hello, i am sakura. i go by she/her. my age is none of your business including my height so don't be asking that please i perfer keeping them private from people who likes to kidnap younger girls out of desire which is disguisting. ✟﹑ㅤㅤᵍᶠˣ ᵈᵉˢⁱᵍⁿᵉʳㅤㅤ𓈒ㅤㅤʷʳⁱᵗᵉʳ
Thinking another Fic with Miraculous Ladybug and Total Drama Island
I've read one on here along from wattpad and ao3. So I thought of making one two as well but not sure how to start it off. Kinda of wanted to expose Lila and the Akuma Class' secrets or their actions towards Marinette on Reality Show TV.
But I need your opinion do you want me to make it here or on wattpad. I was thinking of copy/paste to AO3. Also I really like how they even paired Courtney and Duncan to Marinette. What ship do you want me to pair Marinette with please not Adrien? I kinda of wanted Marinette to be paired with Felix and Kagami or Luka and Felix or a Poly as in (Felix, Kagami, and Luka)?
۶ৎ as abrasive and perverted your step-father is—reprimanding you for the smallest inconveniences, his hands always finding your body whenever he has the chance, his intrusion of your room and space, the harsh and angry tone he'd get with you on occasion—he had a knack for always knowing what was wrong with you, and how to fix such.
⇢ PAIRING step-father!zandik x fem!reader
⇢ CONTENT WARNINGS .ᐟ modern!au , stepcest , AGE GAP, power imbalance , implied underage sex , drug & alcohol mention , possessive themes , mentions of/implied physical & emotional abuse , sexual abuse , infidelity , rape/noncon , kinda?? plot , finger sucking , pussy slapping , vaginal penetration , cervix penetration , daddy kink (kinda) , biting kink , hickeys , scratching , reader is 18 but there's been sexual incidents before , sadistic tendencies , mind break , use of pet names (baby, sweetie, etc.) , creampie , overstimulation
⇢ WORD COUNT 3.4k
⇢ NOTE omg haihi,,, sorry this took so long guys,, i've been binging code geass & lwk working on some other fics.. buyt OMG ive acc only written for dottore a few times, so this was rlly fun to explore what i can.. also sorry if im abusing puncuation lol,, omg and im soz it lwk took a little to get to the smut... i only realized like,, 1k words in and i didnt want to fuck yall up,, im acc nerv to post, too bc i hope this doesnt suck BUT i appreciate all feedback guys (also soz for the long note)
♡ comments, likes, & reblogs are appreciated!
BURNING AS YOUR face was, your demeanour didn’t reflect the same story with integrity. Composed, you tried to be: arms crossed, still expression–at least, as much as you could hold–and no outward fidgeting. However, your stepfather, Zandik, saw through you in an instant. The reddening of your cheeks was a dead giveaway, if not for the small twitching in your hands that you didn’t notice yourself. Fascinated by you, he had always been; you’re his biggest obsession, and he loved exploiting the space the two of you occupied. Busting you for every small thing, even if you are–barely–an adult now: don’t mouth off, mind your manners, don’t bring anyone over without permission, and so much more. He had to keep you in your place, yes? You’re his precious daughter, even if it’s not by blood.
His eyes travelled up your body, observing every quirk you exhibited. The tension in your thighs and arms as both were crossed–it had attitude, and on the outside, you might’ve looked unbothered, if just a little agitated, but he knew you were anything but. The indistinct way your fingers curled against your arms, and when away from your flesh, they were sitting on the plush of the couch cushion beneath you–you alternated between such.
“I’m not angry,” he nodded along to his words, his hand rubbing your shoulder so affectionately it felt violating. His face held the repertoire of that of a psychopath, really: the coldness of the flesh of his hand against yours didn’t feel as soft as he intended, but the gentleness of his voice grounded your thoughts. Although, it didn’t make you feel any less guilty of the crime.
What have you done this time? Throw a party while your mother and Zandik were away? Stolen their money or maxxed out their credit cards? No, you weren’t a woman like that: quite reclusive, actually, despite your insistent attitude. Always upholding your manners, having respect–at times–never going out or staying out too late, and never–to their knowledge–indulging in any “inappropriate” or “dangerous” behaviour, like alcohol or drugs. Zandik knows that you’re a good girl. You always have been, so what triggered this influx of disobedience? The new friends you’re hanging around with, or that boy he found on your phone?
“I’m just…” Zandik almost couldn’t find his words. He was upset, no doubt, but using the stereotypical ‘I’m just disappointed’ line would only reinforce the disarray he’s trying to hide. “I’m surprised.”
“Surprised,” you tested the word on your tongue, replaying his tone, his look–doing everything to analyze how he felt. He was never this calm, and it did all but dispel your worry. “He’s just a friend.”
Having that burner phone of yours wasn’t a good idea in any sense. In what world is it for anything? Mistakenly, you had left it in your room–a bit too open, just hidden in your bedside drawer–while you were out. Zandik, as the protective and authoritative figure that he presents himself as, had to go through with such an intrusion, and to his surprise, he found the phone. Just an old one, really. He thought you would have done away with it by now, but teenagers are always so slick. It’s never been your pattern to lie or hide things; however, catching an attitude was more frequent. Is this you being petty, to get back at him for his supervision? However, one thought plagued his mind for your recent behaviour: that boy.
“By the way you two conversed, I wouldn’t paint the picture so soft.” His words were heavy, and they added invisible weight to your hands; that unbothered image you held shattered in an instant.
Is it so wrong to indulge oneself? Zandik had always been so strict, and you did not doubt that, now, his advances wouldn’t stop. That earlier leniency he gave you–all those outings with our friends, those small shirts he didn’t say a word about–had been crushed instantaneously, alongside his trust. The years you’ve spent side-by-side have been in vain in this moment. The rendezvous that the two of you would sneak off to in the name of “bonding,” to your mother. On the exterior, Zandik was quite harsh: yelling at you and disciplining you in front of your mother; however, between the two of you, your punishments would be far more taboo. Before, if you were out too much, he’d have to remind you as to why you don’t scurry off; he’d fill your cunt full of his long fingers at night, whispering the sweetest and most degrading things to you in time simultaneously, or maybe he’d keep his fist balled in your hair, keeping your mouth full of his dick.
You’d much rather a smack to the face than that fake, soft tone he’s giving you. You know this is the calm before the storm, and out of every possibility, you’d rather bruises over disappointment. Your body ached at that fake tone; you wanted the real thing, that sweet, sweet affection that he’d cherish you with when the two of you are alone; that sweet ache in your chest, rather than the dread you felt with keeping your arms in place. Your breathing didn’t quicken or slow, but it was a bit ragged–your tongue didn’t even stay in place–it was just off-tempo. Is it because you can feel your heart pounding throughout your body? The noise of it flooding your ears, too?
“Come here,” he beckoned you nigher, and his hand held a firmer grip.
You, of course, obeyed without question. He kept a resolute grip, hoisting you up from the couch. Zandik led you from the living room–a place far too open, too easy for others to see, especially your mother. While the humiliation on your part would be entertaining, and even arousing, he didn’t intend to have your mother hate him–at the very least, not yet. He needed his fixation around, and that included keeping it in place. He never wanted to find out that you needed–no, you wanted more; all you needed was him. He wasn’t going to take such disrespect lightly.
Zandik schooled past your mother without suspicion or even a glance–too occupied with whatever she was saying on the phone in the room adjacent to the living room. She never paid the two of you attention when he bid that he wanted to “learn more about you,” or the all-too-familiar lie of him wanting to spend time with you. He led you upstairs and into your bedroom, locking the door behind him before he turned too cruel.
He kept a zombie pace as he led you down to your bed. That soft, manipulative smile he kept made you shiver. As much as he said he wasn’t mad, the way he handled you–no matter how sweet–told an entirely different story: that too harsh a grip he held, the clench of his jaw and aching of his fingers, his nails that involuntarily dug into you–it all told a story much too familiar.
“Zandik, I–he’s not even–we haven’t done anything!” You stumbled over your words as you tried to explain, “There’s… nothing is going on!” Zandik had every right to smack you so hard a tooth could pop out, but he didn’t.
He knew you were lying, so why be merciful? Did the divine above give you grace? He read every last text, start to finish, so he knew you had sex with another man. He knew you cheated on him. Softer than before–he didn’t let his grip go tight or firm, giving you the leniency to move away–he laid you down. You resisted the urge to wiggle out of his grip, but you shut up and stayed still. The sheets felt almost too silky, the pillow beneath your head too soft–it was all too neat, too nice.
“What does he have that I don’t, hm?” Zandik questioned, as the mattress dipped beneath his weight, sitting beside you.
“Nothing! Nothing. Really,” you nodded as you spoke, almost as a reassurance, but to no avail. Before you could plead again, Zandik pressed his pointer finger against your lips.
“Ah-ah, shh,” his tone was almost pitying then, but it grew condescending, “if you really did ‘nothing,’ then why are the receipts on your body? Do you think I would not have noticed the hickeys you came home with? Or maybe the scent you had?”
Zandik pushed his finger inside your mouth, and you obediently sucked.
“See, I don’t appreciate when these other… boys have what’s rightfully mine,” he sighed with a small laugh.
You could feel small hairs sticking to your forehead, already matted with sweat, solely from your worry. Zandik’s aura was intimidating, predatory, almost horrifying if you weren’t already accustomed. Your clothes stuck too tightly to your skin, and you could almost feel the tension in the air–especially with how Zandik pushed his finger further to your throat, his middle finger joining. You gagged. Bile almost rose, but Zandik pulled away before you ruined his hands, and, much less, your clothes and sheet; however, he kept his fingers grounded inside your mouth.
You made a noise of surprise, protest, and fear all in one when you felt his other arm pull you up–your head, now, resting against your headboard rather than your pillow. It trailed back down to your top–a small, low-cut one you often wore out, like today. He went further, though, and, with a sigh, he unbuttoned those tiny jean shorts you loved to wear, too.
“I don’t understand why you parade yourself around like this. First, your attitude,” he kept a disappointed tone as he took his wet fingers out of your mouth, using them to hoist up your thighs, slipping the shorts off of you. “Second, these sorry-ass excuses for clothes,” he said, each word with such disdain, “and third, you fuck a boy.” He smacked your thigh while scoffing, “I mean, really, baby?”
You whimpered at the contact while flinching at his tone, and your face reflected the fear your body emitted. You were his prey, completely cornered, scared, and most of all, his to have, and that’s in whatever way he wants; although, you already knew what, and you weren’t a fan.
The small burn of a ‘click!’ rubbed against your skin, where Zandik smacked your panties against you. You elicited a weak, “ow,” but Zandik didn’t care about hurting you; in fact, he wanted to.
“Awe,” he cooed at you, mockingly, “did that hurt?”
You attempted to push his hands away, off, safe from you, but to no avail. Zandik didn’t care, and you couldn’t resist anyway. Zandik overpowered you any and every day of the week; his weight crushed yours as he moved atop of you.
“Is that it now? You want to be a brat? A bitch to me?”
He seized your wrists and pinned them above your head, before slipping one away. He could keep you compliant with just one hand–it’s not like he hasn’t done it before, if not worse.
Small, black lace panties shimmered in the scarce light of your room–solely emitted from your not-so blackout curtains. That set you were wearing, the Future Mrs. one that Zandik specifically bought for the two of you. You wore them out, and better yet–not-so for you–they were wet, all in your slick, or maybe it was the leaking of another man’s sperm inside you. Zandik didn’t entertain the latter.
“You like this, huh?” Zandik solidified a smack against your pussy through your panties to prove his point, and your whimper–involuntary or not–availed.
One set of his fingers slipped underneath your panties, while the other kept your wrists in place. The comforting sensation that it gave you was almost uncanny. Your eyes squinted, and your mouth lay agape as his middle finger circled your clit. He drew strings of moans from your mouth, while you writhed against his grip.
Before you could form a comprehensible retort, Zandik leaned in and kissed you, his tongue immediately invading the comfort and softness of your mouth. You mewled in his mouth, and your writhing grew with the second. Your body twitched and your back arched with each move of his finger, and your moans grew less secluded as he pulled his mouth away, leaving a signature trail of saliva. Right as he felt your nails dig into his hands, the insistent movement made him know you were close, and he deliberately pulled away from your clit.
That casual push-and-pull he played with you: the resistance he made you keep, before you begged for more. However, he plunged his fingers into you, not even minutes after. Your back arched in response to his movement. You so, so badly did not want this, but you needed it. Sweat built up intensely, and your body felt filthy all over, and it wasn’t because of the violation. That odd quirk and habit you always upheld the standard of being clean—and Zandik always infringed upon that.
“Come on, sweetie,” Zandik cooed, his voice patronizing with the pet name, “you can cum for Daddy.”
Your body was weak for him, even more so than your mind. Zandik truly commanded your body, and when he told you to cum, you did; your almost-orgasm hit harder than any smack he’d made or would make you endure. Was it the adrenaline of trying to pry him off you–no matter how futile–or was it the arousal your body substantiated? Either way, your reaction pleased him.
A compass broke in your mind, going in all directions, and you couldn’t even formulate a proper thought. The earlier sensations were still in effect, and you barely registered Zandik letting go of your wrists. They held a deep red, showing how harshly he restrained you. He gave you the illusion of choice earlier, and you decided to be a minx: teasing him with your reluctant submission. It’s only natural that he’d take and do as he pleased.
Blinking, you started to discern your surroundings, and your brain registered Zandik slipping your panties off, and the prodding of more against you. His weight fully enveloped you, now, much closer than before. His thighs were on the inside of yours, and his hands held your hips up, and your legs automatically wrapped around his lower waist. Had he let go of your wrists, too? Your submission and weakness had led him to believe you wouldn’t resist anymore.
“I don’t–Zan–” Your pitiful attempts at swatting him off, away–anything but on or near you, right now–with your hands and your words–completely intercepted by him–contributed to nothing.
He chuckled, and one of his hands, just for a moment, cradled your cheek. “Don’t worry your pretty, little head about this. It’s nothing new, you should know,” he spoke too softly for a moment, before placing his hand back onto your hip.
Unapologetically, he thrust and sheathed himself inside you, bottoming out with a groan of his own. Raw, as always–when had he ever bothered with protection? He always pulled out on time, anyway, and if not, Plan B was always available.
That burning, familiar stretch of his cock wasn’t consoling or sexy this time. The forceful nature of it, truly, had you a bit turned off, or was that your fear speaking? Hadn’t you just almost cum on his fingers? Your body opened up to him, letting him slide inside with little resistance, so why did your mind do everything to fight it? Before you could reason or justify your wetness, Zandik experimentally moved his hips, eliciting a moan out of you–and that immediately stopped any train of thought. That sensation–your hands, as blind as it was immediate, reached for him, and your nails dug into the fabric of his shirt, holding on so closely. The feeling of fabric, silk, cotton, made your face heat up more and for that pit in your stomach to go deeper. How humiliating it is to be debauched while the other doesn’t even have the decency or respect to undress themselves, too.
He thrusted again–deeper, more intentionally to hurt, and it did–your fingers kept their stead and grip on him, your legs tightening with each snap of his hips. Your eyebrows were tightened and squinted with each thought you tried to coerce, which was jumbled, and your mouth stayed open, stringing out moans and mewls alike. You didn’t care to be loud.
Each snap of his hips was as excruciating as it was arousing. On any usual occasion, you wouldn’t have cared to be full to the brim with his cum plastered on your thighs, stomach, or even in your mouth. But with circumstances today, you wanted anything but; however, were you even thinking that, now? Can you think? Zandik didn’t care for either, though. Punishment was in the settlement, and he intended to charge full.
“Nngh… See? This isn’t so bad?” he chuckled as he spoke to you, with that same, disgusting tone as he lifted his hand–that same one he used to cradle your cheek–to clutch your hair in his fist–so harshly, too.
The feeling of his jeans–old and rough–against your skin only served to flush you further.
The familiar and deep sensation inside you reconstructed the half of pleasure-and-pain to full ache; that bump, the burn of his cock stretching you so widely, and–fuck, did he just go under your cervix?
“I–I–Ah…” Barely able to form a coherent thought–let alone words–your body would only let you muster up a weak, pained moan, and you felt your consciousness flicker.
Zandik moaned as he went deeper inside you, his thrusts becoming longer and in-between. He watched as you blinked in response, with your pitiful moans.
He smiled, enjoying the pain he was giving you. “What’s wrong, baby?” he cooed. His fist, balled in your hair, turned firmer as his thrusts became rougher, harsher. “You know,” he dragged out every syllable, “I was lying when I said I wasn’t mad.”
If you were able to think, you would definitely agree.
Your hands were stationary on grasping his shirt, but your nails dug in more, and he could feel the slight pain of it. With the little strength you had, your hands moved to grasp his neck–almost embracing him affectionately. You dug into his skin, though, drawing blood and gripping harder with the movement of his hips.
The intensity with which you were gripping his cock only turned him on more. He jerked his hips more erratically and with more intensity as he lifted your thigh, then over his shoulder. He breathed out with each forceful movement, conquering your autonomy in a more violating way than the last.
He enjoyed the squirming and the struggling–the battle that you were putting up. Despite your fucked-out mind, he could feel the defiance in the way you squeezed him.
“What’s that, hm?” he almost-purred at you, feeling the inconsistent squeezing of your walls around him.
He knew you were about to cum, despite how much you tried to hold out.
“Mmph–! Ah-ah!” you bit your lip–or tried to, just a scrape of your teeth against them–as you moaned.
Your tummy bulged with each deep thrust of Zandik’s hips, going under your cervix, pushing further. It’s no secret he was large in both girth and height, and every time he fucked you, he destroyed you. With each moan that was exiled from your mouth, Zandik’s movements became faster. He wasn’t going to waste such precious time on showing you who you belong to.
His hand fell from your hair, and your head fell back just enough until he reached and smacked you. You could only whimper in response.
His penetrating your stomach alongside the smack felt almost overwhelming.
Zandik leaned down and scooped your neck up–flailing you, really–as his mouth connected to your neck–a rather sensitive spot that served your overstimulation. He bit down and sucked while fucking you perfectly. He moaned around your skin; that familiar, sweet taste of it made his cock even harder.
The bulbous tip kept that acquainted bulge in your stomach with each erratic thrust. Zandik littered your neck in bite marks that just-almost gave blood and hickeys. Your hands moved upward to grasp his hair, and your legs tightened around his waist. The further movement caused him to fuck you even rougher.
“Shit,” he let the curse fall out of his mouth, and his mouth bit down on you hard–you mewled in response with a harsher tug of his hair, and just then–
You felt his cock twitch inside you, as his movements became slower, before still.
He breathed heavily atop of you, pulling his mouth away from your neck with a sliver of saliva following. Zandik pulled out, watching his cum leak out of you.
synopsis⋆✴︎ Half-dead in a Snezhnayan storm, caught mid-shift between human and crow, you're found by Il Dottore — who takes you in not out of mercy, but curiosity. To him, you're a specimen worth studying. Slowly, without either of you naming it, that changes: you become his assistant, then something closer, while he tells himself it's all still just research.
tags⋆✴︎ NSFW,Smut(mdni),drugging(anasthesia), dub-con, vague consent, p in v, no aftercare, use of y/n, Dottore x reader, Dottore x f!reader, Dottore x fem assistant reader, reader is a crow shapeshifter, implied kidnapping, slight jealousy, mention of other fatui harbingers
wc⋆✴︎ 5.6k
Note" HELLO EVERYONE this is my first smut I've written in my entire life so it might be a bit messy and disorganized.. I got inspired thinking of the connection between Dottore and a crow and came up with this fic :) ENJOY AND PLEASE LIKE AND REBLOG IF YOU DO NOT MIND
The storm in Snezhnaya had no interest in mercy, and neither, generally, did he.
Dottore moved through the snow storm with the brisk indifference of a man crossing a room he was familiar with. Snezhnaya’s winters were an inconvenience to be routed around, not endured, and his escort trailed a careful distance behind, having long since learned not to speak unless spoken to. The mission ahead was unremarkable. A supply route to confirm, a facility to inspect, nothing that required his full attention, which was, admittedly, why he noticed it.
A flicker of black against the white.
He might have dismissed it– a bird? Driven low and vulnerable by the wind, it was hardly worth the fraction of a glance he spared it, except that the shape was wrong. It moved wrong. It didn’t so much fly as fold, mid-motion, the way a variable folds when an equation resolves itself, and where a human had been stumbling through the drifts a blink ago, there was now a small, dark thing curled low against the snow, feathers driven flat one moment and puffed the next, some instinctive system trying and failing, to gather heat it did not have to spare.
Dottore stopped walking.
His escort nearly collided with his back and had the sense not to ask why.
He watched for a moment, longer than concern would have permitted, longer than urgency would have allowed. Not out of hesitation, hesitation was for people who had not already finished the calculation, but because there was, he found, a certain professional obligation to observe a specimen accurately before disturbing it. THe shift had not looked deliberate. No control in it, just seemed like a survival instinct.
He pondered what he could from his position: the size of the creature, different to any true bird, the way the feathers seemed to belong to it rather than replace something, patterned like an afterthought grafted onto a body that had, moments ago, with two legs. The traits of a hybrid shapeshifter would explain the phenomenon.
He had read reports of such things. He had never had the good fortune of finding one just in front of him.
“How unfortunate,” he said, to no one, and began working toward it.
He crouched, unbothered by the snow soaking into the hem of his coat, and studied it the way he might study anything half-alive and full of questions.
“You’ve made rather a mess of yourself,” he said,
“Tsk, freezing to death mid-transformation. Sloppy. Though I suppose you weren’t given much choice in the matter.”
No response. Only the faint ragged movement of feathers trying, hopelessly, to hold in the warmth that had already mostly gone.
Dottore considered, briefly, the shape of the decision infront of him, not should he, which was never really the question, but was it worth it? A shapeshifter, found alive, however in a critical state, was not the sort of variable one encountered twice. Leaving it here would settle the matter cheaply and immediately. Taking it would cost him time, resources, the responsibility of carrying something half-frozen back to a facility that had better things to process today.
The greater loss, he thought, was letting the data die in the snow.
“Well,” he said, already reaching for it with efficiency, “Let’s see how much of you is left to examine.”
He did not gather it up with his both hands, did not cradle it against his coat the way any human might have. He simply peeled off one glove, slid his bare palm beneath the small, half-frozen crow. It weighed almost nothing. That, too, he noted.
The crow curled instinctively into the warmth of his palm, feathers pressing flat against his skin, too far gone to do anything but accept the heat it was given. He held it there, level and unhurried, one hand outstretched before him as he resumed walking to his laboratory.
The warmth felt nothing like kindness.
__________________________________
Warmth came back before thought did.
You opened your eyes just to see a faint stray of light coming in. It was not sunlight, or fire light. It seemed like a surgical light..?
You tried to sit up and noticed, with a small jolt of alarm, that you could not.
You were, you realized with growing horror, still a crow. Small, black, undignified, nested in what appeared to be. You took a moment to process this, the folded corner of an expensive coat on a table that was absolutely not designed to be a bed.
Shift back, you told yourself, the way you’d told yourself a thousand times before.
Nothing happened.
Suddenly, the creaking sound of the white door echoed through the unfamiliar room, with a tall masked man with silver-blue hair entering.
“Ah. Awake.”
The voice sounded entirely too pleased with itself of a sentence with so little content. You went very still, every feather on your small figure rising at once and turned your head toward the source of sound.
He was seated an unhurried distance away, one leg crossed over the other, a notebook balanced against his knee. Red eyes beneath the pointy mask, unreadable, tracked you with the same clinical patience you imagined he might give a slide under a microscope. There was nothing in his expression that resembled relief, or welcome, or anything you might have wanted to see from the person who had dragged your half-frozen body out of the storm.
“Don’t strain yourself trying to change back,” he said, before you’d so much as attempted it again, as though your thoughts were as transparent to him.
“You’ve been at it for the better part of an hour already. Rather embarrassing, watching something struggle.”
You opened your beak, some urge to snap back at him, but produced nothing but a thin croak.
Something in his mouth curved, not quite a smile. “How articulate.”
He placed the notebook aside, and approached the table with slow, deliberate steps, the way one might approach something skittish they had no interest in startling, not out of kindness, you understood immediately, but because startled specimens tended to produce less reliable data.
“You’ll forgive me for skipping the formalities.” he said, leaning down until his shadow fell fully over your small, feathered form. “Names are better exchanged once I’m confident you’ll survive long enough for them to matter, For now-” he reached out, tilting your chin up with one gloved finger, turning your head this way and that. “Let’s see exactly what I’ve brought.”
_________________________________________
The first month, you escaped thirty-seven times.
The first attempt was clumsy. The second, ambitious. By the seventh, you had discovered that the laboratory possessed more hidden corridors than doors, and that the guards, though well-trained, had the unfortunate habit of assuming a crow incapable of understanding architectural layouts.
The thirty-seventh ended much like the first thirty-six.
The laboratory door slid open.
“.....Finished?”
You froze atop a bookshelf
Dottore stood beneath you, a stack of reports tucked between one arm. He sounded neither irritated nor amused. Merely curious. You stared. He stared back.
“Well?”
A long silence. Then, with all the dignity available to an exhausted crow, you fluttered down onto the desk. He made a note.
Escape attempt 37
-subject returned voluntarily.
-reason remains uncertain.
He never once wrote your name. Only Subject, followed by a number that changed less often than you'd have liked. He logged your feeding schedule, your shift frequency, the days you refused to speak in either form. He logged, once, the exact moment you stopped trying to leave, though whatever conclusion he drew from that, he kept entirely to himself.
Months passed. The escapes stopped being counted, mostly because they stopped happening. You learned the rhythm of him the way you'd once learned the ventilation shafts, instinctively, without meaning to, which reports he wanted first, which tools he reached for without looking, until it became easier to simply have things ready than to wait to be asked. "Scalpel," he said one afternoon, and it was already in his hand before the word had finished leaving his mouth. He paused, not gratitude, nothing so generous ever crossed his face around you, turning the instrument over as if it might explain itself, then looked at you the way he looked at anomalies in his data. "You anticipated that." "You always ask for it after the second incision," you told him. He said nothing further, but he watched you a moment longer than the observation strictly required, and something in his expression resembled a man quietly recalculating a variable he'd assumed was fixed.
It was around then that you found the error in his notes, a miscalculated variable buried three pages into a report, easy to miss unless you'd spent months learning the particular shape of his mistakes, which were rare enough to be memorable. You corrected it in the margin, small and unsigned, and braced for nothing to come of it. He said nothing the next morning either. But the notebook started staying open after that, not handed to you, not offered, simply left, angled just slightly toward whichever chair you tended to occupy, as though by accident. It hadn't been. Neither of you said so.
The first mission came without much ceremony. "You're coming with me," he said, already halfway out the door, and when you asked why, he told you he needed a pair of hands that wouldn't faint at the sight of exposed viscera, and that you were, unfortunately, the only candidate who met that bar reliably. That was the reason he gave. You didn't ask for another, you understood by then that whatever this had become would always be filed under usefulness in his ledger, never anything softer. You went anyway.
Somewhere in the months that followed, without ceremony or announcement, the notebook changed. You noticed it by accident, glancing at a page left open longer than usual, an entry dense with clinical shorthand, except for one line near the bottom, where Subject C-17 had quietly become your name instead. No footnote. No explanation. As if the correction had simply always been there and you were the one behind on the update. You said nothing. He never brought it up. But you found yourself rereading that single line more times than the occasion warranted, and somewhere beneath the part of you that still remembered thirty-seven escape attempts, something settled that hadn't settled in a very long while.
It was Pantalone who noticed first, out loud. "You still have the crow?" he asked lightly, glancing your way like a curiosity left over from some indulgent phase of Dottore's research, which, to be fair, was exactly how you'd started. Dottore didn't look up from his notes. "She's assisting with the project." "Interesting," Pantalone said, in the tone of a man filing something away for later amusement. Dottore didn't understand why that was amusing. Watching from the corner of the room, you thought you might.
After that, he stopped leaving you behind for meetings he once wouldn't have dreamed of bringing an assistant to. You attended in your smaller form, perched on his shoulder like an afterthought he'd forgotten to correct, silent through hours of politics you had no formal right to witness. He never announced why. When Sandrone glanced pointedly at you during the third such meeting, he only said, without looking up from his notes, that you were quieter than most of the room and considerably more useful, which ended the conversation, though not the glances.
The Harbingers, to their credit, adjusted quickly. Arlecchino barely acknowledged you at all, treating your presence the way she treated most things beneath her direct concern, noted, filed, dismissed. Scaramouche found you endlessly, openly funny, and made no effort to hide it.
"The Doctor's got a pet now," he said once, loud enough to carry across the table, "how domestic." Dottore didn't dignify it with a response, though you felt his shoulder tense fractionally beneath you, which you decided to count as a victory. Childe, for his part, seemed genuinely delighted by you in a way that made Dottore visibly suspicious of his motives, and took to greeting you by name, your name, not Subject, not the crow, every time you entered a room, as though testing to see whether Dottore would correct him. He never did.
It was Pantalone who pressed hardest, and always with that same unbothered smile. "Does it understand what we discuss," he asked once, mid-meeting, tone light enough to pass for idle curiosity, "or is it merely decorative?" "She understands considerably more than most people at this table," Dottore replied, flatly, already returning to his notes, "which I'd have thought was self-evident by now." A small silence followed. Pantalone's smile didn't falter, but something behind it recalculated. You stayed very still on Dottore's shoulder and said nothing, because saying nothing had always been safer, and because some small, traitorous part of you had liked the way he'd answered, quick, unthinking, almost defensive, in a way that a purely clinical arrangement had no real reason to be.
He never seemed to notice he'd done it. You noticed enough for both of you.
It started as research. He arrived one afternoon with a small dish of mixed nuts set beside his usual instruments, informing you, without a trace of irony that he intended to observe whether corvid dietary preference persisted across your forms. You indulged him, mostly out of curiosity about what he'd do with the data. He recorded which ones you picked first, which you ignored, which you cracked open yourself versus which you left for him to shell, and none of it, as far as you could tell, ever made it into any report that mattered. The "study" simply never concluded. Weeks became months, and the dish kept appearing, always with slightly more of whatever you'd reached for first the time before, and slightly less of what you'd left untouched. He never once admitted the experiment had ended. You never pointed out that it clearly had.
Around the same time, he began noticing the other habit, the one you were less inclined to explain. A stray bit of foil, a polished button, the glass stopper from an old vial, all of it accumulating in some corner of your quarters that you told yourself was simply organized, not hoarded. He found the collection by accident and said nothing cruel about it, which surprised you more than mockery would have. He only made a note :specimen retains magpie-adjacent fixation on reflective objects, function unclear, possibly ornamental.
Except the notebook was lying, a little. Because not long after, small things started appearing in places you hadn't put them. A smooth, dark stone, catching the light strangely. A fragment of mirrored glass, sanded soft at the edges so it wouldn't cut. None of it explained, none of it acknowledged, all of it simply present the next time you looked. You started leaving things back, without meaning to at first,a curled wire twisted into some rough, deliberate shape, a coin from some country neither of you had been to. He never commented on those either. You both understood, by then, exactly what the exchange was, and exactly why neither of you would be the one to name it first.
The trouble started with Childe.
He asked casually enough needed an extra set of hands for a task in Liyue, something involving negotiations that required more finesse than force, and you, in his words, had "a good read on people, for a bird." Dottore didn't answer immediately. When he did, it was with the same flat, procedural tone he used for everything. "She's occupied with my research. Find someone else."
"She's not a piece of lab equipment, Doctor," Childe said, grinning in a way that suggested he knew exactly what nerve he was testing. "Let her answer for herself."
You opened your mouth. Dottore spoke first.
"She doesn't need to. I've already answered."
The room went quiet in the particular way it did whenever he said something that revealed more than he meant it to. Pantalone, watching from across the table, said nothing at all, which was somehow worse than if he had. Childe raised both hands in mock surrender and let it go, but not without one last look your way, amused, calculating, filing the reaction away for later the same way Pantalone had.
Dottore didn't look at you for the rest of the meeting. You noticed his hand had settled, at some point, on the back of your chair not touching you, not quite, but closer than procedure required, and it stayed there long after any reasonable justification for it had run out. When you finally caught his eye, he looked, for just a moment, faintly annoyed not at Childe, not at you, but at himself, at the shape of whatever he'd just let slip in front of a room full of people who'd remember it.
He didn't explain himself later. He never did. But that night the dish of nuts appeared again, unprompted, with exactly the kind you liked best already sorted to the top, and neither of you said a single word about what that meant.
The order came directly from the Tsaritsa, which meant there was no version of refusal available to him. You were to accompany Sandrone to Sumeru, to retrieve something the Akademiya had buried deep enough that a subtler pair of hands was required than his usual methods allowed and subtlety, everyone at the table seemed to silently agree, was not among Dottore's more reliable qualities.
He didn't argue. Arguing with a direct order from her was not a mistake he'd ever make twice. But you caught the stillness that settled over him when the assignment was read aloud the same stillness you'd learned, by now, meant something was being suppressed rather than simply absent.
"Two weeks," Sandrone said mildly, already gathering his notes. "Perhaps three."
"I'm aware of the estimated timeline," Dottore said, in a tone flat enough to cut. He didn't look at you. You didn't need him to.
That night, before you left, he said almost nothing useful a list of standard precautions, a reminder to report any anomalous data, nothing that acknowledged what the separation actually was. But he pressed something small into your palm before you go, wordlessly, without ceremony: not a farewell, not affection, just a habit he seemed to need to complete before he could let you leave his sight, and you understood, without either of you saying it, that this was as close to be careful as he was ever going to get.
Sumeru was strange in a way you hadn't expected not the climate, which was gentler than Snezhnaya in every conceivable way, but the sense of walking through a place that had shaped someone you knew without ever having said so. You found yourself noticing things you had no real reason to notice. A particular shade of sandstone. The layout of old Akademiya corridors, half-reclaimed by the forest, that felt, absurdly, like the kind of place a much younger, much angrier version of him might have once walked through unnoticed.
You found the trinket in an abandoned research annex. Sandrone had no interest in a small brass instrument, delicate and old, some kind of measuring device whose function you couldn't fully place, etched with faded Sumeru script along its edge. It caught the light in a way that made your fingers itch before you'd even decided to pick it up. You told yourself it was simply a habit. You didn't entirely believe it.
You didn't decide to bring it back for him until you were already halfway home.
Sandrone noticed, of course. She noticed everything, in that quiet, clinical way of hers that made you suspect she filed people the same way Dottore filed data. She watched you turn the little brass instrument over in your hands more than once during the return trip, watched you wrap it carefully before you'd even reached the border, and said nothing about it until you were both standing in the doorway of his study, waiting to be acknowledged.
"How curious," she said, not quite looking at you, not quite looking at him. "Y/N randomly picked up some old, forgotten thing in the middle of an assignment." A pause, deliberate. "It's rather surprising she wanted to gift it to you, out of all people. How strange."
There was no warmth in it. You'd gathered by then that there rarely was, where Dottore was concerned whatever history sat between them, it clearly hadn't left room for particular fondness. Dottore didn't rise to it. He rarely did, with her.
"Was there a report to file, or did you simply come to observe," he said, without looking up from his notes, "because I don't recall requesting commentary on either."
Sandrone's mouth curved, thin and unbothered. "No report worth mentioning. The mission was uneventful." Her gaze slid to you, briefly, unreadable. "Mostly."
She left without waiting for a response, the door falling shut behind her with a quiet, unhurried click, and it was only once her footsteps had faded down the corridor that the room settled.
He was waiting when you returned, not visibly, not obviously, He didn't ask about the mission first. He asked, instead, with a carefully measured indifference that didn't fool you in the slightest, whether Sumeru had been "tolerable."
You held out the instrument instead of answering.
He went very still.
He took it slowly, turning it over in his hands the way he examined everything, clinically, at first, cataloguing its make, its age, the faded scriptwork along the edge until his thumb found a small, worn inscription near the base, and something in his expression shifted into territory you'd never once seen it occupy. Not detachment. Not amusement. Something quieter, and much harder for him to hold steady.
"Where did you find this," he said. It wasn't quite a question.
"An old annex. It looked forgotten." You hesitated. "I thought-" you stopped yourself, unsure, suddenly, how much of the truth you were willing to hand him along with the object. "I thought it might mean something. To you."
He didn't answer right away. He was still looking at the inscription, thumb tracing it once more as though checking it hadn't changed since the first pass, and when he finally looked up at you, the distance he usually kept so carefully maintained between observation and feeling had, for once, entirely failed to hold.
"It does," he said, quietly, and offered nothing further to explain it no clinical justification, no rationalization dressed as data, nothing to file this under but exactly what it was.
For the first time since the snow, he reached for you the way you'd once reached for shiny, precious things without meaning to not out of usefulness, not out of ownership, but because some part of him had apparently decided, somewhere between the storm and this moment, that he wanted to.
The mission after that one went wrong in a way none of you had accounted for.
It wasn't catastrophic, you'd walk away from it, you knew that much even as it was happening, but a blade caught you across the ribs before you could shift clear, and by the time you made it back to the lab, your human form was shaking too hard to be useful and your crow form wasn't an option, not with a wound that size. You didn't remember much of the walk back. You remembered his hands.
He didn't send for anyone else. That, more than anything, told you how seriously he was taking it. Dottore, who delegated everything that didn't personally interest him, doing the cleaning and stitching himself, sleeves pushed back, face unreadable in the particular way it went when he needed complete focus. His hands were steady at first, clinical, exactly as precise as you'd expect from a man who'd done far worse to far less willing patients. He didn't speak much. He didn't need to; the quiet was its own kind of attention, the sort he rarely gave anything that wasn't a problem worth solving.
Somewhere in the middle of it, though, cleaning a cut that had already stopped bleeding, checking a bandage that didn't need checking again, his hands stopped being quite so steady.
You noticed before he did, or maybe he noticed and simply didn't stop. His fingers lingered at the edge of the bandage a beat too long, tracing skin that had nothing left to examine, and when you looked up at him, he wasn't looking at the wound anymore.
"You should rest," he said, low, though he made no move to step back.
"You're not moving," you pointed out.
Something flickered behind his eyes, irritation, maybe, at being caught, or at himself, for the same reason as always. "I'm making sure the wound is properly closed."
"It's already closed."
He didn't have an answer for that. For the first time since you'd known him, he didn't reach for one.
You could have let the silence hold. You didn't.
The surgical lamp hummed, a steady, droning vibration that echoed the throb in your ribs. The world tasted of copper and sterile alcohol. Everything felt distant, as if the room were viewed through a thick sheet of frosted glass. The anesthesia clung to your mind like wet wool, heavy and suffocating, turning your thoughts into slow, drifting clouds.
Dottore leaned into your line of sight. His mask caught the harsh white light, splitting his face into a void of porcelain and shadow. He didn't move. He simply watched, his gaze tracing the rise and fall of your chest with the precision of a clockmaker.
"Can you hear me?"
The words sounded like they were coming from the bottom of a well. You tried to nod, but your neck felt like it belonged to someone else. A small, broken sound escaped her throat.
"Focus. I need to know the level of cognitive impairment remaining."
He reached out, his gloved fingers pressing firmly against your cheeks. The coldness of the latex was a shock, a sharp needle of reality piercing through the fog. He shifted, his weight leaning over you, the scent of ozone and expensive chemicals enveloping her.
"You're drifting," he noted. His voice had lost its clinical edge, it had dipped into something lower, a resonant vibration that seemed to hum against your skin. "The sedative is still saturated in your bloodstream. Your heart rate is elevated. Interesting."
You blinked, your eyelashes heavy. You tried to lift a hand to push him back, but your arm felt like lead, flopping uselessly against the metal table.
"I... can't..."
"I know you can't."
He didn't pull away. Instead, his hand slid down, tracing the line of your jaw, then dipping lower to the edge of the bandages wrapping your torso. He didn't touch the wound, but his fingers lingered on the healthy skin just beside it.
"You were reckless," he murmured. "A lapse in judgment. A variable I hadn't accounted for."
"Did I... fix it?"
"The wound is closed. The internal bleeding stopped. You are, physically, a success."
He paused. The silence in the lab grew heavy, thick with a tension that felt different from the sterile atmosphere of the surgery. Dottore’s breathing shifted, becoming rhythmic and shallow. He moved his hand, sliding it beneath the hem of the thin hospital gown, his palm flat against the warmth of her stomach.
You shivered. The sensation was magnified by the drugs, every touch feeling like a lightning strike across a numb landscape. You tried to speak, to ask what he was doing, but the words dissolved into a hazy sigh.
"Your skin is flushed," Dottore whispered, his face inches from hers. "A systemic reaction to the trauma, or perhaps a response to the stimulus. I find myself wondering which."
"Dottore... stop..."
"Hm, should I?"
He didn't stop. He shifted his position, stepping between your sprawled legs, the heavy fabric of his coat brushing against your thighs. The movement was deliberate, devoid of the usual clinical haste. He looked at you really looked at you, not as a specimen or an assistant, but as something he intended to consume.
"You've spent months learning my rhythms, y/n. You've corrected my notes. You've anticipated my needs."
He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. The heat of his breath contrasted sharply with the chill of the room.
"Now, I want to see how you react to a variable you cannot anticipate."
His hand moved higher, his fingers grazing the underside of your breast. You gasped, your back arching instinctively. The anesthesia made the pleasure feel distorted, an overwhelming wave that crashed over you without warning, stripping away your ability to resist. You felt the world tilt, the white ceiling spinning as he captured your mouth in a kiss that tasted of desperation and dominance, blowing your mind away.
It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was a claim. He tasted of iron and obsession.
Dottore pulled back just enough to look into your glazed eyes. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing the red of his irises.
"Tell me you want this," he commanded. "Fight through the fog. Give me a conscious response." He was completely aware that you did not have the strength to protest.
You struggled. You wanted to say no, to reclaim the boundary he was systematically erasing. However, your body was screaming for something else, your hole clenching around nothing and your mind going more cloudy not because of the anesthesia, but the intimacy you are in. The warmth of him was the only thing keeping the cold of the lab at bay. The bond you guys had built, the shared silences, the hidden gifts, the unspoken trust, warped under the pressure of the moment. Your hand, trembling and weak, managed to clutch at the lapel of his coat, pulling him closer.
"Please..."
"Please what?"
"Just... don't leave."
A dark, triumphant sound vibrated in his chest. He stripped away the remaining barriers of cloth with a sudden, violent efficiency. The air hit her skin, cold and biting, before he replaced it with the crushing weight of his body.
He did not waste time entertaining you with his tip, and pushed his length all the way inside you.
You cried out, the sound echoing off the walls. It was too much, the pain in your ribs, the haze in your mind, and the sudden, invasive fullness of him. He froze for a second, his muscles locked, his forehead resting against yours.
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes-..," you whispered, your voice so vulnerable, near to crying.
"Good."
He began to move, a steady, punishing rhythm that mirrored the precision of his research. Each thrust was a calculation, designed to elicit a specific response. He watched your face, his eyes tracking every flicker of pleasure and pain, as if he were recording the data in real-time.
"Your pupils are dilating. Your respiration is erratic."
He gripped your hips, his fingers digging into your skin, bruising the pale flesh. He wasn't being careful anymore. The mask of the Doctor had slipped, leaving behind a man driven by a hunger that no amount of knowledge could satisfy.
"You are the only thing in this facility that doesn't bore me," he groaned, his voice breaking for the first time. "The only variable that refuses to be solved."
As you parted your lips to gasp for air, he captured them with his, giving you no room to breathe. It was messy and almost like a predator devouring its prey.
You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. The fog in her mind began to clear, replaced by a strong desire for release. You could feel the friction, the heat, the way your breaths mingled in the chilled air. You stopped being a subject. You stopped being an assistant. In the wreckage of the moment, you were simply two broken things colliding in the dark.
“Ngh- Doctor I-..!”
Dottore gently wiped the single tear trailing down your cheek and arranged your strands of hair.
“Shh.. Not yet. You can hold it in for a bit, can't you?”
After few moments, the doctor's movements accelerated vigorously, hinting an immediate need for orgasm.
“Come for me,” he groaned in the crook of your neck as he slapped into you faster. “I- I’m close.”
As the climax hit, it felt like a physical blow. You clung to him, your nails scratching into his back, your world narrowing down to the point where your bodies met. Dottore let out a low, guttural sound, his body shuddering as he collapsed against you, his weight pinning you to the table.
For a long time, neither of you moved. The only sound was the hum of the surgical lamp and their ragged, synchronized breathing.
Dottore eventually shifted, pulling away slowly. He didn't offer a hand to help you up, nor did he apologize. He stood and began to dress, his movements returning to their usual, effortless composure. He reached for his mask, sliding it back into place, the porcelain void returning to hide his expression.
He looked down at you, lying breathless and shattered on the metal table.
"The recovery period will now be extended," he said, his voice once again flat and clinical. "I'll need to monitor the effects of the physical exertion on your sutures."
You watched him, her chest heaving. The haze was gone, and in its place was a terrifyingly clear understanding of what you were to each other.
"Was that part of the research?" You asked, your voice raw.
Dottore paused at the door, his silhouette sharp against the hall light as he looked back to you over his shoulders.
"No," he replied. "That was for me."
The door slid shut with a quiet, unhurried click, leaving you alone in the silence of the laboratory.
✦ blurb — Sometimes the loudest man in Heaven is at his softest when no one else is watching, especially when his favorite angel falls asleep before making it upstairs.
The celebration had stopped being charming somewhere around the fourth speech.
At first, you had enjoyed it, because it was difficult not to enjoy Heaven when it dressed itself in gold and music, when the halls opened wide beneath high white arches, when choirs filled the air with voices so soft they seemed to belong to the light itself. Sera had asked you to make sure everything went smoothly, which mostly meant smiling politely, guiding guests to the right places, answering the same five questions over and over again, and stopping Adam from turning every conversation into a personal tribute to himself.
He, unfortunately, had loved every second of it.
Adam had spent the entire day in his element, wings spread just enough to be noticeable without technically blocking anyone’s path, helmet tucked beneath one arm whenever he wanted his face seen, grin sharp and bright as he accepted compliments that had not always been directed at him. Every time another angel mentioned the success of the event, Adam found a way to insert himself into the sentence, usually by clapping a hand against his chest and saying something like, “Yeah, you’re welcome,” despite having done absolutely none of the planning.
You had watched him do it for hours, amused despite yourself, because he was insufferable, but he was your insufferable.
That did not make your feet hurt any less.
By the time the final guests began drifting out through the shining doors, your smile had become a little too fixed, your shoulders felt stiff beneath your formal robes, and the muscles between your wings ached from standing straight for far longer than any reasonable person should have to. You still thanked everyone, still made sure the last trays were cleared, still checked with the musicians, still answered one elderly angel who wanted to know whether next year’s celebration would include “less dramatic guitar,” while Adam stood beside you looking far too pleased with himself.
“You hear that?” he said once the last guest finally disappeared down the corridor. “Less dramatic guitar. Which means she noticed the guitar.”
You rubbed one hand carefully over the back of your neck.
“She said less.”
“Yeah, because it blew her mind and she couldn’t handle it.”
“She asked Sera if it was part of the emergency alarm.”
Adam’s grin widened.
“Exactly. Powerful.”
You looked at him for a second, too tired to argue properly, then let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
“Sure.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That little grandma sigh.”
“I did not grandma sigh.”
“You absolutely did, babe. That was ancient. That sigh had wrinkles.”
You rolled your eyes and reached for the stack of folded programs left on the nearest table, intending to carry them back to the storage room, only for your knees to protest the moment you bent down. You made a small sound before you could stop yourself, nothing dramatic, just a quiet, exhausted noise that escaped somewhere between your chest and throat.
Adam turned his head so slowly it was almost theatrical.
You froze.
He stared.
You stared back.
“No,” you said immediately.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was not.”
“You had the face.”
“What face?”
“The face you make when you’re about to be annoying.”
“That’s just my face.”
“I know.”
Adam placed one hand over his chest, offended in a way that might have been convincing if he were not clearly fighting a smile.
“Wow. After everything I did today.”
“You stood around and accepted compliments.”
“I inspired morale.”
“You ate three plates of dessert.”
“I boosted the culinary staff’s confidence.”
“You told two angels your wings looked better than theirs.”
“They needed honesty.”
You shook your head, but the movement made your neck ache, and you must have winced without meaning to, because Adam’s expression shifted. It was quick, almost hidden beneath the usual smugness, but you knew him well enough to catch it. His eyes moved from your face to the way you rolled your shoulder, then to your shoes, then back up again, and for once, he did not immediately make the obvious joke waiting on his tongue.
Instead, he reached over and took the programs out of your hands.
You blinked.
“I can carry those.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you taking them?”
“Because you walk like an eighty-year-old and I’m being charitable.”
There it was.
You gave him a flat look.
“I’m fine.”
“Sure.”
“I am.”
“You made old people noises.”
“I did not.”
“You literally stood up and went ‘unngghh.’”
“That was breathing.”
“That was not breathing. That was your skeleton filing a complaint.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
You did.
Annoyingly, completely, and far too much for someone who looked this proud of himself while carrying a stack of paper.
“I tolerate you,” you corrected, turning toward the exit before he could see the smile you were failing to hide.
Adam fell into step beside you, deliberately slowing his stride to match yours even though his legs were longer and his energy, somehow, remained untouched by the day. He carried the programs under one arm, your bag over his shoulder despite your halfhearted protest, and when you reached the corridor leading out of the hall, he casually offered his free arm as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
You looked at it.
Then at him.
He raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“You’re being suspiciously helpful.”
“I’m always helpful.”
“You once told Lute moral support counted as helping while you watched her move an entire weapons rack alone.”
“And she felt supported.”
You slipped your hand around his arm anyway, too tired to keep pretending you did not want the help. Adam did not comment on the way you leaned into him a little more heavily with every few steps, though his wing shifted behind you, close enough to brush yours whenever you slowed down. The walk home was not far, but after a full day of smiling, standing, organizing, walking, greeting, and listening to Adam describe himself as “the spiritual backbone of the event,” the path seemed longer than usual.
By the time you reached your home, your entire body had begun to feel distant from you.
Adam pushed the door open with his shoulder and guided you inside, still talking as he dropped the programs onto the nearest table.
“I’m just saying, if Sera wanted boring music, she shouldn’t have let me near the instruments.”
“She didn’t let you near them,” you murmured, slipping your vest off near the entrance with a little more effort than dignity. “You stole the guitar from the choir director.”
“Borrowed.”
“You signed it afterward.”
“Improved its value.”
You hummed vaguely in response, because words were starting to feel like work. Your plan had been very reasonable when you formed it in the hallway. You were going to put everything away, shower, make tea, maybe read a few pages in bed while Adam complained about how the celebration would have been better if they had given him “creative control.” It was a good plan. A sensible plan.
Instead, you sat down on the couch.
Just for one minute.
Adam wandered toward the kitchen, still talking.
“You want tea? Actually, no, you want tea, obviously, because you’re secretly ninety. I’m making tea.”
You meant to answer.
You really did.
The couch was soft beneath you, the room warm, the silence after the celebration almost heavy with relief. You picked up the book you had left on the side table that morning, mostly out of habit, opened it somewhere in the middle without absorbing a single word, and let your head rest against the back cushion for what was supposed to be only a few seconds.
In the kitchen, Adam kept moving around, opening cupboards, making far too much noise for someone preparing tea, muttering to himself about how your favorite mug had somehow migrated to the wrong shelf again. He glanced into the living room once, saw you sitting upright with the book in your lap, and smirked.
“You better not fall asleep on the couch after calling me annoying all day.”
No answer.
He poured the hot water.
“Babe?”
Still nothing.
Adam turned, mug in hand, and leaned slightly to see around the doorway.
You were exactly where he had left you, sitting upright, your head tipped awkwardly against the cushion, book open across your lap, one shoe still half under the table because you had apparently given up halfway through moving it. Your hair had slipped loose from the careful style you had worn all day, falling around your face in messy strands, and one wing had drooped against the couch in a way that would definitely make it sore if you stayed there too long.
Adam stopped.
For once, no joke came immediately.
He set the mug down quietly, or at least as quietly as Adam ever did anything, then walked toward you with an expression that softened before he could stop it.
“Babe?”
Nothing.
He crouched in front of you, waving one hand lightly in front of your face.
No reaction.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Oh, you’re gone gone.”
He reached up and poked your cheek with one finger, gentle enough that it barely moved your skin.
You did not even stir.
Adam stared at you for another second, then let out a quiet breath through his nose.
“Damn.”
The word held no bite at all.
You were completely out, exhausted so deeply that not even his voice had reached you. He had seen you tired before, after training, after long meetings, after nights when worry kept you awake, but this was different. This was your body simply taking the decision out of your hands, shutting down the moment it found somewhere safe enough to stop moving.
Safe enough.
Something about that thought settled strangely in his chest.
Adam shifted closer, bracing one hand on the couch as he looked you over. Your neck was bent at an awful angle, the book was slowly sliding toward the floor, and your remaining shoe was still on, the strap digging slightly against your ankle. He clicked his tongue, softer than usual.
“Look at you,” he muttered. “Big responsible angel, can’t even make it to bed.”
You did not answer, which probably saved him from being smacked.
He took the book first, carefully sliding it from your lap and marking the page with a receipt he found on the table because he could not see a bookmark anywhere. Then he moved to your feet, kneeling properly now as he lifted one ankle with surprising care. The shoe came loose after a little fumbling, mostly because Adam had absolutely no patience for delicate buckles and muttered, “Who designed this, an enemy?” under his breath before finally freeing your foot and setting the shoe beside the other.
You shifted slightly then, just enough for him to freeze.
Your lips parted.
“Adam...”
His entire face changed.
It was barely a whisper, half-asleep and soft, but it hit him harder than any dramatic confession could have. He stared up at you from where he knelt beside the couch, one hand still resting lightly near your ankle, and for a moment the loud, careless confidence he wore so easily slipped away.
“Yeah,” he murmured, quieter than he meant to. “I’m here.”
You did not wake.
Your hand twitched, fingers curling slightly as though searching for something, and Adam was suddenly very aware of how small you looked curled against the couch, wings drooping, face relaxed in sleep, completely trusting the room around you.
Completely trusting him.
“Aw, shit,” he whispered.
He was done for.
He stood, grabbed the nearest throw blanket and spread it carefully over your legs, then hesitated. Leaving you on the couch was technically an option. A bad one, because your neck would be ruined by morning, your wings would ache, and you would absolutely insist you were fine while walking around like a wounded dove. He could wake you, but that felt cruel when you had finally fallen asleep after fighting exhaustion all evening.
He looked toward the stairs.
Then back at you.
He sighed.
“Yeah, screw it.”
Adam bent down slowly, sliding one arm beneath your knees and the other behind your back, pausing when your head tipped forward against his shoulder. You murmured something too soft to understand, your hand instinctively finding the front of his shirt as though your sleeping mind had recognized him before the rest of you could. He froze, holding you halfway off the couch, wings lifting slightly behind him.
“You’re killing me, babe.”
You nuzzled closer.
Adam closed his eyes for half a second, looking personally attacked by how adorable you were.
“Unfair. This is emotional warfare.”
You remained deeply asleep.
He lifted you the rest of the way, careful with your wings, careful with your head, careful in a way he would deny under oath if anyone ever accused him of it. You were lighter than he expected, or maybe he was simply too aware of every place your body rested against his, your cheek tucked near his neck, your breath warm against his skin, your fingers curled loosely in the fabric of his shirt.
He started toward the stairs.
The first challenge was the door between the living room and the hall, which he managed to nudge open with one foot after only two attempts and a whispered curse. The second was your wing, which kept slipping out from beneath the blanket and brushing against his arm. He adjusted it gently, tucking it closer before continuing upward, moving slowly enough that the floorboards barely creaked beneath his feet.
“You couldn’t stay awake five more minutes?” he whispered, glancing down at you as he climbed. “Five. That’s all I’m asking.”
Your brow furrowed slightly.
“M’dam...”
Adam stopped halfway up the stairs.
“What?”
You breathed against his shoulder.
“M’dam...”
His expression softened before he could stop it.
“You ain't even conscious.”
He kept walking, but slower now, because you had curled closer, arms loosely around his neck, and your hair kept tickling his jaw whenever he moved. He tried to blow it away once, failed, and decided to live with it because moving too much might wake you. By the time he reached the bedroom door, he had developed a deep personal hatred for doorknobs, especially ones that required hands he was currently using to carry his half-conscious girlfriend.
He stared at it.
Then looked down at you.
“You see this? This is what I do for you.”
You slept peacefully.
“Unbelievable.”
He shifted your weight carefully, balancing you against his chest while reaching for the handle with two fingers. It took a few seconds and more concentration than any heavenly warrior should need for a door, but eventually it opened. Adam pushed it wider with his shoulder and stepped inside, making his way through the dark room by memory.
He laid you down like you were something fragile.
The mattress dipped beneath you, and you immediately curled toward the warmth he left behind, your fingers tightening briefly in his shirt before slipping free. Adam straightened slowly, watching you settle into the pillows with a sleepy sigh, the blanket half tangled around your legs, one wing folded awkwardly beneath your shoulder.
He frowned.
“Okay, that looks wrong.”
Domestic care, he quickly discovered, was harder than battle.
He knew how to command armies, how to swing a weapon, how to make an entrance, how to fill a room with noise and confidence and absolute certainty. He did not know how to untangle a sleeping angel’s wing from a blanket without waking her, or how many pillows were too many, or whether you would be annoyed if he left your hair like that until morning. He stood beside the bed for a moment with both hands on his hips, assessing the situation like it was a tactical problem.
“Alright,” he muttered. “We got this.”
He did not have this.
First, he tried to pull the blanket free and accidentally tugged it from under your knee, making you mumble something irritated into the pillow. He froze, waited until you settled again, then tried a different angle, moving slowly this time, easing the fabric loose inch by inch until your legs were covered properly. Then he turned his attention to your wing, sliding one hand beneath the feathers with surprising gentleness, lifting it just enough to let it rest naturally against the bed.
You sighed in your sleep.
Adam’s mouth softened.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m amazing.”
He brushed your hair away from your face next, though that became complicated when a strand stuck to your cheek. He removed it with the concentration of someone handling a very delicate explosive, fingertips barely grazing your skin. You shifted again, leaning into the touch, and Adam’s hand stilled.
For all his noise, for all his arrogance, for all the ways he filled every room until there seemed to be no space left for anyone else, there were moments like this where he looked almost surprised by tenderness, as though it kept sneaking up on him when he wasn't paying attention.
You opened your eyes halfway.
“Adam?”
He leaned down immediately.
“Go back to sleep.”
Your gaze was unfocused, heavy with exhaustion, but you still reached for him.
“You coming?”
He laughed softly.
“Damn right.”
That seemed to satisfy you, because your eyes closed again almost instantly.
Adam stayed there for another second, looking at your hand resting open against the blanket, then shook his head with a quiet smile.
“Bossy even unconscious.”
He moved around the room quickly after that, changing out of his formal clothes with far less care than he had used for you, dropping pieces of clothing wherever they landed and promising himself he would deal with them in the morning, which was a lie and he knew it. He pulled on something comfortable, grabbed a glass of water for your bedside table because you always forgot and always complained about being thirsty later, then switched off the lamp, leaving only the faint glow of Heaven’s night beyond the curtains.
When he slid into bed beside you, he tried to do it carefully.
You found him anyway.
The moment the mattress shifted, you rolled toward him as though pulled by instinct, one arm sliding across his waist, your face tucking against his chest before he had even settled properly. Adam froze again, staring down at you in the dim light while you made a small, content sound and immediately fell deeper asleep.
“Oh, so now I’m the pillow.”
You did not deny it.
He adjusted beneath you, pretending to be inconvenienced while very clearly making himself more comfortable for your sake. One arm wrapped around your back, keeping you close, while his wings unfolded slowly and curved around both of you, soft feathers blocking out the cool air. You sighed against him, the last tension leaving your body now that you were warm, safe, and exactly where you had apparently wanted to be all along.
Adam looked down at you for a long moment.
The day had been loud and bright and full of angels wanting his attention, which he had enjoyed, obviously, because attention was a gift and he was generous enough to accept it. But this, the quiet weight of you against him, the way you trusted him in your sleep, the way your breathing slowly matched his without either of you trying, did something to him that applause never managed.
It made him quiet.
You shifted slightly, cheek pressing more firmly against his chest.
“Had fun today?” he whispered.
A tiny nod, barely there.
“Mhm.”
“Worth being sore tomorrow?”
Another sleepy nod.
“Mhm.”
He smiled.
“You’re ridiculous.”
Your fingers curled weakly in his shirt.
“Love you...”
The words were barely audible, softened by sleep, but Adam heard them perfectly.
His smile faded into something gentler.
Then he snorted, because of course he did.
“Cheater.”
You slept on, completely unaware.
He leaned down, pressing a slow kiss to your forehead, his lips lingering there for a moment before he settled back against the pillows and pulled the blanket a little higher over your shoulder.
“I love you too, sleepyhead.”
Outside, Heaven remained bright even in the quiet hours, pale light resting against the curtains, distant music from the celebration still faint somewhere far away. Inside, there was only warmth, the soft rustle of feathers, your body tucked safely against his, and Adam lying perfectly still because you had fallen asleep on him and he would rather fight another war than risk waking you.
ʜᴇʟʟᴀᴠᴇʀsᴇ (you're tagged in everything Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss)
Welcome to my first 𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁! If you want to be tagged for the stories from each section on the masterlist here. Let me know by commenting on a bubble if you see it on your mobile or computer. Don't try reblog because I don't respond to them.
What story do you want me tag you from before I forget?
✦ general warnings — violence, blood, injury, emotional distress, grief, trauma, religious and moral conflict, strong language and swearing (canon level), mentions of death, war, and loss, slow-burn romance, tension, and angst, as well as occasional suggestive themes.
✦ blurb — Adam died during the battle against Hell, and you never believed it could happen to him. He was your commander, your closest ally, and someone you loved in silence. While you grieve, Heaven begins to crumble after Sir Pentious arrives, proving that sinners can change. Angels turn on each other, lost and angry. Meanwhile, Adam wakes up in Hell, alive but fallen, hiding among those he once hated. When you learn the truth, everything you believe is shaken. Adam is alive… and he is a sinner. Will love change how you see Hell, redemption, and him?
Morning arrived in pale gold, slipping quietly through the tall windows of your apartment and spreading across the marble floor in long, delicate shapes. Afternoon followed, warmer and brighter, touching the white walls until everything around you looked almost unbearably clean. Then evening came, softening the edges of Heaven in shades of rose and lavender before the city below began to glow with the gentle radiance of eternity. Night never truly fell here, not the way it did in Hell, not with darkness pressing in like smoke, but the light dimmed enough for shadows to gather in corners, thin and harmless, stretching silently across a room that had become too still.
And through all of it, you remained by the window.
At first, you had told yourself you were only resting. Your body still ached from the battle, bruises blooming beneath your skin in dark, tender patches, cuts pulling tight whenever you moved too quickly. You needed time. That was reasonable. That was allowed. Angels came back from exterminations injured all the time, battered and bloodied beneath the shine of their armor, and no one questioned a day or two of silence afterward. So you sat near the window with your wings folded close around you, your hands resting uselessly in your lap, and watched the golden streets below until the hours blurred together.
Then one day became two.
Then three.
At some point, you stopped counting.
The world outside kept moving without you.
That was the cruelest part.
Heaven had not cracked open. Its towers still rose immaculate beneath the endless light, pearl and gold and flawless white, untouched by grief, untouched by blood. The gardens still bloomed in impossible colors, their petals shimmering softly whenever the breeze passed through them. Music drifted from somewhere distant, bright and delicate, carried through the air like nothing had happened at all. Angels walked in pairs beneath your window, robes trailing behind them, wings brushing together as they laughed over things too small, too gentle, too ordinary for you to understand anymore. Some carried baskets from the markets. Some leaned into each other as they spoke. Some paused in the street to greet familiar faces, smiling with the easy warmth of people who still knew where they belonged.
You watched them from behind the glass like a ghost haunting a world that had already forgotten you were there.
They looked peaceful.
Happy.
Alive in a way you no longer felt.
They had done nothing wrong by continuing to exist. They had not driven the blade into Adam’s back. They had not left him bleeding in the dirt. They had not stood in the Council chamber speaking of doctrine while his name turned cold in your mouth. They were simply living, because Heaven allowed them to. Because Heaven protected them. Because someone else had always gone down into the pit so they would never have to think too long about what waited beneath their feet.
Adam had been that someone.
And now he was gone.
There were no fresh sobs anymore, no sudden collapse beneath the shower, no raw scream tearing itself loose from your chest. That first violence of grief had burned through you and left something quieter behind. Something gray. Something hollow. A silence so vast it seemed to stretch from one end of you to the other.
You had spent centuries knowing exactly who you were.
An exorcist.
Adam’s second.
Heaven’s blade.
There had been comfort in that, even when the work was brutal, even when blood dried beneath your nails and Hell screamed below you. Purpose had made everything simple. You followed orders. You led when commanded. You trained until your muscles trembled and your wings burned. You descended through the portal with a weapon in your hand and certainty in your heart, because the line between Heaven and Hell had been clear, absolute, sacred. The damned stayed damned. The righteous stayed above. Adam stood at the front, loud and arrogant and impossible to ignore, and you stood beside him because that was where you belonged.
Now the space beside him was empty.
And you had no idea where to stand.
Your apartment had begun to feel less like a home and more like a room someone had sealed around you. Everything was exactly where it had always been, and that sameness felt obscene. Your armor had been cleaned and set aside. Fresh robes hung untouched in your wardrobe. Your weapons rested against the wall, polished and silent, their edges catching stray light whenever the sun shifted. The bed remained made because you rarely slept in it. The chairs remained unused. The table still held a cup of tea someone must have brought you days ago, its surface cold and still, untouched until a faint skin had formed over the top.
You did not move it.
You did not move much at all.
Sometimes you turned your head slightly, expecting to hear his voice cutting through the room, crude and impatient, telling you to stop looking so pathetic, telling you Heaven had no use for soldiers who stared out windows and rotted in silence. You could imagine the exact shape of his irritation. The sharp tilt of his head. The way he would have filled the room simply by standing in it, too loud for all that white marble, too alive for all that perfection.
But when you looked over your shoulder, there was only emptiness.
The silence afterward was always worse.
If sinners could rise, if one of them could appear in Heaven changed and accepted, then the foundation beneath your existence had not simply cracked. It had disappeared. Every extermination, every order, every life taken in the name of divine balance trembled under the weight of one impossible truth. Sir Pentious had ascended. A sinner had crossed the line. And Adam, who had believed in that line more fiercely than anyone, had died on the wrong side of it.
A violent crash shattered the silence.
The apartment door slammed open hard enough to strike the wall, the impact echoing through every room before the wood rebounded violently against the frame. The quiet that had settled over your home for days dissolved in an instant, ripped apart by hurried footsteps that crossed the marble floor with enough force to make the polished stone tremble beneath heavy boots.
You didn't need to look.
There was only one person in Heaven who entered a room like she was marching onto a battlefield.
"Lute..."
She didn't answer.
She looked terrible. Her immaculate uniform, always worn with military precision, had been hastily thrown back on, wrinkled where it should have been perfectly pressed. One sleeve still bore the faint stains of dried blood that stubbornly refused to disappear completely, while loose strands of pale hair were falling around a face carved by exhaustion. The dark circles beneath her eyes had deepened, her skin had lost much of its healthy color, and yet none of that was what caught your attention first.
It was the rage.
It lived in every rigid line of her body, every sharp breath she dragged into her lungs, every muscle tightening beneath her jaw as though she had spent days grinding her teeth against words she could no longer keep inside.
She stopped several feet away from you, her chest rising and falling unevenly while she stared out of the same window you had barely left since returning from Hell.
"They're doing nothing," she finally spat, her voice low, trembling with restrained fury. "Absolutely fucking nothing."
You remained silent.
"They're holding meetings," she continued, letting out a bitter laugh that held no trace of amusement, "arguing about redemption, debating whether that snake belongs here, discussing theology while Adam's body is probably still lying in Hell."
Her fist slammed against the windowsill hard enough to crack the polished stone.
"They're talking."
Another strike.
"They're just... talking."
The room fell quiet again, filled only by the sound of her breathing.
"I heard them," she muttered after a long moment, her voice quieter now, but no less venomous. "I stood outside that Council chamber listening to them argue about Sir Pentious, about what it means, about whether redemption changes everything."
She shook her head slowly, her remaining eye glistening with something dangerously close to tears.
"Do you know how many times they said Adam's name?"
You already knew the answer.
"...None."
Lute laughed again, the sound cracking apart before it had fully escaped her throat.
"Not once."
She turned toward you then, and whatever composure she had been clinging to finally gave way.
"They don't care."
"They do," you answered quietly, your voice rough from disuse. "They just..."
"What?" she snapped, cutting you off before you could finish. "Mourn differently?"
You lowered your eyes.
"Lute..."
"No." She pointed an accusing finger toward you, her hand trembling with the force of it. "Don't. Don't make excuses for them."
She began pacing the room, every turn sharper than the last, her wings twitching restlessly behind her as though they, too, wanted to be somewhere else.
"They killed him," she said through clenched teeth. "Lucifer humiliated him, that little psychopath stabbed him in the back, and Charlie stood there protecting every single one of them."
Her breathing grew heavier.
"They're alive."
Another step.
"They're laughing."
Another.
"They're sleeping peacefully in that damned hotel while we're expected to sit here and accept it."
You closed your eyes. "I can't."
"No," Lute continued, her voice rising despite herself, "I won't."
She stopped in front of you so abruptly that you were forced to lift your head.
"I want to go back."
Her words were calm now.
That frightened you more than the shouting.
"I want to go back down there, I want to cut Lucifer's wings from his back, I want to drive my spear through Charlie Morningstar's heart, I want to burn that hotel to the ground, and I don't care who's inside when it happens."
The silence that followed stretched painfully between you.
Finally, you spoke.
"...It won't bring him back."
For the first time since entering the apartment, Lute's expression faltered.
"No," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper, "it won't."
She swallowed hard, her jaw tightening again as fresh anger buried whatever grief had dared surface.
"But it'll make them hurt."
You looked back through the window, watching angels continue their quiet lives beneath the golden streets, unaware that the room behind them had become nothing more than a mausoleum.
"Lute..."
"No." Her voice softened unexpectedly. "Look at yourself."
You didn't answer.
"You haven't left this window in days."
Still nothing.
"You haven't trained. You haven't eaten. You haven't even changed the flowers on Adam's memorial."
The words hit harder than she intended.
She saw it immediately.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, the anger leaving her face for the first time since she'd arrived. She exhaled shakily, rubbing a hand across her forehead before letting it fall. "I'm... I'm sorry."
Another silence settled over the apartment, heavier than the last.
When Lute spoke again, her voice was quieter, stripped of the fury that had carried her through the door.
"I miss him too."
Your throat tightened painfully.
"So much."
Neither of you cried.
You simply stood together in the stillness, staring through the window at a Heaven that somehow seemed brighter than ever, while everything inside the apartment had never felt darker.
Your eyes drifted back toward the city below, but you weren't truly seeing it anymore.
Instead, your mind wandered somewhere else.
You could almost hear him.
"Seriously?"
The voice came so vividly that your breath caught.
"You've been sitting by this damn window for days?"
You could picture him perfectly.
Arms crossed over his chest, one eyebrow raised beneath that ever-present smirk, looking at you like you had just said the stupidest thing imaginable.
"Get your fucking ass up. You've been sitting by this damn window for days."
The image lingered stubbornly, vivid enough that you almost expected him to scoff.
Your lips pressed into a thin line as you closed your eyes, forcing yourself to remember that none of it was real. Adam wasn't standing in your apartment, he wasn't leaning lazily against the wall, he wasn't glaring at you with that familiar mixture of annoyance and reluctant concern.
He never would be again.
And yet you knew him well enough to hear exactly what he would have said.
"You're really gonna sit here feeling sorry for yourself? Since when do you give up that easily?"
His voice echoed through your thoughts with infuriating clarity, each word sounding so perfectly like him that it almost hurt.
"Grief doesn't win battles. Get a fucking grip, soldier."
A slow breath filled your lungs.
You could almost hear him clicking his tongue in disappointment before pushing himself away from the wall with exaggerated impatience.
"Now move your ass. We've got work to do."
Your eyes opened again.
Something shifted.
It was subtle at first.
The crushing weight inside your chest didn't disappear, but it moved, settling into something colder, denser, harder to ignore. The sadness remained exactly where it had always been, yet another feeling began to grow beneath it, quiet at first, like an ember buried beneath ash.
Anger.
Not Lute's kind of anger, loud and explosive, demanding blood the moment it was born. Yours was quieter. It settled into your bones with unsettling calm, growing heavier every time you pictured the Council chamber, every time you remembered Sera's composed expression, every time you heard Emily defend the redemption of a sinner while Adam's name disappeared beneath discussions of doctrine.
A bitter laugh escaped your lips.
"So that's it..."
Lute turned toward you.
"What?"
You kept your eyes fixed on the city below.
"They're not going to do anything."
Your voice barely rose above a whisper, but it carried a certainty that hadn't been there before.
“But we are going to.”
The words left you quietly, almost too quietly for the violence they carried, yet they changed the room the moment they settled into the air. Lute went still beside you, the restless fury in her body pausing for the first time since she had crossed your threshold, her eye fixing on you with a sharp, searching intensity, as though she had heard the beginning of something she had been waiting for and was afraid to move too quickly in case it vanished.
You pushed yourself up from the window seat.
The movement should have been nothing. But after days of sitting there like a statue carved out of grief, even standing felt like an act of defiance. Your muscles protested, stiff and weak from neglect, your knees almost unsteady beneath you, but you forced yourself upright anyway, drawing your shoulders back as your wings slowly loosened from around your body. They unfurled just enough to breathe, white feathers catching the pale light, no longer wrapped around you like a shroud.
Lute watched you as though she were seeing you return from somewhere far away.
You turned toward her fully, and whatever she saw in your face made her expression shift. Hope did not suit her easily. It was too soft a thing for someone made of discipline and sharpened edges, but it appeared there all the same, small and dangerous, flickering beneath the rage she had been feeding for days.
“You’re right,” you said, and your voice no longer sounded as hollow as it had before. It was still rough, still bruised by silence, but there was something beneath it now, something steadier, something hardening with every breath you took. “We can’t keep waiting for them to act.”
Lute’s lips parted slightly, but she said nothing.
You took one step away from the window, then another, leaving behind the place where you had spent days watching Heaven continue without you. The city still glittered beyond the glass, radiant and untouched, but for the first time since you had returned, it no longer felt like it was holding you there.
“We can punish them for what they did,” you continued, anger rising slowly through your chest, not wild, not uncontrolled, but clean and focused enough to make your hands stop trembling. “For what they took from us.”
Lute inhaled sharply, the sound almost catching in her throat.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“For Adam.”
Her jaw tightened at his name, and the hope in her eye sharpened into something far more familiar.
“For Adam,” she repeated, and this time her voice did not break.
The apartment seemed to change around you, though nothing in it had moved. The untouched tea still sat cold on the table, the flowers from Adam’s memorial still waited somewhere beyond the room, wilting in water you had not changed, and your armor still rested where it had been placed days ago, cleaned, polished, waiting for a soldier who had not yet returned to herself.
Lute stepped closer, lowering her voice as if the walls themselves might betray you.
“We can’t go through official channels,” she said. “Sera would stop us before we made it past the first gate.”
“Then we don’t use official channels.”
Her eye narrowed slightly, not in doubt, but calculation.
“There are lower passages,” you murmured, glancing toward the door as though you could already see the route forming in front of you. “Old access points near the extermination armory, places no one bothers watching when there’s no active descent scheduled.”
“You know them?”
“I know enough.”
For the first time in days, something close to satisfaction moved through you.
“Good.”
Lute’s breathing steadied, her earlier frenzy gathering itself into purpose. That was the thing about her rage, you realized, it had only looked uncontrolled because no one had given it a direction. Now that it had one, now that your own anger stood beside hers, it became something far more dangerous than grief clawing blindly at the walls. It became a weapon.
“We go down quietly,” you said, thinking aloud now, each word becoming more certain as the plan took shape between you. “No announcement. No Council approval. No records. No formation.”
“No army,” Lute added.
You looked at her.
Her mouth twisted bitterly.
“We don’t need one.”
“No,” you agreed, and the thought sent a cold thrill through you, terrible and steady. “We don’t.”
Images began to assemble in your mind with brutal clarity. Hell opening beneath you. The hotel standing smug and bright against the filth of Pentagram City. Charlie Morningstar with her wide eyes and impossible hope, Vaggie at her side, the radio demon lurking in the shadows, the others gathered behind walls that had survived when Adam had not. You pictured the doors splintering open beneath your hand. You pictured the glow of your weapon cutting through the infernal dark. You pictured their faces when they realized Heaven had not forgiven them, when they understood that Adam’s death had not been buried quietly beneath doctrine and debate.
Lute must have seen it on your face, because her own expression brightened with something fierce.
“You want the princess,” she said.
“I want all of them.”
A slow smile pulled at her mouth.
“There she is.”
The words struck you strangely, somewhere deep and painful, because it sounded almost like something Adam would have said, crude approval wrapped in mockery, affection disguised beneath arrogance because sincerity had never sat comfortably in his mouth. Your chest tightened, but this time the pain did not fold you inward. It pushed you forward.
You turned toward the wall where your weapon rested.
For a moment, you could almost see him there.
Standing tall near the doorway, arms crossed, head tilted with that insufferable confidence, watching you finally rise from the grave you had built around yourself. You could almost hear the low, amused scoff he would have given, the one that pretended not to be pride.
About fucking time.
Your fingers closed around the shaft of your spear.
The metal was cold at first, almost unfamiliar after days untouched, but then your grip adjusted, and muscle memory returned with quiet precision. The weight settled into your palm exactly where it belonged. Your shoulders squared. Your wings drew closer to your spine. Piece by piece, something inside you locked back into place.
Lute watched you take the weapon, and for the first time since she had entered your apartment, her rage looked almost relieved.
“When?” she asked.
You turned back to her, the pale light from the window catching along the edge of your spear.
“Tonight.”
Her smile widened, sharp and unforgiving.
“Good.”
“We go when the upper district quiets down,” you said. “No one follows us. No one knows.”
“And once we’re down there?”
Your eyes drifted once more toward the window, toward the Heaven that had chosen order over justice, silence over grief, doctrine over the man who had bled for it.
“Once we’re down there,” you said, voice low and steady, “we remind them what happens when they kill one of ours.”
ʜᴇʟʟᴀᴠᴇʀsᴇ (you're tagged in everything Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss)
Summary: Marinette found an interesting stories where it states Lila exposed this will be her best plan unlike how Adrien disregard of exposing Lila as if her lies isn't hurting anyone but it did hurt which annoyed her the most. She might also ask Nadja to do a broadcast on this she wanted the entire world to know Lila Rossi's true colors but no she won't get akumatized by this in this fanfic she was reading had turn it up as her being akumatized.
It might also expose Hawkmoth identity included so she didn't have to deal with it herself. It would put a huge risk on Gabriel on his part to know that his alter-ego is gonna be exposed to publicity. But in this universe they will be reacting every arc on different stories on AO3 that Marinette can find.
I know some people wanted Alya sugar due to someone messaging me about Alya salt. But I don't really write Alya Sugar some people can do it but for me, I don't. Since I've been reading alot of Alya Bashing its kinda of hard to let it go y'know.
Anyway about the prompt.. Been reading karma on AO3 where Lila gets karma so why not add Lila and Alya karma along with Bustier and Damocles. But the Akuma Class are neutral.
Summary: Makrov search up Lila's lies and timeshot that she video call during heroes day. He was put at home instead in the school because of Lila. But he had help from the internet and Marinette to find more what Lila really is he also manage to hack into the school CCTV and found interesting clips one where Lila threaten Marinette, the other aiding and abetting Hawkmoth and a few more after Caline became the Mayor. He may have also hack into Chrysalis' lair as well and found the connection between Cerise and Lila.
When Max came home, Makrov had given Max an urgent message as he watch all the proof that his AI robot had done it made him realize that Lila or Cerise was the one that lies to them and to get Marinette isolated that made him so mad but not only that somehow Makrov found a way to hack into Chrysalis' Lair and there he saw it. He made a note to himself to contact the police and the mayor that there is someone staying in Paris but as Chrysalis.
Tagged: Max Kante Redemption, Cerise Bianca Exposed, Cerise Bianca is Chrysalis, Bustier Sugar
Word Count: N/A
.˚ ✦ . . ˚ . . ✦ ˚ . ★⋆.
part one / part two / part three / part four / part five / part six
series summary: when your mother leaves for a one week business trip, leaving you under the care of your step-father, he takes matters into his own hands to teach you a thing or two about the acts of pleasure, pain, and discipline.
series warnings: THIS IS A DARK FIC. MINORS DNI. NO OUTBREAK. NO ELLIE OR SARAH. major age gap [18/52], corruption kink, innocence kink, daddy kink, size kink, joel has a big dick, loss of virginity, DUB-CON, NON-CON, manipulation, gaslighting, joel is a very very very dirty man, chapters will have much more descriptive warnings, please don't judge me for writing this
all dividers used in the entire series are by @saradika-graphics
follow @sweetpascal-notifs for updates.
last updated: 0 8 / 0 5 / 2 0 2 4
day one | day two | day three | day four | day five | day six | day seven
extras:
series moodboard made by me
🔞 twitter/x link: the cuddle fingering that happened in day five
