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riofann · 5 years ago

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Rio Random 4

Things got a lot better after that, to your surprise. But you had both decided that you were basically going to do a redo and actively work on your relationship. It was a bit difficult at first. But you felt better when you saw Mick removing drugs from your house. He also got you a security system that you could look at from your phone to see who has been in and around the house. You didn’t smell Beth around your house as often either. You actually didn't hear much about Beth, as far as you were concerned things were being dealt with.

Rio would stop by two times a week at least on top of dates breakfast, lunch, brunch, dinner, or dessert. He was a romantic at heart actually, you would find flowers at home or at work sitting on your desk. He often used to look at you and smile which made you blush. You also met Marcus and Rhea one night at a state fair. Rhea was like Rio, hard to read you could see why the two ended up together. All together your relationship was far from perfect but you could honestly say you were happy.

One late afternoon you rushed home from work. Rio had sent you a text saying he had left a present for you. He often did this when he found lingerie that he liked and wanted you to wear it. Some dates he had dressed you from head to toe, others he provided the undergarments. Not that your taste was bad but he enjoyed doing this.

When you open the door to your home you hear voices coming from the bottom of your house before you could turn around and walk away you come face to face with a strange woman.

“Uh hi” Ruby greets uneasily

“Who are you?” You ask

“Uh Krystal”

Quickly Beth comes around the corner “Oh Y/N I was just ummm....”

You close your door now pissed, what are you doing in my house. Mick had moved all the drugs from your home, Rio had promised you nothing was left in your house. You looked around to see your house in disarray before turning your attention back to Beth and these other women.

“Oh well Rio wanted me to drop off something”

“Did he? Inside my house? He doesn’t even have a key, so how’d you get in?”

“Well Mick helped with that” “Okay what are you dropping off”

“Uh,” “Right let me just give him a call I’m sure he would love to hear about this”

“NO! Let's not bother him you know he is busy right Be... be be because he wouldn't like that right Krys?” Annie interjects

“Or should I call the police?”

Without warning Beth pulled out her gun and pointed it at you

“What are you doing?” Ruby asked in horror

“Alright Sit” she says motioning with the gun

“Are you gonna tell me what you're doing here in my house Elizabeth?”

Instinctively the two women looked at her as she looked shocked as well “How did you?”

“Elizabeth Boland, you have 5 children with your ex husband Dean right? Used to be a stay at home wife? Did I get that right?”

“SIT!” she demands “No, what are you gonna do? shoot me?”

“SIT!” she turns to look at Annie and Ruby before turning her attention back to you “Who told you?”

“Oh uh Mrs. Doubtfire... Yea i was stopping by to give you that book i borrowed and she said there was no such thing as Krystal had no idea what i was talking about then she told me everything”

“That damn woman”

“SIT!”

“NO! If you're gonna point a gun at me then I expect you to shoot.”

Ruby tugs at her arm “Beth lets just go” “NO ITS HERE” she yells while yanking her arm back “you think you are so special, that's what he does you know. Make you feel special then he just dumps you like you're nothing!”

“But I’m not you Beth, and i'm not Rio, so whatever you're looking for its not here and whatever beef you have take it up with him”

“I SAID SIT!”

“I'm not deaf i don't know why you're yelling”

“Beth” Annie tries to calm the situation Beth with a bewildered look turns to look at Annie “NO!”

“This is bad” Ruby comments

“You can't just threaten her life because of some guy....Beth” Annie states

“I am not all I need her to do is sit Annie!....I know that it’s here it just has to be...”

As they argued within themselves you felt like it was the perfect opportunity to sneak away as you got close to the door. You turned abruptly to open it when you heard commotion followed by sharp pain on your side, you looked down to see blood seeping through your clothes. You slowly fall to the floor back resting against the wall.

“OH MY GOD BETH!” “SHE WAS GETTING AWAY” she defends “HE IS GOING TO KILL US” Annie states looking at her sister like she had 5 heads “I’M SO SORRY Y/N” she says rushing towards you

“YOU BITCH” You kick her in the chest causing her to fall back, you groan and hold onto your side

“This isn't good please don't kick me none of this was supposed to happen” Ruby says slowly crouching down next to you

“Put pressure on it” Annie instructs

“I need towels!”

“It's gonna be okay” Ruby tries her best to sooth you “I can't believe you”

“I didn't” Beth says while holding onto your wound

Annie rushed back with towels in hand

“Uh guys we have to take her to the hospital” You don’t know when it happens but you start to fade away “Y/N! Can you stand?” “Y/N!” Annie calls your name “she's not... Y/N stay awake

“What's wrong with you?” Ruby scolds

“What? Ruby..”

“Why are you trigger happy”

“It was an accident, help me get her in the car!”

“Well we can't go out the front door”

“Then help me get her through the fucking back door Annie”

“Oh my god” Annie says throwing her hands up

When 30 minutes pass Rio is beyond infuriated with you. You were not picking up his calls or answering his texts and from what he knew you were at home.He doesn’t know why you flaked on him, he thinks you were in a drunken slumber wondering how you got back into it, you had shown signs of improvement.

When he gets to your house however he opens the door, he hears Coconut’s barking and he immediately spots the pool of blood by the door

“Go find her is all he needs to say to Mick”

He walks through your home, there were multiple holes cut in your walls, holes in the cushion seat on the couch, furniture overturned. When he walks into the bedroom everything is in disarray just like the living area. Carefully he walks down the steps and spots your bag. He thinks you were ambushed. His mind goes into overdrive and is thinking of who would have the gull to do such a thing as far as he was concerned everyone knew enemy wise especially in this line of business that children and wives/girlfriends were out of the question. So whoever had the gull to do such a thing was bold and he’s wondering who it could be. He makes a few calls before he’s sitting in front of your laptop trying to log in. another phone call and he’s given the password. When he looks through the security footage nothing but rage takes over.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After pacing the floor in silence Ruby explodes with emotion “He is going to kill us!”

“He doesn't know where we are” Beth counters

“I have a child Beth and I need to call Stan and let him know what’s going on!”

“So do I Ruby, I have 5 to be exact, he wont do anything she's just a placeholder anyway”

Ruby looks at her in disbelief “Are you kidding me he broke up with YOU to be with HER she is no placeholder”

“She's not special he can find another woman like her anytime soon” Beth states dismissively

“Beth i don't like this you need to call him and tell him it was a mistake” Annie jumps into the conversation

“Relax he doesn't know where we are he’s not stupid plus Dean will throw his ass in jail”

Putting her hands up Ruby states “I can’t believe you” before she walks away A brief moment of silence before Beth’s phone starts ringing

When they all look at the phone only unknown flashes through the screen after the 5th time the screen is black for good

“Elizabeth please for our sake just tell him” Ruby pleads “we can’t be hidden forever”

“NO! Now shut up and let me think!”

“Or what you're gonna shoot me” Ruby expresses frustrated

“It was an accident!”

Ruby scoffs, “Like shooting him too? I'm starting to think you’re trigger happy”

“Don't start accusing me you shot someone in the foot!”

“That was an accident! We all know it was, but you just can't let this life go huh. You can't let this power go so whoever stands in your way you're gonna get rid of them”

Beth walked up to Ruby looking at her right in the eye “You're right so move out of my way” she didn't have time to be arguing with her so if that meant intimidating her she would.

Annie quickly got between the two and separated them. “Guys i cant right now please not now, i can't deal with this, we just need to stick together”

Beth was right Rio couldn't locate them at first but he had found you. You were in the surgical icu stabilizing after your surgery. Because you were considered a Jane Doe no one was really allowed to see you, but Rio had his connections and he walked in to see you fast asleep before walking out. He says nothing as Mick drives him over to Beth’s house. Nothing was out of the ordinary except Beth was missing. He also had other cars posted outside of Ruby’s house and Annie's.

“Aii bet” he hangs up the phone irritated that no one could locate Beth, she had become a protégé, so good at hiding things from him now.

"You gon’ have to get rid of her” Mick states before looking at Rio, “She shot you, planned your assassination," he scoffs "stolen, sabotaged, lied, how much more you gon let her get away with"

“I cant get rid of her, if i do i gotta deal with the other 2, not to mention the stupid ass husbands that's almost 10 kids in foster care, too much heat its bad for business now anyway, plus I'm still under the microscope cuz of Turner”

“Both can’t co exist though, so you either with Beth or you with Y/N.”

“Fuck me”

“Gotta make a move boss”

“Ima figure something out”

It takes 2 days but he finally locates them. Abruptly woken from their sleep and thrown in a van they find themselves in an unknown place, kneeling in front of him, with plastic bags underneath them.

“Please i have children” Beth tries to plead her case

Rio’s shoulders roll back before he speaks “Nah see you can’t keep doing that mama, you can't keep provoking me and asking for mercy cuz you got kids.”

“I'm a mother, they need their mother!”

“Please Rio” Ruby interjects

“See that's the problem, I hoped you being a mother, you would actually be more careful but I get it now. You just wanna be reckless and use me as your cover. Shoot me 3 times it's my fault. Steal my fault, lie my fault, plot to kill me my fault" his shoulders roll "what was Y/N’s fault why you shoot her?" Already knowing the answer he wanted to see what she would say

"She knows my name I know you told her"

"She's my girl"

"Right just like I was but unlike her you can't replace me you need me!”

"Humor me Beth, are you jealous?"

Beth scoffs “of what?"

"Y/N"

She scoffs again "you wish! You probably get off knowing 2 women want you"

He licks his bottom lip and smiles. It takes a minute before he speaks “So what should i do with you, all of you? I know I’m tired of this game, we’ve been playing it for too long. Aint y’all tired of wondering if im gon kill you?” He asks addressing Annie and Ruby

“Please I promise to walk away” Annie offers

“Annie shut up!” Beth scolds

“NO! YOU SHUT UP BETH GOD YOU ARE SELFISH! ALWAYS HAVE BEEN!”

“Annie I’m trying to....” Before she can finish she stops after she hears her phone ringing

Rio looks down at the phone “Talk it out I gotta take this call” he says before walking away

The girls don’t say anything but look at each other. When they see him return Beth comments “I got this let me speak.” waiting for him to sit down before she begins “You can’t kill us and you know it. So you can run back to your little girlfriend and kiss her wound and tell her she's special and I'll go back to doing my thing” she says snidely Both Annie and Ruby looked at her shocked.

“She is, it could have been you but the 3 bullets kinda changed my mind”

“OH MY GOD! Can you let that go!”

“I did then I found out you hired a hitman and some kid to shoot me. Things change all the time between us, you know this”

“So what are you gonna do? Because we have work to do”

“I know.” He nods at the men behind them. The zip ties are cut before he walks away “I’ll see you around yea?”

When he leaves they all look at each other shocked that he even let them walk away. They remain in that position until all the men leave.

“See I told you!”

“I can’t do this Beth you need some serious help and I’m not willing to wager my family as collateral for it” Ruby states “It worked” “For you! Not for us, you think it's just a one woman show where you do everything? Like your actions don’t have any effect on our lives'' “Ruby it worked I don’t know why you’re being such a baby about it” “Yea well better that than you”

Annie interjects once again before things get heated “Guys can we just figure out how to get home”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So what now?” Mick asks frustrated with the whole thing. “She still working for you?” he knew the pattern all too well Beth would do something to get back at Rio

“Nah we moving, leaving Michigan, getting new headquarters. She wanna run the business? Cool, but no protection, no muscle, no supply of weapons, no connections, yea she can print money but she can’t operate or deal, not without me. Make sure everyone knows if they entertain her they are dead. I don’t care what it is if I find out I’m putting a bounty on your head. She right though I can’t kill her but i can kill her business”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took a few days but when you regain consciousness in the hospital you see one of Rio’s men at least you’re assuming he is sitting by you. You two don’t speak and you go back to sleep. The next day police stop by to question you about your shooting, you tell them the story Rio’s guy told you, a home invasion gone wrong. They leave satisfied with the explanation. Rio comes to visit a few days after you have been moved to a step down unit that was more private.

The door opens and you watch as he walks in “Rio”

Hey mama he approaches you with hands behind his back and as he gets closer a cute teddy bear that has ‘get well soon on it’

“How you feeling?” he asks taking a seat next to you on the bed

“I got shot” you state factually

“You got shot” he says moving the hair from your face

“Where have you been? The cops came to see me”

“I know they stopped by, I was handling something. Did you tell them what Honcho told you to say?”

“Yes”

He smiles and looks at you with a face you can’t quite read

“So where is she?”

You were hoping he would say dead in a ditch somewhere or something along the lines of ‘you never have to worry about her’ but what he said made you more angry

“At home”

“She's alive?”

“Yea”

You roll your eyes, was she gonna be thorn on your side for the rest of your life with Rio? “But she won’t bother you” “Yea said that last time and now i have a bullet hole on my side that says otherwise” “Nah she won’t be able to reach you this time cuz we leaving, after you get discharged”

“What? You want me to move?”

“Yea,we can...” You interrupt "There's no we anymore, you're like a bad omen. In less than a year since i met you I get shot and now i have a bullet wound because of your unhinged ex that you couldn't keep in check and you still think there's a 'we' "

“I told you,” he runs his hand down his chin “i asked you to be patient” he speaks softly

“Be patient, meant with you! So you could change not ‘be patient, my crazy ex who i can't control will shoot you months from now but i still need you to understand” you say sarcasm laced in your tone

“Y/N” “You told me to treat you like any other guy on the street, so I am. We are done!”

“You can't stay here” he stresses “Why not?” “Beth isn’t my only enemy, and once she finds out my plans she will go to them for revenge”

“So where are we going? I have a career here! Aunt Brenda and Mia, my parents, I visit their graves often”

“They can come visit you, You can always get another job, it’s not safe for you here Y/N”

“Was it ever safe? Didn’t you have enemies before? Was I not in danger then”

“This is different, Beth is vengeful I can’t risk it”

“Where are we going?”

“I can't tell you, not now I’m still figuring that out”

“Typical” “Listen i'm packing up your house I’m gonna get you a new place in a new city you'll get a job”

“Rio are you kidding me you want me to just up and leave?” “Yea,” he stands up and looks down at you “it’s non negotiable, i gotta protect you, after you get discharged we leaving”

“Protect me? From who? The only person I need protection from is you. Rein que le diable (nothing but the devil)”

He stares at you for a moment “get some rest” he says before kissing your forehead. He didn’t care about how you felt in the moment protecting you, Marcus, and Rhea were his top priority and he knew that always came with push back no matter who he was talking to.

A/N: as always tell me what you think. Not really a fan of this chapter didn’t know how to go around it.

#Manny Montana #rio x you #Brio #rio x reader #good girls nbc #nbc rio good girls #nbc good girls fic #nbc good girls #rio good girls #rio x beth #beth boland

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wolfcha1k · 4 years ago

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As soon as I started practicing kisses I suddenly can't help adding them now lmao something fluffy and firey for you heathens. Still sfw content tho ofc. Based on the new fanart I did recently so some of it doesn't match the art in hindsight :"D I think now its just gonna be a new tradition to write something to go along with my pieces.

They were taking one of their occasional adventures away from the Betterman Farm, where they would hunker down in the wilderness for several days at a time. For a while, Guy and Eep would forget there was an entire world that they shared with other people; their family. It was just the two of them, hunting and foraging and seeing the beauty the land itself provided.

She knew her home was the Farm now but her heart would never deny she was always meant for the untamed wild where the sun stretched on forever. She wasn't sure why Guy had lead her towards the desert as an area for camp, it was hot and unspeakably dry during the day, sweltering even. Her entire life had been the dusty desert and the canyon with that awful cave as the only escape from the heat.

As dusk fell, Guy had only grinned at her. They'd set up camp not long after the daytime sun joined the many nighttime suns in the sky. The sight of how many slept above her still was awe striking. Guy skinned a boar they'd hunted together, something Eep wanted to teach Dawn about someday. She knew as much as Guy enjoyed his safer, more pampered life with the Bettermans, he was still that adventurous nomad born and raised. He lived for the thrill his skills provided him and how all his ideas saved him from many obstacles.

Eep watched the fire flicker and sway, it was still surprising how alive looked. She leaned her hands out to toast her palms, the desert chilled now the sun set. She didn’t understand that either, how such a mercilessly hot place can become so cold.

The embers glowed in her green eyes when she felt Guy touch her wrist. Eep turned to him, seeing the fire reflecting in his dark gaze. He was beautiful, one of the most wonderful things she ever saw even after everything he'd shown her.

"I got the boar skinned, just need help putting a skewer through it," Guy said, gesturing towards the beast. They had parked themselves by an oasis, giving Guy a way to wash off the blood from his hands.

Eep had offered to do it, blood never phased her but Guy insisted she just rest. In the meantime she had bathed in the spring, the sand and sweat on her uncomfortable before settling down by the fire to wait on her mate. She hadn't wanted to admit it but she felt rather tired after the long trek. Guy had his reasons for picking this place but he could be so strange and peculiar about it in a way she never understood.

Perhaps that was why she loved him so much. There was nobody else in the world like him, even if she could only count the amount of people she knew on both hands.

Eep stood up from her crouching position. "Sure, I'm starving," she exclaimed, eying the pig carcass greedily. "Are you absolutely certain we can't just - "

"No, you are not sinking your teeth into that thing without cooking it first," Guy scolded her, it was more akin to when Ugga was telling off her children for causing mischief. "You'll get sick. I need to bring you back to Grug in one piece or I'll be in pieces."

"Fineeeee," Eep compromised with a dramatic sigh, leaning her neck back before walking over to help her mate spear the pig.

Eep with Guy’s help, well, mostly Eep but she liked making him feel useful, carried the spitted animal towards the campfire and held it over it. Guy had crafted some little makeshift contraption with wood and rope he'd packed, so they could use a pulley system to rotate the roasting boar

The two took alternating shifts.

"It's funny," Eep couldn’t help but muse suddenly, taking in the view. The fire made the golden sandstone burn a brilliant red color, reminding her of amber.

"What's funny?" Guy asked from his post by the pig, rotating it with a careful eye so it cooked evenly.

"Well…" Eep leaned her elbow on her bent knee, her chin on her hand. "We met in a desert and you asked me to marry you in one too."

Guy tried hiding his smile by turning back to cooking but Eep saw it, perceptive as always. He pretended to ignore her narrow eyed look. "Funny how fate works," he quipped and heard Eep snort in a very unadulterated fashion.

"You planned this," Eep accused him and Guy finally was forced to face the music because the boar didn't need this much turning on the spit.

"Me? Plan things? You must be mistaken," Guy quipped, his tone betraying him. His grin was wide. "Okay, you got me. Happy anniversary, or have you forgotten?"

"As if I can forget the night I nearly dashed your brains out with a rock," she said with more fondness than any normal person should, jumping to her feet.

Guy held her hands, leaning forward to nuzzle his nose against hers. "Me either, you're a hard one to forget."

"Well, I did call you back."

"You did," he agreed before pouting. "Not my smoothest pick up line though."

"So you didn't tell every girl that line? 'If you survive, call me?'" Eep quoted, exposing her teeth in a teasing smirk.

"Nope, you were the first and only," Guy assured her, winking. "It worked."

"It did," she agreed back, shaking her head with a giggle. "So…" Eep began coyly, averting her eyes towards the landscape colored black in silhouette.

"So…?" Guy urged her, knowing that Eep didn't need the coaxing but somehow it had just become their thing.

"What if I did come with you that night," Eep asked him, turning back to bat her eyelashes at him. "I think this is the perfect spot to humor the thought." She gazed around the desert, the ground hard with stone, much like the one she had followed Guy's fire that night.

"Well for one, your dad would have killed me because I didn't know he was part of the equation yet," Guy replied, both joking and serious as he said it. "This little journey would have definitely been way more interesting though if I had stolen you away from him."

"Stolen me," she echoed with a laugh though her ears burned from a mixture of the fire and thought. There had been an obvious attraction and two teenagers journeying alone, well, it didn't take a Betterman to figure it out. "You make this sound scandalous, Guy."

"It's not now though so that means when you took my hand, I'd do this." He lifted her palm to his lips, gently kissing a scar that led down to the pulse point of her wrist.

"No, you wouldn't have," Eep teased him. "You were too scared of me to try it."

"I wouldn’t," he agreed. "But this is a fantasy so anything can happen."

"Okay," she amused him, letting Guy continue his little story.

Guy seemed to realize a dark implication in this what if and since it was a fantasy, he could change that. "The world isn't ending, I'm still a nomad but you're just a stir crazy teenage girl instead."

"I am a stir crazy teenage girl," Eep corrected him, leaning up on her toes to brush his cheek with her nose. "And I'll remind you everyday, babe."

"You make telling this story harder than it needs to be," Guy lamented in mock offense, drawing her closer to eye her down. Eep just grinned innocently. "Stop putting plot holes."

Eep just giggled, feeling him turn her hand over to kiss her knuckles and each finger delicately. It was like having a butterfly touch her skin.

"Fine, then what?"

"We'd run away together," he continued, looking up at her with loving eyes. "Somehow outsmart your dad because Sandy would totally have sniffed us out in the morning."

Eep smirked, fighting off a broad smile in her amusement. "Would you have fought him?"

"I mean…" Sure, it was a fantasy but he was also just stronger, bigger and scarier than Guy was. Besides, hindsight wasn't twenty twenty and this caveman was now a second father to him. As annoying and abrasive as Grug had been in all the time Guy knew him, he also had a begrudging respect and admiration for him too. "Maybe we'd just bring him along anyway, save us the trouble."

"Is the log ride magic now?" Eep asked him with a wicked grin. "Does it fly us to Tomorrow? I'm sure it could if dad kicked it hard enough for us."

Guy scoffed, "This is my fantasy so there is no log."

"Aw, you're no fun," she sniggered, lifting his hand to press his palm into her nose fondly. "The log brought us together."

"Yeah but in this story you already came with me," Guy reminded her with a gentle tug, taking her hand back to stroke his thumbs fondly over her knuckles.

Eep tried hard not to laugh again, blushing as well under the soft look he gave her. He smiled at her and she melted like ice. It was intimate and vulnerable, more so than anything they'd done in all the time proceeding to this moment.

"Alright," she murmured, stroking his chest after laying her palm flat against his heart. She fiddled with the seashells dangling around his neck, idly stroking his throat and felt him swallow. "Then what?"

"I'd show you the world and since there's no The End… we wouldn't rush through it. You know, actually do some sight seeing. Fall slowly in love with each beautiful thing I show you but never seems to compare to you." Eep couldn’t help the giddy giggle as he called her beautiful, beaming bright like a sun ray at his compliment. Guy's eyes almost glazed over as he gave the silly romantic escapade story more thought, he chuckled. "Your dad would ruin all our little moments though, so it's kinda hard."

"So even in this little I went with you story, dad still keeps us apart?" Eep pouted.

"Every story needs conflict," Guy teased her. "Dad was going to catch up eventually, family in tow. We were taking the scenic route, it was bound to happen, Eep."

Eep rolled her eyes at him, tugging Guy down so they could sit with their backs to the fire. She leaned her weight against his side, feeling Guy rest his arm behind her back. "I hope things start getting more romantic for us, Guy."

Guy pressed a kiss to her temple, grinning. "It does. After hauling our crazy family cross country, we find the sun hidden on a mountain."

Eep remembered Guy's mountain, two tall twin peaks that extended high above the sky, swathed in clouds and extending out to a meadow after climbing the outcrop. They were supposed to ride it to Tomorrow, joining it among the many sleeping suns above. "How are we going to ride it to Tomorrow if I'm your Tomorrow?"

"I'm retconning stuff, stop spoiling the story," Guy scolded her, just resting his head on hers, taking in her smokey wild scent. "I realize this sooner, because the sun isn't really attainable. We go after it but it just gets farther and farther away." He extended his hand out in a reaching gesture. This meant Guy was really getting into the story.

"Are you sad for awhile?" Eep inquired, absently hugging his bicep now that Guy no longer held her hands.

"For a bit," he admitted. "I mean, my parents said to follow the sun but you really can't but…" Guy paused and gazed fondly at his wife tucked into his side, body warm, familiar and supple.

"But…?"

"I found you, light led me to you. I realize this and tell you I love you after this little journey." Guy nuzzled her cheek with a blissful little sigh. "Also then we find the Bettermans and live happily ever after in their treehouse with the punch monkeys."

Eep poked him in the chest, not really the reaction he was expecting after that happy ending. "You can't just skip an entire chapter like that and tack 'the end!'"

Guy took her hand in both of his, cupping it tender in-between his palms. "It works when your dad tells stories," he joked.

"Well, that was before you started telling better stories," Eep exclaimed with a childish huff that was so her it made Guy muffle a laugh into her shoulder.

"Did you tell Grug that?"

"You know how dad is," she replied a bit more sheepishly this time. "Least everybody doesn't die at the end anymore."

"They don't," he agreed, gazing at her fondly once again. "He's getting better though, I like happy endings."

"I like happy endings. I like you," Eep added, cuddling herself cozy as a cat under his arm and against his chest. She listened to his heartbeat, soothed by the gentle thump.

Guy stroked her back, gentle as he rested his chin above her head. "Only like?" He murmured.

"Maybe if you don't rush your endings then I'll say something else," she told him, Guy feeling her lips as she spoke against his heart.

Guy hugged her, adjusting his position so he could tug his wife onto his lap. She immediately curled up there, warm and safe as he draped his arms around her like a cocoon. "What if there is no ending yet? I like leaving our story open ended, Eep."

He suddenly found himself on his back and he gave a soft oof in surprise. Eep leaned over him, hands braced above his head as she looked down at him. The firelight made her already bright red hair even more so, blazing like the sun with the dark shadows making her eyes and face seem more intense.

"Then… I guess I can accept that," she relented after several moments, a smile crossing her face. She pressed her forehead against his, nose touching his.

Guy's eyes fluttered closed, knowing the intimate implications of the gesture amongst her people. He felt her breath fan his face before something soft touched his lips.

Immediately he wrapped his arms around her, letting his palms gently stroke the strong muscles of her back as they flexed beneath them. He'd never tired of her, beautiful and feral as she was. There was a soft gasp against his lips and he gave a quiet little growl, pressing up to mold his body with hers.

He found his words despite wanting to just keep kissing her. The moment was too right to neglect however. It took a few long moments of trading kiss after kiss that Guy had an idea to put his lips to good use in a way he wouldn't need to stop. Trailing a few heated kisses down the soft slope of her neck, he mumbled, "Eep?"

She hummed, "Mhm?" It was hardly the most direct of words but he took it.

"You lit a fire in me when we met," Guy confessed though he knew it was obvious at this point. It was no secret despite the circumstances of their relationship's beginning, he'd been infatuated and found her cute. Scary habits despite that, of course. "And you were in my every thought since then, I really was hoping you'd call me, Eep."

"I really wanted to go with you," she said, pushing him away to graze a palm down his bicep, tracing a stripe fondly before finding his hand to lace their fingers together. Her touch singed him more than the embers behind him did from where he lay. "I just…"

"You came with me eventually though," he reminded her though found he needed to remind himself to focus when she lifted his hand to her lips to kiss his longer fingers. He closed his eyes, sighing. "You gave me something even better than any Tomorrow I thought I'd find out there."

"Even if you were a stupid boy?" She teased him through the haze, bracing her weight against his again. She still sometimes made fun of him for that but in the moment he hardly cared, caging her in his arms.

"Yes," he grunted, Guy would agree to anything she said right now so long as she kept touching him like this.

Their lips met again but she suddenly paused, her roaming hands no longer roaming. He huffed against her lips, confused and a bit frustrated that she stopped.

"Guy?" Eep murmured against his lips breathily.

"Mhm?" It wasn't an intelligible response but having Eep so close to him like this always rendered him a useless fool.

"Do you smell something burning?" Eep drew away, ignoring Guy's protesting whine as their lips no longer brushed.

"Just my love for you," he told her, sitting up with what he hoped was a winning smile.

Eep flared her nostrils at the smell and eyes widening looked past Guy towards their camp fire, having completely forgotten about the cooking boar during their recent activities.

"Guy, the boar is on fire," she exclaimed.

Guy in an instant scrambled to his feet to try salvaging their dinner. "Oh crap!" He ran for a waterskin and a blanket but to Eep it was probably a fruitless endeavor.

She was never much of a picky eater anyway. Sometimes some burning did a meal good, she thought, touching her lips with a grin.

16 notes · View notes

iphoenixrising · 6 years ago

Text

For 700 Followers!

Hi babe. Ah, you know, I think we could really work something out because if there’s anything I like, it’s Tim trying to have the I am an island attitude with clingy, needy Bat Alphas right on his tail ;) Tbh, I wrote this once and it got lost, so I cried, but I’m going to give it another shot!

Also, just saying but there was also a short thing done about *ahem* toys in this au, and you’ll probably find a similar theme X

There is nothing worse than water in your fucking boots.

Seriously.

His impromptu dip in the harbor was completely worth the pain in the ass because Two-Face is going to live to see another day, and he even acted less crazy than normal when he was handcuffed by GCPD, quiet while he was taken away in the back of a squad car.

The best part? The villain told him he was glad he hadn’t filled him full of holes after all. Red Robin is going to take that as a win.

And since his sleuthing is done for the night, he can go back to his Perch in Gotham City and get out of these wet clothes and put his damn boots by a heating vent to dry out a little.

He feels good enough about the night to order a pizza and do his notes while a slice is hanging out of his mouth when dry clothes are a thing.

He has a fan turning lazily, trying to keep himself cooled down because the Heat symptoms just started to manifest while he was riding back from the take-down (all that wind rushing by while he’s in a wet suit and still he’s starting to get hot? Seriously, body, stop making shit harder on him).

The pre-Heat could take up to three hours before the main event starts, and he at least wants to get the notes done and go blackout before it happens.

He’s got a bunch of Gatorade and power bars from two weeks ago when Jay and Dick pretty much showed up just in time for him to go full blown. Luckily, Dick had picked up more on the way to his Perch since the God-forsaken sixth sense had struck again. Somehow, maybe some Pack Alpha instinct, Dick had known he was going to need them, and true to form, the last Heat had been particularly vicious, his body in physical pain when he was empty.

(And no, he doesn’t need a reminder how nice Dick and Jay were about it when he was literally fucking crying. Geeze, things he doesn’t need people to see for 100 Alex.)

Which means he should have been good for a month and a half, but Leslie had warned him going this long on suppressants would have some effects on him biologically. She’d mentioned he could have two Heats back-to-back as a sign his body is starting to regulate like any normal Omega. So, really, this pain-in-the-ass is his own fault anyway.

Notes done, he logs out of BI’s mainframe and shoots the Titan’s a quick message, In Gotham. Perfectly safe. Going to sleep for 24-36 hours. Don’t freak out about the blackout mode, and shuts down his main system in preparation.

Barefoot, he pads around to shut off the lights and fans, grabs a Gatorade, starts pulling his nerd shirt off on the way to the bedroom. Security in lockdown and he’s starting to feel the burn just a little bit more.

Not long now. Damn, hopefully this will be fast and furious.

A locked box in the back of the closet is deposited by the bed, his thumb print accepted. He shifts through the unopened packages until he gets the red one and the blue one out, laying them on the bed to open before the round of fuck my contingencies ramps up.

(His face is hot, and not because of the pre-Heat. The two knotting dildos were purchased when he started thinking one night about what he was going to do when his body started regulating out, so Dick and Jay wouldn’t need to play Alphas to his Omega anymore. Ironically, the two toys reminded him of their knots anyway, and he’d been guilty as fuck buying them.)

He’s already started sweating lightly and jumps in the shower to wash off Gotham Harbor.

His phone goes off while he’s drying himself off, shifting his weight because his abdomen is already starting to get tight and uncomfortable in anticipation.

The message on his phone makes him groan/sigh because the Red Hood is wondering:

Jaybird: How was the swim?

There’s more laughing emojis than he realistically needs.

In just boxers, Tim plops down on his bed, taps his phone to decide whether or not to respond. Since they already knew he’d taken down Two-Face, he really doesn’t have options.

Me: nice this time of year. Btw, Harvey didn’t drown. That’s a win for the good guys.

Before he’s done, the ellipsis meaning someone is typing shows up, so he’s got himself in a world of trouble by answering. Natch.

(On the other hand, his Omega whispers, if you hadn’t messaged back, they might come looking for you. It preens at the thought of his Pack Alphas concerned for him, coming for him– Dammit. Not. The. Time.)

Jaybird: Oughta come 2 the Manor. Al made pizza. Can celebrate?

Well, shit.

Me: Thanks 4 the invite. Running time-sensitive diagnostic for the Titans and crashing. See you at the next VA meeting tho.

Okay. So, normal. Jay will understand the need for fighting crime.

Jaybird: No problem. We’ll bring you some.

Fuck. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck.

Me: Nah. Not tonight. Gonna set this up and crash. The alarm will wake me when the analysis is done. Enjoy the pizza!

Jaybird: If you’re sure?

Me: Positive. Sleep is calling. GN.

And turns off his phone with a sigh of unmitigated relief.

Crisis averted.

Right?

Forty-five minutes later, he’s idly eating popcorn and watching Infinity War when a wave of blistering heat washes over him, and the gentle reprieve is finally done.

His cock is hard and aching within a moment, his hands fisting in the blanket under him, hips jerking. The soft, subtle scent of slick tickles the edges of his senses, his ass starting to get moist under his boxers.

But Tim has old memories of doing this alone back when he was still in the tunic, and he forces himself to breath past the initial stages, fists his hands even tighter to keep from touching himself yet. He remembers how much better the orgasm was when he held off for as long as he could, remembers the time between waves lasted longer.

He bites down on his lower lip to keep in the noises (but really, what is the point?) and tries to just keep thinking.

He shoves the unopened boxes over and sprawls out on his back, trying not to let anything other than his boxers touch his aching erection. His thighs tighten, legs spreading automatically, feet bracing to work his hips a little.

It’s fine. You’ve done this before isn’t really that much of a consolation.

With the fire in his body starting to get more and please and Oh God, his mouth falls open to pant, toss his head back and forth with the arousal building, making his belly get tense.

An abrupt cramp knocks the wind out of him ending on a small, helpless noise that inadvertently escapes.

Rolling on his side, curling in on himself, Tim forces himself to just fucking breathe through it, it won’t last forever.

–when the comm on his desk blips, and the tinny voice is just loud enough to get his attention over things like terribly thought-out biology.

(Everything in you is screaming for an Alpha to help, touch, soothe. It’s not really your fault.)

“If you’re asleep, don’t get up. We’re just going to drop off pizza and we’ll be out of your Perch-”

Which is nothing short of fucking horrific.

“Almost goddit, Dickie,” is lost when another sharp cramp makes him huddle further into the pain rippling over his upper body while his brain screams to just fucking move.

The scent of slick gets stronger, clogging up the room, and the door isn’t even locked–

The next cramp makes his muscles flutter, but he can wobbly-leg it to the door and collapse in front of it.

(I was stabbed in the fucking spleen and still saved Pru. Without Ra’s, I would have been dead soon after, but if I can do that, I can get through this.)

He flips a small panel on the door frame and presses his thumb into it, forehead braced on the wall while he grits his teeth and gets a second or two of his muscles easing back.

Tim focuses on breathing, listening, and sure enough, there’s a timid knock a few minutes later. The door knob wiggles once softly, nearly inaudible voices mumble back and forth while he holds his breath.

He thinks he might be in the clear when it goes quiet again, thinking maybe they’d gone to dump the pizza in his fridge and be on their way out.

But a very clear, “do you smell what I smell?” is the proverbial nail in his coffin.

“Timmy? Are you…awake?”

“Please go away, I’m…I’m trying to sleep.” Tim tries again, more desperate now that hearing his Alphas’ voices is hitting all the deep places in him where the Omega hides.

“Don’t smell like it, Sweets. Think maybe ya mighta forgot ta mention something ta yer Alphas?”

(You aren’t mine. This is just about fucking Pack dynamics and bullshit biology. It’s fine, he gets it.)

“Hey,” and Dick’s voice is low and loud enough to be heard, and Tim slaps a hand over his mouth so he doesn’t whimper. “It’s okay. It’s us, Tim. We can make it better if you just open the door. You know we can, don’t you.”

It really isn’t a question, and Dick doesn’t pretend to make it one.

His abdomen spasms and he’s rolling his forehead against the wall in denial because fuck, haven’t they done enough? He’s not going to die, and, seriously, he’s a shitty Omega anyway.

“It’s not Heat Mania,” he tries to be reasonable, proud of himself when his voice only cracks once or twice, “I can get through it by myself this time. Y-You two just gave up five days a few weeks ago.”

The hand goes back over his mouth and his boxers are getting wet now, the way he’s curled in on himself probably not helping the situation.

Voices talking too low for him to make out again.

“Seriously, it’s fine. You guys got me out of danger. This? This is just business as usual. B is out of Gotham and you can’t be here for that long–”

“–B called in the Birds of Prey ta help out while he’s out wid’ the League,” Jay breaks through his ramblings. “We got Rob n’ BG. Cass is in fer a visit, and a trio of ass kickers. Ya ain’t gotta worry ‘bout Gotham, Timmers. Shit’s all kinds a handled.”

The door knob wiggles again, making him gasp because shit, if anyone could crack his fingerprint locks, it’s probably the Red Hood.

“So. That’s not an excuse to go through your Heat alone,” Dick cuts in, sounds more ragged and raw, the Pack Alpha coming out in him. “There’s honestly no reason for you to go through it by yourself at all because your Pack is supposed to take care of you. And we are here to do just that, Tim.”

And fuck he does (and doesn’t) want to.

(It really is going to hurt like a motherfucker when it’s all over with, isn’t it?)

And while Tim Drake could give them a hundred different excuses, could explain it away a hundred different ways

(“I don’t want my Omega to get used to having Alphas. That just makes my Heats more difficult. Please understand.”)

–he, Tim, not the Omega, really doesn’t want to.

(Oh yeah. He’s figuratively fucked. Literally fucked to possibly follow.)

He’s already reaching up to thumb at the panel again before he realizes what he’s doing and pauses, sighs at his own weakness.

And like they can feel him hesitate, the heavy musk finally gets to him from under the door. The combination of Dick and Jay and the Alpha instinct to soothe.

“Please, Timmy, Baby. Please let us in.” Dick says to the door, hands braced on the door frame outside, staring a hole right through the damn thing because he really wants to say is please let us love you.

Jay is nudged tightly against his back, peering over his shoulder with those precious few inches of extra height.

“S’all right, Timmers,” Jay’s deep voice rolls past his ear when his second leans over to talk closer, simultaneously sliding a hand over Dick’s hip, finger making soothing circles around the bone. “Ya know we love it when yer all pretty n’ pink fer us, yeah? Heat makin’ ya bite yer lip n’ flutter yer eyes when we get ta touch. N’ ya know how much we like it, don’t cha? Ya know it don’t matter how long it needs ta be, ‘er how much needin’ ya got saved up inside. Ya know the only thing what matters is how perfect ya are under our hands n’ mouth, yeah?”

Dick smirks at the tactic, turning just enough to get close to Jay’s face and shove their mouths together in a quick kiss.

His mate and second just grins right back, his down ‘n dirty one.

“Wadda ya say, Sweets? Gonna have mercy on these two ole’ Alphas? Let us be good, n’ take care a’ ya like we oughta?”

There’s a low noise, something muffled by the door, but Dick’s muscles tighten against the front of Jay’s body, putting the other Alpha right on point.

“Sounds like–” pain.

Jay just nods, staring intently at the door, fingers tapping over the hilt of this .45 like he’s thinking of taking the easy way inside. “Starting up awful fast, ain’t he, Alpha?”

“Leslie said something about double Heats while his body is getting back under control,” Dick reminds him absently. “I’m hoping this is the only one he’s experienced so far.”

Jay hums a little, “you n’ me both. Don’t like ‘im hittin’ two ina month. Too much strain.”

“Agreed, but we–” and Dick gets cut off by the sudden, powerful scent hitting them right in the instincts. The Alpha in them knows what a spike that sudden means.

Dick turns to make one last plea to the door, please, Baby, you don’t have to do this alone, before they would have to go. If Tim was that adamant, they wouldn’t hack the door to get to him, to force him to accept them during his Heat, but if he caught their scents, it could make the cycle more painful (“The inner Omega will pine for an Alpha. Scents will not help, but make the [sic] situation worse. An Alpha should vacate the premises if an Omega in Heat does not belong to him or her”). To keep it from being so much worse, they’d have no choice but the leave.

The possibility sticks in Dick’s throat, makes Jay rumble out a low whine.

But the telltale click resounds, kills the words in Dick’s mouth before they get out.

It’s a breath when he and Jay step over the threshold, kneel by the (their) pained Omega, warm hands and soothing touches, purring a low reverberation that makes Tim’s spine uncurl when Dick gathers him up and lifts. Jay is back with more Gatorade and power bars, throwing off his jacket and holsters while Dick kicks off his shoes and straddles Tim on the bed, leans closer to start kneading out the muscle spasms and nuzzling against Tim’s throat gently, soothingly.

“Ssshh, sshh, it okay Timmy. We’re here.” And Dick tilts his head just a little so his throat is visible and his scent gland right there if Tim wanted to give him and bury his face there.

(He totally does. Stupid fucking instincts.)

And Dick’s hands are warm, the pressure just enough to work out those muscles, to make the pain ease down. At one point, Tim had wrapped a hand around Dick’s forearm to have something grounding.

“You don’t have to do this,” is low and soft, “it isn’t going to be bad this time. Just a normal Heat. I can handle it. I have handled it.”

Jay takes a knee beside the bed, reaches over to direct Tim’s gaze with a forefinger under his chin. “Timmers,” is more stern than he’s used to hearing from the Red Hood, “like me n’ Dickie dunno how much ya can handle? Like we dunno how much ass ya can kick? C’mon, give us a little credit, yeah?”

Tim’s eyes get more dazed with all the stimulus hitting him right in the Omega instincts, blinking hazily at Jay kneeling there. “Seriously, I’m a shitty Omega, and neither of you need this. It’s bad enough you gave up a week already this month.”

“I told you,” Dick counters serenely, hands pausing, “that you are not a bad Omega. I would have thought during your last Heat you would have gotten that.”

They can both see Tim swallow, his eyes dart away, clearly disbelieving but not calling them on their bullshit.

Dick’s inner Alpha curls around his insides, wanting nothing more than to flop on the pretty Omega and pin him down until he cries uncle and finally believes in them, wants nothing more than to stick his nose in the sweet scent gland and never move, wants to hear Tim say it, just once–

“I’m yours, aren’t I Alpha?”

–but there’s no room for that yet. Not here, not now. Someday soon when Tim stopped giving into his instincts to hide and protect himself. Even if the Omega in him had accepted their Alphas, it still drew back, remembered the pain they both caused at one time or another.

And Dick understood. As Pack Alpha, he can scent more keenly, as a detective, he can put all the evidence together with the spikes of adrenaline, the quickening of a pulse, the flinch when certain things are brought up in casual conversation.

(Someday, he thinks fiercely, nuzzling into Tim’s jugular, while the knots under his hands ease down, you are going to forgive us, and everything is going to finally be okay.)

He huffs a little when Jay kneels by the bed, hands folded to rest his chin and watch. Timmy’s head flops over, the lines around his eyes still prominent with pain and the ingrained struggle not to just give in, and Jay trails his fingers lightly over the hand fisted in the sheets.

“Hey, hey. S’all right now, ain’t it, Baby?” He keeps it low and deep, lets it end on a nice purr. Inching the hand over, closer to his mouth, “an’ ta think, y’ weren’t gonna let me n’ Dickie here fer this? Tryin’ ta punish us, are ya?”

“Wh-What?! What are you even–”

Dick’s hand on his shoulder stops Baby Bird from sitting up, his cheeks gettin’ pink ‘cause he get all embarrassed ‘bout it.

(And fuck ain’t it cute.)

Big Wing smirks a little and leans up, gives Jay some room. He takes all he can, rising up on his knees, turning his jaw a little so his musk is stronger, getting fuller. He gets to wrap a palm around that wrist, pinning it lightly when he hovers over Tim’s wide eyes, makes him face this, face him, face them.

“Ya already know it, don’t cha, Timmy?” Low and growly against his mouth, flick of a tongue over his bottom lip, “how much ya make us want, yeah?”

And since Jason Todd is a man what knows how Tim reacts to being touched, how he gets so sweetly slick and ready, how needy and soft he can whine, knows that as much as Timmy says he don’t need this, need them, his body don’t agree with it.

It’s how he n’ Dickie can tell when Timmy is lyin’ ‘cause it’s the Omega what tells them the truth.

It’s why Jay can purr and nuzzle, can lean in and take his mouth like he owns it. When Tim makes a noise, arches his back, Jay knows Dick is mouthing at him, right below where his palms are rubbing, licking the line between boxers and skin.

Pullin’ back just makes Timmy chase his mouth, eyes half-mast and cheeks just the right shade of pink.

“See that, Sweetheart? How pretty y’ are? An’ ya weren’t gonna let us be here fer it? ‘M hurt over here.” And he purrs against the tendon in Tim’s neck, just the sharp edge of teeth teasing down to his collarbone.

“Th-that’s not–!”

“But it is, Timmy,” Dick fills in soothingly, mouthing at the waistband of his boxers. “You weren’t going to let us have this.”

“Dammit that isn’t–”

“Sshh,” and Jay presses a kiss back to his throat, right below the scent gland, “s’all right. We f’give ya, Sweets. ‘Cause we’re here now, and that’s what matters, you feel me?”

Tim finds it in him to brace a hand against Jay’s shoulder, pushing him back just enough to be able to think around the heat pooling in his stomach, lighting his body with need.

“It isn’t like that!” He tries, he really does, stares into those eyes with green flecks faded away. “It–this–it’s just!”

Dick finally seems to have enough, knee walking up so he and Jay could loom over the squirming Omega, both of them facing him down.

“At first, it was because of the Heat Mania, Timmy,” Dick’s voice is low and firm, “but it stopped being about that for me in the first five minutes.”

Jay purrs at him softly, “like I’d keep comin’ back ta ya if’n it was only ‘cause a’ biology, Timmers. Like you think I don’t see this fine as fuck ‘Mega right ‘chere needin’ an Alpha? Like I don’t want a piece a’ ya?”

That is...so not what he anticipated tonight once he’d given the Alphas an appropriate out. The admission makes his heart thump painfully in his chest, a jolt of fear slithering through his brain pan at all the implications of this–

–that would fully set in later on after his body stops trying to literally kill him with sex.

Because it’s enough of a push, this moment when scents are so fucking sincere and they’re looking at him with heat and affection, and he wants so desperately to believe. It’s enough to make the Omega in him rear up past his barriers and bullshit masks, for the whine, the call to his Pack, to his Alphas, to spill out of his mouth without holding back.

Fuck.

Because even though it’s a rough, soft sound, something he’d never been able to let himself do before now, not with all the secrets he’d had to keep, it makes some of the tightness in his chest ease down to finally be able to let it out, let his instincts take over.

In the form of a whine, a call to his Alphas. His Omega could finally stop mourning being left out of the Pack.

So he’s completely unprepared for Dick and Jay to react so distinctly to that noise, for them to bury their faces in his throat and lick along both sides until the kiss of teeth along his collar bone becomes a bloom of pain and sinks deep into his subconscious. It’s not (and he gasps in a hard breath just thinking about it, about either of them biting down on the back of his neck instead…) to mate him or make him submit, it’s just marks made to show ownership, to show Pack, and his eyes might get a little hot and full with it while the Omega in him rolls over to show its’ belly to the (his) Alphas.

And it’s something he’s been wanting for so long, the confirmation that he’s no longer the outcast, the Omega without a place. During the long road to come back to Gotham, back to the Bats, he hasn’t let himself sink into the depression that hit back when his tunic was yanked out from under him, leaving him hanging.

With the indents of teeth along his collarbone, with the distinct Alpha scent on his neck, the assurance he’s been claimed as their Pack Omega for anyone to see, is enough to make him close his eyes tight to keep from fucking crying. Instead, he distracts himself by lifting both arms around his Alphas to hold on while they lick across the indents of their teeth, soothing the sting.

He doesn’t let himself panic when they move on from marking him, when Jay is licking into his mouth and Dick’s hands are spreading his thigh, long-fingered hand cupping his straining erection.

He keens with it, back arching at the onslaught, his inner Omega sated with the marks on his body, languishing in the attention of his Alphas.

It’s so easy to fall under their spell, to put himself in their hands, and just give in. If they weren’t so damn careful and easy with him when he needs it that way, if they didn’t fuck him dirty and rough when it needed it that way instead, if they didn’t purr against his chest and lick at the marks, if they didn’t talk low against the back of his neck, if they didn’t hold the hell on when all he wanted to do is run.

Hands that know how to make him writhe, are busy smoothing up the sides of his thighs and over his abdomen, Jay and Dick trading places with his mouth. Thumbs make small circles on his nipples, makes them peak, makes the spark of pleasure shoot down his spine straight to his aching cock, while he keens in Dick's mouth.

“Uh-oh,” hazily gets through the heat pooling in his belly, in his blood, lighting his nerves on fire. “Looks like we have some competition, Jaybird.”

Fuck.

And Dick is leaning up on his knees, holding up the blue knotting dildo after he’d snatched it from the blankets, looking it over with a critically assessing expression–

Then those eyes slide over to the Omega spread out on the bed beneath them, the one smelling like a bakery, the one that needed him, needed them to take care of him.

“I told you, I can handle my Heats.” His face is going red and not because of the whole lot of naked happening beside the bed where Jay is stripping off the body suit.

“Mmhm,” and Dick widens his knees, spreading Baby Bird’s legs wider, puts the toy by his calf so he can be the one to use it on Timmy (and he is very interested on seeing how much of it his Omega can take before he��s screaming for the real deal).

The other Alpha’s eyes shoot to the subtly covered splash of red almost by the wall, and one brow quirks up as a side to the smirk on Jason Todd’s face.

“Dickie. Ya’ thinking what I’m thinking?”

“If it’s to fuck him with these things until he cries, then yes. I’m on board with that plan, Little Wing.”

“Good t’ see we’re on’a same page, you feel me here?”

The oldest vigilantes exchange a heated glance, the message clear from that look alone:

Time to teach Timmy a lesson and get to have him at the Same. Damn. Time.

Two Robins with one stone.

Jay is already crawling over Tim to lay on the other side while Dick moves fast, climbing off to shimmy out of his clothes until he’s in black briefs, coming right back to the perfect spot between the third Robin’s clenched thighs. He grins, already deciding on a plan, while Jay pins both wrists above their bird’s head, preparing him for the on-coming torture.

And when this cycle is done, when they’ve both had turns teasing him between waves with the toys he’d purchased, fucking him fast and rough or slow and soft until their knots throbbed to be buried in him, when they’ve made Tim give in to them, over and over, made him beg for their cocks, promised to always call next time no matter what. When he’s so overwork, overstimulated, a trembling, babbling, crying pile of please fuck me before I die.

When they make the lesson stick.

(“Never gonna need ‘em again. Ya gotch us, n’ ya better damn well call b’for ya use it again. Do you feel me, Baby?”

“These are last resort only, Tim. You only get to use these after you’ve called both of us and not because of a case or checking in on Gotham.”

He’d only been stupidly grateful all three of them could fit in his tub at the time, water lapping lazily around him, caught on Jay’s lap with his leg in Dick’s, hands on his ankle and calf under the water. He was dozing and utterly fucking destroyed, which is the only reason he agreed to it in the first place, dammit. They took advantage of fucking him completely out.

(Alphas. Of fucking course.)

But this time, after they’d been so fucking thorough in showing him where his place with them really is, Red Robin can’t help but wonder if it’s more than just a bunch of Alphas taking care of the Pack Omega. If all the sweet things Dick growls in his ear is more than just hormones and Pack Alpha lizard brain. He wonders if Jay’s dirty talk doesn’t stem from some messed up sense of guilt or responsibility from back when they were just, you know, trying to kill one another. Or, Jay was trying to kill him and Red was really just trying not to die.

He wonders if it isn’t just a matter time until his body regulates.

He wonders if they know what they’re doing to him when they act like he’s theirs.

He wonders how far they’re going to go.

(A part of him is terrified to find out.)

#700 followers #omega!tim #alpha!dick #alpha!jay #aob #tagged for anon #timjaydick #tim drake #dick grayson #jason todd #a bit of smut #with a twist of angst #my fic #my writing

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mikazukikannagisjourney · 6 years ago

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Spiritual Log October 27 2019 also New Moon in Scorpio Post

Subtitle: I wanna quit but my soul has other plans lol Also why it is important to clear one's self to help clear the mass collective energies

Hi everyone, the Scorpio New Moon is just a few hours away, and I hope everyone's able to set their intentions, wishes, stuff you wanna integrate or cast or manifest into your lives. If you have been feeling the strong, heavy vibes, well, that's partly because this is around the time that we need to become fully aware of who we really are, and releasing what prevents us from living the life we were meant to have in this 3d realm, thus the excess baggage feels in both the physical and the heavy feelings or emotions. Also we're around the shadow of a Mercury retrograde plus the intense Scorpio energies so, I pray we all survive. Mercury is gonna be stuck until around Dec 10 so... That's gonna be one, bumpy, tear-jerky ride. I gotta stocks some toilet rolls lolz but seriously, it is likely that more people will be feeling the effects of their shadows even more so, as always I suggest clearing stale energies, cleaning up your closets (like the real ones or whatever you're hiding inside). Mercury retrograde season may suck because everything, including your life just seems stuck in the mud, but also this is a wonderful time to introspect. Go within. Find the missing parts of your soul. I gave that one a go because my intuition has been nagging me lately, and I feel a bit tired but at the same time I wake up feeling refreshed, unlike before where even sleeping makes me tired lol.

I hope you guys won't get tired of me (or of anyone else) saying this same message. Especially those who have been clearing so much of the stale, low-vibrational and stuck energies in all of their subtle as well as physical bodies. This process can be very frustrating, extremely painful, it can even drive you insane. But the strong message that I have been getting from the Divine Realms has been this:

You are here to bridge the gap between the higher realms and the lower planes. To bring in the love from Source and transmute the energies that prevent that from happening. To clear off the spiritual debris inside of you, so that each time another person triggers you, you will have no reaction but rather gain understanding and give back love, thus preventing the cycle of pain and hurt from happening and decreasing the low vibrational energies that feed this kind of thinking, of believing, and of living.

Like for example, someone sends you an extreme hatred of some sort (oh glob, I hope you avoid it but in case it did, well, I hope this example helps). You have no idea why someone would do that. Your old 3D self would either get triggered strongly (aka return that same hatred to the sender, or send it to someone else, or just cry and let it dampen your spirits), or just forget about it, depending on whether you got affected by it or not. Until something similar triggers it again. It will most likely repeat until something happens and you start running out of options.

But!

Think of it this way:

Once you're living in a higher realm of consciousness and understanding (like 5D and above), not only will your ability to sense why the hatred was there in the first place get stronger, but also because you can see things from a higher consciousness, you can help heal and transmute this within yourself. Like an older person having an insight on why a younger person is troubled, a parent giving unconditional love to their child who has been acting annoying and rebellious lately, or even as a person who feels the reason why their friend has been out of sorts and yet doesn't continually nag them to change or return to their old selves because they knew that the other person must become stronger through an event.

I am just putting this out there because the fact that living an awakened life is like living in extremes (i.e. You either feel super high vibes and unconditional love from the univers or things just make you feel like you're in the deepest hellholes on earth). But after 3 years of my conscious awakening, despite the fact that so many awakened people and wayshowers and starseeds and lightworkers and gurus have been talking about the importance of clearing the self, the subconscious, the energies, basically one's entire being because by clearing the self you're supposedly help in clearing the entire collective too. But honestly, I haven't seen the spiritual community talk about how this works. So I always have felt bad and annoyed at this concept. It makes zero sense. Some of the questiins in my head consist of:

Why do I have to do the clearing?

Why am I even in this prison-like hell-hole of a planet? I wanna go home.

Great things aren't happening to me and I'm giving it my all, what the f*** universe, do you hate me that much? I am not allowed to even have a but of fun here? F*** you and all who aren't incarnated physically and feeling the extreme pain.

Or just simply the idea that when I am healed, others get healed too because we are all ONE. YEAH RIGHT. The last time I heard that kind of stuff was when EXO was still complete with 12 members.

Seriously, universe and Higher Self are you effing with me (also I am obviously fangirling here so you can let that shit slide, unless YOU know what I'm talking about. In that case, high five lol 👋).

But really, nobody said that spiritual awakening would be easy, and unfortunately maybe more than half the planet is already starting to awake and some of us wayshowers are still cleaning our own grime, living stuck in the mud and not moving anywhere, or just sunk in the deepest pits of depression and regret for even waking the heck up.

Right now I am angry at the universe for even keeping me alive despite the shitty life, the existential and desperate survival crises, and feeling cut off from the miracles that made me wanna spiritually awaken a lot more (and why I chose it in the first place). But a small part of me also knows this:

Dying is easy, living is a million times harder. And yet, what happens during the time you're alive is what makes life worth living.

I am honestly not in the best place to say that. I am still living in rock bottom but I am doing my best to live one day at a time. It sucks. But really, finding your soul tribe can help so much. Even a small cheering message from a friend can help you survive the day. And that is enough to get anybody going. Like walking a thousand miles through a long, dark road with nothing but a flashlight on. You walk that stretch step by step, bit by bit. Because you need to, and YOU HAVE TO. And that is the true path of the awakening process.

*Take a deep breath*

Gah, that felt heavy AF, I was just gonna post about how happy I was after going back to cross stitching but here I am lol. Still, I do hope that despite the content, any grammatical errors or typos, you find a sense of comfort somehow. This is not an easy path for us, and at the same time, everyone else will be walking this path too, long after we've moved on. We are all meant to awake to our true selves, all 7 billion of us here, but not everyone will be answering that call at the same time. Most will be ignoring it, a lot will answer and then hang up, and a fraction of us will answer, take a pen and paper and write the details down and process it later. Again, everyone will eventually do it, but at each one's own time.

I pray that you overcome all of the obstacles that have been preventing you from achieving your true greatness. And as always, may you find the healing you seek.

Forever with love and hugs from Source above, I remain your friend and Soul sibling,

三日月

Mikazuki

P.S. If you've reached this end after reading so much stuff, shoutout to you and your wonderful soul! 💗

P.S.S. I hope you guys don't mind me going off character aka going fangirl mode while talking about spiritual stuff. I am just that kind of person. Still sending you love though. 💖

#thought log on spirituality #scorpio new moon #why it is important to heal ourselves #why the collective gets healed when we heal ourselves #all are one and we are all #healing the collective #personal stuff #scorpio new moon 2019

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misscrazyfangirl321 · 6 years ago

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Hey! I saw that you're doing the Bad Things Happen Bingo. Could I request either Nightmares or Take Me Instead? I just finished Timeless and I'm in desperate need of some Garcy whump. Your first fic for the Bad Things Happen Bingo was awesome btw!!

@badthingshappenbingo

Fandom: Timeless

Trope: Take Me Instead

Rating: T

Warnings: Child in peril

-“Please.” She’s never heard his voice like this, quite so desperate and broken. He’s come close once or twice, but this is encompassing. Consuming. Suffocating. “Please, give her to me.”

Emma only laughs, tightening her hold. It doesn’t seem like it hurts, which is a relief, but Iris looks terrified, tears streaming down her face.

Iris.

Because somehow, Emma has her. Alive, uninjured, looking like she hasn’t aged a day since that fateful attack. As if she’s somehow been snatched from time and taken here. Lucy has questions, of course, but just at the moment, she also has a mountain of rage for the woman before them, who holds a gun in one hand, and Iris’ wrist in the other.

“Let her go,” Lucy snaps, and Emma rolls her eyes.

“Why? So your guard dog here can kill me? I don’t think so.”

“I won’t,” Flynn promises before she can answer. “If you let her go, I won’t-I won’t hurt you, just, please- ” He’s telling the truth, she can tell, but whether Emma can or not, (and whether or not she cares,) Lucy isn’t sure.

“Daddy, I’m scared,” Iris whispers, and Lucy’s heart shatters. Judging by Flynn’s face, his does the same.

“It’s alright, sweetheart.” He actually manages a smile, small and pained though it is. “It’s gonna be okay.”

But it isn’t. There’s no escape. No way out. Nothing they could do without endangering Iris more, and while Emma probably didn’t save Iris just to kill her, Lucy has no doubts that she’ll do it without hesitation if it comes to that.

They’re out of options.

“Take me instead.” Her voice is louder than she expects; everyone turns to her, wide-eyed, but she keeps her gaze fixed firmly on Emma. (If she sees Flynn’s face in this moment, it might break her.) “You don’t care about Iris. She’s nothing to you. Take me, and let them both go.”

Flynn draws in a sharp breath beside her, but says nothing, does not dare risk Iris’s safety.

Emma hums, assessing her. “I already have you,” she points out, but it doesn’t seem like she’s refusing. No, it’s like a puzzle, and her solving it is a matter of life and death.

Luckily, Lucy has always been good at puzzles.

“Right, but not willingly. If you let them go, I’ll go with you. I’ll sit quietly in my room, or do whatever you want me to do. Without me, they won’t know enough about history to try to stop you.”

“And if I don’t?”

She leans forward, channeling every ounce of her fury-at Emma, at Wyatt, at her mother -into this one moment. “If you hurt either of them, I’ll fight you every step of the way. I’ll rip a hole in history, so everyone will know exactly where to find you.”

Of course, Emma could just kill her, but Lucy knows she won’t. Not since her discovery of the journal. Unfortunately for Emma, she needs Lucy: to write the journal, to save her from the past. Without that, she’ll find herself back in a log cabin, hiding from Jesse James. (Or worse, cozying up to Lucy’s great-grandfather, just trying to earn a modicum of respect.)

For a long moment, there is near-silence. The only sound she can hear is Iris, quietly sniffling.

Then, Emma beams. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Princess.” She releases Iris suddenly, nearly shoving her forward, and grabs Lucy’s arms in the same movement. “Get out of here, before I change my mind,” she tells Flynn, and Lucy can’t help but look up, to see his reaction.

Oh.

She was right before; it does break her, just a bit.

Raw anguish covers his face, and he glances between her and Iris desperately, maybe trying to find another solution. Maybe looking for a way to rescue both of them, but there isn’t one. She tries to feign a reassuring smile, but it’s weak, and he flinches in response. “At least let me say goodbye,” he pleads.

Surprisingly, Emma doesn’t refuse. “Make it quick,” she snaps, not releasing her hold. Flynn steps forward once, then twice, shakily, Iris clinging to his side. And oh, Lucy would give anything to gather him up in her arms, to whisper reassurances against his ear, but she doesn’t dare pull her arms free. And she is not nearly cruel enough to tell him she loves him, not when he’s about to lose her forever.

“Lucy,” he starts, but his voice breaks, and he cannot seem to find anything else to say.

That’s okay. It’s her turn to be strong for him. “You’re a good man,” she whispers, and a sound that might be a sob escapes his lips. “Take care of Iris. And-” Her mind races for something, anything, to make him smile. “Tell her where Rufus’s secret candy stash is.”

Oh. Him smiling might actually be worse. It’s just a twitch of the lips, pained and weak, and a hint of devastated awe. “Lucy, I lo-”

“That’s enough.” Emma looks pointedly at Iris. “Time’s up. And remember, if you try to come rescue her, I’ll wipe Iris from history. You know, like you did with Amy?”

No. Please don’t make him think of that. But she doesn’t dare speak, just tries to reassure him with her eyes that she loves him, she forgives him, and everything is going to be okay.

With one last heartbroken glance, Flynn scoops Iris up and runs, vanishing into the night. Gone forever.

Emma turns to her with a smile. “Well, Princess. Guess it’s just you and me.”

Months pass before she gets a chance. Months of torture and misery and loneliness, and not a single word from Flynn. She understands why, knows he can’t reach out, but she misses him more than she can say. But one night, when Emma is sleeping, Lucy sneaks into her room. In a flurry of bullets and blood, it’s over. She goes to the Mothership, locks herself inside, and sends a signal to the Lifeboat, just like Rufus once taught her. In minutes, they have both ships, and Lucy is back in the bunker. Home.

Flynn holds her so tightly she cannot breathe, refuses to let go. “I love you,” he whispers against her hair, “I love you, I’m sorry, I love you, I had to save Iris-”

“I know.” She clings. Oh, she clings. “I love you. It’s okay.”

Once again, he sobs, but this time, she can, too. There is no need to feign strength or bravery. Not here. Not now.

They do not let go for a very long time.

Thanks for the ask! I hope you enjoyed! Also on AO3, but I’m not linking to it, because Tumblr apparently doesn’t like links.

#badthingshappenbingo #garcy #garcy ff #garcia flynn #lucy preston #timeless #timeless ff #otp #my fics #my writing #my works #mine #iris flynn #answered #sharedshield

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iknownothingihearnothing · 6 years ago

Text

Game of Thrones 8.3 “Battle of Winterfell”

HOLY SHITSICKLES, YOU GUYZ!

That episode was AH-MAZING. I know it wasn’t exactly the shower of death we expected--I mean, there was TONS of death, don’t get me wrong, but our ultra-beloveds are still safe...for now--but it was still epic. Totally worth having to squint for over an hour at a laptop screen brought obscenely close to my face.

Honestly, I thought it was just me until I logged onto Twitter after the episode and everyone was like:

I also made the grievous error of signing into social media before the episode aired and I saw that “Arya” was trending. I thought that she had been killed and I was about to riot.

My brother had actually seen the episode before me--we share an HBO Go account with my uncle because as a lifelong bachelor, he can afford all those channels we cannot--and when I turned it on the battle was at the midway point; I was spoiling myself. I texted my bro “I WILL KILL YOU” and he replied with an emoji of a house. IDK if he plans to defend himself with a house or hide in a house or drop a house on me like I’m the Wicked Witch of the East.

As the episode opens, it’s nighttime (of course it is), and Sam’s hands are shaking because it’s really fucking cold. The Winterfellians are ushering everyone who ain’t fighting into the supposedly SAFE IT’S SO SAFE YOU ALL WILL BE SO MUCH SAFER crypt and performing last minute prep. Theon and Co are wheeling BranBot to the Weirwood tree where he will be used as bait to lure out the Night King.

Sansa and Tyrion and Co. are up on the ramparts. Sansa, naturally, does not look very excited for this party.

The actors’ also. They had to shoot 55 nights in a row.

We get our first glimpse of Drogon and Rhaegal of the episode, AKA the Good Dragons. Because we need to decipher on this show.

Everybody’s in position. The canons are ready. The awesome catapults are ready. The Dothraki are ready. The Unsullied are ready.

All the animals, too, are in place. Including Ghost!

Jon/Aegon approaches Dany and her dragons on a hill overlooking Winterfell so they can get a decent view of the happenings below and get better air on their dragonplanes.

There is SO much to unpack with Jon and Daenerys. They have lots of, uh, “stuff” to deal with, like that he’s technically her nephew and she’s more concerned that he has a claim (and a bigger one) on the Iron Throne than that he’s her blood relation and they’ve had lots of sexy sex. And also that the brother she grew up hearing raped Lyanna Stark actually loved her and married her in secret, thus producing Jon.

But, er, now is not the time and they know that so they gots to put aside their feels and kick some ice zombie butt and save humanity. I imagine this is how Sophia Bush felt when she still had to work with Chad Michael Murray on One Tree Hill knowing he cheated on her with a teenaged extra.

Sort of. Minus the whole “we might die” part.

Melisandre rides up after being in Volantis all this time. Remember how she said she’d come back to Westeros just one more time? Well, that time is here. The Red Woman asks Jorah to tell the Dothraki to lift their swords, which he hesitantly does. Melly grasps the front dude’s Arakh, chants some freaky Lord of the Light mojo, and then all the Arakhs, one by one, become alight in flames like Beric Dondarrion’s.

Even Tormund is awed.

The Red Woman continues on, wishing “Valar morghulis” to Grey Worm, who instantly returns with “Valar dohaeris”. Davos, up in the ramparts, having been warily watching Melly, finally gives the order to open the gate. He...is not a fan of Melisandre. She may have brought back Jon from the Great Beyond but she burned Shireen alive.

However, now is not the time for disputes among the Team Alive population. If they wanna beat Team Undead, they gotta work together.

Davos goes to meet her and she assures him that there is no need to execute her or anything cus she’ll be dead before dawn.

Davos:

Up on the roof, Arya catches Melly’s eye. And she don’t look like she’s throwing out the welcome banns.

Melisandre is on there because she kidnapped Gendry all those seasons ago. You know, to do that sexy, leechy blood magic on him.

And BOOM. The first wave sets off. Mostly consisting of Dothraki on horseback, with Jorah leading them into battle. Huge alight boulders are also placed inside catapults and set flying. Ghost is seen running beside the horses, teeth gnashing.

Srsly, they need to save that direwolf. The PTB at GoT have already killed the other wolves, with the exception of Nymeria, who has run free, and David and D.B. have confirmed that Crazy Cersei killed Ser Pounce after Tommen died. There is NOT a good track record with pets on this show.

All the Dothraki race into the fray to meet the undead, ululating and shouting war cries in the Dothraki language. They’re proud. They’re confident. They are WARRIORS. They know what they’re doing. They’ve been raised on this shit.

And then...

That’s the ENTIRE DOTHRAKI HORDE! Just...gone in a few minutes, holy shit .Did GoT just erase the Dothraki?! Just like that, what the fuck?!

Anyone else feel indignant on behalf of the Dothraki?

Jaime looks like he’s about to shit his Iron Pants.

The second wave all look at each other like “WE ARE SO FUCKED” until some animals and finally people--including Jorah--return to the line. Ghost better be one of them!

Up on the hill, Dany’s in a panic because, again, the dead desecrated her entire Dothraki forces. And she is understandably devastated; they weren’t loyal to Jon, they were loyal to her. She was their Khaleesi. Their original plan was for them to remain on the hill and take flight there and wait for the dead to come to Winterfell’s gates but we all know that ain’t gonna happen. Jon, awkwardly, tries to intervene when Dany begins to leave, but Dany perseveres. The dead are already here and the Night King is a-comin’.

On the line, everyone’s waiting with bated breath. Sam looks about ready to pass out. Tormund’s glorious red mane blows in the wind, which the captions keep telling me “whistles”, so I know it is strong. Grey Worm puts on his helmet. The Unsullied army bend and position their weapons and....

The ensuing scuffle is pretty much insanity and confusion. There are dead body parts mixed with the same people we know and love trying to fight them off and, like, totally forever kill them. Brienne shouts “STAND YOUR GROUND!!” like a badass but is immediately overwhelmed and Jaime, upon glimpsing his CO and fellow knight (and maybe something more?) going down in the mud, jumps in to help her.

Dany and Jon ride in on the backs of Drogon and Rhaegal and it is never not awesome watching dragons spitting fire at their human overlords’ enemies.

Up on the roof of Winterfell, Arya and Sansa are flabbergasted as they watch with dismay the battle below. The blood, the fire, the (good) dragons. Finally, Arya turns to Sansa and implores her sister to get into the (VERY SAFE EVERYONE WILL BE SAFE THERE SWEARSIES) crypt.

Sansa doesn’t know how to use it, she is not trained in combat. Arya just tells her to stick the wights with the pointy end.

Good advice, Arya!

At the Weirwood tree, Theon and Co. are doing their bestest to keep the BranBot safe while he attempts to lure Ol’ Nighty out of his hidey-hole. And on the battlefield, Jorah falls off his horse decapitating ice zombies, Jaime is going through the dead like toilet paper (or whatever they used back then...what did they use?), and Sam is...well, he’s trying, poor lamb. Ultimately though, he becomes overwhelmed and Mr. Edd has to save his butt.

Sealing his fate.

Stabbed through the back of the head, that is quite dolorous.

Sansa goes down into the crypt, where all the nearby tenants who have no fight training are gathered already. Wordlessly, a ball of nerves, she meets the eyes of Missandei and Tyrion, the latter of whom, naturally, takes a drink.

I’d drink, too, in that scenario.

In the air, Jon and Dany are on the backs of their respective dragons, which I guess is the ye olde version of aerial warfare, battling the elements as well as the gross horde down below. It’s snowing and raining and they’re stuck in a low hanging cloud or maybe some fog idk I can’t SEE.

Someone shouts to fall back and the gates to Winterfell are opened--by Lyanna Mormont’s command, that pint sized badass--and men start piling in. Grey Worm orders the Unsullied to protect the retreat as best they could and stand their ground, damnit.

Jon finally comes out of the cloud but Dany doesn’t, and he lands with a worried look on his face. More men pour in through the gates while Brienne and Jaime usher them inside.

Arya, from the top of Winterfell, uses her archery skillz to take out the munchers creepin’ up behind Woof.

It’s a milestone every teenage girl reaches and it brings a tear to your eye, it does.

Grey Worm gives the order to fall back and light the trench and we the audience are like--

I cannot say enough how dark this episode is. I have my screen up to 100 percent brightness and I am still squinting doing this recap.

He’s really referring to Dany here, whom he’s trying to signal with torches, but she and Drogon are still stuck in that wholly inconvenient cloud/fog thing. Truly, the worst weather has converged on this one location in Westeros on the one night that they really need clear skies. All that’s missing is a hurricane.

But Davos speaks for us all.

So, Team Alive is all scrambling around trying to light the trenches with torches but they can’t because they’re kinda preoccupied battling the undead. That is where Melly steps in. After reciting some of that weird mojo in High Valyrian, the deep trenches throughout the Winterfell grounds become alight.

And the rest of us blink our eyes repeatedly in thanks.

The wights are separated from Winterfell behind the trenches and the Hound’s kinda freaking out because he doesn’t exactly like fire, having had his face nearly melted off by his brother, the Mountain. So he disappears.

Down in the crypt, everyone is hearing all the crazy going on upstairs and Varys is like “At least we’re already in a crypt, eh?” and no one’s amused.

Tyrion is anxious. He wants to be doing something, damnit! Like he did at the Battle of Blackwater. Maybe seeing something that no one else has figured yet. But Sansa, Lady of Hindsight, tells him to sit his ass down. It won’t do anyone good if Tyrion joins the Army of the Dead. Tyrion makes a smartass remark about how there is no organization less suited to his abilities and Sansa, Milady Logic, is all “Witty remarks won’t help you, all we can do now is wait. That’s why we is down here, because we can’t do nothin’” and Tyrion pauses before--

Tyrion, Lord of Winterfell? A Lannister?! Why not? Weirder shit has happened on GoT. Weirder shit is happening right now.

Then, Sansa squashes that by laying this on the table: it’d never work between them because of the Dragon Queen. Their divided loyalties would come between them. But before Tyrion can reply, Missandei, who has been eavesdropping on their convo, cuts in like “Yeah, damn that Dragon Queen! Y’all wouldn’t have to worry about that crap without her because...we’d all be dead, so...”

Whatever you think of Dany, there is no way the North would live without her and her armies and dragons. They’d be overrun within minutes.

At the Weirwood tree, Theon and Co. have formed a barrier before BranBot. Theon remarks that the trenches have been lit, then, haltingly, turns to BranBot and starts to apologize for, yanno, turning on the only family that ever loved him and claiming Winterfell for himself.

Dime store psychics around the globe should replace their crystal balls with miniature BranBots.

Then he says he’s going to go now, just like that, and he wargs into a raven to find the Night King’s position.

Gee. Why didn’t I ever think of that to get out of conversations?

“Hey, Bee, how’d you do on your stats exam?”

“...oh, uh, I did, er, ok. I’m gonna go now.” Wargs into chicken.

Ah, there’s Ol’ (really Ol’, Ancient Ol’) Nighty, riding Viserion, looking all creepy and stuff.

Not quite, Nighty, not quite.

Zombies are an impatient lot. They’re hungry and dead and they’re doomed to shamble around the earth forever. So, if a few have to be sacrificed in order for the rest of Team Undead to cross the trenches, so be it. One by one, the ice zombies literally throw themselves on the line of fire, sandwiching their ewwie bodies until the rest of the horde can safely use them as a bridge to cross. An Undead Bridge, if you will.

When Davos realizes what they are doing, the look on his face is quite classic horror movie:

You know when you’re watching a scary movie and the protagonist or whoever hears something or sees something but isn’t quite sure what it is, only knowing that it’s bad mmkay? That is that look.

Davos shouts the order to man the walls of Winterfell. Elsewhere on the battlefied, Jon is still in the same spot he landed, anxious about Dany. He glimpses a dragon emerge from the fog and, at first, he thinks it’s Daenerys but it soon becomes evident that it’s the Night King riding on Viserion.

Winterfell, meanwhile, is all cloaked in a cloud of mud and rain. The soldiers and Northerners are clambering to keep the White Walkers from penetrating the walls of the castle.

They have to keep them from legit climbing the damn walls.

If I’m ever a zombie, I want the Night King to make me. Apparently, rigor mortis is not a thing in wights.

The wights keep climbing until some of them start to get over the wall despite Jaime, Brienne, et. al. slicing off head after head. They just keep coming. The Team Undead horde is massive.

I bet the denizens of Winterfell are wishing for a nice, stationary mall right about now.

Soldiers are going over the railings, Sam’s whimpering butt has to be saved again, and the Hound is utterly frozen. It’s all just anarchy.

Beric and his Flaming Sword of Justice attempt to get Woofie’s attention again but to no avail. Arya’s doing her thang with her pointed staff, taking out wight after wight with Davos looking on, impressed (knight or not, you have been bested by a teenager, old man).

And then, this:

ZOMBIE GIANTS!

ZOMBIFIED MOTHAFUCKIN’ GIANTS.

“Fee, fi, fo fum, I smell the blood of EVERYONE.”

It pushes her to the side like she’s a goddamn sack of potatoes and it’s smacking people around with its club like they’re nothing but rag dolls. Arya falls down a set of stairs as wights group in to attack her and smacks her forehead on the side of a wall. Not up to her usual Faceless Man self after that, she stumbles and nearly falls off the roof, which finally energizes the Hound to action.

On the ground, Lyanna’s had enough of being tossed around by White Walker McGigantor.

She screams, races toward it, it grabs her in its huge fist, and, blood pouring out of her mouth and nose and it crushes her, she STABS IT THROUGH THE FRIGGING EYEBALL.

It’s a fitting end for an awesome character. Lyanna made such an impression on everyone and her cumulative screentime was just over fifteen minutes on the show.

In the air, Jon and Dany are finally reunited again when out of nowhere sails the Night King and his trusty Undragon.

Looks like someone has been chewing too much Winterfresh!

Viserion lets loose a stream of Winterfresh friendly fire and Daenerys ducks and whimpers as her undead baby tries to kill her. When the Night King sails off, Jon and Dany look at each other before mutually agreeing in some unspoken communication to dive.

Aww, they are communicating without words already! Bestill my lowkey-shipping-for-incest heart.

In Winterfell, the White Walkers have managed to break into the halls of the castle and, in less...white climes, they look less frozen and more, well, zombie. Arya, with her trusty staff, is attempting to sneak through her ancestral home without alerting Team Undead.

Unfortunately, she stumbles into the library and, weird, there are a lot of wights in the library. I didn’t know ice zombies were such avid readers.

What? Ice zombies need wank material, too, you know.

That is, if their genitals haven’t fallen off.

Our girl is creeping through the library, dodging errant undead in her wake. Desperately, she dives under a table, but the blood from her head wound is dripping on the floor, which attracts a nearby wight.

You know, like a shark.

The wight bends down and almost catches her, giving us all a mini heart attack, but Arya is gone. Phew.

BT-dubbs, that wight is none other than Javier Botet, who has made a sort of career playing monsters, including as the Leper in 2017′s It.

He was cast on purpose because he can contort his body in absurd ways. And I apologize for making you look at the Leper again. Yeesh.

Grabbing a book, she sails it across the floor to distract the zombies, runs into one going around the corner who then meets the fun end of her blade, and escapes the library.

Who knew a library could be so dangerous?

Arya escapes into a chamber and softly closes the door behind her, leaning back against it. She seems to be safe for a moment and then--

Ser Brus of House Bannyr. He’s a buddy of the Mountain.

Wights start pouring in and Arya runs. She runs, runs, runs--down through the narrow, damp, ill-lighted walls of Winterfell, bleeding from her head wound.

Meanwhile, just below her down in the crypt--

It’s SAFE it’s so SAFE, you guys.

The denizens of the crypt wait with bated breath and gasp when two desperate soldiers ram against the crypt door, begging to be let in. Sansa looks conflicted, wanting to help the soldiers but not at the cost of any of her people.

In the corridors, Beric Dondarrion and his Flaming Sword of Justice and the Hound are tiptoeing through Winterfell when they hear battling and growling noises (thank you, captions) and Arya falls through a doorway with wights quickly after her. The Hound picks her up and they all race down the hall, Beric throws his sword at a couple of White Walkers but they soon begin to overwhelm him. Arya gazes back at him in desperation as the Hound tries to get her away, and Beric is stabbed by one of Team Undead. He stands there, limbs akimbo face aloft as if praying to the Lord of the Light.

I love this scene. It further underscores how much Arya has come to mean to the Hound. Before, he was frozen, nothing could jolt him out of his panic but the image of Arya in peril. And he spends the rest of the episode fighting not so much for the living but for her.

Beric manages to stumble down the hall after Arya and the Hound and they lock a door behind him. Arya sits him against a wall while the Hound barricades the door with anything nearby.

Muttering unintelligibly, the man who was resurrected six times closes his eyes forever.

Melisandre appears behind them after Beric passes, letting them know that he served his purpose. Arya knows her; the Red Woman promised her that they’d meet again and there they are. She also promised that Arya would close many eyes in her young life, which was also right. Brown eyes. Green eyes. And blue eyes.

The wights are growling and scratching at the door, eager to come in and kill and feast on human flesh and blood. Arya stares while Melly bends down and whispers in her ear--

At the Weirwood tree, the wights are finally a-comn’ for BranBot and Theon and his men get into position with flaming arrows (I am now really in the mood for smores). Simultaneously, Dany/Drogon, Jon/Rhaegal/ and Ol’ Nighty/Viserion are duking it out in the air above them, the archers below attempting to knock the Undragon out of the sky.

It’s like a WWII aerial dogfight, but with dragons. So, like, a dragonfight.

Someone has entered his rebellious goth phase!

Srsly, what other show offers a mid-air dragon fight?

The dragonfight ends, somehow, only with the Night King falling off his chosen Undragon.

Rhaegal makes a shaky landing--there is plenty of turbulence in the North, after all--and Jon rolls off his favorite dragon. Dany continues the hunt for Ol’ Nighty and when she finds him, she gives the order for Drogon to do his thang.

It...doesn’t work out as hoped.

The Night King grins and throws his ice staff at Drogon, the weapon that took down Viserion. Fortunately, the ensuing hit isn’t fatal and Dany turns tail and gets out of there before it is.

Jon whips out his trusty sword and begins following the Night King. But when Ol’ Nighty realizes he’s being followed, he turns around, bestows upon Jon a “teacher catching you doing something naughty” stare, and...does his thang.

Team Alive desecrated many of your army? Just make a new one like that. Using his dark hippity doo da, the Night King raises all the soldiers (formerly) of Team Alive who fell in battle. And there’s a fucking lot of them. Including fallen Unsullied back at Winterfell’s gates and even Lyanna Mormont.

At the castle, Jaime and Grey Worm look on in confusion and horror.

New inductees to Team Undead swarm in on Jon as the Night King and some of his disciples make their way to Winterfell.

In the crypt, it was only a matter of time until this happened:

Y’all need some stronger building materials. This cannot be up to code. What would the leader of the HOA say?

Everyone in the crypt scatters in panic, minus the unlucky few who become Thing Food.

At the Weirwood tree, Theon and Co. are doing their best Robin Hood while BranBot is still checked out. I guess he’s in the raven, trying to get a location on the Night King? BranBot, do us all a favor and crap on his head.

(You missed! He was totally open, Bird! Damn.)

Jon almost gets overwhelmed until Dany and Drogon come to the rescue and manage to char the ice zombies without turning the one guy who is alive into a crispie critter, too. She tells him to go, be the hero we need, and he runs off.

However, before Drogon can fly off, he, too, is quickly overcome with wights, tearing at his wings, climbing all over his spine. He roars and twists and turns and Dany goes tumbling off.

Drogon flies away with some wights still hanging onto him, trying to get all the annoying dead OFF. They must itch like crazy.

He leaves his mommy behind and suddenly Dany is alone in a battlefield surrounded by Team Undead. She has no weapons. Her main weapon was Drogon. He is how she defeats her enemies. What the hell is she gonna do now?

One of the wights falls off Drogon and has blue eyes only for Dany. Who is alone. Vulnerable. Fucking sitting in the dirt.

But, what luck! Jorah of House Fryndzonne appears out of nowhere to decapitate the wight with Heartsbane and protect his Khaleesi.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to use that. Not a big anime fan but I love Hetalia.

Jon makes his way back to Winterfell, stickin’ and stabbin’ and gruntin’ and growlin’ and bein’ manly. He’s had it up to here with them ice zombies, you guys.

Theon and Co. are working all the harder to protect BranBot while he’s still Like A Bird. Theon’s men all go down and soon he’s left alone to defend the automaton that was once Brandon Stark.

In the crypt, Tyrion and Sansa are hiding behind a cement monument. Their wordless communication, expressed through the eyes alone, sends a chill down my spine. There is so much unsaid in that mutual gaze, and the acting here is superb. Props to Peter Dinklage and Sophie Turner.

Sansa, shaking, whips out the dagger Arya gave her, and Tyrion kisses her hand.

If they both live through season 8, maybe those crazy kids could make it work? Tyrion would be a kick Lord of Winterfell. I can see him in a furry cape.

Elsewhere, Viserion is utterly destroying Winterfell.

Dany and Jorah are desperately stabbing at ice zombies on the battlefield. Tyrion and Sansa carefully run out from behind the monument. Jon just barely dodges a wave of blue fire as Viserion continues to destroy Winterfell. Theon is doing is damndest to shield BranBot from the White Walkers, but he’s evidently slowing down.

And then, oh crap, there he is. In slow motion, like he knows all eyes are on him.

Hey yeah yeah, they’re Calyfornya.

Jorah is working alllllllll his muscles trying to protect his Khaleesi. Jaime and Brienne are backed up against a still standing wall of Winterfell as wights close in around them.

The Night King and his Night Kronies are coming for BranBot.

The remaining wights part for their Icicle Overlord. He stands there glowering down at Theon and BranBot. BranBot tells Theon he is a good man and thanks him and the audience is like--

I thought BranBot wasn’t programmed to say thank you. Ask Meera.

Theon grasps his pointed staff firmly, yells, and runs toward Ol’ Nighty, who, of course, grabs it and stabs him right through the gut.

Sorry, Theon. You managed to survive Ramsey (and getting your Reek cut off) but the Night King was your undoing. You lasted most of the show, though. That’s more than can be said for most characters.

Speaking of lasting most of the show--

Beric, Theon, now Jorah. Everybody stab now!

Jon is hiding behind some debris. The Night King walks ever closer to BranBot. Jon gets up and screams at Viserion for some reason. BranBot gazes up at the Night King. The Night King begins to reach for his ice sword, and then--

Arya Stark, like the fucking avenging angel she is!

I love that she was the one to destroy the Night King. She and Lyanna Mormont were both frigging awesome this episode.

Moral: don’t mess with a girl.

Maisie Williams said in EW that when she initially read the script she was afraid people would think she didn’t deserve it or something. To that I say pish posh. “Arya” has been trending for days.

After he explodes, all the wights begin to fall, including Viserion. Team Alive was right. Kill the Night King, his disciples are toast, too.

The crypt people come out of their hiding places and silently view the carnage. Arya looks over at BranBot and smiles a little. BranBot just sits there without offering a thank you. I guess he only malfunctioned that one time with Theon.

Unfortunately, the zombies aren’t the only ones that fall. Jorah is hurt and hurt badly. He buckles on the battlefield, surrounded by inactive wights, bleeding from seeming every orifice. Dany bends down before him, crying and holding his head.

He dies in her arms. A fitting end for Jorah of House Mormont, forever loyal to his Khaleesi.

So is Dany’s dragon.

Aww. That’s...cute. Like a dog with wings. And scales. That breathes fire.

The Hound, Melisandre, and Davos walk out of Winterfell just as dawn is breaking. The Hound and Davos stop at the door but Melisandre keeps going, looking determined. Shedding her trademark red cloak, she marches forward, ridding herself of the ruby necklace that has kept her young for centuries.

And then, growing older before their eyes, she perishes. Her mission is complete.

And that’s the end of the episode. Cue end credits.

Salt and crackers, that took FOREVER. Every free moment I had I was recappin’. But the episode was awesome and the cast says the next episode is even more awesome so I can’t wait!

Now comes the march on King’s Landing, the taking of the crown, and, hopefully, Cersei gonna die. Who’s gonna have her head? Will it be Jaime? Arya? Tyrion? My bet is Jaime.

Also, congats are in order for our Sansa Stark. Sophie Turner got married to Joe Jonas last night after the Billboard Music Awards. In Vegas with an Elvis impersonator presiding, which is fantastic.

#game of thrones #game of thrones recap #game of thrones 8 #nickolaj coster-waldau #gwendoline christie #Sophie Turner #peter dinklage #Kit Harrington #emilia clarke #iain glen #alfie allen #isaac hempstead wright #maisie williams

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ichoiheedong · 7 years ago

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I Met You In The Winter[BTS J.J.K] pt.1

GENRE : SMUT/ FLUFF/ ANGST/ LANGUAGE/ CHEATING /FORCED MARRIAGE

bts members Jeon jungkook x y/N

summary : " He cheated on me , she cheated on you" you said looking at his eager eyes and continued " you need to help me to deal with it!! "

do not copy my work or post it anywhere without my permission also i don’t allow translation i work hard on this and it’s unfair because i recently find out some of my work posted in Youtube without any credits and it’s a crime !!

part one : innocent potato

it was cold tonight , and for a girl who used to be her mother's spoiled child you missed being engulfed into someone's hug, patting your hair or just sweetly talking to you , you like when some one makes love to your ear but you have to be real you were here alone ,a popular tv show was on on your TV that was the only beaming thing around you as you crawled into your sofa having a green tea and scrolling up into facebook messaging your friend, a sudden argue made you look up for the tenth time to your boyfriend profile

where the heck was he ? you just wondered , he didn't reply to your texts or called you back and you felt upset as he did ,you both have been together since you made it to Seoul ; a year passed and things instead of being great they were all crushing down ,every thing in your relation with Jin was chaotic now he wasn't here like usual anymore , he didn't stay for nights since a month now ,his scent changed , his hair color his fashion taste every thing about him seemed like strange to you and you being alone tonight in this cold weather was included into this long list

he changed and you were sure something made him change but no one would believe you not your mother who adored him; of course! he was the sweetest creature ever someone who knows how to spend hours in kitchen cooking without getting bored how would you expect that your mother will be by your side; even your best friend Lilly she was always calming you saying that he was stressed because of his father's company and you should be grateful to have him as a boyfriend

it wasn't your fault though ,you didn't try to seduce him it was an innocent serendipity when both met at first he was sweetly naturally attracted to you and you like him he was freaking handsome and rich he was talented and has his own stylish look also he was tall and his shoulder were wide something you craved right now to be engulfed in but Jin wasn't the young man you met a year ago and helped you to get back your purse when you lost it in the lotte world

it wasn't only hard to think about it but also to prove it ,

every time your eyes looked up to the wall watch ,you couldn't believe that jin isn't going to come tonight, he promised you this morning before he ran out of here he would be here tonight to cuddle with you as you were on period but look at him only gods knows were is he

giving up on this, you stood up on adjusting your sweatpants and over sized shirt heading to the kitchen ,chocolate was the best option to calm you down you grabbed a chips bag and some chocolates and came back to turn off your tv it was turned on since hours without any attention so you decided to go to bed at least it was comfy

you grabbed the curtains and closed them so the day lights will not disrupt your sleep in your free morning then you took off your sweatpants and slides into your pajama shorts and went to bed grabbing your laptop wasn't off you noticed that it was on hibernate and as realization hits you it was Jin again you don't know why but he really liked to do some works in the early morning so he used your laptop to finis some works or send some mails and as last night he passed out next to you of course he will be the one using it

you sighed and decided to reconnect to your Facebook and twitter accounts again before putting a film to help you fall asleep in this boring night

you hit the tab waiting for the Facebook page to pop out and you frowned as you see your account already opened , it's been a while since you really log in using your PC you were always on your iPhone you looked again scrolling down seing your boyfriend face on the little profil picture

"oh god it was his account not yours ,something you got the gold card now , jin hated so much that some one try to peek to his list message or to his private group chat with his friends and it was funny tonight to see this , for so long you watched him replying at their silly texts and it was funny to read that when he was laying with you in the bed but he refused to let you do that and you really didn't care, he has his rights to have private conversation with his friends but now you were bored and reading some funny crazy men stuff will be perfect just perfect !

you opened the chat box ,and your eyes danced through the names , until your sight fell into a chat, it popped out firstly and it seemed like you didn't notice it before

'Oh Seyna' was the girl's name you didn't want why you became nervous as you clicked you never in your life thought that will be an end to you and Jin relation and for sure not this way

"okay baby see you tonight then <3 "

your heart dropped and your hand were shaking as you scrolled down the texts , they were sweetly talking but briefly too but Jin had you as a girlfriend why would he call an other woman baby girl and kitten !!

you gulped hitting her profile and got the chock of your life she had some private picture were jin was there with a bunch of other friends in a bar she was sitting in his lap

why you never see this before it's been months since the picture had been aploaded in her facebook !!

you panicked taking out your phone and search for her name looking up in all the popping list but she wasn't there , you were blocked it hits you

he was cheating ..

cold sweat run into your body and your breath hitched , you felt like you want to cry but you held it ,this is not the prove you want any way !

your fingers brushed your hair nervously almost severing it as you tried to calm down

you were now sat on your knees as your laptop was in front of you, as you went back to the chat and started reading you wanted to see if they will meet or where they meet usually and it felt like life was on your side as your eyes dropped to an hotel address with a room number

your feet felt like freezing when you jumped out off bed ,damn it you were already bleeding and your hormone rage made it worse as you tried to think and think

nothing came up with your trouble ,you just fell down collapsing on the floor and cried hard ..

who's there ?? Lilly shouted before she reach her apartment door , it can't be her boyfriend right !! it's like 1 am she peeked on the door secret crystal hole and she panicked

" oh my god y/N what the heck did happen ??Lilly was shocked as you rushed in her apartment throwing your self on the coach crying

"y/N please tell me what's going on "

you cried harder and as soon as Lilly started to cry too you stopped sniffling trying to say something but you couldn't gather your words

"he's cheating on me Lilly you finally let out panting hard like you've got the biggest rock tossing you down

"crap ! is this why you're here for i thought someone's die or something and why would Jin cheat on you y/N he adores you "

"he doesn't not any more , not when i caught him finally "

the girl sitting beside you jumped off the couch " what do you mean finally??

" because you don't know any thing you didn't want to believe me ,no one does you sobbed , it's been a while since he changed and i didn't say any thing because no one will actually believe me ,you all love him and it's hard to believe that he is fucking someone right now!! you cried more eyes blood shot as you hugged your head

"oh my god , Lilly tried to approach you "tell me let's work out this together ho did you know

"he forgot his Facebook actif on my laptop and i got some pictures and texts i even know the hotel address

"oh crap ! what the heck is this please tell me you're lying and i'm having a bad dream

you were angry , your coat was soaked as you walked out the taxi on to get into Lilly's building block

" you need to find the truth she said and you looked up"

"every thing is clear now i will just confront him "

"how ?

"i want to go see him i want to kick his face so he would become the ugliest creature ever

"c'mon let's go see him then let's just find out if you're right or not

it hurts you hearing this why it seemed this hard to believe you why it felt bad to put Jin in this kind of situation when he was just a cheater

"Lilly got you into her car and drove off to the hotel you told her about and it turned out that she knows it well of course she would know this kind of places she was rich and she was always invited to events and she knows every place down town here

you let the mission of finding Jin's and the girl room to her as she was the person who was thinking right now , you were done every cell on your brain was destroyed and you stopped half way

"hey! are you okay Lilly hissed as she checked you "we're almost here look that's the room "

"i can't assume this i will not bear that no no you backed up wanting to run to your place hide into your sheets and stay there until you calm down and tomorrow sun sneaks on the room but you realized it was hard your curtains were closed and your room is gonna stay dim just like your coming days , pain was there digging into your body and you whimpered there is no more shiny days jin cheated on you and you're here to see this with your own eyes

"do you want me to go first "Lilly said as she kept dragging your lifeless body to the door "

"c'mon knock !"she said and you looked terrified

"i'm not ready , what if it's not true , what if it's true Lilly i'm done i can't work out any thing

"let's just cut this crap forever she furiously knocked the door ignoring the door bell and as soon as someone's behind the door was angrily shouting your heart dropped

it was his voice you will never got it wrong fuck!

jin walked to check the door he was furious and annoyed , it's not a cheap motel so people could easily break in and annoy him damn it

and as soon as his head popped out; it was few seconds that feels like a century a whole world crushed in front of you in this room full of sex smell and betray , you pushed the door open you didn't even know from where you get the energy to do as you broke into the place with your best friend behind !!

#jungkook angst #jungkook scenarios #bts scenarios #bts angst #bangtan fanfic #jungkookfanfic #kookie fluff #bts jungkook #btsmasterlist #jungkookmasterlist #kpop scenarios #jungkook #btsmasterlis #kpopwriting #kpofanfic

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jurassicraptorcat · 7 years ago

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Embrace the World in Grey (part 1)

Warning for all for blood and angst!

It was a normal day at Ego Inc. with Anti causing mischief. Dark was ready to murder him when he found his office furniture glued to the ceiling if he didn’t think the Google’s would prevent it.

Anti was wound up more than usual. His skin felt like it was trying to crawl its way of his body and he just had the urge to keep moving and try and expend the excess energy he had. He didn’t usually feel this bad and he honestly had no clue what this was about.

He ended up in Host’s library where, almost like a switch was flipped, all the energy he had left him and Anti stumbled into a bookcase.

It was painful and left him shaking. Anti stumbled his way back into the elevator not trusting his glitching to get back to the Google’s floor. Halfway up all the energy sapped from Anti returned with a surge that forced him to glitch. He came crashing into the Google’s floor with a shout. “Anti!” All four of his brothers were standing there in shock as Anti picked himself up off the ground. He grinned to hide the pain he was in. “Woops?”

Blue glanced away and huffed in agitation. “Breach in the main lobby.” This was a common occurrence among the more enthusiastic fans eager to meet the egos. Before Red or Oliver could move to go and deal with the situation like they always did Blue held out a hand. “Don’t, they’re already in a elevator. I’ll redirect it to our floor.”

The pain was increasing for Anti and he hid his grimace by pulling his knife out. “You think a little fear will deter them from doing this again?” Red at least snorted in amusement as they all waited impatiently for the elevator.

Ding.

When the doors opened Anti couldn't see as Red was blocking his view but from the way the Google stiffened something was up. He peered around Red with a grin, “What’s got you worked up che-” Anti dropped his knife in shock.

Smears of blood coated the walls and collapsed on the floor bleeding out was a beaten up Jackie. Green moved into action shouting at Oliver to get Doc up there immediately. It was only when Green seemed to materialize a medical bag from no where that Anti burst into movement and rushed over.

“Don’t just stand there!” Green snapped at him. “Take this and staunch that bleeding.” Anti’s hands were coated in blood as he pressed on the wound in Jackie’s shoulder. Up close he could now see the cuts on Jackie’s arms, the bruises on his face. The wound Anti was pressing on looked to be one of two bullet holes in Jackie. Fear shivered down Anti’s spine at the implications of what was going on.

Hands not his own took over Anti’s job and a different pair led him away as Doc took over the scene. Red was prowling around in agitation clearly trying to understand what was going on. Anti remained silent as the wrongness he felt all day got worse. It hadn’t been weird excess energy. Something was wrong with the other Septic egos.

As if summoned right when Anti was about to track him down Wilford walked in. Anti exploded into movement rushing towards him. “Friday night poker! I’m calling in that favor you owe me for the bet!” Anti shouted. Wilford blinked, a little taken back at the abruptness but used to everybodies brand of crazy. “Sure can do crazy train. Where to?”

“Take me to the log cabin.” A snap of Wilford’s fingers drowned out the Google’s cries for Anti.

They ended up in the woods surrounding the Septic house and Wilford frowned. “Now that’s not right.” He muttered. Anti ignored him as he took off towards the cabin where a bright glow was shining ominously. He burst through the tree line and froze.

The cabin was engulfed in flames. Already the roof was collapsed in and from the groaning from the supports the rest of the house wasn’t far behind. A hand grabbed Anti before he could make a desperate run towards the cabin. Wilford stared at the scene with wide eyes. They both watched in horror as the entire cabin collapsed inwards in billowing flames.

“Anti look.” Wilford pointed off to the side. In the shadow of the tree line lay Marvin’s mask shattered in a pool of blood. There were drag marks where a body had been take away.

Try as he might the connection Anti shared with the other Septic egos was gone besides Jamie. The others were lost to him. Wilford pulled Anti back as the flames grew closer having found fuel from the dryness of the area. Rain had been absent that month.

“Anti we need to go.” Anti stared at the wreck of the log cabin. The flames drew closer. “We need to go now Anti!”

There was a numbness creeping into Anti from where the bonds with the other Septic egos had been. They couldn’t be dead otherwise he and Jamie would be. The implications of why he wasn’t feeling them were so much worse. “Lets go.” Anti told Wilford. He didn’t take his eyes off the cabin until pink glitter invaded his vision.

To Be Continued

So here we are. This is a continuation off of my other fic Shadow of the Day. (I’ll post a link once I get home and get my laptop.) Just gonna tag

@huffle-dork

in this cause I know she’s been waiting forever for this. (Sorry for the wait!!!!)

#antisepticeye #googleplier #writing #embrace the world in grey #part 1 #staygoldrbhw #ego fanfiction

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cursewoodrecap · 6 years ago

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Session 3: Darkness in Your Past

Hello everyone I’m still like. WAY sick. And I will be performing our next session entirely through texting and enthusiastic mime. But I can probably type, even if I’m hacking and wheezing?

In this session: oh no, backstory!

The party finishes their long rest at the bandit camp, universally antsy to get going and prickly with each other after certain ethical disagreements.

As the bandits warned us, the road turns out to be full of traps, and 3/4 of us roll terrible, awful perception checks. Clem, comically, immediately falls into a hole. It’s less comic when we realize there’s sharp spikes at the bottom of that there pit trap, but Valeria Channels Divinity and summons the Chains of Rack, catching Clem before she can tumble into the stabbity stabs. WHOOPSIE.

Traveling onward, we find a huge tree has crashed down across the path. We are all experienced players and thus suspicious bastards, and Shoshana rolls a good enough Nature check to suddenly have a childhood memory. There was once a local woodsman that she and her best friend used to hang around, a lumberjacky fellow and hunter named Mordecai. A good-natured fellow, he would let the local children tag along and show them lots of tips and tricks about the woods. Using the remnants of that remembered knowledge, Shoshana picks up on a few wood shavings and out-of-place bits. This thing has been tampered with.

“Everybody stand back,” she says, “I’m gonna poke it.”

“Wait, I have a crossb-” Gral begins, but Shoshana slaps it with a Mage Hand, which is only a 30 foot range. Two crossbow bolts shoot out of where the log has been hollowed out and the bark has been thinned to a sheet, and one sticks right into somebody’s boob. Good job, folks.

Going forward seems to be all well and good until, suddenly, someone notices we can’t hear Valeria, who’s guarding the back. We turn around and surpriiiise, a wild beast-man is hanging out of a tree and has her by a garrotte! There is a brief debate about whether attempting to free her by swinging an enormous greatsword is really the best?? idea??????? but Valeria puts an end to the discussion by stabbing the guy herself.

We complain at the DM about all the traps, and then get distracted, because OOH, A RAVINE.

Shoshana goes quiet at the familiar sight, but there’s something worrying here. There’s a beast-man of the Hunt and his wolf on watch, but there are dead people and wolves scattered over the blood-stained ground. A clutch Silence spell from Gral allows us to overcome the sentries with no alarm raised; Clem bisects the wolf with Extreme (and mildly panicked) Prejudice.

Inspecting the scattered corpses, they seem to have been pierced by something long and thin - like arrow wounds, except there are no arrows to be seen.

We cautiously move forward, Gral sneakily scouting ahead and messaging back to the clanky folks what’s up. Shoshana tries to sneak, but is too distracted looking at the Hunt-people corpses for - someone recognizable, maybe? - and trips over a dead wolf. CLANG CRASH WHAM, roll for initiative, folks!

We slash our way through a couple of toughs and their wolves, Lookin’ Cool and Kickin’ Butt, but...this is like, two guys. What happened to the terrifying force that had the bandit crew cowering in fear? Why are most of them gone, or dead on the ground with the same arrowless arrow wounds?

Maybe the answer is through that door.

What Shoshana remembers as a bit of a hollow in the wall of the ravine - enough shelter to get a quick snatch of rest, maybe - has been covered over with a crude ceiling and a curtained hide door. No sounds are coming from inside, so we cautiously make our way in.

It’s not much. Some rough skins and blankets to sleep on, a bag hanging on the wall, and a metal chest that we determine is booby-trapped. And loose scraps of paper, scattered across the floor. Shoshana bends down to pick one up, and reads it.

The gasp is audible. She stares at it, struck, as her player reads the text sent to her by the DM. The others begin to investigate the room as she stands there, absolutely floored - and then snatches for the next piece of paper, like lightning. And then the next, and the next, on her knees scrabbling for them, reading each one with mounting frenzy. She’s muttering to herself - “Why would she-? No, how-? The whole time?! And she NEVER??? How could she-”

Valeria cautiously picks up one of the cast-aside notes, reads it, and then caaarefully places it back on the floor, because Hoo Boy This Is Some Personal Stuff, Let’s Give Her Some Space. They seem to be unsent, half-finished letters, addressed to Shoshana.

While spooky lady has a breakdown, Clem ably does a bit of medicine for Gral and Valeria to get everyone in fighting shape for whatever comes next.

Shoshana collects all the letters, and somberly takes the pressed flowers Valeria found on the rudimentary table. Elsewhere in the room we find a key to the big chest, but still stand to the side when we release it - good, because an unsteady Mage Hand isn’t enough to hold the trap wire properly taut. Clem insisted we open the chest last thing before we leave, for fear that the roof would cave in, but a big scythe just swings out of the wall and slices the air where we all Decided Not To Be Standing. We find a bit of money, a Ring of Jumping, Ser Balderich’s sword, and a magic horn that is only heard by the person you choose to hear it.

The horn is apportioned to Shoshana, being the squishiest and the most likely to get targeted by these creeps. Shoshana, emotionally a bit frazzled, accepts it bemusedly. “Why?” she inquires dully. “I mean, it’s not like you’re exactly invested in my survival, past the next hour or two.”

Gral immediately protests. “I gave my word I would protect you, as part of my promise to bring you to Duke Shieldeater’s service. I would not betray that.”

Valeria nods enthusiastically. Shoshana blinks and then gives the universal “get a load of this guy” gesture to Clem.

Gral continues. “If truth must be known, I...am not entirely here on the Duke’s orders. I serve him, but it was my own decision to come find you. I strongly believe we Orcs need better relations with the local civilians. And I have my own aims, as well.” Cryptic behind his mask, he does not elaborate and continues back out into the ravine.

Up ahead is the part that Shoshana knows is waiting for her. A thick blanket of branches and hanging foliage cast a section of the ravine into deep darkness - a canopy impenetrable to light but not, as she remembers, to the falling, flailing body of a young woman.

It’s distantly terrifying that seeing it again feels so much like coming home. A voice curls out of the ravine, welcoming her back at last. It’s impossible for her to tell whether the others can hear it.

“Ser Balderich is in there. The bandits said they were keeping him in the dark place, and...that’s where...”

Valeria firmly places her hand on Shoshana’s shoulder, reaching out in empathy to steady a comrade in a time of clear emotional distress. Shoshana feels a gauntleted hand land on her shoulder, the executioner’s cue to go face her death with dignity. They go forth, into the darkness.

...

So, it’s DARK in there. Valeria lights up the Rune Beetle. It’s still dark, supernaturally so, heavy and sick-tasting in the air. Even those in the party with Darkvision are limited, and they move ahead slowly and carefully. Luckily, Ser Balderich hears them coming, and starts shouting at the FIENDS! who are BACK FOR MORE, ARE YOU? and the party is able to find the pit he has been thrown into, heavy wooden bars embedded over the top.

Seeing the glint of Valeria’s silver scales in the dim light of the beetle, Ser Balderich’s shouting stops short. “...Marius?” he asks, disbelieving. “You survived? D-did any of the others-?”

Valeria recognizes the name of Kyr Marius, a mentor of hers at the monastery where she trained. Another silver dragonborn of the order, with years of combat experience. “I’m not Marius,” she lets him down, “But we’re here to get you out!”

Ser Balderich, beaten and bruised and with at least one broken arm, is still with-it enough to notice that a young female voice does not sound like his presumably middle aged male friend. But he makes a quick recovery: “Oh! Uh, well, Kyr, it is an honor! But beware, the fiends are not far-”

Yeah, they’ve definitely noticed we’re here. A couple of worgs prowl out of the darkness as Valeria and Clem try to pry the bars off the top of the pit and haul Ser Balderich out. With Faerie Fire, Gral manages to illuminate one of the worgs and a mysterious cloaked figure, who simply gestures and we all take 3 Taint. What the what? It’s on.

We have a narrow battle - fleeing seems like the only option at one point, as several of us are boxed into a Hunger of Hadar spell by flanking wargs, but we persevere. In a moment of crisis, Shoshana pulls strength from the darkness and takes Taint in exchange for temporary HP. Finally, Clem and the wounded Ser Balderich break through to the cloaked figure. As Clem’s greatsword pierces the flowing cloak, it collapses to the floor, empty. The figure’s taunting voice drifts out to us one last time, looking forward to the next time we meet. You can try to escape the Hunt, just like your little friend, but this is where you belong in the end...

Limping forward, we investigate the cavern behind where his empty cloak fell. Well, not the part that spirals off forever into the darkness. We’re not that stupid. But there’s a little room, off to the side, and we stop short seeing it. There’s a bloody altar, decorated with animal skulls, facing a hanging painting on an animal skin.

The crude tapestry depicts a figure wearing an antlered helm, tearing his way out of where he is bound by tree roots jutting from the ground. Three less-detailed figures behind him seem to be similarly bound. The edges of the canvas are decorated with grotesque, gory scenes of animals and hunters slaying their prey.

Oh, right. The DM notes he forgot to add the horror part of the scene. We look to the other side of the room and see a human corpse, nailed up on the wall. The word “PREY” has been carved deeply into his chest.

It’s Mordecai.

Shoshana is already so emotionally drained, barely able to register her dull rage at these grotesque atrocities here in HER darkness. She raises her hands, but Ser Balderich speaks up, saying Ser Quentin Morozov, his friend the Cursebreaker Knight, may have use of the tapestry. It might help him in his studies. Meanwhile, Valeria is gently pulling the body off the wall, looking for any sign of the man’s religion and finding not a symbol of the Obereon pantheon but a small pendant with two faces - Baba and Gramps, kindly spirits still respected by some of the more rural woodsfolk. Valeria’s big enough to carry the body, covering the carved words with her cloak and promising him a proper burial.

Shoshana lets them, dully watching. She can feel something magic within the altar, but the only thought she has left about today is the general concept of NO. She raises her hands and a wave of fire overtakes the altar. As it burns, the oppressive feeling of the darkness lessens. It doesn’t disappear, but something vital to this place has been destroyed.

A bit dazed, the party staggers out into the light, Valeria carrying the hunter’s body and Clem supporting a weakened but determined Ser Balderich. Wanting to avoid whatever hunting party was sent out after the escaping huntress, they make it back to the abandoned bandit camp before collapsing to regroup.

Valeria and Ser Balderich get to talking, Valeria asking how Ser Balderich knows her old mentor Kyr Marius. Did Ser Balderich ever speak to anyone who knows what happened at the Crusade?

Knows what happened? Pssh, Ser Balderich was THERE. Though it’s clearly a painful memory, Ser Balderich explains what happened to the members of Valeria’s order:

The Crusade was closing in, about a day’s hard travel from Valdsheart, the Duke’s capital city - the center of the Curse. The Order of the Rose has made it to the old summer palace - the roses were in bloom, the gardens were beautiful, still immaculately maintained by automated Unseen Servants that had continued working even as the city had been abandoned.

The commanders of the various knightly orders gathered together at the Rebel’s Temple. (A History check lets us know that this was the temple that Karena, the leader of the rebellion against Keva and the first Duchess of Valdia, had established to ask the blessing of the gods over the new nation.

If anyone ever had doubts the Curse was intelligent, they were ended by the way it waited until the knights were separated from their commanders. When the attack started, the gardens sprang to life. We were attacked by thorns and deadly spores. Ser Balderich took his horse and rode for the temple, while the knights held the line against the tide. The temple was holy ground - it should have been well-warded. Arriving there, he saw the windows stained with blood - the place was overrun. There were two groups of survivors still fighting: Archcleric Rudolf Klemsk and his knights of Rack fled one way, while the Peacock Knight (founder of the Knights Radiant) held the line alone. There were waves and waves of creatures, all sorts.

(Gral: Ser Balderich, please describe these creatures. DM: Absolutely not, it’s like midnight.)

Ser Balderich, unable to help, fled back to the palace to help the forces there. It was totally overrun. He hopes some got out, but was unable to get close enough to see. The aftermath? Well. Archcleric Klemsk got out, but Something happened there - afterward, he and his followers became the frightening Knights Penitent who violently hunt down all corruption and impiety. He assumes the Peacock Knight was overwhelmed, but he has been sighted since.

...I’m sorry.

Ser Balderich tells us: If anyone is going to solve this, it won’t be a marching army. It will be someone like my friend Quentin, and his Cursebreakers, or the madmen at Sturmhearst. We Beggar Knights will stand watch, and ensure as many people possible live to see the day the Curse ends, if that day ever comes.

We all mull that story, and then begin to get up to go. A quick discussion of options comes to this: we’ll go back to Ovruch and drop Ser Balderich off there, so he can recover and protect the town. In the morning, we’ll travel to the town of Holzog to bring the tapestry to Ser Quentin - perhaps he will be interested in our stories, as well. Gral certainly wants to discuss something with the Cursebreaker.

As everybody’s putting on their backpacks and stuff, Shoshana interjects, confused. Um...aren’t you guys...forgetting something?

Ser Balderich considers. “...yes.” He comes over to her, and she closes her eyes, readying for it.

“...I did not thank you, for rescuing me. You have my gratitude.”

N-no, you guys, don’t you need to...? Y’know? Take care of me, now that the Hunt and the bandits are dealt with?

...Oh.

Ser Balderich scoffs, compassionately. “Shoshana, I saw you reject the power that altar could have given you.” (Player: wait what? DM: yeah, there was a magic item in there”) “You were given your abilities, and what did you do with them? You took care of cats. You are not the monster you believe yourself to be.”

Valeria is nodding. Gral is nodding. Even Clem is nodding. Shoshana’s brain just about fails to compute; you can see the blue screen behind her eyes. We pack up, find a quiet spot in the woods to bury poor Mordecai the woodsman, and make our way back to Shoshana’s place to crash.

---

We roll against the Taint we acquired in the Hunt’s territory. Gral and Clem fully save. Valeria takes a minor corruption. Shoshana is offered a deal by the DM and takes it, gaining a minor corruption as well.

We each draw a card for the next session: The Hunter, The Knight, The Madness, and The Heretic.

#session recap #the ravine #the hunt #shoshana bat chaya #gral omokk'duu #valeria argent #clem haxan #balderich von mornheim

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authoressskr · 8 years ago

Text

Riding Shotgun

Written for: @sdavid09’s TaleTeller’s ‘What If’ Challenge

Characters: Sam, Gabriel, Dean, Castiel, John (Mentioned), Mary (Mentioned), Bobby (Mentioned), Lucifer, Michael (Mentioned), Adam, Azazel (Mentioned), God Squad

Tags/Warnings: Language, Canon Divergence (It’s a ‘What If’ Challenge, ya’ll), Supernatural-type violence

Summary/Prompt: What if instead of being Lucifer’s vessel, Sam was Gabriel’s vessel?

Tagging: @sdavid09 @lyndsay88

Notes: Thoughts/Prayers are in italics. Beta’d by @thewhiterabbit42

There are several things that Gabriel knows for certain: sugar-free was no way to live if you didn’t have a medical problem, he looked fabulous in every color, and Sam Winchester – second born of John and Mary Winchester – was his true vessel. True, Gabriel enjoyed this vessel--five feet eight inches of golden haired and golden-eyed, sugar-fueled sex god and Trickster-- but he could feel the tugging thrum of Sam’s being reverberate around him, calling out to him.

Fate had dealt an odd turn. Sam should have been Lucifer’s vessel, but Azazel had chosen the youngest one, Adam, to curse with demon blood. Maybe he saw something darker in the half-Winchester. All Gabriel saw was a cosmic joke… the kid with the name of the first human created is his big brother’s human-hating vessel? Classic.

And because Azazel hadn’t chosen Sam, Mary had survived. For a few months, at least. One vampire, hidden under the stairs surrounded by his nest’s drained victims, evaded death at Mary and another hunter, Jim’s, hands. And a week after their hunt ended, he showed up on Mary’s doorstep. They made quite a racket as they tumbled together at the entryway – John stumbling towards the sounds and trying to pull the crazed man off Mary as Dean began to shout “Mommy!” from the stairs.

“GO TO SAM’S ROOM AND LOCK YOURSELF IN!” John snapped the order to his four-year-old, and he used every military advantage to pull the man from his wife. Once he heard the man’s arm snap, the assailant turned to look at John, mouth stained red and dripping with blood. But what made John stare were the razor sharp, pointed teeth. Mary held a hand to her throat, pointing towards the umbrella holder. John scrambled for it while pinning the man down, but Mary had dragged herself the few feet to it and pulled out a machete. She shoved at John’s shoulder then brought the knife down, embedding the end into their floor and decapitating the man that John was kneeling over.

“Jesus, Mary. Honey, are you all right?”

“Hospital,” she murmured, clutching to his sleeve as he rose, holding her against him. “Get the boys. I’ll start the Impala.” John nods before shrugging off his robe and wrapping it around her.

“Keep the pressure on it,” He orders sternly before taking the stairs two at a time to his sons. He knocks softly, not wanting to startle his son anymore. “Dean, buddy, let me in.”

Obediently Dean opens the door a crack before stepping back into the room to allow his father entrance. Sam’s little wheeled crib is pressed against the wall by the closet, and Dean’s tiny blue plastic chair is seated in front of it like a guard.

“Good job, Dean. We’re gonna go for a drive, okay? Go get your shoes.”

He got Sam wrapped in a thick blanket and grabbed a few diapers and wipes before helping Dean into his shoes and leading them downstairs. He kept Dean on his right so he wouldn’t see the body still lying in their doorway.

He loaded the kids in the car carefully before speeding to the hospital.

It was that night that John discovered the dangerous side of the world. It was that night, he lost his wife due to severe blood loss from her neck and arm. It was that night that changed the Winchesters forever.

One choice on Azazel’s part had completely changed everything. Because he hadn’t made a deal with Mary, since John hadn’t died, he had no access to Sam. So, he had decided to wait. They all knew there would be three boys with Winchester blood. And they’re immortal beings, so what is another ten years of waiting?

He'd seen the Winchesters before, well “seen” in his head – in Heaven before he ditched the boxing ring his brothers had made it into, seen that it all led up to John and Mary, Dean and Sam. And Kate and Adam Milligan, of course.

If Adam hadn’t been born with a slight heart defect, his mom wouldn’t have made the deal. Keep her soul and save her son, all she had to do was let him in in ten years’ time. The next morning, Adam was cleared from the NICU and went home with a healthy heart.

Decisions. Decisions. That’s what it really boiled all down to, Gabriel supposed. Dad had given the world free will.

And as usual, it had come to bite Gabriel in the ass.

First off, the professor deserved it. Ask anyone who has ever played Clue or failed a class.

The frat boy got his just desserts simply for the fact that Gabriel didn’t like bullies. And he was already on campus, so why not spread the love?

The scientist who was testing on animals – innocent animals! – got his comeuppance by sewer alligator, which Gabriel still chuckled over to this day.

It really was just a bonus that Sam and Dean had been at each other’s throats those few days. Part of him found it entertaining. Truthfully, it made most of him prickle with anger. It brought back too much of the beginning of the end for him. In the first few fights his brothers had picked, in the first barbed words. He hated himself because he knew far too well how this could snowball out of control.

At first, his screwing with the Winchesters was just because he could – a way to pass the time before the big bang. Partly because they wanted to stop his games. Mostly because they naïvely thought they could stop destiny. Could deny the roles they’d been assigned.

Which had led to this, uh, conundrum, he was currently in.

“It all comes down to you and me, Sammy,” Gabriel snarked, arms wide open in the circle of holy oil the Winchesters had him trapped in.

“It’s Sam. And no, it doesn’t. I’m not saying yes to you – I’ll never say yes to you, Gabriel.”

“Oh, Sammich, you’ll say yes. Desperation. That noble righteousness you and your brother are so big on. Maybe you just wanna experience a nice white sand beach before Armageddon.” He gets no reaction from either brother, or his own. “Personally, I say we light this candle!” Gabriel huffs a laugh, grinning at the three men in front of him. “Michael is gonna do whatever he can to get big bro to say yes. Oh, and Lucifer is going to con and manipulate his way into the little half a Winchester. There ain’t no stopping this show, boys.”

“Then why do we need you exactly? You’re just a runaway with daddy issues,” Dean snapped.

Gabriel pointed to himself. “Pot.” Then he pointed to Dean. “Kettle.”

Dean just clenched and unclenched his jaw.

“Listen here buckos, there is no stopping this. I’m sorry – I really am. But you aren’t going to find Daddy,” Gabriel spared a bored look to his little brother. “And you can’t stop this. Lucifer is gonna ride Adam’s ass either way. He’ll face Michael. And then, well then only one of them will walk away from this winner-takes-all showdown.”

“Heaven or Hell, which side you on?” Dean’s tense voice is more accusatory than questioning.

“I’m not on either side.”

“Yeah right. You’re grabbing ankle for Michael or Lucifer, which one is it?”

Gabriel clenches his fist briefly, too quickly for the Winchesters to catch. “You listen to me, you arrogant dick. I don't work for either of those SOBs. Believe me.”

“Hmm. Well you’re somebody’s bitch.”

Gabriel’s lip raises in a snarl at Dean’s words.

“Shut your cake-hole. You don't know anything about my family. I loved my father, and my brothers. Loved them! But watching them turn on each other? Tear at each other's throats? I couldn't bear it! Okay? So I left. And now it's happening all over again. I just want it to be over! I have to sit back and watch my brothers kill each other, thanks to you! Heaven, Hell, I don't fucking care who wins!” He can hear the tiredness in his own voice at the last line, he feels it trickle down his entire being and drain the well-placed mask he’s worn for so long.

And it’s the Dad’s honest truth – he’s tired. Of hiding, of lying, of waiting. The Winchesters twenty some-odd years is nothing compared to the millennia he’s logged, aching for home and for his family. For something that he can never return to. For something he knows he can never return to.

“Help us then. You can help us stop this.” He looks at Sam, takes in his words, and grimaces. There’s a spark of hope in those hazel eyes and so much determination to stop this. They’ve convinced Adam not to say yes – for now. Gabriel sighs, he knows the outcome. He’s known all along.

“It’s destiny. I'm sorry. But it is.” His voice is softer now, sadder. “Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow. But this is real. And it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be.” And then Gabriel watched his true vessel, Dean and baby brother Castiel walk away. “Uh... okay. Hey, guys? So, so what? Huh? You're just gonna, you're gonna leave me here forever?” Dean paused at the door, leveling Gabriel with a harsh stare.

“No. We're not. Because we don't *screw* with people the way you do. And for the record? This isn't about some prize fight between your brothers, or some destiny that can't be stopped. This is about you bein' too afraid to stand up to your family!”

Gabriel glared at the eldest Winchester, watched as he pulled the fire extinguisher system and the flames slowly died all around him.

“Don't say I never did anything for you!”

A handful of months later he feels that tingle, the one that spreads terror into his gut. Shit.

Adam had joined Team Winchester simply to try to buy himself some time from being the Devil’s new clothes. But it was Sam’s disjointed thoughts Gabriel heard echoing in his head that concerned him.

“This is the nicest place we have EVER stayed at.”

Gabriel locked onto his location fairly quickly.

“Hit the road. Fucking biblical type storm. Pie. Nowhere. Norman Bates. Elephant.”

Fuck. Gabriel could sense the gathering, all those gods. Kali had told him they were meeting, but now he had to go to pull Sam’s ass outta the fire. Lucifer wouldn’t harm his brother’s vessel or his own – he needed them. But he didn’t need Sam. There was a chance he would just use Sam to get Dean to say yes, and he couldn’t have that either.

“Rats in a maze.”

Gabriel hated not having options. Backing an archangel into a corner was not wise.

Plus, where here the hell was Cas? Gabriel pops into Muncie, Indiana using his Grace to keep him from prying eyes.

“Please be tomato soup. Please be tomato soup.” All three brothers scoff before Sam heads to the freezer door. “Motel hell.”

“Help us! Get us out!”

“Hurry up!” Adam shouts, moving forward with Dean help Sam.

“I’m going as fast as I –”

“There’s somebody behind me, isn’t there?” And with that, they are all unceremoniously dragged into the Grand Ballroom.

“We are so boned,” Adam sighs before one of the men shoves him down into a seat.

“Gods?” Sam repeats as the dark haired man begins to go over the ground rules. “Oh, we are so, so screwed.”

As the gods argue, Dean looks surprised while Adam is pretty much broadcasting that this is pretty par for the fucking course. Sam’s mind is trying to recall as much lore as possible as they argue before looking to his brothers and rising slowly from their seats, the chandelier crashing suddenly to block their escape.

“Stay.” Kali orders, glaring at the brothers before looking at the gods seated around her. “The archangels – the only thing they understand is violence.”

Well, for the most part she’s not wrong. Damnit, now he was gonna have to step in.

He uses his Grace to throw open the doors of the ballroom before waltzing in.

“Can’t we all just get along?”

“Gab –” He quickly silences all three Winchesters, smirking mask set firmly in place.

“It’s always wrong place, worst time for you muttonheads.” Stepping between Sam and Dean.

“Loki.” Baldur states with calm annoyance.

“Baldur. Good seeing you, too. I guess my invitation got lost in the mail.”

“Why’re you here?” He asks, standing.

“I’m here to talk about the elephant in the room.” Ganesh starts to rise. “Not you. The Apocalypse. We can’t stop it, gang. But first things first.” Turning around to face the three men, he meets Sam’s gaze briefly. “The adults need to have a little conversation. Check you later.” And snaps them back to their room.

“Gabriel! Next time I tell Dean to keep driving…! Shit. This is so screwed. So, deeply, uber, armageddon screwed. Gabriel! Get your feathered ass here now!” The thoughts which are normally articulate, nerdy, or planning are disjointed as Sam is conversing with his brothers. So much so that Gabriel is having trouble hearing this thoughts, talking the gods down and trying to overhear their actual verbal conversation now that all three of their brains are lighting up with adrenaline and keep shouting his name.

“Gank a few freaks along the way if we’re lucky.” Seating himself comfortably on the couch behind Dean – Mercury really outdid himself cushion-wise, he made a mental note to mention that to him. If they all lived long enough, that is… Noting the youngest Winchester’s seated position on the bed – is that as comfortable as this couch? – his blonde head in his hands.

“And when are you ever lucky?” Dean turns to face Gabriel while Adam simply lifts his head from his hands.

“Oh, you know what? Bite me, Gabriel.”

“Maybe later, big boy.” And he shoots a wink at Sam, who just clenches his jaw.

“I should have known –” Dean begins, gesturing towards the room.

“Maybe you guys could stop for two minutes?” Adam snaps, looking from Dean to Gabriel.

“Hey, look, it has a backbone! More Winchester in you now than wimp, huh?” Standing from the couch, he’d definitely would need to pop one of those into his hideout, Gabriel sighed at the situation. “Listen here, I’m the Costner to your Houston. I’m here to save your ass.”

“You want to pull us out of the fire?” Adam asks, bracing his hands on his knees.

“Bingo!” Gabriel smiles triumphantly before glancing at Sam once more, whose thoughts have just turned from what is going on to what is he up to and how is this supposed to help? “Those gods are either gonna dust you – which the God Squad won’t tolerate – or use you as bait.” Gabriel curls his middle and ring fingers down, gesturing to the boys. “Either way, you’re uber-boned.”

“Wow – ‘cause a couple months ago you were telling us that we need to play our roles.” Dean shifted from one foot to the other, planting himself more firmly between Gabriel and Sam. Maybe it was unconscious, maybe it was just that Dean always had to protect Sam. All Gabriel knew is it was pointless.

“Michael and Lucifer are gonna dance the Lambada. But not tonight. Not here.”

“And why do you care?” Dean’s question surprises Gabriel. He shouldn’t care. Really his only concern should be getting Sam to say yes or hiding away on a private island surrounded by women of all shapes and sizes in skimpy bathing suits. Not here. Certainly not trying to save his little broken adoptive family.

“I don’t care.” They all look unconvinced. “But, me and Kali, we, uh…had a thing. Chick was all hands.” No one was going to appreciate that pun. All hands? Come on! “What can I say? I’m sentimental.”

“Sam, you gotta listen to me. Convince Dean to leave. Lucifer WILL turn them into fingerpaint. You know I’m not lying to you, Sammich.”

“Do they have a chance? Against Satan?” Sam steps forwards, towering over his current vessel.

“Really, Sam?” Dean sneers.

“You got a better idea, Dean? I mean, it’s worth a shot, right?” Adam shifted his gaze from Dean to Sam, landing on Gabriel.

“It's a bad idea. Lucifer's gonna turn them into finger paint. So let's get going while the going's good, hmm?”

“O.K. Great, why don't you just zap us outta here then?” Dean rolls his eyes, exasperated.

“Would if I could, but Kali's got you by the short and curlies. It's a blood spell. You boys are on a leash.”

“Well that’s just great. So glad we cleared that up,” Adam groans, letting himself fall back onto the bed.

“Okay, yeah. Well, whatever. Well, we're gonna take the hors d'oeuvres in the freezer with us.”

“Forget it. It's gonna be hard enough sneaking you mooks outta here.”

“We can’t just leave them,” Adam interjects as Sam glares at Gabriel.

“They called you Loki, right? Which means they don't really know who you are?” Dean ventures and Gabriel doesn’t care for the new direction this is heading in.

“Told you. I'm in witness protection.”

“O.K., well then how about you do what we say, or we tell the, uh, legion of doom about your secret identity. They don't seem like a real pro-angel kinda crowd.”

He takes a step closer to the eldest Winchester who now realizes he has Gabriel in a corner. “I'll take your voices away.”

“We'll write it down.”

Another step closer, his golden eyes boring into the emerald ones. “I'll cut off your hands.”

“Well then, people are gonna be asking, "Why are you guys running around with no hands?"

“Fine.”

Gabriel went to seduce the blood off of Kali (which didn’t work well – ended up her collecting his blood too, Daddammit)…now Gabriel, Archangel, Messenger of the Lord, Loki and the Trickster was bound to Kali by blood. Funny, he hadn’t seen that coming. Maybe his charm was wearing off? Nah, that couldn’t be it. Kali has him march obediently back to the ballroom and not five minutes later the Winchester trio was tossed unceremoniously in as well.

“Well, surprise, surprise. The Trickster has tricked us.”

“Kali, don’t.” Gabriel warns. But he knew he’d be outed sooner or later. This just isn’t how he pictured it really.

“You're mine now. And you have something I want.” Her red painted nails press familiarly against his chest before sliding into this jacket, her hand wrapping firmly around his blade. “An Archangel's blade. From the Archangel, Gabriel.” She’s waiting for an answer from him. Like he should soap opera gasp and fan himself like a real southern lady.

“Okay, okay! So, I got wings. Like Kotex.” He pauses a half second, his gaze meeting her’s. “But that doesn't make me any less right about Lucifer.” And then Kali rammed the blade into his chest and white-gold light spilled from his eyes and mouth and Gabriel, last Archangel son of the Lord, slumped into his chair.

---

Sam felt a flicker of something as Gabriel died, but couldn’t quiet place the moment as Adam shouted “No!” beside him. Dean took a deep breath and rose, now out of angelic help to help kill Satan.

“Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up.” Dean began, wiping his hand over his mouth.

“Are you outta your mind?” Sam half-whispered, looking nervously at his big brother.

“You’re surprised?” Adam sighs out, but his body is just as tense as Sam’s.

“I'm outta options, Sammy. Now on any other given day, I'd be doing my damndest to, uh, kill you. You filthy murdering chimps.”

“Oh good, insult the things that could kill us,” Adam mutters under his breath, but Sam catches it and really, he does have a point. But it was a hell of a situation they were in.

“But, uh, hey, desperate times. So even though I'd love nothing better than to slit your throats, you dicks, I'm gonna help you. I'm going to help you ice the devil. And then we can all get back to ganking each other, like normal. You want Lucifer, well, dude's not in the Yellow Pages. But me, Sam and Adam, we can get him here.”

“How?” Kali asks, looking from Dean who tossed back a generous gulp of whiskey to Gabriel’s body then back to Dean.

“First you let those main courses go. Then we talk. We can either take on the devil together, or you lame-ass bitches can eat me. Literally.”

Sam and Adam both huffed out an annoyed breath, but rose to stand beside Dean as Kali and Baldur share a look before nodding.

“Fine.” Baldur agrees before he gives a wave of his hand to dismiss the other gods. “You’ll return here after you’ve released the entrees.”

Sam clenches his jaw at the way Baldur refers to the people, but follows behind Dean as Adam stands nervously by his chair.

Sam picks the lock a lot faster now that he knows what to do and ushers the people from the freezer to Dean who is waiting in the lobby to herd them out. Once he finishes he joins Adam in the ballroom, waiting for Dean.

---

“Come on everybody! Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Alright, alright, go, go, go! Get outta here!” Dean looks around a tad bit suspicious before he hears it again. It’s coming from the Impala.

“Psst! Dean! Don't look at me! Act natural. Get in.” Dean rolls his eyes but opens the driver’s door and slides in. He turns to address the archangel in his backseat, looking him up and down.

“Man, there is nothing natural about this at all. I thought you were dead.”

“You think I'd give Kali my real sword? That thing can kill me!”

“Then what do they have in there?” Gabriel grins at his own genius.

“A fake! Made it out of a can of diet orange Slice. So, uh, go snag our blood, would ya?”

“What?” Gabriel slides from behind Sam’s seat closer to Dean, his tone a little louder.

“I heard you in there. Kali likes you. You can get close. Lift the plasma, then we vamoose.” Dean clears his throat at Gabriel’s plan.

“No. Hand over the real blade. Better yet, why don't you sack up and help us take down Lucifer.”

“You can't be serious?” Gabriel gaffs at him.

“Deadly.” Dean’s face is that perfected mask of seriousness his father had usually worn and he couldn’t seem to shake now.

“Since when are you butt buddies with a bunch of monsters? That's all they are to you, aren't they?” His sarcasm was alive and well, glaring at the hunter.

“Alright, you know, Sam was right. It's nuts but it's the best idea I've heard, so unless you have a better one?” Dean raised his eyebrow slightly at the Norse god.

“Well, good luck with that.” Gabriel scoffs. “Me? I'm blowing Jonestown. Those lemmings wanna run off a cliff, that's their business.”

“I see right through you, you know that? The smart-ass shell, the whole “I could give a crap” thing? Believe me, it takes one to know one.”

“That so Dr. Phil?”

“Yes. And maybe those freaks in there aren't your blood but they are your family.”

“They just stabbed me in the friggin heart!” The archangel exclaimed, shifting away from Dean in the backseat.

“Maybe, but you still give a crap about 'em, don't you?”

“Dean.” It’s almost a plea rather than the admonishment Gabriel was going for.

“Now they're gonna die in there, without you.”

“I can't kill my brother.” Gabriel admits. He feels it deep down, that’s a fight he doesn’t want. His brother taught him, teased him, sided with him against Michael and Raphael. He can’t kill Lucifer.

“Can't or won't?” Dean watches Gabriel’s golden eyes flitter down. “That's what I thought.” And shoves the Impala door open and leaves Gabriel pondering his decisions.

---

“So you're going to summon Lucifer.” Kali states rather than questions, raising a delicately arched black eyebrow.

“Sort of. I just need you to squeegee some stuff from my ribs and he'll come running.” Adam answers, waving a pale hand in front of his chest. Sam smirks at his answer.

“Breaking them would be easier.” Kali replies, Adam and Sam’s eyebrows shooting up before Sam’s settled into his trademark bitchface. Dean swaggers into the room, and Sam knows it isn’t good news by the set of his mouth.

“Show's over. Sword's a fake, and Gabriel, he's still kicking. I hate to break it to you, sister, but you've been tricked.”

Baldur clenches his jaw before looking down at Kali. The lights around the ballroom begin to flicker, the fear palpable as everyone knows what this heralds.

“It’s him.” Adam swallows hard, shifting to his left to get a tad farther from the doors.

“How?” Kali snaps, annoyed.

“Does it matter? Shazzam us outta here, would ya?” Dean tells more than asks, looking from Kali to Baldur.

“We can’t.” Baldur replies before the doors swing open to reveal Lucifer Morningstar.

“Of course you can’t. You didn't say "mother, may I?" Sam, Dean, Adam, good to see you again.” Adam stares at Lucifer, his vessel is peeling and spotty, and now, covered in blood splatter thanks to the unseen carnage lying just beyond them in the hall. Baldur shifts, straightening his posture while glaring at the archangel.

“Baldur, don't.” Kali warns softly, but Baldur moves forward anyway, anger radiating from the Norseman.

“You think you own the planet? What gives you the right?” Sam wants to yell to Baldur that he is too close, but before he can even form the complete thought, Lucifer’s hand is sticking out of Baldur’s back, ripping him apart from the inside.

“No one gives us the right, we take it.” Lucifer even gives his fingers a little wiggle before shoving him down and off his hand.

Kali’s sharp features turn from concerned to enraged, flames licking from her hands up her arms. She throws her hands forward, sending the flames hurtling at Lucifer, Sam and Dean tossing Adam over the table for cover before jumping over themselves. They hear a few more loud thumps, flinching at the sounds before looking at each other.

“You okay?” Sam asks, looking from Dean to Adam.

“Not really. Better late than never, huh?” Sam is startled by Gabriel appearing to his left besides Dean. He tosses a dvd box at Sam before clasping Dean on the shoulder. “Guard this, with your life.” Gabriel rises, Angel Blade grasped tightly in his hand as his big brother is blown backwards through the Grand Ballroom’s doors.

“Lucy, I’m home.”

Be careful, winged ass monkey. Sam prayed, swallowing the lump that formed in his throat as he looked to his brothers, who rose up carefully as Gabriel eased towards Kali, sprawled on the floor.

“Not this time.” Gabriel wrapped his free arm around her waist, hauling her upright and letting the Winchesters fall in line behind him. “Guys! Get her outta here.” He pushes her towards the door and gives one last look not at Kali, but at Sam.

That’s Mr. Arch winged ass monkey, Sammikins. Gabriel snarks back, turning to face his big brother.

“Over a girl. Gabriel, really? I mean I knew you were slumming, but I hope you didn't catch anything.” Is the last thing Sam hears as they make their way down the hall, carefully avoiding as much of the slaughter as they can in their haste to get to the Impala.

“I'm not getting in that thing.” Kali’s voice is loud in the silence of the night, the only noises being made are their footfalls on the wet concrete and the squeak of the driver door as Dean pops it open.

“Just get in the car, princess.” His tone is commanding, and yeah – a bit arrogant for Kali’s tastes, but they have to put miles between them and Lucifer and they all know it. Gabriel is buying them time and it’s too precious to waste.

Sam opens the door for Kali as Adam climbs into the back seat behind Dean. Baby’s motor starts and Dean scans the lobby and surrounding area one last time. Just before Sam slips inside the car, he pauses. He can hear Gabriel inside: “Because Dad was right. They are better than us.” And then once he’s sitting in the front seat, shotgun, where he belongs – beside Dean – he hears a question, so softly he almost misses it.

Won’t you be my neighbor?

It’s so corny, yet so vulnerable and Sam knows, just knows that Gabriel isn’t going to walk away from this. His bag of tricks against Lucifer are limited and he’s just buying as much time as he can for him.

Yes. He prays back, before it feels like his whole body is a livewire – he feels like he’s moving too much, like he’s bouncing down a rough back road at high speeds and at the same time his whole body’s got a numbness to it, like full body novocain. Then Sam blinks and it’s over. What felt like at least a handful of minutes is in reality an outpouring of milliseconds. He doesn’t feel different, not really. But something is off. Then he hears Gabriel’s voice, like he’s perched, arm’s folded with his head propped on top of his wrists, on the back of the bench seat Sam’s sitting on. Sam nearly turns to, then reminds himself that the car is silent. No one has said a word.

It’s another fifty or so miles before Kali barks out an order to pull over. When Dean does, he grabs her wrist before she can disappear.

“Blood.” The four vials appear in her hand and she crushes them then flames burst from her palm, engulfing the shards and liquid. Then she simply disappears. And while they can’t take a deep breath yet, they push on until day breaks and they’re close to the state line. Dean asks for Sam’s laptop and pops the dvd in that Gabriel had wanted them so badly to keep safe.

A red screen appears, scrolling credits while cheesy “porno music” plays in background.

“Oh Jesus.” Adam mutters as the title appears. Casa Erotica 13. Dean wrinkles his forehead and looks at Sam, who just gives a small shrug. How the hell was he supposed to know what this was? Although, knowing what they knew about Gabriel, this wasn’t anything they shouldn’t have expected. He is, after all the guy who put them on a Japanese gameshow that hit Sam in the balls. Hard.

“Dear Diary, being a high powered business president is super-fun. But sooo exhausting. Sometimes, I just need to relax. I need Casa Erotica.

“Room Service!”

“Come in!”

“Gabriel wanted us to guard this with our lives?” Sam asks, raising his eyebrows as the woman sits up on the bed.

“Maybe he's a fan. It is a good one.”

“Really, Dean?” Adam sighs before looking back to the screen. And as the door open, there’s Gabriel, Messenger of the Lord, Archangel, and Trickster, wearing a fake mustache and a service waiter’s outfit, big silver tray held aloft in one hand.

“I've got the kielbasa you ordered.”

“Ooh. Polish?”

“Hungarian.” Gabriel tosses the dish onto the mantle, it clattering to the floor as he moves into the room. Adam looks at Sam, then Dean as they hear Gabriel and the woman kissing and giggling. All three Winchesters look disturbed and even Dean is rethinking the whole porn loving aspect of his life in this moment. Then the giggles turn to moan from both of them.

“What the hell's going on?” Sam tosses up a hand in exasperation, gesturing towards his laptop.

Right after he asks, Gabriel turns to the camera, removes his mustache and smiles.

“Sam, Dean, Adam. You're probably wondering what the hell is going on.” Then there’s laughter, light and just a dash of actual humor in it, rolling through his mind.

Gabe? Had he been just saying goodbye earlier in the car? Had Sam not said yes quick enough?

“Well, if you're watching this, I'm dead. Oh please! Stop sobbing, it's embarrassing for all of us.”

Dean looks at Sam and Sam knows it’s because Dean was hoping for a different outcome if Gabriel fought with them to stop Lucifer. Now they had no chance to ice the Devil.

“Without me, you've got zero shot at killing Lucifer, sorry! But can trap him. The cage you sprung Lucifer from? It's still down there. And maybe, just maybe, you can shove his ass back in. Not that it'll be easy. You gotta get the cage open, trick my bro back into it. And uh, oh yeah, avoid Michael and the God Squad. But hey, details, right?”

Adam looks excited at this prospect. He doesn’t want to be Satan’s vessel anymore than Dean wants to be Michael’s.

“And here's the big secret, Lucifer himself doesn't even know -- the key to the cage? It's out there.” They all exchange a look. “Actually it's keys, plural. Four keys, well, four rings. From the Horsemen.”

Well, fuck.

“You get 'em all, you got the cage. Can't say I'm betting on you boys. But, uh, hey! I've been wrong before.”

They all take a deep breath. At least it’s a new plan – a new way to stop the end of the world.

“And Dean, you were right. I was afraid to stand up to my brother, not any more.” Gabriel rises, puffing his chest out a tad as that shitty smirk rolls across his features. “So this is me, standing up.” Sam grimaces cause he can guess where this is going. “And this is, me, lying down.” Gabriel turns, lifting the woman with ease and tossing her onto the bed before leaping on top of her. Clothes begin to fly as they both moan in tandem and Sam slams his laptop closed.

Don’t worry, Samsquash, you saved my feathery Kotex ass.

Holy shit. Does - does Lucifer think he killed you?

Uh yeah. I am the Trickster.

So, you gonna help now?

Not like I got anywhere else to go, Sammy.

“Horsemen, huh? Well we got War’s. We nicked Famine’s. That’s two down. Collect all four?” Dean lays out, rapping his knuckles on the Impala’s hood twice. “All we need is Pestilence and Death.”

“Oh, is that all?” The sarcasm is oozing from Adam as he runs a hand over his face.

“It’s a plan.” Dean assures him as Sam plucks his laptop from the roof, and climbs into the passenger seat.

Do you know where Pestilence is?

Find a dickwad demon and then follow that trail. Sorry – Gabriel yawns – I’m a little outta juice. We’ll pick this up later, Sammich.

Angels don’t sleep.

No, but I gotta recharge the batteries. Faking one’s death, making a porno, and jumping aboard the good ship Samuel is a lot of work.

Fine.

Hey, Sam?

Yes, Gabriel?

You gonna tell your bros I’m riding shotgun?

Not right now.

I know how you boys are with secrets, might as well rip this band aid off.

Aren’t you supposed to be resting?

10-4 on that, Sammy. Lying to the bros. Gabriel out.

Sam rolled his eyes as they drove towards the nearest motel to rest and call Bobby with this new information, looking out the window. How was he supposed to tell Dean and Adam that Gabriel wasn’t dead, but was now inside Sam? Something they had all sworn not to do? Sam rested his head against the window as greenery flew by and he was happy, at least for a moment. Gabriel wasn’t the nicest angel, but he had come back and bought them time. Whether he liked it or not, Gabriel was now firmly Team Winchester and it was sort of nice, Sam thought, that they had Castiel and Gabriel to watch over them and help.

I always knew you were a softie.

Shut up, Gabriel.

Maybe Sam had thought that too soon.

#taleteller's what if challenge #what if challenge #what if Gabriel's true vessel was Sam Winchester #Supernatural #spn #authoressskr writes #gabriel #sam winchester #dean winchester #adam milligan #hammer of the gods #maybe a part 2 later

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black-strike-otp · 8 years ago

Text

part 4

I’m gonna eat my exhaustion and persist on!!

Also when ur daughter’s so pure in an au you cry

After Blackout had left with his small bug friend, Novastrike took off in hopes of rejoining her comrades for the continuing journey home. Their responses were quick; from a rather angry platoon leader to the surprised and worried comments about her frame being warped and bent out of shape in numerous areas. Novastrike shrugged off their concern easily, stating she’d done what she could do to help.

“You could have gotten yourself killed,” Steelrunner had stated in a matter-of-fact buzzkill sort of way.

“At least I would have died protecting someone, and not with my tail between my legs.”

That had shut the fragger up.

Their luck seemed to stay in place. It was an easy pick-up and regroup back at the designated location after all. Novastrike didn’t talk much the remainder of the trip, which worried some. Those who tried offering apologies, or a helping hand, or even state they could wait for a medic to see her bumps and bruises were brushed off with a snappy comment. A part of her knew she was being too unfair. They had a right to be afraid; wanting to keep to their work.

But wasn’t the value of lives more important, outweighing all else? Did it really matter who it was? If someone was dying, shouldn’t you feel obligated to help? No one should have to die over this war. No one should have to die alone, period.

When they returned back to base, the platoon leader alerted Novastrike’s damages to a medic, but to no one else. With medics to overrun with work to bother grinding the injured where the injuries came from to report to those in charge, the small femme got off well enough for disobeying orders. Some fixes here, replacements there, a scolding to be more careful and off she went.

Missions ran together. A blur of gathering and moving things, looking at the dead faces of scattered bodies nobody bothered with anymore. It was disgusting. It was dishonorable. Novastrike took a moment, wherever they may be, to send a prayer for those loss. No matter their faction, no matter their reason for death.

Her reputation of hardly fighting became a joke after a while. Some refused to take her out on missions. Just fine with her; she occupied herself in the training room, on other missions, making due in the med bay. The medics came to enjoy her presence, to a point. She fetched supplies and aided where she could while comforting the dying, and the injured. Some called her a blessing and a gift, others a weak annoyance.

She tried. Primus, she tried.

On a mission she would retrieve something from the carcass of a dead mech carrying vital information. On that she would be told to help stock energon cubes (a laughable joke that was, too small to carry the average sized cube). The next she’d be fighting, the one thereafter transporting a prisoner, on and on and on it went just like the war. Just like the endless broken and dead.

Friends died. No foes died; Novastrike could not bare to name anyone a foe, she had no quarrel with anyone personally, but those who did not agree with her. Steelrunner came back practically in pieces. He didn’t last long enough for her to visit him, not allowed in the emergency room. It hurt her. Nobody else seemed to notice, nobody seemed to care. She prayed for him, too.

Missions were filed out, folks called in. Novastrike was informed to meet in the command room for intel. She went of course, and saw nothing but faces of strangers all around her standing in a line.

“Good to see you were able to join us,” snapped the lieutenant. “We need a team over in sector Victor-Three-Three-Seven for recon duty. Unfortunately, we’re short staffed on minicons, so Novastrike, you’ll be the one sneaking into the Decepticon’s facility. If you can, get into the conference area, gather intel. You’ll also be going into their command center and downloading anything you can, on to this,” the mech offered out a short metal grided stick; a usb.

“Me?” Novastrike echoed in a hollow voice, reaching for the stick. This was the last thing she wanted. She didn’t care the fame or praise it would bring her if she did it right. If she did it wrong, well....

“You,” the lieutenant stated. “We believe you can do this. You’ll have backup surrounding the camp should you be in trouble, some in the camp in disguise. You’ll be safe. That usb should gain you access if our codes are recent and haven’t been replaced yet.”

Novastrike’s optics flicked to the mechs surrounding her as she took the usb. They all stood perfectly straight, perfectly still, arms down at their sides and optics sharp and staring straight ahead. None of them made her feel any more secure.

“Of course, sir,” Novastrike said uneasily.

“You’re the fastest and one of the smallest. We could use all the help we can get, Novastrike.” The mech paused. “Meeting ajourned; get anything you may need, quickly. Your ride leaves in half a jour.

Numbly, Novastrike tucked the usb away in a section of her arm’s armor plating and turned to shuffle out of the room. The mechs marched right past her, not even so much as glancing down towards her.

She felt sick, but what choice did she have?

After a quick to and fro the quarter bunks to grab additional equipment to install in the empty spaces of her armor and subspace, Novastrike ran down the halls and to the landing zone for transport vehicles. All the mechs she was designated to go with were waiting for her. Although they still had ten minutes until were destined to leave, with her arrival, they boarded their designated vessel and were off in the skies before Novastrike had a moment to consider fleeing the situation.

They landed jours outside of the Decepticon base and made their way towards their designation point. Those undercover shifted the guise of their form and morphed their insignia markings before marching down into camp. Novastrike didn’t allow herself to think twice on it, and slank, alone and quiet, towards the least populated section of the base.

The Decepticon numbers here weren’t incredibly large, but everyone looked fierce and ready for combat. Nova remained nimble and on the tips of her pedes, skimming along any spare crates left about. She didn’t trust their loading and unloading bay. Even a vehicle mode could be deceiving, and she could walk right by one and not realize its sentience until it was too late.

She found her way in through a side-door, following a mech inside before the doors closed. From there, she found the closest ventilation system entry and scaled the wall to climb into the damn thing. It smelled like chemicals and bad decisions. Novastrike resisted gagging.

Having no layout of the building she was in, she could simply shuffle through the shafts and wriggle around to peer through other grates in hopes of finding a room that looked important to get the data she was asked to retrieve. Frag going by the conference room, she thought bitterly. She’d say it was impossible, which it sounded that way. To hide in one of those rooms and go undetected while generals and war mongers discussed how to best the Autobots and take more lives, she had little interest in hearing what they’d have to say.

Novastrike noted a promising looking room an Eradicon leaving with massive computers inside. She rocked back and kicked the grate, bending it forward. She bent it back and forth a few times before having enough space to drop back onto the floor when she could hear no one in the immediate vicinity of the hall.

Swallowing her fear, Novastrike darted to the door. It felt like it took forever to open. She pressed up against the side wall, pulling out her pistols. Once the door was fully open, she peered inside.

No one. A few large computers, but not near as many as she’d been hoping for. Still, maybe she’d be able to access something from one of these terminals.

Slowly, Novastrike crept into the room. The doors closed behind her and she shivered nervously, approaching the terminal farthest from the door. She cocked her helm slightly to the left and leaned back, jumping up onto the massive equivelant of a keyboard.

‘Identification Required’ blinked on the home screen.

Frowning, Novastrike ignored the ID requirement and looked for the nearest entry port. Careful not to hit any keys, she shoved the usb in slot.

The screen glitched slightly and the letters scattered across the screen before successfully logging in. Thank Primus that worked.

Novastrike keyed in some basic search features, and started downloading anything onto the usb, no matter how mundane it looked.

There was no telling how much time had passed when the alarms went off. Novastrike’s audios pricked. She had no clue how much of the information she gathered was useful, but that was definitely her sign to go. Slag, it was obviously her they detected, her searches were probably too high-risk and someone caught on there was someone in the building.

Ripping the usb mid-download of a file out of the computer, Novastrike dropped onto the floor. She hurried to the door and looked around. Nobody was in this hallway yet, but she could hear pedes not too far away, coming- yes, coming in this general direction. Not enough time to swing herself into the vent without being noticed.

Taking a hard left turn, Novastrike ran in the opposing direction of the loudest and closest pedes. She screeched on her heels and darted down the next hallway, huffing as she looked for a room to enter. Maybe there’d be a window nearby, maybe there was a way out-

A door opened and someone went running down the hall just in front of her. Novastrike nearly leapt out of her armor, but they didn’t see her. She looked into the room just before the doors closed; no windows there. She ran towards the next door- locked.

Primus was she going to have to blow a hole through the building to get out?

An explosion rocked the building, and Novastrike knitted her optic ridges close together. Well, that certainly wasn’t her fault.

Loud yelling filled an interconnecting hallway. Novastrike turned around, in the direction she’d come from. Eradicons and Vehicons were already beginning to turn the corner.

“Slag,” Nova drawled out, turning to run towards the other pedes. She nearly collided with a mech who stumbled over her, blasters firing at those chasing him.

Novastrike fumbled and fell to the floor, chin clipping the floor and derma biting her glossia. She glanced up, seeing the angry yet terrified expression on the face of one of the Autobot’s meant to go undercover here.

Perhaps not her fault then they’d been discovered. Not that she should be pointing digits, she snipped inwardly at herself.

The mech’s optics darted down to see what he’d tripped over, and his optics went wide. He made the smallest of nods of her. She had to go.

Novastrike debated on staying despite the gesture, but took off down the hall. A Decepticon barely missed stepping on her. He shouted something, but Novastrike didn’t try focusing on what. She could hear pedes following her, so it was easy to assume he told someone to catch her.

Skidding and barely clipping the corner of a wall as she turned, Novastrike fled down the next corridor. Doors were beginning to open as more Cons poured out, trying to check out what all the mayham was for.

“Move move move move move,” Novastrike growled, firing her pistols at anyone’s pedes in her direct path. Mechs and femmes jumped up with shock, and suddenly, what was just a few angry bees following her gave way to a ferocious hive.

Blaster fire and the stench of hot plasma and ozone burned in Novastrike’s air circulation system. She could feel plasma on her heels, the sizzle and sear of shots just barely missed as she zigzagged wildly back and forth.

Novastrike clipped one pistol to her hip and pulled out a small flash bang. She turned it on and tossed it behind her as she picked up speed.

A blinding white light flashed behind her; casting a shadow ahead in her image. The sound of startled cries followed thereafter. Novastrike felt her adrenaline pulsing wildly as she grabbed a grenade next activated the small explosive, chucking it behind her.

Her optics scanned ahead and she choose a hall at random as the grenade went off. There were shouts of pain and she winced inwardly, stumbling and colliding with a wall as the ground pitched slightly beneath her. She looked up from her head-down charge to see a line of Eradicon, Vehicon, mechs, and femme standing a few yards ahead, weapons at the ready.

Skipping awkwardly for a few steps, Novastrike came to an abrupt stop. Her chassis heaved with each gasp she took. A tremble raced down her backstrut, and she swallowed loudly.

A large, intimidating dark grey and violet mech moved through the crowd; which parted like the Rust Sea before him as he moved forward, a maddening grin and dangerous glint in his optics.

“What’s this we have here?” the mech’s deep, gravely voice snarled. He glanced back at the others behind him. “Get back to work; I’ll make sure this one is properly taken care of.”

“Right away, Motormaster,” the crew stated in perfect unison, standing up and charging down the other end of the hall.

Novastrike took a single step backwards, capturing the attention of the bulky looking Decepticon. He offered a grin; all teeth and a twisted grin.

“Where you going minibot? The party’s just begun, and you’re one of our personal guests of honor.”

#quid pro quo au #OTP AU #OTP Lit #Badass otp #that moment of 'oh shit' that comes at you like a brick wall

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tarisilmarwen · 8 years ago

Text

Cracks In The Mirror: Exctracted

(Chapter One. Chapter Two.

You know the drill, also on FFNet here.)

---

There was an old story, in which a hero was tasked with destroying a cursed tapestry, without setting blade or tool to it. The clever protagonist of the tale had examined the tapestry closely, finding among the thousands of strands a single loose thread that, when pulled, unraveled the fabric at its seams.

Thrawn had the tale hovering idly at the back of his mind as his crimson eyes perused his kaleidoscope of holographic displays. Ezra's information was projected on one side, a portion of Kallus's data on the other.

Bridger was beginning to awaken. Thrawn had dispatched a few of his people to the room with... special instructions. He had remained in his office, looking over the files that Pryce had brought him.

People were almost as fascinating a study as art. Almost. Each snippet of information told him some new aspect and facet of the man who had become Agent Kallus, rebel spy.

Thrawn pulled up a new hologram. After perusing it a moment or two, he straightened, and leaned forward in his seat.

Here was something. Whenever he was stationed above Lothal, Kallus appeared to make frequent, unannounced trips to the planet's surface. From the shuttle logs, always to Capital City.

Now what was down there that he had to keep visiting without telling anyone?

Remembering something, Thrawn shifted his focus back to Ezra's files. The one he was looking for wasn't currently projected, so he had to rifle through them on the console to find it first.

A cold smile touched his lips.

He'd found his thread.

***

The guard station on Level 5 was smaller than the others, crewed by only two people. Both of which, after getting over the excitement of having a Rebel spy and an infamous Lothal troublemaker in the brig, were now once again... very bored.

One of them sat slumped forward in his chair, flicking bits of crumpled durasheet off the panel with his fingers. The other paced back and forth idly.

"So when do you think they're gonna junk the old BTL-A4s?"

The one seated shrugged. "Hopefully soon, if they keep getting stolen."

THUMP!

"Oh, what now?" he groaned, shooting a glare towards the closed door.

The man pacing lifted his sidearm, heading for the exit. "If that Nikto in Cell B-138 is banging on the walls again I'm just gonna—"

He didn't get to finish, for as soon as he punched the button to open the door he was assaulted at knee level by a powerful shock.

He let out a rather undignified shriek before toppling backwards, out like a light.

The other guard snapped his head around and had just enough time to take in the black and red metal dome and think, A droid? before an arc of electricity shot across the room to hit him square in the chest.

He twitched in his seat, comically wide-eyed, before slumping over and not moving.

Chopper rolled into the room, cackling maniacally. He smugly shimmied up to the plug-in port, extending his arm.

"No, no, no, no!" AP-5 scolded sharply, strutting in and grabbing the astromech by the dome, sliding him back. "Do not just bludgeon your way into the system! You'll set off every alarm on the ship."

Chopper buzzed irritably at him, demanding to know how then he should proceed.

"Most binary programs are reasonable. Try asking nicely," AP-5 told him, waving towards the port.

The C1 droid chirped skeptically, but slowly rolled back towards the port, hesitantly plugging in. The system registered him, querying his intentions.

"WWWwww-WUB?" Chopper tried awkwardly.

The system responded politely, asking for his authentication code. Chopper dug it up from his memory files and passed it on.

After a moment or two, he was permitted access, and suddenly found the entire network open to him. He beeped in pleasant surprise, turning his head around to compliment his counterpart.

"Thank me later," AP-5 dismissed. "Let's see about getting those camera feeds to display on the screen."

***

Kallus paced back and forth in his cell, wearing a hole in the floor. His ears strained anxiously for any sound of movement, any hint that they were bringing Ezra down to a cell.

There'd been nothing for almost two hours. So they still had him in Interrogation.

He could still hear the boy's screams as echoes in his mind. Was that why no one had been down to confront him yet? So he could go mad worrying about what they were doing to him?

Well it was working.

Kallus forced himself to stand still a moment and take a deep breath. This wasn't helping. He needed to think.

All that kept running through his head was Ezra's face, twisted in pain. It was his fault the boy was here. The Rebels had come for him. To save him. Ezra had made his dislike of him and the plan to extract him vehemently apparent and he had still come, still put himself in danger in order to get Kallus out. Absurd, but after so many encounters with Bridger, no longer surprising.

And now he was suffering for it.

And more would follow, if Kallus couldn't figure out an escape. Kallus knew the crew of the Ghost too well—Jarrus would not continue to sit out in space fretting forever. The Jedi was... reckless when it came to his padawan.

He didn't realize he'd resumed pacing until the sound of footsteps out in the hallway made him stop in his tracks. Kallus froze, listening hard.

Several pairs, heavy-booted. They were coming from the wrong end. It wasn't Ezra. They were here for him.

Fear prickled in his heart, but he steeled himself, turning to face the door. Every limb tensed, ready to jump the guard the minute the door was open.

Borrowing tricks from Bridger, he thought, shaking his head. What have I come to?

The first trooper would be standing left of the door, at the access panel. There would be a second just behind him waiting to enter the cell, and possibly a third hovering to the right. If protocol was followed, he'd have approximately two seconds between when the door opened and when the guards proceeded into the cell. His timing would have to be precise down to the millisecond.

Lunge forward, grab the wrist of the facing trooper, get inside his firing arc, stun with blow to the diaphragm. Swing him around and smash him into the guard by the panel. Retrieve sidearm, shoot all guards before they're able to sound the alarm.

Several variations of the scenario were already rehearsed and perfected in his mind when the stray thought came to him suddenly—What if the Grand Admiral or Governor Pryce is out there?—and he scrambled, adrenaline sounding stressful alarms inside him, but the code cylinder was already clicking in the lock, no time, every muscle strained, ready to move—

There was a white uniform in-between the Stormtroopers. But the man wearing it was not Thrawn.

"Yularen!"

He couldn't help the surprise—and relief—in his voice. His body relaxed involuntarily, the planned action he'd intended fading fast. He had no chance with Thrawn or Pryce. Even Lyste would probably show him no sympathy now. But Yularen...

Yularen could be... persuaded.

There was a look on his old mentor's face, a bald, betrayed sort of disbelief. "Is it true?" he asked, and Kallus's relief slowly began to morph into guilt. "You," Yularen strained, emotion clogging his voice as the door closed behind him, "are Fulcrum?"

Kallus lowered his head and said nothing.

"Are you?" Yularen pressed.

He considered the merits of denying it, running through a few different excuses in his head. But by now Yularen would know of Bridger's capture, would know Kallus had concealed the boy's presence. There was no point in hiding it anymore. Not now.

He sighed in defeat. "I am," he answered.

Kallus lifted his eyes, and almost regretted it upon seeing his superior's expression.

"Why?" Yularen asked, shaking his head like he still couldn't believe it.

Kallus gave a short, bitter laugh. "I've asked myself that same question," he drawled. "Why would I defy the Empire? Why would anyone?" he asked rhetorically. His shoulders rolled in a half-shrug, his voice lowering. "Maybe I was just tired of yelling over my conscience," he muttered.

It had been all too easy to drown out the sound of his doubts before. He still couldn't quite tell when he had begun to listen. Certainly not at Lasan, though the guilt from that day had prickled him like a festering needle even then. Perhaps it had started at Tarkin's arrival. When the Governor callously had Aresko and Grint executed right there in the office—good men, not very bright or particularly competent but eager and loyal to the Empire—it had stunned Kallus to his core. Massacring the Empire's enemies was one thing. Thoughtlessly killing their own... shook him.

But then he had turned around and done the exact same thing to poor Tua, so perhaps that had not been the true start of his turn at all, just the crack through which the seed could be planted.

Yularen spoke again, pulling Kallus out of his musings.

"But treason, Kallus? Spying for the Rebels, trading them Imperial secrets?" Yularen said, incredulously. "You knew the consequences for that."

"I did." Executed for treason, he'd screeched at Ezra, almost hysterically, just that morning. Kallus shook his head. "But I couldn't just do nothing. If that leads to my death, then..." Kallus had to swallow down the fear building up a lump in his throat. He didn't want to die. But it seemed inevitable now, so he had to at least accept the possibility. "...so be it," he finished.

He felt just a little lighter for having said it.

"But you were more determined than anyone to catch these Rebels, see them brought to justice," Yularen protested. Kallus held himself back from making a biting quip about the Empire's idea of 'justice'. Yularen gestured with agitated motions. "Now you'd die for them?" he demanded to know.

Kallus gave a grimace of chagrin. "That wasn't the ideal plan," he told Yularen. "But if that's what it takes to keep their location secret and get Ezra off this ship..."

Yularen shook his head. "I don't understand."

"I don't expect you to."

"You were a star pupil. You're one of the best ISB has to offer," Yularen reminded him, anger beginning to creep into his voice. "You would throw that all away? Throw away your life?" The stern rebuke held a touch of concern. Yularen still had some fondness for his former student, Kallus noted for reference. He could use that. The older man stilled, face still full of disbelief. "For the boy? For Bridger?" he repeated.

"Do you know what they're doing to him, right now?" Kallus interrupted, remembering Yularen had a grandson about Ezra's age.

"Questioning him, I suppose," Yularen shrugged with stiff indifference.

"They're using the Brisney-Favvin on him."

Kallus's words had their desired effect. Yularen stopped his ranting, his eyes growing ever so slightly wider. For a long time, the older man didn't speak, processing what Kallus had said.

The silence stretched out.

Finally Yularen spoke up, haltingly, sounding almost unsure of himself.

"...The Senate has strict regulations about—"

"I know," Kallus interrupted once again. "And if I were another man..." Kallus sighed as he shook his head. "...if I were the same man I was six months ago... I might have kept my mouth shut. Justified it in the name of order, of putting down the Empire's enemies, despite whatever... personal misgivings I had." He met Yularen's gaze, gesturing helplessly with his hands. "But I... I can't anymore, Yularen," he said. "I've seen... I know too much of the Empire's true face. And I can't stand proudly with it as I once did. I am... ashamed I ever did," he admitted, hanging his head, the weight of the confession pulling him down.

Yularen didn't speak for a long moment. Kallus was a little worried he'd pushed too far with the wrong tactic, as he peeked up from under his lids, measuring the frown lines on Yularen's face.

Or... maybe not? He'd known the man to react with disgust to most incidents of treason and he'd yet to hear any. Kallus chanced looking up again. Yularen looked deep in thought, eyes pinched from some internal conflict.

"How old is your grandson?" Kallus said abruptly.

Yularen stirred a bit, replying blankly, "Eighteen. Just graduated the Academy."

There was an undercurrent of somber emotion in the old man's voice. Kallus nodded soberly. "Ezra's just a little younger than him, then," he said. He stepped forward a bit, arms out, open-palmed. "Can you imagine? How you'd feel if it was him strapped to that table?"

A flash of pain in Yularen's eyes, good. Ezra was becoming less of a concept and more of a human to him, a person with feelings and people who cared about him. That was part of what had worked on Kallus—that glimpse of the Ghost crew on the Geonosian moon, out of combat, relating to each other like friends, like family. It would work here.

He hoped.

"You know it's wrong, Yularen. Please... help me save him," Kallus pleaded. He drew slightly closer, some of his own guilt and desperation rising to the surface. "It's my fault he's here. Help me make it right," he begged.

For a long time Yularen just stared at him, a private war waging behind his eyes. Kallus's body was tense with anticipation. He was just starting to run through ways to disable the man when Yularen broke eye contact with a sigh.

"...Make it look good," he instructed.

Kallus's legs buckled, and he very nearly staggered on his feet as the relief crashed over him like a pounding wave. Yularen still trusted him.

He might not understand his actions, or why he would turn on the Empire, but he trusted him.

That was good enough for now.

"Thank you," he breathed, reverently.

***

The two men on the screen appeared to be in some sort of argument. Chopper had been only paying half-attention, more focused on the camera feed that showed Interrogation. But when there was a sudden flurry of activity in the other room his motors jerked his head around, drawn to the motion.

Kallus was engaged in a pitched scuffle with a white-uniformed officer. It was intense, the ISB agent had the other man on the ropes quickly, though his opponent seemed to be giving as good as he got.

The skirmish ended when Kallus slammed his opponent into the wall, just in time for the cell door to open and a pair of Stormtroopers to come rushing in. As the officer crumbled Kallus whipped around to lunge at the first trooper, both hands grabbing hold of his weapon.

"Sir! We have—"

In the seconds it took for Chopper to cut off the comlink feed and prevent the general alert from being sent out, Kallus had pulled some trick that had disarmed the trooper he was wrestling with. Blaster in hand, the agent pulled back.

Three shots. Three bucketheads down. The last trooper banged his helmet against the console as he dropped.

Kallus stood alone, breathing hard, amidst the chaos.

"WOAH," Chopper beeped, stunned and... slightly impressed.

"Well. That was efficient," said AP-5, apparently sharing the sentiment. The inventory droid swiveled. "Chopper, see if you can patch in to the comlink in one of those troopers' helmets."

"WUB-WUB," the astromech acknowledged, his manipulator clicking in the port.

***

"Is he still awake?"

The head technician stepped back, squinting at the limp body of their prisoner. Ezra gave a low moan, turning his head a bit.

"Eh, barely," he dismissed. He waved over for an aide to bring the tray. "Better give him another dose anyway."

"We've already given him enough to knock out a man twice his size!" the first tech complained.

The head technician shrugged. "You heard the Grand Admiral's orders. Here, give me the syringe."

His subordinate sighed, but passed it over. The head tech took it, looking for a place to stick Ezra. There were plenty of older holes he could reopen.

He'd just taken hold of Ezra's left arm when there was a commotion from outside. The technicians looked up in confusion, hearing thumps, thuds, and a few shouts. There was silence a moment and then a code cylinder unlocked the door.

"Trooper, what's going—"

The Stormtrooper suddenly raised his blaster, firing a deadly red bolt directly into the head technician's chest. The other two barely even had time to yell before they, too, were shot dead.

Three more bodies fell at his feet.

Kallus yanked off the Stormtrooper helmet, muttering low curses. "Blasted optics," he complained, setting the helmet aside on the tray. How anyone expected them to see straight through those helmets was beyond him.

The agent turned towards the interrogation table, haltingly, pulse rapid.

Ezra was unnaturally pale and still as death, only the soft sound of his breathing a sign that he was still alive. Kallus bit his lip as he took in the boy's condition.

His head lolled, the movement sluggish. He was still very drugged, almost to the point of unconsciousness. His mercenary disguise was a bit worse for wear, needle holes and rips spotting it, and the fabric singed in places. Ezra's face was bruised and burned, his lip bloody, and... was that an allergy rash?

Shaking off his horror, Kallus reached for the restraints holding Ezra to the table, quickly beginning to unfasten them. Ezra stirred as he worked, bleary eyes unfocused, clouded.

"Shndn't've come..." he muttered. "...stupid..."

Kallus couldn't tell if Ezra was referring to him, or to himself. "We can scold each other later," he told Ezra, throwing off the final strap. "Can you walk?" He took hold of Ezra's left arm, slowly easing him away from the table.

The minute his feet found the floor Ezra's knees collapsed, the boy falling heavily against Kallus's side, Kallus scrambling to catch him.

He was heavier than Kallus expected. The man hefted Ezra upright by the armpits with a grunt. "I guess not," he concluded.

"'m okay... 'm..." Ezra insisted, rolling up to a wobbly stand. His shaky legs were slow to move, but he made a few stumbling steps towards the door, with Kallus's careful direction.

"Don't try so hard," the agent told him gently, slinging Ezra's arm over his shoulder to support him. It was amazing the boy could stand at all, with all the empty vials of sedatives littering the worktray next to them. "Come on," he urged.

He left the helmet behind. He couldn't see out of the blasted thing and he would've drawn suspicion dragging Ezra along either way. This part of the escape would be the most harrowing. He was counting on Chopper and AP-5 to direct him away from patrols, but even their eyes were limited to where the cameras were.

Luck would be his greatest ally here.

"Chopper, AP, I'm on my way down," he said into his comlink, as he yanked Lyste's code cylinder from the lock on their way out. Both devices had been shortly retrieved from the prisoner belongings locker. Kallus was grateful for the Stormtrooper's rigid adherence to protocol. And their assumption that the cylinder was his. His own code authorization would have been locked out of the system by now.

He hoped it caused Lyste no undue amounts of hassle.

"We are generating a general alert on Level Eight, Agent Kallus," AP-5 relayed. "That should draw a few patrols out of your path."

"Create one for Levels Three, Seven, and Nine as well," Kallus instructed. "Then cut off all comlink transmissions and internal communications for the whole ship and meet me outside the hanger bay."

"Acknowledged."

Kallus stowed the comlink. "Hopefully that'll cause enough chaos for us to slip through," he muttered to himself, half-leading, half-dragging Ezra beside him. He sighed in aggravation. "I wish you'd brought your lightsaber. We could've cut a shorter path." But then again, the boy was in no condition to wield it. They'd just have to make do.

Kallus led them away from Interrogation. Groggy, Ezra wasn't always able to keep up with the agent's frantic pace, and tripped often, slowing them both down. He lurched back upright each time, determinedly, even though the hallway rocked dizzily around his pounding head and his vision and hearing blurred in and out. His thoughts slogged through a thick hazy mire. There was something pulling at the back of his mind. Something... important. Ezra felt so certain he had something he needed to tell Kallus...

The agent pulled them back, sharply. He flattened them to the wall, holding in a breath as a pair of Stormtroopers trotted down the intersecting hallway.

They're heading for the aft turbolifts. Tube three was on Level Five. Thirty seconds to call it to this floor, then allow ten to fifteen seconds for them to board, Kallus calculated in his head.

He started counting, waiting for the Stormtroopers to be gone before he risked sprinting them towards the lifts.

Ten... eleven... twelve...

Ezra's fingers were pinching the corner of Kallus's breastplate armor, tugging insistently. Kallus ignored it.

Twenty-three... twenty-four... twenty-five..

"Kallus..." Ezra slurred.

"Not now, Ezra," Kallus hissed. Thirty-seven... thirty-eight... He pushed off from the wall and started moving them towards the lifts, gripping Ezra's arm tighter to keep a better hold of him. The boy's head drooped towards his chest, his feet leaden and sliding. His voice was barely a mumble.

"...put s'mthing... 'side me..."

That got Kallus's attention.

"What?" Kallus stopped dead in his tracks, alarm bells in his head, swinging Ezra around to face him. "What was it? What did they put inside you?" he asked. He was already scanning down the boy with his eyes, looking for anything unusual. He quickly spotted the long rip, too clean and precise, in Ezra's shirt. His fingers found the gash, felt underneath. His breath hitched, the ringing alarms in his head growing louder as he uncovered the wide, stitched-up surgical cut, running straight across Ezra's abdomen.

That's not from the interrogation, came the horrible realization.

Kallus gripped the boy's shoulders tightly, raising his eyes to Ezra's face.

"Ezra—" he called. Ezra's head started to fall forward, and Kallus turned his face to make him look back up. "Ezra, look at me! You have to concentrate! What did they put inside you?" he asked urgently, shaking him by the shoulders.

Ezra squinted in confusion, racking his brain. Trying to bring up the dull memory he had of the surgical blade and the hands poking under his skin. Pushing something in.

Dazed, he whispered all he could remember.

"...metal..."

Adrenaline kicked into overdrive for Kallus. He slung Ezra's arm over his shoulder once more and didn't wait for the boy to get his feet under him, pulling them both to the corridor in front of the turbolifts and pounding the button.

"That's not good," he said. As soon as the door opened he bustled them inside, casting worried glances at Ezra every few steps.

He pulled out his blaster. Four levels down, left turn, sharp right to bypass a guard station, a long hallway and then left again and he'd be at the hanger bay. If he was lucky, there were only about three patrols in his path. And an untold number of things that could go wrong.

The door opened and Kallus shot the man waiting outside before he'd even had time to cry out.

No time to waste. It was a long way still to the hanger, he could only shoot one-handed, and he had to keep Ezra off his feet as much as possible, so as not to aggravate his wound.

If they survived this, he was going to gray early, he just knew it.

***

Chopper rolled back and forth, swiveling every few paces, the droid equivalent of pacing. Alarms sounded dully through the ceiling above them, and muffled footsteps rattled down the hallways. His manipulators were itching to plug back into an outlet somewhere, get some kind of idea what was going on, but ever since disconnecting from the security system and leaving the guard room their eyes had been dark.

By his calculations, Agent Kallus was about five minutes late.

He beeped out his worry to AP-5.

"Bridger's condition may be slowing him down. He's still within the margin of error. Give him a little more time." AP-5's flat monotone sounded just a tad shriller, more anxious. Chopper was glad to know he wasn't the only one concerned.

Six minutes.

Chopper was about ready to find the nearest data port and demand an answer from the Chimera's computers, irregardless of how many alerts that sent out, when his sensors picked up the approaching footsteps.

He jerked around so fast his wheel skidded.

Kallus was rounding the corner, practically carrying Ezra as they rushed along. Chopper gave a worried noise as he rolled to meet them.

"What took you?" AP-5 asked, ambling along after Chopper.

Kallus grunted, leaning Ezra against the wall for a moment, setting him down gently. "We ran into some problems," he summarized, shedding the last pieces of the white outer shell of the Stormtrooper armor—which he'd already halfway taken off, trying to lighten their weight so they could move faster.

Once disposed of the armor, he reached down and raised Ezra's arm up, pulling it back over his shoulder, tugging him back up. Ezra moaned softly in protest, but didn't resist, his legs weak as he stood on them. Kallus swung around to face the C1 unit.

"Chopper, I need you to scan Bridger for foreign objects," he ordered.

Chopper grunted in surprise, but complied. After a moment or two he clicked, holographic display turning on, beaming out a wire-frame image of a small, cylindrical device.

Kallus thought several choice curse words, hissing aloud only Zeb Orrelios's favorite, "Karabast." His mouth twisted. "I was afraid of that," he said, shaking his head.

"What is that?" asked AP-5, recoiling.

"I'm not sure," Kallus replied. "But it resembles an incendiary device."

"Oh. Lovely," the inventory droid remarked flatly. "So what is the plan?"

The agent glanced towards the hanger door. "There should be two shuttles already docked. It's twenty meters to either one, a thirty-second dash if we're quick." He glanced at Ezra. "More realistically it will be fifty seconds. We'll make for the one on the left. Input the coordinates to the waypoint as soon as we're in." He sighed. "And if we're lucky, whatever they put in Ezra's stomach won't explode."

He motioned forward.

Silently, the trio struck for the hanger door, which opened almost soundlessly for them. Kallus was already scanning all around the room with his eyes, eyes and ears keened for signs of trouble.

Problem the first, there was a third shuttle just coming in for a landing directly ahead. Its ramp was already extending. Kallus hissed through his teeth, steering them towards the edge of the room.

"Stop!"

Problem the second. That was Governor Pryce's voice, right behind them.

Kallus doubled pace, trying to get them behind cover. Blaster fire singed his hair and he was forced to drop Ezra, turn and crouch to put both hands on his sidearm and return fire.

The trooper next to Pryce dropped backwards. The others came on, four of them at least, and further down the hall he could see several more. So his first few shots were aimed at the door controls.

The panel blew out in a shower of sparks, sealing the doors shut behind Pryce and her entourage.

That won't hold them forever, he knew. He tried to reach for Ezra, but a rapid burst of blaster bolts forced him to dive around behind a supply crate.

He popped up, firing and felling another trooper. "AP, get Ezra out of here!" he shouted.

But the inventory droid was cut off too, flailing awkwardly out in the open, only avoiding being hit because he wasn't the Stormtroopers' target.

Where had Chopper gotten to?

Kallus spotted him, charging Pryce with his electro prod extended.

"What are you doing?!" he yelled at the astromech in frustration.

Pryce glared at the droid, leaning back and swiftly side-kicking Chopper in his barrel chest before he reached her. Chopper squawked, teetering and skidding, trying to slow his momentum.

Kallus grit his teeth, pressing his back to the supply crate. Blaster bolts pounded into his shelter, and hot sparks dropped across his shoulders. He looked over the edge.

AP had been driven behind the nearest docked TIE fighter by the firefight. Ezra hadn't moved from where he'd fallen. Pryce was yelling into her comlink for reinforcements. Loud thumps were coming from behind the locked hanger door. And there were two more troopers on the ramp of the recently-docked shuttle.

Wonderful.

There was a clattering sound as Pryce threw her comlink, apparently discovering the ship's lack of comm radio. Furious, she grabbed up a fallen blaster and joined the fray herself, pressing in with her two guards beside her.

Shots ripped through the crate, puncturing out the other side. Kallus scrambled away, fingers scratching at the floor to find enough purchase to get up.

Flushed from his cover, with the troopers rushing him, Kallus went on the offensive instead of remaining a sitting womp rat. He threw himself into the trio's midst, swinging for Pryce first.

She ducked under his fist and nailed him in the gut. Kallus felt the breath leave him and he stumbled back, holding his stomach.

Damn... He'd forgotten how strong she was.

The troopers had hold of him in moments, but Kallus twisted out of one's grip, slashed his arm in a hard chop to the man's neck. He went down, and Kallus turned his attention to the remaining guard.

He had to hurry; the other two from the shuttle were rushing across the room towards them, and the hanger door was starting to burn down the center from an electrosaw. Kallus could see Chopper and AP-5 teaming up to shove a large crate in front of it and block the opening.

He grappled with the Stormtrooper, jabbing sharply at the man's shins, knees, stomach, acutely aware all the while that Pryce wasn't fighting him and was heading for—

Ezra turned his head with a groan. The firefight was dull cacophony in his muted, ringing ears, sounds blurring together in an incoherent mess. His whole body ached, heavy and sluggish when he moved. He blinked up from where he lay, struggling to focus his eyes.

There was a dark shape in the center of his vision and he stiffened, the breath catching in his throat as he registered short-cropped black hair and ice blue eyes burning from a woman in Imperial gray.

Ezra's heels kicked weakly, his palms and elbows scraped against the floor as he tried to move, tried to scramble backwards away from her. His limbs were like straws, unresponsive, no strength in them. Ezra fought the mud in his brain and the drugs in his system as she closed in, heaving up his torso with a burst of effort, swinging an arm around, turning himself over. His arm reached out pitifully as he tried to drag himself forward.

"Nnngggghh..." he groaned, the movement igniting painful fire in his gut.

It was a futile attempt. Pryce swooped in like a predator hawk, seizing his hair by the roots and dragging him up.

"A-Aaah!" Ezra cried.

Kallus's head whipped around at the sound, dismay on his features. He slammed the Stormtrooper in the chest with his shoulder, knocking him to the floor, kicking him square in the helmet to keep him down, reaching out a hand as Pryce jabbed the barrel of her blaster into Ezra's neck.

"Stop, stop!" he yelled.

Pryce froze with a look of smug satisfaction on her face, Ezra squirming weakly in her grip.

"Don't..." Kallus said, breathing hard. He couldn't believe he was about to plead with Pryce. "...don't hurt him."

"My..." Pryce said, as the troopers from the shuttle came up to flank her from behind, "... we have gotten sentimental, haven't we?"

Kallus dropped his arms in defeat. He didn't voice his other fear—that the device in Ezra's stomach might be sensitive enough to—

"It was a valiant attempt, Agent Kallus," Pryce interrupted his thoughts. "But your escape ends now." Her fingers tightened in Ezra's hair, twisting, making him wince. "You are going right back to Interrogation," she hissed in the boy's ear.

A stun bolt suddenly hit her from behind, square in her back. Pryce's eyes widened in shock, her body stiffening, tilting as she fell senseless.

Kallus rushed forward to catch Ezra, looking at the Stormtrooper who'd fired the stun shot in bewilderment.

The trooper removed his helmet, revealing a bearded face with scarred eyes, and Kallus's relief could have powered a starfighter.

"Jarrus..." he breathed.

---

Chapter notes!

1. Kallus used the Persuasion Check "make Ezra out to be as innocent and helpless as possible". I mean, it would definitely work on me, so...

2. I always kind of appreciated the fact that just because Kallus switched sides he still wasn't a very nice character. He was still coldly calculating and manipulative and brutal. Hard to unlearn all his Imperial ways right off the bat. So some casual Stormtrooper murder because Kallus is ruthlessly effective like that.

3. ...Probably actually why Chopper likes him so much.

4. The tapestry myth Thrawn muses on is made up, but I tried to make it sound like something that could come out of Greek myth, a la the Gordian Knot, or Theseus in the labyrinth. The Chimera is also a creature from Greek myth. So yes, the parallels are deliberate.

5. Do not threaten Space Dad's kids. It will not end well.

Chapter Four is in the works, as I said, and will be finished soon.

#star wars #star wars rebels #spoilers #ezra bridger #agent kallus #grand admiral thrawn #prompt fics #fanfiction

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