lazy-panther

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New Years Day

New Year’s Day

Mahito x Reader

Word Count: 1.8k

Synopsis: This particular holiday - it’s another one of those human concepts that he doesn’t quite get. And of course, he wants you to explain it. Out of all the questions he’s asked you, it’s certainly not the worst…right?

Content tags/warnings: kidnapped reader, forced relationship, implied noncon

A/N: a bit angsty, a bit philosophical, a bit dreadful. Because I cannot be normal about any holiday and neither can He

You’re lying on the concrete floor of the sewer, staring up at the ceiling. Hands layered under your head, providing just enough cushion to make your posture sustainable, if not necessarily comfortable. You’ve got a pile of blankets nearby, and yet at the moment, you prefer the floor. It’s something different, a hard, harsh sensation that nevertheless breaks up the oppressive same-ness of your surroundings. You’ve been here a long time, long enough that all sense of days and weeks passing has abandoned you. Staring at this same ceiling, these same walls. It’s quiet, too, except for the occasional drip of water. You barely even register that sound anymore, so accustomed have you become to your surroundings. You’ve counted every crack on the ceiling at one point or another, sung every song you remember in your head, silently recited snippets of conversations, old jokes - anything comforting. Anything to pass the time.

Right now, your mind is playing a lyric from a song whose title you don’t remember. Something from the early 80s, you think. It’s infuriating, in a very mild way, this incomplete memory, the way you can place the lyrics in time, but not in the song they’re from. You grapple with it for minutes on end, but you can’t seem to get beyond the few lines you remember, and the haunting string of melody between them. I will begin again. I will be with you again.

You’ve been experiencing frustration like this more and more often. You’re scraping the bottom of your memory, running out of new things with which to occupy yourself. And still - you’re still grateful for these times. The monotonous times. The moments when you can fix your eyes on a particular spot above you, and almost forget that you share this space with another. It’s strange, how these moments can stretch on for so long, and still seem not-long-enough once they come to an end. Even if it’s been hours, even if Mahito has been wrapped up in a book all afternoon - once he comes back to your side, the memory of those boring hours becomes fond, for a moment. Then, it seems to disappear, as if it were merely a mirage.

This particular reprieve is drawing to a close. Even now, you can hear the faint creak of him rising from his hammock, the fall of his feet upon the ground. You savor your last moments of isolation, tracing a crack in the ceiling with your eyes until, far too quickly, it’s obstructed by his hand waving an enthusiastic greeting - or perhaps, merely attempting to shake you from your trance.

He crouches down beside you, already reaching for your hand, and you quickly sit up. You prefer not to be lying down when he’s close. Of course, you know you’re equally vulnerable regardless of your position, but it makes you feel slightly - very slightly - better. Makes you feel like you have a bit more time before something inevitably goes wrong.

But it doesn’t last. He takes your shoulders, and eases you back down to the concrete. Tucks one of your hands carefully behind your head. Presses his palms to your knees until you give in, and straighten your legs. “I like this better,” he says simply. “I see you sitting up all the time. And standing, and curled up in a ball, and lying on your side…even lying on your back with your knees up, in the middle of all your blankets. But this doesn’t happen nearly as often. You kept pulling me out of my book this afternoon. The floor is hard. Not fun to lie on. But you still looked so…” he cocks his head, thinking through his next words. “Comfy! That’s what it is. You were even smiling for a while. I liked it.” He grins broadly, and takes your free hand. Squeezes. “And now I get to see it up close.”

You don’t smile. This doesn’t feel comfortable anymore. It feels exposed. It’s incredible, how quickly he can steal so much away from you. How he can make even the time you spend alone feel like his.

“I have a question,” he says, and you feel the pit in your stomach deepen. These conversations never end quickly. Especially not when he’s staring at you as intently as he is right now, eyes unblinking, a smile already playing at the corner of his lips.

You’ve been watching his face in silence for too long, apparently. With his free hand, he pokes you on the shoulder, the nail of his index finger carelessly stabbing you. Twice. “Cutie. Wake up.”

You release a long breath, doing your best to keep it steady. To not betray your discomfort. “What is it?”

“Celebrating the change from one year to another…why do humans do that?” His face hovers over yours, falling closer by the second, an almost suspicious expression written across his face. “You don’t celebrate the change from Saturday to Sunday, or November to December…so why does this one matter so much to you?”

Despite the precariousness of your situation, you can’t help but feel a slight bit of relief. As his questions go, this one isn’t bad. It’s not horrifically personal, or hinting at any sort of bloodshed. In fact, you’re sure that you’ve heard people ask similar things before. “I…never really thought about it.”

He jabs a finger at your brow. “Think! You’re a human…you can figure it out, if you try.”

“Well…” You could think better if his nose wasn’t brushing your face, but you don’t dare tell him that. “For one thing, it happens less often than a new week or a new month.”

“Hm.” His eyes slide upwards as he considers this, before landing once more upon your face, latching on a with renewed intensity. “Does that mean it matters more?”

“Maybe. But also, I think there’s something sort of…symbolic about it. It means something to people that months and weeks just don’t.”

He swells forward to plant a kiss on your forehead, leaving behind a splotch of saliva that you don’t dare wipe away. “See? You’re thinking! I knew you couldn’t do it. I can see those little gears turning in your head right now.” His grin is broad, eyes bright with curiosity. “What does it symbolize, then? What does it mean?”

It’s all you can do not to shut your eyes. All you can do to stop yourself from shuddering, from attempting to squirm out from underneath him. But this isn’t that hard of a question. You’ll answer it, and then he’ll be satisfied. Maybe he’ll even be happy enough to leave you alone for a bit longer. Although if he does…you won’t stay lying down. Not like this. You’ll probably never do it again, now that you know how it draws his eyes. “It means…a new start, for a lot of people.” He’s still staring at you, breathing shallowly against your cheek, waiting for more. You do your best. “Some people make New Year’s resolutions. Things they want to do in the new year that they didn’t last year. Exercising more, eating healthier, reading more books - that kind of thing. Not everyone sticks to them, but some do. For them, a new year is…a clean slate. A chance to do things differently than they did the year before.”

“Oh.” His grin slips a bit. As he thinks, his fingers tap absentmindedly against your shoulder, creeping slowly towards your neck. “So…it’s made up! The whole thing…you made it up, just to help yourselves feel better. To help yourselves change.”

“I mean…yes. In a way…”

He keeps speaking, as if he hasn’t registered the hesitance of your answer. “Humans do that a lot, don’t they? You take days, and decide that they’re special, because it makes you happy.”

You don’t like the fervor building up in his voice. The widening glow of his eyes. When he talks to you about humans, as if you’re merely something to be studied - it makes you feel like a specimen on the plate of a microscope. You try to remember the relative comfort of a few minutes ago, the song that was playing in your head moments before he crouched down beside you. But you can’t pull out the memory. With his face so close, you can barely even see the ceiling. He has this habit of taking up your entire field of vision, and the entire space between your ears. It’s suffocating.

You need him to stop talking. Need him to let you remember. Need to give him something new to ponder, just to buy yourself a few moments in your own head. A few seconds of your own time. “It’s made up…but for some people,” you manage, “it feels real. And thinking that it’s real…it helps them.”

He sighs, an almost melancholic sound that your body seems to echo as his finger traces up your neck, as his hand settles on your face, palming your cheek. “The lies you tell yourselves are beautiful, sometimes. But they’re still lies.” Slowly, inevitably, he lets himself fall on top you, the length of his body pinning your already motionless form to the floor. “You should understand that better than anyone.”

He’s looking up at you from your chest, and you press your head up from the floor to look back at him. You want to look up at the ceiling, to forget about him entirely, but right now, you know what a mistake that would be. Instead, you give in, and provide him the answer he’s looking for. “Why?”

“Because nothing changed for you,” he says simply. “You were here yesterday, and you were mine. And today - New Year’s Day - you’re still mine! And next year, too, and the year after that…for you, nothing is going to change. Ever.” He pulls himself along the length of your body, slithering up to draw his face even with yours. Aligning your mouths. Your eyes. “Don’t frown. It’s better this way. You’re free! No more silly little human lies for you.” He tugs at the corners of your mouth, pulling it up into a grotesque, unwilling smile. “That’s better!”

He kisses you, and his arms loop beneath your shoulders, holding you tight, fingernails digging through your shirt into the soft skin beneath. His hips press into yours, grinding slowly as you struggle to hold yourself still. His teeth sink into your bottom lip. And you think that despite what he’s said, there must be a part of you that still believes in your silly little lies. Because out of all the things that should be hurting you right now, all the thoughts you should be having - the only one you hear is: he didn’t tell me about New Year’s Eve.

New Years Day

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