#whatever keeps the romance alive right

[ladykissingfish]

Deidara: Danna, what religion are you?

Sasori: Nothing.

Deidara: So you're an atheist?

Sasori: Not exactly. I'd like to believe in the idea of a higher power, but, I'm a creature of science. I believe in facts, statistics, and verifiable proofs. But I suppose I'm open to believing anything.

Deidara: I guess I'm like that too, hm. Not for the science stuff but about being open to things. I don't think it's good to be made to believe in one thing, you know? It's -

*Hidan comes into the room*

Hidan: Are you fuckers shopping for a new religion?? Because I've got the perfect one for you! I --

Sasori: No, Hidan.

Hidan: But ...

Deidara: Nobody wants to hear anything about your damn phony Lord Jashin, hm!

*Deidara and Sasori leave*

Hidan: *pulls up his right hand, revealing a hand-puppet with white hair and pink eyes*

Hidan: That fucker had the audacity to call you phony, Lord Jashin!

"Lord Jashin": Destroy the non-believer!

Hidan, raising his scythe with the other hand: As you command, my Lord.

Kakuzu, sneaking up behind with a syringe of Hidan's medication:

[picory]

i really need to rewatch uwe before the upcoming season finale and properly gather my thoughts on it but i really really like the show! its goofy and cartoony style paired with a serious story about these warriors' souls stuck in an eternal war with the evil, the slight psychological horror of being used as hosts for said souls and almost completely discarded and disregarded (though it doesn't say too much about this, this is more my overthinking), the steampunk elements, the character designs, the voice acting... all of it. despite that i still have some irks with it, like the pacing. this show would've definitely benefited from having more episodes. for such a story heavy show 10 episodes doesn't feel enough. it worked with primal, genndy tartakovsky's previous show, because there was little to no dialogue there. it did an excellent job at making the viewer understand what was happening with mere facial expressions. but uwe characters have a lot to say, a lot to work out between each other. and it's clear tartakovsky wants to tell more. they need more episodes to do that. i hope the show gets renewed for a second season. i need everything that i'm extremely confused about to be addressed and cleared up

[pin-k-ink]

your fics r amazing..... can i req for some hoshina dubcon something ahahahaha

......thanks.... no pressure... ✌️

company policy // hoshina soshiro

tw ⇢ dub-con, obsessive behavior, kinda sorta blackmail?,mentions of violence, injuries and threats, breeding kink, fingering, squirting, praise kink, unprotected sex, creampie, mentions of lactation and pregnancy, dirty talk, male masturbation, virginity loss

wc ⇢ 4.2k

a/n: i finally remembered that this man had a kansai dialect. but i kept giggling while writing his dialogues because i kept hearing him saying it in a southern accent. almost turned this into a non-con too

"Sleep well, my lil' warrior..."

Soshiro's fingers hovered over the glass, aching to reach through and brush aside the unruly strands of hair splayed across your face. To think, after all these months of silent admiration, of doing whatever it took to keep you off the battlefield, here you were - bandaged and bedridden because of his actions.

A pang of guilt twisted in his gut, quickly smothered by the relief of knowing you were alive, recuperating safely away from harm's reach. He'd made the tough call, purposefully restricting your combat suit's capabilities before the mission so you’d be forced to take it easy. Soshiro was well aware how you'd rail against such coddling...if you ever discovered the truth.

But that was a chance he was willing to take. Seeing your battered form encased in the med bay's healing pod, he knew he'd made the right call. He'd gladly endure your fury if it meant protecting you, his secret obsession.

A rueful chuckle slipped past Soshiro's lips as his gaze drank in your peaceful features. "Who'd have thought I’d fall so damned hard for a feisty recruit I ain't never properly met?"

His fingers curled against the cool glass longingly. "One day, darlin'..." he murmured, the depth of his affections laying unspoken. "One day, you'll understand why I gotta do this."

With a regretful sigh, Soshiro tore himself away from the window and your oblivious, slumbering form. But he knew he'd return soon, compelled as always by the inexplicable hold you had over his heart.

Soshiro nursed his cup of coffee, gaze fixated across the bustling room to where you sat amongst a group of fellow recruits. Even from this distance, he could make out the weariness weighing on your features after yesterday's intense healing session.

"Keep on pushin' through, darlin'," he murmured under his breath. "That fightin' spirit of yours is one helluva turn-on."

His eyes shamelessly trailed over the curves of your face, the delicate line of your jaw, the fullness of your lips as you laughed at something your friend said. Soshiro's chest clenched with a heated yearning, imagining what it might feel like to capture those plush lips with his own. To finally sate the burning curiosity about how you tasted, how you'd melt into his embrace.

A gruff noise rumbled up from his throat. As tantalizing as such fantasies were, he knew pursuing anything more than distant admiration would only lead to your ruin. The life of a Defense Force officer was no place for fragile things like romance.

No, his duty was to shield you from the harsh realities of battle - by any means necessary. Even if that meant ruthlessly exploiting your weaknesses during training to have you discharged from active duty. The ache of losing your radiant presence would be preferable to watching you be torn apart by vicious kaiju.

Soshiro's grip tightened around his mug as you rose, tray fully empty, and began weaving through the tables towards the exit. Soon you'd report for training, ignorant of the torturous "learning experience" he had meticulously planned.

"Forgive me, darlin'," he rasped, allowing himself one final lingering look before you disappeared from sight. "But a couple bruises now are better than losin' ya for good later on..."

Soshiro's jaw clenched as he watched you struggle valiantly against the onslaught of small yoju, desperately dodging and firing with the dampened capabilities he'd restricted your combat suit to. A flicker of pride sparked in his chest at your tenacity, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

But that flicker was quickly extinguished as the timer hit zero, klaxons blaring to signal your failure to neutralize the targets in time. With a few taps, Soshiro locked the yoju away, leaving you panting and sweat-drenched in the center of the training ground.

"Not good enough," he barked out, the harsh edge to his drawl making the words cut deeper than intended. "Everyone else, dismiss'd! [L/N], stay put - we need to have a lil' talk."

You froze at his order, eyes widening slightly at the uncharacteristic sternness emanating from the vice-captain. As the other recruits filed out, he could practically feel the nervous tension rolling off you in waves.

Once the room was empty save for the two of you, Soshiro stalked forward, letting his presence loom over your smaller frame. "Just what in the hell was that pathetic display, hmm?" he growled lowly. "I expected better from someone of your alleged skills."

"V-Vice Captain Hoshina, I...I gave it everything I had," you stammered meekly, unable to meet his suddenly intense gaze. "The yoju were just too much, especially when something is wrong with my suit."

A derisive snort escaped him at your excuse. Of course the weak yoju were far beyond your temporarily reduced capabilities - all to drive home this harsh lesson. "And d'you think the kaiju'll take it easy on ya when we're out in the field?"

Unconsciously, he stepped even closer, drinking in the fearful sheen glistening in your eyes, the tantalizing scent of your exertion surrounding him. "This is the reality you'd face if you can't hack it, [L/N]. A harsh, brutal reality that will slaughter the weak without hesitation."

Soshiro's chest heaved with each ragged breath, barely restraining the urge to reach out and grab you, to shake some sense into you before you got yourself killed with this stubborn insistence on fighting. But he held himself rigidly in check, letting the heat of his words instead try to drive you away from this deadly path.

"I suggest you get your act together," he bit out grufly. "Before these small kaiju ain't enough to prepare ya for what's comin'..."

As Soshiro turned to stalk away, your uncharacteristically defiant voice rang out behind him.

"With all due respect, vice-captain, I don't think the training was fair today." You straightened your shoulders, holding his narrowed gaze. "I train just as hard as anyone, but those yoju were far too overpowered for a standard exercise."

A low, rumbling chuckle reverberated up from Soshiro's chest as he slowly turned to face you once more. In an instant, the mocking grin slipped from his lips, replaced with a predatory smirk that made your breath catch.

"Oh? And what would a silly lil' thing like you know about 'fair', hmm?" He closed the distance between you with heavy, deliberate steps, eyes roaming insolently over your sweat-sheened form. "All yer meant to know is how to follow orders without that pretty lil' mouth flappin' so much."

Soshiro loomed over you, his powerful frame radiating scorching waves of dominance that had your knees quaking. You shrank back reflexively, but not nearly far enough to evade his sudden grip on your arm, wrenching you flush against his rock-hard body.

"P-Please, vice-captain..." you squeaked out, feeling utterly dwarfed by his commanding presence, the earthy musk of his body surrounding you.

"Please what, [L/N]?" he purred darkly, warm breath fanning across your face and sending a shiver down your spine. "Use yer words carefully now...unless you'd prefer I just shut those pretty lips up for good."

His free hand drifted up, calloused fingertips grazing your jaw teasingly before thumbing at your trembling lower lip. The urge to simply seize your mouth with his, to ravage that insolent pout into sweet submission nearly overwhelmed Soshiro.

A harsh groan rumbled up from deep within him as your bodies molded instinctively closer. Feeling the tantalizingly soft curves of your form against his rapidly hardening cock proved too exquisite a temptation. With a muttered oath, he abruptly released you, putting distance between your intoxicating heat and his tenuous restraint.

"Don't flatter yerself, [L/N]," Soshiro bit out roughly, fighting to temper the raw hunger blazing through his veins. "Startin' to think my standards for this Division were set too damned low if you made the cut..."

He paced the confines of his room like a caged animal, calloused fingers raking agitatedly through his tousled hair. The memory of your trembling form pressed flush against him, deliciously pliant and alluring, had awakened a white-hot need that could not be ignored.

"Goddamn stubborn woman..." Soshiro growled under his ragged breaths, futilely trying to banish the images of you whimpering beneath his towering frame, rosy lips parted so enticingly. With a guttural snarl, he flung himself onto his bed, fingers already working furiously to free his painfully strained cock.

There was only one way to douse this all-consuming burn you'd stoked within him. As Soshiro's rough palm wrapped around his throbbing length, he allowed himself to fully surrender to the forbidden fantasy of pinning you beneath him. To hear your gasps and mewls as he roughly spread those thighs and laid claim to your tight, quivering pussy...

A punched-out groan tore from Soshiro's lips as he stroked his cock with fevered urgency, sweat beading along his brow and muscles straining against the tide of pleasure relentlessly cresting over him. He craved nothing more than to bury himself to the hilt in your velvety cunt, to mark and rut you into sweet, whimpering submission until you screamed his name.

With a hoarse roar, Soshiro's release finally scorched through his veins, painting his chest with thick ropes of creamy cum. Harsh pants wracked his heaving frame as he caught his breath, the echo of your imagined cries still ringing blissfully in his ears.

"Hah...maybe that'll...clear my head for a lil' while," he rasped out, slowly coming down from his high. "Though knowin' you...darlin', it won't be nearly enough..."

Soshiro's boots pounded down the med bay corridor, jaw clenched so tightly it creaked. He didn't even bother trying to mask the frustration rolling off him in waves - not after hearing you'd gotten injured out there...again.

This was exactly why he'd fought so hard to get you discharged from active duty! How many more of these terrifying hospital visits could his heart withstand before it gave out from the stress?

Without ceremony, he barged through the door to your recovery room, cold fury simmering in his piercing gaze as he took in your banged up form. You startled awake at the commotion, eyes widening upon recognizing your intimidating visitor.

"V-Vice Captain Hoshina! I...what are you doing here?" you squeaked out, frantically trying to pull your sheets up to preserve some sense of modesty before your imposing superior.

Soshiro felt his bravado falter for just a moment at the naked surprise and confusion shining in your eyes. Of course you had no idea about the lengths he'd gone to in secret - tampering with your gear, ruthlessly pushing you past your limits, all in hopes of forcing you from the dangers of active duty. To you, he was likely just another high-ranking officer, his motivations as enigmatic as his exterior.

But that careful illusion shattered the moment he drank in your form. A familiar feeling of cold dread and gut-wrenching fear lanced through Soshiro's core, quickly transmuting into an explosive surge of heated frustration. How many more times could he endure the torment of seeing you blown back through those med bay doors, hovering on the edge of death's embrace?

"What am I doin' here?" he growled out, taking an aggressive step towards your bed until his looming frame cast you in shadow. "I'm here cuz you constantly insist on putting yourself in harm's way with this bullheaded defense force crusade of yours!"

Your lips parted, clearly wanting to protest, but Soshiro barreled forward before you could unleash whatever platitude about duty and sacrifice. "Don't even try feeding me that self-righteous drivel about 'protectin' the people' or any other heroic claptrap. You're just a damned adrenaline junkie who can't seem to resist the urge to throw herself into mortal peril at every possible turn!"

He could feel his ragged breaths sawing in and out, pupils blown wide with scarcely restrained emotion as he drank in the fearful flutter of your lashes, the unconscious nibble of your plush lower lip. In that moment of searing intensity, a shocking new idea blazed to life in Soshiro's mind - one that could potentially solve this agonizing conundrum once and for all.

After all, the Defense Force had strict policies about pregnant recruits being prohibited from active combat...

A cruel, predatory smirk slowly curved Soshiro's lips as he leaned down, bracing his hands on either side of your prone form until his face was mere inches from yours. "Tell me, [L/N]..." he purred in a low, sinful timbre, unable to resist trailing the tip of his nose along the heated line of your jaw. "How badly d'you wanna stay part of the Defense Force? Enough to take...more permanent measures to keep that lil' body of yours off the battlefield for good?"

Soshiro's calloused knuckles grazed your flushed cheek as he cupped your jaw firmly, forcing you to meet his smoldering gaze. "I asked you a question, [L/N]. Are you that damned set on keepin' your spot with the Third Division? Enough to do whatever it takes to make sure that sweet lil' body of yours stays outta harm's way for good?"

You tried to protest, to put space between yourself and the scorching intensity radiating off his towering frame. But Soshiro's iron grip held you immobile, thumb digging possessively into the softness of your lower lip as his obsidian eyes bored straight through you.

"I-I don't under—" Your words tumbled away into a pathetic whimper as he leaned in impossibly closer, lips brushing the sensitive shell of your ear.

"Shhh..." he hushed you with a deep rumble. "I'm done suggestin', darlin'. From now on, it's my way or no way at all."

The broad expanse of his chest pressed against you, pinning you to the cot as his hand slid up to tangle almost painfully in your hair. You were utterly surrounded by the woody, earthy scent of him, making your head spin deliriously.

"Pretty soon, that cute lil' belly is gonna be all nice and round," Soshiro murmured, voice gone low and molten with the filthy promise laced through each word. "Then you won't be allowed anywhere near the battlefield - not while you're carryin' my baby inside you."

The way your eyes blew wide, teeth worrying that plush lower lip sent a possessive surge of heat lancing through him. Soshiro chuckled darkly, relishing your innocence for just a moment more before shattering it entirely.

"Ain't no other way to guarantee your safety besides stuffin' that tight pussy full of my hot seed, darlin'..." With an animalistic growl, he slanted his mouth over yours in a demanding, claiming kiss.

His calloused palm roamed boldly down the dip of your waist, over the flare of your hip until finally cupping your thigh and hitching your leg up to bracket his hips at the most intimate angle.

You gasped against the searing onslaught of his questing tongue, offering the perfect opportunity for Soshiro to truly plunder the warm haven of your mouth as he rolled his hips meaningfully against you. His engorged length dragged tortuously against your clothed cunt, sending delicious jolts of pleasure straight to your core.

"See, now?" he murmured breathlessly against your bruised lips. "Your lil' body is already beggin' me to fill you up, darlin'...and I ain't a man who can deny a lady her desires."

With a wicked chuckle, Soshiro's large hands tugged at your infirmary gown, practically ripping the garment apart and baring you completely to his ravenous gaze. Your protests melted away at the heat in his expression, the sheer, undeniable hunger for you that blazed from his blackened pupils.

"You're a goddamned vision, you know that?" Soshiro growled, gaze drinking in every inch of newly exposed flesh. He licked his lips as he palmed the full curve of your breasts, relishing the breathy mewls spilling from your lips at the contact.

"I can't wait to see these all nice and heavy, filled up with milk just for me..." He leaned down, capturing one peaked nipple between his lips and suckling deeply, reveling in the sweet gasps falling from your lips.

"Ahh...s-stop, we can't..." Your fingers tangled in his hair, torn between pushing him away and pulling him closer, deeper. Soshiro chuckled darkly, tongue swirling a tantalizing pattern around your areola before releasing the pebbled bud with a lewd pop.

"You can't deny it, darlin'..." His fingers trailed possessively over your hip, dipping down between your thighs to tease your slick folds. "Not when your body's already beggin' me to breed this sweet pussy full, nice and proper."

Before you could form a coherent response, Soshiro's thick digits plunged into your soaked cunt, a throaty moan tumbling past his lips at how perfectly you swallowed his fingers.

"Hah...damn, darlin'...you're so wet and tight around my fingers already," he rasped out, pumping and curling the digits at an agonizingly slow pace, just enough to drive you wild. "Bet you'll feel even better when I'm stuffin' my fat cock inside ya."

"Mmmh...V-Vice captain..." Your head lolled back, lost in the sensation of his skilled fingers filling and stretching your needy pussy. Soshiro's thumb began working your clit in teasing circles, bringing you dangerously close to the edge as he nipped and kissed his way down the column of your throat.

"Don't tell me you've already forgotten my name, darlin'," he groaned lowly, pressing open-mouthed kisses to the heated juncture where your neck met shoulder. "Not after I've worked so hard to keep you alive this long."

Your brows furrowed at his words, but before you could fully grasp the meaning, his fingers hooked up into your sweet spot, wrenching a keening moan from your lips. Soshiro drank in your blissed-out expression, the way your cheeks flushed so pretty, how your swollen, spit-slick lips parted on each desperate gasp and cry.

"Fuck, I can't wait another second..." he muttered, fingers slipping free of your clenching heat. You barely had time to protest the loss before Soshiro's calloused palms grasped your hips, easily maneuvering you onto your stomach.

A surprised squeak spilled from your lips, but before you could voice any objections, Soshiro's warm breath was fanning across your shoulder, a strong hand grabbing you by the back of your neck and forcing you down against the pillow.

"Keep that ass nice and raised for me, darlin'," he coaxed darkly, fingers teasing the soft globes of your rear, dipping into the slick pooling between your thighs. "Gotta make sure I get as deep as possible to really knock you up, after all."

"Wait, please..." you whimpered, trying and failing to twist around and catch a glimpse of him. The head of Soshiro's throbbing cock nudged at your dripping folds, the blunt pressure making you mewl. "I-It's my first time, Soshiro...please be gentle!"

A pleased rumble reverberated through him, hearing his name spill so sweetly from your lips. His hand drifted from the back of your neck, trailing tenderly along the elegant curve of your spine.

"Ain't that just adorable, darlin'," Soshiro murmured, voice gone unbearably fond. "You think I could be rough with somethin' this sweet and precious?"

Without warning, his grip tightened on your hip, jerking you back against him in one smooth thrust. You cried out at the sudden invasion, his thick cock bottoming out in your needy pussy with a filthy squelch.

"Hah...shit, yer even tighter than I imagined," he hissed, the overwhelming heat of your velvety cunt nearly bringing him to his knees. He had to force himself to hold still, to give your trembling body time to adjust to his sizable girth.

"M-Move..." The hoarse plea slipped out before you could stop yourself, feeling so incredibly full, deliciously stretched by the man whose presence both frustrated and intrigued you.

"So damned bossy," Soshiro muttered, but a smirk tugged at his lips nonetheless. His grip shifted from your neck to tangle in your hair, forcing your spine into a delicious arch as he drew his hips back before snapping them forward again.

"Ahh! S-Soshiro, that's—!" Your words dissolved into a litany of whimpers and moans as he began pounding into your quivering cunt, setting a brutal, punishing pace that had the cot beneath you creaking ominously.

"Oh, so this is what it takes to shut you up?" he growled lowly, leaning forward until his sculpted torso pressed flush against your arched back. His other arm wrapped around you, fingers splayed over your stomach to feel the impact of his thrusts as his cock bottomed out inside you.

"God, darlin', look at how well you're taking me," Soshiro crooned in your ear, pressing a heated kiss to the tender spot just behind it. "Your cute little pussy is squeezin' me so nice and tight, practically beggin' for my hot cum."

The filthy words spilled past his lips without a second thought, too focused on chasing the tight heat of your cunt. His pace only increased, the wet slap of skin against skin and your mewls of ecstasy echoing through the room.

"Fuck, you're perfect, you know that?" His grip in your hair relaxed, allowing him to cup your jaw and force you into a breathless, passionate kiss. The taste of him, the sheer dominance of his embrace had you melting, cunt clenching tightly around his pulsing length.

"Mmph...y-you can't, not inside...!" Your protest was weak, half-hearted at best, drowned out by the overwhelming pleasure crashing over you. Soshiro's tongue traced the seam of your lips, the heady scent of him flooding your senses.

"Oh, I'm definitely cummin' inside," he rasped out, a dark, animalistic glint in his eyes as he broke the kiss, his hips pistoning at a frenetic pace. "Gonna stuff that sweet pussy full and then some, 'til it's dripping with my seed, and you'll be carryin' my baby inside ya."

"Ngh, ahh! Soshiro, I-I'm—!" Your body shuddered against him, a scream of his name tearing from your lips as the waves of pleasure crashed over you, drowning you in bliss. Soshiro's hand clamped over your mouth, muffling your cries as he rutted his hips forward once, twice more before burying his cock to the hilt and unleashing his release with a strangled roar.

Hot ropes of cum splattered your inner walls, his hips bucking reflexively with each spurt as he emptied his balls. Soshiro's chest heaved with exertion, the haze of lust slowly dissipating as he drank in the sight of you pinned beneath him, his seed spilling out from around his cock, trickling down the curve of your ass and coating your thighs.

"My babygirl, my good little warrior," he murmured, brushing a kiss over the back of your neck before reluctantly withdrawing his softening cock. You whimpered at the loss, body collapsing in a boneless heap, too spent to resist as Soshiro carefully flipped you onto your back and settled between your legs again.

"Look at you, darlin'," he purred, calloused fingertips ghosting up the inside of your thigh and gathering the mixture of fluids seeping out of your thoroughly claimed cunt. Soshiro's gaze darkened as he spread your thighs wide, watching his cum leak from your fluttering hole, staining the sheets beneath you.

"Hah, fuck...that's a beautiful sight, right there." He gathered up the mess, pressing two thick digits back into your cunt, the wet squelch nearly obscene in the quiet room. Soshiro's dark gaze bore into yours, smoldering with possessiveness as he leaned over your prone form, lips grazing your ear. "But this ain't enough, not even close. Gotta make sure I get my good girl nice and pregnant..."

You moaned, the sound muffled as his lips slanted over yours in a searing, demanding kiss, tongue plundering the depths of your mouth while his fingers pumped steadily. Soshiro's palm ground against your hypersensitive clit, drawing a sharp cry from you as he continued the ruthless, steady assault on your spent cunt.

"Mmph, Soshiro, please...!" you whimpered, hands scrabbling uselessly at his muscled back as he curled his fingers and pressed them relentlessly against your sweet spot. Your body jerked, cunt clenching around his thick digits in a desperate attempt to stave off the overstimulation.

"I know, darlin'," he murmured huskily, nipping along the column of your throat. "Just one more, then I'll let you rest, alright?"

The sensations were so overwhelming, his fingers buried knuckle-deep in your cum-slicked pussy, his warm lips and tongue trailing fire across your sensitive skin. Your toes curled, body writhing beneath his insistent ministrations, every muscle tensing, a scream caught in your throat...

"That's it, come for me, babygirl..."

His teeth sunk into the delicate juncture of your neck and shoulder, sending a bolt of white-hot pleasure surging through you. The tension within you finally snapped, a wave of bliss crashing over you as you squirted helplessly around his fingers, drenching the sheets with a fresh flood of your combined release.

Your chest heaved with exertion, unable to even muster a noise of complaint as Soshiro withdrew his fingers, leaving you empty and gaping, his seed slowly trickling from your puffy lips. But you didn't have the energy to fight him as he slowly began to slip his cock back into your oversensitive cunt, murmuring praises against the shell of your ear.

"Shhh, I know, darlin'...such a good girl, makin' me proud." A strangled groan spilled past his lips as he bottomed out inside you, the delicious squeeze of your pussy nearly driving him to the edge. But Soshiro forced himself to keep still, letting your quivering walls adjust to his length before beginning a slow, gentle rhythm.

"Gotta make sure I get a few loads nice and deep," he grunted, relishing the way your walls gripped him like a vise. "Get you nice and pregnant so I won't have to worry about my pretty girl anymore..."

[eastend-if]

👥DEMO 👥 PLAYLIST 👥 PINTEREST 👥 COG FORUM

You keep having the same dreams over and over. It happened, years ago, before you left. You thought you had left Eastend behind for good.

It seems you can never truly escape your past. The Priest had warned you.

There's a girl you've never seen in your dreams. Yet, she seems so familiar - as a forgotten teddy bear you left in the attic of your home. She feels right, she looks wrong, she's wrong. Because she's not you, she says. And the two of you stand on the road...a bright light blinds you but the smell of iron reaches you. You do not need your eyes to deduce the ending of the nightmares.

Metaphorical dreams have never been your forte...except this is real. On the day you arrive, she's still alive. And smiling...laughing...walking with her friends. She looks like a normal girl of your age.

You black out - from the shock you think. The familiar iron smell being all too close, it makes you nauseous. At least, the earthen scent that lingers on your clothes counters it a little.

Why are you in the woods again?

....Why is there blood on your hands?

Welcome home, whispers the wind.

• Customize the vessel whether be it in looks, personality or identity.

• You are free to romance four of the cast. Maybe more, there are many eyes on you.

• Your choices will shape you as they shape the town. They will have consequences on the people around you and those who aren't anymore. Be careful you never know what effect the ripples may have.

• Explore your past to shape your future.

• Fight your nightmares should you be so inclined - or welcome them, there might be surprises in the deep dark part of your mind?

• Choose whether or not you'll doom your childhood town - although, that might not be left to you. Leaving is an option too, after all, you've already left once.

• Survive - or don't. You didn't think you were the only one who could save them, did you?

Eastend is rated 18+ for sexual themes, substance use, explicit language, explicit violence, death and more.

Beverly Arevalo [F,23], your childhood friend. At least, one of you perceived it that way. She has always been difficult to read and understand, you were one of the few who could years back. Maybe you can rekindle your friendship - maybe it will grow into more. The only thing you know for certain is that there are many unknowns surrounding Beverly.

Aina Valen [F,26] is that stereotypical preppy girl, at least what you know of her. You were never quite close when you still lived in town, but things have changed and so have both of you. Surprisingly enough, she works at the library now, having taken over her brother. You're not aware of what happened between them, only that she seems overly bored whenever you pass by the vitrine. At least she insists on telling you you are the 'spice' of her days, whatever that may mean.

Benjamin Li [M,26] his preferred nickname, Benji has always shown kindness to you and this didn't change with your unexpected return. He somehow always has a nice word for you or others in his vicinity, it's refreshing quite frankly. There are always critters following him around but they say animals are good judges of characters so that's a good sign, right?

Hezekiah Lyncroft [M, 24] was always a pain in your ass, even younger. Always arguing with you over anything and nothing, he was the reason for many headaches. Back then, there were rumours about his home life, ones you remember well. At least, he seems to be in a better place nowadays, even though he's still a pain to be around. But not all pains are bad.

+ familiar faces and strangers you've yet to meet

Demo stands currently at 5.8k words. It is meant as short introduction to the setting and story. Hope you enjoy despite the length :)

[violentdelightsandviolentends]

Cherry Blossom. aka - Cherry, Part Four.

a night of conversations, kisses and long awaited confessions.

pairing - bestfriend!steve harrington x female reader

warnings - cursing, kissing (but no real smut).

word count - 2.6k

authors note - the babies are back!! no smut in this one - it was getting too long. but don’t you worry… there’s gonna be so much smut in part five !! sorry for the cliffhanger. love u <3

as always, reblogs, comments and feedback (even anonymous feedback!) are immensely appreciated!! your reblogs are the only way to circulate my fics, which keeps me going <3

series masterlist. main masterlist. inbox.

The smoke from the bonfire is stinging your eyes, ash sticking to the strands of your hair. Orange embers burn rapidly, dry wood being occasionally thrown on top by drunk boys with red cups in their hands.

The music is way too loud for a forest party, but no one seems to care. Someone’s haphazardly strung lights between the trees, creating a surprisingly cosy ambience. The atmosphere is alive, charged with the electricity of being out later than curfew.

“M’lady!”

You laugh, accepting the drink from Eddie’s outstretched hand.

“Thank you, kind sir,” you say as you curtsy sarcastically, making both of you laugh harder. “Hey, you didn’t bump into Steve on your way over here, did you? I haven’t seen him for like an hour.”

The curly haired boy kicks the toe of your sneaker with his.

“Saw him with that Clara girl, talking by the lake.”

You take a steadying breath, pretending it doesn’t bother you in the slightest.

“You should go and check if he needs rescuing,” Eddie jokes. “God knows she can talk for hours without coming up for air.”

You smile at him, pulling at one of his curls.

“Good idea. Just in case.”

“Just in case,” he winks, pushing you in the right direction.

You saunter down towards the water, spotting your best friend instantly. He’s stood with his arms across his chest, weight on one hip as he tries to listen to whatever Clara has to say. The minute he sees you, his posture is straightening, lips quirking up at the corners.

Clara turns around to see what Steve is looking at, her face falling when she recognises you.

“Hi. I don’t mean to interrupt! Just wanted to check if you needed another drink, Stevie.”

The boy grins, beckoning you closer with a nod of his head. When you’re near enough, he leans down and presses a sweet kiss to your lips, all affectionate and tender.

Oh.

You don’t do that.

The two of you have kept your romance completely behind closed doors, up until now. It hasn’t got a name, never mind a label, and you don’t need people asking questions when you don’t even know the answers yourself.

You could blame it on the alcohol, but you know Steve’s on his first drink. With your head spinning, you look up at him as if he is the sun and all things warm. He looks down at you the exact same way.

“I’m gonna go see where my friends are,” Clara says a little too loudly, strutting away with as much confidence as she can muster.

You have a sudden feeling that you’re the villain in her story, but you’re not entirely sure why.

“How many drinks have you had?” Steve asks as he pulls a strand of hair away from your face.

“This is my second. I was nursing my first one, Eddie says.”

The boy laughs, and you grab onto his bicep for support. The sound of it is enough to buckle your knees.

“This is my first. It’s not doing much for me.”

“You want something different? I’m sure Robin has that beer you like in her bag.”

“Nah, I’m okay. Don’t think I’m gonna drink any more tonight.”

Steve slips his hands into the back pockets of your jeans, pulling you in closer and keeping them there.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay,” you whisper.

“Okay,” he whispers back.

And then he kisses you. Again. It’s slow and careful and so romantic that you think you might start crying about it.

“What time is it?” he asks when he pulls away as if nothing happened.

“Eleven thirty.”

“You wanna stay a bit longer?”

“Not if you don’t.”

Steve presses his lips to your forehead, hands cradling your cheeks.

“I kinda wanna go home.”

You smile at him, all soft and sweet.

“Then let’s go home. I’m getting a little cold, anyway. And I didn’t bring a jacket.”

“Will you ever learn?” he laughs, slinging an arm around your shoulders.

“If it means I have to stop wearing your jackets that I know you bring to parties just for me? No, I won’t.”

You weren’t supposed to say that out loud, but the way Steve chuckles soothes the sting of the accidental wound.

“Let’s go home, Cherry Baby.”

Home. The assumption that the two of you will always be returning to the same place makes your heart so full, you wonder how it doesn’t spill over.

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

“You good?”

“Feet hurt.”

This happens every single time the two of you go to a party, so you feel as if you’re reliving a memory.

“Hop on.”

“Steve-”

“Cherry. Come on. We’ll get home quicker this way.”

You can’t argue with that. Steve crouches as you jump onto his back, his hands wrapping around your thighs to keep you steady. You wrap your arms around his neck from behind, resting your head on top of his.

“Comfy back there?”

You hum, the noise of agreement enough for Steve to start walking.

The two of you chat each others ears off on the way home, talking about nothing and everything. You laugh so hard at something he says that you end up with a mouthful of his hair, which he in turn finds hilarious.

“Have you thought any more about what I said the other day?”

“You say a lot of things, Steven.”

He chuckles, shaking his head and giving your thighs a squeeze.

“About college.”

You go quiet for a moment, and Steve wonders if he’s chosen the wrong time to have this conversation.

“I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s talk about it later, okay? When I’m not constantly worried I’m gonna accidentally trip and kill you.”

You nod, and he feels it. You know it needs to be a discussion sometime soon, but perhaps having it when you’re being carried down the street on your best friends back isn’t all that practical.

“Love you,” you mumble into the crook of Steve’s neck.

He shudders a little at your lips on his skin, leaning his head sideways to rest against yours.

“Love you, Cherry Pie. More than anything.”

You let Steve piggyback you all the way to his front door. Neither of you say anything else. Neither of you feel the need to.

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

Steve bumps his hip into yours as you both brush your teeth, laughing at your shocked reflection in the mirror.

“Are you okay?” you ask as you place your toothbrush back in its holder, right next to his.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“You sure?”

You hop up on the bathroom counter, sitting up so you’re eye to eye with the boy in front of you. He takes a step forward, standing between your legs as he splays his cold hands over your thighs.

“Why’d you ask?”

You trace over his fingers where they rest on your skin, quiet for a moment.

“You seemed pretty eager to go home tonight. It’s unlike you. You love a party. Leaving at eleven thirty is like… unheard of, for King Steve.”

“King Steve would rather be at home with you than at a party with all those people.”

“Really?”

“Really. Clara was going on about something or other, the music was too loud, and I could feel the chill coming in. It hit me, all of a sudden, that I’d rather be in bed. Or, anywhere else, as long as I was with you.”

You lean forward to rest your head against his chest, sighing when he starts playing with your hair gently.

“You’re a softie,” you mumble into his shirt. “And a mind reader.”

“It’s my one talent,” he chuckles. “I wish reading your mind was a college major. I’d be the best in the world.”

You shake your head, laughing like you can’t help it.

“If I don’t move soon, I’m gonna fall asleep on this bathroom counter.”

“Want me to carry you?”

“Contrary to popular belief,” you tease as you hop down, “my legs actually do work.”

Steve gasps, all theatrical and exaggerated, which only makes you laugh harder.

“Come on, sleepy girl. Let’s go to bed.”

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

“We’re not talking about stuff.”

You whisper it into the darkness, the trees rustling outside Steve’s window serving as the only sound you can hear.

“Hmm?”

Your legs are tangled with his, tired head resting on the boys shoulder as your sides are pressed together. You’re both lying on your backs, staring at the ceiling.

“We keep saying we’ll talk about stuff, but we haven’t been. It’s not like us.”

“You mean, like, feelings?”

“Yeah.”

All that can be heard now is two sets of heaving lungs. Steve’s hand finds yours under the duvet, fingers intertwining.

“Is there something specific that’s bothering you?”

“Not bothering me as such. I just… I think the more we don’t talk, the more complicated things become.”

There’s silence for a moment, before Steve speaks.

“I’m scared, Cherry.”

The tone of his voice is paper thin and vulnerable, and you will yourself not to cry about it.

“Of what, Stevie?”

You squeeze his hand, tucking yourself further into his side until there isn’t an inch of space between you.

“Of… everything changing. You’re my best friend in the entire world, and I know that what we’ve been doing isn’t typical… best friend stuff. I just…” he takes a deep breath, exhaling carefully. “I worry that something will happen and we’ll break up, and I’ll lose you forever.”

His voice cracks on the last word, fear seeping through his pores. Yet, he continues.

“I’d die without you, Cherry. I really would. I don’t know what it’s like to live in a world where we’re not… us.”

You turn onto your side to face him in the dark, reaching up to cradle his cheek softly. You rest your forehead against his temple, pressing a kiss into his skin.

“I’m scared too. I have been ever since that first night in my room. Not because I don’t trust you, or because I don’t feel that way about you… but because I don’t want to lose you either. More than anything, I don’t want to lose you.”

“Why didn’t we talk about this sooner?” he laughs, throat thick with emotion.

“Because we’re us. And whether we talk or don’t talk, we know we’ll figure it out. We always know we’ll be okay.”

“I love you,” he whispers into the dark. “More than all the stars in the sky.”

“I love you,” you whisper back. “More than all the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.”

You press another kiss into his temple, letting your lips linger on his soft skin. He smells so familiar, so warm, so yours… you can’t help but inhale, chuckling when he shudders.

You continue to leave kisses across his jaw, over his ear, down his neck. He tilts his head to give you better access, groaning when you nip at his throat with your teeth, licking over the scrape to soothe him.

Steve pulls you in as if you weigh nothing, moving you so you’re lying on top of him. You sit up, straddling his lap, as he does the same so you’re chest to chest. Running his hands under your shirt and over the bare skin of your back, he rests his forehead against yours.

“You look so pretty like this,” he hums against your lips. “Prettiest girl in the world.”

“You wanna talk about pretty?” you tease, running your fingers through his hair. “My pretty, pretty boy.”

Steve’s hips buck up into yours, making you giggle.

“Oh, you like that? You like it when I call you pretty? Or do you just like it when I call you mine?”

His hips buck again as his cheeks flush pink.

“I am yours,” he murmurs. “Always have been.”

You thought you had the upper hand for a minute, but now you just want to cry. You’re overwhelmed by the way you feel about the boy underneath you, unsure of how to process it without bursting into tears.

“All mine,” you whisper, tracing the features of his face with your fingertip.

Steve takes a deep breath, watching your eyes as they look over him again and again, taking him in as if it’s the first time. He decides it’s now or never.

“Cherry?”

“Stevie?”

Your voices are low and careful, irregardless of the fact that you’re alone in the house.

“I’m in love with you.”

Your heart stops, and so does the world outside. Everything pauses, the two of you suspended in this moment in time.

Steve takes another breath, exhaling it carefully before meeting your eyes and continuing.

“You don’t have to say it back. Now, or ever. I just - I needed you to know.”

You blink back tears as you watch his face, biting your lip to stop them from falling.

“Steve-”

“Hey, I told you. You don’t have to say anything, babe. I know-”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Just-”

You surge forward and kiss him with all the affection you can muster, trying to express your feelings. You grip his hair, plastering your bodies together where you sit in his lap still. He wraps his arms around you, pulling you in as close as he can.

“If you let me talk,” you say when you pull away, all breathless, “you’d hear that I have something I’d like to say.”

Steve smiles, humming in acknowledgment and encouraging you to keep going.

“I’m in love with you, too.”

The boy looks shocked to hear it, as if it’s news to him.

“What’s that face for?” you laugh.

“I just… I didn’t expect you to say it back.”

“Steve,” you chuckle, looking at him sternly. When you realise he’s being serious, you double down. “I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember. When we were kids, and someone would say the word ‘husband’, I always pictured you. I was so convinced it was always going to end up being you and I.”

“Why… why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“Why didn’t you?”

He laughs, and the sound makes you feel as if you’re on cloud nine. You can feel his heartbeat where his chest is pressed to yours, frantic like he’s just ran a marathon.

“Fuck, I love you.”

He leans up to kiss you, all saccharine and honey sweet.

“Say it again,” you whisper against his lips.

“I’m in love with you, Cherry.”

“Say it again.”

“I, Steve Harrington, declare that I am completely, utterly, ridiculously in love with this girl right here. I always have been. I always will be.”

You can’t help but throw your head back with laughter.

“And I love you. So much.”

The words you’ve always said mean so much more now. It’s a welcome change, one you never thought you’d see happen.

“Hey Steve?”

“Hmm?”

You lean in, nosing at his jaw as you murmur into his ear.

“Want you. So bad.”

“Fuck, honey,” he groans, all low and rough.

“Please. Want it to be you.”

Looking up at you with big eyes, he searches your face for any kind of hesitation.

“Are you sure?”

Smoothing his hair away from his face, you trace your thumb over his bottom lip.

“I’ve never been so sure of anything.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he grins. “I’m about to rock your world, Cherry Blossom.”

@psychicnerdcat @allcheesemelts @valerievortex @swiftsgirlfriend @steviespookie @betweenstarsandsatellites @mrsjoequinn @internallysalad @saucypeanuttt @empathyroad @niceskyler @spookysins @theoraekenslover @7minutes-tomidnight @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @clairesjointshurt @livsters @diffrent-spokes @regular-joe-shmoe @ihatepeanutss @ladyburberry @thenonweeknd @abarelyexistentbeing @jennaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa @slut4gaga @hopelessromanticwriter @mgchaser @wintrsoldrluvr

[sgt-tombstone]

someone remind me to write this later: grad student/dog sitter Johnny who stays in enigmatic, mysterious bachelor Mr. Riley’s mansion whenever he goes out of town to take care of his two massive English Mastiffs

Mr. Riley is very private (Johnny’s only met him once, when he got a tour of the house and a rundown of his responsibilities the first time) but also very accommodating. He tells Johnny that he’s allowed to live in the house as if it were his own; cooking with whatever he found in the pantry, sleeping in either the master bedroom or the guest bedroom, watching TV or playing video games, using the study for his homework, lounging by the pool in the backyard, etc. He even tells Johnny that he can invite friends over to stay with him, because the massive house is too much for just one person.

The two dogs, Ghost and Riley, are sweethearts. A brother and sister pair, Mr. Riley explains, and total opposites in temperament; where Ghost is standoffish and slow to trust, Riley is affectionate and playful. They get fed twice a day with food undoubtedly more expensive than any meal Johnny has ever had, get let out whenever they need it, and sleep in padded dog beds that look far more comfortable than Johnny’s own mattress at home. Mr. Riley presses a key into his hand and inputs his phone number into Johnny’s phone before sending him on his way, content in the knowledge that Johnny knows everything he needs to know in order to keep his beloved dogs alive during his business trip the following week.

The first time he dog sits, Johnny sits on eggshells the whole time. He sleeps in the guest room, taking care not to disturb the sheets too much, putting everything back exactly the way he found it almost as soon as he uses it. He doesn’t eat any of Mr. Riley’s food or use any of his personal items, despite having express permission to do so, and he’s gone before Mr. Riley returns home from wherever he had gone on his business trip.

The second time he dog sits, he relaxes into it a little bit. He still sleeps in the guest room, but he raids the pantry when he gets peckish, and he hesitantly sets up his computer in the study, the laptop looking comedically small in the massive home office.

The third time he dog sits, he invites his best mate and roommate, Kyle, to stay with him. Mr. Riley had been right; the house is far too large for just one person and two dogs, big as they may be. He and Kyle spend the week lounging by the pool, sometimes studying but more often reading spicy or humorous excerpts from their respective trashy romance novels. He even brings himself to use Mr. Riley’s bathroom to wash the chlorine from his skin, discovering a shower that could fit five people, complete with a rainfall shower head, three side jets, and an infinite number of buttons controlling temperature, water pressure, and countless other parameters that Johnny can’t bring himself to mess with too much.

After that, he falls into a rhythm. Mr. Riley is his only client, which is fine by him, because the money is fantastic. He arrives after the other man leaves, invites Kyle and sometimes Gary to stay with him, spends upwards of a week in literal paradise taking care of two angels in dog form, leaves as soon as the cleaning crew arrives (usually the night before Mr. Riley is scheduled to come home) and gets paid for his trouble. It’s a dream job. He only pushes the boundaries of Mr. Riley’s hospitality once, at the end of the term after final exams, when he invites his entire cohort to an overnight pool party, but Mr. Riley doesn’t mention it, and Johnny doesn’t ever do it again, quickly returning to their normal routine.

Meeting Mr. Riley for the first and only time had sparked an ember of lust. Taking care of his dogs and house fanned that ember into something like a burning crush. But it’s the voice memos that fuel the flames into a full-on bonfire.

Mr. Riley is a busy man. Usually, he writes out instructions for Johnny before he leaves, making sure that the younger man is informed of any contractors, cleaning crews, or maintenance workers that would be showing up at the house. But occasionally, he forgets. These are Johnny’s favorite occasions, because it means that Mr. Riley will send him a voice message, too rushed or impatient to type, and Johnny saves every single one. For reference, he’d say, if Mr. Riley ever asks, but he never does, so Johnny never explains himself. He just hoards the sound of Mr. Riley’s voice, the husk and gravel of it sending blood straight to his groin every time he listens to them. It should be shameful, considering the fact that he spends at least one week every month curled up in the man’s bed, rinsing himself off in the man’s shower, floating idly in the man’s pool, doing his homework in the man’s home office, and cuddling with the man’s dogs. Mr. Riley is a paying client, not a friend, and definitely not someone that Johnny can foster such a crush on without feeling guilty about it, but he can’t help it. And Mr. Riley will never know about it, so what’s the harm…?

[spitdrunken]

Sir Pentious, when falling for you, would get so caught up in trying to figure out how to court you! Are there even modern manuals for such a thing?! It is a bit frustrating and nerveracking for him, as someone who hails from a time where romance was so clearly outlined and predescribed. (Or, at least, it was for people of his standing. One has to be pretty well-off to spend their lives being a 'mad inventor', after all.)

Even before falling for anyone, he'd be a bit lost with certain types of technology, particularly with new kinds of phones and social media. They had exploded further in popularity the last couple of years, and he'd failed to keep up. He'd absolutely be the type who would spend ages talking to bots or scammers on Hell's Tinder equivalent... He's just really, really lonely.

He wants to be 'modern' in his attempts to woo you, but it's all so much more difficult now! (Though, it has to be said, he wasn't particularly good at wooing others back when he was alive, either.) Maybe he'd whine about it when he drinks a little too much at Husk's bar, or Angel Dust gives him some poor advice, because Pentious has about the subtlety of a rock when it comes to his feelings for you. He gets so nervous in the moments leading it up to it though, that he can't even act out whatever weird thing Angel convinced him was normal-- His tail twitches and rattles, hisses the only thing escaping his mouth as he completely freezes up. It'll be a situation much-ranted about to his Egg Boiz.

Really, with how obvious he is about it, you might as well cut the man some slack and confess to him first, if the feelings are returned. You'd be doing both of you a favour!

(bonus: If you're a woman, and you go out to dinner with him or the like, he might even insist that you pay the bill. It's, uh, a clear show of the fact that he respects your independence as a lady! ...Or something. He's not really sure he's doing this right...)

[nocturnalpl4gue]

༊ ⊹ ˚. Yan!Enki and Ragnvaldr x reader 🕸️

CW: Obsessive behaviour, guilt tripping (Enki being Enki), depiction of violent urges, being tied up, bloodplay, biting, borderline cannibalism as a love metaphor, friends to one-sided enemies, slightly suggestive.

Enki never thought of himself as the affectionate type, never has and never will, but when it comes to you, oh that smile of yours, those bruised limbs from the dungeon struggles, that strong will you could consider contagious; he yearned for it all, for it to belong to him.

Those thoughts keep buzzing around in his head whilst he reads and reads on the dirty library within the main hall, while you were right next to him, looking at his irritated expression with shaky pupils and an unsteady breath. He couldn’t focus with you like this, or him filled with so many thoughts by that matter.

“i can’t focus with you staring at me like that” Enki scowls. “you know, you should appreciate that i brought you here with me, and sharing my knowledge with you in the first place”. Those words make you feel like you’re pouring salt on a wound, but Enki has no ill intentions whatsoever, at least in his point of view.

You decide you look down in and stay silent, but your action is interrupted by a lanky hand grabbing your face by the cheeks, making you look up at the priest’s hollow eyes. “tch. can’t believe one can be so ungrateful” again with the foul words. He has always been the mysterious type, but this behaviour towards you was new. He has drawn sigils nearby every exit to prevent you from leaving, and still he won’t say a word unless it is to complain. He grabs your face tighter and frowns, mumbling to himself. “Why is it that you….”

What you don’t understand is he’s doing this out of pure fear. Not fear of losing, or death, or violence or whatever one could be thinking about, but fear of the feeling that creeps up to his head every time he glances at you. He wants to hold you, to grab you so tight he invades the cavities of your body and rips your heart out, to treasure it like a gem. He wants to kiss you until your skin wears out, and to know your every emotion. Love, he thinks, is something he wasn’t meant to feel. And so he doesn’t know how to behave, lost in a maze made from his own insecurities.

He sighs, trying to remember what those cheesy romance novels he read as a kid told. Enki, still with your face in his hand, plants his dry lips against yours, lapping them with an awkward lick. He looks at your shocked expression. “You don’t seem disgusted.” He mutters. “I assume that is one of the reasons why i put up with your whining.” He continues, acting all tough and indifferent as if his heart wasn’t jumping out of his chest. That kiss, if you could call it one, made everything click in his head. He needs you to be by his side at all times, to channel his insanity and transfuse it into passion. All he wanted right now from the overwhelming emotions that engulfed him, was to tear your skin apart, to pulverise your bones and carry you around like his personal doll. You’re his; the Gods predetermined you two meeting in the hellhole this dungeon is, to save each other, and stay together forever.

“You’re awfully quiet today. I hope you stay like this and follow my orders while we’re in here, or i’ll break your legs and drag you around.” He had this threatening aura around him as these words spewed out his mouth. But it wasn’t with an ill intent, no? He loved you after all, he thinks so at least.

All this was for your own good, he convinces himself; you need him to stay alive, otherwise you’d be mutilated on the floor for the guards to take pleasure with already. So of course you love him, you have to. And he loves you too, for the rest of eternity.

Even an outlander such as Ragnvaldr has felt love once, but he has also felt sorrow, rage and pain. Those former emotions that haunted him still haunt him now, and are very present in his actions. Alas here he was, covered in blood from head to toe. It’s hard to see which is the enemy’s and which is his own.

The dungeon remains radio silent for the first time in possibly decades, or even centuries. The guards were no more, and so were the lizardmen, yellow mages, cave dwellers, a man who seemed to become a God, and the list goes on. He killed them all. His revenge has been fulfilled, so what now? It was only you and him traversing the passageways and bloody pits that kept him entertained.

Ah, that’s right. You. You’re a nice one to be with, aren’t you? So kind of you to stay by his side while he tainted the walls red, while his bloodlust was satiated. You were like a little lost dog always stepping on your tail, grabbing onto the outlander’s cape to encourage yourself to take another step. And he enjoys that a lot, the fact that you’re always latched to him made him feel the same about you, craving your touch and presence at all times.

So here you were, in a dark, musty room with your arms and legs tied up with your own torn clothing. The humid cold breeze hit the cuts and wounds decorating your body, making you flinch. But what makes you straight up wince is the sound of echoed steps coming closer. It was Ragnvaldr, the man who saved you countless times and you developed a bond with, who now looked at you over your shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re alright while i was out. I found some resources.” He says while crouching next to you. “Here, i got you some bread” You look at him numbly as he pulls out a piece of bread, surprisingly in a fairly good state. “Open up” He directs the piece to you mouth but it remains sealed tight, refusing whatever he gave you. You’d rather starve than accept what the man you used to trust with your life provided. He however wasn’t having it, looking at you with a light frown and pressing the fingers of his free hand against your lips. Without saying a word, he pushes until his fingers enter your warm mouth, opening it with spit coating his hand. With that, he tears a piece of the bread and puts it between your palate and jaw, forcing you to chew on it.

“See? it wasn’t that hard…you need to eat or you will die here, cold and in pain.” He says as if nothing was wrong. Ever since some time ago, could be weeks or days, you lost count at this point, the outlander has been acting out of his mind. At first you thought the insanity of the dungeon got to him, but he reassured you he was okay, that if you were there with him everything was okay. He killed the monsters in gruesome ways, tearing their tendons out with his teeth and crushing their heads with a stomp. It was like he was letting out emotions he didn’t want to go through, and now they all burst out onto an obsessive love and overprotection.

He loves you so much, he really does. So much that he starts shaking while looking at his fingers full of spit, embracing you tightly with his nails damaging your exposed back. It stung. His embrace got tighter, and tighter, much like a snake that caught its prey. He wasn’t letting go, his shaking getting heavier and laboured breathing leaving his mouth. “i love you.” he says. “i love you, i love you” He just keeps on repeating the same sentence over and over, that is until he, without a single thought in his head, bites down hard on your collarbone. You let out a hiss and try to push him off, but he’s too heavy. He just keeps gnawing and clenching his jaw around the bony appendage, so much that blood falls much like the tears around your eyes.

“It hurts….” You manage to let out. But he’s not listening. Much like a hound he has gone absolutely feral, embracing your entirety with his bulky body. His hands claw onto your spine leaving marks, and his legs are wrapped around your waist. He lets go, and switches to your neck, biting just as hard. Like he was starving he licks the blood away, no kisses and no passion put into it, just pure desperation. After protesting more and more the pain just numbs out with the rest, and you decide to relax, and stay in his arms while he devours you away. “i love you” he says, and your mind goes blank.

[fumifooms]

"Marchil? I guess I can see it on Chilchuck’s end, but what about Marcille’s? What makes you think she could develop feelings for him?" I’m glad you asked!

The first thing to note is that she does think highly of him

In the page on the right, literally defending his virtues and literally comparing him to Dalclan. And oh…

She does love a brooding mysterious guy who closes himself to love. But surely, Chilchuck isn’t her type at all, right? He’s not princely or knightly at all. In apperances certainly not, both looks wise and demeanor wise, but then that’s why she seeks to know him on a deeper level, to not only look shallowly.

And hmm. Chilchuck really is quite selfless isn’t he? Always looking out for others, and saving specifically her often, always making sure himself and, staying in or even running towards danger for her sometimes. Modesty is often considered heroic…

And can we talk about that drowning one… You can definitely frame the special attention as him knowing she tends to hesitate or be clumsy, and then his insistance on pulling her out of danger that she’s the healer aka the most important to keep alive, but. From the one who says that he just keeps his ass out of fights and won’t help this is a lot of risk to take, and he does die trying to pull her to safety in the dungeon rabbits chapter. And the drowning bit??? That’s when the dungeon collapses. The only reason they DON’T die of drowning here is that the water then gives way to outside. There was NO hope of pulling her to safety here and resurrections would likely not work either, he truly preferred to die with her than try to survive himself.

Sit your ass back DOWN you are in no state, self-sacrifical hero much damn

And Marcille definitely noticed this imo, after all she loves learning all she can about him, remembering things like how he hates waiting on people too. She pays attention to him and what he does and what he says. This to say that it’s notable, whatever reason for it you may think (though we know by this point at least she was already aware he was an adult though it wasn’t internalized), out of everyone it’s Chilchuck’s bed that she wants to sleep in during the Golden Kingdom stay. He’s safe and comforting to her: dependable, the defining trait in her view of him as is shown by the relationship chart in the Adventurer’s Bible.

^ Lending handkerchiefs is a romance trope btw and handkerchiefs have irl history of being used for courting. Especially in old English literature and plays like Shakespeare’s Othello, and personally I do see a lot of Shakespeare in Dalclan (nobility political drama with some romance). There’s how his cowl is a dearly beloved souvenir from his family too, there’s a lot of aesthetic tropes you can apply to him.

All this to say you can 100% romanticize Chilchuck into a princely noble guy if you try and that’s exactly what Marcille does with the wife roleplay. She doesn’t need much in the first place, she latches onto crumbs and makes aesthetic narratives out of details, give her an inch she’ll take a mile.

But what’s interesting about the shift throughout the arc of her and his relationship is that she starts out idealizing him into a little angel of a kid (shapeshifter), and she ends it idealizing him as a virtuous husband and family man instead.

And what’s doubly interesting is that in the former, she’s actively warping who he is personality and demeanor wise to fit the aesthetic, he doesn’t have that bitter pride of not asking for help and the edges have been smoothened. But what she does during the wife roleplay is something else, she acknowledges the flaws and just… Accepts them, rolls with them. She’s aware of his flaws and implements them into the narrative, but the reason why his wife left doesn’t capitalize on them even, rather Chil is chilblivious and his wife loves him very much still, she’s just testing him after having had a night of feeling out of place at his side.

And this is what separates the idealization vs romanticization, she’s not twisting him into someone else she’s just uplifting what he is and focusing on the good sides.

Marcille: "he has a shitty personality sometimes but if he was my husband I’d still cherish him" "If I were your wife I’d be overjoyed to go out with you and would get myself prettied up while you complain about me taking a long time, your friends would tell me that I’m nice and that’d make me happy, but I’d also be sad because you wouldn’t tell me that you love me enough"

He’s angry and his wife left him, he’s *flawed*, but he’s still worth hyping up, still worth having his own romance story, still has a shot of winning back his beloved. She sees him for what he is, human and real and not a carefully scripted character that fits an aesthetic, and she thinks it’s still worthy of love and admiration and fighting for

And what’s funny too is that you might expect her to cool down on him once she learns more about him but actually she only gets increasingly into his business. You tell her your age and next thing you know you promise to introduce her to your family. Give her an inch she takes a mile. And too the thing is, Senshi is equally mysterious but she doesn’t pester him like at all, asks him ONCE about his succubus and he doesn’t even answer and that’s like… It. With Chilchuck it starts off innocently enough with her wanting to know his age, hometown, the stuff she mentions having asked pre-canon. But it just keeps and keeps going and escalating. Think she’ll be satisfied now knowing you have a wife and kids, maybe she’s disillusioned now? Wrong! She wants to know their names and ages and occupations and hey how did you propose to your wife? Do you think she’ll stop after meeting them? What’s next? What will she want to know next????

She’s… Like it’s not a reach that Marcille is all over him. Like it doesn’t mean it’s romantic but she just is. She is not normal about him idk. Can you not ask him about what tongue technique he used when first kissing his wife, give the man breathing room

Marcille could literally go "if I was Chilchuck’s wife" having deeply pondered and thought out the hypothetical and people would still ask where anyone sees any romantic potential between them. Oh wait

There’s a platonic explanation for everything (almost?) in Dungeon Meshi don’t say I’m saying otherwise, but it’s definitely not like there’s nothing here to read into lol

Going off a bit more under read bc it’s my fave topic

Marcille has a whole theme with the charming prince trope with her idealization and storybook motif and Chil is kinda the "Well someone perfect like that isn’t very realistic and romance is usually more complex and that’s ok and good and flawed people can still be ✨virtuous✨" catalyst

Do you see do you see she starts canon thinking the most romantic thing is a prince charming but her arc in the end has her romanticizing an average, flawed, real and realistic family man, who’s on the poorer side and is on the verge of divorce. And that’s what he needed, too, seeing the positive of himself and the situation instead of focusing on the negative is explicitly what inspires him to hope that he might be able to reconcile with his wife, gives him the courage and self-esteem to shoot his shot.

He IS a prince figure instead that now it’s not about idealizing the grand and overt it’s about romanticizing the small things in real life!! About finding joy and beauty in things that seem normal or mundane and uplifting them to make the world feel kinder!!!!

He’s the devoted virtuous man that she wantsss not the storybook prince that’s unrealistic and could crumble like a script at any time. He’s the perfect example of a flawed realistic but virtuous & devoted & loving man. Far from a prince charming, but not fully detached from it either. Something worth fighting for despite the flawed cracks. Like literally, flawed romance being worth fighting for is literally the finale of Chilchuck and Marcille’s arc on the matter, where their separate arcs and issues intersect at the most crucial moment.

Marcille is important to Chil’s arc not only because of her optimism, but also because of her interest and knowledge in romance & matters of the heart, and that’s what he needs to both open his heart up to hope and to try to reconcile with his wife, like idk sounds gay

Their arc together is literally learning to 1) see each other for how they are and not undermining their qualities capacities etc etc while still not leaving flaws unchecked either and 2) opening up to people. Marcille LITERALLY makes Chil open his heart up to hope like idk man. What do you want from me. He’s literally the guy helping her through deconstructing novels and fantasy and rose tinted glasses and like. Deconstructing the prince charming figure into something more real but still romantically beautiful like KUI KUI STOOOOP STOP I’M ALREADY HOOKED I’M ALREADY-

 Ok fine that’s me reading into the tropes too much forgive me for being storybook brained but like. Speaking his heart out to a lone woman on a balcony, Romeo and Juliette shit, asking if she, too, doesn’t want to meet his family, madly blushing. And like she’s learned with Chilchuck it’s all in the little things, all the implications he cannot speak aloud. She does reciprocate, does blush madly back, and the first thing she does is shower him in flowers and jewelry and what in her heart is coded as romantic gifts

A lady, stashed away in a high tower by her lonesome, waiting for someone to call out to her from below… Romeo courting type shit with an offer, a heartfelt spiel, implicit confession from underneath her balcony. Offering him flowers because he succeeded in calling out to her heart…….. And they have to climb to her too…. Crazy

Doesn’t it sound like a proposal. One that’s both so storybook-like and not, contrastedly real and grounded, all about the implications rather than in your face grand gestures, "Don’t you want to meet my family?". They literally have an arc about the topic of romance and this is the climax/pinnacle of it like god?? This is @ the woman who said "Chilchuck is a shy/bashful man so I know he wouldn’t tell me he loves me, but…" btw

To quote a friend, truly the shiny secret unlockable dating sim capture target : THE DUNGEON LORD BIT WAS SO FUNNY BECAUSE HE KNEW SHE'D TAKE IT HOOK LINE AND SINKER HES THE ONE WHO GOT HER TO TURN AROUND COMPLETELY SHES LIKE. WIDE EYED FLAG RAISED???? FLAG RAISED WITH CHILCHUCK 👀👀👀‼️👀👀‼️👀

And the way that this is the culmination of their arc together… Like people are not ready for the ‘Chil calling out to dunlord Marcille on the balcony has Romeo and Juliette romance novels imagery’ take. Or the ‘their arc is about growing to see beauty even in the non-idealized, in the flawed and in the real’ take which makes it so so perfect if she were to lower her ideal from a charming elven prince to a virtuous halfling man (which she does end up romanticizing)

So there, you got to witness in real time what happens when I think about marchil for longer than 2 minutes, there are so many layers it’s a deranged rabbithole. I saw the necronomicon of subtext and it’s driving me to madness with forbidden knowledge that no one else sees

……. Like what if I told you she implicitly picked Chilchuck over a "unrealistic prince charming who’s actually disingenuous" much earlier in the story already. If she was given the choice to think through going with a guy that seems perfect and chivalrous like her succubus she’d pick Chilchuck over the other actually. If I sound insane rn tune in for my full analysis on them coming this month hopefully thank youu. Interwoven arcs of fantasy vs reality and idealization vs pessimism I love youuu

So now you know the general thesis of my planned analysis about the importance of the prince charming figure in Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc, where she romanticizes things to a sometimes worrying degree or idealize people into something easy and digestible and poetic (like Chil being a kid, and then him being a virtuous ✨✨✨husband), and how she needs to value aesthetics less and actual acts and facts more, be more grounded (like seeing people for what they are flaws and all, and accepting that people need money and not pulling through on principles of honor or unity shouldn’t get Namari shamed) and a part of that is accepting that Chilchuck is BOTH flawed and virtuous, a loving husband that still has shitty moods and fumbled his marriage so bad etc etc. So it’s like, her image of perfect prince charming that will whisk you away on an ethereal romance -> realistic flawed middle aged dad with personality issues and a failing marriage but he still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending. Ik I keep repeating the same point through this but I need it to be burned into everyone’s brains it has its grip on me I can’t do this. They are so special……

[eyecan02]

Alastor Analysis

Alastor's background regarding romance and sexuality goes all the way back to early drawings that depict Alastor crushing on Kay-cee.

The story then moves on from a crush on Kay-cee to a full on relationship with Mimzy.

It makes me wonder how Viv jumped from Alastor in a relationship to Alastor being ace. It feels like quite a wide leap. With Viv being the creator, I have nothing but respect for her but I feel like Alastor can still love/possibly do sexual acts while still keeping in character and looking out for #1.

I feel like while Alastor was alive, he leaned toward graysexual and this is why. I don't believe this man died a virgin. As we all know Alastor is from the 20s. He's in his late 30s/40s, meaning that it would've been uncommon for a man his age to still be unwed/unattached to someone. I'm sure he went on blind dates set up by his mom, and even occasionally slept with women in order to keep up appearances. He most likely did this in order to make his mother happy since any mother would've liked to have seen their child happily married.

And after Alastor became an overlord, the occasional sex probably didn't stop there, because Alastor is all about about keeping up appearances and deals. He definitely comes off as someone who would use sex as a means to and end. If a woman wanted to trade their soul in exchange for Alastor's protection and one night with him, I feel like Alastor wouldn't turn her down. It would be a decision that would end up leading to an increase in power for him. He just likely wouldn't kiss during the act.

Now finally onto Alastor's relationship with Charlie. From the beginning, we've all known that Alastor has his own agenda and reasons for involving himself with Charlie. He's a master of manipulation, knowing love is a powerful motivator (the way he manipulates Vaggie by making her feel bad about Charlie and the commercial) and also digging into Charlie's daddy issues.

It was clear that Alastor tried to play the boyfriend card to piss off Luci. It was only after Charlie introduced Vaggie that Alastor changed tactics and switched to the daddy card.

This means that Alastor would be willing to play any role to get what he wants from Charlie, whether the endgame is obtaining her soul or becoming her royal advisor or whatever. If Vaggie had been introduced in the pilot as a mere crush, Alastor would've caught onto the daddy issues quick and would've angled for a romantic role in Charlie's life since love and sex would be easy things for Alastor to manipulate (if my theory is right about him using sex as a means to an end).

I feel like this kind of materializes during the pilot with the way Alastor keeps pushing Vaggie out of the way, and how Vaggie seems jealous whenever Alastor impresses Charlie.

We don't know if this weird competition for Charlie's attention will persist between them as the series goes on considering that behavior was absent in season one. What's interesting is that the jealousy aspect switched from Vaggie to Alastor. The second Luci hugged Charlie, we're shown Alastor looking maliciously at Luci with his eye twitching in irritation.

What do we know about Alastor so far? He's an attention whore . He's used to being one of the strongest demon lords (at least from the pride ring) so suddenly not having attention, particularly Charlie's attention is making him act nuttier than usual.

Usually, it's hard for someone to be jealous without at least having some feelings toward the one they're feeling jealousy over. "Ah, an enjoyable collective to be around. I admit that one could get accustomed." This line is for the entire Hazbin gang, but also a real sign he cares for Charlie.

He can still have his own hidden agenda while caring about Charlie and being attracted to her. And he definitely is attracted to her. Calls her "charming and adorable". The constant touching.

Some might argue that that's just a part of Alastor's power play/dominance but he already knows that those types of moves don't intimidate Charlie. In fact, she never seems bothered at all when Alastor tries physically to get closer to her.

Also, the animators placing Alastor in Charlie's bed with both of them on a HEART pillow is insane. They know what they were doing. We see the way Alastor's hands possessively spider crawl up Charlie's shoulders and the way he grips her face.

And by the looks of it, Alastor seems to lust after Charlie's soul almost as much as his freedom. Viv has said that Alastor can't love anyone because he loves himself too much. Yet, she has also described Charlie as "Alastor's mirror".

The fact that they even made Charlie's color palette similar to Alastor's. Her hot pink jacket is almost a reddish color and they both wear bow ties. If Charlie is a reflection of Alastor then wouldn't that mean he does technically love himself by loving Charlie? He could be Charliesexual.

Not saying Viv will change her mind. She already chose her endgame. BUT what if Prime and Viv compromise and we get to have one sided Charlastor where Alastor admits to someone or even directly confesses his romantic love to Charlie herself (without actually trying to steal her from Vaggie)?

[lostbookmark]

MDNI 18+

WHISPERED SECRETS Masterlist

Summary: After four years your sister's ex-boyfriend comes back into your life. Can you keep your entanglement a secret? Will the guilt eat you alive? 

Pairing:  Sisters ex Yoongi x Insecure F. Reader. 

Genre: SMUT, angst, hurt - comfort, romance. 

Warning: Explicit sex, fingering, Possessive Yoongi, swearing, reader is insecure, jealousy, punishment, unprotected sex, drinking, dirty talk, praising, degradation, spanking, spanking as punishment, teasing, hair pulling, arguments. Overuse of the name, baby.

A/N: Updating a day early. I almost have the story completed.

One more week before another smutty chapter. This is just pure plot again. 

Is ginger haired Yoongi his own warning?

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He lied. He promised that he would call you every day and he lied. You spent the two days leading up to him leaving, together.  You found out just how good of a cook he was and how bad you were compared to him. He tried explaining the art of producing and writing a song. You'll admit that one went over your head, but he seemed excited to talk to you about it. You jokingly asked him to write a song for you. He smirked, and with a kiss, he said he would. The first day he was gone, he did call like he said he would. The second day was a couple of texts. Third day, he left you on read, then the fourth…delivered. It's been two weeks now. Not one week but two. Fourteen days, a fortnight. 

“Jimin says that when they work, sometimes they stay up for days at a time. He probably crashed at the hotel to catch up on sleep,” Lisa tried to reason. 

“You really think he would ignore you?” Jisoo asks you as she pays for her coffee. You don't know how to answer that.  You wanted to be able to say, of course, he wouldn't, but you can't. You honestly can't. 

“You know he wouldn….” Lisa trails off as you three leave the coffee shop. You follow her line of sight to see who she is staring at. You squint your eyes a little harder. “Is that him?” She asks, pointing her finger at a couple on the sidewalk.

“Is his hair…red?” Jisoo questioned. “Orange?” 

The three of you move a bit closer but stay hidden behind some cars to get a closer look.  It was, she was right. Yoongi was here and he was right across the street. He was home and he didn't tell you. You watch him across the street talking to someone. A woman, a pretty blonde woman with long hair. She was taller than you, about his height. He wouldn't need to bend as much to her like he does with you. You can't hear them but whatever she said has him laughing. His gummy smile is on display, full and bright. She reaches up and gently rubs his arm over his green jacket and he doesn't push her away, he is familiar with her. He looks at her fondly as he nods his head at whatever she's saying. Is that how he looked at you? You watch as he opens a door to the building they stood in front of and they walk inside together. You can feel your heart shatter as if someone stabbed it with a sharp knife. You can actually feel it crack into a million pieces and fall to your stomach. Sharp pieces like glass shards, obliterating your insides. Your eyes don't leave the door they went through.  You can't see through the intricate stained glass windows no matter how much you tried.

“I'm sure it's not what it seems,” Jisoo tells you. 

“Bull fucking shit,” Lisa exclaims. “I'm going to beat his ass.”

“Lisa,” Jisoo hisses.

“What?” Lisa exclaims. “He left her hanging for over a week, and he's literally right there. She should have been his first stop.” 

“No,” you hiccup. Dammit you're crying. You wipe your eyes on your sweater. The fabric is itchy and makes the wet skin of your cheeks feel irritated. Your eyes still don't stray from the door. You hope and pray with everything you have that he walks back out. Please walk back out, you beg. You hold your breath…please?  He doesn't.  “I'm just going to go.” 

“Let us come with you,” Jisoo suggests. You just shake your head. She sighs and opens her arms for you.“I'll keep her in line,” she whispered as she pulled you into a hug.

       

You ran to your car, slamming the door as you got in. You had let the tears flow freely then. You try to hide your face from the people that pass by as you rest your head on the steering wheel. How dare he. After everything he put you through with Kai. Kai didn't even touch you. You were barely a participant in the conversion. You shouldn't have gone home with him that night. You should have kept it as a one-time thing. Let it be a lapse in judgment, a meaningless fling. You could have blamed the drinking. No one would have to know you were stone cold sober. Yoongi made your expectations high. He made you feel warm and see colors for the first time in a long time outside of your friends.  He broke you. 

When you got home, you threw on an oversized shirt and got into bed. Cocooning yourself in your plush blankets, you try to seek comfort and warmth. It wasn't helping.  It was only 5 pm, and you had nothing to do and no one to distract you. Time on your hands leads to overthinking. Overthinking can lead you to bad decisions.  You don't want to think right now.You looked at the messages you had sent him. Delivered. He never opened them. You sent them days ago, but he still hasn't opened them. You were so stupid. He fooled you. Were you a pawn in a game for him to get back at your sister?  Your phone chimed, and your heart stopped. Please, please , you whisper into the still, quiet room. It's not him. It's Lisa. 

“Did you make it home? I didn't do anything, I swear. I won't tell Jimin . Promise.”

“I made it, thank you.” 

Your chest hurts. A heavy weight just sitting there where your heart used to be. It's suffocating, holding you down. It's wanting to drown you, and you can't make it back to the surface. You place your hands where the weight is. Thump, thump thump, it's still beating….your heart. It's still there, and it's pumping. Taking a deep breath, you close your eyes. You concentrate on the rhythmic beating. Maybe your sister was right. Maybe Yoongi was a loser. He promised you…promised! He said he would take care of everything, and now he just broke it all apart. He ripped it all up into tiny red shreds and dropped them off the highest cliff he could find. He was probably laughing as he did it. Your tears start leaking out of your eyes again. Focus, focus on the rhythm. You close your eyes. Thump, thump, thump.  Your phone chimes again. 

Jimin said that the guys got in last night. I swear I brought it up casually. I didn't mention what we saw. Lisa tells you, and you choke on sob. This makes you feel worse. That means he had all day that he could have talked to you.  

Thanks. Let Jisoo know I'm turning my phone off for a while.

I will. I love you, sweets.

Me, too, you reply and power down your phone. 

He didn't want to see you. He has made that clear. All you needed was one call, one message. You just needed him to tell you that he had arrived. If he needed time alone, that was fine. He should have just told you. He's such a hypocrite. Telling you how you needed to talk to him and he's straight up ignores you too.  The thing is, you never lied. Yes, you may run and shut down, but you never lied. Screw this, you think, and you turn your phone back on after a few minutes. You immediately open your messages. 

“I know your home. I hope you're having fun with her.” 

You let out a loud breath. You delete the message and get out of bed. Padding to the living room, you try to lie down there.  The weight is still in your chest. It's so quiet, and the thoughts are so loud in your head. You want him here eating your favorite chicken, and you'll make sure there's extra rolls. You'll even let him pick a movie to watch even if you don't like it.  You stare up at your clock. The second hand seems to be moving extra slow today. It hardly makes any noise, though. A small, quiet ticking noise reminiscent of his metronome.  You don't want to hear it. Your memories make the agony hurt more. 

“Did you stay the night with her?” You stare at it for a minute. “Did she go on your trip with you?”  Delete. “Are you sleeping with her? That's fine, I'm with Kai right now.”  You press delete. “I miss you.” Delete. 

You should eat. Your stomach growls, angry with hunger. Your kitchen seems so far away, and you know there’s not much in there. You don't want to eat anyway. Getting up from the couch, you make your way back to your bedroom. Turning on your TV, you leave it on the first thing that comes on. You don't know what it is, but it makes the deafening silence better. You close your eyes, and you're still drowning. Waves of sadness and hurt lapping against your soul.  Your body starts to relax. You give in and let the waves take you away. 

Your eyes pop open. Immediately, they land on your alarm clock. The red glare is blurry, and you can't quite make out the numbers. Blinking away your sleep, you see it reads 8:30 pm. You had been out for about three hours. Your head swivels to your hallway when you hear a sound. There's a knocking at your door. Who the hell would come to your place this late? Picking your phone up, you see 6 missed texts and 4 calls from Yoongi. You refuse to open them. Absolutely not. You will not give him the satisfaction. Your phone chimes. You look down at your lock screen. Are you....was the only thing you could read from the push notification. Am I what? You ask yourself. Angry? Yes. Sad? Yes. Scared? Yes. The knocking seems to have stopped. You know it was him, but yet you didn't win anything for making him reach out to you first. Your phone chimes. I'm sorry. You laugh to yourself….sure. 

The next morning was quiet, and you were tired.  Lisa didn't come to work today. She had texted that Jimin had surprised her with a day trip. A couples spa thing. You were happy that she finally found someone who liked the same things she did and actually took care of her.  She called in with the flu, and after that, you decided to turn your phone off. You look at Seungkwan, and he looks happy that he gets to work in peace for once. Everynow and then you can hear him sing to himself. It makes you smile. He has a nice voice.  You actually managed to get a lot of work done, and Seungkwan seemed more than happy to help you when you needed it. You were wrong about him. He always seemed intimidating, but he's sweet. Admittedly,  you knew that Lisa being gone helped. She didn't distract you with office gossip or the retelling of her dates. You didn't have to talk about Yoongi. You feel bad, but you almost want to say you like it this way.  

5 o'clock on the dot you clock out. You wrap your sweater around you tight and throw your bag over your shoulder. It's colder and the daylight shorter. You can almost smell winter coming in the air. The crisp, clean smell of cold air and snow isn't too far now.  It will probably come early. You should probably grab a warmer jacket tomorrow. Stepping out of the building you stop dead in your tracks. Yoongi is standing there, waiting for you. The new orange…ginger hair on display. He's wearing the same green jacket from yesterday, you bet it smells like her.  He smiles when you see him. A true honest,  smile lights up his face. You…you  just stare. A blank stare that held no emotion. His smile drops a little before he quickly recovers and approaches you. 

“I went over to your place last night,” he said. So, it was him. “Were you asleep? You didn't answer my messages. I was getting worried.”  You visibly scoffed at that and your eyes flicker back to his hair.  “Yeah,” he said, reaching up and running his hand through it.  “Joon, he talked me into it. Do you like it?” 

“You ignored my messages,” you said quietly, not answering  his question. He sighs and tries to take your hand, but you pull away and shake your head. You don't want him to touch you, not after her.  Did she make him happy? Did he come over to your place right after leaving hers? “Two weeks?” You question.

“Baby, can we talk about this privately. Let's go to my place,” he suggests, but you shake your head no.   You'll give in there, you know it. “Can we at least sit in my car? Baby, you’re shivering.” You nod in agreement after a moment of hesitation and walk to his car. You rub your hands together as the wind bites at them. Yoongi tries to reach for you to warm them up for you. You don't let him. Instead, you jam them into your thin sweater, although it didn't do any good.  Getting in the car, he turns the heat up and points all the vents to you. “I know I said a week when I left, but the group we had a meeting with. They needed an album quickly. There were lawsuits involved and everything. I didn't even have time to eat or sleep. Namjoon took my phone away at one point. I couldn't make him mad.”

You don't know what to say to that. You feel him stare at you and he's fidgeting in his seat. His hands keep checking the air blowing out of the vents. Making sure it's warm enough for you. He's probably just nervous and needs something to do. 

“Did Namjoon sign them?” you asked. 

“Yeah, he did,” Yoongi confirms and you nod your head silently. “There's a lot of lawyers and paperwork involved but yeah, he did.” 

You look out the windshield. The trees that lined the street have long lost their green leaves. The leaves now have fallen to the ground as they turn into their beautiful fall hues of yellow and orange, crunching when people walk on them through town holding their warm coffees and other pumpkin spiced drinks. You watch as they swirl off the ground as the breeze picks them up, and they dance along the road as they pass by. You sigh. The sun is already starting to set. 

“Baby?” he asks, trying to get you to look at him. “Y/N?”

“I saw you.” you tell him. You surprise yourself with the lack of emotion in your voice.

“Where? What are you talking about?” he inquires. 

“Yesterday,” you answer, as a singular leaf twirls across the window. “We were getting coffee. We saw you with some woman. She was pretty. You looked happy.  Lisa told me you guys landed the day before that.” 

“That was…” he started but you didn't let him finish. 

“No, you waited…what 24 hours after being home to get a hold of me?” you asked. “Seeing those messages not even opened. Then seeing you with her,” you shook your head. You are tired, so very tired. “I get it.” 

“Will you let me explain?” he begs. You want to, you really do, but you're still too hurt. The wound is still raw and gaping.  You're still trying to make it to the surface.  Did he cheat on your sister, too? 

“My bus will be here soon. I need to go,” you tell him and you put your hand on the door handle. He throws himself over you to stop you from opening the door. “Yoongi!” 

“Let me take you home. I won't say anything. I won't try to come in. Baby, please just let me take you home?” you see something in his eyes that you can't decipher.  Is he scared? Is he scared like you were? Good. You nod your head silently. 

You lay awake in your bed. You couldn't sleep and you have been trying for hours. Tossing and turning, you kept getting tangled up in your blankets. Yoongi stuck to his word and just dropped you off. He didn't say anything on the drive home. He just kept stealing glances at you and you…you kept your eyes as straight as possible. It looked like he wanted to say something to you but you bolted from the car before he could put it fully into park. You regret it now. You wish you would have let him explain who she was. It's messing with your mind. All the scenarios you can think of that could have happened are driving you crazy. You look at the clock. 11:30pm. You're going to take a chance. You need to have a clear mind. You pick up your phone and call Yoongi. Thankfully, he picks up.

“Baby, is something wrong? Are you okay?” he asked. His voice is worried. Perfect. 

“Can you come over?” you ask. 

“On my way,” he says and hangs up.

Getting out of bed, your hair is a mess. You try to finger comb it, but you have to give up as the knotting gets worse and throw it up on the top of your head. Little pieces are standing up everywhere…oh well. You think about changing your clothes as you look through your closet  but honestly, you think that would seem desperate. You are, though …desperate. Wanting his answers, hugs, kisses. You wanted him to hold you so you could sleep. Hell, he didn't even need to hold you. He just needed to be next to you. You go to sit down on your couch to wait for him. No sooner did your butt meet the cushion. There was a knock at the door.  Taking a deep breath, you get up and walk to the door. Opening the door, Yoongi smiles at you, an unsure, nervous smile. You move to the side without a word to let him pass through the doorway. It's then you notice that he has two large bags with him.   

“I'm happy you called,” he said softly. You gesture him into the living room, and you sit across from each other. You on the old pea colored couch with frayed threads, him on the oversized chair. He looks so small sitting there alone. You studied him sitting there. Really studied him. Yoongi looked just as tired as you felt.  

“I…I'm ready for you to explain,” you tell him. You rub the palms of your hands on your knees nervously. You take a deep breath and brace yourself for the worse.  

“She's an old friend from college. She dated my friend Jooheon,” he explains. “She’s an art dealer that travels all over the place. I texted her about art supplies. If she knew what the best ones were. She said she did and she could probably get anything I wanted. I was supposed to meet her Saturday but after I showered and changed…I fell asleep so we met on Sunday instead. I tried calling you but you didn’t answer. So, I ended up coming over….I,” he sighed and looked at his hands. “I just wanted to surprise you.”

He wasn't a liar or a cheat. You study his face, and he looks defeated, like his world is about to crumble. You know how that feels. Your hands cover your face as you break out in sobs. You were a fool for believing the worst in him. The couch dips, and Yoongi takes you in his arms. His movement seems cautious.  He pulls you as close as he can get you. It only makes you cry harder. That feeling of drowning, the weight in your chest, it was because of you and not him. It was because you couldn't trust him enough. You feel like an awful person, sister, and partner.

“I'm sorry,” you cry. Yoongi grabs your face and makes you look at him. His hands were warm, and it was a welcoming feeling on your skin. “I'm so sorry, Yoongi.” Tears were streaming down your face.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. You had every right to think what you did.” he tells you, wiping the tears away with his thumbs. “I should have told you when I was coming home. I’m so sorry for not calling you. I fucking missed you,”  he says then captures your lips in a kiss. He has a sturdy hold on the back of your head. He doesn't want you to pull away and you don't. You're done fighting him. Yoongi pulls away and gives you a real smile. Letting you go, he gets up and grabs the bags he brought. He placess them by your feet and motions to them with his hands,“Go ahead.” 

You open the bag, and you want to cry again. He was telling you the truth. He got you art supplies and not the generic, big box store brands either. Graphite pencils of different grades, pastels, erasers, blending sticks, blow-bulbs, a portfolio, rulers, paper, and even a finishing spray. You can't even begin to think how much he spent on this. You run your hands over the black portfolio you sat on your lap. You never had access to these items before. You were lucky you had lined paper and a number 2 pencil back in the day. It's perfect, more than perfect. 

“Drawing used to make you so happy,” he says quietly. “Just how music makes me happy. I want you to have that back.” 

“Thank you,” you say as you throw yourself into his lap, hugging him. He holds you to him, both of you silent, relieved, tired.  Pulling back, you run a hand through his hair.  “I really like your hair.” Yoongi laughs heartily. 

“Good,” he responds, pulling you down for another kiss.

That night, as you laid in your bedroom, it wasn't filled with deafening silence like the night before. It wasn't filled with the sounds of passionate sex. It was filled with his quiet snores and both your heartbeats. 

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦ ✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

Tagged Readers:

@unicornbabyloverylover

@marimarvelfan

[voidbeomgyu]

ALONE (Teaser)

In which you meet your bias in the worst circumstances.

PAIRING Idol Jake Sim x Fan Fem Reader

GENRE Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Slow Burn, Romance/Strangers to Lovers, Suggestive (Maybe smut, not sure yet.), some fluff

WARNINGS 18+ MDNI, Descriptions of violence, death, blood, etc., All members except Jake died so keep that in mind (I'm sorry), Cursing, Crimes, Mental health talk and experiences, Death, Sickness (Throwing up), Making out, Smut(?), It's an apocalypse!au idk how else to warn about that LOL

SUMMARY The group Enhypen get on a plane to the US and when landing are met with the worst. Jake makes it out alive... but alone. Since the dead are attracted to areas where the population is saturated, your best bet is to stay low in the areas usually considered dangerous (alleyways, abandoned buildings, etc). He made his way into the country and found a nice cabin alongside a lake. His further inspection led him to believe it was abandoned for whatever reason, maybe it was a vacation home? Little did he know his inference was correct, and soon he was met face to face with a member of the family who owned it. How would she react to seeing her favorite artist rummaging through the cupboards of her new--hopefully permanent--home? And how would he be able to explain to a loyal fan of his that he was the only member left?

TEASER WORD COUNT 1,625

RELEASE DATE To be determined.

TAGLIST Comment on this post or send an ask to be added. (Have your age on your profile or you will not be tagged)

Endless walking while trying to find a suitable place to stay was slowly driving Jake insane. The exhaustion from travelling, fear of death, and anguish from the scene at the airport was weighing down on him heavier and heavier every second. Having watched his best friends, his brothers, his family all being taken away from him without being able to do anything but listen to the oldest’s words, “Run”.

Jake had not yet cried, there was no time for it. It’s been almost thirty six hours since then, he’d stolen a bike around a mile away from the airport. It’s helped him a lot on his journey to safety. He never stole, he wasn’t like that, not that type of person. But in the moment he didn’t have the time nor energy to feel guilty about it. 

Jake didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but he wanted quiet. Not knowing wether or not it’ll be safer in the city or the country side, he chose the latter. Cities are crowded with people, meaning they must be crowded with the dead by now, right? No matter; either way he knew he’d feel much better being in the middle of nowhere, or at least in the middle of what looked like nowhere. All alone in an abandoned farm house, maybe a lake house, any house on the country side would do. He was being too optimistic, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Finding a safe home to live in alone with no one around for miles sounded comforting.

The Jake from two days ago would’ve shivered at the thought of being completely alone. Though no extrovert, he needed people. He needed that connection, that interaction. His reasons to smile and laugh were mostly based around the people around him or the entertainment he consumed. Entertainment was out of the question now, and it seemed like people were too. Most dead, and others probably too violent to give Jake a chance due to the circumstances. 

All he held on him was his and Sunghoon’s carry-on bag from the flight. Note to self, don’t try to save your friend by holding onto their bag. Thoughts like this crossed his mind every few minutes, tragedies sentenced as jokes but he wasn’t laughing. What’s wrong with me? How could I think something like that? Maybe it was the dehydration, starvation, overall fatigue? He hadn’t eaten anything since the flight and was savoring the small amount of water he had on him. Either way, thinking of his beloved friends didn’t do much to help his mood. Trying to think of the good times? Those good times will never happen again, they’re gone forever and I’ll never get them back.  

More days passed like this. With a stop at a gas station probably being the reason he’s even alive right now. It was abandoned, for the most part. It was the early morning, and he was literally starving now. The cashier was still there, but his neck was chained so tightly to the wall that it was on the edge of ripping his head clean off. Oh, he was a living corpse too. Jake could tell that much by just looking at him, muffled grunts and groans coming from the pale body every minute. Luckily, he didn’t seem to care much of Jake’s criminal activities there. Stuffing whatever foods and drinks he could into the bags he had on him. They were even heavier now, but he couldn’t feel anything. He was numb to all feeling, mentally and physically. 

At day four he had started keeping track of how many days passed with a calendar he found on the wall of the gas station that morning. He didn’t stay there though, he didn’t have it in him to kill the cashier, and he knew that if he somehow got loose while he was sleeping it would all be over. The past few days he hadn’t slept or rested much at all actually. Napping for at most an hour at a time, waking up to the slightest noises and scurries of nearby wildlife. He knows he’s incredibly lucky to not have encountered any of the dead, besides the one at the gas station, but it’s a little stressful to not have seen any either. Where could they all be? He had made it out of the city, the once bustling streets on day two, he knew many people weren’t out here to begin with. But knowing there are creatures that could kill him in seconds lurking while having no idea where they are was terrifying. 

It’s been six days. His legs started feeling numb just hours after finding his bike due to the frantic pedaling, now he felt like his legs were asleep all the time. The feeling of pins and needles covered his lower body as they worked on auto pilot to keep him going. His back felt horrible, slouched from his broken spirit. Endless cramping and soreness of his hands and fingers from gripping the bikes handles for hours at a time. His knuckles were white, and now so was his once tanned and alive skin. 

His lack of proper meals, sleep, and rest was now obvious. Jake hasn’t seen himself since that day in the airport, but from looking at his now thinner, paler, vein visible arms, he could take a guess at what his face looked like. Hell, he could feel the bags under his eyes whenever he blinked now. 

It’s been quiet and empty for a few miles. Nothing but grass, and a dirt trail he’s been following in sight. How long is this damn trail? he thought. Jake started following the trail at the sunset of day five; he remembers because of his calendar. It was coming to the end of day six, the sun starting to set in the distance behind him. He found a flashlight at the gas station and used it to find himself a place to “rest” for the nights he faced, it neared the time to find a spot to sleep.

Trees were all around him now, the area looked more alive here, not dried out and dead like the miles before. He must be getting close to some sort of building, forest trails usually have a building as a starting point, right? Unless this trail wasn’t made for hikers, in that case he was hoping in vain. 

It was almost completely dark now. Jake had usually found somewhere to stay by this time, but something was telling him to keep going. Using the flashlight to illuminate the shadowed forest, he heard his friends voices cheering him on over and over again. 

“Keep going Jake!”

“Just a little longer!”

“You’ll be okay!”

Tears were unconsciously streaming down his face now, though he still didn’t feel anything. His body just gave up on the effort of keeping them in. 

Jake pedaled faster. He couldn’t hear anything but his heavy panting, it felt like someone had covered his ears with their hands and muted the sound of everything around him. He saw something in the distance, the roof of a building; he padaled faster. A house, the roof made of wood, looked like a cabin; he padaled faster. He could hear the muffled sound of streaming water; he pedaled faster.

Face to face with a cabin, going so fast he couldn’t stop himself from crashing into the wet grass below him. Still struck with adrenaline, he pulled himself up quickly and dragged his bike to the front door. His broken and unused voice sounded through his pants as he tried frantically to open the damned door. 

The door handle had a key hole but was locked with a rusty padlock. He could turn the handle and wriggle the door, that padlock was what he needed to remove. He pulled a hammer out of his bag; he grabbed it from the gas station floor, it was covered in dried blood. Obviously used by someone prior to leaving it there. Jake slammed the hammer into the padlock, over and over again. The loud bangs from striking the lock were null to Jake’s ears, his desperation coating over all his sense. 

Smash. The padlocks body is broken away from its handle and the door is free from it’s hold on the wooden frame. 

Jake shoves his way inside, throwing the bike onto the hard floor of the entry way before turning to lock the door. It was locked from the outside but had a perfectly working lock on the inside, though he didn’t care to question it. He made it, he was safe, he felt like he could faint.

He had no time to think, let alone find a good source of light before he threw up. Keeling on the once clean floor, liquid from his stomach poured out from him. His throat burned and ached at the feeling, like his throat was made of sandpaper. Falling back he sat on the floor, staring at the door and the mess he made on the ground. He laid back and let his eyes rest for the first time in nineteen hours. Jake fell asleep there on the hard floor, knee propped up on the backside of a couch.

If he was thinking clearly, he would’ve checked the entire cabin, then scavenged for any foods that may be there. But he was broken, body and mind. Luck had been on his side since the beginning though. The home was completely vacant before he entered, and when he wakes up he’ll have found himself a place to live in safely. Away from the corpses living in the surrounding cities, and away from any still living people, all alone.

(A/N: Hello friends! I'm finally writing LOL I've had this wip since December and I'm finally going to finish it. This post is just to see if people would even be interested lol. The total fic word count I don't know yet because I haven't finished it, but I am close! I won't give y'all any hints but I will apologize in advance for the angst I'm about to put y'all thru<3 sorry love you guys muah. Don't know exactly when I will publish the full fic, maybe right when I finish it, maybe a month after I finish it IDK I haven't written seriously in months so I'm not too confident anymore but I am excited. Hope y'all are as excited as I am :D )

[sickuma]

" Above all else, It’s still you. "

A Simon Ghost Riley AU ( x reader )

— Grief never got easier, and Simon found every thought of you consuming him.

🐻 Something short again! It’s raining hard and it got me in a really angst mood, stay safe everyone who’s experiencing the typhoon too!

— This work is deeply inspired by Lizzy's "Doomsday."

“ God loves you,

But not enough to save you. ”

What does it take to love, and what do you lose from it? Is it worth the hollow feeling it leaves you? Was it always this way?

The question never eased, and Simon found every little thing about romance repulsive. He'd already hated the notion of it before,

But now he thinks he loathes it.

What's the point in all of that if it just comes down to this?

This, whatever he would call it, that consuming feeling, like he's forgotten how to live before you.

Like you had always been a part of his life, a part of him, and now that things suddenly turn for the worst, he feels lost.

Lost is an understatement. He doesn't even feel alive. Did you take crucial parts of him with you? If so, why? Was that necessary?

He wonders if he'd just gotten so accustomed to you that he doesn't feel complete with your absence hanging in the air, or if you'd simply taken so much of him, leaving him with not much but his body.

“Might be a lil bit busy right now! Call me again in a bit, you can leave a message, though!”

He dials your number for the fifth time, or fiftieth? Whichever it was, he dialled it enough in hopes of engraving your voice at the top of his head. He did it so much he's convinced, he’s only capable of responding to your voice now,

Not that it wasn't the case already, it totally was. Has always been.

The laughter before the voicemail cuts off was the part he liked the most. His lips tug upwards a little. You've always had a contagious laugh.

Even at your death, you manage to steal a smile from him.

Pathetic.

He thinks to himself, wallowing in self hatred. Not understanding why it's taking this long to man up and get over it.

“Grief is a complicated thing, but one day, you'll look back to everything and be glad you allowed yourself to heal.”

Heal?

He doesn't want to heal.

If healing means no longer recognising the sound of your voice, the certain way you smiled, the feel of your touch, your scent, or the specific hues of your eyes.

He feared he wouldn't ever accept healing.

If healing means living without you, he would rather keep hurting himself by reliving the memories from when your absence didn't exist.

Every thought that ran around his head would somehow involve you and your doomed faith. You always taught him how to find positivity in things, but how could he dig something positivity in your absence?

The thoughts of your voice, the stories you would tell him, the house, the plans. Suddenly they're reduced to memories, and he doesn't quite know how to feel about that.

“My mom would say the stars were our loved ones that had already passed.” You laugh, “Do you think I'd be a bright star one day?”

The brightest one, certainly,

He'd have preferred it if you never needed to become a star at all. He'd have preferred it if you just remained admiring those stars with him, in his arms, not all the way up there, too far from his reach.

Is there a possibility you heard his cries? If he cried loud enough would you hear him and consider coming back?

Maybe you will.

You always said your love for him knows no bounds,

But does that still stand now? When he’s the only one breathing between the two of you?

He had already felt he was going insane when he saw your figure on his way back home, calling out your name and chasing you, only to see it was a stranger.

Of course it is, he knew it wasn't you, but there's a part of him that hoped to meet your eyes when that person turned around.

“Might be a lil bit busy right now! Call me again in a bit, you can leave a message, though!”

He calls you again, as if expecting the other line to click and for him to hear you greet him. To make fun of him for calling so much,

God, he hoped, he hoped desperately you would.

Thoughtlessly, his hand reached for his shirt that you would often wear. Bringing it close to him, taking in the remnant of your scent. It's barely there, but it's there, and it can suffice.

His finger hovering over the call button once more, to hear you speak, to hear you laugh.

Just to hear you.

[pursuitseternal]

“Rescue Me:” Risk, nsfw Romance, and sub!Ascended Astarion update for “The Rogue You Were”

Ascended Astarion x F!Reader | E | 4.2K rescue and nsfw reward

Summary: just a harmless hunt turns dangerous, an old threat from your Tadpole days resurfaces. Once your love has you rescued, you reward him handsomely for the effort.

CW: Canon-typical violence, bloodshed, Vampire Bride powers homebrew, protective Astarion, soft sub/dom dynamics, Sub!AA, outdoor sex, praise kink

My bloody Valentine for @marimosalad , @myfavouritelunatic

Ao3 Link | Astarion Fic Masterlist

🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

The world is a wash of colors, a bouquet of scents, now that you step into it with all your vampiric powers. The forests around the city are colored as the trees begin to turn, reds like his eyes and golds like the treasure you’ve amassed as sovereigns. And your limbs are alive as you bolt under those trees. Reithwith is far behind you, the forests and wilds ahead. The only thing faster in the world rushes at your side

Astarion. Hair whipping wildly in the wind, eyes narrowed as he runs. Mouth grinning like a fool so wide, his pointy fangs peek from his lip.

You feel the same too. Alive. Powerful. The rush of speed and thrum of your vampiric vigor, it intoxicates you. Powerful. Like nothing can touch you.

“Bet I find and kill a bigger animal than you, my love…” you taunt right into his mind.

“Oh my dear, I’d like to see you try…” he pants with open mouth as he purrs back into your thoughts. “Nothing so delicious out here in these woods than me, my pet.”

“True…” you flash him an image of your razor-like fangs biting him all over… his neck, his thigh… that sweet, filled out swell of his own ass cheek, your hand fondling his balls from behind…

He nearly stumbles over the roots of some great oak at that. Regaining his sure footing just in time. “Tempting… but I’ll enjoy my spoils so much more by winning this little hunt you suggested, darling.” He slows a bit until you’ve caught up, until your shoulders bump as you keep in stride through the forest undergrowth. Even as it’s dying.

You toss your head, hair streaming from your face as you flash him your own fanged smile. “To the winner goes the spoils, then….” You give a giddy laugh before darting into the forest away from him and out of his sight….

It’s only after you’ve fallen a stag, feasting on its warm blood, that you realize someone stands behind you. Before plain lances throught the back of your head.

Before the world goes dark.

The forest has grown dark by the time you open your eyes, your head swims. Whatever they smacked you with, it left no lingering damage, not with your vampiric powers. Not when you have his blood in your veins. Slowly the world comes into focus, and you know you’re not alone. Three large male Drows stand guard over you, their armor thick and their eyes intense.

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

That voice. A female crosses towards you, her own armor dark like night, her red eyes shining as she scans you, bound with your legs together under you, your arms behind your back. The chains around your wrists and ankles sting, but it’s her gaze that makes you disgusted and slightly nervous. Those eyes flash between your mouth and your neck.

She wants your bite. And your blood.

“Araj…” you growl.

“I’m glad I made such an impression on you and your lord that I haven’t been forgotten.” She looks down at you, closing in on where you’re bound. Every urge in your body hums to life, you strain at your bonds, but they burn your skin the more you struggle.

“You know, he will kill you when he finds you,” you hiss, “Lord Astarion wouldn’t deign to drink from you, but he will enjoy spilling your every last drop.”

Araj laughs as she crouches next to you, “I should hope he tries, little consort. I cannot wait to study your blood. You little spawn, how does it feel when he compels you?” She runs a finger up the side of your neck, you pant as she touches you, you flinch. She is repulsive, her finger on your skin an insult to Astarion’s greatest creation. She strokes where your own two bite mark scars dip your flesh. “Does he drink from you nightly? Make you do all sorts of exotic and rigorous things, that Vampire Ascendant?”

Fangs bared, you hiss in her face. “You dare to touch what is his…” your mind spins, suddenly flooded with a surge of power. A warmth races down your spine and into your limbs. It makes you bold. It makes you laugh. “He is coming, you vermin. And he does not like having his things taken….”

Araj gives a nod to her soldiers, they draw their blades and fan out into the dark. She laughs, cackles more like. “Oh, imagine if I captured the Ascendant and his consort… if I had their blood to play with… their teeth to satisfy my dreams and curiosity…. You should have killed me when you had the chance instead of leaving me unconscious.”

Your voice shifts in your throat, you can feel him whisper in your mind. “Your hero is coming. I’ll be there soon, my lady….” You take a sigh of relief, feeling his haste, drinking in the wave of his rage as if it can nourish you.

And then, you speak, his voice in your mouth, his silken tones on your tongue. “I’m rather glad I did leave you… it will be far more satisfying to end you slowly now for what you have done… darling….”

Araj freezes at the sound of his voice. Eyes wide and frightened as she watches his power possess you. His power caresses your body, giving you a lasting sense of comfort. And you give the Drow a wicked smile. “We are going to love punishing you.”

The dark glade you’re in is suddenly filled with the sounds of bones crunching and blood spattering on the ground. One body… two… three bodies hit the dirt with a crunch. And Araj draws a little dagger. You laugh, your own sweet tones on your tongue again. “Oh yes, little prey, pull out your claws. Won’t stop you….”

“…from being devoured….” That low, velvety male voice caresses up your spine, his footsteps landing behind you.

Your hero, your lovey villain. Your master and mate. He touches the top of your head briefly, assuring you of his protection and presence.

Astarion’s hands pull your bonds apart. That roguish dexterity never leaving his beautiful fingers, the silver chains coming apart like butter in his grip. And even as you hear the little hiss of its power burning his skin, he gives no hint of pain.

Flinging the chains aside, he lifts you to your feet, steadying you, as if you weigh nothing to him.

The Drow’s eyes are wide, the red of her irises shaking up and down in her fear. Astarion growls, his twin daggers pulled from behind his back swiftly. You have seen it countless times. A chilling laugh comes from his mouth. “You really should have brought an army if you planned to touch what is mine… if you planned to take what is precious to me.”

“How else was I…” she tries to back away, stepping with a sickening crunch on the bones of one of her guards.

“What… darling? Fulfill your twisted little fantasy? Or find a way to sate your death wish?” he chuckles, his daggers twirling so beautifully, so gracefully in his long and bloodied fingers. “It took me all but a moment to rip all three to shreds… and you,” he points his dagger at her quivering form, head held high and shoulders squared, bloodied mouth ginning wide in the moonlight. “You’ll I’ll take my time with, darling. For what you tried to rob me of, my Consort, my Bride, there is no punishment fit enough for your crime, if I am any judge.” Another roll of dark laughter. “Which I was once, but now…” he closes in on Araj, feline and fast, “I’m your executioner.”

You watch, your stomach turning sour at the smell of her fetid blood. He’s so graceful, the way his body moves as he fights, not really a fight. It’s a dance, his movements fatal and swift, his little noises of effort punctuating the silent forest.

You draw closer, until he drops his blades into the mat of leaves on the forest floor. She’s still twitching on the ground, Araj, lover of all things sanguine, laying in a pool of her own life’s blood.

It’s more than enough vengeance for now. His arms sweep you up, taking you from the carnage.

Taking you to safety.

A clearing bathed in the moonlight… not unlike your first time. If only you knew the road ahead of you that night and all the pleasures and love that awaited.

You still smell fetid blood in your nose, you still feel the burn of silver round your wrist and ankles.

He sets you gingerly on the ground, his eyes looking everywhere but your face. His heart pounds so heavily, you can hear it as if it is your own. His touch pulses with it in his fingers, his hands turning over the burn marks on your pale skin. Hetugs where your sleeves and trousers have been torn to expose you, to make room for the silver chains to corrode into your flesh. “That bitch… I hope she does slowly, I hope she’s still in agony for what she did to you,” he spits, words hissing between his clenched teeth.

“Never,” he proclaims so loudly it hurts your ears. Suddenly both palms press into your face, making you turn to meet his glowing crimson eyes. He’s livid, silver brows furrowed deep, thick lips somewhere between a frown and a snarl. “Never again, I’m never letting you out of my sight again, darling. Where you go, I go. I will always be watching you everywhere you go. And never again will you stray from my side, do you hear me? Don’t you dare….” The ferocious snarl, the fearsome timbre of his voice, snaps in an instant.

His face presses against you, nose to nose, his forehead hot and damp with sweat where it crams against yours, his cheeks beginning to stain with wet. “Don’t… I can’t… I can’t lose you again.” He sobs, his tongue licking his lips from the salty strains of tears. “I’m not strong enough for that.”

His arms wrap around your head, pulling you into his blood spattered and embroidered jacket. His favorite one, with the golden stitched peacocks on a sea of cream silk. But it wasn’t cream any longer. You hiss as your hands and wrists brush his body. Instantly he recoils, concern etched across his handsome features. That mask of indifference he wears so often as Ascendant has vanished. And all you see staring at you in the dark woods, huddled on the ground, is the man who loves you, who stops at nothing to rescue you.

He pretends his cheeks aren’t wet, pretends that aquiline nose of his isn’t almost running. He brings your wrists to his mouth, kissing over the burn marks as if his lips could heal you.

As if his love could heal you alone.

You shiver in pain. The wounds are still fresh and raw with blisters. He instantly starts to work the buttons of that jacket, his pale skin exposed to the night as he wraps it around your shaking shoulders.

His heat saturates the fabric, his eyes and hands busy as he snugs it tightly around your frame. But behind his eyes, inside his thoughts he only hears that beat of how he needs to save you.

Just as you have always saved him.

Fangs pierce his own naked wrist, his blood, warm and tingling, drips with a hiss on your burned skin, blisters fading and raw skin knitting back together the second it connects with his powerful essence. Quickly, he moves to your ankles, making sure every little bit of your injuries is bathed in his blood.

Feeling returns to your extremities. You wriggle them, and Astarion leans closer, bringing his wrist to your lips, letting it whet your hunger.

Your stomach turns at the taste, instantly needing more in your belly, instantly losing all sense of pain. Or fear. Or loneliness. Not now that his power flows from his veins to yours. And you release your lips after a few swallows. Just enough to steady your head.

He’s shushing you softly, muttering to himself, “Never agains, never…”

“Astarion,” you breathe, “you are strong.”

“No,” he shakes his head, bringing you against his warm chest, “I can’t be if it comes to losing you….” His breath is ragged in his lungs, heart racing still from his rescue.

And fear.

“Then we are strong enough together, my love,” you force his face in your hand, turning it, making him, compelling him, to meet your gaze. “I knew you’d come,” you whisper, feeling him lean a little harder into your touch. “You fearsome Vampire Ascendant, if I need to be confident enough for both of us, then let me do that for you.”

He gives a wet laugh, “My consort, my queen, my right hand….”

“The hand that helps pull you up even when I’m the cause of your fall,” you give a tender smile in return.

He gives you a smile that resembles more of his rakish smirk, if still a bit tragic and a bit forced. “Maybe there’s something that hand of yours could pull… if you’re offering.”

Your hand strays down the soft skin of his chest… his stomach. “I wouldn’t want to spoil you, but you do so love when your acts of heroism are compensated, I recall….”

“Rewarded, my little love,” he tries to chuckle. Still weak, his body showing more of the despair that still blisters inside him that his words will allow to describe. “Why don’t you reward me,” he looks down on you with those big, wet crimson eyes, “haven’t I been so good to you?”

“Of course,” you whisper, pressing your hand in the valley of his chest, making him flatten out on the forest floor.

Not unlike days of old.

“You’re always so good to me, won’t you let me be good to you in return?” you slink your way over his body, spreading your thighs so straddle those hips of his.

“I have earned it, haven’t I?” He preens beneath you, just a small spark of that arrogance and seduction coming back. His hands haven’t left your body, pawing at your hips, running up your back.

As if he will never let you go, never let himself lose you again.

You shrug the weight of his jacket from your shoulders and pull the edges of your long tunic over your head, torn and dirty as it is, you breathe a sigh of relief. The dark of his pupils consume that ring of red around them, eyes dilating to see your breasts, a sight just for him. Instantly his hands reach for them, one in each palm, cradled in his touch, so soft and so perfectly. You long to taste him, to get the sour tang of fear and bile that still lingers in your mind, despite even the taste of his ascendant blood on your tongue.

His lips shake as they meet your own, almost unwilling to believe he gets to do this again. Disbelieving he’s managed to save you, to decimate your enemies with you so deep in their clutches.

He basks in the way your body clings to him, like he does every chance he has to sit curled in the sun. A little smile on his lips, even as they dance and devour yours. His touch reverently ghosts up your belly, tantalizingly light on your skin, tucking into the waistband of your trousers to try to slink them down.

But you smile into his kiss, brushing his hands away like gnats. “My love…” you rasp, “did you ask to try to remove those?”

“No,” he growls in reply, hands instantly slinking back up your body, brushing against your swaying breasts to cradle the back of your neck.

“Mmmm, that’s better,” you moan slightly into his mouth. Hands splayed on his chest, you raise yourself back up, feeling the heat and pressure of his growing erection beneath your body. A slight wriggle of your hips makes his mouth hang slack. “Let me just ride you, my love. Let me make you feel that I’m here with you.”

He groans at that. Hands planting firmly back on your hips, you slowly grind on that length, feeling it hardening under you. But you tutt your tongue, sliding down his thighs. “Can’t have you hard down your leg, can we?”

He shakes his head, “By the hells no,” he hisses as you reach in to adjust him. He groans as you take his shaft in your grip, a few gentle pumps aren’t enough for him over that steely hard erection. You sweep your thumb over that weeping slit, just enough to make the bead of precum slick your fingers before you let go, keeping his cock inside the waistband of his breeches.

Tongue running over one fang, he watches as you lick your fingers clean, as you slide your body back over to grind on his aching hardness. “Aren’t I worthy of a little more reward for my heroics?” He tries to sound demanding, but with each buck of your hips that rubs the heat and fabric where you join, he only grows more desperate.

“Good things come to Ascendant Lords who wait, my love,” you purr, slowing the way your hips gyrate over his just to prove your point. Fingernails claw into your hip bones, scoring and tearing your skin. His head digs back into the ground, the rustle of leaves beneath him a staccato to the way his breath pours out in a long pant. “Tch,” you lean down to capture that mouth that twists in agony. “Easy my love,” you whisper as his lips try to consume your own cold breath. His hands press on your shoulders, the back of your neck, holding you steady as he thrusts up into that warming crease between your thighs. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Damned right, you’re not,” he growls, a tenacity in his tone and ferocity in the way his fingers cling into your mussy hair. “And you’re mine…”

You shake free of his hold, sliding to slip off your trousers, the night air making every hair on your body prickle. Your nipples firm up harder than pebbles, even as your nerves burn to take his heat within you, for him to thrust his pulsing cock inside, to fill you with the friction you crave more to survive than blood.

But instead you settle back, your folds wet and pressing into the suede of his breeches. “Your reward is rather cruel, little love,” he hisses, nearly whining, even as his voice rumbles in his chest. “May I touch my spoils?” he whispers.

A wicked, gaping smirk on your lips and your head throw back as you demonstrate. “Like this, my lord?” You still on his prodding cock, lifting your hips just enough for his darkened eyes to watch your fingers slip loudly into your drenched folds. Your stroke, you circle and curl, whatever movements make the most sounds. Astarion’s hands slowly creep from your hips lower… lower… daring silently as he encroaches closer where you now ride your own touch.

You smile, closing your eyes, giving him a little nod, a little gift of your permission as his thumb slips inside where your fingers already play. His cock presses into you as his fingers slide over your clit. That bulge throbs through the now soaked spanse of suede, a satisfied smirk on his face as his touch catches you just right.

As your thighs grip him hard, as your own hand goes still inside your entrance, leaving you with just that merciful stroke of his thumb on your clit as he steals your breath. As the warmth of pleasure blooms from your belly. As you buck and writhe all the harder, all the more erratic until your vision swims.

Boneless, shivering, you’re pulled down to his mouth, fingers gently throttling you as you stil gasp for air from your climax.

It feels… so good. Saved. Rescued. Claimed. Good to be his.

His kiss is all tongue and fangs, those little growls and huffs he makes when he feeds on you filling your mouth as he caresses you. His hands slink into the new open space he’s made, fingers snapping his laces open. Finally almost freeing himself.

But you laugh, sinking your own fang into his lip to make him gasp and freeze in pain. “Naughty,” you breathe before sucking on that seeping blood. “You know better than that… you know to ask first, my love.” You chastise him, making him shudder under your lips. “But since you were so wonderful being my hero, saving your lady love, I’ll forgive you…” you raise up, feeling his hands tugging fiercely, not even finishing all the straps to release that aching erection.

“To the victor…” he raps, guiding your body to sink quickly on his shaft… He pants in delight as you squeeze around him at last, “go the spoils.” His chest rises and falls, pale skin catching in the moonlight, his sweat glistening. But you can’t tear away from his mouth. Not with how he works his lips on yours, his tongue tangling in time with every little thrust you make.

One of his arms presses you closer to join where he fucks up into you, where you soak his skin and slap hard against him. But that other, that other arm winds behind your shoulders, hand clawed into the base of your neck, keeping your breath as his breath, your tongue twisted with his. But it’s not enough… not hard enough or fast enough, even as you feel his breathing grow ragged.

You sit up, launching off his chest with two hands braced. He whines, whines to have you break from his clutches. A single finger crooking, you beckon him up to you. A rustle of leaves, the scent of damp, nighttime earth in your nose, and he obeys to sit up too. Eager, biting his fangs into his bottom lip. Hips rolling, back arched in deepest pleasure, you feel his tongue lapping up, a single damp streak between your breasts. Those dexterous hands grip into your skin, those powerful arms that snapped your enemies in half are wrapped tenderly around your waist.

He growls against your neck, too hesitant to bite. Warm lips wrap around your ear, the loud suck, the squelch of his tongue sends ice cold shivers of pleasure right down your spine. One more time, a loud suck, the clack of his fangs together in your ear, and you shatter, another wave of orgasm ripping you in two. Wetness squirts down your thighs, his cock is so slick inside you from your arousal, even as thick and hot as he has grown approaching his own release.

Even as your walls clutch and undulate through his thrusts into you that never relent.

His back is wet, dead leaves clinging to his shoulders as you hold him, trying to keep your balance against the flexing muscles of his back. Your rogue, your hero, he takes advantage of your breathless submission as you float down from orgasm to clutch you even harder. His voice grates in his throat, thick with desire and breathless from exertion. “May I…”

“What do you wish?” you murmur, slack in his arms as he thrusts with desperation, your body barely able to ride him much longer.

“I want…” he pants, “to fill you. For you to seep with me, to make you…” he groans as you shudder at that dark, deep tone in his voice, “make you full of my seed and scent. So I’ll always be able to find you, darling…”

“Yes,” you hiss somewhere in the middle of his words. A shuddering whine in his throat, and you feel every muscle tighten like a bow string. Rolling you to your back, he presses your legs into your body, the heat of your folds now open to the night air. Hips snap hard, reckless and with abandon. He fucks into you at his pleasure, at his mercy. His eyes don’t seem to blink as he stares into your own face. Dirt smudges his cheek, but it’s that haze in his eyes, that way his mouth twists in beautiful bliss that makes your own body hum to be used.

Pressing you, folding you bent and spread for him, he cages you into the earth this time. A smirk, wide and toothy, pants down from above you, those dark crimson eyes flutter shut as he bucks and shudders. One loud pant that sticks in his throat and your walls grow warm, coated as he does fill you, cum and arousal leaking into the dirt. Not for the first time.

Not for the last.

Breath heavy, skin damp, he hugs you into him, the echo of his beating heart in your own chest hard enough to almost be your own.

“Never again, my love, my consort,” he whispers, more to himself than for your ears. “I’ll spend the rest of our lives rescuing you… as you rescued me.”

With one last kiss, he softens over you, almost sleepy in his breath, and you wipe the mud from his cheek.

That roguish mud from his ascended skin. And nestled as he is, he smiles against your breast as you do.

[ohtobeleah]

Was It Over? // Jake Seresin

-> Chapter Eleven: [The Man]

Summary: When Jake and Jensen go head to head over who means what yo you, things escalate to new heights, so much so that Jake lashes out and says something that may not be forgiven.

Warnings: Sick!reader. Breast cancer diagnosis. Jake Seresin x F!reader. Angst, hospital & medical inaccuracies. SLOW BURN ROMANCE/ Inaccurate medical information. Relationship turmoil. Mentions of religion. JEALOUS JAKE!

Word Count: 5.6K

Author Note: This chapter brings the total word count of this series to 50k....I cannot believe that an idea that began as a one-shot has turned into this. Thank you all so much for your support on this one. xxx

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

There was a brief moment right before your shower where Jake was able to step out into the hall to call his sister Jasmine. He knew the call he was about to make was going to be neither short, nor pleasant. But he also knew that deep down, you weren’t mentally prepared to tell your children you were sick. But the pair of you had to start somewhere. And that somewhere was Jake’s sister. 

“What the FUCK is going on!” One single ring. One dial. That's how long it took Jake's sister to answer, hell, Jake thought it would have been sooner but he gave her a little good grace for potentially having to step out of whatever family dynamic she found herself in. “Mum said Y/n’s sick?” 

“Did she say it like that?” Jake replied unamused as he found an empty chair to sit on in the waiting room area down the hall. He didn't want to stray too far away from your room. Although he knew that you were with the nurses, he couldn't find it inside himself to leave. If Jake tried hard enough, he could still see your bed socks at the end of your hospital bed. 

“Uh–” Jasmine's apprehensive silence confirmed all Jake needed to know. “She may have said it with a little hope in her chest, mentioned the words dropped and dead in the same sentence of wishful thinking.” Jake couldn’t say he was surprised after the way Janeen had spoken so poorly about you directly to his face. He couldn't really imagine what she’d been saying to other members of the Seresin family. “But what's going on? I'm keeping an eye on the kids as much as I can but holy shit mum's just on a warpath–” 

Fuck: Jake knew leaving the kids behind was a bad idea on his behalf. The guilt of running off on his children in the middle of the night was beginning to eat him alive. The idea of lying to them about your condition only made that guilt harder to rationalise. 

“Okay, can you just promise me you won’t tell the kids?” Jake groaned into the phone. “Y/n doesn't want them to worry so she doesn't want to say too much.” 

“Jake–” Jasmine's voice changed, the serious nature of the conversation at hand was beginning to shine through with ease. “She's alright, isn't she?” Jasmine asked as Jake let his elbows rest on top of his thighs. This whole situation, the newly found world of which you were living in was begging to give Jake the head spins. Keeping up was exhausting, but this wasn't about Jake now was it. “This is Y/n we’re talking about, she has to be alright.”

Unbeknownst to you, Jake had been reading all your files, all your reports, everything and anything he could get his hands on about your diagnosis. After all, he had been named your emergency contact not long after showing up. He’d made a convincing case. Jake knew a lot about your current situation. He knew the odds, chances, risks and possibilities. 

“She's been diagnosed with Stage three A, triple positive grade three invasive doctoral carcinoma.” Jake explained to his sister who on the other end of the call, sat watching his youngest try to eat the sand from the sandpit Jake himself used to shit in as a child. “The oral chemo they had her started on caused a stroke, apparently it's a common side effect, to me they shouldn't be pumping people full of that crap if its gonna cause a fucking stroke forty percent of the time.” 

Jake knew the silence on the other end of the line was due to an overload of information getting caught in his sister's cerebellum. It was a lot to take in, hell Jake still hadn’t really been given an opportunity to take it all in. since he found out he’d been go go go. He knew an impending moment of weakness mixed with overall exhaustion was coming. When that moment would come he wasn't sure. 

“You’re lying–” Was all Jasmine said. Jake wished more than anything he could say he was. 

“Fucked up thing to lie about Jas–” Jake responded softly as he listened to the hustle and bustle of the hospital wing his sat in. “She hadn’t been feeling well for a few months, Doctors say it's aggressive, feeds off her hormones and stuff.” Jake didn't understand a lot of it, but he was trying his best to navigate a field he wasn't an excerpt in. “She's in for a preventative double mastectomy on Christmas Eve. It would've been earlier but the strokes kinda set her back a few days.” 

“Jake– I don't believe you, the kids–what about the kids, what do I tell them?” Jasmine couldn't comprehend the devastation this would cause on the already struggling family dynamic. You and Jake were meant to be, everyone knew that. But this whole separation, the miscommunication and overall fractures within your marriage were all major contributing factors as to why love just couldn’t be enough.

“Don't tell them anything, please, for the love of God Jas don't tell them anything, I just–” Jake let out a sigh of frustration as he ran his hand free hand through his hair. God he needed a haircut. “We just need a little time to process what's going on and Y/n–she's been doing this for too long on her own, I can’t keep letting her down so just, take a moment to breathe for me.” 

“Holy fuck you aren’t kidding about any of this are you?” Jasmine with all her good graces and problematic marital issues of her own, looked over at where her husband sat with hers and Jake's father. The sight was enough to send a shiver down her spine. The man who raised her was not someone who Jasmine ever wanted her brother to become. Losing your wife to such a disease that was as unforgiving as it was inhumane could potentially be an origin story bubbling under the surface of Jake's skin. 

“Jake–You don't get to turn into dad if this ends anything less than Y/n walking away from this cancer free Jake, your kids deserve to have a dad that won't treat them like burdens and mistakes.” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~**

“Watch your step alright?” Our skulls are designed to cushion our brains. Our rib cages are specifically moulded to guard our hearts. The human body is built to protect our most vulnerable parts. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. 

The way in which Jake helped to guide you out of the bathroom with his hand pressed firmly against the small of your back made your heart skip a beat. You held tightly onto his forearm with one hand and in the other? Was your IV poll, still pumping you full of antibiotics and fluids. 

“I got it.” You tried to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other. That's what this whole thing was about right? This battle, this fight. It was all about putting one foot in front of the other. With Jake by your side, albeit with some underlying resentment still to be discussed, you felt as though those steps, small but meaningful in their own right, were made with intent and purpose to keep fighting. “Shit the air-con feels so weird on my head.” You chuckled to yourself as Jake shut the bathroom door behind the both of you. 

“Yeah holy shit it's like–” As Jake's eyeline faltered from you to the figure standing over near the door, his heart sunk into his stomach. His face turned to stone as the green in his eyes, usually an emerald colour, darkened to something more pine-like. The half finished sentence that left your husband's mouth and tailed off into complete and utter silence was what got your attention the most. It wasn't like Jake to not say what was on his mind. 

“What's up?” As you turned your head slowly, you saw the man who had been nothing but a pillar of support for you to lean on since your diagnosis. It was the man who had kept you above water when you felt like you’d been drowning in a sea of unprecedented mortality. “Jensen–” The shock and excitement in your tone was something Jake couldn't miss no matter how much he wanted to. “You came?” 

Jake made no attempt to move as you shuffled forward, he stood still with his heart hammering inside his chest. He stood completely still as his thoughts carried him away into a world where nothing made sense to anyone. Into a world where he didn't have you, a world where for the last year he’d tasted of that very misery and hated every last second of it. 

“I uh–” Jensen held out the bouquet of sweet peas, peonies and pansies he’d brought for you. The overwhelming colours and signature scents captivated the entire room with their freshness. “I wanted to stop by, see how you were doing, hope I'm not intruding?” 

The body tends to adapt quickly to new circumstances and pressures it’s put under. It knows how to protect itself. But it can’t close off completely, or well—we’re not really living are we? Biology tends to override our fears, so we leave the door open, just a little…hoping like hell that it's worth the risk. 

“Oh no, no we just finished up some DIY haircuts.” You beamed, the smile that ignited across your face was a smile Jake hadn't seen in years. A smile so pure and full of love that it couldn't ever be faked. “Jake, this is Jensen.” You introduced the two men who had played significant roles in your life, having no clue that they had both already met one another in the hall. “We met at the doctors office, as unfortunate as that sounds, it's been really nice to have someone who just, knows.” Jake slowly but surely aided you over to your bed before he made his way over to where Jensen stood watching idly. Assessing the situation unfolding before him. “Jensen convinced me to go to a few of those CCA meetings, although not my cup of tea–it's nice to know that that support system is there.” 

Jake eyed Jensen and his bouquet of flowers off as he stepped closer and closer with a look Jensen couldn't quite read in his pine green eyes. The betrayal of love often has boundaries that people end up living with for the rest of their lives. For Jake, his betrayal and the consequences of his emotional ineptitude inside his marriage was starting to play out right before his very eyes. 

He saw the potential that there was in fact another man. And oh boy did he hate it. 

“And Jensen, this is Jake, my husband.” Jensen took subtle notice of the way you introduced Jake to him as your husband, not your ex-husband like you'd been referring to him as since the two of you first met. Something had changed, Jensen could sense it. But for as much as Jensen could sense the chemistry between you and Jake, Jake could see the way your eyes lit up with overjoyous surprise when you realised that the flowers Jensen held in his hand were in fact for you. “Are those, are those for me?” 

“Oh–yeah.” Jensen beamed as he walked a little further into your room. “I thought they might bring a little light into your room but it seems that you have it pretty well decorated.” It was the small nod to the Christmas lights that hung around your room that made you smile even brighter as Jake made his way back over and helped you into bed. You could tell there was tension brewing just from his quietness alone. “And the new haircut suits you, good thing you don't have a weird ass head huh?”

“Hey Jarred–” Jake interrupted before you had a chance to reply, the way he intentionally called Jensen by a different name rubbed you the wrong way. The frown that cast itself across your face left little to Jake's imagination, but as he made sure you were as comfortable as could be in your bed, he kept going. “Nows, probably not a good time–” 

Jensen looked around your room carefully, he knew the system well and what times were more common than not for nurses to do their daily rounds and check-ins. He knew that by the looks of things you had just showered and were probably settling in for the afternoon. If Jensen was correct in his assumption as he looked back towards where Jake stood at your bedside, he would assume that he couldn't have picked a better time to drop by. 

“Seems like a pretty good time to me man, besides, why don't we let Y/n here make that call.” Jensen replied calmly as he went about finding a place for your flowers to go. Jensen could have played the safe card, he could have chosen to be the bigger person and not mention it, but he didn't really have a hell of alot to lose. After all, he was a dead man walking. What was the harm in stirring the pot a little where he still could. “Honestly, I didn't expect you to be here if I'm being completely honest.” Jensen smirked as he turned back to face Jake. You felt like your heart was about to explode right through your chest as you looked back and forth between the two men who had seemingly gotten into a mines bigger than yours contest on either side of your bedside. “Didn't think you knew your wife was sick–” 

The silence was deafening as Jake thought about all the ways he could kill a man in one single motion. The rage he felt inside his chest was red hot jealousy. Jensen could practically see the steam spewing out of Jake's years. 

“What my wife decides to share with me has nothing to do with you–” Jake growled, you could just see the way he was grinding his teeth. Jake's jawline had never seemed more profound. His knuckles were almost entirely white as he leaned against the railing of your hospital bed. Lowered down for convenience of getting in and out. 

“It does when I’ve been the one listening to how much she wishes you loved her the same way she loves you.” Jensen shrugged. “Come on man, don't play this game, don't pretend that I don't know what been going on–” 

“Enough!” You couldn't have shouted it slider if you tried. “Both of you, my god we’re all supposed to be adults here?” You sighed as you looked at Jake and then over to Jensen. Something was off with him, this wasn't the Jensen you knew. He seemed off, very off. “Can you two just back up, let's start over.” However, it was a plea that fell on deaf ears.

Remember that impending moment of weakness mixed with overall exhaustion Jake mentioned earlier? Yeah– about that. Guess it was coming around the corner sooner rather than later. 

“Nah–” Jake shook his head as he let out a sigh. This was bullshit, you really had him fooled. He really did think that there was a possibility here that maybe, just maybe, the two of you could fix what he had unintentionally broken while focusing on your health. “Nah, I'm not gonna put up with this dickhead.” Jake hissed as unclenched his hands from the railing on your bed. “I'm gonna go get a coffee, try not to catch each other's cancer cells while I'm gone.” 

“Jake, don't leave!” You begged as you sat up a little straighter in your bed. “Please—“ The panic that followed was something otherworldly as you watched Jake round out of the hospital room that had become your home away from home. “Please!” 

Jensen was if anything, enraged. He hadn’t helped the situation but he never would have left your side after making a remark so thickly lacquered with jealousy. He didn't think Jake would react the way he did, so quick to make assumptions. The small gift Jensen still held in his hand was quickly placed on your bedside table. 

“I’ll go talk to him—“ Jensen pressed his lips together as he let his hand fall gently to your shoulder. “My fault, I shouldn't have said what I did, I'm sorry.” Jensen didn't pretend to not see how upset you truly were. He understood what it was like to feel the weight of the world crushing your spirit. “He didn't mean what he said Y/n.” 

“He did–” You sighed as you wiped away your tears. “He asked me when he came to take the kids to his mum's house if I was seeing anyone–” 

Ah, Jensen thought to himself as he stood by your bedside and listened. 

“He wants to get back together, fix what's broken, change.” You sighed as you looked over to the open door that Jake hadn't long before walked out of. “He probably thinks you're more than a friend.” In another life, perhaps Jensen could have been more than just a good friend. In another universe somewhere he hoped that maybe you never had this unforgiving disease. But this wasn't another reality, this was right now. 

“All the more reason to fight for his girl.” Jensen cooed as he leaned in to kiss the top of your now very smooth head. “I'll go talk to your husband.” 

You caught onto the not so subtle subtlety of the way Jensen teased that title. Husband. Jake Seresin was still very much your husband. He was the very definition of a man who was supposed to be at your side through thick and thin. But right now? You were doubting his ability to fully comprehend what was happening to you. Jake’s focus shouldn’t have been on Jensen and who he was to you. But yet you couldn’t not defend him. 

“He’s not a bad guy, he’s really not—“ There was an awkward silence that lingered in the room as Jensen chose to take in what you’d said. “This is all just so much for him to take in.” 

“You don’t need to explain your relationship to me.” Jensen wanted to say that if Jake was such an alright guy, then you wouldn’t have left. He wanted to remind you of all the conversations the two of you had had over the past few months. All the times you’d cried about the man who didn’t value your time, your energy, your love. “But a woman like you should never have to beg a man to stay.” 

“I left him.” You felt the need to remind the man who stood at your bedside with an ora surrounding him you didn’t recognise. “I stopped begging him to love me a long time ago and you know that.” 

Jensen could have thrown the fact you just called out after Jake back in your face, that you’d begged your husband not to leave. But he wasn’t that mean. He was just looking out for you. Someone had to. Someone had to make sure this Jake guy had his priorities in check and that you were at the very top of that list where you belonged. 

“I know—“ Jensen pressed his lips together into a fine line. “But that guy just walked out the second things got a little more complicated, what’s gonna stop him from throwing in the towel if your health declines more than it already has?” Jensen shrugged his shoulders like he wasn’t being nasty. It was his version of tough love. 

“I’m sorry—“ You scoffed as your face contorted into that of a frown mixed with frustration. “Are you, are you testing Jake?” 

“Cancer is one of the world's most leading causes of divorce.” Jensen added like it was a statistic you should have known. He knew you knew it. “I just wanted to see how well he handled a little external pressure.” 

“You’re—“ Before you could finish your sentence, Jensen was smiling down at you from ear to ear. 

“A menace, I know, but I’m a menace that only has your best interest at heart.” Jensen explained as he sat down beside you for only a brief moment. “Your fight isn’t with Jake right now, he shouldn’t be fighting you or anyone else in your life that may come and go.” 

“Jensen—“ You knew Jensen hadn’t been well, but he hadn’t explicitly told you how bad it was. There was something in his eyes though, the way he looked at you like he was looking at you for the last time that had you worried. “What’s going on with you?” 

“I’m just making sure if you’re letting that man back into your life that he’s gonna stick around when things don’t go the way he wants them to.” Jensen smiled softly as he picked up your hand to bring towards his lips. He left a fleeting kiss upon the palm of your hand and let out a sigh he wasn’t aware he was holding in. “I’ll go track down your sook of a husband, make sure he’s aware that you’re hopelessly devoted or whatever you wanna call it.” 

“Please be nice—“ You pleaded gently as Jensen stood from your bedside. “Please.” 

“Anything for you Y/n.” Jensen replied, he knew that this would be the last time he ever saw you apart from in his own version of heaven. “Anything for you.” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~*

Jake Seresin had never been a fan of hospitals. That mentality first started when he broke his leg in kindergarten and needed a full cast, but it grew with him well into adulthood. Jake had never liked hospitals, even when all three of his children were born he still hated them. Not even the love he had for his children could override the hate he felt towards the sterile environment that gave far too many infections to people to be considered ‘normal’ 

“Seresin.” But Jake had never hated hospitals more than he did the second he heard his last name being called from just a short distance down the hall. Called by a man who Jake would happily like to never see again. “The hell is your problem?” Jake caught the sight of the man who’d brought you flowers coming right towards him with a fire burning in his eyes. The man you had kept somewhat a secret from Jake. Much like your diagnosis. 

“My problem is asking me what my problem is.” Jake groaned as he took a sip of his shitty ass hospital coffee. “Don’t you and my wife have things to talk about?” Jake asked as he took a few steps away from where Jensen had stopped in his tracks. “Things I’m not privy to as it seems? Like her health or new love life?” 

“You don’t even know who I am to your wife!” Jensen barked loud enough to have Jake stopping in the middle of the hall. The six foot something aviator turned slowly on his heels to give the almost matching in height bald dude the time of day he seemed to crave. “But I know all about you, because I’ve been there for Y/n while you’ve been busy playing part time parent across the country.” Jensen had nothing to lose, he was just a dying man who had no time left to cherish. 

Jake wasn’t about to stand here and take this. He didn’t need some guy who’d stepped into your life to tell him what to do. You were the mother of Jake’s children, you’d always be that to him regardless if he could fix what he broke. 

“Get out of my face before you need a plastics consult.” Jake growled through gritted teeth all the while Jensen grinned. He was standing his ground as Jake continued on his defensive. “Because so help me god, you may feel like god right now with your self-righteous heart and knight in shining armour attitude, but you sure as hell won’t feel all high and mighty when you meet him.” 

Jensen didn't want to fight with your husband, but he did want to make it known that time was forever fleeting, and if Jake kept going the way he was there would be no time left to fix what he broke. You needed someone to be there for you, Jake had to be that person. 

Because Jensen couldn’t be that guy for you anymore, he had no fight left to give you. He had no fight left in himself. 

“You know I sympathise with you Jake, I do, it must be hard being the guy who broke your own marriage to a woman who loves so fiercely and so much.” Jensen started as he let his elbows rest atop his sweatpants clad knees. “And now having to deal with the fact that said wife is dying must be a lot to work through.” 

Jake remained speechless as his eyes lingered down to the man who was almost out of breath from his walk through the halls. He held his half drunk coffee cup in his hand with enough rage coursing through his veins that Jake was actually surprised he hadn’t crushed the flimsy cardboard vessel. 

“But you know what the worst part of all that is? Is that your priority isn’t your wife, or fixing your marriage—“ Jensen continued on. “No, it’s on the guy who your wife chose to confide in when you were nowhere to be found.” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jake replied with a hiss in his tone that mimicked the deadliest of snakes. “I couldn’t give a shit who you are to her or what you want, because she’s my fucking wife—mine!” 

“And yet here you are arguing that point with me in the hall when you could be at her bedside appreciating all the small moments you’ll be lucky to look back on one day.” Jensen grew more heated as Jake took a few strides his way, towering over where Jensen sat. “You threw a fit the second I stepped into that room without using any critical thinking skills you aviators claim to have in the heat of the moment.” 

“She told me she wasn’t seeing anyone! Come to find out that that’s—“ Jake didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence before Jensen intervened that train of thought. 

“She’s not! You’re wife fucking love’s you!! She kept her prognosis from you because she was so scared you didn’t love her back enough to fucking care! And you’re hung up on the idea she’s seeing someone? Me!?” Jensen scoffed as he stood, the few strides he took towards Jake were made with intent behind every single one. Enough to have Jake stumbling back every so slightly. “Here’s a concept for you man.” Jensen pressed his index finger into Jake’s sternum. “Maybe, just maybe, if I was sleeping with your wife, she’d remember her worth.” 

“You really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jake sighed, there was no way he was entertaining this delusion any more than he already had. “I think you should leave.” The idea of you being with another man sent Jake into a blind rage of jealousy that saw no reason. But at the end of the day, he was the one who walked out on you. He’d strayed too far from your hospital room and couldn’t see your bed socks anymore. 

Fuck….

“Maybe, maybe I should—“ Jensen agreed. “And hell I don’t even know you at all, but from what I’ve managed to piece together? it’s that you're a crap husband who doesn’t have the emotional capacity to handle the fact his wife could lose this battle.” Jensen retaliated with a stone cold expression. “But something I do know is that no amount of prayer or candles or begging will reverse time, so put your ego side and focus on the fact your wife needs you now more than ever before and if you leave her side the way you did today ever again, trust me when I say you’ll regret it every day of your life.” 

“Y/n isn’t dying—“ Much like Jensen was taking his fear of the unknown out on Jake, Jake was just about ready to let loose on the guy who was picking apart his very character. Sure, Jake recognised he wasn’t the best husband, but he also knew you weren’t dying. Not right now, not while he wasn’t by your side. 

“I wasn’t either, but as it turns out we all have an expiry date.” Jensen replied. The atmosphere and energy surrounding the two men who were going head to head suddenly shifted. “Some sooner than others, but we all have one, and when yours is up yours is up and there ain't nothing you can do you extend it.” 

“You’re—“ Jake couldn’t bring himself to say it. 

“A walking corpse.” Jensen finished the sentence he knew Jake was trying to speak into existence. Although he didn’t care to beat around the bush. “So trust me when I tell you that wishful thinking does shit when your body decides it’s had enough.” 

“Does Y/n know?” Jake's first worry was how this news, how this detrimental turn of events, would affect you. His heart forgot how to beat inside his chest when he watched Jensen shake his head in response. 

“She needs to focus on her own journey, and before I go I need to make sure she has a support system because for a while there I was all she seemed to have.” Jensen explained. There it was, the truth of the matter. 

Jake saw it clear as day, the care, the worry, the intention to make sure you had someone there for you because Jensen wasn’t going to be there anymore. You may not have slept with the guy standing before Jake but if Jake knew anything, it was the look of a man who was unequivocally in love with you. He saw his own reflection of Jensen's eyes. 

“Go back, apologies, and you fix your marriage man because that woman? That electrifying woman who sees the good in everything doesn’t deserve to go through this alone—and you turning your back on her the second someone made things a little difficult for you isn’t a good representation of the husband she deserves.” 

“You love her, don’t you?” Jake asked as he took a second to truly take in Jensens whole argument. The world seemed to go on around them, with doctors and nurses carrying out their daily duties and rounds. Family members walking to and from rooms visiting loved ones. But for Jake and Jensen? The world stopped when it came to you. “You’re in love with my wife, say it.” Jake couldn’t hide the pain in his voice. “Tell me you love her, then this all makes sense.” 

“Maybe—“ Jensen tried to play his love for you down into something that was just a social construct. “Maybe I love her, but I don’t get a chance to explore that, you do though.” Jensen was truly trying to hide the pain in his eyes, but Jake could see it all too easily. Jensen knew that. “So if not for yourself, for her, pull your head out of your ass man—“

“I never stopped loving her though.” Jake sighed out in frustration as he sat down on one of the plastic hospital chairs that lined the hallway. Jensen followed soon after, both men decided that the heat of the argument was settling into something more valuable. “I just—I lost sight of what I had.” 

“That’s just not a good enough excuse.” Jensen replied as he let his head fall back against the wall. “Listen, I don’t plan on coming back after I leave today.” 

Jake didn’t respond, he simply waited for Jensen to explain. But the explanation never came and Jake never pressed. If anything he was kind of relieved in a selfish way. 

“If you truly want to fix what’s broken, if you really want to fight for her and be by her side when she needs you the most, you’ll get up and you’ll go back in there and you’ll be the guy who gets to hold her like no one else does.” Jensen pauses momentarily before he continued on. “Because there’s better guys out there Jake, and she shouldn’t have to settle for one who doesn’t appreciate what’s right under his damn nose.” 

“Is this your way of telling me you’re a better man than me?” Jake asked cautiously, a part of him didn’t want the answer to be yes. But Jake needed to know what the man sitting beside him truly thought. You saw something good inside him, inside both of them.

“I’m not a better man than you Jake—“ Jensen sighed as he stood from his chair. It was getting late, he had said his peace, he had put the fear for a dying man inside Jake Seresin. There wasn’t much more Jensen could contribute to your life besides what he had already given. 

The body tends to adapt quickly to new circumstances and pressures it’s put under. It knows how to protect itself. But it can’t close off completely, or well—we’re not really living are we? Biology tends to override our fears, so we leave the door open, just a little…hoping like hell that it's worth the risk. But for Jensen….He was ready to close the door and lock it shut. 

“I’m just a man who’s run out of time and has nothing left to lose.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~

Tags: @blindedbythelightt @starset21 @tayl0rhuynh @mamachasesmayhem @marvelogic @itsmytimetoodream @maverick-wingman @kodzukenmaaa @eternalsams @seitmai @nota-professional @jessicab1991 @hardballoonlove @senawashere @fanficfandomlove @withahappyrefrain @dizzybee03 @maisie-rebloging-blog

@goldenseresinretriever @a-reader-and-a-writer @sunlightmurdock @shelbycillian @memoriesat30 @accioprocrastination @the-aspiring-fanfic-writer @athenabarnes @eternallyvenus @emma8895eb @kmc1989

[jjkamochoso]

I Survived Shiganshina and All I Got Was This Stupid T Shirt

Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Levi Ackerman x gn!reader

The battle at Shinganshina is here—how will Levi cope with the imminent death of another person he loved?

Warnings: cussing, violence, mentions of blood and death

A shiver flew through your entire body, your bones shaking under your skin. Your fingers were having trouble fastening the emerald green cape around your neck, the button slipping from your quivering grasp, as you got ready for what was most likely the last battle you’d ever enter. You had just witnessed the best Scouts get absolutely demolished by the Beast Titan, torn to shreds by the boulders he threw with no mercy, and you were only saved from that early demise due to Erwin asking you to fight elsewhere with Levi and the new recruits. Now, here you all were, scared out of your minds under the flimsy cover of buildings as pieces of rock threatened to pummel you at any second. Meanwhile, you were too busy dealing with this fucking cape that you couldn’t fucking button because your fucking nerves—

“Take a breath, brat.”

Your anger was immediately quelled by the sound of Levi’s calm voice as you felt his nimble fingers make quick work of the closure. His steel eyes were boring into your own and if it were any other time, you’d look away shyly, but your lives were about to expire and there was no way you’d want to focus on anything but the man in front of you.

“I can feel your heart pounding through your cape. You need to relax.”

His words were stern but you knew the concern that lay behind them. The captain still hadn’t pulled his hands away from your body after helping you out, opting to hold you close in the only way he knew how. You and Levi had made your affections for each other known a few months back after many years of friendship but agreed that it wasn’t the time for romance of any sort so you found yourselves locked in a relationship that was a mix of platonic and whatever a step beyond that was. Right now you wanted nothing more than to give him the deepest, most passionate kiss you had in you but you were all too aware that you dedicated your heart to the Scouts and betterment of humanity, not just to the famed captain so you couldn’t take your mind off the task at hand—keeping your cadets alive for as long as possible.

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” you told him, regret oozing from your mouth. You weren’t apologizing for only today, but for all your past mistakes. He deserved to know you took accountability for all your transgressions, both professional and personal. If only you knew then what you knew now… you would’ve made countless different choices to lead you and your soldiers to victory rather than sitting in a clump waiting to die. You could’ve been at home, content in the arms of the man you loved rather than participating in the macabre game of seeing whose light in their eyes goes out first.

“No regrets. We made our choices and there’s no going back. We have to look forward.”

You nodded in agreement and he reluctantly pulled his hand from the worn fabric, you immediately missing the warmth of his touch. Levi left to talk with Erwin on what to do next while you tried to calm the new recruits.

Was Levi scared?

That’s a loaded question.

Technically speaking? No. There was nothing fearful about an overpowered, loud, ugly, shitty excuse of a monkey, even if said monkey was making quick work killing the Survey Corps. Levi knew he could kill him. It would take speed and finesse, traits he utilized in every mission, so no, Levi wasn’t scared of that.

Levi was scared to lose you.

He had seen too many of his comrades fall, his loved ones fade away from existence. With every death he found a way to keep moving, carrying their fighting spirit with him, but if you died?

That would be a major blow to his morale.

That was why he was currently debating with Erwin, desperate to find an escape route for you and the recruits. He could beat the Beast Titan in a fight, that he was sure of, but the sacrifice of Erwin, you, and the rest of the cadets would be a devastating waste of lives. Would it be worth it to kill the Beast Titan now instead of letting everyone retreat? Would it be worth the loss of his two closest friends?

The loss of the love of his life?

As a captain in the Survey Corps, it was your duty to give your heart for the survival of humanity. Why was it so damn hard for Levi to see you do just that?

“Give up on that dream and die. Lead the captain and those new recruits into hell. And I will take down the Beast Titan.”

You anxiously awaited word from Levi and Erwin on what the plan was going to be. More buildings had collapsed and it was only a matter of time before all your shelter was gone and it would be a full on massacre. You hoped they were about to bring good news. Erwin stood proud in front of the recruits while Levi took his place next to you, wearing a somber expression and you knew that spelled disaster.

“There was no other way,” he said, confusing you until Erwin began explaining his strategy to the group. When you heard you were going to be riding straight into your death, you were struck with a million different emotions. Fear, anger, and grief were the ones you felt the strongest until Levi’s face entered your peripheral and finally you settled on relief. You had been fighting your entire life for peace for your loved ones and this was no time to turn your back on gaining the opportunity for humanity’s survival. Besides, a quick, meaningful death was being served to you on a platter in this situation which was all you could ask for. After Erwin’s rousing speech, you felt even more secure in your position as a distraction to help Levi eradicate the Beast Titan. Levi was deathly quiet throughout the whole ordeal and you couldn’t get a read on how he was feeling.

“I was upset at the plan at first,” you told Levi as recruits were rushing around you, mounting horses and dodging rocks, “but I get it. It’s what we signed up to do. I just hate that I’m leaving you so early.”

He didn’t say anything as he received horse reigns from a frenzied soldier, studying your face and committing everything to memory. If this was the last time he’d see you, he wanted to make sure he’d never forget it.

“Titan got your tongue, Captain?” you joked, shooting Levi a soft smile and gripping your own horse’s reigns in a white knuckle grip. Levi reached out, his free hand ghosting over your tense hold.

“I thought I told you to relax. And I know my own shitty voice, I want to remember yours.”

“I love you so much, Levi,” you suddenly blurted out. “Don’t let these words become a curse or a burden, I just need you to know that my feelings were real. You can take them with you or leave them here in this graveyard if that’s where they belong but I couldn’t die without telling you.”

Levi was quiet again.

You started to mount your horse, ready to give your all in your final battle before eternal rest. Before you could swing your leg up, you felt a fist connect to your chest.

“You’ve dedicated your heart,” said Levi, his eyes unnaturally wet as he looked steadfastly at you one last time, “to the cause, to the Scouts… to me. I won’t let you down. Your death won’t be in vain. And when I die, whenever that may be, I look forward to seeing you again.”

You felt tears ready to drop but you refused to let them fall.

You extended your pinky. “You promise you’ll take down that shitty monkey?”

Levi copied the motion and you trembled at the skin on skin contact.

“I swear on my life. This is my promise to you, y/n.”

You released the intertwined pinkies and touched your own hand to his chest, letting it rest above his fast beating heart. “It’s been an honor, Captain.”

“Same to you, Captain.”

You smiled and relinquished your limb from his body, swinging your leg over your horse and waiting for the command from Erwin. You saw Levi mount his horse and in that moment, you understood the full extent of why the public viewed him as a humanity’s strongest soldier. His unyielding conviction and resolute attitude in the face of impossible decisions was truly exemplary. The regal way he sat atop his horse was nothing less than extraordinary and the way he handled his blades with such ease and grace was absolutely swoon worthy. You considered yourself the luckiest person in the world to have known him as well as you did. You gave each other one last head nod before his horse galloped away, ready to ambush the Beast Titan. Your job just got even more important. You weren’t going to fail him. You weren’t going to let him die.

Blood. Pain. The smell of smoke signals.

These were all things that filled your senses to the brim as you charged forward, screaming until your throat burned and your lungs gave out. The first bombardment had left you dazed, a large piece of rock whizzing by your head and hitting you just enough to make you nauseous and almost fall off your horse. You pressed on, not giving up so soon. The only way you’d let yourself die is when you feel like you accomplished what you set out to do. Levi needed more time, more distractions, and so, you weren’t finished yet. You loaded more smoke shells into your gun and fired off more rounds, the deafening cries of fallen soldiers filling your ears. The Beast Titan had picked up another handful of boulders and you knew your time was running out. You rode as fast as you could, feeling sorry for the inevitable end your horse was going to meet as well, but your sacrifices were going to help the next generations grow up in a better world.

Another bombardment was on its way.

Shrapnel and boulders began showering over you. You yanked on your horse’s reigns and you narrowly missed a chunk of rock. More smoke signals left your gun as you twisted your body around to see who was still standing. Just you and three others.

It was the end for you.

You wished you could’ve survived long enough to see Levi kick the monkey’s ass, but fate was cruel as the Beast took up one last handful of soon-to-be-projectiles. Your horse’s legs kicked up dirt clods in a frenzy at the speed you were going and you were hoping she was having a good time running free like this, unaware of the death she was about to face. The Beast Titan’s arm threw itself forward and you released the last smoke shell in your gun. As the rocks rained down on you and the last of your soldiers, you could’ve sworn you saw Levi’s silhouette through the smoke. Your horse got struck by the last of the boulder pieces and you flew off, striking the ground with a large thump. The last thing you saw before everything went black was a memory of Levi smiling at some stupid shit joke you made in the dining hall one evening.

There was a faint feeling of someone touching your neck and you didn’t know if you were in the afterlife or not. It was certainly bright enough to be the afterlife since the light was basically blinding you through your closed eyelids. You tried to move, speak, anything, but your body wasn’t cooperating. You tried moving toward the light, like what people say happens when you die, but you didn’t feel any different when you finally opened your eyes. In fact, you felt like absolute shit. You had a pounding headache and it was like every bone in your body was broken. You registered the hand on your neck again.

Probably feeling for a pulse.

“Levi?” you croaked out, “Levi? Is that… you?”

“Captain! Captain, can you hear me?”

“Levi?” you tried again. It didn’t sound like him but you weren’t sure of anything anymore.

“No, it’s Floch. Captain y/n, it’s Floch. We have to get out of here. You have to get up!”

Get up? You could barely open your eyes. And what the fuck was Floch doing here, sounding like he didn’t just experience the worst day of his life?

“Commander Erwin is still alive but he’s bleeding out. We have to get him to Levi to save him!”

Levi. Just his name put a smile to your face. Right. You have to save Erwin and see Levi. Two very agreeable missions to accomplish, in your opinion. You forced yourself to peel your eyelids apart and the sun burst in your retinas like a floodgate had opened. You ignored the burning and bruising sensations in the rest of your body as Floch helped you up. You definitely busted some ribs, suffered a major concussion, scraped open your face, and had a broken arm and ankle, but all things considering, that wasn’t the worst outcome. You were relieved that Levi survived the Beast Titan bout. The mental image of Levi severing the monkey’s head gave you a burst of energy and you were able to walk a little bit faster, Floch holding you up as you made your way to grab Erwin and find Levi. When you got to Erwin, you were exhausted and sat down while Floch shoddily bandaged up the commander.

“Can you walk on your own? I have to carry him or else he won’t survive.”

You nodded. “I’ll either do it or I won’t. If I fall, keep going to Levi and don’t worry about me.”

“Okay.”

You two started your treacherous trek into the walls. It was eerily quiet after the battle, the scent of blood filling your nostrils and you weren’t sure if it was your dead comrades’ or your own. You stumbled more times than you could count and there were a few moments where you thought you’d fall and die in the same spot, but before you knew it, you had come upon Eren, Mikasa, and a charred body…

“W-who is that?” you cried out, trying to keep from throwing up. It was the right size and build to be Levi but there was no way he got burned, right? That wouldn’t make sense at all but your delirious mind had been through too much to work properly.

“It’s Armin,” said an all too familiar voice.

“Levi!” You fell to your knees from fatigue, both physical and emotional. You were overjoyed that he was completely unharmed but on the other hand, you witnessed the burnt body of a wonderful young man with friends who tried to protect him with all their might. You felt strong arms grip your body as Levi moved you to a better spot on the roof, away from Armin and the other teens and leaned you up against the remnants of a chimney.

“I’m happy you’re alive,” you said wearily, ready to pass out.

“Same to you,” he said, frowning slightly, “but hey, don’t close your eyes. Stay awake for as long as you can. We’ll get you to a doctor soon.”

This time it was you who didn’t respond, your head lolling against the stone as your eyes shut.

“Y/n. Y/n.” Levi was shaking you by your shoulders and lightly tapping your face but there was no response. He located your pulse and it wasn’t scarily faint so he decided to leave you be for now while he dealt with a new, huge problem—deciding to continue with saving Armin or giving the serum to the freshly returned from the battlefront Erwin.

When you finally woke up again, you were greeted with Hange (minus one eye) staring at you like you were their newest titan experiment.

“Glad to have you back with us, y/n,” they said, clapping your shoulder gently. “I didn’t want to lose anyone else today.”

“Who did he choose?” you asked, your voice hoarse.

Hange stiffened ever so slightly. “Armin.”

“Good,” you replied, “Erwin had been through enough and met death in the most fitting manner for him. Armin and those other kids are our future. He made the right choice.”

“I agree.” They helped you sit up and your bones creaked in protest at the movement. You saw that you had a hastily arranged splint on your left ankle while your arm was in a sling made from part of someone’s shirt and sensed the pull of a bandage along your cheek and down your jaw. Levi heard you talking and quickly came over to fill you in on what was next.

“You’re going to the top of Wall Maria with what’s left of the Scouts so you can get to Trost and recuperate. Hange, Mikasa, Eren, and I are going to the basement.”

“I can go, too.” You tried to shift position and stand but you were too weak, your body giving out on you as adrenaline was quickly draining. Levi rushed to your aid, letting you support yourself against his leg as you sat again.

“You can barely sit on your own, let alone walk to Eren’s house. You’re going to Trost, y/n, and that’s an order.”

You looked up and met his eyes; they were filled with concern and you were washed in shame at your lack of self awareness. Of course you couldn’t go, you’d only slow them down. Now was not the time to act rash in the name of selfish desires for answers. Levi borrowed Eren’s ODM gear to bring you to the top of Wall Maria since his own gear was out of gas and pretty busted up. You bid your goodbyes to Hange and the kids as Levi deftly scooped you into his arms, mindful of your numerous injuries, and began swinging through the ruins of Shiganshina.

“So, did you bring them with you?” you asked, breaking the silence.

“Bring what?”

“The words. The ones I told you before the battle. Did they die with our comrades or did you bring them with you?”

“I-” Levi faltered. “I… brought them with me. You mean a great deal to me, y/n. When I sent you out on the battleground I refused to let you die in vain, you’re worth too much for that. But I made a promise to you and Erwin that I’d kill that shitty Beast Titan and I failed. I’m sorry.”

“Levi,” you said, your hand finding purchase on his cheek, “it’s alright. You did your best and I’m proud of everything you accomplished today. We can try again and keep trying after that as many times as we need to, and we won’t give up. We can do this. Together.”

His lips were pressed in a firm line as you felt his grip on you tighten. You had almost scaled the wall when Levi spoke up.

“I had made peace with your death but now that you’re back with me, I won’t lose you again.”

You were now walking atop the wall and you spied Sasha and Conny from your position. Levi helped you hobble over, a firm and comforting grasp on your waist. When they greeted you both, Conny said the group was about to take off for Trost. Levi knew he couldn’t continue wasting time here but he had this ache gnawing inside him at the idea of someone other than himself taking care of your injuries. He didn’t want to leave you alone but you both had jobs to do—him to find answers in the kid’s basement, and you to rest up. He noticed your cape was undone and sliding off so he moved it back into place, ignoring the revolting squish of fresh blood under his fingers, and affixed the button to the loop. The action was the same as a few hours prior but the result would be much different. Instead of you marching to your death, you were heading to be healed. Instead of wrapping you in a body bag, he could try wrapping you in his arms.

Levi smiled internally at the thought.

“I’ll come see you as soon as I can,” he said, sincerity shining from his irises. “Listen to the doctors and don’t be stupid. You need to get stronger. Make sure you get plenty of rest and eat lots. Don’t get dehydrated, you have to keep your fluid intake up after injury. Don’t hesitate to ask for help if you need it, that’s what the staff is there for.”

“Okay, mom,” you teased. Levi scoffed and you just giggled.

“I’m looking out for you, brat, so take my advice.” His tone had gone soft, no bite behind his words whatsoever. You made the connection that this was his way of saying “I love you” and you let out a sigh of relief that he was returning the weighty phrase. You became aware that his hands were resting on the same junction of your cape’s button and clasp like before, not making an effort to pull away any time soon if he could help it. But he couldn’t help it since you were being called over to start your journey to Trost so his touch ceased from the heavy fabric as you gave him one last tender look.

“Take care of yourself, Captain.”

He reached over to ruffle your hair. “You too, Captain.”

You heard the zip of ODM gear and Levi was gone in a flash. Though you felt like a piece of you was missing without Levi by your side, you knew he’d be back with you in no time. As you limped along the wall with your hurt comrades, you felt a fire ignite deep within your soul.

The Beast Titan was going to pay.