Hello, welcome to my blog. You can call me Sid for now. I am black, 20, Jacaerys Velaryon’s Husband, Harry Collet’s Malewife, and I write when I have free time. If you like my work, please give it a like and reblog. Hope you enjoy your stay.
Be cautious of the bats, they like to sleep in the dark corners of the library. But do not fret, they don’t bite🦇🦇
Rules - 🖋️Words from the author🖋️
Masterlist - 🦇Quiet in the library🦇
The Writer’s Nook - 🥀Works In Progress🥀
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Thank youuu for tagging me @savinggracee, @mrs-nonchalant I would definitely tag you guys too !! ❣️
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 ❤️ - no pressure, just for the funsies and to spread some love !
thank you so much for tagging me @pinkdoeweirdo ❤︎ even though i’m not in the akotsk or hotd fandom, i’m 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!! 💖 i think you're fully aware that i absolutely love your fics & your profile aesthetic 🫶 it's so heavenly beautiful 🥰
love and admire allllllllllllll my beautiful mooties, all of them, no exceptions... but i fear it'd be too much if i tagged all of them lol so here's the ones that i interact with the most 🥰🫶 fifi (lovely princess that tagged me in this post lol), @poison-babeyy (prettiest fairy ✨), @crowsberries (the sweetest vamp ever ❤️), @blxckchrrysmxke (your fics are amazing & you did spidey lion! for me which i'll never forget and i'll always be grateful for 💖) @moon6moon (twilight sparkle for my rainbow dash fr!! 💙💜), @xxxsl33p-l0vr (my spencer reid cutie patootie 🫶), @z3nozoldyck (BAMBIIIII ☺️ my cutie pie!!), @pinksiamese (mama pink 🩷), @hunt4bambi (love your profile aesthetic and you're such a sweetie 🥰), @quietchaosclub (your fics are so beautifully written, my lovey 💖), @iceemochaa (also will never forget about your spider lion... he'll always live in my heart... and i love your mj theme, it's so pretty!! 🩷), @flixpii (you're amazing & your fics... perfection, chef's kiss, give me ten billion of them), @nymphinite3 (you have a very special soul, sweetie 🥰), @irishprincessnigel (the love that we share for lion... is so unbelievably strong, bestie!! 🦁)
TYY FOR THE TAGS @bluesycatharsis @iceemochaa and @bleedingsunlight 💋💗
literally so many talented ppl on here 🫶🏾 if you’re my moot and not tagged, it’s bc i don’t want to blow up your inbox with multiple mentions I PROMISE i love y’all too !!
@bluesycatharsis @iceemochaa @bleedingsunlight you guys are getting tagged again 🤭 @remmickstalker @the-lilted-tune @opaleine @sinfulteeth @dariarot @h3r3t1c @lestatress @novar3ads (blowing up joker’s phone tho)
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 👀👀👀 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 🥹 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 💞💞 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 😅 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, I’ll 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
𝔑𝔬𝔱 𝔢𝔰𝔠𝔞𝔭𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔪𝔬𝔩𝔡𝓎 𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔡
Ethan Winters x male reader
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.
Words count: 11000
ℳ𝒶𝓈𝓉ℯ𝓇𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉 - 𝒫𝓇ℯ𝓋𝒾ℴ𝓊𝓈 𝓅𝒶𝓇𝓉
A year.
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 were… 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, “mornin' honey,” 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 didn’t 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, honey—" 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.
"Ethan…"
"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."
"Can’t we just stay in here an—" 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.
“She wants you there too, sweetheart.”
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, “why does she want me?”
He had shrugged, a small helpless roll of his shoulder that did not entirely match the calm of his face. “Because you're a Lord now, honey.”
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 I’m 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 don’t 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. “Miranda only knows whatever they say about me.”
"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, ‘oh, 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.’"
He was kissing your temple, warm and slow, between each phrase.
Your face was hot, gold in the air thickening.
"You are—" 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 ‘yes’ 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?"
So… you haven’t 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 man’s 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.
’You look real good in that chair, honey.’
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.
’Thanks.’ You aimed the thought at the string the way he had taught you to.
’I 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.’
’Ethan, focus.’
’I am extremely focused. You have no idea of it, you should see what I'm focused on.’
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.
’Still, 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.’
’Sure thing, dear.’
He was quiet for a beat.
’You know,’ 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, ’you know, honey, I distinctly recall a certain individual telling me one night that my lap was his favorite seat in the house.’
’…you are being unbearable.’
‘Am I wrong?’
’…it was late at night and I did not know what I was saying.’
There was a small pause on his end, mental equivalent of a smug hum.
’Sweetheart, if I recall correctly, you were saying it while you were riding me.’
’Ethan!’
’You had been going at it for… what was it, two hours by that point? Two and a half?’
’Oh my God!’ 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.
’Oh, sweetheart. Did I get you?’
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.
’Ethan, please…’
’Ssh, just relax for me. That's it.’
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.
’Not yet,’ he said, gently, in your head. ’First 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.’
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 Ethan’ 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.
’Ethan, everyone can see your eyes.’
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.
’Ethan, this is not the time.’
’Sweetheart, please.’ His voice along the string had gone into a small tender pleading. ’You 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.’
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.
’Everybody can see your eyes glowing,’ 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.
’Fine,’ you said along the string. ’But nothing too much.’
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.
’Look 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.’
’Ethan, please quick—’
’Not yet.’
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.
’Ethan, please.’
’Please what, honey. What do you want.’ That smug tone in his voice grew thicker.
’I want you inside me.’
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.
’You wanted it, you got it. Now say thank you.’
’You are unbelievable.’
’Say it… please?’
’Thank you.’
’Good boy.’
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.
’There you go,’ he crooned along the string into the shell of your ear. ’I like you better here, honey. This is where you belong, not in some thing that Karl made you. Say it.’
’…I belong to you.’
’Louder.’
’I belong to you. I belong to you. I belong to you.’
’Good.’
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.
’Sweetheart, you gotta keep it together, honey, we got a whole room.’ He rolled his hips again in the image, dragging himself along that map of your insides he had memorized.
’Ethan, please just—’
’Please just what, honey? Say it. You know what I want to hear.’
’Please, harder!’
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.
’Look at how good you take me. Look at that. My beautiful husband made for me. Made for me. Mine. Mine. Mine.’
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.
’Let go, honey. Let me have it.’
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.
’Sweetheart,’ he said along the string and his voice had gone into that small warm pleased register. ’You did so good.’
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 greedy—"
"Quite."
"—shut 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.
Anuța.
Mihai.
You had not seen their faces, in your own head, in… 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.
’careful, sweetheart, you don't know what you're stepping into.’
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, please—"
"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't… 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."
"…you’re 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 Anuța and Mihai?"
"…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.
’Sweetheart.’
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.
’Where are you?’
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.
’Sweetheart. I am asking where are you. Do not lie to me.’
Scarlet Solarium: When the Sun Kneels Chapter 2 — 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.
“(Y/n), you are not to leave our sides.” Giovanni reiterates.
“We’re 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.” Zatanna chortles.
“Okaaaay.” You groan loudly.
“Good.” Giovanni utters as you all walk through the portal.
In an instant you’re all by the Batcomputer.
It towers and surrounds all three of you, large and imposing like a cybernetic god, humming like it’s alive.
“Zatanna, Giovanni, (Y/n).” Bruce greets.
“Hi Bruce.” You yawn as you greet.
“(Y/n).” Giovanni shakes his head.
“We said code names only.” Zatanna reminds you.
“Oh oops.” You wince. “Hi Batman.”
“It’s fine. We have more urgent matters.” Bruce states walking over and handing them a scroll.
“Eugh. The magic coming off of that thing’s disgusting.” You gag.
“Yeah.” Zatanna says concerned.
“I’ll show you where Tim found it.” Bruce says getting into the Batmobile.
“Oh my god we get to ride in the Batmobile!” You fanboy out to Zatanna, bouncing on your heels.
“Is this your first time?” Zatanna asks.
“Yeah?” You answer confused. “Is this what you were doing when you were a part of Young Justice?!”
“(Y/n).” Bruce says clipped.
“Sorry.” You whisper getting into the back of his car.
You shoot daggers at Zatanna as she laughs quietly.
You ‘ooo’ and ‘aaah’ at Gotham City nightlife, you can spot hundreds of clubs, and feel the pulse of music through the air.
“Don’t even think about it, (Y/n).” Bruce says. “You’re here on business, not fun.”
“I know.” You sulk crossing your arms and leaning back.
“You’re not even old enough to get in.” Zatanna snorts.
“I could be!” You snap. “For a few hours at least.”
“Anyway—“ Your voice drops as you feel the hum of radiation.
It makes your skin crawl.
You can almost hear, feel the warmth of the screams of the damned on your neck.
“What is that?” You ask softly. “It’s…invasive…it’s wrong…”
“It’s a Lazarus Pit.” Bruce answers plainly.
“People don’t use them do they?” You ask horrified.
Bruce’s jaw tightens.
His hands turn into vices around the steering wheel.
“Not by choice.” He says sternly.
Bruce accelerates driving faster until he reaches the center of the magical anomaly.
“It’s a graveyard.” You mutter unimpressed as Bruce parks.
“It’s not the setting, it’s what’s going on in the graveyard.” Bruce utters as he gets out.
He walks deeper into the cemetery, with you all following until he stops just short of a barrier.
“None 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.” He adds.
“Woah.” You whisper walking over and touching the magical boundary.
“(Y/n).” Giovanni utters.
“I know, I’m making a hole in it so we can all go in.” You whisper.
You close your eyes.
You stretch your hand out, making contact with the boundary.
In an instant, a red line traces from the ground up in a rectangular shape, before meeting the ground again.
The whole cemetery shakes as a doorway stretches open.
“Well…”, You turn to them, “last one in owes the rest of us dinner.” You chortle running in.
“God help us.” Bruce mutters.
He lets Zatanna and Giovanni run through before he follows, stopping just short of the threshold.
He clenches his hands into fists, he sets his jaw before walking through.
“Yuck.” You pinch your nose shut, before your other hand covers your mouth, suppressing a gag.
“Is he okay, Giovanni?” Bruce asks, eyeing your reaction.
“He’s fine.” Giovanni assures. “Yfirup ria.”
Your nose twitches as that disgusting scent is exorcised from the atmosphere.
Giovanni smiles softly.
“Thanks dad.” You beam.
“He’s more sensitive to magic.” Giovanni reveals.
“Mm.” Bruce grunts.
“Huh.” Zatanna says, levitating and flying overhead. “No zombies…but the magic is there.”
You hold your hand out, magic already glowing and condensing.
“Yeah. Let me amp it—“
”No.” Giovanni states, cutting you off. “We’re far from home. No wards to nullify your magic signature. Zatanna and I can handle this.”
“Then why did I even come along?” You whine.
The scarlet hue fades as you cross your arms.
“The last time we left you home alone, you and Klarion turned the inside into a shifting labyrinth.” Zatanna reminds. “It took days to undo the spell.”
“Fine.” You murmur, sitting down on a headstone. “I’ll just be here then…watching.”
“Thank you, (Y/n).” Giovanni smiles warmly before turning his focus back to the matter at hand.
You watch them work spouting magical theory you’ve learned countless times over.
Rolling your eyes as Bruce talks about magic being dangerous, wildly unpredictable.
Before you respond the words die on your tongue as you feel someone pulling on plant life, halfway across the city.
“That’s not magic…that’s something else.” You think, smirking to yourself.
You look at Zatanna, Bruce, and your dad all distracted with the task at hand.
“They won’t notice if I just…slip away for a few minutes.” You giggle to yourself.
Your lips move slowly, carefully, your hand briefly glows red as you set up a projection of yourself, still sitting.
You bury your magic signature under that disgusting Lazarus hum you still feel, while you slip away unnoticed.
“Now where did I feel it from…” You murmur to yourself from the roof of a skyscraper.
You close your eyes, a thin scarlet sheet blankets over the city, riding just underneath that Lazarus noise floor.
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.
You tilt your head unsure, until one of the heartbeats is encased by the silent hum of foliage and greenery.
“Bingo.” You smirk, your hand draws a line downward in the space in front of you.
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.
The blonde’s sentence dies on her tongue.
She tenses, spinning around, and swinging her mallet at you.
Your hand catches it, a buffer of red magic between it and your palm.
“Oh you’re strong.” You compliment.
You can feel her pushing harder and harder, despite your hand not moving even a centimeter.
“Ivy! We got company.” She says straining against your hand and magic.
“On it, Harley.” Ivy says, kneeling down, hand flat against the ground.
It’s 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.
They lift you up in the air, Harley approaches mallet resting on her shoulder.
“Look Red, we caught ourselves a lil’ magician.” She laughs looking you up and down.
“Or a witch.” Ivy adds coming closer. “Newbie vigilante?” She asks.
“Well…kinda? Not really a newbie though…and not here to stop…” You look around finally taking in the scene, “animal liberation?” You say confused.
The animals don’t seem particularly in distress anymore.
Not with the broken cages littering the ground.
“You two look more heroic than I do.” You snort.
“Look witch boy run back to wherever you—“
“That’s Klarion’s moniker.” You interject.
”Ivy, protect the kid!” Harley yells as she dives behind a crate.
“Open fire!” A man’s voice cuts through the silence.
They all draw their weapons.
Aiming for center mass, vital organs, and heads.
Another torrent of vines shoot out of the ground encasing you fully.
Ivy gets into a defensive position, a wall of thick foliage between her, Harley, you, and the armed men.
In a split second the muzzles flash, before bullet casings hit the ground in quick succession.
“Hold your fire! Penguin’s money is tied up in those animals.” The same man’s voice cuts through halting the fire immediately.
Ivy’s vines shoot out of the ground, whipping wildly.
They smack guns out of hands and men into walls.
She doesn’t notice one of them taking aim in her blind spot.
“Ivy!” Harley shouts as she backflips, and brings her mallet down on his head.
Ivy’s expression goes blank.
She turns around feeling the vines she put around you be wrestled—
Not wrestled.
Gently taken, pried from her control.
They slowly recede into the ground.
“Ooooh… so that’s how you do it?” You say excitedly.
“Kid?” Ivy says confused, anxious as Penguin’s men recover.
“Oh! I’ve got this.” You smirk as they take aim.
Ivy lifts a hand, constructing a barrier of plant life.
She doesn’t hesitate, she doesn’t 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.
Harley gets ready, putting herself between you and the gunfire.
Her fingers trill and tap in place along the handle of her mallet, seemingly hyping herself up for when the fire ends.
Penguin’s goons’ fingers pull the trigger.
They all fire without rest, only stopping when their clips are empty.
Ivy slowly opens a hole in her defense to see what’s happening.
Harley approaches right behind her, coming cheek to cheek.
Their eyes widen as they see the innumerable bullets just hovering in the air around you all, held in place by your scarlet magic.
“Wanna handle clean up?” You giggle looking to them.
Ivy’s 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.
Make them strong.
Stronger.
The plant life, perhaps even the Green itself, seems to react to you.
To the magic you hold.
To the magic that seems older and more primordial than even creation itself.
“Look alive Ivy!” Harley giggles as she starts her offensive response.
She twirls around swinging her mallet indiscriminately, nailing goon after goon.
Ivy shakes her head, a smirk tugging at her lips.
“You’re not half-bad kid.” She says under her breath.
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 Harley’s truck.
“Kid, we gotta get outta here.” Harley says tugging your arm.
“Just a sec’.” You say, rising to your feet.
You take a breath, red magic starts diffusing off of you, curling and coiling before slowly enveloping the area.
Your lips twitch quickly as you cast a spell.
In an instant the scarlet smoke enters the head of every single man present.
Still through the act you stay aware of hiding your magic signature.
All of their eyes snap open in unison, they all glow red, before slowly fluttering shut.
“Whaddya do ta’ ‘em?” Harley asks.
“Just erased their memory.” You shrug your shoulder.
Harley snorts. “I like you kid.” She puts a hand on your shoulder, as she leads you to the getaway car.
“So what are you guys doing next?” You ask excitedly, getting into the back.
“Guess we oughta tuck ya in, squirt…” Harley says aloud. “We already hit Penguin’s animal trade, left them at a sanctuary, s’not much left for tonight, unless yer willin’ tah help us rob a bank?”
“Harley.” Ivy warns.
She looks at you with mistrust, but you don’t 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 skin…by the same blade, the scarlet magic also puts her at ease.
“I mean…”, your hand goes to the back of your head, “I was bored earlier…a bank robbery…”
The hesitation reminds Ivy you’re still just a kid, not exactly— or entirely— someone untrustworthy.
“Don’t think of it as a bank robbery kid.” Ivy interjects. “We’re going to take the cash Penguin got selling these animals and put it into the environment. Give it to an animal reserve.”
“Yeah squirt, it’s more about the rush than anything.” Harley laughs.
“Yeah…I guess so…it’s for a good cause right?” You say rationalizing it.
“Exactly, it’s for a good cause.” Ivy reiterates.
“So kid, you got a name?” Harley asks as the engine roars to life.
“(Y/n). (Y/n) Zatara.” You answer leaning back.
“Harley Quinn.” She answers.
“Poison Ivy.” The redhead adds.
“Let’s hit it!” Harley beams, as the tires squeal.
She hits a few trash cans, and more of the Penguin’s men as she peels out of the docks and deep into the city.
It started simple really.
In and out.
With you tagging along, they didn’t have to break in.
The doors were already unlocked.
The security system deactivated for the night.
Ivy and Harley put the guards you left over to sleep.
“Alright squirt, outta the way. I got a safe to crack.” Harley laughs, getting close to the metal knob.
She twists the dial a few times, ear pressed against the door.
“Open sesame!” She tries pulling it open, sighing dramatically when it doesn’t.
“Well, I gave it my best shot.” She shrugs, before pulling out a pipe bomb colored in red and black diamonds.
She attaches it to the locking mechanism, before running behind you and Ivy for cover.
You snicker lifting a hand.
Red magic envelops the door and bomb, isolating it from everything else.
“God I love ya already kid.” She sighs, as the bomb detonates but makes no sound, and leaves no lasting damage to anything other the safe’s lock.
“I’ll wait out here.” You say softly. “Let me know if you need help carrying bags.”
“Well toots’, we do need a hand.” Harley says pulling you into the safe.
“Okay.” You snicker, your hand glows red as a portal opens up underneath the money.
It all gets siphoned through, like water down a drain, right into Harley’s car, before you jump in after it.
“Come on Red.” Harley giggles following you.
Ivy wordlessly travels through trying to take some of your magic.
It feels warm to the touch as it dissipates on her palm.
“Let’s go!” Harley shouts, laughing as she hits the gas.
You laugh, leaning out the window as she does.
Your joy dies in your throat as you see innumerable red and blue flashes rushing up behind you all.
“Ah shit.” Harley sucks her teeth. “Buckle up kid.”
Harley tugs your seat belt tighter before she puts both hands on the wheel.
“Ivy.” Harley calls out.
She doesn’t respond, but instantly, giant vines pop out of the ground giving Harley’s truck a new escape route.
“Ugh, they’re still on us?” Harley whispers adjusting her mirror. “Ivy, bury the car, let’s move this on foot.”
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.
“What now?” You ask, looking down, hand glowing as you fix the concrete.
“Well now—“ the sound of a helicopter cuts off Harley.
“We run!” She shouts with a laugh, taking off.
You smirk to yourself chasing after her.
You can barely keep up.
Your face flashes as an idea crosses your mind.
Portals start to blink in and out of existence.
You jump through each, putting you at pace with them.
“Geez kid you’re playing with some serious firepower.” Harley laughs watching as you jump in and out of the holes in reality.
“There they are!” Another voice rips through.
“Penguin’s men found us.” Ivy remarks, using her vines to keep pace. “We need to move faster.”
She grabs Harley, but before she can grab you, you flicker out of existence before appearing again even further in front of her.
“Don’t gotta tell me twice!” You laugh, outrunning them.
“Don’t be greedy (Y/n)!” Harley laughs. “Share some of that with us!”
“Huh? Sure.” 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.
Making them stronger, faster.
Their earlier fatigue gone.
Harley’s eyes seem clearer, while Ivy can feel the thrum of even the smallest plant life all around her.
“Oh my god.” Ivy whispers.
“I know, Red.” Harley answers just as quiet.
They’re both finally keeping up with you.
Harley has a clarity she hasn’t had in ages.
Ivy can feel and sense even the tiniest, deepest root.
It’s intoxicating.
And yet they don’t lust for your power.
“They’re still on us.” Harley says looking over her shoulder.
“I think I can fix that.” You say.
You stop short, before turning towards the helicopter.
Your lips move in tandem with your hands.
“Don’t move!” The PA system on the helicopter booms.
Scarlet sigils move with purpose, slithering through the air and arranging themselves in an intricate lattice around the helicopter.
“Huh?” The sound system goes off again.
The floodlight sweeps across the rooftop in wide arcs.
“We’ve lost sight of them!”
The helicopter tilts left, before turning around and searching in a different area of Gotham.
“See that wasn’t—“ You gasp sharply.
A gunshot echoes as you hit the ground.
“Kid!” Harley yells, kneeling beside you.
In a fraction of a second Ivy’s vines rip apart the gun and pin the shooter to the wall.
“Ow…” you groan. “That hurt…”
Your hand hovers over your wound.
Red wisps drift down, gently reaching into the wound.
When the wisps pull taut, they snap back.
“Fuck!” You shout turning over, as the bullet clatters across the ground.
“Lemme see it, (Y/n).” Harley says turning you back to her, but all she manages to catch is red wisps sealing the wound.
Her eyes snap to Ivy’s before back down to you.
“So…a witch huh?” Harley laughs softly.
“Yeah…” You groan softly, stretching your arm before you stand up.
“Something like that…don’t know exactly myself either.” You laugh nervously.
“You’re still you, ya know.” Harley says punching the shoulder you just got shot in.
Ivy’s hands twitch, she could just…poke you.
Some thorns catching on your skin, some blood her plants could absorb and hold before it vaporizes.
She shakes her head, she can only imagine the amount of control it takes.
The amount of restraint you must be exercising.
“Yeah. You’re still you, (Y/n). Crazy powers or not.” Ivy says patting your back.
“Thanks Ivy.” You smile warmly.
“We should go.” You say looking over your shoulder. “They’re coming.”
Before either of them can respond, you’re already flickering to the next rooftop.
“What do you think Harley?” Ivy asks as they try to keep up.
“Kid’s got spunk, I tell ya.” Harley laughs, before she makes a face, deep in thought.
“You’ve been spacing out a lot Harley.” Ivy says softly.
“With how much chaos (Y/n) brings with him I thought you’d be having a ball.” She laughs.
“Yeah, Red…just thinkin’…” Harley responds.
“What about?” Ivy presses, but before Harley can respond, you all freeze hearing that god awful, blood curdling laugh.
“Him.” Harley snarls. “The kid’s magic is doin’ something to my brain…it doesn’t feel as fuzzy.”
“And it’s tellin’ me I need to get even with Mistah J’ for all he’s done tah me.” She adds.
“I’ve been waiting for an excuse.” Ivy says stretching. “Let’s do it?”
Harley looks over the roof’s edge to spot the Joker.
He seems to be in his element, terrorizing the public with no discernible goal in mind.
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.
The air shifts as you pop back to them.
“You guys know him?” You ask peering over the edge.
“Not really.” Ivy says disgusted.
“Not for much longer.” Harley laughs, gripping her mallet tighter. “Let’s give them a show.”
“Alright, I’ll make sure you two can keep up.” You laugh, funneling more magic into buffing them.
“Last one down there’s a rotten Bat!” Harley laughs, as she dives downward, mallet raised, already primed to smash someone’s head into the ground.
Her mallet lands with a sickening thud. “One down.” She singsongs.
“Let’s?” You giggle jumping down after her.
Ivy’s smile is harder to hide as she follows suit.
“Hmm guns are hardly fair, it’s a shame they’re all jammed.” You declare, both hands glowing red as you get ready to provide cover.
“Fire, you nitwits!” Joker demands, every gun clicks but no rounds go off.
“I needed fertilizer.” Ivy states pragmatically as her vines turn sharper.
They slice in wide arcs, cutting through barrels and firing chambers.
She twists around each vine independently whipping a goon into the wall.
“He’s mine.” Harley reminds you both.
“I don’t want him.” You laugh, hands glowing as you fight off and puppeteer some of his henchmen.
“I wouldn’t take this from you.” Ivy assures, as she makes sure the Joker’s goons don’t get up again.
“H-Harley!” Joker stammers, falling on his ass as he backs up.
“Mistah J’.” She icily responds.
“Come to beg for me to take you back?” Joker taunts.
“Hand that overgrown weed and street kid over, and I just might—“
The words don’t get to leave his mouth as her mallet crashes against the side of his head.
“I never did pay ya’ back fer everything, did I Puddin’?” She asks coldly.
The voice in her head that wanted his approval, his attention, his love, fades even deeper into the scarlet patchwork that’s enhancing her.
Gone.
Silenced forever.
All that remains is her voice.
The one he buried.
The one that was telling her to get even.
To make The Joker pay.
“H-Harley— I know we haven’t seen eye to eye lately.” Joker says through a crazed laugh.
“And we never will again puddin’.” Harley states with finality, as she brings her mallet down on the crown of his head.
Your throat works.
The Joker’s head makes a sickening crunch as it meets the pavement.
The Joker’s body twitches, once, twice, before seizing as Harley brings her mallet down.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The Joker’s blood pools across the streets of Gotham.
“Is he….?” You ask softly.
“Yeah. He is. Sorry kid.” Harley says broken up.
“Had to. He was never going to make Bats laugh.” She adds with a forced laugh.
You take a look around.
The mental math is easy.
The Joker’s goons opened fire, ready to kill.
Harley and Ivy obviously had a score to settle with him.
The Joker is a nuisance— to put it gently.
His death means hundreds, if not thousands of other people do not die.
“Well…” You wince.
“No use crying over spilled seltzer?” You laugh awkwardly.
Harley’s eyes meet yours.
She sputters, she nearly doubles over from the laughter that rips through her.
“Oh yer funny kid.” She puts an arm around your shoulder. “Why don’t we go get some milkshakes? On me.”
“Or on the house really…people usually give me free things when I walk in to places.” She chortles. “I don’t even hav’ ta’ hold my mallet too high!”
“What about them?” You ask looking back up to the rooftop where Penguin’s men watch.
All of them slack jawed at what they witnessed, before screaming and running away when Ivy and Harley look up at them.
“They’re not gonna touch us after this.” Ivy assures you. “Harley just killed the Joker, and I helped.”
“Ivy and I get to hold court the next few days around ‘ere.” Harley laughs.
“Well I—“
“Watched.” Harley interrupts you. “You didn’t do anything.”
“Alright, then.” You giggle, following their lead.
"Go ahead.” Bruce says hand to his ear. “What?”
“Let Nightwing handle it. No one else.” He stresses. “Hold him off until I get there.”
“How much longer?” He approaches the Zataras.
“Well…kind of?” Zatanna says trying to pin down the original magic signature.
“Why?” Giovanni asks.
“The Joker is attacking downtown Gotham. I sent Nightwing to take care of it for now.” He says pacing back and forth.
“Go handle it, we’ve got this covered. Not much we can do to speed this up, and dad is refusing to get (Y/n) to help us.” Zatanna rolls her eyes.
“He’s made good progress but bringing him wasn’t for an extra set of hands. It’s so he gets experience out in the field.” Giovanni reiterates.
“Hm.” Bruce grunts, looking over to you.
You seem relaxed.
Too relaxed.
Far too casual for someone who gagged earlier when they caught a whiff of the Lazarus Pit.
Bruce shakes his head, he knows what you’re capable of and yet it doesn’t make him feel any better.
Bruce feels like he’s aged 10 years in the time it’s taking Giovanni and Zatanna to find the source.
“Go for me.” Bruce says hand on his ear again, pacing back and forth with more fervor.
“What’s the Joker doing? How many hostages? How many—“ Bruce stops in his tracks, ice in his veins, throat too dry to speak. “What?”
“Confirm it, Oracle.” He grits out. “Yes, Nightwing. Transport the body. Find out what you can.”
“I can handle it too, B. I’m close by.” Jason’s voice cuts in.
Bruce’s jaw tightens. “Join Nightwing. Don’t force yourself. You have nothing to prove.”
He stares at the ground, hands clenching into fists.
“What’s going on Batman?” Zatanna asks.
“The Joker is dead.” He says lowly. “Someone got to him before Nightwing did.”
“Are you sure it’s a smart idea to cut through alleyways?” You say looking around.
The air feels weird.
Granted… it is Gotham.
And you’ve never been in an alleyway.
It just feels… off.
“Yeah, squirt. You’re bein’ a worrywart.” Harley waves you off.
As you all continue to walk, you notice it first.
A Batman logo, encircled in red, a red line diagonally across.
It hasn’t changed.
You kept track of your steps.
Every two hundred and forty nine steps it appears again.
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.
You suppress your gag this time, but it’s familiar.
It’s humming through the air, that same energy you felt earlier.
The static, the siren call of the Lazarus Pit.
You’re all looping and someone is causing it.
“Perceptive, child. Unusually so.” A woman’s voice cuts through the thickened air.
Ivy and Harley tense, both ready for what’s coming.
“Yeah, I am.” You put a red wall in front of you all. “Seems like you are too.”
“You’re the cause of the zombies in the cemetery…aren’t you?” You directly accuse.
Footsteps echo in the alley, as a woman’s silhouette comes into view.
“A little experiment, really.” The woman shrugs like it’s nothing.
Your eyes drag over every inch of her.
“That’s why it’s hard to pin down the source.” You think to yourself.
Her magic signature is near identical to the hum of the Lazarus Pit.
The alleyway seems to narrow, the walls feel like they’re closing in.
“You have a magic older than time itself.” She speaks already approaching.
“Kid, run!” Harley shouts as she tries to strike the woman with her mallet.
It bounces off of a wall that shines green briefly, before a shock wave knocks Harley and Ivy out cold.
“I am Mother Soul.” She states. “(Y/n) Zatara, you will make a fine gift and addition to the Lazarus Pit.”
She stares you down, eyes briefly glowing with that same ominous verdant color.
“With your essence I could unmake death itself.” She says with regality, as if it’s an honor for you.
“No thanks.” Your hands coat themselves in your magic, you take a breath.
“Let’s begin.” She fires a concentrated blast of magic towards you.
On instinct your hand draws a wide arc in front of you, breaking the magic she cast.
“Llaf.” Your voice echoes and bounces around the alleyway.
Mother Soul bends, dropping to one knee, before a wave of green erupts and she stands tall once more.
“Enough parlor tricks.” She says derisively, launching another blast at you.
You open a portal in front of you and another behind her.
The blast hits her but scatters across the air in front of her like she’s absorbing it.
“Alright then.” You mutter to yourself.
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.
She throws another green blast right at you.
You plant your feet, that scarlet hue dies down.
Instead of dodging, or redirecting, you let it hit.
You gag immediately, nearly doubling over as it sinks into your marrow.
The lichen-colored magic travels across your skin ripping into your flesh reminiscent of cracks across porcelain.
Your scarlet magic erupts in waves out of you.
Taking the shape of fire as if to burn and purge out the invasive force.
You fall to your knees, breathing heavily, face slick a sheen of sweat.
“I anticipated more of a fight. It would seem Zatara’s teachings are wasted on you.” Mother Soul says disappointed. “Very well then, I’ll just take what I came for.”
She approaches hand outstretched, but before she can touch the crown of your head, she freezes.
Her body trembles.
She clutches her abdomen, before random sections of her body swell.
First her right arm, she wills it away.
The mass shifts to her left leg.
She tries to expel the excess energy but it makes her body swell further.
Your breathing evens out, as you stand up again.
“Y-You keep siphoning energy from that horrible pit.” You say, stuttering.
Her eyes widen as your words register, you’ve seen through her.
“You’re leaving yourself unguarded.” You say mockingly.
She purses her lips.
It’s refined but it feels like a snarl.
As though she’s bearing her teeth.
“Child, you’re full of yourself.” She says calmly. “I need only expend the excess, and what better way than burying you with it.”
She takes aim at you, trying to condense and give shape to her next strike, but only sparks fly.
She tries again but this time nothing springs from her hand.
She makes the attempt again and again, stuttering with her incantations.
When she does manage to get through a single phrase the spell fails.
She’s losing magic— hemorrhaging really.
She can extrapolate from her body deflating, but she isn’t— can’t cast anything.
“What have you done to me?!” She snarls, the mask finally falling.
She can feel her body aging rapidly.
“Rewriting reality is kinda my thing.” You laugh. “You’re siphoning inward, so I just shifted it outwards.”
“But it doesn’t matter anymore.” You shake your head.
Mother Soul’s head whips around, looking at the space, she can see the faint red runes.
They’re not burned onto the walls.
They couldn’t be, she knew you were a Zatara.
She knew Giovanni or Zatanna would’ve taught them to you.
It was the simplest thing she thought to counter.
She knew you would try something like that.
And yet they still warble with live magic.
She eyes them closer, seeing the edges of reality fray around each rune and ward.
She can only see the mere edges of the vast white void that sits under creation.
You’ve burned them into existence.
“Runes.” She snaps.
“Yeah.” You say smugly. “Try erasing them, you’ll just burn through your limited magic.”
Mother Soul’s nails drag against the concrete as she stews.
You watch and wait.
Half expecting her to have something else up her sleeve.
But she doesn’t.
You can hear it.
The thing that lives in the Pit.
It’s whispering.
Your eyes widen.
It’s whispering to you.
“This is getting boring Ruh Al Ghul.” You yawn. “And that thing isn’t nearly as loyal as you think it is.”
Her eyes widen, she can feel the being in the Pits measure her worth.
She can feel her soul resting in the palm of your hands.
Your fingers twitch and crack as red chains rip through the fabric of reality, locking around each of her wrists and ankles.
You spread your fingers, she groans as she’s strung up, arms and legs nearly pulled clean from her body.
She’s only saved by her Lazarus Pit enhancements.
“I could just undo your spell and put those people back to rest…” you drag out the last word.
“Or I could just take your head.” You say nonchalantly.
“It’s all the same really.” You shrug your shoulders.
A saw blade made of your scarlet magic, manifests in front of you.
You twist your hand forward.
The blade spins and spins, until it seems to cut the air itself.
“(Y/n) Zatara—!” She shouts as the blade flies at her.
Her eyes slowly shut as she accepts her fate, but the blade never digs into her flesh.
She opens her eyes, watching as strands of her hair fall.
The saw keeps spinning, fast enough each serrated edge blurs into one continuous blade.
“Undo your spell, and retreat to wherever you’re from. ‘Cause I only forgive once.” You state, as your magic dissipates.
The chains that strung her up release her immediately as they dissipate.
She falls to the ground taking deep heaving breaths.
She speaks in a language you don’t bother translating, or memorizing. She spouts on about purification, or consecrated blood, or rather how the boundary between life and death is arbitrary.
You take it with a grain of salt.
The alleyway enchantment breaks. A second later her projected form follows.
Her form glitches, like a computer encountering a bug.
“No fucking way…” You scoff. “…I was struggling against a fucking projection?”
Her form cracks and falls in pieces turning into gangrenous ashes.
Before her projection can fully dissolve you catch the faintest thread.
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.
You push through, fighting through the Lazarus hum, until your awareness homes in on Mother Soul’s physical body.
You watch as she jerks forward, one hand clutching her chest while ragged breaths tear through her.
“Well… as long as she stays on that fuck-ass island… we shouldn’t have a problem.” You say annoyed.
“(Y/n)…” Ivy whispers as she stands, offering Harley a shoulder.
“Did you say Al Ghul?” Harley asks tired, wincing as her hand tentatively goes to her ribs.
“Maybe.” You shrug, hand glowing as your magic diffuses into Harley’s body. “This might hurt. Sorry Harley.”
“What might-“ Harley’s voice erupts into a scream.
Her skin seems to pulse and stretch as her ribs snap back into place and her arm sets itself.
“Geez kid, give me a heads up next time…” She whines softly, stretching to ease her muscles.
“Sorry. I kinda forget it hurts normally.” You say offhandedly.
“I feel like I owe ya more than a milkshake now.” Harley laughs.
“Add a burger and we’re even.” You snort.
“A deal’s a deal! No take backs.” Harley laughs.
Ivy looks to the half-melted ground, before looking back to you.
The thorn prick comes back to the forefront of her mind.
She shakes her head, before catching up, laughing with the two of you.
Bruce watches as Zatanna and Giovanni pore over magical theory again, trying to find a solution.
“But dad—“ Zatanna’s voice stops abruptly.
“Zatanna, Zatara, report.” Bruce states approaching.
“It’s…gone…” Zatanna whispers.
“What is?” Bruce asks pointedly.
“The spell. The magic…it just..it just vanished.” She adds.
“I can already feel the dead returning to their graves.” Giovanni utters.
“Good work.” Bruce says watching as the barrier falls on its own.
“No Bruce we didn’t do that.” Zatanna says shaken.
“We need—“ Giovanni’s head snaps to where you’re sitting.
“He didn’t.” Zatanna whispers.
Giovanni walks over to you.
“Hi dad.” You say sweetly.
“Lepsid Tnemtnahcne.” Giovanni utters.
You seem to glitch once, twice, before you fade from view.
“Heavens above.” Giovanni utters.
Giovanni’s fingers rub at his temples.
“How long has he been gone?” Bruce asks pragmatically.
“Knowing him…probably from the moment he sat down.” Zatanna pinches the bridge of her nose.
Her head jerks up, she stares off into the city.
“Found him.” She utters.
Giovanni sighs exhaustedly. “That burst of magic is probably why this was easy to dispel.”
Giovanni shakes his head as Zatanna opens a portal.
Bruce joins them as they walk through.
They all squint, as their eyes adjust to the light of a burger joint.
“Today was so much fun (Y/n)!” Harley squeals.
“Right! I haven’t had this much fun in ages!” You giggle, taking a huge bite out of your burger.
You don’t seem to notice how badly the workers are shaking.
“You were right, by the way.” You say in between bites.
“Don’t chew with yer mouth open squirt.” Harley chides. “What about?”
“It was on the house they really did just give you the burgers.” You snort.
“See, kid? That’s my typa magic.” Harley laughs.
“(Y/n) Zatara.” Giovanni says clipped.
You squeak, the burger falls from your hand.
“Uh— uhm— hi, Dad.” You sheepishly say.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?!” He snarls.
You bear your neck, bristling under your alpha father’s anger.
“I stopped the source.” You say meekly.
“Yeah, yer little magician’s got spunk.” Harley says candidly, kicking her legs up.
“Harley. Ivy.” Bruce says annoyed.
“Hey Bats!” Harley beams.
“Batman.” Ivy says measured.
“(Y/n) you are so grounded.” Zatanna crosses her arms.
“Let’s go.” Giovanni says icily.
“But—“
”No buts!” He snaps.
“Aww geez go easy on him, he was just havin’ fun.” Harley whines.
“Stay out of it, clown.” Giovanni demeans.
“Dad.” You say sternly. “Be nice to her.”
“God (Y/n) what is it with you and befriending villains? ” Zatanna whispers.
“Excuse me?” Bruce says.
“Nothing Batman.” Giovanni interjects. “The magical anomaly seems to be handled, so we’re taking our leave.”
Giovanni puts a hand on your shoulder and pushes you through a portal home.
“Bye Ivy! Bye Harley!” You manage to get out before you’re in the Zatara estate library.
“Pamela, Harleen.” Bruce says clipped. “Any explanation for how (Y/n) Zatara ended up in your presence?”
“None we wanna give you, Bats.” 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.
“Oracle, report.” Bruce demands as he sits down.
“I’m sending the video over. I think it’s easier to see than it is to hear.” Barbara says uneasy.
“Very well.” Bruce says.
Bruce watches with wide eyes as you empower two of the most dangerous villains in his town.
His mouth drops open watching Harley Quinn decorate the streets with the Joker’s brains.
“He caused this.” Bruce snaps. “I let him into my city and—“
The leather of his gloves screeches as he tightens his hands into fists.
He doesn’t wait, he moves first.
With the guest token Giovanni provided Bruce, he enters the estate with ease.
“Giovanni.” He says startling the magician.
“God—! Bruce.” He says exhaling.
“We need to talk.” Bruce says angrily. “Your son killed the Joker.”
“What…?” Giovanni whispers. “No. (Y/n) wouldn’t.”
Bruce doesn’t answer, simply pulling his phone out and showing the video.
“That is Harley Quinn, killing the Joker, Bruce.” Giovanni waves him off. “I will not allow you to blame my son for the actions of two of your headaches.”
“Something she’d never have done if (Y/n) didn’t boost her.” Bruce says through gritted teeth.
Giovanni’s jaw tightens.
He pings you telepathically.
Bruce waits, fists still clenched.
“Hi Bruce.” You and Zatanna greet both walking past him. “Yeah dad?”
“Son, do you have anything you want to confess to?” Giovanni prompts you.
“No…? I haven’t done anything… I think” You say confused.
“The Joker, (Y/n).” Bruce cuts in.
“Oh.” You wring your hands together. “I mean…is that really something to apologize for?”
“I’m sure Gotham breathes easier.” You say pragmatically, eyes darting to the side. “Besides that wasn’t me Harley Quinn did that.”
“(Y/n), you caused that.” Bruce starts. “I am certain, you, with your powers, understand causality.”
You make a face at his assumption.
“Well if you miss him that much…” you hold out your hand, fingers curling like you’re holding something.
A few seconds pass as tufts of green hair spill out between your fingers.
A man’s head begins to form.
That same shade of sickly white face paint drips down.
That sickening laugh echoing in the library as the shadows themselves retreat from you.
“(Y/n).” Giovanni says sternly.
“Sorry— I’m sorry.” You whisper, letting the Joker’s half formed head fade into red wisps.
“(Y/n) your actions have consequences.” Bruce starts again.
“I really don’t understand why you’re so upset.” You cross your arms making a face. “Didn’t he kill one of your sons? Jason Todd?”
You can hear a pin drop in the library.
Bruce stands straighter, spine made of steel.
“Right?”
Zatanna’s face pales as she starts to understand the land mine you’ve stepped on.
“Why aren’t you happy he’s dead?” You ask with genuine curiosity.
Bruce’s eyes widen, his jaw drops before he closes his mouth, his teeth grinding against each other. “What?”
“Bruce he doesn’t understand what he’s saying!” Zatanna stands in front of you.
Giovanni pulls Bruce back by his arm.
“(Y/n) is young, please forgive him Bruce.” He whispers. “I’ll make sure there are consequences for this.”
“He is never to set foot in Gotham again. Never.” Bruce snarls.
“Of course Bruce—“
“He should be sealed, or banished.” Bruce spits.
Giovanni’s face hardens.
His pheromones sharpen, his magic seems to spark and dance across his hands.
“Say that again, and I’ll show you what banishment feels like.” Giovanni icily says. “He stopped the next few hundred funerals.”
Bruce scoffs.
“How many Robins have you buried, Bruce?” Giovanni snaps.
“Watch your mouth, Giovanni.” Bruce seethes taking a step close.
“Reirrab.” Zatanna utters bringing down a wall between the two alphas.
“Keep him out of Gotham. Or else.” Bruce reiterates, he turns around abruptly, shadows clinging to him and his cowl as he leaves.
“You don’t get to ban my brother from a city he saved!” Zatanna shouts out behind him.
“I still don’t get why he’s upset.” You murmur.
“Bruce, think about this—” Barbara’s voice comes through Bruce’s earpiece.
“I’m terminating comms for now, Oracle.” Bruce says getting into his jet.
The moment the doors close behind him he backhands the nearest wall, denting it.
“He nearly brought the Joker back to life, Bruce?” Clark asks, mouth agape.
“He did. He was flippant, as most teens are.” Bruce says candidly.
“He didn’t plan to fully resurrect the Joker.” Bruce murmurs. “I may not know what point he was making, but that much, I know.”
“He was a teen with unfathomable power at his fingertips.” He sighs.
“Even when he brought up Jason…” Bruce’s hands tighten, before relaxing, “that wasn’t malice. That wasn’t cruelty. That was blunt naïveté.”
“He’s grown since then.” Bruce smiles softly.
“This story doesn’t make me feel better, Bruce.” Clark says defeated.
“It’s not supposed to.” Bruce answers, meeting Clark’s gaze.
“It’s supposed to establish that (Y/n) is not exempt from morality.” Bruce reveals. “He is operating under responsibilities our laws were never written to comprehend.”
“So, what?” Clark scoffs. “You allow the little red terrorist free rein as though the universe is his sandbox?”
Bruce raises an eyebrow.
Clark sighs. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just— I am frustrated. Why does the League allow the multiversal custodian such liberties?”
“No.” Bruce says sternly. “It 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.”
Clark turns to look out the viewport. His hands clench into fists at his sides. “(Y/n) is not a god.”
“He isn’t.” Bruce immediately agrees. “Nor 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?”
Clark turns back to face Bruce again. “I would—“
Clark’s face pales. His jaw sets.
“I would… not erase him. He could’ve grown and learned.” He manages to get out.
“And thus you’ve potentially condemned countless universes.” Bruce states. “(Y/n) saw every Lex Luthor—the 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.”
Bruce steps closer. “I admire this quality about you, Clark, don’t misunderstand. You simply can’t 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.”
Clark shakes his head. “I still wouldn’t have erased them. They were alive. They were people. They could’ve changed.”
⫘⫘ˎˊ˗ 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 truth—
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 man— presumably the father, considering they were both wearing overalls— 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."
"o—oh?" 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 it— 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 🫣
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.
