#cross-posting here from ao3

[cannedbananabread]

Nobody Does it Better- Bruno Bucciarati x Reader

Word Count: 12.1k - I need psychiatric help

CW: smut (of course), kinda rough sex, some violence, mafia treachery, religious symbolism (presented in the context of art)

Can also be read on ao3 (probably easier given how long this is)

A/N: From an ao3 request for capo Bruno paired with a fellow capo reader. Keep in mind that I have never been to Italy so any information about the setting comes from google and my brain lol. Also, while I'm pretty sure the design on Bruno's chest is supposed to be a lacy undershirt in the manga, it definitely looks like a tattoo in the anime and I think it's a bit more scandalous if it's a tattoo, so it's a tattoo here. Regardless, I hope you enjoy, I'm hoping to get through more requests sooooon!! Hopefully not quite so long as this one oops!

Rising to the rank of capo in Passione was no small feat, but you had done so in just a handful of years. Your home life had been one of dissonance and so it wasn’t any wonder that you had gone the unfortunate way of many of your peers, scrounging for survival in the streets.   Starving and alone, you were entirely out of options that night several years ago when a plucky little boy around your age had found you, sick and shivering in a filthy, damp alleyway.  

Delirious from fever, you were met with the impression that an angel had fallen to earth and rescued you from ruin, but reality had not been quite as kind.  The boy offered you solace in the dusky hotel where he resided and saw to it that you were fed and taken care of.  In the morning, with your lucidity having returned to you, it was quite apparent that the boy who had come to your rescue was a member of Passione and the very thought left you reproachful of even his most genuine assistance.  

The extent of the power Passione had over Italy could not be overestimated. You knew that the shadow of that treacherous organization extended far beyond the edges of the little city you called home. You had known better than to involve yourself with something so unsavory; however hard up you were, you were not going to trade your life away just to end up the beast of burden to a faceless, unknowable entity who viewed you more as a number than a human. 

The boy who had acted as your savior approached you with a stoic expression that made him appear far wiser than his meager years would’ve suggested but you only glared back at him with contempt burning in your eyes. You knew a debt to Passione was not one you could easily be free of, so before you even properly met the boy, you loathed him with all the fire in your soul.  He tentatively handed you a glass of water which you accepted, only to promptly splash in his face. “Puttana, what did you do that for?” 

“I know what you are,” you spat, rage bubbling in your chest until you reached your fatal boiling point, “goddamn mafioso, the world would be a better place without the likes of you in it.  Whatever you brought me here for, I won’t do it!”

“You would be dead in the gutter if I hadn’t helped you stronza!”

“Bruno…” a deep, almost metallic-sounding voice bellowed, reverberating off the walls of the hotel room, “what did I tell you about bringing another ruffian into my home?” 

“Polpo, sir, I—”

“Oh, a girl, Bruno, you dog you.” 

“It’s not like that!” The boy shouted in vehement protest before shrinking back in fear of impending punishment for having spoken out of turn, “and besides, she was just leaving.” 

You nodded silently to affirm his claim and made a quick, darting movement to escape. Polpo’s reputation preceded him; he was a cruel and cold capo who seized what he wanted through whatever means necessary and wherever he went, he was undoubtedly treated like a king but in practice, he was more akin to a tyrant.  In the far recesses of your heart, you felt a pang of guilt for the boy; a mafioso he may be, but he had still come to your rescue without the hope of selfish gain. You bowed humbly to show your gratitude for the sanctuary you had been provided the night before, hoping the gesture would be enough to placate some of the man’s ire towards his subordinate, then you made another hasty attempt to make your exit, but your arm was caught in the capo’s massive, swollen hand.  “And where is it that you are so eager to run off to, it’s clear that such a sickly thing has no home waiting for her, why not join me?  It’s a generous offer, you would have food, shelter, and above all else, my protection, all I ask is that you pass one simple test.” 

His booming voice struck something deeply within you, as though he had tapped into the very wiring of your brain and pulled something loose. Before him, you felt entirely powerless and it required all of your strength just to remain on your feet as he forced you to look into the black depths of his soulless eyes.  “A-and if I were to refuse?” You stuttered, unable to hide the irresolution that quaked your entire frame. 

“Hmm?  Well, in that case, I suppose you would be of no use to me,” he said, forcing aloofness as he glanced over his fingernails.  “Quite a shame too, I can’t say things tend to bode well for those who cross me.”

Your heart dropped to the pit of your stomach as he uttered such a thinly veiled threat, you were foolish to even tenuously believe that he would let you walk free without the demand of some kind of restitution, in the face of him, you were left utterly bereft of words, so shaken that you couldn’t see beyond the immediate terror that drowned out any of your better senses.

“Think it over, someone like you could be quite an asset to this organization.” 

“S-someone like me?” You asked and a dim hope arose that he might look favorably upon you and that you might find your freedom yet.

“Yes, someone that no one would ever come looking for, someone with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Someone expendable.”

There it was, your worst fears laid out before you as if by the wave of a hand, you had been stripped of all your resolve, forced to relinquish the last vestiges of personhood you had clung to so fiercely. “What do I have to do?”

A wicked sneer crawled across the corpulent man’s face and though you could not see what happened next, the ominous aura caused every inch of your skin to prickle with goosebumps and the acute sensation that followed was enough to make your body go limp. After that, the next thing you were able to recall was waking up in a warm bed feeling rather worse for wear, but the pin on your bedside table let you know that your initiation into Passione had been a success.  

And so swore fealty to Passione, from then on your future was set in stone, you would not know any other life that wasn’t one of carnage and bloodshed. After a while, it became normal, more than that, you began to revel in it. What had once been stomach-churning acts of violence soon left you aglow with pride, you ruthlessly pursued anything you wanted, no sacrifice was too great, “all for the good of the organization,” you said as you rose effortlessly through the ranks, paying little heed to those you had stepped on to reach for higher and heights. Was it any wonder that you’d become a capo in only a few short years?  Certainly not, and you were as respected by your subordinates as you were feared and in truth, any of you considered even your darkest of deeds to be worth the price now that you lived a life of luxury.

As the years passed, any thoughts of the boy that had come to your rescue had receded to only a dim recollection your mind could only laboriously conjure up, though your connection to him was not one you could so easily forget and every time you heard his name in passing, you were catapulted back in time, struck by a vision of tan skin, dark hair, and deep blue sunken eyes that looked upon you with violent contempt.   

Bruno Bucciarati; you had not seen him in years and perhaps that was for the best, he had not been shy about his acrimonious feelings towards you and even though there was a part of you, deep in the reservoir of your cold, cold heart that still looked favorably upon him, you did not think the possibility of amends would be worth the risk of altercation.

But then, on a perfectly common day at the end of March, came the instructions for your latest assignment, direct from the hands of Percilo himself. You had been requested to undertake a special mission with the newly appointed capo with one clear goal in mind: eliminate the leader of the hitman team, Risotto Nero. So you were left with no other choice but to follow the orders that had been handed down to you, you could never violate a direct order from the Boss and live to tell about it. Armed with the knowledge that Bruno would be less than enthused by your presence, you arranged your travel plans and made a reservation under a false name at that little restaurant Bruno was so terribly fond of and planned to enter unannounced before he had a chance to deny you entry.

Seated at one of the quaint tables, you observed as a group of well-dressed civilians was led to their reserved table nearby which provided you with the perfect opportunity to ask the maitre-d’ if he could send for Bucciarati.  While he complied graciously and assured you that he was in, instead of Bucciarati, a trio of vibrantly dressed, obstreperous youths emerged from the back of the restaurant and crowded your table. 

“Are you the one who’s been asking for—” the blond dressed in a green suit asked before being interrupted by one of his friends.

“Who are you and why do you want to see Bucciarati?” 

“Narancia, cool it, that’s not the way you talk to a guest.  You gotta ask nicely and if they don’t comply, then, well, we have other means.” The third man said as he glanced at the purple handle of a pistol that stuck out of his waistband. 

“Are you threatening me?” You asked, feigning an affectation of coyness as you looked up innocently from your menu. 

“A threat?  No, no, I like to think of this as more of a suggestion if anything.” 

“And if I choose not to take your suggestion?” 

“Well, you don’t have to, but I can’t say I’d be so eager to throw my life away,” he said with a shrug, letting his fingers over just over the handle, baiting you to continue your defiance. 

“Aw, you think you could kill me? That’s adorable. Where did Bruno pick you up?” You simpered, folding your hands together in an offhand gesture to emphasize the meaninglessness of his threats.

“Listen, lady, just tell us what you want with Bucciarati, we’re not gonna fight you if we don’t have to,” he said at last, planting his hands firmly on the table, having given up any pretense towards a gunfight in the middle of the restaurant. 

“I will only talk to Bruno, not whatever help he’s pulled together.”

“And what makes you think we’ll let you?”

“Oh, you will,” you said, standing up with a crazed look in your eye, ready to fight if necessary, but you reined in your temper just enough to keep the upper hand, “after all, he and I are old friends.”

“Doubt it,” the blond cut in, matching his tone to yours, “Bucciarati told us about the kinds of friends he had before and none of them are welcome here.” 

“Well, that’s quite a shame then, because—” you began, but were cut off by a familiar voice slicing through the ensuing quarrel.

“What is going on out here? Mista, Narancia, Fugo, when I sent you to see who was asking for me, I explicitly told you to do so without disturbing the other guests!” Bucciarati shouted, a pair of other men flanking him as they entered the scene, the man to his left had silver hair and wore a long, dark coat, and to his right was a young blond with his hair tied back into a braid, dressed in a lurid pink suit.

“My, my, Bruno Bucciarati, as I live and breathe,” you said, a sly, coquettish titter to your voice as you collected yourself, he was certainly just as handsome as you remembered him, “can’t say I thought I’d ever see the day where they’d let you make capo, the Boss must really be desperate after what happened to ole Polpo.”

“You… I thought you knew better than to ever show your face around me again,” he sneered, several vulgar interjections from his colorful subordinates followed his declaration.  

“Now, now, is that any way to treat a lady?” You asked, abandoning the table entirely and sauntering over to where he stood with the letter in hand.  “And besides, I’m here because of my orders alone and these have been handed down from the top, if you care to have a look.”

He snatched the paper from your hand and read it over carefully. It was legit. Only a select few had ever been chosen directly by the Boss himself, but all were rewarded handsomely in both monetary compensation and under the banner of greater trust. As much Bruno did not want to tangle himself with any of the unsavory business you often dealt with, that added trust alone could prove essential to the long-term goals he and his newfound friend were aiming towards, “one last mission and then we go back to being strangers. I mean it, I don’t ever want to hear from you again, are we clear?”

“Crystal.” 

The details were dealt with accordingly and you returned to your hotel to bide your time until your departure the following day. Meanwhile, Bucciarati discussed the matter in depth with his team, though all the while, a flurry of unwelcome emotions stewed relentlessly through his mind, as vivid and intolerable as the last time he laid eyes on you.

“Bucciarati, I think you should seriously reconsider accepting this mission, something about it seems strange,” Giorno said as he looked over the fragment of the letter you left in their care.

“You can’t be serious, stronzo! Bucciarati can’t just ignore a direct order from the Boss!” Abbacchio exclaimed, slamming his fist on the table with such ferocity it caused the dishes to rattle in their places. 

“Listen, Giorno, I know you’re new here, but the Boss doesn’t hand out missions like this to just anyone,” Fugo said, more calmly than his cohort, but still in vehement opposition to anything that may create conflict between them and the Boss. And rightfully so, it would be a foolish endeavor to even think one stood a chance against such a fearsome adversary.  

“Yes, they’re right Giorno, disagreeable as they are, orders are orders and I am determined to see this through.” 

Giorno sighed and mulled over the arrangement before drawing his own conclusion and covertly hiding something in Bucciarati’s pocket. “Giorno, what is—”

“Take it for luck. It’s… insurance.” Bucciarati did not need to ask questions to understand where Giorno’s intentions lay, but he could not afford to disclose any further information and jeopardize the safety of his team.

“Come Bucciarati, the instructions say to meet at Napoli Centrale, I’ll drive you.” 

“That won’t be necessary Fugo, I promised my old friend that I would meet her at her hotel.” 

“Is it wise to disobey orders like that?” 

“Perhaps not wise, but I doubt any harm will come of it. The Boss must be well aware of our history or else he would not have specifically paired us to work together.” 

“Well, alright, you would know best, just promise that you’ll be safe… for all of us, we need you as our leader.”

“Thank you, Fugo, I will make it back from this, you have my word,” Bruno declared, his resolve was evident in the deep tone of his voice. One more mission, that’s all it would be. He would earn the Boss’s trust and then you would be out of his life for good.

It was early the next morning when there came three rapid knocks on the door of your hotel room and with all the swiftness of a cat, you glided to the door and pulled the chain through the lock so that you could open the door just enough to make sure your visitor had been invited.  “So you came after all, Bruno, but really, how could you stay away?” You purred as you undid the chain and bade him inside with far greater amiability than he was likely to offer you. 

“You know very well that I had no choice in the matter,” he spat, trying desperately to avoid eye contact with you… those damn eyes of yours, like sparkling jewels, they always hypnotized him. 

“Come now Bruno, that hurts my feelings, and after all the things we’ve been through together, it’s quite a shame, I remember when you used to be so terribly fond of me.” You purred, dragging your index finger tediously down his exposed chest. 

With an abruptness that startled you out of your cavalier disposition, he harshly gripped your wrist to stop the salacious pursuit of your hand. “You know very well that any fondness I once had for you died a long time ago.” 

“Are you quite certain about that? I saw the way you were looking at me at the restaurant, I think there’s a part of you that still wants me like you did all those years ago.” 

His brows furrowed together and, with the same suddenness with which he had grabbed your wrist, he pushed it away and took several steps away from you. 

“Aw, Bruno, haven’t you realized that you shouldn't show your hand so early?” You snickered, drifting slowly over to him, your hips swaying with each purposeful step.

“Well, it’s not as though you ever made it a challenge.”  He snapped, unamused by your performance.

“If that’s the case, then how come you were never able to seal the deal? We both know how desperately you wanted to.” 

“It is very like you to think more highly of yourself than you deserve, but you must be misremembering.” 

“Oh, am I misremembering the compromising position that Polpo caught us in that Easter?”

“That was before Milan.” 

“Don’t tell me you aren’t even the least bit curious about what would have happened if Polpo hadn’t come back early,” you said, pressing your chin to his shoulder and whispering softly into his ear.

“Hmm,” he mused carefully, drawing back from you and finally securing a seat in one of the finely quilted chairs, “even back then you tasted like a liar.”  If looks could kill, you would have been dead, face down on the floor after the way he looked at you, full of hate, ire, and a deep desire for vengeance.  And yet even for all the malice in his stare, it tickled you to know you still affected him so strongly.  Had he truly cut you from his life with the same knife you had used to stab him in the back, he would not have been driven to such brutish, adolescent insults.  

You smoothed out the skirt of your dress and sat in the chair opposite from him, quickly, but not without a degree of ceremony, you unfolded the remaining pages of the letter and spread them out in order upon the coffee table, “I suppose we should get down to business then, shall we?”

He made no reply but began to sift through the separate papers to familiarize himself with the administered task.  A look of confusion sprung across his face when he reached the final sheet, “this can’t be all you were given.”

“For now, yeah, the rest of the mission will be waiting in an envelope behind The Birth of Venus then we just go from there.” 

“You act like it’s that simple, thousands of people go to the Uffizi Gallery every single day!”

“And we will be among them, just leave everything up to me, I have a plan.” 

“I will certainly not trust you with my life, not after last time, you will tell me exactly what you have devised and then we can decide what the best course of action is as a team.” 

“A team? Well, in that case, perhaps I can accept those conditions.” You simpered, crossing one leg over the other, knowing full well it offered him a titillating view of your upper thigh.  “Truth be told, Risotto and I were once… friends. I have some apprehensions about targeting him and his team, especially after what happened to Sorbetto and Gelato.” 

“This is precisely why they tell you not to mix business with pleasure, though I was certain you’d learned that lesson a long time ago.” 

“Hm, I don’t recall you being the jealous type, Bruno, perhaps you have changed.” 

“And unfortunately for us both, it appears that you have not.”

That cut a bit deeper than his previous affronts and you felt a bit of your playfulness recede, “I’m merely saying that while Risotto was an irrevocable fool for believing he stood a chance against the Boss, I think his motives are understandable, after what happened to Sorbetto and Gelato, but they should have known better than to go poking around into the Boss’s identity.”

Bruno sat pensively as he considered the circumstances, “far be it from me to question the Boss’s absolute authority, but isn’t it a bit odd that he sent us to do a hitman’s job, that really isn’t either of our specialties.”

“Well, La Squadra was in charge of assassinations, I’m not sure he could get any one of them to defect from their leader. I suppose he trusts us more at any rate.” 

“I’m sure he has plenty of other skilled assassins that would be better suited for the job than us if this job is really so important.”

“Well, you can consider it your initiation.  Prove your loyalty now that you’re a capo.”

“Then why you?”

“Because of my relationship to Risotto of course.  Listen, I know you aren’t fond of me, at least not anymore, but you know there isn’t a better person you could have been paired with for this mission.  I know Risotto like the back of my hand, I’m wise to his tricks, I know how he thinks, and I’ve seen his Stand. I know all of his strengths and weaknesses, like it or not, you need me for this.”

“Fine then, but my previous request still stands, once this is over, you and I are strangers once again.” 

“I agreed before, didn’t I?” You asked, resting your head on your folded hand to eye his movements more keenly.  The stern, unwavering look on his face remained, as such you were forced to resort to far more efficacious means to restore the upper hand you so desired.  

Without a word, you moved across the room with the same rhythmic sway of your hips that always seemed to catch Bruno’s eye and situated yourself before the only mirror your hotel room offered. 

“What on earth are you doing?” He asked, aghast as he watched your dress flutter to the ground and pool around your feet.

“Don’t act as though it’s something you haven’t seen before,” you groaned, rummaging through the mess of your suitcase for the necessary garment until, at last,  you found what you needed, an expensive sundress covered in a vibrant pattern of flowers and citrus fruits. 

“And your previous attire was unsuitable?” He asked, that unflappable aplomb had been utterly laid to waste once he got a glimpse of your body.

“Naturally, we will be going to Florence, what better way to blend in than as tourists? Every member of La Squadra is a thoroughly trained assassin, this way we can hide amongst the throngs of couples on holiday and they will be none the wiser,” you explained as you stepped into the dress. “Now then, zip me up?” 

“I never imagined you’d be capable of appearing so docile,” he mused, tugging the zipper up the length of your spine to where the hem of your dress sat between your shoulder blades. 

“Don’t look so smug, I brought something for you to wear as well,” you said and handed him a tidy garment bag.

“You can’t expect me to wear this…” he said, recoiling as he unzipped the bag and caught sight of its sickeningly pastel colored contents.

“I do indeed, and as sexy as that suit is on you, we are aiming to be as inconspicuous as possible, so get changed, I promise you’ll look just as dashing in this little costume I’ve picked for you. Now hop to it.” 

With disguises set and travel plans arranged, you boarded the train for Florence. The journey was long, several hours at least, but the journey across the Italian landscape was beautiful. Perhaps, had it not been for your addled mind, you would have been able to enjoy it more. Instead, you leaned your head against the window in your private car and watched as Bruno slept in the seat beside you. The tan suit and pale blue shirt suited him perfectly, in fact to any unknowing passerby, the two of you could have easily been mistaken for a young couple on a scenic ride through the countryside. 

Baring that thought in mind, you felt nothing but contempt for the dismal shell of a life you had been living. Briefly, you wondered what might have been if young Bruno had been your savior all those years ago, but you couldn’t see past the immediate severity of what you had been rescued from. Even so, you never wanted this, but for all your dangerous desires, all the money and power you had amassed in so young a life, you knew that you could never be anything else but what you had already become. You were a murderer and no matter how you tried to couch it in the insistence of necessity, that it was a matter of your life or theirs, that they were no better than you, but no matter how you dressed it up, a murderer you would always be. Even if by some stroke of luck you managed to escape the grasp of Passione, you could never escape all you had done. Years of miserable deeds and back alley deals; it would all have to be paid for in time.

You gazed upon Bruno’s gentle face, his soft features and the glow of his tan skin always seemed somehow angelic especially in the warm light of the late morning sun, even when you had been young you’d always been struck by his appearance, he was beautiful and even beyond on that, you found him admirable, he was loyal and disciplined and merciful, all of the things you were not and it drew you to him like a moth to a flame. You wondered if he ever felt the same, dissatisfied, downcast, and disillusioned. You could recall all the nights you’d spent looking into his eyes as though you’d been twins, cut from the same cloth and doomed to the same forsaken end, but now you were not so sure. In spite of your unfathomable success, Bruno had eclipsed you somewhere in the years between. He had built a life for himself, one surrounded by friends who truly cared for him, seeing that ragtag group he’d assembled at his restaurant, you knew that he had found something that you had never been able to and you were then rendered certain that you could never again be equals. It was an appalling realization to face while stuck within the cramped walls of a train car when all you could do was stew in your dismay. Whatever you were to become, you could never be all that you wanted.  

Florence, known as the birthplace of the Renaissance, has been home to many notable figures including authors Niccolo Machiavelli and Dante Alighieri as well as Renaissance masters such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Sandro Botticelli. In part due to the extensive commissions made by the eminent Medici family, it has been a thriving centre for history, art, and culture ever since.  Many of the world’s seminal works of Italian art remain today in the many museums and chapels that line the streets, but none more recognizable than the great duomo of Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, which prominently holds its place in the skyline, ever looming over the city like the crown marking a bygone dynasty. 

And still, the city teems with life, attracting tourists from all walks of life, and that is precisely how you found yourself when the train rolled into the station on that bright afternoon. 

Staying at one of the many charming little hotels, you unpacked your things and set up a makeshift base of operations where Bruno made you tediously go over the plans you had set ad nauseam; he wanted to hear every detail laid out for him in the exact order you intended for the umpteenth time, “again,” he said, the velvety timbre of his voice that you normally would have found dangerously alluring only grated on your nerves. 

“We are going to the Uffizi Gallery as tourists, we will arrive just after one, when it should be the most crowded that way we can blend in seamlessly, then we will nonchalantly peruse the museum for several minutes so we don’t raise suspicion, finally, on my mark, you are going to position yourself at The Birth of Venus while I go across the hall and trip the security system, once the guards have rushed over to me, you grab the envelope and use your stand to make a swift exit.  We reconvene here to figure out what needs to be done next, got it?” 

“I am still finding it rather difficult to believe that you would willingly put yourself in the position to get caught, that is not how I remember you operating,” he said, though his words had been unabashedly smug, his tone was thoughtful as if he were sincerely trying to piece together the path your life had taken since you parted ways.

“Well, I just know that you are far better suited to retrieve the envelope than I am, plus, as pretty as you are, I’m sure I can do a better job of seducing the guards if need be.” 

“And if the guard is a woman?” 

“Ha! You act as though that would make a difference.” 

“Your modesty has been dearly missed,” he said, rolling his eyes, though there was playfulness in his chides that had not been there the afternoon before.

“You know as well as anyone that my claims are not without merit.”

He let out a discontented sigh before he could manage a response, certainly, there was an inkling of truth, but did you always have to tout your wiles so audaciously? “ I was young and dumb then, I would not fall for your same tricks again.” 

“Who said my tricks are the same? I have refined my craft since last we met, you could be falling for me as we speak, you might not even know it.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.” He muttered before rising to his feet and tossing the sheets of paper containing your instructions onto the fire, “there, now that that’s done, we had better be off.” 

So you walked, arm I’m arm through the piazza and made your way up the steps of the gallery where you seamlessly wove into the colorful menagerie of attendees that dispersed through the halls. Falling into an old routine, you walked up to a painting across the room and looked up at it with a thoughtful expression, “The Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci,” you said, leaning closer to trace the intricate details of the diaphanous veil with you eyes, “imagine being so skilled that you can paint something sheer and gauzy like that.” 

Bruno gave a little nod and followed the line of your gaze, “hm, I’ve never had the opportunity to see this one in person, quite impressive, far different from The Last Supper.”

“Now that’s one I’ve never seen in person.”

“That’s because you absconded Milan before we had the chance,” he said with that same grave intonation that he always summoned when he made reference to your duplicity. 

“Not here,” you whispered tersely, giving his upper arm an emphatic squeeze, “here we are civilians and it’s imperative that we remain so. Now, let’s go.” 

You left brusquely and escaped around the corner, forcing him to quicken his pace to follow after you.  You continued through the bustling halls of the museum in silence, a jarring difference from the myriad of conversations from the other patrons that echoed liltingly through your ears as you wandered into each of the different rooms, passing the target of your mission several times and taking careful stock of the artwork that lined the accompanying walls. 

“Don’t you think you’re taking your role as a tourist a bit too seriously?” He asked before glancing inconspicuously around the room.

“Hey, I paid for these tickets, I’m going to get my money’s worth and see the art!  Won’t you indulge me a little bit, it’s not often I get to do things like this.”

“Well—”

“And think of it this way, if we do a sweep of the entire place, we can be sure no one from La Squadra is lying in wait for us.” 

“Well, in that case, I suppose we can waste a few more minutes. Come along now,” he said, there was something suave about his voice as his strong hand found the small of your back as he effortlessly jockeyed you through the crowd. You felt your mind relinquish long-held apprehensions under the gentle force of his palm. So easy it was to let him take control, to let him handle you as though you were his own. Contentedly you accepted this subtle comfort as you soaked in the remaining minutes of quiet bliss.

“Hm, you know, I always preferred Primavera to The Birth of Venus.” You mused, staring up at the painting, your eyes flitted between the various allegorical figures 

“Oh, is that so?”

“Definitely, the colors, the dresses, the setting, there’s something very idyllic about it; pleasant and  dreamy, something that makes me feel like there’s still beauty in the world,” you quickly ceased your wistful longings, realizing you had spoken far too honestly than the moment called for, you quickly tried to divert the conversation elsewhere, “did you know the orange grove was meant to symbolize the Medici family?”

“That’s very interesting, I had no idea you were so well-versed in art.”

“Well, maybe you don’t know as much about me as you’d like to think you do.”

“Maybe so,” he murmured, twining his fingers with yours leading you to the stairs. 

And so you meandered through the various rooms, hand in hadn’t while you prattled on about art and for one brief moment, you felt as though your life was normal, you felt, through all the depths of your desperation, that maybe, if your mission went well, that you could take whatever funds you acquired and run as far away from Italy as you were able, start over and never look back. Build the life you wanted from the rubble yours had crumbled into.

“You know, sometimes I feel like that,” Bruno said as you both looked at Caravaggio’s The Sacrifice of Isaac.

“Abraham or Isaac?” 

The question went unanswered and you both stood in silence, staring at the scene brought to life by dramatically staged lighting that was so characteristic of Caravaggio’s works, feeling the moments tick away like grains of sand in an hourglass. “Now then, I believe it’s time for us to take our positions.” Bruno declared before taking his leave of you.  It was a curious feeling, the way that his hand slipped from yours, the way the touch of his fingers lingered in the moments after as you walked in the opposite direction, ultimately landing yourself face to face with another recognizable painting.  Judith Slaying Holofernes.  Gentileschi’s gruesome and dynamic depiction left you to ponder how deep your resolution ran. If it came to it, could you ever posit yourself as Judith? It concerned you even further to realize that you did not know if you could.

Without any other time to think, you made your way across the room where The Birth of Venus housed and with Bruno already in place, you positioned yourself far enough away from him so that when the alarms went off, he could secure the envelope unnoticed.  It was a simple task, some may say foolproof, all you had to do was reach across the threshold of the protective railing… all the world around you appeared to move in slow motion, all except for your racing heart, hammering hard against the walls of your chest.  It was such an easy task, you had done far worse and yet, you hesitated. Quaking in your resolve, you made a move to look back at Bruno but before you could turn your head, someone knocked into you and sent you careening past the protective bar. 

All at once, the alarm sounded, piercing the reticence of the serene gallery and then every guard in the vicinity was upon you.  A swarm of quick steps and terse exchanges could be heard throughout the whole room as civilians began to gather around you to catch a glimpse of the commotion. Out of the corner of your eye, as you were assisted to your feet and escorted away via museum security, you were certain you saw Bruno quickly disappearing beyond the farthest wall, from there, you were able to breathe easy. 

Bruno had made it back to the hotel with ease, your little spectacle had proved more than sufficient for him to make off with the next set of instructions unnoticed. So by the time you were released by security and made the journey back to the hotel, Bruno had already thoroughly read through the instructions and drawn several conclusions of his own.  As you sheepishly slinked through the door, you found him seated in one of the comfortable chairs with his elbows resting lackadaisically against his knees. 

“So it seems they let you go free without much trouble,” he drawled, straightening his posture and crossing one leg over the other. 

“I told you that I can be very persuasive, did I not?” You said, muster greater confidence than you actually felt. He looked back at you without speaking, as if he were trying to reduce the veracity of your claims hidden in your shaky inflection. “So… what’s the next step, I assume you’ve read it without me.” 

“I have and… here, see for yourself,” he shoved the folded sheets in your direction and watched keenly as you read through them.

“The duomo, huh?  Can’t say I expected the likes of Risotto to be holed up in an ancient Cathedral, but I guess I can give him points for style,” you said, trying to disregard any apprehensions with a nonchalant shrug of your shoulders. 

“That is precisely what I thought… a very peculiar location for a safe house.”

“Regardless, I suppose we should devise a plan, it’ll be dark soon.”

“Listen to me, you said yourself that Risotto is a skilled assassin, why would he choose to hide himself in the most recognizable building in the entire city?”

“As you said, he’s incredibly skilled, he doesn’t need to be discreet.”

“That sounds ridiculous, even by your standards!”

“Everything else worked out, didn’t it?  You’re just going to have to trust me.”

“I will not blindly trust you, I’m telling you that there is something wrong with this entire mission.”

“That isn’t for us to decide, we shut up and we do our jobs, that’s all!”

“No, you aren’t understanding, don’t you think it’s a little odd that we spent the entire afternoon in public and not a single member of La Squadra came after us?”

“Yes, but—”

“You feel it too, I know you do.  Just think for a moment, you have always been shrewd, you know that something here isn’t right!” He shouted, his hands grabbed harshly to your shoulders, holding you in place, so close to him that you could feel the heat radiating off of his impassioned frame. 

“No!  No, I won’t even consider it.  We have to do this, this is what we do, this is what we signed up for when we became mafiosi. We have to see the mission through, we don’t have a choice!” You screamed, violently breaking yourself free of his restraint.

“You’re wrong, we always have a choice, we can walk away from this.”

“You’re far too naive, Bruno, you can’t possibly believe that, if we don’t go through with this, the full wrath of Passione will be after us, we wouldn’t even make it out of Italy before they had us killed or worse...” 

“Why must you always be so damn stubborn?”

“Why must you always act like you know better than I do?”

“Because I do,” he said, a coolness to his voice that left you both standing frozen in place as if noncommittal in the face of what you both knew would follow.

Propelled by some invisible force far beyond the realm of your control, your lips crashed against each other, gnashing brutally in a battle for dominance that neither of you would concede so readily. 

With ease not suggested by his lithe figure, he lifted you off the ground and pinned you securely against the nearest wall with such force that it caused the decorative print to rattle against the plaster. As if on command, your legs wrapped around his slender waist to draw him closer. With sufficient stability acquired, his hands were able to roam up your thighs, enough to hike your dress up past your hips. Your skin prickled with goosebumps under the urgency of his touches and a breathy whine caught in your throat and came out as a feeble squeak which in turn, only heightened his desire and the thin lace of your panties did not help matters either, “look at you…” he murmured, his cool façade hardly concealed the ardor that had stirred his disposition. Pulling your panties to the side, his fingers were able to explore between your folds, “you’re so wet,” 

“What’re you gonna do about it?” You purred, back arching against the wall when you felt his fingers slipping into you. 

“I’m going to fuck you,” he said, pupils blown wide as saucers as he glared at you with a menacing, hungry look. Your plush walls clenched around his fingers, fuck, the way he looked at you, like he hated you, like he needed you, as if you were the only person in the world that could quell the raging fire within him— it was as though several years of unmet desires had unfolded right in front of you. 

Not a sound of protest was made towards his brazen declaration and it took no more than an instant for him to throw you onto the tiny hotel bed.  Before he could climb on top of you, you managed to shimmy out of your dress and toss the garishly colored fabric to the floor so that you were left in nothing but your lingerie as you lay back on the velvety comforter and watched as Bruno quickly undressed at the foot of the bed. Each discarded layer revealed more of his brilliant, tan skin, ever so lightly flushed from the ardent rush of your previous actions

Once his shirt had been cast away your eyes were able to trace the intricate line work of his tattoo down his chest to where it culminated in the outline of a heart just above his navel. The precarious position urged your eyes to wander lower as his hands moved pants to undo the button of his pants. The newfound freedom offered you an excellent view of his cock, which stood erect, firmly pressed to his abdomen. You sat up on your knees with hands folded between your legs and mouth slightly agape as you tried your best to comprehend the perfection that stood before you, there was something elegantly baroque in the man that stood before you, like a mixture of gold and marble, his statuesque frame, his svelte waist, the tantalizing taper of his long, curved cock.  You traced the fine slope until you reached the pinnacle of his flared, swollen head which eagerly dripped glossy pearls of precum as he held firmly to the base of his shaft. 

“On your back,” he commanded, then, before you even had a chance to comply, he climbed over you and pinned you flush against the mattress. You let out a shrill gasp of surprise when you felt his hard length rubbing against your aching sex, the thin, damp fabric of your panties was the only impedance between your two bodies. 

Harsh and indelicate, he lifted your back to unclasp your bra, without much care or effort the scanty garment was tossed away and Bruno seized the opportunity to quickly explore the newly exposed skin.  His teeth rasped against the swell of your breasts, leaving behind a pattern of oblong crimson marks. “Bruno,” you moaned, craning your neck back before hurriedly biting your lip to stop the indecent squeals as his lips close around your nipple, god, he hadn’t even fucked you yet, how could he have managed to unravel you so fast? 

Without warning, the sensation stopped and you were left panting nearly delirious from even such paltry stimulation. Through your heavy-lidded gaze, you watched as Bruno repositioned himself at the foot of the bed, from where you lay, you could easily guess his next play and that assurance was enough to restore a bit of your confidence, “How long have you been dreaming about this moment?” You taunted, doing your best to maintain a semblance of control as he fluidly pulled you to the edge of the bed by your ankle. 

“Were you not just moaning my name a minute ago?” He scolded, roughly pulling your legs apart and immediately hooking a finger under the lace band of your panties and rolling the sullied fabric down your legs. You gave a soft, approving mewl at the feeling of his warm breath against your cunt. In spite of your lewd appearance, there was something undeniably pretty about having you there in the position he had so many times imagined you in.

“Just fucking do it already!” You growled, teeth clenched to maintain an illusion of aplomb, but the frenzied look in your eyes betrayed you egregiously. 

“Typical. Something doesn’t go your way so you behave like a brat, is that how you expect to be rewarded?” He teased, his mouth hovering millimeters above your throbbing pussy, so tantalizingly close, but never close enough to give in to the pleasure you wanted. 

“For fuck’s sake, will you stop talking?”

“So demanding,” he purred, licking one long, arduous stripe along the entire length of your sex.

“Fuck,” you breathed, the meager sensation was enough to send a chill down your spine and leave you all but begging for more. He had intended to carry on teasing you for far longer, but the moment your honeyed taste filled his mouth, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to deny himself any longer. 

He abandoned the façade of bravado in one heedless action and began frantically lashing his tongue over your cunt, drinking in the heavenly juices that poured for you all too freely with each of his reckless ministrations. The wet sounds that emanated from you were nothing short of vulgar as his skilled tongue easily parted your folds and dipped into your dripping cunt just enough to make you squirm in place, but her certainly wasn’t done with you. Once he had thoroughly enjoyed your taste, he quickly turned all of his attention to your neglected clit. The sensitive bud was hot and tender with need and even a perfunctory flick of his tongue is enough to send a jolt of electricity surging through you that only intensified when he began fervently lapping at your clit, drawing hasty, swirling patterns that made your head spin and your vision bleary. Shit, you should not have been as sensitive as you were, not that soon, but if he continued like that, you knew that you wouldn’t be able to last much longer. 

“Tell me Bruno, do I still taste like a liar?” You asked through a slew of uninhibited groans that certainly made the question feel less mordant than you had intended it to be.

“A horrid, filthy, little liar,” he sneered, his lips forming the words against your needy cunt, even for all the malice he spoke, it only served to arouse your further, causing your hips to roll listlessly into his face, “an awful little liar.” 

“Bruno… fuck!” You moaned, knitting your fingers into his silky black hair and tugging with such vehemence that you dislodged one of his hair clips.

He let out an inadvertent groan, either brought on by your taste alone or the strength of your grip on his hair, but that too only further drove you towards your inevitable peak.  His tongue continued its relentless pursuit, maintaining the same diligent rhythm that had already rendered you delirious and you were no longer able to stifle any of the sultry moans that spilled from you, “Bruno, I’m— fuck, so close!” 

Your hips sputter out, indecorously writhing to a hectic rhythm that made it difficult for him to maintain the consistent pace he had devised, but the sweet sounds of your pleasure were more than enough reinforcement for him to forge ahead. One hand spread across your pelvis in an attempt to quell your incessant thrashing.  The restraint only caused the pressure to build until it became unsustainable, heat rushed to your core and the sensation you’d only tenuously been staving off snapped within you, leaving you awash with the brilliant glow of orgasm. 

Satisfaction dripped off Bruno’s face as he cleaned your excess arousal off his lips, leering up at you, content to take in the vision of your panting form, only brought to such an agreeable state through his efforts. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so submissive,” he said as he pulled himself on top of you, the swollen top of his cock prodding shallowly into your entrance. 

“Sh-shut up,” you whimpered, damn near docile as he sunk into you.  Given how amply prepared you were, it only took one effortless glide for him to be fully buried within you. You let out a shaky whine against his neck when he bottomed out, a response he couldn’t help but feel was incongruously cute compared to your typically ruthless demeanor. 

It was not long before he had established a steady rhythm. He had not allowed you any time to recover from your previous release and the sensation of him savagely fucking you quickly thrust you into overstimulation. In such a state, all you could do was scream out his name between an array of curses, all of which only urged him to continue more brutally, the strength of his grip was nearly bruising as he held your hips in place to keep you from wildly bucking beneath him. He pounded into you with such ferocity that it caused the headboard to clatter against the plaster wall. Your back arched, meeting him mid-thrust to pull him back down, your tight walls sucking him in so luxuriously that he could help but let out a choky moan into the crook of your neck. Fucking you, claiming you, ruining you, reality had eclipsed anything he had ever imagined when he would violently fuck his hand to the thought of you. The silky mewls and shrill screams you made each time he drove into you rendered him certain that your neighbors and very likely every patron on the entire floor knew how much you were enjoying his cock. 

Overstimulated to the point of babbling, each thrust added a new sensation you were certain you could not handle. Lost in a haze of bliss, the line between pleasure and pain had blurred beyond comprehension and you were not sure if you couldn’t cum anymore or if you simply hadn’t stopped cumming. 

Your nails scratched viciously into his back, leaving behind jagged claw marks that would last more than just the evening and serve as a reminder of the amorous affair. Bruno let out a hiss and dug his teeth into the supple skin of your shoulder. 

In a quick, ungainly action, he pulled out of you, the sudden emptiness caused you to let out a dejected whine for want of further stimulation, but he only knelt above you, frantically stroking the tip of his cock until he’d decorated your abdomen with sticky ribbons of cum then collapsed on the bed beside you, both more fucked out than either of you could remember. 

The afterglow hung heavy in the air, lingering silently between you as reality flowed back in along with the unsettling feeling of irresolution. After you’d cleaned up the mess that had been left, You returned to the bed and covered your body with the blanket to placate the meekness that left you dithering over what needed to be said. From the window, you could see the outline of the great duomo, only faintly illuminated against the darkened sky, its imposing shadow loomed ominously over the streets, as though it were itself some great beast that would swallow you up if you dared tread further. 

But before you could voice any apprehension, Bruno had left the bed and begun dressing, “well then, shouldn’t you be getting ready?” Something in the way he spoke seemed to banish all doubt from your mind, or at least enough to restore your confidence. 

“Oh, I thought you were determined to abandon the mission?”

“I have my concerns, but you were right, we need to see this through to the end, whatever that may be.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you’ve finally admitted who’s really in charge here.” You simpered, padding over to him with a characteristically feline strut.

Bruno caught you mid-step and drew your body firmly against his chest so that he was able to whisper directly into your ear, “oh cara mia, we both know it certainly wasn’t you,” he said, drawing out his words far more seductively than you could handle at present and punctuating the sentiment by nipping along your earlobe, “now, don’t dawdle, we have business to attend to.”

It had been far easier to access the duomo than you would have thought, even so late into the night you would have imagined a perpetual presence of security to make sure ne’er do wells, such as yourselves, did not get up to any chicanery on the premises, but that was not the case. It merely required the picking of a cheap lock on one if the auxiliary entrances and you were in. 

The air hung every in the dark halls, but even so, there was something reverent about the hallowed halls of the imposing structure. A feeling of peril caused your stomach to churn violently, it wasn’t merely the sanctity of the space that filled you with an acute sense of danger, but the sudden realization that you were not alone in the darkened chamber.  You made a quick motion to turn and alert Bruno, but before you could make a sound, a large hand was clamped over your mouth and you felt your strength give out under whatever force had apprehended you 

When next you awoke, you found yourself in a windowless room, tied with your back to Bruno in metal chairs that had been affixed to the ground with heavy bolts to ensure no means of escape.  “Bruno…” you whispered meekly, hardly able to muster the resolve to speak in such a dismal position, “Bruno, are you alright?” 

“I believe so… but I’m afraid that… from the start… this whole mission was a setup.” 

“I know, I— fuck, I should’ve listened, I just didn’t want to believe that…”

“Oh, isn’t that precious, our little saboteurs are awake,” an unfamiliar voice broke through the emptiness of the room and an odd-looking man dressed in a long white coat with emerald green hair that appeared almost harlequin alongside his makeup emerged from the darkness, flanked by his even stranger looking companion who walked threateningly on all fours. 

“So, I take it the Boss sent you to get rid of us,” Bruno said, managing a far more assertive tone than you would have been able to muster.

“You could say that… you see, Passione is like a living organism, all the parts must function together to keep it alive, and much like our bodies have an immune system as a failsafe to fight off any unwanted pathogens, so must our little organization. You may consider me as such.” The green-haired man mused, partly to you, partly to his associate who looked upon him with awe as he spoke, as though his words contained some kind of sacred divination. “That’s why I’ve brought you here, to test a little invention of mine… you know, when here in Florence, I can’t help but recall Leonardo, he was more than just an artist, like me, he also dabbled in many inventions himself. I was always struck by his proclivity towards water, the water wheel, hydraulics… perhaps he would find some of my research… fascinating,” he gave another wicked grin, eyes dancing with delight at the thought of his malevolent intentions.

“What are you getting at?” Bruno demanded, breaking the man free from his wistful daydreams. 

“All in due time,” he said, never wavering from that malicious grin that made your heart go cold with fear.

“You know, they say drowning is one of the most painful ways to die, I must say, I’m very excited to see for myself,” he declared boldly and burst into an uncontrollable fit of cackles and anticipatory groans, “Secco! Is the camera set up yet?”

The man sat up on his hind legs and gave a series of garbled hoops and excited cries as he thrashed to and fro in wild, ungainly gestures.

“Good boy, Secco, good boy! Now how about a treat?” He groped for something in his pocket as his strange companion eagerly lashed his long, serpentine tongue around his mouth, then darted with expert precision after what had been tossed his way.  So nimble, he almost defied gravity as he snatched the sugar cubes out of the air and began to gnaw on them like a rabid animal. 

“You’re sick,” you spat, brows furrowed with disgust and indignation.

A dreadful, malignant smirk settled across the green-haired man’s face as he knelt down to your level.  A skilled hand dragged across your cheek, unexpectedly tender as he caressed your smooth skin, “is that what you think?” He asked, baring his teeth as he roughly grabbed your chin and forced you to look at him, “on the contrary, dear girl, I am free. The same cannot be said for a weak little traitor such as yourself.”

You clamped your eyes shut, frantically shaking your head to dislodge his grip but to no avail, all of your efforts only earned you a forceful slap across your face that caused your cheek to burn, swollen and red from his violence. “You know, It’s useless to struggle, but then again, it’s so deliciously fun to watch you try!”

“Why not just use your Stand to kill us?”

“Oh you pretty little thing, that’s the best part! I don’t have to.” 

You swallowed thickly, unable to summon any kind of response, before a man as cruel and sadistic as he, you were utterly helpless. 

“And Bucciarati, I can see the gears turning in that head if yours, ‘once they leave, I’ll use my Stand to get us out of this,’ and while I admit that your Stand in particular is a bit of a nuisance, I would strongly advise against taking such a measure, you see, even with whatever evasive maneuvers you may attempt, we have ways assuring you do not get far.” 

The quadrupedal man let out a series of gleeful howls as if to affirm his companion’s threats. 

“Now, what will happen?  Hmm, decisions, decisions. Will you lie down and die like the good dogs you are? Ah, or maybe perhaps you will pull one another down like crabs in a bucket.  Or maybe one of the lovers will make a desperate attempt to save the other.  Hmm… which will it be? I can’t endeavor to say.”

“Have you been watching us…?” 

“Oh, my dear girl, our eyes haven’t left you since you departed from Napoli, any secrets you might’ve thought you had… well, rest assured that I have them very well kept,” he said, falling into a menacing laugh as he patted the handheld camera. 

“Fucking sicko,” you snapped, indignantly writhing in your bindings in a futile attempt to free yourself. 

“Aw, poor little puppy, all bark and no bite,” Cioccolata sneered, eyes darting for you over to Bruno, “She’s in love with you, you know?”

Violently, you bit your lip, how could you even begin to formulate a response? “Oh, by the looks of it I guess you didn’t know, well, it’s no matter.” He said, crossing the room and pulling a heavy lever. The loud, mechanical noise of machinery engaging could be heard through the ancient stone, “I look forward to the show, please do remember to smile for the camera.”

With that, both he and his companion took their leave through the only exit, a heavily barred metal door that you knew you wouldn’t have a chance of breaking through. And then you heard it, faint at first, but the distinct sound of running water caught your attention, open pipes on either side of the room flowed freely, splashing violently against the floor, faster and faster with each second that passed and only then did you fully understand the meaning of your captor’s threats. There were no exits, no windows, no vents, nothing to let the water out, you were trapped and the flow of the water only seemed to quicken as the flood reached your feet.

“Is this really how it all ends?” You asked, a vehement lamentation to no one in particular as you struggled restlessly in your bindings. 

“It should be a few hours before it’s over our heads, maybe we can think of something in that time.” 

“No, don’t you see that it’s hopeless, they must’ve had this planned for weeks, the only way out is through that door and they’re on the other side.  They’re going to kill us one way or another… we lost.” You sank into silence and let the sound of the water drown out your other senses. It was sick indeed to force you to sit and contemplate your death for hours before it arrived, even sicker to derive some twisted satisfaction from it all. You were bested and there was nothing for you to do but wait for death to come and hope for your sake that it would come swiftly. 

“He called you a traitor… what did you do?” Bruno asked, breaking the silence as the water crept up past your knees. 

“How should I know, he’s obviously fucking crazy, he called you one too and I know for a fact that Bruno Bucciarati, Polpo’s finest little soldier, would never betray the big bad Boss.”

Bruno sat silent for a long time, he hadn’t planned on telling you the extent of his perfidy, but if you both were going to die anyway, it would be almost an act of confession. “He wasn’t lying…”

“Bruno… you didn’t…”

“Not me, Giorno.”

“ That little blond with the baby face? No, I can’t believe that.”

“I don’t know how he did it, but he did.  He went to see Polpo in prison and the next I heard, the man was dead.  I believe he intended to use my newfound privileges as capo to help me unmask the Boss, I guess it is all for nought now.” 

“Why Bruno, you knew that would be a death sentence… why?”

“Because I’m sick and tired of seeing people… of seeing kids end up on the street, addicted to drugs… the same goddamn drugs the Boss sells, the same goddamn drugs my father was killed for and for what? Money, power? As if the Boss doesn’t already have more than enough of either.  Those are people, good people, my people and they’re suffering and they’re dying and it’s my fault because I answer to the same power that signs their death warrants. I have to do something, I have to make things better, it’s my responsibility.”

“Bruno, you know that’s a damn pipe dream, you know you can’t take on the Boss!”

“I knew the risk when I took it, but I believe in Giorno, if there’s anyone out there that can usurp the Boss, it’s Giorno Giovanna!”

“How can you have such faith in someone you just met?” 

“Because I have seen what he’s capable of, I’ve witnessed his brilliant determination, I believe that he will accomplish all he sets out to do, with or without me.”

You pondered his words carefully, had the sentiment not been so foolish, it would have been touching, but regardless, you felt it was too late for secrets as you felt the water rise past your abdomen. 

“I’m the one who told Sorbetto and Gelato where they could find information about the Boss’s identity, I’m the reason they were killed.”

“That’s rich after all waxing on about the folly it would be to take him on. Tell me, how did you even come by such privileged information?”

“Last summer, I met a man on the French Riviera who told me that he knew the Boss’s identity, somehow he fought him and survived and… he wanted me to help him take out the Boss, I turned him down, told him no one could withstand the full force of Passione’s wrath. I guess I was right.”

“But you had no problem selling that information to Sorbetto and Gelato,” he said callously, adding insult to injury.

“Listen, what they do is their business, not mine, I have to look out for myself above anyone else.”

“Just as you always have,” he spat, vitriol spilling off his tongue with each pointed word, like a poisoned dagger to the heart.

“I… I didn’t want it to end like this… I thought… I thought if there was anyone who stood a chance against Diavolo, it would have been La Squadra. I only told them how they could get in contact with my informant, that was all.  I thought they’d concoct a better plan, I thought maybe Risotto…”

“Diavolo… so that’s his name, huh? I guess it doesn’t matter now, poetic really, that I finally learn his identity, but I’m going to die before it can be of any use.” 

Conversation ceased as you both fell silent, the soft hiss of the water filling the room was the only sound that could be heard, endlessly jeering at your helplessness.  You glanced around the room in the hope that you could locate some weak point that could serve as an exit, but your search proved fruitless, and with the water already up to your chest, there seemed no other possibility than to accept your dismal defeat, certain that from wherever he watched, your captor took sadistic satisfaction in your inevitable surrender. 

“Bruno…” you said, at last breaking the silence, though your voice was stifled and words had been muddled by your tears, “Bruno, it was my fault… in Milan, it was all my fault.  It was a stupid risk to take and I almost got us both killed and then… and then I left you with the mess.  I— Bruno, I’m so sorry, it was such a selfish thing to do, do you think you could ever forgive me?” 

“If we make it out of here alive, you may consider yourself forgiven.” 

You mustered a feeble sound of thanks through your sobs but any intelligent words had been long abandoned. 

The water had risen to your neck, it would not take much longer for you to be swallowed up, perhaps Bruno could last a few extra minutes but what did it matter in the end?  Your thoughts grew fuzzy from the great strain it was to keep your head above water. It wouldn’t be long, only a minute more and your head would be underwater.

It was then, at the moment when you were sure all hope had been dashed, when you had resigned yourself to the inevitability of your death, that a muffled clamor rose beyond the thick stone walls of your would-be tomb. 

“How’s it going Narancia, we have to find Bucciarati and fast!”

“W-what’s going on?” You mumbled, struggling to make sense of the noises in your listless state.

“Got it! There should be two people in the next room!” 

“Giorno! He must’ve been tracking us this whole time.” The thought had not occurred to Bucciarati until just then, but he had wisely held onto Giorno’s parting gift throughout the entire mission.  It seemed like it had brought good luck after all. 

“Stand aside, leave the rest to me,” the sound of crumbling masonry echoed loud across the receding water and the light that filtered in when the wall had been breached seemed almost blinding to your eyes.  There, standing framed in a golden mandorla of new dawn light, was Giorno Giovanna, regal and determined as the dust settled around him, “Bucciarati, are you alright?”

What happened next was a blur, but someone pulled you from the water as Giorno gave Bruno a complete rundown of the situation, how Giorno had been able to track your location with the ladybug his Stand had imbued with life, how they had managed to kill the two men that held you captive, and their tentative plan to proceed now that they had fully defied the Boss.  Of course, Bruno was all too eager to inform Giorno of all you had told him, the Boss’s identity, your secret informant, the inevitable defection of La Squadra. With everything looked at together, it was as though each piece of the puzzle had fallen perfectly into place and Giorno rejoiced in the miracle of timing. 

It did not take long for a plan to be devised and with the added strength of La Squadra and the help of one eager Frenchman, it was only a matter of time before Diavolo was defeated and Giorno assumed his rightful position as the head of Passione. 

“Tell me,” he said one average day only a few months after all had been said and done, “what is it that you truly want?”

“I want out of this life for good,” you answered readily, it was the truth after all.

“Is that all?” He asked, the drawl of his voice as sweet and commanding as it always was. 

“Well, I suppose… I’d like to go to Milan,” you said, a curious diffidence had arisen in your voice as you stated your request.

“Then so it shall be,” he said with the gentlest of smiles that made him appear more like an angel than any man you’d ever seen before. 

And as he ordained it, so it was. 

“Well, is it everything you thought it would be?” Bruno asked, his hand in yours as you stood before The Last Supper.

“No— I mean yes… it’s marvelous, it’s incomprehensible… thank you for taking me.” 

He gave a salacious purr as he kissed the back of your hand, “I couldn’t think of anyone better to accompany me.” 

“It’s a little nostalgic being back here, don’t you think?”

“Well amore mio, for what it’s worth,” he began, moving his arm around your waist as you exited the church and began the walk back to that little hotel you stayed in what felt like a lifetime ago, “I have always loved Milan.” 

[lanternlightss]

dewdrop leaves

> this was written for day 3: immortality/corruption! and of course i could not pass up the opportunity to write a corrupted venti, and bard’s reaction to it <3

Though Venti does not necessarily feel the sensations such as “warmth” or “cold,” the sheer thickness of Dragonspine’s chill tries its hardest to threaten that motion. It clings to him, weaving around and through the fabrics of his clothing, wrapping his limbs. Frost dapples at the tip of his nose, extending to his cheeks. It coats his clothing, too, the material starting to crinkle, turn firmer, and rigid.

(During his flight to here, his hat had been tossed off, and his cape’s bow had been torn unevenly….. how he quite liked those….)

When he lands, sprawled out onto all fours, sinking into the snow and feeling how it gives in, the beginnings of ice fall from him in clumps, sloughing. He extends his wings, fluttering them, and watches as even more are flicked off from the action.

Going to stand, a sharp pain pulls at his chest, seeming to bounce off of the space where a rib-cage would be, before it spreads throughout the rest of him, pinpricks of blazing flares. He doubles over from it, his forehead and bangs pressing into sparkly white (his braids choosing to sprawl across them instead.)

Making the decision to fully lay his upper half onto the snow, and partly burrow there, wings folding to slide more onto his form, it—for a moment, upon the first touch—feels almost soothing. Rubs at the itchiness lying beneath this imitation flesh, one that strikes and tears and shrieks at him every passing minute that goes by. Each louder, more vicious, than the last.

Venti grimaces.

With a tremble, he pushes himself up, crawling forward to fresher snow—areas where he did not mess with. Raises his hand, watching as the deep blue (nearly a shade close to the night sky, dotted with small magentas) covering his fingers and palm reaches up, up, up, a little past his wrist, in splotches. Racing alongside the blue, is deep, fracturing golden lines and cracks, painted across in random strokes. He flexes his hand, wincing, and noting he has his talons, as well.

(There is a prickle on his back, too, where feathers begin to sprout, beneath the pair of wings he already has out.)

He huffs a breath and continues to stand, shaking off the snow when completely upright. Crouches slightly, one foot forward, stancing for a flight into the sky once more—for as much as he would like to, Venti cannot stay here, it is too close to Mondstadt still, and there is a concerning pressure building within him, one that he fears may blast away everything here.

Wings flap, he leans. Snow then scatters and sprays in various directions, from his take-off.

The corruption worsens as his journey continues—that accursed statue, but its situation was becoming harrowing—sending shocks so severe that it has his wings beating harshly to keep himself righted. Even more terribly is when the ruins of Old Mondstadt come into view, and the extra wings find this the perfect time to sprout in full, snapping out, and colliding against the ones above them.

That has him stumbling into one of the many strong currents dotted around; where he allows them to spin him in a lift, and he dips towards the ground when they let go, upon where he forces his wings to untangle, opening and catching wind. He twists, pivoting, aiming towards the ground, his surroundings a blur—and lands onto a patch in a cloud of dust. Once it has cleared, he remains in his position, sitting on his knees, hands pressed to the sides of them as he leans slightly forward.

(Belatedly, he realizes he has lost his cape, and shoes.)

Venti heaves. The pressure from before is unbearable now. The blue-gold has creeped up his arm, the splotches trailing off in fading dots when it reaches where his archon form’s gloves would end, and he presumes it is the same for his legs—though, he can feel a weight at the back of his head, half-formed, in what could only be a halo. Go and break him down to his more divine forms, why don’t they!!

Bubbling. Too much of it, his grasp on everything fraying, thinning, even as he scrambles in an attempt to keep it locked shut, fingers twisting and flailing—the threads of wind, patches of time, the weather, it slips, becoming fuzzy. A gratitude undercuts it, a vague thankfulness that the ruins have sunken enough to fit the wrath of a thrashing God, a vague thankfulness that Dvalin had been sent away beforehand, before it is overrun by the thoughts—what if this is not enough? Will they fall, to his hands, just as the tyrant had done to them? Will he lose what he has fought to protect, what he has set everything to prevail for?

He cannot lose anyone again—

His imitation heart splinters and spills, the corruption truly sinking in. His vision blurs around the edges, flashes of gold tracing them, his breaths coming out labored..

(He knew, when Dvalin had been corrupted by the Abyss, that he was hurting—if it was to this extent, he wishes he could have soothed away everything.)

Around him, the wind races, becoming erratic, kicking at any surface it can find, zipping across in uneven lines. He leans further, wings curling, and the distant sounds of this place are doused, muffled, becoming white noise—a consistent ringing, overlapping

Underneath his hands and legs, the ground shrivels. The wind grows harsher, rocks being scraped across, propelling into the air and torn asunder, the glowing crystals diminishing to mere crumbles of rock. Both the dirt and grass are dragged from the ground, plucked and ripped. The intensity continues to ramp, the noises becoming overwhelming, ringing in his ears pitching, finding that his hands have raised to grip at hair, that his wings seem to wrap around him completely as he—

As rapidly as it had seemed to start, it feels as though something grabs hold of him and yanks to a halt. Venti gasps, cut hair strands falling around him.

The winds stutter, and the ringing fades. He jerks up, hands still embedded into his hair, and finds that… the place he landed in was not so deserted. Their tree stands, swaying, waving hello.

And, that everything had truly come to a messy standstill; threads of teals dipped in a bleeding mixture of a blue-gold suspended in a whirling vortex, a few parts of the wreckage they had caused gently floating besides in its grasps. The threads are not all the same, some of them cutting in dotted lines as they zoom, some of them having their lines wavering to point it threatens dispersing, some of them are thoroughly solid, some of them are splitting into branches, teal twisting and curling, and—

And—

And…

Blue eyes blink, fluttering as if just awoken.

He rubs a hand at the right one, brows furrowing at his surroundings the more aware he becomes of them. Pure raven-black braids sway, as he swivels his head, and Venti notes with a whirlwind in his mind, that the locks have stray strands flicking out from not only the braids, but the bangs, and hair that frames the face. Windswept. The clothes, as well, are missing the tear in the bottoms of the shorts, the tops of his boots, and his right sleeve. If he were to turn, there would certainly be holes in his cloak, too.

But—if he does not have those, then how is he…?

A gale is thrown into the cliff, repeatedly, tearing apart the ground, as they respond to Venti’s dread.

His eyes widen, then narrow.

No, no, no, no, no. Stop looking at him like that.

Venti hunches into himself, talons clenching and shredding more strands of hair. The gale intensifies, lashing behind him, carving out chunks and causing the ground to rumble in its fury. He bares his teeth—wanting to shriek, to grab at his head and!!!!

Stop looking at him like that!

(Why wouldn't he?

A wind out of control? A wind that slices, destruction in every path? Why would he not back away from it?)

He tilts his head, starting to stand, and his expression shifts at Venti flinching away from his approach, the wind whipping to a higher degree with the flinch. He goes to take a step forward, the grass he steps upon having a simmering, bubbling line of a thread hovering there—and there is a quiet screeching as the threads are forced away, unraveling in spools and flinging out towards the cliffs; it has him jolting away from it, one step taken back, boots hitting the ground and kicking up dust.

His gaze snaps up to Venti’s.

(He has a fleeting thought, a moment where the minuscule inch of himself that the corruption has not touched speaks; that he should fix everything, that this mess has gotten severely out of hand, to fly off deeper into the ruins before he does something truly regretful.

But it is just that—fleeting.

Because at the attempt to follow through with the ideas laid out, the corruption rushes to overtake that last final inch, smothering and snuffing it out without regard. It halts Venti’s hands when he tries to wave them, refusing to let them budge the Bard in front of him, dark blue and gold chaining them to remain where they currently are. You do not truly want that, do you? It whispers, false care and comfort in its voice. You wish for him to stay, so here he will stay.)

That gaze of his shifts once more, briefly scrutinizing, then the ever so slightest of widened eyes, before reaching a blankness. It seems that something has clicked. He tries again, purposefully angling his path to the swirling threads, and Venti grits his teeth as he moves them away, hooking a finger round them and pulling, so that no interactions happen between them and him.

(And, how during this, he sees—for a moment—a glimmer of something magenta across his form.)

And blast it all—

Venti raises himself and situates his legs into a crouch, his wings flaring unraveling from around his form. And bounds.

He crosses the distance between the two of them in seconds. Nose mere centimeters away from his, Venti grits his teeth, watches as the other blinks owlishly at him, as if not expecting to be approached so suddenly, especially not like this, Venti poised in a manner similar to that of a cat pouncing still.

“Keep off from those,” he nearly growls, “Can you not see that they—”

Hands shoot out, to place themselves on his cheeks. Venti falters, words dying in his throat.

“What has happened to you?” He murmurs, gently tipping Venti’s head up, to the side, checking the dark-blue that has climbed up to his face, “Your teal… where has it gone? Have you always had gold?”

He swallows. A twitch goes throughout him, one that does not go unnoticed by him.

And, oh. That was what had clicked.

The words build, his tongue bubbling, bitterness and sweetness coating it. A name he has not said for centuries, a name he has kept clutched close to him, hidden in the palms of his hands, in the place where a heart would be beat.

Venti’s mouth opens, and croaks: “Cecil….?”

He pauses, meeting Venti’s eyes.

“Hello, little bird,” Cecil replies, softness in every feature of his. “Ah—I suppose you would be an angel now, hm? How much you have grown…”

The softness does not last long, his brows knitting as he thinks, a frown replacing that wondrous smile of his. His fingers trace the edges of the colors, outlining them, almost, a silent fury and puzzlement to the actions. “But, my friend—why are these… like veins? Why do you hurt? Did someone else do this to you?”

(I will hurt you, I will hurt you, you need to get away from me—)

“No one. This is my own doing, you see,” he says, offering a reassuring look, “I am not hurting at all.”

And—that is true, if partly. There is no stabbing prodding at him any more, attempting to wrench him towards the ground so he stays there. It aches most certainly, however, the wind underneath his skin thrumming as it races incessantly.

Cecil’s brows scrunch.

He steps forward to pull Venti closer, his right hand falling down to his waist, tracing a tear in his clothing, and… ah. Ah. He revokes everything he had said about snow and their so-called “soothing effects” beforehand, this is so much better than it, he curses them and nearly purrs at the feeling of his friend being a breath away from him, his touch curling into his bare skin so softly, lovingly.

Venti chases it.

All but lunging into him, Venti dives his head into Cecil’s chest, careful of the halo behind his hair—do not want to slam it against him. The rest of his body follows suit, his arms encircling around Cecil’s torso (with his hands carefully closed, knuckles pressing into the fabric of the green vest), knocking their legs together so that he can hook it around one of his dear’s, and his wings complete it all by flaring out to then snake around and envelop them both. Feathers brushing against skin and cloth with every other breath.

(The wind has gone still.)

“Oh,” Cecil gasps, startling at something, “you have six wings? I only saw four… have your limbs been multiplied, too??”

Does he? Venti thinks dazedly. It must have happened when the pain was ramping up, he could not distinguish it under all the other sensations attacking him. He had wondered how far the transformation would go—his most divine form has much more than four wings and a halo.

He does not give Cecil a response. Choosing to nuzzle into his clavicle instead, head going even fuzzier, thoughts narrowing to Safe safe safe, stay stay stay, love love love, here here here.

And—what an idea.

Cecil’s chest expands, as he inhales, exhales. It takes a moment, but he begins to reciprocate, an arm going around Venti’s back, between the middle wings and bottom ones. The other arm lifts to the space above Venti’s shoulders, near his nape, pulling him further into himself. He rubs at those places, in small, circle-like motions, and it has the God wholly melting in his arms.

“Is this alright?” He asks, “Is this helping?”

“Mmmmmhmmmm…..”

Gradually, the threads dissipate, dropping closer to the ground, and having the wreckages they carry collapse against the water around the tree, the dirt and rocks. Twist higher into the air at the end, then wobbling, and falling apart. He watches it all, a steady thrumming sounding in the air the longer he holds onto Venti. For one of them, he tests, to see; what would happen if he nuzzled into Venti’s cheek, patting at his back? The answer: it causes the threads to speed up, swooshing so swiftly, that he hardly has time to blink before the teal is fading.

Eyes wandering, they slide to—

Ah! Cannot have that, can we? Venti blocks his view with his right most top wing, fluttering the appendage to truly catch his attention, making his dear jolt in surprise. See, if Cecil is to stay by Venti’s side, then it should be away from here—the safest spot is the Tower, but he would not like that very much. Perhaps they should cross to the Dandelion Sea?

“Venti?”

“Hmm..?”

Cecil raises his hand up, to tap to the back of his head, his knuckles briefly brushing against the halo. He lets it stay there, for long enough that he can weave strands of hair around his fingers, to light tug at them—a non-serious scolding, for the blocking he did. They drop to rubbing circles on his nape after. “How are you feeling?”

Right, right—conversation happening.

He shuffles backwards, only a few inches, so that his dear is not forced to let go of his grasps—skin still tingling and fizzing with that loveliness. Tilts his head, then, to where Cecil gazes at him, a quiet concern and pure curiosity to his eyes, now.

Another wave of winds zip by them, these ones far lighter, livelier, and peppy than the others from earlier were—however, still the same mix of colors, if slightly more solid, slightly lukewarm in temperature. They swirl around them, teasing at hair and cloth, dancing in chiming sweeps and dives; that of which distracts Cecil for a moment, his hair blowing into his face, a muffled sound of a “wuh” escaping from him when it has strays loosing from the braids he wears. He shakes his head to rid of them, glaring halfheartedly.

A beaming grin tugs at him, at the sight. One that lifts the bottoms of his into soft crescents, slowly revealing how his teeth have grown sharper canines. His pupil—still a lovely teal, though, now captured around blue-gold—shines, constricting to a thin slit, as a glittering gleam dances across his gaze. He hums, unclenching his hands from fists to press the palms of them more firmly into Cecil, scraping the talons across his vest.

“Much better,” he says, a lilting, distorted pitch to it. Extends his right’s hand index finger, while he talks, to prod at his back—tracing a symbol there, one that causes Cecil to minutely shiver from it, unexpecting the action. “Thank you.”

And perhaps it is that, that has Cecil truly understand what has happened; that Venti is really not so much hurt as he is a far, far worse thing, that there is something gripping at him. Or perhaps it is the way he looks upon him, as though he were the sun, a gleeful, thrilled and eager gleam to his gaze. Or perhaps it is the way his wings gradually tighten around his form, not constricting him, yet he suddenly feels the reason they continue to be folded (and twitching, fluttering, so often) is not that Venti just wishes to hold him with everything he has.

Whichever it is, whether it be a combination of all of them, it has him widening his eyes, a near whisper of “Oh,” trailing into the winds. Winds that take the words greedily into their hands, rolling them over—winds that tell him murmurs, almost frantically, a gentle urging in the way the threads crowd further around them both, hushed jingling of bells accompanying it: stay, stay, stay, stay?

Oh.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

also you made me feel incredibly guilty cause i just came off ripping Palace Au's heart in half and here you are doing fluffy four/dot stuff

palace au four is staring at me being like "why can't you be like lofty tellie WHY"

Oh no, not Palace AU angst 😭

Poor poor Four :( But buddy, your story did this to you, not Tellie! She’s just bringing it to life (wonderfully, I’m sure <3 )

I mean, I could angst Four somehow as well, I’m sure I could do something terrible to him in the healthcare AU. I’ve had a few scenarios in my head but they’ve been too dark for me to write lol, some healthcare things should just stay in healthcare

[afewproblems]

In My Heart is a Memory (And There You'll Always Be) Part Two

Part One

Steve spends his week in the hospital on oxygen and fighting pneumonia from his bed. A harsh wheezing sound has developed whenever he pushes too hard but Doctor Sattler isn't nearly as concerned as Steve the first time he hears it.

"It shouldn't worsen over time, but if you feel that the wheezing is becoming more frequent or that feeling of an elephant sitting on your chest comes back, you will need to use your new inhaler, today's the perfect day to learn how it works," Doctor Sattler told him with an air of nonchalance that did not match the news.

Two and two made four, the sky was blue, and Steve Harrington would need medication for the rest of his life.

Most of the time Steve sleeps fitfully, dreaming of cold grey water and kind brown eyes, but on the days he has more energy Steve walks around the ward with Claudia in between practising blowing into something called a spirometer. 

She tells him it's important to test his level of lung function and how he's improving, it should also help to reduce the wheezing sound when Steve is simply resting. He even gets one to take home with him. 

Steve listens as Claudia talks about her own son, he's eight years old and so curious about the world. It's obvious she loves him dearly.

Steve wonders if his own mother ever talks about him like that.

His mother checks in with him twice during the week. His dad has already left for his most recent work trip and Diane is planning to leave as well, at least until Sunday when Steve is expected to be discharged. 

“I’ll be gone for five days, but you’ll be here anyway, and they are taking good care of you aren’t they?” she asks, her voice uncharacteristically soft for once as she takes his cheek in her cold hand. 

Diane’s fingers brush the oxygen hosing around his cheek, Claudia had called it something weird --a canny-something-or-other. 

Diane lets go abruptly as if burned; her nose wrinkling slightly as she rubs her fingers against the palm of her hand. In one fluid motion, she stands up from her seat at the side of his bed and smooths down the blankets as she does so. 

Diane meets his gaze once, her pale blue eyes almost seem to look past him, before she hikes her handbag further up her arm.

“I’m leaving the number of the hotel with your Nurse Henry, and you’ll be home before you know it,” she nods with a forced smile and turns on her heel to slip out the door of his room before Steve can even correct her.

He hopes Claudia did get the number, that there isn’t some strange Nurse Henry with more access to his mother than even Steve is allowed. 

A small part of himself hopes that Eddie will come visit him.

It’s not likely, Eddie had seemed excited initially about showing him his Dungeons and Dragons book but how would he have any idea Steve would still be here.

That doesn't stop Steve from picturing Eddie yelling to his uncle as he bounds down the hallway, ‘Come on old man, Steve’s room’s gotta be here somewhere!’

But Eddie never materialises down the hall, armed with his players book or tales of dragons and knights.

Steve takes it in stride as much as he can.

The days blend together the longer he stays, but it isn't as though Steve has no one to talk to.

He asks Claudia more about her son and listens to the jokes the orderlies tell him when they come by with meals. Even Doctor Sattler stops by to check the machines by his bed and to watch him blow into the Spirometer.

It’s fine. 

Claudia gives him a long hug the day he's discharged. Steve isn't sure she's supposed to by the exasperated look Doctor Sattler gives her, but he says nothing and busies himself with writing something out on a small notepad.

"You be careful sweetheart, use your spirometer to practice and keep your inhaler on you at all times".

She sweeps his hair away from his face and squeezes his shoulder briefly before giving him the barest of pushes towards his mother who stands by the door.

Doctor Sattler hands Diane the two papers he's written out, "you'll have to fill these prescriptions, he'll need both of them before you head home". 

Diane nods and breathes out a clipped thank you before ushering Steve to the doors, he tries to turn to wave only for his mother to grip his shoulder firmly and walk him out.

He catches what he thinks may be concern in Claudia's eyes before the automatic doors close behind them and the familiar jingle of his mothers keys to the maroon beemer fills the air.

"We'll stop at Mevalds, you can wait in the car," Diane says as she opens the driver's side door and gets in. Steve hurriedly opens his own door as the engine starts, a small part of him wonders if she would leave him if he took any longer.

He closes the passenger door behind him, it's heavier than he remembers and a harsh wheeze fills the car as Steve breathes in slowly to halt the stuttering of his chest. 

He buckles in and looks up to find his mother watching him carefully. 

"Perhaps we should wait another week for you to go back to school," she hums, it's a voice she uses when thinking aloud but every instance of it usually happens when that thinking is about Steve.

"Why?" He asks as they pull onto the main road.

"You're making that awful noise," Diane says simply, "we should wait for it to stop, it will be distracting to your classmates".

A deep ache that has nothing to do with his lungs builds in his chest. He hadn't thought the sound was that noticeable. 

None of the other nurses or orderlies seemed to care about the new noise he made, or if they did they never said anything. Steve had been the one to ask about it,  concerned that he was the only one hearing it.

"Doctor Sattler said it should get better, but it won't go away," Steve argues with narrowed eyes, he crosses his arms over his chest and looks away towards the passenger window.

He hears Diane sigh as she signals to pull into the parking lot of Mevalds.

She turns off the engine and reaches into the back seat for her purse, leaning her hand against Steve's seat for balance.

Diane stops with her hand on the door handle, pausing as she turns to face him fully.

"I'm just looking out for you," Diane says softly, "the other children will notice eventually and the world isn't kind to people who are different Steven".

She gets out of the car, letting the words hang in the air. He watches her go into the store, already knowing he's lost. 

***

Steve's teachers welcome him back with little to no fanfare, Ms. Cuttler, the history teacher, even goes so far as to reprimand him for missing two whole weeks in front of the class. 

Steve doesn't need detention for 'mouthing off' on his first day back, no matter how unfair she's being. He manages to take his seat without speaking; he can't quite hide the angry red flush staining his cheeks though. 

Lunch is what Steve is looking forward to, he just has to make it to lunch, he can keep his head down until then.

Steve's last morning class is science. 

It's not his favourite class, but Mr. Clarke at least tries to keep it interesting for them, and he's always nice. Giving extensions on homework, half marks on tests rather than zeros with little comments in blue ink saying, 'I see where you were going with this, you almost got it!'

As soon as the bell rings, Steve grabs his backpack and books, uncaring of the homework instructions Mr. Clarke tries to yell over the clamouring kids and the last few notes of the bell.

"Oh Steve, you gotta sec?"

It takes every fibre of Steve's being not to just bolt from the room with the rest of the class, pretend he didn't hear.

It's your lungs that are screwed up now, not your ears, he thinks bitterly as he turns towards the front of the room where Mr. Clarke stands with a stack of xeroxed paper.

"Here's the homework you missed, if you can have it done for next week I think that'll keep you on track," he says with a smile that quirks his moustache.

Steve gives him a brief smile as he takes the stack of papers, "thanks, yeah I'll have it done by then," he tries for a grin, wincing at the raised eyebrow Mr. Clark gives him. 

They both know it will be late. 

Steve turns to leave again, with a forced half smile, but stops as Mr. Clarke clears his throat.

"They don't give us a lot of information about absences," he gives Steve a long look, "so all I'm going to say is if you want to chat, about anything, even if it's just homework, my door is open". 

Steve nods as Mr. Clarke gives him a kind half smile, patient like the ones Dr. Sattler or Claudia would give him after explaining how something worked. 

It's not something most adults put a lot of effort into, especially for Steve, writing him off if he doesn't understand something the first time it's explained. 

It's certainly not something his parents do for him.

"Sure Mr. Clarke," Steve mumbles as he tucks the papers into the textbook in his arms.

His teacher nods once and clears his throat awkwardly, gesturing towards the door, "Alright, you better get going," Mr Clarke says, "it's pizza day and I guarantee you the pepperoni is pretty much done at this point".

Steve snorts and takes a step back, "later Mr. Clarke," he calls over his shoulder as he makes his way past the empty desks and into the hallway, letting himself be guided by the stream of kids heading towards the cafeteria.

With the Hawkins Middle and High Schools being the only two secondary schools in the county, the buildings were naturally massive to accommodate all of the children and teens they housed on any given day during the school year.

The cafeteria was no exception.

Finding somewhere to sit was almost always impossible if you ran late to lunch, most students would give up trying to find a table and would end up settling by their lockers or sitting outside in the warmer months, but Steve was on a mission this time.

He looks around the busy room with his lunch tray, head on a swivel as he searches for a mop of curly brown hair. Eddie said he could sit at his table but he hadn't mentioned which one that was.

Steve walks along the wall, eyes scanning the tables, he begins to wonder if he had the wrong lunch period after all.

"I'm telling you, a beholder is the worst thing you could run into in a Dungeon, hands down--" 

Steve perks up at the voice, fairly certain he knows who it belongs to.

The relief is palpable as he continues forward, following the voice. A small part of Steve had begun to wonder if Eddie even went to his school, or if his muddled water logged brain had dreamed that up entirely. 

He finally spots Eddie at a table against the far back wall and has to stop himself from cheering as he makes a beeline for them, albeit more slowly than he would prefer. He's still getting winded easily and doesn't want to have to break out the inhaler the doctor gave him just yet.

There are two other boy's that Eddie is talking animatedly to, his hands gesturing wildly with a broad grin on his face.

Eddie spots him mid sentence and the effect is instant, his face lights up as he smiles and starts to wave before halting abruptly, a strange look passing over his face. 

"Hey!" Steve smiles, slightly uncertain now that Eddie's face has fallen into something unreadable. The other two boys at the table have turned to face him, their eyes scanning Steve up and down. 

The kid sitting closest to Steve, a black boy with braces and a t-shirt with something called Queen on the chest, Steve feels a spark of recognition at the name and makes a note to ask him about it later. He gives Steve a small polite smile which makes him feel slightly less nervous.

The other boy sitting closest to Eddie eyes Steve somewhat warily, he's wearing a Hawkins Middle school shirt, thick glasses with tape around the frame, and wavy brown hair that isn't as long as Eddie's but longer than Steve's mother would ever allow.

They all stare at Steve for what feels like an eternity before he clears his throat awkwardly.

"Um, my name is Steve--" he starts to say, reaching out a hand to the closest boy before Eddie stands up from the table.

"Where were you?" Eddie says, uncaring of the sudden climb in volume or the heads that turn their way. 

Steve ignores the faces turned their way and takes another step forward towards the table, a small nervous laugh bubbles up as he moves, “I was sick, remember?"

Eddie frowns, his eyes dart from Steve to the other boy directly in front of him, closest to where Steve is standing.

"I wanted to show you my book two weeks ago," Eddie folds his arms over his chest now, frowning slightly, "Ms. Allen confiscated it," he mutters darkly.

Steve winces at the tone and brings his arms around himself, taking a step back. A small part of him curses his decision to stay home another week to let his breathing find some semblance of normal.

The teen closest to Steve rolls his eyes, "if it wasn't the handbook, it woulda been something else Ed, you know Allen's been looking for a reason to punish us since you told her that you got more out of Gary Gygax than anything Mark Twain ever wrote --plus there's a literal demon on the cover,” he says with a wry grin. 

"I'm Jeff," he says with a wave before pointing to the other kid at the table, "that's Bobby, and it seems like you already know Eddie?"

Steve gives Jeff a small, thankful, smile and takes a step closer, "yeah, it's a bit of a long story--"

"A heroic tale of rescue more like!" Eddie cuts in, the familiar energy fills Steve with relief as he launches into the story.

Jeff rolls his eyes again and shoots Steve an exasperated look before patting the bench next to him, an official invitation.

Steve tries to play off the wide grin that threatens to take over his face and takes a seat next to Jeff, setting down his lunch tray with a clatter.

"So,” Eddie sits up slightly, bringing his leg up onto the table bench to curl up underneath himself, “Uncle Wayne and I were fishing, right?"

"Fishing?" Bobby cuts in with a laugh, wrinkling his nose as he looks Eddie up and down, "you?"

"Yeah fishing, not all of us can just go to the grocery store whenever we want," Eddie huffs impatiently as his ears begin to redden, he waves his hands, "anyway".

"Instead of a trout we managed to catch something a little stranger,” he grins at Steve, “he was all caught up in some old fishing line or something and--hey, you never told us why you were out on the lake by yourself?”

Three sets of eyes turn to stare for a beat though Bobby loses interest fairly quickly, averting his eyes back to the open milk carton on his own orange lunch tray. 

Steve clears his throat, unsure just how to explain his thought process that morning. 

He just had to get out of the house, he couldn’t sit there any longer waiting for his dad to finally leave--

“Well?” Eddie prompts again, the smallest of frowns pulls at his expression before Jeff snorts.

"This is not very heroic so far man, where are the X-Men, the laser battles, come on dude," Jeff grins as Eddie sputters and launches into a rant about comic books that Bobby seems to perk up at, his attention switching from the lunch tray to Eddie.

Steve breathes out a sigh of relief as the attention moves away from him.

"You don't need lasers or special powers for hero stories, Tolkien didn't need idiots in spandex, he just needed a Hobbit and a ring and made a fucking masterpiece," Eddie 

"Are you seriously comparing yourself to Tolkien right now?" Jeff asks with a knowing smirk, it grows wider as Bobby laughs.

"Who's Tolkien?" Steve says, it's not a name he's ever heard before, though they must be some kind of storyteller. Was there a new book assigned while Steve was away recovering?

Eddie blanches for a second in surprise before his face lights up, he waves his hands at the chorus of groans from both Jeff and Bobby and cackles, "Stevie, Stevie, Stevie, we have so much to teach you!"

***

As the school year comes to a close, Steve finds himself looking forward to the summer for the first time in his life.  

Summer for Steve is normally lonely.

He spends his time looking for ways to avoid his house, counting down the days when he can go back to school. Even sitting through class or trying out for the intramural leagues is better than the monotony of summer.

At least during school he had people to talk to. 

But this summer is different. 

Steve, Jeff, Eddie, and Bobby get on like a house of fire, where one of the boys is, the other three are never far behind. 

They teach Steve about Dungeons and Dragons, Tolkien and the one ring --the book certainly reads like some of the books they had assigned in class, but Eddie and Jeff looked so excited the day Steve brought it home from the library, he couldn’t disappoint them.

In turn, Steve introduces the other boys to the pool, inviting the three of them to the Harrington house on a scorching June day.

“No way,” Bobby whispers as they reach the driveway, Jeff’s mouth drops into a little ‘O’ shape while Eddie’s eyes widen in surprise before his expression shutters. 

“You’re kidding right?” Jeff asks with a laugh in his voice, “seriously, where’s your moat man?”

Steve reaches out to push Jeff’s shoulder as Bobby laughs, “shut up, it's not that bad--”

“No? Are you going to bring out a unicorn next? What else are you hiding in there?” Bobby scoffs as he takes a hesitant steps towards the edge of the driveway, as though worried the ground would fall out from underneath him at any moment. 

“Oh just wait,” Steve says, biting his lip to keep his grin in check, it falters slightly at the pinched expression on Eddie’s face, the way his eyes flick from the house to Steve, before eventually landing on their feet.

Steve opens his mouth to ask what’s wrong but he’s forced to whirl around to keep his footing as Bobby drags him up the drive, “Steve, if you do actually have a horse in there, I will still be very impressed”.

While it may not be a unicorn, Steve knows he has one other ace up his sleeve as he presents them with the crown jewel of the Harrington house, the Atari.

“Oh my god!” Bobby crows as he jumps off the last step of the basement and races towards the television. 

“You have one of these!” he hisses incredulously, snatching the attached joystick from its resting place on the top, Steve winces as the cord pulls slightly from Bobby’s exuberance. 

“I mean, it’s my dads, not mine,” Steve shrugs, he puts his hands in his jeans pockets and turns back to Jeff and Eddie, “but we can play it, he’s not home”.

Diane argues the day his father brings the machine home. 

It must stay in the basement, out of sight, determining that something so hideous has no place in their well decorated living room. 

Ignoring the fact that the only television in the house was in the basement, Diane insists on keeping the rest of the house as pristine as Good Housekeeping has taught her. 

Richard simply rolls his eyes at his wife, ‘It’s not like it matters Diane, one of the investors thinks he’s being cute, like any son of mine would waste his time with one of these, right Steven?’

Steve nods, content to keep his head down, focused on his homework, not to make waves.

‘Course dad, computer games are for losers,’ the words come easily, he’s heard them before.  He flinches as a heavy hand comes down on his shoulder and squeezes lightly.

‘God damn right’.

‘Why are we even keeping it then?’ Diane asks sharply, her tone cool as she follows him down the stairs. 

Steve trails after them to the landing; he can still hear from the wary distance he keeps while his parents continue to talk. 

"Allan and the rest of the partners are coming in two weeks for drinks, and I’m not letting that prick get one over on me”.

Diane is quiet for a beat.

Steve tilts his ear to listen intently. He knows that silence. It's something his mother usually employs while calculating all options before speaking carefully.

‘Fine, I suppose the dust will collect best down here,” Steve can almost hear the sneer that pulls at his mothers mouth as she speaks. 

‘Atta girl,’ Richard  says quietly, almost fondly. 

Jeff raises an eyebrow as he comes to stand beside Steve, “you can’t play it if your dad’s home?” 

Steve falters for a second, scrambling for something to say.

Bobby scoffs by the television, still inspecting the machine, "you know how much one of these things costs? If we had one, my dad would flip if I so much as looked at it”.

Steve settles for shrugging with a mild smile, infinitely grateful for Bobby's ability to blurt out the first thing he thinks in any given situation.

If Jeff questions it, he doesn't say anything, and instead moves to join Bobby where he crouched on the floor.

Steve turns back to find where Eddie went only to find him frozen on the last stair still.

His eyes seem to trace over the room, an unreadable expression on his face, it contorts into something sour before smoothing as his gaze eventually lands on Steve. 

"Didn't know we pulled a rich kid outta the lake," Eddie says after a beat, finally walking further into the room, his arms crossed tightly over his stomach. 

"I guess," Steve says weakly as Eddie nods and moves towards where Jeff is kneeling beside Bobby with one of the game cartridges in his hands.

A spark of annoyance crackles through Steve, licking the inside of his ribcage. If Eddie isn’t interested in playing, he just has to say so, they can do something else - work on their character sheets, go outside. The other day Eddie showed them all the best spot by the quarry for throwing rocks so that the sound seemed to echo for miles as it hit the water. They could easily go, right now. 

They aren’t supposed to be touching this anyway, it’s not like it’s a big deal. It’s not. 

Steve knows the others don’t know how much trouble he could get into for this, the risk he’s taking for even showing it to them, for having kids over unsupervised, uninvited. 

 "Well, does that thing play Asteroids or what?" Eddie asks abruptly, interrupting Steve’s train of thought. 

He nods, quietly tamping down the last fleeting sense of irritation and walks over to the shelf where the rest of the games were dumped, wincing at the impressed chorus of whoops that Jeff and Bobby let out.

It only serves to accentuate the brooding silence that has followed Eddie all morning, since they walked over the threshold of Steve’s front door.

Jeff and Bobby take turns playing the rest of the afternoon. Steve defers to them, content to simply watch his friends try out the games. They bicker back and forth, making noises at key moments to try and break each other's concentration, Steve laughs brightly as Bobby manages to make Jeff crash for the fourth time in a row by simply imitating Rod Stewart.

“If you want my body and you think I'm sexy, come on, sugar, tell me so!” Bobby croons, making his voice older and raspy as he leans close enough for Jeff to twist his head away.

“Get outta here Bobby-- oh you sonovabitch!”

Bobby cheers, lifting his clasped hands above his head, “and the crowd goes wild, what do ya say, Jeff, best two out of three?”

Jeff flops backwards onto the carpet, pretending to catch an invisible dagger to the chest, “mark my words, if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine!”

He rolls his head to the side and reaches out, pointing towards Steve with a cry, “Avenge me!” 

Steve laughs long and loud as Jeff croaks and groans and finally sticks his tongue out of the side of his mouth with a low hissing sigh as he finally pretends to die on the carpet of Steve’s basement. 

“So, what say you, Steve?” Bobby croaks as he lifts one hand to cover his mouth, and the other to hold out the abandoned joystick as he breathes out heavily, “do you dare take up the saber?”

Steve has no clue what they’re doing, a joke from something he’s sure, but he schools his face into something serious, and takes the joystick with a grave nod.

“For Jeff!” Steve cries as the digital melody fills the air.

Finally, Steve lets himself bask in the warmth and friendship that has surrounded him for the last few months, the normal chill of the Harrington home finally absent as Bobby begins to cheer while also doing his damndest to distract Steve. 

Jeff finally sits up with another hiss, “I LIVE, to see Steve beat your sorry ass Bobby!” 

He claps his hand on Steve's shoulder with a grin, “you got this!” 

It isn’t until a throat clears behind them that the three boys notice Eddie hasn’t said a word for the last ten minutes. 

He’s standing now, backpack slung over his shoulder --when did he go upstairs?

“It’s late,” Eddie mumbles quietly, “Wayne will want me home for supper soon”.

The words seem to break the spell that has fallen over the other two boys and they both stand as if summoned from their seats on the floor. 

Steve can only sit and watch as Jeff and Bobby move towards Eddie, albeit reluctantly. 

Jeff stretches out, raising his arms above his head, “yeah, I should probably go too,” he groans out as he drops his arms back at his sides. 

“Thanks for the game dude,” Bobby says with a shrug, though he looks decidedly more annoyed at the interruption than Jeff, “beats trying to escape the heat in the creek anyway”.

Jeff rolls his eyes, “It also beats shelling out quarters at the arcade on 4th Bobby, this was seriously really cool man”.

Steve grins at the pair of them before turning towards Eddie who glares at the floor in silence until Jeff elbows him. 

Eddie breathes out loudly through his nose, “yeah it was cool, but next time we should go over your characters a bit more, especially if you guys are going to survive the next encounter I designed”.

Bobby scoffs as he grabs his own messenger bag from the bottom of the stairs, “well I’m not going back to the library, Mrs. Depencier gives me the creeps”.

“The library is the only place with enough space,” Eddie argues as he turns and makes his way up the stairs.

Steve feels the words lift him up, this is his chance, he takes a step towards the other teens, “I could host?” 

Jeff and Bobby stop, turning back towards Steve with excitement in their gazes. Jeff seems to hesitate though, turning back to back to Eddie whose face is hidden by the edge of the staircase, Steve can only make out the bottom on his legs from where he’s standing.

He walks forward to the bottom of the staircase and stops short of taking the first step, “my parents aren’t home for the next four weeks so I can have you guys over, no problem”.

Bobby punches his fists into the air, "Yes! Oh my god, huge house, no parents?" Bobby jumps down the last two stairs again and nearly tackles Steve, "this is perfect!"

Perfect, is…certainly a word for it, not necessarily the one Steve would use, but Bobby wasn't here at night. 

Not when the glow of the pool would cast eerie shadows along the treeline that surrounded the Harrington backyard. Steve never felt comfortable sitting outside by himself once the sun went down, even now in middle school. 

All it took was one snapped branch in the dark or one flicker of shining eyes for him to race back into the kitchen, slamming the sliding door shut behind him.

The locked door never really feeling like enough by himself. 

"Four weeks?" Eddie says quietly as he takes a step down, his expression seems pained though Steve can't imagine why.

"I know it's not that long," Steve shrugs, "but we could do it in an afternoon right?"

Jeff's eyebrows rise, cutting shallow creases across his forehead, he and Eddie look at one another, seemingly having some kind of silent conversation before they both turn back to Steve at the same time.

"I need three days to finish it up, but that means we can meet in between to finish your characters," Eddie offers, the words slowly break the strange sudden quiet that has fallen over the basement. 

"Tomorrow?" Steve asks tentatively, 

"I'll be here, and hey if they don't come," Bobby says with a wry grin as he elbows Steve, "then I'll kick your ass at Asteroids!"

"We'll be here jackass," Jeff scoffs as Eddie nods silently.

He has a strange look on his face that Steve can't quite place, but at least he doesn't look annoyed anymore.

"Tomorrow then," Eddie confirms, grinning as Bobby blurts out a loud, 'hell yeah' as Jeff rolls his eyes once more.

The boys do eventually make their way upstairs, though at a snail's pace as the strange tension from earlier fades away. 

Steve walks them all to the door and watches as they make their way down the long drive, taking turns waving as their voices fade into the distance.

Steve swallows hard as he closes the front door, trying not to think too hard about how many hours until he'll hear his friends voices again.

Permanent Tag List: @eriquin @luvinthefreaks @cinnamon-mushroomabomination

[vultursvolans]

after writing ‘dance of the damned’, ‘curiosity kills’ and this current wip which carry some of the same themes, i’m really starting to think that mild horror, dark and gothic romance, or anything to do with fancy, hoity-toity dialogue, are some of my strengths because it’s so much easier to get the brain juices flowing

[tomriddlehyperfixataion]

I can’t find ur stories on ao3😭

that would be because i post under Anon 😅😅 so I, as a Tom Riddle x reader writer, dont have an official ao3 account to post my stories from, i post under anon under my actual ao3 account, cuz i posted very different stories under that account and i kinda wanted to keep my Tom stories disconnected from that version of 'me', so yeah, but ive posted all my Tom stories under the Tom Riddle/Reader ship tag, and usually tag it with 'that one anon writer', so they shouldnt be too hard to find, sorry for making you do work 😅

[muneiia]

Preventative Measures

22,625 words/ Completed/ Relationships: Sonic the Hedgehog & Shadow the Hedgehog/ Key Tags: rivals with benefits, eventual Relationships, smut (Rated E/18+)

Read on AO3 here

Summary:

"Get someone to help you out, no biggie."

No biggie.

This conversation alone would be enough to trigger a headache.

"And where do you suppose I find someone to just 'help me out'?"

"You have my number."

---

When Shadow is suddenly overcome with chronic headaches, Sonic makes it his personal mission to research the best ways to alleviate those symptoms.

[chornayadrakoshig]

almost finished the barbgrove oneshot I spontaneously started earlier this week and now I see the bane of my existence ahead of me

🥀 the fic title 🥀

[heavensdoorsopen]

Chapter 14 | 4.20.25

The Loop, Part 1: Helena, through the years. 

_____________________________________________________________ 

Fandom: Severance (TV) Rating: Explicit

Summary: A grieving Helly and the MDR team chart a path forward after the events of the ORTBO. Meanwhile, Mark Scout reintegrates, setting himself on a collision course with Helly, a woman he’s never met but can’t stop dreaming about.

(canon-divergent post season 2, episode 4.)

[vyingeyes]

Project Crown - 3 - First Blood

The first few tumultuous days on the Negotiator passed by so quickly that not even 8ball was sure he could remember them. Flashes of memories and events flitted through his mind—meeting their platoon leader (a visibly nervous infantry trooper in already-scuffed armor), being placed alongside Green Squad in their new barracks (two squads per room, surprisingly; 8ball supposed it was intended to keep sleep from being disrupted too frequently by troopers coming and going for their shifts, but it still felt off to him), and familiarizing themselves with the ship (which they were permitted to roam freely, as long as they weren’t scheduled to be somewhere specific—much more freedom than 8ball was accustomed to).

All of these, 8ball knew they had done, but the fine details eluded him. He couldn’t for the life of him remember their platoon leader’s name, or which hall had held a seemingly infinite series of meeting rooms. There was too much going on and not enough time to store any of that information in any meaningful way.

What he did know was the state of his squad. Kyr spent every day running around like he’d be executed on the spot if he was caught doing anything that wasn’t productive. 48 spent more than his share of time in the armory “helping” the engineers, gunners, and ordnance specialists prepare for their next engagement (bothering them, more like). 8ball hadn’t seen Course in at least 28 standard hours—presumably, Course was working shifts in the medbay while 8ball slept and sleeping while 8ball worked, but he couldn’t be sure. Myth, as anyone could have guessed, had been making use of the new free time and limited holonet access to research every topic under every sun imaginable on one of the GAR-issue datapads the information analysts were given.

The most meaningful event of the past week had been a brief skirmish that 8ball hadn’t seen more than five minutes of. He’d gone almost directly from one dropship to another; apparently, they’d arrived just as their target had fled, meaning they only got to clean up the leftover scrap left behind.

8ball wasn’t entirely sure where they were headed after that, but the Negotiator stayed in hyperspace for nearly all their time on it. It was… nice, really. Finally having a proper job. Given, no scouting yet. He couldn’t do that until they got to their destination, wherever that may be. But unlike Kamino, the Negotiator truly needed clones to function. 8ball fell into a routine of training, working, and resting faster than he’d fallen into any routine in his life.

But, of course, that couldn’t last uninterrupted.

The klaxon alarm was new to him, at least in practice. 8ball hadn’t felt any turbulence, but they must have entered either enemy territory or a fight of some sort for them to go off without warning. They had been trained to react to those alarms, though, and 8ball didn’t hesitate to beeline from his bunk to the armor storage at the head of the room, where Green Squad and most of his own squad were already kitting up—as usual, no Course to be found. His armor wasn’t there, though, so he had to be already kitted in the medbay.

Punch, already mostly kitted from his work shift, rapidly fired information off to Kyr while the Crown lead worked on getting his bracers on. “Contact with Separatist ships. Likelihood of designated target presence is apparently very high… We’re in pursuit.” He took a moment to look away from his datapad and put his helmet on, fiddling with the seal idly. “We report to the hangar. We’ll be in one of the first waves of gunships. Terrain and enemy information incoming, should be on your HUD before we get on the ships.”

 “Copy. You head on. We have to collect Course on the way.” Kyr adjusted the straps of his own chest plate, then helped Myth connect the magnets of his pauldron without thought. “Send me the gunship number when you can. Faster than parsing through all of that while running there.”

“Will-do. I don’t know if—”

“Shit,” 48 interrupted, rather loudly. “Shit, that’s not good…”

Kyr’s head snapped around. “What?” he demanded.

48 held his rifle in both of his hands, expression concealed by his helmet. 8ball pictured a pinched brow and a frown from his voice. “Uh…. So, I’m gonna need to stop by weapons on the way out.”

One of the veins in Kyr’s forehead threatened to pop out. “What?”

“Okay, maybe… No, yeah, definitely can’t not…”

“48,” Kyr snapped urgently.

“Okay! So, the other day when we, like, looked at the droids for twenty seconds my blaster pretty much—well, basically it overheated and some of the wires got all melted because the coolant line is faulty…”

Kyr pinched the bridge of his nose. “48.”

“… Meaning I can’t use this. Best case scenario is I shoot it, and it does nothing. Worst case, it might blow up on me.”

“Why—? No, later. Go. Now.”

8ball watched with his own share of confusion as 48 bolted directly out the door, faulty blaster in one hand and his bracers loose in the other.

“Why would he not—” Kyr continued to seethe as he assisted Myth with increasing force. “He’s had days.”

Myth’s face creased and he glanced nervously at the door after 48. “Maybe… He forgot?”

“Like hell!” Kyr snapped.

8ball straightened up as Myth’s eyes dropped to the floor. “It’s 48,” he interrupted loudly. “Why does he do anything he does? Forget him, he knows where we’re going. We need to get Course.”

Punch nodded in agreement. “He’ll be fine. I’ll send him the gunship number too, once I get it.”

Kyr took a slow, deep breath, and finally stepped away from Myth. “Fine. We’re going now.”

8ball scrambled to get the last pieces of his kit on as Kyr marched out the door. He exchanged a glance with Myth on the way out. The way his brother’s eyes darted around the hectic halls of the Negotiator told 8ball all he needed to know about how Myth felt about the lack of information they had on the situation.

The twins struggled to follow in Kyr’s wake as he forged a warpath to the medbay. They ended up a bit behind, and Course was following Kyr out of the medbay doors by the time they caught up.

“—replace his blaster,” Kyr was seething as 8ball came within earshot.

Course’s face remained fully blank as he secured his medkit to his armor. “It happened. Move on.”

Kyr stopped himself, taking a quick breath before nodding resolutely and acknowledging 8ball and Myth with a second, smaller nod. “Hurry up. We’ll go over the information I’ve been given in the hangar. Hopefully, 48 will be with us by then.”

Myth nodded beside 8ball. “He should be there by the time we are,” he said.

8ball personally thought that his faith in 48 was more than optimistic, but Kyr was still working on not blowing up. In a rare moment of self-restraint, 8ball decided to hold back on his comments until after the engagement was over—for Myth’s peace of mind, though. Not for Kyr.

Kyr and Course led the walk to the hangar in tandem. If they spoke, it must have been through a private channel. 8ball couldn’t help but feel a bit left out. In another show of self-restraint (someone should really consider giving him a medal), he elbowed Myth instead of Kyr.

“Have you got the terrain files yet?”

His twin shook his head. “No… I’m not confident we’ll get a good terrain file,” he admitted. “I don’t even know where we are, but if this wasn’t a planned encounter—”

“—I’ll be a very important asset to the unit,” 8ball finished. “You’d better keep an eye on commlines, then.”

Kyr’s visor turned toward them as they got near the gunships, then swiveled to look past them as he spoke. “48 hasn’t checked in.”

“Problems at Weapons?” Myth tried. “Crates is on duty today, right?”

For the first time that day, 8ball felt a little bad for 48. Crates… was very good at moving crates. And unpacking them. Not so good at requisitions, but he was from an older batch, and often the primary attendant in Weapons. 8ball had only had to deal with him twice so far, to get a training sniper for practice, and both times he’d received a standard training rifle instead.

“Crates,” Kyr muttered with disdain, evidently having had similar experiences already. “Fine. I’ll give the outline now. Huddle up.”

8ball made sure that his eye rolling translated bodily through his helmet. It was subtle, but he was certain that Course did the same. He had no evidence, but he could just tell.

Once they were all huddled to Kyr’s standards, he started reading from his HUD. “Engagement’s going to be on a deserted moon—8ball, can I trust you to relay the important points to 48 when he gets here?”

When 8ball waved him on, he continued. “Okay, deserted moon—breathable air, highish temps. We’ve got a rough terrain map, but it’s pulled straight from the ship. I’ll send it to all of you. Not sure how much help it’ll be…” He shook his head. “… Enemy number and positions aren’t known yet. Apparently, there’s a high-profile target involved, which’ll probably mean a whole lot of battle droids and supers. Might be some MagnaGuard mixed in, but we shouldn’t have the chance to run into them.”

Course pressed a button on his bracer to open one of the files Kyr sent over their shared commlink. “What’s our mission?”

“We’re the distraction, I think,” Kyr said grimly. “The Jedi want to hunt down the target. We’re there to keep the army occupied.”

“War of attrition?” 8ball sighed.

Myth turned to him, a confused tilt to his head. “That’s…. not at all what that means. A war of attrition is—”

“We just have to last until the Jedi finish their task,” Course interrupted curtly. “Which means staying close and not taking unnecessary risks.”

Now, that was odd. 8ball could have sworn Course was looking at him when he said that. “What? Why me?”

Kyr’s head snapped toward him as well. “You know why you. Lieutenant Baati wants you to look for vantage points with the other scouts—so you’ll be unsupervised.” He spat that word out, unimpressed. 8ball wanted to bristle, but Kyr was already continuing. “You’re looking. Not doing any sort of hero maneuvers or showing off. If you see more enemies than you can handle, you’re hiding and regrouping at the first opportunity.”

“We’ve been deployed for a week,” Course agreed, still staring 8ball down. “We’re not losing anyone on such a simple mission.”

8ball huffed, crossing his arms. “I’m not a rogue agent you have to micromanage! I’m good at my job, believe it or not.”

Kyr and Course exchanged a look that 8ball couldn’t read, but that still pissed him off immeasurably. 

“Fine, don’t believe me, but don’t be surprised when I’m getting recognized before any of you.”

Kyr didn’t take the bait, visor swiveling to look past 8ball again. “48. Took you long enough.”

48 pushed into the now-loose huddle between Myth and 8ball. “It wasn’t even my fault! Fuckin’ Crates—”

“We don’t have any more time to hear how your lack of preparation is someone else’s fault,” Kyr snapped. “Green Squad is already on the dropship. Let’s go.”

8ball fumed as he followed his brothers onto the nearby dropship (numbered, he noted for later). If anyone should be getting the lecture on safety, it was clearly 48, who couldn’t even get his blaster sorted out between engagements. Or Course, who had managed to break both of his legs last time they’d been in a real fight. Or, hell, Kyr himself, who was apparently so eager to throw aside protocol on a whim if it was what he thought was best. What had 8ball done? Find them optimal routes? Supply them with information on the terrain, enemy numbers, and locations? They’d quite literally be lost without him.

He continued to fume as the transport left the hangar. Punch and Kyr talked strategy on the opposite side of the ship, most definitely intentionally located in order to ignore 8ball most effectively. Dicks. That was fine, he’d look at the nineteen whole pixels of the terrain map and trace out where he’d go when he was finally on his own. Any cliffs would be a welcome advantage over the droids, if he could just find them…

The private channel of 8ball’s comm crackled open. “You’re supposed to fill in 48,” Myth mumbled. “He missed the huddle.”

8ball sighed bodily, turning to look to where 48 was chattering away with Punt. He probably wouldn’t even listen—but 8ball was already on Kyr’s bad side today (wasn’t everybody?), and 48 should at least know about the terrain files, so 8ball moved to grab his arm.

Once 48 was looking at him, 8ball got it over with as quick as he could. “Kyr told me to catch you up on the huddle.” He hadn’t really kept most of the briefing in mind, especially after the spat at the end of it, but he knew the big points. “We’re stalling the army while the Jedi work. I’m scouting. Course wants you all to stick together and play it safe. A shitty terrain map should be in your files.”

He gave 48 a second to pull up the map, nodding when a scoff came through the helmet. “This thing barely qualifies as a map!”

“Scanned from the ship, apparently. Any actually important information will probably come through on comms.”

“Alright. Thanks.” 48 looked from 8ball back to Punt for a moment. “Hey, Eighty, did you hear about—”

“Can we do this later? I’m trying to plan my route.” 8ball tried very hard to shoot for not incredibly frustrated. 48 hadn’t actually done anything to him since he’d woken up, and he was a good brother. The best, even, who didn't even squabble with his batchmates just for existing. 

“Oh. Yeah, sure. I’ll tell you when we get back up to the Negotiator.”

8ball turned promptly to push himself back into the corner with Myth, who seemed to be looking at the map himself. The scout took a deep breath and let himself think about his mission.

They were likely dropping in one of the flat stretches—fields? The dimensional capabilities of the scan weren’t all that, but basic formations could still be made out. Occasional giant boulders jutted up and provided texture to the otherwise flat sections of the map. But that wasn’t what 8ball was interested in. Instead…

He quickly identified the pattern to the boulder placement. Following along with his eyes, up what must be a sloping hill, 8ball found what he had been looking for. It didn’t stand out too much from the rest of the map, save for the slightly different color in an attempt at contrast. It wasn’t huge—no mountains, at least in this region of the moon. But 8ball would accept a mesa instead. A flat top could even prove useful, assuming the Republic got there before the Separatists did. He almost wondered why they weren’t landing there—but then, if they were just trying to engage the droid army, starting closer to the action made a bit more sense. That kind of height advantage made picking off Seppies easier than breathing, and if there were supers, then he'd have plenty of time and space between them and him to line up shots to their vulnerable zones. His hand found the pack on his back by instinct—he knew he remembered to repack his climbing kit; he didn't have to check. Unlike 48, 8ball kept up with his equipment maintenance.

It occurred to him that that thought may be, again, unnecessarily mean-spirited toward the wrong brother, but the dropship door opening cut short his opportunity to reflect on that. The ground rapidly approached, and 8ball felt only a little paranoia around not having checked who their pilot was this time. They touched down a little heavy, but still safely, and (after quickly reorienting) flooded out together into the clouds of dust stirred up by the ship.

8ball ignored Kyr and Course both as they landed in the dirt beside him. Instead, he clasped his hand to Myth’s shoulder, wished him, specifically, luck, and ran over to where he could already see the other scouts gathering. There weren’t many of them in their platoon, so Lieutenant Baati was already speaking quickly when he came into earshot.

“—eye out for dropships,” he was saying. “You boys need to stay out of the fight as much as you can, but if you get a shot on one, take it. If our intel is correct, we’ll be dealing with enough on the ground as it is.”

The Orbit Squad scout—Trip, his name was (rather unfortunate name for a scout, 8ball thought)—elbowed him fondly. “How are you always late to everything?”

8ball rolled his eyes. He’d been late to one training session with the other platoons’ scouts, and now that was the bit of the week… And it’d only been��a week.

“I’m not late, I left when my dropship was scheduled to leave. Did I miss anything important?”

“No, you heard everything important. It was mostly a ‘be careful’ talk. You know the Lieutenant.”

8ball did.

“He just wants us to get to the high ground and keep the fodder aware of enemy movement. He said we might have to run information if comms go down. Basic shit.”

There was something eerie about referring to their foot soldier brothers as “fodder”, but it wasn’t really something 8ball could argue about.

Trip and Vision—Harbor’s scout—moved too slowly for 8ball’s liking. He itched to go. They’d not had an opportunity like this—not since Geonosis, which barely counted. This was a proving ground, and 8ball knew it was best to make a good impression on their officers, even if the rest of his batch didn’t. There were a couple scouts from other platoons that seemed to have similar ideas; they, like him, had already gotten their climbing gear out. 8ball could see the mesas, now, and they were even better than he could have imagined, towering much higher than he'd be able to climb in one battle. Plenty of ledges, though. He kept an eye out as he began his ascent.

As far as he could see, the moon was another dusty skughole like Geonosis. This one, at least, didn't seem to have nearly as much local life. Cracks split the ground into jagged polygons that grew smaller and smaller below him as he ventured for higher ground. He could make out the lines of droids clearly as he cleared the sixty-foot mark: a jagged, rusty beige mass moving toward the forming blockade of white plastoid. 8ball would send his estimate on numbers once he got up to his first perch.

At one hundred and fifty feet, 8ball got his first chance to set up shop. It wasn't as high as he'd like, but it was the first ledge he'd hit that stretched more than five or six meters across. In fact, he'd probably be able to get a full look east over the battlefield. He could see some of the other scouts continuing up toward the top, but 8ball rolled his eyes and lowered himself to the ground to ready his rifle.

Sure, Lt. Baati had technically told them to stay out of it, but also, no standard battle droid would have any chance at hitting him from this distance. He could spare a couple blaster bolts to thin the herd a little.

As he got settled, he commed in those numbers. It was a rough estimate—after all, he couldn't well make out how many droids were in each line—but apparently it was good enough. 8ball preened openly in solitude as the first line of clones began to shift and broaden to combat the enemy numbers. How has nobody else called that in yet?

He understood, at least, how the ground forces hadn't seen it. The terrain was rocky, uneven, and the trenches snaking around the field would make it difficult to know where all enemies lurked. 8ball was reminded of the crags of Geonosis—of how easily they could be ambushed by an especially opportunistic bug. He’d keep an eye out around his ledge, as well… Just to be safe. His mind unhelpfully provided a nice, clear memory of the sound Course’s legs made when the medic hit the ground over a week ago. And Course hadn’t gotten carried nearly as high up as 8ball was.

He had good sights on the closest trenches, at least. He'd be able to warn everyone if the droids started to flank. 8ball spared a glance back up. Most of the other scouts were still climbing, though a few had clearly seen his decision to stop and started doing the same. Tatuk’ikase.

8ball rolled his eyes and focused back on his scope. If he looked, he thought he could maybe make out his squad. He’d not listened too closely to where his squad would end up—hadn’t thought he’d have such a good view, honestly—but there were some constants, already, in how different squads were “handled” by officers. Some of it was logical, some of it personal. Crown had a medic, for example, and they paired well with Green, which had a heavy gunner and an ordnance specialist, more than making up for the unit being a man down while 8ball was away. That meant that they wouldn’t be on the front of the frontline, but they’d be damn near close.

He had a minute to look, since the fight hadn’t broken quite yet, and—yes, right there. Two shiny-armored troopers rifling through an ordnance pack. A few steps away, a brother with the red medic sigil stamped on his left pauldron, hips cocked, arms crossed as he listened to the evidently heated rambling of a trooper with a back so ramrod straight it could only be Kyr. And, of course, Kyr was completely oblivious to Myth, just behind him, starting/stopping himself from chiming in over and over. He’d have useful information—he always did, whatever the trainers claimed, but Kyr’s bucket was too far up his own shebs to notice. Probably still pissed about the way the huddle ended. Or 48’s gun mishaps. Or the direction that the wind chose to blow at that moment. Hard to tell, really.

Kyr stormed off to talk to 48 and Punt, and 8ball realized that Course hadn’t left. He… might’ve been talking to Myth. A little bit of petty anger drained out of 8ball just as the tension trickled out of Myth’s shoulders. 8ball wasn’t even really mad at Course in the first place, anyway. Course had sided with Kyr, but he always did that. He had to. If a five-man squad could even have a second in command, theirs was Course—and division among leadership was one of the fastest ways to dissolve any organization, even one as small as a squad of clone troopers. And besides that, he was always snippy. Had been since they were cadets. It wasn’t personal when he snapped at you, that was just how he talked. Not at all like it was with Kyr.

Kyr’s patience did not cover incompetence—and for some reason, that word always seemed to really mean “8ball”.

At least, that’s how 8ball explained why it was so easy to shift the still-simmering anger burning at the back of his throat away from Course to center solely on Kyr.

8ball sighed and dragged his scope away from his brothers. It skimmed briefly over the rest of their platoon at the frontlines before coming to a halt over the front of the droid unit. The clankers stared blankly forward, no last-minute arguments or jittery nerves like the clone forces, each step bringing them closer and closer to 8ball’s brothers with the kind of finality that could only be seen in machines. 8ball suppressed a shiver, instead doing one last check of his blaster’s heat sink, its battery. Everything looked in order—8ball thought of 48, again. How was it even possible for a clone to forget his gun maintenance? How had 48 forgotten it? 48 lived and breathed weaponry. Spent half his time in Weapons. The longer 8ball sat stewing, the less sense it made.

Every thought of 48 quickly left his brain, though, as the first shot of the engagement rang out—from the clone side. A brave infantry trooper atop a boulder, going by the angle. He’d gotten first shot—maybe even first blood. 8ball quickly scoped in to follow the smoking trail but couldn’t make out any downed clankers. On a whim, he fired off a shot of his own. Too much distance meant it was his imagination supplying the ping of the tincan’s head crumpling inward, but he preened anyway. If he was right—if that infantry trooper’s shot hadn’t connected—then he got the first blood. First oil?

Fuck it, first kill of the battle. It felt good, pride and vicious vindication oozing like satisfaction out from his chest. “Just looking” his ass. He was helpful up on his ledge, which he knew was more than Kyr could say on the ground, shooting blindly over the edge of his trench. Dickhead.

8ball continued to comm numbers idly between his shots. Four units pushing forward on the eastward flank. Two SBDs coming up the center, ETA fifteen seconds to frontline. Reinforcements an entire company in size coming up at the back, ready to fill in the gaps. It was a war of attrition, 8ball realized. Kyr mentioned a high-profile target, hadn’t he? That target sure had a lot of fodder to throw for a quick distraction. Doubt twisted 8ball’s breath straight out of him. A unit of heavies. And was that—?

“Rollies, two, either flank,” 8ball snapped sharp into his radio, the realization sucker-punched out of him. He’d not realized—rolled-up, coated so thick in dust and grime that they’d blended right in. Had the droids camouflaged the—?

Baati didn’t copy. Baati always copied. 8ball found it grating—obnoxious and stuck-up and just too by the regs. 8ball would rather just be told if he needed to repeat himself than be barraged by the crackling gunfire-over-comms every single time he sent off a new piece of information.

“Lieutenant,” 8ball ground out, trying to breathe through his irritation. Why ignore him now? This might have been the most important information yet. “Say again: two droidekas coming up, one on each flank. How copy?”

Nothing. Silence, barely even static from the line. Doubt quickly morphing to dread, 8ball pushed himself half upright from his prone. Tapping in again, 8ball tried to remember his training. He’d never actually focused much on protocol for this kinda shit, but he’d passed, right? “Radio check.” And then, after a brief hesitation, “Over?”

Silence again. 8ball switched channels, tapping local first. “This is 8ball from Crown; radio check.”

None of the other scouts responded. He tried the Crown link. Nothing. Nobody was comming. That wasn’t right, which meant that something was wrong. They were getting jammed. Or scrambled. Or tapped, even. A chill went down 8ball’s spine. They didn’t know about the rollies. Or the gunship undoubtedly bringing in more reinforcements that moved to touch down well on the other side of the southern ridge. 8ball pushed himself the rest of the way up. He needed to run, then—Baati had said as much, right? Even if 8ball had missed that part. He didn’t know why nobody else was moving, but—

“Incoming!” a voice somewhere above him screamed, and 8ball didn’t think, just flinched back from the edge of his perch and braced.

A dangerous boom rocked the mesa and volleyed debris down on him. It took only one cadet-sized chunk landing inches from his huddled form for 8ball to quickly decide on a course of action. Instinct took over, and he managed to pull himself out back onto the steep cliffside just moments before a massive hunk of stone shot straight through the far side of his ledge, the dusty orange rock plowing straight through and down the hundred-some-odd feet to the ground. 8ball clung desperately to each handhold as he inched away from his now slowly crumbling perch. Sweat trickled down his neck and he swallowed back panic. Success was limited, but he at least did a better job than the scouts above him, many of which he could hear swearing over the blood in his ears.

He needed to get down. SBD rockets aside, comms were dead. Scouts would need to be runners, and he was closest to the ground. Descending proved much trickier work than ascending had been, both because he was working semi-blind and because there was a slight tremor to his hands that he attributed to the adrenaline pumping through him. Every second he spent descending dragged. Every beat of his heart could mean tens of clones dead. The rollies must be on them by now, he thought. And they’re not ready for the next wave of reinforcements. How did things go sideways so fast?

8ball didn’t need a clock to know he took too damn long getting down. A handful more rockets hit the mesa in that time, but none so directly above him as the first had been. He didn’t look at the rubble, already knowing he’d find at least one set of white plastoid if he tried. He’d find out who didn’t make it in the reports. For now, there was work to do.

The closer he got to the fighting, the worse he realized it was. The LT would be somewhere in the thick of it, probably. One of his new squad members was a medic, 8ball was pretty sure. The frontline was manned only by medics that had experience from Geonosis, and Baati wouldn’t stray too far from the unproven troopers assigned to him.

8ball ducked under flying plasma bolts and nearly toppled trying to swerve the panicked rush of troopers around him. Indistinct shouts and distant explosions blurred together in 8ball’s helmet audio processors, and he had half a mind to mute it entirely as he scanned and scanned for an officer—any officer at that point, he wasn’t picky. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary; Baati was talking quickly with a medic 8ball couldn’t immediately ID and visibly perked up when 8ball entered his line of sight.

“Scout, report,” the lieutenant barked, and 8ball straightened despite himself.

He took a quick breath. “Our position on the mesa was compromised. SBD’s have been shooting at us. I realized comms went down when I tried to report position of approaching rollies and an incoming dropship of reinforcements. That’s when they started firing at us, too.”

“That explains a lot,” Baati said with a tired shake of his head. “Good job, trooper. Unfortunately, not a lot we can do about comms, under fire like we are.”

An idea started taking shape in 8ball’s mind, fuzzy but there. “Sir, I can do something. The jammer can’t be too far, right? Let me infiltrate their ranks. I’ll sneak around their flank and—”

“No. We need you here.” Baati didn’t even consider it. “I need you to run numbers to and from the frontline. We have to hold this position until the Jedi can complete their mission.”

“I understand,” 8ball said, then added, “sir,” and continued through at full speed, “but if you give me a chance, if there are any scouts still left with high ground, numbers—”

“No,” Baati repeated, more sternly this time. “There are too many variables for your plan to be worth the risk. If you can find the jam, if you can sneak through, if there are still scouts who can report in. If we survive long enough to get those numbers. I need you here, now, running the information we do have. This isn’t up for debate.”

8ball swallowed back a knot of frustration. “… Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Good. Then get out there. I need numbers of wounded on the frontlines. Lieutenant Banks should be to the southeast perimeter; he’ll have the most accurate estimates.”

8ball brushed past Baati’s new heavy gunner and let running draw the dull, thrumming anger from his chest to his legs. Nobody listened to him, and 8ball couldn’t fathom why. The battle was falling apart less than a half hour without comms; if this was going to go on longer, they’d need them back online, and soon. But noooo, go run numbers, 8ball. Let’s just resort to the most primitive form of communication available, that will save us.

Any plans 8ball fostered of proving his worth were swiftly dashed further with each information run he made.

“No, we can’t complete that maneuver, we’ve got too many wounded.”

“He has to do it, tell him to make it work.”

“Muhmuhmuhmuh—”

Okay, so maybe the mocking of officers wouldn’t be considered acceptable behavior for a subordinate, but 8ball figured it didn’t matter if it all stayed in his head. The head that started spinning in circles from the menial messenger bird act he’d been thrown into. A sickening shadow of envy started to build in 8ball’s gut, and for the first time in probably his entire life, he wished he had just been left on the frontlines with his brothers. It’d be a dry day on Kamino before he extended that to its logical conclusion of longing to be around Kyr, but it was easy to picture himself alongside Myth, 48, and Punt, taking pot shots at droids and arguing about whose kill count was highest. Course would roll his eyes so hard they’d see it through the visor, and 48 would joke that Course would have a higher kill count than all of them by the time he got through handling all the idiots who’d had the misfortune of being carelessly wounded within fifty meters of him.

Gods, he just wanted to fight. Or at least properly scout. Turns out, wars of attrition maybe weren’t the best place to be when your job description wasn’t just “shoot.”

8ball ran back and forth and back until eventually, the droids began to fall back, and, not long after, their comms came back online. Presumably their “high profile target” had either gotten away or been captured. 8ball didn’t even have the energy to hope it was the latter.

The Kaminoans designed him to run—or, at least, he felt like they had. He’d never been one to complain about a nice bout of exercise, but as he dragged his feet back to Baati, he found no shortage of annoyances: the hot, dusty air, or the utter stupidity of the job he’d been given, for example. And, at what felt like the very base of his brain stem, the constant, niggling sense that he’d not proven anything at all. He’d only been useful for the first ten minutes. The rest of his squad undoubtedly saw so much more action from their position on the front. Knowing them, Myth probably hadn’t even needed 8ball’s information to predict the enemy’s movements. Course would’ve been invaluable patching up the wounded on the fly. Hell, he could even picture 48 contributing more than him, if Punt let him help with ordnance (and when didn’t he?).

What did you do, 8ball? Oh, you know, just ran back and forth so some prickly officers could argue half a mile from each other.

Embarrassing, but 8ball refused to let that fall onto himself—it was embarrassing for Baati to doubt 8ball. How much better would the 212th have fared with comms back? The captain could’ve argued with the LC directly, no middleman required. It probably would’ve taken the same amount of time, too.

Baati didn’t seem aware of the blunder he’d made when 8ball stepped in front of him. Instead, the stupid man seemed pleased, turning to 8ball and ignoring the slow stream of troopers heading to the landing zone.

“Good job out there, trooper. You’re Crown Squad, right?”

“Yes, sir,” 8ball said, bottling up his instinctive anger.

He didn’t know how to read the LT even with his helmet off, especially now that the man wasn’t under battle stress. “Get yourself onto a dropship. Second priority after wounded and officers.”

8ball had already half turned toward the landing zone before those words processed through the growing fatigue in his psyche. Second priority?

“Sir?” 8ball asked warily, turning back to Baati at full attention. “What for?”

Suddenly, 8ball didn’t need to know this brother to read him. Concern pinched his brow, and he seemed to glance at his comm. “I’d’ve thought you’d heard already, with comms back… Shouldn’t assume, I guess. Sorry.” The LT straightened up a little, that pinch loosening as the officer stepped back into formality. “A few of your squad members were injured. They got a medical evac first thing when comms came back. I haven’t heard much beyond that.”

Baati’s words dropped like a rock in 8ball’s stomach, like the boulder that’d smashed through his vantage point maybe an hour prior. “But they’re okay?”

“Last I heard, they’re all still alive,” Baati said, a careful non-commitment. Technically “alive” wasn’t what 8ball asked, but he’d certainly take it.

He didn’t wait for dismissal; he doubted it was coming, anyway. He pushed through throngs of white armor, wishing, for once, that Kyr walked beside him to clear the way.

It took no time at all to find room on a transport for a single lone scout. The trip up wasn’t nearly as comfortable as it was coming down; besides being packed in like cattle awaiting slaughter, not a soul in the ship hadn’t ended up bloody, sweaty, or otherwise covered in dirt and grime. The helmet filters could only do so much.

8ball wondered briefly which of his brothers had been injured. It could’ve been any of them, really. Kyr and Course, as untouchable as they seemed in his mind’s eye, were easy targets, Kyr always just ahead of the squad and Course often a sitting duck treating the injured with laser focus. 48 made himself a target anytime he got within ten meters of Punt, not to mention how reckless he could get at times. And Myth…

8ball didn’t want to imagine Myth getting hurt, but something in his gut forced him to remember that it was always a possibility. Myth hadn’t ever scored as well as the rest of them in physical conditioning, hadn’t ever scored as high on the sims. And then there was his bad habit of getting distracted…

The moment the ship door opened, 8ball hit the ground running; he didn’t need anyone to instruct him to the medbay. He ran the whole way there, sharp satisfaction curbing some of his anxiety as other troopers nearly fell to get out of his way under threat of trampling.

Until a trooper didn’t get out of his way, and 8ball hit the ground right with him. It wasn’t until the trooper had him in a lock that 8ball realized it was Kyr.

“Don’t run in the halls,” Kyr snapped as he slowly let 8ball loose, and 8ball immediately bristled.

“Baati told me someone was hurt! Who is it?” He pushed himself upright and tried to read Kyr’s face. “Course? 48?” Bingo, Kyr’s whole face tightened like 8ball had punched him. “It’s 48? Is he okay?”

“He’s… He’ll be fine. He’s in bacta.”

8ball’s eyes widened. “In the tank?”

Kyr sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes, he’s in the tank. Just went in before you got here.”

“What happened?”

“Only Shock can answer that,” Kyr sighed.

8ball’s own brow furrowed. “Shock?” He thought hard, but he was certain that name had never come up. Maybe that was the new medic?

But no, Kyr shook his head and that pained expression faded to something a little softer. “It’s what Course is calling him. We found him with a MagnaGuard’s electrostaff in his hands—don’t ask, I really can’t explain anything until he’s back up.”

“48 got his name?” 8ball demanded, an ugly something brewing in his chest. Without me there? he didn’t add.

“If he likes it. I think he will, though.”

8ball couldn’t explain the sensation like a knife twisting between his ribs, but he tried not to deflate too visibly. “Oh. Cool. Where’s Myth?” he tried.

“Also in the medbay. He was found with Shock… He’s awake last I saw, but he really shouldn’t be up right now. He took some bad hits. You can talk to him tomorrow,” Kyr added, reaching to plant a hand firmly on 8ball’s shoulder when the scout started trying to push past to the medbay. “The medics are about to be swarmed. They don’t need anyone else in their way. Unless you’re hurt?”

It pained him, but 8ball shook his head. Kyr was right, for once. “They’re both okay though?”

“Yes, 8ball,” Kyr sighed. “Myth is okay, and Shock will be just fine once the medics get through with him.”

Will be, Kyr said. He wondered if Course would have the same optimism, had 8ball asked him instead. Was “will be” the prognosis, or Kyr’s own forced optimism?

“Alright,” 8ball agreed, more than a little reluctant. “I guess I can visit tomorrow.”

Kyr’s expression cleared up, and 8ball shouldn’t be pleased to have lifted any imagined burden from his most obnoxious brother. “Good. Come with me back to the barracks?”

An olive branch.

Sure. 8ball would let it all go… for today. Tomorrow? Only time would tell.

Web tumblr is still aggravating me so have the image again as a separation between chapter and notes.

Chapter 1 (Tumblr)

PREVIOUS: Chapter 2 (Tumblr)

AO3 Chapter 3

Accompanying Fic (What's In A Name?)

Heyyyyyy... it's been a while <3333 This chapter fought me tooth and nail but true to my word I will never abandon the Boys.

[killuaisaprincess]

know this is a bit weird, but I thought I would share some ideas for Killua’s outfits, as I thought you could maybe use them if you like them enough? One of them is a white dress that had Choco robots on it and a black bow at the back. A galaxy themed dress with it looking like the night sky and being covered in stars. A red dress that has orange and white foxes all over it.

AHHHHHHH HENLOOOOOOOO

I'm not used to asks aha it's been about three years? Since I've gotten any nice ones that is 😭

AHHHH IT IS NOT WEIRD AT ALL I'm very honored actually

Crying in a good way 😭🥺 I AM PROBS THE WEIRD ONE cuz I’ll probs use this as a pick me up when I’m down

I know it’s just like a normal ask, but those are so rare to me it’s like TO ME IT IS LIKE AHHH

YES I SHALL USE 'EM ALL 🥺🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧😭

THEY ARE SO CUTE THE HECK AHHHH

KI WOULD LOOK SO PRECIOUS IN THEM ALL 😭 ehe honestly change your username 😤 CUZ THESE ARE PEAK and although I don't read fanfics minus my own I doubt you are a bad writer with ideas like that 😤

[marigoldbaker]

wanted to write a fun little coda to the party finding khalid fic + to close out everyone leaving the dungeon so ..... woooo yayyyyy

Briar watched Immy fade away and felt that same cool clarity settle over her shoulders: you love, you lose. Well, Immy had made a promise, and Briar intended to make her deliver, so she still had a reason to be here. Jaheira was saying something angry and vicious that would have comforted that long-ago dead Briar who wrapped herself in Khalid’s cloak, but the gods only knew where any of her things were: the star-spangled boots Briar had found on the road to Dragonspear, the feathered hat, the bagpipes she’d loved to death. She’d lost Briar, too, along the way.

“What’s a new name for me?” she asked.

Jaheira stopped saying whatever it was she was saying and pressed her mouth into this thin, hurting line, like she wanted to say silly girl but couldn’t anymore, and Briar knew why. Jaheira had promised to kill her if she was silly, and Jaheira, traitorous worm, was not willing to make good on that promise, so she was instead pretending that she hadn’t made it, that she didn’t believe it. Briar swore to her father—whichever one was listening—that she would never forgive Jaheira, never, for not making good on that promise when she should have. Dying in that dungeon would have meant never seeing Immy fade away.

Yoshimo glanced at Jaheira, then back at Briar. He didn’t look too happy to be with any of them. Briar supposed they weren’t the most functional bunch. Tentatively, he said, “I beg your pardon?”

“Briar won’t do,” said Briar. “It doesn’t suit me anymore. The girl I was is dead.”

Jaheira said, “Briar,” very tiredly.

“I’d go for Rose,” Briar continued, “but I can’t carry a dead girl’s love forward. Dead girl loving dead girl—oh, that suits. I like to think Briar’s with Skie, now. Isn’t that nice?” She tilted her head up and stared at the sun until her eyes burned. Kept staring.

“Briar,” said Jaheira again.

“Not my name!” Briar chirped. She turned the names over—all the names she could think of. “I had a name with thorns when I was only a flower—I suppose I’ll be only a flower, now that I’m all thorns. Jaheira, you’re a druid. You know flower names. What’s a good name for me?”

Jaheira pressed her lips together and kept walking.

“Say it,” said Briar. She smiled. “Say I’m a silly girl. Take out your sword and fucking carve it into me, why don’t you?”

Jaheira let out this sobbing breath like the whole world hurt, and it made Briar feel so good to hear. Like the best kind of music. If this was the world, let it all be wrong: let Jaheira have nothing sharp to say, let Khalid be flayed out and dissected on a table in front of them, let Immy be somewhere that kept her from keeping her promises.

Let Briar be cruel.

Though not very much had changed there.

[shrinkthisviolet]

Hey everyone! So I mentioned before that I’d be cross-posting my prompt fills to AO3, and they’ll be posted to this series! The first few are already up. I’m cross-posting them oldest to newest.

Important note: they’ll all be backdated so the date matches the day I filled them on Tumblr, mostly for organizational purposes. So unless you’re a) subscribed to me and/or the series or b) looking at my number of works, you probably won’t notice a difference unless you look at the series page.

Hopefully it won’t flood your inbox too much if you’re subscribed to me 😂 since I know AO3 usually compiles multiple uploads per day by a single author into one email. Apologies in advance if it does though! This is definitely gonna be a lengthy process, so bear with me.

[ekingston]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

PLEASE check my later versions of this post via my main page to make sure you have the latest version of this post before you reblog. All the information I’ve been able to gather is in my reblogs below, and it's frustrating to see the old version getting passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much!

[angora48]

Chapters: 17/17 Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald Characters: Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswin Oswald Additional Tags: Minor Clara Oswin Oswald/Danny Pink, Sickfic, Sick Character, Colonialism, Canon-Typical Violence, Terrorism, Caretaking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Whump Summary:

The Doctor is anxious to talk Clara into their next adventure, but she can't help noticing that the Doctor doesn't seem like himself.

A Twelfth Doctor sickfic set during series 8, between "The Caretaker" and "Kill the Moon."

[cosmoszyn]

open arms | zayne.

synopsis: zayne picks you up at the bus station in a downpour, attempting to appease you after a small argument

content: zayne x reader, little hurt/comfort, fluff, established relationship, banters, reader is a lil stubborn and hard-headed

word count: 2,684

author's note: lol this is very self-indulgent and ... sawrry it took this long, i was swamped with work and several travels. likes, comments, and reblogs are highly appreciated!

cross posted in my ao3

“Care to explain what you are doing here in the rain?” 

“...No.”

Zayne nearly clicks his tongue at your stubbornness. Instead, he presses the hazard lights in his vehicle and darts his gaze at you again, “Come inside.”

You stare at him with furrowed brows, your arms wrapped around your shivering body with the tiny bus stop shed measly protecting you from the downpour. Zayne seems collected, looking at you expectantly through his glasses from his sleek black Audi, his one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting on the passenger seat with its windows rolled down. The offer is tempting enough, especially with the fact that Zayne has set the temperature just as toasty as you wish it would be. 

But the earlier argument from your shared space resurfaces in your brain. Which warrants you to take a step back and look to the other side of the road.

“Don’t wanna,” you persist, folding your arms across your chest.

Your lover swallows thickly at your words, body resuming to driving position and looking straight at the road,  “Alright. Have it your way,” he says, rolling the windows back up.

And for a second, you feel panic rising in your stomach, knowing that you do want to get in the car and be comfortable! Not to mention that you don’t know what time the next bus will arrive as you’ve been stuck in the shed for almost thirty minutes now, so getting inside his car seemed to be the most reasonable option. But Zayne just pisses you off at the moment. 

Until you hear him adjusting the shift gear and the slamming of the car door. Your eyes followed the sound and your gaze was met with Zayne’s hunched back, his left hand doing nothing from shielding his body from the rain, walking around the vehicle. Your hands fall to your sides as he reaches you under the shed and before you can even get a word out, he already has you over his shoulders like a rag doll and within a minute, you were gently placed in the passenger seat of his car.

You couldn’t even protest when he leaned over your space, “You can roll your eyes at me later but I need you to behave now,” he explains, reaching out to the seatbelt and fastening it to your side. “Because if you think I’d let your idiocy and pride win tonight, you must have forgotten who you are dating.” 

You immediately roll your eyes at his words. In response, Zayne presses his two fingers in your forehead, gently pushing it backward, “I said, behave.” 

He didn’t even give you a chance to reply as he is already closing your door and walking to his side. You fold your arms across your chest again, huffing a breath as you look at your window, watching the raindrops patter on the glass.

Within seconds, Zayne settles beside you, his hair and clothes damp from the drizzle. You take a peek of him from your peripheral vision, watching water drip from the tips of hair to his shoulders. As he fastens his seatbelt, you reach out to the glove compartment of his car, and toss him the box of tissues he keeps religiously.

“You’ll get sick,” you mumble under your breath, avoiding his eyes, insisting on staring at the bus stop shed you were under just a couple of seconds ago. And you know for a fact that Zayne’s lips slightly twitch upward in amusement at your attempts to care for him.

“Isn’t someone so caring?” He says, humor lacing his tone as he pulls the tissues, patting himself dry.

You let out a huff, almost sounding like a scoff, “Savor this moment, I guess. It won’t happen again.”

You hear Zayne tossing the tissues at his cup holders by his door, “And someone’s being a little moody too, huh?”

You ignore his comment, continuing to stare ahead at the window with your lips pressed into a thin line. Zayne, on the other hand, could still feel your frustrations and anger directed at him. He shifts the gear of the car and proceeds to accelerate slowly, deft hands carefully pulling away from the curb and driving through the familiar roads.

Minutes of silence engulfed in the vehicle, neither wanting to break the tension bubbling, afraid that it may lead into an argument again. But despite the uncertainty of the situation, Zayne could never seem to find himself staying in this predicament with you. And so, he softly exhales, “Would you like to explain why you were shivering in the rain earlier?” He almost whispers under his breath.

You huff, “I wasn’t in the rain. I was at the bus stop,” you mumble.

Semantics, he wants to say. But he holds off his tongue. “What made you decide to be sarcastic today?” He says playfully, which warrants another roll of your eyes, refusing to even face him.

“Because someone would rather defend an intern for unabashedly flirting with him than side with his girlfriend,” you grumble under your breath, enough for him to hear.

Your lover purses his lips, knowing only himself could be to blame for even trying to make the atmosphere lighter. He dug his own grave at that moment. His fingertips drumming onto the steering wheel as he recalls how the argument came about.

Earlier, Zayne just arrived from a gruelling 12-hour shift at the hospital, ranting about how he had sudden back-to-back emergency surgeries to take care of while he was pressing a kiss to your hair and simultaneously shrugging off his coat and lab gown. You hum in acknowledgment, telling him how you had already prepared him a nice warm bath in his stead. He sighs in appreciation, sluggishly dragging himself to the bathroom to submerge himself into the water.

And as he does so, you decide to clean up after him, picking up his coat and lab gown from the rack to toss into the laundry. However, the moment you sling his clothes in your arms, you manage to whiff a feminine scent deeply ingrained in your boyfriend’s lab coat. You were absolutely certain that it’s not one of your perfumes as you have never worn anything so powerful from the one that you caught and the fragrance seemed to be quite fresh, like it was sprayed prior to his clock-out at work.

Your mind spirals with all the possibilities. You were definite that Zayne would never… entertain another woman when he is in a committed relationship with you. You knew his character inside out and if he wishes to see other people, you knew deep in your soul that he’d rather tell you straight up than beat around the bush. 

You feel your surroundings spinning and your gut twisting at the thought that somebody is doing this to your lover. You take a moment to yourself, carefully sitting down at the couch as you continue to cling onto his clothes. As the seconds ticked into minutes, you barely heard the sound of the bathroom door opening and your boyfriend’s footsteps padding through the hallway of your shared apartment. 

“Darling? Why are you still not in bed?” He calls out, ruffling his hair with his towel.

“Zayne,” you say, and he visibly flinches at the tone of your voice and your lack of endearment. You refuse to look at him, your eyes staring straight ahead.

“Is something the matter, my love?” He asks, confusion written all over his face.

You swallow thickly, glancing up at him, “I need you to be honest with me, Zayne.”

His head slightly cocks to the side, “Is there a problem?”

“Your lab coat smells like a different woman,” you say straightforwardly, staring at him with a blank look that demands an explanation and almost begging that none of this is happening. Zayne scowls at your words, “What?” He muttered, taking the coat from yours and sniffing it. Once he caught a whiff of the familiar aroma, he visibly sighs, rubbing his temples and turning his heel away, “It must be that new intern in our department. She seems too eager to be working with me,” he explains in a flat tone, which would’ve been enough for you on a normal day. But for some reason, the gears in your head just turn. “You do not need to worry yourself over this. It’s nothing,” he continued as he placed his gown in the washing machine.

“Have you done anything to call her behavior out?” You ask, trailing behind him, the frown in your face deepening. Zayne clenches his jaw, pressing into the setting of the washing machine “Is it necessary?”

Suddenly, you felt the rage of all your female ancestors rising within you. “You’re asking me if it’s necessary?” You scoff, folding your arms across your chest, “You’re a smart guy, Zayne. What do you think?” You challenge.

Zayne exhales, “Darling, can I ask you to not do this right now?”

“I just need an answer,” you demand.

His face tightens and he sighs, “I do not think it’s necessary as she is just an intern–”

“Then what about me, Zayne?” You ask, cutting him off, “Are my feelings just… unimportant to you?”

You were certain that you were being a little too much right now, especially knowing that your boyfriend has fatigue creeping up on him after his shift. But there was something in you that felt the need to claw out answers from him, even if it’s in an unhealthy way possible.

“My love, I am serious. I would want to have this conversation another time, please,” Zayne calmly says, almost pleading, the weariness in his face growing evident. And instead of letting the subject go, you huff and walk away, “Fine. Have it your way.”

And being stubborn is one thing you know how to do. Because instead of wrapping yourself under the comforts of your duvet in your shared bed, you grab your blanket and pillow while Zayne is expectantly waiting for you to embrace him for the night and lull himself to sleep with your warmth beside him.

“Darling where are you going–?”

“I am not sleeping with you tonight. I am still upset that you did nothing to call her behavior out.”

You thought Zayne would actually trail behind you and ask you to stop being difficult, using his strength to force you back to bed. But he lets you grumble on the couch, settling yourself underneath the thin blanket that does nothing to warm you up. You toss and turn on the couch, desperate to catch some sleep and a comfortable position but to no avail.

Until you hear careful footsteps padding across the living which elicits a thought from you that maybe he will finally ask you to come back to bed.

You wait for his words as your eyes are screwed shut, pretending to be asleep. Instead, you just hear the front door of your apartment opening and closing.

And in your frustration and anger, instead of following him and asking him to come back home, knowing he just went to the hospital to continue working, you returned the favor. You decided to go to the Hunters Association and finish the paperwork you have been putting off since last week.

Which led you to your predicament of being stuck on the bus stop while the rain poured heavily from the skies.

The car was filled with another minute of silence and he’s finding the right words to say to his lover. In the first place, he was never good with verbalizing his feelings, so being in this dilemma makes him feel a little queasy, especially when this seemed to be the biggest problem you two have encountered as a couple so far.

As he continues to file through his brain on what to say, he decides on a simple thing, “I’m sorry.”

You ignore his words.

“You have every right to be mad at me tonight but all I ask of you is to sleep beside me later,” he said, carefully driving through the slippery streets.

“Bold of you to demand that when you just up and left without a word,” you grumble.

“I had to take care of things,” he replies calmly. And in your head, you were already screaming several sarcastic remarks and rolling your eyes until you were sure you could see your skull. But before you could settle in on a perfect comeback, he speaks up again, “It seems I wasn’t appreciating my girlfriend’s feelings enough that I had to let her go through that emotional turmoil.”

You bite your inner cheek, listening to his words. “And I hope she listens to me tonight and comes home because I have already dealt with a rather… nuisance of a trainee at the hospital. Only to find out from my lover’s colleague that she worked overtime and is shivering in the rain,” he says. 

Finally, you turn your head to meet his gaze, which has been glued the entire time on the road. “You did?” You ask, almost in a whisper.

He merely nods, “I could never live with the fact that you feel insecure in this relationship. It is my job to have you feel assured and safe. And if it meant driving back to the hospital to speak with the intern in the midst of her night shift, I would gladly do so.”

Your bottom lip juts out instinctively as you feel your heart swell in his words, “Zayne…” 

“Besides, I could also never stand living with someone so grumpy and hard-headed to the point where she’d let me sleep alone in the bed.”

“Hey!”

Zayne’s lips slightly twitch upward as he knows you only focused on the first words. The stoplight glows yellow then transitions into a bright red, opting your lover to pause his driving and turn to you, “Is the little grouchy girl finished with her tantrums?”

“I’m not grouchy! My feelings were valid, Zayne,” you huff.

Zayne suppresses his smile as he presses a hand to your cheek, “I know, my love. Your feelings were and are valid. I apologize if it seemed like I wasn’t prioritizing you.”

You release a small sigh, your lips slightly quivering upward at the feelings of his warm hands, “Okay. I’m sorry too, Zayne. I was being a little harsh and forceful.”

“Apology slightly accepted,” he replies, removing his hand from yours, placing it back on the steering wheel.

Your eyes fly open at his words, cocking your head sideways in confusion, “Slightly?”

“Well you do have to compensate me for spending the night chasing you instead of resting, dear,” he says, pushing his glasses upward. You narrow your eyes at him in suspicion as he slowly accelerates the vehicle again, “What kind of compensation?”

Instead of replying to you, his lips break out a wide smile and his right hand taps on his cheek twice while his eyes remain on the road, and his left hand maneuvering the steering wheel effortlessly (which makes you feel things but you ignore it). 

You raise a brow at him “Just a kiss on the cheek?”

Zayne remained silent. Thinking it was nothing, you shrugged and leaned forward, ready to press a kiss to his cheek. But before you can reach the skin of his cheek, he suddenly turns his head, urging you to plant your lips with his momentarily, causing your eyes to widen. He pulls away from the peck, catching a glimpse of your surprised expression with a smug smirk threatening to pull from the corners of his mouth. 

“Zayne, that was dangerous!” You exclaim, your fingertips ghosting over your lips while heat creeps up your cheeks. Instead of replying, your lover merely hums, continuing his drive like nothing happened, eyes glued to the road as he feels you beside him still recover from the fleeting kiss.

“At least I fully accepted your apology, did I not?”

“Even if it cost us our lives?” 

“Oh please my love, don’t be dramatic.”