#should i like cw something here hes like. bleeding

[tatonslice]

uhh sergey saturday sunday its uh. its basically midnight have some ego doodles

yeah the last 3 are just ruina ego sorry its because i have a hypothetical realization lineup for him. knight of despair isnt on it but i still think it fits him anyway. the full lineup is skin prophecy - notes from a crazed researcher - schadenfreude - nameless fetus - CENSORED (oh hey its the two with the roulette)

none of them actually are in ruina so i have to draw the ego myself. outfit design was never my strong suit :(

[swordsandholly]

Cherry Bomb - tattoo parlor anthology

MDNI | poly 141 x fem fat reader | masterlist

cw: menstruation (not graphic), afab anatomy

Part 4: “Girl Problems”

You shift in the office chair, stomach lurching uncomfortably. It’s been bothering you today - groaning and moaning nonstop. So far you blamed it on the suspicious chicken salad you got from the discount grocery store. You took every stomach soother you could, all the way down to chugging tea on the hottest day of spring so far.

With a rather pathetic groan you stand to meander your way to the bathroom. Surely sitting on the pot will help - at least as a placebo. Just as you do, though, a very distinct wet feeling makes itself known. You freeze, briefly, as if it will go away if you stand still enough.

“Ah, fuck!” You gasp, grabbing your purse and jogging down the hall to the single bath stall and popping the lock shut.

As soon as you sit, you let out a small sigh of relief. At least you caught it before you turned your underwear into a total crime scene. You’d rather not have to explain to John why you need to go home and change. You dig through your bag to your usual pocket of various supplies. From lotion to a sewing kit. It never hurts to be prepared.

Except, as you rifle around, you’re not finding your usual stash. There should be at least three in here… when did-?

The very loud, distinct memory of a girl at a bar stopping you while canvassing for some sanitary products hits you like a train.

“Whatever you’ve got I’ll take.” She practically begged. So, you handed them all over because got forbid someone get stranded during the most hellish week of the month. Like you are now.

You make a deep, frustrated noise in your throat and bury your face in your hands. You’ve been meaning to put a basket of backup wipes, pads, and tampons in the little bathroom cabinet - not just for you but for customers, too. It just kept getting pushed off when you got busy with other things.

Shit. What are you gonna do? If you put your pants back on you’ll just bleed through them in ten minutes. Cursed with a heavy flow (or blessed with a strong connection to the moon, as your former hippie roommate insisted.) Less time than that, probably, based on the vicious cramp that travels from your lower back to pelvis. You won’t be able to get to the corner store with out leaving a war crime in your path.

John’s the only person in the studio right now. He doesn’t have a client for another hour or so but you’d rather die than tell your hot boss you’re bleeding everywhere. For a few, quiet moments, you violently bounce your knee and go through every possibility. Maybe you’ll suddenly turn into the flash and you can get home before anyone even notices. You don’t really have much of a choice, do you?

With another groan you pull your phone from your pocket, thumb hovering over his contact for just a few beats too long while you work up the courage.

>> ok so this is terrible

>> im so sorry

>> but im having girl problems and am stuck in the bathroom

>> im so sorry this is so unprofessional

Girl problems? What are you? In fucking middle school? Before you can send yet another in a long string of planned apologies, John answers.

J >> How can I help?

>> i dont have any products on me

>> meant to stock the bathroom

>> sorry

J >> Stop apologizing

J >> What kind do you use? I’ll go to the corner store up the street

You breathe out a sigh of relief, still nervously gnawing at your lip as you send him what you need with an example picture (just in case) and profusely insist you’ll pay him back. John refuses. You’ll just have to sneak the cash in his tips or something.

It isn’t long before you hear the front doorbell ring, heavy footsteps, then a gentle tap on the bathroom door. “Y’alright, love?”

You perk up. “John, I’m so sorry-“

“Didn’t ask if you were sorry. Asked if you were alright.”

You snort. “Yeah…”

“I’m goin’ to unlock the door to slide these in. No lookin’ I swear.” John says. As if you were worried about that. You trust John. More than maybe any other man you’ve known (not that the bar is very high.) It’s nice of him to say, though. The door barely cracks open, just enough for him to toss the box to you across the floor and shut it immediately. You barely even see his arm. “That all you need?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” You murmur, bending awkwardly and snatching up the box. “I’m really sorry. I know it’s not really… appropriate.”

“Love, it’s normal. It happens. Just get y’self situated.” John taps the door once before you hear his footsteps drift down the hall toward the front.

You feel a bit skittish the rest of the day. You know it’s stupid. John’s a grown man and it’s a natural thing that happens and it’s fine. He said it’s fine. If it wasn’t fine you probably wouldn’t still look up to him the way that you do - the way that you have since you came here. The way everyone else seems to. Even so, you step around him a little wider than usual on your way out - keeping your head hung low and both hands tightly gripping your purse.

You chew your lip, shifting in place as he locks the front door. “Look, John, I-“

“If you apologize again I’m gonna fire you.” John mutters, pulling on the door to make sure it’s properly secured. There’s humor in it, though, the corners of his lips quirked up slightly.

You scoff, still not quite able to meet his eye.

“Sweetheart, look at me.” When you don’t move fast enough, apparently, he tilts your head up with a light touch. His eyes are so warm despite their icy blue shade. Sparkly in the setting sun. “Any man worth his breath wouldn’t give a shite. I’m sorry if that hasn’t been your experience, but really, it’s fine. I’ll help you out a thousand times over if y’need.”

“Okay…” You murmur, suddenly very distracted by the feeling of his fingers touching your chin, light as is it. You pull away and clear your throat, hoping he doesn’t notice the growing heat in your cheeks. “Well, uh, see you tomorrow, then.”

John nods, still smiling. “Sleep well, dove.”

When you come in the next day, you expect to get teased. A snide comment or a sideways look. You would have at any other job you’d worked - especially one with all men. All giggling and poking at you like a bear they know can’t bite back. No one says a thing outside of their usual greetings when you make your way to the front desk, though. Johnny pinches your hip like normal, Simon greets you with his new pun of the day, Kyle gives you a distracted wave over the hum of his practice gun. John doesn’t bat an eye when he says hello and checks in about the plan for the day.

You open the bottom drawer that you usually tuck your purse into, pausing before you set it inside. At the bottom, neatly tied together with a piece of twine, sits a king size chocolate bar and a pack of Midol.

If John notices the way you become extra smiley after that discovery, he doesn’t comment.

A/N: This was very self-indulgent but I’m having a bad time over here and need to be saved.

[l1tw1ck]

In Exchange

Sub!Bottom!FTM Sam Winchester x Dom!Top!Male Reader

☆ Word Count: 3,617 ☆

AFAB Language Used

blacked out every time i wrote this like jekyll and hyde 😭 /j

CW: Non-Con, Sexual Coercion, Drugging, Blowjob, Cum Swallowing, Creampie, Pregnancy Mention, Masturbation, Cunnilingus, Puppy Play (Collar, Puppy Sam), Nipple Sucking, Riding, Corruption

“Excuse me, are you [Name]?” Sam walks up to you as you're smoking outside a bar.

“What's it to you?”

“I’m Joseph Johnson. I'm a detective.” Sam shows you his badge just long enough for you to believe him. “I’d like to ask you some questions about the recent incident.”

“Then you’d better give up and ask someone else.”

Sam looks at you in dismay. “You're the only living witness, we won't be able to get anywhere without you!”

“I’m not sharing anything without something in return.”

He perks up. “I've got about 60 buc-”

“I'm not looking for money. I want you to get on your knees and give me a blowjob.”

He looks at you in shock. “Are you serious?”

“Completely. Make your choice, Sherlock.”

There is no choice. He needs this information in order to save the town. He has to do it. “Fine…Just don't make me swallow.”

You stub out your cigarette. “You're not in a position to make demands, sweetheart. You're gonna swallow it if you want me to talk.”

Chills run down his spine. You're so assertive, it's…..sexy. He almost slaps himself. He lets out a big sigh. “Okay.”

You smile. “Hold on.” You enter the bar and come out a few minutes later with a bottle of beer. It's already been opened. That makes Sam suspicious but in your defense, he doesn't have a bottle opener on him. Against his better judgment, he chugs the bottle.

He notices the chilling grin on your face but hopes it's not because you drugged him. You lead him to a secluded alleyway. “Kneel.” You unbuckle your belt.

“Here? Are you serious?”

“Didn't you hear me, pretty boy? Kneel.”

Sam frowns and gets down on his knees. He gulps upon seeing your hard cock. He’s never seen one in real life before, after all, he's never gone far enough for that.

“Open wide.” You tug on his hair. He looks at you with contempt but opens his mouth anyways. The feeling of your cock entering his mouth is completely foreign. It's way different than sucking on a popsicle or some other iced treat. It’s warm and pulsing. And it's thick, so thick his jaw hurts. “As I thought, you look much better with my cock stuffed in your mouth.”

Sam shivers. He can't believe that turned him on. His body suddenly begins to rise in temperature, as if he's come down with a fever. You don't seem to care about his reddening face as you slowly drag him back and forth on your cock. He stops worrying about it, even as he starts to feel more aroused than he should. He just closes his eyes and discreetly ruts against his hand as you do all the work for him. He feels so wet that his slick is probably bleeding through his underwear. He desperately needs to touch himself but he's sober enough to feel embarrassed about doing so. It's so hard for him to feel pleasure through his pants that he's started whimpering. You don't know why he's doing that but you're not complaining about the new sensation you're feeling.

“Shit- I’m already gonna come-” You moan. “Your mouth is amazing, sweetheart, you're better off selling it than being a detective.”

Sam moans as you come in his mouth. His mind is so hazy and high on whatever you drugged him with that he actually feels happy to swallow your seed. He’s completely out of his mind.

You pull him away from your cock and pry open his mouth with your thumb to make sure he's swallowed everything. “Good boy.”

He looks at you almost demurely.

“It’d be a shame to stop here, don't you think?” You run your fingers through his hair. The drug seems to have kicked in completely so you know he’ll agree.

“Mhm..”

“It’d be nice if I could fuck that sweet ass of yours...”

“Not there...” He shakes his head.

“Why not? I’d make you feel real good.”

“Isn't my pussy better?” Sam smiles, unbuckling his belt.

“It definitely is.” You smirk.

Sam shakily gets up on his feet and drops his pants and boxers to his ankles. He walks over to the wall and bends over, giving you a drunken smile. You look at his pussy and feel your cock immediately come back to life. He's so wet that his slick is on the inner corner of his thighs. You can't wait to dive into that.

You stick two of your fingers inside him, not caring for how that makes him feel, and explore his insides. He's soft, warm, and oh so fucking wet. Sam moans, too drugged to consider the fact that he's in public.

“Th- there!” His voice and legs are shaking. “Yes-yes-yes–”

“Already gonna come, darling?” You find his g-spot and immediately cause him to squirt. You watch in awe, painfully hard thanks to this mesmerizing display. You pull your fingers out and slowly inch your cock inside him. “Sorry, I just couldn't wait any longer. You don't mind, right, baby?”

Sam moans, eyes half lidded. “Mm- deeper~”

“The drug’s really changed you…or maybe it's just allowed your real personality to show?” You smirk, going deeper as he requested. “I might have to keep drugging you if it means I can fuck this sweet pussy of yours.”

He shivers, leaning further against the wall as you make him experience his pussy stretching to accommodate your girth for the first time. “Bi- big~” He bites his lip, absolutely blissed out.

“You like how big I am? Or how good your cunt feels stretching to fit me?”

“Ye- yes~ so good~” He answers both of your questions. “My pussy feels so good, [Name]~”

“Yeah? I’ll make it feel even better.” Once you bottom out you start fucking him at a rough pace. The warm and slippery feeling of his cunt is making you too aroused to control yourself. You cover Sam’s mouth with your hand, knowing he won't even try to keep quiet. Your hand quickly becomes drenched with his saliva, a constant vibration thanks to Sam moaning. You can still hear his moans, albeit muffled, but at a much better level that suits your location. “You're such a good boy, you know? Taking my cock so fucking well. If we were at my place, I’d be happy to hear you moan.”

Sam’s body reacts to being called a good boy, his cunt clenching around you once again.

“I wish I could have you, a cute puppy like you should have an owner. Although, I don't know if I have the strength to actually let you go.” You pull down the collar from the back of his shirt and bite him, making a mark that’s sure to last a while. You can tell just by hearing him and feeling the way his cunt reacts that he liked that. “How about you touch yourself for me, pup? I want you to feel extra good.”

Sam brings his hand down to his t-dick, gently stroking himself and accelerating the amount of time it’ll take him to have an orgasm.

“Look at you, following orders so well.”

He whimpers in response.

“You’d be better off belonging to me than some agency, don't you think?” You move your hand away from his mouth.

“Ye- yes- wanna be yours!” He moans, squirting again on your cock. In his current state of mind, he feels overjoyed at the idea of abandoning his dangerous “career” for a life full of pleasure and submission. He won't have to think or put his life on the line anymore. Right now, he doesn't have the ability to think rationally and being your dog is all he wants. “Tak- take me! I wanna be your puppy~!”

You bury your head in his shoulder, slowing down. “I’ll hold you to that. Gonna make sure you can't change your mind and leave me.” You come inside of him despite knowing he wouldn't want this if he was sober. At this point you don't care what he thinks, you just want him. Maybe the whiskey you had earlier is finally getting to you...

Sam wakes up on his motel bed, feeling something inside his underwear, a painful feeling in his neck, and a sharp headache. He closes his eyes and tries to recall what happened last night. He soon starts to remember everything, even after the drug kicked in. He should be angry but he isn't. He's horny. He sits up on the bed and looks around.

“Dean?” He calls out. No response. He leans back and brings his hand into his pants, sliding his index and middle finger down his slick cunt. He feels your cum and pushes it back inside him, fingering himself with your cum. He doesn't want to get pregnant but he can't help himself. Just doing this makes him so horny…He feels like a perv.

Sam leans back and moans, feeling extra sensitive. He remembers how you made him squirt for the first time and how it’d probably feel even more amazing if he could do it sober. He starts to think about all the compliments you gave him and how you wanted to make him yours. He knows he should be focusing on hunting, especially because of his powers, but he can't help but yearn for a safe life with you. He doesn't even really know you. He did a background check on you but he didn't look at anything that would’ve given him any information about your personality. He can't believe that a one night with you is making him feel like this. Making him want to relinquish his autonomy to a stranger.

He murmurs your name, absolutely enamored with you. Are you even human? You have to have some special power to make him so infatuated with you. Right?

Before he can reach his climax, the sound of the doorknob twisting stops him. Sam quickly takes out his hand and rubs it on his clothes. Dean opens up the door and immediately looks at Sam.

“Where the hell were you last night? And why are you in the same clothes?”

“I- I uh…got drunk.” He looks at him sheepishly.

“Why?!”

“[Name] didn't want to talk unless I won a drinking game…I won.”

Dean looks surprised. “That guy must be even more of a lightweight than you are.”

Sam laughs awkwardly.

“So what's the story?”

“I don't know–” Sam stops thanks to Dean’s expression. “Yet! I’ll call him today.”

“You got his number?”

Sam vaguely remembers you putting something in his pocket. He digs into his right pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. He opens it up. I’ll talk. I left you hangover medicine, the morning after pill, and a pregnancy test. Let me know the results when the time comes. [Your Number]. “Yeah. I got it.” He turns to the bedside table and sees a bag with the logo from the local pharmacy. His heart flutters from your consideration. Which is ironic, considering what you did to him.

“Good. Take a shower and eat something, then call him.” Dean grabs the remote, gets onto his bed, and turns on the tv.

At around 11, Sam called you and now you're sitting outside a café with “Joseph” and his partner, “Francis”.

“There's two of you.” You raise your eyebrow. “Looks like you're not Sherlock, but one of the hardy boys.” You chuckle.

Sam laughs awkwardly. “This is my partner–”

“Wait, let me guess, Frank?”

“Francis. My friends call me Frank.” He smiles, impressed that you got the reference.

“Joseph and Franics. Interesting coincidence.” You’re tempted to inquire further but you decide not to. You're not too excited to recount the story but you’d rather just get it over with.

“And that was it.” You lean back into the chair. You noticed Sam was staring at you the entire time but you ignored it, you don't want to bring anything up with Dean around.

“Thanks for telling us. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Dean stands up and shakes your hand. “Alright, let's go.” He turns to Sam.

“I- I actually have something to do, go without me.”

“What? What the hell could be so important?”

Sam looks away and doesn't answer.

Dean sighs heavily. “Fine. But don't let me find out you're trying to meet some girl or something.” He shakes his head and walks over to his car.

“So, what’s more important than your investigation?” You tilt your head in interest.

“I remember what happened last night.”

“I sure hope so, that's the whole reason I’m here.”

“No, I remember that you drugged me.”

You’re a little surprised, that wasn't supposed to happen. You know he won't turn you in though. You’re sure of it. “Are ya gonna turn me in, Mr. Hardy?” You smile teasingly.

“Not if you do something for me in return. It's only fair, right?”

You give him an amused look. “Of course, puppy, it's only fair.”

Sam blushes at the name.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Drive me to your place and you'll find out.”

“Alright, we'll have to make a quick stop though.” You grin and lead him to your car.

Sam enters your home, anxious for two reasons. One, because you went to a sex shop and told him what you bought is a secret. And two, because he's about to request something that nobody in their right mind would do after being taken advantage of in such a way.

He sits on your bed and watches you as you place the bag on your desk and reveal what you bought. A collar that closely resembles one for a dog, but clearly made to be worn by a human. Sam’s entire body heats up.

“Just a little something to remember me by.” You hand him the collar

He frowns slightly, he doesn't want to leave you. He doesn't know why he's so obsessed with you but he brushes away the thought and puts the collar on. He looks adorable. “Now you have to do my request.” He unbuckles his belt and unzips his pants. “I want you to eat me out.” He's been fantasizing about this in the shower. He can't leave this town without experiencing this at least once.

You lick your lips. “That's it? If that's what you want, I’ll be glad to do it.” You pull his pants and underwear off for him and kneel in between his legs. You slowly drag your tongue up his pussy, tasting him for the first time. You let out a soft noise of pleasure before wrapping your lips around his t-dick and slowly easing two your fingers into his cunt. Sam throws his head back and moans unabashedly as you suck him off, his body heating up. This is so much better than just fingering himself. Your mouth feels so good.

“Like that- yes~” Sam rolls his eyes back. It won't take long for him to come. “[Name]~!” He gasps when your fingers reach his g-spot. “Oh my God–” He falls back onto the bed, quickly climbing towards his orgasm. You add a third finger and continue to finger his wetness while sucking his cock more passionately. Sam can't even manage to get any words out, he feels too fucking good to even think about anything. He instinctively wraps his legs around your head and squirts, drenching you. He takes a few moments before letting go of you.

You pull away and lick your lips. “Now, how about a round two?”

Sam nods, removing his clothes. “I wanna ride you.”

“I’d love that.”

Sam hovers above your hard length, his left hand holding it in his place and his right on your shoulder. He lowers himself onto your cock, gasping when he feels you stretching him open. Despite his memory being mostly clear from that night, the pleasure he remembered wasn't enough to prepare him for this. “Fuck–!” He moans, continuing to lower himself down. Tears run down his cheeks thanks to the painful pleasure he's experiencing. “You're- so, so big-” He's breathless.

“You're adorable, puppy.” You hold his cheek in your hand. “I know you can handle it though, keep going.”

Sam moves further down until you're completely inside him. He looks at you, tears still streaming down.

“Good boy.” You kiss him. His eyes widen for a moment before closing his eyes and reciprocating the kiss. You briefly pull away to open your mouth and Sam is quick to catch on. You return to kissing him but now with your tongue. Sam considers himself a master at kissing, since it's the most he’s ever done. At least when it comes to receiving.

Sam finds himself grinding down on your cock, finding pleasure in the way you feel inside him.

You pull away from him and move down to his neck to bite and kiss it. You now move even further and wrap your lips around his nipple, happily sucking on it while your hand goes to massage his other breast. Sam whimpers and squeezes your cock happily. He could get used to this. Just being a dumb, slutty puppy for you to use sounds great to him. Sorry Dean and the greater good, Sam is giving up on being a hunter and choosing to become a simple toy.

You reluctantly leave his breasts and look at Sam with a smile. “Why don't you try riding me now?”

“Okay..” Sam places both his hands on your shoulders and slowly rises. He whimpers at the feeling. He never had the confidence to try using a dildo so he had no idea how intense this would feel. He quickly lowers himself, missing the feeling of your entire cock inside him. Even losing a few inches is upsetting for him.

“You don't want to do it anymore? Is it too hard for you, puppy?”

He looks away from you. “I want all of you inside me…”

“Aw, you can't even stand a few seconds? I promise you won't even feel it as long as you keep up a fast pace. It’ll feel much better than just having me inside you…although I do enjoy having you keep my cock warm.”

Sam tries riding you properly but he's still feeling weak and can't do it fast enough. He stops and looks at you.

“Let me help you.” You grab his waist and lift him up and down at a fast pace. Sam rolls his head back and moans in pleasure. “See? It feels good.”

“So- so good!” He cries. He feels so good that he barely even feels the painful slapping of his breasts against his chest. He can't even focus his sight, pain is nearly obsolete to him. He brings his hand down to his dick, stroking it as best he can. You can tell he's about to come.

“Come on, puppy, come for me.” You smirk. It doesn't take much longer after that for Sam to come. He squirts, making a mess on your body. “Good boy. Now it's my turn.”

Sam gasps as his body is suddenly pushed onto the bed, your hands squeezing his wrists tightly. “Just a little more, I know you can take it.” You roughly thrust into his cunt, indulging in the lovely wet warmth of his pussy. Sam doesn't mind, on the contrary, he’s happy to be used just to get you off. “You're so obedient, sweetheart, so perfect.” You start to act more like a dog than Sam, your horniness compelling you to rut into him like a wild beast. He can barely handle it thanks to the previous activities but he's fighting to stay awake. Seeing you in this state is much too arousing to miss.

“Tha- thank you~” He smiles stupidly.

Just hearing him say that with an expression like that makes you come. You briefly grip his wrists harder then loosen it as you come down from your high. “I don't want to let you go..”

“Me neither…I like being your puppy.” His eyelids start to feel heavy. “Wanna keep getting used…” He falls asleep. You kiss his forehead and pull out. You've never given an unconscious person a bath but it shouldn't be too hard.

Dean pounds angrily on your front door, a gun in his pocket ready to shoot you if necessary. Thanks to an eyewitness report from the café employee, he found out where Sam went. He doesn't know what's going on but he's furious. He hasn't answered his calls and he hasn't seen him since yesterday.

You open the door. “Ah! Francis. Here to pick up your partner?” You pause.

“What the fuck did you do to my brother?”

“Nothing he didn't like.” You reply plainly. “He's perfectly fine and drinking some tea. I’ll show you.”

Dean looks at Sam in shock. He's just wearing a big shirt and probably underwear. “Sam! What's going on?”

“I’m sorry, but I want to stay here. I love [Name] and I don't want to leave him.”

“WHAT?!” He's completely taken aback.

“You heard him. You’ll have to head back on your own. I’ll get his stuff for him.”

Dean doesn't trust you at all. He's going to be doing a lot of research on whatever monster you might be. He's convinced you're not human. “I’m staying longer. You probably did something to him…I don't trust you.”

“That's fine.” You smile. You have something else to worry about. “So…who's Sam?”

Sam and Dean both look at each other. Looks like they're going to have to reveal the truth, at least partially...

[clockwayswrites]

Orange, City Pigeon, Danny & Batfam @roanawayspoons WC: 864 CW: Blood, injury

“I’m just saying, you shouldn’t get to be Red by default.”

“Well I can’t be Robin and Hood is a unique identifier.”

“No, nope, just because you weren’t creative enough to come up with something other than Red Robin you shouldn’t get to just claim Red.”

“Creative enough? Oh that’s rich from the man who ripped off the Joker.”

“It was poetic!”

“It was lazy.”

“Look here, bird bones—” …and Tim was gone, Jason thought with a sigh. He turned back to see Tim still before the last jump, staring down into the alleyway with a tilted head. Jason’s hand went to one of his guns. “Red?”

“Blood.”

“And? It’s Gotham. I think the city is held together by blood at this point.”

“Green blood, Hood.”

“How do you know it’s blood then?” Jason asked, but stalked forward to look. Alright, maybe the splatter was pretty distinctive.

That particular shade of green was also concernedly distinctive.

“Well, fuck.”

“Yep.”

“Who bleeds Lazarus water?”

“No clue,” Tim said unhelpfully. “Guess we better find out.”

They dropped silently down into the alley, one after another, and followed the trail of toxic green blood. The trail went cold a few times, whoever was bleeding was clearly trying to hide, but they were inexperienced at it and the Bats had spent enough time stalking through the streets of this city that the cement and stone basically spoke to them. The trail couldn’t hide from them.

Without warning, Jason shot his arm out to stop Tim. He tapped the side of his helmet silently; he heard something. Tim nodded and they fanned out to search. A door in this latest alley they were in was cracked open, like someone had tried to close it and it had bounced back off the latch.

A green hand print was smeared down it.

Jason pulled a gun from his holster, but let Tim go through first. While Jason was far lighter on his feet than someone his size should be, there was no denying that Tim was stealthier. Jason would be just a few steps behind ready to provide the muscles and firepower.

It was odd, then, when Tim purposefully let his foot scrape against the ground as he rounded the corner. Jason just cursed silently as the idiot continued forward, cutting himself off from Jason’s line of sight. “Hey, looks like you could use some help with that wound before you bleed out.”

Jason couldn’t hear what was said back; he edged closer.

“You must not be from Gotham. I’m Red Robin, one of the heroes here.”

The person snorted. “Just… over… then?”

Tim laughed. It was one of his many fake laughs, but the one meant to soothe people in trouble. “Why would I do that? I’m a vigilante. Do you know how illegal what I do is? I just don’t want to see you bleed out. Maybe I can even take you to a safe house where you can rest.

“So… interrogate me?”

“I mean, I’d like to know who tried to kill a kid, but that’s to make them pay, not you.”

Jason’s hand gripped his gun so tightly it hurt.

The person… the kid laughed. It was a broken sound that no kid should have to make.

Jason had heard it a lot on the streets.

“Maybe I deserve it.” Their voice was raspy, like every word caught in their throat.

Jason came around the corner. The kid went rigid, which was the last thing they needed with how blood seeped from their fingers where their pale hand was clutched against a too big hoodie.

Tim leaned casually into Jason's space in a way he wouldn’t normally, putting on a show for the kid that Red Hood was safe. It was at least true for the kid. Jason leaned back, mostly for the comfort of having his brother close in the face of the sight. Seeing bloody kids never got easier.

“You’re what, sixteen?” Jason asked.

“…fifteen?”

“Yeah, no fifteen year old deserves to bleed out. You know who I am?”

They shook their head. It dislodged the hood a little. The tangled, chin length hair was startling white and splattered with dried green blood. Jason forced himself to take a breath.

“I’m Red Hood. I protect part of this city called Crime Alley. I’m not afraid to kill a shithead, especially ones that hurt kids, but I never harm a kid. I’ve got places to put you if you need somewhere safe; places not in the system. Or get you somewhere. Do you have a place to go to?”

The kid laughed again. Somehow it sounded worse this time. “That’s the thing. I do. I might, I guess. Just no one is going to believe me.”

“Why won’t they believe you? Where do you need to get?” Tim asked.

The kid looked up. Jason felt Tim tense against him. Hell, Jason tensed. They were the wrong color, but Jason knew those eyes, those brows, that slope of the nose. Everything was just a little sideways, but Jason knew that face. He knew what the kid was going to say.

“I need to get to Bruce Wayne.”

--- AN: Happy Trauma Tuesday~

Feel free to continue this, use it as a prompt if you'd like!

[gutterfuuck]

Can I request a mark drabble w/ breeding kink 👉👈 I'd love either bff mark or sinister mark but if you go the sinister route can I be a bit of a coward and ask that he be a little. Softer. Maybe specifically for the reader bc I am a little pansy and I get unrealistically offended when I'm condescended or treated like property, and while it would be hot if this man talked down to me I would also be inclined to punch him in the baby maker and then we'd all suffer bc no smut would ensue 😭

Sorry, I just dumped a bit of unwarranted baggage on u there but you come off as really sweet in all your posts so I hope it didn't bother you too much! Thank you for all of your posts btw your writing is delicious! Also your English is very good, you have a great grasp of the language and I respect and appreciate all the effort you must put into making all of your writing so articulate. English especially is said to be very hard to learn so I immensely respect the effort that goes into it, regardless of any/how much help you require/accept to do so. Manifesting a mild inconvenience to that anon a while back who accused you of faking for some reason I hope they step on a wet kitchen tile while wearing socks or something and rethink how they choose to speak to people online. 😊♡

hello anon!! thank you so much for your considerations, maybe it is because i am emotional since i get very choked up when it is birthday season but this had made me cry happy tears 😭😭 also, i agree!! if anyone was to talk to me like i am disposable in real life, i think that i would break down and disintegrate haha!! it is not cowardly to ask for things, do not be swayed!! baggage is never unwanted here, i am the baggage 😂!! i will do the upmost of my best ability, as i have been waiting to write for s!mark again 🤭🤭 also, i do agree people should be more mindful about what they say to others! you never know what anyone is going through, just because you can hide behind a screen mask doesn’t mean you should or can be mean to people!! i do not judge those who do though, they will learn as months and years pass, people do learn and change!!

cw: mdni, smut, breeding kink, just a little drable to warm up my fingers hehe!! minor injury, reader patches him up

you could hear your husband come crashing through the juliet balcony of your bedroom, bumping into the bed and waking you up fully. you bolted up, scanning the darkness of the room and staring at the silhouette of your lover, crouched over in the shadows. “mark?” you peep, eyes still adjusting as you clicked on the bedside lamp, your eyes instantly closing when the brightness took you by surprise.

he looks back at you, pulling his mask with its flimsy broken black goggles off of his face and discarding it to the floor with a heavy sigh. mark always found it so cute how you’d gasp with your hands flying to cover your mouth when he returned with an injury, your worried eyes looking him over as you jump out from under the covers, hands flying up to cover his cheeks and observe his cut nose bridge, one of his eyes squinted due to the budding bruise on his upper cheekbone, “gonna nurse me back to health, baby?” he asks, smiling down at you and placing a kiss to your forehead. he listens to you lecture him about being careful when visiting other planets, rolling his eyes like he’d really just die like that. you knew he was tough, but it didn’t hurt to be concerned.

he sits on the side of the bathtub in the bathroom, tilting his face to the side so you could rub his injuries down with antiseptic solution, mumbling something about how he was still half human so he still had to be a little careful. he didn’t know how many times he’d had to tell you that even though he was still half human everything else was 100% brutal alien. each time he told you, you ignored it. maybe you liked patching him up, placing cute bandages on his face to stop his bleeding. he was hardly injured but he’d be damned if he didn’t let his cute little wife dote on him like this, the sleeves of your fluffy gown he’d bought home for you rolled up your arms as you fiddle with the first aid kit.

“y’know what’d me me feel better?” mark says, taking your hands into his. god, he could just crush you right now, you were so adorable. you hum in response, intertwining your fingers with his as he brings them to his lips, trailing kisses up your arm and pulling you closer, inching towards you slowly. your mouth hangs open with a breathless silent mewl as his lips stop just by your jawline, finding it hard to hold himself back from nipping your skin and marking you up. you nod at his earlier question which draws a chuckle from him, hands moving down to grip your hips and pull you onto his lap, “let’s go to bed, then.”

you’ve got your face in the crook of his neck, holding onto his back as he pistoned his hips in and out of your tight heat, never being shameful of your moans. music to his ears, he thought, letting you cry out so desperately into the night. if you had neighbours you’re sure they’d complain. he groaned when he felt you clench around him, muscled thighs stuttering for a moment as you suffocated his cock within your walls. “oh, babygirl-“ he tilts his head back, holding you firmly as your legs wrap around his waist, practically bouncing you up and down on his dick himself, “m-mark..-!” you squeal, voice raspy and throat dry when you feel him buck up into your g-spot, weeping head poking at it repeatedly, trying to pull your orgasm out of you. you whine loudly, holding onto him like you’d fall apart if you let go.

“shhh, s’okay, hold onto me like that, there we go.” mark comforts you, such a strange comparison from when he’s out causing mayhem to now. if those who opposed him were to see him right now, they’d think he’d be a different person. he was so soft with you, treated you like you were made of porcelain and you loved it. you were glad that you’d somehow tamed him in a way, molded him into your perfect husband as he made you into his perfect wife. domestic bliss.

you stifle your noises with his shoulder, softly biting on it as he snapped his hips up into yours vigorously, his own orgasm approaching hard and fast. you could feel the way his cock throbbed inside of you, the way he slowed his hips a little before trying to keep up his pace. “so tight, always so perfect n’ tight f’me, aren’t you?” you nod brainlessly into his shoulder and he coos at you, eyebrows furrowed together as he gasps lightly.

“i’m gonna cum, princess.” he says breathlessly, humping against you for his own orgasm, “inside…” you whisper to him and he almost loses it right there, almost falls over when he thinks about the implications it might have. “inside? yeah-fuck, gonna let me cum inside, just for me?” mark pants, pussydrunk figure caging you in under him as he chases his orgasm, “gimme a kid… f-fuck, gimme a baby, wanna make you a mama… g’na look so perfect— fuh-uck..!” he babbles, vision blanking as he cums inside of you, wave after wave of his warm seed spilling into your cunt, seeping into your womb. he canted his hips a few more times, almost fucking himself into overstimulation as he continued talking, “..gonna give me a mini me, huh? complete our little family?” he asks as you nod in agreement, too fucked out to even process what he’d said to you just now.

[biting-miguel-ohara]

Solnyshko - Natasha Romanoff x gn!Reader

A/N: I really really wanted to write a small thing for Natasha, so here we are. I set this in a 2012ish era, which is why the Avengers live at the Tower and such. I might do something more with this Reader and their powers in a future story as well.

Also, solnyshko means little sun in Russian. It’s the only potentially gendered language in the fic

Dividers by @/whimsicalrogers

CW: fluff, language, soft Natasha, Natasha speaks Russian, Reader is a former SHIELD agent, Reader has powers, failed missions, mentions of blood and injury, very very light angst, a forehead kiss, soft ending, probably ooc Natasha

640 words

“Hey, Nat,” you greet the red-haired Avenger with a sleepy smile. “Early morning, huh?”

“Good morning, solnyshko.” Natasha smiles back at you, handing you a cup of tea. “I should be saying that to you. You look like you’re still half-asleep.”

You laugh and rub the back of your neck, taking a sip of your drink. “I feel like it. I dunno how you can do early morning missions. I feel like shit.”

Natasha just smiles and pulls out a seat for you at the table.

You’re a former SHIELD agent. One of Barton’s old teammates. You’ve known Natasha since the day she joined.

Now you’re an unofficial member of the new team. The big team. You deal with the remnants of SHIELD for them and they help you train your powers.

You don’t have anything really special. No magic or anything. But your light powers come in handy for making illusions and you’ve been called in several times to help out with Loki when he comes to Earth. So all in all, you’re not complaining.

You take a seat at the table and enjoy the bits of morning you have. You’re leaving in an hour and you want to savor your last moments with the team.

Well, the members of the team who are up. Cap comes in before his morning run, but doesn’t stick around for long. Tony passes through briefly to grab a cup of coffee. The others, you know they won’t be up for another couple of hours at least.

So you enjoy your morning with Natasha. It’s been a while since you and her chatted, and you enjoy the conversation.

Eventually your time is up.

“Wish me luck,” you tell her with a wry smile.

She laughs and gives you a fond look. “You’ll do great. You’re our best, after all.”

You laugh at that and head on out.

Your return isn’t nearly as happy or cheerful.

The mission was a failure. Despite your best efforts, your target got the jump on you and shot you four times. You’d barely made the journey back, your wounds bleeding profusely.

By the time you’re sent to the medbay, you’re woozy with loss of blood. Your steps are sluggish and you lean against the wall for support.

There’s a voice calling your name. Then arms sliding under you, scooping you up.

There’s hair as red as blood brushing against your face. And then your eyes shut.

When you open them again, you’re in your room at the Tower. Your body aches like hell, but you can feel all your limbs.

You shift your arm, your muscles groaning in protest. Still, you force yourself up a bit, before a hand on your shoulder stops you.

“You gotta lie down.” It’s Natasha, looking rather tired and weary. “Doctor’s orders.”

“Fuck the doctor,” you mutter, trying to get up further.

Natasha gently pushes you back down. “Not the time, solnyshko.”

You don’t resist further. Instead, you sigh and stare up at the ceiling. “The mission failed.”

“It wasn’t your fault. We had bad intel.” She toys with the sleeve of your shirt. “Our inside man was a double agent.”

“Still. I could’ve done better.”

She gently flicks your forehead. “Don’t play that game. You did what you could. Getting shot like that would put anyone out of commission.”

You look at her. At her red-as-blood hair. “Even you?”

She smiles faintly. “Even me.”

It makes you feel a bit better and you nod. “Thanks.”

She leans in and kisses your forehead. “Always.”

A yawn overtakes you and you groan softly. Natasha laughs a little. “Go back to sleep. Your wounds need time to heal.”

You yawn again and nod, letting your eyes close. “Goodnight, Nat.”

Her fingers find yours and she gives your hand a light squeeze. “Goodnight, solnyshko. Sweet dreams.”

[moonstruckme]

hi okay hi you’ve probably seen me in your notifications for the last twenty minutes because i am absolutely obsessed with the way you write poly!marauders.

i was wondering if you could write something about the (fem)reader who slowly starts dissociating when things get tough and she’s not really present and while they’re concerned, they just show their love for her through caring until she comes back to herself. it’s completely okay if you can’t!!!

Thanks honey, I'm so glad you enjoy my blog! Love the pfp btw, I personally think that was Spence’s best hair. I know everyone experiences dissociation differently so I did some research and I hope this is alright! Many apologies if it’s not accurate

cw: dissociation, brief mention of sexual assault

poly!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 910 words

You’re grateful to Sirius for defending you. You are, but the man’s hand on your ass had caused some deer-in-the-headlights glitch in your brain, and the yelling that ensued only made you retreat further into yourself. You know, distantly, that it’s Sirius’ voice, and that he’s yelling for you, not at you. But it’s all noise to you, a ruckus that means danger, and then there’s movement, and more hands, and everything that would be too much if you weren’t so far away. 

You feel like you’re sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool, everything above the surface of the water muffled and distorted. What happens up there doesn’t concern you. It’s peaceful down here, even if there is a certain wrongness to it. You know you don’t belong here, not really, but you can hold your breath and try to make it last. 

“Baby?” a voice says. “Hey, you okay?”

“Don’t shake her, that’s not going to help.” You can’t tell if it’s another voice or the same. The comfort it brings you doesn't change, and you can’t force yourself to care either way. You can’t care at all, really, about anything. You wonder if you should be worried about that, but feelings are something out of your reach, and maybe it’s better that way. 

“Something’s wrong with her.” 

“I can see that, love. We’re almost home.” 

“You don’t think she’s hurt, do you?”

More hands. You want to flinch away, but it’s like you’re moving through a thick sludge. “You’re alright, dove, I’m just checking that you’re okay. Do you hurt anywhere?”

“Why isn’t she talking?”

“I don’t know. I think…maybe she’s just overwhelmed. I don’t think she’s bleeding anywhere.”

“Fuck. Shit, is this a panic attack? Do you think she needs a doctor or something?”

“Let’s just give her a few minutes.” 

There’s more talking, but you give up on trying to decipher it. After a while, something cushy comes up underneath you, or maybe you go down onto it. Your hand is warm, and then it’s pressed to soft fabric. “Feel my heart going in there, baby? Can you focus on that for me?”

You’ve made such a cozy home for yourself in your head that it takes you some time to realize everything around you has gone quiet. There’s a persistent bumping at your palm. 

“Don’t tight hugs help with panic attacks?”

“We don’t know if that’s what this is. What if it scares her?”

“Hey, angel, can you hear me? Come back to us.” 

The wrongness of where you are is starting to set in, the voices at the surface louder and more insistent. You think that maybe your chest is starting to ache.

Something moves your feet, and then you're touching something interesting. Soft and a bit rough, familiar. Carpet. 

“Breathe, honey. Good. Again. We’ve got you, take your time.” 

You’re conscious of your breaths first, the effort it takes to fill and empty your lungs. Then the plush material under your thighs; you’re sitting on something. Awhile longer, and you realize you’re blinking, your eyes intermittently dry and then not. Eventually you register your hand, pressed to a beating heart. Sirius’ heart. 

You don't try to speak yet as you take in your surroundings. You’re home, on the couch, and someone’s taken off your socks and shoes, your feet bare on the carpet. You don’t know how any of that happened, which is unsettling, but the realization that you can feel unsettled comes with a sharp relief. 

Sirius’ finger swipes over your wrist where he’s gripping your hand to his chest, and your next exhale is shaky. 

“Dove?” Remus’ tone is cautious.

“Sorry,” you say croakily. “I don’t know what that was.” 

Sirius sighs, letting your hand drop from his chest, and Remus grips your ankle from where he sits by your feet, stroking his thumb over your achilles’ tendon in a way that you suspect is as much for him as it is for you.

“Fucking scary, is what it was,” James says, voice thick with tears. “Can I hug you?”

You nod, and his arms come around you with his usual eagerness, though you notice his hands trembling just a little. You squeeze his shoulders tightly. 

“I’m really sorry.”

“Hey, no sorries, okay?” Sirius says, though even he sounds exhausted from what you’ve just put them through. “You obviously couldn’t help it. Do you feel alright now?”

“Yeah,” you say, though you’re unsure. You feel relatively normal at the moment, but the knowledge that you can slip into numbness that easily doesn’t allow for much comfort. “I’m just…really tired, for some reason.” 

Remus hums. “I think your brain was doing a lot of work just now. Makes sense you’d need a rest.” 

James releases you from the hug but only sits back far enough to see your face, his hands lingering at your waist like he’s worried you’ll slip away if he lets go. “Want to cancel dinner and have a night in, sweetheart?”

You nod, your throat closing as warmth rushes to your face. “Yes, please.” 

“Hey,” Sirius says at your tears, voice lightly chiding but full of concern, “what’s wrong? You sure you’re feeling okay?”

“I’m okay,” you promise, swiping under your eyes. “Just, thank you guys for helping me. That was really scary.” 

“I know,” Remus says, palm sliding up your leg as he rises to give you a hug of his own. “I know it was, honey, but you don’t have to worry. We’ve always got you.” 

[diejager]

Crow

Pairing: Monster TF 141 + Horangi & König x Eldritch horror!reader

Cw: blood, gore, canon-typical violence, injury, mutilation, tell me if I missed any. Wc: 1.9k

They hadn’t expected to have another specialist join them, none of them even knew what Price had in mind when he brought you in. You were normal in every way - as normal as a soldier could be - and unassuming under your dark clothes and gear. You smiled and waved when greeted, you took orders well and you spoke when spoken. You were like a ghost, there but also not there, invincible unless you made a sound or movement. Excluding all they saw in you, you were simply uncanny, with weird mannerisms and habits that made you seem inhuman - as inhuman as you could be to hybrids. 

The only words Price had given them before you landed were: “They’re good at what they do, just don’t cause any trouble, understood?”

They were vague and as unassuming as you first seemed, like any warning for any person that could easily become annoyed or mad. Ghost certainly hadn’t put much thought into it as he should. Gaz had elbowed Soap in an attempt at reminding the werewolf to heed their captain’s words. Rudy and Alejandro wouldn’t have to worry, they knew and learned the limits of any man’s patience, smart and intuitive. Horangi was as weary as he would with any new addition, eyes narrowed in annoyance and curiosity. Unlike any of them, König hid any emotions from his stoic face, shoulders broad and back ramrod that emphasised his height and broadness, he couldn’t be sure if you would be easy to ignore or irritable.

Granted, they all had expectations for you since Price seemed so proud and confident when you first joined them, acting like a child given his dream, famished to have you by his side as professionals as possible. Yet here you were, normal looking, of average height and average weight, and simply there. Although there wasn’t anything inherently abnormal to you, the simple presence of your being made their hair stand on end. There wasn’t any reason to be so frightened or chilled about you, you hadn’t done anything deserving of such fear and suspicion, and Price trusted you with his life. If he trusted you, then the rest could, no? After all, dragons are the most protective of monsters. 

As Price promised, you were good at what you did, never a flinch, never any hesitation, never a moment of weakness. You were too normal and good to be a human, especially not with the way corvids flocked to you. Ravens, crows, magpies and jackdaws followed you everywhere you went, simply standing or cawing around you as if you were a memener of their murder. Going to London would be dreadful with how many corvids called the British Isles their home, which - coincidentally - was where you lived. 

All but Price had a hard time forming a bond with you, your eerie presence made it difficult to relax, and apparently, you knew it as well, since they had an equally difficult time finding you on the base. If you weren’t beating a sand-filled punching bag, you would be at the shooting range, and if you weren’t there, then you’d be somewhere on the roof of a structure, taking in the cool, stormy air of the UK with your bird friends. 

You only smiled when they all blew up in cackles and jokes, never laughing with them or cracking your own jokes. Your voice never raised over a certain point, a murmur or a raspy growl. It was either human or inhuman to you. If Soap, Gaz and Rudy were having a hard time making you open up to them, then the rest would have an even harder time doing so. They were failing miserably. 

That was until Soap caught an airy chuckle from you when he passed Price’s office, the older man having probably said something amusing to you which had you laughing. And as loud and rowdy the werewolf was, he couldn’t stop himself from telling the others, his excitement and enthusiasm bleeding into the rest. It had somehow made them more determined to bond with you, you were, after months of work, a permanent member of Task Force 141. 

Unfortunately, the most they got were snorts and huffs, snorts from Ghost’s dark humour and huffs from Soap and Gaz’s poorly made-up jokes, theatrical performances of failures and defeat in the face of an unflinching and unusual being. Questions started piling up on Price’s desk, wanting to know if you were human, if you were a hybrid, if you were a monster, if you were even a living being seeing as you hadn’t taken a single breath or eaten (not that they’d seen you eat.). 

“That’s classified, ” Price stopped their musing with two simple words. “Unless they tell you themselves, I don’t think it’s any of my business divulging that to anyone.”

Price’s secrecy and respect for you only sowed the seeds of curiosity and intrigue deeper. What had you hidden from them that was so classified that Price couldn’t tell them? Even Alejandro didn’t have the clearance to dive into your files - not that there were any. The question lingered in their minds, unanswered and famished for one: What were you?

Somehow they’d gotten separated from you, being caught under heavy fire from Russian ultranationalists and backed into a building with most exits blocked or surrounded by the enemy. They worried about you, being left to yourself in a situation like this one was dangerous for even the most skilled and wary soldier. Whereas they all had their backs, one watching for the other, you were alone. And whereas you had the possibility of using your powers of shifting - if you were a hybrid or monster, they still hadn’t found the answer to that question - they were in the confines of a restricted building, letting loose would either damage the already-damaged-building or become a danger to their own teammates. 

Ghost’s fog was deadly. Soap could come under fire from them shooting. Gaz couldn’t fly freely in a tight place. Price’s fire could be devastating. Rudy couldn’t risk getting tired. Alejandro could be unknowingly shot by them. König was uncontrollable and unpredictable. Horangi was a danger to himself in the secret of darkness.  

They were fucked, caught in a dire situation that could mean the end of them, but regret and panic wouldn’t be of any use to them, they had to concentrate and wait for backup. 

“Backup from what, Price?!” 

What could possibly reach them in time to support them? They were too far in for any help to arrive quickly enough. The closest naval ship was thousands of miles away, the closest ocean was hundreds of miles away and any military support even farther. What would they even be waiting for?

“Cap! We can’t-”

A scream shattered the skies, howls of pain and panic filling the once booming sound of foreign guns. The sound of bodies being broken and bones cracking brought their attention elsewhere. The Russians weren’t aiming at them anymore, shooting at something bigger and more dangerous than any of them. They were looking at a creature that picked them off one by one, the shadow of a monster covering the white snow. The fear in their eyes tainted the sky as their blood sullied the fresh snow, turning white into red and pink.

Whatever that was was dangerous. The ability to rip men apart and incite terror into well-trained and hardened soldiers was anything but amiable, safe and good. Their bodies were tense, muscles contracted to move at the flicker of movement from the monster outside the building. Their weapons aimed towards the entrance, fingers laying restlessly on the trigger and shoulder screwed with suspense as the screams and cries slowly died down to howling winds in the night. 

Price raised a hand, holding them back from firing at the entity, they lowered their guns, following the captain as he walked towards the door. He hadn’t flinched or froze when clawed fingers gripped the wide opening, a giant, black hand cloaked with feathers. Another landed on the ground farther away, letting them see the blood staining the show, seeping from its fingers and dirty feathers. With a low rumble from the beast, it lowered its head to the doorway, where Price had stopped. 

He smiled at the gigantic head of a crown, its black beak sharpened with pointed teeth, as black as its skin and feathers. An oval eye blinked at them, white as the snow and piercing as the cold. It sent chills down their spines, ready to jump away if it attacked, but Price patted the skin under its eye.

“Thank you,” Price spoke your name so reverently, thanking it - you - with a grateful smile and proud eyes.

That monster - it - was you, the unassuming, perfect and eerie human. You, who was always around corvids, were one yourself, albeit a gigantic, crooked version of a crow. You crooned at Price’s touch, soft and loving like he was. You moved away from the entrance and they left. It was as if they walked into another world, blood, bones and guts littered the ground, as if a cat had had its fun with something breakable. Ghost and König thrived in this scene, the blood and gore feeding them. Unlike the rest that either recoiled or stared off, preferring to look at your bird-like form than the ground. 

In all your glory, you stood high and mightily, toppling over the trees by hundreds of metres. Covered head to toe in black skin and black, glistening feathers, you held your head high to look at the Russian field. Four horns curled over your head, sprouting from your crown and curling at the tip, they mimicked a crown of bone. Bones also grew from your back, the protrusion of your vertebrae growing along your back like a ridge, sharp and deadly, like the sharp-looking feathers that protected your back. If any of that were shocking then your second pair of wings would be frightening, an equally big pair of wings help support your weight on the ground, besides two legs, clawed perfectly to inflict lethal damage. And at the end of your back, a flared, serpentine tail with feathers curled upwards.

While Price acted with such ease and comfort around you, the rest simply couldn’t. If they were bothered by your presence before, now, after having shifted and showed your true skin, it grew tenfold, becoming unbearable and suffocating. You saw their discomfort, cooing at them before you shrunk, bone and feathers sinking back under your skin, your beak turning into the face they knew, but your white eyes remained. It was all knowing and powerful.

You were an Eldritch being, an all-knowing and powerful creature, perhaps one of the last horrors that lived. It made sense why Price was so trusting of you, believing you to be unable to betray them. Why he warned all of them to never stray into your hate and annoyance. Eldritch horrors, after all, were the strongest beings alive (if they could be called alive), old as aeons and unmoving by time. Dragons were second to them, the proud and respectable monsters knowing the worth of Eldritch creatures and respecting them. 

Everything fell into place. It clicked, why everything was simply so. Perhaps, after knowing your secret, you’d open up to them, let them in your colossal and dark and unbeating heart.

Taglist: @saelkie @yeoldedumbslut

[steddieas-shegoes]

my body is my weapon

for @steddieholidaydrabbles popup event for 'spring'

rated t | 734 words | cw: canon-typical violence, mild blood | tags: self-sacrificing steve, hurt/comfort, getting together

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Steve was good at this, springing up from nowhere, nail bat in hand, ready to protect his found family. It was a natural instinct at this point.

Didn't matter the cost, didn't matter if he was the only one willing. If Vecna wanted to take someone, he could take him.

With Eddie barely recovered from his first bout in the Upside Down, Max still in a coma, and Lucas being glued to her side to make sure nothing happened, the crew was a little short staffed.

But Steve would make sure that didn't matter.

They prepared as much as they could, which wasn't nearly as much as they should. Vecna was strong, stronger than they expected him to be, and his creatures were wearing them down before he even came to fight.

But El was stronger.

As Steve lay on the ground, bleeding more than he ever had before, certain of his life being over, he thought about every time he'd put himself in front of the kids.

He had no regrets, but he wished it could've played out differently.

Hands on his shoulders made him open his eyes, but his vision was blurry and his head was pounding. Probably another concussion.

"You don't get to die."

Eddie? How was he- why was he here? He was supposed to stay topside to call for help the moment he was signaled.

Maybe Steve was delusional in his last moments. Eddie mentioned that he was hallucinating from the blood loss when it happened to him.

"Steve. Keep your eyes on me," Eddie's voice was panicked. "God, you always have to spring into action, huh? Can't wait ten seconds for someone to help."

"Ed."

Steve could make out the outline of his head, but not details.

"'S what 'm good for."

"That's bullshit."

And then everything went black.

Steve's only thought was that he wished the last things he heard weren't those words.

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

His head was pounding again, and the incessant beeping surrounding him wasn't helping.

"If it hurts, don't open your eyes."

The voice sounded an awful lot like Eddie.

"Mm. Thirsty," Steve whispered.

"I got you," Eddie's hand was on the back of his head, gently lifting, while the other must have been holding a cup of room temperature water to his lips. "Little sips."

Steve didn't think much of what was going on. If this was the afterlife, at least he had someone taking care of him.

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

The next time Steve was conscious, his head wasn't pounding and he could tell the room around him was dark.

He opened his eyes, slowly taking in the hospital room.

Eddie was asleep in the chair next to his bed.

He looked uncomfortable.

Steve tried to shift onto his side, but a lightning bolt of pain shot from his shoulder to his knee, and he couldn't quite contain the gasp he let out.

Eddie's eyes shot open as he stood from the chair, leaning over Steve to see what hurt.

"Shit, are you okay?" Eddie asked as his hands hovered over Steve's heavily wrapped up body.

"Mhm. Jus' hurt," Steve managed to say, his voice raspy. "How?"

"How long have you been out?" Eddie waited for Steve's nod to continue. "First bit was about three days, then you woke up for a minute yesterday."

"Alive?"

"Yeah," Eddie's tone shifted to something more serious, darker. "But no thanks to you. You're good for a lot more than standing in front of monsters, Stevie. You know that, right?"

Steve shrugged one shoulder. "Kinda."

Eddie's hands gently cupped his face, eyes softening as Steve focused on him.

"You're more than a weapon. You're more than an expendable body. You understand me?" Eddie's voice shook as Steve gave a short nod. "You're my world. I can't see my world end."

"I am?"

"Despite my best efforts of trying to move on from the stupid crush I had on you, yeah," Eddie sighed. "Nursed me back to health and made me fall in love with you."

"Not bullshit?" Steve's eyes felt heavy, but he had to fight it, had to have this talk with Eddie before he passed out again.

"Never. You're everything, Steve Harrington. And when you can keep your eyes open for more than two minutes, I'm gonna kiss you so hard it bruises."

Steve smiled as his eyes closed.

Eddie's hands carried him out of hell and into forever.

[dantakeyoman]

Hi! Is it ok if you write a neteyam x reader angst where instead he's dying its the reader? Thank you!

You Take the Bullet For Neteyam, and Nearly Die In the Process (Angst / Comfort)

Reader is Fem! Omaticaya

CW: near death experience, blood, wounds, lots and lots of crying, distraught Neteyam, i cried while writing this X (

Everything was going so well.

You and Neteyam had managed to make it back on the enemy ship, freeing Lo'ak, Tsireya, Tuk, and Spider, and getting ready to leave.

You all were fighting together, taking out enemy soldiers like a cohesive unit, a synchronized team.

Everything was going so well.

You and Neteyam had let the youngest get in the water first, shooting the soldiers that were trying to follow you.

"Get in the water, (y/n)! I'll hold them off!" the boy exclaimed, shooting another soldier between the eyes.

"No! I'm not leaving you!" you dismissed, shooting two soldiers of your own.

"Dammit, (y/n)!" Neteyam shouted in frustration, pistol whipping an oncoming human when he realized his gun was out.

That's when you noticed man with a skull tattoo aiming his gun directly for Neteyam, your gun having just ran out of ammo.

Everything was going so well.

"NETEYAM!" you screamed, tackling him into the water before the bullet could land.

The two of you landed right next to everybody else, Lo'ak, Spider, and Neteyam letting out shouts of victory.

But you knew something was wrong.

Especially when you were starting to lose your ability to keep yourself afloat.

Shit.

"My Neteyam," you gasped, clutching your chest, only to realize that there was a fair sized hole where your heart should be.

He whipped around quickly, his face etched with worry. "What's wrong, (y/n)?"

"I've been shot."

All the air in the world seemed to be sucked out in that moment, everything becoming slow, loud, and warped.

"Shit!" Lo'ak exclaimed, realizing that the water around you was turning red.

"(y/n)!" Tuk screamed, shaking as she clung to Tsireya.

"GET HER TO THE ILU NOW!" Neteyam shouted, picking you up by your shoulders, Spider and Lo'ak getting your feet.

The three carried you over to one of the ilu, propping you upright against Neteyam's chest, Tsireya and Tuk screaming when a large splurt of blood squirted out the hole.

Your world seemed to be going in and out. Sound, no sound. Touch, no touch.

And everything was becoming bright, and you were becoming sleepy.

"Neteyam......I am tired," you weakly spoke, laying limply against the boy.

At those words, he feverishly looked down at you, brushing some hair out your face.

"No, no, no, no. Keep your eyes open for me, my love. Do not go to sleep," he pleaded, making tsaheylu with the animal and zipping off towards the village, everyone else following close behind him.

"Neteyam!" His father shouted from a nearby rock, where he, his mother, and Kiri stand.

"Help!" Neteyam cried out, his voice hoarse and broken as pulled up.

"It is (y/n)!"

"Shit! Get her up here!" Jake shouted, running over and helping the boy carry you onto the rock, Lo'ak and Spider helping out as soon as they reached you.

The family carefully laid you down on the ground, trying to assess the damage.

Judging by your frantic sputtering, the bullet had pierced your lung.

Jake lifted you up, only to find the exit wound, which was spouting blood like a waterfall.

"What can we do?! There has to be something!" Neteyam shouted, frantically looking at the faces of his family.

"Here!" Tsireya exclaimed, grabbing some moss off of the rock and rolling it into a ball.

"Put this in the wound! It will slow the bleeding!"

Neteyam practically snatched it from her, quickly stuffing it in the hole in your chest.

"AYYYYYYYYYY!" you screamed in agony, writhing in pain.

"(y/n)!" Tuk cried, hiding her face in her mother's chest, scared.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please don't leave me. Stay strong," Neteyam sobbed, kissing away your tears in a frenzy.

This wasn't real. This had to be a dream. This couldn't be happening.

He had to be home. With you curled into his arms, napping in his tent, the sound of his grandmother grinding herbs in the background putting you both to sleep.

This had to be a nightmare.

"NETEYAM, PLEASE! Snap out of it and put this in her mouth!" Tsireya screamed, shaking her hand so he may take the the bottle, which had a special syrup inside.

But he was in a daze. Numb. Unable to process what was happening.

Jake huffed, taking the bottle and popping the cork open with his teeth, Neytiri opening your mouth as he poured it in.

When it was empty, Neytiri closed your mouth, massaging you throat to help you swallow.

"We have to get her back to my mother right away!" Tsireya stated, quickly quickly wiping her tears.

"(y/n)! Can you hear me? We're gonna get you fixed up," Jake nervously asked you, scooping you up in his arms.

You were still breathing, but no longer responsive.

He sat the both of you on an ilu, and rode as fast as he could back to the village, the rest of the family in tow.

"Neteyam! You need to snap out of it! (y/n) needs you!" Kiri sniffled, desperately shaking her brother.

"Bro! C'mon!" Lo'ak socked him in the arm, trying to see if pain would do it.

But it didn't

To Neteyam, you were everything. The moon. The sun. The air. The clouds.

He ate, slept, and breathed all for you.

You were his love. His woman. The future mother of his children.

His secret mate.

But in an instant, it was all being taken from him. In a way so violent, he wouldn't wish it on his worse enemy.

This couldn't be it. He couldn't live without you.

The Great Mother could not be this cruel.

When the family arrived at the village, Jake had already dropped you off at the Tsahik's marui, and was now nervously pacing around outside the closed doors.

"TSIREYA! COME HELP! QUICK!" Ronal exclaimed, sensing her daughter's presence.

The girl quickly got off the ilu, rushing into the room to assist the woman.

Lo'ak scooped up his brother, handing him off to his father, who decided it would be best to keep him as far away from this as possible.

...

Comatose.

That's what Norm called it.

You had been comatose for a week, and showed no sign of waking up any time soon.

In that time frame, Neteyam had not eaten or slept, only leaving the family marui to bathe.

It was worrying the Sully family. And every member had tried, in their own way, to get him to go out, get some fresh air.

But every time, he refused.

No air was fresh without you. Nothing was anything without you. So what was the point.

It had gotten to the point where Tsireya had had enough.

She snuck into the Sully marui late at night, knowing they were out for their weekly outing, and came face to face with Neteyam.

He was sitting on the ground, slumped against the wall with an empty look in his face.

A broken look on his face.

It physically pained her to see it.

"Neteyam. I am not here to convince you to leave. I am here to let you know that (y/n) is awake," she whispered, smiling as the boy's ears perked up, his face having life for the first time in a week.

"May I got see her? Please!" he pleaded, jumping up from his seat.

"Yes, yes. But you must be quiet. I am not supposed to be doing this," she shushed, placing a finger on her lips.

He nodded, and followed her to the Tsahik marui, where you lay sprawled out on the ground, staring up at the ceiling, fiddling with your fingers.

"My love!" Neteyam quietly exclaimed, running towards you.

You immediately perked at the voice, knowing exactly who it was.

"My Neteyam!" you smiled, allowing him to tackle you in a hug, painfully.

Tsireya's eyes nearly bugged out her sockets.

"FOR EYWA'S SAKE, NETEYAM! BE CAREFUL!" she whisper yelled, turning around and walking out the room to give you two some privacy.

"You...don't...know...how...worried...I...was," he smiled, peppering kisses on your face at each word.

"It is alright. I am okay now. See," you smiled, moving the blanket so you could show your patched up wound.

Being able to see your smile again....it was the best blessing the Great Mother could've given him.

It actually brought him to tears.

"My Netetam, why are you crying?" you aked, concerned as you swiped the hot tears from his cheeks.

He wrapped his arms around your waist, giving you a quick squeeze to make sure you were real.

Since he went a week without sleep, he frequently hallucinated throughout the day. And every single one was about you returning to him.

So he was a little skeptical.

This seemed too good to be true.

"I see you, (y/n). I see you so much, it hurts," he confessed, resting his head on your chest.

You blushed, running your fingers through his braids as you processed his words.

"I see you, Neteyam. I see you," you smiled softly, placing a feather-light kiss on his head.

And while this may be real, and you may be in his arms again, he would not forget this situation for the rest of his life.

The image of you lying on a rock, unresponsive and spilling blood, would be forever etched in his memory.

The smell. The sound. The feeling.

He would never let himself forget this.

This would fuel his determination to keep you safe more than ever. And he now knows that, without a doubt, he would lay down his life for you.

In a heartbeat.

[softshuji]

𝟖:𝟑𝟎𝐏𝐌 | 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐎 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐉𝐈𝐑𝐎

Title: August Rain

Summary: Mikey tends not to celebrate his birthday, and on the one day he allows himself to, he gets more than he bargained for. Happy birthday to my prince! Reblogs appreciated as always.

cw: fem!reader, all of Bonten make an appearance, Sanzu being insane, mentions of marriage and divorce, explicit violence and bad language, use of guns, both suggestive and explicit mentions of sex, some painful angst because Mikey is a sad boy :(

Mikey lets the others take him on his birthday. He knows they enjoy it, whatever remains of this ragtag group of men, the Haitani’s and Sanzu, Kakucho driving, and him in the passenger seat. There’s been a lot of fuss, he knows. Venues decided and paid for, Ran preparing the evening for the few of them, smiles all around because they want him to feel like for one day, maybe everything else matters less. 

It's a cold August all things considered, the kind that has them taking out coats rather than jackets, hoods and collars pulled up to their ears. 

They chatter, and Ran elbows Rindou in the ribs, to which he hisses and Sanzu laughs, genuinely this time, the fine striped waistcoat bulging from where the gun presses against the linen inside. Mikey’s lips twitch, the frame of white hair falling against the window and the evening’s first rain trickling towards the mattified black metal of Kakucho’s expensive car.

‘Can you keep it down? I need to concentrate,’ he says and shifts into gear, the sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbow and a lean on the seat as he reverses out and into the open city. 

But they bicker, incessantly, and Mikey, maybe this time, isn’t perturbed by the sound of their voices permeating the wind whistling through the open windows, Ran’s baritone voice that’s deep underneath the music.

He chances a glance back, as if he’s watching the trees disappear and whiz past the sunroof, the orange flare of evening sun bleeding through the green and Rindou catches his eyes, softens, just a bit, and smiles before turning to his Brother. 

And Mikey almost feels something as the moment passes quietly.

He thinks of all of them as they drive, coming out on a day off to enjoy the day, a request he never asked for, but appreciates anyway. Rindou and his Brother, Sanzu too, whose Wife is expecting their first child, the others and their lives marred by the weight of their loyalty to him. It should be easy, to not care for them in some way, when he knows what they’ve done, both of their own volition, and for him, all the blood that has led them here, bones and lives added to the pile underneath his feet. Koko, whose Wife is sick and still needs him, juggling the responsibilities of Fatherhood alongside it all, Rindou and the messy and complicated divorce with the Woman he still loves despite what she’s done to him and Kakucho, still grieving for a love that never really ended.

‘Boss?’

Mikey twitches, his cheek leaning against his open palm, a quick pull from his reverie as they turn onto the highway. ‘Hm, yeah?’

Kakucho spares a glance, his eyes flashing as they flit to the side, one hand braced on the wheel. ‘You okay?’

He deliberates, and turns to the window, where the shadow of the trees has the buttery sunlight falling over the ivory of his skin, and behind it, a greying cloud encroaching over the trees. The window is open from the top and the evenings first few specks of rain fall on his forehead, an icy chill that calms the flush of his cheeks in the warm interior of the car. ‘I’m fine Kakucho,’ he says and it is clipped, as it usually is. But they never mind, and Kaku only nods as he turns to the road again and presses a foot down on the gas further, the looming neon lights of a bar spilling over the horizon’s edge, a sharp line against the slash of darkening clouds. 

It had been Ran’s idea in the end. Hushed whispers that had passed from person to person, Sanzu eventually coaxing the idea forward a few days back. There’d been an uncomfortable silence, and Mikey had watched them in turn, a hopefulness they were so quick to repress because they expected him to say no, to push, to resist.

I don’t see why not, it’s only a few hours. 

And maybe the Haitani’s had smiled at each other from across the mahogany table and Takeomi had lit a cigarette and said he’d meet them there on the day and the air had felt a little lighter, a little clearer when they left the room and Mikey was alone with his thoughts for company again.

There has been anxiety on his part, and he ponders this when he exits the car as they pull up on the side and he pulls his coat collar up to cover a part of his neck and face, the old habits coming to bite at him with every gentle lash of the quickening rain. It’s been…months since he’s last stepped out and it surprises him that the world hardly changes during these bouts of self imposed isolation. The people still walk aimlessly, eyes glued to smartphones, conversations held over earpieces, toddlers wailing in parks, mothers shushing them and fishing for pacifiers in handbags. He wonders if the world should be different just because he is no longer the man from twelve years ago when he’d left you to venture out alone, a conversation had in a park that honestly could be any one when he thinks about it.

��You still up for this Boss?’ Sanzu says, coming up behind him now, his own coat collar pulled to cover his neck from the rain, the flash of pink hair stark against the black wool, a light touch against the .22mm handgun tucked against his waist for good measure. 

Mikey feels a sting then, the five of them looking over at him, poised on the doors of the car, all concern, as if he has not asked them to commit unspeakable acts of violence in his name. He wonders if it haunts them as it does him, if the guilt shreds whatever hearts are left when they’re alone standing over the sinks at night, washing blood that refuses to leave without marking the indents on their fingernails.

There is a twinge of pain when Ran smiles placatingly, a gentle coax and a tilt of his head to the side and it burns that they still give a shit this many years later, when he knows what he deserves and he knows it’s not this.

Part of him wishes he was more like them. Sanzu and his Wife expecting a child, Ran and his Girlfriend that he seems happy with- his steps light and sure-footed, perhaps safe in the knowledge that he can protect her, that he is not as bad as Mikey is himself. The worst really, all the dark and suffocating things crammed into his body twitching with the need for peace.

‘Yeah, let’s go.’ And they nod, a quick check of their pockets and suits, rings glinting under the quickly fading sunlight, a waxing crescent moon that kisses the tiles of the bar’s roof, faded translucent white that hides behind the now grey sky.

Kakucho resists putting a gentle hand on Mikey’s back as he’s ushered towards the entrance, an instinct he never really lost after… all that happened. Maybe it’s in his blood to care so deeply, even after everything, or maybe he wonders if Mikey deserves a gentle hand even now, all that he’s seen and hates himself for seeing. If only it were easy to completely shred that part of him that still cares. About anything. Maybe he reminds him a little too much- of a man with white hair he once knew.

Mikey glances down at the pavement, flecks of rain slapped against the concrete and it’s then that he feels the full force of a person barrelling into him, a knock against his lungs that has the air drawn out in a quick breath, hands extended to brace himself as the fall comes.

There is a shout, and the click of guns with the safety pulled, a harsh and guttural, “get on the ground!’, a “Mikey!” that he hears as the sound fades, a ringing in his ears that thrums in time with his racing heart, flushed skin that flares a deeper red as his vision swims.

“Mikey! Boss, are you okay?” Kakucho has a hand on his shoulder and he feels its warmth through the coat. He braces a hand to his side, a squeeze of his eyes that has his breath coming slowly now, slow and calculated lungfuls of hair that have the foamy blackness of his vision clearing, the twist of Kaku’s concerned expression now coming into focus. He wheezes, coughs, the pain thrumming in his chest with every sharp and spiky breath, slow inhales that ache in beating sinew of his lungs. 

Sanzu is shouting, a hand held tightly on his gun, the cold and hard steel of his gaze now narrowed on a crouching figure on the floor, hands above their head and shaking, wracking swings of their shoulders with every word rushed out in panicked breaths.

‘I’m fine, what happened?’ Mikey says, his breaths coming easier now, a hand splayed on his chest, puffed cheeks and hair clinging to his neck. 

He wonders if he should have seen it, felt it, reflexes coming to life, or maybe he’s dulled enough not to withdraw from pain when he thinks he deserves it. Or maybe he’s getting tacky, all the time he spends so long cooped up by himself, dark rooms where there is never danger outside of the violent claws of his own thoughts sinking into his flesh. 

‘Shut up, enough crying,’ Sanzu says and presses the gun to their temple, a minor click of metal and the crunch of gravel under his feet, him looming over them in his pinstripe suit, the unmissable cold frost of his voice that has them shaking involuntarily.

‘Please, please it was an accident, I didn’t mean it!’ And they narrow towards the floor, hands held high above their head, hair swinging and dampening in the now steadier rain. 

‘I don’t give a shit-’

‘Sanzu-’ This from Ran who stands opposite from Rindou, a gun also drawn from the younger Haitani, a calculating gaze on the shivering figure kneeling at his feet, wordless assent and a narrow pinch of his brows when he catches the stockinged legs now muddied with dirt, a torn skirt that’s now patchy with mud splatter in his periphery. 

Kakucho stiffens suddenly, a hand still on Mikey’s shoulder as the descent of his realisation makes a steady crawl along his spine. ‘It’s a girl,’ he says, and his throat aches somehow, the harsh lump now dragging along his chest when he sees the books and papers now decorating the drainage, water clogged and sodden with rain. 

Sanzu casts a glance at him, a long and hard stare that he shakes off with some apprehension, the slight thrum in his bones that has the hairs on his nape rising on end. ‘That doesn’t matter to me.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake Sanzu-’ Ran again, two hands out as if to calm a child, his head turning this way and that for the police he knows instinctively is coming, sirens that only ever seem to be a moment away.

‘Shut the fuck up Haitani- she could have hurt Mikey.’

‘Yes but she didn’t, it was probably an accident. Put your fucking guns away.’

Sanzu sneers. ‘I don’t take orders from you.’ And the gun digs further into her temple, a drag of his gaze to his leader for assent for a bullet that can spill the red mush of brains over the sidewalk. 

‘She hardly looks like she’s a threat Sanzu,’ Kakucho says from beside Mikey, a worried zip of his eyes to the girl sobbing against the tarmac. He hates it again, the sound of pain that seems to follow him, these situations he can never leave, and a heart that still cares and tries even now. Somewhere, a child cries and he looks up and over the waist-high gate to the woman with a pram now whispering into her phone, a cut of her narrowed eyes towards them, hushed and guttural and suspicious, pushing the pram with one hand and holding the receiver to ear with the other.

Mikey watches, the angry slap of his heart against his ribs now cooling with the brisk evening chill, the dull shadowy ink of his gaze now moving between the four of them. 

Sanzu bares his teeth, a wolf entrapping the doe in the cage. ‘Did you miss the part where she knocked into Mikey? I don’t care if she’s a girl, no one touches the Boss.’ And he pulls the safety, a click of metal and sliding silver as it presses against her skin.

Ran hisses, stepping forward in confidence and Rindou stiffens at it all- his Brother moving between Sanzu and the Girl, breezing into danger, his hand now wrapped around the barrel of the gun to tug it up and away. 

He draws back his hand, a jerk against the silver, his knuckles splashed with cold rain running along his wrist and swallowed by the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Don’t make a scene Sanzu, people are starting to look. You’re being reckless.’ And he holds his eyes, purple flecks of light flashing under the clouds, and Sanzu frowning, a twitch that has a vein pulsing in his temple as he holds firmly on the grip, knuckles white with the strain.

Kakucho moves from behind Mikey, his hand slipping from his shoulder blades, both palms coming up as if placating an animal, his coat collar skewed from the lashings of rain slapping against the pale ivory of his neck. ‘Look, both of you calm down, I’m sure it was an accident. And instead of going for each other’s throats, let the Boss decide what he wants to do.’

Sanzu holds the elder Haitani’s gaze, Rindou hovering near his Brother’s shoulder with a piercing unflinching frown, before he breaks and turns to Mikey with a faint kiss of his teeth and a scoff as he slowly lowers the gun from her head. 

Kakucho turns back to Mikey, his head bent lower, voice a subdued whisper flecked with a concern that he can’t help, because he is just a man, and he has seen too much blood for one lifetime. And he thinks maybe after this long he shouldn’t care anymore, that the scars on his knuckles have faded to a muted silvery pink, or that the black ink on his chest has permanently made a home in his heart where the hope of anything better has long been locked and sealed, but he does. Care that is. Even if he shouldn’t. Even if it haunts him.

‘Boss?’ he says, a pinch of his forehead creased apprehension. ‘What do you want to do about this? We can leave her or…get rid of her, it’s your call.’ 

Mikey raises his eyes, the understanding whirling in the dark velvet of them before lowering them again, to where you look over your shoulder at him, lips parted in fear and shaking with the cold and mud splatter clinging to your skin.

Something moves in his chest.

A beat of his heart that’s a fraction of a second too fast, a tap of it against his ribs.

And an image flashes across his mind then, quick and slipping through his fingers like sand. Hair that he touched with a reverence that was godly, clear pretty eyes swollen with tears, lips reddened and smeared with saliva from his own, dripping down a trembling chin that he cups with his two bruised hands. And he had kissed you then, again and again and it had felt like a kind of freedom, a small respite before he abandoned you in this park, under the trees where the blossoms were still shifting to pink, and the cicadas hummed during the evening. And it had been a nice day really, he had made it so. A memory you could hold that hurt a little less despite what he’d done, that you could learn to heal from and forgive yourself for- because you were always like that, so quick to shoulder his shares of the blame. 

Your mouth moves, lips parting, closing, trembling with the rain splashed across your cheeks, tear tracks that gather on your chin to disappear into the same worn red scarf that’s frayed and repaired and frayed and repaired and patched in all the places he knows you’ve mended. 

‘M…..Manjiro?’ you say, a breathless whisper that slips across the wet tarmac, your eyebrows shooting up, confusion spilling across the blush dusted across your cheeks. 

Sanzu stiffens and the gun digs into your skull from the back again, a sharp lance of pain that sprints across your scalp and spine. ‘How do you know his name?’ he growls, a wolf circling prey, teeth bared to tear through your skin.

You whimper audibly, your hands reaching higher in surrender, chipped nail polish now flecked with rain, the mud caked under your nails and across your palms streaked with a crisscross of red grazes.

Kakucho takes a step forward and Rindou lowers his gun a fraction, takes a step back with an uncertainty that zips between him and Ran, who still holds tight to the muzzle of Sanzu’s now raised revolver, knuckles chill with the cold, the lapels of his coat now blown open with the lashes of icy wind.

‘Boss?’ Kakucho says, his eyes flecked with concern, the jet black sweep of hair now shining crystalline with the rain speckled across it. ‘You know her?’

Your gaze flits, a deer caught in headlights, between the five of them, each measuring you with an inflection of concern and curiosity, the usual pinch of Rindou’s eyebrows now tightened in anxiety. 

Mikey knows your face. 

He could know it in his sleep, in dreams where the image of you is pressed to his pillows, pressed to the swirling liquid at the bottom of his glass, pressed to his tongue when he fucks a cheap whore with you on his mind, your body underneath his hands and so responsive to all the small and minute touches. Only to kill them later because they could never be you, and they could never be his and he doesn’t care for using others anymore when he could never undo his wrongs- could never wash away the curve of your lips smiling against his, or the tight and snug fit of you pressed against his sheets, the mattress of his old place now indented from the memory of you, your hair caught in the woven fibres of his pillows and he’d hated it that much he’d torched it all and watched the flames eat the image of you alive. 

His tongue clings to the roof of his mouth, the taste of his saliva thick and cloying and heavy over his teeth. 

‘Y…..Y/N?’ he says, his whisper caught on the whip of the wind lashing at his cheeks. It’s tough, this many years later to say your name when he’s spent years burying it at the bottom of a bottle, underneath the copious pills Sanzu has offered to him, the taste of you swimming in his mouth, and washed and washed and washed down again and again and again. 

You shift, and lean on your caked palms, your knees drawn up to your chin, stockings torn at the knees and thighs, soft skin splattered with rain. 

‘Mikey,’ you say again, the feeling of it foreign on your tongue, tripping over it now after twelve years of resigning yourself to never seeing him again, of telling yourself it was for the best that he’d left you to nurse your heart alone. 

‘Y/N,’ he says, the sound of it a sharp gasp, the dark velvet night of his eyes now taking you in, the entirety of you burned into his gaze and it aches in his chest, pulses in his temple, a hot white kind of pain that zips across his skull.

Kakucho takes his cue and moves between the two of you, extending a hand and hoisting you up before fishing a handkerchief from the lapel of his waistcoat. He shakes his head, a short and abrupt glance at Sanzu who only scoffs at him in return, arms now folded over his chest with incredulity. 

‘I’m sorry, about this I mean.’ And he wraps your hand around the small fabric before shrugging his jacket off and draping it over your shoulders, a comforting squeeze that accompanies the hard set of his mouth into a shaky smile. 

‘It….it’s okay, I understand.’ You wrap your arms tighter around yourself, wrists and hands entirely gulfed by his sleeves. ‘I’m sorry I caused this.’

‘Do you really know him?’

‘He’s my….he’s someone I knew once.’

He nods, draws you slightly closer against a particularly strong gust of a gale before turning his gaze back to the others, particularly to Mikey who stands frozen and rooted, conflict whirling in the ink of his eyes.

Ran moves, foxlike and agile and bends to whisper. ‘Boss, if you want a minute alone, I can take the others. Kaku will stay with you for safety…and to make sure she doesn’t try anything.’ This last part hushed, and more for Sanzu who glares at you with a narrow pinch of his brow, pink hair now clinging to the wet collar of his black coat. 

Mikey glances up once to the clear shine of Ran’s earnest eyes, the usual smirk and lilt of his playful charm now buried under the concerned and protective tug of his eyebrows before nodding once, slowly, deliberately, as if he’s warring with himself.

And Ran smiles, genuinely, before patting Kakucho reassuringly on the back. ‘Alright let’s go, we’ll wait inside.’

‘I’m not leaving the Boss,’ Sanzu says, and taps his gun against his arm, the silver catching the fading daylight.

‘You heard what he said, we can go. Kaku will be here anyway.’

Ran, for all of it, the blood he has seen, knows the importance of this moment right here, the only flicker of anything left in the man who once held the world so tightly, the only thing maybe that he can provide that make him a little better, a little happier, a little anything other than what he is.

Sanzu scoffs and looks to Mikey again, who only flicks his eyes up once in recognition, before letting them fall on your mud splattered shoes where he’s resigned to let his gaze stay, burning holes into the tarmac under your feet because he just can’t look, can’t let himself see you in all the ways he’s wanted to for years. The clear clarity of your eyes where the sun soaks, the pinch of your eyebrows and forehead that he’d kissed because you’d liked it and you’d felt safe and warm and his.

‘Come on, let’s go, we’ll wait for the Boss inside.’ Ran puts a protective arm around Rindou, shooting a glare at Sanzu who turns hesitantly, casting a glance back at Mikey, his steps faltering, tripping towards the neon lights of the glitzy bar.

Then, Kakucho, as if sensing the tension. ‘I’ll be in the car, I’ll keep the window rolled for privacy but call if you need me,’ he says, a reassuring pat on Mikey’s back, his chest lurching with an ache when the the fading light bounces from Mikey’s platinum hair just right, in a way someone else’s used to once upon a time. 

You shift on your feet, a shy glance up and away again, settling your eyes on his shoes where the rain has splashed across the black leather. 

‘So…’ you start, a cough into your hand and he fights a strangled sound of uncomfortability, of hesitation and a shyness he thought was long dead.

‘It’s good to see you Manjiro.’ 

It hurts to hear you say his name, his real name, the taste of it in your mouth that feels so new and old and familiar and not, and he likes how it sounds. He always has. 

‘You…too…Y/N.’ 

There’s a silence again, him biting hard on his tongue, you moving from foot to foot and you hate it, that it became this, that everything you had is washed down the drainage, ruined and tainted and buried with the years when once, you had been something. Maybe nothing more than partners, but something. 

Your eyes flick up. ‘I’m sorry I hit you, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t see you there,’ you say. ‘Oh, I’m not saying it’s because you’re- y’know, I just mean-’

‘It’s fine, I wasn’t hurt.’ Clipped and aching in his chest, chewing the words up and squeezing his fingers into his palm, red crescents indented into the pale ivory of his skin. ‘Are you…well? You look well.’ This time, he does look up, at your face blooming with health, a happiness he had never seen on you back then, the worry lines now faded to muted smile lines and it burns him that he hadn’t put them there, that he’d been the reason for it all. 

Your eyes shine, a flicker of excitement spilling across them, a small smile curling at the edge of your wet lips and he has an urge to kiss you, press you against the car and hike your skirt up, to paint you with him again like he did, leaving a mark that blooms across your skin with his teeth. 

‘I am well Manjiro, I’m doing pretty good,’ you say, an embarrassed grin that you’re quick to hide behind your wet sleeve, the rain now petering to a soft and unsteady trickle that whets your lashes. ‘And you?’

You fight the temptation to mention that he seems to have lost weight since you last saw him, a hollowness to his skin, thin and dripping shadows under his eyes that accent the shine of his lustrous platinum hair, dark circles that line his ivory pallid cheeks. He hasn’t been eating, you think. Meals left unattended and thrown, drinks chosen to accompany the cold and lonely nights. 

He stiffens. ‘I’m doing fine. I don’t have much time to get out anymore, that's all.’ His nerves tighten with tension, your knowing gaze that melts with a curiosity and pity that he hates, that he loves, that he wants and never believes he wants because you always somehow knew, were always somehow so forthcoming even when he wishes you weren’t, even when he knew he deserved less. 

‘I see. I missed you y’know,’ you say, your eyes softening, mouth puckering to a soft pout. ‘I see you changed your hair too, it looks good on you Manjiro, it really suits you.’ And he wishes it hurt less like this, in the same park he had left you in, wishes that you had kicked and screamed at him when you met again, a rage that he deserved and would have let himself feel, all the anger and heartbreak he would have willingly endured for you because it could never atone for the sins he’d accumulated in time.

Something kicks in his chest. ‘It was for my Brother, after he passed.’ 

The rain slaps against the bonnet of the car, clouds greying like oatmeal, a sludge of cement across the sky.

‘Oh. I’m sorry, forgive me I didn’t mean to upset you or anything.’

‘It’s fine Y/N, you don’t need to apologise for everything…I thought you’d be angry.’ 

‘Huh? I don’t understand what you mean by that.’ 

He does look up then, at the tree overhead, the branches bare and bending, ticking the hood of your coat and snagging at you with the red scarf pulled tight to your chin, worn threads catching on the fading glossy lips and he thinks of them against his, the thump of your heart pressed to his, fingers tugging at his hair, a fist wound tight in the threads of it and pulling, yanking even, when he bites and licks and soothes over the marks made by his teeth. 

He takes an unsure step forward, Kakucho  in the car raising an eyebrow as he watches. 

‘I mean, why aren’t you angry? You’ve not said anything about it yet.’

You frown, sidestepping between the curb and the road, weight shifting from one foot to another. ‘About what ‘Jiro? The way we parted?’

And he nods, the dull lustre of his eyes swimming with an undefined and unusual clearness and you sigh, drawing out a long breath that mists in the now clear evening sky. ‘What’s to say? You left me, you no longer wanted anything to do with me and I gave up on pretending there was something I could have done to change what happened back then. I admitted it to myself finally anyway.’

‘Admitted what?’ he says and tilts his head to the side, the swing of white hair now plastered to his neck where goosebumps prickle across his skin. 

You wrinkle your nose, as if it’s obvious. ‘That you found someone else of course. Another girl, one prettier and smarter and better.’

‘Huh?’ Ice pours into his veins, a flash of white hot lightning across his skull. ‘That wasn’t it. I didn’t leave because of that.’

You stiffen, shaking your head, a frown bleeding across your forehead. ‘Then why?’

He clamps his lips together, a firm line that accompanies the uncomfortable shake of his head, the silence that stretches and yawns wide.

‘You know, I racked my brain for weeks, trying to think of if there was something I could have done, if I had accidentally done something wrong that I just didn’t know about. Was there?’

A beat. ‘No, no I made my decision weeks before that.’

Your chest falls, heart slamming against your ribs. ‘Then what Manjiro? I thought we were doing good, we really were, right?’ Your voice wobbles, tapers off at the end, a small and uncertain shake to the usually bright timbre of it and he aches, for doing this again, for a second time. 

‘Stop. Stop asking me this,’ he says, a hesitant step back, hand catching on the bonnet of the car and Kakucho- inside- raises an eyebrow at the two of you, mouths moving, glassy pearlescent shine of your eyes that makes Mikey seem like a deer in headlights, uncomfortable and uncertain. It does not take him long to put two and two together from that.

You press on, a step forward with more vigour. ‘Why Manjiro? I don’t get it.’

He balls a hand into fists, the hurt churning in his chest, old wounds flayed open and licked with salt, the blood running down his ribcage where the carving of your name has never left. ‘I don’t want to talk about this, and you will not ask again.’

‘Please,’ you say, your hands coming out as if in prayer, surrendering yourself under the thick wiry branches where the rain trickles through the wood. ‘Please, I just want to know, I deserve to know.’

Kakucho puts a hand on the door, nerves wiring with anticipation.

Mikey’s blood roars in his ears, the silence a cavern, deafening and loud and vibrating in his skull and when he pauses, the silence hanging on his breath, you go on, and the tears spill, years of them, so watery and full of a grief so big you’ve been swimming in it. Twelve years, all the love that died somewhere, all the love you never got to give, all the forgiveness you knew he could have taken for himself if he just stayed- because you had forgiven him and it had been easy and you’d have come back to his waiting arms if he’d let you. 

You take another step, within arms reach now, breath glossing in the mist, the lump in your throat spiky as it slides along your flesh with every sharp intake of breath. ‘I just wish- if it had been someone else- if you never loved me anymore- then you could have just said so, I could have taken it I swear.’ You’d have wished him happiness still, seen him off in some dignified way, left with a wave and a final smile as a parting gift rather than the grief and rage thrown at the wall, at yourself, for just not being enough for him to be honest to. 

‘Please stop,’ he whispers, hands balled into fists in his coat, shoulders pulled up to his ears and shrinking still against his coat, his eyes averted and glancing frantically between you and the tarmac. Kakucho eyes the two of you nervously, apprehension that simmers along his skin, knuckles white and gripping the door for the moment to step in should he need to.

You deflate then, your body sagging in on itself, a tiredness that seeps into your bones, cold licking across your skin and down to the fibres of your clothes and you fiddle with your hands, pulling at your sleeves, hanging your head and your gaze dragging to his shoes again, now flecked with lashings of cold rain. 

‘I loved you Manjiro,’ you say, a soft and hesitant whisper that’s lost under the rush and hum of passing cars, the puddles jumping and thrumming across the tarmac. ‘I really loved you.’ 

You look up and the pain is a knife across your lungs, sharp and fresh and fast, tears that are salty enough to sting, the devastation of all the untold feelings, all the hurts that were never resolved and never forgotten now rising to your tongue. From where Kakucho is, he only sees you, the bleak and crumpling turn of your once red lips, wobbling and glossy with tears, and Mikey struck still- a deer in headlights- his back stiff and hunched as if in pain.

‘You shouldn’t have, that was your mistake.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

'I do. I never asked you to love me, I never asked for anything from you.’

The edge of your voice seeps with a hardened bite then. ‘You’re an awful liar Mikey. Don’t think I didn’t notice how desperate you were just for someone to hold you- it was written all over your face.’

The inky velvet of his eyes flashes with cobalt steel. ‘Watch your mouth with me, I could have you killed.’

‘That’s the thing about you. You like to pretend you’re invincible, but I never forgot you at all and I would have stayed with you till the end.’ 

He swallows back a wince, a sharp lance of pain that slices clean across the shattered remains of his heart because he knows, he knew back then that it would have been true, that you’d have held onto him and waded through the thicket of sin, the debauchery you’d have endured for his sake, the violence you’d have scrubbed with the blood from his hands and then held gently- as if he had not killed to get there in the first place.

His skin burns, cheeks blazing with a furious heat, all the adrenaline now spilling into his blood and he hates you. He hates you so much that it feels close to shame, for this feeling still. That whatever he can still feel now, what passes as love to him still resides in his chest, an ache and a yearning for the heat and feel of you in his hands and he wishes it had been beaten out of him in some way, wishes your face was not so pretty, wishes your voice was less kind, less soft, less everything he so desperately wants to grab at selfishly and greedily. 

He swallows, a thick boulder that has his tongue weighing down. ‘I don’t want to hear anymore.’ He makes a turn when you grab at his wrist- a minute and split second decision that has the hairs on his arms rising.

Kakucho stiffens, his gun pulled quickly and efficiently from the glove box and tucked into his pants, the car door pushed open and him stepping out as the rain spits through the gaps in the wiry branches. 

‘Manjiro please, don’t just go- not again, not like last time,’ you say, your voice flecked with a desperation that breaks off into a sob, your other sleeve held to your running nose, your running eyes, tears that gather on your chin and his eyes rove over your pretty face, falling and falling till the glittery band on your ring finger snags him.

He freezes, and the silence is weighty, palpable when you glance down at where your fingers circle his wrist, thumb pressed to the indent of veins now thrumming with warmth under your touch, your heart punching against your ribs when his gaze flicks up to meet your eyes again, a fresh wave of pain quickly stamped out. He clenches his fist and pulls his wrist away, turning his coat collar up till his tattoo is swallowed by the black wool. 

‘I…’ 

‘Don’t.’

‘I can explain, I swear.’

‘You’re married,’ he says, bluntly, matter of factly even- his voice melting with apathy, a sneer that he can’t help, that he hates himself for when the jealousy burns in his lungs, green and ugly and hot. 

‘I am.’

‘You’re married and you didn’t mention it.’ 

You frown, your outstretched hand now pulled back and cradled to your chest. ‘Should I have? Why does that matter to you?’ 

His hackles rise again, a vein pulsing in his temple when Kakucho looms at his side, a reassuring hand coming to rest on his coat, the jet black swing of his hair flecked with frosty rain. 

‘It doesn’t,’ he says, forcing a nonchalance he doesn’t feel, and a pain he does far into his stomach. ‘I don’t care.’

And of course you are, when he thinks about it. You’re good and it pains him that that hasn’t changed his many years later, still saying sorry, still bright as the sun, still soft and too pretty to touch, terrifying and alluring all at once when he knows the world is not kind and yet you behave as if it is, as if it should be despite yourself. The years have not changed you and it is this that has the seed of envy sprouting in his chest- that all those wasted years he did not waste with you, the two of you growing up and growing older and becoming mellowed by time. The regret sinks into his bones. 

‘Oh,’ you say, stung and hiding it well behind your trembling lip, your sleeve coming up to wipe at stray tears, all the earnestness he knows he has to shatter time and time again because you are just like that. 

You remind him of someone, another person left behind in the past. Someone who was too persistent, annoyingly so and yet funny, adorable, nostalgic, beautiful, all the things he no longer had room for when it all changed, all the determination he had to stamp out of you because you wouldn’t do it yourself and the world couldn’t shake you.

And then. ‘How long?’

‘Huh?’

‘How long have you been married?’ and he’s not sure why he’s asking when he believes he doesn’t care, only that some locked part of him wants to keep you a minute longer, be a bit more selfish and greedy for your time when he has twelve years to fill and no amount of pining can assuage the ache of your absence in all of it.

Something like joy flits momentarily across your eyes, and Mikey wonders if you know, if you noticed the sun that breaks through the clouds when your eyes shine with a clarity, a clearness that punches against his chest, the barest sliver of a smile tugging at your lips that you’re ashamed of even now and still hiding as if you’re trying to save him from more.

‘Oh,’ you say, a little shyly and kicking at the ground. ‘Me and Mitsuya have been married for about five years but we were dating for five before that. We have a son now too, a baby boy just starting school.’ 

You avoid his gaze, the slow and naked crumple of his mouth, the edges turned down and vulnerable, ashamed, the ricochet of his breaking heart you swear you can hear and wish you didn’t have to. You love your husband, you swear you do and it’s a testament to him that when Mikey left, he was the one who put you back together again, the time taken and mended to fix you, nights spent so freely and willingly at your side and never once used to badmouth Mikey or you, or anyone for that matter. Love persisting, as he always had and does. 

But there is something that aches inside when you glance up at Mikey the same as ever, raw desperation and a need so great that you wonder if anything has changed in twelve years, if he lies awake on some nights as you do, the occasional thought and dream of him that you’re determined never to talk about, buried and locked in some dark part of your chest where the tangled thicket of your history lies dormant.

Do you ever really recover from the pain of first love? Is it even love then? When you are young and fickle and you think you know all there is to know about it and you wonder if the hurt can ever truly heal when it breaks you open and you recover and move on and forget, wounds painted over only to be peeled back again and again. Is it love? Or is it love for what you know it to be at the time?

‘Oh,’ he says, finally clearing his throat behind his hand, the mask falling as it does, as he’s used to and turning to nod at Kakucho now over his shoulder. ‘Get a driver to take her home, we’re done here.’

Your eyes widen in alarm. ‘Manjiro? No wait, we haven’t finished.’

‘We have, I have nothing more to say to you.’

He does. He doesn’t. He isn’t sure. He only knows with certainty that it burns him when he thinks of another man having you in all the ways he wishes he could, everything he should have been that someone else was so easily, pooling in a regret that’s a cavern so wide it’ll eat him if he thinks too long about it. He hurts, he inflicts pain, and you deserve a softer love than anything he could have ever given you. 

‘Manjiro!’

He glares at you over his shoulder, the velvet darkness of his eyes swirling with an ivory flash, an impulse sparking to life. ‘It’s Mikey. My name is Mikey.’

Ice pours into your chest and you pull back as if burned, the fresh tears brimming unbridled and unbidden. 

‘Mikey…’ you breathe, a plume of mist that dusts him with grey in your periphery, tasting the sound of it for the last time, savouring it on your tongue, anguish swirling in your voice when it cracks on the last syllable. 

He nods at Kakucho once and stalks past you, eyes trained on the neon lights of the building behind and you in the corner of his vision getting smaller, the ache and thump of his heart that claws at him for doing it again. Leaving again. Hurting you again. Breaking you again, because it is all he is capable of, and you deserve something softer than the jagged edges of him to cut yourself on.

You cradle your hand to your chest, the resounding footsteps getting further now, you glancing back at the swish and swing of white hair against the black collar of his coat, and always walking away, always the image of his back to look at like he had done before. 

Kakucho rests a hand on your shoulder, the soothing warmth of his voice dripping like honey. ‘Hey, I’m not sure what all that was about but you’ll be fine and I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry? For what?’ you say, your gaze snagging on the crimson light of his eye, the milky white of the other hidden by the midnight black of his hair, a look so gentle and soft, a comfort so warm. 

‘All of it I think. For what became of him that you know about, and even all that you don’t. For what it’s worth, none of it was ever your fault,’ he says, a faint tilt of his head to the side. ‘Mikey just changed after Iza-’ A pause, a harsh clench of his jaw, lashes kissing at his cheek as he heaves a weighted sigh. ‘After losing his siblings, all of them. It wasn’t ever you.’

‘I would have stayed, you know, I would have loved him through it all.’ 

‘That’s the problem. Look, I don’t know you but if Mikey felt like you could have come to harm because of him, then he left you for that reason. As unhappy as he is, and as you are with it, maybe the reason you’re alive is because of that decision.’

Apprehension bristles across your skin. ‘You know more than you’re letting on Mr….?

‘Kakucho, and yes I do. We heard things that’s all, and it’s my job to stay in the loop on his life. I recognised you from the pictures.’

‘Pictures?’

‘The ones he failed to burn, old pictures of the two of you that he thinks no one else knows he looks at. But we’ve all got skeletons in our closets and we just happen to know his.’

He watches you then, all the realisations that dawn and spill across your eyes, the turn of your mouth that has your lips trembling, your hair now plastered to your skin. It’s heavy, the weight of it all, truths and lies that unfurl like flags in the wind.

‘Look, I have to go, but there’s a car here to take you home, give the driver your address okay?’ And he shepherds you to the black unmarked car where the driver nods at you as you slip in, your mind blank and dizzy, a white noise that rings in your ears as he bends at the window. ‘Best you don’t tell your Husband about this either. For obvious reasons.’

‘Okay…’ you say, numb and blind, a grief so big clustering in your chest that it shows on your cheeks, where the tears continue, swallowed up by the red scarf now unfurling around your neck. ‘Thank you Mr Kakucho, for everything.’

He gives you a smile, a pained one at that, the shared weight and loss zipping between you two as he stands and taps the roof of the car, the driver calling a ‘Where to Miss?’ that’s cut when he rolls the windows up again. 

You drive off and he sighs, heavy and thick and painful, a sharp pinch in his lungs when he turns towards the club and walks, feet dragging to the doors where Mikey waits, agonised as he watches your car drive off in a plume of grey smoke.

a/n: I have nothing to add, u can pelt me with rocks for this one lmao, I figured it was time for something soul crushing. sorry for this being a little late though but I hope everyone enjoys it still. happy birthday to baby boy.

taglist: @reiners-milkbiddies @prettyiolanthe @sugusshi @snakegentleman @haitaniapologist @nafarsiti @bejeweled-night-33 @ranscutedoll @the-travelling-witch @orchid3a @qiiuusoup-xo @hoetani @sinfulseashell @sweet-seishu @burnishedcrown @nikokopuffs @mitsuwuyaa @haruwuchiyoo @mochimiyaas @theaonlax @blackfire2013 @wotakuhime @severellamahottub (pls dm or send an ask or comment to be added)

[swordsandholly]

Fancy

Ch. 4: Black Out Days

Ao3 | Previous - Next | Masterlist

Vampire!Poly 141 x Fem!Fat!Reader

MDNI | cw: sickness, hallucinations, injury, some light dubcon

Word Count: 6.2k

Summary: A permanent darkness rests over the city. You’ve lived here your whole life - in the slums, just another human to be pushed and pulled at the whims of the vampires that run it. Another human made to bleed and crawl their way through a meager life. Maybe, just maybe, a meeting by happenstance will change your fate.

A/N: the tone of this story has sort of shifted as I’ve worked on the next few chapters/plot points. I hope it’s not too jarring, but I’m excited for the direction it’s going in.

Your mother rises out of her drunken stupor - spine too straight and head flopped back limply. As if her hips are the only thing capable of moving and her neck has snapped at every ligament. The worn sheets pool around her hips, torn neckline of her nightclothes exposing her gaunt, bruised collar bones.

She says your name in that sickening, gruff voice of hers. A voice too exposed to the poisons outside. Blood drips from the corner of her mouth, coats her teeth as she speaks. Black and viscous. “Oh, darling, what have you gotten yourself into?”

You’re small. A child kneeling by her bed like you always did, waiting for her to ask you to bring her water or pain pills. “What?”

“It’s easier if you give in.”

People aren’t buried anymore. There isn’t room. Your mother’s urn is painfully cold in your hands. You stumble as the train lurches. A new voice hisses above you. Wild eyes and big hands that leave clawing, bloodied stripes in their wake down your body. A flash of blonde, some sort of scar. An accent so old you don’t recognize it.

“It’s easier if you give in, little girl.”

You fall back, out of the train doors and onto something soft and silky. For a few beats you stay there, in the quiet. In the dark. Comfortable in a way so deeply foreign to you it might as well be alien. Until some thick cover pulls away from your face. John grins down at you, shirtless with his head resting on his hand and elbow on the pillow below him.

“Knew you were awake.”

You rub your eyes. “Wh- when did- when did I get here?”

He frowns, a deep crease forming in his brow. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve…” You run a hand through your sleep tangled hair. “I don’t know…”

“It could be so easy, Fancy.” He murmurs, voice low and far away. “It doesn’t have to be… this.”

“I can’t…” Something complicated swirls in your chest. A twisting of guilt and love and unadultered disgust.

The world shifts. You’re standing, now. Simon leans on the railing of the penthouse balcony, staring out at the city. He takes up so much space. Envelopes you without even touching you. “How many memories do you think a person can lose before they’re someone else entirely?”

“What?” You frown. There’s an ache in your head - a drumming pain growing more intense by the second. Your bones rattle along to the rhythm.

“It’d be so easy…”

You peel your eyes open only slightly. It hurts, as if they’ve been glued shut. An offensive light blazes in your face. It takes a moment before you realize the tingle on your skin comes from the UV lamp beside you. Did you fall asleep under it again? No matter how hard you blink your vision won’t clear. When you finally manage to swallow it feels like your throat has been lined with shards of glass.

You grope around the bed uselessly, hands unsure. The edge of the bed takes longer to get to than it should. With a low groan you crawl to the edge, barely managing to swing your legs over. Well, swing is a generous description. In reality you end up on your back on the floor, head thunking against some sort of plush rug or carpet. Your vision swims.

With another groan you slowly pull yourself up into a shaky stance. Wherever you are, it’s big. The bed you fell out of is easily a king with richly woven sheets and a thick comforter. The rug on the floor has such intricate patterns it makes your pounding head dizzy. There’s even a fireplace in the far corner, unlit at the moment.

Something different catches your eye - an item too familiar for this foreign room. Your box of valuables sits on an elegantly carved wooden dresser. Real, actual wood. You run your fingers over the strangely organic material, so rare that it almost feels more unnatural than the plastic plywood you’ve grown accustomed to in the slums.

You limp weakly toward the heavy door on the far wall. A whine escapes you as you pull it open, the heavy wood causes the hinges to creak quietly. You poke your head out, walking down the empty hall like a person with decade long atrophy. Sweat drips down your back, the sickness in your gut turning to anxiety as you realize where you are.

The penthouse.

Voices waft through the mostly open central area - deep and growling. A sound you might mistake for an angry beast if it weren’t for the intelligable words the noise makes up.

“Bloody ‘ell, Price, what the fuck?” That baritone could only belong to Simon. You poke your head around the corner of the wall, peaking into the living room where the four vampires stand.

“I know, I fucking know. I couldn’t-” An exasperated sigh. “I couldn’t lose her again.”

“So you fuckin’ marked ‘er?”

Your hand lifts shakily to the still sore cuts on your neck. They’ve scabbed over but barely. The action makes you look down at your hands - neatly bandaged. Recently, too, you think. At least if your blurred vision is to be believed.

“We’ll lose ‘er anyway if you fuckin’ scare ‘er away!” Simon’s volume continues to grow. He steps forward. John doesn’t back away.

“Guys…” Kyle tentatively steps in, hands outstretched between them as if stepping into a dog fight. He might as well be, frankly.

“You promised her you wouldn’t!” Simon’s voice wavers. It makes your heart skip, the unsteady sound so bizarre coming from him. “We all did!”

“Simon’s right.” Johnny crosses his arms. “We said we’d take our time. See where she’s at.”

“Weren’t exactly taking your time when you fucked her raw were you?” John snaps back. It’s shockingly childish and out of character for the man. Not that you would know. He sighs, rolling his wide shoulders. So much for not being angry about it.

Before you can make heads or tails of the scene playing out in front of you, your vision blackens, one leg stiffening and the other giving out. You barely catch yourself on some random side table, knocking it against the wall in the process. Despite your efforts to hold yourself up you collapse onto the cold, hardwood floor.

“Oh, baby girl.” It’s Kyle at your side first, cool hands tenderly enveloping you as he checks for damage.

“Don’t…” You push at his chest weakly. “Don’t touch me…”

“Dove-” A crack sounds throughout the penthouse, deafening and ringing as Simon’s palm comes into contact with John’s chest, forcing the man back a few steps.

“You’ve done enough.”

There’s a moment, long and silent as you watch them stare each other down. A power struggle. John is the head of the coven, objectively. The only way to change that is an exchange of power. A death. You’ve seen it out on the streets within lesser covens. Simon is bigger, but you can see the cold, dogmatic shift in John’s eyes. The look he gave you in the car. The one that says he is well and truly Right and there is nothing to stand between him and what is Right.

The moment ends when you double over, lungs heaving as you choke and cough. A slimy, viscous glob of red-black comes up from your throat. Barely liquid with the thickness of it. You fall limply against Kyle, as much as you’d rather be left in a dark alley than with these psychopaths your body just can’t hold itself up.

Someone scoops you up, pressing you tightly to their chest. Johnny or Kyle, you think. A touch so soft and sweet you might mistake it for love. Not that you would know. You’re back under the wave of nothing before you even touch the sheets.

You sit still as you can, arm growing tired of the stiff angle you have it positioned in. Laid out across some old loveseat that creaks every time you move even slightly. You don’t trust it to not have at least a little dry rot considering it’s from a good few centuries ago. One of those random pieces John hoards for some secret reason. The light positioned carefully above you feels too warm, discomfort making you twitchy.

“Johnnyyy!” You whine. “Hurry up!”

“Ye can do it, bonnie. Just sit like me.” He goes still. Inhumanly still. Transitioning from living (well, undead) being to a marble statue in barely a second. It sends a frightened shiver down your spine - the prey instinct in your hindbrain moving into overdrive.

You take a shaky breath. “I hate when you do that.”

When he does what? Has he done that before? Have you been here before?

“Jus’ be a good lass f’me.” Johnny murmurs. A different sort of shiver runs down your spine.

You recognize his room but it’s… different. Lighter, somehow, than the last time you were here. The only time you were here. The wall has far more drawings tacked to it, nearly doubling the amount and bleeding across onto another side of the room. You squint. It’s you. Well, mostly. All in different poses, some more salacious than others, each carved out with a deep attention to detail. Were… were those there before? They couldn’t have been.

Your body lights up, the room grows darker. Nearly pitch black. Your hips roll lazily. You feel… good. Ecstatic. The warmth from the light replaced by an immeasurable heat. The man below you comes into focus as the dream settles - a mountain. Blonde and pale and scarred. Part of his right ear is clipped off from a fight. At least you think it was a fight. His hair just barely long enough for you to tangle your fingers in. You’d know those dark eyes anywhere - the ones that look right to the very core of you. That know you wholly from Eve.

“Fuck, Si…”

“Tha’s my girl.” He grins. The action pulls at a scar covering his lips. “Always so good f’me.”

The hands on your waist lift you like nothing. Like you weigh as much as paper and are just as delicate. A burning fills you, a tension that pulls a grating whine from your chest.

A distant part of you remembers to question what this is. Why you’re here, with him. Why you’ve never seen his face before but seem to know every detail of it by heart. The rest of you falls into the moment without a care, allowing yourself to be consumed entirely by him and his desire. It’s all you want - all you need.

Simon’s voice rumbles in a sort of call and response to your devoted babbling. “I love you.”

You jolt, snapping forward and sloshing water around you. For a moment, you panic that you’re drowning. That you’ve been dropped into some great sea and left to flounder.

There’s a quiet rumble behind you, vibrating through your back. Simon. You couldn’t make out whatever he said.

You relax instinctively. Some unconcious part of you falls back into him. Until he runs a soap rag over your chest and you tense, clumsily attempting to cover yourself and curl into a ball. The water sloshes over the edge of the tub again. You don’t get very far, despite the massive size of the bath you’re utterly surrounded. Bracketed by Simon’s strong thighs and large hands.

“None of that.” He barks, pulling your arms back to continue washing you. “You’ve been sweatin’ in bed for four days. Gonna make y’self worse.”

Four days? Worse?

You stay quiet, limp and pliant as he pours a hefty glob of shampoo into your hair. Vanilla. Far too exhausted to put up any sort of fight. Not that you would win. It feels good, if you’re honest, the way he systematically scrubs every part of your scalp, slowly detangling with conditioner. You nod off for a moment, coming back when he pours water over your head to rinse you.

“Simon?” You murmur weakly.

He grunts.

“Why am I here?”

The hands in your hair pause. Only for a moment before going back to their gentle movements. “Because you’re ‘ome.”

You shiver, another coughing fit wracking your body. At least nothing comes up this time. There aren’t bandages on your hands, just the scabbing wounds that have obviously been carefully tended to. Even as the coughing subsides your breaths wheeze, shallow and hollow in your chest.

When you were young, your mother would set you in a cart to walk to the supermarket. The cracked streets would bump and rock you uncomfortably but it was better than walking all those miles. You always hated the market. Too loud and confusing. A maze of sterile white tile and shelving so high it felt giant to you.

One time you lost her, distracted by a massive plushie that she said you can’t afford. You’d stood there staring at it, angrily contemplating why you couldn’t afford it. What sort of societal disservice had been done that you can’t have that bright pink creature. Angry and lost you ended up wandering the aisles for what felt like an eternity. Walking through that white void in search of… you’re not really sure what, actually.

That confusion continues to eat at your mind as the aisles transition into a small, lush greenhouse. The UV lights above you would burn, if it weren’t for the large hat covering your head and shoulders. Gardening gloves protect your hands as you carefully harvest a few tomatoes. They came in so well this year, bright and firm.

You’re lost in it. The green. So accustomed to grays and neon lights that it feels unnatural. You turn your gloved hands over, palm up, down, up, down. They’re yours but distant. As if you’ve possessed some alternate version of yourself. You suppose you have, in a way, if these fever dreams are in pattern. Not that you remember the others well.

The lights turn off suddenly and you freeze, muscles tensing and hackles raising. You turn slowly as the door begins to creak open, trowel in hand. Not that it would do much against whoever has you cornered. John said to be wary.

He’s been acting strange lately.

Isn’t he always?

A hand clamps over your mouth and you shriek behind it. You claw at the stony hand covering you, instinct taking over. Adrenaline pulses through you.

“Hey, hey, it’s just me.” Kyle coos, letting you go quickly. “Sorry, love, I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t do that!” You snap, harsher than you meant. Or less so?

He deflates a bit, shoulders sagging. “Sorry, I just wanted to come in here with you for a bit.”

“Why?” You snort. Kyle is the only one brave enough to venture in. Even with an external light switch, the others are far too wary of the UV lights hanging across the roof to enter. It’s a joke between Simon and Johnny - that they’ll throw Johnny into the greenhouse if he doesn’t behave.

Kyle nods, scooting forward. You can barely make him out, the only light being that of the faux stars drifting gently through the fogged greenhouse glass. “Missed you.”

“I saw you, like, five minutes ago.” Did you?

He shakes his head. You wish they would tell you more. They always hold back so much, as if your puny human brain can’t grasp what they think. You could. You’d learn to. Even if it was some horrid, eldritch secret you would bear it for them. He pushes you back until you’re laying on the floor, slowly resting his weight on you and burying his face in the crook of your neck.

“Just let me stay like this for a bit.”

You frown, but only move to reach up and pet his hair. It’s smells like vanilla. He stole your shampoo again. A fraction of you screams, rails against the idea of being this close to an apex predator. To a man you don’t know. Strange. You know Kyle. You love him. Both the fear and the fondness swirl together into a confusing mixture in the back of your mind.

“We can stay. For as long as you want.”

Something heavy and cold coils around you. You weren’t out as long this time, you think. If you’re even awake now. The room is dark. A pitch black void that you float in outside of the grounding weight holding you in place. That vanilla scent felt so real, still wafting through your nose. A nagging sense of despair settles in your chest as it dissipates.

“Need t’go home.” You croak, unsure of why you say it. Your tongue feels heavy and numb. God only knows why.

“Ye are home.” Johnny murmurs in your ear, voice low.

“Not m’bed… sheets’r t’nice.”

“It’s yers.” Johnny’s arms tighten around you. His voice shakes. “It’s always been yers.”

“N-no…”

“Knew it was tae soon tae bring you back.” He buries his face between your shoulder blades. “Told Kyle it’d be tae much.”

“Wh-”

“Ye make us such a mess, bonnie.” He sighs. “Cannae believe Price-“

Johnny cuts himself off. You can’t find it in yourself to argue or press. A sob wracks you out of nowhere. Something about Johnny, about being wrapped up in his strong arms sends you over the edge of it all. The weight of him mimics the one in your chest.

“Dinnae cry.” Johnny sits up a bit, running a thumb under your eye.

“I’m s-so confused-“ You sob. “I can’t- I-“

Somewhere in the midst of your crying fit the bed dips in front of you. Kyle cages you in between himself and Johnny, pressing you tightly in the center. It makes you want to thrash, to fight and scream.

It also feels so, so good.

You’re back in the slums, in your apartment, with some random man groaning above you. He works down the street, you think. Smiles at you whenever you go get a coffee or cigarettes. You stare at the ceiling blankly. You brought him here… why did you bring him? What- You hiss at the living heat of his hands, burning through your skin - gut churning at the blue of his eyes. It’s wrong. Neither bright nor tranquil enough. You can’t voice it. Can’t place it. They’re just wrong.

You catch a flash of dark irises as you take drinks to some slimy little vampire paying on credit. Immortal but still poor. Pathetic. Suddenly, though, you don’t care when he and his friends grab at you, your gaze trained on the man lounged in a booth on the other side of the club. You can’t stop staring at him, something tugging at you deep down to go to him. His eyes connect with yours, and you nearly leap with joy when he waves you over.

Except, when you get close, you freeze in place. Straddling his lap, a crushing weight lands on you all at once. They’re not what you’re looking for…

What are you looking for?

You sob in your bed late into the night, pressing the heels of your hands to your eyes. You’re so lost. So hollow. You don’t know why - don’t understand what changed. Some portion of you carved out into nothing. A soulless tulpa born of someone’s imagination. You can’t be human, there’s no way you can be human and this empty. A walking carcass. Not even undead, just barely animated. A puppet, almost.

It’d be so easy…

You wake in a fog this time, limbs heavy. As much as you try to will your arms to move, they won’t quite do it right. Your hands glide over the soft fabric around you, barely moving a few inches. The muscles twitch and shake. It feels like wading through molasses and with a thousand pounds of steel strapped to your back as you attempt to sit up even slightly.

“There she is.” A familiar voice murmurs. It’s soft, comforting, but also incredibly far away. “Hey, lovie.”

“Kyle?” You croak. You might as well be speaking around a massive ball of cotton. There’s something hot and wet streaming down your face. Are you crying?

“You’re alright.” He murmurs, soothing down your hair. Petting you like a dog in pain. An injured, feral animal.

You collapse back on the bed - not that you made it that far in the first place - unable to see more than a few feet in front of you. Kyle, really. Kyle is all you can make out. His face so vivid you’re sure you could draw it from memory. “Where am I?”

He pauses. “…Your room.”

“M’chest hurts…”

“I know, lovie. We’ll make it better.”

“What’d y’do t’me…?” Your vision flashes in and out. You’re going back under, as hard as you try to fight it. The edge just comes closer. You teeter on your heels.

“You just breathed in some bad air. You’ve been out for… a while.” Somehow, you get the sense that what he says is an understatement. That there are layers he has to hold back. Simon said four, you remember, though you can’t quite define if that was real or a dream.

“I hate you.” You whisper, barely audible. “I hate all of you.”

“I know.” Kyle sighs, continuing to run his fingers through your hair. “I know.”

Teeth sink into you. A choked gasp escapes your lips, body stiffening and hands knotting into some thick cloth. The pain is searing but fleeting. A part of you, the present part of you, feels disgusted. Wants to shake and batter whatever parasite has you caught in its maw. Another part, a far more distant piece of you that you aren’t even sure is you, blossoms with warmth. You melt into the strong arms that hold you against a cool chest.

“John?” You murmur. Or, rather, this other you murmurs.

A low groan reverberates from his chest to yours. Your head gets lighter, vision fuzzy around the edges. A hand clamps over the bloodied parts of your neck. Your vision fractures, partially the scene in front of you and partially the ceiling of your room that isn’t your room. Your lashes flutter and you’re back loosely straddling John’s lap.

“Yes, love?” He pants, mouth and teeth stained red. It sends a wave of panic through your veins.

You swallow roughly. “I don’t-”

Something shatters - the staccato sound reverberating through the apartment.

You startle, sitting up and throwing your blankets back. The bed is empty, room dark except for the few embers trapped in the fireplace off to the side. You don’t notice the box missing from your dresser.

“Hello?” You frown, standing and moving toward your door as if possessed by some external force. As if you at all know where you are going. Your bare feet pad quietly against the hard wood, door silently sliding open a fraction.

There’s another smashing sound. Your heart rate spikes, fear coursing through your veins. No one’s home - they left days ago. On business.

How do you know that?

Suddenly you’re in the living room of the apartment, crouched behind the couch and groping underneath for one of the silver daggers stashed around in various hiding spots. An insurance policy. Your breath comes in short, rapid gasps. You have to get out. Get downstairs. There’s security down there. They’ll help you, they know you.

How do they know you? How did you know the knife was there?

With the small dagger gripped tightly in your fist, you flinch at another smash. It came from John’s room across the apartment, another following right after. It sounds like this person (or people) tore his metal bed-frame apart. Splintered into pieces.

You take the opportunity to carefully move toward the front exit, allowing the noise to cover the sound of your movements. Damn the open concept design. You told John you didn’t like it. Breaths come in faster and shallow. You’re not built for running - too soft from all that pampering. A chubby, well loved pet. Not that you’re complaining. It’s just not the best for this particular moment.

A figure moves at lightening speed from John’s room to Kyle’s. You duck down behind the kitchen counter, covering your mouth to stifling the sound of your breath.

“I can smell ya.” A low voice taunts, echoing through the apartment. Fortunately, your scent is everywhere. It will take longer to distinguish where you are in particular than he may think.

Why is your scent everywhere again?

There’s more tearing and smashing. A door groans loudly as the intruder tears it off the hinges. More shattering. Your heart breaks a little - that must have been Kyle’s pottery. Oh he worked so hard on those. Some of them are from a century ago.

Anger begins to boil up your spine. Who is this fuck who thinks he can just wreck your home? Someone you know, for sure. He would have had to be invited in at some point. With a sneer you continue making your way through the penthouse, toward the front door. John’s going to rip this fucker in two when he gets back.

Except, just as you’re reaching for the front door, the vampire exits Kyle’s room. You meet his eyes - glinting in the dark of the hall. There’s barely a beat before you begin to rush, opening the door as fast as you can.

Not fast enough, of course. You’re only human, after all.

A scream rips it’s way through your throat as you connect with the far wall, knife clattering who knows where. Something broke, you’re not sure what. Every nerve ending seems to light on fire as you try to sit up. Your arm doesn’t move more than a twitch when you try to stand.

“Hey there, little girl.” The man pins you suddenly. You get the nagging sense that you know him, his name on the tip of your tongue. Buried somewhere under lock and key in your mind.

You thrash, punching at his chest and tearing at his hair. To no avail, of course. He just lets you, a cruel grin spreading wider and wider the harder you try to get away.

“What do you want!” You finally sob, going limp when your body finally gives out under pain and exertion.

“To destroy John’s coven. Obviously.” He huffs. “Yer step one.”

The vampire grabs your jaw in an iron grip, your teeth crack under the pressure as his pupils dilate. They’re bright - so blue and infinite and you can’t look anywhere else no matter how hard you try.

A clarity washes over you almost violently as you come to - like breaking through the surface of water after staying under too long. Everything from yo ur time under washing away, sinking back into the deep. A forgotten wreckage - old and twisted and grown over. Another lost Atlantis somewhere in the depths of your mind.

“John?” The name falls from your lips before you even realize you’re speaking, before his face comes into focus. Soft and familiar - comforting and enraging.

“Right here, dove.” He murmurs, dabbing your face with something damp and cool.

“Wh…” You swallow roughly, not entirely sure what you even want to say. So any words threaten to spill from your lips and yet your mind feels blank. All fuzz and static.

You want to beg him to let you go. To keep you forever. To tell you why he brought you here despite the ever nagging sense that you know why. Something deep in your marrow that connects you to this place - to these men - at the very soul. You are theirs and they are yours and you want nothing more than to run from them as far as you can go.

Those blue eyes focus on yours, so oddly gentle for all of their inhuman qualities. “We’ll talk when you’re better, okay?”

Talk about what? There isn’t anything to talk about. You don’t know them and they don’t know you, no matter what that tugging in your chest tells you. You’ve lied to yourself before - you’ve lied to others before - surely you’re just doing it again. This man hurt you. Marked you, whatever that means, so why do you still melt into his touch?

Your name falls from his lips, reverent and frightening. You blanch, eyes wide and mouth falling open. You didn’t tell him that. You didn’t-

“Just sleep for now, yeah?”

~~~

John watches intently as you fall back asleep. There was panic in your eyes for a moment, but your sick body can’t do much more than drift in an out of consciousness. You look more peaceful this time, at least, your breathing even and your body still. You’d been thrashing before, for what reason he isn’t sure. The lower city’s poison air does a number on the body, it’s effects only growing worse as time goes on and the pollution becomes more dense.

He did that, didn’t he? He left you and now you’re sick and hurt. John runs his fingers over the Mark, nearly entirely healed now. Just two small, faded marks that will follow you to the grave.

“I’m so sorry. I just keep failing you, don’t I?” He sighs. You always said he was a good man even when he didn’t believe it. Even with all the things he’s done. Would you still agree?

John‘s eyes sting. He’d be crying if he was human, surely.

He glances at the door. The others are out - taking care of business while he watches over you. The world doesn’t stop even when you need it to desperately. It took Johnny and Kyle nearly dragging Simon away to leave you alone with him.

He takes your hands in his, guilt wrecking him. They’re so much smaller, so much warmer. He can feel your pulse in every fingertip. Surely he’s ruined any chance to fix this before they could even try. He wouldn’t blame Simon if the man decided there needed to be a change - that John needs to be removed. He wouldn’t fight it.

John crawls into bed beside you like he’s done so many times before. Nestles under your pink silken sheets - the ones you picked out for Christmas. That was years go, now. Over two. Two tortorous, draining years that felt longer than the past six hundred.

He ran for days. Weeks maybe. Tearing through the city block by block, dodging and weaving between people and buildings alike. Speaking to anyone, using up every connection and resource he ever gained under this damned dome. It took a week to get through the sewer system.

No one knew where you went.

No one heard a thing. At least, nothing they would admit to. Even under compulsion.

You were gone, just like that.

Two years go by in the blink of an eye for a vampire. Might as well be a day, a night, a handful of hours. Time in such small increments is nothing to an immortal. Decades are barely enough to measure with. Not for them, though. Every second drug on. The days were long and tense.

A fracture formed between them. Kyle retreated into himself - quiet and frayed around the edges. Sometimes John caught him with a far away look in his eye, staring at nothing. He thinks Kyle would have been crying in those moments if he could. Johnny became far too unpredictable. Ripping and tearing any lower level vampire he can find. He spent a few months hunting Frenzies in the lower city without contact.

And Simon…

Simon turned into a fucking nightmare.

After the first year, they at least hoped to find your body. After the second anniversary of your disappearance came around, they gave up. The guilt of giving up brought a whole new wave of grief on them. Johnny laid in your bed for weeks, nearly beginning to petrify as he denied any blood. John couldn’t blame him, opting to re-read your favorite books with shaking hands. Simon fished your last knitting project, eyes heavy and tired. Kyle meandered listlessly through the house, sometimes laying with Johnny but most often sequestering himself in the now empty greenhouse.

They try to fill the hole with pretty girls that look sort of like you. Never enough and they never act like you. Too busy placating to snap at them like you were so willing to do. These others are only place fillers - something to take up the space you left between them. They could never truly fill it, though. It was far too great. A chasm that continues to swallow the four of them whole.

He’s so tired. The others were, too. Kate handled business well enough but their involvement was still required. Each issue and event weighing on them more and more. Kingpins of the city and they’ve been nearly ruined by the loss of a single girl. A single, human girl. None of it mattered in the face of what they lost.

John looks up, the pin-drop silence in the room bringing his attention back to the present.

And there you are.

Like Lazarus returned. An angel bathed in low, red light. Your hair spills around your shoulders framing that face he knows so well, one he’s held more times than he can count. A face that made him pray to a god he does not believe in every day to get back. Just once. Those unmistakable pearls grace your neck, the ruby latch glinting as you twist your neck and tuck your hair behind your ear.

“I’ll be your Companion tonight.” You say so softly. Almost the way you used to, laid up in his bed, whispering about nothing and everything with your fingers running through his hair. Asking about the things he’s seen with such awe.

“What happened t’ Cherry?” Kyle asks faux casually. John can feel the tension in the man next to him. He’s feeling it out - always so good at that. Better at human subtleties than the rest of them. His dark eyes sparkle, though, with a light John hasn’t seen in so long. He hadn’t realized just how much he missed it.

“She was unfortunately unable to come in tonight.” You slide the tray onto the table. You look the same. You sound the same. There’s a few new scars, some scratches here and there. A wariness in your eyes that wasn’t there before. Damage done to your skin that could only come from the lower city air.

Where have you been?

You shift nervously. “If I’m not to your standards-“

“Well, now, none of us said that.” John says far too quickly, smiling despite himself. It might not even be you. Maybe a doppelganger. A distant relative. A clone is more plausible. “What’s your name, dove?”

“Fancy.” And oh, John is sure his dead heart comes back to life. It is you. It has to be.

“Fittin’.” Johnny says, eyes raking over you. He might as well be vibrating, struggling to keep himself held back from yanking you into his hold.

They’re all measuring you up the same way he is. Feeling for anything unfamiliar. Outside of your distant, distrustful gaze with a lack of recognition that makes his chest ache, it’s you. It’s all you.

“Do you know who we are?” Simon murmurs. You’re having trouble looking at him, only meeting his gaze in small glances. Not so different from when they first met you. You and Simon have always had a certain… connection. Not that you weren’t all close - that they all didn’t love you deeply - but you and Simon had an understanding. He wonders if you can still feel it somewhere, deep down in the back of your mind.

You’re panicking a little, eyes flitting between their faces. John’s heart sinks. He feels it in the others. A deep disappointment - a turbulent melancholy- seeping into their bodies. You don’t know them. You don’t recognize a single one of them.

It’s all gone.

“It’s not a trick question.” Kyle says gently, ever one to soothe.

“No, sir.”

John’s heart breaks all over again.

A/N: My initial summary for this one was just “Fancy tripping balls on pollution while John and co. have a meltdown”

[harmonysanreads]

La Follia

ᯓᡣ𐭩 Yandere!Sylus x Reader

cw(s) : yandere, coercion, implied murder, implications of forced marriage, one mention of blood, guns, imbalanced power dynamics.

「 words : 800+ 」 「 art credits 」

· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ This... is not the fic idea I said I had in my wips but somehow we ended up here anyway ^^;

Before signing any document, it is crucial to carefully read its contents.

Not this one though. Your spite digs its talons into the pen, glaring at the offending piece of paper its situated against. The strings of legal ruminations and dry wordplay are irrelevant, unnecessary and jeeringly useless before your present predicament. Your eyes would rather bleed than capture their meaning.

Vague phantoms taunt your periphery, specks of dust rising from litanies of codicies towards the flickering lightbulb make it impossible to forget your environment. The state of a government office ; a place to admonish rules and keep the reputation of the constitution flowing — he has no need to adhere to them.

Redundant cannot even hope to describe the absurdity of the situation, in fact, you think you're at a stage of mental stupefaction that no adjective can. Perhaps it would carry some semblance of logic had it been a toddler instead of a conscious adult conducting this ridiculous show.

A show, yes, yes — it is nothing but an impromptu drama. To dig and imbibe the fact into your and everyone else's heads, that the leader of Onychinus has the luxury, the power to carry out even the most nonsensical whims.

Why shouldn't it be possible? In a world dictated through strength, governed by the fittest and where history is written for posterity in hopes of conditioning them to sing the greatness of those who won, you suppose something like this isn't all that irrational.

Supposing now, all things considered, that none of this is illogical in the grand scheme of things. In fact, should the so-called strong decide that it is completely normal, acceptable even to hold a gun to another's head, push them to a stack of papers and shove a pen to finalize some joke of a matrimony — it would be deemed appropriate, because it is the one with the might who has thought so.

But what it wouldn't be, is fair ; another hapless notion that can be discarded easily with the universal knowledge that nothing ever is fair in this world.

You peer through your lashes to the unfortunate clerk that had the fortune of witnessing this hilarity. He tries his best to maintain a semblance of professionalism and fails effortlessly, if the way he toys with the silver-band around his ring finger is anything to go by. Your eyes shift to the picture frame kept with care at one corner of the desk, the innocent smiles of figures who you assume to be his family almost make your heart ache.

Marriage. Coveted, anticipated, so beautiful in its purest form yet the causation of so many miseries. You would've never thought it could be ridiculed to this degree before this day.

You don't need to look beside you to picture his amusement, fascinated at how the clerk appears as though he's seeing his every wrong doing and each moment of joy play out before his eyes despite it being you with a weapon pointed at your head.

There is no rationality behind the demand of marriage by a man who dwells in a land governed by the rule of no rules, no explanation as to why he saunters into this establishment and insists that it be finalized through legalese furthermore.

No, no, it is but to prove to your stubborn self — see and witness what I can do should I desire, I can adhere to law and trample upon it according to my whim. Will you still deny me, still deem me beneath you after this?

You will, if just to push his patience to its last hinges. You know very well this is all just a game to him. If Sylus truly desired to end your life, he wouldn't need a measly gun to do it.

You count the beats of time and construse your own schemes, searching for exits from this doomed playground and wander right into his trap.

“Can’t bring yourself to do it?” the purr is close, too close for your comfort. The tip of the pen shines as it tilts in response to your loosened clasp, sharp, you note ; pointed enough to pierce through an eye and dash away a few paces.

“Need some encouragement? Yes? No? Maybe so? You could've just said it instead of glaring at the poor paper.” the cold muzzle retracts from the side of your head but the heat of its presence remains.

The clerk's pupils are clear enough to reflect the panic that paints your face. The pen drops from your grasp, rolling across the papers and the worn out wood of the table ; gravity pulling it closer to the earth till it hits the tiled floor, splattering the crimson pooling around the surface.

The warmth of the hand that forced the weapon to your hand swiftly withdraws, your vision clears to the coldness of the gun in your clutch, the silence that follows the bullet's release nearly deafens your ears.

You hear the devil's whisper, “Now you and I are equal, no? As such, there should be no further excuses preventing you from marrying this monster.”

It would've been a taunt only some seconds ago, but now, it has become an irrefutable fact. No matter how cunning, how stubborn, the weak will always be controlled by the strong.

[umnitsa]

Still a dirty old man

Summary: Joel is on his seventies, but he still has needs. Well, we all have needs.

A/N: Ok, so. Look, I'm gonna be honest: life kicked my ass, I just got into college (again eeee), god knows how this is gonna go, but here, I heard you all: I wanted more and there is more. I can't help myself, I want this man in dirty, horrible ways. Thanks @romanarose, for the pair of eyes and as always, thanks for everyone who asked for more and cheered me with this. Really, I can't thank you enough.

(I must admit that I don't know if I'll ever continue this, specially with the way life is going now. Although part of me wants to get to three thousand sex scenes, I need to be honest: not even I know if this will continue. Don't wanna give y'all false promises.)

Pairing: No outbreak old man!Joel x Reader

CW: Joel being bold, me trying dirty talk and failing miserably, a handjob, very much predator/prey dynamics

No beta, we die like lonely writers xD

Joel behaved as if nothing happened, and so did you.

Things were somewhat tense though. Not for Joel, no. The man just smirked everytime he saw you then lowered his head and chuckled, as if he knew something you didn’t know.

You had to admit it bothered you.

Cocky bastard.

You moved into the kitchen, needing some water. You could hear the faint sounds of tv in the living room, so Joel was sitting down on his recliner, watching some late night sports.

You wondered if Joel would want a snack before sleep, as you filled your cup distractedly. You took a drink, considering the options in the fridge, when a loud cheering sound comes from the living room. You startled, the glass shatters on the floor with a loud noise and your yelp.

“What happened?” Joel yelled from the living room, concern clear in his voice.

“I just dropped a glass, Joel! You don’t need to worry, I’m gonna clean it.” You said, getting on your knees carefully. You placed your hands on the floor and lowered your face to see better. Glass was tricky to see.

You checked the floor, picking the pieces of glass and piling them together; you thought of getting a bag, or some paper to wrap them on after making sure all the glass was retrieved.

“Mmmm…” you heard, and you turned your head back. Joel was at the kitchen door, looking down intensely at your ass. “Such a heavenly view… Makes me wanna get on my knees… Worship your asshole and your pretty pussy with my tongue.” Joel licked his lips and you blushed.

“Joel!” You said, sternly.

“What?” He asked, no shame whatsoever.

“Come on.” You complained, picking the rest of the shattered glass as quickly as you could. As you move angrily you felt a sharp sting of pain. “Fuck!”

Joel quickly wobbled by your side and watched your bleeding finger.

“Here, honey… Leave it. We can clean it later.” He offered you his broad hand, suddenly overflowing with gentleness. “Lemme see your hand.”

You stood up, mesmerized by his eyes, and show you his hand. He held it between his calloused, big, bony ones and slowly leaned to suckle on the tip of your finger.

You were so mesmerized by his deep brown eyes focused on yours, glinting with mischief, that you only realize what he is doing with the first gentle swipe of his tongue against your skin. He gently swirled his tongue around your fingertip, suckling softly; he was showing you what he can do with your clit.

He smirked when you moaned, still holding your wrist with one hand, the other moving down out of your sight.

Joel sighed deeply, in relief, and you realized he opened his pants and took his cock out. He massaged the shaft slowly and you could only watch, dumbrounded, your mouth half open.

“He always wakes up for you, honey.” Joel chuckled. “I thought we were retired, but there he is. Since you came into the house my pants got way too tight. I keep thinking of making you my three-hole-wonder, honey.” He licked his lips and smirked. “Maybe you should give him a little kiss, at least to calm him down.”

The old man looked down, pouting and doe eyed, then back to your face. You found it hard to resist him, when he looked at you like that.

“We can’t do this, Joel.” You swallowed your saliva, considering his cock. It was long, and thick, from tip to base, the head an angry purple that made you want to suck on it. You considered the pain and the stretch he would give you, and the more you thought, the more you wanted to just give in. “I’m supposed to care for your needs.” You said, distractedly.

Your mouth watered and you licked your lips.

“We are both adults.” His eyebrows raised, and he cocked his head. “This is clearly a need. And only you can care for this one.” He smirked again, proudly. His hand kept moving, in this slow, hypnotizing pace.

“So you don’t do this to the day nurse?” You scoffed.

“She’s not my type.” Joel shrugged, a playful expression in his eyes. “Way too young and way too thin.” After a moment of silence, Joel steps forward and holds your hand. He watched your reactions carefully, sliding his calloused thumb over the back of your hand.

You didn’t move.

Joel raised your hand to his face and spit on your palm. You jumped, startled; another chuckle came from him, filling the space between you. Gently, he wrapped your hand around his cock. His big, bony fingers engulfed yours, guiding you into his rhythm.

His cock felt a bit soft at first, but it still got bigger and harder in your hand.

“Mmmmm… Haven’t felt this good in decades.” He muttered, his voice low, eyes closed.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.” You whispered, more a reminder to yourself than a refusal.

“Not standing in the kitchen, we shouldn’t.” Joel growled. “But you didn’t give me much choice… You keep running, bunny. I’d rather taste you, but I take what I can get.”

“I… I…” You lost your words as you look into his eyes. He watched you intensely, his eyes locked into yours. You felt like he was drinking every single one of your reactions, a hawk-eyed creature looming over you, ready to devour you whole.

“Give in, honey.” His voice was gentle, soft, in contrast with the hunger in his expression. “It will make our nights much more fun.”

You whined, leaning forward, your eyes closed. You felt Joel’s lips against yours, one big hand cupping the back of your head, pulling you closer. He growled into the kiss. Your whole body tensed; you squeeze him, the meaning of what you’re doing suddenly very real.

Joel’s fingers clenched, tugging on your hair tightly. Your head moved back; you gasped as Joel’s slips slid down your jaw, towards your ear.

“Wanna run, bunny?” He whispered, his voice suddenly soft. “Don’t run. Just wanna ruin you a little bit.”

His hand squeezed yours; you followed his move, squeezing his cock. Joel moaned, cock twitching in your hand. He moaned loudly, hips thrusting forward. Grunting, he came; some of it transferring to your hand, some splashing against your thigh.

Joel stepped back, releasing you, a smug satisfied smile on his lips.

“See? Just a little bit.” He chuckled, pulling himself into his pants.

“Joel, we shouldn’t…”

“Honey, if you didn’t want me to keep trying, you would have told me. Or Sarah.” Joel huffed, interrupting you impatiently. “She would have killed me by now.”

“How do you know… You could lie to her and she would believe you.”

“I raised her right. And hell if she doesn’t know exactly the kind of man I am.” Joel chuckled, looking at you with a warm, appreciative smile. He shrugged. “You keep saying we shouldn’t, we can’t… You just don’t say we won’t.”

You bristled, puffing your chest and placing your hands on your hips, glaring at him. Your mouth half open, a thousand million tiny things you could say bubble in your throat.

“Go on. Just say: Joel, I won’t play this game with you. Stop right now.” Joel stood in front of you, watching your expression carefully.

The silence extended between you both.

You considered saying it, but you knew it would not be true. Deep inside you wanted him to hunt and ruin you. His smile broadened slowly, as the silent seconds went by. You blushed, lowering your head. You shook it gently.

“That’s what I thought.” He stepped closer to you, even his voice smug. “It’s ok, honey.” Joel caressed your hair, burying his fingers into the strands. He pulled your hair, making you look at him. “Nothing wrong with wanting this.”

Joel kissed you, hungry, impatient, devouring.

Then he left, informing you he would have an early night with a wink.

[clockwayswrites]

City Pigeons Bleed Green Part 6

WC:1288 Masterpost CW: Self-esteem issues, past abuse, past experimentation, past starvation

“Hey Kid,” Jason said after he knocked on the door. It may have been left open a crack for safety reasons, but Jason still wanted to give the kid as much privacy as they could with all this.

The kid looked up at him from the bed with wide, startled eyes.

Right.

“I’m the one with the helmet.”

“I, yeah, same outfit,” the kid mumbled but didn’t look any less wide eyed.

Jason held back a sigh “Can I come in?”

“Sure, yeah,” the kid said as he forced himself to sit up against the wall with shaky arms.

Jason took the seat that Tim had used and kept a careful distance between them, even as he leaned forward and clasped his hands. “I want you to be honest with me, Kid, because you feeling safe here is the most important thing. I’ve made some soup and I’d like you to eat it and some bread, but if you don’t feel comfortable eating something I made we can do am MRE instead. That way you can know it’s still sealed.”

“No. I mean, no to the MRE. Soup sounds…” the kid had to stop and swallow. “That sounds really good.”

“Okay, Kid,” Jason said with as gentle of a voice as he could manage right then. “It’s only going to be a small portion to start, just to give your body time to adjust, but you keep it down and are still hungry there will be more. Whenever you’re hungry there will be food, I promise, and you don’t have to do anything to earn or deserve it. You can just ask whoever is around. Hell, when you’re well enough to walk around you can get anything you want from the fridge or pantry, okay?”

The kid nodded slowly, but that wide eyed look was back. Jason was going to have to warn the others about making sure that the kid ate and knew that he had free access to the food. They should get some granola bars, chips, and bottled drinks for the kid’s room too, but only once they knew the kid wouldn’t gorge himself.

“And just to check, any allergies or restrictions? I made the soup vegan, just to be safe, but it’s got some corn starch as a thickener.”

The kid shook their head.

“Good. After you eat, if you feel up to it, it would be good for you to take a bath or shower. But if you can’t,” Jason gave a little shrug, “that’s fine too. It can be another time.”

The kid shook his head. “I want to. I mean, if I can, I want to. A shower sounds… really good.”

“Yeah, I bet it does. I’ll go get you that soup and a sports drink. I know it’s going to suck, but we’re going to want to track you staying hydrated so you’ll be drinking lots,” Jason warned to another answering nod. He closed the door most of the way behind him again as he left the bedroom.

“He was awake then?” Dick asked softly when Jason moved to fill up a bowl.

“Yeah. Hey, can you start a log? I want to track what the kid eats and drinks and when,” Jason said.

“What’s the starvation concern?” Dick asked with a little frown as he tapped on the tablet.

“Right now I’m worried about the kid not believe he can eat whenever he’s hungry, so we’ll have to keep asking. But we need to watch for gorging. Lots of small meals often right now.”

Dick nodded. “Okay. I’ll make the log and set a silent alarm for whoever’s with him every hour. Did you talk about moving safe houses?”

Jason shook his head as he place two bowls and a plate of buttered bread on a lap tray. “We’ll let him get fed and through the shower first, maybe even another nap.”

“We don’t want him to get too settled here,” Dick pointed out.

“But we also don’t want to spook him,” Jason countered.

Dick just sighed. “Fucking timing.”

Jason opened his mouth—

“And if you make a dick joke right now I will throw something at you, little wing, I am not kidding.”

Jason help his hands up in surrender for a moment before he picked up the tray and headed back to the bedroom. He knocked with his foot before he pushed the door open.

The kid had fixed the bed while Jason was out of the room. He even straightened up the mess of tools that Tim had left.

It made Jason’s stomach turn over.

“You didn’t have to clean up,” Jason said, hoping to let the kid know he didn’t have do work to stay. “Red leaves a mess wherever he goes.”

The words had the opposite effect and the kid ducked his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have touched.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Jason soothed. He’d have to mention this to the others too. “It’s nice not to accidentally step on a screw or something, just that you didn’t have to. Can I set the tray on your lap?”

The kid nodded and scrambled to straighten back up. Jason was careful not to touch him as he set the tray down and made sure it was balanced.

“So I divided the veggies up differently. Which bowl do you want?”

The kid’s eyes darted between the two bowls and then up to Jason, as if trying to find the right answer.

“I don’t mind either,” Jason added, casually as he could, and sat on the bed next to the kid. “I can get more if I want it. Hell, I probably will. Spoiler always says I’m a bottomless pit with how I eat.”

Slowly, the kid reached out to scoot the bowl more more potato chunks closer to him. He glanced up at Jason from under the messy white bangs. Jason just smiled and took the other bowl for himself. He blew on a spoonful of soup before starting to eat. A beat latter, the kid did the same.

Jason ate steadily, setting a rhythm for the kid to follow, and the kid was mimicking him. It was almost like the other didn’t even know how to eat any more. For a moment, Jason had to close his eyes and breathe. The Pit Rage wasn’t what it used to be, but there was a still an anger that could burn inside him and when it did, it burned so fiercely hot. Right then, it wanted to burn whoever did this to the kid to ashes. Jason didn’t much want to stop it, but he wouldn’t risk scaring the kid for vengeance.

Not when this was his new little brother.

(He wasn’t going to mess up this time, not again.)

The sound of the spoon scraping softly against the bowl next to him trailed off. Jason kept eating, focused on his own bowl, so not to call note to it. He’d like the kid to eat a little more, but he wouldn’t push it. He’d push so little with this kid, not outside of keeping him safe.

When the barely there weight settled against Jason’s side, he froze.

Slowly he turned his head as little as possible.

The kid was tipped over, head pillowed against Jason’s arm, sound asleep.

Jason reached up with his other hand and tapped his comm twice. Dick was at the door in a flash, silent despite having obviously run. The alert bled out of Dick as he took in the sight and his face split into a grin. Silently laughing, Dick raised the tablet still in his hands and started taking photos.

Jason flicked him off for the next shot.

Damn brothers.

---

AN: Another mostly soft Trauma Tuesday! But my is poor Danny messed up... at least he has his big brothers looking after him! (Even he doesn't know that part yet.)

I no longer tag, but you can subscribe here!

[tojivu]

Megumi and reader after a two week separation because of megumis mission. He admits that he almost died to reader and talks about what happens after.

empty spaces ⋆ megumi fushiguro

an. argh sorry i got carried away LOL

cw. sfw, gn!reader, comfort + fluff

playing. bills by enhypen.

the bed's been useless these past few days.

it's as if the weeks have been drawn out, the universe adding new hours to each of the days so they're longer than they should be — that's what it's been feeling like.

you refuse to sleep in the master bedroom. the pillows next to your head smell too much like your boyfriend; hints of mint shampoo linger and enter your nose as you try to sleep, but ultimately fail to do so.

megumi's been gone for a bit now, and you haven't gotten much news, either. yaga's always talking about classified information and how 'the public shouldn't be concerned with jujutsu affairs' — anxiety pits in your stomach because why couldn't he just tell you whether your boyfriend was dead?

you try to distance yourself from places in the house that remind you of him, incase he's really gone this time; you believe it'll make things easier for you, but it feels as if someone's cutting away at the vessels closest to your heart whenever you imagine it — imagine megumi's body laying lifeless as they transport it back to tokyo.

megumi's never been gone for more than 3 days, especially on a mission. he's usually quick with it, coming home with a cut or two on the arms or face; it'll heal just fine, because he always asks you to take care of his wounds.

you usually sit on his lap as you bandage him up. he winces at the sting of the antiseptic, his fingers gripping harshly at your waist and then you'll tell him to sit still — he never listens, gets all grumbly with furrowed eyebrows — until you clean him up and put on the last bandaid, kiss him over the piece of clear film (and maybe an extra on the lips, if they aren't bleeding too); it's only then he finally shuts up.

you wonder how long you'll have to sit together on the kitchen island this time, if he comes home, that is — you don't think you'll mind the back and arm strain this time. you just want to see him.

"relax," gojo reassures over the phone. "he'll be back soon."

those words mean nothing to you. he's been gone for 14 days now, and he hasn't called — his location hasn't updated, either, you think he must've broken it during the fight or something.

a few sentences are exchanged between satoru and you, before your finger taps the red button at the bottom of your screen; unsatisfied doesn't, couldn't, describe your current thoughts — you were enraged that that was the only piece of information that was provided.

it takes a few hours for you to calm your thoughts. they make your head spin and heart sink, jump around like marbles on clean linoleum and deafen the shows you play on television.

you're watching megumi's favourite drama, which happens to be your favourite drama, too — he was the one who introduced it to you. you're seven episodes in when you hear the front door creak open; so loud that it reminds you to get the hinges replaced.

megumi was supposed to call the guy. it's clear you might have to ring him up yourself, now.

you wonder if it could be nobara. she didn't tag along with yuji or megumi, and you've been ignoring her calls for the past week or so — she must be here to give you a good lecture.

you hear faint groans and bags dropping to the floor, close to the entryway. you aren't greeted by a loud "[name]" as you usually would by nobara. a shiver travels down your spine, hairs on the back of your neck beginning to stand.

you throw the woven blanket off of your body and to the side of the couch — the socks on your feet lubricate your steps and you almost trip with how fast you make your way to the door.

"[name]," his voice calls, rasp voice barely reaching your ears. "i'm home."

megumi's lip is bloody, bandages wrapped over his right eye and around his head — his left arm and leg had some cuts, as well; but those seem to have scabbed already.

you want to call his name, but nothing comes out of your mouth; only a small whimper before your lover is wrapping his arms around your torso. "sorry i was gone for so long."

the pit in your stomach is gone now, almost instantaneously — instead, you begin to sob into megumi's jacket.

megumi feels the guilt but the comfort of having you in his hold overpowers it. if it didn't, he was sure he would be tearing up, too; he never liked seeing you cry.

"megs," you sniffle. "i thought you were—"

"i almost did," megumi cuts you off. he didn't want you to say those words, though he knows being a sorcerer had his fate sealed — but it didn't mean he wanted you to know that. "but i'm alright, see?"

megumi smiles down at you, as if it didn't hurt to move the muscles in his face: they stung like small needles, but he sees the relief wash over your face like a splash of cold water — so he thinks he can put up the act for a bit longer.

"you're all bloody," you mutter. "can i clean that for you?"

you point at his lip and he nods, wincing at your finger that tries to inspect the cut a little closer — it's a familiar feeling: your delicate fingers treating him like glass.

megumi's standing in front of you, and you're sitting on the kitchen island so you can actually reach his face. he lets you do your thing and he's fighting every urge to kiss your lips; he knows the cut will only get worse.

"i don't want you to go missing on me like that," you say. "never again."

"i won't," he assures, fingers toying with the hem of your shirt as you continue cleaning his cuts. "can't die yet."

"ever," you correct. "don't plan on dying, ever."

"i'm not immortal, [name]."

"that's not my problem to fix."

he smiles at your attitude — megumi might really have to figure out a way to become immortal now — freeze the cells that are dying in his body before his bones get too tired to move, stop the pigment in his hair from fading.

"okay." he breathes, hands finding their way around your waist — he taps your legs to open wider to let him fit between. " but you'll have to be immortal too, then."

"why?" you question. "i don't go around killing myself to chase curses."

"when you die, i'll be lonely," megumi explains. "need you to fill the empty space on the bed."

you laugh, trying to think of a witty comeback — you were still upset at your boyfriend for going MIA — but the look he's giving you makes it difficult not to give in.

"is that the only reason you're dating me?"

"maybe," he lies. "i didn't buy such a big bed for nothing. can't let it go to waste."

you gasp, too dramatic to be real — you put the gauze down and give him a stern look, and he lets a giggle slip through his lips before you get to nag him again.

"i'm just kidding, baby," megumi begins to kiss your frown away, pressing his blood stained lips to yours. "i love you for far more than that."

and it's just like that that you melt at megumi fushiguro's words — his red lips and blushed face making your heart skip more beats than humanly possible.

"whatever." you continue to feign anger, yet your arms are still wrapped around his neck. he knows your attitude will last for at least a week.

his lips hurt, and he thinks your hard work has gone to waste with the way he's peppering kisses all over your face.

your hands find his jaw and you lead him into an actual kiss, and you realise he tastes like antiseptic — a little blood in the mix, too — but you can't really complain.

"i'm serious."

you wonder if it's megumi who fills the void you have, or whether it's you who fills his. whether that be in the form of empty beds or an empty house, you know for certain that everything feels off without him — missing like a centre puzzle piece.

"i know," you run your fingers through his rough and matted hair. "i love you too, megs."

"think you'll have to wash my hair for me, too."

you shake your head. "probably has lice."

"we'll have lice together, then." your boyfriend shrugs his shoulders.

"that's so gross, megs," your face sours. "you're such a romantic."

200124 — WHY IS THIS SO LONG DAMN