#the way you can always sense something rolling and slithering and pulsing underneath his skin that's just waiting to burst out

[sinkix]

《Haikyuu! Mafia Boys [AU] x Fem!Reader》

Warning: Contains NSFW & 18+ content 

Characters: Kuroo, Iwaizumi & Akaashi.

Hope you enjoy, if this is something you guys would like to see more of then let me know! 

Song: Beast - Mia Martina

The drag of a cigarette before squishing it under the sole of his shoe. That’s Kuroo for you, savouring the pleasure in things before discarding them once the satisfaction sizzles out. What makes you so different, then? Well, I’ll tell you, you keep him on his toes like no one has before. He first met you while gazing longingly at you from across the club, loosening his tie and spreading his lips into a seductive grin no one could resist. Maybe he should take you back to his hotel? He pondered in his mind how it would feel to have his head between your legs, fingers furling around his unruly locks as he drags his tongue across your slit till your toes curl and thighs spasm. The thought pleased him, if only for a night. Strolling up to your seat at the bar like a predator hunting its prey, his gold clad fingers twinkled under the warm lights of the bar, eyes glinting with an irresistible mischief. “How are you doing tonight, sweetheart?~” The low, rumbled purring rolling off his tongue all too easily as if he had tangoed with it many times before. Quick steps back and forth, slithering toward you with temptation no woman could resist, yet here you were rolling your eyes at his advances and stepping on his toes in rejection. Oh? Trying his upmost to serenade you, his teeth grit in growing impatience at your cold dismissal, he could tell all attempts were futile. And that’s when you turned to face him, heart stopping and head spinning at the sight of you.  Those bright, ‘come to bed’ irises staring back at him with a strong sense of defiance. “Listen buddy, I’m not interested. You seem experienced in this so why not sniff up someone else’s leg tonight? You won’t be getting it from me.” Twirling the head of his own pistol and aiming it toward his temple, you refused to be in range of deadly fire that could shatter anyone’s heart. You made it known you were the one in control, and it projected loud and clear. Stumped with total loss for words, his brows raise with a hammering pulse against his chest. What’s this? A rush. Clearing his throat and deciding to take up your little challenge, he persisted. How could you turn him down so easily? No woman had ever refused him before. Single, married, rich, poor. None of it mattered once his sights were set, he knew anyone would give in to his advances. Not you though, and that’s what excited him. He had to work for what he wanted. After an hour of conversing with you, albeit pretty one sided, you sigh in defeat and raise from the bar, slipping him a piece of paper and walking away, glancing over your shoulder with an indecipherable expression. “Look, I gotta go, but if you’re that interested in entertaining me, give me a call. You’re not all too bad.” Lulled by the soothing sway of your voice, he chuckles with bitter perversity. If only you knew how many counts of murder and extortion he had strapped under his belt and carved to his name.  He sat there and watched as you walk away, body melding with the music and hips squeezing the satin dress stained a deep crimson in the best ways possible, oozing a seduction rivalling his own. Kuroo made an internal vow then and there, he would chase you to the ends of the earth until he could call you “mine.” And so he did. Running tirelessly after your back, extending a hand until you slowed, if only a little, allowing him to grasp hold of what he so desperately longed for. No one could compare to you, and he strongly believed no one ever could. You had this black-haired bad boy mafioso wrapped around your finger like a thread,  twirling it effortlessly and dragging the heel of your stiletto under his chin, toying him with the feeling of your dripping core wrapped tightly around his member, sliding your hips down like a professional working the pole. His tattooed hands hovering over your breasts and groping them with an insatiable hunger that only you could fulfil.    And that’s when he knew, He’d never be satisfied with anyone else.

Song: Dog Days - Richard Freeman

The soft sound of jazz music floods the bar, taking an elongated sip of the embered whiskey and curbing the craving of a spiced kick to the throat. Iwaizumi Hajime, a stern and business oriented man who pays no mind to anything that doesn’t reward with monetary gain. He eyes the waitress carefully, pupils crawling over her tightly-clothed backside wrapped in black apron accented with blue ribbon.  Humming to himself, this captures the attention of the mysterious and enchanting woman. You. “We have a karaoke night on Thursdays, maybe you should sign up, you have a quite a nice voice.” Smirking impishly with a chuckle, you eye him with equal intensity.  “You know, it’s a little rude to stare at someone without reason, do you need another drink orrrr...?” Trailing off with soft seduction, it’s corrupting to the ears and Iwaizumi can feel his groin shift uncomfortably in his seat. Good looking, sarcastic, a little bratty and more than capable of conjuring a clever quip or two to decline his patience.  Huh, kinda sounds like someone he knows. If it’s some playful mental sparring you want, then it’s what you’ll get. “Mmm, I wouldn’t mind another drink, though are you sure it’s not against staff policy to be so troublesome toward clients?” His voice is gravelly and rough, the husk reverberating throughout the room devoid of people, washing over you like a tidal wave- no, tsunami. It leaves your knees trembling from below the bars island. “Well there’s no one here to scold me, is there?” This time it’s Iwaizumi’s turn to chuckle, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that darling.” His veiny hand curls around the empty glass, sliding it in your direction as you eye his exposed forearms, revealed by the rolled up sleeves of his white button-up shirt. The top two buttons are left carelessly undone, giving him a rugged quality you couldn’t help but appreciate. Drinking in the sight of him with Iwaizumi doing the same, you spot a beautiful tattoo peaking from the top of his shirt and decorating his chest. “That a beautiful tattoo.” You remark as you take the glass from his hands, shivering from the gentle way your fingers brush. Iwaizumi jolts slightly, his brow furrowing in what seems like... restraint? “It is, what a shame you can’t see the rest underneath.” He responds gruffly, his mouth quirking into a grin as you place a sprig of lemon around the rim of the glass. “Mmm, it is.” You counter, deciding to harness the sexual tension brewing in the air and deem it your personal puppet, pulling the strings until he caves, breaking the silence once again.  “Tell me, what’s your name?” “Iwaizumi, Iwaizumi Hajime.” “What a lovely name... Hajime.” you purr, resting your elbows on the counter and pushing your chest forward, locks of hair dancing in your vision that you drag between your fingers and tuck behind your ear.  Normally, somebody addressing him on a first name basis so informally would leave him seething, but from you it sounds like heaven, and he wants more. Needs more. “Fuck this.” He mutters. At wits end and grabbing the front of your apron, he pulls you across the counter, lips colliding with yours hungrily as his hands find their way to your neck, squeezing just enough to make your eyes water. You break away with a gasp, a string of saliva connecting your mouth and tempting you with more.  “Someone’s eager, aren’t they? What if someone walks in?” You hush, teeth grazing across your lower lip while propping yourself on the top of the island, skirt hiking up your exposed thighs and pricking at the cool of the air con. “Let them, they’ll see how much of a little whore you are.” “Ah ah ahh, that’s not very nice is it baby?” you tut, quirking a brow and sliding your legs closed as if to deny him access. “Don’t be a brat with me, I’ll have you begging soon enough.” His hands roam over the soft skin of your legs before finding their way to your core. Grinding his fingers against your lace-clad slit, he hums in satisfaction. “Well someone’s soaked, is that all for me princess?” You whimper in response, struggling to stabilise your breathing and retain your composure. A needy moan escaping your lips before he silences you with his own once again, fist balling against his shirt with increasing desperation as the squelching sound of his fingers pumping into you begin to sound through the air. The thought of you begging for someone had always been ludicrous, but here you were, being finger-fucked recklessly on the counter with the risk of your manager imposing at any second.  It doesn’t take long before you realise, He wasn’t wrong.

Song: Havana - Camilla Cabello

Inky 8-piece hat, polished off with red tie looped through a black tuxedo, Akaashi Keji was made of the finer things in life. All thanks to his profession that was less than holy. Standing at the entrance to an alleyway, you can’t help but turn your head as you walk past, carrying the grocery bags holding tonight’s meal and admiring his commanding aura. The sound of gunshots knocks you out of your reverie as you’re grabbed harshly by the shoulders and slammed against the cold walls of the backstreet, encased by his body which was looming over you protectively.  The steely gaze of gun-metal blue pierces into your own, enraptured by this mans eyes you almost forget to breathe, heart pounding erratically in your chest when it hits you. Had he just saved your life? You stand there for a moment until the gunfire ceases, the sound of sirens blaring in the distance.  Grabbing hold of your wrist, he bolts down the concrete pathway with you in tow, thudding leather shoes echoing off the walls as he simply tsk’s, as if running from the police was no more than a menial chore. Hastily attempting to match his pace, you can’t help but let your mind wander and wonder what the hell you’d just gotten yourself into. Once he seems satisfied with the distance put between you and the scene, you come to a halt. Panting and on the brink of keeling over, you take a moment and stare in awe at the building before you. A classy, 5-star hotel polished from head to toe. “You really need to work on your stamina.” he quips, eyeing you up with an unreadable expression. “Shut up. What are you, my mom?”  “Come, now that you’re a witness they’ll be after you too.” “Wh-huh?! You can’t just-” Before your brain can process the speed of events, he’s pulling you behind him once again, you sigh in frustration at how you’re allowing this man lug you around like a suitcase. You’ll allow it just this once, being your saviour and all. He saunters up to the desk, and the woman working behind visibly flushes. “Your name, sir?”  “Akaashi Keiji.” While he checks in, you take in your surroundings.  A gleaming chandelier that probably costs more than your entire apartment, sparkling water fountains streaming with water that pools into a crystal encrusted surface, and sleek statues crafted like something out of the renaissance. It was all too much, you’d never been in such a wealthy environment before.                  The woman slips the keycard over the counter, eyeing him up and down. She clocks your presence and narrows in annoyance. You can’t help but shake your head at the woman’s actions, have she no shame? “Thank you.” Is all he says before hauling you behind him once again. “I can follow you by myself you know.” You huff in frustration. Turning his head, he watches as you pout like a petulant child and can’t help but chuckle. “What? what’s so funny?” You bark, folding your arms as he presses the button to the elevator. Before you can refuse, you’re pressed against the back wall and hoisted up by his knee. You moan involuntarily as the jolt of the elevator grinds you against his leg. “Akaashi what are you-” “Shit. Say my name, say Keji.”  “you- HUH?”  “Think of it as payment for saving your life.” He murmurs, lips ghosting against the skin of your neck, your hands find their way to his tie and yank him forward indigently. How long had it been since you’d gotten laid anyway? You couldn’t remember, and this man wasn’t helping by abusing all the right places tenderly with his teeth. Butterflies swirl in your stomach at the close contact, cheeks firing up and fuelled by the burning chemistry your bodies shared. “Shouldn’t saving someone from that situation be human decency?” you squeak, melting beneath the feel of his large palms slipping under your skirt and scathing the skin of your hips. “No, normally I wouldn’t bother, too much effort” He groans between kisses, almost lazily at the thought of it. “I’m not quite sure why I felt compelled to help, and now I’m regretting it because of your ungrateful ass.” He smirks, eyes darting with a sense of playfulness you hand’t quite expected. “Oh how charitable of you” you spat. “Mmmm...” he groans, so dangerously close to your ear that your legs buckle without protest. You stare shamefully at the floor. “Weak at the knees for me are we, baby?” He coos, rubbing the ridges of his thigh roughly against your clit. “Get used to it. Now you’ve been seen with me, you’ll be hunted until they inevitably kill you. Unless..” He trails off, the ding of the elevator snapping you out of your daze. Adjusting himself and sweeping you into his arms effortlessly, he stares at you with his irresistible gaze.                                             “You stay with me.”                                                                                                        Swept away in the unfortunate world of crime with no means of escape, you’ll be in for the ride of your life. Stuck by his side with no room for objections, he’ll lovingly train you to the bone till you’re as lethal as him. Though one day, you’ll meet a gruesome death. Intertwining your fingers with his as the name ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ is revived through the streets. Meeting your fateful end and knocking on deaths door, you share one last ghosting kiss, reminiscent to the first. Binding the two of you with an internal promise to be inseparable even in the afterlife. And you can’t help but smile as one thought crosses your mind. It was worth it.

[di-kut]

Baar Bal Runi: Chapter Fourteen

Series Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive!Reader

Words: A WHOOPING 7.5K

Summary: (Body Swap AU) You finally meet with the Old Ones, and they shed light on why you are stuck in the body of the Mandalorian. The meeting is cut short by an intruder. 

Rating: M (Violence) 

A/N: Oh boy. Okay. Oh god. Here it is fellas. I am a wreck. An absolute wreck. But it is done and we are about to get craaaaaazzzyyyyy. I feel like getting to this point has been just me slowly losing my mind. Do I have any sense of perspective anymore? No! I do not! Thank you as always to you lovely, beautiful, amazingly supportive people. Y’all really give me the energy and the motivation to get anything done. 

The abandoned space port seems to hang behind you, grey and suspended in darkness, swallowed by the mouth of the tunnel. The great pillars tower into the darkness, shifting and colossal in the light of the storm beyond. The floor ripples like a pulse and in the warping of the water the puddle becomes a river. In its reflection you see the shape of the clouds above warm, swirl and mass, and go still again. Become a flat mirror of the distant, misty ceiling above. Behind you the echo of Din’s footsteps begins to sound like something else, something stuttered and slow and creeping. You turn and find his back disappearing into the dimness ahead. You jog to catch him before he vanishes around the next corner. Feel the heaviness of the cape hitting at the back of your legs as you do, like something following you. You think of the shadow. Rest your hand over the blaster at your hip and check over your shoulder. Think you see a flash of light glint, but you turn the corner after Din and there is only darkness and the stream of your torches.

The tunnel is dark, turns in sharp corners and winds, a maze. Din has the radar in his palm, follows the blipping cluster of dots through the winding space. The metallic clang of your footsteps begins to scuff, roll, and you point your torch at the ground. A fine layer of dirt and small rocks covering the floor like carpet. Just ahead of you the structure of metal ends and gives way to burrowed dirt.

The tunnel begins to close all around you, a great mouth, swallowing you into the darkness. You see Din move, soft and silent ahead of you, and the whisper of the hovering crib in the darkness. Shifting in the torchlight. The walls around you are rippled with the marks of tools, of digging. Rough and uneven and dark. And even in the dim you can see the earth around you has changed, not caked and dry and brown anymore, but a rich, dark red. Slabs of clay, slick and molten. The ceiling is low enough that if you were to reach up you would catch the Mandalorian’s glove along the crevices in the ceiling. . You swallow hard and keep your hand close to your blaster, something dark and unsettling pressing along your lungs, along your heart. Makes your mouth taste bitter. You remember suddenly how big the Barabel on Garel was, a full head and shoulders over you even in Din’s body, even in his boots and helmet. How close he had come to pulling the helmet away from you, from exposing Din’s face. The crib hovers ahead. The darkness gets so complete you feel it is choking you, creeping into the space around your eyes and into your mouth and nose and ears, leaves a ringing behind.

And then you see a dim glow of orange ahead.

The caves begin to open, and the darkness lifts, and you see the movement of shadows flicker against the walls like ripples across the puddles in the abandoned space port. And you come around a corner suddenly and there is a massive shadow looming over Din, head ducked against brushing the dirt ceiling. Din’s torch bounces off its massive shoulders, its yellow glinting eyes and hissing tongue clear in the dim. You jerk backwards, pull your blaster from your holster, reach a hand out to protect the child, sealed in his crib. Din has done the same, has spread his body between the Barabel and the crib, his blaster pointed between the Barabels eyes.

“Strangers,” the huge Barabel hisses, its tongue warping the shape of the ‘s’ into something slithered and harsh. “What do the strangers want?”

You try to push forward, Din so small against the huge bulk of the Barabel, but you hear the click of a blaster, and you see the Barabel raise its arm towards you. You stop moving, keep your blaster aimed at the alien’s chest. Din lifts his arm slowly and waves his hand back towards you. A silent call to step back. So you do.

“We’re looking for information,” Din says clearly, calmly.

The Barabel swings its massive head back to Din. Blinks reptilian eyes, two skins closing over the yellow pupils. “Strangers looking for information?”

“We met one of your brothers, on Garel. He told us to look for the Old Ones.”

The Barabel makes a noise like a bark.  “You have a Mandalorian.”

You see Din turn from the corner of your eye to look at you, but you stay still, shoulders back and tall as you can manage to feel before the huge alien. Stare straight into its eyes. Its tongue slithers out between pointed teeth, makes a soft hiss. You flex your hand around the butt of your blaster, the leather creaking around your fingers.

“Mandalorians are gone now,” The Barabel says. Din stiffens, flinches towards his blaster. You feel the ripple of fury in the air, sudden and all encompassing. Feel it snake down your spine and take hold. Struggle to separate yourself from the strength of it. You see Din starting to move, not sure if you recognise the movement or feel it hidden in Din’s warped anger, settling into your bones, into your blood. But before he can move, before he can pull his blaster from its holster, the Barabel nods slowly. “Just like the Barabels.”

There’s a tense moment, where the air sparks and fizzles, heats the small space of the tunnel. The Barabel blinks again, tilts its head. “We used to be great warriors too. But now we hide under the ground. Come.”

You count the seconds where everything feels like it is suspended in the air around you. Where Din’s anger lingers through your blood and bones. And then it fades, leaving you cold. And Din eases, steps back, and you slowly lower your blaster. He looks back to catch your eyes and you share something between you. Another moment. And the Barabel waves for you to follow. Din stares at you still, his eyes tracing the shape of the helmet, and finally finding your eyes beneath. You feel the weight of his stare, something familiar. And he nods, leans towards you.

“There’s another behind as well.”

You turn slowly to look, twist the helmet to see over your shoulder. But there is only the darkness of the cave. You want to ask Din how he knows, how he can see, but the Barabel ahead of you begins to turn a corner and you must follow. Further into the tunnels, into the wavering orange light.

It does not take long before the tunnels begin to widen, and grow taller. Opens abruptly into a cavern, the ceiling feeling like it is plummeting away from you through thick soil and stone. There are pillars, warped and twisting through the air like plumes of smoke, holding up the stone above you. There are doors tunnelled into the walls around you and half tents pitched through the space, a ramshackle town deep in the ground. And everywhere – Barabels. Huge scaly bodies pushing and shoving and roaming through the cave, shades of green and brown and some almost yellow. Their scaled skin like armour in the dim firelight colouring the world beneath the planet’s surface. There must be hundreds of them. Behind you another Barabel steps from the darkness of the cave, holding a glinting spear in the light of the cavern. You watch as it steps silently to the side.

The Barabel who leads you turns. “This is all that is left of us.”

It looks directly into your visor. Blinks sideways again. And you nod slowly, just slightly. The Barabel nods back. And then it turns and begins to push through the crowd. Behind you, you see two more slip into the tunnel you leave behind, both holding blasters.

The crowd parts to let you through, huge heads turning to watch the procession. Din stays ahead, and you behind, the child’s crib hovering between you. The wind through the underground settlement is slow and painful, a thousand yellow eyes watching from the darkness. But the feeling of unease which had gripped you in the tunnel, the memories of the green planet, they have faded. And your nerves are not from a phantom of a threat, not settling inside you. Just the regular singing of your blood and pounding of your heart in your ears, surrounded by unfamiliar lifeforms. But none of them move to stop you, and when you pass, they turn again to what they were doing. The crowd closing in behind you in a wave of swishing tails and snapping teeth.

The Old Ones live at the back of the cave, where the floor slopes up and away and is carved into deep steps along the hard earth. The crowd is thinner here, and the Old Ones sit on woven mats along the ground, underneath sparsely hung cloth. Their tails swish lazily, swatting and beating against the ground. The Barabel who leads you holds out a clawed hand at the bottom of the stairs, turns its great head to make sure you stop. Under the ground and deep into the earth there is less water, and the dirt beneath your feet is a crunch of gravel and kick of dry dust. Coating your boots and pants in a fine layer of orange. Din is silent and dusty at your side, his face set firm and tense. His hand still at his blaster. You keep yours at your hip as well. Watch as the Barabel before you turns back to the rising hill of platforms before you and lets out a sharp holler. A stuttering sound, like something moving deep in the back of its throat. Makes its thin tongue slit between its teeth and into the air.

The echo around the walls cuts through the air and turns the chatter to silence.

At the front of the hill one of the Barabels lifts its clawed hand. It is a darker colour than the Barabel you saw on Garel, than the one which leads you now, and its front a pale almost-yellow. The scales along it skin are dense and thick and scored with scars like tallies. The yellow of its eyes is pale, milky almost. And when it clambers to stand it moves slow and rocking. The Barabel before you waits until the elder sways to its feet and lets out a long, loud hiss.

Their speech is harsh, hissing and almost barks of sound. Clashing of teeth against teeth. The Barabels all around you have stopped to listen. Stare at the elder, and at the Barabel before you who speaks, and at you. You feel the heaviness of their stares along your back, glancing off the helmet. You try not to move, not to even flex your hand over the butt of your blaster. You try to imagine how Din looks in his armour – easy and terrifying. Moves like it is a part of him. You sit back into your hip, the way you know he does, roll your shoulders back. You see Din look over at you, see him frown slightly. You don’t turn your head to see him but you feel the shift of everyone in the room when you ease your shoulders back. See the Barabels around you stand a little straighter.

The Barabel in front of you hisses loudly, and steps to the side. The older Barabel on the step looks down at you, eyes flickering from the crib to Din to you. It’s tongue snaps against its lips. “Speak now. What do you want to know?”

Din steps forward. “Our clan is looking for information. We have a foundling, and we want to find his people.”

“Little clan,” the elder says. Eyes the crib. “What foundling?”

You reach for the crib without thinking, and at your flinch the Barabel who led you hisses. Din holds his hands out, palms forward, and you mirror him. Show you have no blaster. Slowly the Barabels relax again and the elder on the hill is still watching, and waiting. Din turns to look at you, tilts his head in question, and you realising he is waiting for you to decide. That he is asking whether you agree it is safe. The trust sends a wash of warmth down your spine, over your fingertips. You hold Din’s eyes. And then you step away from the closed crib.

The sigh of the metal opening is loud in the silent cavern. All around you Barabels shift and jostle to see inside. Din steps to the side so that the elder can see the child clearly. The child’s ears twitch, his huge eyes blinking at the sudden light. The elder on the hill narrows its pale yellow eyes, tale swishing along the dusty ground behind it. Kicks up clouds of pale red into the air. Slowly it steps down from its perch and walks forward, leans heavily to one side, the leg not favoured covered with gashes so deep they must have exposed the muscle beneath when they were cut. You shudder to think of a creature which had claws sharp enough to penetrate the thick hide of the Barabel before you. The elder hobbles closer, closer, until it stops before your small group. Stares down at the tiny child in his crib and then to Din, and finally to you.

“A Mandalorian.”

Your eyes slide sideways, to Din. And then back to the elder. Slowly nod.

“Where did you find it?” The elder pokes a finger towards the child, who coos loudly and tried to grab at the claw. The Barabel barks, maybe a laugh, and moves his huge hand away. “Brave foundling.”

“He was taken.” Din says. “The Empire.”

The elder barks again, and says something in Barab. Around you the aliens all murmur something and the elder nods at Din. “A human, a Mandalorian and a little foundling. We do not have visitors like this.”

“We met a Barabel, on Garel. He told us to look for the Old Ones.”

“Why did the Barabel tell you this?”

Din hesitates, only slightly, but you feel it. A slight peak, something like nerves. Sets your teeth on edge. And then he sighs.

“We’re looking for Jedi.” Din’s words a quiet, but in the silence of the cave they carry. And as they reach the crowd gathered around you they send a ripple back through it, a wave of murmuring and beating of tails and hissing through teeth. “Can you help us?”

The crowd is restless and shifting. Pushing at each other. The elder’s eyes blink, the skin folding sideways over its eyes. And then it nods its great head. “Come.”

The climb is slow, winding through the old Barabels lounging on the steps of the cave. They turn their heads as you pass. All of them darker, dirtier colours of mottled greens and brown, hides covered in scores of blaster fire or terrible claw marks. Chunks of flesh and scales missing. Limbs and eyes missing. Great warriors, the Barabel who led you from the tunnel had said. The hill of writhing limbs rolls to watch you pass, the scars of their people dug deep into their skin. And at the bottom of the hill the younger Barabels begin to disperse, to slip back into the rhythm of their lives. The call of barking and hissing of their language filling the cavern again. The ringing of tools, and heavy beating footfalls against the clay. You continue to climb behind the elder, up and up and up the stairs.

The top of the hill is flattened into a plateau, covered over with a roughly woven cloth like a tent. The Barabels twitch their tails as you climb up, dark hides almost black in patches on their skin. Patches of deep and old scars as well. The elder stops before them with a loud hiss and steps to the side. Points to an empty spot on the woven mat. You move there, stand still while the elder begins to speak. Points to the child, to you – in the Beskar – and to Din. The Barabels here look ancient, their heads swaying, their eyes clouded with time.

“The foundling is Jedi.” The Barabel sits in the centre of the group. And even though its eyes do not see you feel when it swings its massive head to you that it can see beneath the armour. Can see beneath your skin.

“We don’t know,” Din says. “But we think he might be.”

“The Jedi can be many things. They do not look one way.”

Din nods slowly. “He can move things with willpower alone. Heal people – he’s healed me.”

The great Barabel in the centre hisses like a sigh and leans back against the mat. You see, when it shifts, that it misses the end of its tail. The stump twisted and twitching at its back. “Barabel used to know the Jedi. But the Jedi are old, like us. They left us a long time ago. We have just our stories.”

“Do you know where we can find them?” Din asks.

The great Barabel in the centre shakes its head, mirrored all around by the others. And the flood of disappointment from Din is so powerful it drowns out your own, tinged with something else. Some spark of something light. And guilt. You glance at him, at the back of your own head, but he is unmoving. And if not for the strength of his emotion you would not have known. The ancient Barabel before you rocks forward slightly.

“You try the planets beyond the stars,” it says. “You ask there. The memory of those planets is old. They hid their temples there. The Jedi and the Bad Ones, you watch out for the Bad Ones. They lure and they trick.”

“The Barabel we met on Garel,” you say. The ancient Barabel turns its milky eyes back to you. “He said there were others. Like the Jedi. He called them The Bad Ones.”

Another hissing sigh, and the Barabels all around you begin to beat their tails against the ground. The child begins to coo in the crib, bouncing inside his blankets. His ears twitching at the noise around you and his tiny hands reaching out for yours. You step close enough to let him grab your pinky finger and tug at the glove, and he quiets. Din is still watching the Barabel in the centre. Quiet and still. The elder behind you lets out a sharp bark.

“The ssssssith,” the ancient one says. It’s tongue darting out between its teeth and twisting the word into something ugly. “They do not heal. They only destroy. Be careful when you look for Jedi. The Sith are there in the shadows. They will lead you away from the Good Ones and into the dark. They set traps. Whole planets and temples which can change your soul.”

Din turns sharply to look to you. And you feel your heart drop into your stomach. Know from the way his skin has turned bloodless, and his eyes – filled with dread – that he is thinking the same as you. You think of the cave, the green planet. The green planet which you had found while looking for the Jedi. Of the things Din had told you of a Mandalorian soul – the one which was now in your body. You see his soul as he stares at you, looking out at you through your own eyes. And you realise you had found the Bad Ones. The Sith. That you are hearing the warning of the Barabel too late. You feel the air around you shimmer and pulse and you look down to find the child staring up at you. Huge, dark eyes blinking. He lets out a coo.

There’s a loud yell from below, and at the bottom of the stairs two Barabels with blasters are barking something in their native tongue. All around you there is a sudden surge as the huge aliens begin to move, begin to yell back. The elder who had led you to the Old Ones turns.

“Another ship has landed in the port.” The elder says.  Din seals the crib and steps in front of it. Your hand finds the butt of your blaster. “You have someone with you?”

“No.” Din has his blaster out now.

“Another stranger in a different tunnel.” The elder waves at you, down the hill in the direction you’d come. “Time to leave. Too many strangers means they find us.”

Din grabs you by your arm and tugs. You step close enough that he can murmur to you quietly. Around you the Old Ones are speaking in Barab, their barking and hissing filling the cavern with strange sounds, echoing from the red clay walls. Only the ancient one in the middle is silent, still watching you. Din leans his head to the helmet.

“Take the kid and get back to the Crest. Get somewhere safe.”

“What about you?”

His hand drops from your elbow to your wrist, slips his fingers between the edge of the glove and the sleeve. And the warmth of his fingers calms you, the familiar action against the calamity of the world around you. Presses his fingertips to your pulse.

“I’ll take a different tunnel and meet you at the Crest.”

“Just come with us.”

“If they’re a threat I don’t want them near you or the kid. I’ll make sure they don’t find you.”

You catch yourself before you call him by his name. “Mando – ”

“Be careful looking for the Jedi.” The ancient one sits forward. It has a scar running along the side of its face, a split from the corner of its sharp mouth up almost grazing its eye and fading into the scales at the back of its head. The scar warps and twists as it speaks. You turn to it, and so does Din. His hand still pressed against the inside of your wrist. His fingers dig in deeper against your skin, until you feel the thundering of your own pulse, of his pulse in his thumb. The Barabel’s tongue appears between its teeth, forked and quick. “Keep the foundling close. The Jedi and the Sith are enemies. They will undo the work of each other.”

And then the elder jostles your arm and begins to move you down the stairs. Faster going downhill even with its limp. At the bottom the Barabel which had found you in the caves is waiting, blaster out. Around you the Barabels are still moving about their day but you see the blasters everywhere, and spears. Long and thick and topped with glinting metal heads. Sharp and deadly. Din follows behind you, the crib between you again. You wind through the crowds and this time no one turns to watch you move. The path is crowded with the giant aliens, barely parting to make room for you to pass. The Barabel leads you to the mouth of the tunnel and you see there are dozens of others, black mouths swallowing the light dotted around the edges of the cavern. Some large, some small enough that even in your body Din would have to duck to fit within them.

“Which tunnel is the stranger in?” Din asks.

The Barabel tilts its head towards him.

“I need to protect my clan. I can lead them away from the caves.”

Slowly the Barabel nods and waves for Din to follow. You reach for him once more before he turns and Din grabs your arm so you hold each other. Think of a million things you could say to him, of the one thing you want to tell him. But the Barabel is already moving away, leading Din to another tunnel further away from you and Din squeezes your arm. And you feel him, suddenly, powerfully. The emotion is too warped for you to identify it. Some mix of fear and trepidation and yet peacefulness. The same feeling you get from looking at him now, even on a strange planet, surrounded by strangers. Like being tethered in a storm. And suddenly you need to tell him. The feeling which has been settling in your skin and singing in your blood. Settling into the space around you in the captain’s quarters on the Crest, the small private world you share with Din. He lets you go.

“I’ll see you at the Crest.”

And then he’s gone.

The path through the tunnel is long and dark. The walls closing in around you, narrower and narrower and shorter and shorter until the helmet brushes against it, until your elbows either side of you hit against the rough walls. Know that if you could see they would come away red, stained with the blood coloured clay. Behind you the crib hovers silently. And it is only the echo of your own footsteps against the earth. Alone. The twists are sudden and sharp and lead you through the ground, feel the weight of the earth on all sides of you pressing down and in. Struggle to breathe in the tiny space. The last of the orange flickering light of the cavern fades into complete blackness and even in the helmet you can see only the fuzzing suggestions of the walls around you. Like floating in static.

And then finally the tunnel begins to clear, and feint grey light filters through the helmet. The shapes of the walls becoming clearer. The shape of your boots as they push into the soft ground beneath your feet. And then the ground is hard, and the walls are straight and solid. The crib still behind you, trailing like a ghost.

And then you are out. Back in the abandoned space port. And even though the ceiling is so distant it is a fog of pale grey you still cannot breathe. Outside the storm is still raging, sheets of rain hammering into the earth, dripping into the mouth of the port. The puddles along the ground make it so the ceiling looks back at you from below as well. A giant rippling mirror. You feel dizzy, feel a spinning in your stomach and behind your eyes. Just like the green planet again, dark and uneasy, climbing up everything inside you and beneath the armour and beneath your skin. Strangling and complete. You turn back for the kid again and he is still there in his sealed crib. And in the distance, another ship. Far enough from the Crest that it is only a dark shape at the edge of the port. Smaller than the Crest, and newer too. The sight of it fills you with dread.

You move, splashing through the shallow ocean to the Crest. The water splattering over the coarseweave and against the bottom of the child’s crib. Feel like you may step wrong and fall into water so deep you will drown. The tips of your fingers shaking. The dark feeling tightening around you. The Crest is further than you think possible, your footsteps slowed by the water beneath you. Soaking through your boots as well. Freezing against your toes. You think you hear shouting but when you turn there is only emptiness, and darkness, and the dripping of the rainwater leaking into the abandoned port.

The ramp takes too long to lower. The sound of the echoing dripping all around you sends your heart racing too fast. Feel it at the back of your throat. You should not be so scared, you think. The ship at the opposite end of the port could be a coincidence. But the feeling which had told you the green planet was bad is pressing in all around you. And you need to hide the child and start the ship. Ready to leave as soon as Din appears. Even as you try to tell yourself you need to calm.

Finally you clamber inside, bring the child with you. And once you are inside you turn, set your blaster down on the nearest crate. The blinking orange light the only thing lighting the hull of the Crest. The crates stacked around the room like the pillars in the space port. Their shadows flashing against the walls with the orange light. In and out of existence they blink, warped and terrible. You open the crib and inside the child is whimpering, his ears pushed back flat against his head. His eyes watery when they find yours. You lift him out and hug him to your chest, murmur words of empty comfort to him. But you can know the child can feel the same uneasiness as you. He shakes in your arms and you press the top of the helmet against his little nubbed forehead. Feel his little hands grip either side of your head, where your temples would be.

“It’s gonna’ be okay, little guy.” You rub a hand down his back. “We’ll be okay.”

And then you hear the splashing. Too close. Someone wadding through the puddles outside. You move quickly, duck to the medical bunk sealed at the back of the hull and punch the pad to unlock it. The door slides open with a loud hiss and you wince. Listen to the sound of the splashing getting closer. Too loud to just be one person. But Din has not called out, and you know it is not him. Feel it sitting heavy in your stomach. You set the child down in the medical bunk and pinch the tip of his ear one more time.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper to him. “Please, ad’ika, please stay here.”

The child starts to cry and you feel your heart splinter. Start to break. But you step back and you seal the door between you. The last thing you see of the child – his desperate, wet eyes. Huge and glistening in the dim. The splashing so close now they are almost at the ramp. See the shadow of the intruder against the rippling water outside. And you have to throw yourself to crouch behind a crate. Sink your back against it and try to conceal yourself.

There is a heavy sound, a thumping, echoing all around the Crest. You duck behind the crates, stare at the wall. So hard your eyes hurt, without moving, without blinking. Heavy footsteps against the grating. Your heart kicks, fills the back of your throat and your fingertips. Pulsing. There is no other sound, not of the child, not of Din. Only the heaviness of uneven steps, and then something else. A scraping sound. Dragging. Something heavy being moved. You think it is a crate but it cannot be, there is no bite of metallic ringing, and the sound is lighter against the floor than a crate. You inch, slowly, so slowly forward. Gloves indented with the shape of the grating against the leather. Until finally – finally – you see around the edge of the crates in front of you and into the hull.

The man fiddles with the controls for the chryofreezer, one arm limp at his side and tied harshly around the bicep with a scrap piece of cloth. Suspect it would be red with blood if it weren’t black already. Your blaster near him, close enough for him to reach without moving. But you can’t think about moving for your blaster, or for the weapons compartment. Because you realise now that the scraping against the floor was a body, slumped face down, one arm pressed beneath it. Your body.

Your bounty being collected.

Din.

You can’t see him breathe. Or move. Or flinch when the heel of the man’s boot clips against his shoulder. He just rolls slightly, head lolling badly against the ground, his neck twisted. His arm twisted. You can see a sliver of his face, deathly pale and still.

The man at the chryofreezer turns, and the light in the hull catches against the pale scar cutting through the strands of his dark hair, greasy with sweat and grime. He has the same ugly sneer you remember from the bar in Garel, the same greedy look in his eyes when he crouches in front of Din and begins to lift his shirt. Yanks it up by the bottom hem until all of his stomach is exposed. The horror of the scar left from the attack on Oseon is clear even from a distance. The man scoffs and shoves the shirt back down.

“How in the Kriff did you heal that, huh?” The man nudges your body, nudges Din, with a sharp elbow to the side. “Poison should’ve killed you, stupid schutta.”

You feel your hands shaking against the ground. Inside the armour. Feel the hardness of the Beskar against how hard your heart beats against it. The bounty hunter pulls a fob from his pocket and holds it up, the flashing light so bright in the dimness of the hull that you have to turn your head, the visor of the helmet lighting up like the storm outside. Blinding you. You blink desperately to clear the haze, feel the world begin to spin.

“Where’s the Mandalorian, huh?” You don’t see the man move, but you hear it. Hear his feet as they echo around the hull. “You in here Mando?”

You blink desperately to try and make sense of anything around you, but the flare from the fob has filled your vision with stars like the warp of hyperspace. And the footsteps, heels of heavy boots against the floor. The man walks, and you see the blinking of the orange light everywhere. See his shadow spin with it, flickering around the walls like ghosts, like there are hundreds of him, slipping through the hull of the Crest. And the footsteps, closer and closer and closer. Stop just on the other side of the crate. The light blinks and he flashes above you, dark and terrible against the wall. And then he moves away, the clanging of his footsteps shifting in the quiet. He calls again, taunting and mean, and you see him pull a blaster up in the shadows on the wall before he disappears.

The ladder.

You wait until you see his boot slip above deck to move. As quietly as you can, barely resting your weight into your steps, out from around the crate. Stay close to the wall as you can until you must move. Din is still in the middle of the floor. And standing you can see more of his face. Your face. Like after the poison, but worse, because it is slack and empty. Like death. You move to him, slip a glove off, and press your fingertips into the cold, clammy skin at his neck. Have to dig beneath the bone of his jaw to find the spot where his blood should beat against his skin. And there is nothing. Just the cold. The blinking orange light fills the room with light once, twice, three times.

And then there is a pulse. Feint beneath your hand.

But there is no time for relief. The footsteps echo back into the hull, returned from the invasion of the cockpit. The thought of the bounty hunter in Din’s quarters, in the place where you had slept with him, helped him to heal from the cut and the poison makes your mouth fill with bile. But he is coming back, the footsteps getting louder. You pull the glove back on.

You turn for your blaster, but it is gone. And a boot appears beneath the lip of the ceiling, in the hole for the ladder. The static of the helmet has readjusted to the dark again, picks out the clumps of mud stuck over it, smears of red from the clay earth in the tunnels. Smeared up his pants where he climbs back down. A few feet from you. You think you should move, should hide, but you cannot leave Din. Think of the child, only an arm’s length away, hidden behind you in the small medical bed. And the chryofreezer begins to beep lowly, and the orange light above your head turns to green. Blips faster now, and every flash fills the hull with bright light. But the helmet has adjusted to that as well now, and you see hips of the bounty hunter as they appear at the ladder.

You push forward, before you can think, before you can second guess. Use your whole weight to grab the bounty hunter by his belt and yank. He screams as he falls and he lands hard. Your hands shake, knock the blaster to the side and the shot he fires is like a siren, screeching in your ear and ringing. The bounty hunter is swearing, kicks at you and clips your knee. Sends you sideways. You catch your weight against the ground, move just before he can get further away from you, scrabbling along the ground on his back. Manage to surge and catch your hand in the dark hair at the side of his head and pull him towards you, the back of his head along the ground, his jacket catching in the grating. You lift once and slam him back and the crack of his skull against the metal is awful. You taste the metallic clang in the backs of your teeth and between your eyes. And you release him.

You turn, push yourself up from where you are fallen on one knee. You slip once, almost topple, but you right yourself. Your boots firm against the ground. You move towards Din, know you need to move him, need to get him away.

A hand around your ankle. Yanks. The world shifts and moves and you fall, hit the ground all along your side. Burns like laser fire. Digs into your skin where the plates of the armour meet at your ribs. You kick wildly, yelling, without thinking, until you feel the thud against skin and hear the swearing of the man behind you. You roll onto your front, push up, but the hand grabs again, wraps around the ammunition band at your calf. And this time when he yanks you feel the tear of the fabric at your knees ripping against the grate beneath you. You rock, try to kick again, but you fall instead. Hip hits the ground hard. And before you make sense of the world again an arm knocks hard against the side of the helmet. Again. Three times. Smashes your head back against the floor so the clang of metal is everywhere, is echoing, makes everything blur.

Then he is gone, just a shadow again over you. His boot hits the Beskar, hard enough you feel the bruise of it beneath. And then against your thigh. You scream and kick and you hit hard enough that he stumbles. Gives you enough room to roll again and push onto your arms, then your knees. Crawl and stumble away from the bounty hunter. Eyes blurred. Head still ringing.

“Enough!” The man yells. “I’ll shoot the girl, on the Maker, Mando. I’ll kriffing shoot her.”

You stumble and turn. Have to lean your weight against the wall. And through the blur of tears and confusion you see him, half kneeling, one arm wrapped around Din’s neck. His elbow beneath his chin. The braid Din had proudly done only a few hours ago almost completely undone, catching in the man’s arm, in his fingers.

“Don’t move.”

You watch, still. The man waves your blaster – Din’s blaster – to get your attention. Presses the barrel of it so hard against Din’s temple that it clicks. “Don’t – ”

“Shut up!”

You still again, don’t dare to breath. To move. Stare at the man, at the flashing green on the chryofreezer, ready to use. At the mess of upturned crates in the hull. And then you see behind him, the medical bunk, the space cavernous and black. Open. The child.

“Don’t move, Mando.”

The blaster clicks again against Din’s temple. His head rocks. You try to look without moving the helmet, try to see into the open compartment behind the bounty hunter. But it is only darkness in the flashing green, and all around you is unmoving. Not even the feint shuffle of the child. You don’t feel the pulse of his energy in the air. Can’t feel Din either. The ship is swaying around you, or you are swaying inside it. The hits against the helmet still ringing in your ears.

And then a movement, a tiny slip behind Din. The tip of a green ear pointing out.

“I said stop moving!”

You see the shape of the child move in and out of focus. The dizziness worry as well as the ringing. Clouding your thoughts and your vision. You see his ear again, and then one of his eyes, huge and blinking in the darkness. Looking beyond Din’s slumped body, close enough that the bounty hunter could reach out and grab him. You heart hurts, burns. Your throat burns. Want to scream. The wave of warmth ripples through the air, through your skin. The child smiles at you and reaches out. Closes his eyes and begins to shake.

The pulse is immediate. The ship tunnels away from you, into darkness, and slams back into place. You tilt, try to breathe. But there is no air. There is nothing.

Drip.

The world begins to fray and ripple and come apart. Swarms and buzzes and fills up the inside of the helmet like water. Turns the world grey.

Drip.

You try to call for Din, but the word becomes twisted on your tongue, blocks your throat, fills up your chest and stomach. The ringing in your ears getting worse. The flashing of the green light getting faster and faster through the swirling grey of nothing. The inside of the Crest slips from beneath you again.

Drip.

You see yourself, smiling. You have a smear of grease along the top of your cheek. You recognise the dock, some planet you’d stopped at months before. Not long before you’d heard of the green planet. The image of yourself is bright, glowing. Shimmers in your memory in a space which is not yours. Some piece of the life you’ve lived with Din, hovering between you. You hear your voice, hear your own laughter. Hear the cooing of the child. The last thing you see before the world fades.

Drip.

.

Drip.

.

Drip.

The helmet hits the ground and sounds like something final. The bounty hunter stares at it, at the Beskar armour. The body of a Mandalorian. Hulking and still against the metal floor. The visor of the helmet looks up at him as he drops the girl and stumbles forward. Reflects the shape of the barrel pointed at it. Gets close enough to see his own reflection in the shining metal, glinting, flashing. The girl doesn’t move, still unconscious from the blow to the back of her head. Barely breathing behind him. And the armour of the Mandalorian could be empty it is so still. He leans down, close enough that his nose almost brushes the helmet. Tries to see through the tinted shape of the visor. The bounty hunter pulls the cuffs from his belt and tugs the Mandalorians hands behind him. Snaps the cuffs tight around them.

Drip.

.

Drip.

.

Drip.

Din jerks against the ground hard.

And then the ground is gone. Yanked away from him. There are hands at his shoulders, arms, back. His boots stumble and catch and he almost falls. He moves away, sways. His knees hit the ground. His hands. The hands yank him by the back of his collar and pull him from the ground. It’s dark, blurs of light. A flashing green. And then the light is gone, turns grey and blurred. Din tips slightly, gets pulled upright again. The floor slopes beneath his feet, thinks he’s falling, the realises it’s the ramp of the ship. The Crest. He doesn’t remember entering the ship again. And now he is leaving it. His head is throbbing. His boots splash into water, cold against his leg where it soaks through the coarseweave, from the boots of the man behind him. The digging in his back is a gun. His breathing is heavy, echoing so loudly, warm air cooling against his mouth.

“Get on your knees.” The voice is familiar. Terse. Din struggles to place it. Then the man’s foot connects with the side of his knee and he stumbles, drops onto one leg. “I said get on your knees.”

The world starts to shift into place. The bounty hunter. The Barabels. It’s like being shot, the terrible plummeting of remembering. Tries to remember what happened in the tunnel. The dark hair, the scar, the face of the man from Oseon who stabbed him. He tries to remember if you got to safety, but there is nothing. There’s a soft whirring noise in his ears, His vision returning. A dim, blue light everywhere. A flash of lightning. He can’t feel the cold air on his face but he knows it must be cold. Still on Barab I. The constant storm still raging outside. He waits for his vision to clear all the way, for the fuzziness and the dimness at his peripheries to abate.

The bounty hunter crouches, his crooked mean face hovering in view. “I thought you were meant to be some kind of legend, Mando. The great Mandalorian. Greatest warriors in the galaxy.”

The man’s laugh is grating. Terrible. Everything sounds too far away. Din tries to guess at how long he’d been out. He’s dizzy. Everything keeps scrambling, every thought he chases becomes lost. Just feelings, sounds. The clamour of the market. His armour gleaming in the dim light of the ship, knowing you are staring down at him from inside the Beskar. Thinking of you makes the churning of his stomach worse. You were gone, and the bounty hunter was still here. Logic is blipping in and out of focus.

“Maybe you’re getting old, hmm? Under there.” The hunter taps his gun against the side of Din’s head with a clear ding. It rings around Din’s ears. “Barely even put up a fight.”

Something important is swimming right at the edge of his thoughts. Din stares down at his leg still holding him up, and the red marks over the coarseweave. He feels so heavy. His vision is clearing, cleared mostly, but it remains speckled, like looking at static. He can feel the cuffs digging in through thick fabric around his wrists. Arms pulled behind his back. His holster is empty. The gun being waved in his face is his own.

“I’m gonna kill you,” the bounty hunter leans in to whisper it near his ear. The sound of his voice is crackles slightly through the speaker. “I’m gonna kill you and leave you to rot in this hellhole. And then I’m gonna take your ship and hand your little girlfriend over for the reward. It’s not even much of a reward. Is that why you didn’t hand her in, huh, Mando?” The man hits his gun against the side of his helmet, harder this time. “Thought you’d keep her around for yourself, huh?”

Finally, everything slots into place. Din flexes his hands in the cuffs, feels the stretch of the leather gloves around him. Feels the pressing of where his armour is strapped to his underclothes. He shifts his foot still planted on the ground, feels the soles of his boots rub into the earth beneath it. The splashing of the water around him.

“What would you do if I took off the helmet, hey Mando?”

Din lifts his head. Stares into the man’s eyes. The visor picks up the sign of the bruising around his eye, the broken nose. And scars, old ones.

“Couldn’t even stop me, could you? Maybe that’s what I’ll do. Pull that stupid kriffing helmet off you and leave you here without a ship.”

Din rolls his shoulders back. Beneath the helmet, the Mandalorian smiles.

. 

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[twomoonstwosuns]

studying.

back to you [series masterlist]

previous part · next part

pairing: professor!poe dameron x reader

warnings: so much smut (18+), fluff

word count: 3.0k

a/n: pretty much pure smut, not a lot of plot. also fluffy. i have not written smut like this before so i really hope it’s good and i hope you enjoy! feedback always welcome and so, so appreciated. 

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Turned on was an understatement.

You couldn’t remember ever being so worked up. You had a pretty decent sex life, a better one since you started seeing Poe, which got even greater when you started dating and seeing him more. Being in a fight then being in a car accident, you were too beat up to do anything physical. It also didn’t help that Poe practically waited on you hand and foot whenever you were with him and was extra sweet and attentive. It made you want to jump his bones.

You were done being coddled. You were in the mood to be manhandled.

You would physically beg for it if it came to that.

Stretched out on Poe’s couch, you had your legs laid across your boyfriend’s lap with books and notecards propped up on your stomach. Poe stared at his laptop, tapping his fingers lightly against the top of the keyboard. He wasn’t reading anything or studying something. He was simply staring.

“You look bored,” you stated, glancing up at him. Poe ran a hand over his jaw, your eyes following every movement and craving the feeling of his stubble against your skin.

“I don’t know why I agreed to give a speech at this conference next weekend.”

“Because you’re amazing? Because you’re passionate? Because people actually listen to you when you speak? I could go on and on.”

“Go ahead sweetheart, keep stroking my ego.”

You nudged him with your foot when he shot you a wink. He knew he was good and passionate and that people listened to him. But he still felt very humbled when people told him that.

Poe shut his laptop and set it aside, reaching forward to finish his glass of water. You watched his shirt ride up just enough to see a sliver of golden skin. His neck bobbed as he swallowed the water and you gulped. God, you wanted him.

Then an idea came to mind.

“If you’re bored, you could quiz me. Help me prep for this test.”

“That sounds just as boring as writing a speech.”

You sat up, pulling your feet off of Poe’s lap and crossing them underneath you. “It is, but I can make it worth your while.”

Intrigued, Poe turned his body so he was fully facing you, his arm draped over the back of the couch. “How so?”

You smirked. “For every question I get wrong, I’ll take off a piece of clothing.”

Poe chuckled lightly. “And if you get the question right?”

“Then you’ll take something off.”

“And what happens when we run out of clothes?”

You shrugged innocently, your eyes hungry as you looked at him. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Poe considered your idea. It was a win-win for the both of you, though there would probably be a point where the studying would come to an abrupt halt.

“And actually you know what? We better make it every three questions I get right that you strip.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m going to get you naked pretty fast and then it’ll all be over.”

“I’m sure we can find something to do afterwards,” You bit your lip as Poe nodded towards your lap.

“Give me those notecards.”

Twenty minutes later, Poe was shirtless in his sweatpants and you were still dressed. You had moved from the couch, unable to sit still, and paced his living room when you had to give really in depth answers. Poe switched back and forth from your notes to the book, knowing very well that teachers often pulled questions from the book without specifying that it would be on the test.

“How many marketing functions exist?”

You knew the answer, but you were getting bored with studying. The sight of Poe lounging on the couch in just his sweatpants and the idea of even just curling up next to him was making you lose focus. One more right answer would have Poe down to his briefs and your thoughts would go back to being much less innocent. A wrong answer would have you taking off either your shirt or your pants. Poe watched you have your internal battle, his eyebrows raised as he waited for an answer.

“Five.”

“Seven,” Poe smirked. “I know you knew that one.”

“Guess not,” you said in a sing-song voice as you lifted your shirt over your head. The black bra you had on was a little dressier than other ones you had and certainly fancier than what was called for on a lazy weekend, but you woke up that morning with the desire to show off a little bit.

“Is that new?” Poe asked.

“Kind of,” you answered, suddenly feeling a little shy with the way Poe was looking at you. “It’s what I had under my dress after dinner with my family.”

Poe sensed your unease and beckoned you over to him, standing you between his legs as his eyes became level with your stomach.

“You’re beautiful,” he said as his knuckle ran over the few spots on your skin that were still tinged yellow. “You can barely see the bruises anymore.”

“Soon they’ll be gone and it’ll be nothing but a bad memory.”

Poe’s hands held your waist carefully as he pressed his lips to your stomach, the incredibly tender action making your heart pound hard against your chest. You brought a hand up to rest against his neck, fingers grazing the ends of his hair as his lips moved across your bare stomach.

He was so close to where you wanted him yet so far.

“Poe.” Your soft voice brought his attention up to you. Connecting your eyes with his, you leaned up and kissed him deeply, your tongue taking it’s familiar route inside Poe’s mouth as your hands rested on his shoulders. You gently bit his lip as you pulled back and his mouth twitched up into a dazed smile.

“What was that for?”

“You haven’t touched me in nearly two weeks.” Poe exhaled deeply and you shook your head.  “It’s no one’s fault, we were fighting and then my accident happened so we never got our makeup sex.”

Running your hands down his neck, you gave his shoulders a short squeeze before continuing.

“I want you. So bad. I am wound so freaking tight right now that I’m about to snap. So I need you to fuck me and fuck me good. Please.”

Poe chuckled lowly as he stood up, his arms fully trapping you against him.

“Well now, how can I deny that request?”

He brought you into a hungry kiss, his mouth slanting over yours as his tongue invaded your mouth. You pressed yourself against him, your hands trailing from his shoulders down his chest to the band of his bottoms. You pushed his sweatpants down and kicked them away before disconnecting your lips and pushing him onto the couch. You slid your own pants down and straddled his lap, slamming your lips back onto his.

“You tell me if it’s too much for you, ok?” Poe said against your lips, slowing down a second to let you respond. You knew it wouldn’t, your healed body buzzing with a deep desire for him, but you nodded anyway as you rolled your hips down onto his. A satisfied grin crossed your face when he raised his hips to meet yours.

As he moved from your mouth to your jaw, his lips left trails of fire, sucking spots onto your skin with a message that said he missed this too. You captured his lips again as his hands kneaded your breasts through your bra, pulling one of the cups down and pinching your nipple with his fingers. He kissed the skin that spilled over and, as much as you loved it, the need for his skin against yours was too great. You unclasped your bra, flinging it across the room, and Poe’s lips attached to each area of your newly exposed skin.

You rolled your hips over Poe’s, his hardened cock pressing against you and rubbing the rough lace of your underwear against your clit. You palmed him through his briefs, his groan vibrating against your breasts.

“Holy shit Poe, I need you. Fill me up, please.”

Dirty talk wasn’t really your forte. You’ve begged Poe to fuck you before and you made sure to praise him whenever he did something that made your toes curl, but you didn’t often do anything more than that.

You’d have felt a little embarrassed by your desperate brazenness had you not caught the dark blown out look in Poe’s eyes as his lips detached from you and curled into a smirk.

“Say it again,” his voice low and rough and his fingers dipping down into your underwear. You whimpered as they brushed your clit.

“Poe…”

He lowered his mouth onto your neck, your pulse thumping widely against his lips. His fingers ran along your folds. “Say.” Kiss. “It.” Kiss. “Again.”

He sunk a finger into your core as he gently bit down on your collarbone, making you let out a breathy moan. A flood of heat coursed through your body and settled in your core.

“I--fuck Poe,” you whispered breathlessly, your walls clenching around his finger. He had stopped kissing your neck, instead watching your start to fall apart on top of him. “I need your cock. Filling me. Stretching me.”

Poe smirked as he kissed you. You released his cock from his briefs and he removed his fingers and twisted your underwear aside. Your eyes met his, both asking the same question: are you sure?

You waited for his nod before lining him up with your entrance and sinking down onto him, his length and girth the missing piece to your puzzle. He stretched you wonderfully as the ridges and veins of his cock brushed against your walls. You took a second to adjust before rising up and sinking back down onto him. His hands gripped your hips, guiding you as you set the pace, riding him faster. Poe’s hand slithered up your back, twisting it in your hair and gripping tightly. Your nails dug into his shoulders as a strangled cry left your throat, the sound of skin on skin filling the apartment.

“You feel so good, fuck you’re so tight.”

The exertion of riding him began to slow you down. With a bruising grip on your hips, Poe took control and began thrusting up into you. You could feel your stomach tightening, your hand clutching the one on your hip as you were blindsided by a freight train of pleasure. Poe thrusted harder into you as you rode out your orgasm.

After one particularly hard thrust, Poe held you still on his lap, kissing you like his life depended on it. He held you down on his cock and wrapped his arms around your waist, carefully maneuvering himself off of the couch and onto the floor. He pulled out and tapped the outside of your thigh.

“On your knees,” he breathed with a wicked smirk. Your body flushed with lust as you sat up onto your knees, running your lips along his jaw to meet at his mouth. He kissed you sweetly, his hand coming up to gently cup your cheek. Poe grabbed your wrist as you reached for his cock, stopping you and turning you away from him so your back was against his chest.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he said again, and your heart squeezed with how much he cared about your comfort. Still unable to form any coherent words, you simply nodded. Poe slid your underwear down, ripping them off when it became a struggle to get them off in your current position.

“Hey!” You laughed as he flung the flimsy piece of fabric aside. One arm wrapped around your waist to hold you in place as he brought this cock back to your entrance.

“I’ll buy you another pair,” he said as he slid back into you, his hips immediately snapping against yours as he kissed your shoulder.

Hard and fast, he was giving you exactly what you were craving. Every push of his cock against your sweet spot was heightened due to the sensitivity you still felt after your first orgasm and you knew you’d come again quickly. You leaned your arms on his coffee table, needing something to brace yourself against as he pounded into you.

“This what you needed?” Poe panted, bottoming out inside you. “For me to fuck you like this?”

“Yes--Poe, yes, just like that.”

Poe grunted as he felt his release creeping up on him. He squeezed the skin of your ass before his hand came down and swatted it. You gasped in surprise and Poe immediately stopped moving, afraid he might’ve gone a little too far in the heat of the moment. You looked at him over your shoulder, a half smile forming on your face.

“Do it again,” you whispered hoarsely. Poe pushed into you deeply, tenderly rubbing the reddening spot before smacking the same spot again. Poe smirked down at you as you moaned in absolute pleasure.

“Who would’ve thought?” Poe poked fun at you as he punctuated each word with a thrust, his cock deep inside you as he came. You couldn’t come up with a comeback as he smacked your ass one last time, his fingers then sneaking around to your clit and sending you over the edge.

The iron struck white hot in your belly as you cried out, your walls fluttering around him and your legs quaking. You fell forward onto the table, the both of you panting as you caught your breath.

This was what you both needed. Every apology, every ‘I miss you’, every piece of lingering frustration was taken out on each other.

“Oh my god,” you panted as Poe pulled out. He collected you against him and sat onto the floor with his back against the couch. You slumped against his chest, the side of your head resting against his necklace. Poe gently ran his hands down your sides, one hand intertwining with yours while the other lightly tracing the red marks he left on your ass.

“I hate you,” you giggled, squirming at the sting. Poe squeezed your skin slightly, pulling you closer into him when you squirmed again.

“You most certainly do not,” Poe poked the side of your stomach, causing you to giggle again. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a spanking kink?”

You blushed, hiding your face in his chest. He pushed your hair back to try and see your face.

“Come on, don’t be shy now,” he said, tilting your head up to see your cheeks red but a satisfied smile on your face.

“I didn’t know,” you admitted, laughing lightly. Resting your chin on Poe’s chest, you gazed up at him.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, a soft smile on your lips. Poe didn’t need to ask what you were thanking him for specifically. There were numerous meanings behind it and he knew each one. All he did was lean down and press a sure kiss to forehead and then to your lips.

“You want to order pizza?” Poe asked when he pulled back, wiggling his eyebrows. You snickered as you stood up, hauling Poe up with you.

“You do that, I’m going to go clean up.”

You were just about to Poe’s bedroom when he called your name.

“You know you’re going to have to help me write that speech now since you distracted me?” He smirked as he put the phone up to his ear.

You chuckled. “I know. Of course I’ll help you.”

“Also...did you retain any of the stuff I quizzed you on?”

“Yes, though I pretty much knew it all already. I kind of got a couple answers wrong on purpose.”

“I knew it.”

With a wink, you disappeared into his bathroom. You took a washcloth and cleaned up the mess between your thighs, looking at the bruises left behind and  having a very different reaction than the last time you looked at bruises that were on your body. Throwing your hair up, you tossed the cloth into the laundry and dug in Poe’s drawers for a shirt and a pair of boxers. The jingle of Beebs’ collar grabbed your attention as he changed positions on Poe’s bed. Leaning on the bed, you scratched under Beebs’ chin, his eyes closing in content.

“Oh Beebs, I’m sorry we keep having sex in front of you.”

You scooped up Beebs, the affectionate pup licking your face as you brought him out into the kitchen. Poe was redressed and had grabbed a couple of beers out of the fridge.

“I think we’re scarring your poor dog,” you said as Poe came up and scratched his dog’s belly. “I’m going to get him a toy as an apology.”

“You don’t have to do that. Besides, he’s got enough toys.”

“A bone then,” you lowered your voice so Beebs wouldn’t get excited over the word ‘bone’. You smiled down at Beebs, rocking him slightly. “And I want to. Because you’re the best dog in the whole world who has the best dad in the whole world.”

You brought Beebs to the living room, setting him down on the floor as you picked up a rope toy to play with. You tossed it and watched him run after it, his tiny fluffy body jiggling with excitement. There was a knock on the door as you plugged Poe’s laptop into its charger and you glanced at the clock above his oven.

“That was, what? Twenty minutes? Impressive.”

Poe grabbed the door, looking back when Beebs let out a high-pitched whine  just in time to see his dog launch himself at you.

“Toddler?” The pizza guy asked, highly amused as he glanced into Poe’s apartment. Poe shook his head with an amused smile as he stepped in front of the guy’s line of sight, knowing there were still clothes strewn around the living room.  

“Hyper dog,” he said, giving the cash to the pizza guy. With a nod of appreciation, Poe shut the door and set the pizza on the counter.

You tossed the toy one more time before getting up and meeting Poe in the kitchen, trading a kiss for a slice of pizza.

You could get used to this domesticity.

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[bookandcranny]

Beatrice - Chapter Five

She sucked on her lower lip and it tasted sweet. Bittersweet really, but any amount of sweetness was good enough for her.

Sprinting up the staircase two at a time, Gianna couldn’t remember why the climb had ever been an obstacle. She burst into her apartment and out of it again, through the window, onto the fire escape. Before she could think to be afraid, she leaped.

If she’d faltered, if she’d slowed for a second before making that jump, she would’ve hit the ledge and, best case scenario, clawed her way up to safety with a shattered pelvis. The worst case scenario was a lot messier and, she decided, not worth thinking about at the moment. 

The important thing was she had made it, barely, and miraculously unbroken too. Unbroken because “unharmed” would’ve been too generous a word for it. She landed badly, twisting her ankle and spilling forward onto hands and knees. It was only thanks to the cradle of some overgrown greenery that she hadn’t cracked her skull open on the fountain while on her belly blindly grasping for leverage.

Maybe it was the headrush of having survived her nigh-suicidal recklessness, but the combined scents of the garden were making her dizzy. The exotic flowers’ natural perfume that had been pleasant at a distance now took on a noxious quality. The air seemed to be choking her. How did Beatrice stand it, she wondered.

Feeling a strange twinge she looked down at her scraped palms and sucked in a sharp breath. The cuts themselves were barely deep enough to draw blood, but beneath the tissue she was bubbling, boiling. She tore her eyes away and blinked hard to dispel the vision. 

Am I awake? Am I dreaming again? Did I miss the ledge?

Her mind screamed at her.

It’s something in the air. It’s something about these damn plants. An infection? An allergy? No, can’t think about it now. There’s no time. Look away, deal with it later.

Thankfully the sliding door was unlocked. Most people don’t expect intruders at five stories up. It opened with a click and Gianna tensed, withholding herself against the urge to rush in, metaphorical guns blazing. She stood there in the doorway and listened for sounds of distress, but it was eerily silent. The luxury apartment was as serene and sterile as she remembered it.

“Bea?” she whispered as she stepped inside. “Beatrice?”

No response. Her own dragging footsteps were loud in the emptiness, scraping along the tile like a murmuring: hush, hush. 

Gianna rounded a corner into the dining room and there she found her, and the mad doctor too. Beatrice was sitting at the table in a white dress with a gauzy quality to it that reminded her, sickly, of a wedding dress. Dr Rappaccini came up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder before at length turning his sunken eyes towards the uninvited guest.

When he spoke, his voice sounded thick as if speaking around a swelling. “After all these years, you think I don’t recognize the taste of one of my own formulas? I’ve been doing this since before you were born, children.”

“It was only medicine, Father,” Beatrice insisted, looking up at him. “To help you sleep.”

“A long sleep indeed,” he growled. Gianna had no rightful reason to flinch away from the fury of an old, sick, and at least partially drugged old man, she reasoned. There was nothing of him to be so afraid of. But she did, and she was, and deep down she always had been, since the moment she saw him. There was something wrong with him, something she couldn’t put a name to, although if she tried the word “evil” might make an appearance. 

It had been a long time since Gianna had considered herself one among the faithful, the kind of person to buy into such archaic concepts as pure good vs pure evil. She never quite believed in a soul that could be broken down into quantifiable measurements— a half cup of goodness, an even ounce of vice. She couldn’t say from what recipe a man like Dr Rappaccini was formed, but what she saw before her now repulsed her. The layers of him peeled off like old paint and underneath were all the years and all the people who ever imposed their will on her. It didn’t make her feel righteous, it made her feel small and scared. She didn’t want to touch him. She didn’t want to catch what he had.

“This really has gone too far.” He spoke not to her but to Beatrice again. Although he kept her penned within his periphery, Gianna was an insect to him. “What did you think would happen? That you’d run away together? Go off into the sunset and live happily forever after like those books you read? You know better. This is only a passing fancy. She’ll die, and you’ll find another.”

Then he touched her cheek, almost tenderly. For a moment he almost looked like the father he was, or at least pretended to be. Gianna saw him and a younger Beatrice: teaching her, dressing her, holding her, bringing her to life only to take it away.

“Let go of her, she’s coming with me.”

Dr Rappaccini sneered. “Oh by all means. Who am I to get in the way of my daughter’s happiness? But if you two are going to insist on keeping up this charade, I think it’s only right I let you know what you’re getting into.”

The young woman stiffened. “Father, please don’t.”

“Have you been feeling ill lately, Ms Alexander? Been noticing some certain sudden changes?”

Gianna instinctively closed her fists and felt her bloodied palms sting.

“Now now, no need to be embarrassed. I’m a doctor you know.” He wheezed a little laugh to himself. “Have you been having trouble sleeping? Peculiar dreams? Maybe even during the day you find yourself feeling disoriented, seeing things. Do you find yourself feeling breathless or dizzy when you take in the city air? If not, you will. The medicine my daughter so kindly shared with you will be wearing off soon.”

Startled, she turned a questioning glance to Beatrice, but the other woman wouldn’t look at her. She’d told her the tea was medicinal, but it had never occurred to Gianna that she might be more familiar with the ailment than she let on. 

“It’ll only get worse from here, you know. Look at me,” he coughed. “Like the late great Madame Curie, my passions took their toll on me in the end. Though not before affording me a sturdy tolerance for most known and unknown poisons, I’ll have you know. That’s over fifty years of gradual exposure for you. Ah, but you didn’t come here to listen to me talk about work. 

“I’ll get to the point. You can treat the symptoms, but there’s no cure, no release from her poison. Even as we speak it’s tainting your healthy young blood, devouring you from the inside out. If I act fast, you may still live to a ripe old age. You might not even have any lasting side effects, lucky thing! But all this is if I give you the antitoxin, and if you don’t continue to willfully expose yourself to the source.”

“The source? You mean…?”

“Yes! My sweet Beatrice.” He petted her hair with the back of his fingers. “Lovely, isn’t she? Everything I grow… so very lovely. Don’t worry, I’d never do a thing to harm her. Can she say the same about you?”

“Don’t listen to him!” Beatrice stood up suddenly, surprising both Gianna and Rappaccini himself. “I never wanted to hurt you! I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

“But you can’t help it,” said the doctor. “It’s in your nature. It’s in your scent, the touch of your skin. Imagine what she could do with a kiss, Ms Alexander! Oh I almost want to see it. I’m sure it would produce some valuable data. But I’m not the cruel monster you make me out to be. That’s why I tried to stop you, even though my daughter begged me not to spill her secret. I tried to make you understand. 

“She can’t be released upon the world. Maybe in a few generations we’ll have a version that can control her own potency, but not yet. Not you, Beatrice.”

The poison-blooded woman spun on her creator. “Why did you make me! Why did you make me like this! Why bring me into the world at all if I can’t be a part of it! What is the point of being alive if I can’t touch another living thing without hurting them!”

Tears rolled freely down her cheeks, hot and angry. Gianna instinctively reached out to comfort her.

“No, stay away!” she screamed.

Dr Rappaccini took her into his arms. Her tears soaked through the shoulder of his ill-fitting coat and raised his flesh with welts, yet he didn’t flinch. Arrogant gray eyes locked with Gianna’s and the message was clear. No matter how much she loved her, Beatrice belonged to him. She would rather choose an empty life under the heel of a man who could never truly care for her over the risk that she might further harm the one person who did.

Then, a curious thing happened. It started with a gentle rumbling that gradually grew in intensity like the beginnings of an earthquake. Then there was the smell. Beatrice always had a slightly floral scent to her that Gianna had assumed was perfume, but now, like in the garden, it was so overpowering that it seared the nose and throat and muddled the senses. Rappaccini noticed as well and turned to his daughter with a delirious look on his face.

“Girl, what have you done?”

The woman lifted her head. Veins like dark tendrils bulged beneath her skin, wispy strands of violet encroaching at the corners of her eyes like ink in water. A noxious venom bubbled up and spilled over her lower lip. The doctor staggered backwards. Gianna might have followed his lead if she were in her right mind, but as it was she was stricken, mesmerized by her. Even through the confusion and the terror, she wanted to reach for her. Her blood sang out to embrace her.

There was a sound of shattering glass from the terrace and the garden rushed in, spilling over and crashing like a tidal wave, flooding every room it entered with rapidly growing roots and bright green vines. The onslaught of green grew and morphed and stretched and with every pulse of its new buds and branches there was a noise like a muffled human scream.

The slithering stems ignored Gianna, skated right past Beatrice unbothered, and latched onto the form of Dr Rappaccini, pulling taught as they snared him.

“Beatrice!” he cried out, but not in horror or in rage. Oddly enough, though he was alarmed, when he looked into the face of his creation, the creation who would destroy him, his expression was one of absolute wonder.

“How are you doing this, Beatrice? How?”

She looked at him, with her eyes still clouded and the nectar of her ire dripping freely from her lips, and she said, “No.”

Only then did true panic set in for the scientist, for he understood exactly what that no meant. 

Vines began to encircle his torso and pour into his open mouth, choking him, soaking up the living wet warmth of him and pouring in their poisons. They dragged his limp body, barely recognizable now, back out into the garden. They raked him over the shattered remains of the glass door and took him into their soil until no bit of him could be seen under the still earth.

The renowned genius Dr Giacoma Rappaccini died without ever knowing the whole truth of what he had created, without even the parting gift of that understanding, that knowledge he had so fervently sought after. That right had been revoked from him. Even so it could be said that Dr Rappaccini died with some sense of satisfaction. After all, what parent isn’t joyed to see their child finally surpass them?

As the flood of plants retreated so too did the murky discoloration of Beatrice’s eyes and skin, leaving only a faint sheen of laboured sweat. Unthinking Gianna moved towards her but her legs buckled halfway there. Her eyes rolled back and for a moment all the universe narrowed to the feeling of hands carefully lowering her to the floor.

“Oh God, Gianna.”

She blinked and saw Beatrice kneeling over her, felt the warmth of her breath. It occurred to her suddenly that she could very well be about to die. She wasn’t in any pain though. Even the ache from her twisted ankle was gone. If anything, she felt extraordinarily well, for a paralyzed person. The only improvement, she thought foggily, would be if she were able to just move. If she could move it all, if she could speak, then there would be nothing that she couldn’t say, not ever again.

“Gianna, I’m so sorry.” She leaned her head against Gianna’s breastbone and sobbed. “I love you. I love you.”

Gianna’s heart fluttered. In fact, it pounded so hard and so loud that Beatrice head shot back up with surprise. She sniffled and blinked back tears.

“Gi-Gianna? Are you still in there?”

Obviously Gianna couldn’t respond, but she searched her face and must have found an answer in it regardless. 

“If you can hear me… I’m going to try something. It- it might… I don’t want to hurt you. That’s what I was trying to… I don’t, I’ve never been able to control it before, but every time you looked at me I just, just tried to focus on that, on how much I wanted…” She swallowed thickly. “So I’m going to try one more time. One more time, okay? I’ll think about how much I love you, and you think about… well you just think about staying alive and maybe… maybe this time. Maybe it’ll turn out alright this time.”

With that, she closed her eyes and kissed her. It was everything Gianna had dreamed and nothing she had expected. Clumsy and inexperienced, gentle and sweet, and something sort of tingly she had a feeling wasn’t entirely due to attraction or apprehension or any mix thereof. She felt her eyes fall closed and her own lips part slightly to let her in. Too late she registered the sensation of something liquid pooling on her tongue, falling down her throat. She choked, briefly, then reflex kicked in and she swallowed. 

“Gianna?” Beatrice asked nervously.

She pushed herself up on her elbows. “You too,” she croaked. “I love you too. I would’ve told you sooner if I knew.”

“If you knew what?”

“That, that you needed to hear it. Someone should’ve told you sooner. Someone should’ve told you a long time ago how lovable you are.”

As she recovered Gianna touched a finger to her lips and it came away sticky. She sucked on her lower lip and it tasted sweet. Bittersweet really, but any amount of sweetness was good enough for her.

“Not to be the nosy overbearing girlfriend or anything, but what just happened exactly?”

Beatrice sat back on her heels. “I’m not really sure where to start. You’ve probably already figured out that I’m… not entirely human.”

“And all that talk about you being a hybrid and like a poisonous plant wasn’t entirely metaphorical, huh?”

She smiled sadly. “Father was always open with me about what I am. I wanted to be open with you too but part of me was afraid you wouldn’t believe me. The other part was afraid you would.”

A fair assumption. Even having witnessed the ultimate show of her power firsthand, she still had a hard time internalizing it.

The conflict must have been apparent on her face; Beatrice pulled away from her, folding her hands over her lap.

“I’m dangerous, I know. Nothing my father said was a lie, but there were things even he didn’t know about me. When you told me we could run away… you made it sound so simple, you know? It really made me believe I could do it. I really thought I could change. I thought I could be more like you, but instead I think I made you more like me.”

Gianna looked down at her hands. The cuts from earlier had sealed themselves closed, not so much as a scratch remaining.

“I’ve never tried to do that before. I don’t know exactly how it’ll affect you, or how much. You might live to be two hundred now. Or you might start to kill everything you touch.” A noise escaped her that was half laugh, half sob. “But I do know what would’ve happened if I left you like that, in that in-between state. Maybe it’s selfish of me. Father said it was. He told me if I cared for you at all I should send you away before it was too late, but I just…”

Gianna touched her. She shivered. “You never would’ve been able to scare me off anyway. I’m too stubborn for that.”

Beatrice sighed, sinking into her touch like she was a warm bed on a freezing cold night.

“So, what now?” Gianna asked at length, though she was reluctant to think of anything beyond this moment. This, all that she’d discovered, it did change things. Just not the things that mattered. Not as far as she was concerned, at least. “I mean, I guess we don’t have to leave now, but you do have a body in your garden so…”

“No. I want to. I want to leave.”

“Then we will,” said Gianna. “I just need to make a call first.”

-----

Petra pulled up to the curb outside a street she had intended never to visit again and opened the door with a glare.

“Gianna. I see you’re still alive despite ignoring every single warning I tried to give you.”

Before Gianna could respond she got up and pulled her into a clumsy hug.

“Crazy girl,” she muttered affectionately.

For half a second Gianna relaxed into the hug, before she remembered herself and pulled back with a gasp.

“What’s wrong?”

No blisters or rashes forming spontaneously on her skin. No sign of any adverse reaction at all. Her shoulders sagged with relief. It seemed she hadn’t absorbed Beatrice’s more overtly toxic qualities along with her immunity. Or, not yet at least.

The thought had been nagging at the back of her mind, that more traits might yet blossom down the line. Even Beatrice, by her own account, hadn’t been born with many of her abilities but rather had grown into them throughout her childhood and into the early years of adolescence. 

And I thought puberty was bad enough as it is.

“Nothing,” she replied at length. “I’m just a little sore.”

She had explained the situation to the best of her ability over the phone, but had omitted more a number of key details. Some things she withheld with purpose, some because she felt it wasn’t her story to tell, some simply because she couldn’t find the words. 

To Petra’s knowledge, Gianna had made plans to run away with Rappaccini’s daughter and when the man refused her, had broken into his apartment. This led to a struggle which resulted in his accidental death. All technically true. The details she chose to keep vague for the time being, until she could be certain the professor was on their side, although she had a sneaking suspicion she knew more than she let on anyway.

Petra looked from Gianna to the visibly shaken young woman who was clinging to her side. “Who did him in?”

“I did,” said Gianna without a thought. She’d been mentally rehearsing her story while they waited. “He found out about me and Bea and made it very clear that he was willing to kill us both to stop it from happening. I freaked out and pushed him, and he fell. He was old and frail. It was an accident.”

She nodded along with the tale but her thoughts were plainly elsewhere. Gianna got the impression she didn’t entirely believe her. That was fine, as long as she didn’t press.

“Where is he?”

She let go of the breath she’d been holding. That, she could answer definitively. “In the garden. Under it, I guess.”

Another nod. “It’ll do. He was a shut-in; I doubt anyone will come looking for him. I assume anyone who knew him well enough also would know better than to investigate his disappearance too closely. I’ll keep an eye on things, just in case.”

It probably should’ve bothered Gianna how nonchalant she appeared about a former colleague’s murder, even one she had a bad history with. But truthfully she was just grateful Petra had agreed to all of this so easily. She had no desire to look too closely at her motivations.

Petra reached into her pocket and handed Gianna a slip of paper with an address written on it.

“My summer home,” she explained. “You can lay low there for a while.”

“Petra… thank you.”

“Thank you. You’ve done me the service of taking care of something I should have a long time ago. Maybe once the good doctor’s research is in ashes I’ll finally be able to sleep through the night.”

She said it lightly, but there was a grave seriousness in her eyes.

“Please, not the garden,” Beatrice said softly. She’d spoken little since they’d left the apartment and it was no wonder why. The gravity of her actions was now beginning to sink in, and that combined with leaving the safety and familiarity of her home for the first time in her life had put her in a state of shock. 

She never would truly regret laying Dr Rappaccini to rest, but the world did feel like a very different place without him in it.

“Is there any way you could get the plants to us once we’re there?”

“I’ll do my best, I can promise you that much.” She looked Beatrice up and down, really taking her in for the first time. “So you’re the ‘daughter.’”

“I am. I was.”

Dr Bagnol flexed her fingers around the handle of her cane, quietly contemplative. For the first time that Gianna had ever seen, she was unsure of what to say. “Did you ever… The other experiments, did they…?”

Beatrice inclined her head. Thankfully she needed no elaboration. “My father told me some. He said there were others before me, my sisters, but that they were imperfect and didn’t survive more than a few weeks. Your name’s Dr Bagnol, isn’t it? He spoke about you too, once or twice I think. It didn’t mean anything to me at the time.” She hesitated. “They’re happy now, if it helps. I never met them while they were alive but they talk to me through the flowers, though I can’t always understand them. My father didn’t believe me when I told him. There were a lot of things he didn’t believe in.”

The woman hummed in acknowledgment. “It’s a pretty unbelievable story. But I’ve dared to put my faith in plenty of strange ideas and often I’ve been right. For better or for worse.”

Petra gestured to the open car door and handed Gianna the keys. 

“You’d better get moving.”

“You’re not coming?”

“I’ve got things to take care of here, the sooner the better. Don’t worry about the car. It’s the least I can do.” Her gaze lingered on Beatrice. “I’ve missed a lot of birthdays.”

They packed their bags into the trunk and Gianna settled into the driver’s seat. Catching the other’s anxious look she assured her, “We’ll go slow.”

“You may not have that luxury,” Petra said with the certainty of someone who had made her own share of narrow escapes. She rapped her knuckles on the hood of the car. “Go now and don’t stop until you’re across the state line.”

Nodding grimly Gianna spared one last look to the older woman: her co-conspirator, her mentor, her friend. “Thank you.”

They drove, and little by little New York retreated in the rear view until it blipped out of existence, a vanishing dream. Gianna would’ve liked to say she was sorry to leave it behind but in reality, the city wasn’t her home. It wasn’t her tiny apartment with the glitchy kitchen light and plastered over vintage moulding, nor even the house in the suburbs where her parents still lived, blissfully unaware of their daughter’s doings. 

To her, home was an ephemeral thing, the stops on the way to a destination that was always changing. Beatrice on the other hand had only known one home all her life, one which may never exist for her again, at least not in the same way it had. 

Yet when Gianna dropped one hand from the wheel and reached for her, she slotted her fingers between hers with no hesitation, only a trembling sigh as she continued to familiarize herself with the skin-to-skin contact. That too, Gianna thought, could be home. If nothing else, she could try and make it one for her.

A few hours passed with fewer words spoken between them. Sometimes she would ask Beatrice if she was hungry or feeling motion sick or if she wanted to try lying down in the back to get some rest, and each time she would answer with a polite shake of the head. The night settled over them like a deep blue linen, too gentle and frail to risk tearing with clumsy words.

The quiet wasn’t a bother to either of them. If talk is cheap then the clasping of hands and the soft kisses pressed to wrists and knuckles was a language that had cost them dearly.

Nearing their destination, Gianna pulled onto a sideroad that took them from asphalt to dirt and gravel to nothing as it came to an abrupt dead end. There was no house or even any helpful landmarks to be found, just grass and trees, so they parked the car to have a look around while Gianna fiddled with the GPS.

Beatrice stepped out into the field and filled her lungs, cautiously at first, and then in deep lusty breaths like a drowning body coming up for air. She shucked off her shoes and hiked up her dress to let the wild grass brush against her legs. The new plantlife turned brittle and curled away from her touch but she didn’t mind.

Gianna turned to find her partner lying in the middle of the field, heels digging into the dirt like she was trying to put down roots, and laughing giddily. The unrestrained, childlike joy on her face was contagious and Gianna soon found herself giggling as well.

“Having fun?” 

“Oh it’s so weird,” she hiccuped. “There aren’t any walls. There aren’t even any buildings. It just goes on and on forever.”

She sat down in the grass next to her. “It’s not too overwhelming?”

“It is, but in a good way. It’s so… so much more than I thought it would be from books and pictures. It feels like a dream.”

“Describe it to me,” she said.

Beatrice sat herself upright and curled into Gianna’s embrace.

“It’s not the same as being in my garden. These plants don’t speak to me, and I can feel them but I don’t know them, if that makes any sense. You can’t feel them at all, can you?”

“No. Whatever you gave me… I don’t know, maybe it just doesn’t work that way.”

She tried not to look disappointed. Being able to touch, to be beside one another like this and not have to worry should have been enough. It was enough. But Gianna was beginning to understand that Beatrice’s loneliness was a vein that ran deeper than the more obvious isolation she experienced. 

As Dr Rappaccini himself had alluded to, she was one of a kind. To Gianna, that just made her all the more amazing, but to Beatrice it was a curse. More than anything, maybe more than to be loved, she longed to be understood. 

“Wish your superpowers could help us find this stupid house,” Gianna remarked.

Beatrice perked up. “Actually, I think it’s just on the other side of those trees.”

“Are you serious?”

“I don’t really know how to explain it but there’s this absence. Like, a blank space. Things are growing around it but in that space,” She made the shape of a square with her hands. “Nothing.”

Gianna stood up and brushed herself off. “Well let’s take a look then.”

Sure enough, the path picked up again on the other side of a small thicket and led them to the house-- more of a cabin really. Although the outside was just as overgrown from the years of neglect, aside from some dust and cobwebs the interior was remarkably well preserved. In a closet they found a broom and dustpan, some rags, and a bottle with an inch or so of cleaner still swishing around at the bottom. They also happened upon spare linens and an abandoned down comforter that had been tucked aside for a rare chilly day, blessedly free of grime. 

The weather was still plenty warm so they opened all the windows and aired out the rooms and when Gianna was confident no spiders would crawl into her mouth while they were sleeping, she bid Beatrice join her under the duvet. There they dreamed with nothing but that big comforter between them and the night air. That was how they stayed until the morning.

For weeks they lived like this, playacting the roles of the two happy honeymooners. They got up, worked on cleaning up the house, cooked, ate, went to bed, and occasionally slept. It was a strange dance, one whose steps they made up as they went along. And sometimes they fell out of step. 

Gianna had to go into town sometimes, to walk in the all too human places Beatrice still feared to tread and come back with supplies and dinner and a new book for her to read. It was nice, Beatrice thought, to be cared for in little ways like that, but though she gratefully accepted the gifts they also tended to remind her that when it came down to it, not very much had changed.

Her dictatorial father was gone, but so was her garden, her petaled elder sisters whom she cared for and cared for her in turn. The doors were all unlocked now, but many days she found herself lurking in the thresholds listening for the sound of tires crunching on leaflitter. In those interrums, she was as alone as she’d ever been.

When Gianna was there though, all was lovely. She gave her things she never imagined she would have-- at least not so freely, certainly not multiple times in one night. But in the wake of her affection a sick fretful feeling would open up like a chasm in her chest, taunting her as it ripped her in two, “Don’t you know how to be alive without trailing at someone’s heel?”

Its presence, this nebulous worry, dogged her day by day. In the small hours, while her girlfriend slept, Beatrice lay awake trying to trace the shape of this shadow that darkened the edges of her newfound happiness. 

“Bea? You okay?”

She was standing outside in the grass, near the woods that surrounded the cabin. She liked to be here. Wandering too far made her nervous so she had to devise more creative ways to explore the world that was now open to her. Often she came here to test the reach of her awareness, feeling her way through the landscape as if with a phantom limb. 

However Gianna found it a little unnerving to watch her girlfriend standing and staring into space for hours on end and typically only joined her when it had been long enough for her to get worried.

Beatrice blinked and rolled her neck experimentally. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

She put a hand on her shoulder. “Dinner’s ready.”

They twined their arms together as they walked the beaten path back to the house. It was times like this that she felt she could forget her concerns and just enjoy the present moment. Whatever came next, she wanted to have as many moments like that as she could.

--

next chapter

[johaerys-writes]

Fandom: The Song of Achilles, The Iliad- Homer Pairing: Achilles/Patroclus

Chapter 4: Honey and Gold & Chapter 5: Growing Pains

Read here or on AO3!

Achilles's hair was a thing of beauty.

Darker at the roots, the colour of wheat in the summer, just before the harvest. Fine and straight, it never curled, even when heavy with salt water. Long, flowing freely down his back, smoothing in between his shoulder blades. When dry, it was wisps of spun gold, fluttering with the wind, with the calm or buoyant rhythm of his movements. When wet, it clung to his skin, followed the curve of his head and his shoulders, like the swirls on the necks of gilded amphorae. I never tired of the sight of it.

That evening, Achilles and I were lying on the grass outside the cave after our chores had been finished, enjoying the setting sun after days of rain. He was beside me, stretching his muscles, rolling his shoulders this way and that, tilting his head to the side, bringing his arm up and behind his neck. I pretended not to look, but my treacherous gaze would drift towards him every so often. He had his back to me, so I relished the chance to watch him without being seen. I still didn’t know, what his eyes on me meant. It was a feeling that was foreign to me. I wasn’t often looked at. I’d been overlooked since the moment of my birth, and that was what I was used to. But to be noticed like this, seen, to have Achilles’s gaze roam over my form, his eyes lock with mine… I couldn’t make sense of it. So I shied away from it. As best I could.

I took in a deep breath, let the scents of spring mingling with summer fill my lungs. The night and the day after it had been long, and it had been raining, and the smell of damp earth clung to my nostrils. The air had a different smell on Mount Pelion. It was crisper, fresher as it descended from the frosty mountain peaks. In Phthia, it smelt rich and iodine, the salty sea breeze carrying even in the depths of Peleus’s palace. Salt water always reminded me of Thetis, now. Memories came to me, of her dark, inhuman eyes, the blood red gush of her mouth, her hair, black as night, moving around her in an otherworldly wind, like fishermen’s nets being swayed by the currents. My heart tightened and my stomach twisted in knots at the thought. That fear, that she would notice my lingering affection for him, take him away from me, was ever present in my mind. I could not, would not allow it. Life without him was unthinkable. I would be with him, by his side, no matter the cost to me. No matter the hurt. This, I swore to myself.

The sigh that left my lips must have been audible, for Achilles turned to glance at me over his shoulder. Golden strands drifted with the breeze, catching in his eyelashes. “Is something the matter?”

I swallowed thickly, blinking at him. I could have said no. I could have made up an excuse. I could have lied. It would have certainly made things easier.

“I’d like to braid your hair.”

The words left my lips before I could stop them. I could never, ever lie to him.

Achilles’s brow quirked in question. He stretched his arm behind his head one last time, slowly, as if considering. Then he nodded, once, and looked at me. “Alright. You can braid my hair.”

My heart leapt into my throat. I prayed that Achilles could not hear its rapid beating as I knelt behind him and slowly, almost reverentially, combed my fingers through his locks. Silk threads parted under my fingertips, the tiny wisps at the base of his skull brushing my skin like feathers. Achilles tilted his head back, in time with my movements, exposing the curve of his neck, slender and swan-like. His eyes were half closed, his breathing even and smooth. Neither of us spoke as I picked up a thin strand, working it into a plait that lay close to his scalp. I had seen the warriors of Styra, from the mountains of north Eubea, braid their hair like this. They always wore it long and tightly bound, and they were as proud of their locks as of the sharpness of their bronze tipped spears. I worked silently, watching Achilles’s expression from the corner of my eye, careful not to let my fingers linger over his ear or the back of his neck. A fierce need tugged at me, a roaring blaze- I wanted to snatch my hands away and edge back, as much as I longed to bury my nose in his hair, let his smell fill my lungs to bursting. His smell. Almonds and honey, fresh soil after warm summer rain, that musky sweetness that was his alone. I knew his smell. I knew it, better than my own. It followed me wherever I went. I would know him anywhere, just by that smell.

My mouth was dry, my cheeks too hot. I focused on the act of braiding, on the rich, silken strands that glided through my fingers, trying not to look at the soft fluttering of Achilles’s eyelids or the small, relaxed smile that curled his lips. When I finished, most of Achilles’s hair was bound in plaits that reached the center of his back, following the smooth channel of his spine.

“So?” he asked. “How does it look?”

He turned to look at me, and my breath caught.

Fierce and captivating, his features sharp as if carved with sculptor’s tools, softened by the the braids that framed his face. These warrior plaits looked more real on him, more apt, than on any other warrior I had ever seen, even though Achilles had never raised his spear against a single soul. His eyes shone in the light, radiant and true, like stars that always pointed north.

I must have stared too long. Achilles’s brows drew together in a frown. “What? Is there something wrong with it?”

“No,” I breathed, shaking my head, hoping that the flush that coloured my cheeks could be mistaken for the sun’s kiss. “I wish we had a looking glass. So you could look upon yourself.”

“I don’t need it. I have you.” Achilles smiled, pleased, and tossed one of the braids over his shoulder. “Tell me how I look.”

You’re beautiful.

“You’re…” I swallowed, my pulse buzzing in my ears. “Your hair’s very long.”

Achilles’s gaze focused on me, dark and intent. His tongue, pink and glistening, ran over his lips, and only then did I realise how close to mine they were. Slowly, he reached up, smoothing back a stray curl that had fallen before my eyes. “So is yours,” he said quietly, his eyes never leaving mine.

I opened my mouth, I think, to speak, but no sound came out. My heart skipped and thumped, my lungs too small for my breath, too tight. If I leaned forward then, I knew, my lips would meet his. I would taste the sweetness of his mouth, the softness of his tongue. I would feel the warmth of his breath against my skin. I would thread my fingers through his hair, and let myself be swept away in seas of honey and gold.

“You should let your hair grow longer still,” he whispered. His long, slender fingers pushed that curl behind my ear. “Then I’ll braid it for you, too.”

“Yes,” I said, though I barely heard myself say it. My voice sounded as if coming from somewhere far away. “I’d like that.”

Achilles let his hand fall to his lap and I shivered with the hollowness of its absence. He looked about him, and something changed in him. It was as if he had suddenly woken up from a dream. “I don’t know how to do braids,” he replied solemnly. His expression had grown serious and aloof. “You’ll have to teach me.” And with that he turned around, resuming his stretches.

I settled back on the grass, watched as the muscles on his back and his arms tightened and relaxed. I watched as he finished, as he lay beside me, as the shadows around us grew long. I watched, but Achilles did not.

The dusk found us, and we spoke no more.

Chapter 5

The mountain wind combed through my hair as I ran, as fast as my legs would carry me.

Achilles was ahead of me, swerving past tree trunks, hopping over rocks and raised roots along the serpentine path. The tall grass that framed the narrow dirt road bent and rustled with the breeze his movements stirred; the only sound that betrayed his presence. That, and the little hanging clouds of dust his feet raised when they struck the earth.

I couldn’t hear him when he ran. I could never hear him. I could only watch, and follow. Watch the rippling of the crisp white fabric of his tunic. The grass that brushed against the sides of his thighs, like feathers. His hair, flowing down his back, unbound and unfettered. The rays of sun that slithered through the trees, through the shifting gaps in their thick foliage, only to be caught, like rabbits in a snare, in the lustre of his locks, the slight sheen that graced his slender shoulders and his neck.

Beautiful. Wild. Ethereal.

I paused to take a breath, my pulse beating wildly in my throat. I did not know how long I’d run- it must have been long, longer than usual, for my lungs were burning and my legs were just starting to cramp up. I would have run more, if I could, if only to walk in the almost-shapes in the soil his steps left, if only to convince myself that I could still follow in his wake, even if I never quite caught up.

It was becoming harder, that, the more time passed, I absently remarked.

“We can reach the mountain peak today,” Achilles had told me that morning, and I’d believed him. “A day this clear, we might be able to catch a glimpse of the sea below.” So I’d followed, not because I longed to see the waters of the Aegean, or the Pagasetic gulf in the distance, where Jason had once built his legendary ship, but because being in his vicinity was a need as natural as breathing for me. The comfort of knowing he was within reach. Close, yet still so far away from me.

I heard him call my name from somewhere up above, his voice mingling with the sighing of the wind.

“Not too long until we reach the top,” he informed me when I joined him a minute later. He was perched upon a large, flat rock, his long legs tucked underneath him, slender fingers playing with a stalk of wild wheat. I could just see the flutter of his pulse under his skin, the light flush that coloured his cheeks, a bead of sweat that arced lazily down the tendons of his throat, past the dip in his collarbone, only to disappear beneath the folds of his tunic. It glimmered faintly before it was gone, like the winking of a star in the night sky, and I felt a stirring in my chest that had nothing to do with my exertion. I swallowed, looked away.

“It’s still a ways away,” I said, coming to sit next to him. It was a warm day, and the surface of the rock was warm as well, but the cool breeze chilled my heated skin. “An hour perhaps, or more.”

“Not if we press harder.”

I laughed weakly. “I don’t think I can press any harder. Not today.”

“I think,” he said, his lips curving in a slow spreading smile, “you underestimate yourself.”

I returned his smile with a sigh. “I think you enjoy seeing me suffer.”

“I do not.”

“Is that so?”

The smile widened, brightened, reaching his eyes and crinkling their corners. The feathery ends of the wheat stalk he was holding tickled when he brushed them over my ear. “It is so.”

“Sometimes, it appears otherwise.” I swatted the stalk away, chuckling. I could still feel the ghosts of that faint tickling, and I rubbed my earlobe, turning to look at him. His eyes had never left me, but the amusement was gone from them. There was curiosity in them now, and something else. Something very still, immovable, holding its breath.

“Sometimes,” he said, uttering each word slowly, carefully, “appearances are deceiving.”

I was taken aback by the earnestness in his voice, the intensity in his gaze. I felt caught, pinned, like a butterfly to a cork board.

“What does that mean?” I managed to say after a long moment.

Achilles shrugged, looking away from me. The flush in his cheeks was brighter now, darker, but that could have been a play of the light. He tossed the wheat stalk away and unfolded from the rock, starting back up the narrow path, his nimble legs carrying him effortlessly forward. Further and further away.

“Achilles!” I called after him, pushing off the rock. “What does that mean?”

The hoot of a distant dove was my only answer.

A sudden, sullen determination sparked in me, as I followed on aching limbs. I would not be left behind. I would be by his side, always; this, I had sworn to myself. There were things I didn’t understand about him, things that eluded me and things that pained me, yet even so, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I knew that; if there was ever a constant in my life, that was it. That was him.

I watched him as he drifted away, as his slender form blended with the morning light that filtered through the trees, and at that moment, he felt more distant than ever. There was a time, I reminded myself, when I was content with watching. When I would admire him from up close or from afar, commit every movement, every plane and angle and curve perfectly in my mind, and that had been enough for me. Yet now I found myself aching for something I could never have, stretching bodily towards something I could never grasp. I closed my eyes, and his smile swam under my tightly closed lids, his laughter rang in my ears. I breathed, and I could smell the light musk of his sweat, the scented oils he used on his feet. At night, when we went to bed and he lay by my side, my treacherous mind would drift to that day by the beach, so long ago, a fish that willingly got tangled in the same nets, over and over again. The details were now hazy and indistinct, as if from a distant dream, but the feel of his lips against my own, the warmth of his skin, the softness of his breath were always there. Always, no matter how hard I tried to forget, to push it away, to hide it in the deepest recesses of my brain.

Part of me, I realised, didn't want to banish those memories. An insidious, hungry part of me wanted nothing more than to clutch and hold them close, to relive them again and again, to taste the second hand wonder of something that could never be my own. It stung like a burr under my feet, but I wanted it anyway. I wanted to be close to him anyway, even if I could never have him the way I longed to have him. Even if I was always meant to follow, just a little way behind.

I watched him run, I watched him go, and, gods above and below, all I could think of was how bleak a sort of life without the sweet, sweet pain of loving him would be.

[zombiesbecrazy]

harder and harder to breathe

Summary:  The rock hit the ground and instead of just landing normally like it should, it disintegrated into a puff of dust, filling the air and swirling around. Brown and tan and green dirt particles surround them for mere seconds before everything settled down again back into the cave floor.

AO3

“How do you clean your suit?” Clark asked casually has he carefully navigated the narrow pathway. Deep in some caves of Kentucky, the trail was threatening to give way at any wrong step, and sure, he could fly, but Clark was going to try and avoid it if possible because no one wanted an accidental cave in. “Nothing sticks to my cape so I don’t have to worry about that. I toss my suit in the washing machine with the brights, but you can’t do that with the armor or tech. Do you polish it?”

The trail that they had been following down the path, the glowing purple blood, had been spilling from the interdimensional worm beast that had slithered away, stopped suddenly and there was a hum in the air that Clark always seemed to hear after a portal had been opened.

The creature had jumped dimensions again, for the third time that they knew of this week. Maybe it would stay away now that it had been injured. Probably not though. It would probably be mad and bring back some friends for revenge.

He hoped it wouldn’t happen on Wednesday; he and Lois had dinner reservations that he didn’t want to miss.

“Why are you so interested in how my suit is maintained?” Bruce was busy inspecting where the blood had stopped, filtering through the spectrum lenses in his cowl in attempt to verify that the creature had indeed left and not done something else like turn invisible.

“I don’t know. It was a long walk and I think about a lot of things.” Bruce pointed at a large rock and Clark picked it up for him so that he could examine underneath, looking for any evidence that could help. “Alfred has to be polishing it for you. You smell like lemon pledge.”

Bruce didn’t rise to the barb, not that Clark really expected him to when he’s in full detective mode, and he started to collect samples of the blood instead, to go with all of the other samples of the blood that he already has back in his lab.

The rock that Clark had in his arms felt oddly heavy which didn't make any sense in the world, but he continued to hold it while Bruce worked underneath it, scraping some clay into a tube, getting air readings off his gauntlet. Typical protocols were being followed until the heavy rock starts to feel itchy, which is even stranger because its just a rock and he’s Superman and the only things that make him feel itchy are coarse wool blankets and this is definitely a worse itch than those ever were. The itching suddenly turned into a sharp pain and then the only thing that registered was that there was no way that Clark could hold onto this innocuous rock for any longer.

“Batman, move,” Clark grunted, feeling the rock begin to slip.

Bruce had no context as to what the problem is, but knows when Clark tells him to move he should immediately listen, so he shoulder rolls off to the side just as Clark drops the rock from his grasp, hands twitching like he’s been burned but the discomfort not receding once the contact was lost.

The rock hit the ground and instead of just landing normally like it should, it disintegrated into a puff of dust, filling the air and swirling around. Brown and tan and green dirt particles surround them for mere seconds before everything settled down again back into the cave floor.

“That was highly inconvenient,” mutters Bruce and Clark starts to apologize for the rock, for ruining the evidence, but as soon as he opens his mouth he finds that he can’t say any of those things. Instead, he coughs. At least he thinks he’s coughing; he’s never really had to cough before so he’s not sure if he’s doing it right. Does he even have a diaphragm? Out of all his millions of thoughts, he’s never thought to check that.

Whatever is happening to him, it burns deep in his chest, trickling up his throat and in his mouth and nose and he coughs again, harder, but instead of getting better, getting in more oxygen, he feels worse and there is less air than there was before. Not enough air.

“Bat-” he coughs harder, hand covering his mouth and he can taste the blood in his mouth, all copper and iron, before he can see it. “Bruce. Can’t.. Breathe.” Suddenly he’s on his hands and knees, panting but getting nowhere near enough air in. Is this what suffocating felt like? “I..” He’s coughing more now, uncontrollable and relentlessly, and this time he’s seeing the blood hit the dirt, with some microscopic glowing green particles in it.

Green is bad. Clark is able to process that much. For everyone else green is good but not for him. He’s dying because randomly stumbled across the one random thing that can kill him in a random cave and it wasn’t even for a good reason.

He was now certain that this was what hyperventilating felt like and the panic that went along with it.

He’s aware enough to feel that Bruce is readjusting him into a sitting position and talking to him, trying to get him to focus, but it’s so hard to do without air. “Look at me. Pay attention.” Bruce’s voice was firm and commanding and Clark forced himself to look at him, coughing and wheezing loudly as he managed to suck in the barest amount of air possible with the maximum amount of effort. Bruce kept eye contact, but was pulling something out of his belt as he did so, prepping whatever miracle cure he hopefully had stored on him. “You inhaled kryponite. I have an idea. I don’t know if it is going to work but it won’t kill you.” Before Clark could react in any way to that information, Bruce jabbed a needle into his thigh and held it in place and he kept his other hand on Clark’s pulse. “Probably.”

“What?” Clark managed to choke out as Bruce tossed the needle aside and then grabbed onto Clark’s hand, and didn’t make a sound as Clark squeezed it as tight as he could, which probably wasn’t very strong if he was choking to death on space dust.

“You’re an alien, Kal. I have no way to predict how you’ll react to human medication that you've never had before.”

“That feels prejudiced,” whispered Clark, words halted and breathy but they were audible enough, “against the differently specied.” Bruce grunted, but other than monitoring his symptoms with narrow eyes ignored Clark. The pressure was lessening in his chest, but very slowly and only just a little bit, and the feeling of imminent doom lingered in his brain. Clark sucked in a shaky breath, deeper than he had been able to for minutes but that just made him cough again, doubled over with effort, more blood and green particles with each bark. As the fit subsided, he felt Bruce rubbing his back in small circles with a fair amount of pressure. Clark thought it might be helping or it was at least fooling his brain enough into thinking it was helping. Either way, it felt good, like when Ma had comforted him after a nightmare as a kid or when he was curled up with Lois after a long and grinding day. “What was that?”

“Epi-pen,” said Bruce, voice tight in a way that Clark only heard when someone Bruce cared about was hurt. “Luckily the kryptonite made your skin malleable enough to pierce. I suspect it’s a temporary solution though.” Bruce’s lips were pressed firmly together in a grim way. “Let’s get you up into the sun. Hopefully it will work out of your system faster that way.”

Clark didn’t have it in him to argue about the sun not being a miracle drug but there was a part of his brain telling him that he had to at least get away from the debris of the seemingly normal looking rock that had exploded into Clark’s own personal death trap, so instead he struggled to his feet and let Bruce wrap one of Clark’s arms around his shoulders for support. They made slow work of weaving their way back through the caves, Clark less concerned about where he put his feet this time, but becoming more aware that with each step he took it was becoming more difficult to breathe again. He was farther away from the rocks, but he still must have some inside his lungs. “Why did you have an epi-pen?”

“I always have two in my belt. They are good in medical emergencies.” Bruce huffed a bit through his nose. “And Tim’s allergic to bee stings.”

“Good thing,” said Clark, before coughing again. “Not that Tim’s got a bee allergy. That you had the shot.” They stumbled along for a few more minutes before Clark had to stop for a moment to try and catch his breath, but he couldn’t help but notice that he was getting harder again. "How far down are we?"

"About a kilometer." Normally Clark would rib him for using the metric system but he just nodded and Bruce picked on on it instantly and tightened his arm around Clark's waist. "Why?"

Clark shook his head and starting to walk again, careful of his footfalls because if he fell down he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back up. He was concentrating on the tightness in his chest, and the way it felt like it was itching on the inside, just like he had originally felt it in his hands before things had turned south. "I think the shot is starting to wear off," he mumbled. Part of him wondered if the symptoms were more in his head and just thinking about them made it worse. "Anaphylaxis symptoms can be psychosomatic though."

"Not really." Bruce didn’t laugh, but Clark could at least pretend that he was a little amused by Clark’s effort to fake away his symptoms. "I have another pen but don't want to use it unless it's a last resort. There was an opening in the cave just up ahead, a natural opening halfway up the gorge. This time of day there should be sunlight.” Clark coughed again and Bruce shot him a concerned look as he sucked in a pitiful breath. “Conserve your air."

"Pretty sure it doesn't work like that." His airways were closing, no amount of holding his breath could stop that.

“Shush.” Bruce said, and then had to pull tight because Clark stumbled over his own feet, threatening to trip to the ground. "You can lean on me more. I've got you."

Clark knew that. Bruce always had him.

It felt like an eternity before they reached the opening that faced the gorge and Clark was close to not being able to breathe again, gasping between coughing up blood and little bits of devil green rock. He fell onto all fours at the ledge of the gorge, afternoon sun beaming down on him, feeling like he was hacking up a lung as Bruce rather forcefully pounded his fist on Clark’s back, in an attempt to get the rock out.

Clark was on the brink of passing out, darkness closing in on the edge of his vision and he knew that Bruce was seconds away from giving him the second shot when suddenly the pain and itching in his chest vanished, a last forceful cough with a small glimmer of green was expelled and Clark rolled over and collapsed on his back, exhausted, but enthusiastically able to breathe again and feeling better by the second, chest heaving with the ability to breathe again.

It was out. It was finally all out and he could breathe and it was amazing. Oxygen had never tasted so good.

He cracked an eye open and saw Bruce studying him, epi-pen rolling between his fingers in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. “I think that was it,” Clark said, reaching towards the bottle. He took a big drink before handing it back. “Gosh, what were the odds of finding a rock made of dust sized kryptonite particles in a random cave in Kentucky?

“Was that hypothetical or do you want the math?” Bruce casually brushed the tainted blood that Clark had choked up over the edge, keeping a careful eye on him.

“Hypothetical. I can do my own math.” He rested his hand on his chest, feeling his heart pounding with enthusiastic thumps. “Later. After more breathing.”

“Rest. Recover.” Bruce sat further back and leaned against the wall of the cave in the shadows. “Lay in the sunbeam like a cat.”

Clark meant to argue back, he really did, but the sun was just so nice and he just felt so exhausted and suddenly he was waking up before he had even realized he was asleep. The sun was slowly setting in the distance, making the sky pink and orange. He sat up and stretched, feeling pretty good for someone who took an unscheduled nap on the floor of a cave, only to see Bruce smirking at him like the smug jerk that he was.

“Just because I fell asleep doesn’t make you right, you know,” said Clark, only now noticing that there had been a big black cape under his head during his impromptu nap. "I'm not a house plant that just perks up in the sun."

"You are. One day I'm going to prove that your cells have photosynthetic properties. I'm going to recruit Ivy to help if needed."

Of course Bruce would use his resources to try and prove his theory, no matter who it was. "Absolutely not. I don't want Ivy, or before you get any other ideas, Swamp Thing, having any reason to think that I'm part of the Green.” Maybe Bruce was right about the sun but Clark wasn’t going to tell him that and he certainly wasn’t going to let a sometimes evil botanist conduct experiments on him just to win an argument. “Thanks for saving me. I owe you one.”

“We owe each other several. I’ve pulled ahead for now though.” Bruce stood, and Clark had to hide a wince as he heard Bruce’s bones creak from sitting for so long on the rock. "I should be apologizing. It was my fault. I asked you to lift it."

Clark gawked at him. "Are you serious right now? You had no way of knowing it was laced with kryptonite." Bruce frowned and had the face that he did when he was about to argue and Clark just shook his head and cut him off before he could start. "Bruce. Stop it. If you really want to blame yourself, fine, I forgive you, but just know that I don't really forgive you, because it wasn't your fault."

They stared at each other for a minute before Bruce nodded and looked away, obviously still brooding about it but moving on as if he wasn't. “Are you ready to head up? I still have to analyze those samples before the worm jumps back to this reality.”

“Sure.” Clark climbed to his feet and handed Bruce back his cape, and Clark watched with interest as it was reattached. “You know, you never answered my questions about the armor.”

Bruce shrugged. “Alfred looks after it.” He started to step forward before freezing and turning back to Clark. “I don’t really smell like lemon pledge, do I?”

“Of course not,” said Clark, but he gave Bruce a big, fake smile before stepping past him and leading the way to start heading upwards, hoping that the faint smell of lemons would follow close behind.

[hyunnielix]

Wrong | 1.

The smell of crime reeked through your city although you were a controlled assassin with limits, you tried your hardest to use your sense of justice to step up and be their vigilante for better or for worse, unfortunately, you have to get involved with the city’s most notorious mobster, Tom Holland.

Pairing: Tom Holland x Y/N | Parts: 1 2 3 4 5

Warnings: mob!AU, violence, gore, teasing, swearing, sexual themes, drug references, alcohol abuse, death, assassin!reader

Word Count: 2k

           clothes off ‘cause she so soft

                 this ain’t a fair fight 

            One; The File, Fire & Flames

Echoes whispered through the paper thin walls, the cold breeze flowing through the open windows causing your skin to react, creating small goosebumps as the stealth catsuit you wore barely covered the exposed skin of your upper body. It wasn’t a logical choice really, but you didn’t have a say.

Your stomach churned with a multitude of emotions, unable to pinpoint just one as the tension in the night air grew thicker almost suffocatingly.

Clenching your jaw to suppress any faltering emotions from showing on your face, you strutted confidently in your stiletto heels down the poorly lit hallway and towards his office.

The only light source guiding your way was the iridescent moonlight that shone onto the marble flooring, reflecting onto many of his prized possessions that were on display in glass cases, not too practical.

You recognized the guard as your close colleague Sebastian, nodding to him dismissively as your hand came in contact with the metallic handle twisting it ever so slightly.

“Be careful, he’s not in a good mood,” His calloused hand clasped around your wrist tightly preventing you from entering, ripping your gaze off the patterned wooden door and to him, you forcibly removed his grip. Your faces merely inches apart as you calculated your next words.

“I think I can handle it.” A growl fell from your lips, surprising yourself in the process at your hostility as his eyebrows furrowed, his usual glimmering blue eyes now dull and bloodshot. 

Your lips parted, struggling to swallow the lump in your throat inaudibly before pushing the door open, entering the ‘famed’ room that your colleagues always praised claiming miracles happened in there, but you refused to believe this as your own experiences proved the opposite, knowing how much of a curse it really was.

The skin coloured case file that sat under the table light on the desk was the first thing to catch your eye. Totally ignoring his lingering presence in the room, you strode towards the table inhaling the wretched scent of smoke whilst picking up on the ashtray that embers were still brightly burning out.

Brushing your fingers nimbly over the folder before picking it up, your stomach dropped as your eyes glazed over the file name.

“James, I can’t do this one,” You stated while flicking through the pages of research pausing at the headshot image of the notorious mobster with brunette curls and chocolate eyes, your spine shivered at the mere thought of him.

Usually, the target's weaknesses were listed underneath their name, however, the list was absent from the file causing you to wonder just how deadly this guy really was. How many people had he murdered in cold blood?

“And why is that?” He inquired, his voice coming out hoarser than you’d imagined obviously from the side effects of smoking as he ominously came forward into the light.

His auburn hair was messier than usual, the wrinkles on his forehead and the corners of his mouth more prominent than ever. His eyes scared you the most holding answers to questions you couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

“I’m not going on a suicide mission,” You retorted, dropping the file onto the desk disinterestedly as possible hoping the slither of mercy he possessed and your ability with words would save you from your inevitable fate if he refused to work with your stubbornness.

“It’s either you or your family,” He shrugged nonchalantly, the words rolling off his tongue too smoothly to be an empty threat. Your throat constricted at the mention of your relatives, chest heaving with what you could now recognize as vexation.

“Y/N, you’re our best operative,” He continued on, attempting to persuade you as he sat comfortably in the chair behind the desk eyeing your every move and reaction to his lethal words. You resented him for turning you into a weapon, once you saw the world that way there was no going back.

“That doesn’t make it right,” You retaliated, slamming your hands onto the desk violently, accidentally denting it with the pressure of your fists. 

“Don’t step out of line now girlie,” He warned, slowly sliding his pistol across the table, the irritating noise of the metal against the wood throwing you off.

Leaning forward, he yanked your forearm down onto the table, bunching his other hand in your hair as he brought your face dangerously close to his

“If you’re not careful, I’ll inject that serum right here,” He hissed, pressing his fingers on your pulse point, your eyes widening as he let out a chuckle at the exact reaction he would hope to coax out of you before throwing your head back.

“You sick bastard, don’t touch me.” You seethed, trying to control your anger by clenching your fists, digging your nails into the palm of your hand and drawing a red substance.

“Sebastian, take her away,” He spat as Sebastian entered the room, pinning your wrists behind your back harshly. You could’ve easily dropped him but you had to earn their trust, no matter how long it took.

“You promised me a call asshole!” You yelled out, striking a nerve in you as you loathed broken promises, you had one too many of them in your life.

“I think it’d be better if they still thought you were dead.” He responded smugly, a smirk creeping onto his face while you struggled against Sebastian's grip restraining you from slapping the smirk off James’s face. He threw you over his shoulder, hauling you out of the room before you did anything else out of recklessness.

“Quite a nice little performance you put in on there doll, I’m impressed,” He commented while locking the door behind him, letting you crawl off him, your heels coming in contact with the ground again.

“Not all of that was a performance,” You mumbled, peering up at him with glazed over eyes unsure of how to handle your bubbling over emotions properly as you were never quite taught how it was one of your weaknesses.

“The only way you’re going to get out of here is to kill him and burn that contract,” He sighed, running his hand over his light stubble as he watched the cogs turn in your very complicated mind.

“What right do you have to tell me how to escape? when I've been here longer than you,” You spat, pointing your finger into his chest with every syllable pronounced out of pure spite.

“Y/N tread carefully, I’m the only person willing to help you here you don’t want to lose that.” He crossed his arms over his chest, glad that the room behind him was soundproof as he stated the facts.

“Do you?” He questioned, but you knew too much was at stake to be retaliating against him just because you were in a bad mood so you swallowed your pride begrudgingly.

Cursing under your breath, you turned away from him pondering your options as you grazed your fingers over the bleeding palm of your hand revelling in the sting it caused. Pain brought out your most undesired emotions.

“I’ll have the file delivered to your room tomorrow morning,” He informed you as to your lack of reply left a lot of questions, for him anyway.

“I want it tonight.” You sharply ordered beginning to strut down the atmospheric corridor again, away from Sebastian and that bastard James.

The multilayered manor you lived in, which some people would call a paradise was more like a jail cell to you. Staring at the many different prototypes of latex catsuits that hung in your closet a sigh left your lips. From what you gathered the city had dubbed you ‘Black Cat’. The number of reports and televised criticism on you was deafening to your ego however you expected this, you knew how the world thought about vigilantes. Especially the corrupted police that pathetically called themselves the justice system, because of them media outlets were desperate to figure out your alter ego, much to your dismay. James kept them off your tail for the pure reason of entertainment.

Propping yourself up on your bed, your sensitive ears picked up the sliding of something under your door. Head snapping towards the direction, you furrowed your brows at the skin coloured file that lay strewn about on the tiles. The silver and reflective name of Tom Holland shining into your eyes irritatingly so.

Picking it up, you opened the file pulling out the paperclipped sheets of paper that had valuable information about his background on it. Your eyes scanned over the first page. After an hour or so of breaking down his profile, you found some crucially important points; He never went anywhere without his right-hand man Harrison Osterfield, His whole familiar were involved in the drug industry which also made them one of his weaknesses or so you assumed yet it was dangerous to do so in situations like this and he had an affinity for strippers that didn’t surprise you.

Dominic and Nikki Holland were out of the picture, none of their limbs or bodies intact enough to be autopsied. They had both left on a train to negotiate their next payload when it exploded, the assassination attempt deemed successful. You recognized the symbol on the detonated bomb realising it was James’s handiwork.

The Holland twins, Harry and Sam were both trained in hand to hand combat obviously it wasn’t military training but the second best thing. Luckily one of them had a girlfriend but you weren’t going to notify James about that since he would go to desperate lengths to torture people for fun and use them as leverage, you had firsthand experience in that. 

Claire Hope, 19 Ridgewood Drive, imprinting the address in your memory you resealed the document. It was the appropriate occasion to utilize the stealth suit for this slight detour.

Zipping up the suit whilst standing on the ledge of the windowsill, you inhaled the stale but refreshing air of the night letting the iridescent moonlight beam onto your face, eyes fluttering shut in a moment of contentedness.

Turning on the balls of your feet, you positioned your arms in a T movement allowing yourself to plummet backward without a single hesitation in your action due to your cat-like reflexes.

The masks built in GPS proved its efficiency in times like this, tracking targets became easier with each new piece of manufactured tech James had stolen.

Scaling the roofs was the effortless section of the mission as you concentrated your focus on following the crimson arrowhead that guided you to the address through the mask, allowing you to do so without any unwanted interruptions.

As you began to accelerate approaching the girl’s house, boisterous ear-piercing sirens could be heard ringing out. A screech ripping through your throat as it threw you off. Dropping down low onto the roof as you accidentally gained the attention of the people swarming around the house. Familiar scarlet and azure-tinted lights flickered around continuously on a loop.

“Fucking cops.” You hissed under your breath, eyes widening interestedly as an ambulance pulled up outside of the house, the shrill and frantic yelling of the paramedics almost deafening. You’d think they’d be trained in situations like this to handle it calmly.

Watching intently as paramedics exited the house, you noticed the young woman you could recognize as Claire having an intense seizure on the stretcher.

“She’s going into cardiac arrest!” The male exclaimed signalling the others to aid him, getting ready to perform CPR as they placed the stretcher onto the gravelly ground of the pavement, their covered hands on her chest putting pressure there every couple of seconds.

Your breath hitched as the sudden realization hit you, you weren’t the only one assigned to this mission.

You ears pricked up as the smallest clinging noise caught your attention, squinting your eyes you saw a shiny gold encrusted ring next to her lifeless hand that must’ve slipped off as they placed her body onto the ground enticing you even more than before. Was she apart of the 7 rings?