ᯓ★ CHAOS JUNKIE .ᐟ

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[cybernetic-freak]

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ᯓ★ cora . any prns . 9teen . afrolatina . ocs galore . i like drawing 𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔┄ ┄ ╮.

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[gl00myskull]

I love lollipop chainsaw with my soul and I love swan even more omg; I have so much artwork of this man I need to start posting it, it’s actually insane. I’ll probably be back in another blue moon with something to post, and expect most of it to be lollipop chainsaw related because it’s all i can think about lol

[lgbtqiatext]

[kodiakjester]

been a hot sec :]

[schwarzfeesecond]

Love, Death & Robots Season 1 (2019) - Blindspot

[zeraxes]

A Son’s Father.

Masterlist.

Chishiya x Reader.

You meet Chishiya's father in a hearts game, and you hate him from the start. You hate how quiet Chishiya gets even more. You really wish he wasn't in the Jack of Hearts with the two of you.

8701 words.

Comments genuinely make my day <3

Enjoy!

Lovely people who wanted to be tagged: @9jloo @kimsri @s0ffelip0ffeli

Chishiya has gone completely silent.

Someone who might know him less than you wouldn’t be surprised by that. They’d expect it even.

But you? You’ve partnered with him in these games for almost a month now, a month that has felt like eternity in a place like the Borderlands.

And you have spent a lot of time watching him in that time. While the intention hadn’t been to learn his tells, you were watching him because of the feelings you’re trying, and likely failing, to hide, you did learn them. Some of them.

And right now? He’s tense. He looks relaxed, sure, leaning against the wall, hands in pocket and his hood up, the cable of his walkman leading up to the earbuds in his ear, but he’s not relaxed.

For one, there has been no sarcastic comment when they walked into the romantic cafe that has turned into a game venue. You expected him to snide at the romantic setting.

But more importantly, he’s been ignoring you.

You’re good at spades games. Chishiya is decidedly not. But you don’t have Chishiya’s intelligence, so the two of you team up during the games. He keeps you alive during hearts and diamonds, you keep him alive during spades and do the socialising during clubs.

It works. You’re still alive. Both of you are. And you like to think you’ve grown on Chishiya by now.

The signs are small: His eyes aren’t quite as empty when they land on you. He’s stopped tensing whenever you have to touch him to help him during another physical game. 

He always gives you one of his earbuds when he listens to music from his home-made taser while waiting for games to start.

Except now, apparently. Another sign he’s tense.

Why? Did he spot something you didn’t? If so, you have no clue what it could be. The venue isn’t likely to be spades, so it can’t be that. And even if it was, he has played some before. He despises club games less now that he has you to steer the crowd.

“Are you alright?” You whisper at him.

He glances at you without moving his head before watching the other players again.

Right. This is Chishiya. He doesn’t consider questions like that worth answering. But the glance already says something: You’d expect him to not even do that.

The game turns out to be a low level hearts game. The announcer says something about the importance of honesty in relationships as you’re led to the next room where you’re made to sit around a round table.

The game is point based. Of the group, only the three with the highest points will receive a game clear. You’ll get points by correctly guessing another’s statement as truthful or a lie, or by having other people be wrong about your own statement.

You’re not the best liar. Luckily you have Chishiya. However much he despises the human heart, he is objectively good at reading people.

You don’t need his help for the first two statements. A physically attractive man who claims to have cheated on his girlfriend? Truth. He’d been checking you out before the game started. A woman trying to say the same? A lie, she’d looked disgusted when the man said it.

It’s the third man that poses a problem.

His expression reminds you of one Chishiya often wears. Lips upticked just slightly so it could technically be called a smirk, and eyes so empty and cold.

He looks right at you as he states: “I love my family.”

Which… 

He should, right? It’s his family. Even people whose families are messed up often still love them, when they hate them too. It’s how messy human emotions are.

But his eyes are so cold. 

You glance at Chishiya, who’s looking at the man. You’re not allowed to talk, so you not-so-subtly nudge his arm.

He ignores you.

You frown, nudging him again. He might be off today, but he can’t be off during the game itself. Your life is on the line.

This time he does look at you, but his eyes as cold and empty as they are when looking at anyone else.

Shit.

Is he not helping you?

You frown, pushing away anger and hurt. You only have twenty seconds left to choose.

You look at the man again, who has tilted his head now, still with those slightly upturned lips.

Ten seconds.

Your hand hovers between the two buttons in front of you, one for lie, one for truth. You really can’t tell.

You glance at Chishiya again, but he’s back to watching the man.

Maybe he doesn’t know either.

Five seconds.

Truth. It has to be truth. Right? Most people feel at least a sliver of love for their family? For at least one person?

Three seconds.

You take in a deep breath, and bring your hand to the truth button.

But before you press it, your hand is nudged away to the other button. Lie. Chishiya isn’t looking at you as he does so.

Like you have so often in these games, you trust Chishiya.

You press lie.

The lamp in the middle of the room turns green. You’re correct.

You’re very uncomfortable with the man still looking at you. There is something in his eyes. As if you’re a specimen he’s planning to vivisect, but would only feel mildly interested while doing so. 

So, obviously, you give him a taunting smile back. You’re not letting yourself be an easy target.

The only reaction he gives is moving his attention to Chishiya, schooling his features back into neutral, if you can call that smirk neutral. Or those eyes.

Chishiya is quicker in helping you the rounds after that, the way he normally is. Still lazy as always, but no more last-second rescues.

As the rounds go by, the man’s attention stays mostly on the two of you. You give him that taunting smile each time you catch his gaze. 

You’ve found that using this particular smile on men often tends to aggravate them. This specific man does not give a sliver of a reaction.

You’re delighted when the game ends and you have the third most points. You get to live for a few more days! You’d been worried when you heard the rules of this game, but you’re not teamed up with Chishiya for nothing. He has the second most points.

Unfortunately, the man made it as well.

You still flinch when the collars explode off the other, panicking players. Neither Chishiya nor the man give a reaction. 

As you are not as emotionless as some others, you stand up to leave. The once romantic cafe is now littered with corpses. No need to stay a second longer than is needed.

“You’re both wearing locker keys. Are you with that cult?” 

You keep walking, ignoring the man. You expect Chishiya to do the same. Instead, to your surprise, he responds.

Chishiya’s voice is… off. You’re not good enough at reading him to tell what exactly, but your gut insists it is. However, it’s his words that make you turn around promptly.

“I am, father.”

Father.

The resemblances are there, you suppose. Had you not thought that his expression was similar to Chishiya’s? The same cold, empty eyes. Their facial structure is the same, although his father is taller.

“You’ll take me with you.”

“Of course, father.”

Yes, Chishiya is definitely off. You’ve never seen him like this before.

I love my family.

No wonder Chishiya hadn’t wanted to tell you to press ‘lie’.

The earlier anger melts. Even for Chishiya, that must’ve been difficult to do.

You hate this man already. The game let you choose what lie or truth you could say. And he chose to, in front of his son, prove that he does not love him.

What you hate more is how Chishiya is acting differently. You’ve seen nothing faze him before. That his father manages…

As you sit down on the driver’s seat of the Beach’s car, you debate driving away before he could step in.

But it’s not your choice to make. It’s Chishiya’s. You check on him through the rearview mirror. He has a blank look on his face, wearing his earbuds as he leans on his palm, staring out of the window.

You’re glad his father sits down in the passenger seat. Away from Chishiya. But to your dismay, as you start driving, he starts to talk to you.

He wants to know about you. Your name (you curtly only give your family name), what you did before the Borderlands, your hobbies. 

It’s Chishiya’s father. That’s the only reason you answer.

He’s good at this, you realise. His friendly, polite behaviour almost makes you forget his vivisecting smile earlier, or his cruel words. 

In the back, Chishiya sits still as a statue, still looking out of the window, seemingly ignoring the both of you. You can only catch a single reaction even though you keep glancing in the rearview mirror a whole lot more than necessary.

It’s when Chishiya’s father offers to patch you up if you get hurt: His jaw clenches ever so slightly.

You remember Chishiya’s hands on you, sewing close a cut that’s now healed cleanly. It’d been a week after you partnered up, and his hands had been clinical, not touching you a second more than necessary, but you’d liked the focus in his eyes. The way his attention was solely on treating you.

No way you’d let his father treat you instead. Even if he has more experience.

You don’t trust his friendly face.

The man has the audacity to apologise for his son after Chishiya steps out of the car when you arrive, telling his father to follow him and leaves without saying a word to you. 

Okay, maybe that’s reasonable. It was rude of him. But you’ve already decided you don’t like the man, and you know Chishiya.

A lack of goodbye isn’t unexpected. Especially as he knows you. And likely knows that you’ll go straight to his room instead of your own, because he’s scarily good at predicting you like that.

When Chishiya enters his room, his eyes fall on you immediately. “This is a private space.” 

You decide it’s definitely more curt than he’d be normally. And you also decide to completely ignore his hint of wanting to be alone.

Even if it’s just as a silent presence, you want to be there for him.

“I know. But we’re friends. And that means I’m here for you when you feel bad.”

“Oh?” He removes his slippers calmly. “I’m feeling bad now?” His eyes stay on you, a calculating look in them you’re familiar with.

“At the very least you’re feeling off.” You’ve got no interest in arguing over semantics. “I’m not expecting you to get all emotional, ‘Shiya. But let me be here for you.”

He stays silent for a moment, tilting his head slightly. “You were talking with him.”

“I didn’t feel like it, but I figured I’d be polite.” 

His eyes still don’t move away as he steps closer. There’s something else in them, aside from the calculation. You wish you were better at reading people. Jealousy? Defensiveness? Vulnerability? You don’t think you’re right. “Don’t talk to him again.”

You blink. “I mean, gladly, but why?” Maybe it’s protectiveness? That doesn’t fit either.

He stops right in front of you, cupping your cheek. He contemplates something, and then, with no hint at what he’s about to do, he leans in to press his lips against yours.

What? You freeze. You hadn’t noticed any sign he’d even liked you. Not like that. And from the way his eyes never strayed, even with all the mostly naked women and men of the Beach, you’d assumed he couldn’t like anyone like thatZ

Yet his lips are moving against yours, clinically but sure. It feels amazing. You love that feeling, you’ve wanted him for weeks.

But something isn’t right.

The kiss isn't long enough for you to comprehend what is happening before he pulls away, removing his hand from your face, putting both in his pockets as he takes a step back.

Distracted. That’s what he is. Even while kissing you, his full attention hadn’t been on you.

Neither is it when he speaks his next words. “We’ll go to pack your things tomorrow. You’ll stay here from now on.” He pauses, looking around the room as if he imagines what it’d look like. “As my girlfriend.”

What.

You want that. Obviously, you want that. But this is Chishiya. Where is this coming from?

It certainly isn’t from a place of love or desire.

Normally you’d be over the moon. This isn’t normal.

You cross your arms. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

He tilts his head, blinking a single time. “I thought you’d want that?”

You are working with a genius who does not care for the human heart, you remind yourself. He might actually not know how to do this. “I do.” You admit. “But not like this. Your focus was barely on me. If we get together, I want it to be because you actually like me in that way. Not because… whatever is going on in your head.”

“I see.” He actually sighs. “You misunderstand. You manage to stay in my head in a way no one else has. I find myself calculating your survival as a necessity. I have been wondering whether these are romantic feelings. But no, that is indeed not why I’m doing this.”

He thinks he might like you? That fills you with hope. A lot more than the kiss did. “So why?” You demand.

One of his hands leaves his pocket to tilt your head down to him. This time he doesn’t lean in for a kiss. “I am my father’s son.” He tells you. “And he is his son’s father.”

He’s quiet for a moment before continuing. “I barely feel anything. I’m vain. Selfish. I have that from him. I don’t like people. Nor does he.” His eyes stay strictly on yours. “He does not do smalltalk. Unless he has ulterior motives.”

Yet he’d spend the entire ride talking to you. Or better said, making you talk.

You frown. “What kind of ulterior motives? Maybe he noticed you acted differently around me? Maybe-”

You’re cut off by Chishiya actually snorting. “No. He has no interest in me.” The casual way Chishiya says so breaks your heart.

“The one difference between me and my father is his interest in observing people.” He tells you. His tone turns mocking. “How they react to obstacles. Tragedies. He does not care for his patients, but keeps contact with them and their close ones to see how they’re affected by tragedy. Or death.” 

“We’re both healthy.” You point out.

“That we are. So I’d rather not take the chance his interest turns nefarious.” The mocking leaves his voice. “Health isn’t the primary cause of death in the Borderlands. To my knowledge, my father has never cared about anyone, and we both assumed I’m the same. You prove that wrong. I’m sure that’d make me an interesting case study.”

“You’re trying to warn me that he might attempt to kill me.” You say slowly, as if making sure you understand correctly.

“He wouldn’t do it himself, but indirectly, yes. He does not place value on a human life. I’d rather not chance it.”

You want to exclaim how messed up it is. You want to sympathise with him. But you know Chishiya would prefer you didn’t. “I could take him.” You confidentially state instead.

There’s something fond in his eyes at that statement, which makes you smile cockily. “You could.” Chishiya agrees. “So he’ll make sure that a direct confrontation won’t happen. He’s as intelligent as I am.”

“So why decide I’m your girlfriend?” The words feel weird in your mouth, even though you do want them to be true.

“Giving us a label might postpone his attempts.”

Us. This is actually happening. Maybe you should be more concerned about a genius who might attempt to kill you, but you got this genius on your side. And your month in the Borderlands has proven you’re not that easy to kill.

So instead, you bring your hand to the back of his head, burying it in his hair as you lean in. “If we’re doing this, I want a better kiss.” You tell him before pressing your lips against his.

This time, it is a lot better. Chishiya isn’t as distracted and you can feel his lips forming a smirk. His movements are more lazy instead of clinical, and he lets you deepen the kiss without hesitation. 

He lies on his side when you go to bed. Perfect, as you cuddle against his back, burying your face in against the top of his head. His muscles lock under your touch at first, but you don’t move away. You’re rewarded by a gradual relaxation. “A face full of hair can’t be comfortable.” You’re glad to hear his sarcastic edge again. You answer by burying your face deeper into his hair. “Disagree.”

It’s only then that you realise a discrepancy. “Why did you take your father to the Beach?” With Chishiya fearing what he might do, it would’ve been better to keep him far away, no?

“Of course I did.” While you can’t feel a change in his body, his words are curt. “He’s my father.”

The next few days, Chishiya stays within your reach. Which you don’t mind. Not at all. What you do mind, is how each time his father enters the room, Chishiya changes in that same, quiet way. His sarcastic comments disappear. Whenever his father talks to him, his vocabulary lessens to “Yes, father.” Or “Of course, father.”

At least it’s just a mask. Or so you hope. Habits ingrained from childhood. Because Chishiya doesn’t actually tell his father anything. Not about the plan, not about the Beach, not about you. He lets his father navigate the Beach himself, granting him none of the benefits that could have come from his son being an executive.

Unfortunately, it does become known that Chishiya’s father is at the Beach. While most don’t seem to notice the small changes in Chishiya, some do. Fortunately, Niragi trying to provoke Chishiya by threatening his father does not work at all. Chishiya simply slowly blinks before moving on. Unfortunately, Mira, the Beach’s most capable heart specialist, definitely notices. While you’re not an executive, so you aren’t privy to all of their interactions, you can see how she purposefully situates his father around Chishiya. She seems to be delighted to watch their interactions. 

But it shouldn’t be long anymore. Chishiya is planning to leave the Beach with stolen cards, and has told you the time will come soon. When asked, he’d assured you it’d be just the two of you who’d leave the Beach together.

Which doesn’t bode well for Arisu and Usagi who he’s planning to recruit.

Yet you’ve grown used to Chishiya using people as bait. You don’t like it, but you see the necessity of it. 

You can handle two more.

The next game you play is the Two of Spades, Human Elevator. As you look at the metal bar you’re supposed to hold on to, you can’t help but be reminded of the horizontal bars on playgrounds as a kid. And the game said nothing against using your legs.

You hoist yourself up first while Chishiya watches, having that slightly irritated look in his eyes he gets whenever he’s forced into physical games. After you’ve hooked your legs around the bar, you help him do the same. 

This way, even if you’re supporting Chishiya with one arm the whole way through, your other hand on the bar, the game isn’t that difficult for you. Chishiya struggles a bit, but not enough to make you worry. 

Unfortunately but foreseeable his father copies your strategy, just like the other players. A doctor spends long shifts on their feet, so he does have strength in his legs. 

Still, it’s satisfying to see him start to struggle halfway through. 

What you don’t admit is satisfying, is that this game clearly proves your capability. But you don’t have anything to prove, you remind yourself. Chishiya knows your worth, and his father’s opinion does not matter.

It’s only days later that Hatter dies, setting Chishiya’s plan in motion. 

It’s a disaster.

You had known Arisu and Usagi would be bait, but you still don’t like it. You’re not sure what prompts you to ask after not having before with any other. When you know the answer. “Don’t you feel guilty for Arisu and Usagi?”

Chishiya stops walking, tilting his head towards you. “You never asked that before. Why now?”

“I suppose it feels different.” You admit. “This isn’t one of the games. In the games it’s our survival on the line. We’ve known Usagi and Arisu for days now.”

“Ah. Instant gratification versus long-term benefits.” While there’s an edge of mocking in his tone, it’s not as prominent as it would’ve been with others. “How human. Don’t forget that this is a matter of life and death. These-” he holds out the cards to you, “will ensure we’ll make it out. The less time spent trying to return to the old world, the lesser the chance of dying in a game will be. Usagi and Arisu are no different from other sacrifices we’ve made.”

Right. He’s right, of course. He turns towards you completely. “Is there anything you won’t do to survive?” His voice is deceptively soft. 

“I suppose.” You start to walk again. It’s better to put as much distance between the two of you and the militants as soon as possible.

We. He’d said we. But the cards will only allow one person to make it back, won’t they?

You don’t want-

Your thoughts are interrupted by a loud explosion. Your head whips around. It seems to come from the direction of the cars. Did fire get to the gas tanks?

“I hate to imagine it.” You look at Chishiya next to you. “But I suspect the worst.”

He throws his locker key through the exit you were moments away from stepping through. A familiar swishing sound is heard as it hits the red lasers.

A game.

You’re in a venue.

The Beach has become a game?

“Fuck. We- the Beach has become a game? Now?”

Chishiya’s voice is calm as ever. “The games are held in all kinds of facilities. Hospitals, schools, shrines. So it was bound to happen here eventually.” His eyes are fixated on the lasers, and you realise there is something else in his voice. “We only had one step left. Nothing ever goes according to plan ~♪”

You grab his shoulder. “C’mon. We have to make for somewhere centralised. Who knows what kind of game this is. We can’t grab attention.”

He tilts his head towards you. “But we do know. What else could it be but the Ten of Hearts?”

To make matters worse, you get separated from Chishiya almost immediately. He led you to the lobby, the most logical place for all of the Beach members to have to gather. There is a dead girl laying on the ground, knife protruding from her heart. Momoka, you remember. The game is clear: find the evil witch who murdered her.

Immediately her friend (Asahi?) is accused. You stay silent. The answer wouldn’t be so obvious, but you refuse to draw attention to yourself.

Luckily, others are more selfless than you. Usagi steps in. You glance at Chishiya, who doesn’t give a reaction. But you? You’re glad she’s still alive.

Chishiya catches your eyes, nods towards one of the exits and turns around, walking away. You follow.

Like most of his decisions, it was the smart thing to do. It doesn’t take long before gunshots ring out behind you and panicked screams start.

Yet you didn’t leave early enough to not start to run. Except, you realise after you’ve done so, you know Chishiya well enough you really, really, should’ve grabbed him before you ran. 

You turn around. “Chishiya!” Because, as past experience in games have proven, the man will only run if you drag him along. “C’mon!”

But a stream of panicked Beach members flow into the hallway, followed by loud bangs.

Damn it. 

You watch only for long enough to see Chishiya slip into the emergency staircase, away from you, before you start to run again.

Damn it.

You have no chance of finding the Witch on your own. Especially not with crazed idiots waving around their guns. At least, that is the reason you give yourself when you prioritise getting back to Chishiya. 

But you’ll have to find him first.

You make your way towards the surveillance room. As expected, the cameras are still working. 

What you see is a massacre. Swads of innocent people are getting mowed down without mercy. Even with the desensitisation the Borderlands has done to you, it’s tough to watch.

You know some of these people. The militants know these people. They die to the weapons meant to protect them.

You knew some of the militants were fucked up. But some of them had been nice. Some of them had been just like anyone else, the only difference being that they were placed in the faction with the weapons.

Now all of them kill with no discrimination.

You force yourself to look for a white jacket and a blond head of hair when the door behind you opens.

You swirl around, ready to duck for cover or attack, but it’s no militant. 

It’s the wrong Chishiya.

You keep your Chishiya’s warning in mind, but the man doesn’t seem to have any weapons on him. In fact, his face seems friendly. But you know better.

“It seems I’m not the only one who thought of this as a hiding spot.” There’s sociable humour in his voice. 

“I’m not hiding. I’m searching.” You correct him, keeping your eyes on the man as he approaches.

He, as if ignoring you’re a possible threat, comes to stand beside you, and focuses on the screens.

“Ah, my son. You’re quite enamoured with him.”

“Of course I am. That’s normal for couples.” There is none of that original, vivisecting smile on his face.

“No need to be so hostile. Am I to assume that my son has been spreading tales about me?” No, actually. Ever since that first warning, Chishiya’s been deflecting each time his family came up.

“He’s been silent. But I have eyes.” You might not be able to accurately read the man in front of you. But you have made progress in reading Chishiya.

“I don’t mean to insult, but you’re not good at reading people.” Sheesh, this is definitely Chishiya’s father. You glare at him. “During the heart game, my son had to tell you most of the answers. You do clearly have your strengths, as you’re very athletic, but the ability to read people isn’t one of them.”

“I’m aware of my limitations. Get to the point.” Your eyes return to the screens, continuing your search for Chishiya. You want to be able to leave this conversation.

“I just wanted to warn you. I’m aware of what my son is like, and by now you must have too.” You’re well aware of Chishiya’s lack of ethics. He claimed his father was smart, surely the man can do better than this?

You shrug. “What we have works.”

“I don’t believe for a moment my son has joined the Beach because he believes in its cause or wants the benefits. He’s here to steal the cards, if he hasn’t already.” Your head shoots up at that, before you immediately try to force your face to be neutral. Too late.

“Don’t worry. I get no value in telling anyone. But you do realise he’ll sacrifice anyone to win? My son is well-versed in manipulation.” You know what he’s getting at. 

“If you’re trying to turn me against him, you’re failing.” Chishiya can be cold, yes. But however naive it might sound, you’re an exception. He softens around you. He tolerates things from you that you’ve seen him harshly shut down with others.

“I’m not. I’m just laying out the facts. A complete deck will only allow a single person to leave, right?”

“So Hatter claimed.” You dislike that he does make a valid point. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

“Will you?” He muses. “It seems my son isn’t with you. And if no face cards exist, the Ten of Hearts is the last card he’ll need.” You clench your jaw. Chishiya wouldn’t. To others? Without question. But to you? You refuse to believe that.

He had used we earlier.

“I think it’s commendable that you want to see the best in him.” You might not be able to see past the friendliness on his face, but you highly doubt he thinks so. “But my son does not deserve that.”

There! Finally, you spot the familiar white jacket, climbing a staircase. It seems like Chishiya is making his way towards the roof.

“It’s not on you to decide that.” You tell the man as you turn your back towards him, eager to leave.

“I was wondering. Did my son disclose to you that he’s engaged?”

What?

“What?”

“To quite a lovely lady. She’s a doctor’s daughter. Smart, too. Shuntaro values intelligence.”

You turn around. You really wish that you could read minds the way Chishiya seemingly can. You can’t see a trace of the truth on his face.

“You’re lying.” There is just no way. 

“I’m just trying to help.”

This is Chishiya’s father, you remind yourself. You don’t believe that he ‘just wants to help’ for a moment.

He knows you’re bad at reading people. He just told you. He knows you won’t be able to tell on his face if he’s lying.

Who you do know is Chishiya. You’ve shared tender moments with him. Those were real. What you have is real.

“You’re disgusting.” You tell the man. 

That, finally, seems to make a crack in his mask as his lips go up in a smirk. 

You find Chishiya sitting on the edge of the roof, staring in the direction of the courtyard where the fires are, cards scattered around him.

You pick one up, flicking it at him as you sit down next to him in a silent question.

“Enough is enough. Now I feel like there’s no point in collecting them.” To your surprise, he lays down on his side, so that his head is in your lap. 

It would almost make you forget that you are in a game, if it weren’t for the tragedy in the courtyard in front of you.

“The game, ‘Shiya.” You remind him.

“Heart games aren’t for me. I’ll leave the game to him.” He moves onto his back.

“Your father?” You ask, your mind going back to the man. Engaged.

“I suppose that could do. But I meant Arisu.”

His eyes are studying your face. “You talked to my father.”

“Yes.” No reason to deny. “He approached me while I was using the cameras to find you.” You pause. “He claimed you were engaged.”

“Oh? Me?” Chishiya’s smile is one of his few where he’s actually amused. “I wasn’t aware. What’s her name?”

That makes you relax. You knew his father was lying.

“Some doctor’s daughter.” You tell him. “Apparently, she’s smart.” Shuntaro values intelligence.

“Unfortunately I’ll have to break the engagement. I’ve got someone much more to my taste here.” He lifts a hand to twirl a pluck of your hair between his fingers, his eyes on it as if fascinated by the simple action.

“I’m not that smart.” You remind him. 

Chishiya blinks. “I’m smart enough for both of us.” He dismisses.

You smile softly. 

The game ends. You don’t learn whether it was Arisu or Chishiya’s father who solved it, but you don’t particularly care.

Chishiya in turn doesn’t seem to care about getting up, but the building is on fire and you do have to leave. He follows you towards one of the cars of the Beach, neither of you interested in teaming with the other survivors.

As you drive towards your apartment, Chishiya lets his hand rest on your knee.

You don’t believe his father, not for a moment. But you also can’t unhear his words.

Chishiya calls your apartment a cluttered mess, which you don’t mind. You bet his own place doesn’t have a single personal item, so his bar is high. 

The next few days during the interlude aren’t that different from the Beach. It’s just that there are no more other people. He doesn’t mention his father a single time.

You leave the theorising about the granted interlude to him as you wait for the next stage.

You have enough days on your VISA. There’s no reason to worry about games.

One moment, a simple moment where he asks you to pass the salt during a meal, he uses your given name to address you.

It takes you a moment to realise, stilling mid-reach towards the shaker. 

“Hmm. I do like the way that sounds.” You can hear the smirk on his face.

“Alright, Shuntaro.” You immediately throw back, although you can’t keep the smile off your face.

“Acceptable. May I have the salt now?”

You watch the announcement of the citizens on your couch together. Chishiya predictably mocks them. The blimps emerge the noon after, which the two of you observe from the roof of your apartment complex.

“Avoid the King of Spades.” He tells you. It’s the only blimp which hasn’t stopped yet. “It might be a free roamer.”

Even though you can tell Chishiya is itching to play the King of Diamonds, neither of you join games for the next few days.

At least, not until you’re forced to.

It’s when you’re out to scavenge that Chishiya notices the blimp of the King of Spades getting too close. Moments later, the sound of gunshots reverberate through the streets. Not at you. Not yet.

This time you grab Chishiya’s hand first before going into a run. Glancing backwards, the blimp seems to be going in your direction.

Shit.

“A game.” Chishiya gets out between breaths. “They won’t mess with each other’s games.”

You glance up at the other close blimp, hovering above the prison across the street.

The Jack of Hearts.

“Really? Hearts?” But he’s right.

Using cover, you make it across, and Chishiya’s right. There’s not even an attempt made to hit you.

You dislike that the venue is in a prison. You dislike that you’re made to wear a collar. You do like that no metal is allowed. That likely means a lack of weapons.

You hate that amongst the people waiting for you stands Chishiya’s father, leaning against a cell not too disfamiliar from the pose Chishiya prefers himself.

You move past him without acknowledging him, glad you can hear Chishiya’s footsteps following you.

You hate that Chishiya’s gone quiet again, not even rolling his eyes as the moaning starts. 

Fortunately, the last two players enter soon. A woman in a hoodie with animal (bear?) ears and another with a hat.

Chishiya stays completely silent through the rules as well. It’s one of the more complicated games you’ve played, which was to be expected of a jack.

There are nineteen players and one Jack of Hearts. The identity of the Jack of Hearts is unknown. The players win if the Jack of Hearts dies while the Jack of Hearts wins if the players die.

A suit appears on the back of your collar. At the end of the hour, you’ll have to enter a solitary cell and guess what suit it is. If you’re wrong, it’s game over. The next round your suit is changed. 

The only way to know your suit is to be told by others. Which means the only way to win is if someone lies to the Jack of Hearts. Which means players are incentivised to lie to each other.

So you’d have to rely on people incentivised to lie to tell you the truth.

You would’ve been so dead if you hadn’t come in here with Chishiya. But you have, so you’re confident about this game.

Neither of you will die. You don’t even have to search for the Jack. You just have to outlast them.

Next to you, Chishiya is analysing all of the players. You don’t follow his example. Likely, most of these people will die. You don’t want to learn about them. 

One of the players, a big man, locks eyes with you for a moment. You smirk at him. You know his type, he’s searching for a victim to dominate. Which you are decidedly not.

The brute settles on someone else. 

The other players start talking game strategy. You’re not interested, but you let Chishiya observe all he wants as a group and partnerships are formed. You glance at his father. He seems utterly uninterested in joining the group as well.

A shame. You have a bad gut feeling as to what his plan is.

And indeed, when the people disperse, his father walks up to the two of you. “Son. What is my suit? You’re diamonds.” He completely ignores you. There is none of that friendly mask now.

“Hearts.” Chishiya answers curtly. It’s not a lie.

You have a bad feeling about this. But Shuntaro won’t lie to you. And you won’t lie to him. It should be fine.

At least he doesn’t follow you as you explore the building. You can’t ask Chishiya to not include his father. The man might die otherwise. And even if Chishiya once warned you he might try to harm you, he hasn’t attempted a single time.

He’s lied, yes. Tried to wedge you away from his son. But that’s not enough to deserve death.

“Spades.” You state confidently in your cell at the end of the first round. Others aren’t as confident: the priest in the cell next to you is praying loud enough for you to hear.

But no one dies this first round. Almost everyone seems completely relieved when they step out of their cells, leaving you once again thankful that you entered this game with Chishiya. 

The relief isn’t long lasted, as the brute immediately searches out his victim. Admirably, the man with the afro, who started the group, goes to defend him.

You consider joining him. The man with the afro doesn’t stand a chance, but you do.

You’re stopped by a hand on your shoulder. “Don’t intervene. Kiriu does not have restraint, and it’s against the rules to render someone speechless or worse. It’ll kill both of you.”

So instead, you make for the cafetaria. You won’t say no to free food.

Searching between the shelves is apparently enough of a separation for one of the men to approach you. “Hey.” He smiles awkwardly with a lowered voice. The man kind of looks like an emo, his hair hiding one of his eyes. “Do you mind if we trade suits? I’m scared of my partner.”

You try and remember who he partnered up with. Wasn’t it the guy who sat on the floor, staring at nothing? Kind of creepy, you suppose. Like with the others, you didn’t pay him much attention.

“You don’t need to tell me mine. I’m good.” You shrug. “But I don’t mind telling you. You’re clubs.”

“Thank you.” He pauses. “You’re diamonds. You never know.”

Chishiya is exchanging suits with his father as you make your way back to him. He disappears before you reach them.

“You’re clubs.” You tell him, brushing his hair away with your thumb, purposefully touching his skin. There’s no reason not to believe his father won’t tell him the truth, but you won’t take the chance. Chishiya matters too much to you.

“Diamonds.” His fingers brush your skin too. Your skin tingles where he touched you.

“Someone approached me.” You tell him as you sit down at a table. “The emo guy? He’s scared of his partner.”

“Matsushita.” Chishiya informs you. He really is observant. “He should be. Banda Sunato is a serial killer. Although he has only killed women.” He glances at you. “Stay away from Banda. I suppose you can tell Matsushita his suit. Just don’t trust him.”

You shrug. “So what if he lies? I know you will tell me the truth.”

His eyes soften slightly at that.

This round, no one dies either. But it isn’t long into the round before an angry scream echoes through the cells.

You’re proud of the victim to see a knife protruding from Kiriu’s back. But that feeling doesn’t last long.

Chishiya predicted right. Kiriu does not have any restraint.

As punishment for bashing the victim’s face in, his collar explodes.

Suddenly, everyone is paranoid, as they whisper someone has to have told the victim, Seto, to do so. Likely the Jack of Hearts.

“Or someone who wants to get the game moving.” Chishiya argues as the two of you share a bag of biscuits. “Right now players fall into three categories. Loners, partners and the group. The loners will die soon enough, they don’t trust anyone. The group will follow soon after. They’ll eat each other up from the inside out. Most of the partners will last the longest.”

“And us? Which category do we fall in?”

Chishiya glances at you. “We’re partners.” The finality in his tone prevents you from asking where his father falls in that case.

Matsushita approaches you when Chishiya is busy with his father. You exchange suits again. “Your partner seems cold.” He notices. You don’t let him say more.

“Don’t. We’re together. I have no interest in continuing this if you insult him in any way.”

He doesn’t respond to that.

This round, three more people die. Two loners, like Chishiya predicted. One was partnered with the priest.

“Does that mean he’s the Jack?” You ask Chishiya, but he shakes his head. “She clearly didn’t trust him.”

The rounds after that blur together. You tell Chishiya and Matsushita their suits, and Chishiya tells you and his father.

The man has completely ignored your existence this entire game. You don’t mind. What infuriates you is how he treats his son.

Each round, he approaches Chishiya. Each round, he simply orders him to tell him his suit. Each round, Chishiya’s “Yes father,” gets quieter.

You’re not sure if you’re meant to hear it when Chishiya remarks: “This is the most I’ve ever talked to him.”

You glance at his father, who’s sitting on his own, watching the last group members sweat. You recognise that same vivisecting look on his face he had during that first game.

It’s ironic, you muse. He is similar to Chishiya, except that Chishiya lacks that morbid interest. Yet you love one and hate the other.

Not that you care about the irony. You can’t stand seeing Chishiya… lesser like this. Less of himself. Quieter. A complete lack of snark.

You can’t stand the implication that his parents weren’t there for him growing up.

That round, four people die. Only Afro and the priest remain of the group. 

The next round, a new group is formed. A blond you haven’t paid any attention to is surrounded by his partner, the priest and afro. 

Their plan sounds good to you. Keep telling each other the truth until the months worth of food runs out, no matter if the Jack is in their midst. That way you don’t have to worry about your VISA nor about the King of Spades.

You could live for months that way. Basically eternity in the Borderlands.

Except you would have to live in close proximity with Chishiya’s father. Chishiya would have. You don’t think you can stand this forced version of the man you love for much longer without snapping.

Chishiya stays once again silent through the announcement, his father wording instead what you could imagine Chishiya saying. “A human being needs uninterrupted sleep. You won’t last long with having to wake up in fifty-five minute intervals.”

The businessman dislikes their plan as well. The next round, he physically blocks the blond’s cell door before he can make it out. When his partner protests, pointing out while the rules neglect to mention letting people leave their cells, it’s forbidden to keep anyone from entering.

The businessman shoves him as he enters, and closes the door again.

You return to the cafeteria, Chishiya in tow.

Matsushita seems jittery this round. You watch as he disappears from the cafetaria.

“You’re not his only friend.” Chishiya says from where he appears next to you. “He’s been talking to Kotoko.” You’re really missing his sarcastic tone.

“Good for him.” You shrug. “I’m just telling him his suit because I see no reason not to. He’s the one who insists on telling me mine.”

That round, all of the members of the new group die. While you know the blond and his partner died because you’re not allowed to be with two in one cell at the end of the hour, you’re not sure how Afro and the priest died. You suppose they must have lied to each other. Maybe the new group’s mission was doomed to fail from the start.

“You’re hearts.” You tell Matsushita. When he turns around, his bangs move to the side. Briefly, but brief enough that you can see his other eye.

Or, notably, the lack of his other eye.

“We weren’t allowed to take metal into the venue.” Matsushita tells you with a wry smile. “Otherwise I could’ve taken my fake eye.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.” You smile back, embarrassed. “I was just surprised. Your hair hides it well.”

“Don’t worry, I’m used to stares. You’re hearts as well.”

You make your way back to Chishiya, whose eyes are on you the moment you come into view.

You brush his hair away, your fingers lingering on his skin. “Diamonds.” You tell him, before turning your back towards him.

You can feel his fingers parting your hair, but he remains silent.

“Shuntaro?” 

You can feel him lean in behind you, his breath tickling the side of your neck. “It is impolite to lie.”

You blink. What? You glance back, a feeling of bewilderment taking you over before you realise.

“You’re diamonds.” You repeat. “Why would I lie?”

He can’t actually believe you’d lie, could he?

He’s smarter than that. And he can read you better than that.

Except there’s only one person who could’ve lied to him. 

His father.

And Chishiya acts off whenever he’s brought into the equation.

Chishiya’s eyes are as cold and empty as when you first met him. They roam over your face, as if trying to read the truth there.

“Shuntaro.” You try again, more desperate this time. You refuse to lose him. Especially to his asshole of a father. “C’mon. I’d never lie to you. Never you.”

He tilts his head. “Spades.” You don’t enjoy the return of the mocking in his voice as much as you thought you would. It makes you miss the meaning of what he said at first. Until he clarifies, still mocking, a slight faux-smirk on his face. “You’re spades.”

You freeze. He wouldn’t… Chishiya wouldn’t lie to you, would he? Even in this scenario? But why would Matsushita have lied? You’d helped him from the start.

“Shuntaro. Don’t be stupid. You know all of my tells.” The desperation is clear now. You can’t lose him. You don’t want to die. “You know I didn’t lie.”

The smirk falls, as does his mocking tone. “Your friend lied to you, then.” Suddenly, his eyes aren’t as empty anymore, as he moves to stand in front of you, cupping your cheek. “You are spades. I wouldn’t lie to you even if you lie to me.”

Damn it. Damn it-damnitdamnit. He can’t believe you’re lying. 

“You’re diamonds.” You try again. “Please. You know I love you.” You’ve never said it out loud before. “Don’t believe that asshole over me.” You can’t prevent the venom from slipping into your voice.

Chishiya doesn’t react. He just keeps looking at you. Then he sighs, drops his hand, and starts to walk towards the cells.

You hadn’t noticed that it was time.

Before Chishiya enters his cell, he hesitates. He glances one last time at you. His tone is soft as he says in a lowered voice. “You’re spades.”

The door closes behind you with a click.

Fuck.

What are you supposed to say? You want to believe Chishiya. You really do. But… did he think you were lying? His silence in the end suggested so. Or was he digesting that his own father would lie to him?

Why would the man even do that?

Had he been watching that confrontation? Had he enjoyed it?

Chishiya’s smart. You remind yourself. He wouldn’t let something as silly as sentiment determine his choice. The facts clearly point towards you telling the truth. They have to be.

You don’t know Matsushita. Not at all. And you know you’re not good at reading people. So he might’ve lied without you noticing. You can accept that. But Chishiya?

I wouldn’t lie to you even if you lie to me.

You can’t believe he would lie to you. You refuse to accept that possibility.

So in the end, there really isn’t a choice.

“Spades.” You whisper.

A loud boom reverberates through the cells as the timer hits zero. Your heart is beating in your ears.

“Time’s up. Out of seven participants, the number that survived round 10 is 5.”

Two died. Please. 

You push your celldoor open.

Banda and the businessman stand side to side. Chishiya’s father stands on the opposite side of the hallway.

Matsushita, Kotoko and Chishiya are missing.

Chishiya’s cell is right next to you. You don’t look through the small window before you throw the door open.

He’s standing in front of you, hands in pockets, his back towards you, completely still.

Alive.

Relief floods your body, and before you realise it you’re hugging him.

For a while, the only reaction is a slight leaning backwards into your embrace. Then, he murmurs: “There’s no need to be worried over me.” He disentangles himself from you, although he does take one of your hands with his into his pocket, and finally steps out of his cell, with you right next to him.

“Disgraceful.” You fume at his father’s voice. “You’d really believe that girl over your own father?”

Chishiya looks his father into his eyes. “Yes, father.”

In the background, you notice Banda and the businessman watching you very closely. With a start, you realise Matsushita must be dead.

He lied to you. Still, that made you assume he’d be the Jack of Hearts.

Yet the game hasn’t ended.

“If you lied to your own son.” Banda’s voice sounds distant and low. “You must have a good reason for that. One might think you’re the Jack of Hearts.”

Oh.

For one single moment, there is uncertainty in Chishiya’s father’s face. Strong enough for you to recognise it.

Next to him, the businessman gives a shrewd smile. “I have been dying for the opportunity to have a chat with one of the Borderland’s citizens.”

The Jack of Hearts turns to look at his son. “Shuntaro. You would let them do that to your father?”

Chishiya doesn’t even blink. “Of course, father.”

He walks away without looking back, and you’re right next to him.

Chishiya doesn’t seem all that perturbed by the screams echoing through the building, eating from a fresh bag of biscuits.

You’re still holding his hand, your thumb rubbing circles on his skin.

“Are you alright?” You ask when there’s a moment of silence.

Chishiya looks at you, a soft look in his eyes. For once, he answers your concern.

“With you? I will be.”

[piano-lody]

Tomie

[snobgoblin]

the "why would you ever be a rock" trend has been killing me lately btw

[osarina]

♱ WEEP LITTLE LION MAN

FEATURING: chrollo lucilfer x fem!reader, former kurapika kurta x fem!reader

SUMMARY: three weeks have passed since the incident in the theater. you waited, and you waited, and you waited. chrollo never came.

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, kakin prince!reader, soulmate au, canon divergent, enemies to lovers, abusive relationship with tserriednich/grooming (the first half of part 2 centers around this. it is not intended to be read as sexual), character death (not chrollo or reader), dark themes (carne levare, imperialism, etc), world & character building (i took some creative liberty with what we know for Plot purposes—particularly kakin, meteor city, the mafias, and many of the characters), age gap (reader is 20 for plot reasons—order of princes & relationship with kurapika) angst with (mostly) happy ending, (wc 14.6k)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: the start of part two at last!! You guys are going to have to bear with me I fear, because I won't be doing weekly postings for part 2, it's probably going to be every other week, or every two weeks—it's a lot to sit through and edit each chapter, because a lot of the scenes end up getting rewritten, and I've got too much going on to be able to keep up with weekly updates right onw! All reblogs and comments are appreciated! even if you only just boost!

SEE: REQUIEM IMPERIUM SERIES MASTERLIST

“Smile, little bird,” Tserriednich hums, coming up from behind you. He rests his hands on your shoulders, thumbs pressing into your upper spine, silently signaling for you to fix your posture. You glance back at him, catching the languid smile on his face as he looks out toward the crowds of nobles attending the banquet. “People are watching. We wouldn’t want them to think you’re unhappy. You’re not unhappy, are you?”

It scares you how easily you fell back into old habits. 

It didn’t even take a week. By the fifth day, you were already standing the way he liked again—shoulders back, wrists still, gaze softened just enough to suggest obedience instead of fear. Nearly three weeks now, and it’s as though you never left. The routines have settled into you: morning tea at seven, lounging in his quarters reading until noon, when the two of you would go down to whatever afternoon event is taking place on Tier Two, you hold his arm as you make small talk with officers and dignitaries, you smile when expected, you laugh when expected, you comment when expected, you are silent when expected. He walks you back up to your quarters so you can rest, and then you repeat the next day. 

It’s just how things used to be.

Or, maybe not exactly. He’s gentler than you remember, more patient with your mistakes, lenient toward your whims. If you forget to greet him properly, he only laughs, brushing it off with a teasing remark instead of a reprimand. When you spill tea on the sleeve of his robe, he waves away your apology and changes without a word. If he sees you growing bored with whatever book he chose for you, he lets you pick your own, and the next day, he has one picked out more similar to the one you chose.

It’s unsettling. You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop; you know he’s lulling you into a false sense of security, that the kindness will not last. But each day passes, and nothing changes. You start to wonder if it’s always been this way. If distance and anger had twisted your memories, making you believe that he was worse than he actually was. Then you remember the garden, the kitten, the songbird, the servant boy, the tutor—all of the things he has taken from you over the years, the way he would make you watch as he ripped them away, until you learned not to become attached.

The kindness is a facade, and you must be prepared for when he lets it fall.

“I’m not unhappy,” you answer, and then you smile. Prettily. The way he taught you to. He used to say that when you smiled properly, your beauty would put the stars to shame—a face that could launch a thousand ships, he would murmur pridefully when a noble would comment on your beauty.

“I’m glad,” he says. “I know this isn’t easy for you. You don’t believe me, but I did hope that I would be wrong about your fated. It hurts me to see you upset over a mongrel like him.”

A thousand ships, you think bitterly—yet not even enough for your soulmate to fight for.

“I’m not upset anymore, Tserried,” you deny instinctively, sighing and looking away when he gives you a look from the corner of his eye. You know how I feel about deceitful women, little bird. You correct, “Maybe a little, but I’ve moved on.”

Tserriednich kept his word to you after Hisoka and Chrollo’s second clash. He did not touch the Phantom Troupe once they were imprisoned. He held it over your head for quite a while during that first week—since he promised not to have them drugged and sedated, they were able to break free from their cells two days after they were taken into custody. You thought they would come for you. You think Tserriednich did too, because he upped the number of guards stationed in your quarters.

They didn’t.

You waited. Four days turned into five, then a week, then two. You told yourself there must’ve been a reason, but the silence stretched, and stretched, until every excuse began to feel like humiliation. Every morning you woke up expecting chaos, rescue, retribution—something. But nothing ever happened. You drank your tea. You smiled when spoken to. And no one came.

Tserriednich never said I told you so, but you would catch the faintest flicker of amusement behind his gentleness, as though he was indulging a child who had finally learned her lesson. He puts up the facade of sympathy, which you hated more than if he’d been smug. It wasn’t your fault that you’d never been able to get rid of that childish hope for your soulmate, he told you, don’t cry for a pig who used you so callously. He insisted that over and over again—that Chrollo used you, that he had no way of getting to the upper tiers without your help, and was only entertaining the bond to get close to Hisoka Morow and the Hui Guo Rou heirlooms. Chrollo Lucilfer is a thief, he reminded you, a liar, a charlatan, a conman—someone who could make anyone believe anything, if it suited him.

Even you, Tserriednich murmured, pitying your gullibility. Especially you.

He said it with such conviction, such effortless certainty, that sometimes you almost believed him. He described your bond as nothing more than an elaborate performance, another mask worn for advantage, and you cannot be blamed for trusting the serpent’s words when he wears the promise of a future you’ve dreamed of. You used to argue with him in the early days after the Troupe’s escape from confinement, when the silence between you and Chrollo still felt temporary. You told Tserriednich that he didn’t understand, the bond isn’t something that can be faked, but he would just wear that patient, knowing smile—the one that made you feel small—and ask, then why isn’t he here?

You stopped arguing after that.

“That makes me happy,” Tserriednich murmurs, smoothing a hand over your hair to fix a strand that fell out of place. “I’m meeting with Zhang Lei and Luzurus tomorrow. Will you join?”

Your gaze shifts up to him, curious. If he’s meeting with Zhang Lei and Luzurus, then the three bosses will definitely be there too—Brocco Li, Onior Longbao, and Morena Prudo. You haven’t spoken to Luzurus or Brocco Li since before everything went down with Hisoka. The last time you made contact with Zhang Lei was to deliver the head of Onior Longbao’s eldest son to him. And Morena Prudo—well, you don’t know if you want anything to do with that woman, not after what you heard was happening on the lower tiers. You’re not even really sure how Tserriednich managed to get her up to Tier One and put an end to the havoc. You’re not sure if you want to know.

“Is that a good idea?” you finally ask quietly. “I doubt our elder brother will take kindly to my presence.”

Tserriednich gives you a lazy smile. “He won’t,” he agrees.

That’s the point.

Ah, you realize, gaze flicking up to Tserriednich, amused. He winks at you before turning to a lesser noble approaching the two of you. You follow along absently as the man tries to make conversation with Tserriednich. Your brother is wildly unimpressed; you can tell that much from the bland smile and thinly veiled condescension in his eyes, but you’re glad for the interruption. 

You need to think—what is Tserriednich trying to accomplish by bringing you to a meeting with your two brothers and the bosses of the three families? Why does he need to antagonize Zhang Lei and Onior Longbao? Nothing he does is without purpose; there’s some sort of scheme he’s trying to see through. What is it?

Zhang Lei is notoriously hard to antagonize. He’s too careful, too diplomatic. You would even go as far as to say that he’s the hardest to provoke of all of your siblings. Maybe it’s not Zhang Lei then, you consider. Tserriednich wouldn’t waste effort on someone who won’t rise to the bait unless it serves a larger purpose. 

What is the larger purpose?

If Tserriednich wants everyone in one room, four heirs of Kakin’s royal line, and the bosses of the three crime families that prop up the kingdom’s underbelly, then he has some major goal he’s trying to accomplish. If he wants you there, at his side, then it’s because he needs you to lend him some extra legitimacy. 

Oh, you think you understand. When the three families and their benefactors meet, ordinarily, Zhang Lei and Tserriednich would be vying for dominance. Zhang Lei is the eldest, so he would take precedence in both blood and decorum, but Tserriednich is the second son of the First Queen. 

You’ve never attended one of these meetings before, but you can picture it: Zhang Lei presiding with that impeccable composure of his. Luzurus would defer to him out of habit, if not respect. Even the crime bosses, for all their volatility, know how to play to hierarchy when the older princes are present. Tserriednich, though, would not be so quick to submit. He’d smile through Zhang Lei’s opening remarks, say little, but every word from his mouth is a test—you know this better than anyone. He’d drop a question sharp enough to draw blood, something that a lesser prince wouldn’t dare to try; it would be so perfectly phrased that to ignore it would make Zhang Lei seem weak, and to answer would mean stepping into Tserriednich’s tempo.

And if Tserriednich controls the tempo, he controls the meeting.

You doubt Zhang Lei falls for it every time. He’s far too calculated for that. But with you there—and with Morena there, who you remember was having her disciples hunt down the Xi-Yu en masse less than three weeks ago—he’ll be off-kilter, more prone to posture, more susceptible to letting Tserriednich lead him by the nose. Zhang Lei is careful and diplomatic, but he is also proud. Being in a room with two people who openly insulted him will leave him straining to maintain his composure.

But why?

Tserriednich gives you a faint smile, as though he can tell exactly what you’re thinking. Maybe he can. You know why, he tells you silently as he starts to dismiss the noble who had approached the two of you.

Do you?

Your gaze cards across the room as though it will give you the answers you need, and—and it does. You inhale through your nose as your gaze falls on Benjamin. Your eldest brother decided against enacting special martial law once the Black Whale passed into the uncharted waters. With you and Tserriednich now united, he doesn’t want to risk a majority of the military siding with the two of you, especially now that he knows Tserriednich’s personal army has shown itself willing to flout orders when he demands otherwise. 

And now, with Tyson and Tubeppa dead, and whatever balance their presence once lent to the succession contest vanishing with them, there’s little left to temper the extremes. Halkenburg has succumbed to the King’s ideals, as you expected—he understands now that the only way to “save” Kakin is through bloodshed. The pacifist is dead, the moderate is silenced, the idealist has become jaded, and now only the predators and the children remain. 

Benjamin, Camilla, Zhang Lei, Tserriednich, Luzurus, Halkenburg, and you. 

Kacho, Fugetsu, Marayam, and Woble. 

Benjamin is still the biggest threat with the military unless the mafias can usurp control, but he knows his leadership over it isn’t absolute, which is why he hasn’t enacted special martial law. Tserriednich is trying to force him into it through a tripartite alliance between the mafia families, and he wants to make sure that he’s at the head of it when it’s declared. 

Then, between the faction of the military loyal to you and the families under his thumb, the two of you would have full dominion over the Black Whale.

How terrifying.

“Atta girl,” Tserriednich murmurs after the noble scurries away. “Knew you would figure it out.”

You say nothing, only inclining your head in acknowledgment. His approval sits heavily on your shoulders, warmer than it should be. The noise of the banquet hums back into focus—laughter, small talk, the low melody of string instruments—and you exhale slowly, trying to quiet your racing thoughts.

The world feels smaller now, closing in around the two of you. If he pulls this off—and you know he will—then there’s no stopping what comes next. The succession contest will escalate into a war that might bring the whole ship to the bottom of the ocean.

You reach for a glass, trying to steady your hand, and that’s when you see it—just for a moment, a flicker of pink at the edge of your vision.

You try to crush the hope that swells in your chest as your head snaps to the side. Machi? Her name crosses through your head desperately, but when you search for her familiar face, you’re met with a sea of unfamiliar nobles and dignitaries instead. You let out a soft breath, expression dropping as your gaze shifts back to the ground. The disappointment you feel is crushing, even though you know it shouldn’t be. 

You shouldn’t still feel this way, you remind yourself. 

You shouldn’t still hope.

“Smile,” Tserriednich reminds you.

You smile.

—————

The conference chamber is uncomfortably large. The air is perfumed with incense that makes your nose twitch, and the lighting is dim enough to make your eyes feel strained. The table at the center isn’t round, but triangular, each side long enough for three seats. A deliberate choice from Tserriednich, undoubtedly: no head, no hierarchy, three equal sides that force every gaze inward. He’s forcing Zhang Lei into an appearance of equal footing—shallow optics, maybe, but the type that matters to someone like him. 

Luzurus and Brocco Li have already arrived. Luzurus lounges in his chair, one arm draped across the backrest, the other idly swirling the water in his glass. He keeps looking at you, and you can’t bring yourself to hold his gaze. You don’t want to see that same disappointed look that Benjamin gave you in the theater that fateful day. Brocco Li, on the other hand, is straight-backed in his seat, eyes sharp and lips drawn tight. You assume he has a feeling that he knows what this meeting is going to be about, and he probably doesn’t like it.

You can’t blame him. If everything goes according to Tserriednich’s plans, in the best case scenario, they hand far too much power over to someone who will inevitably become a dangerous enemy, and in the worst, there’s a good chance that the Black Whale will end up at the bottom of Lake Mobius.

Zhang Lei and Onior Longbao enter last, the door shutting softly behind them. To his credit, Zhang Lei doesn’t react to seeing you or Morena Prudo sitting on either side of Tserriednich. Onior Longbao, unfortunately, does, and that’s a mistake that will cost Zhang Lei dearly. Tserriednich’s lips curl up into a faint smile when he sees how Onior’s face twists in fury; already, the scales tip in his favor. 

“Starting out diplomatic negotiations with open insults is bold even for you, Tserriednich,” Zhang Lei says as he takes a seat, folding his hands over the table. “Unless, of course, you bring our sister here as an offering.” His gaze flicks over to you blandly, and you raise your eyebrows, bored. “Blood for blood.”

Lex talionis. He’s mocking you. He wants to call on the law of retribution for Zimo Longbao’s death, just like you did. Ah, Benjamin was right—you really did open a can of worms by invoking the old laws. 

“You speak of insults, and give our family the greatest one,” Tserriednich drawls, tilting his head to the side. “You would consider the son of a Second-Track Faker equal to a true-blooded daughter of the King? That is bold.”

You don’t know how Tserriednich wants you to handle this. Your gaze shifts between the two of them, hoping your discomfort doesn’t show on your face. You tried to ask him what he expected of you, but he only gave you an infuriating smile, letting you know that what he expects is for you to know what he wants without him having to tell you. But Tserriednich can be so fickle—it’s impossible to know what he wants at any given moment. What he expected of you yesterday can be the opposite of what he expects today; what he expected five minutes ago can be the opposite of what he expects now.

“Zimo Longbao should’ve been more careful not to insult a prince, brother,” Tserriednich finishes dismissively. “Lèse-majesté—our sister didn’t even need to invoke lex talionis if she wanted him dead. You would do well to remember that.”

“Yes, because it was she who was insulted,” Zhang Lei counters dully, but his gaze sharpens, and you raise your chin. You know where he’s going with this before he continues. “All of us know about her… ah, relations with those terrorists from Meteor City. We—”

“You’re wrong,” you interrupt, a faux pas in negotiation meetings like this, but you don’t care. Zhang Lei raises his eyebrows at your audacity, but you barrel on. “Zimo Longbao insulted me. The whole of the Xi-Yu has insulted me, and if it were up to me, I would have every single one of them butchered and strung over the side of the ship. You should be grateful to Tserried, Zhang Lei, because he’s the one stopping me from following through with it. If you expect an apology from me, you’ll get none. The only thing I regret is that I was unable to follow through with the rest of my plan.”

Was that a mistake?

You don’t care if it was, you realize as soon as the question crosses your mind. Zhang Lei stares at you with an unreadable expression, and Onior looks seriously disturbed. You don’t think a prince has ever so openly threatened one of the three families like that before. You hear Luzurus snort to your left, taking a sip of his water, but Brocco Li doesn’t seem nearly as amused, looking between you and Onior carefully. He probably took it as a threat, too—anyone who would so openly threaten one mafia… Well, what’s stopping them from taking the same stance against one of the other two? That’s the whole basis for this meeting—finding a common enemy against Benjamin.

But it doesn’t matter. You won’t sit here and pretend you enjoy sitting at the same table as Zhang Lei and Onior Longbao. It makes you sick just to even look at them for too long. You glance at Tserriednich, wanting to gauge his reaction to your words, but his gaze hasn’t left Zhang Lei. He looks pleased, though—or well, he doesn’t look displeased, and Tserriednich would’ve made it known immediately if you’d acted out of line, so you assume you reacted as he planned. 

“You heard her, brother,” Tserriednich says easily. “You should be grateful. Now, shall we get to business, or are you going to waste more of our time?”

And just like that, Tserriednich is the head of the meeting. God, it scares you sometimes how easily everything always works out for him. From his time in the Academy to politics to learning nen—you’ve never met someone who just has everything fall into place for themselves so neatly. It’s frustrating to watch, and you’re not even someone who struggles heavily. Strategy and combat came to you easily, just not as easily as Tserriednich. Politics came to you easily, just not as easily as Tserriednich. Nen came to you easily, just not as easily as Tserriednich.

You don’t like to think you’re a jealous person, but the bitter envy you feel toward your older brother is undeniable. If you were half as lucky or skilled as he is, your life might’ve been different. Instead, you were forced to grow up in his ever-looming shadow, hanging on his coattails so that you weren’t swept up in the dangerous currents of Kakin’s courts.

You exhale through your nose quietly, trying to tune back into the conversation so that you don’t miss anything important, but you pause when you feel someone boring into the side of your head. Your gaze cuts to the side, unnerved, and meets a pair of empty brown eyes that send chills right down your spine.

Morena Prudo.

She’s more beautiful than you expect. When you heard rumors of the mad Heil-Ly boss who nearly brought the ship to the bottom of Lake Mobius with her actions on the lower tiers, you imagined someone wild and disheveled, blood under her nails and mania behind her grin. But the woman seated on Tserriednich’s other side is immaculate. She doesn’t seem to be much older than you, with long, glossy blue hair and fair skin—or, she would be immaculate were it not for the two scars running parallel from the center of her forehead over her left eye to her jaw, signaling her status as a second-track. 

There’s something about her that unnerves you. You don’t like the way she’s looking at you. There’s an almost contemplative look on her face—like you’re a piece on a chessboard that she didn’t expect would be useful, but has suddenly seen its potential, and is already planning how to move it. 

Her gaze lingers a beat too long, pupils unnervingly still, and even when you look away to focus your attention back on the discussion at hand, you can feel the weight of her stare. Morena isn’t paying attention to the meeting, not in the way the others are. Her attention is fixed entirely on you, eyes glinting faintly with curiosity. She leans forward slightly, resting her chin on her palm, and for a fleeting moment, her expression softens into a smile. You don’t know why, or what it means, but you have a feeling it doesn’t mean anything good. 

Tserriednich must notice the subtle change in your demeanor, because his hand finds yours under the table, fingers curling over your knuckles in a silent command to stay still. Don’t show weakness, he says without saying anything at all, so you don’t. You keep your expression neutral, eyes forward, spine straight, the perfect picture of composure.

“Ever the sophist, brother,” Tserriednich hums suddenly—you really need to pay attention, forget Morena—and though Zhang Lei doesn’t react to Tserriednich’s dig, you know it bothers him. There’s nothing that the Third Prince prides himself on more than his intellect. “Every second we waste circling semantics is a second that mutt Benjamin will spend consolidating his power on the upper tiers.”

“Even if your personal army is able to get up to Tier Two, there’s no way we’ll ever be able to contest Benjamin for the upper tiers, prince,” Brocco Li says, shaking his head as he lights a cigar and takes a long drag of it. “The military presence is too condensed—we could barely sneak a handful of our members up, and that was before—”

“We don’t need to sneak anyone else into the upper tiers,” Tserriednich cuts him off before he can finish his sentence. It’s not like him to make such a faux pas—was Brocco Li trying to say something that Tserriednich didn’t want to be said? Before what? Now that you think about it, you don’t have a clue what’s happening on the lower tiers right now. “All we’re talking about right now is pushing Benjamin into enacting special martial law. We can do that by using the lower tiers.”

“And when he does, Tserriednich?” Zhang Lei sighs, shaking his head as he looks away. “Without our men on the upper tiers, we’ll be easy pickings. He’ll have us thrown in the VVIP holding cells and pick us off one by one.”

Tserriednich gives Zhang Lei a placating smile. “Now, you don’t really think I brought our dear sister here just to insult you, brother?”

In an instant, all eyes in the room are on you. You smile mildly and then say, “I can guarantee that enough of the military stationed on the upper tiers will answer to me so that we are not… how did you phrase it? Easy pickings for Benjamin.” You give Zhang Lei a droll look. “Not that I would ever be easy pickings, of course.”

Zhang Lei’s lips tighten at your remark, a small, controlled irritation that never quite reaches anger. “You make broad promises,” he says coolly, “On what authority do you presume to call those men yours?” 

“Ah, brother,” you say, giving him a languid smile, “when you graduated from the Academy, you took the position of strategist and hid behind the grand walls of the palace. I bled with and for at least half of the men stationed on the upper tiers—when Benjamin cowered during the Chimera Ant invasion, I went down to the front lines. Dozens of the men stationed on Tier Two were set to be the next line of defense before I took over command, and would’ve fallen just like the last five lines we had. Triple that have friends and comrades who only survived because of me. Don’t pretend you don’t know this—we both know I was one of the ones you planned on targeting first once our father announced the contest for this very reason.”

Zhang Lei’s lips curl up into an unreadable smile. “I was indeed aware, I didn’t know you were yet.”

So, Luzurus was right, you think bitterly, sparing a glance toward your older brother, who is luckily too busy murmuring something to Brocco Li to catch your gaze. They were all counting on the fact that you wouldn’t realize how much sway you had in the military. 

Why did they all think you were so blind?

Worse, why were they right?

You wonder if it’s a good or bad thing that Zhang Lei knows that you’re aware of this now. It’ll help push forward Tserriednich’s plans, but it’ll definitely work against you once the tripartite alliance of the mafias inevitably falls apart. It would’ve been nice to be able to catch him off guard with it.

Zhang Lei still doesn’t seem convinced of Tserriednich’s plan. You don’t know if it’s because he doubts it will be successful, or if it’s because he’s realizing he’ll be handing way too much power over to Tserriednich. The latter, probably; it was the first thing that crossed your mind too, but… power to Tserriednich is power to you right now. He’s relying on you as much as you’re relying on him—the thought almost thrills you, it echoes through your head a second and a third time. This is… the closest you’ve ever been to equal footing with Tserriednich.

“Don’t you tire of pushing the boulder, big brother?” you ask him absently, tilting your head to the side. Zhang Lei raises his eyebrows at you, and you give him a bland smile. “You’ve been trying so hard to scheme your way around Benjamin’s impossible advantages over us, but every time you think you’ve caught up—” You drag your finger through the air mockingly in the arc of a hill. “—you find yourself back at the beginning. There’s nothing you can do against him alone. Surely, you, of all people, have come to this conclusion already.”

“Lord knows our other, ah, intellectual sibling came to that conclusion early enough, “ Tserriednich drawls. The casual lilt of his tone leaves you unprepared for what he’s about to say. “Tubeppa was too pragmatic to keep playing once she realized what the game required. She slit her own throat rather than let anyone else make the move for her.”

You don’t let the pain cross over your face, but your chest feels heavy when you think back to the days Tubeppa would come find you in the library under the guise of lessons to give you a break from Tserriednich’s impossible expectations of you. You think she would be disappointed if she saw you now—you’re almost glad that she’s not here to see it. That being said, everyone in the room knows that Tubeppa didn’t kill herself, that’s just the story that’s been spread to the public.

In all likelihood, it was one of your three brothers in this room who killed her, but none of them will lay claim to it. Only Benjamin is bold enough to do that. Maybe Camilla. But not these three, which is why it must be one of them.

“So what would you have me do instead?” he asks coolly. He doesn’t like being reminded that he’s been running in circles since the voyage began—that he can’t seem to catch up to the princes who know nen, even when Tserriednich somehow has. “Throw my weight behind a plan that ends with the ship at the bottom of Lake Mobius?” 

Tserriednich laughs softly under his breath, a low, pleased sound that makes the hair on your arms rise. “You see?” he says to you, not to Zhang Lei. He turns his head to look at you, expression dancing with amusement, like the two of you are sharing an inside joke. You hate that it makes you feel important. “He’s always so afraid of the fall, not realizing he’s already tipping over the edge.” He addresses Zhang Lei again, “You worry too much about the future, big brother. You’ll die in the present, and you won’t even get a chance to see what it holds.”

Zhang Lei’s gaze is cold. “I’m afraid of stupidity,” he says flatly, and that irritates Tserriednich from the way the corners of his eyes crease a smidge. Only enough to be noticeable to you. “This plan is reckless. Even if it succeeds, I put myself in a worse position by handing you the advantage, Tserriednich.”

Tserriednich’s gaze drags from Zhang Lei to Luzurus. He drones, “And you, little brother? What’s your opinion on my plan? You’ve been awfully quiet.”

Luzurus’s expression twists in irritation at how Tserriednich addresses him, but his gaze flicks between the two of you, lingering on you for a second too long. Tserriednich catches it, squinting slightly at him.

“I’m in,” Luzurus shrugs lazily, as though he doesn’t have a care in the world. You think Tserriednich might believe it, because he’s always viewed Luzurus as a bumbling idiot, but you worked with him for the first three weeks of the expedition, and you know very well he’s the furthest thing from it. He’s planning something, otherwise he never would’ve agreed so easily, but what? “We should wait for the masquerade banquet to make a move. This upcoming Sunday. Make a spectacle of it—there will already be confusion with the masks. If we can force his hand during a public event, he’ll have no choice but to enact special martial law. Doesn’t want to look weak.”

Zhang Lei gives Luzurus a side-long glance, irritated, like he didn’t expect the man to agree so easily. You almost do too, but you refrain, simply narrowing his eyes and directing your gaze ahead. You’re definitely missing something here, and you can’t figure out what it is. Luzurus is good at playing the fool, but he’s not one. What does he have up his sleeve? He must realize that agreeing to this is as good as handing the succession contest over to Tserriednich. 

Tserriednich, if he has any doubts, doesn’t let them show on his face. He smiles faintly and raises his eyebrows at Zhang Lei, giving him a chance to reconsider his answer. Zhang Lei rises to his feet, and for a second, you think he’ll leave without saying anything else, rejecting Tserriednich’s proposal for an alliance. 

Then, he says, “And once Benjamin is… removed from the equation? What then?”

Tserriednich smiles easily. “Every man for himself, I guess.”

Zhang Lei scoffs, fixing his cuffs as he looks away contemplatively. You’re sure he’s already thinking of the best way to take out Benjamin and Tserriednich in one fell swoop, and you’re sure Tserriednich is already accounting for it. What a fucking snake pit, you think pitifully, already exhausted. 

“Very well,” Zhang Lei agrees as he leaves the room, Onior not a step behind him. It’s an insult to leave a negotiation meeting like that, but you’re sure Tserriednich doesn’t care, not when he’s essentially just been handed the crown on a silver platter. “Until Benjamin is removed from the equation.”

Tserriednich’s teeth glitter like knives as he smiles, lifting his wine glass mockingly, to Zhang Lei’s back. “Until Benjamin is removed from the equation.”

“Right,” Luzurus agrees, drawing out the word as he pushes himself to his feet, stretching obnoxiously. “Well, this was enlightening. Can’t say I expected a sibling gathering to end without blood on the table.” He rolls his shoulders, glancing between you and Tserriednich. “We’ll have the Cha-R briefed and make the necessary arrangements for Sunday.”

Tserriednich swirls what’s left of his wine. “Naturally. I trust your discretion.”

“Well, it would be a bullet in both of our heads otherwise,” he says sarcastically, and then looks at you. “You gonna be at the banquet, or are you skipping this one out again?”

“A chance to see Benjamin flounder? Wouldn’t miss it,” you say dryly, averting your attention to the side when Luzurus’s gaze lingers a bit too long. 

“Want me to walk you up to your quarters?” Luzurus offers, frowning when you instantly glance at Tserriednich. “What? He’s your keeper or something? Can’t go somewhere unless he says it's okay?”

“Fuck you, Luzurus,” you say immediately, rising to your feet and giving him a dirty look. 

Tserriednich’s eyes narrow as he looks between the two of you, but before he can say anything, Morena, who didn’t say a word during the meeting, finally speaks up, “I would like to talk to you anyway, prince. Perhaps it’s best if she goes on ahead.”

Morena glances at you once, an unsettling expression on her face. You would wait for Tserriednich, but waiting for Tserriednich means waiting for Morena, and you don’t want to waste a second longer in that woman’s presence. Tserriednich lets out a heavy sigh, eyes rolling up briefly before he nods for you to go ahead.

“I’ll stop by later,” he tells you, and you hesitate before turning to leave, following Luzurus and Brocco Li out of the room. You stop just short of stepping through, glancing back one last time at Tserriednich and Morena.

Tserriednich is already saying something quietly to the woman, but Morena’s gaze is still fixed on you. Unnerved, your jaw tightens and you give her an accusing look—what do you want? And then she—

She smiles at you. A soft, self-assured curve of her lips, the expression of someone who knows more than she should. She didn’t say a word during the meeting, and yet, somehow, looking at her, you can’t shake the feeling that she’s the one who came out on top.

—————

It’s wrong how at ease you feel right now. 

The thought settles deep in your stomach, weighing heavily on you even as you cover your mouth to smother the giggles threatening to burst out over the snide comment Tserriednich made about Camilla. It’s not right that you’re laughing—laughing at something Tserriednich said, nonetheless—and it’s not right that you’re enjoying yourself, and it’s not right that you’re not on edge. Nothing about this is right, but you still can’t help the laughter that tumbles from your lips.

“You’re laughing because you know it’s true,” Tserriednich drawls. “She is vapid. Attracted to anything that glitters brightly enough. You should’ve seen her at the event earlier. It’s a shame you weren’t feeling well.”

“Like a magpie,” you add, turning your head to the side to look at him where you’re lying on the couch in the main room of his quarters. You rest the book you’re reading on your chest, watching as he huffs out a laugh at his desk, pausing whatever he’s writing to look up at you.

“You insult magpies by comparing them to her,” Tserriednich replies solemnly. “They’re far more intelligent.” 

“They are,” you admit, still smiling. “Magpies are clever.”

“So are you,” he says, returning his attention to the paper before him. You shouldn’t feel so warm from that compliment, but you do, smile softening at the edges as your gaze shifts to the side. Then he asks, “Have you finished it?”

You glance down at the book on your chest. “Most of it.”

“Mm,” he hums, pen tapping against the paper once before he asks, “and?”

“And what?”

“Has your opinion changed?” He looks up again, curious. His lips curl up slightly, and he adds, “You said last time that you didn’t understand it. You got frustrated because he kept contradicting himself. I remember it took you weeks to get through.”

“Oh,” you realize, fingers tracing the spine of the book absently. 

You open your mouth to go on, then stop, trying to gather what you actually think. The pages made more sense this time, or at least, they’d stopped feeling like nonsense, but you’re not sure if you’ve properly grasped them, and you don’t want to sound like an idiot. 

“I’m not sure I understand all of it,” you finally say honestly. “He still sounds like he’s arguing with himself half the time.”

“That’s the point,” Tserriednich says, flipping to the next page of the paper in front of him. “Contradiction is the only honest language. Humankind is incapable of singularity. We’re built from opposing hungers, and the truest thing we can do is let them war inside us without pretending we’re whole. Only lesser minds demand coherence.” 

This… is a test. 

You realize it as he’s speaking, instantly on edge because you don’t know what he’s testing you about. Contradiction, opposing hungers, pretending we are whole—what is he referring to? It has to be something with the soulmate bond, and you don’t want to give the wrong answer.

“Perhaps I have a lesser mind then,” you say with an awkward laugh, trying to draw out some more information from him to figure out what he’s getting at. “Because I wish for a bit of coherence myself.”

“Not nearly,” Tserriednich disagrees instantly. “The way you’ve handled yourself the past two and a half weeks has been impressive. I know you insist that you’ve moved on from what happened, but I’ve seen how uncertain you look when you think no one is looking. I’m trying to tell you that it’s okay. The conflict. It’s not a sign of failure—quite the opposite, in fact. It’s good that you’re warring with yourself about what you should think of the bond.”

What is happening right now?

Is he trying to lower your guard? 

You don’t understand—not for the first time since the incident between Chrollo and Hisoka, you find yourself confused and out of depth with Tserriednich. He’s always been difficult to read and predict, but never more than now. Why is he being nice to you? Why is he acting like you longing for the soulbond is okay? A month ago, it aggravated him to the point that he nearly killed you in this very same room—you can still remember the white flash of pain when his fist struck your face, the bruises he left on your throat. Is he baiting you? Is he trying to get you to admit something that’s going to get you in trouble? He’s played games like that with you in the past, when you were young and foolish and fell for the trap every time because you trusted him and didn’t think he would trick you like that.

“I don’t understand,” you admit slowly, unsure if this might get you punished too, because Tserriednich has never liked it when you fell behind in conversation. You sit up on the couch to look at him more carefully, palms pressing against your thighs. “What are you saying, Tserried?”

He doesn’t answer right away. His gaze slides over you the way it always does when he’s thinking, slow and unreadable.

“That your confusion is expected,” he says at last. “You spent nearly two decades pining after this bond—” this again, you think bitterly, glancing away “—and it’s partially my fault for not doing what had to be done and crushing it before it grew into… this.”

Your stomach twists; his tone is calm, and his expression is deceivingly gentle, but the memory that flickers behind the words isn’t. You remember the days you spent locked in your room when he caught you tracing the words on your forearm, the horrible lessons in impermanence, and the cruel reminders that he was the only thing in your life that you could count on to remain.

And maybe he was right, you think traitorously. Who is here with you, and who is not?

“You were young,” he goes on. “You didn’t understand what it meant. You still don’t. You confuse inevitability with choice, love with compulsion. The bond between ‘soulmates’ has never been what you hoped it would be. I’m glad you’re beginning to realize it.”

You force your eyes back to him. “And you… understand the bond better than I do?”

“I understand you better,” he says, so certainly that you almost believe it. “You think the bond is some grand design—destiny, perhaps—but it’s not. It is just… a self-fulfilling prophecy. Someone tells you that your other half is out there, and you spend your life looking for them. Every dream, every pull in your chest—confirmation bias dressed up as fate. It becomes a habit, even. A habit of feeling, and a habit of longing, but like all habits, it can be broken.”

“You want me to… break it?” you ask, and your voice sounds smaller than you expect. You hate the unsurprised expression on his face, because you realize that all you’ve done is confirm what he already knew was true: you’re not over what happened, you still long for the bond. For Chrollo. “Tserried—”

“I want you to outgrow it,” he corrects, voice far too pitying for your liking. You don’t like this. You want him to stop talking, but he continues. “I want you to stop mistaking dependency for fate. You think what you feel for him is sacred simply because it’s promised. It isn’t—sacred or promised, that is. It’s repetition, muscle memory of devotion. You call it love because you’re afraid to admit that it can be anything else.”

“What is it, if not fate, Tserried?” you ask quietly. “How can you explain the fact that our lives are tied to someone else’s? How—”

“I’m not saying the bond does not exist,” he interrupts. He leans back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest as he looks at you. “There’s undeniably something that tethers our lives to another person’s. But it’s not what it’s made out to be—love and fairytale endings, two halves of a perfect whole. That’s wishful thinking. People want their suffering to mean something, so they twist it into a story that does. They want to believe that the person they’re bound to is their destined other half, their fated romance, so they force it until it fits the narrative they’ve built.”

You shake your head and ask, voice far too desperate for your liking, “What would it be if not love?”

Tserriednich’s smile curves before he speaks the word you’ve dreaded ever since you understood who your soulmate truly is:

“Punishment.”

“Punishment,” you echo, voice barely over a whisper.

“Punishment,” he confirms. He sighs, pushing himself out of his chair to make his way over to you. He sits down next to you. His expression is pitying; you want to snap at him to stop looking at you like that, but the words die in your throat when he rests his hand on top of your head. You stiffen briefly, expecting fingers twisting in your hair and a rough yank backward of your head, but Tserriednich only smooths his hand over your hair, and then he pulls you closer to him, letting you rest your face in the crook of his neck. “My sweet sister, you’ve always been so hopeful and naive. You thought the bond would make you whole, that it would explain the ache in you, but it only magnified it, didn’t it? Because that’s what punishment does. It reminds you of what you can’t have, over and over again. It dangles meaning in front of you, calls it destiny, but it’s something that hurts you to accept—I know you must’ve questioned how such a vile man could be your fated love, and the answer is simple: he’s not. But you convince yourself that your pain must have meaning, and the one who wounds you is the only one who can heal you, so you keep crawling back until you’ve bled yourself dry.”

No, you want to say. It’s not true. It can’t be true. You—you’ve started to understand why Chrollo is your other half. Through the dreams and spending time with him. It’s started to make sense to you. Tserriednich’s hand stills at the back of your head, thumb brushing idly against your hair as though he’s petting something fragile.

“You chase answers and absolution from a man who has only ever used and damned you, because it’s the only thing you’ve ever allowed yourself to want. And it’s my fault, perhaps, for teaching you that you were to want for nothing. You clung too desperately to a pipe dream that only ever hurt you, because you thought your pain served a purpose for a promised future that will never come.” He presses his lips to the top of your head. “You’ve already suffered enough for him, haven’t you? It’s time for you to move on. Let it end, little bird. Let it die. What remains after will be yours. Ours.”

You’re crying, you realize. Tears splatter against Tserriednich’s skin, and your vision blurs as you stare at the wall behind him. He returns to stroking your hair, soothing you, and you find that you lean into it. He lets out a soft huff. 

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I’m here. It will all work out in the end. I’ll take care of everything, as I always do. You don’t need to hurt anymore.”

—————

There’s an awful ache in your chest as you make your way back to your quarters. You pass by Tyson’s and Sale-sale’s room—too quiet, too empty. Every time you leave Tserriednich’s quarters, you’re reminded that four of your siblings are dead, and you can’t even go the long way around, because you think that passing Tubeppa’s and Momoze’s rooms would upset you more than Tyson and Sale-sale. 

You don’t know why it makes you feel so heavy. You’re not grieving them—you hardly even know most of them. The only interaction you ever had with Momoze was when she gifted you that knitted blanket two years ago, and Tyson and Sale-sale may as well have been strangers. 

Strangers—Tyson gifting you her old fairytales, holding a finger over her lips, and winking at you. Don’t let Tserriednich see. Sale-sale sneaking you out of the palace when Tserriednich is away, letting you sit backstage as he performs in front of a crowd in the southern district of the capital. Tserriednich can’t keep you locked up forever—you’ve gotta explore and see the rest of the world.

No, you think immediately, pushing the memories away before they can take root. Instead, you let Zimo Longbao’s last words to you ring soundly through your head: The Second Prince, the Third Prince, Sixth, Eighth—they’ve all had their share. You can’t damn me without damning yourselves.

Carne Levare, the hunts, the mafia families.

They’re not worth mourning. They’re depraved and vile, just like the rest of your siblings, you tell yourself, stepping into your quarters and grimacing with discomfort when you see Tserriednich’s friends scattered around the room. 

You recognize most of them from your childhood—Borksen, Momolly, Otocin, they all graduated the same year as Tserriednich from the Academy. Tserriednich would bring you with him sometimes when he met them down in the training grounds. You think this is his way of being kind to you, by sending familiar faces to protect you, even if it is also just another means of surveillance. 

It was Otocin, actually, who introduced you to the glaive; you’d been so hyper-focused on following in your brothers’ footsteps in classical sword training that you’d never even considered wielding anything else. You would watch them spar on the palace terrace when you were small—six, maybe seven years old—and you tried to mimic them once, swinging one of the dulled practice blades against the hay dummies when you thought no one was looking. Until, that is, Otocin started laughing at you from the shade of one of the trees, and you nearly tripped over yourself in embarrassment.

“You’re not built like Prince Benjamin and Tserried. You’ll get killed if you have to get in close like that,” he’d told you. “You need something that gives you reach.”

He’d handed you the glaive and spent half the afternoon showing you basic maneuvers before he went out drinking with Tserriednich. You found Benjamin that night while Tserriednich was gone—still in the training room, swinging around his sword, drenched in sweat. He’d been drinking too, but not enough to dull the precision in his movements. You were still carrying around the wooden training weapon Otocin gave you, and Benjamin stared at you blankly when you pointed it at him and demanded to spar with him.

You figured he would kick you out of the training grounds for bothering him when he scoffed at you, but he tossed his sword to the side and grabbed one of the wooden glaives himself. He didn’t say anything—adjusted his grip and waited for you to move first. You remember how your heart hammered in your chest, shocked that he was taking you seriously. For all of Benjamin’s many faults, you appreciate that he never treated you like you were fragile. When you swung wide and clumsily, he parried easily and sent the haft of his glaive into your ribs hard enough to bruise, waiting to see if you would get back up.

You did. Again, and again, and again, until your palms split open with popped blisters and your arms trembled violently. He didn’t praise or correct you, only blocked, countered, and knocked you down each time you lunged too close. Still, you learned. You started to recognize the moments he left himself open, the places where you could’ve struck if you’d been faster or stronger.

You kept watching his training sessions from the terrace in your free time, hidden behind the stone balustrades or the line of potted plants that circled the courtyard. Benjamin must have noticed, because within a week, he’d switched half his drills to the glaive. You memorized everything—the twist of his hips, the turn of his wrist, the way the weapon became an extension of him rather than something he wielded. In the rare moments you were alone in the yard, you imitated him as best you could, moving until your muscles burned and your breath came ragged. 

Slowly, the clumsiness began to fade, and you became as much a weapon as your two brothers were. By the time you entered the military academy at twelve, you were well ahead of all of your older classmates. 

You think about it sometimes—how everything you know comes from watching the men in your family destroy things. It’s no wonder that all you’re good at is destruction as well.

“You good?” Otocin asks with an easy grin when he sees how you stand in the middle of the room. “How was Tserri? Did he ask about me? I bet he did.”

“What did I say about abbreviating the prince’s name, boy?” Corporal Gipper barks from across the room. “Do you want your eyes gouged out, is that it?”

“He was fine,” you say, ignoring the Corporal. “He did not ask about you.”

 Momolly snorts and takes a sip of her beer, and Otocin pouts dramatically. “Really?” he asks. “Not even a ‘Hey, what’s Oto been up to?’ or even ‘What did—’”

“No,” you interrupt with a bland smile. Otocin withers, sinking in his chair to gulp down the rest of his drink. Sometimes, you wonder why Tserriednich lets Otocin get away with how he talks to and about him. He doesn’t even let you get away with it sometimes. “I’m going to go lay down. I’m tired.”

“You don’t want a drink?” Otocin asks, waving around an unopened bottle of beer. “Saved you one.”

“Let her rest, Otocin. You’re so goddamn annoying,” Momolly snaps, and then looks up  at you, giving you a half-smile. “Sleep well, prince. Do you want us to wake you in the morning for tea?”

You shake your head. “I’ll wake up on my own.”

Before you can get into your room, Otocin speaks up again, calling your name much to the Corporal’s extreme displeasure. You look over your shoulder and raise your eyebrows at him, beckoning him to hurry up and say whatever he wants to say. For a second, he looks unsure, which is so unlike Otocin that it makes you hesitate.

“You know nen, don’t you?” he asks, and the others all exchange looks around him. You inhale—you’d been wondering when they were finally going to ask about it. You’re honestly surprised it took this long. “Would you… teach us?”

No, you want to say instantly. Otocin, Momolly, Borksen, Gipper, all the others—they’ve been good to you these past two and a half weeks, but they’re still Tserriednich’s, and Tserriednich has been good to you, too, but he’s unpredictable. You’re still scared he’s going to pull the rug out from under you after the two of you have dealt with all the rest of your siblings. The fewer people who know nen on his side, the better, because you have no one if it comes down to it. Maybe you could contact the Zodiac; you still have that phone number from Bobotai Gigante, and Kurapika and Leorio will vouch for you, but it still remains that it’s dangerous for the Zodiac to get involved with foreign politics, because if things go wrong, it’ll bring a shitshow for the Hunter Association.

You don’t want to risk it, but you don’t want to say no and alienate yourself when they’re the ones guarding you right now.

“You wouldn’t learn it fast enough to be of use. Nen takes a long time to grasp,” you tell them, and then add, “unless you’re like Tserried, but you’re not like Tserried. No one’s like Tserried.”

Otocin exhales, disappointed. “If one of those nen users comes for you, there’s nothing we’ll be able to do,” he says, rubbing the back of his head. “I was hoping there were maybe some basic maneuvers you could show us so we could at least stall for time or something.”

“Nen doesn’t work like that,” you say simply. “There are no shortcuts or basic maneuvers. It’s a long process. By the time you start to grasp what it is, we’ll be at the Dark Continent. You’ll just have to get me if you sense something is wrong. I’ll be able to handle it.”

“Some guards we are,” Otocin mutters, looking displeased. “We’re essentially just a glorified alarm system. Who would’ve thought we’d be relying on Tserri’s little sister to protect us?”

You think you should be insulted by that, so you give him a heavy side eye, but Otocin only gives you a sheepish smile in return. Before he can apologize, Borksen finally speaks up, “Don’t forget it was the Tenth Prince who handled the border crisis two years ago, Oto.”

“Yeah,” Momolly agrees. “We’re probably safer up here with her than we were down on Tier Three with all of the chaos Morena Prudo caused down there.”

“Well, she’s up here now,” Otocin scowls. “It’s like we’re following that crazy woman when we were supposed to avoid her at all costs.”

“Her people are still down on Tier Three,” Momolly notes. “Pretty sure they’re causing trouble for the Hunter Association.”

“Are they?” you ask curiously, wondering if this is your chance to figure out what’s been happening on the lower tiers. You still don’t know why Tserriednich cut Brocco Li off at yesterday's meeting. You didn’t think to ask Luzurus on the way up to your quarters, too unnerved by Morena Prudo, and you’re not dumb enough to ask Tserriednich himself. 

“Oh yeah,” Otocin answers. “The lower tiers are a mess with—”

Otocin yelps, voice cutting off abruptly as he gives Momolly an accusing look, but the woman shakes her head at him. You scoff bitterly and look away—of course, they’re still Tserriednich’s. They’re not going to tell you anything he doesn’t want you to know. You hear Otocin call after you, but you’re already slamming your door shut behind you, storming over to your bed. 

You don’t know what you were thinking, and you don’t know why you’re disappointed. You had literally just refused to teach them nen because you’re afraid of giving Tserriednich more weapons to use against you if things go sour later on. You think maybe you’re just frustrated. You—

A hand presses over your mouth, another clamps down on your waist, holding you in place. The shock of it has your heart jumping out of your chest, mind flashing back to Hisoka in the bathroom, catching you off guard, and killing you because of it. Hisoka is dead, but you still have too many enemies, and your new guards don’t know nen. 

But you’re in your room this time. There’s space. You can fight. You can conjure your glaive. You start to move, muscles tensing, aura flaring, and then—a familiar low murmur at your ear.

“Don’t scream.”

You freeze. Every muscle in your body seizes with the shock of recognition. For a heartbeat, the room seems to tilt—your mind fogging with disbelief and the cruel, impossible hope you tried so hard to bury. The person behind you twists you around so that you’re facing the mirror on the wall of your bedroom, and your breath is ragged against his palm, chest heaving when you actually lay eyes on him. 

Chrollo?

He drops his hand from your mouth when he’s confident that you won’t scream, and you immediately step away from him, two steps, then three, until your back is to your wall. He doesn’t move to follow. He just stands there, watching you.

You hardly recognize him for a second. The last time you saw him, he was on his knees, half-dead. The veins to his heart were blackened with rot, his arm was hanging by its tendons, and blood was spilling from his lips in buckets. He was so close to death that you could feel him fading in your arms. 

But now?

His black hair is slicked back neatly, the same style he wore it in when you first met him—when he was all quiet arrogance and condescension—and he’s wearing that wretched coat of his, shirtless beneath it, arms folded over his chest. His pale chest, with no black veins marring the porcelain. His face is clean, stripped of the exhaustion that had clung to him during those first few weeks aboard the Black Whale. 

His expression is cool, impassive—that old mask of effortless indifference fitted perfectly back into place, and it almost makes you want to shrink back. No trace of weariness, no sign of the man who looked at you as though you were the only thing in the world that mattered to him.

This is not the Chrollo who rushed to you when Hisoka attacked you in the bathroom, falling to his knees to pull you in his arms. Not the person who laughed as you made a fool of yourself trying to get your stolen bracelets back. Not the person who was half dead on his knees, using the last of his strength to memorize your face. 

This—this is the Chrollo you met in the backseat of a stolen car in Yorknew City, king of thieves, bandit, murderer, punishment. Tserriednich’s words echo painfully through your ears. He used you and damned you. Left you to rot. You want to step back again, but you can’t. He looks—he looks okay, he looks healthy, he stole your ability and left you here with Tserriednich for weeks. Abandoned you, and he’s fine, he—

No, you realize, breath shuddering slightly as you try to calm yourself down, watching how the corner of his lip twitches, how his gaze flickers away too quickly, returning only to slip past you again, as if he can’t quite bear the sight of you. He’s not fine—he’s just pretending, like always. 

Your expression twists in frustration, and then your lips part to speak, but then you cast a wary glance over to the door leading to the main room of your quarters, remembering that you’re not alone. You let out a huff, giving him an accusing look before pushing off the wall past him, making your way into the bathroom. You hear him trail after you, shutting the door behind him quietly, and you pointedly do not turn around as you twist the faucet of your sink and tub on so that the running water will drown out your voices.

You brace yourself as you turn to face him, exhaling shakily. The bathroom is too small—you regret coming in here instantly, because he’s far too close to you, and he’s looking at you with that impassive, expectant expression, and your heart feels like it’s about to race right out of your chest. You’re so angry. How dare he stand in front of you like this? Like he didn’t leave you here for weeks with Tserriednich? Like he doesn’t know what it cost you to offer yourself up for him and his friends? He’s so shameless, he used you, he left you, abandoned you, manipulated you, drugged you, and stole your ability. He left you weak with the one person you couldn’t afford to be weak in front of. 

It is a punishment, you want to scream at him. This isn’t love, or fated romance, or destiny. It’s divine retribution for whatever you’d done wrong in a previous life. Tserriednich is right. You could never love him, and someone like him isn’t capable of loving anyone at all. 

You don’t realize you’re crying, and you don’t realize that you’re moving until you slam your fist against his chest hard. A second time. A third time. He lets you, taking each blow with lowered lashes and acceptance written all over his face. It makes you sick, he makes you sick, he does—he does—you hate him. You wish it had been anyone but him. Tserriednich is right. Tserriednich is right. Tserriednich is—

“I apologize. It shouldn’t have taken me so long,” he murmurs when you finally grow too tired to keep hitting him. 

You’re exhausted, drained—the past three weeks of uncertainty are finally catching up to you, constantly being on edge because you’re not sure when Tserriednich is going to pull the rug out from underneath you, the crushing disappointment of being left behind, forced back into the same place you tried so desperately to escape. It’s too much. Chrollo tries to reach out for you, but you shake your head and step out of reach, returning to your place against the wall, keeping as much space as possible between the two of you. You ignore the pain that briefly crosses his face at your reaction, wrapping your arms around your torso and letting your eyes slide shut.

“Why are you here?” you finally ask, hating how raspy your voice comes out. You shake your head again and force yourself to look at him. Pull yourself together, you tell yourself, you look weak. “Out with it, Chrollo. Why are you here? Do you understand the position you’ll put me in if you’re caught here?”

Chrollo’s lips part like he wants to say something, but then his brows furrow and he averts his gaze to the side. He pauses as though to collect himself, and then intones, “I thought that would be obvious.”

“Nothing about this is obvious,” you hiss, careful to keep your voice lower than the running water, despite your rising anger. “I’ve had to—”

Your voice breaks. You’ve been lying for weeks. To Tserriednich. To yourself. Smiling through Tserriednich’s patronizing pity and the bitter rage that eats away at your chest. Relearning when to look grateful and when to look afraid, when he wants your laughter and when he only wants your silence. Just when you were becoming comfortable with the idea of being king on your own chessboard, Tserriednich has dragged you back onto his, back to the pawn you’ve been since the day you were born. You’ve had to answer questions you didn’t want to answer, swallow every word that might sound like defiance, and what’s worse—

—what’s worse is that you’ve started convincing yourself that you’re okay with things being like this. It hits you suddenly now that you’re in front of Chrollo again—the shame. You’ve almost started believing him. That he cares. That he wants what’s best for you. That he’s being a good brother to you.

That’s the worst part. How he can still play these games with you, how willingly you let yourself be drawn back into them, how easily you allow yourself to be tricked. You thought that you would be stronger after years away; you’re aware of his games, aware of his tricks, aware of his manipulations, so he can’t possibly have the same hold over you that he once did, he can’t possibly play you like a fiddle the same way he would when you were a kid. But nothing has changed from back then—you still cling to him, or rather, the idea of him. The fantasy that if you can say the right words and react the way he wants, be the ideal he wants you to be, he would be good to you. He realized that the cruelty and tricks wouldn’t work this time, so he lowered your guard and lured you in with leniency and tenderness, and you fell for it. 

But how could you not? It’s all you’ve ever wanted from him. Why wouldn’t you let yourself indulge in it, even if it is just a front? Why wouldn’t you make the best of a bad situation? Could you really blame yourself?

You remember what he said to you earlier in his quarters: you convince yourself that your pain must have meaning, and the one who wounds you is the only one who can heal you, so you keep crawling back until you’ve bled yourself dry.

It’s not Chrollo, like Tserriednich wants you to believe. It’s him. The brother who you spent years desperately trying to appease, even when you knew in your heart it was a fruitless endeavor, because you wanted him to love you the way a brother should love his younger sister. 

Or both of them, maybe. You don’t know anymore. You’re not sure what to think about Chrollo anymore.

You tell yourself that you’re only biding your time, adapting to bad circumstances, but you know the truth in your heart: you’re pathetic. It’s humiliating. You can’t even lift your gaze to meet Chrollo’s, because you don’t want to see whatever’s written there—pity, guilt, you don’t want any of it. 

Instead, you push everything down. You breathe in sharply through your nose and then let out a long exhale through your mouth. You blink twice, and when you look up again, you’re free of the tumultuous emotions tearing you apart. Chrollo, to his credit, isn’t looking at you with any sort of pity, but there is a tightness around his eyes. 

“Why are you here?” you ask him again, voice colder this time. “You had two and a half weeks to come—”

“You… really think I didn’t try?” he interrupts. His lips press together, and his brows furrow, betraying the monotone his voice takes. “I’ve been—we’ve been—trying since we got out of the holding cells. Do you honestly think I’d just leave you here?”

You hate the emotion that blooms in your chest. The hope. The longing. You want it to be true more than you’d like. You found comfort in imagining it in the early days after their escape from the holding cells: that they were trying to get to you—desperately—but were thwarted at every turn. Like the fantasies you had as a kid. Your soulmate, a hero of legend, a knight from a foreign kingdom, who would fight away all of the guards that kept you locked in your tower, who would draw his blade against your cruel brother and show you a world of laughter and freedom. Except this time, it’s the king of thieves pulling off the grandest heist of all: stealing a prince from the walls of her own palace. 

“What am I supposed to think, Chrollo?” you ask, spitting his name scathingly and smothering the emotions that threaten to consume you. “You fucked me, drugged me, stole my ability, and then ran off to kill us both.”

Chrollo doesn’t flinch, but you think he comes close to it with the way he instantly looks away from you, gaze averting to the side to focus on the white tiled walls. It makes you angry that he can’t even hold your gaze. You reach forward to grab his coat, yanking it roughly to force his attention back on you, and his eyes slide back to you, too heavy. 

“Was it worth it?” you ask him. The words come out crueler than you intend, and you think, distantly, that you should stop. Hear him out at the very least. But once the words start, you can’t stop them from spilling out. “Was it? Betraying me? Putting me in this position? Getting one of your spiders killed? And for what? What did you gain? All you did was give Hisoka the satisfaction of knowing he could’ve killed you before he finally died. Was it worth it?”

Chrollo doesn’t respond right away, eyes listless as he stares at you, waiting for you to finish. After what feels like an eternity, his lips part and he says quietly, “Two.”

“What?”

“I got two of them killed. Kalluto and Shizuku. Hisoka killed them both.” The air leaves your lungs. All of the fire drains from you, leaving you hollowed and exhausted. You let go of his coat and take a step back. Shizuku, too? Your heart thuds painfully in your chest, remembering the absent-minded girl who stroked your hair after your encounter with Tserriednich and spent afternoons playing card games with you to keep you busy. “And to answer your question—no, it wasn’t worth it. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Yes.

No.

You don’t know. Hearing him say it doesn’t make you feel any better. Your chest hurts, and you hate the pain he struggles to mask. They’re mine, you remember him snapping that first night at the restaurant. And then, Chrollo, thirteen years younger, still at the beginning of a path that will lead to death and destruction: I’m supposed to protect them. They chose me to be the leader, this was all my idea. 

“No,” you finally say, because you’re angry, but it doesn’t bring you any satisfaction hearing the grief and regret in his voice, or seeing it plain on his face. You swallow thickly and look to the side before continuing quietly, “I shouldn’t—I—”

“Stop,” he interrupts. “You have a right to be angry, I—”

“Angry, maybe, but not cruel,” you say, shaking your head. “That was uncalled for.”

He lets out a soft breath, eyes sliding shut in resignation. The quiet that hangs between the two of you isn’t tense, but it’s not comfortable. You want to fill it, but you don’t know what to say that won’t just make it worse. You don’t trust yourself. You’re too prone to cruelty when you’re angry, and you don’t know if it’s Tserriednich’s influence or if it’s just who you are, but you hate it. 

“We tried to get to your quarters after we got out of the holding cells,” Chrollo finally explains, voice even, and your gaze drops to the ground, throat tightening. “They locked down Tier One. Franklin and Phinks were still in bad shape, Machi’s nen was exhausted, and the Fourth Prince brought up the Dragon Zodiac to guard the room we were in. We had to flee down to a lower tier. We thought we would be able to get back up, but they sealed the throughway and the duct that connected Tier Three to Tier Two. We were only recently able to coordinate with the Seventh Prince to get back into the upper tiers. I came to you as soon as I could.”

Luzurus, you think desperately. Has he really been working with the Phantom Troupe to try to free you from Tserriednich?

Chrollo’s lips curl up into a small smile, and he adds wryly, “Your brother does not like me, but he’s worried about you. He was angry that the Fourth Prince refused to let him see you.”

“Oh,” is all you can say, and you lift your hand to your mouth, hoping to hide the way your lips are wobbling. You’ve hardly spoken to Luzurus at all since everything went down—you thought he would be just as angry, just as disappointed, as Benjamin was. When he never came to see you, you thought it was proof that he was. You should’ve known Tserriednich was stopping him from visiting.

Chrollo reaches out for you again, more hesitant this time, like he’s dreading another rejection. But instead of stepping out of reach, you step in, and one of Chrollo’s hands immediately cradles the back of your head, pulling you into his chest, while the other wraps around your body. Your arms instinctively slip beneath his jacket, circling his bare torso—your palms find the warmth of his skin, and for the first time in weeks, you let yourself breathe. The scent of him fills your lungs, grounding you in a way you didn’t know you needed. It feels so… good being in his arms, and for a brief second, you don’t know how you ever thought Tserriednich could be right. Punishment wouldn’t feel so right.

Right?

He doesn’t speak. Neither do you. The sound of running water fades into a dull hiss as you press your ear to his chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart. His thumb moves against the back of your neck in a slow, absent stroke. You feel his breath through your hair when he murmurs, “I’m sorry.”

You shake your head, voice muffled against his chest. “Don’t.”

“You don’t have to forgive me,” he says quietly. “I just don’t want you to think that I…”

He trails off. You can imagine why. There are countless ways for him to finish it: that I used you, that I manipulated you, that I abandoned you. It would be funny if the realization didn’t upset you so much.

“… that I don’t care,” he finally finishes, and you let out a quiet noise in the back of your throat.

“Do you?” you ask quietly, almost afraid to hear him say it out loud. “Care?”

“I do,” he tells you without hesitation. “Since that first day of the expedition. Down on Tier Five.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you scoff, shaking your head, but your chest feels fluttery, and your arms tighten around him. You let out a shaky breath, nose brushing against his skin. You could almost drown in his warmth, his scent; you could almost forget where you are, what’s happened these past few weeks. How dangerous. “We—”

“It’s true,” he disagrees, and you swear your heart stills. “From the moment we met, you’ve occupied my every thought. I spent seventeen years bracing myself for when I would finally meet you, and I tried so hard to be indifferent when I did. I thought I could reject it. You and the bond. I convinced myself that I would be able to hold you at arm’s length. That it was better that way, and it’s what you would want anyway, considering all I knew were the words on my forearm. But the moment you spoke them to me, I knew it was all for nothing. Our eyes met, and I realized it was already over. I’d spent years preparing for the possibility of you—for what it would mean to meet the person fate chose for me. I thought I’d be able to meet you and turn away.” He pauses for a moment, but you can’t bring yourself to speak. You can hardly bring yourself to breathe. “Instead, all I could think was: so this is how it ends.”

You draw back slightly, trying to read his expression, but it’s infuriatingly calm. His gaze drifts past you, unfocused.

“I knew you would ruin me,” he continues. “Not because you wanted to, even if you did, but because I wanted you to. Because after everything I’ve taken and broken, everyone I’ve hurt and killed, it felt almost merciful to finally have something that could destroy me back.” He looks at you then, lips curved up into a faint smile, and you know he’s telling the truth. This is not a lie or an attempt at manipulation; you think maybe this is the most honest Chrollo Lucilfer has ever been with you, and it breaks you. You hate it. You hate him. How dare he say this to you as though he hasn't been the one doing the ruining? As though he didn't leave you? As though— “And I decided I’d let it happen. Gladly. If that was what it meant to have you.”

“I don’t want that,” you say after a moment, shaking your head, and it scares you how true it is. After everything he's done, everything he's caused, you do not want it. You should want it. You know that. But you are just—you are tired. You are so tired. “I don’t want to destroy you.”

His smile softens, eyes curving up slightly. “I know,” he agrees, voice low and steady, almost tender in its resignation. 

You wish you didn’t understand what the silence after means, but you do. It doesn’t matter what you want. Some things, once set in motion, don’t stop. They just follow through to their end. And Chrollo is certain that this bond, that you, will lead to his destruction, and he’s at peace with it. 

Worse, when your lips part to protest, to call him an idiot and refuse his words, you can’t even bring yourself to say anything because—

Because he’s right, maybe. Depending on what path you take, this will end in his destruction. The crown and love cannot coexist. If that’s the path you take, then…

“Here,” he says quietly, and you watch as he conjures Bandit’s Secret in his right hand. Instinctively, you draw back, shooting the book and then Chrollo an accusing look. He gives you a half smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and beckons you to come closer to him, holding the book out toward you. You stare at the handprint on its cover, and then look up at Chrollo again, waiting for him to explain. “If you place your hand back on it, it will return Golden Standard to you.”

You don’t hesitate, don’t even consider that he might be lying to you, you immediately place your hand back on the cover of his book, and you let out a shaky breath of relief when you feel the familiar warmth of your ability returning to you. At once, you remember the circumstances that led to the loss of your ability, and you’re irritated again, giving Chrollo a dirty look.

As though he can sense the turn of your thoughts, he shifts the subject and asks, “How do you want to proceed from here?” 

“Hm?”

“I can kill the guards your brother has stationed outside of your bedroom, and we can take refuge in the lower tiers,” he tells you, and your stomach twists uncomfortably. Otocin, Momolly, and Borksen are Tserriedich’s friends, but… you don’t like the idea of killing them. They’re not a threat. They don’t even know nen. And they’ve been good to you. Always have been. Chrollo can tell that you don’t seem fond of that option, so he amends, “Or, if you would rather, we could turn the whole succession contest upside down?” 

“How do you mean?” you ask, folding your arms over your chest and leaning back against the wall.

Chrollo’s lips curl up into another faint smile, gray eyes glittering in a way that warns you that you should brace yourself for whatever’s about to come out of his mouth next. “A requiem, perhaps. For all of Tier One to behold.”

Southernpiece. Yorknew City. He wants to bring that destruction to Tier One.

“Are you crazy?” you hiss, voice hushed. “We’ll risk bringing the ship down with something like that.”

“You’ll have to face them eventually,” Chrollo reminds you, voice low. “Your siblings, I mean.”

“Don’t patronize me,” you say through gritted teeth. “I know what this contest is. I know what has to be done. It cannot be done while we’re still nineteen days from docking.”

Chrollo looks unconvinced. He frowns at you slightly, but you ignore him, shaking your head and letting your eyes slide shut. “Are you and the others able to stay on the upper tiers? Or will you have to go back down to the lower tiers? Can you travel freely between them again?”

“Don’t worry about us,” he tells you. “We’ll do what needs to be done. How do you want to proceed?”

You inhale through your nose, hardly able to believe what you’re about to say. “I think… I think things should stay as they are for now. At least until the next banquet, maybe the one after that. Tserried and I—we just put together a plan to get Benjamin to enact special martial law. It’s going to take place during the masquerade banquet this upcoming Sunday. If we succeed, I might be able to end the contest without the ship sinking or any more of the younger princes dying. There will be a power struggle with Tserried, but if you guys are here on the upper tiers too…”

It could work, you think, mind already racing as you put together all of the pieces. It could really work. Tserriednich won’t expect the Phantom Troupe; he’ll be caught off guard by their presence. So they why—what is this uncertainty clawing at your throat? Why are you hesitating? Is that… guilt?

No, you think, it can’t be.

Nerves, maybe.

Chrollo is watching you carefully, an unreadable look on his face as he studies you. He finally accedes, without protest, “If that’s what you want.”

You exhale, pushing the thoughts from your mind as you turn off the faucets in the sink and tub. He gives you a curious look, and you say quietly, “I need to sleep. It’s been a long day.”

“Ah,” he murmurs, sounding slightly disappointed. “I see.”

You hesitate, and then ask, “Will you… stay a little longer? Until I fall asleep?”

His lips curve up into a small smile. “Of course,” he says softly.

You step back into the bedroom, making sure your door is locked before you quickly change into your pajamas. You hear him moving behind you—the faint ruffling of his coat and the creak of the floorboards as he walks toward the bed. He’s already sitting on it when you turn back around, and you can almost imagine that it’s three weeks earlier, and he’s commandeered your room to rest in, the rest of the spiders outside your door bickering and playing card games with one another. Shizuku and Kalluto still alive. Tubeppa and Tyson still alive. You free. 

Your gaze shifts down to his chest, and you say quietly, “You’re not sick anymore,” as you make your way over to the bed. You shift beneath the covers, turning on your side to look at him.

There’s an odd expression on his face for a moment before he looks down at you. “I’m not,” he confirms.

“Why?”

He tilts his head to the side with a curious smile, “Do you prefer me that way?” he asks lightly. “Fragile, fevered… Easier to keep in bed?”

You blink, and then you squint at him, realizing he’s deflecting. “That’s not what I meant. You were dying, Chrollo, and now you’re… fine.”

“Fine is subjective.”

“Stop being purposely obtuse,” you snap.

“Obtuse,” he mouths to himself, amused, much to your irritation, but then his smile softens at the edges and he sighs, looking away. “Let’s just consider it good fortune that we have one less thing to worry about, okay?”

“But—”

“Drop it,” he says, voice a bit cooler, and your gaze snaps over to him, surprised. He looks apologetic for a moment, and then he adds quietly, “Please.”

You do, after a moment, exhaling heavily and giving him another long, suspicious look before you nod and pull the covers up to your chin, intent on trying to get some sleep before you have to go to Tserriednich in the morning. You’ll have to be careful, because you don’t want to tip him off that you saw Chrollo tonight—everything is banking on him being caught off guard by the Phantom Troupe, and he can read you far too well. It’s going to be a very difficult four days until the banquet. 

Chrollo draws you from your thoughts, reaching out to brush his fingers against your cheek. His lips part to speak, but then he pauses, as though trying to gather his thoughts. He finally says, “I am sorry for how things transpired that night. I… don’t want you to think it was all calculated.”

You sigh, glancing away from him. “Wasn’t it?”

“Not all of it,” he disagrees, and your lashes flutter as he tilts your face to the side, forcing you to look at him again. His gray eyes are unguarded, too honest. “I wanted you. Not because it would make you easier to deceive, not because it fit into some plan. I wanted you. Want you.” His lips curl up, the faintest trace of self-deprecation tugging at his mouth. “And then, when the moment came, I used it anyway. I suppose that says everything it needs to about me… I don’t expect you to believe me. I don’t know if I would if I were in your shoes. But I don’t want you thinking it meant nothing to me, because it’s the furthest thing from the truth. If I could go back in time and change what happened that night, that would be the one thing I wouldn’t change.”

Your heart feels as though it’s lodged in your throat. You hate how warm his touch is against your skin, how you want to lean into his hand—you want to stay angry at him, you are angry at him. You’re not ready to forgive him, not for what he did, not when it cost you so much. So, instead, you let out a shaky breath and turn onto your other side, back facing him.

He exhales, disappointed.

“Goodnight, Chrollo.”

“Sleep well.”

[tralawre-deactivated20260603]

multiple characters. there's only one bed.

law.

"Well shit."

You were an archeologist on board the Heart Pirates submarine and, after your Captain formed an alliance with the Straw Hats, you were forced to be on their ship instead of finding your way back to your crew on the submarine. Things between you and Law have been pretty tense lately and him forming an alliance with Straw Hat without confiding in you first really sealed the deal.

"I'm the Captain so it's my orders. Deal with it."

That is what Law had told you, effectively ending the conversation there and you gave him dirty looks ever since. He paid them no mind and instead focused on his true course of action: dealing with Caesar and Doflamingo.

You put your bag down on the floor next to the door and stare at your new enemy. One bed, two people.

"If it's a problem, you can sleep with us." Nami said kindly from behind you both.

You trust Nami and Robin but you've known Law longer. You felt more safe with him than you did with the Straw Hats or the rest of your crew so, you wanted to stay with him. You take a peek at Law and he glared at the bed like it was his enemy too.

"Oh it's fine. He can sleep on the floor anyway."

A tiny scoff let his mouth as he stepped further into the room, placing his items down too, and Nami laughed at that.

"We'll discuss our next plan of action tomorrow. Be there." She said, shutting the door behind you both.

The room was pitch black and you switch on the light. There was a book case in one corner filled with titles you haven't read and that delighted you. So many books to read, so little time to read them. Hopefully now you had a chance to get through the selection in front of you. On the other side was a door and you open it. A bathroom. You close it and open the other door, a closet. You shut it and continue to observe the room.

"I'll take the left side, you take the right."

All you do is nod and make your way to the right side of the bed and frown. He noticed. "What?"

It was too low. He noticed and dragged out a sigh. "Your silent treatment is pathetic by the way."

You ignore his comment and place your sleep shirt on the left side of the bed. He rolled his eyes and silently complied, moving to the right side of the bed. He didn't mind as long as he got some good sleep.

You gather your things for a shower and once you were done, you re-enter the bedroom in a bathrobe, drying the ends of your hair. You didn't notice Law's stare but, when he moved past you to take his own shower, you noticed a slight tint of pink on his cheeks. You were confused but didn't comment on it.

You get dressed for bed and apply your favourite skin care after drying your hair. Law came out of the shower in just his boxers.

"This is what I normally wear to bed. Is that fine with you?"

You give him a thumbs up in the mirror. He drags out a sigh and leans against the dresser. His abs were in your face so you forced yourself to look at him.

"Look, I'm going to say this once and once only. I made the right choice with this alliance. But I'm sorry for not confiding in you first."

You narrow your eyes at him before huffing. "Was that hard?"

"Yes, actually." A ghost of a smile was on his lips. "You're the only one I know here so don't go ignoring me when I need you."

"Humph, don't tell me what to do, Captain."

"That's my job." He responds smoothly. "You done with that?" He points to the hair dryer and you nod. "Thanks."

You get into bed first after picking out a book to read. It was a book on theories about the World Government, a book that was, to no one's surprise, banned in all parts of the world. How Robin managed to catch one of these books was beyond your imagination but you weren't complaining. You've been saving money to buy this and now it's in your palms, for free.

Soon, Law turns the lamp on and turns off the big light and slides in next to you with a bunch of reports in hand. For the both of you, reality settled In. You were going to be sharing a bed with each other until further notice.

"Humph," You huff, staring at the page but truly, you were thinking about Law. "You could be a gentleman and sleep on the floor."

"Thank God I'm not one then."

You snicker. "Oh please, you're the biggest gentleman I know."

Then things turned awkward for you. You liked to cuddle. Pillow, plushie, hell even Bepo, you had to have your arms wrapped around something in order to sleep properly and with an annoyed, angry huff you turn the page.

Law side eyed you but said nothing. Once he was finished on his reports, he put them away in the drawer and turned off the light.

"Hey, I'm reading here!"

"It's late, go to sleep."

The only light you both had was the light of the moon. You look at Law. He was already staring at you. You close the book and put it on the nightstand and get cosy. Your faces were facing each other. For a double bed, it sure as hell felt like a single bed. There was no space at all.

Without cuddling, there was no way you were getting any sleep. You look away from his piercing stare to look at his bare, tatted chest.

"What is it, Y/N-ya?" He asked softly.

You relax at his voice. "I... I can't sleep without..." You clear your throat. "Holding something."

Law was quiet for a moment. Then, he sighed. "Then come here."

"Huh?" You gaped at him. "Are you serious? Are you sure?"

He hummed and after a few more "are you sure's?" you shuffle closer to him. Your knees brushed, your chest pressed against his tatted one. He was already looking at you and let you experiment with different positions until you found one that made you the comfiest.

His head on your chest.

Law was not expecting the night to end with his face between your boobs but he accepted it. You wrap your arms around his upper back and cuddle him.

"I'm really sorry." You whisper, not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

All he did was hum. "I'm not."

He was in heaven. You smile to yourself and bring your hand to his hair and run your fingers through his hair and watch as his face relaxed. Soon, you both fell asleep, and didn't hear the sound of the door opening. Zoro had gotten lost on his own ship and was surprised by the sight before him.

His head tilts to the side and he scratched under his chin.

"Since when were they together?"

"Oh," Luffy placed his chin on Zoro's shoulder. "I thought that they hated each other!"

Zoro quickly closed the door. "What are you--"

He had a piece of meat in his hands. A late night snack. Zoro rolled his eyes and mumbled an "of course" before forcing Luffy to take him to his bedroom, not willing to admit that he was lost.

doflamingo.

Being the assistant to Donquixote Doflamingo was not for the weak. He was the biggest headache going. Even now, as you were in Marineford for the annual Warlord meeting, you had to find a hotel to stay at and all the rooms were booked, all but one.

"Oh, one bed?" Doflamingo grinned at the sight before him. "This should be interesting."

You ignore him completely. "Are you sure there isn't another room available?"

"I'm sure, Madam."

You drag out a sigh and look around you. There was no time to find another hotel. Plus, all the other hotels didn't meet Doflamingo's standards. At least there was a couch for you to sleep on. The last thing Doflamingo was is a gentleman.

"Don't be such a prude, Y/N. I don't bite." Doflamingo plopped onto the bed, his eyes on the chandelier and with a grin, he laughed.

"Can you at least take your shoes off before getting on the bed, Doffy?"

He laughed harder.

"Oh for..." You look at the man again who broke out into a sweat. "Look, thank you for your help. No one is allowed in or out of this room except from myself and Mr Doflamingo. Anything suspicious, alert me immediately and I will handle it. Tell the marines outside that there will be no room service, I will personally get Mr Doflamingo his meals."

The man nodded, thankful to get out of there.

Once it was you and Doflamingo by yourself, you turn to look at him. "Doffy, didn't you get your coat dirty?"

He was still wearing it and had it on the fucking bed.

"Oh I'm going to die." You hiss, pinching the bridge of your nose and storming towards the window.

He laughed harder. "You're such a darling."

"And you're filthy. Take a shower, please, I'll get your coat washed."

"Just leave it for tomorrow."

You look out the window. "Well tomorrow is the Warlord meeting. You're going to it, even if I have to drag you by the hand to take you."

Doflamingo chuckled and sat up. He stared at your back. "That's in the afternoon. You can have it washed in the morning. You get up at the crack ass of dawn anyway. Plus, you've been on your feet all day."

"That's my job."

"Well the job is over for the evening. Take a shower after me and rest." He got up and then grinned. "Unless you want to take one together."

You took off your heel and threw it in his direction and he laughed, dodging it with ease.

"Such a feisty woman." His laughter rang into the bathroom after he closed it.

You collapse onto the couch and man spread, throwing your head back and sigh. It felt good to sit down; it felt good to have some peace and quiet. You massage the tension in your neck and crack your neck from side to side. You had some paperwork to do but really needed a shower.

You gather your things and wait patiently. You get up to look at Doflamingo when he had gotten out of the shower and with a screech, you look away.

"Wear some fucking boxers!"

As if forgetting you were there, he looked surprised. Then, he barked out a laugh and walked towards his suitcase and did as he was told.

"You're as quiet as a mouse." He put his boxers on. "Is that better, prude?"

"Oh please, having your dick out for the world to see doesn't make me a prude."

"Are you trying to telling me that you're not a prude?" Doflamingo grinned.

"My sex life is non of your concern."

His grin faltered at that. He hummed delicately and when you walked past him to enter the bathroom, he stepped in your way. He looked down at you, his grin completely gone from his face.

"You've had sex?"

"Have you?" You shot back.

"Yes." He deadpanned. "Who was your first?"

You were confused by the sudden questioning but knew better than to defy his orders. So, you respond. "Shanks."

A vein throbbed on his forehead. His lips pulled into a sneer, his face shadowing with anger. "Shanks?" He spat his name out like it was venomous. "Who else?"

You blink. "Uh, Shanks and Crocodile. That's it."

"Crocodile?" He was seething.

You tilt your head to the side with a frown. This was news to him. He didn't know that you knew those two idiots. He stared at you for a long, long time and awkwardly, you move past him to enter the bathroom.

You take your shower and after you were done, you do your routine in the bathroom. You were wearing your underwear and a pink silk night gown that reached to your ass with your legs on display. You didn't like wearing too many layers and preferred lingerie over the rougher materials. Cotton was amazing too but you forgot to pack those when coming to Marineford.

You leave the bathroom to find Doflamingo on the bed, staring at the chandelier on the ceiling. You make your way to your suitcase and soon, a whistle fills the air.

"Nice ass."

You turn and face him with a scowl. "This is why I wanted my own room."

He chuckled. He didn't seem like his usual self. You tilt your head to the side and stare at him. "Are you alright, Doffy?"

He said nothing. You shrug your shoulders and grab your blanket before making your way towards the couch and lying down. It was the most uncomfortable thing your body has laid on and you knew that It was for decorative purposes only. How stupid. Still, you paid the discomfort no mind and rest after finishing up on some paperwork.

You toss and turn every five minutes and with a huff, you shot up and toss the blanket to the side and put on your slippers. Doflamingo chuckled behind you and hummed appreciatively.

"Where are you going, Y/N?"

"To threaten them into giving me a room." You stomp towards the door.

"Stop."

His tone was cold, authoritative, and you turn to face him. Without saying anything, he taps the empty spot beside him and you pull a face. You wanted to ask if he was sure but then you remembered who exactly Doflamingo was; he doesn't do things that he doesn't want to do. So, you make your way towards the bed and slip off your slippers and slide under the covers. He got up and got under the covers after you.

It was quiet but your body was still sore. All that could be heard was your sharp breathing. Then, just as your eyes closed, Doflamingo pulled you into his chest and your eyes shot open. You look up at him, expecting to see him with his glasses on, but they were off. You could see everything he held in his gaze: his anger, his frustration, his inner turmoil, his desire for bloodshed; he wanted it all and he was going to have it.

He looked beautiful.

His hands roughly massaged your stomach but when your eyes squeeze in pain, he stops, and goes much slower. You sigh and relax against his chest. He massaged your arms and your shoulders next. His fingers brushed your neck and you hum.

"Shanks." He said, voice cold. You open your eyes to stare at him. "Crocodile."

He was angry.

You didn't know what to say.

"I never want to hear anything like that again."

You huff. "And why not?"

"I don't like sharing what belongs to me. And you, Y/N," He caressed your cheek. "Are mine."

You were quiet. "That was all before I met you."

"And after?" His eyes were still stormy, his jaw set in place.

You decide to tease him. "I wish. I might ask Mihawk to set me up with Shanks again."

He chuckled but the laughter didn't reach his eyes in the way you expected it to. He hides everything behind his glasses. Everything.

"Woman, do you have a death wish?" His thumb caressed your lip. "If you want your needs fulfilled, I'll do it."

"You're my Boss."

"And I can make you my wife with an order and a snap of my finger."

You narrow your eyes at him. "You'd need my permission first, Doffy."

He grinned at that. "Oh? Maybe I do."

He was amused.

"We can talk about all that after the Warlord meeting. Deal?" You say to him.

His mouth softened, as did the look in his eyes. "Deal."

You wrap your arms around him and bury your face into his chest and he stroked your back, his other hand resting on your ass.

"You have no shame." You grumble.

And the last thing you heard was his laughter, missing the adoration he had for you in his eyes.

[cryoculus]

⟢ SITUATIONSHIP┊ VARKA

varka claims the distance was supposed to make him less fond of you, but after half a decade of secret letters tucked into tax tomes, the knight of boreas is finally marching home to collect on a five-year-old tab.

✦ word count. 8.8k words

✦ content. varka x f!reader. attempt at humor. idiots to lovers. reader is a snarky tsundere n varka is wayyy too into that. exchanging letters through the years. fluff. getting together. varka kinda does the medieval ish equivalent of sexting in one of the letters but there's no smut (sorry, folks). capital Y for yearning.

✦ foreword. this wip has been collecting cobwebs in my drafts for a little over six months now and i couldn't quite figure out what to do with it until recently LMAO please enjoy the fruit of half a year of trying to figure out how i want to write one of, if not THE most anticipated character(s) in genshin impact history <3

READ ON AO3

The first thing you learn working at Angel's Share is that people talk.

The second thing you learn is that people talk even more when Varka walks in.

It isn’t subtle, either. The shift moves through the tavern the way a gust of wind stirs tall grass. One moment the room is full of low conversation and clinking glassware, and the next there are heads turning toward the door, voices lifting in greeting, and chairs scraping as someone stands to clap the Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius on the back like an old friend. Mondstadt adores its heroes, and Varka, loud and golden and larger than life, has always been one of the city’s favorites.

You, unfortunately, are not among his admirers.

Behind the bar, you continue polishing a glass with the patience of someone who refuses to acknowledge the storm gathering across the room. The lanternlight catches against the rim of the glass as you turn it in your hands, wiping away a nonexistent smudge while the noise of the tavern swells briefly in welcome.

Someone laughs near the door and you know, without looking, exactly who has just arrived.

Charles does look up, of course. Charles is polite.

“Evening, Grand Master,” he says as the man himself approaches the counter.

Varka’s boots come to a stop on the other side of the bar, and there is a brief, deliberate pause that’s heavy with expectation. When you finally lift your gaze, you find him watching you with open interest.

He looks exactly as irritating as usual—broad-shouldered, forearms slightly tanned from the sun, his blond hair falling in a careless sweep around his face. The lanternlight catches along the scar at his neck and glints faintly in his blue eyes, which are bright with the same irrepressible good humor that seems to follow him everywhere.

He smiles when you meet his gaze, as if the sight of you is the best part of his evening.

“Good evening.”

You set the glass down with a soft, decisive clink.

“What do you want to drink.”

“See?” The Grand Master glances at Charles as though seeking confirmation. “She always greets me so warmly.”

“If I greeted you the way I actually wanted to, I suspect I’d lose my job.”

Varka laughs.

It is a bright, unguarded sound that spills easily into the room, drawing the curious attention of the nearest tables. He seems entirely delighted by the exchange, leaning his arms comfortably against the bar as though he has settled in for the evening.

“You look lovely tonight,” he remarks after a moment, studying you with an ease that would be charming if it were directed literally anywhere else.

“You looked better when you were out of my sight,” you answer, already reaching for the bottle that holds his usual order without waiting for him to ask.

“How cruel,” Varka sighs, pressing a hand dramatically to his chest as though you’ve driven a lance clean through it. “The most beautiful woman in all of Mondstadt, wanting absolutely nothing to do with me.”

You slide the bottle back into place behind the counter.

“Drink your wine, Grand Master,” you tell him flatly. “Before someone notices the Knights of Favonius are being led by a man with a martyr complex.”

Varka lifts the mug, still smiling to himself, but before he can say anything else a voice calls from deeper in the tavern.

“Grand Master Varka! Over here!”

A long table near the hearth has erupted into motion—several knights waving him over with the loose enthusiasm of men already halfway through their evening. One of them raises a mug in salute, while another pounds the table loud enough to rattle the dishes.

Varka glances toward them, then back to you.

For a moment it looks as though he might say something else, some last comment meant solely to annoy you—but instead he sighs, pushes away from the bar, and picks up his drink.

“Duty calls,” he singsongs.

“You’re drinking with your men,” you deadpan. “Hardly duty.”

“Morale is just as tantamount as everything else,” Varka counters with solemn dignity, and with that he turns and makes his way across the tavern, the crowd parting easily around him as he goes.

The moment he is out of earshot, Charles chuckles quietly beside you.

You shoot him a look. “What?”

“Nothing,” he insists, still smiling as he stacks a row of clean glasses. “It’s just that not everyone has the courage to speak to the most powerful man in Mondstadt the way you do.”

You scowl.

“If we let people like Varka have their way around here,” you reply crisply, reaching for another bottle, “Master Diluc wouldn’t be very pleased with us.”

Charles hums in mild agreement, though the amusement remains firmly in his expression.

The night presses on regardless.

Angel’s Share settles back into its usual chaotic rhythm. You move easily through the noise, as well as the familiar motions of the evening: pouring drinks, sliding plates across the counter, accepting payments while Charles handles the orders piling in from the tables.

It’s work you take seriously. The pay is good. The hours are reliable. The owner of the establishment expects competence, and you pride yourself on providing it. Angel’s Share is the most reputable tavern in Mondstadt, and you intend to keep your position here for as long as possible.

Which means you know better than to indulge certain distractions.

Unfortunately, those distractions have a habit of staring at you.

You do not need to look to feel it—the faint, unmistakable weight of someone’s gaze lingering across the room. Every so often it settles against the back of your neck with enough persistence to be noticed. When you glance up by accident, it is always the same pair of bright blue eyes watching from somewhere among the tables.

The infuriating man seems to know everyone in the tavern tonight.

At one moment Varka is laughing with a cluster of knights near the hearth. At another he is leaning back in his chair beside a group of adventurers who appear thrilled by the attention. Someone claps him on the shoulder. Someone else pours him another drink. But every now and then, those crystalline blue eyes drift back toward the bar.

Toward you.

You promptly look away.

You have no intention of tossing scraps of attention to a wolf who already believes he has been invited to the feast.

“Well, this is quite interesting.”

The voice arrives beside you like a cat slipping silently onto the counter.

You don’t need to turn to recognize Kaeya, whose talent for locating entertainment in other people’s suffering is well documented across Mondstadt. He settles against the bar with the languid ease of a man who has come here for a very specific purpose, his visible eye flicking between you and Charles with undisguised delight.

Beside him stands Rosaria, her expression as unimpressed as ever. Without so much as asking, she reaches across the counter and lifts a glass, holding it up like she’s deciding whether the contents are strong enough to justify her attention.

They are regular fixtures at the bar by now—faces you see often enough that their habits are as familiar to you as the grain of the wood beneath your hands. Most people would call them an unlikely pair, but you know better. Especially on nights when Kaeya has selected a target for his amusement, and Rosaria has decided the evening might be improved by watching someone else suffer for it.

“What do you want?”

Kaeya gestures loosely toward the other side of the tavern, where Varka has just burst into another round of laughter with his companions. “The Grand Master seems… distracted tonight.”

You slide a mug toward another patron without missing a beat.

Rosaria leans on the counter beside Kaeya, her pale gaze drifting lazily toward the laughing table across the room. “He’s been watching you for the last twenty minutes.”

You frown. “Then he clearly needs a better hobby.”

Kaeya chuckles softly.

“My dear,” he begins, “I believe you are the hobby.”

You fix him with a flat stare. “Order a drink or leave.”

“Alright, alright.” He lifts his hands in mock surrender. “A glass of dandelion wine, and story about… Ah, what do the kids call it these days? Your… situationship with the Grand Master on the side, please?”

Rosaria snickers into the rim of her glass.

“A ‘situationship’ requires two willing participants,” you tell him flatly. “What you’re witnessing is a persistent pest and a woman trying to earn a living without committing regicide.”

Kaeya doesn’t even flinch. He just leans further onto the polished wood, his single eye dancing with a mirth that makes you want to dump a bucket of ice down his collar. “Regicide? My, we’re thinking big, aren’t we? I didn't realize the Grand Master had already ascended to royalty in your heart.”

“He’s a king-sized headache, if that’s what you mean,” you snap, turning your back to them to reorganize the shelf of colorful liquor bottles.

“Careful,” Rosaria mutters as she stares into the middle distance. “If you keep denying it that hard, you’re going to pull a muscle. The man is practically vibrating over there every time you look in his general direction.”

You ignore her, but your eyes involuntarily flicker toward the reflection in the dark, polished glass of a bottle Charles set on the counter sometime ago. In the distorted surface, you can see the golden blur of him.

Varka is currently gesturing broadly with a meat skewer in one hand and a mug in the other, telling a story while the younger knights are hang on to every word. Even from across the room, you can feel the sheer, gravitational pull of his presence. It isn’t just that he’s the strongest man in Mondstadt; it’s the way he wears that strength like a comfortable old cloak.

Throughout the night, you’ve caught glimpses of him between orders—the way he claps a nervous new recruit on the shoulder hard enough to make the poor boy nearly spill his drink, the way his laughter rolls across the room until even the hearthfire seems to crackle a little brighter for it. There is nothing distant about him. He is not some austere statue looming over the Church of Favonius, nor merely a heroic name preserved in the records of the Knights.

He is flesh and blood, smelling of pine needles and morning dew. And perhaps most dangerously of all, he possesses that terribly human ability to be completely, hopelessly ridiculous.

Then, the reflection shows him turning his head. Those blue eyes find yours—even through the distorted glass—and he offers a slow, knowing wink. Your blood pressure rises immediately.

“He’s doing it again,” Kaeya chirps, sounding entirely too pleased with himself. “The ‘Look of Longing.’ Truly, it’s like a romance novel, only with significantly more sarcasm on the protagonist’s part.”

You would have volleyed back with yet another sharp retort, but something in your peripheral vision catches your attention.

“Charles.”

“Yes?” your coworker asks, his voice suspiciously high-pitched. You glance over to see him “polishing” the same spot on the counter for the last three minutes.

“If you don’t stop eavesdropping and go check the back for inventory, I will tell Master Diluc you’ve been giving the Cavalry Captain a ‘loyalty discount’ on his Death After Noon.”

Charles pales, offers a quick, apologetic shrug to your present company, and vanishes into the back room with impressive speed.

You turn back to Kaeya and Rosaria, slamming a fresh napkin down in front of them with enough force to make the wood rattle. “Both of you. Out of my face. Kaeya, your wine. Rosaria, whatever that sludge is you’re drinking. If I hear the word situationship out of either of your mouths again, I’m banning you from the Angel’s Share until the Grand Master actually manages to grow a brain cell. Which, by my calculations, should be somewhere around the next decade."

“So you’re saying there’s a timeline?” Kaeya teases, picking up his glass.

“Get. Out.”

They retreat to a corner table, chuckling like a pair of hyenas. You take a deep breath as you smooth out your apron, and try to regain your composure. You are a professional. You are the best bartender in the city. You do not let overgrown golden retrievers in armor distract you.

Naturally, that’s when a shadow falls over the bar. A very large, very familiar shadow.

“They seemed to be enjoying themselves,” Varka says, his voice a low rumble right in front of you. He’s leaned back against the bar, facing the room but tilting his head just enough to watch you. “What was the joke? I love a good laugh.”

“The joke,” you begin, leaning in until you’re mere inches from his face, relishing the way his pupils dilate just a fraction, “is currently standing right in front of me, asking for more attention than a toddler in a toy shop.”

Varka’s grin doesn't waver. If anything, it sharpens into something dangerously fond. “A toddler, eh? Well, I suppose I do have a certain... youthful energy.”

“You have the impulse control of a slime,” you counter, moving to the other end of the bar.

“But the heart of a lion!” he calls out after you, loud enough for half the tavern to hear. “And that lion is very thirsty for another round, my lady!”

You don’t look back, but you can feel the heat in your cheeks. Barbatos, give me strength, you think, grabbing a bottle with a little more violence than necessary. Or give him a very long expedition to go on.

It turns out that Barbatos has a sense of humor.

The announcement tore through Mondstadt like a gale-force wind. An expedition. A northern crusade into the heart of the Abyss. The city, never one to miss an excuse for a festival, turned the night before the departure into an absolute riot. Angel’s Share was the epicenter of the madness, the air thick with the smell of spilled ale, roasted meat, and the heavy, humid anxiety of a people seeing their strongest protectors march into the unknown.

You were exhausted. You spent the last twelve hours pouring pint after pint for weeping recruits and boisterous knights who were drinking to forget the fear of what lay ahead. But as the clock struck midnight and the tavern began to thin out, the relief you’d been nursing suddenly felt hollow.

Then, the floorboards groaned under a familiar, massive weight.

Varka doesn’t slide up to the bar with his usual swagger. He doesn't offer a witty remark about the quality of the wine or try to bait you into an argument. He just pulls himself onto a stool, his shoulders slumped, his face flushed not just from the drink, but from the weight of a thousand eyes waiting for him to be a hero.

He looks… human. And that is significantly more terrifying than him being an annoyance.

“One more,” the Knight of Boreas mutters, waving a hand vaguely at the tap. His voice is gravelly, stripped of its usual theatrical boom.

You set a mug down, not bothering to ask if he wants his usual. “You’ve had enough. If you fall off your horse tomorrow because you’re nursing a hangover, the entire city will be weeping in the streets.”

Varka lets out a short, dry laugh. He stares down into the golden liquid as if it holds the secrets to the North. “They think I’m going there to win, you know. They think I’ll march in, clear the Abyss, and come back with a victory feast already planned.”

“And won’t you?” you ask, your voice softening despite your best intentions.

He looks up at you then, and the blue in his eyes is muted, weary. “I don’t know what’s out there. I really don’t. We have intel, yes, but the Abyss… it’s not a battlefield you can just charge into. It’s an endless rot that eats at you from the inside-out.” He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it in a disarray that looks uncharacteristically fragile. “I’m taking the best of our men, and I’m not sure if I’m a leader, or just a man who’s going to get a lot of people killed.”

You freeze. Someone of his position, the pillar of Mondstadt and the Knights, never admits doubt. Certainly not to a cynical bartender. But the truth in his expression is naked, and for the first time, you don't feel the urge to bite back. You don't want to tell him to stop whining.

You lean over the counter, the distance between you shrinking until you can smell the pine and the sharp, fermented tang of the Dandelion Wine on his breath.

“You’re an idiot,” you say, but the sharpness is gone, replaced by a quiet, steady resolve. “You’re an arrogant, loud-mouthed, paperwork-hating idiot. But you’re our idiot. If you go up there and die, there’s nobody left in this city with enough ego to keep the Knights in line. Much less the Abyss.”

Varka blinks, caught off guard by your lack of a sting. He stares at you, his gaze dropping to your lips, then back to your eyes, his expression shifting into something far more dangerous than his usual teasing flirtation.

“Is that so?” he murmurs.

“Yes,” you press on, forcing your hands to stay steady on the bar. “So don’t you dare go getting yourself killed. Because if I hear that you’ve fallen, I’m going to track down every single barrel of wine we’re sending to your caravan, and I am going to poison the lot of them personally. I’ll make sure your last drink is your worst one.”

Varka laughs, a low, rumbling sound in his chest. It is the first genuine thing you’ve heard all night. He leans forward, closing the final inch of space between you. The air in the tavern seems to vanish, replaced by the sheer, overwhelming heat of him. He looks as if he is going to bridge the gap—as if he is going to press that brash, smiling mouth against yours right here in the middle of the tavern.

Your heart hammers against your ribs, a traitorous, frantic rhythm. You hold your breath, leaning in just a fraction—

Then, he stops.

Varka pulls back, his hand brushing against your knuckles as he pushes himself off the bar. The moment shatters.

“Poison, hmm?” he repeats huskily, his playful mask sliding back into place, though the wolfish grin doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ll be sure to come back, then. I wouldn’t want to suffer a bad vintage on my way out.”

The Grandmaster turns and walks toward the door, leaving you standing there clutching a clean rag with white-knuckled intensity, your face burning with a heat that has nothing to do with the hearth.

Come morning, the sun rises over Mondstadt with a clarity that feels almost insulting.

You stand at the very back of the crowd near the city gates, arms crossed tightly over your chest. Varka is mounted on a horse so large it looks like it was plucked from an old legend, his golden hair catching the light as he laughs and waves to the citizens. He is every bit the Knight of Boreas should be—charismatic, unwavering, and draped in bravery in a way that makes people feel they could survive a literal apocalypse just by standing in his shadow.

It’s jarring. You keep looking for the man who leaned over your bar and admitted his fear of leading his men to their doom, but he’s gone, replaced by the invincible Grand Master. You realize then that life in Mondstadt is built on this very illusion. He has to be the most reliable man in the world so that everyone else can sleep at night, even if he's the most annoying man in the world to you personally.

As the caravan disappears into the horizon, a strange, ringing silence settles over the city.

The months that follow are exactly what you spent years praying for: quiet. With eighty percent of the Knights gone, the nights of rowdy drinking songs and Varka’s booming laughter are replaced by the low hubbub of civilian regulars and the occasional group of weary squires-in-training.

Kaeya and Rosaria remain your most consistent—and most irritating—patrons. The Cavalry Captain spends most of his evenings draped over the bar, sighing dramatically about how he “lacks a cavalry to captain”. Rosaria just drinks in silence, though she occasionally shoots you a knowing look when you find yourself staring a second too long at Varka's favorite empty stool.

Even Master Diluc makes more frequent appearances, his presence a somber weight in the room when he isn’t busy playing Darknight Hero under the city’s nose. But despite his outwardly stoic demeanor, your boss is sharper than most people. You can tell he’s well aware of the shift in your mood, and maneuvers around it just as carefully as Charles would, much to your surprise and annoyance.

Because it doesn’t make sense.

This is the monotonous, peaceful life you wanted. No one pestering you. No one calling you “the most beautiful woman in Mondstadt” just to watch you scowl.

So why does it feel so dull?

Oftentimes, you find yourself cleaning the counter with a bit more aggression than necessary, your ears unintentionally straining for a boisterous, unguarded laugh that hasn’t echoed through the rafters in nearly half a year. The king-sized headache is gone, and in his place is a void that makes Angel’s Share feel much larger and colder than it ever has before.

“You've polished that spot three times already,” Kaeya’s voice cuts through your thoughts, smooth as silk and twice as sharp. He leans in, a playful smirk dancing on his lips. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were actually missing the sound of his voice.”

“I’m missing the revenue his knights brought in,” you snap back, though your hand hitches for a fraction of a second. “Nothing more.”

Yes… This is the truth.

You’ve been praying to be rid of the nuisance that was the Knight of Boreas for Archons know how long. So why is it that when you find a letter neatly tucked beneath the door of your apartment after running errands, your heart nearly skips a beat?

You flip the envelope over, your thumb catching on the rough grain of the parchment. There is no wax seal, and certainly no return address. It’s a plain, unassuming thing that has no business making your chest buzz with this much frantic anticipation.

Your rationality insists it can’t be from him. He never promised to write. Why would he? You spent every waking moment of his presence in Mondstadt pushing him away, meeting his boisterous affection with nothing but barbs and sighs of exasperation.

Still, you don't wait. You unlock your door with trembling fingers, slip inside, and kick the door shut. You don't even take off your cloak before you tear the envelope open.

The handwriting is exactly what you expected: bold, messy, and large enough that it practically marches off the page. It’s the handwriting of a man who is clearly used to handing off his administrative duties to the next poor soul down the hierarchy of the Knights of Favonius.

EXPEDITION REPORT: NORTHERN FRONT TO: The Most Dangerous Woman in the Angel’s Share FROM: Your King-Sized Headache

My Lady,

I trust this reaches you before you’ve successfully replaced me with a more manageable regular. If you have, don’t tell me. My heart is already fragile enough from the frost up here.

We’ve finally reached a settlement in a region called Nod-Krai. It sits just a few miles south of the Snezhnayan border. It’s a strange, haunting place—not quite as biting as Dragonspine, but it lacks the golden warmth of Mondstadt’s sun. I find myself looking at the horizon and missing the way the light glitters across Cider Lake.

The Knights are currently settling into our encampment. We’ve made contact with a local group called the Lightkeepers. Stalwart folk, though they don’t laugh nearly as much as we do. But I won't bore you with the logistical nightmares of setting up a garrison in the tundra.

Tell me, have you learned any new mixes while I’ve been away? I find myself inexplicably jealous of every man who gets to sit at your bar and watch you work. I’ve even caught myself staring at our traveling supply of Dawn Winery’s finest and thinking it tastes remarkably flat. It turns out that even the best vintage in Teyvat doesn't compare to a drink served by a sharp-tongued beauty who looks like she’s considering poisoning me.

I don’t expect a reply. A man of my reputation shouldn't be so needy, right? But, should you find yourself bored and holding a pen, I’ve made an... arrangement. If you leave a letter on shelf 12A on the first floor of the Favonius Library and tuck it inside the twelfth tome from the right on the third row, it will find its way to me.

Take care of yourself. And keep that tongue sharp. I’d hate to come home to a polite bartender.

Yours, in exile,

Varka

You stare at the letter for a long minute, the ink blurring slightly as you read his specific, ridiculous instructions for the library. Shelf 12A? The twelfth tome on the third row?

“Idiot,” you mutter.

You toss the letter onto your coffee table with a decisive flick of your wrist. You have no intention of dignifying this with a response. You are not some lovelorn maiden waiting by the window for her knight. You are a professional, and you have a shift starting in four hours.

You leave the letter right where it is, stubbornly clinging to your pride as you move to the kitchen to make tea. You won't write back. You won't.

You stay stubborn for exactly three days.

By the fourth, the silence in your apartment feels loud, and the letter on the coffee table starts to look like a personal challenge that you are much too competitive to set aside.

That is how you find yourself in the Knights of Favonius library during the quiet morning hours when Lisa is busy elsewhere. Shelf 12A. Third row. Twelfth tome from the right. You pull the book—a dry, dusty record of Mondstadt’s civilian taxes from a century ago—and slip your folded parchment into the middle of it.

TO: The “King-Sized Headache” Currently Staining the North FROM: The Bartender Who Still Has Your Tab Open

Grand Master Varka,

Mondstadt is quiet. It is peaceful. It is, frankly, a relief to work a shift without having to listen to your voice drowning out the sound of the actual music. The only downside is that without your knights around to run up their tabs, the tips have been abysmal. So, for the sake of Angel’s Share’s bottom line, try not to get eaten by a lawachurl.

Nod-Krai sounds miserable. If there’s no sun, I assume you’re currently the color of a blanched radish. Is the food there even edible? I’ve heard rumors that the northerners live on nothing but dried fish and melted snow. If you’ve lost weight, don't expect me to pity you when you get back; you had plenty of “youthful energy” to spare.

And stop being ridiculous. The men in the bar are customers, and unlike some people, they actually know how to order a drink without making a theatrical production out of it. I haven't bothered with any new mixes. Why would I? There’s no one here with a refined enough palate to appreciate them—or a big enough ego to demand them.

Don’t get used to this. I am only writing because the silence in the tavern is making Charles go stir-crazy, and I needed something to occupy my mind while he reorganizes the cellar for the fifth time this week.

Stay warm. If you come back with even a single toe missing, I’m doubling the price of your wine for the next three years. I’m serious, Varka. One piece. Or don't come back at all.

Try not to be an idiot (I know it’s hard),

—The One Who Should Be Paid to Deal With You

The correspondence between you and the Grand Master isn’t what anyone would call “regular.”

It lacks the frantic pace of a romance and the rigid structure of a carefully penned report. Sometimes, his letters sit on your coffee table for weeks, while you go about your life in a city that feels increasingly like a toy box he left behind.

It isn’t always out of spite. Most of the time, it’s simply because life in Mondstadt is… well, Mondstadt. You tell him about the wine yields, the way the wind smells before a storm, and how Charles finally managed to drop a full crate of dandelion wine without breaking a single bottle. Then you read his latest letter. It was filled with accounts of Abyssal skirmishes, diplomatic dances with the Snezhnayan border guards, and the beautifully moonlit landscape of the north. Once you put it down, you feel a sudden, sharp sting of insignificance.

Your life is a quiet tavern; his is a map of the world.

Eventually, you find something worth reporting. You spent three pages detailing the arrival of a golden-haired Traveler and a floating guide who sounds like an over-caffeinated finch.

You write with uncharacteristic fervor about the Stormterror crisis, and how this stranger managed to soothe a dragon that had been part of Mondstadt’s soul since the beginning. You feel a strange sense of pride in delivering the scoop, imagining him reading it in some tent and finally realizing that Mondstadt can produce heroes even when he isn’t there to hog the spotlight.

His response arrives three weeks later.

My Lady, I was touched by your detailed account of our honorary Knight’s exploits. Truly, I was flattered that you went to such lengths to keep me informed. However, Jean’s official report reached me two days prior. Still, I prefer your version—you have a much better way of describing how 'insufferable' the Traveler’s companion is.

You don't reply to that one. In fact, you don't even put it on the coffee table. You shove it into a drawer and sulk for a month, refusing to even walk near the library. The nerve of the man, letting you write your heart out about a national crisis only to tell you he’d already read the “official” version.

But Varka has always been a man who thrives on the impossible—including reading your mood from across a continent.

The Windblume Festival arrives in a flurry of cecilias and dandelion fluff. The air in Mondstadt is sickeningly sweet with romance, and Angel’s Share is packed with couples sharing special Love and Aftermath cocktails. You are mid-pour, your jaw tense from a day of forced customer-service smiles, when the bell above the door chimes with a familiar rhythm.

Kaeya Alberich doesn’t head for his usual stool. He leans over the counter, blocking your path to the tap, with a small, elegantly wrapped parcel held between two fingers.

“Move, Kaeya. I have three orders waiting,” you grumble.

“My, my. Still as prickly as a Whopperflower,” Kaeya hums. “And here I am, acting as a royal messenger at great personal expense to my own social calendar.”

“If you're here to take over being the biggest annoyance in my life while your boss is away, you're doing a stellar job. Now move.”

Kaeya snorts, a genuine sound of amusement. “Oh, I would never dream of it. I know my limits; I’ll never be worthy of that particular title. No, this is a delivery from the Great North.”

Your hand freezes on the tap. You finally look at the parcel. It isn’t flashy—wrapped in sturdy, dark blue paper and tied with a simple leather cord.

“The Grand Master sends his regards,” Kaeya whispers, sliding the package across the wood. “He was quite insistent that it reach you today. Apparently, he’s a stickler for tradition.”

“I don’t want it,” you insist, even as your fingers twitch toward the cord that binds it.

“Of course you don’t. That's why your face is currently the color of a Jueyun Chili,” Kaeya teases, straightening up. “I’ll leave you to your... professional duties.”

When Kaeya is out of sight, you snatch the gift from the counter and, without a word to Charles, retreat into the back room. You tell yourself you’re just checking the inventory. You tell yourself you’re going to throw it in the trash.

Instead, you tear the paper open.

Inside is a small, hand-carved wooden box. When you open it, the scent hits you first—the sharp, clean smell of northern pine. Resting on a bed of dried moss is a single, preserved flower you don’t recognize: a hardy specimen with three jagged leaves. Small, ice-blue crystalline shards cling to the tips like permanent droplets of frozen dew, shielding a central bud that glows with a warm, pale yellow heart. Beside it lies a small, heavy iron coin, its surface polished until it shines like silver.

A note is folded and tucked into the lid.

I’m told it’s Windblume back home. The knights are all busy making fools of themselves writing poetry to girls they haven’t seen in months. I thought about joining them, but I figured you’d find a poem from me even more offensive than my presence.

I found this winter icelea on a ridge overlooking the Abyss. It reminded me of you—stubborn enough to grow in a place where nothing else dares to, and far more beautiful than the pampered flowers in the city square. I also found this coin in an old ruin. It's useless as currency, but it’s heavy and hard to break. Keep it in your pocket; think of it as a weight to keep you grounded until I get back to annoy you in person.

I wish I could be the one dragging you out to the plaza tonight to watch the fireworks, even if you spent the whole time telling me how much of a spectacle I was making. Since I can’t be your date, consider the flower my proxy. Don't let it die out of spite.

Missing the sting of your tongue,

Varka

Your heart doesn’t just flutter; it does a full, traitorous somersault against your ribs. You stare at the tiny, resilient flower, feeling a lump form in your throat that no amount of dandelion wine can wash away. You are furious. You are flustered. You are…

You slam the box shut and march back out to the floor, your face burning.

“Everything alright?” Charles asks, retreating a step at the sheer intensity of your glare.

“Fine,” you bark, grabbing a shaker and snapping it into place with enough violence to startle a nearby table of tourists.

Master Diluc, who is reviewing the ledgers in the corner, looks up. He watches you for a long, silent moment, his red eyes tracking the frantic, slightly-too-fast way you are mixing drinks. He then looks at the corner where Kaeya is smirking into his glass.

Diluc lets out a short, dry exhale—the closest he ever gets to a laugh.

“I didn’t realize the Grand Master’s influence extended to the quality of our service,” Diluc remarks, his voice smooth and deadpan. “Try not to break the glassware. Varka’s ego is expensive enough to maintain; we don’t need to add a replacement fee for the bar equipment.”

“I am perfectly calm!” you hiss, nearly overfilling a glass.

“Clearly,” Diluc replies, returning to his ledger with a ghostly shadow of a smirk.

You spend the rest of the night refusing to look at the back room, even though the weight of the iron coin in your apron pocket feels like a warm hand resting against your hip.

The years have a cruel way of blurring together when the person who defined the noise of your life is replaced by a heavy, echoing silence.

What everyone initially assumed would be a standard display of Mondstadt’s strength has taken on a far more sobering gravity. The expedition into the heart of the Abyss isn't a skirmish; it's a war of attrition. The semi-steady flow of letters that once felt like a game of wits eventually slows, then halts entirely for months at a time. News from the north becomes a rare commodity.

During those long stretches of radio silence, you wonder if he’s cold. You wonder if he has finally met a problem he can't laugh his way out of. But every time your heart begins that traitorous train of thought, you snap out of it with a sharp scowl.

Yet, as Kaeya once noted, Varka is a stickler for tradition. Even when the official reports from the front lines run dry, he never misses the three days of the year that have become the secret pillars of your calendar: the Windblume Festival, Ludi Harpastum, and your birthday.

Each time, a gift arrives. A gem of glowing resin he once called pine amber; a ribbon of silk from a Snezhnayan merchant; a pressed leaf that smells of a forest you’ve never seen. And always, there are the words. He never runs out of them.

“The moon up here is a tempting mistress,” he writes in one particularly late-night scrawl. “She is constant and quiet, a far cry from the rowdy sun of Mondstadt. But don’t worry, my Lady. The sun will always be the hearth in my heart, and you… well, you’ll always be the one holding the poker to the coals. You’re still number one, even if you’re currently several thousand miles away and probably wishing I’d fall into a crevasse.”

By the fourth year of the expedition, the letters have changed you. You’ve developed a habit—one you keep strictly to yourself. On clear nights, after your shift ends and the city is asleep, you climb the long, stone steps leading to the Church of Favonius. You stand at the top of the plaza, beneath the shadow of the great statue of the Anemo Archon, and gaze up at the moon.

You find yourself wondering if it’s the same sky he’s looking at right now, and if the silver light feels as lonely on his skin as it does on yours.

Then comes the day that breaks your carefully maintained composure.

It is a Tuesday—not a festival, not a birthday, just a mundane afternoon at Angel’s Share. One of the knights drops a letter off, and your heart thumps against your ribs at the oddly timed arrival. You tear it open right there at the bar, leaning over the wood as you always do.

You don't even get past the first line.

I’M THINKING ABOUT HAVING YOU SIT ON MY COCK.

SLAM.

The sound of the parchment hitting the bar top is like a gunshot.

Jean, Kaeya, and Diluc, an odd trio who had been sharing a rare, quiet drink together, all jump slightly at the noise. They look at you bizarrely as they take in your state. Your face isn't just red; it is a violent, incandescent shade of crimson that rivals Diluc’s hair.

“Everything alright?” Jean asks, her voice laced with concern.

“I... I need to...” You sputter, unable to form a coherent sentence. Your eyes are wide, and you feel as though you’ve been struck by a bolt of Electro.

“Is that a letter from the North?” Kaeya asks, his voice dripping with a delight that suggests he has already guessed the contents without seeing a single word.

You can't explain it. You can’t tell the Acting Grand Master that her mentor is currently writing smut from a war zone. You can’t tell your boss why you look like you’re about to spontaneously combust.

“Charles?” you call out, your voice cracking.

Your coworker pokes his head out from the back room door. “Yes?”

“Man the bar for me, please,” you choke out, grabbing the letter and clutching it to your chest as if it were a live grenade. “I need to... collect my thoughts. In the back. Now.”

Charles nods, takes your place at front, and you bolt for the storage room, the door swinging shut behind you with a decisive click. You lean against the wood, sliding down until you’re sitting on a crate of wine, and read the rest of the letter with hands that won't stop shaking.

You sink onto the crate, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs as you stare at that first, heart-stopping line. You force your eyes to move past the initial shock, your breath coming in shallow hitches as you read the rest of the messy, sprawling script.

The tone shifts abruptly. The handwriting, usually bold and steady, becomes a jagged crawl that speaks of exhaustion and something far more clinical.

Forgive the start of this, my Lady. If the ink is smudged, it’s because my hands aren’t quite my own today. We’ve just come through a siege that went sideways. I nearly didn’t make it back to the tent to write the first line. There was a hole in my chest large enough for the northern wind to whistle through, and for a moment, I actually thought Barbatos was finally calling in my tab.

A cold chill that has nothing to do with the storage room air washes over you. Your grip on the parchment tightens.

The only reason I’m still breathing is a woman named Lady Lauma. She’s the leader of the Frostmoon Scions, a group of healers up here whose blood is said to be able to pull any man back from the brink. I’ve spent the last few hours high on whatever concoctions her best healers forced down my throat to keep the pain at bay. That first line? That was the drug-addled honesty of a dying man. I thought about scrapping it once the haze started to lift, but then I realized it was that very thought—the sheer, ridiculous desire to have you exactly where I said—that kept me anchored to my consciousness while they stitched me back together.

You let out a shaky, indignant breath. Even at death's door, the man is an absolute menace.

I won’t be more explicit with the details, lest you decide to pray to Barbatos for a freak hurricane to finish what the Abyss started. But I’ll tell you this, since I’m still too light-headed to lie: I honestly thought the distance would make me less fond of you. I thought the years and the blood and the frost would dull the memory of your scowl. But I have this bad habit of writing to you, and an even worse one of looking forward to your replies. It’s become a fire that’s awfully difficult to kill, no matter how much snow they pile on top of it.

I don’t expect you to return the sentiment. (I know better than to ask for a miracle from a woman who specializes in serving reality on the rocks.) But I’m still looking forward to coming home and seeing that beautiful face of yours, even if it’s currently attached to the sharpest tongue in Mondstadt.

You stare at the page, the silence of the storage room suddenly deafening.

You don’t know what to do with yourself. You want to scream at him for being so reckless, and you want to weep because the thought of that hole in his chest makes your own lungs feel tight. Most of all, you realize that the “situationship” Kaeya joked about years ago has morphed into something you can no longer walk away from.

A soft knock sounds on the door.

“Are you... finished collecting your thoughts?” Charles’s voice is tentative. “Master Diluc is starting to look like he’s going to come back there himself.”

You jump, nearly dropping the letter. You shove it into your apron pocket, smoothing down your hair with trembling hands. You are a professional. You are the best bartender in Mondstadt. You do not let drug-addled confessions from dying giants rattle you.

“I'm coming,” you tell him shakily.

As you walk back out into the tavern, you catch Kaeya’s eye. He’s still smirking, his single eye tracking the way you won't look at anyone. You ignore him, grabbing a bottle of the strongest vintage on the shelf and focusing entirely on the grain of the wood beneath your fingers.

The fire in your chest matches the one Varka described, and for the first time in four years, the silence of the tavern doesn’t feel dull.

It feels like a countdown.

You find the last letter you’ll ever receive from the North tucked beneath your door. It is a plain, nondescript thing, identical to the very first one that started this five-year-long game of cat and mouse.

Inside, there is no sprawling report or drug-addled confession. There is only a single, heavy line of ink that looks as if it were written in a hurry:

We're coming home.

You stare at the four words until they start to lose their meaning. Your first instinct is to scoff—to assume he’s joking, or perhaps simply delusional. The last official word disseminated by the Knights of Favonius was grim; a crisis in Nod-Krai was reportedly reaching a breaking point, a surge of Abyssal activity that threatened to spill over and impact Teyvat as a whole if not contained.

The anxiety of that news had nearly driven you to madness.

You found yourself marching up to the Favonius Library every single day, slipping letter after frantic letter into the old tome on Shelf 12A. You still don’t understand the mechanics of it—Varka never explained how a dusty record of civilian taxes functioned as a trans-continental mailbox, and you never once saw another soul approach that forgotten corner of the library. Yet, without fail, every letter you tucked into those pages disappeared by the next morning. You knew with certainty that he was receiving them.

But now, he claims he and his men are returning.

You keep the scrap of parchment tucked beneath your pillow for a week, a secret weight that keeps you awake at night. You refuse to hold onto hope; five years is a long, agonizing time, and your pride simply cannot handle the crushing blow of a disappointment this large. Even if Varka isn’t “anything” to you, the thought of his favorite stool staying empty for another year feels like a physical ache.

Then, at the end of the week, the silence in Mondstadt finally breaks.

Acting Grand Master Jean stands before the Church, her voice carrying across the plaza with emotion she rarely allows the public to see. She officially announces that the expeditionary force has successfully contained the threat in the North and is currently marching back toward the city gates.

The city erupts. People are weeping in the streets, bells are ringing from the towers, and Angel’s Share is instantly swamped with patrons wanting to toast to a miracle.

But as you stand behind the bar that evening, a realization hits you like a cold splash of water.

Varka hadn't just sent that note as a courtesy. He had told you first. Before the official messengers reached the city, before the scouts signaled the towers, and before he deigned to inform his own subordinates, he had made sure a letter found its way to your door.

“You look like you've seen a ghost,” Charles remarks as he reaches for a clean towel.

“I’ve seen something much more annoying than a ghost,” you mutter, though you can't quite hide the way your hands are shaking as you reach for a bottle of his favorite vintage. “I've seen the return of a man who doesn't know how to follow a chain of command.”

Charles just grins like he’s in the know. Maybe he always has been.

“Well, at least the tips will improve, right?”

You don’t answer. Your eyes drift toward the door, your heart hammering a rhythm that sounds suspiciously like hope. He’s coming back. And this time, you have five years' worth of sharp-tongued retorts—and one very heavy iron coin you always keep in your pocket—waiting for him.

The day of the festival arrives in a riot of color and noise that Mondstadt hasn’t seen in half a decade.

You stand at the very edge of the plaza, arms crossed tightly over your chest. You’ve spent the morning practicing your “unimpressed” face in the mirror, telling yourself that a five-year absence doesn't excuse the sheer audacity of his letters. You are determined to be the only person in the city not currently sobbing with joy.

Then, the horns sound at the gates.

The crowd surges, a collective gasp rippling through the plaza as the first line of the expeditionary force crests the hill. They are not the shiny, pristine knights who left five years ago. They are rugged and battle-worn, their faces lined with the gravity of what they’ve endured.

But it is the man at the lead who makes your breath hitch.

Varka is mounted on a massive, battle-worn steed, looking every bit the legendary Knight of Boreas. His golden hair is much longer now, tied back in a messy, careless tail that grazes his broad shoulders. He looks older, worn thin by all he’s seen and all he’s survived.

He is scanning the crowd, his blue eyes sharp and searching, cutting through the thousands of faces with a singular focus that makes your heart hammer a frantic, traitorous rhythm.

When his gaze finally lands on you, the transformation is instantaneous.

The legendary commander vanishes, replaced in a heartbeat by the same irritating man who used to wink at you through the reflection of a wine bottle. A slow, lopsided smile spreads across his face—one that says he knows exactly how much you've missed him, even if you’d rather die than admit it.

Varka dismounts before his horse has even fully come to a stop, his heavy boots hitting the cobblestones with a decisive thud. He doesn't wait for the official greeting from Jean; he doesn't wait for the cheers of the citizens. He simply stops ten paces away and opens his arms wide, a silent, arrogant invitation.

The jury can find you guilty later.

Before you can talk yourself out of it, before your pride can gain its footing, you are moving. You break from the crowd, abandoned by your own common sense, and run.

You collide with him with enough force to make his armor clank, your hands fisted into the rough fabric of his cloak as his massive arms wrap around you, lifting you clean off the ground. He smells of pine needles, old parchment, and a warmth that feels like the first day of spring after a century of winter.

"Missed me that much, did you?" he rumbles against your ear.

“I missed having someone to threaten with poison,” you choke out into his shoulder, your voice thick and uncharacteristically fragile. “You're late, you idiot.”

Varka laughs—loud and boisterous and everything you’ve ever loved. He pulls back just enough to look at you, his thumb brushing a stray tear from your cheek with a tenderness that ruins you.

“I told you,” he whispers, his blue eyes burning with a fire no northern snow could kill. “I wouldn't want to suffer a bad vintage on my way out.”

In the background, tucked away near a fountain, Kaeya sighs dramatically as he drops a heavy bag of mora into Rosaria’s outstretched hand.

“I really thought she’d hold out for at least thirty seconds,” Kaeya mutters, looking genuinely disappointed in your lack of resolve.

Rosaria doesn't even look at him, her fingers expertly catching the bag. “Never bet on a woman who’s been staring at an empty stool for five years, Captain. It’s bad for the wallet.”

Diluc, standing a few paces away from the sniveling duo, watches the you and the Grand Master for a long moment. He lets out a short, dry exhale before shaking his head with a quiet sigh.

“Charles,” Diluc says to the man idling next to him, not taking his eyes off the scene. “Get the good bottles ready. It’s going to be a very long night.”

✦ afterword. you made it til the end! congratulations <3 just a psa that i haven't played through varka's quest yet + this is not proofread, so if there are any inconsistencies and mistakes, i apologize LOL it has also been a while since i've written a story for shits and giggles and fortunately mr grand master himself is the perfect muse for a piece like this. i've no idea how long the expedition actually took in the in-game lore but as someone who's been playing this game since 1.0, it has been a LONGGGG 5 years ㅠㅠ thank you so much for reading, i hope you liked it!

[rea-grimm]

Swordsman and seraph - Mihawk

Ship: Mihawk x Reader

Vibe: fluff, found family, angel vs demon, soft domestic, protective, wholesome chaos

Summary: When an angel sent to kill your demon lover instead finds love and a family, your quiet life turns into an unlikely bond between light, shadow, and you.

— ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ —

The dark trail along the coast was shrouded in mist, and the air smelled of salt. You walked side-by-side with Mihawk, his presence warming you like flames beneath your skin.

His eyes shone with a golden light, typical of old-blood demons, but his hand, which occasionally brushed against yours, was unexpectedly gentle. You loved these quiet moments, when the world was still and he didn't need words for you to feel safe.

"Are you tired?" he asked in a deep voice, looking you over.

"Not at all." You shook your head and smiled.

Mihawk was about to reply when the air tore open with a blinding white light. The wind around you intensified, sand rose, and the sky opened up. Instinctively, he grabbed your shoulder and stood in front of you.

And then you saw him. A small boy was descending from the rift in the heavens before you. He was no ordinary boy. He had black, feathered wings, composed of a darkness so deep it resembled viscous ink.

A flaming, golden halo blazed above his head, and in his hands, he held a sword of pure light. His eyes… his eyes were the same as Mihawk's. Yellow, piercing, beautiful.

And the most shocking thing was the worst of it. He truly looked like Mihawk. Only younger. A child's version.

"He looks… like you?" you whispered.

"Seraphim," he whispered in reply, visibly stiffening for a moment. The child warrior straightened, his sword pointed directly at Mihawk.

"You have fallen." He spoke in a voice devoid of emotion, without warmth, as if he didn't even comprehend feeling. "I have come to destroy you. You are not permitted to live among mortals."

Mihawk drew his blade without hesitation and spread his own dark, draconic wings wide. His body shielded yours like a wall of marble.

"You understand nothing," he snapped. The Seraphim hesitated, only for a second, when he noticed you.

"Why do you stand behind her? Why protect a human? You are only abusing her... demons are incapable of anything else," the angel growled. His voice suddenly sounded surprisingly childlike, almost hurt. But the sword didn't drop, not for a moment.

"Don't you dare touch her," Mihawk snarled. And then, light and shadow surged against each other.

The Seraphim's fiery aura clashed with Mihawk's shadow blade. Waves of energy shook the coast, sand scattered, and you could only stand and watch as the demon you loved struggled to keep pace with the unexpectedly strong opponent, who was also a child.

When the strike of the light sword breached Mihawk's defense, you heard a harsh hiss. Mihawk collapsed to one knee, blood dripping onto the sand. His wings drooped, though he still held his sword.

"Mihawk!" you cried out, running towards him.

The Seraphim raised his weapon again, this time aimed directly at him, lethal, uncompromising. And you did something neither the angel nor the demon expected. You slipped between them and spread your arms, your body turned toward the celestial child.

"You'll have to kill me first!" you shouted, your voice trembling, yet you stood firm. "He didn't hurt me! He protected me! He loves me!" The Seraphim stood in shock, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. His wings lowered.

"Why would a mortal… protect a demon…?" he whispered softly. "A human cannot love something incapable of love. It is against the Order."

"Perhaps your Order is wrong," you answered quietly. The boy blinked, his halo dimming. He slowly lowered his sword.

"He's not using you...?" he finally asked uncertainly, almost in a whisper.

"No," you said, stroking Mihawk's shoulders. "And we don't even have a pact between us."

A long silence. Then the Seraphim approached, cautiously, and touched your hand. He wasn't cold like the angels of legend, rather, he radiated the warm fire of a hearth. It seemed that for the first time in his life, he felt something other than duty.

At first, he was just watching from a safe distance. Not believing his eyes, at the sight of demon and human being together, without deal or anything. 

And after that, he start visiting you every  evening. Always wordless, always with a gift. One time, he placed a heart-shaped seashell in your palms. Another time, a small crab that immediately scuttled away. Another time, a piece of smooth obsidian.

He would then stand aside, quietly, with wide eyes, watching to see if you liked the gift. Mihawk observed him with an expression you never would have expected from him, confused, almost jealous. He hadn't looked like this even when a drunk Shanks flirted with you.

"Why… does he bring you shells?" he frowned once, after the Seraphim had flown off.

"Maybe he likes me." You smiled at him and rested your head on his shoulder.

"He is a war cherub. Seraphim do not cling. They do not attach themselves. You are the first exception." Mihawk shifted his gaze to the dark sky.

"Then we'll keep him," you said, half-serious, half-joking. "He can be like our son."

"A son? He is a celestial enforcer, not a pet." Mihawk stiffened, his eyes widening.

"He would have a family." You smiled. Mihawk pulled you closer, his fingers gliding down your back.

"If he protects you… perhaps it is not bad," he conceded, albeit cautiously.

And high above you, the Seraphim sat on a cliff, his small wings folded, another found shell in his hands.

Mihawk was training on the beach, but not with you, with him. The Seraphim stood with his feet dug into the sand, his wings taut with tension, the sword of light in his hand. Mihawk walked around him in slow circles, his shadow blade ready.

"Keep your elbow down," he growled. "You're not a sunbeam, you're a blade."

"I am a sunbeam." The Seraphim looked offended.

"No," Mihawk narrowed his eyes, "you're a problem."

You could hear their voices from where you sat on a wooden bench, sorting shells. Some the Seraphim had brought you, and others you had found yourself, but he checked each one to make sure it was worthy of your collection.

When you looked their way, you caught yourself smiling. Both were stubborn. Both were loud. And both... yours.

The training ended without anyone winning. The Seraphim shuffled away from Mihawk and dropped beside you into the sand, tired, sweaty, but satisfied.

"I showed him," he mumbled.

"You looked great," you complimented him, smoothing the hair from his forehead.

He blinked. A strange emotion flashed in his eyes, something deeper than respect, than mere curiosity. He took your hand in his palms and pressed it tightly.

"Mom… am I strong?" You froze, your breath catching in your throat. Your heart hammered painfully hard.

"What did you say?" you breathed quietly.

"Mom," he repeated, and this time he cuddled closer, hiding his face in your shoulder, as if doing something forbidden.

Mihawk was just sheathing his sword, but when he heard it, he froze like a statue. His eyes darkened. He looked as though someone had pulled the ground out from under him. The Seraphim closed his eyes, folding his wings together like a cloak.

"You're the only one who doesn't want to kill me or use me," he whispered. "And you give me the shells back, even the ugly ones."

You didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so you just stroked his hair and gently caressed him. Mihawk was silent for a long time, just watching, and then he slowly knelt behind you and placed a hand on your back.

"If she is your mother…" he growled quietly, "then I am not your master, I’m…" A pause. As if he couldn't force himself to say it.

"…father?" The Seraphim lifted his head, eyes full of hope.

"…if you want." Mihawk sighed, tired and defeated as never before. The Seraphim smiled for the first time in his life.

The evening the Seraphim decided he needed his own room began with him occupying your bed. You lay on your side, Mihawk beside you, his wings embracing both you and the space. Suddenly, a heavy thud sounded from somewhere, and the little angel had apparently teleported right between you.

"I'm sleeping here," he announced decisively, wrapping his wings around you.

"No. That is my spot." Mihawk immediately tensed.

"It's mine now," the Seraphim snapped.

"You're a guest," Mihawk growled.

"I'm a child."

"You're a disaster."

"Mom wants me close!" the angel insisted. Both looked at you simultaneously, like two cats waiting for a territorial decision.

"He can sleep here tonight. Just tonight." You raised your hands in surrender.

The Seraphim nestled closer victoriously. Mihawk sighed heavily, then pulled you tighter into his arms with the angel between you, as if guarding his territory.

"Dad?" he turned to Mihawk after a moment.

"What now?" Mihawk opened his eyes, startled.

"Can I have a black flame sword too?" the seraphim asked innocently.

"No," he answered automatically.

"Why?"

"Because you're sleeping on my wife."

You chuckled, the Seraphim blinked in confusion.

Mihawk pulled you even closer, pressing his nose into your neck, a small gesture, but intimate, possessive, tender.

And then you realized that this peculiar trio, one no one would understand, was exactly what you wanted. A family, not by blood or the rules of the heavens. But by choice.

— ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ —

Mihawk Masterlist

Bot version

[anitalenia]

hello! i really adore the dividers you make and i saw that your requests are open!

i wanted to request some y2k/cyber inspired dividers in a baby pink color >u<

it’s okay and i understand if you can’t do this request, i just wanted to at least let you know that i think your work is amazing <33

Thank you so much for the support AHHH! Hope you like these <3 lowkey theme was difficult and I don’t think I did it right BUT oh well

[spammymusubi]

who's your friend? (｡· ヮ ·｡) ch. 30 - epilogue

Y/N and Law run into each other—literally—and think nothing of it. they don't expect to keep running into each other, and end up navigating the trials of undergrad, friends, and love together.

tags: fem!reader, social media!au, modern!au, university!au, nerd!law, slow burn, mutual pining, crude language, bestfriend!zoro, eventual zosan, established namivivi, cliche tropes incoming, miscommunication, fluff, happy ending

i do NOT own any of the photos used in this series.photos sourced from pinterest and google, unless otherwise stated.

» masterlist » previous: ch. 29 - i won fin.

general notes

» omg. we did it. the end!!! » thank you so much for sticking around until the end. i hope u enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoyed making it » i loved watching y'all binge read and spam my notifs w your likes and reblogs <3 » what was your favorite part of the series??

[spammymusubi]

who's your friend? (｡· ヮ ·｡) ch. 29 - i won

Y/N and Law run into each other—literally—and think nothing of it. they don't expect to keep running into each other, and end up navigating the trials of undergrad, friends, and love together.

tags: fem!reader, social media!au, modern!au, university!au, nerd!law, slow burn, mutual pining, crude language, bestfriend!zoro, eventual zosan, established namivivi, cliche tropes incoming, miscommunication, fluff, happy ending

i do NOT own any of the photos used in this series.photos sourced from pinterest and google, unless otherwise stated.

» masterlist » previous: ch. 28 - dub in the chat » next: ch. 30 - epilogue

general notes

» i like to think law wasn't as nervous this time around » he knew he had it in the bag » epilogue will be uploaded today as well <3 no need to wait for next week

[controld3vil]

DO I WANNA KNOW?

pairings: captain smoker x gn!vice captain!reader synopsis: Tashigi, the new recruit, has already latched onto you like her last lifeline. Unfortunately, your captain isn’t too happy about it. [ao3 link]

notes... SOO one episode in, and i folded.. tags: reader is a motherly figure to tashigi, smoker being the father figure lol, reader has no devil fruit and a sniper, pissed reader, hints of hurt comfort, canon typical violence, and zoro cameo lol

Tashigi was lost again. 

Before she knew it, she got sidetracked and ran into a random stranger. In the process, all the paperwork she carried flew out of her arms and spilled onto the ground like a typical scene in a rom-com. Tashigi felt mortified. Not only was this her first mission assigned by you, but it was something you asked so casually of her. It meant a lot to her when you asked for her help. Tashigi immediately drops to the ground, hands scattered to find her missing glasses. She felt helpless without them, and for a split second, she felt the impending doom of failing you, her Vice Captain.

Luckily, the man she bumped into was a nice gentleman. He noticed how skittish she was and how desperate she seemed in a few short moments. The man must’ve felt pity for her, as he casually picked up her glasses and tapped her shoulder just once. 

“Here.”

Tashigi turns and reaches her hands around the familiar frames. 

“My glasses!” she jumps, and places them back on, finally having a full glimpse of the man who saved her a day’s trouble. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

That was it, and the man simply walked away. Tashigi wanted to extend her thanks, but was cut short by the ringtone of her snail radio. 

She paused.

Tashigi knew perfectly well who was on the other line. That specific ringtone she pleaded with operators to rearrange for you was unmistakable. It was your favorite melody, of course, something you mentioned in passing, in hopes she would stop missing your calls. You were her superior after all. Another missed call would’ve left her on clean-up duty again. She unclasps the small speaker from her belt and raises it to her ear.

“Vice Captain!” The dark-haired marine greeted with formal hesitation. “I was just going to radio you!”

“Tashigi,” The rookie freezes, recognizing your stern, cold voice. She unconsciously looks down in shame. Even though you weren’t there in person, she knew you could imagine her in the same predicament. 

“Where the hell have you been? I told you to radio me when you reached the shop.”

She leans further into the speaker. “I accidentally ran into someone.” Instinctively, she could feel you rolling your eyes. “But I’m here! I promise!”

“You better,” you murmured, the distinctive background noise of super-intendents murmuring about. You desperately wished to be anywhere other than in another meeting. However, your Captain, Tashigi’s mentor, unfortunately, was not present at the moment and left things for you to deal with the consequences. God, you wished he were here instead of you. “Pick up my order and return to bass.” 

“Y-Yes, Vice Captain!” Tashigi salutes before catching you hanging up. Relief floods her nerves as the marine rookie turns back and spots the sword shop she had been looking for. The man she also bumped into seemed to have gone in a similar direction. So perhaps she could extend her thanks anyway. 

Tashigi did not want to disappoint you; she clearly looked up to you with utmost respect and admiration from afar.  Clearly, she did not want to get on your bad side, as that alone was a bad idea. Nonetheless, she ponders these possible outcomes to avoid them at all costs.

You weren’t a difficult Captain to please. In fact, some would say you were nicer than Captain Smoker on a good day. That’s at least if no incidents have happened within twenty-four hours in Loguetown. However, that has not happened since the beginning of the festival for Gold Roger’s anniversary. 

Some would say you were a killjoy, never taking any real part in any fun activities. Even in your leisure time, you’re still in the office, doing paperwork rather than doing anything else.

But you are good at your job. Tashigi believes this because she has seen you many times outside of your office. You’d stop by your local bakery to buy cute pastries for the Navy. You even helped a lost little girl find her parents, simply because you saw her standing alone in the middle of the street. You have what it takes to handle a unit full of new rookies. It’s not like you had a choice, though. 

For now, you’re stuck playing Captain, at the same time, waiting for the real captain to show up.

Tashigi hopes you will be pleased with your order when she personally hands it to you. You collect swords as a hobby, having a vast collection in your office on display. To say she was jealous, but more amazed by how you were able to collect so many rare items. Part of her wish was that she could ask more about your collection.

From the outside, you were simply the Vice Captain of Loguetown. You showed kindness to locals and greeted business goers with good luck with their businesses. You were confident in the way you commanded the room without the need to shout. When you were on patrol, low-life criminals and pirates alike were scared of you. Not because you had a devil fruit or something up your sleeve. 

Simply because you didn’t. What made you more terrifying to pirates was the lack of Devil Fruit. You were good with a long-range shotgun because you had a good eye to lock onto targets.

In reality, Tashigi saw you as someone she wished to strive for. You were the perfect example of what a Captain should be. Caring, providing constructive criticism, you were good at your job because you didn’t boss people around, you guided them, with constant care and support. 

That is why she was more than happy to deliver your package. Even though you could’ve picked it yourself, she, many times, persisted in doing it. She might also have added that she was going to visit the sword shop for herself, to make it more convincing. But the way your eyes softened by her persistence makes her relieved that you trust her enough. 

She just hopes she could say the same for your captain. 

When you ended the call, you felt a headache slowly creep up. You were tired, exhausted from all the interaction you had to put up with since Smoker left. Figures, you knew that the upcoming festivals would require more soldiers and security around Loguetown. This week alone, you’ve apprehended only ten men. However, since then, more and more pirate ships have come to witness the anniversary of Gold Roger’s death. 

The others in the room seemed to be background noise for you now. You never paid attention to these kinds of team meetings, especially since you figured they were useless. You thought of backing out many times; however, you were pursued by your subordinates.

You couldn’t help but ponder angrily at how casually he acted when a call from a neighboring island called for him. At first, you volunteered to go there yourself. Yet your captain was persistent and left all of his matters to you.

What a prick, you mumbled. You’re not even aware when he will be back, but for the time being, you’ve done your diligent best to take care of things. It was a little less than twenty hours, but in the Marines, there is always work to be done. Within that time span, you managed to talk on the phone with captains, make appointments, and address status reports from all of your subordinates. 

You needed a drink, maybe two. But for now, you wanted to clear your head from all this madness. Tonight, a grand festival will be held in front of Roger's grave. And a celebration of any kind will likely attract a few more pirates. God, you wished you were back in your own office and for a moment, had some privacy. 

In the corner of your eye, a young rookie steps beside you. You don’t even blink in his direction; however, you see his hesitation to speak up. Instead, you wave your hand, allowing him to step forward.

“Captain Smoker has returned, and he is looking for you.”

“Great,” you huffed, already your unprofessionalism cracking, revealing your anger. In a quick recovery, you straighten yourself from your seat and look at the young man. Your face held deep weariness; you’ve been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, and it showed. “Well, where is he?” 

“East Ports.” He says, completely frozen under your gaze. 

You nod, barely sparking the soldier's next thought. Whatever had him so afraid wasn’t your concern. With a small gesture, you dismiss him and step outside the camp. 

Not much was ever said about your relationship with your Captain. Still, people around the base had their opinions. Most would say you complemented him perfectly; you were the shield to his sword. Whenever he was away, you stepped in to fill his place. That didn’t mean you weren’t frustrated every time he disappeared for a meeting with the higher-ups, leaving you alone to manage all the work in Loguetown.

Some would say it’s expected for your role as Vice Captain. But you would disagree, and say that your Captain is careless about the way he treats you. It would be best if he talked to you more often. But Smoker has never been talkative. Most of the time, you talk about marine work and petty arguments. Even sometimes, he’d be gone the next morning, with you having no clue of his whereabouts until Tashigi comes to inform you. 

To say that communication wasn’t your strongest suit, even as a Marine. You dread speaking to your Captain as much as possible; however, unfortunately, you were the Vice Captain. You were expected to deal with his shenanigans, no matter how long he’s been doing it for hours at a time. 

That was when you finally spotted him, having just parked his motorbike, you merely frowned.

Smoker, on the other hand, can read you pretty well. The two of you have worked together for a long time, learning from each other's habits. And with this one, he’s aware where your frustration is coming from. Even though he can’t blame you, he won’t admit it without you explicitly telling him. 

“Vice Captain,” he huffs, blowing twin puffs of smoke from his two cigars. 

You cross your arms. “Captain.” You look behind him as a few marines take his motorbike back into the nearby garage. “How was the call?”

“Fine,” he says with a sigh, clearly not in the mood for this. “Look, I know you’re upset, so just spit it out already.”

“You were gone for nearly twenty-four hours!” You snap, glaring at him, disgusted by the assumption. “You don’t just disappear and expect me not to say anything about it.”

“I left you a note. What’s more to say?” He grunts, making his way past you. It only darkens your glare. Really? You were fine with your Captain leaving a note about his whereabouts, but his attitude this morning only soured your mood. 

“What’s more to say?” You try to catch up to him. “First, you didn’t even warn me of your meeting with Admiral–”

“I mentioned it in the note.” He shakes his head, clearly not having it with your childish outbursts. These were the many rare times your fuse had gone off. On other occasions when he has gone away, you were fine. However, on the day of Roger’s anniversary? You were suddenly fuming at how much more chaotic the island has become. And understandably so, you were. 

“So that’s your excuse?” You bite back as the two of you are finally led into a small alleyway. The few bystanders minded their own business, immediately recognizing both of your faces, and chose to respect your privacy. In Loguetown, people saw you as heroes, people who protected them from great danger. Seeing the two of you argue back and forth was a normal occasion for them. 

“The Admiral was clearly upset you didn’t show up.”

“Well, you took care of it, didn’t you?”

“Because I had to!” You clapped back, practically steaming out smoke from your ears. Even the other Marines chose not to intervene, knowing the two of you were not in the best moods. “I understand they need you on missions, but come on, on the day of Roger’s Death? On one of the busiest days of the year?”

“I came back, didn’t I?”

You were silent for a moment. “You weren’t there when I had to arrest those three guys in the morning. They were Devil Fruit users, but they left many injured and destroyed a lot of homes.” This time, your voice was steadier, yet held the same intensity. Your Captain was a stubborn man, but so were you. You would be the last person to ever admit defeat. Even if you were on your last breath, you would never yield. Not even against your Captain if it meant it. 

Momentarily, your white-haired Captain blinks. “I heard.” He pauses, taking a step back. “How many?”

You pout, looking away into the busy crowd. “Twenty of our own, and twelve civilians.” There was a sense of guilt in your soul for not being able to protect those people. Then again, you weren’t a Devil Fruit user; you were just a normal Marine with good aim and training. You did your best to lead everyone to safety; however, even that wasn’t enough. 

Smoker nods, now in deep contemplation. “You did well, though.”

You shake your head. “How can you say that?” Your gaze locks onto his. “Twelve innocent people nearly died, and twenty of our own– I feel like I should’ve done more. If you were here–”

“If I were here, the outcome would’ve been the same,” he replies, with his cigars no longer in his hand, and you realize it's the longest you’ve seen him without smoking a cigar. “You did well, take the credit.” 

You don’t take his compliment easily. Instead, you frown childishly. 

“I hate you.”

“Yeah, well, you say that to me every day,” he rolls his eyes, clearly with a hint of sarcasm. You can see his faint smile, and even you form a small grin. “Seriously, you did what you could.”

“I know,” you groan, hands covering your face. You rubbed your eyes in exhaustion. “God, I need a drink.”

The smoker couldn’t agree more. He, too, was running on little sleep, and alcohol seemed to be fitting for your afternoon reward. In these small moments, when you are away from the Marines and people, you can be yourself for a bit. You could complain for all you wanted, because Smoker didn’t mind; he, in fact, found it amusing that you were so uptight about keeping a stern and emotionless facade in front of your peers. Even though, on rare occasions, he has seen you break for the slightest reasons. In these moments, the two of you can acknowledge your similarities and mend your frustrations. 

Tashigi is running. As fast as she could. She spots you and then your Captain, walking in the far distance. Great, right when she wants to make a good impression on her superiors, she clearly misses the mark and comes crashing in late. With your sword secured around her shoulder, she pauses and watches the two of you. 

Tashigi wouldn’t mention it out loud, but the whole reason why Loguetown surprisingly has a good reputation was that the two of you. When you and Smoker work together, you somehow fall into an easy flow, often bouncing off each other’s ideas and handing off tasks to your soldiers simultaneously. 

She admires you both greatly. And she’s grateful for how you treated her lately, never once yelling at her or criticizing her clumsiness for the delay. To put it, you were the two people she could rely on most. 

For a moment, the dark-haired marine observes the way you talk to Smoker, all sarcasm and dismissive anger. Huh, she recognizes that maybe you were no longer angry at him anymore. 

Smoker tilts his head at something you said. He then takes a puff of his cigar and blows it in your face, ultimately making you roll your eyes, smacking his side not too hard. 

The rookie freezes, almost unable to comprehend how the two of you can be so genuine with one another. At one moment, you were fuming with rage at Smoker, criticizing and blaming all of your problems on him. And then the next, the two of you were cool, laughing at jokes and making fun of each other. 

Were you two married?

“Tashigi,” In panic, the girl glances up to find you and Smoker in front of her. “There you are.” 

“Yeah,” she replies, rubbing her arms, unsure. 

You raised a brow. “Are you alright?” 

She paused. “What?”

“You said you bumped into someone before visiting the shop.” You explain, and suddenly she remembers why she seemed so out of breath. “You didn’t break your head, right?” 

“No!” Catching onto your joke, she freezes but then accepts it with a flustered smile. “I’m fine.”

“Good,” you hum, letting the air hang longer than usual. “Have you eaten yet?” 

“No, I haven’t!” At the same time, you and Smoker look at her with almost fondness. Much like two parents checking on their child. The white-haired Captain exhales another puff of smoke as you give her a caring smile. 

“We’re actually going to the bar for lunch. You can come with us.” You placed a hand on your hip, tilting your head with patient ease. Tashigi is enamored, completely star-struck by the invitation. Having lunch with you? It sounded like a dream, something she had been looking forward to for quite a while. Not many people are invited by you; you prefer to keep your distance from coworkers.

“I would love to!” She shakes her head enthusiastically. 

“You’re never excited when I invite you out,” Smoker grunts, playfully. He glances at you, and you’re wearing a smug smile that says it all. 

“Clearly, I’m her favorite.” Now you’re pushing it, crossing your arms all proud and mighty. The rookie stares back and forth at your banter, clearly struck by your cheery attitude and Smoker’s genuine amusement? 

“We should go now before any more trouble interrupts our lunch.” 

Both you and Tashigi nod in agreement. But before you head to the bar, Tashigi stops.

“Wait, I almost forgot!” She reaches behind and pulls out the sword wrapped in linen. “Here’s the sword you ordered!”

“Wow,” you hold the sword in your hands, feeling its weight. “Thank you, Tashigi.” 

“N-No problem! If you ever want to go shopping for swords, I would be more than happy to tag along!” she nervously adds, and you respond with a warm smile. 

“Sure, if I’m ever free, I’ll ask Smoker if you are.” 

Your Captain rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to ask.” 

“I know,” you said, clearly pushing Tashigi’s favoritism. Smoker’s glad you’re back to your old self, but now you’re really pushing it. “But just in case–” 

“Are we going to get lunch now?” He asks, more annoyed this time.

“Oh! I think I heard they added a few new items to their menu!” Tashigi adds, already leading the way to the bar. 

[akmu]

Richard Gau as Calico Yorki IN ONE PIECE LIVE ACTION SEASON 2