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gaiuswrites · 4 years ago

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King of Cups || Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Hanged Man

Archive: ao3 | masterlist | eight

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader

Summary: After some time apart, new conclusions are met.

Word count: 7.8k~

Rating: Explicit

Warnings/tags: SMUT, fingering, unprotected piv sex, emo emo emo (are we even surprised any more), mature themes, abandonment/family trauma, loss

Notes: Friends, wow. I'm honestly embarrassed by how long this took. Thank you for your patience. I hope you find the reward worth the wait. This chapter is nearly all in Din's POV until it switches and blends in the last chunk. If you’re new to KOC, you’re more than welcome to start at this chapter! Love you guys x (gif credit: @bestintheparsec)

“Din.”

Familiar fingers brush through his hair, a hand he knew once combing over his overgrown locks. He feels the drag of nails across his scalp, tucking a truant curl behind his ear, and the act feels like home— like hearth.

Somewhere beyond his open window a morning bird trills, perched in its roost nestled into the forked branch of the elm.

He breathes a sigh, the sound thick with sleep, and turns to his pillow, burying himself deeper into the linen.

“Din, honey.”

He blinks— lazily, molassesed— her shape clearing into focus.

Green eyes peer back at him, fine lines framing the corners of them, and crescents crease around her lips, pulled warm into a soft curve.

Small toys— wooden things, baubles and bits, dolls made from scraps of old fabric—litter the floor, spilling from the chest butted against the stone of the wall. A book, well-loved and dog-eared, rests on his nightstand—the one he insisted she read from each night, the story he couldn’t possibly fall asleep without hearing—the images written on the page, dancing in his small mind to the tune of her voice.

It’s all there now as it was then before.

“It’s time to wake up.”

She sits at the edge of the bed—his bed—the weight of her arm draped over his shoulder like a blanket— like shelter. Like never being fearful again. Like never dying. Like summer, forever.

“I am awake,” he murmurs, and it is with his own tongue that he speaks. Not that of a boy, but a man—unfiltered, unmodulated. Stripped of his helmet, he hardly recognizes the tenor of it, of its richness, but he feels the words reverberate against the hollow of his throat and he knows they belong to him.

Light casts through the window behind her—particles of dust, trapped in the tines. Floating there, suspended on strings.

She only smiles, and strokes a thumb across the sweep of his cheekbone, there in the room he last felt safe.

“No, not yet.”

It’s time to wake up. It’s time to wake up. Wake up wake up wake—

“Not yet.”

His eyes blur open with a flutter of his lashes, the lifeless durasteel ceiling coming into view—the jade of her gaze fading, fading. Blowing away.

He shifts a hand through his hair— through the long strands in dire need of trimming— lying on his bedroll, spine knobbing into the thin mattress. The cold metal overhead stares back at him.

His chest rises. Falls.

Din can still feel her, the warmth of her, there on his cheek.

///

There is no part of this that comes easy.

He knows what you’re thinking, he can see it in the guard you’ve encased yourself with— your glass walls, your glass house. Transparent but impenetrable, Din can only look. A spectator, watching as you go about your routines— a stranger on the outside.

And he sees how you look at him.

You think he’s fine.

You think he’s marble. Unbreakable. Impervious to time, to cold, and he does nothing to correct you; no, he allows the belief. He lets you believe the calloused veneer of his beskar— lets you assume he is more machine than man.

Din thought it would be simpler. Convenient. Din thought it would hurt less.

Because how can he tell you? How can he possibly communicate the imprint you’ve left on him— how his mind revolves around the imagery of that evening in vicious figure-eights. How he can’t unremember your heat curling around his fingers, how he can’t unbridle the pulse of his cock in your palm. How he can’t unspeak that which he called you, his virgin tongue flicking new and flighty around the word.

Cyare.

It tripped—in the midst of his pleasure, it sprang clumsy from him how the inevitable always seems to where you are concerned: transport to Coruscant, his past, his history, his identity— it just happens, reasonless, illogically. Some driving magic beckoning him to buckle, wishing him to give.

Your moans, your gasps, how you prayed his name— this is the white noise murmuring through the ship, harmonizing with the tinny mechanical beeps and settling groans of the bulkheads. You churn like smog through his helmet. Ever present, the memory of you is constant— invasive. It’s suffocating him.

He’s been dealt plenty of injuries and contusions— he has the scars enough to prove it— but it’s this. It’s this that’s killing him. It’s you.

All of these paintings, life-like and lurid, and yet it is this wound - untended, uncauterized - that scalds most: the moment Din, that beskar apparition, slipped away from you. You were there, hip under the weight of his glove, and he simply

went, like fog.

He watched your face crest and fall—felt your heart, skipping nervous like a stone over a morning pond, little waves rippling lightly, lightly out and out until it puttered quiet and

sank.

He abandoned you there. He left you before you had the opportunity to convince Din that you wouldn't do the same to him. Because Din has learned this, his suit of armor a trudging reminder of the inherent fact: good things leave.

You’ll be gone soon. You’ll leave him—he’s taking you home and you’ll leave him. His son will leave him.

He’ll be alone again. He’ll have the Crest, he’ll have the Guild—he’ll have the life he once cast in stone for himself, the life he’s worn as proudly as the Mudhorn emblem he boasts on his pauldron. But that was then - before - and he can never find his way back to that now; now that he knows what he knows—of breakfast and bitter caf and laughter like church bells and warmth and goodness and you.

There is no part of this that comes easy.

There in the galley, lamp-lit iridescence caressing your countenance, you asked him once if he was scared of anything and he told you he wasn’t sure— not yet.

Din lied.

As a rule, he doesn’t make a habit out of dishonesty; it doesn’t typically suit him, he is blunted to a fault— earning allies and enemies alike with the very attribute—but he lied to you then. Maybe his fears are the same as everyone else’s, maybe they’re simple. Human.

Maybe he’s scared that you’ll unchain him from his armor, of his shortcomings and tragic flaws and see the pulpy heart of him—that you’ll look and look and look, and you will like nothing that you find there. That he’s just a man.

And perhaps, he’d rather remain unknown than risk the chance of being unlovable.

For there is a certain hollow you befriend in the aftershock of loss—there is an aperture loss gores you with. There are some holes time can never fill; they remain trenched, dug from rusted trowels— left to fester, left to ill.

Sometimes, in the surly vacuum of space, in those dulled moments in which he has nothing but to count the seconds as they tick clocklessly away, Din attempts to conjure the last word his mother gave to him. He didn’t know it then—he didn’t know it was intended as a gift, boxed and ribboned and bowed. He didn’t realize—a child, wide-eyed with naivety, drenched in fright—that he should cherish it. Remember it. Keep it safe.

No matter how hard he tries, how hard he strains, he can’t recall it. He practices the nightmared memory of it, transports himself into that war zone, dodging shrapnel and brimstone just to catch sight of her face— and he can see her lips moving, can feel the fan of the flames as his world is reduced to cinders, but he cannot hear her.

Was it goodbye? Was it I love you? Was it be safe? Was it hide? Hide hide hide for me. Be good and hide, kind boy—

It dogs him. The nothinged mumble, his silent passenger.

There is no part of this that comes easy.

He heard you. There in Valentia, the city buzzing cacophonously like an orchestra tuning their instruments, he overheard the Twi’lek translate for the older woman.

Family, she said. You have a beautiful family.

Din has never in his life considered forsaking his Creed— forgoing the thing that saved him, made him, honed him to tungsten, sharp as a blade.

But he did then.

It was a flash, something fickle and brief— like the flicker of a candle before it diffused to smoke— but in that nanosecond he saw himself ripping off his helmet. He saw himself going to you, pulling you close to his plated chest. He saw the surprise wash over you—the shock that bubbled to elation. He saw you smile, that crippling gorgeous thing, with his own naked eyes and—

And then suddenly you were there before him, snapping Din from his reverie, blanket snug to your chest, the child — his child— slung beside you. He wished he had an explanation, but before he could process his actions his hand was drawing itself to your body, tugged by some unseen force—robbed of his autonomy— and rapturously, he touched you. He felt you.

His knuckles grazed your arm—your warmth, radiating past the aged leather of his glove—and the wisdom that woman uttered, the plain truth only the ancient could learn— only a mother could know— rattled around his mind, unanchored and barreling.

Yearn for the past. Reclaim time.

Hold onto them hold onto them hold on—

Never let them go.

Ready? he asked you, arm resigned to his side, feigning monotony beneath the cover of his visor.

You threaded an even smile to your lips, as if Din were none the wiser— as if he hadn’t catalogued every lick of your expressions, every curve and bow and wrinkle as your emotions sung across your face. As if he didn’t know when you were lying. As if he didn’t know when you were falling apart.

Ready, you replied, swallowing past the disappointment welled in your throat.

Both your hearts broke then. Perfectly—the same.

This is the Way.

///

Din is gone over a week. It’s the longest he’s ever been away for a hunt—it’s the longest nine days of your kriffing life.

The ship feels vacant without him; she’s cumbersome, too cavernous for the likes of only you and his foundling. Her durasteel sidings yawn morose against the wind beating restless against her—her metal stretching like a lothcat in a patch of sun. The doors and hatches complain ajar and gripe shut, as if she’s recalcitrant to go about her standard operating procedures without Din’s presence. The old gal misses him, down to her steely bones and dual ion turbines, and in truth — and despite yourself— you suppose a small part of you feels the same, shares an inkling of that same loneliness.

The rituals and dog-eared routines you’d drawn comfort from are now rinsed in a forlorn wash.

The single bowl of food you prepare looks wrong without its twin beside it.

You scroll a finger over your display screen, flicking through various articles, the faint light from the holopad basking the contours of your face in a lonesome shade of inanimate blue.

Anything good you hear him ask, there in your inner ear— the memory of his voice leaving a nick among the many wrinkles of your brain.

You sigh, quietly— alone. Never.

Even Munch misses him, although he expresses it differently. He’s been a downright terror with Din gone. At first it was a vacation, a luxury retreat; you and the child gorged yourself on crackers and grava berries and dried bantha meat—mindful of sweeping up the crumbs on whichever surface you snacked. You giggled and ran amok and shared secrets in code only the two of you could decipher.

But one day grew to two, and two to three and three to four and by the fifth you were out of treats and your patience too had dwindled to short supply.

The child is special— unquestionably unique. And as much as you adore him, would lay down your life for him if it came to it, Maker he is uniquely qualified to send you round the bend twice over. He’s baffling, infuriating— just like his father. Of all the things he could have inherited from the man, of course he decided to latch on to his vexing penchant for mystery.

You lost him for half a day. He was somewhere aboard the Crest, of that you knew that for certain, but he managed to enact a stunt that could’ve puzzled even the most illustrious of illusionists with how quickly and effectively he vanished, seemingly out of thin air.

He emerged eventually for dinner, babbling wickedly. There was that, at least: you could always count on Munch to — well, munch.

Over a week of this— nine days, sixteen hours, and twenty-two minutes, to be exact… But who’s counting.

The sky glitches with lightning, sparking like a bulb in dreadful need of changing, and veins of violet skitter along the horizon, chased by the clapping hammer of thunder. Fat drops of rain trace down the transparisteel, the metalled drum of their pattering against the Crest lullabying your eyelids to a slumbered close. You drift, weightless, waxing and waning in and out of a reoccurring dream that always blurs to mere suggestion - to shadow - as soon as you wake.

The harsh sound stirs you—the ramp’s gears springing to life, signaling the Mandalorian’s return. Rapidly, you blink clear the slog of sleep from your eye, re-emerging from the forgotten depths of your subconscious and half-roused, you bound from the copilot’s chair. You rally from your stupor, instinct urging you to meet the bounty hunter by the entrance—some tittering, foolish part of you still so glad and girlish just to see him.

Hobbling down the ladder with veteraned coordination - one leg one arm one foot one hand - you hop the last two rungs to land catlike on the balls of your feet, heading towards the stern of the ship and—

You don’t make it three steps.

He’s there. Din is there— nine days later and finally, like a hallucination, he’s here— ominous and backlit by the glow seeping in from the galley. An obelisk, undaunted.

Your gut somersaults, flipping until it dizzies.

Knee-jerked and reflexive, the basest part of you demands you go to him, to cross the threshold separating you— the time and space and uncertainty dredged like a moat between you two. But instead of greeting him as you wish— two arms thrown around him, welcoming him home—back to the Crest, to the child, to you—you stand there, dumbstruck and wanting.

The passage of the corridor is like a strait. It's so narrow you can smell him— his carbon musk, his petrichored sweat—and it furls thick into your sinuses, fogging up your vision, clotting the faulty wiring of your mind. He’s brought the wet in with him, drip dropping from his hulking frame to splat puddled onto the deck.

plop

A beat ferments, hanging ripe from its branch as the tempest rages outside the sheltered hull of the ship. Distantly, thunder booms from above.

“Din— hi.”

“You’re up.” He doesn’t move from the archway. Stiffened, composed from granite, the man hardly breathes. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” you offer hastily—untruthfully.

Din scans you: your obviously tousled hair, the drowsy flush kissing your jaw, the tell-tale crinkle of your tunic. Your tongue darts out to skip over your lip and his lungs pull, aching beneath his ribs.

Maker, you’re pretty even when you lie.

“Go back to sleep,” he assures, but you hardly register it; it’s scarcely above a murmur by the time the words hum through his modulator.

“Can I make you some food? Can I—"

There’s a tarred shake of his helm, tiredly dissuading you. “No, you—you’ve done enough.”

“But you must be exhausted, Din. Let me help you,” you urge, sincerity shaping the lilt of your voice. “Please, I—” You falter. Vision finally adjusted in the dimmed hall, it is then that you spot it.

Your mouth runs dry.

He’s dappled in a violent scarlet, foreign red splatters contrasted against all that silvered grey, bleeding with the rainwater to roll sanguined down the rounded edges of his armor.

Blood. He’s covered in blood.

Something pitted—something vital— in you contracts; horror, prickling the fine hairs along your forearm. “Maker, what happened?”

Eyes gaping fearful, you skitter around his breastplate, his vambraces, the paneling of his flight suit, roving meticulously in search for the source of his injury. Thoughtless, consumed with only one concern - is he hurt? - your hand flies to his chest where it rests—solid. Fretting. “Stars, are you—”

He can see it—he can see you, always—how your gaze swells, laced with a surge of adrenaline, of care, and Din lays his broad palm flat over your knuckles, grabbing your frantic attention. “It’s not mine—hey, it’s not mine.”

Your shoulders deflate, relief visibly relaxing the rigidity in your spine, and for the first time in what feels like minutes you release the breath you’d fostered high behind your teeth.

He doesn’t know what overtakes him. Perhaps it’s your sleep swollen lips or the soft petal of your cheek— taunting Din, daring him to feel you again, as he did before— or perhaps it’s the all too apparent fact that you simply give a shit about him— despite everything he’s done, all of that which he has left unsaid. That you worry. That you care.

Puppeted, arm hoisted by some invisible strings of fate—those unseen threads of inevitability—he reaches for you. Din’s thumb roams the slope of your cheekbone, the buttered hide of his glove gliding over your skin. Something rattles flustered in your chest, and you must look pathetic— how your eyes bat at him and your mouth parts, breathy and demure.

“Dala.” He sounds pained when he says it, as if it’s poisoning him; the very syllables like hemlock dripping down his tongue—slowly gradually, ending his life— this life.

This life as he knows it.

You nuzzle into the cradle of his palm, encircling a hand around his wrist, urging him still. You both know he could break away from you without an ounce of strength squandered, but he doesn’t; he listens, he quiets for you. Enchanted, neither of you dare move— neither of you, willing to shatter the profound spell of intimacy you’ve stumbled onto.

He holds you like this, and you hold him to you. His hand on your cheek; yours over the birdcaged throb of his heart— burning - devouring - its entombed aril like the heart of a dying star.

“Where’d you go?” you whisper, heathered, into the heel of his hand. There is something broken in your cadence, like the chipped rim of a fragile cup, and it punctures him just there beneath his sternum.

Where’d you go?

Where’d you go before? When you left— where did you spirit away to?

Why didn’t you take me with you?

A sick wave rots his stomach. He couldn’t answer you then, not when you were wobbly and coltish beneath him—Din can barely answer you now. His digits twine into your hair, cupping the arc of your neck. The gesture is not unkind. It is delicate— urgent, too—and the following hush you share speaks tomes for the both of you, the sob of his leathered fist admitting what he cannot utter.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

Maker, if you could see him. See how his face folds for you, grief lined into the shallow grooves that mark him. The cycles of it— how they bend him into something contorted. Something in need - I need you I need you I need - something ugly, he thinks. Leftover. Hidden. Hide hide hide hi—

You turn, pressing a kiss into the rough of his palm. It’s a soft thing— trepid and cautious—too worried you might frighten him away to offer anything more than a chaste brush of your lips—too worried you’ll send him scurrying back into the cratered unknown he crawled out from.

But he doesn’t.

Din doesn’t turn tail and run, he stands firm—weaving his hand further into your scalp, guiding you closer to him with a throaty sound. The forehead of his helm sinks to yours, and through its filter you discern the tremor of Din’s breathing, made fuzzy by the tinny modulator.

This is nothing like before. Din was hot blooded and vicious then, possessed by the infernal likes of some great beast, but he has since been tamed, if only momentarily—coaxed into a certain meekness by the frail ache of his heart—by the grace of your kind mouth, kissing his gun-worn glove.

He groans your name, mumbled and brassy. The two of you so close, so merged, that if it weren’t for his helmet, you’d feel the tickle of the syllables as they sweep over your face. Din repeats himself, repentant—praying for forgiveness on the cross of your name—your kiss, a benediction.

Again, he calls you. I’m sorry.

Again, you kiss him. There is nothing to forgive.

Again. Again.

With a flutter of bravado, you sling a lumbered arm over the span of his neck, notching yourself into his chest, an interlocking piece finding it’s match. Din’s forearm comes to coil around your waist, wide hand spanning the small of your back, and if possible, gathers you nearer— a growl emanating somewhere from under his beskar.

“Tell me to stop,” he breathes, bullet riddled—grating—warring with the countless shards of himself he has yet to reconcile; but his body betrays his intentions as Din’s grasp finds itself lower, filling his fingers with the plush of your ass. “Tell me, please.”

Arousal rushes to pool in your depths—at the proximity of him, the hungered way at which he paws you—and it’s a reaction you feel mimicked by the iron rod straining against Din’s flight suit, pressing into your thigh. You shake your head, gaze colored earnest, and you shift, applying a grind of your hips against him in response.

Din lets out a defeated groan; weak to you, a fabled Mandalorian warrior brought to trembling knees by the guile of a good woman. And suddenly, like striking a match in a room swarmed with gas, you are incendiary.

He’s everywhere— groping and kneading your arms, your ass, your neck and waist. You are malleable beneath him, sculpted like wet clay under his eager touch—as if he is committing your form to memory; the fervor of his grip, reclaiming time.

He hooks a hand under the crease of your knee, yanking you to the column of his armor, sealing your bodies together. Gyrating your hips against him, your clit yearns against his thick outline as you dig into the cowl draped over his shoulders.

Sliding his hand down your backside, he presses his palm into your clothed heat from behind, pads of his fingers insistent as you saddle your spine into his touch, granting him better access. His cock brays, straining beneath his many layers, and a withered moan breaches past your lips.

“Gods, Din.”

Din. He can’t stand that—his name, lush in your wet mouth—and without ceremony, drops your leg from where he’d glued it to his hip. Like a beggar, impoverished and need-stricken, he begins to fight with your clothing, half tempted to rip the damn things off you, leaving you tattered; he’d happily buy you a new wardrobe if it meant having you as he’s wanted for these long months—naked and vulnerable and his.

Your tunic and pants come off in a flurry, your underwear too, discarded hastily in some forgotten corner—and with a hand on your chest, he walks you backwards until your bare ass connects with the durasteel, a jagged inhale tearing through you at the chill. A question knits your brows to meet as Din paces away from you, increasing his distance.

“What are you-”

He interrupts you with a groan. “Just - gedet’ye - just let me—”

His gaze drips like wax down your body—eyes dressing over your clavicle, the supple weight of your breasts, the gorgeous dusting of hair at your mound, the sweet press of your thighs as you clench them together, your pretty knees, your pretty ankles, your pretty feet, pigeoned inward nervously.

Pretty pretty pretty—fuck, all of you. So fucking pretty.

With the cock of his chin, his gaze returns to the heave of your breasts—tracing over your nipples pebbling in the everpresent draft of the Razor Crest— and you rile under him, heart stammering loud—so loud you’re convinced he can hear it with the aid of his helm. And Maker above, the way you’re fucking staring at him—all hooded lids and flushed cheeks. Din wants to fucking ravish you.

Dismantle you.

Pick you apart bit by bit until you’ve come undone completely.

And as if slogging through gravity itself, movements prowled, he steps to you. Din finds your hips, running the whisper of his gloves along the slopes of your sides; a master of patience, commanding time to his will, he crawls up your skin

slow

deliberate.

You’re all but helpless to the shiver that traverses the planes of your body, zipping along your synapses like the fault lines of a quaking planet—cracking you open, exposing your molten core. You’re not proud of the noise you make when he cups your breasts. Starved, you whine as he takes you into his hands, pinching and groping until you’re pert and sore and you drive your pelvis into him, rutting yourself against his frame like some flea ridden slum-mutt in the prime of her heat.

Din seethes, mumbling in Mando’a—spitting curses you can’t pretend to comprehend, but that blot warmth along your cheekbones at the oaky depravity of which he utters them.

He seals over your mound, blood pumping at your seam, bundle of nerves pulsing steady against the heel of his hand. Immobile, he waits, hovering stagnant and teasing before his lust to feel you outweighs his desire to make you be good and wait—and parting through your curls, he kisses the tips of his orange gloves into your honeyed cunt.

It’s dirty. He’s dirty, he’s fucking filthy—covered in foreign blood and alien soil—and you feel depraved, unclean. Powerful. You feel, perhaps, as the Maker intended—wild and without shame, to roam his gateless garden and sully the soles of your feet.

You feel raw. Din Djarin sands you raw.

The pump of his wrist is merciless, pistoning in and out in shallow thrusts, knuckles angled to prod at that spot— that piece of primordial heaven sequestered at the channel of your cunt—and he keeps discovering it over and over again with a sharp shooter’s precision—zeroing in on his mark and releasing the trigger. Dead eyed.

You grab greedily at his bulge, at his cock begging for regard beneath the protective fabric covering him, and you squeeze the best you can. The angle is awkward and unweildy and it’s not nearly enough for either of you, but it conveys your intention well enough.

Can I have this? Will you give this to me?

Din growls his reply, leaving your pussy to fumble with the waist of his trousers, fidgeting over the pesky buttons—the final of the flimsy holdouts separating you and the tempered steel hanging solid between his legs. It bobs free from his pants, ruddied tip straining and pining for you, and without spending another moment idle, he rediscovers the warmth of your naked body— molding himself to your form, his grip once more finding the pit of your knee and bracing it to his side.

He ruts the underside of his shaft through your slick folds, his blunt head nudging at the swollen cleft of your center—each pitch of Din’s hips sending bolts of pleasure crackling through your core. He’s stifling a string of moans while he does it, while he undulates against you, the sighs and gasps digitized to near silence as he coats his cock in your gloss—and not for the first time do you find yourself considering how fucking colossal Din is. How fucking virile and engulfing, like blaster smoke and tabacco and cedar. Like coaled smog from a cremulator. Like giving life, like taking it away— like mercy. Vengeance.

Din swipes your standing leg up to match the other in a fluid motion, effectively levitating you off the ground with only his palms secured beneath your hamstrings and your strangled hold around his neck to suspend you.

“Tell me to stop and I will.” He’s practically begging you now, anguish wrecking through the timber of his voice—grasping blindly for an excuse not to lose himself in you completely, not to bury his primal drives and fears into the chasm of your sex.

You’ll leave him you’ll leave him he’s terrified you’ll leave him

“I-I don’t want you to stop— I want this. Din, I want you, I missed you. I miss you.” You miss him. He’s right here, cock streaking through your middle and still, you miss him. You’ll never stop missing him—wanting him. An unscratchable itch at the median of your back, burning for his affection, for his touch.

He releases a husked sound at that, as if hearing it from you hurts— your words, purpling a bruise into the bloody beat of his heart—and like a dipping sun sinking below the crust of a darkening planet, the last of Din’s resolve fades to utter black as he finally - finally - buries himself into where you weep for him.

Oh Maker. Fuck, fuck—

You muffle a relieved cry, forehead collapsing to the slope of his shoulder. Your walls shutter, blinking and gasping around his cock as he rolls up into you, lips pulling taut around his girth with each drag through your cunt. Din fucks you slurred and languid—his pace, sweltering like a summer fever—heavy, punitive. Smothering and thick. You can feel every vein, every silken ridge, as he notches himself inch by inch— the cant of his hips meditated, aiming to melt you open with each wave.

Stuffed to the hilt inside you, he rakes in a ragged breath, calming the race of his bloodstream drumming percussive in his ears.

It occurs to you then that he might be trying to be careful with you, curled around him like this, crushed up against the bulkhead. You think he might be treating you as a jeweler would handle a rarified gem— gentle and tip-toed, afraid of letting you clatter to the counter, of scuffing your facets— devaluing you.

But you don’t want that. You don’t want cautious or considerate or any of those awfully pious things. You want to be owned. Devoured. You don’t want to feel anything else but him. You want him to need you so terribly, so primally, he bleeds. You want to forget your own damn name and replace the memory of it with his—just his, to sit besot like liquor on your tongue. Din Din Din.

“Fuck me— please - please - fuck me harder Din.” Fuck me like you need to. Fuck me like you want me— please just tell me you want me. Tell me I’m wanted. Tell me I’m worth this.

You can see the deliberation span over his mask, the light glinting off the steel there hesitant, wary. Are you sure?

“Fuck me.” I want this. I want you.

He wants to give this to you somewhere soft— somewhere you deserve. With a feathered mattress and molted down pillows and gauzy curtains billowing in a sea breeze as light dapples prismed patterns on your dewy skin. He wants to give this to you somewhere beautiful—perhaps on that planet you once probed him about - Adega - with its red trees and warm nights and friendly natives you’d cherish and keep aloft in your breast.

He wants you to feel safe. Adored.

But what he wants and what he needs are two vastly different things—two opposing extremes at odds with the other. Because he needs to fuck you here— it has to be here. Needs to score your backside with metaled bites from the Crest’s unforgiving interior; needs you crumpled and sloppy, panting out his name to echo shamelessly into the deviled bowels of his gunship.

He needs you charred for him. Scorched earth.

And with your panted pleas, lilting addictive and irresistible, he is all but helpless to deny you— to deny himself. Relenting, resolved, his voice bottoms out.

“I-I’m gonna fucking ruin you.”

He fucks you frenzied. The snap of his hips drives you into the wall; he lifts you off his cock just to spear you on it once more, fucking up up up into you, unleashing all his strength— his neglected need—into the grail of your womb. The salted slaps of skin are loud enough to make a lecher blush. It’s a chorus of beskar rattling, wet and ugly and Maker, he’s splitting you open and all you can do is mewl.

You screw your eyes shut, lost to oblivion—crown of your head shoved back, jugular bared for him like prey before the slaughter.

“No.” Leveraging his mass against you, Din clasps at the nape of your neck to command your focus, forcing your chin. “No, look at me,” he orders, brutal and sinewed and there’s desperation there. Din needs you looking at him — seeing him— the embrace of your gaze like a life raft, tethering him here, grounding him to this plane of existence, the one where he has found salvation—if only fleeting, if only like hourglassed sand sifting through his fingers—within the temple of your body. Struggling and led-lidded, you pry your lashes apart, shivering as you drink in the punishing expression leering across his visor; and as you always do, you peer past the murky T there, meeting his eyes camouflaged in their sockets behind it.

“There you are. There you are, my pretty thing - hnng—” He silences himself with a hoarse moan, the sensation of you clenching firm around him, gripping Din like a man would a rope, dangling some feet above the ground, hiccuping him to stutter. “T-That’s it, dala—fuck, y-your pussy is so godsdamn tight.”

You go boneless at the praise—at how he tongues out those fond epithets, vehement and covetous and brined in sincerity—and your breathing quickens as you soak the coarse weave of Din’s flight suit, chafing your clit to shambles with each bow of his starved sex.

You’re close. Stars, you’re so kriffing close—reach out and touch it and you’re there, a promise fulfilled dancing at your fingertips—and you almost tell him; you wish you could - don’t stop don’t stop please right there Din - but you’ve lost your voice, vocal chords stricken with tension. More than that, you’ve lost the wedge of your brain that recognizes articulation all together. Speech itself. You’re wasted. You’re shattered. You’re being fucked within an inch of your sorry life.

Nimbled, without a word of warning, Din relocates— grappling under the plats of your thighs and bracing you featherlight to his chest—negligible in comparison to the ton of armor he dons cycle after cycle, weightless when compared to that of his Creed, hanging like a yoke around his gullet. You yip in surprise and scramble around him, calves digging into his back, forearms clamped around his shoulders—his cock remaining delved within your pussy with each footfall.

Four long strides and he’s reached his destination: a large crate, stranded just outside the hallway leading to the galley. Stooping at the waist, he lowers you down with astonishing ease until you’re flush on your back, knees flanking his frame. You heave a sigh, petulant and wanting, when he slips from you mid-adjustment, a lewd squelch accompanying the movement. It is to the fervor of your clawing, desperate nails scratching down metal - please please please - that he glides back into you with one deft sweep, a satisfied gasp tumbling loose from him.

He looms over you now— Din, a tower unyielding—thrusting into you rough and hard and perfect. He’s filling you in undiscovered places long gone unrealized, nooks you didn’t know you had—the length of him completing you, making you whole.

“Tell me to stop,” he pants, orange pads of his gloves dimpling your hips.

With a tremor of your chin, you moan—broken and chirping. “Don’t - please - please don’t - shit - don't stop—” Your prayers convulse, dying in your throat, sentence cut short as he circles his thumb over your clit, catching at your slippery bud. Ever the marksman, he’s debilitatingly attentive to you, the hide of his glove snagging against your cleft, and combined with the steady rock of his dick shredding you open, you’re all but defenseless to the dawning of your release, crawling closer and closer and—

“Din,” you pant, ”Din Din Din, I think I—I’m gonna cum. I’m gonna, oh Maker—”

The muscles in your stomach seize, a twisted expression cramping your brow. You scamper to his arms, reaching out for something - anything - a parcel of real estate to clutch onto while you unravel. You’re grappling with his pauldrons, the pulsepoint at your wrist humming over the symbol welded to his shoulder, and you mage into starlight. You’re fizzing. You’re blind. You’re atomic and phasing in and out of realities and you burn— a meteor hurtling through the upper atmosphere crashing crashing crashing and—

Language exhausted, all there is left for you to do is cry, the evidence of your orgasm ricocheting like a hail of gunfire against the Razor Crest walls.

“That’s a good girl, that’s a good girl for me—f-fuck." It’s like taking a jab to his solar plexus, how you cinch around him— the corset of your walls milking his cock until he’s shaking, stumbling. The drive of his pelvis has gone erratic, the throbbing bloom gnashing its teeth in his gut—that rabid thing desperate to be released, uncaged—teeters on the identical ledge you’d just leapt from.

“Tell me to stop - please - tell me to, tell me to stop—” You’re all eyes. Your whole face, swallowed by the sweet, glassy orbs notched below the quiver of your forehead, and you’re looking at him like he could hang the damn moon and it’s too much— it’s too much too much he can’t levee this raging need— and with a hurried gasp he pulls out of your heat to tug at his slicked cock— panting ragged as he gushes onto your stomach, your legs, your pretty pussy made pink and puffy with abuse.

His breathing is labored; you can see it in the mountainous rise and fall of his chest plate as his strokes slow, his other hand digging into your flesh, indenting you. He exhales, scraping clean the fissure between his lungs, and Din tips his head, angling it backwards— granting you a rare sliver of the stubbled swath along his neck. The sightly patch, treasured behind his silvered grotto, shouldn’t be the thing that plays upon your heartstrings like one would pluck a harp— not after he’s burrowed himself inside you, not after he’s carved you to his likeness— but it does. You’re butterflied and cherry blossomed and you grin— not so much on your lips but in your soul, and there is a purring warmth that’s radiating like candle flame from the anima alive beneath your breasts and—

And then, suddenly — like time, like memory— he is gone.

He leaves you. Mirrored, he does as he did that night—laying a squeeze into the meat of your hip, he transpires to atoms, dissipating round the unknown bend of a corner and you’re alone again—alone, with only the citric bile steeping in your insides to accompany you, threatening to rise up your windpipe.

No. No no nonono—

Din’s presence, a beacon in the moonless night, disappears— leaving you orphaned and moored and mortified. He’s done it again— he’s left you, he keeps leaving you— and it renders you sick; viscerally, you’re angered and ill and green-washed with naivety.

Fool you once, shame on them. Fool you twice, and what in Maker’s name did you expect? A declaration? An about-face? As if a Mandalorian could let the beskar from his blood. As if Din could reanimate the cadaver of his past—could slip into that old snakeskin he’d shed cycles before.

It paralyzes you. Immobile, you are chambered flat on your back in the resin of your embarrassment, bereft of your vision as you stare sightless into the steel. You’ve separated—your mind and your body disjointed like oil and water, and you don’t hear it. You don’t hear the tread of Din’s feet, you don’t register his aura, Illuminous in the archway; you don’t see the stray towel fisted in his grip, you don’t feel the clench of a frozen hand around your heart as he does his. For he sees you there—a tick in your jaw; eyes distanced, fogged—and he knows he’s done this to you. The scarring of how he derelicted you then tarnishing the new-leaf flesh of the present.

He steps towards you, closer now, and your alerted gaze pins to him. A surprised expression makes a home there, astoundment freckling your face— and although he hasn’t earned the right, it strikes him bullseyed between his plated ribs because it hurts— the obvious shock of him returning for you hurts. Din is not a good man— not all of him. Sometimes, you and all your heaven-lit gleam, you make him forget that.

But sometimes, you make him remember.

And Maker, if you don’t look good like this. Streaked with his seed, creamy white pearling the maps of your body, the shine of it catching in the cannistered shafts of filtered light.

There’s a word for this—for you, for how you look, splayed and painted with his cum—with him. It puffs up like petals would, there in the square of his center. He’s never said it. His mouth doesn’t know the feel of it, his lips don’t know its shape. It’s scribed in Mando’a, and as native as the language is to him—as fundamental as Basic, if not more so—the word itself is foreign. Gawky. The thought of it alone hobbles through his mind on foaled legs. Din keeps this word barred, its essence clinging to the iron partitions of his skull, its perfume clouding his senses, his better judgement, his confounded rationality dangling precarious by a string.

Beautiful. Mesh’la.

You shift under his watchful eye, knees steepling mousy, and gingerly, he prizes the two apart and you let him.

You let him you let him of course you let him.

Din runs a damp cloth up your seam, up those hypersensitive folds, towards the expanse of flesh leading to your belly, and you hiss—a startled chill icing through your body.

“It’s cold,” he informs you, well after the fact, and you chortle a note in response. He continues to lave you clean, the drag of the material smoothing over your stippled planes and it’s intimate—how he takes you under his care, how he unmakes his mess.

Your heart, silly flustered thing it is, it tells you the act feels worshipful—reverent, maybe—but your head convinces you to look away, to cower, to do anything but address the blaze left in the wake of the rag he’s swiping over you. It’s too much. You feel vase-like— fragile and dainty, for the bounty hunter to either fill with wildflowers or crush under the heel of his boot— and it’s too unbearable. Bringing a hand to your sweat-sheened face, you shadow your eyes, ostriching shyly— if I can’t see him, he can’t see me.

A clipped tone escapes his helmet and it’s a sound you can’t place— it’s short, a blip—and you presume he’ll remain mum until he speaks. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

You don’t have to hide from me. I don’t want you to hide from me.

You nearly whimper at that. There’s something endearing and bronzed about how he says it, something torn, too—and you peak through the curtain of your fingers to watch him perform his ministrations. Almost begrudginly, you remove your hand from it’s shelf, resting it on the swell of your breast while he passes the cloth along your inner thighs, erasing the sticky traces of himself. There’s a quiet pause, a moment of distilled nothing before—

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” you admit, small.

He soothes his thumb into the crook of your hip, voice blunt with guilt. “I know.”

Sighing, you nod a little thing, a half-gesture, practically creeping under the Mandalorian's radar undetectable. Thunder shouts, lightning cracks— the bombastic storm outside apathetic to the lull within. Din clears his throat, rasping. “Was that okay?”

You resist the temptation to snort. Din is such a juxtaposition—one you don’t imagine you’ll tire from any time soon. He’s dangerous and protective and clever and strong and kind, despite his best efforts to snuff his compassion to ash like the butt of a dead cigarette. Lifting your palm from its perch, you extend to him, measuredly sliding your fingers against the crate— stretching stretching until he meets you, dubious and toddling like a child’s first steps, orange-dipped digits touching nude flesh. Your everbright grin brightens all the more— bewitching, back-breaking—as you entwine your hands to mesh.

“More than okay,” you say coyly. “Was that-was that good for you?”

Din huffs out an airy chuckle rich with disbelief, like he can’t fathom you’re even asking him—like you’d even have to ask at all. “That was—that was good. Very good,” he confesses gruffly, never a man for poetry, breathlessness still apparent in the bleed of his vocoder. “Even better than I imagined.”

A feline grin unfurls your lips, boldly quirking the droll corners of your mouth. “You imagine this often, Mando?”

Smirking wry and devastating, Din ushers you up by your woven hands, your body pliable and easy to his will; uprighted, his hips slot between your pretty knees, and he expertly twists your arm behind your back, snaring it there. Spine swooped, breasts brushing against his beskar, your nipples pebble cold. “Don’t let it go to your head, dala,” he gravels, visor tilted down at your dwarfed form, tenting you.

“Well," you tease lightly, "I’ll try my best.”

And you look at each other with all the tender awkwardness of two people standing on the edge of a brave new unknown.

Nervous, girlish, you smile.

Fluttering, pussy-drunk, he smiles back.

///

Nested in the pronged branch of a tall tree spindling up from the graveled soil, Din— a man, a boy too— reclines supine against the bark. His feet dangle like they did then, back when he wasn’t so afraid, and the air is dusted with a rosy haze as dusk settles upon the tired day.

The sun sets. The world twinkles a midnight blue, winking starshine as she spins.

Somewhere, behind him, his mother calls him home for supper.

tags: @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @pedros-mustache @miranhas-art @djarrex @djarinsbeskar @bookloverfilmoholic @keeper0fthestars @misguidedandbeguiled @bookishofalder @helmet-comes-off @grumpymuffinmama @niiight-dreamerrrr @spideysimpossiblegirl @janebby @greatcircle79 @gracie7209 @thatonedindjarinfan @altered-delta @email2ash @stevie75 @shegatsby @onebrownoneblue @uniquebiscuitmongerdonkey @severinsnape @kirsteng42 @justanothersadperson93 @mrsbentalmadge @radiowallet @librariantothejedi @whataperfectwasteoftime @babydarkstar @punkremus @mandobloggin @alma-rt1 @not-the-droids @pedrostories @kylieann0716 @jk7789

#King of Cups #din djarin x reader #din djarin x fem!reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x ofc #din djarin #the mandalorian #mando x you #mando x reader #mando x fem!reader #din djarin fanfic #din Djarin smut #the mandalorian fanfic #star wars fandom

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nightshade-minho · 4 years ago

Text

MOONSTORM [ iii ]

You know that feeling when you know you’ve made a terrible mistake?

Yes. That feeling.

It’s a feeling that never really goes away. You had to learn that the hard way.

Irrevocable actions, stupid mistakes. You were heart-wrenchingly familiar with all of it.

To err was human apparently. You...weren’t human, though.

It seems like being superhuman was insignificant, after all. At the end of the day, nothing mattered. None of your powers did.

Despite it all, you still lost him.

warnings: depressing shit (it gets better though dw) mentions of death, violence, sexual content, future smut

wc: 2.8k

moonstorm masterlist

It felt like the world had lost all color.

It had happened so many months ago, and yet it still felt like it happened just yesterday. The memories of stumbling out of his lair, covered in his blood and your tears, still fresh in your mind.

The image of his face, betrayed and yet so calm as he uttered those last words to you...it haunted you constantly.

You found yourself looking at the moon every night, dreaming about what could have been. The nightmares endlessly plagued your sleep as well, causing you to fear even your own bed.

No...even after Hyunjin's effects on you wore off, your own brain took on the responsibility of torturing you by conjuring up more heartbreaking dreams. Dreams which made you long for something you knew you’d lost forever- never to be yours again.

You never truly realized how much you’d gotten used to having him around. Life was so glaringly empty and meaningless without him. It was a complicated relationship…and yet it still left a giant hole in you. An all-encompassing despair that threatened to swallow you up.

With him gone, it just didn’t feel right to be a superhero anymore. How could you be the strong role model for everyone in the city to rely on when you knew just how weak you’d become? Even when the newspapers were covered with your heroics, even as the mayor addressed the city and expressed his desire to give you a medal for stopping yet another supervillain from roaming the streets- you stubbornly refused to don that costume ever again.

You stayed hidden through it all. You just couldn’t bring yourself to go out in public anymore. Your vigilante costume lay forgotten in the back of your closet- crumpled and sad.

It just...felt wrong. At the moment you felt nothing but pathetic. You didn’t have time to waste saving a snotty kitten stuck on a tree or stop a petty criminal from robbing a bank- all you were fit to do was eat ice cream straight from the can, and watch a soulless movie. The same routine, day in and day out. You hadn’t left your apartment in nearly a month, not even to buy groceries. Every second was spent wrapped up in blankets, pondering what you’d done.

Was that selfish of you? Probably. You were discovering new flaws by the second.

Sighing, you sat up a little, your ass almost numb from how long you’d spent lying down. Glancing up, you saw your father’s portrait looking down at you. You swallowed and slowly stood up from your bed, groaning to yourself. Why did he suddenly seem so disappointed?

Maybe a little bit of fresh air is what you needed, considering you were starting to believe the paintings were changing expressions. After all, you had work to do anyway- might as well take advantage of the nearby café’s free WiFi.

***

Here at last.

You sat down in the corner of the café, so tired you could barely move a muscle. But you had to get a move on with your life- the recovery should have happened by now.

And yet here you were, months later. Nothing seemed to be able to fill the hole he left behind, and even now you wished you could go back home as soon as possible.

Had it...had it been a mistake?

Of course it had. Your misery was evidence, and you weren’t sure how much longer you could convince yourself that you’d done it for the good of the city.

The truth was... Hwang Hyunjin scared you.

He made you feel things, made you want to be someone else entirely. Every ounce of rigidity and austerity you’d imposed in yourself disappeared every time you were with him. He made you want to give everything up- give up all the responsibilities and burdens you carried on your shoulders to be with him. To be like him- free.

It wasn’t Hyunjin who was a threat to the city. No, not directly.

It was you- or rather the lack of you.

This city needed you to survive, and if Hyunjin managed to change you...it surely wouldn’t have lasted long without your help. Hyunjin had never really been the city’s biggest threat- there were far worse villains and it was them who you really fought against.

He was more of just an inconvenience, someone you had to deal with from time to time. And then he’d struck that deal- after which the nature of your relationship had turned into something entirely different.

Every time he acted up, it was usually just a ploy to get your attention. And attention was exactly what he got. You’d reinforced his behavior like an idiot.

You told yourself it was a chore, but it wasn’t all that convincing. You’d loved spending those nights in his bed, loved the way he was an expert at making you come undone with his body and his words.

It really had seemed like a good idea at the time. The right thing to do. However, it was quickly starting to seem like anything but.

You sighed as your mind tried its best not to travel back all those months. Dipping a teabag into the liquid, you mindlessly observed the customers in the cafe. Many of them were young, teenagers who were heading out before class.

You sighed as you recalled your own high school days, the times Hyunjin and you had hung out in a cafe much like this one.

“You don’t have to help me with this project, you know.”

“Ah, shush. It’s our final year. I’m not going to leave you alone.” He smiled as he flipped through his books, taking a sip of his coffee occasionally.

“You act like you’re not sticking to me like white on rice the rest of the year.” You roll your eyes, chuckling to yourself.

“Don’t get snippy with me, missy.” He smirked, still thumbing the pages nonchalantly. “Or I’ll have to punish you.”

“You- I- what?” You wouldn’t admit it, but the thought caused a fluttering sensation in more than one place. It was a little bit of a shock, considering the two of you had done nothing more than make out and flirt, until now.

“Chill. I’m kidding.” He shook his head, looking up at you. “Unless…” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Stop it! I’m supposed to be working right now.” You whined, swatting him with a rolled up paper.

“I don’t care.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Hm...do you know what I’m thinking of right now, Y/n?”

“W-what?”

“Thinking about how easy it would be to slip my fingers under your skirt and play with that pretty pussy of yours. I’m pretty sure it’s soaked your underwear through by now.”

Fuck.

Your cheeks flushed as you stared at your plate. You couldn’t find it in yourself to respond properly- his mere words had already turned you to a mess.

“S-shut up.” You mumbled, reading out formulas aloud as you tried to divert your attention from it. Hyunjin let out a teasing chuckle at your lame attempt to change the topic, shaking his head as he stared at his book again, unaware you were looking over your own at him, pressing your thighs together subtly.

God, he was so...so annoying.

You snapped out of it, sighing as you looked around at the much less crowded cafe. Had it always looked so dull? So lifeless?

The thought of him was hurtful- it felt like a dull knife, screwing itself into you. Reminding you what you’d done.

You’d killed the love of your life.

And now? There was no way to bring him back.

***

“Murder is never something a superhero should resort to. A good hero always stays true to themselves- they only kill if it’s absolutely necessary.”

A cough.

“But of course...villains are exempt from that rule. Killing one villain’s life could save countless others.”

Hm. You weren’t exactly sure if your father was right. Although you were just a child, you still had some knowledge of morality.

Was he? Killing just...seemed wrong. You didn’t know if you could bring yourself to do it, no matter how evil the person was.

“Surely there are other ways to neutralize someone evil, Father?”

He narrowed his eyes at you, before shaking his head coldly. “Untrue.”

“The truth is, some lives are expendable, my dear Y/n…” Another cough, before he cleared his throat and fixed his gaze back on you.

“You must always look for the greater good.”

***

You still remembered the day you first met Hyunjin.

He was 13, and you were just a little younger. Your families were good comrades and allies, so your eventual meeting had already been planned.

The two of you were in the living room with everyone else as they talked to each other, mingling and chattering like adults usually did. Hyunjin and you made an unanimous decision to sneak out to the rooftop, and get to know each other better.

��So...our parents are allies now, hm? This means we’re going to see each other a lot more.”

“Of course we are! We’re both prodigies, like my dad and your mom...we inherited their powers, so they’re obviously going to want to cultivate those.”

“You speak pretty fancy for a 12 year old.”

“Hey, so do you! Besides, we’re gifted, aren’t we?”

“Hm.” He sighed, swinging his legs and inhaling. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke up again.

“Do you actually like having these powers?”

“Oh? Well, yeah...I do...my father tells me stories of his days as a superhero. I want to help people, just like him.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d much rather live a normal life. Get a normal job, find someone to love, and have a normal marriage in a normal town.”

You pressed your lips together. “To each their own, I guess. Personally, I just want to get rid of all the evil in the world and make my father proud.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Evil…” He tapped his chin. “How does one even know the difference between good and evil?”

You raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? I’m pretty sure it would be obvious in every situation.”

“I disagree. The distinction is blurry. No one knows for sure, and definitely not at first glance.” He sighed. “I would know.”

You brought your knees to your chest as you observed the city below. “Well, I guess you’re right…” you paused, your heart feeling a little heavy for some reason.

“Do you know?”

“The line between good and evil is thin, Y/n. I can’t say I know for sure. But do you know what will always help you remember?”

“What?”

“Your heart.” He said softly, glancing at you and offering you a small smile.

“Just do whatever feels right...trust yourself.”

***

You sighed and shut your laptop.

Home. You needed to go home, cause your heart ached too much. You definitely weren’t ready to go back to work yet. You hadn’t done anything productive today really, just drink coffee and reflect on your actions. Regretting....regretting it all.

It’d been wrong. The wrong choice, the wrong decision.

You knew that, now. There could have been another way. You shouldn’t have rushed into it like that...how could you?

You felt a surge of hatred towards yourself engulf you. It was all your fault, this pain you were feeling. You didn’t have anyone to direct this immense anger towards except yourself. You realized this little fact in horror, your heart clenching as you wished things could have been different.

Finishing off your coffee, you placed a few bills on the table as you left the café, heading home. Ready to burrow under the blankets again, wallow in your self pity and pain. There wasn’t much else to do except succumb to acceptance.

You made your way down the street, humming the saddest song you knew under your breath.

All of a sudden, you felt eyes burning into your back. Your own eyes widening slightly, you turned around quickly-

But there was no one there.

Weird. Sighing, you decided to go back to going over your plans for tonight in your mind.

Maybe watch a movie in hopes of triggering some sort of emotion in you...or maybe take a bath, light some candles and listen to depressing music- shit.

It happened again. Someone was following you- you could feel it. Uncomfortable, your breathing slowly started getting heavier as you tried to formulate some kind of plan in your head-

The next thing that happened was so sudden you barely registered it for a second.

Your hand was gripped, so tightly you felt it would bruise. Aggressive, shocking and swift as lightning- it took several seconds before you realized someone was trying to kidnap you.

“Stop! Leave me alone!”

Struggling against the person holding you, you caught a glimpse of the masked man and decided to scream, hoping to gain some attention from somebody, anybody. There was no way this was happening, not right now. Your day had already been bad enough, why was the universe so intent on rubbing salt in your wounds?!

The urge to fight had never been stronger. Yet there was no strength left in your body. You couldn’t fight back against this man- he was taller than you and somehow even matched you in strength. Unless you exposed your powers, there was no way you would get yourself out of this predicament. Somehow you managed to smack him with your arm weakly, making him hiss.

“Let me go, please!”

The coffee cup fell out of your hand, brown liquid spilling all over the ground as you were pulled into the dark alley so quickly, no one would notice. Your eyes darted about in panic, trying to work out a possible escape route when the masked man caged you in, his arms on either side of you.

A horrible sense of déjà vu enveloped you. It’s all you can do to not scream, trying to keep yourself calm so that you could escape.

It’s ok, breathe in...and concentrate.

The heat within you started to crackle, your palms beginning to burn up gradually.

Your eyes blinked as you decided to try and take a good look at the person holding you. Their head was covered with a black mask, their finger held over their mouth as they ran their eyes over your distressed expression.

Inhale. Exhale.

“What the fuck are you doing?” You hissed, staying still and pretending to give up the struggle. “Unhand me now, or you’ll regret it, trust me-“

“Shh! Y/n, please…” He shushed you, his voice shaky.

You stopped in your tracks.

Huh?

That voice…

“I’ll explain... but first we need to get out of here, fuck-” He looked from side to side quickly, scanning his surroundings.

Shit. Why does that voice sound so familiar?

“Who- who are you?!” You managed to get out, the heat fading away as deep, panicked confusion took over you instead.

There was a small sigh as your assailant stood up a little straighter, groaning. And then, his fingers deftly pulled the mask off, clutching it in his hands tightly.

Golden locks spilled out, a handsome visage coming into view. Plump lips and beautiful eyes, looking oh so familiar.

No.

It couldn’t be. This wasn’t happening. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the actual fuck was going on?

It’s him.

But it can’t be.

How? It’s not possible-

You’re definitely losing your mind.

The man’s breathing got quicker as he watched your expression morph from fear into one of pure, electric shock.

“I know you’re shocked, Y/n, but please listen to-“

Your chest started heaving, quickly rising and falling as your heart pounded against your rib cage.

This...could not be happening. What was this? Was this a nightmare? Yet another sick, twisted dream? He couldn’t be standing right in front of you...it was impossible. No. No no no no no no no.

It was all too overwhelming, and your brain and body seemed to agree on that. Your mind swam, your thoughts all over the place as you felt yourself sway on your feet.

“This- I-“ You stumbled over your words, tears slipping past quickly as you tried to form words to express what you felt.

Pain. Searing pain, taking over, spreading from head to toe.

Your breathing slowed as the world suddenly went black, Hyunjin’s shouts in the background fading away...until there was nothing but silence.

Pure, unadulterated silence.

#hyunjin smut #hyunjin angst #skz smut #skz angst #hwang hyunjin smut #stray kids smut #stray kids angst #hyunjin x reader #hyunjin scenarios #hyunjin imagines

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entropy-game-dev · 4 years ago

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Balancing (Part 1) - Overall considerations

In this blog, I’d like to share with you guys some rules of thumb/tips/methodology that I’ve picked up over the course of my first round of inputting robot/move/part data into my various databases. I’ve had this first pass finished for some time now, and I wanted to write up what I’ve found while it’s still somewhat fresh in my mind.

Just as a recap, here’s what I was looking at for each category:

Robots: Stats, elemental affinities, moves, part slots, rewards, recruit conditions

Moves: Element(s) Costs, damage, targeting, secondary effects, status effects

Parts: Stats, elemental affinities, moves, power cost

All these aspects needed to be balanced against one another, and as you can see, there are a lot of things to take into account! I initially found this task quite overwhelming, but began to tackle it one bit at a time.

Primarily, I wanted my robots, moves, and parts to be memorable! My favourite RPGs have really really strong enemy identities, primarily a function of their affinities (if hitting weaknesses was a big part of the battle system), and their moveset. When you have enemies that can seriously affect your action economy by absorbing, reflecting, or take double/triple damage from a particular attack, it really mixes up how you approach any one encounter.

Even parts and moves can be memorable! The Final Fantasy games (I’m thinking mainly of 9 and Tactics Advance here) where equipment grants skills always made it super fun to pick up new gear. Similarly, moves with varying ranges, costs, and conditional effects (such as in Dofus, Wakfu, and Super Robot Wars), made them feel really good to use! Nothing annoys me more than having multiple spells be just copy-pasted with differing elements attached (Final Fantasy and SMT/Persona suffer from this greatly).

Thematic integrity - absolutely no compromises!

I really strugged to come up with the right word here - organic, ludonarrative harmony, thematic, flavor were all considerations - but the exact word doesn't really matter. My main consideration when designing content was that it absolutely MUST make narrative and mechanical sense in-universe. At a basic level, robots built for attacking would have strong offensive stats, and sturdy robots would have strong defensive stats.

Moving deeper, I also wanted their elemental resistances to tell a story. The rubbery-looking robot would reflect kinetic attacks, and a robot with a large generator would be charged by electomagnetive waves. A primitive communications device might act as a vulnerability point that spreads data damage to allies, and a robot made of particularly volatile materials would be sensitive to temporal damage. The same goes for their moves, I mean, if you have a robot that has a move that folds space in on itself, it better have a good reason for doing so!

So when I say no compromise, I mean it! If it meant the robot would be overly hard or easy due to an odd distribution of strengths, weaknesses, or stats, that's just how things have to be. Of course, I made sure that each unit has at the very minimum, one element it was weak to. A physically sturdy unit might have outdated architecture, making it vulnerable to data attacks, or a precisely calibrated timekeeper might be heavily disrupted by precise particle damage.

So I've spoken about this "organic" design moving beyond the specified bounds of balance, but I haven't yet defined what those bounds should be! Let’s have a look at that graph at the top of the blog. There are two axes, with easy/hard on the vertical and variable/homogenized on the horizontal. This represents my two primary considerations when designing interesting and challenging content, and the two areas show off my target zone (purple area) and how willing I am to stray from this (the red area). Importantly, I don't want EVERY enemy to land in the center of this purple zone, but rather, the optimal is to fill the purple zone as much as possible with different, interesting units, some hard, some easy!

The easy-hard axis

The vertical axis is simple to understand - being an indicator of how easy or hard a player would find a particular enemy at the appropriate level, or how much brain power should go into using a particular part or move. Enemies are intuitively easy to understand - challenging amounts of stats, a good spread of resists, interesting moves... basically nothing that'll stop the enemy from appropriately challenging the player.

For parts/moves, “hard” in this case represents those that were difficult but rewarding to use. For example, moves generally have costs that make the prohibitive to spam, and targeting ranges that need to be maximized to get the most use out of them. Parts too followed the same logic, both having bonuses and detriments to stats and affinities + a power cost such that you can’t just equip everything you find without purpose.

I believe that enemies/moves/parts that are harder to fight against/use will most likely more memorable and make for an overall better experience, and this is reflected in my graph's shadings. This is because you'll have to think more carefully and change up your tactics when dealing with them. I feel like this is more reflective of a harsher and more dangerous universe. Especially for someone coming from the past, it wouldn't make sense that some human is easily able to subdue ultra-advanced war machines! That’s not to say that there won’t be easy robots to fight, because fighting only hard things eventually becomes a slog, but on average I aim to make encounters feel dangerous.

The variable-homogenized axis

This one’s a bit tougher to conceptualise, but to me, this represents how much variance something could have relative to the average. An extremely homogenized unit might have 5′s in all stats, and no affinities. Completely run-of-the-mill. On the other hand, a unit that would be considered highly variable would have all its stats at extremes (~1s and ~10s) and no neutral element affinities - you’d always be hitting a strength or weakness no matter what element was used.

Parts and moves are also subject to balancing on this axis. A more "variable" move would have more of it's databases boxes ticked - it might have hp, energy, AND ammo costs, AND do multiple elemental damage, AND have a weird targeting mechanic, AND have an extra effect attached to the move, AND also apply a status effect... that's a lot of "and"s! Same story for parts, parts would be giving bonuses/negatives to almost all stats and resistances, as well as enable usage of several moves. Here, part and move variability is tied somewhat to how easy/hard they are to use.

Overall I wanted content that does require some thought into their pros and cons both inside and outside of battle, but not so much that the player gets overloaded and burnt out due to taking minutes assessing every possible move/target. As a result, there'll naturally be some easier to use moves and parts as well, especially earlier on!

In summary

I didn't want enemies to have too much OR too little going on. They had to be in the realm of "oh no, not this thing - I have to remember it gets healed by chemical damage and can dish out some nasty aoe attacks! Good thing it's slow!" Parts and moves had to have some benefit to using them, and not have any strictly better counterpart. This blog is getting super long so I'm breaking into two parts, with part 2 focusing on some of the tips and tricks I used to help make sure things were kept within reasonable limits.

#game #videogame #devblog #gamedev #scifi #spacegame #dungeon crawler #rpg #entropy #gamemaker #programming #pixel art #robot #indiedev

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ikkaku-of-heart · 4 years ago

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Her Brother's Blood is on His Hands

(Originally written for @heart-pirates-week for Ikkaku’s day with the prompt “Family” but ended up being delayed until now. Inspired by discussions with @shambledsurgeon and @medicus-mortem)

Ikkaku awoke slowly, the persistent beeping of a heart monitor resembling that of a particularly slow but annoying alarm clock. She tried to sit up but a sharp pain in her side dissuaded her, so she was forced to remain on her back, looking around at the sterile walls of the infirmary. She was hooked up to an IV, there were several machines monitoring her vitals, and she could feel the pressure of tightly-wound bandages around her torso and arms.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Law said from the chair at her bedside, putting down the medical book he’d been reading. The circles under his eyes appeared darker than usual, but his grin was comforting and sure. “I was beginning to wonder if we’d have to resort to drastic measures to wake Sleeping Beauty.”

“Law?” she asked weakly, grimacing at how hoarse she sounded due to the dryness of her throat. “The fuck happened?”

“Gonna have to be more specific,” he stated as he carefully helped prop her up enough that she could safely drink some water. “Do you mean how did you end up here? Maybe the extent of your wounds? Or how about what, exactly, I did to the fucker who hurt you?”

Her eyes widened as she recalled what had happened. She’d been taking a walk with Jean Bart, venting about how much she hated that they were now government dogs because Law’d insisted on handing the Navy one hundred hearts. They’d run into a squad of Marines. Her brother’s squad, to be exact. Ushi had decided it was pointless trying to climb the Navy ranks the normal way, and thus had come up with the idea of sucking up to the Celestial Dragons. And what better way to do so than to return to Saint Rosward his wayward slave?

Heart clenching at the thought of her shipmate being handed back over to those bastards, she asked, “Is Jean—”

“He’s fine. Discharged yesterday,” Law promised, nodding towards the empty bed on the other side of the room. He picked up a chart, studying it as he continued, “Needed a lot of stitches for the lacerations across his back and arms, but nothing life-threatening.”

“Good,” she sighed in relief. He hadn’t been killed or taken. Jean Bart would continue to live as a free man for a while longer. He deserved that much.

“Was quite the sight, seeing him charging towards the ship, covered in blood, carrying you like a baby while you bled out from a stab wound,” he commented, voice even, though there was an unmistakable tightness in his jaw. “I’m just glad he managed to tell me who’d done this to you two before he passed out.”

White teeth sank into her bottom lip, guilt pulsing through her. That’s right. It hadn’t exactly been a victory. They’d managed to take down most of the Marines, but Ushi had managed to get behind her, and then there’d been excruciating pain as he’d driven a knife deep into her side…

“I’m sorry, Captain,” she whispered, black curls hiding her face as she hung her head in shame.

“The hell are you apologizing for?” he asked, gold eyes flicking up from the clipboard and narrowing in displeasure.

She wrung her hands, anxious and guilty. “Jean Bart got hurt because of my family baggage.”

“He got hurt because of an opportunistic asshole who decided that Jean being under the protection of a shichibukai didn’t matter,” he snapped. Pausing, he took a deep breath to compose himself. “The fact that said asshole came out of the same uterus as you is irrelevant.”

“We both know that’s not true,” she countered, refusing to look at him. “He targeted the Hearts because of me. He always has. And he wouldn’t have been able to go after Jean Bart if I’d let you kill him years ago. Or killed him myself. You deserve a subordinate with the stones to kill her own brother.”

Internally, she berated herself for that last part. None of this would be a problem if she’d just toughened up and put an end to that bastard. Why did she always seem to stop herself? Morality? Because she knew how heartbroken her parents would be? Because even years later, she was still scared of her childhood boogeyman?

Her thoughts were disturbed by the clipboard lightly smacking her on the head in reproach. It didn’t hurt, but Ikkaku rubbed her head anyway, frowning up at her captain. “You trying to knock me unconscious again?”

“If that’s what it takes to get you to stop talking bullshit,” he retorted. He glared at her for a moment before letting out a sigh, a tattooed hand falling heavily on her shoulder. “Ikkaku,” Law stated, tone brokering no argument, “what I deserve is a subordinate with the stones to stand up to a power-hungry bastard looking to sell her nakama to a bunch of delusional inbred freaks, which that’s exactly what I’ve got. And what you deserve is to not get stabbed in the spleen by your own blood.”

Well. It was hard to argue that logic. “I guess. But next time—”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“You don’t know that.”

The hand on her shoulder fell away to flip through the pages of her chart. “Ikkaku, you nearly bled out before you even got to the sub. You’re lucky Shachi and Penguin share your blood type and were basically tripping over themselves to donate. I had to replace your spleen and left kidney, and if that knife had gone in at a slightly different angle, he could have punctured your stomach or lung. In other words, this bastard nearly cost me my engineer. You’ve known me for goin’ on five years now; do you really think that once you were stable I just sat around twiddling my thumbs while I waited for you to wake up?”

Dark eyes widened in realization. “Did you kill him?”

“Would you be mad if I said I had?”

No. Not at him at least, but she still felt like she’d let him down by not being able to do it herself. “He shouldn’t have been your problem to solve.”

“You’re right. He shouldn’t have been a problem,” he replied harshly. Before Ikkaku could internally berate herself further, though, Law ran a hand through his hair in frustration, and there was a spark of guilt in his eyes. “No Marine should have even touched you guys. That’s supposed to be one of the fucking perks of being a shichibukai. I told you when I took this damn title that you be safe and look how that turned out.”

Yes, that had been a major argument between them, hadn’t it? For Ikkaku, not wanting to be affiliated with the World Government hadn’t just been a matter of pride or general hatred for the bastards who ran the world – she’d been afraid. Terrified that her brother would be waiting for her around every corner. That he’d find a way to get her alone, to finish the job he’d started when she was seven, to finally get her out of his hair. Law had promised she’d be safe, that he wouldn’t let him so much as breath near her. Eventually, she’d come to believe him, but things hadn’t gone to plan.

“You can’t blame yourself for Ushi not following the rules, Law,” she insisted. Yeah, she could have berated him for not listening to her, but in reality, Law’s logic had been sound; Ushi shouldn’t have dared to try anything. Ikkaku didn’t just have the Hearts protecting her anymore – the Navy itself had become another obstacle in his way. She should have been safe.

However, even she hadn’t fully considered why Ushi would go this far, but in hindsight, it made sense. Last she’d checked, he hadn’t been promoted in a while. Hadn’t advanced as quickly as he wanted or earned any accolades for heroism like everyone back home had been expecting. He was a commodore still – not even a rear-admiral, and his name didn’t strike fear into the hearts of pirates like Smoker’s did.

Because he’d been put on a pedestal, her brother had always gotten away with everything, which had only enforced his cruel and abusive nature. The whole island had believed that he’d become a famous Marine and boost their reputation, which was why they’d been willing to overlook the bruises that littered his sister’s arms, or the fact that she’d gone missing for three days while under his care.

If he’d come home a failure, everyone would have to finally admit he was nothing but a twisted, cruel bully. And instead of accepting the blame for enabling, they’d likely make him answer for his crimes.

But more than that, he’d be forced to accept that he was never that special to begin with, and she knew a man as arrogant as him wouldn’t be able to bear that.

Shaking her head, she almost felt pity for him. “Ushi was desperate, and desperate men are unpredictable as fuck. You couldn’t have known he’d be crazy enough to try to suck up to the Celestial Dragons.”

“Neither of us could have known, but I still could have protected you better,” Law retorted, crossing his arms. He still didn’t look fully convinced of his own absolution, but he declared quite plainly, “The fact is, brothers shouldn’t murder their younger siblings, or even try to.”

Well, not even Ikkaku could argue that.

But actions had consequences, and there was still a strong chance Law’s retaliation, justified or not, would bite him in the ass.

“Ushi might have been no one special, but the Navy’s not going to be happy about you killing one of their own,” she said, genuinely worried. Even if Ushi had been going against orders, shichibukai weren’t supposed to attack their Marine allies. What if they decided to strip Law of his new title? Sure, she hated that he was a government dog, but it was a vital part of his plan to take down Joker, and if that had been stripped away because he’d recklessly pursued revenge on her behalf…

The way he smirked at her belied that he didn’t share even a fraction of her concern. “The Navy’ll have a hell of a time pinning a murder on me when there’s no evidence. It’s unlikely he was ordered to attack you and Jean Bart, so there’s no paper trail. The man was obsessed with advancing up the ladder, so likely only a select few are even aware you’re related, thus no one knows of his unfortunate connection to the Heart Pirates. And unless they plan on gutting a bunch of Sea Kings and piecing together chunks of half-digested flesh, I doubt they’ll find enough of his body to even determine his cause of death.”

“You fed him to Sea Kings?”

“His remains, at least. As for how I killed him…well, I won’t bore you with the details.”

It was highly doubtful what he’d done could be described as boring, but Ikkaku decided not to press him. Knowing Law, it had been slow, painful, and had probably involved dissection. “You didn’t have to do all that for me, Captain.”

He dismissed her concerns with a casual wave of his hand. “Of course I did. You’re family. Besides, if I hadn’t, the rest of the crew would have gone after him themselves, and they wouldn’t have done as good a job covering their tracks. Or made him scream quite as loud. No offense to them, but conventional torture methods just can’t match the agony of having your heart slowly crushed to a pulp.”

Was she a bad person for not feeling sick at the thought of her oldest brother—her own blood—being subjected to the Surgeon of Death’s sadism? That instead of anger or disgust, she felt relieved? Sure, he was a massive piece of shit who deserved to die for everything he’d done to her, her other brothers, and who knows what else, but he was still family, wasn’t he?

No. The Hearts were family. Law was family. He was right – Ushi was blood, but he wasn’t her brother.

Law’s brow furrowed with concern and he reached forward, cupping her cheeks and wiping tears away with his thumbs. Ikkaku hadn’t even realized she was crying.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, looking genuinely guilty. “I shouldn’t have overstepped like that. I should have at least waited until you were awake and asked—”

Though she was tired and weak and it took far more effort than she’d like, Ikkaku lifted her arm and flicked Law squarely in the forehead. He didn’t quite flinch back, but he did give her an annoyed grunt, but his brow did smooth out when he saw her bright smile.

“Thank you,” she said, cheeks streaked with tears but voice warm with love and affection and gratitude. It might take a while for her to fully accept that Ushi was no longer laying in wait at every Marine base, but for now, she could breath a little easier. The monster from her childhood had finally been vanquished.

Trafalgar Law might not have been a knight in shining armor, but he was something better. He was the big brother she’d always wished for.

Relieved that she wasn’t angry, Law gave her a tiny but sincere grin back. His engineer was alive, safe, and giving him that sunny smile that could light up a room. Well worth the blood on his hands, and quietly, he vowed to keep her, and the rest of his Hearts, safe from whatever hell might come their way.

They were a loyal bunch of fools, but they were his family. He’d set the world on fire before allowing anything to happen to them.

A hand adorned with the word DEATH retreated from Ikkaku’s cheek to ruffle her hair. “Don’t mention it.”

#The Engine is the Heart of the Ship (canon)#Join the Hearts: We Have Uniforms #Heart Siblings #Drabble #(been wanting to go into what happens to Ushi during the timeskip)#(and how it would definitely be Law that kills him instead of Ikkaku)#(hope people like this!)#(not sure about the title but it's the best I could think of without being cheesy or cliche)

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shinymooncolor · 5 years ago

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Hi!

So - had two prompts that I’ve combined into this chat!

As always @lumosinlove is the mastermind of this wonderful fandom. 💖

I want to thank you all! Over 20 snippets and chats now. You guys are absolutely incredible and I can’t believe the feedback and love and good vibes I get from you. Thank you! I’m all done with prompts except for one which is the next chat - so I’ll be open for your ideas 😍

@frombeauxbatons and @canesinthecrease just because you inspire me ❤️

The boys are being naughty at a team event. Don’t worry. Consent was given on all accounts - they’re good boys! But they’re also a bunch of frat boys with muscles.

Remus plans a prank. He blames dumo and James. Nado organizes. Sergei wins. Timmy loses. Dumo is a prankster too. Olli is sneaky. Sirius is not in on the prank. Kuny is Kuny. Nat is amazing. Kris is an ally. Nado is also the team’s phoebe. (Friends reference)

Sweater weather chat #14

——

Saturday 5.22 pm

Nado created a group chat.

Nado named the group chat THE BIG LIONS HEIST 2020.

Nado added James, Remus, Dumo

Nado: hey Re. Remember the plan? We need to get all the boys to take the selfie before he notices

Remus: Nado. We’ve gone over this multiple times. I’ll get the phone from Sirius. I still think this is a disaster but you and James are very convincing

James: it’s a fucking awesome plan. He won’t notice I bet

Nado: also extra points if you get him all worked up😂

James: I don’t wanna spend an entire evening looking at Sirius trying to hide a hard-on

Nado: why not? It’s funny 😂

Dumo: why did remus get the easiest job?

Remus: I’m the only one who gets to put my hands in Sirius’ pocket.

Nado: awwww jealous?? You know we see him naked like several times a day?

Dumo: you’re not supposed to look.

Nado: I’m curious about the human body!

James: well we’ve all had sneak peaks. Still scared of Sergei

Dumo: he should hAve a tramp stamp saying heavy machinery

Nado: lets get him drunk!!!! Brady can ink him!!!!

Remus: you are not inking anyone without their consent. Also; have you met his wife? She’d skin you all alive.

Dumo: she would. I’ve seen her make a reporter cry.

James: why?

Dumo: the reporter insinuated things about Kuny. Not sure what he said but based on the cursing and sunny having to physically restrain her I think it was bad

Nado: yikes anyways we got everyone on board. I’ll kick cap out the group chat once you’ve swiped the phone. Now go get your tuxes on. We’ve got rich old ladies to woo.

Dumo: you’re not supposed to take them home.

Nado: I never saw that rule. Older ladies knows some shit. Damn. Cougars are wild!

Remus: I’m not treating sex injuries

Nado: you treated Kuny’s groin last month?

Remus: that was from the ice.

Nado: sure it was 😜

Dumo: I’m ending this. Go change and BEHAVE tonight

——

Saturday 8.54 pm

Nadotheman removed siriusly from the group chat

Nadotheman added Remus to the group chat

Nadotheman changed Remus to Loops

Blizzard: did you do it? You have the phone?

Loops: yes. I did my part. Your guys are up

Nadotheman: okay here are the rules for the 2020 lions heist (this year we’re doing truth and dare the lions way - so mostly dare)

1. We have 3 hours and cap’s phone. Each team member has to get a selfie with cap in the frame. The best (dirtiest) photo wins 😜

2. CAP CANT KNOW

3. Leo and Walker are starting and they get to chose the next one. You’ve all got one photo each

4. To be considered we need the photo sent to this chat before midnight.

5. Remus is the ref on this little game.

6. If you lose. You’ve gotta tell us 3 secrets. He he we get to pick when.

DamnFoxy: how is this a prank on cap?

Prongstar: he’s always being swarmed and it’s fun. He’s our canvas and we need to fill in the blanks. It’s like hide and seek meeting truth and dare meeting Pictionary meeting Snapchat

CarbO’Hara: so we can start? Cause Kuny’s been snogging that girl for 4 minutes now? Does he not need to breathe?

Nadotheman: that’s two points for Leo!

CarbO’Hara: @newt-leo? WhY? I saw him first?

Newt-Leo: he’s snogging someone at the shrimp buffet. That’s open season. Also he’s still not come up for air? And it was my turn to start @krisvolley and @prongstar you’re it

KrisVolley: @blizzard & @lewilliam you’re up

LeWilliam: blizzard is cheating!!! He got his girlfriend’s friend to kiss him!!!! And Nat was touching cap’s butt

Blizzard: read the rules man. I’m not cheating

LeWilliam: but it’s unfair?

Blizzard: not my fault. I’m winning.

Loops: @lewilliam I’m pretty sure Nat and blizzard saved cap from a handsy old lady.

Blizzard: @sergei_81 & @kaneyoudigit you’re up

Kaneyoudigit: Hahahaha hahahha pretty sure sergei and me are gonna win.

Dumodad: sergeu just manhandled a very confused looking Sirius all the way back to the toilets?

Nadotheman: wait. Where’s Kuny?

KrisVolley: yeah Sergei definitely won.

Kaneyoudigit: I’ve got a pic too!!!

Logantremblayzzz: well you’ve got only half a cap. Sergei got himself and cap giving thumbs up.

Sunnysideup: you forgot you were supposed to be in the photo @kaneyoudigit 😂

Prongstar: so it’s not even 10 and Kuny’s already half naked in the bathroom. It’s like you guys aren’t even tryin. Didn’t even get a selfie with cap in it yet. Also he wasn’t supposed to know.

Sergei_81: he not know game he think I just want pic for Kuny. Keep try but I’m win.

Krisvolley: well that was smart. Back to the game boys. @dumodad & @logantremblayzzz you’re up

Sergei_81: why you sound surprised? Brat. I’m smart.

——

Nadotheman: everyone got their pics in?

Walkietalkie: yeah. Finno was last with Olli. They’ve just sent it - nice job Olli 😜 timmy didn’t send one tho

Loops: I don’t think I want to know. Olli. How the hell did you get cap to do that?

Ollibear: I just asked him to get some fresh air with me. How could I know timmy was getting acquainted with a girl behind the curtain? 😇

DumoDAD: acquainted? Is that what it’s called now?

RussianGod: at least I go to toilet for hookup

KrisVolley: you’re all terrible.

Sunnysideup: you sent a selfie with you and cap in front of the girls kissing in the corner....

KrisVolley: I’m a proud ally!

Talkiewalkie: to be fair you both look incredible uncomfortable

KrisVolley: it’s a stupid game

Timmyforrealz: HEY?! You losers hear about privacy?

Ollibear: if you want privacy don’t hook up with someone behind a curtain at a fancy nightclub.... also you didn’t send a pic. You’ve lost.

Timmyforrealz: I didn’t lose hah. Maybe I lost your dumb game

Prongstar: don’t blame the game for her dumping you. Also you lost some buttons on your shirt, your tie is a disaster and your dignity is hanging on by a thread

Timmyforrealz: she didn’t dump me. I decided not to pursue it further!

Russiangod: whatever u say. Come on who win?

Loops added siriusly to the group chat

Siriusly: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? Why am I in all of these selfies?

Loops: you’re cute when you’re annoyed. I had nothing to do with this😇

Prongstar: captain my captain. It was all loops’ idea. We’ve got a selfie collection for you.

Siriusly: you idiots have spent an entire evening running Around trying to take selfies with me and not tell me?

DumoDAD: it was fun. You didn’t catch on when Sergei asked you to pose in front of Kuny clearly going at it?

Siriusly: I thought it was a prank on Kuny? Like steal his clothes and all/ wait didn’t you steal his clothes?

Nadotheman: we should’ve. Dammit

Sergei_81: loops who win????

Loops: timmy lost.

Siriusly: wait it that why Nat was patting my butt? She said I’d been sitting in something? @blizzard!!!!

Blizzard: 😜

Siriusly: should I be offended? She did ask if it was okay. Wait. Why did I have to be in the photos? You’re not doing another collage?

Prongstar: of course! Last year was cap sleeping in different places.

Siriusly: you’re all idiots. How did you even get my phone??

Loops: ...

Siriusly: oh.

Talkiewalkie: awwwwww... 😜

Timmyforrealz: anyone seen my wallet?

Ollibear: I give up. 🙏🏻

#lumosinlove #lumosinlove ocs #sweaterweather #sweaterweatherchats #sweater weather #sweaterweatheroc’s #sweaterweatherchatsnr14

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sparkandwolf · 5 years ago

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Perfect Pitch (read on ao3)

Pairing: Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale Rating: Explicit Summary: Stiles raced down the steps with Lydia hot on his tail and when he got to the railing, he leaped over and ran toward Derek, jumping into his arms excitedly. It could have been perceived as a friendly hug between one pride-filled player who just hit in the winning runs and one ecstatic Mets fan, but Stiles had known better if the way Derek’s arms squeezed around his waist had anything to say about it.

His thoughts were definitely confirmed as Derek whispered, “It takes 15 minutes for everyone to clear out of the locker room after a win. Meet me there in 20.”

For Kinktober Day #23: Shower Sex

second chapter to Caught Looking

There was not much Stiles loved more than watching a baseball game with a too-large, cold cup of soda and a bag of stadium popcorn. He sat behind the Mets dugout with his feet propped up against the railing in front of him, yelling some absurdities at the ump with a dopey smile on his face.

“Call it for both teams like a good ally! What the hell kind of strike zone is that?!” Stiles yelled as he tossed a handful of popcorn on top of the dugout causing Lydia to smack his arm and send him a pleading. Stiles thought his actions were called for, more so by the smirk Derek sent in his direction from his spot at home plate.

“As your publicist, I need you to stop tarnishing your image,” Lydia said sternly when Stiles tore his eyes away from the field.

“And as my friend?” Stiles said hopefully, tossing a piece of popcorn into her hair with a laugh. She grabbed it furiously and threw it back at him, hitting him straight in the cheek, only excelling his laughter. He went to scoop another handful, but her motions were quicker as she grabbed the offending bag from him with a huff. Stiles looked at her full of faux shock, his mouth gaping open.

“As your friend, I need you to stop being such an idiot,” she finished, tossing back a few pieces of his snack smugly. Stiles grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest before focusing back on the game. Derek was at bat, two strikes against him with two men on base. The Mets were down by two at the bottom of the ninth and Stiles could feel the tension rising in the crowd. Unfortunately, Derek wasn’t known for his batting average. It wasn’t bad, by any means, but with the pressure they were under, it would’ve been preferable to have Boyd at the plate. Stiles chewed on his thumb, leaning forward to watching as the pitcher stepped back after an affirmative nod.

Derek had a strict process for when it was his turn at the plate; the pitch would come in, the ump would call it, Derek would step back with one foot in the box (as per the new and utterly stupid rules) and look for direction from the third base coach. Then, he would watch as the pitcher debated his next throw, eyes unmoving from him until the next pitch came in. His eyes were on the coach or the pitcher at all times no matter what else was going on around him and he never broke from that.

Derek had stepped out, glanced at the third base coach who had no direction, and watched the pitcher as he stepped back in and rested the bat against his broad shoulder. That time, though, his eyes wandered over to Stiles, eyeing him with every bit of intensity he had in him. Stiles stared back at him, hoping his shock wasn’t too obvious on his face, and sent him a wink. He hoped it said, “win this game and you’re fucking me in the locker room.”

It must have said something, because as the pitch came in, slower than Stiles had expected, Derek waited on his back foot. He leaned that extra half a second and slammed it with the barrel of his bat. It flew over the heads of everyone on the green, narrowly missing the left field foul pole, and floated into the stands. The ump raised his arms to signify the fair ball and before Stiles could stop himself, he launched from his seat. He cupped his hands over his mouth and hollered before tugging Lydia up and into a frantic hug as they celebrated together.

The music blasted through the speakers as Derek rounded third, his teammates gathered around the plate to await that final step. Derek jumped up and landed on the plate and the crowd roared like thunder. Stiles felt like he was vibrating with the energy on the field alone and then Derek looked at him. He threw off his helmet and winked in Stiles’ direction before nodding his head toward the dugout gate.

Stiles raced down the steps with Lydia hot on his tail and when he got to the railing, he leaped over and ran toward Derek, jumping into his arms excitedly. It could have been perceived as a friendly hug between one pride-filled player who just hit in the winning runs and one ecstatic Mets fan, but Stiles had known better if the way Derek’s arms squeezed around his waist had anything to say about it.

His thoughts were definitely confirmed as Derek whispered, “It takes 15 minutes for everyone to clear out of the locker room after a win. Meet me there in 20.”

Before Stiles could answer, Derek was pulled away by a reporter hoping for his first game-winning interview, and Stiles was redirected by Lydia for his own bit of press. The minute Stiles lost sight of the rest of the team in the locker room, he was counting down, glancing at the outfield clock every few seconds. Twenty minutes seemed to drag on as everyone cleared the stadium and the only people left were Stiles, Lydia, some press, and the field maintainers.

“You ready to go?” Lydia asked after she shook the final hand of the night. Stiles raised an eyebrow at her and couldn’t stop his gaze from wandering to the door leading into the locker rooms behind the dugout. Lydia sighed heavily and rolled her head back, clicking her tongue disappointingly in the process. She righted her head and tilted her head at Stiles, pursing her lips in thought.

“Is there anything I can say to stop you from fucking the hot catcher in a semi-public place, risking the perfectly crafted image I have created for you?” Lydia asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Stiles bit down on his lip and gazed over her shoulder with a nod, pretending to consider her words.

He didn’t have to think long before he decided, “Absolutely nothing.” Stiles jumped as the timer on his phone sounded and the spike of anticipation that raced down his spine was almost overwhelming. He sent a pleading look toward Lydia who just waved her hand at him and started up the steps of the stadium.

“You have an 8am interview with the local radio station. Be back at the hotel by 7:30,” Lydia demanded and Stiles nodded noncommittally as he made his way to the dugout. “I mean it, Stiles! 7:30!” Lydia shouted after him and Stiles opted to ignore her words in favor of darting to the door he had seen Derek and the rest of the team disappear through. He weaved his way through the maze of underground tunnels until he heard the slam of a locker and a bit of chatter. He tried to hide behind a wall, but Isaac and Boyd rounded the corner with knowing smirks on both of their faces when they caught sight of Stiles.

“Stiles, right? Nice first pitch. Gonna give the newbie here a run for his money,” Boyd teased as he jabbed his elbow into Isaac’s ribs. Isaac glared at him but there was no heat in it as he rolled his eyes.

Isaac sent a wave toward the locker room and said, “We’ve got a 9am warmup.” Stiles sputtered out an ‘okay’ when he realized the words were directed at him and a blush covered his cheeks. So much for being stealthy, he thought to himself as he wandered into the locker room. He wasn’t quite sure where the sudden onslaught of nervousness was coming from, but he figured it had to do with the intimidatingly good looking man that appeared in front of him. Derek was shirtless with only a towel around his waist and his face was still smudged with dirt from the game.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I must have come too quickly,” Stiles said quickly, turning to face the lockers as if he had walked in on a private moment.

“Not yet, you haven’t,” Derek countered as he reached for Stiles’ hand to turn him back around. Derek had a teasing smirk on his face and his toned abs were just right there and from that moment on, Stiles wasn’t positive he had any control over his actions. He surged toward Derek and connected their lips in a fiery kiss, the sheer force of it enough to knock Derek into the tiled half wall behind him. It was a mess of teeth and tongues as if they were putting all of the energy they had pent up from their earlier flirtation into one simple kiss. Derek’s mind seemed to catch up to Stiles’ actions as his hands gripped at Stiles’ waist to tug him closer. Stiles rutted his hips and he could have sworn Derek growled into the kiss.

“Jesus Christ, Stiles,” Derek muttered as he tore his mouth away from the kiss. Stiles felt like he couldn’t stop; like he needed the taste of Derek on his lips to survive. His lips trailed down Derek’s now exposed neck, uncaring for the salt and dirt that his taste buds argued against before his hand ran down his chest and landed at the edge of the towel. The feeling of the fabric was enough to knock into Stiles that he had just attacked Derek before he even had a chance to shower off the adrenalin of the game. Embarrassment washed through him rapidly and when he tried to back away - to apologize and run out of the room like the coward he was - Derek’s fingers squeezed his hips to keep him in place.

“I don’t know why-- I just-- Look at you and--” Stiles had known he was a stuttering mess as he repeated the same phrases over and over again, but he couldn’t stop as his eyes trailed down the slightly dusty chest in front of him.

“Yeah?” Derek said with a gulp, his throat bobbing as Stiles pressed his palms against the hard plains of Derek’s chest and abs before letting his hands rest on Derek’s broad shoulders.

“I thought your Sports Illustrated cover was photoshopped.” Stiles wasn’t sure why he decided that was the safest thing to say and he shook his head in shame as he glanced back up at Derek. The amused smirk on Derek’s face had him blushing a little deeper as he slid a hand behind Derek’s neck to thread his fingers in his signature dark hair. “They can’t photoshop that trademark Derek Hale smirk, though,” Stiles commented and he felt his stomach jump when the smirk turned into a full grin, teeth and all. Derek had an incredible smile which really shouldn’t have surprised Stiles as everything about him was beautiful, but the sight had Stiles suddenly self-conscious.

“You’re kind of adorable,” Derek noted with a tilt of his head. Any insecurities that Stiles might have had washed away as Derek leaned back against the wall behind him and let his eyes wander over Stiles’ body. Stiles was all too aware of the way his shirt had started sticking to his skin with sweat and how his pants were too tight against his thighs. “That’s not exactly what I would choose to wear to a baseball game,” Derek commented as he grabbed the material of Stiles’ shirt and tugged at it playfully.

“I don’t exactly have a choice when it comes to promotional events, now do I?” Stiles said as he actively ignored the hardness growing in his jeans. He cursed Lydia for her choice of attire as he grew uncomfortably against Derek.

“I still have to shower,” Derek mentioned as he cocked his head behind him to where cleanliness awaited him and Stiles huffed out a laugh before dropping his hands back to his sides.

“Yeah, you should do that. I can, uh, wait over--” Before Stiles could turn, Derek slid a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him into another kiss. Their lips moved together slowly until Derek pulled Stiles’ bottom lip into his mouth with his teeth, suckling softly as the fingers of his free hand played with the bottom of Stiles’ shirt.

“Or,” Derek started as he brushed his thumb across Stiles’ happy trail slowly, “you can join me.” That was an offer that Stiles would have been a fool to refuse. He nodded slowly, his eyes floating open as he licked his lips to savor the taste of Derek on his tongue. Derek ushered him into one of the more private stalls in the back of the locker room before gripping the bottom of Stiles’ shirt and pulling it over his head, tossing it into the stall next to them.

Stiles pouted at him and pointed out, “I don’t have any other clothes to wear out of here.” Derek shrugged as his lips attached to Stiles’ newly exposed shoulder. He placed a spattering of kisses on the freckled skin, licking a line across his collarbone before moving back to his lips. Stiles hummed into the kiss and promptly forgot about everything that wasn’t Derek’s warm hands on his skin.

“I have plenty of spare clothes in here,” Derek murmured against Stiles’ lips as Stiles craned his neck to deepen the kiss just a little more. Derek pressed him against the wall with an expert roll of his hips before he pulled away just enough to unbutton Stiles’ jeans and tug down his zipper in one fluid motion.

“God, you’re good at this,” Stiles whispered as Derek helped him out of his jeans and boxers before removing the towel that was still wrapped around his waist. He shrugged and traced his fingers down Stiles’ chest and stomach, stopping just before he reached the base of Stiles’ rapidly hardening cock. A whine escaped Stiles’ mouth before he could stop it and Derek smirked up at him as he reached into the shower to turn on the water before moving them away from the cold trickle.

“Practice makes perfect,” Derek said as he adjusted the temperature. “Not all of us can throw a strike the first time they touch a baseball,” he teased, sending Stiles a wink. Stiles thought he would have swooned if he wasn’t standing with his naked back pressed against the frigid wall behind him.

“You’ve got a lot of practice taking off your teammate’s clothes before showering, Hale?” Stiles countered as Derek tugged him underneath the rapidly warming water.

Derek shook his head and responded, “Nope, just up and coming celebrities who shamelessly flirt with me before throwing the first pitch on my home turf.” Stiles let out a laugh as Derek leaned his head back into the water, trails of sandy liquid drifting down his shoulders. Stiles wasn’t sure how Derek could make something so simple look so hot but opted to ignore it in favor of reaching for the shampoo resting on the barrier between them and the next shower stall.

“Lean your head back,” Stiles ordered as he squirted the shampoo in his hands. At Derek’s raised eyebrows, Stiles scoffed and said, “As obvious as it is that I want to have sex with you, you just played - and hit the winning home run - at a baseball game and deserve to be a little pampered.”

Derek complied but Stiles saw the surprise in his eyes before he leaned his head back. He cheered for himself just a little at the fact he could cause any form of shock in Derek before he focused on spreading the shampoo into Derek’s hair. His nails scratched at Derek’s scalp as he massaged his head and Stiles felt himself hardening at the soft moans he received in response. He pushed closer to Derek to better reach the back of his head and when their cocks brushed, both of them let out breathless gasps.

Derek reached up and wrapped his fingers around Stiles’ wrists before his own hands scrubbed at his hair to let the water wash away the bubbles. Stiles took the opportunity to spread the body wash beside them on his hands and run his fingers over every inch of Derek’s skin that he could reach. He lathered up Derek’s broad shoulders and chest before grazing each muscle on his stomach with gentle touches. He found himself lost in the way Derek’s skin felt against his fingertips and how with each stroke, his cock would grow closer and closer to sliding against Stiles’ again.

“My turn,” Derek whispered, breaking Stiles from his focus as he gazed up at Derek. Water dripped down his face and trailed down the length of his long neck and Stiles couldn’t resist the urge to lean forward and trace the track with his tongue. Derek’s arm wrapped around Stiles’ waist and pulled them flush together, their cocks sliding more easily due to the soap Derek was covered in. Stiles nipped at Derek’s pulse before sucking as rapidly as his heart was beating. Derek’s slick hands scrubbed at his back and Stiles let out a moan against Derek’s shoulder as his nails scraped down the skin of Stiles’ back.

They rolled their hips together, neither of them caring about finesse any more than they cared about actually getting clean. Derek’s hands gripped at Stiles’ ass, kneading the soft skin there as he maneuvered Stiles’ hips more solidly against his. Their bodies slid together perfectly and Stiles had never wanted a hand on his cock more than he had at that moment. Derek seemed to read his mind as one of his soapy hands reached down in between them, his long fingers wrapping around both of their lengths. Twin moans left their lips as Derek pumped their cocks hastily using the slickness to their advantage.

Stiles wrapped his arms desperately around Derek’s shoulders as Derek mouthed at his exposed neck. He threaded one hand through Derek’s soaked hair to pull him closer, gasping into his ear as Derek twisted his wrist as if to ensure he was touching every inch of Stiles’ and his own cock that he could. Stiles tugged at Derek’s hair to pull his head back because he had wanted to see his face and to kiss him again. He let himself witness Derek’s blown pupils and the way he bit down on his bottom lip as if holding in his moans but decided his mouth would be of better use on his.

“Fuck, let me hear you,” Stiles begged, “please!” With a shout, he bit down on Derek’s bottom lip and pulled it into his mouth so he had no choice but to whimper against Stiles’ lips. Stiles wrapped his hand around Derek’s to apply just a little more pressure on their aching cocks and Derek’s immediate moan was like music to his ears.

Their hands stroked hurriedly as their hips slotted together as if both searching for a release that only the other could give them, and Stiles felt his stomach tightening each time Derek’s palm slid over his dick. He climbed higher in pleasure, closer to his orgasm, and his skin was too scorched to notice that the water splashing onto them was slowly cooling. Stiles’ tongue battled Derek’s sloppily, neither of them able to focus on the kiss as they let themselves be washed in the bliss that surged through them.

Stiles flew over the edge first with a broken moan that echoed through the empty locker room as he pulled away from Derek’s mouth to bite down onto his shoulder like a lame attempt to control the pleasure that soared through him. He whimpered and panted into Derek’s wet skin as his legs shook, his hips still pushing into Derek’s hand as if chasing the cloud of ecstasy that surrounded him.

Derek moaned against his ear and Stiles could tell he was close just by the husky breaths that expelled from his lungs. He reached between them with a trembling hand and pushed Derek’s hand away only to replace it with his own. He pumped Derek’s cock expertly, thumbing across the throbbing head before pressing a solid finger against the vein underneath his length. A long and low groan pushed from Derek’s lips as Stiles felt him release over his hand and stomach. Stiles maneuvered his face away from the water as he leaned his head back in pleasure.

The now lukewarm water spouting from the showerhead washed away their mess as they clung together, Stiles’ fingers stayed threaded in Derek’s hair as Derek’s gripped the skin of Stiles’ back tightly, holding him as close as they could possibly be. They stayed under the spray as the rest of the soap dripped away from their skin and Stiles reached up to brush Derek’s dampened hair from his forehead with a chuckle. Derek returned the laughter and ran his own hands through Stiles’ hair to slick it away from his face. He was sure he looked just as fucked as Derek had, but he let himself stare at Derek for a few moments before he looked down at their naked bodies in thought.

“You know, I really wish I had the opportunity to toss in a pitcher or catcher joke during that,” Stiles breathed out as his chest rose and fell with Derek’s.

He felt Derek’s laughter before he heard it and Derek pressed a gentle kiss on his forehead before saying, “Did you know I’m a switch hitter?”

#sterek #sterek fic #stiles stilinski #derek hale #derek x stiles #stiles x derek #ems kinktober 2020 #my writing #GUYS IF YOU HAVENT READ THIS FIRST CHAPTER YOU SHOULD #i love this fic a lot #and im glad that i could muster up the energy for chapter 2!#hope you like it!#:D

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kai-keda · 5 years ago

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Cowards Die Many Times | DreamSMP Fanfic

Wow okay so I literally JUST made a post flat-out making fun of myself for writing this but in the tags I made a comment of “Should I post this?” and wow three people already reblogged with comments expressing I share.

So, you can thank (or blame lol) @thesmpisonfire @tommyistheprotagofthesmp and @ak3m0n for this being posted here at all. Depending on what the response to this is on here, I may or not post it on a03 and, again, depending on the response, I may or may not make this a sort of collection of one-shots detailing different death scenes and how the characters felt in those moments.

A/N:

THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE REAL LIFE STREAMERS!

I view the DreamSMP storyline as a sort of Dungeons and Dragons game with no real DM. Just players running around a world that they create as they go along and cause whatever chaotic instances and plot points they can manage. As such, while I write this and as you read this I want you to remember - burn into your brain - that this story isn’t about the real Minecraft streamers. They aren’t even streamers in this fic, they are fictional characters living in a made-up fictional world. I get that the line is blurred due to the nature of the videos this is based on, but I view it as being sort of like how when you write a character like Spiderman, you’re writing Spiderman, not Tobey Maquire.

All that being said, I really wanted to just write this concept of how death and respawn works with Tubbo from a certain festival event but as it turns out, he is very uncomfortable with the concept of fanfiction written about him. (Thank you SMP-boundaries for your God sent Tumblr) As such, even though I don’t see it as me writing literally him as I’m sure he’s seen plenty of, I won’t include anything from his perspective and try to limit any sort of mention of him. (I can’t bring myself to surgically remove him entirely. That would just be impossible because of how much of a part he plays both in what visibly happens and in Tommy’s development) ALSO PLEASE do not go out of your way and tag or try to show any of the Minecraft streamers/youtubers involved in this (not that y’all would lol). I happen to know that Tommy especially doesn’t want to see them even if he’s okay with them existing.

This was also meant to be a sort of collection of ficlets in one chapter. It was going to include more than this one scene and even include a POV from Wilbur but, uh, wow I got really carried away heh

SO YEAH! Now we got the important bits out of the way, please enjoy~

Cowards Die Many Times

“Do I shoot him Wil, or do I aim for the skies?” It was a heavy question. So heavy he couldn’t bring himself to raise his head. As they stood together and allowed the light reflecting off the water shine on them in a subtle way, Tommy considered his options. The answer should have been obvious. After all, this was war and this duel was their ticket to end it all and free themselves from their previous leader. The one Wil and he had labeled as a tyrant.

Dream.

“Tommy I -” A pause. Tommy looked up at his general. The only man he would ever take orders from. Wilbur Soot. He could see in his eyes that he had messed up. This was a burden Tommy couldn’t handle anymore. The deafening silence lasted for all of two seconds but it felt like eternity. He would never know for sure what Wilbur thought of his outburst and challenge towards their worst enemy, but the answer he received relaxed him. If only for a bit.

“I want you to do whatever your heart tells you.”

Tommy took a deep breath and relaxed it before turning around and going towards the man who hid behind a mask.

“Coward.” He whispered to himself. When he thought the word, he believed it was for Dream but now that he felt it leave his mouth and heard the shake of his voice, he wasn’t sure if it was for himself or not.

He walked to the center of the wooden path and held his bow tight. The tyrant, with his bright green hoodie that seemed to act as a target and challenge, laughed with his friends. With George and Sapnap. As if he felt this was all a game and after he won it would all be over with him holding more than bragging rights. The worst of the scene was that even Eret - the traitor - joined in their fun.

With such thoughts running through his mind, it’s no wonder the decision Tommy came to.

They needed their independence.

And Tommy had the perfect opportunity.

He knew what death felt like. He had nearly grown used to it. Maybe that’s why he was always so quick to start fights, skirmishes and even join wars. That was probably why he felt no regret with this decision to challenge the immediate area’s strongest member.

But if he was so used to death, then why did he shake so much?

Dream finally left his friends behind to watch as he walked towards Tommy. The younger of the two swallowed his nerves and did his best to glare. The smiling mask stared him down. Was Dream glaring under there? Was he shaking within the loosely fit hoodie? Was he…

“Are you taking this seriously at all, Dream?”

“Oh, I don’t know. This seems pretty easy.”

Oh yeah, Tommy was killing him for sure. To hell with any sort of ‘honor’ that supposedly came with throwing away ones shot in a duel, Dream was officially a dead man.

“Remember, Tommy,” Dream stated with his usual calmness, “when I win, you give me the disk, Mellohi, and you all give up this silly tantrum for good.”

Tommy glared even harder as now he was angrier than ever. Dream was always after his music disks, his most prized possessions in this God forsaken land. Betting one of them was worth it if it meant seizing total and complete independence forever for this wonderful vision Wilbur had shared with him.

He thought briefly about the disks. About why they were so treasured by Dream and himself.

For Dream they were merely bargaining tools. Something he could use to keep Tommy under control and stop him from starting anymore fights with anymore members under Dreams thumb. The deal would be that if Tommy got involved in any sort of ‘griefing’ of any kind, Dream would burn the disks. Though, to be completely fair and honest, all of that had started with Sapnap burning an unrelated member's home and then dragging both of the now dueling men into the fight.

But for Tommy? These disks were everything. There was something nostalgic about the sound of music, as though there was something he had long forgotten from a time far behind him. It was incredibly rare where they lived to find such things and Tommy, Tommy had two of them. Each a different mixture of sounds that brought their own unique textures to his mind.

He was not about to throw away his shot.

A whisper entered his mind and he did his best to not give away who it was from. For someone to use this ability, one that made themselves freeze in place and become vulnerable, especially at a time like this, it was important. So he simply continued to glare at Dream.

‘There’s no turning back now, Tommy. Good luck out there. My right hand man.’

Tommy took a deep breath before yelling out as loud as he could. “LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO!”

At the sound of yelling, Dream, Sapnap, George, Eret and even Tubbo - the only other member as young as the loud blonde child and one of their allies - all laughed. But the rest of his side? His makeshift army? They starred with an apathetic energy Tommy wasn’t sure what to feel about. All looked as though they had given up on this hopeless revolution. The humanoid fox and supposed child of the general, (it was unclear how serious he was of such a claim as it was never confirmed) Fundy, even went so far as to let out a sigh and shake his head.

He never was one to find such outbursts funny. It was as though he felt that Tommy treated this all as a simple game with no consequences. Yeah, he hadn’t experienced death nearly as many times as Tommy had, so maybe he did think more of it.

Wilbur, however, was hardly monotone in his expression and voice. As he spoke his next line, he looked directly at Tommy for only a brief second with worry and, more importantly, sadness. Wilbur had also already given up but as Tommy thought over that look, he realized that Wilbur, the one who was always looking after him as though he were an older brother charged with watching over the youngest child, was apologizing for dragging him into this. For supposedly making Tommy experience the worst possible torture this crazy world had to offer over and over.

Death.

“Are both parties ready?” Wilbur had questioned. After that one look, he refused to even so much as glance at Tommy. The younger one understood. Wil could never help getting emotional in times like these, after all.

Tommy turned to look at his opponent and the damn man was putting on a show of yawning, hardly looking prepared. He really was that confident.

Tommy pointed an accusatory finger at the one who seemed to like to smile a bit too much and yelled out “Are you ready to experience death, Dream?! Cause I’m ready to cause it for you!”

Dream shrugged and stood straight, bow in hand at his side. “Let’s hurry and get this started.”

Wilbur, still not looking at Tommy and, more surprisingly, not saying anything about his outburst of a response, stated the rules of the duel.

Turn their backs to each other, count ten paces - no more, no less - and then fire on your opponent at will. The first to die wins the duel and the agreement.

Either Tommy loses one-half of his most prized possessions, or he gains independence for their nation.

The count began. Tommy thought about what it would be like to kill Dream like this. No tricks, no silly traps and no real plans from either of them. Just a single arrow making contact and he would be dead. It was almost unreal. He would be a hero and would be considered a total badass. Maybe everyone, both enemy and friend, would finally respect him.

The count hit four. His thoughts turned away from such happy fantasies. What if Dream wanted revenge? He never took losing very well. Rather, he took it harshly, and the Lord only knew what George would do to them in unofficial retaliation. Dream would probably lightly suggest George return the favor to Tommy in a whisper and then claim to wash his hands of the incident. Just for the satisfaction of showing power while keeping whatever peace they decide upon after all this.

The count hit seven. Tommy centered himself. Maybe it was a bad idea to allow himself to daydream at this time. He probably should’ve been scanning and studying the terrain thoroughly and thinking of how to use it to his advantage and of how the other could use it against him. Think of a plan or at least a vague idea of the literal millions if not infinite possibilities.

Like hell.

Tommy always thought of plans only when he was backed into a corner and even then he was well into a battle.

Dream was the one to come up with every possible outcome and choose one of nine where he won. Tommy refused to be like Dream.

The count hit ten.

Tommy turned quickly and fired. His arrow went off and almost hit Sapnap, someone who was once an ally, if only temporarily, in his and Dream’s initial war. Way further off his target than the young man was willing to accept.

There was no time to think and sit in denial of being such a terrible shot. No time to listen to Dreams lackies yell at him to be a better aim or watch Tubbo cover his eyes while Fundy simply shrugged as though expecting it. Dream’s first arrow went by his ear so fast he almost felt as though it could deafen him and the older of the two was already aiming his second shot while Tommy was stuck in disbelief.

Tommy quickly moved and jumped to avoid the arrow that he knew would hit him if he didn’t but instead of landing on the wooden path, he crashed into the water. The very lake - or was it a pond? - that served to decorate the land and create a nice scenic area to sit and enjoy time with friends around. Tommy had forgotten all about it just as everyone had probably predicted.

Just as Dream had predicted.

As no arrows came, Tommy figured that Dream was waiting for him to surface so he took the time to ponder on his decisions.

After all, there was no doubt they were coming to bite him in the ass. There was no chance of him getting out of the water and not getting shot to death by a single arrow from his worst enemy.

This was it.

He was going to die again.

How much would it hurt this time? How long would he be stuck in an area of nothingness as whatever God that created them formed a new body? Would he be able to see his friends, to see Wilbur, as they are forced to give away any hope of a special place they could call their own?

Would it be slow and torturous as his body reels from the pain or would it be instant and clean? He had no way of knowing any of these things. He had no way of knowing what this death would feel like as, in his experience, there was no rhyme or reason to any of it.

What would one day only sting for a bit as he was instantly brought back to life, would cause him to spasm and feel his heart stop and his lungs give up their air for what felt like hours. In that one case that comes to mind, to add insult to injury, he would be trapped in that plain area that was completely absent of light and life with no way to contact anyone he loved (or hated).

They all knew this.

They all agreed that the fear of what would happen as you see the attacks coming and you feel yourself growing weaker could only sometimes be worse than the experience itself.

Tommy felt torn by everything in a single moment. If they all knew this, then why did they fight in this war to begin with? Was it worth these moments of pure fear and terrible agony?

Whenever he would die he would return as though nothing ever happened despite his true thoughts and experience. He was not one to talk about things like ‘feelings’ or ‘emotions’. That was something for women and only women. No matter how much Wilbur would try to encourage him to be more open like Tubbo, Tommy was a man. And he was always fighting to prove it.

Yes.

He may be positive he’ll lose. He may be certain there is no chance of winning this duel, but Tommy made a decision in that moment as he swam to the other side of the path.

He was going to die but he’d be damned if he let himself be the cause of Wilbur’s hopes in the form of their very own L’Manberg crashing down forever and for good.

First, he had to make it look good so no one else would suspect what he had hiding in the deepest part of his mind. An actual plan.

He jumped from the lake and pointed his arrow directly at the mask and right between the eyes but before he could fire, he was hit.

Ah. This one was going to hurt.

#dream smp #fanfiction #dream smp fanfiction #tommyinnit #kairi yajuu fanfiction #cowards die many times #that's a Shakespeare #just btw #I was gonna add the scene where Tommy and Dream make the deal with the discs but that ending felt too damn right #when I wrote it and then read a few paragraphs back to that point #and it felt even better when I read through the whole thing several times #for quality control and stuff ya know?#anyways this is probably really cringe hah #hope they don't find this #oh yeah!#Not that y'all would but don't @ any of the creators to try and show them this #most of them don't mind that fanfiction exists #but they would rather pretend it doesn't #cough cough tommyinnit himself

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orangegreet · 4 years ago

Text

No Minor Miracles | Chapter 9

In a Cell, At the Bottom of the World

In which we find out how Aleksander takes the news of his Sun Summoner's impending nuptials.

Alina lay awake in the moonlight, white beams cast across their bed.

Between her thighs, the tacky seed was drying and growing itchy. On this last night at the dacha, they were lazy with keeping clean.

Exhausted and spent, the effort to clean up after every round cost too much and they opted to fall asleep in each other’s arms. Waking only occasionally to refuel with food.

She watched him doze, running her hand through his long loose hair and drawing lines across his features.

She could not leave him.

She could not go home.

At home was something she did not want to face. Did not want to do. At home were people who demanded too much of her and censured her own actions in the same stride.

Running had never seemed so appealing before now.

She could take him with her, keep him as she longed to do.

And the Tsar would die and Nikolai would be put on the throne and someone else would kill Zlatan and they would find someone else to lead the West and it could all be done without either of them.

They could go live in anonymity among the otkazat’sya. They could outlive this whole generation of people and then rise up in the next century if they wanted.

Two Immortals, two creators of the world.

What was to stop them from scrapping it all to start anew? Reducing this world into powder and regenerating something better in its place.

They held the Making at the Heart of the World between them.

Did that not give them the power to decide how the world spun next?

They could create a new world and walk it’s lands from the first day, together. They would ensure equality and freedom for all Grisha from the beginning and they would rule in tandem.

It would be a world made just for them.

With a pang she thought of Tamar. Tolya too. And Nina and Matthias.

Even of the ashes of Pabel.

The bodies of her father and mother that lay at the bottom of the True Sea.

Could she destroy a world which held all of them? Erase the people she loved, both alive and dead from existence?

Pabel would not like it. Pabel who had seen so much hurt and pain in the world that he struggled to remember how to hope.

Pabel who had claimed himself as her first true miracle. “The Sun Summoner made an old man believe things could be good again. That people with power could be good again. I thank the Saints for you, Alinochka.”

To take it all away would be to obliterate that hope entirely. Was that in her?

Her fingers brushed down the neck of her Shadow Summoner, his even breaths filled the space between them.

What would it mean to erase the Fold he created?

She wondered yet again what would have happened if she had been there to push back against his Shadow. What shape would his Shadows have taken in the presence of her Light?

It would not undo the pain he poured out onto the earth that day.

Perhaps it would be wrong to undo it. Wrong of her to clear away the evidence of his agony like wiping a tear drop from the face of the earth.

Pain is memory and Aleksander might not want to forget the few people who made a mark on his long life anymore than she wanted to part with hers.

Moreover, how could she erase the world when so many had made their marks upon it?

Just a few months and she and Aleksander would be together.

That was, if Aleksander choose to stand with her when all was said and done.

The thought of the Tsar and the Tsesarevich and their impending assassination and the secession of the West and the engagement to Zlatan and the murder of Zlatan and the transition of power to Nikolai and herself all swirled around her head, unsettling her anxieties.

Would he instead hate her for eternity? She had told him once that she could endure it. She prayed that was true.

Thinking of it any longer was causing the pressure to build in her chest and his brow was furrowed in his sleep and that was probably because her emotions were bleeding into him.

She placed soft kisses to his face until it relaxed. It relaxed her too.

But then.

His cock was hardening, pressing against her thigh and she welcomed the oblivion of sex. She kissed his pliant sleep-softened lips as he murmured unintelligible words to her and his eyes blinked open.

When he was semi-aware, Alina rolled him to his back, stroking his cock with her tongue before she settled herself over him. Soft groan issued from their throats and his hands spread over her thighs, running down them with splayed fingers in appreciative strokes.

She pressed her hands to his chest and circled her hips, warming him up and feeling the pay off as he grew inside her.

When Aleksander had fully woken, his hands captured her hips in a vice and he held her still while he thrust deep a few times.

Lightning was shooting through her belly and into her core and her head was thrown back in the pleasure of it.

Everything felt suspended. Worries, anxieties, fears. They pushed out from her being and she lived in the place where she and Aleksander dwelled as one.

The need to be close was overwhelming them both and when she pulled up on his shoulders he was already sitting up. His mouth met her breasts and his hand lay against her stomach.

His palm pushed in to feel the tip of his length as it moved in her and her mouth began to water at the feeling.

His other hand went to her lips and she laved his fingers with her tongue. His wet hand pressed firm strokes to the slippery lips of her cunt, ensuring she felt every sensation of him.

“Nothing is better than this feeling, Alina.” He confessed to the valley of her breasts.

She nodded against his hair, clutching his head as they strived to get deeper, tighter, wetter.

As if through this act they could possibly fuse together for good.

“Nothing,” she agreed, “nothing will ever be better.”

Aleksander pulled her mouth to his, struggling to keep the rhythm while he tried to consume her whole.

____________________________

It was at dusk the next day that they gathered their things.

Aleksander stood before her, dressed in his black kefta, hair pulled back into his warrior’s knot. In his face he was still soft and gentle, completely open to her and her alone.

His General’s persona was just at the edge of their room and she knew once they passed the threshold, she would not see him like this again.

May not see him like this again for a lifetime or more after this day.

Alina was already crying. Dense, silent tears rolled down her cheeks as she finished the last clasp over his chest.

His calloused hands held her face and he brushed the tears away with his thumbs.

“I cannot do this, Sasha.” She whispered.

His eyes slid shut and his forehead rested to hers. He breathed a deep, shuddering breath.

“Let us go far away from everything. We can do that.” Alina began in a flurry, “We could begin a quiet life away from everyone. Just for a while. Just for now.”

He was confused and shaking his head but she barreled on, unrelenting, “In a century we can rise up together, partners and creators and we will rule all of Ravka as we were made to do. No one will deny the sanctity of a Shadow Summoner and a Sun Summoner blessing the earth in the same moment. Everything can be ours then.”

Her knuckles were white where she clutched at his wrists and he began shushing her, thumbs still methodically brushing over her cheeks, soothing her.

If she could only make him understand that this would be the best thing.

“Where is this coming from, Alinochka?” She closed her eyes and shrugged helplessly.

His voice was strained as he spoke, “I cannot leave my people. You know that I cannot. My Grisha, all those at the Little Palace, in the Second Army. Grisha cowering from discovery for fear of death, enslavement, experimentation—you know we cannot hide, solnyshka.”

Her people waited for her as well. Waited for her to deliver them from the fate of Zlatan. From the impending alliance with Fjerda which would open hunting season on all the Grisha in the West. How could she even consider abandoning them?

Her legs were crumbling beneath her and Aleksander caught her and clutched her to his chest.

Alina was so full of everything.

Full of power and full of energy and full of passion and of love and of rage and contempt.

Why did it all make her feel so small in this moment?

Her body was some insignificant casing and in her was contained the full fury of the sun and who exactly thought this would fit together well?

She was altogether too young to feel the weight of this so acutely. It seemed that everything would go flying out from her body as soon as she rested.

Had Aleksander once felt this way? Perhaps it would take a few centuries for her to adjust.

Only she did not have that kind of time. Discernment and commitment and loyalty were already tangled inside.

His hand stroked her hair and he murmured into her ear. “Come with me now. Please, Alina. We can be together and lead as we were meant to do. It can all start right now, you just have to trust me.”

The agony of his request flared inside her and she wanted desperately to be able to follow him home.

But again she thought of Tamar—all of her friends and allies and knew that she was the lynch pin in their plan to free the West.

She knew without a doubt that she would regret not following him home anyway.

She thought of the words of his mother, Zlatan fears Aleksander. Zlatan will kill Aleksander, one way or another.

The gasping breaths of Aleksander.

A Fjerdan wolf. A zealous Secessionist.

The tether fraying in her chest.

The feeling of being unmoored. Set adrift.

Alina, floating through space and time, ungrounded, untethered.

Alone.

She had to push forward. Keep to the plan. Trust that her opportunity—their opportunity—would arise again.

They had eternity to figure it out. It was she who had determined they were Inevitable.

She who held this truth in her chest as a perpetual water wheel of hope. Rising within her and renewing her resolve to see through the circumstances before her.

One day they would truly belong to each other. The fires of doubt flared again and again but the truth of their inevitability rose and doused the flames time and time again.

She owed it to give her people their day now—those who did not have eternity.

Her breathing slowed as she composed herself. When her eyes met his, she did not need to voice her rejection of his request.

His mouth scrunched with the bitterness all the same.

“It is close.” She began, cutting off any possible disdain he could offer up.

“I am close to the end of my work in the West. I will come to you when it ends. I will follow wherever you ask when I do. I will devote myself to your will and your life and your pleasure until the world burns up beneath us. And if there is an after I will find you there and my vow will remain the same.”

Aleksander did not have words for the unease he felt between them. The anxiety and the guilt and the shame she was emitting sounded off inside of him like a warning bell.

He simply nodded, bending to gather her mouth in a kiss. One that filled them both with urgency and comfort.

“I will not be able to be in touch for at least three weeks, Sasha. Everything is all right, I just need you to know.”

“Not even—“

“No. I am almost to the end of something. If I have you to fall back on right now, I may not see it through. I have to see this through. For myself.”

He did not like the answer, she could tell. Still, he nodded in acceptance.

When he lifted her traveling cloak from the bed and secured it over her shoulders, he took care to caress her neck with the backs of his fingers as he closed the clasp.

“You promise it will be soon?” He asked.

“I do.”

_________________________

Alina emerged from the Fold well past midnight.

Her goodbye with Aleksander lasted far longer than either of them intended.

Ultimately, she ended up on her hands and knees, head arched back to view the undulating curtain of Shadows as he tugged her hair in one hand and steadied her hips with the other.

His hand wrapped into her locks and he thrust into her from behind with a punishing pace—unwilling to let her forget who had used her body in this way. Who it was who owned her body. Her soul.

Their dual cries were swallowed by the void before them and something about the swirling darkness made her feel even dirtier as she cried out her ecstasy into the void.

His head fell between her shoulder blades, arm supporting her torso as he rubbed her clit with his dripping spend, determined to leave her with another orgasm.

She came again with a whimper and he let her ride it out on his fingers and then pressed his cum back into her with soothing shushes.

She growled and then moaned. She wanted to kick him away but his fingers were still moving, feeding her aching center with his cum and she hated how much it roiled her belly with pleasure.

It was impossible to know if she could ever get enough of him.

When he buckled her trousers for her, cupping her clothed cunt all saturated with his seed, he whispered in her ear, “Wouldn’t want you forgetting me on the journey home, pet.”

And then with a kiss to her mouth, he sent her off into the shadowland.

The literal dark scar of his pain, etched into the earth by his hand.

As if she could forget him in here—her Shadow Summoner had the real flare for theatrics.

She did not want to think of anything but Aleksander anyway—did not want to redirect her focus to the other General. The man whom she would announce her engagement to in a fortnight.

Alina moved through the comfort of the Fold. Feeling as if she were still safe in the arms of her love.

Feeling that, for a couple more hours at least, nothing could touch her here.

She thought again of his request that she follow him home now. Tonight.

Just as she predicted, she already regretted her decision to say no.

__________________________

Three Weeks Later __________________________

Aleksander did not hear the sound of the cheering crowd. His breathing halted altogether.

Over the heads of thousands of people, Alina’s eyes locked with his. Her fear swirled into the swell of his anguish.

His chest tore open and the alley around him filled with a tidal wave of darkness.

Shadows poured out of his body in a geyser of black matter.

Alina was still standing on stage, with her eyes fixed on him while the other General stood beside her, waving to the crowd.

He made quick work, forming his shadow into something he could control, something large and dense which he could sweep across the crowd and use to pick up the little body of the otkazat’sya General and pull it apart into a dozen—

Aleksander froze in place.

His chest convulsed.

The shadow around him was dissolving. Blowing away like the sand at the top of a dune and he did not even have a moment to be properly confused before he fell to his knees.

He saw only blackness.

__________________________

He woke on a thinly cushioned bench, head pulsing with the furious pumping of blood and he put a hand to his forehead.

The metal rod strung between his wrists stymied the movement, clunking across the bridge of his nose.

“Fuck!” He blinked and looked down. Grisha slaver’s shackles. Aleksander shook his wrists in their steel bindings and cursed again.

Metal bars stretched from floor to ceiling across the back half of the stone room he was in. Nothing else was particularly notable with the exception of a small window inset near the ceiling of his cell.

The passing horse hooves and feet he could see through the square told him he was below ground. The brightness of the light told him he had been out a few hours.

Locked in a cell.

Shackled at the wrists.

Alina.

Alina engaged to General Zlatan.

Alina would be married to a Secessionist leader.

He had to get out.

“HEY!” He shouted, calling out beyond himself over and over again.

At the other end of the basement was a door. Aleksander fixed his eyes on that as he got to his feet, yelling as if it were powerful enough to bring the thing down off it’s hinges.

He began to hit the shackles against his cage so the vibrating metal jarred him and the clanging echoed off the stone.

The door to the chamber burst open.

Had there been any room left in his body for a spare bit of shock, he might have felt it as he watched his mother descend the stairs.

He squeezed his eyes shut, wanting desperately for her to be gone when he opened them again.

She was not. Baghra looked at him, sizing him up.

“It is good that I was close by before your little episode could play out, boy.” She said. “It would have been just like you to ruin a perfectly good plan by creating another shadow Fold and turning the public tide even stronger against Grisha.”

The shadows dissipating. How quickly his creation dispersed…

Of course his mother was involved. But then how did he pass out—

“One of our Heartrenders made quick work of you while I cleaned up your mess.”

Aleksander watched her, mind sluggish with disbelief. Pain. Betrayal too.

“I do regret that,” she said, pointing at the slaver bar keeping his hands from touching, “for what it’s worth.”

There was a muffled commotion sounding through the barrier of the door. Baghra glanced behind her and then returned her attention to her son.

“Humph. I supposed I will not have long uninterrupted—”

“Is this where you have been, Baghra?” Aleksander asked. He looked around again, gaining his bearings as he processed the events of the last twelve hours.

“Yes and no. West Ravka is new to me in the last few years. Before this we were mostly overseas.”

His eyebrows raised, surprised at how easily she was answering his questions. Struggling to take advantage of it even as he could barely comprehend the circumstances. The series of events which brought him here.

“You said…a plan—what are you doing?” He asked. “Who are you doing it with?”

Very few times in his life did Aleksander feel like he was out of step.

With Alina, that was essentially the rule. However, now he knew his mother was somehow folded into his captivity, he was growing weary with all the plot points that were not his own.

“Hush boy. There is barely any time to go over all of that with you. I’m here to talk to you about what you really want to know.”

Shadows fell from beneath his clothes at the reprimand. His shackles prevented him from controlling them properly but they congregated around his ankles all the same.

“And what is it you think I want—” He began through gritted teeth.

Baghra rolled her eyes, cutting him off, “Your Sun Summoner, stupid boy.”

The commotion behind the door was growing louder.

Aleksander sneered at her and looked away. The idea that his mother was privy to his desires was a gross realization.

He could not deny it. He hungered to know everything she knew about Alina.

His body craved to swallow up everything everyone in the world knew about Alina. On this side of the Fold, it was clear, just how much of her life was obscured from him.

“As I said, you almost ruined our plan today. The truth of the Sun Summoner is not yet known to the public—at least, not as Grisha. Alina or rather the otkazat'sya 'Anya', is a well loved public figure in the West. This engagement to Zlatan is what we would call an undercover assignment.”

Aleksander grew uneasy as more questions pestered his slow-moving brain. The blood still pumped furiously and the noise outside the door continued and he had not seen his mother is over ten years.

As if all of that weren’t dividing him, his insides were still being eaten alive at the image of Alina’s hand in Zlatan. At the image of a wedding day between them.

Aleksander cricked his neck, determined to focus. “Why are you telling me this?” He growled.

A bang sounded from the other side of the door and a white flash of light illuminated through the cracks.

Baghra had a look on her face that he could not place. She was hesitating—something she never did.

Then her wrinkle-lined eyes met his. Guilt.

He read it on her face, plain as day. Though, it had never appeared to him before. At least not in memory. It was a marvel to witness—rare as the Sun Summoner herself.

“What did you do?” He asked.

The guilt dissolved into a scowl.

“What I always do—exactly what has to be done. We needed a way into the Secessionist party so we could bring it down. Alina was able to provide one for us. She was simply doing her duty—”

The din from the hall was growing louder. Another flash and then a scream.

The door burst open for a second time.

Alina stood, silhouetted on the threshold, chest heaving.

“Get out.” She hissed at Baghra.

The malice in her tone was shocking to him.

Had he not been so murderously heartsick over her in the moment, he might have been aroused to feel something more.

The surge of heat he felt was quickly squashed under the image of Zlatan holding her hand and simpering to the crowd.

Baghra lifted one imperious brow and left out the door.

Alina bolted it behind her.

She practically ran to him. Desperation written on her face as her hands wrapped around his through the bars.

Aleksander stiffened, carefully wiping his face of emotion as he backed away.

“Are you okay? Have they hurt you?”

Her desperate and pleading looks were too much to bear. On her hand, the gleam of the engagement ring caught his eyes. He sneered at the sight of it. Shining, even in the dim light.

In himself he found a cruel smile to give to her.

“Alina. Welcome.” He gestured around himself. “As you can see, my new place is sparse but over time I’m sure I will come to call it home.”

“Aleksander…”

In spite of the fact that he did not want to succumb to his bitterness—at least not immediately—he found that the persistent gleam of her ring would not stop twinkling in his eye and he could not stop himself. “Forgive me, dear. Congratulations are in order, aren’t they?”

Aleksander gestured toward the ring, his hands still heavy with the steel rod. Her eyes lingered on the shackles and then met his eyes again.

She looked afraid.

Good.

He continued, “I should thank you, I suppose. For choosing me to work out all your pre-wedding kinks. As you now know, I am quite skilled between the sheets. My one downfall is that I’m a terrible bragger. I am thinking of writing Zlatan a detailed letter of every way I have used his future wife’s body.”

Horror was painted over her face and Alina shook her head at him. “ You cannot think that I—that is not what happened with us.” She was breathless. Catching up to his words and his emotions.

Both of them once again playing the game of trying to guess the other’s thoughts. Both of them trying again to head the other’s thoughts off at the source.

Alina swallowed, glaring at him with resolve. “Aleksander, no. You mean more than him…that week meant more than—”

“Come now, Alina. You don’t have to be shy with me. I have seen you from every angle now,” The abrupt shift in his tone alerted her that he spoke of more than sex. “Who better to describe every facet of your being than I?”

“Listen to me, Sasha, please—”

Aleksander hit the slaver shackle against the bars of his cage. Alina jolted and stumbled backward as the sound again echoed off the stone walls.

That she would call him that name. That she dare use that name to coax him into submission—it was despicable.

He tore his eyes away from her, willing his emotions to abandon him in the process.

She wanted to be candid, very well. He could provide candor. “You have betrayed me. Utterly and completely.”

Her breath hitched. He did not look at her to see the tears he knew were already in her eyes.

Aleksander continued, voice even and empty, “If I could rip the light out of you and give it to someone else, I would do it. I would do anything to cut my tie from you.”

Anything that will numb it all again.

In his periphery, he watched her legs give out. Silently crumpling beneath her weight until she was kneeling quietly on the floor, her hands still clamped to the bars for support.

“I asked you not to come.” She said, softly. “I said you had enemies on this side of the Fold."

“You failed to inform me that you were one of them.” His tone was still flat and lifeless.

“I am not your enemy, Sasha—“

He stiffened, his jaw clenched. “Do not use that name with me.”

The quiet fury seeped from his otherwise controlled voice. “That you would name me with affection when you have sworn yourself to another man is the gravest of insults.”

Alina reached her arm through the bars, willing to touch him—to have him look at her.

“I am not sworn to him, Sasha."

“You are not permitted to use that name!” He shouted at her, composure breaking as his yell also echoed around the chamber. She flinched.

He paced the wall, breathing heavy from his thoughts. How did this happen? How could he not have known?

How could she not have told him?

Alina took a breath.

“Zlatan does not know me. He does not have my true name nor does he have anything true about me. He is angling for a political marriage with Anya.”

Aleksander huffed.

In truth, even he had heard of this woman. This sainted being from across the Fold capturing the heart of commoners. It was a smart move on the part of Zlatan, this ploy to tie the love of the people into his rule.

Except—now Zlatan would have to be ripped apart by shadow as soon as Aleksander could get his hands freed.

Zlatan, his hand holding Alina’s. Zlatan, marrying the Sun Summoner before the entire country.

“And has Anya spread her legs for the esteemed General Zlatan?” He asked, hoping it hurt her to hear the words as much as it hurt to ask them.

“Has she done her duty for the new leader of West Ravka? This Anya might be a saint but I’m sure the way she uses her mouth and her cunt is completely divine.”

She clenched her teeth, growling at him. Sunlight rose to the surface of her skin and he stared down at her with blank eyes.

"I have never allowed him to so much as kiss my lips.”

He scoffed, “Saving it all for the wedding day, are we? Well I suppose Anya is as big a tease as you are, Alina. The part must be terribly easy for you to play.”

Tears were falling down her cheeks and she gripped the bars as she got to her feet.

“I cannot discuss this with you right now.” She choked on the words, starting to back away.

He launched himself at the door, chest pressed to her fist, trapping her hand around the bar where she stood, already half turned toward the door.

Aleksander’s eyes were feral as they finally met hers.

“You let me believe you were mine.” Her face crumpled further, tears streaming as she spoke.

“I am yours.”

“You are a liar.” His teeth were clenched and to his own growing horror, his vision blurred with unshed tears and his voice cracked. “I have been betrayed by hundreds of people over my lifetime. None have been as cold or as treacherous as this. I will never forgive you for this, Alina.”

Alina stared into his eyes for several long moments. With her sleeve, she wiped her eyes and her nose. Sighing, she pulled away from him.

“You must be hungry. I will be back.”

It was obvious she was about to return only because the yelling commenced outside the door.

Still, the door opened and she stood at the top of the stairs, quite alone. Her demeanor was rankled but she closed the door firmly behind her, balancing a tray on one hand.

Aleksander watched her from his seat as she unlocked the cell and entered. The cage was opened but his hands were still bound and he was dangerously close to her now.

It hurt to be so close.

The tether inside of him pulsed, itching to light up and stretch between their chests as it had done a dozen times the last month. Aleksander closed his eyes and breathed, willing the thing to coil itself back up so he could press it down again.

Alina straddled the bench next to him and picked up the piece of bread, dipping it into the stew on the tray and holding it out to his lips.

Though the cell was open, his hands, evidently, would not be unbound for him to eat.

Aleksander turned his face away from the proffered food and stared out the small window at the fading daylight.

“Would you rather me send someone else here to feed you?” She asked, quiet and small again.

He hated her for it.

“I would rather you killed me than continue to force me through this humiliation.”

Alina sighed and took a bite of the food herself.

Just a few weeks ago, she had fed him. She sat on his lap and spooned jam on a roll and he licked the excess sweetness from her fingertips. Then when breakfast was done, they pushed the food aside and she fed him with her body, legs spread open on the table so he could feast on her cunt with the voracity of a starving wolf. His tongue had explored her, devouring and stroking until she had finished twice. After he had pulled her lips to his, feeding her body right back to her.

The memory sent a lurch through him.

Her eyes met his and she cleared her throat. The regret and shame in his gut told him they both felt the desire of that moment.

Just as he sometimes shared the feelings of her euphoric orgasms, she would feel his desire for her in return.

“Zlatan has never touched me.” She said, their shared feeling a natural lead in. “He will not ever touch me intimately. I swore the truth to you that day when I said I would only be yours.” She put the food behind her on the bench and shifted toward him.

“Zlatan needs me to further his agenda only. He does not require me to even pretend affection. We, my friends and I, are using him to bring me into a place of leverage and power. Once I am established, we will kill him. We know under his lead, we will never get freedoms or protection for Grisha. Under my rule, it will be law.

“Please believe me. There will be no wedding. No newly wedded kiss. No wedding night.”

Alina lay a soft hand on his arm, “I will slit the throat of Zlatan myself. I will do it in front of you if it is what you wish. I would have you watch as I take his life.”

His eyebrows twitched as indiscernible emotions waved across his features. His breaths were quick but deep. He could not deny the image she provided him was a pleasant one and she had all but cooed the promise into his ear.

“I understand you do not trust me, Aleksander. For that, I am sorry. If I could go back and tell you everything, I would.” She chewed on her lip, “Actually, if I could go back, I would have gone home with you when you asked me a few weeks ago. I would do anything to make this different.”

The churning in his stomach had been placated somewhat. The pain at the thought of Alina letting him into her body only to give it someone else had dulled a little.

A plot for power he could understand. Taking advantages when offered freely was a rule he generally followed without exception. This was war and Grisha would never be in a place to be given the freedom of a safe life. The freedom had to be wrenched from the hands of those who withheld it.

Alina took a chance, dipping the bread back in the stew and raised it to his lips again.

His eyes told her he still did not trust her but he did open his mouth for a bite.

He chewed in silence, unsure what to say next.

He wanted to know everything now.

He wanted to destroy her.

He wanted to fuck her until she cried.

He took the next bite offered and chewed.

“And the Tsar?” Aleksander said eventually, “You had him assassinated, did you not?”

She blinked, apparently forgetting her hand in the demise of the ruler of Ravka. Then again, it was not yet public knowledge on this side of the Fold. He had only received the intel hours ago.

“Yes and no. You told me the crown would align with Shu Han. Our Council has had someone in place for a very long time to take out the Tsar and the crown prince at our signal.”

Aleksander closed his eyes and grunted. The information he had shared had been useful to her after all.

He had been arrogant. Idiotic. Believing she would not be able to enter his territory without him knowing.

“How?”

Alina watched him with trepidation. Still, he did not look at her.

“A Squaller. He is young. We sent him to the Little Palace some time ago and he has been there waiting for the right moment.”

“A young Squaller…Kalem from Novyi Zem.” Aleksander said, nodding his head in understanding and internally screaming.

He had been highly impressed with the boy. Overlooked the fact that he was quite impressive for being so new to the Little Palace.

Sighing, he got to his feet, no longer able to stand being near her once again, “You have to let me go, Alina.”

She frowned.

“My army is marching back to Os Alta as we speak. Once the court finds out it was a Grisha who took out the tsar and the crowned prince, there will be no one to protect them. Not the army, not the teachers.”

He looked back at her, scrutinizing her. “Alina, there are children in the Little Palace. Did you not consider this?”

“Of course we did.” She seethed. “Kalem has ensured everything points back to the visiting Shu delegates. No one will be surprised that they have betrayed their own peace talks.”

“But you cannot be sure,” He said, pacing the cell. “You cannot be sure and I cannot stay here when there are people who count on me. Why did you not consult me?”

He glared at her, “Do you doubt me so much that you would go behind my back and put me in this position?”

“No, I do not doubt you!” Her tears and her tone made her surge of desperation all the more evident.

“Then why, Alina!?”

She flinched and then looked at the door.

“It was out of my hands.”

“Do not dare lie to me. You did not need to tell them what I confided to you about the arrangement with the Tsar and Shu Han but you did.”

“I did no such thing!” She got to her feet and was finally angry. "Kalem has been monitoring the situation for months. He knew it was time and he waited for approval from the Council first.”

Alina clutched his arms, forcing him to face her. “It was planned before we went away together. That is why I invited you when I did. I did not want anyone in the Palace to suspect your involvement.”

Frigid air cascaded into his chest, choking his lungs. A bitter laugh tore out of the cold.

He ripped his arms out of her grip and slammed the steel rod against the bars once.

The metal clang rang through the room once more forcing Alina to cover her ears.

He hit the bars again.

Then again.

Aleksander was yelling soon. Loud, raging bellows, deep and guttural, joined the clanging as he hit his hands against the bars over and over and over.

He could not stop the fury pouring out from him along with his shadows. They wafted around him without agency, their master unable to lift his hands to control them properly.

Aleksander shouted himself hoarse and blood seeped from the wounds beneath the shackles and the pool of shadows crept over the floor, filling the room.

Only then did he stop, chest heaving and forehead resting against the cell bars.

Alina approached him with caution. She touched a hand to his back and he stiffened. She flinched back.

“Let me out of here, Alina.” His voice croaked, raw from his rage. “This has gone on long enough. I have to go where I am needed.”

She said nothing for a moment.

“Aleksander, please.” Her voice was so small again and closed his eyes against her. He hated her. He had to hate her. It was easier than loving her.

“Sasha, I need you.”

If he could wish for anything at that moment, it would have been the will to believe her. The will to believe that most of the thoughts and words she had spoken to him over the last few years had been true.

He couldn’t.

“You have just told me that you not only took the throne out from under me, undermining my leadership of both the Little Palace and the Second Army in doing so, but on top of that, this week away together…This time which you so generously granted me, was some sort of ruse to serve your agenda.”

“That is not what I said. You are willfully twisting my words.”

“Am I?” He asked, his voice was empty again. Alina turned his face toward his, her palms were hot on his cheeks and he closed his eyes so he would not have to look at her. The anguished tears on her face already burned into his vision.

“Yes! You do not understand. You are used to being in charge of everything. You believe that I am in charge here but I am not.” Her forehead pressed against his.

He remained unmoved.

“Then take charge, Alina. Get me out."

The door to the chamber opened again and Aleksander turned to see his mother once more.

Alina scowled at Baghra like a feral cat. His mother looked between the two of them and eventually landed on Alina.

“I have convinced the Council it will be in our best interest to let the General return to Os Alta.”

Silence fell between the three of them. It stretched until Baghra let out an impatient noise and gestured for Aleksander to step toward her.

Baghra stood just outside the cell, a key clutched in her hands as she pulled Aleksander’s arms toward her.

Aleksander held still while his mother removed the bar from his wrists. Alina stood beside him, her hands closing over his bloodied wrists as they became free.

He watched her, cataloguing her features. Those wide and fearful eyes, her anger at the wounds he now bore. She wanted to fuss over him and he was tempted to let her.

Tempted to fall back in.

How easy it was to forget she was so young. She was still so malleable and full of raw potential. The people here did not know what it was they held.

And she did not know yet how to withdraw from the influence of others.

Perhaps he should have expected that when she fell out of his grasp, she would end up ensnared in another. Could he hold her responsible for this?

It felt impossible to decide. He was too close to the book and he had to put his mind and his focus back where it mattered.

Alina was out of his purview for the time being.

He tore his eyes from her and looked at his mother expectantly.

“We have horses saddled and ready to return you to the Fold and then on back to the Little Palace. It is expected that you will work with Nikolai, Darkling. As Tsar he will protect Grisha and keep the Second Army in his service.”

Aleksander made no acknowledgement, simply staring at the ancient woman before him. The one who raised him and endured century after century as he did.

He walked around her.

“You have done well without me, boy.” Baghra said to his back.

He scoffed, reaching for the chamber door. Alina was at his heels.

“And this Summoner,” Baghra gestured at Alina. Reluctantly, he turned to look. “She did not choose this. She is doing this for you—to protect you. For the good of Grisha.”

Alina’s eyes stared at the floor in shame as she passed.

Without a word, he followed her through the door.

________________________________

He stared up at the black curtain. The dark of nighttime surrounded them once more and their horses shuffled at the edge of the Fold.

Aleksander looked down at his hands. When he had come through the Fold just last evening, he felt he had something to hold onto.

The Light lived in his palms and was dependent on the strength of his connection to his other half.

Together, he and Alina had ventured deeper into the Making at the Heart of the World and while there, they could use the elements almost interchangeably.

And now, once again, he found himself removed from her. No trust between them—not any more.

Perhaps in time they could reforge something but, as it was, Aleksander could barely spare a thought for the woman who, just a night ago, ruled his very existence.

The pain was too much to bear and the offenses too great a burden to carry.

Only now, leaving it behind was an issue. The Darkling would be unable cross through his Shadow Fold without the volcra descending upon him. Without the protection of her Light—of their connection—it was useless.

“I need your help.” He said. The words wrenched from his mouth. “With crossing, I will need your help.”

Alina was quiet and he sensed the questions she wanted to ask but instead she just answered, “Of course.”

________________________________

The journey through the Fold was silent.

On the other side, Alina swung her body down from the horse without a thought and waited for Aleksander to do the same.

Longingly, he stared out at the field and contemplated taking off for Os Alta without a backward glance. It was easier than a goodbye.

Zlatan’s hand. Zlatan’s ring on her finger. Lie after lie after lie. He was so weary.

When he joined her in the small space between their two horses, he could not help the way his hands gravitated to her cheeks. She was warm in his hands and he wanted to swallow the gasp from her mouth. Wanted to hold his mouth over hers and share the same breath they way he felt they shared the same life force.

Her face was cradled in his palms and for a moment he distanced himself from his own confusion—long enough to look fully into her eyes.

“Alina. I don’t know when I will see you again.” Her eyes closed and she tried to pressed forward but he held her still. Lie after lie after lie. It was too much just now. “And I do not think I want to see you again.”

The space between them grew warm with her breaths which were barreling in hard and quick.

Aleksander felt the panic inside of her. Felt it trying to creep across their connection but he blocked it out as best he could. It hurt to love her and he was a General and he had responsibilities and she was engaged to another General and she promised she would not fuck him but he couldn't process that right now and it gave him no release.

“Do not try to get in touch with me. For now I want to pretend as if you never existed. I want to believe I have not met you. That I have not touched you.”

She cried, her head sagging in his grip. Her tears wetted his hands and he pulled up on her face, demanding her attention. She had to understand that she had pushed him beyond what he was capable of handling right now. She had to understand.

“Do you hear me? Not a trace. Please—I cannot bear it.” His voice broke. Alina’s eyes raked over his face, savoring his features and he knew he looked wrecked as he gazed down at her in return.

Any second he would cave inward, crumble beneath the weight of it all.

She nodded.

Aleksander turned from her, gathered the horse’s reins in his hands and pulled himself back onto the saddle.

He left her there, abandoned her at the edge of the Fold. He did not look back. His palms were still warm from her skin.

________________________________

When he caught up to his troops, it was before they had even completed the return trip to Os Alta. He welcomed the presence of Ivan and Fedyor in his company once more.

The torture of three days spent alone with his thoughts was finally ended and he entered the tent with a renewed sense of purpose.

Divulging all he learned to them—the assassination, the impending secession of the West and any next steps he worked out on a speeding horse in the last three days—returned to him a sense of control.

________________________________

A scant two weeks were spent at the Little Palace, securing defenses and paving the path for the new Tsar. Nikolai proved to be a more natural leader at least than his older brother, may he rest in peace.

Aleksander, thankfully, did not feel the need to grovel before him, nor did Nikolai expect it.

Indeed, when they are alone, save a couple guards at the door, Nikolai confided in his General. “I have received word from mutual friends of ours that you are to be trusted. I hope that is true.”

Aleksander eyed the newly minted Tsar and nodded. He had at least ascertained that the Tsar did not know the role their “friends” played in the assassination of his father and brother.

Nikolai was content to blame the Shu as all evidence indicated and Aleksander held the information close to himself, waiting for the appropriate time to use it.

________________________________

At the request of his Tsar, he returned to Kribirsk a mere fortnight after he left it. Having delivered the news that the West began steps in secession, Nikolai agreed that another trip through the Fold would be required as a final supply run before the inevitable civil war could begin.

The General thrived at the front, well distracted from the issues which plagued him just three weeks before.

Though he had meant it when he told her he wished to believe they had never met, it was not easy to commit to this sentiment for long.

At night, he dreamed of her. Felt her skin under his hands and could not stop himself from taking every part of her body for himself. In the darkness of his dreams she glowed and he watched in awe, always surrounding her, closing her into his cocoon of darkness. Protecting her, protecting them both from the world around them.

He tried not to let it drive him back into madness. Although he wished things could be different, he was at least resigned that it was only a matter of time before they reconnected.

They were magnets—opposite sides of the same thing. One of their existence beget the other and vice versa. What they were could not be undone or detached. How deeply he had missed her. How intrinsically linked they were and how wrong it felt to be divided from her.

They circled each other on and on and into eternity.

For now, though, he stubbornly clung to his hurt.

For her part, Alina did an exemplary job adhering to the promise she made to him. Alina did not so much as twinge in his direction for a solid month. And so, when the inexplicable tugging started in his chest, despite his request of her, a burst of hope radiated through him.

It was immediately followed by dread.

Accompanying the tug was a searing pain, rendered into the very heart of him. The General disappeared into the privacy of his tent, going to her at once.

“Alina?” He whispered, her body a hazy mass on the ground.

She was passed out on a dirt floor. Aleksander could not make out any of her surroundings.

“Alina?” He kneeled beside her.

Dark hair obscured her face and he tenderly lifted it, brushing it away. Her lip was cut and she had a gash across her temple but she was otherwise unmarred.

Her hands were trapped in a similar device used to keep him from summoning just weeks earlier, the steel Grisha slaver rod.

Aleksander lifted her gently into his lap, wrapping an arm around her back and cradling her head in the crook of his arm.

“Alina. Wake up.” Gently, he patted her face.

Her face scrunched.

“Alina, please.” He kissed her forehead.

Eyes blinking slowly, she looked up at him, “You came.”

“Where are you? What happened to you?”

“My friends cannot…” She coughed. “It’s been a while and no one has come…I’m sorry…I d-didn’t know what else to do.” She coughed again and he held a hand to her cheek, bringing her focus back.

“Your friends did this?”

She shook her head, eyes clenched in pain. “You have to tell them…they need to know. ’S going to ruin everything.”

“Who, Alina?” He held her face tipped up.

Her voice was croaky, “H-he is going to kill me in the morning.”

Alina took a deep breath and breathed out a sob which broke her composure, “He will kill me and then he will come for you. He wants you dead, Sasha and I won’t be able to stop him.”

“Zlatan? Alina, where are your friends?”

Her head lolled on his arm, “Look at me.” Aleksander said, jostling her as he brought her face close to his. “What happened?”

“Zlatan knows.” She whispered. “What does he know?”

“That I was going to kill him.” She said, voice fading. “He knows now that I am the Sun Summoner. He knows and now he will make sure I die.”

#darklina fic #darklina fanfic #darklina #alina x aleksander #alina starkov #aleksander morozova #smut #betrayal #power dynamics #politics #eventual hea #the grisha trilogy #grishaverse

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glapplebloom · 4 years ago

Photo

If anyone knows who made the original picture for this, please let me know.

One thing I have to thank the ponies for is making me more out there. From using Skype to being part of numerous Discords. And it was in one of them that inspired me with this: What if there was a Horror Movie version of Secret Wars? I figure why not. So here are the rules...

Only one character per franchise (for both sides). So if I pick someone from one franchise in one side, they CAN NOT be in the other.

Only Horror Movie Related characters. For example, Dutch from Predator is not considered since he’s more associated with Action. But the Predator creature is since he hits closer to horror than action.

So let’s gather the forces of Good for this side!

Ash Williams (Evil Dead) - Leader

Starting off with a character so popular in horror people wanted to see him in the sequel of Freddy Vs Jason is Ash Williams from the Evil Dead franchise. I picked him as the leader because as awesome as everyone else on the team, Ash has seen his fair share of freaks and monsters that can make him fit to face anything horror can throw at him.

Erin Harson (You're Next)

A Survivalist who just so happened to be in the middle of a group of siblings’ plan to kill the rest of their family, Erin is what you get if you want Kevin McCallister’s traps to be more fatal. She’s proven she can survive horrific situations and with the rest of the team she’ll most likely learn how to use weapons as effective as the rest.

Laurie Strode (Halloween)

If anyone in this team knows how to deal with a unrelenting killer, its Laurie Strode. Be it later that day, 20 years later or 40 years later, Strode is a survivor who knows how to fight back. With her planning skills and weapon experience, she’ll be a benefit to the group at any age.

Andy Barclay (Chucky Franchise)

While Laurie may have dealt with her killer the longest, Andy has been facing his for most of his life. As a child being a victim to an adult ready to take down the doll and the rest of his cult. While his opponent maybe smaller, Andy showed the ingenuity and determination to take on anyone of any size.

The Janitor (Willy's Wonderland)

Ignore the fact its Nicolas Cage. This is a guy who, in one night, without weapons, defeat 6 of the 8 Animatronics as well as cleaned an entire restaurant that was in disrepair for who knows how long in one night. Imagine what he can do if you give him actual weapons. Give this man a task and he’ll see it through.

Selene (Underworld)

As great as Humans are, let’s bring in some heavy hitters in terms of what they can do without weapons. Being over 600 years old this Vampire is capable of fighting heavy hitters on her own with weaponry to boot. Bonus, she’s immune to sunlight so she can fight alongside the others anytime to day.

Ellen Ripley (Alien)

She survived some of the most dangerous creatures in the universe. In comparison to the monsters on the other side, this maybe a cakewalk for her. But between her alien hybrid abilities granted to her in the later movies as well as her experience fighting some of the most deadliest hunters, Ripley is an asset for anyone.

Danny Torrance (The Shining)

He may look ordinary, but Danny possesses within him the power of the Shining. This grants him many abilities that are not very well defined but enough known power to prove he is a great ally to have in this team. Not to mention with how well he can use a gun, he can provide more than just mystical powers.

R. J. MacReady (The Thing)

He maybe a helicopter pilot, but he’s proven to be able to survive a creature that can be anyone. Granted, his fate is ultimately left unknown but after all the heck he been through he would be a great addition. Between his improvisational skills as well as the fact he doesn’t have to worry about not trusting his allies, MacReady is ready for anything.

Abraham Van Helsing (Dracula 1958)

He maybe a Vampire Hunter by trade, but his skills can be applicable to any creature he faces. While he may not trust Selene because she is one, his knowledge on Vampires as well as other creatures would be a great help in the long run. Also, it would be fun to see Helsing using modern weapons against the Vampiric Kind.

And that’s my pick for heroes. But why weren’t others chosen?

Carrie White (Carrie) - Not sure if she would count as a hero or villain.

Herbert West (The Reanimator) - Like Carrie you could argue if he’s one or the other.

Sidney Prescott (Scream)/Chris Washington (Get Out)/Shaun (Shaun of the Death)/Other Similar Survivors - They survived, sure. But in a Secret Wars kind of event its not just survival you have to work for. And compared to those in already, they won’t provide a lot together in comparison to one. Heck, Sidney was included until I realized she stuck out like a sore thumb.

The Toxic Avenger (Toxic Avenger) - As fun as the movie is, I think Toxie tends to blend the line depending on the timeline and how extreme he can go.

Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs) - She was originally in because of the movies, but the book reveals she is now Hannibal’s lover. So… No.

Buffy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - Keep in mind, this is for Horror Movies. So if Buffy was included, it would be Movie Buffy, not TV Show Buffy.

Anyone not Mentioned - Either I forgot, too similar to people here or the rules prevented them from being included.

Feel free to reply who you would pick for Team Hero or next week’s Team Villain.

#other

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stevenuniversetanzanite · 5 years ago

Text

Ally x Cordelia x Reader (part 4)

I’m more active on posting on wattpad currently or at least they come out straight after writing.

This is two and a half times longer than the other parts. I tried to edit it but I don't think that went very well so... Enjoy.

Also, I may have made Cordelia a dick in this, but I'll fix it in a later chapter maybe.

Parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five (will be added when posted)

Late in the night with nothing but your phone to light the inside of your car, the button for the dome lights in your car jammed from childish use years ago. Your car was due for an upgrade but instead of replacing the heap of junk you poorly maintained it and persuaded the mechanics to pass the heap of metal as safe for driving.

You're phoned buzzed once more.

Your forehead rested on the steering wheel, you pulled yourself to sit upright and glanced at the phone.

Your car was parked a block away from the building. The key in the lock ready to start the car's engine. The phone was nestled amongst the stolen blanket on the passenger's side. The phone confirmed your suspicion about the number of missed text messaged and phone calls, not only from Ally and Cordelia but also varies students warning you that you were in big trouble when you got home.

It would be another seven hours until you got back to the school and you'd have to count in for a pit stop or two to pick up coffee or another caffeine-filled beverage. A part of you was thankful for your long nights back in the hospital (also uni), it was useful for all-nighters.

It could be another seven hours before you'd have to respond back to anyone, there's not much they can do. Cordelia had the other girls to look after and Ally- well she has her son. You had no one- not anymore.

Then again, Cordelia would go hell and back to protect her own and ignoring the fact that you were her girlfriend, were still 'one of her girls'. Nothing like this had happened, at least with someone she cared about.

You sighed. You better make sure she doesn't come searching for you. Of the two, you'd be in hotter water with the blonde. Considering the time, they'd most likely be together.

The phone picked up immediately.

"Hello," you said.

"Y/n, oh thank goodness you're safe," The voice on the other end said.

"Why wouldn't I be," you kidded your voice quivering.

"You're so stupid why would you go without telling us. We told you it was a trap. You could have died."

"I didn't- don't you worry. I'm fine" you said. Should you tell them about your Discovery. Probably. It would cause her to worry more about your recklessness but who cares it's not a targeted attack, but the witches just got caught in the Crossfire. Then again, how are you going to explain away your findings? They didn't know, couldn't know. "It was a dead-end nothing came of it I'll see you when I get back home ok."

You hung up and powered on your 7-hour drive back to New Orleans.

It wasn't until hours after you'd left that the two noticed learned of your absence. They came up with a plan of attack when a student interrupted to inform them of a student's injury. When asked why the girl didn't inform you, they were informed that you left in a rush, muttering something about having business to take care of.

Everyone in the school was now aware of your absence and while Cordelia tried to help the injured student, Ally dialled your mobile.

"No response?" Ally shook her head, her phone still pressed to her ear in case you picked up. She paced around Cordelia's office begging for you to pick up. It was close to midnight but neither of them dared to sleep until they heard from you. The only thing that stopped Cordelia from dashing out was the fact that she was sure she'd have some sort of vision or someone in the school would if something accord. It was the only thought she had that could slightly calm her down even if it weren't true.

"I can't believe she did that. Why- this isn't like her-"

"Yes, it is," Ally cut in. "It's exactly like her."

"She's never done this before-"

"She goes against us all the time" Cordelia was too shocked to listen. "When it comes to the woman's safety when has she ever listened-"

"She never used to do this when she was in school."

"That was like what 15 years ago"

"13" Cordelia corrected.

"My point exactly. Are you the same person you were 13 years ago?"

"No but-"

"But nothing. The moment she left the school you no record of her life. You don't know how she became the person she is today. She had experiences that shaped her into the person she is now. But in the 2 years she's been with us, has she shown any sign of the person she was before."

Cordelia paused and thought about it. To an extent you were, like anyone, you kept the same core soul you had before but the circle of people you surrounded yourself around was different and with that came different reactions and experiences for you. You were no longer the good-natured student; she would go so far to say this is a late rebellious phase. You always cared about others safety over your own but this was a step to far. If you were like this before then she never noticed. You still had some sense to talk to, allow to be helped instead of playing this 'saviour' complex you'd adopted. She wondered where that came from.

The two had seen you in times of need, your recent development of 'sleepwalking' as an example. The two offered to help you figure out where this developed from, but you were apprehensive.

Cordelia was thankful the doors were shut. She crumbled into the nearest seat, covering her face with her hands. "What do we do?"

Ally moved closer to her girlfriend, resting her wait on the armrest, she pulled the blonde closer. She rubs circles on the woman's shoulder with her thumb while staring vacantly at the opposing wall. Before Ally could speak, Cordelia's phone rung. Cordelia lept to answer it.

"Y/n, oh thank goodness you're safe," Cordelia said relieved to hear your voice.

When the phone call was done, Cordelia placed her phone down on the table and leant into Ally's body muttering, "This woman is going to be the death of me."

The two remained in the comfort of each other until Ally suggested that they should head off to bed. They cuddled up with each other, Cordelia rested her head on Ally's chest. Ally ran her hands through Cordelia's hair wondering what the woman was thinking. Cordelia fixated on the roof, occasionally her hand fiddled with the fabric of Ally's nightshirt.

Ally was as stressed, if not more than Cordelia, but hid it from the other woman. Her stress would only make the situation worse. She rushed around, dialling your number trying to find out if you were safe. Now that she knew you were, she had new worries. Why did you make the rash decision of going yourself?

A part of her was shocked that she wasn't the one anxious, in a sense, she caused you to act. If you had never known, you couldn't have gone. Then again, the stress from the incident had prepared her body for the sudden anxiety. Who cares about that now? They both needed a distraction until you returned.

"You've known Y/N for a long time, what was she like when she was younger?" Ally asked.

"Very similar. However, she had less friends." She pulled her gaze from the ceiling to the brunette. "She had this one, they were inseparable, we used to joke that they would end up marrying each other they were so close," She chuckled at the thought. Then she stopped halfway through and thought to herself before continuing. Ally didn't understand why that was until Cordelia spoke again. " I hadn't heard from her in years, they must have fought, I can't explain why Y/n wouldn't speak about her otherwise. I remember bringing her up not long after Y/n came back and she brushed me off. The only other time I brought it up was by text asking if she had any of her recipes that the two used to make. They are the best chefs. You won't guess that with how often Y/n has nearly set the kitchen on fire but their Chocolate Cheesecake was to die for." She began to list all the desserts you'd use to make and all the meals your friend would make.

"They used to host bake-offs and convinced all students to get involved. The kitchen was always a disaster by the end of it. You'd be finding offcuts days after. We had to implement a rule for when the two girls hosted this torment they had to clean up afterwards. To which they made it a rule to tidy as you go."

"Did they judge?" Ally asked.

"No, that's the best part, they managed to convince the teachers to judge," Cordelia smiled as she reminisced. "Most of us would have helped but I know for a fact one of the teachers despised her. Can't remember why. OH, I forgot-"

"What?"

"You remember My Auntie Myrtle?" By name, Ally remembered. She never met her. "One time she came in for a visit during one of the bake-offs and she unintentionally entered the 'war zone' between Y/n and one of the older students and let's just say no one left without being covered in food that day. Y/n came second that day, I think she lost because she started the food fight.

Cordelia went on about stories from your school days until the two fell to sleep.

It was early in the morning when you finally parked outside the school. You hid the blanket in the glove compartment before exiting and locking up your car.

Delphi trust, how could it be Delphi trust. You and your hand through your hair I think is getting Tangled in the locks. more importantly, how did they get those items? you hadn't seen any of them in 18 months if not longer why haunt you with them now.

Before you could pull your keys out the door swung open it was Ally. You pulled up about 7 she should have been at work, yet she stood there front of you in her pyjamas. You couldn't decipher her expression a bit over 7 hours since you last spoke, she had long enough to calm down and talk with Cordelia. Her hand was still clenched around the doorknob and the door closed except The Gap she stood between. Unlike the other woman, you have yet to speak to her.

You slowly approached her, running potential dialogue through your head. What would she say?

You suck your hands into your pockets, your hand's fiddle with the loose ring. You almost forgot you stole it or did they steal it from you? You need to find it a hiding spot. Maybe with its pair.

"Are you trying to save me you ask?"

You can tell she's fighting off the urge to scold you. She went to say something but stopped herself. She shook her head, opened the door wider and said, "She somehow managed to blame me for your idiocy." As if Ally not sharing add inspired you to do the same. The truth was you've had your secrets and wanted to keep them to yourself.

"Well, you're a bad influence," you teased. You always joked to try and lighten the mood but always got scolded for it seriousness the others to talk cramps your style. You are lucky to be alive you knew that you didn't need the others to telling you out your areas you could do that enough on your own.

She smiled sadly as she allowed you access into the school. She knew there was no point in scolding you, you never listen to her advice. You may be younger but you're not a child and like to make it evident every time the two tried the parent you. She had her own child to worry about and Cordelia the girls- even if they are most of them are adults themselves.

"Should I avoid her or get it over with," you asked.

"Best get over with." She remained distant and you made no attempt to get closer. When you turned to leave, Ally called out your name. In acknowledgement, you turned around to face her.

She pulled you into a suffocating hug. "Don't ever do that again."

"Okay."

"You scared the shit out of us."

"I'm sorry."

You knew this is not how she normally reacted, but she's had hours to calm down. Your journey to Cordelia's office lasted an eternity.

You knocked on the door waiting to be let in. The door opens Cordelia looking down at you blank way. She opens the door wider, allowing you to move inside in her office. You shuffle inside and station yourself in the middle of the room. She moved passed a seating area to a desk. You knew you were in for it. She only ever used the desk for formal meetings or for serious occasions when someone's trouble.

She asked you to take a seat. You settled in the armchair across from her desk, the seat wasn't comfortable from lack of use. A part of you was praying for a similar interrogation as Ally's two days prior.

Their rooms air was stiff. The curtain drawn shut blocking the morning light from entering the room. The fluorescent light flickered every now and again causing you more tension. You watched Cordelia organize herself, fighting every urge to snap are you, calling you reckless, stupid and other words you'd need a thesaurus for. You were surprised to she was more concerned one seeing as it's Ally's trouble a mess to begin with. Ally was concerned but hold it back due to the scolding she knew you're going to get from your Supreme.

The woman didn't they speak nor did she let you. A part of you wished you never entered the room. Delaying it and wrapping your head around the situation may have benefited you in the long run. So, you would have told her the truth, revealing your findings. Not that it wasn't too late now but you were into too deep.

The woman stared you down, "Why did you do it Y/n?"

"I don't know."

"That's not a good enough answer."

"Yeah yeah."

"Y/n, I'm being serious."

"I know"

"Then why aren't you listening to me?"

"I am."

"Then why did you do it?"

"I said I don't know."

"You're leaving me no choice-"

"What are you going to do?" Cordelia stood and headed over to one of the bookcases in the room. "Cordelia? What are you going to do?"

"I forbid you from leaving the school grounds-"

"You're grounding me?" you laughed. "You serious?"

"You clearly can't be trusted to left to your own regards." Cordelia scanned the bookcase before pulling out a spellbook. "It's for your own safety."

"Safety? Fuck that, you're trying to take away my freedom. Who do you think you are?!"

"I'M THE FUCKING SUPREME!"

She flipped open the book, searching for the corrected page. She wasn't planning on giving you the choice. If you weren't going to do it willingly, she'd force you to stay. You caught on to her plan and tore the book from her grasp.

"IS THIS YOUR WAY OF SHOWING POWER OVER ME, HUH?" You yelled. "I WON'T LET YOU CONTROL ME AND YOU SURE AS HELL AIN'T TRAPPING ME HERE!"

"Y/N, YOU HAVE NO SAY IN THIS!"

"I HAVE VERY SAY IN THIS. IT'S MY LIFE!" you stumbled back to the door. "You know what? I'm done. I'm done with this-"

"Y/n-" Cordelia grabbed you by your wrist stopping you. She tried to use her powers to find out anything about you or why your acting like this. Anything to justify why you did what you did, but she got nothing. You were blank.

"I'm done with this Cordelia."

The door opened revealing a concerned Ally. You yanked yourself free and exited the room as soon as possible, brushing shoulders with Ally.

"What did you say to her?"

"Make sure she doesn't do anything stupid." Ally did a once over the blonde before leaving her to check on you.

Ally found you on your way back to your car.

"Y/n!" She called out your name. "Y/n!"

"What do you want?"

"Don't talk to me like that, I'm not the one you're mad at."

"Sorry. Can I go now, or are you trying to trap me here too?"

"Is that what she said?"

"Was even planning on cursing me to this place."

You turn around and opened your car door.

"Where are you going?"

"The store," you said before hopping into the driver's side. "And don't you worry, I plan on coming back, my stuffs here." You needed to get out of here before Cordelia could trap you to the place. Ally found your last sentence odd, of course, you'd be back, this was only a fight, right? You hadn't called off things between them.

"I'll talk to her for you. Try and come up with a common ground."

"There is no common ground, Ally. She wants me to be her prisoner."

"It's not like that-"

"Could have fooled me." You slammed the door shut. You had a feeling Cordelia was watching from the window. Her office faced the street.

Ally stormed through the school all the way to Cordelia's office. She flung the door open.

"You threatened to trap her here?!" Ally lashed out, "What on earth possessed you to think that was a smart decision?"

"I told you to look after-"

"You have no right to tell me what to do. I am not a witch, you have no status over me and even if you did, what gives you the right?"

"Ally, she's reckless-"

"So?"

"She could have been killed last night. People are after you Ally and she waltzed into the lion's den."

"That doesn't give you the right to trap her here. She isn't your slave, she's your girlfriend, treat her like it."

"Ally-"

"No, I'm not finished. Now do agree she should be monitored after... what she did. Yes, but don't bound her here."

"You're right."

Ally knew what Cordelia wanted to do was wrong but her sticking up for you wasn't purely selfless. Ally needed your freedom so you could take Oz out places he needed to go. Ally being caught up in this mess couldn't go out without being heckled and her other girlfriend is too busy with her supreme status and upkeeping the coven to chauffeur Ally's son around. She could have gotten one of the girls to do it but that was a worst-case scenario.

Everything had gotten back to normal besides all of you searching for the 'unknown' sender. Cordelia apologized and the two agreed someone had to be with you at all times (except while using the bathroom), it didn't matter who it was as long as it was someone in the school. You had the school hours (when you didn't have to teach) off from being monitored because you were helping Oz with his schoolwork. Oz had been kept at home for the week while the adults thought through what they were going to do to keep him from knowing. You were tasked with keeping him ahead of his studies. You were thankful he was still young making the work easier to relearn and teach.

He questioned why he was being kept from school but wasn't complaining besides the fact that he can't see his friends. He'd been allowed to stay with some of them after Cordelia worked her 'charm' in the form of magic on the parents to ensure they'd not mention anything. She rarely used her power of 'persuasion' very often but after both your and Oz's begging she couldn't refuse. After Ally's reputation was guaranteed to be protected, she had no reason to refuse.

Due to the increased number of hours spent together, you decided to surprise him with the Nintendo switch he wanted. You had no place to store it in your office until you set it up so you hid it behind your mountain of shoe boxes in your shared wardrobe.

Alone in your shared walk-in wardrobe, you knelt, going through the belongings you'd stolen from your search.

Within the last five days you managed to find a spot in time where you could sneak the stolen belonging inside. Now, you stored them in an old shoebox that came with your most commonly worn pair of shoes.

Your mind thought back to the note, Happy Anniversary. How could they know?

You were on edge the whole time, maybe you should have told your girlfriends your findings. Regardless you chose to leave them unaware and in turn, must suffer for your stupidity.

You hadn't noticed the others come into the bedroom nor did they notice your presence in the wardrobe.

"You need to talk to her about it."

"I know you said that last time."

"And you haven't spoken about it since."

"It's really not the time Ally."

"It's never the-"

"More now than ever. You're under threat, Ally, what if they come after us too? They know about Y/n. They may even have footage of her sneaking about because she stupidity went out-" She kept revving on about the whole thing they got caught up in. You had yet to catch on to what they were talking about.

You put the blanket back in the box and tucked the shoebox back into your collection of shoes. Making sure the box covered the gift you got for Ally's son. You crept towards the entrances of the wardrobe.

"It's too late for me Ally. End of discussion." What on earth were they talking about? Too late for her, oh god is she getting replaced? No, it's too soon. "I sent the council to check out the address Y/n gave me, or should I say the real address."

"She gave you the wrong address?"

Cordelia nodded, "it wasn't a simple mistake with the number, the street doesn't exist."

Shit, she figured out it was a fake street. Of course you did, you should have done a better job. You needed to get out of here and figure out your next move before they figured out what else you're hiding. You teleported out of the room dashing down to your office where you're meant to be.

"What are you suggesting? That she's the one behind this?"

"You said it yourself earlier, I don't really know her anymore."

"She's been with us for almost two years-"

"Enough time to study someone and send info back."

"She didn't know about Ivy-"

"Do you know where she was in 2016?"

"No."

"Because she never talks about her past."

"You think she was in Michigan?"

"It's not unlikely."

"She would never-"

"But what if she is- All I'm saying is be careful. No one would dash off that quickly unless they had something to hide."

"What do we do once we find out?"

"Act accordingly."

"If you're wrong, you owe her an apology." Cordelia insisted she wasn't wrong but agreed nevertheless. "Couldn't you just read her mind or something?"

"Use the sight? I generally block off using my power, I have tried it a couple of times on her but she's barricaded her memories."

"When did you use it?"

"Most recently after she returned from 'her trip'." Her trip referred to the five days earlier. "I also tried when she was too stubborn to tell us about her 'episodes'. I thought when she was distressed would lower the wall but it was stronger."

It wasn't until the next day when Cordelia found out the building actually was. She called Ally immediately.

"You're saying she's a witch hunter? But she's a witch."

"I can't explain that myself, but she refused to tell us this when she knew who they were."

"Does she know that that's the company that-"

"My ex worked for? Probably. Hell, she's probably one of his side chicks."

"I doubt that-" You had never mentioned or shown interest in men before. Cordelia would most likely explain that away as you were keeping it away from them which Ally would claim was ridiculous.

"Why are you supporting her?"

"Why aren't you? She's shown nothing up until now that would suggest that she'd associate herself with witch hunters. They probably have dirt on her."

Cordelia rolled her eyes.

"I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt-"

"It's not yours to give. You aren't the only one at threat anymore. Ally my girls are in danger-"

"Including Y/n."

"She's not one of us anymore-"

"We haven't confirmed she's done anything-" Ally tried to reason. "She isn't your ex, stop painting her out to be. At least wait until she gets back to explain herself."

You were out with Oz. You had taken him to the park for psychical activity and to get him out of the school. Mainly it was an excuse for you to get away from school, you found the place to crowded with the constant eyes on you. An escape sounded nice and Oz didn't complain. You may have had to offer him a comic book to seal the deal. He would have gone out anyway but the extra incentive was nice.

Ally ended the phone call leaving Cordelia to her own thoughts.

Cordelia stormed down to your office. If you had anything, you'd hid it in your own space, she thought. She shredded the bookcase, flipping books to see if you hid any secrets within the pages. She flung open draws and flicked through files, but nothing showed up pinning you as the culprit. A couple of students in passing watched her tear down your medical posters and swipe the contents of the contents on your desk to the floor. When she caught them she straightened up her act before saying, "Shouldn't you all be in class?" They scampered off soon after.

She thought about other places you could hide something. What about in plain sight? Her eyes lit up, the bedroom. Nothing in the main section or the ensuite. The last place she had to check was the cupboard. The school would need a good cleaning after she was done searching. She hadn't bothered to tidy as she went, set on you being in the wrong so it wouldn't matter.

She was more careful with the wardrobe as she didn't want to wreak any of her or Ally's more expensive clothing. She pulled out the collection of shoeboxes, finding a hidden red and white box. She pushed the box aside hoping the box would be what she sort instead finding a game console. She rose her brow, why was it hidden away in the closet. Maybe you hid the contents inside the box? The box hadn't been opened yet but she was convinced you'd hidden something inside. There were only the console and its extra contents. There were some games hidden behind it and a little tag addressed to Oz written in your handwriting. You bought the boy a game console? You really spoiled him.

"Maybe I'm wrong," she thought aloud as she put all the contents back where she found it.

She went to place the shoes back in front of the box when she noticed a shoebox that shouldn't have been kept. They were to your casual pair of shoes which you never but back in their box. She always had to tell you to place them somewhere where out of the way so she wouldn't trip on them.

She slowly opened the box, "A blanket?" She removed a small knitted blanket from the box to see two rings and some other trinkets. Why did you have these hidden away? Cordelia held the blanket up, allowing it to unfold. She noticed the lavender stitching in the lower corner of the white blanket. She flipped it over revealing the name on it, "Odelia?" she questioned. She raked her brain around the name, the only thing that came to mind was how similar it was to her own. Maybe it was intentional? She assumed it wasn't your blanket, it was two pristine. Was it meant for someone? A child perhaps? "The child," she muttered. The day you were in Oz's room, you sounded like you were speaking to a child. Was that her? Or was Cordelia getting it wrong? She couldn't get much information off the blanket other than it had been used by a child with the last seven years. She rested the blanket on her lap, hoping another item would give her the clue she needed.

She'd gotten you all wrong, you were hiding something but she no longer thought you worked for the witch hunters. Maybe they threatened you or a loved one? She pulled out the pair of rings.

A vision flashed before her eyes. She got a first-person perspective of someone driving in a car. The person chuckled in response to something she heard on the Bluetooth speaker of her car. You're current car.

"Baby~" The woman whined, "I swear your gonna love it."

"This better not be like your last surprise," a voice from the speaker call said. The voice was distorted due to being on the phone, but it was undeniably you. "I still can't go to that park without reliving it."

"Stop being dramatic." The more Cordelia thought she recognised the other woman's voice too. "I dropped Lia at my sister's place-"

"So, we could have some good old fashion alone time~" you purred.

"You wish," the woman laughed. "When do you get off?"

"5. Just in time to catch up."

"On some sleep maybe, how long was your shift?"

"It wasn't that long-"

"But your-"

"Don't get started on this-" You're what? Why did you cut her off, Cordelia thought.

"You need to find a better job."

"I will just give me some time," you said. "I'm thinking of trying to get a job at Miss Robichaux's. I could teach magic there or something."

"You should." The woman encouraged. "God, I miss that place."

"I know. Maybe you can visit me sometime if I work there."

"I'll probably have to pry you out of there too. Doesn't that, uh~ what's her name, she works there."

"Wow, helpful."

"Shut up, the one you were infatuated with, the one that you only settled for me cuz she was straight-"

"I didn't settle for you-"

"Yes, you did. Don't worry I don't care. But if she does swing our way you better not scamper off."

"I wouldn't-"

"All I'm saying is tell me first, I'm open-"

"For a threesome," you said. "You can't even remember her name."

"I don't need to," she said. "I'll learn it again if I ever met her again."

"Why would you meet her?"

"When I visit you at your new job."

"I haven't even applied yet." The woman turned her car right on an interaction. "So, what's the surprise?" The woman chuckled.

A van ran the red light and was coming straight for her car. She swore and tried to swerve out of the way.

"Amber?"

Her vision faded to black.

"Amber!"

Cordelia gasped. Your friend from high school, Amber. Oh god, no wonder you never talked about her. That can't be all, the car was fine now, you wouldn't keep the car your friend died- wait, Cordelia looked at the rings, you married her. She was your wife. You would have mentioned something like that to her, right?

A knock at the door interrupted her thought process.

"Ms Cordelia?" A girl burst into the bedroom.

Cordelia dropped the belongings and rushed over to the door.

"There's been a crash."

#cordelia foxx x reader #cordelia x reader #cordelia goode x reader #ally mayfair richards x reader

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auncyen · 5 years ago

Text

Trespass

Morgana fumbled with the buttons on the phone's side until it went black; the last message he saw was Ryuji's frustrated apology, but the dots appearing and disappearing beneath Ren's icon weren't promising. As much as Morgana wanted to understand Ren's thought process after their...apparently disastrous reconnaissance of his Palace, Futaba had been on edge as soon as Ren stated he knew what they had done. Once he'd mentioned her part in that day, the girl had crumbled. She was now curled up on her bed with her face pressed into her knees. "He hates us," she wailed. "He ha-hates me, and he's st-still... Hi-his sh-shadow wasn't right..." "It wasn't violent, at least," Morgana mumbled, but that was the only reassurance he had to offer. Ren's shadow hadn't been like any of the other Palace rulers. He hadn't taunted them that they'd never be able to take his treasure like most. Rather, the instant Ren's shadow spotted them, he'd been terrified. "Why...why did you come here? What did he do wrong?" The way Ren's shadow shrank away from them had thrown everyone off; even Futaba's shadow hadn't been so plainly afraid. Makoto had stepped forward, trying to reassure him that Ren had done nothing wrong, that they were just alarmed he had a Palace, but the shadow had been too agitated to hear her out. "So what? You want to send me back to that prison? I won't go! I won't! I'll..." The shadow had stumbled in its words, then laughed, trembling. "I'll go back to my real self... is that what you want? He was right, after all." "Right about what?" The golden eyes of Ren's shadow had looked so hopeless as he stared at them.

Someone buzzed the Sakura residence's buzzer, and Morgana's ears pricked up as Sojiro answered the door. He hoped that in the time Futaba had held onto him and cried out a mix of guilt, worry, and fear, Ren had calmed down and was now willing to talk. Morgana was more than willing to apologize. They'd only wanted to help Ren, but it was obvious they'd made a misjudgment. A serious one. But the voice that answered Sojiro wasn't Ren's, and Morgana's heart sank. He still pulled himself out of Futaba's loose hold. "Come in," he told Yusuke after the boy knocked on the door to Futaba's bedroom. "Futaba, are you--ah." Yusuke stopped momentarily as he registered that the girl in question was asleep, loosely sprawled out on the top of her bed. She snuffled weakly in her sleep. "I was nearby and thought I would see how Futaba was coping. It would appear the answer is that she's not." "Give her a little time," Morgana murmured. "We were all holding out hope that this would still be a normal change of heart." They hadn't known what else to make of Arsene fleeing back to Ren of his own volition, not even attempting to defend his Treasure, and the brief radio silence afterward had seemed to fit the pattern of previous changes. Now Morgana had to wonder if Ren had asked him to let him be alone because he couldn't stand the sight of him. "Is Ren still...?" "Seething?" Yusuke finished for Morgana. Closing the door behind him, the lanky artist took a seat in Futaba's computer chair. "I imagine you'll be staying with Futaba for a few more days, at the very least." "The very least, huh..." Staying at the Sakura residence wasn't actually all that bad--it might even be considered a step up from having been cooped up in the attic with Ren, since he could talk all he wanted and roam around a larger space without worrying about customers--but Morgana didn't like the thought of Ren being all alone, especially when he'd been neglecting himself in recent weeks. And the thought of Ren hating him was a miserable one. "If I have any good news for you, it would be that Ren has stated he's willing to continue working with us for Shido's change of heart." Yusuke fished his phone out of his pocket and flicked his thumb over the screen. "However, he is adamant we consider him an ally for this mission, and this mission alone. He is not a member of the Phantom Thieves, let alone its leader, because if he were, the rest of us wouldn't have broken one of our fundamental rules." "The unanimous vote," Morgana muttered, his ears drooping flat. "We thought it might be dangerous to upset him by telling him about the Palace..." "Haru and Ann tried to explain the reasoning to him. Several times," Yusuke said flatly. "He's unwilling to hear it. ...With the way Arsene returned to him, I have to wonder. It might be that he couldn't believe us even if he wanted to." "...I don't know," Morgana admitted. "After knowing Akechi, we know for sure that someone can have a Persona while still acting in a distorted manner...and it sounded like...Arsene had come to an agreement of sorts, with Ren..." "Even you aren't safe." Morgana winced. Yusuke gave a humorless chuckle. "So rather than eliminate a harmful distortion, we confirmed it with our intrusion. We were careless with the heart of our leader.... now we get to pay the price." He took a deep breath and sighed. "He has every right to be angry. Not only did we break the rule of the unanimous vote, but Ren was the only victim of the distortion we know of. He may have been distancing himself from the rest of us, but we've no ground to claim harm, no matter how upsetting we found it. As both the sole victim and a Phantom Thief, Ren ought to have been consulted." "He might have gotten upset with us then, too. He might have told us not to go." "And it would have been his right. Respecting his choice and privacy might have led us to a better outcome." Morgana couldn't argue that. The path they had chosen had led to this disaster. More than a miscalculation, they had seriously hurt Ren. He kneaded the blanket on Futaba's bed for a minute, thinking deeply. "...How do we make it up to him?" "We work with him on Shido's Palace," Yusuke said. "We hope that taking care of that man will at least help Ren shed some of his burden and help him open back up, and we wait for him to give us a second chance." "You're being so calm about this," Morgana muttered. "He's going back home in a couple months. What if he doesn't forgive us before then? What if he just leaves and...that's it? Don't tell me you'd be okay with that." "Of course I wouldn't," Yusuke retorted. "Ren helped save me. He has been an inspiration to me in dark times. The thought that I may have hurt him when I wanted to help him is...aggravating, to say the least. I'm not sure I can forgive myself if he does not. But we have already trespassed in his heart once, Morgana." Yusuke shook his head. "It would be foolish to expect him to simply invite us in again."

#persona 5 #ren amamiya #...only tagging him since it's his palace #WHEN YOU WANT TO SPEEDRUN PALACE FIC so you just fast-forward past the Palace itself to where everything's already gone downhill #might work on this more later because this might be a little *too* speedrun #I just...really like the idea of Palaces fic where 'sneak in' is not the right answer #where it may in fact be the disastrously wrong answer

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muchymozzarella · 6 years ago

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From @vixiak, an idea I NEEDED IN MY LIFE

Dorian as Archon and Bull as spy, who was caught when trying to break into the palace to steal war plans

“I don’t suppose the Qunari are aware of ways to warn me of break-ins in my own home, but given that you’re all fully aware that we of Tevinter use magic for every little thing, I’m surprised you weren’t prepared for the eventuality.”

Hissrad smirked even as he clenched against the paralysis spell, feeling its hold loosening on him already, though he willed himself not to move and give the game away.

“Our Tamassrans always did encourage us to learn something new every day. At least, mine did,” Hissrad said flippantly as the man made his unconcerned way from behind Hissrad (his Antaam instincts screaming at him to face the threat of a powerful Bas-Saarebas head on, tamped down by his more nuanced thought as Ben-Hassrath) to speak to him face to face, and Hissrad couldn’t hide the surprise at seeing the Archon himself - dressed down, alone, and so small that Hissrad would’ve mistaken him for any other Magister, had it not been for his singular, elegantly curled moustache.

Had Hissrad not known that the Archon was, objectively, one of the most beautiful Vints he’d ever seen in his time in the city, and though the secret places inside him purred like a cat in sunlight at the thought, the Hissrad he was marked it as another example of how Tevinter chose their leaders - bred to perfection for the purpose, almost Qunari in that way, if not for the corrupting influence of their magic and depravity.

“My, but you are an ugly, scowling fellow,” Archon Dorian tsked, and Hissrad, who had his expression schooled to the usual stoniness, raised a brow and threw him a smirk, which seemed to startle the man.

“I’d wager your standards for what’s beautiful are higher than anyone’s considering they’ve got a lot to live up to in front of someone so gorgeous,” said Hissrad, and he didn’t miss the flush that seemed to inspire in the man’s cheeks, even in the low light of evening.

“A flattering Qunari. How quaint,” the Archon said breathlessly. “And here I thought you were all only capable of grunting or yelling for death or the Qun or whatnot.”

“I don’t know if it’s stupidity or humility that you Vints think you’ve been fighting animals this whole time and losing,” said Hissrad.

“Oh, half the Magisterium certainly thinks so, and you’d be surprised how much of a chore it is to get them to understand the intelligence of our enemy,” said Archon Dorian, laughing lightly. “But I don’t know that the ones who don’t underestimate you all are much better,” he went on, humour draining from his voice. “Given what lengths they’re willing to go to to quell the tide of Qunari rule.”

Hissrad thought of the time he spent on Seheron, how relieved he was to be pulled before he could become the monsters his fellows had, and shuddered.

He then realised that the paralysis spell had dropped completely, and the Archon turned his back to him, walking on.

“Well, come on then,” the man said, and Hissrad balked. “I know you’re not here to kill me, otherwise you’d have been on your way to my quarters rather than down this hallway - unless your intelligence really is that flawed and you had no idea where your target even was. I’d guess you had a different goal in mind. What was it? Architectural plans of the palace? Magical weapons for your Saarebas to use? The dragonling we keep in the garden?”

Hissrad perked up at the mention of a baby dragon. “Wait, you have an Ataashi in here?”

The Archon sighed heavily. “Of course you love them. The damage to the palace isn’t worth the trouble, but it keeps spirits high and makes my enemies more inclined to believe in my power if I can keep one in line.”

Hissrad weighed his options in his head, and decided to change tact.

“I was looking for plans for your next attack on Seheron, actually,” he said lightly, as though it meant nothing to give the information away.

Dorian’s shoulders immediately dropped, and his expression turned not angry, like Hissrad expected, but... sad. Troubled.

“There are none,” said Dorian. “At least,” he added, before Hissrad could speak, “not here. I have no intention of sending another wave of soporati and laetans and glory-seeking alti to be slaughtered on that Maker-forsaken island.”

“Bullshit,” Hissrad said, startling them both.

“I have approved nothing,” Dorian continued, sounding infinitely more tired than his thirty years, “but from what I understand, certain elements of the Magisterium have been going behind my back to approve and fund the endeavour. I know that many have decided that I am unfit to be Archon because I am neither warmonger nor full of delusions of grandeur about a war we have never won and never will, against a people we have only ever held back and never stopped, and so you understand the use of the magical wards I had placed - to stop the dozens of assassins that come to kill me every week. But to be fair, that’s only a few more than usual.”

“Your own people would try to tear you down even when you make a tough and reasonable decision for their safety?” Hissrad said with disgust.

Dorian smiled at him, oddly warm, as they ended up in a library with a lounge, with couches that looked decadently soft. He lay across one, allowing Hissrad the full view of the long lines of his body, before the spy sat by his feet on one side, still space to spare on the enormous chaise.

“I’m surprised you believe me, considering I’m supposed to represent a people you believe to be morally corrupt and irredeemable,” Dorian said softly, pouring two glasses of wine from the crystalline side table filigreed with gold.

“You seem like a good guy,” Hissrad said, shrugging as he took the offered glass and sniffing it before taking a sip. He had taken the antidotes to most known poisons and tonics for most spells before he entered the palace, so if this killed him, it deserved the victory. “And I’m a people person.”

Dorian looked pensive. “I’ve.... never met a Qunari like you,” he said, weighing his words carefully. “May I ask your name?”

“Hissrad,” was the answer. “My name and my title. It means-”

“Keeper of illusions,” Dorian said, chuckling. “If you’re so good at lying that I’ve decided to share a drink with you before you kill me, I’d just be happy it took some of your best to finally take me down. But there must be dozens of Hissrad, if not hundreds.”

Hissrad shrugged. “Sure. Why?”

“I suppose I don’t want to think of you as someone who simply shares your title. I think... I think of a Bull, perhaps. Though your horns are more like a high dragon’s.”

Hissrad grinned widely, giving the Archon a wink. “Dragon sounds great, actually.”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Bull it is, then.” He sat up, swirling the wine in his glass and looking deep in thought. “If I told you which Magisters I’ve heard funded the next planned assault right under me from an ally, would you trust the information?”

“I’d have people look into its validity, first,” said Hissrad, the Bull to the Archon.

“Fair. And what would you do if you found out they had such information that you came here for in the first place?” asked Dorian.

“The Ben-Hassrath collect as much information as they can before making a decision,” said Hissrad, “but depending on how completely depraved they are compared to how useful they are - you might just be one less an enemy.”

“But what if this is just a ruse I’ve created for you to take out my political rivals?” Dorian said lightly.

“The motivation doesn’t really matter when the outcome is ideal,” said Hissrad. “But if you make trouble, we could always just come up here and kill you, given you apparently live without guards or additional non-magical security.”

“The magical security is enough,” said Dorian flippantly, and Hissrad moved so quickly that he barely had time to react - the wine glass had rolled onto the carpet, staining it red, and Hissrad held the Archon by the throat while the hand that held the wineglass now held fire, ready to be thrown.

“You can’t always rely on magic alone,” said Hissrad softly, thumb caressing the side of Dorian’s neck and making him shiver, the red of his face not just from the hold on his throat. “Especially against a people who have trained to fight it specifically.”

He let go, leaving no mark on the man’s neck, and handed him his wine, which Dorian took with a huff while looking judgmentally down at the stain on the no doubt expensive carpet. He downed the rest of the wine in one go, running a hand through his hair.

“I’ll give you the list,” he said, breathless, going over to the nearby table.

Hissrad followed, standing behind him as he began scribbling names and other important information that he knew from his own contacts. Before he handed it over, however, the Archon looked him up and down, seemed to mull something over for a moment, before saying “Do you fuck?”

Hissrad wasn’t sure where that strange turn came from, but he said “I’m no Tamassran, but I do alright.”

“Oh, maker, never mind, I don’t know why I asked - but I suppose...”

Before Hissrad could say anything else, he felt soft lips against his, a hand on his neck urging him low, and he opened up to it, and he allowed himself to be led through a contact that made electricity spark throughout his entire body and a fire burn in his gut that felt like someone had cast so many spells inside him.

“Apologies,” said Dorian softly when he pulled away. “When I was younger, I was a terrible romantic. And having a strapping, clever spy come into my home and not killing me seemed like the kind of romantic my younger self would have berated me for not taking advantage of. Not that romance could possibly be a Qunari concept.”

“Nope,” said Hissrad, licking his lips, “but if you want to teach me a little more, it’s good to learn something new.”

He gave a wink, and Dorian threw his head back in real laughter.

He was beautiful, and Hissrad looked forward to the next time he could see the soft look on Dorian’s face when they were both safe from who they were in the daylight.

“Here,” Dorian said softly, handing him a ring - one of the many from his fingers that Hissrad briefly wondered why he didn’t take them off to sleep, until he saw it pulse briefly with minor magic. “You can move into the palace without traps setting off this way. I’ll still know, but... at least you won’t be charred to a crisp by the time I come over to greet you.”

“Careful, Dorian,” said Hissrad softly. “I might start thinking you like me.”

Dorian looked sad, and Hissrad - his Bull - understood, and they kissed once more before he fled, to give the information he had gleaned to his superiors, but against everything he had ever been taught, hiding the ring he had been given for his own.

#adoribull #archon dorian #hissrad #the iron bull #spy bull #au #alternate universe #prompts #adoribull prompts #doribull

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marshmallow-phd · 6 years ago

Text

Lies Untold

Part of The Untamed - EXO Wolf Universe

Genre: Supernatural, Wolf Au

Pairing: Luhan x Reader

Summary: For generations, your family has been the protectors of mankind. You were considered one of the best and due to that reputation, you were sent on what could be the most important mission for the organization. Going under cover in a college to sniff out a particularly large and threatening wolf pack seemed easy enough. But when you meet one of the members, everything you’ve known since birth will be overturned and your loyalty to your family and heritage will be tested.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I 14 I Final

Darkness surrounded you. No trickle of light leaked through any of the blacked out windows or through the doors you knew to be twenty feet ahead of you. While you weren’t quite blind to the point to where your body would begin to panic, it was enough that your other senses were taking over and kicking into overdrive. You kept all concentration on your hearing, searching for the slightest sound behind you.

It was quiet; so much so that it dulled your eardrums and drew too much of the focus on your own heartbeat. But your years of training taught you to fight back against the fatigue and you caught the soft sound of rope lowering on the pulley.

You whipped around, arrow already loaded, and shot the bag of sand, splitting it open and letting the thousands of bead-sized rocks spill out onto the floor before the bag even reached ten feet above your head. Spinning on the balls of your feet, you whisked the small dagger from your boot with a shrink, throwing it flawlessly at the wooden cut out that had popped up across the room.

Over and over, different targets sprung up or dropped down from all angles. Your breath quickened as your energy drained, but you pushed through it, not letting your guard down for a second. Some had attacks of their own, sending daggers or wooden stakes in your direction. They were easy enough to dodge as you flipped or summersaulted out of the way.

Sweat slid down your face, tracing your hairline from the top of your forehead before dripping from your jaw. No more targets cropped up and you stood there in the middle room, your breath in and out of your lungs being the only source of noise. Then a soft whistle you knew all too well pierced through the air. Without even thinking through the motion, you turned, arm held out, and caught the arrow midair before it could hit you in the back.

Slow clapping echoed off the walls as the lights flickered on. Your mother walked into the room from the now wide open doors, spilling light onto every surface and revealing the damage you had done throughout the session. Your little sister slide down from the balcony using one of the wooden columns, a short recurve bow strapped to her back.

“Your aim isn’t improving,” you chastised. At thirteen, Ally was still in training, but her skills weren’t developing at quite the pace you would have hoped. She still struggled with the bow, but she was deadly with knives and could slink around like a cat. To be a hunter, though, you needed to be well rounded, excelling in every category. It’s what kept you alive.

Ally just stuck her tongue out at you.

“Punk,” you scoffed under your breath.

“I truly think you’re ready,” your mother mused as she beamed at you with a proud smile, missing the childish interaction between her daughters.

“Of course she’s ready.” Your father joined you from the shadows, hands behind his back and a calculating look in his eye. “This mission is the single most important assignment that has ever come to our family. It’s vital that you succeed. The future of the hunters rests on it.”

You nodded once, hard and certain. “I understand.”

“Your bags are all packed and the apartment is set up for you,” your mother informed you. “You’ll head out tomorrow.”

Your father kissed the top of your head as if you were still his little girl rather than a grown hunter. But you didn’t protest. There much more love in your family than some of the others. You’d seen how cold and distant some of the parents could be. It made you wonder how they were able to make a child in the first place.

Perhaps that little dash of love is what gave you the extra advantage. You had something to fight for, something to come back to. The mission – the overall mantra of the organization – was not your end all, be all. Because of that little something extra, you were given a great honor, something that wasn’t often approved.

While moving from place to place and tracking down supernatural creatures was no stranger to you and your way of life, solo missions were rare. As ordinary humans, it was better to go to in groups against wolves, to have someone to watch your back and stay by your side. Especially when there was a large pack involved.

But this time, you had to go alone. It was too risky to send a group – and you were the only one who could blend into the environment without giving yourself away or looking too suspicious. It was an honor to be trusted like this, but it would be a lie if you didn’t say you were a little afraid.

It would be you versus a pack of unknown numbers. While you had a bit of information at your fingertips, you were still going in mostly blind. The intel you’d collect over the last year and half was sparse, but every detail would count towards your ultimate goal: to take out every wolf until the world was purged of them all. They were a threat to humanity and needed to be extinguish.

Supper that night was quiet, only the clanking of silverware against your mother’s finest china resonated in the dining room. You chewed your steak slowly, the nerves in your stomach making it hard to take in much food. If your current state was obvious, no one commented on it. Being nervous was only natural, a primal instinct that couldn’t be put out.

You excused yourself after finishing half your plate and shuffled off to your room.

Piled up by the door just inside your sanctuary were your bags to take with you. Most were full of clothes - of both the civilian and hunter variety. No one knew how long this mission would take. You could gone a month or a whole year, so you took a majority of your clothing and necessities just in case. One piece of luggage, however, was locked up tight, containing your favorite bow and several other smaller weapons that you thought might come in handy.

Pressing your thumb up against the lock of the case, you waited for the springs to hitch and the clips to snap up before lifting the lid. With careful fingers, you lifted the bow up, examining every inch for the hundredth time.

The dull black of the base blended in perfectly with the night when you were aiming to be invisible. Your string was tight yet gave enough to pull the arrow back before letting it go, flying towards its target.

Knock, knock, knock.

Ally poked her head into your room sheepishly. Smiling just a little at her predictability, you waved her in the rest of the way.

“Come on.”

A big, brace-filled grin grew on her face as she hopped inside, closing the door behind her before she plopped down beside you on floor.

“Are you checking everything again?” your little sister giggled.

Rolling your eyes, you put your bow back into its foam holding and closed the lid. “Always check your equipment before going out into the field.”

“Okay, Dad.” After a few seconds of silence, the smile on Ally’s face faded.

If there was one thing you didn’t like about this mission, it was leaving her. It was too dangerous for her to come with you and she wasn’t even close to finishing her training. You ran your fingers through her hair, letting the strands slip away and fall back down to her shoulders.

“I won’t be gone too long.”

“Yeah, right,” she muttered. “Who knows how long you’ll be away. And you know the rules: no unnecessary contact. What if something happens to you?”

You scoffed. “Nothing is going to happen to me. Do you really have that little faith in me?”

“You’re going up against one of the biggest packs we’ve ever seen! Johnny said-”

“Oh screw what Johnny says!” you snapped. Shifting yourself so you were completely facing Ally, you took her hands. “Listen. Johnny is an asshole who’s sour because he couldn’t spot a wolf if it came up and sniffed his behind so they’re sending me instead.” That made her giggle. Good. You were already lifting her mood. “We’re not sure how big this pack is, okay? Is it larger than the average one? Yeah, it seems like it. But it’s nothing I can’t handle. This isn’t a takedown mission. It’s simply covert. Trust me, okay? Your big sister has got this.”

For a good minute, Ally said nothing. She didn’t look at you either, letting her eyes wander around the floor aimlessly.

“You’ll come back, right?” she finally mumbled.

Throwing your arms around your, you pulled your baby sister in close to your chest. “I will always come back.”

No matter what this mission had in store, you would fight like hell to get back to Ally. To you, she was still that tiny, vulnerable little bundle that needed your protection.

You were roughly her age when she was born. At first, you saw her as a nuisance that took your parents’ attention away from your training and from you in general. But it didn’t take long for this helpless lump of flesh to take ahold of your heart forever. Now, she came first. She was the one that you were fighting for.

Besides, this was such a covert mission that you would be out of harm’s way for the most part. What was the worst that could happen?

Luhan woke up to the sound of absolute chaos.

Groaning, he flipped over to his side so he could shove his face into the pillow to try and muffle the noise. Didn’t anyone care that a majority of his job happened late at night?

Of course they didn’t. They were all too lost in their own little worlds.

After another minute or two of trying to go back to sleep, Luhan gave up and pushed himself into a sitting position. Little flecks of crust were still holding his eyelids together. He didn’t try to fight against it, instead just swaying there for a moment with his eyes still closed shut.

Almost as soon as he’d left all those years ago, he’d wanted to return to the farmhouse. He’d missed his brothers, Minseok and Sehun especially. But he’d sworn to stay by Kris’ side and he couldn’t let his alpha wander off alone. When they finally did come back, he hadn’t expected all the changes that took place during their absence.

So many of them had their mates and more were coming in by the day. When both Kris and Junmyeon had met their mates at the same time, it excited Luhan. That had to mean his was just around the corner, right?

Crash!

The whole ceiling in Luhan’s room shook from whatever had just occurred in the space above him. He just had to take the room under the kitchen. Oh, well. It beat staying up in the crowded second floor.

Finally peeling his eyes open, Luhan stretched out his muscles and climbed out of bed. Since he was just in a plain shirt and sleep pants, he didn’t bother to change before he stumbled out of the room and up the stairs.

Just as he suspected, the kitchen was filled to the brim with the wolves and their mates. As it was a Saturday morning, no one had school to hurry to or jobs to arrive on time for. The source of the earlier crash seemed to be from Chanyeol accidentally dropping a whole pan of eggs on the floor. He was currently getting a nice scolding from Lanie and looking much like the overgrown pup that he was.

A small tug on Luhan’s pant leg took his attention away from the pair to the area at his feet. He smiled brightly at the little girl who’d crawled her way over to him and was now using his leg as support while she wobbled cutely on her still feet. Not even hesitating, Luhan scooped the nine-month old into his arms, resting her as best as he could on his flat male hip. She didn’t seem to mind, though, as she clenched her fists into his shirt.

“Is this you saying you want Uncle Luhan to feed you this morning?”

Evie - Kris’ mate and fiancé - approached the pair with a warm bottle in one hand and a small bowl of dry cereal in the other.

Little Mei let out a squeal that could only be decoded as a yes. Luhan carried her over to the dining table, moving her to his lap as Evie set the bottle and bowl down in front of him. Several of the mates were staring as Luhan concentrated on feeding the little girl. Even some of the other wolves were looking on with a sparkle in their eyes.

While Evie had been pregnant, a majority of the pack threw around jokes about how it just had to be Kris who got his mate pregnant first. After Limei was born, though, the jokes turned into hushed whispers of having their own. There was hardly any room left with everyone here now. Junmyeon was already talking to contactors about possibly building a second house. If the mates really started talking seriously about adding to the pack, Junmyeon was going to need to turn the talks into actions. Or maybe Luhan could just move into the garage.

“Dadadada.” Mei babbled on and on in between bites as if she was trying to participate in the relentless chatter around her.

Kris, hearing his daughter from the other room, came scurrying towards the table and knelt down so he was almost at eye level with her. “No, Mei, I’m dada. Say dada to me. Say dada.”

It took all his supernatural strength for Luhan to bite down on his laugh when Mei clammed up, refusing to say anything towards the alpha wolf.

Hanging his head, Kris let out a deep sigh before pushing himself back into a standing position. Evie came over with a plate of food and placed it in front of Luhan.

“Here, Lu. Why don’t you go ahead and eat and I’ll finish up feeding Mei.”

“Okay,” Luhan smiled up at her. Evie was the only person who ever called him “Lu” and he kind of enjoyed it. They had a bit of a special bond after that night she got a little too drunk in his bar and spilled her guts about being in love with Kris. She treated him like a brother, even if little moments like this made Kris’ inner wolf jealous. Luhan didn’t take it to heart; it was a natural reaction, especially since he was still unmated.

Evie lifted Mei into her arms, but almost immediately, the little girl reached for her dad. Kris’ face lit up to suddenly being wanted by his daughter and gladly held her against his chest. Evie simply rolled her eyes with a shrug and walked away. The poor thing had to get used to sharing Mei very quickly after she was born, hardly getting any alone with her.

Turning his focus to the fresh plate of breakfast in front of him, Luhan gobbled the delicious food down. He wanted to get out of here pretty quickly before he could notice too much of the mate adoration around him. His brothers were feeding their mates or just being overly touchy and affectionate. There was only so much he could take on his own. Sehun and Tao were nowhere to be seen, most likely either hiding out in their rooms until most of the pack scattered to do whatever they had scheduled today or already left to cause more havoc to the poor university town they called home.

Once Luhan cleaned off his plate, he rinsed it off and put it in the dishwasher before slipping out the back door, completely unnoticed by the rest of his pack.

Junmyeon had asked that no one go running alone out of worry of what the local witches had apparently seen in a random vision. There hadn’t been any more premonitions and nothing had happened to be concerned about. Given the fact that Junmyeon simply requested they stick together and not outright ordered it, Luhan found no difficulty in undressing behind the garage and shifting as he ran towards the woods.

Sometimes… sometimes his pack was just too much. Or maybe Luhan had simply let his hopes rise too high.

When wolf after wolf was finding their mate in the most random of ways, Luhan thought he would be next any day. But then a month went by after Kris and Junmyeon. And then another. Before he knew it, a year and a half had gone by with no new mates appearing. Tao and Sehun were ecstatic. Luhan, on the other hand, was finding it harder to deal with.

He was lonely. He could admit it. Even as he plastered on a smile and took refuge in being a helpful uncle to little Mei, he couldn’t stamp down the ever-growing hole in his chest. When an unmated wolf was constantly surrounded by the love and contentment of his paired off brothers, it watered and fed a jealousy that could snap at any moment. And Luhan was definitely balancing on the tip of a knife.

As he ran through the trees, he couldn’t help but wonder at where she could possibly be. Was she far away, somewhere he hadn’t been before? Or was she so close that he’d just missed her walking down the street due to fate’s cruel ways?

No matter how many times he asked himself those questions, no answers would ever appear. He would just have to wait and see when his mate would show. He was sure whenever that happened, it would be worth the wait.

#exo #exo fanfiction #exo fanfic #exo wolf au #exo wolf!au #exo werewolf au #exo werewolf!au #luhan x reader #lu han #luhan #exo series #exo supernatural au #Lies Untold #untamed wolf universe

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