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tainted-wine · 5 years ago

Text

Past Due

Reader X Giran, Dabi, and Mr. Compress (NSFW)

(OOF, This little bastard of a fic has been fighting me every step of the way. It took so long because I was second guessing every single sentence I wrote. Finally, here’s the darkest shit I’ve written so far.)

(This is pre-Overhaul arc, so the bois Giran and Compress are still whole)

Words: 7.8k

Heed These Warnings: Murder, Kidnapping, Noncon/Dubcon, Giran being a dangerous dude, Knives, Forced Oral and Anal, Voyeurism, Humiliation, and the Protagonist just being a total dumbass

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For as long as you have lived, luck has been by your side like a bipolar twin attached to your hip. It was thanks to luck that you were born into a quirkless family in the trashiest of neighborhoods, your penniless parents separating and leaving you to fend for yourself. The streets had no use for you; no quirk, no charisma, no money, you were just another parasite desperately clinging onto the city’s rotten underbelly.

But it was also thanks to luck that you survived this long. The average person can remember each and every brush with death in their life clearly, but you—you’ve lost count of how many times this cruel world has tried to pick you off. So far, you have dodged every bullet, knife, and blast of quirk-based power aimed in your direction. How do you keep slipping past all of these dangerous criminals? Your reckless ass has no idea. Luck was simply a sadistic douchebag that enjoyed dangling you over the jaws of death, only to yank you back up and repeat the process like a sad little yo-yo.

As you drove to your place in a panic, you wonder if luck has ever fucked you this hard before.

———

Things had gotten somewhat organized, and by that you mean that you finally had some sort of plan instead of gravitating toward the nearest opportunity that didn’t look ready to tear you apart and throw your remains in an alley. You’ve even made an accomplice, a woman not quite as powerless as you, but an unfortunate soul with less experience in this…line of work. To make things even better, you managed to strike a deal with a prominent broker. Giran was a name known all throughout Japan’s black market, and to think that he’d see potential in a quirkless broad whose notable trait was simply not dying—it was your lucky day. He supplied you with weapons that will make surviving in this hellhole much easier, telling you to pay him within the next five days.

Your partner in crime asked if this was a good idea, that you didn’t seem capable of gathering that amount of money in the span of time you were given. There was no reason for her to worry; with the heat the two of you were packing now, you now had the ability to rob more than distracted civilians wandering the streets.

But before you could even enjoy your brand new firepower, luck decided to be a total asshole again. It was only the second day when you both were ambushed by a group of ruffians. Their quirks were pretty damn impressive, honestly. One of them levitated your gun right out of your hands before you could even fire, instantly leaving you helpless so that the other dudes could close in and beat the snot out of you.

The two of you woke up, bruised, bloodied, and stripped of Giran’s weapons. Damn, you don’t remember a deal ever going south this quickly. Must be a new record.

Alright, so your weapons were gone and you only have a fraction of the money so far. You can figure this out. Your partner was fuckin’ hysterical and you have to smack her before she gives herself a heart attack. The money was barely coming in, and before you knew it, the fifth day had arrived.

Yeah, you weren’t ready to face him yet.

Look, you weren’t exactly running away from him, you were just making sure to give yourself some space while you got your shit back together. That’s why you immediately moved to another part of town and now made sure to never drive down the same route twice. No, you weren’t gathering money for yourself and completely brushing off Giran, like your partner was suspecting. She has no idea what she’s talking about so she needs to shut up already and help you sell this jewelry that you worked so hard in stealing.

Okay, maybe Giran has been trying to call you for the past couple of days and you were officially ghosting him, but she didn’t need that knowledge to add to her stress. You probably weren’t even in any danger. The deal didn’t cost that much, and he didn’t seem like the type of guy to get truly pissed over some petty crook like you, right?

It’s been a week since the due date, and you both were still safe and sound. It was time to get your paranoid little buddy and discuss your next course of action.

When you reached her shoddy rented room, the door was already cracked open. Strange, and very careless; she should know better. You pushed it the remainder of the way and strutted inside. “Don’t leave your door open, dumbass. Anyway, I gotta—”

Your partner was sprawled out on the bed, open eyes still showing hints of the terror that she most definitely felt before her body became riddled with bullets. The smell of smoke and blood finally reached your nose when the shock of the scene before you wore off. The poor gal probably didn’t deserve such a gruesome fate.

“Oh…nevermind.” You close the door and briskly walk through the hall and out of that dangerous building.

------

This all led up to you speeding to your own run-down apartment.

‘Don’t jump to conclusions, now. This might have nothing to do with Giran. Maybe she pissed off some guys behind my back, or maybe I pissed them off and they found her before they found me. I keep forgetting just how many shit-lists probably have my name on them.’

Whatever it was, that instinctive twist in your gut was telling you that it was no longer safe around these parts. You had overstayed your welcome, anyway.

You glanced in every direction as you entered the building. At what time was your partner killed? If they’re after you too, do they already know where you live? There was no time to waste.

Checking to see that you weren't being followed, you entered your room and went straight to packing. You were basically a drifter, so you had few long-term possessions, so few that they could all fit into one bag. You packed your clothes, essential groceries, and your knickknacks that were ripe for selling. You’re loaded up and ready to go, and you don’t even need to go through the trouble of contacting an accomplice anymore. It’s those paper-thin silver linings that keep you going through this endless shitstorm of a life. With a silent goodbye to your short-lived home, you made your way to the door…

And a series of knocks freezes you in your tracks.

The sudden quickening of your heartbeat was dizzying. Shit. Shit shit shit. Whoever is on the other side can’t be friendly, but you had checked! You made sure no one was tailing you!

You backed away while your eyes darted around, deciding if you should defend yourself or find an alternate route to escape. Your only line of defense was a switchblade, so fighting was probably as bad of an idea as it usually was. You looked back to the single window in the room. ‘The fire escape.’

Several harder knocks spurred you into action. You unlocked and pulled at the old window, the worn frame almost breaking off as it opened. The damn ladder and stairs were one room across, but you can jump across the sills if you were careful enough.

There were more knocks, this time followed by a male voice. “Why the hell are we knocking? She’s not gonna answer.”

Another man responded. Shit, there’s more than one? “True. I just like to give the peaceful route a try.”

Something happened to the door that your fear-addled mind couldn’t comprehend. In the span of a second, the wooden door’s shape was warped and shrunken down into a small sphere. You didn’t spend any time to observe the two men at the entrance—you were already scrambling out of the window. The small ledge was difficult to balance on. If you could just get enough leverage for a jump…

“Oi!”

Fuck, you had to take the leap now, but before you could, a pair of hands took hold of you. In a blind panic, you drew your small blade and swung wildly at your attacker, doing your best not to lose your footing. One hand drew back and you heard a hiss of something like “little bitch”, and you thought this was your chance to break free and get away, but the hand still gripping the waist band of your pants got hot, so hot that it reached your skin and had you yelling in pain from the intense heat. With a powerful yank, you were falling back into the room and being pinned to the floor.

‘No no come on, Lady Luck. You’re always here to save my ass, right? I could use your help right fucking now.”

You thrashed and screamed, but then you saw the face of your captor and ew, that shit made you scream even louder. At least make the last face you see more appealing and less…burnt.

The burned man just looked annoyed while holding you down. “Just compress her already.”

Compress? What? Were they about to crush you? That sounds like a really shitty way to go. A gloved hand was pressed to your head, and everything began to distort at a rate too fast for your mind.

It was dark…you felt like you were floating…are you dead? Did it happen that fast? At least it was painless. There was a voice echoing somewhere, but all you saw was blackness. It sounded like it was coming from above. “God?” He’s real, after all?

God sounded very similar to the burnt asshole that attacked you. “That was easy. Why did he need us for this?”

The other voice that you still couldn’t attach a face to answered. “Giran does a lot for the League. It’s only fair that we do him the occasional favor, isn’t it? Her partner has already been taken care of.”

Well shit. Not only were you still alive, but you had been captured in some way to be delivered to him. You wanted to believe that you were in no serious danger, but no one sends two guys to break into your place and abduct you unless they had something sadistic in mind. Maybe your late partner was onto something this whole time.

The talking continued, but the sound was so faint. It’s like you were wearing a thick pair of earmuffs. This entire void, or whatever it is, was uncomfortable—the darkness seemed vast, yet it felt claustrophobic and heavy, like a powerful gravity preventing you from moving. What kind of quirk was this?

The mystery man was talking again. “Your arm is bleeding.”

“Oh right, she caught me with that little blade.” The burnt one said calmly. “It’s not that bad. My arms can’t feel much.”

“It’s not the pain I’m worried about; find something to wrap it up!” There was a sound that was difficult to discern, possibly a long sigh. “She made quite a scene at the window. I hope she didn’t bring any attention to us.”

You heard a grunt from the burnt one and could picture him shrugging. “If anyone asks, we’ll just say that she was a jumper and we stopped her.”

“…Who in the world tries to jump from only three stories?”

“A dumbass, and I’m pretty sure that’s what she is.”

The burnt guy can kiss your ass.

Their conversations were the only indication of time passing. Maybe you heard a few noises from whatever area they were currently in, such as a car passing by or a dog barking, but it was all too muffled to know for sure.

You hope you won’t be stuck in this prison for too long. The emptiness of it all was going to drive you insane. The abyss apparently sensed your distressed, shaping lights and colors all around and lifting the phantom weight off of you so quickly that you had to hold down a rush of bile in your throat.

It’s still fairly dark…a dimly lit room, no furniture, your knees on a hardwood floor, a figure sitting in front of you…

“Good morning.”

A greeting has never filled you with so much dread, uttered by a voice you haven’t heard in nearly two weeks.

The big-time broker himself was seated before you in a simple metal chair. When you met him in the bar to do business together, he had such a nonchalant aura around him, friendly yet detached. The smirk on his face seemed permanent, wearing it even now as he stared down at you, the little rat that has been hiding in the cracks of the city to avoid his sight. You didn’t feel threatened at all when you spoke in the bar; part of you knew that this man was in no way harmless, but he didn’t go out of his way to intimidate.

But now, even with the same relaxed posture and the same informal tone, his presence was sending strong chills down your spine with your brain screaming DANGER.

Giran leaned in, elbows resting on his thighs and a lit cigarette tucked between his fingers. The hanging bulbs illuminated only parts of his face, leaving the rest in a menacing shadow. “How have you been?”

You had no idea how to answer that. “F-fine?”

He gave a satisfied hum, as if he cared about your wellbeing. “That’s good to know. You’ve been hard to contact lately, so I had no idea.”

You swallowed, or at least you tried, but your throat was forgetting how to work properly. “I…” A cough escaped you. “I’ve been busy.”

His gruff chuckle unsettled you. “Of course. We’re all so busy these days, aren’t we? I’m not the type to stick my nose in others’ business, but may I ask what you’ve been so busy with? Hopefully something that involved gathering my money?” There it was.

Creating some more distance between your potential killer might help you think a little more clearly through the loud beating in your head, so you crawl backwards on shaky limbs like a drunk crab. “Y-yes! I’ve been doing my best, it’s just that I ran into a little problem an—” You bumped into something, turning your head to see a man looming over you. His attire was sharp, like that of a showman—even had a damn top hat. However, the mask he wore was rather ominous, the strange pattern resembling an abstract face. He didn’t budge when you had backed into his leg, only looking down at you as if you were a scared kitten.

In the corner of your vision you noticed the burnt one leaning back against the wall, watching you with disinterest. If it weren’t for the cold stare and the peril that he’s already put you through, you’d dare to admit that the greenish-blue hue of his eyes were kind of pretty.

“Don’t mind them,” Giran said with a lazy wave. “Those two are being kind enough to stick around in case I need them again. So, you were saying?”

You tried to recall where you were in your improvised excuse, and decided that you couldn’t risk having such a lie backfire. “I-I’m working on it. I have most of it so far. I just need a little more time.”

Giran’s face didn’t change. “And how much do you have?”

“Um…I…” What the hell do you say? Are you just digging yourself deeper? Is it possible to go any deeper? “Maybe I don’t have most, but I will soon so—”

“How much do you have?” It was firmer this time, making you shrink back. Dancing around his question wasn’t a good idea.

With a shaky breath, you answered quietly, “A hundred thousand yen.”

Giran placed the cigarette between his lips and took a long drag before blowing out a small cloud of toxic fumes. “A hundred thousand…of my three hundred thousand yen.”

Fuck, when he says it like that, maybe that is a lot of money to be missing out on.

You honestly wished he would show some sort of anger; his unwavering calmness was making you more anxious than any kind of rage.

“Can you tell me what you didn’t understand?” He asked.

“Huh? What…do you mean?” You couldn’t hold back the tremble in your voice.

“When we talked, I thought I made my measures clear. I give you the weapons, you pay me within the next five days. For every late day, I add more to what you already owe me. And if you take way too long, I’ll have to personally show you why you shouldn’t make deals where you can’t hold up your end.” He took another drag. You’re getting a feeling that the shrinking roll of tobacco is playing a big role in maintaining his leveled head. “Well, that all sounds clear to me, but there must be something in that explanation that didn’t get through to you, because you just ignored all of it.” Those final words were topped with a humorless laugh.

Just like that, every foolish decision you’ve made during the past week slams down on you. You were like a child that was confident they could escape whatever punishments were planned for them, now that they were finally caught, they just wanted to blubber endless apologies in hopes of being forgiven, and that’s exactly what you do. “Please, please just give me more time. I’m sorry. I just need another chance.”

Giran simply rests his head in one of his hands while pondering. “You know, this normally wouldn’t bother me. I consider myself an even-tempered guy. But you just had to go and run, avoiding my calls and hiding away for an entire week. If there’s anything that steams me up,” his brows furrowed, the first physical sign of anger that he’s shown. “It’s when an uncooperative client runs from me. Sorry about your friend, but I had to make sure I got my point across. Now it’s your turn.”

He reached into his violet jacket and pulled out a knife. Most of it was a large bulky handle, topped with a short but efficiently thin and curved blade. A wood carving knife.

As he rose from his chair and approached, you were suppressing the urge to just laugh at your own distress, a habit of yours that has caused more than one misunderstanding in the past.

“Compress, if you will.” Giran’s hand beckoned you upwards.

The man still behind you, apparently named Compress, locked both of your wrists at your back before pulling you up on your feet. “Hey-I-Wha-Wait a minute! We can talk! I can fix this!” You stuttered in pure desperation. Giran was poking at the tip of the knife and testing its sharpness, paying no attention to your pleas.

“It’s a shame, really. I happen to have one major weakness,” he admitted while inspecting his pricked finger. “Women. I’m always going easy on them—giving them more chances than they deserve. I can’t help it.” He grips your cheeks roughly, making you squeak. “And it really breaks my heart that I have to ruin such a pretty lady.”

“You don’t have to.” Your squished puckered lips sputter out, making you look and sound ridiculous. “Maybe I cou—"

The knife hovering so close to your face silences you. “Where should I start?” He wondered. You hold as still as possible while the sharp metal lingers dangerously close to your eye. “Maybe I should take out an eye? Maybe both?” His grip on your face prevents you from turning away, so you shut your eyes instead, accidentally releasing the tears that have been gathering in the corners. You feel his hand lower to hold your chin so that he can press the blade against the side of your face, so close to breaking skin. “Or maybe I’ll carve out your cheeks?” A thumb brushes against your lips and pushes past them. “You are quite a talker. Maybe I ought to go in there and remove that tongue.”

Your eyes remain closed, trying to focus on something else. The full-body tremors that you couldn’t stop, the press of Compress’s body against your back as he held onto your wrists, anything but the deadly blade trailing across your flesh. Every time the cruel man applied pressure, you braced yourself for the pain of cold steel cutting into you like fresh produce, but he would always pull back. It was pure torture and he hasn’t even harmed you yet.

“Hmm, you really are a cute one,” you heard him murmur as the knife trailed down your neck and across your collar. “Do I really want to carve such pretty skin?”

There was a loud groan, prompting your eyes to open and look to the burnt one who left his post at the wall. “For fuck’s sake, old man. How about I handle this so you don’t have to play mental tug-o-war with yourself?”

Giran didn’t seem fazed by the crude way he was addressed. “Oh? What did you have in mind, Dabi?”

Dabi gave an evil smirk of his own as he walked over. “I wonder how badly I can burn a person without killing them.” A scarred hand was placed on your shoulder and you squirmed at the rising heat. “Maybe we can find out together. How about it, girlie?”

You felt the other man behind you shake with a soft laugh. “So cruel, Dabi. I’m a gentleman myself. I could help, but taking a limb or two from such a beauty would be an unforgivable crime.” The implication of what he could do with his quirk made you fear for your arms that were still in his grasp.

“Great. Chivalry isn’t dead in the world of villains.” Dabi rolled his eyes. “You’re not wrong, though. She doesn’t look bad.”

There were too many hands on you. A rough aged hand caressed your throat and jaw, a gloved hand was tenderly running through your hair, and burned ones were shamelessly groping your chest and squishing your breasts. “Stop! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Shut it.” Dabi snapped, not letting up his assault. “Burning you might be a waste. Maybe I should just fuck you instead.”

Your stomach twisted in disgust at the very thought. The other two men pulled back and stilled at the suggestion. This nasty motherfucker wishes he’d get some. At least there were more reasonable voices in the room to keep the sicko away.

“Well now, that’s not a bad idea.” Giran declared with a nod of approval.

‘Ex-fucking-scuse me?’

Compress gave your shoulder a suggestive squeeze. “A vulgar way of putting it, but it’s an idea I can get behind.”

“Then it looks like we’ve all come to a new agreement.” The sleazebag exhaled smoke right into your face, stinging your already watery eyes and forcing several coughs out of you. “I hope you’re alright with that, darling.”

You shook your head fast enough to disorient yourself. “No! This is sick! Get your hands off me!”

“No good, huh? You think I should stick to the original plan?” Dabi dared you with a dazzling blue flame appearing in his palm. The memory of his scorching touch had you freezing up. “I’m just kidding, I don’t give a shit if you want this or not. This ain’t a friendly hookup.”

Compress leaned into your ear, voice sounding horribly close even with the mask protecting you from his lips. “I’m going to let you go now, and you’re going to cooperate with us, right? Surely you know how outmatched you are.”

Yes, you knew, yet there’s a little voice strongly urging you to fight and attempt an escape anyway. But you knew that will only end in pain and possibly death, and even though you were dreading what they had planned for you, the pitiful survivor in you is willing to sacrifice your dignity to stay alive. And so, you nodded.

“Very good,” you heard the smile in his praise. Your tender wrists were released so that he could take the hem of your shirt and slowly begin to pull it up. Your arms remained stiffly at your sides, the oppressive air around the three dangerous villains suffocating and leaving you light-headed.

“Cooperation, remember?” Compress reminded you.

With a hitched breath, you raised your arms, allowing him to peel the shirt off and throw it aside. Dabi wasted no time in exploring your newly revealed skin, while the gloved hands moved on to work at your bra and Giran undid your pants. You try to keep your breathing steady as you’re stripped, even when your pants fall down to your ankles. The second your bra is unclasped, you move to cover your freed breasts, only for the scarred bastard to slap your arms away.

“Quit it, I’m trying to feel you up,” He wasn’t very gentle in handling you, and his texture was so strange, wrinkled skin and the staples keeping him together scraping across your mounds. While he ventured lower, the other two men took their turn with your feminine assets.

Giran was fondling you slowly, but he seemed to be paying much more attention to your face, the face that you were having a very hard time keeping blank while Compress was massaging your other breast way too tenderly. It would help to shut your eyes once again, but that only enhances their touches, sparking goosebumps all over and threatening to pull a moan from your throat. You chose to look to the side and hide away from the broker’s dull gaze, but there was no avoiding Dabi’s hand palming your clothed sex, making you yelp. “AH! Don’t! You can’t just—”

He squeezed you down there, sending a foreign buzz through your abdomen. “What the hell did I just say?” He scolded. “I think I know how to shut you up.”

Giran made an amused hum. “Well Dabi, given you were the one who suggested this, I’ll grant you the honor of teaching her a lesson first.”

Your stomach dropped at the rough lips parting into a toothy grin. “You’re too kind.”

“Just don’t ruin her too quickly, alright?” Compress urged him before patting your back and stepping away. Giran also turned away and returned to his chair, leaning back with one leg crossing over the other.

The only one holding you now was the fiery villain; it had you sweating profusely even without the use of his quirk.

“Now, on your knees,” he ordered and pushed down onto your shoulders, forcing you to kneel. Your chest was tightening painfully when he unbuckled his belt to draw his half-hard cock. It wasn’t exactly any comfort, but it was wholly intact unlike the rest of him. “Start sucking.”

You kept your lips sealed and shook your head, only to have your hair grabbed and yanked back. Your pained cry was all he needed to shove his meat into your mouth. Your shout changed into a gag from the fleshy intrusion.

“Sweetheart,” the pet name was uttered with a mocking venom. “I’m trying to give you the benefit of a doubt and believe that you don’t have the memory of a dead goldfish, but in case you do, let me remind you that we brought you here to hurt you.” That dreaded heat was back, his hand threatening to call those blue flames and set your hair ablaze. “So which would you rather deal with: being carved and burned into a bloody mess, or having to please a couple of dicks? Doesn’t the latter sound more bearable?”

You couldn’t pull back to answer, his hold on your head tight and unyielding, so you nodded.

But for some reason, that didn’t satisfy him. “I need you say it. Come on, you can do it.”

‘No I can’t, you overcooked motherfucker! What do you want from me?’ Having no idea what to do but also not wanting to try his patience any further, you worked your voice around the thick rod and managed a choked and barely comprehensible “mmyeff.”

The sloshed word made Dabi laugh and you felt him twitch on your tongue. “Cute. That’s good enough. Now put that mouth to work so I won’t have to turn your head into a torch.”

Admitting defeat, you moved your head to take in more of his growing erection, wriggling your tongue in a poor attempt to get away from his salty taste, only to stimulate him in the process. You feel him respond with shaky breaths, but the fact that you’re servicing this terrible man doesn’t make you want to try any harder.

Dabi realizes your slow pace isn’t changing and his grumpiness quickly returns. “Oh come on, put a little more energy into it. A quirkless bitch living in the worst part of town, this can’t be the first time you’ve had to suck dick to save your life.” You look up and glare at him, which didn’t do much to intimidate when you were blowing him at the same time. He only smirked. “If you don’t pick up the pace, then I’ll have to take charge, and I don’t think you’d want that.”

You push yourself to put in more effort, taking in more of his now fully swollen cock and gagging pathetically. Despite what the singed shithead had guessed, you weren’t experienced with this. Your sex life boils down to a couple of hookups. This hectic existence with its cast of untrustworty characters wasn’t suitable for any kind of serious relationship, and sexual favors were something you tried to avoid as much as possible. Those rare nights with a partner were nothing like this, and you sure as hell would never ask for a fucking audience. A wisp of smoke nearby reminded you of Giran’s presence.

The sick broker was just sitting and watching with interest, his smirk still present. He seemed satisfied with just watching you in this humiliating state. Compress stood out of sight, but he was most likely doing the same. It made you just want to curl up and hide from these hungry eyes.

You heard a tired sigh over you as Dabi adjusted his grip and was now holding both sides of your face.There was no warning when he thrusted forward to jam himself into the back of your throat, the sting making your eyes well up.

“Sorry, but I think I’ve given you enough chances,” Dabi panted while reveling in the feel of your mouth all around him. His cock slid back and allowed you to breathe for just a second or two before plunging back in.

Breathing through your nose was the only option as he pumped in and out of your throat with little restraint. You gurgled helplessly and tried to push at his thighs to keep him from going so deep, but that only made him chuckle and fuck your mouth more roughly. He was in complete control now, so all you could do was take it as best as you could. Saliva gathered as your throat was violated, some of it oozing past your lips and running down your chin.

“Look at you, turning into a drooling mess for my cock. You like having your mouth fucked just like a pussy?” Demeaning words were spoken between his grunts, commenting on the depraved state of your face—you could only imagine how you looked at the moment with your extra lubricated mouth allowing him to move in and out more easily.

The erratic slams of his hips against your face signaled that this torture will be ending soon, as long as you could endure the assault on your windpipe that was making you dizzy. Any cry of distress or plea to slow down was reduced to wet gurgles and more spit bubbling from your mouth. With a teeth-clenched growl, Dabi presses your face flush against his pelvis, engulfed by his musky scent as cum shoots straight down your throat. Black spots were appearing in your vision with both your nose and throat blocked. ‘Can’t breathe…can’t…’

“Hang in there, just need to make sure you swallow every last drop.” He keeps your head locked in place so that you could feel every spasm as he feeds you his seed. Finally, he releases you and steps back, allowing oxygen to rush into your lungs as you coughed and wheezed.

“Whoops, maybe I went a little overboard,” Dabi joked at your shaking form that was hunched over hacking up a mixture of saliva and semen. That fucking bastard…

“You think?” A sarcastic remark sounded from an approaching presence behind you. Compress kneels beside you, placing a hand on your back as your coughing fit slowly died down. “That’s not my ideal way of punishing a lady. Wouldn’t you agree, Giran?”

You didn’t have the strength to look at said man and the amused expression that he was undoubtedly wearing. “I’m not picky myself. It was a good show,” you heard him say. You can physically feel your dignity leaving you.

“Well, I can give you a better one.” The phony gentleman grabbed and straightened you up. You noticed that he had removed his hat, his head concealed by what may be a ski mask. It was strangely symbolic—beneath all of that pizzazz was just another unforgiving criminal. “Dabi certainly did a number on you, didn’t he?” He observed, fingers tracing over your chest and the drying drool that had trailed down. You heard a “damn right” from Dabi who had returned to his spot at the wall. “Don’t worry, darling. I won’t leave you so roughed up.”

His words did nothing to alleviate the growing fear as his hand wandered down to your panties, fingers pressing against the damp cloth. “Oh my…and here I was thinking he was being too hard on you. Looks like you didn’t hate it as much as I thought.”

You shuddered at the small chorus of laughter from all three men. Dabi took the opportunity to taunt you again. “I had a feeling she was the type that loves being treated like a hole. The bitch probably would have gotten off if I went a little longer, not that she deserves to.”

“Ah, but I think she does. In fact,” Compress pulled the underwear to the side and touched your slick directly, making you gasp. “I’d say she deserves more than she can handle.”

“N…St…op…” Your voice was hoarse from the abuse your throat had gone through. His fingers began soft strokes against your glistening folds, a feeling that wasn’t unpleasant, but you held back your whimpers to avoid both the vocal strain and giving him any gratification.

The gloved digits moved skillfully across your sensitive lips, kindling a hot desire deep inside of you. No, you really didn’t want to be feeling that from him. Your own hands curl into fists when you feel him prod at your opening, just barely penetrating you and making you bite your lip in a painful effort to suppress a moan.

He looks right at you; you can only guess what face he was making. “Trying not to make any noise, are you?” His free hand removed the patterned mask, revealing chocolate eyes and a smile that wasn’t at all sweet. “I sure do love a challenge. Then again, I already know that I’ll win.”

Any retort you had prepared died on your lips when two fingers slipped into your heat, unable to hold back your whimper even with your mouth closed. “There it is,” he purred close to your face. “But I think we can do better.”

Your cunt throbbed with each brush against your walls. He couldn’t go too deep in your current position, but that didn’t deter him as he pistoned in and out, flexing his fingers every which way until he found that forbidden spot that made you wail. The white hot heat was threatening to smother you completely. You found yourself grasping his arm and weakly pushing at it, silently begging to make it stop before you burst.

‘Don’t look ahead…Giran is watching…don’t look ahead…’ The mantra repeated in your head, echoing loudly to distract you from the unstable knot in your core. The inner chant was to no avail—several hard presses against your nerves had you crumbling beneath the searing heat of your climax. With no restraint remaining, your broken whines rushed out of your convulsing body and echoed through the room. A thumb circles your clit and prolongs the all-powerful sensation.

“Try to bear it, darling.” Compress says to you, but his voice sounds so far away, drowned out by the vibrations starting from your pussy and spreading all over, engulfing you. Even after your orgasm passes, the assault on your sensitive womanhood doesn’t stop, the sensations becoming painful. You would have fallen over if Compress wasn’t holding you, his arm wrapped around you in an insultingly affectionate embrace as he continued to overstimulate you. The words falling from your lips were weak and incoherent, the occasional ‘no’ and ‘too much’ being heard.

Sobbing in the villain’s shoulders, you can make out the blurred violet figure in your foggy vision, still lounging and taking silent delight in your struggles. You just barely noticed the slight curve of his lips as Compress forced you to cum again, pitting your muscles against another wave of excruciating spasms. This time he did let you collapse, your body sprawled out on the floor as your walls continued to clench.

“Hmmph, not bad.” Dabi can be heard, and his voice alone makes your throat burn again.

Compress was still close, curiously squishing your juices between his fingers. “I could have gone for longer, but she still needs energy for the main act.”

You hear a dark laugh from Giran. “So generous of you Compress. What would I do without you gentlemen? Just do me one more favor and remove the rest of your clothes.”

“Of course,” the showman moved over to fully strip you. You stayed limp as he pulled your drenched panties down along with your pants that were still hanging at your feet, then moving on to remove your shoes. You were now completely bare, body shivering despite the warm still air of the room.

“Alright, miss. That’s enough rest. Time to get up and come over here.” Giran orders coolly. There was no urgency in his voice, but you knew you shouldn’t keep him waiting. If only your entire lower body wasn’t screaming. Compress sensed your plight and took hold of your waist, prepared to pull you up.

“No no,” Giran held up a hand while stomping out his cigarette. “She’s a big girl and can stand on her own.”

Compress simply shrugged and retreated, leaving you to force your aching arms and legs to move and lift you up.

Even after being violated, you still couldn’t resist covering your chest and mound as you slowly approached the man that you deeply regret ever getting involved with. You tried to ignore how gross your body felt—the salty fleshy taste lingering on your tongue, the wetness that continued to run down your legs, your bare feet shuffling across the old dusty floor. There was a prominent bulge in his pants, revealing just how much this was all exciting him.

“Sit down and have a ride on me.” It was said so casually that you needed a moment to comprehend.

Dabi barked impatiently. “Hey, don’t just stand there like a modest statue.”

Realizing that Giran isn’t going to take out his erection himself, you lean in to open up his pants, fighting every urge to pull your hands away as they work at the buttons and zipper, pulling down his underwear to watch his cock spring out. He didn’t seem to react, only watching your face like he has been since you’ve been tossed into this damned place. You stare at his waiting dick until you accept that you have to get closer, standing over his legs before lowering yourself down onto his lap. You have to grab the soft yet firm organ to keep it in place as it touches your opening.

He was so close, smoke-scented breath hitting your skin. There was no way to avoid his gaze at this proximity. He was free to see all of the shameful details on your tear-stained face.

It pains you to admit that Compress’s fingers made the stretch more bearable as Giran’s head pushes into your cavern that was still sensitive from the previous man’s onslaught. You had to place your hands on his shoulders to balance yourself as your hips sunk down on him, breaths shallow throughout your poor attempt to stay relaxed and not tighten up. Several inches later, you had him fully sheathed inside you.

“Good. Very good.” His voice was low and rugged, eyes closing briefly so that he can take in your surrounding heat. “Now start moving. I didn’t bring you over just to keep me warm.”

You didn’t have enough pride left to protest, so you did as instructed, slowly lifting your hips before bringing them back down, ignoring the strain put on your thighs. Giran placed a hand on your ass, the contact making your pace falter for just a second. He looked so at ease as you bounced on him that you wondered, if it was just the two of you, perhaps you could have taken this as an opportunity to attack. But in the current situation, it would only lead to certain death. The thought leaves your mind as quickly as it came.

“Three days.” The two words cut through your weary breaths and the squelch of your pussy. You give Giran a look of confusion before he specifies. “I’m giving you three more days to collect the money.”

The news surprises you enough to halt your hips, an action he doesn’t approve of.

“I didn’t say stop.” The warning in his tone had you instantly moving again. He lightened at your compliance; he sure knew how to flip his friendly mode on and off like a damn light switch. “Very good. I’m trying to show you some more mercy here. Don’t ruin it for yourself. Anyway, you need to hurry and do whatever you can to get that money. Steal, call some old friends, maybe sell your body? I don’t think you’d be half-bad at that.” He gave your rear a light smack, making your walls squeeze him in shock. “If you don’t have enough by the time we meet again, your lovely body won’t stop me from peeling your skin off a second time. Are we clear, sweetheart?”

The fear from his threat grips your chest as you keep trying to please him, moving in a way that keeps his dick away from your g-spot. “Yes,” you whimper through your pants.

Giran caught on to what you were doing. “I’m not convinced.” Both of his hands take hold of your hips and push you down, forcing stimulation on your hypersensitive bundle of nerves. A scream rips through your burning throat. “I’ll say it again: Are we clear?”

“Yes!” Your voice cracks and tears are flowing down your face once again.

“You won’t run from me again?”

“No! I swear I won’t!”

“Good girl.” He was the one setting the pace at this point, forcing you up and down in pursuit of his release. There was another agonizing orgasm growing in your abdomen, but the hands controlling your movements weren’t giving you a chance to escape the inevitable storm.

The final slam collides his throbbing cock with your cervix, and the pained pleasure has you quivering in his hold, crinkling his shirt with your white-knuckled grip as you cried out from every foul spurt into your womb. His soft groans were heated against your neck.

His pats of approval on your back are enough to push your worn figure into his chest. He chuckles and rubs you like a lover that didn’t just force you into the most disgraceful moment of your life. “I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”

Despite your limbs feeling like pure lead, you wanted to get off this man as soon as possible. “Please just let me go.”

His smile filled you with a fresh wave of dread. “Soon, darling. But I need to make sure I’ve made my point. I think the other two gentlemen would appreciate a turn.”

You heard the quick footsteps before he even finished, scarred hands grabbing and pulling you off of Giran’s softening cock. Fuck, the two had been so quiet for the past moment that you forgot about their presence.

You jolt at the feel of Dabi’s revived hard-on pressing against your back while Compress stops right in front of you, his own length bobbing freely. You flinched at the damp gloves caressing your chin and lips. “Are you ready to return the favor? Don’t worry, I won’t treat your mouth as badly as Dabi did.”

“Sadly,” The crueler man behind you added before pressing down and bending you forward, your head now leveled with Compress’s waiting dick.

“Open up for me,” he orders with a hand resting in your hair. Your jaw still ached from the last cock in your mouth; you hoped that he truly was going to at least be more gentle as you parted your lips and took him in.

Dabi rubbed up and down your spine as he watched. “Well look at you, such an obedient little bitch now.” He began to knead your ass cheeks before spreading them, your body tensing in fear as a finger toyed with your back entrance.

“I’m not a fan of sloppy seconds, guess I’ll have to take another hole.” It was the only warning he gave before his thickness was pushing forcefully into your unprepared ass. The searing pain was as intense as his quirk, your muffled shrieks vibrating against Compress and making him moan. Dabi smiled at your suffering. “Can’t complain, ‘cause this sounds a lot better. Hope I don’t do too much damage in there.”

He fucked you as hard and fast as your tight passage would allow, pushing the other villain’s dick further into your throat with each thrust.

Soon, they will switch places. And then they will take you separately. And Giran will stay seated, taking pleasure in watching you break.

Your mind eventually wanders to what will happen afterwards, if there is any possible way to right the biggest wrong you’ve ever committed…or if you simply had three days left to live.

It feels like luck is done saving you.

--------------------------------------------

tagging @mothwithteeth because their thirst for Giran inspired me. Go check them and their awesome work out!

#bnha #smut #dabi #giran #mr. compress #dabi x reader #giran x reader #mr. compress x reader #tw noncon #tw death

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skvaderarts · 4 years ago

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Hiraeth Chapter 48: Introductions

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Forty-Eight: Introductions

Note: Hope everyone is having a good week! Enjoy this chapter! I loved reading your comments about Patty this last week lol! They made me smile!

(-~-)

The muffled sounds of rapid footsteps bounced off of every direction around him, enveloping whatever space he currently occupied in a strange hurried echo. The young summoner wasn’t unconscious this time. Far from it, in fact. He couldn’t be more awake if he tried. As he attempted to figure out why he couldn’t move and what was blocking his line of sight, all sorts of thoughts raced through his head. Was this thorough mystical means, or was he simply stuck under something that he couldn’t identify. After all, he had seen part of the ceiling above them cave in. Where were the others? He could sense that they were near, now that he thought about it. But why didn’t that allow him the ability to hear them? Perhaps they were in much the same situation that he was in?

He received his answer a moment later as he attempted to struggle free of his restraints when something shifted above him. With each passing second, the sound of rustling and shifting above him grew more and more prominent until the neon lights that flooded the subway station pierced the veil of darkness above him and he was once again exposed to light again. But to his apparent surprise, the face that he was met with was not only unfamiliar, but not a face at all.

Standing above him was the figure in the white coat that he had seen from across the tracks, only now V could see them far better than before and he did not like anything that he saw. Staring back at him was a pitch black mask that seemed to sit further into the hood that it was covered by then he was comfortable with. A set of equally black eyes looked back at him, unblinking and unyielding. There was no emotion in the face that looked down at him; no hatred or malice and certainly no more conventional positive emotion. No, there was simply nothing to this individual. And yet somehow he still knew what they were at their core.

And he knew that he needed to get as far away from them as he possibly could.

He could feel it in his gut.

Reaching down to grip V by his collar, the masked individual seized him and yanked him into a sitting position, stopping just short of impaling him upon the piece of jagged, bent rusty rebar that he was buried under. It jutted out of the side of the concrete, a clear threat to him that this unfamiliar being seemed to want to avoid.

Using their free hand, they grabbed the piece of concrete that locked him in place and attempted to move it, pushing it just far enough to the side to allow them to lift V to his feet and fully gain control over them. They grabbed his left wrist tightly, still holding him up by the collar of his shirt as he attempted to pull loose from their grasp. The black markings on V’s arm that had been left by the presence of the curse seemed to spread noticeably in response to the contact, sending a cold burning sensation down his arm. An unearthly chill rocked up the young summoner’s spine as he felt a sensation that he hoped to never feel again crawl its way through his body.

Death.

They used his momentary disorientation against him, dragging him away from the rubble and attempting to force him to go with them wherever it was that they were headed. But V was aware of this manipulation and he refused to be a part of it. Planting his feet as firmly as he could into the pavement, he managed to take his aggressor off guard, forcing them to both come to a stop at the edge of the now-destroyed boarding platform. They slammed his chest first into the pillar, succeeding in knocking the wind out of him but to their apparent surprise, not managing to actually stop him. He pulled free, throwing them off balance and causing them to stumble to one side as they regained their footing and V went tumbling to the ground, barely managing to catch himself with his outstretched hands and he stumbled into a small spile of broken tile and concrete. He registered the passage of several screaming bystanders, noting that they had probably been put into harm's way so that whoever this individual was could gain the upper hand in this fight. He hoped fruitlessly for a moment that no one had been hurt or killed in the collision, but he knew better. He’s seen better. He’s lived through better.

It was only then that he registered the sound of the panic alarm going off, flashing lights filling the station an announcer repeated over and over again a request to evacuate the ill-fated platform, stating that all lines to and from that station had been halted and that they needed to take shelter or otherwise leave the premises immediately. That wasn’t a half-bad idea, but he needed to find out where Lucia and Nero were first. And they would have to do something about whoever this was first.

Acting fast, he dived out of the path of an oncoming attack, the assailant reaching for him but narrowly missing. He pulled himself to his feet as fast as he could manage, standing his ground, but preparing for an attack. There was no way that he was going anywhere with this stranger, and he was going to make that clear at any cost. He didn’t know who this was or what they wanted from him, but V was not at all amused by anything they had done so far.

“So I am to assume that this is your work, then? How unnecessary. If you sought an audience with me, all you had to do was ask.” V said softly, barely hiding his distaste for the wanton destruction and probable loss of life on display. All of this just to get to him. It was entirely unnecessary. He wished that he could do more to help the people trapped inside of the train that he now heard calling out for help, but in this situation, he knew that it wasn’t an option to shift his focus away from his attacker.

Nodding in what had to be a mockingly formal manner as if to say that he would consider this going forward, the stranger paused for a moment before stepping towards him again, clearly unamused by his refusal to cooperate, and unwilling to answer any of the young summoner’s questions. It was clear that nothing else going on in this station mattered to them more than capturing V making a hasty escape with him. But the young devil hunter wasn’t going down without a fight.

Quickly surveying the surrounding area, V came to the conclusion that no one was around at this point who would be paying attention to his actions. Everyone was fleeing in terror from the mangled wreckage of what had once been the train and the boarding platform, heading up the stairs on both sides of the tunnel. They all seemed to be scared to death of the robed white figure, some even pausing for a moment to take pictures with their phones of the individual as he went after the young summoner, paying no mind to V in the process. But this didn’t last long as his assailant looked upon them and they screamed in fright, turning to run for their lives again.

V would never understand the pension that many people had towards stopping to film situations that they knew that they should be running from, but that didn’t make it any less abnormal. He himself had never felt the urge to do so, but he could only imagine that it was related to the inability that people had to look away from a bad car accident. It seemed that it was simply difficult for people to look away from things that they found abhorrent and distasteful.

Making his way back over towards the pile of rubble, he kept his eyes locked on his pursuer as he positioned himself between the part of the ceiling that he assumed his companions to be trapped under and the now thoroughly destroyed train. He bent over slowly, managing to locate his cane just where he assumed it would be. A stroke of luck that it was still locatable in a situation like this. There was a part of him that simply always knew where it was if he’d recently come into contact with it. It was like an extension of himself that he refused to relinquish.

The being in the white robes simply watched him, folding their arms as they waited for him to finish whatever he was doing. It seemed that they possessed some sort of decency, apparently unwilling to attack while he was retrieving the cane, or perhaps assuming that it would make their escape quicker if V was capable of keeping his balance better. Who was to say? They certainly weren't. He wasn’t sure that they could say anything at all. Not a sound had come from that imposing mask since this had started. V wasn’t even sure that they were breathing. It was absolutely unsettling…

Surging forward with a burst of speed, they attacked. The young summoner barely managed to sidestep them at the last moment, realizing that this was probably his best opportunity to go on the offensive. He extended his arm slightly, intending to summon one of his familiars when the assailant pivoted and dived at V, causing him to step back and stumble down into the space between the train and the boarding platform. The air exited his lungs with supreme speed as his back hit against one of the metal rails, leaving a bruise that he was certain he’d be feeling for the next week. When he looked up, he was surprised to see his attacker standing over him, seemingly relishing in their unintended victory over him. That was until they were suddenly propelled into the side of the train and then hurled across the station by an unseen force.

V was admittedly stunned and more than slightly unnerved by the shift in the energy he felt in the air. What in the world had just caused that to occur? From what he could tell, they had not vacated the area of their own accord. But then what had done that to them? He was glad that it had, no mistake there… but that didn’t mean that it made sense to him.

Thankfully, his question was answered just a short second later when the head of a familiar young woman popped over the edge of the platform. She seemed to be on edge, looking around, but otherwise alright. V felt a wave of relief pass over him as he realized that someone who might be able to assist him in freeing his brother and friend had just arrived in the nick of time. He summoned Griffon, knowing that climbing out of the position he was in was going to take an extra bit of work on his part.

Gliding forward, the iridescent blue bird surveyed the area as quickly as he could before swooping back down to assist V. The young summoner had managed to stand up and dislodge himself, but a quick attempt at getting out of the hole confirmed his suspicion that he would not be able to do so without help, and he didn’t want to rely on bracing himself against the broken train or run the risk of pulling his only available companion headfirst into the wreckage with him. Thankfully Griffon was able to grab him and, with a considerable amount of effort, pull him up out of the hole and back onto the precariously held together platform.

“Flora! Boy oh boy are we glad to see you! Get a load of that sociopath over there, hu? Ever seen anybody like that before? Because I can’t say that I have, human or otherwise.”

She smiled, shrugging as she chewed her gum. She tiptoed in order to try and see if V’s attacker was anywhere to be seen, but her efforts came up empty as she realized that she was too short to manage that task. She gave both Griffon and V a concerned look for a moment before looking around the station.

“Hey buddy, you alright? Hope you didn’t have to dirty your feathers. I came running as quickly as I could.” She gave Griffon a gentle fluffing before scratching under his chin, earning a shiver from the thankful bird before he tucked his head under his left wing.

“Oh, don’t worry about us little missy, we're fine. He’s had worse, and so have I. But we should probably get going. This just screams bad news.”

“You're right, it does.” She said, looking around the space again. Still no signs of the individual she’d tossed onto the other side of the station. “That one reeks of dark, forbidden enchantments. They are powerful and dangerous. But they should be out of commission for at least a few minutes. I kinda threw them through the bathroom wall.”

V nodded in recognition as Griffon retreated back into his tattoos. It was best to save his energy for when he truly needed it. “How did you know what was going on?”

“Magnolia called me and told me to go looking for you after I told her you weren’t home. She got a warning that something might happen or something, and when I heard the explosion and the sirens, I knew where to look.” She gestured towards the train station, looking around for any other signs of life. It was too loud to hear anything. “You alone?”

V shook his head, gesturing towards the pile of rubble that he was certain Nero and Lucia were trapped under. A pang of guilt ran through his heart as he realized that they had been trapped under there far longer than he would have liked. Were they hurt? He needed to know that they would be okay and that his hesitation had not caused them both any additional harm. Or the time he’d taken to explain the situation, for that matter. They needed to get them out from under there and get out of the train station as soon as possible. V gestured towards the pile he’d been trapped under, worry setting in.

“No, I was traveling with my brother and Lucia when…”

Without warning the pile of rubble that Nero and Lucia were trapped under shifted slightly but didn’t budge much, indicating that they were indeed trapped in a position that made it difficult for them to maneuver out of. Being inhumanly strong didn’t help when you were pinned down and unable to move. Flora stepped forward and held her left hand out, seemingly concentrating. “Stay clear and watch my back.”

Stepping to the side, V watched as she lifted the concrete layer by layer, setting it to the side in an attempt to free them. Coughs and gasps could be heard from underneath, and moments later, both Lucia and Nero managed to pull themselves free, struggling to their feet. Although out of breath and a little banged up, they both seemed to be otherwise unharmed. V breathed a sigh of relief, releasing the breath he hadn't realized he’d been holding. That explained the lightheadedness that he felt, at least.

Approaching them both, Nero nodded as he quite literally shrugged off the situation, trying to downplay the severity of what he had just experienced. Lucia simply brushed off her clothes and withdrew her weapons, looking around to see if she could spot anything of note. Well, aside from the entire train stop being utterly decimated. But that wasn’t new information to her.

The trio nodded to Flora in appreciation, earning an awkward shrug from her before she turned in the direction of the train. There were people trapped inside. She could see as much now. If she could just open the doors, then she would increase their chances of getting out of this mess alive by a huge percentage. But before she could so much as move in the direction of the train, the robed figure reappeared on top of the wrecked train, and although they could not see their face, they could tell that they were truly and utterly displeased.

Diving forward, the stranger made impact with Flora, kicking her square in the chest and sending her back into the broken pillar behind her. She slumped over, clearly out of commission for the moment. She’d truly been taken off guard by the attack, and her inability to shake off the breathlessness that she seemed to be suffering from showed that in spades. Lucia blocked a follow-up attack from the figure, stepping in their path as they attempted to go after the downed young woman a second time.

“That isn’t going to happen. Sorry, but you're going to have to try something else. Maybe fight someone who’s still standing like a real warrior?”

Eyeing her from behind their mask, they seemed to consider her proposal for a moment before nodding, turning their attention back towards the two remaining devil hunters and the young summoner. A fierce aura of determination gleamed in V’s eyes as he realized that their opponent couldn’t be permitted to simply walk out of here after doing something like that. Flora managed to pull herself to her feet during the silent exchange of hostility, panting and sore but otherwise unharmed. “Sorry, everyone. My bad.”

Reaching into their robe, their attacker pulled a small tube from a holster of some sort before twisting it, causing it to extend into what appeared to be a sort of two-pronged trident. The long staff then twirled in their hands, glowing slightly in the dim light of the station in a flurry of fluid moments that succeeded in taking them off guard. It seemed that if they wanted a fight, they were going to get one.

“Flora, get to the train and get them out of here! We’ve got this piece of shit covered.” Nero said, drawing Blue Rose. He was going to kick Vergil in the ass the next time he saw him for accidentally making him leave his blade at home. But with his powers and his revolver at his side, he wasn’t as worried as he knew he probably should be. And if the fierce look on V’s face as he shifted his stance slightly to the side and summoned Shadow was anything to go off of, not to mention the fact that Lucia had just drawn both of her blades and readied them to strike, then he was in good company.

But just as they stepped forward to do combat against their opponent, the mysterious figure in the black mask held out their hand and a sort of black smoke filled the station. After a second, it changed shape, forming into an unfamiliar shape. The young devil hunters were taken aback as a tall, unfamiliar bipedal devil manifested in front of them, its long crystalline body gleaming in hues of deep purple and pink as the tassels that dangled from its arms and the rings that hung from its back became clearer and took a more noticeable shape.

It stood there, seemingly awaiting a response from its master with a silent obedience that took them all by surprise, brandishing its scythe in a calm, collected manner that showed that unlike their previous encounters with summoners in the past, this individual had control over his summon. And it would obey him if he asked it to. A glance between both of his companions was all it took for Nero to see that neither Lucia nor Flora recognized this particular foe, and V certainly didn’t. He was the least experienced with the different varieties among the group. He had no reason to. But anyone who had ever seen a demon move before could take one look at this particular demon and tell that it was probably fast. It was built to be. And they were not ready for that kind of close-quarters combat.

Much to this distaste, the stranger shifted stances and readied their weapon before, with a flick of their wrist, willing their demonic companion to accompany them. And it did so, surging forward with ruthless efficiency, blindsiding them as it jetted around the terminal with unpredictable, graceful footfalls that genuinely made it difficult to keep an eye on. In this damaged environment, battle against this foe would be impossible. No one present was prepared to deal with that kind of speed, and it seemed that their opponent knew this. They weren’t ready for this fight, and now they were going to pay for it with their blood. And possibly their lives.

(-~-)

I genuinely want to see if anyone can figure out where that demon’s design came from. Seriously! I’d love to see it. It might just give you insight into what’s to come. This fic isn’t exactly a crossover, but it takes elements from more than one universe. I’ll just leave it at that. See you in the comment section, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

#Hiraeth #V #Vitale #My Post Devil May Cry 5 AU #Devil May Cry 5 AU FanFic #Nero #Lucia #My OC #My DMC AU #Devil May Cry #Devil May Cry 5 #DMC #DMCV #DMC5 #Devil May Cry V #Fan Fiction #A03 DMC Fan Fic #Fic

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ren-c-leyn · 5 years ago

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The Cost of Desire

It’s been a while, but here’s another short story for the blog. Figured it’d be a good way to slowly get back into tumblr.

This is a fusion story using these 1,2 prompts by @thependragonwritersguild, this prompt by @humdrummoloch, this prompt by @promptsforthestrugglingauthor, and these 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 prompts by @givethispromptatry.

Fair warning, while this piece doesn’t have any gore or violence in it, it is a more tense piece with the narrator stuck waiting impending doom.

I remembered that day clearly, the one that began this secret obsession of mine. It was just one of those moments that never left me.

Mother was an alchemist whom always gathered the ingredients for her potions herself. I don’t remember why exactly but she had decided to take me with her, but I remember being excited to go on a ‘real life adventure.’ I clumsily carried some of the baskets and trotted after her on my short legs. It went well enough, until we got to the forest filled with mist.

“Shhh…” She held her pointer finger up to her lips. “We need to be quiet here.”

“Why?” I whispered, still somehow loud enough to cause an echo.

“There’s something that sleeps here. We don’t want to disturb it. Now stay on the path, don’t stray from it for a second.”

I listened, but only because mother was there with me. Something about not being allowed to stray from the path and make noise made me want to run off the path and scream ‘hello there’ at the top of my lungs. And that desire never left.

As I got older, I got more and more curious about the forest and what slept in it. Often, I would stray from the path, a little more each time to see if I could find anything besides the endlessly swirling white. My best friend, however, was a tattle tale and the one day I did stray off the path while they were with me, they ran all the way back to the village got my mother. Whom, was of course, furious.

“You’ve been told many times to stay on the path!” mother shrieked, pacing the main room of our tiny house. “One of these days something is going to take you!”

That threat was enough to curb my wanderings until I became a true adventurer and discovered the secret of that forest. It was a place wizards hid powerful artifacts, artifacts powerful enough to make me the best adventurer of them all. A lure I couldn’t resist.

Equipped with my weapon and my armor, I felt more than confident enough in my ability to take down the guardian of the artifacts. I strode into the mists, not even trying to muffle the clinking of my gear. All of mother’s warnings and rules were broken. I didn’t even remember most of them in that moment, my mind was focused on the prizes that awaited me.

Oh how foolish I was.

In less than an hour, I had found a stone path. It was strange, I hadn’t remembered coming across one so close to the main path, but I was not going to laugh off this bit of fortune. For all paths must lead somewhere, and the only thing to go to in this forest was the place the relics had been locked away. I rushed down it, drinking in the muffled sounds of my own footfalls as I went.

And it was on that stone path that I met the creature mother had been so terrified of finding me.

Two opalized eyes blinked at me through the fog. I could see no discernible pupils through the gloom but I knew that those eyes were sorting through my very character, figuring out who I was without a word. Chills ran up my spine, breathing got a little harder, and my heart sped up against my will. My legs, dear gods my legs, they trembled and nearly gave out beneath the weight of that stare. Run, run away, my instincts screamed. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t run. Not without something to show for my courage, or stupidity, in coming to meet the guardian.

The eyes vanished and the mists began to clear. I sucked in a breath of relief just before the hairs on the back of my neck rose. The ghost-like chill of breathe on my neck nearly made me jump right out of my armor as I spun around, hand gripping the hilt of my sword for all it was worth.

Before me stood what looked like a young girl. It’s difficult to recall exactly what she looked like. Whenever I try to focus on her appearance my mind goes hazy and I nearly forget what I was trying to remember. The one thing I can recall clearly was the sound of her voice. It was as if there was a constant whine of wind trying to drown out a girl’s voice, and it echoed in my mind. Her eyes were like opals and had no pupils, and I can’t recall there being any color to anything else about her. Just... cloudy whiteness, like a phantom.

No, not like it. Not at all. She was a phantom. The ghost of every misdeed and mistake ever committed. That was her, that was what I faced that day.

“Who are you?”

I grinned, clenching my teeth together to keep them from chattering right out of my gums.

“I am the greatest adventurer to ever stand before you,” I declared with shaky bravado, “and who are you?”

“Oh, no one important.”

“Well, that’s solidly not true.”

She laughed, though it didn’t seem to come from her. It seemed to come from the forest itself.

“It is in the grand scheme of things. In fact, I am no one,” the smile fell from her face into a dark stare that nearly made my legs give out from under me again. “but that doesn’t matter here because you are someone, someone who does not respect the grand scheme. And someones are not allowed in here. You must leave.”

“No. I’m the greatest adventurer there ever was, and I’m not leaving without at least one artifact.”

She shook her head, an amused smile growing on her lips.

“They all say that, all of the somebodies. But you don’t understand, you never understand. Nothing you learned up there will help you survive down here.”

I paused at that. Down here? Weren’t we still in that forest? I looked up but al I could see was more mist.

“Look, I don’t know what mind games you’re playing, guardian, but I’ve come too far to back down now. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”

I turned back around and started to walk forward. The sense of dread and impending doom grew as I took the first step, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away from that being. But guardians aren’t known to just stand idly by while someone comes in and raids their treasure troves, and she was certainly no exception.

“You’re not excused!” the forest howled as the ground quaked.

I struggled to keep my balance as I looked around for the source of the earthquake. The next thing I knew she was standing in front of me, arms outstretched.

“Not unless you turn around and leave. That’s the only way to walk away from me, somebody.”

Irritated, I reached out to push her aside, but she was a little faster than I. A freezing cold hand wrapped around my wrist and sent what felt like ice up my veins. Everything was so cold, and so numb. I felt my strength all leave me as pain took it’s place. Soon, I was on the ground and the little girl was leaning above me.

“You wanted to be the best. Now look at you. It’s going to kill you,” she whispered into my ear.

The tingling feeling of paralysis held me in place, though I violently wished I could unsheathe my sword.

“It’s going to hunt you down and kill you. Your end is coming. Even if you should leave, somebody, you’ve sealed your own fate.”

Then, she was gone. Just like that. The feeling of dread, of being watched, it was all gone. Except I couldn’t move and I felt the cold spreading throughout my body. I struggled at first, but of course nothing move. Over time, I got some feeling back and was even able to push myself up a tiny bit. But the hours were so slow in passing that I caught myself wondering if time was moving at all. I leaned back against the ground, knocking my head on the cold stone.

It was pointless. It was so pointless.... Trying to fight the paralysis, trying to escape, wasting all that time talking to some strange girl, even coming here. I was going to die, and there would be no point to it. The ultimate tragedy.

I was always terrible at goodbyes. I had a tendency to avoid them, if at all possible, and other times gave a simple wave and ignored the probability I would never see them again.

As I found myself alone, struggling to make my body to move, I wished I had been able to say goodbye. If only to my best friend, who warned me not to go.

Then, I fell asleep, letting the cold consume me. But that was not quite the end of my tale.

The mid afternoon sun filtered it’s way through the sheer curtains to fall upon my face. My eyes slowly blinked themselves to awareness as sleep let go. I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t even in the forest anymore. I seemed to be at my best friend’s cottage, laid out in the guest room. The scent of herbs and incense filled the air as I looked around in a daze.

A dream?

I was not that lucky, though. A chill rose in my blood and pain began to fill my senses. While I could move, it was stiff and agonizing.

My friend popped their head into the room.

“How are you doing?”

The bitter pain of the curse settling into my bones clenched once more, pulling a gasp from my throat.

“Oh, you know, like I’m dying.”

They crossed the room and settled into one of the chairs next to the bed.

“By rights, you should be dead. You can be a real idiot sometimes, you know that? I can’t believe you went out of your way to provoke the creature of those woods.”

“I am shocked and appalled that you would believe for even one second that I would do that.”

“Are you though?”

“Not really. How’d I get here, anyways?”

“I went looking for you and found you laying face down in the grass beside the path. But you wouldn’t wake up so I drug you here and got the healers, who got the priests, who got the mage, who is sending a letter to the wizard’s guild.”

I let out a low whistle.

“Damn, sounds like you’ve had all kinds of interesting company while I was out cold. Why do you always meet the interesting people while I’m gone?”

They laughed, but it trailed off into a grim expression.

“I’m afraid that you’ve had your last adventure, friend. The priests and mages don’t even know where to begin tackling the curse that you ended up getting. What did you find anyways?”

“Some... weird girl.”

“Some weird girl doesn’t tell me a lot.”

“She’s the Keeper of Forbidden Artifacts, and to be fair, she did warn me before she decided to kill me.”

“Kill you?!” they jumped up out of the chair.

“The curse.”

“The hells she will!”

And before I could stop them, they ran off, like they were going to get mother again. Only, mother wasn’t here to save me this time. No one was. I was doomed to a slow death, feeling my energy be stripped away day by day while others have adventures of a lifetime.

So I pen down this tale as warning: Do not enter the mist-filled forest, for it is no place for mortals.

The very slim chance of success, if it should exist at all, is simply not worth the cost of desire: a constant pain and chill that will slowly devour you and steal away your life while you fear the impending end that forever sits at your bedside waiting for you to finish withering away into an empty husk. Abandon ambitions of recovering lost treasures forged by over-ambitious wizards and find a more worthy quest to pursue.

Taglist, feel free to ask to be added/removed at any time:

@nemowritesstuff, @likelyfantasywriterspsychic, @dawnoftheagez, @orphicodysseywrites, @hannahs-creations, @writer-candy, @kaylewiswrites, @ravenpuffwriter, @tenacious-scripturient, @ofinkblotsandscript, @mischiefiswritten , @kespada, @asterannie, @silvertalonwriteblr, @inspiring-prompts, @greenwood-writes, @wemitodd, @elkatheinkstained, @n1ghtcrwler, @writingiswilde, @say-no-to-negativity, @wordshavings

#fiction #fantasy #dark fantasy #original story #My writing #writeblr #a story by Ren

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nevergiveupneverrun · 5 years ago

Text

Bodyguard - Chapter Sixty-Seven “You will become dust again”

Hello, how are you? Here is chapter Sixty-Seven of my Story Bodyguard, yay!! I hope you will like this chapter. Sorry for not posting yesterday, I didn’t have time…

I’m sorry in advance for the mistakes… English isn’t my first language and I do my best. Here is the link to the previous chapter: Click Here.

I hope you will enjoy this chapter :) 💛

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- We are gathered today to evoke the memory of a man. Come together to support each other in this ordeal, in the face of absence and pain. The shock is all the more pronounced because this disappearance is done in violent circumstances, for a man who still had his whole life in front of him…but he dedicated his life to others: it’s like a hero that he left us and that’s how we have to remember him and keep him deep in our hearts.

The priest pauses for several long seconds then waves to a person in the front row. The recollection room of the crematorium is occupied by about thirty people who form like a black cloud, while they all wear the same dark and funereal color.

The designated man stands up and walks slowly towards the desk. He turns to face the assembly. And a deep voice echoes in the room.

- I had known Owen for many years…I trained him, I coached him…and as goes by the missions and our collaboration, a real bond has been created between us. He was the best element I have known in my career: surprising for his intelligence, his dexterity, his ability to analyze and act at the right time. He dedicated his life to protect others. His country. And his clients, when he decided to reorient his career to become a bodyguard. Danger and death have been part of hid daily life for the past fifteen years. Thanks to his talent, he escaped many very dangerous situations. But this time, the outcome was different.

He looks down at these words, then after a minute ends up looking up at the assembly.

- Owen left as he would have liked. Saving the life of the one he was protecting. By concluding his mission as always with success. He wanted to feel useful, to make sense of his life, to leave his mark in a certain way. I believe that today from where he looks at us, it is a serene man and satisfied with what he has accomplished who observes us. Without any regrets. Without any resentment.

He then looks for someone in the room and then addresses that person.

- You must not feel guilty. By doing this job, he accepted all the risks. Be ready to die to protect and save a life, he had prepared for it. I, for my part, am proud to have crossed his path. And I will keep him in my memory as he would have liked: a brave man. A beautiful soul who knew how to do good around him.

A nod concludes theses last words and he returns to his place as silently as when he arrived at the desk.

~~~

Another silhouette is already standing out. A man, who turns around in his turn. His features are more drawn, his face clearly revealing a deep pain.

He clears his throat twice, takes a deep breath, and then speaks in a calm and firm voice…in complete contrast to his image.

- I didn’t expect to live this day… when we do this type of job, agent or bodyguard, as I was able to do also, we necessarily think of the outcome that can be ours… but it’s still a concept. A simple possibility. I share so much with Owen…so much that convinced me that he was just too good, too talented to…

He is coughing lightly at this time. His hand is resting on the desk as if he is seeking a balanced that he is about to lose.

- I blame you, Owen, wherever you are. I blame you for proving that I could have been wrong, he continues with a thin smile that doesn’t however win his eyes, still dull and slightly reddened. We were a team, an impressive partnership and life will not be the same without your presence. But you were clearly the hero of the group…and you had demonstrated it until the end. I will miss you, bro.

He looks at the sky for long seconds while uttering this last word. Then, after what seems to be almost a moment of recollection, he leaves the desk to return to his seat in the assembly. As he sits down, a female silhouette leans to his side, then places a hand on his back before holding it against his neck.

~~~~

The priest reappears in front of the first row and whispers a few words to one of the people sitting in front of him. A nod follows his words and he finally helps this person to stand up and take a seat on the small platform. This time it is a woman. She firmly holds a tissue in her left hand which she carries against her chest while positioning herself in front of the desk. Wet highlights are visible on her cheeks, revealing that she couldn’t hold back tears.

The priest whispers a few words in her ear then takes the distance, staying to the side a few steps. Thus, alone in front of the room, she breathed deeply, her eyes closed. Her chest visibly rises several times, then she opens her eyes again. Staring straight ahead…as if she ad a landmark to look out for.

- Owen was…

Her voice resonates weakly and immediately turns off after a few seconds.

She lowers her face and places her tissue against her mouth, seeming to contain sobs that were only trying to escape.

She recovers in just a few seconds.

Demonstrating an impressive strength of character.

- Owen was like the son I never had…that I never could have. He was a lovely child. Full of life and sweetness. And this sweetness never left him. Despite the trials of life he had to go through, he remained as that little boy was…becoming an impressive man. He never clearly told me his real job…just telling me that he took care of others. But today, I understand he didn’t want me to worry about knowing the truth. He has always been like that…this concern to spare others constantly, to protect them, without ever thinking about what could cost him. Always putting his own well-being last. I had to live the ordeal of the death of his parents who were among my closest friends. Find me here. It’s the worst time of my life…when I only hoped for one thing, and that is to attend only happy moments for Owen. A wedding maybe. The joy of seeing him start a family.

Silent tears slide down both sides of her face. Her voice doesn’t tremble. Only her face betrays her emotion.

- I only hope for one thing. Is that he found the peace that he had been missing for so many years. And especially that they are gathered, all three, in this land of angles. My consolation is to tell me that we will also meet again one day…

A whisper concludes her speech. The priest comes back to her side and places a hand on her back, carefully leading her back to her place. Then he faces the assembly again.

- Amelia, do you want to say a few words finally?

A movement of the head is distinguished in the first row, a slow back and forth, expressing a refusal to this proposition from the priest. The silhouette is marked by a burst of tears while answering to this proposition…emotion is the strongest.

- Fine, we will use your song as you wish to mark a tribute to Owen in your own way. Thank you for all these testimonies and the effort that it represents for everyone to express themselves in this way and remember a being whose absence already touches immensely. Owen was a remarkable man, appreciated and loved by all who crossed his path…and it is the most beautiful image, the most beautiful memory that we must keep each in our hearts. Now, I invite everyone to come and pray one last time and say Goodbye.

He waves to the people in the front row, inviting them to come forward to the coffin posted in the center of the room. The whole room then stands up while guitar notes are heard.

A well-known melody…

“More than Words“ thus sounds, accompanying the silent passage of the members of the assembly in front of the coffin.

~~~~

I distract from this scene, the image is too hard to bear. Too disturbing.

This ebony mass stands out in the center of the room.

These black silhouettes like ghosts advancing obediently, some with difficulty, with measured steps, a white rose in their hand.

The musical notes sound familiar to me and rightly so when I perceive mingling with Amelia’s voice, my own voice. This is this unexpected duet that we shared when she wanted to rehearse her cover for a future show.

Who could have recorded this moment?

Was there such a system in what was her composition room? Or did she use her phone without me realizing it since we had redone the title a dozen times?

~~~

A time that is difficult for me to estimate is ticking away until I raise my gaze on the second screen in front of me. The majority of people left the room, only 5 people who were in the first row are seated again.

I discover them on this ale of the camera no longer from the back but from the front, their faces being distinguished by the mass of dark ebony which occupies most of the stage.

The priest then waves to the back of the room and a metallic noise is heard.

The coffin gradually lowered as if sucked towards an elsewhere…finally disappearing towards the mechanism of the crematorium.

A final dry and dull sound rises, symbolically marking the end of the ceremony…the pass from inert flesh to dust.

My eyes are staring intently at the faces watching this scene: and one of them deeply squeezes my heart.

This face.

The one who has haunted my days and my nights for so long months. But it’s like I don’t recognize her. As if she were another.

All shine seems to have evaporated from her features. Marked dark rings under her eyes can be guessed, accentuated by eyes intensely reddened by the sobs that assail her. Messy locks of hair are escaping from an awkwardly put together ponytail.

What I read in that face assails me with an intense puff of guilt: despair, discomfort, gap…I give in to the violence of the image.

My conviction wavers. My heart is racing without me controlling it.

I lower my gaze cowardly and my eyes look on the sheet on the table in front of me.

On this symbol which crystalizes the context where I am now.

The choice I made.

The chance I want to give her. She deserves the best…a best that is elsewhere.

~~~

A door creaking is heard behind my back, but I remain impassive, still confused by the thoughts and reactions I am expressing.

- Did you follow the ceremony?

I nod, my eyes still fixed on this document on the table, and each line is inscribed unconsciously in my mind.

- Owen, there is still time to change your mind.

“I certify to give up all my civil rights“

- Will you watch over her?

“I renounce my identity to provide all the services related to my missions under the necessary covers and determined by my hierarchy.“

- Nathan, will you watch over her? I repeat softly, my eyes still enthralled on the words breaking away fro the official contract.

- I will keep an eye on her… she will need time to recover you know…she is devastated… she didn’t lose only her bodyguard…

“I ensure that I no longer maintain any lin with relatives, family, friends, and definitively forget about any relationship to ensure my new functions.“

- I know…

- Are you well aware of what you meant to her?

- Yes, Nathan, I already told you at the hospital…I heard everything before I lost consciousness…

A pause settles between us, palpable but invisible tension in the air.

~~~

My eyes scan the document from bottom to top, my attention lingering on the title: “Directorate-General for External Security - Secret Services“. My hand automatically reaches for the pen on the table and I grab it, raising the point slightly towards the section I need to sign.

- Owen…

I perceive my first name as the last warning in the vague and fleeting tone of Nathan’s voice.

I raise my attention to my mentor whose eyes I meet for the first time since the start of our exchange.

- Owen Hunt just disappeared, you just attended his funeral.

- Yes, I know, don’t remember me what I just did…the comedy you asked me to play in front of all these people…including in front of Jackson who was very affected as you could see.

- Stop…it’s not the first time you’ve done this…you worked for years in special units…

- Yes, but this is the first time that I know so well the people in front of whom I have to delude.

I put the tip of the pen at the bottom of the document, but I hold my hand in this position for a few moments. My fate will be sealed after this signature. My life will only be a memory.

- The members of the “Phantom“ Services do not usually have your profile… they are orphans, men who have lost everything in their life, who no longer have their family…men who have nothing to tie them to their own life and identity and they abandon it almost with pleasure. But you? You, you have just deliberately chosen to sacrifice your identity, to become a memory for those who know you to be one of the five elite spy members of the Secret Service…What are you running from, Owen?

I take a deep breath, Nathan’s remarks instantly tense me.

- Nathan, I asked you if you wanted to help me…you accepted…I didn’t oblige you. Again, if you don’t understand my choice it’s your right but please respect my decision and don’t make it harder.

I stare at the white cloud under the tip of the pen and without thinking any longer, in a reflex gesture, I blacked the page with my signature.

Thus formalizing my new status.

After having long shadowed my clients as a bodyguard, I became a full shadow. A “ghost“ man who would take on a different identity depending on the missions.

I observe my signature who henceforth dresses this letter of mission and commitment…where I agree to renounce my rights, my past, my entire life.

- Ok, well I have nothing to say than “Congratulations“… Nathan says in a slightly bitter whisper.

I felt he disapproved of this decision I had made.

When I woke up in the hospital in the middle of the night, after several days of convalescence, the choice that I made today had taken shape in my mind.

All the ingredients were there for me to disappear…it became the only outcome that seemed acceptable to me…for all.

- Don’t think it’s easy for me, I retorted weakly.

- I respect your decision Owen and I have helped you in every step…but don’t blame me, if I insist on making sure that you have weighed up the pros and cons… you will not be able to go back…

- I know and this decision is well considered. It may have seemed rushed but it’s better for everyone…

- Do you really think it’s better for her? He supports me, pointing to one of the two screens, where we can make out Amelia, still sitting in the ceremony room. The empty gaze blurred by tears. Absent attention was fixed in front of her. April, in a wheelchair, is present next to her and holds her hand discreetly but firmly.

I remain hypnotized in front of this scene: I can see Amelia’s lips moving to whisper the words she slipped into my ear before I lost consciousness.

April comforts her a little more, giving a kiss on her hand and giving her a few words of encouragement.

I hardly swallow my saliva, taking the pain I inflict on her in the face.

I want to go through the screen. To take her in my arm. To tell her the truth. To see a smile light up her beautiful face.

But a little voice awakens in me as my hands shake and my body is on the alert, ready to step out of this room.

This little voice reassures and calms me, telling me the reasons for my choice and Amelia’s interest…

- It’s better for her…

- Owen…the sorrow you see in her eyes… it’s the pain of a woman in love… she loves you so much…don’t react out of selfishness to protect yourself…

- It’s not out of selfishness that I want to disappear from her life.

- Listen, I know you’ve been hurt in your life, and everyone close to you has abandoned you… that life snatched them from you… or that betrayal struck you down. But do not fall into a blind fatality that will make you see each meeting as doomed in advance.

I take my eyes off the image of Amelia and breathe deeply, before staring at Nathan.

- As weird as it sounds to you, I only think of one person by making this choice…it’s not me, it’s Amelia.

I perceive Nathan’s forehead to wrinkle, denoting his incomprehension at my answer.

- She is not in love with me, Nathan…she is in love with an image. She idealized me. I’m not the one for her. I am unable to give her what she needs, I confess weakly. I will only disappoint her.

I find the image of Amelia on the screen, and discover her slowly leaving the room with April by her side. I realize that they are only a few meters from me, as they reached the corridor. A door separates me from her. An irrational desire to put everything aside and find her again rises in me.

The torture is intense…

But my will and my conviction to have made the right decision are stronger than anything.

- I save her time. I couldn’t bear to read the disappointment in her eyes. Detect that moment when she would have realized that she was wrong. And disappear like that, this is the only way she will understand and forgive me.

I pause for a few seconds before finishing my answer.

- Happiness is elsewhere for her. Someone else is meant for her. Clinging to my mirage would only delay her.

The presence of Nathan is emerging at my side and I perceive a hand to place on my shoulder.

- I wish you a lot of courage for your new functions anyway. Be careful.

I nod, surprised that he so quickly abandons the questions he had about my motivations regarding this drastic choice for my life.

He takes a few steps away, places his hand on the doorknob, and turns around one last time before leaving the room.

- I’ll keep an eye on Amelia, be sure.

He lowers his eyes for a few moments then gazes into mine intensely.

- And I fully understand your decision now…through these few words and what emerges from you…

- Really? I ask, surprised at this sudden revelation.

- Yes, really…I know what you do…you love her like crazy to let her go…

THE END

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Thank you for reading. But it’s not really the end of the story, I will post two bonus chapters as soon as possible and I hope you will like them. Stay safe and be happy 💛

#greysanatomy #Fic #fanfic #omelia #omelia fanfiction #omeliafics #amelia shepherd #owen x amelia #amelia x owen #Owen Hunt #nathan riggs #april kepner #jackson avery #JAPRIL #bodyguard

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markrees · 6 years ago

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Sunflower - Mark Lee

Mark is sweet. And gentle. And comfortable to be around with when he isn’t causing you to almost hyperventilate.

category: au!college Mark / i live for college student mark ;; f l u f f / shy mark, flustered mark, sweet mark, mark in general

word count: 11.5K sorry

warnings: none, just a lot of fluff really.

a/n: this took me weeks to finish :( i hope you like it!

Everything seemed to happen in a whizzing blur because right now you were still unable to fully comprehend what had just happened. One second you were walking to your next class, traipsing along the grey concrete of your university campus and the next second you found yourself on the ground, a painful sensation shooting up your right arm as you scrunch up your face in agony. You absentmindedly stare at the cast being applied carefully to the affected arm from the impact of your fall, eyeing the doctor’s fluid movements as he expertly does his task with major ease. To your left, you feel eyes burning holes on the side of your face, shifting his stare between your side view and your broken arm.

Mark Lee, also known as the cute boy in your advanced anatomy and physiology classes always hidden behind the rims of his round glasses, black hair and in the comfort of his hoodies, was standing just at the edge of your hospital bed watching you and the doctor quietly. Mark Lee, also known as the very person responsible for your dazed-like state resulting from the effects of the pain medications you had received earlier to manage your misery.

“The cast will have to stay on for six weeks,” the doctor says, snapping you out of your hazy thoughts as he finishes up. “You have to keep it dry at all costs but if you feel something isn’t right or if it’s too tight, come back to us straight away so we can fix it.”

You absentmindedly nod and examine your new arm and its new weight. The only thing you can move now were your fingers, left free at the end of the constriction. “Thank you doctor.”

With a smile and a nod, the doctor steps out of your cubicle, leaving you and Mark in silence. Oblivious to you, Mark had been paying much more attention to everything the doctor had said given the fact that he was more in tune with his surroundings while you were in a dizzy state. You’d momentarily forgotten Mark was there with you and you nearly flinch when you hear him speak.

“I’m really sorry, this is all my fault,” he says, guilt dripping from his voice and steps closer so that he can lean on the edge of your bed beside you.

You shake your head weakly, offering a small smile in hopes of reassuring him. “No, it’s alright. It’s no one’s fault. It was an accident.”

Mark rubs the nape of his neck as he stares into the wall opposite the two of you, replaying the earlier events and how he had knocked you off of your feet when he lost his balance on his bicycle.

“I shouldn’t have been cycling there in the first place, so really, it was my fault. You’d still have a perfectly working arm by now if I didn’t wake up late and wasn’t late for class.”

You laugh at his words and fiddle with the material of your cast. It was the first time you felt so light for the day and Mark eases at the sound of your laugh, loosening up his tense shoulders because of the guilt that had been eating him alive.

“It’s okay, really. It doesn’t hurt anymore so I should be okay,” you say and turn your head slightly to your left only to be met by a still guilty looking Mark. You raise your left hand and pat him gently on the back. “Mark, it’s fine. My arm is okay. I’m alive.”

He tears his eyes off the wall and cranes his neck slightly to look at you, a small smile forming on his lips as an appreciation of your consolation. “Is there at least anything I can do to make it a bit better?”

“Mark you really don’t have to—“

“I insist Y/N.”

You grow silent for a while, blinking at him.

“Anything at all. Don’t be shy. It’s the least I could possibly do,” Mark adds, determined to make it up to you.

You come to a conclusion that no matter how much you assure him you were alright, he would never not be guilty because honestly if you were in his shoes, you’d probably be basking yourself in utter guilt right now. So you decide to make it easier for him knowing what he’s feeling right now won’t vanish in a glimpse just from your words alone.

“Okay,” you finally say. You shift your gaze to your broken arm, an idea finally popping in your mind.

“Y-you can—” you start and you feel your chest tighten slightly when you catch Mark staring intently at you, silently prodding you to continue with warmth radiating from his big brown orbs.

“Bring me home?”

—

Week one.

Having a broken arm was more inconvenient than you had initially thought and to make matters worse, it was your dominant hand that just had to snap in two. Blowing a raspberry, you walk into your first lecture of the week ever since the incident, your face scrunching involuntarily as you recall how much of a struggle it was to get ready for university this morning. You walk along the large lecture hall and find your usual seat in the middle of the room that you had always opted to sit on; not to close to be noticed by the professor and not too far to be unable to see anything clearly. It isn’t long before the hall gets filled with bustling students, a lot of them clinging onto paper cups of hot beverages to keep them fuelled for the long day ahead.

You catch sight of the professor emerging from the door and takes his place on the podium to the right corner. With much struggle, you manage to take out your usual materials for class, mainly your anatomy and physiology notebook and your favourite black pen that somehow managed to make early lectures more bearable. The professor begins to speak coherently with the slides displayed on the huge screen and when you’re about to reach for your pen, realisation hits like a truck. You couldn’t write. And you groan in frustration upon the reminder, earning a few looks from the students not too far away from you. Luckily, it wasn’t loud enough for the professor to hear who continued to switch from one slide to another. You let out a sigh as quietly as you could, trying your best to hide your disappointment. So you sit back instead and attempt to listen to everything the professor taught, absorbing as much as your brain allowed so that maybe, you could type up your own notes later. It felt weird not to be writing because it was always something you did in every class. There’s anxiety bubbling up in your chest when your thoughts inadvertently fly to the remaining classes of the day— how were you going to survive?

You end up missing half the things said in your anatomy class because you were too focused on worrying about how the next six weeks would pan out. So when the professor dismisses your class, you rise from your seat with another groan, stuffing your untouched belongings into your bag with a huff. This day was not looking bright and it was only the first class. You can only imagine how difficult it would be to mentally prepare yourself for the rest of the day.

When you exit the hall to make your way to the next one, you stop in the middle of your tracks when your names echoes in between the walls of the building.

“Y/N!”

You turn around and find Mark lightly jogging up to you. He’s wearing yet another hoodie with black jeans and glasses sitting snugly on the bridge of his nose. You smile at him when he reaches you soon after, unknowingly forgetting about how horrible your day was unraveling.

“How’s the arm?” He asks, securing one of the straps of his backpack on his shoulder.

You raise your right arm and wave it slightly in front of him. “Still broken, I think.”

Mark chuckles at your reply and you find yourself smiling along. “Yeah about that I’m really sorry.”

“Mark I was joking. And it’s fine, I promise,” you say.

He purses his lips and nod in defeat. “But still,” he starts and stops himself from apologising again. “Anyways, here.”

You look down and see pages in his hands being extended out to you. You glance back up at him. “What are those?”

He prods you to take them from his hands and you do so, scanning through the handwriting sprawled everywhere on the first page. From the corner of your eye, you see Mark rub the nape of his neck again, a bashful smile playing on his lips.

“Well since uh.. I figured you can’t write because of your arm,” Mark says and you pick up on how shy he’s suddenly become. “So I took notes for you from today’s class.”

You scan the remaining pages and true enough, Mark had taken down everything that was discussed in the class earlier, even drawing mini diagrams with labels here and there and you smile when you see him add his own little notes and reminders on the sides of the pages in a different coloured pen. Mark’s writing wasn’t the neatest and you know it’s because of how fast paced the anatomy lectures usually were and how much of a struggle it was to actually keep up with the professor’s words. But what impresses you is that he’s managed to write everything down in such a short span of time, something you couldn’t do, always missing a few important bits.

You couldn’t help but feel a weight lifted off of your shoulder.

“I know it might not be as good as the notes you usually take but—“

You didn’t realise how happy a bunch of pages put together made you until you find yourself jumping up to envelop your arms around Mark’s neck. Maybe it was the fact that you were so convinced you’d have a horrible day ahead and the fact that Mark had come to rescue you from a fraction of your misery without him knowing but right now, you were just happy and you wanted to hang on to the positive things to help you through the long classes waiting for you. It was a small gesture from Mark. But to you, it was more than enough.

“Oh my goodness this is perfect. Thank you so much. You didn’t have to—“ You stop midway when you realise the position you had gotten yourself into and immediately peel yourself off of Mark who didn’t get the chance to fully comprehend the actions you had just exhibited.

You find him blinking rapidly behind his glasses when you step away from him. You feel heat creep up on your cheeks along with the embarrassment taking over every cell of your body and before he could open his mouth to say something, you cut him off.

“I will study these notes well! Thank you!” You say with a smile, “I’ll see you around then Mark!” You continue quickly and turn on your heels to walk away before he could notice your face that by now is probably as red as a tomato.

Week two.

After a week of adjusting, you were slowly getting used to using one good arm and compromising with the other. Basic tasks such as washing the dishes, taking a shower and brushing your teeth was still a challenge but everyday seemed to get easier. Instead of writing notes physically during lectures, you found it easier to type as you listened, given that your fingers were functioning just fine. Though it felt weird not to be using your favourite pens and turning the pages of your notebook and staring at the bright screen for hours, you felt calmer knowing you kept track of everything you had to study.

The only physical notes you had from the previous week was Mark’s. And there were times you’d discover yourself staring at the pages a little longer, studying not the material, but every stroke that he produced on the page. You had found fascination in the way he wrote his words and even though you’ve studied his material countless of times, you couldn’t help but revise all the information squashed into the reams over and over again. You’re convinced you’ve memorised the nitty gritty of how the human kidneys worked at this stage.

You don’t see Mark after that encounter. After all, you only have once class together and it only occurred once a week. But you’re surprised with how much you’ve been thinking about him. It isn’t until today that you see him again, walking up the stairs of the lecture hall, scanning the room for a seat until he stops just by the row you always sat yourself in. You were early today and so you took comfort in the emptiness and silence of the hall that was yet to be filled with students you really didn’t know. You catch his eyes just as he stands by the edge of the row of empty seats and smiles at you then before scooting himself inside until he’s standing over the seat next to yours.

“Hey,” he greets. “Is this seat taken?”

You glance down at the chair and then back up at Mark, shaking your head lightly. “No, it’s not.”

He smiles at your response and proceeds to sit on the empty chair, placing his backpack just underneath the table.

You blink a couple of times, quite taken aback that the person you’ve just been thinking about (and all week) is sitting right next to you. He’s wearing another hoodie today, a red one, and his dark brown hair is falling just on top of his glasses. You don’t remember ever sitting next to Mark, your memories of him only ever consisting of the boy who sat near the back, in the corner beside another student whom you didn’t know the name of.

There’s silence echoing in the huge hall and you try to rack your brain for things to talk about. Mark seems to be thinking the exact same thing because you both speak at the same time when a topic comes to mind.

“How are—“

“The notes—“

You both chuckle shortly after and Mark gestures for you to speak first. He’s smiling and you notice little sparkles in his eyes. You give yourself a moment to come back to your world after being momentarily lost in the way that his nose crinkled whenever he laughed.

“The notes from last week,” you start. “They were really good. I studied well, thank you.”

The smile on Mark’s lips widen. “Yeah? I was actually worried they didn’t make any sense. I’ve already broken your arm, I don’t want you failing this module too.”

You let out a hearty laugh and you don’t see the way Mark watches you with contentment. “No no. They were actually better than the notes I usually write. So I’m pretty sure no one’s failing anytime soon.”

Mark nods in satisfaction and he pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as he leans forward to rest his clasped hands on the table.

“Well then, leave today’s class up to me,” he announces, watching students come in the lecture hall at the bottom of the room.

You stare at his side profile and tilt your head a little to the side. “It’s okay Mark, I can type my notes today,” you reply and tap your laptop sitting on the table.

Mark glances at the device for a second before shrugging. “No. You relax. I got this.”

“Mark, really it’s okay. You don’t have to—“

He turns to you then and he catches you off guard slightly when he leans forward towards your direction. He’s smiling at you, never breaking eye contact.

“I don’t have to. I’m doing it because I want to.”

Week three.

You can’t focus. And you’re not paying attention to the things you should be. You didn’t even know what the topic of today’s lecture was. The professor’s words seem to drown out of your head completely because you’re staring at the figure beside you writing notes down profusely. You watch Mark repeat his cycle; craning his head towards the front where the lecturer stood before dipping his head down again. There’s a set of pages for you and a set for him and it was only then that you realised how hard he had to work because now he was writing not just for himself but for you too. And no matter how many times you’ve fought to take your eyes off of him, you can’t. And you didn’t know why.

It’s only when Mark looks up some time after and turn his head to you that you’re forced to look away. But when you do, you’re sure he still caught you staring. You feel Mark’s eyes linger on you for a while and you wonder if there was anything on your face for him to do so. When he does resume to focusing his attention to the lecture, you exhale a breath you weren’t aware you were holding.

Lectures were always long but today felt painfully longer than usual. And you think it’s because of the fact that everything being taught didn’t seem to implant themselves in your brain. You couldn’t be more relieved when you see the word conclusion appear on the wide screen indicating the end of anatomy and physiology that felt like centuries later.

“Are you not tired?” You ask Mark curiously as you get up from your seat and prepare to leave.

“Mhm?” Mark hums in response, stuffing his belongings into his backpack. “I got eight hours of sleep last night so I’m good.”

You smile to yourself at his words and follow him when he begins to make his way out of the hall. “Well that’s good. But I meant like, taking down two sets of notes? You were literally on fire in there.”

Mark chuckles as he holds the door open for you, allowing you to exit first with him following closely behind. “No, not really. I’m okay.”

You raise a questioning brow. “Sure?”

Mark nods, “Very sure.”

You feel yourself flinch when Mark’s fingertips graze your shoulder lightly, tugging at the only strap of your backpack that clung onto you before finally letting it fall into his fingers and into his grip, swinging it over his free shoulder.

You blink at him before frowning, noticing the burning sensation of where his fingers were. “What are you doing?”

Mark only smiles sheepishly at you. “Walking you to your next class. Lead the way?”

You try to hide the smile that’s desperate to form on your lips as well as the heat climbing up on your cheeks as you stand your ground.

“Mark my legs are fine to walk. It’s my arm that’s broken, remember?” You say, waving your cast-wrapped arm.

“I know that,” Mark simply replies, amused.

You didn’t want Mark to walk you to wherever your next class was because you feel you’ve had enough of him for the day. Enough of distractions.

You’re reaching out for your bag as you insist, “So you don’t have to walk me anywhere—“

You don’t finish your sentence when he swerves his shoulder away, leaving your arms hanging midair. He smiles at you again and he shrugs when he does. “Just let me.”

“But why? There’s really no need—”

“Because I want to.”

So here you were, weaving in and out of the sea of students in the corridors as you reach for your destination, Mark walking right beside you. You hadn’t spoken to him since, not really knowing what to say when he was so insistent and didn’t want to take a no for an answer. And because you were at a loss for words. He doesn’t speak either. But continues to smile instead.

When you do reach a door similar to the one you had walked into for your first class but on the other end of the building, Mark doesn’t hand you your backpack. He takes it upon himself to move closer to you to put it on your shoulder, taking the time to ensure it sat there snugly. And all you could do was watch.

He steps back a second after and rummages in his own bag to retrieve something. His hands emerges then with the notes he had taken earlier and extends them out to you. “Notes for this week. I hope they don’t disappoint.”

You smile at him gratefully before reaching your good arm out to take them from him. “I’m sure they won’t. Thanks.”

Mark zips his bag closed and swings it over his shoulder. “I better get to class. I’ll see you around?”

You nod. “Of course.”

He’s about to turn on his heels to walk away when he abruptly stops and turns back to you again. “Oh— I almost forgot. Do you like coffee?”

It takes you a moment to answer, taken aback by the random question. “Uh, I think I like hot chocolate better.”

Mark nods firmly then and waves a hand before walking away for real this time. You blink at his retreating figure and when he turns a corner and disappears completely, your eyes fall to the pages in your hand. You raise it closer to your vision when you find a small green sticky note stuck to the corner of the first page. And for the first time ever, you feel your pulse skip a beat.

“Study hard! But not too hard!”

Week four.

You never thought you’d see the day come where you would be excited for a Monday. You hated Mondays, truly. Mondays were long and tiring and you were always exhausted by the time the day finished and there would still be four days left of the week to hustle and bustle. But today was different because you were stepping on campus grounds with a smile on your face, not a frown, but a smile. The sun is shining so bright overhead and you can’t help but feel yet another bubble of happiness explode in your chest. You find it weird to be feeling this way at half eight in the morning because you would usually be walking into the building with a huff, contemplating and questioning your life decisions.

And you’re startled when you find Mark standing just by the door of the lecture hall you both shared every start of the week, because the way that your heart picks up its pace doesn’t go unnoticed by you. Mark is kicking at the floor lightly, glueing his eyes to the motions of his limbs and you stop dead in your tracks to just observe him for a while without his knowledge.

When Mark looks up to see you, he smiles like he usually does and you struggle to keep your insides calm because if you were being honest, he looked absolutely breathtaking. There’s something different about him today and when you let your eyes follow his movements as he walks towards you, that’s when you realise that for the first time he wasn’t hidden in his usual comfortable hoodies. Today, he’s wearing a white shirt half tucked into the material of his light blue jeans and finishing the look with a pair of clean white converse. His hair bounces with every step he takes and when your eyes fall onto his face, you can see his brown orbs radiate clearly under the stream of the sunlight in the absence of his glasses.

“Good morning,” he greets. “For you.”

It takes you a few seconds to fully register his words and when you finally do, you see a cup enveloped in his hand being offered to you.

“What’s this?” You ask confusedly, shifting your gaze from the cup to his face.

Mark smiles and forces the cup onto your left hand before leaning in slightly to tug at the strap of your bag just like how he did last week. Growing uncomfortable by the way your heart was hammering against your rib cage, you swiftly lower your shoulder so that Mark can take the object from you easier because you knew that the longer his fingers grazed your shoulder, the longer you were going to feel the knots in your stomach. You train your eyes to the floor just as Mark places your bag onto the opposite shoulder his own bag sat on.

“Hot chocolate,” Mark says, bringing your attention to the warm beverage now wrapped beneath your fingers. “Let’s get to class?”

So that’s why you were elated to face your Monday; you get to sit beside Mark and watch him diligently scribble perfect notes as he spares glances at you here and there accompanied with a small smile, as if to silently let you know that he was paying attention to you too. And contrary to last week, you didn’t even look away whenever he caught you already looking at him. You wanted to, but you simply couldn’t. And the way he takes the time to smile at you every now and then makes you feel it’s okay to do so, that it was okay to fixate your gaze on him while continued on with his task.

Your thumb fiddles with the cup of the hot chocolate that rests on your lap, thinking to yourself the possibility of falling for this boy. Because you could feel it. In between the hushed whispers in class, the unnecessary crinkle of his nose whenever you said a lousy joke and in the way your breath hitches whenever he got too close. You catch yourself falling in awe because four weeks wasn’t even that long to be harbouring feelings for someone you recalled to be a stranger who blended in well in the background just like you. But that’s when you realise that Mark never blended amongst the crowd like you. To you he was always a conscious presence, a presence you felt compelled towards but never really got the opportunity to uncover. And you think it’s because of his quiet demeanour that shielded many things underneath the comfort of his oversized hoodies that leaves you wondering and pondering what he could possibly be like.

You smile because you discover it for yourself. You get to experience what he’s really like. Mark is sweet. And gentle. And comfortable to be around with when he isn’t causing you to almost hyperventilate.

“Why are you smiling?” Mark asks in a whisper, leaning slightly towards you as the professor’s voice continues to boom throughout the hall.

You shake your head silently with a shrug of your shoulders. “Just because.”

Mark continues to stare at you (your lips), his pen in his hand and ponders for a few seconds.

“I like it.”

Your eyes widen slightly and you don’t get the chance to throw him a questioning look because he’s already turned away to resume on catching the professor’s words on paper.

Once the hour is up, Mark is walking you to your next class again, allowing his memory lead the way through the corridors. You traipse along with him, the now half empty beverage being the only thing you were carrying as he refused not to carry your belongings for you earlier. You drown into small conversation with him, relishing in the feeling of being calm for the first time since meeting Mark today. You laugh at something he says, your hearty laugh echoing in his ears that encourage him to laugh with you. He places your bag on your shoulder again, just like how he did last week when you both reach the familiar entrance of another hall.

“I put the notes in your bag,” Mark says as he runs a hand through his hair when it gets caught in his eyes. “Enjoy class.”

You smile gratefully at him though feeling sad on the inside with the thought of not seeing him anymore until next week. “Thanks. I really appreciate it. I’ll see you next Monday then?”

Mark is rocking on his toes and he averts his eyes from yours, training his gaze to the ground for a second or two before looking up at you again. He rests his hand on the strap of his bag while the other flies a hand to the nape of his neck, a gesture that reminds you of the very first day he wrote your material for you.

“Actually, I wanted to ask if you’re free this Friday?” Mark asks, a shy smile eminent on his lips.

You can’t help but smile at the sight, an inkling of hope sparking in you that he might be feeling the same way you did. Not wanting to assume so soon, you muster up the courage to clarify his intentions.

“Friday?”

Mark drops his hand from his neck and opts to stuff into the pocket of his jeans instead, his little bashful gestures tugging at your heartstrings.

“Yeah. There’s a café that recently opened nearby and I wanted to ask if you’d like to come and check it out with me? I heard they make really nice hot chocolates,” he explains and you take note of the tint of rose spreading across his cheeks.

You pretend to think about his proposal, not wanting to sound so eager when in reality, you’ve already made up your mind even before he even got to ask.

“I finish at six that day, is that okay?” You say after a while, feeling giddy and excited at the thought of spending your Friday evening with the cute boy in the white shirt.

Mark’s face lightens up and the grip on your cup involuntarily tightens because of how happy he looked with your reply.

“Of course. That’s great,” he says, grinning.

You fumble at each other’s phone then to exchange numbers with the promise of Mark texting you before he walks away to get to his own class. You enter your lecture hall not too long after and settle in your seat. When you come across the sight of Mark’s familiar handwriting on the pages that are neatly tucked away in your book, you curiously take it out of your bag and examine the newly jotted notes, growing more and more accustomed to your routine with him.

You don’t fail to notice yet another green sticky note plastered on the corner of the first page and you feel yourself completely crumble altogether.

“You have a really pretty smile.”

—

You’re huffing and puffing when you feel your legs grow weaker by the second. There’s a burning sensation coating your lungs but you don’t stop running. It was approaching thirty minutes past six and you were late. The thought of Mark waiting for you sent guilt running up your spine. You finally round a corner and find him waiting patiently outside the said café. He’s wearing a dark grey sweater today, hair slightly tousled because of the wind that had just blown, staring out into the street in front of him.

“Oh my God I’m so sorry I’m late,” you say in between your heavy breaths once you reach him, your approaching figure catching his attention. You’re leaning slightly forward and clutching your chest with your broken arm to catch your breath.

As if on instinct, Mark takes the book you’re holding on to so tightly in your hand that you had failed to stuff in your bag after rushing to get here when your last class ended later than usual. He proceeds to take your bag from you too, something that felt too natural now.

Mark only smiles at you when he takes your belongings and holds them as if they were his. “It’s alright. No worries. I didn’t wait much.”

You let out a huge breath. “How long have you been waiting?”

Thirty minutes. Mark shrugs his shoulders, “I just got here.”

Not buying his lie, you walk past him and enter the café first, the bell signalling customers had arrived. “Okay, I’m paying.”

Mark frowns just behind you. “No. I asked you to come. I’m paying.”

“Yes but I was late so I’m making up for it,” you retorted and find a table by the corner. You slip into the seat as Mark settles on the seat opposite you.

“Y/N—“

“Mark, I’m paying.”

Sighing dejectedly, Mark slumps his shoulders in defeat. You smile victoriously and take the time to appreciate the coziness of the place you had just entered. Dark wooden walls enclosed the area, round tables spread generously throughout the space with little light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, emitting a mellow glow of yellow all around. There’s soft jazz music playing in the background and you’re immediately enthralled with how warm it makes you feel on the inside. You weren’t one to opt for cafés usually but this one was definitely on the top of your non-existent list.

“I like it here already,” you perk up, attracting Mark’s attention who had been focused on the small menu set on the table.

Mark smiles in content. “Yeah? I’m glad.”

A few minutes of deciding after, Mark rises and walks to the counter to order and you take this opportunity to fix yourself up, patting your hair down from the frantic running earlier. It isn’t too long before you see Mark emerging to reach for his seat again. When he sits in front you, you recognise the way he isn’t wearing his glasses again and you’re reminded by the shining of his eyes. You feel conscious under his stare because he’s leaning on the table, resting on his crossed arms and you try to shy away from it by looking elsewhere.

“Rough day today?” He asks, concerned.

You momentarily close your eyes and release a sigh before opening them again. “Very. Today felt so long.”

“Yeah?” Mark asks as if to confirm, a habit of his you found somehow captivating. “Tell me about it.”

So you do. You ramble on about how each class seemed to dragged on forever and how your merciless professors are piling up work on top of work with no hesitation. You vent out all your frustrations because the stress was getting to you. But you don’t tell him about the excitement of meeting him that kept you moving forward to survive the horrible day. He didn’t need to know that one.

“Oh— I’m sorry, that must have been so boring to listen to,” you cut yourself off in the middle of another sentence when you start talking about the frustration of working in a group with students who weren’t as dedicated on putting in work as much as you were.

You expect to find Mark dozing off at your ramblings, but instead, you find him in the same position he was earlier, leant forward, smiling at you and nodding to every word that left your mouth.

“No it’s not. Keep talking,” he assures. You’re oblivious as to how he finds fascination in your voice.

You’re about to protest when the waitress comes to deliver what Mark had ordered earlier. She carefully sets two hot chocolates in front you followed by slices of blueberry and chocolate cheesecakes. You thank the waitress along with Mark and that’s when you notice she’s unmoving in her spot, taking a good look at Mark. She looks about your age, long black hair tied loosely past her shoulders. Mark is slower to notice her attention and you feel queasy when there’s an unfamiliar feeling forming in your gut.

You see Mark shift in his seat uncomfortably when he thanks the waitress again. She mumbles a quick welcome before walking away, cheeks tinted. You smile in amusement when Mark regains his composure, tugging at his sweater.

“I think she likes you,” you point out, stirring your hot chocolate with the small spoon.

Mark chuckles lightly and shakes his head as he follows what you’re doing. “Nah, probably not.”

“Her stare says otherwise,” you prod, surprised by the way your tone sounded rigid.

“Doesn’t matter,” Mark dismisses and looks at you as he wraps his slender fingers around his mug, nodding his head at your mug . “Try it and see if it lives up to your expectations.”

You divert you eyes to your hot chocolate before lifting the mug and letting your tastebuds become coated with the warm liquid. It brings you waves of calm and you savour the sweet taste, forgetting about the eventful day that sent you to unimaginable stress. When you let the mug down in its original place on the table, you hum in contentment.

“Okay that’s really good,” you say, using your tongue to remove the excess that had managed to stay on your top lip.

Mark follows suit and takes his first sip, agreeing with you when he gets a taste. You lose yourselves into your conversations then, swapping your cakes with each other in between so that you can both challenge who had the better cake. You learn about Mark’s family and his love for instruments and anything that had to do with music; something he said no one really knew about. He learns about you in return and your family that lives miles away in England. You tell him how much you miss them, especially your little brother who’s just three years of age and Mark empathises with you when he tells you his family lives in Canada. Both of you jump from one topic to another, discovering more similarities than you would’ve thought and challenging each other’s views on certain subjects that required a lot more thought. Regardless, every single conversation is smooth flowing and there’s an abundance of laughs in between transitions. You grow to like the crinkling of Mark’s nose when he laughs while Mark on the other hand, revels in how light your laugh makes him feel. And even though the place is filled with the distant chatters of other people sipping on their coffee, both of you take no notice of them, heavily engaged into whatever you were talking about.

You feel a newly uncovered connection with Mark and you wonder if he felt the same way.

It’s a little past nine when you both call it a night and rise from the table you both had grown comfortable in. You walk towards the counter with the intent to pay only to be notified that everything has been paid for already. You turn to raise a questioning brow at Mark who only smiles sheepishly at you.

“I told you I’d pay,” you say once you exit the cozy café.

“No. I asked you to come so it’s only right that I pay,” Mark defends. “Besides, it’s an excuse for me to see you again. You can treat me next time.”

You grow silent at his reply and internally surrender when his words sends your heart in a frenzy. Mark walks you to your apartment situated ten minutes away from where your university was. It’s as if you two never the left the café because you’re still laughing during your conversations even at the cringeworthy puns Mark makes every chance he got. You can’t remember the last time you’ve laughed this much, only ever basking in the feeling of longing you had for your family back home. You weren’t the type to make friends either, hence spending the majority of your time by yourself. However being with Mark felt like a breath of fresh air. He made interacting feel easier which was a surprise to you because it’s always been something you’ve struggled with.

You reach your apartment building just as you finish chuckling at something he said. He hands you your book and the bag he had claimed before leaving the café earlier.

“Thanks for today, I had a lot of fun,” you say genuinely, adjusting your bag with your good hand.

Stuffing his hands into the pocket of his jeans, Mark smiles with a nod. “Me too. I’ll see you Monday?”

You nod carefully and you take this as your queue to head inside but the way Mark is smiling at you endearingly, eyes forming crescent moons screams at your insides to do something else. All the rationality in your system seem to fly out the window when you’re taking a step towards him, leaning on your toes to reach up and plant a quick kiss on his cheek. You’re embarrassed by your actions but not as embarrassed as Mark who’s blushing like mad and training his eyes to the ground in vain attempts of hiding the heat that’s spreading across his face.

“See you on Monday,” you say with a satisfied smile.

—

Week five.

Five weeks with a cast around your arm and you were living completely fine with it. Tasks didn’t bother you anymore, applying your own know-how’s on how to handle such chores. The only thing bothered you was when the skin under the hard material itched so bad you could literally only writhe your fingers in hopes of consoling yourself until you realise it doesn’t work and silently hope for the discomfort to end instead. Mark texts you right after you part from him that Friday night. Even thought it was a mere good night, sleep well it was more than enough for you to grin like an idiot as you reread the message over and over again. You furtively dread seeing him today as the sun rises, indicating another start to your work after burying yourself in work during the weekend, never leaving your room, because you remember that risky kiss you had impulsively planted on his cheek. You prepare yourself for the worst; Mark avoiding you and hiding himself because of what you did. But mentally argue with yourself; he texted you that night so that might mean you didn’t scare him away completely. Regardless, you silently wish you hadn’t been so irrational and let your emotions take over.

You walk in the building, half hoping to see Mark wait for you by the door you entered together for the past few weeks now. And you know you’re in deep trouble because you’re already expecting to see him first thing on a Monday morning; an unconscious confirmation of your desire to spend at least an hour with him.

You pick up the way your muscles relax unintentionally when you catch sight of him already looking towards your direction with his usual smile. He’s wearing his glasses today and the sight of his round specs make you realise you kind of missed them. When you reach him, he extends out the familiar cup of hot chocolate in his hand and extends his other free hand in place for your bag. You roll your eyes playfully, butterflies reeling in your stomach as you trade.

“I really don’t understand why you have to carry my bag. I’m perfectly able for that task,” you say when you’re hopping along the stairs of the hall, careful enough not to spill your beverage.

Mark chuckles behind you and follows you carefully as you shuffle into your usual row. “And I don’t understand why you protest so much. I told you before, I’m doing it because I want to.”

You sit yourself on the chair after you unfold it from its original state and give Mark an inquiring look. Mark follows suit and settles both of your bags below where he usually places them. “Why? Do you not like me doing it?”

You purse your lips as you try not to melt. He’s genuine with his question, feeling worried you might have developed a distaste for his actions. You shake your head, wondering if you wanted to be one hundred percent transparent so early in the day. But Mark is asking you with his eyes and you feel the urge to show an eighth of how you’ve been feeling.

“It’s not that,” you start. “It’s just I don’t want to get used to it and this,” you say as you raise the hot chocolate within his view. He glances at it and shifts his gaze onto you almost immediately, encouraging you to continue with a nod. “My cast comes off in a week Mark, and I don’t want myself to expect you doing these still when it does because I’m slowly growing used to all of this.”

Mark blinks a couple of times and you’re instantly regretting being so honest. You take a sip from your cup to comfort yourself in the sweet taste and to distract yourself from the words you had just let go of. You avoid Mark’s eyes which you can’t read at the moment.

“You really think I’m doing all of this because of your cast?”

You snap your head towards his direction. “Aren’t you? And because of guilt maybe?”

He stays silent after and you take the opportunity to emphasise your opinion.

“I’ve already told you it’s okay. My broken arm wasn’t anybody’s fault and that there’s nothing to be sorry for—“

“I know that. And I took your word for it,” Mark interrupts, his eyebrows furrowing in the middle, an expression you’ve never seen on him before. “Which is why I kept telling you that I’m not doing it out of anything— not out of guilt, not out of obligation. But because I simply want to.” Mark inhales a breath and runs a hand through his hair.

“And I’m going to keep doing it for you, your arm broken or not.”

And that’s it. You finally melt. And the the crescent of his smiling eyes with the emergence of his chiseled cheekbones when he smiles doesn’t help the butterflies in your stomach calm their whimsical wings, tickling you ever so lightly.

Mark doesn’t speak anymore as the class begins and you’re left alone with your haywire thoughts. And you grow even more embarrassed for the rest of the day when you read your note for the day, presenting itself in the usual green sticky note attached to your notes.

“You look really cute when you’re flustered.”

In the middle of the week, you find yourself seated on a bench overlooking the wide green football pitch as you skim over Mark’s notes, revising the topic you hadn’t paid much attention to during the actual lecture. It’s one in the afternoon which meant that you had an hour for lunch so here you were, finding solace in the silence under the shade of a tree to protect yourself from the sun. You trace your fingers under the ink as you read every bullet point, occasionally looking up to stare into the distance to mentally repeat what you’ve just read to check how immersed you were in your study.

You feel your phone vibrate just beside you and you reach for it, eyes unwavering from the page. You read one more sentence before switching your attention to your phone. Mark’s name displays on the screen, indicating a new message from him.

Did you have lunch yet?

Your thumbs tap on your device in a fluid manner hitting the send button not too long after to tell him no and that you weren’t feeling hungry. You don’t get a reply within the time frame that Mark usually replies in and so you set your phone back on the bench, eyes travelling to your notes once again. A few minutes later, a pair of shoes appears just in front of you and slowly, you peel your eyes away from Mark’s handwriting to see who your company was.

Mark is smiling down at you just as he leans down slightly to settle a brown paper bag just on the unoccupied space of the bench beside you. You smile in return, happy at the sight of him.

“What are you doing here?” You ask curiously when he stands back up.

Mark is rocking back and forwards on his toes again. “I was walking by and I saw you. Figured I’d say hi.”

“Well, hello,” you answer playfully.

Mark grins bashfully, running a hand through his hair. “I actually have class now so I have to go.”

“So you came to actually say bye,” you tease, a playful eyebrow raised as you cross your arms across your chest.

“Trust me I don’t want to say bye but I have to get this degree,” he says, playing along with you.

You chuckle and he mirrors your actions. “Alright,” you say and wave a hand. He turns on his heels then and leave you alone again in your silence. When he’s no longer in view, your eyes fall to the brown bag he had placed before you earlier. You pick it up and rip the familiar green sticky note off of the thin material of the bag, finding Mark’s writing etched on it.

“Please don’t skip your meals ㅠ ㅠ Studying is good but not when you’re missing food.”

You smile to yourself and find a sandwich hidden inside the bag with a bottle of orange juice. A chuckle escapes your mouth when you pick up yet another sticky note that’s plastered on the sandwich.

“This isn’t much but it’ll do for now. We’ll get proper food this Friday. If you’re up for it.”

Mark was sweet. As always.

—

It’s Friday. And you’re walking alongside Mark along the streets of the city, allowing your eyes wander all around the buildings you happen to pass by as you savour the taste of the vanilla ice cream sitting perfectly on your cone. Mark upheld his suggestion in taking you out for dinner once again and after losing yet another debate on who pays for the meal, you suggested to buy him ice cream instead, insisting until he finally caved in and gave you what you wanted. There’s a smile playing on your lips when you see Mark indulge in his watermelon flavoured ice cream. He wasn’t carrying your usual backpack today. Instead, he slung your small handbag across his shoulders and let it rest slightly above his hip.

“So where would you like to go next week?” Mark suddenly asks after licking his dessert.

“Next week?” You ask inquisitively.

Mark nods, eyes ahead. “Is there anything you’re craving?”

You narrow your eyes at his side view, not really sure if you wanted to ask the question burning in your mind for the longest time. But you decide against it and decide to go along with his suggestions instead.

“Not that I can think of, no,” you simply reply.

Mark purses his lips in thought. “Hm. How about burgers? Pizza? Pasta?”

You take another lick off your ice cream as you consider the variety of food mentioned. “Burgers sound good.”

Mark nods proudly, biting into his cone. “Burgers it is then. I’ll look for good places around.”

You chuckle when he gets some ice cream on his nose and you don’t for one second hesitate to reach out and wipe it away with the tissue in your free hand. He merely watches your moves and blink right after you succeed in wiping his face clean. “Is this food hunt a weekly thing now?”

You don’t notice Mark stiffen and regain his composure as he trails his eyes ahead, obviously taken aback by your touch because as far as he could remember, he’d always been the one on the giving end, except for that one kiss you had given him. He clears his throat then and proceeds on focusing on his dessert to distract himself from the warmth spreading across his cheeks.

“It could be. If you want,” he says.

You nudge his side playfully, “It could be if you’d let me pay.”

Mark quirks a smile. “I let you pay earlier didn’t I?”

You roll your eyes playfully at him, causing him to emit another chuckle. “That was dessert. I mean like a proper meal.”

Mark takes a step closer to you unknowingly. “I’m the one asking you out on dates. So it’s on me.”

Your head whizzes towards his direction and an eyebrow shoots up immediately. There were times you’d wonder if the last Friday and today were considered as dates. But you never dwelled on it and opted to treat them as two friends hanging out and checking out cozy places but now that Mark has said it himself, a new set of questions seeped into your mind.

“Dates?”

Munching on the last bit of his cone, Mark nods with a smile, slightly amused at your incredulous face. He stuffs his hand in his pocket and meet your eyes. “Dates. What have you been thinking all this time?”

You continue to blink at him, unmoving, not realising you’ve stopped walking, people weaving around you. Mark stops with you and waits for your reply.

“I- I don’t know,” you say truthfully. “I thought we were just grabbing food together.”

Mark chuckles lowly and lifts a hand to rub the nape of his neck, a shy smile forming on his lips. “I’m sorry. I was wrong on my part. I didn’t make myself clear enough, did I?”

Your mouth is now hanging slightly open.

“Okay,” Mark says when he sees you still confused. “I want to take you out on a date next week. Let’s get some burgers?”

You finally snap out of your trance when a stranger’s shoulder bumps into yours, making you lose your balance slightly. Mark is quick to reach out to you and grab a hold of your arms to stabilise you, his touch sending surges of electricity through the fabric of your sweater.

You try to laugh off your embarrassing faces just now as you begin to walk ahead, wiping your hand that had been dripped on by your melting ice cream. “We’re not even dating,” you say in a light tone in attempts to hide the erratic beating of your heart.

Mark walks until he’s beside you, close enough that his shoulder touches with yours.

“Yeah? Maybe we should start dating then.”

—

Week six.

Mark’s words eat at you the whole weekend that passes and it isn’t helping that he’s smiling at you more often now, his nose crinkling and his eyes disappearing. Nevertheless, you can’t shrug off the light weight settling in your chest whenever he momentarily shifts his eyes from the notes he’s writing to you only for his lips to curl upwards into a small smile. There’s another hot chocolate sitting at your desk and you feel it tastes even sweeter today. When Mark brings you to your next class, his gaze lingers on you a little longer and you’re tempted to cower away so that he doesn’t see you becoming flustered because his eyes spoke too much and it was enough to terrify you; you feel yourself losing to him. His notes are in your hands and the small green in the corner catches your eye immediately. He doesn’t leave though, staring at you, silently encouraging you to read what he had written for you today.

Go on a date with me?

And when you look back up at him, he’s just smiling, hands buried deep within his pockets and balancing his weight back and forth his toes.

Lunch times were no longer spent on your own because Mark made an effort to cross from his building which was all the way on the other end of the campus to yours just so he could eat with and talk to you. It’s Thursday and you’re watching him curiously as he twiddles with the marker in between his fingers, twirling it skilfully, another habit of his you had picked up whenever he paused from writing. Your casted arm is laid on the table just below him. He had asked you earlier if he could write on it since it would be coming off this weekend and you agreed without hesitation, giddy at the thought of having a part of Mark with you.

When you happen to glance at the time on your phone, you reluctantly take your arm off of the table, Mark following your every move.

“I’ve class. I have to go,” you say simply as you gather your things. “Still can’t decide what to write?”

Mark shakes his head and gets up from his chair when you do, stuffing the last of your things into your bag and grabbing it to swing on his shoulder but just as he’s about to do so, you grab his arm and stop and him.

“You stay here. I can walk to class on my own,” you assure him.

“Are we going to do this again? I want—“

You halt his words with a firm nod of your head, your lips quirking up into a smile. “I know that.” A soft chuckle leaves your lips as you reach out and plant a pink sticky note on his forehead.

Mark stares at you on confusion, his face adorable.

“I’ll see you this Friday then?” You say with a wink before walking away to leave.

Mark watches you before raising his hand to pluck the sticky note off his forehead.

I would love to go on date with you.

—

Mark surprises you once again when he holds out a bouquet of fresh sunflowers to you hiding behind a bashful smile shielded with the crescent moon of his eyes and cheekbones as prominent as ever. There’s heat creeping up on your cheeks as you take the flowers from him.

“Sunflowers?” You ask curiously, taking in the beauty of each one. The sight of the bright yellow alone is enough to make you happy from the inside.

Mark smiles shyly and runs a hand through his hair. “Umm,” he starts, obviously hesitating. You take your eyes away from the flowers and encourage him to continue with a nod of your head and a smile on your lips. “It’s going to sound so cheesy but... you remind me of sunflowers, that’s why.”

You can’t help the smile on your face from reaching one ear to the other, melting slowly by his sheepish confession. “It’s not cheesy, Mark. It’s sweet.”

Mark grins, his eyes smiling along.

“And thank you, I love them.”

And just like the previous Fridays, you block the whole world out as you and Mark talk about life, memories, people and the world. You get a better understanding of Mark and you let yourself open up to him knowing it was exactly that he wanted you to do. And it feels light. It feels weightless. Exposing your worries, concerns and dreams with Mark doesn’t feel hard to do because you feel your secrets are safe with him. You feel safe with him. Every word that leaves your mouth registers in Mark’s mind without missing a syllable and he makes a vow never to forget a single one because if anything, you sharing everything that was kept under your façade was all he’s ever wanted you to do. So that you don’t have to carry the burden alone. So that you didn’t feel alone. And Mark does his best to make you feel like you aren’t, in the way he responds to you, in the way he never takes his eyes off of you and in the way he reaches out to wrap your hand under his when the words get caught in your throat.

Mark doesn’t let go of your hand the whole walk home. You expected to feel your heart jump right out of your chest the moment he took your hand in his and effortlessly intertwine his fingers in between yours, but instead, the moment felt all too natural, and you felt calm, comfortable even. Mark feels warm and you instinctively lean closer to him when a gush of wind blows and you’re oblivious to the way he smiles above you when you do.

“Today was something else,” you mumble when you reach a familiar building.

Mark smiles at you, not ready to let go of your hand just yet, your bouquet of flowers nestling in his other arm, “Yeah. It was.”

Mark is rubbing circles with his thumb on the back of your hand and you momentarily wish that you could stay like this for a little longer. “Thank you for today. It was the best first date I could ever ask for.”

“Yeah? I’m glad. I had an amazing time too,” Mark replies, cheekbones evident on his chiselled face. “I always do, with you.”

You frown at him as an attempt to mask your frustration away. This boy was definitely something. “Right. Well, I should get going. Thank you for bringing me home.”

Mark nods but his hand remains unmoving in yours and you’re chuckling when you feel him give your hand a squeeze. Instead of prying his hold off you, you close the gap between the both of you and lean on your toes to plant a soft peck on his cheek. When you pull away with a smile, his grip on your hand loosen then and you take this opportunity to take your hand away along with the sunflowers. He’s blinking at you, taken aback by your actions just like the very first time you boldly kissed him.

“Good night, Mark,” you mumble bashfully and turn on your heels to walk away. It isn’t long before he’s calling your name again.

“Hey Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Would it be okay.. If I go to the hospital with you tomorrow?”

You smile gives your answer away even before you could utter a reply.

“I’d love that.”

—

“You never got to write on my cast,” you point out as you exit the hospital. You’re flailing your right arm around slightly, trying to get used to the sensation you didn’t feel for six weeks.

You feel Mark shrug beside you, “That’s okay. I still have plenty of sticky notes left.”

This makes you laugh and you shake your head at him. “Whatever you say.”

It isn’t long before Mark finds your right hand and laces it with his left. “It feels nice to be holding this hand.”

You raise a playful brow. “So my left one isn’t as nice?”

Mark chuckles and gives your hand a squeeze. “I’m just saying I’m going to be doing this much more often.”

You challenge him, scooting closer, “Because?”

Mark doesn’t respond, caught in between your playful question. The sun is shining up so high in the sky and there are no clouds present to intervene with the bright light. There’s a bubble of happiness bursting in his chest and he smiles ahead, growing all too familiar with the sensation.

“I guess this is the part where I confess, right?”

You whip your head towards him in a heartbeat. “What?”

Mark is trying not to notice your furrowed eyebrows as he continues to stare ahead. “You know, I think it was a good thing I broke your arm.”

You blink at him, confused. “What?”

Mark cranes his neck towards you to look at you. “Because it finally gave me a reason to talk to you.”

“Okay I’m confused,” you say defeated, halting in your steps and unlatching your hand from his. You cross your arms across your chest and wait for him to explain.

Mark chuckles at your actions and you could almost guess what he’s about to do next when you see a bashful smile playing on his lips; stuffing one hand into the pocket of his jeans and the other flies up to rub the nape of his neck.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” Mark starts. “I’ve had the biggest crush on you Y/N ever since... Probably ever since the first time I saw you walk through our anatomy and physiology lectures which was what? Like the start of this year right? And I know I should have just manned up and talked to you right there and then but I couldn’t bring myself to. I think I got scared and.. nervous.”

He pauses as he laughs awkwardly, recalling all the times he’d watch you carefully sit down in your favourite seat of the lecture hall.

“I was really really curious about you, not in a creepy way, trust me. I just really wanted to know you but I didn’t know how. It just so happened that I was late for class one day and ended up knocking you down with my bike.”

“So breaking my arm was a ploy to talk to me?”

“Y/N that’s not what I meant, I—“

You laugh at his reaction, heart fluttering at his cute confession. Mark still looks flustered and he’s averting his eyes everywhere but you and you find him even more endearing then. That’s when you take a step closer and wrap your arms around his neck.

“Well then, I thank you for being late to class that day,” you whisper. “The past six weeks have been the easiest for me despite the broken arm.” You smile to yourself when you feel Mark’s arms wrap around your waist. “And I guess this is the part I confess too? I like you too, Mark.”

Mark doesn’t say anything. Instead, he tightens his arms around you and buries his head into the crook of your neck.

—

Week seven.

Over the week, your texts and calls with Mark become more frequent and he no longer waits until Friday to take you out on dates, managing to squeeze in picnic dates in between free periods and staying back after lectures to study together in the library. If Mark was sweet before the confession, he was even sweeter after telling you how he felt about you.

I really really like you.

You look really pretty today.

Well— you always do.

But yeah, I can’t believe you like me too?

Like wow.

You give Mark an incredulous look when your eyes fall onto the set of green sticky notes he had plastered on your book in a span of two minutes. How could you even manage to study when he was being like this? Mark only smiles at you innocently before training his eyes onto his book again. Shaking your head in disapproval (even though you adored each one of his quick notes), you resume on typing your half finished essay. Not even ten minutes into your work, you feel Mark scurry to write another note on his small pad. Ten seconds later, he sticks it right on the screen of your laptop, right where you can see it straight away.

Scratch that. You’re beautiful. I hope you know that.

—

“I remember that one time, I dropped my pencil case in the middle of the corridor and you picked it up for me as you were passing by,” Mark says, adjusting your bag on his shoulder. “And even then, I couldn’t say anything to you.”

You laugh and play with the stem of the sunflower in your hand, one that Mark had given you after meeting you when your lectures ended. “But why? Am I that intimidating?”

“No,” Mark says. “I told you, I was just always so nervous around you.”

You laugh playfully and nudge his shoulder. “Are you still nervous now?”

Mark smiles and stops for a moment, “You have no idea.”

You sigh exasperatedly turning your whole body to face him. “Mark you’re making me flustered. Stop that,” finally expressing a fraction of how he really made you feel.

“Stop what?” Mark teases.

“That thing you do. I don’t know what it’s called,” you say with hand motions. “Did you know you have a way with words?”

Mark shakes his head, feigning innocence, enjoying the sight of the pink shade on your cheeks. “That’s a first. But maybe because I’m with you?”

You close your eyes briefly to collect yourself because right now you were absolutely melting and it didn’t look like Mark was going to stop anytime soon. “You’re enjoying this too much aren’t you?”

Mark shrugs his shoulders, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You roll your eyes playfully at him as you hold the sunflower in front of him. This was the fourth sunflower of the week and although you loved every single one, you couldn’t help but be curious.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why sunflowers? I know you said they remind you of me, but I want to know how.”

Mark shifts his gaze on the yellow flower before fixating his gaze on you, eyes smiling.

“Sunflowers make me happy whenever I see them. And that’s exactly how I feel when I see you,” Mark replies straightforwardly, as if it was the one thing he was most sure about in the whole world.

You silently regret asking because you weren’t prepared for what he was actually about to say. You should know by now; Mark always always had a way with his words.

“Cheesy right?” Mark chuckles, mentally reprimanding himself for being so smitten by you to the point where this side of him shows involuntarily.

You shake your head, giving him a smile.

“It’s not cheesy, Mark. It’s sweet.”

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blazehedgehog · 6 years ago

Note

I think that most people's arguments about SRB2 simply come from the fact that people have forced themselves to get used to the way it controls. Thus, when someone else points out the issues with the controls, the fans don't understand why anyone else would complain. (noticed this a lot with Kid Icarus Uprising, which had similar control issues.)

I mean, that’s what I mean when I say “sunk-cost fallacy.” That’s a term I’ve heard thrown around increasingly more these days and it’s used to define a sense of, like…

You put so much time in to a thing that you start justifying why it has to be that way. Like, “I put 700 hours in to this! It can’t be wrong, because if it was wrong, I wouldn’t do it for so long!” It starts to feel like something you have to defend, because to be wrong for so long would be an insult.

And this tends to be game development poison, because when you’re creating a game, you’re doing all these micro-playtests a thousand times a day, where you change a piece of the game, then test to see what it looks like in-engine, over and over and over, until you get a desired result.

But what this means is that even if the game controls poorly, or if something is unbalanced, or whatever, you eventually learn to live with it. Sure, you might fix the big upper-level problems, the ones that are super obvious and cannot be ignored. But for the things that are harder to define, you might genuinely stop seeing the problem because it stops registering on your radar.

The key moment comes once you’re confronted about it needing to change. That’s where that reaction of, “how dare you suggest I’m wrong because I’ve spent so long thinking I was right” comes up.

But in game development especially, you have to stop and ask yourself whether or not you want something for selfish reasons or because you genuinely think it’ll hurt the game’s appeal in the market at large. Are you making a game for yourself, or are you making a game for other people? Obviously it’s a bit of both, but there’s a balance that must be struck, and at the end of the day, the scales should probably tip further in the direction of your audience than you personally.

This is a lesson I’ve since learned after finishing my old Super Mario Blue Twilight DX fan game – I received feedback on bosses and stuff in that game that, at the time, I had developed a kind of sunk-cost fallacy behind and I refused to change them. That game was, and still kind of is the largest game project I’ve ever completed; it took me at least year and a half to put its 12 levels together.

So when feedback came in that some bosses were too arbitrary or difficult, I brushed them off because, well, *I* could do it, it was fine for me, and those people just needed to learn better and step up. “Git gud” as it were.

With 14 years of hindsight on that decision, I realize how ridiculous and egotistical I sounded. If I’d listened to opinions outside of my echo chamber and really considered wider implications, I could have made the game even better. Instead, I chose to be stubborn, leading to somebody on television complaining to millions of viewers that the bosses were too difficult.

It was my game. I got to decide how it was made. Nobody could tell me I was wrong. And while that Mario fan game was considered by some to be a landmark for communities like MFGG, it was still a mistake I made, it was the result of short-sighted egotism, and the game could have been better if I’d only realized that.

This is the lesson I was trying to convey with The Unleashed Project and S-Ranks. And this is the lesson I’m trying to convey now with the control problems in SRB2 version 2.2.

In the case of SRB2, it does not make any sense that they’d bury their heads in the sand over an issue like this, because they clearly seem to care about accessibility. I was told the analog mode is being depreciated because “nobody on the development team likes it” but how many people on the development team are deaf? They still put a closed captioning option in. They also have ways for colorblind people to tweak the game to their liking.

It feels like a stubbornness over the “real” way to experience SRB2, when the “real” way is a dated regression that makes this new version worse than the old one. And it’s a foundational issue, one that changes the lens that the entire game gets filtered through. If you cannot control the game, nothing built on top of those controls matter. They are the single most fundamental core element of any game and the last thing you want to be hard headed about. The simple fact that the tutorial opens on a line like, “Unlike most 3D platformers…” should be the first and largest red flag that you are going against the grain in the wrong direction in a way that will make people frustrated.

The sooner you realize that, and that it’s okay to admit it’s a problem to be fixed, the better the game will be for everyone.

#questions #sonic robo-blast 2 #srb2 #sonic team jr.#sonic the hedgehog #Anonymous

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nhlarchived · 6 years ago

Text

NYC ~ Mathew Barzal

Chapter Three

Ch. One ~ Ch. Two ~ Ch. Three ~ Ch. Four ~ Ch. Five

Word Count: 2,573

Warnings: Mature Language

Wattpad

As if going to school wasn’t boring enough on its own, Mother Nature decided to give us a rainstorm today. Thankfully the MTA station was not only directly in front of my apartment building, but also outside of where my class was being held for the day. Allowing me to avoid being completely drenched from the torrential downpour.

I didn’t mind the forecast too bad, I actually love storms. However, I enjoy them the most while I’m at home watching from the comfort of my own bed, using it as white noise to take a nap. Yet here I sit in my uncomfortable plastic seat watching droplets race each other down the glass window while a professor fifty feet away speaks gibberish into a microphone.

My class this morning was of course, one of my least favorites. Not that I hated it due to being difficult, only because I knew practically everything already and I could teach the class better than the professor himself. So, for entertainment before I passed out from pure boredom, I decided to occupy myself by texting Mathew after his morning practice had ended.

Similar to how he is in person, he was great with holding a conversation. In fact, I almost forgot I was even in class. He decided to explain more in depth on his life back home in Vancouver, telling me about his parents, sister and even about their dogs that he’s apparently terrified of. I was so invested in the stories he was telling that as he was confessing some embarrassing ones, I accidentally let out a giggle that I had to quickly cover with a fake cough to not disrupt the class. Although I couldn’t trick the people closely surrounding me as I had a permanent smile plastered on my face that my hand couldn’t even hide.

As much as I could through text, I made my potential feelings towards him obvious as he did the same for I, but after last night I couldn’t help but worry if this would work out or not. The money from nannying was the only thing covering my student loans and necessities. I was living on my own in one of the most expensive cities as a full time student. I’m fortunate enough that my distant family owned my current apartment and allowed me to reside there as long as I maintained at the very least a 3.8 GPA. However the cost of my loans, food, transportation, miscellaneous bills and school supplies were a lot to handle and nannying was the only thing flexible enough for my schedule.

Class finally released and I made my way back to the subway with only getting slightly wet from the rain. It was torturous underground as the fahrenheit was roughly around 50° and the humidity still found a way to crawl under my skin. Once on the train I took a corner seat next to the exit while a business man in a suit relaxed on my right.

My phone vibrated which I had assumed was Mathew, but to my surprise Rebecca’s name had appeared at the top of the screen accompanied by a glowing ‘slide to answer’ bar across the bottom. My heart started pounding through my chest wondering if Dennis had mentioned the event from last night. My mind imagining the worst case scenario of her telling me I can’t talk to him anymore or even worse, having them fire me.

“Hello?” I spoke nervously into the line after subconsciously sliding the white call circle with my thumb.

“Cassie! I️ hope you’re doing well!” She responded excitedly. I released an agonizing breath once hearing the positive tone she was using. She’s not the type to be passive, she’s one of those people where if she was upset or disappointed, she would let it be known.

“I’m pretty good, how are you?” I answered sweetly, now beginning to question why she would be calling mid-day like this.

“I’m wonderful, and I️ would be even better if you could do me a huuuge favor.” She suggested. Nine times out of ten this meant she needed me to babysit with short notice. However, the unusual part was she normally texts me instead of calling.

“Yeah of course, anything for you guys!” I replied joyfully. I could definitely use the extra money with the holidays slowly creeping in. Plus, I couldn’t help but still be curious if Dennis had spilled the beans yet or not, and the only way to find out was to see them face to face.

“Can you sit the kids tonight? Dennis and I️ want to have a little date night before the season starts. Mat said he’s going out with a friend but I trust you more anyway. I’m sure you probably have plans tonight but I️ figured it was worth a shot.” She explained.

‘Mat said he’s going out with a friend.’

Immediately I knew that I was ‘the friend’ since we had planned for him to come check out my lonely apartment tonight. I was bummed that I would have to cancel, but my job and income will always come first. I’m sure Mathew would understand, and if he didn’t then that would be enough verification for me to end whatever relationship we have anyway.

“No problem at all, I’ll be there!” I confirmed enthusiastically, now exiting the train that was at my stop. I covered my vacant ear with my index finger to better my hearing as I have now joined the exorbitant amount of people on the staircase back to ground level.

“Oh my gosh you are literally the best. Be here by six?” She requested. I looked down at my watch and the hands sat on the twelve and two. This gave me plenty of time to get ready before catching the LIRR in time to make it there.

“I’ll see you then.” I confirmed before we said our goodbyes and hung up the phone.

Once returning to the comfort of my warm and dry apartment, I opened a text message to send to Mathew explaining the cancellation of our plans for the night.

Cassandra: “I’m sincerely sorry I️ have to cancel tonight. Rebecca needs me to watch the kids so they can go on a date. I️ figured it’s the least I️ could do after upsetting Dennis last night.”

I pressed the send button and a little pit in my stomach started to grow. I was disappointed. I was highly anticipating hanging with him and getting to know him on a more personable level. But maybe being alone at my apartment was too quick at the moment anyway. I guess having a simple restaurant date first wouldn’t hurt.

It wasn’t long before I felt a vibration from the device in my hand. His name playing across the screen directly underneath the time. I wasted no time before entering my passcode and revealing the message.

Mathew: “Don’t worry about it I️ understand. Besides, now that I’m not going anywhere tonight, that means we get to watch the kids together ;)”

As if Dennis wasn’t skeptical enough, there was no way he was going to be enthusiastic about the two of us alone with the kids. Although, this could be the perfect opportunity to prove to him that I can maintain self control. Let’s just hope it’s the second one.

It was now a quarter till six and of course, it was still raining. I quickly sprinted to the porch where I could be protected from the precipitation. I rang the bell and it was only a matter of seconds before Rebecca opened the door, completely taking my breath away with her appearance. Wherever Dennis was planning on taking her tonight was clearly going to be elegant.

Once entering into the foyer the three kids, already dressed in their pajamas, ran up and attached to my legs. Giggles echoing through the large house as I tried to keep my balance. It warms my heart every time they do this. It doesn’t matter how much time we spend together or the short amount of time from when I last saw them. I was basically just an older sibling to them. Even the parents watched in awe as they saw the genuine joy pour out of their children.

“Alright, alright. We know you’re excited but try not to break her legs.” Rebecca recommended causing them to ease off my legs that way I could stand normal again. Dennis then appeared from the hallway handing Rebecca her purse. Nervous, I felt my body begin to sweat as I was still unsure of where we stood.

“Since it’s raining, no going outside. Also, there may be no school tomorrow, but you still have to be in bed by eight. Deal?” Dennis acknowledged the kids. They all nodded their heads before running off to the game room down the hall, instructing me to follow them. Before I went with them I turned to Rebecca as she usually has some sort of instructions to give me for the night.

“They’ve already eaten so no need to feed them tonight. If they start asking for ice cream, no problem, just make sure it’s before seven. You pretty much know the deal.” She explained while grabbing her umbrella and walking into the garage, entering their car. I nodded my head in agreement.

“Cassandra” I heard Dennis say walking up from behind me, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to melt through the floor and disappear. “Just to let you know, Mat isn’t going out tonight anymore so he’ll be home. I️ instructed him to stay downstairs so he shouldn’t bother you guys.” He continued.

I could feel my whole body freeze when he spoke Mat’s name. I was waiting for him to say something along the lines of “If I see you with him again, we’re firing you.”, but luckily that didn’t happen.

“We should be home by midnight. If it gets too late leave Mat here with the kids and you can go home. No need to stay overnight.” He finished before entering the driver’s side of the car. I shined them a smile and waved goodbye as they left and finally I could now relax knowing Dennis is going to let this slide.

I played board games with the kids for what felt like hours but was only forty-five minutes. I allowed them to win every time because, well they’re kids, but it made this quite boring for me. However, right before seven o’clock rolled by, they began begging for ice cream just like Rebecca had foreseen.

I grabbed each of them a bowl, filling it with their desired flavors before they took off to eat in the living room while watching television. I remained in the kitchen, keeping an eye on them over the half wall, and began to rinse off the ice cream scoop before placing it in the dishwasher.

I grabbed a paper towel to dry my hands off when I felt the presence of fingertips wrapping around my waist. I quickly turned around in panic not sure of who it could be, but then I was met with a smirk that I’ve grown very fond of. A long sigh of relief escaped my mouth after seeing Mathew. My muscles relaxed and my hands that were up in surrender fell onto his chest. I could feel him giggling underneath my fingertips.

“Oh I’m sorry, did I scare you?” He teased, with his arms still around my waist as he pulled me closer to him. Between his toned muscles under my palms and the way his features crinkled in laugher, I was lost in a daze. I never thought I would see the day where I would be this attracted to someone. Especially someone I had just met.

Suddenly, a loud noise from the television reminded me of the kids in the next room. I quickly pushed him off of me looking towards the children to make sure they didn’t see anything that had just happened.

“You can’t do this around the kids.” I whispered anxiously to Mat.

“I️ can’t hug you? Come on it’s not like we’re sticking our tongues down each other’s throats.” He instigated. I rolled my eyes and ignored his comment. Moving out of his touch and beginning to tidy up the kitchen once again.

It wasn’t long before his hands found their way around my waist once again. This time feeling his entire body against my back, and his breath near my ear. My heart stopped.

“But I mean, we totally could if you wanted to.” He whispered in my ear erupting goosebumps down my arms. Of course I wanted to. I wanted nothing more at the moment, but this was not the time and place. It took everything out of my to pull from his touch. I lightly tapped my elbow onto his torso behind me before stepping out of his arms. I didn’t want to make an actual impact, just enough that he got the point. I turned around and sent him a dismayed glare.

“I️ was joking! Partially.” He continued as I tried my hardest to fight back a smile.

“Dennis made it clear he didn’t want you around us tonight. The last thing I️ need is the kids telling him we were hugging in the kitchen.” I explained, turning Mathew around and playfully pushing his back towards the stairs that lead to the basement.

“Oh no, not hugging. Only married people do that.” Mat snidely joked. I scuffed behind him as I struggled with my attempt to push him towards the door. I got him halfway there before he decided to bend his knees and lay all of his weight onto my arms, his head falling to my shoulder.

“Oh no, my knees gave out. Looks like you’re going to have to carry me.” Mathew played as I used all my strength to keep both him and I from falling over. All while trying to keep my laughing to a minimum so he couldn’t hear.

“I️ came here to babysit them, not you!” I teased finally getting him to the basement door. Yet, he didn’t let off any of his weight.

“I’ll go down on one condition.” He then added, turning his head that was still on my shoulder towards my face, where his nose now tickled my cheek.

“You have to join me down there once the kids go to sleep.” He whispered so low to the point I almost didn’t hear it.

This sent me into a whirlwind of thoughts. I wouldn’t have to worry about the kids seeing, since they’re the best sleepers ever and never come out of their rooms. Plus, it's always quiet and lonely after they’re asleep. I normally just sit on the couch and watch TV anyway. Dennis told me to head home after they were all in bed, but staying another couple of minutes couldn’t hurt right? Especially since they were expected to come home late. It sounded almost foolproof.

“Ugh my legs!” Mat said, clearly becoming impatient for my answer, as he leaned even more weight onto me.

“Okay okay okay! I’ll see you down there at 8:30.” I answered almost toppling over onto the floor. “Can’t wait.” He stated while finally standing up straight, freeing my muscles as he quickly and happily descended down the stairs.

#mat barzal #mathew barzal #New York Islanders #nhl #hockey #fan fic #fan fiction #imagine #series

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felseekers · 6 years ago

Text

celestial balance--

For the countless years he and the Army of the Light had been fighting their way through the infinite coils of the Twisting Nether, Turalyon had learned to believe in the simple concept of light at the end of a tunnel.

It was more than hope, because while hope on its own was a powerful force, it was something different, he felt, to hope despite the greatest odds. To be surrounded by shadow, and still believe, with absolute certainty, that there was a pinpoint of light somewhere within.

The Xenedar crashed, and Turalyon began looking for the light anew.

Deep in the fel-corrupted fields of Krokuun, Turalyon had found the broken draenei left behind so long ago who had not joined the ranks of the lightforged--forced to adapt and survive to fight for their home--and had thought beyond doubt that he had found that glimpse of light. He took shelter with them, and began to plan to take the Xenedar back, because Xe’ra was still within, a priceless prize for the Legion to claim, and was disturbed from those thoughts and plans only when the obvious tones of an argument brewing outside urged him to action once more.

Outside, the Prophet Velen--the very same one who had departed Argus so many millennia ago--conversed in heated, controlled tones with Hatuun, accompanied by two others: one was kaldorei, but obviously fel-corrupted, with a blindfold over her eyes and demonic horns sprouting from her head, unnaturally dark hair falling down her back in a wave. Nevertheless, her body language was open, relaxed, almost casual, yet still alert enough Turalyon doubted she was ignorant to the threats that surrounded the group.

The last person in Velen’s entourage, though--she was sin’dorei, but the only indicator were her ears, sticking out from a helmet that otherwise covered her head. From head to toe, she was outfitted in plate gear in dark colors, with faint tones of almost painfully bright blue, and that was when Turalyon sensed the cold that all but radiated from her, like a slow, vicious wave, indiscriminate to whatever stood in its path.

A death knight.

It was not the light that Turalyon sought, perhaps, but, well.

It would have to be a start.

Turalyon intervened, and the argument was dispelled, and he found himself walking with the night elf and the blood elf in Velen’s entourage as he told them of the demons that stood in the way of securing their perimeter.

“Splitting up would be most efficient.” said the death knight--even her voice was unyielding, sharp, and crisp, echoing with the haunting reverberation characteristic to death knights. “I will take one Legion lieutenant, and the Illidari commander can take another.”

“Can we at least introduce ourselves first?” drawled the night elf with the fel horns, who still somehow managed to present a more open and affable image than the death knight next to her. “Vex Felseeker. Illidari commander. Well, one of them.”

With a roll of her whole head, the death knight begrudgingly drummed her fingers on the hilt of one of her two blades, sheathed at her hip. “I am Deathlord of the Knights of the Ebon Blade.”

“Not even a name?” Felseeker, the Illidari commander, nudged the Deathlord’s shoulder, and she barely even shifted with the motion--Turalyon noted the familiarity between them, despite the somewhat chilly response. “Come on, Tyra, it wouldn’t kill you to--”

“My name is inconsequential here,” came the brusque interruption, “and just because we worked together in the Broken Isles does not give you leave to use a nickname on me, Vexara.”

“Enough.” Turalyon finally interrupted, when it seemed the pair were about to dissolve into bickering. “I believe taking the Deathlord’s suggestion would bring us the swiftest resolution. Return to Hatuun’s camp when you’ve completed the mission.”

Turalyon watched the pair depart and go in two very different directions--Felseeker took a running leap and sprouted fel wings, gliding down the rocky slope with both warglaives drawn. The Deathlord walked briskly down the path, then slowly picked up her pace until she was sprinting, and a horse almost seemed to materialize from nowhere with an equine scream, ghostly fire trailing from its hooves. In a split second she hauled herself aboard its saddle, and disappeared into the ridges of Krokuun.

Turalyon looked up, and saw Azeroth on the horizon. He turned and strode back to Hatuun’s camp.

For now, that alone would have to be the light at the end of the tunnel, brighter than it had been for countless years.

When the time came to clear the last obstacle to their attack on the Xenedar’s crash site, Turalyon elected to lead the charge there.

Hope was all well and good, but it was only made worthwhile with action.

“I will go, as well.” it had been somewhat surprising to hear the Deathlord volunteer first, rather than the commander of a sect of forces dedicated to dismantling the Legion at all costs, but the Illidari herself had little comment on the matter as the Deathlord continued, “Vex is needed on the Vindicaar to give orders to the rest of her people for the assault on the Xenedar’s crash site once we are successful. Too much is at risk here to wait for them, so I will go.”

“Are you implying something, Deathlord?”

“Only that you and the rest of the Illidari are incapable of sticking to a plan unless you come up with it. Months spent in Suramar with you have illustrated that point quite clearly.”

“Then let us be off.” the incessant bickering, Turalyon had a feeling, would be the biggest hurdle of all to overcome in this mission. He thought the Deathlord might’ve been relieved with the intervention before the banter spiraled out of control, but it was difficult to tell.

Their trip up to the demon’s lair was made in near-total silence, broken only when the Deathlord spoke to alert them both of potential reinforcements to avoid. She was not the ideal ally to have at his back here, in the midst of a landscape almost entirely controlled by the Legion, but Turalyon’s situation had ceased being ideal from the moment the Xenedar crashed to Argus’ surface.

“Your hesitance in dealing with either myself or the Illidari commander is understandable,” the Deathlord spoke suddenly as they settled into a brief reconnaissance position--clearly he hadn’t been as subtle in his doubts as he’d thought, or perhaps the assumption had been made based on prior reactions to their offers for help, but either way it stung, “and while I acknowledge both myself and the Illidari commander may have somewhat questionable backgrounds, by the standards of the High Exarch of the Army of the Light, for now, we all want the same thing.”

“No one is victorious if the Legion is.” Turalyon said, half as a reminder to himself and half a confirmation of the Deathlord’s words.

“Just so.” Her helmet didn’t turn to look at him, her gaze steadfastly focused on the slope behind them while they readied themselves to strike, but a single thread of tension lifted. “On that topic, I am ready to attack whenever you are.”

Turalyon turned to take in the pit lord in the clearing ahead of them, still unaware of their presence. Bile rose in his throat and his lip twisted down into something that tried to be a scowl, but he scarcely had the energy for it. “Strike.”

A single word, and the Deathlord drew her twin swords in tandem with his greatsword, charging towards the pit lord as one. An ambient chill, stronger even than the atmosphere in Hatuun’s camp, settled over the clearing, such a steep contrast from the almost harsh burn of the Light’s energy that coursed from the lightforged draenei he had fought alongside before.

He would give the Deathlord this, though: for all the plate armor she wore, her agility was remarkable.

The pit lord’s minions emerged to harass them throughout the battle, and consequently fell to the Deathlord’s swift blades and icy strikes, holding them at bay with effortless ease, immovable and unbreakable as a glacier. Soon the demon’s minions came faster, and the Deathlord’s steps brought her closer and closer to him as she began to slowly lose ground.

When the minions vanished, Turalyon didn’t have time to even shout a warning before fel eruptions emerged from the earth and rooted him in place--out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Deathlord trapped as well, but a frosty haze began to cover the rock almost as soon as it trapped her. Turalyon dug deep within himself, deeper than he’d been forced to dig in many years, for that place where the Light was strongest.

There was a sharp crack, a squeal of something frozen shattering into a thousand pieces, and a somewhat-hoarse roar of defiance and triumph combined. The Deathlord stood from the fragments of her stony, icy prison, a minutely-contained blizzard of her own making swirling around her body--the remorselessness and ferocity of winter incarnate.

With a sharp ripple of light, Turalyon’s own prison broke under the weight of so much power being brought to bear all at once, and as he reached for his weapon again, a series of arrows, fired blindingly fast, announced Alleria’s arrival before he ever saw her.

She wasn’t the only one--the Illidari commander soared into the pit lord’s den on her own fel wings, glaives drawn as she finished off the wounded demon. Alleria appeared shortly after and wrested several of her arrows from its corpse. Her grin was dry.

“I seem to be making a habit of saving you from demons.” she told him, and to anyone else it would have sounded light and faintly joking, but there were cracks forming in that facade that Turalyon had not yet had time to examine, in the wake of constant war with the Legion.

Alleria was familiar, and here, that was enough.

“Ran into her on my way to bring the rest of my Illidari forces to the Xenedar’s crash site.” Felseeker joined the conversation, warglaives dripping vile demon ichor onto the ground, a wide and almost predatory grin on her lips. “Thought you could use some assistance.”

“Your flair for the dramatic and unbelievably convenient timing are your best and worst qualities, Vex.”

“Was that a joke? I must be dreaming.”

Alleria made her way to his side without his knowing, and she said, out of earshot of their two new arrivals, “They don’t have the context of our war across the years. I fear the stakes have yet to fully take hold.”

“I don’t believe they would have come if some idea of the stakes had not been made clear.” Turalyon countered. “The Xenedar awaits--we ought to gather our forces to take it back.”

It was impossible to ignore Alleria’s somewhat skeptical noise from behind him, but he was certain there would be little to worry about once Xe’ra was returned to them--she was the prime naaru, the Light incarnate: there could be no greater symbol to rally around as they destroyed the Legion.

Another light, however obvious the symbolism was, to guide them through the dark once more.

With fragments of Xe’ra’s being scattered over the Vindicaar’s floor, his blade held at bay with only Illidan’s hand, dripping with fel blood, Turalyon felt rage, pure and undiluted, for the first time in recent memory.

It was bright and fiery in his veins, ready to burst, and when he was finally forced to give ground and step back, he turned his gaze to what remained of the prime naaru herself, shattered and broken, and felt a light deep in his chest flicker dangerously low.

He stopped short of dropping his sword to the Vindicaar’s pristine floor, covered with the last remnants of their biggest hope to look to for guidance as they stood in the maw of the Legion itself, but instead turned sharply away from the display and went to stand at the Vindicaar’s viewport, overlooking the Antoran Wastes. Azeroth still hung in the backdrop, and Turalyon kept his eyes on it, barely heeding the words Prophet Velen attempted to console him with. It felt selfish, to stand and essentially sulk whilst the Legion’s armies raged below, but it was quiet here, for once, and with Azeroth in sight, it was almost easy to believe in a light at the end once more. Almost.

Another presence at his side broke him free of the reverie, something cold and vastly different than any others here, and Turalyon looked down to see the Deathlord looking out over the same view as him.

“Does my presence trouble you?” she asked finally, and there was no judgment in it, no silent accusation that he could hardly afford to be so critical of the allies he was being given to aid this final push in the seemingly-endless fight.

“No.” he finally answered, honestly, but hesitantly. He did not trust the Deathlord, but her silence was refreshing.

Quiet passed for several beats before she spoke again. “You may not care to hear a death knight’s perspective on this, but I will offer it for consideration.”

“If you intend to tell me it was naive to place such faith in Xe’ra--” Turalyon began brusquely, ill in the mood for a lecture.

“I would not be so cruel.” the Deathlord replied, surprisingly quiet. “Perhaps I cannot believe in the Light the same way you do, but as a death knight, there was another near-supreme authority that I believed in, once. Albeit we death knights were not afforded a choice to believe otherwise, at first, but even after being freed from his thrall, there was a part of me that wanted to go back. It was familiar, for all it had broken me.”

“I was not ‘broken’ by the Light--”

“An unfortunate comparison,” the Deathlord raised a placating hand, and Turalyon fell into a sullen silence, “that nonetheless presents a parallel. We stand at a crossroads. Allow this to be a blow to your faith. Allow your confidence to falter. Find new purpose, and stand firm again.”

Silence fell again, and Turalyon thought. He turned to say something else, and found the Deathlord already gone, speaking with a small group of four other death knights at the other side of the Vindicaar--two humans, one man and one woman, a draenei woman, and a troll woman. They were familliar to the Deathlord, he could see it in the slope of her armored shoulders as she spoke to them, the words inaudible from this distance.

Xe’ra’s fragments had been cleared from the Vindicaar’s floors, a few glittering shards placed in the crucible on the vessel’s second floor. A source of light, incomplete without the shadow that contrasted it.

He might have called it the last shards of hope, but he didn’t truly believe that, not really. He still stood, the Army of the Light still stood, and for the first time in a thousand years, they had new blades to take up the fight.

It was not so potent a symbol as Azeroth on the horizon, but it was a tiny pinpoint of light, a solid anchor in the void, and Turalyon latched himself to it, stubbornly certain.

Surreal that he had been guided to it by a death knight, of all people--the death knights’ commander, no less--but if nothing else, Turalyon had been forced to accept that hope could come from the most unlikely of places, of people.

It was still a gift, and he refused to squander it.

Turalyon had set foot on Azeroth for the first time after what felt like a thousand years what was now several months ago, and the landscape still felt more alien than even Argus’ had.

There was a pronounced distance between himself and nearly everyone he had seen and spoken to in that time, even those he considered old friends, and the distance was something Turalyon knew he could only recover with time, but it still left a pang in his chest, knowing how much time he had lost to the Legion.

Now that the Legion was gone, however, it left a curious void in his day-to-day purpose.

For what had felt like a thousand years in the Twisting Nether, Turalyon’s sole purpose had been the destruction of the Legion--demon incursions happened daily, and there was always something more to do, another perimeter to secure, another pit lord to remove from power, another of Sargeras’ servants to destroy. Now it was done, and Turalyon did not miss it, but perhaps he did miss the certainty of it.

He had returned to a world on the brink of war once more, but it was not a war he was familiar with fighting anymore.

Alleria had been in a similar situation, and for a time they had taken solace in that shared struggle as they had with so many other things, but with time came the realization that distance drifted between them, too. On Argus, they were familiar, and it was enough. Back home, after so long fighting their war, the weight of their war had forced them to consider what a future on their old homeworld meant, spending so long apart from it.

They were still bound by their son--their son, who was nearly grown himself now--but by little else, now.

From certain places in Stormwind’s keep, it was possible to see the docks, and Turalyon had stood guard over them, waiting for the vessels dispatched to Lordaeron to return. Since the burning of Teldrassil, the fires of war had begun to burn brighter, with several members of the young King Anduin’s council clambering for war, for retribution. He had offered his voice to those negotiations as best he could, but as with many things since returning from Argus, he was somehow distant from that as well.

In the distance, he saw the vanguard flagship slowly coast into port, and almost immediately he found himself summoned--a cold pit of dread sat in his stomach as he followed the aide down to the docks, where a crowd of onlookers waited to catch a glimpse of the returning warriors.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked lowly of the aide as they wove between the varying individuals making up Stormwind’s typical complement of citizens. “Has something happened?”

“I was only told that the king requested you to escort a potentially dangerous prisoner from the battle,” the aide told him nervously, armored in Alliance colors, but with a voice that was so young it made something in Turalyon’s chest ache.

Down at the docks, he was brought to the ship at the furthest dock, where the king himself waited, the rest of his immediate council dispersed. The aide vanished, and King Anduin greeted him, “High Exarch--you were told we have a...potentially compromising prisoner to escort?”

“Yes, however I am somewhat light on details.” Turalyon followed the king into the ship’s cargo hold, unsure whether he ought to be reaching for a weapon or not. “I trust that--”

As they entered the final cargo section, Turalyon found his words stolen by shock, as he took in the sight of the Deathlord herself, the very same from Argus, fully-armored and inscrutable as always--with Alliance shackles binding her wrists and ankles. “You were previously...acquainted with the Deathlord during the Argus campaigns.” Anduin began hesitantly, “And given her status, as well as the depths of her power, we felt it prudent to have an escort capable of keeping the masses at bay.”

Curious, Turalyon thought, that Anduin was more concerned about the reaction from Stormwind’s citizens than the fact they now had one of the most powerful death knights on Azeroth in their custody. “Where would you have me take her?”

“If I understand it correctly,” the Deathlord herself spoke up, loudly enough to make the point she didn’t appreciate being discussed as though she wasn’t present, “I am being brought to the Stormwind stockades along with our other prisoner. Your Majesty,” she turned to the young king, who straightened instinctively, “I would still wish to share words with you. Soon.”

“We will see what sort of discussion you wish to have.” Anduin conceded. “High Exarch?”

Wordlessly, Turalyon stepped up to where the Deathlord was shackled to the deck, and released her from it, leaving her ankles and wrists bound in sturdy chains that he had a feeling she could very well have frozen solid and shattered if she truly wanted to--the first mission on Argus, where she had frozen a fel eruption produced by a pit lord solid, came to mind.

They walked in silence for several minutes until Turalyon had a feeling any potential eavesdroppers were well out of range. “Why are you here?”

“I surrendered. I thought that fairly obvious.”

“I didn’t ask how. I believe I asked why.”

“That is something I would discuss with the king.” her voice was as guarded as ever, solid and unshakable. In some way, he found himself envious of her clearly-evident certainty. “If I must languish in a cell to reach that opportunity, so be it.”

At Stormwind’s cells, Turalyon was directed where to bring the Deathlord, and as they arrived, it felt wrong to say nothing, but there was not much Turalyon felt he could say about this situation. He had come to respect the Deathlord’s prowess during the Argus campaigns, and her surprising streak of something that smacked of compassion, but she was still a warrior of the Horde, and had been witness, at the very least, to the atrocities at Ashenvale and Teldrassil.

Turalyon stepped away, and this time the silence was filled with words he didn’t know if he could--should--say, here, now, to the Deathlord, of all people.

He felt the chill in the air as he left, and altered his initial assumption of the Deathlord’s wintry aura--it was not indiscriminate, but deliberate, and still, despite the situation she was quite obviously in, there was something certain and solid about it, the energy laced with an unshakable confidence.

Some part of him wanted to draw strength from it, but he resisted.

Stormwind’s court did not have to wait long for the Deathlord’s address.

Less than two days after their return to Stormwind from Lordaeron, King Anduin gathered the inner circle of his advisors to the throne room, and Turalyon attended on the periphery, unsure what exactly was about to happen, but feeling as though he ought to be prepared.

Escorted in by a half-dozen Stormwind guards came the Deathlord, still fully-armored and looking very like she had when Turalyon had last seen her, days ago. Her chin was held high, and her cape--torn and shredded at the bottom--flowed behind her with each step, looking for all intents and purposes as regal as a monarch’s mantle.

“King Anduin.” while the Deathlord’s voice carried well across the room, the impassable mask of her helmet muffled her voice just slightly. “I have a favor to ask, before I begin--would someone remove my helmet, please?”

Turalyon felt a pulse of shock surround the room, but Genn was the first to protest. “She’s a death knight--one of the most powerful death knights known to us. If we--”

“If I intended to trick you,” the Deathlord interrupted, a hard, scathing edge to her tone, “I would not be so foolish as to attempt it with something that obvious. It is a fairly innocuous request. Please.”

There was a beat of silence, then with a single nod of approval, one of the guards that escorted her in slowly began to unfasten the buckles that kept the Deathlord’s helmet connected to the rest of her armor. The helmet was lifted off her head and dropped to the floor, and another pulse of shock, stronger this time, choked the room off into silence.

She was young, almost shockingly so, but there was still a weathered quality to her face that spoke of long battles and longer years spent living a life with a great deal of strife--she was not quite ageless, in this way, but it made it difficult for Turalyon to tell if she truly looked young or not. Her skin was nearly snow-white, marked by several small scars across her face, her hair a stark black in comparison, and her eyes the unnatural blue that all death knights’ were.

When she spoke, it was not what any of them expected--though what anyone expected was beyond him. “Your Majesty, tell me--what would you have given to be on Broken Shore? With your father?”

There was a collective intake of breath from everyone in the room, Turalyon included--he of course had not been there, but heard of how both factions had lost their leaders to the battle there.

“What would you have given,” the Deathlord continued, her tone quiet but firm and resolute, “to have been there, to have seen it for yourself, or--dare I say--to have taken the strike that killed him instead?” a beat of silence passed, but it was a question she didn’t seem to need an answer to--an answer everyone present already knew. “Your Majesty, you and your court can see my face, and know this for truth, but I will emphasize the point--I was young when the Scourge killed me. Barely into adulthood, by sin’dorei years. Being resurrected by the Lich King and becoming one of his many thralls forced me to acquire new perspectives, and when we were freed from his control, it forced another adjustment, though it’s debatable which one was more jarring.

“You see, it left us with choice, for the first time, choice we were ill-equipped to handle.” the Deathlord took a step forward, her chains rattling slightly. “But choice became my watchword, because I saw it as the greatest thing I had been given since my resurrection. When I was killed, I had no choice in being brought back as whatever I am today, but I could choose what to do with the life given me, for better or worse. The first time, I chose to fight for the Horde because it felt like the natural conclusion to that issue. Now I come here to make another choice. I have only ever removed my helmet for negotiations once before, in similar circumstances to these: in respect, and in desperation.”

“What do you intend, Deathlord Nightsinger?” King Anduin finally asked, after a charged pause, and Turalyon realized it was the first time he had heard any mention of her name since meeting her--she had introduced herself with her title and nothing more on Argus.

“Right now, I intend only to make a point.” Deathlord Nightsinger’s gaze turned intense, and Turalyon felt a subtle chill hang in the air. “I asked you what you would have given, to be on Broken Shore, already knowing the answer. I knew the answer because it is what I would have chosen, as well.” One of the Deathlord’s hands moved up to the chestplate of her armor, and the Stormwind guards surrounding her fidgeted as if readying themselves to stop her, but Anduin raised a hand, and they fell still.

Reaching beneath her collar, the Deathlord pulled what looked like a pendant from it--the end of a tusk, bound on a chain. Her voice wavered slightly on the first few words before steadying again, “I, too, would have given anything to take the strike that felled someone I loved. That is a choice I would have made without question, not because I would have been compelled to through some application of dark magic, but because we choose to stand, fight, and potentially die for the causes we believe in--the people we believe in.” Tucking the pendant back under her armored chestplate, Deathlord Nightsinger raised her chin again, proud and confident. “I stand here because I looked in the face of my warchief, who asked what honor should matter to a corpse, and told her that it still matters to this corpse--because I can choose differently. I surrendered to your people to avoid further bloodshed, knowing I would be detained and imprisoned, at the very least. I come to deliver this address to make my motivations clear.” One of her dark brows quirked up. “But be certain of this: I will not sit idle long.”

It was a promise if Turalyon had ever heard one, and the rest of King Anduin’s court was not blind to the obvious implication, either, but when it became clear the Deathlord had said what she came to say, her helmet was returned to her, and Turalyon asked to escort her back down to her cell.

This time, the silence that sat between them demanded to be filled, and Turalyon found himself saying, “I admit I am somewhat at a loss.”

Deathlord Nightsinger made a sharp, amused sound. “Is that so?”

“You orchestrated your capture, came all the way to Stormwind, only to speak and make vaguely threatening promises to King Anduin’s court?” Turalyon searched for the logic that would explain why he felt compelled to ask, and failed to find it, but asked anyway.

Even though her helmet was back on her head again, it was all too easy to imagine the even, steadfast look on her hauntingly ageless face. “I made no threats, High Exarch, and be assured that none of this was orchestrated. I am not particularly known for my spontaneity, but this decision was made in a split second. I refused to--could not--do anything else. Sometimes the most important decisions are made that way.”

“Your certainty on the matter is enviable.” he found himself admitting, and was surprised when he received a laugh, short and humorless, in return.

“My ‘certainty’ comes with years of practice cultivating a suitably convincing image.” the Deathlord countered. “But I meant what I said, and perhaps that is most surprising to me. I don’t often have the chance to speak from my heart anymore.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, if there was anything to say in the position they found themselves in. Ultimately, Turalyon turned to leave again, felt the ambient weight to the air that came from Deathlord Nightsinger’s suitably-convincing certainty, and let its subtle chill settle into his bones this time as he left--a little pinch of the dark, to balance the light.

Two days later, Deathlord Nightsinger escaped Stormwind.

Well, they suspected it had been two days later--the sleight of hand her death knight compatriots had played left room for doubt on that matter. There had been no brutal, punishing assault, no quiet assassination of guards in the dead of night, no alarm raised, because for all intents and purposes, the Deathlord’s knights had simply walked in, and escorted her out.

It was slightly more complicated than that--it always was--but so far the reports he was getting out of the guards on duty that night were meager to say the least. Many of them reported a few consistent details, though--three death knights, a human man and woman, and a draenei--had come into the stockades and bluffed their way to the Deathlord’s cell, after a suitably-plausible excuse that the Stormwind guards were ignorant to death knight upkeep, and had been allowed to bring her back to Acherus, which supposedly had more suitable arrangements.

It was only after two days with no word from the Acherus-bound death knights the guard force had to report they had been fooled.

An immediate search had commenced for the missing death knight, but with portal travel being a strong possibility for their escape, the group could very well have been anywhere on Azeroth. As war continued to simmer, rapidly reaching a boiling point, fewer and fewer resources could be spared for the search.

Turalyon thought about the last day he had seen and spoken to the Deathlord far more than he reasonably should’ve, but reasoned it away with the justification that knowing her motives might make it easier to discern where she’d gone. Admittedly, it was proving a weak tactic thus far.

A sudden commotion drew Turalyon’s attention--the clatter of armor and shouting made him rise from his desk, only armored from the waist down, as one of the guards rapped hurriedly on the door. “High Exarch, you’re needed at the main foyer--hurry.”

A dozen lifetimes of swift preparations for Legion assaults left him oddly prepared for such circumstances, for once, and in a few short moments, Turalyon barreled down the hallways of Stormwind’s keep late at night, one hand reaching up to his shoulder, ready to draw his sword if needed.

In the keep’s foyer, just outside the throne room, Turalyon took brisk strides down the long, sloping hallway, and felt a telltale chill in the air, slowly becoming oddly familiar.

Deathlord Nightsinger was surrounded by the very same combination of death knights who had supposedly gotten her out of Stormwind’s prisons, along with the same troll death knight he recognized from the Argus campaigns, months ago now. King Anduin was already present, as were Genn and Tyrande, but it was clear many of them had been brought straight from their beds.

“Deathlord,” King Anduin’s voice, with all its strained patience, was still mild for the situation at hand, “you escaped our custody and have already found your way back to our gates--why?”

“After my friends freed me from your cells,” the Deathlord exchanged a glance with one of the knights in question, the human woman, who flashed a toothy grin, “I began thinking about the future. Originally I intended to save the Horde, but it became clear to me, reading over the notes I exchanged with the Illidari commander prior to the attack on Teldrassil, that it does not particularly want to be saved--not by me, at any rate.” she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. curiously casual for someone who presented herself so stoically. “In short--I want to defect.”

For a moment, conversation--or objections--were stolen by shock, but Tyrande was the first to break the silence. “And we are supposed to trust you, who watched Teldrassil burn and committed countless atrocities as a death knight in the Horde’s service?”

“I admit that I was present at Teldrassil at the time of the attack, but I do not condone the methods used there.” it was almost too easy to imagine the expression on her face, eyes narrowed and dark brows drawn together, even with her helmet covering it. “I also freely admit that, at the time, I served a cause I felt I could believe in, and chose to do so. Now, I am choosing differently. I do not ask for immediate trust. I ask only for a chance.”

Turalyon watched the room split with indecision, and thought back to the last conversation he’d had with the Deathlord, and her statement that some of the most important decisions were made on a blade’s edge, when it could fall either way, a choice made when there was no choice at all.

He thought, but at the same time knew he had already reached his verdict on it.

“I believe her.” he declared, and as he felt the tension rise steeply in the room, he grasped for justification, because the decision was made, he had only to defend it, and it came to him in a flash, how obvious it was-- “On Argus, we were confronted with the reality of losing a potent symbol to our cause. It was the Deathlord herself who told me that we stand at a crossroads, and we may allow doubt to tempt us, but not consume us. We can rely only on ourselves for guidance, for purpose. The Light lives not as a symbol, but in each of us. Even,” here he couldn’t help but watch the Deathlord’s reaction--she’d seemingly gone stock-still with surprise, “in whom we might consider the most unlikely people.”

‘Unlikely’, he said, though it was clear, even from the first time Turalyon had felt that chill in the air that announced her presence, in a clearing on Argus, that there was light that lived in the Deathlord, somewhere. It had not driven her to seek this fate out, to offer him what she felt was a comfort in a moment of doubt, to stand in the face of death on Argus and not even flinch from the possibility of it, with the lives of her people on the table.

She had chosen it, and in those choices, the light shone as if from a deep shadow, hesitant and half-forgotten, but unquestionably there.

“Well,” King Anduin finally said when the room seemed to have recovered from the shock of his defense on the Deathlord’s character, “Deathlord, I would like to discuss further terms in the morning, but I’m willing to work with you.”

Incredulousness all but radiated both from Genn and Tyrande, but the decision had been made, and Turalyon felt the finality of it settle into his bones, as certain and resolute as the wintry aura the Deathlord herself gave off.

“I...thank you, Your Majesty.” Deathlord Nightsinger paused, then bowed her head. “I look forward to working with you.”

“Have the Deathlord and her knights secured in a section of the keep, and have them guarded until morning.” Anduin turned to the nearest guard, somewhat apologetically, who straightened in a brief salute before dashing off. “I trust that arrangement will work, for now.”

“For now.” Deathlord Nightsinger confirmed, and while her helmet still unquestionably faced the king, Turalyon could almost feel the intensity of her gaze on him anyway, piercing and questioning.

“I can escort the Deathlord herself, if that would be of some assistance.” Turalyon offered, and the intensity of her gaze turned nearly impossible to ignore.

King Anduin nodded once, and exhaustion began to steal across his face again. “It would, High Exarch--my thanks.”

Separated as she was from the rest of her knights, the Deathlord looked somehow smaller, but still projected that same unshakable energy. They walked in silence for several long moments before she broke it. “You spoke in my defense.”

“I did.” he confirmed.

“Why?”

Turalyon could have given the Deathlord any answer, in that moment, but none of them seemed to fit right. It was the right thing to do. Having a high-ranking Horde defector would be invaluable for the war effort. You would make a valuable political prisoner at the worst case scenario.

In the end, all he said was, “It was not a planned decision, but I meant what I said. Perhaps it has been some time since I was afforded the opportunity to speak from the heart, as well.”

She said nothing in response until they reached the wing of Stormwind’s keep where the Deathlord would be sequestered until they determined just how much they were willing to trust her, and as the guards already stationed there pushed the door open for them, she wordlessly entered and cast her gaze around the room for a short moment.

With a faint sigh, she reached for the buckles on her helmet, and Turalyon prepared to turn and leave, sensing that the removal of her helmet was more momentous an occasion than one might’ve ordinarily suspected, but before he could, the buckles came loose, and she pulled her helmet from her head, setting it on the desk as she turned around.

“Tyracel.” she told him at last, her face unreadable. “My name is Tyracel.”

In that moment, Turalyon felt he’d just been given a gift with a nameless, indefinable value, and had no suitable response to it.

“I am no Deathlord anymore,” she looked at her helmet, sitting on the nearby desk, “so I will need to be called by something else.”

“Very well.” Turalyon finally managed. “I suppose we will speak again soon...Lady Nightsinger.”

Tyracel--he was going to have something of a difficult time thinking of her as Tyracel--snorted with amusement. “I have not been called a lady since the day I was resurrected, High Exarch, so I must say your standards as to what constitutes a ‘lady’ must have fallen dramatically during your time on Argus.”

A laugh bubbled up in his chest, but Turalyon covered it up with a swift cough instead. “Perhaps, perhaps not.”

As he left, and sought out his own quarters on the other side of the keep, Turalyon thought about hope, about purpose, and about the choices one was often forced to make in order to keep believing in both of those things. He thought of Argus, of the countless days where hope was a conscious choice, because there was little else to believe in, and of the days since returning from the blighted world, where purpose had stubbornly eluded him.

He thought of a single death knight, determined to make her own way in this world with only her principles and those few of her kind who shared them for company, who shone with a sliver of light, somewhere, obscured by a brisk, icy shell. Something like--

Something, he thought, like a light, at the end of a tunnel.

#my writing #tyracel nightsinger #OOF this is what i cranked out in a mad writing fury for 4 hours straight last night #it's almost 7k words ya'll i'm so sorry lmao #pls be nice to me my fragile self-esteem actually liked this one a;sdlfj

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simone-garnett · 7 years ago

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Pairing: i mean, technically: warren peace/ caitlin snow show: sky high x the flash Dedication: marge Information: had a discussion months ago about warren and caitlin being rival bartenders in a pub. I started planning this since the conversation.

There is no logical reason for her to be hired. Her resume, as lengthy as it is with PhDs and doctorates and theses who's titles are longer than her arm, has no relevant experience in the arts of cocktail making listed on it, and her ability to hold down her liquor is abysmal. It is a miracle in and of itself that she was able to even get the interview, the owner calling her at midnight, voice weary as he asks her to come in at three the next day.

Her heart is in her throat as she approaches the location, the decrepit place poorly lit, the lights inside flickering as she enters. Goosebumps erupt across her arm as she goes further inside. Her voice echoes in the building, his name on her tongue as she looks around lost. It seems like a typical bar, pool tables scattered around the building, bottles of alcohol on the wall like trophies in a house. The creaking of an opening door has her jumping, Caitlin turning to the sound, hands fisted by her side. For what she isn't quite sure.

It's ridiculous, she tells herself, the man - Fred - greeting her with a warm smile and cheery, seemingly unaware of the danger he was in. He guides her through into the office at the back of the building. He comments on her slight tremble, a passing comment, but one that serves to remind her to *calm down.* It would do no one any good for her to remain on edge. She's gone through countless interviews, much more complex than the one, and yet, here she was, shaking like a leaf, unsure of what to say, to do.

The interview starts off easily, the man asking her about her favourite drinks, going through her resume. With raised eyebrows he points out her scientific background, a stark difference to a career serving others drinks. He points out the changes in environment, in pay. In the sobriety of their clients.

She barks out a laugh at the last point, nerves escaping out with the passing seconds. He asks why she chose here, not when her resume was so decorated. With a downcast face she tells him that she wanted a break from her past. Caitlin likens bar-tending to chemistry in her interview, mixing chemicals or drinks, requiring the perfect amount of each for the right reactions to be taking place. Chemistry she has experience with, chemistry is her comfort place. She loves it but she couldn't stand working there any longer. She tells him that while she had no experience she had the enthusiasm, the curiosity. The drive. He almost scoffs at the descriptors she uses, tells her that he's heard enough.

She leaves, accepting that she won't get the job, a resigned smile on her face as she tells him goodbye, strolling out with drooping shoulders and a hanging head.

(And yet there was a twinkle in the owner's eyes, a light sparked by her ramblings.

she shouldn't hope).

She starts on Thursday.

He's there to guide her through the basics a few hours before they open, teaching her the most common drinks, tasting them and giving her advice on how to improve. She picks it up quickly, a delighted smile on her face whenever he would give her a brisk satisfied nod before moving on to the next drink. There is exhaustion running through her veins by the time she officially starts, an adrenaline pumping her up even as she crashes and burns. The prices and till are easy to memorise and operate; she had adapted to more difficult systems before and spent her college mastering memorising techniques. There is a grunt of approval which really shouldn't make Caitlin preen but it does and she does and soon enough she is told - warned - that they would be opening in five.

Which was the precise time that he would leave.

"The regular bartender will be by in a few hours," he says , a smile of support thrown to Caitlin before heading out the door. "You'll be fine until then."

And she is, because she is Caitlin and bar-tending is like chemistry, like titration, mixing solutions together until she achieves that one specific point where they are balanced perfectly.

She doesn't notice the time fly by, doesn't notice him enter until there is a shattering of glass, a young man watching her with wild eyes and long, unkempt hair. It startles her, Caitlin whipping her head to the noise, catching sight of him. "Are - are you okay?"

He is not, he is most clearly not, not with the hoarse Layla? that leaves his lips, his jaw clenched tight, eyes burning like a fire. And she feels as though she is being scorched alive. The moment stretches, and she doesn't know what to say.

The customers laugh and nudge each other, laughing that Warren finally met a girl he couldn't keep his eyes off. It leaves her blushing, Caitlin ducking her head, brushing past him to get a broom. Needing to get away.

She doesn't succeed.

He follows her into the closet, his large frame blocking the entrance, leaning against the frame. She rummages through the small area, cursing her luck. He chuckles, low and deep, the wood creaking as he pushes himself off of it, leaning over her as he reaches into the corner, the stick in his hand as he pulls away. It was difficult to get air into her lungs, Caitlin frozen in her spot, the heat radiating off his body warming her back. He lingers, breath against her neck, hot and thick and there are shivers down her spine. The room seems smaller, his presence filling it up entirely.

And then he pulls away, reluctantly. Slowly.

By the time she has the strength to turn around he's gone.

They don't exchange any words while working, Warren on one side of the bar, Caitlin on the other. The one's who want the tricks and fancy movements flock towards him, the regulars who simply want their alcohol go towards her. She finds herself watching him, stealing glances at first, her gaze lingering on him. Until she finds herself completely mesmerised my his movement, every flick of the bottle. It's graceful and beautiful, like a dancer working on their craft, captivating. She leans back against the bar, elbows resting on it as she watches him. *graceful like a swan.

"Oh honey," one of the locals - Rob - starts, a twinkle in his eye even as his lips are pulled down into a frown. "I wouldn't waste time on him. Don't think he's ever had a friend, let alone a girl." That snaps her attention away from the performance and to the older man on the other side of the bar. His drink is empty she notices, his tongue is loose.

"I - I don't know what you're talking about." The stutter echoes in her ears and she winces at the sound. She hopes he doesn't catch it. With the way his eyes are on her, she assumes he does. She sighs, shoulders falling as she refills his drink. "I'm not looking for anything. I was just admiring his skill set," she shrugs, sliding the drink over to him. She meets his eye and he searches it, nodding at her when he finds what he wants in them. The rest of the night continues on without incident, Caitlin focussing on serving the customers and not the man behind her, with magical hands and eyes that can sear her skin. And it works, the distraction, time ticking away, the shift coming to an end.

The bar empties slowly, Warren kicking the last of them out when closing time arrived, Caitlin already wiping down the tables, determined to do a good job.

So engrossed in her work she doesn't realise he's behind her, working on another table, not until she bumps into him, a squeak escaping her mouth. She turns swiftly, eyes wide as she meets his gaze, unsure what she would see. She isn't sure why his eyes are aflame, why she feels the temperature rise, the heat uncomfortable.

She wants to apologise, but the words get stuck in her throat. "Hi," is what she says instead. "I'm Caitlin. It's my first day here." Her hand is out for a handshake, because what should she do in a situation like this?

He grunts in reply, eyes flickering over her, scrutinising. Wary. "Warren." They continue to clean the bar in silence, Caitlin determined to avoid him at all costs. And she succeeds for the most part; he seems to read her mind, wiping down the bar and rinsing the cups. But that doesn't last for long, Caitlin finishing before him, duty compelling her to join him by the sink, helping him rinse and put a way the cups. It gets her barely a flicker of a look and for that she is thankful - he is distracting enough without his attention being on her. But soon enough everything is done and it is time to leave.

She says goodbye, face falling as he only grunts in reply. And she turns on her heel, making her way up to the door before his voice echoes in the building. It roots her to the spot. Caitlin can hear the shuffling of his feet against the linoleum floor, a warm heavy hand on her shoulder, spinning her around.There is little resistance to his touch, heat spreading through her like a wave, emanating from that one spot.

And his eyes, they were smouldering.

There is silence, and she feels so small under his gaze. She motions to move but his grip tightens, snapping him out of his trance.

He offers to take her to a vegan restaurant that he had heard of. And it feels like a test, Warren watching her with those dark eyes and rough voice.

She tells him that she doesn't want to make friends right now, and honestly, nothing is better than Big Belly Burger.

"Okay then," he says, crooked smirk on his face, shoulders falling as if he were relaxing -

(Whatever the test is, she's pretty sure she's passed it.)

- his eyes lose their heat.

(And failed).

#consider this a promo more than anything else #so you can annoy me about this later #happy belated birthday

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imaginetonyandbucky · 8 years ago

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The Martian AU - Bucky, crew doctor, overwhelmed with guilt because he's the one that proclaimed Stark dead which led to Captain Rogers making the decision to leave Stark behind.

A/N: I LOVE The Martian and just couldn’t resist when I saw this prompt. I have based the fic on the book rather than the movie (due to certain differences at the end) but I think you might be able to read it even if you’re not familiar with the source material.

However, since this fic is a total of 32k, the remaining five chapters will be posted on my AO3 rather than on the blog. So GO HERE to subscribe/find the rest of the story. Enjoy!

Hindsight - Chapter 1

"STARK!"

Bucky was startled by Romanoff's shout over the comms channel. He had never heard her sound so frightened.

"What happened?" Steve asked sharply. The Martian sandstorm was roaring around them, fierce enough to turn each step of the evacuation into a struggle — only made worse by their bulky EVA suits. The wind was whipping up enough sand that Steve was the only one Bucky could see clearly.

"Something hit him." Romanoff's words were clipped and efficient, but that only made her underlying fear more apparent. "I don't know what. He got thrown off course — I can't see him."

"Stark, report," Steve demanded, voice tight.

Silence.

This couldn't be happening.

"Stark, report!" Steve turned, facing the way they had come. Bucky couldn't see his expression thanks to the reflective glass of the helmet, but Steve's anxiety bled through the terse command.

Bucky pushed back the panic, trying desperately to remember procedure. He was supposed to be trained for this, but he found it increasingly difficult to breathe around the tightness in his chest.

"He's offline," Bucky said, willing his voice to remain stable as he looked at his arm computer. "His... his decompression alarm went off, before we lost contact."

Decompression on the surface of Mars was a death sentence — it only took seconds, much less than a minute.

Seconds they didn't have. Seconds that might already have passed.

(Mobile readers, watch out for the break!)

Bucky felt his stomach drop, and dread lodged in his throat.

"Which direction did he go?" Steve asked.

Bucky could barely hear him over the roaring in his ears.

"West," Romanoff replied.

"Barton, get to the MAV, prepare for launch," Steve ordered. "Everyone else, lock on to Romanoff. We need to find Stark — line up and walk slowly, heading west."

They hurried to obey, Thor on Bucky's left and Steve on his right. Bucky stumbled in the harsh wind, gaze aimed at the ground, hoping to see some kind of sign of their missing crewmate. His heartbeats echoed painfully loud in his ears, his body moving on autopilot. All thoughts seemed to have fled, slipping through his fingers — all but one.

They had to find Tony.

Each careful step was made more difficult by the wind and the sand, and the tense silence that had settled over the channel only made the knot in Bucky's chest grow tighter. Fear hung so thick that Bucky could almost taste it on his tongue.

"Commander." Barton's voice rang out clear over the comms; he must have reached their transport. "The winds are too strong. The shuttle is tilting seven degrees. It'll tip at 12.3, and if it does, we'll never be able to take off."

They would be stuck on Mars. If they continued to search for Tony, none of them might ever leave the planet — at least not alive.

"Copy that," Steve replied. Bucky recognized the determination in his voice — Steve hadn't given up yet. "Continue prepping for launch, Barton."

"Will do," Barton shot back. For once, Steve didn't comment on Barton's habit of not following proper comms procedure.

Bucky's legs felt heavy and shaky, but he kept walking, as did the others. He wasn't sure if Thor had ever been this quiet before, at least not during the years Bucky had known him.

"Commander," Romanoff said, "Stark's bio-monitor sent a fractured information packet before he went offline. I managed to retrieve the raw data in plain text."

"Read it," Bucky demanded, surprised by his own harshness.

"BP 0, PR 0, TP 36.1," Romanoff replied. "I couldn't get more."

Bucky faltered. He couldn't breathe, sudden grief squeezing his chest.

"Bucky?" It was Steve's turn to abandon protocol — on comms they were Commander Rogers and Doctor Barnes, not Steve and Bucky.

Somehow, Bucky managed to make himself form words. "Blood pressure zero, pulse rate zero, temperature normal," he reported in a monotone.

There was only one way to interpret those numbers, though Bucky tried his damndest to deny it.

"If his temperature is normal—" Thor began, only to be interrupted by Romanoff.

"It takes a while for a body to cool." Her words were flat and jarring, but Bucky had learned that Romanoff only ever fell back on that when she was overwhelmed by her emotions.

The silence that settled over the comms was deafening. Romanoff's brutally honest declaration had thrown them all off balance. Up until then, they had been able to pretend that Tony was still alive. Bucky knew that was stupid — he, if anyone, knew Tony couldn't be. Even without the damning readouts from Tony's bio-monitor, the depressurization would have killed him by then.

Tony was dead.

"Barton." Steve was still clinging to his stubbornness, Bucky could tell.

"Yes, Commander?"

"How long can you give us?"

"I can launch at any time," Barton reported, "but the tilt is almost at eleven degrees."

"How long?" Steve repeated, his patience clearly run thin. Bucky swallowed, trying to catch up to what Steve was planning — he had a feeling it wouldn't be good.

"Two, three minutes, tops," Barton replied tightly.

Bucky could hear Steve take a deep breath, dreading what would come next.

"All of you, go to the MAV. Get in and prep for launch." As usual, Steve's orders left very little room for negotiation. "I'll stay here—"

"No." Panic burned through Bucky, making him reach out and grab Steve's arm. He couldn't feel much through the thick gloves and material of Steve's suit, but it was still a comfort — as if Bucky could stop Steve's foolishness simply by clinging to him.

"That is an order, Dr. Barnes. Head for the—"

"Don't give me that bullshit!" Bucky snapped, his grip tightening. They were lucky he had used his right hand and not his left — his bionic prosthesis could literally break Steve's bones. "I won't let you risk your life for this!"

"I won't leave—"

"Tony's dead!" Bucky could hear his own voice waver, thick, ugly emotions making it difficult to speak. It felt like a betrayal to say those words out loud, Bucky's heart breaking from the surge of sorrow and desperation. "There's nothing we can do. We can't stay — the MAV can't take it. We'll all be stranded."

Bucky didn't want to leave Tony any more than Steve did, but they had to prioritize. He had to protect his best friend — he had to make sure Steve made it off this fucking planet alive. Tony might not be able to, but Steve still could.

The heavy silence was broken by Romanoff's softly spoken words. "Barnes is right."

Steve hesitated, clearly not prepared to give up just yet. A cold, paralyzing fear was seeping into Bucky's bones, his eyes stinging from unshed tears.

"I can't lose you too," he whispered. He knew the others could hear, but he spoke only to Steve. "Don't make me lose you too, Steve," he begged.

A second passed, then two, before Steve finally relented.

"Everyone, head for the MAV," Steve said reluctantly, defeat clear in his voice. "Proceed with the evacuation."

"Copy," Romanoff replied.

Bucky didn't dare to let go of Steve's arm — not until they were stepping into the airlock of the MAV.

They all moved efficiently and mechanically as they shed their EVA suits, falling back on years of training. The silence felt like a living entity, the lack of the usual snarky comments making it painfully obvious what they had just lost.

Who they had been forced to leave behind.

No one spoke as they climbed the ladder and strapped into the acceleration couches — no one seemed to find the words.

Bucky noticed he was shaking. He clenched his teeth, trying to blink away the burn behind his eyelids, but to no avail. His breaths trembled, catching in his throat.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Bucky turned his head to look at Tony's empty seat, right next to his. The grief slammed into him full force, his breath hitching. He couldn't even hear Steve's order to initiate launch over the roaring in his ears.

Tony was gone.

Bucky closed his eyes, just as the first tear trickled down his cheek.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

---

Growing up, Bucky dreamed of becoming an astronaut with his best friend. He wasn't sure if it was he or Steve who first planted the idea, but both of them clung to it with the kind of certainty only children seemed to possess.

One day, they were going to explore space together.

It didn't take long before Bucky learned that childhood dreams weren't as easy to fulfill as he had believed when he was a little boy, but he was far too stubborn to give up. Each time a new obstacle was thrown their way, both he and Steve only seemed to become more determined. They would fulfill their dream, and they would do it together.

When both Bucky and Steve were picked for the Ares 3 crew — the third expedition sent to explore Mars — Bucky could hardly believe it. During those first couple of days after getting the news he feared that NASA would change their minds, but they never did. To reach his goal after so many years felt surreal.

He was going to Mars. He was literally living his dream.

Bucky knew that they wouldn't actually be setting foot on Mars for another couple of years — there was still training and preparations to consider, not to mention the months it would take to travel — but he was giddy with excitement.

After the accident that cost him his arm, Bucky hadn't thought NASA would ever consider him for an actual mission. Thankfully, it turned out that NASA was dying to test the effects zero-g might have on a bionic limb, and Bucky was only too happy to oblige. He knew there were risks — he had to go to a total of six meetings informing him of all the ways this could go wrong — but Bucky was determined. At the end of each meeting he declared his intention to go through with the mission, no matter the cost.

He wasn't going to pass up on a trip to Mars with his best friend just because his arm might stop working.

Besides, there would be a mechanical engineer with them on the journey, in charge of maintenance and overall supervision. Bucky had met Tony Stark several times already, and while the man was both incredibly intense and arrogant to the point of obnoxiousness, it was clear that he knew what he was doing. The fact that Stark had always been on Bucky's side during the meetings — pointing out the durability and strength of the newly designed prosthetics, using technical terms that occasionally flew over Bucky's head — also helped a great deal.

That didn't mean that Bucky wasn't nervous when he was sent to have his measurements taken, to ensure that the new prosthetic fit him with NASA's usual perfectionist standards. Bucky was still a little wary whenever someone wanted to poke and prod at what little was left of his left arm.

Bucky couldn't quite hide his surprise when he stepped inside the lab and Stark was the one who greeted him. The fact that Stark was wearing a pair of tattered jeans and a dark, long-sleeved sweater pushed up to his elbows didn't help. Bucky had only ever seen Stark in crisp, tailored suits before, his hair neatly styled and grin sharp. Here, in clothes Bucky was pretty sure had at least three holes in them, Stark looked more human than he had during the meetings with the higher ups.

The change was kind of unsettling.

"Dr. Barnes, glad you could make it. Right this way." Stark gestured towards a chair placed next to one of the lab tables, his movements effortless and relaxed. The easy smile on his lips helped settle some of the tension Bucky could feel coiling inside of him.

Bucky was confused to note that they were alone in the room — things like these usually required a small team of scientists. Even so, he did as told and sat down on the unexpectedly comfortable chair.

"Anything I need to know before I get started?" Stark asked, typing something on the nearby computer. Bucky couldn't see the screen from where he was sitting. Stark shot him a wide, dazzling grin, the playful spark in his eyes making him look nothing like the brash, relentless man Bucky had seen during the meetings. "Medical history? Allergies? Music preferences? Favorite color?"

"Blue," Bucky replied automatically, feeling a little dumb.

"A traditionalist." Stark nodded, a lock of hair falling into his eyes. Bucky had to quash the impulse to reach out and brush it aside. "Do you mind if I play some music?"

Bucky shook his head before glancing around the lab. "It's just us?"

Stark shrugged nonchalantly. "You're a doctor, I'm an engineer. If we put our two clever heads together, I'm pretty sure we can make this beauty work." Stark stepped away from the computer and pulled up a chair of his own, winking at Bucky. "Besides, I designed it — no one knows how the arm works better than I do."

It was on the tip of Bucky's tongue to ask about that — Stark had never said he was the designer during the meetings — but Bucky decided that he had looked like enough of an idiot for one day.

"Works for me," he said instead, smiling crookedly. He was secretly grateful that there wouldn't be anyone else in the room with them — he felt less like a freak that way.

"Excellent." Stark took a seat and reached over to the computer to tap on a couple of keys. "Now, AC/DC or Black Sabbath?"

"Metallica," Bucky replied, grinning at the scandalized look he received.

Stark scoffed, his lips twitching towards a smile. "Fine, have it your way — but only this once." The teasing look Stark shot him, a spark of genuine warmth through long, dark lashes, sent a little jolt straight to Bucky's heart.

The music started playing over the lab speakers and, for some reason, Bucky found that he couldn't stop grinning.

---

Bucky saw a lot of Stark after that. Not only did they have several more sessions to work on the prosthesis, but there was mission training as well. The other four crewmembers were involved in those too, of course, but Bucky couldn't help that some fraction of his attention always lingered with Stark.

All in all, Bucky liked their crew — which was fortunate, he supposed, considering the amount of time they would be spending together.

Bucky trusted Steve with his life and had no trouble following his command. The difficult part was not slipping into fond bickering while on the comms, and not tease Steve about being a botanist about to be sent to Mars — a planet where nothing grew.

Natasha Romanoff — Russian cosmonaut, geologist, and quite possibly a spy — was as terrifying as she was competent. Bucky liked her instantly, if only because he knew that she would help keep Steve in line. She was guarded and held herself at a certain distance from the rest of them, but Bucky suspected that would pass once they earned her trust.

Their pilot, Clint Barton, was a little more difficult to pin down. He acted carefree and nonchalant most of the time, trading jibes with Stark as easily as breathing, but Bucky had a feeling there was more to him than that. There was too much intelligence in his eyes, and sometimes Bucky couldn't help wondering exactly what Barton saw when he looked at the rest of the crew.

Thor Odinsen was by far the friendliest. The Norwegian astronaut and chemist had insisted they call him by his first name rather than his last, and Bucky hadn't quite figured out if that was a cultural thing or Thor being Thor. Everything Thor did seemed so genuine, somehow, which in turn made him into one of the most dependable people Bucky had ever met. It was comforting to know that he would be along for the ride.

Stark, though, continued to be frustratingly unpredictable. There were times when he was warm and friendly — always willing to help, laughing along with the rest of them — but he could just as easily switch over to fake smiles and cutting words, often without warning. Despite his changeable personality, Stark was a genius with machines and computers, and had a work ethic that bordered on obsessive. He might be tricky to get along with, but there was nothing wrong with Stark's dedication. Bucky knew that Stark would do his absolute best to ensure that the ship, their equipment, and Bucky's arm remained functional during the entirety of the mission.

There were occasional bumps during training — which was expected when combining a group of such widely different people — but the more the crew worked together, the more confident Bucky grew of their success. Steve was a natural leader and the rest of them seemed to find their appropriate places soon enough.

Bucky had no doubt that they'd pull off this mission without a hitch.

---

Bucky discreetly rolled his shoulder, trying to get rid of the annoying pinch he felt. Stark noticed immediately, despite being busy running simulations on the computer.

"Are you in pain?" he asked, a small furrow between his brows. He stopped typing and looked at Bucky, who sat in his usual chair.

"Nothing I can't handle," Bucky replied as he flexed his fingers, marveling at how fluently the metal plates moved. He had no idea how Stark had been able to build a prosthetic this complex, but he felt incredibly lucky to be the one who got to wear it. He didn't even dare consider the price tag.

The small furrow developed into a full-blown frown. "Wrong answer, Barnes. Even a little pain will grow unbearable in the long run." Stark abandoned the computer and walked to stand in front of Bucky. "Where does it hurt?"

"Back of my shoulder," Bucky replied, knowing there was no point in arguing. Stark had veto on the prosthetic — if he wasn't pleased, NASA wasn't pleased, and that meant no Mars for Bucky. "It's not that bad," he added, perhaps a little more sullenly than necessary.

"I'll be the judge of that," Stark replied as he circled around Bucky's chair. There was a fleeting brush of fingertips against Bucky's flesh shoulder — the bare skin not covered by his undershirt — and he tried not to shiver. Stark was surprisingly tactile, each pat on the back and playful nudge helping him convey the concern and care he didn't seem able to verbalize.

Stark was always gentle when he touched Bucky, but he didn't treat him like he was an invalid, afraid to break him. Bucky found it comforting just how often and casually Tony touched him, as if that was nothing out of the ordinary. The certainty Stark radiated made Bucky feel like he belonged, and it was obvious that Stark didn't see Bucky as less of a person just because he happened to be missing an arm.

"It hurts when you move?" Stark asked, clever fingers running along the seam where metal met skin. The touch was distracting and far too pleasant, causing a telltale squeeze in Bucky's gut — one he did his best to ignore.

Bucky swallowed tightly. "Yeah," he replied, grateful that his voice wasn't as hoarse as he had feared.

Stark hummed noncommittally, thankfully too focused on what he was doing to notice Bucky's difficulties. Bucky knew exactly what was growing in the pit of his stomach — had been for the past three weeks — but he was determined to ignore it. Putting a name to the emotion, much less acknowledging it, was a very bad idea.

"We need to work on the angle and weight distribution," Stark said, as if Bucky would be able to offer some kind of insight in return. Mechanical engineering wasn't his strong suit.

"Do what you need to do," Bucky replied, which earned him a low chuckle.

"You have quite a lot of faith in me, Dr. Barnes." Stark nudged his arm."Raise it for me, as high as you can."

Bucky did as told, a stab of pain making him flinch. He tried to keep going, but Stark quickly placed a hand on his bicep, halting the movement.

"I guess I should have specified 'until it hurts,'" Stark said.

"Yeah," Bucky agreed with a grimace, "that would have helped."

This time he shivered noticeably when Stark's hand slid up along his arm, stopping on his shoulder. Bucky couldn't feel the touch against the metal, but when it reached his bare skin he certainly did.

Bucky cleared his throat, fumbling for another subject. "And why wouldn't I have faith in you? I've heard you're the best engineer NASA has."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, doctor," Stark replied with what could only be described as a purr. Bucky was instantly grateful that he wasn't actually able to see Stark's face — and that Stark couldn't see his.

One of Stark's palms continued to rest on Bucky's metal shoulder, the other carefully touching along the edge of the prosthetics. "Move your arm forward, straight out in front of you. Stop if it hurts."

Again, Bucky did as told, stopping when he felt the first spike of pain.

"Good. Now let it relax again."

"I'm just sayin'," Bucky picked up, moving his arm as Stark instructed. "NASA are perfectionists, they only want the best. So you must be doing a good job."

Stark scoffed. "Well, I have to make sure to prove my old man wrong, don't I? You can't imagine how angry he got when I decided to go into robotics instead of weapons design." Stark let out a sharp, humorless chuckle. "On second thought, everyone knows that, considering my current lack of billions."

The words faded and Bucky didn't know how to reply. The hand on his shoulder stiffened before pulling back, a loaded silence settling between them.

Stark had never mentioned his family before. Bucky was aware that Stark was, well, a Stark — a disowned one, but a Stark nonetheless — but that had never seemed to be something Stark felt comfortable discussing. Judging by the sudden tension in the air, Bucky's assumption was correct.

Bucky took a measured breath, praying that he wasn't about to fuck this up.

"He was wrong," he said, with as much conviction as he could muster. He didn't turn around, knowing that Stark probably didn't want to look him in the eye.

The thought of Stark having gotten disowned for pursuing what he enjoyed hit a chord within Bucky. Their situations were far from similar, but Bucky knew what it was like to fight for a dream that seemed impossible to fulfill — how difficult it was to keep going when everything seemed to be against you. Stark had his respect for following through, despite the literal fortune he had lost.

Perhaps it was the fact that they weren't facing each other — limiting the awkwardness of the situation — but Stark relaxed. He didn't say anything, but when a warm, calloused hand settled on Bucky's right shoulder, he chose to take that as a good sign. There was both care and gratitude in that gesture.

"Let's get back to work, shall we?" Stark said after a couple of seconds, his tone softer than his words might suggest. "By the time I'm done with this, you'll never want another arm again."

Bucky turned his head and looked up at Stark. Their gazes met, a second ticking by, then another. The moment held — breathless and expectant — making Bucky's skin tingle.

"I know," was all he said, not surprised by the amount of sincerity and trust those two simple words contained.

Stark remained silent, his expression unreadable, before he gave Bucky's shoulder a gentle squeeze. His smile was smaller than usual — shy, almost — but there was a tentative spark of something in those dark eyes of his, and that was more than enough to leave a warm, contented feeling in Bucky's chest.

---

The launch of the transport shuttle that would take the crew from Earth to their ship Hermes was a success. They boarded the ship — which had been waiting in orbit since the Ares 2 crew had returned from their trip to Mars — without complications and started running all the necessary diagnostics and checkups. Once they had made sure that Hermes was still in working condition, Bucky found himself a window. The view took his breath away. The only thing stopping him from pressing up against the glass like an excited five-year-old was his dignity, but it was a near thing.

That five-year-old had waited a long time to get to where Bucky was now.

He heard approaching footsteps and smiled, knowing exactly who they belonged to.

"I honestly wasn't sure if we would make it," he said, still looking out at the dark reaches of space, stars twinkling in the distance.

The spaceship hummed with activity, offering a comforting background noise.

"But here we are," Steve said, stopping next to Bucky. Steve's posture was the same as always — firm and commanding — but there was a kind of softness in his eyes that revealed just how happy he was.

They had been looking forward to this moment for years.

Bucky let out a slow breath. "We did it, Stevie," he said, allowing the awe to shine through.

"Yeah," Steve agreed, looking at him with a wide, dorky grin. "We did."

---

"Any complications? Sluggishness? Weird clicks?" Stark was running his hands along Bucky's arm, as if he would be able to feel any imperfections through touch alone.

"None whatsoever," Bucky replied patiently, though he couldn't help rolling his eyes. "Just like last time."

Stark gave him an amused look. "That's quite the attitude you've brought today." His tone was fond, his fingertips still mapping out the dips and curves of Bucky's arm.

They were sitting in Stark's lab on Hermes, music playing on low in the background. Despite his initial resistance, quite a few Metallica songs had found their way into Stark's playlist, and whenever one started, Bucky had to fight down a silly grin.

The banter between them was comforting — familiar after so much time spent together — as was the genuine smile on Stark's lips, and the way their knees kept bumping. And the sight of Stark's adorably messy hair, more unruly than ever after five months in space; Bucky had to fight an urge to run his fingers through it.

"You know I have to ask," Stark said, somehow both apologetic and teasing at the same time.

Bucky couldn't help wondering how he had earned the privilege to see what Stark was like behind all the fake smiles and snark. The man usually hid behind a mask so impenetrable it might as well have been a suit of armor, but with Bucky he let his guard down. He clearly liked the rest of the crew, but Stark never looked as at ease as when the two of them were alone in his lab, working on Bucky's arm.

Bucky tried to ignore the warm glow spreading in his chest.

"I want you to have the best care possible, Doc," Stark continued. He was still smiling, his gaze focused on the panel he was opening on Bucky's arm.

Bucky felt a twinge of guilt; Stark was willing to spend hours on the maintenance and Bucky repaid him by whining. Still, Bucky couldn't help feeling that if the arm hadn't broken down yet, it probably never would. The prosthesis had held up beautifully even after months of travel and prolonged exposure to zero-g.

"I just get restless, that's all," Bucky tried to explain. "We waste hours on this every week, you know? I don't really see the point."

The arm wouldn't break — Stark had seen to that.

A short silence settled over the room, more awkward than Bucky had expected.

"I'll finish up as quickly as I can, I promise," Stark replied. There was an odd note in his voice despite his cheerful smile — a stiffness in his shoulders that hadn't been there mere seconds ago. He was already reaching for his tools, not meeting Bucky's gaze.

Bucky frowned. A sickening feeling began to coil in his chest.

Truth be told, the maintenance wasn't bad at all. Twice a week Bucky got to spend at least half an hour in Stark's company, discussing whatever topic came to mind while Stark worked on his arm. Stark never seemed to have any problems dividing his attention between the maintenance and the conversation, always tossing out sharp, insightful observations — sometimes faster than Bucky could match. During those precious minutes, Bucky was the sole focus of Stark's attention — an experience as addictive as it was nerve-wracking.

More often than not, the maintenance sessions were the highlights of Bucky's week.

He spent time with all of the crewmembers, of course — he couldn't not when they were trapped on a spaceship together — but the moments he had with Stark were special, somehow. They felt real in a way Bucky couldn't quite explain, but treasured all the same.

He knew he was attracted to Stark — Bucky had finally given up on denying it — but there was a strict non-fraternization policy, as Steve had reminded them once they had made it aboard Hermes. Bucky knew that he could get away with certain things on account of being Steve's best friend, but this was not one of them.

So as much as he wanted to reach across the space between them and pull Stark in for a kiss, Bucky knew he couldn't — at least not while they were in the middle of a mission. The infuriating part was that Stark might actually want it too, if the lingering glances and fleeting yet sizzling touches were anything to go by. Any and all advances had to wait until they got back to Earth, however, but once they did, Bucky would definitely make sure to ask.

Today, Stark wasn't quite his usual self, however. He answered Bucky's attempts to start a conversation with short, noncommittal replies, his gaze flitting away before Bucky had time to catch it. Stark wasn't usually this distracted.

"There, all done," Stark announced suddenly, scooting back.

Bucky actually flinched. "What?"

Barely ten minutes had passed — this usually took half an hour, sometimes more.

"Well, you're right that I don't need to perform a full maintenance check each time," Stark explained, putting his tools back on the table. His smile didn't reach his eyes and he quickly averted his gaze, leaving Bucky feeling off-kilter. "The arm is fine. We can cut down to one quick checkup per week, and one more thorough maintenance once a month. That should save you some time."

Bucky was desperately trying to figure out where this had gone wrong. The last thing he wanted was to decrease the amount of time he got to spend with Stark. The mere thought made a cold knot of dread settle in Bucky's chest.

"But—"

"Sound good?" Stark only waited half a beat, continuing much too quickly for Bucky to give an actual reply. "Great! Now, I need to go and instruct Romanoff on Hermes' system and its maintenance, and I'm sure you have doctorly things to get back to."

Bucky's stomach dropped. He felt like the entire conversation was slipping through his fingers and he wasn't even sure why.

"No, I don't—"

"Well, I do," Stark interrupted, smiling one of those sharp, false smiles he hadn't given Bucky in over a year. It was the kind of smile that said that Stark's plans were infinitely more important than whatever objections Bucky might come up with, so he should simply stop trying.

It was the smile Stark gave people he didn't like and wanted to avoid.

"Have other things to do, that is," Stark clarified, getting to his feet. "I'll see you next week, Dr. Barnes."

Stark was already out of the lab by the time Bucky's brain caught up and his desperate, "No, wait!" got cut off by the automatic doors sliding shut.

Bucky blinked, not sure what had just happened. He knew he'd done something — he must have. Stark only started deflecting like that if he felt defensive and vulnerable, and he hadn't had a reason to act like that around Bucky for a long time. Something was wrong.

Bucky desperately thought back on what he had said, trying to figure out what had upset Stark. It didn't take him long to realize — the answer was mortifyingly obvious, even. Bucky bit back a groan, running a hand through his hair.

Did Stark honestly believe that Bucky saw their sessions together as a waste of time?

That wasn't what Bucky had meant at all, but he couldn't blame Stark for misunderstanding him. Bucky should have clarified that he loved spending time with Stark, but would prefer if they did something else than work on his arm. That's what he should have said.

Bucky gave himself a couple of seconds to regroup before he got to his feet and left the lab.

He needed to find Stark.

_____________

- Amethystina

#winteriron #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #the martian au #science fiction #sci-fi #perceived character death #grief and loss #prompts #amethystina #Anonymous

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