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lemonjoonah · 4 years

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Blood Bounty - Part 2 (M)

Pairings: Yoongi x Reader, Taehyung x Reader, ft. Seokjin x Namjoon Word Count: 15.5K Rating: M Genre: Historical fantasy AU, Vampire AU, Thriller, Drama, Smut Warnings (contains spoilers): unprotected sex, fingering, oral (f. receiving), vampire feeding during intercourse, referenced non-consensual vampire feeding, attempted non-consensual vampire feeding, attempted vampire feeding on a minor, referenced captivity, referenced injury to animal, blood, violence, gore, threats, obsession, poisoning, murder, minor character death(s), illness, referenced death of brother, historical medical practices, self-inflicted injury (for the sake of vampire feeding), contemplation of action which might result in self-harm, discussion of drugging (with vampire blood)

| Series Masterlist |

Summary: He’s taken everything from you, your blood, your memories, your life, and after months spent as Taehyung’s own personal feast, you eagerly take your chance to flee. Unfortunately your escape doesn’t go as well as you had hoped, as you are soon caught by another blood thirsty beast. The vampire Yoongi claims to know you, and that he wishes to return you home. But when you can only remember the pain caused by his kind, you find it difficult to trust him, since he too could just be another monster waiting to feed.

A/N: Just a quick note, there will be a few flashbacks in part two, all of which should be italicized (as long as Tumblr doesn’t fail to format properly). Hope you all enjoy it, and please let me know what you think!

...

You wake before Yoongi at the start of dusk, after having fallen back asleep propped against his chest. The tension in your thighs from your two days of riding resurfaces as you stand. Restricted to a strained hobble, you grab the nearest supply sack. Heading outside to take a moment of privacy and address your bodily needs, while leaving Yoongi to continue his rest.

As you finish putting on the fresh clothes you acquired the day before, swapping out for a new tunic and the much needed smaller boots, Yoongi bursts out the door of the ramshackle house. His face fraught with worry. “Your Highness?!”

“Here,” you call over to him, stepping out from the cover of the trees. “I’m here.”

His chest heaves with a sigh as he relaxes. “You should have woken me.”

“So you could hover over me as I change?” You ask with a raised brow as you fit your cap back on your head.

“N-no... it’s just best if...” Yoongi’s reply is marked with stuttered speech and a tone of frustration. “H-how can I keep you safe if you wonder off in the night? You act as though you don’t have a bounty on your blood. There are sure to be hunters about and still looking for you.”

“I didn’t stray far, and there was still light out when I left you.”

“Even so, it worried me to wake, and not find you by my side.” He mutters, before returning inside to fetch the horse’s tackle and the rest of the bags.

“It won’t happen again.” You promise to his turned back, disarmed by his compassionate concern.

While he readies the horse for the day's journey, you keep to the front of the stead. Holding on to the bridal, you brush the dark mane as you make a request. “Are we able to stop at a river soon? The waterskin is running low.”

Yoongi nods, “We will cross one shortly before my ally’s post.”

“Your ally?” You ask, your heart starting to race as you panic over the suggestion. “You never said we would have to meet with more of your kind.”

“He has a residence he keeps for the clan between here and your castle. He will have a spare room and bed for us. I can promise you resting there will be far more comfortable than it has been the past two nights.”

“And it’ll be safe for me to be around such company?”

“He has no need for your blood. He resides there with his blood consort, a human-”

“A human! A captive-”

“No, no of course not.” Yoongi cuts in. “They are companions, Namjoon feeds Seokjin by choice, and in return Seokjin looks after him with his own blood, keeping Namjoon free from age and ailment.”

“But-”

“Seokjin will not approach you if I ask him not to. I trust him.” Yoongi comments as he straps the last bag in, the horse now equipped to depart.

Placing your foot in the stirrup before Yoongi can even offer to assist. Muttering your apprehension over the situation as you attempt to mount the stead. Though your endeavour to reach the saddle on your own fails miserably, resulting in your back colliding with Yoongi’s chest as you fall. His arms catch yours while your foot remains caught in the metal brace. “Careful now,” Yoongi warns you.

“I know. I can do it on my own.” You urge back, frustration edging out into your voice over your apparent state of helplessness, as you struggle to right yourself.

“I’m sure you can.” He chuckles, while pushing you up and onto the horse, before joining you himself. “But it doesn’t mean you have to.”

You shrink down between his arms trying to avoid his touch, continuing to fume over the prospect of spending the day within reach of another vampire. Yoongi may have become less of a concern after the revelation last night, but the thought of being in such close proximity to someone of his clan puts you on edge.

As you shift in the saddle trying to find a comfortable position for your seat, one of his hands comes to clutch your waist. He presses you back against him, mercifully relieving some of the weight from your thighs.

“Better?” He asks.

You nod in reply. Despite your bitterness you lean into him further, the ache being a far more pressing issue at this moment, then the ally you meet later tonight. Soon finding comfort in his support, you turn your concern to the other vampires that neither you nor he can dismiss so easily. “Earlier you said that Taehyung’s hunters are still about, you don’t think they would make it out this far and this quickly do you?”

“For you? Most certainly. I’m sorry to say, I doubt they are far behind.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I was forced to work among them. The swiftest way for me to get to you on my own was to be granted an invitation inside, but to do that I needed to hunt. I gave them a false identity, calling myself Agust, and my services in an attempt to gain their favour.” You go rigid in the saddle. Yoongi must have sensed the change as he is quick to clarify his words. “I never gave them people, only blood I acquired in the same way that I obtained it for myself.”

“And how do you do that?”

“You know I can’t tell you,” Yoongi mutters. You’ve come to despise this answer, still huffing at his need to keep all a secret. “When you keep insisting on hiding it, I start to doubt more and more that I will like the answer.”

He hesitates before replying. “What if that is what I want?”

“I thought you said I shouldn’t judge so quickly? Now you wish for me to dislike you and your ways?” You blurt out in confusion. Why after attempting to build your trust would he want you to hate him so.

“Not necessarily, just to question and be critical once you have all of the information, to hold your own opinion and not my own view. If your memories come from me how can I know that they are unbiased.”

“But how is that a memory of mine if it’s your method of feeding?”

Yoongi doesn’t respond but merely clenches his jaw when you look back at him, refusing to speak anymore on the subject.

The silence between you stretches on for most of the night, he checks in on occasion to ensure that you are well. But other than that you hardly exchange another word, right up to when Yoongi slows the horse at the sight of the moonlit river and bridge. He helps you dismount, and unhooks a pack from the saddle, giving you access to the provisions you require.

“Our stop is only a few more minutes away down road. We have several hours until day break.” He nods to the river, “Take all the time you need. I’ll give you some privacy and take the horse just around the bend.”

When Yoongi leaves your line of sight, you remove your boots, roll your trousers, and step into the chill waters. You take one stride in and another unit you are submerged almost to your knees. Filling up the waterskin you take a long daft, while also savouring the coolness of the river your skin and sores. The bandages on your heels are a ragged mess, in desperate need of being replaced. You reluctantly return to the banks, crouching to rummage through the pack to hunt for something that could be of use to protect the broken skin.

You have no such luck in locating any spare cloth, but find instead a heavy roll of leather at the bottom. Dragging it up to the surface of the pack, you are curious as to what it might be. While peeking up to ensure that Yoongi has not come back to check in, you loosen the string ties and unravel the well-worn wrap. There’s a small clang from whatever lies inside as it unfolds. Your heart races as you attempt to brace the objects within, slowing your motions to prevent the noise from happening again. Not wishing to draw attention to your invasion of the vampire’s belongings.

But your cautionary actions come to a swift halt when tucked inside you find sharp metal instruments, encompassing a variety of shapes, sizes, and serrations. Kept well enough to glare back at you as they reflected the moonlight. You immediately drop the leather carrier to the ground, and stumble away from the horrific implements. Though in your fear and hurry, you miscalculate the security of the ground on which you stand. Teetering on the rocks at the river’s edge, you fall back. Losing your hat to the current, while your hands plunge into shallow water. The sharp pebbles of the bank dig into your palms, skinning off the scab of Taehyung’s bitten wound.

You gasp in pain, pulling your hand out from the river to inspect the freshly opened break in your skin. Yoongi appears seconds later, reaching out for your hand from the edge of the water. “Are you hurt?”

You look from your palm up to Yoongi. The sting of the lesion and his presence triggering a memory of a darkened cobblestone street, a fanged monster hidden beneath a hood, reaching out for your hand, caked with dirt and blood. Then a gap, a break in your recollection, ending with a flash of Yoongi taking that same hand and passing his own blood over yours to close the cut. The brief glimpse ends, leaving you with a bleak look at your alleged friendship.

“You... you gave me your blood?!” You ask, delving further back into the river out of fear, the prospect of the freezing water is nothing compared to the demon who seems to have poisoned you long ago.

“What are you-”

“You gave me your blood. You used your sway to compel me into-into caring for a monster like you!”

His face falls at your accusation. “Is that how you truly view it then? You do in fact see me as a monster?”

“How else can I? Why else would someone like you carry those tools other than to harm? ”

Yoongi looks down, his lips tightening upon seeing your discovery. “Because you gave them to me!” He counters, to your shock and horror, allowing his forced confession to sink in for a moment before continuing in a more sombre tone. “If you feel that I influenced you poorly, for that I am deeply sorry. I thought, I hoped you might have seen it all differently. I had your blessing back then, but I can see that I was right to question my undue-influence on you.”

“I’m not talking about your influence, but your blood, you used it to manipulate my thoughts and actions! If I gave you such things I was surely under your spell.”

“No, I would never intentionally force you to think a certain way! But your circumstances back then made you vulnerable, I fear they made you open to my persuasion, and to desire my good graces.” You stand there thigh deep in the river, frozen in place, as his words continue to challenge your perception and memory. “If you revoke your once good opinion of me I will not fault you for it. But I don’t know how else to remedy my mistakes other than to take you home. Can you please trust me long enough to do that?”

“I-” You begin, while trying to figure out where your answer will end, your head swimming with conflicting recollections of his blood, and kindness to you.

But your answer is halted by the sudden change in the vampire before you. Yoongi turns his head back to the line of trees his nose lifting before like it did when he caught the scent of the highwaymen. “Hunters, they’ve found us.”

A shiver passes over you, unrelated to the cold water. “You can smell them? Are they Taehyung’s?”

“No, not them per se, but the blood they are dressed in, and based on that...” He turns back to you, his expression fraught with worry as he points to the river. “Go in further and remain in there until it is safe to come out. They will not be able to fetch you if the river reaches past the leg of their mount. Promise me, whatever happens, whatever I say, whatever you hear, you will not leave until you are certain it is safe.”

You nod unable to verbalize your agreement. Your breath catches in your chest as you continue to lower yourself into the water's depths. The slow current comes to reach your waist, just before a mounted hunter and his much larger companion on foot break near the banks of the river.

“Agust,” the mounted hunter address Yoongi by his false persona, confirming your dread of who they serve. “Fancy meeting you here. We thought we smelled something sweet, but had not realized you would be attempting to collect it too. Since when do you capture live prey? I thought you dealt more in bottled goods.” He proceeds to laugh at his own words, while his fellow remains silent.

“This bounty is mine Thane.” Yoongi commands from the ground standing between you and them. His attention focused solely on the vampire with the stead, marking him as the superior of the two hunters in your eyes.

“Is it now?” He asks with an air of conceit. “It looks more like it’s just beyond your reach. Smart of her to use our weakness in such a way.”

“She’s just playing a game,” Yoongi mutters. “She won’t last long in there, the cold will send her out soon.”

You wish it wasn’t so, but there’s truth to his words, for you are unsure of how much longer you can bear the frigid temperatures. The chattering of your teeth brings further evidence to them that the chill has sunk deep into your skin.

“If she was so difficult to control why did you not give her your blood?” The larger of the two hunters asks.

“What, and taint the product with my own?” Yoongi spits back, looking offended that the hunter would suggest such practice. “I plan to take her back to Lord Taehyung, unspoiled, and alone.”

The lip of the leader, Thane, curls at Yoongi’s comment. “I do not think you will. She seems like more than you can handle.”

“Then you and your partner leave me to fetch a human who may breach the water’s banks.”

“No, you will come with me. Averill will stay and watch her.” Thane nods to the hulking vampire next to him.

“And leave my blood bounty with you? I think not.” Yoongi’s worry starts to cross into his voice, his wavering tone evident to even you. He stands down with a fake chuckle and proceeds to dismiss their presence by busying himself with the task of repacking the belongings you left out of the sack. “If you're not going to send for assistance leave me be, for I plan to wait as long as it takes to recollect her for his lordship.”

“And what will you do when the sun rises? You are not in a position to negotiate Agust. You should be glad that we are offering to even do you this favour. I hear the reward for this one is greater than any before. Lord Taehyung is offering an immediate position among his keepers to whomever can capture her.”

It becomes clear to you that they will not give in so easily, and Yoongi too pauses upon hearing this news. “Since you insist, I will go with you, but he does not make an attempt to touch her until we get back. If I find out you’ve tried to cross me-”

“He will stick to the shore of the river, until our return.” Thane looks to his companion who nods to confirm that he will abide to such terms.

Yoongi turns his back to them, the light of the moon granting a dim view of the concern on his face. He points one figure at the ground, what you can only only read as a supposed signal for you to stay, before mounting up and riding off with one of the hunters in the direction of his ally.

The vampire on the water's edge began to prowl back and forth, watching you with intrigue. “You look cold and tired my dear. You should come out, let’s not play this game any longer.”

“It’s not a game.” You mutter in response to the vampire.

A menacing grin takes hold of his face. “Of course it is, your kind consider hunting to be of sport, do they not?”

You turn your head and ignore his comment. Letting minutes pass with you in silence, until the vampire's pacing comes to a halt, and the smile has all but faded from his features.“Where the hell are they?”

Considering the torment his clan has brought you, you take great pleasure in seeing his frustration rise. “What’s wrong?” You tempt him, hoping that he might be foolish enough to try to reach you on his own. “Does the night wane too quickly for you? Is the vampire afraid of a little sunlight as well as running water? With so many weaknesses it’s a wonder you’ve survived.”

“There are still a few hours to go until sunrise human, I wouldn’t raise your hopes just yet. Because when I pull you from that river, I will show you just how well I survive. ” No sooner than the threat passes from his lips, a single horse rides back into view. Though to your terror it is not Yoongi’s stead, but Thane’s, with it’s rider wrapped his tattered and blood stained cloak. Your chest tightens and breathing stops, as you consider what might have happened to Yoongi. His absence brings grim thoughts to your mind regarding his fate, fearing what kind of situation he must be in to prevent his return.

Looking downriver with a choked sob, you contemplate your only escape with Yoongi now gone, ready to take the current to its end, or yours.

The imposing vampire that was left with you calls out to his ally. “What in the devil's name took you so long? I thought you were going to deal with Agust, and bring back someone who could assist? I see no humans!”

Thane doesn’t answer out loud. After dismounting he pulls his cloak tighter, and approaches his friend, leaning in to talk to him. It’s not until a stake pierces Averill’s chest that you see the true face of the rider. Painted with blood from, and contempt for, the being he just slaughtered.

A sense of déjà vu grips you once again, and refuses to let go. You’ve witnessed something like this before, so many years ago. Another memory starts to resurface, another vampire slaying much like this, both executed by the hand of... “Yoongi?!”

...

-10 years ago -

Just a few hours outside of the palace walls, that is all you desire. Dressed in your lady’s maid’s change of clothes you go in search of the sights outside. Hoping to find something unfamiliar and new. After hearing the very maid you ‘borrowed’ the clothes from, discuss the bakery, the public houses, the marketplace, and more. You could no longer hold back your curiosity. Your books and maps are not enough to quell your taste for adventure, your eyes seek to explore the areas that the tomes in your library fail to touch. And since it all resides on the crown's land, surely you have a duty to study it?

As much as you would have preferred to go out in the day, the cover of darkness is so much easier to slip out under. No one should look twice at a person your attire, and you yourself are not expected to be anywhere else other than bed.

Unfortunately that means the bakery is closed and the market packed up. The only place warmed with light and presence is the tavern, but you know it would be foolish to go in there. For you have no coin on hand for a meal, and are far too young to have any other sensible reason for entrance.

Despite your first expedition not being everything you wanted, it only makes you determined to plan better for your next. After two hours pacing the streets, looking for sites of interest, you consider heading back. You turn to face the direction you had just travelled and look for another route home, not wishing to view only the same roads as before. Travelling one side street and another, though you soon make an error and find a dead end greeting you on the third.

Turning about, you double back, but fail to notice the slick pile of refuse, which sends you falling forward. Your hands reach out to stop your face colliding into the cobblestones, while the rest of your body flattens painfully in your tumble.

Following the shock of your plummet you take a moment to inspect your well-being from the ground. You curse your foolish inattention when you find your palms coated in mud, and stinging with scrapes. Resulting in a small amount of blood, beading on the surface of your skin.

A man dressed in a long cloak and hood from the nearby road turns into the alley and encroaches upon your, no doubt pathetic looking form. You thought he might be there to offer his assistance after such a fall, but he only looks down upon you with a hunched posture.

“Well aren’t you a rare breed. Surely you are not from these parts, or I would have found you before.” His sinister words immediately put you on your guard, after giving you the impression that you are something to be collected rather than aided.

“I’m sorry sir but you are mistaken.” You ascend from your knees and brush yourself off, seeking to flee his uncomfortable presence, but the stranger blocks your path. With an outstretched arm, his hand rests against the wall, taking up the entire width of the alley. The lower half of the man’s face peaks out from beneath his hood, only to show his tongue darting out to wet his lips. You clench your jaw and stand firm, attempting to give him reason to reconsider preying on one such as yourself. “I hail from here, and my family expects my return soon. Now let me pass.”

“I am not mistaken, I know a new and valued vintage when I smell it, and you are quite something...” He steps closer as you back away, continuing to cut off your escape by dragging his fingers along the stone wall. His stride resembles that of a predator, narrowing in on their presumed feast. You raise a hand in to signal for him to stop, but he merely gives it a keen stare.

“Did you hurt your hands my dear? Here let me take a look.” He reaches out with his own taloned hand, his long fingers ending with sharpened nails. “I can help heal them right up for you.”

“Thank you sir, but I would rather just go home and tend to them myself.” You give one last plea, one last appeal to his humanity. Fearing that his next action against you will be truly monstrous.

“It will take only a moment, and I promise,” the fabric of his hood falls back to reveal his feral face with pointed teeth, “You won’t remember a thing.”

He grabs your hand, pulling it to his mouth. You try to tug it back, but his grip is like none you’ve felt, so firm that even the strongest pull you can muster has no impact on him. Even a push to his chest from your other fist does not disturb him. You close your eyes waiting for the pain of his strike but there’s nothing of the sort. Only a soft grip on your wrist for a second and your hand is released. You open your eyes back up in hesitation, to find your attacker pinned against the wall by another.

“We do not feed on children! Have you forgotten our clan’s law?”

“Yoongi, I’m sorry sir you’re right. But you must understand, you must smell how sweet her blood is. Do you not find it as tempting as I?”

“We do not feed on children.” The newcomer reiterates his tone drawing into a low growl.

“Surely she is not so young that you cannot make an exception this once? No one else in the clan has to know sir, it’s just us here. I’ll even share her with you.”

There’s a swift flash of movement and the second has impaled the first through the chest with a wooden stake. The predator who cornered you looks on him with shock before slumping down the side of the wall, leaving a strip of blood in his wake.

You stare into the vial stranger’s blank eyes, unable to quell the worry that he might still launch an attack on you. “Is-is he, is it-” You manage to stutter out, as you battle your nerves, deeply shaken, but increasingly grateful for the intervention of the one before you.

“He’s dead.” The vanquisher tends to the cast-off on his coat and skin, brushing his hand over the crimson stains while he addresses you. “You should run along princess, it’s not safe for you to wander about at night.”

“You-you know who I am?”

“I’ve come across your scent before, it was just after one of your family’s gallant displays of authority.” You tilt your head confused by what he could mean. He takes in your bewilderment and explains further. “One of the royal processions, I spotted you just after dusk when you returned to the castle some years ago. Your aroma is not one my kind would forget.”

“Your kind, what do you mean your kind? What was he?”

“A weak willed monster who feeds on blood, and hunts by night. He is not alone out there, so you should stay very far away from the darkened streets.”

“But you are not like him.”

“I swear to you, he and I are the same.” The man comes towards you lowering himself on one knee and baring his fangs. “He is a vampire, and so am I.”

You don’t turn away but look at them with curiosity. His brow furrows as you move in closer. “And what of your name?” You ask, desperate to know more about him, for his appearance, his very existence, has certainly become the most intriguing part of your night .

“You don’t need-”

“But I would like it.”

“Yoongi. I go by Yoongi,” he mutters, looking taken aback once again. “May I?” He extends his hand for yours. You give it to him with little hesitation, wincing as his thumb brushes the mud away. He pauses upon noticing your discomfort and extends an offer to you. “If I take away this pain, will you promise to go straight home?”

You nod back, wondering how he could offer such a thing. He bites his hand before taking your own, rubbing the blood over the scrapes. And to you surprise, the cuts vanish before your eyes, the skin forming back together as though your fall never happened. Regardless if this being thinks he is a monster or otherwise, it’s apparent a miracle cure flows through his veins. Your brother's condition jumps to the forefront of your mind. “You can heal wounds? Cuts and contusions too?”

“I can.” His answers with a raised eyebrow.

“So you could help my brother?”

“Your brother, what of him?”

“He has an illness. My parents don’t want to spread word of his condition, but whenever he gets hurt, he bruises and bleeds without end. You can save him, right?”

“I cannot assist your brother.” He rises from his knee and proceeds to drag the body of the former vampire deeper into the shadows, all while continuing to answer your request. “Making myself even known to you goes against the wishes of my clan. I should wipe your memories, but if I do, I fear you’ll forget the danger and return here once again.”

“Please! He needs your help.” You beg, hoping that he’d agree to be your salvation once again.

The self proclaimed monster looks at you, while tugging the stake from the chest of the corpse. Meeting your eyes when you refuse to look away from him or the gruesome sight. “If you swear to stay within the walls of your castle and tell not a soul... I will see what I can do.”

You lead him back to your home, the vampire following a few paces behind. Returning to the passage hidden in the roots of the hedge, the trap door beneath the flora, from which you ventured out earlier tonight. You open it stepping in first. Your companion stops as if being held back by some invisible force. “I need your permission to enter.”

“Why?”

“Consider it a courteous limitation of my race. Now do you want me to heal your brother or not?”

“Yes, you may come in.”

Lighting the lantern you left for yourself at the entrance, you lead him through the dark tunnel beneath the castle.

“What is this place used for? I can’t imagine anyone ventures down here much.” He remarks brushing away cobwebs that stretch across the path.

“It is an escape tunnel, to ensure the safety of the royal line. Only my immediate family knows of it. If there were to be danger we could flee down here and leave the grounds. And no, they do not visit here, only I come down myself when I wish to hide away.” The hidden offshoot of the cellar is ample space for you, and far less restrictive than the palace above ground.

You climb a set of stairs ending in a door which returns you to the halls of the castle, the entrance to the secret route concealed behind a painting of a king who came long before. Peeking out into the corridor you find it clear of guardsmen and servants, and doing the same again at your brother’s door.

The physicians and surgeons had left him for the night, which allows for Yoongi to slip in behind you. He checks over your sleeping brother, paying close attention to both the recent injury to his knee and the incision on the inside of his elbow. “Why was this made?” He points to the latter. “It’s too clean to be an accident.”

“Bloodletting, they bleed him regularly to dispose of the weakened blood.”

“Weakened Blood?” Yoongi shakes his head as he reopens the spot on his hand, spreading his blood over your brother's wounds. They close up with the skin returning to its normal state and hue. “I hadn’t realized that surgeons practiced such things. If you want to keep him alive don’t let them bleed him anymore. Come to think of it...” He examines the tools of their trade, and roles up the leather pouch in which they are contained. “May I borrow these? I might have a use for them.”

“Take them, please.” You urge, breathing a sigh of relief. It’s a shock to see your brother's condition, which has plagued your family since his birth, so easily remedied with Yoongi's help. But the worry over the uncertain future still holds. “What if it happens again? How will I find you if I shouldn’t leave the castle?”

“You said few know of the cavern below? I’m in need of somewhere safe to rest during the day when I come to town, that spot will do. If I have your consent to use it?”

...

It’s been a couple weeks since your first meeting. The vampire, Yoongi has grown more comfortable within the tunnel beneath, and far less hesitant around you. You’ve learned so much about him, and his shrouded kin, both the good and the bad.

He lays back against the stonewall his eyes closed in satisfaction. Far different from the first few times you met him. “You look... more relaxed.”

He keeps his eyes closed as he gives you his answer, “I had the ability to address some of my needs I’ve been neglecting. I’ve been able to feed on a far more frequent basis.”

“Oh...” You exclaim, not knowing how to comment further on the topic.

One of his eyes opens to peek at you while he remains at rest. “Does that scare you? Do you fear me now?” He chuckles darkly.

You respond with a quick and decisive, “No.” Catching the vampire by surprise judging from his tongue in cheek and open mouth.

“And why is that?”

“If you took no issue with human suffering you wouldn’t have saved me. You wouldn’t have saved my brother. Did you bring pain to the person you feed on?”

Yoongi scoffs, his tongue still rolling in his cheek as he looks to the floor. “No, I did not. And I have you to thank for that.”

“How did I help?” You ask in utter bewilderment. The two of you have never discussed his own meals before.

“When a vampire feeds they don’t often care about the damage they cause, they can make their prey forget they ever saw them, becoming nothing more than a bad dream. I have been struggling with this way of life for a while now. But you, you gave me another method to feed, and for that I am eternally in your debt.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“I know,” he chuckles back. “I’ll show you one day. When I can be certain it is safe to do so.”

...

A month later, Yoongi sneaks into your room in the dead of night, waking you from your slumber.

“Wh-what’s wrong?” You ask with slurred words as you rub your eyes.

“Nothing, nothing, but I’m ready to show you. Dress in what you wore when we met. We can’t have anyone recognizing you.”

You bolt up out of bed and dash over to your desk. Yoongi watches as you tug out the false bottom you created in one of the drawers that hides the cotton-spun dress from sight.

“You appear to be well versed in the art of hiding secrets princess,” Yoongi laughs, as he examines the panel.

“When every eye in the household seeks to critique you, you find ways to hide your less-than-amiable indulgences.”

“And is that what this is?” The vampire holds up a book of cartographic exploration also stored in the secret nook of the drawer. “An indulgence?”

You take the tome in question from his hand and return it to the drawer, replacing the panel to conceal it. “For a situation like my own it is.”

After changing into the plain garment Yoongi takes you from the castle, bringing only the leather roll of surgical instruments you had given him. He doesn’t take you far, a house, located only a five minute walk beyond the gates of your castle. “Are you sure you want to see this?” He asks as his fist hangs above the door.

You nod, curious as to how he’s been feeding himself.

“Very well, if anyone asks you are my assistant.”

“Assistant for what?”

He answers only with a wide grin as he knocks. The door opens a fraction, by the hands of a startled woman, whom Yoongi is quick to greet. “Sorry to intrude, and so late too. I heard you might be in need of a surgeon?”

“W-we can’t pay,” she croaks back, and attempts to close the door, but Yoongi stops it by placing the leather case in the gap.

“I require no monetary payment. My services have already been covered.”

“By who?” The woman is sceptical, and rightly so. Based on your experience with your brother’s past needs, you know a surgeon’s fee to be no small price.

“The daughter of the crown.”

“The crown? But why would she-”

“Because there are those in this kingdom in need of my assistance. I’m sure you’ve noticed the rapid recovery of your neighbour just a few doors down.”

Her eyes widen, lighting with hope. “The surgeon was you?”

“It was.” He answers with a closed lip smile.

The resident looks from Yoongi to you, her gaze lingers for a second on your appearance, before opening the door further. “You may come in.” She takes you to a small residence, her hands trembling as she escorts you into a nearby bedroom.

The stench of a sickly-sweet rot overpowers your nose the moment you step into the room. You cover your mouth in an attempt to keep down your rising dinner, while Yoongi goes to the aid of an unconscious man laying in bed. A deep and putrid gash extends from the inside of his thumb to his wrist.

“Another surgeon said he might need to take the hand... it’s not so bad is it?” Her voice quakes. “My husband won't be able to work if he loses it.”

“No, he’ll keep it.” Yoongi states, as he lifts a ceramic bowl, notched at the rim, from the bedside table and props the wounded man’s arm over it. Several small cuts already adorn the weak skin at the crease of his elbow joint. “I take it you've bled him regularly?”

The wife nods. “Yes, but we ran out of money. I couldn’t afford to have anyone else continue the bleeding. So I attempted it myself.” She looks down at the floor in shame, clearly upset that she had not been able to help her own husband.

“He will be well again. I promise I can heal this.” He assures her, before turning to you. “Can you hold these for me?” Passing you the same tools you gave him just months before. You unravel the leather pouch. Exposing the sharp tools for his selection, his slender fingers choose one of the smaller blades to make the incision. As the scarlet fluid drains, Yoongi calls for fresh linen and the wife leaves the room in search of his needs.

The second she is out of sight, you start to question the vampire. “Bloodletting? But I thought you said-”

“It’s both a cover, and an exchange. He gives me his, and I’ll give him mine. I must thank you for the tools, they’ve been very helpful in keeping up the disguise. But do you think you can keep her out? I can’t let her see this next part, the improvement to his hand will be too drastic and too quick for her not to suspect a mystical source.” Yoongi requests as he breaks the seal on a bottle filled with thick crimson fluid. Pouring out a drop he rubs his blood onto the festering wound of his subject's hand.

You nod, watching the two sides of the laceration seal together, leaving only a clean scar. When the wife returns with a knock at the door, you take the material and ask her to wait there. Thankfully she obeys without much resistance, taking a seat just outside the room, her eyelids drooping from exhaustion, and her skin slick with the sweat of worry.

You hand over the linen to Yoongi who wraps it around the previously infected area. The man, much to your concern, remains unconscious. “Will he wake soon?”

“It might take some time, but yes. He still has a fever, but that should break in the next couple of hours with the infection gone.”

“And that?” You nod to the basin of blood.

“That, I will keep for myself.” Yoongi finishes wrapping the man’s hand before taking a wine skin from his coat, carefully pouring the viscous fluid into the flask, and taking every drop.

“It won’t affect you adversely even though he was ill when he gave it?”

“No, his ailment won’t harm me.” Taking a draft as if to prove his point, he wrinkles his nose as it goes down, and licks his lips clean to hide the evidence of his feast. “The taste isn’t always perfect, but it fills my needs, and it’s far better than the alternative.”

Yoongi passes off the patient’s care to his wife and warns her not to remove the bandages for several days. A continuation of his ploy to maintain that his methods have a more realistic recovery rate.

After returning you to the passage of the castle shortly before dawn, Yoongi looks to be apprehensive, wringing his hands as he bids you farewell for the day. “Seeing that... taking part in it wasn’t disturbing to you? You do not think it malicious for me to lie and profit in such a way?”

“No, not at all.” You shake your head, and beam at the vampire before you. “I was pleased that you showed me.”

“I owe my thanks to you,” he whispers, as a smile starts to cross his own features.

“But I did nothing.”

“You gave me the idea. I was not aware, nor did I think to benefit from such a human norm. I thought I was condemned to feed like a monster until the end. So as long as you approve, as long as you think it decent to conduct myself in this way, I will continue.”

“You’ve already helped us so much, how could I not? You are the reason my brother is well again, the reason that man will continue to live and work. You are more a saviour than any being I’ve met before.”

...

You thought him a hero in your past. Every action had a valid reason, every motive morally sound. His store of blood, the surgical knives, every memory of his history with you is beyond reproach.

“Yoongi?”

The friend of your past, falls to his knees beside the body of the hunter. He raises a hand to his face to contain a cough, but even from your distance you can see scarlet sputtering from his lips and spilling down between his fingers.

“Yoongi!” You wade through the water as quickly as you can. Reaching his side while he continues to expel blood. “What happened?”

“Powdered silver.” He sputters again spraying your drenched trousers and ground with scarlet. “The bastard asked for some of my drink. I obliged to maintain my cover, but I didn’t notice he poisoned it in the process, and then took a sip myself.” Despite his state he proceeds to hastily shove the body of the vampire into the river, where it starts to burn and disintegrate in the current. “Don’t worry, much like this one, he is far worse off than I.” Yoongi chuckles darkly before doubling over in another fit.

“We need to get you somewhere safe to heal.” You take his shoulder and help him on to the stolen horse.

“Seokjin, he's waiting for my return. I left everything with him. Down the road,” he whispers as another clot of blood leaves his mouth. “You’ll find a stone house.”

Once he is mounted you take the spot behind him this time, in an attempt to keep him in the saddle. “Yes, I remember it now...”

...

- 9 years ago -

You’ve fallen into a routine, where every morning an hour before sunrise you wait in the underground passage to see if Yoongi will show. It’s been over a week since he’s visited last. In the year you’ve known him he has never stuck to a schedule, his visits are random but frequent. You pass the time waiting with a travel log of a famous explorer, and an atlas for reference, studying the map and marking his trek as you pass through the pages. Cartography has long become a hobby of yours, much to the disappointment of your mother, she deemed such interests as unladylike forcing you to hide your activities. Though your hands stained with ink from your nightly studies, have betrayed you on more than one occasion.

The trap door to the outside opens, revealing your long awaited friend. “Yoongi!” You run and pull him into a hug. When you allowed him to rest here and tend to your brother as needed, you never thought that he would become your salvation too, your craved glimpse into the outside world which you have long since been denied. “You said you’d only be gone a few days!”

“I know forgive me princess, something came up. The travel back was slower than expected.”

“Were you able to do what I requested?”

“I was.” He pulls out several pages you had torn from your atlas marking them with details important to those of his kind. “Excuse my penmanship. It’s not as practiced as it once was.”

Dismissing his concerns with a wave of your hand you peer down at the sheets eager to see the world from his eyes, starting with the details closest to your own home. “Who is Seokjin?” You ask pointing to a dark spot labelled ‘Seokjin’s Post’ less than a day's ride away.

“I see you waste no time.” Yoongi smiles at your enthusiasm. “A member of my clan, a keeper, one who is stationed at a waypoint for ease of travel.”

“A keeper?” You ask unfamiliar with the vampiric title.

“One who has a claim to our land, and can give permission to other vampires to enter. It’s an honour to be trusted with such a responsibility.”

“Are you a keeper?”

“A form of keeper, yes, I share claim to the main stronghold with our clan’s lord. It took me near a quarter century as a clan hunter to be given permission to even enter, and three times as long to gain my current status. It is a prestigious role, but also a double edged sword, for it also is what keeps me away.”

“I should like to see it.”

“My clan’s fortress? No, I will never take you there, your scent could plunge the whole estate into chaos.”

You frown at the inability to visit his station, but continue to search the map. Finding another castle marked much like his own out to the west. “What of this one? ‘Lord Taehyung’s Fortress,’ you have never spoken of him.”

Yoongi goes rigid as he hovers over the mapped sheets with you. “I have not, for he is of a different clan, with far darker ambitions than our own. I choose to mark it as a warning and a place to avoid. If you should ever hear of or be near someone in his service, run. Run as far and fast as you can.”

You swallow any further questions regarding the rival clan, uneased by Yoongi’s words. Changing the subject again to learn more of your confidant and friend. “Where did you come from if you have not always resided with your clan.”

Yoongi forgoes the sheets you have given him of the surrounding area, taking the atlas out of your hands, he flips the pages to a wider view of the land. “I come from out here.” Pointing to an area not on the page, but to the right of the book, far more east than the last recorded city.

“Off map? Could we visit your old home instead?” You ask, your excitement bubbling to the surface.

“No it is far more than a night’s journey away, making it too long of a trek for you. It would take months on foot, and even if we were to make it, I doubt there would be much left, for the hearth kept by my family grew cold long ago.”

“I would like to see the area at the very least. We could get a horse. Money is no object, I have-”

“Princess, even still, your absence would be noticed. You cannot just disappear for weeks on end and return when you please. You would lose your home, your own station.”

“What if I told you that I don’t want to be a princess. That my dream is to leave this castle, and find an adventure with you.”

...

- 5 ½ years ago -

For years this disagreement raged between you both, with you desiring to leave, and him insisting you must stay. His return is always a bright moment, but your partings always cast a dark shadow when he once again embarks alone. Existence without him in the kingdom is so cold and rigid, to the point where you’ve come to rely on his visits to breathe life back into you, needing his company to live as much as your brother needs his blood. To your dismay the length between each of his appearances grows longer. Though his apologies still accompany him each time you must wait beyond his promised return.

“I told you, you should invest in a horse.” You mutter as you cling to him, greeting him with your usual hug the second he slips into the underground tunnel.

His hand draws across your back soothing you with his presence. “And I’ve told you I don’t need one for myself alone.”

“Then you will get one when we leave together?” You ask, pulling away looking up with hopeful eyes.

“Princess...” He growls as you once again bring up the dreaded topic.

“We need to talk about this Yoongi. We can’t go on like this forever.”

“No, but how is your brother? What would happen if you left?” Yoongi asks, setting up his bed roll for you both to sit on. He never leaves anything behind out of concern that someone in your family will find it while he’s away. Requiring him to get re-situated upon every return.

“He is well...” Your statement trails off unable to make a further valid argument regarding his situation.

“But that could change in an instant. And if you’re not here-”

“I might not be here much longer anyway!” Your statement hangs in the air between you both.

His face reads only of confusion, with his mouth hanging open as he attempts several false starts to respond. “Wh-What do you mean?”

You take your seat next to Yoongi determined to make him see it your way this time. There has been something weighing on you, feelings that you’ve found difficult to approach, but if you don’t say it now you worry you’ll never get to. “I am eighteen Yoongi, and well of age to marry. There have been suggestions of prospects and matches. I’ve tried delaying them but I know I will not stay in this castle much longer either way.”

His eyes darken and brows furrow. “I suppose congratulations are in order then.” His words in no way match his expression.

“No, they are not! I don’t want that life, I’ve told you this before. I have no wish to leave this castle only to become locked in another. You know that is what will happen! Any union made will be to benefit the kingdom in an alliance, they will have their own expectations, their own walls I cannot cross.”

“Maybe that is for the best though. You will live the life you were intended, saving you from a life with a monst-”

“You are not a monster Yoongi, I do not need saving from you!”

“If not from me, then at least from my kind. I cannot give you the life nor the safety which lies here, or in another castle with your own kind. A life alongside a vampire will not have a happy end.”

“And what of a life without living one’s dream? Without the one you’ve come to admire and befriend. Can that have a happy end? Would it not bother you to yield me to another who is not as kind, nor caring as you? Yoongi, I lo-”

Yoongi emits a low growl halting your argument and paramount confession. “I profess I would loathe to lose you too, but dreams and desires change. I do not wish for you to regret your path with me as I once regretted choosing this life too. If it weren’t for you... ” His voice trails off as he hangs his head in shame. “I could not bear to see you suffer knowing I brought you the pain which haunted me for years. The loss of a family, of a home, I do not wish for you to endure the same.”

“Then what would convince you? What will show you I am truly earnest in my desire?” You ask hoping to find the answer to not only show your determination to leave, but your true feelings for him too.

He pauses the discussion, getting up to pace the room. His fingers run through his hair as he ponders your query. “I don’t want you forced into this because of circumstances beyond your control...” He stops his stride mid thought, and glances to you.“I can still supply your brother with blood if you choose to marry, and leave my side. Now in having that safety I need to know that you’ve given this consideration more time. Without the weight of your brother's life hanging over you.”

“It has been all I’ve wanted these past few years, to leave this place with you.”

“But first I need you to give this life the honest chance without my presence. I will leave you with enough of my blood for the time I’m gone. Though we should discuss who you will entrust to take care of him if you are in another castle, or with me.”

“My lady’s maid.” You suggest, for you know she loves him as much as you, though she tries to keep it concealed. “I would trust his life to her, but how long do you plan to stay away?”

“My clan intends to launch a wave of hunters into rival territory, it’s the best chance we have to take down Taehyung’s stronghold.” Yoongi explains while returning to the seat next to you. “If we can do this before you wish to leave then I will be as far greater ease to take you from here, but knowing that they are out there now worries me when it comes to your safety.”

“How long Yoongi?” You reiterate, scared by his avoidance of your question.

“Six months.”

“But that’s such a long time!”

“If you want to leave with me you will have to endure it, but I wish for you to take this time and consider your options. Don’t close every door yet, simply because of how you feel now.”

You inch closer to him, “My answer will be the same half a year from now. I want you to take me will you.”

“Nevertheless, I would like to wait, and hear it again upon my return.”

“I will do as you ask, but after that wait, I expect you to be ready for me to leave alongside you. We’ll need a travel plan, supplies, and a decent horse too.”

“Whatever you require, I will have. I’ll even let you name the stead.” Yoongi promises with a smirk. Taking the glass vial of blood he uses on his patients from his coat, he gives it to you. Cupping your hands as you take it from him, he leans in, putting his lips enticingly close to your own. “I’ll be back for your final answer, just please think it over. I will bear you no ill will if you decide...” He pauses, a grimace weighing heavy on his expression. “If you decide, you would be better off if you forgot me entirely, and moved on with your life.”

“I would never wish to forget you.” You give another thought to confessing further, telling him how much you’ve grown to love him. How you crave more than just to leave with him. Wishing to close the gap between you and seal your deal with a kiss. But despite your determination to confess to him earlier, you hold your tongue and lips in place. Suspecting that he will dismiss those desires too. When he returns, you reason with yourself, putting it off for a little longer. Yes, then you will express it all to him.

...

Just as Yoongi said, further down the road and nestled between the trees, there resides a small stone house. Had you not been looking for it, you might have missed it entirely. You stop with a pull of the reins, sliding down from the saddle you tie the horse to an outdoor post, and proceed to help the increasingly catatonic vampire with his own dismount. Propping one of his arms over your shoulder you approach the dwelling and hammer on the door.

A booming voice responds from the other side. “It damn well took you long enough!” It opens to reveal a tall man draped in a spattering of blood, extending from his broad shoulders to the small of his waist. He curses upon the sight of you and the barely conscious Yoongi on your shoulder. “I told him he wasn’t well enough to return to you alone.”

He looks human at first glance but a small chuckle reveals pointed teeth hidden by his set of full lips. “‘I must do this Seokjin,’” The vampire utters in his imitative tone of Yoongi. “‘Just look after this one’s body for me.’ That is the last time I do you a favour. I swear I’ve never seen a vampire’s corpse so saturated with blood.... even ruined my favourite shirt.”

Seokjin takes Yoongi from you and calls out to another. “Namjoon? Come help me with this determined fool and his human princess.”

You cringe from the unexpected use of your title, but the vampire pays you no mind. Looking to his human partner who descends the stairs. Namjoon ushers you into their residence, looking troubled by the state of your soggy clothes.

Just as with the abandoned house from the night the windows have heavy shutters that close from the inside, most of which are currently open, letting in the night air. But this dwelling is thankfully well lit, with several lanterns bolted to the walls, a fire roaring off to the side, and an iron candelabra at the centre of a massive wooden table.

The vampires take the lead up the narrow wooden stairs, with you and Namjoon trailing behind. Gliding through an open door in the upper hall, Seokjin places your now fully unconscious companion on the bed of a well furnished room. He takes Yoongi’s tunic and tears it open, exposing a trail of burns down his throat and chest.

“I’ve never witnessed a silver poisoning to this extent. It’s a miracle he was able to still retrieve you.” Seokjin mutters.

Namjoon grabs a blanket from the cupboard, and wraps it around your damp shoulders, before attempting to take you from the room. “Come let's get you some dry clothes.”

But you stand firm and refuse to be parted from Yoongi. Concern grows within you over Seokjin’s statement. “Will he- will he recover?”

“Yes, but it’ll take time. Though if he feeds soon, his injuries will heal far quicker.”

“Do you have any blood on hand?” You ask on his behalf. “With his supply poisoned he has nothing else to drink.”

Seokjin’s eyes bore into you expectantly, a smile coming to the corner of his lips. “Am I not looking at his blood consort now? Has he not fed from you?”

You shake your head, backing away from Yoongi’s supposed ally.

He takes in your reaction with a tilt to his head. “That must have been a struggle for him, considered I’m using all my power to not feed from you now.”

Namjoon steps in between. “Let her be Seokjin, you know who she is, and where she’s been kept. She’s clearly scared to do so, I can spare-”

The smirk on the vampire’s face dies with the offer of his human. “You will do no such thing! Your blood is mine, and mine is yours is it not?”

“It is, however-”

“Then that is the end of this discussion. If she wishes to help him then she must make that sacrifice, not you.” The vampire pushes his human out of the room before he turns back to you. “If I were in your position I would heal him, and do so quickly... for he has given up far more for you than a few drops of blood.” Seokjin then shuts the door behind him, leaving you alone with Yoongi.

You pace back and forth at the foot of the bed, hugging your blanket close in comfort. When you consider feeding him, your anxiety starts to rise to an undesirable peak, with the feeling of your heart rising to your throat and pounding in your ears. Your mind can’t help but draw on the memories of Taehyung's feeding, but this instance is different, with you in control, and the one who requires blood is not a monster but your past saviour, and love.

You empty his bags on the desk provided in the room. Making one last effort to look for any additional store of blood that might have remained unpolluted. Finding nothing but clothes, and basic supplies, until the roll of surgical instruments hits the wooden surface with a dull thud. Left with no other option but the tools before you, you grow more determined to push down the horrors of your past. Doing it for the sake of Yoongi, and the returning portion of you who adores him so adamantly.

Freeing one of the knives, you take a deep breath, and slice along the partially opened scar on your hand. The pain takes control for a moment, forcing your jaw to clench and your breath to seethe between your teeth, as the sight of scarlet turns your stomach. But seeing Yoongi suffering brings your mind back to focus as the blood wells to the surface, creating a thick pool in your palm. You go to him and straddle his form taking his chin in one hand to open his mouth. You clench your ruby drenched fist and tilt it over him. The first drip hits Yoongi’s lip, the second entering his mouth. His eyes fly open, and a snarl leaves his throat. Reaching out he grabs your hand, not to draw it closer but to push it back towards you.

“You’ve spilled enough of your blood for my kind.” He whispers, his ache evident in the hoarseness of his tone.

“Seokjin said you needed it. Will you just take it.”

“No! I have no wish to become the next monster who haunts your dreams.”

“You won’t, I remember now. From my first time meeting you, all the way up to our parting. You did so much for me and my family. You were right in saying those you feed off of were not your victims, I saw how they suffered from illness and injury.” Your voice starts to quake as you force it all out, confining his depth of importance to you to a few small statements is no easy task. “I understand why you feared your influence over me in the past. But please, know now, I do not consider myself a casualty of yours. I give you my blood of my own free will.”

You offer your hand once again but Yoongi doesn’t move his narrow gaze giving the impression that his decision is final. “Very well.” You counter, as you cup your hand with your own, pressing down on the wound as you consider the already escaped blood. “It seems a shame to waste it though. Maybe your friend Seokjin will take it, he appeared to be interested.” You play your bluff, hoping to gain a rise out of him the way Seokjin claimed Namjoon.

Shifting your weight, you ready to leave, but Yoongi moves faster, pulling you down to lay beneath him. “Why must you be so stubborn?” He mutters as he places one hand gently over your eyes obstructing your view of him. “Please, if I am to do this don’t look. I don’t want you to remember me by this act.” His other hand takes your blood soaked palm in his grip before he finally presses his lips to the dripping wound.

The tug of his mouth on your skin is gentle lasting only for a few seconds. His tongue then starts to drift down the scarlet trails that lead across your fingers, licking every inch of your skin clean. His touch is soft and attentive, you find yourself enjoying his caress, forgetting entirely the purpose of his actions. But it’s soon brought to an end when a soft scrape of his fangs crosses your knuckles, with your immediate instinct to flinch, it incites him to draw back and apologize.

He removes himself from your hand, and turns to draw his own blood. When he goes to press it to your laceration he hesitates and gives you his assurance. “This will only heal it. Do you trust me to do that?”

You nod with a deep breath and clenched teeth, dreading this part most, you look away until the tingling sensation of the skin's repair stops. When your gaze returns to the spot you find it without flaw, for his blood had also erased the scar of Taehyung. Tears begin to prick the corner of your eyes .

Yoongi wipes at the edge of his mouth taking away the dark remnants of your blood. “I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No, quite the opposite. Thank you for taking it away.”

“I’m sorry you had to bear his marks for so long.” His lips kiss the newly healed skin of your hand before he lays down on the bed next to you. As much as he tries to hide it you can see that he’s still weary from the silver. Your fingers trace down the slowly fading burn of his throat, a rumble of contentment flowing from it as his eyes close.

Embracing the softness of the bed you were promised earlier, and far too weary to change out of your damp clothes you join him in sleep.

...

You rest for only a few hours with the sun starting to break across the horizon, shocked but grateful that no appearance of Taehyung brought halt to your peaceful slumber. Rising to close the shutters to the light, you leave Yoongi to his sleep.

You open the door a slight amount, checking to see if anyone else is about, when you find a form of kindness you had not expected on the floor in front of your room. It would seem that Namjoon must have brought food while you slept, a small collection of bread, cured meat, and fruit awaits you along with the clothes he promised. Though your current outfit is now dry, you take the fresh garments inside for a later change before you depart in the evening. The food however, barely lasts a few minutes in your presence. For you indulge hastily on the wonderful meal as you sit at the rather cluttered desk.

Naturally, the mess you made earlier in the night still remains, the contents of Yoongi bags strewn over the desk and floor. Once finished with your plate, you start to pack the clothes and supplies all away again until there are only a few items left, including a piece of folded parchment lying in the corner. You flatten it out across the surface of the workspace, reuniting yourself with Yoongi’s map.

Of course, it wasn’t always his. No, this was the map that you had made from the fragments and pages he recorded. It was intended to be a gift for him upon his return after those long six months apart. Every stroke of the pen, every hour, and every drop of ink which bled into this creation brought you so much joy. But you also remember the sorrow that led to the error, the blotch left while trying to conceal the map before the ink had set.

...

-5 years ago-

It has been seven months since Yoongi’s departure, with no whisper or hint to his whereabouts. The blood supply he had given you was fully consumed in the past fortnight. You assure your lady’s maid, whom you imparted with the knowledge of the cure, that your friend will return soon. But still you wait for him, while putting the finishing touches to the map in the form of an ornate compass rose.

With the final mark of ink in place, your mother bursts into your room, consumed by a wealth of tears. You fold the map in haste, and tuck it under a book. Thankful that she is too distraught to realize that you should be in bed and not at your desk, but the news she shares gives grave reason to her oversight. Your brother had fallen from his own earlier in the night, causing a lesion to the back of his head. Without the aid of your vampire, you know it to be a likely death sentence.

Come near dawn, you wait in the hidden passage, praying for Yoongi to show. But when the sun comes to rise without his presence, you can only hope that your brother will survive this day without the medicine he’s grown so dependent on. However, as night falls, his health worsens, and the physicians resort to bleeding him again. You try to stop them, but that only results in you being banished from his room.

With no other options left, in the late hours of night, you don another of your maid’s old dresses, tugging it out from your hiding spot, and replacing it with the finished map which now bears an unfortunate scar. Taking your usual path you escape to the town of your kingdom. Your plan, to pace every street until you find him, or another who might know of his whereabouts.

...

Your memory fails to pass the darkened cobblestone roads which frame your search. Leaving you to conclude that was when you were found by your capture of these past five years. Yoongi was right, the open night is dangerous for one such as yourself, even so he left you with little choice, he broke his promise first.

There’s a creak from the bed behind you, but you keep your focus forward on the map, still trying to piece it all together. Until two hands wrap around your waist and Yoongi’s chin comes to rest on your shoulder.

“You said you would come back.” You remain still in his arms, scolding the vampire with tears threatening to spill from your eyes. “Why didn’t you return to me as promised.”

Yoongi turns you around to face him, raising your chin with his finger. “You remember our arrangement?” You nod your response, refusing to meet his gaze, until he lowers his own head in disappointment. “There were... difficulties. I know it does not excuse my broken oath in full, but I was prevented from going to you.” He sits you back down in the desk chair and kneels before you, taking your hand in his. “Taehyung had found the hunters we were attempting to embed in his ranks. He dealt us a swift blow with their deaths, and then sent his men east, towards our fortress, and your kingdom. The keepers, such as myself, were ordered by our own lord to remain within the walls of our residences, out of concern that we might be captured and lured into giving Taehyung's clan access.”

“Then you should have sent word of your delay!” You cut in, had you known this you never would have left to find him.

“I did. I wrote a letter and sent it by raven, telling you to stay within the castle walls no matter what. That it was far too dangerous for you on the outside, and my return would be a longer wait. But I received no reply. I thought then that you did not want to hear from me, that you had chosen a different path. It was weeks before my raven returned badly injured. I feared then that my warning might have gone astray.” He sighs, as continues to recount the dark narrative. “I couldn’t remain a willing captive of my own home when I know you might be in danger. So I renounced my title, I gave away my claim and access to the stronghold. Lowering myself to the status of clan hunter so I could leave and find you. But I was too late, you were already gone and well beyond my reach. I searched your room looking for any clues as to how you ended up in his hands. I found no dress, and only that in your drawer.” He nods over to the map.

“I have spent the past five years trying to correct my mistake of not going to you sooner, for not leaving with you when you asked. But when I found you again, without your memories, I had no way of knowing the choices you made or any feelings you had previous to your captivity. I kept our past from you so as to not impact your previous decisions with my own desires. If you thought me to be a monster who groomed you for my own needs, I would back away. If you were just catering to me to save the life of your brother, I wanted you to be free of that.” His hand comes to the side of your face, with a finger dotting at a tear that had fallen from the corner of your eye. “I’m aware I don't deserve it, but please I must know. What was your decision before I let you down so horrifically, what was it that led you to be in his custody?”

“I never felt pushed to stay by you because of my brother's condition. I had no wish to marry nor leave with another, it was never simply about journeying outside the castle for an adventure. I wanted to be with you. Those six months we spent apart only confirmed what I did not wish to tell you out of worry you might dismiss those feelings too. I loved you, and still do.”

Yoongi chokes out a wavering sigh of relief, lowering your head by his hand, he presses his forehead to yours. “And I you, your highness. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I didn’t listen. I just didn’t want to unknowingly imprison you by my side with-without-”

“I know.” You whisper back. “You were right to be concerned, I was young and sheltered. I do not blame you for what happened. When the blood ran out, I could wait no longer. I had to find you. I went into the town but that is the last I remember.”

“And there you were taken.” Yoongi pulls back pausing as he bites his lip. “Now that you remember. Has your desire to return home changed?”

“I-I don’t think it can Yoongi. I still have so many gaps in my past. I hope that my return will mend that, as my time with you has brought light to our own history. Despite that, even if I was whole, the loss of my brother, it-it complicates things.”

“Your kingdom needs you to have an heir, a son to maintain the line of the crown.” He swallows glumly, as you reach out to clutch his hand. “Something that I cannot give you.”

“When my duty was just for the sake of pleasantries between kingdoms I could find it within reason to leave, but now, the kingdom’s people, the ones you’ve helped to save are at stake.”

Yoongi gives you a solemn nod. “At least now you can be certain you will not be sent away.”

“Once I return home...” You pull back, folding your hands on your lap, fidgeting while you ask the next important question of him. “Will you plan to stay nearby like before? You will not leave me alone again will you?”

“I must. With my lower position now, I will likely be sent back into Taehyung’s land again. Though I will be glad of it, for I can not stay still while he is still hunting, and risk you falling prey to him again. And for the sake of our attachment I feel that our parting would be easier on the both of us. Especially since it will not be long before you are asked to-”

“Marry?” You let out a deep breath of air in an attempt to dispel the building weight in your chest. Is he right to think that upon your return you’ll be bound to another so soon? You hope that there would be time to find yourself again, to re-educate your mind into what it was before. But how long will that take and how patient will your parents be without the line of succession secured. You can only hope any man who is chosen will be... will be, “Though I wish it to be you who remains by my side, if my future husband has half the character of you I should be so lucky.”

“Do not say that.” His voice cracks with his hushed plea.

“Why not?”

He stands up before you, pulling you from your seat, and tucking you into his chest. He holds you there while with one hand to your back, and the fingers of the other rooting amongst your hair. He breathes in deeply, whispering the challenges to his choice. “Because it’ll make leaving you so much harder. You made my cursed existence not only bearable, but desirable. When I consider the possibility of spending my life, with the one who gave me purpose, who saw me not as a monster but as a salvation, who I came to love more than I thought possible.” Yoongi lifts your head again, directing you to look up at him. “An eternity with you, is the greatest temptation of all.”

You reach up to take his face in your hands, delivering a solemn kiss to his lips before pulling away.“If we can not have eternity, what of one moment within it? One final memory together to help us through the time we must spend apart. Can you give me that? Can you give me yourself?”

Yoongi’s mouth comes down to you in search of another, the wave of passion in his approach is so much stronger and forceful than your own. His tongue, endeavouring to taste you in a far different manner than hours ago. “You already have me, my blood, my life, my love, it’s all yours.”

He picks you up and returns you to the bed with him, tugging off his oversized shirt, while you remove your own. His mouth seeks out your neck, your collarbone, and downward soon finding the peaks of your chest. He’s soft and careful not to leave a mark as his lips tug gently on your skin. With each graze of his tongue he insights an inadvertent reaction from you, in the form of a moan or twitch. As your fingers tangle in his locks, his eyes gazing up to look for your expression. “Are you sure you wish to continue?”

You lower your hand to his face, dragging your fingers across his cheek and lips. “Yes, I can’t tell you how much I desire a memory like this.”

He stands to remove your pants before lowering back down to hover over you on his hands and knees, straddling you as you lay on the feathered mattress. His fingers trail down the side of your chest, your waist, you hip, before moving inward to reach between your folds. You inhale with the first touch of his fingers to your slit. As his index starts to stroke from the inside, his thumb circles your clit. Forcing you to groan into his mouth which comes down again to cover yours.

Once he appears satisfied with the wetness pooling around his digits. He pulls out and takes his finger to his mouth with a hungry moan. Cursing as it slips out from his lips.

Your face heats up, embarrassed by his reaction. “Surely you are making too much fuss over it.”

“You think I don’t find you enjoyable? That I can’t see, feel or taste how divine you are?”

You grin, taking pleasure words despite their boastful nature. “Divine? No, you are just too kind to say otherwise.”

“Then allow me to prove you wrong.” Yoongi smirks, adjusting to take his place between your legs.

“What do you intend to-” He answers your question before you can finish, his mouth latching firmly onto your cunt. Your words lost as he takes in a long draft, his tongue playing along darts inside of you before shifting up to tease your most sensitive spot. When paired with his fingers, which once again come to stretch your inside, you do not stand more than a minute before biting the pillow to muffle your scream. Drenching his mouth and hands with your cum.

“As I said divine.” Yoongi grins as he looks up at you, his lips glistening with your fluids. After leaving you with no energy to debate his notion you can only nod and accept his truth. He cleans his fingers once again with his tongue, before sending them to undo the laces of his trousers.

When his cock slips free he takes your hand, guiding it along to stroke his shaft. His head falls back in pleasure, giving you the confidence to grow bolder. You sit up to meet him pulling his length down to glide along the outside of your folds and become wet with your slick.

You find to his mouth again with a kiss as he throbs against the inside of your legs and mound. “You are sure of this then?” He asks one last time.

“I am.” You promise looking into his eyes as he leans you back and guides his cock past your folds. The air in your throat catches, and your eyes flutter as you adapt to the sensation of him inside you.

The back of his fingers brushing at your cheek before folding out to cup your face. “Still with me?”

You nod back, pushing your lips to his upper chest and shoulder as you adjust to him. Yoongi lowers you back down to the bed, cradling your form as you descend. Finally cocooning you in a close embrace, with his nose buried in the nape of your neck.

His cock swells, and you arch your back in response, meeting his chest with yours. With his arm tucked around, he keeps you in that position. Dragging his hips away and towards, his thrusts come slow as your arousal coats his shaft. Every push becomes easier for you to take, but it would seem it’s harder for him to hold on. His forehead comes to rest on your shoulder a rasping grunt, as he remains inside. He changes tactics and turns to tend to your neck instead, slowing his pace to a halt, as he kisses the marked spot.

You take note of a low growl emitting from him as he continues to lavish the spot. He must hate it as much as you, his failure to come to you in time on display before him. But you know no amount of simple affection will remove the spot from view.

“Yoongi?” You ask in concern as his disdainful rumbles grow louder. Adjusting your head to get a glimpse of his pained face, you find a dampness forming in the duct of his eye. “Yoongi, is it-”

“I hate how he continues to mark you. It shouldn’t be here between us.”

“Then take it.” You suggest, for you like him are unable to tolerate it any longer.

He looks fearful of what you ask, his eyes wide as he explains, “I’ll need to break the skin.”

“Then do it. Please, help rid me of this too.” You tuck his head back down so his lips come to rest against your neck. No longer fearing such an act with him, not after the gentleness he showed you before.

His mouth opens with his teeth dragging across the scar. There’s a brief prick of pain before the spot is soothed by his lips. Yoongi’s groans of satisfaction start to encourage and blend with your own, his arms continuing to embrace you and coddle you.

With his still mouth fixed to your neck, you feel as his tongue turns beneath his teeth, and with a swift bite he laps his own blood on to the fresh wound. The lingering pain soon falls away as the skin heals. Your head swims in a state between dizziness and pleasure, a sense of euphoria takes over.

You place your hands on his hips wanting him to resume, craving more of his pleasure. And so the thrusts return with Yoongi’s hand pressed to the small of your back, ensuring that your clit grinds against him as he pushes deeper. He dives into you to the point where you can hear the dull thump of the bed frame against the wall. You wish you could hold on longer, you wish you didn’t have to let go, you find yourself whispering Yoongi’s name repeatedly as if it might change that. Only to be left stuttering between breaths as you claim your last climax.

He pulls out after his own release, hovering as he smiles down on the sight of you, and your legs wrapped around his thighs. After taking a moment to collect himself he goes to grab the washing dish and jug of water, dipping the supplied towel he proceeds to take care of what he left behind. You attempt to claim the cloth from him, as he lingers between your thighs, but he insists on being though. With a grin tugging at his lip each time the towel passes over your sensitive flesh and causes you to twitch.

“I will not forget this, not ever.” Yoongi whispers once finished, as he takes to your side covering you over with the blanket.

You nod in agreement, brushing the hair from his face. “When it is all done, I want you to come back to me. I don’t care how long, I have to see you again.”

“I-I will try, but I cannot promise I will survive this task. If my demise will allow me to stand between you and him then I will gladly become that barrier.” You gasp ready to argue against such a sacrifice, but one tap of his finger to your lip stops your conflict in its place, allowing him to finish. “Rest now. Think not of what we can’t change.”

You curl into Yoongi trying to do as he suggests. Though just as you get comfortable there’s an unexpected tap on the shutters of your room, a circumstance made even more surprising when you remember yourself to be on the second floor of the house. Your vampire rises, careful to open the window so no light shines on him. Allowing a raven to make its way inside.

Yoongi is quick to free it of a rolled letter attached to its foot before releasing the bird and blocking out the window behind it. As his eyes scan the paper, his brow furrows and his hand clenches the parchment to the point where it starts to crackle in his grip. He proceeds to throw back on his clothes, not even bothering to change out his torn shirt, while keeping the letter clutched in his hand.

“Yoongi, is something-”

“I need to talk to Seokjin. Stay here.” He growls bursting out the door in a formidable rage, slamming it behind him. You give time for him to descend the steps before crawling from your bed wrapped in the sheet and leaning your ear to the solid wood that bars you from the hall, but nothing can be heard through the thick barrier.

You can not help but fear what might be wrong for Yoongi to react in such a way. Going against his command you throw the clothes Namjoon left you and ready to exit your room. Carefully pulling on the latch of the door so as to not make a sound. You ease through the smallest crack you can muster before settling at top of the stairs, hidden from the view of the floor below. The voice of the vampires trailing up from the main room.

“You have her smell all over you, lucky bastard,” Seokjin groans. “How did she taste?”

Yoongi doesn’t answer the question, posing his own instead, with a rustle of parchment and a loud thump on the table. “How long, how long have you known of this?”

“Yoongi-” Seokjin responds, the uncertainty of his tone is a jarring contrast from your own previous interaction with him.

“Answer me Seokjin!”

“I couldn’t tell you, you gave up your position, because of her. You know there is information we must keep from the hunters in case it falls into the wrong hands. I’ve known this to be the truth since you first went to recover her from Taehyung. We all knew it was your primary goal to retrieve her, but I wasn’t allowed to say anything that might cause a change in course from you. If you had known you would not have led her this way.”

“So you kept me in the dark? All these years?” Yoongi seethes. “I promised I would take her home! And you're just now sharing with me that I can’t? You didn’t care if I knew the whole truth, just as long as in the end I brought her closer to the clan’s reach?”

“We can keep her safe.”

“No, she deserves her life away from us. She has been tortured enough Seokjin. How am I supposed to tell her this? She was just starting to recover, to remember her past, and to trust me again, but this... it will break her. She won’t accept this new fate if this is your only solution.”

“Then don’t tell her, don’t give her a chance to refuse. She accepted your blood, did she not? Use it to send her off to sleep and don’t wake her again until she’s resting comfortably behind the clan’s walls. You can return to your old life, Hoseok will grant you your title back if you do this, I’m sure of it. You can be the high keeper again, with your princess safe by your side.”

There’s a loud clamour and groan, prompting you to peak just around the edge to witness the struggle. There on the table, Yoongi has pinned Seokjin, his fingers wrapped around the vampire's neck.

Seokjin doesn’t appear to be too put off despite his situation, choosing instead to give advice to the one who has him by the throat. “You’re immortal Yoongi, she is not, you need to remember that. Her sadness will be only temporary if she chooses to hold it against you, but if you go against us now you will be alone, without a clan for eternity.”

Yoongi stands there in silence, no more refusals, no more rebuttals. Instead of continuing to argue on your behalf, he nods and lets Seokjin up from the table. His fellow vampire claps him on the shoulder and mutters, “You’ve made the right choice old friend. Hoseok will be pleased to have you back in the clan’s coven.”

While they embrace every part of you is lit ablaze with pain and anger. You both had been played, but he... he acquiesced to his puppeteer, and plans to string you up too. There’s nothing that could willingly compel you to take shelter in a castle full of vampires again... with Yoongi by your side though? You consider the notion for a fraction of a second before a resounding ‘no’ takes hold. Your younger self might have gone, and willingly so, but now the cost to you and your people is far too great.

With the growing list of broken promises, how long before the vow of safety fractures for the sake of his clan too? What is there to stop the situation from evolving into your own past with Taehyung? You can not, you will not endure that kind of life again.

With your only option being to run, your head concocts a plan to flee. Creeping back to the bedroom you crack the window open, and glance over the edge, thankful to see that there are several crates stacked close enough for you to reach with your feet. If you’re lucky Yoongi will stay downstairs for some time and have no reason to believe you’ve flown from his side. Fitting a spare cloak you escape out the window taking the map with you. Climbing down you flee towards the stables out back.

There you find the horse without a proper name, another painful reminder of Yoongi’s promises, and inability to return. Forcing you to recognize the constant pull between you and his clan. Your heart is left broken down the line of betrayal and understanding, for how can you entirely fault him when you yourself are determined to return to your own kingdom at the expense of his happiness. In the end the both of you are left to suffer the pain of duty over love.

Not wanting to journey with such a bitter token of the past, you choose the other smaller stead stolen from the hunters instead. Mounting the horse, you ride off into the noonday sun, eager to make it home before he or his kind have the ability to alter your course.

#bts smut #yoongi smut #yandere bts #yoongi x reader #taehyung x reader #bts fanfiction #bts x reader #bts fanfic #bts thriller au #bts vampire au #yandere taehyung #min yoongi #kim taehyung #bts blood bounty #suga x reader

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bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher · 3 years

Text

Baby, You Light Up My World

well I haven't done this trope yet...

sold to 1D au - modern au - absolutely a fluffy crackfic

I didn't do much editing, I just wrote this for funsies.

Please consider leaving me a comment since it is my birthday month. As both a bisexual and a Leo I desire nothing more than validation.

tw: mild panic attack

---

“Jaskier! You useless layabout!” his mother called from the bottom of the stairs. “Get down here!”

The young man dropped the book he’d been reading and jogged down the staircase from his room to the main floor. “Yes, Mother?”

“I had to pay the bills after your father died mysteriously so I sold you online.”

“What!?” Jaskier gaped, jaw dropping.

“Yeah, and your new owners are almost here.”

“My new owners!? M-Mother, what do you mea-”

“Go upstairs and get your shit packed,” the frowning woman interrupted. She lit up a cigarette and rolled her eyes in obvious annoyance. “That doorbell is going to ring any minute now and then my problems are over.”

The shocked teen wandered back up the stairs to his room, where he packed his meagre belongings into his old summer camp duffel bag and laid his father’s old guitar gently in its velvet-lined case. His mind raced with questions. Would they be nice people? Would they be cruel? Would he be happier with these strangers than he was at home or at school? Who were they? Was this even legal?

Jaskier nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the doorbell ringing. He grabbed his bag and his guitar and slowly made his way to the front door. His mother was chatting quietly with several people - men, judging by their low voices - and his heartbeat skyrocketed.

“C’mere, boy,” she ordered, snapping her fingers with impatience. Jaskier scurried forward. “Meet the people who are taking you off my hands.”

“Hello, Jaskier,” said a familiar voice. His head shot up, blue eyes wide and confused.

“G-Geralt deRiv!?” his gaze moved from one man to the next in quick succession. “L-Lambert… Eskel?”

It was his favorite band, Wolf Direction.

---

EARLIER THAT MORNING

---

“Why the fuck are you buying another band member?” Lambert asked, glancing over Vesemir’s shoulder to read his laptop screen. “Why not just hold some open auditions?”

“Because this is a fanfiction, Lambert,” their manager huffed. “And this is how Geralt and Jaskier's meet-cute has to happen.”

“Oh.”

---

BACK TO THE STORY

---

Lambert took his guitar and Eskel took his bag while Geralt herded Jaskier onto the large tour bus parked in his too-short driveway. Jaskier was still in shock; his limbs moved on autopilot as he sat down on the surprisingly comfortable couch that stretched along one wall of the bus, beneath the tinted windows. Geralt sat beside him but kept his hands to himself, waiting for the old man with the mustache to speak first.

“Well hello there, Jaskier,” the stranger greeted warmly. “I know this is an unconventional situation but I wanted to personally welcome you to Wolf Direction. I'll admit that it's all a bit sudden and unexpected, but we needed someone with your gentle disposition to help balance out the boys and you're almost the same age, which is convenient.”

"I'm-" Jaskier blinked owlishly. "I'm joining the band?!"

"You're going to be the new front man," Lambert winked.

Jaskier, completely overwhelmed by the events of the past half-hour, passed the fuck out.

Geralt startled a bit as the brunette boy slumped against him and he gave Vesemir a worried glance. “What the fuck?”

By the time Jaskier managed to regain consciousness they were already nearly a hundred miles away. He sat up from the arm of the couch and stretched, listening as several places in his lower back popped into place. “Huhn?”

“Oh!” Eskel grinned, setting down his X-Box controller. “You’re awake!”

“And you’re Eskel.”

“Yeah… I sure hope so.”

“Cool.”

“Please don’t faint again!” Eskel pleaded, propping the smaller boy against a pillow and covering his lap with a blanket. “You scared the shit out of Geralt.”

“Sorry,” Jaskier blushed, allowing himself to be prodded and adjusted. “I didn’t mean to… It’s just been a very weird morning.”

“It’s going to get weirder,” Lambert added, slamming the bathroom door closed behind him. “Because now we have to know which one of us you’d like to bunk with. There are only four bunks and the bus driver has the couch.”

“Uhhh…” Jaskier’s eyes flickered between Eskel and Lambert. “I’ll just sleep on the floor.”

“I’ll take the floor,” Geralt offered, poking his head out from behind one of the bunk curtains. “He’s new and probably terrified. He’ll need more sleep than I do after the day he’s had.”

“I- No, it’s-” Jaskier tried to argue but none of the band members wanted to listen.

“Alright, floor for Geralt. Jaskier can have his bunk.”

Jaskier felt wrongfooted all over again. “Th-Thanks.”

“No problem. You any good at FIFA?” Eskel asked, offering Jaskier a second controller. The young man shook his head and settled back onto the couch.

“I brought a book,” he smiled timidly.

“Oh, you and Geralt will get along swell,” Lambert teased, tossing Jaskier the duffel. “The bus has been infested by bookworms!”

“Wouldn’t hurt you to read a book or two,” Vesemir said over his shoulder. “Might actually manage to fill some of the space between your ears.”

“Fuck off,” Lambert groused. He fumbled his way into his own bunk. “Let me know when it’s time to eat.”

Jaskier, still surrounded by a cloudy sort of surreality, opened his book and lost himself in the pages.

---

TWO WEEKS LATER

---

Jaskier had forgotten how much he hated thunderstorms. He whimpered as another loud bang shook the bus and rattled him in his tiny bunk. Thankfully the driver had parked them for the night, so he didn’t have to worry about crashing into a tree during inclement weather. He was worried about blowing away in the wind, however.

“G-Geralt?” he whispered, poking his head out from behind the dark curtain. Geralt blinked up at him from his air mattress on the floor, still mostly asleep.

“Hmm?”

“Wanna share the bunk tonight? I-” Jaskier licked his lips anxiously and took a deep breath “I’m scared of the storm.”

“Sure,” Geralt lumbered to his feet and slid onto the twin-sized mattress next to Jaskier. Their legs were pressed together and their faces were only inches apart. “Sorry. Bit of a tight squeeze.”

“I don’t mind,” Jaskier muttered. He was glad that the darkness kept Geralt from seeing the way his face had gone red from being in such close proximity to his favorite member of the band.

He and Geralt had been dancing around each other lately - terrified of their very obvious and very mutual feelings for each other - and Jaskier was glad for an excuse to be near him again. Geralt spoke up again: “Scared of storms?”

“I used to have the attic bedroom at my house,” Jaskier explained, keeping his voice low. Eskel was right above them, snoring away. “And once, during a storm, a tree branch flew through my window. I haven’t been able to sleep through the sound of thunder since.”

“I’m glad you’re alright,” Geralt replied. One of his heavy arms came to rest over Jaskier’s ribcage, holding him without holding him; merely a comforting weight to settle his nerves.

“Me, too,” Jaskier smiled. “Sorry for interrupting your sleep. I’ll be quiet now.”

“Hmm,” Geralt hummed his acknowledgement. He tucked the younger man’s head beneath his chin and started humming an actual tune, running through all of Jaskier’s favorite Wolf Direction songs until he started snuffling quietly. “Sleep, Jask. I’ll keep you safe.”

And he did.

---

TWO MONTHS LATER

---

"Thank you so much, Detroit, we loved being here!" Jaskier waved to the audience and let the microphone drop. He was panting for breath and sweat dripped from his bangs into his eyes, still... this was the happiest he'd ever been. Geralt wrapped a strong arm around his waist, waved to the screaming crowd one last time, and escorted Jaskier into the wings.

"You did great, babe," he smiled. Jaskier grinned up at him.

"Really?"

"You always do."

"You guys are disgusting," Eskel made a fake gagging sound.

"I think it's adorable," Lambert argued. They switched sides every week or so to keep things interesting. "They were made for each other."

"Whatever," Jaskier stuck his tongue out. "This is a found family strangers-to-lovers fic. We can do whatever we want."

"I want to kiss you," Geralt suggested. Jaskier grinned again.

"Sounds like a great ending to me!"

So they kissed, and it was beautiful and sweet and everything Jaskier had ever hoped for.

#crackfic #geraskier crack #witcher crack #geraskier fluff #fluff and crack #the witcher ficlet #geraskier ficlet #happy birthday to me #thank you hermit squad for enabling my gay ass #bouncey's birthday prompt celebration #bouncey's bday ficlets #geraskier nonsense #geraskier fic #geraskier modern au #wolf direction #sold to one direction meme

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fettsvette · 3 years

Text

Under the Crimson Moon

You have your period and feel gross. Boba Fett wants to fuck. A little blood never stopped the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy from doing his job, and doing it damn well.

Pairing: Boba Fett x Reader Words: 7.2k Rating: Explicit Warnings: Menstruation/blood kink, penetrative sex

Can be found on Archive of Our Own here.

Mando’a terminology:

cyar’ika - Mando’a term of affection meaning sweetheart, darling, beloved

“If I want you to do something, girl

We both know that you will

I’m a dirty old man with a dirty set of dreams

Take off that dress if you wanna keep it clean...”

‘Up in Them Guts,’ Brendan Kelly and the Wandering Birds

You hadn’t known he was coming until he’d actually arrived.

One minute, you had been in a deep sleep, wrapped in the warm blankets that shrouded the king-sized bed, and then suddenly, you were wide awake. Because you’d heard it, and you knew in your heart of hearts that it hadn’t been the lasting echo of a dream.

The sound of heavy bootsteps and the unmistakable jangle of spurs echoed in the crisp night air, emanating down the hall towards your bedroom doorway.

You sat up quickly, blood roaring in your ears and your heart pounding wildly in your chest, and your head snapped towards the entryway, illuminated only by the moonlight flooding in through the bay window.

And there he was, stepping out of the deep midnight shadows with that slow, methodical walk that seemed to encompass his very being: Boba Fett, the greatest and most feared bounty hunter to ever live.

And your lover.

If you didn’t know better, you would’ve sworn he was a statue of some ancient warrior, carved from marble and brought to life by a warlock’s spell. The way he stood unmoving and ramrod straight, just staring at you, always sent a thrill down your spine, his expression unreadable behind the darkened, T-shaped visor of his helmet.

But still you groaned - not out of arousal, the expected reaction to the presence of the imposing yet entirely irresistible man who was currently gazing at you - but out of annoyance. You squeezed your eyes shut, almost willing him to disappear, to take the hint, by the time you opened them again.

His timing couldn’t have been worse.

“Boba, please go away ... ” You grumbled pathetically under your breath, cracking an eye open to look up at the silent figure clad in dark green armor, looking at you expectantly. You heard him let out a sharp hiss under the helmet, and he gave a start, his head snapping downwards, and you just knew he was glaring at you murderously. You had no idea how he’d heard you from all the way across the room, but he had.

“ Oh ? What’s that , girly? You don’t like me anymore?” He stalked forward slowly, and the question came not with a teasing edge nor with an air of apprehension, but with an icy lilt to it. It chilled your blood, and it occurred to you that you may have just made a huge mistake in telling Boba Fett himself to fuck off. As much as you enjoyed the sexual satisfaction you got from these illicit romps with one of the most dangerous men in the known universe, the confident realization that he could potentially grow angry or bored enough to dispose of you at any time without even batting an eye absolutely terrified you. He was a bounty hunter, after all. At the same time, though, that same fear excited you beyond the wildest depths of your imagination. He’d shown you time and time again just how deadly he could be, and yet you had never turned away when you’d had the chance. And there had been plenty of those times.

“ No ! Boba, no. I - I s-still like you. Of c-course I still like you. But…” You began, stuttering and stammering like a nervous child, but stopped abruptly when Fett took another step forward, spurs clanking again. He either didn’t notice the effect his brief intimidation had on you, or he didn’t care. You assumed it was most likely the second one.

“ There’s a problem. ” Fett wasn’t asking you. It was a statement. Maybe another time you would have attempted to lie your way out of it just to save yourself the embarrassment that you knew was coming, but tonight you couldn’t even find the energy to attempt it.

“I can’t tonight. I just... can’t .” You murmured, almost tearfully defeated, gingerly sitting up in the bed to take a better look at your nighttime visitor. You could see yourself reflected in the viewscreen of his helmet, disheveled from sleep and sickly-looking, although you didn’t know if that was a trick of the moonlight or a sign of your current condition. Despite the intense cramping in your belly that was overtaking most other sensations, you still felt a flutter of longing travel to your loins upon seeing Boba Fett. How badly you wanted to grab him by that clunky belt and drag him down onto the bed next to you, free him from his trousers, and ride him until you found your release, but your body wasn’t in agreement with your wishes in the least bit. You took a deep breath, and steadily looked him in the eye.

“ I got my period this morning. ”

Silence. Not even a tilt of the dented helmet, a gesture you sometimes received after making references that he didn’t understand.

Feeling your cheeks aflame and slightly embarrassed by the lack of response, you tried again.

“...I’m menstruating, Boba. You know… moon blood? The curse? I don’t know if that’s a thing that happens to people where you come from, but I’m bleeding out of my vagina and I feel fucking miserable and -”

Fett cut off your babbling with a sharp gesture through the air with one hand, the other settled nonchalantly on his hip as he shifted his weight. He let out a gruff sigh that lifted and dropped his shoulders in an almost comical display of exasperation.

“I know what it is. I’ve been with enough humanoid females in my lifetime. Is that supposed to change our plans tonight, little one?”

It was your turn to go silent. You should have known something venomous and snarky like that would’ve been his answer. And of course he had more experience than you, he was older - by just how much, you weren’t exactly sure. He’d never shared his age, and you didn’t ask. He barely spoke as it was. And you still had yet to see his face. He’d never offered to show you, however, as if it were some closely guarded secret only he was the keeper of. And you didn’t dare try removing that strange, heavy helmet of his yourself. Boba Fett had never hurt you, but you felt if you were to reach underneath the sharp edges of his armor, peel it away from the complicated, mysterious creature underneath, there was no telling what he would do.

Hell, you had never even seen this man’s face and yet you had let him fuck you within an inch of your life . You’d never been ‘that kind of girl’ before you’d met him, upsetting everything you thought you’d known about yourself and the universe around you, but here you were. And here he was.

But his comment about being with other women in his past still spun ‘round your head like some mad arachnid’s twisted web, and made you wonder if he was presently doing this very same dance elsewhere - in other cities, on other worlds.

‘ If this is just a physical thing, no strings attached… ’ You found yourself brooding as you watched him languidly stalk over to the window next to your bed, tilting the green and red helmet upwards and search the night sky for things you could only vaguely guess at if you tried, ‘ Then why am I jealous of something I don’t even know is really happening? ’

“I just thought...you wouldn’t be… into that ...” You finally replied, meek as a mouse, and instantly trailed off once you realized you had no idea what else to say to him on this matter, your face burning. You should have been overwhelmed with desire at Boba wanting to fuck you this badly, but you found yourself apprehensive and shy - over a little bit of blood . It was times like this that you couldn’t fathom why a man from outer space, an intergalactic cowboy like something out of a comic book, had fallen from the sky and had chosen you.

His head turning slowly in your direction, Fett marched back towards the end of your bed, his hands gripping the leather belt at his waist.

“Your condition doesn’t matter to me. It’s a basic bodily function. Have you forgotten, foolish girl? I take what I want, when I want it .” He intoned brusquely, and your eyes widened, a delicious chill crawling up your spine, and you felt your cunt clench at nothing. The crimson tide had come in, and he still wanted to claim you.

Usually, you talked enough for the both of you. Now you found yourself utterly speechless.

There was silence while he stood at the end of the bed, and you goggled blankly at him. Fett was challenging you. He showed no signs of leaving, or of heeding your apprehension in the least bit. He just continued to stand there and stare mutely, stubbornly standing his ground. Damn it.

He had played this strange game several times before after one of your numerous meetings, lingering after it had become clear that you were way too fucked out to stay awake any longer. He’d never forced you into a situation that you hadn’t been game for, but he always seemed to want to make sure you knew who exactly owned you - or your cunt , at least.

So he hung around. You’d mostly hear him pacing the room, sometimes quietly rummaging through your bookshelves as if in a library, but more often than not, he would sit himself in the chair across the room, large gloved hands gripping the armrests and well-muscled legs spread mockingly wide, reclining back and holding a silent vigil over you as you fell asleep. He was always long gone when you awoke, although once there had been some sort of dried flower left behind on your nightstand, dark red petals with a metallic tint to them - quite obviously nothing that had grown on this planet. You had asked him about it the next time he had shown up, after an excruciating three month absence that he re-emerged from with several more dents in and copious chips of paint missing from his armor. He had gruffly feigned any knowledge of the gift, his focus only on the flower between your legs. The dried one, however - the little token of his appreciation or whatever you wanted to call it - stayed pressed inside one of your favorite books.

As a reminder.

Boba hadn’t moved in a while, still penetrating you with his eyes through that damned visor, when you finally decided to give in to him. You wanted him. Badly. Your reproductive system was in full rebellion against the idea and you felt fucking gross, but you weren’t sure you cared any longer. You needed him, couldn’t resist him. Hadn’t you read somewhere that orgasms were supposed to help relieve menstrual cramps, anyway?

You bit your lip and let him have his way.

“In that case, Boba… I think I might feel a little bit better if you fucked me.”

The self-satisfied, smug chuckle came like a rumble of thunder.

“Well, well… that’s my good girl. ”

He was across the room in the time it took you to blink.

Boba was extraordinarily light on his feet for a big man, and he was on top of you in the span of a breath. Rough leather gloves formed a vice around the muscle and bone of your wrists, pinning your arms above your head. You let out a shriek of surprise rather than pain - while his grip was firm, it didn’t necessarily hurt - and he answered with a low growl, kneeling on either side of your hips. He used one huge hand to continue pinning both of your wrists down, the other masterfully unclipping the heavy armor of his codpiece. You let out a near-hysterical giggle as Boba tossed it to the side and it unceremoniously hit the carpeted floor with a harsh thunk , smiling even broader as he brought the same hand up to rest against your cheek, stroking the flushed skin there.

“I told you, girl. I always get what I want, when I want it . Tonight isn’t going to be an exception just because you’re cycling and feeling sorry for yourself. If you’re not going to cooperate with me, nice and easy... too bad .”

Gooseflesh broke out all over your body at his words. You were absolutely fucking drenched for him already, and you wished he would just hurry up and take you already, tear off your panties and fuck into you until you were screaming yourself hoarse. You still weren’t sure of where exactly the man who called himself Boba Fett had come from, or why he was here , or why he’d chosen to mark you for his territory on this shitty little backwater world. Fucking hell, you didn’t even really know this man at all, did you? All you did know is that you were addicted to his touch, and despite your initial hesitations, you were practically begging for it now.

Boba used his free hand to slightly peel back the blankets concealing your thin nightie and period panties. With a contented hum, he lazily reached out to trace a thick gloved finger right along the line of your slit, and you let out a high-pitched, keening whimper, your hips twitching up involuntarily towards his touch. Boba clucked his tongue disapprovingly and shook his head at you, sighing and looking up towards the ceiling.

“How pathetic … is that really all it takes to make you fall apart for me, sweet girl?” Boba teased, releasing his grip on your wrists momentarily in order to fully pull the covers off the bed and toss them onto the floor. It only took those few seconds for you to take him unawares, weaseling out from underneath his looming form and using both hands to forcefully shove him backwards. Caught off guard by your unexpected show of strength, Boba fell on his back with a startled grunt, which was immediately followed by a groan as he watched you crawl on top of him. With shaking legs, you straddled his waist and positioned your heat right over his generous crotch, planting your sweaty palms against the reassuring coldness of his armor, and began to sloppily grind into him, dropping down to lie flat against his abdomen as you continued.

Trying to conceal his own quiet moans underneath his helmet, Boba allowed you to frantically grind your hips against the growing hardness in his trousers for a few more moments, one large hand cupping your ass and the other on your undulating back, holding you steady as you hectically rocked back and forth, up and down. You whined pitiably and grasped at the grooves of his breastplate like a drowning woman before his tolerance towards your juvenile ministrations finally ran thin. As you went to roll your hips against the outline of his length yet again, Boba grunted bestially and grasped you by the waist, pushing you off of him roughly so that you went tumbling onto your back next to him. Your chest heaving, you looked sideways at him with heavy-lidded eyes, your cheeks burning with desire. The dark helmet slowly tilted to the side as Boba stared at you, and you heard a disgusted scoff echo from within.

“That’s enough, you. Kriff, you’re a desperate little thing, aren’t you? Rutting in my lap like a loth-cat in heat and I’ve barely even touched you. Is that what you want, princess? Do you want me to touch you?” He purred mockingly, reaching down to lightly stroke your outer thigh with a gloved hand, briefly squeezing the soft flesh there and leaving fingermarks in his wake. You let out a throaty groan and thrust your hips towards his retreating hand, needing to feel his touch on your body, on your core.

“I need you to touch me, Boba, plea-” He reached out and grabbed you by the face, squeezing your cheeks together hard enough for it to almost be painful, and you let out a squeak as he tightened his grip, turning your face towards his.

“Oh no, little one. It’s not going to be that easy to get what you want from me, not after the way you carried on earlier.” He lowered his helmet until the forehead of it was touching your own damp one, and as you stared into the blackness of his visor, you found yourself wondering what color Boba’s eyes were, and what he would do if you were to reach up and pull that big green bucket away from his face. Before you could even truly consider it, though, he loosened his grip and released your cheeks. You exhaled sharply, a rush of cool air gradually taking the place of the rough leather on your skin.

Boba sat back on his knees, and grabbed you under your arms, hoisting you up and pivoting your body so you were now hanging off the bed, your feet dangling several inches above the floor. He lowered you slowly, making sure your feet were flat on the ground before he let his hands leave your sides, fingers purposefully trailing and pressing into the supple, pliant flesh of your still-covered, swollen breasts as he withdrew. The sensation of his trace along the tender tissues set your nerves on fire, and your nipples hardened to an almost excruciatingly painful degree. You considered reaching out to snatch one of those gauntleted wrists and plant his hand right on your tit, willing him to knead and squeeze and flick at the oversensitive bud at its tip, but were brought back to reality by a sharp smack to your ass.

You yelped, grabbing at your backside and whirling around to see Boba sitting on the bed, staring at you. He had taken his gloves off, and had swatted you with them, both forming a makeshift crop in his calloused hand. He let out an amused snort at your look of shock, and patted the palm of his other hand with the fisted leather.

“Go to the ‘fresher and clean yourself up.” You sensed by the edge to Boba’s voice that his patience was running low, and he gestured vaguely to the doorway with a jerk of his head. His rugged timbre crackled through the vocoder of the helmet, adding an even more ominous tone to his speech. He reclined on your bed, his ankles crossed nonchalantly, armored form looking massive and mind-bogglingly out of place as he lounged back against the pillows. It would have almost been a comical sight if it hadn’t been for the heady arousal you could sense in his gaze.

“And take that kriffing absorbent out while you’re in there. I want you nice and wet and open for me.”

You felt your heart sink right to your cunt at his last words. Stars, you were fucking dripping for him. A wave of liquid heat that had nothing to do with your cycle had pooled between your legs, and you felt your knees buckle as visions of what intense pleasures this man might put you through tonight swam in your mind. You shambled to the bathroom on legs that seemed to be made of gelatin, breathing heavily through your nose, trying to keep calm as you wiped away the sweat that had accumulated on your body in an attempt to make yourself somewhat presentable. You splashed your face with cold water to keep yourself from falling faint at the knowledge of what was to come, glancing at yourself in the mirror briefly. Your eyes were glassy, your pupils blown wide, almost completely black in the harsh light. A fresh round of cramps erupted in a band around your groin, and you were starting to think you’d die if Boba didn’t fuck you soon. Resting one leg on the toilet seat, you shoved your panties to the side and slowly removed the offending menstrual cup that you had inserted before you’d retired for the night, hastily discarding it in the bin. You didn’t care if it had tipped over and made a mess, you’d clean it up in the morning. All you cared about right now was getting back to Boba and feeling him twitch and throb inside of you.

He was waiting for you when you re-emerged, immediately rising to stand on the side of the bed. Beckoning you with the crook of a finger, he held out his hand to you as you practically ran towards him. As soon as the pads of your fingers had made contact with his, he spun you around to lie flat on the bed, head propped up behind the pillows, feet planted on the mattress and your legs spread so that he had a perfect view of your damp panties. Whether it was blood or arousal or a mixture of both, you weren’t sure - free-bleeding had never been your ‘thing’ and you weren’t sure if you liked the feeling - but as Boba climbed back onto the bed, openly admiring the wetness between your legs, you began to think that maybe it was something you could get used to.

He yanked down your underwear in one deft movement, grabbing hold of your calves one by one to remove your panties from around your legs, and tossed them to the side, where they landed in a crumple. He immediately leaned forward to spread your wet lips apart with his rough fingers, and you heard a sharp intake of breath come from underneath the helmet. It was barely audible, and you could tell that it had been involuntary from the way he had attempted to cut it off before it had even truly escaped. You flung one arm across your eyes, blushing furiously as you felt two thick fingers shallowly dip into your folds, swiping upwards briefly to gather some of the slick gathered there, then retreating just as quickly, before you could buck your hips into the welcome presence.

“ Such a dirty girl …” He cooed darkly, and you opened your eyes cautiously just to see what exactly he was talking about. He perched above you on his knees, gazing at his own hand, the one he had just been briefly exploring your wetness with.

His fingers were coated in blood - your blood, your menstrual blood - and he was smearing the red between his thumb, index, and middle fingers, as if utterly fascinated by it. His helmet briefly dipped down to his fingers as he greedily inhaled your most secret scent, and the low groan he released made you throw your own head back in an echo, fire traveling from your slick cunt throughout your body. Your cry came out much louder than anticipated, and his head immediately snapped up, his hidden eyes boring into you. You embarrassedly tore your eyes away from the darkened visor and noticed the impressive bulge straining at the crotch of his flight suit, along with the telltale damp patch that could only mean his cock was already weeping precum - fuck, this was turning him on.

He moved forward once more, brushing your legs further apart with a swat of the backside of his other hand and, resting his palm atop your shaking knee, almost calculatingly smeared the blood from his fingers along your inner thigh, back and forth, until the digits were nearly clean. You noticed a bit of dried redness still staining his skin, and the sight made you dizzy with arousal.

You threw your head back against the pillows once more and whined morosely at the mark your essence had left on him, offering no resistance when Boba grabbed you by your elbows, easing you onto your feet in front of his own kneeling form.

“Up you get, girl. Come on.”

You looked down at him, slightly puzzled as to exactly what he was doing, until he sharply prodded the backs of your knees with his arm, causing you to stumble forward. He caught your fall by positioning one thick thigh to rest between your legs, and you landed with your sopping core pressed directly against the grey fabric of his flight suit. Upon realizing your situation, you clutched at his biceps and buried your face in his neck with a muffled groan, every fiber of your being going into restraining yourself from fucking against the expanse of hard muscle. Boba Fett had remembered what you liked best, and he’d weaponized it.

“Go on. Ride my thigh, little one. Make yourself nice and slick so you’re ready to take my cock inside of you. You’ll probably have to cum at least once before you can handle it - I'm too big for you, aren’t I? ...But that’s what you want, isn’t it? My cock in your pretty little pussy?” Boba asked sweetly, his tone oozing with sarcasm. He jiggled his leg ever so slightly, and a shockwave of pure pleasure coursed through your veins, and you couldn’t help but let out a strangled squeal. Your calves shook in a futile attempt to hold yourself still despite it, to not give in to what he expected of you.

Boba had another idea though. He growled and clutched at your hips and began forcefully dragging you back and forth across the coarse material of his pants, causing you to emit a wail that echoed throughout the room. Boba hummed, satisfied with the effect his domination of your movements had on you, and lowered his head so that he was whispering in your ear, the sound delightfully harsh and metallic through his helmet’s vocoder.

“What was that, precious thing? You love fucking yourself against my leg like the needy little brat that you are, I know you do… now say it . Answer me, girl.” Boba punctuated his order with a slap to your ass, aggressively driving the muscle of his thigh up into your quim.

“Y-yes, Boba…” You weakly murmured, hiding your face against his shoulder, thighs clenching around his upper leg like a vise, your hips finally - almost involuntarily - thrusting into the meat of Boba’s thigh in time with the rhythm he jerked them back and forth with. “I… I l-love fucking m-myself on your thigh…”

“ Very good …” Boba chuckled darkly to himself as he continued to bounce his leg up and down while guiding your hips with his firm, strong hands, reveling in the soft grunts you let out as he controlled your riding of his thigh. He began flexing his quadricep to usher your impending orgasm along, occasionally pressing the tops of your thighs down to create more friction against your clit, friction you desperately needed as you chased your first release.

Your hips started to stutter much sooner than you had anticipated and you locked your arms around Boba’s neck in a death grip, lifting your face away from its place pressed against his breastplate to look into his eyes through the blackness of the T-shaped visor. Boba pinched the tip of your chin with his index finger and thumb, keeping your head in place so you were forced to meet his gaze as you came, his other hand planted firmly on your waist as he continued to shove your body back and forth.

“Come on, sweet thing. Cum on my thigh for me,” Boba encouraged as your grunting turned into high-pitched whines, spaced out with every push of your hips into his leg. Wriggling yourself in small circles and grinding your clit into the rough flak of his flight suit, you tipped your head back as you were finally pushed over the edge. Your inner walls clenched around nothing, devastating waves of pleasure rolling through your cunt and up through your clit as you rode out your orgasm. Boba didn’t slow his ministrations in the least bit, continuing to pump his leg up and down, holding you tightly in place as the spasms finally began to slow down and your clit became horribly oversensitive, until he finally allowed you to push yourself away from him, falling back onto the bed, panting loudly.

Trembling and shivering from the orgasm that had ripped cataclysmically through your body, you laid back on the bed, chest heaving violently, legs splayed and arms thrown limply above your head. You opened your watering eyes briefly to look at Boba, and they widened considerably when you saw that he was curiously running his fingers over several incredibly noticeable stains on the thigh of his flight suit.

Incredibly noticeable dark red stains. More like streaks, actually, following the line your pussy had made rutting against his thigh as you had sought your climax on the thick canvas.

You felt the warmth drain from your face, slightly horrified and ready to sink into the floor out of embarrassment. You’d been bleeding like a stuck pig all over his leg as he’d forced your orgasm out of you, and you hadn’t even realized it.

“Oh, Boba … I…” You began, rising up on your elbows, trying to think of what to say to placate him so he wouldn’t reprimand you for ruining a part of the armor that he cherished more than most other things. He was staring at you, unmoving, and that’s when you noticed his hands were actually shaking . The heat immediately rushed back to your face tenfold, and your cunt grew even warmer, your own arousal coating your inner thighs anew at how much of a mess you’d made of this man, in more ways than one.

“ Filthy girl. I’m going to fuck you hard for that.” The words came out in a feral snarl, and suddenly his hands were around your throat. You let out a gasping whoop as the air was forced from your lungs, although he wasn’t choking you hard enough to cause damage. The moderate pressure on your windpipe sent black spots to your vision, your own hands coming up to scrabble at the backs of his, more out of longing for his touch than a desire for him to stop, and Boba knew your limits by now. It ended soon enough, his iron grip relaxing almost as quickly as it had begun, and you gulped in fresh air. He ghosted the backs of his fingers over your exposed neck for a moment, wordlessly making sure that you were okay, and you pressed a chaste kiss to his knuckles as he dragged the digits over your mouth for a brief moment. Another growl left his lips as you did so, and your hammering heart flipped in your chest as you felt him still quaking from just how horny he was, how eager to finally take you.

Boba hurriedly unbuttoned the fly of his trousers, his normally deft fingers stumbling in his aroused rush to free himself. You couldn’t imagine just how turned on he must be to completely lose his cool like this, and it dazed you to comprehend that he was like this because of you . He finally shoved aside the rough material and pulled his cock free. You’d seen him too many times to count, but that first glimpse still sent your mind reeling. He was fucking huge. A perfect eight inches, ever-so-slightly curved to the right, veiny and deliciously wide, the glans plump and dusky pink and already slick with precum. He’d gone commando under his flight suit, and you found yourself wondering if he did all the time. You hoped so - it was fucking hot .

“Boba, wait - are you absolutely sure you want to do this? It’s… going to... make a mess…” You said weakly, grasping at his bracer with your trembling fingers and feeling as if you might faint as he lined up his considerable girth against your entrance. You felt the fat head of his cock against your lips, and it was like every nerve-ending in your body was fucking screaming at the tease.

He paused for a moment, sitting back and studying you intently, slowly pumping his engorged member and spreading glistening precum over the velvety, blunt head with a still-bloodstained thumb. A taunting rumble emanated from under his helmet, and his length twitched in his hand. Leaning down to cup your face with one hand, the other on the root of his erection, hot and hard and throbbing against you, you could hear the smirk in Boba’s voice.

“Oh, princess… I’m a bounty hunter. A little blood has never scared me.”

He entered you without any further warning, one deep, agonizingly slow thrust, and it felt like you were being ripped apart from the inside in the best way. No matter how many times you’d taken him, no matter how drenched and ready you were for him, Boba Fett’s cock was massive , the biggest you’d ever had. Tears sprang to your eyes and you wrapped your arms around his neck, knees involuntarily drawing up so that you could wrap your legs around his still-clothed waist, wanting him closer and deeper despite the initial burn. He bottomed out just as he was starting to hurt beyond your threshold, just as you were considering asking him to stop, letting out a deep, low groan as his balls and the dark patch of curls surrounding them made contact with your skin. You could feel the seam of his trousers against your ass as well, the knowledge that he hadn’t even bothered to take off his pants in order to fuck you sending a thrill up your spine.

And then he started to move.

Boba pistoned his hips back and forth at a near-frantic pace right from the start, already grunting with the exertion, and you knew that he was trying his hardest to keep some semblance of rhythm, to not mindlessly fuck into you like a wild animal, solely focused on chasing his own orgasm. Your whole body moving with every thrust, your cloth-covered tits bouncing as he slammed into you, you looked down between your bodies and watched his thick cock slide in and out of you. Your walls squeezed and fluttered urgently as you noticed the wet sheen of your blood coating his member as he plunged deeper and deeper into you. He dragged his cock out of you until only the head was still sitting inside, then rammed back home - once, twice; you began to lose count as your mind became hazy with the pleasure.

“Take the helmet off.” You found yourself gasping out, and Boba stopped as if he’d been frozen in time. He pulled his head back slightly to stare directly into your eyes, holding his body still above you.

“Please,” you continued, “I want to see you, I need you to kiss me, I need to see your face, pleaseplease please, Boba-“ You chanted as if in prayer, stopping mid-sentence as you realized just how still he had become.

Boba gave no discernible reply, either audibly or physically, but you could still feel his surprise through your hands, the taut muscles under your touch having suddenly turned to stone. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. Panic rising in your gut, you expected him to pull himself from inside of you and push you away, to disappear into the night never to be seen again, you began to utter a quiet “I’m sorry, Bo-“ when he shushed you with a hiss, and reached down between your bodies to press his index and middle fingers to your clit, rubbing slow, lackadaisical circles over the swollen nub. He chuckled from somewhere low in his chest, both at your pleading to see his face, and your renewed mewls of ecstasy at his teasing fingers.

“Hush, little princess. Some other time.”

With that, he pressed his fingers into your waist and lifted you off your back with ease, scooting himself to the edge of the bed so that his legs were hanging over the side, your own positioned on either side of his waist so that you were sitting flush in his lap, your thighs pressed firmly to his, his pulsating member buried deep inside of you. Boba gave you a moment to settle in his lap and adjust to the new position, then wrapped one arm around your waist to keep you from tumbling backwards and began slamming into you with an almost murderous intensity, his other arm reaching between you and covering your pussy with his hand, using his thumb to rub frenzied circles into your engorged clit, periodically pinching and flicking. You bit back a scream and your walls clenched painfully around his cock, and buried your face in the scratchy material protecting his throat. Your head tucked underneath the lip of his helmet, you could hear Boba panting and letting out throaty little moans, the sound unaltered by his vocoder at this angle, and the rasp of his true voice made you squirm with delight, grinding back against the sharp, shallow juts up into your core.

You felt a dampness forming on the material beneath your slack-jawed mouth as he fucked up into you; knowing that you were drooling right onto his clothing, completely cock-dumb and at the mercy of the man jackhammering into you, seemed to set off fireworks within your core. You heard a whining noise, steadily growing louder and higher-pitched as it went on, and it took a moment for you to realize that you were making that sound. Your second orgasm was building faster and faster, your own movements becoming hectic and sloppy against his rhythmic thrusting, and you persisted crying out wordlessly, rocking wildly on Boba’s lap. He continued to pound into you, growling and grunting like a beast, and that’s when you began to scream in earnest, the blunt tip of his cock finally scraping against that sweet spot deep inside your core, again and again and again.

Boba brought one hand up to stroke your cheek as his aggressive thrusts bounced you up and down in his lap, a soft shushing noise emanating from underneath the helmet. When that didn’t work to stifle your cries, he clamped one hand over your mouth, squeezing your face with the force of it.

“There you go, little one. That’s it, come on… cum on my cock. Let me make you feel good…” He murmured, thrusting up into you one final time and grinding his hips in a semi-circle as he did, his glans catching against the spongy patch deep inside you again, finally setting off a volley of apocalyptic spasms throughout your cunt. You clenched painfully around Boba, your pussy fluttering, your entire body shuddering and heaving with the waves of pleasure rolling through your system. The orgasm dragged on and on as Boba continued to grind into you and you shrieked into his hand, tears rolling down your cheeks from the intensity of it. His thrusts were too overstimulating, bordering on painful, as the spasms finally began to ebb, but Boba’s movements had become increasingly erratic, his own grunts louder, and finally - with a muttered curse in a guttural language you didn’t recognize - he harshly yanked himself out of your still-spasming cunt and pressed his cock against your belly. Streaks of Boba’s cum spurted up, leaving his mark all over the front of your nightie. When he was sure his cock had been milked for all it was worth, just before he began to go soft, Boba quickly lifted your ass up with one hand and sank you back down onto him, causing you to gasp and rut against him several times in your overstimulated state. He stilled you by wrapping an arm around your waist, resting his chin atop the crown of your hair, both of you completely exhausted and unable to even consider a second round anytime soon.

For a few minutes afterwards, you were pliant and vulnerable in his arms, your cheek pressed against the cool armor of his breastplate, shivering both with delight and the aftershocks of your climax. Boba’s own chest heaved as he attempted to catch his breath, his fingers running up and down your back, occasionally wiping the sweat and tears away from your face. You found yourself clinging desperately to his shoulder pauldrons, silently willing him not to move, to finally stay the night by your side. Neither one of you spoke, but you didn’t need to. You could have fallen asleep in his lap like this, legs dangling on both sides of his hips, his cock still inside of you, a strangely comforting sense of fullness.

It was too good to last, of course. With a relaxed sigh, Boba shifted, slowly lifting you off his cock. He left your opening with a wet pop , a mixture of pinkish menstrual blood and both of your arousals dribbling down the inside of your thigh as he flopped you down on the bed, stretching lazily as if he hadn’t just fucked your brains out. He stalked off to the bathroom without a word, probably to wash your blood off of himself. You closed your eyes for a moment, almost on the cusp of sleep and still sniffling from the tears your powerful orgasm had brought on, when you heard soft bootsteps returning from the other room, followed by the feeling of a damp cloth between your legs, gently cleaning your wrecked sex. You sighed softly at the unexpected sensation, and hummed contentedly when the cloth was removed and a warm hand settled itself over your lower belly, kneading the sore flesh there.

“Feeling better, cyar’ika?” Boba asked, and his tone made your heart ache. This affection was something fairly new, and you gave an affirmative, sleepy murmur in response. He had never called you that name before - he’d never even called you your actual name before - and you wondered what it meant, but knew you would only receive a brooding stare if you deigned to ask. You were too tired to consider it, anyway. You doubted you could stay awake for much longer.

The hand withdrew from your tummy, and as your eyes fluttered closed, you saw Boba standing over you, looking every bit the fearsome warrior. He reached out and tapped his fingers under your chin delicately, and you heard the sound of spurs moving across the room, away from your bed.

“ Good. ”

He was gone in the morning, of course.

It had been silly to think maybe you’d open your eyes and see him sitting in the chair across the room, waiting for you to wake up.

The only sign that someone else had been there at all was the delicious ache between your legs that always lasted for several days after one of Boba’s visits and the lingering scent of post-coital musk in the air, as well as a few bloodstains on the sheets and dried cum on your nightshirt that you hoped would come out in the wash.

And last night’s underwear had mysteriously vanished.

You thought you had a vague idea of where it might’ve ended up.

#boba fett #boba fett fanfiction #boba fett x reader

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richincolor · 3 years

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Group Discussion: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega

*As is usual with our discussions, there may be a few spoilers ahead so beware.*

We were all eager to read something fun as we were getting to the one year mark in this very challenging time. Fat Chance, Charlie Vega seemed like a promising pick - and it proved to be exactly what we were seeking. I'm thankful that author Crystal Maldonado shared Charlie with the world. To find out more about Crystal, hop over to the interview here. It was great to hear directly from her about her writing.

Publisher summary: Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard. Harder when your whole life is on fire, though.

Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.

People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it's hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn't help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.

But there's one person who's always in Charlie's corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing—he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her?

Because it's time people did.

A sensitive, funny, and painful coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.

Let the discussion begin...

Crystal: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega made me smile just when I needed plenty of smiles. Over the past twelve months, I’ve found myself picking up many more rom-coms than usual. Even with the difficulties that the main character might face, readers still get to hope for at least a partially happy or hopeful ending and that is what I’ve been craving. Stories that deliver some joy can sure make a day brighter and Charlie’s story, totally did that for me.

K. Imani: I so agree. I’ve been doing the same over the past year and I really needed this sweet story. Like you Charlie’s story made me smile so many times. I loved how much she grew in this story and how she had such a loving heart.

Jessica: Ditto! There were so many times I looked up from reading and realized I was actually, physically smiling. I can’t get enough of YA romance right now.

Audrey: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega had some incredibly sweet and genuinely happy moments, and I was really glad we all agreed on this one for our first book discussion this year. That’s not to say there aren’t hard parts in this book--there are some that hit incredibly close to home--but it was so very nice to settle down with a book that had promised us an uplifting ending. I plowed through it in just two days and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Crystal: I found the cover to be simply lovely. Charlie is gorgeous and looks like she’s feeling beautiful in the midst of the flowers and warm colors. And she’s wearing glasses. I’ve worn glasses for most of my life, but when I was young, I thought nobody sophisticated or beautiful wore them if they could help it. Ruse by Cindy Pon, When Dimple Met Rishi (back of cover) and Slay by Brittney Morris are really the only other YA book covers I can think of that feature a main character with glasses. Mei in American Panda references her nearsightedness, but her mother says that “no woman is attractive in glasses” so Mei doesn’t wear them. Maybe there are other books, but there certainly aren’t many so it was fun to see Charlie rocking her glasses.

K. Imani: Fellow glasses wearer here too and I loved that the cover had Charlie wearing her glasses and that throughout the book she would fiddle with her glasses. It was such a small thing, but I loved how Maldonado wrote the little habits glass wearers do that are tied to how we’re feeling, use as a distraction, etc, that our glasses are really an extension of our being.

Jessica: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega definitely was one of my favorite YA covers to come out in recent years. The colors, the character, the font! Everything about the cover was just so gorgeous.

Audrey: I adore the cover. Not just because Charlie is a fat, glasses-wearing Latina like me but also because it reminded me a lot of Charlie’s references to the body positivity and fat fashion movements. The cover could be an Instagram post--Charlie front and center, looking right at the camera, all dressed up and with a gorgeous background behind her. Ericka Lugo, the Puerto Rican illustrator who designed the cover, did a phenomenal job.

Crystal: Charlie is delightful, but her relationships are seriously complicated. She has some work to do in her relationships with her mom, food, her best friend, her crushes, and most importantly with herself. This is the messiness that makes Charlie’s story feel real. The book did make me smile, but there are some struggles here too and I appreciated that Maldonado let us see Charlie do some hard work.

K. Imani: I feel like all the messiness from Charlie’s relationships is what really connected me to her. No one is perfect 100% of the time and sometimes we get into our own heads and can sabotage ourselves with our relationships. The thing with Charlie is that she learned from it, told people how she felt and made amends. Such great personal growth that is a tough journey to go on, but one we humans do on a constant basis.

Jessica: I loved that the book didn’t shy away from the messiness and complicated aspects of Charlie’s relationships, particularly with her best friend and her mother. I especially loved how Charlie’s relationships tangibly changed and grew as the book progressed -- she called out her mother on her mother’s toxic behavior, and got to a better place with Amelia. So many complex relationships were in play, and the nuance given to each relationship was really incredible.

Audrey: I think some of the most honest parts in this book were when Charlie knew--intellectually--that there was absolutely nothing wrong with being fat, that being fat doesn’t mean unhealthy or unloveable, but she was still affected by those messages and ideas. She still bought into some of them even while acknowledging they were wrong and unfair. It was rough to see her deal with those things and how they affected her own self-esteem and her relationships with others, but it was also incredibly genuine.

Crystal: Many of the issues with relationships are tangled up in how Charlie sees her body. She’s fat and is working hard to have a good and positive relationship with her body, but this is a journey that has ups and downs especially since it seems that some people aren’t willing to accept Charlie as she is. Her own mother seems to think Charlie’s body is not beautiful at the present size and thinks losing weight is essential for Charlie’s happiness. The U.S. culture strongly equates worth with our beauty standards and many of us don’t see how damaging this can be for ourselves and others. Readers can even see this in the relationship Charlie’s mother has with her own body.

K. Imani: Charlie’s relationship with her mother bothered me so much and showed how toxic our society is towards women’s bodies that her mother didn’t even realize she was hurting her child. I’m glad that Charlie sought out the body positive movement and referenced it a number of times throughout the book so folks could see how seeing yourself represented living a fully happy life, despite your size, is life affirming. It definitely was a nice juxtaposition to the messages she was receiving from her mother. On a side note, I really enjoyed how Charlie was a secret clothes hoarder and that she had a great sense of fashion.

Jessica: I sound like a broken record now, but I’m seriously in awe of how Charlie’s relationships -- particularly with her mother -- are portrayed. It’s messy, and tough, and I absolutely cheered when Charlie really told her mother how she felt. I also loved how the story depicted Charlie’s own not-so-linear journey when it came to her self-esteem, and the role that online communities played in that. Sometimes it’s easy to think of the internet as just a place of toxicity and trolls, but the truth is that there are so many wonderful communities online.

Audrey: Charlie’s relationship with her mom was so difficult and complicated, especially with her mother having put so much effort into losing weight and being able to keep it off. At one point Charlie acknowledges that her mom probably doesn’t even realize she’s being cruel. It was such a relief when Charlie was finally able to express her feelings about her mom’s behavior and comments. It didn’t magically make things better, but Charlie was able to say what she really thought and tell her mother that she was hurting her. There were a lot of painful conversations in this book, but in the end they helped Charlie sort out her important relationships and her feelings about herself.

Crystal: I agree with Brian and Charlie that Valentine’s Day isn't always great for everyone. The heart-meltingly sweet way that Brian dealt with that made me smile. To later find out that Crystal Maldonado experienced something very similar with her husband when they were younger made it even sweeter.

K. Imani: I loved what Brian did for Charlie, and their classmates, on Valentine’s day. It was so sweet and moving and definitely endeared me to his character.

Jessica: Regarding the valentines: Gasp. I did not know that! That’s so sweet. Wow.

Audrey: That’s so sweet! I really liked reading about Brian and Charlie’s relationship. The Valentine’s Day scene was incredibly endearing, and their bookstore date was also lovely. There were several great moments between them as their romance developed. I especially appreciated that Charlie--a fat character!--got to want and enjoy things like hand holding and kissing and being attracted to someone and feeling attractive. I loved all of that.

Crystal: I think we can all agree that reading this book was a delight. We recommend it especially if you’re looking for something to give you a little joy. If you’ve read it, please share your thoughts on the blogpost or on our Twitter account. We’d love to hear from you.

#crystal maldonado #charlie vega #fat chance charlie vega #ya lit

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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Hey friendly reminder that I honestly do not want anyone to follow me unless they actually WANT to which means they are free to unfollow, refollow, leave and come back and leave again or WHATEVER as many times as they want, for any reason whatsoever. Including if my posting styles of the moment get to be too much for them or are not to their liking, etc?

BUT I have been seeing a surge in comments in notes and stuff on various posts of mine about the length of my posts or the rambling of my posts and like....I know? This is not new information to me? But I post the way I post at any given time based on the resources I have at any given time and the fact that its often a matter of I can post a long rambling post or I can make no post at all.

Like, I really truly do not like going into specifics about my situation more than necessary or when not necessary, because like, my situation is boring to me, I don’t particularly care to dwell on it any more than I have to. But the fact of the matter is its still a thing that exists so here goes: yes I have physical issues like near constant migraines and pain and also vertigo, and yes I have neurodivergencies like C-PTSD and ADHD and yes I have circumstances that include near constant stress from eternally being in the negatives, financially, as well as being almost constantly hungry from a lack of money and limited options for eating due to the physical constraints of my jaw as well as being consistently sleep deprived because there’s only so much sleep you can get when there’s no such thing as a physically comfortable sleeping arrangement for you currently, all while existing in a constant limbo of I literally have NO idea when any of this will change for me because haha fun fact WE LIVE IN A PANDEMIC.

My point is like......all of these are things I’m not shy about, but they don’t exist as bullet points in a checklist of identity or circumstantial traits, they all exist at all times as points of fact that influence and inform and interact with each other.

So my financial situation and limbo of not being able to move forward with my surgery because of the chaos of the health care industry during a pandemic directly informs both the way stress impacts my mental health issues, but also my ability to treat my mental health issues by way of medication, nutrition, rest.....ie, almost every cent I make via work, etc, goes right back out the door to keeping up my insurance premiums of $850 a month, because even though my surgery is paid for, there’s still elements like hospital stay fees, anesthesia, etc, that won’t be paid until the day of surgery itself, and which I will not be able to pay without my insurance remaining current and active. Which means that I had to prioritize an insurance package that would net me THOSE benefits, which means I had to sacrifice parts of insurance that are no longer in that package, but which previously made things like my medications, refill appointments and therapy more affordable for me.

Which means that I have to prioritize my medication and therapy etc and maintain my therapy and PTSD, depression and anxiety meds as the most important to upkeep, while my ADHD meds are pretty much priced out of accessibility for me at the moment. Like, the specifics of my metabolism and various trial and error with different meds over the years and the way my body rapidly adapts to various meds and plateaus to a point where they cease to have any real impact on me means the only ADHD medication that’s consistently effective for me is Vyvanse, which there isn’t a viable generic form of that I can take, meaning a monthly refill of it is $350 without insurance, which I flat out can not ever afford anymore, which means its been roughly two months since I last popped an ADHD pill.

So yeah, that directly impacts things like my ability to self-edit, make a point briefly, or refrain from circling back to the same point several times over and over because I literally forget that I made it.

Now of course ADHD medication is not the be-all and end-all and its not like there aren’t various other life-hacks and coping strategies for working around ADHD even without it, after all, I didn’t even get diagnosed until I was 26. But these various other adaptations rely on things like good nutrition (which I can not regularly afford, or even consume....most leafy green vegetables for example, or fruits other than berries, are literally nonstarters for me because I don’t have enough leverage with my one-sided jaw to CHEW them in the first place, and the ingredients for making smoothies regularly are again, expensive). So nutrition as a hack for ADHD management is pretty much out - I’m too busy prioritizing eating anything I can, whenever I can afford to. Other adaptations involve getting lots of rest: something that again, physically isn’t all that viable for me these days, even leaving aside the effects of constant stress on attempts at getting meaningful rest, along with the constant stress and constraints of trying to work as much as humanly possible in my circumstances, in order to keep bringing in income to go to insurance, rent, and food and meds. Then there’s also the stabilizing effects exercise and physical activity can have on the brain and various neurodivergencies like mine, but the migraines and vertigo make most forms of exercise a nonstarter for me, with most of the rest invalidated by the fact that I’m pretty much always hungry, tired, and in chronic pain.

Now let’s examine work and the viability of obtaining more sources of income to help with all this. Well, my options are limited there too due to the ecosystem of factors in play. I’ve been trying for awhile to find even a part time job in my area I can do, but the problems are even though I can make myself mobile and active through my pain issues and migraines, and am even good at gritting and bearing it and acting like I’m smiling and laughing and happy even while in excruciating pain (yay, perks of childhood abuse making a career in retail viable even while practically dead on my feet, lololol)......there’s the simple physiological limitation that I just can’t stay upright RELIABLY for more than a couple hours at a time. Eventually, dizziness knocks me on my ass. Downside of a jaw that’s constantly hanging with all its weight from one side of your face, fucking with your ability to even stand up straight, not to mention causing inner ear and equilibrium problems at random whenever you open or close your mouth in the wrong way (or mere approximation of ANY kind of way).

So, standing upright at any kind of customer service or retail job is one issue. Stocking stuff, that sort of thing.....not really an option when you’re likely to drop all of it at any given moment. But then there’s bracing myself at cash registers, something like a job at Starbucks or hell there’s a Jamba Juice nearby, that’d also get me an employee discount for smoothies I can drink regularly. Course, there’s the whirring of blenders and such, which pair great with constant migraines. Etc. Etc.

BUT. I’m a well-rounded person with lots of skills....which lead to things like my freelance graphic design business as a book cover designer, as well as various writing endeavors, etc. And all of these are things that I DO do, currently. They’re how I make my income as is. There’s absolutely more jobs out there, but the fact is as a freelancer, FINDING additional jobs is a time consuming and spoon consuming process, that is additionally impacted by factors like ADHD, so not only does looking for work require time that’s not already being spent working, it also requires the management and expenditure of mental resources that I have to prioritize FIRST towards applying them to what work I already DO have, given the absence of ADHD medication and minimal coping or regulatory habits allowing for me to be all that productive WITHOUT said meds.

Not to mention the strain sitting in front of a computer all day for work in venues like graphic design, etc, puts on migraines, so there’s only so many hours I can devote daily or in one sitting to doing things like cover work. Much of my writing time is spent not actually writing, but me just dictating into notes on my phone and then copying and pasting all that into the appropriate formats for fiction, nonfiction and just random posts. Of course here then I have to prioritize applying my mental resources to first making sure the stuff I write to make money gets edited or properly pared down to size and isn’t repeating the same shit over and over and over, then doing the same to stuff I write fic wise as one of my few escapes from Real Life BS so I can at least point to having SOME kind of life (as this has been my daily existence for years, and uh.....people having things they like or like to do, as much as is humanly feasible, only becomes MORE of a necessity the more stress involved in their day to day life, not less).

Meaning by the time I even get to posting, like.....as much as it may look like I do a lot of it, the speed at which I write when I have any kinds of spoons to apply to posting or composing thoughts at ALL means I actually pour out a lot in a little span of time.....BUT that’s not like, a Skill so much as its a Fact. Its just the way I am and it comes with its downsides as well as its upsides....Im good at banging out a lot in a short amount of time, but ONLY when I just....let it go, versus try and regulate it all or squeeze it out bit by bit. I’m a sprint poster these days rather than a marathoner, even if the length of my thoughts makes it LOOK like the latter.....the reality is for me it tends to be all or nothing, its whatever I can get on the page BEFORE I lose my breath or train of thought. So that’s why it looks the way it does, because that was the only form it was coming out at the specific time and space when I had the energy and brainpower TO get it out, and going back in hindsight and editing it for clarity or brevity AFTER I gasp it all out requires energy and breath I do not have PAST that point, so it becomes a simple equation of well do I want a post to exist here at all or not at all.....and I err on the side of posting. This isn’t a defense because there’s nothing to defend, mind you, I’m simply explaining my way through my thought process, approach to things, and realities of my day to day existence for you to do with whatever you want. Its just a perspective you may not have had before. Whatever.

Of course, even this doesn’t exist in a void. Something that’s always a factor in my awareness when posting is like......I’m lucky enough to have a large enough following that cares enough about what I have to say for whatever reasons or puts enough value in what I have to say or the things I write and create, that I’ve been able to supplement my financial needs when absolutely necessary at times, by way of donation posts. I try not to lean on them more than necessary because I am keenly aware that they are a gift from people, many of whom I do not know and will likely never meet, and as such, not something I have any form of expectation for. I make donation posts when and where I do not in the anticipation of getting them met, but simply for a lack of any other options whatsoever. I’m limited in the work I can do, and the time and energy I can devote to finding more of that same work. There’s not a ton of other career paths I can pursue even from behind a computer due to my lack of a college degree, and the fact that even when I’m qualified skill or knowledge wise, I lack the specific credentials for verifying that I possess those skills or knowledge in a way employers are inclined to recognize and/or validate. Going BACK to school to get said credentials is an expenditure of time, finances, and other resources I do not have to spare at the moment or any time soon, especially not in the name of shoring up a lack of all that in the present term.

I dropped out of college freshman year after my gaybashing and rape. I never went back to it for a variety of reasons that were only half about resources and half about intent. My family is not a presence in my life and hasn’t really been in any significant way since I was eighteen, so college in the first place was something I had to be entirely self-sufficient about....I was only able to afford to go the year that I did go by way of academic scholarships that were dependent on grades I couldn’t keep up in the wake of what happened to me, and that I couldn’t exactly ever get back without a foundation to build upon, like high school and my initial academic career. Then in the half that was about intent, I eventually moved into pursuing my actual interests like writing, graphic design and acting. One of the things I’ve always loved about those is that output and portfolio nets you more than credentials most of the time....they ARE your credentials. I was actually pretty damn successful as an actor for years, not in the way that leads to being someone that people would recognize, but in the way that leads to being able to support yourself doing what you love. All the skillsets that I have but could not back up with things like a diploma were still useful to me as an actor in a way that they’re not in terms of getting things like tutoring or teaching jobs.....I speak multiple languages but I’m self taught, I have a black belt in karate, I’m a classically trained pianist, I know a whole lot of shit about random shit that I just learned because I wanted to, and all of that got me the kind of work that I was looking for and meant I COULD work and make a living off those things for years throughout my twenty....work that I would not have been able to get if I had been back sitting in a classroom instead. The primary currency of my years as an actor were life experiences and I had those in spades, and I was very good at what I did, if I do say so myself, and the reasons I never advanced further career wise tended to have less to do with whether or not I booked the roles I auditioned for and whether I got the auditions at all......

I’m getting a bit off topic here but I’m just saying there’s definitely a convo to be had at some point, about the roles and opportunities I turned down because I wasn’t willing to sleep with someone or put up with their advancements in order to do so. Something that’s a dime a dozen in Hollywood and the thing is.....I was a sex worker, for years, before I moved to Hollywood and started working as an actor. But there’s a distinct difference between the way people talk about, interact with and perceive someone who’s gotten roles because of sex, advanced up a corporate ladder because of sex...versus, gotten paid because of sex. I didn’t turn down offers of roles for sex because of my hang-ups about sex but rather other peoples’......I had a problem with various parts of the industry that would have thought nothing about me getting a role because a producer wanted to sleep with me, but would have turned up their nose at me because I slept with someone to get money for groceries before. Basically I’m just saying the specific bullshit Hollywood has not just about sex but predatory behavior got in the way of my career advancement because there were some games I just wasn’t willing to play....which hails from the very life experiences that oftentimes made me so good as an actor in the first place.

Which brings me back again to my main point......none of this exists in a vaccuum. Being the sum of our life experiences and variables means being the SUM of that, at ALL times, both in large and small ways. We are never just a LIST of identity traits or experiences. They all constantly loop back around and feed into each other and inform where we are at every second of every day and where we GO in each second, what we DO with our days and the choices we make.

Which is where so much of my discontent with fandoms, on social media in general, with PEOPLE in my day to day life comes from: this desire people have to compartmentalize, to ZERO IN on specific factors or variables or instances and act like it even CAN be divorced from all other influences. Its not that you can’t FOCUS on one thing at a time, its just even when you do that, that doesn’t like....snap all existing connections that thing has to everything outside of your area of focus.

As an example, my attitudes on being a survivor and various kinds of fiction get me a ton of pushback from various corners, and its all geared around the same premise: don’t like, don’t read. Put a wall up between you and it. Focus on just what you’re doing and forget what everyone else is doing.

But it doesn’t work like that. It CAN’T work like that. And this commitment people have to pretending it does just because that pretense has been working for them, THAT, I’d argue, is the true wedge in fandom spaces.

Everything about me is connected to something else. I’m a childhood abuse and incest csa survivor. When my therapist asks me to picture a moment from my childhood when I felt safe or protected, I got nothing. I don’t have that resource. I don’t know what that feeling is meant to feel like, because I never felt it. And that connects directly into the fact that when I was gaybashed in college, after they dumped me in a fucking park, bleeding and covered in writing, I didn’t even think about going to the hospital, the police, let alone calling anyone like my parents, I just picked myself up and walked back to my dorm, cleaned myself off as best I could, and went to class next Monday morning. That’s fucked up, I shouldn’t have had to, but its what I did, and there’s no divorcing that from any of the contexts of WHY that’s what I did, and why I didn’t think there was any other logical recourse or option for me then. Just like all of that also links back to growing up in the closet and entering high school the same month Matthew Shepherd was attacked, and then when he ultimately died two months later, and watching everybody’s reactions to that informed the fact that I did not remotely feel safe in the aftermath of my attack, disclosing what happened to people around me, or just like I didn’t take it on face value that even if they said appropriately sensitive things to me to my face didn’t mean that like when I was a freshman in high school and everyone was reacting to that, they wouldn’t revert to callous jokes about fags the second they felt a little less out of the spotlight or in the right company for those jokes.

And all of that directly links into my feelings not just when people write rape and gaybashing scenes that make no attempt at any kind of catharsis but rather only appear to exist for the fetishization, the glamorization, the VALIDATION of the idea that in the right context, those kinds of scenes can be hot to the right audience rather than demoralizing to the figure who’s pain and humaniliation is required for everyone else’s entertainment....but it also additionally plays into the reactions and attitudes I have when people look at me going “wow, really don’t like the lens you’re using here or the environment you’re creating around an experience that is never anything BUT painful and traumatic for someone who lived it, like I did” and choose to respond to that by saying things that amount to “well you’re basically just like conservative southern assholes who hate free speech when you say stuff like this,” cuz y’know.....that’s describing my literal oppressors. That’s lumping me in with the actual literal kind of people who are the SOURCE of my trauma there, all because you felt butthurt and defensive about how I said I wasn’t comfortable with the kinds of jokes and output you were making about scenes that aren’t that far divorced from my own personal reality, and that I shouldn’t HAVE to divorce from my own experiences just to exist within certain fandom spaces.

And just like the fact that being an incest survivor is directly relevant to the fact that my stepmother always made an effort to keep me at a distance because not wanting to admit to what happened to me and how it played into our family entanglements was directly linked back to the fact that she and my aunt were both incest survivors who never got the opportunities to deal with what happened to them, which in turn directly plays into the fact that ultimately my aunt ended up taking her own life a few years ago, which also very much informs my attitude towards people interacting with incest ships as something cutesy and uwu, as my aunt was literally the only person in my family I ever WAS close to or comfortable with. And there’s no divorcing any of that into nice neat little compartments that make it easier for anyone on the outside looking in to just peek through ONE window to see what they might see, and try and act like it doesn’t matter what’s in any of those other boxes because it has nothing to do with the only one they want to concern themselves with.

And my lack of resources and emotional state post gay-bashing led directly into my sex work for various reasons, which led in various ways to better things for me in some respects, while compounding certain traumas of mine in other respects, and there’s no divorcing any of that from the rest either. There’s no ‘my time as a sex worker was good’ even though some of it was and there’s no ‘my time as a sex worker was bad’ even though some of it really was. And a lot of the attitudes of some of the rich assholes who paid me for sex and viewed me as a plaything they could do anything to directly informs my resistance to letting powerful assholes in Hollywood hold roles over my head in exchange for sex, even though the latter could have advanced my career in huge ways and led to me being a lot more financially stable and self-sufficient by the time my physical issues emerged due to the jaw joint on one side of my head eroding through and snapping completely just like that in turn was a long-building repercussion of not just my gaybashing, but my decision to never go to the hospital and get checked out after it.

None of this can be cut away from the rest and trimmed into neat little pieces that don’t color outside the lines or impact anything else. Just like my gaybashing itself can’t be divorced from my white privilege, and the fact that it played into the fact that I survived that night in the first place. Something I say not in some weird white guilt kinda way like people try and project onto others for even acknowledging white privilege, like no its not like I fucking wish I died to prove some kind of weird point, what I’m talking about is just the simple basic AWARENESS that multiple and even contradictory factors exist in even the most extreme of situations. And its never anything BUT self-serving to pretend that you can frame it as otherwise.

And so when I talk about being a survivor, just like with all the rest of this, I’m not talking about some arbitrary status of survivorhood that exists in a specific point in time and is only relevant to some singular event I survived, its applicable to everything about my life big and small. I’m a survivor every single day I’ve survived, every day I wake up and keep moving forward despite the pain and stress and lingering trauma of what was done to me one night sixteen years ago, I’m surviving what they did every bit as much as I survived it that night and in the morning after as I dragged myself back to my room. Just like my status as an abuse survivor stemming from childhood directly informs everything about not just my coping mechanisms but my entire freaking worldview as someone who grew up throughout childhood learning to view the world through a lens in which he was simultaneously not safe due to the presence of victimizers in his own home, while at the same time still having certain protections that others don’t have in life in general due to not just again my white privilege but my male privilege, my cis privilege.

And that’s what makes it so laughable and so offensive when people act like I’m defining myself by being a survivor as some kind of singular identity trait whenever I raise it as something of relevance in fandom discussions that have EVERYTHING to do with stances of abuse apologism and homophobic ideas that directly play into why I was so unsafe in certain parts and times of my life, because who the fuck is anyone else to tell me how my experiences as a survivor and how they shaped me are or are not relevant to ideas pertaining to those very things, when brought front and center and face to face with me in various fandoms due to the insistence of fandoms at large on KEEPING these things front and center in almost ALL fandom discussions? Like, the hilarious irony of people who have so wholly centered certain types of ship and content in terms of their own personal fandom identities that they can’t help but feel personally attacked when someone so much as says “I don’t like the ideas you’re broadcasting alongside your choice to amplify and signal boost this kind of content because you’re not JUST signalboosting the content itself, but these specific perceptions of it and ideas in support of and in apology for it.”....like, turning around and saying IM too defined by my views stemming from my existence as a survivor. The call is coming from inside the house, lolol.

Again, none of this can be divorced from the rest. It can be focused on one piece at a time, but its connections to everything else that informs it in various RELEVANT ways, can not be made IRRELEVANT just because you don’t like the picture that forms when you’re forced to look at the WHOLE picture instead of just willfully condensing the frame to just the part you like or want to talk about.

And to bring it all home, looping back up to what I opened with:

Do you know how often I hear people say shit about the length of my posts or the rambling nature or in various ways act INCONVENIENCED by various things about how they have to interact with my posts when that interaction itself is still completely voluntary?

Taking in everything I said in this post, the way it all interconnects and informs other things, I’d like to ask anyone who has ever objected to some post somewhere or derided one because of something as ultimately nonconsequential as the length of it, something where its literally just like....scroll a few more seconds......do you apply the same energy and scrutiny to posts that cross your dash that are filled with various things like racism, transphobia, rape or pedophilia fetishization or abuse apologism, or do you let that slide by without acknowledgment before looking at a post that makes you sigh because of how fucking LONG it was and think...this, THIS is what I’m gonna choose to speak up about?

Because that’s ultimately what this is all about. Here’s the kicker with everything I said....my life could be better, I want it to be better, from the biggest aspects of it and pain issues to stuff just like.....the fandom communities I immerse myself in for my own attempts at having something to counterbalance real life stress. But at the end of the day, there’s no my life sucks or my life rocks....its still just...my life. And it has its good as well as its bad, and that ultimately hails from my choices, and the fact that like....even while there are choices I literally CAN’T make, I can be comfortable with the ones I DO make.

And so like......would my life be easier in some respects now if I’d gone back to school and gotten a diploma and had more job opportunities available to me? Yeah, for sure. But that awareness doesn’t mean I regret my choice NOT to go back to school when I DID have more opportunities for that, because the acting career I had at those times instead was the choice I made, with intent, and its one I’m still glad for making. Those experiences still matter, still meant something and still mean something to me.

And do I wish that I’d coped with what happened to me in college in different, healthier ways that would have given me more tools for how I interact with my trauma and who I became after that, rather than how I did? Yeah, sometimes, for sure. But not without losing my awareness that the choices I did make at the time were not made in a vacuum, and can not be edited in hindsight....there were reasons I made them, reasons that were informed by everything that had happened to me previously and stemmed from a lot of things I still didn’t have control over and as such always placed a cap on the range of choices that were available to me back then, because there’s a difference between choices that exist in theory versus choices that exist as something that might viably be chosen at a particular place and time.

The world is big and complicated. Life is big and complicated. WE are big and complicated. And nothing about understanding any of that is IMO benefited by putting most of our effort into SHRINKING our worldviews, constructing artificial frames that don’t just focus us in on specific aspects of it for finite periods but attempt to then treat that as its own individual thing utterly disconnected from anything else that might be going on OUTSIDE that picture frame.

So if you’ve read this far and you’ve taken anything away from this big long rambling post that could be a lot shorter, could be a lot less rambling, but could also just not have been posted at all and I’d rather have it exist in this form than let everything in it go unsaid.....

My request would be that your takeaway be this: to look at your choices in regards to some specific finite interaction in even just one of your fandoms, and see what happens when you open the frame back up. If you widen the scope. If you let other things into the picture. Are you still comfortable with the choices you make or don’t make in light of THAT image, are they any different from the ones you made or would have made when keeping things as small and contained in your awareness as possible, just because that was easier for you to conceptualize, easier to navigate around, just....less COMPLICATED?

Because things aren’t made less complicated just by the mere fact of WANTING them to be.

And if your choices are more born of what you’d say or do IF the world were as finite or as limited as its sometimes easier to pretend it is......is that really the approach you want to go with and the reasoning you want to stand by?

And similarly, if there are choices you make and that in ORDER for you to feel comfortable making them, you feel a need to tighten your focus or shrink your worldview around one specific element or area and leave out all the rest and only then are you truly comfortable with doing or saying something, like......

Its important to remember that this isn’t the only option you have for making yourself more comfortable with things you say or do or think, or even just have in the past.

The other perfectly viable option exists: you can simply....make different choices.

#this is a post #im not entirely sure how else to describe it #just that it is not necessarily the post that it looks like beneath the cut that it looks like above the cut #so all I've got is: this has been a post #make of it what you will #lololol #its....whatever #ANYWHO

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artsyxloner · 3 years

Text

Not Just a Monster

Warning: severe Bullying, death, violence, very sad, eating disorder

[ So this Chapter is going to talk about some parts of Min Soo-Nico's past and leading up to what happened. I think you guys deserve some insight. Chapter 18 will return to normal. ]

17: Past Time Revealed

To be honest, the school was a place for kids just to be Terrorized and shrunken down to their little last fuck. I had walked out of the art class gripping my Sketchbook in hand.

I had bowed to my teacher Mrs. Choi before going. Just to be polite most kids weren't here. She smiled and waved me off, it was lunchtime and I had brought my Dosirak ( packed lunch) with me.

I had to stop by my homeroom to put away my sketchbook.

I decided not to eat at the canteen because it was too crowded. Plus I didn't like certain people that were there. So I eat outside it was much prettier not to be eating in.

Sitting down on a bench, I opened my container there was Tofu kimchi, white sticky rice. Taking my chopsticks I began to eat. It wasn't much because my mom has been limiting my portions.

She wants me to be like one of the skinny girls that didn't have to wear a large size skirt. Munching slowly, I heard a group of kids laughing Hysterically behind me.

Maybe they were laughing at something funny. Turning around to see what it was, there was nothing I got confused about? Where was it? But they continued to laugh.

The thing was they were staring at me laughing. But why? Their phones were out too. Like they were taking pictures or videos I didn't know for sure.

Calling to them I asked what was so funny. " what are you guys laughing at?" I yelled, they whispered to one other ignoring me. Soon they ran over to where I was.

" I think if you see this, you'll understand why we are." It was Kim Ji-Mun the new girl with the best visuals in our grade. " have a look." She turned the expensive phone towards me.

And what I saw next made me drop my chopsticks. My eyes were stuck on the screen I couldn't take my eyes off of it. " delete that!!" I begged to get up, trying to fix myself.

" Now why would I do that?" She scoffed, " no way, I think we'll be posting them?" I shook my head. " no you can!" I yelled my body started to shake. It was a picture of my skirt it had been brought up showing my underwear.

Students gathered around, seeing what the commotion was. I gulped, staring at the ground, " please, don't show anyone." I mumbled not able to take the embarrassment. If the others were to see I would the laughing stock of the whole school.

" wow this is embarrassing, fatty I just" she paused, " can't pass up this opportunity." She then took a photo of me either the flash on and posted the two pictures together to show the person with their skirt up was me.

There were some Notification alerts, everywhere, people looked up at their phones and busted out laughing. Show it to each other. My face was red hot, not knowing what to do I took off feeling my Chubby thighs jiggle as I did.

That was the day it all started.

....

I laid down on the ground, in one of the empty classrooms the teachers don't use. I was hugging myself breathing hard, they were all around me my body stiffened my eyes frantically looking up.

" awe, she looks so pitiful poor thing let's give her some food." Ji-Mun announced as the students came over. " this should cheer you up!" She implied as they dumped all of their lunch over me.

" come on eat it fatty!!" they all chanted, but I didn't even touch it. This seemed to make them angry because Ji-Mun came up to me grabbing a first full of my hair pulling my hair yanking my head back. " what did we fucking say?!"

She took some food trying to stuff it in my mouth. But I jerked around preventing her from doing it. I think she was having enough of my Resisting because she Signaled others to come.

I screamed out, wanting help but knowing no one would come it was after school plus someone was outside blocking the door. I was then pulled up by one of the boys, " if she won't do as we say they she needs to get beaten!" Ji-Su walked over to the classroom room closet.

Coming back out with a thick wooden stick. " it didn't have to come to this Soo-Nico, do worry everyone will get a turn." She grinned evilly, rising the stick I closed my dark eyes waiting for the impact.

And it came down hard and fast, sucking in my breath as it made contact with my stomach, tears leaked from my eyes one after the other. I was hit in different places with My skin busted opened, and bloodstains in my clothes.

This wasn't even the worst of it.

....

I Ignored my family when they would ask about the bandages I had put on myself. I couldn't talk about it though. It would just cause more trouble for me.

I've lost a lot of weight since a couple of months ago. My mom was proud thinking I was working on myself to look better but no I wasn't. It's We're I haven't been eating it's gone so far to where I made myself puke up my food if I ate.

But I gained it all back and more, my mother noticed and even made side comments. I knew she was just wanted me to be like the other girls for once and feel good In my skin. But She didn't realize how much it hurt that she didn't see me for who I was.

She did it with good intentions but the outcome well not much.

I was tired and numb. I didn't want to deal with anything or anyone even my family. I stayed in my room not coming out. I went as far as to say I hated them and I wish they weren't here.

I hated everyone from that point.

....

I walked down the hallways of the school, I glared at everyone that looked at me. I had lost so much sleep that the eye-bags under my eyes were so huge and dark it was hard not to miss.

I had gone to my homeroom, sitting in the middle of the class, everyone was staring, I Knew they eventually talk about me they gave me little papers with messages that said.

worlds fattest pig

Let see your underwear again

Must suck to be poor

I would find them in my bag, them sticking out of my locker. Even one was written on the homeroom Board. You can guess which one it was.

Ji-Mun arrived, in-class noticing me she stood in front of the Podium. " as you know if there's a rumor going around that one of you has talked to Soo-Nico?" Everyone that was in the room got quiet.

She must have found out about the new girl that had come, I dumped into her. She was sitting in front of me. One was loud to talk to me.

" I better not catch you because if anyone and I mean anyone who talks to Soo-Nico is dead!" The bitch threatened right before the bell for school starts ringed.

....

I couldn't be myself anymore, all I wanted was to be a decent person but they screwed that up for me. I was fine before all this even I still didn't like my weight I was working on it.

It was late and I was waiting for my bus to take me home. I wore a thick coat because it was cold out, as the wind whipped at my red-fleshed cheeks.

My nose ran a little, I think I was getting sick. But I didn't care, at least if I got sick. I wouldn't have to go to school I think I'll wait here for the next bus that comes to make sure of it.

Taking out my phone I put one earphone in listening to my song Magic shop from BTS. My bias was namjoon, and my bias wreck was Taehyung, Bobbing my head to the music I heard a commotion on the other side of the street.

It was Ji-Mun and her gang, they were standing around someone that was sitting on the ground on their knees. Who was she tormenting now?

Getting up I checked before crossing the road, making my way over. I saw it was the new girl, I could hear her squeaky voice from here. " this will teach you not to talk to Soo-Nico again."

" no please I didn't know!!" She cried, but Ji-Mun just gave her an irritated look. Stepping on her hand I Hearing a crack the girl screamed out in pain as she dug her heel in further.

I couldn't take this anymore watching this girl tormented others just to have control, " why don't you-" before Ji-Mun could finish her sentence I punched her right in the face.

She fell to the ground, holding her bleeding nose, " what the fucking hell!" Her eyes glared recognizing me. " why don't you!" I suggested, knowing what she was going to say to the girl.

The next day my parents found out and told me I had to write an apology letter to Ji-Mun for almost breaking her nose. I was lucky enough they didn't press charges.

But What about the poor girl they were bullying? Did they have to apologize no! That's how the system works.

You get bullied they don't say anything, when they bully others, you try and Stan up from them but all you get in return trouble for doing so. Fuck them fuck everyone!

I told my parents to fuck off.

I didn't want anything to do with them at least that's what I thought.

....

It's been two weeks since the incident and I haven't gone back to school since. I laid on my bed with the lights off. I wasn't feeling good. Soon my mom came to the door knocking on it.

" Please just go away!!" I yelled hitting the door with one of my pillows. " please just come with me to the airport to pick up your brother. He wants to see you." She spoke of Jin-Woo.

I haven't seen him in forever since he aboard in the states. He was the only one that I didn't hate, at the moment. Groaning I got up getting off the bed, as I did I felt faint.

Steadying myself I went on and changed into a new pair of clothing. Opening the door. I was faced with my mom for the first time in a while. She had a worried look on her face yeah right?

" Are you feeling okay? you look, pale honey." But all I responded with was I'm fine. Sitting in the back seat my mom kept glancing at me asking questions.

Trying to start up a conversation, but I stayed quiet. " please god just leave me alone." I mumbled, but my dad heard, "your mother is trying to talk to you, stop being a little brat!"

He was turned in his seat facing me. " you haven't talked to use two weeks, when we get to the airport, you better be on your best behavior!"

Little did I know that would be the end of There's and my world.

Parking the car we got out and headed into the building. The places were crowded, with different types of people mostly Korean but there were some Foreigners.

Waiting nearby the gates, Jin-Woo should be landing anytime now. Sitting down I felt like I was going to throw up, I was sweating like crazy.

My mom noticed but didn't say anything afraid I'll fuss at her. I wondered where a restroom was in this place getting up I was stopped by my dad.

" where do you think you're going?"

I rolled my eyes, but he didn't see because his eyes were too focused on the magazine he was reading. " just to the restroom," finding out he shooed me away.

I had to ask some people where the restroom was. As doing so I passed a man, that was standing in one place, with some cotton balls up his nose. He was Turing his head side to side looking weird.

Getting away I finally found the restroom, standing in the stalls, I began to puke, rubbing my stomach as I did. I was sick I should have stayed home and waited for my brother.

After I was done, I wipe my mouth off with a sheet of toilet paper, I made sure that I was finished. Getting up I went over to the sink Turing it on splashing my face with cold water.

Looking up I was surprised at my reflection, my skin was ghostly pale, my eyes well they had strange veins in them, but I didn't think much of it probably just a symptom of this virus I have.

It wasn't long before I got more symptoms. My body got a cold rush feeling, as shivers went up to my spine. This is probably the flu, shaking my head I went on.

The weird man I noticed before was acting normal, maybe he's on meds? But he saw my eyes wide and hurried over to me. " you have the symptoms to right?!" He asked grabbing my arm shaking it.

"It is starting!!"

I look at him strangely jerking my arm away. " No, what are you talking about?" I backed away leaving the crazy man. Not knowing he was the first Infected.

As I went on it felt like the area was tipping, I staggered a bit trying to steady myself trying not to fall. My brain had that swelling feeling it seemed like I was being dragged into my head.

Not understanding what was happening I felt my body move but I wasn't the one moving it, I felt like I was stuck in my head and couldn't get out.

I then soon heard some gasps as something wet gushed out of my nose, It was blood and a lot of it. I looked into the window of the airport. That was right beside me.

And was horrified at what I saw was my reflection smiling back at me with pitch-black eyes. It waved slowly blood all over its mouth and neck.

Is that what I looked like to people right now? Because if I did I would be scared shitless. " you know you want to!" My reflection spoke to me. Grinning evilly. I felt my body backed away not believing what I was seeing.

What was this?

" what are you?" I breathed out scared. I covered my nose trying not to get blood everywhere. " I'm you but much worse." It giggled. Coming out of the window standing right in front of me.

" This was you're own doing Soo-Nico, 'tsk tsk' I'm not going to be enemy here." That is when I started to feel funny like I was losing my grasp on my mind it began to fade.

Then hearing inhuman sounds I began to dash towards people for no reason. Hearing them scream trying to get away, jumping over stuff pushing each other down.

It was all so quick and fast, that I didn't recognize the people standing before there was an older man, a woman, and a teenage boy. Their faces had a pure shock but I smiled creepily at them.

Then lunged for them.

Waking up my head hurt, slowly getting up, I looked around me seeing blood everywhere. My heart began to beat fast. Why was there so much blood? And why can't I remember a thing?

I almost screamed when I looked down. Not believe who was dead on the ground, I covered my mouth as tears immediately began to fall.

" No... No, God No!!!" I cried getting down on the blood-soaked floor seeing my family lay there lifeless. I grabbed my mom putting her head on my lap. " what I? –What happened? How—" I then remembered my creepy-looking reflection.

It was the last thing I saw before going Berserk. More eyes began to unfolded realizing I'm the one who killed them. And I didn't know why? My body shook not knowing what to do or who to call?

" I didn't mean to! I didn't– I wouldn't!! I'm sorry!" I screamed into my mother's shirt. Beating the floor with my fist, " I'm sorry for being mean to you!!"

I sucked in a couple of breaths, feeling my lips and chin quiver. As I sob from there on out, I had to live with the guilt of the death of my family never forgetting that moment.

#kdrama #kdramaedit #netflix kdrama #sweet home #sweet home netflix #cha hyun su #kdrama spoilers #song kang #sweet home series #sweet home webtoon #koeran #korean #korean show #webtoon #fanfic #monsters #@tumblr

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eyebeastposts · 3 years

Text

EyeBeast 2021 Interest Survey Results

The votes have been cast so let’s do a quick recap of the results and address a few things.

General Interest

Male Subjects in Fetish Stories: 57.5% Yes, 42.5% No

Female Subjects in Fetish Stories: 99.1% Yes, 0.9% No

-No surprise considering most of the subjects of my stories are female focused.

Preferred Subject of Fetish Stories:

Females: 70.8%, Both Male and Female: 22.6%, Male: 6.6%

Futa (Females with male genitalia): 53.8% Yes, 46.2% No

-I’m honestly surprised by the response to this question considering how taboo the subject of futa appears to be.

Direct Sexual Content in Fetish Stories: 77.8% Yes, 22.2 % No

Burping: 85.4% Yes, 14.6% No

Farting: 75.5% Yes, 24.5% No

Body Hair (arm pits, groin, belly, etc.): 54.2% Yes, 45.8%No

-In retrospect, I probably should have let people vote on the amount of hair on a person’s body.

IQ Loss/Mental Regression: 50.9% Yes, 49.1% No

Personality/Mental Changes: 77.4% Yes, 22.6% No

-Interesting to see the division between straight up intelligence drain as opposed to the general idea of mental changes considering how close the two subjects are.

Hypnosis: 66.5% Yes, 33.5%No

-I haven’t touched this subject very much, but judging by the reaction and my own interests, I wouldn’t be opposed to trying a hypnosis story again in the future.

Expansion and Growth

Weight Gain: 96.7% Yes, 3.3% No

Slob: 83.5% Yes, 16.5% No

Belly Expansion: 53.8% Yes, 46.2% No

-Strange considering how popular WG appears to be.

Breast Expansion: 62.3% Yes, 37.7% No

Butt Expansion: 74.1% Yes, 25.9% No

Inflation: 52.4% Yes, 47.6% No

Pregnancy (Female Only): 57.5% Yes, 42.5% No

Muscle Growth: 67% No, 33% Yes

Giant/Giantess Growth: 62.7% No, 37.3% Yes

Blueberry/Fruit-Based Expansion: 55.7% No, 44.3% Yes

Vagina Expansion: 66% No, 34% Yes

Penis Growth/Expansion: 60.8% No, 39.2% Yes

-Interesting that Penis Growth outdid Vagina Expansion considering the survey shows a higher a approval rate of female subjects. Must have something to correlate with the futa approval rate.

Shrinking: 71.2% No, 28.8% Yes

Transformation

Personality TF (Nerd, Bimbo, Himbo, Princess, Punk, Goth, etc.): 69.3% Yes, 30.7% No

Uglification: 62.3% No, 37.7% Yes

-Odd considering how close it is to slob, one of my more popular subjects.

Shortstack TF (Goblins, Dwarves, Imps): 56.1% Yes, 44.9% No

Age Progression: 62.7% No, 37.3% Yes

Anthro Animal TF: 51.9% Yes, 48.1% No

Full Animal TF: 76.9% No, 23.1% Yes

Humanoid Inanimate Object TF (Statues, Mannequins, Sex Dolls): 77.4% No, 22.6% Yes

Non-Humanoid Inanimate Object TF ( Clothing, Sex Toys, Appliances): 80.7% No, 19.3% Yes

Male to Female Transformation: 55.2% Yes, 44.8% No

Female to Male Transformation: 75.9% No, 24.1% No

Deviant Transformations (Fuckplant/Succplants, Buttfaces, Dorses/Queen's Stallions, Lady Pots, etc.): 67.9% No, 32.1% Yes

-Honestly surprised this category did this well, but that might be due to the sheer variety this subject matter covers. Might have to do another series of polls with each one individually to get a better idea.

Overall, I’d say the results were rather enlightening. If a subject you are interested didn’t get a high approval rating, it doesn’t mean I won’t ever write about it. I intend to keep things varied up like I usually do, but I will consider my options when doing polls in the future regarding these kinds of things.

Miscellaneous Questions and Comments

Starting off, let me address a few things people have mentioned I missed in this survey.

Hyper Expansion

-I kind of include this along with the other expansions, however my personal preferences usually steer me towards nothing too big with my stories. It’s very rare that I go anything beyond the size of a house for anything.

Bodypart tf ( butt tf, breast tf E.T.C)

-I find that very similar to inanimate object TF, but I can see enough differences to make it a different category. That being said, I’m not sure I’m too fond of the identity death usually associated with these.

Femboy

-Noted and definitely on the table depending on if the right story comes along.

Cavewoman/De-Evolution

-I originally had this on the poll, but I decided it’s more lumped into the Personality TF category.

General inflatable transformation like pool toys. Also flattening.

-I consider those part of the inanimate object TFs. As for flattening, nothing against it, but my usual repertoire consists of making things grow, not the other way around.

Head, hand, leg, and other body part inflation

-I’ve done head expansion to a certain extent in my recently done Raven slob story. As for the others, I think they’re a little to niche of a topic for me. Not forbidden, just not something I’m particularly interested in.

Fart Inflation

-Considering the positive reaction to both the inflation and fart category, I would have to assume this is a definite yes for most of my audience.

Candy/Sweets TF

-This has always been something I’ve wanted to do, but could never think of a good scenario to place it in. I’ll definitely put it on the table once I find the right premise for it.

Supernatural transformations (demons, angels, mythical creatures, etc.)/ Monster People

-For demons and angels, I feel like those should be included with the personality TFs. As for creatures, that depends on what we’re talking about. May need to do separate polls for each type to gauge interest.

Robot TF

-Not a particular interest for me, plus it kind of falls under the humanoid object TF category

Mutant TF

-Too vague

Monterfication

-Falls under both the uglification and/or anthro TF categories

Strong Fat

-A little too specific but seen as favorable with the results of the WG and muscle growth categories.

Clown

-Part of the personality TF category.

Possession

-Sort of close to hypnosis, but I can see enough differences to warrant a separate category. Just have to be careful to tread the line without going towards anything to icky in terms of rape or anything like that.

Immobility

-See hyper growth.

Clothing TF

-Already covered in inanimate object TF

Multibreast

-An excellent addition that’s more than welcome in my stories. Will definitely need to include this in a future poll.

Comments and Questions

Now let me address some questions and comments from the survey.

“But what about princess deadpool? watch the second deadpool musical.”

-I didn’t realize there was a Deadpool musical to begin with. I’ll have to take a look at that.

“Personally i always like if there is transformation between couple like male and female. Or even female and female. Rather than one transformation. Like i like it when one of slob, transformation can share with another person”

-I share this sentiment. Nothing better than two people indulging in one another’s desires. Although, I feel that’s for any fetish, not just slob.

“Your stuff is always a pleasure to read! Question though would be what are YOUR favorite things to do and such due to some of your things being commissions? Other than that you are quite grand at making kinky stories!”

-My personal favorites are just anything that can give me a challenge and an opportunity to try out things I haven’t thought of before, ergo my tendency towards variety.

“Dude i stay up day and night waiting for you to post everytime you do it makes me feel better about the evening btw if you want to chat sometime my discord is (NAME WITHELD)”

-I appreciate what this person is trying to do, but they really shouldn’t be posting information like this so willy nilly. Thank you for the offer, but you have to realize that there is a time and place for these sorts of things. Please do not come at me with friend requests or anything like that out of the blue. Regardless, I do thank this person for their kind words.

“I really like some of your darker stuff. I don't know if it's a common sentiment but I love unhappy stories.”

-I tend to avoid going dark in my stories, this is due in part to the prevalence of bad ends I’ve seen in most fetish content, especially things like hentai or doujinshi. Like I’ve said, it’s not off the table, but I usually prefer to keep things on a lighter tone in my stories.

“For the record Fat giantess slobs are the best.”

-That seems very subjective, but I won’t deny it’s a good combo.

“Recently I have noticed that you been doing a lot more slob material then just about anything else for the past few months. I admit I'm not a huge slob person it kind of comes down to my mood. while I would appreciate more variety in your subject matter you are the writer and I (and several others) appreciate you sharing your artistry with us.”

-A lot of that comes from what both my commissioners and people on my Patreon ask for. Keep in mind that I do have to oblige people that give me money to write. I do try to find time to write other things though.

“Just do what makes you happy. But i'd love to see more male focused expansion/transformation.”

-As I’ve said, I’m up for it, but I need the proper story and opportunities.

“male on female facesitting/squashing/trampling is always good.”

-See the above question.

“Do you ever feel discouraged to write something if it's about something you don't enjoy OR feel like you write too much of? Other than that, keep up the good work, take care of yourself, and good luck with your future stories!”

-For stuff I don’t enjoy, it depends. If it’s a fetish I’m not into, I treat it as way to try out some new things and vary up my writing ability. Whether or not I learn to appreciate said fetish is another matter. That being said, I’ve made it well known what fetishes I won’t touch at all such as rape, scat, or vore. I find that I don’t have too much of the second problem since I keep finding ways to vary things up with similar fetishes with either varied scenarios or interactions.

Various words of encouragement

-Thank you to everyone that sent me these, as they’re always a good pick me up for the day.

Finally, the Disney Princess empathy votes are:

Rapunzel: 37.7%

Alice: 24.1%

Belle: 20.8%

Tianna: 17.5%

Now you may be asking what this survey is for. Well…that’s for me to know and for you to find out at a later time. Although, I may be prompted to answer any requests about any associated writing things that come from this survey.

Summary

Thank you everyone who took the time to answer the survey and let their opinions be heard. In the end, we had over 200 people participate to give a pretty sizable sample size. I may consider doing several more of these in the near future to focus on specific topics and cover things I may have missed.

#eyebeast #survey #results

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bubonickitten · 4 years

Link

Summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Previous chapter: AO3 // tumblr

Chapter 13 full text & content warnings below the cut.

CWs for Chapter 13: all the usual Buried-related warnings apply (claustrophobia, inability to breathe, etc.); panic/anxiety symptoms; just a smidgen of internalized aphobia; brief mention of past passive suicidal ideation; internalized victim blaming; canon-typical trauma (including discussion of victims targeted by the Fears as children).SPOILERS through S5.

Chapter 13: Center

The darkness and overwhelming pressure of the Buried make it nigh impossible to orient oneself. The only conceivable directions are forward, down, into, deeper. Jon’s only choice, when he has one at all, is to keep moving – and so he does, digging and clawing his way through the muck, making a transient pathway for himself as best he can.

“Daisy?” It comes out as a rasp. He tries to swallow, but succeeds only in upsetting his already-sore throat. It feels as though the dirt and debris have taken up permanent residence there, clogging his airway just enough to leave him chronically short of breath without cutting off his oxygen supply entirely. “Daisy, can you reach me?”

“Jon,” comes the weak reply, “I’m – I don’t know where – I c-can’t – can’t see –”

“I hear you,” Jon says. “I’m here, I’m coming to you. Just – keep talking, and –”

As he talks, he inhales a cloud of dust, dissolving into wracking coughs.

“Jon? Jon, are you still there?” For a long moment, Jon cannot speak. Daisy’s next words are steeped in panic. “Where are you? I can’t… p-please be there, please –”

“I’m still here,” Jon forces out hoarsely, stretching his arm forward as far as it will go. “I’m not going anywhere. Follow my voice, I – I think I’m almost –”

Chill fingertips brush against his, and he throws his weight forward as much as possible. He hooks her fingers in his and pulls, and with a burst of energy he manages to clasp her clammy hand in his.

“There you are,” he says, smiling weakly.

“You’re real,” Daisy says in disbelief, crushing his hand in a bruising grip. “You’re real.”

“I am.” He intertwines their fingers, as grateful as she is for a hand to hold. “I’m here, Daisy.”

“Daisy,” she says dreamily. “Yeah. Daisy. That’s me.” A pause. “Just – just me.”

Jon closes his eyes with a relieved sigh. There are no signs that the Hunt still has its claws in her. He had no reason to think that reaching her a couple weeks earlier than before would change anything, but there was still that nagging doubt.

“J-just me,” she says again, but this time there’s a waver in her voice. “Just – alone –”

“No,” Jon says hurriedly, squeezing her hand several times in quick succession, “not – not alone. Not anymore.”

“Yeah.” She grasps his hand even more tightly, as if to reassure herself.

“I’m here.”

“Yeah,” she says again, and this time it sounds like she’s starting to believe it.

“How – how are you?” Jon cringes. It’s as stupid a question now as it was the last time. Moreso, seeing as he’s already heard the answer. “S-sorry. That’s – probably obvious.”

Daisy answers anyway, likely glad of the chance to talk to someone else after so long in isolation.

“I – I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t…” She trails off, hesitating. “But it’s… it’s quiet here? I can’t…”

She seems to be struggling to find the words.

“You can’t feel the blood,” he supplies.

“Y-yeah. How did you…”

“I can’t feel the Eye, either. It’s… it’s just me. All me.”

“Where are we?”

“In the Coffin. The Buried. It’s… the powers don’t have much sway within one another’s domains. The Hunt, the Eye – they can’t reach us here.”

“The Hunt,” she echoes.

“Yes. You’re a Hunter.”

“I… I guess I was. But – not here.”

No, not here. But once they leave here…

Stop, he tells himself. One thing at a time. Escape the Buried, then worry about the Hunt.

“Come on.” He tugs on her hand. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“Can’t – can’t move, and – and even if I could, there’s no way out –”

“No, I – I can get us out. I have a plan.”

“Is this like all your other plans?”

Jon chuckles, but it comes out as a wheeze.

“Yes and no. But – but don’t worry, it’s – I can do this. I just – need to – to find it.”

But when he closes his eyes and concentrates, there’s… nothing there.

“Come on,” he says under his breath, keeping his voice deliberately calm. “Come on, where are you?”

There’s nothing there. Why is there nothing there?

“Just need to… need to focus. Just – focus, think of…”

Think of Martin. Martin is your anchor. Clever, brave, loyal, compassionate Martin.

He was kind to you even when you didn’t deserve it; he cared for you even though you did everything you could to push him away. He reached out to you through the Lonely when you were at your most monstrous to remind you of the humanity you’d thought you lost. He made you want to do better, to be the person that he saw when he looked at you.

You followed him into the Lonely because you love him and because he deserved to know it. You need to return to him now, because this version of him doesn’t yet know that he is loved. If you don’t get back to him, if you don’t reach out to him – he’ll get lost, and he –

Jon’s breath hitches. The fear is starting to move in as inexorably as the earth surrounding them, settling cold and heavy in his gut.

Stop that, he tells himself. Just think about Martin, not the worst case scenario.

Everyone underestimates him, because he spent his entire life striving for the perfect balance between useful and unobtrusive. But he’s not helpless; he’s not a pushover. He took master manipulator Jonah Magnus by surprise; he fooled Peter Lukas for months. Sometimes, you think that Martin Blackwood could outmaneuver the Web if he cared to. If anyone could, it would be him. You don’t think you’ll ever fully forgive yourself for taking so long to notice.

No, Jon tells himself once more, recognizing the warning signs of a guilt spiral. That won’t help. Redirect.

In those early days after the ritual, you briefly defaulted to your old habits, withdrawing and shutting him out. He stood up to your brooding, gave your self-loathing no refuge in which to thrive, because he saw right through your sharp tongue to the vulnerable parts of you that it was meant to hide.

He is intuitive, stubborn, and patient in the best of ways.

You have a tendency to stare. You always have; you typically don’t notice you’re doing it. After you became the Archivist, it went from being an awkward habit to evidence of your inhumanity: all eyes, always watching, always demanding more, more, more until every secret is exposed and any semblance of privacy has been demolished.

But it was never just the Eye urging you to record things. You know from experience that nothing lasts forever, that anyone and anything can disappear without a moment’s notice – sometimes leaving no trace, no memory that they ever existed. It only makes sense that you would develop a compulsion to document everything for posterity. The tape recorders were only the most recent manifestation of that preexisting obsession. Before that, you made lists, you took pictures, you wrote on your hands – and, of course, you stared.

During your first few days together at the safehouse, Martin called attention to the staring. You were mortified, launched into a rambling apology – but he shut it down, reassured you that he was only teasing, that he didn’t mind it, that it was… endearing, in a way. And once you were given permission, you began to consciously catalog every little detail.

He has thirty-six freckles on his face, seventeen on his hands, and constellations of them besides: on his back, on his shoulders, on his arms, on his belly. He blushes easily, and you love it, because you’ve never been good at reading body language, and you can always use a hint. His hair is soft, and the way he leans into it when you run your fingers through it – you think he would purr if he could. You were hesitant, at first, to spend too long looking at his eyes – but unlike most people, he showed no signs that he found eye contact with you unsettling.

You gave him permission to stare, too. And he did. He never shied away from your scars. He liked looking at you – and you knew he was genuine when he said so, even though you didn’t understand it.

Martin is self-conscious about his size, painfully aware of how others see him. He rarely stands to his full height, tending to curl his shoulders in, maintain a curve to his spine, keep his arms pulled tight to his body: anything to avoid towering over others, anything to take up as little space as possible. He saw his stretch marks as flaws to be tolerated; spent most of his life assuming that his weight and soft edges made him unattractive.

There are so many things he hates about himself. It broke your heart a little, to see how difficult it was for him to believe that you like looking at him, that your boundaries regarding physical intimacy weren’t a comment on his desirability. (Though he never voiced that last concern, never wanted his own insecurities to make you feel self-conscious about that part of you. Never made you feel guilty or lacking or… or broken.)

You regularly stole his jumpers; the first time you did it, he went speechless and flustered at the casual domesticity of it all. You took turns ambushing one another with affirmations and small acts of affection like that. It became something of a challenge, a game: springing a pet name on one another here, placing a soft kiss on a hand there, delighting in the reactions it got. It’s strange how easily you settled into that routine, how natural it felt to let down your guard.

At night, he would curl around you like he belonged there, like there was no place he’d rather be – and it made you feel like you belong, too. The first time he held you in his arms, you realized that you’d never truly known what it was to feel safe until that moment – and isn’t that its own special kind of vulnerability, isn’t it such a cliché? You still had nightmares, still jolted awake several times throughout the night frantic and disoriented – as did he – but it felt so much more endurable with someone to coax you back to reality.

When you first led him out of the Lonely, it was still clinging to him. He couldn’t understand what you saw in him, any more than you could understand what he saw in you. You made it your mission to make him understand. And eventually, he did. It wasn’t the first time you told him you loved him, but one morning when you said it, he looked at you and his lips parted ever so slightly, and you could practically see the epiphany dawn in his eyes, and he whispered that he believed you.

You still haven’t found a word that accurately describes what you felt then. You kissed him, and hoped that it would say what words could not.

You never gave up on each other, even when you’d given up on your own selves. He never stopped caring for you, even when you were at your most fearsome and fearful. Despite everything, you communicated, you compromised, you comforted one another. You never stopped loving one another.

You lost him once before. You cannot lose him again. You need to find him. Why – why can’t you find him? Why can’t you feel him?

Jon feels his breath quickening, terror needling at the edges of his mind. He jumps slightly when Daisy speaks.

“Jon?”

“It’s – it’s okay,” he says, his voice shaky. “I’ve – I’ve done this once before. I can do this.”

There’s no rule saying he can only have one anchor, right?

He thinks of Georgie.

She took you in when you had nowhere else to go, even though you hadn’t spoken in years, even though you hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Staying with her felt more like home than you’d experienced in… you don’t know how long. It made you realize how much you missed her – her humor, her ingenuity, her confidence, her tenacity, her generosity, and, yes, even her perceptiveness, daunting though it may be at times. She speaks her mind and you can take her at her word. You can appreciate that, as someone who has always had trouble parsing the implicit and unspoken aspects of social life.

You trust her judgment, and she believes in you, and it makes you want to believe in yourself. You want to be there for her in the same way that she’s chosen to be there for you.

He thinks of Melanie.

You disliked one another at first meeting, even though – or perhaps because – you have so much in common. Over the years, you saw more sides to her. She’s brave and resolute, not just when it comes to fighting back, but when it comes to making the conscious decision to heal. She’s capable of kindness to those who are receptive to it. You’ve seen how she is with Georgie, how her hard edges relax, how her devotion is as fierce as her anger can be – perhaps moreso.

You know that she never deserved to suffer like she has. You know she deserves a happy ending. You want to try to reconcile with her. In your future, she went so far as to suggest that you could be friends. You think you would like that.

He thinks of Basira.

She’s had no one but herself to rely on for months. She feels trapped and alone; she hasn’t had a moment to grieve; she’s forced herself to compartmentalize and detach because if she breaks down, she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to put herself back together again. She’s told herself that her own comfort and wellbeing don’t matter. She has a job to do and she’s the only one left who is willing and able to do it. The only solid thing left in her life, the only thing giving her purpose is the mission. The mission is her anchor, because she’s lost everything else.

When she found out that Daisy was alive, she was almost angry with you for making her dare to hope. You promised that you would bring Daisy home to her, and you mean to keep that promise.

And Jon has a job to do, too, doesn’t he?

You need to stop Jonah Magnus, you need to –

His stomach clenches as the dread grips him.

Okay, no. Don’t – don’t think of Jonah. Not helpful, not helpful, not –

He reaches further. He tries to think of Naomi, of the Admiral, of –

The faraway rumbling starts up again.

“Jon,” Daisy says again, urgently, perched on the edge of panic right along with him.

This is forever deep below creation, some self-sabotaging part of his brain reminds him. Where the weight of existence bears down. This is the Buried, and we are alive. There isn’t even an up –

“I just – I just – I just need to calm down,” he stammers. He can feel his pulse beating in his throat; would be hyperventilating if he could breathe at all. “I – I can’t think straight, and I just need to…”

He thinks back to the physical details of the world just outside the Coffin.

The arrangement of the tapes –

…CASE #0160919 sits 34.2 centimeters west of the Coffin, turned at a 45-degree angle. Approximately 20.6 centimeters south-southwest is CASE #0172904; the casing of its recorder is slightly cracked at the lower left corner. 2.4 centimeters to its right is CASE #0171302; the rewind button on the recorder housing it tends to stick…

– on the floor of his office –

…where fingernail scratches are still visible in the northwest corner of the room, left there by Enrique MacMillan on 4 November, 2003, after he gave his statement regarding his encounter with a Buried-touched Leitner…

– and the tape he left on his desk –

…on top of a softcover Moleskine notebook – black, 12.7 by 21 centimeters, ruled – belonging to Martin Blackwood; the Archivist knows every word written thus far on the 68 used out of 192 total pages within…

– and on that tape are pleas that went unanswered for far too long, laced with desperation and grief and rapidly dwindling hope –

…We really need you, Jon. We – I need you …

– but Jon cannot hear it anymore.

His mind wanders to the single folded sheet of paper tucked away in the top drawer of his desk. A second message for Martin, to be read only in the event that Jon doesn’t return. A transcript, to be precise.

On their way to the Panopticon, they had been separated when they traversed the Lonely’s domain. Jon had searched frantically, resisting the urge to simply Know because he had promised. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t feel right forcing Martin to See him the way he did before. It was Martin’s domain, and he had the right to decide for himself whether to leave it behind. Even if Jon had wanted to, though, he suspected that he wouldn’t have been able to actually find Martin this time unless he wanted to be found. And in the end, he did.

Just before Jon found him, he managed to catch the tail end of Martin’s statement. Naturally, the Archive memorized every word and dutifully filed it away without any conscious effort or consent on Jon’s part.

…I am Martin Blackwood, and I am not Lonely anymore; I am not Lonely anymore. I want to have friends. I – no, I have friends. I’m in love. I am in love, and I will not forget that; I will not forget…

Before he entered the Coffin, Jon copied it down and left it behind. Just in case. Just in case something goes wrong. If he goes missing in action for too long, he trusts that eventually someone will clear out his desk, find it, and hopefully pass it along to its intended recipient.

It was a last-ditch effort to impart the truth: that a future exists wherein Martin isn’t Lonely; that he can be and is and deserves to be cared for; that it isn’t just an unattainable fantasy. And, most importantly, Jon is not the only one who can provide that, nor is Jon alone enough to fulfill that need. In the end, Martin chose to turn his back on the Lonely. He can do it again.

There’s every chance that it was a meaningless gesture, but Jon doesn’t think he could live with himself if he didn’t at least try – and if he does get lost down here, he’ll be forced to live with himself for as long as the Buried itself exists.

But Jon doesn’t want to leave Martin alone with that inexplicable scrap of statement, hoping that it’s enough to get the point across. Jon has to get home. He has to; there’s no other choice –

“Jon?” Daisy says again. “You sound like you’re… what – what’s wrong?”

“Sorry, I’m – I’m just… I can’t – I can’t feel my anchor.”

“Anchor?”

“Y-yeah. Something to ground me, help me feel the way out. It’s – there’s a void where it should be, and…” His short exhale shudders on the way out. “I think – I think we might be here for awhile longer.”

“N-not alone, though,” Daisy says, almost questioningly.

“No. No, not alone. And – and I can still get us out, I think,” he adds hurriedly. “I just – I need to… I need to come down from the panic, and it’s hard to do that when I can’t – I can’t breathe –“

His breath catches and he closes his eyes. Stop, he tells himself, you’re – you’re spiraling, talking yourself into a panic. Just… listen – listen to the quiet.

“Jon?”

“Still – still here,” he says, squeezing her hand again. “I’m not going anywhere without you, I promise.”

“Do you – if you need a break from – from whatever you’re doing…” She falters for a moment before blurting out: “C-can we… can we talk? I haven’t – I just want someone to hear me.”

“Of course. I’m listening.” When Daisy doesn’t reply, he offers a gentle prompting. “Daisy?”

“I’m – it’s difficult. I can’t find the words.”

“Would it help if I… ask?” The last time, it did help her get her thoughts out.

“Y-yeah,” she says with only a slight delay. “Do your… thing.”

“Right,” he says. For a moment, he worries that he’ll have difficulty concentrating long enough to compel an answer, but his mind clears almost as soon as he opens his mouth. Of course. “How are you feeling?”

The question buzzes like static on his tongue on its way out.

“S-scared. I – I’m – I’m s-scared…”

Daisy’s words do not deviate from the last time he was here, but he does not interrupt her as she speaks. He latches onto her voice, focuses all of his attention on her story, and tries to ground himself in the present.

“Y-you know what I thought, when I woke up here? I thought this was hell. I – I was dead, and I was in hell. And I - I knew I deserved it.” Daisy stifles a sob as she nears the end of her statement. “I don’t want t-to b-be a s-sadistic predator again. I – I don’t want to hobble around like some – pathetic wounded prey here. I don’t know which would be worse. But I’m scared now – that I won’t ever get the choice.”

One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice, he told her last time. Even if it doesn’t feel like one.

Now, though, he’s not so sure. Or, rather, now he thinks it isn’t quite that simple.

“It’s… complicated,” Jon starts slowly. “Choice, I mean. We all have choices, but – but when all the alternatives are unendurable, or impossible to achieve, or – or even conceptualize, then… well, it’s not a fair choice, is it? Sometimes because that’s just – how it is, and sometimes by design. There – there are people, and – and things out there that will abuse their power to deceive you, keep you ignorant about things that would affect your decisions. Or – or convince you that you have no options, no autonomy – or even that you can’t trust your own judgment, your own senses. Some choices can hardly be called choices at all.”

He begins to grind his teeth as he considers his next words, but stops as soon as he feels the grit between his molars when he bites down. There are a lot of things to hate about the Buried, but its refusal to allow him to engage in any of his usual nervous habits definitely adds insult to injury.

“You say you deserve to be here, but – do you think you deserved to be marked by the Hunt in the first place? Because one thing I’ve learned is… most people who become Avatars – we don't necessarily do anything to deserve the attention of the things that take notice of us. To be put in these positions, to be given impossible choices about – about things we have no right to decide in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems that a common thread is… well, um, I think Tim hit the nail on the head, actually? In his testament before the Unknowing, he – he said, ‘The only thing you need to have your life destroyed by this stuff is just bad luck. Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, open the wrong door, and that’s it.’”

“You remember that verbatim?”

“It’s – it’s an Archivist thing.” Well, technically. Jon can’t access the Archive right now, but some statements have looped so many times in his head that he has every word memorized by now. “But the point is that our transgressions, they… the punishment often doesn’t seem to fit the crime.”

Daisy is quiet, so Jon continues.

“Uh, Jane Prentiss, for instance – stumbled upon a wasps’ nest in her attic, and then the Corruption infested her. In her original statement, she was afraid of what was happening to her, she was asking for help, but it… it was slowly hollowing her out. Appealed to her insecurities, whispered to her that it was the only thing that could love her, that wouldn’t abandon her. Maybe eventually she embraced it on her own, but at that point, how much of her was left to make that choice?

“And – and Michael Crew. He was struck by lightning when he was eight. The Spiral never stopped stalking him after that. He spent his childhood in fear, obsessively sought out information about – lightning, and fractals, because understanding it felt like the only way to resist a thing that feeds on uncertainty.”

Jon can relate to that, can’t he? He was always curious, but his desire to know and understand things became more obsessive after he encountered his first monster – as if he could solve any problem if only he learned enough about it. But it was never enough, and that impulse never actually kept him safe. It only offered him a flimsy illusion of control, which was something he desperately needed after the Web showed him what it was like to have none. Still, an ineffective coping mechanism was better than not coping at all – or so he told himself then.

“When Mike realized that there was no escape from the supernatural once he’d been marked by it,” Jon continues, “he decided that the next best thing was choosing which Fear to submit to – to serve. Obsessively sought out Leitners until he found the Vast, and… it offered him safety. The most basic of human needs, something he hadn’t known since he was a child. The things he did to feed his patron were – indefensible, but I can’t help thinking about the person he might have been, if the Spiral hadn’t come into his life. He… he was only eight. How is a child supposed to process something that even an adult would have trouble coping with? I’m sure many children don’t even physically survive an encounter with one of the Fears, but even those that do… they never actually escape, do they?”

Daisy makes an indistinct little noise in her throat. Jon can’t Know for certain, but he imagines she’s thinking of her own first encounter with the Hunt. When enough time has passed that she doesn’t seem ready to say as much, Jon continues.

“And there’s – there’s Oliver Banks, he’s an Avatar of the End. He just started having dreams one day, became a death prophet. As far as I can tell, nothing provoked it. It just… happened. And early on, he tried to use that ability to help people, but… the powers granted us as Avatars, they aren’t for helping or saving anyone. When you realize that, after a long string of failures, you start to become… despondent – numb, even. Maybe some misstep along the way piqued the End’s interest in him, or maybe it was completely arbitrary. I don’t know. I don’t know that Oliver does, either.”

It’s difficult to speak at length here, and Jon’s speech is punctuated by frequent gasps and stops and starts, but he plows ahead. Granted, he’s always had a tendency toward intense, rapidfire speech whenever he gets invested in a topic of interest, but it’s also that he needs to cover as much ground as he can as quickly as possible. There’s no telling when the Buried will constrict again. Sometimes there are long intervals of relative peace; other times, the bouts of crushing pressure come one after the other in a barrage. The inconsistency makes the dread all the more potent: you can never predict when the walls will close in.

“And Helen,” he says, moving right along, “before she became the Distortion, she opened a door. That’s all. Most people would have probably done the same. A door that wasn’t there before, that can’t be there – of course the human mind wants to test its perceptions, make sense of the discrepancy. Which is exactly what the Distortion preys on. It let her escape its corridors, because it would make the fear that much more potent when it came for her again, when she realized that it had never actually let her go, that there was never any way to escape. It was… it was just playing with its food.”

Like with Benjamin Hatendi, Jon thinks. ‘The blanket never did anything.’

The Fears are never merciful. For an earthly predatory animal, the pain and fear of the prey are only relevant insofar as their utility in capturing it. Granted, the majority of animals may have no qualms about eating their prey alive so long as it’s incapacitated, no concept of putting their food out of its misery – but still, sustenance isn’t derived from the experience of the prey, only from its organic matter.

For the Powers, though… terror is the food source. If anything, the misery is deliberately drawn out. The suffering is primary to the meal.

“I still don’t know how much of Helen Richardson was left by the time she embraced her new existence and began feeding” – by the time she chose to stop feeling guilty, Jon notes privately – “but she never asked to be in that position to begin with. She just… opened a door.

“And you… all you did was trespass on a childhood dare, right? You and Calvin Benchley. I did hear the tape – of your interrogation with Elias. Maybe the Hunt chose the both of you, was deliberately waiting for you there. Or maybe you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, you… you did something that most children do at one point or another, exploring out bounds – I did plenty of that myself. And – and you’d done the same thing many times in the past, there was no reason to think that things would go any differently. But that time, that time you stumbled into something that most children – most people never do.”

Jon debates whether or not to share his own initiation into this world. He never told Daisy about it last time, but he knows – and Knows – about her childhood encounter. It seems only fair to include his own.

“Actually, I… I had a similar experience, when I was eight,” he admits, pushing through his habitual reservations. “Unlike Michael Crew, though, I was an active participant in my own fate. There’s no dodging a lightning strike, but me – I… I opened a book I shouldn’t have, knocked on a door I shouldn’t have. I could’ve just… not.”

“That’s a funny double standard,” Daisy says flatly.

“P-pardon?”

“Couldn’t you just as easily say that Crew could have chosen to not stand outside during a lightning storm?”

“He – he actually wanted to go inside, but his friend pressured him to keep playing,” Jon says, almost defensively. “By the time they decided to go in, it was too late.”

“Like I pressured Calvin.”

“That’s –” Jon gives an agitated little exhale. “It’s still different.”

“How?”

“Did you have a bad feeling about the dare, or was it just like any other day? You had no reason to think that things would go wrong. I… I knew that book was wrong, and I opened it anyway.” Daisy scoffs. “What?”

“Has anyone ever pointed out to you that you’re capable of some truly infuriating mental gymnastics?”

Jon puffs out another exasperated breath before muttering, “Yes.”

In fact, she said almost the exact same thing to him the last time around. And Georgie – she used to say so all the time, especially when they were dating.

“You always do this,” she’d pointed out once during an argument, hands on her hips and a shrewd look in her eye. “Any time a conversation gets a little too uncomfortable for you, you just – throw your hands up, say it’s your fault and shut down, and nothing ever gets resolved. Why are you so eager to take the blame for things? Is it that it’s better than admitting there are some things you can’t control, or is it just easier than actually talking about your feelings?”

The answer was yes on both counts, and he had been angry with her for putting it into words. He’d already known on some level, but he studiously avoided that sort of introspection. Now that it had been verbalized, the knowledge would always be there, floating around in his mind – yet another thing to overanalyze, to obsess over, to ambush him in moments of doubt.

Since then he’s gotten better at communicating in healthy ways, but the self-blame thing… well, Martin still had to periodically call him out on it, right up until the end. It became a common refrain: “It’s still victim blaming even if you’re the victim, Jon.” The reminder did help – at least some of the time – but it wasn’t enough to undo a worldview that he’d spent his entire life internalizing.

“Y-yes,” he says again, less sullenly now, “I – I see your point.”

“Good. So – evil book?”

“A Leitner, yes. The Web.” Jon has no desire to go into all the gruesome details, not when he’s – when they’re both already being suffocated by fear. “And I only escaped through… I don’t know, some combination of mundane human cruelty and luck – or… or someone else’s misfortune, more like.” He gives a tired sigh. “Or it could have been deliberate interference by the Web, taking someone else in my place because it had other plans for me. I’ll never know the exact reason why. If there even is a reason.”

He pauses, expecting the Beholding’s characteristic objection to the idea that he should accept not knowing anything, before remembering with grim satisfaction that the Eye can’t reach him here. Nor can the Web, for that matter. A small mercy, but he’ll take it.

“But the experience led to an obsession with the supernatural. I suppose I thought that if – if I could just understand it, I could conquer the fear. It didn’t work, but an obsession like that – it persists regardless of whether it’s successful or productive or – or healthy. Eventually it led me to the Institute. Which led me… here, ultimately.” He bites his lower lip as he considers his next words. “I’m sure many of my choices along the way were mine alone, and – and I’m responsible for my actions regardless. But that first domino… it was just a restless child ignoring gut instinct, all because he needed to know.”

“Jon,” Daisy says, the hint of a warning growl underlying her tone.

“I – okay, yes, I know, I know. Double standards.” He takes a shallow breath before continuing. “My point is, most of us are just… unlucky isn’t the right word, but it’s as close as I can get. Sometimes the Fears seem to seek out victims who are already uniquely susceptible to them – people with phobias, or specific traumas. Other times it seems… arbitrary. And sometimes it seems like the difference between an average victim and those who eventually become Avatars is… compatibility, or – or in some cases, a sense of kinship, even.

“I’ve always been too curious for my own good, a natural fit for the Beholding. Jane talked about being seen as toxic, and it was the Corruption that found her. Annabelle Cane said she was well-versed in manipulation as a young child, the sort of gift that the Web favors. Jared Hopworth always had a sadistic streak, but the difference between him and any other bully is that he found The Boneturner's Tale. I… don’t really know what to make of Jude Perry. The way she told it, she always had the disposition for the Desolation. She would likely have been a nightmare with or without supernatural help, but there are plenty of people like that in the world. She just happened to be one of the few who caught the attention of the Lightless Flame.

“But – but I also don’t think preexisting compatibility is a requirement to be an Avatar. Some people really do just – stumble into it, probably. Grow into it, maybe, after enough exposure. Especially if the same Power keeps coming back.”

Jon can’t help thinking of the Distortion and its tendency to dog its victims for years. Helen said once that she couldn’t just force her victims into her corridors, that they had to open the door on their own. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? Marcus MacKenzie refused to open the door every single time it appeared throughout his childhood and young adulthood. It started to take increasingly drastic measures: disguising itself as other things, at one point even opening up in the ground in front of him, hoping he wouldn’t notice until he already stepped over the ledge and gravity did its work. When that didn’t work, it took his father. And then, even after evading it for decades, Helen eventually took Marcus anyway. Choice didn’t come into it. It didn't matter how many times he walked away – it followed him wherever he went.

“Either way,” Jon continues, “whether it’s part of some grand plan or just happenstance, the Avatars… we catch the attention of something predatory, and it sinks its hooks into the vulnerabilities it finds. There are plenty of other people in the world who may have the same… flaws, or inclinations, or experiences, but most are lucky enough not to be drawn into this world. I’m not sure exactly what determines who is, but I don’t think it comes down to fairness, or deservedness, or – or some sort of cosmic punishment. I – I don’t think the universe works that way.

“And – and after we’ve been marked, maybe we can make choices along the way. But as far as I can tell, none of those choices ever lead to complete freedom from the Powers that lay claim to us. We’re still accountable for our actions; we can fight back, we can resist – but we’ll always be struggling against our natures. Sometimes it seems like there’s… there’s really no choice we can make where things actually turn out okay. Doesn’t mean we stop trying, or give up hope, but…” He pauses to gnaw on the inside of his cheek for a few seconds. “It can be hard to ignore the fear when it’s become such an intrinsic part of you, is all. When it makes its hunger your own, and hollows you out if you don’t feed it. It can make the concept of choice seem… empty.”

When he trails off, Daisy blows out a forceful exhale.

“That was… a lot.”

“Surprised the Buried let me get it all out,” Jon says, a bit sheepishly. “Sorry, I’ve… had a lot of time alone to ruminate.”

“I think I can rela-”

Daisy’s words are cut short when all at once the earth crashes down around them with a vengeance, as if exacting payment for the courtesy of staying its hand for so long. An indeterminate amount of time passes, weight pressing down on them from all sides, leaving no room for breath or words or thought. Jon focuses on their hands, still linked tightly together, the only anchor to be found here in the dark.

Eventually, the walls begin to withdraw in tiny increments. The sinister, sibilant shifting of soil is a constant, unknown variable – it sounds the same whether the earth is compacting or moving away, and often there is no way to tell until it’s already too close and pressing down. Jon can feel his pulse hammering in his throat, can hear Daisy’s gasping breaths overlapping his own.

“I was gonna kill you,” she blurts out eventually, breathless and rushed. “You know that?”

“Yes.”

“I – I don’t just mean that day in the woods,” she clarifies. “Af-after the mission, I was planning on killing you.”

“I know. You – you realized I wasn’t human. That I needed to die.”

“H-how did you –”

“I’ve been here once before. And – and I should apologize for the dreams, I –”

“Jon –”

“I know it’s not an excuse, but I never meant to compel you that time – didn’t even realize at the time that that was something I could do, and –”

“Jon –”

“I didn’t realize then that the dreams were real, and – and when I finally did, I still didn’t have any control over them, but I –”

“Jon! Shut up a minute.”

His mouth snaps shut a little too quickly and he winces as he bites down on the tip of his tongue. The metallic taste of blood just barely registers on his tongue in the few seconds it takes for the cut to heal.

“Just – back up,” Daisy says, toning down the intensity this time. “That thing you said about… you’ve ‘been here once before’? What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s… a long story. And difficult to believe.”

“Well, it’s –” Daisy huffs. “It’s not like we don’t have the time?”

“I suppose,” Jon sighs. He’s already told this story to the tape recorder at length, but… the idea of telling it to another person, in his own words this time, feels both terrifying and cathartic at the same time. It’s just – difficult to talk about, no matter how many times he recaps it. “Where to begin… oh, I should probably preface this with ‘time travel is real.’”

Daisy sounds far too nonchalant when she says, “Okay.”

“O-okay? That’s… that’s it?”

“Sorry if it’s not the dramatic response you expected. Encounter enough – vampires, and people made of sawdust, and – and this, here, and… I don’t know that anything would surprise me anymore.”

“R-right,” Jon replies, still a bit incredulous. “Well, I’m – I’m from the future.” He pauses again, but she doesn’t interject. “And… and I came back to stop the apocalypse.”

His inflection pitches up into a near-question on the last word, certain that this will be the point at which Daisy calls bullshit. Instead, she just gives a dry chuckle.

“And how’s that going for you?”

“Well, uh, actually…” Jon’s laugh manages to sound slightly hysterical despite its brevity. “Being stuck here actually does – put it on hold indefinitely?”

“H-how’s that?”

“Because – because it can’t go forward without the Archivist.” He takes a shallow breath. “Just like the Stranger has the Unknowing, the Eye has its own Ritual. I was – I am a part of it. I – I didn’t want to, Elias – he orchestrated the whole thing, f-forced me to –” He nearly bites his tongue again when he cuts himself off. “But that – that doesn’t change anything,” he continues, almost viciously. “I’m the one who opened the door. It wouldn’t have happened if not for me, s-so it’s as good as my fault.”

“Don’t know about that,” Daisy says.

“What?”

“Don’t think I can see you making a choice to end the world, if you had any say. Doesn’t sound like you. You – Jon, you just went on about having choices taken away.” Jon is silent, teeth clenched; Daisy jostles his hand insistently. “So – so how’d it actually happen?”

“I, ah…” Why is this still so hard to talk about? “So you know how I – I… need the statements?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I – it – my appetite only got worse as time went on. Started craving live statements, and – and hunted for them. The others intervened eventually, and I stopped, but I still needed – need – statements, or else I’d… starve, for lack of a better word. So I made do with the old statements like before, but they were – less and less filling as time went on, and – and I needed more of them, and more frequently, even though I tried to – to spread them out, ration myself. And, uh, some things happened, and Martin and I went into hiding – used your safehouse, actually –”

“Which one?”

“Scotland.”

“Ah,” Daisy says softly. “I like that one.”

“So did we,” Jon says, smiling fondly. “I – we only had a couple weeks, before… b-but the time we did have, it was…”

He clears his throat.

“An-anyway, I went – hungry, for a bit, until a box of statements could be sent to us. And the first one I read, it was – a trap, by J- Elias.” He can explain about Jonah Magnus later. If he takes that detour now, he’ll never get through the rest of this. “The heading looked – just like any other statement. Statement giver’s name, date – but as soon as I started reading, it was Elias’ words. It was a, uh, statement about – about me. About what I am. I’m not just the Archivist, Daisy, I’m the Archive.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I – when I take or – or consume a statement, I, ah – experience it like I’m there, and it – it becomes a part of me. I’m like a – like a living record, a library of – of people’s worst fears, nightmares, moments that I have no right to witness, and – doesn’t matter. Elias needed a fully realized Archive for his ritual to work, so he – he created one, and he fed it a statement. And I – I tried to stop reading, but I couldn’t, even though I – I tried, I really did, I –” He laughs nervously. “Even tried to – to blind myself, but it just – healed. Then, at the end, there was an – an incantation. To open a door that could let all the Fears into the world. And when I read it… it did.”

“Wait – all of them?”

“Yes,” Jon says quietly. “Just before she died, Gertrude figured out that a ritual to bring one of the Fears into the world could never succeed on its own. The Powers can’t exist without minds to experience them, and our minds – they’re highly associative. The experience of fear is just… far more convoluted and subjective than any artificial taxonomy can capture. The Fears have overlap, and – and some of them are defined by their opposition to the others.

“A Vast ritual would collapse without the existence of the Buried, for instance. Or – the Stranger and the Spiral, they’re both tied to unreality, to not being able to trust your perceptions – which can feed into paranoia, which the Eye and the Web also thrive on. The Hunt and the Slaughter run together, and the Flesh can tag alongside. Both the Corruption and the Desolation are equally efficient and thorough in ravaging a home or a body or – or even the general concept of safety.

“Even here – we’re too far deep below creation for the Eye or the Hunt to reach us, but there’s still more than the Buried to fear. The Dark, for instance, or being Forsaken. Even the Vast can be found down here, if you start obsessing over your own insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe. The Powers are just – too interconnected, and their rituals never accounted for that.”

“So the Unknowing…”

“Would have failed even without our intervention,” Jon says bitterly. “Same goes for all of the rituals that Gertrude stopped, and all the others that have been sabotaged throughout the centuries. All of that sacrifice, and for nothing. Michael Shelley, and Jan Kilbride, and – and Tim, and you ending up here –”

“Tim?”

“He… he died during the mission,” Jon says quietly. He hears a sharp intake of breath from Daisy.

“And Basira?”

“Alive. She got out before the explosion.” He can just barely make out Daisy’s sigh of relief. “She… she told me to tell you that she’s waiting for you.”

“Oh,” Daisy says softly. “I’m s-”

Before she can say more, the Buried begins to writhe around them again, this time closing in molasses-slow. They both instinctively tighten their handhold on one another. As horrid as the crushing force is, this time it at least has the decency to press them closer together. Daisy’s free hand tentatively brushes against Jon’s free wrist. Understanding the unspoken request, Jon interlocks their fingers, and they wait.

“S-so,” Daisy wheezes when the earth finally relaxes and settles again, “about – about the rituals?”

“R-right.” Jon coughs lightly, still catching his breath. “Well, ah, Elias found out about Gertrude’s theory. Came up with a – ritual that would bring all the Powers through at once, but with the Eye ruling over the rest. It required an Archivist – Archive – directly marked by all the Powers. Elias – chose me. Made sure I’d encounter each of them, and… when I was ready, he laid one last trap and waited for me to wander in, because he knew from experience that I would.”

And it could happen again, Jon’s brain helpfully supplies.

“Huh.”

“Yeah. S-so it probably goes without saying, but if you thought I wasn’t human before, I, ah…” He gives an exhausted, humorless chuckle. “I’m definitely not now.”

Daisy is silent for a long moment before saying: “I take it you – you didn’t come here the first time.”

That wasn’t the comment that Jon had been expecting.

“No, I did.”

“Then… how –”

“I told you, there’s a way out. I just – I just have to find it. Last time I found you, and we escaped together. We can do it again.” She doesn’t respond to that, and he kneads the tops of her hands with his thumbs. “Daisy?”

“You’ve been here once before, and you escaped, and… and you came back?” She says it in such a small voice, it almost doesn’t even sound like her. “After – after seeing what it’s like, you still came back for me?”

“Yes…?”

“Why?” she whispers. “Why do that for me? I – I had a knife to your throat, I would’ve killed you if Basira hadn’t found us first, I saw the fear in your eyes and I enjoyed it – and you knew that I’d still planned on killing you the moment I got a chance, so – so why?”

“We’re –” Jon stops himself, rephrases. “In my future, we became friends.”

“What?”

“W-well, we – we were both Avatars trying to resist our darker natures. We went through this together. We just – we had a lot in common.”

Daisy offers no comment.

“I… don’t know what I would have done without you, honestly,” Jon continues, jiggling one foot nervously as best he can in the confined space. “You were… you were the only one I had, most days. The only one who knew what it was like, having the hunger consume you because you refuse to feed it. And – and you had Basira, but she… there were things she didn’t fully understand, couldn’t relate to. So you would come to me. We, uh… we helped each other. Trusted each other.” He adds, a bit timidly: “I… I’ve missed you.”

Still, Daisy says nothing. Jon is about to start rambling again – about what, he doesn’t know; he just needs to fill the awkward silence somehow – but Daisy speaks first.

“But – but what about before all that? Why did you come down here the first time around?”

“I was… in a bad place,” Jon admits. “Tim was dead, Sasha was dead, Melanie hated me, Basira saw me as a monster, Georgie wanted nothing to do with me, and Martin was… gone. I had no one, I wasn’t human anymore, I was afraid and ashamed and guilty and tired, and I… I was starting to doubt my decision to live. Not wanting to die had started to feel selfish, and I – I needed some way to justify living, some way to make myself useful.

“When we found out that you were alive, I – I just didn’t want to lose anyone else. If there was a chance of bringing you home, I had to try. And… there was nothing to lose. If I got stuck down here, it – it would be no great loss. The world would have even been safer for it – moreso than I even imagined at the time. I… honestly didn’t think that anyone would care if I didn’t come back.”

“That’s messed up,” Daisy says, a hint of wry amusement in her voice.

“Yeah,” Jon says with a self-deprecating laugh. “That’s what you said last time. Like I said, I was in a bad place. But – but in the end, we got out. I know I can get us out of here again. I promised Basira I would bring you home, and I – I – I will. I just… I need some time to find the way.”

“No pressure,” she deadpans.

Jon makes a strangled, exasperated noise in his throat.

“Seriously?”

If he could gesture at the tons of dirt pressing down on them, he would – but he can’t, because of the tons of dirt pressing down on them.

“Just trying to lighten the mood,” Daisy says, just the slightest hint of a self-satisfied smirk in her voice. Jon feels one corner of his mouth quirk in spite of himself.

God, he really had missed her.

The concept of time has no meaning within the Buried. Without any real way to observe or calculate its passing, things tend to feel stagnant. One long note of boredom and desperation and restriction. If not for the unpredictable tides of the soil around them, it might even feel as if time is at a standstill. In a way, it is: there is only one time here, and it is forever – or until the End of everything, at least. To make things worse, true sleep is impossible in the Buried. Sometimes, though, there is a lull in the movements of the earth, and within that liminal space, the mind may be allowed to drift.

Jon isn’t sure how long he’s been drifting when Daisy tugs on his hand.

“Jon.”

“Hm?”

“You’re muttering again.”

“Oh.” Jon clears his throat when he realizes how groggy he sounds. “Was I?”

“Care to share?”

“I’m just – I keep thinking about how Basira escaped the Unknowing,” he says, rousing himself. Out of habit, he tries to stretch, only to remember that he can barely move at all – which, of course, only intensifies the urge to fidget.

“Oh?” Daisy shakes both his hands in hers, prompting him to continue. Judging by the waver in her voice, the silence must be getting to her again. “How – how’s that?”

“She… thought her way out. Like a – an ‘I think therefore I am’ thought experiment.” Jon smiles to himself and shakes his head slightly. “She put Descartes to shame.”

“Not even a fair comparison,” Daisy scoffs.

“Agreed.”

“Were you thinking of trying that here?”

“I… don’t think it would work.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re not that level-headed.”

“That’s –” Jon’s indignation fizzles out just as quickly as it emerged. “That’s… okay, yes, that’s fair.”

Daisy snickers; Jon can’t help a small grin in return.

“But what I was actually trying to say is that it was a strategy uniquely tailored to the Stranger. The Unknowing was all about – unreality, about not being able to trust your senses, even your own identity. Basira figured out that the best way to anchor herself in that situation was to boil her entire reality down to simple logical premises: She existed. She existed in a place and time. The place was dangerous at that time, so she had to not exist in that place at that time. Places have ends, and if she kept moving, she could reach a different place.”

“Huh.”

“Straightforward. Elegant, even.”

“It’s Basira,” Daisy says, unmistakable fondness creeping into her tone. Jon snorts. “Shut up, Sims. You were saying?”

“The Buried doesn’t operate in the same way. Basira reasoned her way out of the Stranger’s domain by denying unreality. If we tried to do the same thing, we’d just be denying… well, reality. The earth, the pressure, the – the ‘too close I cannot breathe,’ it’s all real.”

“Good pep talk.”

“Sorry, that’s not what I –” Jon sighs. “I didn’t mean to sound… morose. I was just thinking about different kinds of anchors. Basira managed to center herself and use her own mind as an anchor, and I – I find that impressive, is all.”

“That’s one way to describe her,” Daisy says. “She’s… always been like that. Practical, reliable… centered.”

Wait, Jon thinks to himself, brow furrowed. What if…

“Daisy, tell me about Basira.”

“What?”

“I – she’s your anchor, right? And – and you’re hers.”

“I don’t know about –”

“She called you solid, a – a – a fixed point,” Jon says excitedly. “When you’re there, things make sense to her. You ground her. And now, without you, she’s… she has trouble knowing where she stands. She has no backup, no one to orient her. What she did during the Unknowing – it was impressive, but it isn’t sustainable over a long period of time. You can only go it alone for so long before you lose your bearings. She – she needs you. And you need her. Right?”

“She’s the fixed point,” Daisy murmurs, as if that explains everything – and maybe it does.

“Exactly, s-so – tell me about Basira. From your perspective.”

“Why?”

“Because this is the Buried, where we’re at the center and everything is weighing down on us,” Jon says, mind racing five steps ahead of him. “The dirt, the pressure, it’s all real, but – but the Fears are also about state of mind.”

Jon can feel his heart rate pick up, the way it does whenever he’s talking his way through a puzzle. If he could, he would be pacing right now, burning off that restless energy. Instead, he finds himself tapping his fingers rapidly against Daisy’s hands. She doesn’t stop him, though.

“I’m not saying that we can solve this with ‘mind over matter’ thinking, but it might – help, if we can both focus on an anchor – a different center point, that is, one outside of this place. Move from this center to that center. There’s a better chance of figuring out which way is up if we’re both feeling for the way out. We can orient each other. If we both feel a tug from the same direction, we know we’re going the right way.”

“I can’t feel anything, though,” Daisy says. “Or – I can, but it’s – it’s everywhere, pushing in one direction – pushing down –”

Jon grips her hands more tightly when he hears her breathing start to grow ragged.

“That’s why you need to tell me about Basira – until you do feel a pull. I could be way off, but it’s worth a try. And – and if nothing else, it might help clear my mind, so I can give finding the way out another shot.”

“A statement, then?” Daisy asks sardonically. “Recharge your battery?”

“I wish,” Jon says with a grim smile. “The Eye only likes horror stories. If any story would sate my appetite, I could just watch biopics any time I was feeling a bit peaky. Hell, imagine if a fictional story was enough. An episode of the Archers would be like an afternoon snack.”

“You like the Archers?” He doesn’t have to see her to know that her eyebrows are raised as high as they’ll go.

“You know, I said the exact same thing to you once. And no, I don’t, but you do, and you used to make me listen with you. We didn’t even make a dent in the back catalogue, but I’m an Avatar of terrible knowledge and the Beholding loves spoilers, so guess who Knows every episode now?” Daisy barks a laugh at that. “There are over nineteen thousand episodes, Daisy!”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

“Anyway,” Jon says, squeezing both of her hands in lieu of nudging her shoulder, “a story just… helps take me out of my own head sometimes. Always has. You’re humoring me, not the Eye. Besides, do you have anything better to do?”

“S’pose not.”

“I mean – you don’t have to, of course, if you’re uncomfortable. I don’t want to pressure you –” Jon cringes. “Bad choice of words. I –”

“Stop babbling, Sims.” He knows that tone of voice, knows that she’s rolling her eyes right now. “We only have so long before the walls close in again –”

Daisy cuts herself off with a strangled noise, which she tries to cover by clearing her throat. She was likely trying to lighten the mood again, but the inevitability of the Buried’s ebb and flow is still too real, too close.

“Do you, uh… do you want to hear a story or not?”

“Please.”

“Back again?”

Martin jolts at the sound of Georgie’s voice. He tosses a brief glare over his shoulder at her where she stands just outside the doorway to the office, a safe distance from the Coffin. Martin discovered quickly that the Coffin’s compulsion has no impact on him, likely muffled by his allegiance to the Lonely. Georgie, though, has no such protection.

Coincidentally, it also means that as long as Martin keeps close to the Coffin, Georgie has to keep her distance from him as well.

“It’s been a week,” Martin says in a quiet monotone, tearing his gaze away from her.

“Yeah.”

“He should have been back by now.”

“Well, he didn’t really give a timeframe –”

“But you said he implied that it wouldn’t take more than a week,” Martin says impatiently. “And knowing Jon, he exaggerated how long it would take, just so no one would worry if he was late.”

“I… yeah, I know,” Georgie sighs. “I was expecting him to be back by now, too.”

Martin nods in a clear ‘I told you so’ gesture – then immediately feels childish. Why is he acting vindicated by her admission?

“Does Peter know you’ve been coming down here?”

“Don’t care.”

“Oh?” Georgie says, her voice suspiciously bland – and only then does Martin register the significance of what he just said.

“I just meant – it’s –” Martin huffs. “It’s none of your business.”

“Of course.” Martin can hear the smirk in her tone.

“Why are you here?” he snaps, swiveling to look at her again.

“Same reason you are, I expect.”

Martin says nothing to that, simply turns his back on her. For a few minutes, the only sound is the low, indistinct chatter of the tape recorders, still spooling out their horror stories on a loop.

“Have you tried calling to him?” Georgie asks. Martin continues to ignore her, teeth clenched until they ache. “It could be worth a shot. He left all those tapes running – don’t know if he can hear them exactly, but they’re meant to call to him.”

Go away, Martin thinks, his hands curling into fists on his knees.

“Your voice might be better than a recording.”

Why is she so persistent?

“Just – think about it, okay?”

When Martin doesn’t respond, Georgie sighs, knocks twice on the door frame, and takes her leave. He doesn’t look back around until the sound of her footsteps fade away.

“Sure, just leave the door wide open,” he grumbles irritably, rising to his feet to remedy the issue.

He pulls the office door shut with more force than intended, practically slamming it. The lone tape recorder on Jon’s desk, previously standing on end, topples over with a light clatter. Martin exhales heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to suppress the static buzz of nervous energy simmering inside him.

“But we need you, Jon,” the tape recorder grinds out. “Jon, please, just – please.”

“Fuck,” Martin says, voice thick and strained. He takes several deep breaths – in through his nose, out through his mouth – trying to clear his thoughts. Eventually, his shoulders slump and he sighs. “Fine. You win.”

He settles himself on the floor in front of the Coffin again, closer this time.

“Jon,” he says, then falters, unsure of what to say. “I –” He lets out an agitated breath, then follows it up with a bitter chuckle. “This is stupid. You probably can’t even hear this, can you?”

There is an uncomfortable, stinging pressure in his eyes and he reflexively tries to swallow back the tears, only to realize how dry his mouth has become. He rubs his eyes instead, digging the heels of his palms into the sockets and applying pressure.

“I – if you – if you can hear me, I… I already lost you once. I can’t do this all over again, I just – I can’t. I’m – everyone is waiting for you, and I still…” Martin sniffles and clears his throat. “Just – come home, Jon. Please.”

“I think I’d forgotten what it was like to just be… present in the moment? A – a quiet moment, anyway.” Daisy sighs. “On a hunt, you always have to think a few steps ahead, anticipate the prey’s movements so you can get out in front of it. Even when you’re present-thinking, like during a fight, it’s – it’s instinct and reflex, quick movements and jagged edges. You can never just… be.”

“I think I understand,” Jon says. “Not the Hunt aspect, but – but the intolerance of stillness.”

“But in that moment – laying back in the grass, Basira going on about the stars – I was… I was just me. I was focused on her – she gets so excited, so animated whenever she has a chance to talk about something new she’s learned, and I – I let her go on for” – Daisy laughs – “going on forty minutes, probably, about – about the Wow! signal before she looked over and saw me staring. Got all embarrassed that I let her talk so long.”

Jon can feel himself grinning.

“In her defense, the Wow! signal is a fascinating topic.”

“I thought so,” Daisy says warmly. “I mean, I must’ve, right? The whole time she was talking, I never felt the blood calling to me. Afterwards, it felt wrong, somehow – unnatural – that I’d been ignoring it. Not even resisting it, just – tuning it out altogether. I didn’t notice until then how loud it was – like for my whole life there had been teeth at my throat and I just never noticed until that moment.” She pauses. “It’s strange, but I – I think I liked it. The quiet.”

“I don’t think it’s strange at all,” Jon says softly. “I think –”

Suddenly, there’s a distinct wrenching sensation within him – like having a hook yank upwards, painless but abrupt enough to make his breath catch in his throat.

“Jon?” Daisy says warily. “What’s wrong?”

There’s something there.

“Do – do you feel that?”

“No? What – what is it?”

“It’s – wait, just let me…”

Jon concentrates, holding his breath as he waits, and –

There. Another pull, like a fish tugging at a line. And another, gentler but just as insistent.

“Daisy, I –” Jon lets out a breathless little laugh. “I think I know the way. C-come on, follow me.”

End Notes:

tbh I was tempted to split this into two chapters but it felt like it wanted to be all one thing, and also I didn't want to end on an angsty cliffhanger because:

I know I was managing a loose every-7-to-10-days-ish update schedule for awhile there, but it miiiight start looking more like an every-two-weeks schedule going forward. I've been on split shifts at work but we're supposedly going back full time soon, so that might effect how much writing time I have each day. Just wanted to give a heads up in case it takes longer than usual before the next chapter is ready.

There are several snippets of dialogue borrowed/reworked from Jon & Daisy's conversation in the Buried in MAG 132 - they're scattered throughout the chapter. (The "This is forever deep below creation..." and "One thing I've learned..." internal dialogue bits are from 132 also.) Probably goes without saying, but Martin's Lonely statement is from MAG 170 and there's also a previously cited usage of his dialogue from the S4 trailer. The Tim quote is from MAG 117. "The blanket never did anything" (still one of the creepiest lines in the podcast i s2g) is from MAG 086.

#tma #tma fic #the magnus archives #tma spoilers #long post

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