting his chest over his jacket. Cas leveled you and Dean with a long-suffering look of apology.

Dean waved him off with a “no sweat it” look and a shake of his head. Meg annoyed the shit out of him sometimes, especially when she was drunk. He turned to you with a sigh.

“Again, sorry about that. I didn’t think I’d have to apologize for my friends more than once tonight,” he said.

You shook your head. “It’s...okay. Overall, they were really fun.”

Dean scoffed. “I don’t think Cas has been called fun even once in his life.”

You smiled in amusement, but Meg’s words still swirled around in your head like heady wine.

“Dean,” you began, but your attempt to broach the issue was cut off by his cell phone ringing. He gave you an apologetic look and fished in his pocket for his phone. His brows rose when he saw the caller ID.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I gotta take this,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Oh, okay—” You’d barely nodded when Dean was up and out of his chair, heading out of the bar. You could still see him through one of the faded glass doors as he held the phone up to his ear.

It was late, and quieter now. A blonde server came to take your plates, and you actually remembered her.

“Oh, hi! Jo, right?” you asked. She hesitated when you spoke, but she bobbed her head.

“That’s me,” she said. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, I’m good. Thanks,” you said with a smile. “I met your mom. She’s really nice.”

Jo uttered a wry laugh as she stacked the plates and silverware. You helped her collect the silverware and empty beer bottles.

“Yeah, when you get her good side,” she replied.

You smirked at that, remembering how Ellen snapped back and forth with Dean. You had no doubt that woman could be a pistol if you pissed her off.

“Well, it's nice here,” you admitted, once again taking stock of the décor. The music, the warm lighting, the good food… “It’s cozy.”

Jo’s smile quirked to one side as she paused.

“Well, it’s been in my family for three generations of Harvelles,” she said. “This was my father’s favorite place in the world.”

You caught the note of melancholy in her words, in her eyes.

“Was?” you echoed. She met your gaze and nodded.

“He was a firefighter,” she said. “He died on the job.”

You dimmed considerably. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Jo only nodded.

“How did he…” Your curiosity got the best of you, but you soon shook your head and backtracked. “Never mind, you don’t have to explain.”

“It was a fire that wasn’t properly vented,” Jo answered your half-spoken question. Her blue eyes were heavier. “He got caught in an updraft…but he actually worked at Firehouse 25. He was their brother. That’s why this’ll always be their place.”

You processed that with a slow nod of wonder.

“It’s good that you and your mom will always have that support,” you said eventually. “Even though…it might be hard too, to always be reminded.”

Jo’s lips quirked again. “It’s more the first one, but…sometimes the second one. A lot of these guys have known me since I had braces. It’s hard to shake that perpetual little sister thing.”

You smiled at that. “Yeah, I’d imagine that gets old real quick. A bunch of over-protective older brothers.”

“Overbearing, more like,” she scoffed. You laughed.

Unconsciously, you glanced over to the front of the bar, where you saw Dean still on the phone. You remembered the second date you were meant to have, when he was late due to a five-car pileup his team responded to.

You remembered that night he called you for the first time, after a long day he didn’t want to tell you about. He’d let you distract him instead. All the while, it had you wondering what he’d seen. What he’d responded to that day.

Had it been another car accident? A fire? What made someone as upbeat and funny and smooth as Dean seem to lose all the life in his voice?

Though while you were lost in your thoughts, Jo was watching you.

Jealousy roiled inside her, unbidden. She didn’t want to hate you, because unlike the girls Dean usually messed around with, you had some self-respect. Jo heard Meg’s snide clips at you earlier, and no one could fake the surprise in your eyes. Unless you were just that good a damn actor…

But no, she didn’t get that vibe from you.

It didn’t mean she had to like you though.

“You’re right to think twice,” Jo said, earning your attention back with a swivel of your head. “What Meg said…she wasn’t wrong. Dean’s broken a few hearts, if you catch my drift.”

Just a few well-placed words, Jo thought. She realized then that she had the power to twist the wrench here, widening the gap between you and Dean. Feed your doubts.

She didn’t have to feel bad about it if it was the truth.

And yet…she saw the way your gaze fell. The disappointment setting in, the anxious clench of your hands on the table. You glanced over at Dean again out of the corner of your eye.

Jo realized then just what she was doing, not just to Dean, but to herself.

You’re not some petty bitch, she dully reminded herself.

“But,” she found herself adding. You raised your gaze back to her. Jo let out a subtle breath.

“It’s not always his fault,” she admitted. And maybe she was speaking a bit too much from experience. “The job demands a lot from him.”

Slowly, you nodded. You looked pensive, but not like you’d made up your mind.

Fine, Jo thought, as she collected the dishes and left your table.

She didn’t know if she wanted to sway you one way or the other on taking a chance on Dean Winchester.

While you were talking to Jo, Dean was taking his father’s unexpected call.

“Hey, Dad. What’s up?” he said.

“Hey, son. How are ya?” John’s voice was gruff and tired. Dean frowned to hear it.

“I’m good. I’m out right now, but did you need something?”

“Have you responded to any fires lately?”

“You mean like the Richardson fire?” Dean asked pointedly. “No, haven’t had one since. And no cattle prod brandings either.”

“All right, good. Just checking in.”

Good? Dean thought. John would be chomping at the bit for a new arson. If he was “just checking in,” then he was worried about something. Is he worried about me?

“What’s going on? Is there something I need to know?” Dean asked in suspicion. This was why he had taken the call. “Seriously, you can tell me. I’m not even gonna bitch at you like Sam does.”

John chuckled. But then he hesitated. Dean knew he’d hit on something.

“Dad?” he pressed.

John’s sigh was a heavy one. “Okay. What I’m about to tell you, you don’t fucking repeat. Not to anyone, you understand me? Not even your brother.”

Dean’s brows furrowed in trepidation. “Okay, fine. What the hell is it?”

“Richardson, the father of two?” John reminded. “He was a lawyer, linked to a money laundering scheme through a company called Stull Storage. It’s an old company, dates back to the seventies.”

“Okay…”

As John continued to explain, the more confused Dean became…

About 30 years ago, John Winchester had been a young, but promising officer in the Narcotics division. He’d married young, and by then was just barely clearing the five-year mark. Already he had the house he’d inherited from his wife’s parents, a four-year-old son, and a newborn.

Stull Storage’s units were used by a drug ring that John had been trying to infiltrate, undercover. Those units had stored cocaine, illegal weapons, and other flavors of contraband, mostly from South America (and back).

“We got close to breaking that case, once, but after the fire…I transferred out of Narcotics, as you know,” John said.

Dean knew the real story there. After his mom died, his father went into a spiral, trying to find whoever set that fire—even after the Fire Department found no evidence of arson. John had eventually been forced out of Narcotics. He requested Homicide.

As he’d told Dean once when he was extremely drunk: I seem to do better at my job when the bodies are already dead.

“Now I know that I was right about your mother’s death,” John said.

Dean released a shaky sigh. “Aw, man. Not this again, Dad. For Christ’s sake.”

“There was something wrong about that fire, Dean,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over Dean’s objections. “I just didn’t find the connection…until now.”

Dean muttered a curse under his breath. His gaze fell to the ground. Sam was usually the one who drew a hard line at hearing any more about their mom’s supposed murder, but now Dean had reached the end of his tether. It was too much.

He glanced back through the glass doors to make sure you were okay. He saw you talking to Jo, and he frowned at himself.

Here you were, waiting on him back in the bar, and his dad was calling him in the middle of the night, chasing ghosts again.

“Look…it’s been my whole damn life with this.” Dean held the phone to his ear with one hand, and rubbed at his forehead with the other. “I just can’t do this with you anymore.”

“Dean, listen,” John urged. “You wanna know what I’m digging into, this is it. I got Mary’s file unsealed.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “What? Thought you couldn’t do that without new evidence and a court order.”

“Well, I’ve got the evidence…maybe I was a bit impatient with the court order.”

Dean rolled his eyes. His father liked to play a little fast and loose with the rules.

“At the time, the medical examiner dismissed it. She’d been burned…” John paused on a deeper breath. “But I saw it. Mary had a burn on her wrist. It was the same brand found on Richardson. On Jerry Stillwell, CPA. Amanda Waller, journalist. It’s all connected, Dean. How they’re connected to one another, I’m not sure yet. We’re still digging…but I do know this. Richardson was a message.”

Dean’s back hit the wall of the Roadhouse. His brows furrowed as he struggled to digest everything John was saying.

“A message?” he asked. “To who?”

“To me, I think. Those kids, and their mother…you got ‘em out alive, but they weren’t meant to,” John said, his voice sounding heavy. "The wife told me her husband was erratic when he got home, holding his wrist. He'd been burned before the fire. He wouldn't say what happened...then they smelled the goddamn smoke."

"Shit," Dean replied. He leaned heavily against the wall, pressing a hand to his forehead. There was an ache starting between his eyes.

“Yeah," John agreed. "The drug ring I was investigating, when I was in Narcotics. I was getting close. And I mean close. I was about to get the Big Kahuna. The kingpin of the whole operation…and then the house fire.”

Fuck. Dean wiped at his mouth anxiously as he realized what John was saying. Fuck.

“He burned me, Dean. He must have,” John said. Meaning, the drug lord he was trying to pin down somehow discovered his identity. “Your mom paid the price of that.”

“Who is this guy?” Dean asked. His hand holding the phone was starting to tremble.

“I still don’t know his real name. Workin’ on that one too,” John said. “But they called him Azazel.”

When Dean eventually hung up with his father and returned to you at the bar, he saw you brighten. But you soon dimmed with a tinge of worry. Something of his thoughts must’ve shown on his face.

Shit. He tried his best to school his features.

“Hey, sorry about that,” he said, grasping your shoulder. “I’ll take you home.”

“I met you here, remember?” you asked.

Dean paused, then shook his head. Get it together, asshole.

“Right," he said. "Well, I’ll walk you to your car. Let me just pay real quick.”

After he sorted out the bill (he didn’t know that you’d slipped in an extra $30 in Cas’s stack for your part), he led you out, saying goodbye to Ellen and Jo while you went.

You hesitated when the two of you got to the car. Something wasn’t right with him. And both Jo and Meg’s words still rolled back and forth through your head.

“Dean, are you okay? Who was it on the phone?” you asked.

“I’m fine. It was just my dad, called to have me take a look at his car. We were just arguing about our schedules…I’m sure you can relate,” he replied, trying at a smile.

You weren’t sure if you believed him. Though he was nearly convincing, he was also shifting on his feet, hands in his pockets. His gaze roamed away from yours, above your head and over your shoulder.

“Um, I might’ve had a beer too many,” you said with a half-chuckle. “Could you walk with me for a bit? Just until my head clears enough to drive.”

“I could take you home,” Dean offered.

“And leave my car here?” you asked. In a public parking lot behind a bar?

You shook your head and pointed down the road.

“Just there and back…but if you need to go, I guess I could just sit in my car for a while.”

Dean shook his head with a frown. He couldn’t tell you that a damn serial killer was on the loose.

“No, it’s okay,” he said. “It’s a relatively safe neighborhood, but not so much at night. Not by yourself.”

He laid a hand on your back to start walking with you, but his hand soon fell back to his side. You glanced at him, but he looked straight ahead, unusually quiet and reserved.

It felt like he was checking out of this night with you. Like he just wanted to usher you into the car and leave. Did he just not want to deal with what Meg said?

Letting out a breath, you tried to see if you could broach the subject.

“It was nice to meet some more of your friends,” you said, and with a nervous laugh, “even if it did get awkward there at the end.”

Dean finally looked over at you.

“We never exactly talked about what each of us was looking for,” you said. “What we were really doing here.”

You stood your ground, but you tried not to look censuring. Just open to whatever he might have to say. Even so, unease churned inside you.

Dean sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “Look, she wasn’t exactly wrong about me.”

You considered that with a nod, biting the inside of your lip.

“When was the last time you were in a relationship?” you asked. Dean gave a humorless huff of a laugh. This really was the last thing he wanted to get into tonight, but he had a feeling he had no choice.

“A few months ago, for about a minute,” he said. “But uh, before then…never.”

Together, you began to cross the street while the cars on either side waited at the red light. Pedestrians had the right of way for the next 30 seconds. You looked over at him and steeled yourself.

“Dean, is this is something casual for you?”

“Define casual,” he attempted to joke (or to deflect). Though the bravado fell the moment he saw that look on your face: tight and disappointed…and hurt.

He reached for your hand, but you weren’t having it. You slipped away from him and continued walking at a more brusque clip, even in those platform heels.

“Okay, hold on.” He quickly followed after you and tugged you back by the hand. It had you both stopping in the middle of the crosswalk.

Dean squeezed your hand and peered into your eyes.

“Look, I’m sorry. Don’t close up on me,” he implored. “…Please.”

Despite your better judgment, and your pursed lips, you waited. Something told you this man didn’t often say please.

“The truth is, I’m trying to do something different here with you. I don’t think we would’ve made it to date #4 if we were just casual,” he said. “I’m not playing games either.”

You wanted to trust that he was serious. Once again, your mind and your heart were at odds; the former told you to be wary, while the latter told you to trust the earnestness in his eyes.

Your heart won. “Okay, Dean.”

“Yeah?” he asked, with hopeful brows raised.

“Yeah,” you nodded.

You finally smiled. And you leaned up, resting a hand against his chest, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. His stubble was coarse, but familiar against your lips.

Dean turned his head and leaned in for a proper kiss. His hands found the curve of your waist and brought you closer against his chest. You both sunk deeper into it, your lips gliding as your head tilted into the kiss…

Until a horn honked loudly, making you both jolt at the sound.

The streetlight was green, and several cars were waiting for you to cross. You snorted in amusement, leading Dean to grin down at you. He tugged you back into step with him across the street.

Again, you hesitated at your car. Dean was more himself as he’d held your hand all the way back.

He now held your car door open while you threw in your purse. But when you turned back to him, you still saw something brooding behind his eyes.

You drew near and grasped the open edges of his shirt. This man wore a lot of plaid when he was out of uniform, always with an undershirt. Tonight it was green plaid on gray, complete with some faded jeans and a pair of boots. This was the only “casual” way in which you wanted Dean.

“Hey,” you started.

“Hmm?” he replied, holding you by your arms.

“I get that we haven’t known each other all that long. So you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” you said. “But did something happen when you stepped out? When you talked to your dad?”

Dean paused. His eyes, a pale green under the streetlamp, flicked to yours.

“I just want to know that you’re okay,” you said. “And if you’re not, that’s okay too.”

After a moment to blink in surprise, your earnestness got to him. His grip moved down your arms, and he took one of your hands. His dad’s warning echoed through his mind.

What I’m about to tell you, you don’t fucking repeat. Not to anyone, you understand me? Not even your brother.

Dean knew his dad didn’t make demands without a reason, even if he wasn’t typically so forthcoming with them. But Dean drew enough courage to be as honest as he could be. You deserved that much, after everything you'd put up with tonight.

“My mom died...when I was about four,” he said. “It was a house fire.”

Your eyes widened. All this time, you’d assumed his mother had passed away. You hadn’t expected that, though. You squeezed his hands.

“I’m so sorry,” you said, and you meant it. Dean just shook his head.

“It was ruled an accident. Really they just didn’t have much evidence either way,” he continued. “But uh, my dad’s been obsessed with the idea that it wasn’t. That someone started the fire on purpose… Well, today, he might’ve found his proof.”

He held your gaze for as long as he could, but in the end, he just couldn’t. His chest was tight. Saying those words out loud made them real, and he wasn’t sure of how to handle it.

“Oh, Dean,” you said, starting and stopping, as you struggled to formulate a response that wasn’t just “I’m sorry,” or “Are you okay?”

He clearly wasn’t. You also didn’t want to give him platitudes like, “That’s crazy,” or the ever-inspired: “Wow.”

Or some other variation of what you’re supposed to say. You wanted to give him something honest. Something real.

So you curled your hands around his arms, earning his gaze.

“You must be reeling right now,” you said. “Do you think he’s onto something this time?”

“I don’t know what to think,” said Dean. “I’ve been pressing him for answers, but…honestly? I wish he hadn’t told me a damn thing.”

You didn’t know what to say to that. You were surprised that he actually confided in you with this. But the only thing you could think to do was lean up on your toes and slip your arms around his neck. You hugged him, warm and tight.

You couldn’t even imagine what he was feeling, but you just wanted him to know that someone was there for him. You were there for him.

Dean eventually hugged you back. He held you, reassuring you as well as himself. He blew out a cathartic breath, and his hand came up to cup the back of your head. His lips tugged upwards.

“You’re a sweetheart, you know that?” he said.

A smile spread across your face. Your fingers soothed through his hair gently. You pressed your lips into his neck.

“I aim to please,” you said against his skin.

Dean smiled more fully at that. The new warmth in his chest warred against the roiling in his stomach. Despite his best efforts, his smile faded.

His mom’s killer was still out there.

The thought was haunting his mind, and he knew it probably would for many nights to come.

So for now, he’d just hold you a bit tighter.

AN: 🥲 I honestly didn't mean it to end so angsty, but Dean finally got some much-needed hurt/comfort there! What did you think of how Jo handled her jealous side? And Gordon "shooting his shot" lol.

Coming soon in Part 7, we finally get to a huge milestone between these two lovebirds, with a side helping of baking shenanigans. 😏❤️‍🔥

Next Time:

“Ey, ey!” he raised a warning finger with his free hand. “You’re about to take this to a new level.”

You met his gaze through your lashes with a playful smile. “So?”

Dean raised a brow at you. He could admit, you had audacity. All he could do was call your bluff.

He took one of your battered fingers into his mouth. Your eyes widened at the feel of his soft tongue swirling around your finger, sucking it clean. All the while, his eyes never broke from yours.

Lord have mercy, you thought. Really, it was the only coherent one in your head.

Keep Reading: PART 7

Dean Winchester Masterlist

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PERSEPHONE - CHAPTER THREE

“Persephone, queen of the underworld. Hades runs Hell, but she’s in charge of punishment.”

Series Summary: A serial killer who works with the police herself has a tumultuous past with Jack Crawford and his new profiler Will Graham. While trying to rebuild what she once broke Hannibal Lecter sticks himself in the middle of the few things she cares about - Comments and critiques are encouraged.

Chapter Warnings: Swearing, dead bodies, murder that is very female targeted, canon character death, smut, oral (fem receiving), unprotected sex, creampie

Word Count: 9.5k (yes you read that right…I'm sorry)

The sterile walls of the hallway close in around you as you make your way towards the autopsy room. "Agent," a familiar voice calls out behind you.

"I'm not your 'Agent' anymore, Jack," you say, wincing as you turn to face him. You were never officially an agent; Jack only started calling you that when you began sticking your nose into his cases.

"Force of habit," he deflects, his tone unusually soft for him. "I need to talk to you."

You glare at him, hoping he'll get straight to the point. The last thing you want is for Jack to drag you into his office, which always feels like a principal's office—the prelude to a lecture you’d rather avoid.

"I'd like you to resume therapy," he says finally.

Your heart sinks. "No."

"Bloom knows a therapist in Baltimore-"

You cut him off with a bitter laugh. "Are you serious? The last time I took her advice, I ended up tied to a chair and tortured. I'll pass."

"Dr. Lecter is one of the best in his field. She recommended him when I expressed my concerns." He tries to reason.

Is he serious? "So, you discussed your concerns about me with her first instead of just asking me if I felt I needed help?"

"It's not about what you want. If you’re going to continue working on this case, you need a psychological evaluation."

Frustrated, you turn away and continue down the hallway. This is such bullshit. You don't need therapy. "I'll pass, Jack, but I appreciate your concern," you dismissively yell over your shoulder, not slowing your pace.

The moment you enter the room, everyone's eyes fall on your frame. The three in lab coats momentarily feeze while Will quickly makes eye contact before his gaze shifts to behind you and paces out of the room.

“Were you honest when you said you two never dated—hell even slept together because this is awkward.” He says in an awful attempt to break the awkward silence.

“Any close relationship that didn’t leave on a positive note can cause tension, not just romantic ones, Price.” You state.

Beverly clears her throat. “So Will thinks the killer is eating the girls. Elise's liver was removed and then put back in place; the killer did that after he realized she had liver cancer.”

“We also found metal shavings on her body,” Zeller chimes in.

You sigh. “It’s plausible. It creates a very vivid image of this man. He…cares for these girls in his own twisted way. He’d view their consumption as an act of devotion, most likely a waste if he didn't. It’s a hunter's mentality; if there's anything left of these girls, it’s most likely fragments. Hair stuffed in pillows, bones made into various things—he wouldn't waste. If he is a hunter, he most likely has a dedicated space to this, a shed, probably doesn't live in the city.” You propose.

You’re met with silence for a moment before Beverly speaks once again. “I can’t believe you were never a profiler.” She shakes her head and smiles.

"Well, I momentarily am of sorts now.” You raise your arms forward and wiggle your fingers. “Maybe I understand him so well because I am him.” You say it in an unserious tone.

She rolls her eyes playfully. "Hmm, yeah, I'm real scared.” You didn't even realize how much you missed Bev until now.

"Well, is that all?” You ask.

"Yup, that's it.” Brain tells you before grabbing something behind him. “I’ll be off then.” You smile and walk out the door.

2 YEARS EARLIER

Jack’s call came twenty minutes ago, his voice clipped and urgent. “Another one.” That was all he said, but it was enough. It wasn't just another body, not a one-off murder. He made it clear by his simple lack of words that this was connected.

During the entirety of your drive, your heart couldn't stop beating. The dull vibration filling your ears and pounding your chest overwhelmed you so much that you felt relieved at the red stop lights, giving you a moment to collect your barring's. Jack pulled up at the same time, his grim expression mirroring your own.

As he approached, his words were drowned out by your internal rhythm. But when Jack opened the door into the room, your body finally went quiet, and you finally feel like you’re alive again—living in the present.

A woman's body lay sprawled on the cheap, stained bed, blood soaking deep into the mattress. Your gaze travelled over her naked form, legs spread wide in a provocative display. Decaying vines twisted around her ankles and the bed frame, their dark, withered tendrils contrasting against her greying skin. It was a brutal, degrading spectacle.

There is a precise incision right above her pelvis, which is mostly one of the reasons why her entire torso is covered in her own blood, except her breasts. They look as if they were deliberately cleaned, the pink hue still lightly remaining on her skin.

Her mouth is slightly agape; something inside it is forcing her jaw unnaturally wide. Compelled by a mix of horror and professional detachment, your feet move towards her. You hear Jack say something but it becomes mute when you hear your heartbeat pick up again.

Your gloved hand delicately touches her jaw; now, closer, you can see her features. Up close, her traits become clearer. She’s unremarkable—plain, even. A white, brunette woman of heavy European descent with a slim build. It’s odd to think how un-special she may have been in life but now, in death, she's a spectacle.

Gently, you pry her jaw open, revealing a small, fleshy mass inside. You look towards Jack in confusion and ask, “Can I pull it out?”

Crawford gives a small nod and moves beside you. You give the object a small pull and it doesn't budge. “You hold her jaw; I’ll pull it out.” Jack says while looking at the strangulation marks on her neck.

You move your hands and the man pulls. You watch him struggle between delicately grasping it and forcefully yanking it.

You adjust your grip, one hand on her lower teeth and the other on the upper, pulling them apart. Jack pulls a bit harder; you watch as it starts to slide out, and just when you think its going to be stuck once again, Jack gives a final, forceful yank, and the object comes free.

Jack is holding the woman's uterus.

“What the fuck?” you exclaim. Momentarily forgetting you two weren't the only ones in the room. Someone behind him brings an evidence bag to Jack, where he drops the organ inside the plastic.

All eyes shift to the incision on her torso. Another forensic tech steps forward with metal forceps, his face pale but determined. He fiddles with the cut, and when he finally pries it open. You hear others gasp but you're still trying to compute the sight of the mess inside. At first, it looks like a jumble of smooth, misplaced intestines—until you recognize the pattern.

Scales. Snakes.

She’s been hollowed out, and her uterus has been replaced with dead serpents.

PRESENT DAY

It’s been days, and still nothing. The most frustrating part of working in a field that is centered around solving crimes is the cruel irony that sometimes you need more evidence to build a profile—to move forward at all. You've heard about Jack narrowing down the search by identifying the specific metal found on Elise's body, but you honestly couldn't care less.

You deluded yourself into believing that taking on this case was a selfless act, but your defenses are crumbling. You’re here for Will to glue together what was once broken. But you’ve never fucked up on this scale before, and you don’t know how to fix it. Your fingers stick together from your messy revival attempts, and the toxic fumes cloud your mind. Why did you think it was a good idea to show up at his house?

A knock at your door—your own door—in Baltimore interrupts your spiraling thoughts.

No one called to warn you of an appearance; your overactive work brain can't shut off even now, envisioning an ax murderer standing outside your home.

How comical.

"Open up, it’s Crawford." Jack’s voice is muffled but unmistakable. Not an ax murderer; that makes more sense considering it’s 10 AM and you live in an apartment building. Unless he’s here for other reasons, maybe he knows and wants to give you a chance to explain yourself before slapping handcuffs around your wrists.

Unsure how to navigate this possible confrontation, you blurt out the stupidest thing: "Why?"

“Because I need to talk to you,” he shouts impatiently.

With a sigh, you walk to the door and begin to unlock it. “That’s what my number is for. I thought showing up at my workplace was invasive, but this is—” Your words cut off as you opened the door.

“Who are you?” you ask, your eyes shifting to the unfamiliar man standing beside Jack.

"I’m Dr. Lecter. Jack has asked me to assist in this case, similar to you," he says with a polite smile, more out of courtesy than genuine pleasure.

You recognize the name from Bloom. She mentioned him plenty of times, but this isn’t how you envisioned meeting him. It reminds you of when, after the "incident," as she likes to call it, she recommended him to you and offered to call him. You declined.

"Okay." Your glare bounces between the two men. Jack's scowl deepens while the doctor’s eyes remain fixed on you. You're not sure if he’s blinked once since you opened the door.

Jack groans and begins to speak. “I want you to speak to a professional for a psychological evaluation. I already told you this.”

You’re taken aback by his intrusion. “I’m sorry, is this an intervention?” Crawford opens his mouth to speak, but you continue before he can justify himself.

“This is ridiculous. First, you begged me to help you on this case, and now you're doubting my sanity?”

You focus on maintaining eye contact with Jack, not fully seeing the doctor's face beside him, but through your blurry peripheral vision, it looks like amusement. What an asshole.

“I’m not doubting your sanity; I’m clearing this up for legal reasons.”

It’s bullshit, and you know it. “You know what I think, Jack? I think you’re scared of another fuck-up.” You bite, “You lost Miriam, and then, because of a lack of diligence on your part, you almost lost another one of your worker bees. And you just can’t handle another tragedy like that again.”

Jack opens and closes his mouth, more-so shocked by how cold you were to him than anything. You’ve been pissy before, but nothing like that.

It’s harsh and untrue; what happened to you or Miriam isn’t Jack's fault, but that’s not the point. You wanted to strike him where it hurts most. He confided in you about his guilt during the aftermath of your incident, and using it against him is cruel, but that’s what you’re going for, and it clearly worked.

Your gaze finally directs to Lecter, “I’m sorry for wasting your time, but I think it’s best you both leave.”

As you swing your door shut, you see him smile. This time, it’s genuine. His crow's feet become prominent, and his top lip slides up to reveal his pointed canines. You much prefer his disingenuous smile to the one where he looks at you like a pretty little doll who just did a party trick.

2 YEARS EARLIER

The victim, a model named Clare Greene, her once beautiful face beaten until her nose lay flat across her face. Blood pools around her head from her slashed throat, soaking into the plush carpet that her back lies on. In both of her hands rest two magazines; she’s on the front cover of both.

As you approach the body closer to snap another picture, you notice the defense wounds her wrists bore. “Who found her?” You ask, not to anyone specific; you just let the words come out of your mouth with hopes of an answer.

“Her fiancé, ma'am. Ethan Kingsley, he was supposed to meet her for breakfast; when she didn’t show up, he came here to check on her.” The officer beside her answers.

You nod, your eyes scanning the room. Broken glass glittered on the floor near the bar; an overturned chair in the corner; the place was covered in blood splatters.

“Jack!” You shout, hoping to get his attention.

You hear his footsteps before you see him. “What?” He asks.

“There's a fine mist of blood over here, most likely a result of her severed artery.” You say while motioning to your neck, “All across the back wall right there. The fatal blow happened here—then she stumbled onto the carpet, where she collapsed, and he started beating her. She was either unconscious or already dead when he started so he did it for the sake of it.” You explain.

You move closer to her. “The long, linear streaks of blood that fan out from her indicate she was also stabbed before he started beating her. The angle and distribution suggest he was standing above her—not straddling and swinging the weapon in a very vertical downward motion.”

You continue as you lead Jack towards the bar area. “These smaller, less-directed spots are all scattered around this area. I think the first attack was here, but she put her forearms up to block it and ran, leaving the droplets behind as she ran.” You say while mimicking an X with your forearms, “It also matches the shallow defensive wounds right below her elbow; it didn’t go too deep; it seems like a very light slash.”

Jack nods, quite for a moment. “Okay.”

Not satisfied with his response, you say, “This is bad, Jack; four murders and no suspects. I’m just-” You cut yourself off with a sigh, ‘“I’m not very confident in my usefulness.” Your head ducks down in your admittance.

“I’m sure many feel that way; there's no point in festering it; that’s not how things get solved.” Jack scolds.

As much as you’d rather allow Jack’s words to fall deaf on your ears, you know he's right; it’s not about you; it’s about the victims and solving what's been done to prevent more tragedies. “You’re right I’m sorry, you’re not my therapist. I don’t know why I said that.”

Jack says nothing and walks away, leaving you to stew in your own embarrassment over your unwelcome confession.

PRESENT DAY

The next day, you arrive at your momentary office in the BAU. You can’t shake off the invasive encounter given by Jack. It sits heavily in your mind as you try to focus on the case files in front of you. It feels like your head is so full of tenacity it’ll start leaking out of your ears.

Suddenly, you hear the sound of determined footsteps outside your door.

The door knobs twist and Beverly speedily walks in before you have time to adjust. Looking a bit more chipper than usual and dropping a stack of papers on your desk.

“Good morning. Any updates?” you ask, masking with a forced smile.

“Just the usual. Lab results, cross-references, the fun stuff,” she replies, giving you a teasing look. “‘Found out the specifics of the metal found on Elise’s body, which narrows things down a bit.” She smiles.

“What?” you say, picking up and flipping through the papers without really seeing them. "You've got to be shitting me, and Jack didn’t even say anything to me.”

"Well, he mentioned heading off to Baltimore to talk to you but it seemed that never happened.” She cluelessly shrugged.

Grateful for her being unaware of your awkward encounter with him and Lecter, you ask, “So what happened?”

With a smile, she turns her back and says, “Read it and talk to Jack.”

“Oh fuck you.” You say unserious; she doesn't give another response but you hear her laugh accompanied by your door closing as she leaves the quaint room.

After reading the file, you make your way towards Jack’s office, curious as to why he didn’t bring this to your attention. As you approach the door to knock, it swings open and bumps into you. “Shit.” You say under your breath, pain blossoming where the door met your toes a moment ago.

As you back away, Will immediately comes out. You both stand there staring at each other. You see his jaw open to speak before he turns and quickly walks away from you.

You figure he was going to apologize for the collision, and now all you can think is if the reason he scurried off was because of the obvious stress he was exuding and decided to book it, or if he didn’t deem you worthy of an apology.

Taking a deep breath to calm yourself, you peek into Jack's partially opened door and say, “I was wondering-” You feel yourself become silenced with the notice of another person in the room, Dr. Lecter.

“Oh.” Is all you can give for an immediate response. The room is quiet, Jack looks annoyed with your uninvited presence, and the man across from him seems to be sizing you up in a clinical fashion.

They’re both waiting for you to speak, not wanting for this unbearable silence to continue for longer than you do. “My apologies; I didn’t mean to intrude.” You say before closing the door behind you.

You quickly scurry off, and as you turn into another hallway, you see a familiar figure hunched over a water fountain. You fasten your pace and Will’s eyes open suddenly from the sound of rapid footsteps. He pulls away from the fountain, water dripping off his chin that he wipes off when he brings his forearm to his face.

Within the few seconds you have before you reach him, you practice what to say and points to make speak that hopefully can de escalate his discomfort.

“I understand my presence is quite unbearable for you but I’m asking for your assistance in a professional manner. I’m being left out of the loop on plans for Nichols and I would like to be more aware. I don’t feel as if I’ve contributed much and I’d prefer to do better.” You justify your presence to him. Some parts of you feels pathetic, not because of what you are doing but because you know you would never do it for someone else.

“I’m sure I know as much as you do.”

You want him to say more to you so desperately. You’d rather him yell at you or punch you in the fucking stomach than be so reserved. You suppose it’s best; you quite literally came up here asserting it’s for professional reasons but only wish he’d deconstruct his walls and allow you in.

God, you’re so entitled.

With your shoulders slumped, you cordially respond, “I understand. Thank you for your time.” Before walking away.

As fate would have it, everything unfolded in its twisted, godly way. The call came in for another victim—a woman impaled on a stag head left to be displayed in an empty field. A stark contrast from the meticulous love of the Strike; the dissonance Jacks is unable to see is migraine-inducing.

Ding

Your phone chimes, and you really think that whatever higher-power there is is determined to rest your patience today.

The screen, annoyingly bright, stares back at you, displaying a name that’s foreign to your recent call history.

Will

No last name; you know multiple Will’s, but they’re contacts are accompanied by their last name. But not Graham’s; he’s much more deserving than that.

You feel like you’re hallucinating when you look at the words asking you to see him and where he’s staying. From any other man, this might have been a crude proposition, but not from Will. Sweet, enigmatic Will.

You’re not sure if this is meant for someone else. He would have had to search through his contacts to find you, given the long period of silence between you. He couldn't even be sure you still had the same number.

It must be meant for you. This is the opening you’ve been praying for; you’ve never been more thankful for deities you’re not sure if you even believe in.

Your legs feel like they're moving for you as you stand up, hardly fazed by the morning cold as you walk to where Will’s staying; leaving your dingy motel room just to go to his.

It feels like mere seconds from receiving the text to standing at his door; time feels so warped in the grip of anticipation.

Your knuckles gently tap the door multiple times to alert him of your presence. Flashbacks invade your brain of how awful your last encounter was, though your presence seems more welcome now.

The door opens faster than you can blink. Will’s messy hair and lack of pants make you feel like you're intruding, despite his invitation.

He cranes his neck out to look behind you. “Come inside,” he says, hushed.

You walk inside, and all you can think of is how “Will” this place is; it’s like he was meant to stay here. But that could also just be you holding him in higher regard than necessary and assuming the world revolves around him.

That very well could be it.

As he closes the door, the room becomes cloaked in darkness. “Can I—could I open a curtain?” You ask.

"Yeah, sure,” he says, waving off. As you open the curtains to see the morning sun, you see a familiar man dressed in a fitted suit walking towards the door.

You stiffen, your muscles tighten and lock as you feel Will give you a glance, expecting you to know the visitor.

“Did you invite Doctor Lecter as well?” You ask, just as confused as he is.

"No, I did not.” He huffs as he opens the door, revealing the man with his fist raised, about to knock against the wood.

“Eager.” The man outside says with a subtle, entertained smirk. “Good Morning Will”

Walking closer to the door, tilt your head to take a peek. "Morning, Doctor.” You unenthusiastically greet.

His face momentarily drops, just quick enough to show disappointment, before rearranging his facial movements to show false delight.

“Good morning to you as well.” He says politely. You can’t bother to verbally respond; this was meant to be a moment for possible reconciliation. Not interruption.

Will, who’s deep in thought, snaps back into the present and offers the doctor to step inside out of the morning chill. He accepts it happily, seemingly aware that he interrupted something but he doesn't seem to care; if anything, it seems he’s taking enjoyment in it.

“I came bearing gifts.” He says, raising the glass containers of food he’s holding. “Though my apologies, I didn’t expect you to have a guest.” He apologizes to Will.

“I don’t eat in the mornings anyway; it makes me nauseous.” You excuse.

Will gestures towards the small dining area, silently and awkwardly indicating for everyone to sit. You take a spot, sitting on a stiff wooden chair, trying to ignore the piercing gaze of Hannibal.

“What is the purpose of your visit?” Hannibal asks you as he gives Will his prepared meal as they both settle into their seats, with Will beside you and Hannibal parallel to you.

Wills eyes continue avoiding both of yours. "I needed to talk to someone who understood," he responds for you.

Hannibal, opening his container of food on the table, raises an eyebrow. "And what exactly do you need to talk about, Will?"

Will hesitates, his fingers nervously fiddling with the fork in his hand. "Cassie Boyle. The case... it’s different this time."

Hannibal leans back, looking intrigued. "Different how?"

“What is the purpose of your visit?” You redirect the conversation. This was meant to be a private conversation and you don't appreciate the way Lecter finds it appropriate to put Will on the spot.

You watch as his hand tightens the grip around the fork in his palm; he’s mastered the art of his facial control. He really is an incredible attempt at the personification of nonchalant, but he still has his tells.

“An attempt to befriend a coworker; I’d like to serve the purpose of a mediator, alleviate tension when possible, and give my insight on more grim- work related things.” He answers.

You know you shouldn’t taunt, but you can’t help it; the temptation is too grand. “What makes one worthy of a visit and what disqualifies another?”

Hannibal seems pleased by your words, oddly enough. “You are more than qualified; I figured you’d appreciate time. I understand you’re not necessarily fond of me.”

“I’d argue the only person fond of you in this room is yourself.” You bite. Hannibal says nothing in return, nor does Will. They both eat in silence as you fidget with your hands, desperate to be soothed.

Staring at the painted wall in front of you, you watch through your peripheral as Hannibal swallows a bite of food from his fork and opens his mouth to speak to Will. “I would apologize for my analytical ambush the other day, but I know I would be apologizing again.” He says, flicking his head towards you briefly in recognition. “And you’ll tire of that eventually, so I have to consider using apologies sparingly.”

Quickly and harshly Will responds, “Just keep it professional.”

Hannibal responds after taking another bite of his cooking, “Or we could socialize like adults; God forbid we become friendly.”

“Where's Crawford?” You ask as soon as the thought rolls into your head.

Hannibal’s head stiffly turns to face you. “Deposed in court. The journey will be ours today.” He curtly says.

Then why did he exclusively come to Will? Why has he seemingly made no plans to properly introduce himself to you?

It’s not that you're jealous; it’s not his attention that you want; it’s just the simple need to be recognized as an equal. You’re good at what you do—great, even. And this isn’t the first time someone has disregarded you for no apparent reason. Well, you think you know why.

Standing up from your chair, you speak. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be off-”

“Why?” Will immediately asks, mouth full of chewed food.

“Gotta get ready for the day. Unfortunately, it takes more effort than just a clean shirt and brushed hair for me to be presentable. I’m sure you’d understand that, Doctor.”

The moment the words come out of your mouth, you realize the accidental insult you've just given. You didn’t even mean to insinuate that he’s someone who must put in extra effort in order to be ready for the day, but by the way his grip tightens on his fork once again and the displeasing curl of his lips, you're sure he took it that way.

“Jack gave a rental; I can drive you when you're ready?” Will offers, as pleased and equally confused you are for his sudden change of heart on your existence. You are also well aware that Lecter will most likely be hitching a ride to.

“I actually drove here. I thought it would be good for me to have some more time to sort out my thoughts.” You say, walking towards the door. “But thank you; I’ll see you both soon.” You say, as curtly as possible before twisting the handle and making your exit.

Files, files and more files are all you’ve sorted through since you arrived at your destination, the place where the Shrike most likely works.

You hear a car pull up next to the dingy little trailer of the office of the work site, the sound vibrant against the noise of ruffling papers and the secretary talking to her boss on the corded phone sitting on her desk.

The door creaks open, and as you turn around, you’re greeted by the sight of Will walking in through the door held open by Hannibal.

“I’ve sorted through these four on the left so far,” you say in reference to the seemingly never ending towers of file cabinets. “And those boxes are where I’m throwing shit that if you twist an arm and a leg, you might be able to find something slightly suspicious.”

Hannibal walks in, closing the door behind him and Will nods. “What about her?” He asks, tilting his head to the side where the secretary sits.

“Conversation with her boss, I think. One that doesn’t seem to be going very well.” You explain with a tiny humorous smirk. Her head snaps towards you as she glares, unable to verbalize any frustration so she settles for squinted eyes.

“Do you need direction?” You condescendingly ask. Hannibal, seemingly unfazed by your attitude at this point, does nothing but shake his head and say, “Not yet, no. But I’m sure you’ll give me some.” His smile contradicting his pointed words.

Moments went by, flipping through papers upon papers. The feeling of being stuck in a never ending loop is finally broken by the secretary's voice directed at the three of you.

“What did you say your names where?” She asks, standing up.

Before you or Hannibal could respond, Will does. “Garrett Jacob Hobbs?”

With a sigh, the woman answers, “He’s one of our pipe threaders. Those are all the resignation letters. ‘Plumbers Union requires ‘em whenever members finish a job.” She says, before quickly spinning around and whispering into the phone, “I’ll call you back.” And places the landline back onto the plunger.

Finished with her phone conversation, Will continues to inquire. "Uh, does Mr. Hobbs have a daughter?”

“Might have.” She says in her tired, monotone voice.

“Eighteen or nineteen, wind-chafed, um- plain but pretty. She’d have auburn hair; be about this tall.” He motions a bit below his ear.

She shrugs in response. “Maybe I don't know. I don’t keep company with these people.”

“What is it about Garrett Jacob Hobbs you find so peculiar?” Lecter's voice chimes in.

“He left a phone number, no address.” He answers, his back still facing you both.

The doctor questions Will once again, turning to face more towards him, “And therefore he has something to hide?”

Taking a short breath to breathe, Will answers, “The others all left addresses; he also missed work for days at a time.” You can see he’s slowly getting more wound up. His mind is moving and scrambling around different possibilities too fast for him to make sense of, and what he can decipher is nothing short of tasteless.

"Do you have an address for Mr. Hobbs?” You chime in an attempt to take a sliver of weight off of Will’s shoulders.

The dark haired woman rolls her eyes and silently walks toward her desk. She takes a few moments to gather her information, the sounds of a keyboard clicking and shallow- impatient breaths fill the room.

Grabbing a pen, she scribbles numbers onto the small square of paper before standing up once more to hand it to Will.

As often as it happens, you feel like you’ll never get used to the way men are consistently served first in this field. It's not Will’s fault of course, and you’re sure it wasn’t intentional on her part. But in a way that makes it worse, how habitual it is to subconsciously ignore you, woman, really anything out of the typical white male mold of an old detective movie.

You’ll never forget how Jack was so quickly disregarded in one of the first cases you accompanied him with. It was in some southern state where a series of home invasions resulted in multiple murders over a handful of months. On the way to the crime scene, the neighbourhood held lawns of homes that were decorated with not only American flags but Confederate ones as well. You watched the way the local police interacted with Crawford. The kind of people who tolerated him for his help but nothing else—aversion constantly clouded their eyes.

It's not that you haven't encountered appalling people of that sort before, but it was the moment when it clicked that no matter how remarkable your work is, if Crawford could be so quickly disregarded because prejudice, the man who was truly their saving grace for this case, what chance do you have to truly excel in your field?

“I could start loading the boxes in the trunk; can you unlock it?” You ask, not even bothering to look at the yellow Post-it note containing the address.

Looking at you with brows furrowed, he digs in his trouser pockets. “It’s manual, you have to unlock it.” He says while handing you the set of cool rigid metal.

“That's fine.” You say with a smile before heading out the door. Taking a breath of metal-scented air in an attempt to calm your nerves. Things are going okay—well, even.

Will seems to be no longer sickened by your presence, for whatever reason that may be. You're trying not to think of that, the reasoning for this sudden change of heart, and how you may already know it if it weren't for Lecter's earlier intrusion.

You're trying not to hold much disdain for him, to put it aside for the time being when there are non-metaphorical lives on the line. But it’s hard when the only thing you now personally know him for is an invasive little bastard. Not much like Bloom had described him to you before, back when you were civil. That's not fair to her, though; she’s civil—you're not. You're much too bitter now for niceties.

Moments pass by while you, Will, Hannibal and the secretary are hauling boxes out of the small office trailer into the back of the rental car. A monotonous and tedious task. One that may not seem to be fit for all though, as the doctor allows a box to stumble in hands, paper falling onto the wet ground.

Of course, Will’s the one to solve the problem, falling to his knees to scrounge the paper and telling the man not to worry. You watch as he doesn't even give a thank you in return; he just hustles back inside.

Clearly, the man doesn't have as much decorum inside of him as he presents.

Though you may not have room to speak, the moment the task was done, you grabbed the address covered note and put it into your car's GPS before telling Will just to follow you. You're sure you're contributing to his stress by being so evasive, but until you can stop being so erratic, your best bet is to stay slippery, not allowing him to get a good enough grasp on who you are before you can conceal it.

The robotic voice from your center console alerts you of the approaching destination. Turning on your turn signal a bit early to alert Will driving behind you of the driveway you are about to pull into.

You can only appreciate the home once you step out of your car. The plain suburbia of the family home becomes clearer once you get closer to the front door.

You turn to watch Will and Lecter step out of the car, Hannibal surveying the place with an analytical gaze much like your own, while Wills is unique. It’s Wills.

You're unsure if you should wait for Will and have him be the one to knock at the door. You’re defenceless; you have no gun, no badge, and no reason for someone to open the door for you alone.

The decision seems to have been made for you when the door opens. Turning to look, you are greeted by the sight of bloodied hair and body weight pushed onto you. Before being granted a moment to collect your thoughts, you feel yourself falling. The sight of a man with a knife turning away is the only distinct thing you can make out as the rest melts into a scene of blurry green and blue before you and the body on top of you hit the ground.

The moment your head hits the concrete, you know you're done for. The sound of your hard skull smacking against the ground reverberates through your spine like an echo. An uncomfortable pounding takes over all your senses as Will runs up to you. The body weight of the woman is pushed off of you. You can hear the vibrations of his voice against your eardrums but nothing more—all unintelligible in your mangled brain.

You can feel your mind quickly leave its haze as fast as it came to you, your senses returning. You pull yourself up on your forearms to try to slowly raise yourself up. “Go.” Your voice sounds weird coming out of you; it's so loud that it feels like a microphone is hiding in your throat.

An unfamiliar hand grabs the back of your skull. “I’m here; you can go, Will.” Hannibal's voice firmly says behind you.

And he does; he quickly stands, pulling out his gun and walks into the house as Lecter pulls you by your armpits to sit properly. “You’re not bleeding.” He states, moving your hair around your head softly to check.

“Bleeding.” You think. Blood. You can feel blood all over your skin. You know you’re not bleeding, you don’t feel anything leaving you. But you feel everything on you.

The woman lays beside you, face up towards the dreary sky, as the sound of a quiet pattering of blood collects in a pool below. “God.” You exclaim while attempting to push yourself up from your wobbly arms.

“Slow do-” The accented voice behind you speaks before being cut off by a series of gunshots. You feel each noise in your chest, each one causing your heart to sink further into your stomach. Ignoring the dizziness blooming in your head, you clumsily stand up. Hannibal's hands pointlessly attempt to grip you to help your stability as you quickly stumble into the Hobbs residence.

The overwhelming smell of iron invades your nostrils—you freeze. Will huddles over a limp body, you from behind as he struggles to place his hands. Jack was right, you're not ready for this. Slumped in the corner lies a man, bullet wounds decorating his chest in rows.

Will killed him.

Your mind plays the sentence over and over again on loop as you feel Dr. Lecter's eyes bore into the back of your skull. He walks over to Will, his posture so straight that it's unnerving. The way his hands steadily grip the young girl's throat to prevent more blood from spurting out mocks your shaky ones.

Will beside him looks just as shaken up as you do, sitting there frozen, watching as the girl on the floor clings to life.

“Call in.” Hannibal's voice shakes you from your thoughts. As if on autopilot, your bloody hand messily dials for an ambulance. Your words sound so foreign, entirely not yours, as you explain the scene in front of you, eyes locked on Will as he dissociates from his surroundings.

It happens so slowly and so fast. A whirl of paramedics running in. Ushering you all to leave, but you can’t. The moment you exit the door, you freeze at the woman's body in front of you.

She was murdered, died on top of you and was the last bit of warmth she felt before she went cold. You feel sad, A woman's life was brutally stolen from her far too early. You feel sad about the surrounding context of her death, but mostly you feel gross, dirty, sticky, and frustrated that she had to expel her life force all over you.

You want a shower.

After getting checked by the waiting paramedic outside, who confirmed a grade 1 concussion. You can't stop thinking about what just happened to Will's head. He just murdered a man to save a life and you know what that can do to someone—it's the exact thing that ruined you.

You’ve done it again, showing up uninvited again, only this time to his motel room and not his home. But you have to talk to him.

Some agent you never even got the name of drove you both back to your respected quarters. Neither of you were in a state to drive; you can’t for the next 48 hours and Will... God knows how Will is.

That's why your visit is needed; it’s not for your peace of mind; it's not an apology; it’s to make sure he's not alone with thoughts and has someone to help clear them.

After knocking at his door once again, he opens it. “Hi.” Your voice cracks.

“Hi.” Greets back. He sounds…tired.

“I wanna come in.” You tell him there's no point in pleasantries; he’s known why you’re here since the moment you knocked on the door.

Fortunately, that gets him to crack a small smile and say, “Sure.”

As you both walk further into his room, he closes the door behind you. The room’s dimly lit, and the curtains drawn tightly to block out the world. You can see the disarray around you—books strewn across the floor, papers piled haphazardly on the desk, and an untouched dinner plate on the nightstand.

“I brought a gift.” You say, sticking your arm out, handing him the bottle.

"Vending machine root beer, you shouldn’t have." He attempts a joke, but the effort is hollow. Everything he says only deepens your concern; he’s so quick to brush off everything that's happened and act as if everything's fine.

“You’re freaking me out, Will,” you awkwardly laugh. “I know your feeling pretty fucked up right now. You don’t have to act unbothered.”

He sucks in a breath through his teeth, a defensive look quickly absorbing his eyes. “Just because you couldn’t handle it doesn’t mean I can’t.” The moment the weight of the words he’s thrown at you registers, Will's face drops. His entire guarding demeanour immediately shatters the moment they come out.

"I-I’m sorry." You stutter out in shock of how his attitude is instantaneously flipped by words. "I know what happened was different; I just wanted to check up on you." Your words are met with silence, the two of you just pitifully staring at each other. The room feels colder, the silence is more suffocating.

He breathes out your name so softly that you almost don’t hear it. “I don’t know…why I sa-said that.” His hand roughly runs through his hair as he takes a step forward. “I want you to stay.” He states, uncharacteristically bold from him.

Unsure what to make of his words, you just stand there. Both your minds are reeling—Will’s for a way to apologize and yours to just disappear.

“I know I didn’t handle myself well.” You say, taking a deep breath, “I’m not saying my actions will be your own; I just wish I had someone to understand what its like to take a human life and not hate it.”

That's it—the thing you could never admit, not even to yourself. So much time was spent sprilling about why you are the way you are. Trying to convince yourself that this feeling brewing inside you is new, that it had been manually moulded.

Panicking from your admission, you quickly follow up. “I didn’t mean to project—fuck, I just don’t want you to wallow in the guilt of change like I did. What Hobbs did- who he was—was entirely irredeemable.”

Another step closer and the gap between you both becomes bridged, and his large hands rest gently on your cheeks. “I’m sorry.” He delicately whispers.

You can’t help it; you fall apart and the dam behind your eyes breaks. The tears cascade down your cheeks faster than you can blink them away as he pulls you into his chest. You can feel the steady thump of his heartbeat, the reminder that he’s real, he’s here, and he’s okay.

“I was so fucking scared when I heard those gunshots,” you whisper into his chest. His grip on you tightens, pushing you further into him. You both stay like that for God knows how long. From how heavily you’ve soaked his T-shirt with your tears and how you feel it around your brow bones and eye sockets, you’d guess it’s been a while. And with a deep sigh, you finally feel him pull away. “Are you okay?” He asks, gently looking you up and down.

“I should be asking you that.” You scoff, “Minor concussion; I’ll be fine in a couple days and a good night's sleep.”

He raises his brows in shock. “Yeah, well, good luck getting that.” You can’t help but laugh at his tone and reaction, as if you just said the most bizarre thing in the world.

A grin makes his way across his face at the sound of your laugh. “I miss you.”

You freeze. It’s what he said that took you off-gaurd, just the way he said it. The tone wasn’t sad or nostalgic; it was happy. Present tense too; he didn’t once mourn you and, over time, healed the wounds of a lost friendship. No, they’re still open, and he still misses you.

You were so caught up in your concern for him that you never had a moment to grasp the closeness between you too. Looking up, you see him. The individual hairs growing out of his chin, forming his stubble; the small scar on his cheek that he got when he was a child but doesn't remember how; and his eyes. Those blue eyes that hold so much patience, so much care and so much understanding it makes you weak to your knees. You see Will—sweet, complex, deserving Will.

His hands grip your face more firmly this time, peering into your soul like you just autopsied yours. He's drinking you in your image, like he’s been starved, dehydrated, and famished. You wouldn’t dare pull away and deny him what he wants; you’ll give him anything and if he wants your soul, you’ll bare it to him.

“The only thing I regret is everything I did to you.” It’s such a heavy admission—one that’s entirely out of left field, and he still doesn’t know the true weight of it. “Please,” The words so delicately come from you. You’re not sure what your pleading for—forgiveness? But for which of your sins? In what context are you begging for repentance?

It doesn't matter what you decide. The only thing that does is how close his lips are to yours and how it’s still not enough.

“I know.” His lips brush against yours, tentative at first, then more certain. The kiss is a soft exploration, a silent conversation filled with all the words you couldn’t bring yourselves to say. You feel his hands trembling slightly against your skin, betraying the calm exterior he’s trying to maintain.

When you finally pull away, you’re both breathless. He rests his forehead against yours, his breath mingling with yours in the small space between you. He’s quiet, waiting for the moment for you to turn and run like you do, but it doesn’t come. Instead, your hand finds itself on the back of his head, tangling your fingers in his curls as you pull him in for another kiss.

Just as eager as you, he deepens the kiss, his hands moving from your cheeks to your waist, desperate to have you as close as he can. You could feel his heart beating against his chest, rhythmically in-sync with your own.

Energy intensifies, with hands greedily grabbing whatever they can, saliva coating each other's lips, feet scrambling across the floor until your back hits the crumpled sheets of the unmade motel bed.

The thin mattress creaks under your combined weight, but you barely notice—too preoccupied with catching each sound that spills from Will's mouth. His hands explore the curves and slopes of your torso with an urgency so similar to yours. Every touch, every kiss, makes your body buzz with ache, desperate to consume him from the outside-in.

He breaks away for a moment, his breath ragged, eyes dark with desire. "Are you sure?" he asks, his voice a rough whisper.

"Yes," you reply without hesitation, your voice as steady as you could be despite the pounding of your heart. "I’m sure."

With that, he captures your lips again, his hands slipping under your shirt, the warmth of his calloused fingertips on your ribs sending shivers within you. You lose yourself in the sensation, the world outside the room fading into oblivion.

All you can think of is Will.

Will's hands slipping off your shirt.

Will’s chest bare against yours as you slip off his.

Will’s mouth on your neck, nibbling on your collarbone.

Will looking deliciously vulnerable covered in crimson outside of the Hobbs house.

The moan that slips out of your mouth as his tongue meets your nipple is involuntary; his wet mouth lays kisses and bites along the fat of your breast as he grips the other.

He looks up at you, his eyes dark and hungry as he breathes your name out, his voice thick with lust coating his vocal cords like honey. His hands roam lower, fingers hooking into the waistband of your pants, slowly sliding them down your hips. His kisses trail down from your sternum to your stomach, getting sloppier as his breath contrasts with the coolness of his spit.

You gasp as he reaches your underwear, his fingers teasing the fabric. "Will," you whimper, your voice a mixture of need and desperation you’ve never heard from yourself before.

He peers up at you, his silvery eyes filled with desire—desire for you. "Do you trust me?"

Without a moment of hesitation, you reply, "Yes."

With a smile both wicked and tender, he pulls your underwear down and spreads your legs, revealing you to him. His eyes roam over your body, taking in every detail, every curve, and every inch. He leans in, his breath hot against your slick center, and then his tongue flicks out, tasting you.

You arch your back, a moan escaping you as he explores you with his mouth. His fingers tease your entrance, rubbing just around it in circles while his tongue dances around your clit.

You grip the sheets tightly, your nails digging into the fabric. You’d latch your hands onto his head but you're afraid you’d rip his scalp off his head. The sensations are overwhelming, not because of the pleasure coursing through you, but because it’s Will distributing it.

Will's mouth is relentless, his tongue flicking and probing, while his fingers continue to tease.

He was devouring you, and you were more than happy to be consumed.

“Will," you moan, your voice breathy, desperate for more—anything else he’s willing to give. "Please."

He looks up at you, his eyes filled with lust, then slides two fingers inside you, pumping them in and out in a slow, steady rhythm. You cry out, your body bucking against his mouth, your hips grinding against his fingers as you feel the prickle of his facial hair on your thighs as you squeeze them tighter around his head.

“So good,” he whimpers into you, his voice a mixture of need and desperation while he works you closer to your ledge. He does nothing but continue his assault, his tongue flicking against your clit, his fingers thrusting in and out of you. You can feel the orgasm building in your stomach, the pressure mounting higher and higher as he desperately bucks into the bed for some form of friction.

"Will," you cry out, your voice louder this time, begging him for your release. He’s still so wordless—nothing but the vibrations of moans and grunts coming from him. Instead, he responds by increasing the pace of his fingers, his tongue more aggressive as you feel yourself tipping over the edge.

You feel your body move for you, sporadically convulsing as your orgasm washes over you as he drinks up release, coating his mouth and fingers. He continues his movements while you come down from your high, his hands prying your thighs open as he fucks his tongue into you, savouring your taste.

You're left panting, your body trembling, and your mind swimming in a foggy haze of pleasure when he finally pulls away from you with an expression of satisfaction. He moves up your body, his lips finding yours in a tender kiss.

You can feel your slick coating his facial hair as he kisses you, rubbing it onto you. It’s a messy and filthy action but fuck does it get you going.

"Are you okay?" he asks, his voice gruff but gentle.

You can’t help but smile; he’s so fucking perfect.

A grin coats your face. “Yeah.” He’s gorgeous; the light is low, the cool light of the moon peeking out the sides of the curtains. You can’t see Will in his entirety, but that’s fine. His face so close to yours, his body on top of yours—you don’t need to see him; just feel him.

He smiles a small-relieved grin. “Good,” he whispers before pulling away. You didn’t realize he removed sweats until you felt the tip of his cock teasing you. A whine escapes from your lips as he rocks his dick back and forth along your pussy, coating himself in your cum.

He pushes in slowly, inch by inch, his pace deliberate, giving you time to adjust. Your brain short-circuits from how deeply he’s stretching you out every time he slips himself further inside you.

He pauses, his forehead resting against yours, his breath hot against your skin. “You feel so fucking good.”

You feel braindead; you've never been so pilant in your life. “More.” You manage to whisper out, your voice shaky.

He starts to move, his thrusts slow and shallow. Just the feeling of his cock repeatedly entering you makes your brain feel fuzzy. You can feel every inch of him, the way he fills you, how tightly you’re wrapped around him.

You grip his shoulders, your nails digging into his skin as he picks up pace, his thrusts becoming more forceful, more demanding. “‘Missed you so fucking much,” he grumbles into your neck.

“M’sorry.” You whimper, “M’sorry, M’sorry.” You say fragmentedly, it took him nothing to fuck you dumb and yet your entire brain is filled with nothing but the repetition of his name.

The room is filled with the sounds of skin slapping against skin, the wetness of your bodies, and the occasional moan that escapes from either of your lips—the both of you soaking up the feeling of each other in this moment.

You can feel the pressure building up again—the familiar prickle in your abdomen. “Please, don’t fucking stop.” Your voice desperately cries out.

He doesn’t slow down; instead, he picks up pace, his thrusts becoming more frantic, more desperate. You can feel him shaking, his body trembling as he nears his climax. Not bothering the silence himself anymore, he becomes just as loud as you, no longer speaking coherent praises, just moans and grunts that slowly raise in pitch with each stroke inside you he makes.

Nothing but each other’s names spill from your lips in affirmation that you're both here, together. You cry out, your back arching off the bed in a desperate attempt to be closer as your orgasm crashes over you. Your pussy clenches around him, milking him as he spills himself inside you, as he collapses on top of you. You feel his breath against your neck in ragged pants as his cock continues to twitch inside you, the last of his cum filling you up.

You wrap your arms around him, you're both spent. Bodies slick with cum and sweat, the euphoric high wearing off allowing the reality of how tired you’ve been the last couple to take hold of you.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” You breathlessly ask. As sleepy as you are, you have to make an attempt to do what you came for—someone to talk to.

Head on your chest, you can feel his smile form. “I was liking how little talking we were doing.”

A laugh puffs from chest at his response, “That works too.” You say, gazing down at him. As if he could feel your stare, he raises his head to look at you, chin resting on your breast. “I’m happy.”

A small laugh now finds its way from his chest at the juvenile remark. As ridiculous as it seems, that is the best way to describe it. It doesn't need complex-flowery language, you're just glad to be in his presence, alive and healthy. You're just happy.

And he understands, his gaze softens as a sincere smile crawls on his face, “Me too.”

#PERSEPHONE #hannibal nbc #hannibal #nbc hannibal #mads mikkelsen #will graham #hannibal lecter #hannibal lecter x reader #will graham x reader #hannibal fanfiction #will graham x you #will graham fanfiction #will graham smut #mads mikkelsen x reader #hannibal x reader

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k-n0-x · 7 months

Text

༺ ♱✮♱ ¨:·Something Stupid- Chapter 1·:¨ ♱✮♱ ༻

A/N- Hey everyone! I hope you guys are doing well. This story is a longer series of Lucifer Morningstar x reader where you’re Adam’s third wife. This story will have roughly 10 official chapters, but there will be shorter fillers which will be labelled as [previous chapter number].5.

I also made a playlist in honour of this fanfiction :D

Navigation

Enjoy! <3

꧁🥀☽💫✶♛🦢♕✶💫☾🥀꧂

As you use your wings to sweep down to the sultry streets of Hell, you frantically look around for any stray troops, for them to tell you everything. Anything.

“Where is this gods be darned hotel,” You think to yourself, along with other incoherent and unfinished thoughts.

But it all connects back to one hanging thought in the back of your mind.

Heaven is a Lie.

What happened to all that “Killing is bad” and “Murder is sin” bullshit that they preached?

This is a genocide.

All of these demons, from young to old, didn’t do anything wrong, (well atleast, not in this moment)

Is it that hard for Adam to see?

He’s been feeding you these utter lies this entire time? This news was a bombshell on you at the meeting when that lovely young girl, Charlie was pitching her idea.

Speaking of bombs, a piercing and explosive sound emits from the other side of the city.

꧁ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ꧂

As you traverse the debris of the crumbling city, you spot two familiar faces amongst the face of fire.

One of which that you despised ever since that meeting.

Lute.

The other had her back faced towards the lieutenant. Her horns protruded from her scalp and her long blonde hair billowing in the breeze, unaware that Lute was about to strike.

“LUTE, NO!” You put yourself in the face of the Angelic weapon, your wings disarming the troop general to avoid her striking down Charlie.

“Y/N? What in the actual living fuck are you doing here?”

“I should be the one asking the questions here,” You point an accusing finger into the general’s chest.

“Where’s Adam? I need to have a serious discussion with him. If you see any other troops, tell them to stand down,”

“You’re not my bos-”

“I said. Stand. The. Fuck. Down. NOW!” You stare Lute down, and she glares at you back.

She doesn’t say anything, but you could see her biting her tongue.

You turn to Charlie.

“Charlie, come on, we gotta go!”

“But, I- I don’t understand, why are you he-”

“Just trust me on this one okay? Go and make sure no one is in imminent danger. I will handle my husband myself,”

The Princess looks up at you, eyes flooded with admiration, trust, and hope as you soar back into action.

꧁ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ꧂

You swoop in and out of shattered buildings in fruitless attempts to find Adam amidst the screams and battle cries of both Angels and Demons.

“Adam? ADAM?!” You screech into the crimson sultry sky.

Another explosive pierces through the sky from not far where you were barely a minute ago.

“Ugh, Lute I swear,” You mutter under your breath and your attention is quickly turned to two shadows attacking each other. You look overhead and see two figures; one of them is adorned with a priest’s garments (obviously, Adam), and the other… well…

Does not have a definable shape whatsoever.

One moment, it has taken the form of a bird, and the next it has the figure of a snake.

One thing never changed though, a sporting white top hat stayed gracefully on his head in each form.

This ever changing specimen seems to be teasing your partner.

“Adam? Haven’t seen ya since Eden,” He maneuvered between all of Adam’s punches.

“Gotta say, it really seems like you’ve let yourself go,”

Adam scoffs.

“You, Lucifer, judging me? You’re the most hated being in all of gods be damned creation!”

Ah, that makes much more sense now.

The shape-shifting demon, finally setting on a figure, with a smirk, almost nonchalant expression on his face.

Dodging the First Man’s bolts of angelic power, Lucifer still doesn’t relent with the tomfoolery.

“Well, your first wife didn’t seem to hate what I had to offer,” He places his index and middle gloved digits between his lips and drags them downwards, his snake tongue between them.

Ooof, that’s gotta hurt.

Well it definitely did. On Lucifer’s end that is for sure. One of Adam’s blows finally managed to hit him, knocking him backwards, and inadvertently knocking you out of your trance.

Fuck, you were supposed to be stopping this.

“ADAM!” Your husband turns to face you, looking from the ground, dumbfounded.

“Y/n?! What the actual fuck are you doing down here?”

“Why is everyone asking me that?!” You draw in a breath, irritated.

Just get to the point.

“Tell your little army to stop. Playtime’s over,”

Adam descends down to you, with disagreement written all over his face.

“Nah,” He smirks.

“What the FUCK do you mean ‘Nah?’ What are you, 10?”

“Yeah, 10 inches deep in you,”

Your face distorts into a one of disdain. Marrying is probably one of the worst decisions you made.

“You don’t need to make this any harder than it needs to be,” Then it clicked. An utterly vile, but devious idea struck your mind.

“Dear Adam,” you hum, layering on the most seductive voice you can. Both Adam and Lucifer look at you, both confused at your quick change of tone.

Well this is going to be the most embarrassing 30 seconds of your life.

Alas, you carry yourself with a more fluid demeanor, as his eyes follow you. Though as stupid as he is, he isn’t going to fall for your tricks that easily.

You snuggle up to him, your hand gently caressing his upper thigh, reaching right where the source of all manhood was. Stroking not only his dick, but his ego as well, which you were really going for.

You whisper in his ear.

“Come back home darling~ you need some time to rest, hm?” You let your fingers circle around his tip. “I’ve been waiting for you for a while now~”

He smirks. Bingo.

“Fine, but I’ll be waiting for you at home, love,” He says with a wild grin.

“Lovely,” you say through smiling teeth.

Though behind that smile, there is absolutely nothing worthy of mentioning.

꧁ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ꧂

“Well, I sincerely apologise for my husband’s behaviour. Honestly, I would have stopped him sooner if I found out,” You bow to the group of demons.

Utter despair is written on the entire group’s faces.

“What’s the matter? I know your hotel has been blown to bits, but at least everyone here is safe,” your tone is uncertain.

“Right?”

Charlie is the first to pipe up to speak.

“Sir, Pentious- he-,” Her voice cracks.

“Oh honey,” you turn to try and comfort her with your wings, though abruptly interrupted by a threatening cough from Lucifer, who was behind you.

You want to comfort the Princess of Hell, but you decide against it and turn to face the group.

“I just want to say, before leaving, that I am on your side. I know Heaven is the real enemy and I will try to aid in any possible way, though right now I have to be going,” You look at each demon in turn, Lucifer for last, as he gives you a once over, as though you’ve intrigued him in some way.

“Well, erh, farewell. For now?” You give Charlie a tentative squeeze on the arm, and give Vaggie an acknowledging nod, which was returned.

As you spread your wings and soar back to heaven, you come to the realisation of what you’re gonna have to do when you get home.

Or rather, who…

꧁🥀☽💫✶♛🐣♕✶💫☾🥀꧂

Word count- 1,229

#fanfiction #writers on tumblr #hazbin hotel #hazbin lucifer #lucifer morningstar x reader #fluff #adam hazbin hotel #hazbin angel dust #charlie morningstar #angel dust #hazbin hotel lute #angst #lucifer magne #lucifer smut #Spotify

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mellowmadds · 2 years

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Willing Accomplice | Ethan Landry

Ethan Landry/Fem!Reader

Summary: you never know just how much information a person could be hiding behind a shy dorky persona.

Warnings: mentions of violence, cussing

Word Count: 4022

(I believe in happy endings :)

..••°°°°••.. °°••....••°°

Moving all the way to New York City to attend Blackmore University with your Woodsboro best friends who all had a very complicated year full of secrets and betrayals it was obvious that everyone in the friend group would be on edge. When two film students who attended many classes with you guys were brutally murdered in their college apartment, Mindy took it upon herself to start interrogating the newcomers in the group.

“Tara! Do you not remember how these movies work?” Mindy yelled a bit loudly which startled the boy sitting next to you.

“Is she always like this?” Quinn questioned looking over towards her roommate Sam who replied back with a defeated eye roll. Ethan sighed while you wrapped an arm around his torso and laid your head on his chest getting ready to eventually defend him against whatever Mindy was about to accuse him of doing or being.

“Which brings me to my next point!” Mindy stated very loudly standing straight up in front of Quinn.

“Never trust the roommate or love interest” she said with a straight face glancing over towards the two of you innocently cuddling on the bench. Ethan shifted feeling uncomfortable which led you to grabbing his hand and rubbing your thumb over his fingers to calm his nerves. While Mindy started walking over towards you guys her twin brother Chad puts his arm out in front of you two before talking back to his sister.

“Mindy seriously look at him, you really think he’s ghostface?” You knew Chad didn’t mean it in a rude way; he was just looking out for the two of you.

“Exactly my point! Ethan the shy innocent dorky nerd who happened to find interest in our very much antisocial shy best friend. It’s a perfect cover, who knows maybe y/n wants revenge on us and is Ethan’s accomplice.” Mindy had seen way too many movies and just started spewing bullshit.

“W-Why am I a suspect? I shouldn’t even be a target!” Ethan finally spoke up.

“Oh seriously Ethan of course you’re a suspect and a target, your girlfriend got sliced up by some loser last year who liked her despite him being Sam’s boyfriend” Mindy exclaimed and Sam once again rolled her eyes.

“Ex boyfriend Mindy, remember I slit his throat? And he died like a baby.” Sam said with absolutely no expression in her face as she looked over at Ethan.

“I’m done with this conversation you’ve officially crossed the line Mindy. I’m leaving.” You stated while grabbing your backpack and yanking your boyfriend off the bench making him follow you like a lost puppy.

“Great going Mindy! The last thing we needed was the group being split up.” Chad said while getting up from the now empty bench while giving a disapproving look towards his twin. Tara quietly gathered her stuff and accompanied Chad wherever he was going.

“Mindy, wait a second” Sam said, grabbing her arm before she took off in anger.

“Keep an eye on their relationship, seriously y/n can’t afford anything bad happening to her again.” Sam said while Mindy nodded in agreement knowing what had happened last year.

To say last year was bat shit crazy was an understatement. You had been developing an ongoing relationship with Wes when the unthinkable had happened. Wes had gone home right after school that fateful day while the rest of the friend group decided to hang out in the courtyard to discuss the potential suspects in the ongoing ghostface murders. Before heading out you had gone back into the school to retrieve some books from your locker to complete your homework later on. But suspiciously your locker had been opened with a note stuck to it that stated ‘If I can’t have you nobody will’ your thoughts continued to race while you ran back to the friend group only to find them with a sorrowful look in their eyes. After Wes’s attack you had become distant and began acting out as a defense mechanism. During the final act it was revealed that Richie Kirsch had planned all of this with his girlfriend Amber Freeman in order to inspire movie makers to create the greatest Stab movie of all time. You were just a pawn in their huge game plan to kill Sam because of her biological father Billy Loomis except Richie did find a slight interest in you which he openly admitted to everyone in the room before Sam brutally ended him.

Despite ghostface running around ending lives left and right frat parties continued on like there was nothing to be afraid of.

“Well don’t you just look so adorable” You scrunched up your nose trying to hold in your laughter as you stood in the doorway of Ethan and Chads dorm room. You couldn’t even tell what he was but you have to admit he looked absolutely adorable in his nerdy armor costume.

“My personal knight in shining armor” You giggled while stepping up on your tippy toes to place a light gentle kiss on his lips. Ruining the moment Chad walked back in from the bathroom in his ever so slutty cowboy costume.

“Wow Chad what an entrance, you’re acting as if it isn’t below forty outside.” You gestured towards his shirtless body.

“And what are you supposed to be?” Chad questioned you as you spun around showing off your school girl outfit that had your Hogwarts house colors to show off your Harry Potter obsession.

“Come on nerds we are going to be late and we also have to go pick up Tara” Chad said before grabbing his keys and walking out.

“I think you look gorgeous” Ethan blurted out while his face flushed red because he had become nervous around you.

Parties weren’t really your thing so you hung out with Mindy and Anika on the couch. Despite the fight you had with Mindy the other day you couldn’t be mad at her forever because you both had gone through so much together. Getting bored of sitting there having to watch the couple make out all night you got up from the couch in search of your own lover. Not seeing him downstairs you continue your way through the house and spot the roommates dancing together before Chad starts yelling.

“Yes Ethan! You’re such a snack! A full course meal!” Chad screamed, yeah he was for sure a little drunk. You couldn’t lie you were a bit tipsy yourself and just wanted Ethan to take care of you. Before you could even approach them a commotion could be heard from downstairs and there came an overly worried Mindy in search of Chad. Ethan had noticed you by the stairs and grabbed your hand before heading down following the twins. Before you knew it the friend group was outside listening to Tara scream at her older sister Sam for being controlling. Everyone was being dragged back to Sam’s apartment because she had been sick of your guy’s college antics and thought that everyone would be safer in numbers. You had tried arguing saying you didn’t have any of your personal belongings but she did not care and simply stated you could all pack a bag tomorrow and come back before anything bad happens. Sam explained that it would be like one big sleepover for however long until this nonsense was over.

‘But I have Econ tomorrow night” Ethan chimed in realizing everyone rolled their eyes at his comment.

“Do you have Econ or a murder appointment?” Mindy raised her eyebrow staring at the two of you once again cuddled up comfortably on the Carpenter’s couch. Before you could say a quick remark back towards her Sam told everyone to shut up and seemed incredibly frustrated.

“Does nobody care that ghostface is going around stabbing people again?” Sam said running her hands through her hair but before she could speak again a loud bang and a string of moans sounded throughout the apartment. Sam quickly stood up and started banging on Quinn's door while the rest of you tried to hold in your laughter.

“Get your boyfriend out of here from now on it’s just going to be people we can trust” Sam stated and Quinn apologized while kicking her “boyfriend” out of the apartment with only his boxers on. All the tension seemed to die down and everyone got comfortable with the sleeping arrangements that Sam had given them. Ethan got the couch while Chad had to sleep on the floor because Mindy and Anika claimed the loveseat and Sam had stuck you in Tara’s room so Chad wouldn’t pull anything with her younger sister. When everyone figured Sam was asleep you and Chad switched places except you didn’t claim the floor and instead laid on top of Ethan snuggling into his chest trying your best to fall asleep after a stressful night. Ethan wrapped his arms around you holding you close as you tangled your fingers in his full set of curls that were your absolute favorite feature on him. The morning soon came and everyone went their separate ways to either pack their bags or attend classes but everyone had promised Sam that they would arrive back at the apartment by six. Everyone had gone on with their day and before heading out to the Carpenter’s apartment you decided to walk Ethan to his Econ class just to have a moment alone with him and it was worth it.

“Don’t take anything Mindy says seriously, okay?” You said quietly to him.

“I promise I’ll be at the Carpenter’s after class, I just can’t afford to fail or fall back this early in the semester.” Ethan stated while giving you a disappointing look because he wants to be there to be able to protect you if anything bad were to happen tonight.

“I’ll be okay for the couple of hours you’re gone, I promise.” You smiled trying to escape the bad thoughts that flooded your brain of all the possible things that could happen tonight and you should have trusted this gut feeling you had but you ultimately decided to push that feeling aside.

“I’ll save you a seat on the Carpenter couch!” You yelled back as you started walking away. You could hear his little laugh as a response and decided that maybe everything will turn out okay in the end. As you continued walking your phone buzzed with multiple texts from the group chat reading that everyone was on their way over now. You entered the apartment with two packed bags, one for yourself and one for Ethan.

“And where’s your psycho ghostface boyfriend?” Mindy asked before you could even settle down.

“He had Econ he’ll be here later on, I even have his bag with me” You said frustrated that Mindy had already started getting on your nerves.

“No y/n doors are being locked right now either he is on his way or he is being locked out” Sam said with a straight face.

“Why the fuck do you all hate him so much! He has done nothing wrong or suspicious for you guys to be attacking him at every moment.” You said with tears spilling down your cheeks.

“We don’t hate him, we just need everyone to be here. We need everyone to be willing to follow the rules in order to keep everyone safe, so we can all survive. It’s what Wes would have wanted y/n.” Tara said while pulling you into a tight hug breaking the tension in the room only to be interrupted by your phone ringing causing everyone in the room to tense right back up. You answered it by putting it on speaker.

“Hello y/n having a good night aren’t you?” The other person on the line asked and it was obvious it was the killer because of the way the voice sounded. Sam grabbed the phone while walking over to where she kept her knives in the kitchen only to notice that they were all missing.

“Not one of you is going to answer me? If you can’t answer my questions, maybe your sweet innocent boyfriend can and maybe he will have to die a virgin. I guess little shy y/n really was just insecure after all you couldn’t go all the way with Wes and now it looks like you’re about to lose the opportunity to go all the way with poor innocent Ethan.” The killer laughed while you paced around the living room while everyone else just stared at you. You grabbed Chad’s phone quickly dialing Ethan’s number and after a couple of rings he finally picks up apologizing to the professor for having to leave early.

“Ethan no no no don’t leave Econ stay inside the classroom please.” You pleaded into the phone. Instead of getting a response from Ethan you hear the Killer say that he has the perfect opportunity on the other phone in Sam’s hand which had suddenly abruptly ended due to the killer hanging up. Instead of getting a response from Ethan there was a sudden thump coming from Quinns room and before anyone saw it coming Quinns dead body was being thrown onto Anika while everyone freaked out and started panicking Ethan who could hear all the commotion through the phone and started asking what was going on and that he was on his way over and he would be there as fast as he could which after he had said that he hung up the phone and suddenly Chad was dragging Tara out of the apartment and down the hall while Sam knocked ghostface to the ground to stop them from hurting Anika even more than they already had. Everyone ran into Sam’s room where Mindy frantically placed Anika on the bed and quickly started thinking of different ways to block the doorway. While Mindy blocked the doorway Sam was grabbing a ladder through the window from her very hot across the hallway secret boyfriend.

“Are you fucking crazy Sam?” You yelled looking at the ladder that you would eventually have to cross over to get into the other apartment.

“Do you have a better idea y/n?” Sam argued back and you gave her a defeated look while trying to get Anika lifted off the bed and closer to the bedroom window. Mindy told everyone to cross over into the other apartment because someone had to hold the door and she was already doing that so it made sense for Sam to cross first then you followed. You could hear Mindy yelling at Anika to cross the ladder first but you knew Anika was too weak and already bleeding out to be able to cross the ladder successfully and eventually Anika convinced Mindy to cross before her but after that it was too late for Anika as you watched her plummet to her death as ghostface shook the ladder with all the strength they had in them. You will never forget the scream that Mindy let out that night and you were once again traumatized by a person in a ghostface mask. The police were called in by Ethan when he hung up from being on the phone with you. Once everyone was reconnected outside in the ambulance Ethan came running from under the yellow caution tape only to be stopped by Chad pushing him up against the police van.

“I was at Econ, you guys know this! You heard me apologizing to my professor through the phone!” You pulled Chad off of Ethan and wrapped your arms around him and rested your forehead against his chest and just cried you didn’t care if anybody was looking at you.

“You’re at the top of my suspect list.” Mindy stated with a saddened look still freshly grieving the death of her girlfriend.

“You guys should be happy that I called the police for you instead of accusing me of being the killer.” Ethan argued back while grabbing your hand and leading you away from the crime scene that was currently being broadcast on the news by none other than Gale Weathers.

The days continued on and while not being able to be fully trusted by your friends you had no other choice than to all stick together like Sam had originally planned on doing. You were glued to Ethan’s hip never wanting to leave his side and the friend group took notice of this and stopped accusing him of being the killer because the murders and attacks continued on and Ethan seemed to have always been around because you had agreed to follow Sam’s rules in order to prove your innocence and Ethan had also agreed. As news broke out that Gale had been attacked Tara took it upon herself to ask detective Bailey to help lure the killer in and execute him. Detective Bailey ultimately agreed because they had killed his daughter which left him with no family at all due to his son dying in a car accident a couple years back. The entire friend group made their way to the abandoned theater in hopes that the plan would follow through and that there would be an end to this nightmare.

“Y/n I don’t think you should help, you will be much safer out here. I don’t want anything bad happening to you” Ethan said before pulling you into a tight hug then leaning in to kiss you for what could be the last time he thought to himself.

“Ethan we have to help them, we have to put an end to this. If we all stick together nobody will get seriously hurt.” You told him before giving him a quick hug and grabbing his hand leading him into the abandoned theater. You noticed Ethan drop his backpack near the entrance but didn’t think much of it because the group was calling for you two to come to the back of the theater to help go over the plan once again. You felt Ethan tense up before walking over to the counter and leaning against it.

“E, are you okay?” You asked softly, walking over towards him and grabbing his hands. Before you knew it you heard gunshots go off and Sam yell that the killer is detective Bailey.

“Y/n I need you to leave right now, don't fight with me about this, just go outside where it’s safe, please.” Ethan pleaded with tears in his eyes. You watched as detective bailey walked behind Ethan as you stood there frozen in place trying to pull Ethan away from the counter and into the room where the others were because Sam was right we would be safer in numbers.

“Son, are you just going to stand here spending time with Richie's girl or are you going to help me kill the people who murdered your brother?” You watched in disbelief as someone in a ghostface costume walked up beside detective bailey.

“You did good kid, unlike your brother over here who refuses to leave his little girlfriend alone.” Bailey said as they took off their mask only to reveal Quinn. The others stood behind you watching all of this unfold.

“Oh hey roomie” Quinn laughed as Sam looked upon the scene unfolding in front of her.

“I thought you were dead?” Tara asked in shock.

“You know as a detective it is really easy to fake someone else’s or your own death.” He laughed as he pointed the knife to his youngest son.

“Maybe we should have faked Ethan’s death since he wanted to fall in love with his older brother’s crush and ruin our plan of getting revenge.” Bailey said right before Ethan had grabbed you, picking you up off of the floor and walking behind the counter to join his sick twisted family.

“You’re Richie’s family aren’t you?” Sam asked and that's when you noticed Ethan’s eyes change into a pair you have never seen before.

“E, please please let me go” You pleaded.

“The pet names aren’t going to work anymore y/n” Detective Bailey said before forcing Ethan to drag you into the other room. The others called out for you begging Ethan to let you go but it was no use he was never going to let you go now. But before leaving the room you noticed Ethan grabbed his backpack. While your friends begged and fought for their own lives in the other room Ethan brought you over to one of the movie theater seats and sat you down.

“I was never going to hurt you.” He stated.

“I never hurt anyone, it was just them two.” Ethan said with tears spilling down his face. He unzipped his backpack pulling out one of his dads guns and a knife. Ethan handed you the knife and told you to follow his lead.

“No Ethan, I am not hurting my friends, they are my family.” You cried out.

“No we aren’t hurting them, you know who to aim for.” Ethan said with confidence. You didn’t know if you could fully trust him or not but you had no other option than to do what you were told. You were his willing accomplice. He grabbed your arm and walked you back over to where the others were.

“Y/n what are you doing?” Chad yelled

“She turned on us just like I knew she would.” Mindy choked out due to her blood pooling in her mouth because of being stabbed in the stomach.

“Well would you look at that. What an unexpected twist of events I knew Richie wouldn’t disappoint me, you are psychotic just like he was. Too bad my other son over here won’t ever live up to his older broth-” Before he could finish his sentence detective Bailey hit the ground and died at the hands of his youngest son. And before Quinn could get her hands on you Sam had shot her and she fell right on top of her father as both of them laid there lifeless. You dropped the knife and ran over towards your friends sobbing, finally being able to let all of your feelings out. Tara pulled you into a hug while all of you watched Ethan slide down to the ground unable to keep himself composed after killing the only family he had left.

“He never hurt anyone.” You quietly whispered, unable to speak properly, but everyone had heard you.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Sam had questioned him while pointing her weapon of choice at him.

“Bailey he killed my mother covered it up because he didn’t want his wife to find out about his affair. I don’t consider them my family. They took my mother away from me to save their own family image. The only thing I have in common with Richie and Quinn is a messed up dad and I can assure you I am not a killer like my half siblings. I have never had contact with them before they found me when I moved out here to go to college. I really thought that Bailey killed Quinn and he told me that he would kill me too if I didn’t help him. I promise I never hurt anyone and I never will.” Ethan begged while he watched Sam lower her weapon and offer him a hand which he gladly took. He slowly stood up as the others stared at him with sorrow. You slowly walked up to him and pulled him into a hug where he silently sobbed into your shoulder as the others discussed what needed to be done moving forward. Ethan Landry the shy dorky nerd who nobody expected to have that much of a messed up life. Nothing will ever be the same but moving forward you knew you had to be there for the boy who spared your life and protected you from his own twisted bloodline. All of you who have had to go through these unimaginable experiences were a new found family that no killer would be able to separate.

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dronebiscuitbat · 1 month

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Oil is Thicker Then Blood (Part 65)

It was Uzi's birthday today.

Today she turned 19, her and N were now officially the same age… at least until his own birthday in a couple months, where they would once again be a year apart.

She was… also beginning to show, not a lot, but what used to be uniform, flat rubber was now slightly distended, curving outwards ever so slightly, though still able to be hidden under her hoodie.

Though, she needed to make that announcement, though she was dreading it, how her father might react to her pregnancy. Or how… anyone would react, Thad probably wouldn't care, he'd be as chill about is as ever, but V also worried her slightly.

She was upset when they'd adopted Tera, bringing a child into their complicated lives and solver bullshit, something that had indeed brought the child into danger several times. She'd probably flip her lid to find out that another was well on it's way.

It would soon be impossible to hide however, and announcing it now was better then letting it ride any longer.

At this very moment though, she was looking into the mirror present in the bedroom, running a hand down her bare midsection and slightly stretched rubber. Getting ready to go to her Dad's, who'd set up a small party for her and invited everyone.

N was on the bed, his coat over his shoulders but completely open at the front, exposing his white chassis and glowing golden core. He gazed at her, a small exhale leaving his lips.

“If you're worried about how you look, don't, you're beautiful.” He hummed, watching as she looked conflicted into the mirror, eyebrows furrowing and frown etched on her face.

He stood up, crossing the distance between them before wrapping his arms around her from behind, purring like a motorboat while he rested his hand over the one resting on her midsection, letting both hers and and his own run over it.

“We're telling them today. Would it matter if they could?” He asked, right up against her audio input, his tail wrapping around her leg as he nuzzled into the crook of her neck.

“Yes? No? Ugh, I don't know.” She leaned her head back into him before closing her eyes.

In all honesty, she felt lousy. While not as persistent or intense as it was during the first week or two, she still often got sick in the morning, if not outright, then the persistent dizziness often made her wish she did. Not to mention she was constantly forgetting where she put things, or even if she already did a task that day or not.

It was infuriating! Which instead of making her bitter like it normally did, made her cry instead. Like an emotional time-bomb ready to be set off by the slightest inconvenience.

At least she wasn't hungry anymore, that was being by handled by N stopping by the market and picking up what was essentially construction materials and tech components for her to chew on whenever her body needed more material. The best thing so far had been a microprocessor that had bits of silver and gold inside…

“Mmmh” She mumbled as she crossed her arms and looked away from the mirror, but then N's hands were rubbing into her shoulders and she felt herself relax, “tense” would probably be an understatement with how she'd been feeling lately.

“I think you'll feel better after you tell everyone, then you'll have your whole family to support you, instead of just me.” He kissed the side of her head before backing off slightly to button up his coat and try to tame his unruly hair. She turned, pulling on her hoodie as she looked to the ground.

“I'm not sure Dad's going to be stoked to find out a murder drone knocked up his eighteen year old daughter.” She raised a sarcastic eyebrow in his direction and he smiled in return.

“Not just him, Thad, V and Lizzy… to an extent. Will all be there to help you.”

She made another noncommittal noise before putting her beanie on and looking back in the mirror, she… couldn't tell that anything was amiss even when she knew there was, so she sighed in relief.

“I don’t know how much help they're going to be.”

“Trust me?” He replied, standing beside her and cupping her cheek, near forcing her to look at him and away from the mirror. He kissed her visor lovingly, and while this wasn't a new action, a very common one in fact, she blushed and nodded.

When they came out of the bedroom Tera was waiting for them on the couch, chewing into the rubber of her teether while making her little stuffed bat fly around above her with her arm.

“You ready to go?” N hummed picking her up in a single scoop, she squealed and giggled, whole face breaking into a smile as soon as he lifted her up. He was glad that after everything she'd been through she still seemed as happy as ever.

…

At Khan’s house, he was putting the last finishing touches on the decorations and the food for Uzi's birthday party, his little girl was 19 today and boy had a lot happened this year, Uzi had snuck out… led a disassembly drone into the bunker. He'd made the greatest mistake of his life. Then his daughter found a partner with said disassembly drone. Adopted a baby, moved in together.

Crap, Uzi was growing up so fast, it felt like just yesterday he was teaching her the difference between a wrench and an auger, and tucking her in at night.

He shook those thoughts away, today was Uzi's day. Not his, and he wouldn't ruin it by thinking about all the ways he'd messed up.

The decorations were simple, a purple banner along the ceiling that said Happy Birthday, and little plastic bats and spiders were placed everywhere that made sense, and underneath the food on the countertop was a black tablecloth.

Thad was already here, he'd been instrumental in helping Khan set up from the very beginning, as soon as the word party left his lips it was like Thad was an activated sleeper agent, immediately offering to help and set up.

He'd invited both V and Lizzy, but he wasn't sure either of them were coming, he knew Lizzy had a rather strained relationship with his daughter, and that V was much the same, though was essentially all the family N had.

Still, somehow he figured the smaller crowd would be something Uzi preferred anyway instead of throwing something huge or flashy with a bunch of people she didn't know.

There was a knock on the door, and both he and Thad looked at each other before Thad threw himself over the couch to act natural and Khan went to open the door.

“Uzi! N! You're here! Come in, Come in!” Khan smiled brightly, moving out of the way do that the couple and their toddler could move past him. Thad grinned and waved at both of them, getting up off the couch to greet them.

Thad an N did a fist bump, both grinning wildly at the sight of thier buddy. And he gave a tiny wave to Tera, who was already vibrating in excitement at the sight of the green boy in the backwards hat.

When he got to Uzi, they were both surprised when Thad wrapped her in a tight hug, one that made it seem that he'd been worried about her. N was only half-surprised when he didn't feel possessive in response to it, instead he only smiled.

“I've been kinda worried about you, you looked in rough shape last time I saw you, and we've only talked through text.”

He pulled away, leaving Uzi to do the same before rubbing the back of her head and smiling warily. “Sorry, it took a little bit to recover. Then we got busy…”

“No worries! So long as you and N are okay I get it, being parents can't be easy I imagine.”

She smiled, nodding her head.

No, it hadn't been easy, Tera was a good kid, rarely cried or threw tantrums, but that didn't mean it still wasn't difficult. Sometimes she wouldn't be able to sleep and she'd wake them up every hour or two, upset and tired, keeping them up all night. Sometimes Uzi would overfeed her slightly and she'd get sick, or just have a tummyache and fuss and cry in response. Sometimes Tera would demand attention at an inconvenient hour, either when Uzi was working on something… or at 2am.

Even still, it was incredibly rewarding, especially when Tera seemed to be the most loving kid in the world. She wondered if watching her and N be all sappy around her influenced that at all.

“It's not but… I wouldn't change anything.”

“’ad! ‘ad!” Speaking of kids, there was Tera completely butchering Thad's name from N's arms, holding her hands put so that he would carry her around.

“Hey you little football! You want Uncle Thad to carry you?” Tera nodded rapidly, and Thad looked up at N for permission, which he granted immediately by opening his arms and letting Tera pounce into Thad's arms, which took him aback.

“Woah! Someones got springs in thier limbs!” He laughed, and Tera purred as she immediately tried climbing up him, unsuccessfully due to her remaining clumsiness, but she did make a good effort.

“Hey Dad.” She turned to Khan, who had been standing back and letting the two have their time with a friend before he butted in.

“Hey dronelette.” He wrapped her in a hug of which she returned. She was expecting all the physical contact would be grating, but both Thad and her Dad had felt warm and soothing. Not as much as N, but still welcome.

“How have things been? I heard about Doll, glad you're okay.” He pulled back, looking his daughter up and down as he smiled.

“Happy Birthday Uzi, I'm… so proud of you. Your mother would be too, if she were here.” He looked a little sad, but Uzi punched him lightly in the shoulder to snap him put of it.

“Hey this is a party, not a funeral. You should be enjoying yourself.” She commented dryly, a sarcastic lilt to her voice as Khan laughed, shaking the emotions off again.

“You're right. Sorry -uh?”

There was another knock on the door, and Khan excused himself to go answer it. There at the doorway, was V, hand on her hip while the other was a massive claw picking at her fangs, at her side was Lizzy, one hand placed on V's arm, who looked disinterested in everything… aside from V.

“Were here to crash this looser party.”

#murder drones #uzi doorman #serial designation n #biscuitbites #nuzi #oil is thicker then blood #tera doorman #murder drones thad #serial designation v #murder drones lizzy #khan doorman #oof fell asleep while writing again #but its here now #was in the mood for some fluff if you couldn't tell

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seireiteihellbutterfly · 3 months

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Snapped

A/N: Ok, so, villain! Nanami isn't my cup of tea. For me, he's my comfort character, the one I go to at the end of the day for hugs and forehead kisses. However, as one of my moots said, with all the bullshit happening in my life at the moment regarding my job, Nanami would be so pissed off for me. Is this fic indulgent? Yes. And I don't care. However, it is my first time writing villain! Nanami and I'm not sure how well it's been portrayed. Pairing: Villain! Salaryman! Nanami Kento x Fem!Reader Warnings: MDNI, violence, gore, mentions of murder, death, general corporate shittiness Summary: In the midst of a layoff, your boyfriend Nanami snaps at his own office, leaving a bloody trail in his wake. Word Count: 2.7k

Nanami masterlist | Taglist Form

Nanami’s jaw is tense, mouth set in a grim line as he exits his meeting. Another long day of listening to how the company’s profits didn’t meet the quarterly requirements, about how their stock value was plummeting, and how their finance experts must work harder at pushing their client portfolios into buying rather than selling.

He pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers, sighing, wondering how to combat this feeling churning in his stomach. The sense of repulsion, knowing what he did for a living, this constant hook behind his navel, yanking, pulling, warning him that all he was doing was making rich people richer, enabling a gluttonous corporate’s insatiable appetite for more money.

He checks his schedule, a slight crack of relief filling his being when he sees it’s lunchtime and he exits his office, slumping against the elevator wall, running his hands through his hair. The sun shines brightly outside, indifferent to the gathering gloom inside him as he walks to a restaurant nearby. He gives his order and walks back to work, sandwich in hand when his phone rings.

Your name flashes on the screen and he answers quickly, hoping a quick chat with you would pull him out of this foul mood…only to be hit with your weepy voice, making his eyes widen.

“Ken. I-I.” Your breath hitches and he quickly tries to calm you down.

“Take a breath darling. Are you ok?”

Your voice shudders as you continue. “I walked in today. Completely normal. Ready to take on the day. Except when I got to my office, our HR representative was waiting for me near the door. She led me into one of the huge conference rooms, the ones they save for guest visits and symposiums. There were like, at least 100 other people in there with me.” You pause to take a breath, tears leaking from your eyes, and continue.

“We were logged into a Zoom call and told by our CEO that the company’s profits were not high enough to keep up with their budgets. They went on and on about all these different numbers but in the end, none of it mattered. They told us they had no choice but to do a layoff.”

Nanami’s heart tightens in his chest. Trying not to let his feelings seep through, he asks, “And then what happened?”

You sniffle and carry on with your tale. “The HR representative told us to open our work laptops and that we would receive an email officially notifying us of the termination. It came not less than a minute after we all logged in. I have two weeks left. They’ll pay me out for that time whether I go in or not. And after that…” Your voice trails off, tears choking your throat.

Nanami listens patiently, but there’s a quiet, simmering rage underneath. “They let you go?”

“Yes. Me and my whole team.”

“Even though you guys delivered on a project that brought in almost 2.5 million dollars in profit?”

“That’s what I thought too. HR insists it was arbitrary and that they were only retaining teams that they thought would maximize their profits. I guess 2.5 million dollars isn’t considered a profit.” You laugh, the noise filled with bitter irony. “I thought I was more valuable than that. 4 years at this place, Kento, 4 years! I could understand if I wasn’t meeting deadlines or refusing to be a team player-”

“You went in on Sunday for the last 6 months and no one said a word of appreciation to you.” The blond salaryman can’t keep out the bite of irritation in his voice, aimed not at you, but your employer. “When was the last time you slept in on a Sunday? When we were able to get brunch, or simply lie in bed together? They didn’t even compensate you for it.”

You hear the harsh tone in his voice and sniffle. “I’m sorry Ken I-”

“No.” He cuts you off. “Don’t apologize. I’m not mad at you darling. Please understand that. I just hate that they used you and that didn’t matter to them when they chose to let you go.”

“I have some savings but... Kento, I don’t think I can afford my share of the expenses soon. Rent, utilities.” His heart almost breaks at your next words. “I understand if you don’t think we should continue living together under these circumstances.”

A lump forms in his throat, so painful, so intense, threatening to consume him like a tumor. You chose to follow him outside of the world of sorcery. You chose to study at the same college he did. You chose to get a corporate job despite the talent you had for jujutsu. You did it for him. He thinks back to the days of you sharing a college dorm, broke students picking up small jobs at cafes and delivering groceries. The ratty apartment you’d both found with your first paychecks, the celebration the both of you had in the cramped kitchen when both of you landed your first serious jobs. The move to the nicer neighborhood, with a coded entrance, toasting each other, thinking you’d made it.

Only to be worn down by corporate mundaneness. That chewing feeling of being a cog in a machine, a hamster on a wheel, ever-turning, never-ending, stuck until you die. Money. The big controller of the universe. The ultimate checkmate to everything. Money. Money. Money.

“No.” His voice is gentle. “Don’t even for a second think about moving out. I love you darling. You’ll find something else. I can tide us over till then. We’ll just cut back on some of our other expenses till then. Ok?” The thought of coming home to an empty apartment weighed down on him. Even back in the olden days, the dorm, the ratty studio that you’d both shared, you had always been there. The concept of living alone was long since driven out of him. The idea was unbearable, coming home and not seeing you there.

Your eyes fill with tears. “I love you too. Thank you.”

“No need.” Kento’s gruff voice calms you and you cling to it like a prayer.

“I have to go. I need to surrender my laptop and badge. I’ll see you at home, ok?”

“Yeah. Go ahead. I’ll be home in a few hours.”

The line disconnects, leaving him feeling strangely hollow. Companies really didn’t care. It was all bullshit propaganda, the act of ‘being a family’. You were just a collateral statistic. With a groan he forces himself back to his own office, his cubicle, the appeal of the sandwich lost to him now. He forced himself to eat, knowing there was another block of meetings coming up and there was no guarantee about when he could catch a break again. To his displeasure, he sees his manager walking hurriedly in his direction, and averts his gaze, hoping to finish his lunch, but to no avail.

“Nanami-San!” The man unctuously calls, putting both his hands on Nanami’s shoulders, setting his teeth on edge. A manila envelope is tucked in his armpit as his fingers dig into Nanami’s blazer. He had spent a grueling two hours with this person in an earlier meeting, where he had praised Nanami for being able to sell one of their poorer-performing stocks, raising its portfolio value. The celebratory way it had been said as if Nanami hadn’t conned their clients into buying mediocre stocks which wouldn’t fetch them any benefit in the long run, made the bile rise in his throat. The contempt he holds for this man is tangible, yet he swallows his feelings and pretends to look calm.

“Yes?” he asks politely, trying not to squirm away from his touch.

“Nanani-San, I have news! Very good news for you. Please come with me.” He pulls him away into a private meeting room, Nanami dubiously taking a seat and looking at the man wearily. His manager sits down opposite him with barely contained glee, setting down the manila envelope on the table.

“They want to promote you Nanami-San!” he bursts out, as though the energy of containing this information was eating at him from the inside. For a second, Nanami’s face goes blank. Then he realizes what he’s just been told.

“A promotion?” he asks again carefully.

“YES! You’ve been killing it with your clients, raising our stock portfolios, and our profit margin! Hard work deserves to be rewarded!”

Despite his distaste for the man, Nanami blinks and then feels his heart expand. It wouldn’t matter if you were laid off, with the promotion. He could take care of both of you, and you could be peacefully at home while you job-hunted. You wouldn’t need to be in a rush, could maybe take some time to yourself…make up for all those Sundays you went in. A weary smile touches Nanami’s lips as he imagines the life he could provide for you. Could it be, that there was a lining after all?

He glances back at his manager, who appears to have more to say. “Was that all…?”

His manager gives him a nauseatingly saccharine smile, and Nanami feels the temporary prick of joy vanish.

“Well, the position you’d be up for is more of a leadership position. The higher-ups want to make sure you’re a man capable of navigating difficult situations. Sometimes, things must be done, even when they’re unpleasant.” Nanami’s stomach is roiling, but he swallows and looks at his manager squarely in the face.

“What do you need me to do?” he manages to clip out.

His manager pushes the manila envelope towards him. Feeling like he’s been given a sentence, Nanami opens the envelope, and from it, removes three employee dossiers. He recognized the names as he looked through them, three young men who had started here around the same time he had.

“We’re going to need you to tell these three people that they’re fired.”

His manager’s words fall into Nanami’s ears deafeningly. Swallowing, he looks at the man with narrowed eyes. “I’m sorry but…why?”

“They’re underperforming.”

“Their numbers are consistent.”

“Consistent is not the same as moving up.”

“So you want to fire them because they’re not bringing in more money? Is that all?” Nanami drops the dossiers onto the table, an acrid taste building up in the back of his throat.

“Well, you would be firing them. Think of it as their three salaries combining to equal your promotion.”

A chill washes over Nanami’s body. “I refuse.”

“Don’t you want the promotion?” his manager cajoles him, like trying to mollify a child with a lollipop.

“How about I get the promotion first, then you ask this of me?”

“Ah…if only the world worked that way. But no. We need them removed first. And since you will be taking over the department they will be leaving…you have to do it.”

Nanami looks at his manager, at this greasy, servile man, who he has hated ever since he started working here. His smug face, as he waited to see what he would do. He thinks back to you, let go for no other reason than “it’s what’s best for the company”. A red haze fills his vision.

“You’re despicable.” Nanami says quietly, his hand curling into a fist, feeling a tremor of cursed energy flowing into his arm, something he hadn’t succumbed to since leaving Jujutsu High. A turquoise aura begins to envelop him. His manager appeared to have not noticed but continued to give him that leery grin.

“It’s your life versus theirs Nanami-San. I imagine a wise man would do what he’s being asked.”

Nanami stands, his impressive height and build towering over the man.

“Fuck you.”

The blond raises his hand, which is glowing with cursed energy now. His manager stares at it, taken aback. With a swift moment, Nanami’s ratio technique hits him, cleaving his body straight down the middle into two halves, grotesquely falling to the floor with a splat, blood spraying everywhere, covering the walls, windows, and the door of the meeting room.

A terrified scream is heard outside. In a daze, Nanami leaves the conference room, indifferent to his coworkers who are now gaping at him and scrambling to get out of his way, several of them shouting in panic at his state, his crisp suit spattered with fresh blood.

He walked into the conference room where he knew the higher-ups were sitting for their next meeting, locking the door as he did so. The men all move away in shock, a few even call his name, but he simply doesn’t care. The meeting room fills with the horrified sounds of men pleading and begging for their lives, and in a spray of red…silence.

Nanami unfeelingly walks to his car afterward and drives home. Later when you open the door, you gasp and cover your mouth.

“Kento! Are you ok? Did you get into a fight?”

When he simply sits down on your living room sofa, you try again. “Kento what-”

“Grab me the whiskey bottle, would you darling? Don’t bother with a glass.” Dumbstruck, you obey, and retrieve the bottle from your liquor cabinet and hand it to him. He takes a deep swig before setting the bottle down. His sharp eyes, the same color as the alcohol in the bottle, fixate on you.

“We need to leave. Now.”

“Wh-Why- Kento I need an explanation!” You take in his bloody appearance. “What happened?”

“I could get into details. But simply put, I killed my manager and all the higher-ups at my company.” He watches you intently, his sweet, innocent girlfriend, who deserved more than what life had handed you. Your eyes widen.

“Kento- you- you murdered those men in cold blood?” your voice is a hushed whisper, as you look at the man you had spent the last several years with. Not a capricious person at all, so there was nothing that could convince you that Kento snapping like this was a coincidence.

“Darling. There’s no point sugar-coating things. Yes, I killed them. Now the question is, are you coming with me, or staying here?” There’s no malice in his voice. It was a genuine choice he was offering to you. The murders were his cross to bear, and it wasn’t right to involve you if you didn’t want to be.

You cover your face, trying to organize your thoughts, trying to get your breath to even out. Kento reaches out and pulls you closer to him, leaving bloody fingerprints on your clothes. “We don’t have much time my love. If we want to disappear, then we have to do it now.”

You look at him, then, to his disbelief, you ask, “Where would we go?”

He takes a shuddering breath, relieved that you were in this together. “It’s not the police we need to worry about right now. It’s the sorcerers who will undoubtedly put two and two together and realize I’m the culprit. However, I’m hardly the first sorcerer to do a revenge killing against civilians.”

“You’re not?”

“There’s an underground network of sorcerers who went off the grid for similar reasons. It’s seedy, but darling…we’d be free. None of this corporate bullshit, or punching in and out on a clock. We’d take jobs only we wanted to take. Freelance assassins, essentially. We deserve this. Life is full of shit anyway. Might as well pick what we want to do right?”

His words hit you with clarity, and despite all the suddenness and ups and downs in the last ten minutes, your resolve steels. “How long do we have?”

“Not too long. Pack a bag, essentials only. I only have a vague idea of how to contact this network but I’ll figure something out. Now quickly.”

It takes less than 10 minutes for you to pack a suitcase. Your boyfriend slips out of his blood-stained garments and into fresh clothes, hurriedly packing another suitcase alongside you. You glance around the apartment one last time, a wistful look in your eyes as you remember how hard the both of you had worked to get here.

But Nanami was right. It was all bullshit. You hadn’t chosen to stay with him out of blind loyalty, but because deep down, you knew he always had the right reasons. The both of you look at each other, a deep connection of understanding passing between you both, and with a resolute goodbye to the past, walk out of your front door together, unsure of what lay ahead.

Divider and banner by @/ saradika-graphics

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#nanami kento #nanami kento x reader #nanami kento x you #nanami kento x y/n #nanami kento jjk #villain! nanami kento #villain! nanami #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk nanami #nanami x reader #salaryman nanami kento #nanami kento fluff #villain! nanami x reader #vee writes #queue

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thezombieprostitute · 14 days

Text

The Arrangement - Chapter 1

Summary: Jake's done a lot of things to keep his sister, and then his niece, safe from his parent's influence and manipulation. If he wants to keep them safe, he has to marry you.

Warnings: Bad parents, Discussion of murder and physical abuse. Let me know if I missed any!

Prologue -- Chapter 2

Series Masterlist

Jake made sure to put on a suit he knew was "nice enough" for the meeting. Clay would be going with him, helping him secure the deal he needed to keep Sarah and Jadah, his real family, safe, never to be messed with again. The rest of the Losers were keeping an eye on them to make sure his parents didn't try anything while negotiating. Aisha and Cougar were some of the best fighters he knew and Pooch could easily drive his family to a secure area.

"So why did you think you needed to get your sister out of the marriage," Clay asked. "I get your parents are pieces of shit, but wouldn't a marriage get her away from them?"

"Nope," Jake shook his head as he drove. "Not only would it further embed them into her life, the guy she was engaged to was a monster. I did a deep dive on him when the engagement was announced. He had a bunch of arrests for domestic disturbance, but his parents, his lawyers, got him out and always settled out of court. Apparently his parents figured marriage would help him calm down. I tried to call bullshit, got shut down, and took action."

Clay nodded, silently filing away the information, before continuing. "And you're now going to marry his sister?"

"Yup."

"What do you know about her?"

"Very little," Jake confesses. "Graduated with a Master's in Ecology with a focus on Conservation Studies. Doesn't seemed to have used it so either her family refuses to let her do anything or she just wanted to waste her parents' money, or something else."

"Going for a Master's doesn't indicate an interest in wasting money," Clay pointed out.

"Agreed, but I've got so little information on her I'm inclined to just go ahead and think the worst."

"Are you expecting to meet her when we get there?"

"Negotiations with the parents first," Jake tells him. "If that goes well, then...yeah, it'll probably be a family dinner or something."

"Alright, lets get to it, then."

"Jacob!" Cordelia, Jake's mother, was using her fake happy tone as she held out her arms for a hug. He purposefully avoids the hug and goes for a handshake instead.

"Don't be rude, son," William chides. Jake holds back from glaring at his father and focuses on maintaining his composure.

"Let's just get to business," Clay offers while taking a seat at William's desk.

"And who are you?" William raises an eyebrow at Clay.

"For all intents and purposes, I'm your son's advocate here to make sure he gets what he wants outta this deal. And that it gets put into writing and notarized."

"And what is it that you want, Jacob?" Cordelia's tone was now icy. "We're setting you up with a wife from a good, rich family. You should be grateful to us for that after nearly destroying our future."

"I want a written, notarized guarantee that, so long as I am married to this woman, Sarah and her family will be left alone. You will not look for them. You will not include them in your machinations. They will never have to worry about you or your people bothering them ever again."

"I'm sure we can work something out," William nods. "Good thing I've already got my lawyer here to go over the marriage documents."

The next several hours are spent with Clay and the family lawyer going back and forth over the wording of the official document. Jake is increasingly grateful that he brought in Clay for this part. He's a quick thinker but Clay is a tactician. He can see the loopholes, the workarounds that Jake can't. His parents attempt to engage him in conversation but Clay had advised Jake to keep quiet during the negotiations so he did. Occasionally texting the team with updates.

Finally, Clay and the lawyer shook hands. The deal is typed up and printed. Jake, his parents, Clay and the lawyer all sign. The notary had arrived an hour before, called by William. They looked everything over and added their stamp to the documents.

Jake took the contract, put it in an envelope and gave it to Clay before turning to his parents. "Okay, let's go meet my future wife."

Prologue -- Chapter 2

Series Masterlist

Tagging: @alicedopey; @ashdoctor; @delicatebarness;@ellethespaceunicorn; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @ronearoundblindly

#jake jensen #jake jensen x reader #jake jensen x female reader #arranged marriage au

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stillness-in-green · 4 months

Text

Chapter Thoughts — Chapter 423: One For All vs. All For One

At the request of a few asks, have some chapter thoughts. I will warn everyone in advance that some portions of this post are extremely bitter. This is less salty than it is bile-flavored. It's also not quite as thorough as other posts have been, as my disillusionment with the material limits my willingness to comb the chapter for details to muse about beyond the ones that jump out at me.

None of which is to say that this post is short.

CONTENT WARNING: Confrontational rhetoric about irl prisons and the hypothetical of committing suicide to avoid them. I have strong personal feelings about some of the language I've been seeing from defenders of this chapter and I'm in no mood to prevaricate around them.

o Danger Sense continues to be some real bullshit. My initial response to the leaks was that it was yet another dumb contrivance to make things arbitrarily harder for the villains than equivalent things would be for the Heroes, but reading the official release, I actually just think it's dumb that AFO thinks Danger Sense would have alerted him to his/Shigaraki's failing body at all. Why would it? Danger Sense nominally (nominally) activates based on hostility, and where's the hostility in super-regeneration failing? If it were the remnants of Shigaraki/OFA attacking him from within his own body, that'd be one thing, but that doesn't seem to be what the first few pages are getting at.

Rather, it's just that the power of OFA is being too much for his body, in the same way it was for Deku at the beginning. As if, you know, Shigaraki hasn't already been surgically modified to handle both AFO and, presumably, OFA the whole time. Ujiko only mentioned the former specifically, but given that the plan was always for AFO's new vessel to be able to steal OFA, why wouldn't that also be accounted for? The best I can think is that AFO and Ujiko didn't know that OFA would put such strain on the body, but it's not like AFO couldn't have observed that the quirk's been growing stronger over the generations. If he and Ujiko just failed to calibrate the body correctly, it's a failure of Ujiko's warped genius as a mad biologist and quirk scientist—which again takes us back to dumb contrivances that make things harder for the villains than they would be for the heroes.

o The Kurogiri scene would be very touching if it, you know, actually amounted to something. If it didn't apparently end with Bakugou coming in to murder him. Except we don't even quite get that level of commitment because Kurogiri was falling apart already, so you get the impression that he would have collapsed with or without Bakugou's intervention.

o This in turn makes Bakugou's intervention really silly and pointless. My god, I don't care. I do not care! I do not care about Bakugou pushing Deku two steps forward past a barrier that was already failing. I do not care about Bakugou getting one last stupid victory lap when he's already dramatically endured a severe beating and emotional assault, stood back up from the stupidest heart surgery in the history of fiction, and faced down everything AFO could unleash on him, far outstripping that same villain's climactic efforts fighting All Might in Kamino in what remains AFO's only semi-emotionally resonant battle in the whole manga. As it is, this is just one more ludicrous handwaved magical cross-country teleport like every other one the Heroes have been enjoying through this whole fight.

o Yoichi paying attention to AFO now? Man, imagine if we could have just skipped a bunch of bullshit and gotten this way back in Chapter 368, when Yoichi first told AFO that it was over. Imagine if Vestige Yoichi had something like this when his actual for-real flesh-and-blood brother died, rather than having zero reaction to it whatsoever, not even looking over Deku's psychic shoulder and making a sad face about it.

o It actually kind of offends me that Horikoshi thinks he can get away with taking a stab in the direction of making AFO "sympathetic" now. Now, after he's spent the entire endgame portraying AFO as a two-dimensional Demon Lord who was literally Evil In Utero. And, you know, I'd buy AFO as being Evil In Utero but also capable of loneliness, sure. And I'm even more than on board with interpreting AFO as a man who's spent the last century working 24:7 to convince himself that he's heartlessly evil to deal with the loss of the only family he ever had. But the fact that this statement has been put in the mouth of Deku, who has never indicated the faintest trace of sympathy or understanding, much less compassion for AFO? Fuck off.

o All that Yoichi hyping up Deku's incredible finesse in attacking Shigaraki with the stored-up OFA quirks makes me think is, "Welcome to My Hero Academia, where the stakes are made up and the past doesn't matter!" I am so abominably weary of the endgame's—and the series in general's—willing to just baldly lie to the audience's face about what is actually happening at any given point in the story.

That was the moment when we should have had a response from Yoichi, what with Shigaraki having apparently torn AFO's vestige limb from psychic limb and Bakugou overseeing as the real man rewound out of existence. That Yoichi didn't respond back then just made him seem like he'd written off his brother generations ago; it makes his sorrowful-yet-grateful act in this chapter incredibly unearned. Of course, the actual reason we didn't get a beat like this back then wasn't for any reason consistent with Yoichi's feelings about his brother, nor because Yoichi was too far away to know that the brother he has a psychic bond with was dying. No, it was because Horikoshi was already writing towards this beat instead, so he didn't need to bother. The last time Yoichi looks the real AFO’s way was the chapter-ending Bakugou blast of 409, when it takes the first eight pages of 410 for AFO’s Rewinding death to finalize itself. The Hawks vestige talked more to All For One in his last moments than AFO’s own brother did.

Internal monologue is placed where internal monologue cannot possibly exist. Characters' plans are backdated to points in the story which are completely irreconcilable with how those characters were behaving at the time. Surprise and dismay are pantomimed from characters who are revealed to have anticipated and planned for the very eventuality they're acting so shocked about.

The main character, a kid who was once characterized by his tendency to mutter his thoughts out loud, who had a running gag of tightly packed, densely worded speech/thought balloons, has been reduced to an empty marionette, devoid of internal monologue, scoured of thoughts more complex than the multiplication tables of his quirk combinations. The story can retroactively say that Deku did—intentionally and willfully!—anything it wants and not have to worry about belying its phony stakes and made-for-Twitter cliffhangers because it has deprived Deku of his own capacity to reflect. He can't spoil twist reveals of his own true intentions if the narrative completely locks us out of his head! Nevermind how much of his final battle has occurred inside a shared goddamn psychic space.

All of this has made it totally impossible for me to read the story as a story. Not only do I see the strings, the strings have become all I can see.

Of course the vestiges are back one last time for a dramatic punch, despite multiple chapters swearing up and down to us that we were seeing a big emotional sacrifice play. Last chapter we witnessed the word vomit that was Horikoshi trying to justify Star's pilots surviving their planes blowing up, because that's how determined Horikoshi is that no one on Team Hero actually die. Of course the vestiges came back.

Who cares? Truly, who the fuck cares? I don't care about them; I don't care about whether they'll be back again in the epilogue; I don't care about why Vestige Might and Shinomori are missing from the punch; I don't care about the story finally trying to pretend that anyone in its pages has ever given a single starving river rat's ass about All For One's humanity.

—NOW ENTERING FULL-FLEDGED RANT ZONE—

I care about the only characters who have ever been facing actual stakes in this war: Shigaraki and his followers.

o Even though I care, I don't have it in me to weigh in much about Shigaraki's seeming death here, and especially not his last words. I'm far too jaded about Horikoshi's cliffhangers to think that anything I say now about Shigaraki dying and what it means for both Hero Society and the people Shigaraki leaves behind can be assumed to still be accurate two weeks from now.

I hope it's a fakeout. I hope a chunk of Shigaraki's body fell through Kurogiri's last portal and the hyper-regen can kick back in once he's no longer being assaulted on all sides by the allies of the kid who was trying to “save” him. I hope Horikoshi has one last stupid asspull up his sleeve. I hope for a complete Karma Houdini ending for Shigaraki and the rest of the League.

If we don't get that, it's gonna suck, and it's gonna turn Deku into a fraud and a liar. I don't care if the story wants me to think Shigaraki was saved; I don't care if Deku is satisfied with having saved "that crying boy."

I have not forgotten that "that crying boy" gently refused to accept Deku's "save" when the bell rang to go home. He wanted to go back to his friends, instead; he reiterated his desire to be a Hero for the Villains. The crying child returned to the form of Shigaraki Tomura and then AFO devoured him. Deku didn't save the child then, and he hasn't saved him now.

Remember how Eri didn't count as truly saved from Overhaul until the first time she could smile fully and freely? Guess what stops you from doing that? Right—being fucking dead.

And those touching last words of Shigaraki's won't do Spinner much good on account of him still being brain-damaged from a bunch of extra quirks no one can remove, because the only people who could are, again, fucking dead.

Unless, of course, the theorists are right and Deku is going to be not only not quirkless in the epilogue (meaning all that drama and emotion about sacrificing OFA is going to be another fucking lie), he's going to have the "unified" OFA+AFO quirk via Shigaraki's fistbump. Meaning Deku can remove the extra quirks, presumably just before telling Spinner that Deku saved-via-killing the love of Spinner's life.

Solidarity among outcasts is false and toxic. Everyone should just rely on Heroes more, no matter how much Heroes have failed them in the past.

o One last thing I want to address, less about the canon and more about the reactions I've been seeing elsewhere to the prospect of Shigaraki (and any combination of Dabi, Toga and Spinner) being dead: the idea that being dead is the best possible outcome for them because if they don't die they'll only have to spend the rest of their lives "rotting in jail."

Great job, team; nice message to take home. Everyone pack it in.

Firstly, and to get this out of the way, that is a false binary that totally ignores the long history of Shounen Jump villains getting absurd Karma Houdini endings where they walk off into the sunset free as birds because they've changed their minds and resolved to be better, or at least have decided mass murder is no longer worth their time and effort. (Vegeta wasn't the first mass murderer a Shounen Jump story rewarded with freedom and friendship, nor was he the last.)

But more importantly, that false binary is one that could only be presented by someone who truly does see prison as a fate worse than death. No rehabilitation is possible. No supervised release or house arrests in the care of assigned guardians who want better for them. No lenience can be granted in recognition of the League's mental states; they can be admitted to no mental hospitals focused on therapy.

The "better death than prison" line is the product of a perspective that has never had to seriously consider the prospect of living behind bars. It's a childish imagination of prison as a nebulous Bad Place where Bad People go to be Punished For Being Bad, or a self-righteous fantasy of a cold hell where sinners are sentenced to suffering eternal.

People can tell that the League have suffered too much to sentence them to Forever Bad Times, so they comfort themselves with the idea that at least they died happy, instead of living forever in a pop-culture-informed crayon doodle of concrete and solitude.

I’m not here to tell these readers that there aren't people in the world who would rather die than live under watch for the rest of their lives. I won’t deny that Japanese prisons are bleak and there’s every chance that the prisons in Horikoshi’s fictionalized Japan are even worse. But I am asking people espousing the view that death would be better than incarceration to seriously consider all the angles on what that sentiment means.

If it were you facing the life sentence, are you so sure you would prefer to take your own life? If it were someone you loved who would rather die than face imprisonment, would you help them—hand your older brother the gun, or your younger sister the knife?

Or would you want to hope that they could get some help instead, have an opportunity to connect to something meaningful—find religion, take up reading classic literature, connect with someone inside or via letters? Would you want them to accept the lawful punishment for what they'd done rather than evade it by ending their lives? Would you want them to hold on in case their case could be reassessed someday, that they might eventually finish serving their sentence or be moved to someplace that would focus on helping them rather than punishing them?

Would you want a glorified cop in a cape making that decision for them—or you—based on that cop's ability to "forgive"?

If you think prison is a fate worse than death, why is it okay that people like Gentle Criminal or the Shie Hassaikai Trash Trio have to endure it, while mass murderers, serial killers and insurrectionists like the League get to escape through death? Think of every purse snatcher who gets paraded in front of cameras with their arms bound and their face muzzled; think of Twice at sixteen; think of Mr. Compress now. Do these people deserve to suffer in the kind of torment you're imagining prison must entail? Would it be better for them to die rather than endure it?

If prisons in BNHA's Japan are so terrible as all that, isn't that something the kids should try to fix? Shouldn't that be a part of the mass societal improvement project people are swearing up and down the kids will have nicely sewn up in the epilogue? If the kids aren't going to fix these prisons—these places that take suicide risks like Ending and spit them out worse than ever; these places like Tartarus where the wardens call the people in their charge monsters and animals—then why should I believe the kids are going to fix literally anything else?

Or is it simply the case that it's perfectly fine that prisons should be this way; shitty prison conditions are only bad when it's the villains whose sympathetic backstories we know who're facing them?

"It's a shame, but the League has to pay for their crimes." But why does that “have to be”? Isn’t it because no one involved—not the characters, not the author, not the people who accept this ending—can envision a world where the “has to be” could be otherwise?

That's the problem with, "Killing someone can be a way of saving them," and, "They would have just spent the rest of their lives in prison anyway." It's a stunted mentality that leaves no room for the radical reforms and systemic improvements that are necessary to stop this whole cycle from repeating. Worse, as I very much suspect we're going to see in the epilogue, it's a mentality that says the system is actually fine as it is—the only real problems were caused by a tiny handful of bad actors, and now that they've been removed, everything else will self-correct, and things will go back to normal.

That precious, perfect status quo that Deku swore to return: this is the way he brings it back, it and everything that comes with it.

o In summary: if this ending sticks, then what we have in My Hero Academia is thus:

A world that played at being grounded, but which turned out to run on arbitrary rules, magic thinking and Evil Babies.

Characters that were presented as radically kind, but whose endgame resolutions represented a cruel underlining of the status quo, in which only those who suffer in silence deserve not to have to.

A story that wanted to be staunchly idealistic but which ultimately entrenched to hollow, meaningless platitudes.

o P.S. So like, Nana’s vestige saved Shigaraki off-screen, right? So even after all her fear that Shigaraki would have to die, even after all the efforts she and Deku made to help Deku break him down, at the very last moment, she wanted to save him. And she did so in the only reason she could, as one psychic scrap to another: she held his soul together when he was shattering apart. But when Deku comes to the very last moment, when Shigaraki’s body is shattering apart, does he do anything to try to hold Shigaraki together? Try to tell Shigaraki how to use Black Whip to hold his body together, call for Sero and his tape, Aizawa’s Erasure, anything like that?

If it doesn't stick? That I'm less sure of. But I'm pretty sure Deku's fucked as the Symbol of Hope no matter what. There’s no way, at this point, to fix his portrayal as the kid who has a drive to save that eclipses all common understanding. Every part of the story, before and after that declaration of Yoichi’s in Chapter 287, has served to undermine that claim. This is just the last nail in the sky coffin.

Nah. Instead, he just administers one last punch to finish the job. The boy with the drive to save that eclipses all common understanding, everyone.

#bnha #chapter thoughts #stillness has salt #more tags later

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damianwaynerocks · 1 year

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back on my batfamily true crime bs

bruce and jason get into a huge argument. a massive one that ends in jason being barred from going on patrol with them. so what does he do? silly revenge.

jason todd starts an anonymous true crime podcast called that’s just called “todd tales.” it’s an investigative podcast about the death of jason todd.

since he’s legally dead & decides to be an anonymous podcaster, he goes full in. talks about his upbringing, saying things like “i spoke to one of jason’s old neighbor’s and this is what she has to say”

and the “neighbor” is stephanie who thinks it’s hilarious and goes along with it. “he and his mom’s boyfriends always got into fights,” she says with a british accent, “and one time i heard him & his dad yelling at each other, and then there was a loud crash. i walked out and his dad was at the bottom of the stairs.”

which leads jason to speculate that jason todd killed him, calling him “a badass motherfucker no wonder bruce wayne was in such awe of him”

and then as the episodes progress he talks about the theory that “jason todd secretly became robin but because he was so smart and cool bruce wayne had no idea that he was fighting with batman”

he has theories that he “investigates.” he goes over the official story- that jason was traveling with bruce, got kidnapped and held for ransom but something went wrong & he was accidentally killed - and then he says “but that’s fucking bullshit *laughs* as thought bruce wayne couldn’t pay a ransom”

his next theory is the truth, that he was robin & got murdered by a villain. he has two guests to prove it.

“im alvin draper, bruce’s former assistant,” tim (who is mad at bruce for making him go on a patrol on bernard’s birthday) says with a voice modular, “and i remember, after jason died, bruce ordered me to call the mortician who did the autopsy and tell him that bruce was offering him $1,000,000 to get out of gotham & sign a non-disclosure form to never speak about jason.”

jason then gets an “autopsy tech” who helped with the autopsy, the tech that bruce supposedly didn’t know was in the room because “bruce wayne is fucking stupid”.

“of course, the truth needs to be out there,” roy says dramatically. “no way he was accidentally shot like the official story says. he had several broken bones, obvious signs of blunt force trauma, and several burn scars, but absolutely no bullet holes.”

he gets hate comments about how he shouldn’t be talking about a dead teenager, but he doesn’t stop. (jason secretly loves it because it makes him feel like he hasn’t been forgotten) (but also he finds it hilarious bc they have no idea)

and bruce is furious. he knows it’s jason. he makes an official statement saying that the podcast is horrible and disrespectful. dick makes one too, saying that he can’t believe someone would do this about his little brother.

bruce, dick & damian hound jason to stop it. bruce yells at him, dick is trying to be nice because “i understand, but-“ and damian is like “i know i’ve given up murder but you’re considered dead anyways so therefore it does not count”

then alfred tells him, sternly, “master jason, please stop.” and jason feels so bad, so small because, like, it’s alfred, and deletes the podcast after the final episode.

but he’s still not allowed back on patrol.

#does this make sense #i just love revenge jason that doesn’t involve murder #damian wayne #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson #red robin #robin #red hood #nightwing #batfamily headcanons #incorrect batfamily quotes #batfamily #batman #bruce wayne

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iloveaustinelvisandmannymore · 10 months

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Lovers dispute

Pairing: Toji fushiguro x reader

Warnings: Hate sex, Blindfold, Gagging, Bondage, Fingering, Hair pulling, Betrayal, Murder, Fighting, Torture, Cum-shot, Augst, Hurt / Comfort, Tears, Ex-Cop reader, Yakuza Toji, a bit of Dubcon.

Summary: You thought your past was buried and gone. Oh how very wrong you were.

A/n: Fanart, not mine.

"Mornin' baby," Toji gently whispered into your hair as he kissed your head, "Mornin' to you too." you hummed as you opened your eyes and set your chin on his pec, glazing up into your husband's smaragdine eyes "Do you have to go?" you asked softly as you reached up, caressing his bruised cheek, a mark left by the courtesy your 'step-father' "he'll raise hell n' I don't feel like dealin' with that bullshit." Toji kissed your palm "Besides the meeting won't be long." he reassured you as he moved your hair out your face, his large hand resting on your cheek.

"Okay. fine. I love you." you sighed rolling your eyes, already feeling the rising hate for the man your husband calls father."Oh, I know you do." Toji replied with that devilish smirk and pulled you into a passionate kiss before leaving your comfortable bed to get dressed.

You frowned while you watched Toji look for a suit to wear, you hated that he couldn't just skip it, but being the head brunch's son he'd not only show great disrespect, he'd also dishonor the Zenin family. You scowled, that family didn't deserve honor or respect, especially his father from Toji of all people but your words would be nothing, you're a foreigner and not born of a highly known family.

No, to them you were more a pet that they let Toji have Instead of a wife.

When you came to Japan you didn't plan to fall in love and marry a member of the yakuza, after all, you disliked Toji at first, a woman or two always on his arm, gambling away money, and picking fights with unfortunate souls who either earned it or was there at the wrong time. Over time you learned there was more to him, he was broken and you couldn't stand by and not try to help, days you spent listening to him, comforting him, and simply having fun, you can't pinpoint when it happened but happened all the same and you wouldn't change that. But you didn't come for that.

You came to eliminate the yakuza.

You see in your country, you had a nickname from high Officials, you were called the 'Reaper of kingdoms' and known for stealthy worming your way into gangs, into crime empires, and destroying them from the inside out, very few have seen your face or had read your real files, and those who weren't so supposed to were killed. No, loose ends.

The prime minister of Japan had heard of your service from one of your co-workers visiting the country and seeing as the yakuza was getting more and more powerful, he hired you, that was the plan but life works differently and you don't regret it. "See ya later baby," Toji spoke as he bent down to kiss your cheek and left for the meeting.

As much as you'd like to lie down and wait for him, you too had to do errands, you huffed and left the warm abyss to bear the cold air for suitable clothes and you were on your way to the grocery store. Humming you picked items and items from the shelves of the lively supermarket, walking to the drinks sections you stopped as you grabbed and held up different types of milk when that old gut feeling crept up. You put one of the milk back in the freezer and the other in your shopping cart. You continued, subtly looking behind you, once you turned your head a dark figure slipped into an isle and disappeared. The Mysterious person shadowed you the entire time and only varnished when you finished paying yet you knew it wasn't over, it mostly never is it. Just as you were putting up your groceries in the back of your car suddenly did the sounds of running footsteps coming towards your direction

The gut feeling came again and your combat training kicked in as the attacker reached you, a knife in hand. they tried to slash you but failed as you nonchalantly weaved and kicked the knife out of their hand, they barely had time to get their weapon as you gripped their hoodie from the back with one hand and the other on the trunk door. You quickly shut the lid and slammed the person against hard metal, they groaned as they fell to the concrete "You bitc-" they managed to croak out before you placed your sneaker-covered foot to their throat "Who are you?" you questioned, your (e/c) was filtered with the ice cold of the antarctic. "You're gonna regret this-" "Wrong answer." you snarled digging your heel into their pinned throat, the sounds of their choking and gargling had attracted people's attention.

"Ma'am?!" a man shouted, distracting you enough for your attack to push your leg away and run off. You watched angrily as the person hurried off, they looked behind them, and the hoodie that hid their face flew off. Your eyes widen as you get a good look 'No.No!Not her!' a dreadful, fearful feeling consumed you. You were snapped out of that as a hand grabbed your shoulder and without thinking about it, you latched on the person's arm and flipped them over said shoulder. The fear on the man's face made you realize what you did, and whispers and pointing of the scene finally pushed you to enter your car.

Why was she here? You could think of one reason and you knew you needed to find her before she could do any damage.

You spent the rest of the time waiting for Toji and doing chores. Toji got home with gritted teeth and a spine-chilling glare, it was like he was looking past you and into a vision of his father, the day was a quiet one, tensions high of unspoken anger and worries, and unlike, even in the strong arms of your husband, the worry did not fade if not it had worsened but by some miracle, you fell asleep.

Weeks upon weeks you looked for Ava. The search looked more and more pointless as you couldn't find a would trail, and you felt hopeless. You knew she wanted vengeance for her gang, in all the time you were deemed the Reaper of kingdoms she was the one who had gotten away, and she followed you to Japan, you assumed she had been stalking you and was plotting something and for the first time you feared whatever her plan was. You sighed and rolled your shoulders as you walked into your house, pulling your keys onto the key hooks by the door, Toji said he had something to discuss with his parents and he wouldn't be home. So you headed to the living room when you faltered at the sight of your father-in-law merely siping away his tea with Toji by his right...Toji refused to glaze at you instead glaring at the table "Ahh, if it isn't Miss 'Reaper of kingdoms'." Toji's father; Kenji chuckled humorlessly as he sat down his teacup on a coaster, his cruel gray eyes bore into you. Your body froze, feeling the cold and heavy dose of dreadful realization of the situation "Kenji-" "DO NOT ADDRESS ME BY MY FIRST NAME!! DECEITFUL WRETCH!!" Every part of you worked to not flinch at his volume and the sound of his fist hitting the wooden surface of the table "You took advantage of my kindness and my son. And now you will learn I am not always ruled by my kindness." Kenji cleared his throat and fixed his black tie.

"Take her away," he ordered, and unexpectedly Multiple pairs of hands restrained you and dragged you away. They had thrown you into a torture room that must have been in the head house, the room was almost bare, sporting a chair with cuffs bolted into the wood, a flat futon, and tools. Sleep was unreachable as the look of indifference Toji had given you kept you awake. It was like you were a stranger again, a person he wanted nothing to do with. You loved him like you never loved before..what if he hated you? A single tear escaped as the thought graced your mind No..no he couldn't right? Soon tears ran down your cheeks as you sobbed, curling into yourself.

You cried until you couldn't. You couldn't tell how long you've been down here, you spent most of the time on the futon with your back to the door, they gave you little to eat and drink even then you didn't touch it. Thoughts of where you and Toji stand and the ache of the unknown devoured your being. Like clockwork, someone opened the door and walked down the wooden steps to your small room.

No words were spoken for a while "So you haven't been eating?" Toji said, "T-Toji?" you stuttered as you sat up on the little mattress, He looked as handsome as ever, he wore simple black jeans and a gray shirt, his hair in its usual state, and his jade eyes shined cold as he peered down at you. "I'm so sorry." you begin as he slowly lowers himself "Don't. Just...just don't." Toji cut you off before you could continue, he pinched the bridge of his nose "I can't even fuckin' look at ya for too long without-" Toji huffed "Eat okay? I'll come back another day." with that he left you in the dimly lit room, not once sparing you a glance.

The real torture started after you began to eat, you were stripped, whipped until you bled, beaten in all different shades, and tied up. Today they forced a blindfold on your wary eyes and a ball gag passed your clenched teeth and then left

an hour late, the door opened as someone walked in, and soon the sounds rustle of clothes being shed.

You tightened your fists.

Regardless of being bonded, however, this person is, you weren't going to let them take you without a damn fight.

"They sure did a number on ya." you sat up from your lying person and you unclenched your fists. You tried to speak your husband's name but failed, the gag in your mouth became covered in your saliva from your failed speech. You jumped as his hands pushed you to lay back down and his knees nudged your legs apart "It's been so long." he whispered into your ear, his warm breath smelled heavily of sake "I hate that I fuckin' miss you." he hissed, his fingers rubbed your lower lips and clits roughly, the coarse padding of his digits felt amazing against your sex-deprived heat. Your eyes rolled back behind the black silk of your blindfold as he sank a thick finger into your soaked cunt, he slowly, agonizingly slow, pulled it out and slammed not one but two back in, your surprised cry came out mulled. He held nothing back, each hard thrust and curl was accompanied by the wet palp of your leaking pussy, your slick no doubt covered his whole hand.

He grew bored soon and decided that he'd have the main course now. His fingers left you and he wiped your wetness onto your thigh and got into position "Ya used me." he spat before slamming into your messy cunt, driving his bulbous tip to hit your cervix and his heavy balls smacked the curve of your ass, leaving stinging sensation. "'n I think it's fair I use ya," Toji grunted, throwing your legs on his broad shoulders and griped your hips with his strong, painful hold, He thrusted forward. The first was harsh and was followed by an equally unforgiving second to a third to a fourth thrust that quickly bled into rapid, brutal pounding. You cried and shook your head as your body jerked up and down the thin futon, the pleasure was overbearing "Goddamn, such a tight cunt." Toji groaned and stood up, lifting you with him, leaving only your shoulders on the ground as he ruthlessly jackhammered your pussy from above you.

You could do nothing but take it and imagine what he looked like, how sweat-covered Toji's muscular build was, his broad, scarred chest and shoulders shining in the dim lighting, his thick biceps bulging from his hold on your hips, his black hair stuck to his forehead, as he pants and groans, his skilled hips jerking as he pounded and ruined your cunt for anybody else. You couldn't help but imagine the view of his thick, girthy nine inches cock drilling into you, your juices flying and coating the dark hair around his base and balls. You yelped as Toji bend down, his dick reaching deeper into you than before as he picked you up from the floor and wrapped his arms around your lower back, his brutish hammering directed upwards, slamming into that toe-curling spot.

You came when a hand took hold of your hair and pulled it down, your pulsing walls gushed out your release. Toji growled as his thrust sped up before he yanked himself out, for a moment all you could hear was his grunting, panting, and groans until a hot liquid graced your stomach and you were un-too gently sat down on the floor. He didn't speak to you the whole time he put on his clothes and left you there.

You numbly remember two members of the gang ungagging you and taking the tear-filled blindfold off. Of course, they left a wet rag to clean yourself up.

Toji hadn't visited you since. And you don't believe he would. The torture continued, but the pain was nothing compared to the pain of knowing that the person you loved the most hated you. You didn't know how long this would continue but you knew one thing, you didn't want to be stuck down here until Kenji determined whether to spare your life or not, you wouldn't allow him to decide your fate. You eat every meal and drink every drop of water, slowly but surely gearing your strength and waiting for the moment to review itself. You didn't have to wait long.

Two men came into the room, laughing and pushing each other, the men looked new to the gang and arrogant in the stupidest of ways. Just your luck. "Well, isn't the little traitor. How are you today?" one of the men, cooed mockingly, squatting down beside you. The man had terribly bleached hair, that looked like a five-year-old dyed his hair, and cut like a sad excuse of a mohawk, his teasing grin showed off his yellow teeth and he adored cheap shit and chins. His Partner didn't look any better. You didn't say anything "What? Ain't gonna talk?" the man behind him taunted, his own shit-eating grin on his face. "Hey Jiro hand me your knife will ya?" 'blondie' asked over his shoulder his eyes never straying from you "Sure man." 'Jiro' chuckles darkly, he receives his lame pocket knife from his pants and flips it open before handing it to 'Blondie'.

"Now why don't we have some fun?" his grin turned crooked as he inched the blade closer to you, just as the knife was close to your face, you griped his wrist tightly and kicked his stomach, the momentum knocking him on his ass and causing him to let go of the digger and right in your palm "You bitch!" 'Blondie' spat as you stood up. He scrambled to get up but fell back as your knee made contact with his face, easily breaking his nose. he groaned before going lay still and unmoving, blood steadily pouring out his crooked nose.

"And stay down." you spoke coldly then looked to your next victim "W-what the fuck!!" Jiro stared in terror as you calmingly stepped over his friend's body, blade in your hand. "Are you just gonna stand there?" you asked, which seemed to knock some sense into the man as he ran to you with his fist raised beside his head, you waited when he was about to swing to duck and slash his chest, while he was stunned you kicked his knee out from under him. An echo thud rolled around the almost empty room as he succumbs to unconsciousness.

Quickly you tore Jiro's suit off his body and put it on, it didn't exactly fit but it would do. Pocketing the digger and the key to the door, you locked them in and made your escape. You couldn't stay in Japan, it was time to go back to your country.

Toji had never felt the pain of betrayal when you expect the worst out of people it was hard to feel, disappointment and the treachery of someone you love. Toji wanted to hate you, he gave you a part of him that he showed no one, no woman had gotten anything but sex from him but with you it was different, you made him feel like everything was gonna be okay, you made the Toji Zenin fall in love. When he was told of who you were, he didn't want to believe it yet the evidence was the beacon of truth he couldn't ignore. His father didn't waste a moment to tell him how much he was a Disappointment, and a shame to the family, and if he wasn't his only son, he'd be in the ground, and for the first time since his young childhood it sting. All he could do was listen and bow to his father once he was dismissed. Toji didn't want to miss you, regardless every bone in his body cried to be with you and he thought maybe he only missed the feeling of your body against his.

He was wrong, it helped to feel you again though it didn't last long. His pride and mind battled, he wished to forget his love for you, he couldn't live without you and so he decided he was gonna free you and you'd run away together he didn't need his clan, he never did but he needed you. It was too late.

You had left. His love was gone and even beating the shit out of the newest recruits did nothing to please him like it normally did. He sighed as he walked away, leaving the recruits in a puddle of their blood. "WHAT?!!" The raging scream of his father made Toji's eyes roll "She escaped." Toji repeated lazily, a bored look on his face which only made his father furious "This is all your fault!" Kenji hissed through gritted teeth, stamping from behind his desk, and stopped in front of Tojj. "You married the witch and you bring shame to me! You were a mistake!" Kenji yelled and backhanded Toji "You never should have been born!" his father growled as he tried to punch him, he never connected as a hidden blade sliced open his throat and his body fell to the floor, gagging on his blood. "I think it's time ya retire old man," Toji spoke, watching as his dad slowly died with a grin.

He was now the head of the biggest gang in Japan and he knew what he wanted to do first.

It's been four weeks since you made it back to your hometown and you didn't know how much you missed it after living in Japan for a year. You just finished getting groceries and others as you walked into your rented apartment to put everything away, the strong, pungent scent of cigarettes whiffed into your nose. Dropping the shopping bags you reached behind your shirt and hastily pulled out your concealed gun "Jumpy aren't ya?" the baritone voice of your husband chuckled from the couch of the living room, his prasine eyes looking you up and down, a devilish smirk on his lips as he blows out a puff of smoke. "What are you doing here?" you stepped forward, gun pointing directly to his heart "'m here to take you home." he put out his cigarette on your side table and stood up, his biceps flexing as he pushed himself off the tiny couch, even as he did things so nonchalantly, he was still so bewitching, all he wore was a white undershirt, sleeves rolled up showing off his tattooed arms and a black suit vest over and simple black jeans, normal cloths that would make anyone looked good but him, he looked like a sinful god.

Your hands shook at every step he made toward you "I'm not going back to Kenji." you spoke sternly, stepping back "Kenji's dead. I killed him." you paused as you stared at him in shock "W-why? Why now?" you slowly lowered your gun "He made me doubt your love, that's fuckin' unforgivable." Toji gently took the weapon out of your hands and let it fall to the ground "You can't just expect that you'd just say that and I'll forgive you?" you glared at him, wanting so badly to be more mad at him for what he did "I know..let me make it up to ya." his glove covered hand cupped your cheek and he leaned close "I won't forgive you so damn easy." you whispered, "I know.." his scarred lips barely touching yours "I hate you.." Toji chuckled softly "No, you don't." with that his lips locked with yours into a passionate and loving filed kiss.

Taglist; @18lkpeters, @ablondehoe @sherlockzss, @gummi-1 @kyrie-kami, @m00dycr4nkybitc, @cvqidd, @darkstarlight82, @twistedw0nd3rland3acc, @a-big-multi-fandom-mess, @liluzisimp, @silbersee, @xxmaddhatter39xx.

#toji fushiguro #toji x you #toji fushiguro smut #toji fushiguro x reader #toji smut #toji x reader

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