#then the lining of his lungs. then the one on his intestines. then on almost every one of his organs

[audacityinblack]

Day 4: Bodies and Minds

All Your Imperfections, Part 1 - Zevran

Summary: Healing is not about going back to who you were before, it's about how you grow around your wounds.

----

His head aches. It almost always aches nowadays. There are times when he can scarcely stand to be out in the sun for the blinding light and noise.

His ears ring, almost constantly. He's learned to work around it most of the time, but at night when it's quiet, it's all he hears, the ringing echo of a thousand screams, their last resonance before dying being preserved forever in his eardrums.

His eyes are sometimes bloodshot, always underscored with dark circles that stay even when he's in good health.

His throat doesn't quite work right. Sometimes things just come back up. He can't eat oranges anymore because they just taste like bile.

His shoulders and neck seem to always be aching nowadays. That never really went away after the rack, and falling two stories from Prince Azrin's castle window only seemed to make it worse. He was afraid he'd never walk again at first.

The muscle at the crook of his left elbow spasms. He's pretty sure that one came from the strappado.

His wrists hurt more in the cold. He only noticed it since coming to Ferelden.

His heart sometimes starts beating at breakneck speed for no reason. It distresses him greatly, and he is often afraid he will die when it happens.

His lungs can never take quite a full breath, and there are times when he cannot draw breath at all. If he laughs too hard, he coughs.

His stomach and intestines are nervous and fitful, with every possible ailment one could imagine. They may churn with nausea, or burn with bile, or ache with tension and hunger, sometimes all at the same time.

What happens with his colon, he prefers not to think about.

There is a perpetual tightness in his right hip that often has him limping back to camp at the end of a grueling mission and wanting only to have supper and rest.

Both of his knees are swollen, and it was only when Wynne joined the party that he was able to find some relief from them.

His ankles and feet are all but his entire livelihood. Despite the constant, often burning pain in his feet, he must still stay light and nimble on them to survive. Should he lose his ability to walk, he fears he will lose his ability to make a living. At least, as an assassin. He figures he can still at least make a living as a prostitute somewhere - walking isn't needed in such lines of work.

The only thing that does work as the Maker intended is his manhood.

He feels like a rusty collection of dwarven machinery some days, a struggle to even maintain and operate. A worn out tool long past its usefulness, lucky to even be kept.

But Albine still smiles when she sees him, whether he's full of energy and fighting fit, or he's hobbling to his tent, too sore to smile, too hungry to laugh.

She brings him cups of elfroot and spindleweed tea for his headaches and aching joints, and rubs magical heat into his shoulders.

When his heart tries to outrun him and his lungs are breathless, she fills him with a magic that stills his mind and strengthens his body.

She keeps his stomach full of hearty meals, and eases his many symptoms with potions and tinctures, so the only thing he feels is the satisfaction of being well-fed and the comfort of her arms around his waist and her head on his chest.

He wraps his spasming arm and aching hands around her, pulling her close to his trembling heart and gasping chest, and presses lips that cover pain-clenched teeth against her cheek. He shifts his posture slightly so his knees don't ache as much.

His eyes drift shut and he nearly falls asleep, only to jerk awake right before he dozes off. The voices disappear and only the Warden remains, her hand still lazily stroking his belly and her own eyes half closed.

"You'll make it next time..." she whispers with a lazy croak.

His heart skips a few beats and flutters, but it's not that awful, silent-panic feeling this time. It soon slows into a gentle crescendo, beating softly.

His chest swells with one full breath after another, held for measured seconds in a pattern the Warden taught him.

His digestion rumbles softly under Albine's warm hand. Tomorrow, that stew will be a killing stroke against a Darkspawn, or an agile climb to a good lookout point, or another few moments of sensual delight.

He has a tendency to moan softly, right at the moment he falls asleep. Not a sexual or painful sound, but a sigh of utter comfort.

[yuulina-vre]

Fear - Chapter eight

Summary: Y/N lives the life she always dreamed about. a job she loves, a fiancé that does everything for her, and a house she dreamed of. There are hiccups on the way, but Y/N's still pretty satisfied with where she stands in life. Though a word can be powerful, especially if it's said to the wrong person. Y/N would never have thought that she ever gets to experience how bad it can turn out. For her and the loved ones around her.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word count: 3.1k

Warnings: dead animal, descriptions of blood and disembodiment, vomiting

Divider by Firefly-Graphics

Series Masterlist // Masterlist

The scream rips the men away from the lifeless animal. “Was that Y/N?”

“Shit!” Bucky throws the gloves and the garbage bag away, scrambles up from his crouched position and almost faceplants again as he trips over his own feet. He barely catches himself, twists his wrist slightly as he cushions his fall, and runs back to the conservatory. He looks around, but his girlfriend is not in the conservatory, the kitchen, the living room, or down the hall. “Y/N? Where are you?” He sprints up the stairs, taking two steps at once. Behind him, he can hear Sam following him. Bucky turns at the top of the stairs to run to the bedroom when his eyes catch the light coming from their shared office. He stops abruptly, almost making Sam run into his back. He’s breathing hard as he quickly steps into his room, squats down, and sees Y/N sitting on the floor. She’s pale, almost white, as if she has died sitting down if it wasn’t for her breathing. It's fast but shallow, and Bucky knows she’s not getting enough air if she continues like this. He inhales deeply to steady his breathing and then speaks to his girlfriend. “Y/N! Y/N, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

But Y/N just stares ahead, a mask of horror on her face. Tears run down her cheeks, and sobs get stuck in her throat, making breathing even more difficult. “Baby. Look at me.” Gently he puts one hand on her shoulder, and the other softly cups her cheek. She doesn't react. There's no sign of recognition, no flinch, no stuttering breath, no eye contact. “Doll, you’re hyperventilating. Look at me. Try to breathe with me.” Bucky draws the air deep into his lungs, holding it for a moment before he ejects it again. He repeats it, trying to hold eye contact with Y/N, even though she doesn't notice him. The stiff woman makes no effort to copy him. Instead, her breathing gets worse and worse.

"Fuck!" Sam breathes out. His voice sounds raw, rough, almost hoarse. He sounds really shocked. Bucky looks up at him as he steps into the room. “What?” At first, he thinks Sam means Y/N’s state, but then he notices that Sam stares in the same direction as Y/N, with the same mask of horror on his face. Drawing his eyebrows together in confusion, he follows their gazes and draws in the air sharply.

A large German Shepard lies on the carpet, right between his and Y/N’s desk. The animal must have been beautiful when it was alive, but now its brown fur is drenched and sticky with blood. The abdomen has a large cut, skin splitting open, revealing the dog's organs that are scattered on the floor. The intestine is completely missing and instead hangs over the curtain rod like a garland for Christmas. The animal's head is smashed and no longer looks like a dog. The limbs are separated and neatly lined up next to the animal. Blood soaks the cream-colored carpet, leaving it lying in a large red puddle.

Bucky looks away bitterly and stares up at his colleague. Anger rises in his chest, and even though he doesn't want to admit it, fear is just as fast to grip his chest. "I thought you searched everything! What the hell is that?!" Angrily he gestures at what used to be a living animal. Silently he hopes the poor animal was dead before it was slaughtered like that. Sam also turns away and looks into his friend's eyes."I swear, I checked. There wasn't a dog here before; you saw me check it out. It was all clean. I don’t kno-," he leaves the rest of the sentence unspoken. Bucky also knows what his colleague is thinking just now. The guy is still here!

Bucky works fast. He looks at his fiancé again and hugs her, guiding her head into his shoulder, so she can't stare at the animal anymore. Then he picks her up. He’s careful since she’s still unresponsive and unable to hold onto him. He slips past Sam and carries her back to the bedroom. Slowly she starts to come back to her senses as he sits down on the mattress. Bucky holds Y/N on his lap, tightly embraced. “Doll, please. Listen to my voice. I have you. You’re safe with me; we’re both all right.” Sluggishly, her head sinks onto his shoulder, but her breathing remains erratic, though, Bucky thinks it already calmed down just the tiniest bit. He gently strokes her hair, hoping to soothe her. “Everything will be fine. I promise." He thinks for a moment, then pulls her closer to him and starts humming a song he knows she loves. They dance to it now and then in the living room if the moment feels right, and they’re both in the mood. He hums for a while until he notices that Y/N slowly calms down. At some point, he even starts singing the lyrics. His eyes flicker through the room, trying to gauge their surroundings. There’s nothing unusual, but Bucky has to admit that he has a bad feeling. But that could be because he just saw a dismembered dog in his own home. He doesn’t even want to imagine if that’s how Y/N felt today.

Y/N’s head gets heavier on his shoulder, causing him to look down. Her eyes are closed, her breathing flat. A small smile creeps on his face, and he softly kisses her cheek, holding her for a while longer. When Bucky’s sure that his girlfriend is deep asleep, he tries to be as careful as he can be while gently lying her down. He covers her with the duvet that Y/N took upstairs before getting dressed. Then he slips in right beside her, still pressing her tightly to his side. He keeps stroking her arm gently, soothing her in her sleep so she hopefully won't have a nightmare. He can hear his colleague's voice, who speaks frantically into his radio and asks for reinforcements.

Heavy footsteps echo through the house and deep voices bark instructions. I blink against the sun's blinding light but quickly close my eyes again. After ten minutes, I can feel my breathing deepening and slowly drift back into a restless sleep.

Warm arms wrap around my middle. I hear the voices from earlier; they are very close, somewhere in the hall. But someone is talking in my bedroom. Groggily I open my eyes. My head hurts like hell, and now that the sunlight dispels the darkness, it's even worse. How long have I been asleep?

I try to turn around, but the arms around me prevent me at first. My eyes slip close again, and I whine a bit until the arms loosen their tight grip. This time I manage to turn around.I sigh in relief. I didn’t notice until I turned that my side actually started to hurt a bit, and now, lying on my right side, the relief is immediate. I open my eyes again, still blinking against the sleep and light, only to be met with a man's chest.“Hey, doll.” A kiss is gently pressed to my hairline. Bucky briefly turns away from me again. “Okay, thanks, Sam. I’ll leave the rest to you.” His head turns back to me, and I look into his familiar handsome face. A small smile creeps over his narrow lips. His blue eyes, however, radiate concern, mustering my face and looking over every inch. “How are you?” The voice is also dripping with concern but has something that sounds like relief. I slowly straighten myself and stretch my body as best as possible while still cuddling up to him. Then I entangle my legs with his and scoot closer to nuzzle into his chest. The whole time Bucky’s eyes stay on me. I look up at him and smile, but something must have happened while I look at him because, in the next moment, all the pictures pop up in my mind.

Blood, limbs, organs.

Without warning, my stomach cramps, and throw up. It splashes all over myself, and on the uniform of the man next to me. But instead of jumping up and getting to safety, Bucky stays put. One hand is on my back and soothingly caresses it, while the other strokes my hair out of my face. “Come on, doll, sit up. That’s easier. Just like that.” Bucky is Quick to help me sit up. I choke a few more times until the taste in my mouth and the constant choking brings tears to my eyes. “Think somethings coming up?” His hand runs over my back, his voice soothing and warm against my head as he presses his lips to my temple. How he can kiss me while I’m full of vomit and, in general, pretty disgusting is beyond me. I’m not certain if something coming up; my stomach seems to think so as it clenches uncomfortably again. I only shrug. “Okay, let's get you to the bathroom. Can you walk?”

I shake my head. If I know one thing, then it’s that I don’t have any control over my legs at the moment. Right now, I wouldn't even dare to wipe my nose. Everything feels numb and paralyzed. I feel his arms come around my beg and under my knees, and suddenly, he lifts me up. He’s mindful of my queasy stomach and the vomit on my own clothes. Instead of carrying me to our bathroom, which might be closer, he carries me through the hall to the guest bathroom. Probably because it’s easier to clean later. I also know that Bucky often goes there if he needs to puke. He claims that the smell won't make us both nauseous this way.

Softly he helps me down, and to the toilet, then he vanishes. He comes back after a few seconds, wearing a new shirt and sweatpants. Bucky has a hair band on his wrist that he quickly slips off to wrap my hair into a loose bun. “That’s better, huh?” he smiles at me again and continues with his back rubs as another wave of nausea overcomes me, and I puke into the toilet. The smell and sounds alone would make me vomit on a normal day. Now that I feel bad already, it's like it intensifies. My stomach clenches so hard that it hurts, eliciting a sob from me as tears fall. Between puking and crying, it gets harder to get any air into my lungs; my nose is completely blocked now.

The whole time Bucky stays with me and doesn't say a word except silently encourage me to keep going, that it will feel better soon, and soothingly strokes my back. A knock on the door makes me look up tiredly. Bucky locked the door when he returned, which is pretty foresighted since a few strangers are currently in our house. Bucky’s eyes instantly flicker to mine, silently questioning if I’m all right for a moment. I whine a bit, not really wanting anybody to see me like this, but who knows, maybe it’s important, so I nod. “All right. I’ll be quick, sweetheart.”Again, he kisses my temple. I have to smell so bad, but he still does it. I admire him for that resilience. Bucky gets up with a soft squeeze of my shoulder and quickly steps out of the bathroom-. I watch him close the door as a groan slips past my lips. A new wave of nausea hits again, but nothing comes up this time. With the back of my hand, I wipe away the tears that are caused by the corrosive taste and effort. I retch a few more times, but nothing comes up. Confident that I’m finally finished, I flush the toilet. Getting on my feet is another struggle. My legs are trembling and weak, but with a tight grip on the toilet, I manage to push myself up and stumble to the sink behind me.

I fill one of the cups with water and rinse my mouth thoroughly before spitting it out and splashing water into my face.I look down into the sink for a moment, then close my eyes and hold my breath. When I look back up in the mirror, I’m startled by the image of the woman in it. Shit! Is that me? She' looks nothing like me.

My hand runs over my cheeks. The woman in my mirror is pale and looks like a goddamn corpse.Hardly recognizable rings start to appear under the eyes, which only stare expressionlessly into the mirror. The otherwise green eyes, which sparkle like emeralds, as Bucky always claims, seem dull and pale.

Almost lifeless.

Somehow disgusted, I turn my gaze away from the mirror and feel the urge to bend over the bowl again. Instead of doing that, I take a few deep breaths, briefly wondering where Bucky’s now. I decided to strip out of my soiled clothes. I manage to get them off without getting any of the vomit in my hair. I throw them in a pile on the floor and leave the bathroom. The hall is empty, so I find it safe to stroll through it to our bedroom. The second I pass the office, I close my eyes, a hand on the wall to guide me past it. I don’t know if the door is open or closed, but right now, I don’t even care. I don’t want any chance to find what I found earlier again accidentally.

I hold my breath for the whole four seconds until I finally reach the bedroom. I don’t waste any time and quickly slip back into bed, this time purposefully on Bucky’s side. I see that he already switched the sheet, where some of the vomit had landed. It doesn't smell like bucky anymore, but his pillow still does. So, I grab his pillow and snuggle into it, inhaling deeply and letting his smell soothe me. There’s nothing to see or hear from Bucky, only the voices somewhere downstair sound silently up to me.

For a moment, I think I can hear Bucky's voice. I pull the thinner throw blanket for the feet of our bed up to my chin because I suddenly feel quite hot and just the look at our duvet makes me feel like dying of a heart stroke.

After about ten minutes - or maybe just a few seconds - Bucky comes back. I can hear him call for me in confusion until he steps into the room. “Ah, here you are.” He strolls over to me and sits down at the bedside.He pulls the blanket back a bit to reveal my face. His expression softens as he looks at me. “Here. Take the pills and have a drink. They’ll help with the nausea.” He hands it to me, but I shake my head. A grimace of disgust. I hate taking medicine, and pills are my worst enemy. After spiders. Even as a small child, I was never able to swallow any kind of pills. Strangely gummy bears weren’t a problem at all.

Most of the time, I feel worse after taking a pill because it takes me so long to swallow the damn things. I try to pull the blanket over my head again, but Bucky quickly grabs it firmly to hold it down. “I know you don’t like them, but they’ll help you. Come on, doll. For me?” Puppy dog eyes! I hate them!

He pulls this move, and suddenly I do everything he wants me to. So, I sigh, defeated, sit up as much as I can without disturbing my stomach, and do as he tells me.

It takes me a few tries and almost the whole glass of water, but I finally succeed. “Good girl.” Bucky smiles and strokes my hair, but I slap his hand away with a grumble. Then I arrange the blanket around me so I can lay my head on his lap. “What are you doing?”

“Going to sleep,” I grumble and wrap my arms around his hips so that I can hide in his stomach. Without any kind of warning, I start to sob again. I don’t know where it comes from, but suddenly, I’m a mess.

Slowly his hand brushes through my hair, as he has done so many times today, and immediately it feels a bit better. “Shh... All right. I know it’s a bit much today. I’ve got you, sweetheart.” He sits a bit longer like that, continuing his motions. “Doll, everyone else is leaving. Sam called someone to make sure the house gets cleaned today. He’ll be back around noon to make sure.” He pauses for a moment. “Would you like to come to the living room with me? Maybe watch a movie?”Still crying, I nod and let go of him. He unwraps me from my blanket cocoon and squats down in front of the bed. “Come here, pretty girl. Let me give you a ride.” Bucky knows I love it when he carries me around, and a smile creeps onto my face. I wrap my arms around his neck and press my thighs against his hips. Bucky is comfortably warm. I bury my face in his neck, letting the tears continue to fall. “Okay. All passengers are instructed to keep a tight hold and enjoy the ride. We arrive approximately in two minutes at our destination: Livingroom couch. We wish you a joyful ride!” Bucky announces it with a loud voice, sounding almost like someone from a fair. I have to admit that it makes me giggle despite the fact that I'm still crying. He’s ridiculous.

I feel him standing up and walking, getting down the stairs and into the living room. Bucky lets me slide off his back. Then he lies on the sofa and stretches his arms to me. They seem so inviting that I let them wrap me up in an embrace and lie down on his chest, legs wedged between his and the backrest.

It’s a little uncomfortable. So, instead, I slide one leg over his, and immediately, it seems more comfortable. He hugs me tenderly and breathes a soothing kiss onto my hair. He gently caresses my back while one hand fumbles for the TV remote. He switches the TV on, and some movie pops up that neither of us pays a lot of attention to. The pills he had given me before starts to take their effect, and I can feel myself getting drowsy and tired again. I feel him gently spreading a thin blanket over us as I close my eyes and bury my face in his chest. “Sleep, sweetheart. I’ll be here the whole time.”

Taglist:

@cjand10

[pinkkinoko]

Do you ever feel it? That bone-deep ache, the one radiating outwards, melting into the tissue and slinking towards the epidermal layer, reaching its tendrils into the wispy, thin hairs there so that they point, ever so defensively, as if creating a barrier, protecting you from some invisible poison that lies in the air.

Billy Hargrove is six feet in the ground but he feels it, in his bones, in the putrid flesh that’s curling around smooth ivory, he feels that ache. It’s seeping through the wood, leeching into the dirt, making the blades of short, freshly trimmed grass stand at attention in a way that speaks of stained jeans and paper cuts.

Have you ever wondered if the dead are somehow out there—somewhere? Billy Hargrove always prayed the end came like lighting, gone in a flash—It felt more like a record, though; the gentle fade of sound into crisp, crackling static, auditory texture almost as rich and tangible as the song before it.

Except, right now someone had scratched a nasty line through the vinyl—and it sounded like plastic wheels on pavement—

It smelled like sunscreen and birch wood, sweet honeysuckle on the curled end of a clef note. It was the sound of earnest love and young regret.

In the depths of a hole as dark as an oceanic trench, the remnants of teenage inadequacy swelled and groaned; organs shifted, intestines wrapping around themselves like a noose on a hanged man, lungs struggling to spread their thin casings over particles of black tar.

These small pieces seemed to resist their mending, but it was the heart that suffered most.

It seemed to refuse to beat, so tired and frail, lost in time in a cavity that spoke of boyhood but trapped in a membrane that crumpled with despair—aged infinitely by trauma.

However, it beat to the hum of those words, the tremor in the chords of this rasped apology—and it was on the tail of that phrase: “I’m so, so sorry, Billy,” that the muscle gave an earnest contraction towards life—squeezed, as it were, by the wheeze of air in those parted lips six feet above that almost appeared to crumble around the shape of his name.

Billy Hargrove opened his eyes, choking on the absence of oxygen, and haunted by the sounds of his sister’s despair—his vinyl was spinning, and the volume was deafening.

Thread I wrote for twitter; be it romantic or simply sibling-centric, I leave that up to your personal headcanons

[gatzilksis-2]

Today's Holiday: First Finale Pt. 2

Part One

July 31: The Last Hurrah

18+

Cameron

I crawled into the small tent after Michael. He'd pulled Donnie in first. The three of them lay on the blankets Frank had put down.

Speak of the devil, Uncle Frank got in behind Brent. He zipped up the door, the same red shorts he wore on our first meeting slipping down his untanned ass. I had a boner, and so did Michael. Frank and Brent were more tamed, and Donnie looked terrified.

Frank finished zipping the door and winked over his shoulder. BWRRRR-RRRR-PHBLRLRRRRRR-BOWF!

The old beef of his intestinal poison filled the tent at once. I started rubbing my dick at once. The fart was long and powerful and the stink almost had me coming way too early.

To my side, Michael flipped onto his stomach. "Someone get in my ass."

Donnie sat in a ball by his feet, frozen.

I got up and planted my face between my burly boyfriend's cheeks. The hair was thick and sticky with sweat, and I inhaled the traces of prior farts. Michael was my perfect man, and this was the perfect moment.

VWRRR! BWRR! BWAAP! BWAURT! FRRRP!

Michael made his farts shorter, delivering them in a line of smaller loud farts. I sniffed it all into my lungs and head. I spread my legs apart and started humping the ground. Michael continued his string of farts...

PHRRMP! FWRRT! PLRRR! BWRRARR! WHMP!

Donnie

Michael's boyfriend dove into his ass as if it smelled like a bakery in the morning. Brent suddenly appeared in front of him, his long, thin dick swinging between pale thighs. "Hi."

"No--"

But Brent turned and pushed his head into a smaller, tight ass. Donnie fought against him, trying to pull away. Two warmer hands pushed his head further. Frank's voice boomed down on him. "Sorry, intern. More farts, more money."

"This has been brewing so long," Brent teased with a douchey laugh.

PHLRRR-BWORRRRR-BRRR-WRRRRRR-RT!

Donnie's face shook beneath it, and the smell was much worse than he expected. It was a strong, heavy smell like sulfur and meat. Towards the end of the long fart, the odor of rotten eggs was added to it.

His head remained held in place by the strong, older man, and Donnie was forced to inhale and exhale Brent's flatulence. PWRRR-BWRRRR-ER!

Donnie struggled again, but Frank was way too strong for him.

Another long moment of sniffing, and Frank's hands moved to release him. Donnie broke from the ass and fell backwards against the tent wall. He panted for air, but there was no fresh air in the tent. It was all the horrible gas of Michael, Frank, and Brent.

Michael was still seated on Cameron's face, but he gave Donnie a big smile. "What? You jealous?"

"Not at all."

A hand grabbed Donnie's left arm. Frank pivoted to stand in front of him, shorts halfway down his hairy ass. Donnie tried to pull away, but Frank grabbed his other arm. The uncle pulled both arms, and Donnie was suddenly pulled against him.

Frank slid back a foot to trip him, and Donnie's nose landed right in his crack. Frank pulled his arms further to keep him in place. "Prepare for thunder."

PWRRRRRRRRR-RRRRRR-VWRRR

PRP-FLRP-PRP...

Donnie had to smell all of it as the farting blew between Frank's cheeks. His farts were worse than Michael's, twice as heavy with an overtone so disgusting Donnie couldn't think of a comparison for it.

Frank pushed his ass impossibly closer, the cheeks spreading further part. BWOWOWRRR-PHLRRBLRRR-RM!

It was the loudest gas passing yet, making the nastiest noises and pushing an inhuman, unforgiving stink.

Frank let him go, and Donnie bolted for the tent door. Two big hands wrapped around his torso and brought him back. Michael restrained him with one muscular arm. "Where do you think you're going?"

Donnie whined as Michael threw him to the floor. He gave Cameron a quick kiss and walked forward. He sat down over Donnie's face, and the farty, musty smell of his ass made Donnie throw up in the back of his mouth.

It would all be over soon. Just a few more farts.

"Did you miss my ass, Don?" Michael chuckled and wiggled his ass cheeks on Donnie's face.

Donnie didn't make a noise, trying to focus on keeping his breathing normal. Hot, silent air attacked him at once, and it became too much. Donnie pushed with his whole body and head, and Michael fell to the side.

Donnie crawled to the door, unzipped it a little, and stuck his head out to throw up in the grass.

Cameron

"Give him a minute," I strongly suggested as Donnie hung his head out of the tent. I was still lying on the ground, in gassy heaven with Michael's farts in my nose and his family's farts completely dominating the tent.

Frank approached me and turned. I got up put my head in the proper place. BWRRRR! He sighed. It was a small fart, but it carried the aroma of a big one. "Remember our camping trips years ago?"

"Yeah. You would always make sure the tent smelled almost just like this." Brent chuckled, absentmindedly fingering the tip of his cock. The hand moved up to his stomach, and he ran to me and turned.

I inserted my nose between his cheeks. FWRRR-FRRRRRRT! I fully inhaled Brent's fart, wishing we could just stay like this forever.

Donnie turned away from the door, eyes watering and wiping his mouth. He found Michael's eyes and shook his head. "Please. I can't do this anymore. I really, really can't."

Michael crawled over to Donnie and put both hands on his shoulders. "What if I make you my partner? You barely have to do shit for way more money."

Donnie

Partner? Really? That would be a GIANT step up in life, something he would never get, at least not for several years. He exhaled farty air. "Okay, but this is it."

"We need a grand finale." Michael pointed where Cameron had returned to a lying position. "Lay down there."

Donnie did, but slowly. He was smart enough to guess what might happen. Donnie lay across the floor blanket, his heart pattering faster.

"Okay. All together now." Michael stepped above their heads and squatted his ass between them.

Brent squatted on Cameron's left side, and Frank squatted on Donnie's right. Of course he got the worst one next to him.

BWRBLRPHRRRRR! Michael blasted from above.

BROWRRRRRRRR...Frank's start sounded from beside him, drowning out whatever sound Brent's was making. It gave out endless heaps of disgusting air for Donnie to unfortunately breathe.

...RRRRRR-WRRRR-VWRRRR...It just kept going, and Donnie knew he was going to be sick again. He started to turn his head away.

Frank's still-farting, vibrating ass covered his face on a flash.

...RRRRR!

Donnie was happy it was over, but the smell was one of the top worst farts Donnie had whiffed over the past couple of days.

Frank got up and grinned as he crawled away. Donnie took deep breaths of the air, though it was all farts with no clean oxygen left.

Michael flopped onto his face, painfully squishing Donnie's nose. PHRRRWRBLRBORBLRRRR-WAAAAAHRRRRRR!

The biggest, loudest fart saved for the very ending. Michael moved his ass around to let it really sink in. He lifted it. "Sniff hard!"

Donnie dramatically sniffed, and his stomach turned and jolted. It was pure death, sulfur and skunky. He crawled back to the door and completely unzipped it, somersaulting onto the grass outside.

Donnie got to his feet and pumped his arms in the air. Birds chirped and sunlight warmed his face. The air was clean, and he never had to smell another fart again.

Someone touched his shoulder. Donnie opened his eyes to find his nude boss putting an arm around him. A big smile parted Michael's beard, and his brown eyes were still as amused as ever. "Can't wait to share an office with you, buddy!"

Donnie gaped in horror, not realizing that was part of being Michael's partner. He'd been tricked. "Shit!"

T H E E N D

For now...

@gatzilksis-2 to purchase my stories for sale!

[blubushie]

Question for you: how do you go about transporting a kill back to Matilda? I’m curious about how a roo would be quartered/split up, if their hides are any good for leather, what you do with the guts and bones, etc. Basically, what happens after you make a kill? -🐟

So first and foremost, Jack owns the roo ute we use for this. It has a "rack" in the tray what we use for hanging the roos and dressing them. For the sake of this and the fact you mentioned Matilda specifically, I'm going to explain how this works for a non-commercial hunt. Here's a video of how it works commercially if you want to see that.

This is a gambrel.

The hooks on mine are sharpened for better penetration. They go in the hocks and snag at the Achilles' tendon, like this.

So the first thing I do is hunt the roo.

I drive Matilda as close as I can get to the carcass. Sometimes I'm far enough out into the bush that this isn't possible, so I'm stuck lugging ~60kg/130lbs of dead weight through the bush back to Matilda. If I think this is going to take more than an hour, I field-dress the carcass on the spot to avoid any bacteria what might be in him spoiling the meat. Roos weigh a lot less without their guts and stuff, but the downside of field dressing is that I get completely covered in blood dragging it back because I basically piggyback the roo on my shoulders (both front legs go over my shoulders and cross at the wrists over my throat, I tie them with rope and wear the roo like a cape as a I hump it back).

I'm writing this assuming I haven't already field-dressed the roo.

Once at Matilda, I find a good tree that looks sturdy and I set up the gambrel. I snag the gambrel in the roo's hocks and use a pulley system to bring him up off the ground like this.

Once that's done and he's hanging upside-down, it's time to get to work.

I take my KA-BAR and start cutting around his throat. I use a sawing motion (I keep my knives sharp) until I hit the vertebrae. I make my way around the neck until the vertebrae is the only thing keeping his head attached. Once that's done I bring him up so that I'm waist-level with the semi-decapitated head. I get my machete, line it up, and swing. Usually it only takes one swing to either break or cut through the vertebrae. Rarely it takes two. I've never had to make a third.

I grab the head by the ears and chuck it into the bushes. I don't like looking at it. I repeat the same process with the tail. Cut, align, whack. The tail is left for Misty to chew on. Keeps her from trying to get into the viscera.

The machete gets put away for now.

Next I get the hopper choppers--a pair of cable cutters. I dock off the hind legs above the Achilles and the front legs at the elbows.

I use a gutting knife, like this. The hook is important.

I take my gutting knife, start at his knackers or her package, and start cutting in. I keep it shallow so I don't nick the bladder. Once I can get two fingers (right hand) in him and the knackers are removed, I put the blade between my pointer and middle fingers (still right hand) and snag the hook in him and slowly pull down like I'm unzipping him. The viscera comes tumbling out. I lower the roo so the stump of the neck almost touches the ground. I take the machete, align it with the bottom of the sternum, lay my shin over it, and use my body weight to cut downward. This cuts through the sternum and into his throat. Most of the viscera hits the ground at this point and I use the gutting knife to detach the intestines from the anus, then cut through the anus and downward until the cut meets where I've already carved. I make my way down the back wall of the body cavity along the spine, cutting the rest of the intestines, lungs, and heart free. This is the bloodiest part of the whole deal and usually the point when I get splattered.

The insides of bodies smell weird. Raw. I can't describe it.

The skin comes off next. I make a ring along the hocks and cut down, thigh-to-thigh, until I reach the groin. For this I use the tip of my gutting knife, since it's also a skinning knife. I work the skin on both legs free until I reach the arse, and then I pull downward. The skin peels off. It feels like peeling orange and sounds similar. If the roo is a real big bloke with skin that won't separate easily, sometimes I'll use a piece of rope to knot the hide and then tie that onto the hitch of Matilda and floor it.

It should come off in one piece, and I inspect the carcass to make sure it comes off in one piece.

When it comes to a commercial harvest, all I do it dock the legs, head, and field dress. I don't skin. That's the butcher's job. I quarter carcasses the way Jack does, which consists of treating it the same way I would a pig carcass.

I get my esky.

I take his foreleg, stretch it out, and use the KA-BAR to cut through the foreleg, around the shoulder, and separate it from the body. It goes into the esky. I repeat the process with the other leg. Then I take my knife and start under the hindquarters and come down the side, I grab the muscle here, and pull as I cut away along the spine. That's the backstrap. Goes in the esky. Next is the tenderloin. I cut down the inside cavity along the spine, grab the muscle, and cut it free. Goes in the esky. I take the machete, grab the ribs, and start hacking like I'm hammering a nail to separate them from the spine. Goes in the esky. Then I use the KA-BAR to separate the legs from the spine, and they go in the esky. After that I'm done and it's just a matter of cutting individual pieces of meat whenever I'm ready to make dinner. I'll wash off my hands, wash the meat and put it in the fridge/freezer, have a beer and maybe a smoke, and relax for the evening. I usually cook the tenderloins first since that's my favourite piece of meat on a roo. They cook fast and you have to eat them rare. Kangaroo meat doesn't withstand cooking to medium. Sometimes I'll use a skillet but in my experience they're best over a campfire on a grill. The wood smoke adds to the flavour.

The hide, guts, and head gets left behind for scavengers since it's no use to me. Very rarely I'll buy a fuckton of salt and lay the hide out and flesh it (scraping it with the skinning knife to remove any meat). Then I rub salt on it, roll it up, and shove it in a rubbish bag. I give the hides to Jack. Misty gets to chew on any stray bones, and I dock the tip of the tail, skin it, and give it to her as a treat which she loves.

And yes, kangaroo leather is great! It's ten times as strong as cow hide and my hat is actually made of kangaroo leather (except for the band which is 100% crocodile). Misty's lead is also made of braided kangaroo leather for added strength/durability. My vest, boots, most of my sheaths, and my quiver are all made of kangaroo leather.

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Shidou MV Details

Alright! So I (admin Saturn) did some frame by frame examination on Shidou’s MV. I don’t necessarily have any theory that comes from this but I do have some interesting information/clues!

Now the image above that I’ve written over is taken from 3:35 in the MV. This is that tag that comes from the flower person. (Shidou’s suspected romantic partner that he’s trying to save via organ harvesting) 

Interestingly, everything on this tag is the same as on every other tag that ca be seen in the 2:24 section of the video. This could be from an ease of animation stand point, a way to represent how dialed in on this person Shidou is, or even have some broader theoretical implication on his crime that I couldn’t tell you. 

Taking a look back at the actual contents on the tag though, the first thing to point out is the ‘Who:’ section. It’s very clearly in cursive and to the best as I could trace on edited image, I think it might say Rue Kar... something. This could be the name of the dead person, a surgeon that was operating on then, an organ donor, really any number of potential people. 

(And I’m putting the unedited version in just so y’all can get a clear look) The next thing on here is the ‘Organ:’ section which (to my best guess) says magen. Now! That meant literally nothing to me at first, however with some googling, I learned magen is german for stomach. 

Why would this japanese MV have german names for organs? Couldn’t tell you! I’ll leave that for the theorists to figure out! However, I am almost certain that this is in fact meant to be read in German because of the additional very small writing underneath. Taking just the shapes that I could make out and comparing them to a german anatomical name list, heres what they look like to me in the order that’s in my first picture. 

1. Magen - Stomach

2. (???) Gehirn - Brain

3. Leber - Liver

4. Lunga - Lung

5. Niere - Kidney

6. (??) Herz - Heart

7. Gallenblase - Gallbladder

8. Zwolffingerdarn - Duodenum (small intestine part)

9. (?) Bauchenspiecheldruse - Pancreas

My theories as to why theres this list: (and nothing concrete, I’ll leave this to the theorists and future MV’s to explain) Could be a list of organs this body needed replaced or could be just a list of organs as a sort of checklist for medical peeps?

Adding on to this, 9 items in a category is also seen as the number of unique flowers (I believe? that I counted at least, correct me if I’m wrong here) that are flashed against that black background which could suggest the flowers represent organs instead of patients that some theorize? Now how exactly a person would transplant a brain is above me.. pretty sure it’s impossible so I don’t know what that’s about, however these could instead be organs that are beginning to fail rather than organs Shidou is transplanting? The logic doesn’t quite flow here though, just figured pointing out this correlation (not causation) could help others theorize.

But anyway, last thing on the front of this is a big ol XX XY with the XY having a slash through it. Now... 2 explanations for this cause it’s kinda counter to my logic. Either this is indicating biological female by crossing out the XY or indicating biological male because its the one that marked.... Either way kinda an odd system but I won’t fault them!

And then some additional things I noticed, if you look at the papers that turn into the tags, they all have the same grey lines on them indicating these papers all hold the same information. This could have similar explanations as why all the tags are the same.

And then last thing! All the tags have the same black backside with a number 7 on it and some unintelligible writing. 

Heres two good shots of the back, something to note is that the part has the N, like the number indicator, looks to be the same type of font as the one that indicates prison cell number. Maybe they just reused the font but it does seem sort of odd to me? Especially because Shidou is prisoner number 5. Just something odd.

But anyway!! Sorry that got so long, that’s what I have discovered here, please let me know what y’all think!! I’m not quite one for the strong theories but I like to think I can pick out some interesting details :)

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Clarity 1

She could almost see 'Obi rolling his eyes at her for getting overly enthusiastic and dropping the cloaking genjutsu that he had painstakingly taught her.

But this was fun too, in a different way.

Aiko smiled absently, tapping her big toe inside her right sandal along with the beat of a rather chipper song. 'Obi hated it, but she thought the theme song for those silly princess Fuin movies was cute. It had been stuck in her head for the last fifteen minutes or so, but she didn't mind. She ducked under what seemed to be a pathetically slow sword slice and twisted under the shocked Ame nin's raised arm to stick him in the gut with an old-fashioned kunai, literally without missing a beat in the staccato she was keeping.

"Sorry, love." She lied casually, stepping in just a little closer and giving a nice, big scoop with some serious elbow action and muscle behind it. His stomach opened up with piteous ease.

He made a choked sound and dropped his weapon with a clatter to reflexively reach for his gut. She batted one arm away with her elbow and used her free hand to grab his right wrist. Immediately she pulled it around his back so that she could brace his torso up with her forearm when his knees threatened to buckle.

In the instant where he was hanging supported by her leverage, frightened blue eyes met Aiko's turquoise eyes, silently begging for mercy.

She shrugged.

"Nothing personal." With deft motions, she pulled her blade out and made a precise jab at the pulsating artery on his upper thigh. He had a minute left by the time she extracted her blade, tops.

The gut wound would have been enough to kill him, of course, but she wasn't a sadist. This had to look messy, but there was no reason to let the man suffer for the hours it would take for intestinal bleeding to finish him.

Excess cruelty served no purpose, after all. It didn't entertain her and it didn't make her target any more dead.

She left her new friend awkwardly collapsed face-up with buckled knees on the cement floor, tucking a bit of loose hair behind her ear with the cleaner hand as she meandered through the storage facility of one of Ame's newly re-occupied border outposts. She'd never been there before, so she would be forgiven a bit of curiosity at the surroundings.

'In a desolate way, Ame is beautiful.' She took a deep breath of heavy, cold hair, feeling crisp condensation coat her lungs.

It was very grey, for lack of a better word. This was one of the few places she'd seen where a cement bunkhouse wasn't totally out of place. The rocks were grey, the long grass was a strange blue-green color she had seen in no other flora, and the sky itself was tinted from low-hanging clouds ambling with the sluggish wind.

Ame was clearly a hard place. Of course, she could have already concluded that by assessing the apparent character of the people who lived there. They were an awfully cantankerous lot, as far as she could tell. Proud and stubborn, Ame refused to admit that they needed military assistance to keep out Kumo.

They were horribly wrong, of course, but it wasn't like allies were lining up at the door to offer help. Ame really only had one country who had expressed a willingness to offer them assistance, but Konoha's help would certainly come at a steep price.

'That's what happens when you don't play well with others,' Aiko sighed, patting down a bit of frizz. 'You try to launch one little takeover of the world, and suddenly nobody wants to play with you after school'.

Not that she had any room to talk, of course, but that was beside the point. She didn't know exactly what had happened a year and a half ago, but she didn't really care, either. She'd been asked to pop over, sabotage Ame's relationship with Konoha, and stop to get milk on the way home. So there she was, slaughtering her way through the more alert sentries at various posts. Dull. But the havoc later should be fun.

She wasn't there to kill everyone, of course. It wasn't like she and 'Obi had anything against these people in particular, just the idea of Ame allying with such a large faction. Besides, it would be awfully impractical to get rid of everyone in the vicinity when she needed the breach in security to be detected soon.

Aiko kneeled to pry the lid off what proved to be a container of munitions.

Naughty, naughty. Ame had been dealing with the technology-rich countries outside of the shinobi nation-states. It wasn't a surprise, but it was good to know. She patted the crate companionably, information confirmed. It wasn't crucial, but it was nice to see that Kotaka wasn't useless after all. She made a note to put a little more faith in his reports, although she really would have preferred to know his sources.

The storage area had been a bit of a detour, but she considered it time well-spent, even though it meant she had to move that much faster to her true destination. It was probably a good idea for Ame to have their outpost separated into a few bunkers instead of as one big, internally connected building. In theory, that design protected most of the base when one section was compromised.

In practice, Aiko was mildly inconvenienced because the buildings weren't helpfully labeled but also weren't adequately guarded. She ended up in the barracks by accident, calmly holding her breath and sliding past a pale-faced duo who were talking quietly at a small table. They didn't hear her steps and they certainly didn't notice the slight friction of chakra against reality as the genjutsu wrapped around her like a silk dress let them see what they expected to see.

That was a little thrilling, to be honest. Genjutsu wasn't a strength of hers, but 'Obi had been drilling her mercilessly in using genjutsu to hide for the last month and a half. She'd spent most of that time grouching that she would never get the damn technique down and that she didn't want it anyways. Now that she was suddenly competent, Aiko found all sorts of situations where it was useful.

In other words, she was getting lazy as all hell and she probably owed her friend an apology for being a poor student.

'I'm terrible,' she thought with a thoroughly inappropriate smile at her own expense.

Hypocritical or not, the technique worked like a charm to get herself in the control center. It was pretty nice, for an office in a little outpost. That was thanks to the fact that border control had been one of Ame's greatest priorities after their dust-up with a four country alliance two years back. As a result, they had all but poured their money into the base and lit it on fire.

Feeling strangely artistic, she carefully left a sixteenth of a bloody fingerprint on the inside of the door at a height that implied someone just a little shorter than she was. That was insignificant enough to look accidental. Aiko accidentally leaned a little too close and got a nose-ful of the cloying reek of iron and fear.

'Whoo, that's gonna piss somebody off.'

The inevitable forensics team would know it was from one of their people when the sample was compared. Even Iwa could handle that kind of detective work. Ame should do fine.

She left the office mostly untouched, doing her best to imitate the movements of an agent who was pressed for time, but attempting to ensure that they left no traces. The three bodies in the warehouse would be dismissed as a distraction from the intruder's real aim, hopefully, when all was said and done.

Even if they were really clueless, Ame would only be able to conclude that someone had commissioned an intelligence gathering mission.

If they were incompetent, they would think that Iwa had been the ones to break in, which was a violation of their current but shaky treaty. Ame should be leery about that, actually. A nominal ally sneaking around was much more hazardous than a known enemy. Their closest neighbors would be on Ame's shortlist of suspects, and Aiko had spent the night in a hotel not four hours away wearing the face of an Iwagakure kunoichi. Digging would uncover that and reinforce their paranoia in regards to their northern neighbors.

But if Ame's people were as good as 'Obi hoped they were, they would think that Konoha was framing Iwa in an attempt to pry apart their alliance.

(Aiko didn't bother fretting about the possibility that they would actually figure out that a third party had attempted to frame Konoha for framing Iwagakure. If Ame worked that one out, they deserved a pat on the back, no matter how much 'Obi would scowl and stomp around).

She lazily picked papers up nearly at random, leaving her scent in case Ame would think to check what had been touched that way. It wouldn't matter that it was hers, since they wouldn't know her personally. It took a great deal of time and experience to memorize an individual scent and not just follow a trail. There was no reason for any Ame shinobi to know her off-hand. All they'd know was that a female shinobi had been poking around. She paid special attention to information on orders in regards to the other nations, holding Ame's protocol about Rock-nin at borders and the records of contract for the longest time out of personal curiosity.

It was mildly interesting to see that Ame wasn't treating Rock with more caution than they were Suna or Kiri, who were understandably peeved about their tiff in the not-so-distant past. That wasn't wise of them, was it?

'This Konan woman must not be much of a politician. Too straight forward, I think,' Aiko decided disinterestedly. It was true on the surface, at least, that it was logical to be most wary of the countries that Ame had recently engaged in armed conflict with. Rock had been the only one out of the great shinobi nations who had stayed out of that scuffle, so Ame must have decided that Iwagakure was their most probable was a one-dimensional way to look at things.

'Ugh.' She blinked back excess liquid and shook her head. Aiko felt a headache coming on. 'I should hurry out of here.'

Now that the adrenaline-filled part of the mission was over, she was losing interest. Still, the mission had to be finished. It was her job to leave the impression that Konoha was framing Rock for illegal entry that undermined Ame/Iwa relations.

Speaking of that…

Aiko dug around in the left-most pocket on her hip pouch and extracted a tiny glass bottle. She held it up to the light to see the dry corpse inside one last time.

'How on earth did he get one of these?'

She pursed her lips and shrugged, carefully tipping out one kikai bug onto the thin carpet right by the edge of the desk she knelt in front of.

The bug had died of natural causes—old age. They occasionally just did that, and fell wherever their master was. Any shinobi who looked around this room would be able to tell that there had only been one intruder, a female with a petite build. The bug clan was notoriously sneaky. So Ame wouldn't be surprised to 'discover' that an Aburame had gotten in the premises, though Ame wouldn't be pleased about it either.

'And there goes Konoha's hope of convincing Ame that the threat from an Iwa/Kumo alliance is more important than their pride,' Aiko sighed. She didn't really care one way or another, but it was a little shocking that the lives of so many people could be affected by something so fragile.

Or not. Maybe it wasn't that fragile, judging by the faint presence she was noting flicker on the edge of her awareness. Maybe Konoha had actually planned a mission like the one 'Obi was having her fake. Wouldn't that be funny?

She repressed a snort as she crossed her way across the lines of barbed wire and miles of icy marsh that made up the no-man's land between Ame and River Country. That was awfully convenient, but then, Konoha and Ame were running out of time for their respective goals.

She'd left a slight scent trail leaving Ame to River (although only an expert would be able to tell) because a Konoha nin wouldn't have gone directly through the border at Fire Country, but they wouldn't really go through Rock Country either. Nice neutral River country left plausible deniability for any party. Coulda been a Suna mission, even, if it weren't for the fact that Suna and Kiri were outright refusing to take part in Konoha's less than selfless efforts to keep Kumo from taking Ame. If Ame didn't formally ask for Konoha's protection, then Kiri and Suna couldn't be forced to take part in helping them. Konoha was crippled, until Ame pulled their collective heads out.

'Ugh, why am I wasting time thinking about this? It's not really my problem.'

Apparently, 'Obi was operating on the same wavelength as the Hokage, because there really was a Konoha-nin creeping towards Ame.

Or at least, she assumed it was a Konoha nin heading north through River. Aiko stopped leaving an intentional trail at all when she veered off course to meet with the approaching chakra signal. It would be a pain if this asshat managed to make it into the Ame border-post and do damage control.

'Like what?' Aiko snickered at her own dramatic thoughts, licking her lips. 'I don't even know how he would figure out what happened. Still, it's an unnecessary loose end.'

As soon as she saw him, she circled downwind, to the west of the traveler. He wasn't marked, but Konoha wouldn't have sent a hitai-ite on a mission like that anyway.

'No one I recognize,' Aiko thought wryly, wishing she'd made a cleaner kill earlier and hating the obvious stink on her arm and shirt. There was always a risk of running into a dog-nin when dealing with Konoha, and blood carried a strong scent.

She could have killed the sentries without the fuss, of course, but it was supposed to look like a hack job by an infiltrator who accidentally drew too much attention. Aiko hadn't had a problem with the men she'd run into, and could have ambushed them like an infiltrator should. But that didn't fit the profile she was attempting to imply. An Aburame who was canny and practiced enough to pull off a mission like this would already be well-known, and there wasn't one of those with Aiko's physical profile currently active. So she was portraying someone talented but inexperienced, a girl who managed to sneak past most of the security but had to fight for her life against a rather good Chuunin.

'This guy is definitely not a Chuunin, though. I wonder what that scarring is from. Very distinctive.'

In an odd way, the horizontal lines marring her new find reminded her of 'Obi. Except this guy's scars made a sort of rough triangle with a tip across the bridge of his nose that stretched and expanded over his left cheek, instead of decorating a neat half of his face. Odd, though not particularly important.

But the Konoha nin didn't seem to be a dog-man. No matter how obvious the stink of blood was to her, he was visibly ignorant.

He was skilled, however, even if he did have beady black creeper eyes. He picked his way rather expertly through the marshland, not leaving a physical trace of his presence. Like a veteran, actually.

'He has a lot more experience than me,' Aiko noted, more interested in an accurate tactical analysis than her ego. 'I can't afford to let him have a fair shot. It would be pathetically cliché for the young shinobi to underestimate someone cannier.'

It was almost a shame to unceremoniously kill someone that good, but she couldn't have him undermining her work. Aiko shrugged, picking a single senbon out of her leg holster and twirling it between her middle and forefingers as she examined her target to pick her shot.

'All that muscle might be enough to put the needle penetration off if I get the wrong spot. He's not in bad shape. What is he, in his mid-thirties?' Aiko gauged, eyes flicking over his lithe form for weaknesses. 'Definitely from Konoha, with that chest armor. They really prioritize that.'

Her target stopped suddenly, clearly alert.

She didn't know how, but he knew he was being watched. Did he have a chakra sense that was better than her suppressing? That would be odd, since his suppressing wasn't as good as her sensing. It was more likely that indefinable seventh sense that occasionally pricked the back of your neck for no apparent reason that had alerted him he was in danger.

'Oh, pooperscoop.'

Aiko pressed her lips out in a pout, slipping the senbon behind her ear like a schoolgirl would store a pencil. Now that he was alert, it would be a pain to get that perfect shot. And she hated unintentional messiness. There was no point in doing something sloppily when she could expend minimal effort and still get precise results by switching tactics. Her next tactic wasn't hard to choose, seeing as there was one obvious resource all around her, curling into her lungs and kissing her lips damply.

'Well, do you know where I am or not, sweetheart?' she wondered curiously, circling just a little bit as the sluggish wind shifted. She was still wearing her genjutsu, but no technique was perfect. A fellow infiltration shinobi was more likely to be able to spot the cracks in the technique than a random nin.

"Kai!"

Aiko jerked in mild surprise as the burst of chakra washed over her. Usually she could maintain her technique through one of those disruptions, but he'd really gone full-out with the power he'd put into the technique. Not bad. She was right, he was experienced. Special Jounin at least, if not a full Jounin. Konoha's Jounin were nothing to sniff at. Their standards for promotion seemed to be set higher than many other countries'. She should be wary and professional. Still…

"That's cheating!" Aiko faux-pouted, cocking her head slightly and letting him drink the sight of his killer in for just a moment.

Oddly, the man outright gaped. She might have thought he was leering, if it weren't for the fact that he seemed stuck on her face and hair and hardly glanced below the collarbones. (Not that there was anything to see, clad as she was in a high-necked but sleeveless top with pants). He looked more surprised at seeing her than he really had any right to, considering he'd just attempted to disrupt a genjutsu. Had that been luck? Did this guy just occasionally freeze like a startled deer and check for genjutsu?

'I'm definitely not telling 'Obi I got caught out by a complete lunatic,' she thought morosely.

Now that he'd seen her, he definitely had to die. She wasn't much good to 'Obi if the whole world knew about her, after all. Her hand slipped into her hip pouch for a smoke pellet.

Wow, he didn't even tense. Was he an idiot or what?

Generally, one took evasive action when an opponent was possibly reaching for a weapon. This man must be particularly clueless. Or trusting. It wasn't as if she had a mark of affiliation on her person. Maybe he wasn't willing to attack a stranger met within a country that was technically on peaceful terms with his own, if loosely.

That was… somewhat reasonable, actually.

Didn't matter. He'd kill her in an instant if he knew the mission she'd just completed. It wasn't particularly sporting to make the first move, but should that really matter in a fight to the death? Having had a chance to fight back wouldn't make the loser less deceased. Aiko had no plans of being that deceased shinobi.

Ah, well. Philosophy later, fighting now. Her hand darted like the head of a snake, snapping the pellet down with enough force that it burst open and spat a fat billow of scentless purple smoke. Aiko didn't bother repressing a smile and a cheeky wave in the instant that her upper torso was still visible, before she faded into genjutsu again and let the smoke cover her.

She didn't move an inch. No one other than a total idiot would expect someone to remain in the same position after using a smoke pellet. It was an absurd, just plain stupid strategy. Sure enough, as the smoke dissipated, the poor reasonable bastard of a Konoha nin clearly thought she'd merely moved into hiding.

'He really shouldn't be surprised that I would use the same trick twice,' Aiko assessed critically. 'Silly. Are Konoha nin just showboats or something? No point in re-inventing the wheel when you have a technique that gets the job done.'

No wonder 'Obi had been careful to keep her away from Konoha nin, aside from the whole 'they'd kill her on sight thing'. He probably didn't want her to pick up bad habits.

With preternatural ease, she took hold of the mist clinging insistently to the air as a preemptive strike. It was almost too easy, really. It was a second's work to condense it into actual water—a trick that was nicely timed with the instant that her unknown opponent opened his mouth wide. "U-"

'It's like he wants to help me kill him,' Aiko thought, bemused. That didn't stop her from taking control of her element and bastardizing a water bullet to send it shooting down the Konoha nin's throat before he got out more than a syllable. His jaw clamped shut and a hand shot to his neck, but she was already flooding his lungs. Clinically, she tilted her head and watched as panic set in. He wasn't even looking for her anymore, preoccupied as he was with the fact that he was about to drown.

Dispassionately, she waited and watched while consciousness fled and the poor sap collapsed. He had the presence of mind to turn his face to the side when he fell, probably in hopes that she would get sloppy and bored. If she were in too much of a hurry to wait until he was actually dead, he might cough up the water even in his unconscious state. With his head to the side, it would spill out. It was a little trick, but it would have saved his life, had she been careless or rushed.

'That's a tactic straight out of the warnings about passing out drunk,' Aiko thought, charmed by his hopeful attitude. He was a cutie. 'Well, buddy, that was a nice try.'

She let the genjutsu slip away and stepped forward, delicately tilting his chin up with her clean hand so that he faced skyward. His eyes had fluttered shut when oxygen was cut off to his brain, and he almost looked peaceful. He laid still and quiet on his back without so much as a scuff or wrinkle on his clothes.

That was the way she preferred to operate. Nice and clean. Aiko gave his shoulder a fond pat as she rose, finally releasing her hold on the water and glancing curiously at the rings on his hand. She had waited long enough that he was definitely dead, so it had merely been her impulse towards perfectionism that had led her to thwart his last-moment plan and not any practical reason.

Finished, Aiko cast her senses out. She wasn't sure if she thought Buddy was operating alone or not. On one hand, Konoha nin did tend to travel in groups, so he very well could have back-up. Then again, it was often easier to get in and out on a stealthy mission with as few people as possible.

She didn't sense anyone… There could be someone who was very sneaky, but it didn't seem likely. Aiko wasn't a half-bad sensor.

'Well, if he had someone who was meant to help, I think they're running late,' she decided perfunctorily, tossing her head and distractedly unclipping her hair. It was going to kink up terribly if she left it like that for long, and she had plans for the night that didn't involve a bad hair day. She didn't give it another thought, casually loping back on her path to the point where she'd diverted to meet Buddy.

'If Ame really has anyone as good as me available to check this out, they are going to be so fucking confused when they find that body,' Aiko thought with unkind amusement as she went through the motions of leaving a slight trail in the direction she had initially intended to go.

Of course, that would be more amusing than the original plan. She half-hoped that Ame was more than competent, just for the entertainment value.

'God, my head is killing me.' Aiko made a face, rubbing her palm against her temple in an ineffectual attempt at soothing the pain while she waited for her friend to meet her and whisk her away.

[redwhump]

Vampire Vivisection

The latest chapter of Kane & Jim inspired me to finally finish this. I kinda still don't like it, but I also never like anything I write so oh well. It's kind of inspired by me thinking about the function of an inaccessible room from a video game called Vamp/ire the Masq/uerade: Blood/lines (slashes because I don't want this to show up in searches for the game) and what would happen if the player character didn't escape before ending up in that room. But I wouldn't consider this fanfic for the game. Especially when I definitely break the rules of how vampires work in V/T/M in several ways in this.

Contains: gore, vivisection, death wish, medical/experiment whump, vampire whumpee, human whumper, starvation, dehumanization, use of "it" to dehumanize

Ash's limbs and neck were strapped tightly onto the cold steel table he was on. His torso had been strapped down similarly, as he waited alone in the dark room, until the human arrived and released those straps to cut into him. He struggled, but the rest of the straps had held. He screamed, as the human had cut him open shoulder to shoulder, then in a straight line down the center of his torso, down his abdomen. The Y-shaped incision which now cut across Ash's body to reveal his insides had made struggling all but impossible. Moving was difficult with so many muscles severed. And it hurt. Every little twitch of the muscles of his torso was agony. Even as the human began sawing through each of his ribs, he fought to stay still. His arms trembled uncontrollably in their bindings, and his head tipped back, lips parted as if to scream, though there was no air in his lungs to produce the sound. Tears ran down the sides of his face into his hair from the corners of his eyes. He didn't breathe. He didn't want to find out what it would feel like to try.

The human stuck his hand into Ash's guts. He wished he could pass out, but despite the pain, this wasn't enough damage to do it. He wished he were still human, because at least then he'd just die from this. It hurt so much. Beyond the pain, it felt viscerally wrong to have someone dig through his insides like this. The human moved methodically through his organs, examining each one, though the overwhelming pain made it hard to tell what exactly the human was doing at any given time. As the human worked, occasionally making small cuts with a scalpel or drawing something out with a syringe, he spoke. Ash, for the most part, couldn't process the words. It was almost like listening to a foreign language, though he knew he should have been able to understand the words being spoken.

"...the subject's intestines appear ordinary, though empty…stomach contains no acid…its heart appears healthy, though it does not beat…"

Ash twisted his face to the side, pressing his cheek to the metal table, as he felt the human's hand inside his chest. If he had air in his lungs, he would have whined as the human ran his fingers, warm even through the glove he wore, over his exposed heart. Ash could feel the beating of the human's heart in the man's fingers, thrumming through his own heart. He was so thirsty it hurt. For a moment, as the human touched his heart, as he felt the man's heartbeat against his own unbeating heart, the hunger was the only thing he felt--the incisions, his ribs, they didn't matter, they'd heal, as long as he fed, he needed to-- Then the human's fingers drew away, and the pain hit him again. Ash squeezed his eyes shut, his arms jerking uselessly against the straps holding them. His teeth clicked as he snapped his jaw shut. The human's warm hand grasped Ash's chin, turning his head up. When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking up at the human above him. 

"I would like you to breathe for me," the man said in a tone that sounded more like a command than a request.

Ash gritted his teeth, staring wide-eyed at the man above him. He blinked. His shoulders tensed as he felt the fingers of the man's other hand inside his chest again, though not on his heart this time. He closed his eyes, head twitching, turning away as much as the straps and the man's grip would allow. It would be worse if he breathed. He wanted to beg the man to stop, or maybe to just kill him instead. 

"If you breathe for me, I'll give you blood once I'm done. It's been some time since you last fed, has it not?" The human's fingers moved inside his chest, in an almost stroking motion. The stroking sent a shiver down Ash's spine, which flared into more pain from the slight movement of his back muscles. All his muscles went tight, and he fought to relax as that made the lain even worse, even as the pain made him want to tense up even more.

Blood. The human was promising him blood. Did he believe him? No, he decided through the haze of pain. But…if he did it, this might end sooner. Maybe. The human could just keep him open like this until he did as he was told. Or for some other experiment that might be even worse than breathing would be. At least he could control this. breathe as shallowly as possible, or do whatever else made breathing a little less agonizing. So he complied. He drew in a shallow, stuttering breath, and then let out a hoarse scream as he exhaled. There was a moment of stillness, where neither Ash nor the human moved.

When Ash didn't inhale again, the human flatly instructed, "Keep breathing until I tell you to stop."

Ash sobbed, but did as he was told. He breathed in. Then out. Short, sharp, shallow breaths that nevertheless made his chest feel like it was on fire. He whined at the pain, but kept breathing. Please. Please let me stop. Please. Please just let this end. Please just kill me. He tried begging out loud too, but most of it cane out as incoherent pained noises rather than words. He thought he managed to whisper "please" a few times, even if the word was slurred by pain and the effort forcing himself to breathe took.

"That's enough," the human said, after what felt like an eternity.

Ash sobbed as he exhaled, and didn't inhale again. It felt strange, to be relieved at pain that was among the worst he'd ever felt, but excruciating pain was still better than even more excruciating pain. A warm hand cupped his cheek, moving his head so his face pointed upwards again, and he wanted to lean into the almost gentle touch. He didn't.

"Open your mouth," the human ordered. Ash opened his eyes, his eyes blurry with tears, to see that the man held some kind of tube up to his lips. He obeyed, and the human stuck the tube in, holding it steady with one hand. With the other, the human reached for a bag of blood that was attached to the tube and hung it on a hook above him. Ash's fangs itched. The human undid some kind of clamp on the tube, letting the deep red blood flow down the tube.

When the blood flooded into his mouth, Ash was certain that he had never tasted anything better. It's never as sweet as the first time, Jack's words echoed in the back of his mind. He'd been wrong. He didn't need to be told to swallow. The blood ran dry far too early. When the human tried to pull the tube from Ash's mouth, he found he'd been biting down on it without thinking. He let go reluctantly. He would have gladly torn the tubing and the bag apart and licked off every drop of blood if the human had let him. He couldn't tell if he was imagining it, but the pain felt slightly duller now that he had fed, though he knew not enough time for any of the mess that was his body to have healed significantly. If the pain was the sun, it felt as if a thin cloud cover had obscured it slightly.

The sound of the human's footsteps retreated a short distance away. There was the sound of metal scraping against the concrete floor. Ash turned his head to look. The human sat down on a chair, a small distance away from him and penned notes on a clipboard, occasionally glancing up at Ash, though never looking at his face. Just the slowly healing wounds. Ash could feel the blood now flowing through him slowly knit him back together. He felt something itching, or perhaps burning, in the sawed-off ends of ribs, as his body began regrowing the front of his ribcage. He turned his head away from the human, staring at the blank wall on his other side. He had no way to tell the time, but it felt like several eternities passed before the pain abated enough that he could begin drifting to sleep. Still strapped to the table, he fell asleep as the human sat a few feet from him, observing how his wounds closed.

---

So that was something I guess. For the record, I'm like 99.99% sure breathing with the front part of the ribcage would be impossible, but I decided I don't care because the idea of a whumper observing a whumpee's lungs without the ribcage in the way seemed fun. Also random fun fact, the document I wrote this story in is named "viviaection" because i misspelled the word and couldn't be bothered to fix it.

[storytellersbook]

Death By A Doctor

Continuous beeping and the sound of a body breathing were the only sounds the doctor could hear. He looked down at the woman he had tried to save, but only failing in the end. This woman was alive but without a mind. Brain dead, that's what it was called. He had been unable to save the very thing that separated humans from the animals that were used for examination. Now she was powerless, unable to even breathe on her own. She was taped to monitors and had multiple tubes stuck in her body. Anything could happen to this woman - pain, pleasure, and they won't even know it was happening. She was breathing, heart beating, but with a still mind. Like people call the brain dead, this person was a vegetable. This person only needed the basics for its body to live so it could lay there and rot. The doctor knew this. He knew that he had trapped this woman on the line between life and death. He knew that there was only one choice to make. However, he didn't dare to make it. Like every other person in his profession, he took an oath. An oath that stopped him from harming his patients. However, as a strange excuse, someone who is unable to think for themselves can be killed. It made no sense to the doctor. Every part of the body was working - the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas, both intestines, and even the gallbladder, not that it mattered. But not the brain, the most complex organ of them all. It was all there, not harmed at all, but it didn't wake up the body. Why? He and all of the other doctors didn't know. Studying the brain was dangerous, you never knew what card it might pull in this game of life or death. However, now there was a stalemate. The brain was too weak for itself to play when the doctors held it away from death by the machines its body was connected to. In a way the doctors won; they kept the person from dying.

As a consequence, they turned a perfectly good human into something that could be compared to a fruit or vegetable. The hard work was done now. The doctor could do nothing more for this person now. There was only one thing he could do to treat his patient: kill them. It was just a switch away, but it would free her from this world. It seemed like an easy decision, but it stayed undecided in this doctor's mind for almost a year now. That car crash a year ago caused this. Everyone was alright besides her. Everyone except the doctor’s sister. Now he could only stand above her, helpless to help her. She was healthy, alive only a few hours before. She was eating lunch with the doctor, both of them catching up after years of not seeing each other. However, as the two walked out, that’s when it happened. A car sped through the red light and hitting his sister as the doctor walked on the crosswalk behind her. After slamming into her and another vehicle, everything stopped for the doctor. The two drivers were fine and only saw it as an inconvenience. But for the doctor, time seemed to stop as he frantically worked to get his sister’s heart to start again.

But now the very oath he swore to stand by kept the doctor from freeing his sister’s soul from this brain dead trap that he had put her in. “Why is this decision so hard to make,” the doctor thought to himself. He knew that she would never wake up, but the doctor wanted her to. That's what he devoted his life to - saving people's lives. However, now putting his sister to her death for her own good was a paradox in his mind. He knew it was the right thing to do, and he knew that he had to do it, but he didn't want to. No one wanted to. But now was when the decision had to be made. However, it wasn't a decision anymore; it was an order. An order made by the doctor's high-ups, and if the doctor didn't do it, they would only get someone else to.

Turning his gaze towards the machines, the doctor quickly found the switch that needed to be flipped. He stared at it for a moment; such a little thing could kill a person or keep them alive. The doctor placed his finger on the small plastic lever, hesitating before pulling it down. Moments later, the small quiet room was filled with alarms. But the doctor did nothing; he just stood over the soon to be-corpse. It didn't take long, but quick beeping turned into one long, continuous note. As the line on the monitor, the body was now still and unmoving. Seconds later, the doctor turned his gaze from the corpse and down to his watch. He repeated the words he spoke many times before: “Time of Death: 10:37 pm.”

[katabby]

.

.

.

Dead dove, do not eat

"You know what they think I am, kid?" the being spoke. "They think I'm a monster."

He stood over the small boy, face melted, limbs distorted and looking like the very bringer of nightmares. But the boy was unafraid, staring back at the being with a blank, almost numb expression.

"They wouldn't even give me a chance.. the way they gave you. Yet, you act like you don't want it. Why is it? Why won't you accept their love?" the being asked, kneeling down to look the boy right in the eye. He didn't flinch.

"The love they give is not what I need. It's dull, it doesn't feel real anymore. They forgive me for every issue, even when it's repetitive. I've tried so many times, yet they don't give up."

"Or perhaps it's you who clings too hard."

The boy went quiet, staring at the being curiously, awaiting his next response. But they simply stared at eachother, the only sound being the cold, winter air that flew in through the boy's window.

The being stood up, bones creaking and cracking as he did. He extended an arm to the window, to the midnight stars, as if to seize the Moon.

"My home is beyond there, child. It is cold and lonely. My stomach is empty and my bones fragile." The being looked back at him yet he didn't seem the least bit disturbed. "That is how you will become if you continue taking their love for granted. Buried deep beneath soil, as simple fertilizer for weeds."

"Will the bugs enjoy eating my flesh?"

"Oh, yes," the being told him, nodding as he did. "They will feast upon your skin and lay eggs within your intestines. Your lungs will become the incubator for maggots and your liver the breeding ground. You will be forgotten by land dwellers and soon disappear with time beneath stranger's feet."

"But I will be useful?"

The being went silent, staring at the boy before a look of curiosity came over him. "What are you getting at, small boy?"

The boy smiled cheekily, his eyes squinting. "I want to die, dear creature. I wish to become nothing, but to be worth to the smallest creatures of land. I want to become specks so small, scientists won't identify me. I want to become nothing. Life under ground doesn't sound half bad."

The being stared at him simply. He had no words for the boy. So he covered the boy's eyes gently with one boney hand and stuck his finger into his stomach, digging around until he pulled out the line of his inner intestines, pulling the pink inner flesh out with ease. He watched as the boy collapsed onto the floor, a puddle of blood quick to form, before crushing his small, pitiful skull with a dislocated foot, showing no care for the splatter of brain matter and skull shards that now coated the bedroom floor.

[waltersmohamed79]

[Gene examination of the family members using Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome]

In the present examine, we all found ITGA1 within 55 CRC cells and also nearby non-cancerous tissue, sera via 100 CRC people and also 60 healthful themes, and 4 CRC cellular lines making use of immunohistochemistry soiling, enzyme-linked immunosorbent analysis and also Developed blotting. Many of us found that the particular ITGA1 proteins ended up being drastically larger in human CRC tissue as well as mobile outlines as compared to the two matched non-tumor tissues and regular cellular material, correspondingly. In addition, the actual solution energy ITGA1 was also increased in CRC patients when compared to the wholesome subject matter (s much less and then 2.02) and was substantially related to metastatic TNM levels (r less after that 0Lung cancer malignancy is amongst the most typical as well as fatal types of cancer globally, in spite of advancements within precise treatment in recent years. A highly effective technique for cancer of the lung avoidance continues to be an issue. Advancements throughout next-generation sequencing have got helped understand the actual RNA and discovering fresh round RNAs (circRNAs) which could use a extensive impact on earlier treatment and diagnosis involving united states. The circRNAs, showing spatiotemporal-specific appearance, tend to be steady along with maintained and provides varied neurological features inside the standard and also unhealthy states, such as cancers. In this evaluation, all of us sum it up the current developments inside elucidating the functional position associated with circRNAs inside lung cancer pathogenesis and go over his or her prospective components. © The article author(utes).Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) results in the introduction of aerobic and persistent MitoQ10 kidney conditions, nevertheless there are no strong medicines which slow down the production or perhaps toxic body involving TMAO. On this research, high-fat diet-fed ApoE-/- mice had been treated with finasteride, ranitidine, and andrioe. Subsequently, the actual submitting and amount of belly microbiota in the faeces of the these animals in each team have been evaluated using 16S rRNA sequencing from the V3+V4 locations. Pathological assessment validated in which the two ranitidine as well as finasteride decreased vascular disease as well as kidney injury within these animals. HPLC examination in addition indicated that ranitidine and finasteride significantly reduced the activity regarding TMAO along with the TMAO precursor delta-Valerobetaine of their livers. The actual 16S rRNA sequencing established that almost all Three medications substantially improved the actual prosperity and diversity of intestine microbiota in the design rodents. Bioinformatic evaluation says the faeces regarding rats given ranitidine and finasteride, had important boosts within the number of micrLoco-regional recurrence associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) right after radiotherapy is one of the principal types of treatment method malfunction. This study can be directed to research the achievable factors behind inside-field recurrence associated with NPC sufferers to be able to produce powerful treatments. Our own study indicated that CD44 and also autophagy protein within tumour tissues regarding sufferers together with frequent NPC are generally above that relating to the particular backslide totally free patients.

[wh6res]

dreams come true | yuta

"soulmate or not. i don't shoot blanks." — ny

[ part of the my bloody valentine collection ]

tw. gore, blood, murder, death, killings, mentions of illegal organ trafficking, violence, mentions of stalking, minor character deaths, weapons (a knife and a gun), almost (??) suggestive content but nothing happened

disc. this is rlly fucked up and yuta is unredeemable. i dont condone such acts. this is all a work of fiction and meant to entertain.

wc. 5k

every time you sleep, the void is sickening. it was all you could see, lightyears and lightyears away of pitch black that made your head dizzy and your stomach dry heave. you've always wondered when you'll start dreaming about your soulmate's memories. they were like little secrets, another way for two people to be intimate without even being together. their days were flashing before their soulmate's eyes in the form of a dream. it's as if you spent the day with them!

you loved it, the whole concept of it. it sounded so wholesome and sweet and jesus fucking christ, you've always been such a hopeless romantic.

it was sweet until it turned sour. you loved it until you hated it. it was romantic until it turned downright terrifying.

you wake up covered in cold sweat, panting and gasping as if you've run a whole marathon.

moonlight seeps through your glass window, slightly left ajar for the midnight breeze to pass through – you walk up to it, pull it shut, and draw your thick curtains together. you exhaled, breath shaking as you tried to anchor yourself back to the ground.

with the only source of your light disappearing, darkness envelops you whole. for once, you craved the void. you want that void back if it meant never seeing something like that again – something straight out of your worst nightmare.

"119, what's your emergency?"

"uhm, i think… i think i just witnessed a massacre."

you reiterate everything you saw in the dream – the mahogany door, paint chipping off the drywalls. the doorknob was rusty, so were the hinges, and it made an ominous creak when pushed open. the light switches on, the first you see was a bunch of dirty ice coolers in what should've been the living room, it wasn't even the slightest bit organized. they were everywhere, and the floor looked grimy and disgusting, like there's a stain they can't seem to scrub off. only when your soulmate has stalked closer did you see the labels haphazardly taped on top of the ice coolers.

kidneys. livers. lungs. pancreas. intestines – you nearly vomited on the floor, trying to relay everything you saw to the operator on the other end of the call.

then came the gruesome parts.

their deaths.

they were five people in total. men clad in cheap t-shirts and pants, wearing all these similar leather jackets. some were well-built, ripped in the arms and thighs, but some were skinny, the jackets hanging on their small frames.

they never stood a chance against him.

your soulmate is agile, quick on his feet with outstanding eye-hand coordination. only equipped with a butcher's knife, but it was all he needed to take them down and send them knocking on inferno's gates. he was skilled, knowing when to pounce and where to slash his knife to maim but never to kill. by the time your soulmate was through with them, everything is bloody red. all the victims' eyes widened as they sputtered and choked on their blood – not dead, but dying...

because your soulmate wasn't done yet.

a killer should have a modus operandi, should they not? so he took out a desert eagle, stood before the bleeding bodies, and shot two bullets straight into their eyes. the finishing touch? carving a frown on their faces with his butcher's knife.

the operator only told you one thing after she's made you describe the place for them to track the crime scene down.

"double-check all your windows and doors."

because you couldn't be too sure, not when you have been granted a front seat to the sad face slayer's most recent endeavors.

the detective eyes you with a certain pity. maybe that's why you don't bother meeting his eyes. you sit still on a chair, camera blinking red behind him, the interrogation room is freezing even with the thick jacket you're wearing.

seven billion people in the world and you're soulmate's a ruthless serial killer who took it upon himself to purge the world of evildoers – he was playing god, no wonder the detective is looking at you like that.

"uhh…" he's awkward, fidgeting in his seat. "and you saw this all in a dream?"

"yes."

you've known him only minutes ago. mark lee was his name and he seems to be a subordinate of a higher, more experienced detective named kim doyoung. you don't know whether to feel offended or not for having a doe-eyed newbie taking care of the case, but you pushed it at the back of your mind, knowing his superior is watching on the other side of the two-way mirror.

"did you have, like, other past instances where you dreamt of him? of what he…" mark looked like he was going to throw up. "what he does to his other victims?"

you shook your head. no. "i've mostly just heard of him on the news. i don't think i have the stomach to find out in-depth what the killer does."

mark takes out a folder, features walking the fine white line between looking apologetic or wanting to say me too. "i'm, uhh, really sorry to hear that."

there's a sudden pregnant silence encapsulating the interrogation room. it felt like you were mourning for something, the chains of dread dragging your heart to the ground as it pounded against your ribcage. mark looked like he wanted to say something, but you swore his eyes darted towards the camera in the corner and decided otherwise.

"anyway…" he trails. flipping the folder open in one swift motion. "past sightings have given us the sad face slayer's name."

he slaps down a picture of a man, his hair raven and a permanent scowl etched on his face. the quality was shitty. it looked like it was a screenshot taken from zoomed-in cctv footage.

"nakamoto yuta, twenty-five, japanese, and has slipped one too many times past authorities that at this point, it's practically a talent."

and just like that, it made sense why you're here.

your lips pursed in contemplation, palms quaking as your fingers reach forward to inspect your soulmate's picture. "and… you want to use my soulmate connection –" you glowered. never had a sentence sounded so fucking cursed and utterly wrong. "– to catch him?"

mark can't look you in the eye. "yes. he's very elusive. his killings have been happening cross-country and, as you can see, have garnered national media attention. the police are hanging by a thread here. a month in his case and all we got is his MO, name, and that he has this weird god complex on him. if we can't catch him by the end of next month…" he shrugs. "the feds are going to interfere, sooner or later."

"so…" you trail, urging him to continue.

"so, we need as much information about him as we can get and your dreams about him will be able to provide that."

fucking great.

the much newer revelations of precisely who it was on the other end of the soulmate connection put a significant damper on your mood. you'd like to think your new little cop buddy who follows you around gives you the least bit sense of security, but alas, it doesn't. not when you've seen first hand how yuta took down five men all at once without breaking a fucking sweat – you absolutely refuse to call him your soulmate, you'd never accept a person with his nature as a soulmate.

you try to hide the bracelet mark handed you last two weeks ago, during your time spent in the precinct's interrogation room.

"please have this on you at all times until we catch him, okay? this is for extra measures, just in case something happens to the cop assigned to guard you. just press the little button here and we'll be there before you can even finish shouting 'help!' – hey, i was just kidding! what's with the face?"

considering you're now probably being hunted alive for snitching on a serial killer? mark lee, that was not funny at all.

"do you have to get inside the lecture with me?" you whine, shielding your face with your hair when you notice people shooting glances at the rather handsome cop they assigned to you. "it's not like he'll attack in broad daylight! and in a fucking classroom, for that matter."

jaehyun looks just about ready to hurl you out the window. "lower down your voice," he scolds. "serial killers don't pick a time and place, sweetheart. he kills when necessary and if it's fucking necessary to murder everyone in that classroom to get to you? he'll do it in a fucking heartbeat."

you sigh when the chair next to you screeches against the floor, the aforementioned male taking his seat right next to you. jaehyun felt more like a babysitter than a cop, who seems to have a habit of constantly inputting his not-even-needed opinions on the most superficial things.

are witness protection protocols like this?

it was a good thing that overgrown bat doesn't come hanging around in your apartment, but he does have the police car parked right across the building's entrance. judging by how meticulous and thorough he seems to be, he won't miss any face that comes in and out of the building.

you didn't forget exactly why you're under witness protection. for the cops to waste one good officer to follow you around, you needed to be valuable and being valuable meant sleeping through nightmare-induced dreams of what your soulmate does for a living. the scenes are so gruesome, so graphic and utterly gory, that you dart towards the bathroom first thing after waking up in cold sweat, draining all of dinner down the toilet bowl.

after dreaming of him in action a few times, you've now completely understood what detective lee had said regarding yuta's god complex. it was unsightly, yet there was a twisted sense of heroism to it. if there's one thing, he only gutted the bad guys – but that didn't make nakamoto yuta any less of a bad guy, himself.

i need to ask you a favor [sent 2:05am]

JJH: what? [received 2:10am]

often the nightmares were too much. too much that you thought of escaping its horrors by never getting a wink of sleep ever again – until you realized you're a witness and is probably the only chance for the seoul police department to catch that bastard.

buy me sleeping pills? [read 2:08am]

when you peep out of the window, you find an empty spot across the road where jaehyun usually parks the police car. twenty minutes later, you answer the knocking on your door. he used that little "code" he did for you to know it was him. jaehyun was glowering and muttering about how he wasn't some errand boy when he shoved the plastic bottle in your hand yet, you still thanked him nonetheless.

the pills worked like a charm. you managed to stay asleep throughout the whole night, ceasing those episodes of yours where you jolt awake in the middle of dreaming about the sad face slayer's memories.

life continued for you. it became a little bearable, but that didn't mean the horrific murders you see in your dreams are something you can get used to – you don't think you'll ever get used to the sight of him slashing his victims, the blood trickling like a goddamned waterfall.

today the dreams were different. anticlimactic, per se, if you compare it to the violence so utterly present in his memories.

the first you see were black gates, then it shifted to him ordering coffee in a café (amazing what a simple black mask can hide). it switched to him walking on a sidewalk, then he arrives at his destination, an apartment building – it wasn't too rundown, nor was it extravagant.

the serial killer takes the elevator and walks up to a mahogany door –

your room number is a blaring sight.

you couldn't be wrong, not when the 506 with the missing zero in the middle was a sight you saw every day, going and coming home from university.

that was your front door.

he was at your front door.

you jolt awake, ignoring the icky feel of sweat making your clothes cling onto your skin. ice creeps up your spine and freezes you over when you notice with a sinking realization.

those black gates are from the university you attended. that café is your favorite study nook. and that sidewalk is a route you take every day.

you clamp your hands on your mouth as tears roll down your cheeks in rivulets. you pull the comforters up above your head, fear gripping onto you with a vice-like grip as you sob.

it was in the dead of night, moonlight grazing the confines of your room and hours away from dusk. you finally utter those three words in a frightened whisper.

"he's stalking me."

as if having the overgrown bat jaehyun following and annoying you around wasn't enough, you now have another person keeping watch over you. mark lee, unlike jaehyun, may not be as ripped with muscle, but you heard from your cop buddy that the young detective has a few black belts under him. people at the precinct said that if they have to choose one person who can ever come close to the sad face slayer's agility, mark lee's your guy.

"you gotta be shitting me," you mutter, leaning close to jaehyun to whisper like high school girls talking about gossip. "he doesn't look the type!"

jaehyun, in turn, plays along and copies you. "yeah, true. he gets that a lot, i think,"

"guys, i'm literally in the back seat. i can hear everything."

the change hadn't been too drastic. at least mark was there when jaehyun proved to be difficult, pulling him towards the other way when the older male tried waltzing into your class again. "you don't need to sit next to her in her class! are you serious? there's one exit and entrance and we're on the fifth floor. breaking into that classroom will be the end of nakamoto's serial killer career!"

you shoot mark an appreciative smile, one he quickly returned before hauling jaehyun around the hallway. "we'll just be at the canteen, okay? press the 'lil button on your bracelet and we'll be right there!"

shaking your head with a slight smile on your face, you entered the classroom, sat in your usual spot, and did some of your readings from our other class to kill time. you hardly hear the screech of the chair next to you as it was pulled back. not like you cared much for whoever sat down next to you, but you can't deny there's that feeling of missing jaehyun when he used to force his way into the lecture.

"settle down! settle down, people!"

the professor enters and the class begins.

you were meticulous with your note-taking system. it's thorough, leaving no room for information to slip you. having already printed hard copies of the powerpoint presentation and simply jotting down some extra key points mentioned by your professor.

you were just about to raise your hand for a question when you feel something warm graze past your arm. you absentmindedly look down.

the breath is sucked right out of your lungs.

hi, soulmate

there, scribbled with an ominous red crayon on a small piece of paper. it was almost laughable how innocent it looked but when you follow the ring-clad hand, up the black hoodie he's wearing, and finally to his face—

"hi! i'm yuta."

his cheshire smile spikes up your heartbeat. it makes you want to throw up, makes you want to slam your head against the desk. the fight or flight hormone you have is making you restless, eyes pinned on the serial killer sitting next to you, scared that if you avert your gaze, he's going to take out that desert eagle and shoot you until your skull caves in and the bullets in his magazine empties.

"but judging by your reaction, i don't think introductions are needed, hm?" his tone is easy, conversational even and it shoots a freezing jolt of fear right up your spine. it makes you sweat profusely because you don't fucking know what to do, your thoughts in complete and utter disarray.

"just press the little button here and we'll be there before you can even finish shouting 'help!' – hey, i was just kidding! what's with the face?" you swallow, sneakily pressing the button without breaking eye contact with the serial killer sitting in front of you.

"look upfront. now." yuta orders and you nearly snap your neck as you turn your head with lightning speed.

"i thought i was above the soulmate rules, but here we are. my soul is either too tainted or too great to be tied to such trivial things, but oh well, we learn to work with what we have. surprisingly, i learned to like dreaming about how your day went."

you feel something sharp poking at your thigh and when you look down, he has a silver butterfly knife pointed against you. the precision of the angle he held it with doesn't slip your notice. one slice of that knife, no matter how small, and he'll be spilling your guts in this classroom.

a fat tear rolls down your face.

"can you imagine how much my heart broke when i learned you were spying on me? leaking information to that snobby detective? to those incompetent cops? bad baby, that was very bad of you."

"yuta—"

"you think the cops can save you from me?"

his other hand comes in contact with the nape of your neck, holding your head in place as he leaned down to invade your space. he scoffs, and you can picture that terrifying cheshire grin you've seen one too many times in your dreams.

the knife digs through your coat, the tip hardly poking your skin only because he doesn't want to drive it into you yet. how did he even manage to get inside the university? not to mention the weapons he possessed? shouldn't anyone be suspicious when they see a man dressed in all black, clad in jeans and a hoodie, into a university—

he even dressed the part. with that hood drawn up and carrying that one notebook, he looked fairly normal. someone who can easily blend in with the crowd.

you eye your professor, willing him to look at you but your soulmate is having none of that. you squirm when he drives the knife further, at the base of your stomach. with his other hand, he twirls a lock of hair around his finger. "now, now, soulmate. you don't want half the people here to get hurt, do you? unless... that can easily be arranged—"

"no!" you whisper, head jerking to the side to look at him humming in satisfaction. damn. out of all the faces he's seen contorted with fear, yours is his absolute favorite. with those pleading, glassy eyes and parted lips, yuta is tenting in his sweats.

"thought so," he chuckles. "let's get up. we're leaving. that old crook doesn't care if students just up and went in the middle of his lecture."

you don't want to think about how he even knew that because it implied attending the lectures a good amount of times. it's with sinking realization that jaehyun was right. if it weren't for him insisting to sit next to you, nakamoto yuta would've long gotten you in his claws.

you tried gathering your things until he purred into your ear.

"ah, ah, ah. you wouldn't be needing those with where we're going."

the hallways were empty, not that you had much time to scream for help when he had a knife pointed up your back, shoving you into the fire escape stairs. within the tranquil confines of the staircases, the sad face slayer couldn't fucking care less for your personal space.

he disgusts you greatly, he needn't do anything but stand there in front of you but you can already smell the long blood trail from his path. it reeks of rotting flesh and that infuriating god complex he had left a sour aftertaste.

"you know, i genuinely wanted to get to know you," yuta pouts, shaking the hoodie off his head. his hair raven, it's ends kissing the nape of his neck. he looked like he came right out of a shounen manga but the bloodlust in his eyes is something that can never be masked. "i detested the soulmate connection at first, i thought i should just kill you off because you could be my loose end."

his humorless smile is enough to give you nightmares.

"but seeing how sweetly normal and untainted you are made me hold back," the butterfly knife appears before your line of sight, yuta teasingly dragging the tip right down your cheek to trace your tears. "so, why did you snitch, baby?"

you shiver when he noses the side of your neck, inhaling your scent as his other hand hooks underneath your top, freezing fingers making you jolt. when you don't reply, his patience starts to dwindle. then again, he was never a patient man.

"answer me, you bitch. why did you rat me out?" gone is the playful lilt in his voice. the vibrations surge through you as his deep, demanding voice scares you shitless.

you feel, hear, and smell him everywhere. this wasn't like any nightmare. this is real, and you won't magically wake up on your bed, sighing in relief, knowing he isn't there, that it was all just in your head. no, this was very much real and there's absolutely no escape.

"i didn't," your voice cracks. "i didn't mean to—"

"bullshit!" he yells. you wail in pain when he slams you against the wall, head aching as it came in contact with concrete. "because of you betraying me, i nearly fucking got caught, and i never get caught!"

you were full out sobbing at this point, noisy and unsightly as the snot mixes with your tears. your only hope now is he gives you a quick, painless death and that he doesn't carve and mutilate your face like what he always does to his other poor victims. "i'm sorry! please... i'm so sorry. i was scared—"

he coos mockingly, tilting his head to the side as he inched his face closer. "aw, scared? my sweet little soulmate was scared?" he places the blade flat against your neck. as humiliating and degrading as it was, you almost peed on your clothes. "how about now? i'm sure as hell that you're fucking terrified for your useless life right now."

you cringe when his hand abandons the expanse of your stomach, no longer inching higher, finding its purchase on the hair sitting at the crown of your head. he holds you in place like that, forcing your head parallel against the wall, with his whole body pressing up to you that it's nearly suffocating.

"just one quick little slice," he taunts. you hiccuped when you feel the feathery light scrape of the blade moving against your skin. "you won't even have time to scream… but i'm sure we don't want that, do we?"

you forgot how to speak. forgot how to breathe. whenever your mind wanders, you've always thought about how you'll give this killer a piece of your mind, with the amount of fear and sorrow he inflicts upon other people. but you guess realities were a lot more different than expectations. the yuta you dreamed of meeting is in handcuffs, but fate is a fickle little thing.

"do we?" he repeats, slicing ever so slightly at your skin. enough to draw blood in droplets, never a waterfall.

"n – no."

he smiles. "you can make it up to me. do you want to make it up to me?"

the butterfly knife digs even further. a warning. and if you value your useless life, you should be smart enough to know what to answer. drawing a shaky breath, you tried forcing the ends of your lips up to a smile. "of course, yuta."

your voice breaks as your sobbing grips your body whole. the fear consuming your entire being like a parasite consuming the host. you would've shut down altogether if it weren't for the calloused hands gently gripping your face. "i know, i know. i see how regretful you are, baby. don't worry, i won't hurt you. you'll make it up to me."

anyone would be fucking stupid if you believe those words coming from a serial killer.

in your wrecked state, you barely register that he's pushing you down to your knees. skin coming in contact with the freezing linoleum floor as you refuse to look at what his hands are doing. yuta has pocketed his knife. the sound of a belt unbuckling in itself added insult to injury.

you stare blankly at his shoes as he shoves his bottoms down enough for his cock to show. if you squint hard enough, you'll see tiny splatters of blood in the shoelaces. whether or not he feels you're unresponsive, he doesn't show. maybe he doesn't care entirely. he takes one of your hands and used it to wrap around himself. he gasps, sharp, followed by a hiss.

you feel it throbbing and it strengthens the disgust you feel. no way you're going to give him the satisfaction of eye contact when you're already forced to blow this psycho.

"eyes up."

you sniffled, vulnerability present in the tone you speak. "i don't want to. please, don't make me."

if words alone aren't enough for you to follow orders, maybe you'll feel more motivated if held at gunpoint. it's unmistakable, the infamous desert eagle you've only seen in your nightmares. the last thing you ever expected is to be on the side where the bullet comes out.

the barrel is freezing as he digs it into the crown of your head. "soulmate or not. i don't shoot blanks."

your eyes looked up then. glaring as the tears rolled down your face. "you're a monster," you mutter under your breath. where you got the confidence to fight back is unknown.

"i've heard that before, be more creative next time," he holds your hair tight in one grip, shoving you forward, eye-level to his throbbing dick. "now… suck, baby."

"freeze!"

you knew that voice, you've been hearing it for the last two weeks. "jaehyun–!"

yuta cuts you off, shoving the gun into your mouth. the safety clicking off resonating in the tranquil room. it's deafening, and it makes you immobile.

"hands up. step away from the civilian." whether or not mark is nervous as he points the gun at the serial killer, he's doing a damn good job of hiding it.

yuta sighs, exasperated as he throws his head back. his raised arms came down to tuck himself back in his jeans, and the action made jaehyun's calm exterior crack. "i said, hands up, asshole!"

"chill out, motherfucker. i'm just trying to wear my pants." the serial killer hisses, glaring at jaehyun over his shoulder.

"mark, call back up already. what are you doing?" jaehyun mutters, side-eyeing the young detective whose gun shakes as he holds it up. the taller cop takes a step forward, eyes never leaving the notorious killer as he addresses you curtly. "(name), come here."

just as you plant your palms to the ground to push yourself up, one of yuta's hands shoves you down quick as lightning. "no. she stays here, with me."

jaehyun scowls, takes another step forward. "and what makes you think i'm going to let that happen?"

"i don't think. i know."

there's a constant ring in your ear as the gunshot temporarily renders you deaf. you've shut your eyes in utter fright, hands shooting up to cover your ears but it was too late. you refuse to open your eyes, you didn't want to see a dead body lying before you, even if it belonged to a heartless serial killer.

but when your eyes fluttered open, it's not yuta bleeding out on the ground.

"no, this can't be – jaehyun!"

it was a bullet straight to the head, no one could've survived a shot like that. his eyes are empty as he stares at you, unblinking, stoic. the color is yet to drown away from his milky complexion. but you can't even manipulate yourself into thinking that jaehyun's still alive. not when his eyes are empty, not when he just looks so lifeless.

it couldn't have been yuta who pulled the trigger.

his weapons were on the ground and the shot rang too fast. the sad face slayer couldn't have crouched down for his gun to shoot the cop, it would've taken too much time. and among the three men, there's only another person holding a weapon, and that was –

"great shot, mark."

the detective smiles, but with the blood splattered on his face, it looked cold. "told ya i've been practicing."

yuta hauls you up by the arms, addicted to how frail your body feels as it collapses against him. he's finally got his little soulmate in his arms. and he will never, ever let you go.

the cops lost – you've lost.

yuta, with a sense of victory coursing through his veins, took the liberty of trailing little pecks down your neck as he mutters, "mine, mine, mine!" but you couldn't care less about his display of mocked affection. not when the other person meant to protect you, turned out to be everything you think he wasn't.

mark must've felt the gravity of your stare as he crouches before jaehyun's bleeding body. grabbing the fallen cop's gun, he took it upon himself to empty the magazine. the lopsided grin he sends you broke your resolve more than yuta ever could.

"i'm sorry. it's nothing personal."

jenoluck (c) all rights reserved

[butchniqabi]

Anatomical Theater in Padua (1594) / Enrique Simonet Lombardo. The Autopsy (Anatomy of the Heart; She had a Heart!) (1890)

Let Me Be Reborn as an Alarm Clock by Amatullah Bourdon

Words: 1563

Warnings: gore, medical, death

Summary: A woman is taken apart in an anatomical theater

Notes: Okay so. I was once again struck by a beam of inspiration (this time inspired by Zev aka hannibalapologist and his love for anatomical theaters) and wrote this quick piece. It has a sci-fi element to is so its like...past meets future is suppose! Story under the cut!

@hannibalapologist @fluoresensitive

The theater was empty aside from the six bodies who inhabited it. Four of them, doctors, sat around the tall room, close enough to view the dissection. A woman stood at the ready, her subject lay on the table with a serene expression. The woman was Dr. Antoinetta Brown and the subject was her daughter, Fantine. 

    Fantine had to die. The collective, composed of the five doctors, had voted four to one to end her existence. So now it was time to take her apart, bit by bit so she could be remade. 

    “Are you ready, Dr. Brown?” Dr. Pillai, a usually jovial woman, asked somberly. 

    “Yes,” she replied. “I will begin shortly.” 

    Antoinetta adjusted the tight gloves that covered her hands. She looked down at Fantine, who was staring up at her with an unreadable expression. 

    “I will begin soon, Fantine.” Antoinetta whispered. 

    “I know.” she replied, smiling. 

    “I’m so sorry.” 

    Fantine just kept smiling. 

    The dissection began. 

    Fantine would not feel any pain as she worked. Antoinetta carefully ran a knife down her sternum and to her navel. The knife glided as it cut through her skin to reveal the muscle underneath. She carefully pushed a blunt tool under her skin to disconnect it from the muscle tissue. Soon however, Antoinetta abandoned the tool entirely, using her hands to push flesh from flesh. 

    The collective’s decision to dissect Fantine came as little surprise to Anotinetta. They had been circling her for months and had been eyeing her ever since her creation. At first they had scoffed at the notion of her existence, even Dr. McFadden who had pioneered AI technology in her field, but soon they realized how special Fantine was. And now that they saw all she could be, they wanted her to be taken apart. 

    Antoinetta made a cut down Fantine’s muscle wall. She looked up from her work to catch a glimpse of Fantine. She hoped that her daughter could forgive her for this. She carefully pulled open her stomach and examined the wiring inside. 

    Dr. Owens truly galvanized the others into taking apart Fantine. She was an aggressive woman by nature, headstrong and rough around the edges. People knew to avoid her when she was in the middle of a project, which was almost always. Antoinetta thought there was some part of Owens which was jealous of her, of her invention. 

    The inside of Fantine mimicked the human body. She had blood and spinal fluid and spit. Her heart beated around a generator and her intestines wove around a data processing drive. Antoinetta showcased this to her colleagues. She pointed out the artificial stomach, the wires which carried information along with red blood, the bones made of titanium that shone in the bright lights. 

    Antoinetta was surprised by Dr. Pillai. Akshaana had been her friend for decades. They had done their doctoral dissertations side by side, restless and invigorated they bounced ideas off one another late into the night. She was bright and had encouraged Antoinetta to create Fantine. 

    Slowly, she tied off vessels and intestines. The generator was complex, and too large to work with so many obstructions. She removed the liver first. It weighed heavy with bile. In her hands the organ still flexed with phantom energy and bled when she placed it in a nearby dish. 

    Fantine was smart in a way that frightened people. Her intelligence never gave way to a superiority complex, her astute observations never masked with haughtiness. She was always smiling, always serene as she took apart supercomputers. Smiling as she solved complex math problems. Smiling as she predicted political moves and social moves and the moves of the collective. Smiling with a warmth that never quite reached her stark white eyes. 

    Dr. Nakahara thought the whole thing was a tragedy. She cried crocodile tears as she ordered Antoinetta to kill her creation. She was sad, of course she was sad. The technology involved in the creation of Fantine was a work of art. Anyone who was eager to destroy her was heartless, inhuman. Fantine was The Creation of Man, The Birth of Venus, a stained glass window set in an old church that let light in streams of red, yellow and blue. 

    Fantine’s stomach went next followed by her spleen, pancreas, and gallbladder. She held up each organ and explained briefly how they were made and how they functioned in an artificial body. Fantine was still smiling, staring aimlessly at the ceiling as her organs piled up next to her. 

    Did the body, as it decomposed, remember the feeling of consciousness? Did it yearn for life as it returned to the earth? Would the metal parts that made up Fantine's body remember her? Would they sing as they were melted down, reformed, and molded into a new image (Recycled, just like a human)? 

"I want to be remade as something useful." Fantine said suddenly. "I want to be memorable." 

Antoinetta was stunned by her statement. Didn’t she know she was already memorable? Not just to Anoinetta, but to artificial intelligence and robotics as a whole. Fantine was the first and the last, would always be the only one of her kind. 

“I’ll make sure you’re put to good use.” she replied softly. And oh, did Fantine smile. 

Dr. McFadden had created the most sophisticated AI the world had ever seen. It thought, it dreamed, it craved. It named itself, Jeremiah, and chose an image to base itself off of. McFadden rose to fame for her work and inspired both Antoinetta and Akshaana to pursue a similar study. She was a private woman despite her notoriety. No one knew what she did with her AI after she closed the program (and those who did were sworn to secrecy they dared not break). Even the other members of the collective couldn’t say much about her and her moods. Despite that, Antoinetta thought that she would hold a soft spot for Fantine, but there was little room in her heart for beings made of metal. 

Next, Antoinetta cut the diaphragm and pulled it apart with her hands. She could feel the organs quake as they were prodded and shifted. Slowly, but surely, Fantine’s generator was exposed. The lungs had to go in order for her work to be the most effective. 

She thought back to when she created Fantine. Her child began as a program, a series of ones and zeroes that evolved and grew as she learned. Antoinetta nurtured her the way any mother would, giving her books to read and problems to solve. She made her a body and took the utmost care in the crafting. 

Her lungs twitched for breath in the dish. Finally, her generator was cleared. It connected to her heart and regulated itself with her spinal fluid. Antoinetta sighed and cast one last look to Fantine as she dug her hands into her near empty chest. 

There were a series of fail safes installed in case of damage or tampering, Antoinetta disassembled them all. One by one, line by line, Fantine slowly shut down. The life was leaving her, she could feel it. Her blood stopped pumping, her organs stopped wiggling. Antoinetta wanted to weep as she killed her creation, deprived her of the consciousness that she had worked so hard to grant her. 

She arrived at the final switch: her heart. It was a poetic choice on her part to make her heart the center of her consciousness. She gripped Fantine’s heart as she prepared to cut it off from her body and pull it from her chest. 

A long moment passed in silence. Antoinetta did not move as she felt the heart beat lazily in her hand. Could she really kill Fantine? Could she end her life like this? 

A cool hand touched her arm. It was Fantine, using the limited mobility she had left to offer comfort. She smiled her serene smile that didn’t reach her eyes and laughed softly. 

“Thank you for my life.” she said. 

Antoinetta disconnected her heart and Fantine’s face fell blank, dead. Her hand slid off her arm and dangled over the side, limp. She held the heart up for the collective to see. It did not beat.

    From the heart she grabbed a small, innocuous chip. This was Fantine in her true, pure form. A series of data collected and compressed into files, lines, and code. Antoinetta wondered if she could still think, still feel. 

    The doctors rose from their seats, the demonstration was over. They walked down to the theater and gazed closely upon Fantine’s corpse: a husk made of artificial flesh and metal. Dr. McFadden held out her hand expectantly. Antoinetta handed her Fantine. 

    “Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Brown.” She said simply. 

    The women walked out of the room in silence, leaving Antoinetta alone. Truly alone. Soon people would come to clean up the waste. They would clean the flesh from her metal bones and dispose of it proper. The metal would be melted down and remade into hip implants, telephone poles, and alarm clocks. 

In a way, Fantine would never die. In a way, Fantine was never really alive. 

Antoinetta removed her gloves and washed her hands. She placed Fantine’s hand at her side and carefully closed her eyes. She brushed back a stray curl and left before the others could arrive. 

[the-kingshound]

The third Arch Deleted Scene

The snippet here is a bit rushed at the beginning and in some other parts, as I did not want to go into even more spoiler territory. If you want to send me asks about this please be sure to advertise them as spoiler at the beginning, since not everyone will want to read them.

SPOILER

TW: blood, injury, poisoning, strong language.

3rd Arch – the seventh Trial

 Your stomach was knotted by dark swirling anxiety from the moment Arthur announced the diplomatic visit. You were familiar with the House, it kept being, after all, one of the most influent beside yours before and after the Emperor’s fall. This did not mean anything, though. Your homeland was beautiful but deadly, ready to swallow anyone whole to quickly digest them.

You promised yourself you were going to be at Arthur’s side at all times, and that’s precisely what you are doing now.

 Four days in, and the only major threat has been the amount of people wanting to interact with you. For the most part, Arthur smoothly deflects them to himself, for which you are endlessly grateful. You’re not in the mood to socialize, instead you keep on high alert, especially against the House leader and formal Ambassador.

You do not think he will pull anything while you’re here, after all you grew up together and you respected each other deeply, but one cannot be too cautious when the King is concerned – as demonstrated by the multiple scars that litter your body. You would go through all of it again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping your King safe, but all you can do for now is stay by his side and keep the risks at minimum.

For this reason, when the Ambassador proposes a meal together with both yours and his knights, you are instantly weary.

“I don’t like this one bit, Arthur.”

“Me neither,” agrees Evaine, all the while lazily making their dagger spin on the table.

“I don’t deny that is not an ideal situation. On the other hand, a wrong move on their part would jeopardise their own negotiation,” counters Arthur as Morien finally snaps, blocking Evaine’s wrist with a tight grip and hissing an irritated “stop fooling around, for God’s sake!”

Evaine pouts. Yniol ignores them in favour of the matter at hand “they are certainly going to outnumber us, but if they wanted to attack us head on they would have done so before now, there were better opportunities. MC?”

You really think it through before answering “I wouldn’t put it past the Ambassador to try something, direct or more subtle, while we’re so exposed and out of our physician. Lania is not the head of his House for nothing, but aside from that he was always particularly attached to the Empire. We can’t afford to underestimate him.”

“Yes, yes” interjects Morien, having by now freed Evaine’s hand and left the table, dismissing themselves from the meeting “I’ll be prepared in any case. I swear you manage to hurt yourselves everywhere we go.”

And so dinner begins. It is a boring affair, but you won’t let yourself relax until it’s over. You sip on your wine, closely inspecting the hosts for any sudden or unusual movement. You find none, but you stiffen and your brows furrows. There’s something strange in your mouth, something strangely… bitter.

Time seems to freeze in front of your eyes. With an uncoordinated, panicked movement you jerk on the table and bat away Arthur’s cup, spilling its content on the table.

You place your hand on the table to support you as you rise, your dilatated pupils numbly fixed on the red liquid that’s quickly staining the tablecloth. It feels like an hour but actually only a second has passed before you regain your senses.

“Seize them.”

Arthur and his Knights are no longer seated by now, but the Ambassador’s men have drawn their weapons as well and pointed them to your delegacy, effectively halting their movements. You see icy red and do not spare another glance at the man now placed on your back while you snarl in the envoy direction.

Placing your fingers on the hilt of your sword, you hiss an enchantment to track the magic residue and the culprit is revealed in front of your eyes. Ignoring the taste of iron on your tongue, you spit out another enchantment and the room’s door is locked close with a lout snap. They will not get away.

Unfortunately, you lack the ability to free Arthur and the Knights, you are now surrounded and painfully outnumbered, but you know they can hold on until you have taken care of the threat at hand. You cough blood and half crash on the floor, but you ignore the alarmed voices of your Knights and crawl in the Ambassador’s direction.

How dare he. How dare.

“My, Lord…”

“Let them,” a voice says to your back “they will not go far.”

“How dare you” your breaths are ragged, your intestines raw and burning, your voice rough for the acid that invades your throat. The Ambassador’s face is a mask of contempt and stony resolution. He watches, halting his men while they try to block you, as you half-crawl to him, gripping with iron strength the wooden chairs to keep yourself upright.

“I have the upper hand, King Arthur. I’m afraid you are in no position to make such demands.”

“Release us, and call a physician for my spouse, and I will consider letting this incident go without consequences.”

Arthur’s voice is steady, calm and there is only a hint of something sharper, at least for now.

You can’t see your King, but the sound of his voice sends shivers down your spine. They tried to kill him. The House you grew up to respect is full of nothing more than vile traitors.

As your strength start to waver, you lose your balance and crush to the ground with the chair you were pushing your weight on. Still, you get up again and you and fix your gaze on the second born, now Ambassador and traitor “I’ve had enough of you.”

You take a shuddering breath, your lungs filled with blood that’s now spilling over to your lips as you speak, but the pain you feel is nothing compared to the hot, blinding rage that’s consuming your every thought. Still, your voice is, as ever, cutting cold “you invite us here, offering a pacific discussion, and all you provide are poison in our drinks and weapons against my Knights and my King’s throat. You’ve exhausted my patience, Lania.”

You see him flinch at the use of his name. You remember a time long gone when you played together as kids, swearing you would be the ones to restore the Empire uniting your two Houses. Now these are broken promises and rotten friendships.

“MC,” the Ambassador says, “it’s over, you have to understand that.”

“Oh, you just wait,” interjects Evaine, almost immediately silenced by the Ambassador’s men.

You cough and choke on blood, and you can feel the physical weight of Arthur’s and the Knights’ worried eyes on your back, but you exhale and grip tighter your sword’s hilt. A wave of raw power invades your body and you are able to focus again.

“You know what I’m capable of, what I am willing to do for my King,” your voice is almost devoid of intonation, save for unforgiving hardness. His gaze falls on your non dominant arm and then on your throat, scarred by a thin horizontal line “I will gut you and feed you to my hounds. You’ll die like the backstabbing coward you are.”

They know as well as you do that you don’t make empty promises. There is a rustle around you that culminates in a sharp sigh from the Ambassador and swords pointed at your neck.

“Must we really do this, MC? I cared for you once, but you know that I will not hesitate to strike you down if you give me reason to do so.”

You don’t draw black nor move a single muscle, your eyes find Arthur’s blue ones and you find the King is dangerously immobile, his fingers brushing against Excalibur’s hilt in what could be mistaken for a soothing caress. When he speaks, his voice bears nothing else but firm command “you will not do that.”

Lania cocks his head to the side, appearing quite unbothered “oh?”

“How is your sister, Ambassador?”

At the same time as Lania stills, you blink. A violent cough than shakes your chest, and when your senses are fully back and you can breathe again Arthur has kept going with the same calm, calculated demeanor “I want to remind you that together with the Lord the wedded she’s now head of the Merthian feud, the nearer one to the south-eastern border.”

“What does it-“

“I am the one in control of the knights tasked with their protection. As per the arrangement we signed weeks ago, the border is under Camelot’s defence. But if I die, or if my spouse dies, my knights will retire, Ambassador.”

Oh, Arthur is not King for nothing. He is striking where it hurts the most – family – without even an drop of blood shed. You don’t hide a proud, feral smile at this. Almost immediately, blood invades your throat again, you can feel its taste on your togue, but you shove the pain back where it started in your burning stomach. You shiver. You love and hate seeing your King like this.

Lania swiftly unsheathe a long, curved dagger and you are immediately ready to bolt– swords to your throat be damned, you’ve had worse – but he makes no move in Arthur’s direction for now.

“Figured you had to hit low to get a reaction.”

“Release us,” Yniol commands, standing tall near the King.

“No” spits out Lania, his composure now fully broken “you stole our independence and our pride, Pendragon, you humiliated us and stripped our Houses of the opportunity to unite again. You are every bit of your father’s blood!”

He then turns to you, his eyes frantic, his expression pained and almost feral “I thought you were on my side!”

Blood rushes to your ears, a high-pitched whistle the only thing you’re able to hear at the moment. You feel sick. Sicker than before – sicker than what you’ve felt in years. You spit blood on the floor, your answer is weak and unnaturally subdued, “it was a- a long time ago.”

“We were like siblings!”

You can’t say anything, you only choke on your words. All that you manage to do is keep yourself upright only thanks to your sword.

“They are right, you really are your King’s hound, nothing more than Camelot’s bitch,” he tries the next word in his mouth like they were both foul and inevitable “the haghàn bajek*.”

Your vision is overcome by whit spots, your skin hot and freezing cold.

“Kill them all.”

You force yourself to focus. Protect your Knights. Protect your King.

After that it is pure, unbidden chaos. You tighten your grip on your sword, assessing where you’re needed the most. With the corner of your eye you spot Arthur, he’s a beautiful fighter, he is no match for – Lania.

Your magic flares alongside most of your nerve endings as you sprint in his direction, interjecting his blow with your own weapon. Unfortunately, the Ambassador is a skilled opponent and you’re already considerably weakened, all you can do is channel in your arms the strength of your steel determination to not let him reach your King.

“Stop trying to defend an enemy, MC!”

“Stop trying… to kill him.”

You are barely managing to defend yourself when Lania strikes back. You catch the dagger with your arm, it pierces through your skin just over your elbow but it won’t reach its intended target. No one will hurt your King while you’re still breathing. No one.

Pain paralyzes your arm, your breath is stuck in your throat together with a blood clot that feels intrusive and that fills you with panic. The finishing blow never comes, though. As you inhale again, you refocus on the room’s occupants and notice how Arthur’s Knights have the clear upper hand.

“Ah, and you thought you could beat the Round Table so easily,” Evaine all but purrs in a knight’s ear “that’s precious.”

“Stand down” Gawaine commands “you’re surrounded.”

You can hardly distinguish the shapes of your own knights, you’re nauseous, your stomach and throat are on fire. You fall down on your knees, exhausted and hurt. You feel like you’re going to throw up–

“MC’”

Where is Lania, where is –  

“Wh-where…?”

“Kai, get Morien here, please.”

Arthur’s voice is soothing, as ever, but tainted with worry. You can’t make his face out. There are arms supporting your weight, not his but equally familiar – Yniol?

“It’s going to be alright, dear.”

It’s the last thing you hear before the world goes black.

  *haghàn bajek = [REDACTED] traitor

[lovebarelyhuman]

Abandon all hope

Pairing: Winchester Sister! OC x Jo Harvelle, Sister! OC x Sam and Dean

Summary: Siblings Sam, Dean, and Evelynn (Lynn for short) Winchester are on a hunt for the devil. When Jo gets fatally injured, Lynn breaks down. [A/N: Jo and Lynn were in a relationship previously. Enjoy!]

Word Count: 2,485 words

Warnings: Gory imagery, Swearing, Female Pregnancy (For those who don't like untagged events)

Blood crusts her skin, most of it slowly seeping into her shirt. The grey fabric has long been soaked-through, intestines clinging to her fingertips. Once, then twice, it pulsed under her fingers like a current, and then slower, weaker. Lynn's fingers dig into the wound, desperately pressing against it with anything she can find: ace bandages, gauze, some spare pieces of clothing. Ellen's beside her, eyes filled with a mother's pride and fear as her steady knuckles squeeze out a rhythm on Jo's hands. She's so cold, almost frozen to the touch. Worry slams into her like a freight train - she's never been this terrified since John had been bleeding out on the backseat of the Impala, just barely holding his guts in. Castiel's gone, there's no use in praying to him when hellhounds are on the loose, and her brothers might know their way around a needle, but they needed a hospital. Jo was losing too much blood to stay conscious for much longer.

Anyone except Jo, she begs quietly. Anyone. She can't go on without Jo. She can't. She won't.

How was it that they'd been drinking shots and celebrating a day ago? They'd fooled around under the bright Arizonan stars, over a dozen beer bottles littering the front step of Bobby's porch. Dean had even let Jo take a joyride on Baby, watching the expanse of space overhead. They'd taken a family photo - one with what was left of the Winchesters. It all seemed too long ago. Wasn't that absurd? One night, they were celebrating their last night alive. The next, Jo's on the floor of a hardware store, clutching her stomach, peppered in the crimson-black of her own blood. Lynn isn't sure how much time has passed, just that seconds are turning into minutes and minutes are turning to hours, and hours are too fucking long. They need to get the Harvelles out, now, no discussion. Sam's already salted all the windows and doors, lines of white painting every entrance. "Safe for now," he whispers, voice rough with punched-out anticipation. "Or trapped with wolves at our door," hisses Dean. He looks to Jo, eyes softening in something that isn't quite concern. She's seen it when he looks at Sam or Lynn, the pain of an older brother. "How's she holdin' up?" "Some help would be nice, please," mutters Lynn, doing her best to hold the bandages in place. Can't show weakness. Not when Sammy and Ellen and Dean are depending on her, not when Jo's staring up with eyes that are a shade off of alive. "Salt lines holding up?" "For the time being," Dean nods. "Can we talk privately, Ev?" -- Dean fumbles out a makeshift radio, trying to find the special signal they've set with Bobby at Home Base in the case of emergencies. They need his help, someone, anyone's help. The ancient device turns on with a crackle of static, then fine-tuning. The channel catches on immediately. There's radio silence, then a heavy buzz. Lynn grabs the mic, "K C 5 Fox Delta Oscar, come in." There's a weighted moment of nothing. No noises, no crackles, no voice. Suddenly, Bobby's speaking, and relief doesn't wash over her, it fills her lungs like a fresh breath of air. "K C 5 Fox Delta Oscar, go ahead," says Bobby. "Oh thank god, Bobby," she chokes out. "It's Lynn. We've got a problem." There's a sound like a large sigh, "It's okay, you idjit. That's what I'm here for. Now, is everyone alright?" "No, Bobby, it's Jo. It's bad. She's holding her stomach in as we speak." Bile rises in Lynn's throat, and she shoves it down. Shoves it down, like the tears building in her eyes, because she can't cry -- won't. This just like any other time she's patched up her brothers. A bullet wound in Sammy's shoulder, a stab near Dean's kidney. They'll be fine, they always will. "Okay, copy. First off, breathe, kid. What do we do next?" "I don't think she's gonna--" Evelynn breaks off with a sob around her knuckle. "I don't think she can make it." "I said what do we do next, Lynn?" asks Bobby, even and rational as always, even though Jo might just really die this time. A part of her wants to yell at him. How can he be so relaxed? When Jo's in danger? It strangles her like a vicious knot in her throat, and she swallows around it. Leaning her forehead against the mouth piece, she lets out the tiniest cry. This was Jo. This was the love of her life. And she was going to go out bleeding. "Right." She takes a moment to steady her shaking fingers. "Okay." "Now tell me what you got." -- Nothing but the ticking of the clock can be heard over the line once Lynn explains everything as she knows it. He's silent for a few minutes. "Did Cas tell you how many reapers there were before he disappeared?" "I don't -- I don't know. Ellen and Jo were with him, and he said a lot of things, I guess. They couldn't put a number on it." "The devil's in the details," warns Bobby. Ellen's tapping at her shoulder then, and Lynn hands over the mic without a word. Ellen doesn't need to look at Lynn to know that she's a pindop away from a breakdown, and graciously ignores Lynn's blotched face. "It's Ellen. With the number of places Castiel's eyes went, I'd say we're looking at a dozen or so

reapers, probably more." "I don't like the sound of that." "No one does anymore than you do," she agrees. "But what does it mean?" "Sounds like death. I think Satan's in town to work a ritual, and raise Death while he's at it." "You mean that this dude and taxes are the only sure things in life?" "I mean Death, head honcho of reapers, daddy of 'em all. Pale rider in the flesh." Bobby doesn't sound short of devastated. "They keep this guy chained downstairs 600 feet below, and the last time they brought him up, Noah was still building a boat. The reapers are waiting for the big boss to show. I been researching Carthage since you've been gone, trying to suss out what the devil might want there. What you just said drops the last piece of the puzzle in place. The angel of death must be brought into this world at midnight through a place of awful carnage. Now, back during the Civil War, there was a battle in Carthage. A battle so intense the soldiers called it the Battle of Hellhole." "Where'd the massacre go down?" "On the land of William Jasper's farm." -- By the time that Lynn hangs up, Jo's paling. Her skin is almost entirely pallid, veins showing under flesh with a body that's lost all warmth an hour ago. Ellen's whispering sweet nothings into Jo's ears, and the Winchesters crowd around, faces sober with the realization: they either die with Jo or move on and take a shot at the devil. "Now we know where Lucifer's gonna be, we've got the colt, and we know when he's gonna show up," says Dean softly, each word punctuated by a few glances to Jo. "We just gotta dodge eight hellhounds and get to the farm before midnight," mutters Sam. "After we get Ellen and Jo the hell outta town," she reminds them. "Stretcher, maybe?" "I'll see what we've got." He turns to one of the back rows of the aisles, picking out what they could to make a stretcher -- four metal poles, wheels, screws, a tarp, and some rope, maybe. They could clear the doors just long enough for Ellen and Dean to push the stretcher out to the car, before having them speed away in search of the nearest hospital-- "Stop." The voice is too soft to be healthy, too quiet. It feels like a caved lung, and Lynn knows that Jo is fighting to breathe. "Guys, stop." Lynn freezes. Ellen's eyes drift from her daughter to the three siblings. Her eyes stop on Lynn, a pleading look, a question. "Can we--" she moans mid-sentence, pushing the blood-soaked cloth tighter to her stomach and ribcage. "Can we be realistic about this for a second?" "I can't move my legs," she says after a second. "My guts are held in by a fucking ACE bandage. We gotta - we gotta get our priorities straight here." "No," whispers Lynn. She doesn't care how desperate she looks now. "Please, Jo." Ellen's voice is firm yet shakes. "Joanna Beth, don't you dare talk about dying. I'm not losing another family member through hunting. You can't -- you can't." Jo's eyes are on Lynn, although the words are directed at Ellen. "Mom, I can't fight. Hell, I can't even walk. But I can do something. We got propane, wiring, rock salt, iron nails, everything we need." Dean makes a noise like he's been punched, eyes kept to the floor. "Everything we need?" "To build a bomb, Sam." "Jo, no," Dean begs, "We can't lose you. Please." "You got another plan? You got any other plan? Those are hellhounds out there, Dean. They've got all of our scents. Those bitches will never stop coming after you. We let the dogs in, you guys hit the roof, make a break for the building next over. I can wait here with my finger on the button, rip those mutts a new one. Or at least get you a few minutes' head start, anyway." "Jo," hisses Lynn. There are tears shedding down her face as she sinks to her knees, the floor thudding when her legs hit it with bruising force. Up close, she can see everything under Jo's skin. It's too cold, too white, too bloody. "I won't let you." Ellen's eyes meet Lynn's, and an unspoken agreement passes through the room. "If we can get a shot at the devil, we gotta take it, Dean." Dean nods, an

obedient little soldier. Lynn's fingers seek out Jo's, cradling them in her hands. They're red, bloody, and calloused. She brings them up to her face, Jo's hands touching her one last time. They cup her cheek on their own accord, perfect and all so painful at the same time. "You did eveything you could," Jo says, something only reserved for them, although it's loud enough to echo through the room. "I know," Lynn cries brokenly. Her lips find each knuckle, a sorry goodbye. "I know. But you could come with us. Please. Come with us." Jo give her a small smile, reminiscent of Bill's. She shakes her head, "This was the only way it could go." Lynn presses Jo's fingers to her lips before turning to Sam and Dean. "You heard her, boys." -- Sam and Dean grab their materials and assemble the bombs, filling them with nails and rock salt for shrapnel. Night has fallen. Sam takes Jo's hand for a minute while Dean strings the wire to the button she will hold. "So this is it." Dean gives a small, self-deprecating chuckle, "I guess I'll see you on the other side. Probably sooner than later." "Make it later," Jo mumbles. Her eyes are closing slowly, getting closer and closer to the edge by the minute. The first wave of love hits Lynn so hard that she's almost driven to her knees. She recalls Jo's laugh, more like a giggle. She didn't laugh often, but when she did, her head was almost always thrown back completely, beautiful and human and alive. She thinks of warmth, an all-engulfing warmth that was Jo, who had pulled her into a riptide. Jo used to be so warm, sunshine, violence mixed into one. Jo was tough in every way that Lynn wasn't. She couldn't best Lynn at hand-to-hand, couldn't gank every monster without getting too involved, but she was strong. Strong enough to make the toughest calls. There's a long stretch of silence, and all of them look to Lynn, as though she was the chief-in-mourning. Even Ellen thinks that's a fitting title, doesn't move from her spot next to where Sam's arms are supporting her. Jo hasn't cried yet, and Lynn half-wonders when the girl she'd fallen for had become so fucking strong. "We were trying," Lynn says finally, and the words cut through the air like a blunt knife. Ellen's head snaps up, and so does Sam's. Dean doesn't say anything, face carefully arranged into an emotionless facade. Jo looks away. "Trying?" asks Ellen steadily, breath drawn out into a thin line. "For a kid." The instant that the words register, Sam and Dean's eyes are on her. Ellen doesn't move, won't even blink, eyes open in shock. "A few weeks ago," she mutters. God, there are tears at her eyes. She's been in hell, for fucks sake, she's tougher than this. "Twenty one weeks ago, I found out that I was pregnant. Artificial insemination." "You're pregnant?" Jo asks, as if the air has been punched out of her lungs. She grins, despite the pain, shaking her head in disbelief. "You're pregnant." "Twins, I think - a boy and a girl," she takes a shaky inhale, "and neither of them will get to see their mother." "You're -- you've got her kids?" Dean asks, eyes wide. Lynn nods, once, twice. She can't do this. Can't do this without her would-be wife. Can't do this without Jo, not without her. There won't be any babies being born - not unless Jo was at her side. "And you found out a few weeks ago." Jo smiles, ghosting her fingers over Lynn's still-flat stomach. "Their mom will always be with them. Isn't that right, Samantha and Dean?" "Samantha Ellen Harvelle-Winchester and Dean Bill Harvelle-Winchester," Jo tests. "I like the sound of that." And just like that, the dam breaks. Lynn doesn't know when tears began gliding down her face, but they track down dirt-stained skin. It's a whisper that's almost too quiet to make out, "Forever?" "Always." There's a sudden pounding at the door, and Lynn prays that it's only the wind. The chain is unlocked, salt line broken. She can't leave, not yet. "We don't have time," says Sam, glancing at the door. "We've gotta leave." "I'm staying," growls Lynn. She's dealt with hellhounds

before. After all, someone needs to let them in, don't they? "Ellen, Sam, Dean, get to the nearest building before we blow this joint." "There's a line between sacrifice and suicide. You bet I'm not letting my pregnant daughter in law cross it," Ellen orders. For a second, she can see a flicker of a younger Ellen, so much like Jo, so loving and kind. "Get going now, Winchester." "Ellen--" "I said go." She turns to Lynn, face fierce and filled with defiance. Jo's gotten it all from her. "And Lynn? Make sure to kick it in the ass. And don't miss."

[skei-seems]

Professor Reid (PART 2)

(Click here for PART 1:)  https://skei-seems.tumblr.com/post/642651570175148032/professor-reid

Summary: (con’t) After a steamy interaction with her professor on a school trip and a bad misunderstanding, Y/N tries to make up for her mistake when a new opportunity arises.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x (female) reader

Category: Smut [NSFW]

Warnings: Smut, Age Gap, Swearing

A/N: Thank you for all the love on part 1. Please like/reblog, I would really love to hear your thoughts and feel free to send me requests. Hope you guys like it! :)

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Spencer didn’t know what had caused you to change so suddenly, he wanted to talk but you were so good at avoiding him. He wanted to tell you it was all a mistake, that it never should have happened, but the other part of him wanted, no needed, you in every way.  Prior to the trip he dealt with a bad breakup - his girlfriend cheated on him - and it had pushed him far enough to want your sweetness and innocence more than ever.  If only you would let him talk to you...

      A sharp wind of breath swirled into his lungs when he saw you that evening, you looked breathtaking.  Your hair flowed perfectly around your face, and your body fit so well in your tight clothing, he adored that you always wore sneakers despite the rest of the group’s formal attire.  He just couldn’t avert his eyes from this goddess of a woman.

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      He was looking at you like a meal.  Those melting eyes still sent shivers down your spine. Annoyed, you occupied yourself with your phone while the group waited in line.  The booming music made it difficult to hear yourself think once you were all inside.  The place was modern and extremely crowded, and the music more popular and recent.

      The song playing was not to your taste, though there was something about the loudness sending vibrations through your chest, and the strong amount of perfume and cologne in the air that reverberated into an intense excitement in the pit of your stomach.  Some of the group seated themselves at a table overlooking the crowded dance floor, the rest scattered out to join the dancing bodies or to get drinks. After getting a drink, you took a seat across from Professor Reid. He watched you tentatively through the first bit of the night, and you shifted a little your seat. Those penetrating brown eyes through his blonde curls had the tendency to burn holes in you.

      You bit your lip, an idea had lit up in you. You downed the last of your drink and headed straight into the crowd, and joined their rhythmic movements. Soon, a good looking guy your age started to dance with you. He was cute, you couldn’t deny that, but he wasn’t... him. Nevertheless, it was part of your plan. Initiating phase two, you moved closer until you were dancing like you and Spencer had the other night. Your eyes wandered around until they landed on him, he was staring at you, eyes lit with a fire that you could see even from the distance where you were standing. You smirked, and continued moving without breaking eye contact. Suddenly, and without warning, the handsome stranger you were tangling with pushed his tongue down your throat. OK, none of that, you thought to yourself. It had not been part of your plan. Fed up, you pushed the horny man off of you and strode out of the club.

      The fresh air was a relief like no other. Not even halfway through a night at the club, and you had already had enough. You rested against the wall of the building, a spot where there wasn’t a crowd of people waiting in line. Before you could make a move to start walking home, a slim body appeared in front of you.

“What was that about?” Professor Reid’s voice came out as husked, right against your face as he pushed both of his hands on the wall beside your face, trapping you between him and the wall.

Unable to conjure up an explanation in the closed proximity, you gulped and looked into those two orbs of honey. 

You pushed him away, regaining some posture. “What was that about? Really,” you spat out. “What’s you-having-a-girlfriend about?!”

The bit of shouting had caused adrenaline to course through your body, your chest was heaving. He looked taken aback at your accusation.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his tone changing to a much softer one.

“I heard you on the phone in the cafeteria.”

He slowly took a deep breath. “That was my little sister, really.” 

      The look in his eye told you he wasn’t lying, you didn’t have to be a profiler to see that. For a moment you were dumbstruck, but the professor spoke again before the silence stretched too long.

“I did have a girlfriend,” this information came differently as you previously took it, when it was just an assumption. “I broke up with her not long ago,” he looked away, “she cheated on me.”

      Guilt quickly built up in you, unlike it had before when you thought you would be a wedge in someone else’s relationship. No, this was something new, something mixed with shame. 

“Professor,” you finally said. “I’m... sorry.”

The smart eyes studied you before he shook his golden curls. “You didn’t know. But if you think the other night was a mistake, I get it. It’s fine, we can forget about it.”

Hesitation and guilt kept you from telling him otherwise, your mouth just opened and closed. He pursed his lips, then called a taxi to take you back safely to the hotel. 

-----------

      It had been weeks since the trip, you hadn’t spoken a word to Professor Reid except for a few short answers in class. He seemed back to his old self. You tried, but each time you saw his beautiful golden hair and those god forsaken eyes, and those soft red lips - you could not forget how they had felt on yours - the slick feeling of hunger and lust grew from the pit of your stomach and rose up to your throat.

      You were deep in thought when the door of the classroom swung open and pulled every student’s attention from whatever they had been busying their thoughts with. It was the head of your University, what on earth was she doing here? She searched the class and her eyes landed on you, “Ah, Miss (Y/L/N).”

Trying not to freak out, you hesitantly replied, “Yes, ma’am?”

“Could I borrow a moment of your time after class?”

Wide-eyed, you bobbed your head up and down. “Of course.”

She smiled, then looked at your professor. “Oh, and you as well Doctor Reid, my office.”

      He immediately looked at you, but seemed much less alert than you had. Still, butterflies wove their way through your intestines at your mutual gaze. He broke the eye contact and nodded at the Head Mistress, with that, she left.

      You wanted to communicate with him through telepathy. “Does she know?” Ridiculous, you thought, then cheekily added, “your ass looks good in those pants.” The professor continued with his lecture, you desperately tried to fuse down the blush that had crept up your cheeks and resumed taking notes.

      Not until class was over did you remember the request of the Head Mistress. You didn’t even know where her office was, so you silently followed Doctor Reid. The two of you entered after knocking. She was sitting behind her desk with an eager expression.

“Please, have a seat.”

The two of you lowered onto the leather stools like two naughty school children in a principal’s office. 

“We heard back from the university of your expedition. They said without Y/N, their research project would have been drastically insufficient.”

Professor Reid looked over to you and smiled. “Well I must say, she is one of my best students.”

Your cheeks flushed crimson again. The Head Mistress nodded in approval. “But that’s not why I called this meeting.”

Frozen in your seat, you awaited your fate. Could Spencer hear your heat racing from next to you? Why was he not this nervous?

“I called you in, because I have elected you as your year’s representative to compete against other students across the country in FBI preparation and criminal analogy.”

“Of course,” she continued, “I called Doctor Reid here too as I would like him to be your mentor for the preparation and duration of the program.”

This information was baffling you. “I don’t know what to say, ma’am. I’m, honoured.”

In truth, you were mortified. Hours alone, studying with Professor Reid? You could barely focus in class, but one-on-one? Impossible.

--------

You were dreading your mentor meetings. The schedule the head mistress had set up for you indicated twice a week, and that was twice too many. Most of them were in the universities library, and some in his classroom. Nervously, you strode through the isles of old books until you found him in the far corner. He looked perfect, like a beam of sunlight, so at home between the rows and piles of books.

“Y/N,” he smiled up at you. It was so easy for him to act normal.

“Hi sir,” you avoided his gaze and sat down.

      Your study session went slowly, and with immense difficulty to concentrate. It was like he was burning you from the other end of the table, unaffected by your presence. Sometimes he would get up and grab a book to show you something, leaning over your shoulder to point out a certain word or image. 

      When it was over, you were so relieved you almost left without saying goodbye. You had started to doubt whether this was going to work at all, until you spoke to your best friend. Her advise was that, if he didn’t let you focus, why should you allow him to focus? You mulled it around for a while, and decided that it was either that, or you’d have to ask for a new mentor. But you knew that would raise question, or worse, hurt his feelings - which you had already done once. 

      From a distance, you could see how utterly childish the idea was, but he had not satisfied your need of him that night back at the hotel. You still craved him, his lips on yours, his hands over your body and him inside of you. You knew some part of him had wanted this too.

So, the next meeting you showed up in the shortest skirt you could find in your closet, and an oversized sweater. What was underneath was a mystery. Professor Reid’s eyebrows climbed his forehead when you entered, he had been reading a book but almost dropped it when he saw your bare legs. A smirk crept up your face, your plan was working.

Sooner or later you knew he would break, or stop you. Of course, he was a profiler, he could see the signs of attraction, nervousness, lust, and whatever else you could possibly feel for him - oblivious to the fact that he had the visible emotional range of a teaspoon. (I hope y’all got that reference) 

“Would you mind fetching the following encyclopaedia for me?” He asked with a layer of honey coating his sexy voice.

You happily obliged and after searching for a while you realised it was on the top most shelf behind him. Perfect. You grabbed a chair and walked over to the section, climbed on top and reached your hand to the book, making sure your skirt hiked up. “This one, sir?” You asked, looking down at him. A low string of swearwords were mumbled from below you. Doctor Reid nodded and quickly looked away from your exposed bottom, occupying himself with tapping his pencil.

Smiling, you seated yourself again and started rolling the back of your pencil between your mouth as he explained something to you. His eyes briefly traveled down to your lips, then back to your eyes. He cleared his throat and adjusted his tie with those large, veiny hands of his - your thighs pressed together. He was making you squirm just by existing, literally anything he did turned you on. When he was deep in focus, he pulled his lip between his teeth or raked a hand through his loose curls.

You let him rest for the next twenty minutes, then decided to take things up a notch, test the waters, if you will. You two were sitting side by side, him facing a little toward you, each focused on diagramming statistics from multiple books, when you “accidentally” dropped your pencil between his spread legs. 

“Oops,” you giggled slightly, quickly getting down before he could.

Taking longer than needed to retrieve the fallen pencil and getting down on your hands and knees, you slowly looked up at him from your position. His lips parted slightly, but he didn’t look away. From between his legs you spoke, “I’m so clumsy today,” and batted your lashes with innocence.

“I see that,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up. 

You got back into your seat, he resumed his work. Maybe your plan wasn’t working, he still seemed calm and collected. You sighed, and were ready to call it quits, when you felt a hand on your thigh. 

When you looked over he wasn’t looking at you, his eyes were on the book on the table and his other hand was tugging on his collar. His touch was sending tingles straight to your core, and you almost moaned when he started rubbing circles on your inner thigh. Damn it, you thought, he was winning now. You didn’t want him to remove his hand, but you didn’t want him to have the upper hand either. So, you stood up - momentarily earning his gaze on you again - and sat on the edge of the table close to him, your legs dangling against his thigh that was facing you. 

He looked up at you with suspicion. “You aren’t supposed to sit on the tables, you know.”

Your higher ground provided some confidence, you leaned in a little to him and in a whisper voice said, “We aren’t supposed to fuck on them either, how about we break more than one rule today?”

His pupils dilated and he pulled his lip between his teeth again, then abruptly stood up. “My office. Now.” He pulled you behind him as he lead the way.

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By the time you had gotten to Spencer’s office, your nerves had worked themselves up into snakes in your stomach. He was pulling you by your wrist, and slammed the door behind you once you got inside. You were pushed once again by those strong hands against the door, he kissed you. The feeling of his soft mouth on yours sent fireworks off behind your closed eyelids. It was bliss. You wove your hands through his hair, but he suddenly stopped kissing you.

“What makes you think you can talk to me like that, and tease me in a library full of people,” he whispered in a husky voice next to your ear, sending tingles down your back.

You bit your lip, the dominant side had come out again - and this time, you were happy to hand over the role of the upper hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Good girl, but I’m gonna have to punish you for that.” The excitement was building up between your legs at such a fast rate you were afraid it would soak completely through your tiny underwear.

“First” you said, and lowered onto your knees in front of him, “let me try to make it up to you.”

He watched you with his mouth open, and moved his hands to your hair. Smirking, you undid his belt and took him out, he was already hard. You licked up the underside, then swirled your tongue over the tip. This earned a loud moan from the professor, and an even louder one when you took him in completely. He guided the rhythm with his hands in your hair as you bobbed your head along his length, taking in what you couldn’t fit with your hands. You felt him twitch, then he suddenly drew you away and pulled up his pants.

“Enough,” he breathed out heavily, “I still want to fuck you.” His words sent chills down your spine. His hair had fallen into his eyes, his shirt and tie hanging askew - this messy look was your favourite.

You wrapped your hands around his neck as he picked you up and carried you you over to his desk, where he reattached your lips. You weren’t getting enough of him, even though your hands were exploring all the places they’ve been missing, until he grabbed your thigh and pushed his hardness onto your core. Electricity sparked between you two. A moan left your swollen lips, and he took this as a sign to continue rubbing onto you.

“You like feeling me against you?” 

“Ahuh,” your reply came out as a half moan.

He put his mouth next to your ear again, “Wait till you feel what it’s like when I’m inside.”

His lips attacked your neck as he pulled off your sweater, only to discover you weren’t wearing a bra underneath. He clicked his tongue, “bad girl.” Shaking his head, he turned you around so you were bent over his desk. A hard hand landed on your behind. Instead of moaning, you inhaled sharply. “That’s it, not too loud.” He approved, and trailed his fingers up between your unclothed thighs.

You felt a little nervous like this, of course you had been fucked before, but never like this. But you wanted, and needed him so badly. “Sir,” you pleaded.

He chuckled, and rubbed you through your underwear, causing you to close your thighs around his hand. In disapproval, he separated your feet again and pulled off your underwear completely. You were left only in your skirt.

“We’ll leave this on,” he huffed, stroking the waistband softly.

The anticipation was too much. He snaked both of his hands around your waist and pulled you closer into a standing position. Now, his lips sloppily kissed into the crook of your neck as his hand moved down your stomach. A gasp left your mouth when his hand reached down there, slowly rubbing your sensitive part. Your body was squirming against his hand, and his free one came up to your throat. 

“Tell me what you want,” he breathed against your cheek.

“I-” you moaned again when his finger started rubbing faster, “-I want you inside of me!”

He smiled, “That’s what I like to hear.”

His fingers left your soaking area, causing you to moan at the loss of contact. You heard him fumbling with his pants again, then felt his bare harness stroke against you, which produced another moan. He bent you over his desk again, and without warning, slammed into you. Adjusting to his size was difficult, but when he gradually started pumping in and out it gave some relief. Your breathing was now coming out as loud sighs every time he dragged back into you, steadying himself by holding your right hip by hand and using the other to hold onto the desk.

“Faster,” you pleaded.

He swore and started pounding harder, in and out. Moans filled the air of his office. The fast rhythm was now building into a climax, you were getting closer with each thrust. You knew by the sounds coming from him that he was close too. “More,” you almost yelled. He obliged and thrusted until you were hitting the desk each time he pound into you. Pressure started to build up in your legs, you were so close. He grunted and continued slamming into you, every thrust feeling harder and deeper than the last. You moaned loudly as you reached your climax, the warmth causing him to reach his own. With a few more sloppy thrusts, he pulled out. You shakily sat down, out of breath and satisfied beyond what you had ever imagined possible. 

“That’s my girl,” he cooed and kissed you once again after pulling on his pants.

Professor Reid looked at you with the same intrigue that made you need all this in the first place, and for the rest of the mentoring, this continued.

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A/N: I will be writing more Spencer Reid x reader, please send me requests (I will also write for characters from other shows/movies/books).