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Jaune to Joan Chapter 25
🕑 Added 2022-07-13 21:35:45 +0000 UTCChapter 25
Joan woke cuddling to Cinder. Her arms and legs had wrapped completely around the woman. She was so warm, it was so easy to get lost against her. Joan felt hopeless but to snuggle against her. She felt horribly ashamed when she cooed softly at how wonderful it felt to wake cuddled up with another woman- with Cinder. Like it or not, it mattered that it was Cinder. It mattered because like it or not, Joan had fumbled her way into falling for the torturer. She just had. But… it also mattered because the longer she could cuddle against Cinder, the longer she could hide from what she had to do; for the vile choice she was about to make.
Joan comforted herself with the fact that she wasn’t just doing this for herself. She was doing this for Pyrrha, Ruby, Nora, Ren, all of her friends. With Cinder subdued, Pyrrha would become a full maiden; near unstoppable. Salem, or whoever ran this whole thing, they would be reeling from the loss of their strongest fighter. Taking Cinder down… it could save everyone. All Joan had to do? Forsake Cinder and allow her to turn into a beast of Grimm, a beast to be tested on by Watts.
“You’re up.” Cinder noted.
“I- I am.” Joan nodded into Cinder.
“Are you ready to talk?”
Joan shriveled into Cinder’s warm embrace. She didn’t want to talk. She just wanted to cuddle, to stay in this nebulous place where things could be alright despite who she was with- or maybe because of? Either way, Joan didn’t want to talk. Talking meant… it meant she would be one step closer towards doing the unforgivable.
“Alright.” Cinder whispered and wrapped her arms tighter around Joan. ?
“Wh- what?”
“We can wait a while longer.”
“You- you know I won’t sell Pyrrha out just because you are being nice after I- I-” Joan’s throat tightened and she failed to spit out another word.
“After you tried to kill me?” Cinder inquired without an ounce of malice. “No, I don’t suppose you would sweet girl. I don’t suppose you would.” Cinder took a quiet and patient deep breath. She ran her nails gently through Joan’s hair, tracing lightly along the woman’s scalp.
Joan shuttered and melted. Her soul seemed to leave her body just to sink further into Cinder.
“Are you feeling well at the very least? Better after your operations?”
Joan nodded.
“Good.” Cinder’s grimm hand grabbed teasingly at Joan’s ass.
Joan didn’t say anything, but she adored the small possessive touch. She loved how it made her feel wanted- lusted after. She felt special to Cinder. She loved it, and she hated how evil it made her feel.
“Sleep.” Cinder ordered gentle rather than harsh.
“Yes Miss.” Joan relinquished herself to Cinder a final time.
When Joan woke, she woke alone. It was startling, disquieting and… so much worse than she ever really thought it could be. It was like the implicit promise of falling asleep in someone else’s arms had broken; the promise that they would be there in the morning, but Cinder was not. Joan’s stomach sank. She felt sick and weak to be so easily upset by something so stupid. How could she be so fragile as to be disheartened by-
“Damnit! You seemed so dead asleep when I left.” Cinder cursed.
“I- huh?” Joan lifted her head just a little further.
“I went to get you breakfast.” Cinder answered. “I- I didn’t want you to wake up alone.” Cinder seemed to pause a moment and rushed to reel back her overly honest words. “I! Because without your collar! You- you could have just run off and- and-” Cinder huffed, her shoulders falling. Joan could see Cinder was tired of lying. “I got you breakfast.” She held up the tray defeated.
“Thank you Cinder.’ Joan smiled and sat up in the bed. Cinder neatly placed the tray over Joan’s lap. Before moving away, Cinder stole the apple off of the tray, split it between her hands in a stunningly arousing show of strength, and dropped one half back on the tray. She moved away to a chair and pulled it up a little before sitting and biting at the apple.
“So, you ready to talk?”
Joan took a moment looking over her tray. It was a thick wooden thing, with legs that folded out. She could use it as a rather poor shield substitute, but a shield substitute all the same if or when Cinder snapped. Sure, the half maiden had seemingly been doing much better with the grimm inside her, but Joan could still see the tendrils of the beast lingering just below Cinder’s chin and creeping up the back of her neck. One large outburst. That was what Joan figured it would take. Especially considering that she had clearly been subduing her anger and rage with quite an amount of effort. Joan rather imagined the half maiden would snap like a volcano at any solid push. “Yes.” She allowed.
“Where do we start?” Cinder picked up her legs and tucked them under herself on the chair.
“I dunno.” Joan pouted and pushed around her eggs and sausage.
“Why did you attack me?”
Joan fidgeted on the bed and worked over how exactly she would hold the tray as a shield. It was a dramatically more preferable thing to think about than telling Cinder ‘oh, I wanted to kill you cause it seemed more humane than letting you become a monster of grimm held up for Watts’s evil experiments, but that didn’t work, so I’m going to do it anyways.’ Yeah, there didn’t much seem to be a right way to say all that, so Joan just stayed silent and played with her breakfast.
“Alright.” Cinder sighed. “You destroyed the room that night. You were angry, right?”
“Y- yeah… kinda.” Joan moped and refused to look to Cinder.
“What had you so angry that you destroyed everything? Ane what was up with all the clothing strewn around the room?”
Joan stayed silent.
Cinder groaned. “Fine, twenty questions it is.” She munched on her apple. “Was it because you realized how long you’ve been here, that between your recovery and… everything else it’s been more than a year?”
“It’s been over a year?” Joan looked up to Cinder. If- if it had been that long- likely all her friends thought she was dead or gave up on saving her.
“So, that’s not it. And I suppose it’s not a missed birthday or celebration of something back home.”
Joan shook her head.
“And the clothing? I thought for a while you were just looking for the most killer outfit, but it’s not like many of those combinations went together all that well.” Cinder tried at a lighthearted joke, but understandably, it did not land very well on Joan as she was still in the midst of reeling from what Mercury had done and said.
Joan just clammed up.
“Right.” Cinder allowed the silence to sit between them for a moment. “Was it because I didn’t tell you Mercury would be bringing you your food that night?”
Joan’s eyes flickered up to Cinder, silently accusing her. Sure, Cinder likely didn’t send Mercury to tell her all the things he did, but… but she still sent him and made him… Joan’s skin clammed up and she wanted to fall through the world or just die. Thinking about Mercury, his eyes on her, his hands grabbing and taking her and-
“Joan, Joan, what is it? What’s wrong?” Cinder was already at Joan’s side, her hands hovering only an inch away from Joan, fearful of touching her without permission for what must have been the first time.
Joan blinked and the welling tears fell from her eyes undercutting the words about to leave her mouth. “I’m fine.”
All of Cinder’s anger and fury flickered over her face for just a moment. “No you’re not.”
“It’s- it’s fine.” Joan hiccuped. “I- I- it’s just… you know, the drugs and dust you put in my food often leave me with like… weird mood swings- emotional sensitivity.” Joan corrected. “I just-”
“Stop lying to me Joan.” Cinder cut cold and warning.
Joan’s eyes twitched between Cinder and an opposing wall. She spoke nothing, anything else she could have brought herself to speak would have been a lie.
“Did he say something?” Cinder’s anger returned but it didn’t fade.
Joan swallowed hard against her tight throat. “He- he said a lot of things.” She strived to hide any specifics.
“What did he say.” Cinder growled through clenched teeth and the grimm pulsed up the side of her face.
“I- it wasn’t what he said- I- I mean it was… but… he…”
“Did he hurt you?” Cinder screamed, eyes flickering with weak, dying flames. “If he hurt you, I’ll- I’ll-” Cinder stammered, grimm consuming her. “What did he DOOOAHHGH!” Cinder roared, her grim arm shooting up to grasp the headboard and immediately cracking it under her strength.
This was it, this was the time. Cinder was losing it. Joan just never expected it to be over her- over concern for her; not for concern over the secrets she held, but over her wellbeing. It was startling… it made Joan feel all the more vile for what she was about to do. “He- he touched me, grabbed me- told me you needed him to check my plug and-”
“I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him! I’ll fucking kill him! Dead! I’ll tear him apart! Rip the flesh from his BOOOONES!” Cinder howled like a beowulf alpha. “Dead! Dead!” She spun around and started swiping at everything in sight except Joan. “Feast! Feast on pain! Bastard’s pain! Touched you! Suffer! Suffer! Suffer!” She chanted, the grimm spreading further and further, it’s influence clearly taking over. “Pain! Feast! Eat! Suffer! Sorrow! Tasty! Kill!” Cinder began to pant as white bone sprouted out of her back and along her shoulders. She howled again, the grimm visibly attacking at the back of her neck, fighting to consume Cinder’s mind from the base up.
What was left of Cinder’s aura and her flames fought with the grimm, it pushed it back ever so slightly, but it was losing. Cinder’s voice broke through the horrifying grimm howls for just a moment. She screamed, a horrified pained noise. She screamed and the grimm seemed reinvigorated by her suffering. “No! No!” she hiccuped and cried. “H- h- hellll!” She cried and sobbed, her bones cracking back and forth as the grimm consumed her whole torso. Her human sobs and pleads for help continued on for a moment as Joan watched in horror. More of the black essence spread over Cinder, growing more and more white bone as it continued and the cries lost more and more humanity.
Joan just watched in horror, caught and incapable of moving under the immense weight of what she was doing, what she had done. She did this. Cinder was suffering more than any human could ever rightfully deserve, and it was her fault; the result of her greed, her selfishness. This was her fault.
Joan hated herself. This was not who she was. This was not who she ever wanted to be. Cinder didn’t have to be innocent to deserve better. And it didn’t matter that Joan cared for her in some fucked way. Regardless of her feelings towards Cinder, this was disgusting. Did she even deserve to run? Did Joan have a right to even try and live free after having done this?
In the midst of beginning to question whether or not she deserved to be free after all this, Cinder mustered the last of her strength and broke through the grimm one final time. “Help.” Her face turned to Joan, half grimm, half Cinder, the human half with tears streaming down her face. “Help me.”
Before she knew it, Joan was out of the bed, she was on her feet, and she held Cinder’s human hand as grimm tried to creep down her wrist. “Fight, fight it.” The words spilled out from her lips before she could realize what she was saying. “C- Cinder, fight it.” Joan reached up to cares the human remnants of Cinder’s cheek. “Fight.” She echoed, and the craziest part, it worked. Somehow, by some act of brothers, Joan watched as Cinder’s human eye opened again and the grimm began to recede.
“I-” Cinder’s voice cracked.
“Cinder! Cinder!” Joan’s hands darted up to touch Cinder’s face, but the second she released her hand, the grimm began to grow again.
“AHH!” Cinder screamed in pain- but- but it was Cinder, not the grimm.
“Ah! Alright! Alright! Holding hands!” Joan rushed to hold Cinder’s hand with both of hers. “I- You- you’ve got this, Cinder, Cinder fight. P- please.”
Cinder’s still exposed eye blinked and what of her lips weren’t covered with grimm mouthed something to Joan.
“I- I’m here. Just… just fight. I-” Joan glanced behind herself at the door. It was cracked ajar. She could leave. She could run. Cinder wouldn’t survive if she did, but she could be free.
Run! Run! Just! Run! Go home! Be free! Find Pyrrha! Run! Leave! Joan screamed inside her mind, but her hands only tightened around Cinder’s. She tried to convince herself to run, to save herself, and to make what on paper was the right choice for herself, her friends, and everyone else. She tried, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t convince herself out of stayin, out of doing whatever she could to try and help save Cinder. Without the ability to run, her reasoning to stay seemed to just fall from her mouth. “Cinder- Cinder fight. Don’t lose. I- I- I don’t- don’t know what I would do without you. Cinder, I care about you- I- I love you.” Joan mouthed the last three words, somewhere between shocked and angered with the revelation as it left her lips.
Cinder’s human eye widened. Some part of her had heard Joan’s confession and the grimm began receding faster. It surprised Joan, but Cinder’s aura seemed to strength, to glow brighter and brighter like she was actively being rejuvenated, like she suddenly had all the strength in the world to fight off the beast.
It took Joan a moment, but she began to realize how exhausted she was, how much she was being drained.
“Semblance.” Cinder whispered.
“Semblance? Semblance? Do you need your glass? No- no, how would that ever help? I!”
“Semblance.” Cinder cracked half a smile as her whole face cleared. The grimm seemed to be… it was withering!
“Cinder! It’s working! You’re fighting it!” Joan cheered.
“Joan.” Cinder whispered in an overly hoarse voice.
“Just, just keep fighting. Calm down! I- you’re going to be alright. You are doing it!”
“Your doing it.” Cinder coughed.
“Yes, you are doing it!” Joan cheered and looked over Cinder. The grimm bones had all fallen off and begun to dissolve into the air. Cinder’s torn clothes fell off of her in shreds. There was barely any grimm left over her torso; her beautiful torso- Joan’s gutter of a mind tacked on. Only a couple vague strands of seemingly dying grimm waggled weakly and evaporated away. The only spot which still had all the dark strong grimm was from Cinder’s left shoulder down, but even that seemed to be failing, losing the fight to Cinder.
“You, dufus.” Cinder smiled and coughed. “Your semblance.”
Joan looked down to her hands where her aura was activated and seemingly flowing into Cinder. “H- holy shit! I- my semblance! I have a semblance!” Joan cheered.
“I- I’m… you saved me?” Cinder questioned.
“I did?” Joan matched Cinder’s level of confusion.
“Why?”
“I! I!” Joan looked away and felt her exhaustion begin to catch up with her. “I already said it.” She hesitated and wavered. She hadn’t really said it, more mouthed the words to Cinder while she was still practically more grimm than human. “Don’t make me try to say it aga- aga- agan…” Joan passed out, and collapsed right into Cinder.
End of Chapter 25
