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memoirofasparklemuff1n · 2 months ago

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I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

AN OBX SMAU

synopsis: the summer after graduating highschool was the dream. after years of tedious hours at school and of nonsensical drama, you are finally an adult, but most importantly? free. or so you thought. after a tragic incident the night of midsummers, the four of you decided to never, ever speak of it again. everything was going to be okay because only those present that night knew the truth, right?

pairing: exbf!jj x kook!reader; rafe x kook!reader

cw: guys, it’s a slasher story so gore comes without saying. if you’re not comfortable with that then don’t read, i totally understand.

a/n: this is shit, i’m sorry. i know it’s a bit long but it’s only because i don’t think i could have made it as clear as possible as to what happened the summer before the story unfolds. i don’t think there will be as much writing as in this one because in a situation like this you wouldn’t use your phone, honestly. *english isn’t my first language so sorry for any mistakes. not proofread.

prologue:

midsummers soirée, june 21, 2024.

you saw a flash of car lights coming up to where you and jj were standing hand in hand. the gravel crunched under the tires of topper's porsche, sarah rolling the window down with a smile.

"c'mon! we have to get out before my dad sees me leaving," urgency flooded her tone, her frantic waves adding to her worry.

you rolled your eyes but pulled jj alongside you, quickly climbing into the car and settling in the dark interior that smelled of leather, mint, and expensive cologne.

"about time," topper quickly pressed on the accelerator, causing your boyfriend to crash into you as the car jerked forward.

"hey!" you complained but jj didn't move, intead tugged you to his side in a firm embrace with a chuckle. you sighed and rested your head on his shoulder. he moved his thumb on your arm with a soothing rhythm before pressing his lips against the top of your head. you tilted your head up, meeting his gaze with a small smile.

"hi." he muttered. his eyes glowed under the faint light of the car radio. jj lifted his right hand and traced your cheek with a feather light touch. your heart thumped faster, the butterflies in your stomach colliding against one another.

"hi." your eyes fell to his lips that looked incredibly kissable at the moment but when he leaned in topper turned on the radio, the weeknd blaring through the speakers, causing you to jump and break apart.

"topper!" you chastised, "are you deaf?"

topper met your gaze through the rearview mirror, and put his hand around his ear with a "huh?" you glared and flipped him off causing sarah to chuckle at the interaction. she leaned forward a bit and lowered the volume.

you threw her an appreciative look, "thanks sar." she blew you a kiss before turning off the ac and lowering the windows of the car to lean backwards out the window.

"sarah!" topper yelled. "be careful!" he reached for her but she pushed his hand away and yelled over the music and wind "i'm fine! just keep driving."

sarah called over to you, "can you take a picture of me? i want to post it on instagram."

you nodded, untangling yourself from jj causing him to grunt annoyed. you ignored him and lowered your window to lean out as well.

you quickly took sarah's picture, which turned out like it was pulled straight out of a magazine. but then again she was a model so, no surprise there. you couldn't help but feel a small pang of envy. you knew you were pretty but that didn't stop you from feeling a little insecure around sarah cameron. after all, she was the kook princess, daughter of the kook king, ward cameron.

you quickly pushed the thought away because sarah was your best friend, hell, she was your sister in the ways that mattered. guilt flooded your stomach but the butterflies burned away the feeling as soon as jj pulled you onto his lap and began pressing kisses all over your face, your giggles drowned by the music.

"jj! stop, it tickles," your efforts to push him off were weak, and he knew that.

"omg jj, leave her alone. i can't with her annoying voice," topper stated. jj opened his mouth to tell him off but he didn't need to.

you smacked the back of topper's head, "ow!"

"shut the fuck up, topper." you rolled your eyes with a huff as you accomodated back into your seat. "envy doesn't suit you."

he flipped you off and your voices raised over the music, chaos erupting in the car. all your bitter sentiments towards each other brimming to the surface. the road ahead was dark, the waves crashing down below the cliff at your right blocked looming as a dark omen.

insults started spewing between you and topper, sarah and jj trying to control the situation without success.

topper turned towards you in his seat, taking his eyes off the road.

"my god, you never shut the fuck up. i cannot stand you, all you ever do is complain! you're such a spoiled brat!"

"oh, i complain? last time i heard, you are the one that can't stop whining because your girlfriend won't have sex with you." shit. you realized the mistake you had just made but it was too late. the damage was done.

the boy's face contorted with shame that quickly turned into rage, "listen here you little—"

"WATCH OUT" sarah shrieked causing topper to face the road and swerve to the right before slamming the brakes, causing you to fly across the seat and slam your head against the windshield.

sarah screamed your name and jj quickly grabbed you by the waist, pulling you to the back with him. your vision was blurry with tears from the pain beating your head.

"hey, hey, look at me," jj's voice was shaking with fear and something else you couldn't quite point out. he inspected your forehead, causing you to wince as his fingertips brushed the hair out of your forehead.

you touched your forehead where it hurt most, your fingers meeting a warm, wet substance. your fingers were coated with it. red. blood.

you were dizzy but the pain subsided as the adrenaline pumped through your veins. you turned to your friends, only to be met with two expressions of horror. they weren't looking at you, though. their stares were directed to the body sprawled on the pavement. their legs were contorted in an unnatural position.

"no. no no no no." you shook your head frantically.

this can't be. i'm imagining it.

you reached for the door handle and opened the door, tripping on your dress as you got out, causing you to fall onto the road on your hands and knees.

"y/n!" jj quickly got out after you and helped you up, before turning to the gruesome sight in front of you.

topper was still sitting with a hollow expression, while sarah was crying silently. you stumbled towards the body in fear, because they couldn't possibly be dead. this only happened in movies and horror stories. not in real life. they were just badly injured. yes. exactly. everything was ok.

you heard your name being called behind you but you ignored them as you kneeled beside the body. the man. it was a human being laying on the pavement.

get your shit together.

you saw shoes to your side and you looked up to see jj breathing heavily and topper came up beside him a beat later.

sarah was getting out of the car, her dress tangling with her legs causing her to stumble over to you.

"i-is he?" she didn't finish the sentence but we all understood.

he wasn't breathing, that much you realized. yet you couldn't bring yourself to find a pulse, because as long as you didn't, you could convince yourself he was still alive.

"check for a pulse." topper looked at you with a frown.

"why me? you're the one that hit him." his nostrils flared at your comment and he came up to your side, grabbing your hair to push your face against the corpse man.

"hey!" jj grabbed topper and peeled him off of you, causing him to fall to the ground with a groan. "touch her again and i will kill you."

jj stood above him with a murderous expression before kicking topper on the leg and turning back to you. his expression softened, "i'll check, alright?" you nodded as you stood up and hugged sarah, who had since stopped crying but still looked extremely and utterly terrified.

your boyfriend looked queasy but he pushed through, pressing his fingers to the man's neck. he froze.

he muttered something that you couldn't quite make out but he then repeated it louder.

"he's dead." his gaze turned empty and he quickly got up, stepping as far away from the body as possible.

sarah began crying all over again and you felt yourself begin to hyperventilate at the thought of you being the cause another human being had died.

"we have to call the police, maybe they can still do something."

"are you insane? they'll never believe us!"

you turned to topper with a glare, "believe what? that your ego got so wounded you took your eyes off the road and killed someone?!"

he pointed at you, "shut the fuck up! this is all your fault too. if you hadn't hit me, we wouldn't be here in the first place!"

"if you weren't such an asshole, you wouldn't have said the things you said!"

"ENOUGH!" you all turned to sarah, never having heard her so mad.

"we have to call the police," she said with a surprisingly calm expression. a stark contrast to her state a few moments ago.

"no, we can't." this time it didn't come from your best friend's asshole of a boyfriend. instead, those words came out of yours.

"what?" disbelief colored your tone. "jj. you can't be serious. if we don't call the police we will get in a lot of trouble."

"if we do, we will get in a lot of trouble." jj stepped towards you with his hands up, as if approaching a wild animal.

"you guys could probably make it out fine, but i can't. i'm a pogue. i don't have the money nor the connections you guys have. even if by some miracle we made it out unscathed, everyone on the island would know." your mouth hung open in shock, no words coming out.

"he's right. my dad is gonna be pissed enough as it is. my car is ruined, you know how much a panamera costs? i haven’t even had it for a year!” topper starts pacing and running his hands through his hair, a crazed look taking over. “this is gonna cost me a fortune to fix. and i could get kicked out of duke. i have too much to lose.”

ice ran through your veins, you stared in silence at your friends. you slowly began to step back before you hightailed it towards the car. you only made it a few steps because of your stupid heels, causing topper and jj to reach you in no time. the latter grabbed you from behind and covered your mouth with his hand before carrying you back to where sarah was still standing.

jj put you down but held you firmly as he turned you to face him. you didn’t recognize him, the boy you loved was gone. something else took over his form, something you had seen only once before in another life. maybe you could bring him back.

“jj, please. you weren’t driving, i can get you out. it was an accident!” your words fell on deaf ears, but you still hoped that it was just the initial fear.

“baby, they’ll never believe that. they would pin it on me no matter who takes the fall. i-i can’t have this on my record. you know that. please, baby. i could end up in jail for at least five years. my life would be ruined.” he searched your eyes for signs of you giving up and he found it; you were cracking.

he was right, you could get out fine but not him. if anything it was your fault he was in this situation. this wasn’t his world, it was yours.

you closed your eyes and took a deep breath.

“ok.” his eyes widened in shock, as if he couldn’t believe his ears.

“finally you say something smart.” topper’s obnoxious voice seeped through the night air and into your ears.

you turn your head slowly, “i’m not doing this for you.”

he rolled his eyes, “regardless.” he places his hands on his hips and stares at the body. “we have to leave. now.”

sarah snaps out of her trance, “are you for real? our dna is all over him, plus your car is covered in his blood.”

you can’t believe what you’re about to say, “we have to hide the body.”

jj squeezes his eyes shut, “yeah, we do.”

topper nods to himself before stepping by the head of the corpse. “jj, help me.”

your boyfriend hesitates before nodding as well. he steps towards the feet of the man. they look at each for a moment before crouching down and lifting the body.

“sarah, open the trunk.” you’re still frozen, wondering if this was the right thing to do.

you open your mouth but nothing comes out as sarah hurried to the back of the car.

a large blood stain marked the space where the body had laid. a loud thunder sounded, causing you to jump. rain.

all traces of what happened here would be gone by morning and it will be as if nothing happened.

you heard sarah calling your name and you stared at the crime scene for one last time before running into the car.

as soon as you climbed in you sat as far away from jj as possible. he tried to take your hand but you jerked away, the hurt look on his face almost made you cave.

the car ride was silent but full of tension. sarah was staring straight ahead, jj was looking out the window while topper drove with a clenched jaw a firm grip on the wheel.

suddenly, red and blue lights filled the car your heart beginning to beat frantically.

topper swore and sarah began rambling over how you would get caught. jj and you simply stared at one another in fear but it was all in vain because the lights soon disappeared and only the ghost of your crime loomed over.

after an eternity, you reached the docks. topper gripped the wheel so hard, his knuckles were white. sarah looked ahead before nodding to herself as if trying to convince herself that this was the right thing to do before opening the door and shutting it behind her.

topper made a gesture with his head, “c’mon, j.” he nodded and got out as well leaving you alone in the car.

you took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself down before opening the door to get to the others.

topper and jj had gotten the body out of the car, sarah close behind. you closed the trunk and ran after them. you looked around to make sure nobody was around but because of the hour you doubted anyone was.

topper’s speed boat was a bit far, the boys clearly struggling with the dead weight.

you saw a light flash in the dark out of the corner of your eye. you turned and saw a security guard about fifteen feet away.

“guys!” you hissed. the looked at you and then at where you were pointing.

“oh my god!” sarah exclaimed.

“what do we do?” topper asked in panic. if the situation weren’t so serious you would’ve laughed.

you looked around but there was nowhere to hide. you were screwed.

think think think.

bingo. “ok. sarah and i will distract him and you guys pretend he’s a drunk friend or something.”

“that’s your brilliant plan?” why was he such a pain in the ass?

you narrowed your eyes at topper, “you got anything better, einstein?”

”guys, stop. let’s just do that,” jj sighed, tired of our arguing. topper rolled his eyes but complied.

“c’mon sarah,” you grabbed her hand and began walking towards the guard. he hadn’t seen you yet but once he did he ogled at the two of you. disgust colored your face but you quickly masked it once he was close enough to talk.

sarah put on a bright smile and you thanked your few lucky stars that your best friend was the prettiest girl on the outer banks. and that despite a bit of her makeup being a bit messy from all the crying she still looked good.

“hi, officer! we were wondering if you have seen a short red headed girl around. she’s one of our friends and she asked us to meet her here.”

the security guard scanned her face before responding. “uh no i haven’t seen her but i could help you find her if you want.” you recognized him from the cut, his name was doug or dan or something like that.

you turned to see if the boys had made it to the boat, but they were still a few feet away. thankfully the boat was further away from you than you had anticipated. you could barely make out their figures in the dark.

“really? thank you so much, i’m so sorry to bother with this.” sarah touched his arm and he blushed a little at the gesture. men.

“it’s not a bother really, i’m happy to help.” your phone buzzed with a call. jj. you answered, “yeah?”

“you can come back now,” he said.

“oh great! we’ll see you there then, jess. bye,” you hung up and tried your best to put on a happy smile.

“she said she was on the other side,” you laughed. “but thank you so much for your help!”

you pulled sarah away without waiting for a response from the guard, leaving him with a confused expression. you quickly ran to the boat or much as your heels allowed, before helping sarah in, climbing after her.

jj steadied you when you wobbled under the rumbling boat, before pulling you down to sit with him. you wanted to pull away but didn't because as much as you were angry, you weren’t strong enough to face this on your own.

the night was quiet, the stars lighting a path for topper as he went as deep into the ocean as he could. once he found a spot that he thought was good enough, he turned off the engine. the only sound were the waves lapping against the sides of the boat.

you all looked at each other to confirm that we were really doing this.

“the fish will eat away at his body by the time they find him, if they find him. there won’t be any evidence,” jj’s quiet voice filled the silence.

topper sniffed, “good. ok, let’s do this.” he got up and grabbed the man by the shoulders while jj settled by his feet.

“wait,” your voice shattered the silence. they all looked at you in exasperation.

“shouldn’t we check to see if he has an id? that way we could know who he was.”

topper jerked his head in your direction, “what? are you crazy? no!”

“i agree with topper, it’s better if we don’t.” sarah looked at you apologetically but with no sign of taking her words back.

you looked at your boyfriend but he wasn’t looking at you. that was all the answer you needed.

you sighed and crossed your arms, “fine.”

“ok, on the count of three, top.”

he nodded at jj, before they both lifted him and threw the body overboard. a loud splash sounded in the night, bubbles bursting through the surface as the corpse sank to the bottom of the ocean.

silence came once again, all of you coming to terms with what you had done. topper turned the boat on and sailed back to the docks.

“we will never, under any circumstances speak about this again.” topper looked at the three of you.

“is that clear?” none of you responded.

“we need to swear that we will take it with us to the grave.” he grabbed sarah by her chin, “swear it.”

she nodded, “i swear i’ll take to my grave.” a beat passed before he let her go, turning towards jj.

he took a deep breath, “i swear it.”

topper nodded before turning to you. “do you swear you’ll never speak about this again?”

you nodded, not trusting your words. that clearly displeased him, “don’t nod. say it.”

you sat in silence before speaking, “ok.”

he sighed in frustration before going up to you and wrapping a hand around your throat, “not ‘ok.’ not a yes. i need you to say that you swear that you will take it to your grave.”

his breath smelled a bit like alcohol, realization dawning on you as to why he had such a short fuse tonight. you were fucked.

you looked at him in defiance but complied, “i swear that i will take it with me to the grave.”

his jaw clenched before he nodded, letting you go with a shove which caused you to jerk backwards. jj reached for you but you moved away from his touch.

if there was something that became clear that night, it was that life would never be the same.

what was supposed to be a grand summer became a bleak utter nightmare. one that would only stop once you were dead.

—

i feel like this was bad lol but hopefully i make it better 🙂‍↕️

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youkissedareaderinthedark · 2 years ago

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The Scare

Synopsis: A terrifying crash puts Y/n in an even more terrifying situation, and it affects everyone, in the end.

young female driver x 2023 F1 Grid

A/N: for this one, valtteri is retired and reader has taken his seat at alfa romeo

also, @badassturtle13 you requested a fic like this a month or two ago while i was in my writers block-era, but if you remember your ask and would still like to read it, here it is

You knew the risk. All twenty of you did. That’s how yet got into these cars every weekend. But that doesn’t make it any easier when you actually face the risks.

You weren’t the biggest fan of the Las Vegas Grand Prix from the start. You knew the planning for it was rough, and that there were a lot of elements of the weekend that everybody was unsure of.

You weren’t exactly surprised when the reasoning behind the storm drain incident was released after Free Practice 1, or when race directors revealed they didn’t even look at the predicted weather for this weekend.

But there wasn’t much you could do about either, about any of it really, so you put your head down and focused on your car.

You joined Alfa Romeo as the third rookie of the 2023 season, and although you and Zhou weren’t getting wins and podiums each weekend, you finished in the points nearly every race, and helped bring your team up to 8th in the Constructors Championship.

As of the second to last race, you were having a good first season; you and Zhou got along great, your team trusted you, and you liked getting to know and hanging out with the rest of the grid. Specifically, your closest friends Logan and Oscar, who you were walking with in the paddock before Sunday’s race.

“Is it bad that I’m not excited for the race?” Oscar asks from the middle of you three, as you walk down the grid.

“I don’t blame you, I wouldn’t want to start P17 either” You admit.

“You’re gonna be fine Oscar, you’ve made your way up the field before, you’ll do it again” Logan shrugs, assuring him.

Oscar nods as you speak up with the beginning of a smirk on your face. “When you make it up the field and into the points, along with me and Logan, what are we doing to celebrate?”

“No. No, we have-” Oscar’s already shaking his head as Logan laughs. “I know some of the grid is going to a club a few blocks away, you guys wanna go?”

“Yes,” You rush to say after you see Oscar start to protest. “we’ll go. No objections”

“We have flights tomorrow-” You interrupt the Australian. “I don’t care, we should all go. And I have to leave now so you can’t say no” You point out as you near the Alfa Romeo garage. Oscar rolls his eyes playfully as Logan continues to laugh.

“Good luck Y/n, see you after the race” Logan says, still chuckling as Oscar waves and continues down the paddock with the American by his side.

You greet Zhou as you walk towards your drivers room to meet with your trainer. The last 20 minutes you have before you’re needed on the track is spent doing reflex tests and speaking with the strategists one last time.

You leave the garage to stand for the national anthem after a brief Grid Walk interview with Martin, and quickly return for the formation lap.

“Alright Y/n,” Your team principle, Alessandro, comes over your radio as you’re pulling out into the pit lane. “do your best to maintain P7 or higher, just be aware of the tires. Stay safe, good luck”

“Thanks, will do. See you at the finish line” You reply before flipping down your visor and accelerating onto the track.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a cold night here in Las Vegas, but the city is awake and ready to watch the last U.S race of the 2023 season. Our drivers are approaching the starting line, the five lights are coming on, and it’s light’s out and away we go!”

You manage to pull away from Magnussen behind you and advance closer to Logan in front of you as you near Turn 1. You get through the first and second lap fine, until your race engineers Alex, informs you that Lando’s crashed during Lap 3, and the 19 drivers remaining are being led by the safety car until Lap 7.

You think your race will be uneventful past that point until you notice the reluctance in the car’s breaking during Lap 19. “There’s something wrong with my brakes, it’s getting hard to slow down” You radio concerned, back to your team.

“Stand by Y/n, we’re checking” Alex tells you as you approach Turn 1 on the next lap. After a few moments without an update, you radio again.

“Anything? It’s getting bad, I can’t slow down” Your voice shows your clear concern. It’s clear to everyone that you’re getting more and more distressed each minute.

“One moment, Y/n, we’re trying” The engineer becomes audible again, and you get that everyone in the garage is trying, but right now it’s not enough.

You’re going at 150 miles an hour down the straight after Turn 4, and you could practically hear your heart beating nervously as you approach Turn 6.

You press on the brake pedal. Nothing. You try to release your hold on the accelerator pedal and clutch on your steering wheel. Nothing.

You go through the options in your head;

Turn and crash purposefully now to slow your car down? There are drivers less than a second behind you, the straight isn’t that wide, they could get hurt.

Turn and hit the curb as you pass the corner to slow down? There are drivers less than a second behind you, the corner isn’t that wide, they could get hurt. You could get hurt

Your adrenaline is pumping, thoughts are flying through your head at a million miles per second, and you don’t know what to do.

You’re going 150 miles an hour down a straight, but now the corner is coming closer.

“I can’t fucking stop! Alex!” You’re pressing the radio button frantically, hoping someone, anyone responds.

Nothing.

It all goes by in a flash.

Turn 6 comes at you faster than you imagined. Your Alfa Romeo crashes front-wing first into the barriers, the momentum of a 150 mile-per-hour car so strong, not even your harness can stop your body from colliding into your steering wheel.

Everything goes white for a moment, all you could hear is a deafening ringing in your ears, and then the only thing you could feel is pain.

The hurt in your chest is intolerable. You think you’re screaming. There’s smoke or clouds of dust or something else you can’t begin to decipher in the air surrounding you. You could feel the vibrations of the track from the passing cars below you, but you don’t bother to move your head up from where it rests on top of your wheel.

If the ringing wasn’t so loud, you might’ve been able to hear three of your ribs on the right side of your chest break when you first made impact with the wheel. If the pain wasn’t so unbearable, you might’ve been able to notice how because three of your ribs on the right side of your chest are broken, your lungs can barely produce oxygen for you to breathe.

It’s only when you try to gasp for air against the tears running down your face do you notice. The second you try, it sends streaks of pain overflowing throughout your body. Then you realize. You can’t breathe.

You want to stay calm, you really do, but you’re crying so much you could feel them soaking your balaclava, you’re scared to the point that your hands are shaking uncontrollably, there’s still so much adrenaline in you, and you can’t breathe.

You try to radio your team to tell them to send medics or just do something to help, but when you open your mouth to speak, the same thing happens as when you tried to radio for help earlier.

Nothing.

You’re stuck in your crashed car, without a voice, without a breath, and you think this is it.

It feels like hours, but really, it’s only been about a minute since you’ve crashed. Every grand stand is silent, and Martin Brundle and David Croft are speechless. Alex is trying to communicate with you while the other engineers attempt to figure out the the state of your car. Drivers are being led by the safety car under a red flag, anxiously talking to their own engineers to find out if you’re okay. And finally, the safety marshals and medical staff have made their way onto the track and to your car.

The marshals repeatedly shout to you for a sign of responsiveness while the medics move to pull you out of the car. Everyone else is either running in and out of the ambulance that’s just arrived, or helping place a curtain around you for privacy.

The medics transfer you onto a gurney on the ground while the lead medic assess you. She’s pulled off your helmet and balaclava and is left staring at your pale face, alarmed eyes, and gasping mouth.

A few touches to your pulse and lungs confirm her suspicion, and the woman quickly asserts her team. “She has flail chest, she needs an oxygen machine and an IV for pain meds. Her ribs are broken on the right side of her lungs, she’s been barely breathing”

The materials asked for are provided in seconds, and within a few moments, an oxygen mask is placed around your face, and the skin in your left forearm is being pierced with a needle.

For the first time since you started Lap 19, you’ve found both your voice and your breath, the pain striking through your body isn’t as severe anymore, and your nerves have calmed down.

The lead medic hovering over you notices your less-tense state, and lets out her own breath. “You okay kid?” With an oxygen mask, 3 broken ribs, and an IV in your arm, you nod with small smile of relief on your face.

The medics let you stay laying down on the gurney, and transfer you into the waiting ambulance to get you to the nearest hospital. The safety marshals update the Alfa Romeo garage on your state of health, and your damaged car gets moved off the track. Once informed themselves of the situation, Crofty and Martin advise the anxious and waiting fans of your condition and when the race will resume.

The 18 drivers that were restlessly sat in their garages are now visibly relieved and preparing for the race start. The engineers on your side of the garage are pouring over the data from Lap 19 to figure out where it all went wrong, while your trainer leaves to go meet you at the hospital.

While you’re in the hospital, you get hooked up to a new IV and get assessed by a nurse before a doctor comes in to take your X-rays. The results show your 3 broken ribs and the few bruises on your lungs that are set to heal within a week or two.

You’re put on a ventilator to help your breathing after the doctor tells you that you had to stay in the hospital for at least 3 days, and you’d miss the last race of the season as a precaution.

You also undergo surgery hours later to stabilize the broken ribs, and ensure you’re not internally bleeding. Because of all the anesthesia and pain medicine, your either asleep or painless for your first night in the hospital.

The next day is when you’re brought into the real world again, and your trainer tells you everything you missed. He tells you Lando, who you learn was in the room a few doors down when you came in, visited you after your surgery and wished you to get better soon. He tells you about the rest of the race and everything the rest of the drivers have said about you and your crash.

You talk to your team eventually and convince them to let you travel to Abu Dhabi on Saturday to at least watch the race from the garage. You talk to your parents and friends to inform them that your lungs are healing accordingly, that you’re off the ventilator, and have been breathing fine by Thursday.

You’re discharged from the hospital Friday night, and only stop at your hotel to collect your things before catching a flight to Abu Dhabi. You told Logan and Oscar you’d be arriving Sunday morning, which explains why they’re so surprised when you show up in the paddock after Qualifying Saturday night.

“It’s not the best place to start from but-” Logan spots you first, in the middle of a conversation with Oscar. “Oh my god” Is all he mutters before running up to bring you into a hug. You’re smiling, almost laughing at his reaction, until you hear what the American says.

“Don’t do that again. I thought you-” You notice his voice break, and you’re once again aware of what everyone else was feeling while you were breathless inside your car almost a week ago.

“I won’t Logan, I’m okay now” You assure him as best you can before Oscar comes over to both of you. Logan lets go momentarily while the McLaren driver hugs you.

“We were all really scared, y’know. We didn’t know,” He pauses, his voice catches before he’s speaking into your shoulder again. “we didn’t know if you were okay”

“I know Oscar, I’m here though, I’m okay” You know you can’t say much in sympathy to either of the drivers right now, you’ll never exactly know the anxiety and worry they felt on Sunday, but you do tell them about your time in the hospital and how you’re expected to make a full recovery in time for next season.

“I wish you were driving today though, you should be in your car for the last race” Oscar says as the three of you walk through the paddock together.

“I know, I want to drive too, but at the same time, I’m kind of glad I’m not driving until next season. I want to let my lungs rest and everything before I get in my car again” You say with a shrug.

You were being truthful; you weren’t afraid of crashing again, you actually couldn’t wait to drive your Alfa Romeo, but you heard all the possible long term affects of rib and lung damage, and you’d rather miss out on one race than your entire F1 career.

“I’m just glad you’re okay” Logan admits as Oscar nods.

“Yeah, me too”

a short, somewhat emotional f1 fic. 1 down, 3 to go

#reader insert #formula 1 #driver reader #f1 grid x reader #formula 1 driver imagines #platonic f1 grid #f1 2023 grid x y/n #f1 imagine #female driver reader #angst #angst with a happy ending #oscar piastri x reader #logan sargeant x reader #platonic oscar piastri #platonic logan sargeant

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sylviathejester · 8 months ago

Text

TIRED.

maybe it’s time to say goodbye, ‘cause i’m getting pretty fuckin’ tired.

PLATONIC!JOHN PRICE x TEENAGER!GN!Y/N

warnings: mentions of death, foster care (this is my first time writing about foster care, excuse me if there’s any imperfections), attempted suicide, slight swearing

author note: this is separate from the poll. please tell me if the spacing is a turn off, it’s for aesthetic purposes in this oneshot, slowing your reading like Y/N’s world momentarily stills at the thoughts.

word count: 859.

Death. You’ve been thinking about it for days on end, what does it feel like? Your foster father, Jonathan (or as everyone calls him, John), says it’s Cold. Chilling. Scary. But what if it isn’t? Some people die with a smile on their face, so perhaps it could be the same for you?

Foster family after foster family. Abusive, neglectful piece of shits who only foster for the money. You’re afraid John might be the same.

The poor man, however, actively tries to convince you he isn’t like them. He does movie nights every Saturday, he actually listens when you talk, every word you say doesn’t go unnoticed. And his efforts don’t go unnoticed by you, not at all. He’s gentle. He’s a gentle man.

But you’ve had enough.

You’re scared shitless, some families acted like they were “mental health advocates” until you showed signs of burnout, depression, and even a tinge of anger issues, that’s when they threw you away.

And you’re just at your limit with John. The mask is.. slowly.. cracking.

John’s been a sweet guy, and he does everything in his power to make you feel okay, safe, happy. But you don’t budge. But you don’t show that you’re not budging, you show him a happy person, someone you’re not. And you’re getting tired.

”Mama was a bit naïve, and her daddy was a blinded thief. He went and stole away what was left of the remains of a family. “ Another Empty Bottle by Katy McAllister plays, you forgot the last time you heard this song, but it was one of your favorites when you were younger, more innocent, unaware of the shit going on between biological Mom and Dad. Unaware of the abuse. Perhaps your soul always felt like something was wrong, and your brain caught up later.

You sit on the couch, the TV on. You briefly look at the movement, the show must be some silly romcom, how cute.

Your phone’s music and the TV served as background noise, initially done to shut away the thoughts, but they’re.. lingering..

John was out of the house, buying groceries. He tried to persuade you to tag along; “You haven’t been out the house for a couple of weeks now, Y/N. you better go out!” He said, in that sickly sweet and kind voice of his. But you insisted on staying. Being tired from staying up was your excuse, and he let you off.

You paused the music and turned off the TV, and laid down on the couch, staring at the ceiling. It wouldn’t hurt to.. at least try. If he comes back before you actually do it, you can act like you never even tried, it’d be fine.

And if you succeeded?

But wouldn’t he be upset? Sad? He’d feel like he failed you. He never did, he never will.

He’d understand, surely he will.

Suddenly, you find yourself in the kitchen, in front of the knives John kept hanging on a shelf. For some reason he leaves them out in the open.

You grab the sharpest one, or rather, the newest knife. You look at it, and your reflection stares right back, as if to plead with you to not do it, think about it.

You ignore its pleas.

You slowly place the knife right under your wrist. Your breathing’s heavy, your heartbeat’s accelerated.

Should I do it? Should I do it?

Should I-

Warmth, but not from your wrist.

Your shoulder? Is it the grim reaper paying a visit?

You look over slowly, and your stomach drops. It’s John.

You look behind him, the grocery bags are on the floor, the different things he bought scattered across the floor.

“Hey.” He speaks a little louder, which causes you to look at him. He puts two fingers under your chin, keeping it in place.

He slowly takes the knife from your hand, sliding it across the counter; away from your hands.

“Are you okay?” Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Warmth, but not from your wrist.

Your eyes? You must be going blind.

Warmth, but not from your wrist.

Throughout your body, are you in Heaven?

No, you’re in John’s arms. Maybe that’s your own, twisted little version of Heaven. Isn’t Heaven the place where you feel eternal peace? John gives you peace, albeit not as eternal as Heaven, but he’s your Heaven on Earth.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry-“ You sob into his chest. He merely shushes you, running his hand up and down your back.

It’s 11PM. You and John are on the couch, you’re holding onto him like a koala hugging a tree. It’s been silent.

“What made you want to do it?” He breaks the silence as he whispers the dreaded question.

“John, do you- will you still want me here?” You look at him.

Silence.

“Pardon?” He raises a brow.

“Will you still want me here? You won’t- give me back, right?” You look at him: expectant, hopeful.

“Of course not, Y/N.” He hugged you a little tighter. “You’re stuck with me.”

Maybe he won’t leave like the others did.

At the realization, the world felt a little brighter.

#call of duty #cod mw2 #cod #cod modern warfare #cod mwii #captain john price x reader #john price x reader #captain john price #john price #task force 141 #tf141 #SYLVIA’S WORK.#call of duty fanfic #call of duty price #cod captain price #captain price #captain price x reader #cod angst

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plainclothesdisaster · 3 months ago

Text

Red Knight Chapter 7 - Ghosting

DP x DC | Dead on Main

Jason Todd encounters one Danny Fenton in the streets of Gotham and suddenly he's thrown into a world of ghosts and monsters. Will he embrace this life? Or will it just end up with him dead again?

Read on AO3 | Beginning | < Prev | Next >

---

“Is this your new Knight?”

Deep in darkness, voices wafted through half-consciousness.

“No. I donʼt know. Heʼs… a friend.”

“Being your friend is dangerous, Great One.”

A long sigh. “Yeah. You could say that.”

“His core is severely irregular. Moreso even than yours, if I may be so bold. Healing it would require an extended stay in the Realms. At minimum.”

“I know.”

“And even then, I cannot say for certain what causes this affliction without further study.”

“I know.”

“So. Why haven’t you brought him?”

“It’s complicated.”

“This would have been a perfectly good reason.”

“I’m not about to kidnap a person to a different dimension.”

“Perhaps it would be easier if you more fully explained the situation to him?”

“It wouldn’t help. It’s bad enough he’s involved as much as he is.”

“You let your doubt guide you blindly. Have you considered that he wants to know? That he will still want to be a part of this when you show your full self? Don’t you want that as well?”

“What I want doesn’t matter.”

A soft grumble and a stretch of silence. “He nearly died. Perhaps you should have let him?”

“Whoa. Harsh.”

“No. What I mean is- a death of sorts may be needed to trigger core stability and unlock his ectoplasmic form. To reset whatever is keeping him in this state.”

“Seems… extreme.”

A warm chuckle. “When it comes to your affairs there are rarely half measures.”

“Ha ha.”

“You wish to help him, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Then help him. I trust you will know what’s right.”

A silence. Then, a sigh. “Thanks for making a house call.”

“As always, it is my honor.”

Jason, astonishingly, woke up. He blinked his eyes into focus and found himself in a place that felt comforting and homey and safe. Gentle sunlight beamed across a warm comforter. It wasn’t his apartment— it was Dannyʼs.

Danny sat at the desk next to the bed. He looked up from his computer as Jason stirred. His face was a stormcloud of relief and guilt. “Hey.” he breathed.

Then Jason remembered. His heart hammered as he pulled the bedsheets back. He put a frantic hand to his stomach to find—

Smooth skin. A still-pink scar the size of his palm.

He should be dead.

“What the hell,” he whispered.

“I brought you to your place first but your bed is half broken so-“

“How am I not dead?”

“I called in a favor.”

Jason remembered voices, but couldn’t pull any specifics from those moments of half-consciousness. He blinked, waiting for Danny to say more. He didn’t, of course. He just sat there, looking innocent and sleep deprived and disheveled. As if everyone had friends on call who could just stop certain death as a favor.

Jason moved to sit up further but Danny put out a hand in caution. “Careful— itʼs not magic. Just a boost to your accelerated healing. It’s still gonna take some more time.”

“How long was I out?”

“Day and a half maybe?”

“Maybe?”

Danny shrugged. Jason laid back into the pillows with a heavy sigh.

He felt fine. Better than fine, really. More well-rested than he’d been in ages. Absolutely zero buzz of anger in his blood.

But he remembered the curse queen's black hole eyes staring through him. Remembered the chill that had crawled up his fingertips as his blood spilled out between them. Remembered Dannyʼs overwhelming power, remembered him turning into something else, something bright and terrible.

He looked at the guy in sweats on the desk chair. He tried to make his mind reconcile the two Dannys as the same person- the scrawny kid and the force of nature. He couldnʼt do it. It didn’t make sense. His mouth tasted like ash.

“You get the queen?” He asked, gravel still in his voice.

Danny pressed his lips together. “She got away.” Tension strung tight in his voice, barely held in check. A rubber band about to snap.

Danny looked away, toward the window. It went unspoken that if Jason had been able to do anything but stand there and get skewered- hell, if he hadnʼt been there at all- the story would have had a different ending.

“Now what.” Jason said finally, looking at the ceiling instead of at Danny.

“Now you can go home. And rest. No ghost fights for at least a week.”

“You can’t bench me.” Jason snapped.

Danny glanced at him sideways. “I can and I will.”

“I’ll just go out anyway.”

“I’ll bring you back.”

Jason glared at him. Danny smiled like the little shit he was.

“Fine.”

If he was honest with himself he wasn’t exactly eager to get back out there. Dying- or coming damn near close to it- tended to put a damper on the whole crime fighting thing. He bristled at the idea of Danny getting any say in what he did or didn’t do though.

Then a different worry nagged. “You think we’ll be able to find her again?”

“Probably. I mean, it won’t be as easy as it was this time, but-“ He trailed off.

Great. Not only had Jason fucked up, he’d made it harder for them going forward. An unsaid apology tasted bitter in his mouth. What good would it do? He didn’t want Danny’s pity.

“Let me give you a ride back to your apartment, if you’re ready. We could go get a burger on the way. You gotta be hungry.”

Jason was starving, but something in him flinched at the idea. “It’s fine. I’ll just go. Iʼm still pretty tired. Gonna just go home and sleep some more.”

Danny looked like he might protest, but didn’t. “Okay. Yeah.”

Jason got up to leave. The muscles in his stomach strained a bit, but it felt stiff more than painful. He swallowed tightly. He’d only ever seen the Lazarus Pit heal wounds like this. Had that been what Danny had done? Filled him with more of that impossible green energy? He couldn’t bring himself to ask.

As he reached the door, Danny caught him with a searching look.

“Jason, I—“ Jason stopped, hand on the doorknob.

Danny’s eyes tightened, some internal debate waging behind them. In the end he let out a long breath, his momentary conviction flailing. “Just. Get some rest, okay?”

Jason nodded, tucked away his disappointment, and left.

He didn’t turn on the light in his own apartment. He went straight to the half broken bed and flopped down.

Heʼd dealt with metas before. Heʼd seen Superman and Wonder Woman fight, he knew the kind of destructive force they wielded. Danny was not like them. They didn’t make Jason’s heart want to crawl up out of his throat.

His helmet and armor were there on the armchair. Danny must have returned them while he was out. Next to them on the side table was his sword, or at least what was left of it. Just the hilt and a few inches of blade, severed at a clean angle.

He reached for it. As soon as he put his fingers to the hilt he felt the hum of familiar power came to life under his fingers. Power heʼd come to rely on. It felt like spiders in his skin.

Stupid broken sword. Why did Danny even bring it back here? He should have just left it in the warehouse to rust for all the good it could do now. He tossed it to the floor. The spider feeling stopped. It fell with an unceremonious clank.

He rolled over on his bed, the fresh scar on his midsection twinging uncomfortably as he curled up around it. This ghost stuff might just be another fight he couldn't win. After all, the clown was still breathing, and that was a mockery of everything he said he was. He couldnʼt even kill his own demons, how was he supposed to take on all of Gotham’s?

Turned out he couldnʼt. He laughed at the thought that he was ever really helping Danny. Heʼd only ever been slowing him down.

And Jason wasnʼt selfish enough anymore to insist on staying somewhere he wasn’t needed just to protect his own pride.

He shouldn’t have messaged Tim. It crossed a line, broke the careful tenuous separation he’d fought to keep between the bats and all this ghost shit. He hadn’t wanted to, really. But after the third night in a row of not sleeping, of watching the sun rise as his mind cycled through the warehouse fight on loop: a spear of shadow pierced through his gut again and again, the faceless smile of the curse queen on the back of his eyelids every time he closed his eyes—

He had stumbled out of bed and his shaking fingers typed a message before he could think better of it.

RH: Security footage of north docks warehouse 18 night of nov 10.

RR: Dude what.

Tim replied almost instantly despite it being just shy of 5 am.

RH: Can you pull the footage

RR: Not until you explain the park. And at the bank. And whatever this is.

RH: No. Can you do it?

RR: You’ve refused to talk to us for weeks and this is how you reach out?

RH: Can you do it?

RR: Why donʼt you?

RH: Reasons.

RR: If you think Iʼm going to do it with no explanation just because Iʼm curious you've got another thing coming.

Jason didn’t reply. Five minutes later his phone buzzed again.

RR: Okay fine I did it. But we have to meet up if you want to see it. Itʼs.. something.

RH: Fine.

Tim didnʼt look up from the Batcomputer when Jason entered the cave, the roar of his bike announcing his arrival.

Jason parked his bike, took off his helmet. Being back here, in the cave, it was never pleasant. He glanced at the stupid memorial display of his Robin uniform before he could stop himself, all lit up like an exhibit at a history museum. Or a crime scene.

“You could have just sent the footage.”

“Yeah.” Tim turned in his chair at the Batcomputer. He looked only slightly less tired than Jason felt, which wasn’t saying much. “But then I wouldnʼt have gotten any answers.”

Tim had unlocked the tunnel entrance. Jason realized, when he reached the second level of security, that he hadn’t needed to. He still had clearance. Bruce must have gotten lazy. Why else wouldn’t he have bothered to change the locks?

It didn’t change the fact that he regretted coming here almost as soon as he stepped foot inside. All that effort spent avoiding the Bats and here he was, delivering himself on a veritable platter. His hand hovered over the cold pit in his stomach.

He needed to know what actually happened that night. It didn’t make sense that he was still alive. Nothing with Danny made any sense. He needed someone not Danny to tell him if this was actually crazy. Someone who could be objective about it.

Dick would have codled him, told him what he wanted to hear and then blabbed it all back to Bruce. Steph would have just laughed at him, and Cass surely wouldn’t give him the time of day. Babs would have helped, but once she was in it she wouldn’t ever butt out. The demon brat was a non starter, despite his own brush with death.

Hence, Tim.

Tim took a long sip from a coffee mug as Jason leaned on the desk beside him. “So. You nearly died. Again. If you hadn’t been the one to text me, I would have assumed you did.”

“Yeah. You saw?”

“Not exactly. You should really just watch.”

Tim turned back to the computer, expanded a window, and hit play. A grainy high-angle shot of the docks filled the screen. Empty for just a moment before Danny dropped out of the shadows into frame. The picture got fuzzy around him, like a pale layer of static.

The fight went how Jason remembered it. The queen, the hounds, Danny holding back the horde of curse ghosts, Jason jumping into the fray to help.

Tim paused the video. “At first I thought maybe it was just you and this guy having the worlds shittiest duel but-“ Tim clicked a key and an infrared filter overlayed the image, clearly highlighting the ghosts as cold spots. “It’s the same as the park, isn’t it?”

Ah, right. Tim couldn’t see the ghosts, even on the footage. Jason just nodded and guestured for Tim to play the rest of the tape.

He looked at Danny. That same cold halo around the ghosts surrounded him. He looked at himself. He had it too, not as strong but still unmistakable.

The knot in Jason’s stomach wound tighter as the fight on screen went on. Tim switched to a camera inside the warehouse, following the movement of the action.

Then the rest happened quickly. The queen of the curse. The talon through his stomach. The broken sword. The blood. He gripped the spot above the fresh scar reflexively.

The light in the shot shifted, and it pulled Jasonʼs focus to Danny. The footage didnʼt show it, but Jason remembered the look of white hot fury on his face. The glow around Danny intensified until it distorted the image, casting rings of lens flare. When the image cleared it appeared that Danny himself had changed- his hair was white and whipping around in a non existent wind, a dark cape fell down from his shoulders, he looked taller, larger somehow. And there was the crown.

Jason thought maybe he imagined it, but the footage didnʼt lie- floating over

Dannyʼs head was an onyx black crown shrouded in an ethereal green flame.

Then the building exploded.

For a second his mind went white. His ears rang. He was back inside a different warehouse, as a different timer ticked down.

But this warehouse didn’t explode like that one, with fire and flames. Instead it was like it got struck by an invisible force from within, emanating from Danny as the epicenter. His mouth was open as if he were yelling. The silent image staticed and shook violently. For a minute it was only snippets of falling rubble. Then it went dark.

Tim hit a few keys and suddenly they were looking at a different angle- farther away, high above the warehouse, or at least what was left of it. As the massive cloud of dust settled, Jason’s face twisted in shock. Two thirds of the building was just /gone/. So were Jason and Danny.

Tim paused the footage. Swiveled his chair around. “So. Whoʼs your friend?”

Jason didnʼt look at him. Nothing he could say would begin to explain what they just watched.

“Has Bruce seen this?”

“Not yet. But itʼs only a matter of time till he catches wind. A suspiciously demolished warehouse wonʼt stay off his radar for long.” Tim paused. “Why have you been protecting this new meta?”

“Heʼs not a meta.”

Tim snorted. “Regular guys donʼt explode buildings with their minds.”

“I think it might have been his voice, not his mind. But either way heʼs not a meta. Heʼs like me.”

“So heʼs stubborn? Incapable of asking for help? Denser than Dickʼs attempts at baking cake?”

Jason finally looked Tim in the eyes. “Dead.”

“Oh. So… can you explode buildings with your mind now?”

Jason groaned out a sigh. “Heʼs not dangerous.”

Timʼs eyebrows shot up. Jason put up a defensive hand. “Heʼs powerful, but heʼs not causing problems. Heʼs been helping me.”

“Helping you? With what?”

Jason sighed again, pinching the bridge of nose. Explaining this made him sound like the crackpots on late night History Channel shows. But in for a penny, in for a whole supernatural pound.

“Ghosts.” He grumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“Ghosts. Weʼve been fighting ghosts.”

Tim narrowed his eyes. “Right.“

“Fucking—Donʼt look at me like- ugh. Fine.” Jason concentrated, focusing his power through Danny’s inventions, and a moment later he was hovering six inches off the ground. He folded his arms.

Timʼs jaw hung open. “Since when can you fly?”

“Since I got this new pair of socks. And itʼs more of a float, less of a fly. Itʼs a ghost power.”

“Explain.”

So Jason did. He sat down, and for the next hour he talked Tim through his last few months with Danny. Tim asked questions about why he couldnʼt see the ghosts, to which Jason had no good answer except for counting it a privilege of having died. He gave demonstrations of the ghost power tech. Even let Tim try it himself, though like Danny said, it didn’t work for him. Tim listened with steady patience, for which Jason was relieved and grateful though he wouldnʼt dare say it.

After a series of detail-gathering questions, Tim hit him with something out of left field.

“Why come to me with all this? Babs could have pulled the footage. Dick would have asked less questions.”

Of course Tim would be suspicious. The two of them werenʼt exactly on the best terms. Jason folded his hands together. He answered the question with another:

“Howʼs Bernard?”

Tim blanked for a moment as Jason watched deductions spin behind his eyes.

“Heʼs good.” Came the eventual measured reply. “Didnʼt think you cared.”

Jason hmphed.

“This guy- His name’s Danny, right?” Tim asked gently.

Jason’s stomach churned. Somehow Tim saying Danny’s name made it feel so much more real. He nodded.

The corner of Timʼs mouth twisted upward, smug like a cat. “Well, aside from nearly getting you killed again, he seems nice.”

Jason punched Tim’s arm. He measured his breath but it wasn’t enough to quell the heat in his face.

“But seriously. You almost died. Again. Is it really worth it?”

“I donʼt know.” Jason answered truthfully. “You canʼt tell Bruce.”

“Let me guess, you want to handle it yourself. And howʼs that going?”

“You were there at the park. You guys can’t fight these things. If Bruce gets involved this gets infinitely more complicated. Just… keep this on the down low. Please.” The fact that Tim was also the best (besides himself of course) at keeping secrets from Bruce had also factored in to his choice of confidant.

Tim held him with a long, calculating gaze. “Fine,” he finally relented. “I saw nothing. But you have to promise that youʼll call for backup if things go south again.”

Something like relief settled in Jason’s shoulders. He wanted to think it had all been calculated— that he’d let Tim in on just enough to get him off his ass. But he’d be lying to himself if it hadn’t felt nice to tell someone- anyone- about all this ghost bullshit.

“Thanks, Drake.” Jason stepped to his bike and straddled it.

“That wasnʼt a promise.”

“I owe you one!”

“Hey—Just because ghosts exist doesn’t give you permission to fucking die again—are you even-“

He revved the engine loud on his way out.

He took the long way back to his apartment, weaving his bike through the streets of Gotham without direction. He looked for trouble (as he always looked for trouble) but he also couldnʼt stop himself from looking for ghosts.

He thought heʼd gotten pretty good at ghost fighting. When he and Danny fought together he felt invincible. That illusion had been shattered. Turns out he couldn’t last a second when faced with a real monster. And Danny…

Danny had beaten that unbeatable monster in an instant.

Jason knew Danny wouldnʼt let him come to harm if he went back into the fight. Heʼd proven that decisively by bringing him back from a wound that should have killed him. But was Jason really helping? Or was he just some pawn in a game of kings?

He knew what it felt like. He tried to drown it out with the rev of the engine beneath him, the rush of smog-filled wind around him, the grimy stone and blue-black glass of buildings passing by.

This was Dannyʼs fight. Not his. No amount of tech or training could make him something he wasnʼt. Danny insisted he was like him. Jason didnʼt believe him. He never had.

And now, after seeing a glimpse of what Danny was, of what he could really do- Jason was certain.

He finally spotted a ghost- a lone green wolf prowling on a rooftop. He realized where he was. His aimless wandering had delivered him just a few blocks from Dannyʼs apartment.

He whispered a curse to himself.

He started to reach for the thermos on his belt but stopped. Why bother. Danny could handle it.

And Danny didnʼt need his help.

Danny texted him a week after, at the end of his ghost fighting probation.

D: New lead on the curse beasts if youʼre up for it.

And again two days later.

D: Another sighting. Just north of Crime Alley.

And again the next night.

D: You okay?

Jason slipped his phone back in his pocket, returning his focus to his stakeout of a potential new drug operations base in his territory. Fear like ice had wrapped around Jason’s throat each time Danny’s name lit up in his notifications. He barely saw the words. Instead, his mind was filled with images of the queen's black hole eyes. The destroyed warehouse. The look on Danny’s face before he went supernova.

Jason didn’t have a death wish. Dying, in fact, had made him more cautious. More calculated. He wasn’t afraid to play with fire (as a series of explosions across the city soon after his initial return to Gotham had proved), but what no one else ever saw was that he was always in control. He made moves with purpose. Fighting unwinnable fights was for suckers and fools.

He was aware of the kind of fights Batman got into when he worked with the Justice League. Jason wanted no part of them. What could he do, really, with his soft human body, against demi gods? He’d made his name by sticking to what he was good at, here with his feet firmly planted on the streets of Gotham, where he could make actual change.

His hand had found its way to rest over his stomach. He could still feel the blood, so much, so red, pouring through his fingers.

So Jason ghosted him.

At first it was the accidental kind of ghosting, where maybe he meant to reply but never actually did. Then the days turned into weeks and eventually it had gone on so long it would be more weird to reply than not.

And that was okay, he told himself. Danny was better off without him. No more having to slow down for the sidekick.

It helped that the ghosts left Jason alone. That, or he got good at ignoring them. He didn’t try to stop the pack of ghost rats from raiding the corner store. He didn't draw the ire of any more ghostly hunters. And when he spotted a ghost goon lurking in the park? It wasn’t his problem. Instead, he monitored for Joker activity with new fervor. He focused on his dealings with Black Mask. He took care of his girls and his goons, the living breathing people of Gotham who he could actually help.

But a thought still lingered like a stain: as long as Gotham stayed cursed, nothing he did would ever be enough.

Tim found him during a rooftop patrol some days after his visit to the Batcave. Jason didn’t lower his binoculars when he heard him approach.

“Last I checked you still don’t have permission to operate in my territory.”

“I’m not here on business,” Tim raised placating hands. “Just wanted to check that everything’s …okay?”

“Just peachy.”

“No ghosts out tonight?” A smirk in his voice. Jason lowered his scope and saw Tim’s eyes on his empty wrists.

“You better be glad there’s not.” He grumbled. “Did Bats start snooping?”

“Still looking into your mystery meta from the bank. But it’s not priority since it’s not related to active cases other than, uh, you. He hasn’t made the connection to the warehouse yet.”

Jason let out a full sigh. Good. Despite everything, he still didn’t want the Bats going after Danny.

“Should it be priority?” Tim ventured. Jason flashed him a look. “You haven’t gone out patrolling with him in days.”

“How the fuck is that your business? You little creep.”

“Just because you banned Bruce from knowing doesn’t mean I can’t look into it.”

“Oh yeah? And what have you found?”

Tim frowned. “Daniel Fenton. Amity Park, Illinois. Getting that much wasn’t easy, which I’m sure you know. He’s been deliberately erased from the internet. Surely I don’t have to tell you how suspicious that is.”

Jason scoffed, but Tim pressed on. “Are you keeping an eye on him?”

“I’m handling it.”

“Where is he right now?”

“I said I’m handling it."

Jason thought back to his conversation with Tim at the cave. Was it worth it? Ridding Gotham of its curse was worth Danny operating freely in Gotham, yeah. Then once the curse was gone Danny could leave. And then everything would be back to normal.

A bright purple butterfly the size of his head fluttered lazily between them. A ghost. Tim looked right through it.

Normal. Right.

Jason sighed. “If you find anything else on him let me know.”

“You’re the one who’s in contact with him. Why don’t you just ask him.”

“And why don’t you just shove it?” The words came out harsher than he intended. A familiar rage, sickly and green, twisted underneath his heart like an old friend. He swallowed the urge to vomit. He’d gotten so used to being around Danny he’d forgotten what his unchecked rage felt like.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Like you could fucking fix anything even if I wasn’t. Fuck off, little bird.”

“I’m only asking because if you’re not handling the case, someone has to.”

Jason whirled on him. “Oh, and daddy Bruce will make it all better? You think he’s going to act reasonably when he perceives a threat to his rule over the city?”

“If there’s a threat-“

He backed off slightly. “He’s- Danny’s not a threat.”

“Then why are you hiding from him?”

“I’m not hiding.” Except that was exactly what he was doing. Ever since he’d stashed all of the ghost gear back in the duffle bag and shoved it in the back of his closet. Since he’d changed his schedule to work daytimes as much as possible, changed his routes to avoid their hotel meeting place.

“You know the rules. He can’t operate in Gotham without our oversight. If you just bring him into the fold properly, we could work together, help him-“

“He doesn’t need help!” Rage roared under his heart, hot and ferocious. Tim flinched back. “And neither do I. Now fuck off. I won’t ask again.”

Tim looked like he had more to say, but he thought better of it.

As Tim grappled away, the purple butterfly ghost bloomed with black goo, oozing from its midsection till it was completely consumed in shadow.

It was past three am when he saw it, lurking in an alley, illuminated by a trash fire: a curse ghost. He felt it first, that familiar crawling feeling on the back of his neck. He turned his head to look at what he already knew was there. It looked like an unholy cross between a cockroach and a snake, eight feet long and writhing. It hissed and chittered at him, spattering gobs of black goo on the pavement.

By instinct his hand went to the hip where his sword used to be. He gripped at nothing and cursed. It wasn’t his problem, he reminded himself. The curse ghost wasn’t attacking him, it wasn’t actively causing harm. He should just ignore it, same as he did all the other ghosts now.

The curse ghost being here meant Danny hadn’t finished his job, though, and that sent a hundred other questions through his thoughts. Mainly, what the hell was taking him so long?

He should text Danny. Tell him to come take out his trash. But no, that was a stupid idea. The less he associated with Danny, the more he could separate himself from all of this bullshit.

Like it or not, this bullshit stated him down from the end of the alley, waiting, taunting. Red Hood, on principle, didn’t flinch first. It was part of his whole brand. He played chicken with his life on the line. It didn’t matter that he didn’t want to think about ghosts anymore, let alone fight them. The curse ghosts caused real harm. When faced with a problem on his streets, he didn’t run from it.

He reached for his gun.

Gunshots sounded from the building next door, followed by voices raised in distress. Saving people comes first, Bruce had always taught him. He didn’t subscribe to all of Bruce’s teachings, but that one stuck.

Shit.

He looked at the curse ghost for a moment longer, and though it had no lips, he could swear it was smirking at him.

He shoved aside his anger and ran for the building, crashing in and taking the stairs two at a time. He followed the sounds of ruckus till he came to an apartment door that had been busted in.

With the nose of his gun he pushed the door the rest of the way in. Broken glass and torn papers littered the floor- signs of a fight, but otherwise the apartment was still. He’d missed the aggressors.

Gun still out he crept further in, till he spotted a figure in the kitchen. Teenager, by the looks of it.

“Hey. Kid. You okay?” He holstered his gun. “You should probably get out of here.”

The kid was looking at something on the ground in the kitchen. He didn’t acknowledge Jason at all.

“You hear me? Time to—“

Fuck. The kid looked at him and the words died in his throat. Jason saw what was on the kitchen floor, the thing that he’d been so focused on. A body. His body. In a pool of drying blood. The kid was a ghost.

“Jesus, kid. I’m so sorry.”

Doing this job hinged on not getting caught up in /ifs/. If Jason had been quicker to react to the gunfire, if he’d actually fought the curse ghost, drawn it and its aura of misfortune away, if he hadn’t fucking frozen when he’d the chance to actually beat the source of Gotham’s rot- if, if, if—

His choices affected people. He assumed that responsibility every time he put on his mask. Sometimes the reminders of that fact were gentle. Other times they were this.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

The kid glared. “I’m dead.”

Well, at least he was taking it in stride.

“So am I, supposedly, but only just a little bit. It’s not so bad. I’ve met some pretty cool dead guys, honestly.”

The kid shook his head in annoyed disbelief. That tracked. Jason tried a different angle.

“You get a good look at who did it?”

“You some kind of cop?”

Jason snorted at that. “If it makes you feel any better, if you tell me who did this to you I will personally go guarantee that they can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

At that, the kid’s eyes sharpened. “You can really do that?”

“C’mon. Don’t tell me my reputation doesn’t speak for itself.”

“It was Penguin’s guys. My brother owes him money. He’s working the club tonight and I didn’t give him up so…”

“Good kid. What’s your name?”

“Devon.”

“Well Devon, you can rest assured that those goons have very limited time left on Earth.” The rage under his heart coiled in delighted anticipation. He could still make things right even if he’d been too late to save this kid. His fingers clenched around the grip of his gun, which he must have gotten out at some point. Devon’s eyes flashed down at it.

“Wait- I-“ Devon frowned. “I don’t really care what happens to the goons. Not as much as what happens to my brother. Would you- would you just make sure he’s okay?”

Jason’s skin itched at the idea. Those assholes deserved to pay for killing a kid. The best way to make sure they couldn’t hurt again was to make them pay in blood. He’d hunt down every last one of them if it meant no more premature deaths, no more Devons.

Still, he nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Okay. Thanks.” He nodded. And with that, Devon’s ghost faded.

Whether it was temporary invisibility or passing on to the next plane, Jason didn’t know. He still knew jack shit about most ghost stuff. But that quasi seance hadn’t gone poorly, especially considering the tenor of most of his other ghostly interactions for comparison.

So much for avoiding ghost stuff. At least he could blow off some steam by hunting some goons.

Sounds of breaking glass and gunshots come up from behind the basement door before Jason even kicks it in.

He clocked four aggressors immediately, interspersed between tables, their various firearms pointed at the grungy bar. And what do you know, they were drug runners he’d dealt with before and owed a little payback.

“Howdy boys. It’s your unlucky night.” The weapons snapped toward him as he sauntered down the stairs. He smiled behind his mask.

It was a satisfying little fight, quick but bloody. Two out of four went down in less than a minute with a shot to the knee and a knife to the gut respectively. He got the third in a chokehold and lost himself for a moment in the buzz of delicious black-tinged violence simmering behind his ears, until he heard a different choking sound from across the room.

The last goon got behind the bar in the fray. He held the bartender in a tight headlock. The bartender, who looked a hell of a lot like the ghost kid Devon.

“Cool it, or else I snap his neck.”

He didn’t take his hands from around the neck of goon number 3. In fact, he squeezed tighter. These men killed that innocent kid. He’d make sure they all died. Didn’t matter what order. Didn’t even really matter if the brother lived or died. So long as he ended these scumbags, this night would be a win.

Then out of nowhere it felt like someone slid an ice cube down his spine. That burning black hum of rage fled him so fast he nearly gasped. He blinked his eyes back into focus, released the pressure of his fingers.

With cool clarity he whipped his gun to the goon behind the bar and fired a sure shot into his leg. He went down with a grunt, dropping his hold on Devon’s brother as he did.

Jason rounded the bar to get to him.

“You okay?”

Devon’s brother rubbed his neck between coughs. “What the hell man?”

Jason helped him up. The goons scattered, limping up the stairs in a hurry. Jason let them go, despite his stomach churning at his lost prey.

“Your’re lucky your brother is looking out for you.”

The brothers' eyes went wide. “What did they do to Devon?”

Jason wished he had his cigarettes on him. With a sigh, he pulls out a card and slips it into Devon’s brother’s pocket. “Text me with info if those guys come after you again. Or don’t. You better get out of here.”

The brother was shaken enough that he didn’t take more convincing. Good thing too. Jason didn’t have it in him to deliver the news of Devon’s death, even if that would have been the kinder thing to do.

The basement door clinks shut behind the brother and a quiet settled over the ruined club. Green light reflected off the broken glass scattered across the floor, and the familiar quiet under Jason’s heart didn’t leave.

“I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” he hissed at the ceiling— at Danny, who almost certainly was here. There was no other explanation for how he didn’t end up killing those guys.

He waited, scanning the room, but Danny didn’t appear. He wasn’t sure if that made him more pissed than if Danny actually appeared and tried to explain himself. He didn’t want to see Danny, he reminded himself. He didn’t want anything to do with him.

So he sat down on the least-ruined bar stool and waited, silently, till the ice-cool feeling eventually faded.

Only then did he get up and leave. He walked home.

Jason could avoid Danny all he wanted, but Danny had a knack for finding him. He had since the night they met. Jason ground his teeth, chewing on the unfortunate realization that as long as Danny stayed in Gotham, he would be under his watch.

He barely had closed his eyes to sleep when a voice right next to his ear made his heart freeze in his chest.

“Hello, my lost little Robin.”

He bristled at the name, but the words curled around his throat like a noose. His eyes flew open, but he couldn’t see her in his apartment so much as he felt her. A simmering malice in every shadow, a cold smile just outside his peripherals- the Queen of the curse.

“Dannyʼs not here,” he half-choked. That must be why she was here. Jason was no real threat to her.

“Iʼm not here for him, sweetheart. Iʼm here for you.”

“You stabbed me.” Jason sat up and pulled his gun from under his pillow, palm sweaty.

Nothing personal, she purred. It wasnʼt about hurting you, it was about hurting him.

“He’ll catch you.” He swallowed. It was a juvenile declaration, a pitiful grasp at any upper hand in this situation. “If you hurt me now, he’ll end you.”

“Is that what you think? The Rego Senfina had every opportunity to claim you and yet he didn’t. You’re nothing to him. He doesn’t /want you./“

He felt his chest go hollow. He’d known it, known it since Danny had told him to stay back at the docks, since he’d taken him down in their mock fight. But to hear the queen confirm it shattered any delusions he’d been harboring. Whatever world Danny belonged to, Jason didn’t. Danny was confident and powerful and good. And Jason was just… broken. Down to his core.

“You and I are cut from the same cloth. We want the same things. We know, deep down, the heart of this city is oily and black. And a heart canʼt change. Not once itʼs set. And would you really want it to? A Gotham without a curse isnʼt a place that the Red Hood would belong.”

He breathed out a long breath. Danny had talked about after. After the curse was defeated he’d move on to fight some other curse, save some other city. But where would that leave Jason? What would he do if he wasnʼt fighting Gothamʼs problems? What would he be if the city didnʼt need a vigilante crime lord? Bruce and the rest of them had personas outside of the mask. Jason Todd was dead.

“That imposter came to our city. Tried to make us be something we arenʼt. Tried to change us. He doesnʼt know Gotham like we do. Isnʼt it time to show him the door?”

“I canʼt.” Jason choked the words out. “I can’t beat him.”

“Not alone. But with my help you are capable of much more than you know.”

He didnʼt believe anything could beat Danny, but the curse queen was the only thing that had made him fight serious.

He gripped his shirt over his stomach. Truth was, he’d never felt so weak as he had since he’d started fighting ghosts. Not even when he wore the Robin costume, and he’d been one small kid against the world. He’d gotten a taste of impossible supernatural powers and it wasn’t enough.

“Take this token. Use it to call upon my power.”

The shadows reached tendrils out to Jason’s broken sword, where it still lay discarded on the floor. They penetrated the pieces of the blade, bringing them together and stitching it whole again. What remained was an onyx black sword that hummed with a dark energy he could feel even without touching it.

Stupid. It would be incredibly stupid, and impulsive, and rash to take the sword. He’d seen the tragedy and chaos the curse caused, and he wanted no part of that. Except—

The curse was the only thing strong enough to stand against Danny. And he needed Danny to leave. He needed his Gotham back.

“Don’t fight what you know. You embraced my power long ago. You’re mine. You always have been.”

He reached out and grabbed the sword.

“How do we get him out?”

The shadows twisted in a cheshire smile. “You simply ask him to leave.”

#dpxdc #dp x dc #danny phantom #dc x dp #dead on main #dp #jason todd #dead on main ship #dpxdc crossover #dcxdp #dp x dc fanfic #fanfic #red knight fic #my writing #welcome to the jason makes bad decisions arc #long post #not me rolling up six months late with an update

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virescent-v · 2 years ago

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except me pt 2

A/N: Another smutty Emily fic! Sorry this one took me like...two months. I have no excuse lmao.

Summary: This is the second part to Except Me which can be read here! Reader goes to Emily's after work and fun ensues ;)

Word Count: 5.4k

Warnings below the cut!

Warnings: thigh grinding, restraints, anal plugs, mommy kink, praise kink, some slight degradation, strap-ons, squirting (if you squint)

x-x-x

The work day seemed to drag on after your encounter with Emily in her office. You tried to focus on your paperwork, tried to keep your eyes from straying towards her office, but you were struggling. You left work around five, wanting to go home and freshen up before heading towards Emily’s apartment.

As you finished your shower, where you took extra time to exfoliate, shave, and moisturize, you got a text from your boss that accelerated your heartbeat.

Emily: Arrive by seven, no later. When you get here, come in and follow the directions on the counter.

You could already feel the excitement bubbling up at the prospect of what the night was going to bring, so you just liked the text and finished getting ready. You did your makeup a little heavier, smokier around the eyes, a dark red lipstick adorning your lips. You opted for a simple black lace set of undergarments, figuring it wouldn’t be on too long to make a real difference, and a simple white cotton shirt and jeans.

You left your place with enough time to get to Emily’s slightly before seven, not wanting to start the night off on the wrong foot. When you opened her door, you could hear a slight thumping bass echoing from further in the apartment. Your eyes scanned the main entryway, not seeing Emily. Walking to the counter in the kitchen, you saw a note folded in half with your name on it in Emily’s loopy scrawl and a gift bag beside it. Opening the note, you felt your already fast heart rate speed up even more.

“Be a good girl for me, angel, and take off everything you’re wearing and put on what I’ve bought for you. Meet me upstairs when you’re ready. Second door on the left.”

Going through the gift bag, you gasped at the high quality material of the lingerie, the color seemingly black in the low light of the apartment. Bringing the garment fully out of the bag, you saw that it was actually a very dark green, a color that was one of your favorites and went well with your skin tone. The lingerie was more intricate than you originally speculated. The entire set matched completely, from the panties to the bra to the garter. There were multiple criss-crossing lines and a hint of a floral pattern on the main pieces that covered your privates. It was complex, but still sophisticated without being too much. A matching satin robe was also in the bag.

You got dressed quickly, placing your clothes on the counter folded up. You wouldn’t be needing them for a while.

You took a deep breath, centering yourself before beginning the climb up the stairs to where Emily was waiting for you. As you got closer to the room, you could smell a light, fragrant smell and see the flickering of the candle light from the hallway.

With one more deep breath, you walked into the room.

Your breath immediately caught in your lungs, stuttering out in a rapid staccato beat.

Emily was lounging in an oversize, plush chair in the corner of her room reading a book. Her hair was down, a slight wave to it from being exposed to the air all day. She, too, had on a satin robe, hiding whatever was underneath. You wondered if her apparel matched yours or differed. To be honest, you weren’t sure you really even cared that much. You’d enjoy taking it off, though.

But what had you absolutely hypnotized were the glasses that adorned her face, simple in shape, but drawing attention to her beautiful eyes. The frames sat a little lower on the bridge of her nose, having fallen slightly while her head was tilted down reading.

“You’re staring, pretty girl,” Emily’s voice brought you out of your ogling.

“You expect me not to? When you look like that?”

Emily smirked, her eyes flicking over the pages, trying to equalize her attention between you and her book.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m wearing a robe. Nothing much to gawk at.”

You cleared your throat, your toes scrunching up in the carpet beneath your feet. Breathily, you said, “it’s the glasses.”

At that, Emily slowly closed her book, her eyes glancing up at you from under the lenses. Her pupils were dark, or so you thought, with the lighting in the room being what it was. She looked….hungry. Like she was assessing you.

“Is that so?” She placed the book on the table beside the chair. She crossed her legs, putting each of her arms on the arms of the chair. She looked every bit of a woman in charge, a queen on a plush throne.

You swallowed heavily. The temperature of the room felt like it increased five degrees with the way that Emily was looking at you. You nodded, already not trusting your voice to be steady.

Emily tilted her head to the side, pulling her glasses off, bringing the temple piece that wrapped around her ear to between her teeth, a mischievous smile pulling at her lips. “Do me a favor and take that robe off. Slowly.”

A deep inhale through your nose, you reached towards the tie of the robe, dragging it carefully between each finger, feeling the satin heat with each pass. Deliberately, you tugged the tie loose, letting the robe fall gently open. You watched as Emily’s eyes tracked every movement as the robe opened, but still kept most of the lingerie covered. With the tie undone, you drew your hands up the open sides of the robe, thoughtfully brushing your pinkies against your already hardened nipples. You let your head fall back slightly as you pulled the robe down your shoulders lazily, taking your time in exposing each inch of you. As more and more skin came into view, you watched as Emily’s grip tightened on the arm rests of the chair, as if she wanted to reach out and rip the robe from your body.

You paused for a second, waiting for Emily’s eyes to catch yours before dropping the robe completely. Emily managed to keep eye contact with you for a few seconds after the robe hit the floor, but curiosity got the better of her, her eyes languidly caressing each miniscule part of you. You watched as her eyes traveled each intricate strap of your lingerie, taking in how well it complemented your figure. You watched as she swallowed, her tongue tracing her lower lip before her eyes met yours again.

“You look absolutely delicious, baby.”

Emily’s use of pet names were a sure fire way to get you to melt into the perfect headspace for the evening ahead. It made you feel special, looked after, and most importantly, hers. You’ve always enjoyed just the right amount of possessiveness with your partners; a way to finally feel like you belong to someone who will take care of you.

“Thank you,” you all but whispered.

Emily took another second to let her eyes travel over your body before beckoning you to her. “Come here,” she said, pointing to the floor in front of her. She placed her glasses on the table beside the chair.

You walked slowly across the carpet, keeping eye contact with her the whole time. As you neared, Emily uncrossed her legs and gestured to the spot between them. Stopping between her legs, her hands lightly gripped your hips, keeping you in place.

Emily took a quick breath, her thumbs rubbing circles on the sides of the lingerie, feeling the straps and lace. She looked up at you, which made you feel powerful, like you were controlling the shots. Even though you knew that she was absolutely in control. “Are you sure about this? We don’t have to go further if you don’t want to. We can stop at any time.”

You smiled briefly, your hand coming up and tilting her chin upwards to get a better look at her. To make sure she heard you when you spoke. “I’m sure. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. I want you to do whatever you want to me, Em.” Your thumb caressed her bottom lip, smiling a little when her tongue flicked over it. “But you better believe when you’re done I get my turn.”

Emily let out an almost silent moan, but you caught it. She took a deep breath. “Anything I should know before starting? Anything off the table?”

You decided she’d been talking enough. The checking in was cute, sweet even, but you were pretty sure your panties were already ruined. You leaned down and kissed her softly. “I’m pretty sure we’re on the same page. I’ll stop you if I’m uncomfortable. Stoplight to check in, red and vanilla are my hard stops. Now touch me before I do it myself.”

At that, Emily let out an almost animalistic growl. She roughly grabbed your waist, sliding back in the chair and pulling you onto her thigh. What you couldn’t see underneath her robe previously was a silicone grinder, a small oval pad with various bumps and ridges on it that was strapped to her thigh. Emily immediately forced your hips down and back and forth, which made you very aware of how these bumps felt against your clit.

“Ride me, babygirl.”

Your hands shot out to Emily’s shoulders as your hips started moving back and forth. You could feel the silicone ridges through your panties, which were already soaked. The feel of the fabric and the texture of the bumpy silicone was already driving you a little crazy. It was causing just enough pressure to rile you up, but you weren’t sure you’d be able to cum just from this.

Emily sat back, her hands moving towards your knees, rubbing the skin there. “Look at you. You’ve been here less than ten minutes and you’re already desperate to cum.” She caught your wild, wide eyes. “Such a whore for me and I’ve barely touched you.”

The moan you let out was desperate, echoing how you were already feeling. “Please, Em,” you said, gripping her hair in your hand, tilting her head back so you could meet her lips in a frenzied kiss. Your tongue brushed over hers, tasting the wine she’d had when she got home from work and something that was just Emily.

She pulled back, a little breathlessly, stopping the frantic movements of your hips. “Off, baby. Take off the lingerie.”

You were panting, not wanting to stop your movements. But the idea of the silicone rubbing directly against your wet, swollen clit was more than enough to get you to get up. You basically tore the lingerie off, not caring where it ended up on the floor. Before she could even say anything else, you were taking Emily’s robe off, too, wanting to see what she had on underneath it.

As you slid the robe from her shoulders, your breath caught again. Emily was wearing a matching deep red lace set of bra and panties. You caught her eyes again as your pussy remade contact with the silicone strapped to her strong thigh. “You’re beautiful, you know,” you said, your hands resting lightly on the exposed skin of her chest right above her breasts.

She smiled lightly, her hands making their way back to your now unclothed body. “You are too, pretty girl. And you’re going to be even more beautiful when you cum for me over and over and over again.” Her hands circled your waist, each hand grabbing at your ass. “Now move.”

Your hips immediately began a brutal pace, the feeling of the ridges and lumps of the silicone feeling much more intense after taking off your panties. Each movement forward and backward dragged your clit against them, creating the most delicious friction that was rubbing against you in just the right ways. With each movement, you were pushed that much closer to tumbling over the edge, the familiar tightening in your lower belly telling you that you were close.

“Look at you, how you’re dripping for me. You’re already so close.” Emily’s hands traveled up your body, her thumbs brushing across your hardened nipples. As her fingers began pulling on them, she growled out, “now be a good little slut and cum for me, baby.”

The fact that Emily already knew how to push you closer to cumming, the way she knew how to touch you, the way her voice had deepened, becoming almost gravelly, you couldn’t help but follow her directions. Your head tilted back, your spine arching towards her, as you moaned loudly, “fuck, mommy!”

You continued to ride Emily’s thigh through your first orgasm, feeling your juices spread over the silicone toy. As you came down from the high, you realized what you said and embarrassingly brought your head back up and looked at Emily.

Emily’s eyes had dilated to the point where there was no color left in them, her chest heaving with quick breaths. “What did you just call me?”

Your eyes shifted to the side, not wanting to meet hers. You cleared your throat a little, bringing your bottom lip between your teeth. “Mommy.”

Emily brought her body flush against yours, the lace of her bra brushing against your breasts. Her hand captured your chin, forcing you to look at her. “That’s right, little girl.” Her thumb brushed against your lips, pulling it from between your teeth. “Now you better scream that every single time you cum for me tonight, understood?”

You took Emily’s thumb into your mouth, swirling your tongue around it briefly before sucking on it. “Yes, mommy.”

Emily trailed her now slick thumb down the column of your throat, watching as you swallowed with the movement. You watched as it trailed between your breasts, down your belly, before moving towards your hip. Emily took one more glance at you before pulling you harder against her, her hands under your thighs as she lifted you up, your legs immediately coming around her waist.

She carried you a small distance to the bed, laying you down against it before hovering over you. “Arms up and legs spread, love.”

You put your arms up and Emily immediately strapped them down to the ties she already had on the bed. She made sure they were tight enough that you couldn’t move much, but not tight enough to hurt you. When she was done with your hands, she grabbed each of your knees and placed them in similar ties. But, she didn’t strap them to the bottom of the bed. Instead, she bent your knees, and tied them to the top of the bed as well. In this position, your knees were almost flush with your chest and your thighs were spread open to an almost uncomfortable stretch. It left you completely and utterly exposed, the cool air of the room spreading goosebumps across your skin.

“You look so pretty all tied down and spread open for me, baby,” Emily said, kneeling between your spread legs, trailing her hands over your body.

You could feel yourself flushing under her intense gaze, your breath panting.

As Emily’s hands made their way down your body, your hips tried to buck up into them, trying to get them to move further down. “Please, Em, touch me,” you whined.

Emily lowly chuckled, “I am touching you, sweetheart.” Her hands skimmed across your thighs, dangerously close to your aching center. “But if you want something specific, you just have to ask.”

Your earlier orgasm did nothing to dwindle the heat spreading through your core; you needed desperately to cum again. “Your tongue, your fingers, it doesn’t matter, Emily. Just fuck me,” you breathed out.

You watched as Emily inhaled deeply, her eyes lazily trailing over your exposed cunt, almost as if deciding how she wanted to take you next. You almost pleaded that she could fuck you over and over if she was undecided, but before you could, Emily’s tongue made contact with your sodden folds and you lost the breath in your lungs.

You struggled in your ties with each tortuously slow pass of Emily’s tongue over your lower lips. Each pass got closer and closer to both your entrance and your clit, but never made contact. Emily alternated between fast and slow motions, flattening her tongue before rolling it into a point. The constant changing of pace was driving you crazy, it only riled you up without getting you there.

You could feel your wetness seeping out of you, slowly dripping down your backside and pooling on the sheets beneath. You don’t think you’ve ever been this wet before and you were sure it was only going to get worse as Emily continued to play with you.

After what seemed like a tortuous few minutes, Emily’s tongue finally made contact with your swollen nub, zeroing in on the patterns that drove you craziest. Little flicks of her tongue had you gasping, fast circles had you trying to buck your hips even in your confined pose.

Each pass of her tongue pushed you closer and closer to the edge, the coil expanding in your belly ready to burst. You whispered a quiet ‘please, please please’ under your breath, but it caught Emily’s attention, her eyes flicking up to you.

“Cum all over my mouth, pretty girl, so I can finally fuck you with my cock,” she said, her tongue immediately going back to your clit. Emily brought two fingers up under her chin, thrusting inside of you without any warning.

That’s all it took for you to come undone, your entire body tensing as wave after wave rushed through you. But you didn’t have an opportunity to come down from your high, as Emily continued to thrust her fingers inside of you.

“One more for me, baby. Wanna make sure your pretty pussy is nice and ready for me.”

You almost sobbed in oversensitivity, but Emily switched to pulsating her fingers inside of you, her tongue lightly tracing your outer lips. It was enough delicious friction to keep you from coming down from your last orgasm, but enough to not make it painfully sensitive to where you wanted to stop.

For the first time sleeping together, Emily was already quickly becoming a master of your body. It only took a few more seconds of Emily’s tongue wrapped around your clit, and a hand tugging at your turgid nipples for you to cum again.

Emily lazily lapped at you, drinking down everything you had to give. As you caught your breath, you started giggling under your breath.

Emily’s hands traveled up your body, slowly untying you, massaging your limbs to restore blood flow. “What’s so funny, hm?” She asked, mirth in her eyes.

“If I had known talking about sex would’ve gotten me in this position, I would’ve done it on my first day with the BAU,” you said smiling, trying to catch your breath.

Emily smirked back at you, placing small kisses all over your body as you calmed down. “If I had known all I had to do to have you in my bed was mention getting laid, I would’ve done it much sooner.”

You trailed your hand down, gripping Emily’s chin in your hand. Catching her gaze, you quirked an eyebrow in question.

Emily rolled her eyes at you. “Yes, I’ve wanted you in my bed since you started the team. Can you blame me? Look at you,” she said, her eyes traversing over your skin.

You felt your body flush in nervous excitement, unbelieving that your very capable, very hot boss harbored the same feelings you did.

Before you could question her further, Emily sat back on her heels, her hands rubbing soothing circles over your knees. “Are you feeling okay? Do you want to take a break?”

You smiled, finding it adorable that she was always looking out for you. But it wasn’t necessary. “I was promised to cum on your cock, was I not?” You smirked at her. You had a feeling that the dirty talk was to Emily as the pet names were to you.

Emily pinched your hip, rolling off of the bed before disappearing into her closet. “Lose the attitude before I come back or I’ll fuck it out of you, angel,” she tossed over her shoulder, missing the way your entire body shivered in anticipation. You hoped this was just the beginning of exploring each other's bodies.

When Emily came out of the closet, you had to stop yourself from drooling. Attached to her hips was a decently sized cock, a dark purple shade that wasn’t too silly looking. Emily was already a confident person, but something about the added appendage gave her extra swagger. She looked comfortable in it, experienced. You couldn’t wait to see how she took it out on you.

“Hands and knees, pretty girl.”

You rolled over without having to be asked twice. It was one of your favorite positions to be fucked in, the depth of which you could feel the fake phallus almost always took your breath away and left you trembling.

In your admiration of how Emily looked packing, you missed all of the other goodies she was carrying in her hands. You felt the bed dip behind you, Emily’s hands spreading your thighs apart, leaving your pussy exposed to the cool air of the room.

“You look so pretty like this, waiting for me. You were wet before, but now you’re absolutely dripping down your thighs.”

A swift smack to the outer aspect of your ass left you bucking into the air, trying to feel Emily’s strap behind you. Her hands massaged the rounded globes of your ass, feeling the muscles beneath her hands quiver. “How do you feel about plugs?” She asked, pulling apart your cheeks to watch the way your entire lower half clenched in anticipation.

Emily lowly chuckled, “Mh, seems like that’s a yes, but I need verbal consent, baby.” One of her hands drifted down, gathering your abundant wetness, before slicking some back up to your puckered hole, smearing it around the outside.

Your breath was already coming in fast pants and you could feel the way the blood was rushing south. Your skin felt electric, buzzing, as if every hair was standing straight up in attention. You took a deep, steadying breath, pulling air in through your nose before exhaling slowly through your mouth. “Please, Em, put it inside me and then fuck me,” you breathed. “Wanna be so full of you,” you whined, pushing your hips back at her.

Emily gripped your hips harder, whimpering at how much that turned her on. How much you turned her on. She grabbed the plug from beside her on the bed, rubbing it between your legs to gather your wetness. You had to stop yourself from thrusting against it, the pressure only minimal on your clit.

Emily trailed the plug up, watching as you arched your back, exposing more of you to her. She had to take a second to compose herself, not wanting to hurt you. Slowly, she inched the plug inside of you, watching as your body expanded and contracted taking it in.

Once it was fully inside, you had to take multiple shuddering breaths as Emily rubbed your hips. You’ve used plugs before, but with the way Emily commanded your body, you were at a pleasure you’ve never been at before.

“Look at you, so pretty for me,” Emily said, bending over and placing small kisses around your ass, letting you adjust to the pressure of it inside you. “I can’t wait to watch and listen to you cum for me.”

The whine you let out was almost pathetic; you could hear the desperation in your voice. “Please, Em, fuck me now.” Your legs spread a little more, opening you up further. The pleasure was already so intense that your upper body collapsed against the bed.

You could feel Emily move a little behind you. She trailed the head of the strap along your lower lips, lubricating it with your own wetness, watching you tremble each time it passed over your clit. Emily looked down, the shininess of the cock making her almost whine, before leaning down and spitting on it to further lubricate it. She used her hand to rub up and down, making sure it was well coated before lining it up with your entrance. “Ready, baby?”

“Fuck me, mommy, now.”

Emily didn’t hesitate, thrusting into you slowly, but with the confidence and force you needed. The cock dragged along your inner walls, but also against the plug that was nestled inside. The pressure was enough to have you clawing at the sheets for some sort of relief, not that you wanted to get away from how good it felt. It was simultaneously everything and not enough.

Emily, still able to read you like a book, started moving faster, her thrusts shallow, allowing you to feel each ridge and bump of the silicone cock inside of you. “Fuck, you’re taking me so well,” she moaned.

There was something about hearing Emily moan, whimper, and whine for you. Her voice had gotten more intense, gravelly, and you wanted it to wrap around you so you could melt into it.

You started to thrust back against her, wanting it harder and deeper and more. You pushed up onto your hands, feeling the way each thrust made your breasts bounce back and forth. You couldn’t help any of the noises that were tumbling from your lips, your body just sinking into the buzz of pleasure and riding the waves. Again, you could feel the pressure building up inside you, like flames ready to explode.

Emily’s hand made its way into your hair, grabbing a handful and yanking you upwards. Your back now pressed against her front, you could feel her rapid breathing and hardened nipples at your back, only fueling the fire inside you more. Her thrusts never slowed down, but managed to hit a deeper spot inside you.

“Fuck, I can feel you squeezin’ around my cock, baby.” A few more deep thrusts and you knew you were going to cum hard.

Not wanting to disappoint Emily, you started to thrust back harder, trying to get her deeper inside you. Knowing you needed a little more, one of her hands traversed down your front, quickly finding your hardened nub and started rubbing fast circles in time with her thrusts. Her other hand went the opposite direction, sliding around your throat, gripping it tightly sending you into another harsh wave of euphoria.

Emily’s lips made home on the side of your neck, licking and sucking, tasting the salty sweat that had accumulated there. “Be a good girl for mommy and cum for me, now.”

Your entire body seized, a loud moan spewed from your mouth, continuing with each little drive of Emily’s hips against yours as she fucked you through the orgasm. Unable to hold yourself up, Emily lowered you gently to the bed, her hips slowing to a stop. She smoothed your hair away from your face, her breath coming out in puffs helping to cool you off some.

Emily went to pull out of you, but the whine of protest left before she was even half way out. “Oh? What’s that, babygirl?”

You tried to glance back at her, your eyes barely catching before you felt your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “I want you to cum inside me, Em.” You wiggled your hips back a little more, moaning as her cock went back inside your pulsating cunt. “Make me cum one more time, please,” you almost begged.

“Fucking hell,” she whimpered, starting to slowly thrust into you again. Your body had had enough time to settle that you knew you could cum again, but you knew it was going to drain you.

Laying down like you were, the pressure of both her cock and the plug inside you was even more pronounced. You tried to angle your hips up, tried to lift a leg and bend a knee to switch up the position, but you weren’t sure it was enough. You needed something different.

Almost as if she was inside your head, Emily pulled out. Before you could protest much, she rolled over and dragged you on top of her. She helped you line up your cunt with her cock, and she moaned at watching you sink back down on it.

You weren’t sure if you had the energy to do all of the work bouncing up and down, so you rolled your hips back and forth, watching as Emily’s face contorted in pleasure. With each forward roll of your hips, Emily’s eyes almost rolled back, and that’s when you realized part of the cock was inside her and each move you made could be felt inside her as well.

Knowing Emily had a thing for your dirty mouth, you knew this was your turn to get her off. “Look at me, Em. Look how deep you are inside me.”

Emily’s blown pupils met yours, her lip caught between her teeth as she tried not to fuck into you, letting you run the show.

“You look so good under me, Em. I bet you’d look even better if I was the one fucking you.”

Emily’s nostrils flared, her hands shooting up to grab your hips as her feet planted firmly on the mattress. “Next time.” One of her hands moved to the base of the strap, holding it as you rutted against it. “For now, I want you to cum hard on mommy’s cock like the good little whore you are.”

You whimpered out a quick, “yes, mommy,” before grinding harder against her. Before you could get too invested in your pace, Emily’s hand that had been holding the cock pressed the button that made the vibrations come to life.

Your mouth opened wide, your eyes just as big, as you felt the pleasure run through your entire body.

Emily smirked up at you, almost sadistically, before starting to thrust up at you from below. You could tell that she was just as close as you were, the way her hands were gripping tighter to your hips. Emily’s own hips were moving at almost a break-neck pace, brushing your front wall and clit with each thrust out, and going deeper than before on each thrust in.

This time, the pressure coiled in your lower belly, expanding outwards to all of your extremities, before coiling its way back into your torso. The vibrations seemed to match your rapid heart beat, as if you could feel each pulsating buzz in every one of your cells. Your head was tossed back, trying not to break as wave after wave brushed through you.

You only came back to Earth when you felt Emily’s fingers start to rub your clit in time with the vibrations. You glanced down at her, captivated by her look of utter primal need, like you were the only thing that mattered in this moment.

“Together,” she said.

Fireworks. Volcanic eruption. The explosion of stars.

You felt your cunt clamp down on the cock inside of it, Emily trying to continue to fuck you through each swell of pleasure, the pressure finally releasing with a gush of wetness as your body trembled with Emily’s.

As the euphoria left both of you, you lowered your body to Emily’s trying to quell the tremors that were wreaking havoc on your system.

Emily’s hands came up, holding you to her, smoothing over your back. Her lips found their way to the side of your face, peppering little kisses on any part of you they could reach. “Such a good girl for me, baby.” She continued to whisper sweet nothings in your ear until you caught your breath.

“Lets get cleaned up, hm? I’ll run us a bath?”

You leaned up, catching her eyes. You could see all of the contentment and ecstasy in hers, but also the nervousness. As if you might leave any second.

You smiled, leaning up to kiss her gently, trying to convey everything you were feeling. That this wasn’t a one time thing for you. That she wasn’t just a one off. “A bath sounds great.”

Emily smiled back at you, twirling a piece of your hair with her fingers. Now everyone including her was getting laid around here.

#emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss fanfic #emily prentiss #virescent v fanfic #emily prentiss x you #emily prentiss fanfiction #no use of y/n #except me part 2 #if you want to see the lingerie that inspired that scene lmk :P

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talenlee · 5 months ago

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3e: Magical Rings

Rings. Simple circles of metal, worn on the fingers or toes or sometimes in the ears, these delicate pieces of human artistry are some of the earliest examples of creative expression we know can last beyond our lives, and therefore, serve as some of the most iconic examples of the way we use our signifiers to craft narratives of our lives. The promise ring, the engagement ring, the wedding ring, which are of course, all the same thing but companies want us to gild that lily forever, rings serve as a circle present in so many stories to symbolise a bonding, a binding, an eternity that we commit to in our lives and that we can only hold up as long as we continue to believe in that which the ring symbolises. Every ring can be called a ring of power, because it is the belief in stories we imbue in the ring that serves to give it that power.

And as any good item with significance, Dungeons & Dragons decided to start jamming a mechanical system onto them.

This is by no means a new thing for 3rd edition D&D; since earliest versions of the game, I’m sure there were people making ‘magical rings’ important on day dot. This is a game for hacks who want to remind you of the cool fantasy books we’ve read and back when the game was brand new, there really were only so many fantasy books that could be considered cool. Unbelievably, people considered Lord of The Rings one of them, yeah, I know, and apparently, they enjoyed those books and implemented their ideas into their own work. Wild, I know. Point is, it wouldn’t surprise me if D&D’s vision of magical rings predate D&D. What 3rd edition brought, in my experience reading the rulebooks, is a sense of acceleration and omnipresence.

The rules around rings in 3rd edition onwards is that you can wear two rings, and those rings will give you some magical benefit or advantage based on what they’re supposed to do. This is where stacking bonuses tend to rear their head for newer players. After all if you have a Ring of Protection that improves your armour by +1, and you have ten fingers, and those rings are cheap, why not buy a few of them, wear them on different fingers and get a lot better armour? The game saw you coming and instead, the rules limit these bonuses by type and also limits you to one ring per hand.

My time with 2e, towards the end, represent the loot cavalcade that was Baldur’s Gate 2, in which the world is lousy with magical gear which is designed to make it possible to approach a reasonably open world of quests. In this case, you wind up with enough magical rings you just start selling them in sacks, to the point where it can honestly not be worth picking them up in the early game because who’s gunna carry that malarkey? I do not want to pretend that 2ed lacked for this situation. Instead I want to describe the way that 3rd edition brought the idea of Unspecial Rings to everywhere. Almost every resource in the game that players got access to would bring new magical items, new feats, new character options to the board, and with that, you’d see some new rings.

When creating new magical items, the game provided a set of rules that described things that magical items could do, and the general family of effects they could have. Weapons, you might not be surprised, were good at making you better at attacking, and did special things when they hit things. Armour increased your defensive stats and made you better at surviving or enduring things. This could have some interesting side effects, some things that were judged on vibes — like, a trident that meant you could breathe underwater while you had it was probably okay, but it was definitely less okay than a suit of armour that gave you a swim speed and also meant you could breathe underwater. These were all put together by a complicatedly designed set of formulas that tried to price effects based on spells and then on the duration or effect of those spells.

What this meant is that knowing the best spells meant you knew the best ways to break these rules in weird outlier ways. An example that came up commonly was the ‘ring of true strike’ design a lot of players would conceive of, where you would make a ring that cast the spell true strike on use (ie, whenever you attacked). The formula for this implied that as a 1st level spell, cast as a 1st level wizard, this should cost 1x1x2000 gp. Since true strike granted you a +20 to hit on the next attack you meant, this item would obviously trivialising hitting things and that’s pretty nuts.

(Please ignore that a wand of true strike was a level 1 item for 750 gp that would give you this effect for 50 attacks, but only if you were a wizard or a character with the appropriate spell on your list.)

Anyway, the math kicked in at this point and looked for the most expensive way to price the effect. This ‘ring of true strike’ was granting a +20 to hit, and that was priced differently to the 1st level spell that gave it to you, meaning that instead of 2,000 gp, it cost you 20x60x2,000 gp, or 2.4 million gp, which is, uh, a lot more than 2,000. This is because to craft a tohit bonus like that, you needed to be 3 times the level of the bonus, meaning that you needed to find a level 60 wizard who had the time to waste on your nonsense.

Point is that things were examined in terms of their effect and their style. Armour did things that weapons didn’t do. Some weapons could improve your armour class but they needed a good flavour for it — like deflecting something, or blocking hits in melee. Staffs could store spells, wands could store spells but wear out, scrolls could store spells but only once, amulets could protect you in some way like improving a saving throw… and rings…

Rings could do anything.

Where most of the magic items have rules in them that make them hard to use in most situations, or gave them specific types of things they were best at replicating, rings could do anything. Permanent spell effects, on-use spell effects, permanent bonuses, a ring could be a real everythingamajig.

This was such a problem because it meant that even low level rings would wind up being useful, handy even to have around. A ring of sustenance turned off your need for food, for good, so you should probably have one of those for long distance travel. It’s real cheap, after all, and all it takes to swap it off is to swap a ring on a finger. A ring of feather falling could be jammed on a finger while you fell if you were falling far enough. And a ring of jumping could be handy for mobility, and none of these things were particularly expensive (by the standards of an adventurer) by the middle of the game.

The really cracked thing though?

These rings were so good and so worth keeping around in a big keyring for handy applications most of the time because they let non-wizards access all the handy utility stuff wizards had all the time from day 1. When a category of magical item is desireable because it lets you replicate something that the wizard can already do for a fraction of the cost – oh hey, there’s that wands conversation all over again! – you may have a problem class in your game.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#DnD 3e #Dungeons &amp; Dragons #Games

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tacoteddy22 · 5 days ago

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Love Drug - Chapter 10 - Iced Out (AO3)

Read from the beginning

Chapter 10 - Iced Out Pairing: Sylus x fem!OC Words: 2952 Sylus goes no contact with no warning. Val is worried and has a comforting conversation with Zayne. Sylus's silence is explained when Val is called to the N109 Zone. C/W: descriptions of injuries

Sylus wasn’t kidding about the unrest in the N109Zone. Reports of the violence had leaked their way to the mainstream Linkon news channels after several incidents of gang violence occurred in Linkon and citizens had been advised to stay away from any No Hunt Zone even more than normal.

Val dialed Sylus again. No answer. She had left him a voicemail earlier today… and yesterday… and two the day before that.

All of them had gone unanswered.

Her texts had also gone unanswered, and she was beginning to worry.

She called the twins. No answer.

Doc Lady: hey guys, you ok over there? Havent heard from you in a week and I’m just making sure you’re good.

Box Seat Buddy: Sy? Please just lmk you're still breathing so I can stop worrying.

She tucked her phone in her pocket and shoved the fear down until it was just a small ache in her chest. She was sitting in a presentation about some new medical device the surgeons would be implementing and was only half listening since she wouldn’t be using it.

She chewed on her lip nervously and her foot wiggled back and forth rapidly. She clicked her pen open and closed repeatedly as the worry crept back in slowly. Val needed them all to be ok. Even Mephisto hadn’t visited her, and he usually made an appearance at least once a day.

Her pen clicking thumb was frozen in place and suddenly burned with cold. She looked over at Zayne sitting next to her and gave him a dirty look.

“Ow, watch it you big snowman!” She whispered at him loudly, but they both knew she would have yelled at him if she could have.

Zayne leaned over and put a hand on the foot that was still wiggling. “Your fidgeting was getting distracting.”

Val let out a deep sigh and looked into her friend’s concerned gaze. Zayne Li had been a trusted friend of Val’s since she started at Akso Hospital her intern year. They were around the same age, but his accelerated studies had put him several years ahead of her in residency. He had become a mentor, and they connected over their abandoned research and the potential harm it could cause.

She’d been on of Zayne’s biggest and loudest supporters four years ago when his ethics were called into question after he’d refused to prioritize a surgery for a government official’s child. He’d opted to operate on the patient who was sicker. The smear campaign didn’t last long though once the rumors of Dawnbreaker started. Zayne had taken an abrupt leave of absence after that, but Zayne had never told Val why. She had no idea if anyone knew why. He came back to Akso quietly and just started working again one day as if he never left.

“I’m sorry. I’ve just got some shit on my mind. I’m trying not to bring it to work, but it’s clearly not working.” She gave him a pleading look and his mouth set into a hard line.

“Come with me. I’ve got something that can help clear your mind.” He stood up and straightened his coat, sliding out of the row casually. Val, surprised that he was skipping the rest of this presentation, quickly got up and followed him out the door.

He was halfway down the hall by the time Val caught him and she had to jog to catch up to his long strides.

“Look at you playing hooky Dr. Zayne! You’re such a bad boy!” She shoved him playfully and his mouth quirked up into a smirk. A rare sight from the stoic doctor and Val felt proud to have pulled a smile from him.

“I attended the presentation last week. I was just at this one to make sure I understood the device and hadn’t missed anything.”

“And there is the Zayne I know.” Val smiled at him, and he shook his head at her with another small smile. They turned the corner down a fluorescent lit hallway towards his office. He opened the door and gestured for her to go first. She walked and noted the clean, minimalist design.

“This office is so relaxing, Zayne. I’m going to start sleeping on your couch when I’m on call.” She flopped onto the couch as he hung up his white coat and grabbed a small pastry box from a desk drawer.

“Just fold the blanket when you leave. Here, I have extra macarons. Now tell me what’s making you anxious. Do you need me to check your blood pressure?” He handed her the box and Val opened it with wide eyes. She knew how much he loved his desserts, specifically macaroons, so him sharing his treats and asking about her blood pressure were his subtle ways of showing he cared.

“No, my blood pressure is fine but thank you. My anxiety is coming from a place that is very much in the realm of ‘girl talk’. If you’re not interested, I get it. I’ll drag Yvonne and some others out for drinks later.” She waited for his response and watched as he contemplated his answer. Finally, he nodded.

“I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I fed you sugar and didn’t at least try to help relieve your anxiety. I’ll be sure to tell you if I fail to keep up.” He picked up a pistachio macaron and bit it in half, chewing slowly and waiting for Val to speak.

“Ok. There’s a guy.”

Zayne rolled his eyes.

“Wow, you’re already off to a good start. Yvonne would have also rolled her eyes.” Val laughed and bit into a chocolate macaron. “So, there’s a guy. And we’ve been out twice. Once was on purpose and the other was just fortuitous. Anyways, we had a date a couple weeks ago - the one on purpose and he hasn’t called. But he said he wasn’t going to have a lot of free time because of work, I just didn’t think he meant he would be unavailable totally. I’m just worried about him.”

“If you’ve only been out twice, why so worried already?” Zayne looked at her with a slightly confused look. It was a fair question; there was a bit more history than she had let on.

“We met about three months ago, so we’ve just been getting to know each other before actually going out on a date. We’ve become friends, I think? He’s hard to read sometimes but seems to always know how to read me.” Val lowered her head and stared at the half-eaten macaron in her hand.

“Where did you meet him?”

“In the ER, his employees had gotten hurt on the job and he came in with them. It was the twins with the mental connection actually! One had a broken leg, but both had to be put under.” She perked up as she remembered Zayne also had an interaction with the twins.

“Ah yes, so the tall, brooding man is who you are referring to? I didn’t know he was a patient that day as well. You know the hospital frowns on doctors dating patients.” Zayne smirked again letting Val know he was teasing her to help lighten the mood. His tactic worked and Val let out a giggle.

“He needed like 8 stiches, it was nothing. And yes, the tall brooding one. Sylus.” Even just saying his name made her blood heat and brought forth a new wave of anxiety at his lack of contact. She let out a deep sigh and took a bite of her macaron.

Zayne went to take another bite but stopped with his hand halfway to his mouth. “I’m confused as to how one of your dates was accidental.”

“I went to the symphony and was getting harassed by some guy. Sylus was there that night too and pretended to be my date, which then kinda turned into an actual date.” Val smiled at the memory of her first kiss with Sylus.

“That is quite fortuitous. So, let me ask you, are you worried about him because you don’t want to think about the possibility he’s ghosting you?” He finished the rest of his pistachio macaron and raised his eyebrows as Valerie gave him a lethal look.

“Good thing you’re a cardio surgeon because you just cut my heart right out, sir. Woooowww. Fine, yes. I am thinking about the possibility of rejection, but I have good reason to worry. He is, um, in a dangerous line of business and it is just a little bit more dangerous than usual right now.” She spoke carefully not to give too much away about Sylus.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the ‘bit more dangerous’ N109 Zone would it?” He gave her a skeptical look and picked out another macaron from the box handing it to Val who just shrugged her shoulders and nibbled on the macaron.

“Well, if it is then I feel the need to warn you about involving yourself with someone in business over there. The risks are high, but the reward must be worth the risk to you. Also, as your friend, it’s understandable why you’d be worried about him. If he is just busy, then I’m sure he will reach out to you when he is able to. And if he is rejecting you, then he is a fool and didn’t deserve you anyways.” He looked at her and Val saw the sincerity in his eyes. She smiled brightly at him and linked her arm through his giving his arm a small hug. She rested her head on his shoulder, and she felt him lightly pat her head.

“You’re good at girl talk, Dr. Zayne. Thank you for this and the treats.”

“You’re welcome. Happy I could help you. Now, don’t you have patients to see? That presentation probably ended a few minutes ago.” He went to grab another macaron but paused and pulled his hand away closing the box. He stood and put the box back in his drawer then grabbed his white coat. Val opened the door and shook her head at him.

“No, my shift ended already. I just had to listen to the presentation about the new device.”

“Then as your doctor who repaired the heart he accidentally carved out, go home and bypass the ER so you don’t get dragged into helping out down there.”

“Yes, doctor.” Zayne held up his hand and Val reached up and gave him a high-five. They parted ways and she felt better after talking to Zayne (and discovering the location of his treat stash). She did not follow through with his orders to avoid the ER, however.

Judy, the charge nurse and another friend to Val, came up to her with a tablet and an open chart, but Val held up her hands and shook her head furiously, silently kicking herself for ignoring Zayne’s orders. Judy was hard to say no to sometimes

“Hell no Judy, I’m going home. Get that thing away from me!” Val crossed her two pointer fingers and held them up to her favorite nurse trying to ward off the tablet and new patient.

“It’s an easy one! Just an ankle sprain! Please Val, with this stupid presentation all my docs are off the floor.” Judy held up her hands, exasperated, exhausted. But Val knew better than to say yes to this or she’d be here all night.

“Yes, and I am one of them. I love you, see you tomorrow.” Val blew her a kiss on her way out and headed to the locker room to change out of her scrubs and into her street clothes before leaving.

Val got in her car and checked her phone again. No missed calls. Several unread texts from Rafayel. She called Sylus’s number and got his voicemail. She didn’t bother to call the twins again. Zayne was right, Sylus would reach out when he could if he was sincere. And if not… then the time they had was memorable at least.

When Val got home, she curled up on the couch under a blanket and turned on a movie she had seen a thousand times before. She just needed something familiar and comfortable to help her get over the worry she felt for Sylus and the twins. Eventually, the sounds of superheroes battling space aliens lulled her into a deep sleep.

A couple of hours passed, and Val’s phone rang.

She sat up quickly at the sudden noise and bright light waking her up. She looked at the screen and almost dropped it as she quickly tried to answer.

“Sylus! Oh my god, are you ok? I’ve been so worried about you.”

“Doc, its Luke. You gotta get to Onychinus. Boss Man was hurt really bad, and we need you to come help him.” She had never heard Luke sound so somber, and she knew the anxiety she had been feeling was her gut instinct telling her something was wrong.

“What happened?” She ran to her closet and pulled out the medic bag she used for Association missions she went on. Opening it she rummaged through it to make sure she was stocked up on supplies. She was low on a few items, but nothing vital.

“We were out at this abandoned building, and it was a set-up. He was shot in the shoulder, we think with an anti-evol bullet because he couldn’t heal himself or use his evol. He used up the last energy he could to shove me and Luke out of the way of the shrapnel, but he got hit pretty good.”

Val tossed the bag on the bed and began changing out of pajamas and into a pair of leggings and a t-shirt. She threw on a sweatshirt and stopped dead as she heard Luke.

“He was shot and then what exploded? He needs to be taken to the hospital! He probably needs more care than I can do alone! Where are you?” Val was screaming on the inside but was calm and cool on the outside. She was used to this, calming herself and keeping focus amidst the chaos. She did it every day in the ER and every time she went out on missions with the Hunters Association. She could do the same for Sylus and the twins despite feeling desperate after the damages Luke described.

“We’re back at the Onychinus base in the N109 Zone. I’ll send you the location, but you’ll need permissions to enter so just call me when you’re close and I can get you inside.”

Fuck. In her rush to get everything together, she forgot this was all in the N109 Zone. She did not want to go back there, not after that night seven years ago. Her breathing picked up and this time it wasn’t due to worry for Sylus.

“Luke, I can’t get to you if you’re in the N109 Zone. Can you bring him to Akso?” Val tried to sound cool, but her breathing was getting heavier, and her voice came out in a higher pitch than she intended.

“No, he’s passed out in bed right now. We really need you here, he would want you here. I can get you in, send me your location and I’ll come to get you. We can meet at Elysium. You’ll be safe there.” Val could hear Kieran in the background barking out orders which answered a question she had been scared to ask.

“No. Just send me the location. I can get in without you. I just need to make one quick stop at The Nest to ensure my safety.” Val closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She would have to face that place again and the memories she tried to shut out for so long. She could push past all her fears and go help Sylus but was worried that this trip would only end in more bad memories.

As she drove towards the N109 Zone to claim the place she had earned many years ago in that lawless land, she took deep breaths to calm her nerves and reassured herself that this time was different, this wasn’t a trap.

She pulled into the parking lot of The Nest and stepped out of the car, wary of the eyes on her. This wasn’t technically inside the N109 Zone, but it was close enough that the people of Linkon avoided it unless they had a death wish or a shady deal to make. She walked in and went up to the bartender.

“I’d like to claim my passage and protection into the N109 Zone.” Val’s tone was deadpan. No emotion, no fear, no mercy.

“Yeah? Who are you?” The bartender looked her up and down and gave her a skeptical look. A young, pretty thing like Val wouldn’t last long, especially with all the unrest. Val looked at the bartender with confidence she was only pretending existed.

“Hercules.”

The bartender’s eyes went wide, and she reached under the counter and pulled out a box. She pulled out a picture of Val taken seven years ago. Her face was black and purple from the beating she had taken, one eye swollen shut, blood leaking from an open cut on her forehead. Her clothes were torn and covered in blood and dirt. One arm hung limply at her side, and she leaned heavily on one leg as the other was broken.

“This you?”

Val’s lip curled up in disgust and she looked away, her stomach roiled, and she forced a dry heave down.

“Yes. That’s me.”

“Welcome back, Herc. You’re now free to enter the N109 Zone.”

#love and deepspace #love and deepspace sylus #sylus #lads sylus #sylus qin #valerie tatsu #lads fanfic #zayne love and deepspace #zayne li #dr zayne

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finelinepie · 1 year ago

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"On The Field"

PART TWO:

Footballrry / Reader

Plot: Dating the football star is not what you pictured happening your sophomore year of college, but it's happening, and you have to keep calm...how does one keep calm when he looks like...that?

Word count: 3.51K

Warnings: a swift kick in the ass. JK, just a punch or two.

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊

3 MONTHS AGO

“I cannot believe we are even having this discussion right now. You promised you would be there.” Isla whined at me.

“Isla, I am still going. I am just going to be late.” I tried to reason with her.

“Y/N, I can’t go out there without you?!” She yelled, throwing herself on her dorm bed, I rolled my eyes sitting on my bed across the room.

“Isla, you won’t be on the field for the first 20 minutes anyways, I am going to be there for you. I just need to turn in these essays to my professor so I can get this class over with, and since she has meetings tonight in the class room with other students, she is allowing me to drop them off. Also, it is dead ass across the street, please stop being dramatic.” I chuckle, watching my best friend throw her arms down on the bed.

“Okay, the dramatics are done. But I am letting you know that if I embarrass myself in those 20 minutes that my good luck charm isn’t there, that’s on you, Y/N!” She sighed loudly.

“I will take the fall, you have my word. I love you, I’ll see you soon.” I promised and grabbed my bag before racing out. Hurrying down the two sets of stairs and out the door, I make my way across the street to the vehicle that puts a smile on my face everytime I see it.

My 1967 Chevy Camaro. My parents were tuners growing up. They met at an illegal street race back when they were both 18, the grand prize? A dark teal 1967 Chevy Camaro Z28, but not just any ‘67 Chevy. MY ‘67 Chevy. They tied that race and agreed to split the time between them and the car.. That is not how races go, but my parents wouldn’t take no for an answer and the rest was history for them. She is a thing of beauty. With the bold, blacked out grille that has a Z28 badge in the middle, she stands alone in a crowd so beautiful as the white pin stripes make her stand out wherever she goes. She has 15-inch Rally wheels, which are iconic to the Z28, wrapped in Goodyear Wide Tread GT tires. She is perfect and I wouldn’t trade her for anything.

Hopping into the driver seat I push the key into the ignition and listen to my girl come to life. The smooth revving of her engine fills my ears as I pull out of the parking spot I am in. I slowly released the accelerator as I came up to a stop sign, I texted my professor on the group forum that we have that I was on my way and quickly set my phone down. Looking both ways before driving, I pressed on the gas to get to campus.

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊

Pulling into a parking spot, I swiftly turn my car off before grabbing my bag from the backseat, hauling ass inside the building my professor's room is in. I have time. I shouldn’t be rushing, but Isla’s dramatic ass has me worried she’ll purposefully fall just to spite me. She is dramatic AND petty like that. The hallway is quiet and nearly empty as I walk towards her Office. I gently knock on her door, not wanting to interrupt the study session she is currently in. “Come in!” I hear her soft voice speak up. Opening the door, I see the students all sitting in their usual lecture hall spots as she has a powerpoint pulled up on the board. I walked down the steps at a leisurely pace and smiled at her as I made eye contact.

“OH! Y/N! Welcome in, do you have the essays for me?” Mrs. Portello asked with a smile.

“Yes, thank you again for allowing me to barge in here and hand them in. I also want to say thank you for allowing me time on that last essay.You are the best, seriously.” I smiled back while handing her my folder with both essays inside.

“Oh nonsense! Things happen, no need to dwell on it. I am glad you were able to go home for the week and be with your family. I will read these over tonight and your last official grade will be posted tomorrow before noon.” She patted my shoulder before setting my folder on her keyboard. Front and center so she doesn’t forget. “Now, Go enjoy the game, and tell Isla I am rooting for her.” She winked. I laughed loudly before nodding. She must have told the professor something dramatic.

Zipping up my bag I walk up the step towards the door. Opening the door as quietly as I can I am just as gentle closing it, careful to not disturb the students and Professor Portello once more. Making my way out of the building across to the parking lot, I climb into my Camero. Glancing at my phone, I see I have a text from Isla.

Isla ☼ : Hurry up, we have 10 minutes until Kick off!

Y/N: On my way, see you soon drama queen.

I fire up the engine again, listening in pure bliss over the purr she gives me and as the sound fills the air, I am making my way to the stadium.

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊

Pulling into the stadium parking lot, I can already see the lights of the field glowling brightly against the night sky. I find a spot before making my way inside, showing them my photographer badge, I make my way in front of the bleachers next to the cheerleaders. Isla is front and center, giving her team guidance and confidence boosts like she does every game.

The excitement of the game, seeing everything come together for both the cheerleaders, and the footballers and also the prospect of seeing all the students and fans fill the stands lifting my spirits, making me quickly forget about the essays I handed in to Portello that decide my fate.

Isla spots me immediately and waves at me and motions me towards her.

“You made it!” She exclaims, throwing her arms around me.

“Ofcourse I did. I told you it would be quick. Now get out there and show them what you got.” I winked and swatted her leg. She squealed out a giggle and hopped over to her team and then quickly made her way out to the track to cheer for our college.

“You are the best, Y/N!” She yelled to me, but quickly let the smile leave her lips as she got ready to count the girls in. I watch as she stands with the rest of the cheer squad, feeling a sense a pride and anticipation. Grabbing my camera out of the camera back, I am quick to capture her stance, before moving to the left and then the right to capture the other girls in their ready stances.

Isla puts her poms together over her head before shouting loud to the crowd,

“R-O-W-D-I-E, that’s the way we get rowdie, ROWDIE. let’s get rowdie.” and claps three times. This time her teams joins in before they yell for the Badgers. “LET’S GO BADGERS!”

The crowd does as they say and starts stomping lowdly, smiling at the enthusiasm, I lift my camera one more time and capture the crowd in their moment of pure choas.

Co cheer captain Danielle waves her palms before starting the wisconsin cheer.

“U, RA RA, U RA RA.” She shouts and the stadium is quick to shout back. “WIIIISCONSIN.”

Isla is next, “U, RA RA, U RA RA.” And ofcourse we all follow suit. “WISCONSIN.” Everyone joins in for the 3rd and 4th round and says it quickly.

“Alright Wisconsin!” The announcers voice comes. “Let’s give it up to the team that brings us to victory everytime, the WIIIISCONSINN BAAADGERRRRS.” He exclaims, and I am quick to capture the crowd before swiftly turning around and getting the star player smasking through the paper banner.

Harry Styles. Star player, golden boy, most beloved, and smart as a wip. He closes his fists together pumping them outward and roars for the crowd as he runs to the center of the field. *click* What a man.

He puts his arms in the air and screams. “Let’s fucking go!” *click* With his arms still up he makes eye contact with me before forming the goal post with his arms, eyes squeezing closed with his tongue sticking out. *click* What that tongue do. wtf is wrong with me.

With a wink to my lense, and a finally *click* I am quick to pan to over to where the once put together banner was and got flicker shots of the rest of the team coming out. The chilly-ness in the air tonight making it look cool as you can see their breath as they shout and run out towards their captain on the field.

“Tonight, we play Idiana University, The Purdue Boilmakers!” The annoucer says, and that moment the opposing team, Purdue is quick to make their exit under the tunnel and the loud crowd on the opposite side of the field is shouting for them as well.

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊

WISCONSIN: 22 VS PURDUE: 13

Looking up at the scores never gets old, even almost two years in I get excited to see our team kick the opposing teams ass and it is a rush everytime. Hearing the cheers of the squad and the crowds, I am quick to continue flicker shots of my camera.

With time counting down, We are all in suspense as the Center, Ryder, snaps the ball to Harry, who immediately drops back to pass. The offensive line holds their blocks well, creating a solid pocket.

Harry has three choices for this pass, the wide reciever, the slot reciever, or the outside reciever. After seeing his options, he notices the linebackers biting on the drag, and the cornerback on the outside reciever giving him a bit of cushion. Harry reads the defense with precision, he delivers a high pass over the line backers and just ahead of the safeties.

Our teams tight end makes and athletic leap, catching the ball at its highest point, securing it with both hands. He lands in the endzone, securing the touchdown. The crowd erupts as the Badgers take the lead.

Harry shakes his tight ends shoulders with pride before getting bumped by Purdue’s captain, the surprise attack coming out of nowhere has harry knocking into his team mate. The visible anger is enough for the other Badgers to step in to help hold harry back.

“What the hell dude?” Harry’s deep voice snaps at the captain.

“Oh, my apologies, I didnt know my opposing captain was such a pussy.” The footballer snickered. I rolled my eyes. What a comeback dude.

“Harry!” The Badgers coach shouted across the field. “He ain’t worth it son.” He shouted once more. Harry’s team grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him toward their bench.

“I might not be worth it, but you know who is?” He patronizes. “Your cheer team. They look like a fun time.” He digs deep.

Our football team shake their heads in unison, still walking away without confronting the situation any longer. The announcer noticed the tention on the field before saying you cut it with a knife. I picked my camera up and pressed the capture button. Proud of our boys for taking the high road, documenting the moment, the click was like a pin dropping.

“Or maybe your little photographer. She looks like fun.” He chuckled. Um, ew?

“In your dreams, dude.” I scoffed, but my luck has never been the best, because what I thought was under my breath actually wasn’t.

“What the fuck did you just say?” He snapped. Choosing to ignore him, I am staring down at my camera, looking at him through the screen that is angled up at me. I pretend to click the non touch screen, trying not to add to the attention I have created for myself. He has angled his body my way before making his way towards me. Having the inkling to press record, I do, and my god this next part is cinema. “That’s what I thought, stupid bit-” He is cut off by a flying fist hitting him square in the jaw. Moving my camera quickly you can see Harry’s arm before he is on top of the rival captain and punching him once more in the jaw before getting up. Please god tell me I got that all on camera. Looking down and playing back the video, I see I did infact get it and cannot wait to show Harry later.

“Don’t EVER talk about a lady like that.” Harry barked. Officially walking away, and straight to the coach to get repremanded. My legs are metaphorically spread.

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊

WISCONSIN: 37 VS PURDUE: 17

The crowd roared to life as the final touchdown was played. The Wisconsin Badgers beat the Purdue Boilmakers for the second time this season and with how halftime went, no one on our side is complaining. Infact, they are cheering and chanting the only four words that matter whenever we win a game.

“EAT SHIT. FUCK YOU.” Over and over until the last fan of the rival team is off benches and off our field. I have just captured the last photo of the night and while I am putting my camera down to hang around my neck I am looking every which way for my trusty hero.

I won’t pretend that Harry and I are friends, because that is not the case. He is nice and stands apart from the typical college guys who are either rude or just looking for a hookup. Harry parties hard, but he’s also incredibly smart and priorities his grades and football over being the campus’ biggest jerk. It’s this balance that make him Intriguing.

Our paths crossed often enough- shared classes, mutual friends, the occasional study group- but we’ve never had a deep conversation. Still, there’s a mutual respect there. He is the kind of guy who will hold the door open for you, offer a polite nod in the hallway, and never push boundaries.

So when Isla dragged me to yet another party at the frat house where Harry lives, I didn’t mind as much. The house was loud and choatic, filled with music and mingling voices. Isla was immediately swallowed by the crowd and I found a nice quiet corner to people watch and sip on my jack and coke.

As the night went on, I noticed Harry moving around the crowd, talking to everyone, yet never staying in one place for too long. He had this effortless way of making people feel at ease, and it was clear why he was well-liked. When our eyes met, he gave me a small knowing smile and raised his cup in acknowledgement.

I smiled back, feeling a strange mix of comfort and curiosity. It was clear that Harry had layers, and while I wasn’t looking to peel them back, it was nice to know that not everyone at this college fit into the same mold. Maybe, just maybe, there was more to him than meets the eye. And maybe, just maybe, i’d find out some day.

But until then, Let’s find him so we can watch this video in slow motion and watch the football captain of Purdue get his shit rocked.

“Hey, Y/N!” I hear my name get called. Turning around I see Isla walking over with the one I was looking for. He has an iceback on his fist and he is looking straight at me. I smile at them both and wave.

“Isla!” I screamed, “I got that whole thing on video and I need you both to watch it ASAP.” I giggled. Isla squeeled and agreed while Harry groaned.

“I can’t believe I let my anger get the best of me.” He sighed loudly.

“But it made for great cinema Harry.” I winked. Pulling my camera up I went to the video and played it. “I’ll send you a copy. BAM. Bitch went down.” I rewind and played it one more time in slow motion.

“You did not just quote Tatum from Scream because I punched someone?” Harry laughed loudly.

“OFCOURSE I qouted the second queen of scream. Thank you for doing that by the way, it means alot.” I smiled. He shook his head and waved me off. Lowering my camera, I looked down to the screen. I felt Isla put her arm around my shoulder.

“Well, I am off. I really do want a copy of that. Our own personal superhero, I want a keepsake.” Isla giggled when Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head.

When Isla walked away Harry kept his gaze on her, not once looking down, still focused on her head. When she turned left at the field gate to walk to the parking lot, Harry looked down at his cleats before inhaling a deep breath

“So, you’re a Scream fan, huh?” I can just hear the smirk in his voice, and when I looked up I was right, tucking some hair behind my ear I nodded. Stop smirking at me, I’m feeling things.

“It is a guilty pleasure for sure.” I blushed. Keeping my eyes locked on his I could see a glint of adoration in his eyes, why? I couldn’t tell you. I felt the shyness creeping up and I quickly dropped my head to look at my camera.

I heard is quiet laughter and then soon after felt his knuckle under my chin. Making eye contact once more, He smiles softly at me. “Maybe we could watch them together.” He whispered.

My eyes widen, “Like a date?” I whispered back. abort abort abort abort.

“Woah woah woah, take me out to dinner first.” He pulled away and smirked, resulting in me slapping him lightly on the arm and giggling causing him to howl out a cackle.

“I would love to have a scream marathon with you, Harry.” I smiled up at him.

After a few minutes of just staring at eachother, we quietly exchanged phone numbers and headed our seperate ways for the night. This is fine. I’m fine.

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊

Taglist: @namoreno

#harry styles smut #harry styles fanfiction #harry edward styles #harry styles #football harry styles x you #footballrryxyou #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfic #harry styles one shot #harry styles x reader #harry styles imagine #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x original character #harry styles blurb #harry styles boyfriend #harry styles au #harry styles series

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thewulf · 2 years ago

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I Missed You || Jake "Hangman" Seresin

Summary: Request - Hello again! Hope you're having a wonderful week, I was hoping I could get one with Jake Seresin where the reader flirts with all the time, like all day everyday, like playfully and he always laughs it off, but the reader genuinely likes him but doesn't know how to show it ... Read Rest Here

A/N: I really like how this one turned out! Hope you all enjoy. As always thank you for the request @stuffingbuttsandshit !!

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Y/N

Word Count: 4.1k +

“Hey there handsome.” You slid down into the seat next to Jake trying to fake all the confidence in the world. Truthfully, he made you nervous as hell. The more you got to know him the more nervous you found yourself around him. You liked Jake Seresin. You liked Hangman. You’d known of him but finally met him a month ago when you both started training to become Captain’s. A select group of pilots had been chosen for a new accelerated program to push talent through to the top as the workforce ages out. The Navy finding a solution to the rapidly aging workforce.

He looked up from the manual he was reading over with a ghost of a smile crossing his features. The morning sun hit his face framing it so perfectly. Because of course it did. Even the damn sunlight was attracted to him. Not that you could blame it. Look at him, all perfect and shit.

“Bug.” He leaned back crossing his hands over his chest referring to you by your callsign. You’d earned it after accidentally consuming a pot brownie at a party and you wouldn’t stop talking about A Bug’s Life. You hadn’t a clue where it came from. You hadn’t even seen the damn movie in years. Leave it to the weed to earn a callsign for life. You’d grown to love it though.

“How was your weekend cutie?” Smoothly, you fluttered your eyelids rather dramatically before giving him your full-on smile. You’d fallen for the man quickly and he never even looked your way. Every time you were at the Hard Deck as a group his eyes would trail over to some surfer girl or new pilot that caught his attention for the night. More often than not you’d see him leaving with that same girl. Jake got what he wanted. You learned that quick.

It hurt. You tried to play it off like you never noticed, didn’t care. But you did. You craved for his eyes to be searching yours just like he had those other women. He wouldn’t even look at you like that though. He saw you as one of the guys no matter how hard you’d flirted with him. Nothing seemed to grab his attention. It felt like an endless game that you probably needed to drop but didn’t want to. You hardly thought you’d be able to find somebody else like him. Behind that tough exterior is a heart of gold. Somebody who will care so deeply for you. Put all your needs first. Make sure your happy. That was a rare person. Jake was a rare person. And he’d never see you. That hurt.

He smiled now. At least you could get that out of him, it was something, “My sister and nephew’s came to visit. It was nice.” He closed the manual knowing he wasn’t going to read much more with you sitting there. He’d never admit just how much he loved the attention you gave him on a daily basis. How you flirted incessantly with him. He looked forward to the new nicknames and creative ideas you’d come up with to flirt with him. It’d become a daily routine for him that he’d come to adore.

You nodded, “That sounds lovely. My brother told me to ‘fuck off’ when I told him he should come visit.” You laughed knowing he was just kidding. That was just his way of showing love to his younger sister. Brotherly love and all or something like that.

Jake smirked, “Sounds like a brother.”

“Sounds like a man.” You answered right back, quickly. He ran his eyes over your face, observing you. That’s all it took for your heart to speed on up. You just prayed that blood wasn’t rushing to your face, but you knew it was. Betraying you at your most vulnerable moment.

“You’re something else Y/N.” He shook his head turning back to the front of the room making sure Cyclone wasn’t up there yet. The hard ass was teaching your in-person lessons while Viper and Maverick took to the air.

You looked around too. Classmates were trickling in but paying the two of you no mind. It was still early. Cyclone started class right at 7:00 sharp. No excuses. If you were late you were kicked out for the day. It was noted. Always noted. Better get there early.

“I’m taking that as a good thing Jake.” You leaned over poking him in the bicep.

“Take it however you like.” Not a correction. Not a confirmation. A neutral response. He was impossible. There was no way you were ever going to break into the mind of him. You’d been thinking about it for a little bit now, but it might be time to pull away from him. Step back and give your aching little heart a break for a bit. It was impossible to keep at it only to get half smiles and nodding chuckles. You wanted more and he didn’t. That was okay. You couldn’t force it. Nothing ever worked like that.

You leaned back in your chair looking forward now. Time to pull back from him. Not all at once, no. You don’t think even you could quick Jake Seresin cold turkey. Oh, no no no. There wasn’t a way. He was too Jake. Not perfect, but perfect in his own way. A prize that was just out of reach from your grasp. A prize you had to back off from as much as it hurt.

“Alright.” You mumbled. He looked over at you quickly scouring your face for the sudden change in your mood. That was… odd for you. You were always kind. Always cheery. Always rebutting his non advances. You’d always lead the conversation and suddenly you weren’t. it was too quiet for him.

The rest of class you didn’t take your eyes off Cyclone. You’d normally poke and prod Jake for something, but you were backing off. You needed to focus anyway. At least that’s what you told yourself. You’d caught his occasional peak at you from your peripherals every now and then. He’d certainly noticed something, you thought.

Cyclone wrapped the morning session off sending you off to meet up with Mav after you changed. You shut your notebook without a word before putting it in your backpack. Not giving a damn how juvenile it made you look.

Jake peaked over once more expecting you to say something. But when you stood to leave without saying something he had to, “Everything alright?” He asked you already missing your cute little remarks.

You nodded, “Just fine. Watch your back in the skies.” You winked before turning off calling Natasha. Jake watched as you walked out without him and with Phoenix instead. He frowned watching you turn out of the classroom and out of his sigh.

You walked into the Hard Deck trying to spot the group of pilots you’d grown to love. You head Jakes big booming laugh out of the corner of the bar and made a bee line towards the group. A seat next to Frosty or a seat next to Hangman. You opted for the earlier and sat down next to the guy. Jake frowned seeing you sit down across from him instead of next to him like you’d always have. That’s why nobody took the spot next to him, that was your spot.

Nat raised an eyebrow as she saw your choice in seating. You hadn’t disclosed anything to her earlier in the day. She watched as Jake fought the grimace that so desperately wanted to show on his face. Had he done something?

“Evening, ladies and gents.” You smiled brushing out the dress you’d put on. You’d never understood how the guys could wear their uniforms out. You wanted nothing more than to change the second you were off base.

“Bug.” Frosty tipped his cap towards you, “You look nice.” Jake didn’t like the way his eyes raked up and down your frame. Not one bit did he like that. You looked far too pretty to be degraded like that.

Before you could reply to him Jake decided to speak up, “You look beautiful.” He shot Frosty a cold look, one to match his callsign.

Your eyes slowly turned to Jake, cheeks surely ablaze. That was a first. Jake had never complimented you. His eyes had always glossed over your figure. You’d seemed to just blend in with your surroundings.

“Thank you, Jake.” You smiled kindly at him.

He nodded, this time his eyes taking their time to size you up. You did look beautiful. Stunning even. He’d always known. But you were you. You were in his class. He’d have to work with you. He couldn’t think of you that way. Things never turned out good when that happened. So, he had to ignore it. Ignore whatever pull you seemed to have thrown right at him. He’d resisted as long as you paid him attention. He failed when you started to draw back though. He wanted your eyes on him again. He wanted your flirty words that so effortlessly rolled off your tongue.

He shrugged innocently, “It’s only the truth.” He took a sip of his beer shooting you a wink afterwards. You playfully rolled your eyes before elbowing Natasha in the ribs for whispering an obscene remark in your ear.

It was certainly odd behavior for him. He’d never reciprocated anything when you gave it your all not a day ago. But now that you were diversifying yourself he wasn’t having it? What kind of sick game was he playing? Real you in just close enough to bait you then switch? You couldn’t do that either. That’d crush your heart a thousand times over and you’d keep crawling back. Because who could resisted those tanned skin dimples when he smiled? Not you. Certainly not you at all.

You’d attempted to avoid his gaze most of the night only shooting him a wink and stinking your tongue out at him a few times. When you’d gotten up to grab a beer Jake wasn’t far behind you trying to play it off coolly and not looking like the puppy dog he felt like. Like you had him right on an invisible leash. You did though and only he knew that.

“Bug.” That voice brought you out of the conversation you were having with the handsome man at the bar. You felt how close he was to you, his breath right on your ear.

“Seresin.” You shifted your weight away from him, he was playing unfair now.

“How are you?” He asked stepping to the side respecting your boundaries. The last thing he wanted to do was upset you.

“I’m good.” You nodded smiling up at him. He looked, nervous? His hands were fidgeting with the other. His neck was craned looking for eyes on you.

“That’s good.” He nodded.

How odd this was, “And you?” You asked feeling like a complete stranger to him with the tension coating the air thickly.

“I’ve been better Buggie.” He answered you looking down right at you. He was the only one who could get away with calling you that. You’d shot down everyone else you even attempted to mimic Jake.

“Oh?” You asked raising the fresh beer to your lips. Jake watched as you tilted the glass back to take a sip. How the foam coated the top of your lip. How badly he wanted to brush it away once you set you glass back down. The foam vanished when you smiled. You were acutely aware of how he’d been staring right at your lips the entire time. What in the hell was going on with him? He’d never been so forward before. Not in all your attempts over the weeks. Hell, his actions made you feel like a leper not even the remotely attractive to his gaze. But this, this was something.

He nodded grabbing his glass from behind you making sure to brush his arm past yours, “Mhmm.” He was making you beg for the reasoning. Drawing the conversation out.

“Why’s that Jake?” You caved to his mental game.

“You didn’t sit by me. You always do.” He frowned letting his frustration be visible. He didn’t want to mess around now, afraid you might be slipping away from him.

“I don’t sit next to you every time. Plus, I needed to tell Frosty something.” You tried defending yourself.

He shook his head quickly, “Can’t bullshit a bullshitter Buggie. Didn’t your daddy teach you lying’s not a good thing?”

Jake fucking Seresin ladies and gentlemen. He had a masterful way of riling your right on up. Reading right between the lines you’d so intricately crafted. He broke down your façade within an instance. Reading you like a children’s book and not the high-level shields you thought you’d put up. It worked for everybody. Everybody except for him.

“Shut up Hangman.” You rolled your eyes walking back towards the table. But a gentle hand at your elbow stopped you.

“Did I do something?” He asked earnestly once you spun back around in the middle of the bar.

You shook your head playing dumb, “No?”

He sighed deciding not to press any further for the day, “If I did, you’d tell me?” He asked.

You nodded, “’Course Jakey.” You winked at him using the nickname only you could use. Jake nearly bit the head off of anybody else who tried. Jake watched as you walked back towards the group. He shook his head following behind you. Jake was down bad, and he knew it. He’d known it for a while.

The last straw for him was when you walked into the classroom the next morning and sat down next to Rooster of all fucking people. It’s not like Jake hated the man anymore but he certainly wasn’t best fucking friends with the guy either. Jake watched as the two of you conversed almost in front of him. Did you have any idea what you were doing to him at that moment? Driving him absolutely crazy when you threw your head back in laughter from something he said. Rooster, not him. He was so entranced with your conversation he hadn’t even noticed Nat sitting herself down next to him.

“You could just tell her you know.” She spoke up before the Admiral begun for the day.

He jumped at her voice. Shooting her a glare before answering her, “What are you talking about?” He decided to play dumb.

“That you like her.” Nat rolled her eyes, tired of his shit.

He sighed, “Why would I do that?”

She shrugged, “Because you do?” She said as if it were the most obviously thing in the world, “Look, she thinks you don’t like her. That’s why she stopped being so… forward. She thought she was annoying you. That’s not what she wanted to do to you. So, she stopped.” Nat said quickly and quietly out of the corner of her mouth.

He frowned almost immediately, “You’re shitting me.”

She shook her head, “Nope. But you didn’t hear it from me.” She whispered before sitting back in her seat as if no conversation had happened.

You thought he didn’t like you? How could he blame you though. He’d hardly reciprocated anything in the time he’d known you. How dumb could he be? Fuck, he really messed it up this time.

He was distracted the entire time. When Cyclone called on him and he stumbled through the answer the Admiral shook his head muttering something under his breath. You gave him a soft smile and a thumbs up in encouragement. Little did you know it was because of you he’d mucked that up so bad. He had to talk to you before they went up in the air for the day or he’d probably end up crashing.

When Cyclone wrapped it up he stood quickly, lingering by the door. He watched as you packed your bags up and waved Rooster off probably wanting to walk alone. He had other plans though.

“Y/N.” He said your name softly as you passed him, seemingly in a trance.

You looked up to him smiling softly to him, “Jake, hi.”

“Can we talk?” The look in his eyes said he was being sincere. He wasn’t bullshitting you.

You looked around not seeing anybody else in the classroom, “Sure.”

He pulled you out of the doorway before shutting the door. He turned quickly to you. He grabbed at your hands pulling you closer to him. Your heart was hammering in your chest as your wide eyes looked up at his much softer, sweeter ones, “Jake, what’re doing?” You asked almost breathless.

“I miss you.” He admitted, “It’s been a damn day and I miss you desperately Y/N.” He pulled you closer. You let him of course. This was everything you wanted and more. So much more.

“I don’t understand.” You admitted. He’d given you nothing for weeks. Where was this coming from?

“I’m a fucking idiot that’s what.” He pulled you in even closer. Your chest was flush with his. Surely he could feel your heart hammering in your chest. He looked down at you with a wicked grin as your eyes fluttered shut smelling his cologne mix with his own natural scent. Euphoria struck you in that moment, “Sweetheart.” He murmured so close to you goosebumps erupted almost immediately.

Your eyes snapped open feeling his lips brush your naked ear lobes, “Jake, you can’t…” You stopped seeing his expression cross from one of softness to something much more sinister. A darkened desire flashed through his eyes that sent a wicked shiver right down your spine.

He rolled his eyes. Mimicking you as you’d done it so many times before. Hardly feeling like you were at work anymore Jake took over your strongest desires. He was your strongest desire. Right here teasing you like you like the putty for him you were.

He leaned down to your other ear doing the same. Brushing his lips so dangerously close you could feel him. Jake enjoyed the goosebumps that rippled up from his breath. A physical reaction proving his own thoughts true, “I can, and I will. If you let me.” The vibration from his low drawl sent ripples throughout every part of your body. You shook it off thinking for a second.

He took a chance and brushed a strand of hair behind your ear making sure to drag his fingertips across your neck. Grinning when he felt you shiver at his touch. He knew he’d melt the same way at your own touch, “Sweetheart.” He whispered again before pulling back knowing your brain was likely short circuiting. He had the advantage of knowing your feelings. Although he was making it rather obvious that he reciprocated them.

“Jake, what are you doing?” You asked again. You just couldn’t seem to believe that this was actually happening.

He chuckled letting his arms snake around your waist to pull you impossibly close now. He was so much taller than you. Your head level with the top of his chest. But you molded in so well. It felt so good. So true to what you needed.

“I told you. I was dumb. I like you darlin’. More than a friend does. Way more than a friend should.” He was looking right down at your lips as you were looking up at his.

“You like me?”

“Mhmm.” He hummed not tearing his eyes away, “And I think you like me too. Isn’t that right sweetheart?” He was coaxing it out of you now.

He grinned when he saw your pale cheeks coat with a beautiful cherry pink. A blush he’d never grow tired of seeing. In fact, he made it his mission to see it every day. For some reason, he didn’t think it’d be too hard. He’d find something new to compliment you on every day for the rest of his life. He just knew it. It wouldn’t be hard with you. He was going to start making plans with you. He was sure of this one.

“Jake?” You asked feeling the nerves bubble throughout your body. The look he was giving you was one of pure adoration. One that you burned into your memory. A look you’d never seen from such a beautiful man, or any man before. One that told you that you were loved, no matter what. Through thick and certainly through thin.

He used his pointer finger to pull your chin up towards him, “Yes, darlin’?” He asked with a goofy grin sporting his gorgeous face.

“Can you kiss me?” With little confidence you had left you asked him a question you’d wanted since the second you met him. Immediately you trusted the man. You were so drawn to him. It only took you pulling away for a brief moment for him to realize the same. It was different with you.

He nodded with a feverish grin, “Thought you’d never ask beautiful.” Gently, he pushed you up against the wall before pressing his hips into yours. Jake pinned your hands above your head onto the wall as he took a snapshot of your needy face. Doe eyes begged him to kiss your puffy lips full of desire.

A whine burst from your lips as Jake studied you. You couldn’t take it anymore. You really just wanted the man to kiss you. At that, kiss you he did.

With a swift motion he dropped his hands from your wrists and placed them behind your head. He leaned down pressing his lips to yours. Your knees began to buckle as the kiss turned more desperate, quickly.

You pressed forward lacing your hands throughout his golden locks. He let out a guttural groan before snaking an arm around your waist steadying you. He pressed in further brushing his tongue against your lips. Without hesitation you let him in. Let him explore like you’d so desperately wanted him too before. You bucked your hips against his earning another small groan from the man who knew he was in deep, deep trouble with you. A wild card you were.

He pulled away with displeasure knowing it couldn’t go any further at that, “Sweetheart, we are at work.” His grin only widened when he saw your disheveled state. His hands making a mess of your once perfect bun that you’d have to redo in the locker room. A rosy blush coating your face only making you more stunning. Your blown out pupils telling him the whole story, “I don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, but God Damn are you a vision darlin’. Absolutely fucking stunning.” His eyes now surveyed your entire body.

You shook your head, “Can we pick this up later? My place 6 o’clock?” You asked with so much desperation in your voice it should’ve been embarrassing. But you didn’t care. You wanted him to know. You craved him.

He nodded slowly brushing your hair back down so you wouldn’t look too suspicious walking to the locker room, “Absolutely pretty girl. I miss you already.” Another blush rose to your cheeks as the pad of his thumb brushed across your now swollen lips. He smirked at what he’d done. Hopefully nobody’d be none the wiser. But Jake had a sneaking suspicion Nat would notice. She was probably wondering where the two of you were now.

“As much as I want to continue, we should get going before Mav has our asses.” He grabbed your hand pulling you from the wall he’d pushed you against moments ago.

You nodded quickly, “Yeah, yeah.” Dazed and confused you walked into the locker room with Jake hot on your heels. Nat stood there with her arms across her chest looking at you with a curious grin.

“Don’t say a word.” You mumbled opening your locker and pulling out your flight suit with a swift pull.

She laughed, “Didn’t say a thing Bug. But you’re going to have to tell me later.”

You nodded with a stupid smile that wouldn’t go away, “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. Promise.”

She gaped at you, “You better.”

You promised once more before walking out of the locker room with her. When you walked out you found Jake’s eyes on your figure quickly. That same loving look he’d shown you before in the classroom adorning his face made you nearly weak at the knees.

You heard Nat chuckle beside you only earning a swift elbow in the ribs from you and soft, “Shut up.” Before you turned back to Jake flashing him your brightest smile.

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mediumgayitalian · 1 year ago

Text

prev chapter

———

“Okay,” Will says, when they’re comfortably on the road. This early in the morning, Highway 17 is practically empty; nothing but sunny skies and clear air rushing through the open roof. The emptiness may also be attributed to the fact that it is a random Tuesday. “Pick a number between one and nine.”

“Uh, five.”

“Good choice, good choice.”

He opens the center console, digging around Nico’s – well, and his, at this point – collection of CDs to find the right one. He makes a little noise of triumph when he finds it, blowing on the back and wiping it on his shirt before sliding it into the port.

“One half-assed polish isn’t gonna fix those scratches, Solace,” he teases.

“If you weren’t such an emo fuck, Playlist Five wouldn’t be so scratched.”

Nico laughs, conceding this round. Will looks inordinately pleased, nose scrunching along with his tiny smile even as Linkin Park starts blasting through the speakers, which he hates.

“Three songs ‘til Britney,” he grouches as Nico starts hollering along to Points of Authority. Nico shakes his head, still grinning – as if he didn’t make these playlists. If he is truly so miserable, he wouldn’t have put the song on at all.

(Nico knows, in the very back of his mind, that Will actually and truly cannot stand Linkin Park. To him, it’s not music at all. He has never been able to get into it, as much as he swears that his love for music goes beyond genre. If Linkin Park is on this playlist, and they’re on more than one of the playlists Will has made specifically for their shared car rides, it’s because he cares about Nico more than he hates the band. Nico shoves this knowledge deep into the dustiest corners of his mind, because that’s more than he can afford to think about.)

The next couple hours pass by comfortably. There isn’t much to remark on the side of the road except the odd fruit stand, or farm advertising eggs and honey, so onward Nico drives. He keeps an eye on the odometer, but mostly trusts Will’s calculations. If he says they won’t need gas ‘til Anthony, wherever the hell that is, Nico believes him.

“Highway changes to the 98 through here,” Will says, nodding to the tiny sign that boasts nothing except Ft. Meade CITY LIMITS, right next to the giant banner half the size of the church it's attached to that reads, REPENT OR BURN.

Ah, Florida. Please one day change.

“Do I need to exit?”

“Nope, the road just changes to a different number.”

He eases off the gas as they approach the tiny town, watching carefully for state troopers. And, like, children, probably. So far he’s passed twelve gun ranges and one school, but whatever. He can have priorities, even if this garbage state doesn’t.

“Hm. 98 is a better number.”

“Absolutely not,” Will tells him, aghast. “17 is a prime number!”

“Ninety-eight is more fun to say. Also, prime numbers suck.”

“You take that back –”

Nico slides up his sunglasses, shaking his head fondly. Nerdiest nerd to ever nerd. He would be embarrassed if he wasn’t so endeared.

He presses back on the accelerator as they exit the town, turning up the music as Will’s rant ends. He shucks off his shoes – Feet off my goddamn dash, Solace – and curls up into his seat, burying himself in a book. Nico glances away from the road to try and read the title, but quickly gives up since the font is bright fucking purple, for some reason, and in some horrible looping shape that he knows will give him a migraine. All graphic designers should be in prison.

“Hey, there’s apparently a gator reserve forty-five minutes ahead.” Nico squints again at the book. Barely, he can make out “roadside” and “weird”. “‘Weird American Roadside Attractions’,” Will reads aloud, noticing Nico looking. “Such as a very nice and highly rated gator reserve –”

“No.”

“Road trip, Nico. Adventure.”

“I’m super happy to adventure away from living fucking dinosaurs, Solace.”

“Aw, come on, they’re kinda cute –”

“Two thousand pounds per square inch of jaw strength! You are the one who told me that!”

“You don’t think you could take one in a fight?”

Nico stares at his best friend incredulously. He’s got a thoughtful little frown on his face, looking at the sky as he contemplates. Nico notices, vaguely, that the shade of his irises is the exact same color.

“No, I do not. Obviously.” He pauses. “You think you could take a fuckin’ gator?”

“I think it’s possible.”

“See, that’s crazy, because fifteen seconds ago I genuinely believed you were an intelligent person.”

“Do not lie to me and tell me you don’t have a list of animals you know you could take in a fight,” Will says, instead of rising to the bait. He waits, meeting Nico’s glare, eyebrows raised.

“An ostrich,” Nico admits, begrudgingly. “I feel like – one good punch to the throat –”

Will smiles smugly at him. “That’s what I thought.” He turns back to his book, fiddling with the corner of a page. “Also, ostriches are more closely related to dinosaurs than alligators. So. Check and mate, motherfucker.”

They pull into Anthony at around eleven, at pretty much exactly a quarter tank – just like Will predicted. He looks inordinately pleased about it, so Nico shoots off a quick prayer to the karma gods.

He trips on his way out of the Jeep. Nico smirks and thanks the karma gods.

“I’m gonna go stretch my legs,” he says, unaware of Nico’s hand in his humbling. Nico waves him off, attention turned to the gas pump.

Annoyingly, as he pulls out his card and handles the pump, he remembers Will’s scrunched nose and pursed lips as he’d explained, when they were 16, how gas station pumps were frequently more germy than their toilets, and cleaned approximately one hundred percent less. Suddenly, his hand begins to feel grimey.

Twelve bags of chips, a gas station slushie, and a pair of clean hands later, Will is still nowhere to be found. Nico frowns, craning his neck to look around the tiny parking lot as if he somehow missed Will’s neon orange shirt the first time he looked. Still not catching sight of him, he walks hesitantly back to the Jeep, tucking his snacks away and biting his lip, contemplating. Will is both very fast and very easily distracted, but he has enough sense not to go too far in a random town five hours from home. If he sticks by the car and waits, Will’ll be back soon.

But, on the other hand, waiting is torture.

Easy decision, really.

He locks the door, hopes that no one will show up with a pair of wire cutters and a flathead screw driver, and sets off. The first thing he notices, and he adds it to his mental list of things to loudly complain about when Will is locked in the car with him, is that it is fucking sweltering. In the hours approaching the afternoon, the day has gone to pleasantly warm to so hot the air is actually thick with it, and he doesn’t have wind ripping through the open windows to cool him down. Plus, he’s wearing jeans, and for the first, and hopefully only, time in his life, he envies his friend’s cargo shorts.

The second thing he notices is that Anthony, Florida, is empty as shit. (All the love in his heart to the people who call it home, but also, move.) He’s hesitant to stray too far from the gas station, in case Will comes back and finds him gone, but there are no hills or anything. He can see quite far down the road. The only thing he sees is a possum starting a fight with a poor random guy – which, actually, is kind of fun to watch.

Perhaps he has judged Anthony too harshly.

“Nico!” shouts a voice, startling him. He whips around and finds Will, standing in the goddamn center of the road, the dumbass, waving like a lunatic.

“There is no possible way I was going to miss you,” Nico informs him when he’s close enough. “You are approximately the height of the Washington monument. I could not miss you if I tried.”

“I wasn’t waving to get your attention, I was waving to shoo away the eagles coming to take your tiny ass back to the nest.”

Nico kicks him in the shin. Will, well used to his violence, dodges, grinning, except in the act of hopping away from Nico’s dangerously hardy boots, he somehow wraps his foot around his own ankle and goes sprawling.

Nico smirks. “Who’s the short one now.”

Faster than he can even follow, Will’s hand darts out, wrapping around his ankle, and tugs, yanking him yelping on the asphalt next to him.

“Foul!”

“All’s fair in love and war, Neeks.”

Shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shut the fuck up, Nico screams at the alarm bells blaring in his brain, he doesn’t mean it like that and you know it oh shit he’s looking this way quick look normal look normal –

“I can do war if that’s what you want, Solace,” he manages, honestly quite proud of himself for managing speech with approximately fourteen percent of his brain still functioning. Hot damn.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway.” He crawls to his feet, offering Nico a hand. He takes it, dutifully fighting the urge to pull Will down again, just to be an asshole. He’s cool like that, and most definitely being normal about the scrape of Will’s callused fingers against the inside of his forearm. “I found maybe the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, and I need you to come look at it immediately.”

“Sick,” Nico says, immediately intrigued. Will is a dork and a dweeb and a nerd and Nico is one thousand percent cooler than him, but Will is also funny. He trusts that much.

Also, it's fucking Anthony, Florida. Will could be dragging Nico to find a living breathing grey alien chain smoking an entire pack in one go and he would remain somehow unsurprised.

He follows will down the road, passing the gas station again. (His car, thankfully, remains in one piece and beautifully not-robbed.) They dark across an empty intersection, walking across a yellowed lawn as they approach a run-down, patchy, one-storey bungalow with a rusted sign that reads: The Iron Works.

“Behold,” says Will gleefully, “the Abstract Iron Centaur.”

And behold, Nico does.

Gaping, he observes the structure standing proudly under the sign. Striding proudly, rather, its front legs bent to simulate movement, its human arms poised as if ready to strike. It wears a medieval knight’s helmet, and holds a rusted axe. The entire structure is a little taller than Will, and made of, presumably, iron, rusted into a light roan red.

“Abstract Iron Centaur,” Nico repeats, after several minutes of silence.

Will still looks delighted. “It was in my book. I had no idea what to expect and also I didn’t believe it was real. Isn’t it the greatest thing you’ve ever seen?”

“It’s…something.”

“We gotta take a picture, Neeks. I never want to forget this thing.”

Nico allows himself to be pulled, still somewhat bewildered. It’s not even the oddest thing he’s ever seen, it’s just – he has many questions, like, for example, why? And maybe, huh? And perhaps again, for emphasis, why? And if he could have another moment in time, for the bilingual among them, perché?

“Okay, squish in, this camera is older than your elderly ass and doesn’t have a timer.”

The familiar jab breaks him out of his stupor. “Seven months older than you, fucker.”

“Geriatric.”

Without warning, Will crowds them under the Abstract Iron Centaur’s lifted arm, and then presses his widely grinning cheek right flush to Nico’s, raising his beat-up camera to the air.

Nico’s brain goes static.

“Say cheese!”

“Hnngh,” says Nico, as the camera blinds him.

Luckily for his continuously worsening blood pressure, Will pulls away the second he hears the click, shaking the ejected negative to help it develop, and Nico has a second to remind his lungs that they have a function, actually, get your shit together, I am not dying in fucking Anthony, Florida.

“You look like a loser!” Will says, delighted. “Look!”

Blinking at the photo shoved one sixteenth of an inch from his eyeballs, Nico indeed looks. The Abstract Iron Centaur looks more foreboding on camera, somehow, but Nico barely notices it – instead, he finds his gaze drawn to the beam so wide it forces Will’s eyes shut, and the dazed, dopey look on his own face; eyes wide, mouth dropped, slightly, and posture undeniably leaning into Will’s magnetism. Humming to himself, Will slips his wallet out of (one of) the (many) pocket(s) of his shorts, tucking the photo inside it. Nico melts into a puddle of goo on the dead grass. His mortal soul escapes his body, descending rapidly. His atoms return to star dust. Et cetera.

Fighting Will for the photo now is useless. He unfortunately has a mean right hook and is just as liable to punch himself in the nose, rendering them both incapable and stranded. Nico wills the humiliation evident in his cheeks to fuck off back where it came from and vows to tear the photo to shreds and toss the pieces like rice in a wedding out the window at eighty miles an hour.

“Oh, shit, we gotta go if we want to reach Georgia in good time.”

“Right,” says Nico, voice cracking. He clears his throat and tries again. “Let’s go.”

He absolutely does not haul ass to his car. He walks at a normal pace, for normal reasons, thoughts in a normal place.

“Back on the 75,” Will instructs as they peel out, sliding sunglasses on his nose. “We gotta scoot around town a bit to get to the entrance, but it won’t take long.”

“D’you know this place?” Nico asks, even though he doubts it. As far as he knows, Will was outside of Sarasota one time: in the move from Austin. He supposes his mother might have had a show up here, or something, and unusually, let him tag along, but he doubts it.

“Nah, just memorized the map.”

Nico hides a smile. “Oh, of course.”

It’s all too easy to tease Will, but there was a reason he was valedictorian. There’s a reason for his many shining scholarship offers, his endless well of ridiculous facts pulled from nowhere. He is, genuinely, the smartest person Nico has ever met.

Even if he genuinely believes he can fight an alligator and win.

“Two hours ‘til we cross state lines,” Will says brightly, shouting slightly over the wind as they merge onto the highway. “And then on to infinity!”

“Onto infinity,” Nico agrees, matching his smile.

Already, he’s proved Nico wrong. They’re farther now than Will has been since he was seven, and there’s nothing in his expression that suggests he wants to slow down.

Privately, and quietly, Nico lets himself start to hope.

———

next chapter

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ominouspuff · 1 year ago

Text

Tears on Kamino

CC-2224 didn’t know why the other boy was crying, but he didn’t need to. All he needed to do was pull his fingers over a shaved scalp, slowly so as not to startle, and try not to let on how curious he was to see the way the tears dripped in odd shapes down the hot, red, twisted face.

They were hidden, huddled up together — actually hidden, not just sticking to shadows in the open, because if tears weren’t, the odds were against them that things would get official, and nothing good ever came of something getting official. The closets had no cameras nor microphones, and the one they’d crammed into (seventh basement level, thirty paces from Engineering and the guards at its door) was in disrepair — was in line for being decommissioned, in fact. The Kaminoans were meticulous.

But it wasn’t decommissioned yet, so CC-2224 knew it would be the perfect place the instant that he’d pieced together that his new companion was about three seconds away from bursting into tears. They’d made it to the door in under two, but it had taken a bit of jostling and bony elbows jammed into sensitive places that might’ve accelerated the whole ‘tears’ business.

They were here now, anyway, and they were safe. CC-2224 considered the maneuver a success.

“Hey,” He said, and it was a useless thing to say but he’d heard that the majority of what was said to crying things was supposed to be useless. Apparently there was something distracting and comforting about just — being chattered to. So CC-2224 did his best. “Our rations are made from bugs. I would’ve guessed fish, but they don’t have the nutrients. Plus fishing is a dignitary sport anyway-”

“Would you - shut up -” The other boy interrupted wetly, heaving with great big breaths that diminished his chest to half its size with every gasp. His face was — if possible — redder than before. His brown eyes were sharp, and they were glaring at CC-2224 from beneath his brows, hardened with a painful-looking panic. “Just- stop talking.”

CC-2224 digested this request (such as it was) in silence, weighing the odds that the boy knew better than he did what was needed. He scrutinized the glare in the dim lighting, but it was clear and steady enough. CC-2224 nodded agreement, lips sealing tight. He kept stroking the shorn head, the space so tight between them that all he had to do was swivel his wrist a little — the boy hadn’t asked him to stop that, and he hoped he wouldn’t think to.

He signed with his free hand instead of speaking, furrowing his brow to clarify it was a question.

The boy’s glare wilted slightly as he focused on tracking the signs. Finally he blew out a shaky gust of air. “CT-7567.” He said, and it was very strange to hear him try to put firmness and confidence into it when he could still barely breathe without hiccuping. “You could tell that by checking my code anyways.” He explained defensively — as if he thought CC-2224 might judge him harshly for revealing it or pounce on some kind of opportunity.

Then again, if CC-2224 hadn’t just dragged them both into a protected space, it would’ve been smart to be suspicious — and he would have had to investigate a bit to find the other boy’s code. Seeing as CC-2224 had done all sorts of helpful stuff, though, the second-guessing was a poor show — one that immediately made CC-2224 that much more certain that CT-7567 had been crying because he was an idiot.

He’d heard that, in some places, ‘idiot’ was just an insult. It wasn’t that way on Kamino. Idiots didn’t last long; the Kaminoans were, after all, meticulous about utility. Closets weren’t the only things getting decommissioned. Pretty common reason to cry as far as CC-2224 figured, and it would explain their current predicament.

It was enough to grim up any vod, but there might be hope yet.

CC-2224 settled his back against the wall, breathing deeply, and imagined he could see the sim-walls — that he could read the fake mission update on the holo, letters glowing, challenging him to find a way to beat it. (Pretending helped him think faster. Being too confident was a weakness, but if CC-2224 knew anything, it was that he was very good at this.)

There were immediate gaps in information he needed for the mission’s resolution — holes that needed filling before he could pick the next direction. His hand moved almost of its own accord, signing fast and hard.

CT-7567 watched, his breathing evening out by painful increments, brows furrowed in concentration where another cadet would have followed easily. (CC-2224 held his breath at what that might indicate about CT-7567’s intelligence, and he resisted an urge to suck his teeth.)

“Stop, stop,” CT-7567 finally snapped, flapping a hand right into the middle of the signs. “They haven’t taught us that, yet — I only know pieces. Talk instead.”

“Oh, good, I thought you were stupid.” CC-2224 said in relief, and startled when the other boy hit him hard on the shoulder. “What? It’s not uncommon. If you had been, you’d be dead soon.” He snapped, narrowing his eyes and leaning backwards.

CT-7567’s red face blanched, both splotchy and pale at once, and CC-2224 nearly got distracted by how different it made him look. Later. He could think about it later, when CT-7567 wasn’t in danger anymore.

“Stop panicking.” CC-2224 said, and it came out a bit nasty, but his shoulder was still aching. CT-7567 hit hard. “What’s your defect?”

CT-7567’s fear turned to outright terror, but they were so far beyond that now it was almost silly to see. CC-2224 was no Kami, nor a Good One — if he had been, he’d have reported CT-7567 from the start just to get an edge.

(Among clones, it was a taboo question. It still got asked, but only as a last resort; usually quietly, to a terrified boy in a corner with several others hemming him in, trapping and shielding all at once. Tell us, the braver ones would say, maybe we can help.

Sometimes they did help. Other times they made things official. ‘Identifying and reporting issues’ was something high-functioning property was supposed to be good at. They liked how following procedure made things easier for them, and if it didn’t come at the expense of another clone, CC-2224 might not have blamed them.)

CT-7567 stared at him like he’d damned the name of Nala Se herself. But just as CC-2224 was bracing himself to hear something stupid, like ‘what defect?’, CT-7567’s eyes narrowed and his spine straightened and CC-2224 suddenly knew —

‘Idiot’ wasn’t the defect. The defect wasn’t even in that category. CT-7567 was just smaller than CC-2224 had figured, and there was something more serious going on — something big and obvious and unfixable that made little things helpless the bigger they got, the more it grew, the harder it was to conceal. Helpless vod got desperate, and sometimes acted like idiots, but that didn’t make them one.

“You’ve got your hand on it.” CT-7567 said cryptically, but blessedly (for the sake of CC-2224’s dwindling patience and proportionally increasing anxiety) followed up with: “My hair. It’s wrong; gets white splotches when it grows.”

Ah. Actually, CC-2224 knew something about things like that. “That why you have it shaved?” He clarified. The buzz felt nice under his fingers.

“Yes.” CT-7567 muttered. “But the splotches are getting bigger.”

Bleaching. CC-2224 knew even more about that, though not from experiencing it personally.

Bleaching was common. It meant that hair began to lighten in odd places or patterns — usually before maturity, but some unfortunates were late bloomers.

CC-2224 had once caught a glimpse of a fully fledged CT being transferred on a hover bed to decommissioning, hair speckled with white. It had been a shock to realize it could happen that late — that they couldn’t be sure they were safe, even after maturing.

There were some solutions he knew of already, but they were difficult, and resources limited. Even the best ones relied on luck so heavily that CC-2224’s nose wrinkled, and he bent himself to the task of thinking up other solutions.

Five minutes of silence and thoughts and buzz beneath his fingertips ticked by before CT-7567 brought CC-2224’s awareness abruptly back into the closet.

“Your fingers are trembling.” He said, so much steadier now — maybe because he was focusing on someone else’s problem. CC-2224 knew the feeling well; if a clone wasn’t careful, they could get obsessed with it, to the point they forgot to take care of their own business entirely — and that ended in death too, of one sort or another.

“They do that,” He said distractedly, stifling the spark of irritation that being interrupted ignited in his chest — like a petty little mouth full of sharp teeth, nipping at his ribs. He focused on the buzz beneath his fingers. “They do it when I’m thinking. I like solving problems.”

“Oh.” There was a lot in that ‘oh’, but CC-2224 couldn’t spare much brainpower to track it — he was using it on other things. Then, after a pause, CT-7567 quietly said: “Thank you.”

“Haven’t solved anything yet. Thank me when I do.” CC-2224 pointed out — this time with significant impatience at being interrupted — and CT-7567 grunted in acknowledgement of the wisdom behind that, at least.

CC-2224 thought harder, holding his jaw carefully loose so he wouldn’t chew his lip. The silence stuffed his ears full, and he danced from idea to problem, from solution to unexpected flaw, until there were no more flaws and his lip hurt because he’d forgotten not to chew it.

The closet came back into clarity, and CC-2224 stilled his shaking hand. He couldn’t quite contain his grin, though. “Got it.” He said — and because he really did have it, he let his pride show. With luck, it would help reassure CT-7567 it was true, and he’d be confident instead of second-guessing everything. “C’mon. We’re going to need a few things.”

They spent the next few minutes trying to do damage-control on CT-7567’s unbelievably splotched face.

CC-2224 donated his socks to the cause, wetting them in the sanitization pump (it leaked on his bare feet, but he offered that up as a painful necessity), and wiping the tears away methodically. CT-7567 bore it stoically, every ounce of his will bent on forestalling more tears — and he managed it. His skin went back to normal and his pinkish eyes cleared up. They couldn’t help the swelling of his lids and nose, but that was a manageable risk.

CC-2224 did some rinsing and ringing out, then put his slightly soggy socks back on, sealing his boots up just as he would for a dry pair, already resigned to the blisters. CT-7567 dithered a bit, watching with a distracted nervousness and looking ready to suggest they wait out the swelling too, but wisely thinking better of it. They’d been in the closet for fifteen minutes already; any longer would definitely be too much of a risk for being noticed.

“On me.” CC-2224 said authoritatively once he was done with his boots, and at first it felt silly to include the other boy in pretending, but CT-7567 straightened and took it seriously and calmed in an instant, and CC-2224 felt vindicated that he’d guessed the right approach — that he wasn’t the only one who liked this tactic.

“Sir yessir.” CT-7567 said — and the unexpected honorific hit CC-2224 like a battering ram.

It felt — Bad. Strange. His mouth dried, and he blinked slower so he could hide a moment in the black behind his lids.

Mission, they were on a mission, and CC-2224 was a commander, like he was supposed to be. He needed his brain working fast and his CT obeying faster, if this was going to work.

“Let’s go.” He croaked, a bit hoarse, a bit excited. (His hands still trembled a bit when he opened the door.)

#artists on tumblr #fan art #star wars fanart #star wars: the clone wars #Vignette - Kamino #Ficlet #commander cody #captain rex #Young!Cody #Young!Rex #First meetings #Headcanons and practicing writing Cody-perspective #mine

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dangraccoon · 6 months ago

Text

...and Heartaches

Day 3 ~ accelerated heartbeat ~

Word Count: 1332 Content: inhibitor chips, Order 66, unspoken attraction/feelings, mention of slave chips, discussion of power dynamics in CodyWan, choking/attempted strangulation, mention of blood

This is a continuation of Day 2's Headaches... I highly recommend reading that first, it'll make a lot more sense 😂

They had to get out of this damned cavern. More specifically Obi-Wan needed to get Cody to the temple.

How could he have been so blind? His own– no, that wasn’t quite right, was it? Despite the feelings Obi-Wan fought to keep at bay, Cody was his commander. He couldn’t press further than his lame attempts at friendship. And how he so nearly admitted how deep his feelings for the man truly ran was quite unbecoming. He prayed to the Force that Cody hadn’t read into it.

He shook his head. He spent weeks unaware of the pain and illness of someone so close to him and he was debating the semantics of his feelings for the man.

Something dark so clearly had a hold of this poor man and Obi-Wan hadn’t noticed anything was wrong.

And Cody? The commander had tried–very sweetly–to apologize for something that was in no way his fault. Obi-Wan hated himself for making Cody think he was upset with him.

They had to get to the temple.

Every time he closed his eyes, Obi-Wan could still see the vision he’d had when he’d touched Cody’s hands.

It was so… precise and calculated. At first, it practically screamed ‘Kaminoan!’ at him. But much deeper, at its core was an inky darkness. Obi-Wan had only felt something so dark once, and he had killed his master.

The ever-present footsteps of his commander behind him were of some comfort as they trudged through the dark–and seemingly endless–cavern.

He kept Cody in his focus, doing his best to pay attention to the man’s vitals. He hadn’t told Cody of his rising temperature; what good would it do him to know? Cody would put Obi-Wan, the mission, and the entire galaxy above himself without a second thought; it had endeared him to Obi-Wan, but if Cody thought for a second that he was slowing his general down or that he was a burden in any way? Obi-Wan didn’t want to think about what he’d do.

So Obi-Wan would keep an eye on him. After all, Obi-Wan wasn’t sure what he’d do without Cody.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.

The air was growing steadily colder as they continued and Obi-Wan found he couldn’t quite tell if they were only going deeper or if they were closer to resurfacing into the blizzard.

He glanced back at Cody. He knew the commander had muted his helmet’s mic to disguise his small, out-of-breath huffs but Obi-Wan could still see the tiny puffs of water vapor that came with each labored exhale.

“Perhaps we should stop to rest,” he found himself suggesting.

“Yes, sir,” Cody agreed. Obi-Wan knew the difference in his voice when he was putting on a facade and he knew he was doing that now. He could feel the man’s heart racing through the Force. He pulled off his helmet, and despite the chill of the cave and the temperature-regulating underarmor the clones wore, Obi-Wan could see sweat heading across the man’s brow.

They sat on the cold rock surface, utilizing the last half-hour’s worth of charge still left on the miniature warmth lamp.

“General,” Cody said after a long while. “What you said earlier–”

“I do care about you,” Obi-Wan said, rather without thinking. Cody’s face shifted and Obi-Wan slammed his mental shields up before he could even begin to sense Cody’s feelings. “You– you’re a good man; I couldn’t have asked for a better friend or commander.”

Obi-Wan kept his eyes trained on the lamp. He couldn’t bear to look and see Cody’s discomfort. He’d done it now; he’d pushed too far.

Cody was quiet for another few moments, though to Obi-Wan it felt like a few years passed in the silence.

“Is that what you meant?”

It was so quiet, he almost thought he’d imagined it.

About a million things swarmed through Obi-Wan’s mind. Had Cody ever addressed him without using his rank or “sir” before? Did that mean he cared for him as well? Was he uncomfortable? Obi-Wan was his commanding officer; there was no way they could have anything more than a friendly relationship. Even if Cody did truly have feelings for him, he wouldn’t be able to push past the idea of Cody just trying to please him as his superior.

“I… I think we’re not far from a way out of this cave,” Cody said, his voice as close to frantic as Obi-Wan had ever heard from the near-unflappable commander. “I’ll scout ahead.”

Cody was up and disappeared around the corner before he could object.

Obi-Wan sighed as he ran his hands over his face. This silly infatuation needs to stop, he thought. I thought I was past this.

He could hear his footsteps walking quickly, then come to a stop.

“General!” he called. “There’s an opening here!"

As he got to his feet, he heard the horrible crunch of plastoid hitting stone.

“Cody!” he called as he ran to his side.

He found the commander face down on the ground at the snowy mouth of the cavern.

“Cody?” he said, pulling his shoulder to roll him onto his back. “Cody, wake up.”

He had a small cut on his cheek from the fall that was trickling blood.

“Please, love,” he murmured, gently shaking Cody’s shoulder. "We're so close."

Cody’s eyes fluttered, never really opening entirely, as he groaned lightly.

Obi-Wan released a shaky breath, placed his hands on Cody’s temples, and concentrated.

I am one with the Force and the Force is with me, he repeated in his mind until he found that cursed thing.

The darkness was radiating behind the sterile disguise, and despite his better judgment, he knew he had to delve deeper into it.

I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.

He pushed in, instantly feeling the darkness surround him. It reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

You're out of your depth, Jedi.

The harsh whisper that filled his ears startled him.

Who are you?

The voice answered with a horrible laugh, only to fall silent.

I am one with the Force and the Force is with me, he reminded himself once more.

Cody? Can you hear me, my dear?

Something faint–like a whimper–was hiding in the darkness.

Obi-Wan?

Cody, come back to me!

Obi– Obi-Wan, you- you have to–

Cody's voice sounded strained; as though he were that ancient figure, holding the weight of the universe on his shoulders. That's it, he realized. Fear sent goosebumps down his back. He's holding something back–it feels like Anakin's slave chip.

Obi-Wan, you- you have to run!

Too quickly he was pushed from Cody's mind, coming back to reality with a gasping breath.

Or, it would have been a gasping breath if Obi-Wan could take one. His hands shot up, encircling the ones wrapped around his throat.

"C-C'd–" he struggled to pull against the commander's grip.

He could feel his consciousness beginning to wane.

Forgive me, my dear, he thought as his hand reached down, straining to pull a nearby rock, sending it flying into the side of Cody's head.

Air came flooding back into his lungs as he coughed and hacked.

He scrambled to Cody's side, ignoring the coughs that racked his body. His hands shook as they pressed gently against his neck. He sighed in relief as he found the man's pulse; too fast, but strong.

"-eral Kenobi, Commander Cody: come in," his comm crackled to life. "Repeat; General Kenobi, Commander Cody: come in."

"Lieutenant Waxer," Obi-Wan sighed. "It's good to hear your voice."

"Good to hear yours, too, sir. Are the two of you alright?"

"We're alive, but we are in desperate need of assistance."

A breath of silence.

"I've got Helix on a transport headed to your coordinates now, General."

"Thank you, Waxer," he sighed, his hand cupping Cody's cheek. "We'll be making for Coruscant as soon as possible; we've got a slave chip to remove."

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Thanks for reading! - River

12 Days of Christmas Master List DangRaccoon Master List Tag List Form Read on AO3

Tag List: @nekotaetae @lokigirlszendaya @get-wr3ckered @jediknightjana @idoubleswearimawriter @lucyysthings @unstable-kiwi @6oceansofmoons @l3xi3luv @savebytheodoresnonjosestuff @winter-phoenix1995 @nomercyforthewarrior @Padawancat97 @wishyouthetest @flowered-bicycles @error6gendernotfound @techs-goggles9902

#12daysofchristmas2024 #day 3 #accelerated heartbeat #the bad batch #tbb #the clone wars #tcw #fanfiction #the bad batch fanfiction #tbb fanfiction #the clone wars fanfiction #tcw fanfiction #DangRaccoon #Dang writing #codywan #commander cody #obi-wan kenobi #choking

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aphroditeslover11 · 2 years ago

Note

the jealous oppie fic is def going to win the poll but you should still write him teaching the reader how to drive another time that idea is so cute!!! i adore your writing

Driving Lessons

This was very fun to write, I'm a horrendous driver and there is nothing like the fear of stalling in the middle of a busy road! Sorry that this is so short, but I hope we were thinking along the same lines.

As always, based on fictional Cillian Murphy Oppenheimer, if you don't want to read it you don't have to.

Oppie teaching you to drive would certainly be an interesting experience. His own terrible driving was legend, especially among his friends who had all experienced his habit of cornering at seventy, driving at break-neck-speed purely for the thrill of it and making them all fear for their lives. When he found out that you had never learnt to drive though he was insistent that it would be him who taught you, he thought that it would be something fun that you could do together at the weekend. Boy did he have no idea what he was in for!

Though Robert did have an old Buick that he drove around the base, he decided to steal one of the army Jeeps, making sure that he found the most battered one possible so that any accidents wouldn’t have too many implications. He started off by heading into the desert, him driving and getting you to watch what he was doing, explaining it as he went.

“I’m going to change gear, we’re only quite slow so I’m just going to go up from second into third. I’m taking my right foot off the accelerator, putting my left foot on the clutch and moving the stick right and straight up. Make sure you take your foot off the clutch before putting it back on the gas or all hell will break loose!” He carried on doing this until he got to a straight stretch, turning off the engine.

“Right, I’ll give you a go,” he said, getting out of the driver’s side, coming around to your door as you shuffled across into the seat he had just left. “Don’t worry, there’s nothing to crash into out here.”

All he asked you to do the first time that you took to the wheel was drive in a straight line and move from first into second gear, within moments you had managed to stall the damn thing, sending you into a fit of panic. You just sat there, ridiculous things about having broken the engine going around your head. Robert was quick to figure out what you had done wrong though. Gently encouraging you to start again. After a few tries you eventually figured out the gear change and he decided that your clutch control was good enough to try your hand at some steering. He set you off in second gear to drive around a sizeable boulder in the middle of the open area.

“You don’t need to panic, you can’t do any damage to anything out here, you just need to take your time and hold your nerve.” He was forced to eat those words when you panicked, completely mis-steering and careering off into the huge rock. He had tried to dive across you to grab the steering wheel, but it was too late and he ended up trying to shield you from the impact instead. You were both startled, taking a moment to breath before Robert immediately turned to you, making sure that you weren’t injured.

“Maybe that was enough for today,” he suggested, trying not to touch any nerves or appear as condescending - he knew that you would be absolutely furious with yourself. “We’ll try again tomorrow maybe, I think you probably need a rest though after that.” You let him take back the driver’s seat, putting the banged up Jeep into reverse and leaving the scene of the crime.

#cillian murphy #oppenheimer #1950s #american prometheus #cillian murphy x reader #oppenheimer x reader #christopher nolan #tommy shelby #peaky blinders #j robert oppenheimer #j robert oppenheimer x reader #fanfic #request #driving

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ohmygodshesinsane · 1 year ago

Text

Unlicensed | A Jily Micro-Oops

Lily Evans begrudgingly agrees to get in the car with classmate and sometime-foe James Potter and his not-quite-earned P-plates after a particularly rubbish day.

words: 1438 | for @jilymicro-oops | april prompt 14: ridiculous

read on ao3 or under the cut

Lily’s buckle clicked as Potter nudged the gearstick into ‘R’. He tossed his gaze back over his shoulder, one hand on the wheel, dark hair curling around the round rims of his overlarge specs. It was getting long, by school standards; she was surprised McGonagall hadn’t tapped him on the shoulder to send him for a cut. It softened him, though. The contours of his straight nose and the hard ridge of his forehead seemed friendlier, somehow. Or maybe she was just growing accustomed to the crinkles that came with one of his genuine smiles.

All the same, it was ridiculous that she would be sitting in his car, bag tucked between her ankles, all patches with its broken zip in the footwell of his beamer. Heated leather melted against her back, sanding the edges off the mid-July chill. She had pegged him as the sportscar sort, truth be told; but he wasn’t seventeen yet. Hand sanitiser sat in the drinkholder, and the car was empty, save for him and her and his bags in the boot. It was too clean for a bloke - especially one with red P-plates pinned to the windscreen. Plates he hadn’t earned.

“Is this your Mum’s?” Lily asked lightly. The car lurched. She grabbed the handle hanging above. Potter swore, running his fingers through his hair, and twisted his body to look out the back window.

“Yeah,” he admitted, never looking at her. “If you wouldn’t mind keeping - er, mum, about it, though —”

“Much cooler to let everyone think your parents got you a car for your birthday,” Lily smiled. He was doing her a favour, really, but she couldn’t resist. He was the only one in their year with any kind of access to independent transport as yet; the only one whose parents were permissive enough to let him zoom around in their car with a big fat ‘L’ stamped on his license. Lily had passed the theoretical with flying colours, but the only person in her family to hold a full license was her sister’s stupid boyfriend, and she would beg for rides before she’d condemn herself to listening to him boast for hours on end.

Potter lifted his foot off the brake, and the car hesitantly jerked back into the carpark. With a swing of the wheel he righted them, and so the navy BMW hopped its way out of the school gates. Potter’s brows knitted in concentration as he straightened in his seat, knuckles white.

“Er,” he said, checking his mirrors, “could you put the heat on? The whole driving and fiddling thing —”

“Don’t worry.” Lily leaned down. The car’s interface was impossibly flash, with a shiny touch-screen and a dozen different lights. It could make phone calls, skip songs, even - “It has a reverse camera, you know.”

Potter flicked the indicator on. “Yeah,” he said, a little distracted. “I wanted to learn the old-fashioned way.”

Lily’s eyebrows arched. “Nothing about this is old-fashioned. It’s an auto. It has Spotify.” She jabbed an accusing finger at the little black-and-green app on the car’s menu.

“I’m an old soul, Evans.” Lily winced as he accelerated into a tiny gap, earning a blast on the horn. “Ah, fuckwit, I was fine!” Lily snorted. Potter flashed her a look, but his eyes quickly returned to the road, sitting a smidgeon too close to the car in front. Kids spilled out of the school in the distinctive black-and-grey Hogwarts uniforms, backpacks bouncing, heading for cars in the line-up or swinging their legs over bikes. Lily ducked her head. The last thing she needed was for someone to dob her in - ‘a prefect in a car with an unlicensed driver, Miss, really!’ Potter had a reputation, too. The last thing she needed was for the girl-of-the-week to come after her. She tilted her head, wondering what, exactly, Potter would tell the current one, a clingy blonde who always glared at Lily if she dared to enter Glassons. Lily didn’t think they’d ever spoken, but she clearly held a grudge.

“Come on,” Potter said, drumming his fingers as they waited for the traffic lights to change. His eyes hung heavy on her skin, and she grimaced, knowing she looked like a loon. “I’m not that embarrassing, am I? I’m a bloody good football player. Got the winning try when we played Durmstrang the other week, you know.”

Lily’s foot tapped; as soon as she noticed it, she stopped, scared somehow that the worn toes would mark the car. She folded her hands in her lap and unfolded them, picking at her nails.

“I just… shouldn’t really be in here,” she said, guilt seeping through every word. “After everything with Sev…”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Potter said, frowning. “Snape’s a dick.”

“People will think I was in on it, though,” Lily said, eyes falling to the lock on the glovebox, shining in the afternoon sun. “I mean, I - you know, I do… what you did was… but if Sev’s mum calls the school or something, or one of his mates makes a fuss - it’s…” How could she explain? James Potter had had his name down for Hogwarts since his birth, and his parents donated generously and notoriously to the school. What did he know of scholarships and monthly meetings, the sneers of the Slytherins’ parents when she spoke at assembly? “Never mind,” she shrugged. “Thank you for the ride. You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to,” Potter answered. Lily froze. His jaw worked, a flush creeping up his neck. “You’ll sign it off for me, right?” he added quickly, laughing, flexing the veins in his hands. “I need all the hours I can get.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”

“Mm… But?”

“You’re dreaming.”

“You’re facilitating.” Potter grinned cheekily. It was endearing, in its own strange way, and Lily’s stomach swooped. He’s such a tosser. They took off, cruising now that they’d escaped the speed-limited school zone. Lily gazed out the window, through the maze of low brick homes to the rippling ocean beyond, blue and brilliant. Why had Potter agreed to drive her? They’d been partnered up for their English project, sure, but they’d never exactly got along. Was it just because of lunch? Did he pity her?

“It’s a left,” she said, when they made it over the bridge. Potter shoulder-checked - good job - and slipped into the turning lane.

“Evans,” he said, braking.

“Yeah?”

“It’s not on you, you know.” His voice lowered. Lily swallowed. His hazel eyes landed on hers, round and sincere, with an intensity that made her heart race. “What happened’s not your fault.”

She couldn’t stand it, with that mole on his cheek and the press of his mouth.

“I don’t know,” Lily said.

“I’m telling you it isn’t,” Potter insisted. “I chose to do it. I’ll tell them all that. I don’t,” and he inhaled deep, hauling in the breath like a fishing net, fingers splayed in his nest of black hair, “I don’t want you dealing with the consequences of my actions.” His features firmed, resolved. “I won’t let that happen.”

Lily’s mouth dried. She tried to play it off with a chuckle, folding her arms across her chest.

“I don’t think it’s really up to you, whether they blame me. They will. It doesn’t matter.” It mattered more than anything, but only for someone like Lily. The holes in her socks seemed to gape over her feet.

“No, Evans,” Potter said, guiding the car shakily around the corner now. Had he ever been down this road before? Tufts of grass moped amongst the brown dustbowls of the front yards, tacky gnomes and old bicycles decorating the paths to the front doors. A picket sign warned off doorknockers and Jehovah’s; a collarless dog lifted its leg on the slender wood. Lily shifted in her seat, conscious of the leather and the new-car air freshener and the little sticker on the inside of the glass windscreen that noted the car as being one of regular, reliable services. “You’re my project partner,” he said. “It matters. You know, now, I guess, you - well, yeah. You matter to me.”

They hit the speedbump too quick, and Lily’s body jolted over the seatbelt, straps digging into her body, bag slamming against her leg. The brakes screeched. Potter hurriedly spun the wheel, bringing them back onto their route. Lily’s pulse pounded. Why would he say that? It didn’t make sense. Nothing about today made sense.

“Sure,” she said, face knitting in thought. “I’ll believe it when you stop trying to kill me.”

“Come on, Evans,” Potter smiled, eyes glittering. “The fear is half the fun.”

#idk how i feel about this yet but its kind of taken from a bigger idea im playing with…#great procrastination on my assignments too woooo #jilymicrofics #jily micro oops #jily #james potter #lily evans #hp #fanfic

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