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inky-duchess · 4 years

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History Bites: Coolest Battles Part 1

In History Bites, I pick the best moments of history and the antics historical figures in order to give you inspiration for your WIP. Think of History Bites like prompts, only juicer and 90% accurate (results may vary).

So in this History Bites we explore battles which could act as great inspiration for your WIPs. All of these battles are steeped in drama and blood. Let your battles commence.

The Battle of Carrhae 53BC was brought forward by many driving factors no more so than the Roman Statesman Crassus. Crassus was part of the Triumvirate and the richest man in the world. Crassus felt rather at a loss compared to his allies Pompey and Caesar who were military geniuses and his famous victory over Spartacus had been years prior. Eager to show his power, he funded and led the invasion of Parthia, Rome's largest enemy in the east. Crassus entered Parthia unchallenged, increasing his confidence as he march forward. The Parthians were not far behind, appearing before the Romans with such speed that the Romans were taken unawares. Crassus's generals recommended they get into the usual formation (infantry at the centre with cavalry on the wings) but Crassus decided to have the men form a hollow square, twelve cohorts by twelve cohorts which would protect them from being out flanked. The Roman forces march forward to get better ground by a nearby stream, where the generals advised Crassus to wait until morning to attack but Crassus's son, Publius advised they attack then and there. The Parthians played mind games with the Romans, pounding drums to unnerve them and marched with their armour covered with cloth to lull the Romans into confidence... Before revealing the steel to Romans (perhaps the first wig reveal?). The Parthians sent their mounted archers to surround the Romans, which Crassus's calvary tried to defend against but failed to do. The Parthians smashed into the legionnaires firing at them. The Romans were lucky with their large square shields and top of the range armour but the arrows still found their marks though many wounds were non fatal. The Romans quickly tried to advance to combat the range of the archers in their famous turtle formation (shields surrounding them) but they were slowed by this and the Parthians charged, tearing them to pieces. The Romans panicked and broke leading to numerous casualties. Hoping to survive until the Parthians ran out of arrows, Crassus sent his son Publius to attack the Parthian mounted archers to give the legions more breathing space. But the Parthians faced him off and separated him from his father's army, slaughtering his men. Publius did the Roman thing and killed himself rather than be taken prisoner. Crassus did not know this and ordered an advance to save his son but on his arrival he was greeted with the head if Publius set on a spear. Filled with grief, Crassys ordered a retreat. The Romans stumbled into the minor village of Carrhae to rest but the Parthians were not far behind. The Romans left their 4000 wounded behind, leaving them to be slaughtered by the Parthians. In the darkness, cohorts began to go missing as the Parthians harried the Roman army as they retreated. In the morning, the Parthians had had enough fun and offered the Romans a truce. Crassus accepted though he did not wish to meet the Parthians face to face. Crassus gave in and met the Parthians who generously offered him a horse finely arrayed with gilded tack. Crassus wanted to refuse but in the nature of truce he agreed. The Parthians led him up and down their lines so the Parthians could see him defeated and broken. Then the slaughter began. Allegedly, the Parthians wanted to make a joke of Crassus's wealth and poured molted gold down his throat after his death. The remaining legions were captured or killed.

It's 1485 and now comes the final York vs Lancastrian showdown, the Battle of Bosworth . Richard III is King of England and Henry Tudor wants to take over. They meet at Bosworth to face off, the noble Stanley family the key of winning the battle. The Stanleys were two brothers who had a large force between them and often split them in the civil wars. This way, one brother would lose but the family lands are safe. Lord Stanley is close to Richard but also stepfather to Henry. He could go either way. Richard begins the battle by striking first. He takes Lord Stanley's son and sends a message saying that he will kill him unless all of the Stanley forces side with him. Stanley reminded the king that the son held was not his only son. Richard gave the order to execute his captive but his men argued that it would only waste time and the execution could wait. Henry sent word to his stepfather too wanting a clear answer on whether or not he would be joining him or not. He only received very vague answers. Henry would have to face Richard on his own. Henry had seen very little battles so he chose to let the battle-hardened Earl of Oxford take charge. Henry sat in the rear with his forces. Oxford chose to keep his men as a single unit rather than splitting them up in an effort to beat Richard's lines. No Tudor soldier was allowed to stray from their banners. This was a tactic to ensure that they would not be encircled and crushed. The Tudor army was split into tight groups that made up a single unit with their mounted soldiers on the wings. This would protect them from flanking. Lord Stanley is watching from a ridge, taking neither side. The field is hampered by marsh land. The Tudor army is standing on this marsh when they begin to form up. Oxford commands that they move to better ground. The Tudor army was bombarded by the artillery on the York side while searching for firmer ground. When the Tudor men escaped to the marshy ground, the York side led by Richard's faithful friend Sir Robert Brackenbury advanced on them. While hails of arrows peppered each side, the two sides clashed. Oxford's troops stood their ground while the enemy commanders Brackenbury and The Duke of Norfolk. Several notable men fell on the York side and they were forced to give ground. Richard saw this and decided to send in more men under the command of Northumberland. But Northumberland didn't move an inch. Some think this was an act of betrayal while others claim that the lay of the land prevented a charge. Richard decided to end the battle by killing Henry. Spying him amongst the rearguard of the Tudor lines, Richard led the charge on horseback. Riding with his closest companions, the king raced at the pretenders group of bodyguards aiming to wipe out the leader. Richard, though hampered by scoliosis, fought ably slewing the notable Sir William Brandon, the standard-bearer of Henry and John Cheyne, Richard's brother Edward IV's former standard-bearer. Henry acted quickly. He dismounted from his horse, concealing himself among the footsoldiers about him. Henry chose not to engage Richard or his men in combat. William Stanley's men charged down the ridge... to the aid of Henry. Richard's men were now surrounded on all sides and was pushed back from Henry and straight into the marshy part of the field. Richard, ahorse at this moment, was thrown from the saddle as his horse floundered. Now unhorsed and on foot, Richard gathered his remaining guards and slogged on onwards refusing to turn back "God forbid that I retreat one step. I will either win the battle as a king, or die as one." Richard's loyal man Sir Percival was slain holding his king's banner aloft as he was killed laying legless on the ground. Dozens of Yorkists fell and soon the king was surrounded by Tudor men and slain. When his body was found in 2012, part of his skull was missing and it is generally agreed that Richard had died helmet less. Henry picked up Richard's crown from the mud and placed it on his head.

Battle of Bannockburn 1314. After William Wallace's demise in 1305, Scotland was still labouring under the yoke of the English. But by 1314, a new leader arose to battle for Scottish freedom: Robert the Bruce. Robert led the Scots to numerous guerilla victories over the far superior forces of the English. By 1314, the only outpost of English rule was Stirling Castle. Edward II, the newer and less effective King of England, decided he had best step in. He raised an army and march north to raise the siege on of Stirling Castle. Robert gathered own forces though considerably smaller to head off Edward's advance toward the castle. Around the area Robert chose, thick trees flanked the area which would drive any mounted English forces toward his own heavy infantry and into the trenches his men had dug. Edward sent in his cavalry but the Scottish infantry quickly met his charge holding off the English until reinforcements could arrive to scatter the cavalry. Another English unit charged at the Scottish centre. A young English Knight Henry de Bohun charged for Robert. The two met in the centre of the field, Bohun charged at Bruce with a lance while Robert was armed only with an axe. Robert had the smaller horse and moved his mount aside, countermanding the lance's reach. As Bohun passed him, Robert stood in his stirrups and split Bohun's head open. Robert was later pissed that the strike had broken his favourite axe. He remains the sexiest of all Scottish Kings. On that note, both armies withdrew for the night to fight on the morrow. The English crossed the eponymous stream of Bannockburn and in the night their Scottish ally Alexander Seton defected to Robert. The English panicked and feared attack, staying up all night in formation in the cold marshes. The next day, the Scots formed up on the field. Edward ordered his men to attack, his cavalry avoiding the trenches but they could not shatter the Scots lines. The English kept charging but they were repelled. Robert commanded his infantry forward, pushing the English backwards toward the trenches where multiple mounted soldiers fell in and were crushed. The Scots stopped to pray and Edward took this for a cry for mercy but one sassy English soldier is claimed to have said "For mercy but from God, not you. These men will conquer or die.". The Scottish soon swamped the English lines wherein the Knights around Edward II dragged him to safety. One of his braver Knights, Giles d'Argentan saw Edward to safety before refusing to flee and charged the Scottish, dying shorty after. The English were routed and Edward fled back to England, his army chased from Scotland by soldier and commoners alike.

The Battle of Marathon is perhaps one of the most famous battles in history. In 490 BC, the Ancient Greeks faced off against the Persian invasion led by Darius I. The Greeks were outnumbered and had a terrible track record facing the Persians so far. The Persians really wanted to beat the Greeks, there is even a legend of Darius charging a servant to remind him daily to destroy the Greeks (ancient Post-it's perhaps?). The Greeks were formed of an uneasy alliance of once enemies the Spartans and Athenians, who despite their hatred decided to band together and fight the invaders together. The Persian sailed into the Bay of Marathon which provoked the Athenians to match to Marathon to head them off. They successfully blocked off their exits and waited for the Spartans to join them but the Spartans were having a religious day and could not go. The Athenians had no choice but to shore up for battle, choosing a marshy, mountainous plateau to stop the Persians' cavalry from joining them. The Athenians opened with a missile-heavy move, ensuring their own centre made for a soft target which lured the Persians in only for them to be crushed by the flanks. The Athenians picked off the Persians as they fled back to their ships, shattering them to pieces leaving 6,000 Persians dead. The Athenians lost 200.

Battle of Gaugamela 480BC is probably one of Alexander the Great's finest masterpieces. Gaugamela was the last push of Alexander's strike toward Babylon, the heart of the Persian Empire... The same Persian Empire that supposedly ordered his father's death. Alexander arrived to battle at a disadvantage. The Persians were famed for their warrior chariots with bladed wheels which could mow down infantry, worse still the Persians had time to level and clear the battlefield which stopped any impediment against the wheels. They also had war elephants. The Persian King Darius had arranged his army in an iron scythe of cavalry, both flanks ahorse. Alexander had his army divided in two, himself riding with the cavalry on the right flank. The Macedonians advanced at an angle going the Persians would attack which they did. Darius sent a large cavalry to take out the left flank of Alexander's forces who were under the general Parmenion. While his infantry distracted the Persian in the centre, Alexander himself rode his cavalry all the way around to the furthest reaches of his flank on the right, drawing the Persian cavalry away to leave the Persians fractured. The chariots came at the right flank, the Persians hoping to decimate as many as they could in the wake of Alexander's absence. With clever utilisation of reserves, the Greeks held. Alexander gathered his rearguard and a portion of his phalanxs into a wedge, driving it at the centre of the Persian forces which were weakened by the scattering of their forces. Darius fled the battle in the wake of this, ceding Babylon and his empire to Alexander. Darius was later murdered by his own men for the defeat.

The Battle of Hastings. Its 1066 people and this time, the English are getting invaded. The irony. William the Conqueror has been cheated out of the throne of England by his cousin Edward the Confessor who had promised the throne to him years prior. In 1066, William and his Normans are on their way to claim what they believe is theirs. But before the land, the new King Harrold Godwinson has a little Norse problem. King Harald Hardrada, a Norse claimant to the throne has already invaded in the North. The two Harrolds/Harralds meet at Stamford Bridge ready for a showdown. English Harrold rode up Norse King Harald and basically read him to his face before riding off. The battle begun moments later, the two armies funnelling into the narrow pass of the eponymous bridge. The chronicles say that a Norse axeman singlehandedly held off the English advance, only defeated when an English soldier stabbed him with a spear from below. With the axeman's sacrifice, the Norse had enough time to form a shieldwall to face the English who stormed across the bridge to attack. The Norse had a great disadvantage: they had left their armour on their ships. Despite their enthusiasm and early advantage, they were mown down. Harrald Hardrada was killed by an arrow through the throat. Wear your armour children. English King Harrold has won but he cannot rest, the Normans are on their way. Harrold matches his army South and three weeks later they meet the Normans at Hastings. Harrold had luck surprising one invader and he tried to do the same with William. But the Normans had scouts and were informed of their movements, and were ready. The English lines held strong against the Norman attacks but the Normans pretended to run away so the English would break and persue them, the Normans turning on them and picking them off. King Harold was shot in the eye by an arrow (because karma is a bitch), which was the last straw for the English resistance. William the Conqueror was crowned King of England.

The Battle of Mortimer's Cross is perhaps the most fantastical battle on this list. It's 1461 and young Edward of March is fatherless and at the head of a small army. Months before his father made a bid for the throne of England and failed, his head cut off by order of Queen Margaret who now sought the destruction of Edward's family. Edward was 18 and at a distinct disadvantage. The Queen led an army of Scots and rival Lancastrians. Edward no doubt wished to take the battle to her and avenge his father but he made a stragetic move south into Wales to head off her support there led by Jasper Tudor. They met on the field of Mortimer's Cross, where in the sky three suns had risen with the dawn- a symbol of Edward's House of York and the same number as many sons were left to the family: Edward and his two brothers. Edward and Jasper both split their forces in the traditional way- the vanguard, the centre, and rear each of which would face each other in turn. Jasper was a seasoned commander and lead his men to attack the Yorkist right but the Yorks had hidden archers there to take them out, leading to mass casualties. Jasper's attack was dispersed and now the centres of the armies clashed. Edward like Jasper fought with his men in the thick of it. The Lancastrians charged but were turned away under but the battle was still undecided, each side never ceding an inch of ground. The Yorkists began to cut through the Lancastrians, the rearguarf blanking the nearby river to box them in. Jasper's father Owen Tudor (Wales's greatest love machine) tried to manoeuvre the Yorkists into following him to distract them but it didn't work leading to a retreat, many Lancastrians drowning in the river on their haste and meeting Yorkist reserves on the next bank who cut them down. Jasper Tudor had no choice but to flee leaving victory in the hands of Edward who as was his habit spared any Lancastrian soldier he captured to give them the chance to follow him. Many did.

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unstoppableforcce · 5 years

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adore you

request: hi! would you be up for doing a Poe Dameron x reader with the song adore you by Harry Styles, like what you wrote with New Rules...

Poe Dameron x pilot! Reader

this is almost sickly sweet I think and I like it a lot so thank you anon for the request, no TROS spoilers or anything, just good old Commander Dameron - r.e.

Walk in your rainbow paradise

He had been shot down. Everything had happened so fast. One second he was up in the sky, cutting through clouds, while all his fighters trailed on his flank. The next, he was spiraling, a vibrant blaster of red shooting from the plush white and colliding with his back engine.

The cargo ship he had been in charge of transporting was now in flames on the side of the largest mountain on the planet. The smoke would surely give him away to whoever had shot him down, but he couldn’t do anything about it, he was barely capable of pulling himself from the wreckage.

His body felt all out of sorts. Blood. There was blood on his finger tips as he reached around to the surging pain at the back of his head. He could barely keep his eyes open.

Then he saw it. Then he saw you.

He swore he had never seen a ship move so fast. From where he was on the ground, the trails coming off your ship as it cut through the clouds just enough to let the sun through...

It looked like a rainbow following behind you, desperate to keep up as you worked with his team, quickly blasting the enemy ships out of the sky.

It was too hard to keep his eyes open.

When he felt his body being tugged onto a stretcher, he managed to peak out through squinted eyes.

The clouds had cleared up, sunlight basking down onto all of his team and the ships parked behind them. Everything sparkled. But you glowed.

Whatever colors your eyes actually were, he couldn’t tell, all he could see where the same rainbows which had followed you to his rescue.

“You’re going to be okay, Commander.” You cooed softly, your accent almost unrecognizable to his still ringing ears.

When his eyes shut again, he swore he was still seeing rainbows.

I get so lost inside your eyes

They transferred you from the base you had been stationed at when you came swooping in to the rescue after his crash. No one owned up to why, but there had been a few closed door meetings between Poe and the General where he pleaded to at least know the name of the pilot who had come to his rescue.

You weren’t on black squadron, but you were around in the weeks following the crash, while Poe was still getting back to his feet.

The first time he properly met you was after having supervised your training run with Rapier squadron, you beating out some of his best guys before he even realized it was you.

He met you at the bottom of your ladder, all prepared to give a hearty welcome speech, to congratulate you on the promotion and subsequent transfer, to make a good first impression. But when you took your helmet off, he lost all of his words on his tongue.

“Yes, Commander?”

You blinked a few times, tossing the helmet aside and wiping away the sweat at your hair line, all completely unaware at the way he was staring.

“Did I do something wrong?”

No. Nothing. Never.

But he couldn’t even get that out. You were sparkling.

“I Uh- I just came over to introduce myself.” He finally managed out, running a shaking hand back through his hair as he tried to recover. “And to thank you, for Nyo.”

“I’m glad to see you’re doing better.” You were sweet, he was going to melt. “Not exactly how I expected to meet the best pilot in the galaxy but-“

Oh no, you had an attitude. He was in trouble. You were just his type.

You don’t have to say you love me

He wanted to spend every free second he had with you. And usually he found a way to do exactly that.

He’d make excuses to get all the pilots to go out in hopes that you would tag along. And you always would. He wouldn’t get his hopes up and think you did it for him, but you were pretty quick to nab the seat next to him once down in the local cantina and he couldn’t deny that made his heart flutter.

Even if you only used the position to better banter with him.

For having come from a pretty isolated outpost, one of the only defensive pilots in Nyo, you fit into the squadrons on D’Qar effortlessly. If Snap made a crude remark, you could give it right back. If Bastian got too playful in his flirtation, you were quick to remind him of his place. And you and Jes together was near deadly. The wit being spewed across the table was all too quick and everything Poe loved being around.

It was comforting, almost grounding. A reminder he was surrounded by the best and the brightest in the air, that they were a fighting family and well-equipt to do just that. Fight.

In a war this hard, sometimes you needed that reminder. Poe certainly did.

That, and he also just liked the have fun with them. And wow. The pilots could drink, you included.

He often found himself carrying Snap back to base, drunkenly laughing and stumbling the whole way. But since you had come around, he was much more amused by being your crutch as you fall over yourself all the way back to your dorm.

You’d laugh, you’d trip, you’d try to take off your shoes in the hall and sometimes even throw them at passing mechanics. And all he could do was laugh and follow, trying to damage control along the way as best he could.

And when you eventually would make it back, and he’d type your room code in for you, (your hands just not cooperating with your drunken mind) you would collapse onto your bed, groaning the entire way down.

He’d toss your shoes aside and laugh as you struggled your way out of your jacket, giggling to yourself the whole time.

And for the brief second that you’d look back up at him with your beautiful eyes and mutter out some form of a “thank you”, he would think a thought he knew was wrong.

That he loved you. That he was in love with you.

But you’d just fall back to the pillows and pass out.

He didn’t need to say it. He didn’t need you to even think it back. He just needed you around. He needed you.

I’d walk through fire for you

There was no fire. That was the problem.

It was freezing on whatever the hell this planet was.

All you knew was that you had to keep quiet and stay hidden until the first order crafts passed by. That meant no fire, no nothing.

Just you and Poe hidden out in a small crevice of the towering mountain, freezing half to death.

“Stop pacing.” He warned.

You had been out there for hours, you knew how orders worked and had no real want to betray them, but at the same time, it had been hours and you just wanted to fly away. First order crafts patrolling the region or not. It was cold.

“Stop pacing.” He warned again from where he sat back in the snow, wearing his puffiest jacket, watching you pace back and forth in a futile attempt for some warmth. “You’re going to drive me crazy.”

“I’m cold.”

“Oh really? I had no idea.” He shot back with a frost bitten attitude. You couldn’t blame him for it, you were almost there yourself.

“I’m just trying to keep warm.”

“You should get back under this blanket-“

“You’re using it.” You kept pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. And his eyes followed you the whole time.

“We can share-“

“I’m fine with my pacing.”

He scoffed but if he planned to keep arguing, he didn’t actually do it. He just watched you continue back and forth. Back and forth.

Back and forth.

He looked at his receiver, hoping and praying for a way out of the cold.

It was the quick yelp that got him to look back up for you, but you were no where to be found.

He rushed to his feet immediately, trudging as fast as he ever had through the snow until he reached where you had vanished from. And his heart stopped.

You had been atop a frozen body of water, and now you were somewhere deep in the icy water beneath.

And he didn’t even think, he just plunged himself head first into the freezing water, trying to keep his legs on solid ground so he could reach around for you.

He felt a hand and he pulled.

Dragging your now soak and even more frozen body from the water, he kept pulling until he was sure you were entirely clear of the water. Your face was blue, your eyes were shut. He bit off his glove to get his fingertips to your neck, checking for a pulse. You had one, but it was faint.

“You idiot.” He all but screamed, trying to get your soaked coat from your body, trying to warm you up as best as he could. His head was drenched too, water freezing on his face, his curls frozen on his head.

When you opened your eyes, he wanted to kill you.

“I’m cold.” You muttered out, barely conscious.

He laughed, only because he couldn’t cry. Not in front of you.

“You shouldn’t have put your head in, you’ll freeze now.” You added breathlessly.

“You saved my life once, I figured I owed you one.”

Just let me adore you

It wasn’t a big battle, but you had won. You beat the first order, completely ridding at least this section of the galaxy from them, for now.

It wasn’t a big win. But it was a win and that was cause for celebration.

Yet you couldn’t find Poe.

The pilots turned the hanger into a party, but he was no where to be found.

You searched high and low, it wasn’t until you walked past the control center, on your way to the cafeteria, that you spotted him. Perched on the slight bench created by the thick blast proof windowing, he just stared out at the vast night sky.

“Whatcha doing up here, Commander?” You questioned slyly as you made your approach, hands locked behind your back.

He turned, he saw you, and he turned back.

No emotion on his face. Nothing.

“Poe?” You continued, all playfulness washing away as you hesitantly took a seat across from him. “There’s a party happening, you know?”

“Yeah.” That wasn’t the fun loving Yavin boy you had grown so close to in the past few months. It just wasn’t.

“What’s going on?”

He huffed, shaking his head and trying to plaster on a smile, “nothing.”

You didn’t believe him for a second. And he could tell when your stare only got sharper.

“Poe?”

“I just- I guess I’m just having a bit of a day.” He sighed.

“We just won a pretty big battle-“

“We lost fourteen men.”

You nodded. It wasn’t his fault, but it wasn’t worth it to try and tell him that. He blames himself for all of it.

“We lost-“ he choke himself up, shutting his mouth before he spiraled and just shook his head, looking back to the window.

He didn’t expect you to grab his hand. You moved closer to him, grabbing his hand with both of yours and holding it tight.

“You should go to the party, you flew great-“

He tried to pull his hand away, but you wouldn’t let him, you only moved closer.

“Just let me...”

You wrapped an arm over his shoulder and sighed, pulling him into you. He was too tense at first, not adjusting, almost in a permanent flinch. But something snapped, a switch flicked when he got close enough.

And he collapsed. Barreling further into your arms, digging his head into your neck, burrowing in with his hand around your middle.

“You’re the best pilot I know.” You whispered against his forehead before pressing a short kiss there.

You stayed like that for most the night. Just holding him at first, then just talking, but you wouldn’t leave him. You couldn’t.

Like it’s the only thing I’ll ever do

He didn’t know what changed. But after that night, he was warmer and he wouldn’t leave your side when back on base, not if he could help it.

It was just something unspoken between the two of you.

Relationships were generally frowned upon in the navy, and even though this was a rebellion, a resistance, you typically followed the same rules and uniform codes. Even if relationships were the most regularly broken rule, you and Poe still never acted on what was there between you.

You could blame uniform code when Jes asked, but the two of you knew deep down what it was.

This war was bloody, it was brutal, it hurt and it took. It took everything.

And if you did act, you did succumb to the deep gravitational pull holding the two of you together like a moon and a planet, you’d have to know that it couldn’t last.

That one day something would happen. It was dangerous. You couldn’t count on being around the next day, making plans, believing in a future, it just couldn’t happen.

You sat by your ship, it was nearly the dead of night and things had been quiet all week, so most of the base was catching up on sleep. You couldn’t. Something in your heart stopped you before you even hit the pillow. You had to get your head elsewhere, so you stuck it in your ship and got to work on basic upkeep.

Poe stumbled out of his dorm, groggy, awoken by a rough nightmare memory of losing a friend flying next to him. It wasn’t abnormal, but this one hit harder for whatever reason. He had to get up, and heading to the hanger, he found you there.

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t think of anything to say. But at the same time, he didn’t feel like anything needed to be said.

He sat down next to you and smiled, you did the same.

Setting your wrench down, you sighed and grabbed his hand. He let you, just holding you there for either a minute or an hour, he couldn’t tell, he was lost in your eyes.

“I love you.” He let the words spill from his lips before he even realized he had.

He half expected you to fall back, to flinch, to shout, to give some grand reaction of any sort. But you didn’t.

You just sighed and repeated back to him, “I love you.”

And he realized that this could be enough.

That the war may go on and on, but he could do this. You could make this work. He’ll fly ships until he can’t any more, but this is the only thing that’ll matter. This was his end.

He pressed a gentle kiss to your lips and you smiled back into him, returning the softness.

“I almost didn’t answer that distress call.” You admitted against his lips, pulling back just briefly. “Back on Nyo, I almost let my lieutenant take it.”

“Aren’t you glad you did?” He chuckled, pecking your lips once more.

“I don’t know yet, maybe if you kiss me again-“

He didn’t have to be told twice.

#poe dameron x reader #poe x reader #poe dameron #adore you #star wars #tros #no spoilers #this is so soft #softer than i normally manage so enjoy #star wars imagine #reader insert

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belliesandburps · 4 years

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Non-Kink: Top 12 Best Stealth Action Games

I was inspired by my dear pal, @twistedtummies2, to share a lil bit of non-kink related stuff about myself with’chall. One thing to know about me is I’m a huge lover of video games. I may not have as much time to PLAY ‘em much these days, but dammit if they aren’t one of my biggest joys beyond writing and the great outdoors.

And my favorite genre in all of gaming is the stealth action genre. Anyone who knows me knows that I adore the Metal Gear Solid series, but I also love a whole bunch of other stealth action games because, to me, this genre is the one with the most meat to come back to. Stealth action done right is you being put in a room or outpost or whatever with a bunch of bad guys, and trying to carry out an objective without engaging with the enemies. OR, it’s picking off the bad guys one by one, quickly and quietly. Oooooor it’s you try to be sneaky, get caught, say fuck it, and wage war with an armada of Russians because isn’t it always Russians. XD

I love that so many stealth action games can play out so many different ways. And the feeling of escalation, like trying to be sneaky, and being overwhelmed when you’re caught and having to escape a hectic situation? That, to me, is more thrilling than ANY set piece or scripted, linear mission from any game I’ve ever played. It’s why I’ve replayed many of these games time and time again, and haven’t even THOUGHT about most of the biggest AAA blockbusters upon beating them.

Now, this list is subject to change. I have a few games I need to play and they may beat out a few on this list. But for now, here’s my Top 12 Best Stealth Action games because on top of being a thirsty old bastard, I loves me some espionage and bandana action. :P

12) Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

This game gets a lot of flak, but believe it or not, it’s actually my favorite in the Arkham series. It’s City with a new coat of paint and a few more bugs, but City was still awesome, and so is this game. It had plenty of clever predator stealth sequences, with more enemy variety to shake things up, that always made wiping out the bad guys swiftly and silently deeply rewarding. AND it had more stealth action boss fights. City had Mr. Freeze and a single predator fight rehashed twice with Two Face and Harley. Origins had Mr. Freeze again, but with new additional options, and a pre-fight stage where you had to stay outta sight. It also had Deadshot, the best of the three basic “predator boss” types, as well as TN-1 Bane as the final boss, and damn if it wasn’t intense. With more gadgets and clever ways to mix and match, I think this game would be higher, but it’s still a great one for lovers of more approachable stealth action paired up with excellent brawler combat.

11) Assassin's Creed (2007)

The other AC games may be better, but AC1 is the only game in the series to stay consistent and simple with its design philosophy. Here are targets for you to assassinate, here are bolstering crowds with beautiful cities to Parkour across or hide within, and at every turn, there are hiding spots but also enemies, making situations escalate organically and entertainingly with each assassination. Hence why, despite most people regarding AC1 as the weakest entry, it's my personal favorite. It's the one I replay the most and the one that just stays consistent with what it advertises. No more, no less. 10) Hitman (2016)

I've yet to play the other Hitman games, and by accounts, each sequel is better than the last. But you've seen the Jackie boy vids. What more need be said? :P

9) Death Stranding (2019)

Death Stranding's kind of a jack of all trades in the stealth action. On one hand, you have conventional stealth action where you're infiltrating enemy camps and can either pick off all the bad guys one by one or go nuts and fight everybody head on. On the other hand, you have BT's, whom you sneak around by holding your breath and moving slowly, lest these ghostly monsters drag you out to a tarpit for a boss fight. The stealth is fairly simplistic but functional. Combat as is would be fairly shallow, were it not for the sheer quantity of options you have in any given battle. Seriously, you have a sticky gun that lets you snatch cargo straight off a bad guys back then immediately bludgeon him unconscious with it, and snatch HIS cargo to smash his BUDDY out cold with that in one fell swoop. The way situations can organically just bleed from stealth to action and give you options for both makes it a blast. And the boss fights against Cliff and Higgs are almost all I could ask for from stealth action battles. 8) Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020)

I DO wish the game had some stealth action boss fights, but far as superhero games are concerned, no game has better stealth action than Miles Morales. It hits fast and is deeply gratifying. You have corridors with as much as twenty plus bad guys, and you can clean it out in minutes thanks to being able to hide in plain sight through invisibility. Venom Takedowns with let you wipe out a chain succession of enemies all at once. Corridors have TONS of environmental advantages to wipe out a bunch of bad guys with one move. And unlike Spider-Man or Arkham, if you're caught, just go invisible, flee, and go right back to picking off baddies in seconds. It's like playing a predator sequence in an Arkham game on steroids...and in fast forward. And the sheer volume of enemies you're often up against keeps it from feeling too easy. 7) Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (2019)

This game SUCKED at launch. Like, it was actual trash that became a chore to finish when it first came out. But fair's fair, Ubisoft stuck with it and the end result is one of the most customizable experiences I've ever had in gaming. Like, this game is straight up now designed to let you change the entire experience simply by pausing the game and flipping a new options on and off and have it immediately go into effect.

I hated the injury mechanics of the first game because it slowed you down and led to a lot of random, unfair deaths because you could never predict which attacks would be critical and which wouldn’t. So now, I can turn them off. I thought bad guys were brain-dead. So I can make them smarter. I thought constantly slowing down when I'm running from bullets was detrimental, so now, I can make stamina limitless.

I thought some areas had way too many guards to viably take out without co-op buddies...soooo I can activate an entire squad of AI partners all throughout the game with me and there's a lot of coordination you can do with your team for really covert missions...and you can even customize their look to create a team that looks as cool or goofy as you want. It’s a really dorky thing, but I LOVE customization in shooters and being able to fully customize, not just yourself, but your team to look however you want in missions is really fun.

And if you think the enemies are too easy to take down? Turn on Terminator mode and have T-800's storming the place. Yeah, freakin’ Terminators. XD

The game gives you literally all the options you could ask for to have an experience perfectly tuned to what you WANT to have. And the options you have make it so the game can feel like an entirely different, borderline strategy game instead of a solid third person shooter. You can activate a drone now to coordinate your three AI buddies to stop and go where you want, mark targets for them to eliminate and have your eye on the entire battlefield. It's honestly staggering how many options this game has. And were the missions not so boilerplate and were the boss fights actual boss fights and not just reskins of basic enemies, this would be one of the best games ever. As is, it's a genuinely impressive comeback story! 6) Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)

Mankind Divided is the game Cyberpunk WISHES it was (Spoiler Alert: Cyberpunk isn’t very fun or responsive yet). It's a game with some spectacular level design where there are dozens of ways around any given enemy and tons of options for any mission. You have a wide assortment of augmentations to let you sneak or fight your way through any scenario and they give you the tools to use your robot powers in really clever ways for navigation purposes. This is a game where even the simplest side mission has about a dozen different outcomes, and most of them are wholly organic. What it needed was more...well, GAME. After all, MD is a third of the game it was meant to be. But it IS a marvel of stealth action goodness. 5) The Last of Us: Part 2 (2020)

I have a BUNCH of issues with this game, but on the subject of stealth action, TLOU2 is one of the best in the genre. Every single encounter is highly difficult, but has dozens of variations. The levels are all designed with tons of varied cover spots and hidden paths to let you navigate as you either pick off the bad guys one by one, or sneak past them. The enemies range in their weaponry, but possess self preservation, so they aren't just standing around shooting aimlessly.

And on top of that, combat is brutal. Every bullet counts, and you feel the impact of every shot fired. The melee system is simple but complements gunplay fantastically. So if you wanna save bullets, you can shoot someone in the leg, and as they stagger, you can bumrush them, grab a hammer or brick you find on the ground as you're running and bludgeon them to death to save bullets. The game also has a great lil "MGS4 Battlefield Stealth" system. Several encounters have humans and infected, and you can pit the two against one another and either sneak around the carnage or use it to pick off the harder enemies.

The game also has a FAR better predator fight that's basically David's fight in the first game, but with way better mechanics. The boss increasingly upgrades their weapon each time you attack them, the environment is perfect for this fight, and if you're caught, you aren't just dead, you have a means to escape a hairy situation. TLOU2 may have been deeply polarizing, story-wise, but as a GAME, it's terrific. And best yet, once you beat the main game, there's an encounter mode that lets you skip all the BS and just jump right into every single stealth action encounter and boss fight throughout the whole game risk free. What's not to love about that? 4) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater HD (2004 / 2010)

MGS3 is the first really great linear MGS game. It ditches that terrible fixed camera, simplifies the controls, and has more than ten rooms where you do any sneaking. Its best moments are proto-MGSV outposts, where you have an area with tons of guards and multiple paths to your objective, and a whole lot of opportunities to get creative. It was also the first MGS game that made combat just as viable as stealth. You CAN actually just punch your way through the bad guys now, and the end result is shockingly fun thanks to all the weapons and more intuitive controls. But the real star is the boss battles. MGS3 has some of the best bosses of any video game I've ever played in my life. And MOST of them incorporate stealth beautifully. To the point where you can eliminate half the bosses with any of 'em ever even knowing your location, and giving you a plethora of variety in the bosses themselves AND the means in which you fight them.

3) Splinter Cell: Blacklist (2013)

Splinter Cell's an odd series. The story is nonsense yet also pretty drab and simplistic. Sam Fisher REALLY isn't an interesting character, none of the characters are except the villain and anti-hero scumbag. But as a VIDEO GAME, Blacklist is the peak of linear stealth action. MGS3 had boss fights, and THAT was the biggest mark for the game. And Blacklist only has a single boss fight, which is basically a slightly elongated version of Deadshot's "fight" in City.

But the moment-to-moment gameplay is out of this world good. You have brilliant level design that makes sneaking from A to B deeply gratifying, but you also have insane mobility that makes you feel like the biggest badass when you play. There can be a room full of guards. And like a game of chess, with the right moves, you can end them in seconds, which requires skill to pull off, rushing the first guy and taking him down, shooting his buddy, then using execute to auto-kill up to three guards you've marked who were in range. It's about using the systems the game gives you to maximize efficiency on the field. And you can pick off bad guys using your environment, or climbing a plethora of terrain.

The game almost plays like Arkham half the times when you're climbing walls or pipes and dropping down on bad guys or shooting them from overhead. It has a huge variety of gadgets to aide you as well, and combat is incredibly difficult but doable. Sam can only take a few hits before he's dead, but the means to shake off enemies is fair, and recovering from a slip-up is more fun than it is frustrating. The campaign has several excellent missions which would satisfy a person as is. But it also comes with over a dozen bonus missions you can access from your allies, each one taking place in entirely new settings with new enemies and storylines, each one with simpler and more streamlined objectives (perfect stealth, predator missions where you kill all the enemies, and survival waves where you have to fend off increasingly harder enemies). AND it has the best kind of co-op. Like Peace Walker, you can play any side mission with buddies. But it also has missions exclusive to co-op, designed to be fully embraced with a buddy you can play with on the couch or online. It's a game with tons of content, and all of it is mostly excellent. 2) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)

MGSV is the best game I've played. That's because it's a game that hits all of my buttons. The outposts are examples of perfect level design. Each one is designed with a huge array of cover spots and multiple paths, direct or secret, to an objective area. As a result, every mission allows you to get in, carry out your objective, and get out without raising a stink. And when you screw up, it doesn't feel like punishment, because the combat of this game is fantastic.

Everything is highly responsive, so your inputs happen with no delays. You can go from diving to shooting from the ground in a tenth of a second. And combat lets you seamlessly go from shooting, snatching guns from bad guys and blowing away with it, to taking breathers behind cover or with a human shield. The enemy AI is the best the series has ever had. They have way more self preservation, they're liberal with grenades, have way more variety in their weapons, and actually use turret guns and mortar cannons now.

The missions themselves can be resolved tons of different ways. Assassination missions play out like small-scale Hitman missions, without the frustration of screwing up and restarting because missions are so short, you just roll with the punches. And the overall feel of a mission changes dramatically, depending on your loadout, the paths you choose in the level, your playstyle, and the time of day you select when you start a mission.

There are only a few major downsides to the gameplay. The bosses lack variety, like, I REALLY wish MGSV had more XOF assassins like Quiet to confront along with the Skulls and MoF. Some missions are a bit too samey, and there aren't enough larger scale outposts. Some more enemy variety wouldn't have been remiss. And finally, the open world itself is pretty lifeless. It works to complement the missions, like giving you a whole stretch of land to carry out ambushes or battle the Skulls anywhere you please. But open world games are best when they have more to react to and engage with, or secrets to find. Oh yeah, and the main villain should've had a boss fight, a stealth action shootout at that because that’s what the OG plan was until Kojima decided to be slightly more pretentious than usual.

But beyond that, this game is a freakin' masterpiece.

So why is number 2 on the list even if it's the best game I've ever played?

Because this game exists... 1) Deus Ex (2000)

Deus Ex isn't as mechanically good as MGSV. It's even that good mechanically, like, playing it now, it feels pretty clunky and not the least bit smooth. Still fun, but you feel the age. So why is it number 1? Simple. Deus Ex is the most open-ended video game ever made. It's a stealth action RPG where every, and I mean, EVERY single level has dozens upon dozens of different paths to choose and make your own. It has class specialization, meaning the build you create gives you a whole ton of new paths and strategies to use for hacking or flexibility.

Every single mission takes place in a sprawling area. You have an objective, obstructions blocking your way, and a whole bunch of guards. You can blaze right to a solution, resolving a situation in minutes. Or, you can take your time and find any number of different paths to your goal. And all throughout each mission, there's tons of things to find as you explore. There's entire other side missions with their own plethora of options. Lots of really clever flavor text. Upgrades to bolster your augmentations. And really ominous messages you can find that'll come into play later.

The bosses may lack variety but each one is a perfect stealth action battle where you can choose any number of options against the bosses, right down to running away from them and the game outright acknowledging that the boss enemies weren't killed. Best yet, it's a game designed to be broken. Unlike Human Revolution, all the bosses are recurring characters you spend plenty of time with. But you can outright blow them away WELL in advance and the game will acknowledge their deaths and keep going anyway. If you engage in a boss battle during a designated boss fight, but avoid them or run away, then that boss will turn up again for a rematch later.

This is a game where you can create your own cover spots or platforms by gathering vending machines and dumpsters and piling them on top of each other. Where specialization changes the entire feel of the campaign and incentivizes repeat playthroughs just to come up with different builds and experience missions in whole new ways. And best yet, this is a game where when you're in a hub, whatever you see around you, you can interact with. If you see buildings in the distance, you'll be able to go in and explore, and there's always something to find. Deus Ex is number one because there will never be another game like it. It's debatable that no other game will ever be as FUN as MGSV, but no other game will ever be as open ended as Deus Ex because it's literally impossible. The game is clunky and cheap looking because the engine it was built on was a low-memory one. They traded in graphics fidelity and more impressive flow for the sake of creating a vast video game with an impossible amount of content to constantly stumble upon. And unlike all the other games on this list, that open endedness actually DOES translate into the story, giving you dozens of different branching paths to the story, and sadly, only three fairly weak endings, but damn, if the journey up ain't a blast.

I have a whole slew of other lists I’ve been meaning to post for the better part of two years, and honestly, they’re fun to write. So, who knows? Don’t worry though, they won’t get in the way of bellies or burp content either. XD

#non-kink #bnb lists #video games #gaming chat #stealth action #metal gear solid #splinter cell #assassin's creed #hitman #deus ex #the last of us #ghost recon breakpoint #cyberpunk 2077 #syphon filter #that game is really good too #but it's honestly not a stealth game #it's like the reverse of MGS1 #MGS1 was a stealth game with clunky forced action #Syphon Filter was an action game with clunky forced stealth #dark mirror was great #it's the single best psp game I've ever played #and hey James Horan is the final boss #i can always pretend that was the final fight with Skull Face I didn't get from MGSV #fucking kojima...#honestly I think that's why Higgs had so many boss fights in his chapter #it felt like an apology for screwing Skull Face #so he gets three really great bosses back to back #his second MAIN fight is basically a perfect stealth action battle #Cliff's boss fight I swear is exactly what I HOPED Skull Face's would've been #*Should've been...Kojima...

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junie-bugg · 4 years

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The Heartrender - Chapter Three: Flickers

Hello all!

Here’s chapter three of my Everlark fic ‘The Heartrender’, in which I inadvertently utilized the “only one bed trope” 😏💕

You can read here on Tumblr or here on AO3 (I suggest reading on AO3 because I add a poem at the beginning of each chapter that I feel fits nicely with the story.)

Rating: Explicit

Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Sexual Content

Relationship: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark

Tags: Enemies to Lovers, witch!Katniss, witch-hunter!Peeta, AU - Shipwrecked, AU - Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Explicit Sexual Content, Furs and Fires, Angst and Fluff and Smut, sexually experienced Katniss, virgin Peeta, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Loss of Virginity, Laughter During Sex, Blood and Injury, Imprisonment, Peeta has some prejudices to work out, Peeta also has an accent, Inspired by Six of Crows

Summary:

He hated her. He hated her for what she was: an abomination, a demon sent to tear at the fabric of the natural world. He hated her for making him want to laugh. He hated her for being so brazen and sensuous and everything the women of his country were never allowed to be. But mostly he hated her because he realized he didn’t hate her. Not even a little bit.

After a shipwreck has left an abducted witch and a member of the ominous Order bent on wiping out her kind stranded on the icy shores of an uninhabited land, the two must work together to survive or face tearing each other apart in the process.

Chapters: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

Chapter Three: Flickers

Night had fallen, and with it, the temperature. Peeta allowed the witch to hold his arm so she could keep his blood warm. When she retracted her hand every once in a while to readjust the pelt around her shoulders, his jaw clenched.

He shouldn’t miss her touch.

“Do you have any idea where we are?” she asked.

“Near the northern border of the Permafrost. Though I don’t know how far from the capital we were before the ship sank.”

“We’re walking to Fjordhingă then?”

“Yes,” he replied. Fjordhingă was the trading capital of the north. It was to be the last stopping point of The Bloody Rose’s voyage before they headed west to Sjorkden. If he and the witch could make it there by foot, perhaps Peeta could talk their way onto a ship. But how would he get the witch on board? What if she ran away? The thought had been nagging him like a fly on his brow.

Even with the witch there to keep his blood pumping, he felt his limbs freezing up as the temperature continued dropping. He desperately scanned the darkening horizon, hoping to find an outcropping of rocks they could huddle under, or maybe another whaling camp. Instead, he spotted a gabled roof.

“Oh, thank god,” he breathed and started tugging the witch along.

“Lieutenant…” she said apprehensively.

It wasn’t just some stray shack. It was a fishing village, with squat houses and a trading outpost, all perched on the cliffside and overlooking the ocean. One circular dirt road cleared of rock and vegetation lay at its center and clusters of small stone buildings had been constructed around it. The houses had wavy glass panes in the windows and soot-blackened chimneys, though no light shone onto the street and no smoke rose into the sky.

An abandoned village then.

Even better.

Peeta hastened his pace.

“Lieutenant, stop!” the witch yelled, tugging him back behind the village’s low border wall. “Look at the flagpole!”

Peeta’s heart sank when he saw an ominous black flag waving high above the rooftops.

Black was for plague. No wonder the place seemed abandoned.

Everyone had died.

He thought they were going to move on, but the witch set her shoulders back. Her face took on a quiet focus.

“We need to be careful. We can’t just barge in. There may be corpses.” She dropped his arm and moved around him. He watched her walk to the door of the closest house and lay a palm to its wind-weathered surface before he could stop her.

He sucked in a breath.

She was too close.

“Don’t!” he barked and pulled her away.

She whipped her head around, a scowl pulling her brows together. “You’d rather we die of plague then allow me to use my god-given powers?”

“Don’t drag god into this.”

“Oh don’t worry. I doubt we have the same one,” she retorted. “Now get out of my way.”

He didn’t want her touching that door, but he knew what she was doing. He’d read about the practice of purification in class, but he hadn’t imagined it would smell so good.

Pure white light emanated from within the building, flooding out in bright streams from the windows, the minuscule cracks in the stone walls, the deep hollow of the chimney. Long shadows crept along the ground, shifting in oblong patterns as the light in the house moved. The witch’s hair and clothing snapped in some enchanted breeze, pulling ebony locks and fur upwards in a cascading arc until the light faded and gravity pulled her hair back down in a glossy curtain.

The air tingled with the sharp scent of mint.

“I thought you could only manipulate bodies,” Peeta got out.

“I can do a great many things you wouldn’t understand, lieutenant.”

“Don’t call me that,” he muttered. Lieutenant was his title from the Order. It felt wrong to hear her speak it here.

“Would you rather I call you by your name?” she asked.

Peeta didn’t respond.

“Didn’t think so.” She turned the brass knob and the door swung in on itself. “Welcome home, lieutenant.”

By noon the next day, she had purified the entire village.

It was a spell, an easy one, that burned away rot and disease. Each time she pressed a hand to a doorway, the windows filled with that bright celestial light, her hair rose above her head as a flame rises above a candlewick, and she burned away any trace of plague inside. Scraps of cloth that had been coughed into, drops of dried blood on the floor, corpses that had been left behind. Each house was spotless when she was done.

They had slept in the house farthest from the others, on the far side of the village. It was small, with only a kitchen, sitting area, and one bedroom. There was a sizable stone hearth in the kitchen, plenty of split logs in a wicker basket by the back door, even some strips of salted caribou meat in the pantry. First, they had scarfed down the meat, and only after, with the salted flesh chewed and swallowed, did they think of their thirst. Peeta made a fire while the witch lugged a burnished pot outside to gather snow. They drank the warm melted water and then collapsed into bed with their clothes still on.

It was a real bed, with a canopied frame and pillows and soft, quilted blankets. Peeta was too tired to object when the witch curled in against his chest, and once more he spent the night with his nose buried deep in her hair.

As exhausted as he was, Peeta was a soldier. He woke early, as he always did, and found that he couldn’t fall back asleep. The pale morning light of dawn bled through the curtains. Anyone else would have rolled over and tried to catch a few more hours of shut-eye, but Peeta couldn’t. The witch’s heat against his chest was too much, like a beating, throbbing wound that refused to heal. He untangled his arm from around her and then hurried to the door, grabbing a spear in the pretense of hunting.

Winter burned his nostrils as he took in deep lungfuls of air. He was a boy raised in the fjords of southern Sjorkden, and a man of the northern academy. He’d thought he’d seen the bitterest winters the world had to offer when ice would form between the stones of his tower dormitory and he and Yasser would have to sleep on the floor by the black iron furnace for warmth. They would go to breakfast with blue nail beds and teeth that chattered so violently sometimes it was hard to chew. But he realized those nights were nothing compared to this, a winter’s chill so sharp that it cut out a spot for you into the very landscape, made you feel as if your skin was crafted of snow, your bones pressed from ice.

He secured the fur around his shoulders and tried to replace thoughts of piercing silver eyes with thoughts of breakfast.

But the winds of the north were unforgiving, and the frigid bite of the air only reminded Peeta of how warm he had been with the witch. By the time he had finished hunting, having speared only one measly hare, his limbs were frozen, joints locked as if welded, lips numb under his teeth as he tried to bite the life back into them.

He found himself anticipating coming back to the village, wanting what he so desperately fled only hours before; to tangle in bed with the witch once more, a merry fire crackling in the hearth, the warm press of her body cradled against his own, his nose buried in the hollow beneath her ear, soaking up the heady scents of jasmine and fresh rain and sunlight until he was drunk on her.

His thoughts were peaceful until he remembered the sin of what he had been considering.

Laying with the witch was practical. The use of her magic against the cold was necessary. There was nothing charming or romantic about having to rely on an enemy for survival. He should despise his needing her.

She wasn’t human. She was dangerous.

It was foolish to forget that.

Yasser collapsed into the seat across from Peeta, his dinner tray laden with a bowl of brown grits, boiled sausages, some mushy looking turnips, and a small cup of water.

“Did you hear what happened to Larone?” he asked, his urgent tone cutting under the loud din of the dining compartment.

“No,” Peeta replied, unsure if he wanted news of how Wilhelm was handling his first witcher voyage. The antics of newbies were fun to hear about at the start, but when tales of seasickness and fatigue reached the ears of experienced witchers, especially witchers on the cusp of earning their freedom, the stories were more annoying than entertaining.

Yasser greedily stuffed a spoonful of grits into his mouth and swallowed before continuing. “Well, I’m telling you anyway. If I have to know, you have to know.”

“Can I finish eating first?”

“No. Now eat your sausages, growing boy!” Yasser mimicked the garbled, high-pitched accent of one of the servants from the academy, Mrs. Jengon, who had doled out food in the great hall. Each and every student was a “growing boy” in her eyes. Even the ones who had finished their battle with puberty.

Peeta frowned and took a tentative bite of sausage.

“Alright, I’m going to try and say this with as much grace as possible,” Yasser said solemnly but then burst into peals of laughter, slamming a fist against the table so forcefully the plates rattled. “Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t think I can. Larone gave the Heartrender a little too much to chew if you know what I’m saying.”

Peeta stilled. “He didn’t.”

Yasser cocked a thick eyebrow, his mouth crinkling around the corners. With his flaming red hair and bright green eyes gleaming under the oil lamps he looked like some kind of buff leprechaun. “He did. And now half his pisser is being packed in ice.”

Peeta’s stomach rolled, his body instinctually clenching in phantom pain as he imagined it. He set down his fork with the sausage impaled on the end and pushed the plate away.

“God…”

“But don’t tell anyone I told you,” Yasser added. “The commander wants to keep it under wraps. Doesn’t shine very well on him, does it? If his recruits are dumb enough to stick their cocks between witch jaws?”

Peeta didn’t tell a soul but the news still spread through the ranks like a wildfire during drought season. Yasser updated him at breakfast. Larone was in the infirmary being tended to by Dutch, the crew’s one doctor, and wouldn’t be out of recovery until the ship reached Sjorkden. Peeta felt bad for the boy, but it was his own foolishness that had gotten him into trouble, and now he’d never bed a wife or sire heirs. Larone’s power crawl was over before it had even really started.

Peeta relieved Hans Gerholt from guarding duty that night, disgusted when he saw no one had bothered to clean the Heartrender up. Larone’s blood had splattered her face, dried, and then cracked. She looked absolutely monstrous with a red dipped chin.

“You here for a good time too?” she said, picking up on Peeta’s discomfort. He didn’t respond, just sat down stiffly in the guard’s chair and listened to the creaking of the boat, the squeaking of rats in the walls, the soft clinking of the witch’s chains when she shifted across the cell floor. “Your little friend showed me his even littler friend. I barely bit him and it was half off.”

“Stop talking,” Peeta growled, angry at himself that he had risen to her bait. He knew she just wanted to get a rise out of him. The weeping girl was gone, replaced with one who had accepted she had nothing to lose.

“Now your commander…” she drawled, eyes flashing in the partial darkness. “His would have taken more gnawing.”

Peeta didn’t much care for the commander. He was old and cruel, but it was the principal of honor and his loyalties to the Order that made him rise so sharply from his chair that it tipped over. He lunged at her through the bars, pulling her up against the cold metal by her collar. “Hold your tongue, witch, or I’ll cut it out.”

She tsked quietly, hanging limply in his grip. “Did your commander ever tell you where he found me?” She saw the confusion in his eyes and clung to it. “Of course he didn’t. No pious soldier of Sjorkden would ever reveal he had been cavorting in a pleasure house.”

“You’re a whore,” Peeta whispered, almost disbelievingly, the pieces clicking into place. He released her and she fell to the ground in a weakened heap.

On the surface, she looked the same. Wrinkled red dress, oily black hair, sunken cheeks. But now there was something alight inside of her. Heat smoldered like molten silver in her eyes.

“You and your kind have called me many things, lieutenant. Witch. Slum scum. Unholy daughter of Krell. But I’m afraid ‘whore’ is where I draw the line. I did not choose that life, it was thrust upon me, and here I am now. Free of it.”

Peeta looked down at her. He thought the commander had put her in those iron hand caps to keep her from unleashing her powers. She could not kill if she could not curl her fingers. But now he suspected they had come from her time in Ellsworth. How long had she been wearing them? From the rust on the padlocks, he suspected a long time. “How ironic that you speak of freedom while you lounge in chains.”

“Freedom is a fickle thing, lieutenant. I may be stuck here in this cage, but I suspect you carry one wherever you go.”

Peeta’s nostrils flared. That familiar rush of rage he experienced during combat surged through his limbs, but with nowhere to go, his head soon swam with it. “Do not pretend to know me. You’re repulsive. A perversion against nature.”

“I am nature. You are just too brainwashed to see it.”

“Nature does not defile the earth. Or slaughter the innocent by the thousands.”

“My people have committed no such crimes. We were healers before you forced our hands to bloodshed. I suggest you try looking upon yourselves before you go blindly doling out sentences.”

Peeta was at a loss for words. The nerve of this girl, injuring Larone and then preaching about who the real enemy was. Coaxing out his anger and frustration when he was normally so good at hiding it. Ever since he ran away from home, he had learned the hard way that emotion in the face of an enemy was weakness. He could not afford to let her under his skin, no matter how hard she clawed away at him. He was ashamed to admit it, but he had found himself thinking about her on nights when he wasn’t on guard duty.

That stopped now.

“Rot in hell,” he spat as he righted his chair.

“You will,” she growled.

The witch burned the red dress in the kitchen fireplace. The fabric steamed and curled into blackened strips, sending dark plumes of smoke up the chimney like released ghouls. Peeta didn’t have to ask her why she did it. He knew she burned the dress to try and burn away the memories of her capture, and perhaps the memories that came before. If he thought about it, the dress must have been from her time in Ellsworth. He could only imagine how a girl of her beauty would fare in the clutches of a pleasure house, the horrors unleashed upon her when the rights to her body were not her own. He wondered how she could even bear touching him.

A man.

A stranger.

If burning the dress had worked, he couldn’t tell. She came to bed in a fur-lined nightgown and quietly rested her cheek on his breastbone. His cheeks burned, shame lacing itself into his stomach lining when he didn’t push her away.

“I’ve never heard a heart song so gentle,” she murmured admiringly. She sounded surprised.

Peeta’s chest ached. He was suddenly self-conscious of how fast he was breathing and in his fight to slow down, hadn’t asked her what she meant.

They raided each house one by one. The people of the village were either dead or had moved on when the plague hit. They left behind dressers full of clothing, shoes, pots and pans, utensils, pottery, carving knives, firewood, axes, the occasional sword, hunting supplies, wax candles, furniture, toys, paintings, family heirlooms. All the trappings of domesticity.

The pair took a pan here and a pair of shoes there. Peeta had found two large packs with which to stuff items in. His pack would contain a small assortment of kitchenware, food, some firewood, and the water sacks. She would carry extra clothing and furs. They planned on spending a couple of nights in the village before restarting their journey north to Fjordhingă.

In the days they spent stocking up on provisions, the witch took over hunting duty. She didn’t hunt with spear or snare as Peeta had learned. She used her powers to crush windpipes and burst hearts. Wild dogs stopped dead in their tracks, keening over like sacks of potatoes. Birds plummeted from the sky, cold before they hit the ground. He enjoyed the bounty, feasting on a new roast every night and salting the leftovers, but with every meal, he grew warier. He had heard the stories of course, of the deathly potential that Heartrenders possessed, but seeing her in action was completely different from hearing some old tale around a campfire. Just how powerful was she? And when she determined he was no longer useful as a means of body heat or when their little truce no longer suited her, how easy would it be to kill him? A curl of her fingers or a flick of her wrist and he’d be dead.

Maybe he’d made a mistake by letting her live.

Every night when he watched her sleep, the voices of the masters pressed into his head, willing his fingers to close around her throat, to witness the light drain from her bulging, terror-filled eyes and have her know that he had bested her.

Him. The seed of a pathetic, weak-willed baker. Wielder of no arcane power and with no legacy to help carve the way. Just him and his own two hands against the world. As it had always been.

But no matter what his common sense was telling him, of how dangerous he knew her kind to be, he couldn’t do it. He would reach for her neck and then freeze, afraid to go any further. If she didn’t stir he’d stay his hand, running feather-light fingers across her pulse point, quietly admiring the way her angled features softened in sleep. But if her eyelids fluttered or her breathing changed he would retreat as if she had burned him.

“Where were you sired?” Peeta asked one night as they ate a bird the witch had caught. The bones were small and Peeta had to be careful not to break them with his teeth. He gnawed on a piece of cartilage as he waited for her reply.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean-” Krellian was not Peeta’s first language. He had picked it up between his boyhood and his blood christening into the Order, but he had limited knowledge of words. He learned Krellian and Narubi and Hannako from old, leather-bound textbooks and even older professors. For years he had studied all the archaic tongues they hoped he would someday snuff out, but he did not know slang or turn of phrase, and his accent was rounded in his mouth compared to the crisp consonants of a native Krellian speaker.

She spoke as if she were tiptoeing through a flower field.

He spoke as if he were crashing through it.

“Where did you… grow?”

“Grow up?”

Grow up. Peeta slotted the term into his memory for future use. “Yes. Where in Krell did you grow up?”

The witch narrowed her eyes, those silvery irises glowing like moonlight from behind a cloud’s ragged border. “Why? Are you planning your next raid?”

“No, I-” He ducked his head, his cheeks burning furiously. “I’m just curious.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I won’t tell you, lieutenant,” she snarled. She threw down her uneaten bird’s wing, splattering congealed blood everywhere. “Besides, you don’t deserve to know.” Her anger was eager, ready to be unleashed upon him even in quiet, semi-companionable moments such as mealtime. She confused him. Why was she flirty and seductive when they lay in bed together but bitter and closed off when he tried having a casual conversation?

Although to be fair, he hadn’t been very open with her either. And not particularly kind.

“It was just a question.”

“A dangerous one. Go ahead and ask another. See if I’ll talk.” Her eyes glittered as if they were playing a game she knew she would win.

Just another thing he didn’t like about the witch. How ashamed he felt when talking to her. Minor slip-ups, cracks in his armor of indifference. She had a talent for coaxing them out of him as if she were pulling secrets from a drunk man.

But he was in too deep now. Might as well try to get something out of her.

He lowered his gaze to the fire and asked, “Then what’s your favorite color?”

The witch blinked. She hadn’t been expecting such a mundane inquiry. She was silent for a moment, probably contemplating if giving away this piece of information would in any way compromise her. She decided a favorite color was harmless.

“Green.”

He pictured it. The verdant green of a forest. Lush and deep and full of secrets.

Just like her.

“Mine is orange,” he offered. “Soft. Like a sunset.”

She cocked a dark brow. “Not red for the blood of your enemies?”

Peeta raised the drumstick back up to his mouth, suppressing a smile. “That comes in a close second.”

She had laughed then, a sound so joyful and clear that Peeta’s heart clenched and he stopped chewing just to hear her better.

She awoke screaming one night, flailing about under the sheets and shoving him away as if he were stabbing her. He had been awake when it started, unable to quiet a storm of racing thoughts. If he hadn’t been so alert, perhaps he wouldn’t have sprung to her aid so quickly.

“What is it?” he demanded, suspecting there was something biting her under the covers. He threw the blankets back, but there was nothing. “Huh?” he asked when he couldn’t make out her quaking mumbles.

“Just a dream, it was just a dream,” she whispered to herself, and then she dissolved into tears. Her face glistened wetly in the moonlight and she shrank away when he reached to pull the covers back over her.

The next night, he took some furs and slept by the fire in the kitchen, afraid she wouldn’t want him in bed with her. But when he was about to doze off, she padded through the doorway.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Sleeping.”

“On the floor?”

“But… you… last night… ” he stammered.

Her face hardened as she crossed her arms self-consciously. “I’m sorry you had to see that, but I’d feel better if you stayed in the room with me.”

“You kicked me,” he argued.

“Not on purpose,” she hissed.

The two glared at each other, and then the tension broke. The witch softened, her shoulders sagging like a loose bowstring. “Please.”

He should have told her no. Instead, he said: “Alright.”

She dreamed of clients. Harsh hands and sour breath. Shackles looped around a bed frame.

He wasn’t allowed to touch her after those dreams. Not for a long while at least, and when they would eventually come together again, he let her choose when to climb back into his arms.

“What makes me different?” he asked quietly one night as she clutched his shirt, her tears drying over his heart.

She raised her head to meet his eyes. “Can you feel your own heartbeat?”

He could if he focused. If he held his breath and silenced his thoughts. He nodded.

She sounded sad, as if she were quoting somebody when she said, “If you listen close enough, you can hear that all heartbeats are different.”

It sounded like Krellian nonsense. Heartbeats sounded like heartbeats, but it was out before he thought to stop himself. “What is mine like?”

She laid her head back down and inhaled slowly through her nose, listening. “It’s gentle and steady. Like the lapping of the ocean. Ever present and soothing. I’ve never heard one quite like it.” She inhaled again, steeling herself. “It makes me feel safe. Which is ironic because it belongs to you.”

He smiled but she couldn’t see it. Then he asked, “And what does yours sound like?”

There was a long pause and then she said, “You can listen if you want.” She sat up in bed, pulling him along with her, and with gentle hands twined through his hair, tipped his ear to her breast.

It was hard to concentrate. The heels of her hand on his cheeks and her fingers laced across his scalp made him feel as if she were touching him everywhere. But then he forced himself to lean into her chest, the shell of his ear pressing against her sternum, searching for the sounds of her very being.

At first, he heard nothing, just felt the rise and fall of her breaths, but then, as if cotton had been removed from his ears, he heard the heavy beat of life. The first thud was loud like a cannon shot, but the second was quiet, like the dull closing of a door. Her heart sounded like it was limping on stilts. Hobbling along unevenly. Long step, short step. Over and over. Cautious. Afraid. So unlike the girl he’d come to know. But it was all there, hidden away deep inside of her.

“See?” she whispered. “We’re different.”

But they weren’t. Not really.

When she fell asleep and Peeta remained awake, he tried reaching within himself to feel his own heart again. It was like the constant beating of waves as she said, but he didn’t find it soothing. Every beat felt achingly blunt, as if his heart was slowly ripping itself apart to make more room.

It terrified him that he didn’t know what that meant.

On the morning of their departure, he rose, dressed in a black tunic and pants, clasped a heavy fur cloak around his shoulders, and then sheathed a sword at his hip. He stepped outside to swing it around, getting the feel for its weight.

The sword was heavy, made of polished steel that glinted in the cloudy morning light. Compared to the swords he had grown up with, the blade was plain. There were no holy etchings in its metal face, no onyx embedded into the hilt, and no divine blessings had been uttered over it, but he felt a fierce rush of strength all the same. Peeta was used to heavy swords and the leather-wrapped pommel felt right in his hands, as if he’d been missing a part of himself without a weapon.

“Is that really necessary?” the witch asked, her voice carrying from inside the house and over the frostbitten yard. When he laid eyes on her, a hot jolt flooded his body as if he’d just caught himself from falling off a roof.

She leaned against the doorframe, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, but he could tell from the way she warily focused on the blade that she was on high alert. A caribou hide nightdress brushed the tops of her dusky knees and her hair was loose and mussed on one side. The side she had pressed against his body in the night, Peeta realized.

“What else would you have me use?” Peeta asked darkly, unsure why the witch got to use her powers whenever she wanted, but when it came to Peeta’s talents they were disapproved of.

“You have a Heartrender with you,” she said arrogantly, pointing at herself. “You’re just going to be lugging around a sword for show and no offense but I’d rather you carry extra food.”

“It’s not for show. This sword is to protect myself against you,” he said angrily, pointing the blade in her direction.

She took a hurried step back as if she expected him to advance. There was a heavy, quiet moment as Peeta watched her from behind the sword’s edge.

And then she sharply twisted her wrist.

Peeta’s heart rate skyrocketed.

Her voice was low, dangerous as she said: “I don’t know what your superiors told you, but a sword is no match for a Heartrender.” She began squeezing her fingers together and Peeta’s heart stuttered, his chest clenching painfully as if he were having a heart attack. Stabbing heat pulsing through every vein in his body as if his blood had turned to molten lava. He fell to his knees, dropping the sword into the hard-packed dirt with a hollow clang.

“Stop,” he begged, clutching at his chest. His breaths came in ragged pants. He was falling apart under the pressure. “Please.”

She tensed her hand, unsure whether or not to let up. Her eyes were frightened, but there was resolve there too, as if she had imagined this situation before and had already decided the outcome. This was her chance. She had a pack full of food and supplies. She had her enemy in her clutches. She was going to do it. He was going to die, right here, in an abandoned village where no one would think to come looking for him. Where no one would know his name. All who wandered would stay away from the black flag, and he’d be the feast for wild animals and the decay of time.

He should have killed her when he had the chance but he had been weak and now his chances were spent.

She squeezed tighter, her fingertips almost touching her palm. And then all of a sudden, her face crumpled. With a strangled gasp of breath, she released him. He fell to the ground in a quivering heap as his heart rate plummeted and then righted itself.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, trying to stem the flow of tears with her hands. She disappeared back inside the house and Peeta was left to stare shamefully at his own tears pooling in the dirt.

#The Heartrender #everlark #everlark fanfiction #everlark fanfic #witch!Katniss #witch-hunter!Peeta #enemies to lovers #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark

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velkynkarma · 4 years

Note

Happy April Fools!! For a prompt, I hope you don't mind a classic whump trope: Shiro throwing himself in front of one of the others (Matt or Keith?) to take a hit for them. Hope that's not too vague. Thanks for still writing, you're amazing!!

I really liked this prompt anon, so I went a little overboard and this is a whole fic lol. I picked Matt because I haven’t had enough chances to write him. Kind of a sequel to Break Even. Set in some handwavey time in S4, but it’s up to you if this is Kuron or some AU where Shiro came back on his own. Hope you enjoy :)

——

“I wish that noise would stop already,” Matt snaps in frustration, as he plugs his mini computer into the security panel next to the door.

The alarm screams through the whole Galra ship angrily, blaring over and over just above their heads from one of the intercoms set into the walls and half a dozen others in their hallway alone. It’s loud and thoroughly distracting, but for Matt, it also reminds him of his escape feebs ago. The anxiety of wondering if the enemy will thunder around the corner at any moment is just as strong now as it was then, and sends his heart hammering.

It doesn’t matter how many times Matt has done this, or how often he’s trained for it. He’s never going to forget feeling completely and utterly helpless when he hears that sound.

“I don’t think it’s going to any time soon,” Shiro says, next to him. “Just do what you can.” His tone is authoritative, but he offers Matt a brief, sympathetic look in the middle of scanning the hallways for danger.

That does calm Matt down. A little, at least. If anybody knows what it’s like, it’s going to be Shiro.

Their mission today was simple in theory, but more complex in execution. A Galra fleet had been responsible for utilizing a new, more powerful ion cannon against the rebels, wiping out an entire hidden base in the process. They needed to destroy the weapon itself, while simultaneously stealing any information they could about it, so they could be countered in the future.

The rebels had reached out to Voltron for assistance, and Voltron had been only too happy to help. While the rebels fought the cloud of swarming ships outside—with the assistance of Allura and the Blue Lion, as a decoy to draw their attention—the rest of the team had snuck into the ship itself to get to work. Pidge, Hunk and Lance were Team Weapon, responsible for finding it and figuring out a way to disable it. Matt had volunteered to go in on foot as the rebel representative to hack the data, and Shiro agreed to go with him for backup.

Pidge had been a little upset that she couldn’t go with Matt. It hadn’t been too long since they had reunited, after all, and Matt had to admit it would be both fun and exciting to work in tandem with his amazing little sister. But Shiro made a fair point that they needed a hacker on either team, and Pidge and Matt were by far the most efficient at the task.

Pidge had grudgingly agreed, warned Matt to not die after all the work she put into finding him, and dropped them off from the camouflaged Green Lion on the other side of the ship when the mission began.

And it had gone smoothly. At first. They’d gone undetected on the ship for a while, with the Galra and their sentries so focused on the battle outside. But somebody—Matt still wasn’t sure if it was him and Shiro, or Team Weapon—had tripped some sort of alarm, and it had begun screeching for all it was worth about intruders and danger.

Things had been more difficult after that. Shiro’s armor was scratched from numerous close encounters, and the energy shield mounted on his wrist flickered every once and a while, like it was damaged. Matt’s cloak had several laser rifle burns in it, and he had a new shallow gash on his arm from a too-close encounter with a sentry’s clawed hands.

Worst of all, his leg throbbed at the left knee, aching and uncomfortable. The wound Shiro had given him more than a decafeeb ago to get him out of the gladiator arena didn’t like being pushed too hard with no rest, and it was protesting vehemently.

Matt could fight—the rebels had ensured he could—but he couldn’t do it for huge stretches of time like some of the others could. That was why they’d stuck him at a listening outpost, and utilized his intelligence and stealth more than his combative skills. If he did fight, it was usually in a ship, where he was a decent pilot and a better gunner—and could sit the whole time.

Maybe he shouldn’t have volunteered to do some codebreaking on the ground.

But they needed him. This had to be fast. That new weapon was dangerous, and if they didn’t understand how it worked or where they were being manufactured, millions of people could die. He’s the best hacker they have, after Pidge. He can deal with his leg killing him for a little while if it means a fast and efficient victory.

Of course, efficiency also depended on his equipment. The rebels had some decent tech, but it was nothing compared to Pidge’s nifty little wrist-mounted computer, built into the paladin armor. The technology in even ten thousand year old armor was efficient and elegant in a way that absolutely did not make Matt in any way jealous that his sister had better toys than he did, no, not at all.

Okay, maybe a little bit.

Matt’s mini computer does the job okay, though. He types rapidly on it as he says, “Their encryption is pretty good, and with the alarms going, the security’s beefed up a couple notches. I can get through, but it’s going to take me a little longer than before.”

“Not too much longer, I hope,” Shiro says, frowning. “We’re sitting ducks here. No cover if anyone comes around the corner.”

“I’ll do what I can, but I’m working with pieced together equipment here. Unless…” Matt considers. “Shiro, let me borrow your arm.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow. “I thought the alarms would freeze me out of unlocking doors with my prosthetic arm?”

“Nah,” Matt says. “I don’t want the Galra tech, I want your Voltron tech.”

“Oh.” Shiro bemusedly extends his right arm to the side for Matt to work with, while keeping his body turned awkwardly so he can still keep an eye on the hallways. It’s a bit odd, but it does work, once Shiro brings up the displays with the internalized mental commands attuned to himself and the Black Lion and grants Matt access.

“Much better,” Matt says, as he brings up the interfaces on the holographic screen that hovers over Shiro’s right wrist. He loved his little rebel minicomputer, but was so much faster than any tech he had access to. “I’ve got to get one of these.”

“I’m sure Allura wouldn’t mind sharing, if it means beating the Galra empire,” Shiro says, scanning the hallways over the top of Matt’s bowed head.

“You think? This is incredible,” Matt says, as he rapidly eats his way through the Galra security with the bolstered Voltron computer. Pidge already had a number of protocols installed that made hacking the Galra security easy; just a few minor modifications here, an adjustment of code there, and he can smash through the walls like they’re made of paper. “The rebels could really use more sophisticated work like this. A lot of what they have is put together from whatever they can find, the Galra have a lockdown on supplies almost everywhere, and—”

“Look out!”

Shiro’s flickering energy shield snaps up by Matt’s head just in time to deflect a burst of energy from burning a hole in his temple. Matt freezes for just a moment, startled.

There are three sentries pacing towards them down the hallway, energy rifles raised. Matt hadn’t even heard them coming over the blare of the alarm.

Another fires, and the shot deflects off of Shiro’s energy shield again, which flickers alarmingly. Shiro himself has to twist awkwardly in front of Matt and extend his arm outward to provide any shielding at all, while still keeping his right arm within reach of Matt’s hacking job.

Matt swears, and reaches down for his collapsible staff. But Shiro orders sharply, “No, keep working! We can’t hit them from here anyway.”

Matt swears again, but Shiro has a point. If they can just get through this door, they might have a breather. In an open hallway without any firearms or cover, they’re screwed. “Right, right. On it.” His heart beats so hard it hurts, and his leg throbs in time, but his hands and his voice are shockingly still and calm as he works.

He’s almost through when another blast ricochets off Shiro’s energy field, and with a staticky shattering noise, it finally cuts out and vanishes.

Matt’s heart stops. For one horrified moment, he looks up from his work to meet Shiro’s eyes, as Shiro turns back to check his progress.

“Almost—” Matt says desperately, frantically swiping at the holographic keys over Shiro’s wrist. Almost, almost, almostalmostalmost—

The sentries fire again. Shiro moves, twisting around to raise his free arm defensively as he puts himself solidly between the shots and Matt. There’s an awful thud-crack-hiss of energy blasts on armor, and an even worse smell of burning flesh and blood.

Shiro gasps in agony almost right in Matt’s ear, and Shiro’s weight slumps against him suddenly. It’s almost too heavy for Matt to bear so unexpectedly, and his bad leg nearly gives out on him, but he braces at the last moment and manages to hold. Shiro’s helmet clunks painfully against Matt’s skull, and his left gauntlet claws weakly at Matt’s cloak as he struggles for balance.

“No, no, no,” Matt yelps frantically, terrified and angry all at the same time. “No, you do not get to do this again. Not again, Shiro, you hear me?”

Shiro’s only answer is a muted groan, as he struggles to get upright again and fails.

Shiro’s right arm had gone as limp and uncoordinated as the rest of him—his Galra arm is a terrible miracle of science, but in many ways it acts a lot like a normal limb and is just as subject to shock as the rest of the person it’s attached to. But luckily the screens from the Voltron armor had all remained active. Matt snatches his wrist, drags it close, and with a final swipe, keys in the last code.

The door hisses open.

Matt doesn’t have the time to really survey what’s on the other side. The sentries are coming closer, and raising their weapons to fire again. He’ll just have to hope they aren’t locking themselves in with something worse.

He awkwardly manages to grab Shiro’s left wrist and get an arm around his waist, and winces when Shiro gasps again in agony at his touch. With Shiro more or less flopped awkwardly over his doubled-forward back, rather than in anything resembling an efficient fireman’s carry, Matt manages to drag him through the open door and slap the button to close it.

“Sorry Shiro, I gotta—” Matt says frantically, as he drags Shiro to the panel on the door. With Shiro still balanced precariously against him, he manages to use the paladin wrist computer to seal the door shut with his and Pidge’s own controls. It won’t hold the sentries forever, but it will buy them time.

Immediate threat taken care of, for the next five doboshes at least, Matt turns his attention to Shiro. He sets his friend down against the computer banks on the far wall, and Shiro gasps again as he’s moved.

Now that Matt can see the damage, he can understand why. The paladin armor is incredibly durable, but today it seems to have hit its limit. The jetpack set into the back is shattered, and the armor around Shiro’s back, side, and just under his arm is cracked and burned. Several of the pieces cut into the undersuit and skin beneath, drawing blood.

But the worst injury is the shot to Shiro’s side, just above his hip, which hadn’t even been protected by armor to begin with. That is an awful, bloody hole already leaking red, with tattered burned edges and frayed bits of undersuit melted to the skin.

“What the hell, Shiro?” Matt asks, frantic. He whips off the thick cloak of his rebel uniform and hastily wraps it around Shiro’s waist and back, hoping to stem the bleeding long enough to get help. “Why did you do that?”

Shiro groans at the movement, and the pressure on his injuries, but he doesn’t complain or try to fend Matt off. Instead, he says weakly, “You had to open the door.”

“You can’t—you can’t do that,” Matt hisses, gritting his teeth. He’s trying hard not to be...something, he’s not sure what. Terrified. Overwhelmed. Distraught. His throat feels tight and his eyes prickle painfully, but mostly what it all comes out as is anger. “You can’t do that again, Shiro, not to me. Not for me. Okay?”

He tugs the cloak possibly a little tighter than is strictly necessary in his haste to wrap the wounds properly. Shiro can’t bleed out. Not here, not now, and that wound is bad. He needs a pod as soon as possible.

Shiro gasps, and his fingers twitch reflexively towards the wound at his side. But his eyes meet Matt’s, and they’re full of confusion. “Do what?” he asks, voice hoarse.

“Keep saving me,” Matt says. His throat is tight as he forces the words out, and he still isn’t sure if it’s with dismay or guilt or anger. “Keep taking the hits for me. Trying to get yourself killed to get me out of trouble. You can’t—you can’t do that again, okay. You already sacrificed yourself to save me once, enough is enough.”

“Matt,” Shiro says, slowly. It’s horse and shaky, edged with pain, but he still manages to maintain some degree of calm. “I didn’t die in the arena.”

“I thought you did!” Matt says, as he finishes wrapping the wounds and ties it off as best as he can. “I thought you died in my place. I told myself nobody was ever going to die for me again, and now you’re doing it all over—”

“Matt,” Shiro repeats, with a wince. “I’m not dead yet. Calm down.”

Shiro was like that. He was frustratingly like that, able to stay calm somehow even in the worst situations.

Matt still remembers that day in the arena, disgustingly crystal clear. He can still smell the sawdust and old blood and stale sweat, see the blinding arena lights, feel that raw terror, knowing he was going to die. I’m not going to make it. I’ll never see my family again. And he remember’s Shiro’s answer, his quick thinking in the face of certain death. You can do this. Take care of your father.

Matt was stronger now than he had been back then. He’d seen combat, and he’d thought his way out of hopeless situations, survived against the impossible. He was braver and smarter and more self-sufficient than that naive young kid that went all the way to Kerberos for ice samples and the thought of meeting aliens. But he’d done it all because of that very real fear that still lived in his heart, that other people would have to die for him again because he was too weak to handle it, too scared, too useless, and he never wanted that to happen again.

And yet here they are again, Shiro facing down death in Matt’s place and Matt panicking, and maybe he never really learned anything at all.

No, he tells himself. You’re better than that. You’ve gotten stronger. Nobody ever dies for you again.

He takes a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and lets it carry away his useless panic with it.

You can handle this.

“You’re right,” Matt agrees. “And this time I’m going to make sure we keep you that way.”

Shiro smiles, although the expression is weak. “No argument there.”

Matt nods. His makeshift bandage looks awkward and uncomfortable, but at least it will hold long enough to get Shiro out of there. He stands, presses a finger to the rebel communicator in his ear tuned to the Voltron frequency, and opens communications. “This is Matt. Shiro’s hurt—we’re going to need an extraction, fast.”

“I can’t get to you,” Allura says, from outside. There’s a sharp grunt on her end, no doubt from an impact in the Blue Lion, and several distant blasts. “There are too many fighters. I can try to clear the area for an extraction, but there are too many on me at the moment.”

“Same here,” Olia reports. “This warship is heavily defended. All our ships are engaged.”

“We can get to you,” Pidge says. “If you can hang on for fifteen doboshes. Are you okay?” There’s no mistaking the worry in her tone, and Matt winces a little at that.

“I’m fine. Mostly. It’s just Shiro—”

“I’m okay,” Shiro interrupts.

“You don’t sound okay,” Lance argues immediately. “How bad are you hurt? We’re coming.”

“Not bad enough that I can’t last fifteen doboshes,” Shiro says immediately. His voice is shaky still, and he can’t help but hiss mid-sentence in what’s obviously pain, but Matt can see how hard he fights to maintain as much normalcy as possible.

“Get there in ten, got it,” Hunk says. “On our way.”

Shiro makes an exasperated noise in his throat, and then winces again, hand automatically coming up to press against the cloak-turned-bandage and the wound underneath. “Not like I...haven’t done this before,” he mutters, but his breath hitches painfully. “Why do they always get me in this spot?”

That sounds like a story, but for later. Matt frankly couldn’t care less right now. “Are you okay?”

“I can hang on,” Shiro says, although he finally makes a concession to his injury by tipping his head back against the computer banks, and resting wearily.

From the door comes the first metallic bang of a sentry fist on the other side. It’s so loud even the still-blaring alarms seem quiet by comparison.

Matt and Shiro both watch the door with growing expressions of alarm. “Can they get through?” Shiro asks slowly, after a heavy moment of silence.

Another bang from outside. “Not easily,” Matt says. “I messed with the entry codes. But that won’t stop them from physically breaking through.”

Shiro winces. “Any other way out of here?” he asks, rolling his head tiredly to one side.

Matt glances around, but he doesn’t see any other doors. On the one hand, that’s good; it means no surprise attacks from anywhere else in the room. On the other hand, it means they’re trapped in a box, waiting for the enemy to come through the door after them, guns blazing.

“No,” Matt says, after a moment. Then, “Hang on...”

There’s a vent up by the ceiling. One of the large ones, probably leading to an interior maintenance route. It would be ideal for Pidge to squirrel through, but Matt could probably squeeze into it in a pinch if he had to. He’s always been skinny and small for his age, and not even a decafeeb of training alongside the rebels has done much to change that.

But Shiro would never make it. Even if he was fully healthy, he probably couldn’t; Shiro had way too much bulk and weight, between his metal arm, paladin armor, and an unfairly huge muscles, to ever squeeze his way into that. Wounded as he is, he’d never get up there at all.

Shiro follows his gaze, and his brows furrow. He must be coming to the same conclusions as Matt, but he doesn’t say anything about it for now. Instead, he takes a shuddering, heavy breath, and then groans, “Can you...get the data?”

The data. The mission. The reason they’re in this trap to begin with. Matt glances at the computer banks, wincing slightly at another loud, heavy bang on the other side. “Probably.”

“Do it,” Shiro orders. “If we’re stuck here, we may as well get what we came for.”

Matt can’t really argue with that. There’s nothing to fortify with, and no way to prepare for the inevitable attack. If the doors hold long enough, though, his sister and the other paladins might get here in time, and they’ll need to make a fast exit. Shiro’s life is on the line, but so are millions of others.

“Right,” he says, and gets to work.

He doesn’t have Shiro’s paladin gauntlet computer to work with anymore. Shiro is a little too busy cupping his wound with both hands, and Matt’s not sure if he can stand on his own for long enough to play computer for the hack. But Matt still has his little minicomputer, and he plugs it in quickly.

It takes him only five doboshes to break in and sweep the data into storage on his computer. Pidge could have managed in one and a half, with paladin tech, but five is still nothing to shake a stick at for cracking high-tech Galra software on lockdown. Especially with that anxiety-inducing alarm still blaring loudly through the whole place. When he has everything he needs, he leaves behind a few nasty surprises—viruses that will wipe out the data and everything else. The facilities will still have the blueprints, but at least this fleet won’t have access to them anymore.

“How you holding up, Shiro?” Matt asks, as he unplugs his computer and glances at the door. The bangs on the other side are getting progressively louder, and the door is starting to look a little dented. Not good.

Shiro is also not good. Five doboshes hasn’t done him any favors. His forehead is covered in a thin sheen of sweat now, and his breathing has started getting more labored. His legs are now flopped out in front of him, like he can’t hold them up. Frankly, Matt thinks the only thing holding the rest of Shiro up is the computer console he’s propped against.

“Never better,” Shiro answers immediately. His voice is a little slurred, now, like his tongue is a little too big for his mouth.

Another bang sounds, but this time it’s followed by the unmistakable click-hiss-roar of a torch. The outline of the door starts to glow red as the sentries on the other side take the direct approach, and start cutting their way through.

They are out of time...and still with at least ten doboshes before help is supposed to get there. Five, if Team Weapon rushes, like Hunk had maybe-not-so-jokingly implied.

Matt swallows. How many sentries are out there now? Can he take them all? Shiro’s in no condition to fight; he can’t even sit up under his own power. Can he stall, somehow?

But there’s nothing to block the door with. No explosives or ranged weaponry or even smoke bombs he can use to help. They’re cornered in a box with no way out and no time left.

“Matt...take the data and run.”

Matt whips around to stare at Shiro. “What? No!”

“Millions of lives ride on that data,” Shiro gasps softly. “It’s not worth one. Go out the vent...you can meet up with Pidge and the others…”

“No,” Matt says, and that raw anguish-terror-anger is back. “No. I’m not gonna abandon you to die. Never again.”

“Again?” Shiro slurs. “You didn’t last time, Matt. I made that call. I’m making it now too. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” Matt snaps. “It’s not—I promised myself nobody was ever going to die for me again, not because I couldn’t handle it. I’m not leaving.”

“I gave you an order—”

“You’re not my superior officer anymore,” Matt cuts him off. “You’re a paladin of Voltron, and I’m a rebel agent. This is a rebel mission. My call. And I’m not leaving you helpless to die or be captured again. No.”

Shiro looks shocked, even despite his growing weakness. Maybe it is surprising. Even after Matt had been reunited with Pidge and Shiro, and met the paladins, he’d always treated Shiro with the deference due a superior officer. He’d never been the aggressive sort before, never been the kind to deliberately disobey orders so blatantly. He’d cowered next to Shiro when the Galra took them last time and knew he was already going to die before he ever went to the arena. He never fought back.

There’s a little willingness to bend the rules for what’s right in him now, though. After all, he is a rebel. Rebelliousness is literally in the name.

He glances at the door. They’re halfway through now; he only has a few ticks left to spare. He has to move fast. So he slides his hands under Shiro’s arms and hauls him to the far corner, hopefully as far out of the way as possible from stray gunfire, and partially shielded behind the corner of the computer banks.

Shiro frowns, and does his best to haul himself to his feet to help or protest or something. Whatever he’d had in mind, Matt’s not sure, because he gasps in agony and digs his fingers into the makeshift cloak-bandages over his wound, and immediately sinks. “Matt,” he finally chokes out, when he’s able to breathe again, “don’t do this—”

Matt settles him into the corner, as upright and as shielded as possible. “Hang tight,” he says, ignoring Shiro’s gasping attempt at an order. “We’re both going to make it. We’re both going to see our families again. They’re coming right now.”

“Matt—” Shiro coughs. It’s a disturbingly wet sound, which might mean there’s internal bleeding at work. He needs to get out of here. “You need to run.”

“No,” Matt says, as he draws his collapsible staff from the holster on his leg. “This time, I’m going to be the one to protect you.”

And he takes his place to the side of the door, staff at the ready, watching the gleaming red lines on the outside of the door grow steadily longer.

It’s almost funny. He should be terrified. He remembers so intimately what it was like to face down certain death. And yet, although his heart thuds in his chest and his palms sweat beneath his gloves and his bad leg protests angrily, he’s focused. He’s ready for what comes, and he’s fueled by knowing he’s doing the right thing.

He wonders if this is how Shiro felt, right before he’d charged the sentry, cut Matt out of the gladiator matches, and faced down Myzax. If it was, Matt can understand a little better just how Shiro had managed to do any of that, despite facing down certain death of his own.

The sentries on the other side finish cutting through the door, and a shrieking, scraping noise assaults Matt’s ears as the now useless hunk of metal is shoved out of alignment and smashes inward to the ground. The first of the sentries steps through, gun raised.

And Matt, out of sight to the side of the door, brings one of the weighted ends of his staff swinging down at the vulnerable point at its neck.

That was the thing about building any kind of robot in the image of a humanoid: they might be more durable, made of metal, but they still had mostly the same external weak points. Joints were fair game. So were the thinner points where the frame of the robotic skull attached so it could pivot. A weighted metal staff would do a lot of damage to even a robot, applied correctly.

This robot is no exception. The skull caves alarmingly, metal screeching and tearing, before the whole thing snaps clean off. The metal head pings to the ground and rolls off with a clatter farther into the computer room, and the rest of the body starts to sag, rifle dropping from its metal fingers.

Matt doesn’t let it hit the ground. He spins the staff, catches the broken sentry at its slim waist, and uses the miracle of leverage to hurl the thing right back out into its companions.

The resulting mess is pure chaos. Metal clatters violently as the sentries thud into each other. Stray gunfire peppers the walls inside the computer room, sending sparks flying over the console, and out in the hallway as the robots fire reflexively. Two of the sentries are knocked completely over, and a third—a third, the one that must have brought the torch to cut into the room—steps back, ducking away from its weaponized companion but off balance in its haste.

Matt hurtles through the broken doorway with an angry yell into the chaos.

The upright sentry is the first to have to go. It tries to regain its footing while raising its rifle, firing its first shot at Matt. Matt ducks low, twirls the staff in his hands, and spins it out at the sentry’s ankles. His bad leg protests painfully at the sudden drop and brace, but the trick works; there’s enough force and weight in the blow for him to sweep the sentry off its feet.

The gun goes clattering out of its hands, and Matt presses the attack, whirling the staff into an upright position and stabbing the weighted end down on the sentry’s head like a spear. The casing shatters, and the sentry twitches once or twice before falling still.

Two down. Two to go.

The two sentries left manage to shove the broken one off of themselves. One tries to rise to its feet, while the second decides to try and shoot Matt from the ground instead, providing cover for its remaining operating companion.

Not good. He needs to control the fight better; he’s not sure he can handle a two-on-one fight for long, with the two actually cooperating. He swipes with his staff, but the narrow hallway doesn’t give him too much room to operate with such a long weapon, and he’s not close enough to connect.

Cause more chaos. Disrupt the ordered programming the AI is coded to use by doing the unexpected. Sentries are highly efficient machines, with a shockingly impressive artificial intelligence that Matt would have been foaming at the mouth to study just a few years ago on Earth. But they are still machines, and their reactions are limited.

So he uses his staff like a pole vault, and hurtles himself at the rising sentry.

He connects with his heels as he cannons into the robot, and his old wound screams in agony. He hits the ground hard, rolling, and for a moment he’s actually scared he won’t be getting to his feet again. But he manages, somehow, and staggers to his feet, staff at the ready.

The sentry he’d hit isn’t so lucky. Matt’s vaulted kick had hit it squarely in the chest, and sent its weapon clattering out of reach down the hallway, while it had collapsed a second time. It’s already pushing itself to its feet, reaching for Matt with one hand full of gleaming claws. But Matt bats the hand aside with his whirling staff, and brings the other end crashing down on the robot’s head. It smashes back down to the floor in a mess of parts and goes still.

Three down.

Matt’s panting hard, now, and his leg protests angrily. His knee trembles, and he knows he won’t be standing much longer if he doesn’t finish this.

The final sentry fires at him as it hauls itself to its feet.

Matt curses, and ducks aside, trying to get back to the gouged open doorway for cover. The blasts take a chunk out of his left arm and burn several holes in his clothes, and he gasps in pain, but he keeps running. Almost there, and then he can—

His left knee buckles beneath him.

Matt yelps as he goes down, crashing to the floor and slamming hard into one of the downed sentries. He scrambles to get to his feet, but his knee sends a shock of brilliant pain through him, and he collapses again. Damn it, not now!

The sentry raises its rifle, taking aim. So Matt does the only thing left he can do—he throws his staff at it.

It misses, which isn’t surprising. Staves aren’t exactly easy to throw well, especially in a narrow hallway like this. But it does cause the sentry to be distracted, twisting to shoot at the projectile hastily.

That gives Matt enough time to make a scrambling dive for one of the other discarded firearms, snatch it up, and shoot in the sentry’s direction.

Guns were never really his forte. He’d trained in them at the Garrison, of course, because it was required, but he’d never liked it as much as the science and engineering aspects. He’d trained in firearms with the rebels, too, when they’d taken him on, but he’d still never really liked them.

That doesn’t mean he’s useless with them. He can certainly hit a target that close, even with a heavy sentry rifle. He fires frantically, and the sentry jerks once, twice, three times as it’s hit point blank and collapses.

Matt pants, breaths harsh and ragged. He hurts in more places than one, and he’s gonna have bruises for days. His leg is screaming for relief.

But he’d done it. He won.

Nobody had to die for him.

His relief is short lived. He barely manages to force his leg to take his weight—just a little more, please just a little more—when several more shots ping off the walls near him. He glances up, and down the hall are half a dozen more sentries, stomping their way unrelentingly forward with their rifles at the ready.

Matt curses, staggers along the hallway to the fallen sentry and his staff, and manages to snatch it up as he hobble-runs for the computer room where Shiro is still stashed. He leans heavily on the staff like a walking stick, and keeps the stolen rifle in his other hand. He might be able to hold them off for a little while with the gun. Maybe.

Shiro is still conscious when he ducks inside to temporary safety, but barely. His face has gone an ashen gray color, and his eyes are only half lidded. His hands are still pressed weakly to the makeshift bandages at his side, but Matt can see the brown fabric starting to stain a darker, wetter color.

They’re out of time, in more ways than one.

“Y’r hurt,” Shiro slurs, blinking blearily at the way Matt limps over to him.

“Not as bad as you,” Matt says. “Hang tight—there are more coming.” And I know I can’t fight them all off.

“Run,” Shiro orders tiredly.

“I told you already, I’m not doing that. If we can just hold…”

Shiro hums at that. Matt has a feeling he knows how truly screwed they are, though, and it’s not a comforting thought.

The clank of sentry feet gets closer, and every metallic thud is like a death knell, underscored by the screaming alarms. Matt is scared now, but if he leaves Shiro’s chances drop to nothing. He can’t do that. Shiro’s his best friend, and had risked everything to give him a chance to see his family again. He won’t leave now. He won’t leave ever.

So although it literally, physically pains him, he takes up a position by the door again. His leg screams in protest, and he’s shaking from a mix of pain, fear and pure adrenaline. But he holds.

The first sentry comes into view. It raises its firearm, aiming squarely at Matt. Matt prepares to charge, spinning his staff into a ready position.

The sentry goes down in a blaze of yellow energy that cannons into it from the other side of the hallway. And fainter, but growing louder by the second, Matt can hear the unmistakable, angry-panic yell of protest as Hunk lays down cover fire and demolishes the oncoming robots.

“Shiro! Matt!” Lance hollers over the coms, and Matt is deliriously relieved to find he can hear it in real time, too. “Escort’s here!”

“Thank goodness,” Matt pants back, lowering his staff from a combat stance to lean on it heavily again like a walking stick. “I need your help to get Shiro out of here. He can’t walk.”

“Can,” Shiro murmurs sleepily. He makes a valiant effort to rise to his feet, or at least, Matt thinks that’s what he does. His legs barely twitch, but he still groans at the effort.

“I’m guessing whatever that was didn’t work,” Lance yells. “Hunk, I’ll cover you if more show up—grab Shiro.”

“On it!”

“Where’s Pidge?” Matt asks, worried. “She’s okay?”

“I’m guarding the rear exit with the Green Lion,” Pidge says. “We’re in camo, and your ride out.”

“Just two hallways away,” Lance adds. A blue streak of flight flashes past the doorway as Lance snipes something on the other side. “Not far, once we get you guys.”

“Good,” Matt says, relieved. He’s not sure he could run very far. Or even walk. He’s never pushed himself quite this hard before.

He doesn’t regret doing it for a second, though.

Hunk appears around the doorway, dispelling his bayard as he steps in on the collapsed door. He winces sympathetically at Matt, and then follows Matt’s gesture towards Shiro in the corner. “Oooh,” Hunk mutters. “Is that blood? I hate blood.”

“Sorry,” Shiro mumbles. By now, he’s barely coherent.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hunk says, as he heads over to Shiro. “If I throw up, I’ll try not to do it on you.”

“Thanks.” Shiro blinks dazedly. “I think.”

“You’re welcome.”

Hunk tries to sling Shiro’s arm over his shoulder at first to help him walk, but Shiro can’t stay on his feet. In the end, he hefts Shiro into a fireman’s carry slung across his shoulders, mindful of the wound in his side. Shiro groans in protest, but goes frighteningly limp after a few moments, and Matt realizes he’s finally passed out. Matt’s honestly impressed it took so long.

“You good?” Hunk asks, gesturing to Matt and his staff-turned-walking-stick with concern.

“I can keep up,” Matt promises. “Let’s go.”

By some miracle, they manage to make it to their exit point. Pidge had kept the Green Lion in camo, while using her bayard to slice a hole into the Galra ship’s hull. It makes an unpredictable exit, which means the sentries aren’t guarding it like they are all the bay doors. That’s his brilliant little sister, always thinking outside the box.

Getting Shiro through the hole is a process, and requires Hunk to hand him through to Lance and Pidge on the other side as carefully as possible. Matt getting through is less of a process, but no less painful, and by the time he’s in the Lion’s cabin his leg has decided on no uncertain terms that it is not working any more today, thank you very much.

But they’ve escaped, so he can live with that. For now.

“Mission accomplished,” he radios over the coms. “Everyone, let’s get out of here.”

They do.

———

It takes Shiro almost a full day to get out of the healing pods, and everyone is waiting to greet him when he does.

Everyone knows the story by now—Matt hadn’t been shy about sharing it—and Shiro is treated to a number of lectures and exaggerated threats about what will happen next time he tries to almost get himself killed. Even Keith, still working with the Blade of Marmora, calls back to give Shiro hell, after learning what had happened through the Blade’s impressive information network.

Shiro accepts the threats and lectures without too much complaint, at least. He knows exactly how much he’d scared everyone, and he damn well should.

Eventually everyone gets tired of telling Shiro off, though, and Hunk announces he has dinner waiting. Most people who leave the pods are hungry—something about the accelerated healing requiring nutrients to compensate—and it’s habit by now to at least have a bowl of food goo ready to go.

“Sounds great,” Shiro says. “Can I get a sec with Matt, though?”

“Of course,” Allura says. “We’ll be in the dining hall when you are ready.”

Everyone files out, other than Matt, who waits patiently where he’s sitting on the steps. Shiro joins him, sitting down next to him. After a moment he asks, “How’re you doing?”

Matt shrugs. “I’m okay. I used one of the pods a little bit myself, but mostly to patch up a few laser grazes and bruises.”

Shiro nods slowly, and then gestures to Matt’s left leg, stretched out in front of him down the steps. “And how’s your knee?”

“Better than it was yesterday,” Matt says truthfully. The pods didn’t really help with healing the old wound—it had been too long—but they did help relieve some of the inflammation and strain, which let him at least walk on it again without wanting to scream.

Shiro’s got that look again, so Matt cuts him off quickly. “We already talked about this. No apologies. I’ll take living with a chronic injury over having died over a year ago.”

Shiro sighs. “Right. Of course.”

They fall into a companionable silence for a little while. Matt likes talking with friends, but on the months-long journey to Kerberos there had been a lot of friendly silence too, and he’s just as comfortable with that around Shiro. There’s no real rush to go anywhere, and sitting is nice.

But eventually Shiro asks, “What was that all about, back on the ship? Why didn’t you run?” A pause. “It’s not because of that life-debt you think you owe me, right? Because I told you, you don’t owe me anything.”

Matt snorts. “Yeah, you were pretty clear on that. But that’s not why I stayed. I mean...not the only reason.” He stares at his feet. “I told you before, I just...I can’t let people die for me anymore. I have to be better than that. I can’t just watch that happen and stand by and do nothing anymore.”

“It was a bad situation, Matt. And you would have been protecting millions of lives. I would never have blamed you if you did run.”

“Well, I would have blamed me,” Matt says. “For the rest of my life, for being cowardly enough to abandon my friend to his death again.”

“I already said that wasn’t your fault either, Matt,” Shiro says, a little helplessly.

Matt shakes his head. Sighs. “I wasn’t ready back then,” he says. “For all this. I wanted to meet aliens, but I figured they’d be the friendly sort, y’know? ‘We come in peace.’ I wasn’t ready and you and dad ended up paying the price.” He narrows his eyes. “I couldn’t have been ready then, but I can be ready now. And I’m not gonna be that person ever again.”

“Matt,” Shiro says, frowning at him. “There was nothing wrong with that version of you either. None of us could have seen the Galra coming.”

“You still handled it,” Matt says, with a sad smile. “You stood up for me and dad. You took my place in a deathmatch.”

“Maybe, but that’s just because we’re different people,” Shiro says with a shrug. “I didn’t know anything about ice samples back then. Still don’t, honestly. I just drove you there, you and Commander Holt were doing all the important science stuff.”

“Somehow, I don’t think ice samples are going to make much of a difference now,” Matt says wryly. “Other things matter more.”

“Well, you made a difference today,” Shiro says. “So thanks for that. I really mean it—I’d be dead if you weren’t as stubborn as your sister about staying behind.” He grins.

Matt smirks. “Yeah...that runs in the family.”

“I know,” Shiro says. “Three sentries on your own in crowded conditions, huh?”

“Four,” Matt says. “It’s no Myzax, but even so…”

“Still impressive. Don’t ever discount yourself, Matt. You’re a lot stronger than you think.” Shiro smiles. “And don’t discount the old Matt, either. He had that Holt stubbornness, too. That’s how you got this far.”

Matt blinks, but then smiles softly. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“No ‘maybe,’” Shiro says, as he heaves himself to his feet off the steps. “It’s absolutely true. Anyway, we should probably get going, before Hunk hunts us down and drags us to the dinner table. You ready?” He holds out a hand.

Matt takes it, and lets Shiro help him to his feet. His left leg takes his weight stiffly, but it holds, and that’s what matters.

“Yeah. Thanks, Shiro.”

#Velkynkarma writes #April Fools 2020 #Voltron #Shiro #Matt Holt #blood #injury #whump #Anonymous

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bread-elf · 4 years

Text

Where is Jiroki now?

The wind bellowed across the snowy landscape and spurred it along the decaying corpses, frozen by now as remains of Scourge and Cultists lay in heaps. But new cultists always reappeared, and the dead always rise again with having no King to yield control. Leadership of the world gathered in Icecrown often, some having gone beyond the hole in the sky to places no mortals are meant to walk, on the hunt after the Banshee. Rumors often spread of strange lands in the beyond, how there is so much more than any thought possible, but Jiroki always had the personality of a skeptic. But such thoughts steered clear from her mind as she lined her sights, releasing her docked arrow and watching as it penetrates the skull of a ghoul. Quick as can be she pulled out the next one as more came at her, but she had nothing to fear as a large green figure rushed ahead of her. A large staff in hand, bearing a mask fitting for any well practiced Witch Doctor, the troll pummeled a wave of the oncoming corpses with a single blow. They fell in a heap, but more still were on route, and the ones before the Revantusk troll were beginning to piece themselves together again.

Coming from his left an Orc huntress joins him, dual wielding double bladed axes dripping with ichor, wearing her own skull mask more fearsome than the undead she faced, she aids her comrade in the slaughter of the Scourge, giving off an eerie shrill of a laugh every now and then. Jiroki had never dealt with those of the Laughing Skull clan before, but she grew appreciative that she wasn’t the one facing those blades right now. “Where the hell are they?!” Jiroki sneers out loud to herself as she glances around the blurry snowscape. She had sent some of her mercenaries to infiltrate a burrow where members of the Cult of the Damned lurked, and she started to think she should have gone with them with much time started to tick by. But as if on cue she not only hears but feels a distortment in reality near her, turning in alarm, and out pops a Ren’dorei male she had sent with the others. “Ow, my hip!” Ianasrial, also known as Ian, had bleeding gashes along his torso and arms, but favored his hip as he held a hand on it and nearly buckled at the knees, but he remains standing as he uses his free arm to give a mock salute towards his Shield Mother while nearly doubled over. “We got it, boss! The others are routing back!” “It’s about time.” Jiroki looks back towards the Scourge. Now she was starting to see that they were becoming less organized, not stitching together fast enough as they became feral in their ways. Still very much a big problem, but they can be culled and pushed back now. The Laughing Skull Orc had managed to push herself through the Scourge and descend further, getting too far away for Jiroki’s comfort, and the troll was starting to back track. “Rii’mah be havin’ a spree, I’ll fish for her latah.” Zim’bowa the Witch Doctor speaks, his voice piercing through the wind. “We should meet wit’ de others.” “Yea some of them are battered. But hey, it’s getting easier facing the Scourge each time!” Ian cracks a joke, but earns a glare from Jiroki. “Don’t joke about things like that.” “This is, what, third, fourth time I’m facing the Scourge now? I think I get a fucking pass for making jokes.” Jiroki could hear the lace of void amplifying in Ian’s voice; despite her prude nature, she didn’t need to question Ian’s distaste for the Scourge in the slightest. Without anyone even realizing it Rii’mah had made her return, blood and gore splattered all over her. The stench of death clung to the Orc, making Jiroki’s nose wrinkle, but she didn’t dare show distaste for it around the crazed one. Her head tilted side to side, cracking each way as she let out a breath of satisfaction, blood lust sated for the time being. “Let’s rendezvous with the others and head back, we still have a lot of work to do.” Jiroki is the first to turn and head back to one of the Argent outposts she and her Greyshields were assisting with, and the others followed. ~~~~~~~~ Jiroki carefully cleaned her armor and weapons inside her tent, mindful of the stain of the Scourge and not wanting to accidentally inflict their foul magic on herself. With her stood Drax’ara, doing the same with his own daggers, having gone with the other team that infiltrated and sought the Cultists. They shared the silence, just grateful for one another’s presence in these times. “How are the kids?” Drake ends up asking, the male Kaldorei sitting in a chair as he cleans his weapons, setting the cleaned ones down on a table beside him. “They’re fine, they’re with my sister in Shattrath. Did you want to see them soon?” Jiroki had chosen to stay standing in front of the table, her bow already cleaned but now addressing individual arrows she had retrieved, needing all that can be spared. “Yea, I do. When we have a bit more hands out here though, I don’t want to jeopardize anything.” Setting down his final dagger he stretched his legs forward, wiping his hands down on a cloth and then stretching his arms above his head. “I’m still waiting to hear back from my brothers.” “Hm.” Jiroki tried to keep her focus on her weapons, but her mind raced with current events, and she tried to remind herself to breathe. “Aztook should be back soon, he left to get something from the Black Temple. Once he’s back, you should go see them, before anything else happens.” As if yet again on cue there’s movement from the entrance of her tent. Jiroki half expected to be Aztook her mate in question, but coincidentally enough it was another Demon Hunter. Her half brother, Alldreas, pulled aside the tent flap to peer his sightless gaze in. “Jiroki, we need to talk.” Alldreas had always been prone to pestering Jiroki for fun when they initially first met and even when she had learned they were partially blood related, but that started happening less since Teldrassil burned. So now when he insisted they speak, she knew it was for something. As she turned and left her things there Drake remained in his seat, reaching over to claim one of her arrows to clean for her, and she stepped out into the chill. “What is it?” Jiroki peers up at the taller elf. “Your former enemy Zest and I have encountered some ‘unique’ individuals that you should meet.” Alldreas wore a blindfold that covered his eye, but the blazing fire of fel could be seen through them. “But they’re over in Stormwind, so you need to make haste.” “What? Why should I meet them?” Though Zest now partnered with the Greyshields, he was renown for siding with a Warlock during the Legion invasion who tried to eliminate all the Greyshields, now only running with them out of fear and so that Jiroki could keep an eye on them. “Why are you with Zest anyway? You know not to trust anything he says.” “I don’t trust him, but I implore you to go see these people, for I have seen them myself. They speak of the Shadowlands, and are looking to meet adventurers such as our ilk. This may be a way for us to get more involved and help.” There’s a flare in the fire in his eyes, as if expressing his inner emotions. “Wait, the Shadowlands? But…” Alldreas danced around the subject instead of describing these individuals bluntly. Jiroki grinds her teeth, but she lets out a sigh. “Fine, I needed to head to Stormwind soon anyway, I’ll see them while I’m there. But you’re coming with me.” ~~~~~~~~ Once in Stormwind Alldreas right away led his half-sister to where they had to go, walking to the more deserted and shady parts of Stormwind. Jiroki already started to get uneasy with where they were going, but she trusted Alldreas enough that he would not lead or astray. Or would in the least be the first to catch wind of trouble and alert her. Down an alley they walked until Alldreas stopped dead in his tracks, Jiroki nearly bumping into him as a result. She looks around, seeing no one and nothing out of the ordinary in sight, and she stands beside him to take a look at his face. All he did was just stare ahead. “What is it?” Jiroki asked, a brow raised high. “Is your demon struggling again?” “No, she is cooperating.” Alldreas speaks in return, still staring ahead. “They see us. They will make themselves known when ready.” The hairs on the back of Jiroki’s neck start to stand at that, glancing around now. They were both being watched, assumingly by these people Alldreas wanted her to meet, yet she still had no idea who or what they are. But that doesn’t take long to answer as a figure starts to come from the shadows. “Ah, it is you again.” A rich, exotic, otherworldly, and deep voice speaks towards the demon hunter. “I am impressed you found us so easily; perhaps we need a new approach to this city. Is this the one you had spoken of?” At first Jiroki thought she was looking at an Ethereal, but this was no ordinary one if that. A humanoid figure of clothing and armor with a blue flame flickering behind a floating face guard, taller and much more regal attire compared to the Ethereals that wore mostly wrappings to display their forms. But something stirred in the pit of her stomach, something that told her this thing wasn’t meant to be here, and it caused goosebumps to rise on her skin. “This is my half-sister, and the leader of the mercenaries I run with. She would be the one to speak with about the work you have.” Alldreas redirected the conversation to Jiroki, and the being gave a bow from the waist. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ma’dam. I am called Te’ani; I had heard some wondrous praise of your group of adventurers from your fascinating brother here. I am very much interested in procuring some items from your realm, and he reassured me that you and I could form a business relationship with one another.” Jiroki shot a quick glare towards Alldreas, the two already have spoken more with one another than she had been told, and she looks back to the strange being. “What is it that you have offer in payment? We’re very busy as is.” Her words didn’t seem to face Te’ani, though she couldn’t tell much from him anyway. “My partner and I are still learning the ways of your world’s currency and market value, but we have an assortment of items from where we’re from that should interest you. That, and we have means to guide you to even different realms where you can assist the heroes of your realm.” “What do you mean?” “I come from the Shadowlands. There is much, much, much, to do over there, many souls to be rescued, many planes of existence suffering from the drought that need aid. I know well enough that there is a notorious figure your world wants dead treading the Maw, and they have the upper hand as the Maw’s forces grow stronger. With the terms I discussed with your brother; if you help me procure items from this realm, I can assist with having a stable way for you and yours to go too and fro in the Shadowlands. But I am more than happy to discuss further details with you, since it seems he did not share anything with you.” Jiroki could almost hear the sass coming from the being if that was what it was, and Jiroki looked up to Alldreas once again to see the twitch of a smirk forming at his lips. She nearly growled, but kept herself quiet as she couldn’t deny the curiosity growing inside of her. “I think I’d like to discuss this more with you as well.” Jiroki tried to ease herself into this conversation with this strange being from the land of the dead, but her head already spun with ideas and possibilities, already deep down knowing she had made a decision for herself anyhow. This is a business opportunity she will not refuse.

#stories

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helaintoloki · 5 years

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Season of the Witch | Michael Langdon

chapter two: Garden of Eden

masterlist

pairing: Michael Langdon x witch!reader

warnings: language, angst, violence, graphic descriptions, adult content, deception, toxic relationships, abuse, death, witchcraft, satanism and all that other good ahs stuff

summary: in which the forbidden fruit is forbidden for a reason.

Bed rest was bullshit and y/n knew it. Maybe a day would have been tolerable, but a whole week locked in the bedroom wasting away? Of course, that wasn’t how Michael saw it. Michael saw it as a way to protect her, a way to prevent any further harm, and a way to prevent her from finding out the truth.

Michael knew exactly who Mallory was, what her presence was doing to y/n. It was awakening something he’d buried deep inside her, something he’d locked away and shoved down her throat, made her swallow it down so that when she opened her mouth there was no trace of its remnants. Michael loved y/n, would die for y/n (though that wouldn’t be possible, in all honesty), would kill for y/n, that much was true. But it was so much easier to love her when she believed all she was was just an ordinary woman who had been lucky enough to be chosen as Michael’s mate.

And so y/n spent her days in the confines of their shared bedroom: napping, reading, daydreaming, crying, screaming, looking for an escape, and counting the days Michael kept her in her cage.

She’d attempted to escape once, had gotten so close to finding Mallory, ended up running into Michael, and was dragged back to her room by the throat. Her cheek still stung when she thought about what he’d done to her once they were hidden in the privacy of their room. But he’d made it up to her eventually with three orgasms, two plates of strawberries sent directly from the sanctuary that he hand fed to her, and one long night of gentle caresses and gentle words. Y/N could never hate Michael, no matter how mean he was. He took care of her, and she was grateful.

Yet y/n also couldn’t contain her excitement when she’d been greeted by two visitors, visitors that she wasn’t exactly sure how they managed to enter her room without Michael finding out. Too excited to notice their true intentions, y/n gladly granted passage to Venable and Mead.

“Good evening Mrs. Langdon,” Venable grinned, her bitterness and hatred towards the woman masked by her tight lipped smile.

“Venable, Mead,” y/n smiled, hands twitching anxiously behind her back. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“We’re having a Halloween party tomorrow in celebration of the holiday and the apples gifted to us by the Cooperative, and we’d be honored to have Mr. Langdon and yourself in attendance,” Venable explained cordially.

“A party? How exciting!” She exclaimed, then composed herself in order to appear as profesional as Michael would like her to be. “I’ll be sure to let my husband know right away.”

“And it is a masquerade party, Miss,” Mead added. “Please show up in your best costumes.”

“I’ll do what I can,” y/n smiled, a happy sigh falling from her lips once the two were gone. A party! Perhaps it could be just what Michael and her need to relax and loosen up. Maybe it would improve his mood, and it would be a chance to finally leave her room. Oh, she couldn’t wait to tell Michael!

~~~

“We’re not going,” Michael stated, uninterested in the subject and never once looking away from his laptop screen as he typed away his notes from the most recent interviews.

“But Michael-“

“No buts, Princess,” Michael warned. “I said we’re not attending some silly little gathering and that’s final.”

“But it would be so much fun,” y/n persisted. “And you could get to know the residents better. Perhaps in their natural state you could better get a feel as to who they really are.”

“Little lamb,” Michael drawled, “are you really trying to argue with me?”

“W-Well, n-no, I-“

“Because you know I don’t like when you try to disobey me,” Michael warned, laptop long forgotten as he stood up from his seat and towered menacingly over her trembling form.

“I-“

“You do as I say,” Michael sneered, harshly grabbing her face by the chin and reveling in her terrified whimpers. “You’re lucky to be alive. I could have left you to rot and decay in the aftermath of the bomb. So be a good girl and stay quiet. I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” she breathes shakily, tears sliding down her cheeks. His grip softens and his malice is replaced with a mocking smile.

“So sensitive,” he tuts, wiping away the tears with his thumb and pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

~~~

Y/N could vaguely remember her first Halloween. The faces around her were fuzzy, but she remembered the feeling. The pure happiness of dressing up as a cute little witch with her broomstick and pointy hat, excitedly running up to the front doors of various houses in the New Orleans neighborhood and asking for her treats. She remembered a smiling woman snapping her photo, a trio of older girls accompanying her on her candy escapade and holding her broomstick when she was tired. Perhaps it was why she loved the holiday, why she loved Halloween.

And that was precisely why she’d thrown all caution to the wind and arrived at the Halloween party anyway. Michael was too busy tormenting the outpost residents to notice her making her costume and preparing for her grand entrance. Too oblivious to know she had snuck out of their bedroom and found Mallory, too preoccupied to know the enemy was accompanying his wife to the ball.

“This must sound so strange,” y/n explained, glass of wine in her hand as she and Mallory huddled in the corner of the room, “but I feel like I know you. Perhaps in a past life.”

“I feel like I know you too,” Mallory agreed with a small smile. “That day I brought you your food... did you feel what I felt?”

“I did,” y/n nodded solemnly. “I only wish I knew what it was.”

“I just, I feel like there’s someone inside of me,” Mallory explained quietly. “Someone trying to get out. But I don’t know who.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure we’ll figure it out together,” y/n offered with a small smile, and Mallory returned it.

“Do you know who you are?”

“I don’t, but it was because of my accident,” y/n explained. “I don’t quite remember it, I just remember Michael. He said he had found me abandoned along the roadside, on the brink of death. He nursed me back to health and took care of me. I owe everything to Michael.”

“Oh,” Mallory murmured, a polite smile on her face as she mulled over the information. Y/N didn’t seem like the type to lie, but Michael on the other hand? The story seemed fishy, out of place. But Mallory had no time to digest it further as Venable brought the attention of the party back to her.

“Let us rejoice in celebration of these gifts brought to us from the Cooperative as a sign of hope for the future ahead,” she announced from the top of the balcony. “Enjoy.”

She smiled maliciously, the excitement in her eyes clear as day to anyone who paid attention, and no one was. Happily, everyone took a bite of their apple. The sweetness of the fruit was like heaven to their tongues after feasting on nothing but scraps for the last few months, and they savored every bite.

But soon y/n began to cough, eyes watering as her body began to heave and reject the fruit. The chewed up mash was spit onto the floor, and soon the bile began to rise and her vomit joined the apple on the floor. Horrified, she looked around to see that everyone had began to vomit and shake, heave and cough and choke. Something was wrong, but none could figure out what. It was too late anyway.

Like Snow White after taking a bite of the poisoned apple, y/n collapsed to the floor and watched through bloodied eyed as the forbidden fruit rolled away from her figure. Foam pushed its way through her lips, and the last thing she saw before embracing death’s loving hands was a dead Mallory lying across from her.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

tag list: @ticklish-leafy-plant @gx-nji @anacerta

@bluebirdbts @heda-mikaelson @redlovett @tamaki-is-best-boi @ateliefloresdaprimavera

#american horror story #michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon x witch!reader #michael langdon fic #ahs fic #ahs apocalypse #ahs coven #cordelia #witch #season of the witch #my writing

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voidendron · 5 years

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I've started getting a handle on the Star Wars AU Septic bois and it makes me happy! I’ve been changing quite a few things from my original plans for it, but they’re all coming together really nicely imo <3

uh...it’ll be under the cut because it got long ^^”

some things may still change, but for now this is what I’ve got!

Chase

Chase’s species is Bothan and he’s a smuggler, though he doesn’t actually use the term “smuggler,” himself. Literally everyone else does for him, but hey. His crew consists of three droids (Bolt, Beeper, and Slink) and two Corellian hound littermates (Kye and Sophe). He tends to prefer the presence of droids over people. Originally the only Septic he knew was Anti because he had a bounty on him for dodging payments, but he later met Marvin and Sam by chance and they’ve been friends since.

He was adopted by an Ithorian couple as an infant. His parents had a tendency to take in orphans, so Chase has five other siblings with only one of them being their parents’ biological kid. From oldest to youngest his other siblings are a brother (Ithorian, the biological kid), sister (Twi’lek), sister (Nautolon), Chase, brother (Quaran), brother (Human). I don’t have names figured out for his siblings yet, but his Twi’lek sister is married and has two kids; she lives on Ryloth, so if he ever mentions going there it’s probably to visit her. Their parents used to live in Coruscant’s lower levels, so they knew infants/toddlers wouldn’t last long on their own before they were picked up by someone undesirable, so they took it upon themselves to adopt these kids. As such, Ithorese is actually Chase’s native language and he doesn’t know any Bothese, and he has kind of an odd accent paired with throaty/growly way of speaking.

He stayed neutral throughout the war, smuggling for whatever side offered the best pay for the job. He tends to be indifferent toward former Imperials/Rebels after the war and gets annoyed when Jackie and Jameson fight.

Marvin

Marv’s species is Cathar, which is a feline humanoid. He’s also a Mandalorian and one of two survivors of Clan Magniif. He’s extremely protective of Sami (”Sam”), the other survivor from his clan and holds a grudge against both Rebels and Imperials for the deaths of their people. He only knew Sam and Angus (leader of a rival clan) to start off, then later met Chase by chance. Didn’t like him at first, but the smuggler quickly grew on him.

He was found in a destroyed Cathar settlement as a toddler, so Magniif’s leader took him in as a foundling. He was raised by Mandalorian customs as one of the clan’s own and remains loyal to it even after its destruction. He’s also extremely impulsive and thinks with his fists instead of his head.

During the war, Magniif tried to stay out of things, but was eventually talked into helping a Rebel cell. That resulted in the Empire making an example of them and wiping out most of the clan. After the war, he and Sam take whatever odd jobs they can for supplies or credits.

Jackie

Full name Sehnaj’akk’eedara, Jackie’s a Chiss, which look mostly human besides blue or silver skin, blue/black/silver hair, and glowing red eyes (Jackie has blue skin with darker blue hair). He’s known for being reckless and protective to the point of risking his own health.

While more typical of his people to be Empire or non-aligned, he agreed with the Rebels’ standpoint and joined them with no questions asked. It did take them a while to start trusting him, but he was eventually granted his own Y-Wing and made part of a squadron of fighters. Because Chiss weren’t known for being part of the rebellion, there were a few instances that Jackie was sent to sneak into Imperial territory to steal something or tell his comrades how best to attack an outpost.

Primarily though, he was a pilot during the war who protected Rebel supply ships. After it ended, he became a data courier for info too sensitive to be sent over transmissions. That’s how he met Jameson and Schneep, then eventually Chase, Marvin, and Sam.

Also, fun fact: He saw Vader in his TIE once and flipped out about it for days after because “Oh my god I could have DIED” if his squad leader hadn’t ordered an immediate retreat.

Jameson

A Human from Coruscant, Jameson had once been a politician’s right hand. He was known for blackmailing the senator’s opponents and doing shady business with bounty hunters, but nothing could ever be proved to pin the charges on him.

When he joined the Empire, he started as a spy, then a hacker, then eventually was granted an officer’s rank and took charge of a small espionage group. While only a low-ranking officer, Jameson (JSE-815) and his team often had their stations changed to whatever outpost or battle cruiser needed their aid. After his promotion, he rarely went on the field himself for spying and instead stayed behind to work at computers with his hackers.

During a Rebel raid on an outpost he was stationed at, Jameson ended up taking charge of the troopers when the colonel was gone (he’d taken a large group of troopers to attack the Rebels’ base, which turned out to be something they’d planned, and left the outpost ill-protected). Only having experience leading espionage, Jameson’s tactics were quickly overwhelmed and he and a few others ended up cornered in the command room. In a last-ditch effort to protect the information in the computers from falling into enemy hands, he and the remaining Imperials detonated grenades to destroy the information completely. Jameson hadn’t expected to survive; he received damage to his neck and now uses a vocoder to speak, lost three limbs (both legs, right arm), and received internal damage that required organ replacement. Shortly after the event, he also got an AJ^6 to improve his productivity, though at the consequence of affecting/limiting his personality.

After the Empire lost the war, he was sent to Sunspot Prison. He was later released a few years later under strict parole to aid Jackie with a mission that needed a hacker. He’s not fond of his current companions, but at least he’s not in a cell.

Schneep

Schneep (SN-334) is a modified surgical droid and was built shortly before the Battle of Geonosis and purchased as a Republic droid. He started out with a very flat personality as programmed in the factory that built him, but the more his owner joked with him and encouraged him to think for himself, the more he started to develop his own personality. He quickly latched onto sarcasm and grumpiness. His owner found it hilarious. His patients...not so much.

Throughout the Clone Wars, he’d receive a tweak here, an upgrade there, until it eventually came to the point it was hard to tell what his base model was (2-1B surgical droid), and sometimes even unclear whether or not he was actually a surgical droid. His programming was even modified to allow him to defend his patients if they were in danger (big no-no and cancelled the warranty on him). The first time he sawed a B1 battle droid’s head off was certainly a shock--to both the other droid and his patient.

After his original owner was killed in the war, he ended up passed around a lot, eventually somehow found himself under a Rebel general, then an intelligence gatherer after the war. So he somehow survived not one, but two wars and has never even had a memory wipe.

Now carrying a piece of the divided information Jackie and Jameson need to deliver, he was sent with them. It wasn’t until eventually meeting Chase that Schneep was finally given a name instead of being called by his serial number.

Anti

Anti Septik is a bounty hunter of unknown species and planetary origin (though is believed to be a Rattataki from what glimpses of his skin have been seen). He wears a full suit of armor to hide his identity, and uses a universal translator to hide both his voice and accent. He’s ruthless, can find ways to track a contract down no matter where they go, and seemingly can’t die. A former partner claims she saw a target nearly cut Anti’s head off, but he got right back up and started shooting.

Nothing is known of his past, but any hunters who’ve worked with him before refuse to do so again. He’s greedy and bloodthirsty; if a target is wanted dead or alive, he’ll kill them every time whether they’re ready to surrender or not, and has killed partners to get their half of the earnings, too.

He has a green lightsaber that he stole from the body of a Jedi killed in one of the Temples after Order 66. He uses it more for show, keeping it hanging at his hip most of the time, but knows how to use it if he needs it.

I don’t have much on Angus or Sam yet (besides they’re both Human and Mandalorians, and that Sam lost an eye during a training bought), and I’d like to add Jacques and at least some Ipliers. However, the only one I have any ideas for is Host; the rest I’ll have to figure out!

#jacksepticeye #writersofjack #the septics #star wars au #bothan chase #cathar marvin #chiss jackie #cyborg jameson #droid henrik #bounty hunter anti #blitz indites

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michael-langdon-appreciation · 5 years

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Prenumbra - Part One ⏳

Outpost!Michael x fem!Reader

Words: 2.4K

Summary: Cordelia Goode has just sacrificed herself to save the world. But all is not lost for Michael Langdon as he hunts down those final witches still determined to end him. But a twist comes in the form of Y/N, a witch murdered during Michael’s rampage, back from the dead.

Warning: Major Character death!! TWIST!READER, softdom!reader, swearing!, SMUT WILL BE COMING IN FUTURE PARTS! Along with other goodies too!

A/N: I’m back after what really does feel like forever! This has honestly been ticking round in my brain for AGES and I’m so so excited to get it out for you. I could have it all posted in a oneshot, but that’s no fun and I wanted to get content out there for you. Like I say it features a BIG TWIST which all may not be happy with, but I don’t wanna give the story away. It will get juicy and smutty and we’ll delve into life beyond Outpost 3. Should be 2 or 3 parts long. Thank you so much to all who have messaged, sent me asks and chatted to me during my hiatus! Working in London really is tough hah! ❤️🖤

(Gif by @lngdns)

His footsteps descend the spiral stairs, each step a dull thud in the otherwise silent Outpost. Blood has spread out to fill every crevice of the circular bottom. It laps against the stone walls as Michael represses the faintest shudder at just how much there is. The blood soaks through the remnants of his trousers, still warm as the Antichrist kneels down beside her body.

Cordelia Goode, his truest enemy.

Even in death her mouth is lifted with triumph, her vacant eyes hold the residue of one final secret Michael will never be able to extract. His hand closes over the knife still embedded in her chest. It’s from there the pool of blood came as Michael closes her eyes and wipes away the specks of blood on her face.

If he was playing chess, then the Queen and her many pawns were dead. Yet Michael knows better than to think the Supreme was the only piece that could checkmate him. If Cordelia is the Queen, that makes Mallory the King. The one an entire Coven had been so determined to hide from him they risked themselves to make sure Michael couldn’t reach her.

They almost succeeded too.

‘I was always going to win.’’ He repeats it again, a soft whisper that flows from his lips to the unmoving Cordelia.

There’s a scuffle and Michael moves at once, ripping the knife out of Cordelia’s chest and transmuting right back to the corridor above. His hand grips the knife a little firmer as Michael zeros in on the sound of chanting coming from behind one of the doors.

Is that…water too?

The door careens off his hinges from just a look from the Antichrist and the chanting stops. He steps through the doorway to find the red-head bitch is standing between him and the bathtub. Her hands are outstretched, clearly trying one last desperate attempt at magic.

‘You think a protective enchantment will stop me? Ask your sisters how that worked out.’

‘It’s too late.’ She shrieks, ‘You’ve lost. Strike me down, I care not. Dear Mallory has already made the transition.’ Cold washes over him, Michael’s composure broken for half a second. The witch smirks in triumph, ‘Delia was right about you. All this time we’ve been scared to face you when you’re just a fragile little boy with too much power.’

‘I will show you all!’ Michael’s voice rises along with his fear. The witch in the tub must be Mallory and she hasn’t risen. He can feel the power transference as suddenly the puzzle pieces fit together.

Cordelia truly was one step ahead of him.

With a flick of his wrist the red-head bitch’s head snaps to the side before she can even attempt to fend him off. Satisfaction surges through Michael on seeing that ridiculous woman finally silenced. Michael approaches the edge of the tub, the surface opaque. Mallory’s body is floating, the hand which clings to a strand of his hair just appearing out of the black water. Michael raises the knife above his head and plunges it down into the water only to tug his hand sharply out of the water with a hiss. The water has become acidic, treacherous as it protects the new Supreme inside. The knife sinks to the bottom, out of reach. Michael’s hand is blistering before his eyes, the skin raw and bleeding. He concentrates all his focus on tipping over the tub, siphoning away the water, summoning the knife back to his hand. He tries anything his magic will allow to try and destroy the girl before she can ruin him.

What is she fucking doing?

Michael’s panic rises and he shoves his unharmed hand into the waters again only to achieve the same result.

He cannot reach her. He cannot touch her. He doesn’t know what is going on.

At first Michael is sure the pain from his hands has caused a hallucination, or Mallory’s magic is clouding him with a vision. It is completely impossible for Y/N to be standing before him. The slit across her throat has healed itself, but she’s covered with half-dried blood all down her front.

Very much alive.

Michael staggers back, ‘You….’

Y/N’s eyes fall down to the tub, she plunges her hand into the water and seizes Mallory, ripping her up by the hair. The witch screams, kicking and lashing out. Y/N remains firm, her grips strong enough to split hairs as Mallory is forced to her feet. Y/N brandishes Mallory before Michael, pulling her head back so her neck is visible. ‘Finish her.’

Michael hesitates, his eyes wide. Mallory’s eyes are bleeding, blood gushing from her eyeballs, ‘She’s….’

‘Blind probably.’ Y/N nods, ‘There’s not much known about what happens if you interrupt a time travel spell after all.’

Michael’s breath catches, the revelation stunning him. The knife flies from the tub and into his hand, courtesy of Y/N. Michael’s reflection shines back at him, ‘You’re….helping me now. Why?’

Y/N sighs, taking the knife off him. She extends her arm round Mallory’s neck, the point of the knife fatally close. Mallory’s still bucking, but Y/N’s not going to let her get away. The knife slashes across Mallory’s throat, blood spurting forth as the new Supreme gargles. Her hand flies to her throat as Y/N drops her, Mallory collapsing back into the water. Michael can do nothing but watch. Y/N’s mouth twists into a soft smile, waiting for Mallory to take her final breath.

‘Oh hurry up now.’ She says, ‘Die a little quicker, dear.’

Mallory’s eyes are wide, ‘We…..trusted you.’

‘That was your mistake.’

She waits until Mallory’s body is limp before running a hand gently over her hair, ‘Poor thing. Never really stood a chance, did they?’

Michael knows she has to be talking to him, but for the first time in his life he’s been rendered completely mute. His eyes flick to the knife still in Y/N hand and she drops it with a small tinkling laugh, ‘I don’t want you dead, darling.’

‘At least one of you came to your senses.’ Michael doesn’t mention how unblemished her skin is, but his eyes must have flicked to her hands without him realising. Y/N steps around the tub and looks up at him, shaking some hair out of her eyes.

Neither speak, but then Y/N holds Michael’s hand in both of hers. A tingle starts from Michael’s fingertips all the way down to his wrist and up his arm. It’s warm and feels wonderful, comforting and Y/N’s touch remains featherlight. ‘It’s alright.’ She coos, ‘They’re all dead. There’s no one to stop me now.’

‘You?’

Her smile widens, just a sliver of teeth are on show. Y/N removes her hands, picking up his other hand and repeating the spell. Michael lifts his hand to his eyes, the skin as good as new, smooth and perfect. A rush of something embarrassing floods him and Michael shoves it far down into the pit of his stomach.

No. He is not grateful. This witch could turn on him at any second. Michael silences how his entire being aches when Y/N lets go of him and the two are no longer touching. Michael has never touched her before, now he just wants more.

Y/N’s eyes lift back to his. She reaches up, wiping the blood he didn’t know was there. ‘You’ve done so so well for me, Michael.’ She praises, ‘You’ve played your part beautifully. Faultless up until now, but I understand how Cordelia got under your skin.’ She taps him on the tip of his nose, ‘You let her distract you, lost sight of the real goal.’ She leans in close, as if she’s about to divulge something, ‘But no matter, now there is no one to stop us from carrying out my father’s work.’

She slinks away out of the room and down the corridor. All the air leaves Michael’s lungs as the weight of her words slam into him.

My father’s work.

He tears after her, his footsteps clunky as Michael hurries to catch her by the forearm. ‘Why shouldn’t I just kill you now?’

His hand lets her go before he can stop himself. Michael recognises it at once - Concillium.

‘After I helped you back there?’ Y/N frowns, ‘Not very nice of you is it.’ She considers him, ‘And besides, you killed me once and I just came bouncing back.’

Michael had forgotten about that. He’s slit Y/N’s throat early on during the bloodbath, ‘You have resurgence.’ He concludes, ‘Impressive, but nothing I haven’t seen before.’

‘I can do a lot of things.’

Y/N presses onwards, sweeping down the corridors. Her dress billows after her, gleaming black in the candlelight. Michael has little choice but to keep his eyes rooted on the threat before him as she inspects the bodies of her fallen ‘comrades’. First Coco, then Marie Levau and finally Madison.

Y/N clucks her tongue, inspecting the headless body. ‘Such a dramatic end for a dramatic girl.’ Her eyes lift to Michael, ‘I thought Madison at least would see the light.’ Her eyes slide to Dinah Stevens, ‘They were talented witches. All of them, we could have really used them.’

‘Just how long were you planning all this?’ Michael asks, ‘This grand betrayal really wasn’t necessary, if you had joined my side when I had commanded it-’

‘I’d have been gunned down just like you were.’ Y/N cuts in, ‘You still have a lot to learn Michael.’

The hair on his arms quivers. His name slides so easily off her tongue, ‘Meaning?’

Y/N considers him, ‘Unfortunately, Cordelia was right.’ He stiffens and Y/N catches it at once. She makes her way back over to him and slides a hand soothingly down his jacket. ‘You have been guided by people. That’s not a bad thing, but it means that when it comes to making a decision for yourself, you struggle.’

Michael’s mouth opens to retort, but the weight of Cordelia’s dying words linger inside him. Words he’ll carry with him forever - led, coddled, a scared little boy.

‘So you rush into things.’ Y/N continues, holding up her finger to him. ‘There is reward when you lie in wait.’

Michael catches her finger and pushes it away, ’I waited two years before detonating the bombs. I know patience.’ He leans in closer, Michael’s height an advantage in this scenario. ‘You think I’m just gonna roll over and believe you’re descended from Satan?’

Y/N’s eyes turn icy, ‘You still don’t believe me?’

Michael squares his shoulders, ‘What is the meaning of this?’

She chooses her words carefully, ‘Perhaps we should do this later.’ Y/N tries to move away but Michael catches her wrist. He squeezes till the bones feel a little brittle, but still Michael pushes. His eyes burn into Y/N’s testing her and pushing. The bone snaps clean in two, Y/N’s wrist slackening under his grip. Only then does Michael relieve his pressure. A smirk twists his features, his touch featherlight as his fingers trace the ruined wrist. ‘You are nothing. Just a little witch who-’

But then Y/N’s wrist snaps straight as before. Michael can feel the bone back in place as he continues to hold her arm up. It’s far too similar to what happened to him just before. The spray of bullets and phantom pain ricochets through Michael; the painful snapping of limbs and joints back into place. The dull lethargy he never wishes to fell again.

‘My dear Michael.’ Y/N murmurs, ‘You have been led to believe you are something you aren’t.’

Fear grips him again. Catching his every move, Y/N’s touches soften as does her face. Those eyes enrapture and ensnare him, her touch too gentle against his deathly grip. She does not see him as an enemy, nor a threat.

‘My life is not a lie.’

The wrist he just broke reaches back to Michael’s face and he flinches away on pure instinct. Hurt lances through Y/N’s expression but she hides it thinly, ‘I’m sorry, Michael. But you are not the Antichrist.’

His hand flies to her throat at once, lifting Y/N off the ground. ‘Get the fuck away from me. You think I’ll listen to such delusions.’

‘You know what happens if you kill me.’

He lets her go. Y/N lands a little clumsily, for the first time she looks a little ruffled. Her eyes are wide as if the betrayal is real. As if she isn’t crushing Michael’s entire spirit in her dainty little hands. She turns her back on him, stalking towards the library. Michael lets her go, his mind reeling.

It cannot be.

No.

Y/N pops back around the corner, ‘Where is the library?’

‘I know who I am.’ He sinks down onto the edge of the fire pit. ‘I refuse to comprehend it. It doesn’t make sense.’ Michael’s golden hair falls down, hiding his anguish. It’s silent for a moment or two, then Y/N is kneeling before him.

She brushes his hair behind his ear, ‘It killed me to hide from you all these years. To watch you go about believing you were the one.’

Her tone is genuine. Michael’s always known when people are lying to him. ‘It’s you.’

‘It’s not something I’d wish on anyone.’

’But…the mass. My powers…’

Y/N’s hands rest on his thighs, over the singed rips and bare skin. ‘You were made for me, Michael. To be at my side once the world was reborn.’

Tears fall before he can stop them, ‘No.’

‘You have done the most wonderful job.’ She coos, her hands sliding over his thighs. ‘And I have always been watching, keeping an eye on you. I sent Anton Levay to you when you were stuck inside that hellhole of a house. I guided you to the Church of Satan when you were about to give up. I sent the goat.’

‘Why did you leave it all to me?’

‘Because the Antichrist has been created and perished with every generation.’ She murmurs, ‘All of them failed. All became huge public figures that fell on their swords. I knew that wasn’t the way and when you came along, so determined to prove yourself, full of raw power and emotion…you were the perfect construct. You kept everyone’s attention on you, because you were my equal Michael. Everything you’ve done has been you, I’ve just pulled some strings in the background.’

Michael trembles, ‘My Ms Mead…’

He’d been ignoring the robotic corpse ever since stepping into the foyer. But now Michael’s eyes take in the nasty fluid leaking from the body, the head splattered. From this angle wiring and metal is visible, reminding Michael that the robot he had given his love to was just a machine. It was never a replacement for the real woman.

Y/N’s lips press against his forehead, ‘I had no idea they would go for her.’

‘You were among them.’ Michael’s eyes burn with fire. ‘I saw you, lurking in the back during the visits. You watched me complete the Seven Wonders, how could you have no idea?’

‘Because Cordelia never fully trusted me.’ Y/N remains strong as she offers Michael her hand. ‘You come with me, we finish up here and we never have to come back. We’ll burn this place to the ground, along with every single sordid memory.’

Sensing no other option, Michael’s fingers latch around Y/N’s.

Tagging babes, faves and tag-list: @avesatanormalpeoplescareme @wickedlangdon @lovelykhaleesiii @normalpeoplescareme @duncvn @sojournmichael @langdonsdemon @petersfern-fics @katiekitty261 @langdonsoceaneyes @avesatanaslangdon @langdonsfallen @wroteclassicaly @langdvn @langdonsrapture @ritualmichael @thelangdoncooperative @icylangdon @xlangdons-evilbabygirlx @sodanova @confettucini @alexcornerblogthethird @sammythankyou @Sloppy-Wrist @Langdonalien @alexcornerblog @queencocoakimmie @sloppy-little-witch-bitch26 @cryptid-coalition @americanhorrorstudies @asstichrist @luxuryglitterhoe @starwlkers @satcnas @Sloppy-Wrist @Langdonalien @lostin-fern @xxpixiefromdixiexx @jimmlangdon @langdonsinferno @michael-langdonss @micheallangdons @langdonsrapture @i-will-die-for-jim-mason @yourkingcodyfern @ladynuwanda @master-langdon @are-you-lilith-or-eve @ghostiesbedroom @thecrownedbeast @hanhanxx

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kvltprince · 5 years

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I was tagged by the lovely @leporidaefluff (Thank you! it was the push i needed to get started on this instead of just going oh~ neat~!)

Rules:

1. Choose an OC.

2. Answer them as that OC.

3. Tag 5 people to do the same. Sorry if anyone has already been tagged, no obligation. @ heathie on whatever acct cos im a dumbass an i miss your bois(you miss em too), @randomwordsandstormydays, @randomfuzzbunny, @jornaquinn @chrysocolladawn ( @somewhere-withoutyou if you would...) and anyone else who would enjoy doing this. (if i get tagged again ill do anther oc. i would tag a few others but i feel weird tagging ppl i dont like ever talk to lol.)

What is your name?

"Lucy Grandchester, yeah that one.”

How old are you?

“Fourty-five unless you are getting nitpicky about cryostasis. That doesn’t count unless I am joking with a ghoul, honestly.”

What do you look like?

He lets out a small half chuckle, "Oh, we are doing this okay. I’ll bite. Slightly short middle aged punk, long greying curly hair, undercut, with one leg and too many tattoos?”

Where are you from? Where do you live now?

Lucy uncomfortably takes down his hair and redoes his messy bun while sighing and becoming a bit short. “I’m from just the other side of that irradiated water near that gas station south of here. Name kinda gives it away. You have seen it? I honestly am not sure how it’s standing still between the bombs and everything else. It’s looked after now, and is a surprise asset to still have. I lived in Boston for a while after all that, and back in this area once Nuka World was opened, then back in the Boston area, and would you look at that I am back in Nuka World and it is a lot more comfortable now.”

What was your childhood like?

"...Unstable, for everyone. It got a bit better once my parents were dead... are we done with this line of questions? Or am I excusing you?”

What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions?

“Well, I started out trying to play nicely vaguely with anyone that didn’t try to shoot me first. That.... hasn’t stayed how it is. At least not fully, though i generally play nice until I am given a reason not to. I am friendly with the Disciples, the Operators, several of the Children of Atom groups that haven't irradiated their sense out of their heads yet, the Railroad.”

Tell me about your best friend.

He finally visibly relaxes the rest of the way after that history business, and takes a drink of a quantum. “Oh only one best friend? Are we in high school again? aw Alright. We have some parallel histories.” He swirls the glowing drink, but doesn't let himself get lost in his head too far. “Great humor, puts up with my shit somehow, doesn't blow my sneaking. Laugh that could take on the world even though they probably wouldn't. No I am not spoiling who I decided on. A man has to have some secrets somewhere and mine are in short supply”

Do you have a family? Tell me about them!

“My son Shaun never ceases to surprise me with what he can come up with, and how well adjusted he is. Codsworth is still helping out with the household, and helping keep Shaun from disassembling live turrets while I am away, though now he is living here at Fizztop with us. Surprisingly it seems to be an alright setup, and Shaun has taught a few people some upgrades in their downtime. There is enough room to keep things comfortable, and I have done some park remodeling since I arrived. My closest companions that don’t hate my choices I have made I consider family, but that has become a smaller circle than before.”

What about a partner or partners?

“Gage of course, he is my husband for whatever it is worth in the wasteland. Otherwise I suppose that depends how you are defining that. I am an affectionate person and some people seem to have rather strict definitions of where the edge of friend and partner should be”

Who are your enemies, and why?

“Several people aren’t speaking to me very well at best after I have settled into the Overboss seat here, on a personal level. The Pack were wiped out. The Brotherhood were wiped out. The Institute were wiped out. The minutemen are pretty pissed understandably. The Gunners still show up in vertibirds sometimes and are still pretty fun target practice. My settlements are generally comfortable, and my outposts mostly only have problems with gunners or trappers. Minor annoyances.”

Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them?

“Yeah, of course. I think they got too headstrong for their flightsuits. I mean I understand but you really can’t do that shit and expect no repercussions. It was quite a firework show honestly, I wonder how far away the heat was felt..”

What about The Enclave?

"I don’t know much about them, only one of their ex-soldiers, he didn’t exactly tell me much. Cute, a bit odd. Not sure if it is the radiation that did that or not.”

How do you feel about Super Mutants?

He has a flash of a pensive thought drift across his face “There’s a few that aren’t so bad. Obviously the FEV isn’t mass-curable though, so not exactly much of a choice what to do about them unless you like getting a rocket launcher or a nuke in your face.”

What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in?

“Proobably~ around Bunker Hill, It was just, A Lot. That whole time was not just the specific fight. I don’t remember a lot of it, I’m pretty sure Gage half dragged me home after the main running around and meetings after the fight. I don’t think I had a full thought for a while.”

Have you ever fought a Deathclaw?

He thumb points to a sniper rifle leaning against the wall “Yeah, too often, thankfully usually I see them first, and I’ve gotten the sneaking thing down. They make pretty good steaks.”

Do you like fighting?

“Sometimes, honestly. Something tired and overstated about old habits or something boring. Really though, it is exciting and keeps the boredom away. Playfighting and sparring will do, no need to draw blood. I guess. Good to keep knife and sneaking skills sharp however you can.”

What’s your weapon of choice?

“A modded real sharp Throatslicer she called it, I swear Nisha found this thing in the loading dock or something it is the nicest box-cutter I have ever owned. Opens up anything.”

How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?)

“Outlive everything around me usually by not being seen, notice it first, shoot it faster, stab it more, talk my way out of it, or by luck. I have zero real idea, but I can eat nearly anything and I bet that helps too.”

Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them?

"Of course, there are a bunch, and I was ushered into 111 to turn my life upside down. They seem to only be any good for salvage, horror stories, clean water sometimes, and if you are real lucky a trade post and a shave. I have a settlement vault that is doing well that I have taken over and built up, but that is not Vault-Tec related, obviously.”

How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you?

“I have a few recipes that are good for radiation, though it doesn't affect me very badly overall and I am slow to feel any sickness. I suspect that one day I will turn into a ghoul.” He is rather matter of fact and unbothered by this, and hints that he knows that not getting sick much from radiation means just that.

What’s your favorite wasteland critter?

“Probably the stags and gazelles and other herd animals. They are overall unchanged other than most have two heads now, they are still nice to watch”

What’s your least favorite wasteland critter?

“Honestly? radscorpions? Those fuckers are too quick and you cant shoot them cos they tunnel and they knock you on your ass and poison you and just UGH”

How do you feel about robots?

"Robots are alright if they are not causing trouble. Some of them are nice. Jezebel is not so nice, but she is guarding red rocket and bitching the entire time so shes no longer my problem. The Rust Devil’s robots are a pain in my ass for real.”

How many caps do you have on you right now?

"Plenty.”

Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla?

He cocks his head slightly “I havent heard that one in a while. Depends on the flavor of Nuka Cola, I do like Sunset Sarsaparilla though, if you have any.”

Do you do chems?

"Not recreationally anymore. No, not because of him.” He nods toward Gage “It just, gets out of hand”

Do you ever think about the Pre-War world?

"Not as often as you would expect, I mean obviously there is the ‘oh i remember when that wasn't destroyed’ of things, but things are more comfortable than I thought they could be”

What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently?

His eyes narrow slightly “I don’t really do regret. Things were done the way they were because it was the choice at the time. A choice now for an old situation isn’t helpful to living my current life or my old life. I am not living then, I am living now.”

What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve?

“Surviving all of this, and myself. Creating this strange semi-stability in this post apocalyptic place.”

What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world?

“Keep me and mine safe, happy as we can be, and I hope that my found-family never fully stops growing. Curious what the future holds for my raiders and friends, there is so much potential, it could be risky but it is there. For once it is a good solid place to be, and it’s mine.” Lucy polishes off his questionable as hell drink with a smile.

#lucy grandchester #oc interview #this is a bit messy but hey thats fine #longpost #wow no wonder it took so long

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thechillingadventuresoflili-blog · 6 years

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Chapter seventeen, peoples. My headache is worse because my husband is yelling at my roommate but I still found the will to write this chapter. It will done in Michael’s whatever. I don’t know the term for character switching. But anyway, this is dedicated to @zeciex, @lovelykhaleesiii, and @frucienlover. If you wish to be dedicated, message me. Without you guys, I wouldn’t have the courage to write.

Chapter Seventeen Planning The Apocalypse (Michael)

Giving Lilia to the family who would take care of her while he made the plans for what was to come was the hardest thing Michael had ever had to do. But after the loss of their child and Mead by the witches, he couldn’t bear to lose her too. He knew that he needed her to complete his plan.

When Mead got back from kindly dropping her off at the Snow’s mansion in Beverly Hills, he looked at her from the small chair in the corner of her living room and smiled sadly. “They did everything that was told of them, yes?”

Mead placed a hand on his shoulder and nodded. “Her ‘father’ accepted the terms of keeping her and the memories you both created had been firmly planted in her head.”

“Good. I’m glad she’s safe.” He stood up and fixed the red gloves he had picked out for the meeting with The Cooperative that day. “How do I look? She picked out the outfit before she left.”

“She does have great taste.” Mead held out her arms for him to take and lead him out of the house towards the compound that they were having the meeting.

Arriving at the compound was one of the most strangest things Michael had ever seen. He knew he liked to dress nice. Lilia had made fun of him on more than occasion, but these people were ridiculous.

“Who knew the one percent wasted their lives like this?” He asked Mead, who turned to him with her eyebrow raised. “What? I’m-I’m nervous without her.”

“Why? These people don’t need any convincing. They already sold their souls to your father.” She scolded him like the mother she was. “Now, it’s time for you to do what you were put on this Earth to do. Destroy it. Then you can be with your girl.”

Michael nodded and took several deep breaths, wishing like hell that his love was here with him. But he put on his brave face and walked into the huge pavillion. Coming to the double doors, he nodded to Mead, who opened them to a huge table and twenty-four people standing around it.

Walking into the room with an air of confidence he did not really feel, Michael waited to talk as they walked up to the table with him. “Esteemed members of the Cooperative. World leaders, tech giants, media moguls and cultural influencers. The rumors you’ve heard are true. My name is Michael Langdon and I am the Antichrist.”

He stopped to let them whisper amongst themselves, not really caring about what they had to say. He lifted his gloved hand and commanded them to look at him before he continued. “Humanity is at a crossroads. The world as it is today; the poverty, the hunger, the greed and war, it's no longer sustainable.The time has come to wipe the slate clean.”

He leaned forward on the table and looked at their helmets with a very serious face. “Friends, it’s time for the apocalypse.”

The room erupted with more whispers as he moved away from the table to walk around to the other end. “I understand your trepidation. But let me remind that you are here because of the gifts bestowed upon you by my father. In return, you gave him your immortal souls.”

He now stood at the other end of the table as Mead handed out the handbook for how to survive the apocalypse, waiting for them to look at him. “He owns you. Therefore, I own you. We speak with one voice and my demands are his.”

He lifted one hand to Mead, who was still handing out the books. “Now, as you’ll see from the handy guide provided by my associate, I do not intend to leave you and your families to die. When fire rains down on the unwashed masses, you and your families will be safely squirreled away in a network of luxury fallout shelters. You already have the resources”

He leaned on the table again and looked to several of the members, calling them out on how much money they really had. “You just bought land New Zealand’s south island. You own half of Bora Bora. The bunker underneath your ranch could easily fit twenty people. With a little construction and some retrofitting, these sites would make the perfect outposts to ride out the end of the world. And with the admission price of one hundred million dollars, only the worthy will gain admission.”

He stopped again and looked at Mead who had just finished handing out the guides and was smiling at him as she stood by the doors. “Turn to page six, section one. Outpost construction.”

The rest of the meeting went smoothly after that. Some people asked questions. Others had comments to fix his plans. He listened and had Mead take notes about what they wanted, which they burned later. They had no need for their ideas, not when Lilia had designed everything for them.

Reading over his copy of the handbook that his lover had wrote, Michael reads over some of the little notes that she had left for him, smiling. He missed her like crazy. Closing his eyes, he could almost hear her laugh or feel her touch against his skin. It was causing some problems with his body and he was already tired of being away from her.

Sighing in frustration, he went over to the mirror and concentrated on her face. The mirror rippled and the shapes changed to show her bedroom in her new house. It had some of her touches from her life at the Hawthorne school, but some of it was from Mead trying to imagine what a twenty something would have in their room in this time and age. He smiled as he saw her in front of her closet in her underwear, trying to decide what to wear.

“Come on, Lil.” A woman on her bed said as she watched Lilia try to choose. “He will love you in anything you wear.”

An eyebrow lifted as he listened to her friend talk about a man she was going to see. She wasn’t his right now. She didn’t know who he was.

“I don’t know, Winter. Something in my gut tells me that this is wrong.” She looked to her friend after picking up a black dress that he had bought for her when she was with him. “I feel like in my soul I’m cheating on someone.”

He smiled as her soul still called out to him. He waved the image of her away, feeling too broken to hear her friends talk more about the man she was seeing and how he was “perfect” for her.

Mead walked into his room and sighed as he looked at her. “How is she doing?”

“She’s dating someone.” Michael growled, pacing the room. “Her soul is telling her it's wrong, but just the thought of another man touching her boils my blood.”

“I know, darling.” Mead comforted him by placing a small hand on his shoulder. “But she has to have her own life under the spell. It’s to protect her from the witches. You know that.”

He nodded and looked at Mead. “I want you in Outpost Three and they are going to wipe your memory.”

“Why?” Mead asked him, confusion written on her face. “Don’t you need me?”

“I do. But I also need you to make sure nothing happens to Lilia before I get there.” Michael placed his hands on her shoulders. “Please, don’t question me. I need you to be there when I finally arrive.”

“Okay. But i hate this idea. She can take care of herself. Did you really think she could kill her father? Or some of those witches?” Mead chuckled as she thought of her daughter-in-law taking down their enemies.

Michael smiled and nodded. “She was magnificent. But, she doesn’t know who she is. I won’t break the spell until I’m sure she’s ready to know who she is.”

They made their way downstairs as they talked to get some food into him since he had taken a lot of energy to wipe everyone’s memory of Lilia. He smiled as he smelled the French toast that she used to make him every day for breakfast. They sat down and he ate the meal as she talked about the specs of each outpost and went over the list that Mutt and Jeff already sent over of applicants who had paid.

Being in the kitchen made Michael nostalgic of the way things were before he had met the warlocks and made him miss the real Miriam Mead, but he was glad he was able to have a piece of her here with him. He didn’t what he was going to do during the months without them both by his side, but he was sure to come up with something.

#american horror story imagines #michael langdon imagine #cody fern imagine

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write-havoc · 6 years

Text

This Is How I Disappear Ch. 40

Summary: A girl named Chuck finds herself in the exact place she doesn't want to be, living with violent men in a desolate nursing home. After her former gym teacher finds her, will he be the savior she was looking for?

Fandom: The Walking Dead AU

Pairing: Negan/Original Female Character

Status: Completed (story continues in The Flame Is Gone, The Fire Remains)

Contains: swearing, violence, sexual assault, blood, smut

Intended for readers 18+ of age only

Masterlists in my bio

The next few days are pretty quiet for Chuck, which she’s actually thankful for. She’s also thankful for the fact that she’s been feeling pretty good, lately. Her nausea has pretty much disappeared and she hasn’t felt nearly as tired as she once was. Kayla told her that this is all normal for the second trimester and Chuck’s not complaining.

This day, Chuck wakes up to Negan barking orders into his radio from the office. Since it’s about the time she usually wakes up anyway, she rises from the bed and wraps her newly acquired robe around her and puts on her slippers. She walks through the kitchen to peek her head into the office, making sure no one else is there before she walks in.

“Morning,” she says quietly since Negan still has his radio out. She doesn’t want to disturb him too much if he still has business to attend to.

Negan puts the radio back on his belt and walks to her. “Morning, sweetheart.” He wraps his arms around her and kisses her head. “Did I wake you up?”

She hugs him tightly and kisses his cheek. “It’s okay.” She pulls back and gestures to Negan’s radio. “What was all that?”

“A fuckin’ herd went by RA outpost earlier,” he answers casually and walks to the kitchen. “Want some pancakes?”

She follows him and pours herself a glass of milk, courtesy of Hilltop and their cows. And the hill-folk always make sure to pasteurize the milk so it’s safe to drink. Which Negan made sure of before Chuck was allowed to touch it. “Yeah. Pancakes sound great.” She sits at the counter with her glass and watches Negan. “Everything okay at Rolling Acres?”

He gets the ingredients out for the pancakes as well as the griddle and a bowl while he talks. “It’s fine. The walls fuckin’ held and someone got out to lead those dead fucks away. But that’s too fuckin’ close to The Sanctuary and it shouldn’t’ve fuckin’ happened.” He starts to stir all the ingredients together to make the batter as the griddle heats up. “I’m just wondering what those dickheads who are supposed to lead herds away from my goddamn outposts were actually doing. Because it sure as fuck wasn’t their damn jobs.”

“Maybe the dead just got turned around somewhere,” Chuck provides with a shrug.

“Maybe. I’m gonna have to get some more fuckin’ blockades all around my shit. Maybe dig some trenches. Try to make it so those herds can’t get that fuckin’ close again.”

When he pours the batter on the griddle, Chuck’s mouth practically waters. Her appetite has come back full force since her nausea has gone away. “Did you talk to Rick, yet?” Chuck changes the subject.

Negan gives her a look before turning back to the stove. “Not yet. Why you fuckin’ asking?”

“I want you to get friendly with them so Aaron can visit.”

“My ‘getting friendly’ rests on Rick ‘getting friendly’. And he’s kind of a dick.”

“From what you’ve said, he sounds a lot like you.”

“You calling me a dick, little girl?” He turns around with a plate full of pancakes and sets it in front of her along with some maple syrup.

She giggles and shrugs. “I’m just saying, it seems like you guys are kinda similar. Both leaders. Both will do anything to keep their people safe.” She pours the syrup all over her pancakes and digs in.

Negan gives her a little grimace. “He’s still a dick.” He turns back to the stove to finish making his own food.

“Please be nice to them,” she starts with a full mouth before swallowing. “I don’t want to have to be enemies with my own uncle.”

Negan holds his hands up and turns his head to her. “I’ll fuckin’ try, okay? I was planning on heading out that way tomorrow anyway. Get this shit actually started between us.”

“What is their settlement like?” Chuck asks as she swirls a bite of her pancakes in the excess syrup on her plate.

Negan turns around with his own plate and sets it on the counter. He walks around to sit beside Chuck and starts eating after pouring a hefty amount of syrup for himself. “It’s fuckin’ nice. Like a perfect little neighborhood. Your fuckin’ uncle’s got it good. That is, if they can sort their whole fuckin’ food shortage situation.” He cuts himself a big bite and shoves it in his mouth with his fork.

“We can help-“

“No, baby girl,” he interrupts with food in his mouth. “I’m not giving our shit away. If they wanna fuckin’ work for it, then we can talk.” He finishes chewing and swallows before shoving another bite in his mouth.

“But we do have a lot of food. And now we have the crops at Rolling Acres and Hilltop.”

Negan lets out a sigh. “Chuck-“

She doesn’t let him finish. “I’m just saying, trade is possible. If they need food, then they can provide something and we can provide them food. Savior-ing isn’t just for fair maidens. Sometimes dicks named Rick and his people need a little saving, too.” She giggles a little at herself and takes a bite.

He gives her side eye, but looks amused underneath it. “I’m gonna talk to Rick. And we’ll fuckin’ see what comes after that.”

Later that day, Chuck decides to take a walk outside since the weather is still pretty mild. And since she’s finding herself with a bit more energy as of late. As she walks the halls, she starts to notice that people are giving her little nods as she passes. At first, she ignores it, thinking that it means nothing. But once she realizes that they are actually nodding at her, she starts to greet them back. They all smile warmly at her as they continue on their ways. Some of them even giving her congratulations for the baby and shaking her hand.

It’s a change for Chuck. She’s used to being ignored for the most part. And that’s the way she’s always liked it. But the way that everyone is being so accepting of her and so happy with the news of the baby has a warmth growing in Chuck’s heart.

Chuck finds herself outside and near the gardens. When she looks around, she sees the familiar faces of the women that she helped in the garden after the hurricane came through. Plus one unfamiliar face. She walks up to the women and gives them a little wave.

“Hello,” Chuck greets the women.

When they all look up at her with unsure looks on their faces, Chuck gets nervous.

Oh god. I got too confident. I’m bothering them and they don’t want me here. Or maybe they don’t remember me...

Chuck puts her hand on her chest. “It’s Chuck. I, um, helped you guys out for a little bit after the big storm.”

“Y-Yeah,” Irene answers. “We remember you. It’s just... You’re a wife.”

Chuck gives her a confused look. “Yeah?”

“Wives don’t usually come out here,” Patty jumps in.

“Yeah,” Natalie agrees. “Like never.”

“Well, I do,” Chuck responds then looks down at her feet. “But, I guess I’ll leave you guys alone...” She starts to turn away, but Irene stops her.

“Wait,” Irene calls out. “You don’t have to leave, Chuck. We’re just not used to having a wife around here. Let alone the one that’s pregnant. Negan won’t be angry that you’re out here with us, right?”

“No,” Chuck answers, feeling a little relieved. “I’m allowed to leave the fifth floor.” She bends down and touches one of the plants gently. “Can I help?”

The women look all around at each other. “Uh, sure,” Patty answers almost like a question. “As long as that’s... allowed.”

Chuck kneels down and follows the women’s instructions on what to do with the plants, which is mostly just weeding. They start to tell her about how they’re planning on preparing the gardens for winter and what crops can grow late, since it’s almost harvest time already. They also tell her about the plans to make some greenhouses, so everyone can have some fresh veggies all year round.

Eventually, the unfamiliar woman introduces herself. “I’m Paula, by the way.”

Chuck gives her a smile and greets her, but doesn’t extend her hand since both of their hands are covered with dirt.

Paula clears her throat. “I-I came here with...” Paula wipes her face with the back of her hand. “Um... I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for what happened to you. I lived at the outpost with Brendon for a month and I didn’t know he-“

“It’s okay,” Chuck cuts her off, not really wanting to talk about all that. “It’s-It’s all done now.” She gives the woman a little smile as if to tell her not to worry about it.

Paula nods. “I’m just glad you’re okay. And the baby, too.”

Chuck gives her another smile and turns her head back to the soil. She’s not really liking the tense air between all of them, so she decides to lighten it up a little. “Did you guys enjoy the party?”

They all laugh and turn their heads to Natalie, who looks a little ashamed.

“We all had a very good time, didn’t we Natalie?” Irene can barely get the sentence out through her chuckles.

“Shut up, okay?!” Natalie cries out, but with a smile on her face.

Chuck giggles at the women. “There’s a story here, isn’t there?”

“No!” Natalie exclaims.

“Yes!” all the other women yell at the same time.

“Ugh!” Natalie groans, but starts the story anyway. “I might’ve drank too much and maybe I... kinda gave a lap dance to a random savior.”

“You did more than that since you did the walk of shame all the way down from the fourth floor the next day!” Irene gives Natalie a little nudge on the arm.

Natalie giggles and shrugs a shoulder. “That part of the night I don’t regret. He broke my little dry spell. And he broke it very well.”

Everyone laughs hard until they’re interrupted by Simon, who they didn’t even see approaching them.

“You girls seem to be having a lot of fun out here,” Simon calls out as he puts his hands on his hips.

“It’s just girl talk, Simon,” Chuck provides, still giggling.

“Girl talk, eh?” he says with a nod.

“Yeah,” Chuck confirms. “This is Natalie, Irene, Patty, and Paula.” She points the women out to Simon as she says their names.

They all greet him.

“Hi.” Patty gives him a shy little wave after everyone else calls out their greetings.

Simon gives her a nod. “Nice to meet you ladies.” He looks down to Chuck. “You okay down there, kiddo?”

“I’m good. I kinda like working with the plants.” Chuck gives a little shrug. “It’s... relaxing.”

“Good, good. Well,” Simon hoists his pants up, “you ladies have a good day.”

“Bye,” Patty gives him another little wave and watches him walk off. “You could bounce a quarter off that ass,” she mutters as her eyes are still on him, and everyone laughs.

——— Negan’s POV ———

I’m sitting at my desk looking over some maps of the fuckin’ area, thinking about where we could put blockades and shit when I hear a tap on my doorframe. I look up and see Kayla standing there, wringing her hands.

“Can I come in?” she calls out.

“Of course, darling.” I take my glasses off and stand from my chair, gesturing to the seat in front of my desk. I wait for her to take her seat before I sit back down. “What’s going on?”

She looks nervous. “Um... So... I’ve been thinking about everything and, uh...” She clears her throat. “Uh. Well...”

I already know what she’s gonna fuckin’ say. I’ve been wondering when this day would come. “Just spit it out, darling.”

“I don’t want to be a wife anymore,” she blurts out. “It’s just that... I want something real.” She pauses, then starts to wave her hands in front of her. “N-Not that being with you has been bad or anything!” She says quickly. “It’s been good. I just want something... more.”

“It’s okay, Kayla,” I say gently to calm her down. “You wives always had the choice to leave any time you fuckin’ wanted. You know I’m not gonna fuckin’ punish you for leaving.”

“I know. But no one else has just quit before. And I’ve been wrestling with it because it’s a big decision.” She lets out a heavy breath. “It involves more people than just you, really. The other wives are like my family, too.”

“Yeah. You girls have always been fuckin’ good to each other.”

She stares at me for a moment. “You know you haven’t really needed us since Chuck came here.”

I blink at her and nod once.

“I knew you didn’t love us, or anything. I knew what our relationship was and I was fine with it. I didn’t think I would ever want anything more than that after the turn. But, this place has become so much more than what I thought a place could be now. It’s safe, secure. It’s a real community. And people have families.” She gives me soft smile and I realize why she’s really asking to leave. “I want a chance for that.”

“You deserve that, Kayla. I fuckin’ mean that. You were always such a sweetheart. If you wanna join the workforce, you have my fuckin’ blessing.” I look her in the eyes. “And you’d be an excellent mother.”

She smiles at me and laughs a little. “Thanks.”

I let out a breath. “But I don’t want you moving downstairs until Chuck has the baby. You don’t have to be a fuckin’ wife, but I want you up here close to her.”

“Okay. I can do that.” She lets out a sigh of relief and relaxes into the chair. “I was thinking, since Chuck isn’t working with Dr. Carson anymore, I could take her place as his assistant. I already have the midwife stuff down, so he can teach me the more general stuff like he did with Chuck.”

I nod. “Sounds fuckin’ good to me.”

Both of our heads turn to the door when Chuck randomly comes walking into the room with her head fuckin’ down looking at her hands. When she finally lifts her head and sees us, she jumps a little and stops.

——— ———

“Oh, shoot!” Chuck says when she sees Kayla and Negan in the office. “I’m sorry I interrupted you guys. I was just going to wash my hands.” She holds her dirty hands up. “I’ll just go to the wives bathroom.” She turns to go back out the door.

“You can stay, Chuck,” Kayla calls out. “I was just about done anyway.”

“Oh, ok.” Chuck figures that Kayla just told Negan about wanting to move back downstairs. But she’s not going to bring it up if they don’t. That seems like it should be a private conversation.

Chuck washes her hands in the kitchen and comes back out to the office.

“Were you playing in the dirt?” Negan asks with a smirk.

Chuck sits in the chair beside Kayla. “Actually, I was. I helped the gardeners a little bit.”

Kayla scrunches up her face. “Getting dirty isn’t my idea of fun.”

“I’m just gonna let that one fuckin’ slide,” Negan mutters with a chuckle.

Both women roll their eyes, but giggle nonetheless.

“How are you feeling?” Kayla asks Chuck.

“Really good. I didn’t really realize how crappy I felt in the first trimester until I started to feel a little bit better. But I am having a little pain like you said I might.”

“Pain?” Negan asks quickly.

Kayla holds her hand out to calm him down. “It’s normal. The uterus is expanding and it can cause some pain. Nothing to get freaked out about.”

“I’m just so glad I’m not nauseous anymore,” Chuck cuts in. “But I’m starting to want to eat everything.” She chuckles. “And I swear I would actually kill a man for some chocolate. Not like some stale three year old chocolate bar either. Like something actually good.”

Everyone laughs.

“You and me both, Chuck,” Kayla says with a giggle.

After Chuck and Negan finish their dinner that night, Negan leads Chuck to the room directly beside his bedroom. He pulls out a key and unlocks the door, pushing it open with some force as it stuck a little. When the pair walk into the room, Chuck lets out a disappointed noise as she looks around.

Negan chuckles. “What?”

“This is the only locked room up here. I thought you kept something important or,” she brings her hands up and wiggles her fingers dramatically, “mysterious in it.”

As it is, the room is completely empty. Except for the unfinished walls jutting out of the right side of the room. Chuck realizes that these must be from Negan’s closet and bathroom. When they built his bedroom, they must’ve built into the room next door, then did nothing else with the rest of the room.

“Sorry to disappoint, sweetheart.” He laughs. “We just never needed this this space for anything so we fuckin’ left it.”

“I see that. Now.”

“You could’ve just asked what was in here.”

She shrugs. “Where’s the mystery in that?”

He walks forward into the room and raises his arms out wide. “What do you think?”

Chuck looks around. “It’s ugly and concrete and half of it’s not finished,” she jokes.

A frustrated sigh leaves his lips. “Smartass.” He chuckles before continuing. “Right there,” he points to to the wall to Chuck’s right, “that leads to my room. We can put a door right there and make this,” he gestures to the space in front of it, which is beside the unfinished jutting wall, “a hallway. And everything else,” he gestures widely to the room, “will be the fuckin’ nursery.”

Chuck can’t help the smile that appears on her face at the thought. “It’s perfect.”

“Good.” Negan goes over to her and wraps her in a hug. “I already got some guys on it, so they’ll start getting shit done in here fuckin’ quick. After the goddamn hurricane, I had some guys loot some old hardware stores for building materials and shit just in case we needed it.”

Chuck pulls away to wander around the room, thinking of what it will look like when everything’s done. “What colors do you want? For the walls and stuff.”

“Don’t we need to fuckin’ wait to see if it’s a boy or a girl?”

She turns back to him and shrugs. “Not really.” She turns back to the wall and waves her hand at it. “I’m thinking maybe a pastel-y teal-y color. I think the blanket I’m making will go with that. And that’s pretty gender neutral. Not that that’s really important, anyway.”

“‘Pastel-y teal-y’?” He chuckles. “I love it.”

She walks over to him and grabs his hand, leading him to the back wall. “We can put the crib here,” she points to the area then moves her hand to point at another. “And a changing table here.”

“Crib. Changing table. Got it,” he rattles off, almost teasing. “We got a ton of baby stuff in storage. We keep that shit out of the marketplace so it’s fuckin’ available for anyone that gets knocked up. Don’t want anyone hoarding that shit and trying to sell it on their fuckin’ own for a profit.”

She turns to the window. “Oh. I’ll need a chair for nursing, too.” She smiles sadly at a memory that comes to mind. “My grandpa built this gorgeous rocking chair for my grandma when she was pregnant with my mom. And she used it to nurse my mom and her brother. When my mom was pregnant with me, my grandparents gave it to her to use. I used to play on that chair all the time when I was little. Play until I wore myself out.” She chuckles. “Then my mom would sit down in it and hold me in her arms until I’d fall asleep.” Chuck’s smile slowly fades. “I sat in it after I buried her.” She shakes her head of her memories and changes the subject. “Should we start thinking of names?”

Negan looks at her a moment then gives a little shrug. “‘Negan’ if it’s a boy and... ‘Negan’ if it’s a girl,” he jokes.

“That’s not happening.” Chuck giggles.

He snakes his arms around her and pulls her hips into his. “You got any fuckin’ better names?”

“I will definitely think of some.” She thinks for a second. “Parker.”

“Nope. Taught a kid named Parker and he was a little asshole.”

“Hmm... Martin?”

“Nah.”

“What about Barbara for a girl?”

“Are you planning on giving birth to an old fuckin’ woman?!” He chuckles.

Chuck laughs. “We could call her Babs for short! That’s cute!”

“Pass.”

She lets out a frustrated groan. “Fine. We have a lot of time yet to pick out names.”

Negan pulls her body tighter into his and lowers his mouth to her ear. “The only name I wanna hear you say tonight is mine, little girl. And you’re gonna be fuckin’ screaming it,” he practically growls.

Chuck feels her whole face heat up at his words, but she doesn’t pull away. Instead, she turns her head to place her lips to his ear. “I think I’d like that,” she whispers.

“Fuck,” Negan breathes out and stands to his full height. He grabs ahold of Chuck’s hand and pulls her out of the room quickly.

Chuck giggles as she’s pulled behind Negan; his large, fast strides have her practically jogging. As soon as they get into the bedroom, clothes are frantically stripped off with hands pawing wildly at one another.

Chuck turns away from Negan to turn down the bed spread and sheets. When she bends down to do so, Negan spanks her once.

“Negan!” Chuck squeaks out and whips around to see him.

He gives her the most innocent look he can muster and shrugs a shoulder. “Couldn’t help it, baby. That ass was just fuckin’ begging to be spanked.”

“Is that so?” she teases.

“Mmhmm.” He eyes her lasciviously and pulls her in for a passionate kiss by the back of her head. He suddenly pulls away and spins her around to face the bed, smacking her lightly on the bottom as he pushes her to bend over with her hands on the bed. “Fuck, you look so pretty like this.” He runs his hands down her back, his left staying to grip her hip while his right moves to her sex.

Chuck arches her back and spreads her legs further apart to give him better access.

“Goddamn, you’re my good girl,” he rasps while running his fingers through her folds. “You gonna cum for me like a good girl?” He starts to swirl his fingers around her clit slowly.

“Yes,” she answers breathlessly.

When he inserts the fingers of his other hand and starts to thrust them just right, Chuck lets out a soft moan. She bends down further to lean on her elbows and sets her forehead on the bed.

“That’s it, baby. Give it to me.” He speeds up his pace on her clit and angles his fingers inside her to hit all the right spots as he continues to massage her walls.

“Oh god, Negan.” Her thighs start to twitch as her pleasure builds.

“Fuckin’ say my name again, baby.” He speeds up even more and Chuck can’t hold back.

“Negan. Mmm. Oh god, Negan!” Her whole body tenses as she tips over the edge, pleasure racing through her like lightening.

Negan works her through her orgasm then wraps an arm around her hips, lifting her up. “Put your knees on the bed.” He pats the back of her leg with his free hand to indicate what he wants.

Chuck obeys, bringing her legs up on the bed so she’s on all fours.

“Oh fuck, you look hot as shit like this. Spread those knees.”

She obeys with a giggle and arches her back to look over her shoulder back at Negan.

He bends down to kiss her between her shoulders before standing back up and entering her with a low groan. He grasps her hips and pulls her into him as much as he’s thrusting into her. His pace is slow at first, but builds quickly.

“Fuck,” Negan breathes out and leans his head back. “So fuckin’ good.”

“Ah!” Chuck clenches her fists into the sheets and starts to buck and push her hips into him as she lowers her shoulders to the bed. “Please, Negan.”

He grabs her waist and pounds into her so fast and so deep that Chuck is coming undone again in no time.

“Fuck. Goddamnit!” Negan loses his rhythm and cums deep inside her with a loud growl.

Chuck collapses onto to bed as soon as he lets her go, still trying to catch her breath. Negan cleans her up gently and pulls her to lay on his chest in the bed.

“Fuck, baby girl. If you weren’t pregnant already, I’d want to put a baby in you.”

She laughs without opening her sleepy eyes and cuddles into him more. “I’d let you,” she whispers.

He chuckles softly and kisses her head.

“I love you, Negan,” she says before she falls asleep.

“I love you, Chuck.”

#negan #negan fanfiction #negans thirst squad #negan x oc #negan x ofc #negan x original female character #negan / ofc #negan / oc #negan / original female character #jdm #jeffrey dean morgan #the walking dead fanfiction #the walking dead au #the walking dead #this is how i disappear #tihid #writehavoc writes #writehavoc this is how i disappear

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importantlovecolor · 4 years

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Red Alert 2 Installer Free Download

Download Red Alert 2 Free

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With the same multiplayer capabilities as Red Alert 2, all that Yuri's Revenge does for you is to add a third combatant, Yuri's Forces, and a few extra units for the Allies and the Soviets. Graphics Always an unfortunate element of Westwood's Command & Conquer games, the graphics in Red Alert 2 are very similar. Command & Conquer Red Alert 2: The real-time strategy classic - for free!

Red Alert 2 Game Installer, free red alert 2 game installer software downloads. I want to know if there's a Red Alert 2 Installer that is free even this website it does have it but it just download there Yuri Revenge one but it still ask me to get Red Alert 2 The Red Alert 2 & Yuri's Revenge downloads from our site are both the same. There is an RA2 mode you can enable in the CnCNet client. Download Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 + Yuri’s Revenge Free, In Command and Conquer: Yuri’s Revenge, the story starts off assuming that the Allies were victorious in Red Alert 2. The game begins with the White House announcing DEFCON 2 status, as Yuri, the former head of the Soviet Psychic Corps, plans to take over of the world through.

Considering all the delays, hype and disappointment that surrounded last year's release of Command & Conquer sequel TiberianSun, Red Alert 2 has, in comparison, had a rather quiet time of it. Its announcement in May took many by surprise (including us) and now it seems barely has the marketing machine had time to get into first gear than the game has been finished, packaged and readied for release.

Consequently, thanks in no small part to the worldwide panning of Tiberian Sun, expectation for Westwood's new real-time strategy game has been only marginally higher than that we would reserve for a decent English summer. To its credit, developer Westwood has neither proclaimed Red Alert 2 be ground-breaking nor Earth-shattering and, after the tragic anti-climax that wasTiberian Sun, we wouldn't have believed them if they had.

Using an enhanced -unnoticeably so - version of the Tiberian Sun game engine and sporting many gameplay features and units from a four-year-old game, Red Alert 2 could be seen as a glorified remake of its predecessor. Westwood has done the same thing before, with Dune 2000 - the botched up remake of real-time strategy's most influential game - so it wouldn't be beneath them to do the same again.

Now before you all start sending me death threats for my cynical indifference, let me just say if I hadn't been so pessimistic before playing the game, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did.Think about it - and be honest - what are your expectations for the next Star Wars game? I'd wager not too high after having wasted your money on Force Commander. But because we are all Star Wars fans, or at least we should be, there is the hope that the next one will be brilliant. However, in Red Alert 2s case I wasn't hoping for much at all. You'd do well to think the same, for if you do, I guarantee you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Heroes And Villains

When you review a game - or at least when I do - one essential technique is to jot down pages of notes while you're playing, so when it comes to writing the review, you can refer back to them. Normally what is written down, though illegible, makes some sort of sense, but one of the last things I wrote was 'missions good. Nothing special. Addictive'. I am at a loss as to what I was on about, but I can tell you this: the missions in themselves are pretty undemanding, yet taken as a whole (and separated by a story that sees the USA being invaded) the two campaigns on offer (you can play as Allies or Soviets) are very engaging.

As is par for the course, you build a base, harvest ore, expand your borders and kill the unending trickle of enemy units until you overrun their base, all with scant regard for tactics - been there done that, we all have. With that in mind, what has been baffling me is why I enjoyed Red Alert 2 so much and yet could not derive any pleasure from Tiberian Sun. Both games are practically identical in structure, offering similar units to play with across a linear series of missions, liberally interspersed with high-quality video sequences. The only answer I can offer is a subtle difference in feel and mood. Where Tiberian Sun was a dark and faintly absurd yarn full of square-jawed heroes and boo-hiss villains, Red Alert anti its illustrious predecessor are somehow believable, despite being even more outlandish.

Graphically, Red Alert 2 is far from great. The animation for some of the larger units, ships especially, is juddery and the explosions are hardly spectacular. However, bearing bright colours and full of tiny details - like baseball and football pitches, fast food bars and houses - many levels are full of civilian life that have little impact on the game, but add a touch of fun to the proceedings. Sunbathers run half-naked on the beaches and cattle make themselves targets for your restless attack dogs on the farms. Elsewhere, across maps frozen with ice, all the buildings are draped with snow as if to fool us that they had been there forever. They haven't of course, but it's seemingly insignificant details like this that add a bit of colour to our interminably dull lives.

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In regard to the two sides you can choose to play, both are as distinct as any you'll find in a real-time strategy game. One of Westwood's strengths is that it always offers two very different challenges in all its strategy games, by throwing in units and buildings that look and play to different styles. Many of the units are standard fare with infantry and tanks in abundance, but there are a number of clever differences between even those.

Soviet conscripts are both cheap and weak, American GIs are marginally more expensive and can be deployed in a defensive role, able to fortify themselves in an instant within a cocoon of sandbags.

The Allied Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) is another interesting unit. Alone it is a weak reconnaissance tank, armed with a simple rocket launcher. But put a Gl inside and its turret becomes a powerful anti-personnel platform. With an engineer at the controls it alters into a mobile repair vehicle and there are other transformations that can be achieved by trying out other, more potent infantry units inside.Things like Rocket Launchers, Tech Yards and Gap Generators we've seen before, but many units, both old and new, can combine in interesting ways.

Place some Tesla Troopers with their electrifying weapons around a static Tesla Coil and they'll boost the power of it and keep it charged even when the power is down during an enemy attack.As in all RTS games, both sides' infantry units are easily overrun, even in large numbers, but this time around they can find shelter in many of the neutral buildings that pepper the levels. It's a feature that is long overdue in a Westwood game (Age Of Empires IIanti the soon-to-be-released WWII RTS Sudden Strike both offer the same option) and although not every building can be captured, certain ones that are can be a powerful complement to your base by creating chokepoints through which a lightly armed enemy can quickly perish.

Furthermore, there are four neutral Tech Buildings that can be procured - Airports, Hospitals, Outposts and Oil Derricks - all of which can support and replenish units that might otherwise have to make a long journey back to base.

The Soviets are still the side of cheap mass-produced technology, underhand and willing to sacrifice numbers for victory. In contrast, the Allies rely on fast, high-tech units that are more adaptable, yet weaker if left in a sustained fight with Soviet units of similar role.

One aspect in which Red Alert always won out over CSC was its use of naval units. And once again, Red Alert 2 gives the Soviet side a greater underwater navy, while the Allied fleet is predominantly surface-based with Destroyers, Cruisers and Aircraft Carriers going against the Russian Typhoon Subs and Giant Squids.

Trained animals play a larger role in this sequel than they did in the original Red Alert. The Allies now have attack dogs, as do the Russians, and against the Squids the forces of good rely on herds (or pods if you want to be technical) of clicking dolphins and their sonar attack.

Bring Your Friends

Even though the storyline and the level-by-level feed of new technologies are enough to keep you entertained throughout the two campaigns - and there is always the option of the skirmish game - there comes a time when the war will be over against the computer and the time will come to take on a human opponent.

We won't even pretend that we have played Red Alert 2 online yet, no servers are running anyway, but we did play over a LAN and, thanks to the diversity in units and the immediate familiarity of all of Westwood's games, playing against a real opponent was tremendous fun. In multiplayer or skirmish games you not only have to pledge allegiance to the Allied or Soviet sides, you have to choose an army from a particular country, each of which have a particular special unit they can use: Germany has tank destroyers; Libya has demolition trucks; Cuba has terrorists; the US has paratroopers; and Britain has snipers. Not a deal-clincher, as Steve Hill would say, but fun all the same.

As was the case in CSC, Red Alert, Ttberian Sun and now this,multiplayer games are all about throwing forces (onward to eat away at the opponent's defences. As you do so you are constantly thinking about what concoction of forces to send in next and while you leave your units to get on with it, you're cooking up another batch to send in. Westwood has never made strategy a priority in its games and here, too, the multiplayer game is about a slow pace of play that always ends up in spectacular fashion with entire bases wiped away by just one weapon. This - what we might term the railgun factor' -makes each game a race to build the most devastating weapon available rather than a plod through attack, counterattack and stalemate.

The Bit At The End

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About as ground-breaking as Windows 98 is to Windows 95, Red Alert 2 is no less essential for it. The interface has certainly improved since Tlberian Sun and the missions, varied and interesting, are carried along by a storyline that doesn't take itself nearly as seriously as other CSC games - for every cheesy line of dialogue, there's a knowing smile behind.

Remarkably well-rounded, the phrase 'more than the sum of its parts' could easily have been written with Red Alert 2 in mind. Unspectacular graphics, an AI that is clearly artificial and with little in the way of true innovation, Red Alert 2 is, nevertheless, an excellent game, well-designed and carried through with wit and style. In these times where realism is de rigueur, Red Alert 2 feels like a breath of fresh air.Just remember not to expect too much and you'll be as impressed as we were.

Back To The Future

Red Alert, the story so far...

In theory it's a good plan, but the greatest theorist of them all failed to realise the implications of his actions. After developing a timetravelling device in post-war America, Albert Einstein returns to 1923 to wipe Hitler from the history books. Unchecked by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, lead by Joseph 'Madboy' Stalin, embarks on a European crusade to turn our continent a nasty shade of red.

Defeated by an uncharacteristic display of unity, Stalin is killed by European Allied forces and Premier Romanov takes over Soviet control. Seemingly compliant and peaceful, he is of course quite mad and plotting his revenge against the Allies, he decides that America is ripe for invasion. Using mind control technology, the USSR sabotages America's nuclear capability and a huge invasion is launched into New Mexico, Texas and California. Which is where you come in to save the day.

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