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autumnalwalker · 11 months

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Empty Names - 18 - Mom Energy

Author's Note: Of the main cast Eris is the only one with a real social life. Let's take a look at that. Honestly though, this one kind of got away from me and is almost like three different chapters smashed together. "Eris has a social life," followed by "Eris recounts the most recent monster-of-the-week mission," and then wrapping up with "Eris has an existential crisis due to healing magic going weird." Had some fun with one though, bringing in Sarah from the side story "There Are No Dogs At The Dog Park" and then adapting A Dream About Waking And Sleeping into this episode's monster-of-the-week plot. See the tags for more spoiler-y commentary. Word Count: 15,071 Content Warnings: Memory loss, fears of being a bad friend, lewd jokes made in poor taste, brief mention of past aphobia, scars, blood, fantasy violence, child endangerment, implications of potential accidental personality alteration via magic. Not sure if the community label filter is really necessary on this post, but I figure better safe than sorry.

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“So then,” Eris says, sliding aside the remains of her quiche, “Road turns to me and tells me to throw him. Swear to God, his armor grew handles when he said it. But this is Road we’re talking about and adrenaline was running high so I yeet him across the crypt chamber at the flying vamp mage, no questions asked. Stake goes in the heart on impact, the two of them crash to the ground, portal closes, and everyone goes home happy.”

As blood-themed as the story she just finished was, for once Eris isn’t wearing red. The gradual consumption of her wardrobe by that portion of the spectrum had always been a matter of practicality rather than taste. Easier to hide the stains that don’t wash out that way. Eventually it got to the point where grabbing a random article of clothing from her closet was more likely to be sanguine than not, and it just wasn’t worth the effort to consciously pick out something else for casual wear, even when she wasn’t expecting a mess.

But today’s the morning after a full moon, and for the past couple of years now that’s meant putting all that aside for a day. On this particular morning it’s white slacks and a teal button up shirt. Never mind the North American Lycanthrope Sanctuary Association volunteer staff t-shirt hidden underneath. At least it’s not the same sweaty one she wore all last night.

Sarah, one of the regulars at the Sanctuary, is seated across from her, human again until the next full moon and dressed in jeans and a green sleeveless blouse. Contrary to popular belief, lycanthropy itself rarely has any noticeable physical effect on those affected by it outside of the night of a full moon, only whatever autogenesis picks up on as having been internalized as part of their identity. If Sarah’s canines are more pronounced than average, it’s a subtle thing unlikely to be noticed unless one is looking for it, and if the modest muscle gains she’s made since first meeting Eris are easier to maintain than for most people, she’d still had to work enough to get them in the first place to be proud of the effort. The increased preference for meat over time had been a conscious choice to get more in touch with the newfound side of herself rather than a dietary compulsion.

Eris had been the one to give Sarah the tour of the NALSA facility when she showed up for her first full moon a few years back. They’d hit it off well enough that the next time they met they exchanged contact info to keep in touch online between moons. From there it quickly turned into a monthly event to look forward to. Sarah would spend the night running wild with the other werewolves while Eris would spend the night working with the rest of the sanctuary’s human staff to make sure everyone stayed safe until the sun came up, and then they’d both catch a couple hours of sleep, grab a caffeinated beverage, and then go get brunch in what was left of the next morning.

Sarah swallows the last strip of bacon from her plate as Eris finishes her story. “Well, that’s definitely some kind of coordination going on there,” Sarah says with a southern twang that’s recovering after years of being buried. “Sounds like being on a team’s been treating you well.”

“They’re good people,” Eris replies, leaning back in her chair. “Okay, Sullivan goes out of his way to be an ass, but he’s barely around and everyone else is cool. Road’s Road, you know Lacuna and I are tight, and Ashan’s growing on me more than I expected for a mage. Hope you don’t mind that I invited him out here next time. God knows that kid needs socialization.”

“I always wanted to meet a wizard.”

“I’ll tell him you said that. Maybe it’ll get him to actually accept the invitation. I would’ve brought him with me last night, but he’s currently deep into learning how to use the laptop I bought him a couple days ago and I wasn’t about to step in between him and Lacuna’s attempts to teach.”

“Ah, I was wondering what she was up to when you mentioned she wouldn’t be making today. But I gotta ask, why did you buy the wizard a laptop?”

“I was going to get him a phone, but it wound up being complicated to get him anything other than a prepaid burner, what with him being legally dead and all.”

“You left out the part about him being undead.” A look of realization dawns on Sarah’s face. “God, it is so weird that I can say that with a straight face these days.”

“Says the woman who was playing fetch with a tractor tire last night.”

Sarah’s face goes red at the memory that Eris knows is more clear than it would have been a year ago. “Look, you try having your brain rewired to compulsively chase prey and then try talking to me about resisting when a big, round, biteable thing rolls by.” Her tone is indignant, but she’s smiling as she says it. It’s nice to see she’s gotten comfortable enough with her situation to joke around about it. “And it’s not playing fetch. If I had hands when it was like that to throw it again myself I would. I’m not bringing it back to you, I’m telling you to serve me by making it chasable again.”

She got the hang of staying mostly lucid in a half-way form for minutes at a time three months ago. She could absolutely throw things herself if she wanted to and she and Eris both know it.

Eris laughs. “Are you sure it’s a wolf you’re turning into and not a cat? But in all seriousness, Ashan’s not undead, he just had some screwed up stuff happen to him as a kid that I think he’s just recently realized how bad it was. Not my place to say, so let’s just leave it at ‘wizard bullshit.’ I got him the laptop because I thought it might help him adjust to being back on Earth seeing as he’s been in a quasi-medieval fantasy world since he was literally a child. We’ve got a lot of downtime between jobs so I figured he could spend some of that browsing the digitized sum of human knowledge to catch up on what he’s missed out on. Browse some wikis, read some books that aren’t spellbooks, watch some movies, learn what memes are, maybe find a podcast he likes, that sort of thing.”

“You wanted to help him reintegrate into normal Earth culture so you got him on the Internet,” Sarah says incredulously, “instead of taking him out to see things and interact with people firsthand.”

Eris gives that a moment to sink in before blurting out “Damn, Lacuna’s rubbing off on me. Look, I’m working up to it. He’s taken this long just to open up to us and I’m still not sure if he even has any interests or hobbies that aren’t directly tied to being a wizard. I learned my lesson early on with Lacuna about throwing a shut-in into the deep end too soon, so I’m taking it slow this time. And besides, it’s giving him and Lacuna the chance to do the most talking they’ve done so far that wasn’t somehow work-related, so that’s some socializing right there that they’re both getting in.” Eris does a quick mental calculation. “I should probably give them a call later to check in.”

“Worried they’ll blow something up? You said Lacuna has a ‘mad science lab’ now” Sarah says with finger quotes. “A mad scientist and a wizard left together unsupervised like that, who knows what could happen.”

“I hadn’t been until you said that. Before I was just concerned about them getting so caught up in what they’re doing that they forget to eat again.”

“Not mutually exclusive,” Sarah starts to say when she sees Eris’s hand drift toward her phone. “Relax, I’m kidding. They’re mostly responsible adults, they’ll be fine. Jeez, it’s like you’re a mom who just adopted a second kid or something.”

“I am not,” Eris says, balking at the idea.

“Right, because fussing over how much they eat, trying to keep them out of trouble, and encouraging them to get out more and make friends isn’t totally the mom friend thing to do.”

“You’re reading too much into it.”

“Am I? I’m not criticizing, but you’ve literally admitted to buying a box of protein bars for the express purpose of handing them to Lacuna when she gets hungry. If that’s not mom energy I don’t know what is.”

“First off, until recently, I hadn’t had to do that for over a year, and secondly, if Lacuna’s any kind of pseudo family member to me, she’s more like a sister.” Like a younger sister despite being older, she refuses to concede aloud.

Sarah shrugs. “I’m just sayin’, one instance of picking up the first nerdy introvert who comes along and latches onto you then getting super protective of them is a quirk of circumstance, but twice is a pattern. Not a bad thing necessarily, so long as you don’t go overboard with it. Honestly, I find it endearing at times.”

Eris knows that Sarah’s found it annoying at other times though. But for now, she’s more preoccupied with thinking back to all the times she’s tried to approach and handle Ashan the same way she’s done previously with Lacuna. Should she have? Just because Lacuna responds well to it, that doesn't mean Ashan will or has been. Is Lacuna okay with their dynamic? She did go all that time without telling Eris about the risks she took with the data theft. Sure there was the NDA geass, but Lacuna hadn’t been under that yet when she ventured into the more dangerous part of Crosssherd seeking out a loan shark. Is the fact that Eris is more concerned about that than she wants to admit a sign that she’s been smothering her best friend?

She shakes off the thought and counters, “And what about you? I’ve hardly given you that same treatment.”

Sarah scoffs. “I had my shit together when we first met. I might have been new to the whole werewolves and magic bus stops thing, but I was hardly looking for someone to come sweep in and take care of me. Between you and me, I was the one who…” she hesitates, suddenly realizing that she’s strayed into waters supposedly under a bridge. “Well, you know.”

“No, I guess you weren’t,” Eris says, trying not to tense up.

Sarah had asked Eris out some time back, and Eris had turned her down. That sort of conversation is always uncomfortable and it had been made doubly so by Eris’s explanation that she expected her monster hunting hobby to kill her young and thought it would be selfish to get romantically involved with someone when it would just end with them being left painfully alone. It was bad enough already that she’d let Lacuna get as close to her as she had. Eris counted herself fortunate that she and Sarah had been able to salvage their friendship, but had been low-key dreading the topic might come back up again today. Between it being as close to an anniversary of that unfortunate conversation as you can get with lunar cycles and the fact that being on a team now theoretically upped her odds of survival (despite in practice having nearly gotten her killed twice already), if there were ever a time for Sarah to ask again it would be now.

The moment hangs.

Eris drags out finishing off the remains of her coffee.

Sarah pokes at a crumb of meat on her plate with a fork.

“Aaanyway,” Sarah starts. Eris snaps back to eye contact at the sound. “Like I said, it sounds like being on a team’s been treating you well, so maybe now you can share that load of worrying about everyone.” Sarah hesitates. “And maybe you can let someone worry about you for once.”

“Sarah, I -”

“I mean you’ve got friends who care about you too, and not just with having people to watch your back out there. As good as that is to have. For instance, I’ve been meaning to ask since we both got in yesterday: How’s your leg doing?”

“My leg?” Eris asks. The question blindsides her enough to displace worries about wherever else Sarah might have been hinting at.

“Yeah, it got torn up pretty bad last month. You were back on it in the morning of course - I’m still jealous of that regen you’ve got going on by the way - but later you sent me a photo saying you thought it might scar. You sounded weirdly excited by the prospect.”

That doesn’t sound right.

“Huh, must have slipped my mind after it healed up,” Eris says with feigned nonchalance. “No new scars here, I’m afraid to say. You know how it is with me.”

No new scars besides the burns from Logos that Lacuna healed away, at any rate. Of her hunts since their last meeting that she’d regaled Sarah with today and yesterday, the story of having half the front of her body and face burnt off was one that she’d conspicuously omitted. It takes a Hell of a lot to make Eris black out, but she’s choosing to count the jarring jump in memory from grabbing the miniature sun to waking up on an infirmary bed as a blessing.

“But that’s enough of me,” Eris says, “I’ve hardly heard a thing about how you’ve been doing.”

Sarah shrugs. “What can I say? Same old same old. But work gives me moon days off so I shouldn’t complain too much.”

Eris gives her a conspiratorial look. “But you’re going to.”

Sarah grins wide enough that Eris knows she’s trying to show off her fangs, such as they are. “I’m a werewolf now, but I’m still working customer service, only now the customers include witches and fairies. You bet your ass I’m going to.”

Eris flags a waiter down, orders another coffee and settles in to listen to Sarah recount a particularly weird encounter with a sphinx and some kind of spider lady. Sometimes she wonders which of them actually has the more dangerous job.

*******

That evening, after having said goodbye to Sarah for the month, changing back into her usual red tracksuit, and calling to check in on Lacuna and Ashan, Eris is sitting on a barstool at 121813.

“Twelve eighteen thirteen” is the generally agreed upon pronunciation of the bar’s name, although what the name means is less agreed upon. The three most popular theories are that it’s either a date (usually speculated as December of 1813), a scriptural reference (which scripture is a whole other debate), or a leftover address from before one of Crossherd’s major layout shifts. Lacuna had suggested it might be a tarot thing when Eris told her about it. The Hanged Man, the Moon, and Death. An ominous spread, according to Lacuna, but Eris figures it makes as much sense as anything else.

In any case, Fitzgerald Wilhelm von Harkenstein IV, the establishment’s clockwork owner, proprietor, and bartender always seemed to get too much of a kick out of the speculation to give a solid answer. Make what jokes you like about a bartender with no taste buds, but Fitzy had drink mixing down to an art. Then again, he claims to be at least as old as the city of Crossherd itself, so Eris figures he had plenty of time to practice if nothing else.

For over a century now, 121813 has served as the closest thing to a centralized organization for American monster hunters. Other parts of the world had holy orders, secret societies, and grand lodges stretching back generations, but in these parts everyone figured that a couple dozen thrill-seeking assholes who all frequent the same bar was good enough to get the job done. Most hunters usually work solo, but the bar is a good place to brag about kills, show off trophies, swap rumors on potential quarries, and put a band together if you get word on something really nasty.

It’s not peak hours yet and regulars are still trickling in, but there were already a few familiar faces there to greet her when she walked in twenty minutes ago.

Golden-eyed Gretchen who had taught Eris German and how to wield a spear.

Bai of the braided beard who had taken over Eris’s old garbage collecting route when she signed up with Road’s new venture and ever since has been alternating between thanking her for the job referral and complaining that he couldn’t take his axes with him on shift.

Wyatt, whose eyepatch is actually an AR visor to aim assist his crossbow and adjust for weight and aerodynamic differences on specialized bolts.

The green-haired enby twins, Loreghaste and Lornegna, who favor halberds and hammers respectively but both carry swords as backup sidearms.

Chuck in his ill-fitting trenchcoat, a relative newcomer to the game who’s already earning a reputation for going off on insufferable rants about the superiority of katanas.

The grim-faced Preacher, who never shares his name for fear of theft, never touches a drink that isn’t water, and never hides his disdain for everyone else’s choice of archaic weaponry for the sake of sport when guns are so much more efficient at completing the important work of slaying beasts.

Old Vic, the elven immigrant from off world who’s always down to party like the college kid his face looks the age of.

Plus a handful of others that Eris either isn’t all that close to or doesn’t recognize at a glance. High turnover rates have always been an unspoken truth amongst the monster hunter community. It’s been said that there are five fates that await hunters.

One: You die early from a stupid mistake, biting off more than you can chew, or just plain bad luck.

Two: You finally catch up with that one monster that was your reason for taking up the hunt to begin with and if you survive you walk away, vendetta done.

Three: You have your first near-death experience, confront your mortality, and make the wise decision to get out.

Four: You have your first near-death experience, confront your mortality, and realize you’re hooked on the hunt that will surely kill you one day more than you are on living a long life.

Five: The hunt gradually becomes your whole life and personality until one day you hit a tipping point that causes autogenesis to kick into overdrive, transforming you into a monster yourself in need of putting down by your former comrades.

Everyone at the bar tonight - except maybe Chuck and the other newbies like him who still think they’re invincible - has long since made their peace with the idea that they’ll probably be dead by forty. Fifty tops. Other than Old Vic, of course, who’s at least twice that age, but rumors that he’s already secretly met the fifth fate have been flying around since before Eris ever found Crossherd and 121813. Having been on a funerary hunt with him herself and seen what a hunter consumed looks like, Eris doesn’t put any stock in that speculation.

She hasn’t been in here since joining up with Road, and for the moment she’s content to nurse her drink and take in the old familiar ambiance rather than partake in the ever-present banter just yet. Or she would be if the glass didn’t feel oddly cold in her hand and the polished bartop didn’t somehow feel rougher than it should be when she traces her finger along it. Normally she’d chock it up to having been away for awhile, but after what Sarah said about her scar she can’t shake the feeling that something is off. Now that she’s thinking about it, it’s not the first time she’s noticed things feeling subtly different than some subconscious part of her brain is expecting when she touches them. Almost like her sense of touch has been dialed up slightly ever since the incident with Logos. More disturbingly, she has a blister on the edge of her palm from her last workout and weapon practice session and she can’t place why it disturbs her. On the one hand, that sounds like a reasonable and normal thing to happen, but on the other hand it doesn’t make sense to still be there a couple days later with how fast she heals. And she knows she’s still healing freakishly fast given how she shows no sign of the beating she took on the most recent mission. But beside that there’s the nagging feeling that it’s something else that is on the tip of her tongue and refusing to solidify into anything articulable.

Eris decides to talk to Lacuna later about it. She had warned Eris to watch out for unexpected side effects from that custom healing ritual. If anyone can narrow it down, it’s Lacuna. Funny to think that, but she really has come into her own lately and Eris is proud of her for it.

The thought gets Eris stuck on the other uncomfortable truth Sarah had touched on earlier. Has she been infantilizing her best friend? And now Ashan too for that matter. That might not have been what Sarah meant, but the idea won’t quite go away now, no matter how much she tells herself she doesn’t believe it.

As much as she’s found herself wanting to help Ashan and thinks he deserves a better hand than he’s been dealt, at the end of the she knows that he’s tough enough to deal with all the shit he’s been through and come out the other side just fine, with or without her help. But that doesn’t mean it’s not still good to try to be kind and be there for him if he wants it even if he doesn’t need it.

As for Lacuna… Eris tells herself that what she’s been feeling lately is worry over a specific issue and not a general statement of either of their characters. On the surface, ever since she got her lab Lacuna’s been the happiest and healthiest Eris has seen her in a long time. But over time little things have started to add up that have her increasingly concerned. Canceling therapy. Backsliding into forgetting meals when she’d worked so hard over the past year to stop doing that. Gradually spending more and more of her nights in the bed and breakfast above the office instead of going home. Break room trash cans filled with energy drink cans and bags of green tea and chai after having been so proud of kicking the habit entirely. The stark contrast between her fears and uncertainties in the early days of the new job and the uncharacteristic matter-of-fact-ness Eris was greeted with upon waking up covered in disfiguring burns. A few days ago Eris could have sworn Lacuna actually flinched when she got close to her.

There’s something big eating at her best friend, but the couple of times Eris has tried talking to her about it, Lacuna's either casually brushed it off as being nothing or been outright evasive. And while Eris knows Lacuna is a grown-ass woman capable of making her own decisions and dealing with the consequences, that doesn’t make the worries go away. And friends should worry over each other when something is so obviously wrong. Shouldn’t they? She supposes the best she can do at this point is be there to catch Lacuna if she falls.

Eris sighs and turns to the monster hunter seated on the barstool to her left. “Be straight with me Vic. Do I have mom energy?”

“Eris!” the elf gasps in a show of mock scandalization. “You can’t just tell people to be straight. And even if you could, you should know that I could never.”

“Whatever happened to ‘your terms for sexuality are nothing more than a modern human social construct’?” Bai pipes up from the other side of Old Vic.

“When on Earth, do as the humans do, my dear,” Old Vic replies. “Especially when doing the humans.”

“Ha hah, you’re a real comedian,” Eris says dryly, “but really, serious question.”

Old Vic throws his head back and laughs. “Eris, my dear, don’t tell me that that’s what you’ve been brooding about since you walked in here.”

“I do not brood.”

“And that’s exactly what made it so intriguing to watch. But if it makes you feel better, I would say that you only have ‘mom energy’ in the sense that you give off - as the kids put it these days - dommy mommy vibes.”

The ensuing snickers from everyone in immediate earshot - including the bartender- has Eris wondering what possessed her to ask that of Old Vic of all people. She’d blame the drink, but she knows from experience that with her constitution it’s painfully expensive for her to get even slightly buzzed and she hasn’t dipped that far into her budget yet tonight.

Out of the corner of her eye she catches Wyatt smirking and struggling to hold in the next burst of laughter.

“Got something to add?” Eris asks against her better judgment, knowing full well that she’s about to hear something even dumber than Old Vic’s original joke.

“Step on me mommy,” Wyatt barely gets out through fits of giggling.

“God, it’s like I’m friends with a bunch of middle schoolers.” Eris turns around and locks eyes on the nearest table that she knows is close enough to have been eavesdropping. “Gretchen, help me out here,” she calls out to the one other woman in the bar in hopes of some solidarity.

The moment Gretchen turns around from her conversation with the Lor twins wearing a wicked grin that brings back too many memories, Eris knows she made a mistake.

“No Vic,” Gretchen says with agonizing slowness and delight, “I wouldn’t say that Eris gives off those vibes at all.”

Eris suppresses a groan. Some people... You allow them to tie you up one time and they never let you hear the end of it.

Eris had met Gretchen shortly after finding her way into Crossherd for the first time and she’d been the one to introduce Eris to 121813. Not long after that, Gretchen became the first woman Eris had ever dated and her only attempt at dating that didn’t crash and burn after just a couple of weeks. The eventual breakup had been - as far as Eris could ever tell - mutual and amicable, even if Gretchen’s disposition towards her since unpredictably alternated between friendship and melodramatic rivalry. The latter always struck Eris more as Gretchen doing a bit than a genuine competition of egos. At least it kept things interesting, even if it occasionally meant moments like this one.

And still a better outcome than her other miserable attempts at dating within the monster hunting scene. Hookups following cooperative hunts weren’t uncommon but Eris had quickly realized that wasn’t for her and more than one fragile ego - and face - had wound up getting bruised after failures to comprehend that physical attraction just plain wasn’t a thing she felt for anyone without a certain threshold of emotional intimacy being met first. (A threshold she’s been very careful not to cross with Sarah.) And as much as learning there was a term for that (demisexual) helped her understand, no one else ever seemed to get it. The reputation that she started to get back then was half the reason she almost exclusively kept to working solo up until now.

Eris tries not to look put off as she glances around to see if anyone remembers that she and Gretchen used to be together back in the day. She catches a gleam in Bai’s eye as he makes the connection and puts together the implication of Gretchen’s words. She glares at him, daring him to say something. It’s enough to make one of the newbies unfortunate enough to wander into her line of sight to reconsider coming up for another drink order and retreat back to his table.

“Ah, we’re all just ruffling your feathers for being gone too long, my dear,” Old Vic cuts in. “If you must have a serious answer, then no; nobody here thinks you’ve gone soft for getting yourself a support crew and we all know you could kick any of our well-toned asses. Yours truly excluded, of course.”

That’s not what Eris had meant with her question at all, but at this point she’s just glad to have a topic change when Wyatt speaks up.

“So what is it like working with Road full time?” he asks. Eris recalls that Wyatt is one of a number of monster hunters who survived his first encounter with the supernatural due to Road’s timely intervention.

“A lot less time chasing down rumors and false leads, but a lot more sticking around to deal with the cleanup afterwards. And a lot more dealing with people. Road’s as good in a fight as everyone says - they’ve beaten me and our wizard two-on-one twice now - but that’s where they really shine. You remember what it was like when Road saved you on your first day Backstage?”

“I do,” Wyatt replies. The hesitation in his affirmation speaks volumes of the fear and confusion from that life-changing event that most every hunter is too proud to admit. Feelings that Eris has seen Road help people through time and again now.

“Well, they’re like that with everyone. And any time we need to get somewhere without a direct bridge from Crosssherd they’ve got a ride lined up from someone they’ve helped before, eager to repay the favor. Between handling most of the prep and followup themself, I don’t know where they find the time to sleep. It leaves our wizard and I with a lot of downtime where we’re basically getting paid to workout, train, research, spar, and rest, but we’re also on-call to drop what we’re doing and head out at a moment’s notice.”

With how often Road is in and out of the office, Eris honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they’re handling the more minor jobs they get leads on alone without telling her and the others. It feels wrong to say that aloud though. Too much like an accusation.

“You’re telling me you’re sparring with a combat-capable wizard on the reg?” Bai interjects. “I call bullshit. Normal people don’t fight mages. Not if the mage has any skill.”

Eris spreads her arms. “What can I say, I’m built different.”

Further debate on the fightability of mages is interrupted by the arrival of a decent-sized group of hunters, at least one of which seems to be celebrating coming off a successful kill. Eris joins everyone else in listening to the victorious youth - a newcomer to the bar that she doesn’t recognize - brag about his hunt and the fight at the end of it. When the kid (God, did she look that young when she got started?) starts showing off the tooth he took as a trophy Eris and Bai share a knowing look. Definitely a Crossherd sewer gator and not a muck dragon, but best to let the kid have his moment and then pull him aside later to break it to him gently in private.

And then one of the newbie’s buddies spins him around and lifts up his shirt to reveal the claw marks on his back.

“Scar check!” someone shouts.

“Scar check!” someone else echoes.

“Scar check!” Gretchen adds to the growing chorus.

It’s a tradition almost as old as the bar. One person shows off a new scar or injury that they expect to scar and then everyone else starts joining in and shouting out where they got their own wound. Scars were viewed as the truest sort of trophies around here. Indisputable signs that you’d really been out there, danced with death, and come back alive. Everyone had a few and it was generally considered poor form to show the same one off too much, even if it was your most impressive one. Only the newbies didn’t have at least a handful of small but permanent scratches.

Only the newbies, Old Vic, and Eris.

Everyone was willing to concede that Old Vic really was just that good (or had some manner of secret elven healing magic), but Eris had actually had to get someone to stab her in front of the whole bar to convince everyone that it really was just that hard for something to leave a mark on her in the long term. “Built different” she likes to boast, but she’ll never admit that she usually feels left out during these spontaneous exercises in camaraderie. As far as she’s been able to figure out, it’s pretty much just curses and magic poisons that leave behind anything visible, and that’s all they do.

So Eris just has the two scars to her name. A bite mark on her ankle from when she accidentally found out she’s immune to lycanthropy, and a puckered circle on her side from an ectoplasmic musket ball shot at her by a hateful civil war ghost.

Built different. Different enough to sit out of the scar check most of the time.

It’s fine though. She can still watch and congratulate everyone else.

“Clawed by splintercat!” elicits appreciation for the clean parallel cuts.

“Gored by a hodag!” draws out excited whoops.

“Kicked by a nightmare!” is met by good-natured ribbing about the resemblance to a clothes iron burn.

“Carried off by a snallygaster!” drops into offers to buy drinks.

“Duelled a crossroads demon!” earns dual high-fives from the Lor twins.

“Top surgery!” is greeted with joyous laughter and congratulatory applause.

“Bitten by a joint snake!” is commiserated with over how annoying those critters are.

“Wrestled a Jersey devil onto a church fence spike!” gets a rare word of approval from Preacher.

“Escaped the hunter of hunters.” chills the room and sets the crowd whispering.

“Zapped by a rogue paratech drone!” is followed by jokes about robot uprisings.

“Burned by a salamander!” sparks an argument about whether it looks hot or cool.

And around it goes until Eris realizes that all eyes are on her, expectant.

“Well E,” Gretchen addresses her with the nickname only one other person has the right to, “got anything for us this time?”

“Well since you ask,” Eris draws out, returning her smirk, “I’ve got a little something I picked up on my last job with Road.” The name drop gets everyone’s attention. Hunters band together when they get word on something really nasty, but when something truly weird or intelligent gets involved, they call Road. “I don’t know if it’ll stick around or not yet, but it’s fresh enough that you lot tonight are lucky enough to catch a glimpse before it’s gone.”

Everyone starts crowding in to get a closer look as Eris slowly begins rolling up her left sleeve.

“Vamp bite!” she proclaims as she suddenly yanks her sleeve back the last couple inches to reveal her newest memento writ in flesh.

Stunned silence across the bar.

“Eris, my dear,” Old Vic speaks up, “we all love our resident goddess of mayhem, but did you get in a fight with a toddler?”

“Yeah, yeah, get it out of your system, ya chuckleheads,” Eris says, waving her hand in a rolling motion at the ones dumb enough to laugh at Old Vic’s comment. She knows an invitation to show up the losers who don’t know the top dogs around here well enough when she sees Old Vic set one up for her. “It doesn’t look like much, but the story behind it makes up for that.”

“And are you going to tell us, or leave us to our imaginations?” Gretchen asks, already knowing the answer.

“I dunno,” Eris drawls, “you gonna buy me a drink? It’s a long one.”

*******

“Alright,” Eris begins, drink in hand and straddling the chair she’s spun around to sit in backwards, “may as well start at the beginning and get the boring stuff out of the way to begin with for those of you who lack context. A couple months back, Road asked me to join up with a new venture they were starting. And if any of you are too new here to know who Road is, just ask anyone else. Everyone knows Road. Anyway, the whole point of this venture is to help people affected by things Backstage that no one else will bother with because it’s not technically a masquerade breach, and nine times out of ten, that means there’s either a monster or a mage causing problems and needing put down. Hence yours truly.

“At the moment we’ve just got a small field team of Road, myself, and a wizard who goes by Ashan Glassheart. Some of you might have heard of him, given that he’s been handling the convention circuit for the past few years. I know calling him the nicest mage I’ve ever met is a pretty low bar -” every hunter that’s worked with a mage in the past laughs - “but he’s off-world trained so he knows his stuff and goes out of his way not to blow up his own teammates. Meanwhile, we’ve got my buddy Lacuna handling remote tech support, overwatch, and lead finding for us.

“Anyway, I’m out getting groceries at the corner market - on Sixth and Triskelion, Bai, you know the one; run by the lizardman, Mr. Arzochi - when I get a call saying we’ve got a job lined up that could be time sensitive so I should head straight there instead of heading back to the office for a briefing. Mr. Arzochi offers to hold my order for me until I get back - great customer service, that guy - and I start booking it to the address provided for the best bridge out of Crossherd.

“See, we’ve got a website now so people can come to us asking for help instead of us needing to find them and we just got our first intentional client through that. Apparently some single mom living in a quiet suburb up north found out her house was built on top of a buried vampire lair and now she had bloodsuckers and animated skeletons crawling out of her basement. Or so the frantically worded help request made it sound like.

“Fortunately, there’s a direct link out of Crossherd to the town in question so it wasn’t half an hour later when I’m standing outside the door of an unassuming cookie-cutter house with Road handing me stakes and going over strategies for getting victims and living thralls out safely while Ashan’s drawing glowing shapes in the air and confirming that the whole place is just absolutely saturated with necromantic magics. Some wizard jargon about unhallowed ground, leylines, and liminal tearing.

“Judging by the blacked out windows, we assume that the vampire’s already in control of the house itself and take room clearing positions as I try the doorknob. It’s locked, but just as I'm about to force it the door swings inward to reveal this little girl, eight, maybe nine years old. No, not the one who bit me, I’ll get to that. So her eyes go wide and I’m standing there blocking out the sun trying not to scare her when Road steps in and gets down on one knee to look the kid in the eye. He - Road was in guy mode that day - tells her that we’re the people her mom called to help with the basement. The girl catches on and calms down, asks us to wait a minute, closes the door and comes back with her mom who’s about my age and looks pale and haggard enough to have been fed on regularly, but doesn’t have that absent, far away look and voice that thralls get.

“Still, the mom looks relieved to see us and recognizes Road’s voice from the phone so she invites us in, locks the door behind us and introduces us to the vampires. And no, it wasn’t a trap.

“Okay, another quick round of names to help keep things straight going forward. Not real names though for the sake of client privacy. So for now let’s call the mom Brynn and her daughter Clair. The two vampires waiting in the darkened living room looked to be about the same ages, and were dressed modern enough - probably sharing clothes with Brynn and Clair - but of course were way older. Like, Vikings getting lost on the way to Vinland old as it turned out, but we’ll get to that. We’ll call the older looking one Sigrid and the younger looking one Hild. There were also seven animated skeletons wandering the house doing chores, but I couldn’t tell them apart and I don’t think they were sapient so I’m not going to bother naming them.

“Introductions are made, Ashan asks to check to verify there’s no mind control or compulsion going on, Sigrid says she didn’t even know that was a thing she might be able to do, the tests come out clean, Brynn sends the kids upstairs, the skeletons follow, and then we finally get an explanation to clear up the misunderstanding that’s had us all on edge this whole time.

“Starting way back at the beginning, the gist of it all is that sometime circa one thousand AD, someone over in Europe heard tell of a place discovered north across the sea, all the way west of Greenland, and got the bright idea to ship off and lock up creatures that wouldn’t die properly as far away from anyone else as possible. Far from everyone else except, you know, the people who already lived there but, hey, tale as old as colonialism, am I right? So they sent over a boatload of undead and a couple of mages to keep them bound, built a crypt, interred the undead, sealed it up, and then built a church on top. And then support for the project from back home dropped off, the Vikings stopped trying to keep up an outpost for the church-crypt-prison keepers to get supplies from, and the locals got fed up with invaders burying necromantically-infused corpses on their land.

“Something went down at that point, but it’s not clear what, only that one winter night Sigrid woke up, climbed out of a stone coffin with no memory and found herself in the ruins of an abandoned church. Hild woke up not long after that and the skeletons along with her. As far as Sigrid knows, Hild’s mute. Never heard a word out of the kid - and I use the word ‘kid’ loosely here - despite having basically adopted her. Sigrid found some writing detailing what the place was and a ritual to keep the undead in that place dormant and sealed. She did the ritual, spent the winter alone with her and Hild surviving on animal blood from the surrounding woods, and then found herself tired enough to return to her sarcophagus at the end of the winter. That waking up for the winter kept repeating, but with an exponentially longer gap each time, until one day she went to sleep and woke up centuries later with a house on top of her and the woods replaced by a town.

“Sigrid was able to cobble together some limited translation magic and explain all this to Brynn, Hild and Clair made friends, and Brynn agreed to help them through the winter. None of them knew jack about anything Backstage, nothing modern anyhow, but it turns out you can just buy blood off the internet and have it delivered.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting to the exciting part, cool it. Do you want ‘We went down to the basement and punched some skeletons the end’ or do you want a proper story? You’ve gotta have some context for these things. Have some buildup. Gradually raise the tension. Sprinkle in some mys- yes Chuck, we all know vampires don’t work on seasonal hibernation cycles like that. It was our first big hint something was weird. Now are you lot gonna keep interrupting or can I keep going?

“Yes Vic, you’re a real comedian.

“Now for those of you paying attention, you probably picked up on the obvious detail that it ain’t winter outside right now. That’s the real reason Brynn finally started looking for outside help. Keeping a pair of vamps fed for the winter is one thing, but indefinitely is a whole other beast. Worse than that, Sigrid suspected that the usual re-sealing ritual wasn’t working anymore and that whatever else was downstairs was starting to wake up. She said she could feel things moving beneath her when she tried to sleep for the day and Hild had been acting even weirder than normal lately, breaking off with her games with Clair and the skeletons and staring off into space for minutes at a time.

“You got it. That’s what we were there for.

“Oh, and I should probably mention, Brynn and Sigrid were trying to hide it, but it was obvious to anyone with eyes they had it hard for each other. Grade-A sapphic pining in the face of knowing fate will never let them have it coupled with still getting their heads around the idea that it was okay for them to like women. It’ll be relevant later.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response.

“Moving on to the fun parts now, Sigrid takes us down to the basement while the others stay up top, shows us the ragged hole in the floor with stairs down to her crypt, and leads us down to where she normally does her sealing ritual. You see, there were actually two levels to the crypt, the upper level where Sigrid, Hild, the skeletons, and five other vampires she never let wake up were kept, and a lower level past a stone door she’d never opened where the really dangerous prisoners were imprisoned. There’s some brief debate on whether to reattempt the sealing ritual with a proper wizard on hand, but Sigrid was all out of the blood to use as components for it and Lacuna - she’d been listening in the whole time via comms - said that creating a custom replacement without the need for blood would take longer than Ashan was estimating the weakened seal would hold for. So we decide to set up a temporary ward to prevent passage out of the crypt and then fully break the seal so we can go down and permanently deal with whatever was down there.

“Road goes up to to the basement and unpacks his dufflebag to give me my spear - I’ve got an enchanted ice spear now, I’ll bring it with me next time - pull out a glyph–inscribed metal card, and set out a miniature drone that Lacuna remotely connects to and sends downstairs with us. It’s a pretty cool little gizmo, like a toaster-sized robo crab with a projector mounted on top. Anyway, Road puts the card on top of the stairs where it starts to play a recording of Lacuna’s voice chanting an incantation to project a selective pass through barrier so we can still get out if we need to. Afterwards, Ashan does some wizard shit to the door that makes a big flash of red light and sets the whole place rumbling for a few seconds.”

Eris takes a dramatic pause to lean forward and grow a slow grin. “And then four of the five occupied sarcophagi open up. Out crawl four blood-starved vampires, too feral from hunger to reason with. The first one leaps at me and I impale it midair. The spear’s enchantment freezes the poor bastard solid by the time gravity catches up and brings it to the ground. Vamp number two makes the mistake of going for Road who just dances around its attempts to claw him and paralyzes it one limb at a time with that fancy beam sword of his. Once it falls he stakes it for good measure and leaves it there to deal with later. Meanwhile, the third vamp is trying to get Ashan while he’s still reeling from the backlash of breaking the seal. It lunges for him and then jerks to a halt with its fangs an inch away from his neck when Ashan recovers and conjures up a bunch of chains around it, making it easy pickings for me to stake. Unlucky vamp number four catches the scent of easier prey upstairs and tries to beat a retreat while we’re all busy only to run headlong into Lacuna’s ward and fall tumbling backwards. Road catches it before it breaks its neck and it repays that kindness with biting his neck. Turns out Road’s jacket can shift forms faster than a starving vampire can move, so it just scrapes its teeth on hard plating while a freshly-armored Road pulls it into an embrace as part of pressing a stake into its heart. Opening up the the fifth sarcophagus to check, we found another vampire with a stake already in its chest whose wood hadn’t quite rotted away with age yet. We left it be.

“So, yeah, it was a nice warmup before the main event downstairs. Of course, Road being Road, he was insistent that we leave the vampires ‘alive’ but neutralized rather than dragging them out into the sun, burning, or beheading them to finish the job. I’m pretty sure he’s with them at a rehabilitation center right now, working on getting them fed enough to be lucid for a chance at integrating with modern society, Backstage resources and all.

“But I’m getting ahead of myself. Warmup done, I roll aside the inscribed stone slab that was still physically blocking off the lower crypt after Ashan had broken the magic seal on it and we descend. And for those of you struggling to keep track, ‘we’ in this case includes Sigrid and Lacuna’s drone who were there for ritual support but weren’t really combatants. Sure, Sigrid had the strength, speed, and reflexes of a well-fed vampire, but she was no trained fighter and wasn’t super big on doing violence. Even hunting down deer and rabbits in the woods to feed herself and Hild back in the old days never sat quite right with her.”

Eris leaves out the detail that what disturbed Sigrid about the bloody hunt was how good it felt in the moment. She suspects she’s not the only one here at the bar that feeling is a little too relatable for.

“The second staircase goes down deep, well into the bedrock,” Eris continues, “with enough clean, precise angles that it was obviously carved out by magic and unworn enough that you could tell no one had taken the trip up and down since its construction. We find another inscribed stone door at the bottom but Ashan verifies that whatever enchantment was on it broke when he broke the seal from upstairs. On the other side we find another crypt, way bigger than the first. At least a hundred sarcophagi laid out in neat rows with a ceiling high enough that whatever mage carved it was obviously showing off. Close to half of it was filled floor-to-ceiling with rubble. At first we figure it was an old cave-in but then we notice the ragged hole on the far side of the chamber and realize we’re looking at the debris from an excavation. An excavation most likely carried out by whatever used to be in the sarcophagi.

“That’s right, they were all open. Most of them, though, were still occupied. If you can call being filled with mounds of pulsating flesh that are barely recognisable as having once been human as ‘occupied’, anyway. All of those had these fleshy tendrils coming off them - so dark red they were almost black - trailing away like roots or cables down that tunnel that obviously hadn't been part of the crypt’s original construction, so you know there had to be something effed up going on back there.

“The tunnel turns into a maze on us pretty quick, but there’s a definite directionality to the pattern of the meat roots covering every surface and following those seemed to lead to some kind of center. A couple minutes in of taking it slow and keeping our eyes and ears peeled we hear this super gross squelching sound coming from around the corner. This eight foot tall amalgamation of smushed-together corpses rounds the corner and immediately goes aggro on us. Probably knew we were coming from all the meat roots we couldn’t avoid stepping on. It definitely had enough of those coming out of its back as a tempting weak point to go for. ‘Course, that was easier said than done with it taking up almost the full width of the tunnel and swinging around eight arms to grab and pummel you with if you tried to squeeze around it.

“On top of that, it had some sort of weird damage transfer thing going on so that anything we did to hurt it would instantly heal and then replicate the wound on the flesh covering the tunnel. I’d stab it and frost would appear on the wall instead. Road would slice it and meat roots on the ceiling would go limp and droop down. I’d straight up punch a hole in its chest and when I pulled my hand out the hole would seal shut and vessels on the floor would burst and spray ichor up at us. Adding insult to repeated blunt force trauma injury, it turns out that Lacuna’s drone is basically useless without a flat surface to project onto and the meat roots all over the place weren’t real conducive to that.

“Seeing that just beating the crap out of this thing until it falls over isn’t working, Ashan tosses up a barrier blocking off the whole tunnel to give us all a second to breathe and shift tactics. Up until that point he’d been rapidly conjuring up small shields that would disappear after blocking a hit or two so that Road and I wouldn’t get punched in the head too much. I tell him I can handle it and that he should focus on going on the offense, so he folds his barrier around the corpse golem that’s already started slamming itself into it and then drags the magic-wrapped monster burrito to one side so Road and I can get to the exposed tendrils coming off its back.

“It’s the sort of maneuver that we really should have opened with, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. It had its flaw though in the form of the hole he left open for the tendrils. I’m sure there’s some BS magic mechanics explanation for why he couldn’t just snap it all the way shut and sever them himself, but that meant there was space for the monster to escape when its flesh started to goddam liquify and start oozing out of the hole to reform. Seeing we’re about to have a problem again, I fling myself on top of the reforming flesh pile and leave Road to cut the tendrils. My reward for that is four sets of jaws emerging from the congealed slurry to bite me and bone fragments assembling themselves into limbs to try to hold me down while the rest of its mass flows out to engulf me.

“Quick show of hands, who all here’s been dunked in sewage before? Okay, and who’s fought zombies or hung around long enough after a hunt for the quarry to start putrefying? Right. Now imagine combining those two smells, filling the sewage with bones, and having it actively try to crush and suffocate you. Rank does not begin to do the stench justice.

“Fortunately, Road cuts the amalgam’s connection to the tunnel walls quickly, causing the mass around me to shudder. That doesn’t deanimate it - it was already dead and more of a puppet or golem than a proper undead, so ‘kill’ isn’t the right word - but it stops regenerating. I start tearing it apart from the inside and less than a minute later I’m standing in the middle of the tunnel picking viscera out of my hair while scattered bits of gore uselessly pulse and twitch. Thank God for overly-fastidious wizards with cleaning spells or I’d still be in the shower trying to get that smell out.”

While her audience laughs at the half-joke, Eris’s mind lingers on what she must have looked like for Lacuna, watching from multiple angles through the comms and drones as she burst out of that mess, clothes stained with dark blood and ichor dripping down her face. From the time she got her mouth free enough to breathe without inhaling undead meat and fluids to the time she made eye contact with the crab drone’s camera she’d had the same feral grin she knew she always had after a kill. Ever since she’s been waiting for Lacuna to say something. Dreading it, really. If she hadn’t just imagined Lacuna involuntarily flinching away from her the day before this last job, what must her friend think of her now that she’s had an unfiltered view of her in all her gorey glory?

She can talk to her about that later. Right now she’s still got a story to tell.

“Moving on down the tunnel system, we don’t encounter anything else until we reach the central chamber, a big roughly hemispherical cavern with other tunnel openings all around. In the center, all the meat roots had converged and woven themselves into a cocoon. A cocoon that looked to have been freshly split open by the time we got there.

“Hovering in the air above it and faintly glowing red we see this vampire mage who’s gone all in on the demonic bat look. Big wings that he doesn’t even seem to need to fly, pointy ears, long clawed hands, black sclera, red irises, weirdly echoing voice, the works. He sees us and he must have been a wizard, because he immediately starts monologuing at us. And it’s all in some old proto-Norse dialect with off-world loan words so I don’t understand a lick of it.

“That said, I don’t need to parse the words to know an evil gloating asshole stroking his own ego when I hear one, so I cut him off mid-sentence by hurling my spear at him. I nail him right through the chest, but he’s got the same damage transfer hacks going on as his creation we killed earlier, without even needing the physical connection, so he just pulls the spear out and casually drops it like the smug bastard he is and calls for the rest of his creations to start streaming in from the other tunnels.

“I’ll save you the blow-by-blow of the ensuing melee or else we’d be here all night, but I’ll paint you the broad strokes of it. Me, Road, and Sigrid - surrounded like this, she didn’t have much choice but to join in - back to back to back against over a dozen constructs of fused-together undead in various shapes and configurations. Vampires, ghouls, revenants, you name a variety of walking dead originating out of Europe and chances were a specimen had been blended up and thrown into the mix. Meanwhile, Ashan’s running interference to block and lock down any magic the vamp mage tries to throw at us. That includes the vamp mage trying to open up portals, both to escape and to let in minor demons that he’d contracted out from some hell-type dimension or another.

“Now, most of you here are lucky enough to have seen me and/or Road in action before, and a few of you are unlucky enough to have seen two mages go at it, so I’ll let you extrapolate out what the next several minutes looked like based on how fighting against just one went. At least in that chamber we had proper room to maneuver, so getting around behind the amalgams to cut their puppet strings was easier. Up until the vamp mage would slip a spell past Ashan and plug one of his creations back in to start regenerating again. While there was technically a limit to how much damage the vamp mage and his minions could offload until there were no more meat roots in reserve to take it, it was a pretty high limit and we were looking at a battle of attrition. I’m pretty good at those, but I was starting to have my doubts that Ashan could hold up. He’s got this thing with drawing on ambient heat as a power source and everyone down there capable of breathing was puffing out fog clouds.

“Oh, and did I mention that the vamp mage kept up his villain monologuing during the fight? At the time I figured he was just running on a magic system heavy on verbal spell components, but later the others filled me in that was only about half of his blabbering. If anyone’s curious, the gist was that he’d been awake off and on for centuries, had fed on all the other undead in the crypt to grow his power, used the husks of his fellow prisoners as labor to carve out tunnels in the shape of a ritual circle, and stuck himself in the middle of it to hibernate until his transformation was complete and the seal on the crypt finally faded in full. Now our breaking of the seal on the crypt had woken him up again and accelerated his plans for escaping and taking vengeance. I’m not sure he quite grasped the idea that everyone who banished him and locked him up down there is long dead.

“So yeah, uber vamp, sworn vengeance, corpse golems, grand melee, wizard duel, portals threatening to open, battle of attrition, yadda yada. That finally breaks when Lacuna finally finds a good, flat, tendril free, spot on the wall to steer her little robo crab that everyone forgot about over to. She starts projecting a ritual circle on the wall, plays the pre-recorded incantation, and before anyone realizes what’s happening the whole room floods with conjured sunlight. You’d need to ask a mage what makes it so special compared to the lights Ashan had made for us to see by, but it was as good as the real thing for making vamps burn and the amalgams and meat roots all over the walls, floor, and ceiling, were at least seventy percent vampire in composition. Watching all that light up in a wave of smokeless fire was maaaagnificent.”

Eris smiles at the memory of the spectacle. That moment was the second proudest she’d ever been of Lacuna.

“That should have been the end of it,” Eris goes on, “but of course it wasn’t. Same as Road was pulling Sigrid back into a side tunnel and Ashan was conjuring up a mostly opaque barrier to keep her from burning the vamp mage had sequestered himself in his own little ominous floating sphere of darkness hovering ten feet off the ground. So I’m left standing there alone considering how best to reach the vamp mage and pull him into the light before Road gets the chance to remind me to take him in ‘alive’ when the light suddenly goes out and I hear Lacuna scream into my ear through the comms earbud.

“I’ll be honest, when she didn’t respond right away after I asked what happened I kinda snapped. I gave throwing my spear at the vamp mage another go and this time it stuck. I followed up with a running jump to grab the portion of the haft that was sticking out of the black sphere and dragged the bastard out of his safety bubble. I slammed him into the cave floor like a hammer head onto an anvil, climbed on top of him, and started going to town on his face.”

Flashes of fear and rage resurface with the memory, causing Eris to stumble in her narration. The way she had figured at the time, either he’d hurt Lacuna and needed to pay or something else had happened and she needed to finish things up here and get back to the office as quickly as possible. The next few minutes (or was it just seconds?) trying to finish him off were fuzzy, but she had some vague memory of Road trying to pull her off before she could kill him. What Road didn’t realize is that was her being nonlethal with a powered-up vampire. If she’d wanted him dead she would have gone straight for ripping his head off. Too bad she hadn’t been thinking clearly enough at the time to just stake him. Would have saved them all a lot of trouble.

“When he realized he couldn’t throw me off him he tried necromancy. I could feel him trying to grow spikes from my bones. Heating up my blood in hopes of boiling it. Skip beats on my heart in an attempt to stop it. Willing me to rot from the inside out.” Eris laughs, more showy bravado than genuine pride. “But you know me, I’m built different and autogenesis is a helluva drug when it comes to magic resistance. The only reason I stopped beating the everliving tar out of him when I did was I heard the kid scream next.

“Turns out that the vamp mage had some kind of connection to Hild and with the seal gone he’d been able to use that connection to mind control her from all the way down in the crypt. He’d used her skeletons to take Clair hostage, coerce Brynn into physically disrupting Lacuna’s ward up in the basement, and bring Clair down to where we were to use as a human shield. A dirty ploy, but an effective one at getting us to stand down. Breaking an actively-maintained ward had hurt both Brynn and Lacuna but not killed either of them, so Brynn catches up and wanders in just in time to see the vamp mage opening up the hell portal Ashan had been keeping closed so a new round of minions could file in to keep us busy.

“Now obviously, letting a vampire go free with a hostage just means that hostage is getting eaten later rather than sooner but that doesn’t make getting that hostage to safety any less tricky. Fortunately, hearing Lacuna’s voice come back online to confirm that she was okay, just pretty out of it, calms me down enough to notice Road whisper something to Sigrid and then give me enough of a look that I catch onto the gist of his plan. I then get Ashan’s attention and have him start translating trash talk for me to get the vamp mage focused on us. Not exactly my proudest moment, but I’m pretty sure I taught Ashan and the kids some new swear words.

“Distraction in place, Sigrid breaks off from where we’ve all been lined up to go give Hild a tearful full-body hug and whisper something in her ear. That’s enough to break Hild out of the near-trance she’d been in this whole time to have her skeletons let go of Clair and start attacking the demons. Road moves in to intercept the vamp mage before he can grab Clair himself while Brynn scoops her up to get her to safety. New problem is we’ve now got exits blocked by demons, multiple non-combatants to keep safe, more minions filing in, and a very angry vampire mage who’s already started to recover from the beating I gave him. I don’t even wanna know what kind of price he paid to contract those kind of numbers for summoning.

“Somehow though, he looks at all of this, does the tactical calculus, and concludes that Hild is the biggest threat - or maybe he was just mad at her breaking free - so he points a hand at her and his fingers extend, shooting across the room. Road realizes what’s happening in time to parry it enough to keep it from taking off her head, but the vamp mage still manages to rip a gash in Hild from jugular to heart.

“Here’s the thing about vampires that makes them so annoying to kill: Short of beheading or burning, they can recover from basically anything so long as they have the blood. So pro-tip, if you find yourself fighting a vampire without a stake and you don’t think you can get a killing blow on them, hit them someplace that they’ll bleed a lot. And it has to be external bleeding. A decent size cut’s harder for them to recover from than broken bones or ruptured organs. Get them in the heart or jugular and they’ll bleed out nearly as fast as a human if they don’t get the chance to feed in the next minute or so.

“On the flip side, if you’re ever trying to save a vampire, the number one most important thing is to give them something to drink; the fresher and stronger the better.”

Eris holds up the child-sized bite mark on her wrist for everyone to get a good look at again. Damn, but does it feel good to watch the realization dawn on her audience’s faces. Especially the ones who’d laughed at it earlier.

“Now I’ll be real with you,” Eris says after everyone’s had a moment to ogle, “for most of the rest of this I was a bit loopy from blood loss, but I promise I’m not exaggerating when I say Hild started making whole skeletons out of the ash of the corpse golems that had burned earlier and ripping new boney minions of her own out of any demon that fell. The things drinking your fill in fresh human blood for the first time in a millennium will do for you I guess.

“Still, it turns out that closing a fully open summoning portal that things are actively passing through is harder than keeping a partially formed one from opening and Ashan was already near his limit back before Lacuna dropped her sunshine bomb on the room. With splitting his attention between that struggle, trying to keep the vamp mage from opening an escape, and maintaining bubble shields around himself, Sigrid, Brynn, Clair, me, and Hild, that was leaving just Road and the skeletons to fight both the mage and his minions. Not good numbers and we were back to a battle of attrition. Road’s good - the best even - but even he can only be in so many places at once and Hild’s ability to keep reforming her frankly fragile skeletons was only going to last as long as I could keep serving as a blood battery.

“And then the whole place starts shaking. We’d only burnt away the meat roots in that central chamber and now the rest were writhing and contracting in an attempt to collapse the surrounding tunnels. The classic ‘if I can’t escape then no one can’ gambit.

“The thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that the whole time this round two of fighting is going on, Lacuna’s been frantically searching a digitized library of spells and rituals and calling out descriptions over the comms to ask if it’s something any of us think can help. She’s not trained on how to properly recover from the backlash of an interrupted ritual, much less two at once, so she wasn’t in any condition to cast anything else herself, but she could still provide words and glyphs for others to do so. To be honest, I’m pretty sure we were all basically tuning her out by the time the walls started shaking, but just as Road is starting to give the order for everyone to retreat back up to the surface she cuts in claiming to have found a - and I quote - ‘spell to conquer evil’.

“But then she reads the description and sees that it requires - and again I quote - ‘a threefold declaration of love hitherto unspoken,’ and apologizes for getting our hopes up. And that’s when I realize I’m apparently the only one with working eyes because I have to point out to everyone that we’ve got the capacity for that right in front of us. Sigrid and Brynn for each other, Brynn and Sigrid for Hild and Clair respectively, and Clair and Hild for one another. The love of partners, mothers, and sisters. Eros, Storge, and Philia for those of you who read your classics. Threefold love, and let’s throw in some Agape loving God for making people more willing to make declarations of repressed love when they think they’re about to die.

“Lacuna projects the words to read up for the spell on the wall, Ashan provides the magical oomph, to make the spell go, vows are made, and we get a whole new, somehow even brighter wave of light bursts out, this time from the four of them, banishing the demons, sweeping away the meat roots even in the outer tunnels, and stunning the vampire. He’s still floating like twenty feet in the air though and already starting to twitch again.

“So then,” Eris says, standing up to pantomime the final act of the tale, “Road turns to me and tells me to throw him. Swear to God, his armor grew handles when he said it. But this is Road we’re talking about and adrenaline was running high so I yeet him across the crypt chamber at the flying vamp mage, no questions asked. Stake goes in the heart on impact, the two of them crash to the ground, portal closes, and everyone goes home happy.”

*******

“Good story earlier, E” Gretchen says to Eris some hours later on her way to join the gradual exodus of hunters from the bar, “didn’t get the chance to say that earlier with everyone else lining up to fawn over the savior of children and spotter of true love.”

“Thanks,” Eris replies skeptically. Is this sarcasm or flirting? God, she hopes it’s sarcasm. She has enough ambiguous advances to turn down on her plate with Sarah already.

“The manticore stinger scar’s still my favorite though,” Gretchen continues in a tone that makes flirting the uncomfortably more likely possibility. “You should consider showing it off again sometime.”

“Sure, I’ll th-” the non-answer catches in Eris’s throat.

She doesn’t have a scar from a manticore stinger. She doesn’t even remember having had a potential scar like that. And it’s not something she would forget; manticore venom hurts like having your veins replaced by rose vines with vibrating thorns. Wait. Why does she know what it feels like when everything she’s heard about it calls it instantly fatal? Why does the thought of it make her jaw clench and fingers curl? It’s just curses and magic poisons that leave lasting scars on her. But both of her scars (potentially all three now) are from curses. So how does she know poison will do it? But there’s no way she could forget something like that happening to her.

Right?

Why does everything feel like her hands are too soft?

“I’ll catch you later,” Eris finishes her sentence as calmly as she can.

She tries not to run out of the bar.

*******

Among the subfolders in the photo app on Eris’s phone there are two labeled “Scars: Potential” and “Scars: Real”. The second most recent photo in “Scars: Potential” is from a month ago. It’s a set of ragged claw marks running down her left thigh with what might possibly be a partially-obscured bite mark mixed in. Her text message history confirms that she sent the photo to Sarah two days after the previous full moon.

She doesn’t remember getting injured, taking the photo, or the conversation.

Now she’s standing undressed in her apartment’s bathroom, gripping the edge of the sink and breathing hard as she rapidly looks back and forth between her mirror, her body, and one of the four photos in the “Scars: Real” folder. The photo shows a ring of puckered flesh just below her right breast with finger-length tendrils radiating out from it tracing along the paths of veins. Squint at it with the right mindset and it looks almost like a flower surrounded by vines. The scar’s an unnatural shade of dark purple standing out against brown skin. It’s matches in the “Scars: Potential” folder taken over the course of the weeks prior to the final version show the scar as being practically vibrant in its hue and surrounded by heavily inflamed skin.

Most importantly, it’s not there anymore.

“What the Hell?” Eris gasps yet again as she continues to run fingers over smooth skin while staring down the spot in the mirror where she should be seeing a scar.

She tightens her grip on the edge of the sink and accidentally cracks the ceramic. The buckling of the countertop topples her phone into the bowl. The sound snaps Eris out of her obsessive staring and prodding enough to look down at what she just did and swear. She lets go of the broken edge of the sink and picks up her phone. Too late she realizes she’s bleeding from the soft skin on her palm. Now she’s smeared it on her phone case. It’s not the first time it’s gotten blood on it but she swears again anyway.

Then she freezes.

Why are her hands soft?

That makes no sense.

She should have calluses.

She must have had calluses.

Where the Hell are her calluses?

Why did it take her this long to realize what was wrong?

Her grip on her phone shifts subtly and she nearly drops it in surprise. Running her fingers along the rubberized texture of its case feels different now somehow. She looks at the open palm of her other hand and something about the way it catches the light has changed slightly. The blister that’s been there for the past couple of days is suddenly gone. She traces the pad of her thumb back and forth across the tips of her fingers and finds that while it doesn't feel right, it’s the closest to right that it’s felt in weeks.

“What the Hell?”

She touches where the scar should be and memories that make no sense to have been forgotten come rushing back.

Sun hot enough to cook eggs on the dashboard. An Arizona truck stop. Rumors of a big cat prowling the desert and attacking truckers and tourists who stop there too late at night. Killing time waiting for nightfall by practicing along with a language learning CD snagged from a clearance bin. An empty parking lot beneath a moonless night sky. Climbing out of the cab and watching the desert. Feeling the temperature drop. The feeling of being the only person on Earth. Lingering in a space only ever meant to be passed through. The howl of an almost-human voice that almost sounds like a song. The weight of a tire iron in her hand. Stepping out beyond the edge of the pavement. Stopping just at the edge of the furthest lamplight. The twilight border between known and unknown. A whistled tune to announce her presence. Eyes in the dark. A growl that almost sounds like words. Circling. Blurring the line between predator and prey. Claws and teeth. The crack of a tire iron against a skull that almost looks human. A whipcord whistling sound through the air. A step too slow. Blooming pain. The feeling of veins replaced by rose vines with vibrating thorns. An inhuman growl from a human throat. Hands preventing a tail from ripping a stinger free. A slow extraction from a chest. A quick insertion into a neck. The loss of a tire iron. Seven minutes slumped against a door, trying to work up the strength to open it. Three days in the bed in the back of a truck cabin. Angry voicemails threatening unemployment. Coughing up blood. Engine noise going quiet. AC cutting out. Sips of hot water. Knocking on the door from a concerned stranger. A declined offer of a ride to the hospital. A request to siphon gas. The passing of years. An impossible city. A new job. A kindred spirit. A wonderfully wicked smile beneath golden eyes. The feeling of another’s hands tracing a familiar shape. The comparison to a flower.

This time Eris does drop her phone. This time she grips the edge of the sink with both hands. This time it’s a different curse she mutters between ragged breaths.

She starts to look up, catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, bolts upright, and looks down at herself. It’s fainter than in the photo, but there’s now the barest outline of what might look like a flower if you squint at it in the right mindset.

“Sis,” Eris whispers to a friend that isn’t there to hear it, “what did you do to me?”

*******

In the past fifteen minutes since Eris knocked on Lacuna’s door hard enough to chip the paint and wake the neighbors, she’s watched her best friend’s face change from terrified to concerned to embarrassed to anxious to worried to confused and now to utterly horrified.

“Oh goddess, I am so sorry. I swear I didn’t think that would happen. I knew there might be complications but I didn’t think that even could happen. I’m sorry. I should have seen this coming. I should have run more simulations. I shouldn’t have needed to. It’s so -”

“Sis -”

“- obvious in hindsight. Not even hindsight, it's just obvious. How could I be so stupid? I’m sorry. I promise this was an accident. Maybe if I - No that would be worse. I swear I -”

“Hey -”

“- can make this right. Or maybe it’s already showing signs of abating. This is what I get for not taking a baseline model first. Please don’t be mad. I’m so, so, sorry. I just -”

“Lacuna!”

Lacuna flinches at the not-quite-a-shout and goes quiet, shrinking back into the round papasan chair seated in her apartment’s living room.

“I’m not mad at you,” Eris lies. Maybe if she keeps still enough and keeps being slow and deliberate enough with her words and breathing it will become true. “I believe you that whatever this is was an accident and I’m not going to hold it against you.” That part is probably true. “Now please slow down for a minute and tell me what you think you did to me and what we need to do to fix it.”

Lacuna wraps her arms around herself and takes a series of trembling, drawn-out breaths. Her wide eyes show little sign of the sleep Eris woke her from. When she starts speaking again it’s slow and halting, and her fingers continue to drum on her upper arms in a rolling motion.

“Right. Sorry. So… Two things. Probably two things. But they’re kind of related. So maybe one thing.”

Eris resists the urge to tell her to get on with it. The patience that she’s learned since befriending Lacuna is wearing thin tonight.

“This is mostly an educated guess, but back when we healed your burns after the Logos mission. Remember how I said we were sort of hacking autogenesis to work for us?”

Eris nods. “Making my belief that I could walk away from the blast unharmed stronger than my and Logos’s combined belief that it should have killed me.”

“Yeah. That. Close to it anyway. Because the core theory of the Autogenesis Principle is that it makes your perception of yourself override baseline reality. Like we’ve talked about, that’s probably why you heal so fast normally. So I set up the ritual to temporarily sharpen and amplify that perception. Remove any doubts or distractions and absolutely focus on your idea of who you truly are. But since I never took an initial scan of when you were uninjured, we were pretty much going based on memory”

“And so, what, I lost focus and parts got left out?”

“Maybe? More likely that I did. It was configured to mostly be based on you, but since I was the one casting the ritual, some of my perception of your body slipped in too. And. Well. I didn’t know that you had those scars that you said were missing. Or maybe I was because on some level I was thinking of that all as being freshly grown flesh that we were replacing the old with? I don’t know. But when we found you your… Those were the parts of you that took the brunt of it. You were…”

“I was what?”

“I-” Lacuna bites her lip and puts a hand to her mouth. “Probably best I don’t say. Perception and everything. But trust me. It was… bad. If you were anyone else I don’t think you would have survived.”

Just built different.

“Fine.” Eris says even though it isn’t. “So the scars you didn’t know I had didn’t get put back when we healed me. That tracks, but why did it make me forget about them?”

“I’m not entirely sure, and that’s the scary part. It might have been a flaw in the ritual itself that caused some leakage between us or maybe left some of what was supposed to be a temporary perception adjustment linger around longer than expected. Or it might be because no one fully understands how autogenesis works and causing a shift in perception cascaded into forcing other variables into place to align with that. I’m not sure which one’s worse.”

“Okay so, those are both bad,” horrifying, if Eris is being honest with herself, “but what do we do about it?”

“For now? Maybe nothing? You said that when you realized something was off your memory came back and then the scar started to reappear. And that remembering the calluses caused you to remember the scar? There’s precedent for removal of memory alterations to cause a cascading effect. That’s something I read when I was researching how to help with Ashan’s tattoo. Not a tattoo, but you know what I mean. If we give it a little bit of time it should all work itself out and go back to normal. Probably. And if it doesn’t, we go find someone who knows more about this than me.”

“If it’s going to wear off, doesn’t that mean the burns are going to come back too?”

“No. That’s a little bit different. It’s a technical thing that I could explain better after sleeping properly, but I’m ninety-seven percent sure that we’ve got that part pretty well solved. Even before the ritual, you didn't remember the blast itself since you blacked out, and you weren’t even conscious for seventy-two hours between waking up in the autodoc bed and getting the additional healing. In the grand scheme of things, the time that you spent in that particular condition didn’t have much time to imprint on you or get internalized. Not unless you were taking that all a lot harder than you were letting on. It was part of the reason I proposed the ritual almost as soon as you were awake.”

“Fine,” Eris says. It still isn’t. “Fine,” she says again to convince herself. “I’ll assume and act like it will work out how we want, try not to think too hard about it, and it will happen, the same as any other autogenesis bullshit. But what about my calluses?”

“What about them? Same as the rest I guess.”

“No, I mean it’s not like we’ve never shaken hands before and I’ve literally dragged you into doing things in the past. You might not have seen all of my scars, but you should have an idea what my hands feel like.”

“Oh! That might be the whole ‘new flesh’ thing I mentioned earlier.”

“Or?” Eris drags out the word. “I sense an ‘or’ coming.”

Lacuna looks at her lap, trying and failing to hide the red creeping into her face.

“You’re always gentle about it though,” Lacuna practically whispers. “Compared to what I know you can do anyway. Holding hands. Arm around my shoulder. Pats on the back. Hugs. Even when there’s force behind it, it’s… comforting.” She laughs, embarrassed; a short puff of breath that’s almost more of a gasp. “I guess I think of your touch as… soft? I’m sorry. That’s weird of me to say. And also really messed up of me to have forced onto you, even if it was on accident.”

“Sis…”

“No, I mean it. It’s bad enough when normal people try to make others into the versions of them they have in their heads instead of who they really are. We’re lucky that ritual was only meant for long term physical changes and that I’m not enough of a real mage to even be able to make lasting mental changes. You're my best friend, E. I don’t want some weird idealized caricature my subconscious made up. I want you.”

Lacuna sniffs and Eris puts a hand on her shoulder before another torrent of “I’m sorries” starts pouring out. She’s not sure she can deal with more of that tonight, especially if they turn into tears.

“Hey. It’s gonna be alright. You fucked up - no sugarcoating that - but it happens to everyone sooner or later. Important part is you’re owning up to it, you’re trying to make it better, and you know how not to in the future. You’re my best friend too, and whatever happens, we’re still cool. I know who I am and no mad science lab accident is going to change that.”

Does she though? Was she always this forgiving? This protective? This quick to swallow her anger?

Eris tells herself that’s just part of caring about someone.

But if Lacuna ever did accidentally change something about her mind, would either of them even be able to tell?

Eris tells herself that being able to ask that question means she’s still her.

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost Next Chapter->

#writing #original fiction #urban fantasy #web novel #WIP #Writeblr #Empty Names #writers on tumblr #my writing #emptynameswriting #To clarify: Eris is both demisexual and biromantic. It just happens that she's only really had even marginal success with women so far.#I've said before that I don't really intend to go into any sort of romantic subplots with this story and that's still the case.#But as I was writing this one the fact that Eris is *actively avoiding* romance seemed like an interesting aspect of her to touch on a bit.#That one time Eris let Gretchen tie her up didn't last long because she kept accidentally breaking whatever binding material was used.#Absolutely ruined the mood. But it makes for a funny comedy sketch to imagine gradually escalating from rope to industrial steel cable.#Not why they broke up though. That was due to an argument over whether the Fourth or Fifth Fate of Hunters is the better way to go.#Gretchen thought that one of them turning into a monster and being put down by her lover would be tragically romantic.#Or even better: They both turn at once. Eris was horrified and still half-suspects she'll have to lead Gretchen's funerary hunt one day #The accidental memory and scar erasure was the only part of this chapter in my original notes for it.#That and having a drone project a ritual glyph while out on a monster-of-the-week mission.#I actually got a little bit uncomfortable while writing and thinking through in the implications of the incident on Eris and Lacuna's trust #Canonically Eris's personality HAS NOT been modified by Lacuna at this point. NOR has there been *intentional* memory modification.#But the fact that it's even a question would be a strain on any relationship.#Meanwhile Lacuna is absolutely dancing around the fact that Eris did briefly go “Fifth Fate” at the end of Chapter 15 but doesn't remember.#Fitzy the clockwork bartender is very loosely based on and named after the D&D character of an old friend of mine.#Loreghaste and Lornegna are based on/named after my Bloodborne and Monster Hunter: World characters respectively.#Keeping track of tenses got a bit wonky this chapter. Especially with Eris's regaling of her last mission with Road and company.#Things to go in an editing pass that I'll probably never do.#I worry a bit that I made a mistake with the jokes from Old Vic and Wyatt but then I figure any ickiness there is sort of the point.#Eris is uncomfortable with it too.

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the-cooler-harmonybot · 1 year

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me after making a character (villain) that does so many bad things but as deliberate choices that conflict with their morals which is still bad regardless of guilt they may feel. and at the same time she's not "intrinsically evil," nor do they enjoy it in any way. and also they come across neurodivergent, and i don't want THOSE traits to be demonised. and they do still have lines they won't cross which is interesting compared to other characters but they are very very awful still and state this themself: hm i think. i think i did a little more nuance than i needed to here. i'm sure i won't mess that up and people will read things as intended and in good faith :)

#yeah this is about pip. PLUS SIDE she's fun. she's evil she's sad they're probably autistic but that's statistically likely in my writing so #basically i want her actions and choices and greed to be seen as bad #but not like her lack of expression or interest in/love of magic and studying it etc #(a risk given it's half of her motive that they're willing to do bad things to reach)#like she's TECHNICALLY morally grey internally but a villain in actions #i just don't want the wrong parts to be demonised/seem like i'm demonising them #and definitely don't want her read as like “misunderstood uwu” no she's awful <3 #but that's her CHOICE not her NATURE #idk it's probably fine i'm just always prepared for the worst mentally #been having a crisis over phosphor's cast size too because the post going around with object show pet peeves #but it's. like phosphor doesn't work the same as a normal object show. voting plot or format wise.#so idk how it applies.#idk this became more venty than intended. i'm just a little stressed. it's been so long since i've shared work like i'm about to #and phosphor has so much room for error compared to anything i've made before #don't worry about this i'm just mentally ill <3 haha #like if people really end up hating it i'll just. idk. stop doing it i guess.#my best is all i can do #don't get me started on whether killing certain characters will get people upset/saying it's "burying your (insert group here)#(they're all queer if anyone tries to say gays specifically because a character has a relationship i'll just self destruct)#that's not foreshadowing half the deaths are still undecided. mainly because of this worry LOL #okay i should shut up now #hobbies include not making posts ever (haven't even been on tumblr much the past week)#and then posting paragraphs of tags and then dipping again. uh if people read this hope you're doing well. sorry <3 #i can only be concise in fictional writing not rambles #also note that this is like REALLY POORLY EXPLAINED #but anyway

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itsswritten · 3 months

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Cauldron-born

Pairing: Azriel x fem reader

Word Count: 1.7K

Summary: When an unexplainable energy pulls the Inner Circle to barge into the Day court, they're all shocked at what they find. But it's Azriel who can't help wonder if his dreams have finally been answered.

“I hadn’t meant to hide this from you Rhysand,” Helion’s usual warm tone was replaced with something sterner, bolder— unwavering.

A breeze pulled on your skirt, the floaty material rippling under the wind. It was always warm in Day, but now, with the appearance of uninvited guests, there was a coldness in the air you hadn’t experienced before.

A bite that pulled at your skin raising goosebumps across your arms.

You guessed this reaction wasn’t a rare occurrence when facing the Night Courts Inner Circle.

Helion shifted his weight, his body stood in front of yours in a protective manner. A nervousness emitted from his energy, an emotion that actually seemed strange to even be associated with him.

Helion wasn’t the nervous type. Charming and flirtatious, bold and defiant— not nervous.

Helion pushed his shoulders back, his stance flexing against the shadowy group that had just arrived.

They had shaken him.

Perhaps you were naive to think these people wouldn’t, naive to believe you could live your life quietly. Slip through the cracks. Go unnoticed. No you were not destined for that, as much as your dear friend may have wanted that for you.

So if a quiet life was not meant to be, then you would at least claim it as yours.

With a light step you moved from behind Helion to his side, coming into full view of the group who had appeared unannounced in the courtyard. Your hand came to Helion’s gently, giving him a soft squeeze and light smile that stretched to your eyes.

How they had gotten through Day Courts shields didn’t come as a surprise really. Helion had divulged how powerful the High Lord of the Night Court was. That if he really wanted to take them all down, then Helion suspected in that unrelenting pit of power Rhys probably could.

But despite this power, Rhys had never ravaged control over the land. Helion was fond of Rhys and his family, they were allies. Perhaps he would even consider them friendly.

And yet Helion hadn’t told them about you.

Energies and rhythms rippling from their bodies, all with their own melody of colours unique to them floated toward you. Your eyes scanned over their features quickly, reading their expressions, the tight lines their faces made before one look pulled you to a hasty stop.

A hazel lock held you tightly as a males gaze ensnared you.

Golden rays broke through a midnight blue aura, trapping you in a moment that seemed to expand and retract all at once. He was the most beautiful male you’d ever laid eyes on, and it took every ounce of will power to pull your gaze from his.

There was a simmering at the pit of your stomach, something familiar and warm, and you swore you could hear singing—

“She is like us.” A girl from the back of the crowd spoke, beautiful and sweet. Elain, you assumed. Her aura, one that resembled sunlight radiating in golden flicks. If you hadn’t known who she was you’d had assumed she was a Day court resident from her glow alone.

Elain stepped forward, another girl stepping beside her as if they’d both been pulled by the same magnetic pulse to the front of the group.

This girl. This girl was Nesta. You were sure of it. That silver flickering aura licked at her skin, an energy so similar and yet so different to her sisters.

“Hm..no not exactly like us…” Elain seemed to mutter, more to herself than anyone else. Her eyes scanning you as she tried to get a read, try and decipher what had pulled her here in the first place.

Why you had pulled them here.

“Something other.” Nesta spoke.

You don’t think she’d actually intended for it to sound so venomous, but the words had snapped like poison. You noticed how for a split second there was a softeness in her energy. Whether she was regretful of her tone or not, you had flinched at the word.

Other.

Hm. Perhaps that was the best way to describe you.

Elain glanced at her sister, her face not changing as she digested Nesta’s words. There was a shuffling behind them, only slight and small. Would barely be noticeable if it wasn’t so hard for you not to notice.

Him.

His scarred fingers twitched at his sides, shadows swirling around them as they peered over those giant black membranes that were drawn in at his back. A tattoo creeped up the side of his neck, peeking through his shirt as you followed up to his jaw. Black leather’s covered his body, blue siphons shimmering under the setting sun. You tried so hard not to let your eyes wander back, but as though you had no control you gaze landed on his again.

Only to find he was already staring.

Azriel.

Helion had mentioned him to you before and you recalled how you had rolled the name a few times in your mouth. The name feeling so foreign and familiar all at once.

“Not cauldron-made, no not quite.” Elain had turned her attention back to you.

You had stepped forward now, stepped out from the shadow of Helion.

Stepped out to face what you had been avoiding.

“You are Cauldron-born.”

✵

“Would you like to join us for some tea?” Your response had been after Elain’s heavy statement.

Your words coming out in a flurry to cut through the heaviness in the air. Despite being outside it felt stifling. Several eyes piercing into you. You could almost hear the way they were trying to decipher you— breakdown what Elain had said.

You hadn’t allowed them the time. Quickly offering them tea, as you glanced at the small set up you and Helion had come to the courtyard to enjoy.

It was only a matter of moments before more furniture was erected and began the awkward silence while the piping pot of tea began to simmer to a cool.

Your hands were scrunched up in your skirt, fists full of fabric on your lap being an obvious tell of unease to those who knew what to look for. A strained smile was forced to your lips, expression light and brows arched in apprehension as you watched the uninvited guests silently take sips of tea.

With a quick sideways glance you gave Helion a nervous smile, your lips wobbling as you took a sharp inhale. Helion responded with a gentle pat of your head, his large hand coming to ruffle your hair while a lazy smiled adorned his lips.

His energy finally shifting to one you recognised more, warm and teasing. He was relaxed again. Whatever shock the inner circle had originally caused, Helion now seemed...somewhat nonchalant.

That should have been reassuring, but the tension in your muscles didn't want to relax.

“This is y/n,” Helion finally spoke, addressing the people who had barged into his court.

At the revelation of a name, the inner circle cast their attention solely on you.

“These are my friends y/n, I’ve told you about them already. We had anticipated your arrival at some point,” he continued giving a knowing look to Rhys.

Your eyes scanned the expressions of the five people in front of you.

Rhys, Amren, Nesta, Elain and of course Azriel. Not the whole inner circle, no there were members missing. But Helion had done such a great job at explaining them to you, that it really wasn’t difficult to figure out who was who.

“It’s l-lovely to meet you all,” you managed out, voice falling softer than you had hoped. Your own eyes gently moving across them all before flitting to the shadowy presence that remained stood behind the Night Courts High Lord.

Azriel.

Spymaster and Shadowsinger of the Night Court.

You couldn’t seem to stop yourself from looking, among all the noise he sung the sweetest. His energy, amongst those swirling smoke coloured tendrils was the most beautiful display you had ever seen. Not the most powerful by any means, Rhysand and Helion’s outshone his aura in many ways but his was the most enticing— at least to you.

Composure wasn’t something Azriel usually lacked, but after hearing the softness of your voice fill the warm evening air he had to collect himself entirely.

From the moment he’d set his eyes on you, he couldn’t ignore the feeling in the depths of his chest. Maybe if you hadn’t been the cause of it, he’d have assumed there was something wrong with his heart.

Azriel noticed the way your fingers nervously picked at your skirt, fists tight with the material as you sat up straight beside Helion. As if your posture would bring a confidence you were clearly lacking.

He could sense it, your unease, nervousness. Picked up on it before even his shadows could whisper it to him.

Nervous, nervous, nervous.

He blinked them away. He already knew.

Pretty.

Another whispered. He already knew that too.

Pretty was putting it plainly though. You were breathtaking.

Azriel wanted to reassure you. Comfort the anxiety he could tell you were drowning in. It was such a strange sensation, to feel this connection so deeply with someone he’d never met before, that Azriel couldn’t help but question why.

Azriel allowed himself to consider that perhaps something he’d been dreaming of for so long was finally his.

That feeling, the ache in his chest you caused— was almost painfully lovely. He swore this was exactly how his brothers had described it to him.

Azriel found himself allowing the smallest curve spread to the edge of his lips, a gentle, secret smile. Just for you.

A smile that softened your own forced expression to something more relaxed and genuine.

For a moment it felt as though it was just you two. The noise and vibrations of everyone else seemed to fade. An embrace of cobalt and hazel filling you with a warmth that felt so familiar.

“But Elain is correct. Y/n is cauldron-born.” Helion’s voice broke the trance you both seemed to be in.

Your nervousness from before simmering hotter.

“It cannot be,” Amren declared, disbelief tinging her tone as her gaze pierced into you.

“You think I lie?” Helion challenged.

“How do you know for sure?” Rhys pressed back, an uncertainty in his tone.

“Because I know you all feel it too,” Helion’s voice was deep, a gleam in his eye as he turned to you proudly.

“She is the Mother’s daughter.”

A statement. Even more bold than Elain’s settled a silence across the courtyard. This time it wasn’t stifling, their energy shifting to something of awe, admiration and then devotion.

In one quick movement a figure dropped to their knees. Head pressing to the cool stone ground.

Amren had bowed before your feet.

And Amren bowed to no one.

a/n: Okay I know this a whole lot more of elusive-ness and I'm sorry, I just thought sharing this little bit more is better than nothing at all. I wanted to flesh this first out properly so here's the full part one! I've been so swamped with work and inspiration struck this evening so I quickly wrote this in my notes. I promise I will eventually finish it, even if it's just little updates here and there. I'm hoping maybe 2 more parts, so it'll be a nice little mini-series!

I also took it upon myself to try and tag everyone who commented and reblogged because you all seemed very invested so didn't want you to miss this installment even if it is tiny<3

Forever tags: @sleepylunarwolf @daily-dose-of-sass @alittlelostalittlefound-blog @milswrites @amberlynn98 @marscardigan @illyrianbitch @lilah-asteria

CB tags: @hannzoaks @je-suis-prest-rachel @awkardnerd @cleverzonkwombatsludge @faerieboismh @glitterypirateduck @paradisebabey @jesskidding3 @searchingforbucky @beardburnsupersoldiers @chubby-unicornz @toxicsociety17-blog g @sapphenaa @starsidesigh @kalistaangelsbane @bookishthoughtss @pit-and-the-pen

#acotar #azriel x reader #azriel x you #azriel fanfic #acotar azriel #acotar fanfiction #acotar series #angst #azriel shadowsinger #azriel spymaster #cauldron-born #azriel x y/n #azriel angst #reader x azriel #azriel acotar #azriel series

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sleepyangelkami · 5 months

Note

BRO I NEEDDD MORE OF PERVERTED!!!! OMG LIKE YOUR MIND>>>>>

PERVERTED III c.grimes

☆ WORD COUNT - 3.6K

CARL GRIMES X FEM!READER

☆ SUMMARY - after the perverted thoughts consume carl whole, he realises he needs to act on them and soon finds out that you need him to act on them just as badly.

☆ WARNINGS - smut, heavy innocence kink, corruption kink, pervert!carl, fingering, dom!carl, sub!reader, size kink, pussy eating, cum eating, aged up characters, thigh riding-ish, manipulative carl, praise kink, petnames, use of y/n, intended lower case, nothing i write is ever proofread 🩷

series masterlist

after that night in your bedroom, carl was downright desperate.

he realised that he needed to act upon his thoughts before it drove him over the edge of insanity. but there you were, prancing around in your little skirts and dresses, ditzy as ever. how was he ever supposed to explain his need to you?

that was just it, he was going to have to show you.

carl had been your best friend for a long time. you could trust him with anything in the world and carl would know if you'd ever done anything. that was the beauty in it. your innocence was bliss.

you were so innocent to the corrupt minds around you, not a single notion of the horrid thoughts of others. not a clue in your mind of just what carl wanted to do to you. no what he needed to do to you.

he knew he was going to have to ease you into it.

the first time carl had let you feel anything was during a rainy night of alexandria. the clouds were dull and full, slapping down on the outside windows. rick and michonne were on yet another supply run, no surprise there, and you and carl had been put in charge of taking care of judith.

it wasn't until she had been laid down asleep in bed that carl began to shift his mind back to you.

the clouds dulled until they were long gone. the night sky had settled in.

the tv displaying pretty images illuminated the room as you sat on carl's lap. when he'd asked if you'd like to sit there, it came as no surprise. you'd sat on carl's lap tonnes of times. whether it was just you two alone, sitting on the bed or perhaps you were in public, choosing to sit on his thigh rather than the bench occupied by the others.

however, what you didn't know was carl had much more in store for you than just watching the stupid movie that was playing.

you were engrossed in the flashing pictures, watching as each changed to another. you were the type of person to pay all your attention to one thing at a time, finding it hard to focus on more than one.

that was when your attention shifted.

it was a mere, 'innocent', bounce of carl's knee.

he did it as some sort of a test. he'd waited until you were so interested in the movie to do it. your two thighs had splayed at either side of his own. he'd waited until your cunt was snug on the jeans of his leg to rub it gently against you.

and by the sudden breath that left your lips, he deemed that you were almost as satisfied as he was.

nevertheless, you shook the feeling. you assumed the boy beneath you was merely trying to get comfortable so you tried to do the same, writhing yourself in the slightest.

that was when the smallest of whimpers left your mouth. with wide eyes, you clamped your mouth shut, hoping carl hadn't heard. "you okay?" he spoke softly in your ear, alerting you that he had heard.

only, you weren't trying to do anything wrong. like i said, you'd sat on carl's lap tonnes of times. but this time seemed... different. you were suddenly hyper aware of your skirt that was riding up ever so slightly and the way that fixing your position on his leg felt... good?

being in an apocalypse and all, you never really got too much education on... down there.

that was what carl was for, you supposed. he was basically your teacher in everything, any question you had went directly to him.

but what you did know was that parts like that were private and not to be shared. which is why you merely let out a small 'mhm' to indicate that you were, in fact, okay.

"alright." he mumbled back, his voice low as if not to disturb the serenity of the room.

you let a breath out, relaxing once more onto his leg.

carl knew he could have stopped there, letting you be all confused for the rest of the evening on just what that feeling you had was. but he didn't know how much you'd taken in, he needed to make sure that the feeling you felt was going to stick.

which was why he waited mere seconds before bouncing his leg again, like a kid in class riddled with ADHD.

you'd seen carl bouncing his leg like a maniac many times before. he'd do it under a table when he was nervous or angry or anything really. he often cracked his knuckles even when there was no air left to crack and shook his legs like there was no tomorrow. carl was always moving.

so how could you tell him to stop?

what would you even say?

did you even want him to stop?

there was an odd feeling in your stomach as he continued to bounce his leg up and down, hitting smoothly against your covered area. your breathing picked up but you did everything in your will to steady it.

some called carl grimes an ADD nightmare, this was a normal thing for him.

why was it suddenly not so normal for you?

perhaps it was the way his chin gently rested on your shoulder, gentle breath hitting against your neck or the way his hands soothed around your waist, his own calloused hands against your gentle skin where your satin dress lay on top.

the skirt of your dress bounced with every bounce of his leg too, exposing more of your thighs with each steady movement.

he was calculating and gentle, as if he knew you were becoming dizzy.

your throat itched too. you couldn't fathom why though you had a feeling it was a noise trying to crawl out.

you couldn't so much as stop yourself before your hands outstretched onto his thigh, stopping his movements.

he did so with the slightest smirk on his lips, knowing he'd gotten you exactly where you wanted. the way your thighs gently shook around him, you wouldn't so much as turn around. oh yes, you'd definitely felt it.

before he could question you in that gentle, condescending tone, the front door could be heard unlocking.

"gotta get my jacket." was the mumble that fell from your mouth as you helped yourself off of the boy's leg, grasping the pretty coat that sat on the other couch, where you'd originally been sitting. carl got up too, glancing down to his thigh. it was a wonder that there wasn't a large wet splotch on his jeans.

shortly after, rick and michonne entered the house, looking tired as ever. they asked a couple questions about judith, making sure you'd both been taking care of her right before they found themselves stating that they were heading up to bed.

carl gave somewhat of a disgusted look to the way they were looking at eachother. he din't even want to imagine what they'd be getting up to the minute they stepped into the bedroom.

"you sure you don't wanna stay the night?" he questioned, walking you to the front door of his home. you didn't live too far away which was the only reason he was letting you walk out in the dark alone. with his luck, he'd see you getting settled into your house while he still stood at the door.

you looked up at him with slightly wide eyes, you looked a little dazed. your hands were holding eachother behind your back, ignoring the feeling throbbing through your cunt. how had he done something so simple and left you feeling like this? "mhm." you hummed.

he gave you a look. "and you're positive you're okay?" tilting his head. "you seem a little off." he knew exactly why you were off.

but you weren't going to let anything on. "no, i'm okay." nodding your head, trying to convince both him and yourself.

"you know you can talk to me about anything, right baby?" he stepped forward, his words a little quieter as he spoke to you. his eyes flickered down to your bottom lip between your top teeth. "anything at all..."

you looked like you were contemplating, unsure if it was exactly appropriate to share with anyone even if it was just your best friend.

though your eyes quickly turned back to rick who was now standing in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water. "I'm okay." you quickly quipped.

rick turned around, swallowing the water. "you off, y/n?" you nodded, swallowing thickly. "right, night then, and thanks again for watching judith."

"anytime." you mumbled back, eyes flickering up to carl. "g'night, carl."

"night, angel." and so, you left.

the sky rose just as soon as it had gone down. carl hadn't steadied his movements since. hours passed, merging into days and carl was getting braver by the second. he couldn't help it, you were like putty, just so easy to mold.

by the time the saturday sleepover rolled around again, the boy was near ecstatic.

he'd gotten you exactly where he wanted in many ways, with little fluttering touches and words whispered gently, that could have been taken in any way. but he must say, his favourite place to have you was sat atop his thigh, gently bumping against it as he shook it from the ground.

he did it again now, maggie and glenn were long gone on yet another supply run, stocking up on the foods. they wouldn't be home until the next morning, possibly the morning after that.

but there simply wasn't anything else carl could think about other than the girl sat perched on his thigh. your hands were near your stomach, fiddling with themseleves, pulling on your fingers gently, contemplating.

carl didn't stop the bounce of his knee, moving it so accurately that you could feel a pool forming in your panties. you'd never felt like this before. and you were sure that carl knew this too.

this was the longest he'd ever done it, he should have stopped ages ago, knowing he didn't wish to push you too far. however, your little shaky breaths had his head spinning, he couldn't stop, not now.

you were contemplating asking him to stop. something about his shaking leg beneath you had you feeling awfully funny. but you couldn't decipher if it was a good feeling or not. besides, you couldn't understand why it was that his moving leg had your head feeling dizzy.

"carl?" your mouth got the better of you. it was supposed to come out as a steady question, voice stable, however, it came out more breathless than you'd intended, a slight whine to the back of your throat.

carl's hands had gently been resting against your waist. "hm?" he took the hint to stop, though.

beneath you, his leg froze.

your mind went sort of fuzzy then, that was when you realised it had, in fact, been a good feeling. your mind raced back to moments ago when the wet patch was forming on your satin panties. you couldn't even register what was going on before you slid yourself against his leg, not once, not even twice.

"sweetheart?" his voice was soft, calculated. it had you realising what you were doing, but still, your aching cunt dragged across his jeaned leg. "what're you doing? hm?"

a breath fell from your lips. you gently willed yourself to stop your movements before turning your face to the boy. you had pinched brows, lips bitten, desperation written all over your face. "carl, i―" the words left had you frowning.

carl merely rubbed his fingers against your waist. "somethin' wrong?" he questioned softly. "'s just me, you can tell me, baby."

and suddenly, it was your last straw.

but carl had already known that.

he'd moved his hands so gently around you for the past week, bounced you against his thigh every chance he got and whispered meak things to you, calling you such pretty names. he knew sooner or later you were bound to snap.

"you..." you let out a sigh, eyes avoiding the boy. "you can't laugh."

without a second thought, carl's fingers hooked themselves beneath your chin, angling your face up and forcing you to look at him. "'m not gonna laugh at you, angel." and his comforting features looked as though they were telling nothing but the truth. "jus' tell me what's going on."

you sighed, trying to avert your eyes. "everytime you bounce your leg... it feels funny." you tried to keep your voice as low as possible, throat closing and your cheeks heating up. it was hard trying to keep your composure in font of him, especially when talking about such a private thing.

"yeah?" seemingly unfazed by what you'd told him. "where's it feel funny?" again, your cheeks heated up, only this time you were sure that you were as red as a tomato. "baby, i can't help you if you don't tell me."

and you were sure you needed his help. after all, he was the only one that had made you feel so... worked up. instead of uttering a word, you practically whined before pushing your head into his shirt covered chest. you grasped his hand, sucking in as you guided it downwards.

carl couldn't help but smirk as you moved his hand to cup your shorts-covered cunt. you whimpered at the touch of his hand, quickly moving your own away, as if scared you were going to mess something up.

carl placed his palm against the pale shorts, his thumb moving up towards your clit and gently drawing circles. you whined loudly. "here's where it feels funny, huh?" you nodded your head quickly, breaths falling ragged as his gentle, tight circles moved against your clit. "y'gonna answer me?"

"y-yes." coming out as more of a moan rather than an answer. you were suddenly thankful that maggie and glenn were nowhere to be found in the house.

there was a sudden smile splayed on his lips. "good girl." he mumbled, sending electric shocks through your body and right down to your aching pussy. you couldn't understand how two simple words were enough to have you rutting your hips against the boys hands.

though instantly, your face heated again. embarrassment flooded you as you realised what was happening, stinging tears finding it's way to your eyes. "carl." you spluttered out, whimpering as you did so. carl merely shushed you, his free hand coming down to land on the back of your hair, holding your head close to it's place on his chest.

"wh's wrong, baby?" he waited for a response, all you could give him was a second whimper. "want me to stop?"

"no!" was your much too enthusiastic response that had his lips curving upwards. so you did want it as much as he did. "no, please don't stop."

"then tell me what you want." you shied away, cheeks evidently rosy and pink. but you didn't utter a word, much too sheepish.

suddenly, the feeling he was giving to your clit completely stopped. his hand still hung low but they didn't touch you. the whine you let out had your eyes turning glassy. he reminded you that he'd asked you to tell him what you wanted. but you could barely hear his voice now, mind too clouded with the previous pleasure. "f-felt..." your own hand attempted to replace his, rubbing at your covered cunt but it didn't give you the pleasure his had.

you felt his hand reach up and snap your wrist between his fingers, stopping your movements. "you wanna feel good, huh?" you nodded your head, tears stinging. "then the only hands that get to touch you are mine, understood?" you nodded before he squeezed on your wrist, not hard enough to hurt. "understood?"

"yes." was the breathless word as his fingers let go of your wrist.

"now, tell me what you want." almost instantly, his stern voice had disappeared and turned into one of softness again. it was almost scary how quickly he could turn from one demeanour to another. but you were much too hazy now to question anything.

you breathed heavily, cheeks warm. but carl just waited, his eyes looking at you full of admiration, a stark contrast to the stern look he'd had before. "i want..." he waited, not rushing you, patiently. "want you to make me feel good." your voice was so quiet, so small and you were looking anywhere but his face. you thought it was somewhat awkward in a sense, more scary really. he'd shrug it off for your natural shyness that simply never went away.

"see?" his voice gentle and loving. "wasn't hard, was it?" you shook your head no despite it being the hardest thing you'd done all year. "now get onto your back, angel." you did what he said, not wishing to disappoint him. he followed by climbing on top of you, watching your doe eyes slightly widen.

a breath.

he was so close, lips practically brushing against your own. you'd known carl a very long time but you were sure this was the closest he'd ever been. "'m gonna kiss you, okay?" you nodded, slightly unsure. you'd never been kissed before and you had no idea that it related to the feeling that you'd felt earlier. "it'll all make sense in a second, sweetheart." he mumbled, hands on your waist. "just... relax."

and suddenly, his lips were on yours.

his lips were even softer than they looked. and if that was what you thought of his lips, you could only imagine what he thought of yours. he kissed you gently, open mouthed kissing with his tongue slipping past yours.

now you understood.

it definitely related to the feeling.

as he was kissing you, you had the sudden urge to roll your hips upwards, into his own. carl had this way of making you feel so comfortable that you didn't have to worry the outcome. so you did. rolling your hips gently yet desperately.

you felt him let out a harsher breath into your mouth. his lips moved from your mouth. you felt him press a kiss to the corner of your lips, then to your chin and down to your neck. the feeling of him sucking against the supple skin had a whimper falling from your lips, then another and a long stretched whine.

his lips moved away and his tongue soothed down the hurt skin.

you supposed, you knew what sex was. it was an intimate form of love on your partner. was that what you and carl were going to do? sex? carl wasn't your boyfriend but he was the only one in the entire world you'd felt such a connection to. you supposed, if anyone was to have sex with you, it may as well be carl grimes.

"sweetheart." he breathed against your neck. "keep making sounds like that 'n i won't be able to last." to last? for what?

you didn't even care what he was saying, just the sound of his voice was enough to have you reeling. "carl, please just..."

"shh." he hushed you, practically cooing. "s'needy." before his hands moved back down towards your shorts. "can i take this off?" though he wasn't just grasping the band of your shorts but of your panties too. however, you couldn't seem to care. nodding enthusiastically before helping him guide the material off your body.

carl's breath hitched in his throat. he'd seen you before, he'd seen you when you were sleeping and he plunged a finger inside you, tasted you even. even so, it was like seeing you for the first time all over again.

he could see you red as a tomato above him, covering your face. you'd known carl forever, but something about being nude with him over you on your couch seemed like something a best friend shouldn't do. carl didn't allow the shyness to continue, peppering gentle kisses across the skin of your face. "hey, hey." gently removing your hands. "you're beautiful."

your hands suddenly pawed at the end of his shirt. if you were going to be bare, he should too, right? "can you..?"

"wan't me to take of my shirt, baby?" you only nodded, pressing your lips together. he nodded himself before placing his hands at the end of his shirt, bringing it up and above his head, tossing it off the couch. "your turn." he mumbled, pressing kisses to your neck before grasping the bottom of your own shirt. you allowed him to pull it over your own head.

it was no surprise that there was no bra found underneath, your perky tits bouncing gently. he moved his lips downwards, sucking on one and grasping the other between his fingers, flicking over your pretty nipple. you whined, back arching off the couch and hands finding his hair, tugging at the strands.

his lips popped over your nipple, letting go with a string of spit attatching the two of you. he pushed his large hand onto your chest, thumb at one end of your tits and other fingers at the other, pushing them together. you were so small compared to him, it had his own mind reeling. "so fucking pretty."

"carl." there was desperation in his eyes. the amount of times you had uttered his name would have made anyone think you were reciting it as if he were god himself. "need you." you didn't even know what you meant yourself. all you did know was that you needed him, in whatever way possible.

"i know, pretty girl." his fingers traced your cheek, cupping it ever so softly. "'m gonna touch you, okay?"

nervously, you found yourself nodding. you knew by him touching you, the ache would go away. how you knew that, you were unsure. perhaps it was because you put so much trust in carl to do what was right.

you expected the soft flutter of his long fingers, the gentle tracing of the pads against your skin. what you hadn't been expecting was the mouth that suddenly landed on your core.

as if on cue, your back arched against the couch once more. a moan of both surprise and pleasure fell from your lips. you felt the vibrations of a chuckle throughout your body, from him. he'd been waiting for this moment for too long to let it slip from his fingers.

the foreign feeling of a face between your thighs had you writhing. you allowed his tongue to explore your cunt, whining and whimpering while your hands clung to his hair, overcome with a foreign pleasure.

never, had you felt this good in your entire life.

an eerie sense was embedded right in your stomach, telling you that this was all wrong. the feelings you felt and the way his hands moved against your body, it had to be wrong. but the pleasure of his tongue lapping against your cunt told you that no matter how hard he tried, nothing carl could do would ever be wrong.

you felt him insert a finger into your hole and you were sure you'd lost it.

"carl!" you moaned out, unsure what words to use. "carl―nughhh!" no words could grasp your tongue signifying how good it felt.

your wetness seeped onto his tongue, decorating it with your pretty juices, and his finger had a rim of white surrounding it, belonging to you. his face moved up from your pussy, glancing to your own face. your head was thrown back, eyes shut and reflection twisted. "i know, baby." pumping his finger in and out of you in quick motions. "feels good, huh?"

you nodded your head, babbling incoherently despite the fact that carl couldn't make out a single word you said. he nodded with a smirk, anyway.

this was so much better now that you were awake.

"uh huh?" he was practically testing you, your moans coming out strangled and harsh. "yeah, told you i'd fix it, huh?"

and boy, did he fix it.

the sensation grew and you began to get a sudden knotted feeling in your stomach. it was foreign, new and strange. but despite that, you were sure you'd felt it before. perhaps in a dream? one of which carl had remembered all too well.

a sudden panicked state came over you. "carl" you babbled out, a hint of worry in your voice.

carl placed his free hand on your thigh, gently rubbing against it and shushing you. "shh, shh, you can take it." his mouth travelling back to where you needed him the most.

you couldn't even give him a warning.

the orgasm fell over you before you could even register what was happening. your back practically lept from the couch, good thing carl's hand had been keeping your stomach steady against the material. mewls fell from your lips, shameful mewls that had your eyes rolling to the back of your head.

your legs shook from around his head, his name falling from your red and swollen lips like a prayer, fingers tight around his little curls.

finally, his head reappeared from it's place between your thighs, a grin on his face.

your eyes were low, sort of red. and he swore it was the prettiest sight he'd ever seen.

"feel good, huh?" pride on his smug face. he came up to meet your own by the arm of the couch, hand moving your hair past your ear.

you had this sinking, gnawing feeling as you glanced up at him. "but... what about you?" thinking that surely couldn't have made him feel good. you'd never experienced pleasure like that before, you were sure everyone in the world should get to experience it at least once.

"don't worry about me, sweet girl." peppering gentle kisses to the nape of your neck. "next time." he spoke despite his hand moving against his dick, straightening it out after his own cum leaked through his jeans.

he came in his pants because of you. again.

main masterlist/carl's masterlist

1K notes · View notes

anto-pops · 6 months

Text

Sudsy Confessions - Sebastian Sallow x Female!Reader

Summary: As the end of the school year continues to creep up on all of the seventh-year students, Sebastian has thought about what’s to come after graduation shamefully little. He’s equal parts annoyed and worried that he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life, and he’s even more frustrated that he’s running out of time to tell you how he really feels about you. When a chance opportunity finally presents itself, Sebastian seizes the moment, even if the setting is a little… unorthodox.

Alternatively summarized as Sebastian confessing his long-harbored love for you while you’re naked in a bathtub.

Word Count: 6.8k

Warnings: 18+, aged up characters, explicit sexual content, love confessions, bathtub sex

Full fic can also be found here on Ao3 with more diverse tags :))

It was rare for Sebastian to get so bent out of shape over Quidditch. Especially since it had been an unofficial scrimmage between him and a handful of friends– which he had still won, mind— but it was the topic of discussion that had transpired after the actual event in The Three Broomsticks that had gotten him all hot and bothered, and there was no way around the truth of the matter.

Garreth had brought up graduation.

It was a topic that Sebastian had done his best to steer clear of since he had yet to formulate a plan for himself after Hogwarts. Apparently Weasley would be starting an apprenticeship with J. Pippins at his shop in Hogsmeade, which had warranted a few hesitant congratulations from the rest of his motley group. It was obvious that Leander and Imelda assumed the same thing Sebastian did; that Garreth would probably blow up the shop soon after starting.

Then there was Imelda. Headstrong, resilient, and determined to prove herself. She fully intended on trying out for the Holyhead Harpies Quidditch team after graduation and refused to believe she would do anything but succeed. There was no reason to doubt her at all– she’d always been masterful on her broom and had set new records left and right since Professor Black had reinstated Quidditch again. Sebastian only hoped that he was well out of sight in the event things didn’t go the way Imelda wanted them to.

Leander had taken a bit of a sharp turn somewhere between the start of school and the present moment and apparently wanted to apply to work at the Ministry. Specifically, he’d been talking about joining the Council of Magical Law– evidently finding the power that would come with such a position all too appealing. Sebastian couldn’t help but think it was rather on brand for the Gryffindor to think as much, but his encouragement had been lukewarm all the same.

Though he hadn’t joined them at The Three Broomsticks, it was already known that Ominis was also thinking about working for the Ministry, but with a different motive. He wanted to get more closely involved with the Muggle Liaison Office for reasons that continued to escape Sebastian. Whether it was to learn more about their differences to wizard-kind or to spite his family further, Sebastian didn’t know, but he was frankly inclined to believe the latter.

Then there was you. The enigma, the mystery– the great unknown that had turned his entire world upside down from the moment you’d walked through the Great Hall doors two years ago. He had no clue what your plans were after graduation, and not knowing was slowly eating him alive. It had less to do with being kept out of the loop and more to do with his unspoken feelings for you– feelings that he had been keeping to himself for years now in a bid to keep his friendship with you unmarred. After your tumultuous fifth-year, it had understandably taken some time for the two of you to get back to any semblance of normalcy, and now that graduation was approaching, he couldn’t help but feel like time was slipping through his fingers.

Sebastian’s previously upbeat demeanor had darkened considerably after that conversation, leading him to bail entirely on drinks at the pub in favor of returning to Hogwarts to wallow in self-pity.

He’d moved in absolute silence following his return, a metaphorical rain cloud looming over his head as he’d gone to his dorm to grab his toiletries and a change of clothes before setting off for the Prefect’s bathroom. Friday nights were notoriously quiet now that everyone’s N.E.W.T’s had been completed, and Sebastian relished in the solitude that he always found in the spacious washroom. Sneaking in and using it was well worth the risk if it spared him from more idle conversations with his fellow classmates.

It wasn’t unusual for the door to be locked– due in large part to the fact that it always was– so he undid the latch with his wand and shouldered the door open, barreling into the humid space with the grace of a hurricane. He tossed his items down on the countertop beside the sink and ripped his toothbrush out of his bag, shoving it in-between his lips as he turned the faucet on and rifled around for his bath soaps. Disappointment clouded his mind as his thoughts wandered back to you and the unknown future. It wouldn’t take much more than courage and a slim chance for Sebastian to get his feelings for you off his chest, but his fear of rejection kept him rooted in place. He was certain that at this point, it always would.

“Keep running the water like that and you’ll drain the entire lake,” a familiar voice said from somewhere behind him. Sebastian damn near choked himself with his toothbrush as he whirled around to face the culprit, and then he found himself on the verge of fainting when he realized it was you.

You were lounging in the massive tub with a smile on your face, not at all bothered by Sebastian’s sudden intrusion. Your hair was pinned up off of your bare shoulders in a messy heap, and the brunet stood no chance at concealing his blatant double take when he caught sight of your wet skin. The bulk of your naked body was covered by the scant spread of bubbles, but the tantalizing view of your collarbones had a flush rapidly spreading across his cheeks.

“I– shit– I’m so sorry, I didn’t think anyone was in here,” Sebastian frantically mumbled around his mouthful of toothbrush. Dammit, he sounded like a fool. He ripped the thin stick from his mouth and spun back around to shut off the faucet and hastily gather his belongings from the counter.

“You didn’t really knock to find out, but it’s fine. Don’t rush off on my account.”

Your nonchalant tone made him pause, and he hesitantly lifted his head to stare at your reflection in the mirror. True to your words, you seemed wholly unbothered by his presence, simply continuing to bask in the warmth of the water as the steam wafted up into your face.

There wasn’t a chance in hell he could have anticipated something like this happening.

Almost reluctantly, Sebastian dropped his towel back onto the countertop, instead picking up the paste for his toothbrush before setting to work brushing his teeth. He watched through the mirror as you raked your wet fingers through the free strands of hair that had fallen in front of your face, and the sound of the disturbed water dripping down your arms echoed through the space. “Did you win your scrimmage?” Your eyes never wavered from his in the reflection, and he nodded. “Go out for drinks afterwards?” Another nod, switching to brush the other side of his mouth. “Ominis and Garreth?” Sebastian shook his head. “What, Garreth and Leander?”

He mumbled around a mouthful of foam, “An’ Imelda.”

Your expression pinched into one of confusion as you mused, “I thought you didn’t like drinking with Leander.” Sebastian only shrugged in vague response before bending forward to spit and rinse, trying incredibly hard to not think about how very naked and wet you were presently. He was unsuccessful.

For a brief moment, Sebastian debated on changing into his pajamas and leaving despite having come to bathe, but something possessed him to turn around and contemplate you after he turned off the faucet. The easy smile on your face and your half hooded eyes almost knocked him out, and he swallowed thickly.

What was it he had thought to himself just moments earlier? Courage and a slim chance? Was this not exactly that?

“Hey,” he muttered softly, his voice almost a whisper. “What are your plans after graduation?”

You tilted your head to the side in visible confusion, a strand of hair falling in front of your eyes seductively from the movement. He tried not to stare too hard. “Plans?”

“What will you do once it’s time to leave? You haven’t said anything to me about it– or Ominis,” he added quickly. “We were talking about it in Hogsmeade earlier, so I was just wondering.”

You seemed to ponder his question for a minute, your wandering hands coming to a sudden halt in the mass of bubbles. Truthfully, you hadn’t brought it up to either of the Slytherin men because you hadn’t come to a final decision yet, but it made sense that with the completion of your N.E.W.T’s, people would begin planning their post-Hogwarts lives. The thought made you equal parts sad and nervous.

“I thought about getting a job at first… to make a name for myself and save money, you know? But honestly, I think I might travel. I’ve explored virtually all of the Highlands for ancient magic sites and I think I’ve hit a dead end. I want to learn more about Isidora’s magic– the power from the Repository is still as much of an unknown now as it was two years ago. It’s just collecting dust inside of me at this point.”

Sebastian gave you a nonplussed blink and did his damndest not to sound paranoid when he responded. “Travel? Where exactly were you thinking?”

You shrugged and averted your gaze to the bubbles in front of you. Of course Sebastian would be displeased to discover that yet another person from his life would be departing it so soon. It was part of the reason you’d been keeping your intentions to yourself for so long. Nonetheless, you answered softly, “Maybe to Poland. Isidora’s notes mentioned that she originally hailed from there–”

“Poland?” Sebastian’s frantic voice cut you off, and he found his legs carrying him to the edge of the bathtub to kneel there and bore holes in the top of your head from across the water. “You would go that far to chase after a maybe? You don’t know for certain if looking out there will even bring you any new information– it sounds incredibly reckless.”

You fixed him with a hard, telling look. “That’s rich, coming from you. Who was it that refused to let up in his search for a cure for all of fifth-year?”

His brows slammed down atop his narrowed eyes, “That was different.”

“How is it any different?” You sounded exasperated, and he sighed indignantly. “You wanted answers, and you never stopped looking for them. You had nothing to go off of, much like myself presently, and you were willing to do anything if it meant saving Anne. I want to use this power for something good, Sebastian. I can’t do that if I don’t know how it works. Leaving is the only plausible outcome for me.”

“It would be that easy for you, then? To leave and disappear for who knows how long searching for who knows what? Would you have even told me if I hadn’t asked just now?”

It would be that easy for you to leave me, is what he really wasn’t saying.

You shook your head at him, completely bewildered that he was so affected by your revelation. “Eventually, yes, I would have. I don’t understand– why do you care so much? You of all people should know I would keep in touch; I’ll send owls every week, keep you updated on where I am and what happens. Going our separate ways was practically always in the cards, Sebastian.”

Some tiny, annoying part of him had always known that. Living at Hogwarts was a blissful reprieve from the real world, offering himself and other students a sanctuary from the concerns and problems of adult life. Hearing you voice your thoughts was a completely different thing, however, and Sebastian was woefully unprepared for the dawning realization that he wouldn’t be able to see you anymore.

He silently cursed himself for having taken this fucking long to accept how empty he would feel without you beside him.

“Sebastian,” you whispered from across the tub, and his eyes slid shut at the sound of your gentle voice. It hurt too much to fathom not getting to hear it again, or not being able to see you and crack stupid jokes with you in the middle of Potion’s class. He wouldn’t get to duel other students with you in Crossed Wands, or go to Hogsmeade to drink Butterbeers and stop by the lake on your walks back to skip rocks. All of it would end, and he would be alone.

Again.

“Sebastian,” you said again, and the closer proximity of your voice had him cracking his eyes open. You were directly in front of him now, evidently having left your spot on the other side of the bath to siddle directly up to the ledge in front of him. Your wide eyes gazed imploringly up at him, and your grip on the edge of the tub was white-knuckled. “Why do you care so much?”

“How could I not care?” He forced the words out while he still had the courage, seemingly gazing into the depths of your very soul as he stared down at you. His words had your eyes widening further as a flush crept up your neck onto your cheeks, and before you got the chance to say anything, Sebastian was leaning down to capture your lips in a desperate kiss.

A surprised squeak weaseled its way from your throat as he lifted his hands to cradle your head cautiously, and you weakly curled your fingers around his wrists as he dipped lower to accommodate for the awkward angle. Sebastian kissed you hungrily and passionately– in the way he had dreamed of doing for years. He licked along your lower lip and bit gently at it, pulling a gasp from your parted lips before one of your hands came to rest on his bent knee, leaving a wet handprint behind in its wake.

After a few heated moments, Sebastian broke away to look at you through his lashes, more surprised than anything to discover that your face was an open book; a mixture of shock and hesitance was etched into your features while something much hotter burned in your eyes, making his head fucking spin.

“Sebastian, I– ah…”

He let you go and sat back on his heels then, crossing his arms over his knees and resting his chin on his forearms as he peered at you nervously. There were a thousand different things Sebastian wanted to blurt out, but he settled for staying quiet as he waited for you to say something– anything.

You gaped up at him for a moment, blinking slowly as the flush across your cheeks darkened considerably. “How long?”

He shrugged timidly before he said, “Ages. Since fifth-year, if I’m being honest.”

“You didn’t… say anything?” His curly brown locs brushed across his forehead as he shook his head. “Why?”

“After everything that happened in the Catacombs, I was terrified of fucking things up again. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship– I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. So I just… kept my feelings to myself. But now you’re telling me you would leave– that it was always inevitable things would end this way– and I can’t accept that. I refuse to.”

You didn’t know what to say. Your mind was reeling from Sebastian’s revelation, and your heart was hammering away in your chest so loudly that you were certain he could hear it. Of course you felt the exact same way, but much like Sebastian you’d been worried about ruining things or complicating your already tentative relationship– especially after the events of your fifth-year. But now here he was– on his damn knees confessing to you– and your thoughts of the future vanished completely from your mind.

Biting your lip, you stared up at Sebastian for a moment with wide eyes. One of your hands rose off the edge of the tub to trail your wet fingers across his cheek, and as Sebastian’s freckled face moved away from his arm to swim clearly into view, you stood straight out of the water invitingly and let him wrap his strong arms around your bare waist. As the water beading over your skin soaked through Sebastian’s shirt, his eyes flickered between yours, searching for the hesitance he’d seen there before.

It was nowhere to be found.

When your lips met with his again, the softness had left them, and the two of you kissed one another hard and needily. Sebastian straightened and nipped at your lips, smiling against your mouth as you melted into him, and your breath caught somewhere in your throat when his tongue slipped into your open mouth to tangle with your own. Holding you tighter, Sebastian trailed his hands over your slick skin– traversing up your spine and into your unruly hair to tangle his fingers in the strands at the nape of your neck. He kissed you desperately, moaning softly into your mouth when he felt your hands sweep across his shoulders to fumble with the buttons at the front of his shirt.

You’d made it about halfway down the row of clasps before Sebastian grew impatient, freeing one of his hands to deftly undo the buttons with a practiced finesse that made your mouth water eagerly. He panted along the curve of your jaw as he undressed, biting and sucking at the skin of your throat until he was pulling away to shrug the damp material off of his shoulders. His tie was still snug around his neck, clamping the collar of his button-up in place, and he growled as he loosened the thin bit of fabric before yanking it over his head and diving back into the kiss like he’d been starved of your very essence.

Until now the bizarre angle had proved to be a non-issue– but then the pressing matter of his trousers came to light, and you felt as Sebastian blindly palmed at his belt buckle in a bid to undo it. “Need help?” Your coy offer whispered against his lips sent shivers up his spine, but he was too frantic and greedy to give you the chance to assist.

Those toned, capable arms released you so he could stand fully, his lust-dark eyes never wavering from yours as he finally succeeded in unlooping his belt from around his waist. “Just don’t move and keep watching like that– it’s helping me plenty.”

You flashed him a mocking pout but did as he asked, settling back into the water and scanning his body longingly as he stripped down to his briefs. He teasingly ran his thumbs under the waistband of his undergarments and shot you a smug look, all too pleased with the way you licked your lips when he eventually began slipping the attire down the delectable ‘V’ of his hips. The sight of Sebastian biting his lip as his cock sprung free and arched proudly against his toned stomach had you halting your movements, though, and you audibly whimpered before the brunet threw his briefs over his shoulder and descended into the soapy water with you.

In a flash he had you back within reach, his hands coming to cup your rear as he silently prompted you to jump into his arms so he could carry you through the water towards the rim of the massive tub. Your back bumped against the tiles there, and Sebastian took full advantage by pressing himself into you more firmly. The hard, stiff length of him rubbed tantalizingly against your folds, and you sighed contentedly before his mouth was on yours once more.

The two of you languidly kissed for what seemed like forever, and you were more than willing to continue for as long as Sebastian saw fit. When one of the hands he had against your rear began to slip lower into uncharted territory, you smiled against his lips and huffed out an airy laugh. “Eager, are you?”

“Shut up,” Sebastian murmured against your mouth, holding fast to your bottom harder and with greater fervor. “You have no idea how long I’ve been dreaming of this.”

You arched your hips against Sebastian’s and drew in a shaky breath at the sensation of his shaft grazing over a particularly sensitive spot. “Then show me,” you implored.

Growling again, Sebastian wrangled you around until you were kneeling on the ledge with your back to him and your hands braced on the rim of the bathtub. His hands were seemingly everywhere; sliding down your shoulder blades, scratching at the curve of your waist, then ghosting down the backs of your thighs as he nudged your legs apart further. You felt as he leaned forward to press a chaste kiss against the outline of your spine, and there wasn’t a chance in hell you could smother the shudder of delight that coursed through you. Sebastian moved on swiftly, though, and began pressing messy, open-mouthed kisses against your lower back, curling his hands around your hips before you felt him descend closer to your nether region. In your current position, it was just barely peeking above the thin layer of bubbles within the tub, and you heard the water slosh around Sebastian as he dropped to his knees and came face to face with your most intimate parts.

The broad slick of Sebastian’s tongue sliding through your folds pulled a startled gasp from your lips, and your forehead fell against the tile with a soft, stuttered moan. The feeling of him tasting you– achingly and deliberately slow– had you shaking in earnest as you bit your knuckle for a semblance of control. You were struggling against the urge to rock back into his ministrations, eventually settling for reaching between your spread legs with your free hand to rub at your clit for some added reprieve, but then Sebastian slid his palms from your hips to your inner thighs to nudge your hand away.

“Let me take care of you,” he whispered to you, and you mewled softly before tucking your hand against your chest and nodding. “Don’t hold back, either. I want to hear you.”

You were on the verge of responding, but the way Sebastian slid his tongue over you again drove whatever words you’d formulated straight out of your head. His hands ghosted along your skin as he lowered himself further, the tops of his shoulders completely submerging beneath the soapy water, and he took care to trail his fingers slowly down the sensitive skin of your inner thighs as he made himself comfortable behind you.

Sebastian laved his tongue over you gently and encouragingly, then experimentally stiffened the muscle before poking it inside of you, leaving you whining and gasping his name. The brunet pushed his tongue in deeper then, moaning in response to the hitch in your voice as he pressed his lips against your folds and fucked the muscle into you slowly.

“Gods, S-Sebastian–”

The man in question sighed and picked up his pace, flicking his tongue into you and dropping messy kisses against you. One of his hands slid up to your clit, brushing two of his fingers over the bundle of nerves with a moan, and when he leaned in hard to fuck his tongue as deep as possible into you, your high, airy whimpers made Sebastian’s head spin.

With one last pump of his tongue, Sebastian pulled away, grinning at the way you twitched in response to his efforts. You heard the water stir and felt the warm, wet weight of the Slytherin drape over your back as he leaned forward to kiss across your shoulder, his hands running soothingly up the sides of your waist.

“Fuck,” Sebastian breathed out, prompting you to turn and look at him over your shoulder. Your half-hooded eyes and parted lips sparked something in him then, and when you reached back to tangle your fingers in his hair, the brunet leaned in to meet you gladly. You moaned into the kiss, drawing a like-minded sound from Sebastian when you ground your hips back against his throbbing member. His thick hands gripped at your waist tightly as he gasped against your mouth, a desire unlike any he’d ever experienced overtaking him in a matter of seconds. The urge to feel you encasing him was overwhelming– enough so that for one brief moment, Sebastian allowed himself to press so hard against you that it stole your breath and smothered your senses.

“Sebastian,” you groaned from beneath him. Your gaze sought him out, but his own eyes were pinched shut as he relished in the ecstasy that fell over him from merely grinding against you. It wasn’t simply the act itself that was doing it for him. It was knowing that he was doing it with you. Everything he had craved for two whole years was finally coming to fruition, and despite wanting to relish in every second of it with you, Sebastian was losing himself to his impulses. You called to him again, “Sebastian, please.”

His chocolate brown eyes cracked open at the sound of your voice coupled with your incessant tugging on his hair, and his shaky sigh told you everything you needed to know; he was incredibly eager.

“S-Sorry,” he stammered out, swallowing thickly in a way that drew your attention to his bobbing adam’s apple. You merely shook your head in silent dismissal, then rocked back against him to spur him into motion. If it was guidance he needed, you were more than happy to provide it. “I don’t know how much longer I can draw this out,” he admitted with a low voice, and as though to punctuate the statement, you felt his fingers dig into the skin of your hips to prevent you from moving against him any further.

“Then don’t,” you insisted needily, yanking lightly on his hair once more to goad him into moving. “I’m ready if you are.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” Sebastian murmured, his voice gravelly and directly against the shell of your ear. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

You shivered in anticipation when you felt one of his hands trail down the swell of your rear to probe at your slick entrance with one of his fingers. His other hand traced soothing circles against lower back, relaxing you further until you had melted against the rim of the tub with your neck craned to the side to watch Sebastian as he worked.

When he sank one of his fingers into you slowly, you let loose a shaky exhale and felt a flush creep up your neck and onto your cheeks, leaving Sebastian biting his lip at the wanton image you made as he pressed the digit knuckle deep. Thrusting slowly, he eventually managed to work a second finger into you, trying not to think too hard about the way you looked spread around him, or the way you moved back against him, or how fucking wet you were.

“Sebastian,” you groaned. His eyes flicked back up to yours, entirely certain that he looked just as fucking needy as you did– especially given the way you shivered and rode back against his hand a little harder. “C-Curl your fingers down a little–” he did so, and was instantly rewarded with a telling jolt from you. “Oh fuck– there–”

The sound of Sebastian moaning to himself was almost lost in the way you were gasping and keening, and he moved his hand from your back to your hip to hold you in place as he followed the same path you’d instructed him to with his fingers. He thrusted a little harder, curling his digits against your sweet spot, and the way you arched your back and spread your thighs as far as you could without slipping while you gasped for Sebastian was fucking intoxicating.

It was too much.

Sebastian pulled his fingers free and reached towards you without a second thought, coiling his arm around your waist as he leaned in to kiss you again. You couldn’t help but whine at the way his cock rubbed against you, and you were near boneless in the brunet’s arms as his lips molded to yours and his tongue delved into your mouth. His strong arm held you fast to him as the other braced against the rim of the tub, holding him steady above you as he kissed you senseless. When he finally broke away to catch his breath, you practically sagged into the water beneath him.

“Merlin, Sebastian…”

“Are you okay?” The Slytherin’s voice was rough when he asked, low and raspy with arousal, and once you gave your enthusiastic approval, Sebastian reached between the two of you to line himself up before pressing into you.

Sebastian’s eyes squeezed shut at how you felt around him; tight, hot, and utterly incredible. He just barely managed to keep his composure as he slowly filled you, and your scarcely stifled gasps and keening whimpers were decidedly not helping him keep his wits about him. Every fiber of Sebastian’s being urged him to ram his cock into you– to fuck your brains out and hear his name spill from your lips in breathless screams. When he finally did sheathe himself all the way inside of you, he melted against your back, holding you tightly and whispering your name against your ear over and over again.

“Fuck, you’re…” you trailed off, subtly shaking against Sebastian’s damp skin. “You’re b-big.”

“Gods, darling,” Sebastian breathed, exhaling roughly into the nape of your neck. “Can I move?”

You gave a stuttered assent, but you were still insanely tight around his cock, so for both your sakes when Sebastian pulled back a little and rolled his hips back in, he did so slowly in a bid to test the waters.

No pun intended.

Your choked moan was more than enough of an answer for him, so he worked to set a slow, deep rhythm, buying himself time to get used to the heat wrapped around his cock. The gentle sigh that emanated from you coupled with the way your back bowed ever so slightly told Sebastian that his restraint was appreciated. But then you were glancing back at him from over your shoulder, and the rosy flush that colored your cheeks combined with your glazed over eyes nullified the majority of his self-control.

Sebastian blindly trusted you to keep steady on your knees as he gripped your hips to thrust into you harder, moving faster and giving gasping moans as you tensed and groaned, squeezing him in the most perfect way. He pulled you back onto his cock, adjusting his hips so he could fuck into your sweet spot, and the way you arched under him and cried out was fucking amazing.

“Oh f-fuck, Sebastian,” you moaned, reaching back to tangle your hand in his damp, brown curls, and Sebastian let you tug him closer so he could mouth along your shoulder, tasting the sweet-smelling bathsoaps as he went. The water splashed around you both, and you swore softly as a small wave of sudsy water sloshed up the side of the tub and sprayed you in your face.

Taking note of your predicament, Sebastian slowed his movements and angled his head so he could murmur directly in your ear, “Do you want to move?”

“We could, but– damn, Sebastian–”

Sebastian didn’t want to fucking move. He did want to see your face, though. He pulled out swiftly, and before you could move to climb out of the water, he grabbed and maneuvered you around so your back was pressed against the side of the tub with your legs bent over his elbows. When he reached back further to grip the rim of the tub on either side of you, he sank back into you with a low moan. Water wasn’t the most spectacular of lubricants as it turned out, but you were naturally slick enough that it was essentially a nonissue.

The expression that spread over your flushed face drove Sebastian a little crazy. He moved hot and slow, pulling back far with every aching thrust before filling you up and making you whimper. It’s exactly what Sebastian had wanted, but the way your eyes rolled shut just made him want to fuck you harder, water splashing in your face be damned.

He leaned in close and nipped at your swollen lips, still rolling his hips maddeningly slow. “I want to fuck you so hard,” he managed, voice shaking. “I want to hear you scream my name. I want to see you fall over the edge so hard that you pass out in my arms.” He snapped his hips, just enough to make you cry out. “I’ll fuck you just like that. I’ll make the Prefects come running from how loud you are. I hope you don’t have plans this weekend, because you’re mine until the bell tolls on Monday.”

You whimpered and shivered under Sebastian, sucking in sharp breaths with every slow thrust, and when you rode your hips back into the brunet, he couldn’t help but let his head hang between his shoulders, his dark eyes sliding shut. The way you were sucking him in deeper was mind-blowing, the water flowing in waves around the two of you, until a burning, tightening sensation took root in your gut and made you grit your teeth together in anticipation.

“S-Sebastian, fuck,” he thrust harder in response, grinding his hips into you and causing your back to arch with a gasping cry. “Sebastian, I’m– I’m going to–”

“Do it,” he gasped, leaning in to kiss you quickly and messily. “Let me see how you come for me.”

Your nails dug into his shoulder before you pulled one hand away to begin frantically rubbing circles over your swollen clit. You rocked your hips back into his and worked yourself closer to your finish with a low moan, keeping your movements in time with his thrusts. The way you licked your lips and the way you watched Sebastian with a dark, fucked-out gaze made him whimper. You were so intense– your lips parting on gasping moans of Sebastian’s name– and it took a surprising amount of self-control for him to not just fucking blow it right then. Instead, he bent you back just a little further, just enough to see that needy expression fall back over your face as he fucked you just that little bit harder.

Your moans grew higher, louder, breathier, until you were crying out and shaking in Sebastian’s arms. “S-Seb– fuck– I’m coming, I’m coming–”

Your spine rounded and your eyes squeezed shut as you clamped down tight on Sebastian’s cock, a guttural whine ripping from your heaving chest as your climax washed over you. The dexterous movements from your fingers took you higher than you thought possible, and the way you barely managed to choke out Sebastian’s name was enough to send the Slytherin over the edge.

He pressed himself against you and buried his cock deep, fucking you through your finish with short, fast thrusts while he moaned your name against your throat, his hands moving to grip your sides tight with trembling fingers. “Fuck, darling, fuck–”

Blearily, you moved your arm and wrapped it around Sebastian’s neck as he came, who was shaking and babbling far too loud for it to be muffled against your slick skin. You buried your face into his tangled hair, jolting slightly from every miniscule movement of his twitching member inside of you. When the bulk of his post-coital high had subsided, he began wetly mouthing up your neck and along your jaw before sweetly peppering kisses over your cheek. The demonstration brought a breathless grin to your face, and your hands found their way to the hair at the back of his neck before you wound your fingers through the strands.

“Merlin’s bloody balls,” Sebastian gritted out, sliding his arms out from under your knees to hold them fast to his waist. You followed his lead easily and wrapped your legs around his hips, sitting up to kiss him contentedly as your palms skimmed along his freckled back. He smiled against your lips and murmured, “We should probably get out. I can feel how pruney your fingers are.”

“Mm,” you hummed softly, pulling back from the kiss to hold one of your hands up to see how wrinkled your skin had become in the throes of passion. “You’re not wrong. But it would be counterproductive to not wash off all the sweat, wouldn’t it?”

Sebastian gave you a nonplussed blink before smiling brightly at you in agreement. Almost reluctantly, he slid free from your welcoming heat and deposited you on the shallow stone ledge, then hoisted himself out of the bath to pad over to his toiletry bag. After grabbing all the necessities and jumping back into the steaming water, the two of you took your time cleansing one another, lingering touches and thoughtful kisses being exchanged throughout the process. Eventually Sebatian found himself sitting with his back to the rim of the tub, your smaller figure situated comfortably between his legs as he scooped water into his hands and let it run over your shoulders. If your slouched posture was anything to go by, you were incredibly relaxed, and Sebastian realized dimly that he was too. To be with you in this way was everything he could ever want and more, and he didn’t want it to end. Not by a longshot.

“Let me come with you after graduation,” he said suddenly, his voice a mere whisper from behind you.

Your eyes fluttered open as you processed his request, the bathroom utterly silent except for the distant dripping of water from the faucet, and before long you were turning around to face him with your hands braced on his legs. “What?”

“Let me come with you,” he said again, conviction burning in his dark eyes. “To Poland. I want to do whatever I can to help you. Please don’t leave me behind.”

All you could do was blink for a moment before opening and closing your mouth in surprise. Sebastian’s unwavering gaze only prolonged the formation of words, until eventually you furrowed your brow and uncertainty took root. It wasn’t that you didn’t want him with you– far from it, in fact. The events that had transpired just minutes earlier had only proven that your close relationship was something to treasure for as long as possible, and you were more than ready to do exactly that. You just didn’t want him to throw his own ambitions to the side simply because you planned to travel. “What about what you want to do? Don’t you have your own plans? I thought Professor Weasley talked to you about–”

“I never made a decision,” he stated firmly and with a shake of his head. “The Professor had her own ideas about what I would excel at, but I never agreed or wanted to pursue any of her suggestions. I honestly felt like I was in limbo until now. My point is, what I want is to stay with you. I want to help you the same way you helped me with Anne, and I really, really don’t want to end up sitting alone in some office in London waiting for your owls to reach me. There’s always something missing when you’re not with me.”

To say you were an emotional mess would be a monumental understatement. Sebastian’s words struck something deep within you, something sentimental and desperate to come to the surface. He evidently saw your tears before you felt them, because he was instantly sitting forward to cup your cheeks in his wet hands before wiping them away with his thumbs. The concern on his face was apparent, but you were already smiling reassuringly at him before he could verbally ask if you were alright. “You really know how to confess to a girl, huh?”

He let loose an airy, relieved laugh that drifted over your nose and chilled your damp cheeks, and you wrapped your fingers around his wrists as he smiled anxiously at you. “I had a long time to practice. Is that a yes, then?”

“Yes, you can come with me. I would love it if you did,” you said, and the giddy excitement that radiated from the man was the most palpable thing in the room at that moment. “Two heads might be better than one, after all.”

Sebastian was on you in an instant. He coiled around you like a baby mooncalf and smiled so brightly that it easily rivaled the intensity of the sun. Water splashed everywhere as he spun you effortlessly within the bath, your capricious laughter reverberating off the walls of the spacious room as elation flooded your system. Being encased in his warm embrace was all the confirmation you needed that you had made the right choice. In turn, knowing that his future was all the clearer brought a sense of peace and belonging to Sebastian that he would hold on to for as long as he was able.

It just so happened that presently, he was holding on to you.

#sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow smut #sebastian sallow x you #sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian sallow x female!reader #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fanfic #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #sebastian sallow oneshot #hogwarts legacy oneshot #sebastian sallow x mc #I chewed my lip off trying to finish this before I have to leave for Medieval Times #gonna go watch knights joust on horse back and drink ale out of a tankard #bye happy reading MWAH #my writing

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falseficus · 1 year

Text

I read a physical copy of monstrous regiment soon after listening to the audiobook, and I noticed two tiny discrepancies between the two editions that make an absolute world of difference. when I found out that these discrepancies existed (you’ll find reddit posts backing me up about them), I felt cheated that my first experience of the book had portrayed a less cohesive arc than pratchett intended

if you’re looking to buy or read monstrous regiment, I strongly recommend the doubleday 2003 version or the corgi 2004 version, which iirc contain the original text. The harper collins publications and audiobook both contain these changes, which imo are confusing and severely undercut the themes the book is trying to get across. if anyone knows the status of other editions of the book pls feel free to add on

obviously the audiobooks and ebooks are more accessible than physical books to some people, so if you read one of those just know that the original text is different in some key ways. I still recommend you read the book because it’s crazy good :)

the changes I noticed, beneath the cut to avoid some serious spoilers:

firstly, the last line of Jackrum’s last scene. in the Doubleday version, this line reads:

“Jackrum had turned her chair to the fire, and had settled back. Around him, the kitchen worked.”

in the harpercollins version, the line reads:

“Jackrum had turned her chair the the fire, and had settled back. Around her, the kitchen worked.”

this pronoun change is actually has huge implications. in the scene in question, jackrum, a transgender man, reveals that he joined the army in disguise. he is referred to as “she” throughout his background reveal. however, he then considers where his future will take him, and in the final line of the scene his pronoun reverts back to “he.” jackrum’s pronoun goes from he->she->he, encapsulating the gendery arc of the scene. however, in the altered he->she->she version of the scene, half of that circle is erased. the neat tie-up of jackrum’s journey is left confusingly unresolved, and the importance of his gender to the book’s overarching themes goes underemphasized

the second change I noticed is how maladict appears in the book’s ending:

in the Doubleday version, maladict appears “in full uniform.”

in the harpercollins version, maladict appears “in full female uniform.”

maladict is the last soldier to reveal [their] true gender, keeping up a masc/ambiguous presentation far after all the rest of the squad has come forward as women. “in full uniform” maintains this ambiguity, allowing the reader to decide for themself whether maladict comes forward and presents as fully female or continues to dress masculinely despite the fact that circumstances no longer require it (in fact I believe that the latter is more likely, as maladict says “thought I’d try again,” which could mean dressing in male uniform again). “in full female uniform” removes that ambiguity, and brings maladict’s arc to a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. it eliminates the possibility of maladict as transgender or gender-non-conforming, and I’m left wondering, “if maladict presents as female so readily, why make such a fuss of it before now?”

both changes undermine the book’s message by eliminating its space for non-cisnormative identity… which is kinda crucial to the whole idea. im honestly really disappointed that these changes were made in any version of the book, because whoever made them clearly didn’t get the point

#monstrous regiment #discworld #terry pratchett #the frog speaks

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cjayius · 6 months

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MAGNETIC — PARK SUNGHOON

SYNOPSIS. sunghoon had been stressed for weeks due to their comeback, and an argument with you makes him say really hurtful things, whether they were true or not. but at the end of the day, he knows you love him, and thats really all that matters to sunghoon.

pairing. idol!sunghoon x f!reader wc. 0.4k tw. kissing , slight angst , hoon and reader are fighting genre. fluff ( CATALOGUE )

the tension between you and sunghoon had been building for days. sunghoon barely spent time with you anymore. he was always at work, practicing for his new comeback, and when he was home, he was asleep.

of course, this was not sunghoon's fault at all. it's just that recently your schedules weren't aligning, and you'd rather be occupied than stay home waiting for your boyfriend, so you signed up for more work hours.

this arrangement led to the two of you being able to meet only once or twice in two weeks; you saw sunghoon less often, and you talked to him even lesser.

sunghoon wasn't stupid. he could tell something was wrong. his girlfriend had stopped responding to his messages, and this past month she had seemed off, but whenever he asked her about it, she brushed him off.

it started with a simple misunderstanding, as most arguments do. sunghoon had made a passing comment that struck a nerve, and before you knew it, the two of you were exchanging harsh words, each one stinging more than the last.

" you never listen to me ! " sunghoon's voice was sharp, you could hear the frustration oozing from his voice.

" i do listen, sunghoon, " you shot back, your own voice tinged with irritation, " you never take my opinions seriously ! "

the argument escalated quickly, fueled by the pent-up frustration and unspoken grievances. you both said things you didn't mean, and your words had cut deeper than you'd intended.

you resorted to sitting far from him, on the other end of the couch, refusing to communicate. sunghoon scoffed at your state, " you're always so quiet when it actually matters. you don't even care about us. "

his tone was accusing, and had unknowingly begun to dredge up insecurities you'd tried to bury. suddenly, the argument wasn't just about the disagreement at hand, you could tell that this had been on his mind for a while.

after a few minutes of staring, he was still met with silence from you. sunghoon stormed out of the room, leaving you alone with your thoughts and a sinking feeling in your chest.

hours passed in silence, but the argument hung heavy in the air. you tried to focus on other things, but your mind kept drifting back to sunghoon.

just as you were beginning to retire to the bedroom, the front door creaked open, and there stood your boyfriend, obviously surprised that you were still here.

he sighed, walking over to the kitchen counter behind you, pouring himself a glass of water. " i thought you wanted some space ? " he said, voice laced with annoyance.

you glanced up, you had spent enough time alone. " i don't need space, " you replied softly, voice barely above a whisper. " i need you, hoon. "

for a moment, there was silence, then, without another word, sunghoon crossed the room in quick strides, pulling you into his arms with a surprising tenderness.

" i'm sorry. " you smiled against his chest, as he whispered an apology in response to yours.

#enhypen #enhypen fluff #enhypen angst #park sunghoon #kim sunoo #yang jungwon #lee heeseung #nishimura riki #park jay #sim jaeyun #sunghoon fluff #sunghoon angst #enhypen x reader #enhypen imagines #sunghoon x reader #enhypen smau

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all4yoi · 6 months

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only you

𝑒nhypen x fem!reader ⚹ cw. part 2 of just a game , hyung line , 2nd pov , ︎ fluff / comfort , lowercase intended , crying , cliche fluff omfg , karina mentioned on heeseung's & wonyoung on sunghoon's , not proofread ! part one here !

after catching them holding hands with another female, you walk away from them and they run after you, assuring you it was all a misunderstanding.

★ LEE HEESEUNG (0.5k words)

the day was coming to an end and heeseung has yet to find you.

after he had politely rejected karina, he ran after you but to no avail. all of his attempts on trying to reach you was a bootless errand. everytime he had seen a glimpse of you - whether in the cafeteria, library, the hallways, and god even in your shared class - you somehow always found a way to avoid him.

he could've simply gave up and moved on, he could've ran back to karina and date her instead. but he didn't want to give up and move on, he didn't want to run back to karina and date her, because what he wanted- needed, was you.

heeseung didn't want to go home yet, he needed to see you and explain everything. he'd be a fool to let you out his reach especially now that he knows you feel the same for him. he wasn't going to lose you because of a stupid mistake he made.

spotting a familiar figure sitting underneath a tree in the university's garden, he silently walked towards them, his fingers crossed hoping that he's finally found you.

and as if the universe was on his side, he saw you gorgeously flipping through a book with your pink earphones on. heeseung silently sat beside you, hoping you won't run away from him again. he saw how you stiffened and how your fingers stopped playing with the book's pages, and he wanted nothing but to hold your hand. it was your hand he wanted to hold- no one else's. you may not be with him yet, but ever since he realized he liked you, he was already yours before you even knew.

"y/n," he started softly, gently removing one earbud from your ear so you could hear him. you let him and look at him with hesitance, scared that he's here to tell you that he's changed his mind and he likes karina now instead.

heeseung smiled softly at you, "please let me talk and explain everything, okay?" you nodded, feeling your throat clogging up. "karina, you know she's one of my good friends, right? when you saw me holding her hand a while ago, she was the one who took my hand. i was so taken aback by her confession that i completely froze-..

because she's like a sister to me and you're the one i want. you're the one i need.. the one i like." he paused, brows furrowed in worry, hoping you'd understand. "i'm sorry for letting her hold my hand, and i'm sorry for hurting you. i really really like you y/n, please let me redeem myself to you." he finished, a small hesitant smile in his face as he studied yours.

feeling overwhelmed, you burst into tears. heeseung panicked, thinking he said something wrong and brought you to his chest, wrapping his arms around you.

"i thought you'd choose her over me." you cried in his chest, your own arms wrapping around his waist. heeseung didn't know why, but even when you were crying in his chest with your arms wrapped around his waist, he was feeling over the moon.

shaking his head, he pulled you closer if it was even possible and mumbled in your hair, "i'll choose you in a room full of other girls baby. only you."

other members utc!

★ PARK JONGSEONG (0.5k words)

3 hours was enough space right? jay liked to think it was, he was too impatient and just wanted to run to you and explain everything, but he knew you probably didn't want to see him after what you've witnessed.

jay had tried to put himself in your shoe, imagining seeing you holding hands with another boy after confessing to you- by the thought of it alone already made him feel ten times more worse, he hated himself with how much pain he had caused you.

so instead of waiting until tomorrow, jay took his bag and walked out of the cafeteria, ignoring his friends that were calling for him. he already knew where to find you, after all, he's always had his eyes on you ever since the first semester started.

jay muttered a quiet 'good afternoon' to the librarian before making a beeline towards the back of the library and there you were in your element. laptop open, headphones on with multiple books on the table you've occupied.

he liked to think that his type were girls that were a bit dumb so that he could lead the relationship, but when it comes to you? smart, pretty, and soft spoken? if his heart could speak, he's certain that the only word it can mutter is your name, and he's not ashamed to admit that.

the moment you looked up and made eye contact with him almost made his knees give up if it weren't for him holding on to a shelf to stabilize himself, and when you softly smiled at him despite what you saw that morning, it made him yearn for you more. he wouldn't ask for no one else.

call him cliché but you were the only one for him.

"what are you doing there? come sit." you motioned on the empty seat across from you to which he occupied immediately. "have you eaten?"

"have you?" he questioned back, eyeing the papers and books splattered on the table. "i had coffee." was your reply.

jay knew that you were still upset, it was showing in your body language. you were tense, stiff, and your fingers were shaking behind your laptop. he wanted to punch himself for making you feel this way.

"i'm sorry y/n, i really am." the hum you let out made him continue, his eyes studying your pretty face silently. "it's really not what it looked like-"

"everyone says that jay." the way you bit your lip told him that you didn't mean to cut his sentence off and be so harsh.

"yes, i know, it's stupid but i'm telling the truth. she bumped into me and fell, i couldn't just leave her on the floor because everyone saw our collision so i offered her a hand. that was it, i was about to walk away but she introduced herself and insisted on shaking hands.. then you saw me.

i know it looked so wrong from your perspective without context, and i'm sorry for upsetting you. i really had no other intentions, i was telling you the truth when i told you that night that i like you too, so much." he reached out for your hand, sighing in relief when you didn't pull away.

you nodded your head in understanding, squeezing his hand to tell him you now understand. "i'm sorry for jumping into conclusions and not hearing you out the first time."

he shook his head, squeezing your hand back. "it's okay, i understand. we're good now?" chuckling at him, you nodded and smiled at him. "we are, thank you."

★ SIM JAEYUN (0.4k words)

the tears in your eyes as you walked away from him made his heart crack. should he run after you? will you find him annoying? do you want him to run after you or do you want nothing to do with him now?

after arguing with himself on his head, he ran after you and engulfed you in a hug before you could turn around the corner and disappear from his sight. "please let me explain." his own voice cracked, and the weird looks you both received from the other students did not faze him at all.

"jake, not here please. they're looking at us.." he hastily took your hand and led you into an empty classroom, wanting nothing more than to assure you that what you thought is wrong and all he wanted was only you.

after he had made sure the door was locked and no one else was hiding somewhere, he immediately took your hands in his rubbing the back of your palm with his thumb.

you didn't know what to feel, was this how he held that girl's hand too? did he hold hers with gentleness too? with that in thought, your tears were back.

"no no, please don't cry. it was all a misunderstanding i promise." he held your face and wiped away the tears, his eyes held worry but so much love as well.

"she mistook me as her boyfriend, it didn't even last for 10 seconds because the moment she held my hand we both pulled away from each other.. it was just wrong timing that you saw it and we made eye contact, please believe me." he was practically crying with you right now, his own tears cascading down the apple of his cheeks.

you frantically nodded your head - now you were the one panicking at the sight of his tears. "i do, thank you for explaining. please don't cry." his tears were wiped with your thumbs as you hugged him tight.

"i don't want you to ever think i'm lying to you, you're really all i need." he explained further through his sobs, his arms tightening around you more.

there you two were, hugging each other in an empty room, tears falling down from both of your eyes as you comforted each other. and at that moment, no one else mattered - it was just the both of you in the world.

★ PARK SUNGHOON (0.6k words)

to say that sunghoon felt like shit the whole day yesterday and this morning was an understatement. he had desperately contacted you in all your social media accounts - fucking christ he even contacted you through your school's email, but to no avail, he was always left ignored.

he didn't blame you though, if he was to experience and see what you did yesterday, he would act the same - maybe even worse. sunghoon wanted nothing more but to make it up to you, to explain that he was only doing wonyoung a favor to make her crush jealous. i guess you could blame him for agreeing, but did he really have a choice when she just randomly grabbed him and told him to smile at every passing student? maybe.

he had texted wonyoung that same afternoon, telling her- demanding her politely? to explain everything to you, she told him she did but was only left on read by you. the girl apologized profusely to you and sunghoon, she didn't have any idea about the two of you and if she did - she wouldn't have done what she did.

but what's done is done, and now sunghoon is still trying to desperately reach you. throughout the day, he would hear your name coming out of other people's mouth, but not once did he catch a single glimpse of you. sunghoon was running out of options, he didn't want to be that type of guy to show up infront of your door step in fear of crossing boundaries, but he was seriously considering doing it today.

sunghoon mentally chanted your name in his head as if that would help and summon you, and you know what? maybe it did work because now he was seeing you standing across from him, your back facing towards him as you looked at the bulletin board.

not wasting any time, he raced towards you and gently grabbed your forearm, successfully turning your attention from the bulletin board to the taller boy behind you. sunghoon wanted the ground to swallow him whole when he saw how your face dropped at the sight of him.

"let's talk, please?" he whispered that only you could hear, glancing around the corridor before looking back at you. the small hesitant nod was everything he needed before he lead you in an empty hall as everyone was in the cafeteria.

sunghoon took his chance and took you in, loving the way you've dressed yourself today and he wanted to just keep you in his arms all day, but he reminded himself that he needed to clear things up and make you his girlfriend obviously before he could even do that.

"wony already explained everything, i'm sorry for assuming the wrong thing.." sunghoon was taken aback by your sudden apology, and the tightness in his chest grew.

he took your face in his hand, gently bringing your chin up so he could look you in the eye. "i should be the one apologizing.. i'm sorry for making you feel that way, i didn't have any other intentions towards her and i only like you.. so much to the point that it hurts. i'll do anything to prove it to you."

he couldn't understand that someone so precious as you could grow such feelings for him, he couldn't process and believe that he's important to someone he finds important too. should he be punished by the gods above because he finds your teary eyes enchanting? he could see his reflection in your eyes and the love it carries, and somehow he finally understands. sunghoon feels warm as he brought you to his chest, tucking your head in the crook of his neck.

"i'll show you, i'll give you my everything and my forever. you're it for me."

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cherryblossom-enthusiast · 2 months

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Unrequited (Arthur Morganxf! Reader) - RDR2

A/N: Whoever decided that there could be a button where Arthur Morgan says "good girl" how ever many times you want, I hope both sides of your pillow are cold.

Synopsis: Arthur loved Mary, didn't he? So, why was it he was spouting all this nonesense about loving you?

Warning/ Tags: Angst. But like SO MUCH FLUFF. Allusions to Sex. Mentions of violence. Coarse language. Kissing. Hurt/ Comfort. Angst with a happy ending.

Word Count: 6.1K

Masterlist

Even now, Arthur Morgan was a lovesick fool for Mary Linton.

You shouldn’t have been surprised; you weren’t really. Arthur doesn’t talk about her much anymore, but you’d known him long enough to see he’d never really let that part of himself go. That part of him that loves. That dreams of something better for himself even if he thinks he’s the big, bad, scary man that he is.

And maybe in some aspect, he is that man. Threatening, bartering, killing. Sometimes you look in his eyes and see nothing but a hard, desolate exterior that wouldn’t think twice about shooting anybody up so long as Dutch told him to do it. But the reality Arthur Morgan doesn’t want to accept is that there’s goodness hiding within the moulding of a gunslinger enforcer.

You can glimpse that goodness when he helps a woman on the road or gives medicine to a man dying from snake poison, and you can especially see it when he’s hauling his ass on his horse to help Mary even when he’s being pulled left and right to finish errands for the camp.

So no, you shouldn’t have been surprised that Arthur would ride out the earliest he could to help his past lover.

But hell, why did it have to hurt you every damn time?

He returns to camp just after the sun rises and light starts to colour the world around you. The air is still crisp, and the heat of the sun is non-existent on your skin. You’re brushing your horse’s mane when you hear the familiar holler of his voice towards Bill. You don’t look towards him as his horse trots towards the hitching post.

As he dismounts, he greets you, a little pep in the tone of his voice.

It irritates you immediately.

“Mornin’.”

You grit your teeth and put on the brightest smile you can muster. “Mornin’!”

He takes a moment. His eyebrows crease. “Something matter?”

“Uh-?”

“Nothing it’s just-“ he breaks to think about the right words to say. “You don’t look- Never mind.”

This only encourages you to grow your façade stronger. “So,” you start “what’d Mary need this time?” It comes off a little pettier than you intended it to be. He doesn’t deserve that, hell, Mary didn’t deserve your bitterness either, fine woman she was.

That little fact seemed inconsequential however every time he uttered her name and the familiar feeling of jealousy pricked, downright stabbed itself in your gut.

He picks up on your tone, not appreciating it one bit. The displeasure that carves into his expression almost makes you wince and the fake smile that’s plastered on your face twitches the slightest bit. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You take the coward’s way out, you always do.

You break eye contact and continue to brush. You’re rewarded by a loving whinny and it almost distracts you from the ice-cold awkwardness you’ve built around this conversation. “Nothin’, just asking.”

Whether he believes your fib or doesn’t, he doesn’t let it show. But him moving on has you thanking God regardless. He takes out a brush, starting to work on his own mare’s mane. “Good girl.” He whispers. Warmth creeps up your neck as your ears tingle towards the baritone timber of his voice. It makes you lose all self-respect for yourself. He sneaks a look at you for the tiniest bit of time before continuing your conversation. “Her brother, he was involved in some weird religious group.”

“Is that right?”

“Yep,” he sighs “buncha turtle lovers.”

That gets a genuine chuckle out of you even though you don’t understand it. When you glance towards Arthur’s direction, the indifference has faded away from his features and all that’s left is a sarcastic smirk in its place. All frost has melted away and all too quickly you’re back to the ease that usually came with your dynamic.

You can’t help but throw a snide joke his way. “Gosh, if you’re still this involved in their family drama, you should just make it official and propose again.”

The idea haunts you, of course, it does. But you weren’t going to let Arthur know that. The more you joke, the more it becomes real, the more your true feelings become buried underneath a pile of age-old lies and supportive nonsense. Because at the end of the day, if it would make Arthur happy, you’d keep biting your lip and pushing him towards happiness.

Love worked funny like that.

His smirk falls and you’re worried you pushed it a tad bit too far. “I tried once and I don’t know if it’ll ever happen.” He turns almost sombre, like thinking back on old memories that were equal parts sweet and bitter and this bothers you in a different way.

“I sincerely think if you were to propose to her right now, she’d say yes with no questions asked.” You hope he sees the genuineness in your intentions.

He merely gives you a scoff, slightly shaking his head. “Yeah well,” he trails off. “It’d never work out now.”

You decide not to continue pushing. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to dig deeper into the situation and even in your sorry narrow-minded state, you could understand and respect keeping your mouth shut when you needed to. You lick your lips and stick another sickly-sweet smile to your face. “Well, you continue on moping, but I can’t say I’ll be sticking around to see you grumbling around.”

That gets him to snort. “And where will the rough and tough princess be today? Helping a rabbit off the road? Wait-“ he pauses for dramatic effect “Talking to the birds and singing em’ a song?” He makes himself chortle quietly at the idea.

“I have a date.”

That gets him to stop cold turkey. He’s only met with a smug appearance on your end. “You?”

You fake great offence and snap at him. “Hey! Even I can seduce someone if I try!”

“No, I know- I” He appears shaken up about your revelation and for a moment, the tiniest fraction of a second, you could almost see the tensing of his jaw. “With who?”

It’s your turn to leer at him. “Why’s it matter?”

“It doesn’t I-“ he stutters “I just-“

You raise an eyebrow. “Well if you must know, he works at the hardware store.” You say as you recall the day you met the gentleman. “I helped him carry out some tasks and he gave me a daffodil in exchange, of all things.” You pointed at the flower currently tucked in the band of your hat. “Cutest thing.”

“Is that right?” He gruffed out.

“Mhm, so I’m gonna escort him and his granddaughter to a birthday party out in Strawberry.” You giggle. “He said he needed a ‘fighter’ with him because of his ‘old bones’ and ‘lumbago’” You roll your eyes. “Sounds like Uncle.”

This seems to take Arthur by surprise. The dark clouds in his eyes clear out and his eyebrows furrow in confusion. “Wha-?”

You bite your lip to keep your internal laughter from spilling. “Listen, I offered.” You explain. “He’s been giving me discounts at the store and that girl is just the sweetest thing and well-“ you shrug, “I couldn’t say no like the goddamn softie I am.”

The blades in his eyes dull at the statement. The mysterious scrunch of his shoulders from earlier disappears. He steps away from his horse and walks around his mare to shorten the gap between the two of you. It reminds you that he’s tall, much bigger than you are. “That bleedin’ heart of yours is gonna get you killed one day.”

He mutters his words lightly and yet, there’s some odd sadness you don’t understand attached to it. He puckers his lips as if he wants to say more on the matter yet can’t.

You put on your best Arthur impression, puffing up your chest and scrunching your face. “Well, somehow this don’t suit me, now does it?”

At that, Arthur chuckles deeply. “Nah, you obviously ain’t tall enough to be me, shortcake.” He jabs you playfully at the shoulder and in response, you over-exaggerate the motion of being pushed back. Though, if he really wanted to, Arthur could have you on your back in less than a second.

He wouldn’t even have to touch you.

Before you can go down that rabbit hole of thoughts, you carry on with the train of humour. “Besides, heard from Jerry there’ll be plenty of cute fellas around to keep me entertained.”

The clouds start to roll back in his demeanour, dare you say with a touch of thunder this time. “You gonna be looking at other men?” The lightness in his voice is gone, only replaced with the venom from before.

You’re befuddled at the quick-changing atmosphere, but don’t go back on what you said. “All I’ve got to look at are you folks all day,” you quip “A girl needs a change of scenery every once in a while.”

He crosses his arms, clearly not amused. “We not pretty enough for you?”

“Well, you are certainly, but I don’t know about Pearson.”

You purse your lips immediately and silently curse yourself at the admission. That same old shit-eating grin makes a comeback. “Is that right?”

You push his arm back, but unlike him, you hardly get the man to move more than half an inch. “Oh shut it.” You quickly un-hitch your horse and mount her. All you want to do is wipe his lips so it turns back into his usual frown, but you’re afraid you’d just embarrass yourself further. “I won’t be back for a while.” You pull your horse away and pat her on the side. “Didn’t know children’s birthday parties could take so damn long.”

“How long will you be gone for?” He mumbles, voice noticeably quieter.

“However long it takes for a fella to get me off.”

Arthur’s eyes widen. The sun highlights the tips of his ears go red. “Wha- What?” He strained out like he wasn’t quite sure of what he just heard.

A real, true laugh comes out of you then as you spur your horse into action, cantering away from camp. You don’t wait to hear the rest of what he has to say. His flushed look is enough of a prize to take with you.

You replay it all the way to Strawberry.

------------------

It was well past sundown when you return. Truthfully, you don’t even know what time it is, all you knew was that you were gone long enough that laying down on your cot would be much appreciated by your aching muscles. There’s a light breeze and you take your hat off, shaking out your hair.

The party was a success. Jerry and his granddaughter got to and from Strawberry safely, and really, that was all you could wish for when you were being hunted constantly because of the bounty on your head. You knew you offered, hell you were pretty self-approving when you did. But even then, you made sure to ask if Jerry really wanted a gunslinger as an escort, to which he replied, “Oh, shove it.”

Wonderful man.

The rest of the camp, well those that were here anyways, aside from Bill who was back on guard duty, are already fast asleep. The crackle of the fire is the only sound filling your ears other than your own footsteps.

There’s a small oil lamp turned on in the corner of your vision, brightening the blue hue and you instantly know the only bastard who would be up at this hour.

He’s drawing again. His brows are focused in that way you loved so much and he only looks up from his journal once you amble closer towards him. You almost hate that you’ve disrupted him. You could watch him draw for hours and hardly get bored.

He closes the book and looks up at you. You nod towards his hands. “You’ll have to show me what you’re working on at some point, Picasso.”

Arthur lets a huff through his nose. “Not gonna happen.” He motions you to sit beside him and you take him up on his offer. You catch a whiff of his scent, something like tobacco mixed with old leather. It may have been slightly repulsive to anyone else, but this was Arthur, and all it made you feel was safe. “You was gone a long time.” He points out, a bitter tinge to his voice. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

You tilt your head at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Arthur’s eyes narrow. “You just went off and didn’t come back until now.” The bitter tinge in his voice morphs into something like annoyance. “I was worried.” He mumbles low.

“Oh, I was fine.” You bump your shoulder against his, but it again, doesn’t make him sway. “Besides, I had a fella with me.”

His hand, the one closest to you, balls up at his side. He’s always been hard to read, but he clearly wasn’t happy at your revelation, and you had half a mind in this late hour to stew in that fact. “Did you now?”

“Sure, one of them single fathers.” You let a small laugh escape you and shake your head as you kick the dirt with your worn-out boots. “Don’t worry, I’d never steal one from a married woman.”

“Was he…cute?” He mutters.

“Never thought I’d hear the word ‘cute’ come out of Arthur Morgan’s mouth.” You catch a glimpse towards him and again note the same pink twinge on his ears, probably embarrassed at being called out on something so stupid.

You finally start to feel that familiar flutter in your stomach that was hidden behind all that supportive “do what makes you happy nonsense”.

No, we couldn’t have that.

So, you bury it down.

It just became easier that way after all these years.

“That ain’t the damn point.” He continues to grumble. “Was he?”

You ponder the question for a short while. “I mean, he was alright in the looks department, not cute-“

He cuts you off quickly. “Just alright?” He scoffs lightly.

You remember the aforementioned single father in question. His looks are the last thing on your mind. He was alright, not cute, not ugly. Sure, you wouldn’t want to sleep with the man, but-

“He was damn good with his kid, and I thought I’d like to get to know someone like that more.” You reveal through a whisper.

This causes Arthur to frown, but his expression softens. Some of that constant bitterness fades away. “You- “he cuts off and thickly swallows. “You weren’t doing anything strange were you?”

You can feel a prickle of heat in your face at the question. “I mean, we talked sure, but if anything, I just maybe wanted to indulge in a fantasy.” You shrug.

He snaps his gaze back towards you. “A fantasy?”

“What it’d be like-“

God, why was it so hard to say? “Being normal, having a family.”

The silence that follows is thick and you immediately scold yourself for ruining a perfectly airy conversation just like this morning. You regret it, you do, but you can’t deny how nice it is to finally get that dream off your chest. It wasn’t original, what woman at Camp, save Mrs. Adler, didn’t want that stability?

The feeling of riding was freeing. It gave you the grace of flying during a time when you were being held down and that will never change. But nowadays, you find that instead of being held down, you want to be held close. To be called important, matter to someone, so that when you felt lost soaring, you’d always have a beacon home.

“Damn it, you can’t be sayin’ things like that.” He forces out a murmur, a shred of his usual gruff tone.

“You ever think about that?” You tread lightly. “Having kids? Building a farm out somewhere and just-“ a deep sigh escapes you. “living and not surviving?”

It takes him a while to answer your question.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.” The vulnerability colors his voice and it starts to trip you over the edge.

You nod, pursing your lips. “With Mary?” You meekly ask, the crickets chirping making the exchange more awkward. You almost cringe at the silence of it all.

He tenses at her name and it seems like you get your answer.

“With Mary? I mean-“ He tries to dissuade you with absolutely no conviction in his voice. He pauses and curses under his breath. Arthur shakes his head, closing his eyes a moment. “Y’know, it ain’t always about Mary.”

You scoff in disbelief. “Arthur, it’s always been about Mary.” Sighing deeply, you bite your cheek at the acidic truth. “Even when you met Eliza, it was still about Mary.”

He’s taken aback by your statement and a subtle look of frustration overcomes his features. “No, it hasn’t.”

You want to say more, but your sardonic nature halts at his stoic reply. It’s like your heart stops, a coldness and a shrill wake your senses from the inside out. “What?” Your brain halts, all thought ceasing to exist except to process his next response. He tries to avoid eye contact, but you seek his gaze as you tilt your head sideways. “Arthur, what do you mean?” You repeat more sternly, begging to get a straight answer.

A stick of dynamite explodes.

“What about you?” His voice is hoarse like this is the most difficult thing he’s ever had to squeeze out of his mouth. “What about when it became you?”

The smoke clears and all that’s left is the destruction that caters right in the center of your chest.

There’s no longer just a flutter in your stomach, there’s a whole damn circus, and it decides to release the butterflies you worked so hard to keep from their magical chest of caution.

You shake your head and your body goes rigid. You move away from him and stand abruptly as you place your hands on your hips. He’s quick to follow you on your feet. A sarcastic laugh leaves your throat before you can stop yourself. “Arthur-“

“No, let me finish.” He steps in front of you and holds your shoulders square, turning your body towards him. Even in your bubbling anger, you hate the way your skin immediately melts under his touch. His eyes and actions are pleading for you to stay, so you let him speak, biting your tongue to keep yourself from interrupting. He stumbles over his words. “It’s been you for a long damn time.” He admits. “But I was, I don’t know-“You notice the light sheen of sweat gracing his forehead. “I was scared to say something.”

“If this is some dumb joke-“

“No!” He immediately denies like he’s appalled you would even think of it in that way.

“Well,” you sneer “I’m sorry if I have a hard time believing that.” You remove his hands from your shoulders stiffly and start to trudge away back to your horse.

In the years you’d known him, Arthur had been a force, even more so when he was younger and reckless. He was stubborn as a mule and despite keeping the peace for the most part, there was a strut in his step when he walked because he knew he had the power to change that whenever he wanted and get away scotch-free. Arthur was arrogant in that way, always threatening people with a smirk or an edge to his voice.

But this is the first time you see him flinch and it happens to be at your curt words.

A lump catches in your throat, but you’re too annoyed to care, all but continuing the short distance back to the hitching posts. Arthur is hot on your tracks, not letting up one bit. Maybe Bill was overhearing, maybe one of the girls stirred awake. It didn’t matter, you couldn’t care less. You just wanted to get the hell away from here.

His catches up to you in no time, his strides much longer than yours. He steps in front of your path and when you make a move to step aside, he mirrors your actions. You click your tongue, glowering at him from beneath your lashes. “Look,” he starts “now I know you may not like me, but I-“

That gets your anger rising to incomparable heights. “Not like you?!” You practically shout out. Looking around, you remember where you are and it’s the only reason your voice lowers. “Arthur, I’ve liked you since the day I met you!”

His eyebrows pull together and his nose crinkles. Arthur’s face morphs into something like agitation from its previous confusion. “So, why all this attitude?”

You’re dejected. “Why all this attitude?” You softly hiss. “Why all this attitude when I’ve loved you for years and all I’ve heard about is Mary?”

Arthur winces. He steps back from you, recoiling like he’s just been shot by a sniper rifle.

Good, you think. He should feel like a right asshole.

“’Why all this attitude’ he says!” You giggle manically at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. “Where do I even start?” You begin to rant, hands back on your hips to give you some sort of anchor from sinking towards the ground. “I don’t know Arthur, maybe it’s because while I’ve been here stewing in self-pity, you were always out seeing her. Maybe, it’s because every time you were young, drunk, and broken, you’d come back whispering her name, mistaking her for me, and I was the one helping you pick up the pieces.”

Your heart was racing a million yards a minute, but you couldn’t stop now. All the hurt and sorry baggage poured out like molten lava, burning with years of intensity. “Or maybe-“ you point an index finger at him and snap sarcastically as if you’ve just discovered a newfound truth “Maybe, it was because I worked so damn hard to tell myself I wasn’t in love with you and you just-“ your voice breaks.

Arthur doesn’t interrupt you at any part of your monologuing. Just like usual, you can hardly decipher his emotions except notice the colour draining from his face.

“So, I’m sorry that I don’t believe you when you say It’s been me.” You continue. “You’ve given me no reason to believe otherwise.”

You sidestep him, not taking a single look back in fear of him seeing the tears threatening to spill from your eyes. You unhitch your horse, giving her a slight pat before mounting her again.

- - - - - - - - - - -

You don’t see or speak to Arthur for a few days after your argument.

You don’t have much energy to talk to anyone really.

So, you somehow end up back at a familiar field surrounded by evergreen trees and flowers. The crystalline water of the hot springs gleams in your eyes and a chill wind sends shivers up your spine.

You set up camp and stay a while. You don’t consider yourself the best hunter, but fishing didn’t require the same dexterity. Its quiet, peaceful even, for a while. All you hear is the chirp of the birds and the steady flow of water.

It gives you time to cool off, reflect on everything that’s happened.

The more time you spend out here, the more hesitant you are to leave. It's a nice reprieve from the perils of civilization and you find yourself slipping away, trying to grasp a sense of peace that's unimaginable for you most days.

Tends to happen when you're an outlaw, you suppose.

But one day, as you’re laying under the shade of a tree, feeling the blades of soft grass beneath you, you hear heavy footsteps starting to approach.

There's no need to bother even acting surprised.

Arthur takes a seat beside you with a deep sigh. He leans back, using his hands to support him.

The both of you are silent for a while, not one peep out of your mouths. You expect it to be uncomfortable but having him by your side brings an ease you haven’t felt in days. Arthur continues to stare up at the sun starting to descend in the horizon and you follow suit, eyes trained to the sky above.

“When I met you, I thought you were nothing more than a naïve, innocent little thing.” He starts, baritone drawl catching you off guard. You don’t realize how much you’d missed hearing it until now. “You were this small, precious thing I needed to protect. “

You glance towards him and notice the small smile now gracing his lips, his eyes glossed over like remembering memories from so very long ago. “You could barely ride a horse, hell, you could barely mount one.”

The genuine warmth in his voice continues to chip away any frustrations left within you as you recall those days like snapshots in your mind.

“Every day, it was something new with you.” He laughs out, making your heart traitorously skip a beat. “You were learning the ropes of it all, and for a while, you were just someone I taught.” He pauses and you look at him more clearly this time, head turned towards him fully in an effort to really listen to what he has to say. “But Mary, she-“ he swallows “I could just turn my thoughts off with her.”

He gives out another sigh. “I loved her, I did.” He admits. “It was so easy loving her at the time. We had no expectations of one another, and then all of a sudden that shifted and I don’t know if I could have been the man she needed me to be.”

You ache but it’s not because he mentions his past lover’s name.

“So I ended up actin’ like a goddamn fool. Boozin’, sleeping around.” He groans, obviously not proud of his previous ventures. “Dutch and Hosea, they couldn’t pull me out of it. I mean, they tried everything, but then-“ He releases a relieved chuckle. “Some woman I’d never met before poured a bucket of cold water over my head and pulled out her revolver, threatening to shoot my dumb ass if I didn’t get up.”

You snort as you’re reminded of that day.

It was dry and humid, overall making it a miserable summer afternoon. Arthur stumbled back into camp smelling like he was doused in moonshine, groggy and slurring his words together. Even Hosea, forgiving as he was, cringed at his sorry state.

You just about had it.

After collecting some from the nearby stream, you pushed Arthur down and doused him in ice-cold water. He sputtered, clearly not happy about what you just did and attempted to get up to confront you. You pulled out your gun before he could and shot right between his legs onto the dirt below. “If you don’t pull your damn weight around here, I’ll make sure the next shot hits!” you shouted, utterly disappointed.

“Good times.” You mutter and Arthur’s smile widens.

“Sure.” He agreed. “When my eyes started to clear, I swear to god I thought I was looking at an angel.”

You had a hard time believing that too. “You looked at a woman who just shot at you and thought she was angelic?”

He tries to find better words. “I guess you looked ethereal all together.” He tries to explain. “Like you were something I’d see at the pearly white gates of judgement.”

You sat amused at his thoughts. “That so?”

He’s finally able to make eye contact with you and revels in that fact. “My vision was still a little hazy and you just stood over me, posture straight, hat on.” He takes his hand and scratches his chin. It’s a tick for when he’s nervous. “Your hair had a glow to it from the sun and your eyes, they just- had this fire in em’ I’d never seen before.”

His shoulders drop and the mood suddenly turns mellow. “When we were ridin’ around and ended up at this clearin’, you just took off without me and I realized how much you’d grown into yourself right under my nose. You didn’t change really, you were still the same old, sunshine, animal-lovin’ princess, but the way you carried yourself? Asserted yourself more? God-.”

He holds your gaze as he continues and it’s like the world holds its breath for whatever he has to say next. “You rode off, hair wild, not looking back at me one bit and I just couldn’t stop starin’ at you because I thought you were such a damn sight.”

“It made me wonder-“ his words trail off. He stops for a while and you let him. You know how much courage it was taking him right now to admit this to you, letting down those guarded stone walls he loved so much.

You lick your lips, and in an act of your own bravery, you settle your hand on top of his, to which he visibly softens upon. “Made you wonder?” You urge.

“If that’s what Mary felt like, seeing me go all those times.” He finishes. “Because I hated it. I hated every time you got on that horse and left, and it would only hurt less whenever you came back.”

Arthur’s hand starts to clench, but you flip his hand in yours so you can interlock your fingers properly. You give his hand a squeeze and the tension eases off.

“But then I hear you wantin’ to go off with some man and all I could do was mope like a sorry idiot because what if-“ His throat works. “What if you rode off and didn’t come back this time?”

“Oh, Arthur.” You softly coo.

His hand starts to make small slow circles over your hands. “You know I realized something when I last saw Mary that I didn’t before.”

You’re expectant to hear what it is.

“Every time it got a little too rough between us, she was done with me.” He perceived. “I don’t blame her, she deserves someone to make her happy, but I wasn’t gonna change fast enough in her eyes.” He squeezes your hand tighter. “But you- you didn’t expect me to change on a dime. You were patient, you understood that I didn’t want to start a family not because I didn’t want to, but because I was afraid of feeling that pain again.”

After clenching his jaw, he takes his other palm and cups your cheek with the utmost tenderness a man of his size could muster. “With you, I feel like I can be something else, something good.” You lean towards his touch, begging that if this were a dream, you never wanted to be woken up. His gaze is soft on your features, highlighted by the starlight above.

“I know and I’m sorry for that sweetheart, I really am.”

“I fell in love with you a long time ago Arthur Morgan.” You confess. “I keep running away because no one holds me close enough to keep me somewhere.”

You feel a lump in your throat as you remember all the times you rode off wanting to hear him shout "Wait!", but he never did.

Tears start to escape your eyes and you don’t bother wiping them away. “Loving you hurt so much Arthur.” You whimper. “I started to pack all of those feelings away if it meant I didn’t have to ruin what we already had.”

He presses his rough lips to your forehead and leans back. “I know sweetheart, I’m sorry.” He tilts your chin up with a finger. “If I could go back and change the way I handled it all, I would.”

“Give me something to believe that this is real. That I’m not just making this up in my misery.”

Arthur takes a moment to look at you before he speaks. He takes the time to figure out how he’s supposed to approach what he wanted to convey “Close your eyes for just a second.” He mumbled, his voice pleading.

You don’t question it and do what he wants you to do. You fully accept you’d be one of those pathetic individuals who’d follow him off a cliff if it meant staying with him and keeping him safe.

In the darkness, you feel him pick up your hands and place them on his chest. Under your palms, you feel the fast thrum of the beat of his heart and the laboured way his chest rises. You stay like that for a few seconds and match your breathing to his.

You tilt your head. “What?”

“Okay,” his voice cuts through your thoughts “now open your eyes.” You follow his command and you open your eyes to Arthur with a tender expression. You feel his breathing get faster, like he’s almost waiting for a reaction.

Arthur chuckles quietly at your question. “This is me trying to prove I’m serious about you.” His hands are still around your wrists, keeping your palms on his chest in place.

“By what? Letting me feel you up?” You jokingly say. “Arthur, who do you think’s being lugging your heavy ass around when you’re drunk, cause it sure as hell ain’t Uncle-“

Even in the darkness that surrounded you, you can sense his embarrassment. He starts to sputter to quickly get words out “Wha- no, that’s not what- I- you-“ He stutters, clearly flustered at the comment. He sighs. “Now, that’s not what I meant and you know it, sweetheart.”

“So then, what?” You push. You’re not trying to be obtuse in any way, but you want to hear a proper answer.

Arthur swallows awkwardly. “I’m just- I want you to know that my heart beats for you.”

It puts you in such a complete state of shock, it renders you speechless.

Just a couple of days ago, you would have been thirsty to hear those words drip out of his lips, but now that you’ve actually heard him say it, you don’t know how to exactly respond.

“Sweetheart?” He calls, voice laced with worry.

You slowly lean down and press your ear against his chest, wrapping your arms around him. He smells like gun smoke and mountain air. The fast bu-dump of his heart is intoxicating, making you break out into a smile.

After a few seconds, he slowly places his own arms around you and pulls you in closer. His hold is firm. Secure. A bandwagon of bandits or federal agents could show up this instant and he wouldn’t let anything or anyone so much as even look at you the wrong way.

He tucks your head under his chin. “I can’t give you a house, or children, or land right now, but I want you to know you have my heart.” He places another soft kiss on your forehead. “You’ve had it for a long time and it’ll always be yours as long you’ll have me.”

“Well, I never thought Arthur Morgan was capable of such sweet words.” You tease.

You feel the rumble of his chest as he freely laughs. “Well, there’s a lot we don’t know about each other it seems.”

You give his statement some thought. “Maybe we can start to find those things about each other out.”

He nods against you. “I’d like that.”

You sniffle and follow him in letting out a laugh. “I’ll end up falling asleep here if we keep this up.”

He snickers at your comment. “I guess I’ll just have to carry you to bed then, huh?” He teases back, his tone light and playful.

You push away from his chest and fix your gaze directly at him, a dazed smile on your face. “I guess you’ll just have to, Arthur Morgan.”

His breathing hitches, obviously not expecting to be accepted on his offer. “Yeah, I suppose I will, sweetheart.”

You grasp his face with your hands and do something you’ve been wanting to do since the day you met him.

You place a kiss squarely on his mouth and he reciprocates it almost immediately.

His lips, though slightly chapped are soft and his stubble that he hasn’t shaved for weeks tickles your cheeks, poking you in a pleasurable way. You taste the tobacco on him and though you don’t smoke, maybe through kissing him you get the appeal. Fingers thread through your braid that’s falling apart by the second.

For the first time, you don't hold the butteflies back.

You part your lips to deepen the kiss and allow him to explore your mouth with his tongue.

It becomes hungry. Insatiable. It's years of pent up frustration and confusion exploding into a possession that consumes your whole body. He groans and you barely notice when he scoops you up, hooking his arm under your legs. “God, we could have been doing this earlier.” He growls.

As you giggle against his lips, Arthur continues to carry you, walking briskly towards your tent.

And the world around you stayed silent that night, except for a few hushed noises.

- - - - - - -

A/N: Yee-haw. Pls interact, I need to to talk to more RDR people lmao. pls.

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