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Remmick x male reader x Sir Jimmy Crystal
Summary: every night youāll see Jimmy go away from whatever peace of earth you will take for sleep, dragging the remaining of those who went through charity for things only Old Nick knew. Following after your Lord one night led you to meet someone who you thought was in desperate need of helpā¦ if only you knew what monster was hiding behind that handsome and pleading face.
Hereās the other fic I made for this amazing event @jocficlibrary. Now that the event had been extended Iāll see if I can perhaps do another one
Tags: No use of Y/N. Male reader. Dark Remmick. Dark Jimmy Crystal. Non-con. Possessive behavior. Obsessive behavior. Jealousy. Corruption. Manipulation. Voyeurism. Threesome. Blowjob. Anal sex. Breeding. Cum inflation. Blood drinking. Top and dom Remmick. Top Sir Jimmy Crystal. Bottom male reader.
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Words count: 7000
Nights in this wasteland had a color all their own, a bruised violet that bled down through the collapsed ribs of buildings and pooled in the streets. You'd learned to sleep with one eye cracked like all the Jimmies did, curled up on your bedroll among the others with your knife tucked under the folded rag you called a pillow.
You'd learned a lot of things since your Lord had taken you in off the road, learned how to give respect when Sir Jimmy Crystal walked past.
That soft Scottish lilt turning over your name like he was rolling it between his molars, tasting whether it was worth swallowing before he recalled you as one of his fingers.
And you'd learned, most of all, that he left every night.
It wasn't the sort of thing anyone talked about but you always saw the way he'd stand up from his sleeping bag, brush the ash off the front of his purple tracksuit and stalk off into the dark.
One of the Jimmies had asked once when Sir Jimmy was in what passed for a good mood and he had simply laughed.
"Ye dinnae follow me, wee lamb. If I catch a single one o' ye pokin' yer neb intae ma business after dark, I'll be wearin' yer tongue on ma belt come mornin'. Aye?"
Said Jimmy nodded that night and Sir Jimmy had patted his cheek and two mornings later the boy hadn't come back from a run.
You noticed that when your Lord led the group in his so-called charity, when he set the survivors of some other broken caravan on their knees in a row and moved down the line with his knife, whispering blessings in that thick accent while their blood ran over the blades of your and the otherā knives, he'd always take something after.
A piece or a cut, the soft parts mostly.
Sometimes a whole torso wrapped in oilcloth and slung over his shoulder.
You knew he took them somewhere and had seen the direction he walked.
Tonight you decided it was the night.
You'd been careful, watching him with eyes semi-closed pick tonight's cut, a woman's carcass whose chest had been skinned back and whose ribcage yawned open. He hoisted her by the ankles and dragged her, trail she left was a black snail-line down the cracked pavement due to how deep in the night he had decided to move, easier to follow than any breadcrumbs still.
While doing such forbidden activity, your heart was hammering so hard you were sure the sound of it alone would give you away.
Down through the alley where the streetlamps had all been shot out for target practice and past the shell of the church with its steeple bent double.
Further into a half-collapsed storefront where the front window had blown out long ago and the door hung crooked on its frame, he dragged her inside, blood trail sliding over the threshold.
You pressed yourself flat against the pillar just outside and you held your breath.
Right after Sir Jimmy Crystal came storming back out and he was in a rage, shoulders and set of his jaw tight.
He was muttering under his breath, a snarled Scottish prayer to Old Nick begging for questions. He didn't look up or look with how vivid in wrath he was, walking past your pillar close enough that you could smell the faint copper of the woman's blood soaked into his sleeves but he didn't see you.
It was a gift from Old Nick himself that he hadnāt turned his head one inch to the left, whoever that dark grandfather was your Lord invoked.
You waited longer than needed even after his footsteps had faded before going inside the store.
It smelled like old plaster dust and mildew but, under that, sweet-thick copper of what he'd been dragging. Your eyes adjusted slowly, moon barely coming in through a hole in the roof where the ceiling had fallen and what it lit was strange.
A great slab of the concrete ceiling had collapsed inward and when it had fallen it had cracked into a dozen huge irregular blocks, those blocks had settled against each other in such a way that they made a kind of rough dome cage.
Great slabs leaning like ribs, gaps between them narrow, whole thing looking like the inverted ribcage of some enormous beast turned upside down and buried in the floor.
Everything had simply fallen and made this.
Inside the cage, something moved.
You froze, hand going to the knife on your belt without thinking. The movement inside the cage stilled and you could hear breathing, ragged and wet, sound of a man in a great deal of pain trying very hard to keep quiet.
Next to the cage, laid out on a piece of tarpaulin, was the gutted woman. The dark cavity of her chest yawned up at the ceiling. Beside her body were several big bottles, now stoppered with wax and filled to the brim with something dark you'd assumed at first they were water because it was simply too dark in here to figure out anything.
You crept closer, boots quiet on the plaster dust as you reached the ācageā and found a gap between two slabs of concrete, a jagged rhombus of shadow about the width of a spread hand and you knelt down at the base of it, leaning your eye to the opening.
On the bare filthy floor, a man was lying on his side, curled with his knees drawn up because the cage wasn't tall enough for him to stretch out flat. He wore a tank top, once white, now brown at every hem where sweat, dirt and old blood had eaten into the fabric.
His arms were bare and they were rangy, corded with muscles that came from doing rather than lifting.
Chains were bolted through cuffs at his wrists, you couldn't quite tell in the dark and the chains were driven into the concrete of the floor slab. By the length of them he could crawl perhaps a body's-length in any direction and no more.
Hair dark and lank with damp, lips parted and even in the dim moon you could see wetness on them, a dark smear that had crusted at one corner and dripped down toward his jaw. His hands were the same, streaked to the knuckles.
He was panting, shallow and uneven breathing of someone who hurt in places he could not name.
You had not made a sound while breathing through your open mouth so that even the whistle of your nostrils wouldn't give you away but his eyes snapped open and locked at yours.
For one instant they were dark with fury and you flinched back so hard you nearly toppled. He'd probably thought you were Sir Lord Jimmy, that much was written all over his face in the split-second before it changed.
Rage folding itself down and away, put itself in a drawer and what came up in its place was surprise first, eyebrows lifting and mouth softening. Then something more complicated, pupils dilating in the dim light and his gaze moved over you slowly from the top of your head all the way down and back up again.
By the time it met your eyes again there was a private smile pulling at one corner of his mouth, intrigued and interested along with, under that, something with teeth in it and maliciously pleased.
But he tucked that away too and what he showed you on top was only warmth and hope.
"Yer not him," he said, voice rough from disuse and the accent that rolled off it was old Irish.
You couldn't speak, your mouth was dry.
"Easy, lad,ā he said. "Iāll not bite ye through the stones. I couldnae reach ye if I wanted to.ā He shifted very slowly, dragging himself up onto one elbow with a wince that showed briefly across his brow. "Ye have a name, do ye?"
You told him your actual name and it came out cracked.
He smiled fully now, teeth white but for the dark at the gums where the blood had gotten in. "Remmick, thatās me. Now ye know me anā I know you. Weāre friends already.ā
Your hand was still on your knife and never took it off, but you didn't back away either. You leaned back down to the gap and found your voice.
āWhy does Sir Lord Jimmy keep you here?ā
Remmick laughed and it moved through his shoulders like a shiver. "Sir Lord Jimmy,ā he repeated, savouring it, turning it over. "Is that what ye call him, then?ā He laughed again, quieter. "Ah, that's grand."
You didn't understand what was funny.
He saw that on your face and he softened again. "Never mind me, love. Iāve been here a long time.ā He let his cheek rest against his own bicep. "I was tied here left by some hunters to perish oā hunger when the ceiling crumbled. He found me anā began givinā me orders. I told him where he could put it anā so heās not been feedinā me till I give āim whaā he wanna know. Weeks now, let me lie here dry.ā
Every word of it could have been a lie from the very first breath but you didn't know that.
All you knew was that a man (a handsome one at that) was laying in a cage and his lips were cracked.
You looked around from where you knelt where those big bottles were, big and full, wax seals uncracked.
He watched you look and didn't say anything, only waited.
You reached for the nearest bottle, cold from the concrete floor, glass slick with the sweat of temperature-change. You had to use both hands to lift it and worked the wax seal off with your thumbnail, sliding it very carefully through the gap in the concrete slabs, tilting and angling until it fit through with a scrape and came to rest on his side of the cage.
He didn't move for a moment, eyes on you entirely. His mouth had opened and his tongue had come out, wet the crack in his lower lip.
Rapidly he snatched with both chained hands the bottle, bringing it up to his mouth and he tipped it back, tilting his head back and the bottle went perpendicular to the ground, neck of it straight up against the moonlight as his throat worked.
Swell of his Adam's apple bobbing up and down with every greedy swallow, tendons standing out on either side of his neck as he pulled the weight of the liquid down into himself. The dark stuff moved in the bottle in one continuous rush, glugging softly.
He was holding the bottle up parallel to his throat with both hands and the weight of the full bottle and the tension of holding it steady made every fibre of his biceps stand out under the thin dirty skin of his tank top's arm-holes. You could see the round hard curve shape of them, a vein that ran down from the crook of his elbow and split into two smaller ones over the swell of his forearm.
His shoulders rolled as he drank, chest rose and fell with the enormous drafts he was pulling. A single dark bead escaped the corner of his mouth and ran down his chin and dropped, splat, onto his sternum, disappearing into the dark of the fabric.
He drained it in one long unbroken pull and then he lowered the bottle from his mouth with a gasp that was almost a moan and he closed his eyes, body seeming to sag with the relief of it. His lips were painted glossy dark and teeth, when he opened his mouth to breathe, were stained pink at the edges.
"Oh, ye lovely thing. Thank you, darlin'."
The word did something to you that you weren't prepared for. It landed right in the middle of your chest and your heart kicked, face going hot in the cold air.
Warmth spread out from your sternum and you had to look down because you didn't want him to see whatever your face was doing.
He brought the empty bottle up in both hands and set his thumbs against the shoulder of it, he squeezed and the glass crumpled, crushed inward under his fingers with a wet grinding crack, folding on itself and the pieces of it fell in a soft rain into his lap and onto the concrete around him.
There wasn't a single scratch on his palms while he licked avidly every piece clean.
He looked back up at you through his dark lashes and he gave a blood-soft smile.
"Would ye be a saint an' pass me another one, love?"
You went back the next night knowing everything and understanding nothing.
You'd seen him crush glass in his bare hands like it was paper and drink gallons of what you assumed being blood, even licking the neck of the last one clean with a tongue that came out longer than a tongue ought to come out.
But he'd called you in many adorable ways youāve never heard in your whole life and they felt addictive, just like the feeling youād receive. When you'd finally had to leave due to the sky outside starting to pale and realizing your Lord would wake up soon, Remmick had reached one long arm out through the gap and the tips of his fingers had touched the back of your hand, rusty chains clicking loudly.
His fingertips had been cool like the stone all around him while he'd said, "Come back tae me, won't ye, darlin'? I'll be waitin'."
Something youāve done constantly every night that followed, brought him food at first. Strips of jerked meat from your own ration, a tin of peaches you'd been saving.
He was always polite about it, taking the offerings and thanking you as he set them aside untouched.
You learned about the bottles by asking questions of the older Jimmies and you pieced together that they had been made by one of the Jimmies who was dead now, used as a way to gather all the blood from those who went through charity and sealing it so it wouldn't spoil, kept as a weapon to tame whatever Remmick was.
Now you took one every night and slid it through the gap into Remmick's hand as every night he called you names and looked at you with devotion and affection, something not even Jimmy gave you.
You tried to figure out how to free him.
Laying awake in your bedroll and turning it over in your mind, looking at the chains, anchor bolts driven into the concrete and the way the slabs of the fallen ceiling wedged against each other so that no single one could be moved without bringing the others down.
Maybe a pry bar could have helped.
You thought about how far the two of you would make it before Sir Jimmy Crystal and 6 Jimmies with knives caught up.
Also thought, sometimes, in the small hours, about the way his eyes had lit up when he'd first looked at you.
Sometimes you thought that you didn't know what you were setting free but then he'd smile at you through the gap in the slabs, say something like, "Thereās ma boy,ā with such a grateful and devoted look that the thought would go away.
After another charity, a group of survivors that had come stumbling in from the north, seven of them, their faces now caved and pulped from some ordeal none of them could describe because their jaws didn't work anymore.
Jimmy had knelt down among them and had touched their broken cheeks that Old Nick was waiting for them.
Your knife was also dripping from the aftermath after it had done its work three times, hands shaking and the blood was up to your elbows while you were breathing through your teeth, the want to escape together with Remmick being the pillar of your strength to push through this.
When it was done and the bodies were laid out, Sir Jimmy Crystal stood up and dusted the knees of his tracksuit to then look out over the row of the dead.
He turned slowly to lock his blue gaze on you and said in that same soft voice, but louder now, so that all the Jimmies gathered in the yard could hear,
"Come here, would ye."
He wasn't looking at anyone else and your grip on the knife's handle tightened.
The blood on it had gone tacky as you stepped forward and stopped a few paces away from him, because to come closer than that without invitation was a fool's move.
He looked at you for a long moment and his face was pleasant, eyes dead before he began to walk around you in a slow circle.
His boots crunched on the gravel of the yard as he walked around behind you and you didn't turn to follow him, feeling his gaze crawling up the back of your neck.
"Let it be known, amongst the whole o' ye, ma dear fingers, that one of yer own has been disobeyin' me.ā He spoke to the ring of Jimmies who had stopped their work to watch. "Aye, followinā me at night, puttinā his neb where I told ye all noā tae put it. Interferinā, so he has, wiā work oā mine thatās none oā his.ā
He came back around into your sight and stopped in front of you. He'd been strolling as he spoke, hands folded neatly behind his back and now he leaned in so close his lips were a breath from yours.
Sourness of his breath washing over your face as he said, so softly that only you could hear.
"The wee man ye thought ye were helpinā sā not who ye think he is.ā
The world went very still, you couldn't have moved if you'd wanted to.
Blood was pounding in your ears loud enough to drown the yard out at the realization of having been caught.
You didn't see Jimmy Ink come up behind you, too busy staring into Sir Jimmy Crystal's dead blue eyes trying to find the lie there and the last thing you registered, dimly, was Sir Jimmy Crystal's mouth tilting up at one corner in the beginning of a smile and his eyes shifting a fraction to look at something just behind your left shoulder, giving an approving nod.
Then the world came down on the back of your skull like a hammer and your knees turned to water, pitching forward straight into Jimmy's chest.
The first thing you heard, coming up out of the dark, was the muffled voices, buzzing in your skull so loud as a great fat bee of pain lodged behind the bone where Jimmy Ink had cracked you.
Every heartbeat pushed it a little tighter into the meat of your brain, body felt like it was floating below the surface of very cold water.
"ā¦so ye want him, do ye?"
That soft rolling burr that cane from your Lord Jimmy Crystal speaking somewhere just above you and there was a lazy amusement in his voice that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
"Ye asked me for him. When I came tae check on ye last night, ye whispered it right in ma ear like a wee lover. āThe pretty one thatās been feedinā ye.ā Aye?ā
A loud silence followed and you felt someoneās stare on you.
"Well," your Lord went on. "Here he is. Yer goin' tae answer every wee question I've been puttin' tae ye these last months? That's the bargain.ā
Another longer silence.
"I want ye tae understand,ā said your Lord and his voice went softer, sweeter, "that Iām quite fond oā this one. Heās got a bonny wee face on him anā heās a hard workerā¦ I had plans for him, so the sacrifice Iām makinā, handinā him over tae ye, thatās noā a small thing.ā A pause, voice hardening a fraction. "But I cannae let disobedience go unpunished. Thatās just noā the way oā things. Better here wiā you, where at least itās oā some use tae me, than starinā at the sky wiā his throat open in the yard, aye?ā
The other voice, when it finally came, was so close to you that it seemed to be inside your own head. It cut clean through the buzzing, a voice you knew.
"I'll answer whatever ye like, bring him closer."
Remmick right by your ear, breath on your cheek, cool and copper-sour, crouched over you or leaning down over and had his whole attention on you.
Something between a whimper and a swallow got separated from your throat, muscles of your face twitching.
"Oh, there we are, darlin'.ā Said Remmick and his voice went soft like always for you. "Come on back tae me now."
You forced your eyes open, world coming in slices. Grey concrete first, then that particular smell of the collapsed store, plaster dust and rust and old wet stone.
Remmick's face, low over yours, upside down where he was crouched at your head and his blue eyes had a wet gleam in them.
You dragged yourself upright after two tries because your arms didn't want to work, palms scraping on the concrete as you pushed yourself up into a sitting position with your back against one of the leaning slabs.
Now you understood that you were inside the cage.
"Oh, aye," came your Lord's voice and now you could locate him on the other side of the slabs, crouched down at the same gap you'd knelt at for so many nights, with his eye pressed to the opening. "Thereās me wee disobedient bastardās. Morninā, sunshine. Well, eveninā. Whatever it is.ā
Remmick had not moved from where he was crouched near you, on his heels now, arms lifted and you saw the chains had been reset from outside while you were unconscious, run up through iron rings sunk into the concrete of the ceiling of the cage so that his wrists were hoisted above his head. His arms bulged with the tension of it, tank top riding up at the belly, showing a strip of lean pale stomach.
He was looking at you almost tenderly, every part of him was pointed toward you.
"Why," you managed, voice thick and mouth tasting of iron; you must have bitten your tongue when you fell. "Why did ye do this?"
Jimmy made a soft tutting sound from beyond the stones.
"Because ye didnae listen tae me, laddie,ā he said, simple as that. "I told all oā ye to dinnae follow or interfere anā guess whaā ye did? What did ye think was goinā tae happen?ā
The rage came up in you then, filtered through the ringing in your ears, for the casual way he'd put you here.
There was a chunk of concrete on the floor by your hand, jagged where it had broken off some larger slab and you closed your fingers around it.
Pushing yourself up onto your knees, head swimming in confusion as you crawled the two steps to Remmick, who watched you come and said nothing.
The chain at his left wrist was the one closest to you, a heavy old chain of thick links, but the concrete around the anchor bolt was old and crumbly, so you hefted the chunk of stone and brought it down.
Crack.
"Now, laddie,ā came your Lord's voice from behind the slabs and there was the first edge of something in it that wasn't lazy amusement. "I wouldnae do that, if I were you."
Crack.
The concrete around the bolt started to spider.
"I'm fucking tellin' ye right now to stop it."
Crack. Crack.
Dust rained, a chip of concrete flew and stung your cheek.
"Ah, for fuck's sakeā"
The last blow did it and the bolt tore up out of the concrete with a shriek of metal on stone, chain falling open in a heavy loop and Remmick's left arm dropped free.
A large grin sharpened by fangs was the first thing you saw on his face, canines long and red-white at the tip, receding pink at the gum. The rest of his teeth had gone sharp too, not human anymore, a whole mouth of small vicious knives as he brought his free hand across his own body and closed it around the chain at his other wrist, snapped the other chain like nothing, iron parting with a soft dull pop and his right arm was free too.
Now nothing was holding him back from lunging at you, copper of his breath hitting you full in the face a half-second before his body did.
He came off his heels and drove you backward, shoulders hitting the concrete as he was over you on all fours, knees bracketing your hips and his hands planted on the ground on either side of your head with his face just above yours, purring.
Low rolling thrum coming out of his chest and vibrating in the space between your bodies. He lowered his head and pressed his open mouth to the crook of your neck where it met your shoulder, tongue making long slow drags up the side of your throat, very cold and wet, every drag was accompanied by a groan low in his chest that mingled with the purr and made a sound that no throat should have been able to make simultaneously.
"Why're ye doin' this?" you gasped while trying to no avail to get free from his hold on your body.
He lifted his head, a string of drool between his mouth and your neck that broke, falling in a slow rope onto your collarbone.
His breath was iron now, thick with the smell of old blood.
"Because yeāre the sweetest thing I'd ever seen," he said, and his voice was almost gentle. "The first night ye put yer eye tae that gap anā looked in at me, I knew what ye were. Ye came back fer me every night anā kept me well fed anā strong, love, it made the wantinā worse.ā
Behind the slabs, your Lord's voice came filtering through with a note of genuine wonder in it.
"Well now, would ye look at that."
You couldn't look at anything but Remmick while Jimmy went on anyway, speaking half to himself and half to you.
"Ye should count yerself lucky, laddie. Every last one oā the old fingers of mine thaā Iāve fed intae this hole ended up torn apart on the floor. I see he wants somethinā else out oā you entirely.ā A soft chuckle. "Ma father sent this one tae me anā heāll be happy tā know Iām takinā good care oā his wicked pet.ā
You looked down at a sharp tearing noise from yout tracksuit.
Remmick's hands, previously planted on the concrete on either side of your head, had changed.
Fingers had lengthened, nails grown out into thick black claws, curved and glossy and you could see the tendons standing out on the backs of them.
"Shh, darlin'. Jusā look at me now."
He had lifted one of those clawed hands and touched it, so lightly, to the collar of your tracksuit to tore through it, whole front of your top opened in one long ripping motion from collar to hem and the cold air of the cage hit your bare chest, nipples going instantly hard as you gasped and he made another one of those groaning purring sounds, lowering his head to your sternum and dragging his tongue up the whole length of it between your pecs, up your throat and under your jaw.
The tracksuit trousers went next in two swipes, one on each side. Seams parting and the fabric fell open as he shoved the ruined pieces of it down off your hips and thighs with those claws, now naked under him on the concrete and your skin was pebbling with cold.
Betrayed somewhere between the fourth and fifth lick of his tongue up your neck while he'd torn your clothes off, your cock was rising against your belly whether you wanted it or not.
Fangs threatened your skin for a full second before he bit, two points of them pressed against your skin and you had time to plead a āstopā and feel him smile against your throat before he sank them in.
A pair of hot needles going through the meat of you at the top of your shoulder near the neck and it was pure agony while he simply sucked greedily with his whole mouth clamped over the puncture, cheeks hollowing and his throat working as you could feel the blood pulling out of you in slow steady draws, each pull dragging some of your resistance out along with the blood.
Your hands, which had been shoving weakly at his shoulders, lost their strength. Your legs, which had been trying to kick, went soft. Your cock, appallingly, went full hard from the friction against his hard chest and he felt it against his abdomen through the thin dirty fabric of his tank top, moaning into your open neck at the feel of it.
"Thatās ma sweet boy, ye taste even better than ye smelled.ā He pulled back from your throat with a wet sucking sound and his lips were painted glossy red just like his eyes.
He looked drunk and happy as he grinned that fanged grin down at you and ducked his head to lick more aggressively at the wounds.
Shifting his weight back, still on all fours because he had to be as he reached down between your bodies and shoved his own trousers open with one clawed hand.
You couldn't see much from your angle but could absolutely feel it, though, when it came out, it dropped heavy and hot against the inside of your thigh and you felt the length of it as it dragged upward across your leg, ending much further up your body.
He was much too big.
One clawed hand went under your left knee and he lifted your whole leg up and back with no effort at all, folding you nearly in half as he ducked his head under your knee and shouldered your thigh up onto his shoulder and pinned it there with his jaw, other hand going between your legs and he gathered the viscous amount of drool on his chin that splattered with the copious amount of blood in his own palm to slick himself with two long strokes before lining up.
He pushed in and it hurt. stretch of it enormous, more than your body knew how to accommodate and he pushed steadily without stopping when you sobbed or tried to twist away, only bore down with his weight and pushed until the crown of him popped through the ring of muscles with a wet gasp of a sound, rest of him sliding in in one long unbroken thrust that seemed to go on for years.
You would have sworn you felt him in your throat by the time his hips met yours you could not draw breath.
He panted above while holding there, tongue coming out and dragged across his own bloody lips.
"Oh, darlinā, ye were made for this.ā
Then he began to move and did not start slow, pulling almost all the way out and drove back in one heavy slam as your whole body jolted against the concrete. He set a pace that was inhuman from the first stroke, wet slap of his hips against the back of your thighs echoing off the slabs of the cage. His cock dragged over your prostate on every out-stroke, some soft place your body had never known it had and every drag of it there lit a hot sick pulse of pleasure up your spine that you did not want and could not stop.
He shifted his weight, hooking his other arm under your other knee and hoisting that leg up too and then, still fully seated inside you, he lifted you off the concrete entirely.
He was on his knees and one hand because this cage youāll now share was too low for him to kneel up any higher and he had gathered you up against his chest with one enormous corded arm banded across your back.
Now pinned to him, chest to chest, your legs wrapped around his hips because they had nowhere else to be, face pressed against the sweat-damp thin fabric of his tank top over his sternum and he was holding you there suspended off the floor with the strength of one arm alone.
The other clawed hand was on the concrete for balance, biceps, where it curved against your back to hold you up, was as hard as the stone he was crouched on.
In that position he fucked you up, using the inhuman strength of his nature as one lift and drop you onto him while gravity did half the work and his hips snapping up did the other half, every drop of your body onto his cock drove him deeper than the last time, ramming the head of him square into your prostate, small broken noises from your mouth pouring into the wet fabric of his tank top, drool of your own gathering at the corner and soaking into the cloth.
āThat's ma sweet lad, take it, ye were made fer me cock." He was crooning over the top of your head and into the air of the cage, tipping his head down and biting the other side of your neck, fangs into new meat as he sucked and fucked in the same rhythm, one long deep draw for every deep thrust in and the unwanted pleasure in combination with him dragging your blood all folded together into one continuous overwhelming wave as you came his abdomen, only from the friction of your own hard cock trapped between your bodies along the relentless deep ramming of him in that one place.
Soaking the front of his tank top with your own spend and he growled against your throat with satisfaction without stopping, fucking you through and past it to dive into a strange numb burning place where every thrust hurt and felt good at the same time, softening cock of yours staying half-hard because it couldn't figure out how not to.
Beyond the stones your Lord was watching in a silence that had gone almost thoughtful and when Remmick finally tensed against you to let out a long shuddering groan, burying himself as deep as he could go, he filled you with a hot flood of him that seemed to have no end.
Remmick held you against him for a long moment, panting into your hair. His cock, still inside you, pulsed one last hot spurt before the tiara wearing man that trapped you in here said, in a bargaining voice, "Since Iāve been so generous. I was thinkinā A reward wouldnae go amiss, aye?ā
Remmick lifted his head, mouth scarlet all the way down to his chin as he looked toward the gap in the stones and back at you, still hitching up against his chest full of him.
āThat's only fair." He set you down on your hands and knees on the concrete, pulling slowly out of you as his spend followed after, a hot thick rush of it running down the insides of your thighs and pattering onto the stone and you could not lift your head.
Beyond the stones, there was a soft rustle before Jimmyās cock came through the gap, length of him jutting into the cage through the rhombus of shadow. Not as big or obscenely long as Remmick but thick and pale with a fat flushed head, an heavy vein running up the underside.
He'd worked himself half-hard already while watching and it stiffened further in the air of the cage as you looked at it.
"Come here, laddie,ā he said, lazy amused softness for a soon to come warm mouth. "Come put that pretty wee mouth o' yours where it belongs."
Remmick's clawed hand cradled the back of your skull violently, gathered up the base of your hair in his fingers, mindful of the claws at least as he began to move you forward across the concrete on your hands and knees, leaning down close to your ear as he did it and his breath was iron and copper while he whispered,
"Play the part now, darlinā. Aye? Be good for him bust mostly fer me. Just open that lovely mouth anā let him in, when Iāll get all me strength back froā yer blood anā have ye mine forever, weāll get out oā here. Promise on me kin.ā
He guided you to the gap and your face came level with your Lord's cock, very warm musk of him projecting on your face, faint tang of leather from where he'd been trapped in his trousers.
Jimmy's hand came through the gap enough to close on the side of your jaw, thumb hooking into the corner of your mouth to pry it open and Remmick guided you forward so that your Lord began to fed himself into your mouth.
He filled it right up, head of him pushing past your teeth and sliding over your tongue and hitting the back of your throat as you gagged but Jimmy made a satisfied sound and did not pull back, even pushed a little harder until your lips were pressed to fully against his groin..
"Fuck," he breathed. "Oh, aye, thatās it. Yeāve a mouth on ye like a wee angel, laddie.ā
Behind you, Remmick lined himself back up because he didn't tire the way normal men do. He fitted the head of his cock back to the mess he'd made of you and pushed back in, this time your body took him with less protest because it had learned and he sank home in one long thrust, letting out a groan and setting his clawed hands on your hips to start fucking you again.
The second one was worse because you were sore now and the drag of him on the overstimulated walls of you was too much, every thrust jolted a hot bolt of pain-pleasure up your spine that you could not process.
Better because every thrust in also drove your face forward into your Lord's crotch and his cock deeper into your throat.
Slam in from behind, face into Jimmy's pubic hair.
Slam out, choke back off.
Your throat was not built for it as you gagged around your Lord's cock when it went further down than it had to go.
"Thaās ma sweet good laddie. Dāye ken how long Iāve wanted ye as a wee cock warmer? Always thought yeāll look perfect kneelinā between ma legs wiā ma cock parked in yer throat.ā
Remmick's clawed hand slid up your side and traced your ribs, palming the flat of your back before he leaned down over you, still fucking you, setting his mouth to the meat of your shoulder blade and he bit again.
The world tilted sideways the more he sucked greedily and it was only Remmick's grip on your hips to keep you upright at all.
All the constant assaults on your body lighting up every nerve and flooding your blood stream with more supplies that went straight into Remmickās mouth.
Remmick's rhythm picked up, he was close again. Vampires might have endless stamina but they still finished and the sight of you like this, gagging on Jimmy's cock with his hand forcing your jaw open, seemed to be pushing him toward it fast. His thrusts turned into slams, each one moved your body forward a full inch and shoved your Lord's cock down your throat until you couldn't breathe through your nose because his pubic hair was pressed to your nostrils.
Each retreat gave you one hollow gasp of air before the next slam.
Jimmy gave a low grunt through his teeth and he shoved himself forward through the gap as deep as he could go, emptying himself down your throat in three long hot pulses. You had no choice but swallow while he moaned above as you felt the last of it painting onto your tongue as he pulled slowly back.
He didn't fully pull out but rested the softening head of himself against your open lips and stroked your cheek.
Remmick was right behind him, two more shattering slams into your body and then he tensed, burying himself and unleashing another flood inside you even more than the first and he groaned into the meat of your shoulder around his own fangs.
He held possessively, clawed hand splayed possessively over your lower belly where the swell of him was present.
Beyond the gap, your Lord let out a slow contented breath and finally slid his softening cock back out of your mouth. A thick rope of spit and spend stretched between your bottom lip and the tip of him before breaking and dropping to the concrete.
You heard the rustle of him tucking himself away, soft creak of leather as he stood up on the other side of the stones.
"Well," he said and his voice had that lovely lazy amused voice, "thatās me for tonight. That was really grand. Iāve a camp tae get back to, loyal fingers oā mine.ā A soft, fond laugh. "Iāll be back tomorrow night. Aye? I wanna know everythinā bout me father anā why he sent ye down here. Anā laddie, when I come back, I want tae find yer arse presented tae me right up against these stones. If I have tae come round an' arrange ye maself, I'll no' be as gentle as I was tonight. D'ye understand?"
You made a weak sound back.
āGood lad,ā he said softly.
His footsteps moved off across the plaster dust of the store's floor, crooked door creaked but he stopped to focus on the noises from the trapped place you were stuck with, hearing hissing and small plead from your mouth that shattered into moans, followed by the noises of skin slapping against sweaty skin as Remmick began to fuck you again, grunting into a new wound he made with his fangs as blood exploded in his mouth.
A mostly self indulgent little thing because I had a plot bunny early this morning that would not leaveā¦
Notes: 18+mdni, explicit, older!knight Remmick x submissive male reader, riding, drool, anal sex, monsterfucking, teratophilia, mention of knotting, implications of free use, Remmick is a lazy fuck in his downtime, vampire drool as an aphrodisiac
The credit goes to: @thlaylisden for knight!Remmick and the silver Fox that is old knight!Remmick.ā¤ļø
Remmick is more than willing to just lie back and let you show him how much you love his dick. While you hop like a bunny on it, he gets a perfect view of himself sliding in and out of your perfect hole. "Tha's a good lad." He purrs as his gaze flicks up your face.
"Look at y'. Feels good doesn't it?" He asks as he lifts his hips up to give you the sensation of him dragging along your inner walls. Letting you feel every ridge and every vein of him. How deep he is inside your guts. "So good." You respond in a cockdrunk slur which makes a laugh rumble in his chest.
"Thought so. Feels so good y'll let me bend y' over anytime I want." And he knows you'll be more than willing. Wether it be in his chambers, out in the stables, or even in the dining hall in view of the servants. But he wouldn't let just anyone witness what was his.
There's drool running from the corners of his mouth. He's already fed you a good amount of it. Made all the sensations feel so much better. One of his hands moves from behind his head to absently scratch at his belly. He could watch you do this all day and night.
Though wether your body could last that long was doubtful.
One of your bounces gets a bit too eager and he slips free. It's jarring feeling the cool air on his dick after being all warm and snug inside of you. He takes a hold of one of your hips to keep you still. The other lines himself back up with your hole. "Jus gonna slide back home." And then he sighs in contentment as your warmth envelops him again.
"Alright, little hare, jus' be a bit mindful of how high yer hoppin'. There y' go. Nice n' easy. This dick's not goin' anywhere. Knot's not even started swellin' yet." He sees your cock twitch at the mention of his knot. "Hm? Me lad wants my knot?
"Well then, he'll just have to work for it."
Thank youuu for tagging me @savinggracee, @mrs-nonchalant I would definitely tag you guys too !! ā£ļø
if you see this or are tagged in it, tag a couple of your favorite mutuals/blogs and let them know you appreciate seeing them on your dash!
@samwspn @maverist @severedlamb @sturnsfavgirl @cybersturn @girrlsoinlove @rafesdaydream @delilahsturniolo - and of course saurrrrr many more I literally love ALL my mooties ā¤ļø - no pressure, just for the funsies and to spread some love !
thank you so much for tagging me @pinkdoeweirdo ā¤ļø even though iām not in the akotsk or hotd fandom, iām still in love with your vibe and your gorgeous aesthetics !
i love ALL my mooties, but the ones i love interacting with the most are @bluesycatharsis @orqhideia @sinfulteeth @poison-babeyy @ocnnellz @gothlula @cuntbitchandthebottlemen !
thank youuuu, my lovely fifi!! š i think you're fully aware that i absolutely love your fics & your profile aesthetic š«¶ it's so heavenly beautiful š„°
TYY FOR THE TAGS @bluesycatharsis @iceemochaa and @bleedingsunlight šš
literally so many talented ppl on here š«¶š¾ if youāre my moot and not tagged, itās bc i donāt want to blow up your inbox with multiple mentions I PROMISE i love yāall too !!
@bluesycatharsis @iceemochaa @bleedingsunlight you guys are getting tagged again š¤ @remmickstalker @the-lilted-tune @opaleine @sinfulteeth @dariarot @h3r3t1c @lestatress @novar3ads (blowing up jokerās phone tho)
THANK YOU @flixpii You know I love you MWAH šš
Appreciation tags for people that mean a lot to me: (If we're mutuals and I forgot you, then it's because I'm dumb I'm sorry)
@flixpii -- our chats in the discord are so fun, you inspire me so much with your worldbuilding and writing and I look up to you a lot. When you said you would beta 'Casket' I about died. KISSES POOKIE
@keeperskey -- the first person I interacted with in this fandom, a good friend, and an amazing writer. Honestly, my comfort person, whom I love vv much
@remmickstalker, @leosbones, @cleucas, @weavingduck, @nimisardenter -- the best and funniest patrick fuckers I've ever known. You guys are my found family in the dd patrick thread. (Special thanks to leo for being as down bad insane about pathetic patrick as I am) 100000 smooches for all of you
@lefteagleblizzard -- For supporting every single one of my works!! And for being SUCH a good writer omg, your fics always get me hot. Your comments always brighten my day <333 (Also looking forward to my request in October ššš Evil Patrick I need you so bad)
@spikedfearn and @madkingcrowley -- for hyping me up so much on the website. Allison you are so sweet telling me all about how you and your wife are in awe of what I've done š„¹ and Rosie you are a legend. You've gathered together this community that i love so much
@lulaaaaaaw and @senselessviolets -- my dark content, dead dove lovers in arms. Lulaw you were the one of the first people to read my silly little dark fics and hype me up. And Jen your fics are amazing, you truly have some of the most devious delicious ideas >:]
@thlaylisden and @h3r3t1c and @nightlyginkgo and @cuckmarston -- My talented artist friends !! I truly admire each and every one of your guys's works. Thlay your comments on my work make me feel so talented and special šš I genuinely cannot wait to finish this collab (IF I CAN GET OVER BEING SICK RAHHHHHH) Aydee I know you're having a rough time with art rn, but it's so so good every time I see it. Nightlyginkgo I know you're new to Tumblr but your comments are so detailed and lovely and I can't wait for you to get more attention!! Your work is very good!!! <3 and cuckmarston I love love your pixel-ish style, the monochromatic pallete and the way you draw Jack is so delicious...
@perfume-and-oatmilk -- your writing is genuinely awe-inspiring, jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I love love chatting with you and being insane over remmick and patrick, ugh my two faves. I hope writing heaven is here isn't giving you too much trouble š It's gonna be great!!
@scannainscanrula -- you're so cool in my eyes, when I got the response from you that I did for my artwork (as well as making it your pfp!!! ) I was so stoked. I read rockstar remmick on AO3 long before I joined the community so your writing has a special place in my heart
@theabhartachsbride -- one of first and most avid supporters!! You really gave me such a confidence boost on my first fic ever and that means so so much to me. One of the reasons I like to post dark fics is cause I know you'll see it!
@bloodsuckingfiends, @scrprints, @foxtufts @loverssalvation-- Genuinely some of my favorite fics come from these guys.........
@iceemochaa, @sinfulteeth, @gravecleric0900 -- I LOVE GOONING IN THE DISCORD WITH YOU FREAKS RAHHHHHHHH. So much fun, you guys are insane, crazy, and need to be locked up (affectionate).
@uncxltured, @rogers060967, @rockyroadtodick, @bluesycatharsis, @esclermonde, @poison-babeyy -- I don't know you guys too well, but I always see you guys liking my stuff and I appreciate it very much!!
Thank you so freaking much for the tag @the-lilted-tune and for all the kind words bestie! So sweet you gave me diabetes
Beside you bestie, Iāll take the chance to also thank all the people I got to know in this long journey here: @unini @inhumanshadows @theabhartachsbride @scrprints @keeperskey @gayaristocrat @reveryfics @viennav1nndictive @spikedfearn
Summary: so much time has passed and you spent it all now together with him, tied with the string that connected you to him in endless ways. Only now you began to figure out all the things he had done for you.
Tags: Male Reader. No Use of Y/N. Lord Ethan Winters AU. Dark Ethan Winters. Possessive Ethan Winters. Obsessive behavior. Protective Ethan Winters. Corruption. Infected Reader. Mold Infection. Emotional Dependency. Unhealthy Attachment. Jealousy. Fluff. Forced marriage. Smut. Semi-public sex. Top Ethan Winters. Bottom male reader. Size kink (very mold-enhanced size). Anal sex. Overstimulation. Riding. Gentle dom Ethan Winters.
That was the time it passed when you counted the marks Ethan had scratched into the inside of the pantry doorframe, one small notch for every month you had been his and the last one had gone in three days ago with the tip of a paring knife while he stood behind you with his chin hooked over your shoulder and his arms locked around your waist, mouth pressed warm against the hinge of your jaw the entire time you were carving.
The house had changed with you in it, maybe not outside but inside though, it was warmer.
The ruins around the area had gotten a strange sort of beauty since you stopped being afraid of them.
When standing at the kitchen window some mornings with your palms wrapped around a mug while looking out across the yard at the neighbor's collapsed roof with mold ropes bulging along its base, pale gold light that came up over the ridge and caught the pulsing filaments causing you to think about the fact that a lot of people had died on this piece of ground because of the tired man currently frying eggs behind you.
The thought would not, somehow, undo the softness in your chest.
A part that scared you a little when you sat with it long enough.
Ethan had come up out of that grief slow and in stages as you had watched every one of them.
He laughed easier now.
In the beginning of that first month after the woods he would still catch himself in the middle of laughing and cut the sound off short, followed by a flicker of guilt in his face before he covered it back up.
By the third month he was not doing that anymore, starting the laughing.
By the ninth month he had gotten downright charming about it, come up behind you at the sink maybe and slide both arms around your ribs, pressing his mouth to the back of your neck and murmur something absolutely filthy into the hairs there just to feel you jump, then laugh warm into your shoulder while you swatted at his forearm with a wet sponge.
He touched you constantly, every time you came within arm's reach of him his hand would find some part of you without conscious decision on his end that you could tell, big hand splaying across the whole span of your hip when you were bent over reaching for a book on the low shelf, thumb rubbing an absent circle at the hinge of your jaw when you were sitting on the couch next to him reading and he was just watching you read.
Same regarding kisses.
Not always the deep kind, though there was plenty of that. More often it was the smaller ones, open mouth pressed to the crown of your head when he walked past your chair, a warm dry press to the corner of your mouth when you handed him his coffee, slow one to the inside of your wrist when he took your hand across the table, flat of his mouth against the pulse behind your ear when he settled into bed behind you at night.
He loved leaving marks on you and was not subtle about it either, a bite here or there at the join of your shoulder, small red half-moons of teeth along the tendon at the side of your neck, then they had gotten larger.
Purple bruises the size of a thumbprint blooming in constellations down the front of your throat where his mouth had sucked hard enough to break the small vessels under the skin, on the soft flesh at the inside of your bicep where the sleeve of any short-sleeved shirt would leave them just visible or even on the muscle at the top of your pectoral in a dark ring shape where he had taken his time.
He preferred the ones that showed.
You had figured that out around month four when he had spent a patient half-hour one Sunday morning working a hickey into the exact spot at the front of your throat where your collar would not cover it, and had said, low and pleased, mine, before diving right back in.
You had not been let out of that bed until three in the afternoon.
He would tell you that when he had first started coming down into the village to trade with the Duke, the villagers would sometimes yell at him various things.
Now, after a year of you at his elbow every trip, they did not even look at all.
One night when you were getting taken back by the Duke in his kart, Ethan had perhaps drank a bit too much wine and he had his face in the crook of your neck laughing quietly, breath heavy of the beverage he enjoyed also sharing with you.
In that drunk state of his, the Duke felt the need to engage in a conversation and told you that one of the men from the Duke's caravan was gone, no one had figure out where.
A man who you were afraid was one of those who had gazed at you right after shouting something at you and your husband.
A kiss on the side of your head had grabbed your attention again and he rubbed his thumb over your hip right before falling asleep in about ninety seconds with his face still pressed into the crook of your neck.
You would lie awake for a while longer some nights, feeling the slow heavy rise and fall of his chest against your back and think about the fact that the sweetest man you had ever loved would probably tear another human being's spine out of their body with his bare hand for the crime of standing too close to you.
Maybe you could do something similar as well, the powers had come in over the same year in stages.
The spores had been the first sign, soft gold drift that came off you in the air that you could not see but everyone else could.
The next morning you both worked together on how to let you feel them.
You would sit on the rug in front of the fire with your legs crossed and your hands turned palm-up on your knees, Ethan sitting across from you with his own palms turned up and his eyes half-closed while telling you, very quietly, to just breathe and notice what was in the air.
The mycelia had shown up next.
You had woken up one morning in late spring with a soft rope of pale white filament coiled around your right forearm from wrist to elbow, resting there gently and still connected at its base to a fine white thread that ran down over the side of the mattress, disappearing into the floorboards.
Ethan had rolled over and put his cheek down on your shoulder and looked at the tendril, grinning so wide his eyes crinkled.
He had spent that whole day showing you how to move them.
He was, it turned out, a endlessly patient teacher.
You had broken three lamps that first week, cracked the plaster in the hallway in two separate places, pulled a shelf out of the pantry wall entirely by trying to fetch a jar of jam without getting up off the couch.
Ethan had laughed so hard he had to sit down on the floor before he had gotten up, wiped his eyes, kissed you on the cheek and shown you how to fix the floorboard by growing a soft raft of mycelia up under it from below to knit the wood back into place.
Every time you broke something now he would fix it with you in the same way, hand curled over the back of your hand to guide the work, mouth at your ear murmuring the small corrections.
Your first creature had been the size of a car and had come out looking like nothing so much as a very large white spider with seven crude 'leg' appendages, a vertical mouth and one large red eye.
Truly an abomination that still got extremely close and crawled over your body, making action that resembled those a domestic animal does to show affection.
Mold, who was still around and still tilting his head at things, had gone through some changes as well.
His white had gained by the year, now covering him almost entirely, blade arm had stayed white and more of what could have possibly been his previous human face was now showing, albeit in a way grotesque and twisted way.
He was tuning to you.
The spores had been the other thing.
They had gotten worse, or better, depending which of you was asked.
Taking their signal from you ad caring a small piece of your interior weather out into the air around you, placing it into whoever breathed it, not dangerous in the ordinary sense but just contagious.
Which, as Ethan said when he realized at as well, was fine when you were sad because at worst it made him sad along with you and he was already pretty good at being sad; fine when you were happy because he liked being happy along with you.
The problem, he had said, was when you wereā¦ aroused.
Those minuscule spores would go in the air to catch him and hit whatever part of his brain that would make him understand, very clearly and in no uncertain terms, that his husband needed to be fucked immediately.
Preferably against the nearest available surface.
He had figured out this last part the first time ever and then he had rolled you underneath him and demonstrated for about three hours.
You had, over the year, worked out that you could to some extent control it.
The trouble was that he had gotten so good at making you fail at controlling it that most days it did not matter what you had figured out.
His tolerance had grown too, over the year, which had helped in the sense that he could now be in the same room with you for more than forty minutes at a stretch without simply hauling you into his lap and, functionally, had not helped at all because the tolerance seemed to only exist in the sense of him being able to walk around the house without immediate action.
Which brought you to today.
Both of you awake late, sun through the curtains a shade paler than usual because it had snowed overnight and Ethan had already been awake behind you with his chest along your back, arm heavy over your ribs and his mouth on the back of your neck making slow soft dragging kisses along the small hairs at your nape.
He had known you were awake because your breathing changed and he had said, āmornin' honey,ā and had bitten very gently at the top of your spine where the vertebra sat closest to the skin.
Which had put the spores in the air and further drove him into putting his hand under the hem of the shirt you were wearing which was, of course, his shirt.
Kneeling between your thighs, mouth working slow filthy patterns along the top of your ribcage while both of his big hands roamed up under the shirt to skate over your chest.
He had even put his usual gold jacket on because he planned on starting breakfast, but, of course, he had not made it back off the bed since.
Now, his mouth was on yours, tongue very deep in there while working along the inside of your teeth with unhurried expertise.
He was flat on his back on the mattress and you were sprawled on top of him with the whole length of your body along his, palms braced on the shelf of his chest through the soft canvas of the jacket.
The jacket was smooth under your fingers, fine flat grain that canvas gets after enough wear that it goes almost silky and under it you could feel the hard flat plate of his pectoral, small twitch of muscles every time you shifted your weight and pressed a fraction harder against him.
One hand was cradling your jaw at the side, palm broad and hot along the whole length of your cheekbone from earlobe to chin, thumb making a slow dragging stroke back and forth over the corner of your mouth.
The other hand had migrated down your spine over the course of the last few minutes and was now spread wide across the top of your hip, thumb hooked in the waistband of the loose sleep pants you had pulled on at some point after he had first gotten you naked and then had, apparently, decided he wanted you naked all over again.
He whimpered into your mouth, small soft broken sounds that came up out of the back of his throat when your tongue slid the right way against his or when you did that thing you had figured out with the flat of your tongue along the roof of his mouth, every time one of those sounds came out of him a fresh burst of gold went off in the air around your heads and he made another one, worse, as his hips pushed up harder.
His hand at your hip tightened, other one sliding from your jaw around to the back of your neck and cupping there, fingers spread wide up into the hair at your nape, holding your head where he wanted it while he kissed you deeper.
At some point, you had stopped breathing. Something you had noticed only when your lungs didnāt do that burning pain sensation.
He would open a string in your chest just a fraction and he push a careful piece of himself into you along it and the parts of you that would ordinarily have started to complain about the lack of air would just go quiet and pleasant while you would sit there in his mouth for as long as he wanted you there without any protest from the rest of your body.
You only figured out he was doing it when the lack of air would hit you all at once in a rush between blurred vision and chest expanding sharp against his, breath tearing in through your nose in one long shocked drag.
"Sorry, sorry, honeyā" His voice was breathless too, a rasped whisper puffed straight into your mouth, both of his eyes half-lidded and glassy.
The back of his knuckles came up and cradled your cheek. "I'm sorry, I got carried away."
Forehead against forehead, breath coming just as fast as yours hot and fast against your open mouth and there was gold drifting between your faces so thick you could almost see it now without focusing, a soft bright haze that pulsed with the shared beat of your two hearts.
"Would be pretty funny dyin' from a kiss." you rasped, breath still ragged and he laughed.
It came out breathless and warm, puffing a whole warm gust of air over your face and neither of you managed to actually get away from the other's mouth for more than a second at a stretch.
His lips would brush yours in a small chaste peck, then pull an inch off and come right back in another one and every time you tried to get a full breath in during one of the pull-offs he would just come back and kiss you again.
"Ethanā¦"
"Mm."
"Air."
"Right, right." He kissed you again anyway and you laughed against his mouth while trying to lever yourself up off his chest with your palms flat on the canvas and he made a small unhappy sound at the back of his throat, both of his arms coming up and locking around your waist before lifting his back to pull the two of you up into a sitting position with him underneath and you now pressed flush to the front of his chest with your knees on either side of his hips.
His mouth found the corner of your jaw, then the soft hollow at the top of your neck where the pulse was jumping fast under the skin, back over every inch of face he had already covered, warm and unhurried.
"Ethan, do we really have to go today?"
"Yes."
"Canāt we just stay in here anā" He kissed the corner of your mouth to shut you up.
The letter had come in yesterday by a crow that thumped down on the windowsill in the kitchen, a black envelope with black wax sealing it and Ethan had taken it out of the bird's beak with a small tired huff.
He had read the letter twice and then you watched him fold the letter back up, tuck it under his mug and lean his elbows on the table, pinch the bridge of his nose with two fingers for about eight seconds.
A meeting with all the Lords and Miranda for today in the afternoon.
āShe wants you there too, sweetheart.ā
You thought about that
for a moment before hooking your arms around his neck on his broad shoulders and looking up at him to ask, āwhy does she want me?ā
He had shrugged, a small helpless roll of his shoulder that did not entirely match the calm of his face. āBecause you're a Lord now, honey.ā
Which had been mostly true.
The letter had said, in Miranda's neat pointed hand, that a meeting was called and all five Lords were to be in attendance, Ethan should come prepared to discuss the northern quadrant.
It had not mentioned you at all.
Ethan had not, technically, lied about that. He had just neglected to mention that you had not been mentioned.
The letter was still under his mug on the kitchen table and if you had wanted to you could have, by now, gone down and read it yourself. But you had not, because you trusted him.
His mouth was on the underside of your jaw again and you sighed and let your head tip back to give him more of your throat, he made a small pleased sound and worked his way down along the tendon at the side of your neck and settled in over the top of your collarbone where he had already left a mark two days ago that was still healing.
He bit down on it again to make you draw in a small sharp breath.
"You're my husband and if Iām going, you're going as well and Miranda knows that."
He tipped his head back to look up at you, jaw tilted and eyes half-lidded already starting to glow.
His hands slid down under the waistband of the sleep pants and cupped both of your ass cheeks under it, palms wide and warm as he pulled you tighter against the front of him so that the hard shape of him under the denim rocked up between the cheeks of your ass through two layers of cloth. "Plus, I donāt like the idea of you alone in here."
You made a small involuntary sound and his eyes glowed brighter, both of his hands squeezing at once and dragging you forward against him hard and you had to plant both palms against the top of his shoulders to keep from getting fully rolled underneath him again.
His mouth stayed pressed flat against the skin at the base of your neck and did not move for a second, feeling the small warm exhale of him against your collarbone.
Both hands coming up out of the back of the sleep pants and settling at the small of your back, palms flat and possessive.
Then his arms came up and locked around you fully, both palms pressing flat against your shoulder blades from behind, pulling you flush to his chest with your face tucked into the side of his neck and his own face buried in your hair.
You tilted your head to press a kiss to the side of his neck, right under his jaw where stubble was thinnest.
"Besides, you knew what you were signing up for."
"I did not sign up for this. I was press-ganged."
"Sure, sure." He pulled your palm off his mouth and pressed a kiss to the inside of your wrist. "That's why you're on my lap right now? Real convincing, honey."
"They tell scary stories about me in the village now, you know that? The Duke told me that."
He froze for exactly one second before laughing so hard he had to drop his forehead down onto your shoulder and shake with it, whole chest bouncing under you, both of his arms locking tight around your waist to keep from falling over sideways with the force of it while you sat there on his lap qnd thinking very calmly, that you loved this ridiculous horrible man more than you had ever loved anything in your life.
"They actually do?" he wheezed. "Oh my God, honey." He was gasping now, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand.
He collapsed backward on the mattress laughing and pulled you down with him as you went with a soft startled sound to land flat on his chest and he wrapped both arms around your waist, rolling you onto your side against him and pressing his face into your hair.
You shoved him halfheartedly in the shoulder but he did not budge.
"I'm not scary," you said, muffled into his throat. āMiranda only knows whatever they say about me.ā
"Baby. Sweetheart. Light of my life, reason I get up in the morning."
"Ethan."
"Have you seen the things you can pull out of the ground when you're in a mood?"
"That was one time only."
"Sweetheart, you made a thing yesterday that had seven legs that big even I was a little concerned."
"Well it wasn't for you."
"That is not the reassuring statement you think it is."
You laughed into his throat and he kissed the top of your head.
"You are," he murmured, low and warm, mouth against your hair, "the scariest thing on this side of the mountain, sweetheart. I could not be more proud."
Then, quieter, mouth still against the top of your head, in a slightly different voice, "You know what I bet they say?"
His mouth was against the shell of your ear now, warm and low, "I bet some men tell their wives, āoh, that man of Lord Winters, he is so good to his Lord, he does anything his husband tells him to without a word because he was made for him.ā"
He was kissing your temple, warm and slow, between each phrase.
Your face was hot, gold in the air thickening.
"You areā" your throat had gone dry, "horrible."
"I'm honest, is what I am." He kissed the corner of your mouth and hummed, low and pleased, as you could feel him hard again through the front of his jeans against your hip.
You put your palm flat on his chest and pushed lightly.
"Ethan, the Duke is probably outside waiting for us."
He sighed, puff of hot air right against your mouth and his forehead came down to rear on yours as he closed his eyes.
"You are right," he said, eyes still closed. "Later then?" His voice had dropped into a small warm pleading register that lived at the very bottom of him, tone he only ever used with you. "Please, honey? Continue this later?"
You hummed a āyesā back at him because you were, of course, already kissing him again.
"Good, good, okay, good."
He kissed you one more time, hard and long enough to make your knees soften even though you were sitting down and then he sat up in one smooth motion with you still in his arms, standing off the bed with you against his chest like you weighed nothing at all.
You made a small startled sound as he carried you across the room, deposited you gently on your feet in front of the dresser and dropped one more kiss on the top of your head.
When the Duke saw you coming, he smiled widely as usual, someone who had known you both a full year and watched a great many small foolish moments pass between you and had, professionally, chosen not to comment on any of them.
"Ahhh," he said, in that low rich voice that always seemed to come out of him with the ease of a man perfectly settled in his skin, "there they are, the Lords Winters. Fashionably late as ever, my friends."
"Not late," Ethan said cheerful, hand still tight around yours as he came down the porch steps. "Right on time."
"Right on the time you said you'd be out, perhaps," the Duke agreed placidly, "which is, of course, not at all the time I have been sitting here in the snow. Though, I could never be displeased with the two of you."
"You said it right before you asked us to please not put another one of the mold creatures in the back of the kart."
The Duke's smile went a fraction wider.
"Ahhh," he said, tilting his head to the side, whole broad face crinkling with the smile, "you remember. I am touched, my friend, truly. But you must understand, this was said in the spirit of a general policy, not, of course, as a complaint. I say only what I have observed."
Ethan was laughing behind you, hand coming to the small of your back, palm broad through the wool of the sweater as he guided you up onto the little running board of the kart with the other hand under your elbow.
"Up you go, honey."
"I can climb up on a kart, Ethan."
"I know you can."
"To the meeting, then," the large man said grandly, "and let us all pray, most fervently, that no small white creatures leap into the cargo hold along the way."
Ethan pulled you tight against his side under the blanket and pressed his mouth to the top of your hair.
The kart ride to the village was, in any technical sense of the word, a public journey.
There were two dray-things pulling it, one Duke driving it in one long stretch of open road running under the runners and one grey sky hanging overhead where any passing crow.
None of this, from what you could tell, factored into your husband's thinking at any point.
You had gotten about a hundred yards down the ridge road before Ethan's arm at your waist had tightened and pulled you closer against his side, mouth finding the top of your ear while his other hand had come up out of his lap and settled palm-down high on your thigh.
You had looked sideways at him and he had looked back with the softest, most innocent expression, mouth slightly curved and eyes a little sleepy.
Inside your head there was a whole small mental catalog of the things he could do to you now, small applications of the string between the two of you that he had spent the year figuring out how to work.
There was one he was working right now, warm tug that lived behind your sternum, gone a fraction warmer and more insistent than usual, a hand at the front of your chest gently pulling you in the direction of him and every time he pressed his mouth to your temple or the corner of your jaw the tug got sharper.
Every time you leaned into him in response the tug loosened in what your body was starting to understand, on some pavlovian level below thinking, as a reward.
He was, in short, training you and probably did not think of it in those terms.
He probably would have been horrified if you had put it in those terms out loud.
One of your hands had found its way under the flap of his jacket and settled palm-flat against the wool of his pullover over his heart.
"Better," he murmured, low and warm.
Every kiss he had put on you between the yard and the village had also been amplified.
He had figured out that if he opened the string, whatever nerve ending was being touched would fire twice as bright as it ought to for the same amount of contact. M
An ordinary sweet husband kiss became instead a small hot blooming point of heat that lit up half your scalp and made your breath catch.
By the time the runners of the kart were crunching down the last slope into the outskirts of the village proper you were breathing through your mouth in careful drags and had one hand curled tight in the front of his pullover under the jacket.
His arm stayed around your waist all the way through the gate and frozen fountain below the bridge.
The meeting room, when you got to it, was the same one you had woken up a little over a year ago now on the floor in the middle of it, cold and confused with a fresh healed wound under your ribs that you had not yet understood.
Now the same room had the four of them in it and Miranda standing at the head where the light from the high collapsed ceiling fell coldest.
Lady Dimitrescu was in her chair, massive high-backed thing carved out of some old dark, made large enough to hold her comfortably because she was, of course, nine and a half feet tall. Long thin cigarette in one gloved hand and her golden eyes came up over the top of the cigarette when you and Ethan came through the door.
Heisenberg was slouched at the other side with his boots propped on the side of his chair, black sunglasses on despite the interior lighting, dust-grey hair falling over the collar of his coat, a hammer laying on his shoulder.
Just like her, he tilted his head when he saw you, corner of his mouth twitching a fraction.
Donna was in the corner in her lace, veil down, silent as always with Angie on her lap.
The little porcelain thing in the wedding dress turned her head toward the door on a small and she shrieked, delighted, "OOH, finally the NEW ONE came!"
Moreau, hunched at his little section of the room, twisted his lumpy wet head up on the long crooked column of his neck and stared at you with milky eyes.
There was, first, the small sound of feathers displacing air and then the top of the room went briefly dark with a shape of many black wings, a cloud of crows was in front of you where Miranda soon took shape. metal bird-cage mask covering the whole of her face, from behind which her voice came out slightly distorted.
Two black feathers spiraled slowly down from over her shoulder and settled on the flagstones between your boots and hers.
"Ethan," she said. "And."
Small pause.
"Sweet boy." Her masked head tilted a fraction toward you and through the metal slats of the birdcage you could see the grey of her eyes without any warmth in them at all.
"You've brought him."
"Yes, Mother." Ethan's arm tightened at your waist, other hand going into his jacket pocket. "Figured it was about time. He's a Lord now, feels like it's fair to have him in the room for the actual business, doesn't it?"
Soā¦ you havenāt actually being invited?
Miranda's masked head stayed tilted for another second, then she made a small soft sound and stepped back.
"Very well," she said and turned, robe brushing the flagstones. "It is your household, Ethan. Bring who you like. Heisenberg."
Heisenberg at the side moved his head an inch.
"A seat," Miranda said without looking back. "For the newcomer."
You saw Heisenberg watch her go from behind the sunglasses and saw the corner of his mouth twitch, ghost of a scoff caught and swallowed before it could get out of him.
"Yes, Mother," he said, drawled out and perfectly flat.
Then his hands came up out of his lap and he did not so much as look at the room around him, simply lifted one gloved palm and turned it up and both his hands lit up with a soft steady azure crackle along the inside of the gloves.
Every piece of iron in the room and in about fifteen seconds of patient assembly, all those ribbons of iron braided themselves together in the air and lowered themselves and formed, piece by piece, a tall high-backed throne.
Straight sharp lines to it, no curves anywhere it did not need them, arms flat and wide with a small groove down the middle of each, back an interlaced lattice of iron that echoed, in an entirely different material, the branching mold of Ethan's chair beside it.
"There you go, kid," he said, mild. "Try not to break it."
"Thank you, Lord Heisenberg," you managed out loud to the room at large and it came out slightly rougher than you meant.
"Don't mention it."
You let Ethan walk you to the two chairs at the middle of the long side. He settled himself in his own with a small proprietary flop, one arm along the back of the throne beside his so that his palm ended up cupping the corner of your shoulder before you had even sat down and grinned up at you.
"Or," Ethan whispered cheerfully, patting his thigh with the other hand, "there's always this."
You could feel, through the string in your chest, the hot flare of him under the joke, little bright edge of possessiveness that had been sitting under his ribs since Miranda had said sweet boy and had not really cooled off since.
Simply grinning at his joke, you sat down in the iron throne and Ethan made a small performative wounded sound at the back of his throat.
Thus iron throne was cold under your palms and along the back of your thighs through the trousers, but the moment you settled fully into it, something in you responded and pale filaments of mycelia unfurled out of your palms, out through the small openings in the weave of the iron and began to thread themselves into the lattice of the throne, filling the various gaps.
By the time it was done the throne no longer looked purely of iron but a fine white lichen had been growing on for a long time, delicate along the interlaced back, thick along the arms where your hands rested, pulsing soft and slow in time with your heart.
Pulses that matched Ethan's.
Miranda, at the head of the room, was already moving on.
"Very well," she was saying in the same flat light voice, "since we are all in attendance now, let us begin. There are, as always, matters of the village to attend to first."
Alcina exhaled a thin blue plume of smoke.
"Mother," she said and her voice, when she used it in this room, was rich and unhurried, "as I have mentioned in my last three correspondences, I require additional maids. I am currently down to seven functional, Mother. In a castle of that size."
She waved one long gloved hand vaguely at the wall around her.
"Then perhaps," Heisenberg said mildly, without opening his eyes behind the sunglasses, "try to stop actually eating them constantly."
Alcina's golden eyes slid down to reach the manās height.
"Quiet now with those unwelcome thoughts of yours."
Miranda's mask tilted an inch.
"Alcina, I will make note of your request. Karl, you will keep your commentary to yourself."
You had, by this point, stopped listening because Ethan's voice was in your head.
āYou look real good in that chair, honey.ā
You did not turn your head and kept your eyes forward on Miranda's masked face where she stood at the head of the room.
āThanks.ā You aimed the thought at the string the way he had taught you to.
āI mean it. Real good. I don't love that it was him that made it but the finished product I'm not gonna argue with.ā
āEthan, focus.ā
āI am extremely focused. You have no idea of it, you should see what I'm focused on.ā
feeling the warm laugh of him along the string and, through the arm he had slung over the back of your throne, the way the pads of his fingers were making a small drag across the top of your shoulder over the sweater in a pattern that had nothing at all to do with the ongoing conversation about maids.
āStill, just so you know, if at any point during this you want to relocate from that chair to a much warmer chair situated right here on my lap, that option is on the table.ā
āSure thing, dear.ā
He was quiet for a beat.
āYou know,ā he said and now the tone had shifted a fraction into something pouty and dramatic, injured because you were, in fact, feeding him a fraction less attention than his stated goal, āyou know, honey, I distinctly recall a certain individual telling me one night that my lap was his favorite seat in the house.ā
āā¦you are being unbearable.ā
āAm I wrong?ā
āā¦it was late at night and I did not know what I was saying.ā
There was a small pause on his end, mental equivalent of a smug hum.
āSweetheart, if I recall correctly, you were saying it while you were riding me.ā
āEthan!ā
āYou had been going at it forā¦ what was it, two hours by that point? Two and a half?ā
āOh my God!ā You could feel your ears going hot.
Miranda was talking about assault of lycans and where to keep them while you were looking straight at her mask and pretending, with every muscle in your face, of listening to her.
Your cock, trapped in the front of the trousers, twitched. You crossed your legs slowly and casually.
āOh, sweetheart. Did I get you?ā
You did not answer because, if you did, you were going to give him something to work with.
He hummed a small satisfied hum.
You closed your eyes but you should not have done it because, the second you did, the image came in.
He put it in.
He had gotten very good at that over the year. Not full replacement of the world in front of you, that took him a lot more effort and left him with a headache.
Behind your eyelids, the iron throne was still under your butt but he was in front of you, knees on the floor between the arms of the chair, both of his palms flat under your knees and he was naked from the waist up.
Gold jacket gone like the blue pullover and his whole broad chest was bare, flat plate of pectoral you knew every inch of, soft blond dust of hair down the center of his sternum, small stitched scar around the base of his left wrist.
His hands lifted your legs up to settle the back of your knees over the tops of his broad naked shoulders and the position folded you open in one long easy motion so that your hips were tipped up on the edge of the iron seat with the pale mycelia soft under your ass.
He looked down at you and his pupils were fat, glowing brightly and full of that specific expression of his that lived somewhere between adoration and hunger.
Two of his fingers were already inside you.
He was not doing anything to your body in the real room.
But the mold in you had a string running to his and along that string he had put a signal that said what was happening, so your nerve endings, obligingly, had done their job.
There were two big warm digits inside you.
You could feel the exact width of them and the callus on the pad of the index finger, middle digit sitting a fraction longer and pressing a deeper. The small curl of both of them together as he crooked them up and dragged a slow patient stroke along the front wall of your insides made your hand, in the real world, closed hard on the arm of the iron throne.
The mycelia there tightened around your fingers, warm and pale.
āEthan, pleaseā¦ā
āSsh, just relax for me. That's it.ā
His fingers scissored gently but you were still, technically, in the meeting room.
Knew this because Alcina was saying something at some middle distance in the audible world about the last shipment of wine from the eastern route being unacceptable in both volume and vintage. You were not, in any functional sense, listening to it.
Another image of his came up.
He was still on his knees between your legs, one shoulder under each of your knees and the other hand had come up to fist around the base of himself and he was, casually, dragging the bulging fat head of his cock along the underside of your right ass cheek.
The thick swollen head at the top and the now pale blue veins that ran along the underside and pulsed when he was really worked up, soft ridge of the corona and the way the whole shape of it had, over the year, gone a fraction thicker as the mold had settled in and stayed.
āNot yet,ā he said, gently, in your head. āFirst I want to see how well you can wait. Two hours ago I had you halfway out of your mind and I let the Duke's kart come pick us up. So this is what happens when we do that.ā
You cracked your eyes open a fraction in the real room.
Miranda was still at the head of the table, Alcina still talking profoundly while Heisenberg was still slouched in his chair, one boot off the table now,
Not one of them was looking at you but if they had, they would have seen Ethanā eyes glowing.
His mouth was closed, small and calm in a pleased curve and his other hand had gone into the pocket of the gold jacket, tugging the sleeve of the jacket at the wrist lower over his hand.
Under the golden canvas and along the whole length of the forearm inside the sleeve, there was a soft steady blue glow along the veins hidden quite well now.
āEthan, everyone can see your eyes.ā
His fingers inside you crooked again as you felt them press a slow deliberate line along the front wall, right up over the location of your prostate he had memorized the exact map of a long time ago and your body, in the real world, went hot along both thighs.
āEthan, this is not the time.ā
āSweetheart, please.ā His voice along the string had gone into a small tender pleading. āYou don't have to do anything, just sit there in that chair and look pretty and I promise I'll be so good for you. Please honey.ā
There was, at this exact moment, at the far end of the table, Lady Dimitrescu leaning her head back against the tall wood of her chair and exhaling a long thin plume of smoke and saying, in a tone of magnificent grievance, that if Mother wished her to run a household of this dignity she would truly appreciate the courtesy of not being told to simply put a lid on her appetites.
Heisenberg was arguing.
You could hear the words happening but not the sense of them.
You closed your eyes again.
āEverybody can see your eyes glowing,ā you said along the string.
Small pause followed by a small warm laugh, delighted.
You cracked your eyes open in the real room and turned your head a fraction to look at him.
Ethan's eyes were closed and he had tipped his head very slightly back against the mold-panel of his chair, jaw a little raised and every line in his face was the picture of a bored husband dozing through the third round of Alcina and Heisenberg arguing about the situation.
His arm along the back of your throne had gone loose.
That got a small helpless huff out of you that you smothered before it could turn into an audible thing. You did not, thank God, catch anyone's attention.
āFine,ā you said along the string. āBut nothing too much.ā
He made a small pleased sound in your head and then the image came in twice as bright.
Mouth of his down along the inside of your thigh, warm open lips dragging up along the tendon there and his fingers inside you went deeper, pad of his thumb came up to hook along the underside of your balls and rolling them gently.
āLook at you, my beautiful husband taking it so good. Every day I get to walk into a room and see you and every day I cannot believe my own luck.ā
āEthan, please quickāā
āNot yet.ā
You just knew he was not going to shut up until he was buried in you.
He crooked his fingers a fourth time and your entire lower half lit up along the string to the point where you had to lean forward and rest your elbow on the arm of the throne, pressing your knuckle against the corner of your mouth in a small performative pose.
His mouth was on the crease of your thigh in the image, fingers sliding out of you and you made an audible but very small sound, almost successfully choked back into the back of your throat before it could get out.
None of them, thank God, seemed to hear it, but Ethan's mouth, in the real world, twitched at one corner into the smallest curve you had ever seen on a face.
His fingers slid out and the head of him took their place, notching himself against you in the image and held there, fat swollen tip pressed against the tight ring of you, not pushing in but just kissing and you could feel the exact heat of him, pulsing in soft beats where he was pressed and you could feel yourself, involuntarily, tightening and loosening around that pressure in small hopeful clenches.
āEthan, please.ā
āPlease what, honey. What do you want.ā That smug tone in his voice grew thicker.
āI want you inside me.ā
The moment the sentence was in your head he pushed, head of himself past the tight ring of muscles and then stopped, stretch of just that was enough to make you brace both palms on the arms of the throne in the real world and grip so hard the mycelia there pulsed twice.
āYou wanted it, you got it. Now say thank you.ā
āYou are unbelievable.ā
āSay itā¦ please?ā
āThank you.ā
āGood boy.ā
The image blurred and reformed inside your head, now you were not sitting in the throne but in his lap.
You had, apparently, been relocated, straddling him with your knees on either side of his hips and his cock already fully inside you, whole length deep enough that you could feel the base of him against you and the pulsing weight of his balls under your ass, flat plate of his lower abdomen against yours.
His arms were around your waist, mouth at your throat.
āThere you go,ā he crooned along the string into the shell of your ear. āI like you better here, honey. This is where you belong, not in some thing that Karl made you. Say it.ā
āā¦I belong to you.ā
āLouder.ā
āI belong to you. I belong to you. I belong to you.ā
āGood.ā
He rolled his hips up under you and the whole world went white along the string.
You gripped the arms of the throne in the real world so hard the iron underneath the mycelia groaned faintly and Heisenberg, at the far side of the room, tilted his head a fraction and did not turn entirely.
Ethan did not open his eyes as you felt him laughing along the string.
āSweetheart, you gotta keep it together, honey, we got a whole room.ā He rolled his hips again in the image, dragging himself along that map of your insides he had memorized.
āEthan, please justāā
āPlease just what, honey? Say it. You know what I want to hear.ā
āPlease, harder!ā
He gave it to you, every wall of the image went hot. He put both his big hands on your hips and lifted you up along the length of him, dragged you back down again and did it again repeatedly, each drag matched the slow steady pulse of the mycelia along the arms of the throne, accompanied by a low steady murmur along the string that never once stopped.
āLook at how good you take me. Look at that. My beautiful husband made for me. Made for me. Mine. Mine. Mine.ā
You breathed through your nose in the real world, eyes closed and hand on the arm of the throne while the other hand had gone into your lap. Your face, if any of them had bothered to look, would have looked paler than usual and tighter along the jaw.
In the image he was speeding up, pace he used when he was going to get you there and wanted to draw it out for exactly as long as it took to make you beg.
His mouth was on your neck, teeth on the tendon at the side and breath so warm at your ear, every third thrust up into you he was pressing another warm broken sound into your temple.
āLet go, honey. Let me have it.ā
The image whited out as pleasure bursted everywhere inside your body and a large amount of warmth exploded down below where you and him where connected both from him inside you and your end as well, but you did not, in the real world at least, make a sound or come in your trousers, because Ethan, along the string, kept the actual physical reaction in check, everything was happening inside the bubble your minds where in.
Everything in your head went hot and white along the string and you felt him take it, a warm pleased hum along the connection before the image faded and the throne came back under you, meeting room reshaping just like the voices in there.
You cracked your eyes open.
Miranda was looking at Heisenberg now currently arguing that if she wanted the pipeline to move faster she was going to have to give him more men.
Nobody had, apparently, noticed a thing.
Beside you, Ethan opened his eyes as well, sleepy and yawning into the back of his hand, mouth stretched, jaw popping softly, then blinking as if just now waking up, turning his head a fraction to look at you with the most innocent tired-husband expression on his face.
His eyes were ordinary human blue as he winked.
āSweetheart,ā he said along the string and his voice had gone into that small warm pleased register. āYou did so good.ā
You were still dizzy from him while sitting in a chair made of iron and pale mycelia in a room full of monsters.
Everyone could argue you were one as well.
Your body still had the small hot echoes of it running along the insides of your thighs as you put your knuckle up against your mouth and pretended to cough into it.
You breathed through your nose in slow drags and let your eyes drift halfway open on Miranda at the head of the room.
Her masked head was tilted at a fraction of an angle you had not seen before and her voice, when she began to speak, had gone into a different register, not the flat light politeness of the earlier meeting.
"We come," she was saying, "to the matter that has brought me to convene you all in this room today."
The room, at that, went quiet and Ethan, beside you, went still.
"The ceremony will occur soon. I will not," she continued, "detail the mechanism to you in this room. It is enough, for now, that you understand how it is the reason each of you exists, the reason this village exists and the culmination of everything I have built here."
She let the words hang and tilted her mask a fraction, light through the metal caught the grey of her eyes behind it.
"The villagers have fulfilled their purpose."
Ice ran along the entire length of your spine.
"They have served as the vessels required for the cultivation of what we needed. Their part is complete and there is no further use for them. Whatever you may wish to do with those that remain, I have no further interest in the disposition of the village population. Do as you like, it is finished."
The room, at that, moved and you, without meaning to spoke.
"What?" Your voice, in the quiet, was too loud but you did not care.
"What do you mean by that?"
Miranda's mask turned toward you, grey of the eyes behind the metal fix on you, look of a woman looking at a piece of a set she was thinking about how to handle.
"Sweet boy. Understand," she said. "The villagers have given us what they were kept for. The last of the useful strains has been harvested and those still walking the village streets are the last of them, spent stock. do not concern myself with the fate of a used vessel."
"They're people."
Alcina, at that, rose and settled a gloved hand on the wide flare of her hip, inclining her head toward Miranda.
"Mother," she said and her voice was as rich and unhurried as it had been all afternoon. "If I may. If there is truly no further use for the villagers, I would be most grateful for the courtesy of first claim on the remaining stock. The house is, as I have said, understaffed. I would count it a great kindness."
She was smiling politely, golden eyes half-lidded in the small satisfied way she got when a thing was going her direction.
Heisenberg made a sound and he came up out of his own chair with a scrape of iron on stone and levelled a finger at her down the length of the table.
"Oh, come on, you greedyā"
"Quite."
"āshut your greedy hole and go find dinner somewhere else!"
"Karl." Miranda's voice was still flat and light and cool.
Your legs stood you up, mycelia at the arms of the throne pulled back off your palms in a small quick recoil as you rose and the pale threads shrank down into the ironwork.
"Please, Mother." You did not know if you had ever called her that but did it now.
If you did not use every tool at your disposal in the next thirty seconds she was going to walk out of this room having sold off every remaining life in the village to the monsters in this place, the last of your friends still breathing were going to be dead before the sun went down.
Tudor.
AnuČa.
Mihai.
You had not seen their faces, in your own head, inā¦ how long? More than an year. Nor did you had thought of them.
The not-knowing was, in this exact second, a small cold horror running underneath the larger one.
Ethan's reached sideways and set his palm over the back of your hand.
ācareful, sweetheart, you don't know what you're stepping into.ā
But you did not care.
"Please, they haven't done anything, if the ceremony is done, if you don't need them, then just leave them. They don't have to know anything about any of this. Please, Mother, they don't have to die."
She stepped forward and the whole balance of the room shifted around it, birdcage tilted down toward your face and through the metal slats her grey eyes were on yours.
"I will grant you this once, my son has chosen you and for that I extend to you certain courtesies. You will understand that what happens in the village is not your concern. Do not confuse yourself about the terms of your life."
"Mother, pleaseā"
"Quiet." Her back opened, long black robe along the shoulder blades parted as many black-feathered wings came.
Ethan's hand on the back of yours slid over your wrist and closed there as you sat down.
Miranda held her gaze down on yours before she dissolved in a cloud of crows.
The rest of the Lord resumed their discussion (arguing) about who take what but you heard zero of the rest and turned your head to look at Ethan.
His face was still the calm quiet look he had been wearing since he had opened his eyes ten minutes ago.
You leaned in and kissed his cheek, very warm along a rasp of stubble on the underside of his cheekbone that caught along your lip in a nice burning drag.
For one second in the middle of the horror sitting in your guts, you let yourself have that.
"I'm gonna head back to the Duke," you said. Quiet. Right at his ear. "I'm tired, honey. That took a lot out of me. I'm gonna go sit in the kart and let him give me tea while I wait for you there."
Ethan looked at you and did not answer right away, eyes staying on your face and they moved.
"Of course, sweetheart." He lifted his hand off your wrist and moved it up to cup the side of your jaw, turning your face a fraction toward him to kiss the corner of your mouth.
"You did great in here today."
"Thanks."
"I'll come find you as soon as I can. This," his eyes flicked a fraction toward Alcina and Heisenberg still going, "is gonna take a while. I gotta stay for the rest of it to see what shakes out, okay?"
"Alright."
"Get some rest. Have the Duke make you something warm. Don'tā¦ don't wander, sweetheart, alright?"
"I will."
He looked at you a beat longer.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
He kissed your mouth longer than he had to. A small last taste of you before he let you up.
You stood and gathered yourself, walking carefully unremarkable around the far side of the long room to reach the small red-painted door in the corner of the room.
The door closed behind you with a soft click, corridor beyond it ran along the outer wall of a cave you barely cared to look around while in a brisk walk.
Freezing air outside took the top off your lungs on the first breath and it went into your face and along the collar of your sweater.
Then you ran past the kart and the Duke simply watched you go by, same smile of his on his face to suggest he figured out everything.
You went past him down the ridge road.
There was smoke coming up from the market square in slow low twists that the wind was catching and folding back down along the roofs.
Lycans were everywhere, completely loose now and deep in the village.
A lot of them, loud growl-yipping sounds that a pack makes when they found lots of preys.
You went along the side of the street, where the buildings threw their small cold shadows and you kept your head low while kept moving.
You had come through the bridge and past the wall with the old stone relief on it, carving above the archway you had walked past a hundred times.
Soon after, a wet chuff of breath next to you, scrabble of long clawed nails on frozen mud.
Long low bounding shape, muzzle black and slick, eyes yellow and hair thick along the ridge of its ribs, mouth already open and it hit the ground three feet behind you, pushing off and hitting you square in the chest with the full weight of it.
The back of your head cracked against the frozen ground at the base of the wall and stars went across the inside of your eyes, whole weight of the thing landing on top of you, chest to chest, its jaw snapping shut an inch above your face.
Both of your palms went flat and hard, into the middle of its chest where the greasy fur was to push.
Its jaw came down again and you could smell its breath of meat that had gone bad two days ago, individual yellowed fangs at the front of the muzzle together with wet strand of drool that hung from the lower one and you felt the whole weight of it pressing down through your arms.
Somehow you were able to focus despite the thing on top of you ready to rip your throat apart and the snow at your left shoulder moved.
There was, first, a small heave followed by a bigger one and the whole crust of the packed snow along the wall broke open for something to come up out of it.
Tall and lean, long clawed hands, one at the end of each too-long arm, black at the tips and dark under the nails, pale strands of white mycelia wound in ropes and coils along the ribs and the collarbones while its head was a human skull mostly stripped of its skin, sockets still full of a low soft glow, mouth gone half-fused and along the front of the chest, where the ribs had been broken outward, held in a webbing of white filament.
It let out a high thin awful screeching sound at the top of the range of hearing.
The lycan on top of you flinched.
The newest arrival came around the wall in one long strange loping stride, spores puffing off it in soft slow clouds where the mycelia along its ribs pulsed and its clawed hand hooked into the lycan's chest right through the sternum, small crunch of it was wet and precise as the Fumer (name you gave it after seeing all the spores it emanated just like you) straightened up its long arm and lifted.
The lycan came up off you, dangling from the Fumer's forearm as it wailed again and then it threw the lycan sideways, hard, across the little frozen courtyard.
The wolf-like figure made a terrible whine and half cough before emanating no longer noises.
You were on your back in the snow, chest moving in fast hard drags and your hands, when you looked at them, were shaking in front of your face.
The Fumer was standing over you, tall and lean, very pale and wrong while its long thin head with the exposed skull and the low glow in the sockets was tilted down toward you, waiting patiently.
You had not, in your head, quite gotten used to the fact that they waited.
Getting up from the ground you ran along the low back street that ran behind the row of houses without going through the main square still full of the wet excited sounds of the pack and you cut around and along the side of the little brook that ran down through the middle of the village without stopping.
Behind you at a lagging pace the Fumer came, its long stride too slow to keep up with you, wailing petering out and starting again as it clawed its way along after you through the frozen mud.
The village dropped away and the path bent, land on either side softening and the frozen mud gave way to the small rimed pools of the swampy edge where Moreau's territory started to touch the low ground.
The shelter was still there, roof was caved in on the north-facing corner and the little wooden dock in front was rotten in half.
You went up the walkway on the balls of your feet, along the edge where the boards were still nailed to the joists and you did not put your weight through the middle with the way you knew this walkway, crossing the wide black gap where the middle board had rotted through years ago.
Underneath the gap the swamp water was showing with a thin skin of new ice at the edges, and you could see, briefly, your own face reflected off it,.
Jumping and landing on the far side, you went inside the shelter, light through the caved-in corner cold and grey with, along the floor, long dark patches where the swamp water had come up through the missing boards over the years and had frozen in the shape of dark pools right there in the wood.
Along the far wall, propped against the joists where the floor had rotted clean through, was a man.
Machete in his hand, other one pressed hard against his side, dark and slick.
He turned faster with the tip of his weapon pointed at your throat and for a second he was going to swing.
Then his whole body sagged, machete tip dipping down toward the floor and his knees, which had been holding him up against the joists went, sliding down along the wood and landing hard on his hip on the cold boards, small choked sound of pain in the back of his throat.
You crossed the shelter fast and knelt at his side and got your gloves off with your teeth, both palms onto him and clamping one of it to his side out of the way.
"Tudor, hey, hey, it's me."
"ā¦youāre really here?"
"Yeah." Your hand was fully wet but you kept pressing down harder.
A deep lycan bite, small warm outflow still coming up through the wool in slow steady pulses in time with his heart. It had gotten a big vein in there and he had been bleeding for a while.
He turned his head to cough and there was a small dark spatter on the wood of the wall beside him.
"Tudor, hey, stay with me. Where are AnuČa and Mihai?"
"ā¦gone over a week. They got sent for the Lords."
You pressed harder on his side and got the other hand under his shoulder to pull him a fraction more upright against the wall and there was a warm bloom of the mold moving in you, a hopeful reach of it toward the wound under your palm.
At the base of your ribs, the string moved not gently. It went cold along the whole length of the connection.
āSweetheart.ā
Every part of you froze.
You knew Ethan's voice along the string in every register, the warm or sleepy one, that pleased or tired one.
You did not know this one he was using, very quiet and flat.
āWhere are you?ā
You could not answer, your mouth, in the real world, had gone dry along the whole roof of it and your hand on Tudor's side had, involuntarily, tightened.
āSweetheart. I am asking where are you. Do not lie to me.ā
Scarlet Solarium: When the Sun Kneels Chapter 2 ā Causal Chain
A/n: (Y/n) Zatara. Son of Giovanni Zatara, brother to Zatanna Zatara, beloved friend of the Justice League. Also the axis on which reality turns, the balance by which creation weighs itself. (Y/n) Zatara, the Scarlet Witch, a being of unfathomable power, condensed into human shape.
Warnings: A/B/O dynamics (male reader is an omega, Clark Kent is an alpha), Graphic violence, Gore, Body Horror, Character Death, Memory Erasure, Body Manipulation
Credits: banners/dividers are made by @/cafekitsune
Alpha Superman (David Corenswet) x Omega Scarlet Witch Male Reader Part 2
Zatanna opens a portal from the estate, straight into the batcave.Ā
ā(Y/n), you are not to leave our sides.ā Giovanni reiterates.Ā
āWeāre going there on business, the last thing we need is a random magician in Gotham getting turned inside out because they tried messing with you.ā Zatanna chortles.Ā
āOkaaaay.ā You groan loudly.Ā
āGood.ā Giovanni utters as you all walk through the portal.Ā
In an instant youāre all by the Batcomputer.
It towers and surrounds all three of you, large and imposing like a cybernetic god, humming like itās alive.Ā
āZatanna, Giovanni, (Y/n).ā Bruce greets.Ā
āHi Bruce.ā You yawn as you greet.Ā
ā(Y/n).ā Giovanni shakes his head.Ā
āWe said code names only.ā Zatanna reminds you.Ā
āOh oops.ā You wince. āHi Batman.ā
āItās fine. We have more urgent matters.ā Bruce states walking over and handing them a scroll.Ā
āEugh. The magic coming off of that thingās disgusting.ā You gag.Ā
āYeah.ā Zatanna says concerned.Ā
āIāll show you where Tim found it.ā Bruce says getting into the Batmobile.Ā
āOh my god we get to ride in the Batmobile!ā You fanboy out to Zatanna, bouncing on your heels.Ā
āIs this your first time?ā Zatanna asks.Ā
āYeah?ā You answer confused. āIs this what you were doing when you were a part of Young Justice?!ā
ā(Y/n).ā Bruce says clipped.Ā
āSorry.ā You whisper getting into the back of his car.Ā
You shoot daggers at Zatanna as she laughs quietly.Ā
You āoooā and āaaahā at Gotham City nightlife, you can spot hundreds of clubs, and feel the pulse of music through the air.Ā
āDonāt even think about it, (Y/n).ā Bruce says. āYouāre here on business, not fun.ā
āI know.ā You sulk crossing your arms and leaning back.Ā
āYouāre not even old enough to get in.ā Zatanna snorts.Ā
āI could be!ā You snap. āFor a few hours at least.ā
āAnywayāā Your voice drops as you feel the hum of radiation.Ā
It makes your skin crawl.
You can almost hear, feel the warmth of the screams of the damned on your neck.Ā
āWhat is that?ā You ask softly. āItāsā¦invasiveā¦itās wrongā¦ā
āItās a Lazarus Pit.ā Bruce answers plainly.Ā
āPeople donāt use them do they?ā You ask horrified.Ā
Bruceās jaw tightens.
His hands turn into vices around the steering wheel.Ā
āNot by choice.ā He says sternly.Ā
Bruce accelerates driving faster until he reaches the center of the magical anomaly.Ā
āItās a graveyard.ā You mutter unimpressed as Bruce parks.Ā
āItās not the setting, itās whatās going on in the graveyard.ā Bruce utters as he gets out.Ā
He walks deeper into the cemetery, with you all following until he stops just short of a barrier.Ā
āNone of us can breach it. Only Jason has so far and his report mentioned zombies. I thought it best if you three went in to see it.ā He adds.Ā
āWoah.ā You whisper walking over and touching the magical boundary.Ā
ā(Y/n).ā Giovanni utters.Ā
āI know, Iām making a hole in it so we can all go in.ā You whisper.Ā
You close your eyes.Ā
You stretch your hand out, making contact with the boundary.Ā
In an instant, a red line traces from the ground up in a rectangular shape, before meeting the ground again.Ā
The whole cemetery shakes as a doorway stretches open.Ā
āWellā¦ā, You turn to them, ālast one in owes the rest of us dinner.ā You chortle running in.Ā
āGod help us.ā Bruce mutters.Ā
He lets Zatanna and Giovanni run through before he follows, stopping just short of the threshold.Ā
He clenches his hands into fists, he sets his jaw before walking through.Ā
āYuck.ā You pinch your nose shut, before your other hand covers your mouth, suppressing a gag.Ā
āIs he okay, Giovanni?ā Bruce asks, eyeing your reaction.Ā
āHeās fine.ā Giovanni assures. āYfirup ria.āĀ
Your nose twitches as that disgusting scent is exorcised from the atmosphere.Ā
Giovanni smiles softly. Ā
āThanks dad.ā You beam.Ā
āHeās more sensitive to magic.ā Giovanni reveals.Ā
āMm.ā Bruce grunts.Ā
āHuh.ā Zatanna says, levitating and flying overhead. āNo zombiesā¦but the magic is there.āĀ
You hold your hand out, magic already glowing and condensing.
āYeah. Let me amp itāā
āNo.ā Giovanni states, cutting you off. āWeāre far from home. No wards to nullify your magic signature. Zatanna and I can handle this.āĀ
āThen why did I even come along?ā You whine.
The scarlet hue fades as you cross your arms.Ā
āThe last time we left you home alone, you and Klarion turned the inside into a shifting labyrinth.ā Zatanna reminds. āIt took days to undo the spell.āĀ
āFine.ā You murmur, sitting down on a headstone. āIāll just be here thenā¦watching.ā
āThank you, (Y/n).ā Giovanni smiles warmly before turning his focus back to the matter at hand.Ā
You watch them work spouting magical theory youāve learned countless times over.Ā
Rolling your eyes as Bruce talks about magic being dangerous, wildly unpredictable.Ā
Before you respond the words die on your tongue as you feel someone pulling on plant life, halfway across the city.Ā
āThatās not magicā¦thatās something else.ā You think, smirking to yourself.Ā
You look at Zatanna, Bruce, and your dad all distracted with the task at hand.
āThey wonāt notice if I justā¦slip away for a few minutes.ā You giggle to yourself.Ā
Your lips move slowly, carefully, your hand briefly glows red as you set up a projection of yourself, still sitting.Ā
You bury your magic signature under that disgusting Lazarus hum you still feel, while you slip away unnoticed.Ā
āNow where did I feel it fromā¦ā You murmur to yourself from the roof of a skyscraper.Ā
You close your eyes, a thin scarlet sheet blankets over the city, riding just underneath that Lazarus noise floor.Ā
You can feel every minute movement.
Every breath taken and exhaled.
Every footstep.
Every heartbeat.
You zero in, narrowing down your focus until you feel two heartbeats side by side.Ā
You tilt your head unsure, until one of the heartbeats is encased by the silent hum of foliage and greenery.Ā
āBingo.ā You smirk, your hand draws a line downward in the space in front of you.Ā
As though the fabric of space and time were an elevator, another portal slides open in front of you.
You walk through landing behind a redhead clad in green, and a blonde with pigtails, holding a giant mallet.Ā
The blondeās sentence dies on her tongue.Ā
She tenses, spinning around, and swinging her mallet at you.Ā
Your hand catches it, a buffer of red magic between it and your palm.Ā
āOh youāre strong.ā You compliment.Ā
You can feel her pushing harder and harder, despite your hand not moving even a centimeter.
āIvy! We got company.ā She says straining against your hand and magic.
āOn it, Harley.ā Ivy says, kneeling down, hand flat against the ground.Ā
Itās near instantaneous.
You can feel the sudden spike in primordial energy.
The ground barely shakes for half a second before giant vines rip from the ground and tangle around you.Ā
They lift you up in the air, Harley approaches mallet resting on her shoulder.
āLook Red, we caught ourselves a lilā magician.ā She laughs looking you up and down.Ā
āOr a witch.ā Ivy adds coming closer. āNewbie vigilante?ā She asks.Ā
āWellā¦kinda? Not really a newbie thoughā¦and not here to stopā¦ā You look around finally taking in the scene, āanimal liberation?ā You say confused.Ā
The animals donāt seem particularly in distress anymore.Ā
Not with the broken cages littering the ground.Ā
āYou two look more heroic than I do.ā You snort.Ā
āLook witch boy run back to wherever youāā
āThatās Klarionās moniker.ā You interject.Ā
āIvy, protect the kid!ā Harley yells as she dives behind a crate.Ā
āOpen fire!ā A manās voice cuts through the silence.Ā
They all draw their weapons.
Aiming for center mass, vital organs, and heads.Ā
Another torrent of vines shoot out of the ground encasing you fully.Ā
Ivy gets into a defensive position, a wall of thick foliage between her, Harley, you, and the armed men.Ā
In a split second the muzzles flash, before bullet casings hit the ground in quick succession.Ā
āHold your fire! Penguinās money is tied up in those animals.ā The same manās voice cuts through halting the fire immediately.Ā
Ivyās vines shoot out of the ground, whipping wildly.
They smack guns out of hands and men into walls.Ā
She doesnāt notice one of them taking aim in her blind spot.Ā
āIvy!ā Harley shouts as she backflips, and brings her mallet down on his head.Ā
Ivyās expression goes blank.Ā
She turns around feeling the vines she put around you be wrestledā
Not wrestled.Ā
Gently taken, pried from her control.Ā
They slowly recede into the ground.
āOooohā¦ so thatās how you do it?ā You say excitedly.Ā
āKid?ā Ivy says confused, anxious as Penguinās men recover.Ā
āOh! Iāve got this.ā You smirk as they take aim.Ā
Ivy lifts a hand, constructing a barrier of plant life.
She doesnāt hesitate, she doesnāt even blink. In the span of a few seconds another wall erupts from the ground.
Then another.
And another.
Overlaid one in front of the other, expecting the bullets to come clean through, and making sure they never reach their target.Ā
Harley gets ready, putting herself between you and the gunfire.Ā
Her fingers trill and tap in place along the handle of her mallet, seemingly hyping herself up for when the fire ends.Ā
Penguinās goonsā fingers pull the trigger.
They all fire without rest, only stopping when their clips are empty.Ā
Ivy slowly opens a hole in her defense to see whatās happening.Ā
Harley approaches right behind her, coming cheek to cheek.Ā
Their eyes widen as they see the innumerable bullets just hovering in the air around you all, held in place by your scarlet magic.Ā
āWanna handle clean up?ā You giggle looking to them.
Ivyās eyes go to your hand, as you drop it, the bullets follow suit and fall to the ground.
Her eyes widen as she sees the red wisps of your magic coil and curl around her vines.
They seem to breathe new life into them.Ā
Make them strong.Ā
Stronger.
The plant life, perhaps even the Green itself, seems to react to you.Ā
To the magic you hold.Ā
To the magic that seems older and more primordial than even creation itself.Ā
āLook alive Ivy!ā Harley giggles as she starts her offensive response.Ā
She twirls around swinging her mallet indiscriminately, nailing goon after goon.Ā
Ivy shakes her head, a smirk tugging at her lips.
āYouāre not half-bad kid.ā She says under her breath.Ā
In an instant more vines shoot out of the concrete, stringing up the knocked-out men, and hanging them upside down.
You sit on a crate, legs kicking, watching as Harley and Ivy move animal after animal out of the warehouse and onto Harleyās truck.Ā
āKid, we gotta get outta here.ā Harley says tugging your arm.Ā
āJust a secā.ā You say, rising to your feet.Ā
You take a breath, red magic starts diffusing off of you, curling and coiling before slowly enveloping the area.Ā
Your lips twitch quickly as you cast a spell.Ā
In an instant the scarlet smoke enters the head of every single man present.Ā
Still through the act you stay aware of hiding your magic signature.Ā
All of their eyes snap open in unison, they all glow red, before slowly fluttering shut.
āWhaddya do taā āem?ā Harley asks.Ā
āJust erased their memory.ā You shrug your shoulder.Ā
Harley snorts. āI like you kid.ā She puts a hand on your shoulder, as she leads you to the getaway car.Ā
āSo what are you guys doing next?ā You ask excitedly, getting into the back.Ā
āGuess we oughta tuck ya in, squirtā¦ā Harley says aloud. āWe already hit Penguinās animal trade, left them at a sanctuary, sānot much left for tonight, unless yer willinā tah help us rob a bank?ā
āHarley.ā Ivy warns.Ā
She looks at you with mistrust, but you donāt seem to notice. The red magic and aura about you unsettle her.
She can almost trace the way it seems to pulse and thrum just under your skinā¦by the same blade, the scarlet magic also puts her at ease.Ā
āI meanā¦ā, your hand goes to the back of your head, āI was bored earlierā¦a bank robberyā¦ā
The hesitation reminds Ivy youāre still just a kid, not exactlyā or entirelyā someone untrustworthy.Ā
āDonāt think of it as a bank robbery kid.ā Ivy interjects. āWeāre going to take the cash Penguin got selling these animals and put it into the environment. Give it to an animal reserve.ā
āYeah squirt, itās more about the rush than anything.ā Harley laughs.Ā
āYeahā¦I guess soā¦itās for a good cause right?ā You say rationalizing it.Ā
āExactly, itās for a good cause.ā Ivy reiterates.Ā
āSo kid, you got a name?ā Harley asks as the engine roars to life.Ā
ā(Y/n). (Y/n) Zatara.ā You answer leaning back.Ā
āHarley Quinn.ā She answers.Ā
āPoison Ivy.ā The redhead adds.Ā
āLetās hit it!ā Harley beams, as the tires squeal.Ā
She hits a few trash cans, and more of the Penguinās men as she peels out of the docks and deep into the city.Ā
It started simple really.Ā
In and out.Ā
With you tagging along, they didnāt have to break in.Ā
The doors were already unlocked.
The security system deactivated for the night.Ā
Ivy and Harley put the guards you left over to sleep.Ā
āAlright squirt, outta the way. I got a safe to crack.ā Harley laughs, getting close to the metal knob.Ā
She twists the dial a few times, ear pressed against the door.Ā
āOpen sesame!ā She tries pulling it open, sighing dramatically when it doesnāt.Ā
āWell, I gave it my best shot.ā She shrugs, before pulling out a pipe bomb colored in red and black diamonds.Ā
She attaches it to the locking mechanism, before running behind you and Ivy for cover.Ā
You snicker lifting a hand.Ā
Red magic envelops the door and bomb, isolating it from everything else.Ā
āGod I love ya already kid.ā She sighs, as the bomb detonates but makes no sound, and leaves no lasting damage to anything other the safeās lock.Ā
āIāll wait out here.ā You say softly. āLet me know if you need help carrying bags.āĀ
āWell tootsā, we do need a hand.ā Harley says pulling you into the safe.Ā
āOkay.ā You snicker, your hand glows red as a portal opens up underneath the money.Ā
It all gets siphoned through, like water down a drain, right into Harleyās car, before you jump in after it.Ā
āCome on Red.ā Harley giggles following you.Ā
Ivy wordlessly travels through trying to take some of your magic.
It feels warm to the touch as it dissipates on her palm.Ā
āLetās go!ā Harley shouts, laughing as she hits the gas.Ā
You laugh, leaning out the window as she does.Ā
Your joy dies in your throat as you see innumerable red and blue flashes rushing up behind you all.Ā
āAh shit.ā Harley sucks her teeth. āBuckle up kid.āĀ
Harley tugs your seat belt tighter before she puts both hands on the wheel.
āIvy.ā Harley calls out.Ā
She doesnāt respond, but instantly, giant vines pop out of the ground giving Harleyās truck a new escape route.Ā
āUgh, theyāre still on us?ā Harley whispers adjusting her mirror. āIvy, bury the car, letās move this on foot.āĀ
Vines reach into her truck, pulling her, Ivy, and you out, placing you on the nearest roof, while the car is pulled under, covered by countless vines.Ā
āWhat now?ā You ask, looking down, hand glowing as you fix the concrete.
āWell nowāā the sound of a helicopter cuts off Harley.Ā
āWe run!ā She shouts with a laugh, taking off.Ā
You smirk to yourself chasing after her.
You can barely keep up.
Your face flashes as an idea crosses your mind.Ā
Portals start to blink in and out of existence.
You jump through each, putting you at pace with them.Ā
āGeez kid youāre playing with some serious firepower.ā Harley laughs watching as you jump in and out of the holes in reality.Ā
āThere they are!ā Another voice rips through.Ā
āPenguinās men found us.ā Ivy remarks, using her vines to keep pace. āWe need to move faster.āĀ
She grabs Harley, but before she can grab you, you flicker out of existence before appearing again even further in front of her.Ā
āDonāt gotta tell me twice!ā You laugh, outrunning them.Ā
āDonāt be greedy (Y/n)!ā Harley laughs. āShare some of that with us!ā
āHuh? Sure.ā You say, you aim at them with your hand.
They see your scarlet magic flowing towards them.
Their breathing hitches as their energy swells.
Your scarlet magic burrows in, sinking into muscle and bone.Ā
Making them stronger, faster.Ā
Their earlier fatigue gone.
Harleyās eyes seem clearer, while Ivy can feel the thrum of even the smallest plant life all around her.Ā
āOh my god.ā Ivy whispers.Ā
āI know, Red.ā Harley answers just as quiet.Ā
Theyāre both finally keeping up with you.Ā
Harley has a clarity she hasnāt had in ages.Ā
Ivy can feel and sense even the tiniest, deepest root.
Itās intoxicating.Ā
And yet they donāt lust for your power.Ā
āTheyāre still on us.ā Harley says looking over her shoulder.Ā
āI think I can fix that.ā You say.Ā
You stop short, before turning towards the helicopter.Ā
Your lips move in tandem with your hands.Ā
āDonāt move!ā The PA system on the helicopter booms.Ā
Scarlet sigils move with purpose, slithering through the air and arranging themselves in an intricate lattice around the helicopter.Ā
āHuh?ā The sound system goes off again.Ā
The floodlight sweeps across the rooftop in wide arcs.
āWeāve lost sight of them!āĀ
The helicopter tilts left, before turning around and searching in a different area of Gotham.Ā
āSee that wasnātāā You gasp sharply.Ā
A gunshot echoes as you hit the ground.
āKid!ā Harley yells, kneeling beside you.
In a fraction of a second Ivyās vines rip apart the gun and pin the shooter to the wall.Ā
āOwā¦ā you groan. āThat hurtā¦āĀ
Your hand hovers over your wound.
Red wisps drift down, gently reaching into the wound.
When the wisps pull taut, they snap back.
āFuck!ā You shout turning over, as the bullet clatters across the ground.
āLemme see it, (Y/n).ā Harley says turning you back to her, but all she manages to catch is red wisps sealing the wound.Ā
Her eyes snap to Ivyās before back down to you.Ā
āSoā¦a witch huh?ā Harley laughs softly.Ā
āYeahā¦ā You groan softly, stretching your arm before you stand up.Ā
āSomething like thatā¦donāt know exactly myself either.ā You laugh nervously.Ā
āYouāre still you, ya know.ā Harley says punching the shoulder you just got shot in.Ā
Ivyās hands twitch, she could justā¦poke you.Ā
Some thorns catching on your skin, some blood her plants could absorb and hold before it vaporizes.Ā
She shakes her head, she can only imagine the amount of control it takes.Ā
The amount of restraint you must be exercising.Ā
āYeah. Youāre still you, (Y/n). Crazy powers or not.ā Ivy says patting your back.Ā
āThanks Ivy.ā You smile warmly.Ā
āWe should go.ā You say looking over your shoulder. āTheyāre coming.ā
Before either of them can respond, youāre already flickering to the next rooftop.Ā
āWhat do you think Harley?ā Ivy asks as they try to keep up.Ā
āKidās got spunk, I tell ya.ā Harley laughs, before she makes a face, deep in thought.Ā
āYouāve been spacing out a lot Harley.ā Ivy says softly.Ā
āWith how much chaos (Y/n) brings with him I thought youād be having a ball.ā She laughs.
āWhat about?ā Ivy presses, but before Harley can respond, you all freeze hearing that god awful, blood curdling laugh.Ā
āHim.ā Harley snarls. āThe kidās magic is doinā something to my brainā¦it doesnāt feel as fuzzy.āĀ
āAnd itās tellinā me I need to get even with Mistah Jā for all heās done tah me.ā She adds.Ā
āIāve been waiting for an excuse.ā Ivy says stretching. āLetās do it?āĀ
Harley looks over the roofās edge to spot the Joker.Ā
He seems to be in his element, terrorizing the public with no discernible goal in mind.Ā
Chaos for the sake of chaos.
Wanton destruction for the hell of it, no larger motive or purpose, other than pissing off Batman, and ruining the lives of the general public.Ā
The air shifts as you pop back to them.
āYou guys know him?ā You ask peering over the edge.Ā
āNot really.ā Ivy says disgusted.Ā
āNot for much longer.ā Harley laughs, gripping her mallet tighter. āLetās give them a show.āĀ
āAlright, Iāll make sure you two can keep up.ā You laugh, funneling more magic into buffing them.Ā
āLast one down thereās a rotten Bat!ā Harley laughs, as she dives downward, mallet raised, already primed to smash someoneās head into the ground.Ā
Her mallet lands with a sickening thud. āOne down.ā She singsongs.Ā
āLetās?ā You giggle jumping down after her.Ā
Ivyās smile is harder to hide as she follows suit.
āHmm guns are hardly fair, itās a shame theyāre all jammed.ā You declare, both hands glowing red as you get ready to provide cover.Ā
āFire, you nitwits!ā Joker demands, every gun clicks but no rounds go off.Ā
āI needed fertilizer.ā Ivy states pragmatically as her vines turn sharper.
They slice in wide arcs, cutting through barrels and firing chambers.Ā
She twists around each vine independently whipping a goon into the wall. Ā
āHeās mine.ā Harley reminds you both.
āI donāt want him.ā You laugh, hands glowing as you fight off and puppeteer some of his henchmen.
āI wouldnāt take this from you.ā Ivy assures, as she makes sure the Jokerās goons donāt get up again.Ā
āH-Harley!ā Joker stammers, falling on his ass as he backs up.Ā
āMistah Jā.ā She icily responds.Ā
āCome to beg for me to take you back?ā Joker taunts.Ā
āHand that overgrown weed and street kid over, and I just mightāāĀ
The words donāt get to leave his mouth as her mallet crashes against the side of his head.Ā
āI never did pay yaā back fer everything, did I Puddinā?ā She asks coldly.Ā
The voice in her head that wanted his approval, his attention, his love, fades even deeper into the scarlet patchwork thatās enhancing her.Ā
Gone.
Silenced forever.Ā
All that remains is her voice.
The one he buried.
The one that was telling her to get even.
To make The Joker pay.Ā
āH-Harleyā I know we havenāt seen eye to eye lately.ā Joker says through a crazed laugh.Ā
āAnd we never will again puddinā.ā Harley states with finality, as she brings her mallet down on the crown of his head.Ā
Your throat works.Ā
The Jokerās head makes a sickening crunch as it meets the pavement.Ā
The Jokerās body twitches, once, twice, before seizing as Harley brings her mallet down.Ā
Again.Ā
And again.Ā
And again.Ā
The Jokerās blood pools across the streets of Gotham.Ā
āIs heā¦.?ā You ask softly.Ā
āYeah. He is. Sorry kid.ā Harley says broken up.Ā
āHad to. He was never going to make Bats laugh.ā She adds with a forced laugh.Ā
You take a look around.Ā
The mental math is easy.Ā
The Jokerās goons opened fire, ready to kill.Ā
Harley and Ivy obviously had a score to settle with him.Ā
The Joker is a nuisanceā to put it gently.
His death means hundreds, if not thousands of other people do not die.
āWellā¦ā You wince.
āNo use crying over spilled seltzer?ā You laugh awkwardly.Ā
Harleyās eyes meet yours.
She sputters, she nearly doubles over from the laughter that rips through her.
āOh yer funny kid.ā She puts an arm around your shoulder. āWhy donāt we go get some milkshakes? On me.āĀ
āOr on the house reallyā¦people usually give me free things when I walk in to places.ā She chortles. āI donāt even havā taā hold my mallet too high!āĀ
āWhat about them?ā You ask looking back up to the rooftop where Penguinās men watch.Ā
All of them slack jawed at what they witnessed, before screaming and running away when Ivy and Harley look up at them.Ā
āTheyāre not gonna touch us after this.ā Ivy assures you. āHarley just killed the Joker, and I helped.āĀ
āIvy and I get to hold court the next few days around āere.ā Harley laughs.Ā
āWell IāāĀ
āWatched.ā Harley interrupts you. āYou didnāt do anything.āĀ
āAlright, then.ā You giggle, following their lead.Ā
"Go ahead.ā Bruce says hand to his ear. āWhat?ā
āLet Nightwing handle it. No one else.ā He stresses. āHold him off until I get there.āĀ
āHow much longer?ā He approaches the Zataras.Ā
āWellā¦kind of?ā Zatanna says trying to pin down the original magic signature.Ā
āWhy?ā Giovanni asks.Ā
āThe Joker is attacking downtown Gotham. I sent Nightwing to take care of it for now.ā He says pacing back and forth.Ā
āGo handle it, weāve got this covered. Not much we can do to speed this up, and dad is refusing to get (Y/n) to help us.ā Zatanna rolls her eyes.Ā
āHeās made good progress but bringing him wasnāt for an extra set of hands. Itās so he gets experience out in the field.ā Giovanni reiterates.Ā
āHm.ā Bruce grunts, looking over to you.Ā
You seem relaxed.Ā
Too relaxed.Ā
Far too casual for someone who gagged earlier when they caught a whiff of the Lazarus Pit.Ā
Bruce shakes his head, he knows what youāre capable of and yet it doesnāt make him feel any better.Ā
Bruce feels like heās aged 10 years in the time itās taking Giovanni and Zatanna to find the source.Ā
āGo for me.ā Bruce says hand on his ear again, pacing back and forth with more fervor.Ā
āWhatās the Joker doing? How many hostages? How manyāā Bruce stops in his tracks, ice in his veins, throat too dry to speak. āWhat?āĀ
āConfirm it, Oracle.ā He grits out. āYes, Nightwing. Transport the body. Find out what you can.āĀ
āI can handle it too, B. Iām close by.ā Jasonās voice cuts in.Ā
Bruceās jaw tightens. āJoin Nightwing. Donāt force yourself. You have nothing to prove.ā
He stares at the ground, hands clenching into fists.Ā
āWhatās going on Batman?ā Zatanna asks.Ā
āThe Joker is dead.ā He says lowly. āSomeone got to him before Nightwing did.ā
āAre you sure itās a smart idea to cut through alleyways?ā You say looking around.Ā
The air feels weird.
Grantedā¦ it is Gotham.Ā
And youāve never been in an alleyway.
It just feelsā¦ off.Ā
āYeah, squirt. Youāre beinā a worrywart.ā Harley waves you off.Ā
As you all continue to walk, you notice it first.Ā
A Batman logo, encircled in red, a red line diagonally across.
It hasnāt changed.Ā
You kept track of your steps.Ā
Every two hundred and forty nine steps it appears again.Ā
Always on your left side.
Always in the same position.
Always the same size.
The more you think about it the more things you notice.
You all keep stepping in the same puddles.
The air smells acrid.Ā
You suppress your gag this time, but itās familiar.
Itās humming through the air, that same energy you felt earlier.Ā
The static, the siren call of the Lazarus Pit.Ā
Youāre all looping and someone is causing it.Ā
āPerceptive, child. Unusually so.ā A womanās voice cuts through the thickened air.Ā
Ivy and Harley tense, both ready for whatās coming.
āYeah, I am.ā You put a red wall in front of you all. āSeems like you are too.ā
āYouāre the cause of the zombies in the cemeteryā¦arenāt you?ā You directly accuse.Ā
Footsteps echo in the alley, as a womanās silhouette comes into view.Ā
āA little experiment, really.ā The woman shrugs like itās nothing.Ā
Your eyes drag over every inch of her.Ā
āThatās why itās hard to pin down the source.ā You think to yourself.Ā
Her magic signature is near identical to the hum of the Lazarus Pit.Ā
The alleyway seems to narrow, the walls feel like theyāre closing in.
āYou have a magic older than time itself.ā She speaks already approaching.Ā
āKid, run!ā Harley shouts as she tries to strike the woman with her mallet.Ā
It bounces off of a wall that shines green briefly, before a shock wave knocks Harley and Ivy out cold.Ā
āI am Mother Soul.ā She states. ā(Y/n) Zatara, you will make a fine gift and addition to the Lazarus Pit.ā
She stares you down, eyes briefly glowing with that same ominous verdant color.
āWith your essence I could unmake death itself.ā She says with regality, as if itās an honor for you.Ā
āNo thanks.ā Your hands coat themselves in your magic, you take a breath.Ā
āLetās begin.ā She fires a concentrated blast of magic towards you.Ā
On instinct your hand draws a wide arc in front of you, breaking the magic she cast.Ā
āLlaf.ā Your voice echoes and bounces around the alleyway.Ā
Mother Soul bends, dropping to one knee, before a wave of green erupts and she stands tall once more.Ā
āEnough parlor tricks.ā She says derisively, launching another blast at you.Ā
You open a portal in front of you and another behind her.Ā
The blast hits her but scatters across the air in front of her like sheās absorbing it.Ā
āAlright then.ā You mutter to yourself.Ā
You fling charged magic blasts at her without stopping, she moves and weaves through them, only some singeing her clothes before melting into the walls.Ā
She throws another green blast right at you.Ā
You plant your feet, that scarlet hue dies down.Ā
Instead of dodging, or redirecting, you let it hit.Ā
You gag immediately, nearly doubling over as it sinks into your marrow.Ā
The lichen-colored magic travels across your skin ripping into your flesh reminiscent of cracks across porcelain.Ā
Your scarlet magic erupts in waves out of you.
Taking the shape of fire as if to burn and purge out the invasive force.Ā
You fall to your knees, breathing heavily, face slick a sheen of sweat.Ā
āI anticipated more of a fight. It would seem Zataraās teachings are wasted on you.ā Mother Soul says disappointed. āVery well then, Iāll just take what I came for.āĀ
She approaches hand outstretched, but before she can touch the crown of your head, she freezes.Ā
Her body trembles.
She clutches her abdomen, before random sections of her body swell.Ā
First her right arm, she wills it away.
Ā The mass shifts to her left leg.Ā
She tries to expel the excess energy but it makes her body swell further.Ā
Your breathing evens out, as you stand up again.Ā
āY-You keep siphoning energy from that horrible pit.ā You say, stuttering.Ā
Her eyes widen as your words register, youāve seen through her.Ā
āYouāre leaving yourself unguarded.ā You say mockingly.Ā
She purses her lips.
Itās refined but it feels like a snarl.
As though sheās bearing her teeth.
āChild, youāre full of yourself.ā She says calmly. āI need only expend the excess, and what better way than burying you with it.āĀ
She takes aim at you, trying to condense and give shape to her next strike, but only sparks fly.Ā
She tries again but this time nothing springs from her hand.Ā
She makes the attempt again and again, stuttering with her incantations.
When she does manage to get through a single phrase the spell fails.
Sheās losing magicā hemorrhaging really.Ā
She can extrapolate from her body deflating, but she isnātā canāt cast anything.Ā
āWhat have you done to me?!ā She snarls, the mask finally falling.
She can feel her body aging rapidly.Ā
āRewriting reality is kinda my thing.ā You laugh. āYouāre siphoning inward, so I just shifted it outwards.āĀ
āBut it doesnāt matter anymore.ā You shake your head.Ā
Mother Soulās head whips around, looking at the space, she can see the faint red runes.Ā
Theyāre not burned onto the walls.Ā
They couldnāt be, she knew you were a Zatara.
She knew Giovanni or Zatanna wouldāve taught them to you.
It was the simplest thing she thought to counter.Ā
She knew you would try something like that.Ā
And yet they still warble with live magic.Ā
She eyes them closer, seeing the edges of reality fray around each rune and ward.Ā
She can only see the mere edges of the vast white void that sits under creation.
Youāve burned them into existence.Ā
āRunes.ā She snaps.Ā
āYeah.ā You say smugly. āTry erasing them, youāll just burn through your limited magic.āĀ
Mother Soulās nails drag against the concrete as she stews.Ā
You watch and wait.Ā
Half expecting her to have something else up her sleeve.
But she doesnāt.Ā
You can hear it.Ā
The thing that lives in the Pit.Ā
Itās whispering.
Your eyes widen.Ā
Itās whispering to you.
āThis is getting boring Ruh Al Ghul.ā You yawn. āAnd that thing isnāt nearly as loyal as you think it is.ā
Her eyes widen, she can feel the being in the Pits measure her worth.Ā
She can feel her soul resting in the palm of your hands.Ā
Your fingers twitch and crack as red chains rip through the fabric of reality, locking around each of her wrists and ankles.Ā
You spread your fingers, she groans as sheās strung up, arms and legs nearly pulled clean from her body.Ā
Sheās only saved by her Lazarus Pit enhancements.Ā
āI could just undo your spell and put those people back to restā¦ā you drag out the last word.Ā
āOr I could just take your head.ā You say nonchalantly.Ā
āItās all the same really.ā You shrug your shoulders.Ā
A saw blade made of your scarlet magic, manifests in front of you.Ā
You twist your hand forward.Ā
The blade spins and spins, until it seems to cut the air itself.Ā
ā(Y/n) Zataraā!ā She shouts as the blade flies at her.Ā
Her eyes slowly shut as she accepts her fate, but the blade never digs into her flesh.Ā
She opens her eyes, watching as strands of her hair fall.Ā
The saw keeps spinning, fast enough each serrated edge blurs into one continuous blade.
āUndo your spell, and retreat to wherever youāre from. āCause I only forgive once.ā You state, as your magic dissipates.Ā
The chains that strung her up release her immediately as they dissipate.Ā
She falls to the ground taking deep heaving breaths.Ā
She speaks in a language you donāt bother translating, or memorizing. She spouts on about purification, or consecrated blood, or rather how the boundary between life and death is arbitrary.Ā
You take it with a grain of salt.
The alleyway enchantment breaks. A second later her projected form follows.Ā
Her form glitches, like a computer encountering a bug.Ā
āNo fucking wayā¦ā You scoff. āā¦I was struggling against a fucking projection?ā
Her form cracks and falls in pieces turning into gangrenous ashes.
Before her projection can fully dissolve you catch the faintest thread.Ā
Your eyes narrow, as you turn to face Gotham Harbor.
Your consciousness pushes far beyond the harbor, further beyond the black water, landing upon an island.
You almost retch. The island is even more contaminated than the Lazarus Pit here in Gotham.Ā
You push through, fighting through the Lazarus hum, until your awareness homes in on Mother Soulās physical body.
You watch as she jerks forward, one hand clutching her chest while ragged breaths tear through her.Ā
āWellā¦ as long as she stays on that fuck-ass islandā¦ we shouldnāt have a problem.ā You say annoyed.Ā
ā(Y/n)ā¦ā Ivy whispers as she stands, offering Harley a shoulder.Ā
āDid you say Al Ghul?ā Harley asks tired, wincing as her hand tentatively goes to her ribs.Ā
āMaybe.ā You shrug, hand glowing as your magic diffuses into Harleyās body. āThis might hurt. Sorry Harley.āĀ
āWhat might-ā Harleyās voice erupts into a scream.
Her skin seems to pulse and stretch as her ribs snap back into place and her arm sets itself.Ā
āGeez kid, give me a heads up next timeā¦ā She whines softly, stretching to ease her muscles.Ā
āSorry. I kinda forget it hurts normally.ā You say offhandedly.Ā
āI feel like I owe ya more than a milkshake now.ā Harley laughs.Ā
āAdd a burger and weāre even.ā You snort.Ā
āA dealās a deal! No take backs.ā Harley laughs.Ā
Ivy looks to the half-melted ground, before looking back to you.Ā
The thorn prick comes back to the forefront of her mind.Ā
She shakes her head, before catching up, laughing with the two of you.Ā
Bruce watches as Zatanna and Giovanni pore over magical theory again, trying to find a solution.Ā
āZatanna, Zatara, report.ā Bruce states approaching.
āItāsā¦goneā¦ā Zatanna whispers.Ā
āWhat is?ā Bruce asks pointedly.Ā
āThe spell. The magicā¦it just..it just vanished.ā She adds.Ā
āI can already feel the dead returning to their graves.ā Giovanni utters.Ā
āGood work.ā Bruce says watching as the barrier falls on its own.Ā
āNo Bruce we didnāt do that.ā Zatanna says shaken.Ā
āWe needāā Giovanniās head snaps to where youāre sitting.Ā
āHe didnāt.ā Zatanna whispers.Ā
Giovanni walks over to you.Ā
āHi dad.ā You say sweetly.Ā
āLepsid Tnemtnahcne.ā Giovanni utters.Ā
You seem to glitch once, twice, before you fade from view.Ā
āHeavens above.ā Giovanni utters.Ā
Giovanniās fingers rub at his temples.Ā
āHow long has he been gone?ā Bruce asks pragmatically.Ā
āKnowing himā¦probably from the moment he sat down.ā Zatanna pinches the bridge of her nose.Ā
Her head jerks up, she stares off into the city.Ā
āFound him.ā She utters.Ā
Giovanni sighs exhaustedly. āThat burst of magic is probably why this was easy to dispel.āĀ
Giovanni shakes his head as Zatanna opens a portal.Ā
Bruce joins them as they walk through.
They all squint, as their eyes adjust to the light of a burger joint.Ā
āToday was so much fun (Y/n)!ā Harley squeals.
āRight! I havenāt had this much fun in ages!ā You giggle, taking a huge bite out of your burger.
You donāt seem to notice how badly the workers are shaking.
āYou were right, by the way.ā You say in between bites.Ā
āDonāt chew with yer mouth open squirt.ā Harley chides. āWhat about?āĀ
āIt was on the house they really did just give you the burgers.ā You snort.Ā
āSee, kid? Thatās my typa magic.ā Harley laughs.Ā
ā(Y/n) Zatara.ā Giovanni says clipped.Ā
You squeak, the burger falls from your hand.Ā
āUhā uhmā hi, Dad.ā You sheepishly say.Ā
āWhat on earth do you think youāre doing?!ā He snarls.Ā
You bear your neck, bristling under your alpha fatherās anger.Ā
āI stopped the source.ā You say meekly.Ā
āYeah, yer little magicianās got spunk.ā Harley says candidly, kicking her legs up.Ā
āHarley. Ivy.ā Bruce says annoyed.Ā
āHey Bats!ā Harley beams.Ā
āBatman.ā Ivy says measured.Ā
ā(Y/n) you are so grounded.ā Zatanna crosses her arms.
āLetās go.ā Giovanni says icily.Ā
āButāā
āNo buts!ā He snaps.Ā
āAww geez go easy on him, he was just havinā fun.ā Harley whines.Ā
āStay out of it, clown.ā Giovanni demeans.Ā
āDad.ā You say sternly. āBe nice to her.ā
āGod (Y/n) what is it with you and befriending villains? ā Zatanna whispers.Ā
āExcuse me?ā Bruce says.Ā
āNothing Batman.ā Giovanni interjects. āThe magical anomaly seems to be handled, so weāre taking our leave.āĀ
Giovanni puts a hand on your shoulder and pushes you through a portal home.Ā
āBye Ivy! Bye Harley!ā You manage to get out before youāre in the Zatara estate library.Ā
āPamela, Harleen.ā Bruce says clipped. āAny explanation for how (Y/n) Zatara ended up in your presence?āĀ
āNone we wanna give you, Bats.ā Harley tosses a smoke bomb.
By the time Bruce confirms the workers are unharmed, Harley and Ivy are gone.
Bruce stands in the burger joint.
He looks towards the staff who seem to be breathing easier.
He takes a deep breath before calling the Batmobile to his location, and speeding off to the Batcave.Ā
āOracle, report.ā Bruce demands as he sits down.Ā
āIām sending the video over. I think itās easier to see than it is to hear.ā Barbara says uneasy.Ā
āVery well.ā Bruce says.Ā
Bruce watches with wide eyes as you empower two of the most dangerous villains in his town.
Ā His mouth drops open watching Harley Quinn decorate the streets with the Jokerās brains.Ā
āHe caused this.ā Bruce snaps. āI let him into my city andāā
The leather of his gloves screeches as he tightens his hands into fists.Ā
He doesnāt wait, he moves first.Ā
With the guest token Giovanni provided Bruce, he enters the estate with ease.Ā
āGiovanni.ā He says startling the magician.Ā
āGodā! Bruce.ā He says exhaling.Ā
āWe need to talk.ā Bruce says angrily. āYour son killed the Joker.ā
āWhatā¦?ā Giovanni whispers. āNo. (Y/n) wouldnāt.ā
Bruce doesnāt answer, simply pulling his phone out and showing the video.
āThat is Harley Quinn, killing the Joker, Bruce.ā Giovanni waves him off. āI will not allow you to blame my son for the actions of two of your headaches.āĀ
āSomething sheād never have done if (Y/n) didnāt boost her.ā Bruce says through gritted teeth.Ā
Giovanniās jaw tightens.Ā
He pings you telepathically.Ā
Bruce waits, fists still clenched.Ā
āHi Bruce.ā You and Zatanna greet both walking past him. āYeah dad?āĀ
āSon, do you have anything you want to confess to?ā Giovanni prompts you.Ā
āNoā¦? I havenāt done anythingā¦ I thinkā You say confused.Ā
āThe Joker, (Y/n).ā Bruce cuts in.
āOh.ā You wring your hands together. āI meanā¦is that really something to apologize for?āĀ
āIām sure Gotham breathes easier.ā You say pragmatically, eyes darting to the side. āBesides that wasnāt me Harley Quinn did that.āĀ
ā(Y/n), you caused that.ā Bruce starts. āI am certain, you, with your powers, understand causality.āĀ
You make a face at his assumption.
āWell if you miss him that muchā¦ā you hold out your hand, fingers curling like youāre holding something.Ā
A few seconds pass as tufts of green hair spill out between your fingers.Ā
A manās head begins to form.Ā
That same shade of sickly white face paint drips down.Ā
That sickening laugh echoing in the library as the shadows themselves retreat from you.Ā
ā(Y/n).ā Giovanni says sternly.Ā
āSorryā Iām sorry.ā You whisper, letting the Jokerās half formed head fade into red wisps.Ā
ā(Y/n) your actions have consequences.ā Bruce starts again.Ā
āI really donāt understand why youāre so upset.ā You cross your arms making a face. āDidnāt he kill one of your sons? Jason Todd?ā
You can hear a pin drop in the library.
Bruce stands straighter, spine made of steel.
āRight?ā
Zatannaās face pales as she starts to understand the land mine youāve stepped on.Ā
āWhy arenāt you happy heās dead?ā You ask with genuine curiosity.Ā
Bruceās eyes widen, his jaw drops before he closes his mouth, his teeth grinding against each other. āWhat?āĀ
āBruce he doesnāt understand what heās saying!ā Zatanna stands in front of you.Ā
Giovanni pulls Bruce back by his arm.Ā
ā(Y/n) is young, please forgive him Bruce.ā He whispers. āIāll make sure there are consequences for this.āĀ
āHe is never to set foot in Gotham again. Never.ā Bruce snarls.Ā
āOf course Bruceāā
āHe should be sealed, or banished.ā Bruce spits.Ā
Giovanniās face hardens.Ā
His pheromones sharpen, his magic seems to spark and dance across his hands.
āSay that again, and Iāll show you what banishment feels like.ā Giovanni icily says. āHe stopped the next few hundred funerals.ā
Bruce scoffs.Ā
āHow many Robins have you buried, Bruce?ā Giovanni snaps.Ā
āWatch your mouth, Giovanni.ā Bruce seethes taking a step close.Ā
āReirrab.ā Zatanna utters bringing down a wall between the two alphas.Ā
āKeep him out of Gotham. Or else.ā Bruce reiterates, he turns around abruptly, shadows clinging to him and his cowl as he leaves.Ā
āYou donāt get to ban my brother from a city he saved!ā Zatanna shouts out behind him.Ā
āI still donāt get why heās upset.ā You murmur.Ā
āBruce, think about thisāā Barbaraās voice comes through Bruceās earpiece.Ā
āIām terminating comms for now, Oracle.ā Bruce says getting into his jet.Ā
The moment the doors close behind him he backhands the nearest wall, denting it.Ā
āHe nearly brought the Joker back to life, Bruce?ā Clark asks, mouth agape.
āHe did. He was flippant, as most teens are.ā Bruce says candidly.Ā
āHe didnāt plan to fully resurrect the Joker.ā Bruce murmurs. āI may not know what point he was making, but that much, I know.ā
āHe was a teen with unfathomable power at his fingertips.ā He sighs.Ā
āHeās grown since then.ā Bruce smiles softly.Ā
āThis story doesnāt make me feel better, Bruce.ā Clark says defeated.Ā
āItās not supposed to.ā Bruce answers, meeting Clarkās gaze.Ā
āItās supposed to establish that (Y/n) is not exempt from morality.ā Bruce reveals. āHe is operating under responsibilities our laws were never written to comprehend.ā
āSo, what?ā Clark scoffs. āYou allow the little red terrorist free rein as though the universe is his sandbox?āĀ
Bruce raises an eyebrow.Ā
Clark sighs. āI didnāt mean that. Iām justā I am frustrated. Why does the League allow the multiversal custodian such liberties?āĀ
āNo.ā Bruce says sternly. āIt means we judge him by his scale. By the responsibility creation placed in his hands when it made him capable of unilaterally enacting his will upon it.ā
Clark turns to look out the viewport. His hands clench into fists at his sides. ā(Y/n) is not a god.āĀ
āHe isnāt.ā Bruce immediately agrees. āNor does he want to be. The strain is already enormous. Put yourself in his shoes. If you could see every single branch, every Lex Luthor, those who choose redemption, and those who choose destruction, what choice would you make?āĀ
Clark turns back to face Bruce again. āI wouldāāĀ
Clarkās face pales. His jaw sets.
āI wouldā¦ not erase him. He couldāve grown and learned.ā He manages to get out.Ā
āAnd thus youāve potentially condemned countless universes.ā Bruce states. ā(Y/n) saw every Lex Luthorāthe good, the heroes, even the evil ones who never crossed that boundary. He left them untouched. He erased only the versions whose choices had already endangered creation, or whose branches had converged on that outcome.ā
Bruce steps closer. āI admire this quality about you, Clark, donāt misunderstand. You simply canāt imagine the scope. In our universe, Lex Luthor died and trillions of others live. Multiply that by the infinite expanse of creation. The number of Lex Luthors erased is beyond calculation. The number of lives saved is greater still.ā Ā
Clark shakes his head. āI still wouldnāt have erased them. They were alive. They were people. They couldāve changed.āĀ
ā«ā«ĖĖĖ single dad!jj maybank x doctor!male reader
ā«ā«ĖĖĖ fluff
ā«ā«ĖĖĖ your next patient is the son of jj maybank, a single father who causes so much chaos in the small time he's in your office.
"please send in the next patient, then. thanks!" as soon as the nurse closed the door, you slumped dead against your office chair. five seconds of peace was apparently too much of an ask for a first year resident.
you thought i'd be easier being in a small coastal hospital, but it was still more demanding than your surgical clinics during med school. turns out the word "doctor" and "overworked" together was just a universal truthā
you jolted straight up when the door slammed against the wall, rattling an animated chart of human anatomy. a stroller rolled onto the clean tiles of the office, housing a one year old toddler dressed in denim overalls. gripping the handles was a sand-blond haired man sporting a cheeky grin. "sorry, i don't know how to fold a stroller. and i thought the doors here were as tough as the ones in the lobby."
"it's okay. it happens." you smiled at him. you didn't expect the man to smile back. it woke several butterflies in your stomach that have gone dormant for so long. you picked up the clipboard to distract yourself. "wilson maybank, right?"
"the one and only. the GOAT." the manā presumably the father, considering they were both wearing overallsā placed the cheerful toddler on the clinic seat. his rich voice spoke with so much pride that warmed your stomach for a moment.
"so what brings your son here, mr. maybank?" there wasn't much written on the form he filled out.
"you could call me jj, doc." you thought you have seen jj's smile, but it turned out it could go so much wider. it radiated so much warmth that it could've placed the sunshine through the window out of commission. "and there ain't any issues, really. i just got a big bonus, and thought i'd take lil' w here for a checkup. last i bought him here was for his vaccines. that okay?"
"routine checkups are done all the time. it's recommended, actually." you made your way to wilson, silently thanking the beach gods that it wasn't another jellyfish sting or sea urchin being in places it shouldn't be in. the little toddler giggled and held your gloved finger while you listened to his heartbeat and airflow. all normal.
"maybe you could check out sometime then, doc." you heard jj as you took off the earpieces. "you like the doctor too, don't ya little guy?" jj scrunched his face at his son, who cooed in response.
"technically, i can't. im a pediatrician. but i could set you up with our general department." you gently laid wilson on his back. you only realized that jj may have meant something else when his cocky grin faltered for a split second. but you tried not to read into it too much. "so tell me, how are things at home? is he speaking yet?"
"a lot. you don't know how hard it is to be outranked by dinosaur, ball, unicorn, bird, and the babysitter's full name before he ever said dada." jj faked clutched his heart like he had a heart attack. a genuine laugh escaped your tired throat, taking note of the ease he leaned with against the counters. "him running around's the worst part, though. i didn't know just how many places he could bump his head in until he bumped into all of them."
"ouchie. but it's good that he's walking and running. wilson seems to be advanced for his age." you felt around his neck for bumps you hoped you won't find. when he was in the clear, you lifted a finger and held it in front of wilson who laughed and immediately followed with his irises. "i'm guessing everything is baby proofed in your home now?"
"absolutely. even the toilet is sealed shut. had to crap in the bathtub a few more times than i thought i would have to." jj laughed out loud. you would've asked him to keep it down, but the slight rasp in his assuring voice gave the same comforts as sleep and food you missed. it was getting harder to focus looking into wilson's ears and nose when your body urged you to look at jj again.
"it's actually a lot harder than i thought it would be." there was a slight drop in jj's voice. you gazed at him, but his sights were fixed on the glimmer of light on the tiled flooring. you decided you should focus on your job and went to feeling his abdomen for any abnormalities. every touch earned you a sweet laugh from wilson.
"i gotta work in the mornings and take care of him at night. im happy for all the things i do for him, times i have with him. i'm sure it'll get easier when he's old enough for daycare, too. but i shouldn't be doing this on my own, ya know? ion even know how to collapse the damn stroller. i don't know what i'm doing most of the time." despite the chuckle jj followed with, you felt the uncertainty and bitterness he had in your skin. feelings you wished you could take away from a man who looked like he harnessed the waves.
"what happened to his mom?" the question stumbled out your mouth before you could think it through. and before you could apologize, jj answered.
"had a terrible accident. tripped and fell onto her co-workers dick. she's still stuck there." jj laughed with his bittersweet honey voice. but when you didn't laugh, he sheepishly reached for the back of his neck. "guess you haven't seen that video yet. but that's what actually happened. i shot for the sky, and now im stuck on the ground."
"sorry i asked." you faced jj for what you said next. you hadn't realized how much he towered over you. or how he bought sea salt and strong leather into the scents of the office. "for what it's worth, you're doing very well. wilson is extremely healthy. i would usually check his limbs too, but with how much he's kicking and waving he's doing it for me. i don't see any problems going forward."
"thanks." it was a foreign sight having a man's attention all to yourself. you craned your neck up to see him, but his eyes dropped down onto your lips before looking into yours again. "you look awfully young for a doctor."
"oāoh?" your cheeks burnt up. your mind raced to think if you were just imagining it or if his eyes actually went placed. "i qualified for a program that allowed me to do my bachelor's and med school together. i'm actually just 24 so i get that a lot."
"cool, only four years younger than me, eh?" jj squeezed your shoulder before walking over to wilson, who has crawled all over the couch now. you squinted your eyes for a moment, reeling the threads that jj has undone. you shouldn't read too much into it. you weren't even allowed to date a patient's parent unless you transferred them.
"ya single, doc?" jj asked, finishing the last seatbelt around wilson's waist. he shook the milk bottle in front of wilson before handing it to his eager hands.
"yeah uh, i'll write you a prescription for vitamins. it's not necessary but it'll be good if you look into it." you scrambled for your prescription pad. all that filled the silence was jj tapping his foot against the bed before he spoke again.
"when are ya free?" jj asked as soon as you handed the piece of paper. he looked down and scoffed. "i can't read cursive."
"oh, the store will know. and i'm a resident. we don't have free time." you laughed gingerly to yourself. jj's smile faded slowly, so you immediately followed. "that was a joke. that was me making a joke. im not used to itā i'm free this friday evening."
"i'll pick ya up, boy." jj winked. you said goodbye to wilson shakily, still wrapping your head around the fact that jj was taking you out this friday and it all seemed to move so fast. burn too bright. and all you could really do was go along for the ride.
"and hey, i told ya i felt stuck, right?" jj stopped halfway out the door, drowning you in his ocean blue gaze. "i don't feel that much anymore. and i think if ya gave me a chance, i'd feel less of that."
for the rest of the day bleeding into the night, through paperwork and patients and assists for attendings, jj maybank filled your thoughts. how for the longest time you wished for one moment to breathe. and how he seemed to come at just the right time.
Author: OK this was actually so cute so if yall want a part two let me know š«£
Toxic ex! Magneto who refuses to let up on you because you two were meant to be in his eyes.
He's so messy!! You guys broke up because he went back to the xmen,but that didn't mean he wanted to be without you. Keeps eyes on you through his followers in hopes of "keeping you safe". He couldn't let you have another boyfriend after him, he ended up running all of them off with threats. You were just as clueless because it's not like you two talked. It doesn't matter how long you guys are broken up because you are forever his. So what if he randomly shows up at your house all bruised and busted up. You're not going to turn him away right? He didn't think so. He spends the entire night sweet talking you, trying to get you to remember all of the good times you guys share with one another. He loves you and needs you in his life.
Fratboy! Sukuna who keeps you by his side at any parties he goes to.
He's usually the type to sit and just lean against the wall, drink in his hand while the music is bumping. He's known for having guys and girls alike by his side trying to get his attention all night. Who wouldn't want to be with him? Over six foot, known around the school, big as hell, covered in tattoos and piercings, everything about him just gave off sex appeal. The problem was he wanted you, you and no one else. It wasn't even a hidden fact either because at every frat party he was all up on you. Either standing behind you while you danced or holding you drink for you so you could talk with your friend. You made him your little personal errand boy.
Once he got with you, he never let you stray too far from him while at these parties. Dark heavy gaze followed wherever you went because he was obsessed with you. Now he lurked in the corner with his boys but kept you on his lap to talk to. You wanted to dance? That's fine, just make it in eyesight. You wanna go off with your friends? Cool, he'll be checking on y'all though because he knows how these parties can be. When it was just you two on the couch, he was clingy as fuck. Touching on your thighs, kissing your neck while telling you how good you looked, rubbing his thumb against your temple to soothe any relief or keep any chance of a migraine from the music and alcohol coming. Sukuna was obsessed with you.
