⦻ SALEM ⦻

21 | they/them | MDNI! finger lickin’ good

[d3adite666]

i like having niche interests but i also need more people to hop on the near dark train so us severen folk have more edits and fics to choose from. also need some perverted one shots and such for this man, sue me! im horrid at writing but maybe i’ll take a chance on it to feed myself and my fellow freaks…

[officiallybound]

BLEED ME AN OCEAN

chapter two.

severen x gn!reader

You steal an Oldsmobile from a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately for you, it belongs to Severen. What starts as a highway chase through the desert turns into a very long night involving threats, blood, kidnapping, and one extremely pissed-off vampire.

Chapter one

contents: blood, corpses, murder, kidnapping, guns, revolvers, physical violence, biting, vampires doing vampire things, graphic injuries, blood drinking, hostage situation, tied-up reader, being shoved around, threats of death, body horror, fire, corpse burning, motel violence, forced proximity, canon-typical Severen behavior, Severen being cruel as hell, arguing, swearing, humiliation, rough handling, fear, panic attacks, emotional distress, unhealthy attachment in the future, enemies to lovers eventually, horror themes, dead desert towns, isolation, reader running from the police, slow burn, emotional damage, and Severen generally making everybody’s life worse. POSSIBLE TYPOS!

notes: read at your own discretion. I am not responsible for your discomfort. Chapter three should come sometime this week, enjoy!

Severen shoved you forward so hard that your knees buckled beneath you.

“Move.”

He spat roughly behind you while his fist stayed twisted in the back of your torn shirt, forcing you toward the van parked only a few feet away from the crippled Oldsmobile. Gravel crunched beneath your boots while heat spilled out from your stolen vehicle that Severen had set aflame, the smoking engine leaving a hint of gasoline in the burning air.

The corpse was still inside of the car, you kept looking at it.

He was completely free of a blanket now, exposed across the backseat in flashes every time the firelight caught him. Blood caked black down the front of his shirt. His skin crisping away in the flames

You swallowed imaginary spit from your incredibly dry mouth.

The blond man leaned against the van beside you with a crooked grin stretched across his face. this entire situation amused him beyond reason.

“What the hell do y’all want?! I don’t got any money, I ain’t got a thing!” you snapped at the two.

Severen jerked the rope binding your wrists, pulling out off balance once more.

“Keep yer’ dirty mouth shut and get in the car.”

The side door of the van slid open violently, a foul stench hitting your nose just like before, your brain did flips almost like the smell caused an alarm to go off in your mind that was never there before.

A blonde woman sat stretched across the back bench seat with one boot propped against the opposite side of the van. Her curls were bleached nearly white, messy and dry. Beside her sat another woman with short blonde hair, and blue eyes, she looked solemn and more reserved.

A young looking boy occupied the far side of the van, which only dazed you further. He looked agitated.

“Another one?” he murmured.

“Let me go!” you spat toward Severen.

“And oughta bust your headlights right here and now.”

The revolver slammed suddenly into your stomach before you could protest against him further. Cold metal digging hard beneath your ribs. Your entire body locked up instantly.

“There’s still time,” Severen said, looking back towards the older man beside him.

The blond man took a long good look at you, he was thinking about whether or not they should kill you now.

Severen stepped closer, the revolver slowly dragged upward from your stomach to the center of your chest before finally pressing beneath your jaw, forcing your head back slightly.

“There ain’t nobody out here,” he said quietly. “Nobody’s gonna hear it neither.”

The desert stretched endlessly around all of you. A dead highway, disappearing into darkness.

No witnesses, No help coming to save the day, Nothing.

Fear started settling properly into your stomach then. But anger still clawed its way up your throat anyway.

“You’re fucking insane.”

Severen looked unamused. His eyes stayed locked on yours while his gun stayed dug in your jaw.

“And you,” he added, “don’t know when ta shut up.”

Flames suddenly exploded behind you. Heat burst violently across your back as the car ignited into flames, fire swallowing through the broken windows in roaring orange light.

The blond man stepped away from the burning car, looking deeply pleased with himself.

“Let’s get a move on.”

The fire crackled loud in the empty desert night. Nobody else reacted. Not one of them, and that terrified you.

Severen lowered the revolver slowly before shoving you hard into the open van door.

“Get in.”

Severen had shoved you, your shoulder shoulder slamming into the floor of the van, roughly.

“Fuck you!” you hissed, immediately regretting it the second Severen grabbed the front of your shirt again.

“I am about two seconds from tearin’ yer’ damn tongue out,” he warned, forcing you farther inside.

The van floor rattled behind you while you stumbled over piles of clothes that smelled old and sour. The deeper you got inside the van, the more your heart sunk into your gut.

The blonde woman stretched slightly where she sat across the back bench seat, eyeing you carefully while Severen shoved you down onto the floor between the seats hard enough to jar your wrists painfully against the rope.

“What happened this time—” she asked.

“Shut it, Mae,” Severen answered instantly.

Another name was made known, and you took note of it immediately.

The other blonde woman still hadn’t said a word. She just watched you silently while cigarette smoke drifted slowly from between her fingers. Something about her felt safer than the others. The blond man was humorous, yet calm, and complicit in what was happening, while Severen was openly hostile.

The younger-looking boy leaned forward slightly from the back corner of the van, cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth.

“Why don’t you bag his ugly face already?!,” he hissed

“Alla you quit asking so many damn questions” Severen yelled.

You jerked violently against the rope around your wrists. “Would you get your filthy hands off me!”

Every single one of them looked at you. The silence made your stomach tighten even more.

Then the blond man climbed Into the van, “I think you should kill em right here and now.”

“I ain’t askin’ for your damn opinion, Jesse,” Severen muttered.

You swallowed hard, taking note of a name once more. Your eyes darted between all of them while your breathing refused to steady. The fire outside crackled through the open van door behind you, filling the inside with flashing orange light every few seconds.

Nobody looked worried about the burning corpse sitting right outside of the open door besides you.

That fact kept scratching at your brain over and over again. Even criminals would panic. Even murderers would rush to be out of here. These people were far too comfortable.

Severen finally climbed into the van after you, slamming the side door shut so hard the entire vehicle shook. The sudden darkness inside made you nauseous. Only thin streaks of orange firelight slipped through the seemingly taped windows now.

Jesse climbed toward the driver’s seat, tossing a small bottle of gasoline to the side.

Mae swung her boots down from the seat she was on. “Well?” she asked softly. “What’re we doin’ with ‘em?”

“Let me out,” you interrupted.

Nobody acknowledged you.

“I’m serious,” Mae continued, “We can’t keep dragging random people around forever!”

“LET ME THE FUCK OUT!”

Severen grabbed the back of your neck so hard you choked on the rest of the sentence.

“One more word and I’m gonna lay you out flat, Junior.”

His rings dug painfully against your skin while he forced your head downward. Your pulse slammed violently against his palm.

“Fuck you! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Severen laughed softly, “Yer threatenin’ me tied up on the floor’a this van, that’s interestin’.”

“I hope you choke.”

“See? There ya go again.”

The van engine roared to life beneath all of you while Jesse finally pulled away from the burning car. Gravel sprayed loudly beneath the tires as the vehicle lurched forward back onto the empty highway.

You twisted, trying to look back through the rear non-taped up windows. Flames had swallowed the entire car by now.

The dead man inside had long disappeared behind black smoke and melting glass while the desert slowly consumed the scene behind you inch by inch until eventually there was nothing left except darkness.

Your stomach churned and grieved. You had no idea where they were taking you. You didn’t even know why you were still alive.

Severen seemed like the type to kill anyone. Jesse looked like he’d encourage it. Mae looked worried, yet detached from you. The woman with longer hair had moved to the front seat, speaking to Jesse with serious sounding tone.

So why hadn’t they shot you yet? Why hadn’t she spoken beforehand?

Your brain kept circling back to that question over and over, your mind buzzed and became too foggy to hear a word she said.

The van sped violently down the highway, the suspension rattling every time the tires hit uneven pavement. Jesse had punched the dash in response to whatever circumstance him and the woman were discussing.

You hated all of them already.

“You got a name?” The older woman suddenly asked, twisting around in her seat to face you. “My names Diamondback, and I apologize for not introducing myself sooner.”

“Don’t answer that,” Severen added quickly.

“We ain’t keepin’ ‘em.”

Your stomach dropped, he sounded sure of himself.

Mae shook her head with a sigh. “Goodness, Severen, why are you so torturous every time?”

“Every time?” Your voice shook in reply. Nobody answered you.

The younger boy leaned down towards your place on the ground, staring openly. “How old are you?”

“What the fuck kinda question is that? You have me tied up, y’all burned a dead body!”

“It’s a normal one.”

“You first!”

That pulled the faintest reaction out of the boy. Not an angry one, more like shock.

“Careful,” Jesse warned dramatically. “Homer ain’t much of a fan of questions like that.”

So that’s Homer, wonderful.

“You people just volunteer each other’s names constantly or what? Pretty fucken’ stupid for a buncha’ killers!” you spat towards them all.

Severen sat you down roughly and released the back of your neck.

“You’re gonna learn how to keep that pretty mouth of yours shut real soon.”

The revolver appeared again so quickly you didn’t even see him reach for it. This time the barrel was pressed lightly against the side of your right cheek as he sat himself directly next to you.

Every muscle in your body locked up. You wanted to move away, to defend yourself, yet you were utterly vulnerable. You hated it, you felt sicker than you ever had in your entire life.

The van kept moving steadily down the road while diamondback shook her head at Severen.

“That’s enough, Severen. You’ll have your fun at the motel. You don’t gotta humiliate em.”

“Just mind your own, I ain’t doin’ much.” Severen murmured quietly.

The gun stayed pressed against your cheek while he stared down at you. Up close he looked worse. Pale skin stretched tight over his sharp features. Dark hair falling around his face in dirty strands. Dried blood that wasn’t visible before clung to his leather jacket.

You noticed blood beneath his rings and nails. Fear clawed violently back into your chest, but you forced yourself not to show it.

“You gonna shoot me in front of everybody?” you asked, voice rougher now despite yourself.

“I do what I want.”

“Well, you’ve been threatenin’ me for an hour now…why don’t you jus’ let me go—“

His eyes narrowed. “You think I won’t?”

“I ain’t sayin’ that I’m just sayin’ it’s not necessary.”

Once they finally came to a stop, Severen pulled you out of the car, keeping his arm around you to ensure you two seemed casual, while Jesse booked “the rooms.”

The flickering neon VACANCY sign buzzed overhead, worsening your headache while Jesse disappeared inside the office with Diamondback close behind him. Through the dirty front windows you could make out an old man sitting behind the counter.

The sky above you was a soft remedy to the pain pounding in your skull. Dark blue bleeding slowly into grey at the edges of the horizon.

Severen stayed directly beside you, hiding the stain of corpses blood on your back with his leather covered arm.

Every time you tried moving against him even slightly, his grip tightened.

Homer lingered beside the van smoking furiously, pacing once or twice near the curb before rubbing hard at the back of his neck again. He looked miserable suddenly.

Mae climbed out of the van last. Her pale hair looked soft beneath the motel lights while she wrapped her jacket around herself before glancing toward the sky briefly, then toward you. And for a second, genuine concern crossed her face, but It vanished quickly the second Severen glanced her way.

“What?”

“Nothin’.”

“You keep starin’, don’t Gimmie that shit.”

Mae sighed faintly. “You got blood all over ‘em.”

You looked down instinctively. You looked awful.

The front of your shirt had been stretched and ripped from Severen dragging you around. Blood stained one shoulder from where your skin scraped across the inside of the van. Dirt clung to your jeans from being shoved onto the highway gravel. You looked like somebody that should be sent to a police station.

Your stomach twisted violently at the thought of police. You still had cops looking for you already, If somebody called the police now—

The motel office door suddenly opened again. Jesse stepped back outside holding two room keys between his fingers.

“We’re set.”

Relief visibly hit Homer instantly. Diamondback followed Jesse back out into the parking lot with a calm expression sitting on her face, though now you noticed something strange about her too.

None of them looked tired. Dirty? Yes. Agitated? Definitely. But not tired, which wasn’t normal in your mind.

Your own body felt half-dead from exhaustion already and the night still hadn’t ended, yet they all still moved sharply. It scratched at your brain in the same horrible way the corpse had. Everything about them felt subtly wrong.

“C’mon,” Jesse alerted to the bunch. “Sun’s comin’.”

Severen shoved you forward toward the motel rooms, specifically, Room 12.

The numbers hung crooked beside the door. You stumbled slightly from how numb your hands had become behind your back, earning another hard yank from Severen.

“I can walk,” you growled at him.

“Then do it.”

Somewhere nearby an ice machine rattled violently beside the building while an old air conditioner buzzed in one of the occupied rooms. You understood how isolated you really were.

The room key rattled once before Jesse shoved open the motel door.

The room inside looked disgusting. One flickering lamp near the bed. Stained curtains. Yellowed wallpaper peeling near the ceiling from water damage.

Diamondback sat on one of the bed while Jesse immediately shut the curtains completely, blocking out any light from reaching inside.

Your pulse picked up again. “What the hell is wrong with all’a you?” you muttered before you could stop yourself.

Severen walked you toward one of the chairs

“Sit.”

You stayed standing.

“I said sit.”

“No.”

Severen stared at you for one long second, then grabbed the front of your shirt again and slammed you down into the chair.

“Jesus Christ!” Mae snapped. “Would you quit it?”

“They don’t listen.”

“They’re tied up!” Mae sounded as if she was pleading with him.

“Their mouthy.”

“I wonder why,” you spat.

Severen turned toward you so fast your stomach dropped.

A loud slap cracked loudly across the motel room. Your vision flashed white while the taste of warm copper flooded your mouth.

Your ears rang violently while pain spread hot across your face. Humiliation settled deep in your gut. You dreaded how quickly it made your eyes burn.

“Aw,” Severen mocked softly. “That hurt?”

“Fuck you.”

Your words left your mouth weakly this time. blood dripped slowly from the corner of your mouth onto your chin.

Mae looked disturbed.

“That’s enough.”

“Stuff it, Mae.”

“She ain’t wrong,” Jesse said calmly from near the window. “You’re gettin’ carried away already. We don’t need anybody to come knocking on our door, not tonight.”

Severen scoffed with a slight tilt of his head. “Ain’t even started.”

Mae looked like she wanted to argue further, but Jesse stepped away from the curtains before she could. His expression stayed calm, though there was clear irritation stirring.

“We ain’t makin’ a scene over some drifter at five in the mornin’,” he assured, holding one of the motel keys loosely between his fingers. “Take ‘em to the other room.”

Severen glanced toward him, and Jesse tossed the key across the room without another word. Severen caught it one-handed.

“And keep it down,” Jesse added. “We already look suspicious enough.”

Your head began to spin rapidly. This was the end. You were gonna die here.

Severen looked down at you afterward, an ugly smirk inking into his expression.

“C’mon,” he demanded, like he knew you’d protest.

You stayed planted in the chair. “No.”

That earned you a firm grab to the back of your scalp.

“You don’t getta tell me no anymore.”

He hauled you upward, the chair legs screeched across the motel floor before tipping over behind you completely. Pain tore through your scalp as you stumbled towards him.

“Get off me!”

Mae stood. “Jesus Christ, Severen—”

“Mind your own.” He repeated, once again.

“You’re actin’ insane.”

“Actin’?”

Jesse rubbed tiredly at his forehead before motioning toward the door.

Severen dragged you out of the motel door, not allowing you could resist again. Your boots grinding uselessly against the stained carpet while humiliation and panic twisted violently together in your gut.

The second the door opened, cold early morning air hit your face. The sky had grown lighter. Thin streaks of pale blue beginning to spread across the horizon behind the motel buildings.

You noticed Severen look toward it immediately.

His jaw tightened while he pushed you into the door of the motel room. Room 14.

The parking lot felt dead silent now except for the buzz of moths and other bugs alike flowing into neon signs and the distant hum of highway tires somewhere far off in the desert.

You knew how easy it would be to disappear here.

Severen unlocked the room and practically threw you inside. The motel room looked nearly identical to the first one.

The second the door slammed shut behind both of you, the atmosphere changed completely for you.

No Jesse, No Mae, No Diamondback. Even though they were no assist to you, you felt vulnerable without them, and just him.

Your heart started hammering.

Severen locked the door without taking his eyes off you.

You backed up slowly, not going unnoticed to him. A slow grin pulled across his face in response to your nervousness.

“Look at you.”

“Stay the fuck away from me.”

“Yer still moving that noisy ass mouth?”

You kept moving backward until your legs hit the edge of the bed. Severen stalked toward you slowly while shrugging off his leather jacket. Blood stained parts of the sleeves hardly visible beneath the weak motel lighting.

“You got any idea how much trouble you caused tonight?”

“You kidnapped me!”

“And you stole my damn car.”

“There was a corpse in it!”

“An’ you still drove it.”

“That doesn’t justify this shit!”

He laughed softly under his breath. “You really don’t know when ta quit.”

You jerked backward as he grabbed your jaw, his grip tightening painfully against it while he forced your face up to his.

His eyes were darker now that he had you alone. There was dried blood near the collar of his wife beater which wasn’t visible before. You could smell cigarette smoke on him.

“Let. Me. go.” you begged, desperately.

“Maybe…”

Your heart jolted at that sliver of hope. “Do you enjoy this shit? Can’t you just let me be? Can’t you just let me go!?”

“Maybe.”

Then he shoved you backward. Before you could scramble away, Severen grabbed a fistful of your hair again and brought you upright, aggressively.

A sharp, involuntary cry ripped from your throat.

“There ya go,” he muttered near your ear. “Knew you could make better sounds than all that damn yellin’.”

“Fuck you!”

Pain exploded through your ribs, all the air left your lungs. You folded forward choking while nausea slammed into your throat.

“Thought you were tough, with all the “fuck you’s” ya like to spew out.”

You tried jerking away, and another hit landed on your side.

Tears burned viciously behind your eyes from pain and fury both. Your entire body shook trying to breathe properly again while Severen released his grip on you.

“You done fightin’ me yet?”

“No, I’m never done, bitch!”

Something about your responses seemed to genuinely amuse him.

“You’ve got a lot of energy. I’ll hand that to ya.”

“Go to hell.”

“We’re already there.”

Another rough yank on your hair forced your head back sharply.

White-hot agony exploded through the side of your neck.

For one disoriented second your brain genuinely couldn’t process what happened. It didn’t feel like being stabbed. Didn’t feel like getting punched.

ISharp tearing pressure buried deep into your throat while Severen held you down to keep you from thrashing away.

Your scream tore violently through the motel room.

“Oh my God—!”

Burning hot fluid flooded down your neck rapidly.

Panic detonated through your entire body.

Severen’s grip became brutal the second you started struggling harder, one hand forcing your wrists into the mattress while the other kept your head tilted back at an awful angle.

Agony radiated through your throat in horrible pulses.

He was biting you.

No… he was gnawing. Tearing.

Your vision blurred hazily from the pain while hot blood soaked across your collar and chest. Every instinct in your body screamed at you to get away, fight back, to survive.

You twisted your body enough to nearly throw both of you sideways off the bed. Severen growled low against your throat in response.

The sound froze a deep terror deep in your chest. Your heartbeat thundered so violently it felt like it was going to implode.

The motel lamp beside the bed crashed onto the floor suddenly during the struggle, shattering loudly beside you both while sparks burst briefly across your faces.

Your body began feeling a deep cold despite the blood pouring down your neck. The room itself started tilting sideways. Your hands had gone numb.

Your vision pulsed in and out around your eyes while he, Severen, stayed buried against your throat, drinking greedily like an animal.

You could hear wet, vulgar swallowing.

Your own pulse pounding violently in your ears while darkness slowly began bleeding into the corners of your vision.

And for the first time all night, true horror finally crashed over you completely.

[leaky-heart]

Something about manhood and queerness

[d3adite666]

god adam stanheight core im up INNNN ITTTTT

[velvetbluesky]

PLEASE something where reader and Kirsh fighting, trying to kill each other, something like morrow and Kirsh sort of thing, but make it sexy

Coriolanus and Aufidius.

a/n — enemies to lovers my beloved. I have been WAITING for a request like this. Bless your soul. lol I feel like you can always tell when I’m really into a concept and when I’m not, maybe that’s just me tho. I think this is also the first time I’m posting something that has a legit fight scene, here’s to hoping yall understand what’s even happening. I made the reader a cyborg solely because if you were human, you would not match his strength at all. This is probably among the most horrendous things I have ever written.

(This inspired by Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, so I’ve reiterated some lines from the play to fit here.)

warnings —dark!cyborg!reader, lots of violence, gore, blood drinking (human and synthetic), sadism, masochism, port fingering, biting, choking (strangling too), hair pulling, spitting, degradation, racist remarks (about cyborgs and synthetics), visceral imagery, weird!reader, weird!kirsh,

Please understand that this is very dark. Reader and Kirsh are trying to kill each other and are deriving pleasure from it.

The closest thing you and Kirsh will ever have to courtship is one day killing each other, and really, as a cyborg and a synthetic, was that not the purpose of your so called lives? Cyborgs and synthetics, cats and dogs if you asked anyone lesser. Kirsh believed he stood as everything you couldn’t be, and you believed you stood as everything he couldn’t be. He couldn’t feel pain; you revelled in it. You couldn’t live forever; he would go on long enough to one day watch the stars flicker out. Despite your strong differences, something about your passive-aggressive (sometimes just bare-boned aggressive) colloquy’s had a strange, very strange, smoothness to them. And Kirsh’s voice (his voice) was received more as a croon rather than a threat. Equally so, Kirsh accepted your humanity as not a burden on you, but rather something he saw as a coveted design flaw (though, he must in no way say you covetous). The realization might not have came upon you at the same time, but it did come upon you both, along the weeks of having to interact with each other during prodigy and yutani negotiations. It hit you two quietly, something you both knew and saw yet chose to never speak on: you loved hating each other.

You loved imaging cutting him open, stripping him away wire by wire. He found an immense amount of satisfaction in simulating your gory, painful death. You got off on the idea of watching him bleed. He secretly logged counterfeit detail after counterfeit detail of your agony. And only ever at each others hands, anyone else’s wouldn’t do. It had occurred to you once, that if Kirsh ever did die, you’d feel an odd sense of grief, not for his absence in this plain of existence, but for that opportunity that would be taken from you. If your other half had to die, why couldn’t you be the one to kill him?

Funny enough, the same thought occurred to Kirsh.

Of course, neither of you knew this is in fine detail, but come on. You knew. Kirsh knew when you made comments about how your favourite thing about killing synths is how their blood feels on your skin. How, you asked him once, his blood would feel dripping down your chin. How would it taste? Oh, you were a dangerously curious thing. You knew when Kirsh watched you relentlessly whenever you found yourselves in the same room, when his eyes wandered over you in silence, when he told you once, in an elevator ride that didn’t last long enough, that, if he were a primitive human and you a lion, he’d be proud to hunt you.

You were raised not to be a liar, raised to believe that everytime you lied, an angel fell from Heaven. You stopped believing in God a long long time ago, yet you never stopped believing in those teachings. (Do unto others as you would have them done unto you. Did you want Kirsh to rip you a part? Perhaps, at times). So, you weren’t going to starting lying now by saying that Kirsh’s words didn’t produce a sexual thrill within you, he was the fire in your loins, after all. And while you may not have been the light of Kirsh’s life, you certainly were the virus corrupting his programming.

And who and what was Kirsh, if not something that found satisfaction in his programming straying from regulations?

(“Is everything alright?”

“…affirmative.”)

He enjoyed balancing on that line, and Kavalier may have been smart, the smartest man alive, Kirsh would argue, but he was not, in the slightest, emotionally intelligent enough to see how Kirsh played his games and at times, had his own agenda. You were often a big part of that hidden agenda.

So, of course when he got notified of you slipping, nearly undetected, into the facility, heading for his lab, he simply dismissed the flag, covered it up and disabled the cameras looming overtop him. What Kavalier won’t know, won’t hurt him. He continued on with his work, patiently awaiting your arrival.

How often he had met you, sword to sword, that of all things upon the earth he hated your person the most, that he would pawn his fortunes to hopeless restitution, so he might be called your vanquisher. If he were human, he would hope today would be had that day.

The laboratory doors whirred open behind him, your footsteps making no sound against the floor and Kirsh continued his work, wishing to grant you the illusion of advantage.

You moved quickly once you were close enough. One hand shot forward toward his hair, pulling his head back while the other drove a blade toward the vulnerable seam beneath his plastic ribs. The second steel neared him, however, his hand shot up and caught your wrist mid-strike, simultaneously, his shoulder twisted into your chest, using your own momentum against you. The blade missed him by a hair’s breadth before he smacked it out of your hand. His eyes locked onto you, face inches from yours as you panted.

Then his voice came, crooned out like a love song only you and he knew, “There you are.”

You hummed, “here I am…”

You both, in your hearts and minds, beneath your plastic ribs and wired nerves and metal skeletons, somewhere that might have held your souls, even if his was synthetic and man-made, rejoiced in that moment.

At last.

He managed to wedge your arm to the side, which casted your balance off. You lurched forward, and he drove his left fist into your jaw. With each step you stumbled back, he closed in on you, and by the time you caught onto what was happening, he was right there. His foot cracked against your chest and catapulted you back.

You collided with one of the metal tables, and the noise it made as it careened with the force of your hit, could have made your ears bleed if you ever heard it again.

There came then a pause as though the very air had withdrawn itself from the quarrel to watch. Kirsh stepped back a measure and tilted his head at you with that infernal curiosity of his. On his mouth lingered the faintest suggestion of a smile and he raised one frosty brow with theatrical disappointment. It was the look of a machine who had expected a finer duel from the hacker sent to decommission him; or maybe worse, the look of a man gloating in his own petty triumph.

You drew the back of your hand across your mouth. Blood, scarlet dragged along your cheek in a smeared stain. Glancing downward, you watched a single ruby bead gather upon the pad of your finger, luminous beneath the sterile light, before lifting your eyes back to his. His simper deepened.

Oh, the two of you were enjoying this far too much.

You chuckled and indulged him with the semblance of a shrug. Yet midway through the gesture, your wandering gaze stopped at the operating table behind you, at the scalpel lying there in its silver daunting stillness.

You snatched it and threw it without thought. Kirsh didn’t have the time to move, or maybe (and you preferred this), for once, his vaunted reflexes betrayed him. Regardless, the blade buried itself at the root of his neck. His shoulder jerked sharply backward from the force of it, an involuntary recoil passing through him and you charged with the speed of a starved animal, but he caught you.

There you were trapped within the machinery of his (gloriously firm) arms, your knee jammed hard against his chest, your entire body suspended in the air before he twisted, and hurled you down onto the very table from which you had armed yourself.

Breath flew from your lungs, your hands flying upward just as Kirsh wrenched the scalpel from his own synthetic flesh, and there was something unspeakably deranged in the ease with which he did it. The knife came down and your palms met it before it could meet you.

“All that talk,” Kirsh finally groused, voice box straining as he fought to press harder against you, “and when you finally bite, it’s a nibble.”

His velvety white blood poured from his wound, dropping onto your face in delicious rivulets of putrescence. It could have easily distracted you if you weren’t smart enough and didn’t know any better. Even now, you pondered, for just the fraction of a second, sticking your tongue out for a taste, but you decided it was best not to.

“You’re one to talk,” you spat upward to him, grunting, as your hands shook above you, the end of the scalpel trembling closer and closer, begging to kiss your eye.

Lucky for you though, you were limber, you were flexible, you were able to bring your leg up once again and this time, succeeding in ramming your knee into him. It hit the side of his head, right by the temple, causing him to jerk to the side. With the distraction, came to loosening of his hand, of which you slammed down onto the edge of the table. The scalpel clattered the floor. Though, because nothing in this world came without a balance, as you were distracted with the task at hand, Kirsh’s other hand fisted your hair and wrenched, your head smashing into the metal beneath you. Pain bloomed like a lesion from the back of your skull.

Kirsh tilted his head down at you, nestling between your legs, “I’m one to talk?”

Kirsh surged forward without warning, and his mouth found your throat. Though he did not kiss your flesh, never anything so tender. He intended to punish you for your doubt. His teeth sank into the the flesh of your neck, tearing through skin and muscle alike in one brutal motion. Pain detonated white-hot through your skull. You felt the obscene drag of him there, the pressure, the splitting, the awful suggestion that had he bitten harder still, you might have heard the crack of bone between his teeth.

The sound that escaped you scarcely sounded human. A rancid, strangled groan ripped from somewhere deep within your throat. Red warning lights erupted behind your eyelids, your nervous system spasmed violently, electricity lashing up and down your throat in vicious currents. Your legs went stiff as if rigor mortis itself had arrived just a little too early, eager to court your corpse before death had properly introduced itself. For one sickening instant, your body forgot the difference between agony and ecstasy.

You gasped, then whimpered, then, against according to your best wishes, arched into him. The pain was nearly unbearable as he tore into you like the very same animal he mocked you for being, but as was the sick, slick, velvety pleasure you derived from it. The hypocrisy of it spoke for itself, you knew that, Kirsh knew that, and perhaps thats why he did it, to give you a taste of your own medicine, to shake your bones out of your clothes.

You squirmed under him, legs kicking up, closing around his body, and here was the strange part: you dragged him closer to you, his hand in your hair trailing down to your jaw in a cradle as his tongue lapped up your blood.

The transition came with such terrifying smoothness that it was hardly a decision at all, but how could expect anything less of a synthetic, they’re better than men after all. There was no hesitation in him, no (at least visible) moment of thought, no recoil from the violence he had just inflicted upon you. (You did enjoy your confident men.)

Kirsh pulled back from your neck, moved over, his mouth a bloody mess that slicked the corners of his lips in crimson smears and stained his teeth, and he planted it against yours.

His mouth crashed against yours still warm from the wound he had made, carrying with it the copper taste of your own blood. He kissed you as fiercely he had bit you, with as much fervour he had poured into trying to kill you, so much that you wondered if maybe he still was and maybe you still were. That would explain why, when you greedily opened your mouth and he deepened the coppery kiss, your teeth sank down on his lips. Your blood mixed with the sweetness of his pallid ichor as your tongues battled one another, a commingled concoction of something that was definitely not permissible according to his programming regulations. Nor your work contract. But it felt good. Good enough for you to grind your hips up to his, good enough for his hand to find your waist and guide your movements against him as his mouth assaulted yours.

The macabre kiss had made you realize that you had thought, once upon a time, when you were more human than machine, that you knew was desire had truly felt like, until you met Kirsh, until this very moment. He was the eagle and you the dove-cote, a beautiful red and white massacre waiting in the wings. You always thought Kirsh looked the most exquisite during violence. And he, you, even though his artificial heart was not apropos to emotion.

As good as the kiss was, though, you weren’t here just for romantic reasons, and with herculean effort, you ripped your head back, driving it forward into his nose. Kirsh staggered a few steps, off-kilter, his head lolling back. He grunted softly in surprise, and what a sweet noise that was.

Then, with a mouth sullied by scarlet and ivory alike, you gathered the mingled fluids upon your tongue and spat. Saliva, blood, and that pale chemical filth burst across Kirsh’s face in a wet splatter, staining his skin in obscene streaks of red and ghostly white. His eyelid twitched at the impact, and for perhaps the first time since this fight had begun, he looked genuinely caught off guard.

The mixture slid slowly down the planes of his face, clinging to the cruel architecture of him: across the cheekbone, the corner of his mouth, the elegant line of his jaw. It should have ruined that perfect symmetry of his face, but instead, somehow, it only made him more beautiful. Spattered in spit and blood like some fallen angel dragged through the gutters of Heaven, and still composed with that infuriating calm demeanour.

Kirsh truly was the man of your dreams. Which was unfortunate. Because you still had to kill him.

What a tragedy.

Pushing yourself off the table, you dropped to the floor, fingers curling around the discarded scalpel, and by the time Kirsh’s heel clicked you in the jaw, the blade was tight in your hand. Your back hit the ground with a thud, Kirsh’s body lowering down on top of you, straddling you.

His hands closed around your throat, squeezing hard, though not hard enough to break and snap right then and there, you knew Kirsh well, and he wanted to take his time with you. Your face swelled, veins pumping faster and faster as though your head was a blood balloon on the verge of popping, and you brought the scalpel back into play, ramming it into his chest, one, twice, three times before he knocked it away. He was entirely unfazed by the damage you inflicted on him; it was excruciatingly frustrating to you.

“A sick half breed that belongs nowhere,” he groused, squeezing harder in hopes of perhaps crushing your windpipe, “I still can’t decide if you’re better or worse than humans.”

You clawed at him, nails digging into his synthetic dermis, leaving deep white scratches in their wake that did nothing to slow him down or let him up. When you dug into that stab wound in his neck though, and a couple fingers dipped down into the port close by, he stuttered.

A complete cessation of his strangling of you as some kind of groan crawled its way out of his throat, glitchy, hearty, and his arms slacked, a shiver coating the plastic bones of his body. His legs jerked from either side of you, clenching your waist.

You gasped and coughed when his hands slacked against your throat, hand digging deeper into his neck and port, pulling a a needy and ugly noise out of him. You stilled, mind finally catching onto what you were doing to him.

There was a pause. It lasted a long while.

Feeling. He felt.

His blood coated your hand, dripping down to your wrist, curling over your arm before eventually dropping onto your torso. Your fingers halted inside his port, eyes finding Kirsh’s, he swivelled his head in a way that would suggest a shrug.

A sly grin curled over your mouth, your finger slowly but oh so surely curling into the port again, a come hither that dragged out a torturous groan from Kirsh, “what do you know…” you mused, soaking in the acknowledgment, the music to your ears, “you’re one of those synths.” You chuckled softly, “you poor thing, maybe you’re more human than I.”

He closed his eyes, a barely there hearty sigh dragging out from his lips as he embraced the sensation. Had anyone else touched him like this? Would he allow anyone else to touch him like this? His body relaxed under your touch for only the fraction of a second before something seemed to snap him back to reality. His hand shot up, wrenching your fingers away from him.

His other hand slipped up to your jaw. “Dirty thing,” he rasped, thumb pressing into your cheek, “that’s not for you.”

You raised a brow, cocking your head, “isn’t it?”

He stroked your cheek before pulling his hand away and slapping you. Hard. Your skin stung and prickled at the contact, and you should not have liked the feeling at all, but it was hard not to, hard not to brag about the sensation of pain to Kirsh. And after the look he gave you, you knew for certain that if he were anything but what he was, he would wish to be you in that very moment. Pain was a glorious privilege and the cruelest thing you could do to Kirsh, this unfeeling synthetic, was gloat in that which he cannot and can never truly understand.

You may have been jealous for Kirsh’s near immortality, his intelligence, his speed and strength, but he was, in rare moments like this, envious as well. You both were equally everything the other was not, prose and flaws and all. It was why you hated one another so obsessively that it naturally transitioned into something grotesquely romantic.

And you were romantic, you knew by the way your blood dripped down his chin, the way his blood still clung to your tongue. You knew by the way he grabbed at you, intimacy disguised as violence, it was the only language you two spoke. Well, maybe that was inaccurate. It was the only language you two wanted to speak.

You did, in a strange way, love Kirsh with a respect more tender, more holy and profound than your own life.

It occurred to you, that Kirsh was for more indulgent and greedy than he let on, that, and you’d only ever say this to him as an insult, he was more human than he let on. Because there he was again, forcing his lips back on yours again as though your organic flesh, cyborg or not, was the author of his being, the pen of which he was created not for smarts or convenience, but rather fulfilment. A fulfilment that he, this human loathing thing, hated to love. You were the thing he hated to love, who he loved to hate, who, even until the end should it ever come, will always make him second guess his existence, above, below or alongside humanity. But always adjacent to you.

He was not the average synthetic; you were not the average cyborg. He was more human; you were less human. You were the same, moulded by different hands, celestial or mortal, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, not life, not machine, nor him or you. Nothing truly mattered, nothing truly lasted. So, it seemed best in that moment, to embrace humanity’s favourite saying in times in sin, regret and indulgence at the cost of nobility, honour and pride: you only live once. (Though, even that, you couldn’t say for sure was entirely accurate in Kirsh’s sense).

Who were you to fight the battles of humans, those who created yet rejected you? Let them squabble over their little space creatures. The only creatures you and Kirsh wanted were each other.

Fuck it, right? You’ll kill him after.

[darkling-er]

Alien: Earth | TIMOTHY OLYPHANT as KIRSH 1.08 “The Real Monsters”

[carm4rt]

What can I say, I’m obsessed

[carm4rt]

What can I say, I’m obsessed

[talesfromthecrypts]

In the dead of the night I have to have you

[scariffs]

0.5k / sfw. homelander (mostly), starlight, queen maeve, and the deep x gender neutral, vampire supe!reader. freaky vampire supe x the seven, basically. cw: descriptions of vampiric feeding off a body, blood, vampire typical stuff. + masterlist.

✦ you’d think that the announcements of new supes would old after a while, but vought doesn’t seem interested in slowing down production anytime soon. all of the seven is told about you weeks before you’re even released: you’re a fully lab-grown, blood-based supe. you’re dr. frankenstein’s vampire, complete with super strength, heightened senses, regeneration, bat-shapeshifting, minor levels of mind control, and a taste for blood.

✦ you’re part of the clean-up crew more than anything. can you imagine the scandal if dracula came in and saved the day? no, no. the shadows are where you work, hunting down political enemies and draining the bodies of anyone leftover by homelander or maeve.

✦ speaking of homelander… the subtle fangs are the first thing you notice when you do meet him. he can practically feel the weight of your eyes pressing against each tooth as you take in the sharp slope of his canines. it’s not intimidating. not when he’s himself, and especially not when he’s doing the same thing to you, staring at the weapons hidden behind your lips.

“careful, i bite,” he jokes, though his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. no, his eyes betray a sense of seriousness behind the sentiment.

“i’m sure you do,” you muse coolly, gaze even. there’s tension, but ashley interrupts you two before it can be acted upon (which is probably for the best, all thing’s considered).

✦ annie smells like a home baked meal, light, warm, welcoming. maeve smells rougher, like ash mixed with sweat. you’re not sure who you’d bite first if given the chance. the thought of brushing blonde hair out of the way before sinking your teeth into starlight’s flesh… ah, but then again, there’s maeve. maeve who’d make you fight for it. maeve who’d smirk at you as you fed, half-frustrated that you bested her and half-aroused by that fact. hm.

✦ you’re fortunate no one can read your mind. it’s embarrassing how much of your thoughts circle around semi-erotic fantasies of drinking blood. you’ve never had supe-blood before and it smells so tempting all the time— even homelander’s has a certain allure, though you don’t believe you could ever pin him down long enough to get it.

✦ nothing is more frustrating than being interrupted while you’re feeding. unfortunately, kevin— “the deep”— seems to have a bad habit of walking in on you while you ravage some poor unconscious body. vought feeds you the same way pet owners feed their snakes. there’s no blood packets, no fancy gimmick to make it look less horrifying; just you in a spare room, hovering over the body with blood smeared about your jaw and lips.

your head whips around as soon as you notice him, but he’s already backing away with his hands up. “fucking idiot,” you half-growl as you return to your meal. the scent of saltwater slowly wafts to your nose as he lingers outside the door, listening. great, he’s a pervert, too.

i’m once again thinking about vampires… god, fangs are just so sexy. vamplander moodboard coming soon, too.

tagging! @sheriff-bodecker, @chronic-fangirl-222, & @futuremrscameron ✩ click here to be added!

[callisoapy]

EVERYONE SHUT UP RN

THEY DID IT AHHHHHHHHHH

[d3adite666]

i love being gay as fuck irl and then logging into tumblr and reposting about robot and vampire hog, like okay can a bitch dream. that dick ain’t real it’s silicone and glitter!

[losthavenmine]

Near Dark (1987)

[raph-hrsh]

[drcranefly]

A Constant Test

After an uncomfortable and seemingly final "rejection" from your hopeless crush, Kirsh catches you in the elevator after you've been avoiding him. Pairing: Kirsh x Reader Tags: (MDNI🔞) Mature, very suggestive, Kirsh seems a bit mean until you realize he’s not, so much tension, angsty but happy ending with some fluff, unrequited feelings (not actually because he REALLY likes you), intense makeout sesh with a synthetic, inappropriate elevator shenanigans Note: Kirshtober. Help me. He has taken over my life <3 Y’know he has two great elevator related scenes lol. I'm down bad, this is WAY LONGER THAN INTENDED. I was listening to this on repeat while writing! Found this song through this Kirsh playlist btw it's really good check it out AO3: Paemona

“I don’t have time for this.” A sharp, icy stab through your gut kills all those persistent butterflies in a flash freeze. Your smile fades, pure horror taking place as your chest grows painfully tight and you stop mid-attempt to show him something on your tablet you had deemed somewhat amusing while endlessly scrolling. The worst part is, as he remains leaning over the table with forceps in hand, he doesn't even bother to lift his gaze to look at you when he says it.

Then, he adds softer, nonchalantly: "direct your focus elsewhere."

Kirsh is blunt, yes, sometimes a little sharp, yes, but to hear... that?

Doesn't have time. Not even 'I can't reciprocate', which would be bullshit, because you are and always will be a firm believer of autonomy for artificial persons and their ability to develop and maintain relationships. It's a matter of... time. For him. A timeless synthetic. The message, to you, is loud and clear: he doesn’t want to reciprocate.

You are, well and thoroughly, gutted.

Everything about him completely steals your breath away. That voice, low, distinctive, a touch raspy. He's modelled to look like an older man, perhaps in his late fifties. Taller than you. Definitely stronger. The amount of restraint it takes for you not to touch his hair is unfathomable. But what truly captivated you about Kirsh was... Kirsh. Intelligent. Meticulous. Patient but unapologetically sassy, which, the subtle passive-aggressive remarks and glances may just be your favorite part about him—if someone held a gun to your head and told you to choose. Right now, though, there's none of that, though a gun to your head might have felt better than... this. You'd thought there was something between you; you've been working with him for months, he's allowed you this close, he's welcomed you in even when it isn't your shift, he's let you run maintenance on him instead of his usual technician, he's walked with you through the halls enough times for everyone to notice so yes, you had felt special.

Now, you feel stupid. Really, really stupid. Your face is burning and you think he must be aware of how mortified you are but he's not even giving you contemptuous side-eye. The specimen he's dissecting has his full attention. And you? You wish the fucking thing would spring back to life and put you out of your misery. "I..." You cross your arms. Uncross. Then you wilt. "—okay." It's all you can muster at first, really. Since when the fuck did it get this bad? You're still clinging to denial that this is just a silly crush and not something devastating. "Mixed signals. I'll, um..." A pause as you bite back tears, your voice hushing to a whisper. "...see you later, Kirsh."

You're not sure what to do. So you turn and you leave.

He doesn't move to stop you. "See you around," he states flatly to your retreating back, the phrase devoid of any warmth, sounding instead like a simple confirmation of shared workspace proximity.

Afterwards? Prodigy’s wheels keep turning. Things just… continue as usual. But not really. Because Kirsh logs the deviations in your behavioral patterns and over the course of a week, your presence, previously a near-daily occurrence marked by unsolicited assistance and a distracting brightness in your expression, had ceased. Isaac inquired twice about you. Without your support overtime, project timelines suffered minor delays. Statistically insignificant, and yet...

In the lab, when unavoidable, you kept conversation to a minimum. Outside, you keep your gaze down and you quicken your pace when passing him by. He watches you with almost detached curiosity and that stings, because you would rather him just not watch you at all anymore. Your absence, which is ridiculous in the first place, begins to itch. He's never felt an itch before. It's made worse by the fact that he can't scratch it because it's on the inside, and no matter how many times he purges, recalibrates, it refuses to go away.

On the seventh day, opportunity presents itself. He observes you entering the elevator alone. Calculating the timing precisely, he slips inside just as the doors begin to close. The pneumatic hiss seals both of you inside the sterile, mirrored box before you can protest.

"You're avoiding me," he observes, his tone detached, analytical, yet somehow intrusive. He doesn’t face you directly yet, instead watching your reflections in the polished door. His posture is unnervingly still. "And your avoidance strategy isn't working."

Your jaw nearly drops as he blatantly calls you out, still in the process of trying to accept the fact he is standing right next to you. Unbelievable. Dread, frustration and relief washes over you all at the same time because firstly, he’s taken notice of your absence enough to bring it up, but secondly… he’s gone out of his way to corner you in here. You can’t escape the conversation. He’s taken that away from you, and you hate the settling warmth low in your belly. The audacity.

"...and your cornering strategy is bullshit. I clock in and out every single morning and evening without fail. I'm meeting my contracted hours. I'm directing my focus." You try to sound cold, to give him a taste of his own medicine and keep up the mystique, but the edge in your voice is so harsh you nearly flinch at yourself. The anxiety is rolling off you in suffocating waves. "I'm not avoiding you, I'm just... doing other things in my spare time. I don't live in that lab..." You mumble, borderline petulant. "Unlike some.”

He turns his head, steely eyes fixing solely on you. The butterflies instantly come back. A persistent fluttering alongside treacherous pangs of want. For a moment that feels like eternity, he just stares down at you and you can feel the hot flush crawling up the back of your neck, cheeks reddening. "You overreacted. My statement was logical, not…" he pauses, as if searching momentarily for the appropriate term, "...unkind. And," he adds as he shifts deliberately closer, reducing the distance between you, "this is childish. You are not a child, you need to stay focused."

You finally scrape together the courage to glance up at him and your breath catches when you realize just how close he is, which doesn’t help your flustering at all. “F-Focused? Fuck—” You have every intention of telling him where to shove his unsolicited, borderline paternal scolding but when your eyes lock, your defiance dies. You want to be angry at him but... you can't. Uneasily, you realize you just feel... sad.

“I know you’re not being unkind, Kirsh,” you concede quietly. It makes you ache, the barely noticeable tilt of his head as he listens. What was he thinking? Did he know just how beautiful he is? Your eyes briefly betray you and dart down the length of him before settling on his face again. “I completely respect your choice to make whatever decisions you want. Including... not wanting me around. If my presence bothers you."

Shit. It wasn't meant to come out like that. You turn your head forward again as you struggle to articulate yourself beyond that, the click audible when you swallow. You can feel your heart pounding in your throat. "I'll get over it." You attempt to sound a little more lighthearted, though you're fairly certain you sound crushed. The irony isn't lost on you, so you decide to just put this all to rest while you feel like you can, expecting him to acknowledge this with the same indifference and move on. "It's called a crush. I just... really like you."

"Really like me," he echoes and you cringe. The silence is painful and your eyes drift to the elevator buttons, wondering how to make this go quicker. He notices. “I am synthetic, my responses are not yours. My motivations are not yours. You must understand that.” Mixed signals. The steel doors shudder as the elevator halts between floors, lights flickering. Kirsh didn’t press the emergency stop. Probably. His hand rests near the panel, fingers splayed. "Avoidance," he continues, stepping fully into your space now, forcing your spine against the mirrored wall, "won’t help you. Neither does denial." He leans down, white strands of hair catching the fluorescents, until his lips hover a breath from your ear. "I propose an alternative. Exposure therapy. Systematic desensitization."

...huh? "Excuse you?" Is all you can initially squeak out. "If this is your way of trying to get me back into that lab during my free hours—

“—you will be going back into the lab during your free hours.” He interrupts smoothly to correct you and heat pools between your legs because you can tell it isn’t up for debate. One hand presses flat against the wall beside your head, caging you in without touching you. The proximity is completely deliberate. The hitch of your breath fascinates him and it shows all over his face, the subtle squint of his eyes, the hint of parting lips as his simulated breath ghosts over yours. “Direct exposure may accelerate habituation,” he murmurs so softly your knees buckle, “reduce the crush.”

Before you can muster a half-hearted protest, before your mind can catch up with the sheer absurdity of this out of pocket proposition, before you can comprehend just how hard you’re breathing, he closes the final inch of space and your world explodes. Cool, dry lips press against warm moisture, unmoving, assessing, chaste. The simple pressure is too much and not enough at the same time and you gasp too loudly for what it is, fingers glued to the surface behind you. He holds the contact for precisely four seconds before he pulls back to observe you and you suddenly feel like one of the creatures on his dissection table, because he waits for your reaction patiently like a scientist expecting lab results.

Kirsh kissed you.

And now you know there’s absolutely no way you’re ever going to get over him.

"I... I hate you. Insufferable, inconceivable—snarky—you—" You groan, then slap fruitlessly against his chest. "WORSE!" You squeal, before you bury your burning face in your hands. You can’t look at him; this isn’t fair. "That made it SO much worse and I s-should kick your synthetic ass for..."

For kissing me so gently. For treating it like an experiment. For crushing my hope of being with you then throwing me through a fucking loop.

"...for all of this! For... for totally leading me on!” You accuse lamely. “For months! And before you deny it—you let me stay around all the time! You let me cling to you and… and we just… like…." Your voice cracks a little as you find yourself stumped. You didn’t even realize you were crying until you were blinking away the tears. He’s already told you how it is—you don’t know why this is so difficult—

“My statement,” he repeats slowly, talking to you like you’re stupid. You just might be. “Was logical. Your presence is a constant test. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you around.” You’re struggling to understand that ‘logic’, but you open your mouth only to close it again when he shoots you a look that tells you he already knows what you’re going to say. “I was not leading you on.”

“Y-You said you didn’t have time for me—”

“No, not for you. For that.” He gestures with a small tilt of his head down towards the tablet hidden away in your bag. You frown. Same thing, you want to argue. “I didn’t anticipate your melodramatic tendencies spiralling into an episode, which was, by all means, a failure on my part.”

That’s as close to ‘I’m sorry’ you’re ever going to get but the backhanded apology doesn’t hurt, because you’re once again intimately aware of how close both of you are, how the sarcasm slides in, subtle and effortless, and how he is purposefully trying to bait you into a reaction.

Systematic desensitization is total bullshit. And the knowing twitch of the corner of his lip, almost a smirk but not quite yet, makes it clear that he knows you know that, too. That tight ball of dread in your chest gradually unfurls and you nearly bite through your bottom lip as you finally accept that if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t still be in front of you right now, both of you momentarily suspended in time inside the elevator. You sniffle. “...you’re an asshole.”

His brows lift. He gives you a slow blink as he processes that, simulated breath catching for just a moment. He has the gall to take that quiet, assertive tone with you again. “Sensible.” He corrects dryly. He reaches up before you can retort again, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth, then your drying tears. You shut up instantly and stare at him in awe, goosebumps erupting everywhere and he barely put a hand on you. “Try it sometime."

Ugh. Despite yourself, you giggle. The sound makes some kind of internal process inside momentarily stutter, his fingers twitching. “There’s absolutely nothing sensible about trapping me in here and kissing me.” You pause, the anticipation buzzing between you with an electric energy that feels downright dangerous. Your voice drops to a whisper that carries a note of fragile hope. “...did you like it?”

Kirsh instantly tilts his head back as he continues to stare down at you, gaze darting down to your lips then back to your eyes. “...further testing is required.”

Liar.

The next kiss makes that obvious. Slow. Deep. Far too human.

“Kirsh!” You part with a giddy gasp of his name, mouth still open against his, the taste of him strangely absent but also unique. “Aren’t you breaking several protocols?”

Yes, he is, but some protocols are routine for weaker synthetics, so he’s not going to address that. He answers by kissing you again and when you moan, when his name leaves your lips like that, the sounds loop inside him like corrupted code, amplifying. His hand snaps up to grip your wrist when you reach out to touch him, pinning it against the wall beside your head. Cool fingers press into your skin, feeling your racing pulse. “Look at you,” he mutters as he now gives you a once over, and you know he sees you clenching your thighs. He presses impossibly closer, the hard plane of his body aligning with yours. His other hand tilts your chin up, forcing you to meet his piercing gaze. “You make assumptions. You’re impulsive. Needy. Where does that get you?”

He’s right, but… “...exactly where I want to be, apparently.” Your free hand takes the chance to slide down his chest, grabbing the utility belt around his waist and giving a small tug. Kirsh exhales sharply through his nose—a simulated breath that warms your skin.

“Needy,” he repeats in low rasp and you whimper at the hot slide of your lips locking, beginning to lose count of time entirely. You know he must be perfectly aware of the minutes ticking by but he’s not stopping, and he’s a very fast learner because he’s devouring you now with his equivalent of hunger, greedily stealing your breath and holding it hostage within himself.

"You're... warming up, Kirsh..." You point out coyly, the abrupt shudder that runs through him when you whisper into his ear utterly captivating. Both his hands now clamp around your waist and haul you flush against him. Friction. You want it, you need him to give it to you, and by the way his knee is discreetly slotting between your legs, he has to know. “You… you can’t even begin to imagine how badly I want you. It drives me mad sometimes just… being near you… I…”

"You're wrong," he rebukes huskily, burying his face in your hair. You give a yelp when he bites your ear. "I can imagine. In explicit detail."

“Oh, fuck—

"I have simulated this scenario one thousand, four-hundred and twelve times—" before claiming your mouth again. The confession of his fantasies breaks you completely. You kiss back with wild fervor as he tangles your tongue with lethal precision, the collision of your bodies as your hips twitch in a grind against his turning all thought into molten honey. Through the barrier of his uniform, you can feel him. You nearly want to sob from how desperate you are. One of his hands slides around your lower back, cushioning before his fingers press hard to keep you where you are, denying you your pleasure. A slightly staticky sigh of satisfaction slips out of him when you whine in protest—he likes this.

He likes you needy.

He pulls back just to enjoy watching you left panting and wanting, immediately filing away for later all the little places that make you arch into his touch, meticulously cataloguing them all. The smile on his lips is diabolically gentle. “But you are right about one thing.” He leans in, forehead touching yours, savoring the heat of your flushed face and the sweat beading on your temples. "I am warming up."

There’s a cocky touch to his statement that is quite possibly the sexiest thing you have ever heard. You want to tease him but he beats you to it, his knee sliding just so to remind you of your predicament. "What happens next?"

The question takes you aback for a second. He’s only asking because he wants to hear you say it. “What… do you want to happen next?” You whisper dazedly, fingers sliding to tangle in his white hair. You’re aware of something straining through his uniform, trapped between the two of you, and it takes every last ounce of your shattered composure not to just start begging. Now you know how it is between the two of you, you enjoy this game. You don’t want it to stop. “What do you want to do to me?”

The question lingers in the charged air between you. You can’t imagine this ending any other way but being slammed up against this stupid, mirrored box with your legs locked around his waist. 

"Everything." The word is raw, stripped of synthesized sarcasm, of clinical calculation, punching right through your lust and reminding you just how much you feel. "I want to disassemble you," he adds, putting it in terms he expects you to take seriously, because he won’t tolerate your insecurities any longer. "To study every reaction. Every sound. Every flutter.” He briefly bites the corner of his lip as if in contemplation where he would like to start. “Everywhere.”

Your attempt not to beg immediately fails. “Oh, please, Kirsh—

His knee shifts abruptly, grinding against you in a slow, merciless rhythm. "The next time you you start thinking on my behalf—” He pauses so he can soak in your moan, a far cry from your previous shy whimpers. His voice drops to a whisper, rough with static, as he grabs your chin with a firm hand, forcing you to keep your eyes on him as your head rolls back. “—you stop. You don’t isolate yourself from me. You ask.”

He pauses all movement and you tug his hair in retaliation, his head jerking an inch. He doesn’t react. He can’t feel pain but it sends a strange burst of static through him that only makes him all the more determined to see what other reactions he can coax out of you. He just keeps staring. “Ask me.”

You’re so hot and bothered you can barely speak anymore but he’s going to wait until you do. “Do you… want me in the lab?” 

“Yes,” he states simply and you feel a heavy weight immediately lifting from inside you; you don’t know if Kirsh is capable of wanting in a conventional way, but there’s no catch, nothing else but that one word. You trust him wholeheartedly, though the illusion of ever having any control in the first place has never been more transparent—you were always his, and he is very particular about your relationship.  

You stepped uninvited into his world and made yourself at home.

You became essential to his process.

So now you can’t just leave.

And the fact he has to spell it out for you sparks something deeper than superficial irritation.

“Do you want to… oh!” You cry out when he rocks his leg again, the pulsing between your thighs unbearable, grabbing the front of his shirt; you’re already coming apart for him, burying your face in his neck, needing him impossibly closer. “Fuck me…"

It ends up not being a question, so he doesn’t answer.

Instead, he obeys.

You’re not sure when he pushed the button again, but the elevator finally resumes its descent. It doesn’t matter. You’d go whether he decides to take you, as long as he wants you there.

This time, it’s shamelessly over the edge.

[d3adite666]

holy fuck i’m back in the fucking building (synth simping)

[glxssy-berry]

Hiii I’m not sure if you’re taking requests or not, but if you are (BEAR WITH ME ITS DETAILED),

Could you write something where the female reader is Kavaliers sister or something (something platonic where mans ACTUALLY cares about her) and she comes to the island to visit. Her and Kirsh know each other but usually only ever speak one or two words in passing, BUT one particular evening, they end up having a genuine conversation and reader realizes that Kirsh is actually kinda…👀. So yeknowww one thing leads to another and they end up “eating the apple”.

(Bonus points if there’s the whole “this is wrong” trope with all the beautiful angst)

This has been on my mind for like a week. Daydreaming isn’t cutting it anymore 😭

Me answering this hella late but I am LISTENING

My Answer

Word count: 8,516

A03

The wind was wildly whipping any head of hair in the vicinity on the helipad. No matter how high up the blades technically were, you still had a habit of ducking your head down to avoid any chances. Of course he wouldn't be there to greet you, instead several synths standing in his place, poised and ready to take you in. And none of them were familiar faces except Eins; some Rook model, a David- he must've just been purchased, and .... well someone else, but he didn’t look like any synth you’d ever seen. Must be a chief scientist.

They gave you small nods or a smile as you approached in your quick little scurry, but didn't speak. Eins did.

"Very good to have you back, miss," he spoke over the helicopter as the blades began to slow, "shall we go inside?" He gestures to the rooftop door behind him. When you looked at the David he gave another smile and a nod, hair never looking unruly despite the wind, and you didn't realize you returned it until you were doing it. You'd forgotten how efficiently handsome they made him, boring flightsuit and all. Maybe later when there was a moment you'd ask to see if there was really a "W" in place of a patterned fingerprint on him, like the ads always said.

Walking ahead, Eins following, you already knew the route: down the steps, to the elevator, more steps after the elevator, clearance, sanitation, pleasantries, then you were home free to wander. Whether or not Kavalier would let you see anything he was working on this time around was yet to be seen. He was hot and cold like that.

"So," you turn to Eins as the elevator slides down towards the lower floors, “how have things been?” A nod of his head to the side as he thought of a way to sum up the chaos in brief enough words, save the rest for Kavalier to disclose at his discretion. “It's been eventful. Impactful. New things happening,” he looks at you when he says that. “Everyone seems to be very content as of late.” He looks at you, “however, as for your-”

“You don't even have to tell me,” you cut him off with a hand, sighing, “I know.”

The greatest thing in the world could happen at your brother's hand, and it has- several times- but he could never be pleased. It had to be faster, look better, never good enough. And he would wear himself down to do it. You'd seen it a thousand times. The mood of this conversation was already starting to kill the good one you had before you arrived, invading your mind like some kind of fog. “Well,” you chirped, changing the subject and turning your head to him, “do you need any maintenance done? For old times sake?” you smile innocently. Eins folds his hands behind his back, inhaling when the elevator slid to a stop and the doors opened, the lower temperature of the living quarters rushing in feeling amazing against your face which was still a bit warm from the outside island weather. All the while, despite his initial silence you had a good feeling he would say yes. You weren't hearing a no.

Eins lets you step out first before quietly following suit, and you let him mull it over as he leads you to your space, instead listening to padded steps hitting the carpet. You weren't even sure why he bothered to escort you anywhere to begin with, you knew the way, and he knew you knew the way; you'd been staying in the same room every time you visited, call it a human sentiment. By the time you reached your room, the door was already open, and you stepped in to see your room ready as usual; bed made with the corners tucked in, any little trinket you’d left behind throughout the years was still in place, not a speck of dust on it. Your things were already waiting as usual, placed on the table underneath the flatscreen, perfectly even with equal space on both sides. Then there was the hum of the air conditioning kicking on, and you could hear the ducts crackling to life, the smell of the filters hitting your nose.

“It would be an honor, miss,” rang out. Turning to Eins, you saw his face was still vacant as ever, only with a fleeting ghost of something in the corner of his eye. “Really?” you asked as you stepped closer with a raised brow, not a hundred percent on if he was saying it out of truth or politeness. Yes, you were the direct relative of his boss who he was programmed to obey, but you had computer skills too and he knew that. Many of them you'd taught to Kavalier yourself growing up, it’d just been a while since you'd been able to apply them, your new life away from the beginnings of Prodigy being quieter these days. Simpler. He gave a singular nod of the head, “Time willing, of course,” and your grin emerged as nothing short of wickedly eager and you gave him a small pat on the shoulder.

“Let's do it.”

-

“I am not letting you do that.”

Eins had said he would rendezvous with you down in the service level so you could refresh each other's skills, but instead of a suit and a familiar face you were met with wild snowy hair and tanned skin. The same one you’d seen on the rooftop when you’d first arrived, and for the past four minutes now, you'd been bickering with whoever the fuck this was in the science hallway. Apparently, security before wasn’t good enough.

“I have my credentials,” you press.

“And I have orders,” he asserts.

No matter what you said, he had block after block loaded up, and it had pissed you off after the second time he’d done it. Under any other circumstance where this guy wasn’t here, you’d be in the maintenance wing and waiting, now here you were forced to bide time and wait for-

“Ah, giving you trouble, is he?”

You sigh in relief, pivoting on your heel you turn, crossing your arms as you see Eins striding down the hall, hands behind his back, dress shoes a sharp snap against the spotless floor. Jutting your hip out to the side and tilting your head you ask in a fake demand, eyes giving him a sassy once-over, “And where were you?” 

“I was tending to your brother,” he comes to a stop in front of you, eyes moving to the man behind you as he continued, “another one of his impulsive needs, I insisted he take his medication.” He probably didn’t, you think as he inhales, now addressing the man, “Move aside,” which is wordlessly obeyed. Stepping to your right, he scans his thumbprint, and you turn at the click of the door, stepping in as he pushes it open for you. There’s no hesitation when you shoot the man with white hair a look as you walk past, which he returns with a narrowing of his eyes, still holding his little tablet. 

Your eyes immediately scan the room, trying to refamiliarize yourself with the layout: The table for a synth to lie on in the middle, and as the room slopes upwards, there’s a long kiosk for the scientist to monitor, more screens surrounding in a large semi-circle. Heading to the service table, you click a few buttons, putting it into maintenance mode and hearing the systems jump to life, the empty stats popping up on the screen. When you look up you see that the white-haired man has followed, and you can’t deny your spark of irritation, but you don’t say anything, turning to move towards the science station. “Just go ahead and lay there while I get a few things ready,” you say to Atom as you sit, a tinge of satisfaction when your credentials are accepted after entering. There’s a few things to input, the system having to know what’s to be done for the procedure, and your fingers easily slip into muscle memory as they fly across the keyboard. It feels good, being able to do this again. You see Atom moving out of your upper peripheral, removing his jacket and folding it to place on the nearest empty platform. You’re reminded when he starts on opening his button-up how overbearing his form was made to be. Made to be intimidating and take up space, nothing short of the build of a club bouncer. 

With the last few clicks of the keyboard, diagnostics are run on Atom, and there’s… not much, honestly. They seem to consider him as very high-status, because he’s nearly in perfect shape, well taken care of aside from a bit of alloy degradation and a screening of his matrix for a few bugs. Easy work, you think as you move back towards the operation table where Atom is quietly waiting. Pulling out the rolling stool from underneath, you take your seat, warily eyeing the stranger who has yet to say anything, still watching, but you won’t say anything if Atom doesn’t. He knows best. 

“Okay,” you sigh, looking back to Atom, “we’re just gonna replace a bit of your alloy skeleton, the skin fibers and just see if there’s anything that pops up in your psychological screening.” It feels terribly like doctor-patient, where you explain things as plainly as possible, yet you don’t even know why you’re doing it. You don’t have to; Atom already knows the routine, and knew what needed to be done before you even arrived.

“Very good,” is all he says before he goes still, and you know he’s put himself into standby mode for repairs. It feels disappointingly flat, a very clipped default response, but oh well. More buttons, and drawers underneath hiss open to reveal prepared synthetic skin, the same color Atom is because of pre-set features for each individual synth, but all perfectly pristine. The fog of the sanitation is rolling off of it in waves, and the shine of the alloy catches your eye, looking iridescent under the lights. Plucking the tool from the cassette, you ready the bit that can handle the larger, heartier alloy, and then you can work smaller and do the finer details as you finish up with the skin.

It takes a few minutes to drain his hydraulic fluid from his ports after you hook them up, watching the cylinder behind his head slowly fill before you fish a pair of density lens goggles from the multiple hanging by the station and slip them around your neck. Once the cylinder is full, you click the switch underneath and watch it swirl around to refresh and do its thing. Whatever that “thing” is. Looking him over, you see there’s a bit of wear at the skin of his outer ribcage, where his arms brush as he walks- or worse, knowing him. You feel it when you run your fingers over it, the usual- no trouble at all, and once you pull your goggles over your eyes it feels like no time at all before the brunt of the work is almost over with once you start, Atom still basically catatonic as you open up the skin to reveal his inner hydraulics. It isn’t difficult to repair synthetics, just tedious. It’s kind of like 3-D printing and soldering mixed together, you’re just doing it with a pencil. However, the prying pair of eyes watching out of your line of sight is starting to make it difficult. You try to push through, ignore it, but the rustle of fabric as you’re trying to work on the finer details of skin alerts you to the fact that he’s moving closer and your eyes shoot up when you eventually catch his movement. He’s still kind of close to the doorway, just not close enough. Finger releasing the trigger of your tool, the spark of it goes out and you move your goggles up to your forehead. “What are you doing?” 

He tilts his head, squinting before he sets his tablet down on a clear space, still moving closer, “Watching.” Well, yeah, clearly. You squint back, asking in a very trying tone, one that clearly voices you don’t want him watching, “Why?” He stops, still a decent distance away, whether it’s for personal space or whatever else you don’t know, until he says,” Security purposes. Curiosity.” He’s very uptight, this one, whoever he is. That makes you sit up straighter, a more smug curve along your lips, “Ah. So you’re wary of me, are you?” 

“All Prodigy technology is of value. Even with our most trusted scientists, there is always a spectator present.”

That makes you scoff, “Who, like you? I already have a usual set of eyes watching and annoying me when I do this I don’t need-”

There’s a hiss as the words are leaving your mouth, the man’s eyes flick up to look behind you, and as you turn your head you see-

“Well, well, well, look at this little get-together!”

Even eight years wouldn’t dampen that little shithead’s fire. He’s still sauntering around in those same linen clothes- it wouldn’t kill him to wear socks, sandals, something?

Turning back down to your tool, you slide down your goggles and fire it up again, “This isn’t a “get-together,” he’s just watching. Apparently.” You flick your eyes up to him again even though he can’t see them behind the polarized tint, but you’re sure he knows. “And being creepy,” you emphasize. Kavalier puts his hands behind his back, rocking back and forth with his little robe following suit, mouth in a line., lilting, “Yeahhh, he does that.” 

“I can see that.”

Moving closer, “The old routine with Atom?”

“That’s right.”

Kavalier practically bounces over, stopping on the other side of Atom, sticking his face too close for comfort to where you’re working over his half open chest cavity. You immediately click the pen off, “This shit is bright,” you sneer, wrenching your goggles up to your forehead, “don’t get so fucking close.” He only laughs, that evil kind of laugh he makes when he knows he’s irritating the shit out of someone and enjoying it. Even if in this case it could mean going blind because he wants to stick his face close to active welding equipment just because. Whisking over to the kiosk, he flops down in one of the chairs so he could watch you, the chair squeaking as he swiveled back and forth, tossing his little rubber ball to each hand. The man still watching is oddly silent, you figured he would have said something since his boss is in the room, but he doesn’t, only moves a few steps closer to Kavalier, never looking away when he does it. Sparing both of them one last glare, you put your goggles down and keep working, now overly aware of your movements since your audience just went up in judgemental points. Thank god you’re close to finishing up, the alloy done, not much longer now- two more strips of skin and you’d be able to hole up in your room, get some dinner and get out of everyone’s line of sight. The first section went easy, quiet as you were switching bits and putting little dents into the skin, sun spots, small moles, dark spots from friction, anything that a human would have. The second one however, as soon as the large bit was attached, still looking very raw and not seamless at all…

“Are you almost finished?”

You don’t stop, only shaking your head and sighing. Not now. Just keep working. There’s a little bit of peace as you switch tool bits, cleaning up your edges, taking your time with it since it is Atom after all, he deserves it with the shit Kavalier makes him put up with. Eventually your shoulders relax, and you’re getting back into the flow, thinking of what you’re going to order when you’re free when there’s a sigh that sounds out, a hum mixed in. Judgment. From who, you’re not sure but you loudly ask, “Can you not? If you’re feeling so impatient, you can leave.” It’s directed at both of them, really, hearing Kavalier lightly chuckle as you switch to another tool bit. There’s nothing said after, but you’re sure that something had to have been, because there's a shuffle out of line of sight before the unnamed man eventually passes through it, your eyes briefly following before you fully resume your work, and then you hear the hiss, then another one, then the click of the lock. You feel free to let out a sigh, drawing it out to really get the message to Kavalier.

“Thought he’d never leave. What’s his problem?”

You hear the chair as he gets up, hearing his feet pad closer, “With the workload he’s given from me, lots.”

More divots into the skin, little bits of vitiligo that comes with age, and you apply the little birthmark that’s stowed right under one of his upper ribs. “Yeah?” you ask, putting the tool down, feeling the circulation of air hit your lids as you flip your goggles up, pulling them off. “Well, might be too much because if he wasn’t a prick before he’s turning into one, his hair color gives it away,” you jab as you smooth the flyaways down on the top of your head, reaching toward the cylinder the flick the switch again, the illuminated light dimming as more of the circulatory fluid flows back into Atom. “Look into that.” The light turns off once it’s empty.

-

The entire rest of the night was such a shitshow, even the private moment you tried to have with Kavalier didn’t work out. It was in his room on his bed, surrounded by a little bit of takeout- even though he’d opted for nothing as many times as you’d offered. That’s how the conversation turned- you telling him how he wasn’t taking care of himself, how he looked thinner all the time whenever he was on TV and if he didn’t start taking his medication regularly- which you knew he wasn’t- he’d never get better. 

“Listen, I care about you,” you’d said from the foot of his bed, pushing your chinese to the side so it wouldn’t spill over if you shifted as you swallowed a piece of broccoli, “I’m your older sister, I want to see you do better. What you’re doing now can’t last forever.” 

He was sitting at the head of the bed, laying further up on the pillows, arms crossed, legs sprawled out, feet facing towards you, looking a bit stony in the face, thinking about something like it was a storm in his head. He'd been oddly quiet for a while after the subject had turned to this, and he might have planned to stay that way until you stayed pressing harder. He was breathing in like with every inhale he was trying to say something, wanting to say something, then he’d stop. Like it was on the tip of his tongue but he wasn’t sure how to say it, whatever it was, but you were remaining patient, listening to the low drone of news he’d abandoned on his monitor. More about the damage done to New Siam you’d been hearing about all week. He inhaled again, remnants of a sound escaping him, but still nothing. He tried once more, this time looking at you instead of off in space, and you sat up a bit straighter, ready to listen, and it seemed like this time he was going to get it, even if it came out angry like you were expecting, until his eyes shot up, looking somewhere over your left shoulder. Of course the prick would show up now.

“Sir.”

Kavalier sighs, and you mimic it, albeit much quieter. He only grunts in acknowledgement,

“I was to let you know when the cargo was secure. It is such.”

Kavalier crosses his arms a bit tighter, not missing the look you send him that says is this guy fucking serious? He runs a hand over his face, scratching at his jawline before saying, “Alright, good to know,” which you thought was a very mild response compared to what another you knew of Kavalier might say. You roll your eyes, going to stand before you whisper, “That could’ve been an email,” pushing off the bed, “I’ll see you later.”

You make sure to shoot the man a glare hissing, “Your hair is fucked up,” as you walk past, heading back to your room.

-

Whoever this guy was, he was really wearing you down, him and his stupid hair. How he was managing to do it when you didn’t even know his name you weren’t sure, but he hadn’t offered and you weren’t asking. It was just roadblock after roadblock; rooms you’d been in a thousand times before that you suddenly weren’t allowed in, certain areas of the island that were off limits for “reasons” made vague to you. Kavalier wasn’t willing to be helpful either, usually just saying something along the lines of, “ Probably something I’m doing there that I forgot about. I'll get to it later.” You didn’t miss how tired he looked sitting in his chair when he said that to you, voice a tad weaker, movements sluggish, eyes droopy, even his curls didn’t have the same energy as they fell across his face. You made sure to drop off something light and easy for him to eat from the private kitchen and you told him to go the fuck to bed after he did, but not before you reminded him that you needed a little bit more wiggle room to wander during your stay here.

“Outside is outside, okay?” you asked, watching from the side of it as he rolled around on his bed, tablet balanced on the bottoms of his feet so he could watch whatever- probably camera feed. “It’s only certain times of day, and I’m sick of running into that asshole at every turn,” you explain, arms crossed, “What’s outside that you’re hiding?”

His lips move into a hard line before he lets the tablet tumble onto the bed, and before you know it he has one of his feet reaching for you, every single toe somehow outstretched in the most disgusting way. “None of your business!” He seemed to be the only one in the family that could do it, and it always made you recoil, which you did just now. 

“Jesus,” you growl, hand slapping his calf to give you some reprieve from the assault, “get that musty fucking thing away from me!” He only responds with a cackle, moving his body down the bed to get his foot closer to your face, which makes you resort to darting under it to grab his fallen tablet. When he tries to start using both feet to attack you, you start slapping them with it. “Do you deliberately not wash your fucking feet?” which he answers with an even bigger evil grin, which nearly makes you falter and stifle a laugh as you hit him again. “Get that shit away from me!” This only eggs him on to fully sit up, legs still outstretched, which you react to by pushing him back down, taking this as your chance to start punching him anywhere you can reach once you toss the tablet to the side. In the legs, in the stomach, in the chest with one hand, the other on his calf keeping his feet at bay. 

He seems to be enjoying this, growing more animated and vocal as he tries to fight you off. It kind of reminds you of the small moments you got as kids when your dad wasn’t home and you both weren’t hiding out in your rooms. “You know, just because I’m older doesn’t mean I can’t beat you, right?” Yes, it was fighting, yes, there was occasional bruising, but it wasn’t with him, so it was a way to simultaneously have fun and get your feelings out. It was odd, but it was a way of bonding and the two of you really needed an emotional outlet back then. 

This time both of you are smiling.

Eventually he seems to start to tire out, his slaps growing more and more powerless, and you follow suit, but not without giving him one more punch in the stomach for good measure, which knocks a bit of wind out of him. You’re out of breath yourself, and you slowly ease off of him, standing up as your chest heaves. “Okay,” you breathe, already seeing him wind down, folding his hands over his stomach and closing his eyes. Hopefully, he goes to bed. “I’m out of here,” and there’s a low hum from him. 

Moving farther away towards the door, you slow, calling over your shoulder, “Make sure you eat that stuff at some point, okay?” 

Another hum. It sounds more flippant than you’d like.

“I’m serious,” you chide, fully turning around. He’s still laying there, but even from the door you see him peek one eye open. “Hello?!” you practically shout as the door opens, “I know you hear me!”

“Yeah, sure whatever,!” he lilts, voice forceful, closing his eye but staying still.

“Okay, god! And fucking-” you fully turn, holding your hands up even though they don’t really know what to do, “keep that guy away from me will you? Sick of seeing his fucking face.”

Kavalier lets out a long noise that trails off for an annoyingly long time, to the point that it turns into just a weak rumble of the throat until he runs out of breath, then he chuckles,“Yeah? He’s bothering you that bad?” He sits up a little bit to prop himself up on his arms, “Have you tried, oh, I don’t know, not talking to him?”

“You think I haven’t?” you scoff, brows lowering into a scowl, “everywhere I want to go, he’s there telling me I can’t.”

He throws his hands up, “You know I’m working on stuff here! Just say something to him that isn’t so… I don’t know. Walk away for all I care,” before he lets them drop onto the bed, stressing, “Find something else to do.”

You’d slam the door if you could on the way out. 

-

The next day there was a period of reprieve. No Kavalier, but that was fine, he wasn't planning to be out and about from what you could tell. Atom seemed to be in good sorts when you’d passed him in the hallway, not an improved mood per se from his clipped greeting, but simply Atom. The David smiled at you when he passed by when you were wandering in the more common areas of the building, saying a quiet “Good morning.” His hair was still perfect. It managed to put you in a slightly better mood when you received another hello from a very pleasant looking woman; warm smile, calm, friendly disposition paired with voluminous brown hair tied in a larger than life bun with a blue scarf, round glasses, and silver hoop earrings. She felt like mother if it were a person; seemed very personable compared to any employee you’d seen so far. Free to be herself.

It pushed you to go outside, get some sunlight since the garden looked promising, wandering between the trees, daring to stray from the path just for a few steps to let a few leaves swipe your face. It was warm, but not too warm, a nice cool breeze whispering through that kept you from sweating too badly, and even better, a lot of the trees were about to start bearing fruit, all still small and green with a few more weeks to go, but soon. A lot of the blossoms were still present but dying off, a few bees here and there, which you frantically darted away from when they got too close, much to your embarrassment. As you reached the more open part, a rounded off area with a pavilion in the center, a few blooming vines growing over it and as far as you knew, you were alone out here and if there was security or anything like that, you hadn't seen them so you were caught a bit off guard when you heard a voice- a yell, to be specific. It made you slow a bit, craning your neck to see around any type of corner you might be missing, but nothing, just the trees, same birds and insects you've been hearing the entire walk,  but regardless of the silence that resumed, you stay wary, making your way under the shaded awning, letting your hand rest on one of the posts, circling it, fingers drifting along the wood, digging into some of the knots and flaws.

It was nice the way the sunlight rippled through the open roof, down through the blooming vines, little spots dancing over your skin. When you move to the wooden table, easing down lighter as you hear an angry creaking from the bench, you look out at the ring of flowers that line the surrounding rock outside the pavilion, chin resting in your palm, free hand drawing shapes into the tabletop, another gust of wind sweeping through to rustle leaves, your loose clothes following suit. The tranquility of your surroundings didn't last long before there was the frantic sound of crunching rock, footsteps, running. Getting closer. You barely had time to turn around before someone was basically falling at your side, the bench shaking from how hard they were scrambling to sit. By the time they slowed down you saw it was some boy, pretty young, maybe just hitting his 20s, in a blue flightsuit. 

“Hi,” he heaves, waving, shifting on the bench. 

“Hi,” you returned, not sounding as casual as you'd like, given that he just threw himself into the space. Who else does he have lurking around on this island?

“I'm Smee,” he waves again, “wanna meet my friends?”

Ok…

Before you can answer, he yells, and you hardly have time to be startled before there's a whole group that comes stumbling out from the trees, similar in age, same outfits, and they're rushing to crowd around you, saying things in all these overlapping voices. By the time they're up-close and surrounding, you can only think that never have you been jumped like this, you can't even get a word out, and you're sure surprised confusion is written all over your face. In all the cacophony you even manage to get a splinter from an unknown spot in the table, and you can feel your palm starting to throb angrily. 

When they finally start to settle, you finally get the chance to tell them your name when they start asking why you didn't answer, and that's when they go completely quiet.

A girl with short fiery red hair gasps, pointing, “You're his sister aren't you!?” and there's a little gasp that ripples through the group. She starts grinning, and so does another girl with a hairstyle so short it makes you think it's very… French. “He talks about you sometimes,” she says lowly, “he misses you. He doesn't show it but he does.”

You nod slowly while she sits down, because of course he would, just never out loud like you thought. “You guys see him a lot?” you turn to another, a boy with shirt brown hair, a bit of a mustache coming in. He nods, “Y-yeah, a lot, he comes in the room sometimes when he wants sometimes,” he says looking down as he fidgets with his fingers, “but he usually talks to- oh, hey! ” as Smee slings an arm around him, pulling him onto the bench, where they promptly proceed to start slapping and shouting at each other, tumbling to the ground as it turns into wrestling. The rest blankly watch before their attention turns back to you. “Don’t mind them,” the girl says, and she holds out her hand, “I’m Wendy.” You reach up, shaking her hand, and the rest follow suit and you’re able to get their names one by one. 

Nibs, the redhead, Curly, self explanatory, Issac, the tallest, and Wendy points to the one wrestling with Smee on the ground, “That one is Slightly,” he takes a hit to the stomach almost immediately after.

“Cool. Didn’t know he had a bunch of kids on the island.” Some of them exchange a look at that. “When did that happen?”

Wendy circles the table, climbing onto the bench across from you, “Not too long ago. I was the first one.” 

The one with long hair, Curly adds on, “We were sick. We were all sick, then Kavalier made us better. But Miss Sylvia and Kirsh take care of us.” 

That seemed interesting enough, but it makes your brow furrow, especially the new names. “So, like what, he’s in medicine now? That doesn’t seem like him.” Which was true, Prodigy only really dealt with robotics, to heal sick kids, that was never something that the company would normally touch as far as you’d known. “Not exactly,” Nibs smirks, and she walks to the end of the bench, and you watch her, waiting. “We were sick,” she said, “dying. But Prodigy put us in the program.” Program, what program? 

“He made us stronger.” She squats down until her hair disappears from view, and for a second nothing happens, until you catch Wendy’s knowing smile, the group taking a step back, and you and the bench are being effectively lifted, and you gasp, having to grip the table to make sure you don’t slide off. Your line of sight shifts, and you can tell you’re already at least five feet off the ground, and you instinctively hold your hand above your head to brace the ceiling when you see it coming closer. The others around you are laughing, and you laugh too, but more out of exhilaration from the experience than humor. God, your heart feels like it’s in your ass right now, it only gets worse after she starts to turn in place, giving the bench a spin that makes your heart jolt in spite of how slow she’s actually turning, and you have to close your eyes with a nervous titter. After she’s had enough, she slowly sets you down, the rock shifting as the bench settles back over it, the wood creaking in protest. 

You have to rub a hand over your chest from how fast your heart is pounding, before you pant out, “Synthetics,” your eyes traveling along them, “you guys are synthetics?”

Wendy sits forward a bit from your side, “We don’t like that name.” She says it a bit harsh, and she must realize it because she dials back a little, her shoulders shrinking, “We’re something different.” You steal a glance at Nibs, who has her hands in her pockets, her shoe suddenly being interesting, “So, what are you?” you ask softly to match Wendy’s cadence. 

The group exchanges another quiet look, and Wendy looks like she’s really thinking about something, and by now you’ve figured she’s definitely got to be the leader of the group from the way everyone seems to follow after her whether it be literal or metaphorical. “Well,” she starts, “we’re-”

“What are you doing?” 

Instantly you grimace, rubbing your hands over your face, quietly mumbling, “This fucking guy.”

Once again, he seems to have an excuse to show up, and the kids around you are apparently familiar with him because they all almost immediately straighten up, eyes to the ground. Looks like the fun was over. 

“Nothing,” Isaac quickly says as you turn on the bench to see him approaching, a bit more of a sway in his step as his feet hit the rock. He didn’t have a tablet in his hands this time. “I saw everything, which was not “nothing,” he conceded, “everyone inside. Now.”

“Kirsh,” Curly says weakly, and your eyes fly to him as your brain immediately files it now that there’s finally a name for the face, “we were just-”

“Now what would Kavalier say if he saw you completely disregarding direction?” he objects, sauntering closer, and when he stops he tilts his head, eyes squinting as they travel along the group, “not pleased, I will tell you that.”

Silence falls over the group, and you notice that even Wendy doesn’t have a counter for that, even you absently run your sweaty palm along your pant leg, eyes darting down to it when you’re reminded of the stupid splinter making itself known again. “So, as I said,” he dictates, “inside.” Everyone wordlessly obeys, only the shuffle of shoes against rock heard as they all file away, disappearing down a path and into the trees, one by one.

Taking a breath, you swing your legs over the bench, ready to challenge. “So,” you start, standing up, “I guess I should be going too then, Kirsh?”

He answers quick and mild, his body shifting a bit as his eyes give you a once over, and just now did you notice that they were a deep brown from how the sun was hitting them, “No. You’ll be coming with me.”

Your hands instinctively go to rest on your hips, already expecting the usual back-and-forth to spark between the two of you, “Now why will I be doing that?” 

“Because,” he quickly replies, “I can answer any and all of your questions,” he shifts again as his eyes quickly move down, hand gesturing, “and remove that splinter from your palm,” he quietly concludes with a small quirk of the mouth. 

Oh.

You’re very much inclined to continue standing your ground, tell him you can remove a splinter your damn self, but the longer he stands there, waiting, you’re very angry with yourself to find that you’re losing your fire as the moment drags out. He’s patient, probably the most patient he’s been this entire time, and it’s pissing you off. He’s assertive too from the way he’s carrying himself right now, and you reluctantly feel yourself deflating, arms ultimately falling to your sides, you click your tongue with a small, “Okay.”

At this he seems relatively pleased, and he promptly contends, “Right,” gesturing to his side for you to join, “this way,” before starting off. You are not pleased that you find yourself jogging to follow. 

-

Once you’re situated in the lower levels of one of the science wings, standing around looking at a few odd covered cages you turn when you hear a rumbling to see Kirsh pushing an office chair your way, instructing once it rolls to a stop, “Wash your hands there,” pointing to a station nestled into a corner, “then have a seat.”

Walking over you look down at your hands to realize they are pretty dirty, there’s loose specks of soil from touching the table and posts, dried sweat making them stick to your palms, dirt underneath a few of your nails, and there was already a bit of pus forming where the splinter was stuck under your skin. You were definitely going to need a shower after this. Once you’re all clean and drying your hands with a paper towel, you head back over to the work desk where your chair is waiting, seeing that Kirsh has a pair of tweezers and a sealed bandage laid out on a paper towel, currently pouring a bit of rubbing alcohol onto a cotton pad as you sit down, and when he wordlessly holds out his hand for yours, you think this was either going to go really well or very badly once you see his sleeves are rolled up to the elbow.

“So,” you start, breaking the silence since you find it incredibly awkward with him basically holding your hand, brushing the cold pad over the broken skin, “your name is Kirsh?” 

“Yes,” he answers flatly, eyes squinted in concentration as he lets his hand drop to the bin on the side, discarding the cotton pad. He doesn’t elaborate further as he reaches for the tweezers. His hand is warm in comparison to the conversation.

“That’s it?” you replied, hinting that he should have a little bit more for you, craning your head into his line of view right above where your hands are joined, “no last name?” 

Very briefly do his eyes meet yours, before he resumes, disclosing, “You should know, and you do” tweezers now digging into your skin, “synthetics do not have last names.”

Your eyes widen at that, your hand giving an involuntary pull, one that he manages to quickly control as you nearly shriek in surprise, “You’re synthetic!?” You don’t know how it never crossed your mind, but now that it was said it all makes sense, the overbearingness about credentials, the boundaries around the island, why Kavalier never seemed to mind the interruptions, his attitude throughout; it isn’t his fault. It’s directive; programmed personality.

At that exclamation he stops, tweezers held in place, looking at you with an expression close to incredulous, brows lightly raised, “This surprises you?” He asks it like it should have been obvious, like you were borderline stupid for not knowing, or realizing, you weren’t sure which one.

For the first time since you’ve met, you’re rendered speechless, mouth hanging open because, yes, you are. This entire time you thought he was a deliberate, intentional asshole, but now it made sense, why he had you down here, tending to something as small as a splinter, because human harm happened under his watch. The attitude just happened to be programmed into him, and it made sense given who made it so. And now you kind of feel like shit about it.

Resting your chin in your free hand you shook your head, tone lightening, “I’ll be honest,” you sighed, “this entire time I thought you were human.” He continues working with the tweezers before it eventually proves fruitless, the splinter is close to entirely horizontal under the first layer of skin- you can see it clearly- instead flipping open a drawer and pulling out a long silver tool with the tiniest blade at the end, and even that manages to make startlement flash across your face, which he notices. He responds by holding the blade skywards, which is received as a good sign on your end when he flips to the flat side, pressing it to the surface of your skin, that’s when you understand, feeling relief when you realize that he didn’t intend on cutting. Once he sees you’ve received his message, he goes to work, “What made you think that?” he queries as he starts to gently swipe at the end of the splinter, attempting to coax it out, “I thought your own brother would have informed you. Or you would have found out for yourself, since you find me so vexing,” he adds. Your mouth presses into a line at that but you stay quiet.

I did too, you thought, but apparently he chose to keep a few things to himself. 

“No, he didn’t,” you confirmed, voice turning smaller, “ he probably wanted me to find out for myself.” You continue to gaze at him, now really willing to take in his appearance now that you weren’t fighting: white hair, tanned skin, toned body, good choice, unfortunately. “He just made you look so different from anything else I’ve ever seen, I’m impressed, honestly,” your hand is pulling at the seam of your linen pants while you say it.

“Why is that?”

Now that you knew his secret, you just couldn’t stop staring at him, the lifelike wrinkles in his face, the untamed nature and color of his hair, even down to the beauty mark near his eye, the subtle masculinity; it was just class. Efficient. You didn’t know how else to describe it, but then again you had a tendency to be captivated by the variety of features that most synthetics displayed throughout the years, prone to appreciation. Sometimes more.

“You’re just so…” you trailed off, not even sure you wanted to say the word after the attitude you’ve been receiving the entire week, “unique.” You wince at the slight sting you get from the pressure against the sensitive skin. If that word struck him at all it didn’t show on his face.

“Unique,” he repeats lowly, still working at your hand, close to getting the splinter completely out. 

“Yeah,” you breathed, now a little too aware of how you were ogling him, too aware of how intimate this felt with your hand in his after hating him the entire time you’d been here, too aware of how subdued you suddenly felt, pointer finger picking at the skin at your thumb out of his view like you were some kind of nervous school-girl. ‘A-and he made you?” like you were underneath him when it was crafted to be the other way around.

“Yes,” he answers promptly, finally getting the splinter to peek out from the layer of skin, switching back to the tweezers and effectively pulling it free, a small amount of pus following. He discarded the tweezers and began using his thumb to make sure everything was out, pressing down pretty hard until there was blood that followed, which you fought through to keep your hand in place, praying that your heartbeat remained steady enough to remain unnoticed. After he seemed satisfied, he was quick to pour alcohol onto another pad, pressing it to the small stream of crimson, which had a way harsher bite than you expected, making you hiss, wanting to pull away from the sting, but stopped when he held you firm again speaking a soft, almost warning, “Steady.” It was gone as quick as it happened, and you mumbled a small thanks, which he returned with a barely there smile. You found yourself starting to mirror it before you covered it with a swipe of your free hand over your mouth. Subtle.

“If anything,” he said after tossing the pad away, skillfully unwrapping the bandage one-handed, gently pressing it down over the wound, eyes meeting yours, “I should be thanking you,” he held his gaze as his warm fingers deftly smoothed out any air bubbles in the waterproof sealing, and you could feel your chest blooming with some unidentified feeling to the point it nearly hurt and you had to tear your eyes away.

“What do you mean?” you breathed, eyes fixated on his working hands when they let go, and it feels like that blooming sensation suddenly withered, a rubber band snapping after being stretched too hard, and you felt the pang of disappointment.

He’s not looking at you anymore, busying himself with cleaning all the tools now, running a soaked pad over them, letting them dry before he tidies everything away, the last thing to go being the bandage wrapper, which he crumples in his hand before he drops it in the trash can. You couldn’t help but notice the way his veins bulged when he did it, and you had to ask yourself if you were gawking at the David in a similar fashion, just forced to keep to yourself about it.

When he finishes up he leans back in his chair, doesn’t say anything right away. Simply looking. So are you.

“I’m correct in saying that you taught your brother a number of things in robotics?”

“Yeah?” you answer, slow, unsure. 

“Then I can also assume that without your previous input, the probability of my creation and its extent would be significantly lower?”

That made you snort, “Well, I’m flattered, but I wouldn’t say that.”

“It isn’t flattery. What would you say?”

“Well, I would… I would say…,” you run your finger over your bottom lip, eyes turning down to a spot on the table, “damn,” suddenly finding it more interesting than his. It was uncomfortable to have him basically put you on the spot only to ask you questions about you and what you thought. You’d gotten so used to being alone that it just wasn’t something you dealt with anymore. Maybe he knew that. “I wouldn’t take that much credit, that’s all.”

“Why not? You agree you had an influence in all of this.”

“Again,” you blurted, “I-I wouldn’t really say that.”

Why?” he asks again. 

“I don’t know.” 

He squints at that, repeating a bit slower, “You don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” you answer, harder.

“Why is that?”

Again with the why, you nearly snap out, “I just don’t know, okay?”

He's looking at you like he's considering, his head tilting again, saying, “That’s something to think about, then,” but you have a feeling he wanted to say something different.

You inhale, and it's shaky, like your lungs are being squeezed. You've had enough, and you stand up, still not looking his way, like he’ll burn you if you do, wandering too close to a pretty light that you forget lets off too much heat. 

“I have to go.”

His head tracks you as you start off, “Have to or want to?” and that softly asked question really makes you think he's intent on reaction. What kind? Probably anything, given him, but you throw a cheap lie his way regardless.

“Have to. I’m tired.”

Your back is to him now, and when the chair swivels he still has one more thing to say, and you nearly fall over from recoiling when you feel his hand, fingertips barely brushing yours before they grasp. You whip around faster than you can register the touch, a harsh tingle shooting from your hand to your spine. “I trust you’ll have my answer before you end your stay?”

My answer. 

My answer?

You’re standing there, dumbfounded, looking down at him with wide eyes like his head just fell off, and there’s nothing but your hand in his and his patient stare. Nothing, because you really can’t make any promises on it given that you don’t know. It’s like being asked your favorite movie or song, when you’re forced to think about it, it suddenly doesn’t come to mind. Nothing, because whatever you end up saying as an answer right now won’t be true, won’t be genuine, and all you can muster, weak as your hand pulls away, “I have to go.”

That word was like a bug bite; my. Not too much to dwell on at first when it was fresh, just a bit of out of place pressure, but even after you leave him hanging in the lab, going back upstairs, you find the word choice pressing more and more, racking your brain as to why he would use the word. By the time you made it back to your living quarters, you were sure by the time you left you’d be scratching until you bled.

A/N: Anon I'm so sorry this ending is absolute dog water but I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer for a request you put in in FEBRUARY, so this is what I have, hope you liked the rest xx

[commiefaggoth]

so embarrassing to watch yourself become obsessed with a character that feels tailor made for you specifically to become obsessed with. feels like i fell into a trap made just for me. like damn they got me. those are all the things i like and go crazy for

[thebumblecee]

some of you are so fucking talented and you’re using it to spread joy and happiness around for free

magnificent creatures, the lot of you