Certain Words Can Change Your Brain Forever And Ever So You Do Have To Be Very Careful About It.

Certain words can change your brain forever and ever so you do have to be very careful about it.

𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗞 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗛𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗬 *+:｡.｡

summary. summer romances with jjk men. | wc. 2.5k+

cw/ tw. fem!reader, age gap, possessive behavior, dark-lite (toji’s is a little dark), aged-up character, shy!reader, manipulation, obsessive behavior, pet names (ex. baby, sweetheart), friends to lovers, fwb, sharing (but is it really if gojo wants you to himself???), intended for 18+ readers

featuring. geto, toji, yuuji, gojo & sukuna

an. just a lil something old today, comments and reblogs are appreciated ༉‧₊˚.

𝗚𝗘𝗧𝗢 ༊*·˚

It’s an odd request. Geto says it doesn’t mean anything—don’t worry, friends do this all the time—and you’re tempted to point out that you’re not exactly friends, or perhaps you’re not entirely in tune with the ins and outs of being a roommate.

You think you agree because, after three months of living together, he’s comfortable and familiar, and you admit that it’s kind of nice after a long day of work. Just to be held for a while. 

It’s just cuddling—that’s what he told you.

The shift happens when you get up one night to use the bathroom and come back to find him lazily blinking himself awake. He doesn’t say anything when you crawl under the covers—not until you settle into a spot that’s apparently too far away for his liking. 

“C’mere,” he mumbles sleepily, looping one long arm around your waist and dragging you across the sheets with too much energy for someone who’d just woken up.

He rearranges your body easily, bringing one of your thighs over his hip and pressing one of his up between your own. Then he pushes up your shirt—something you notice he’s been steadily testing recently, seeing what you’ll let him get away with—until you’re exposed to the warm summer air blowing in from his open window. Except, unlike the times before, you’re not wearing a bra.

It’s probably a good thing that he can’t see your face where he has his buried against your chest. If he did, he’d tease you about the surprise and bewilderment bleeding onto your features like ink to paper.

You squeak when he presses a kiss between your breasts before taking a nipple into his mouth, caressing it with his tongue. When your hips shift against his thigh, you tell yourself it’s only to get comfortable, anything to keep from getting ahead of yourself.

This doesn’t mean anything. It’s just cuddling. Just—

Geto makes a sleepy noise, his mouth popping off with a wet sound, filthy and depraved. “You like this?”

You swallow hard enough that your throat clicks. “No.”

“Liar,” he mumbles, and you don’t even notice him squeezing his hand between your bodies, not until a knuckle presses against where there’s an embarrassing wet patch on your underwear, his fingertips searching for—

"W-wait! That's my—"

"Clit?" His chuckle is a hushed little thing that makes your cheeks warm. “You’re really wet for someone who’s not turned on.”

“I’m not,” you whimper, every ounce of conviction washed away from one exploratory pass of a finger.

“I’m just making it better, okay?”

Geto hooks his finger into the gusset of your underwear, pulling them away from your pussy, and moving his thigh so you’re skin on skin. You preen, wiggling your hips, trying to spread your legs a little wider, anything to get closer.

“There you go,” he says with a mouthful of your breast, content, his eyes still softly shut.

In the end, you try not to think about it too much and eventually cum against his thigh with a high-pitched gasp, leaving you limp and sleepy. You don’t dare look down at him because you know if you do, you’ll find the smirk that you feel curling his lips in triumph as if he’s just proved a point. 

Instead, you close your eyes and decide to save that problem for another day.

𝗧𝗢𝗝𝗜 ༊*·˚

Fresh-eyed with a shiny degree hanging above your desk in your cheap shoe-box apartment, those first few weeks of summer in a new place slowly bleeds together.

They're the same. They’re distinct. 

It’s a whirlwind of party dresses, cotton sheets covered in cherry-red lipstick stains, and long drives looking up at the city lights with the windows down on the weekends as you speed down Main. You feel like you’re floating on a cloud surrounded by iridescent signs one moment and gunmetal skies the next, almost similar to how things change in fast movies.

There’s only that tiny break on Sundays when you’re drinking your coffee and solving a crossword in the morning paper, softly humming to a song on the radio, before it starts all over again.

For a while, it’s nice until it’s suddenly different, and you find yourself thinking about home again.

If there’s one thing you miss about living in a smaller town, surrounded by people you know and cozy little shops, it’d be how easy it was to point out the red flags when it came to new people. In the city—something you’re destined to find out—the signs are slightly more murky, like looking through a fogged-up lens.

It’s on a night when you’ve had one too many martinis and laughing with your friend when you look over and notice him sitting by himself in the corner of the little dive bar. His gaze, dark from the low light of the room, is already on you, and you wonder how you haven’t spotted him sooner.

He’s tall and handsome, almost in a way that feels off-limits—much older than the guys you usually go for—with a crisp, black button-down stretching over broad shoulders.

You give him a shy smile over your shoulder. He raises an eyebrow and gestures you over with a flick of his fingers.

That’s all it takes to get wrapped up in a sticky thread of red.

He’s intense in all aspects of the word. The first time he fucks you, you whine about how big his cock is, that it’s not going to fit, and his hips shutter against yours. 

“Such a filthy word in that sweet, pretty mouth,” he murmurs. “But look at you taking it, anyway.”

Then he notches a thumb in your ass—a place nobody has dared to touch before—and makes you cum so hard your legs shake.

He’ll hold your hand in his when you cross the street and buys you pretty things like soft leather bags and decorates your neck with sparkling gems, his favorite being the one with a gold cursive ‘T’ dangling from a dainty chain. Loves to have you on your back while you wear it, thrusting into you hard and fast, watching with bottomless eyes as it sinks and moves against your neck.

You never ask how he affords such expensive things, from his shiny sports car to his array of thick silver watches, because you don’t think it’s your place to know when this feels very temporary. A summer fling meant to melt away. 

That’s how it was always supposed to be.

But then you start noticing things: the bruises on his knuckles, the one room in his house you’re not allowed in—it’s just my hobby stuff, baby; don’t worry about it—how he gets cagey anytime a guy looks at you, even if it’s incidentally.

It’d be easy to pretend that you don’t notice if only you hadn’t seen him threaten a waiter after he smiled at you.

Exactly how things shouldn’t be.

That weekend, you go out with your friends, dance with a few guys, and go home feeling a little shaky in your heels. You flip on the kitchen light and squeak when you find Toji sitting on your couch, his mouth set into a hard line.

Your lip trembles. “How did you—”

“Did you have fun tonight, baby?”

You’re unsure how to answer, so you don’t.

It’s different that night when he has your legs pressed all the way up beside your ears, his hand wrapped around your throat in place of the necklace on your dresser, wrenching an orgasm out of you that makes your abs hurt and sends black spots through your vision.

"I'll tell you what's—ah shit, clench up again for me—going to happen. I'm going to fuck you nice and full, tuck you into bed with my cum leaking out of this cute little cunt, and you're not going to talk to other boys again. Y'got that?"

𝗬𝗨𝗨𝗝𝗜 ༊*·˚

Mom tells you he's been helping them around the house while you’ve been away for school, a nice boy whose parents bought the house across the street. 

Despite her forewarning about the stranger working in the yard, the first time you meet him, you’re unloading your car with boxes you brought from your dorm and nearly drop your things in surprise when he comes walking from the back of the house in nothing but sneakers, shorts, and a baseball cap.

“Sorry.” He wipes sweat off his forehead with the discarded shirt in his hand. “Didn’t think anyone was home.”

“All good.” You clear your throat, shrugging.

The crooked grin he gives you, a dimple on his left cheek, makes your heart speed up.

Pretty.

You start to notice how he’s there every other day: tending to Mom’s tedious rose garden, cleaning the gutters, trimming the hedges by the pool, and helping Dad fix the shingles on the roof. You’ve only talked to him a handful of times since that first day, once to bring him the lemonade Mom made, then while sitting in one of the pool chairs and putting sunscreen on.

It no longer catches you off guard to find him around the house; what he says next does.

“Want help with that?”

You swallow. “What?”

He tilts his head, shielding his face from the sun. “You missed a spot on your back.”

You don’t even bother thinking about if he’s telling the truth before you nod your head and turn around for him. “Oh…um, sure.”

It’s a bit silly of you to believe that’s how it’d play out: him making an innocent offer and going back to weeding the garden. You’re only happy your parents are at work; otherwise, they’d see the nice boy who fixes up their house, folding you in half in one of their too-expensive chairs.

“That feel good, huh?” He groans, roughly bouncing you in his lap like he’s using you for his pleasure, his ball cap falling off his head so he can mouth at your neck. “Shit. You’re so warm and tight inside.”

A whimper slips past your spit-slick lips, hair in utter disarray, swimsuit rumpled and peeled aside, looking utterly debauched. You watch how he can’t seem to decide where to look. His eyes flit from your mouth, and breasts, and where his cock sinks into your cunt, and when you slip a hand between your thighs to rub your clit, his jaw falls open.

It only takes a few strokes for you to sob, your entire body trembling.

“Are you cumming? Oh fuck, you’re so pretty. I can’t believe I made you cum—”

Afterward, when he pulls out and sees how puffy your pussy is, he looks like a sad puppy and crawls down the chair to kiss it better. He licks you clean, and you find yourself cumming against his tongue, this one a little less intense but has your fingers fisting into his hair anyway.

And much later, after he leaves, you realize as you lay there—his cum steadily dripping out of you onto the plastic seat of the pool chair—you still don't know his name.

𝗚𝗢𝗝𝗢 & 𝗦𝗨𝗞𝗨𝗡𝗔 ༊*·˚

He’s attending one of your father’s summer company parties when he sees you in person for the first time.

The glossy photo perched on the edge of your father’s desk in his office doesn’t do you justice.

You walk onto the deck, sundress swaying around your knees, smiling with your whole mouth when a guy covered in tattoos wraps an arm around your shoulders. Gojo watches him squeeze your cheeks together and kiss you in a way that shouldn’t be allowed, with your parents mingling close by—how you look up at him with visible adoration on your face.

He finds himself thinking about it later when he’s in his big empty house with nothing but the soft humming of his air conditioner and a list of work emails for nightly company. 

Standing in the middle of his entryway, he wonders what it’d be like to have your bright smile and pastel dresses welcome him home, the smell of your sweet shampoo filling his house.

So when your dad calls a few weeks later to ask if you can crash at his place until you’re steady on your feet—it’s a new city; she just needs time to settle—he cleans out one of his spare bedrooms that night without thinking twice about it. 

He tells himself he’s doing the right thing, and it’s not about fulfilling some fantasy of his. But when he comes home after a long day of work and finds you making dinner in the kitchen in one of your many lace-trimmed dresses, something stirs in his chest. 

It’s imprinted on the back of his eyelids. Clear as day when he’s in the shower later and strokes his cock to the image of your breasts straining against thin floral fabrics and the curve of your ass barely peeking out from under the hem of the skirt after you put some food into the oven.

There’s still the issue about your boyfriend.

"I don't like how the old fuck stares at you," Gojo hears him—Sukuna—tell you one night over speakerphone.

“He’s not old,” you argue. “He’s nice, and I like him.”

It’s an ugly thing that rears its head in him and has him thinking, plotting, of tangible ways he can have you all to himself.

It happens in a way that he doesn’t expect, but he thinks it makes it all the better; how your boyfriend gets so easily worked up about a few things Gojo says:

“She’s never going to cum like that.”

Sukuna scoffs, his fingers still trapped against your clit. “You think you can do better, old man?”

Gojo ignores him and pats his thigh. "C'mere, sweetheart."

You bite your lip and look at Sukuna hesitantly, who pulls you into a kiss meant to show possession before letting you slide off him, and you crawl across the couch to perch yourself in Gojo’s lap. He’s still wearing his tie from work, and you stare at it for a second until he cups your cheek to tilt your chin up, thumb pressing into the middle of your lips until it slips in and strokes along your tongue, giving you something to focus on.

“Listen, if I make you cum, I get to fuck you however I want,” he says, holding your chin to keep you from glancing at your boyfriend again. He can treat you better, make you cry on his fingers, his mouth, his cock—however you want it. He’s sure of it.

You try to speak around his thumb. “But I want—I want—,” vowels and consonants trailing into nothing.

He laughs. “Baby, how can you want something that you can’t even ask for, hm?”

And he thinks—ah, but you’ll figure it out, his wants, his desires, where you’ll fit in his life—just as your boyfriend starts stroking himself to the sound of your moans by another man’s doing.

chibi satoru & suguru 🩷

Courted by a… Hero?

synopsis: Diluc has feelings for you, but is under the impression that you do not reciprocate - his courting attempts show as much. But he comes to find out, that you are at ease around his alter ago… 

It won’t hurt to try and court you as the Darknight Hero. Right?

pairing: Diluc x fem!reader

tw: fluff, pining, courting, seemingly unreciprocated feelings, Darknight Hero!Diluc

word count: 3k words

a/n: this was suggested by a lovely anon~

Diluc Ragnvindr is enamored with you.

Diluc Ragnvindr thinks he is not that subtle about his affections. But it seems that he actually is, because otherwise the Master of the Dawn Winery does not understand how you manage to miss all the clues, all the longing gazes, all the small compliments and acts he does for you in attempts to hint that he’d like to court you.

Аpparently the longing in his eyes is lost in his regular stoic and a bit mournful expression, small compliments are so polite that it’s not hard to mistake them for his gentlemanly antics, and his other actions are just a thread away from acts of service and help, which, given his сhivalry nature, do not stand out too.

Diluc doesn’t get many opportunities to see you, since you do not visit the tavern often, but he tries so hard to make the meetings more numerous. An invitation to play cards at the Cat’s Tail here and there, an insistence to walk you home, an offer to accompany you through the market as you go grocery shopping, always coming with an excuse of checking on the goods to tell Elzer later what purchases they should change for the Winery and its workers. Adelinde always smiles at him knowingly whenever some new dishes are added to his menu.

He is trying to show his affections to you, he really does, but he is too dense for that to come out exactly as he pictured it in his head. However, when you smile at him softly, accepting his offers, when you vent a little to him about a stupid coworker, when you stop at the Good Hunter to have supper with him - he thinks that the long process is worth it.

It’s a great surprise, but the first time he gets an opportunity to hold you close is not a part of you dating him. No, your relationship is far from that, and his persona is hidden under the mask and a hooded cape, as he carries you bridal style. He is well aware of you staring up at him, but he can’t make himself lower his gaze and meet with yours. He is just bringing you to a safe place after you twisted your ankle on a late evening run to catch a cat for your neighbor - a sweet old woman, whose pet seems to love escaping on an almost daily basis.

Keep reading

12:45am — gojo satoru ;

“cute earrings, where’d you get them?” shoko asks.

“hm?” still clinging to sleep, you absentmindedly reach up to caress the metal dangling from your ear. the sharp indents of its gem pricks you back into a memory. “oh, these. i got them from a friend last week.”

“friend? or do you mean boyfriend?”

shoko’s words are throwaway, her wandering eyes and yawn a clear indication yet your face warms despite yourself. shaking your head furiously, you exclaim, “a friend! just a friend."

shoko hums, shifting her cigarette to the other end of her mouth. her gaze flickers somewhere behind you and you almost look too, when her words pull you back. “come to think of it, i don’t think you’ve ever told me what your type was.”

“my type?” your mind blanks. “i’ve probably never told you because i’ve never thought about it myself. i mean, being a jujutsu sorcerer and all, romance is kind of off the table.”

shoko keeps looking at you, pressing you without words. you grimace and sigh.

"i mean, i guess, maybe someone good looking? someone who’s not boring? and now that we're talking about it, someone who is fit and athletic too. they'd have to be smart, but not book-smart, like, street-smart." the more you think of it, the more words seem to spill from your mouth. "and someone who has a good sense of humour, someone who will make me laugh.”

“someone good looking, interesting, sporty, smart and funny? that’s too greedy.”

you giggle. “you’re right, there’s no way there’s anyone that perfect. i guess i’ll have to be single forever.”

“you'll always have me.” shoko says, grinning.

you push her shoulder but don’t deny it.

yaga walks into the classroom, cutting your conversation short. you spin around in your seat to face the front, eyes accidentally meeting gojo’s. he turns around too, and you reason that he was probably looking out the window behind you. you see getou snicker and whisper something in his ear, but gojo seemed to be having none of it, blatantly ignoring him.

seeing his face makes you think. didn’t gojo kind of match your type? someone attractive, interesting, athletic and maybe not academic smart, but he definitely carried an air of confidence when it came to fighting. and it wasn't a secret that he lightened the air wherever he went, intentionally or not.

with a start, you look back at shoko. “and someone calm. someone with manners.”

“well-mannered and calm. what insane preferences.” shoko chuckles. “are there any more?"

yaga slams his hand on the table a few times, reluctantly drawing your attention back to the front.

your previous conversation dies and twiddles away into the background, overtaken by droning lectures and predictable missions. by the end of the day, you can't even remember what you had told shoko early that morning.

when you enter the classroom the next day, you’re surprised to find gojo already there, seated at his table. his sunglasses hangs lower on his nose than usual and most curiously of all, a book is held in his hands. you’re not sure if he’s actually reading or not considering that pages were being turned far too quickly for someone reading “ordinary objects” by amie thomasson.

his eyes flicker to yours as you head in. “good morning.”

“morning. what’s with you?”

gojo clears his throat. “what ever do you mean?”

your frown transitions to a grimace. “why are you talking like that? did you break something of mine? was it my potted plant, gojo i told you to take good care of it!”

“i am taking care of it! it’s not dead yet!” he exclaims before pausing uncharacteristically. he sits back in his chair and turns back to his book. “i mean, it’s fine.”

“you sure?”

“i am.”

you narrow your eyes before looking away, dropping into your seat. “it better be. shoko got me that one.”

“speaking of shoko, is she not coming today?”

“i think she stayed overnight at the morgue.”

“is that so? perhaps i should write notes for her. i wouldn’t want her to miss out on class.”

you turn to him horrified. “so you did kill my plant!”

“i said it’s not dead!” gojo bursts. another pause. he clears his throat, adjusting his glasses. “i simply worry for her.”

you stare at him and watch as he fidgets under your gaze. “are you feeling sick? did you eat something wrong?”

“i’m not sick. what part of me looks sick?"

“well you’re usually not this…” you watch him as you wrack your brain, trying to find a word to describe this situation. “c…”

gojo leans forward. “yes?”

“crazy.”

he falls back in his chair, groaning, book forgotten and placed harshly down on the table.

you tilt your head. “where's getou, you guys didn’t come to class together? don’t tell me you fought.”

gojo peers up and frowns. “no, can i not show up to class early just because i feel like it?”

“it would be extremely out of character, yeah.” you rest your chin on your hand as you watch gojo mutter to himself, his jaw jutted out and his nose scrunched.

he was clearly unhappy, it didn’t take a scholar to know. it might take a genius to figure out why though.

you had time to kill, might as well take up the challenge. maybe he hadn’t had his morning dose of sugar yet, or maybe his favourite anime had delayed it’s upcoming episode. maybe he didn't save properly on the new game he was playing, or maybe he simply didn't sleep well last night. or maybe he had lied to you and he had fought with getou, leading to this strange attitude.

the more you thought about it, the more it made sense. the way he was acting now was like a mockery to getou's usual behaviour.

“are you trying to be like getou?” you try.

gojo whirs around to face you. “what?”

“well, you’re trying to be composed.” he keeps staring at you and you clear your throat. “like more well-mannered. more calm.”

gojo remains silent but you watch as his jaw drops. you think that he might say something but then his mouth closes, only to open again.

gojo speechless, what a sight. but as good of a sight as it was, you were beginning to feel concerned.

“are you sure you’re alright? what did you eat yesterday?”

he doesn’t register your question. “you think getou is well-mannered?”

“yeah?”

“and calm?”

you nod. “more than you, at least.”

“do you think he’s interesting too? sporty? smart? funny?” he pauses. “good-looking?”

the questions throw you off guard and you sit up. “what? where is this coming from?”

“oh my god, you do.”

“no? i mean, i think getou’s great and everything—”

“you think getou’s great?”

“don’t you?”

“you think getou’s hot.” he concludes. “and you think getou’s great.”

"what are you even saying?"

"i don't know. why don't you tell me?"

baffled, you flail for words. “are you jealous of him? that's strange, i didn’t think either of you would ever feel jealous of each other.”

gojo grits his teeth and looks away. with a pout, he says, “me neither.”

the door to the classroom is thrown open and getou steps through, rubbing the back of his neck. he yawns on his way to his chair and it wakes him up, looking between you and gojo as you both watch him enter.

“what did you guys do?” he asks with a sigh.

“nothing!”

“nothing.” gojo says and glares at him.

getou blinks.

“okay.” he says slowly, sliding out his chair and sitting. “what did i do then? why are you both looking at me like that?”

“gojo’s being weird.” you snitch. “are you guys fighting?”

“how should i know? i thought we were doing okay. gojo, if i did something, use your words and tell me.”

"i'll use my words to tell you to suck my dick instead."

"so i did do something. you're so predictable, gojo."

you snicker as gojo huffs and glances away, looking away out the window behind your head. his train of sight cuts right past you but you can’t help but feel slightly flustered as he looks on, almost like he was looking at you, so determined to ignore getou’s pestering.

subconsciously, you drown getou out too, your traitorous mind observing the blue in gojo’s eyes. you had always thought it was just one colour, but looking at it now, it seemed more like a kaleidoscope of blues, the many shades sparkling and dimming as he watched birds flutter outside the window, and you watched their shadows through his eyes.

something shifts, in the air or in the skies you don't know, and gojo meets your eye. startled, you hold the gaze and he holds it too, just long enough for your lungs to run out of air.

you look away hastily and inhale.

gojo glances to the front, oddly fidgety.

getou looks between the two of you. “what the fuck was that?”

“nothing.” gojo says.

getou clearly doesn't buy it but though he tries to get an answer out of you, you don't give him one either. cupping your cheeks, your thoughts mirror his question. what was that? it was embarrassing, that's what it was and your realisation is only heightened as a silence fills all four corners of the classroom.

gojo clears his throat. “for me, i like someone who i'm already comfortable with. someone i already know.”

at his words, you look over at him and find him already staring. he frowns as you don't give him any other reaction.

yaga saves you from addressing his statement, walking into the room as the bell for class rang. "oh? you're all early, even you gojo. where's shoko?"

“she’s staying at the morgue because of the recent mission.”

“i see.” yaga nods. “then let’s start.”

your mind fails to work as you turn over gojo’s words, thinking them through. what did they mean? what was he talking about? did this weird confession have something to do with why he was acting so strange?

slowly, you draw connections between your conversation with gojo and the talk you had with shoko yesterday morning. an epiphany shoots through you and you cover your mouth to hide a gasp.

did that mean…?

someone he knew? acting strange? getting mad when you said you liked getou?

you watch gojo’s side profile, hoping he’d turn around. if what you thought was right, he’d turn.

seconds tick past. yaga’s voice drawls on and yet gojo doesn't even spare you a glance.

no, maybe you were wrong after all.

just as you were about to face yaga again, gojo’s head shifts and his eye flicks over to yours. they widen when he finds you, and you’re sure you’re in a similar shocked state.

oh my god, you think, eyes darting between him and the other boy in the room.

gojo has a crush on getou.

filler imagine based off of that One scene from the manga: "megane tokidoki yankee kun"

HELIOTROPES

pairing: dottore x fem!reader & segments

summary: the gods were sick and cruel and twisted. for five hundred years, he believed he was fated to be alone. he had long accepted it—embraced it, even. that is, until a midwinter night when that elusive red thread finally appeared on his finger. but as much as he wants to ignore it, the pull of a soulmate simply cannot be ignored.

genre: soulmate au, canon compliant for the most part.

warnings: fem!reader, worldbuilding for snezhnaya & fatui & fontaine, dottore.

notes: this wasn't as long as i wanted for it to be but im just happy i got it out on time aufhdasuidfh i didn't think i'd be able to. i’m v sorry i haven’t answered asks yet! i promise i’ll get to it this weekend, i just got home

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

“Hand the boy over.”

You recognized the men standing at the end of the hall now that they had come a bit closer—two nobles who had been down in the ballroom for the event. You didn’t know their first names but Artem had pointed them out as being part of the Skliar Family of western Snezhnaya, a family that was particularly anti-Fatui and loud about it… when the Fatui weren’t around, of course. They were the two younger sons of the family, a few years older than you.

Artem had been surprised that the family even showed up and you figured that they probably had ulterior motives…

… but this?

Your arms tightened a bit around the sleepy boy resting in them and he shifted a bit, stirring at the movement. He was observant, unfortunately, and seemed to realize very quickly from the tenseness in your shoulders that something was wrong. You wanted to tell him to go back to sleep but you couldn’t push out the words from your lips before he was shifting around.

When he glanced behind him to see what was happening, his whole body started trembling, red eyes widening at the sight of the two men. He didn’t cry or let out any fearful noises, it was a sort of petrified fear that made you wish you could hide him away until you figured out what to do and how to handle this.

You looked down briefly, past his face to where his legs were hanging on either side of your body, remembering how they were all cut up and bleeding to the point it was clearly painful for him to walk on them. You figured that maybe he was just clumsy and tripped running up or down a set of stairs but then you remembered how he had been hiding when you saw him, pressed into the shadows of an alcove. 

They’d been chasing him. 

“Oi, girl, did you hear me? Hand the boy over,” the shorter of the two demanded harshly, taking another step forward. 

You could see now from the shorter distance the anxiety that riddled his body. His fingers were trembling and his eyes were darting around as if monsters were going to sprout from the shadows and tear him to pieces.

They were bold for attacking the Fatui while in their most protected stronghold, if not a bit foolish—a part of you questioned whether or not they might be drunk, you had noticed some of the younger aristocrats guzzling down alcohol to try to make the night bearable enough to get through. You wondered if they knew that the Ninth Harbinger was naught but a few feet away from them behind the wall on their left. You might’ve commended them for their bravery were they not targeting a child. 

You smiled thinly. “No.”

“No?” The taller man asked, voice low.

He moved toward you—you wondered if he meant to be threatening but you didn’t see a vision on him, and even if there was one hidden somewhere, it was hard to feel threatened when you knew that the Regrator was lurking behind a door right to your side. He had to know what was happening, you could see a shadow right beneath the crack at the bottom of the door, signaling he was standing there listening to the confrontation and ready to step in, but you figured he wasn’t making himself known because he wanted to see how you handled this. 

A test. You hated tests. 

You figured you’d be able to handle it if it came down to a fight. Your father and grandfather had been quick to teach you how to immobilize grown men considering you’d be taking over your family’s position in a few years and would have to be able to drag them to the cells without them overpowering you. You would rather it not come to a fight though, your family’s hydro art was dangerous and very easy to butcher with.

“That is what I said,” you replied after a moment and then added: “If you are hard of hearing I can suggest you to a doctor, I’m sure he would be willing to take a look for you. Although, I do warn you, I’ve heard his methods are rather… unsavory.”

His methods—another subject that you had yet to broach with yourself even though you knew very well that you had to think about it. You had to force yourself to keep your chin raised as you stared at the two of them for their reactions; you had heard terrible, terrible things about the Doctor while you had traveled northward through Snezhnaya. Brutal experiments, missing children, twisted creatures and monsters that he lets free from his labs when he decides them to be a failure or drained of use. 

How was a man like that your soulmate?

You used to wonder, as a kid, what having a soulmate like your stepfather said about your mother. Now, you know that their bond wasn’t even real but yours was, and you were tied to one of the most dangerous and wicked and cold-hearted men in all of Teyvat. 

What did that say about you?

Were you a bad person? Maybe not yet, you didn’t think so at least, but maybe you had the potential of being one, if the gods thought you fit to be with him.

The taller man was livid at your implied threat of Dottore, livid and scared, reaching for something at his side—a dagger?—and you remembered then how Artem had made a comment about how many of the antagonistic families had lost people to the Fatui, particularly to the Doctor, the Friar and the Marionette. You tensed, ready to use your vision at a moment’s notice, feeling the energy seep through you as you summoned it to your defense but the man never came toward you. 

Instead, he was stopped by the shorter one.

“Hold on,” he said quietly. “That girl, she was with the Melnyks at the ball. Their heir introduced her as his fiancée.”

The taller man scoffed. “The Melnyks are so in bed with the Fatui that they’re willing to share their women now,” he spat, shooting you a look that was nothing short of derisive.

You inhaled sharply at the blatant insult. You had never been so directly disrespected like that before—in the courts of Fontaine, the nobles liked to keep their insults as passive and well-mannered as possible so that they could not be called out for making disparaging remarks about another noble family, which could cause severe financial or political trouble depending on what family had been slighted. 

You were a frequent victim to those veiled insults, dealing with underhanded comments about who the Black Cells would be passed to should your grandfather pass, implying that you were unfit to be the Warden. And then, even worse, the ones where people would make offhand observations about how maybe you would be the perfect fit for Warden considering you don’t have a soulmate, because in Fontaine, it is known that only the cursed and the heartless are not given their fated partner by Celestia. You thought that if they knew who your soulmate was, they would double down on their beliefs.

“I am not something to be shared,” you said, the thin smile on your lips now void of emotion, “and I am a lot more than just a girl who is someone’s fiancée. You will find that out soon enough if you continue to test me.”

Finally, the shorter man seemed to notice the vision laying against your chest, fashioned as a pendant on a necklace and he hesitated, glancing between you and the taller man once as if debating on warning him against acting rashly. 

Well, that at least confirmed that they did not have visions. 

You felt significantly more confident at the realization, letting your tense shoulders relax and your arms loosen around the little boy—feeling your change in demeanor, he also seemed to relax, his tight grip on your hair releasing as he laid his head back down against your shoulder. 

Did he really have that much trust in you?

But then, before the taller man could explode on you or the shorter man could warn him not to, their expressions shifted from anger and concern to downright fear—except they were not looking at you, they were looking directly behind you.

Before you could even turn to look, long and thin fingers wrapped around your shoulders, nails digging harshly into your skin—distantly, you thought for sure it would be bruised tomorrow but you were more anxious at the sudden new arrival and whether or not they were an ally or enemy. 

They leaned over your shoulder a bit and as you glanced to the side with wide eyes, you caught sight of another head of silvery-blue hair, cropped short like the boy in your arms. Red eyes gleamed cruelly from within the two holes of the black and white mask he wore, a hint of something unstable simmering right beneath the surface. 

“What a treat,” the man behind you said, voice lifting into a giggle that made your hair stand on end. “I had just run out of bodies to run my tests on.”

The storm was nigh. 

Dottore grimaced as the winds whipped around him wildly. Above him, the tall trees of the forest creaked and groaned, threatening to topple over beneath the harsh gusts. The sun had long set but his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, sweeping across the forest floor as he followed the path from Zapolyanry Palace to the estate he owned in the area, making his way to the ruins that were just off the path.

They had yet to find the Iota segment. Dottore knew that he was still in the area of the ruins he was exploring, he could sense that much from the inherent tracking system he had for each of the segments but they hadn’t reached the ruins yet. He wondered how Epsilon hadn’t been able to find him if he was in the ruins, unless he had wandered off and then made his way back when he realized that the sun had set and a storm was coming but something didn’t sit right with him about that. 

Either way, it was making Dottore antsy. He didn’t like it. The last time he had lost a segment, it had been a situation just like this a little over four hundred years ago. He felt unsettled.

“You found her.”

Epsilon’s voice didn’t even edge on accusing as he watched Dottore carefully. 

He had his answer, he just wanted a confirmation. 

Dottore did not intend on giving him one. 

“I did not.”

Epsilon let out a small puff of amusement, nothing short of a gibe, eyeing Dottore from the corner of his eye—he was the only one of the older segments that didn’t wear a mask, the few times he did was when he was posing as Dottore in Harbinger meetings or on missions that he didn’t want to handle. He could tell from his expression that he didn’t believe a word Dottore said, if anything he thought entertaining that Dottore was trying to deny it and that only made him even more irritated.

“We all felt it,” Epsilon murmured. “The others might not have figured out exactly what it was but I did. I’m sure Lambda did too. I advise you to choose wisely as to whether or not you would prefer him or I at your side when dealing with her. We both know his desired course of action and he will do whatever’s necessary to ensure that our research is not impeded.”

“As he was created for,” Dottore said coolly, “and thus is expected of him.”

“Even at the cost of the life of your soulmate?” Epsilon questioned, studying him intensely for a reaction.

Your. That was an intentional choice of words. All of the other segments referred to you as their soulmate as well. It was never Dottore’s soulmate, it was our soulmate. Even Epsilon had appealed to him in the past by stressing that it was not just his decision as your existence affected all of them.

This was an attempt at manipulation—a carefully picked choice of word that would ignite all of the possessive and selfish tendencies that had been ingrained in Dottore ever since he was living on his own after his village case him out, hoarding anything and everything he could get his hands on, and then again, after he had enrolled in the Akademiya, dealing with people leeching onto his research to try to get credit.

What’s his was his and you, unfortunately, fell under that category as much as he might loathe to admit it. 

“I can handle Lambda.” Was all Dottore said in response to Epsilon’s comment, dismissing his warning.

Epsilon made a noise as if he didn’t quite believe Dottore. Dottore didn’t acknowledge it. They continued on in silence for a few moments, the wind howling around them as they crossed the path into the old ruins of a temple of the previous Cryo Archon—crumbling towers reached high into the sky, disappearing into the clouds, and a massive derelict statue that was teetering dangerously in the wind. The snow had started to fall, they were running out of time to find the Iota segment but Epsilon didn’t look the slightest bit worried and Dottore frowned a bit, suspicion itching at the back of his mind.

“You should at least allow the younger segments to meet her,” Epsilon finally continued, completely unperturbed by the threat the storm posed to one of the younger segments. “They will be dysfunctional when they realize they never got the chance to meet her and then you will have three useless segments to figure out what to do with.”

“None of the segments will know that she is here, much less meet her,” Dottore said sharply. “I have information that needs to be obtained from her and then she is going back to Fontaine where she will stay, are we clear?” 

“So you admit that she is here,” Epsilon smiled thinly, as if that was exactly what he wanted to hear, and Dottore gave him a cold look.

“Enough of your games, Epsilon. What is it that you are trying to achieve with this conversation?” 

Epsilon didn’t respond. Instead, his red gaze trailed from him to somewhere behind Dottore. A sinking feeling in his stomach, Dottore turned around to see what he was looking at. Instantly, his eyes fell upon a familiar young boy standing right behind a pillar, watching them with wide eyes and a hopeful expression. 

Iota. 

“She’s here?” he whispered as if Dottore had just proclaimed the coming of the Celestial gods unto Teyvat, and then, more excited, he lit up: “She’s here?!”

Dottore realized, very quickly, that he might’ve just been played for a fool by his own segments. Without responding to the Iota segment, Dottore looked to the right where Epsilon was still standing. Epsilon barely acknowledged Dottore as he stepped forward with a small smile and upturned eyes. 

“There you are,” he said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

He did not sound particularly relieved or frustrated—if anything, he sounded pleased. Dottore watched as he patted Iota on the head once and then turned to look at Dottore, with an expression that edged at nothing short of triumphant. 

He remembered how Gamma had looked so nervous, unable to meet his eyes—he had thought it was because he was anxious over losing two of the younger segments but he realized, quickly, that it might’ve been because he was anxious about having to lie to Dottore. 

Iota had been waiting for them at the ruins and Dottore knew the young segment well enough to know that unless given direct orders (sometimes even when given direct orders), the boy would panic and wander trying to find his way back until he got himself so lost that Dottore would have to shut him down until they could figure out where he was and bring him back. Someone must have told him not to move from the ruins until they arrived, and that someone…

Dottore stared at Epsilon, catching the sly look in his eyes as he turned his gaze back to Dottore. Had he planned this? Had he schemed out a situation to get Dottore alone long enough to force him to admit that you were in the palace in front of the Iota segment? Would he really go so far as to put one of the younger segments at risk to do so? 

Yes, Dottore realized, watching the unmoved expression on Epsilon’s face as he watched Dottore realize what had just happened—he absolutely would because he knew that it was the only thing that Dottore would take seriously enough to handle himself, otherwise he would have just sent Epsilon alone to handle whatever it was. 

More than that, Epsilon knew that with the incoming storm and a missing young segment that the situation would remind him of the one that happened all of those years ago with the Beta Segment and Dottore would be in an uncomfortable and agitated state of mind, more susceptible to snapping and admitting what Epsilon wanted him to say. 

Conniving little-

Dottore’s tongue scraped against his teeth as he bit back a slew of curses, rage sweeping over him like the white water torrents of a rushing river.

Gods be damned about the war and needing as many spare hands as possible for his research, Dottore had half a mind to deactivate all of the segments and start anew once you were gone so he didn’t have to deal with any more insubordination and disrespect from himself. 

Though he found that the thought of you being gone in any way sat poorly in his chest. Livid, he realized that you might’ve already managed to strengthen the bond just through the two conversations he had with you. 

Teeth grinding together, he forced himself to turn on his heel and make his way back to the palace before anything else could go wrong with your unexpected arrival in Snezhnaya. He would get his segments out of Zapolyarny Palace and drag them back to the estate, leaving you at the mercy of the Regrator until he could finish his briefings with the segments and send them all far, far from Snezhnaya. 

You distinctly felt like a mouse cornered by a cat, except instead of being the one hunted by the predator, you were watching another mouse about to get devoured, knowing that you would be next. It was with a sickening type of engrossment that had you unable to draw your eyes from the scene in front of you, fear crawled up your spine, seeping into your blood, but your feet were rooted to the ground below you.

The man—who you noticed also looked particularly like Dottore, except he was closer to your age—had slunk past you to approach the two men at the opposite end of the hall. A part of you wanted to put the boy down and run back to your room, locking the door to hide from the shitshow about to go down but he was clutching at you like some sort of lifeline, little fingers gripping the cloth on the back of your dress as he hid his face from view. And even if he wasn’t, you had a feeling that your feet wouldn’t cooperate if you tried.

“Kappa,” an unfamiliar voice whispered from somewhere behind you, urgent and worried.

Your gaze snapped to the side, eyes falling upon another kid with silver blue curls and red eyes, a terrible burn scar covering the whole left side of his face. He was young, no older than fifteen or sixteen, and there was an anxious expression on his face, brows furrowed and lips pressed together as his eyes darted around.

Another child of Dottore’s? It didn’t make any sense, did he have three children? Or was the older one his brother? Or were they experiments? Your head hurt and you were suddenly very, very tired—you needed to lay down. The night’s events were finally catching up to you and your body was beginning to lag, crying in protest as you continued to stand rooted in the middle of the hall. Your room was so close but it was not close enough, you would have to get past the masked man to reach the door and you had a feeling he would not take kindly to your attempted escape.

And what had the other boy called the little one? Kappa? Why was that so familiar? 

You let out a shaky breath, trying to think.

Kappa, that was so familiar… one of the words from the old tongue? The ones that Dottore used to accidentally pass over to you? 

But was that even possible? You would have to check your notebook but you were pretty sure that the first time you received the word Kappa was right around the time you had received your first word from him and that was what? Eight years ago? 

There was no way this child was older than five.

What was going on?

“You-” the taller man choked out as the new arrival drew closer. “You’re-”

“You’re bold for attacking little Kappa right under our noses,” he mused, a lilt to his tone that had you on edge. He reached forward, snatching the man’s chin between two fingers as he forcibly craned his head to the left—examining him like some sort of test subject. “I’ve been trying to get Hearsays up and running again but I just don’t have enough contenders after the last incident… I suppose you’ll do well. Hehe, you’ll at least make for good entertainment, one way or another.”

You watched as he dragged his nails down his cheeks, leaning a line of blood in his wake before he turned his attention to the shorter man with a look in his eyes that was nothing short of gleeful.

“You simply won't do.” He clicked his tongue a few times in disappointment, shaking his head in a sharp and jerky motion that looked borderline painful. “I’ll just pass you off to one of the others for them to run some tests on. I think Rho is starting a new batch of experiments soon, yeah? Isn’t he, Gamma? Gamma?”

He was suddenly agitated as he glanced backward, waiting for a response. The other new arrival—the younger one with anxious eyes and twitching fingers—looked caught off guard at being pulled into the conversation.

Finally, he nodded, throat spasming as he swallowed. “With the residue, yes. The last batch failed.”

“Perfect,” he smiled sharply, and though you could only see half of his smile, even beneath the dim lighting you could see the rows of sharp teeth lining his mouth. “He can get the scraps.”

“Kappa, are you okay?” Gamma returned his attention to the boy in your arms, trying to grab his arm to look at him but every time he tried, Kappa shifted away, burying his face in the crook of your neck. “Kappa, c’mon, he’s going to be so mad, just talk to me.”

“He’s okay, for the most part,” you said quietly.

At the sound of your voice, Gamma drew back, red eyes guarded and nervous. He looked at you as if you were a possible enemy, shoulders tense and body language closed off. He looked to be reaching for something at his side—you wondered if he was armed but his fingers were trembling. Even so, you decided to try to calm him down, not wanting another agitated person to deal with.

“What does that mean?” he asked, glancing between you and Kappa as if you had been the one to hurt the boy.

“His knees are cut up and bleeding, I was going to bring him to my room to clean them up. He was having trouble walking on them,” you explained, keeping your voice steady as you watched him carefully, trying to figure out how you would defend yourself while holding a kid in your arm.

But it was for no need, Gamma looked a bit at ease at your words but he frowned as he reached to hold Kappa’s leg to check out the wound but Kappa whimpered and snapped his leg away, accidentally jamming his knee into your side. You bit back a grunt, wincing at the small bony knee digging into your side but only rubbed his back, trying to soothe him.

Maybe his legs were worse than you thought. Concerned, you glanced down and briefly wondered why he wasn’t voicing his pain if that was the case. 

“One to ten?” Gamma suddenly asked, holding up his hands to show Kappa. The boy pressed his cheek against your shoulder, watching Gamma as he lifted two fingers, then three, then four, then five. At eight, Kappa pointed and Gamma looked severely distressed. 

“He’s going to be so mad.” Gamma looked like he was on the verge of tears. “Kappa, how many times have we told you that you have to say something when you’re hurt?”

He turned his face away again, pressing it into the crook of your neck and Gamma looked around nervously. “Well… he seems to like you. Kappa doesn’t really like anyone so I mean…”

Gamma suddenly floundered for words as you raised your hand to pat Kappa’s back again, red eyes focusing righting on your pinky finger. 

For a moment, he just stood there, gaping and wide eyed but then his expression shifted as he glanced over to where the masked man was still mocking and terrorizing the two aristocrats from the Skliar family. 

In an instant, Gamma looked like he was going to throw up, face pale and ghastly and you could only stare at him, trying to figure out what had caused the abrupt change in demeanor. 

You had a distinct feeling that it had to do with the presence of the masked man and that made your stomach churn with nerves, eyes darting over to him.

“Oh gods, you’re-” he began, voice catching over his words as he stared at you, taking a step back as if he was on the verge of fleeing. Then, his gaze darted up to the masked man he had arrived with, who you could feel staring at you from halfway down the hall, and then back to you with an expression nothing short of horrified. “Oh gods, oh no, Theta is-I have to-I have to get the Doctor. I have to-I’ll be back.”

And then he was gone, turning on his heel and sprinting down the hall, leaving you alone with the little boy called Kappa and the masked man who you could hear drawing closer to you from behind.

You felt like a frozen deer, body tense and cold as you felt the front of his body brush against the back of yours. He reached over your shoulder, long fingers wrapping around your wrist as he lifted your hand up.

You glanced back, eyes catching his for just a moment, and your throat dried at the look in his eyes—wild and unpredictable with a sort of untamable glee that reminded you of the Hydro Archon when she finally took interest in one of the court’s trials. 

And when she took interest in a trial, only one sentence would be exacted onto the defendant: execution. 

His face twisted into an unsettling and chilling smile, teeth glittering like knives beneath the candles that lit up the hall.

“You’re her.”

“Is he mad at me?”

The Iota segment had been on the verge of a meltdown the entire walk back to the palace. They had finally made it out of the forest and were crossing the snowy span of land to the bridge that led to the wide gates of Zapolyanry Palace. The weather was even worse now that there were no trees to buffer—the wind whipped around him violently, howling and shrieking, snow pelting his face like little icicles yet it was not enough to drown out the sniffles and cries of Iota as he wrapped his fingers around the back of Dottore’s shirt, clinging to him desperately as he tried to keep up with the man’s long strides. 

“Of course not,” Epsilon soothed, ever the conciliator as he tried to calm Iota down so the boy didn’t delay them anymore than he already had. 

“He won’t even look at me,” Iota cried. At once, Dottore turned to look over his shoulder, eyes landing sharply on Iota from beneath his mask, lips twisted down into a deep frown. Iota let out a cry akin to a wounded animal. “That’s even worse, I mess everything up, I’m sorry.”

Dottore’s head hurt. He grimaced as the wind nearly dragged his hood right down, tightening the drawstrings of his cloak. Distantly, he noticed that Epsilon was picking up Iota and letting the boy latch onto him as he cried but he tried to ignore it. Iota would get over it in a few hours, he always did—he was sensitive and broke down easily but bounced back before the day was up, burying his attention in some book or paper until he totally forgot about whatever set him off. 

As soon as they got back to the palace, he’d have Epsilon bring the boy down to the basement so he could nestle away in the library down there and then he’d be good as new, bustling to Dottore’s lab to bother him trying to tell him about all that he had learned in his readings. 

Besides the destructive tendencies, Iota was easy to handle for the most part. He was quickly upset but that was a product of the mentality he was created in and the reason for his creation, which he wasn’t supposed to know but the Zeta segment decided to open his mouth about it in an attempt to drive Iota into a meltdown to disrupt Delta’s research so he could pull ahead on it.

The Iota segment was created so that Dottore could do research into the Aranara of Sumeru—unfortunately, Dottore did not realize that the events of the night he was cast out of the village made him unable to see the Aranara anymore, thus making the Iota segment a useless creation. Dottore had debated on just destroying the segment and using the spare parts to create a new one but Delta had convinced him against it, claiming that he would use the failed segment as a means to help with his research instead. Ever since Iota found out about that a few decades ago, he’d been even more unstable than he already was from the mindset he was created in. 

“Enough, Iota,” Dottore said icily. “Have your meltdown on your own time.” 

Epsilon clicked his tongue as Iota caught himself over a sob, pressing his face into the man’s skin as if to hide his tears from Dottore. Epsilon gave Dottore an accusing look, Dottore raised his chin—this is on you.

Epsilon smiled to himself and then looked away, proud.

Again, he reconsidered deactivation, this time far more intensely, and again, Dottore cursed you because all of the misfortune he had faced the past two decades was solely because of your existence.

You, with your irritating attitude and despicable personality, playing the soft-spoken angel to everybody but him. 

You, with your exhausting persistence, meeting him toe-to-toe and word-for-word in every confrontation and conversation he had with you. 

You, with that infuriatingly striking purple dress—low-cut and thin strapped—that he hadn’t been able to draw his eyes off of the whole night no matter how hard he tried. He couldn’t help but wonder just how shameless Fontaine fashion was if that was what you wore to a formal event.

Purple. Nearly ten years and you were still obsessed with the same color. How were you so predictable and unpredictable at the same time? He couldn’t stand the thought of you, he hated unexpected, extraneous variables—the only course of action for dealing with them was removal or isolation and he was beginning to realize that neither of those solutions might be an option for him.

But it was just another hurdle for him to get over. If neither removal nor isolation were viable options, he would need to find a different solution. 

Holding it constant… 

No. That was not an option either—though the more he thought about it, the more tempting the option became. He had enjoyed that irritating attitude of yours and those biting comments that made his brain search for retaliation. He even more so enjoyed that taste of instability, which went against all of his ideals. Dottore was a man of careful calculations and obtaining expected results and yet somehow, when he found himself unable to predict your next words and actions, it left him excited. 

How could one hate the unexpected and yet enjoy it in the same hand? Unless it was not the unexpected, it was you bringing it to him. Dottore’s head throbbed, he felt like a pendulum, swinging back and forth and back and forth and back and forth as he tried to figure out how he felt in relation to you so he could decide upon the best course of action for dealing with you. 

How bothersome. Already, he could feel things shifting—something he had sworn he wouldn’t let happen.

Not for the first time, he felt absurdly jealous of his own segment; Epsilon, who could understand emotions far better than the rest of them ever would be able to and used it against them very often. He wondered if the man already knew what Dottore was feeling—if the smirk on his lips had anything to say about it, Dottore thought he probably did. 

What do you have planned? Dottore wanted to ask Epsilon because he knew that there was some underlying game going on that Dottore couldn’t place yet but he didn’t want to dive into that conversation while Iota was still on the brink of self-destruction, crying and sniffling and choking over his own sobs. 

Dottore thought he might trust Epsilon the least out of all of the segments. Unlike Lambda, whose goals and ambitions were as clear as crystal, Epsilon was an enigma, driven by emotions that the rest of them couldn’t understand. He liked to play games with them, push buttons that they didn’t even know that they had, and your presence in Zapolyanry Palace was a large, bright red one that Dottore just couldn’t seem to destroy.

So long as you were around, Dottore would be at the mercy of Epsilon’s unwelcome schemes and he had a distinct feeling that Epsilon would be playing at trying to make the bond between the two of you stronger. He would have to work to counter it without even knowing the game.

Bothersome. This was all bothersome. Dottore hated games. He hated dealing with his segments. He hated being vulnerable. He hated all of this. 

All of it? Dottore pushed away the treacherous thought furiously. 

“Is that-” Epsilon began but abruptly cut himself off as he moved forward to walk at Dottore’s side, peering ahead carefully through the wicked storm.

Following his gaze, Dottore looked out across the bridge leading to the palace to see a small figure sprinting in their direction—no cloak or covering, only wearing a thin outfit to shield against the sheer cold of the bitter winter storm.

“Gamma,” Dottore murmured in agreement. 

He could feel the anxiety rippling from the boy in waves—anxiety and fear. It didn’t take much to push Gamma into a panic attack but this was different. Dottore could feel it. It wasn’t like the usual ones he experienced. Brows furrowing, he watched as Gamma approached them, eyes wild and cheeks bright red. 

Instantly, Dottore felt uncomfortable, realizing something was very, very wrong. 

“Theta is with her,” Gamma wheezed, doubling over as he tried to catch his breath. He seemed as if he had been crying—a cold feeling, unrelated to the wind and snow around them, settled over him, sinking into his stomach. “You have to get him, he’ll hurt her, he’s in one of his moods. You know what he’s like when he’s in one of them. He’s dangerous and violent. You have to do something.”

“Who is he with?” Dottore asked slowly.

He stared down at Gamma as he waited for a response but deep down, he very much already knew who Theta was with and an old and unwelcome emotion spread throughout him, freezing his bones and blood, weighing on his chest like stones. An emotion that he had long learned to suppress, one that he hadn’t experienced since his days at the Akademiya when they had him placed on trial—he could barely recognize it, it was hard for him to put a name to it until Gamma opened his mouth again. 

“Her,” Gamma gasped. “Our soulmate.”

Fear. The emotion was fear. 

rbs appreciated!!