#original fiction

[whereserpentswalk]

There are massive warships. Things that are the size of stations but that can move more swiftly through hyperspace and real space than any other object created by humans or gods. They're not like the warships you imagine, they're like entire divisions of the military, some of them have the populations of small planets, the largest of them have populations higher then earth had before industry came to it.

It only takes one of these ships to comquor a system. Though they often have smaller ships swarming them, like the microorganisms on your skin. And when they fight eachother, holes are torn in hyperspace, and heavily bodies become asteroid belts. Even the weapons that can destroy planets can't take ships like this down in one hit.

Inside the ships are entire societies, of humans, cyborgs, robots, and strange organisms generated by human science. Many of them soldiers who exist to serve as the ships troops, especially since a boarding action is the fastest way to take them down, but many are there for other reasons. You need an entire society to support a ship like that and all the troops it can carry, from workers who maintain the ship, to traders who bring new recourses on, to artists and teachers and lawyers and all the other things that end up as needed when there's that many people.

Some of these ships are so large and so deep that there are people on there who've never seen the world outside their machines of war. And some isolated parts of those ships, who've been within the depths of the endless machinery for so long, that they've lost contact with the more outwards facing parts of the ship society. Tribes and towns within the dark mechanical labyrinth who don't know they're on a warship, who don't even know planets exist.

And they say, that as the loyalty of a ship fades from the empire that built it, that the ship may come to be controlled by many nations, vying for control of the ship's flight. They say that within the depths of some war ships, wars are fought.

[mustangs-flames]

Hail, True Body (masterpost)

Artworks by @corvidaeconundrum

'Hail, True Body' is a religious horror series that focuses on what it means to be human in a world that God has abandoned. For Mark Owens, 1993 is shaping up to be the worst year of his young life - and that's saying a lot all things considered. When his best friend Cesar Hernández calls him one night in October, Mark ignores the broadcast warnings to help him out. But Cesar is acting... strange.

Though perhaps that's understandable. His mother did just die, after all.

-

Please be aware of each story's tags before you read. All Parts are in the order that you should read them.

-

Overview/Summary of the Series (a quick guide)

PART 1: Mimicry (complete, 6 chapters)

PART 2: Where Is Your God Now? (complete, oneshot)

PART 3: Old Rugged Cross (complete, 5 chapters)

PART 4: What's In A Name? (coming soon, oneshot)

PART 5: The Good Samaritan (upcoming, 0/13 chapters)

PART 6: An Eye For An Eye (TBA)

-

Character Designs (busts, fullbody art coming soon!):

Mark Owens & Cesar Hernández (1993)

Cian Daniels (1993)

My Boundaries

-

This masterpost will be updated as and when new Parts are posted, designs are released, etc. If you have any questions please ask!

[johannestevans]

child frequently dismissed as having an imaginary friend, a small beast of fire and smoke, until the forest fires hit in the high summer, and the child is lost in the smoke

parents horrified until she comes laughing from the smoke, smutty and messy with ash, but not even singed

laughing when they grab her, terrified, clutch at her hair, touch her cheeks, her clothes - seemingly incognizant of the fact that she's just run, giggling, out of the midst of an inferno, miles of woods behind her reduced to smoke and razed ground

"but we always play in the fire," she says, "he said this one would be bigger, and even more fun than before, and he was right!"

looking to the flames on the horizon up the hill, so hot they hurt to look at, and seeing a blurry figure amidst the flames

[fandom-space-princess]

Title: "Today my grandmother is 94 and does not love me."

[file under: pseudo-autobiographical short fiction. things that are neither essays nor poems.]

“Call your grandmother,” my father says. Over the phone his voice is a flat buzz. “It’s her birthday.”

———

The last time I spoke to my grandmother, she asked me if I know what will happen to me after I die. I admitted uncertainty. This was the wrong answer. My grandmother’s devotion is unassailable — her devotion to her God, that is, to her religion. Uncertainty is foremost among the many things devotion cannot abide.

She told me I did not love my family. I had no idea how to respond.

———

“She’d love it”

———

I do not call my grandmother. I am trying to write a piece of science fiction, by which I mean that I am daydreaming about Venus: imagining lofted cities adrift in the Venusian troposphere, skittering away between clouds like daughters cut free of their families.

Science (noun): knowledge, especially that gained through experience. Fiction (noun): something invented by the imagination or feigned.

Venus is always accepting prayers. You can petition her for adoration, validation, for partners of every kind to know you with wanting hands and willing minds.

When my grandmother looks at me she sees a ghost of the person she wishes I had become. Here I stand, miserable revenant thing, un-woman, in the place where she expected a granddaughter to stand. She does not know me. I think perhaps she never has.

———

“if you’d call.”

———

If I didn’t love my family, wouldn’t I know it?

(Science: a girl is born with all the eggs she’ll ever have. My grandmother’s body knew me while I was only potential within her not-yet-daughter.)

Evangelicals love eggs, because they love nothing so much in other people as the potential for them to become what the evangelical wants them to be.

Potential is what you call uncertainty when it wears its Sunday best. Genetic destiny is what you call the gifts you inherit from your grandmother: broad hips and the ability to carry a grudge, predisposition to diabetes and the inability to hold a single civil conversation with your distaff relatives.

I talk to my grandmother like I talk to god, which is to say: mostly in my head. Because I am trying to cultivate kindness of spirit, and given that an inclination to forgiveness was not among her heritable traits, I also pray that no one is listening. ———

My father tells me to call my mother’s mother. On this same subject, my own mother is silent.

———

(Fiction: one day, my family might know me for who I am, and find this person worthy.)

The heat, the pressure — to stand on the surface of Venus would destroy a person utterly. Science tells us that once, the goddess’ world may have had an atmosphere very like our own, before a runaway greenhouse effect rendered her planet uninhabitable to life in the forms we understand. My grandmother does not believe in climate change, but she does believe that the path I have taken through life has ruined me.

Someday soon I will ask a doctor to reach into my body and excise my own womb. I will complete the divorce from potential I began on the day I started to become my own person (on the day I was born). I am motherland to no one: I will bear no daughters.

———

My grandmother asks me if I love my family. I hand her a page torn from a Bible, on which every word is crossed out save “begot.”

[sister-lucifer]

Royal Courting: The King’s Summon: A Preview

[A brief peek at the first chapter of The King’s Summon, in which Lucian converses with a dear friend.]

[This is not beta read, please let me know if you see any typos.]

Lucian pauses as he takes a look around his bakery. He stops and leans against the counter, taking a moment to admire the scene. 

The morning sun comes in rays through the windows, sunning his plants and warming the wood floors. The spring breeze meanders through the open door and just barely rustles his hair about his round cheeks. The distant sound of horseshoes on the path and the other businesses opening their doors signals the awakening of a bustling town. The— 

“Mr. Hensley! Mr. Hensley!” 

Lucian turns quickly to the sound of clattering and a call of his name outside his bakery, followed shortly by a bleat of surprise. He has only a moment to process before his first arrival in standing in the doorway, his dark hair bouncing in sweet curls around his flushed face and little tail flicking quickly to and fro as he recovers from his crash, bike now laying against the side of the building. 

“Oh, Callum,” Lucian sighs, rushing to the boy to brush the dirt from his sleeves, “You have to be careful! Your mother spent a lot of money on this uniform, there’s no telling how much that school will make her pay for another…”

The young faun only blinks up at him with wide blue eyes. He shakes some leaves from his unkempt hair and the fur of his ears before holding out the hot mug he’s brought with him, wrapped in a cloth to keep it from burning his hands.

“Here, Mr. Hensley. Your coffee.” 

Lucian’s eyes soften as he takes the mug, removing the covering from the top and watching the steam rise. 

“Thank you, Callum.” 

The mug is set aside to cool for now, and Lucian quickly returns his attention to the faun boy who’s just collided with his bakery. 

“You’re not hurt, are you?” He asks, plucking a stubborn twig from Callum’s nest of hair and rubbing over a scratch on the fresh nubs of his horns. 

“No, I’m okay,” Callum replies quickly, brushing off his uniform jacket, “Just in a rush. I woke up late, that’s all. I grabbed my books and I was out the door, I didn’t even have to eat breakfast…” 

“…Is that why you’ve left home without shoes?” 

Callum pauses and looks down, groaning at the sight of his bare hooves on the wood floors.

“Aw, man! I’m gonna get an earful from the headmaster…” 

Lucian feels a bit bad for giggling at the boy’s plight, but he can’t help it. He misses when his problems were that simple. 

“You don’t have to bring me coffee every day, you know. I appreciate it, but I’ll survive without it,” Lucian assures him.

“Yeah, I know,” Callum replies with a shrug, absentmindedly toying with the leaves of one of Lucian’s plants, “But Ma says it’s a nice thing to do, especially since you don’t have magic.”

“Oh, well—“

“She says that making coffee ‘n’ stuff without magic takes a lot of time that you don’t have, since you have to work so hard and stuff. Is that true?”

“Er, y-yes, but—“ 

“She wonders how you do anything without magic, yanno. She says it’s really impressive that this place has stayed open so long when you—“ 

“Callum! I mean…I understand, Callum. Thank you. Here…”

Lucian takes a loaf of bread from his display, handing it to the boy with haste. 

“Can’t have you going on an empty stomach. Run along, and quickly, you’re already running late.” 

Callum takes the bread without hesitation, immediately digging in and thanking Lucian through a mouthful of it. In an instant he’s out the door and back on his bike, disappearing down the path. Lucian watches him go only until he’s sure he won’t crash once more. 

[This is a work of original fiction. You can find out more here. Feedback is always highly encouraged and appreciated.]

dividers by @cafekitsune

[maybeitsalivescribbles]

Oh oh!!!!! Can you do prompts about "Language"!!!

Been wanting to write a language related fic for months but can't think of any cool ideas :(

Best regards,

@heroes-villains-side-blog

Ah, apologies for the delay, I’m not always online.

Anyway, let’s see what I can do:

Language

There’s yet another prophecy about doomsday, but it’s encrypted/in an ancient language. Time for Hero to ask for Renowned Linguist’s help once again, aka Villain under their secret identity.

Superhero claims that Citizen’s body language shows that they were lying during their interrogation. They’re not. They just really, really don’t want to be here.

Hero and Villain are the only two who can speak a dying dialect. Reluctantly, this brings them together.

Same idea, but they’re absolute nerds and speak Vulcan or Elvish fluently.

Hero&Sidekick (or Villain&Henchman) share a second language the other team don’t speak. It’s great to yell messages at your ally that your foes can’t understand.

Hero and Villain don’t speak the same language. They need Henchman/Sidekick to be a translator to understand each other. The translation might or might not be accurate.

Villain has captured someone who knows things, but speaks in a language they can’t understand. They use an online translator. Confusion ensues.

Villain has captured someone who knows things, but speaks in a language they can’t understand. They kidnap Sidekick to force them to be a translator. Sidekick tries to communicate with Citizen and find an escape plan together without getting caught.

Villain’s Evil lair has a great gadget able to detect any kind of human voice to detect any intrusion. Shame that Hero speaks ASL, then.

Once captured, Villain has a lot of four-letter words to say about the way the heroes treat them. Hero whumps them into watching their language.

I hope these can be useful to you! (I'll keep your other ask for later.)

*

More prompts like this under this tag.

Back to Hero x Villain Masterlist

[crimeronan]

i've gained quite a few followers seemingly out of nowhere & there's a small handful of people climbing up the rb chain to directly reblog my addition to that post about magical exhaustion/illness from a few days ago, which is how i learned that that addition now has several thousand (??) rbs. VERY cool given that i desperately desperately Desperately want more stories about magic as chronic illness. also if you're here from that and are curious about my original work, i'm pleased to inform you i have a quartet of desperately ill OCs from a novel i have not managed to finish in five years, and i love talking about them as though i actually have written the novel. it's a really good book you'd all love it if you read it. definitely worth 5 stars on goodreads and a bunch of edgy web weaving poetry edits. ask me about the blorbos from my brain....

[ejunkiet]

I just finished an incredibly dark and smutty original fiction novel on ao3 and I am not the same.

it's gorgeous. I want it on my bookshelf. why can't i find this in published romance.

[writeblrfantasy]

i talk so much about the books i have coming out, i forget to promote the books i already have out! so, a quick reminder that i have two books out right now:

the red king's mystical suitors is about a king who whined so hard about being single his sister set him up with a bunch of suitors. a lighthearted fantasy novel featuring magic, undying devotion, and werewolf curses.

the lover with five names is about a soldier, a spy, and a gang leader who are all working to find a new emperor for their empire-except the old emperor's death is not what it seems, and old secrets have to come out in order for progress to be made. this huge political fantasy is queer as can be, baby!!

all of my books feature queer main characters and relationships which are normalized in a fantasy world!

if you'd like to support a queer indie author and get yourself some cool queer fantasy books, please check out mine!

[cyberth0t]

He's so fine / Wish he were mine That handsome boy over there / The one with the wavy hair

uncensored version ;)

➵ hey op who the fuck are these guys?!

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

A guy doing marine research into phytoplankton is far out to sea and waiting for the samples to be ready when he spots a fast-moving ripple in the water up ahead.

Fully aware that this spot is home to a migratory orca pod, he assumes he's stumbled across an orca hunting a seal and settles against the railing to watch, because it's not every day you get to see that.

The ripples get closer, the shadows in the water more defined, the water choppier, and suddenly the orca and its unfortunate prey are zooming directly towards the boat and he's waiting, breath held, for them to duck right underneath--

When the water breaks, the ocean sprays, and he's suddenly smacked fully in the face by a very wet, very confused, and very pretty merman, throwing them both down onto the deck while the boat rocks as a confused and now quite hungry orca dives beneath it.

The merman, it turns out, thought that the boat was an ice float and didn't realise his mistake until it was too late. But he's very thankful for the impromptu rescue, and wow don't you have nice arms, and holy shit you've got legs, can I touch them? Is that weird? Can I touch them anyway? And your hair--

So of course they get to talking because they're both utterly fascinated with the other, and soon the sun has set and the samples are long-since ready and the moonlight is making the ocean look black and they part with the knowledge that they'll never meet again, and a kiss, and a lingering look over the shoulder for all the things that can't be...

And the researcher gets back to land, moors his boat, readies his samples. He packs up his things, shoves them into his bags, and prepares to go home. He steps onto the jetty boards and thinks of the merman and the solid wood beneath his feet seems to sway for more than one reason.

There's a splash. He turns, pulled as if by the tide, and there's a ripple in the water. A face. A pair of eyes made black by the moonlight.

And this is how the researcher acquires a merman boyfriend who helps him find samples and the merman acquires a human boyfriend who rescues him from whales.

[mustangs-flames]

'Hail, True Body': A Series Summary

Here is an overview of my now original religious horror series, 'Hail, True Body'.

'Hail, True Body' is a religious horror series that focuses on what it means to be human in a world that God has abandoned. For Mark Owens, 1993 is shaping up to be the worst year of his young life - and that's saying a lot all things considered. When his best friend Cesar Hernández calls him one night in October, Mark ignores the broadcast warnings to help him out. But Cesar is acting... strange.

Though perhaps that's understandable. His mother did just die, after all.

Being human is a terrible weight, but sometimes you find others to share the burden with.

-

The Series:

All Parts of Hail, True Body are posted in the order they should be read in. Some Parts are multi-chapter stories, whereas others are just oneshots. Here are links to the Parts posted so far. A new Part begins only when the previous one comes to an end. Alongside the following links, I've included the length of the part and an overview without too many spoilers.

PART 1: Mimicry Length: 6/6 chapters (39,487 words) completed Overview: When an unfathomable being awakens from a void to complete its one and only task, it finds itself enamoured with the very thing it's supposed to destroy. (An eldritch beast tries a little too hard to be human. It goes about as well as you'd expect.)

PART 2: Where Is Your God Now? Length: Oneshot (2,272 words) completed Overview: Following the immediate aftermath of Part 1, Mark Owens spirals into a crisis of faith unlike any he's experienced so far. Cesar is dead, and in what kind of a world is that fair? Unsure of what to do or where to turn with the blood on his hands, he picks up the phone and asks for help from the one person who's been there since everything in his life started to go wrong.

PART 3: Old Rugged Cross Length: 5/5 chapters (22,580 words) complete Overview: Mark Owens has always been dogged by despair, ever since he was a child. October 1993 isn't the first time he's dealt with a monster. For him it begins in 1979. It begins with an imaginary friend.

PART 4: What's In A Name? (COMING SOON) Length: Oneshot (wordcount tbc) Overview: Sometime following the events of Part 1, a mimic formerly known as Cesar Hernández wakes up in the nothingness it originally came from. Confused and lost in a jumble of memories that are both its own and not at all, it clings to the one thing it can remember: a boy with sad brown eyes and a crucifix.

PART 5: The Good Samaritan (UPCOMING) Length: 0/13 chapters (wordcount tbc) Overview: Amidst the loss and confusion of recent events, Mark Owens falls into a crisis of faith like never before. It certainly doesn't help that God is silent despite his cries, pushing him ever further onto a path of revenge. Cian Daniels is trying his best to keep Patmos County as safe as he can whilst meeting Mark halfway, before that kid can get himself killed.

PART 6: An Eye For An Eye (TBA) Length: (tbc) Overview: (tbc)

Please be sure to read the content warnings in the author's notes!

If you have any questions about the series, please feel free to ask! Thanks <3

[biscuitsandspices]

Encouragment for writers that I know seems discouraging at first but I promise it’s motivational-

• Those emotional scenes you’ve planned will never be as good on page as they are in your head. To YOU. Your audience, however, is eating it up. Just because you can’t articulate the emotion of a scene to your satisfaction doesn’t mean it’s not impacting the reader. 

• Sometimes a sentence, a paragraph, or even a whole scene will not be salvagable. Either it wasn’t necessary to the story to begin with, or you can put it to the side and re-write it later, but for now it’s gotta go. It doesn’t make you a bad writer to have to trim, it makes you a good writer to know to trim.

• There are several stories just like yours. And that’s okay, there’s no story in existence of completely original concepts. What makes your story “original” is that it’s yours. No one else can write your story the way you can.

• You have writing weaknesses. Everyone does. But don’t accept your writing weaknesses as unchanging facts about yourself. Don’t be content with being crap at description, dialogue, world building, etc. Writers that are comfortable being crap at things won’t improve, and that’s not you. It’s going to burn, but work that muscle. I promise you’ll like the outcome.

[jonahmagnus]

In world where there are two types of tower-dwellers, a Princess is locked in a tower.

There are two types of tower-people: A Princess, put there to remain pure until marriage or until rescued, and a Wizard, put there by choice to study and learn in isolation. Princesses are defined by their beautiful long hair, and Wizards are defined by their beards and impressive 'stache.

There is a Princess, and she lives in a tower. She was put there recently by her mother and father, to keep her pure and untouched until they can secure the marriage to another kingdom and a prince shes doesn't love. She has long, almost brown sandy-blonde hair, pale green eyes and a slim, tender build. She is not the fairest in the land, but she is tall and pretty. If compared to a rose, she would be the humble yet graceful willow tree, slender and long. She has wanted to be a wizard since a young age, but there is no way for a princess to become a wizard. Princesses are delicate girls to be protected and sold off until their either dead or Queens or have found True Love, unsuited to the life of experimentation and study of a wizard. That is what her mother tells her, in a quiet scolding that is far more forceful and cruel then it has any right to be. And the princess, terrified, believes her.

She used to run the castle halls, stick in hand, robe fashioned out of a delicate silk bedsheet, shouting fake spells at birds while her servants chased her. But as she grew older, her restraints became tighter, and more and more often, she was confined in her room to embroider in solitude with barely the comfort of a window or a maid. The life she is forced into makes her hang her head low, makes her hands be paper-soft, and demands her hair be long and beautiful and perfect like all other princesses. The world she longed to be a part of was a world of study and experimentation, and as the kingdoms princess and tool, she could not even dare to hint at her desires into adulthood. She could become a witch, she knew, flee the castle barefoot and sink into the loving embrace of the swamp. But witches don’t live in towers, and they make potions instead of spells, and they don’t grow the flowing whimsical beards that wizards do.

But that does not mean she has to be bored in her tower. Fascinated by magic as she always has been, she arranges with a long string of bribes for books on spells and forbidden potions to be smuggled along with her meals. She studies them while the clock ticks down for either a prince to arrive or her marriage to be finalized. Either one will doom her, and she wants to enjoy herself as much as possible until her marriage. She pours over the books long into the night by candlelight, and all day, she rests her pale, tired eyes. She experiments, and she reads, and she studies non-stop, barely stopping for meals and littering her books with an assortment of food stains. She cuts off her hair to use in bubbling gold potions, her skin becomes scarred with a rainbow of the consequences of failed experiments, and her dresses turn into makeshift cheesecloths and fire-fuel. She washes late into the night after she is done with her work for the day in the darkness, not glancing into the mirror that has become cracked and dusty. When her eyesight starts to fail from strain and working in darkness, she fashions for herself bottle-round glasses, blown by herself in the depths of her tower. Engrossed as she is in her studies, she does not notice the tower warp, and the meals stop rotting, and how she started out in one circular room but now has a loft and a second floor and the fact that the tower seems much much taller then it was originally.

What she DOES notice though, is when brushing crumbs from her face she feels facial hair on her upper lip.

She rushes to the bathroom and thrusts a candle into the holder as she looks at herself. In the dusty mirror, she sees the beginnings of a bushy mustache sit on her upper lip, much further along in growth then be logically possible without her noticing. It’s a pale blonde, like her hair, and she notices faintly that there are streaks of grey in it, a very familiar shade of classic wizard grey. She brings a trembling hand to her upper lip.

Much, much later, a prince rides up to the tower. It is tall, and warped, and very clearly belonging to a wizard, despite the royal family claiming their daughter lives here.

He shouts up, a bit nervous because of the thorny vines wrapping the beautiful stonework.

“Hey! Does a Princess live here?”

A young man with large bottle glasses and a rather impressive mustache leans out of the tower, his short, sandy-blonde hair spilling lightly in the wind. He starts to say something, then glances back into his house. A smile breaks out on his face as he seems to realize something.

“No!” He shouts back, after a moments hesitation. “But a wizard does!”

[the-modern-typewriter]

I love love all your writing and jealous villains / possessive villains always make me kick my feet!! Can I request a hero that’s been under appreciated by the city and getting hurt / almost killed by civilians they were meant to protect? And the villain finds the aftermath? ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

"My god." The voice was strained. Familiar. Them.

It really wasn't the hero's day, was it? They released a slow, pained breath, pushing themselves gingerly off the grimy, rain-puddled street. "Enjoy the show?"

"What show? You could have taken them. You should have taken them."

The hero grunted. They straightened. They wobbled.

The villain appeared out of the shadows, at their side, in an instant. It took the hero a moment to realise that the villain had placed a steadying hand on their arm.

The villain's face was harsher in the streetlight; all firelit edges, beautifully demonic, orange pinpricks glinting almost red in their furious eyes. Rain spat down, soaking into the villain's hair and clothes. They didn't seem to care.

The hero did a double-take. The flippant comment they'd been about to make died in their mouth.

"How much did you see?" the hero asked.

The villain's jaw clenched. "I just got here."

It was an unexpected confession. On closer inspection, the rapid rise an fall of the villain's chest suggested they'd been running.

"Huh," the hero said.

The villain's gaze raked over them, taking in every bruise and scrape and bit of blood. "You didn't fight back. Why didn't you fight back? You could have pulverised them. Made them fear ever hurting someone again. That's what you do if I attacked you."

The hero shrugged, awkwardly. They eased their arm free of the villain's grip.

"That's not an answer," the villain snapped.

"I would have killed them. Normal people can't deal with my powers."

"So better to let them nearly kill you?"

The hero shrugged again. Everything ached; they weren't especially in the mood for hearing about how wrongly they'd handled getting the flying spit kicked out of them, they weren't in the mood to explain how the villain was different. Even at war, it was easier with them.

"You're in uniform," the villain said. "They knew who they attacked."

"Oh." The hero hadn't realised. The truth of it struck them like a low blow and their shoulders slumped, as if it wasn't already far too late to brace and curl into a foetal position to guard the heart of them. "Right. Yeah. Well, bold move on their part!"

They tried for chipper. They failed completely.

The whole time, they'd been so preoccupied, they'd thought the strangers had no idea. A wave of stupidity, prickling with humiliation, washed over them. Their eyes felt hot.

The hero swore under their threat.

"I'm going to kill them." Possessiveness threaded low and heated through the villain's voice.

"I don't need you to do that."

"I know. It will be my absolute pleasure." The villain grabbed the hero's arm again as the took a step and stumbled. "They shouldn't-"

The hero could feel themselves beginning to shake, a myriad emotions welling up inside them, threatening to explode, as they listened to the villain's insistence that really no one else should be allowed to touch what was theirs.

"I said, I don't fucking need you to do that."

The villain went quiet. Still.

The hero closed their eyes again, already regretting their sharpness. A treacherous tear rolled down their cheek. Christ. That was all they needed, wasn't it? Cherry, meet the top of the garbage pile. They swiped furiously at their face and didn't say sorry. They couldn't say sorry. They'd never stop, they were sure of it.

"What do you need?" the villain asked.

The hero glanced up at them, startled.

It wasn't that the possessiveness was gone from the villain's face, only that the burning of it had finally cleared enough for the hero to see what lay beneath it.

The care, the sincerity, in the villain's question felt like a knockout blow. They didn't know what to do with it. They had no armour for it, no shield.

"What do you need?" the villain asked again, softer, when the hero said nothing. Their other hand rose, cupping the hero's cheek. "You want me to get you home? Your leg's screwed. You can't walk."

"I can walk." The hero looked down at their leg. They could...well, it wouldn't be fun walking. They eyed the villain. "Seriously?"

"Well, I'd prefer to hunt the bastards down and kill them, but I also do an incredible taxi service, yeah."

"Thank you."

The villain looked almost as uncomfortable as the hero felt. They shrugged. Their jaw worked, eyes narrowing when they caught sight of the hero's injuries again. The hero could feel the villain's fingers flexing against their skin with barely leashed violence - and, yet. It was leashed.

The villain dropped their hand.

"My car is this way. Can you - can I - I can help you get there. If I'm allowed."

"You're asking permission to touch me?"

The villain glared at them.

Despite everything, the hero managed a weak smile back. "Yeah," they said. "You're allowed."

The villain nodded, wrapping an arm around the hero, before pulling them up into an unexpected bridal carry. They were strong. All lean muscle and warmth against the hero's frozen body.

"I'm going to get blood on you," the hero said.

"Because nobody has ever bled on me before ever."

The hero huffed.

They let the villain walk them out of the alleyway, brain still sluggishly working its way through all of the implications of the villain's sudden appearance.

They'd come running when - what? When they learned the hero was in trouble? When they learned that the hero wasn't fighting back to the full extent they were capable of?

Thoughts were hard and the villain's car was warm, the heating soon on full blast.

Thank you. It welled in their throat again. The hero choked on it.

They didn't think they'd ever been as well looked after as they were that week.

[cipheramnesia]

Sorry everyone I was thinking about the lonely werewolf tgirl and her friend the sentient intergalactic magic warship again. 🥺