First Prompt! And I just so happen to find a character that I thought would really match the vibe I wanted to go for. I’m so excited to write for him since I’ve been mostly keeping out of writing for LaDS, but I do love the characters ♥
Fandom: Love and Deepspace
Pairings: Yandere!Sylus x AFAB!Reader
Warnings: Yandere, Sexual Content (Dub-Con, BJ, Gagging, Non-Con Touches, Lingerie, Reader is a virgin and inexperienced, Pet names, Degradation, Nicknames), Mention of Body Issues, Forced Captivity, Swear Words, Long Post
Prompt: @sintember
Innocence - What would you do to preserve it, what will be done to tarnish it?
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“Come now, you make me look like the bad guy.”
Legs quivering, you could barely stomach looking down at yourself. It didn’t help that you felt how skimpy the outfit was with every move you made. Felt the strings that kept the fabric together pressed into your skin, bit you as if the shame was not enough harm. But looking up and straight ahead was not an option you had either. Not when you knew the smirk on the face that awaited you. Knew about the hungry, predatory sheen in Sylus’ eyes if you met them head-on.
Why you? Why did he choose you? You kept wondering as you stood in his bedroom, barely two steps from the man who had ruined your life. You couldn’t think of a good reason as to why he needed to keep you to himself, lock you up like an exotic animal, and demand to be the only one to put their eyes on you. Maybe if you had been especially pretty or incredibly rich, his infatuation would have made sense. But it really didn’t. None of his actions made sense.
And by now, you didn’t even know if you wanted to cry or be angry with him anymore.
Evil request/idea. I love the idea of Caleb being obsessed about taking care of you like a sense of "roleplay" almost. I can imagine one day, our act isn't good enough so he makes us take poison so our act is better.
Oh! This is indeed a little evil, but sometimes evil is what we need for it to scratch the itch, right? (;
Thanks for requesting!
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"Want me to rub your belly? Make the pain go away?"
Your chest heaved with a deep sigh as you kept staring at the TV screen. There was very little you could do from your position, caught between all of Caleb's limbs, his legs around and crossed over yours to keep you in place, arms holding you tightly against his chest—restricting you.
His hand was already on your stomach, feeling scorchingly hot as he slipped it underneath your shirt, caressing you with his thumb.
"It's already over," you mumbled, gently pushing down his hand until it went back to rest on your hips. Neither was a good placement for hands so curious and grabby, but you didn't want him to gain more access to your body than he already had.
"Oh?" Caleb hummed, playing with the bow at the front of your sweatpants instead, letting the string run through the gaps in his fingers. "Do you need some 'medicine' then?"
At that, you noticeably tensed up, your body turning rigid against his as your gaze lowered submissively. Every fiber in your being loathed this man. Hated the actions he took to keep you pliable. And most of all, you despised the way your subconscious and your body yielded to him.
But there was no alternative.
Frustratingly, Caleb had cut down every one of your rebellions. He implanted a tracker and broke your ankle when you tried to flee, making a big show of helping you through the hard times, not even letting you use the bathroom on your own. When you went on a hunger strike, he wouldn't give you anything long beyond your decision not to eat. And even then, you only got to eat it from his hands, lick it off his skin, or receive it through his mouth. And the worst of all?
Once you got sick or hurt from all the stress and oppression, Caleb found out how much he loved you being vulnerable and defenseless.
Immediately, you grabbed his hand from your waist, clawing your nails into it as you pulled it back over your stomach. "Ow," you whispered faintly, not very convincingly. It was humiliating. Frustrating and shameful to behave this way, pulling up your own shirt so he could crawl his fingers over your stomach. But despite your negative feelings towards it, even this behavior was better. Everything was better than the alternative.
Everything but 'medicine'.
"Hm, if it hurts this much..." Caleb mumbled, faking concern and knowing exactly that you weren't actually hurting. "Maybe you really do need 'medicine'."
You gulped, turning your head into his chest and rubbing it against him in denial. "Only need you," you whispered into his shirt, bile rising into your throat, but you weren't sure whether it was from your own words or the fear of receiving Caleb's famed 'medicine'.
Letting out a happy "Aw!" Caleb pulled his hand from your stomach, wrapping his arms around you tightly and squeezing you in his hug, moving you side to side. The motion reminded you of a shark shaking its prey, and you felt even more nauseated by his closeness. He knew that you noticed him inhaling your scent deeply and felt his nails scratching over your exposed arms as he clawed into them, but Caleb didn't care.
He knew he had the upper hand, and there was nothing you could do.
That's how well he had trained you. Against your will and through tears, sweat, and blood, his chipping away at your resolution had left scars much deeper than those on the surface. At least those healed. But the ones he left deep inside, on your heart, your psyche, your very soul—those couldn't heal, Caleb scratching them open at any given chance so he could stay in control.
"You still need to take your medicine, though, you sweet thing."
These words instilled fear inside you, worse than anything you had ever experienced in your life. Every time he disregarded your efforts and did what he wanted without taking your wishes into consideration, he broke yet another piece of you down, intending to mend it with his own hands when the time was ripe. But secretly, you knew he'd never do that. He'd never give you the help you actually needed to feel better. Caleb liked you broken so that he could pretend to be the hero that would fix you.
Maybe someday.
You tried not to give him any attention, staying completely still, face pressed into his chest. Ironically, this was the safest place at that moment, the only one where he'd feel even an inkling of regret pulling you from.
But above you, you heard him uncap the little brown bottle he always kept nearby. The one that housed something so gruel and vile, you started to shiver just from knowing it was close to you. There you were, like a scared little mouse, clinging to him desperately, trying to avoid the fate he had chosen for you. You hated yourself for it, even though it was your body protecting you as best as it could.
But it was all futile.
"N-No!" you yelled as Caleb pushed you away from him.
"Time for your medicine," he singsonged, and you struggled with all your limbs, trying to keep up enough distance between you two. Before you knew it, he toppled you over, your back landing helplessly in the couch cushions. Your legs were pressed up against his chest, your arms shielded your face, and yet, Caleb still managed to claw his way through your barricades, pushing away your legs with his own, his body pressing between them to keep them apart while his free hand reached beneath yours pulling them up before they were crossed behind your back.
"Don't be such a child," he chided gently, a smug, sadistic smile plastered on his face. "It's just medicine to make you feel better."
"No!" you yelled back, the panic audible in your voice as tears shot into your eyes, knowing you wouldn't be able to keep Caleb off you for very long. "I don't want it!"
"You're being so stubborn! This is good for you! Here."
Caleb placed the bottle to your lips, and you pressed them together as hard as you could. You felt the cold liquid splash into the groove of your mouth, but you only pressed harder in response, the fluid wasted as it ran down the sides of your face.
"You're being very difficult today, I must say," Caleb grumbled, barely any emotion in his voice as he kept trying to force the bottle into your mouth.
"Fine!" he finally resigned, and you looked up at him with tearful eyes. You couldn't believe you had finally won! That you finally made a dent in his winning streak and got your wants through to him!
However, instead of putting the bottle down, Caleb brought it to his own lips, letting the medicine run down his own throat in much too large quantities. You were filled with the horrifying awareness that if taking just a little sip of it hurt you as much as it had the last few times, this amount might kill him. You had no idea if it was actual medicine or poison, considering it only ever hurt, not healed you. But if Caleb died... what would happen to you?
"No! Stop!" you yelled, reaching upwards and bringing your face closer to his as you sat up. You didn't see the trap he set before it snapped into motion, Caleb's arm catching and holding you in place as he crashed his mouth to yours, your eyes widening in shock as you were caught in an unexpected kiss with him.
Caleb's tongue tangoed with yours as you tasted the bitter, putrid smell of the medicine sloshing around your mouth. You had been utterly misled, the strange fluid running down your throat as Caleb's lips pressed harder onto yours. He enjoyed the kiss thoroughly while your tears ran in thick pearls down your cheeks. Maybe you'd die this time, you almost hoped, but Caleb wouldn't let go until you had drunk the last drop.
Immediately, your stomach grumbled, a stinging pain erupting left and right. When Caleb's support on your body slipped, you doubled over, clutching your hurting belly, sweat collecting on your forehead as you breathed heavily.
"Aw, does it hurt, pretty? Do you want me to make it stop?"
"Y-Yes!" you gasped, the pain growing stronger with every second passing. You felt like there were invisible little soldiers inside you, poking you with their knives and bayonets. Firing bullets at your sensitive stomach walls.
"Well." You forced yourself to look up from the couch cushion, feeling and watching with your unfocused eyes as Caleb laid back, opening his arms wide for you. "Come 'ere, and I'll make you feel better, babe."
Really, what were you supposed to do?
What was there but go to him, hoping for an antidote or a potent medicine to solve the pain you were in? No matter how much you hated yourself, you had to obey. Had to try to stop this pain wrecking through you mercilessly.
But when Caleb simply began rubbing your stomach, you realized, despite the pain, that you had completely and utterly been fooled by him. That there would be no relief, only what he wanted from the beginning. Only now, because of your own refusal, it would be so much more painful.
Alright folks! It's time for visuals for our boy Kousuke! I will keep updating this post with new art once we get more references! If you haven't seen my post about it before — there have been some changes from our original polls. Not all decisions had the expected outcome and as to not make him look... frivolous (I wish I was kidding, but some things just didn't work out), I took some liberty in the decision making. Regardless, I hope you guys enjoy these references, I had lots of fun working on him and am still working on different outifts and details!
If any of you want to do fanart, you are more than welcome! Please @ me if you make a post so I can reblog it! Alternatively, you can send it to me directly and I will add it to this post, too, of course!
Without further ado, here are the references! (Please note that tumblr lowers the quality of pictures! :')
Normal/Everyday Outfit
Kousuke's daily outfit when he's out doing whatever-a-kitsune-does-while-needing-to-look-human.
Can be worn with and without the mask, with or without tail(s) and ears.
Emotions (from top left to lower left): Disappointed/Saddened; Content/Attentive, Angry
Not shown here: His hair reaches below his butt (yes, it tangles with his tail(s))
His eyes are open here for reference purposes. They are more likely to be closed on average (see: his happy face) unless his emotions are stirred.
The Fox God Saga - The Legend of the Wishing God - Chapter VII
And the first story is finished! Honestly, it was an up-and-down to write but it still made a lot of fun ♥ We'll see when I finish the second story, but thank you all for reading this far, hope you enjoyed it!
Warnings: Yandere, Sexual Content (AFAB!Reader, Fucking, Creampie, Knotting, Biting and drawing blood), Long Post (3k words)
Somewhere between the sizzling of pain and the waves of pleasure, you could feel it.
Despite your strength of will and your innate instincts, you couldn't help but yield to the pull on your soul, your very being shuddering every time Kousuke's skin brushed against yours. A few hours ago, it would have been unimaginable that you'd find yourself in this situation. Yet, with your legs clinging loosely to his body, and your pussy clenching around his cock, there was no doubt of what was happening.
Lewd sounds echoed through the stone cave, moans and gasps that dropped from your lips amidst tears staining your cheeks. Your body had been agitated at first, thrashing around to escape the pain and causing you to cling to Kousuke's upper arms. You tried with desperation to find hold on his scarred skin as if he were the only solid surface between waves of feelings that crashed into you with full force. And he was, in a sense, the only support you could lean on.
Even if that support was a restless beast.
Lips as soft as cotton but as hungry as a starving animal sought out yours for as long as he could. His body, although he claimed it to be strange and new, worked like a perfectly calibrated machine as he kissed you breathless before moving on to savage other parts of you. All while below, his hips snapped in place, making sure to sink skintight against yours so he could fill every inch of you with his overwhelming presence.
Everything about him was a rough, crude blur, and yet, when he spoke to you, you reacted like you were just as much in heat as he seemed to be.
"You're doing so well for me. Don't be shy, let out your sweet voice, human."
Unlocking your jaw, biting down on your lip to keep the sounds sealed away, you did as he enticed you to, unable to hold back the myriad of huffs and squeals. Your head fell back into the fur below you, your moans carrying further inside the cave as Kousuke busied himself with your neck, pecking and sucking at the soft flesh there as if it were his to enjoy and devour.
You were losing your mind as his cock kept advancing forward, his hips angling differently ever so often, making it impossible to anticipate his next push. A part of you wanted to wrap your legs around him tightly, keep him in place as you shuddered helplessly beneath him. However, he escaped them swiftly and easily every time, anticipating your moves. He was playing his own game with you, clawed fingers running down your sides, burying in the supple flesh of your ass while your muscles tensed and released, causing you to arch your back.
Kousuke's claws never drew blood, and yet, they sent thrilling tingles from your skin to your spine, to your brain, and down to your cunt. It wasn't a miracle that your walls wrapped around his cock tightly, making him hum and chuckle in delighted response. Sometimes, an unexpected, unsettling yet short purr escaped him, almost sounding like a growl rather than what you were used to from the cats in your village. His tongue would savage the sensitive area between your neck and your shoulder, and his breath would be extra hot as it landed there, as if it was preparing you for something.
Every time he pushed into you, you wished you could have ignored the warning signals of your body, reminding you that there was something wrong going on. That behind the mind-fuddling pleasure, there was malicious intent in every one of his actions. Whenever you felt his sharp fangs run over your body, or his fingers gripping you tightly as if wanting to bruise you, it wasn't an accident but a controlled threat. A predator holding down its prey, ready to break its neck.
You had promised all you could give to this creature, posing as an all-knowing, merciful ruler of the mountain. A god, even, no matter how much he seemed to despise those who had been known to you all your life. Yet, he couldn't hide what he really was, a wrathful, powerful beast that you had let loose on the world again. The future was as unclear to you as it was to anyone in your village. But Kousuke made it look like it was already decided either way.
From the corners of your eyes, you thought you caught a glimpse of your soul leaving you. With every one of his pushes, you felt weaker, yet blissfully unaware of your deterioration. When Kousuke's cock filled you fully, all you recognized was the feeling of his shaft throbbing inside you, hardening and twitching as if to please every inch of you. When he spoke, he was nothing like the ill-tempered being that had cursed at you for breaking a promise. It was like you had gained a compassionate master, allowing you to feel again what you had been missing since the first time you had met him.
"It must have been hard," Kousuke cooed, gently brushing hair out of your face. Strangely, you immediately understood what he meant, your body acting on its own, nodding at him. "You must have felt like you weren't yourself anymore, right?"
This time, you didn't lie idle as he kissed you, slowly understanding the rhythm of his lips pressing against yours, and testing the delicate movements as you reciprocated. Kousuke managed to speak to a part of you that had long been dormant, tickling out a response as if your soul was answering his summons.
"Yet, you were so fearless. Came back here to save everyone. How brave you are."
Tears filled your eyes as he acknowledged what you did. Until then, all you had felt—when you felt at all—was guilt and fear. But when Kousuke lifted himself high enough to kiss your tears away from your eyes and brushed your hair from your face to place his lips gently on your forehead, you finally felt like you had done the right thing. As if it had all been worth it.
A god listened, and he accepted your efforts despite your misgivings.
Even when you lacked half of your soul and were powerless in his eyes. Couldn't even fulfill the original promise with him—he still accepted your offering, proved that your devotion to do whatever you could to help your sister, your mother, your village, finally paid off. No one else had listened, and they wouldn't have managed to contain the evil either. But you had done it. You managed what no one else could.
Even when the goal didn't quite justify the lengths you had gone to.
Waves of pleasure were crushing you, fogging your mind as you clung to Kousuke. He was almost as vocal as you, grunting and sighing blissfully as your orgasm built around his shaft. You were overcome by a feeling akin to a summer haze, where time simply moved on; however, you were barely aware of it, as you shuddered beneath him.
"Let go," Kousuke breathed, cupping your cheek and directing your gaze towards him. You couldn't see him in the dark, but you felt his eyes on you. Demanding, authoritarian. His words were orders, veiled in suggestion that made your heart jump all the way into your ribs. It was laughable, really. As if you had a choice.
"Give yourself to me."
Like a gust of wind, your mind received permission from you cunt to cum, surging waves of your orgasm crashing over you before finally losing power. Kousuke could feel you tighten around him, keeping his pushes slow, neither going too far, nor leaving you as you breath hitched, head falling back. Your muscles spasmed as the orgasm ravaged through them, and with it, you felt another part of yourself chip away.
There was no sound, no announcement. But as if another edge of a broken window was broken, you felt a part of your soul escape from you. It stole your breath as you lay there, conscious this time, feeling it sizzle through your body and drill through your skin as it threatened to escape. But before it could, you felt your miserable cunt clenching and gripping around Kousuke's cock as he pushed it further in again.
Mercilessly, and with no regard for your earlier orgasm, he pumped himself into you, over and over, using your hole as if it belonged to him—which, absurdly, it did, now. You clung to him, shivering, arms around his neck, trying to get over the discomfort of the sudden overstimulation. Your body wanted to build another orgasm, but you still hadn't recovered enough to go through it. And although on a silver thread, the rest of your soul clung to you, denying you to take more pleasure frantically.
All you could do was hang on to the kitsune, tears wetting your eyes as he buried his face between your neck and your shoulder, his length stirring you up deep inside. Your entrance began burning as you felt the base of his cock expanding, not giving your body enough time to get used to the sudden mass it was forced to accommodate. More flashes of pain made your body reject Kousuke, even tethering your soul in place while he growled threateningly into your skin.
"Let go," he repeated, his words no more than an impatient, sharp grunt.
"I- I can't!" you rasped.
"No more breaking promises, human!"
"I'm trying!"
"LET! GO!"
With a savage push, Kousuke bottomed out inside you. You gasped before feeling your throat closed off as sharp fangs buried into your flesh, holding you down in place while the inflated base of his shaft buried deep, his tip pressing all the way to your womb before releasing his hot and sticky seed right there.
Perhaps it was the pain, blood dripping down your chest, your pussy aching as it clung to his size. Or maybe it was the feeling of your soul finally tearing off you, pulling out, and vanishing somewhere you could no longer see it. But as you lay beneath the monster in the skin of a human, a gruesome, second orgasm hit you. Bashing your mind into oblivion and dulling your senses. Your ears were ringing, lungs deflating. All you could do was stare into the darkness, pleading with it to take you, as it had last time.
It didn't.
You felt all of it. Every spurt of seed dripping and pooling inside of you, Kousuke filling and marking you possessively with his fluids like an animal would. The length of his fangs lodged and shivering inside your flesh, his tongue swiping around the bitemarks and licking up the blood as if he was enjoying the taste of it. And every new crack of your soul, some small, some big, as it escaped you, your body handing it over to its rightful owner, and you having no say in it, only praying he wouldn't take it all.
For once, your prayers were heard. They came with the pain of teeth pulling out from your body and the damp wetness of blood immediately creating rivers on top of your skin. You couldn't turn your head, even when panic made you jittery. And when you tried to scoot up and away from the beast, you yelped in surprise as you found his cock locked inside you, the bulbous knot tying you two together.
"You did well," Kousuke praised you, but it was flat, almost as if he had expected more from you.
Reaching up to your throat, you could only feel the blood immediately coating your shivering fingertips, a single touch to the bitemarks burning enough to make you shy away. To your surprise, Kousuke's fingers tangled with yours as he pulled your hand from your body, pinning it down next to your head instead.
"Don't," he whispered, sounding a lot less annoyed than before. "Remember who you belong to. You don't get to hurt yourself."
"Sorry," you mumbled back, feeling the tears shoot to your eyes and slowly overflow. The reaction felt strange to you as you realized you weren't even afraid or ashamed anymore. Even when you were still overthinking his tone of voice, it somehow didn't wound or rouse you.
Ever so slightly, you shimmied your hips as they were pinned beneath his, feeling his long shaft move with you, and Kousuke let out a long breath as you clenched around him and immediately released again. "Just stay still for now," he sighed, but although he sounded as if he didn't care much, you could feel his shaft pulsing inside, making you realize that his cock would undoubtedly take longer to calm down if you did anything to arouse it more.
It wasn't comfortable, but you tried to ignore the strange situation you were in now.
"What's going to happen… from now on?" you mumbled quietly, your voice hoarse.
"We need to rebuild," Kousuke answered matter-of-factly. "Clean the shrine, rebuild it to be presentable. Then, we gather the villages, explain what you failed to do previously."
You expected a pang of guilt to shoot through you at the accusation in his words. But you merely gave a slow nod in understanding. Your previous mistakes no longer rattled you, and you wondered whether losing another part of your soul was becoming a good or a bad thing the longer you stayed in your mind.
"Will they… the village. Will they be okay now?"
This time, Kousuke shifted uncomfortably, his cock trying to escape the tightness of your cunt that held on to it. You whimpered as pain shivered through you, and he stopped, sighing. "Well, if you had done what you promised, I could have made sure their recovery was swift. But unless we convince them to pray and send offerings so I can recover more strength, it might still take a while to save everyone."
"You didn't say that before," you pointed out, your brows furrowing. It should have angered you. It didn't.
"Ah, there it is. Do you like challenging me, human? Are you rational now, trying to find loopholes in what I said?"
"One of us has to be."
Silence dominated the cave before, suddenly, a sputter of laughter rang out. Confused, you almost reached for your own throat to see if it came from you, but it didn't. Instead, you felt the shaking of Kousuke's body above you—felt the vibrations going through his cock.
"'Suppose so," he admitted between chuckles, clearing his throat to regain his composure. "But while I quite like our banter, do not forget your place here."
To drive the point home, he tugged his hips back, and your body followed, arching and trying to adjust while you squealed in pain. It was quite clear what Kousuke wanted to say; you might not feel emotions as much, but he was still in charge of you. He still decided when you'd receive pain or praise, perhaps even pleasure if he so wanted.
"Once we rebuild… will you kill me?" you whispered after a while of settling back into the furs. Exhaustion fell over you; now that tension was fleeting, and the instincts that had once warned you were silenced. You could still feel your body, every ache, every pulse of Kousuke's length inside you. But even when you asked your question out of morbid curiosity, you didn't feel scared about either answer he could give.
"Maybe. If you keep being annoying."
You had no idea what was happening on your face. Resignation, understanding, disinterest? Whatever it was, it prompted Kousuke to swallow audibly before adding. "Or not. I will need to readjust to things after being away for so long. And there's a lot to rebuild. And communicate with the people. There's… You have your uses, alright?"
Reaching up your free hand, you somehow managed to find his face in the dark, carefully cupping his cheek. You felt him flinch before remaining impossibly still, neither leaning in nor pulling away from your touch as you brushed your thumb over his cheekbone.
"Uses like this?" you asked, making a point of rolling your hips against Kousuke's, causing him to hiss out. "You didn't need to get intimate last time. Have you been feeling lonely after all?"
"You are overstepping. Again," Kousuke hissed back, grabbing your wrist and pushing away your hand. "I have told you it's easier to extract your soul this way. I do not need to explain myself any further."
"Yes, yes," you sighed, slowly closing your eyes. You felt incredibly tired by now, the night having been way too long, and your sprint up the mountain, followed by the romp in the furs, had not helped with keeping your exhaustion at bay.
"I'm not scared of you anymore, you know?"
"With how you behaved before and now, I might argue you never have been."
"Oh, I have." A grin curled the corners of your mouth as you readied yourself to deliver your final blow. "You're just much scarier when you're a big, mean beast instead of a human with cute fox ears."
Kousuke sighed.
"You might just be the most irritating human I have ever met."
"And you are stuck with me."
"So I am."
Taking a deep breath, you couldn't feel the base of his cock shrinking any time soon, but your exhaustion was slowly winning, as the darkness and silence lulled you into a mix of sleep and passing out. Losing part of your soul must have been more strenuous than you had anticipated. Still, without fear or adrenaline to keep you awake, you dozed off, knowing that more work and learning to live this new, strange life by the kitsune's side awaited you come morning.
"I wonder what you'll do next," you heard Kousuke's voice in the back of your mind as you were almost asleep. Warmth wrapped around you, together with a comfortable weight pressing down so you could nuzzle your face into something soft and plush. Nothing could pull you out of your sleepy mind, not even the feeling of claws brushing through your hair, or Kousuke's knot slowly releasing you from its agonizing hold.
But you, too, wondered what life had in store for you, now that you were claimed as property by a moody fox spirit.
And what else you'd have to lose before you'd finally fulfill your promises to him.
[You can find the masterpost with all chapter's here!]
tw; yandere, non-con, forced marriage, misogyny, mentions of suicidal ideation, objectification of women, unhealthy relationships, hurt no comfort, dead dove: do not eat
dc nightwing/dick grayson x fem reader | 1980s pilot x flight attendant au | unedited | 6.8k w/c | navigation
Dick Grayson, a well regarded pilot for 'Wayne Airlines', has his eyes dead set on the you—the poor flight attendant. Despite it being abundantly clear that you want nothing to do with him—only dreaming of making it as an independent woman in a world made solely for men.
You’ve always wanted to be independent, as silly as it sounded to your mother—who found your utter incompetence in mundane household chores reason enough to know you wouldn’t last long. Despite this, you were compelled to do anything in your power to realise this dream, regardless of how difficult it was for a woman of your standing to earn a liveable wage.
If asked what it was that pushed you to become a stewardess, as they were called back then, you probably couldn’t answer it. Maybe it was a combination of things, the pretty uniform, the opportunity to travel to places you could only dream of—exhausted as you may be from a day of work, or maybe something else entirely, there was no single event you could remember to cause this fixation.
But for the few years after graduating high school all you could do was apply and reapply from one airline to another. It was only after a few rejections that you managed to get a spot, something you could only consider sheer luck, and at a respectable airline at that!
Suddenly, your mother—who kept nagging at you to settle for a more ‘traditional’ job as a secretary or something of that nature—was giddy with excitement, ready to brag about her daughter who made it as a stewardess for Wayne Airlines to anyone willing to lend her an ear. She still made snide remarks here and there, about how you’d be out of a job before the wrinkles on your face fully formed and how you’d be too old to marry by that age. She held conservative views even for the time, not to mention your father who was ready to fully cut you off when he heard what you’d be doing but after some persistence they both begrudgingly caved in.
It was only uphill from there, at least for the first year where you managed to get a small apartment, not too worried about its size or look as you rarely spent any time there. Meeting amazing people both at work and during your travels but they were all overshadowed by one man. Dick Grayson, the bastard, he was a pilot, a few years your senior—not by much though. But there was no expiry date on a pilot as there was on a stewardess so nobody gave them strange looks once their grey hairs started showing.
The dark haired man was recipient to the affection of many of your colleagues, and although even you acknowledged he was handsome, he was never really your type so you treated him in a civil manner as you would anyone else. Or at least tried to.
”Be a doll and get me a cup of coffee won't you, [name].” He said. Flashing you that smile of his, the one that had all the other women in the cabin swooning every moment. However, you merely acknowledged his request with a hum and went off to fulfil it, stopping by to assist any passengers that asked for it.
You had a sneaking suspicion he held onto his requests until you were in the periphery. Even just verbalising the thought made you feel crazy. Sharing the concern with anyone else would have gotten you nothing beyond the moniker of a delusional girl obsessed with a promising man way above their station. Nevertheless, you were sure he gained some sort of sick pleasure from having you specifically perform all those menial tasks for him, he wouldn't be the only man. It made you feel like a glorified maid but you can't have your cake and eat it too. Plus, the novel and exotic sights you were able to witness almost always made the humiliation of the job well worth it.
If only you could've stayed on that path, spent the lesser part of a decade on the job and eventually settled for one on land. Even if it paid a little less and didn’t come with the same air of ‘prestige’. Maybe even settle down and marry, but not too soon, not until you enjoyed every bit of freedom you had clawed out for yourself in your little corner of the world.
If only Dick Grayson had kept his damned hands to himself.
"You know, [name], you look really cute in uniform.” He commented walking beside you, his suitcase bumping into yours once or twice as you tried to speed up and walk away, doing your best to ignore his remarks, as irksome as they may have been. Nothing he ever said was too outrageous. Just enough to get a chuckle and 'warning' given between laughs and knowing glances. Enough to push your buttons, god did he know how to get on your nerves, but never crossing the line. Just enough that your coworkers called you overly sensitive the first—and last—time you voiced your annoyance.
“We're work colleagues—not friends, sir. These comments are not appropriate in the workplace.” You said, emphasising the ‘sir’ in hopes that perhaps it might remind him that he is, one way or another, your superior.
Everyday you pray he is not the captain for the flight, hope for a cockpit crew with a less hands-y pilot, someone with even an ounce more of professionalism would do. But few pilots are as good as Dick Grayson. Few are more amiable and charismatic than the tall , ever so sun kissed man.
Had he kept his mouth shut and treated you as he did any other woman, with respect and common decency, maybe you too would be one of his many fan-girls. He was annoying in every sense of the word but damn was he good at his job. A job with all the benefits of working for Wayne enterprises, one he would be able to do well into his old age, after which he enjoy generous retirement plan. You weren't sure if your borderline irrational hatred for Dick stemmed from jealousy or discomfort anymore.
At least one small luxury you could enjoy the same as he was the various hotels the airline would book for the cabin crew. The tall skyscrapers of cities like Metropolis or the classic architecture abundant in any one European city, that was just the tip of the iceberg.
But right now, none of that mattered. After landing in a city that had long since been on your bucket list, with an unnaturally generous schedule that allowed you a few hours in the morning to take in its sights, you had been nothing short of elated. A small skip in your step the entire day until you learnt your room was right next to his.
Looking back, you don't even recall how you either of you found out. All you remember is how any positive emotion you felt up until then disappeared—as if it had never been there to begin with. Appetite dying on the spot.
"You sure you don't want to come with us?" One of the girls had asked you afterwards as they prepared to explore the city at night, a little surprised at the sudden hesitation when you were so eager earlier.
"Aww, you're not coming, neighbour?" Dick added with a juvenile, sort of high pitched tone. Not meant to be malicious or anything beyond light banter between coworkers. But it did prompt your immediate answer, no longer dressed with faux consideration and disappointment.
"I'm not feeling too well, you guys have fun." Offering a weak smile so really sell the act.
It was a little childish at your age, as a grown woman who had lived alone and travelled to all parts of the world for a few years now. To think you still didn't like leaving the house—or hotel room— at night. A self imposed curfew, remnant of your strict upbringing. Because 'everyone knows what happens to unruly girls who go out at night like strays.' That's what your mother had said while sat with a few acquaintances of hers many years ago. Gossiping about so-and-so's daughter who had returned from the big city. Paying no heed to you who played with whatever toys sprawled across you at her feet. She probably wouldn't remember the event if you ever brought it up.
But you remember.
It replays vividly in your head when you get off work a little later. Fear of that same tone of voice being used when talking about you leading you to grip your bag just a little harder. Craning your neck to look behind at every turn and eyes memorizing every passerby whose route matched a little too closely to yours.
You had zoned out, thankfully not missing much as your eyes scanned the surroundings. People heading off and saying their goodbyes, no one bothered to say much to you after that. You wondered what it would have been like had you not been born in some no-name town in the middle of nowhere, or maybe just to different parents. Maybe you'd fit in better if you could follow their conversations. Gossip about someone from the school they all seem to have gone to. Compliments to new bakery in some well known street of Gotham. 'What do you mean you don't know where that is? Everyone in Gotham knows!' One of them had said between laughs before she went back to whatever she was talking about before.
If you were to pinpoint when your fate became set in stone, it would be that night.
The earlier bittersweet thoughts had done a number on you. So you made the error of leaving your room. Assuring yourself nothing would happen and that you would stay within the confines of the hotel, it would be better than continuing to wallow in your room.
Door securely locked and key tucked away in some inconvenient pocket by the time you realised that, by some sheer coincidence, you had run into the dreaded pilot.
Dick was in the process of opening his room. His brows knit together to form a wrinkle accentuated by the moonlight as he struggled to insert the key. By the time you had realised he was there, the taller man was already looking up from his door handle to you. The previously frustrated expression washed away and replaced, initially with a blank face but one that slowly morphed into a smile as his eyes adjusted to the dark and recognised your figure.
“Anyone ever told you how good you look in the moonlight, sweets?” He got his door to open, but to your dismay, left it ajar—keys still in the lock—opting instead to approach you. Back straightened now as he towered in front of you, blue eyes looking down in search of a reaction.
It felt like a matter of pride, like you would lose some competition you didn't know you were participant in if you didn't look up to meet his eyes as you spoke.
“I appreciate the compliment, sir.” By now unsure if the honorific was for his sake or yours. Attempting to walk away—eager to cancel your walk preemptively as any desire for fresh air died out.
Dick could usually brush off your attempts at setting professional boundaries with butter smooth shamelessness, but tonight he seemed unable to. Maybe it was the alcohol speaking.
“Drop the ‘sir’, sweets. Won’t change a thing, in fact, how about we make this easy on both of us and you become my woman?” You visibly cringed at the line which earned you a chuckle from the male. His inebriated state combined with the cartoonish tone he used left you unsure of what he was playing at. The scenario imitated something straight out of a garbage-tier novel but dim moonlight combined with his freakishly blue eyes made it resemble a horror story more-so than romance. It didn’t help how every time you blinked he felt closer than you recalled.
“So?” Dick continued, close enough to place his hands on your shoulders now, essentially trapping you in his grasp. His jet black hair shone with a navy blue undertone as light passed through them, you noted as the strands tickled your forehead. Forcing yourself out of your mesmerised state, switching focus to his face which seemed dead set on holding you until a response was given. The lack of which prompted him to finally close the minuscule gap left between you two and smash his lips onto you in an instant. The initial sudden contact hurt, eliciting a gasp which he took full advantage of as he shoved his tongue into your mouth. The sounds combined with the spit slipping past your lips felt disgusting. But your body wouldn't move how you wanted it to, nothing made sense. You could feel his knee pressed between your legs and one of his hands under your shirt and firmly groping your chest. It was warm and kind of sweaty. Every time you tried to think of how to get away, you were brought back your reality by his hands which invaded yet another part of you. Like the sudden pinch to your nipple which made you wince in pain.
Thankfully he stopped kissing you at that point so you could catch your breath. Your tone a little less sure of yourself than usual as you spoke, looking around, wide-eyed and with blood flushing your cheeks.
“Sir, I really don't think this is appropriate–.” Out of habit you said what you normally would have, hoping it distracted him enough to not notice you fishing out your key from within your pocket.
The discomfort that you usually concealed was for once clear in your voice but your words were the same. Robotically polite, distant even in your panicked state and that irked Dick Grayson more than anything else. The imaginary line that you had drawn for yourself, never letting anyone get close to it, your textbook formal speech and rehearsed lines.
“There you go again…." He let go of you, looking up and pushing both of his hands up his face as a frustrated sigh left his lips.
"God damn it [name], can’t you see how much I like you?!” Your eyes closed instinctively, flinching as he spoke. Hunched down to your eye level as he spoke between heavy breaths. The first time you heard him sound anywhere near angry. Out of instinct you tried to shrink into yourself, a pathetic sight which lowered his guard just enough for you, in a sudden moment of clarity, to push him with all the strength you could muster. Shuddering at the thought of what could have happened if he had been sober at that time.
With your legs were ready to give out at any given moment, its only though sheer luck and adrenaline that you were able to take advantage of his stupefied state to lock your room door before finally falling to the ground. Gasping for oxygen that never truly reached no matter how much you heaved and clutched your chest. At least he didn't pursue things further that night, the sound of his door locking offering some solace as you were left in silence for the remainder of the night.
It wasn't the first time you had to deal with unwanted advances but it was the first time the heart palpitations could be felt so violently through every inch of your body. It was the first time an encounter left you unable to sleep and fear jumbled your thoughts and memories.
By the end of it, you were unsure what was a product of your imagination and what was an accurate recollection of that night.
Dick Grayson was a flirt, and a bit of a bastard but he's harmless! As a pilot, he wouldn't do something to jeopardise his job like that! At least that's what you told yourself in order to calm the tremors. The following morning was the first time you realised how inconvenient the multiple buttons on your blouse were to fasten. Practically a herculean task when your hands shook uncontrollably but you managed in the end. Mind dazed as you worked through your usual routine hesitating in the final moment as you reached for the no-name brand lipstick in your makeup bag. Its case scratched and chipped from being stored with coins and whatever other clutter was in your bag.
Maybe your mother was right, maybe it was the way you looked. You thought as you looked into the mirror. Not particularly beautiful, just plain and average. A fact that was evident as you opted to wash off the makeup, despite being basically done by that point. Not loud or charismatic—you enjoyed your job but you weren't that close with any of your female co-workers. Maybe the way you did your makeup made men like Dick assume you were desperately vying for their attention. If you stop doing that he'll realise how average looking you are and move on!
The lack of sleep combined with stress didn't do any favours as you walked across the lobby, hyper-aware of your surroundings as sat down for breakfast with the other stewardesses—god how you hated that word. Some of them gave a concerned glance or two your way but that was to be expected, you didn't change the way you did your makeup for the whole time you worked there, until that point. However, nobody said anything—you weren't close enough for that.
"Good morning, ladies! How are we this fine morning?" You almost jumped at the sound of his voice. Back the his usual suave tone a stark contrast to just a few hours back. For a moment, it made you hope he had no recollection of the events of last night, but the way his eyes lingered on you for just a second too long unnerved you.
Dick didn't approach you at all afterwards but you weren't sure if it was an improvement from his usual flirtatious remarks and cheesy grins. Not when the alternative you were faced with was finding him staring at you intently from across the room every time you glanced his way. No readable expression—just an empty, unblinking stare dead set on you.
You were noticeably out of it for the remainder of the day. Not letting your thoughts wander lest you break down in tears on a plane or airport. Robotically performing all your tasks with. A little life returning to your face only as you exited the airport now back home.
"What do you say, [name]?" One of the men from the crew, a co-pilot, asked. His hand suddenly plopping onto your shoulder. It took you by surprise so you couldn't react in time to suppress the loud yelp that escaped your lips. Earning you an equal mix of judgemental and concerned stares. Feeling yourself burning in embarrassment you looked to the ground in front of you. Only realising how much your body had stiffened when he removed his hand.
He smiled awkwardly, unsure of what to do before asking if you were okay. But you couldn't think straight by then, thoughts rushing back to your mind as the proximity of his face to yours reminded you too much of the incident. Was he after your body too? Would he also try to take what he wanted from you, even by force?
You looked visibly unwell by then, glancing up to the noticeably concerned man before walking away, just short of running out of the airport terminal.
Finally catching your breath in your apartment. Taking off your blazer as you examined yourself in the mirror for the second time that day. Was it your skirt? Maybe your father was right, maybe it really was too short. Did it make you look like easy to men? A one-time fling to take their frustrations out on before they went back to their nice homes and found a proper lady to actually settle with?
The problem with thoughts like that, as you would realise all too late, was how quickly they devolved into a vicious cycle.
Moving from makeup and skirts to the cadence of your speech, maybe if you were less assertive, if you kept your mouth shut.
What if it was none of those things but your body? Who are you trying to seduce by taking care of it so much? The way you do your hair—it makes it look like you're asking for it!
At first it was just Dick Grayson, but by the end of it, having any man at all nearby terrified you. When you looked at their faces, all you could see was lust filled eyes ready to corner you like prey. Whether what you saw was real, you were no longer sure.
Even if you couldn't trust your own eyes and ears, there was one thing you now knew was real. His piercing blue eyes that were always so fixated on you that others pointed it out to you.
However, none of it mattered all too much, not when you were let go of. Once your appearance became so unkept that it was brought to the attention of management, they didn't even ask if you were okay despite your performance which had been excellent until that point. No chance to explain yourself. Not even a warning to rectify the situation with a threat of 'next time'. Just a 'Meet me in my office.' followed by a swift firing.
Oddly enough, for the first time in a while, you felt momentarily at ease. Surrounded by clutter in your home, away from prying eyes and the endless whispers that you could no longer distinguish as real or cruel figments of your imagination.
Reality donning on you as you though of how you would tell your parents. They would undeniably chastise you and have their 'I told you so.' moment before regressing to how things were before.
Shoving one eligible marriage partner after another until you finally settled with someone of their choice. Maybe they would be even worse now that you were a little older and had failed—just as they had warned you would happen. If you told them about the events that took place in the hotel. Would they hug you?
Would they tell you it wasn't your fault?
A loud sob left your body as the tears started coming out one after another. After all this time, it was only then that the weight of your reality sunk in. Body recoiling as you saw yourself in the full-body mirror in front of you.
Dirty and unkept.
A shaking hand grazed the lips he had kissed that night, the memory of it all caused you to wretch. Kneeling on the floor coughing loudly but nothing left your mouth and despite how much you tried, no air entered it. Maybe you would die like that, as a cautionary tale for little girls who dream too big and ask for a seat at a table they have no business with.
A knock at your door could be heard faintly beneath the ringing in your ear but you didn't react to it immediately. Hoping they would leave after the lack of response. Only after it evolved to louder, more impatient, slams on your door that you wiped your face however well you could and got up. Slowly dragging your feet to the door. Whoever it was, you wanted to get the interaction over with as soon as possibly. Forgetting to look through the peephole in your restlessness.
You shouldn't have opened the door. You should've checked to see who it was. You shouldn't have immediately fallen back onto the floor without slamming it shut and double locking it safely. But it was too late for regrets like that. He had already invited himself in, even secured it shut with the usual confidence, as if he owned the place.
"Poor thing, you look terrible." His expression was somewhere between concern and a small smile. Likely out of pleasure from seeing the woman that rejected him in such a pitiful state you has assumed.
Dick knelt in front of you, hand cupping your cheek in spite of how it made you clutch your chest and gasp for air.
Three things you could see.
His face that felt like it was inching closer. The door locked securely behind him. His shoulders that engulfed anything else behind them.
Three things you could hear.
Heart palpitations. Rough, uneven breathing. The subtle sound of his thumb rubbing circles on your cheek.
Three things you could—this wasn't helping.
"Was it worth it? To have your way?" That was something you expected to hear your father say. Not the pilot that was barely older than you and at times acted even more childishly.
"Shh. Its okay." His other hand also reached for your face, trapping you between them so you couldn't physically turn away from him—even if your eyes remained diverted.
"A sheltered girl like you doesn't know any better, it's not your fault these things are so new and scary to you." You didn't like how he spoke to you, like you were a child. Not when the insane look in Dick's eyes couldn't hide his carnal lust.
"Honestly, its your parents' fault. To let such a sweet thing wander to the big city all alone after sheltering her for so long." His voice was barely above a whisper by then.
"Pretty things like you should be kept safe and sound at home." His grip tightened a little as he continued.
"If you went back now, to your hometown, what do you think would happen? Would they marry you off to some stranger? Maybe an old man that could be your father's age, or a violent one that'll take his anger out on you. Someone that won't love you at all, not like you deserve…" You were already a mess, unsure of what he was trying to accomplish that he felt the need to continue with his cruel words. All while caressing your face with the gentleness of a lover.
"…Worst case scenario, you get labelled the town harlot. We both know you're not like that, are you [name]?…" You couldn't help but shake you head, desperate as if it would prove anything.
"…But that's never stopped people from talking before. They'll talk as you pass by, half-whispers. Loud enough that you can hear as mothers warn their daughters to not turn out like you or as men jeer at you, laughing amongst themselves. Your old parents will have to spend their years with their heads cast down in shame."
"No, no, no, no, no—." You repeatedly mutter, as if that scenario was already your reality. Maybe you'd be better off dead?
"I can save you, I just want to help." It didn't occur to you in that moment, in the state that you were, that the circumstances he was offering to save you from were his doing to begin with. Not even as you brought your eyes up to face him and were met with his wide smile. A look that by all metrics, the human mind would class as friendly. The slight dimples combined with the smile lines that crinkled around his eyes almost made you forgot who you were talking to.
"You don't have to worry about things like work, or what people will say. Not if you agree to marry me." That's what finally brought you back to reality. You weren't sure what you thought he would do, but this certainly wasn't it.
How can he when you look like this? In that moment you tried to tried to push yourself back, away from him. But he didn't let you go far, leaning past you before grabbing your wrist, using his other arm to push you flat onto the floor and with him on top.
"You know, I'm a little disappointing. But it's okay, you don't know what's good for you yet. It's okay, you'll learn… I'll teach you." He didn't pay much mind to your squirming. Using one of his arms to support his weight and the other one to grip your chin, turning your face away to give him a clear view of your neck. Nuzzling into your neck before starting his assault with light kisses peppered down until your collarbone, eyes looking up to your face. Still held to face away from him but undeniably lulled into a false sense of security, expecting another light kiss. An airy laugh left his lips as he bit down, hard. You gasped as fresh tears escaped the corned of your eyes. Head straining to look at him to no avail.
His legs straddled yours and head laid firmly on you as he continued to bite down and suckle at your skin, only stopping to admire the marks he was leaving behind. Using the arm once supporting his weight to instead rip the work blouse and skirt you were wearing. The top's buttons popped out and the sound of a tear reverberated across the walls. Suddenly giving him so much more of your exposed chest to work with.
Your eyes were forced shut in anticipation for his next action but you weren't expecting the man to lift you off the ground all together. Headed towards your bedroom which was not that hard to find when you lived in a dingy one bedroom apartment. Gently closing the door behind him as he did. Turning the lock to keep you from darting out at the first opportunity you presumed.
He placed you on the bed so you were sat upright before speaking.
"God you have no idea how much I love you, no one else could make me feel like this." He whispered in your ear followed by more kisses as his hands worked to remove your bra.
You sat there unmoving, a passive bystander in your own assault. Unreactive beyond observing Dick wide eyed as he removed your skirt, stockings and finally panties until you were fully naked.
He sat you on his lap, back against his chest as he went back to your neck. With the ferocity of a man who had something to prove.
His dark hair tickling as it hit your skin. One of his hands playing with your chest rolling between his fingers the same nipple he pinched that time. His other hand dug between your legs. Just one finger that pumped in and out of your dry vagina. It hurt. But he kept going until everything became covered in slick.
Realising that you were face to face with the mirror again, the same one from earlier as you looked up from his hands between your legs. Witnessing the subtle ways your face contorted when he went from one finger to two and eventually three. Their every bump and imperfection felt in the deepest parts of you.
And yet, throughout it all, the only thing you could think about was how ugly you looked next to him. Next to a man like Dick Grayson who even through his clothes was build with care, like a Greek statue.
Hair on the once meticulously waxed parts of you. Eyes sunken in and lips chapped if not for the mix of spit, tear and snot both wet an dry that dripped from your face. Your recent inconsistent diet was also evident.
You could imagine how your mother would react in disgust if she could see you as you are now. 'A lady should always look proper!' She'd say as she scolded you for how you dressed as a child.
You weren't entirely clueless. As you bit down on your lips to suppress any noises. You wanted to save yourself, until you were older and more mature, until you found someone you loved. But things moved so fast and his grip regressed to rough and harsh. Manhandling you as it became harder to suppress the grunts and moans, his hand left your chest and began flicking your clit. It was improper and embarrassing but your body climaxed nonetheless.
Satisfied, Dick decided you were ready. He could be patient and edge until you begged for him next time, for now, this was all the confirmation he needed to line his cock to your entrance hungrily and slam in before you could speak a word in protest. Gravity working in tandem with his newfound grip on you meant he could reach parts of you previously untouched. The burning sensation induced as a result made you almost miss the bites, or his fingers. Neither of which held a candle to the feeling of being split apart and convinced the sheer force of his thrusts would tear something in you.
He grunted once or twice before finally exiting. Eliciting a gasp from you at the sudden emptiness and consequent wince and the gaping pain.
All his previous gentleness replaced with a depraved hunger as he threw you onto the bed, climbing back on top before slamming inside you again. You weren't sure how to take his professions of love when he slammed into you like he wanted it to hurt. Ignoring your hand which tapped the side of his shoulder, begging him to get off of you. However, Dick instead opted for taking your lips to silence the whimpers and not have to look at your tears. He could pretend you weren't repelled by him since day one, that you actually loved him back and didn't just huff in annoyance at his many advances—he could pretend you didn't act like you were too good for him.
It was ruthless and painful. If there was any pleasure amongst the savagery your mental anguish made it difficult to recall. As you laid wrapped in his arms, with an unfamiliar pain between your legs and your juices leaking out from your entrance—a state that would eventually feel routine— you were determined to remember this as the violation it was. No matter how loving his embrace felt.
"What if i get pregnant? People will find the timing suspicious." The thought had just occurred to you.
Dick shifted behind you a little, you could feel the smile on his lips forming as his hand, previously playing with your hair now rested on your bare stomach.
"In that case, we better get married soon." He said voice a little strained from exhaustion. In spite of which he didn't stay put for long, getting up to draw a bath. Eventually returning to pick up your aching body and lay it in the warm water.
"I liked how pretty you looked once you stopped doing your makeup, you know." He said, pinching your cheeks like a child but to no avail as you didn't reply to him, opting instead to just lay there as he rubbed shampoo on your scalp.
"A fragile thing like you shuffling in cramped cabins like a glorified maid on air." That one stung. You weren't particularly weak but next to him, you suppose even some grown men might seem fragile. However, the final part—especially when coming from someone like Dick for whom the world would submit to with just a smile and handshake—it got your blood boiling. Maybe the charismatic and sharp Dick Grayson, from his position of privilege could never understand. But being a 'glorified maid on air', as he so crudely put it, even just that had been the greatest freedom a woman like you could experience. Almost as if he could read your mind, the male continued.
"Don't get upset, this was bound to happen the moment you stopped looking young and appealing to those old geezers, or decided to get married—you know that better than anyone." He placed a kiss on you forehead and he continued washing you.
"But don't worry, I'll keep you safe, I'll protect you."
His words, swung from one extreme to another at the drop of a hat. Needlessly cruel remarks, poorly disguised as 'reality checks' for foolish girls who didn't know any better in one breath. Whispers of consolation hand in hand with professions of love in another, the kind that made you cling to him. Desperate for any morsel of comfort.
Realising that now, he was the only one who could provide you with that. Nobody, not even the mother that carried you tirelessly for months, would accept you in the damaged state you found yourself in. A direct consequence of growing up as the times changed. Remembering how almost overnight so many doors started opening for women that were previously thought unthinkable. Those women on the TV stared back, each daring to hope. That one day you too could fly beyond the backwards town, to become you own person one day.
And yet, as Dick firmly held onto your waist, emblematic of a warden's grasp on his prisoner, the oppressive air of that town felt light.
The hawk-like eyes of its inhabitants who carefully examined your every breath felt liberating compared to his.
Your parents' embrace felt like the greatest comfort when compared with his which always carried a silent promise of forever.
Their apprehension at the site of an unknown man washed away in seconds as he introduced himself.
The ward of Bruce Wayne, owner of Wayne Enterprises and by extension, of the airline you had barely scraped by into being hired by and had just before being fired abruptly. You almost couldn't contain your shock at his introduction. Feeling renewed bitterness at the realisation that he, despite having the best of the best at his disposal, felt the need to take from you who was only had meagre crumbs in comparison.
By the end of it, your father shook Dick's hand—as if his cattle was finally sold for a profit. Your mother treating him with more maternal affection than she had ever spared you. People who scoffed and sneered at the mention of your achievements under the guise of jokes hugged and kissed you that day, beaming with unabashed pride.
There was so much you still wanted to do, so may things you had yet to see. But you only spectated, like an outsider looking in, as your parents excitedly brought out two rings. 'Invaluable family heirlooms passed down for generations.' Is how your mother described them.
Your father, smiling brighter than you ever recalled him doing, insisted on putting it on for their new son. You mother went on and on about how it was a family tradition, and the history of the rings. Both looking so pleased with themselves, all because the simple but elegant band fit Dick's ring-size perfectly. Worn from the decades and with visible marks of its size having been adjusted in the past if you looked closely, but still timeless and ready to endure many more generations to come.
In comparison, when Dick asked for their blessing to put the ring on for you himself—already matching your father's humour and laughing on beat to his jokes in anticipation of this moment—neither of your parents showed signs of the same stubbornness. Dismissing it as a meaningless gesture or an outdated family tradition as they gladly handed it to him.
You didn't know what to be in awe of more. The way your parents, who normally turned their nose and nitpicked everything in sight suddenly accepted Dick as family? Who, flawed as they were, you boldly presumed held some endearment towards you at least as the daughter they dutifully raised for over two decades.
Perhaps you should applaud your now husband-to-be instead? Who's present demeanour made it so nobody would assume he was the same deceptively capable pilot from work—or even the gentle man who you had gotten used to lately. The one that did nothing but profess his undying love. With a face that could fool you into thinking he just might kneel at your feet if you asked him to.
Now turning your attention to the ring he slipping onto your finger, its gaudy design which was decidedly outdated and made it uncomfortable to wear. The ornamental gems and size which was not right for your finger made it weigh down on you like a shackle. One which would finally ground you to reality with no deluded hope of soaring that close to freedom ever again.
As such, in that modest home. Which for once echoed sounds of laughter off of its bleak walls. In the very the place your every dream and ambition had been born, you decided to bury them for good. Too worn to offer anything more than a prayer for whichever girl came after you.
A silent hope that maybe she could see a world beyond the white picket fence which disguised prisons as loving homes and wardens as fathers and husbands—which would not relent until you kissed the feet of your oppressor in sincere gratitude for protecting you from himself.
SYNOPSIS : A winter getaway turns into a nightmare when an unexpected reunion with Tim Drake leaves you stranded in an isolated mountain cabin during a blizzard. What begins as a chance encounter with a familiar classmate quickly unravels into something far more sinister.
WARNINGS : Rape/Non-Con, Sexual Content, Yandere Behaviour, Obsessive and Possessive Behaviour, Kidnapping, Abduction, Drugging, Stalking, Manipulation, Forced Isolation, Psychological Horror, Loss of Bodily Autonomy, Delusional Behaviour, Forced Proximity, Female Reader
a / n : this was meant to be for christmas but so just pretend its not practically summer okay thanks bye
REBLOGS AND INTERACTIONS ENCOURAGED!
“Tim?”
The man pivots at the sound of his name, shoulders tightening as his brows draw together in brief confusion. His gaze cuts down the aisle, sharp, until it finds you. Recognition washes over his features, the tension ebbing like a retreating tide. The hard glint in his eyes softens, shadow warming into something gentler.
“Hey,” he says, his voice a low rumble edged with surprise. His arms are full of grocery bags, sleeves shoved up his forearms, if you squint you think you can make out faint traces of bruises on his arms, but with the amount he's carrying you leave it to be the fault of the plastic bags. “What are you doing out here?”
Whatever brought you to the produce aisle slips cleanly from your mind. You step away from the neat rows of fruit and crisp vegetables, drawn toward him without thinking. You probably should’ve grabbed something, anything, for your basket. It was your responsibility, after all. The cabin cupboards would be bare without your foresight, and cooking had never been your family's strong suit. But all of that feels distant now, rendered insignificant by the unexpected closeness of him.
“I’m just spending a few nights away with my family. Needed a break from Gotham for the weekend,” you say, the explanation slipping out with a faint huff of amusement. You barely manage to stifle a laugh—because of course you’d try to escape Gotham only to run into someone who embodies it so completely. Some things, it seems, cling tighter than distance ever could. Tim nudges his glasses up the bridge of his nose, a small, instinctive gesture you recognize immediately. An easy smile curves his mouth, softening the sharp focus he so often wore. The sight loosens something in your chest.
“What about you?” you ask, your voice quieter now.
You and Tim were never close in high school. Different circles. He’d been the quiet, brilliant presence tucked behind a laptop or a tower of textbooks, and you—well, you’d spent those years trying not to draw attention in a school where everything felt too expensive, too carefully curated to ever feel welcoming. You’d shared the same halls, orbited the same space, without ever truly colliding. It wasn’t until university that your worlds finally collided. Somehow, by sheer cosmic accident or the universe’s questionable sense of humour, Tim Drake ended up in nearly every one of your classes. After years of never so much as brushing shoulders in high school, he was suddenly everywhere: a row ahead of you, the desk beside yours, offering a quiet nod or a small smile whenever your eyes met.
Your opinion of him shifted gradually, almost without you noticing.
If someone had asked you the day before university began what you thought of Tim Drake, you would’ve pictured the tall, handsome, undeniably brilliant boy from high school—and nothing beyond that. No strong opinions or lingering impressions. Just a sharp-edged presence who moved through the halls like a ghost with perfect grades. But the boy you remembered and the man you came to know were not the same. Where you’d once assumed distance and quiet mystery, you found instead an awkward, gentle warmth. A man who listened more than he spoke, who smiled softly when a joke landed a beat late, who pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose every time he grew flustered. And the angles of him—God, the angles. Time had sharpened them, his frame filling out just enough that when summer came and he dared to wear T-shirts to class, his toned arms were impossible to ignore. The butterflies were new. It felt absurd to experience that magnetic pull toward someone you’d barely looked twice at just a few years earlier. He hadn’t been unattractive back then—far from it. You just hadn’t been interested. Not until he stopped being an idea of a person and became the real thing: complicated, quietly charming, and standing right in front of you.
Tim shrugs lightly, the motion snapping you back to the present. “Touché.”
He guides his cart a few steps forward to clear the aisle as a couple squeezes past, the wheels clicking softly against the linoleum. When he settles again, he’s closer—near enough that you’re suddenly aware of the space between you, or rather, the lack of it.
“It’s been a while since we talked, since break started,” he says, offering that small, earnest smile again. “What have you been up to? It’s nice seeing someone from our class.”
It isn’t exactly an answer to your question—but the clumps of snow melting into his jacket seams and scattered through his cart say enough. He must be here for the same reason you are: to breathe air that isn’t thick with Gotham’s noise. A quiet escape.
“God, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” you say, keeping your tone light, easy—the practised softness of casual conversation. It isn’t awkward, not really. You’re just… inelegant when things veer unexpectedly personal. Before you can cringe at yourself, something else slips free. “Did I mention you look good? I mean—uh—what have you been up to?”
For a heartbeat, something flickers across his face. It isn’t the reaction you expect. It’s something sharper, something that lands low in your gut with an instinctive jolt of unease. His lips twitch, just barely, the ghost of a smirk. There’s a fleeting, almost triumphant glint in his eyes, a look that feels like confirmation. Like he’s just proven something to himself. Something you were never meant to notice.
Then it’s gone.
Wiped clean so quickly you almost doubt it was ever there at all. Blink, and he’s Tim again: polite, mild, harmless. Familiar. You tell yourself it’s exhaustion, the long drive, the shift in scenery, the mental fog settling in like static. It’s Tim. You’ve known him for years.
“Thanks—and nothing much,” he says easily. “Just work for me too. Finally got a bit of free time, so I figured I’d get away for a while.” His tone is casual, almost breezy, but something about it feels deliberate—too smooth, too carefully sanded down. Before you can pull the thread, another shopper shoulders past, casting you both an irritated look for clogging the produce aisle, as if your quiet catching up is an unforgivable obstacle to their urgent vegetable-related mission. You take the hint, lips stretching into a small, apologetic smile. “I get that. Anyway—I should probably finish up before the others get here and empty the pantry with junk food. It was nice seeing you, Tim.”
His answering smile comes easily, practised warmth softening the sharp lines of his face. His arms uncross, hands dropping to his sides as he shakes his head lightly. “Nice seeing you too. Have fun at the cabin—and don’t get caught in the blizzard.”
You dip your head in acknowledgement, already stepping away, retreating toward the next aisle. But before you turn fully, you glance back and offer one last smile. And then you’re gone, leaving behind the faint, unsettling sense that something just passed between you—something unnoticed… and very much not accidental.
It’s noon, technically.
The clock on the microwave insists on it, glowing a stubborn 12:07 PM, but outside the cabin windows the sky has already collapsed into something dark and heavy, clouds bruised purple-Gray and rolling low over the trees. Snow drifts sideways past the glass, thick and relentless, blurring the world into a smothered white hush. The phone call comes just as the kettle begins to scream. You fumble to answer, cradling the phone between shoulder and ear while you reach for a mug. Your mother’s voice crackles through the line, strained, apologetic. It turns out something had stalled them on the way to the cabin. A burst tire. Everyone’s safe, no injuries, but the car’s been towed miles away, and the parts they need are delayed because of the storm. They won’t be coming. Not today and certainly not tomorrow. A few days, at least. They try to reassure you over the phone, voices light despite the strain beneath it. They’ll figure something out, get there another way if they can, make the most of the holiday anyway.
“Oh,” you say, stupidly, as if that single syllable might rearrange reality. You reassure them, promise you’ll be fine, that the cabin’s stocked and warm and—
The call ends with a soft click, the screen going dark in your hand. For a moment, you just stand there, phone still pressed to your ear, as if the conversation might resume on its own if you wait long enough. It doesn’t.
The kettle continues to shriek on the stove, sharp and insistent, cutting through the sudden quiet like a reprimand. You flinch and reach for it, shutting it off a little harder than necessary. The sound dies abruptly, leaving behind a ringing silence that makes your ears ache. You pour the water into your mug, the stream unsteady. Your hand trembles—only slightly, just enough that you notice. Tea sloshes dangerously close to the rim, steam curling up around your face, fogging your vision for a second. You manage not to spill, though it’s a near thing. A single drop splashes onto the counter, darkening the wood.
Alone, then.
The word settles heavily in your chest.
Not alone alone—you remind yourself of that quickly, stubbornly. Your family is coming. They’re just… late. Delayed. Stuck an hour out, according to the last text you’d received before the signal began to waver. Roads are closing fast, the storm swallowing everything in its path. You’d volunteered to come up early, to unlock the cabin, start the heat, make it feel lived-in before everyone arrived. It had seemed harmless at the time. Responsible, even.
You cradle the mug between your hands, letting the warmth seep into your palms, and drift toward the window. Outside, the snow comes down thick and sideways, driven by a wind that bends the trees until they creak and groan in protest. Branches sway like dark, skeletal arms against the bruised sky, their shadows stretching and distorting across the glass. The cabin answers in kind—soft pops and groans as the wood settles, adjusting to the cold. The sounds are normal. Expected. And yet each one lands a little too loud, a little too close, in the hollow quiet that follows the call. You take a sip of tea, barely tasting it. You’re halfway through the mug when the knock comes.
Three firm raps against the door.
Your stomach drops, a cold weight sinking low and sharp.
Don’t be ridiculous, you tell yourself immediately. This is a cabin in the middle of a snowstorm, not the opening scene of a horror movie. There are reasonable explanations. A ranger checking on occupied cabins. One of your family members who managed to get closer than expected before the roads worsened. Still, your grip tightens around the mug as you turn toward the door, heart beating just a little too fast.
"Tim?"
The name escaped you in a breath of unmistakable relief, the tension that had been coiled tightly beneath your ribs easing almost instantly as recognition settled over you. Surprise coloured your voice as you stared at the man standing on your doorstep, and for a brief moment all the unease that had accompanied the unexpected knock at your isolated cabin simply melted away. It was only Tim. Familiar, trusted, and entirely out of place in the middle of nowhere, but nevertheless a far more welcome sight than any of the possibilities your imagination had conjured in the seconds before opening the door.
"Hey."
His response was accompanied by a small smile, his tone carrying an almost absurd level of calm considering the circumstances. There was something remarkably casual about the way he greeted you, as though the two of you had happened to run into one another while shopping for groceries rather than meeting on the porch of a remote cabin during a winter storm.
Snow dusted his dark hair and shoulders, tiny white flakes still caught in the fabric of his coat despite the shelter provided by the overhang above. The cold had painted his cheeks a vivid shade of red, the colour stark against skin that was already pale from the freezing weather. A thick winter coat concealed most of his frame, hiding the details of his physique beneath layers of dark fabric, but it did little to disguise the athletic build underneath. Tim had never been particularly imposing in terms of sheer size, yet there was a quiet strength to him that years of training had etched into the shape of his body. It was clear he worked out. Even beneath the heavy coat, you could still make out the broadness of his shoulders and the subtle definition of muscle beneath the fabric if you looked closely enough.
"What are you doing out here?" you asked, your voice noticeably steadier now that the initial shock had worn off.
The smile lingering on his face widened slightly before he answered. It came easily to him, softening the naturally sharp angles of his features and lending him the kind of approachable warmth he usually held towards you. Yet now that you were actually looking at him rather than simply reacting to his presence, you noticed something beneath that easy charm. The confidence he had displayed when the door first opened seemed to falter ever so slightly, replaced by a faint nervousness that revealed itself through small, almost imperceptible movements. His hands dropped from where they had been tucked against his body, his posture opening up as though he were unconsciously trying to appear less threatening. The shift was subtle enough that most people likely wouldn't have noticed it, but it was there all the same.
"My car broke down a little way down the road," he explained, glancing over his shoulder toward the snow-covered stretch of forest behind him. "I couldn't get any signal, so I figured I'd keep walking until I found somewhere."
For a brief second, the smile on his face seemed oddly misplaced. There was something almost pleased about it, a flicker of an expression that didn't quite align with the story he was telling. The feeling was gone so quickly that you almost convinced yourself you had imagined it. An apologetic smile replaced it a moment later, softer and more natural, settling comfortably across his features. "Pretty ironic that it ended up being your place, huh?" His laugh was quiet, accompanied by a small shake of his head as snow continued to drift down around him. Standing there beneath the porch light, framed by darkness and falling snow, he looked every bit like someone who had stumbled across the cabin by sheer chance. Yet something about the coincidence felt almost too unlikely, even if you couldn't quite explain why.
His hands fell to his sides as he shook his head slightly, sending a scattering of snowflakes from his dark hair. The movement drew your attention immediately, your gaze lingering for a moment on the melting droplets caught amongst the unruly strands. Up close, he looked even colder than you had first realised. The tips of his ears were red from the wind, and there was a stiffness to the way he held himself that suggested he had been outside for far longer than was comfortable.
"Anyways," he said, offering another small smile, "sorry to ask, but would you mind if I stayed here until the signal comes back?"
The question snapped you from the dazed state you had found yourself drifting into since opening the door. Your mind seemed to stumble over itself trying to catch up with the situation, and you quickly stepped aside to make room for him. "Oh! Yeah, of course. Sorry—come in. Let me get you a towel." The words came out in a rush as you ushered him inside, suddenly aware that you had left him standing out in the freezing weather while you stared at him in disbelief. As soon as he crossed the threshold, a gust of cold air followed him into the cabin before the door swung shut behind him, cutting off the howling wind outside.
You took his coat as he shrugged out of it, hanging the heavy, damp garment by the entrance before hurrying down the hallway towards the linen closet. Your movements felt clumsy, driven more by instinct than thought as you rummaged through the shelves in search of spare towels. It wasn't difficult to justify your concern. Tim looked half-frozen, and the last thing you needed was for him to come down with a cold while stranded out here. Being snowed in with a sick classmate in the middle of nowhere, with no phone signal and limited access to help, sounded like exactly the sort of situation you wanted to avoid if possible. By the time you returned to the living room, Tim had settled himself on the couch. He sat with an ease that suggested he was trying not to inconvenience you, despite the fact that melting snow had already begun dripping from his clothes onto the wooden floorboards beneath him.
"Sorry about the mess," he said, glancing down at the damp footprints and small puddles trailing behind him. There was a hint of embarrassment in his voice, accompanied by a sheepish smile.
You dismissed the concern with a wave of your hand.
"It's fine. Trust me, the floors will survive." The reassurance seemed to ease whatever lingering guilt he felt, and he relaxed slightly against the cushions. Outside, the storm continued to rage against the cabin walls, wind rattling the windows and sending snow swirling through the darkness beyond the glass. Just to be safe, you grabbed a few extra towels before heading back into the living room. The trail of melted snow stretching from the front door to the couch wasn't particularly dramatic, but it was enough to make you nervous. The cabin wasn't yours, after all, and if the owners decided to charge an additional fee because water had soaked into the floorboards, your parents would never let you hear the end of it. It wouldn't matter that a snowstorm was currently burying the entire area under several inches of snow or that you had unexpectedly found yourself sheltering a stranded classmate for the night. Somehow, they would still find a way to make the conversation about responsibility and property damage.
With that thought in mind, you set about drying the floor, following the damp footprints and small puddles left in Tim's wake. The task gave you something practical to focus on, which was a relief after the strange whirlwind his appearance had thrown you into. Outside, the storm continued to batter the cabin, the wind occasionally rattling the windows hard enough to draw your attention. Inside, however, everything felt warm and oddly peaceful. The fire crackled quietly, filling the room with a comforting glow, while Tim sat on the couch behind you, the simple presence of another person making the cabin feel considerably less isolated than it had only half an hour ago.
By the time you reached the last traces of water, you had gradually worked your way closer to where he was sitting. Kneeling beside the couch, you focused on wiping away the final damp marks from the wood, only for the sound of Tim clearing his throat to draw your attention upwards. The movement was automatic. Before you could stop yourself, your gaze lifted from the floorboards and settled on him.
Immediately, that familiar fluttering sensation returned.
From this angle, he looked annoyingly attractive. The warmth of the cabin had softened some of the harsh effects of the cold, leaving a faint flush lingering across his cheeks that contrasted against the paleness of his skin. His hoodie, borrowed from the collection of clothes he'd brought for the trip, stretched across shoulders that seemed broader than you remembered, the fabric outlining the shape of his frame in a way that made it difficult not to stare. Tim had never been the kind of person who deliberately drew attention to his appearance, but there was something almost unfair about how effortlessly put together he always seemed. Even after being stranded in a snowstorm and arriving at your cabin soaked through, he somehow still managed to look good.
Your attention drifted higher, settling on his hair. Usually it was kept at least somewhat neat, pushed back enough to keep it from falling into his eyes, but the weather had thoroughly ruined that effort. Damp strands hung loosely across his forehead, darker than usual from the moisture. Tiny droplets of water still clung to them despite the towel you'd given him earlier, and without meaning to, you found yourself following one as it slid downward. The droplet traced a slow path from his hairline, moving across the curve of his cheek before continuing lower. When it finally caught briefly against his lips, reflecting the warm light from the lamp beside him, your gaze lingered for a second longer than it should have.
Far longer than it should have, actually.
The realization didn't fully hit until his eyes lifted and met yours. Heat immediately rushed into your face as awareness crashed back into place. You had been staring. Not absentmindedly looking in his direction. Staring. There was no way around it. Your mouth opened as you scrambled for something to say, some completely normal explanation that would make the last several seconds disappear from existence, but before you could form a single coherent word, the sharp whistle of the kettle suddenly cut through the room. The sound startled you both, though you were fairly certain your reaction was stronger. Relief flooded through you so quickly it was almost embarrassing. Right. The kettle. You had completely forgotten about it after the knock at the door, the water probably having sat boiling for several minutes while your brain occupied itself with far less productive matters.
Clearing your throat, you pushed yourself upright and brushed your hands against your knees, focusing perhaps a little too intently on the now spotless floorboards. "Well, that's the floor sorted," you said, gesturing vaguely towards the area you'd just cleaned before turning in the direction of the kitchen. The comment felt absurdly mundane after the awkwardness of the last few moments, but perhaps that was exactly why you clung to it. Normal conversation was significantly easier to handle than whatever had just happened.
Pausing at the entrance to the kitchen, you glanced back over your shoulder at him. "Do you want tea?" you asked, grateful to finally have something else to focus on besides the fact that you'd nearly been caught admiring your classmate from two feet away.
Arguably, looking at him from above was even worse. From the couch, Tim had looked attractive enough, but standing over him only seemed to highlight every detail your brain insisted on focusing on. Damp strands of dark hair hung across his forehead and occasionally dipped in front of his eyes, no longer styled into the neat, controlled appearance he usually maintained. The remnants of melted snow still clung stubbornly to him despite the warmth of the cabin, tiny droplets visible along his skin as it melted and caught in the ends of his hair. Combined with the faint flush lingering across his cheeks from the cold, it gave him an oddly dishevelled appearance that should have made him look worse. Instead, it somehow had the opposite effect. There was something distinctly unfair about it. The entire look gave him the appearance of a soaked stray cat that had wandered in from the storm, and you were entirely certain there were people on campus who would lose their minds over it. Considering how many people already found Tim attractive under normal circumstances, seeing him looking like this would probably be enough to cause an incident.
"Tea would be nice."
The sound of his voice pulled you from your thoughts before they could become any more embarrassing. You nodded a little too quickly and turned towards the kitchen, grateful for the opportunity to put several walls between yourself and whatever was currently happening to your common sense. The warmth lingering in your face hadn't faded in the slightest, and you were becoming increasingly concerned that it was far more obvious than you wanted it to be. Leaving Tim in the living room, you crossed into the kitchen and immediately abandoned all pretence of composure.
The moment you were out of sight, you leaned forward against the sink and squeezed your eyes shut. Reaching for the tap, you ran cold water over your hands before splashing some across your face. The chill immediately cut through the lingering heat, and you stayed there for a few seconds longer than necessary, staring down into the sink as water dripped from your chin. It was nothing. Seriously, it was nothing. You were snowed in at an isolated cabin with one of the most objectively attractive people you knew. Anyone would be having a slightly unusual reaction under the circumstances. Cabin fever was probably a real thing. If it wasn't, it should be. There was no reason to read into any of this beyond being stuck in a confined space with a classmate who happened to be annoyingly good-looking.
Satisfied with that explanation, or at least willing to accept it for the time being, you straightened up and focused your attention on making the tea.
The process was familiar enough that it required very little thought. You retrieved a second mug from the cupboard before dropping tea bags into both cups, following them with sugar. The kettle was still hot from boiling, and the steady stream of water filled the mugs with a comforting hiss of steam. After allowing the tea to brew for a minute, you removed the bags and added milk, watching the colour shift from dark amber to a softer brown as you stirred. The routine was simple, repetitive, and reassuring. There was something comforting about following familiar steps when everything else felt slightly off balance. Measuring sugar, stirring the tea, lining the spoons neatly beside the mugs; each small action gave your mind something tangible to focus on. By the time you finished, the frantic embarrassment that had sent you fleeing from the living room had dulled into something far more manageable.
At the very least, making tea gave your hands something to do other than stare at Tim Drake.
You had calmed considerably by the time you returned to the living room with the mugs balanced carefully in your hands. The short retreat to the kitchen had given you the opportunity to collect yourself, and the familiar routine of making tea had done wonders for settling your nerves. At the very least, you no longer felt as though every glance in Tim's direction was capable of completely short-circuiting your ability to think.
"Here," you said, passing one of the mugs over.
Tim accepted it with an appreciative smile, his fingers curling around the ceramic almost immediately as he welcomed the warmth. You smiled back automatically, but as your eyes met his, something caught your attention. It lasted only a fraction of a second before disappearing, replaced by his usual easy expression, yet you were almost certain you had seen it. There had been a strange glint in his eyes, something that looked remarkably like satisfaction. Not arrogance or smugness, but the quiet, private sort of triumph someone might feel after succeeding at something they had invested a great deal of effort into. The expression was so out of place that it left you momentarily confused, and by the time you had properly registered it, it was already gone. Deciding you were probably reading too much into things, you lowered yourself into the armchair opposite him and wrapped both hands around your own mug. "So much for getting away from Gotham, right?" you joked, gesturing vaguely towards him with the cup.
A laugh escaped him, soft and genuine. "Apparently not."
The conversation fell into a comfortable lull after that. The fire crackled steadily in the hearth, filling the room with warmth that contrasted sharply with the storm still raging beyond the windows. Snow continued to strike the glass in intermittent bursts whenever the wind picked up, but from inside the cabin it felt distant and strangely peaceful. You took a sip of your tea and allowed yourself to relax into the cushions, enjoying the warmth spreading through your hands.
"Thanks, by the way," Tim said after a moment. "You left your cup over there."
You blinked before following the direction of his gaze. Sure enough, your original mug sat abandoned on the small table beside the window.
"Oh."
A quiet laugh escaped you as you shook your head.
"Thanks. I honestly don't even remember putting it there."
Considering how distracted you had been since the moment Tim had first knocked on your door, it really should not have come as a surprise that you had managed to misplace something as simple as your own mug. Your thoughts had been scattered in every direction at once ever since opening that door, constantly catching on the storm outside, the unexpected arrival of a classmate, and the uncomfortable awareness of just how isolated the two of you were in the middle of it all. If Tim had not casually pointed it out, there was a very real chance you would have gone through the rest of the evening without even noticing its absence, only to eventually find it hours later and feel mildly defeated by your own absent-mindedness.
You retrieved the mug without much fuss and settled back into your seat, allowing yourself to sink into the cushion as the warmth of the drink gradually settled into your hands. The silence that followed was not uncomfortable in the slightest. It sat easily between you both, softened by the crackle of the fire and the distant, persistent presence of the storm outside, which now felt more like a backdrop than a threat. There was something unexpectedly grounding about it, about simply sharing a room with another person without the need to fill every pause with conversation, especially after having spent so much of the day alone in the quiet of the cabin.
Eventually, however, Tim spoke again, his voice cutting gently through the stillness.
“Did you say you and your family were staying here?”
The question pulled your attention back with ease, and for a moment your mind was transported to earlier that afternoon, to the supermarket aisles filled with bright lights and neatly stacked produce, where the conversation had seemed so casual and unremarkable. At the time, it had been nothing more than passing small talk between two people comparing holiday plans without any real significance. Now, however, it felt strangely distant, almost as though it belonged to a different version of the day entirely, one that had not yet been disrupted by snowstorms and stranded cars.
“Oh, right,” you said after a brief pause, shifting slightly in your seat as you adjusted the mug against your knees. The heat from it grounded you as you briefly searched through the chain of events in your mind, trying to make sense of how quickly everything had unravelled into the current situation. “Yeah. Funnily enough, they got caught in the blizzard too.”
A soft laugh slipped out of you before you could stop it, more from disbelief than humour, as the absurdity of it all settled more firmly in your thoughts. “We were supposed to meet up here a couple of days ago, but the weather completely ruined those plans. Last I heard, they were stuck further down the mountain waiting for the roads to reopen.” You shook your head slightly, staring into the surface of your tea as if it might offer some kind of explanation for the situation. “Honestly, at this point I am starting to think this entire trip was cursed from the beginning.”
“It’s the opposite for me,” Tim replied after a brief pause, his tone shifting into something a little lighter as he adjusted his posture on the couch. He sat up slightly straighter, as though unconsciously mirroring the way you had settled in, giving you his full attention in a way that felt unexpectedly deliberate. There was an easy attempt at humour in the way he continued, a faint smile tugging at his mouth as he added that, if anything, he was glad you were here, because otherwise he would have likely frozen to death in the storm outside. The joke was light enough to pass on the surface, but there was a steadiness in his voice underneath it that made you pause without quite knowing why. It was not the kind of statement that sounded entirely casual, even if it was dressed up as one. For a second, the weight of it lingered in the air between you, softened only by the crackle of the fire and the warmth of the room around you.
In response, you found yourself relaxing further into the cushions of the sofa, your body sinking more fully into the unfamiliar softness as the tension you had been carrying without realising began to ease. The material still had a slightly scratchy texture against your clothes, something you had noticed when you first sat down, but now it barely registered at all. Your muscles loosened as you exhaled slowly, letting the comfort of the moment settle in properly for the first time since he had arrived. The tea had cooled considerably now, no longer steaming as it had been when you first made it, but instead sitting at a lukewarm warmth that was still comforting enough to hold between your hands. Nevertheless, your hands made up for the lack of warmth, wrapped firmly around the mug as you let its residual heat seep into your palms. The cabin itself was comfortably warm now, the fire doing more than enough to counteract the storm still raging outside, and you found yourself beginning to feel almost too warm in your own clothes. The thick sweater you had thrown on earlier suddenly felt heavier than necessary, clinging slightly as the heat built beneath it, and you became increasingly aware of the faint discomfort of it sticking to your skin. It occurred to you, distantly and without much urgency, that you probably should have taken it off earlier. The combination of the fire, the tea, and the enclosed space had turned the room into something bordering on stifling, and you shifted slightly on the couch in an attempt to get more comfortable. A thin layer of warmth had gathered beneath the fabric, enough that you could feel the beginnings of sweat at your back and collar, and the thought alone was enough to make you consider finally shedding the extra layer.
You glanced at Tim properly then and offered a small smile, one that came more naturally than the earlier awkward ones had. “What are friends for?” you said, lifting your mug slightly before taking another sip.
If you had been paying closer attention, you might have noticed the way Tim went quiet for a fraction of a second too long. There was a brief stillness in his expression, something unreadable passing across his face before it smoothed itself out again. A faint twitch at the corner of his mouth suggested the beginning of something different from his usual smile, something that he quickly settled into place as though correcting himself.
“Yeah,” he agreed after a beat, his tone perfectly even once more. “What are friends for.”
You had just been on the edge of excusing yourself when exhaustion finally settled over you properly, no longer something you could ignore or outpace. It arrived all at once, heavy and insistent, as though the long day had simply been waiting for a moment of stillness to collapse into you. You had already begun forming the words in your head, something about needing to lie down for a while and letting Tim keep the couch until the blizzard passed, when your phone suddenly rang out in your pocket. The sound startled you more than it should have. You fumbled for it quickly, pulling it out and squinting at the screen as the name of your mother lit up in the dim light of the room. The timing felt oddly relentless, as though the world outside the cabin had decided it could not stop interrupting you. You glanced from the phone to Tim, offering him an apologetic look as you lifted it slightly in explanation.
“I’ll be a few minutes,” you said as he nodded, his expression attentive. His voice followed you softly, telling you to take your time, but you were already ready to get up to move toward the corridor, phone pressed to your ear but it was only when you pushed yourself up from the couch that something in your body shifted sharply. The movement, so simple and ordinary, seemed to tilt the world in a way it shouldn’t have. Dizziness washed over you in an uneven wave, sudden enough that your vision fractured at the edges, dark spots blooming across your sight like ink spreading through water. You reached out instinctively, your hand catching the arm of the sofa to steady yourself, and for a brief moment everything seemed to narrow into the pressure of your palm against fabric and wood.
Behind you, you could hear Tim shifting, the faint rustle of movement suggesting he had stood up or was about to, concern likely pulling him forward before you quickly lifted a hand in his direction without turning fully around. “I’m fine,” you managed, though your voice came out thinner than intended. “I just stood up too fast.” It wasn’t entirely convincing, even to you, but the sensation began to ebb just enough for you to convince yourself it was manageable. You forced your breathing to steady and continued toward the corridor, each step feeling slightly more deliberate than the last as you focused on the phone still pressed to your ear.
“Hey, Mom, what’s going on?” you asked, attempting a tone of casual normality as you reached the front of the cabin.
Her response came through slightly distorted by the line, but clear enough to make you pause mid-step.
“We’re just outside the cabin, honey. I don’t see any lights on. Did the blizzard knock the power out?”
A short laugh left you almost automatically, born more from disbelief than humour, and you shook your head as you reached for the door. “You need to get your eyes checked,” you replied lightly, though there was a faint strain beneath it now that you couldn’t quite place. “The porch light is literally on.”
Your hand closed around the door handle and turned it, the lock giving way with a familiar click as you pulled the door open. The moment it swung outward, the storm hit you like a physical force. Cold air surged into the cabin, sharp and immediate, cutting through the warmth and pressing against your skin with an intensity that stole the breath from your lungs. Snow-laden wind rushed past you, carrying with it the soundless weight of the blizzard, and for a moment you simply stood there in the threshold, bracing yourself against the frame as your body reacted to the sudden temperature shift. But something was wrong. Not just cold, not just wind, but a deeper, more unsettling sensation spreading through you as though your body was no longer responding properly to your commands. Your limbs felt distant, as if they belonged to someone else, the strength draining out of them in a way that made no logical sense. The sensation crept upward through your legs and into your chest, numbing rather than weakening, leaving you suspended in an uncomfortable state of detachment.
You tried to focus your eyes beyond the doorway, searching for the familiar outline of the porch, the road beyond it, anything that confirmed the world was still as it should be. Instead, there was only darkness and shifting white, the storm swallowing every recognizable shape and replacing it with endless, chaotic movement.
“Mom?” you called again, but the word felt strange leaving your mouth, distant even to your own ears.
The phone remained pressed to your hand, but your grip on it felt uncertain, your fingers slow to respond as though they were losing coordination one joint at a time. The last thing you registered clearly was the overwhelming sense that something fundamental had shifted beneath you, that the ground was no longer entirely where it should be.
Then the world tilted without warning.
You never felt yourself hit the floor.
You blinked awake slowly, consciousness surfacing through a haze so thick and oppressive that for several long moments you couldn't properly distinguish dream from reality. For a fleeting moment, exhaustion tries to make itself known once more, you found yourself fighting the overwhelming urge to simply close your eyes again. The bed beneath you was warm, the mattress soft, and the heavy comforter draped across both of your bodies seemed determined to pull you back beneath the surface of consciousness. Everything felt distant as though there was cotton packed behind your eyes and beneath your skin. Your thoughts came sluggishly, dragging themselves into coherence one at a time while you stared unfocused at the ceiling above you. A loose strand of hair had fallen across your face at some point, brushing irritatingly against your cheek, and instinctively you tried to lift a hand to move it. The command left your mind but seemed to die somewhere before reaching your muscles. Confused, you tried again, concentrating harder this time, willing your arm to move, willing your fingers to curl, but the effort yielded the same result. Your body felt impossibly heavy, every limb weighed down by a strange numbness that left you feeling disconnected from yourself. A slow pulse of unease began to spread through your chest as you stared upward, struggling to understand why something as simple as moving suddenly felt beyond your ability.
The sensation of a hand against your face finally dragged your attention away from your own body. Warm fingers rested gently against your cheek, the touch soft enough that for a moment your exhausted mind accepted it without question. It wasn't until several seconds later that realization arrived. The hand wasn't yours. Those fingers belonged to someone else entirely. A cold knot formed in your stomach at the discovery, and although every instinct immediately urged you to pull away, to recoil from the unfamiliar touch and put distance between yourself and whoever had placed their hand on you, your body remained stubbornly still. You couldn't even turn your head. All you could do was lie there and feel the weight of the palm against your skin while your pulse gradually began to accelerate beneath it. Awareness came in pieces after that. First the warmth pressed against your side, then the unmistakable weight of another body partially draped over your own, a head was buried against your shoulder, tucked comfortably into the space between your neck and collarbone as though it belonged there, one arm was looped securely around your waist beneath the blankets while a pair of long legs had been carelessly thrown over yours, effectively trapping you beneath their weight. The realization settled over you slowly but completely, each detail making the situation clearer than the last. Someone was lying on top of you, someone had been lying on top of you long before you woke up.
"I missed you."
The words were spoken directly into your skin, muffled by the curve of your neck. Warm breath ghosted across your throat as the voice vibrated softly against your shoulder. Under different circumstances the confession might have sounded affectionate. Sweet, even. Instead, the words settled heavily in your stomach.
"Bruce would've noticed me missing from patrol," Tim continued, speaking with the casual ease of someone discussing the weather. "But I was clearly distracted." There was a subtle shift against you as he spoke. You felt it more than saw it, the faint movement of his jaw against your shoulder and the slight adjustment of his weight as he settled more comfortably against you. His voice softened further when he spoke again, losing some of its amusement and becoming something quieter, more thoughtful.
"It's fine if he comes by. We won't be here."
Until that moment, confusion had still lingered around the edges of your thoughts, clouding your understanding of what was happening. Those few words shattered whatever remained. Panic arrived all at once. It surged through your chest so violently that it nearly made you nauseous, your heartbeat slamming against your ribs hard enough to hurt. The implications crashed together inside your mind with horrifying clarity. You wanted to sit up, to shove him away, to demand what he meant and where he intended to take you. Instead, your body remained motionless beneath him, every desperate command ignored by numb, uncooperative limbs. The helplessness of it was almost unbearable.
Tim, meanwhile, seemed perfectly content. If he noticed the change in your breathing or the way your pulse had begun racing beneath his touch, he gave no indication of it. Slowly, almost lazily, he shifted closer. It shouldn't have been possible considering how little space remained between your bodies already, yet somehow he managed it. The hand resting against your cheek slid away only to travel lower, fingers tracing along the line of your jaw before settling against the side of your neck. His palm curved there naturally, thumb resting beneath your ear while the rest of his hand spread across the opposite side. It wasn't a threatening grip, that was what made it so unsettling. It was the kind of touch that suggested he simply expected to be allowed to hold you this way. The room was silent enough that you could hear everything. The slow rhythm of his breathing and the faint rustle of fabric whenever he shifted. The steady beat of his heart somewhere against your side and time seemed to stretch unnaturally, every second dragging into the next until it felt impossible to measure. Without meaning to, you found yourself counting anyway, one second, then another, then another. The numbers became something to cling to amidst the panic threatening to consume you whole. Somewhere during that endless stretch of silence, you became aware of how dry your mouth felt. Your tongue seemed strangely heavy, unfamiliar in a way that made speaking feel impossibly complicated. Even so, you tried. You forced your lips apart and struggled to form words, desperate to ask a question, to demand an explanation, to say anything at all. The effort produced nothing but a weak, broken sound that barely resembled speech.
The arm around your waist tightened ever so slightly. The hand at your neck shifted too, his thumb brushing slowly against your skin in a gesture that might have been comforting if it didn't make your stomach turn. You kept your gaze fixed stubbornly ahead, staring at some indistinct point beyond the room because you couldn't bring yourself to look down. You already knew what you would find if you did. You could feel his attention on you with an almost physical certainty. It lingered heavily against your skin. The thought alone made your chest tighten because deep down you knew that if you gathered enough courage to lower your gaze, if you finally forced yourself to look at him, you would find Tim already staring directly back at you. "It's fine, you don't need to say anything." His voice was soft, almost unbearably gentle almost as if carrying the careful cadence of someone attempting to soothe a frightened animal. Under different circumstances it might have worked. Instead, every syllable seemed to settle beneath your skin like a splinter. The warmth of his breath brushed against your throat as he spoke, and the proximity made it impossible to ignore how completely he had surrounded you. The blankets, the weight of him, the arm still wrapped around your waist, everything combined into a suffocating reminder that there was nowhere for you to go. Even the comfort of the bed had become something oppressive. "Even if you did, it wouldn't matter." The words were accompanied by the faintest trace of amusement. You couldn't see his face, but you could hear it in his voice and feel it in the subtle movement against your shoulder. It was as though he had shared a private joke with himself.
"Honestly, I feel like you could say anything to me and I'd find a way to love you for it."
For a moment your mouth parted on instinct. A response rose automatically, driven by panic and disbelief, only to die before it could take shape. There was something disturbingly sincere about it, something that made it impossible to dismiss as a joke or an exaggeration. He wasn't trying to convince you. He sounded as though he were simply stating a fact he had accepted long ago.
"You're so beautiful."
The words emerged so quietly that you almost didn't hear it. They felt less like part of a conversation and more like a thought that had slipped free without permission. His attention remained fixed entirely on you, you could feel it as surely as you could feel the arm around your waist. The silence that followed seemed to stretch endlessly. Your pulse thundered in your ears while tears gathered slowly at the corners of your eyes. You hadn't even realized they were there at first, one moment your vision was merely blurred by exhaustion, and the next there was a sharp sting behind your eyelids, pressure building until it became impossible to ignore. You blinked hard, trying to force it away, but the effort only made the tears swell further, fear sat heavy in your chest, tangled together with helplessness and exhaustion until you could no longer distinguish where one feeling ended and the next began. You didn't want to cry. More than that, you didn't want him to see it. Yet the tears continued gathering anyway, betraying you as thoroughly as your own body already had. The room seemed distant and unreal around the edges, narrowed down to the space occupied by the weight of his body. Every instinct screamed at you to do something, to move, to push him away, to make him understand that this wasn't right. But your limbs remained heavy, your thoughts sluggish beneath the lingering fog clouding your mind. Even speaking felt impossibly difficult.
Still, somehow, you managed it. The words clawed their way upward from somewhere deep inside you, rough and uneven from disuse. Your throat burned with the effort. "I don't— stop." Three small words spoken in a voice so weak it barely sounded like your own. The tears finally spilled over as soon as they left your mouth, warm tracks slid down your cheeks while your vision blurred completely. The effort of speaking had drained what little strength you possessed, but the terror remained, lodged firmly beneath your ribs. Yet even as the words hung between you, fragile and trembling in the silence, a terrible uncertainty settled over you. Because nothing in his tone, nothing in his behaviour, suggested that your refusal would change anything at all. It didn't change anything. If anything, the words seemed to draw Tim closer, as though your refusal had only reinforced something in his mind. He pressed himself further into your space, burying his face against your neck until his breath fanned across your skin in uneven bursts. The desperation in him was palpable, threaded through every movement and every quiet sound he made. It felt suffocating. You had finally managed to force words past your lips, had finally found enough strength to tell him to stop, and yet nothing around you shifted. The room remained unchanged and his arms remained wrapped around you. The weight of his body remained draped over yours.
"Please," he breathed against your skin, the word emerging strained and almost pleading. "I'll be gentle." The promise settled heavily in your stomach.
You kept your gaze fixed on the floor beyond the bed, unable to bring yourself to look at him as you felt his hand dip lower, fingers tracing your folds before pushing in. Staring anywhere else felt dangerous. Your arms remained stiff at your sides, your fingers weakly curled into the sheets beneath you as you fought to maintain some semblance of control over yourself. Panic and exhaustion churned together inside your chest until it became difficult to distinguish one from the other. Every instinct urged you to pull away, to escape, to do something, yet your body felt disconnected from those desires, sluggish and unreliable beneath the lingering haze clouding your thoughts. The worst part wasn't the fear, it was the humiliation. The awful awareness that your body no longer felt entirely your own, that every involuntary reaction filled you with a sense of betrayal you couldn't properly put into words. You wanted to be angry, wanted to direct that anger somewhere, at him, at yourself, at the situation that had led here. Instead there was only a crushing sense of helplessness settling deeper into your bones with every passing second.
Tim seemed completely consumed by you as he eased two digits into your cunt. The distracted quality he'd possessed earlier disappeared, replaced by an intensity that bordered on obsession. It was as though nothing else existed beyond this room, beyond you. The realization made your chest tighten painfully. When your body finally responded enough for movement to return, it wasn't in any way that mattered. Your limbs remained weak, your thoughts sluggish, your strength nowhere to be found. The small motion that escaped you felt less like a decision and more like instinct, born from exhaustion rather than intention. Tim reacted immediately, tightening his hold around your middle and pulling you closer against him, supporting your weight as though you belonged there.
A broken, humiliating sound escaped you before you could stop it, low and strained as it clawed its way from somewhere deep inside your chest. The reaction seemed to encourage him, drawing a noticeable shift in his focus, his fingers curling against something soft inside of you. The worst part was the way your body continued betraying you. Moments ago you had felt trapped inside yourself, unable to command your own limbs no matter how desperately you tried. Now movement returned in frustrating fragments, just enough to make your helplessness feel even more acute. Your back arched involuntarily, your body seeking stability and warmth despite the panic flooding your mind, pressing you closer against Tim's chest before you could stop yourself. The motion was small, barely noticeable, but he reacted immediately. His arm tightened around your waist, drawing you firmly against him as though afraid you might somehow disappear if he loosened his grip for even a second.
"Used to kill me," he murmured quietly, his voice rough with emotion. "Having to stand there and watch you stress without me able to take care of you." The confession sounded old, worn smooth from being repeated silently inside his head for far too long, the only distraction was the way he was fucking his fingers into you. "There were days it was unbearable." His lips brushed your cheek.
A sob escaped before you could stop it, broken and miserable as it left your throat. The sound seemed to affect him immediately. His arms tightened around you, holding you closer, almost protectively despite the fact that he was the source of your distress. The contradiction made your stomach twist. Your eyes squeezed shut. For a moment everything blurred together, the warmth of the room, the pressure of his arms, the tears sliding endlessly down your cheeks, the exhaustion threatening to drag you under once more. By the time the tension finally broke and you came around his fingers, relief never came. There was only a sickening sense of panic in your stomach.
The thought of being trapped out here with him was somehow more frightening than anything that had already happened. What terrified you wasn't the present. The present was awful, but it was familiar. Fear was easier to endure when it had clear boundaries, when you could identify the shape of it and understand where it might lead. Somewhere outside these walls stood a cabin isolated in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of wilderness you had never seen and couldn't navigate even if you were somehow capable of leaving. No one who might hear you if you screamed. The realization settled heavily in your chest because if nobody knew where you were, then nobody knew where to look. Your thoughts drifted unwillingly toward the future, toward all the possibilities waiting beyond tomorrow and the day after that. The questions came one after another, each more terrifying than the last. How long did he intend to keep you here? What had he told everyone else? Had he told anyone anything at all? Was someone looking for you already, or had he planned carefully enough that your disappearance wouldn't raise alarms for days? You couldn't stop imagining the endless number of paths your life might take from this moment onward, each one branching into another until the possibilities became impossible to count.
The future was waking up tomorrow in this same cabin.
That uncertainty frightened you more than anything else. Your exhausted mind continued turning the possibilities over and over until they blurred together, each scenario bleeding into the next. Eventually the effort became too much. Fear demanded energy, and you had none left to give. Every muscle ached with exhaustion. Your thoughts felt sluggish, dragged down by a heaviness that had been pulling at you since the moment you woke. Even your panic was beginning to dull around the edges, worn thin by sheer fatigue. Tim's hold on you loosened slightly, you felt him move, just enough to tilt your chin upward. The gesture was gentle.
A moment later, soft lips brushed against yours.
You didn't respond. Your eyes drifted shut instead, the last fragments of resistance finally slipping through your fingers. The fear remained, lodged deep inside your chest where it would be waiting when you woke again, but for now exhaustion proved stronger. It wrapped around you like a heavy blanket, pulling you steadily downward into darkness. The last thing you were aware of was the steady rhythm of Tim's breathing beside you and the feeling of his arms tightening around you as your consciousness slipped away, holding you close as though he was afraid that even sleep might somehow take you from him.
So, back when Dracula first released in 1931, it came with an epilogue where Edward Van Sloan (who played Van Helsing) basically reassured the audience that vampires exist. They apparently removed it out of fear it’d anger religious groups. After almost a century, it’s now available
Pairing: Yandere!Dick Grayson x Reader (+Batfam) [DC].
Word Count: 3.8k.
TW: Non/Con, Fem!Reader, Omegaverse, Alpha!Dick, Beta!Reader, Kidnapping, Forced Mating, Knotting, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Ideation, Forced Proximity, Fingering, Group Sex, and Nonconsensual Touching. Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.
Every morning, you woke up underneath Dick Grayson.
That was to be expected from an alpha, or so you’d been told. They tended to be clingy, physical, never satisfied unless their mate was within their sight or, better yet, in their arms. It was perfectly natural, but knowing that did little to alleviate the hot, damp weight of him on your back, didn’t make the smell of sweat and bodies that dragged you from your sleep any less smothering. His arm was a steel bar across your waist, his legs a pair of writhing snakes that tangled around and immobilized yours. Regardless of how much distance you put between yourself and him in the night, his face always seemed to find the crook of your neck, his mouth never more than an inch or so from your mating mark.
The mating mark you, biologically, weren’t supposed to have. But you guessed what was ‘natural’ mattered more for him than it did for you.
Worst of all, he always woke up after you. It was a shared symptom of his late-night patrols and the domestic, homebound instinct most alphas felt to make their den and maintain it. You were left to lie awake for the better part of an hour, swallowing back the feeling that you ought to find a way to crawl out of your own skin, before he began to stir – groaning as he groggily lifted his head. He squeezed your body against his once before rolling over to drag a hand over his face, wiping away lingering exhaustion. You savored the distance the same way an alcoholic savored fine wine: already desperate for another glass.
You made a valiant effort to get away, shuffling towards the edge of the mattress as you muttered some excuse about showering or brushing your teeth. Of course, Dick was quick to stop you and of course, his chosen method of persuasion was touch-based. He sat up, resting his back against the headboard. An arm lashed out, curling around your midriff and dragging you into his lap. Your knees landed on either side of his waist, your ass slotted against his crotch. You could feel his cock pressing into you, stiff and leaking. Your revulsion must’ve shown on your expression, because Dick laughed and rolled his hips against you.
“Can’t help it,” he muttered, voice still thick with sleep. “You just smell so good in the morning. Guess you wouldn’t know that, though.”
Right. Obviously. Because, of the two singular drawbacks to being a beta, there was only one Dick would ever dare to mention out loud. He loved holding your weak sense of smell over your head, reminding you that there was a whole, invisible world defined by scents and pheromones that was entirely inaccessible to you. It’d never been an issue before you met him. From what you’d heard, pheromones were just another way to tell how a person felt, easily replaced by a keen eye for micro-expressions or a careful ear for tones, and you didn’t find being able to tell the exact notes of a person’s unique musk all that appealing.
Then again, if you did have a better nose, you might’ve been able to tell Dick (or, rather, Nightwing, at the time) was going into a rut the night you met, the night he saved you from an armed robber and so heroically offered to walk you home. You might’ve been more aware of the pheromones you were radiating – scared, helpless, in need of protection – and what they would do to alpha at his most eager to lay claim. You might’ve been able to get away from him before he pinned you down on the floor of your living room, dug his teeth into your throat, and bound you to him permanently. His family had told you, afterward, that splitting up a bonded pair was dangerous. Separation from his mate could make Dick irritable, obsessive, hyper-violent. No part of you liked being stuck with him, but the Waynes had promised that you would like version of him that distance bred less. Moving in with his pack, playing mate – that was the safer option. The more humane option.
It also conveniently ignored the second drawback to being a beta: your unwavering preference for your own company. You weren’t supposed to have a mate. You weren’t supposed to join a pack. That was for alphas and omegas with their primal, hormone-driven brains; the ones too busy sucking and fucking to notice people like you quietly keeping society on-track in the background. You’d been made for long periods of isolation, peaceful nights in empty beds, the muted tranquility of mental silence. Crowds made you anxious. Too many voices in one room left you on the verge of hyperventilating. The thought of gushy, romantic sex (the type with lots of skin-to-skin contact and so, so many fluids) made you want to throw up. These were undebatable facts of your existence and traits which Dick trampled over daily with no small amount of zeal.
He grinned, easy and loose, as he slipped a hand into your panties. Two fingers found your slit, tracing over it as the heel of his palm ground into your clit. Sex, real sex, was thankfully off-limits. His dick (or, more accurately, the knot at its base) would kill you. Literally. His constant, pleading pawing wasn’t much more bearable, though.
“It’s stronger in the morning.” Right. Back to your scent. His fingers slipped inside of you, pushing in to the knuckle. “I mean, I can always pick it up, but right now, I don’t even have to try. ‘s like I’m drowning in it.”
You swallowed back a whimper, forcing your tongue to work the way you needed it to. “That sounds terrible.”
“It’s perfect.” He curled his fingers, interrupting his otherwise lazy pumping, then ground into your clit with that much more force. “You’d drown in me if you had the chance to, right?”
You could hear your own slick noises echoing off the walls of his bedroom. “I’d rather just drown you.”
He laughed, bowing his head and pressing an open-mouthed kiss into your collarbone. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Irritation sparked, hot and fierce. Your hands shot for his neck, but Dick’s grin only widened. Without pulling out of you, he rolled over – throwing you down to the mattress and landing on your back. His arm was trapped underneath you, but he didn’t seem to care, didn’t let it slow down the harsh way he flicked his wrist or the invasive curling of his digits inside of you. You thrashed, then when that failed, clawed at the sheets, as if tearing through silk and cotton would do anything to get him off of you. Not that your resistance lasted long enough to matter. It only took short, pitiful seconds for him to make you cum – dragging a miserable whine out alongside your climax. Immediately, you went limp underneath him, and Dick kissed the nape of your neck, humming as he pulled away. Over your shoulder, you could hear an awful, wet sound, like a tongue running through fingers. You did what you could not to put an image to the noise.
When he was done, Dick rested a hand on your back, rubbing circles in your shoulder blade. “Sorry, baby,” And then, stifling another laugh, “You’re just so cute when you’re all—”
His touch drifted south, skirting over the length of your spin. You shrieked into the mattress, arching your back on reflex. Trying to get away from him. Dick sighed.
“Can’t run from me forever.” As if to prove his point, he gathered you up in his arms, pushing himself to his feet and starting in the direction of the en-suite. “One day, I’m gonna have to make you see that.”
You could only groan in response.
~
Breakfasts at Wayne Manor were always difficult to get through.
Late in the morning, after the brunt of the pack had a chance to sleep off the worst of last night’s patrol, every available member of the family gathered around a single, narrow table to clack utensils against porcelain and scrape chairs across the floor and speak to each other as loudly as they possibly could. The others were allowed to choose seats at random, but somehow, you always seemed to end up near the head of the table, stuck between Dick and the Pack Alpha, Bruce.
You hated it. You hated the proximity, too many bodies crammed into too small of a space. You hated the paranoia, never able to eat in comfort knowing another hungry mouth could steal the food off your plate at any time. Most of all, you hated the volume. So many voices layered on top of one another, you couldn’t be bothered to differentiate between Stephanie’s laugh and Cassandra’s quiet hum, Jason’s sardonic drawl and Tim’s mechanical droning. After a while, it was all just noise.
You felt a headache coming on. This was to be expected at this point in the day and thus, warranted no reaction more apparent than a half-hearted scowl and a pair of eyes narrowed toward your plate.
As always, you ate too quickly and were forced to stay too long. When you tried to get up from your seat, Dick’s hand found its way to your thigh, gently urging you back down. He was smiling, again – the golden boy grin, all clear blue eyes behind dark, disorderly hair. You hated that smile more than you hated every other part of Dick combined. Without it, you never would’ve trusted him. You never would’ve let him into your home. You never would’ve found yourself trapped in his.
You never would’ve let him touch you.
You started to turn to him, to make it clear that you were finished and you needed to leave, but someone cleared their throat to your right. Of course.
How could you have forgotten about Bruce.
You braced yourself before turning to him. Dick squeezed your thigh by way of reassurance. It didn’t help.
Bruce Wayne was the Pack Alpha of secondary sex bio-essentialists’ collective wet-dream. Well over six feet tall with the build to match, he towered over the rest of his family with an air of calm, analytic judgement. Even his gaze felt too heavy, as if a weighted pole had been dropped onto your shoulders whenever he deemed you worthy of a stray glance in your direction. Your loathing for him was no less intense than the loathing you held for Dick, but the tone of it was different. You hated Dick because of what he’d done to you, what he continued to do to you. You hated Bruce because of how easily he could fix it and how consistently he decided not to.
“Don’t forget your medication,” he started, slowly, drawing out each word as he gestured to the small collection of multi-colored pills on the edge of your plate. Supplements, you’d been told, to make up for the general lack of activity in your current life. You tried not to take them when you could get away with it, if only because it was one of your precious few ways to maintain your independence. “You won’t like that happens if you miss a dose.”
An order, albeit not a cruel one. He was talking to you like one of his children. Like a member of his pack.
Your head pounded.
“I—” You paused, swallowing. The juxtaposition was dizzying. He was an older man and you were in his home. You wanted to do what he said and be done with it. He was an alpha and you were nothing. You wanted to do anything but listen to him then run as far as you possibly could. “I don’t want to.”
His cold gaze flickered from you to the rest of his table. In turn, the others went quiet, their attention naturally gravitating to Bruce, who then directed it to you. The noise had been unbearable, but the silence was worse. Six pairs of eyes, all focused unblinkingly on you. You would’ve sat through a thousand family meals if it meant they would all stop looking at you like that.
With shaking hands, you snatched up the pills and choked them down dry. Bruce nodded. Dick beamed.
You wanted a long second for their attention to disperse, then another. It never did. Your vision blurred around the edges as you scrambled out of your seat, muttering excuses. This time, no one stopped you.
You wanted your bedroom – safe and dark and isolated – but the kitchen was closer. Your temples throbbed. Your heart threatened to beat out of your chest. So busy trying to steady your own frantic breathing, you didn’t notice the footsteps until you were leaning over a counter, eyes clenched shut and hands flat against the cool marble. You thought it might be Dick, at first, come to check on his upset mate. You should’ve known he wouldn’t be so attentive, that the world wouldn’t be so kind.
A lean arm wrapped around your midriff, its owner’s chest soon pressed against your back. You saw a flash of gold in your peripheral, felt soft lips on the shell of your ear.
Stephanie. Another alpha. Perfect.
She was surprisingly quiet. There was a slight hum, a breath of a laugh, but nothing else as she nuzzled into your shoulder. Rather than an act of mercy, her silence came off as a show of further sadism. It meant you had to be the catalyst for your own misery.
“What are you doing?”
“Comforting you.” A purr started up deep in her throat. You felt the reverberations against your skin. “You should see the pheromones you’re releasing, right now. I’ve rescued hostages giving off weaker distress signals.”
Another set of footsteps, another body placing itself too close. You glanced to your left and found Tim pulling himself onto the counter, his dark eyes wide. He was an omega, but that did little to endear him to you. Alphas tended to be more aggressive, but there was something about the cloying, saccharine way omegas held themselves that made you uneasy. They went through life expecting to be loved. Your lack of affection was regarded less as an inability and more as stubbornness. Something meant to be resented or, better yet, overcome.
“It really is strong,” he mumbled, edging that much closer to you. “Not that I’m complaining. It’s nice. Calming.”
Stephanie snickered. “Don’t listen to him. He says you smell like the ocean.”
Your nose wrinkled. Every soul born and raised in Gotham knew the coastline’s dead-fish, rotting-trash stench by heart. Tim scowled.
“I did not. It’s more like—” He cut himself off, pausing to think. When he went on, his voice was more distant, as if drawing from a well-loved memory. “Bruce took me to Italy for a case, once. The air was so—so fresh. There was salt, and sunlight, and something sweet, like—”
“Caramel,” Stephanie finished. Her purring was getting louder. Her hands began to wander, slipping under your shirt and pressing flat against your stomach. She was unbearably warm, and you could feel her palms sliding up, up, her breath against your throat as she sought out your—
“Please,” You were so quiet, you could hardly hear yourself above the static in your ears. “Stop.”
Her grin pressed into the curve of your neck. “Why would I do that, sweetheart?”
“I don’t like being touched. It’s not—” Your body was too hot. You were burning alive. “It’s not right.”
She laughed – loud and bold and searing. “Of course it is, honey. This,” She dragged her blunt nails over your chest for emphasis. “is how we show we care. Don’t you want us to care about you?”
No. You didn’t. You wanted something, anything else. You opened your mouth to say as much, to scream, but Tim was fast.
“Let her go, Steph.” Sweet, soft, nearly pleading. Obediently, Stephanie pulled away, and you sucked in a deep breath. Those piercing, beady little eyes of his never fell away from you. It seemed to turn the air hostile, filling your lungs with acid in the place of relief. “She’ll come around, soon.” And then, quietly, almost to himself, “She’ll have to.”
His words rang in your ears for seconds. She’ll have to.
Meaning, they’d make you.
All the warmth left your body at once. It was strangely calming – the rush of cold; the way your heart beat so fast, it might as well have not been beating at all. Without a word, you slipped out from underneath Stephanie, and she let you. Tim whispered something and Stephanie laughed, but the details were lost in translation. It didn’t really matter. They’d said what they needed to.
You couldn’t get to the roof, so you settled for Bruce’s office. It was on the uppermost floor, with a balcony that looked out over the manor’s gardens. His door was unlocked, so you let yourself in. Bruce was at his desk. You passed by him without acknowledgement.
He only got to his feet as you stepped outside. The guardrail was tall enough to press into your stomach as you peered over it. Fifty feet to the ground, more or less. You’d been hoping for more, but it would do the trick.
You leaned forward, bowing your head low and using your arms to better ease your body over the side. Eventually, your center of gravity tipped, your feet kicking off the ground as you teetered on the railing and started to—
A fist curled around the collar of your shirt, jerking you back and throwing you to the ground. You blinked, and then, Bruce was kneeling above you, his hand around your neck and his gaze steely. Your skin crawled underneath his palm.
“I had higher hopes for you,” he muttered. His free hand slipped into his coat pocket, drawing out a thin black box. “We thought you were coming along.”
You hesitated to respond, but there was only one thing you were ever going to say. That you could say, anymore. “Please don’t touch me.”
He scoffed, the noise dry and humorless. The box was placed next to your head, the lid carefully removed. You saw the flash of something long and silver in your peripheral, felt a pinch at the base of your neck. Heat flooded into your veins, thick and primal. You caught the distant scent of something sweet, and then, you were gone.
~
The room stank of sweat, salt, and sugar.
You came into consciousness slowly, only able to take in one foggy detail at a time. You were in an unfamiliar bed, too large to be your own. Dick was above you, kneeling in between your legs, his face flush and his hands planted on either side of your head. In the corner of your eye, you could see Tim and Stephanie on the other side of the too-big mattress – Tim on his back and Stephanie moving above him, bouncing on something you couldn’t see. Behind them, of course, was Bruce. He leaned back in his armchair, expression bored but cold eyes watchful. The Pack Alpha, residing over the rituals of lesser creatures.
Dick’s breath hitched and you realized, rather belatedly, that he was inside of you. Really, actually inside of you. Deep, deep inside of you.
Oh no.
Your hands shot to his shoulders, nails burrowing into muscle. “Dick, Dick, you have to—”
He hushed you, falling that much lower. His lips found the curve of your neck, ghosting over a patch of scarred skin. Your mating mark. “’s alright, baby. You’re so—” He moaned, rolling his hips against yours. “So tight.”
“You need to pull out.” You could feel it – beating against your entrance, a swollen mass at the base of your cunt. It was too thick, too hard, too big. He was going to split you open. He was going to fucking kill you. “I’m not supposed to—”
“But you are, baby. You are.” He pulled away, his pace falling into something blissfully lethargic. A hand slipped between your body and his, two fingers finding your clit. Dread and pleasure pulsed through you in tandem. You didn’t want this. You couldn’t. It wasn’t in your nature. And yet, your hips bucked against him and your cunt ached. Your mind was suddenly in the backseat, watching in horror as your body begged to be taken care of.
“Tried to let the pills do their work, take things slow, but B decided it was time to go all the way.” He grinned, kissing your forehead. You could smell something on him, underneath the sweat and closeness. Sharp mint and chalk in sunlight. Then, below that, something else. A steady, indescribable reek that seemed to whisper ‘love me, love me, love me’ into the back of your skull. Your pussy clenched that much tighter around his cock. “Tim even offered to help. Having another omega’s pheromones to copy should make the first time a little easier.”
Another omega? He made it sound like Tim wasn’t the only—
Understanding dawned on you, cruel and terrible. Of course. The pills. The shot. The pack’s insistence that, one way or another, you’d come around. It was all you could do to blink up at Dick. Your voice was weak, when you finally found it. Cloying and submissive. “I’m a beta.”
“You used to be,” he sighed, the contentment in his voice only rivaled by his sheer, unrelenting joy. One of his hands fell to your hip, steadying you. “I couldn’t stand to watch you suffer like that. Not when we could make it so much easier.”
You opened your mouth to protest, but all that came out was a long, desperate whine. You’d never felt so empty, so cold, so in need of something hot and warm and filling. Dick seemed to sense the change. He groaned as he thrust into you, forcing your cunt to take him to the hilt, then deeper still – bullying his knot into your unwilling body. You stretched to accommodate him. It was painless.
It was natural.
You felt him pulse against the walls of your cunt, locking your bodies together. Something hot and thick flooded into you, filling you up in a way you’d never thought to conceive of. Above you, Dick panted, his hair hanging over his face and his eyes half-lidded. His smile was pulled wide enough to strain.
You took a deep breath and regretted it immediately. It hung thick in the air, inescapable despite your best attempts to block it out.
Sea salt and caramel – so strong and so defined, you could only wonder how you’d never noticed it before.
The Fox God Saga - The Legend of the Wishing God - Chapter IV
Warnings: Yandere, Mention of hurt animals, Mention of blood, Mention of animal attacks (on animals and humans), Religious Themes, Long Post (3.3k words)
The ropes closing off the cave entrance were too heavy to push aside.
Strong, resilient. Made for centuries of protecting the mountain from whatever was locked away inside. Darkness was the only thing filling the space carved out of the mountain as you looked inside. It was ready to swallow. To gulp you down in one bite. The hairs on the back of your neck bristled as you stared at the illusion of air that had congested the large hole inside the mountain. It was silly, you knew that. You were an adult, too grown to be afraid of the darkness and night. But you were—utterly and wholly, noticeable in every one of your bones—afraid as you squeezed through the gaps in the ropes and stepped into the cave.
Cold air flowed all around you, circling your legs like hands trying to pull the ground from under you. When you set down your foot beyond the cave entrance, you almost slipped and twisted your ankle as you stepped on something that cracked loudly under your weight. Without being able to see, you could only guess the gruesomeness of what it was. Seals that had been broken? Warning signs you had dismissed? Bones of the victims of the creature?
"It's a torch," the voice cleared up, the eerie feeling of it reading your mind yet again ran down your spine. You wanted to ask how it could know, but decided against it. The reality was that it already knew too much. You could fool yourself into not believing in gods and fairytales, but whatever was waiting for you once you turned around and walked into its figurative maw already knew all it had to.
"You can use some of my fire to light the cave if it makes you more comfortable, human. I can see just fine, but I can also smell your fear from all the way over here."
An inherent feeling of shame settled in you. You hadn't expected to be this easy to read and understand, but perhaps you should have. At this point, expecting the unexpected shouldn't have shaken you so much, but at the end of the day, you were just human, as the voice liked to point out.
With your back still turned to the creature - not your smartest move, you had to admit - you bent your knees, touching the cold stone floor until your hand found the splintered wood. You were careful lifting it, feeling like it had been used and crushed countless times. Still, you were not going to waste the opportunity to see and believe who you were talking to, not even if stray splinters poked into your palm.
Reaching through the gap in the rope, you lit the torch at the brazier, pulling it back carefully so as not to burn the barrier that was still in place. Escaping from it would still be hard, but keeping whatever was locked up here inside as long as you didn't know what to expect was the smartest decision you had made so far. Before you turned to face the horrors you expected, you glanced at the white moonlight once more, its softness so calm and comforting. It wasn't rushing you, wasn't warning you; it simply remained there as if waiting for you to return to it from the darkness. Gentle. Kind.
But now, you needed courage over everything else. Courage that could only be found inside of yourself.
You built up your strength with everything you had. Memories of your village, the people that raised you, the neighbors, and your friends. Your family, especially your sister. They all had done so much for you, and now it was your turn to help them. If this creature could aid them who were you to doom your village and everyone in return by pushing it away? Who gave you the right to play god when you didn't even believe in them?
Slowly, with shaking knees, you started to turn around. Torch in hand, the blue, flickering light spread over the ropes and cave walls, illuminating the inside like normal fire would—perhaps a little brighter even. It was uncanny, as the flame kept licking towards you, trying to burn you, but never quite reaching far enough. Trying it over and over again. But when you kept it at a distance, it never had a chance.
Finally, you had turned around fully, the cave looking barren, simple. Just stone floors, stone walls going into stone ceilings, and darkness stretching out at the end of the cave. Wait… you thought, suddenly alert as you tried to make sense of it. Everything else was clearly illuminated, so why was there more darkness before you? Why didn't it light up like everything else despite being so near to you?
Only when the mass that you had falsely assumed was more darkness began to move did you realize what exactly you were looking at. Pitch-black fur shifted in front of you, a body straining as the creature breathed in deeply. Frosted white tips on black tails slowly severed themselves from around the body, fanning out but with no room to spare, they clung to the stone walls and ceiling. Two, three… six. Or was it seven? It was hard to say with them moving both in sync and independently at the same time. You thought you were watching a fan being opened and closed repeatedly, air that had been held back now nipping at your arms and cheeks, allowing glimpses of the back wall to shine through and rendering the body of the creature before you.
At first, you thought it was a horse, but even that size couldn't match the massive back and chest. Strong legs came into view, legs and feet more massive than those of the bears the hunters had hunted a few summers ago for their pelts. Heavy paws that were resting calmly against the stone, but the long, sharp-tipped claws gave off an eerie shine when they caught the light of the torch. Around the front leg, there was a pool of liquid, but you couldn't make out what it was until you looked higher, finding a shining, slightly glittering, thin arrow stuck in what must have been the creature's shoulder. Damp fur shimmered just beneath it, and you realized it must be blood. The arrow seemed exactly like the priest had described it, confirming at least some of the story he had told you.
You gulped, taking in the size of the monster before you. Even if you were reluctant to believe in it or any of the tales you had heard, slowly the discrepancies between what you thought a kitsune was and the reality of it began to fill in. For a moment, your gaze stopped just above the creature's back, thinking about how little space there was left between its body and the high ceiling, when it spoke up again, forcing you to face it.
"Do not be afraid, little human. I cannot move and eat you—not even if I wanted to."
Drawn by the voice, you made the mistake of following its sound, looking the kitsune straight in the eyes.
Every alarm bell howled inside your body as it urged you to get away—run, hide! Cold shudders exploded down your spine, and goosebumps covered all of your body as your instincts told you to flee. That this wasn't just a predator, but one you'd let yourself be consumed by if it came to it. You saw the deep amber eyes, the same ones that you had seen on the little foxes before, watching you hungrily, tearing through your flesh until it could stare right into your soul. No words needed to be said to explain the truth you had refused to believe for so long. It was alive. The kitsune existed.
Compared to the little ones', the kitsune's eyes were swirling with a depth you could not find the breath to dare to describe. Pure, enchanting wealth and authority that met earthly tradition and knowledge beyond your reach. No painting could ever come close to drawing the age-long wisdom that swirled in their golden color. If gods existed, you could only imagine their eyes to be the very same mix of luxurious comfort to draw you in, forcing you to trust and kneel in reverence, as well as the treacherous depth that caused bile to rise in your throat, and forced every instinct to beg with you to stay away. It made you want to believe in gods and worship them, while you almost longed for the sweet embrace of death so you did not have to look at these eyes any longer.
For a moment, you couldn't decide on what to do. Stand and stare? Bow? Kneel? Beg for forgiveness? Forgiveness for… what? Intruding on the kitsune's space? Not coming to pay respects earlier? There were so many impressions to take in. From the eyes that invaded you with their gaze to the elongated maw from which sharp fangs flashed in the blue light. You felt awestruck and embarrassed at the same time, the emotions itching all over your body. They came from being in the presence of something so great you could barely understand it with your simple mind, and from only being your unworthy, human self while standing before it.
Before you had to make a decision on how to present yourself, you were caught off-guard by the softness and warmth of a creature brushing against your legs. It was the little black fox, coming to you as if to take away the tension from the situation, bumping its head against you and circling around before sitting, with its wounded leg stretched away from it, in a surprisingly impressive human way. You couldn't help but smile at the fox as it let out a small yap, and you bent down naturally, petting its head and watching its tail wag, creating a little dusty cloud.
The kitsune before you shifted, and your attention turned alert as you scolded yourself for almost forgetting about the much bigger danger here. Your head snapped upwards, your eyes watching as it, too, lost some of the tension in its muscles, joints ticking before settling heavily on the ground. The kitsune heaved a deep sigh, grunting in discomfort before resting its head back down on the stone ground, its fangs flashing only as it panted. You had to admit that it didn't look like a monster like this. Even when you couldn't let your guard down from what you had heard about the monster, it now resembled the little fox you had saved from the bear trap, looking somewhat… defeated.
"I was born on this mountain," it muttered suddenly, giving explanations you didn't ask for, but made you listen to anyway. "My mother taught my siblings and me how to survive for barely a season before she disappeared. She didn't teach us how to use our powers or what our purpose on this earth was. She only said this was our mountain, a gift from our father, and that we were meant to rule and protect this land before she left us and never came back. For the longest time, we lived in peace. Fed of the land, developed our skills. It wasn't us who broke the tranquility we were living in; it was you. Humans. You and your greed."
Slowly, you sank to the ground, listening to the words as if they were the holy scripture you needed to learn. The other fox joined you and its sibling, both of them nudging your hands for pats and belly scratches. You gave them what they were asking for while your attention rested on the kitsune, who was huffing labored breaths, its words full of venom as it remembered the past.
"They hunted the animals, destroyed the forest, and caused a rift between my siblings and me. Everyone else decided it was best to hunt and banish the humans, for they were causing nothing but misery on this mountain. But I couldn't bring myself to. Even if they came from the foot of the mountain that was my home, they were creatures I was meant to protect. It was my purpose, after all."
"And your siblings disagreed even after you reminded them of this duty?"
The kitsune's eyes opened, their strong, golden swirl interrupted by a hint of sadness you could clearly see.
"They did. So I killed them."
A small gasp escaped you, but immediately, the kitsune's gaze hardened, and it raised its head before shaking it in a strangely human way. "Do not look at me like that," it admonished. "I did it for the humans. For you, in a way."
"But the priest said…"
"That I am evil and tricked them into building the shrine so I could eat the humans that came to visit it. Believe me, I know the story. I can hear him bellow about it from the shrine all the way to here. I've heard it so many times, sometimes I can't help but almost believe it myself."
"Is that not what happened?" you asked interrogatively. You were still skeptical. Just like the priest, anyone could tell a story, even a monster like the kitsune. But maybe you did need to hear the full story so you could know how to trust him. However, much to your surprise, instead of denying it, the kitsune said something that incriminated himself instead.
"It's true that I ate some of the humans. Even some of the priest's family and ancestors."
"Why would you–"
"I have no reason to lie to you, human. But you should hear the full truth before making assumptions. Killing them was a consequence, not an act of tyranny or pleasure as everyone likes to make it out to be."
"I… I don't really understand."
"Imagine this," the kitsune explained patiently, its eyes back to being fixated on you. "I fought my own kin for them, allowed and helped them erect that shrine they wanted so badly—only for them to turn around and betray me. Honors, prayers, and gratitude were where they were due towards my father or any other god they needed. Still, there was no acknowledgment that it wasn't just any god keeping them safe and alive. Blessing them with health and knowledge. It was all me. And when I asked for them to respect the forest and the creatures inside, not hunt more than necessary or disturb the animals that were under my protection, they turned their blades and bows on me. I didn't ask them to declare me their silly god that they could project their worries and prayers on, I simply asked for what I was owed after offering all I was, for their well-being."
After a short silence hanging over your heads, it added, "Would you not have defended yourself if you were me?"
You had no answer to that. You never had something as drastic as death threatened to you for asking to respect your boundaries. At the same time, the story felt strange. It made you want to trust the kitsune, but how could you when it was so different from the words of the priest and his family? There were three people against, well, an abnormality you still couldn't explain even if you were forced to believe in it.
"Why didn't they kill you then?" you muttered, trying to make sense of all of it, although that question felt insensitive even to you.
A loud, bellowing laugh roared through the cave. The sound was loud enough to make you afraid the shrine might hear it, and your ears began to hurt the longer you had to listen. Even the little foxes screeched happily along with it as if to make fun of your question, embarrassment rising into your cheeks.
"No one made me laugh in so long," the kitsune admitted, mirth in its voice. "As if a few puny humans with dull knives could hurt me."
"They did, though," you pointed out, feeling a little spiteful as you lifted your finger towards the arrow in its shoulder. "They did hurt you. Badly, it seems."
Smugness overcame you, idiotic pride for your own kind for having brought down such a powerful creature. The snarl the kitsune let out revealed the nerve you had hit, its ego turning into gritted fangs as it bared them towards you. You flinched, instinctively, and as if caring about your well-being, it actually lowered its head again, instantly looking less menacing as it hid its maw from you.
"The powers of a kitsune…" it mumbled, lifting its paw only as much as the arrow in its shoulder allowed, a small whimper escaping it as it had to set its foot down again. "Come from the souls we consume. It keeps us alive. Heals us. When we eat a living being, such as an animal, we absorb its soul. The same goes for humans and our own kind. The answer is simple, I was already too powerful to be killed if you must know."
"So they sealed you?" you dug deeper, wanting to hear it from the kitsune directly. You still couldn't give it the trust it might have expected from opening up to you. But the more it revealed, the more you had a chance to find common ground that would benefit both of you.
"Yes," it sighed, seemingly relieved you finally understood on your own what the kitsune had been trying to tell you all along. That it wasn't the bad one. The monster didn't start it all. It wasn't the creature's fault.
"It's no surprise your village is suffering," it circled back to you, and you looked up at it again, its serious gaze of understanding, perhaps even sympathy, shining in its eyes. "It must have been decades by now. Generations have passed since I last set foot out into the forest."
Its eyes moved from you to the exit of the cave. The moonlight reflected in its eyes for a moment, revealing all the longing, all the pain, and misery the kitsune had endured.
"Everything I once cared for is gone. It's replaced by what you humans have created—both good and bad. I wonder if the forest will still remember me if I ever return to it."
The creature closed its eyes, shaking its head lightly as if to banish the thoughts. "Sometimes I wonder if this is my father's punishment for killing my siblings," it whispered sadly. Then, it finally looked back at you, and you could see the determination radiating off it.
"Whether or not it was my fault, you can decide on your own. Your judgment may or may not have consequences for me, but you should know one thing."
Sharp claws scraped over the stone floor as he moved. Slowly but surely, the kitsune was clawing its way over to you, the two little foxes that had been napping and cuddling with you suddenly springing up, sitting down next to you dutifully as they looked at their master. You, too, wanted to get up, back away as far as possible, as this predator with sharp teeth, sharp claws, and even sharper wits approached you. However, you were caught in its gaze, unable to move even a muscle.
"I can fix it," the kitsune announced solemnly, completely sure of himself.
"I can fix whatever is plaguing your village and that little sister of yours. My presence will rejuvenate the mountain and everything that is under my protection. It will heal what needs healing and restore the order it is meant to be in. Save your prayers to those gods that don't care. I am the only thing that can and will do what is necessary to save this mountain. I am what you need if you truly want to help those you love, and I am confident about that."
Your lips stayed sealed as you listened to the creature's words, sounds that made your skin crawl, and every muscle tightened. A part of your brain thought it made sense; the whole story checked out. But the other part refused to believe. Refused to trust a monster that needed to be sealed away.
"You said you need my help," you muttered quietly. However, your voice was firm. "How do I know you're not lying and simply taking advantage of me?"
Now it was the kitsune's turn to be silent and thoughtful. Seconds passed you by, time that felt like years as it considered your words. Then, it settled back into its corner, breathing out slowly.
"I'll make you a promise. A promise that, if I don't hold up my end of the deal, I won't resist being killed by you. You may think it too simple, but it is not for my kind. Promises are holy; we are bound by them. If we break our promises, it will weaken us badly, so we might as well promise our lives."
"And what do you get in return?" you asked, suspicious. Anyone could make promises. Anyone could break them. And anyone could lie about them.
"What don't I get?" it returned your question, narrowing its eyes. "I will get my body back. My mountain. My purpose. The freedom to be like the foxes you see next to you. Run through the forest, feel the sun on my coat, and dance in the moonlight. No more blood dripping out of a wound that can't close. No more restricting my movements and hiding in this cave that is the only one that fits."
"You could hunt again. Humans. The people I love."
"Or I could protect them. Be worshipped if they so desire, but most importantly, return the boons that my presence has bestowed on these lands for centuries before."
Still, you couldn't help but be skeptical. The kitsune's words were too refined, too well thought-through. They fit too well.
"Is it any of your business, really?" the creature asked bluntly, all of a sudden. "Your sister will be healed, that is what you want, isn't it?"
You opened your mouth to argue, to say it wasn't so! That the people were all equally important to you, but for some reason, no sound escaped you. It was as if your throat was clogged all of a sudden, perhaps with guilt as you thought about it. Reaching for your neck, you rubbed over the lump in your throat, pressing into it, trying to force yourself to speak, but it was to no avail.
The kitsune was right, wasn't it?
When the other villagers got sick, you sat by idly, not taking any precautions aside from staying away so you wouldn't catch what they had. When the first ones started dying, you helped the surviving families as was expected of you, stood at the graves of the lost souls without crying. Only when your sister showed signs of illness did you begin to panic. You started to realize the gravity of the situation. You told yourself you were doing it for everyone, but weren't you just doing it for your sister? Maybe even… yourself? To keep your family safe, so everything would stay as it was? Did you even have the right to judge someone for being selfish… when you were as well?
"What would you have me do?" you asked, your voice raw, fragile. The lump in your throat had yet to subside, but it only grew when the answers of the kitsune were remarkably chipper. As if it were no big deal.
"I need you to pull that arrow," it explained, somewhat understandably. The priest's story had made it clear that the monster couldn't touch or remove it himself. Naturally, that would be what it would ask for. You sighed inwardly. That was something you could do—you assumed. It wouldn't take much to pull it free.
"There is one more thing," the kitsune suddenly added, and you looked from the arrow in its shoulder to its eyes, the question written into your face. "I need one more thing so I can recover my strength."
"What is it?" you asked, cautious, but also curious about what that might be.
"A part of your soul," it revealed, and the air around you turned ice cold.
[You can find the masterpost with all chapter's here!]
The Fox God Saga - The Legend of the Wishing God - Chapter III
I almost forgot to post today! Shame on me, but luckily you guys reminded me!! So here's your fox friday update! ;)
Warnings: Yandere, Mention of hurt animals, Mention of animal attacks, Religious Themes, Long Post (3.3k words)
Letting out a deep breath, your eyes fluttered open. You were greeted by soft moonlight filtering through a gap in the sliding doors, just big enough to allow fresh, mountain air to circulate the room. Your body felt unusually heavy, and your mind was barren of any thoughts, but you quickly recovered the memories of having dinner with the priest's family and the sudden worsening of your bite wound before everything had turned dark.
As if on cue, your arm throbbed, and you lifted it despite the strain, seeing a fresh, clunky bandage wrapped around the bite. It smelled like herbs, and you could feel medicinal leaves rubbing on your skin as you moved your limb. How long had you been out? You wondered as you slowly rose from the futon they had prepared for you. Such kind people they had been, you'd have to repay them for their efforts in some way later.
Not only your forearm but also your head was throbbing, a headache spreading from the front all over your scalp down to your brows. Perhaps your exhaustion from the strenuous hike left you feeling quite so frail. However, for some reason, it was almost like you were only scratching the surface with your assumption. Placing your hand over the bandages, another memory shot to your mind. Found you. You had clearly heard these words before losing consciousness. It had rung so clearly in your mind, but you were sure none of the people who had been with you had said it. In a strange way, you felt violated by the sound, confusion, and uneasiness raging through you.
Exhaling slowly, you looked to your bedside, finding water and some light snacks prepared there for when you'd eventually wake. A smile curled your lips at the thoughtfulness of your hosts, and you reached for the water, letting it smooth down your throat and washing away some of the fogginess in your mind. Once you were done, you pushed the blanket aside and crawled towards the ajar sliding door, forcing it wide open to inhale the refreshing night air.
Beyond the room was a small garden area with plots for various vegetables, probably one of the ways this family sustained themselves without needing to come down the mountain often. Just behind those plots lay the deep, dark forest, an impenetrable sight, although the moon shone so brightly behind the tips of the trees. None of its beautiful light managed to worm into the thick overgrowth, the sight running a shiver down your spine.
But your focus was averted the moment the wind picked up. A soft, cold breeze that caressed your face, pushing back your hair, feeling like two hands cupping your cheeks before disappearing again. Your eyelids grew heavy, your body drained of all its strength as you considered lying down again, but instead, you leaned against the frame, letting the wind and light caress you some more.
There was so much to do once the sun came up: praying, begging, pleading. However, at that moment, embraced by the night's silence, it felt like you had all the time in the world. As if no sickness existed, no urgency. As if things would just be right because they were now. For a little while, you could forget about your worries, the immense strain, and the burden resting on your shoulders. The almost punishing belief you were forced to adhere to and the weird local fairytales that surely were just tales to keep children in line. For all you knew, pain didn't exist, and your wound didn't hurt. Your sister was safe, and so were you.
A small yap interrupted the serenity of your moment.
You considered ignoring it and simply enjoy the little time you had in a perfect world, but your sense of urgency returned, a nagging feeling that straightened your back and forced your eyes to open. Admits plots of what seemed like potatoes and carrots sat a little white-furred creature, its form almost indistinct against the moonlight shining down on it. Bright yellow eyes stared at you intensely until you met its gaze, and its fluffy tail fell from its form, wagging excitedly.
Immediately, you pushed away from the door frame, your stomach twisting at the sight. It was just a little fox, and yet, you had been bitten painfully all the same. You couldn't deny your instincts to shoo it away, although the sight of it almost made you smile as you thought about the sweet little creature you had helped before everything had gone wrong at the shrine.
The fox got up, tippy-toeing through the plots of dirt before momentarily disappearing from sight as it approached the walkway that surrounded the home. A mix of anticipation and curiosity made you lean forward when the white furball suddenly leaped up onto the wood, approaching you with quick steps.
Just as you were about to reel back from getting too close to another fox that might bite you, the little creature threw itself before you, exposing its belly and letting out very soft, pleading whines as it wiggled its body invitingly. You couldn't help but stifle a burst of laughter by holding your hand in front of your mouth, your shoulders shaking a little at the playful display. Even so, you couldn't help but be wary of the animal after what you had been through.
As if it knew where you were looking, it twisted around, pushing itself on your lap instead and returning to begging for pets, its tail wagging relentlessly. Logically, you knew you should have pushed it away, but for some reason, you couldn't bring yourself to be quite so harsh. "Hey, you," you whispered, careful not to alert anyone. Lowering your hand to its head, the fox immediately pushed upwards and into your touch, even giving you some playful licks which made you almost nervous enough to pull away again. The fox wouldn't let you, finding the comfort of your palm no matter how far you held your hand out of reach, clearly hoping you'd scratch it behind the ears—which you did.
"You're not supposed to be here, you know?"
Instead of answering, the fox merely rolled its head back, allowing you to scratch its jaw, one of its little hind legs thwapping against the wooden flooring as you found the best place for scratches. Your eyes wandered, although this seemed like an entirely different fox, a small relief and a little more wariness overcoming you.
There was no bandage on this one.
It wasn't the same as the one that bit you, not surprising with how white its fur was. "A demon's lackey, eh?" you scoffed halfheartedly as you watched the little creature close its eyes and give you a lopsided grin in response to your very good scratches. "You're just a wee little baby, aren't you?"
As if stung by a bee, the fox suddenly jumped up, the motion taking you by surprise, and you followed its gaze into the depths of the forest. Unfortunately, you weren't blessed with night vision, and whatever had surprised the animal, you couldn't see it. Feeling some shame rush back to your feelings, you remembered how hated these creatures were by the shrine and that you had once again invited one close. It made you look left and right for any signs of the priest or his family, but to your relief, no one seemed to be up; the house was both dark and quiet.
With a sudden loud scream, the fox rushed forward, jumping down the hallway and towards the forest, and you held your ears closed at the shrill sound. "Shh!" you shushed as it repeated the scream, afraid it would wake the other residents, and, as if suddenly remembering you, the fox looked back at you, its tail wagging slowly from side to side.
It screamed again, and despite your animal-loving nature, you considered hurling something after it just so it would stop. It was only a matter of time how long you'd be in the good graces of this shrine when someone found you with a fox yet again. Unfortunately for you, but good for the creature, there was nothing to shoo it away with, nothing you could use that was in reach. You still felt incredibly exhausted, but when the fox did it again, you urged yourself out of the room and swung your legs over the ledge until you felt dirt and stones prick your soles.
The fox did a happy leap, jumping around the vegetable plots before rushing towards the forest, halting just at the border of it and looking back. It felt like… it was waiting. For you. Did it want you to follow it? When you made a step forward, the fox let out a merry yap before squeezing through the thicket. As fast as it had appeared, it was gone, and you stood uncomfortably, barefoot in the shrine's vegetable garden, looking after it and feeling almost as if you were going mad.
Just as you turned to go back to the room and let this night end, the peace you had felt at first long gone by now, the fox's head and gleaming eyes stuck back out of the forest. It let out another yep, as if asking, "Are you coming?"
You eyed it suspiciously, questioning its intentions. Maybe it was just hoping to play with you some more. It was absurdly unlikely that the kitsune story was true, after all. Then again… Your mind flashed to the wounded fox from this afternoon, and you began to doubt the intentions of the creature before you. Maybe it wanted to lead you to the injured animal? Could it be intelligent enough to ask for help from a human for its friend? Or was it trying to lure you somewhere else?
All your doubting and reasoning brought your headache back. Truth be told, you were stupid to even consider it, but leaving an injured animal to die just went against everything you stood for. Looking beneath the wooden walkway, you found a pair of worn-out shoes, probably meant for the garden, and you sighed as you slipped them on. You wouldn't let the fox drag you too far away. As long as you could see the shrine through the trees, you'd be safe, right? This was a bad idea, considering you'd be in a forest at night, but you could probably make it back to safety if you stayed close. Then again, it was so dark…
Another, this time sounding much more annoyed and urgent, scream erupted from the fox, causing some birds to escape from the trees around the shrine in alert carefulness. "Damn it," you muttered, tapping your feet on the ground to slip the shoes on completely before running towards the fox, who merely yapped and disappeared into the thicket again, leaving you alone as you breached into the unknown.
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Looking back over your shoulder and squinting your eyes slightly, you could still see the moonlight shining on the shrine's garden. It was quite far away now, but the sight made you feel safe as you traversed the dark forest. Either your shoulder or your foot constantly brushed against a tree, branch, root, or bush. It was simply too dark, and the ground was kept wild and untamed, but you tried to ignore the pain shooting through your body every time you stumbled and grazed tree bark or thorns.
Every time you looked up, the little fox would be waiting for you. Eagerly wagging its tail or yapping at you, which felt like it was urging you. You almost rolled your eyes at the animal a couple of times before telling yourself it didn't adhere to human etiquette, so you shouldn't judge. Besides, if it really was leading you to its injured friend, of course, it would be in a certain hurry to get you there and help.
Given that, following it was not as hard with its white coat, you were able to at least not lose sight of the fox, even though it felt wrong to follow an animal on a whim. But its bright amber eyes caught yours ever so often, as if to confirm this was the right choice. The fox's eyes were shining like jewels, almost freakishly so in the dark. You blamed it on the night vision, the natural functions of animals that didn't apply to you, and thus seemed so foreign it almost scared you. But if you were honest, the fox was your smallest problem, and even though your exhaustion was weighing down on you, you believed that if push came to shove, you could fight it off if it were to attack you.
The same thing couldn't be said about other animals, though.
Arms littered in goosebumps, you couldn't help but feel like you were being watched at every step you made. As if eyes, sharp and piercing, ran over your body, but every time you looked around, there was no one, not even another animal, you could see. Damn darkness, you thought as another shudder ran down your spine. It wasn't just the feeling of being watched that made you uncomfortable. It was also the wind you had enjoyed so much, feeling like hands reaching out towards you now, licking your skin, its howls sounding like chuckles as it passed by.
Without the moonlight, there was nothing there to soothe you, the darkness like an endless embrace, coiling around you and making the forest indiscernible from your body. As if you were being swallowed by it, struggling to free yourself with every step you made. The feeling seeped deep into your skin and bones, leaving you uneasy and ready to get out of the dark if only for a moment to recuperate and breathe again.
Your wish was granted faster than you could have thought, your eyes moving up from the unseeable ground only to catch light in the distance. For a moment, you thought you had gone in circles and went back to the shrine, but looking back over your shoulder, you could still make out the faint moonlight at the back of the house. However, the light before you seemed to be completely unfamiliar, a rare clearing in the forest. A small reprieve in the darkness.
A gentle laugh of relief escaped you as you approached the ever-growing light. Everything in your body seemed to reach for it, your feet stumbling forward regardless of what held them back, and your hands reaching for every tree in your way and pushing you onward even when your shoulders ached. The wound on your arm throbbed, your pulse pumping through it painfully, but your mind ignored the discomfort in favor of giving you a chance to push out of the depressing dark.
You did—stumbling and falling to your knees, the moment you escaped the thicket. Tears shot to your eyes, although you didn't know why. It had just been a forest; there had been nothing dangerous about your way here. Yet, you realized the dread that had seeped into every inch of your body and mind, now turned into relief.
Finally lifting your head, you spotted the white little fox in a field of flowers, all tinged in the bright moonlight. It jumped out of the grass and rolled around it, playful as ever, with no sign of the distress you were in. Whatever reason it had for bringing you here, the urgency seemed to have left it as it was pawing at the flower heads and digging into the ground. For a moment, you were overcome by another wave of serenity as you watched it be so carefree. Then your eyes raised from the creature, higher to what lay beyond the clearing.
The maw of a cave welcomed you with the same dreadful darkness as the forest, a wide hole revealing a large cave, hiding something massive. There were unusually large strands of sturdy rope tied left to right, up and down, all littered with white seals and two braziers standing on each side. It looked like the muzzled maw of a large predator, bigger than any cave you had ever seen. You knew about little burrows and hideouts for small game like rabbits. But whatever was hidden behind this entrance must have been much larger.
While you were staring, the fox noticed your attention shifting away from it as it followed your gaze before letting out loud yaps and running full speed towards the entrance. One of your hands shot out as if to hold the animal back, your first instinct being to warn it—but from what? There was nothing but yawning emptiness, and the fox ducked beneath one of the lower ropes with so little hesitation as if it was used to it. If there truly was something big and dangerous waiting, would it have risked running right into its metaphorical arms?
"H-Hey," you called out to it weakly, as if it listened to you.
To your surprise, it did.
Sticking its little head out from beneath the rope, it was soon followed by another, another pair of amber eyes staring at you before one of the heads began to yap happily, making its way out of the cave and towards you. Black fur met white moonlight, and you could see from the way it was dragging its leg that it was the little fox from before. Almost instinctively, you inched closer, stretching your arms towards it despite what it had done to your arm.
With happy screeches, the fox you had saved wiggled into your arms, its fur everywhere, smelling like sandalwood and strangely like the temple you had just been at. It was ecstatic to see you, that much was sure. But you couldn't help but feel the same. Only now did you realize how worried you had been about the fox, despite your mind being all over the place ever since it ran away.
The creature gave a tentative sniff at your bandages, its maw opening as it panted, and then let out a good sneeze, which you couldn't help but laugh about. You didn't know which herbs the family who tended to your wounds used, but it was probably quite a strong scent to an animal with a good sense of smell.
"I'm glad you're fine," you mumbled, brushing over the soft, downy fur of the fox as it nestled into your arms and on your lap.
"Who's there?!" a loud, booming voice suddenly demanded to know, the echo clearly coming from the cave.
You felt your breath stutter to a halt as you clutched the fox to your chest, fearing you had upset yet another angry priest. However, when the fox began to wiggle in your hold this time, you immediately let go, your subconscious remembering the bite and not risking another. It sprinted off immediately, alongside the white fox that had waited next to the cave, both of them squeezing through the ropes and into the cave, leaving you behind.
"I asked," the voice snarled angrily, "who is there?!"
Instantly, you jumped to your feet, your back straight, and your instincts telling you to run. Seeing as there was only you and no one else—even as you craned your neck left and right to find someone else who could answer the voice in your stead—you took a tentative step forward, gulping down the fear that made your own voice break.
"It's– I– I'm from the village down the mountain. I've been staying at the shrine for the night," you explained, unsure about how to introduce yourself. Quickly, hoping to diffuse the situation, you added, "I didn't mean to disturb…"
There was a long, exasperated sigh echoing from the darkness.
"Are you with the priest, too? I have no business with mock worshippers of false gods."
"No, I barely know them…" you answered truthfully, while feeling a twinge of guilt immediately. Why had you answered so readily? You made it almost sound as if you agreed with the statements made by the disembodied voice, when that hadn't been your intention. You merely wanted to clarify that you weren't one of them, but were you? It all felt so confusing as you thought about those nice people who had taken you in and cared for you, but at the same time, didn't you think about them in the same way while in silence? Didn't you question the existence of the gods and what it meant to pray to them?
"Then…" the voice trailed, the angry undertones subsiding as it spoke up again. "You may come closer."
Time seemed to hold once more as you considered your options. There was something so off about this place, this voice, and especially how familiar it sounded, now that it had softened. Had you heard it before? Something in your mind reacted positively to it, but you couldn't connect it to any memory that came to mind.
Regardless, were you really going to approach it? Gods know what awaited you at the cave, or perhaps you were in some kind of strange dream brought forth by the incense and spiritual presence at the shrine. You wouldn't really consider going, would you? But at the same time, what was there to lose? Aside from possibly seeming rude and unappreciative for all the shrine people had done for you if you didn't go, you didn't really have a reason not to approach something related to the same shrine. Not like there's a fox-demon in there, you thought to yourself, lips almost curling into a smile at your own thoughts.
"Come here, little human," the voice beckoned, an odd choice of wording you noted. As if on cue, the braziers to the side of the cave entrance suddenly flamed up, beautiful yet strange blue flames reaching for the sky before settling into a peaceful flicker, highlighting the strong ropes over the cave entrance. All of a sudden, you didn't feel so secure in your own thoughts anymore, the unnatural sight making your instincts tingle. You should have run! Fled! But your feet were stuck to the ground as if the earth itself was holding you back.
"It's you!" the voice suddenly called out, as if the fire had revealed something previously hidden by the moonlight.
"Won't you come closer?" it asked, almost sounding like a plea. "I've been waiting for you to come here. Seems like my little servants have been the ones guiding you."
Again, you gulped.
"Who are you?" you asked, your reason finally winning.
"I'm the one you've been looking for. The one to fulfill all your wishes. I'm the god of the mountain."
"You… are?" you whispered, a wave of hope turning into trust washing over you, trying to drown the wariness. The voice almost won you over as you took a step forward. Still, a feeling of someone reprimanding you clawed to the forefront of your mind, settling into your thoughts heavier than all the relief you could feel. You stopped, the voice of the priest ringing in your mind over and over.
A sad laugh rang from the cave. "They told you, did they? That I'm a monster? They told you about the evil kitsune, didn't they?"
As if confirming your thoughts, the voice hummed, intrigue swinging in the sound. "But you're a clever one, aren't you? Why don't you find out for yourself whether you can trust me? Don't you want to know the whole story before judging? Or are you going to rely on the words of one person—the same one who has tortured me and locked me away, knowing fully well that what he was doing was wrong? Maybe you're not as clever as I thought, but you might want to hear me out if you want that sister of yours to recover from her sickness. That's what you're here for, after all, right?"
"You know about my sister?" you croaked, information flooding your mind whenever the voice spoke, the… kitsune making you overthink everything you had heard so far.
"I know everything, my dear little creature. That is my purpose. It's my duty to look after my subjects. But they are keeping me from it," it spat the last sentence in distaste, and you could confidently say it was talking about the priest and his family. "They are fooling you into thinking their belief is the right one, while locking away the real god of this mountain and endangering everything that is under my protection—including you and your village."
There was no way to tell whether the voice was telling the truth or lying. If this really was a monster from legends, a creature so otherworldly you doubted it existed, how could you give it even a wink of trust? But… Clutching the fabric of your shirt resting over your heart, you thought about your sister. It knew about her. Promised to help. If it was locked away on this mountain, how could you explain it knowing about what was going on in that little village of yours? If the monster… wasn't a god, then how else could he know? How could you force yourself not to believe it just because someone else declared it evil?
"So, little human," the creature asked once more, its voice carrying a wave of authority yet kindness toward the human who stood before him. "Come closer and let's talk about how I can help you."
You've come so far to pray to the gods—any of them. This one could be just as good. There was nothing to be more afraid of than the miracle you always hoped to gain by showing your devotion and praying until your knees bled. You stepped forward but halted immediately when it spoke up once again.
"That is," it muttered, "If you're willing to help me, in return, of course."
[You can find the masterpost with all chapter's here!]
The Fox God Saga - The Legend of the Wishing God - Chapter II
Chapter two! We are getting closer to something, but what? Maybe we'll find out soon! Thank you everyone who read the first chapter and left nice comments ♥ Meant a lot to me!
Warnings: Yandere, Mention of hurt animals, Mention of animal attacks, Mention of human death, Mention of arrow-related injuries, Mention of Blood, Religious Themes, Long Post (3.3k words)
There was muscle strain, and then there was whatever your body was experiencing.
Every muscle inside you was screaming to stop, sit, or lie down, and take a long break to recover from the exertion you had undertaken. Your legs were shivering violently with every step you made, and your arms were cramping around the little fox, who couldn't have been happier being carried by you all the way to the shrine. Without warning, it kept bumping its head into yours, yapping and squeaking while sticking its nose into your ear or hair, tangling its paws into the strands until it hurt.
You knew it wasn't hurting you intentionally, but every time you had to jerk your head away or stop, it made it harder to continue. Ever so often, you lost your balance, tripped on a root, or let the exhaustion win in your mind, coming to a halt. And every time, you had to force yourself onwards, knowing that if you stopped now, you'd not get to the shrine in time. There was so little of it; time that was. For you to walk the path in the daylight, for the fox to be healed and not end up with a lame foot for the rest of its life. For your sister, who you hoped would still be alive when you returned to the city, no matter how successful your ordeal had been.
With the sun already set behind the horizon, its rays still fighting against the shadows of night, the evening air grew colder, creeping beneath your clothes like cold fingertips. You couldn't help but be thankful for the little creature in your arms, its fur smothered across your chest and over your shoulder, radiating off its heat. The mountain air had been crisp before, so without the beast's heat, you might have suffered some painful bites until you reached your destination.
It was something to be thankful for on this journey, much like the faint flickering of firelight in the distance.
The revelation of the forest clearing, revealing the designated shrine path arched overhead with big torii gates, filled you with relief. Tears rose to your eyes as your body threatened to break before you could reach the actual shrine, but you held them back, wiping the remnants in the thick coat of the fox. As you two approached the shrine, the animal let out a few more yaps and squeaks, its tail wagging before it suddenly began twisting in your hold. You could barely hold on to it when you heard a firm, male voice call out.
"Let go of that beast right now! It mustn't sully this pure place with its rotten nature!"
Struggling to hold on to the, by now violently, thrashing fox on your arm, you looked up to see the priest of this shrine storm towards you, anger edged into his face as he raised something in his hand that looked to be a bow.
"No! No, wait! It's injured!" you yelled back, twisting your body away to shield the fox from the rage that seemed to cloud the priest's mind as he threatened to kill a harmless animal. Well, not so harmless as sudden, sharp pain rushed through your arm. You snapped your head towards the source to find the fox's fangs buried in the skin on your forearm, the animal violently shaking its head as if to tear your arm off.
On instinct, you immediately let go of your attacker, the little creature plummeting to the ground before shaking off the momentary hurt from the fall and dashing as fast as three little legs could into the thicket of the forest, leaving you behind, your arm bleeding viciously as you stared after the fox in hurt anger. Behind you, the huffing breaths of the priest registered in your mind. However, you couldn't face him yet, still thinking about the animal you helped and that betrayed you cruelly at the first sight of danger.
"And stay away!" the priest yelled after the fox before placing a hand on your shoulder. "Oh dear," he sighed, turning you towards him and seeing the bite mark that was all that was left from your rescue attempt.
"I am ever so glad he couldn't do anything worse to harm you, but come inside now, quickly. We must take care of your wound, and I am sure you are exhausted coming all the way here from the village."
"It was injured," you muttered, your eyes falling to the floor as shame crept up your back. You really thought you had bonded with the little creature and were doing the right thing by bringing the fox back here. "I just wanted to help it."
"Ah, yes," the priest sighed once more, shaking his head. With soft pats on your back, he rested his hand there before leading you over the shrine grounds towards an unassuming house in the back. You glanced over your shoulder only once more, trying to find the little fox. But the shadows had long fallen over the forest, shrouding it in impenetrable darkness that your human eyes couldn't pierce through. Somewhere, you thought, the little fox was surely licking its wounds now, having taken both your trust and hopes with it as your good omen seemed to have vanished.
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"It happens more often than you think," the priest grumbled before bringing his teacup to his lips and taking a sip.
"There, all done, dear," his wife smiled at you, giving the bandage around your arm a few gentle pats before reaching over to hand you a cup of tea of your own. You gave her a polite bow and smile before taking the cup from her hands and chugging a big, warm gulp, the taste of your hometown lingering on your tongue. You'd never been a tea connoisseur, but you'd always recognize the unique tastes of the fields of your village, the mellow, grassy notes combining with the love of the people that surrounded you. Not only did the tea fill you with warmth, but also with determination after the whole ordeal with the fox, as it reminded you of your reasons to be here.
The door to the kitchen slid open as a young man walked into the room, carrying a small plate with fish and mushrooms, undoubtedly delicacies from the mountain they had prepared only for you. "Drink and eat, you must replenish your strength if you want to show the gods your devotion," the priest's wife encouraged, taking the plate and settling it on the table before you, gesturing at it.
"Thank you so much," you croaked out, your throat only just warming up from the tea and their hospitality making you almost feel sentimental. From the times the priest had visited your village, he always seemed so unapproachable. Although the first meeting with him at the shrine had been a mix of awkward hostility and a sense of betrayal, he had immediately called his family to assist you. They had gone out of their way to provide for a complete stranger like you, too.
"Unfortunately, my father is right," the younger man said, grunting slightly as he sat down across from you, shaking his head in annoyance. "You're not the only one who has been led on by that demon's lackey. Ever so often, we'll have a visitor who has either encountered or been attacked by these foxes, often entranced by their beauty. However, they often get hurt by them, or the foxes try to worm their way into the shrine through them. It's been a lot of trouble lately."
You were just about to eat a piece of mushroom when the words finally registered in your mind. "Demon? Aren't they just animals? Sure, they can be mischievous, but it was my fault getting bitten, since I carried a wild animal."
Uncomfortable glances were shared between son and mother after you spoke, the mother heaving a deep sigh before she looked at her husband, who merely raised his chin defiantly. You kept picking away at the delicacies they had prepared as he began to speak, goosebumps erupting all over your body as he revealed the truth.
"Demons! The whole lot of them!" he spat, clearly frustrated and angry. "When this shrine was built, the land was purified of all the yokai, but one of these bastards had to claw his way back and is now contaminating the land with his foul presence!"
"Dear…" the priest's wife shushed as she noticed your hand, which had brought the food to your mouth, had stopped, your eyes blown wide.
"Oh, they can hear the truth," he retorted dismissively. "Have you ever heard of a kitsune?"
This time, the priest's attention was on you as he asked his question, setting down his cup and leaning forward to wring his hands on top of the table. "They are beautiful creatures, larger than wolves, but they keep the body of a fox, just with more tails. The grow new ones—when they reach a certain age, become wise, the likes—but behind their charm and capabilities, they are ruthless, I tell you!"
He slammed a hand into the table, making both you and his wife jump in surprise. Then, the anger seemed to flood out of him as he sighed, shaking his head.
"My family once made the mistake of trusting a kitsune. He came and said he would help them erect this shrine in the gods' honor if they allowed him to live on this mountain and not hunt him, as so many had done before. They believed it was a good deal, that he, with his black coat and warm eyes, must be a god's favorite, something to be cherished, perhaps even worshipped in times of need, but there was no such thing."
The time seemed to stand still as everyone listened to the priest's story. No one dared to interrupt the silence with a breath, and although his family must have heard the story countless times, they still seemed just as immersed as you felt. "What did he do?" you inquired quietly, unable to endure the silence any longer.
Even if people had told stories of yokai to you before, you never really believed them. Perhaps you didn't want to, or, as with the gods, you found it hard to assume there was something just out of sight that deserved to be honored or accepted, or even blamed for bad things that happened because of someone's mistake. But when the priest spoke, no matter whether you believed in these creatures or not, you couldn't help but believe him; the story, as ridiculous as it was, was anchored deep in his own history after all.
"Every time someone came to this shrine, they'd eventually be misled and eaten by the kitsune. Lifeless bodies could be found throughout the forest, and dark miasma clouded the air. The shrine seemed cursed, and no amount of prayers could rid us of the evil that lurked in the trees' darkness. We realized the kitsune wasn't a sacred animal sent to us from the gods, but a wrathful, evil creature, selfish and greedy. It wasn't very strong then, just 2 tails, so it must have been quite young, and no one suspected what it was going to do. It's how they are; they manipulate you into doing their bidding and then steal your soul! Eat your body, too, if they are hungry! They know no guilt, no empathy! You cannot trust them!"
"Dear, that's enough! Look how pale our visitor has become, have some compassion yourself!"
With a strict warning from his wife, the priest finally let himself fall back against the wall, arms crossed. You hadn't noticed the change yourself, but you did feel a little queasy after hearing the full story. There was still some dinner left, but you could barely stomach the idea of eating. "Besides, you let out the best part, old man," the priest's son suddenly spoke up, giving you a wink as you looked up at him.
"Yeah, yeah," the priest sighed. "My great-great-grandfather put an arrow in that creature the moment it grew too comfortable around this shrine. It wasn't enough to kill it, but he blessed the tip of the arrow before firing, and it has been lodged in the monster's shoulder ever since." Puffing his chest, the priest gave you a reassuring nod. "I confirmed it myself! The kitsune has been licking his wounds for decades now! Brought down into a pitiful heap of fur and a gleaming golden arrow sticking out of it, his eyes glaring at anyone who comes close! My father showed me its hideout when I assumed the position of lead priest of this shrine, and I will show it to my son."
The priest reached out, grabbed his son's shoulder proudly, and shook him a little. "We will not be defeated by that beast ever again. And we won't let it escape from its prison and wreak havoc again either. I promise you'll be safe now."
Giving you a confident nod, the priest's words did reassure you after the grueling tale. So much history was lost over time, but you could imagine why. No one would want to come up here ever again if they knew the scary truth, even if some people, like you, wouldn't really believe in the tale of the kitsune. In every story lies a little truth, your mother would tell you, but this one was just outrageous the longer you thought about it. Demons looking like animals? Tails that grew from wisdom? Stealing souls? A simple arrow keeping a mighty monster from attacking people like you, traveling to the shrine for divine help?
Still not feeling any hungrier even after the reassurance, you kept picking at your meal, when another question popped into your head. "The fox…" you mumbled, feeling the eyes of the others sitting around the table shift towards you. "It didn't have multiple tails. How are you so sure it was a lackey of that kitsune you talked about? Maybe he was just a fox… a black but completely normal one."
"It's not the first time it has come here," the priest's son responded, a hint of sadness in his eyes. "It even approached me when I was little. It wants to search the shrine grounds for a way to help its master."
"The arrow cannot be removed by someone impure, you see," his mother helpfully added. "Since it's blessed, the kitsune would need the help of someone completely free of miasma to pull it out. Someone like a priest or a devout person with strong convictions. Until the kitsune is freed of the arrow, it cannot heal, cannot do anything but bide its time staying hidden and undetected by other predators or hunters."
"Why not kill it then, though? Didn't you say you know the location?"
Looking at the priest, you could see his brows furrow, his gaze turning unfocused as he stared into the distance. "If the kitsune really helped build this shrine, there is a chance that some kind of contract was made. We don't know what the deal entailed or how killing it will harm this place or us. While it's immortal, it is not invincible. Still, since the kitsune was hit, it hasn't attacked us either, so the chance that there is more to the story than we know is high. The risk is too great that not only we but also the villages around the mountain could be affected by the kitsune's death, so we simply leave it be. It's not like it can do anything in its current state. It's the safest option."
And a cruel one, you thought, feeling a twinge of sympathy for the kitsune.
If such a creature existed, living for an endless amount of time, it sounded like torture to be unable to live any kind of life, at the will of someone else. Although the kitsune seemed to be more of a monster than a creature deserving your compassion, you couldn't help but think about your sister and how she was locked and tortured by a body that wasn't hers to control anymore.
"The little ones bring it food, we think," the mother said softly, perhaps noticing your conflicting feelings. "And information," her son added coldly.
"They are its servants, so they work on its orders. It's no surprise the fox tried to fool you into bringing it to this shrine and then betraying you by biting you the second it sensed danger. It's how the kitsune are, cunning and self-serving. It's not your fault you fell for their act."
"I see," you whispered, not very assured about your own naivety after hearing all this. Your plate was almost picked empty, but when you were asked if you wanted seconds, you denied it, perhaps a little too strongly. Stories like these perhaps seemed like normal dinner topics for the priest's family, but they only left a bitter taste on your conscience and self-worth. There were other, much more urgent things you needed to focus your mind on, rather than fairytales and animal bites.
Just as you thought of the wound on your arm, it throbbed. You pressed down on the bandage to smother the pain, only to feel wetness seep through the fabric, your palm covered in blood as the wound seemed to have opened up once again.
"Oh dear," the priest's wife gasped, ushering her son to get fresh bandages as you watched the clean white turn crimson red.
"It's been a long day for you, so how about we add some ointment and herbs to aid the wound and you rest first before you do what you came here for?" she suggested kindly, just like a caring mother would as she slowly unwrapped the bandage from your arm, gasping as the wound came into view, "My, that's a lot of blood all of a sudden!"
"Damn kitsune," the priests muttered, all his disdain and anger over the creature dripping off his lips as he inched closer, placing his hand over the wound, unafraid of the blood that quickly seeped into his clothes and smeared all over his hand. Quietly, under his breath, he began muttering prayers you barely understood while your eyes began to quiver, your head suddenly spinning. It's been a long day, you were exhausted and wounded, so it was no surprise that your body would give out at some point. No need to blame it on the kitsune, you thought quietly as your eyelids grew heavy, the priest's prayers repeating in your head as he spoke them over and over, the pressure on your arm growing and releasing repeatedly.
You thought about how ridiculous it was. Gods, yokai, wishes. As the thought crossed your mind, you thought about your sister and how you would do whatever you had to, to rid her of her sickness and return her to the bubbly little girl you knew. You'd even release the kitsune if you had to, the thought making you chuckle. But maybe these people were right, and you'd try praying and begging the gods first thing tomorrow. After all, your sister's life wasn't worth that of countless others, right? Releasing the kitsune would have consequences you weren't sure you could shoulder on your own. Then again, after all you already did for her sake, you could go to whatever length you had to.
Even as you fell unconscious, your thoughts disappearing as darkness filled your mind, all you could think about was your sister and how you needed to help her as quickly as possible. There was no time to ponder morality and consequences when you wanted her to survive whatever was ailing her. You kept hearing the priest's prayers for a long time after, the sound slowly dimming as if someone were fading it out on purpose, only to be replaced by a much clearer, louder voice.
Found you.
[You can find the masterpost with all chapter's here!]
Somewhere deep in the mountains, near a small, rural village, rests the ancient shrine of a misguided creature. He is worshipped like a god, but holds little compassion for those he is supposed to care for. All, except one.
Will you attempt to find him? Have your wish fulfilled, a sacrifice honored, oaths spoken, traditions revived, an evil banished, and sought out what once was?
Or will you fall victim to him every time?
Thanks for checking out my stories around the OC we have created together on this blog! Here, you can find useful links and the Masterlist of all chapters that tell his story. Enjoy!
The Legend of the Wishing God ⛩
⛩ Chapter I
⛩ Chapter II
⛩ Chapter III
⛩ Chapter IV
⛩ Chapter V
⛩ Chapter VI
The Fox God Saga - The Legend of the Wishing God - Chapter I
And with that, welcome to my new story! I'll try to post a new chapter every friday (fox-friday basically lol) and I hope you guys enjoy! Please head the warnings on every individual chapter!
Edit: Ah, well, wanted to queue it and accidentally posted it, lol. Then today is fox-thursday, I suppose xD
Warnings: Yandere, Description about hurt animal with broken bones, Long Post (2.3k words)
Breathing in the crisp, mountain air, your lungs stung from exertion, a sheen of sweat glistening on your forehead in the evening sun.
After a whole day's hike, the light was dancing through the trees' canopy above you, only illuminating the overgrown path faintly before you. Not many had the drive or ambition to climb the old trail between the ancient mountain shrine and your village, and with every heavy step, you were reminded as to why. Even after working hard down in the valley, earning your dinner with all the strength in your body, it had been a long way up, your legs tired and wobbly as you tried to avoid the stray roots and thorny branches covering the way. Not many walked this path, aside from the devout seeking the shrine.
And those who wished desperately for the legends surrounding it to be true.
You were of the latter sort, and although desperate, not ashamed to admit it. The elders called the shrine a place that would fulfill all your wishes, as long as you prayed earnestly and devoted yourself to its teaching. If you approached with pure and noble intentions, the god it belonged to would be sure to bless you and fulfill your wish. That's what you'd been told all your life, the priest coming down once a month to hold a speech about the grace of the gods and how they looked upon us favorably. You had watched him age with every new year, listened to the same words attentively, but now the time had come for you to be convinced that it was actually true.
Despite your body aching, you thought about your little sister and about the harsh condition she was in. Your ache was nothing compared to the pain and misery she had to go through for weeks now, coughs wrecking her little frame and prayers being left unanswered. If the gods were as benevolent as everyone described them, you thought they'd help eventually, seeing how sick and frail your sister had become, unable to even eat by herself anymore, her breath stopping ever so often, making you think she had passed on.
Sometimes you caught yourself thinking that if she were to die, her suffering would at least be over.
The old man who traveled to your village every week to provide the households with medicine had once sat you down and told you that death was inevitable. It was just a matter of how long your sister wanted to survive or until her body gave out from under her. It hurt to hear it said out loud, but with your village wrecked by the same sickness that had taken hold in your sister, he didn't want to give hope of a miracle recovery, not even when you begged him to heal her. The medicine helped… for a little while. Then she was back to coughing and gagging. It never lasted, and there was now a shortage of medicinal herbs, as every household had a sick person or two in need.
That very morning, you had lain awake, listening to your sister's strained breathing, when you made the decision that maybe it really needed a miracle to save her. The man had been right; there was no saying how long her mind or her body could prevail over this illness. But if the teaching were true, if gods were looking down on your little village, then praying and wishing for them to help was maybe your only chance to save her.
Although you had been following the instructions and wishes of your parents diligently ever since you were a child, you had never quite believed in them. Everyone in your village prayed and thanked the gods that you felt no connection to, so it wasn't unnatural for you to follow along in the practices. Once, you had questioned your mother as to why everyone had to thank the gods for a good harvest, when it had been—in your opinion—all of the work of the adults in the village who worked hard together. She had merely smiled, saying that without them, the fields wouldn't have bloomed, and without the gods, rain wouldn't have watered the grains to give everyone a day off so they could work even harder the next.
She called you "a little too rational" for your age when you pouted and insisted the gods had not done much after all.
But here you were, ready to leave all of your doubts and skepticism behind if it meant you'd get a chance of helping your little sister. If earnestness was what the gods wanted, you had plenty to offer, your heart filled to the brim with compassion. And if they made the miracle happen, you'd be sure to never doubt them or their existence ever again, staying devout until the end of your days. All you wanted was to see her run around again, laughing and playing, like a child her age should. You'd do what was necessary if it meant you'd save her, no matter the cost it would have.
These thoughts spurred you on, gave you another boost to walk despite the exhaustion, and to breathe regardless of the aching in your whole body. The situation wasn't lost yet, and with your sister fighting for your life, you'd not stop either.
An unexpected, shrill whine broke through the insects' calm chittering all around you, the unmistakable sound of distress, bringing you to a stop. Your body complained about the sudden stillness, the wobble in your knees returning as you looked around, trying to make out where it had come from and what was making the sound. Despite not knowing the origins, you didn't feel afraid of what you might discover, the sound reminding you more of a…
Squinting your eyes, you looked a little closer into the bush erected a few steps away from the path you were on, a little black snout pushing through before little paws dug their way out from under it.
Your breath hitched as the little creature emerged from the undergrowth, and although you had never seen one in this color, you immediately knew what it was: a fox.
It let out another pained scream, looking at you as if asking for help, metal rattling behind it as it tried to pull its little leg after it. You did a cautious sidestep at the sound, seeing a massive bear trap snapped around the small ankle of the fox, having broken it, although, miraculously, not torn it off for good.
"Oh, you poor thing," you gasped empathetically, clutching the strap of the little bag you had brought on your travels. The fox continued whining and desperately pulling on its leg as you spoke. Perhaps it was your heart so full of compassion for your sister that made you step closer, knowing fully well that a fox was still a dangerous animal and that its bites would hurt if it thought you were there to harm it. But really, what kind of person would you be to just leave this poor thing to suffer? Bite off its own leg or worse, get eaten by another predator that saw it as weak?
Even though you had no knowledge on how to treat animals and wounds occurred by them, you still couldn't think about walking away from a creature in need. Carefully, with downcast hands, you approached it, mumbling in a calming voice. The fox did a few more pitiful yaps before quieting down, looking back and forth between you and the trap it was caught in.
"You're a clever one, eh?" you praised gently, slowly getting down to your knees next to it, never letting its maw and claws out of your sight but trying to make yourself look harmless. "I'll help you, don't worry, little fox."
As if understanding your words, it yawned once to relax before moving to curl into itself, placing one of its front paws on your thigh like a sign of trust and watching what you were doing. You inspected the trap with your eyes first, finding it partially overlapped on the other side and thus not fully locked. A blessing in disguise, as you didn't know if you could have opened it with your limited strength if it had snapped completely. This way, it was easier to grip and open wide enough for the fox to slip its leg out.
"I need you to work with me here," you grunted, gripping between the teeth of the trap, knowing that if you messed up, it would be your own finger on the line. You had to help some of the hunters in town once undo all their traps they brought back from hunting, but they hadn't given you proper instructions, just paid you once you were done. Taking a deep breath, you put all your strength into prying it open.
At first, the metal only clicked a little as you applied force to its mechanism, then the fox whined loudly in your ear. For a moment, you were scared it was going to bite you, thinking you were hurting it on purpose, but the pain of a bite never came. "Come on!" you groaned, your arms shivering from the exertion on your muscles when the shock of movement rattled through them. Going for the last push, you managed to pull apart the teeth just a little further, and before you knew it, black fur dashed by you, loud, excited chattering exploding all around you.
Your mind was fogged by exhaustion, but you managed to pull your fingers from the trap before it eerily snapped together, the thought of having your hands in that thing running shivers down your spine. Next thing you knew, you were "attacked" by the little fox, who was jumping up at you, licking your cheek despite dragging its broken foot after it.
"Now, now," you laughed, shielding yourself from the unintentional scratches and wet, sloppy kisses you were receiving, turning to your bag to pull out your knife. The black fox jumped back, warily watching what you were doing as you pierced the blade into your sleeve, cutting a piece of fabric from your own garments so you could help the little creature with it. However, even when you put the knife away, the fox seemed hesitant to approach, now knowing you had such a weapon at your disposal.
You chuckled a little at its wariness, watching its little ears perk up and try to surveil what you were doing as you stuck your hand back into the bag, this time pulling out a piece of riceball you had grabbed this morning. Interest now roused, the fox bounded back over, seemingly unbothered by its dragging foot, eating the rice right out of your hand. You watched it chew for a moment before leaning down, trying to steady the foot. However, it whimpered miserably the moment you placed the cloth around it.
Wrapping it up wouldn't be enough, you determined. This creature would have to be cared for, for a while, and fed since it couldn't hunt fast enough with just one hind leg. Perhaps you were overthinking it; maybe foxes were stronger than you thought. Your village rarely saw them, most of them at home in the forest of the mountain, only coming into town if people left out scraps or the winters were hard.
You had done what you could, even bandaged the foot despite the fox's pitiful whines, but you still felt bad just leaving it behind. "Perhaps the priest would know how to help you…" you muttered, thinking out loud about the only person you thought could have knowledge about the wildlife. The animal peeked its ears at your voice, and you gave it some head rubs as you debated bringing it with you to the shrine.
But you had come so far, how could you stop now?
"You might not like this, but you need to promise me to be calm when I pick you up!" you explained sternly, as if the animal could understand you. As expected, it only cocked its head to the side, and you couldn't help but adore the cute little tilt before slowly reaching under its forelegs. You did some careful probing to see if the fox would let you lift it up, but when it didn't react at all to your attempts, you slowly brought it up, settling it over your shoulder and holding it below its bushy tail.
Carefully, you stood up, wobbling on the spot, the break your legs had gotten not forgiven by your body. It was always worse to stop when you were pushing through exhaustion, but this time it had been for a good cause. "It can't be far now," you said to the fox, as if to encourage it rather than yourself, and the animal barked once, making you grin, thinking it understood more than you thought.
Together, you two returned to the path leading towards the shrine, the journey continuing. An anxious feeling that you'd wasted precious time crept into your stomach, so you reminded yourself that helping someone worse off than you wasn't wasting time. If anything, the gods may look fondly on your compassion for the creature, although that wasn't the reason you had helped it in the first place.
But maybe, finding this injured fox had been an omen. An injured creature and you helping them. It could make the miracle you sought after come true after all. With these thoughts, you marched on, the fox's tail happily wagging as it let out a few more barks and panted happily on your shoulder, nuzzling its fur against your face and neck appreciatively.
[You can find the masterpost with all chapter's here!]
The Beast of Bahal Never Misses Its Prey - By Team Overwork (8/10)
I love it when the side characters are actually cute, but the tone here is...fractured. It falls back and forth between silly and extremely dark. Our protagonist was abused by and isolated by his mother, and honestly the way it's written is way too real for a fantasy yaoi. Anyways he's lonely, fun, brave, and needy.
Jarn is a funny, popular pretty boy on a quest to find his missing aunt.
When he gets to the big city he gets scammed into a dangerous job. In this world monsters, talking animals and war smash together in a complicated mess. Jarn lives in an uneducated nation controlled by war. His new job is feeding a beast...that looks exactly like a human man. The beast copied the form of the handsome Duke who imprisoned him...for some reason.
The beast immediately tries to assault Jarn, and he struggles through it all.
He has to find his aunt.
It was his mother's only wish.
Over time things get freakier. Jarn doesn't have time to hang out with the maid with a crush on him, or the talking birdies the Duke is friends with. There is a portrait of his aunt in the Ducal household. Apparently, his aunt became the former masters mistress.......and he was freakishly obsessive.
He even made her wear a collar.
The current Duke helped her escape.
What a great guy? Maybe?
Where is she now? Nobody knows.
The current Duke, Ordin, is trying. He was born cold and strange like his father. He fell obsessively in love...with a picture. A picture his father's mistress carried everywhere. She tried to hide it from him. He was a cruel boy. Eventually the mistress was locked away, and she was forced to give him a drawing that resembled the picture.
He straight up hallucinated a relationship with the boy he saw.
It kind of made him a better person that likes small and cute and innocent things.
He's....got some promise.
The Beast is Fenrir. A god Jarn befriended. All the drama. The strangeness. His mother's madness. It happened because Fenrir turned back time for his only friend. Jarn. Jarn originally doesn't remember anything, and it's a mess.
In his first life he was kidnapped by Ordin during the war. This version of Ordin never lightened up or befriended any birdies, so he's a classic yandere.
Jarn...who was still originally lonely...gets Stockholm syndrome almost immediately and he falls for his jailer.
Ordin eventually finds out about Fenrir. Jarn's monster pal. He is currently at war with the monsters. He decides that his lover is both crazy and in danger.
It drives him off the edge.
He fell for Jarn madly, and the man clearly needs to be protected. Coddled. He's too stupidly kind to understand that monsters like Fenrir cannot be reasoned with.
The couple begins to fight.
Jarn loses his freedom.
Fenrir always manages to sneak in to visit. Fenrir is amazing because he doesn't have bad intentions, but he's too powerful to be good. He really feels like a natural disaster waiting to happen, and he's obsessed with some fragile mortal.
It's a mess.
Jarn turned back time because he felt guilty for driving Ordin insane.
In life number two Jarn has feelings for both Ordin and Fenrir.
The growing stakes reveal who is more dangerous. Fenrir, despite his doglike loyalty, is nearly impossible to handle.
this post is for 18+ audience only. Even if something doesn't have nsfw next to it, it's probably a smut
gay ship, hetero ship,
reviews posted
titles with ★ are TOP TIER
fin = finished, tbc = to be contined, nmt=not my taste (but still worth mentioning), N= yandere is NOT the ML
hetero
★
- ★tonari no seki no hen na senpai (nsfw)(fin)(office)
- ★Secret alliance (lesbian? sort of)(fin)
- ★In the doghouse- review (nsfw)(msub)(bdsm)(tbc)
- ★Dreaming Freedom (slow burn)(fin)(highschool)(yanxyan)
- ★Predatory Marriage - review (royal)(tbc)(historical)(smut)
- ★Firefly wedding (historical)(gore)(cute)
- ★My cute, naughty rin (tbc)(smut)(manga)(childhood friends) - official, unofficial
- ★Spring amids my wintertide (tbc)(smut)(beast x human)(childhood friends)(cute)(msub)
- ★Taming of the tyrant (tbc)(badass mc)(simp yan)(reborn)
- ★Under the oak tree (tbc)(sunshine x grumpy)(fantasy)
- ★How do you feel about cosmic horror? (tbc)(amnesia)(god/monster husband x human)
- ★One husband is enough (tbc)(multiple yanderes)(competition for mc)(unhinged)(isekai)
✩
- Black Chains (enemies to lover)(reborn)(tbc)(regret trope)
- Libera Me (god x human)(2 yan)(reborn)(tbc)
- You are mine, i am your guardian angel (tbc)(guardian angel)(stalker)(supernatural)
- From BFF to an obsessive Hubby (historic)(secrets)(frenemies to lovers)(tbc)
- Match made in mana - review (ying yang)(reincarnation)(tbc)
- It's mine (nmt)(fin)
- The abberent-headed guy and a human girl (nmt)(fin)(cyber x human)(petplay)(wholesome)
- I tamed my ex-husbands mad dog (fin)(reborn)(sub yandere top)(toxic)
- Turning the Mad dog into a Genteel Lord (tbc)(fantasy)(forced prox)(soft dom)
- Ghostly sex (tbc)(ghost Yan)
- Tears on a withered flower (tbc)(older F)(younger Yan)(broke x rich)
- Utsumi is such a nice guy (fin)(porn one shot)
- Flowers are bait (tbc)(Yan amnesia)(serial killer with amnesia x caretaker)
- Pampering my beast commander (tbc)(sci-fi)(beast x human)
- Duchess debauchery (tbc)(Fdom)(toxic)
- I became the mother of the Evil Male lead (tbc)(isekai)(yandere husband + yandere son)
- The obsessive love of a high-spec childhood friend (fin)(oneshot smut manga)
- Kuro-kun, the black cat's cute and naughty act of gratittude (fin)(catboy)(oneshot)
- Killing line(tbc)(hitman x target)(cute but crazy)
- The princess in the henhouse (tbc)(historical)(curse)
- That's not what my will said (tbc)(isekai)(my life my rules)
- The empress wants to avoid the emperor (tbc)(isekai)(divorcee)
- Forget my husband, I'll go make money (tbc)(historical)(superpower)(new beginnings)
- Sakaki the lazybone shows his talents at night - review (fin)(workplace)(mess x put together)
- It was just a contract marriage - (fin)(historical)(runaway princess x emperor's right hand man cold duke)
BL
★★★
- ★★★Legs that won't walk (fin)(gangsters)(disabled MC)
- ★★★Blind Play - review (fin)(gore)(killer x prey)(nsf)
- ★★★Bongchon bride - (fin)(historical)(healthy relationship)(Yan 2nd ML)
- ★★★Dead man's switch - review (tbc)(reborn)(apocalypse)(groundhog day)
- ★★★Painter of the night (nsfw)(fin)(historical)
- ★★★Profundis (nsfw)(fin)(esper x guide)(4top x bottom)
- ★★★One-way romance(nsfw)(fin)(comedy)(mafia)
- ★★★Low tide in twilight - review (nsfw)(fin)(in debt x debt collector)
- ★★★My hyung's omega(nsfw)(tbc)(omegaverse)(younger top)
- ★★★Swallow you whole(tbc)(omegaverse)(god x human)(jekyll and hyde)
- ★★★Sadistic beauty: sidestory BL (nsfw)(fin)
- ★★★The king and me (tbc)(isekai)(ancient egypt)(pharaoh x everyday mf)
- ★★★Little mushroom (tbc)(post-apo)(hunter x hunted)(mushroom shifter literally)
- ★★★Missing love: the marrying man (fin)(manwhore x malewife)(prostitute x green flag x red flag)
- ★★★Shock-a-bye baby (tbc)(crazy sub top x buffy hothead bottom)(in debt kidnapper top x debt collector bottom)
- ★★★Netkama Punch! (tbc)(in game relationship)(enemies to lovers)
- ★★★Heart of the lotus - review (tbc)(historical)(king x subject)(childhood friends)
- ★★★Crazy Rich Santa (tbc)(secret identity)(oblivious streamer MC x deliquent landlord first love x stalker hacker x bdsm obsessed angelic actor)
- ★★★Bye bye (fin)(suicidal)(dark themes)(healing)(omegaverse)(sugar daddy)(mpreg)
★★
- ★★Cash or credit(nsfw)(fin)(prison)(lovenemies)
- ★★Paws&Claws - review (tbc)(shapeshifter)(fluff)
- ★★Unsleep (tbc)(misunderstanding)(insomnia)(cute)
- ★★My neighbor is always watching me (stalker)(YanSub)(badass MC) (tbc)
- ★★Room without a window (nswf)(apocalipse)(amnesia)(fin)
- ★★Regas (tbc)(historical)(reincarnation)(guideverse)
- ★★Blackout(tbc)(comedic relief MC)(Producent x artist's assistant)
- ★★Payback(tbc)(revenge)(new beginnings)(CEO x new actor)
- ★★Scandalous wedding (tbc)(historical)(king x knight)(comedy)
- ★★The mansion called by ghost (tbc)(yandere top MC)(vampire master x human MC servant)
- ★★Doomed brothers(tbc)(incest-ish)(manwhore x malewife)
- ★★Drop it and let's talk(tbc)(bottom ghost yan x new tennant)
- ★★Heat protectant (tbc)(hairdressers omegaverse)(OMEGA TOP)
- ★★Gangster love simulation (fin)(isekai)(funny af)(hs)(dumb MC x thug ML x Smart ML)
- ★★One way romance (fin)(journalist x mob boss ML x mob boss ML)(istg THE ART GETS BETTER PLZ)
- ★★Dr V and his three lovers (tbc)(3 frankensteins x doctor)
- ★★Toxin (tbc)(historical)(revenge x revenge object)(demon x demon hater)
- ★★You are my world (tbc)(omegaverse)(submissive alpha x buff omega)(smitten x hating his guts)(childhood friends)
- ★★Unchanged (tbc)(psychological)(toxic)(workplace)(childhood friends)
★
- ★December - review (nsfw)(fin)(omegaverse)
- ★ Black mirror (nsfw)(fin)(horror)(partners in crime)(amnesia)
- ★Kamikudaite ai wo oshiete (wholesome)(fin)(beast)(yan x willing)
- ★Obey me (fin)(nsfw)(kidnapping)
- ★Non-refundable alpha - review (fin)(nsfw)(omegaverse)
- ★Steel under silk (historical)(nsfw)(revenge) (tbc)
- ★Hungry souls (beast x human)(brother Yan)(tbc)
- ★The pizza delivery man and the gold palace (tbc)(broke x rich)(yan bottom!)
- ★Romantic Captain Darling - review (fin)(Sub top)(cute)(badass MC)
- ★Cold-blooded beast (fin)(soulmates)(beast x human)
- ★The dangerous convenience store (fin)(scary x cute)
- ★Traces of the sun(fin)(esper x guide)
- ★Odd love(fin)(film industry)(toxic)
- ★A crown of thorns(tbc)(omegaverse)(step-incest)
- ★Dragging the Yandere prince to ruin(tbc)(comedy)(popular x loser)
- ★I swear I'm not a scammer(tbc)(beastman x human)(mate)
- ★Reluctant encounters (tbc)(loser top x cool bottom)
- ★Mermaid's Cradle (tbc)(merman x younger obsessed octopus dude)(pseudo-incest)
- ★Solo for two (tbc)(wealthy x poor)(drama)
- ★Not a peep (tbc)(cute animal)(isekai)
- ★Melting point (tbc)(hokey skater x manager)(simp yandere)
- ★Marcel (tbc)(undercover x mafia boss)(drama)(buff bottom)
- ★Shining in Nightmares (fin)(nightmare x dream)(ying yang)
- ★Turning (tbc)(historical)(superpowers)(omegaverse)(reborn)
- ★Formless (tbc)(toxic)(fucked around and found out)
- ★Guiding hazard(tbc)(guideverse)(old flame)
- ★Slammer dogs(tbc)(prison threesome)(angry MC x smart sly ML x dumb psycho ML)
- ★Dawn of the dragon - review (fin)(immortal x reborn)(dragon x human)
- ★Fallen lamb - review (fin)(cowboy yan MC x creepy power bottom)(eerie)(horror)(doomed)
- ★Counterattack through pregnancy (tbc)(revenge seeker x revenge helper)
- ★Inkya na boku ga futago ni Aiseru Wake (tbc)(throuple)(childhood friends)
- ★ This darling man has a fastidiously strong love!~~ The man of my dreams is obsessed with me?~ (fin)(stalker x willing)(cute)
- ★the third ending (fin)(regret trope)(dude who rejected falls in love)
- ★The diligent debtor (fin)(creepy yandere debtor x buff bottom loan shark)
- ★Back to school (fin)(buff ex-deliquent MC x puppy class prez x ex bestfriend obsessed psycho deliquent)
- ★The secretive XX (tbc)(omegaverse)(highschool)(bonding over repeating a year)(social omega MC x antisocial gloomy alpha)
- ★Mouse trap (tbc)(omegaverse)(CEO x rival)(childhood friends)(mpreg)
- ★Vivarium (fin)(kidnapped dude who gave up on life x obsessed spoiled sheltered dude)(dark/psychological)
✩
- Sura's lover (nsfw)(tbc)(historical)
- All cause im cute! (nsfw)(tbc)(jinx)
- Be my boomer - review (nsfw)(comedy)(N)
- Civilian A (esperxguide)(childhood friends)(crazy yan)
- The Warehouse (nsfw)(fin)(childhood friends)
- Stalker's game (nsfw)(fin)
- Guilty Affection - review (tbc)(esperxguide)(nsfw)
- D:AZE - review (tbc)(Partners)(Urban fantasy)
- B-class guide - review (fin)(nsfw)
- Salty Lust - review (nsfw)(scifi)(nmt)(tbc)
- Glen (nsfw)(fin)
- Forbidden Fruit (nsfw)(fin)(porn with plot)(priest)
- Stalker x Stalker (fin)(wholesome)(yan x yan)(fluff)
- Mad dog - review (fin)(toxic)(nmt)(mafia)
- Autumn at the cementery (tbc)(kidnapping)(crazy)
- Roses and Champagne (fin)(toxic)(badass MC)
- Walk in my shoes (toxic)(tbc)(rape)(heavy)
- Prison breakfast (tbc)(omegaverse mpreg)(funny)
- Pearl boy (tbc)(runaway)(healthy relationship vs toxic yan ex)
- River of bondage (tbc)(bdsm smut)
- My way with you (fin)(intertwined history)(stalking)(healthy)
- 151,20% (fin)(esper x guide)
- Give me some attention! (fin)(cute)(popular x unpopular)(yan MC)
- My Egocentric boss is obsessed with me (tbc)(office romance)(fluff)
- Civilian A (tbc)(esper x guide)(childhood friends)
- Wolf lord wants to take responsibility (tbc)(beastmen)
- The director who buys me dinner (tbc)(reborn)(soulmates)(office)
- Cozy obsession (tbc)(isekai)(toxic comedy)
- Makitakun No Koiji wo jamasuru to Shinu (fin)(manga)(school)
- Seonbae USB swapping plan (fin)(porn with plot)(mutual crush)
- Eye of the storm (fin)(child bonding)(gang vs gang)
- Night of the hunt (tbc)(omegaverse)(mpreg)(revenge)
- Mad for love (tbc)(isekai)(comedy)(historical)
- Incomplete combustion (tbc)(obsessed top MC x power bottom)
- How the guide escaped the obsessive top (tbc)(isekai)(guideverse)
- Noir of June (tbc)(policeman x ganster)(overcumming grief)
- Pieta (tbc)(fucked up)(serial killer x immortal)(gore sex)
- Even trash was once new (tbc)(undercover cop x mob boss)
- The perfect (tbc)(office worker x hunter)
- Moretones (tbc)(incest)(younger yan)
- Pian Pian(tbc)(Soulmates)(Chefs)
- You are so lovely (tbc)(mafia boss MC bottom x adopted wolf shifter top)
- Puppy ever after (tbc)(fake boyfriends)(crush)
- The rotten (tbc)(zombie apocalypse)(rape porn basically)(nmt)
- Get you <3 father in law (tbc)(porn)
- My X daddy (tbc)(bdsm incest)(son master yan x douchebag father bottom)(nmt)
- Open the door (tbc)(guideverse)(enigma x esper)
- Gorani jeon(tbc)(historical)(shapeshifter x human)
- Changed: the beta count - review (tbc)(omegaverse foursome)(reverse time)(omega noble MC x thug x prince x knight servant)(mpreg)
- koisuru psycho no shirayaki-kun (tbh)(bullying)(sweet but psycho)(fucked up)
- In the castle: the dragon's erotic education(fin)(historical)(dragon x sex ed bottom)(a lot of sex toys)(porn lol)
- My ship couple adores me, but they got it all wrong! (tbc)(showbiz)(throuple)
- Summer sparks (tbc)(omegaverse)(childhood friends)(pining)
- Beyond the memories (tbc)(omegaverse)(reborn second chances)(nmt)
- Love me like you owe me (tbc)(mafia x in debt)(hot n cold x twink)
- No way, Vampires don't exist! (tbc)(nmt)(vampires harem/competition x cute human)
- Grain in ear (tbc)(amnesiac yakuza x righteus policeman)
- tsuki wa michikake kemono no koi (fin)(submissive top yokai x just a guy)
Antidote (tbc)(historical)(slave amnesiac insane mc x knight ml)
- Sono gap ni Yowai Tokushuu [chapter 7] (fin)(classmates)(fluff)
- A thousand cranes (fin)(in debt x mafia)(soft)(healthy¿)
- The tale of moonless night (tbc)(historical)(prince x emperor)
- Cat therapy (tbc)(shapeshifters)(adorable kitty thief x tiger caretaker actor)
- Final stop (fin)(omegaverse)(debtor x CEO)(boytoy situation)
